Category: The Republic of Shawntario

Greetings everyone, despite what you may have heard I am very much still alive and here to give you my best and worst of 2014 list.

Let’s start things off with the best. DISCLAIMER, some of these may not have been released in 2014 but are movies that I saw for the first time this year.

 

10. Oculus – This movie had some strengths and weaknesses but when it was on, oh MAN was it on. Add to this my undying love of Karen Gillan (She’s a Scot, my family is from Scotland. She’s from Inverness, I’ve been to Inverness) and it was destined to make my list.

9. Horns – Daniel Radcliffe has come a long way from his Harry Potter days. This movie based on the Joe Hill novel was a fun watch from start to finish.

8. Thanatomorphose – This is one of the most fucked up movies I’ve ever seen. It was a little pretentious in spots but it was a great watch.

7. Deliver Us From Evil – I love Eric Bana and I love movies with religious subtext. Add those together and your movie will make my best of the year list.

6. Proxy – It’s pretty rare that a movie will genuinely shock me with plot twists any more. This movie accomplished that. Many times.

5. You’re Next – Look, I hate Ti West but this was just a fun movie to watch. Even Ms.Horror-Writers loved it so that’s a victory for me.

4. The Taking of Deborah Logan – This movie has absolutely no reason to be this high on the list. It’s not perfect and it suffers in areas but I found myself thinking about it for a week or so afterwards. Highly recommended

3. Tusk – This movie was strange and at times I found it really stupid but it earns a spot this high because it actually tried something new. I think Kevin Smith is a pretentious blowhard but he knows how to make a good movie.

2. The Seasoning House – This is the rare type of movie that’s authentically disturbing. The subject matter is handled well and from the stories I’ve heard from my military family, stuff like this happens more than you’d think. Give it a watch.

1. The Babadook – There really could be no other movie in the number 1 spot. It did have its slower moments and the writing wasn’t as tight in some areas but it’s a wonderful movie about a woman teetering on the edge of insanity. The performances are wonderful from the entire cast.

 

THE WORST OF 2014

10. Life After Beth – I really liked this movie the first time I watched it but it completely fell apart on the second watch. It’s up here for that reason only. I do recommend watching it at least once though.

9.  The Quiet Ones – Stellar cast couldn’t save this trainwreck.

8. The Purge: Anarchy – The only saving grace of the first movie was the cast. There was nothing good about this one.

7. Leprechaun Origins – Just…no.

6. Dracula 3D – I WILL NEVER FORGET THE TORMENT THIS MOVIE PUT ME THROUGH

5. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones – What a terrible film. Nothing at all worth watching about it.

4.  The ABC’s Of Death 2 – Fuck everything this movie stands for. Pure garbage. Worse than the first one.

3. V/H/S Viral – I am so sick of these movies.

2. The Canal – There was quite a bit of hype for this movie when I first watched it and it failed me on every level.

1. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones – I hate this movie almost as much as I hate Dracula 3D. I want an apology from the film makers for this one. It’s atrocious.

 

Honorable Mentions

Marble Hornets – Marble Hornets is a Youtube video series that started about 5 years ago. Initially based off of the Slenderman mythos this web series actually created most of the themes we associate with the character today. It has its ups and downs for sure, but I was thoroughly hooked the entire time and sad when it finished. Give it a watch, buy the dvd’s and enjoy the journey.

Greetings all,

 

Now that I’ve made my (not so) triumphant return to the website, I’m feeling generous.

Use our newly installed comment section to tell us what your favorite horror video game is and why. It’s that simple. I’ll pick a winner and that person will receive a copy of a horror game on Steam.

Hello folks,

 

Welcome to the beta version of the new  horror-writers.

Here’s Changelog 1.0 from the previous version.

We’re now going forward with the Disqus commenting system. We’ve had a lot of people ask us to turn commenting back on and after researching it, this seems like the best way to weed out spam and let our readers comment on our articles. Commenting doesn’t seem to work on all old articles at the moment but it will be active on any article posted after this.

ALL LINKS WORK NOW. I noticed that previously clicking on anything in the nav menu took you to a dead link. That problem has been fixed.

Updated team sections are coming shortly. Those should be up within the week. There are a lot of new writers on the website so I’m just in the “data collection” process.

Nav menu still isn’t done. It’s slightly better than it used to be and it’s much tighter but I’ve been having some problems implementing a great design idea I got from Renfield. So as soon as I’m able to sort that out I’ll get it up.

There seems to be a bug with the “Recent Articles” section on the side. Clicking on anything in the nav menu breaks it but clicking on an actual article seems to restore it. I have no idea why this is happening but I’ve spend about a day and a half trying to fix it. I’ll keep plugging away until it’s fixed.

If you notice any more bugs then please let us know.

I’m a decent coder but a terrible designer so if you notice anything about the new design that seems hard to follow please leave me some feedback.

I tried simplifying a lot of it and add a classic(but not tacky) feel to the layout. I think I’ve succeeded but I’m still not sold on the overall color scheme. Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

We’re still running in WordPress but I’m also working on a node.js version that won’t be ready for another few months(same design, WAY LESS LOADING TIME)

 

I know some are probably wondering “Why release a beta version?”

The answer is to gather as much reader feedback as possible so that I can tweak this until we get it right. I want people who come to this website to

a) Have an easy time finding things.

b) Have a design that is nice on the eyes

c) Enjoy themselves and meet other horror lovers (hence Disqus)

All of that being said, welcome to the Beta for the new Horror-Writers. Thank you all for being on this ride for the last year and a half and I’m anxious to make this one of the best looking websites currently out there.

Today is Bell Let’s Talk here in Canada. For every text message sent from a Bell phone or tweet using the tag #BellLetsTalk they will donate money to mental health initiatives.

I’ve already tweeted using the tag a few times but my phone is with a different company so I can’t help them out that way.

Bell Let’s Talk was started by Olympic Medalist Clara Hughes, who admitted to suffering from depression and various mental health disorders despite being on top of the world in her sport. It was an eye opening look into the world of Sports and it did a very good job of humanizing the athletes that are so often idolized by our society. This is a cause that is very close to my heart because for most of my adult life I have also suffered from depression and I would like to take some of your time to talk about it today.

 

Depression is much more complex than most people are willing to admit or accept. There is more to it than simply feeling sad. It is not uncommon for somebody who suffers from it to just be told to “cheer up” or “snap out of it”. If it were that simple then people probably wouldn’t suffer from it. When it comes to depression there isn’t always a root cause of it either, most people who are depressed would admit that they don’t understand why certain feelings hit them at certain times. It’s also not as simple as just being sad all the time either. Anger is a side effect that isn’t talked about enough.

While a person who is depressed will normally have low self esteem, not all people with low self esteem are depressed. An easy way to raise that sense of self worth is to lash out at others and find ways to bring them down to your level.  Unnaturally strong feeling of resentment or persecution aren’t uncommon. Sometimes it’s easier to lash out at Bob who couldn’t draw a picture the way I can because he’s an asshole piece of garbage than it is to simply find somebody to talk to and say “Here is how I feel and this is why I act the way I do.”

A few years ago things in my mind had become very dark. I lost the ability to deal with my problems in a rational and logical way and all the only solution that seemed viable was a permanent one. I was afraid of talking to people because I didn’t think anybody would take me seriously. The fear of not being taken serious caused resentment and anger. There were times when I would become overly sarcastic and very hard to deal with because as much as I didn’t want my feelings, I didn’t expect people to understand. I was afraid of being seen as weak. One day, after a night of hard drinking(which I don’t do anymore) I went to a friend and told him everything that was going on inside my head. I told him how bad my feelings had become and how I’d sometimes had overwhelming urges to simply stop existing. My friend shocked me with his response. He said, “I can’t understand what that’s like, but Shawn you need to talk about this more. It feels like it but you’re not alone and you never will be.”

What he said washed away most of my fear. I began talking to him regularly and stopped feeling shame over how I felt. It’s not that there was nothing wrong with me, it’s just that there was nothing wrong with feeling the way I did.

People may not understand what you’re going through, depression is different for everybody. Two people with extreme depression may describe things in a completely different way, but there are always people willing to help you. Give the people you are closest to a chance, I’m not saying to turn them into your personal shrink, there are professionals for that and despite what you may read they do work wonders. There is nothing wrong with being put on anti-depressants. If they can find the proper medication for you it will work.

If you are reading this and you suffer from depression, I promise you it gets better. If you stick it out things will get better.

I’ve gone from virtually nothing to a life and job that I am proud of. I’ve gone from feeling alone and helpless to secure cared for. My results won’t be your results, but when you finally find a way to live with and overcome your depression it’s a wonderful feeling.

There will still be occasional flare ups, there will be times when you want to be left alone or when you feel run down and broken but they won’t last as long and they won’t be as strong. There is hope and it starts with you.

I apologize for the complete lack of structure in this piece, but I wanted to write this to let anybody suffering from depression know that there are people out there who care for you and people who are always willing to help. If you can’t find anybody to talk to then e-mail me

shawnandrewlachance@hotmail.com

While I won’t always understand your exact situation, I can promise that I will never judge what you are going through.

There are a lot of good people in the horror community, they help me every day and I’d like to help you.

Thanks for reading.

Shawn-Andrew Lachance

My views on the last few films by Mr.Argento are well known. Dracula 3D gave me a mental breakdown that I almost never recovered from. Mother Of Tears or whatever the hell it’s called was no better.

There was a time when I actually enjoyed Argento’s movies. I used to stay up late re-watching Suspiria, Inferno, Deep Red and Phenomena. I remember watching Suspiria one night with a friend and talking about the gore after the movie. My friend then proceeded to hit me with a statement that would forever change the way I looked at Argento movies.

“He does gore well but he seems to have a thing for butchering women. Especially for no reason.”

Grammatical errors of his statement aside, he was right. Aside from gore, what the hell did I enjoy about Argento movies? I’ll just stick to the first few that I mentioned at first.

What was so good about these films? It sure wasn’t the writing or the completely overdone soundtrack. It wasn’t anything technical either. If I didn’t enjoy the writing, acting, soundtrack or technical merits of his movies, then why did I enjoy his movies in the first place?

I’ll chock Suspiria up to guilty pleasure and cast aside the rest. Upon subsequent re watches they are indeed terrible movies.

What about Opera? The only thing I enjoyed about that movie was the soundtrack and that was all music by Verdi.

Trauma? That movie was so abjectly terrible that Brad Dourif allegedly had laughing fits on the set because he thought it was so stupid. It also started the trend of Argento casting his daughter in weird nudity/sex scenes.  I don’t know how everybody else feels about it but it completely weirds me out.

We can skip ahead a few years because he did nothing of note and start with Mother Of Tears, the third in his Witch trilogy. Everything about this movie is a mess. The music is atrocious and so is everything else. His murder scenes are watered down and that was the only thing he’s had going for him in 30 years as a director.

I started with a point in this, I really did but even mentioning the name Argento is enough to make me angry these days.

I’ve been told that Argento is “something you either get or you don’t”. I used to agree with this but now I have to wonder about who “gets” Argento. His movies are misogynistic filth masquerading as gore-fests.  He casts his daughter in the weirdest roles and it’s always uncomfortable to watch. Dracula 3D is the worst thing ever committed to celluloid. I’d say he hasn’t made a good movie in 30 years but I’m of the mind that he’s never made a good movie.

I will never again watch another Argento movie and from this article on, I will never mention him again. This madness has to end and it ends now.

—

Shawn’s Note: I’m aware that there is nothing balanced about this article and it comes off as pure attack. To get over the negativity I will recommend the following films

Villanelle by Ricky Adelon Laprade

Standards Of Living by Aaron Mento

ANYTHING by James Neff(Night Walker Cinema)

ANYTHING by Shane Cole (MASKEDfilms)

These are all up and coming people who love horror and tell good stories. They are masters of their craft. They write intelligent scripts and understand how to frame scenes.

The end.