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Monster Movie Month: Eaters of the Dead and The Thirteenth Warrior- Review by Wendy Zazo-Phillips

 

As we finish off Monster Movie Month, we have one more book/movie review to share here on the blog.  It may be that you don’t think of Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead as a horror novel, or of The Thirteenth Warrior as a horror movie, but when you are helping horror lovers find their next fix, think big! Our reviewer, Wendy Zazo-Phillips, notes below that neither the book or movie are primarily focused on the horrific aspects of the story, but there’s certainly enough darkness, gore, and terror within the pages to make it attractive to some kinds of horror readers–there are horror fans who specifically seek out historical horror, for instance. While some horror readers and movie watchers are very specific in what they like, others are willing to really stretch their boundaries, so it definitely doesn’t hurt to identify some possible crossover titles. Enjoy!

 

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

Harper, 2009 (Reprint edition)

ISBN: 978-0061782633

Available: Paperback and Kindle

 

The Thirteenth Warrior, directed by John McTiernan and Michael Crichton (uncredited)

Original Release: Touchstone Pictures, 1999

DVD Release: Walt Disney Video, 2000

 

 

 

When I chose this movie and novel for Monster Movie Month, I recognized that they weren’t conventional selections: no paranormal circumstances, no chainsaws, and not a sex-crazed teenager to be found. However, when considering Eaters of the Dead and The Thirteenth Warrior’s sinister characteristics, the inherent gore, and the terror of the antagonists, the wendol, I submit that these works still fit the bill nicely.

 

According to the afterward, The Eaters of the Dead was originally written on a dare issued by a friend of Crichton in 1974, who claimed the epic poem Beowulf was a “great bore.” The author had read some of the manuscripts of the real Ibn Fadlan in college and decided the ancient chronicler would be the perfect narrator for the Northmen’s quest to rid themselves of the “monsters of the mists.”

 

For both versions of the story, the plot is relayed to the reader/viewer by Ahmed ibn-Fadlan, ibn-al-Abbas, ibn-Rasid, ibn-Sulayman; an employee of the Caliph who falls out of favor and is sent as an ambassador to a far-away king, for all intents and purposes exiled from his homeland. He travels north by caravan, where the Arab eventually meets a tribe of Northmen (Vikings) observing the passing of their king. The main contender for the throne is Buliwyf, a celebrated warrior who comes from another tribe. Shortly after the pyre ceremony, however, a messenger from Buliwyf’s homeland arrives, asking the warrior to come to assist the king, Rothgar, against a menace whose “name cannot be spoken.” The angel of death (a wizened woman) is called, and she assigns twelve other men to accompany him. Ibn Fadlan is named the thirteenth warrior, specifically chosen because he was not a Northman.

 

The band of Vikings journey over numerous days and nights, eventually finding the people of Rothgar’s kingdom beleaguered, their defenses almost depleted. (In the book, the unnamed menace is punishing the king for his extravagance and over-importance. In the movie version there seems to be no reason, except that it just happens from time to time.) The warriors help the remaining Northmen reinforce the battlements and manage the king’s treacherous son, who secretly craves the king’s throne. In the warriors’ first encounter with the mist monsters—a night raid on Rothgar’s great hall—Ibn Fadlan sees the cannibalistic beasts as “black, grunting shapes” with “gleaming red eyes” and covered with coarse, dark hair. After a couple of failed attempts to eradicate the creatures, Buliwyf finds his numbers rapidly dwindling and seeks counsel from a dwarf in the book; another angel of death in the movie. The adviser tells him that he must seek out and kill the mother of the wendol, though it will ultimately mean his death. (The dwarf even goes so far as to insinuate that Buliwyf has been acting in a way that is beneath him, that he needs to step up and be the hero he was meant to be.) They ultimately succeed in their mission, and in the end only four warriors (including Ibn Fadlan) survive the final battle. Buliwyf’s body is prepared and burned in the fashion of a great king, and Ibn Fadlan continues on his journey, eventually writing down his account of the adventure for future generations.

 

In my brief summary, I can do neither the book nor the movie justice. What makes both of them great is their treatment of the Northman culture, described in respectful detail by both mediums in their own unique way. Ibn Fadlan is completely unprepared for his encounter with the Vikings, and it is quite enjoyable and entertaining to watch him grow from a stranger with barely-veiled contempt of the Northmen to showing begrudging acceptance to finally adapting their ways completely, including drinking mead and enjoying Viking women. The warriors, as well, eventually accept the foreigner into their group, though not seamlessly: “You are an Arab,” Buliwyf observes in the book, “but no fool.” For Ibn Fadlan, who is the first to admit he is no warrior, this is high praise.

 

The main differences between the book and the movie are where each medium focuses its attention and how. In Eaters of the Dead, it is clear that Buliwyf is the hero. In The Thirteenth Warrior, most if not all of the story’s concentration is on Ibn Fadlan himself, played by Antonio Banderas. In the book, Ibn Fadlan pretty much spends the tale staying out of the warriors’ way and trying not to get himself killed. In The Thirteenth Warrior, Ibn Fadlan takes a more active role: he puzzles out where exactly to seek the mother of the wendol, and he figures out how the group eventually makes their escape from the wendol’s lair. Being the main protagonist and the box office draw, it does make sense that Banderas’ character would need more things to do to keep the character (and the audience) involved in the story; the added actions also serve to make the Arab more valuable to the mission and more heroic to the viewer.

 

Another difference between the two interpretations of Ibn Fadlan’s tale is the overall purpose of the telling. In the introduction to Eaters of the Dead, Crichton says that the chronicler’s style is of “an ambassador delivering a report; his tone is that of a tax auditor, not a bard; an anthropologist, not a dramatist. Indeed, he often slights the most exciting elements of his narrative rather than let them interfere with his clear and level-headed account.” When I first tried to read this book fifteen years ago, I found this style to be very boring and stilted. However, I’d like to think I’ve matured as a reader since then, because I now find Ibn Fadlan’s accounting of Buliwyf’s mission to be clean, detailed, and fast-paced. The reader does get the impression that, if the concept of nerd was understood in the tenth century, he would have been categorized as one. But it is an endearing quality, especially when the ambassador adapts the ways of the warrior so thoroughly by the end.

 

The movie’s purpose, in contrast, is boldly-executed action. The humorous scenes are more pronounced, the warrior’s characters more developed—the film uses a much brighter palate of colors and way-larger brush strokes to develop the story. I wouldn’t say that is gauche—quite the contrary, I love its pace and bawdiness—but it is clear that the movie’s main purpose is to entertain and thrill; the book, to witness a legendary journey, quietly allowing the story to speak for itself.

 

The Thirteenth Warrior tanked at the box office, and has yet to earn back its initial budget. While the making of this film was plagued by delays, rewrites, and other challenges, I think Touchstone still managed to produce a well-done product. The actors, especially the warriors themselves, do a tremendous job of filling out each character, most notably in their treatment of Ibn Fadlan as more-than-useless until he learned their ways. (The scene where the archer has to growl at him to not step in his line of sight, and how the warriors jested when he got seasick, both reminded me of my own more-than-useless existence right after boot camp.) I will say that I liked the development of the translator, Herger, more in the movie than in the book—if nothing else, he was more personable, and was he was used very successfully in the film to allow the plot to come up for air. While I was reading Eaters of the Dead, I found myself missing the movie-Herger’s quips.

 

In the end, I liked the book and the movie equally, but for very different reasons. I can highly recommend Eaters of the Dead for its ingenious, respectful retelling of a classic tale, The Thirteenth Warrior for its well-balanced application of suspense, action, and humor, and both to just about anyone who likes a good story full of culture, intrigue, and creatures too terrifying to be named.

 

Both contain: gore, suggestions of sexual congress, cannibalism

 

Reviewed by: W.E. Zazo-Phillips

 

Posted on July 31, 2012 by , Reply

Shirley Jackson Awards Announced

The Shirley Jackson Awards for 2011 were announced earlier this month in Burlington, Massachusetts at Readercon 23, Conference on Imaginative Literature. The awards honor outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. There are a lot of familiar names on the list…  some of the nominees were also candidates for the 2011 Stoker Awards (“The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” by Peter Straub, The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates, Red Gloves by Christopher Fowler, Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow, Blood and Other Cravings edited by Ellen Datlow, and Ghosts by Gaslight edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers), and there are others that we reviewed on there as well (The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan, and Teeth edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling). I was also excited to see that Kelly Link and Kit Reed  appeared on the list.  The entire list of nominees and winners is below. Congratulations, all!

2011 Shirley Jackson Awards Winners

NOVEL

WINNER:

Witches on the Road Tonight, Sheri Holman (Grove Press)

Finalists:

  • The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock (Doubleday)
  • The Dracula Papers, Reggie Oliver (Chômu Press)
  • The Great Lover, Michael Cisco (Chômu Press)
  • Knock Knock, S. P. Miskowski (Omnium Gatherum Media)
  • The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan (Canongate Books, Ltd.-UK / Alfred A. Knopf-US)

NOVELLA

WINNER:

“Near Zennor,” Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)

Finalists:

  • “And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living,” Deborah Biancotti (Ishtar, Gilgamesh Press)
  • “A Child’s Problem,” Reggie Oliver (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)
  • “Displacement,” Michael Marano (Stories from the Plague Years, Cemetery Dance Publications)
  • The Men Upstairs, Tim Waggoner (Delirium Books)
  • “Rose Street Attractors,” Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight, Harper Voyager)

NOVELETTE

WINNER:

“The Summer People,” Kelly Link (Tin House 49/Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, Candlewick Press)

Finalists:

  • “The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine,” Peter Straub (Conjunctions 56)
  • “Ditch Witch,” Lucius Shepard (Supernatural Noir, Dark Horse)
  • “The Last Triangle,” Jeffrey Ford (Supernatural Noir, Dark Horse)
  • “Omphalos,” Livia Llewellyn (Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, Lethe Press)

SHORT FICTION

WINNER:

“The Corpse Painter’s Masterpiece,” M. Rickert (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sept/Oct, 2011)

Finalists:

  • “Absolute Zero,” Nadia Bulkin (Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters, Prime Books)
  • “Hair,” Joan Aiken (The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, Small Beer Press/ The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/Aug, 2011)
  • “Max,” Jason Ockert (The Iowa Review 41/1)
  • “Sunbleached,” Nathan Ballingrud (Teeth, HarperCollins)
  • “Things to Know About Being Dead,” Genevieve Valentine (Teeth, HarperCollins)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

WINNER:

After the Apocalypse: Stories, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer Press)

Finalists:

  • The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares, Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
  • Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, Livia Llewellyn (Lethe Press)
  • The Janus Tree, Glen Hirshberg (Subterranean Press)
  • Red Gloves, Christopher Fowler (PS Publishing)
  • What Wolves Know, Kit Reed (PS Publishing)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

WINNER:

Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers (Harper Voyager)

Finalists:

  • Blood and Other Cravings, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
  • A Book of Horrors, edited by Stephen Jones (Jo Fletcher Books)
  • Supernatural Noir, edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
  • Teeth, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (HarperCollins)
  • The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Harper Voyager)

 

 

 

Posted on July 25, 2012 by , Reply

Monster Movie Month: Interview with The Cutting Room Podcast by W.E. Zazo-Phillips

There are so many ways that  members of the horror community get together to celebrate the genre- in person at informal get-togethers (when possible) and conventions, through online forums and social networking, and from sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge through magazines, blogs, websites, and podcasts. Podcasts about the horror genre, and especially horror movies, seem to be gaining momentum, and they can be a good, if informal (and sometimes long-winded), source of information about both the horror genre and horror-loving library patrons. Reviewer Wendy Zazo-Phillips checked out The Cutting Room, a horror movie review podcast, and liked what she heard enough to approach the hosts for an interview(note, there’s some informal language), which you’ll find below. You can find her review here.  Joseph Christiana, aka “Joe Mummy”, one of the show’s hosts, also wrote a guest review for us comparing Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert with the movie Willard and its remake, and I’ll share that with you later this week.  Take some time and read what the folks from The Cutting Room had to say- there’s some really interesting stuff!

 

Interview with The Cutting Room Podcast
by W.E. Zazo-Phillips

The Cutting Room, a bi-weekly podcast dedicated to horror film news and reviews, was launched in February of 2012 under the umbrella of Bill Chete’s Horror Palace Network. The four cohosts—Tom “TomaHawk” Dettloff, Joseph “Joe Mummy” Christiana, William “The Evil Reverend Billy Grim” Bourassa and  Max “The California Chainsaw MaxSacre” Koch—bring a wide body of experience with independent filmmaking (Gramps: Beneath the Surface, Motel Americana Volume II, The Nightmare) and an overall love of the horror genre to their online commentary. I interviewed three of the cohosts for Monster Movie Month; The Monster Librarian’s review of the podcast can be found here.

 

Wendy Zazo-Phillips (WZP): Tell us how The Cutting Room podcast began.

TomaHawk (TH): It was basically Joe Mummy who started the program. He e-mailed me in January with this idea for a horror film review podcast and we pitched it to Bill Chete on horrorpalace.com and three weeks later we were podcasting. It really came out of nowhere! It’s really been a rewarding experience and I really have to thank Joe Mummy for initiating the idea and recommending that I host the show.

Joe Mummy (JM): The Cutting Room began when Bill Chete, the evil genius behind Horror Palace, asked me to be a guest on his podcast, Horror Jungle, in 2011 to talk about my film The Nightmare. One thing led to another, and I was invited to co-host the show with him and his merry gang. That podcast eventually sprouted appendages and became multiple podcasts, most of which constitute what’s currently the Horror Palace Network. I was tied up with other film-related projects, so I didn’t join up with Horror Palace immediately, but after a discussion with my old friend Tom Dettloff, and realizing he’d make a damn fine host, I decided to pitch the show to Bill. He was eager to have us on. Rounding out the panel with my cinematographer and long-time collaborator, William Bourassa, was a no-brainer (we’ve been having a marathon discussion about cinema for ten years running now). The rest, as they say, is history.

MaxSacre (MS): I came on Episode 003 as a guest. Evidently, it went so well that the boys asked me to be a permanent part of the show. At first, I was very hesitant to join the “cast” because I have ENOUGH CRAP going on in my life. But I enjoyed Tom and Mummy and The Rev so much that I took the leap. And now I have a ball doing this show. I take the assignments SO seriously. It’s my geek time.

 

 

WZP: What was the first horror movie you saw, and what do you remember from the experience?

JM: I believe that the first horror film I watched was Wolfen, and I remember being unable to sit still. I ended up watching the film from the dining room, peeking around the corner at the television. My parents were more amused by me than the film. Those wolf Point of View shots haunt me to this day.

But what sticks in my mind as my most terrifying early horror experience wouldn’t be considered a horror film at all (though I plan to one day make a case for it as such on the show). It was The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, hosted by Orson Welles. It’s a documentary about the predictions of Nostradamus, and it’s all pretty silly now, of course, but at the time I had never seen anything like it. I was a kid, and I believed whatever the TV said, especially when it was told with the straight-faced gravity of Mr. Welles. I guess I really got to know firsthand what The War of The Worlds broadcast did to folks way back in 1938. Anyway, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow plagued my thoughts for months. I mean, I was a Roman Catholic kid with all of the church’s cruel fairy tales of hell and damnation and guilt swirling around in my naive head… and now because of Welles’ message of doom, I truly thought the end of the world was imminent—Yikes.

MS: I remember my Grandpa Bill letting me stay up all night with him on weekends watching Hammer films while he pounded Budweisers. But it was Burnt Offerings that seriously scarred me for life. I believe I was… NINE or so when I first saw it late at night on the Z channel, unbeknownst to my mother.

TH: The first one is kinda weird. I was six years old and my grandparents took me to the drive in to see a horror film called The Children, [which was] about a school bus full of kids that are exposed to a nuclear leak and turn into murderous zombie-like beings with long black fingernails. I remember wanting to imitate the kids in the film, and would pretend to attack any adult in my path with my pretend long black fingernails. I think this began my struggle with authority in general, actually.

 

 

WZP: The author Kim Newman once said that there are people that will claim not to enjoy reading or watching horror stories, but yet almost everyone has read or seen (i.e.) A Christmas Carol and/or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. What is it about horror stories that draw people to them, and why do you think people are generally skittish about admitting to liking them?

TH: Horror deals with a ton of very human subjects including death, family, fear and even relationships. These are all very enigmatic themes that we are drawn to. A good horror film will take these elements and make us think in a way that other genres cannot even come close to. Horror is an almost cathartic ritual. As far as admitting our love for these films… Horror is such a rogue community that can be compared to say punk music. It is such a go against the norm-kinda thing that people who have a hard time with truly being themselves may find it difficult to admit to the mainstream that they love this stuff.

JM: I think one part of the appeal of horror films is the ability to safely come to terms with the terror of our own mortality. Cinema is that great tour guide of our emotions and desires and our fears. In a theater we can experience the triumphs and tragedies of the characters on the screen with the assurance that we won’t actually be hurt or arrested. We can fall in love with a heart stopping beauty, and truly ache for her, but at the end of the day we know we’re not going to be heartbroken. Later, when in our real life we actually do get heartbroken, we maybe have a way to deal with it or at least come to terms with it because of the experience we have in the movies.

The same goes for the horror of loss, pain, and death. In the movies, we can experience all those things without actually losing a loved one or bleeding or dying. We can hold our own mortality at arms-length and inspect it from a relatively safe distance. Through the horror film we’re able to look death in the eyes and see what it actually might be like. By doing this, we experience something that’s necessary, and it’s necessary for those us who take the time to contemplate our ultimate fates. Simply put: by going to the movies to be afraid, we neutralize our fear. This is the same deal with roller-coasters and bungee jumping etc. Just another way to skin the cat.

The converse is also true, of course: we can feel what it might be like to kill without actually having to do it. If you’re an honest with yourself and acknowledge that you repress violent impulses in absurdly complicated charades of self-delusion on an almost daily basis, it becomes clear quite quickly that the voyeuristic experience of cinema provides an important, possibly necessary, psychological outlet for that violence. There’s no way to prove this, of course, but I’d be willing to bet that there are fewer horror fans than religious zealots on death row for murder. If you keep those dark urges tied down with no release, unable to even acknowledge them, then sooner or later those ties are gonna loosen and… Well, let’s just say this: I’m more frightened by a Jesus freak than I am of a Michael Myers fanatic.

The second part of the question:

I think there are generally two reasons why some folks can’t come to terms with horror stories. The first has to do with what I mention above: some folks for one reason or another can’t look their mortality or dark urges in the eye. It makes them uneasy, so they just choose not to think about it, let alone invest themselves in dramatic allegories about it. That, or they’re just not all that inquisitive about their own living experience (death is a part of life, after all) and I have no idea how such minds operate, so can’t really explain it.

The second reason has more to do with simple aesthetics. The culture of horror as an art form has created a certain dynamic of one-upmanship. With every passing generation the filmmaker attempts to make something more horrifying and disturbing to garner attention. The easiest way for a filmmaker to do this is to simply splat more blood across the screen (easiest, not the best way, I’d like to note). It’s done for shock value and to provoke strong reactions, mostly from those self-repressing individuals I mention above.

Fans of the genre realize they’re pissing their parents and teachers off by aligning themselves with these ‘nasty’ films and form a kind of identity around it—it’s an act of rebellion of sorts. Look at punk or hip hop or the James Dean’s leather jacket; it’s the same thing. Rebellion is easily marketable, and horror films have a lovely way of reaching its fans through the mainstream and indie underground alike. This perpetuates the blood spilling, and what we have now is a vicious cycle of “horror” films that are little more than a parade of gushing latex wounds and severed body parts.

One of the recurrent conversations we have on the show, at least one that I keep trying to bring up, is that these films aren’t really “horror” because at some point (usually about 10 minutes into the film), because the torrents of blood cease to be scary; it’s amazing how quickly we can be desensitized. The fountains of red just become silly, gross, or both; it’s revulsion. And though revulsion has some overlap with horror, I believe it demands some sort of distinction—they’ve been calling it “torture porn” of late.

Anyway, I think when I mention horror to most folks who aren’t fanatics, they equate the genre with the blood-splat stuff that started (and this is a source of a debate that could be endless) in the eighties with the slasher pictures. And here’s the answer: It’s understandable for healthy folks to want to avoid these types of pictures. Subjecting yourself to revolting imagery for two hours is masochistic, after all. I usually tell them that not all horror is like that and that I prefer Poltergeist and Take Shelter to Friday the 13th and The Human Centipede. It usually starts an interesting discussion.

MS: Very few people are interested in facing their darkest fears; I embrace the opportunity. And I don’t care if anyone finds me odd or creepy or sick for loving horror: I have an excuse. I was basically born INTO death and darkness when my father was killed a month before I was born. It’s in my DNA. So my whole life has been about black clothing and graveyards and lifting up the rock and looking under it. I love to find great beauty in ugliness. And, best of all, I am a total sweetheart who escorts spiders out the door all the while. I would never hurt you. And why? Because I know the dark side of life and can observe it as an entertainment or a distraction. I have the outlet. Horror is catharsis. And most people, frankly, are pussies.

 

 

WZP: Which medium of horror is the most powerful: the written text, the spoken word, or the motion picture?

MS: I wish I had more time to read horror lit; I do. But the horror motion picture is undeniable to me—it’s become my default genre now that Stanley Kubrick is dead. It’s rough because for every single decent horror film, there are 20 unwatchable ones. But it’s also about the HUNT for me, too.

JM: I’m a filmmaker, what can I say? I love a good book and campfire story, but there’s something about the physicality of cinema that’s taken hold of me and is showing no signs of letting go.

TH: To me, it’s the motion picture. I feel that film is by far the most powerful art form. There is nothing more real than the motion picture. If used correctly nothing can be more effective.

 

 

WZP: What makes a good horror movie?

MS: A profound LACK of comedy.

TH: Usually a scary mask (just kidding.) Atmosphere is my thing. I find that my favorite horror films like The Shining, Funny Games and Dawn of the Dead have this great atmosphere to them that allows the viewer to become involved with the story unlike most other horror films.

JM: Holy cannoli—whole lives can be spent answering this one. I’ll answer with the definition of horror I’ve been working on since starting the show, and I’ve tried to distill it down to its simplest terms, keeping it broad enough for a wide array of sub-genres: a horror film is one that’s main intent is to scare you. So the more frightened a film makes you, the better the horror film.

 

 

WZP: Was going to the library a part of your childhood? Do you still go?

MS: It was; it really was. My mom was a nurse who worked two jobs, so the library was a built-in babysitter for me after school. I mostly studied/devoured/checked out movie monster books; I did read Shelley’s Frankenstein at a young age. I can’t go to libraries anymore, though, because I’ve had bad luck with DNA on the books I would check out, some of a worse degree than others…

TH: I loved the library when I was a child. It was a great escape. In high school I spent almost every lunch hour in the library reading. I think as an adult I really gave up on going, although I do pop in a couple times a year. It’s an important place that every community should take advantage of.

JM: Yes on both counts. That reminds me, I have to return David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster today.

 

 

WZP: The purpose of our website is to help librarians make well-informed decisions about which horror-genre books to purchase for their collections. Since we are celebrating Monster Movie Month, what horror books and/or movies do you feel are “must have” titles for libraries?

JM: Since my Ratman’s Notebooks review/recommendation is long enough to choke a horse, I’m going to respectfully pass on this one, except to say that while writing the review two tracks from Nick Cave’s album Murder Ballads popped up in my ITunes DJ app. It’s a pretty fantastic collection of macabre songs and belongs in a library.

TH: I am a big fan of most Stephen King novels but all libraries should have Poe. I am not a fan of Poe, but I recognize his unique talent.
MS: As long as John Carpenter’s Halloween is available to patrons, you’re golden. It is gore-less and one of the finest studies in suspense I have ever witnessed. Also, and this is most important to me… young girls with an interest in horror need to discover that strong-willed women are the PREDOMINANT survivors in most horror films. Not men: women. Women are more cunning, more adept at enduring pain and panic, and more psychically attuned to dread. I may be crazy, but I think horror films will inspire them to defend themselves harder when out there in the cold, cruel world.

 

 

WZP: What projects are you working on now?

JM: Billy and I are rolling out our latest short film, a riff on the sci-fi genre called Time Travelers. It’s our best film to date. We’ll be releasing details in the coming weeks. For a limited time, you can see a sneak peek here. The password is “coincidence.”

MS: I am the voice of Master Mantis (and other characters) on Nickelodeon’s “Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness”. I have made a short horror film and am working on the script for another one. I currently co-host The Cutting Room and host the long-standing, cult-hit podcast Max Koch and The Counselor’s Mimosa.

TH: We are currently getting ready to launch our own website this summer and, in even bigger news, Billy, Joe and I are about to begin a film project through the Horror Palace Network. It’s such an exciting idea because we are going to allow our fans to listen to the behind the scenes making of this film. They will also have a chance to make some decisions concerning the project, starting with which film we will make! The fans will be a big part of the process! In a sense, they will be making a horror film, too.
JM: [And,] once we get going we’re going to report all the developments of the film as they happen: a production diary that’s more or less in real time. So if we fail, you’ll hear our misery and struggle and desperation. If we succeed, we’ll triumph together. There’s danger in this, and that is a key ingredient for making something vital. It’s experimental podcasting and experimental filmmaking crashing into one another. I couldn’t be more excited—I live for it.

 

 

WZP: Do you have any advice for future podcasters?

JM: Don’t do it—we hate competition.

Seriously, the best bet is to be as professional as possible while still allowing for creativity and play. That means being very, dare I say, corporate about scheduling, objectives, expectations, formatting, and communication in planning the show, and yet completely unstructured, improvisational, and unrestricted while actually doing it. It’s a tightrope walk, but so far it’s been effective for us.

TH: Simple…be yourself. If you work hard and take yourself and your show seriously, the possibilities are limitless.

MS: Be interesting. Be yourself. And if you don’t have a point of view to share once in a while, it’s OK. Ask questions and LISTEN. Phumpher through it and rely on your co-hosts to bail you out. I’ve been podcasting for about six years now, and I ALWAYS admit when I’m an idiot.

JM: Most importantly though, realize that, before you even start, if the show is going to be any good, it’s a ton of work. Two tons.

 

WZP: Is there anything else you’d like librarians and fans of the horror genre to know?

JM: We hope that this start of a beautiful friendship.

MS: Scary is OKAY.

TH: Yes: keep finding ways to get young people to take interest in reading and watching films. This is very important, and my biggest fear is that someday a good book or a good film will no longer get written or made. Reading books and watching films changed my life for the better in so many ways it would take me days to talk about. Let’s just keep the passion for them both burning until the end of time. Ciao.

 

 

Posted on July 25, 2012 by , 2 comments
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