32 Nights of Horror & New Short Story Available!

To celebrate October, I've been watching a horror movie each night (including midnight on the first, which is why it's 32 instead of 31). Most of them have been old favorites, but some have been new to me, so I thought I'd pass along some recommendations from the new (to me) films.

Before we jump into the movies, I wanted to announce a new short story release. My short story Unwelcome Guests is now available for Kindle via The Society of Misfit Stories. It's a standalone e-book for $.99, and will not be available in print until 2018, when it will be included in the annual anthology from Bards and Sages.

Okay, now for the movies. First, an older one that I just hadn't seen yet.

Cube was released in 1997. In it, a group of people wake up inside a giant cube with small entryways between each different room within it. None of the people know each other or how they got there, but each has a skill that could help them get out of the cube. In the meantime, traps in the rooms eliminate those entering them.

Despite the fact that there are some nasty deaths, this isn't gore porn, like Saw and similar films. Rather, I found it to be a character study in the way Lord of the Flies was. Is the cube more dangerous, or is it the people within it?

Next, how about one that's out in theaters? (Totally counts.)

I went to see IT. This was actually the first Stephen King book I ever read. I'm a huge Tim Curry fan, but he was limited by being Pennywise in a television miniseries. Skarsgard didn't have the same limitations, and was overall a freaky killer clown. He didn't try to copy Curry's Pennywise, which is what I think made it all the more successful.

As anyone who is familiar with any aspect of IT knows, this is a tale of bullying, of adult complicity, of childhood bonding, and so much more. There's a reason this new version of IT has surpassed Exorcist as the top-grossing horror film.

One of the newer movies I watched was The Autopsy of Jane Doe. This one came out in 2016, and I'm not sure it was even in theaters around here. In it, a father and son team of coroners gets the body of a young woman found under mysterious circumstances. She has internal injuries, but no external damage to indicate how they happened. As they proceed with the autopsy, strange then frightening things begin to happen.

The movie is compelling, with a series of puzzle pieces resulting from the autopsy. The father/son relationship of mentor/mentee is an interesting one, and the details are well played out.

This next one was pure camp, and a lot of fun. The Babysitter is a Netflix original. A boy decides to stay up to see what his babysitter does after he's supposed to be asleep. To his shock and horror, he witnesses her murdering a young man to collect his blood in order to do a spell with a group of teens. But they also need the blood of an innocent.

Full of familiar, but loved, tropes, with a great sense of humor. I enjoyed watching this one, because it doesn't take itself too seriously, yet still delivers. The bullied 13-year old finds himself while fighting off a group of sadistic teens.

The rest of the movies I've watched so far this month are:

The Others
Friday the 13th (ON Friday the 13th, duh--the original)
It Comes at Night
American Psycho 2 (not recommended)
Insidious
Honeymoon
Alien Resurrection (my daughter has seen the rest, and we're watching them in order, so next is Prometheus)
Tremors
Scream
Silence of the Lambs
Pet Sematary
The Bad Batch
Cult of Chucky
Flatliners (old one)
Fright Night (newer one)

Obviously, the original Halloween must be saved for Halloween night.

Time for links. Bear in mind that I'm not endorsing these, merely passing them along. Always do your own due diligence before submitting.

Accepting Submissions:

The Literary Hatchet is seeking dark fiction and poetry. 1000-6000 words. Pays $5-10. Deadline November 1.

Rosarium Publishing is seeking water-themed speculative short stories for the anthology Trouble the Waters:Tales From the Deep Blue. 2500-7000 words. Pays $.06/word. Deadline November 1.

The First Line is seeking fiction using the first line for this submission period. This period's first line is "I'm tired of trying to see the good in people." 300-5000 words. Pays $25-50. Deadline November 1.

Spring Song Press is seeking fantasy/noblebright short stories for the anthology Fell Beasts and Fair. 1000-10,000 words. Pays $.01/word. Deadline November 1.

Kenyon Review is seeking prose, drama, and poetry. Up to 7500 words. Pay is not mentioned, but this is supposed to be a paying market. Deadline November 1.

The Sun is seeking essays, short stories, and poetry. Up to 7000 words. Pays between $100 and $2000. Deadline November 1.

Seen any of the movies I listed? What did you think of the newer ones? Any of these links of interest? Anything to add? Submission news?

May you find your Muse.

Eat Your Heart Out: Romance in Horror

I figure since it's the day after Valentine's, it's as good a time as any to discuss romance in horror. Horror is one of the few genres where romance isn't necessary, but that doesn't mean it's never involved. In fact, I realized that comedic horror tales seem to have a higher rate of romance in them than other types of horror. Hm.

Romance is used in different ways throughout horror. For instance, if we go to the slashers first, romance is often the cause of their downfall, spreading the message that premarital sex is bad...mkay? Of course, I'm stretching the definition of romance here, when it's really usually lust. Still, lust is plenty appropriate for the day after V-Day, too, right?

Premarital sex getting a person killed can't be mentioned without bringing up Scream. The final girl is always the virgin...until Scream flipped that on its head. Eventually. Watching anything with Jason, Michael, or Freddy means knowing who will die next. The moment they crawl into bed (or the back of a car, or a sleeping bag, or whatever else), it's go time. WAIT FOR MARRIAGE, KIDS!

Forbidden love isn't uncommon, likely because much of horror reflects real life, amplifying common issues as a coping mechanism and a way to ratchet up the tension. For instance, Candyman is based on a black man seeking revenge after being brutally murdered because he fell in love with a white woman. And what about Let the Right One In? A vampire's feelings for a human boy underlie the story line, even as brutality occurs. A lot of people can identify with falling for the wrong person.

But what about loving a monster? Dracula, Frankenstein, Cat People, and The Fly all involve a Beauty and the Beast sort of premise. In one, a vampire, another a shapeshifter, and in two of them, science experiments gone wrong. Valentine is along these same lives, but he's a psycho, plain and simple, not an actual physical monster. Be careful who you love. You know who else was a psycho? An American Psycho? Patrick Bateman. But he was charming, and he had nice business cards and groovy music choices.

In comedic horror films, the love story may be a major part of it - Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies - and the basis for their mission, or it may just be an underlying character development tool or cause for humor, such as in Tremors, Lake Placid, and Eight-Legged Freaks. It creates an impetus for the main character to rescue the damsel in distress, in many cases. At the very least, it gives the character more conflict, and adds tension to the story. Shaun must find his way across the city to rescue his girlfriend and get her to safety, giving him a reason to leave his house. Conflict = amped.

Love gone wrong is all over Hellraiser in disturbing ways. Need I say more? (By the way, Candyman is also based on a Clive Barker story.) And in Teeth, a young girl being taken advantage of repeatedly, thinking she's maybe with the right guy, discovers the error of her ways. In turn, the boys who wrong her discover the error of THEIR ways, often fatally. Speaking of which, in Jennifer's Body there's a similar story line, only there are no teeth in weird places. Just the normal ones.

And if you consider Anne Rice to be a horror writer (I don't, but she's usually classified that way), romance is oozing out of the pages of her books. Was she the first one to hearken back to Dracula with the attractive and seductive vampire? Probably not, but she sure brought that trope back to the forefront in her vampire novels. And, again, it's more lust in her tales than love or romance, but not always. Wasn't Louie always conflicted about love?

Finally, there are collections of stories combining love and horror. I Shudder at Your Touch and Love in Vein are the two that come to mind. And I've seen calls for horror erotica, though I've yet to read one.

The Stand exhibits the power of love for some of the characters. In fact, it's a strong component on the good side. There's romantic love, but also the love born of friendship and hard times. Their bonds keep them strong in the face of the bad side. If anything, the love and romance shown in this book are the most real of any of the ones I've mentioned above. A story with heart. A perfect read for Valentine's Day.

What's your favorite horror romance? Can you think of one I didn't mention here? Why do you think romance plays a part in some horror stories? Would you like to see it more or less?

May you find your Muse.

Heart by OCAL, clker.com