Horror Book Club

No Horror At Sundance?

The film world is abuzz this week as indie directors and producers brave the chilled weather of Colorado for the annual Sundance Film Festival. These small low budget movies often feature big named or at least b-list actors and actresses willing to get paid SAG scale so they can show off their acting chops.

You'll find poignant love stories, artful noir and even the occasional thriller, but don't expect to watch a lot of horror films at Sundance. Sure, horror is notorious for being made on a low budget, one of the biggest requirements of a Sundance film, but to may of the learned filmmakers it's considered a low-brow form of cinema. Read more about No Horror At Sundance?

Author Spotlight: Joe Lansdale

He's been lauded by some of the best in the business including Dean Koontz and his writing compared to the stories of Stephen King and Clive Barker.

When you've read horror as long as I, you collect a fair number of books over the years. Most of them sit on a bookshelf or are sent to the attic for storage after reading. Space is always limited, so occasionally I have to go through and pick out the ones I want to keep and the ones that go to the Goodwill.

You'd be surprised how many lost treasures you find by doing this. Many years ago, I picked up a book “The Nightrunners” and totally forgot about it. When I came across it again while cleaning, I realized that it was by someone who I have come to regard as quite the mentor: Joe R. Lansdale.

My horror writing experience is relatively new, but Lansdale has been writing for decades in a variety of genres from horror to mysteries. He's one of the lucky few to have success over many genres. Lansdale is a Texas native and martial arts aficionado who writing has a direct straight to the point air about it. Read more about Author Spotlight: Joe Lansdale

What Attracts People To Horror?

I've been an avid horror fan and reader since I was a child. It's a genre that has been around for centuries and has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years. I can't help but wonder what makes people enjoy the genre of horror.

Someone that has never actually read much horror may say that horror fans want to be scared, but the truth is there have been very few books and movies that have given me a genuine scare. There's the occasional surprise, but an actual keep my light on at night scare is rare.

Some may enjoy it for the interesting characters, but there are even more fantastical creatures in the fantasy and scifi genres. The truth is that the reason why people love horror is the darkness. We all have a little bit of darkness in our hearts. Though we try to hide it, everyone has that little bit of Dracula and the Wolfman in their souls.

It's this darkness that horror enthusiasts are attracted to. Novels about demons and things that go bump into the night deal with the very core of humanity. We read it because we enjoy it. The librarian that spends all day demure and quiet goes home to experience the evils of Randall Flagg in “The Stand” and the torturous delights of Pinhead in Hellraiser. Read more about What Attracts People To Horror?

Penny

“Penny” could have been a great zombie novel that, with a little promotion, may have been well received.

I am a big fan of the zombie genre and independent publishing, so I jumped at the chance to read “Penny.” It's a self published zombie novel set in a small town where an freak electrical storm raises the dead from their graves and they go on an eating spree.

The savior and possible vaccine to the zombie bite that inevitably turns you into a zombie is the blood of a young girl named Penny. She breastfed from her mother as she was turning, so her body developed an immunity to the zombie virus.

“Penny” is a self published novel, so as you can expect it lacks the quality of a professional writer. It has a decent plot, but the writing mechanics, grammatical and spelling errors and formatting problems make it hard to get from page to page. Just as your getting into a scene, words are missing or misspelled and you find yourself reading the same passages over and over again. This makes it hard to get into the story.

This shows a glaring problem with self publishing. The books are put together haphazardly and with no editor to look it over. Most companies have editors, but it costs extra to have them look over the work. Depending on the size of the book and the extent of the editing that could be a considerable amount. Read more about Penny

Break Some Genre Boundaries Already

How many of you are sick of seeing the same genre and character templates used in books, television and movies. You know, the brooding vampire torn between the human and vampire nature at odds with the vampires that embrace their predator tendencies.

I can't walk through a book store or shop online without seeing the exact same thing in almost every book. Vampire detectives that save the innocent to make up for their years of hunting. Yeah, that's not been done a thousands times.

People complain that Hollywood has lost all originality because every other movie is a reboot or remake, but what about the literary world. I think it can be argued that everyone has settled into this comfort zone where they simply use the same character types, so that each book is a carbon copy of the next. Read more about Break Some Genre Boundaries Already

Author Spotlight: Kim Newman

When I was in high school, I found myself walking through the aisles of Barnes and Noble and came across a book called “Anno Dracula” by Kim Newman. As a fan of vampire novels, zombies weren't popular back them, I picked it up and was mesmerized.

Dracula actually has a very small part in the story. The story involves a what if situation, where Dracula defeated Abraham Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker. It shows how England and some of its most famous characters would have changed. They're all there Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper and even Lord Arthur Holmwood in all his vampiric glory. There's nothing sacred or left untouched in Newman's books. Read more about Author Spotlight: Kim Newman

Horror in Real Life

"Ted Bundy, Son of Sam and many other serial killers."

There are thousands of books that explore every nature of horror from supernatural to the classical macabre. The truth is that oftentimes reality can even more horrifying than even the imagination of the most twisted horror writer.

Men and women have been doing horrible things to each other since time immemorial. Instead of spending so much time staking out the horror section of your local library, head on over to the history and nonfiction areas.

You can find out all the details about the investigation and capture of some of the most horrific humans to have ever walked the Earth. Ted Bundy, Son of Sam and many other serial killers. You can find out what they did, why they did it and how they came to justice.

Discover theories of murderers never caught like The Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper. You can learn who authorities think they truly were and the different reasons why. Read more about Horror in Real Life

Author Spotlight: Brian Lumley

Brian Lumley has had a long career in horror and created one of the great horror series of all time. Lumley spent much of his life in the military until retiring in 1980. He'd fallen for the stories of H.P. Read more about Author Spotlight: Brian Lumley

Vampirism: The Early Years

Believe it or not, Bram Stoker was not the first to bring the vampire to unlife. Vampires were popular for years prior to Stoker mainly because of country folk paranoia. Vampirism and the living dead were real fears in the small mountain villages of Europe, especially around the 1600s.

It was believed that the dead could come back for a variety of reasons and those reasons varied from place to place. It was believed that a person that killed themselves could come back, a criminal or heretic, someone buried at a crossroads and on and on and on. It was easier to become a vampire than a doctor during that time.

There Is A Place For Funny In Horror

When I was drafting up a script for my first ever movie, it was heavy in humor. That's the kind of person I am. I've been reading, watching and writing horror for so long that you come realize the best has elements of humor.

There is not that much difference between fear and laughter. When we go to a haunted house and something comes at you, you scream in terror and then laugh hysterically. There has to be a balance of course or your horror will end up becoming a black comedy.