Wrote an essay on two of my favorite short stories from female authors for Women in Horror month. It’s been posted on the blog of Damien Walters Grintalis, a female horror author whose debut novel Ink is set to be released in December 2012. Thanks again to Damien for allowing me to ramble on her blog.

Floyd Mayweather is a moron and a racist (see comments he’s made in the past about Manny Pacquiao for further evidence). It’s not terribly surprising to see him say something racially charged, inaccurate and, overall, idiotic about Jeremy Lin, the latest sports sensation sweeping the nation like some kind of horrifying, nation-sized broom. The only thing disheartening thing about Floyd’s comments is that they shouldn’t be terribly disheartening. I think most of us could have predicted that, sooner or later, some dumb fuck was going to spew their trademark dumb-fuckery in Lin’s direction. ‘Twas only a matter of time.

Floyd’s assessment that “Black players do what he does every night” is demonstrably false, given that every night Lin seems to be accomplishing something that only a handful of men have ever done (last night he became only the 3rd Knicks player to have 20+ points and 7+ assists in his first 6 games). Floyd’s defense of his comments, that he’s only standing up for African-American athletes in the NBA, is asinine. If there’s any major sport where there is zero remaining question as to our capabilities, it’s basketball. We don’t need anyone to “defend” our NBA prowess, and I don’t imagine that all of these grown ass men in the NBA really need Floyd to speak on their behalf like they’re incapable of expressing themselves.

With all that said, Lin’s race clearly plays a factor in the amount of attention he is receiving. The fact that he doesn’t look like your stereotypical NBA star is part of the story. This is not a negative thing. The NBA seeks and needs more diversity among its fans and players. Having an undrafted, Asian-American Harvard kid playing in the country’s biggest media market, the Mecca of basketball, and dragging the Knicks out of dire straits and into possible playoff contention (yeah, it’s way too early to even think about the post-season, but this is a sports piece, so premature prognostication comes with the territory) is a perfect storm for a feel-good sports story. It’s better than Tebow, better than Rudy, even better than Angels in the Outfield.

It’s somewhat comparable to why Tiger Woods was such a popular and captivating figure when he first went pro. Not only was he extremely good, but he broke the stereotypical mold of what an athlete in his sport looked like, and skin color obviously played a huge role in that. Now, for Lin, I think the biggest factor in why his story is receiving so much attention is that he’s playing in New York City and has single-handedly rejuvenated a beloved franchise long mired in disappointment. Then there’s the fact that he’s also playing extremely well (which is part of what differentiates him from Tebow–there’s no “magic” here, there’s no asking “how is he doing this,” you can just look at his stat-line and say, “Wow, this kid is really freaking good”). In third place, there’s the fact that he’s Asian-American (playing in a market with a very visible and sizable Asian population, which ESPN has gone out of its way to show us all at every home game). These are all elements to his story, and he’s acknowledged it himself in past interviews. There’s no harm in discussing it, so long as you don’t try to act like this somehow diminishes his accomplishments.

Somewhat overlooked in all of this, and likewise with the ”Tebow-mania” that “Linsanity” (ugh, I apologize for typing that) has been compared to, is the public’s seemingly ravenous desire for some positive sports stories. Consider some of the biggest American sports stories over the past few years: The Tiger Woods scandal. “The Decision.” The NFL and NBA lockouts. The vicious beating of a fan at Dodger stadium. The Bernie Fine scandal. The Sandusky scandal. Some of these are worse than others, but all of these were negative, and most were decidedly unpleasant. This is in addition to your usual stories about athletes, coaches, managers, owners and fans behaving obnoxiously. Now, you have these consecutive stories about guys who people are eager to cheer for. Of course people are going to overreact and overstate their successes. Who can blame them?

And make no mistake, the amount of attention being paid to Lin is excessive. Even he’s aware of it. He’s a Harvard guy, after all. He isn’t just being demure when he tries to pass credit to his teammates and downplay his role in the Knicks’ turnaround. He’s smart enough to know that it’s unrealistic for him to be carry the pressure of being a megastar when he’s only had six games under his belt, and Mike D’antoni is already trying to burn him out so fast he’s going to have to change his name to “Amar’e Stoudemire’s Knees.” (The good news, D’antoni is probably too smart to sabotage Lin’s confidence by making him split minutes with Baron “Doctor said I need a back-eotomy” Davis if and when the latter comes back; probably.) He’s going to have nights when he goes for 8 points and 6 assists and 7 turnovers, and then the members of the “Lin’s Overhyped” choir will start singing “We told you so” at the top of their lungs. And that will be a ridiculous overreaction as well. Who knows what the future holds for this dude? He might eventually taper off like Fernando Valenzuela and be “merely” good, instead of being an all-time great. He might be a future journeyman who’s enjoying a relatively brief, but stellar, moment as the center of the sports universe. Or, he might indeed be the next Steve Nash.

As a sports fan, I’m hoping for the latter. I’m hoping he, Melo and Stoudemire develop a court chemistry and bring the Knicks back to prominence, even though I’m a Laker fan, because I’m one of those people who believes that the NBA is more fun and interesting when the Knicks are good. I’m hoping he continues to bring new fans to the NBA, the way Tiger once brought new fans to the PGA. I’m hoping this brilliant 6 game run turns into 60 games; turns into 600 and beyond.

Above all else, I’m hoping that people will stop saying “Linsanity,” “All he does is Lin,” etc. And I say this as a guy who has an arsenal of bad puns at his disposal, but we can do better than this. We must do better than this.

I’ve never read the novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Nor have I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or A Tale of Two Cities and Innsmouth, or Gone With the Deadites. I shouldn’t make assumptions about works I’ve never read, I know, but I’ve always been skeptical about the entertainment merit of stories that seem to randomly marry literary characters / historical figures with notable horror characters and tropes. But now we have the first international trailer for the Abe Lincoln vs. Bloodsuckers movie and it  looks like it might be reasonably fun. Observe…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34x6m-ahGIo

It helps that Abe Lincoln is already a nearly mythical figure in American history,  and his legend is appropriable for a “tall tale” type of story. There’s a reason why this story features Lincoln and not Warren G. Harding. Abe was a noted wrestler, axeman and Confederacy-breaker. He allegedly invented the chokeslam. Here’s a depiction of Lincoln casually manhandling another grown man. 

When you see him doing this with his bare hands and what appears to be minimal effort, it’s not too hard to accept the sight of him felling entire trees with a single swing of an axe. Actually, I’m concerned for the vampires he’s going to be hunting in this flick. Giving Abe Lincoln an axe to hunt vampires with is like letting Superman wield Mjolnir to fight Quakers. Still, I’m suddenly looking forward to this, as well as the possibility of other Great-American / Horror-Villain mash-ups, such as Benjamin Franklinstein, or Teddy Roosevelt: Cthulu Puncher, or Grover Cleveland: Jack the Ripper Be-er.

Disclaimer: This post is full of spoilers. Read on at your own risk.

The latest version of the Susan Hill novel The Woman in Black arrived in theaters a week ago and made a solid impression at the box office. By no means is it a great film, in fact it might be too generous to even call it “good,” but it’s a solid effort at Gothic, haunted house horror.

As a fan of the earlier, 1989 adaptation of the novel, I came into the movie with mixed expectations. I knew not to expect the restraint and maturity of the earlier film. Having never read the original novel (shame on me, I know) and without the benefit of having seen the (by all accounts excellent) stage play, I had no idea as to whether or not this newest film would be more or less faithful to Susan Hill’s original story. As such, all I could really hope for was that this new film would still elicit some competent chills, and on that front I wasn’t terribly disappointed. In some respects this newest adaption improves on its predecessor, though I still prefer the 1989 film overall for its sophistication.

For me, the first thing that stands out about the 2012 film is how much more pervasively “horrifying” it is compared to the 1989 version. From the interspersed, almost random scenes depicting a mysterious woman in white, to shot after shot after shot of creepy looking dolls (apparently, every toy doll in the early 20th century was made of 99% nightmare material), this movie spends every damn second of its run-time reminding you that you’re watching a horror movie. Everything that isn’t blanketed in shadows is bathed in cold, pallid hues that suck any sense of hope out of the proceedings. The setting is a bog-town that doesn’t merely look appropriately foggy and cold, but like it exists on some forsaken, shroud-filled corner of the Earth where ghosts are part of the natural habitat. This is a town where it would be weird if there wasn’t at least one haunted house nearby.

This isn’t an inherently bad thing, but again, the original film was more to my liking because it didn’t seem to be trying so damn hard. It had atmosphere to spare, yes, but it wasn’t drenching with dread. It didn’t look like it was filmed on location in purgatory. It’s like the difference between a pretty girl who’s wearing too much makeup, too much perfume and too little of everything else, and a girl a pretty girl who knows how not to overdo it. They can both be considered objectively attractive, but subjectively, the confidence of the latter is greatly preferable to the seeming desperation of the former. The 2012 film has its charms, certainly, but it also seems to be masking its insecurities behind a barrage of sensory distractions when it isn’t necessary.

In the latest version of the film, Arthur Kipps (played by Daniel Radcliffe) starts off with a dead wife (the aforementioned woman in white) whom he believes may be trying to communicate with him from beyond the grave.  We see next to nothing of his family life, save for a short scene early on where his son helps inform the audience that his dad is a sad sad man who misses the hell out of his wife. Radcliffe does what he can with such a limited, almost lifeless character, but there’s not a hell of a lot of room for creativity here. This is a forlorn figure who infects an already disconsolate story with a greater sense of despair and inevitability. He’s damn near a dead man walking; emotionally distant, preoccupied with spirits and the afterlife. In the 1989 film, Kipps is an ordinary man who happens into a horror story. He was given a chance to connect with the audience as a real person, a guy who is allowed to smile and quip; a guy who seems like he hasn’t lost his will to live. This makes it more frightening when the Woman in Black gets around to terrorizing him, because he’s a regular person you can relate to. In the 2012 film Kipps is more like some kind of human horror magnet. If you met him on the street you’d think, “I bet he hangs out in graveyards on his days off.”

In a way, however, this serves the story. It gives Kipps cause to revisit the blatantly haunted Eel Marsh house, home of the titular Woman in Black. The 1989 film didn’t really need to give Kipps a reason to stay, since nearly all of the supernatural happenings occurred over the course of one night, and the house is isolated on an island that can’t be reached when the tide rolls in. In the newest adaptation, which expands on the story to some benefit, Kipps spends a few nights in the house, even going back one final time to perform what amounts to an impromptu, amateur exorcism. If not for his demeanor and interest in “spiritualism,” you’d be able to make the same (often lazy) complaint / joke that people usually make in regard to haunted house movies: why not leave the house immediately and stay the hell away.

The new movie also expands the story in ways that slightly improve on the original film. The townspeople here are given legitimate cause to keep Arthur Kipps away from the house and be evasive about why they’re being so damn inhospitable to him. The townspeople in the original film are practically indifferent to the possibility that sightings of the Woman in Black usually lead to a child’s death. Indeed, in the original film, the Woman in Black is almost more of an harbinger of some forthcoming fatal accident. It’s implied that she is the catalyst for said accidents, but it’s unclear if she’s directly involved. In the 2012 version, she is blatantly malevolent, actually influencing the children of the town to commit suicide whenever she is seen by someone. She is also only ever seen on the grounds of her home or on the road that leads to it, so it makes sense for the locals to do what they can to keep anyone and everyone away from the old house.

This new film also gives the character of Sam Daily, one of very few people in town who is actually helpful to Kipps, a decent reason for assisting Kipps during his stay, instead of being one of the many folks trying to chase the young lawyer away. He has good cause, like most others, to believe that the Woman in Black is responsible for the suicides of local children, given that his own son drowned himself at her behest, but his wife (played in rather over-the-top fashion) is apparently possessed by his son’s “lost” spirit. Daily is in deliberate denial about the Woman in Black, because to accept her for what she is would mean accepting that his boy isn’t waiting for him in heaven, but trapped in town like the ghosts of all of the other children the Woman in Black has claimed. It’s the kind of grim, subtle terror the movie introduces, but doesn’t have any interest in exploring, unfortunately.

Because, although this isn’t a “Hollywood” production, strictly speaking, this is ultimately a Hollywood-style modern horror flick. It’s more interested in delivering a series of big scares and force-feeding the audience atmosphere instead of letting the terror patiently develop as the movie progresses. Again, not inherently a bad thing, and the movie actually delivers some wonderfully conceived moments of horror. While I’m a fan of patient, ethereal, psychological horror, I’m also a big fan of intense, unsubtle, visceral horror as well. I still think that loud scare chords are an overused tactic, but there’s something wonderful about well-executed, visually and audibly arresting moment of horror. The 1989 film’s signature moment comes when the Woman in Black visits Kipps in his bedroom while he’s in the midst of a fever dream. She comes charging into the scene so suddenly it looks like an editing mistake, and she’s unleashing a bizarre screech that sounds like a hoarse old woman is trying to imitate Godzilla’s roar. It’s much scarier than it sounds, I assure you.

The 2012 film has a call-back to that splendid moment during its climax, with the Woman in Black charging Kipps until her hate-filled face fills the entire screen. But the most brilliant and affecting moment in the film for me came when the mud-caked ghost / zombie of a child that drowned in the marsh crawls out of the disgusting muck of its cross-marked grave and comes toward the house it used to call home. Kipps witnesses this through the window of an upstairs bedroom, a cheap (but effective) “mirror scare” follows, and then he walks downstairs to find something is trying to open the front door. It’s reminiscent of the moment in “The Monkey’s Paw” when the unseen, dead and mangled son tries to come home as his mother has wished. It’s an excellent scene that earns the right to milk the horror for all it’s worth.

There are other very-strong moments in the film as well. A scene where the titular character slowly stalks toward a sleeping Kipps is staged so well it manages to be a standout despite it’s predictability (at that point in the movie, there’s zero chance she’s going to do him any actual harm or even manage to physically interact with him).

More subtly, the movie raises interesting, unsettling ideas about what it’s like to actually be a ghost, particularly the kind of ghost that the Woman in Black is. Full of hate, self-tormented, driven to suicide by madness and grief, unable to forgive or be at peace. Unable to think of anything but vengeance, even after the party that wronged you is long gone. Even before her death, the Woman in Black’s madness and suffering is chronicled in a series of letters that Kipps reads, wherein her penmanship degenerates from elegant to nearly-illegible scrawling as her madness grows. That has to be a miserable existence, to say nothing of the ghost children trapped on Earth along with her. The original film gives us a chronicle of the haunting from the perspective of the Woman in Black’s surviving sister (the original target of the spirit’s wrath), who recorded an audio diary on a Dictaphone before she died. Seeing both films gives me the luxury of enjoying both perspectives, and make me more eager to read the book and see what more there is to discover.

As I mentioned initially, I still prefer the original film version of The Woman in Black, but I’m not at all upset with this “remake.” While it doesn’t measure up to its predecessor, and certainly has its faults and missed opportunities, it also adds something to a story that is nuanced enough to warrant exploration. It’s like a piece of ghostlore that is enriched by every retelling.

During the recent flap over Kelly Clarkson’s endorsement of Ron Paul (possibly a racist and homophobic conspiracy theorist; more likely just an unscrupulous opportunist like roughly 99% of politicians), Kelly responded to her detractors on Twitter by mentioning that she supports:

“gay rights, straight rights, women’s rights, men’s rights, white/black/purple/orange rights”

Dear Everybody in the World: Stop saying that shit.

When you throw out imaginary colors that human beings don’t naturally come in, it belies any notion that you’ve given serious thought to the subject of prejudice. I’m not concerned with the rights of purple people, primarily because I’m more concerned with giving them the Heimlich as they’re obviously choking to death. Likewise, an orange person’s rights to remain radioactive and / or continue using cheap ass spray-tans don’t really concern me.

I know the idea behind the statement is to come across as caring about all of God’s skittle-colored children equally, but it just makes you sound ridiculous. So stop saying that. Saying that you support “gay rights, straight rights, women’s rights, men’s rights, white/black/Asian/Latino/etc.” rights works much better and takes 0.5 seconds longer to type.

While we’re here…

Stop prefacing offensive phrases with “I don’t mean to sound racist / sexist / homophobic / xenophobic / but…”

Stop using the term “politcal correctness” in a derogatory fashion when what you’re really taking issue with is tact and civility, you asshole.

Stop referencing / bemoaning the degradation of the First Amendment in regard to things that actually have absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Stop hating on Tim Tebow. Stop over-praising Tim Tebow. Stop calling “kneeling down in reverence to something” Tebowing. It’s kneeling, aka genuflection, aka something that’s been around for thousands of years already.

Stop believing it when movies say that they are “based on true events.” It’s a meaningless phrase used for marketing purposes. The Devil Inside is based on some dude’s idea for a profitable horror movie. That is all.

I’ll be back with more at a later date, I’m sure. In the meantime… you know… just stop, already.

It still sort of surprises me whenever I find out that any of my peers not only did not read the Scary Stories series in their youth, but never even heard of it. What the hell were you doing with your childhood? Sleeping well without having to fend off ghastly black-and-white illustrations that waited within the darkness of your dreams? Bah! No fun to be had in that…

Among the many things that the Scary Stories series has offered me is a reminder that personal experience is indeed personal and not necessarily universal. Based on my relationship with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series I would have believed every American child reared in the 80′s would have at least been aware of these tiny tomes of terror. I can still remember seeing the original cover to the first volume sitting on the shelf at the Book Fair, and can likewise remember every kid in my elementary school class being instantly fascinated and appalled all at once. Stephen Gammell’s infamously freaky illustrations made you feel anxious about even flipping through the pages.

This is from one of the "humorous" stories. Obviously...

Only a relative handful of my classmates actually purchased the books, and I could not count myself among their fortunate ranks. I hadn’t even bothered to ask my parents if I could buy it, in fact–I already knew how my folks would react to grim content. So instead I was one of those who borrowed the books to read during recess or whenever we had some free time towards the end of the school day. I remember the books staying in remarkable condition despite passing through many hands over the course of multiple school years. I would not say that we held the books with any particular reverence so much as we knew how precious they were to the owners. Accidentally rip part of the page to someone’s forgettable Spider-Man comic (“Aw man, this is the one where Spider-Man appears to have been killed by Magma–a villain and event that will surely remain relevant for years to come!”) and they might be mad at you for a week before you’re friends again.  Fold the corner of one of the appendix pages of someone’s Scary Stories book and they might not speak to you for the duration of the semester.

The books are, of course, remembered mostly for the remarkable, inexplicably nightmarish illustrations, but I hold Alvin Schwartz’s retellings of classic and modern ghost-lore dear as well. These were the first books I had ever encountered that not only told the reader a story, but also told the reader how to tell the story. Being written specifcally for recounting around campfires and at sleepovers gives the tales a fairly unique leanness that adds an invisible layer of perturbation to the stories. In “The Big Toe” we are spared any explanation as to why the boy’s parents would nonchalantly decide to cook and eat the giant toe he violently yanked from some unseen creature in a garden. Is the family that poor and desperate for food? Do they regularly forage for monstrous appendages?

"Another big toe growing in the garden? You'd think it was June already."

We’re not given so much as a sentence addressing these questions. The father just cuts the toe into thirds, the family dines, and then they do the dishes and go to bed. It’s treated as a perfectly normal evening and the setup to impending horror when it could stand on its own as a profoundly disturbing story.

My favorite story in the series, “The Drum,” also makes great (and perhaps more deliberate) use of creepy ambiguity and quiet peculiarity. In it, two young sisters living in a small village happen upon a toy drum owned by a gypsy girl. It’s a hell of a drum with animatronic figurines that come out of it, and the sisters ask the gypsy girl if they could have it. The gypsy girl promises to give it to them only if they misbehave their asses off, which they immediately agree to do, believing that temporarily transforming into a pair of mini-miscreants won’t lead to any dire consequences.

Instead of disciplining her children, their mother makes a sorrowful plea for the sisters to behave, while warning the girls that if they continue to misbehave she and their baby brother will have to leave them, and she will be replaced by a new mother with “glass eyes and a wooden tail.” Had my mom told me something like that when I was a kid I would have developed some sort of mannerly superpowers. I would have instantly turned into Behavior Boy.

The drum and even the gypsy girl are essentially MacGuffins as the short story briskly progresses to its inevitable conclusion. And again there are multiple questions that get brushed aside. Why do the girls feel they have to actually misbehave instead of just lying to the gypsy girl? Do they believe she can somehow see them when they get home? What is the gypsy girl’s motivation? Sport? Something more nefarious? Why does the mother say she does not want to leave but will have to if the girls continue raising hell at home? Is some outside force compelling her? And “glass eyes and a wooden tail”? Just… why?

I remember “The Drum” in particular as the story that most haunted me due to its unexplained elements. I’m pretty sure it’s the story that first made me conscious of the value of leaving some questions not only unanswered, but unasked. While most of the people I personally know never read these books–much less gleaned early storytelling lessons from them–the internet, as only it can, provides ample evidence that the books have a wealth of admirers. I’m tempted to make the bold, oddly specific declaration that this is the best and most beloved children’s horror anthology series ever. There really isn’t much more for me to say about it, at least for now, so in closing I’ll just leave you with this “scary-for-no-damn-reason” picture from the tale “Oh Susanna” that has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

Sleep well!

Confessions of a Fear Junkie is a series of reflections on the books, stories, movies, images, and lore that have managed to creep me right the hell out.

Here’s a very, very short list of stories I’ve had published that are currently available, in order of the most recently published.

“Giving Grounds” – Arkham Tales issue #8

I know some writers who hate the question of “where do you get your ideas?” I love it, even though sometimes the answer is uninteresting, bizarre or embarrassing. The idea for “Giving Grounds” sprouted (pun unintended, probably) from a throwaway joke from an episode of Family Guy of all things. I know, it’s trendy to hate Family Guy on the internets, so let me preemptively apologize for having seen a minute of the show at all, and with that out the way, it was the episode where the family is sent to live in the south in the Witness Protection program. Inside their new home, Chris finds a hand inside a jar and says he’s going to plant it outside to see if a human grows. Because I’m a horror writer, my mind immediately latched onto the interesting, grotesque idea of growing a human beings by means of traditional agriculture. And so from a lowbrow animated sitcom, a grim, serious short story was born. Available in Arkham Tales issue #8.

“Miss Branson Calling” – Pseudopod

The first story I ever sold that was based on a nightmare. I actually used to work with the lady Miss Branson was based on. An eccentric chain smoking, overall harmless elderly woman who coughed like she had a lagoon in her lungs and had skin that seemed like it might disintegrate at any second. Based on the comments, many of the Pseudopod fans didn’t care much for this one, but I think it’s a solid effort at trying to draw fear from something that’s more melancholy than aggressively terrifying.

“Thanks For Using Forced Honesty Assassinations“  – From the Asylum

Damn shame that From the Asylum is closed, because they housed some excellent stories during the years that they were open. I had been trying to break into their ranks for quite a while before they finally accepted this flash fiction piece. I really like this story, short as it is. I can’t remember where the idea came from, but I love the slight ambiguity of the ending.

“Civilized Monsters” – Pseudopod

I received a lot of comments about how graphic this story was, which sort of surprised me. I actually tend to think myself a bit squeamish and didn’t think I lingered on any exceedingly gruesome parts here. Could it be that I’m mistaken? Me? Perish the thought. Can’t remember where I got this idea from. If I could go back and touch up some parts here and there I would, but I still like this story, particularly the ending.

I was astonished… astonished I declare… to find out that some folks I know not only have no love for October, but actively dislike this splendid month. Granted, I live in Texas and have lived in south for virtually all of my life, so the coming of colder months has always been a bit of a welcome reprieve from the heat at best and a nice change up at worst. I imagine that if I lived further north the cooler weather would be an harbinger of months of gloom and snow-shoveling and ice-scraping to come. So to my brethren above the Mason Dixon I say… too bad! October is fantastic!

Kidding about the “too bad.” But really, here’s a quick list of reasons why I don’t just enjoy October, but feel invigorated by this time of year.

5. It is the Nexus of Major American Sports

The NFL is in full swing. Baseball enters the postseason (admittedly, the one time a year that I really pay attention to the sport), the NHL regular season starts (I became a bit of a fan after last year’s Olympic magnificence) and finally, just before October closes out, the NBA season begins. The entire month of October is a long Thanksgiving for sports fans. Feast and be merry, there is no other time quite like this all year.

4. Autumn is Awesome (From What I Hear)

I might need verification that this is as cool as I think it is...

Reiterating what I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I’ve lived in the south for almost my entire life. I’ve lived in San Antonio since 1994 and before that I spent most of my childhood in Mississippi, which is where I saw my last “real” Autumn. The leaves changed color and fell, the cool-but-not-cold days breezed through and… as a kid… the countdown to Christmas was pretty much on. After a month of being in school, autumn was a welcome sign that the seasons do indeed change, time does indeed progress and the days of being stuck in the classroom would not in fact last forever.

In San Antonio, autumn basically doesn’t exist. The weather gets slightly cooler, so highs drop from the upper nineties to the upper 80′s and dip just below 60 overnight. It’s basically the second coming of spring which probably sounds lovely to a lot of people, but after the soul-sapping hell that is a South Texas summer you’re hoping for a bit more a drop in the temperature. Almost without fail, when the weather gets genuinely cool here it is accompanied by a storm, which dampens the mood. Pun unintended… (or was it?)

So perhaps I am romanticizing the fall. I haven’t raked leaves since I was a kid, and while the Mississippi autumn at least exists, I’m sure it isn’t comparable to what people deal with up north. But until I actually experience a miserable autumn, I’m going to keep on clutching to my nostalgia and presumptions that it is a magical time when nature gives itself a new paint job.

3. Cold Weather Fashion

I like clothes. You know what you don’t get to wear in the summer? Layers. Layers = more clothes. And, in case you missed that first sentence of this section, I like clothes. So you can see how it all relates.

While t-shirt weather is nice and enjoyable and has its perks, I’m a fan of sweater season. No Cosby or Coogi, thank you. Classy, cool colors and patterns. Button downs, zip-ups, light jackets, vests, scarves, gloves, mixing and matching different items to create a perfect ensemble.

Now when it gets really, really cold and the coolest thing you can wear is a Triple Fat Goose parka, I’m not so big on that. But in the meantime, I go out at night just so I can sport the new stuff I bought.

2. It’s Kind of Romantic, No?

I’ve long been a proponent of the the idea that the summer is the perfect time to meet someone, while the fall / winter is the perfect time to be with someone. Summer holidays are festive celebrations with fireworks and barbecue and beer. Fall and winter holidays are about togetherness, giving gifts and designating some alone time with someone close to you. I solemnly swear, a woman’s perfume smells better in the cool weather. I do not know why, I do not suspect that there is a verifiable scientific explanation for this, but I swear it is so.

So yeah, I look forward to this time of year as a reason to get close with a lady-friend. October is ideal for this because the Christmas fever has yet to strike. There’s no reason to rush anywhere or be concerned about things you haven’t done yet. Also, it’s cool enough to make you want to nestle up next to someone, but not so cold it makes you want to sprint inside the nearest heated building before you turn into a block of ice. It’s a perfect time to go downtown, take a walk, go to that restaurant you’ve been meaning to try, catch a play, go to the symphony… do something a little different from what you’ve been doing, and do it with someone who you’ve been meaning to spend more time with.

1. Halloween, Of Course

It’s never as fun as it was when you were a kid, but really, whose fault is that? It only seemed that joy randomly fell into your lap this time of year when you were young. You get to wear a costume, consume all kinds of candy and talk to strangers. It’s like you’re being allowed to playfully misbehave. But it was all set up for you, right? So now you’re left to buy yourself the candy and the costume and you start taking it too seriously, or you forgo the whole experience to spare yourself the hassle.

Well I am damn determined to have a Happy Halloween this year because it’s such an inherently fun little holiday you sort of have to take the scenic route to not enjoy it. I encourage anyone who likes Halloween but hasn’t really enjoyed it the past few years to go make the most of it. Do something scary: visit a haunted house (a real one), take a ghost tour, invite friends over to tell ghost stories over dinner, watch some good scary movies, go to some parties, attend a festival, attend an event, watch a Halloween themed production, go someplace where people really cut loose for Halloween. Treat yourself. And hell, if you can pull it off, maybe even trick yourself too.

In a blatant, shameless attempt to garner more hits, I’m  making a topical post referencing the recently released film The Last Exorcism. And so I present to you an entirely subjective list of 4 good (and 4 terrible) movies featuring exorcisms.

Exorcisms would seem to be a pretty popular topic in the horror genre, and yet it’s not explored  as frequently as other common horror tropes such as vampires, haunted houses or zombies. I think it’s a bit harder to make demonic possession fun or sexy–too many people take it quite seriously. I’ve never met anyone who believes in the walking dead, but I have met a couple of ardently religious folk who swear they know someone who was possessed and think any fictional “entertainment” employing the subject is appalling. The good news is that this means demons are still a long way off from becoming de-fanged and romanticized. You won’t be seeing “Team Pazuzu” t-shirts in Walmart anytime soon, I’d wager.

On to the lists…

I could easily overpopulate the entire “Terrible” list with Exorcist knock-offs from the 70′s and no-budget DTV flicks, but what’s the fun in that? At the same time, it would be remiss of me to completely ignore these movies, so we’ll kick off the list with…

4. Beyond the Door

A common complaint leveled at Hollywood in the 21st Century is that they’re constantly producing inferior remakes of great foreign flicks–often horror movies. But there was a time when foreign directors were the primary purveyors of hot, steamy cash-in remake action. And they often didn’t even bother with little details like “rights” and “permission” when making pseudo-sequels and Asylum studio style knock-offs. Beyond the Door was the movie that got sued by the creators of The Exorcist for jacking such signature signs of demonic possession as projectile vomiting and head-spinning. It’s about as bad as you’d expect it to be, but it’s also a 70′s Italian horror flick, so at least it has ridiculous audacity going for it.

3. Exorcist II

Warner Bros. did not decide to sue themselves for screwing up their own film property after releasing a sequel to The Exorcist in 1977. It would have been stupid, bizarre and self-defeating… kind of like the plot to Exorcist II: The Heretic. For this sequel the filmmakers decided that what a movie about demonic possession needs to spice it up are subplots about ESP, pseudo-science, collective consciousness and psychically telling swarms of locusts to stop devouring crops. The film’s aspirations are somewhere between laudable and laughable. It has some moments of visual flair but the story makes zero sense. Anti-sense, even. I’m tempted to go so far as to say the plot of this movie is a hate crime against sense itself.

2. Stigmata

Nobody likes a preachy ass movie, but a preachy movie preaching against someone else’s preachings disguised as a horror flick… that’s the kind of movie that especially deserved to be punched right in the credits. Stigmata, released in 1999, is ostensibly a religious thriller but reveals itself to be one of those movies with a “message.” A message borrowed from an apocryphal scripture, the Gospel of Thomas. The basic gist is that you don’t need to go to church to get closer to God. I’m not here to disparage any such argument or speak on defense of any churches, but I am going to say that if you’re going to make a “serious” movie about how the Catholic church might be a less-than-holy organization with a sordid past that is more than willing to allow innocent people to be harmed or even killed if it serves their own agenda… make and market that movie. Don’t give me a “horror” flick that is actually a plodding bit of unconvincing propaganda interspersed with moments of supernatural hi-jinks to keep audiences awake.

1. The Unborn

Fabulous fanservice poster. Terrible movie...

“Do you think it’s possible to be haunted by someone whose never even been born?” In the deceptively promising trailer for The Unborn, that one bit of quoted dialogue told me that despite a reasonably impressive supporting cast (Goldman, Idris Elba), an okay premise and an ostensibly good screenwriter in the director’s chair, this movie would ultimately drown in its own stupidity. Why would you offer a qualifying addendum to a situation most people would already believe is impossible? No, I don’t believe you can be haunted by someone. Whether or not they were born is pretty much irrelevant. You might as well ask if you think it’s possible to move objects with your mind even if you have a mild headache, or if it’s possible to run faster than the speed of sound even if your shoelaces are untied.

Sure enough the movie is up to its crown in stupidity, with stereotypically bad dialogue (“The door is open…” Yeah kid, we just saw the door opening, thanks for blatantly pointing out the symbolism), predictable jump scares and PG-13 level pseudo-gore (“Hey, this dog’s head is upside down! This lady just bloodlessly bent in half! This corpse is gooey and has big teeth! Please tell us we’re being creepy… please?”). But at least the climax provides a decent set up for a joke: So a priest and a rabbi are trying to perform an exorcism…

Honorable Mention: Repossessed – the current crop of spoof movies are flat out horrible, but at least they’re not 17 years late in satirizing their primary target.

4. Beetlejuice

Ya know, it’s a bit difficult finding really good movies that prominently feature exorcisms. Beetlejuice on the surface is a bit of a stretch. So the titular ghost claims to be a “bio-exorcist” who gets rid of the living. Does that really qualify?

Yes. Yes it does. But even if it didn’t, there is also the film’s climax where the new homeowners are essentially exorcising the ghosts played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis not only out of the house, but clean out of existence. What’s interesting about this is that both forms of “exorcism” are played for screwball laughs but, if it had been given the “serious horror” treatment, they would be absolutely horrifying. A specter who makes it his business to remove living people from the premises by any means necessary (imagine if a flick like The Others had introduced that angle)? An exorcism that completely destroys the soul? Within the context of a grimmer film this could be a source of abject terror.

But it’s Beetlejuice, so instead we got Michael Keaton dancing toward some sort of brothel full of female ghouls. Not that I’m complaining. The movie is hilarious.

3. [REC]

Hmmm… ummm… spoiler alert?

At the end of [REC] comes the revelation that the catalyst for all of the mayhem that has transpired is the apparently botched exorcism of a “possessed” little girl by a Vatican official . In a relatively clever twist on the subject matter, the “demonic possession” is actually the result of a virus which has spread to everyone else in the apartment building and turned them into ravenous “zombies.” The sequel (seriously people, there are spoilers about) shows that the “virus” is some sort of demonic, sentient organism and while the execution is a bit clumsy, the idea is intriguing. A second sequel and prequel promise to expand on the idea and more than likely ruin the hell out of it with some half-assed explanation of what’s going on shrouded by pseudo-scientific / pseudo-theological technobabble.

2. The Exorcist

I’ll readily admit, I’m probably getting cute here by not putting this at number one. Then again, I’m not really assigning much value to these “rankings” anyway. Besides, if I made The Exorcist the number one flick featuring exorcisms what could I write about it that hasn’t already been covered more than The Beatles? The Exorcist is the grandaddy of ‘em all, the Rose Bowl of supernatural horror flicks. So what other movie could I possibly have listed ahead of it?

1. Requiem

“Oh for the love of… really Compton? Really? You’re putting some foreign mocku-drama 99% of the people reading this haven’t heard of at the top of your list? You are such a hipster, elitist d-bag.”

Woah, woah, hipster? I just made a college football reference and quoted Keith Jackson a couple of paragraphs ago. Pretty sure that absolves me of any hipster accusations at least through the rest of the year.

Requiem is based on the same true events that inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Whereas Emily Rose played up the supernatural bits to make it ambiguous as to whether or not the possession was real, Requiem emphasizes the mental illness that the actual victim was probably suffering from. As the most–nay, only–realistic film on this list it provides the most unique approach to the topic, and its exorcism scenes manage to be unsettling without special effects. The possibility of a foreign, nigh-invulnerable force of super-nature taking over your body and mind is indeed disturbing, but in my view, not quite as scary as the reality that your mind can up and betray you to obsession and insanity.

At the risk of sounding a bit crude, allow me to propose that horror falls within (or roughly around) two general categories: “Oh Crap!” horror, and “What the hell?” horror. The former would be likened to more visceral or “primal” fears, the kind of horror that, when experienced in real life, makes you want to take off running immediately. The latter is more about uneasiness; the nagging sensation that something is wrong. It leaves you puzzled—at least initially—instead of triggering your “fight or flight” response.

Examples:

• You’re home alone and you hear an angry voice coming from another room and you think, “Oh crap! Somebody broke in, I’ve got to get out of here!”
• You’re home alone and you hear an odd but unidentifiable noise coming from another room, you wonder, “What the hell was that?” but probably don’t take off running just yet.

Now that I’ve gone through the brief trouble of setting up these two somewhat narrowly defined categories to encapsulate all horror, I’d like to immediately undermine my proposal by stating that the Silent Hill series falls into a third category: “Oh hell, what the crap!” horror.

• You’re home alone and you hear the unmistakable  sound of your own voice coming from the other room. And you just distinctly heard yourself threatening to kill you. You’re too thoroughly discombobulated to even remember how to form a proper sentence, much less figure out what you should do.

I'd run away, but my mind is too busy eating itself to give my legs instructions...

This is the kind of horror the Silent Hill series has frequently succeeded in delivering since its first installment. People tend to say that Silent Hill is “psychological horror” but that doesn’t quite describe it. There are indeed elements that are designed to worm their way into your brain that would be fine on their own, but most of the psychological horror elements are coupled with brutally effective, tangible horror elements. The air raid siren could be unnerving by itself. That it portends the town’s transformation from (the already creepy) setting of “foggy, deserted and inescapable town” to “sunless, decaying, rust-infected industrial nightmare” makes it so, so much scarier. If your character’s radio just randomly produced “white noise” it could also be alarming. It is, instead, panic-inducing by being an inexact radar that announces the presence of unseen, violently aggressive monsters. How many monsters are waiting / coming for you? What the hell kind of monster is it this time? By the time you find out, you’re already under attack, and almost glad for it since it at least gives you some answers to your questions.

A giant blob of living cancer? *Whew* For a second I thought I'd never find out what wasGAAHHHH!

At the time of the first Silent Hill‘s release, the standard for “survival horror” video gaming had been set by two installments of Resident Evil. While Resident Evil had its share of puzzle-solving and moments where your best (or only) option was to run, it also put you in control of an armed member of a special task force. Additionally, your primary enemies were zombies who adhered to key archetypical traits of their fictional species (slow-moving and especially susceptible to headshots).  The first enemies you encounter in Silent Hill are knife-wielding monster-children who ambush you after you happen upon an almost unidentifiable corpse crucified to a fence in the “dark world” you ventured into without warning. From there the situations and enemies just get stranger, and instead of an action cop you’re a helpless father whose primary weapons are a kitchen knife and a pipe, because ammo for your handgun is ridiculously scarce and you’re always saving your bullets in case you happen upon a new, even more horrifying creature just ahead.

Silent Hill wasn’t just trying to scare you, it was deliberately trying to screw with your head. As the series went on this trend continued. The game’s most feared and recognized villain, the unfortunately-yet-aptly named Pyramid Head, introduces himself in the second game by standing perfectly still on the other side of a barred wall. He doesn’t move to attack you, doesn’t make a noise, and since you can’t see his face you don’t really know if he’s even awake, much less looking at you. But he does make your aforementioned radio give off its standard “static alert,” lest you get to thinking “maybe he isn’t an evil monster to be terrified of after all.” It isn’t until later encounters that you discover him to be a nigh-invulnerable killing machine who sexually abuses other monsters.

Despite the character’s popularity he doesn’t show up again until the fifth game in the series, where he makes a suitably menacing first appearance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVFBiFvTP00

Later games have suffered (many legitimate) criticisms over gameplay, and the franchise has had  some fan backlash for installments that have changed too much or weren’t innovative enough. The franchise also dumped a poorly plotted, poorly acted (save Sean Bean, God bless that dude) and poorly everything else’d film on the moviegoing populace back in 2006. Nonetheless, even the “misfires” feature some chilling moments. Hell, one of the most maligned titles in the series, Silent Hill 4: The Room, features my favorite premise: A man wakes up one day to find his door inexplicably locked from the inside. And not just ordinarily locked. We’re talking enough chains to make Jacob Marley say it’s a bit excessive…

"Oh hell, what the crap? But I'm out of milk, and I've got a hot date tonight, and if I no-show at work one more time I'm fired, and other reasons to go outside."

His neighbors can’t hear him screaming for help or beating on the door, even when they’re standing in the hallway right on the other side. He can’t open any windows or get anyone to notice him, even trying to use the phone to dial out is futile. It’s somewhat like the Stephen King story 1408 if the evil scary room came to your house. The only way out of his apartment is through a newly formed tunnel in the bathroom which deposits him in random, nightmarish parts of the town of Silent Hill and the surrounding area; full of ghosts and self-immolating cultists and serial killers and whatnot.

Other favorite moments include Silent Hill 3‘s freaky, screaming mannequin room, SH3‘s freaky, bleeding mirror room, SH3‘s freaky, disturbingly humorous haunted mansion and… yeah, pretty much the entirety of SH3. That game alone has earned the series a wealth of good faith that’s far from exhausted.