Entries from January 2008 ↓

The article linked below is probably NOT SAFE FOR WORK, as it contains a nude photo. In addition, the short story Adaptation by Tabico as discussed in the article begins with the statement “Author Note: Warning! Extreme squick! Bugs! Blood! Cruelty! Yucky & mean stuff!” and considering that this was written for people actually [...]

The article linked below is probably NOT SAFE FOR WORK, as it contains a nude photo. In addition, the short story Adaptation by Tabico as discussed in the article begins with the statement “Author Note: Warning! Extreme squick! Bugs! Blood! Cruelty! Yucky & mean stuff!” and considering that this was written for people actually [...]

My laptop has been getting a lot slower over the past few months and it has been rather annoying. I have Norton Antivirus installed and I swear by it, for stopping viruses. It is not so good when it comes to spyware though, and so I have also installed a specialist spyware remover and it is also very good and regular scans have improved the performance of my computer. I also added a registry cleaner. It also helped. Then I removed all of the unnecessary programs from the machine’s start-up menu. I saw a difference after I did that too.

After all of this my laptop was running a lot better. Except when I was surfing the web. I have always used Internet Explorer, but I was finding that, even working offline, it took a very long time to open up. Working online was a nightmare! I had to sit and wait ages for pages to open and, at times, felt like picking up the computer and throwing it at the wall. It was so frustrating. I experimented a bit and found that if I ran Explorer without the add-ons it was a little faster. But not nearly fast enough.

A couple of days ago I downloaded the Firefox browser. It seems to be a lot better. It certainly opens up and runs faster. In fact I just added on the Google Toolbar and it still runs faster than Internet Explorer. The Google Toolbar has a page rank indicator included, and I find it a useful tool. When I ran Internet Explorer without add ons that meant no Google Toolbar and so I was in the dark about page rank and there are times that I need to know what the page rank of a page is, and what sites link to it and when it was last spidered etc.

Once I had Firefox installed one of the first things that I did was to visit my own site A Passion For Horror. I built the site myself and at the time I was aware that webpages can show up differently on different browsers. Because of this webmasters should always check to see how their sites appear in the various main browsers. I knew this, but I never bothered checking (call me dufus). When I did check I got a shock. My site looked crap. None of the pictures of books showed up in the book review section. Neither did any of the DVD covers in the DVD Review section. The talking skulls were missing from the top of every page and so was the line of dripping blood. I was most disappointed in the Public Domain Movies section. For every film I had taken screenshots, turned them into thumbnails and then ran them down the side of the review, like a little filmstrip. The pages had shown fine in Internet Explorer, but none of it showed in Firefox. Only the descriptions from inside the alt tags showed. It was a real mess.

None of this was the fault of the Firefox Browser. The fault was all my own. I can’t afford the prices of Dreamweaver and Frontpage and so I use a cheap What You See Is What You Get Editor (WYSIWYG). My editor works to a point, but it does not build the best of pages. Because of this I have to open up every finished page and alter the HTML where there is a problem. Until now I had missed one or two problem areas, just because Internet Explorer seems to be a little more forgiving of sloppy coding.

Anyway I have had to edit about 150 pages. It was hard work but now my site looks and Displays fine in Firefox.

All of this got me curious and so I downloaded and installed a couple of other web browsers: Opera and Netscape.

My site displays fine in Netscape. It is also okay in Opera, except that the frames pull to the left on every page. I am not going to worry about it though because it would take me too long to figure out what part of the code is causing the problem and it is only a small problem.

I am going to use Firefox from now on because I like it the best. Opera does seem slightly faster though. I liked the picture that displays when Netscape opens up (a ships steering wheel set against the stars), and it is seems to be faster than Internet Explorer, but there is nothing about it that made me prefer it to Firefox. Also AOL, who own Netscape, seem to be phasing it out and there will shortly be no more support for it.

I’m not slagging off Internet Explorer here. I have used it for years. All I am saying is that I had a problem and by changing to another browser I solved the problem. Of the three browsers that I tried it actually came bottom of my list. Firefox was my proffered choice, as I have just said, but had there not been a fiery fox to go with I would have probably gone with Opera.

Anyway, if this post proves to be useful to anyone who is slow surfing then, I am glad for that. Slow surfing sucks.

Wikipedia has a rather interesting article about web browsers, if you want to you can read it by clicking HERE. The article also contains a list of available browsers along with statistics about how much of the market they have etc. Internet Explorer is still, it would seem, the preferred choice of most people.

So have you seen the trailer for the Prom Night remake yet?



Obviously it bears very little resemblance to the original film, which is fine but begs the question "If this 'remake' bears so little resemblance to the original film, why not come up with a new title and make the movie totally fresh and exciting?"

The title doesn't really matter, however- I couldn't be less anticipatory about this PG-13 effort. Judging by YouTube comments such as "now im scared to go 2 prom", though, it seems that the target demographic may, in fact, be excited about it. I am so not Prom Night's target demographic. I know that horror films have virtually always catered to the teen market, but that doesn't make me any less bitter about it...nor does it make the film look like any less of a stinker.

I realize that it's not really fair to rag on a movie before one has seen the thing, but I just have this feeling, you know? That it'll be lame. Making a positive out of a negative, though (as I always do), I've come up with two ways in which the Prom Night remake can be rendered significantly better.

Spring has come with a vengeance to LeHorn's Hollow, Pennsylvania. While walking his dog, mystery author Adam Senft stumbles upon an enigma of his own, when he encounters his pretty neighbor engaged in a lewd act with something that is not human. Soon enough, he discovers that evil surrounds the entire town. The woods themselves are behaving strangely, the sound of pipes is on the air, women are going missing, and some supernatural force is drawing upon the not-so repressed desires of the townspeople, threatening to transform LeHorn's Hollow into something of a hell on earth. Only Adam and his neighbors seem to have an inkling of what is going on around them, and it falls upon their shoulders to try and make things right.

The setup for Brian Keene's latest novel is certainly reminiscent of other small town horror stories (it certainly draws upon such works as Stephen King's Salem's Lot, Robert McCammon's Bethany's Sin, and Bentley Little's Dominion). However, there is more to Dark Hollow than its setup. The execution is where this book truly shines, particularly in several strongly evoked characters (human and otherwise), which seems to be the trademark of Keene's fiction.

The protagonist for this novel (and the first person narrator) is Adam Senft, a mystery novelist who managed to succeed in his chosen career against all expectations. While not in the league of say James Patterson, Senft has nevertheless succeeded in such a fashion that he can live comfortably as a full time novelist. His family life is not quite so successful, alas. Though happily married, he and his wife are unable to carry a baby to term. A series of miscarriages has left them childless and, worse, ruined their hope for having children. There is a melancholy to Senft's narration, and a certain fixation on the sex lives of his neighbors (which is only natural; it's a product, this reader perceives, of envy).

There is a lot of sex in this book, from literal acts to metaphoric ones to a general mood of sexual frustration. Yet, while there are lewd moments to the work, the subject is for the most part handled with maturity, craft, and wit.

Thematically speaking, this work hearkens quite closely to Keene's novel Ghoul. The supernatural antagonists have similar motivations and are, in fact, presented as nearly identical: both are the last members of an ancient species, minions to Greater Powers that exist outside our time and space (Dunsany and Lovecraft via Keene's Labyrinth mythos). These two works are reflective of each other (bookends of a sort), though where Ghoul dealt mostly with coming of age, this one is more about accepting the responsibilities that come with living within a community.

One place I would like to have seen a bit more information than is offered is in the town itself. While ably evoked in early chapters, this reader is a fan of the microcosmic creations of King, Braunbeck, Grant and other horror writers. With a first person narrative, we are confined to only the one perspective, and therefore are shown only a slice of the town. While further novels (including the upcoming Ghost Walk, a preview of which is found in Dark Hollow) will undoubtedly further detail the town and its hinterlands, this reader has seen enough to know he wants more, more, more (blame me for being American; alas, even instant gratification takes too long). Beyond both this "lacking" and the egregious flaw of far too many characters whose names begin with the letter "C" (Cory, Cliff, Carl, et al.), this novel delivers exactly what it promises, a personal horror story.

There are plenty of references to Keene's Labyrinth mythos (as well as his other works), but these details are kept in the background. While picking up on these is not necessary to understanding Dark Hollow, they offer choice nuggets to Keene's longtime fans. These are details in the corner of the canvas, so to speak, pleasant enough to behold by the general observer but a real treat for this author's constant readers.

Dark Hollow by Briane Keene

336 pages

Leisure Books

Published February 2008

Buy This Book >>>>

Author's Website

Publisher's Website

“Skinwalkers” isn’t what we’ve been lead to believe. It’s actually a modern western that involves Native American mysticism and a bit of Japanese numerology -- no, wait! It’s a classic character-driven horror movie -- better yet, a child-in-peril supernatural thriller with twists and turns around every corner, leading to a werewolf vs. werewolf smackdown in Act III! The answer is: all of the above.
Captain Obvious moment: bigger doesn’t always equal better. A straightforward story can go a long way. Starting off with a pancake flat opening, “Skinwalkers” is full of needless scenes, unnecessary twists and sketchy action sequences. Even Rhona Mitra can’t save this one.
Most of us grew up watching memorable cinematic moments like, “Luke, I am your father” and “I see dead people”, so the desire to emulate that brand of shock and awe storytelling is understandable but it’s not always necessary. They tried to shoehorn a twist that hurt the narrative -- made no sense. Werewolf movies have been in a slump for a while and hiding the creatures (which look pretty decent) in the theatrical trailer was a big mistake. I don’t have a problem with the PG-13 rating, but if you’re going to take out the gore and violence, you need to replace them with something else. Better action scenes, cool transformations, whatever. Poke around on the DVD (which includes commentary by director Jim Isaac) and you’ll find an Easter egg featuring Stan Winston at Comic-Con discussing how he became involved with the project.

We're back to those long ass podcasts we are. Here's what yer a gonna get in Episode #41: 0:00 - "Feelin' Zombie" 4:12 - Intro 6:20 - Letters From The Dead - Zombie Survivor 23:34 - Jeff Parish's "That Ain't A Mosey" 53:37 - Zombie Zcience - The Zombie 1:07:03 - Nora Fleicher's "Discovered Country" Chapter 7 1:20:41 - Greg Solis' Chapter 21 of "Rise and Walk" 1:33:12 - Letters From The Dead 2 - April 1:40:45 - Rob Fox's "Z Day Is Here" - Days 1-3 1:56:01 - Memories of ZombieFest - insight into "NotLD" 2:07:08 - "Beginning of the Dead" - 'Jesus Wept' 2:13:18 - Crummy Comments 2:14:47 - Outsong by Erie's "Dead City Saints" The new forum is now up and ready for you to post on. You can find it at: http://libraryofthelivingdead.lefora.com/forum/ Join us!! Join us!!! And spread the infection!! Undead love, Dr. Pus

We're back to those long ass podcasts we are. Here's what yer a gonna get in Episode #41: 0:00 - "Feelin' Zombie" 4:12 - Intro 6:20 - Letters From The Dead - Zombie Survivor 23:34 - Jeff Parish's "That Ain't A Mosey" 53:37 - Zombie Zcience - The Zombie 1:07:03 - Nora Fleicher's "Discovered Country" Chapter 7 1:20:41 - Greg Solis' Chapter 21 of "Rise and Walk" 1:33:12 - Letters From The Dead 2 - April 1:40:45 - Rob Fox's "Z Day Is Here" - Days 1-3 1:56:01 - Memories of ZombieFest - insight into "NotLD" 2:07:08 - "Beginning of the Dead" - 'Jesus Wept' 2:13:18 - Crummy Comments 2:14:47 - Outsong by Erie's "Dead City Saints" The new forum is now up and ready for you to post on. You can find it at: http://libraryofthelivingdead.lefora.com/forum/ Join us!! Join us!!! And spread the infection!! Undead love, Dr. Pus

Sci Fi Wire found a rumor printed in the British tabloid The Sun saying director Terry Gilliam is looking to Johnny Depp to take over the role played by late actor Heath Ledger in the currently shooting fantasy film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Ledger was six weeks away from finishing his work on the film when he was found dead in a New York apartment on Jan. 22.

"There is a point in the film when Heath falls through a magic mirror," a studio source told the paper. "He could change into another character after that, and that is where Johnny would come in. It's a weird, fantasy, time-travel movie, so Heath's character could easily change appearance. It would be a poignant moment. Johnny’s not working at the moment, so everyone is praying he will do it."

Untraceable is a true horror film in its portrayal of man as horrific and gives us a modern day look at viral marketing gone awry.

Untraceable is a true horror film in its portrayal of man as horrific and gives us a modern day look at viral marketing gone awry.

The George Romero Diary of the Dead MySpace page has listed the theaters that will film will debut in. Click here to check out the list. Set to open Feb. 15, the flick's been getting great buzz from Cannes and looks to be the "don't miss horror film" this year.

Dimension has delayed the release of their Hellraiser remake until 2009 and according to Bloody Disgusting, the reason for the delay is they weren't completely happy with Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's screenplay and have decided to take the film to other writers. The French duo is still attached to helm the pic.

Bloody Disgusting reports Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) is considering making his next project a horror film. It's always welcome news when one of the truly brilliant directors out there considers our beloved genre. We'll keep an ear out for more.