My pleasure, William! Your friendship and encouragement have been invaluable to me — not to mention your very identifiable insights into the creative process. (Hence how much I enjoyed your interview.) And thanks for the kind words!
“Girl’s Best Friend” appears at Microfiction Monday Magazine!
My flash fiction horror story, “Girl’s Best Friend,” appeared today at Microfiction Monday Magazine!
The challenge was to write a horror story in 100 words or less. I had great fun with this, and I am grateful to Editor Gayle Towell for allowing my work to appear in this really cool online magazine!
Check it out here:
This movie was possessed by the demon of bad film-making.
I am blogging some of my past movie reviews from Facebook.
*****
Allow me to summarize those portions of “The Exorcist II: The Heretic” that I was able to watch before needing to turn it off:
- A still-too-young Linda Blair tap-dances braless on stage, with short-shorts that are nearly illegal.
- Louise Fletcher is a therapist who treats patients with a machine that actually allows people to literally enter the subconscious minds of others. Nevermind that a technology like this could revolutionize the human experience, especially with respect to psychology, art, literature and religion. It is quietly tucked away in a treatment center for children with autism (where, for some reason, a psychological trauma victim is also being treated).
- A giant , sentient, demonic locust chases wildebeests across the African veldt. James Earl Jones gets pissed andmagically turns into a leopard. This was a thing. This happened in the movie.
WHY did I not just turn it off?! WHY DID I NOT JUST TURN THE MOVIE OFF?!?!
(Perhaps I was possessed.)
Publication Notice: Dagda Publishing Features “A Muted Iris”
I am honored to have my latest poem published by Dagda Publishing!
Enjoy “A Muted Iris.”
Publication Notice: Microfiction Monday Magazine to feature “Girl’s Best Friend”
I received some great news today from Editor Gayle Towell over at the online Microfiction Monday Magazine — they will be publishing my flash fiction horror story, “Girl’s Best Friend,” on October 20th.
In advance of Halloween, the magazine was seeking horror stories of 100 words or less. It sounded like a fun challenge, so I gave it a shot.
Microfiction Monday Magazine is a great online publication that specializes in bringing busy readers brief narratives that nevertheless tell a compelling story.
Check it out here:
My review of “Exit Humanity” (2011)
I am blogging some of my past film reviews from Facebook. Bill Mosely is a damn good actor who needs his own major feature film to star as the bad guy; I am also becoming a Stephen McHattie fan.
*****
“Exit Humanity” (2011) might not have been as great as I’d hoped. (The trailer made it look amazing.) But it was still a good and creative independent zombie film; I’d give it an 8 out of 10.
It’s a genre-buster that posits a zombie epidemic just after the Civil War, but that isn’t a gimmick. There’s a complete absence of camp that makes this a “straight horror movie” and a hell of a lot more fun. It’s got a great script, beautiful locations, two great leads, and a couple of great “that guy” actors in supporting roles — the incredibly underrated Bill Mosely (Otis Driftwood in “House of 1000 Corpses”) and the also-underrated Stephen McHattie.
The directing is very spotty, the pacing is way off, and the “book chapter” structure makes this feel less like a movie and more like a series of well-made webisodes. (I’m starting to understand why many movies adhere to that “three-act” structure that critics refer to.) The limited budget also shows — there’s a dearth off special effects and some of the zombies look remarkably like actors in white facepaint. (Is this a kabuki zombie epidemic?)
One of the things that surprised me about this movie is how terrific Brian Cox’ voice is. He narrates the entire tale retrospectively as an older version of the main protagonist. I can’t believe I never noticed this before. I think he’s better than Morgan Freeman or David Prowse. Check him out in the trailer.
All in all, this was a good movie. I’d recommend it to any zombie horror fan.
Gross. (I never really liked the stuff.)
Although they were never as bad as those abhorrent “Good’n’Plenty” candies, which to me tasted as bitter as cold medicine and came in tiny boxes. As a child I opined that they were neither good nor plenty.
“The Walking Dead” Season 5 Premiere Was Just Perfect.
[This post contains mild, general spoilers for seasons 3 through 5.]
The zombies might shamble along slowly, but the Season 5 Premiere of “The Walking Dead” roared along at a breakneck pace last night with an action-packed spectacle that I would rate at a perfect 10. This was a fantastic episode, even by the show’s standards.
There isn’t a hell of a lot I can say without spoilers, except it had all of the scares, gore, horror and action that a viewer could ask for — not to mention a tour de force by possibly my favorite character. (And I just KNEW this person would shine in this episode!)
And in its fifth season, it still manages to be an effective horror show. My stomach dropped when one defenseless character was imperiled and another extorted. (“Go outside!”) Yeesh.
The inhabitants of Terminus, I think, are the scariest group of human adversaries the show has developed. The dialogue, detail and even the set design, showing how organized and methodical they were in their wrongdoing, was incredibly creepy and unsettling.
I honestly think I would have fallen for their trap. I don’t think I’m giving myself too much credit if I say I would never have been taken in by a charismatic opportunist like the Governor –he was an obvious politician, and in the corporate world, guys like him are a dime a dozen. I’d also like to think that I would be too shrewd to trust a guy like Shane, and that I’d be vigilant or lucky enough to stay a step ahead of “the Claimers.”
But I don’t know about the “Termites.” I think I might have taken the bait. They seemed so … normal, and easygoing and … safe. Gareth and his second in command seemed like precisely the sort of people I would trust — affable, disarming, articulate grad-student types, just maybe a little worse for wear during the apocalypse.
In fact, do you know what I suspected the twist for the end of Season 4 would be? That the Terminus residents would be harmless, and that a paranoid Rick and company would accidentally attack and kill a group of innocent people. (This show is just dark enough to do that.)
That’s not quite how things worked out, of course. Wow, what a great opener, and what a nice little event for the Halloween season. 🙂
Nice job, AMC.
Final fan theory observation … is it possible that one character was bitten and is concealing the wound? A key melee does take place offscreen, doesn’t it? (Caveat — I am almost always wrong on predictions like these.)
THE FIRST FOUR MINUTES OF “THE WALKING DEAD” SEASON 5 PREMIERE.
Seriously. It’s right here, via the show’s Facebook page.
And it’s fantastic.
My review of “Exam” (2009)
“Exam” (2009) was a good psychological thriller — eight extremely intelligent executives are forced to compete for a dream job. Except the group interview turns out to be a bizarre social experiment, and things eventually turn brutal.
There are some pacing problems. (Way too much time, for example, is devoted to discussing the room’s lighting.) But there’s a smart, fun script, some nice surprises, and you really do get the sense that these are borderline geniuses in a battle of wits. I could never write a story like this – that’s for sure.
Incidentally, the individual I liked the best was awarded the job. I thought that this person was the one I would have most liked and trusted.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 