Tag: Horror

Book Review: At The Cemetery Gates

Post author By A.M. Novak
Post date November 21, 2016
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I remember going to sleepovers as a kid, and staying up into the wee hours of the morning trading scary stories and urban legends in hushed tones with my friends. We’d swear up and down that we knew someone who knew someone who knew the girl whose boyfriend was murdered by the hook hand killer. We’d retell local legends, and stories we’d read in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.The tales were short and sweet, getting to the good stuff quickly and allowing for the storyteller to embellish for maximum effect. It spawned an entire generation of horror fans, including authors John Brhel and Joseph Sullivan, who paid homage to the Scary Stories collections with their newest book, At the Cemetery Gates: Year One.

The following aren’t short stories so much as they are digestible suburban fables.

Cemetery Gates Media presents a collection of fourteen twisted tales clocking in at 168 pages of consumable bites of horror and dark fiction, written in the very style that made Alvin Schwarz’s tales so popular two decades ago. Rather than setting everything up neatly like a regular short story, Brhel and Sullivan condense their stories into compact vignettes that are ready for retelling around a campfire, or in a bedroom late at night.

Favorites include:

Passion’s Paroxysm, a quick glimpse into a day in the life of a mistreated husband. The surprise ending make this tale destined to be an urban legend

The Girl With The Crooked Tooth, a thoroughly eerie homage to Edgar Allen Poe, complete with a creepy dude with an odd obsession with a woman. I don’t like dental stuff, so this one really got under my skin. The beautiful prose and unsettling imagery stuck with me.

New Year’s Eve, What A Gas!, about a simple mistake leading to catastrophic consequences. If you like the stories that play on fears of being killed at random, for no good reason, this is sure to titillate.

Considering that I couldn’t find a bad thing to say about this collection and found it to be even more enjoyable than their last anthology, I give this book the full 5 stars. Many of these stories are trope-heavy, but that’s how good lore works. It follows a basic template, and works as a means of expressing universal fears in American society. Anonymous murderers, poison in our food, and systematic conspiracies that affect the marginalized are all things that many of us worry about. Urban legends synthesize those apprehensions into morsels of dread that serve to remind us that death awaits us everywhere, at all times. I’d heartily recommend At The Cemetery Gates to readers who want a little something to nibble on before bed each night, and to young horror fans who want something juicy to regale to their friends between classes. Find it on Amazon.

Tags Book Review, Dark Fiction, folklore, Ghosts, Haunted, Horror, legends, Short Stories, Supernatural

Archives Short Stories

If You See One

My daughter Brandy is seven. She’s a really bright girl and I love her. She is – in part – most of the reason I try so hard at everything, and part of the reason I took my circus training, and started performing at kid’s parties. I felt like I needed to; as a single mom living with her grandma, I felt like a deadbeat.

Big step down, but when you’re sleeping in the same room you did at 8 and going to college it’s okay. Performing is still performing. Plus, everyone starts somewhere right?

I didn’t mind; I loved kids, mostly…though other people’s kids tended not to be as well behaved as I would like. I was a hypnotist, so I got mostly teenage parties. My clown friends had it rougher; the few times I’d put on a rave wig and helped my friend Trina – aka Bubbles – by face painting was almost too much.

So, imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago, the very beginning of October, Brandy comes home from school visibly upset. I tried to get her to tell me what’s wrong. She wouldn’t. It wasn’t until we were at the table when she got really quiet

“Mommy, it’s the clowns. Kat’s neighbor told her about them,” Brandy says in her I’m-getting-scared-voice.

“Shh.” I say kneeling beside the table. Luckily for me I stayed up-to-date on urban legends and spooky culture and had come across this a few weeks back in a random cluster of YouTube videos.

“The clowns are in North Carolina, and it’s people in costumes pulling pranks,” I say, seeing no reason to lie. I was always as honest and factual with Brandy. But I also believed she could handle hearing more than “it’s not real.”

“Will you tell Kat that? She’s super scared,” Brandy says, adopting her usual sunny demeanor.

“Sure thing.” I say. Brandy settled right into her homework; it was her usual vocabulary list.

That was then; this is something entirely different. Two weeks later and the sightings have spread. Texas, Seattle, even England. I could shrug it off as people being dumb and pulling pranks weeks ago. It wasn’t so easy now.

The jokes swirling around were even funny. Then the clowns in the UK started to be more violent. Instead of just being menacing with no real point the clowns started trying to hurt people.

I’ll never forget the day they actually did: it was a man on his home from the pub. He was viciously attacked with bats.The CCTV looked off under repeated views. Trust that certain news outlets aired it almost constantly as a reason why Trump’s leadership was called for, while the man himself remained curiously quiet. Almost too quiet.

“You’re being too paranoid honey,” my grandma said as we were putting away dishes. This was a few nights before Halloween.

“Am I, Nana?” I spoke in hushed tones because Brandy was still awake and getting ready for bed across the house.

“Yes. You’re sounding as bad as Brandy. It must’ve been those Goosebumps books your mother let you read as a kid,” my grandma scoffed. I really hated when people called my mom’s parenting into question more than my own.

“I’m ready Mommy!” Brandy called out. I swear that girl almost knew when to save me from uncomfortable situations. I really loved her, and I knew it ran in the family.

It started being reported people were showing up to major city emergency rooms looking extremely pale and in some cases unable to speak. Those that weren’t turned away due to apathy or over work were lucky enough to observed. The first report came out of a Seattle hospital.

A man in his early thirties, mute and presenting pale skin. He was cool to the the touch and had approximately seven to nine seizures over the next 24 hours, each one turning the man’s appearance more clown-like.

More hospitals reported cases like that. Soon more clowns came to light. There wasn’t anything to connect the cases, and it was spread pretty wide. No one had a working theory of why this was happening. Reddit – of course – was on fire with theories, which spawned Youtube pranks, creepypasta and more. I found the make-up tutorials to the strangest.

“I find it almost comforting that neither candidate has anything,” a boy sitting next to me in my poli-sci class said.

“You think Trump would use this for a chance to spread a message that only he can keep us ‘safe’,” said a bored student who usually took any chance to Trump bash.

“I do find it unsettling,” the professor finally chimed in. We, in rapt horror, watched as a group of clowns that appeared to have once been salary men loot in Tokyo. In just a few months we are looking at people do this and all he can say is “unsettling”?

I couldn’t shake this feeling of dread. As election night grew closer, the clown attacks grew worse. No one knew what to do. Some of them seemed perfectly harmless (if you call running after people with a knife “harmless”), but if you looked at it as these people were “sick,” it was reasonable.

Most news reports were now saying “don’t engage.”

Of course there were those that did, quickly finding themselves at the wrong end of a beating or stabbing. Since no one with a clown face could be properly identified no one could actually be charged.

Finally election night rolled around. A composed Hillary took her place.

“I haven’t said anything in these last few weeks, because the man so many of you support – and who once actually supported – me, well..” Her voice trailed off.

I looked on in horror as a clown man loomed just a few feet behind her, still in his impeccable suit. He was totally mute, waving a tiny orange hand.

Tags election2016, Horror, trump

Archives Dusty's Corner What Comes Next

Diary of a Slasher: Entry 2

Post author By Dusty Evely
Post date October 28, 2016
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True to my word, I headed out the next day. To watch. Certainly some vile things were happening; not every person at church camp was there to study the Bible. Some of them had to be pursuing some extracurricular activities. No group of teenagers ass all good. All I needed was one frisky couple and I’d be set.
Listen. I’ve been doing this a long time and discovered one ironclad rule of the universe: if you put a group of kids in their late-teens/early-twenties in a secluded location, there will be sex. Always.

Sure enough, I spotted a couple heading off to a cabin. They appeared to be looking around to see if anyone was watching them. Maybe that was my imagination – that I wanted them to be doing something they knew they shouldn’t be – but I don’t think that was the case. Under the cover of the forest, I followed. They opened the door, giggled, and went inside.

Showtime.

I like to wait until their moment has passed, then strike when one of them has gotten up. I’ll kill the one still in bed, wait for the other one to return, then kill them while they’re in shock. It’s a well-used method and it has served me well.

The cabin was raised up a bit, so I was able to lurk below the window without them detecting me. It wasn’t long before I heard the familiar sounds: muffled voices and a couple proclamations of “Oh God.”
They stayed in bed for a while afterwards. I could hear their voices talking, but I couldn’t make out the words. Eventually I heard the familiar sound of old bed springs squeaking as one of them exited the bed. I expertly navigated the back steps – careful to miss the spots that would make noise – and pushed open the back door (I had applied WD-40 to all the hinges before their arrival: never let it be said that I lack preparation).

The boy was still in bed. He was sitting up with his back to me. I thought it was odd that he was fully dressed, but it didn’t change what I needed to do. I raised my axe and put it through his head with one fell swoop. It was then I looked down and noticed what was sitting on his lap: a Bible. They weren’t having sex: they were having a secret Bible study. The proclamations of “Oh God,” were shouted out in prayer.

I couldn’t believe it. How could this be?

As I stood there in shock, the girl came out of the bathroom. Like the boy, she was fully clothed. She looked at me and opened her mouth to scream. With one step I crossed the room and put my axe through her mouth.

I stood there, looking at the scene. It was clear what they were doing in here, but I couldn’t let this get out. I’d never live it down. So I did what any killer would do in my situation: I undressed both of them, took a picture and sent it along to my text thread of other killers. “Guess they weren’t so pious after all,” I wrote. I would have felt bad about it, but my soul left me when I died, so it didn’t bother me.

Then came the clean up. I wasn’t ready to alert the rest of the campers to my presence, so I put the two “love birds” in bed and covered them with a blanket. With no mop in the cabin, I grabbed a brush, got on my knees and started scrubbing up the blood. I wondered if Jason Voorhees had ever pulled a stunt like this, and I came to the conclusion that he probably had at some point in his career.

With my first kill out of the way, it was now time to hit the others. Church camp be damned, I would take all of them out.

You can read Part 1 here.

Tags Camp, Diary of a Slasher, Horror, Slasher

Archives Dusty's Corner Posts What Comes Next

Transmissions from ScareFest 9: Part II

Post author By Dusty Evely
Post date October 25, 2016
No Comments on Transmissions from ScareFest 9: Part II

You can read Part I here.

I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish during my first day at ScareFest. I bought a couple t-shirts (a Stab shirt for me, a Monster Squad shirt for the munchkin), Elizabeth Fields’ new book, and a couple other random items. My goal for Day 2 was clear: take pictures, strike up random conversations and look for stories. This was always my favorite part of going to conventions, but this was the first convention I would be able to devote a whole day to it.

So off I went in search of adventure, beauty and immaculately dressed people performing everyday tasks. Onward and upward!

What follows is, more or less, a photo journal of my time as I walked the floor, accompanied by entirely too many words by me. I’m the worst.

I encountered this gentleman (gentlemonster?) before I even arrived on the floor. I knew then that it would be a very good day.

This guy spent the entire time in his booth, painting and talking to anyone who came up to him. He was gracious and kind and had a true passion and I loved him.

I can’t decide which I love more: the dead, sad eyes or the Crocs.
Okay I can. It’s the Crocs. It’s always the Crocs.
Is it because they match his gloves? Is it because those Crocs seem like terrible shoes to wear in a butcher shop? I don’t really know, I just know that I love them.

Let’s get a better look at that bad boy, taken slightly later in the day:

From the time I took the first picture to the time I took this one, he had changed his mask and his weapon. I really want to know how that conversation went with the TSA.

“Oh…that? That’s my second pig head. Yes, that’s correct sir.”

Oh, hey there little guy. You looking for your mom?

GET AWAY! GET AWAY!

“Excuse me. Do you have directions…TO HELL? MUWHAHAHAHAHA!
Or, like, Pizza Hut or whatever?”

I have no idea what this was, but I’m pretty sure it has my soul now.

This girl is with a group called Circus Envy and The Deadly Sins. They’re always set up in the same place. I love the look of their “booth.” Here it is without anyone present:

It’s a great look, and everyone involved is extremely friendly. You can often find them milling around the floor interacting with people. I love them.

Speaking of milling around interacting with people, here are a couple of the girls stopping in for a photo op with Ash and Ace Ventura (twin brothers whom I have seen at multiple conventions). The table they’re sitting at is from the dream sequence in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II.
To break this down: we have Ash Williams, Ace Ventura and two vampire girls hanging out with a prop from a Rob Zombie movie.

When people ask me why I love conventions, I point to moments like this.

Join me as I gaze upon the head of Pamela Voorhees.

It’s like someone took Pinhead’s face and created a poorly constructed mask from the loose skin.

I’ve seen these guys at a number of conventions and they always make me laugh. The mask must be impossible to see out of, because Bloody Lab Coat Man has to lead around Leopard Head by the arm the entire time.

I noticed something this time I hadn’t noticed before: Leopard Head is wearing a name tag.

His name is Purrcival Stroppington. How perfect is that?! I love him completely.
Also, his mouth moves when he talks or growls or whatever a man/cat hybrid does.

I have never seen the movie Hocus Pocus – leave me alone – but I know these outfits were spot-on.

Wolf Run – a great wildlife refuge in Kentucky – was there. For $25 you could get your picture taken with a real wolf. Here is the wolf, hanging out with his best friend: Freya, the frightened fox.

YOU GUYS! They’re best friends and they’re snuggling and this may have been the best thing at the convention.

Valak was there, attempting to eat the souls of babies. Like demons do. Let’s get a closer look…

I’m glad Lorraine Warren carved your name in her Bible. And brush your teeth.

Theirs is a beautiful friendship. They will also kill you if you come within 5 feet of them.

This guy was there the entire time I was. Armed with a couple different horns, he walked the floor with one goal: to scare unsuspecting victims. He scared a great many people while he was there.

However, the horns were loud and the floor was open, so you could always tell where he was. If you paid attention, you could avoid ever jumping in the air with fright. He still got a lot of people, but, by the end of the second day, people were getting wise to his antics.

Sorry buddy. You’re not scaring this girl.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

This blurry Bigfoot looking clown is named Calypso. When he wasn’t walking around on stilts with an air cannon, he was walking around with huge box strapped to him. When he opened it up, a severed head on a spring would come shooting out of it.

I ended up talking to him for about 15 minutes about why he does what he does. He talked about the need to read people. “If I start walking up and notice someone looking a little uncomfortable, I’ll just get someone else.” During non-convention times, he dresses up as a non-murdery clown and does a lot of kids birthday parties. It was an extremely enlightening conversation.

I don’t think he really was a “Camp Clownseler,” but I wasn’t going to ask him.

I took this picture, then watched as the both of them became a cloud of mist and slowly drifted away.

DEMON SELFIE!

I have a feeling his demonic brethren would frown upon such actions, but it’s a new age. Perhaps these actions are now celebrated in the pits of Hell. Who am I to judge?

I didn’t actually ask him if he went by “Preddy Krueger,” but I assume he does.

This made me laugh entirely too hard.

Hey. Since we’re on the topic of Matthew Lillard…

Here he is sharing a laugh with one of the members of GWAR.

You can’t really see it here, but his shirt says “Clive Barker Rules,” in the same style as the iconic “Stephen King Rules” shirt from The Monster Squad.

As it so happens, I was wearing my “Stephen King Rules” shirt that day. When I passed Matthew Lillard on the floor later that day, we made eye contact, gave a little nod then fist-bumped. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that means we’re best friends now.

The point of this story is that Matthew Lillard is awesome and I love him.

One of my favorite things on this day was spotting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man towering over the masses in random areas.

And now witness the time Stay Puft terrorized Camp Crystal Lake.

No matter who wins, we lose.

I was particularly proud of this shot. Got down on the ground to take it and everything, like a real photographer.
Then I remembered that a ton of people walked through that area, a lot of them likely with terrible, unspeakable things on the bottom of their shoes. I burned my clothes as soon as I got home.

Sometimes you’re in GWAR, but you also get a little lonely and thirsty.

What’s that? Just Courtney Gains taking a selfie with Ash Williams.

This is where I remind you that The Burbs is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I absolutely love Courtney Gains. This picture makes me happy.

This picture of Amy Steel and Harry Manfredini walking around like old friends made me smile like an idiot. I think that’s why Amy is giving me that look: I’m pretty sure I was giggling when I took this.

This guy had one of my favorite costumes of the weekend. I don’t know what it was about it, but his entire look was terrific. I must have passed these people a thousand times and I liked his costume a little more every time I saw them.

Oh ScareFest. Never change.

After going to conventions over the past few years, I can honestly say that, while this isn’t the best Blade I’ve seen, it is still a very good Blade.
I love that I can have absolute opinions on these things.

I’m pretty sure these kinds had weapons on them. They weren’t messing around.

This is the last known image of Sexy Stay Puft and Son of Ernest. I hope you find peace in the next life.

Tags Conventions, Cosplay, Horror, Photo Journal, ScareFest

Archives On Writing Posts

5 MORE Horror Films Every Horror Writer Should Watch

Post author By A.M. Novak
Post date October 20, 2016
No Comments on 5 MORE Horror Films Every Horror Writer Should Watch

Last month, I talked about movies that all horror writers must watch to help them become better storytellers. Learning what makes good horror stories work so well can give an incredible boost to your own writing in the same way that absorbing more books (both good and bad) can help you hone your craft. Here is another roundup of films that deliver the scares and are worth watching with a pen and paper at your side.

**Obligatory disclaimer: I acknowledge that these films may not be for everyone. I chose these films for specific reasons that were helpful to my own writing, reasons that I’ve laid out below. I also grant that the reasons I list below are not the only thing that make these films effective. I can’t say with a straight face that cinematography didn’t play heavily into Event Horizon , or that the sweeping score and striking imagery didn’t affect my experience watching A Tale of Two Sisters . However, I tried to focus on things that could cross mediums, into writing. **

Event Horizon – This genre-straddling tale takes us to the far reaches of space (and beyond) as we follow a rescue crew investigating a spaceship’s disappearance into and subsequent return from a black hole. This film is a classic Eldritch horror set in space, and, like any solid horror story, makes effective use of atmosphere in order to set the stage and keep the audience in a state of dread from the very beginning. We get a sense of eerie isolation and bad juju vibes from the jump, and I credit screenwriter Philip Eisner for that. The setting and tone create incredible narrative tension far before the blood starts to spill, building dread and priming the audience for what’s to come. While the cinematography certainly adds to the pulse-pounding viewing experience, it would all be sound and fury without the haunted house story that lies at Event Horizon’s core.

Ravenous – I chose not to put up the trailer for this film because it would taint your viewing experience. Seriously, don’t get me started on that trailer. Don’t even look it up on YouTube; the thumbnails are mostly spoiler-laden. It’s widely agreed among many horror fans that this is a film best viewed for the first time with as little prior knowledge as possible. All you need to know is that it’s a period film (19th century) steeped in murder and madness. On your subsequent viewing, take note of its use of gallows humor to punctuate its most savage, brutal moments. Embracing the humor in dark moments can work to relieve tension and aid in pacing.

Frailty – This 2001 film, written by Brent Hanley and directed by (and starring) Bill Paxton, follows FBI agent Wesley Doyle as he tracks a serial killer known as The God’s Hand Killer, when a man walks in claiming to know the identity of the killer and the location of some bodies. Without spoiling the amazing ending, I’ll say that this film is full of effective plot twists, and deftly reverses the audience’s expectations time and time again. This film also makes great use of the unreliable narrator to keep the viewer guessing, and subtle foreshadowing makes the ending so much more satisfying and the movie so much more rewatchable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv30PSVkWKU

Devil – A group of strangers in New York end up stuck together in a high-rise elevator, and…strange things begin to happen. Some of them get hurt, and they all begin to turn on each other as authorities outside the elevator work to save the trapped passengers. M. Night Shyamalan is known for his twist endings, but this 2010 film shines for a different reason; its efficient use of pacing. The events unroll in real-time, keeping things crisp and urgent for those watching at home. The time constraint not only keeps tension tightrope-taut, it allows the actors to take their performances up to 11; their respective characters react believably, becoming increasingly paranoid and desperate to survive in the 50-ish on-screen minutes they have in that cramped space.

A Tale of Two Sisters – This 2003 film is a stellar example of intricate plotting. The Tale tells of a pair of sisters recovering from a mental breakdown at an imposing Gothic house, with their tired father and sinister stepmother. An airtight narrative structure leaves no room for fluff, only vital elements of the puzzle. Everything means something: a piece of furniture, an article of clothing, a persistent sound. Screenwriter/director Jee-woon Kim took a single event and broke it down, to be served to the audience at a perfect rate, in a perfect manner. The result is a mesmerizing journey into one person’s heart of darkness.

When we as writers watch films through a storytelling lens, we can figure out what makes a good story work. We can then translate that into our writing and improve our craft. Have you come across a film that has helped you spin a better yarn? Let us know in the comments below!

Tags Haunted Horror, Horror, On Writing