l a u g h i n g scared

Did You Overlook Any of these Gems

2012-02-20T06:39:00.000-08:00

Here's an overlooked gems list of horror films. (One of the rare occasions that I have actually seen the titles on an "overlooked" list.) Well, to each his own as they say, but IMO the only real gems here are Grace and Pontypool -- both of which are available as watch instantly movies on Netflix if you're a member.

If you had to throw out a couple titles that you suspect might have been "overlooked" in the last ten years, what would you pick? I would name Thirst (Korean), a wild take on vampires, and The Dorm (Thai), a sweet but uber scary ghost story.

Halloween in February ... well sort of

2012-02-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

Leave it to merchandising to steal the film's thunder-- and just like me to perpetuate the problem by posting it here. It's a shot of the mask from a Halloween costume of all things based on the upcoming Lizard design from The Amazing Spider Man. As I have said in the past (drooling) I love the Lizard. Always my favorite creature villain from the cartoon, and I have to say this take on his look is really promising IMO. Looks lovingly close to the original. Way back, before all the snouts and gator raptor like fusions that appear in the comics of late. If you want to see more body parts from the costume, bite here.

11 Miles & Crashing

2012-02-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

I failed.

Yesterday I made my second attempt at running 13 miles – training for a Half Marathon. I can do 10 pretty easily now, usually once or twice a month so 13 seems so doable, and yet the first time I set out to do it I fell apart around 9. Go figure. Yesterday, I made it over the 10 mile hump and up to 11 before running out of steam. The more I think about it, the less I think I care if I can run 13 miles. Maybe that’s just the voice of defeat in my ear from yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I will feel like it’s the most important thing I have to do. Fact is, I don’t even know anymore how this particular mission became a mission for me. Talking with other runner’s perhaps? Might be time to let it go and just run my 10 milers for the fun of it.

The picture shows part of my route - which is essentially a stretch of what around here we call the Towpath Trail. I ran right through this very spot yesterday, minus all the warm green colors.

Here are the numbers pulled from my Garmin ...

Summary

Distance:	11.10 mi
Time:	2:05:56
Avg Pace:	11:21 min/mi
Elevation Gain:	127 ft
Calories:	2,037 C

Details

Timing

Time:	2:05:56
Moving Time:	2:05:11
Elapsed Time:	2:05:56

Avg Pace:	11:21 min/mi
Avg Moving Pace:	11:17 min/mi
Best Pace:	8:45 min/mi

Speed

Pace

Elevation

Elevation Gain:	127 ft
Elevation Loss:	146 ft
MinElevation:	694 ft
MaxElevation:	881 ft

Anyway, I would like to thank the following bands for helping me hit 11 yesterday.

James

Sisters of Mercy

The DNC

Boston

British Sea Power

The Cure

Black Eyed Peas

Tom Waits

Mando Diao

Muse

The Lizard, new Spider Man Trailer

2012-02-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

Probably because he is the most monstrous, The Lizard has always been high on my list of Spider Man villains. With the new trailer that came out overnight, you can finally get a quick peek at the Lizard in action. Loved the Rami movies (less so the 3rd) and am looking forward to this like every diehard Spidey fan. Check out the trailer here.

Thale, the Trailer

2012-01-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

A lady with a tail? A some weird uber creepy creature that reminds me of the skinny, diapered zombie wreck from REC? I'm in. Check out the trailer for this Norwegian fantasy/horror movie.ere

Walking Dogs - Shiver

2012-01-20T05:45:00.000-08:00

I want to let you in on a little secret. You know what really scares me? Sure, there is the usual stuff like politicians, cancer, Kardashians, and liver, but also dogs. More specifically, dogs walking upright, like people. Cute, clever, endearing? Some would say, but not me. In the context of a circus maybe, but just out and about? No freaking thanks.

There was a time when I would try and watch America’s Funniest Home videos, but too often there would be a clip of a dog walking around and I would have to look away or, as I decided, just to never watch the show. Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs (and cats) but when they walk around on hind legs, well, my skin crawls a little. It’s unnatural and unnerving. Does it creep you out?

Here in the blogosphere we spend a lot of time talking about books and movies that scare us, but how bout the other stuff. Do you have a “walking dog” type scare that you can share?

Don't Order the Blue Crab

2012-01-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

Here's an old post -- the source of this pretty little photo collage. Are you curious? Have a look, just don't eat the Blue Crab. So looking forward to this.

Legendary Pictures Godzilla Art Concept - Not

2012-01-17T10:48:00.000-08:00

If you are tracking the new Godzilla movie in the works (very early stages of in the works) you might like to read about these two art concepts that were rejected. I think the top one is pretty good actually, but who knows what beef someone had with it. Much closer to the original than that crazy f------ mess Emmerich fathered into filmdom.

Dolls Parts

2012-01-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a little creepy-ass eye candy for those of you who get doll willies ... for more, click here.

Role Reversal -- Creatures Beware

2012-01-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

I would love to see Julie Adams cradling the Creature from the Black Lagoon in her arms. Doesn't work with the overall premise behind the poster here, but would still be funny. A little. Click here to see a few more and to get the scoop behind tiny Kong. Would love to see a whole series (more than 3) of these.

Robert Aickman - Horror Master

2012-01-07T06:03:00.000-08:00

Have you ever read Robert Aickman? I hope so.

His are the kind of slow-burn, psychological horror stories that have me picking my beard after just a few pages. These are the kind of stories that haunt and build suspense through suggestion, by artfully leaving out. And the writing itself, very polished, literary. There are moments you find yourself uncertain about the meaning of a scene, an image, a statement. This is not your garden variety uncertainty, like not being sure exactly what time it is; ambiguity and uncertainty in Aickman’s work ooze a kind of subtle menace that coils like hot dread in your gut. The first Robert Aickman story I ever read is called The Trains. I would say this about the story. If you have ever ridden on a train, you might have noticed that as you pass through small towns that people on the streets will often wave. Mostly kids I suppose. In this story, there is a reality behind “the wave” that might just take your head off. S-c-a-r-y.

Here are a few strokes for Aickman by two very good horror writers:

“Robert Aickman has a gift for depicting the eerie areas of inner space, the churning storms and silent overcasts that engulf the minds of lonely and alienated people. He is a weatherman of the subconscious.”

--Fritz Leiber

“Robert Aickman is incomparable - a genuinely authentic original and an absolute master of psychological fiction.”

--Dennis Etchison

Side note: I can’t prove it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Etchison’s incredibly good story “It Only Comes Out at Night” and then again “The Dog Park” aren’t guided in part by Aickman’s hand.

Here’s a quotation from Aickman:

"I do not regard my work as 'fantasy' at all, except, perhaps, for commercial purposes. I try to depict the world as I see it ... I care about the literary art, and I know exactly what the Ancients meant by 'the promptings of the Muse'. The stories which I consider to be my most successful came to me as if dictated... The true ghost story is akin to poetry: only in part is it a conscious construction, and when the Muse does not speak, you cannot write it."

-- “An Essay”

More background on him here and here. With a little Christmas money in my pocket, I just order used copies of Wine Dark Sea and Cold Hand in Mine from www.abe.com. Should be arriving any day now.

Horror Stories - What to Leave Out & Jeffrey Ford

2012-01-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

My reading has reached junkie proportions now and shows no signs of letting up; in fact, the list of books "in transit" that I requested through our local library and its partners (Search Ohio and Ohio Link) is mighty hefty indeed (Think I'll just back a truck up to the library).

The corn maiden and other nightmares / Joyce Carol Oates.
Dangerous laughter : thirteen stories / Steven Millhauser.
The knife thrower and other stories / Steven Millhauser.
Assorted fire events : stories / David Means.
Best horror of the year : 1 / by Ellen Datlow.
A Walk on the darkside : visions of horror / edited by John Pelan.
Proverbs for monsters / Michael A. Arnzen
Borderlands 2 : an anthology of imaginative fiction / edited by Thomas F. Monteleone
The collected stories of Carol Emshwiller.
The early Long / Frank Belknap Long
Owls hoot in the daytime and other omens / edited by John Pelan.
A touch of strange [by] Theodore Sturgeon
Fugue state : stories / Brian Evenson ; with art by Zak Sally.
The Anchor book of new American short stories / edited by Ben Marcus.
Samuel Johnson is indignant : stories / Lydia Davis.
Assorted fire events : stories / David Means.
The secret goldfish : stories / David Means.
The Barnum Museum : stories / by Steven Millhauser.
The Mammoth book of best new horror. Vol. fourteen / edited and with an introduction by Stephen Jones

Actually, many of the books on this list fall under headings such as Fantastic (in the tradition of the weird tale perhaps) & Fantasy -- not "horror" -- though guys like Evenson regularly end up in Best Of horror anthologies. But these are all slippery terms so why bother I suppose.

Much of what I have been reading is more traditional horror (creature, supernatural, etc.) from various anthologies--quite a few of which seem pretty uneven cover to cover, with four or so really good stories, some mediocre, and some just plain old duds. By 'really good' I mean both very well written and very scary; but too many of the stories are painfully overwritten IMO. Details elaborated on or explained that don't need elaboration. Events or happenings interpreted that don't need interpretation. I mean, what the hell, you just gotta trust the reader to make some leaps and "get it" along the way. Otherwise you end up writing a map complete with a "let me spell everything out for you" legend it seems, not so much a story. One collection I recently finished, Jeffrey Ford' Empire of Ice Cream, had 3 superb stories: The Beautiful Gilreesh, Boatman'sHoliday and The Trentino Kid.

Here is one more review.

I think about Carol Emshwiller and a short piece she penned on writing rules to break, specifically the "leaving out" idea would benefit some of these stories I have been reading. If you have read any of the books on the list above, would love to hear your thoughts.

The Bay 2012

2011-12-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

I am trying to think back on this year's best horror movies to compile a Top 5 list and am coming up pretty empty handed; in the meanwhile, this sounds promising. The Bay.

Reading List - What Scared the $#!@! Out of You?

2011-12-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

What are you reading, or have you read recently, as far as horror short story collections go, that really knocked your socks off? I have been staying up late picking through old editions of the Mammoth Book of Horror, volumes 1 - 4, and there are plenty of good scares in there, and I am picking up Joyce Carol Oates' new book Corn Maiden and other Terrors from the library soon, but I like to keep my bedside piled dangerously high with "to read" selections so am looking for more, much more. Also recently finished John Langan's Mr. Gaunt and other Tales. (Meh.) Primarily interested in short story collections, but if you have a novel that you consider a "must read" lay it on me.

Devil's Slide

2011-12-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

As Wordsworth once wrote: 'I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear …"

I would say I did, too, but in my case, a little more fear than beauty maybe. I met the Devil in the 60's, you see.

Here is an old photo I found online of the infamous Devil’s Slide, a notorious stretch of highway along the coast of California where "falling rocks" signs dotted the roadside and cars plunging off the edge to the ocean below were a regular news story. As a kid, I had to travel this road many times whenever we went to and from El Granada to San Francisco and back. Southbound, from the passenger seat I would have had the drop-off side of the road (a mere bread crust of space) right out my window--though mostly I could barely bring myself to look. The picture does not quite get you there, but for a child looking out the window the edge seemed a gust of wind away. And then swoosh, down that terrible drop to the ocean and rocks below. During my life in El Granada, there was no shortage of reports of cars going off the edge and families plummeting to their death. More recent photos show that they've added a lot more guard railing. But when I lived there, this is what it looked like. Give me a Wordsworthian cataract any day.

Creatures, Thirty Years of Monsters

2011-12-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

Ho Ho Horror Stories galore here.

If you are looking for a last minute gift idea for that special twisted horror fan on your list, consider this book. Creatures, Thirty Years of Monsters. Quite a mix of really fun monster tales, but maybe the stories should speak for themselves.

Here are a few excerpts from some of my personal favorites ....

When Max Beecham was eight years old, his mother Deena (delirious from antihypertensives) gave him a Polaroid and then lay down on the carpet behind him. Inside the white border of this photograph lurked a thing with the naked body of a gaunt man and the head of a dark, decayed stag. In sat on a tree stump the way neighborhood men sat on bar stools, surrounded by a cavalry of thin, burned trees …. Absolute Zero, by Nadia Bulkin

I enjoyed throwing them about. I raked meat off the bone, lathed, splintered, and shredded; wrung, wrenched, rooted. and uprooted. I opened them to the jungles. I unearthed their wet centers.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Jim Shepard (note: this and other stories in the first section of the book are written from the point of view of the monster.)

It made its home in the deep forest near the village of Grommin, and all anyone ever saw of it, before the end, would be the hard eyes and the dark barrel of its muzzle. The smell of piss and blood and shit and bubbles of saliva and half-eaten food. The villagers called it the Third Bear because they had killed two bears already that year. But, near the end, no one really thought of it as a bear, even though the name had stuck, changed by repetition and fear and slurring through blood-filled mouths to Theeber. Sometimes it even sounded like “seethe” or “seabird”. The Third Bear, by Jeff VanderMeer

Even so, the numbered dead began a backward count. One by one, the bodies went gone, and when fifteen or twenty had most definitely been taken, or lost, that’s when we began to hear the noise at night. It was hard to calculate, hard to pinpoint. Hard to explain, or indicate. But it rattled like the bones of death himself. beneath a robe or within loose hanging skin. It wobbled and clattered back behind the sheds where the dead were kept.

It walked. It crept.

It gathered. Wishbones, by Cherie Priest

Also, even though I didn't have time to keystroke any of it into the post, Sarah Langan's The Changeling is fantastic--heart-breaking and terrifying. Looking forward to finding more of her work and (wishful thinking) her first collection.

Help Meeeeee: Obssessed with Not Dying

2011-12-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

I made a weird leap last night. I was thinking about The Fly, the classic one, and I realized that what was so damn disturbing about the man-headed fly, apart from the pitiful “help meeeeeee” and a image itself, is that I am forced to imagine how awful it would be to die an insect death informed by human consciousness. Here, the kind of dumb indifference most of us would ascribe to a fly is swapped out with a human awareness of mortality, exploding with horror at the brutal prospect of being food, painfully dying. Being eaten alive is not my idea of a good time, unlike say a certain punk rock girl is some 80's Zombie movie: "Do you ever fantasize about being killed? Do you ever wonder about all the different ways of dying, you know, violently? I wonder like, what would be the most horrible way to die? Well for me, the worst way would be for a bunch of old men to get around me, and start biting and eating me alive.” (Bonus points if you know the source.) In fact, I went through this miserably long nightmare phase in my teens that involved being eaten alive. In the nightmares, I am still alive and contained in in great crushing pain while passing through some giant predator’s mouth, down its throat, into the stomach. Thankfully, I am a lucid dreamer and would always wake myself up before ... before what? I was shit out I guess. Insult to injury.

"We don't like to die; and if we have to die, we don't like to think of our own dead bodies feeding other creatures". This is a line I copied from an essay by John Daniels, a poet and nature writer. Daniels comes to this conclusion after he encounters a swarm of ants trying to kill a beetle. He's repulsed by the scene of ants swarming over and killing a beetle because he sees a glimpse of his own mortality in the drama. Perhaps this is true. Predation in nature reminds us of our own mortality--and this scene from The Fly really rubs our nose in it--of course there are dozens of other monster flicks that the same. Old HD Thoreau's journals are rich in accounts of predation. In one case, he writes about a snake trying to eat a toad and as Thoreau arrives, disrupting the scene, the snake coughs up the toad and flees. (I know it's not a toad but it's the best pic I could find.) The toad leisurely jumps away and Thoreau notes what he calls the toad's "healthy indifference".

I struggle not to see such acts as symbols of human mortality. Mine. The reflex is habit but I am working on it. I always point out to my son, when we witness predation and the like, that it is part of the cycle of life and that the snake (or whatever it is that's eating someone) is not being mean, it's just being a snake.

I like to think I am laying the groundwork for a better perspective - one, and I have to overlook the hypocrisy - I am still trying to embrace. Is it possible to evolve a kind of healthy indifference toward death? I can't imagine how. I have this son I adore and want to be around for his whole life. And, when do I show him The Fly?

Thinner

2011-12-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

33.2 lbs. thinner ... a different kind of thinner than if a gypsy cursed me, but still thinner ..

that's how much weight I have lost since October 5th when I started weighwatchers and really picked up my running .. ran 8 miles today in fact.

In honor of losing the chub, here's a shot of shark boy from Hungry--one of my favorite X-Files episodes. He knew all about eating, and eating and eating ...

The Empty House - Writing the Ghost House

2011-11-20T05:56:00.000-08:00

To carry on with the week's earlier theme of writing about the iconic "spooky house", here's another bit of evil house description--this time from Algernon Blackwood. The 'empty house' is, a mediocre hulk of a place, a quietly balanced contradiction from roof to floor: the same as every other house, and yet so terribly different ... Waaa ahh ahhh (evil laugh). BTW, the story itself is pretty chilling if you're looking for a good shiver.

from The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood

There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within. It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood, crowded into a corner of the square, and looked exactly like the houses on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its neighbors; the same balcony overlooking the gardens; the same white steps leading up to the heavy black front door; and, in the rear, there was the same narrow strip of green, with neat box borders, running up to the wall that divided it from the backs of the adjoining houses. Apparently, too, the number of chimney pots on the roof was the same; the breadth and angle of the eaves; and even the height of the dirty area railings.

And yet this house in the square, that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbours, was as a matter of fact entirely different--horribly different.

Spooky Houses: Getting it Down on Paper

2011-11-16T05:37:00.000-08:00

I love Supernatural stories, and you can’t get far into most Supernatural stories without soon arriving at the front gate, door, path to, etc., the obligatory spooky house. Having tried to write a few tales myself, I can say that these portrait, or snapshot passages that give us the first look at the “house as character” are freaking hard to write—right up there with trying to paint the erotic or sexual in a perfect sentence or two. That said, I thought I would post a few of those more winning passages that I have come across while reading up and down the ghost story spectrum, beginning with one of the best in my humble opinion ….

from the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

A real departure from the hundreds of spooky house paragraphs that build the house, brick by brick by window and window casement, by paint color, shingle condition, etc., right before your eyes. Plenty of those work well, but I like how this paragraph, aside from being just plain amazing from a language standpoint, uses mood, atmosphere, a little personification, and scant landscaping (its hills) to create an impression, a very foreboding impression, of Hill House.

Laughing Scared Lite

2011-11-08T14:25:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal. I have a huge brag to get off my chest, but it has nothing to do with Horror. The best I can do to try and skew it in the right direction is put up this picture of a guy holding a bio-hazard bag of human fat recovered from a crime scene and tell you that within the last four weeks I have lost 20+ pounds while dieting and running my freaking ass off on the local jogging paths. That's t w e n t y. That's 245 lbs. instead of 267. gross.

Death's in the Driver's Seat

2011-11-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

Hi, I used to post here on Laughing Scared. Been a while, but I am hoping to get back into the swing of things because of some recent events. A bunch of near near death experiences. What? What is that you're saying? You almost came close to kind of sort of maybe being mortally injured?

See, if I were a superstitious man I might be alarmed because over the past three weeks I have almost been hit twice by cars while jogging or nearly smashed into by other drivers running red lights, or hit by swerving drivers avoiding other drivers who ran stop signs--and that's outside forces at work. At least three times, maybe because I was sleepy or getting a little too into Dreamboat Annie, I zoned out and found myself slamming on the brakes at more than one traffic light. If I were superstitious I might think the Grim Reaper drives a copper colored Hummer, or what looked like a taped together K-car. From someone else's POV, the Grim Reaper maybe looks like me almost running a stop light.

But I haven't been hit yet. That is why I say near near death. But with so many close calls I can't help get the feeling I might be marked.

Haunts, Ghost Tales

2011-10-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

Grabbed this book at the store the other day--Haunts, Reliquaries of the Dead and am pretty pleased so far. It is edited by Stephen Jones who also edits the Best New Horror series (which I can't seem to help buying).

A decent collection that mixes writer's from the past, M.R. James for instance, and new writers like Lisa Tuttle -- who very often blows my mind (though I have come across a few of her tales that left me thinking, "is this the same writer of Jamie's Grave?).

If you like supernatural tales, and you like em short, many of these are. Perfect for a quick read with your morning coffee before getting ready for work.

She's Hot

2011-10-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

a few of my favorite hot chicks ... can you name the movies? There's a stumper in the mix.

Say Hello to Baby

2011-10-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

He lives in the shoe closet down the hall from my bedroom and I am pretty sure he will be on my front steps passing out candy to the kids in the neighborhood this year.

Fortress of Fear

2011-10-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

Last year, I spent the whole month of October (Friday, Sat and Sun nights) working at The Carnival of Horrors here in town, done up in bloody clown make up and clothes, jumping out at people, inhaling fog, clanging a shovel, fighting off motion sickness because of the strobe lights, screaming at people until I was hoarse, getting whacked and run over by hysterical drunks, hit in the beans by a too bold kid, and slapped in the face by a woman who, apparently, didn't want her money's worth after all. This head shot was the pinnacle of my make up efforts. The flap waggled quite a bit when I lunged at people. This year, I am doing haunted houses the old way--as a guest. Tonight, we're going to the Fortress of Fear Screampark.

ART WEEK

2011-10-21T05:54:00.001-07:00

Ending with one that has a more demonic shine in honor of PA3 which I will be quaking through later this afternoon. Here is The Plague, by Arnold Bocklin.

ART WEEK

2011-10-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sibylle Ruppert, see more here.

and more here.

Paranormal Activity 3

2011-10-19T04:23:00.000-07:00

Have been waiting impatiently for Paranormal Activity 3--sounds like it was worth the wait. Here on Rotten Tomatoes it is tracking pretty well so far. Last minute footage has surfaced as well, see it here. The majority of reviews say it is scarier than the other two--and I thought they were pretty f------ scary. Sign me up.

ART WEEK - Twofer Tuesday

2011-10-18T13:35:00.001-07:00

Jaroslav Panuska

Mother's Spirit Looking in Window

Miriam Beerman, Bloody Heads (Below)

ART WEEK

2011-10-17T13:16:00.001-07:00

Istar by Fernand Khnopff.

What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Predators

2011-10-13T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a funny story.

In a small effort to spare myself from the fires of hell, I do volunteer work with a Children's Hospital in the area. The little dude I visit, always in his home because he has a scary immune system issue that keeps him shut in mostly, is a total, frothing fan freak of the Predator monster.

And, in a funny twist, he sees the Predator as a kind of hero good guy because (and I haven't seen these so I don't totally know what he means) in the AVP movies the Predator seems to have some kind of shaky alliance with humans as they take on the Aliens together. He will often ask me if I think Predator is good. I say, it sounds like it--based on what he tells me about the movies. I don't talk much about the original Predator film (which I have seen and love)and being a "good guy" in the same breath though. He will see that for himself some day when he's older I suppose.

Anyway, I have been searching high and low for the best of the best Predator mask for this kid as a Halloween surprise, and FINALLY found one at some weird out of the way place south of me. Here it is, being modeled by my son.

It has the metal face plate, too. I will hand it off to the kid this Saturday, probably show up at his door with it on just to see how big his eyes get--before they pop. True, it is way tooooo big for the kid's gourd but if the Predator's his hero, it will fit just as nicely on his dresser where he can stare at it for peace of mind.

The Night Gallery Gallery

2011-10-04T19:37:00.001-07:00

Before Stephen King, Peter Straub, Ray Bradbury-all milestones in my horror Jones history—there was Night Gallery. Now, there were plenty of good episodes, 3 in particular I carry with me all these years later are: Pickman's Model (props Mr.Lovecraft), The Doll (based on an Algernon Blackwood short) and Lindeman's Catch. A mermaid love story gone wrong. Spoiler: you can see the fishy climax of Lindemann’s Catch here. But, the paintings, man, the paintings were the unspoken star of the show. How cool to find them all right here, waiting in the dark for a little company.

Here's Serling's intro to, and the painting for Lindemann's Catch."Painting number one: having to do with fishermen and what they fish for -- or, more specifically in this case, a fisherman and what he wasn't fishing for. What appeared in his net one afternoon defies logic, reason, and belief. But there it was -- Lindemann's Catch."

If you’re a youngin, and grew up after Night Gallery went off the air, you should check out the old episodes. Try The Doll for instance, and I dare you tell me that’s not Chucky’s great Grandmother.

Sir Graves Ghastly

2011-10-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

Memory Lane … always littered with corpses.

He died in 2007.

I’ll tell you who: Lawson J. Deming. AKA, Sir Graves Ghastly.

He hosted a horror show for kids in the 70s, every Saturday at 2. Extremely popular in Michigan where I lived at the time. Each show featured a film of course, and then cornball kitschy sketch bits before and after commercial breaks. I would almost always be at my Grandparents house on weekends, working for them around the yard and in my Grandfather’s printing shop to earn money. I think Sir Graves even read letters from viewers as part of the show. I think I even wrote him.

Impossible to recall now how many classic and Bs I watched, or should say ‘discovered’ thanks to his program. I know this, though. I first saw The Thing on his show, and THEM, and IT, the Monster That Challenged the World, and my all time favorite, Creature from the Black Lagoon. That's some prime horror bouillon. Already a rabid monster fan, you can bet I finished my work by 2 so I could, as he would say in his welcome to the show, “cuddle up in your favorite place by the telly”. Pretty sure I cuddled up well into my mid-teens.

Thinking about him all these years later, and snuffling through web for info, I was shocked to find he was born in Cleveland and died in roughly the same area, just north of where I live now.

If you’re listening Graves, thanks. You were kind of like the 10th planet in my world back then, back when there were 9, back when ...

... I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green ...

--Dylan Thomas

Squirrel Attacks Pt3: The Final Chpt.

2011-09-24T07:22:00.001-07:00

Lord, I was scooped by the local news hacks! That smarts and it does not help my chances of any kind of long-term assignment with the Highland Square Tattler. Apparently the news crew was in the area shooting a "T-ball is fun" piece when Carol Feldrys and her son Amlish were jumped by another (maybe the same?) renegade squirrel. She fought off the quote: "fucker". But not without sustaining noticeable injury to her arm skins. (In this screen capture, the squirrel is shown gnawing home plate.)

The next day I was able to get an interview with Carol during which I asked her questions about what had happened … thus constituting an interview. She spoke slowly, by choice. Her pale son Amlish, still in mild shock, clung to her side like a frightened Rhesus monkey. She was a sturdy woman with bold features. With a heavy heart I took my pen in hand and began my quest for the truth.

HST: Carol, I know this is a hard time for you and your family, but it is very important that we get to the bottom of this so no one else suffers what you have suffered. Can you tell me what happened?

Carol: "I can try. We were watching the T-Ball game you know, minding our own business, when I look down at my purse and notice it is moving so I catch my breath you know, and grab it fast like this.”

NOTE: With great precision she reenacts the grabbing gesture.

Carol: "And this freaking bastard squirrel shoots out of my purse, he must have smelled my Hoof mints, and it latches onto my arm right here you know, and he starts going at it with his little hands like he’s typing and like I can see his mouth open to bite me so I smack at him and I am screaming stuff like “Get it off, get it off, get the fucker off” and all the kids coming running over and the coaches and someone who had the best of intentions threw a T-ball at it and it hit me right in the forehead and that was all I remember. I woke with a knot on my head and little Amlish here was clinging to me frightened like he’d seen a ghost.”

HST: Is this the first time something like this has happened to you?

Carol: No Amlish always clings to me.

HST: I mean with a squirrel? An animal attack?

Carol: Some dog once grabbed a hold of Amlish’s hoodie. He wasn't wearing it though. But that’s it. I mean Highland Square is supposed to be a safe community. But see it’s just like everywhere else. It has it’s dark underbelly and share of crime, it’s just that squirrels are the criminals instead of robbers. I don't know if Amlish will ever be the same."

I quietly wondered if that was such a bad thing.

This morning, at my window, World War S came clawing. Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those Rage red peepers.

Signing off. But not checking out. I hope.

Minions of Misery

2011-09-23T21:18:00.001-07:00

Me and Misery? Clearly a match made in hell.

Vivienne Moss, caretaker at Out of the Shadows, kindly invited me to join the ever swelling ranks of the rank, the Minions of Misery. To be a good Minion, for my end of the bargain I have to share some misery:

1. Choose a dark book
2. Choose a dark film
3. Reveal a dark secret about yourself
4. Pass it on to 3 of the darkly inclined

Dark Book
I would pick The Ones That Got Away by Stephen Graham Jones. Compared to a lot of the short story collections I have been reading lately, this one really stood out. Jones’ writing style, in a lot of my favorite stories, had a kind of Carver minimalist touch, meaning always just the right touch. Rare that I find a collection with so many keepers, and yet: Lonnegan’s Luck (zombies in the Old West), Father, Son & the Holy Rabbit (grisly survival tale), Monsters (some vampire action), and Wolf Island were all great. Wolf Island, for example, pits a werewolf against some crafty marine life. (Maybe a little reminiscent of the zombie vs. shark scene in that one movie I can never remember the name of.) I wouldn’t say the stories are scary, though. There are certainly elements of horror, some gore and monsters of course, but very often these same stories reach down into deeply poignant territory along the way. I like my horror with a little heart.

Dark Movie
I have to give credit where credit is due, to one of those old films that marked me, helped make me the ghost story loving freak I am today and that film is Tormented. This is one of those old films that, when you watch it light years later, makes you cringe. By today’s standards, and probably even standards back in the 60s when this was made, it has epic suck written all over it.

It’s a Burt I. Gordon film and has been (big surprise) through the MST3000 grinder. However, I first saw it when I was about 6 or 7 and it scared the shit out of me. Enough so that I never forgot it and 46 years later, bought the DVD. Richard Carlson (from Creature from the Black Lagoon) plays the male douche bag lead. I don’t want to give anything away if anyone reading is brave enough to watch (endure) it, but in amongst the cheese, there’s a lighthouse scene that has haunted me forever, and a church scene that takes the ‘wedding crasher’ concept to a whole new level.

Dark Secret
I have a record.

And, the Minions to Be are:

Sicko, at Sicko Psychotic
Giovanni, At the Mansion of Madness
Alymer, at Unflinching Eye

Squirrel Attacks Pt 2: Mad Cow Squirrels

2011-09-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Clearly the rage virus is spreading. More attacks today in rainy Ohio. Though the Rage virus seems likely, maybe it's simply a kind of Mad Cow esque disease partial to Squirrels. Read here. Either way, more attacks mean more investigating ... here are the notes for my next report ...

Amok? Is that too strong a word for what’s going on with the area squirrels. Breslin Mack, a normally quiet off-the-grid type, is taking no chances. For him, and others like him terror has a new name, and it is Tamiasciurus hudsonicus or brown squirrel. Following reports of yet another attack, I made my way to his domain on the outskirts of Highland Square. Upon climbing the fence and dropping over I was greeted by Breslin Mack. He had a way about him. I don’t know what it is. I was not able to understand much of what he said. He pointed to a suit of armor he fashioned from lids and melted pans for W, his dog.

Apparently, the dog had already run into the business end of a squirrel and it left his right eye in chaotic blindness.
Both W and Breslin seemed to be hopped up on YuenLing.

The interview did not go well. He was not very forthcoming with details. Not the printable kind.

Returning to my office at the Highland Square Tattler, I found this photo in my email.
The text of the email was: "sperd thwe word its steartingg". Ok, anonymous, I'll spread the word: lock your windows, my friends. A hard f----- rain's a gonna fall. A squirrel rain.

Squirrels with the Rage Virus - WTF

2011-09-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 1970s my friends.

Remember Frogs, Day of the Animals, Food of the Gods, et al--those animals getting even movies from the 70s? Well, how about Week of the F----- Squirrels. Grab your nuts and run, baby. You see, around here the squirrels aren't just burying nuts, they are nuts. They're attacking.

I was in the right place at the right time, and picked up a freelance reporting gig with the Highland Square Tattler (the neighborhood paper that's more like a newsletter) to cover a recent slew of squirrel attacks. Could it be like Squirrels getting the Rage virus? Don't know, but I do know the last the last thing we need is a Jaws-like panic in the streets as we’re heading into Fall outdoor fun season.

A few days after the first reported incident, camera in hand, I paid a visit to Highlanders Gil and Tanya Shelby to learn firsthand about their ordeal. When they greeted me at the door, I could tell by the dark circles under their eyes they were still living the nightmare. Am breaking all manner of privacy protocols here, but this is the transcript:

(interview transcript)

HST: I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. I know it can’t be easy. If we could begin with the attack? How it happened?

Tanya: The what?

HST: Tell me what happened.

Tanya: I was walking Eggo our dog, and I remember I was singing to myself that Hips Don’t Lie song, and then my hair I thought was tangled in a branch so I reached up and felt this hairy head and the feet with those scratchy toenails just sort of began to dance about my head. And the chattering … I will never forget it. Eggo went crazy and at that moment I realized it was a squirrel, and the tail was like in my eyes and all over my face, touching my skin. And in my mouth a little. Gil my husband heard my screams and came running from the house waving his arms. The squirrel sprang down and glanced off Eggo, giving him a nasty bite and scratch on his paw and scurried into the street. I could see he had tufts of my hair in his hands that made it look like he was holding pom poms. So gross. I always trusted squirrels, maybe because Hollywood makes them cute in movies. But that’s not reality anymore. Not for me. Or Eggo.

HST: Mr. Shelby? Gil? What went through your mind seeing this squirrel, clearly insane, on your wife’s hair? Gil?

(End of transcript)

Clearly the husband was ashamed as if he should have somehow been able to prevent it. As a proud strong man myself I have felt this helplessness too.Throughout our interview he tried a few times to tell his side of the story but his voice would always trail off as would his gaze and he looked away. Most likely with secret tears welling in his prideless eyes. I asked a few more questions about rumors of other attacks in the neighborhood. Gil, sitting near his wife, remained ashamed. Trying once more to speak through his shame, Gil opened his mouth to speak but finally just slumped into the couch and looked off as he envisioned who knows what kind of squirrel mayhem. Emasculated.

How many other cases have gone unreported? I don’t know. But the Shelby’s story makes four in the last month. As the great Dick used to say, the game’s afoot. I will be publishing ‘roughs’ from my paper column here on Laughing Scared--while I still have my freaking fingers that is ... nibble nibble nibble. P.S. If you have ever been attacked by a squirrel, or like to make up fake news stories like this about possible Zombie squirrel attacks, pls share.

Phantom of the Opera, Psych!

2011-09-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

Lon Chaney, who I admire endlessly, was nicknamed the Man of a Thousand Faces. This was a salute to his incredible virtuosity with special effects make-up and the countless characters and faces he brought to life. The piranha toothed freak in London After Midnight. The killer Clown, Hugo's Quasimodo, and the Phantom of the Opera--his most famous. Of course, there’s another face he seems to have created or at least inspired (without make up even), that goes unmentioned. That overly toothy, eyebrows peaked, crazy face that JN puts on so often. (Idle speculation, idle speculation, mumble, mumble.)

Erik has always been one of my favorite misfits. In fact, when I was around 14 I made a charcoal drawing of Chaney’s iconic Phantom face and entered it in the county fair’s art competition. (I think I got a ribbon.) And where other kids might have had Aerosmith posters, I had the following framed and hanging on my wall:

Feast your eyes gloat your soul on my accursed ugliness.

My Grandfather, who had a small printing business, had done up the line in a cool Phantom font for me and printed it on his best paper stock and framed it. Dumb ass that I am, I have lost it or just got rid of it not thinking it would be nice to have as a keepsake.

In the original Phantom of the Opera, there are three scenes that make the film for me. Of course, the first in the unmasking. That’s the money shot before there was such a thing as the money shot. Then, I have never forgotten that scene of him on top of the opera house in the Masque of Red Death outfit, cape billowing in the night wind, heart breaking with jealousy and rage. (I guess I have to say SPOILERS ahead if you have somehow never seen the film.) Lastly, and I might like this more than the unmasking, is the death sequence at the canal. After being pursued relentlessly through the streets of Paris by the crazed mob, they trap and encircle him at the canal; as the mob is squeezing in on him from all sides, he thrusts his hand up in a warning gesture as if he’s got a weapon. The mob cowers and falls back a bit until the Phantom, laughing, lowers and opens his hand to reveal it is empty. Psych!

I love this moment and wish I could find a better image of it--if this is even it. The background looks wrong, looks like we might be underground in his man cave perhaps, not alongside the canal he is about to die in. Anyway, here’s to an empty hand. With a little acting, bluff and bravado, it might just be your greatest weapon some day.

Werewolf, the 45

2011-09-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

I don't listen to the radio so I could be way off base, but is anyone writing monster songs ever, at all, anymore? Once you list Godzilla and Nosferatu, off the same BOC album, are there many more to list? I can't think of any. This funkyweird little tune came out when I was (I think) in about 4th grade and I couldn't believe my ears. A song about a werewolf? Plenty of songs about spiders and snakes, about smokin in the boys room, about the night Chicago died--evens songs about Witchy Women and rats named Ben. All that good stuff but no one had ever done a werewolf song. I was sure at some point this band looked into my heart somehow and said, "hey let's make a monster song for that little monster freak on Gates Rd."

From the Cradle to the Grave. Ouch!

2011-09-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

Indeed. Okay, this post is not for the squeamish. Read on about the Judas Cradle, or simply Torture Cradle, if you dare ...

"The anus, in the vagina, under the scrotum (the 'taint') or under the coccyx is where the peak of this wooden pyramid found itself. A metal belt was wrapped around the victim and then he or she was hoisted atop the point of the pyramid. The torturer could modify the pressure upon their tender areas by raising or lowering the victim."

The link will take you to more of the same -- the Pear of Anguish, the Head Crusher, Spanish Tickler (a Freddy Kreuger glove prototype if ever) -- over at Occasional Hell.

Odd Rods, Those Were the Days My Friend ...

2011-08-31T16:31:00.000-07:00

I thought they'd never end. Hmmm. I don't turn 50 for a few more years, but nevertheless I am feeling all weepy and nostalgic tonight and thinking back on one of my earliest love affairs with monsters. These bad boys from the 60s. Odd Rod stickers, baby. While other kids collected baseball cards, I collected these.And even gnawed away on the bark like stick of gum that came in each pack. You want to see some awesome creatures, lookie lookie. My kid runs around collecting Magic the Gathering cards, or Yu-Gi-Oh. Can you say generation Gap? Come on, feast your eyes on Super Fuzz.

Nosferatu. Not That One.

2011-08-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

this one.

Ah, here's to those moments when your personal life and Blog theme happily come together. Nosferatu Imperial Red Ale, a craft brew from Great Lakes Brewing Co in Cleveland. How good is it? An A- over at Beer Advocate (for those of you into craft brews. Some of the profiles will say "amber" color, but blood red is more like it.

Here's my rating:

Cream-colored head, lacy as Lucy's nightgown.

Bitter malts with twist of caramel notes combine with a bold, earthy "who let the corpse out of the crypt" hop aroma.

Floral hops creep over the tongue, and run smoothly from the corners of your mouth during gulps. Shadowy cinnamon notes.

Moderate carbonation. Prepare to burp. Thick, sticky mouth feel. Jugular thick.

Coming it at 8% ABV, one or two bottles will give you the Renfield tremors. If you're lucky.

True, it's just a beer. But I have no problem calling it Master and doing its bidding. (Hench-sous that I am.) Sadly, it is seasonal and will only be around for a few months, or until the sun comes up. One of the two.

Alfred Kubin, Art

2011-08-27T06:11:00.001-07:00

Laughing Scared - REC

2011-08-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

I am not the most rabid Zombie or Zombie movie fan. I like ‘em, and have seen about as many as there are out there, but there are far more committed fans of the genre. Though I am really anticipating Jaun of the Dead (thanks HS). Hell, I’ve never even lurched through a Zombie walk. I would, but Ohio hasn’t had one yet that I know about. Back to movies, though. Among Zombie flicks, REC (especially the final sequence,) had me more freaking bunched up in knots than any Z-flick I have ever seen, and mostly because of this scary bastard.

That scene is some kind of perfect storm of imagery: the night vision, the way this thing moved, the physicality of it, the total darkness and the sound of the reporter panting in terror. Ugh! If you read my first ever post, you know that the title of my blog speaks to my habit of laughing & chuckling uneasily when I am really scared. Suffice it to say, this movie, mostly the final act, had me laughing my ass off. I would love to hear from others about which Zombie movies, and even which favorite Zombie characters, they have found to be truly scary.

I'll Show You Mine - Voyeur Forensics

2011-08-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

Writing space. Here's where I try to write when I try to write, poetry, horror shorts, my freelance work. Here's where I throw shit that doesn't have a place to go. In fact, if I were to inventory everything on and in my desk I would probably have enough to open an eBay store.

Now, a close-up bookcase pic is also nice (so I can see what other people horde,) but even more cool are writing space pix. Is yours a rats nest, or freakishly tidy; or are you like what's his face who used compose in the bath tub.

The photo gives me a perspective I don't get actually sitting at the desk.Taking a close look, it strikes me that I horde left and write right. Also, you might also conclude I like a good bargain and buy notebooks on sale after the back to school rush (see yellow sticker). Looking at the abused wood surface, someone might decide I am clumsy with my coffee or least, never use coasters. That I have a red pen might suggest I am a strict about usage a punctuation--though my writing on Laughing Scared would argue against that. The analysis of work spaces, let's call it Voyeur Forensics, is a b-line to the real you, the naked you. So, anyone willing to show yourself? If you post a pic of your work space on your Blog let me know. Trust me, I am licensed in Voyeur Forensics.

Close Encounter of the MUFON Kind

2011-08-23T19:25:00.000-07:00

I am kicking around my thoughts about the MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) meeting I attended last night. My first ever. Held at the lovely Barberton Public Library, meeting room #2. Really enjoyed the presenter’s portion of the talk about his methods of investigation. (Side note: up until the speaker demonstrated how he used Algebra to plot flight paths, and a host of other calculations, I thought I might like to be a field investigator. But I can forget about it. Honestly, I don’t remember Mulder talking about Trig and Algebra. Bite me, Math. Bite me.) Mid-way, the presentation was sort of co-opted by several audience members who wanted to talk for a long time about their close encounters. Like the man says, “I want to believe” but the whole event, in particular the longlonglong audience accounts of lifted nightgowns and gray cigar shaped floaty dealies did nothing to cement my trust. So I was a little bummed about the whole experience this morning but then I got this kick ass I dig your Blog award from Robin.

So hey, here’s how it works. And remember, “Watch the skies!”

I Dig Your Blog Award Protocol:
1 ) Gratefully accept this award.
2 ) Link to the person you received it from. That would be Robin who, seriously, seems to have some freaky kind of magic touch when it comes to helping me resolve Blogger design and template issues.
3 ) Post 3 interesting facts about yourself.
4 ) Pass this award around to at least 5 blogs you dig.
5 ) Notify them

Okay, here are the three things ... interesting, though? Tough call.

A cat once began giving birth on my lap.

As a boy I climbed, as much as I could, inside a dead, beached whale's mouth.

My first job was catching snakes (I think I was about 8) for a science teacher at the University of San Jose. Fifty cents a snake.

I Dig Your Blog Recipients:

Accidental Dong Very influential. Now I see accidental dongs everywhere.

Horror Smorgasbord
Not just another pretty clown face. The place where I get a frequent heads up on new horror releases (especially foreign) that I didn’t even know where out there. Juan of the Dead, for example. This guy must have Hell on speed dial coz he seems to have an insider's connex to all the badass horror movies.

Jonathan's Haunted House of Horror Plenty of old school horror discussion here. Lately lots of Lon Chaney posts.

Monster Magazine World.
Choice Monster Mag & other goodies blog here. Reminds me, have not yet gone through the old Monster Times issues I bought from eBay recently.

Deadly Doll's House of Horrors She saw Child's Play when she was six. Thank goodness otherwise maybe no blog. Lots of creepy doll stuff but very eclectic.

Chet Zar, Dark Art

2011-08-19T06:13:00.001-07:00

Say Hello to the Interloper and down below, Grimm

Click here to see more of Chet Zar.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space

2011-08-19T05:52:00.000-07:00

In the silent void of outer space, puny man matches his cunning against a monster from Mars. A group of likeable Joes and Janes in space land on a mysterious planet for something of a rescue mission; and once they have left and are back in space they realize they have some THING on board, and it proceeds to open a can of whup ass on the entire crew. Sounds like Alien and plays out like a true precursor. As far as old sci-fi goes this is very watchable. If you have kids, think of it as a tame version of Alien you can share until they are actually old enough for the stomach burst scene, et al. The parallels are quite endless, right down to the iconic 'shooting the shit' scene around the mess in which we meet everybody.

Of course, you wouldn't see Ridley pouring anyone's coffee.

Ho Ho Ho, Green Creepy Ass Giant

2011-08-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

Never understood why anyone would make a giant their spokesthing. This Mr. Clean meets the Hulk morph always creeped me out as a kid--not an inspiring figure to encourage vegetable eating unless their plan was an implied 'eat your vegetables or the giant will get you'.

I would put the Spot Maker, spotting and streaking your dishes, in the same camp. Kinda look like a Green Goblin knock off shooting around the inside of a dishwasher. Scary.

Mammoth Best of the Best

2011-08-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Back home after a trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I found this Best of the Best at one of my old favorite bookstores. Generally snatch up the Mammoth collections when I find them, and bought this specifically for The Man Who Drew Cats. Anyone out there already read this and care to recommend their favorite story?

Monsters are Due at The Blue Hotel

2011-08-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Swede answered him swiftly and eagerly: "These men are going to kill me."

Smell that? That line reeks with the heady bouquet of Fear.

One of the most interesting studies in fear & mob/pack violence, with some xenophobic spasms thrown in for good measure, is Stephen Crane's Blue Hotel.

Is there something in the smell of fear that provokes aggression? Ask the Swede from the story. Does perceived weakness and vulnerability in an individual provoke violence from others? In a perfect world, presented with an individual who is afraid, fearful, those feelings would be met with compassion (like Morrissey says it takes guts to be gentle and kind). Naturally enough, in Crane's Blue Hotel, one character's fear escalates an attack against him with dire consequences. Maybe in a deep down dark place we are wired biologically (read imperative) to come down hard on fear and weakness. I remember being warned as a kid, when around strange or growling dogs, "Don't let them know you are afraid". Or maybe it was walk don't run. Any pheromone experts out there? If animals can scent fear, can human's to some degree? Anyway, here is a link to Crane's story on line.

Mysterious Goo is Blob Spelled Backwards, No?

2011-08-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

Swan says she didn't smell anything odd when she dipped her hand into the substance.

Good Lord, she dipped her hand into it? Has she never seen The Blob--and that poor bastard only poked it with a stick. In my rule book, clearly stated on page 32., it reads, never dip hands into mysterious goo even if it appears fluffy friendly and playful like pureed cheese puffs. If only she'd had my book. My prayers are with Swan, and with what's left, conceivably, of her dissolving corpus.

Haunted by Cleavage

2011-08-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

Ummm, thinking, thinking, thinking ... Heather Locklear's horror connection ... is there one? I am not sure but while I snoop around, I have to put this up because of the guy to the right on the pic and his downward gaze--sad to be the guy caught on film oogling boobs. Doubt he is mesmerized by her jewelery. I'm going to go with Haunted by Cleavage. That's a good enough connection for me.

P.S. editing the post here to report that Return of the Swamp Thing, and something something Terror where two Locklear films in the genre. I'm sure they were fabulous sorry I missed em.

Turkey Scare

2011-08-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

Horror is horror, whether it's knife wielding lunatics or the Department of Agriculture doing a bang up job. Case and point. Last night for dinner, we tried a new dish .... turkey patties with rosemary, lemon, etc. It wasn't bad, but (and timing is everything, right?) after dinner I saw the headlines.

When it comes to bad meat, I can't help but thinking we're a few bites shy of mass outbreaks of disease--and then Zombie territory. I mean, who is to say how they Apocalypse begins, how we'll end. Perhaps it'll be neither a whimper or a bang as TS wrote, but with Green meat.

Guts, by Chuck Palahniuk

2011-07-31T19:17:00.000-07:00

Like the story begins, take a deep breath.

Here's an excerpt from what is hands down the most painful, gritted-my-teeth through-it-I-swear-to-God-never-let-me-read-it-again, story I have ever choked down. Guts by Chuck Palahniuk. Cringe factor is off the charts.

" ...That's the only way this makes sense. Some horrible sea monster, a sea serpent, something that's never seen the light of day, it's been hiding in the dark bottom of the pool drain, waiting to eat me.

So… I kick at it, at the slippery, rubbery knotted skin and veins of it, and more of it seems to pull out of the pool drain. It's maybe as long as my leg now, but still holding tight around my butthole. With another kick, I'm an inch closer to getting another breath. Still feeling the snake tug at my ass, I'm an inch closer to my escape.

Knotted inside the snake, you can see corn and peanuts. You can see a long bright-orange ball. It's the kind of horse-pill vitamin my Dad makes me take, to help put on weight. To get a football scholarship. With extra iron and omega-three fatty acids.

It's seeing that vitamin pill that saves my life.

It's not a snake. It's my large intestine, my colon pulled out of me. What doctors call, prolapsed. It's my guts sucked into the drain."

Bride of Frankenstein Blues

2011-07-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

In bars around the world, this scene from Bride of Frankenstein plays itself out like a looped nightmare. Lights, camera, rebuff. As with scenes from the original Frankenstein, what's so achingly hard to watch in this clip is the brutality of rejection distilled down to its essence. His pleading hands, and her "Get the f---- away" scream. Can't blame him for wanting to touch. She is quite beautiful but sadly, aloof. (Where is Madeleine Kahn when you need her.) Equipped with a little Andrew Marvell, "Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime", etc., I think Frank might have fared better. Hmmm. Frankenstein's monster as a master of Courtly Love?

Going back a few years, when I was cobbling together a poetry chapbook, I worked up this shortie using Frank's pain as a jumping off point ....

Bride of Frankenstein Blues

Consider the moon, my friend, how its absence
troubles this unromantic air. Here in the dark,
like slow lightning, smoke unwinds,
creeps; everywhere you look, mouths, small dark graves
chew on drinks.
This is no night or finding brides.
Still, you come, touch her wrist,
and spring the classic recoil. It begins in her black eyes, darting
like spooked minnows around her stark face
and jitters down her spindly arms as they jerk back
from your touch and clasp up
her breast sacs as that piercing goose hiss escapes
her lovely lips. These damn castles are cold.
Some nights, arms outstretched
on the stairs, you think you could love the torches,
anything to light you up.

Currently with a few e-zines for consideration. Eyes crossed.

Baaaaad Scary Monkey

2011-07-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

File under Random Creepy Shit.

Working on a freelance project today that could involve stuffed animals, I was sad and a little terrified to come across this one while searching for images. It is a monkey, so they say. I would go so far as to say it tops the clown from Poltergeist with its weird Chucky meets flying Oz monkey vibe.

Enjoy The Sound of Bradbury's Thunder

2011-07-24T20:13:00.001-07:00

I am pushing hard, probably too hard at times, to get my son (who I call the wood-chipper when it comes to reading) to try out some of the stories I read as a kid - and the first master to come to mind is Ray Bradbury. Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked. etc. I have no idea how to estimate the impact his writing had on me and my own writing, but as I leaf through his collected short stories I come across The Sound of Thunder and think Ah! perfect for a kid. So I just read this to my son Whit. Here is a great excerpt describing a tyrannosaurus the hunters go to shoot ... also, here's a link to a synopsis if you haven't had the pleasure.

“It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker’s claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a tone of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangles out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head it self, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight. It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons.”

Sigh. How gorgeous is that?!?

Full Moon, High Heat

2011-07-20T07:01:00.000-07:00

Full moon, high heat, what’s the difference. I am turning. Here I sit, swamped in four straight days of humidity. Here I sit, sleepless and groggy, growing a little meaner by the minute. I am wired this way. Prolonged exposure to weather soup, the kind that keeps me wet even when not moving, evaporates my focus, patience and what small measure of civility I own, makes papers stick to my arms when I sit to work, prolonged exposure to weather like this undoes me, changes me in beastly ways. Remember the rhyme: “Even man who is pure at heart and says his prayers at night, can become a raging dickhead when the humidity blooms and the effin sun is way too bright.” (Apologies to Talbot) Now, someone might be inclined to point out that Iowa had a heat index of 131 yesterday, as if that negates my melting as if because someone somewhere has it worse I am not drowning. I would love to be the person who says, “Oh, that part of the country has it much worse” and get over it, but unless I have a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Being Peace handy, it’s a lost cause. I am turning. Werewolf. Heatwolf? Sounds corny but feels right. In the past few weeks, after simmering in my skin for days, and feeling that unhinged snap behind my eyes when I blink, I think this might be what turning feels like, the maddening pull to get out of your body and run screaming--or maybe it's more a sense of your body fracturing apart from you and leaving. It is July and I am under the spell of the sun, though, and not the moon. Tomorrow the heat index here is supposed to reach 105. Howl.

Bein' Green

2011-07-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Horror Smorgasbord

for putting up a link to this Make Me a Zombie site. I am going for the gas chamber green or Exorcist barf green look here.

Scary Bad Art

2011-07-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

Scary art abounds here. Not in a Night Gallery sense. But in the run over rabbit dragging itself off the road sense. Shine your shoes, toss back a green breath mint, and stroll through the Museum of Bad Art . There is something about that dog, maybe the eyes, that reminds me of Joey from Friends.

Face It

2011-07-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. Cool, I get that. I just hope the beholder is looking at my face because I am nursing a decent beerpizzaburger belly these days. Thanks to the extra weight, here I sit, gimped by a stress fracture in my leg from jogging ... jogging because I am working on that buff body shape I think I need. Shazam! Come to find out, it's about the face. Here is a study that presents hope for the bodily challenged, for the misshapen. Not that I want to let my body go ... any more than I have ... but I can't imagine getting all Jabba the Hut fat folds and jiggles and still being appealing regardless of my kisser. True, I'm not Nick Cave hot, but compared to the rest of me, my face is probably the lesser of two evils. Anyway, let's all raise our cracked glasses and drink to Erik (aka Phantom of the Opera) and all monsters who, butt for their faces, might have done alright with the ladies. Dig the Phantom's moisty complexion.

What's Up Doc or Holy Shit, She Birthed Rabbits

2011-07-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

Here is an curious book: Imagining Monsters, re: a fantastical occurence involving a human giving birth to rabbits. The Mary Toft hoax. I almost finished the Toft book but someone loaned me The God Delusion and I was forced to abandon it.

Love the monstrosities, our response to them, the weird tension between repulsion and attraction, our need in some cases to invent monsters to explain or excuse. Raeblais' giants, Greek mythology. Creature from the Black Lagoon (can he be on the same stage?).

Here is a synopsis I grabbed from Amazon.

"In 1726, an illiterate woman from Surrey named Mary Toft announced that she had given birth to seventeen rabbits. Deceiving respected physicians and citizens alike, she created a hoax that held England spellbound for months. In Imagining Monsters, Dennis Todd tells the story of this bizarre incident and shows how it illuminates eighteenth-century beliefs about the power of imagination and the problems of personal identity. Mary Toft's outrageous claim was accepted because of a common belief that the imagination of a pregnant woman could deform her fetus, creating a monster within her. Drawing on largely unexamined material from medicine, embryology, philosophy, and popular "monster" exhibitions, Todd shows that such ideas about monstrous births expressed a fear central to scientific, literary, and philosophical thinking: that the imagination could transgress the barrier between mind and body.

In his analysis of the Toft case, Todd exposes deep anxieties about the threat this transgressive imagination posed to the idea of the self as stable, coherent, and autonomous. Major works of Pope and Swift reveal that they, too, were concerned with these issues, and Imagining Monsters provides detailed discussions of Gulliver's Travels and The Dunciad illustrating how these writers used images of monstrosity to explore the problematic nature of human identity. It also includes a provocative analysis of Pope's later work that takes into account his physical deformity and his need to defend himself in a society that linked a deformed body with a deformed character".

A cautionary note: the book is fairly graphic in its account of the pieces parts aspect of the "births".

B-Movie Terrors: The Shoes Closet Below"

2011-07-08T22:03:00.000-07:00

This month's B-Movie ...

" Dust and dust bunnies piss off. Dropped socks, go to hell. This is the real shit." --Why Ain't It Cool News

"I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats."
--Out of Touch Cinema

"A Nine West horde of size 9 flats, sandals and heels. A different kind of Blob."
--Crispin Science Monitor

(Shakey cammmmmm)

My wife Blaze has two shoe closets. One in the study, and one under our bed. In all fairness, in the WAY back you can see my piles of bedside books.

"It's in the trees, it's coming!" Dryad Blues

2011-07-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Ha. The irony's thick enough to cut with a chainsaw. Note the Google ads that appear after the Dryad entry copy I pasted in.

specifically, a dryad is a spirit associated with an oak tree, as “drys” means “oak” in Greek, but over time, these spirits have come to be associated with trees in general. According to legends, the dryads look after the forest and keep an eye on the health of the trees ... devout members of society would make offerings to appease or thank dryads when they needed to harvest trees or branches. A specific type of dryad known as a hamadryad actually lives inside the tree, according to legend, and if the tree dies, the hamadryad dies with it. For this reason, the Greeks believed that it was necessary to ask permission from the gods before felling a tree, to confirm that they would not be killing a hamadryad by mistake. The gods were also said to punish people severely for cutting down trees ...

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Reading the Classics (the other classics)

2011-07-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, when dogs were puppies, summers smelled of cornfields, and Kathleen wore those cut off jeans to perfection, when I was reading comics I was reading this (Love the fractured tree stump that seems to be growing out of the rock). Not pictured but always loved: Eerie, Creepy, Man-Thing, Turok Son of Stone, Monster Times, Werewolf by Night & someone's copy of Happy Hooker.

Zombies, werewolves and swamp creatures as righteous heroes? Not bad, eh? I loved Spider-Man but well, he wasn't scary and scary is/was manna.

Xaviera, wherever you are, thanks. You were scary in a special way.

Hamburger Neck

2011-07-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

... and the award for shittiest (but hey, you gotta love the effort) make up goes to ... this is my little Bubba, who let me mess around with make up on his neck back when I was doing the spook house gig and applying mutilation effects nightly. (See Mr. Chunkles' head shot. Click on the image to embiggen the gore and you can see the detail work. Meaty goodness.

Squirm Factor 10 - Bonk, notes on Sex

2011-07-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

Laughing Scared has room from non-supernatural horrors as well, like this excerpt from Bonk, the Science of Sex, by Mary Roach. Coincidentally, I just had a punch biopsy recently, and was feeling kinda worked over and sorry for myself until I remembered this "procedure".

Word spread. By 1916, the nut graft had gone mainstream. The next step in the operation, Dr. Hsu has named the inside out maneuver. Though it is not so much inside out as just out. Using his gloved fingers, Dr. Hsu pulls the man’s penis up and out of the skin, through the three-inch slit, by its midshaft. ….. Dr. Hsu’s nurse is unwrapping the second implant, for the other erectile chamber. This one does not go gently. The insertion is done in two stages. One end is submerged down to the pubis bone …

M R James Short, Whistle & I'll Come to You

2011-06-28T04:59:00.000-07:00

If you are an MR James fan, please watch this short. Believe it is a BBC production.

There are terrific C-R-E-E-P-Y moments. Example: I have stood alone on the beach before. I have even stood on the beach with other people around. But I have never stood on the beach and turned to see a solitary figure watching me from a distance. And the bedroom scene. holy Jesus. Laughing Scared to the max.

The Thin People

2011-06-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here are a few lines from the uber creepy Thin People short by Brian Lumley.

“No, no, we’re halfway there now,” he grumbled, hurrying along beside me, almost taking my arm in his nervousness. “And anyway, it’s a nice bright night tonight. They’re not much for light nights.”
“They?” I asked again.
“People!” Despite his short, bowed legs, he was half a pace ahead of me. “The thin people.”

Bejesus Stash.

2011-06-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Behind an abandoned greenhouse yesterday, I found a huge tarry pile of ... I wanted to say shit, but that's not quite the right word. Elephant chum. No, that's not right either. Anyway, I wondered what the hell I had stumbled onto, and then I found this entry and am convinced I found a Bejesus stash. Smelled a little like soured ambergris oil. Brought some back for examination. Hell, I always wondered when someone had the Bejesus scared out of him, who cleaned it up, where did it go? Is it recyclable?

Now I know. Bejesus is a natural hormone found within the bodies of most humans. It is generated at a steady rate by the bejesus gland, located somewhere between the feet and the brain. This hormone is what the religious types are referring to when they talk about finding Jesus inside yourself or say that there is Jesus in everyone. During times of fear, it is excreted from several holes in the body, hence the term to "scare the bejesus out of someone." For reasons stated below, the substance is much sought after."

Welcome to Laughing Scared

2011-06-16T04:01:00.001-07:00

Here's the Cliff Notes to my Blog Title. Laughing Scared speaks to the tick I have -- a kind of nervous chuckle -- that comes out in moments of genuine dis-ease during spooky books, movies, or political campaigning which is inherently horrifying. Granted, it's not a unique response to fear but I am glad my Blog isn't called Peeing My Pants (if I were a Stephen King character maybe), or Shitting Myself Scared or, you get the idea. There is a theory of course. Scientists say different versions of the same gene linked to anxiety can explain the way in which some people are not affected, while others enjoy the suspense and the gore. These findings may explain why people have different reactions to horror films. While many scream and some even faint in cinemas at scenes of spinning heads and shaking beds, others simply laugh.
Though I would disagree that laughing equals "not affected". I laugh because I am affected. Much like Shaggy laughs when he's up to his bell-bottoms in Creepers or what have you. If you want to jump into the thread, tell me what kind of fear response you have to horror. To caffeine pants. To the inexplicable amount of attention paid the Kardashian clan. To a movie or two that had you making weird noises, wringing your hands, crying, or maybe laughing scared.

Free Horror Fonts

2011-06-16T03:57:00.000-07:00

Fontzilla, baby. A huge portfolio of horror fonts to download.

Masked Human on All Fours

2011-06-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

if you survive this, let me know. This clip is from the Poughkeepsies Tapes, an otherwise a complete steaming turd of a movie. But this clip, this clip strikes a nerve. Pure nightmare. How unsettling, but freakishly graceful, is the crawl of that Thing?

The Unbearable Cuteness of Being Zombie - S8CLIP

2011-06-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

Awww. Zombie love is in the air. We all went to see Super 8 today. Finally! Like a lot of film freaks I have been following the viral campaign online for months and counting down the days. (Love film foreplay with virals.) Here's an (almost too) sweet scene of the movie within the movie. Boy meets girl. Girl pretends to be zombie. Boy falls for girl. Seriously, I love the expressions on his face as she closes in. I think the real jolt of terror for him here are those adolescent love pangs in his chest.

Goo of Death or Cottage Cheese

2011-06-08T04:53:00.000-07:00

How can one resist headlines like Goo of Death Solves Headless Corpse Mystery? (Sounds like a job for Mystery Inc.)

Its texture can vary. While this corpse's adipocere resembled concrete, fresher adipocere can be softer. "A lot of people say it's greasy, I always think of it like a thick cottage cheese consistency, because it's kind of lumpy, also," said Ann Ross, an anthropologist at North Carolina State University, who has encountered adipocere in her own investigations. "Now you'll never eat cottage cheese."

Carnival of Horrors @ Blossom

2011-06-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

Last October, I hired on at the annual Carnival of Horrors out at Blossom so I could pick up a little extra book money. By and large, the guests were the real freaks. Loud, drunken, high, obnoxious. All good qualities, just not in a dark spook house where I am not wearing a cup under my clown suit. I was slapped, shoved, scratched, run into, and one little girl threw a punch to my boys. I did have big fun working my makeups and listening to the crude banter in the make-up room before showtime--I heard the kind of twisted, f----- up hillbilly humor that makes Deliverance seem PG. Here's my moisty head wound BTW. Probably my best work, though the missing eye and bullet holes were not half bad for a rookie.

Click the red spot to make the pic big. I think you can even see some memories squirming around.

David B. Silva Through Shattered Glass

2011-06-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been scribbling notes and pecking away at a review of some kind for David B. Silva's Through Shattered Glass. My first horror book review. Based on the strength of his short story Dwindling (which I read in an anthology) I wrote and took him up on his "free PDF of the book for an Amazon review" offer. None of the other stories so far come close to Dwindling.

Bruise for Bruise - ICK Factor: 7

2011-06-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

Here's an excerpt I pulled, wormy penis and all, from "Bruise for Bruise" -- a short story by Robert Davies that appears in The Best Dark Horror and Fantasy 2010, edited by Paula Guran.

The Eddington triplets were each born with an extra mouth on their foreheads; the better to sing His praises, Father Quine had said, smiling. Justice Peck arrived, took two deep breaths, and burst into silent blue flame. The great granddaughter of Old Khoas was born flower-faced and her every breath was a yellow cloud of pollen. Jirrup the Younger emerged limbless and scaled, and like the original beast his eyes were eyes of gold. The blind watchmaker’s daughter Undulia grew monstrously fat and fetid as she approached her blessed day. She spilled her blue-eyed daughter in a ruinous, thick tide. To the shock of all, this new born daughter, grunting and wailing, then gave birth to another smaller girl the size of a fist, swollen with child. This last tiny daughter, still nameless, still shivering with the chill outside the womb, stood shakily and birthed a finger-sized son whose wormy penis dragged on the floor.

Wow, beautifully written, horrifically disturbing. I would have to rank the Ick Factor at a high 7.