Blast From The Past Movie Review: SILVER BULLET (1985)

When I was in middle school, I can vaguely recall that my school library (Dickerson Middle School) had a copy of Stephen King's illustrated novella Cycle of the Werewolf available for checkout. I think one had to have parental approval owing to the extremely violent illustrations, but I'm pretty sure I read it. When I was in high school, I remember taping the film adaptation Silver Bullet off UPN and the beginning at least being rather scary.

(Despite largely not being interested in horror, my mother seems to be aware of werewolf movies in general if not this one--she asked if it was the werewolf's heavy breathing that did it. I do remember the opening operates on the "Jaws principle" of not showing the monster. All you really see is the broad outline of the monster moving in the trees, all you hear is the breathing, etc.)

Well, the time came for Myopia Movies to do an episode on it as part of our Werewolf Month for Halloween. Here's the episode. And now for the review...

The Plot

It's 1976 in the town of Tarker's Mill, Maine. Although it's the spring and everybody is cheerful, the narrator reflects on this being when the horrors began. Said horrors start with a drunken railroad worker getting killed by something big and hairy, and every full moon the killings come again. The person who first figures out that the perpetrator is a werewolf is young Marty Coslow (Corey Haim), who is paraplegic and uses a wheelchair, and is soon followed by his older sister Jane (Megan Follows). Eventually, so does their comedically-alcoholic Uncle Red (Gary Busey).

But the werewolf knows they're onto them and the cat-and-mouse game begins...

The Good

*The acting is good. Haim and Follows come off as believable siblings (with Jane resenting having to look after the disabled Marty and her parents' obvious favoritism), while Busey comes off so well as the good-natured alcoholic uncle that some of the podcasters wondered if he were actually drunk on the set. Given Busey's issues with addiction, that wouldn't really be a shock. Everett McGill handles Reverend Lowe's intensity well--when he confronts two characters later in the film, he's creepy. And even though Robin Groves as Jane and Marty's mother Nan isn't in the film much, she does believably demonstrate her frustration with her brother who gets sloppy drunk in front of her young son and who lectures her about parenting her children when he clearly doesn't even have his own life together.

(His third wife has left him due to his drinking and he's picking up floozies in bars.)

*Making the protagonist of the story disabled is pretty innovative. Although Marty is a paraplegic and that makes his life more difficult, to quote The Gummi Bears, "Disabled does not mean unable." The kid has got quite a bit of upper-body strength for his age and thanks to Uncle Red, he has a combo go-cart/wheelchair that allows him to get around Tarker's Mill on his own rather than relying on people to take him in and out of their cars.

*They brought in Stephen King to write the screenplay. Although writing a novel and writing a film are two different skillsets, they overlap a lot better than directing a film (King directed Maximum Overdrive and did a legendarily bad job). And King knows that to work as a movie the story needs to be consolidated.

*There are only 13 full moons per year (it turns out there aren't two per month like I'd thought), so a realistic werewolf story (in which the full moon prompts the werewolf's transformation) would take place over a prolonged period. After all, a werewolf might not kill every month and death by werewolf might be mistaken for death by another cause--people think the town drunk was decapitated by a train. Cycle takes place over an entire year, but Silver Bullet takes place over a more condensed period of time--the first killing is in the spring (probably April or May) rather than January and the climactic battle with the werewolf is on Halloween, not New Year's Eve. Some of the novel's kills are eliminated (the herd of pigs) or simplified (the jackass father of a girl who's crushing on Marty). Plus I think they theorize that the werewolf is at their most deranged and inhuman at the full moon, but transforms more often.

*Although the kids think nobody will believe their idea about a werewolf and therefore they have to solve the problem themselves, the town sheriff is TVTropes Reasonable Authority Figure. He tries to warn the townsfolk off a vigilante hunt for what they think is a human serial killer (which could result in, say, lynching some drifter whom they mistake for the killer or the townsfolk shooting each other in the dark) and actually investigates when Red suggests a particular person. Given that this is a small town and everybody knows everybody, he's probably aware that Red is a drunk with questionable judgement but he gives his suspicions credit.

*Although it is common for Hollywood to malign small-town religious types as uneducated rubes or dangerous nuts, the portrayal of Christianity in the town is respectful even if it is oversimplified. Marty and Jane are Catholic and participate in charitable work overseen by the Church of Christ's Lowe (implying harmonious Catholic-Protestant relations, something that's not a given in 1976), the town's Church of Christ is well-attended, there does not appear to be any racism directed at the town's black residents, and with a few exceptions everybody is broadly decent to each other. One character shows signs of religious-crazy, but they might be suffering a prolonged mental-emotional breakdown rather than simply being a wolf in sheep's clothing or a dangerous fanatic.

The Bad

*The mighty Daniel described this film as "the non-union Mexican equivalent to American Werewolf in London" and he's kind of right. The movie's transformation sequences look like they're going for the same style, but the filmmakers didn't have the money or the skill to pull it off. I refer to the werewolf in the episode as "the bear-wolf" because that's what it kind of looks like. Even though especially early on they try to keep its appearances to a minimum a la Jaws, it's still pretty obviously an actor in a suit that resembles a skinnier Gmork from The Never-Ending Story.

*It's not as spooky/scary as I remember it. To be fair, part of that was because I was seeing it with other people (who were talking) rather than alone, but it seems more like a murder mystery with a werewolf rather than a horror-horror film. And we figure out pretty soon whom the werewolf is, so it's not even really mysterious--it's more "who's going to get whom first."

*The movie is narrated by one of the characters looking back on the events as an adult. That means we know that this character at least survived, so they're never really in danger. Plus it came off to me like The Waltons, in which the character "John Boy," now a prominent writer, tells each episode's story as an extended flashback to his youth.

*Stephen King, who grew up as a Methodist but now comes off as something like a Deist and whose daughter is a Unitarian minister, has a much more nuanced and accurate depiction of religion in the novel than in the film. In the novel they differentiate between Marty and his family (Catholics) and Reverend Lowe (Baptist) and how they don't ordinarily interact with each other. However, although Marty and his sister are Catholic (Marty's St. Christopher Medal and Jane's crucifix are important to the plot), everybody seems to attend Lowe's Church of Christ. Lowe dresses like a Catholic or Anglican priest even though the Church of Christ is much less formal, to say nothing of it being Protestant. He also claims suicide is the worst sin, which is historically something emphasized more by Catholics (see Aquinas's notion that suicide is unforgivable because you cannot repent of it). Lowe is also young and good-looking but isn't married, something you'd see more with Catholics than Protestants. Given how King wrote both the novel and the film, I'm wondering how he got this wrong. They could have included an elderly Catholic priest in the opening scene at the luncheon and depicted the two working together on the charity fundraiser, with Lowe doing most of the work due to his comparative vigor.

*How in control of its actions is the werewolf? In beast-mode it demonstrates high-level intelligence by cutting power lines, disarming an individual victim before killing them, ambushing armed hunters rather than just running at them, and is capable of using weapons. However, in human form the werewolf has nightmares about their actions and begs God for it to stop, seems to be trying to justify their werewolf actions after-the-fact rather than necessarily reveling in them, and may have been trying to keep themselves from killing people by locking themselves in their garage. In the novel the conflict and the werewolf's progressing insanity are much clearer, with the werewolf at times going out of its way to avoid people and the final confrontation with Marty is the only time they try to eliminate someone who knows too much.

*The passage of time is a bit fuzzy. Although there are a couple times in the narration where it's stated that the killing came with the last full moon of the spring, a month before school let out, that's easy to miss. It would've been clearer if the scene where we first meet Marty and Jane takes place at a church Easter luncheon rather than just some random community event. If school lets out in May, the first killing would be sometime in April and then you could have Easter afterward. Or if Easter doesn't work due to always taking place after the full moon, maybe make it a Memorial Day event? In Portland at least, schools end for students in June, not May, so Memorial Day would be before the end of the school year. 

*Kent Broadhurst, who plays the father of Marty's murdered friend Brady, simply cannot pull off the man's grief. Given his role in the story--his speech to the sheriff encourages the townsfolk to go hunting the werewolf on their own against the sheriff's orders--that's kind of a problem. Given his extensive work in theater, I'm wondering how that happened.

The Verdict

A good rental, but I wouldn't buy it. 7.0 out of 10. If you want to hear us discuss (and make fun of) the film, here's the episode.

Muppet HELLRAISER? Muppet IT? Muppet MISERY? Muppetizing Famous Horror Films

As all of you should know at this point, I'm a regular participant in the film podcast Myopia Movies. In addition to appearing on the show in almost every episode, I also share a lot of memes and other amusing content in our Facebook group. Below is one meme I found that spawned some particularly interesting discussion.

Seriously, a Muppet version of A Clockwork Orange? The Hensons would sooner commit collective suicide. However, when I shared the meme in the group, some interesting discussions emerged. James O'Neil from my writing group suggested a Muppet version of Hellraiser, with Beaker as Pinhead. That would deprive us of the awesomeness of Doug Bradley as Pinhead, but I'll at least acknowledge that. Here's my cast:

Kirsty Cotton: Ashley Laurence

Larry Cotton: Kermit The Frog

Julia Cotton: Miss Piggy

Frank Cotton: Sean Chapman (alive), Oliver Smith (undead)
Steve: Robert Hines
Derelict: Gonzo
Pinhead: Doug Bradley
Female Cenobite: Janice
Butterball Cenobite: Bobo the Bear
Chatterer Cenobite: Fozzy Bear

The other characters (like Larry's party guests, the men Julia brings home for Frank to kill) can be a mix of humans and Muppets. Since they don't really have distinctive personalities, it doesn't matter who plays whom.

I thought about making Animal Frank Cotton (the "WOMAN! WOMAN! WOMAN!" stuff would tie in with Frank's sexual aggression), but Muppet Treasure Island uses human Tim Curry having been in a romantic relationship with Miss Piggy for jokes. Keeping the canonical actors as Frank would work for that purpose as well. Given how the Derelict (the keeper of the puzzle box) is supposed to be an unnatural and scary being, Gonzo would work for him too--until Muppets From Space revealed he was an alien, he was always a "Whatsit" or, in Muppet Babies, a "Weirdo." And making Chatterer Fozzy Bear would be amusing--instead of the click-click-click thing, he just says "wokka, wokka, wokka" all the time.

James also suggested a Muppet version of It. I was initially skeptical because Miss Piggy is always the female lead and I would never buy her as Beverly. When we see her as an adult, Beverly is beaten down by life (and literally by her evil husband Tom Rogan), while Miss Piggy is loud and takes no crap from anybody. James suggested the Muppet Janice might work better, but she's not one of the major Muppets. For convenience's sake, we're using the adults here for the most part, not the kids. Credit to horror writer @disneynine for Ben, Richie, and Eddie.

Ben Hanscom: Kermit
Richie Tozier: Fozzie Bear
Beverly Marsh: Jessica Chastain
Bill Denbrough: James McAvoy
Mike Hanlon: Isaiah Mustafa
Eddie Kasparak: Gonzo
Stanley Uris: Andy Bean*
Tom Rogan: Will Beinbrink
Pennywise: Bill Skarsgård
Sonia Kaspark: Miss Piggy (flashback)

Although Henson's special-effects crew could make a magnificent practical-effects Pennywise for the climax in which It's true spider-like form is revealed, I liked Bill Skarsgård's performance in It: Chapter One (I never saw It Chapter Two), much like how I liked Doug Bradley's performance as Pinhead. Replacing either with Muppets would be a shame. Jessica Chastain pulls off the sort of worn-down look the adult Beverly would have--she's nearly 40, has been smoking since she was in middle school, and her husband hits her. Depicting the mild-mannered and encouraging Kermit as her eventual second husband Ben would work personality-wise.

And if the vengeful Tom shows up (in the book he followed Beverly to Derry and was enslaved and eventually killed by Pennywise), we can play his jealous horror at the thought of his wife sleeping with a Muppet for laughs. He was ready to kill her because he thought she'd left him for Bill (in this version a human)--how psychotic would he get if he thinks she'd left him for a Muppet?

Also, since this is a Muppet movie, Miss Piggy has to be in there somewhere. The only way I could think of to work her in would be having flashbacks to Sonia Kasparak, who has Manchausen's Syndrome by Proxy and tricked Eddie into thinking he has asthma, and attempts to separate him from his friends.

*Although the cast seems a little too human (only four out of the ten major characters are Muppets), Stanley is the one who slits his wrists in the bathtub rather than return to Derry to confront Pennywise. His wife coming into the bathroom and finding "IT" written on the bathroom walls in Muppet fluff would be unintentionally hilarious, not horrifying. This isn't supposed to be The Happytime Murders.

Another discussion that emerged from that was Stephen King's Misery. Imagine Miss Piggy as Annie Wilkes and Kermit as author Paul Sheldon, whom she imprisons and terrorizes. :)

Movie Review: It (2017)

Growing up, I noticed my father had a lot of older editions of Stephen King works, including IT. I wasn't allowed to read them until I was much older, which given the content of them makes a lot of sense. I never saw the 1990 IT miniseries, but when I saw the trailer for the 2017 version of the film, I was actually somewhat scared. Given how inured I am to movie frights, that's saying something.

So although I wasn't able to see it the first week or two it was out, I eventually made my way up to Cumberland Mall to check it out. Now for the review...

The Plot

The film begins in Derry, Maine in the late 1980s with stuttering Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) making a toy boat for his little brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott). He doesn't really want to go play with him, so Georgie goes out alone...where he's first maimed and then abducted by a murderous fanged clown that speaks to him from a storm drain. Cut to the end of the school year, where we see Bill and his fellow outcast friends getting picked on by the vicious bully Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his gang, who also pick on overweight Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and African-American Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs). Meanwhile, young Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis) is bullied as a "slut" and "trash" by other girls and endures the creepy attentions of her father Alvin (Stephen Bogaert).

All these outcasts are drawn together by repeated attacks by a mysterious entity that appears to them in the form they most fear--sickly Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) is menaced by a leper, Ben by a headless child from a history of Derry he's read, Beverly by an explosion of blood and hair from a sink that shows her fear of puberty, and Stan (Wyatt Oleff) by a scary painting in his father's office come to life. They realize that every 27 years, something old and evil awakens in Derry to feed, particularly on children. It's after them now, but they're going to turn the tables.

The Good

*The final third to half of the film in which It renews its attacks on the kids and the kids descend into the underworld to rescue the abducted Beverly and deal with It once and for all is great. That was a seriously enjoyable part of film. I'm not going to go into a lot of details for spoiler reasons, but yes, it is possible for a brawl between a bunch of middle-schoolers and a Lovecraftian horror that appears in the form of a clown to be truly epic. And by deranging various adults (Eddie's smothering mother, Beverly's creepy dad) and Bowers and kidnapping Beverly to use as bait, It displays a great deal of tactical sense--using others as weapons, dividing the group, personally attacking their strongest member alone, playing on the cultural meme of "save the damsel in distress from the dragon" to lure the boys into a trap, etc.

*The acting is really good. Lieberher does a really good job as Bill, who takes command of the group and, when the time for rousing speeches comes, doesn't stutter at all. The scenes between him and Georgie and how he mourns for his brother have legitimate pathos. Finn Wolfhard is pretty funny as the motor-mouthed profanity-spewing Richie Tozier. Lillis plays Beverly as a combination of vulnerable, clever, and when things get nasty, Little Miss Badass. Seriously, although the film has been criticized for making her a damsel in distress where she NEVER was in the book (it's my understanding she's the one who wounds It and forces it to retreat), she's probably the physically fiercest of the bunch and, to It, the most dangerous. She's the first to lose her fear (which makes people vulnerable to Its attacks) and pretty handy with sharp objects and well-placed kicks. Jacobs is well-cast as Mike--as someone who works on his grandfather's farm and delivers meat to the butcher by bicycle, he's got the musculature the character requires and puts it to good use during the final fight with Bowers and It. Finally, Scott does a good job portraying the innocence of a child and a child's terror when attacked by a predator, including screaming for his beloved brother when It drags him into the sewer after biting his arm off.

*There's a good bit of humor in the film. Richie's inability to self-edit and motormouth tendencies are prominent. The scene where Beverly is sunning herself after swimming with the boys in the quarry and they're all gawking at her--only to immediately find other things to do when she starts to notice--was worth a laugh too. And a character going down a well is played like a pinball game--good riddance.

*The film only adapts the first half of the novel, with the second and final showdown between the now-adult kids and It slated for 2019. This not only allows for a much shorter film than the mammoth 1990s miniseries, but allows for a much closer focus on the kids as characters. The ending of the film does a good job setting this up.

*I like all the 1980s visual trappings of the film. Video arcades, New Kids on the Block, the styles of cars and housing, and the films playing in the theaters. Culturally it's also important--kids these days are less able to go full-blown "free range" like children of the 1980s or even the 1990s (I remember wandering the woods a lot by myself or with one or two friends), which is important for the movie to actually work. Also, Beverly being a covert smoker even from that age contributes to the "bad girl" image other characters have of her and plays a role in her story as an adult--her abusive husband justifies his behavior by claiming it's all to get her to stop smoking, which might explain why she puts up with it so long. Think the song "Smoking in the Boys' Room," only with a girl.

*Some of the grosser and disturbing aspects of the novel that kept me from finishing the book in the past and would have likely kept me from the film--animal abuse by the bullies, the infamous "sewer orgy"--have been cut out completely. The bullies are already bad enough and a group hug (and group attack on It) serve the bonding purposes King claimed in interviews the "sewer orgy" scene was supposed to represent. The article from Vox makes a point that the scene where the boys help Beverly clean the bathroom fulfills that purpose as well. Seriously, was King on drugs when he came up with that scene? And were his publisher and editors on drugs when they approved it?

*There's a "rock war" scene where the Losers come to the aid of Mike when Bowers and his gang attack him that's a pure Crowning Moment of Awesome for the Losers and a well-deserved humiliation for the bullies (that, unlike in the book, might have deterred them from joining Bowers in going after the Losers and might well have saved their lives). All to the tune of Anthrax no less.

*During the final battle, It reveals aspects of its true form that (I'm assuming) we'll see in all its glory in the sequel.

The Bad

*The first half of the movie was really boring, to the point I got my phone out to (briefly I must emphasize--no more than a couple minutes) check Facebook even though you're REALLY, REALLY not supposed to do that in movie theaters. The kid drama was simply not interesting to me, even though it was important to set up the last half to one-third of the movie. Character development is important, but I didn't find it particularly interesting even though it had some of the strongest performances (Bill mourning his brother, Beverly cutting her hair and crying after her dad gets creepy).

*Although the film was really well-done, only the opening was really scary. The rest of it was more action-intense than frightening. I didn't really had a problem with this, but some viewers might.

*When the boys go swimming in the quarry, the underwear they're wearing makes them look like they're wearing diapers. I do remember wearing that style of underwear as a little-little kid during this time period (I was born in 1984), but I don't remember it being that puffy. They didn't have bathing suits?

The Verdict

The last third to half of the film is a lot of fun, but can't save it from the boring first part focused on the kid drama. Jeepers Creepers is a better horror film. 7.5 out of 10.

See it once and let's hope for a better sequel.

Movie Review: The Dark Tower (2017)

Long ago when I was in high school, I read some of my father's older editions of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels, illustrated by the awesome Michael Whelan. I think there were only three--The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, and The Wastelands. I eventually finished the series--they're what started me toward writing Battle for the Wastelands--and I eagerly awaited the movie I heard was coming.

The Plot

Teenage Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is having dreams of fiery apocalypse. The psychiatrist his mother and stepfather are sending him to think they have to do with the death of his firefighter father, but it turns out he's having psychic visions of another world. The villainous Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) is sending agents to abduct children with psychic potential to assist his plan to undermine the Dark Tower in the center of the cosmos, to allow the horrors of the outer darkness through.

Fortunately Jake is also having visions of Roland, the last gunslinger (Idris Elba). Jake escapes the agents of the Man in Black into Mid-World, left in ruins by a long-ago apocalyptic war, and soon meets Roland. The two have to survive attacks by the minions of the Man in Black as well as stop him from bringing down the Tower...

The Good

*The beginning is very well-done. We start out with some idyllic 1950s-esque suburbia (only more peacefully multi-racial) full of children and teens playing with each other. Then the air raid sirens start going off. Only instead of some kind of attack, it turns out that many of the children are being summoned into an ominous black pyramid by people who are obviously non-human creatures wearing human disguises. And did I mention this little idyll and the horror within sit atop a mesa surrounded by post-apocalyptic desolation?

*Although we don't see the Man in Black's ability to destroy civilizations by manipulating people, we do see in the small scale. He telepathically torments Roland and Jake with visions of their fathers and tries to play on Roland's guilt for those he failed to protect, he plays on Jake's stepfather's resentment of him, etc. We also see his pettiness--he twists a girl's mind to hate her mother to amuse himself, he forces minions who failed to kill each other, etc.

*There are some good visuals, like when Jake first arrives on Mid-World and spots the sand-encrusted ruins of a tank from the war that caused the world to "move on." There's also what looks like a giant mall with its own mass transit station, with a more primitive village of people wearing what look like modern clothes in its shadow. Let's be realistic--if there was some kind of apocalyptic event tomorrow, there'd still be continuity in culture, dress, etc.

*Tom Taylor does a good job as Jake. Matthew McConaughey is all right as the Man in Black. I'd hoped for better from him--see below. Elba doesn't really have a lot to say or emote as Roland, although he does the action scenes quite well.

*There are a lot of good action sequences and the movie is generally entertaining.

*There are some amusing one-liners here and there.

The Bad

*As someone who's read the books I recognized a lot of the events, Easter Eggs, etc. in the film, but so much more could have been said about them. The battle in whose aftermath we see the Man in Black kill a wounded man, the "last stand," is almost certainly the Battle of Jericho Hill, or some alternate-reality version of it. It's never actually named, nor do we see the actual battle or who was fighting in it. They tried to squeeze too much into too short a running time and although what emerged was decent, The Dark Tower is supposed to be an American Lord of the Rings. This could have been a trilogy of films at least. Maybe there's a 2-3 hour director's cut somewhere and I hope to God there is because there's so much they could have explored but didn't.

*The film makes Jake for all intents and purposes the protagonist when he doesn't even show up in the book series until later. Roland is the protagonist of The Gunslinger, but we don't meet him until well into the film. One of the critics on The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast flat-out described him as a sidekick to Jake, which has an unfortunate Hollywood history. I wouldn't go that far, but I'd be far more interested in seeing Roland's adventures, perhaps cross-cut with Jake's story in New York, until they cross paths. That would be a good chance to work in some episodes from Roland's journey in The Gunslinger, for example.

*Per the above, although there're some good character material for the Man in Black, he could still be developed more. In the books, for example, he had an affair with Roland's mother and the teen Roland accidentally killed her while trying to kill him. He's held a grudge for her death ever since--in The Dark Tower, the last novel in the cycle, it's his "most of all" reason for hating Roland. Here all we see is him mocking Roland about his "soft-skinned mother" (implying he had an acquaintance with said skin) and calling Roland's father a poor excuse for a man. A man in love (or at least in lust) with a married woman might comment on her looks and look down on her husband, but the full story isn't here. It would have been more interesting if the death of Gabrielle Deschain was part of what fueled his destructive tendencies. In The Wolves of the Calla, he does have enough feelings to be hurt when accused of cruelty, for example.

*In the commercials the Man in Black comes off as a lot more menacing and powerful. I'd expected McConaughey to play him with more intensity than what we got on-screen. The death of a character very important to Roland early on could be a good place to show this--in the scene the Man in Black basically tells the character to stop breathing and he does. He then walks away, catching the single shot Roland shoots at him almost offhand. If he's deflecting and dodging bullets all while psychically forcing a guy to suffocate himself, it'd be a lot scarier.

*There's an incursion from the outer darkness that's meant to illustrate what horrors will invade reality if the Tower falls, but it happens at night and it's too dark to really see just what kind of critter that is.

*The film starts to drag toward the middle. I think I remember looking at my watch.

Many of the criticisms I'm posting here are echoed and put into words more coherently by The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast's review of the film. Gotta give credit where it's due.

The Verdict

A rather shallow take on a much richer mythology. If there's not going to be a sequel, I hope there's a much longer director's cut out there somewhere. I do remember seeing a still of McConaughey walking through an icy wasteland past some corpses and whistling, there were scenes in commercials of mutant goons in the desert that weren't in the film either, and neither was the line where Jake asks if the Man in Black is the devil and Roland says he's worse. There might be more out there. 7.5 out of 10.

My Horror Novel Recommendations...

My friend Robby posted on Facebook earlier today asking for some horror novel recommendations. I spam-posted a bunch of them on his status, which may have been a smidge annoying, so I figured I'd just create this blog post. I'll include the ones I recommended for him as well as some new ones and tag him (and another friend who loves horror literature) as well.

So here goes...

I've only read a few Dean Koontz novels, but my holy trinity of his works are Watchers, Phantoms, and Twilight Eyes. Phantoms and Watchers have some of the most interesting monsters/antagonists I've read in fiction and Twilight Eyes is pretty darn cool too. Reading Dean Koontz in general taught me how to spread out description of a scene through action--i.e. something like "gripping the huge Desert Eagle pistol in his even bigger tattooed hand, he put a .50 caliber bullet through the rectangular mahogany panes making up the wall" as opposed to a much wordier description that overall slows the story down.

From author James Byron Huggins are Leviathan and Hunter. Although the former might be too Christian for some people it's got some interesting concepts, while Hunter is generally a fun read that'd make a great movie (and at one point was being developed into one).

F. Paul Wilson has this huge cycle of novels beginning in the WWII era and culminating in the apocalyptic tale Nightworld. I've read a bunch of them, but I haven't read them all. If you want to get started, read the very first book in the series The Keep--which has some really disturbing moments--and The Tomb,which begins the tale of secondary protagonist Repairman Jack, whose story ultimately merges with the main cycle.

The prehistoric uber-shark Carcharadon megaladon is best known for appearing in Steve Alten's MEG series, but a better outing featuring this critter is Charles Wilson's Extinct. A pity it went out of print rather than spawning sequels and even potential movie development, but at least you can get it on Kindle. And for more undersea horrors (this time with Nazis), there's Peter Benchley's Creatureand Robert McCammon's The Night Boat.

If you're looking for some good short stories, Irish writer John Connolly has a collection entitled Nocturnes. One of the stories, "The New Daughter," was even made into a direct-to-video horror movie starring Kevin Costner (okay, maybe that's not really that great of an endorsement even if it got decent reviews). Another story, "The Erlking," is particularly memorable.

If you want to go a bit old-school, in the 1980s Whitley Strieber (this is before he went off into UFO la-la land), wrote a novel called The Wolfen.It was adapted into a movie that, as you may expect, totally changed everything in a bad way. However, it's a fun book even if it is rather hard to find these days. I don't know if Stephen King's The Stand counts as horror per se, but it's got some disturbing moments and is generally well-done. If post-apocalyptic counts, Strieber also had a novel called Warday that has some very vivid descriptions of events during and after a (very) limited 1980s nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. It shows just how terrible the situation would be, even for the "winners."

And for the younger set, Paul Zindel, most well-known for The Pigman, also wrote some young-adult horror I read and enjoyed in middle school. The first one I read was Loch and the second--and better--one is The Doom Stone. There were others, but I'd only read one of them and didn't like it as much. I'd love to see them adapted into films.

Crossing "Gates of Vasharia" with HBO's "Rome"

A year or three ago, I brought several chapters of my unfinished novel The Gates of Vasharia to my Kennesaw writing group. The story is set in the world of Vasharia where over the course of millennia various human cultures have come in through permanent Stargate-type gates or wild tears in space-time, leading to a patchwork of different nations.

(The dominant political force is an empire founded by a lost Roman legion, while other cultures are descended from Viking expeditions or Nestorian missionary endeavors.)

The story takes place during a civil war between the Imperator Marduk Kabon and his father's former general Patrick Rassam, the latter of whom was cast into the dark spaces between worlds (inspired by the "Todash Darkness" of Stephen King's Dark Tower universe) and has returned with demonic forces from said realm. Adding to the fun is an invasion from a parallel world by a gigantic cyborg Russian despot.

The technology of this world is roughly at the level of the Persian Gulf War. However, all of the point-of-view (POV) characters (protagonist Calvin Grenville, anti-hero Patrick Rassam, the antagonistic Czar, and on-the-protagonist's-side-but-still-a-tool Marduk) who participate in battle are very high-ranking--they're either corps commanders if not outright commanders-in-chief. In a Gulf War-type setting, someone of that rank is not going to be participating in active combat unless something has gone very, very wrong.

I've tried to "hang a lampshade" on that issue by depicting Cal only participating in direct combat twice (once leading the reserve forward at a critical moment in person to inspire his men--and being chastened by Marduk for unnecessarily risking himself--and later when the Czar's army overruns his headquarters), depicting Patrick and the Czar as both being Blood Knights who simply don't give a rip, and Marduk getting caught in a Czarist raid on his headquarters rather than anything he sought out himself. However, some members of my writing group suggesting leaving the combat scenes to lower-ranking characters.

Although I was resistant to the concept because that would require rewriting much of what I've already written, I just had a realization that HBO's television program Romeoperated on the same principles. Legionaries Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are the ones who, most of the time, are the ones getting their hands dirty. You might see someone like Mark Antony and Marcus Agrippa dusting it up, but even at that level of technology, they wouldn't be part of a shield wall like a common soldier would be.

Perhaps the revisions wouldn't be as radical as I fear. Like Rome, this can be a "buddy story" of two lower-ranking guys who keep finding themselves involved in power politics. This way I can save most of the already-written material and just add new stuff.

*GOV begins with Cal awarding medal to survivors of a failed campaign across the Inner Sea against Patrick's stronghold in the western continent of Mahonistan. One of them can be a low-ranked POV character. I can keep the first scene where Cal and his entourage are heading to the arena on a train and have the second half of the scene from the low-ranked guy's POV.

*The other low-ranked POV character can be present when the Czar invades the eastern continent of Trydonia and be among the survivors that retreat. That would require redoing about the first two-thirds of the chapter.

*At the first big battle with the Czarist forces, the two characters can get thrown together. Maybe they're part of a mishmash of survivors that are about to get curb-stomped by the Czar when suddenly Cal and the armor reserve have a Big Damn Heroes moment and kick the Czarist forces in their metaphorical groin. The chapter begins with Cal POV doing the battle-planning and high-level management stuff, then the actual combat can be from the lower-ranking guy's POV. We switch back to Cal's POV for the aftermath of the fighting and then back to the lower-ranking guy's POV for some post-battle leave.

*A major part of the story involves Marduk dispatching Cal (and his wife Eva, who has a bit of a history with Patrick) to territories under Patrick's control in hopes of negotiating an alliance against the Czar. One of them is assigned to be part of Cal's escort, while the other stays behind to fight the Czar. The one who travels can provide a lower-ranked POV (while Cal parleys with Patrick, he can see the armies building for Patrick's planned invasion of Trydonia and the reader will think Patrick will stab Marduk in the back), while the other can be part of the breakout where the bloodied Czarist forces shatter part of the Imperial army and march for the sea, toward the area Patrick's planned invasion will land.

*When Patrick's army lands and Cal returns to command of his army, the two characters are reunited. They'll be part of the counteroffensive that pushes the Czar back toward his incursion zone. They can be present when the Czar overruns Cal's headquarters and is about to personally dispatch him when he's set upon by Patrick. That particular fight would be a seven-alarm SNAFU--three corps commanders, their respective bodyguards and whatever equivalent to "household troops" would exist in this world (I'm thinking Patrick would have a force nicknamed "Rassam's Fist" in the style of the 501st Legion), and significant quantities of three armies' air power going at it in an area maybe about 1-2 square miles.

You all probably won't be seeing this anytime soon. This story deals with issues that I don't really have a lot of personal experience in, so I figured I'd set it aside and return to it once I've written some more books and have lived more.

(There's also the possibility I might simply put together the Patrick-POV parts of it into a new first-person fake-memoir entitled I, Dark Lord, but I've written some very good character moments that aren't from his POV and I'd rather not waste those.)

Hmm...if it weren't for the budget costs of Patrick's demonic henchmen, armies of tanks, etc., this might make a spiffy television series. Maybe it could be animated?

I May Go Kindle...

Jeff Baker, a member of my Lawrenceville writing group, has self-published a story he'd written for an anthology to raise money for earthquake relief in Japan on Amazon.com for Kindle.  He set it to be free for five days, to build up buzz and end up on the "People Who Bought This Also Bought..." lists and ended up moving 400 units.  Then he started charging $0.99.  As of a day or two ago, he'd sold 15 units and made just over $5, since Amazon gives 35% royalties for $0.99 material.  Hopefully this figure has increased since then.

Although he has defended his decision in terms of retaining rights and the story never going out of print, he said the real purpose of this exercise is not to make money.  Instead, it's to pave the way for him to Kindle-publish a young-adult fantasy novel he is working on now by generating an online fan-base.  I've critiqued the first two chapters and although YA is not my cup of tea, it's a good story.  He does not think he can get a good deal from traditional publishers and wants to hop on the train to the future, so to speak.

I admit I'm somewhat prejudiced against self-publishing because it smacks to me of someone taking their ball and going home because their stuff wasn't good enough.  However, this might be somewhat outdated--thanks to E-publishing and E-readers like the Kindle and Nook, the publishing industry has greatly changed.  And the industry's reluctance to take on new writers or invest much in promoting them (so they fail and then are judged not good, never mind that biggies like Stephen King and Dean Koontz get promoted like hell by their publishers) likely means some really good voices are going unheard.

I don't plan on Kindling Battle for the Wastelands and its planned sequels except at extreme need--say, due to major Values Dissonance between prospective publishers and I leading to them wanting unacceptable changes to the characters.

(I wanted to introduce some moral grayness to the world by making the hero rather racist and the villain as someone who has brought peace through conquest a la Aegon the Conqueror from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, judges his minions on merit rather than ethnicity, and who married a non-white woman to unite his homeland.  However, in some people's moral universes, being a "bigot" is the primary if not the only sin.  Given how many cultural institutions tends to be more socially left-wing, they might assume the book is an endorsement of racism rather than giving the hero a flaw and the villain a virtue.  Plus I have no problems with heroes killing villains.)

However, just because I don't want to take overmuch risk with my soon-to-be-finished first original novel doesn't mean I'm not inclined to give it a try. 

In 2005-2006, I wrote a short story called "Nicor" about a teenage Dane on his first Viking raid who encounters the titular water-monster.  Although it's an action-packed monster story with bloodshed aplenty, there's substance to it as well--it's about disillusionment with war and even a coming of age. 

One of the earlier drafts, although it escaped the slush pile at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was rejected by none other than the editor himself, wasn't all that good, and so I sent it to various other places, improving it at every rejection.  Although now it's the best it's ever been, I am rapidly running out of markets to submit it.

(I did manage to sell it to the fantasy magazine Flashing Swords and was even paid $0.01 per word for it, but the magazine went under before the story could run.)

It is currently under consideration by Beneath Ceaseless Skies and according to Ralan.com, there's a new professional-level publication called Buzzy Mag (whose web-site was active yesterday but is down now due to server-switching).  However, at present, that's about it.  The number of semi-professional publications that would pay, say, $0.01 per word has dwindled with the economy.  I could send it to a web-site or print publication for free or for a token payment, but these are smaller publications that don't have the same kind of prestige a larger publication will. 

Given the choice between publication by someone else with no prestige and a small payment (sending "I am the Wendigo" to Chimaera Serials got me $20 and the status of a published writer, but I doubt it impressed many editors) and the possibility of making a few dollars a month for years with no prestige, it might make more financial sense to go with option #2 in the long run.  Plus I can build up my Amazon.com author page, which exists only because of "Coil Gun."

However, J.M McDermott, also from the Lawrenceville writing group, has advised I hold onto my assets and wait for new publishers to appear.  He has published some short fiction for Kindle, but the monetary returns have not been stellar.  He has sold several books (including a new one entitled When We Were Executioners that just became available) and many short stories, so I am very inclined to take him seriously.

So here's the plan, all this rambling aside.  If I cannot sell "Nicor" to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, I will seriously consider commissioning some good cover art (one of my beefs with self-published books is they tend to have really awful illustrations) and putting it on Kindle.  Commissioning cover art will be a big cost that will take awhile to pay off, especially if the returns are low ($5-20 per month), but it might be a good long-term investment, since people do judge books by their covers.  If I cannot sell it to Buzzy Mag and no new well-paying markets appear, I'll definitely dip my toe in the Kindle water.  It's a good enough story that I'm not ruining my reputation by putting crap out there, but my options for it are rather limited at this moment.

Jeff says with my blog and it's 39,000 hits, I've got a substantial built-in fan-base.  So what say you?  If I put "Nicor" out on Kindle, would you be interested in reading it?

Stephen King's Dark Tower: Movie AND TV Series

http://www.darktowermovies.com/20100909/the-dark-tower-adaptation-is-confirmed/

Now this is really clever and creative.  Rather than a straight seven movies, which would be expensive and take a long time, Ron Howard is releasing Stephen King's Dark Tower saga as a trilogy of films with multiple seasons of a TV show filling the spaces in between.

There was a lot of talk about whether to release it as a TV series or release it as a series of movies.  Doing both is a really good way of "taking a third option."

The web-site features the NBC logo and the article uses the phrase "network television series," so it looks like it'll be on that channel. 

I'm wondering about that.  Premium channels like HBO provide the most creative freedom, but networks like NBC provide the largest audiences.  In theory, a larger audience means the show is more successful, but I recall a lot of network-TV shows being canceled before their stories were fully told (Dark Angel, Firefly, Surface, and Prey being four) and none suffering this fate on the premium channels.

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.  It's going to rock. 

I wonder if they'll be able to get Jamey Sheridan to play Randall Flagg?   Flagg in various guises plays a major role in the Dark Tower universe and Sheridan apparently did a good job playing him in The Stand a few years back.

Of course, considering Flagg is thousands of years old and has many identities, having a different actor--or even many different actors--playing him is not problematic.