A Year of Horrors (khyron's next big project he might never complete)

[khyron1144]

This thread is actually an x-post from rpg.net and this initial post will draw from that original thread.


This was going to be part of a review of Stephen King's Danse Macabre.  The review might get written one of these days.  It's sort of abandoned for now.  Yet it makes a good introduction to one of my old blog posts that I'm reposting here:
Let me tell you a story:  When I was in second grade, or somewhere around there (or somewhere in the neighborhood of age eight to ten years old), a local video store had a billboard that had a likeness of Freddy Kreuger, and when I wnet by I had to avert my eyes from the gruesome sight.  At about that same age there were trailers on tv for certain movies (most especially entries in the Puppet Master and Child's Play series*) that I had to change the channel away from because I found them too frightening/disturbing.

I do think I watched Gremlins**, King Kong, and Terminator by this age.  In fact, I'm certain that I saw Gremlins and King Kong more than once because they were VHS tapes that my dad owned and I was sort of an obsessive rewatcher of the same movies over and over.  The point that I'm trying to make is that at this point particular point in my life (to reiterate age ten and younger), I mostly avoided the horror genre in both print fiction (I was an avid reader from about age seven onward) and movies.

Somewhere, though I overcame this aversion and even became something of a horror fan.  Such a fan that my mom knows that a present I'll like should probably have Dracula or the Wolfman on it.

Danse Macabre is Stephen King's non-fiction analysis of what the horror genre is, why it matters, why it floats some people's boats, and what the good stuff is.  Stephen King is a guy who knows from horror.

I started writing that intro about my childhood before I read this passage from Danse Macabre:




*Now that I think about that makes a kind of sense.  I have so many action figures, even at that age, that if they turned evil, I'd be in some trouble.
**Gremlins may have given me nightmares once.  My dad made a no Gremlins before bed rule.



So this is the old blog post that I mentioned:
I think of myself as a horror fan.  I read magazines like Rue Morgue and Shock Cinema.  When I found out that Famous Monsters of Filmland had risen from the grave I bought an issue even though it was $13 and funds were tight.  I have an opinion whether Gary Oldman, Bela Lugosi, or Leslie Nielsen made a better film Dracula.  I want to know why Damian Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, hasn't teamed up with John Constantine.

Yet I consider myself a dabbler.  I don't watch all that many horror movies, maybe five a year.  Ditto for novels, and in the case of novels there's a lot of questions regarding categorization and hair-splitting and tight or loose definitions of genre:  the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series is definitely within the paranormal romance sub-genre, but most of them have genuine moments of suspense and enough gore to satisfy many splatter aficionados.  Is that good enough to call it horror?   Twilight on the other hand, is a horror only to feminists and lovers of good prose.

So, I've decided to start a project.  For the next year, I will try to once a week view a movie, read a book, or read a comic book within the horror genre.  I will report back to you my findings.  I will probably be using a broad definition of the genre that includes supernatural horror; mystery/suspense/psychological/thriller; monster mashes, like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman or Van Helsing; paranormal romance; dark fantasy; morbid poetry like "The Raven"; scary science fiction, like Day of the Triffids; maybe even a little Japanese kaiju eiga, like Godzilla or Gamera.

Who knows, if I can keep it up?  I start a lot of projects and then get distracted.

Some current things I'm kinda counting towards this project:  Ghoul a novel by Michael Slade, which at my point of halfway into it looks like a psychological horror novel; Toybox by Al Sarrantonia,  a short story collection that seems to lean towards supernatural horror and recently read issues of Morlock 2001, an Atlas-Seaboard monster-hero comic, and Psycho, a black and white horror comics magazine by some company that isn't either Warren or Marvel.

I finished Ghoul  by Michael Slade, which I will be counting as this week's part of the project.  Ghoul is a novel somewhere in the family of psychological horror/crime novel/"magical serial killer" novel.  It wasn't bad, but it seems conflicted.  It is a horror novel, yet it also offers commentary on the prevalence of the horror genre in popular culture that seems ambivalent at best.

Just a note to say I'll be following along!

When you say Ghoul has some commentary on the horror genre in popular culture - is it direct, or simply a side-effect of the narrative? I don't mind me some 'meta' in horror once in a while, but if it's just a certain amount of self-consciousness on the part of the author I'm not sure I'd be interested.

Well, the serial killer is a horror fan, what Forrest Ackerman would have called a monster kid, who goes nutty in a very monster kid kind of way.  There's also a bit where two cops after seeing a shock rock band perform at a sort of horror-movie themed club/music venue have a debate on whether it's healthy for all these kids to be reading Tales From the Crypt and listening to Alice Cooper.  Both sides of the issue are presented, but it felt like an author tract to me.

Ghoul came out when I was I was a horror-crazed sixteen-year-old gore nerd. I remember a friend lending me the book, and I remember getting so into it that I devoured the whole novel in one frenzied 2-3 hour sitting, turning pages like a madman, gobbling the story up like a dog snarfing down a bowl of meat.

Weirdly, I don't remember much about the story, other than that it dealt with a team of detectives hunting a serial killer (back when that concept was actually somewhat fresh and not yet completely played out). I remember the experience of the book more than the actual book itself, if that makes any sense.

[Mason]

Watch the original The Thing. Seriously. It is awesome. Also 'The Eye' a Japanese horror movie about a woman who has her eyes surgically replaced (shes blind) and then she starts seeing all these crazy things. Actually if you don't mind subtitles I would pretty much just watch any non-American movies. 

[LD]

The original The Thing is terrible almost to the point of being laughable... John Carpenter's is much much better. I hope that's what you were referring to :D.

[Mason]

J

The original The Thing is terrible almost to the point of being laughable... John Carpenter's is much much better. I hope that's what you were referring to :D.

John Carpenter's The Thing is THE ONLY ONE. (yep that's what I meant)