The Horror, The Horror
Partly it's the rapid onset of Halloween, partly it's my unconscious steering me in the right direction to prepare for the short story I'm working on. Whatever, in the last few days I've exposed myself to more horror media than I have in the whole of the last six months.
Resisting the temptation to crack on with the last in David Bishop's Fiends of the Eastern Front trilogy (and that took a bit of doing - thoroughly enjoyed the second one. There's this very nasty bit in a kitchen ...), I've been dipping into Christopher Fowler's short story anthology Demonized. While you could argue that the collection's not out and out horror, Fowler excels at the subtly (and not so subtly) disturbing. Pick of the bunch so far (I'm halfway through) is The Green Man, a tale of jealous husbands and marauding monkeys that builds to one of those climaxes that'll come back to you for days after.
While the Masters of Horror discs arrived in time to make it onto my DVD review list for the magazine's Halloween issue, there were a couple of films that didn't. Watched 'em anyway, though. John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness is a film I have only the vaguest memories of having ever seen before. It's dated badly (the porn-star moustache on the lead actor is most distracting ...) but Carpenter's ability to create a sense of dread stands the test of time.
Finished Near Dark - written and directed by Point Break lenser Kathryn Bigelow - while the kids were out this afternoon. Not sure what to make of it. It's very well regarded, which may be why I felt a little disappointed by it - the weight of expectation was too great, perhaps. That said, a memorable scene in a bar and an innovative spin on beating vampirism won me over in the end.
Anyway, this saturation in suspense has evidently done the trick. I submitted my synopsis to editor Mark and got the go-ahead to move to a first draft this evening. There are still no guarantees it'll get into the final anthology, but it's always good to know you're on the right track at least.
Resisting the temptation to crack on with the last in David Bishop's Fiends of the Eastern Front trilogy (and that took a bit of doing - thoroughly enjoyed the second one. There's this very nasty bit in a kitchen ...), I've been dipping into Christopher Fowler's short story anthology Demonized. While you could argue that the collection's not out and out horror, Fowler excels at the subtly (and not so subtly) disturbing. Pick of the bunch so far (I'm halfway through) is The Green Man, a tale of jealous husbands and marauding monkeys that builds to one of those climaxes that'll come back to you for days after.
While the Masters of Horror discs arrived in time to make it onto my DVD review list for the magazine's Halloween issue, there were a couple of films that didn't. Watched 'em anyway, though. John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness is a film I have only the vaguest memories of having ever seen before. It's dated badly (the porn-star moustache on the lead actor is most distracting ...) but Carpenter's ability to create a sense of dread stands the test of time.
Finished Near Dark - written and directed by Point Break lenser Kathryn Bigelow - while the kids were out this afternoon. Not sure what to make of it. It's very well regarded, which may be why I felt a little disappointed by it - the weight of expectation was too great, perhaps. That said, a memorable scene in a bar and an innovative spin on beating vampirism won me over in the end.
Anyway, this saturation in suspense has evidently done the trick. I submitted my synopsis to editor Mark and got the go-ahead to move to a first draft this evening. There are still no guarantees it'll get into the final anthology, but it's always good to know you're on the right track at least.
posted by Pete Kempshall at 9:27 PM
2 Comments:
Good to hear the inspiration is working and I've been doing the same thing - without the same results though.
Might try and fit 'Night Watch' in tonight though!
Strange one I thought, Night Watch. Not sure it stood up too well as a film in its own right, but taken from the point of view that it's only part one of a series it was a good taster.
Could be that it's one of those films you need to see twice ... so obviously I haven't yet ;)
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