What you want to see

What kind of film do you want to see made? I haven't seen a ghost story worth a damn in a while. "Poltergeist" was the last one that scared the shit out of me. I thought some of the recent J-horror would tickle my fancy, but "The Ring" was a confusing mishmash of styles. Same for that crop of haunted house flicks from the late ’90s: "The Haunting" and "The House on Haunted Hill" were warmed-over nice-tries. It seems like they lost the touch when it comes to making the real thing.

"Poltergeist" was made in 1982, a Tobe Hooper/ILM effort. It was fantastic -- Stephen Spielberg was the exec producer, and he knew that Hooper would kick a ghost story in the balls. MGM got a lot right.

Going earlier than that, I have to cite the oeuvre of Dario Argento -- he united the gothic horror sensibility with the slasher film and gave us "Profundo Rosso," "Suspiria," and many other diamonds. The gothic part is what he did so well, but not necessarily plot. And there didn't have to be a supernatural force at work, what with enough twisted-ass sinister people on the job.

Go back further, twenty years or so, and we get the Hammer films and their ilk, a true renaissance of gothic horror. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price were three of the standard bearers of the time, starring in adaptations of Poe and Lovecraft, or rolling out new creations in a similar vein. I love "Haunted Palace." I love "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" (so much so I wrote about it a few months back).

There needs to be more, again. This is a filmic artform that has been neglected, only because people have forgotten how to make flicks like these. I am not detracting the current idiomatic oeuvres of James Wan and Eli Roth, but a spooky-as-shit ghost thriller is a fine use of 1 hour and 40 minutes time.

Hell, my favorite Disney World ride is "The Haunted Mansion," simply because they got the sensibility so goddamn right.

I've always been looking for inspiration, things that help the little wrinkly imagination-gnome inside of my pancreas do his jumpy, runny little thing. I should always write more; I watch an obscene amount of TV and movies, as well as consume hectares of mags, newspapers, and comic books, all raw materials for creative synthesis. And this mode is the kind of thing I want to see. This is what I should do -- make it for myself. I want to rediscover Vincent Price and rediscover gothic horror, circa 1960.

Want to see what I'm talking about? Watch this -- it's filking amazing:



So much longing, so much romance, so much deliberation. Gorgeous.

[Art by Daniel Horne, used without permission.]

A Scary Halloween Tale For the Ages

Gather round and here a hellish tale of blood, gore, and frighthood. Scariness!

There was once a place where unending scariness reigned! It was a horrible place full of bats, and dirt, and undercooked food! There was a mean person who dwelled in this dark underworld of horribility, a person who had become so adjusted to the misery abounding that he reacted to it all quite calmly. In this shadowy world of suspicion and dread, there was also a precondition of horrible pain. Searing pain! The kind of pain that a simple cold-compress could not overcome. No, this pain was far worse than any pain anyone had ever imagined, it's being portrayed without any hyperbole. Said pain was as bad as the time the aforementioned guy -- the one who lives in this horrible warren of doom -- chipped his tooth last year by knocking the lip of a drinking glass against his incisor. Oooh!

It was also dirty in there! This fact was brought up before, but you shouldn't underestimate how long it had been since the place was last cleaned. It was so long, that the dishes had started to develop a film of scum around the edges that protruded from the water.

A bat just flew by! Maybe it was two, actually. It's hard to tell because it's so dark. So dark! The light bulb burned out over a week ago! Boogah!

So, there was so much horror built up over time that there came to be a feeling of dread to all who passed by this dreadful, doomed demesne. No one was exempt -- the mailman stopped visiting this abominable shanty-of-sin ages ago. The pizza guy, even longer. Maybe because... there was a dead guy nearby! Somewhere in the back, maybe! Can't really tell, but there is a bad smell coming from around there. The level of fear in the air -- stemming from the unpleasant sensation one feels around human cadavers -- is thick. In the the dense, frightful air, the wicked air of despise and regret, choked with the damned sobs of someone who skinned a knee, mildly.

Do you know what happened to the last cruelly-forsaken soul to stumble across this foul scorched ground of baleful resentment? That person FELT BAD ABOUT HERSELF! She ate, like half a pie, alone, until "Billy Madison" came on the USA Network and distracted her for an hour and a half until her friends called and took her out to a club.

Beware, generally, of unpleasant places that resemble the one mentioned above, the goal being to avoid that particular sort of horror. At all costs!