J is for Jackson, Shirley

I revere Shirley Jackson. I think "The Lottery" is a dandy short story but for my money, The Haunting of Hill House is the best haunted house novel ever written--and I've read more than a few.  And just in case you're looking for some haunted house stories, here are some I've read and recommend:

Stephen King:  The Shining

Okay, technically, it isn't a haunted HOUSE story, but let's not quibble.

Susan Hill:  The Woman in Black

I was a bit  disappointed by the movie, although I thought it was wonderfully eerie and atmospheric. And Daniel Radcliffe is picking interesting parts post-Harry Potter.

Dorothy Macardle: The Uninvited

I saw the movie version of the book (which was published in 1941) and the ghostly special effects were terrific.

Alexandra Sokoloff:  The Harrowing

I'm a big fan of Sokoloff's writing, and I enjoyed this haunted college story tremendously.

But we were discussing Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House.  I went looking for an imaage of the novel's cover and found a whole lot of them, some of which seemed wildly off the mark, like this one that looks like it might be an English comedy of manners. (The cover at the top left is the cover of the edition I remember reading. I bought it used for ten cents at a local library sale.)

The writing in this book is just so beautifully done. Chilling and simple (like "The Lottery") and yet also poetic, especially in the final words.  If you've never read this book, read it.

Another Cover Reveal: Unsanctified, a horror novella

This is the year I finally transcribe all the short stories and half-based novellas and bits of novel-writing and refine them into something I can actually publish. Joy Sillesen, of Indie Author Services, has been incredibly generous in supplying me with fantastic cover art, and I'm using those covers as inspirations.

This is the cover for Unsanctified, due out in October from Dark Valentine Press. It's an old school horror story, my version of a Stephen King kind of tale. The story takes place on Halloween (of course) and I hope it scares people.

Stephen King's library PSA

I remember this from when it originally aired.

Halloween Movie Marathon: Tales from the Darkside

I never saw the television series Tales from the Darkside, but I really liked this anthology film. Like Stephen King's Cat's Eye or the Twilight Zone Movie, it was a collection of three tales, bookended by a riff on Hansel and Gretl with Deborah Harry of Blondie fame playing the witch figure.
The three segments were "Lot 249," based on a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story and starring Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and Christian Slater; "Lover's Vow" starring James Remar and Rae Dawn Chong; and "Cat From Hell," based on a Stephen King story, starring the supremely creepy William Hickey (remember him from Prizzi's Honor?) and David (Buster Poindexter) Johansen.
Oddly, I have almost no memory of the "Cat From Hell" segment, which was adapted by George Romero from King's short story. Romero and director John Harrison are long-time friends and colleagues--you can see Harrison play Pellinore in Romero's entertaining Knightriders. If you're an Ed Harris fan, you should really check the movie out. It's about a troupe of Ren Faire biker/jousters. Stephen King makes a cameo appearance as an obnoxious audience member (and if memory serves, his wife Tabitha King is also in there.) Harrison and Romero also collaborated on Diary of the Dead.
"Lot 249" was a very creepy mummy story.  Buscemi had mostly been doing television series work up to them (he'd be in Miller's Crossing a couple of years later). Slater had just had a Lindsay Lohan-style problem with his car and some alcohol but didn't let it affect his work.
"Lover's Vow" was possibly the strongest of the stories and had some really good special effects for a horror movie made for a price. The chemistry between Remar (of Dexter) and Chong was hot.
This is a movie where you can dip in and out of the stories as the night goes on. Pair it with something like the Romero/King collaboration Creepshow.

Halloween Movie Marathon: Pet Sematary

I have read nearly all of Stephen King's books, some of them twice, and Pet Sematary scared me the most because the wish fulfillment at work is so incredibly basic. Who wouldn't want a beloved pet to return, or a beloved relative?
I liked this movie although I never saw either the sequel or the remake. The tagline from the movie, "Sometimes dead is better" is kind of my policy on remakes--sometimes you just need to let a movie die. Seriously. Now that we have Blu-Ray and VOD and streaming and netflix and hulu and whatever, you really don't need to remake a movie for a new audience because each generation of audience can see the original for themselves.
But I digress.
I liked the casting in this movie. Dale Midkiff was fine as the father who can't resist the oportunity to bring his son back. This movie is King's version of The Monkey's Paw and audiences were screaming "Don't do it" when I first saw it.
Denise Crosby's role as his wife was probably the best role she ever had on the big screen.
The person I really liked, though, was Fred Gwynne, who played the neighbor who holds the secret of the Pet Sematary.  Three years later he played the long-suffering judge on My Cousin Vinny and he was a hoot. Here he is utterly convincing as a man who talks about having a heart like stony ground, but who can't help but interfere when he sees his neighbor suffering.
Stephen King has a cameo in the film as a minister, and he's better than M. Night Shyamalan in his cameos, but not by much. He's about on a par with Peter Benchley, who made a brief appearance in Jaws.
The movie was directed by Mary Lambert, who also directed the sequel. Lambert's film career never really got any traction, although she has directed a number of genre films (and has one in production) and a lot of music videos for Sting and Lionel Ritchie and similar superstar talents.
There are some genuine frights in this movie, and the idea itself is just damn creepy. The book is even creepier, so you might want to read it first just to get the full effect.

Halloween Movie Marathon--Fright Night

I liked the reboot of Fright Night with Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell but I liked the original, 1985 version with Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall even more. In the remake, Peter Vincent is kind of a rock star/Mind Freak kind of guy (and that's a really interesting idea) but in the original, as played by Roddy McDowall, he was a beloved local monster movie host of the sort beloved of movie geeks everywhere.
Fright Night was written and directed by Tom Holland, who has also worked as an actor in a lot of genre movies, including Stephen King's The Stand and Langoliers. He's got a movie called The Ten O'Clock People coming out in 2013.
William Ragsdale, the young male lead, was kind of the Shia LeBeouf of his day. Fright Night was only his second movie (in his first, his character was called "the kid") and he's since gone on to a career that mixes television and feature films. He's also got a film coming out next year, the noir-ish Broken City.
Chris Sarandon as the vampire Ragsdale's character runs across, is smooth and seductive and quite scary. He doesn't have quite the feral ferocity of Colin Farrell's vampire, but you would not want to run into him in a dark alley. (Or maybe you would if you're inclined to fantasize about tall, dark and handsome vampires.)
I liked he way Fright Night played with the vampire mythos. This is another movie that's suitable for family viewing but still scary.

Halloween Movie Marathon: Poltergeist

I used to be afraid of the dark. When I was little, we lived in a house with a great back yard filled with trees that were perfect for climbing. But one of those trees had branches that would rattle against my bedroom window whenever the wind was up and I always felt like it was going to break the window and come in after me.
So when I saw Poltergeist and that kid-eating tree in it, I knew that I was not alone in my fear, and I totally bought into what happened next.
I really liked JoBeth Williams as the mother in this movie, and found Craig T. Nelson a very sympathetic suburban dad. both actors are still working, but JoBeth's career as a leading lady never really blew up the way it should have. 
It's really sad to think that two of the three kids who played the children in the movie are dead--Heather O'Rourke at twelve from cardiac arrest and intestinal stenosis and Dominique Dunne murdered by her abusive boyfriend. One of the last hard-news stories I covered as a reporter was a meeting of Parents of Murdered Children (POMC) where Dominique's mother Ellen was a speaker.
Ellen was in a wheelchair then, gaunt from the disease that finally killed her and still regally beautiful. John Van De Kamp, who was then the California Attorney General, was also a guest and his law and order platitudes fell on deaf ears and unsympathetic hearts. It was a tough room.
Zelda Rubenstein's Tangina was a terrific character, and the character was a highlight of the veteran character actress' career, which also included an ongoing gig as the narrator of a show called The Scariest Places on Earth.  (I didn't know this, but before Zelda turned to acting, she earned a degree in bacteriology and worked for years as a lab technician at various blood banks.)

Poltergeist was directed by Tobe Hooper, whose big claim to fame before that was directing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the Stephen King miniseries Salem's Lot, starring David Soul, Lance Kerwin (the James at 15 star turns 50 next month--don't you feel old?) and James Mason. (There's one heart-stopping moment in that mini that scared me to death and I knew the book really well and was expecting it.)
Poltergeist came out 30 years ago (the same year as E.T., actually) and it would be interesting to see if it still has the power to scare.

Halloween Movie Marathon--Silver Bullet

It is no secret that I'm a fan of Stephen King's books and more often than not, I've really liked the movies/miniseries made from those books. (I love, love, love Dolores Claiborne, and thought Kathy Bates was even better in it than she was in Misery, which won her an Oscar.) I also loved The Stand, and I hear through reliable sources that the reboot/update of that is very good.  I've not heard good things about the new It, though.
One of my favorite Stephen King movies isn't actually that good, 1985's Silver Bullet (or as it was billed, "Stephen King's Silver Bullet"). If you've never seen it, Silver Bullet is a werewolf movie and the "mystery" of the werewolf's identity is pretty much obvious from the moment the character walks on the screen.
Forget the werewolf stuff. The reason to see the movie--the reason I love it so much--is that the story is about a spunky, likable kid in a wheelchair and his maternal uncle, who supercharges the chair without the boy's mother knowing it, and who is a warm and supportive presence in the boy's life.
The kid was played by Corey Haim and his uncle was played by Gary Busey and both were terrific.
It makes me sad that Haim did not survive Hollywood and became yet another drug casualty. Silver Bullet came before the movies he's most famous for, Lucas and Lost Boys.
Gary Busey, who played "Uncle Red" was in kind of a mid-period in his career. He's been working steadily since 1968 (he has three movies coming out next year) and mixed in with the good stuff is so much not-so-good stuff that it's easy to forget just how damn good he is.  I first saw Busey in a little-known television show about a quirky family called The Texas Wheelers. It was sort of a Texas version of Party of Five (although Jack Elam played the dad) and I loved it to death.  Busey played the eldest brother and a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill was one of his little brothers.  I don't really remember much about it except that the theme song was John Prine's "Illegal Smile."
Three years later, Busey channeled Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly story and earned, if I'm not mistaken, an Oscar nomination for the part.  He's so natural and so likable in this movie that it's a shame he's been doing so many psycho villains lately.
This is a good Halloween movie to watch with little kids.

Saturday Self-Promotion

It's the last Saturday of the year, and the last day of 2011 and there's a lot going on.
First, the new story for NoHo Noir is up, a day early. Check it out here. Mark Satchwill and I have big plans for the series, so we hope you'll check it out if you haven't already.
And for those of you who are following our saga, we're still waiting to hear from AOL's lawyers about the disposition of NoHo Noir volume I. It'll be a year in April since we first started inquiring about reprint rights.
Thanks to Joy Sillesen, a properly formatted Twelve Nights of Christmas is now up at Amazon. The cover is by Joanne Renaud, so getting this collection on line was a real Dark Valentine effort.

Copyright: FoldOut Creative

And speaking of covers...a new company called FoldOut Creative offered a Craig's List contest to design a free book cover as part of their opening marketing splash. I won. (You know my love for the Craig's List.) Here's what they came up for as a cover for The Poisoned Teat (a collection of short fiction coming this spring).
The company officially launches next month, but I couldn't wait to show off the cover. I'l let you know when they're up and running because if you're looking for a great cover, they can deliver.
The Poisoned Teat is one of two fiction collections I hope to publish next year; the other is Twelve More Nights of Christmas. (Once I started coming up with twisted variants on the "twelve days" of the Christmas song, I couldn't stop at just one!
I might squeeze in another compilation of "Tales of the Misbegotten," (aka L.A. Nocturne II), but honestly, I have people in my life who will start to mock me if I do not buckle down and actually finish Misbegotten this year. ("Think of a chapter as a short story," they tell me. I'm going to try that approach.)
I have stories in three 2012 anthologies so far, and stories under consideration at several more places. And I'll continue to submit to the contests and the online fiction sites. I have a list of places I'd like to crack. And in the meantime, I will continue to read and learn from all the short-story practioners out there. I'm participating in the 365 story challenge and while I'll be revisiting some of my very favorite stories and favorite authors, mostly I hope to discover new (to me) writers over the course of a year. (Otherwise it would be too easy to simply reread Harlan Ellison and Tanith Lee and Shirley Jackson and Stephen King and Katherine Anne Porter and Saki.)
I've got big plans for 2012 and I know you do too.  I look forward to reading your work. I hope you enjoy mine.
Happy New Year.

Are You a Stephen King fan?

If not, stop reading this post. In fact...maybe you don't belong here at all...
Now then...Would you like to win a signed copy of Stephen King's new book, Full Dark, No Stars? If you're a completist, it will round out your collection of Kingania nicely. King's publisher, Simon & Schuster, is sponsoring the give-away and you can sign up here.

I (Heart) Short Stories

I came across this great quote by Isaac Asimove,"If knowledge creates problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." and found myself thinking about his wonderful short story Nightfall.

And then I started thinking about the short stories that have stuck with me since I first read them. Yes, yes, yes, Jack London's To Build a Fire is a fantastic story, and so is Stephen Crane's Open Boat but the stories that really made an impression never made it into my English books--with one exception.

I was going to make a list of my five favorite short stories and then I realized, I had to make it a top 10 list. So here they are in no particular order:

Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. I know what you're thinking, how can I pick just one? But I recently saw Jeffrey Combs' awesome one-man Poe show Nevermore where he recited this one and it's still so potent.

Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.--I'm also fan of his Pretty Maggie Money-Eyes with its stinger of a last line.

Nightfall I once wrote Asimov a fan letter, one of the few I've written, and he was gracious enough to respond to me. His guides to Shakespeare and the Bible are outstanding works of scholarship and well worth owning in the days before the Internet.

Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Written in 1948, the story goes that she wrote it because she needed money to fix her refrigerator. Her novel has one of the most chilling last lines of any ghost story I ever read.

Saki's The Open Window also has a great last line and a twist. He wrote a ton of great short stories, but this one is probably his most famous.

Arthur C. Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God. Just an awesome story and so incredibly simple. I love the collision of mysticism and technology.

Ray Bradbury's The Small Assassin is a dark, dark story of the kind you might find in a Stephen King anthology. (I love a lot of King's stories, and also many written by his son Joe Hill, but I read King as an adult. The stories here are the ones that shaped me as a writer because they just haunted me.)

Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game which has been used as a basic plot in a bazillion movies including the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Hard Target directed by John Woo.

Frank R. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger is another favorite. I don't remember ever reading anything else he wrote but like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, maybe one thing is all you need.

And finally, W. W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw.. This story was written in the 19th century and they'll still be reading it 500 years from now. Stephen King used it as the basis of his novel Pet Sematary and if you haven't read that, you should.

If I could go to 11 like the amps in Spinal Tap I would add one more, D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner. And then there are all those wonderful Roald Dahl stories. I skipped right past Willy Wonka and James and the Giant Peach and went right to his stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

What are the stories that shaped your life and your writing? I'd really like to know so I can go read them.