WHEN THE FAMILIAR BECOMES TERRIFYING

I think that's what the basis of Stephen King's genius was, turning horror on its head. Showing us the familiar can be fraught with nightmares!

Salem's Lot: No need to go to Translyvania for a good bloody dose of vampires. No! They come to a town that looks familiar, a town you kind of 'know.'

You start to wonder about that. About some monstrous being arriving on the proverbial doorstep. Your mind spins off into all sorts of directions as you think monsters can be anywhere! They can be on the train you take late at night. Perhaps in the last car. When will they come forward?

Creep comes to mind. A young woman finds herself locked in London's Underground Tube Station late at night. There are some horrific goings on there and the worst nightmare she can imagine.

I do remember an earlier film than Creep though. Death Line or Raw Meat (US). The gist of this grisly horror flick was there were cannibals existing on London's Underground.

Frankly this film was more horrifying (I thought) than Creep. A very interesting film if you haven't seen it.

The idea of something being out there, something dangerous, lethal--horrific is horrifying. And when it can be in your town or city it is terrifying.

Vampires next door? Zombies waiting to get you as you walk your dog. Maybe they're hiding in the back of the car. That's right check the rear view mirror now!

Creatures like Pinhead might be lurking in the washroom at work. And let me tell you if you ever pulled a night shift in a hospital or hotel it's damned scary and if you are a horror fan your imagination might cause you to think of some horrible things!


Is there something under the bed in an empty hosptial room, waiting for you? Are you sure those are security guards and not zombies?

I think the fear of something lying in wait for us within our own environment is the most terrifying nightmare I can imagine.

But, hey! That's silly, right? You never would think twice about opening a closet or turning the lamp off and going to sleep. You didn't really hear anything outside your door. It's the house settling.
That's right, just go to sleep.  

HAPPY DREAMS!         

OKAY! WHAT IS HORROR?!

I think it's time for a refresher course on what horror is. This is not for reasoning horror fans, readers and film fans (and both). This is for those persons that I think are clueless. 

Okay, class! Dictionary definition of 'Horror:'


"an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear: to shrink back from a mutilated corpse in horror..."

Horror makes us uncomfortable. That's what it does. It may do it in a variety of ways. Its power is immense. It can be psychological and affect one's thinking. It may make us check the doors at night to see if they are locked (when we know they are)!

It unsettles us. 

Horror is supposed to scare us, it may repulse us. If we don't wish these things to happen then we are not horror fans. If we don't like horror, we should stay the hell away from it. 

That is so easy to understand a gnat would get it. Sadly, many people don't. Gnats sometimes rule, though. 

Basically, monsters make up the stuff that is horror. Zombies, evil clowns, creepy dolls, vampires, ghouls, werewolves...even serial killers. 

Remember Freddy Krueger?

Horror puts us in situations that may very well give us nightmares. But it is our choice. If we know we might get scared and 'grossed out' , it is up to us to read a book or see a film or not to! No one is holding a gun to our head. On second thought, maybe that is good. Maybe that would be a good horror story!

Seriously, you and I both know exactly what horror is. I know you know. I particularly know the readers of this blog know. You're not stupid. 

What about the others? Those folks that might slow down at car accidents and never miss the news, never turning the channel, no matter what is being shown--how about them? I think a great many of them might think they don't like horror, when I think they might be a little morbid.

Horror has horror in it, OR IT WOULD NOT BE CALLED HORROR. I really don't think that's a mind bender nor do I think a person has to be a rocket scientist to understand the premise. 

I happen to love horror, I write and read it and watch it in film. I do not slow down at car accidents, I do not like to watch the horror on the news that I find is too real, and having said that, I don't phone the news channels up and complain. I can change the channel.

Okay, so why am I having a bit of rant? I'm having it because every now and then people piss me off, those that I think can't find their way out of a room. If you don't like horror, stay away from it. If you do like it, enjoy getting scared!

I FIND IT TO BE A GREAT DIVERSION FROM THE REAL HORROR THAT IS ALL AROUND US. THE DROWNED CHILD WASHED UP ON A TURKISH BEACH. JESUS CHRIST, THAT GOT ME! 

I think I'll escape later and watch Misery. That's one of my fave films. I like to watch the insanity of the character, Annie Wilkes, she looks to me like someone who would think something was too violent, too horrible, this, while she keeps brutalizing a hostage in her house. Yes, murderous, insane Annie Wilkes, I think she's the poster girl for a great deal of issues. She doesn't like cursing. Remember, poop! She's quite capable of breaking bones and amputating feet however! 

WOMEN IN HORROR MONTH. Anne Rice

“The vampires represent those of us in society who feel damned and I am always seeking a way for them and those of us who identify with them to be saved.”

– “Interview With a Vampire” novelist Anne Rice, in an interview with America magazine.

In the beginning there was nothing but myths and legends. But then John Polidari's The Vamprye (1819) came upon the publishing scene and all were impressed. But soon readers said: "more, please?!" So Sheridan LeFanu's Carmella came about in 1871 yet, still vampire aficionados wished for more!

Bram Stoker, hearing them and envisioning an icon for vampire fans forever, penned Dracula in 1897. And yea, Dracula flourished and rightly so. And there were films—and all the world would know his name.

But then it got kind of predictable what with Gothic castles over and over, fun, sure—but something new was needed! So there came along the King, called Stephen who answered prayers with Salem’s Lot. This knocked the stuffing out of the Gothic vampire and readers were thrilled because it was bloody good! 

Think of it, vampires among us, next door—imagine! And the people were happy and gave thanks. 

And then, one year later! She who will be called great in my book, published Interview with a Vampire! 

Okay, seriously? These three vampiric creations are iconic. Dracula, Salem's Lot and Interview with a Vampire. In my opinion these 3 are it!

Anne Rice brought back Gothic vampires in her own style with her own genius. She infused in them depth by giving us personal histories which gave us rich characterisations. She made them real beings. Okay, they subsisted on blood, but they had feelings and memories. Living lives as well as undead ones. She gave us vampire literature that is unique. 

Following the death of her young daughter, she wrote Interview with a Vampire and she wrote it in six weeks. It must have poured out of her. I can imagine her doing it, giving us a piece of her soul. 

One of the characters in the novel is a child vampire. The child, Claudia haunts all of us. What is more haunting than a child vampire? I happen to think, there is a connection with her own loss here. 

Interview with the Vampire became as it would turn out, one novel in The Vampire Chronicles.

By the way The Vampire Chronicles  has been compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and rightly so in my opinion.

I think everyone's favorite vampire is Lestat maybe because he's mine. 

Her newest book is Prince Lestat published in 2014. 

She hasn't only written of vampires. She's done a fantastic spin on fairy tales. Witches, werewolves demons, mummies as well as historical and religious characters. She is the writer's writer. She ventures forth into new territory all the time. That takes guts and skill. Anne Rice, thank you!

Her books:

1960s
"October 4, 1948" (1965) Short Fiction
"Nicholas and Jean" (1966) Short Fiction

1970s
Interview with The Vampire (1976)
"Armand's Lesson" (January 1979 Playboy magazine) Short Fiction
The Feast of All Saints (1979)

1980s
Cry to Heaven (1982)
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983) as A. N. Roquelaure
Beauty's Punishment (1984) as A. N. Roquelaure
"The Master of Rampling Gate" (1984) Redbook magazine) Short Fiction
Beauty's Release (1985)as A. N. Roquelaure
The Vampire Lestat (1985)
Exit to Eden (1985) as Anne Rampling
Belinda (1986) as Anne Rampling
The Queen of the Damned (1988)
The Mummy (1989)

1990s
The Witching Hour (1990)
The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
Lasher (1993)
Taltos (1994)
Memnoch the Devil (1995)
Servant of the Bones (1996)
Violin (1997)
The Vampire Armand (1998)
Pandora (1998)
Vittorio the Vampire (1999)

2000's
Merrick (2000)
Blood and Gold (2001)
Blackwood Farm (2002)
Blood Canticle (2003)
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (2005)
Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana (2008)
Called out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession (2008) Autobiography (non-fiction)
Angel Time (2009)

2010s
Of Love and Evil (2010)
The Wolf Gift (2012)
The Wolves of MidWinter 2013

Prince Lestat 2014

MOVIES
(Vampire)
The Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Queen of the Damned (2002)
(Misc.)
Exit to Eden (1994)

TELEVISION
The Feast of All Saints (2001)


Anne Rice is the writer I most admire. Anne Rice is iconic and from a personal opinion, she is my icon.

Some memorable quotes by the lady herself:

Evil is a point of view.
ANNE RICE, Interview with the Vampire

Maybe that's what Hell is. You go mad. And all your demons come and get you just as fast as you can think them up.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass.
ANNE RICE, Pandora

Sometimes fear is a warning. It's like someone putting a hand on your shoulder and saying Go No Farther.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

Roman influence seeds itself, sprouting mighty oaks right through the modern forest of computers, digital disks, microviruses and space satellites.
ANNE RICE, Pandora

No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of ther beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.
ANNE RICE, Blood and Gold

Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
ANNE RICE, Interview with the Vampire

Suffering of sentient beings is like decay; it fertilizes the growth of their souls.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written -- behind your silence and your suffering.
ANNE RICE, Pandora

Vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires ... How avant-garde!
ANNE RICE, Interview with the Vampire

Despair was so familiar to me; it could be banished by the sight of a beautiful mannikin in the window. It could be dispelled by the spectacle of lights surrounding a tower. It could be lifted by the great ghostly shape of St. Patrick's coming into view. And then despair would come again.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

O, wicked love ... that has so many unnamed components.
ANNE RICE, Beauty's Punishment

A writer can’t know everything about what she writes. It’s impossible. You reach deep down and you bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book but you don’t know everything about it. You can’t.
ANNE RICE, interview, Oct. 2, 2003

There was no point in waiting until the next world. You had to do everything now, every kind of sin.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

Once I returned to the Church and began to see the universe as a place that really did incorporate redemption and really tried to understand the implications of there being a God, my identification with the vampires as outcasts, as outsiders and lost souls began to totally wane. It no longer worked for me. I had done it. It had led me to this point.
ANNE RICE, BookPage interview, Nov. 2005

This suffering, this unspeakable capacity to bleed and to know pain and to know annihilation, is what has to be overcome in this world if anyone is to reach God.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

When love is reached through suffering ... it has a power it can never gain through innocence.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there's nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don't know the trick. It's like whistling or singing.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

Who knows what the hell a government is or what the hell a government does.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

Vampires always order hot drinks. They aren't going to drink them; but they can feel the warmth and smell them if they're hot, and that is so good.
ANNE RICE, Memnoch the Devil

I promised that from now on I would write only for the Lord.
ANNE RICE, Newsweek, Oct. 31, 2005

I love the one who punishes me well.
ANNE RICE, Beauty's Release

I think any supernatural hero today, whether he’s a vampire, werewolf, a resuscitated mummy, whatever he is, is going to have to deal with the fact that scientists are going to want to catch him and study him. His big enemy is not going to be Dr. Van Helsing today, it’s going to be the doctor who wants to put him in a lab and get his blood for what it can do to cure disease or grant immortality.
ANNE RICE, interview, Lightspeed Magazine, Jun. 2012

The vampire is an outsider. He’s the perfect metaphor for those things. He’s someone who looks human and sounds human, but is not human, so he’s always on the margins.
ANNE RICE, interview, The Daily Beast, Nov. 23, 2011

To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.
ANNE RICE, The Vampire Lestat

Oh, the lies that I have told myself and others. I knew it yet I didn't know.
ANNE RICE, Blood and Gold

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.... In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
ANNE RICE, Facebook post, Jul. 28, 2010, reprinted in The Huffington Post, Jul. 29, 2010

People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
ANNE RICE, Interview with the Vampire

Beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.
ANNE RICE, The Vampire Lestat

There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.
ANNE RICE, Servant of the Bones

And books, they offer one hope - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.
ANNE RICE, Blackwood Farm

quotes from: ANNE RICE QUOTES:
http://www.notable-quotes.com/r/rice_anne.html

Browse Anne Rice Quotes II
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/r/rice_anne.html#GVRqSHruf0OZ03Hi.99

The Shining: Review And A Fun Tidbit!

The Shining (1980) is is so well-crafted, directed and acted; it is just as hard-hitting and chilling as it ever was.

Now, I read the Stephen King novel first and truthfully that is a long time ago. I remember it is different than the film. I Intend to re-read the novel but it is the film I am discussing now.

I love the characters that go crazy in King’s stories. Jack Torrance, in the great tradition of Annie Wilkes of Misery, is on a fast slide to hell. She had her own demons and he has his.

His lunatic character is a teacher and writer who is losing it. He didn’t look entirely with it in one of the first scenes in the film when he’s driving his family to the hotel where his new job is. The pitch of his voice was odd when he spoke to his son and I could feel the madness taking over. The feeling was palpable.

Nicholson gives one of his finest performances and Shelley Duvall as the terrorized wife and mother is perfect. She is so pitiful, we want to holler, OVER HERE, WENDY WE’LL PROTECT YOU AND DANNY!

The amazing thing about the film is it was entirely shot in England. Yes, it’s all Hollywood magic only it was done in the U.K!! I find that incredible.

Iconic, director Stanley Kubrick was a purist. The scenes of blood rushing down the hotel corridors is not a product of special effects. There really is red liquid gushing along a scaled down ‘set.’ There is interesting speculation on what that blood is supposed to represent. I think the most popular view is that it has something to do with the fact that the hotel is built on Indian burial ground; slaughter of Indians—that sort of thing.

Kubrick, being the purist that he was, insisted that the horrific scene wherein Wendy discovers hundreds of sheets of typed written manuscript all have the same line: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy…was actually hand-typed. Kubrick as the story goes, preferred that to having printouts.

The plot ingredients are interesting. The father is a frustrated writer who has a history of anger and there is a school report. He over-did physical punishment with his son.  The scene where Anne Jackson playing a psychologist visiting with the mother has been cut from the UK version for some reason. I don’t know why. Her name is in the credits. I do recall seeing the film in the early 1980’s in the U.S. and seeing that scene.

I would love to know if the scene is still in the US versions of the film. Anyone know? Please comment if you do.

So what is the shining? It’s a gift. Danny has what kindly cook, Scatman Crothers calls a special gift. In Danny’s case, this gift has taken form as Tony – a voice in Danny’s mouth.

I wondered if this gift could protect Tony. I didn’t wonder long. The Overlook Hotel is a child’s paradise, sure. There are kids to play with! He can have two nice little friends in the hotel. There’s just one problem. They were hacked to death by their strict daddy who corrected them. Actor Philip Stone says, ‘corrected’ in a way that will give you chills in your head. He says he corrected his daughters and when his wife complained he corrected her.

Yes, I know that the girls were referred to as being eight and ten which doesn't fit with the identical looking girls that appear. Are they some other ghosts? Or is it one girl that seems to be two? I’ve often wondered about that.

Since Danny has this gift, he immediately knows what the hotel is about.

As soon as he steps inside, we see what he sees.  He sees and feels this evil. It’s just waiting. How can a young child get his parents to leave? He can’t so he cycles around this piece of hell on earth (remember, it’s built over an Indian burial ground) I’d not walk within ten miles near that place!  Please!

He soon knows something horrible is in room 237 and he’s right.

And when dad goes to investigate and sees an attractive naked woman and thinks he’s going to enjoy himself, he gets a big shock (as do we all) when he suddenly realizes that this babe he’s kissing is really a rotting, horrible aged hag. What’s the story with her? Was she in the bath too long or what? Nah. It’s a lot worse than that. Her coming toward him, laughing at him in the best witch cackles I’ve ever heard gives me goose bumps every time I see it.

The maze that mom, Wendy and Danny go into early on is symbolic of them being trapped in the hotel, I think. As they walk down the different paths and discover one dead end after another, we feel the menace. There doesn’t seem to be a way out. And when the screen pans back to Jack looking at a model of the maze in the hotel lobby and smiling weirdly, we see the very tiny, helpless mother and son, no bigger than insects, walking through the maze. That’s one hell of an effective scene.

Here are some memorable scenes from the film:

Those are three of my favorite scenes. THIS is what horror is all about! I think this is one of the best horror films of all time.

By the way, here's a fun tidbit: Some say Nicholson was parodying Kubrick here. What do you think?

Misery: Annie Wilkes And A Real-Life Annie Wilkes!

The fan from hell, the fan/stalker lunatic that is the stuff of nightmares. And when the writer is Stephen King, that nightmare is almost too painful to get to know. We feel his pain!

He was, I read, inspired to write Misery by a real encounter which unnerved both him and his wife. He has written about it and it makes for scary reading.

The novel was somewhat different from the film, but that doesn't dilute the power of the movie. A best-selling author with a very popular fiction series gets saved by one Annie Wilkes. She really does save his life before trying to kill him. She carries him away from certain death. Her nursing skills her exceptional but then there's this crazy side to her. It is chilling as it is slowly revealed to us and to her injured patient.

Paul Sheldon, her injured patient soon realizes his predicament. His caregiver is as crazy as batshit. We can see him trying to interact with her by not saying the wrong thing. But it's not easy, especially when she learns he's killed off her favorite heroine, Misery Chastain! Misery, beloved by millions including this nurse with Munchausen Syndrome!

Yes, he finds some old news articles in her memory lane scrapbook. She was put on trial when patients entrusted in her care died. At the time I saw the film the case of nurse  Beverly Allitt emerged. She killed a number of infants she was taking care of in England. She loved the limelight and smiled for the cameras. I hope a special hell waits for her for all the misery she caused. I think she even looked like Annie Wilkes:

All about her and her horrific crimes:   http://www.biography.com/people/beverley-allitt-17162398#arrest-&-trial

There is no death penalty in the UK but she won't ever be free. I just hope, as I said, that the final punishment is a doozy. Insane or not, I don't care.

Back to the film, Kathy Bates' acting is so powerful that long after her real lunatic self emerges, she is sympathetic. I felt sorry for her when she said how lonely she was and depressed. But at the same time, she was frightening. I don't think that sort of acting is easy to pull off.

All she had were the Misery Chastain novels. She filled an empty life with them just as she tried to fill herself up with food to compensate for all the emptiness. I do recall in the novel, she is shown to be eating a hell of a lot. She comes into see Paul and he can smell food on her breath. That struck me. This is a woman in total control who is totally out of control.

The sheriff and his wife are great. But he is no match for Wilkes. No one knows where writer Paul Sheldon is. It's a perfect murder/hostage situation. Annie's got it made. We can easily imagine Sheldon never being seen again.

In the novel I think she does something a lot worse than breaking Sheldon's foot. Even breaking his foot is horrific and all too real to watch.

One of the most chilling moments is when Sheldon manages to get a hold of a phone which is out of service, shall we say?! It's a prop! If that isn't nuts, what is?

There is a literally a fight to the death, well there has to be. Annie Wilkes is one of the most frightening villains to ever appear in film or fiction. And she's not to be pushed aside or overwhelmed easily.

This film and the novel have always been favorites of mine. I think what makes her so scary is this type of horror can happen. Despite writing supernatural horror, real horror--the horror of an Ed Gein living close by, the horror of a murdering nurse in charge of newborns killing with abandon, fuels my nightmares. Real as opposed to 'can't happen/won't happen' to me, is the most potent of frights.

There is evil out there, yes, it can exist in someone who is declared insane, but it's still evil that results from certain actions. Mourning a murdered newborn when you not only trusted the nurse, but you liked the nurse because she wanted you too, that's evil. That's potent. The results of that horror remain.

In my opinion, the film, got pretty close to the Allitt story for many, and I suppose that's one of the reasons I never forgot it.

Writing: Learning the Craft Never Ends

I have always said this and meant it. Yet even knowing this to be true, I still am surprised at learning more lessons! The more we write, the more we learn. It sounds simplistic but it isn't.

Currently, I am writing my fifth novel which begins a new series. I write as a three act play. It works for me: set up, middle and ending. I love writing that way because despite being a seat of the pantser, I do find I like some structure.

As I am well into my novel, I find I am much more aware of pacing than I was. As I don't use an outline, I am amazed to find my characters pulling me into the action, telling me what's coming next and so on. Sometimes I try to second guess them but it doesn't feel right and really, I don't want to ruffle their feelings. I need them! Okay, they need me, too I guess.

Pacing is important in any genre I'd say, and in horror it is vital. It's more than moving characters around from place to place or filling up pages with text. It's about flow and keeping the action going. Chapters aren't events, each chapter moves the story along. We don't want our characters to revolt and walk out!

Stephen King, ON WRITING:

 “Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)…"

That's what it's all about and even though I thought I knew that, I have found I know what it means and how it relates to my writing EVEN BETTER NOW! It's like one epiphany after another! I learn something and then some time later--I have an even keener insight into that previous lesson.

What a craft writing is, we never stop learning, that in itself makes it a great endeavor full of limitless possibilities.