This Katamari Feels Sexy and Halloweenish and Also Wrong
(That’s probably because you rolled up Sexy Halloween Stories!) A couple of weeks ago, we looked at Halloween costumes. I just can’t get enough Halloween stuff, though, so this week, we’re going to take a sweet, spicy, terrifying, and hilarious tour through some Sexy Halloween Stories. It turns out Sexy Halloween Stuff is not just reserved for costumes! LaShawn Wanak’s House on the Rock Halloween Adventure: Okay, so I put out a call for recommendations of awesome (or terrible!) Sexy Halloween Stories, and while I meant fiction, I didn’t actually say it, so one of my responses was a real life event of geektacular AWESOMENESS! LaShawn has a fabulous, two part
The Disquieting Guest: The Visceral and the Cerebral
The other day, I was exchanging a few thoughts with Shaun about film, the need to entertain, and the engagement of emotions versus the idea of a film that was a purely intellectual experience. This brought me to thinking about the same topic in relation to horror. Some years ago, I read an anthology of horror tales that was a success in that the stories were skillfully written, but a failure in that few, if any, worked at all as horror. The reason for this was (what seemed to me) a misplaced desire to “transcend” the field (a subject for another time), coupled with a form of self-referential storytelling that worked fine in and of itself but prevented the reader from engaging emotionally/suspending disbelief/what-have-you. Let me add here that I intend no disparagement to a more writerly (as opposed to readerly) style — each has its strengths and particular uses. However, what this
The Disquieting Guest: Sequels from Stony or Fertile Ground
I saw Insidious Chapter 2 last weekend. When discussing the film industry, and particularly the horror film industry, complaining about sequels is about as useful an endeavor as seeking to arrest the rotation of the earth. Given that Insidious was one of the most profitable movies of 2011, a follow-up wasn’t just inevitable, it was a command from God Almighty. According to Box Office Mojo, on a paltry $1.5 million budget, the film brought in a take (world-wide) of $97 million. For say, Iron Man 3 to have been similarly profitable, it would have had to make over $13 billion. So, of course, Chapter 2 has come along, and its more-generous-but-still-chump-change $5 million has already turned into over $70 million, and counting. Obviously, more is on the way. Almost as inevitable as its existence is the fact that Insidious Chapter 2 is a disappointment. While it has a few effectively chilling jump scares, and some nice
Torture Cinema Poll: The Halloween Special (You Decide!)
We’re getting close to recording our Halloween Special episode of Torture Cinema, which means we have to pick a movie! You know the drill. Vote!
Torture Cinema Poll #8 Results
The results are in, but to make things interesting, we’ve decided to launch a preemptive strike: we’re going to record two Torture Cinema episodes at the same time, but post them during different weeks. “What’s the big deal about that?” you might say. Well, we’re going to drink through the whole thing. From start to finish. And that means we’re probably going to be so plastered that the hilarity of our normal drunkenness will be enhanced by the wonder of complete alcoholic bliss. That also means we will have two skits to perform, one while mildly intoxicated and one while completely plastered. Imagine what that will do to our acting abilities! But which two movies are we going to review? The #1 pick from the 8th Torture Cinema Poll: And its sequel: So there you have it. What do you think?
A Special ToC: Years’ Best Dark Fantasy & Horror (2012) from Prime Books
You might notice something a little “special” about the following table of contents for the 2012 Years’ Best Dark Fantasy and Horror collection from Prime Books. But you’ll have to look at the list to find out what it is: “Hair” by Joan Aiken (The Monkey’s Wedding & Other Stories / F&SFJuly/August) “Rakshashi” by Kelley Armstrong (The Monster’s Corner: Through Inhuman Eyes) “Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin” by Adam Callaway (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #73, July 14, 2011) “The Lake” by Tananarive Due (The Monster’s Corner: Through Inhuman Eyes) “Tell Me I’ll See You Again” by Dennis Etchison (A Book of Horrors) “King Death” Paul Finch (King Death) “The Last Triangle” by Jeffrey Ford (Supernatural Noir) Near Zennor by Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors) “Crossroads” by Laura Anne Gilman (Fantasy, Aug 2011) “After-Words” by Glen Hirshberg (The Janus Tree and Other Stories) “Rocket Man” by Stephen Graham Jones (Stymie, Vol. 4. Issue 1, Spring & Summer 2011) “The Colliers’ Venus (1893)” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy) “Catastrophic Disruption of the Head” by Margo Lanagan (The Wilful Eye: Tales from the Tower, Vol. 1) “The Bleeding Shadow” by Joe R. Lansdale (Down These Strange Streets) “Why Light?” by Tanith Lee (Teeth) “Conservation of Shadows” by Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld, August 2011) A Tangle of Green Men, Charles de Lint (Welcome to Bordertown) “After the Apocalypse” by Maureen McHugh (After the Apocalypse) “Lord Dunsany’s Teapot” Naomi Novak (The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities) “Mysteries of the Old Quarter” by Paul Park (Ghosts by Gaslight) Vampire Lake, by Norman Partridge (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2) “A Journey of Only Two Paces” by Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories) “Four Legs in the Morning” by Norman Prentiss (Four Legs in the Morning) “The Fox Maiden” by Priya Sharma (On Spec, Summer 2011) “Time and Tide” by Alan Peter Ryan (F&SF, Sept/Oct 2011) “Sun Falls” by Angela Slatter (Dead Red Heart) “Still” by Tia V. Travis (Portents) “Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear” by Lisa Tuttle (House of Fear) “The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente (Apex Magazine, Issue 30, November 2011) “All You Can Do Is Breathe” Kaaron Warren (Blood & Other Cravings) “Josh” by Gene Wolfe (Portents) Okay, so figuring out the special thing in the list shouldn’t be too hard, since I put it in bold and all… Congratulations to Adam both for his publication in BCS and his first anthologized “Best of” story! We’re sure his career will soon collapse under his mounting alcoholism… (we kid, of course — love you, Adam!) It might also interest folks to know that Maureen McHugh has a wonderful story in here, which is also in her collection of the same name from Small Beer Press (which I just finished and loved to death). And since I played a crucial role in getting Adam’s story published (yeah, I’m taking credit), that means this collection has not just one amazing story, but two. That alone is almost worth the entry price.
