Short-short horror: The Parking Lot

Only one light remained, a sole beacon in the otherwise endless dark. Any sense of the larger parking lot was gone, though he could hear a faint 'ping' noise, like a car in which the keys have been left in the ignition. He started toward the light, grateful for any place where the encroaching night was held at bay.

The light flickered suddenly, strobing almost, and he stopped, his heart beating hard in his chest. The light steadied. Brightened.

And Stephen thought of deep sea fish, all bulbous eyes and needle teeth. How they often had a glowing lure that attracted their prey.

The light flickered again, as if in anticipation.

---

Another pic from my reference folder. Empty parking lots always creep me out.

Short-short horror: The Expedition

The final fate of the expedition remains, despite months spent searching the island, a mystery. No trace has been found of even a single member of the nineteen man expedition. The condition of the huts, demolished as they are, indicates a catastrophe of some kind, though time and the elements have erased any evidence of what that might have been. Manning insists that it must have been a meteorological event - an unprecedented Antarctic storm of some sort - but I have my doubts.

A single photograph was found in the ruins of hut #2, a facsimile of which is reproduced above. The man is expedition leader Norman Hunt-Levy. The skeleton bears a superficial resemblance to that of a sea elephant, though certain morphological differences in the skull structure have caused much consternation amongst the zoological team. On the back is written the words "juvenile - killed by accident."

---

I found this photo in my 'reference' folder. I have no idea where I got it from, but it seems to be from an Australian Antarctic expedition circa 1901. The skeleton is that of an elephant seal. As far as I know.

Fear Flashback Friday: Quatermass and the Pit (AKA: Five Million Years to Earth)

Quatermass and the Pit (AKA: Five Million Years to Earth)

This is another one of those movies that I remember fondly from my childhood. It was first watched, as so many older sci-fi and horror films were - from my grandmother's couch on a rainy Saturday afternoon. For the longest time I couldn’t even remember the name, just the vague plot of a spaceship found buried in the earth during a subway expansion. I’m almost certain I saw it under the Five Million Years title, as that seems to have been the US release title. 

I do remember it creeping the hell out of me as a kid.

Many years later I read a Stephen King novel about an ancient spaceship buried in the forest that comes to influence and, eventually, to control many of the people in a small Maine town. Hang on, I thought, this sounds familiar... The book was The Tommyknockers,  and while it obviously has other influences - Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space among them -  it was the nods to Quatermass and the Pit that stuck out to me the most, and I remember thinking that I wanted to track down the movie that I had seen so long ago.

Unfortunately, none of my local video stores had it - I'm not even sure it was ever released on VHS, at least not in the 1980's. To be fair, I didn't really know the name of the movie at that point either, so even if it was available it's likely I wouldn't have found it. It wasn't until many years later that I came across a DVD copy of Quatermass and the Pit. The name meant very little to me - I was only vaguely aware of the Quatermass name from the final BBC serial when it was broadcast on PBS - but the plot sounded vaguely familiar, and there was something about the monster on the (otherwise uninspiring) cover that also rang a bell. So I took a chance and picked it up - and got to relive a piece of my childhood.

This was the only scene I could really remember.

The Medium
My copy of the movie is the Anchor Bay "The Hammer Collection" release. It's a double-sided DVD with the movie on one side and most of the extras on the other. There's a commentary track with director Roy Ward Baker and writer Nigel Kneale, as well as some trailers, TV spots and a "World of Hammer" episode.

British distributors Optimum Home Entertainment had a recent release of the movie (restored) on Blu-ray, but it's region B only and the DVD is long out of print and difficult to find. At the moment, your only (legit) choice in the US is to catch it on TCM (under the Five Million Years title) or buy an expensive copy off eBay - though I have seen it pop up (briefly) on YouTube.

The Movie
Quatermass and the Pit is an adaptation of a 1958 BBC serial of the same name. The adaptation was done by the author of the original, Nigel Kneale - a name that's synonymous with quality British sci-fi. I still haven't seen any of the original Quatermass television shows, something I should probably remedy.

At a place called Hobbs End in London workers adding an extension to a tube (subway) station uncover a number of fossils – an early form of hominid. Scientists are brought in to preserve the specimens (and get the site cleared as soon as possible so construction can continue). In the process of digging out specimens they find some kind of metallic device that is assumed to be an unexploded bomb from the blitz. The military is brought in, but they can’t determine the nature of the thing – it’s certainly not like any bomb they’ve ever seen and doesn’t appear to be made of any type of steel (their magnetic listening devices won’t stick). As they unearth more of the strangely shaped object they also find another skull embedded in the clay within one of the hollows of the ship. As they’ve dated the hominid skeletons to roughly 5 million years ago the question becomes: what is this device and how did it get there?

Why... hello, handsome!

We’re introduced to the title character of Professor Bernard Quatermass when the military is brought in. He’s a scientist who’s in the middle of having his moon rocket project co-opted by the military. For someone with no experience of the character, I really liked this touch – it gave a sense of  Quatermass having his own story, separate from the events of the film. In a few lines you understand he is a brilliant scientist, that he has problems with science being used for military purposes and that he has at least a little bit of political influence.

His foil in the military is Colonel Breen, a man who isn’t completely inflexible, but certainly believes the military knows what’s right. He’s portrayed by Julian Glover who you may remember as General Veers in The Empire Strikes Back or Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

"You'd never catch my AT-AT in such a state, why it's filthy in here!"

The military decides that the device is a German propaganda weapon from WWII, but Quatermass and his allies - the anthropologist Roney who began the dig and his assistant Barbara - begin to believe it’s a spaceship, possibly from Mars, possibly on a genetic colonization mission. 

And it may not be completely dead.

The military will not be denied, however, and you get the distinct impression that it's not just Quatermass that has a low opinion of both the military and the government - Kneale doesn't have a lot of trust in them either. The blind insistence on a conventional explanation leads, predictably, to disaster - and the final acts of the film devolve into scenes of psychic mobs, under the influence of the ship, hunting down unaffected individuals while a horrific vision of their alien masters floats above scenes of destruction.

If there's a down side to the movie it's that the effects are very dated. They were probably pretty low-tech and low-budget even when they came out - and it compares very unfavorably with 2001: a Space Odyssey, which came out the following year (albeit with a significantly larger budget). It has the unfortunate effect of leaving us amused when the aliens are first revealed, when instead we should probably be repulsed and dismayed. 

This is, unfortunately, the least cheesy looking view of the alien.

That being said, there's a certain mood that the movie works hard to create - a growing sense of unease - that still works very well. The acting is quite good, with only a few moments of over-the-top hysteria. Some of the effects are done well, especially during a sequence in which a drill operator is 'hounded' by various telekinetic phenomena, and the climactic sequence involving a crane and a hovering 'vision' of an alien monstrosity is still both exciting and chilling.

The cinematography, editing and - particularly - the pacing are great. It almost feels like a more modern film in its terse dialogue and rapid plot development. The colors are vibrant and clear, as one would expect of a Hammer film, and the set design is top notch.

The Bottom Line
I think this movie is still pretty effective – especially for being made on a shoestring in 1967. It has some genuinely creepy moments and the non-creature effects are done quite well. The limited amount of extras are shot skillfully as things begin to go truly pear-shaped towards the end. There are lots of issues of course – nobody likes to see the Styrofoam ‘grain’ on the rocks that are being thrown around by the ‘psychic awakening.’ However, these are more than made up for in the creepy set-pieces: the exploration of the abandoned housing, the poor contractor chased by ‘demons,’ the whole apocalyptic end sequence.

The choice to make the alien cross-eyed may not have been the most inspired one.

I’d love to see this movie remade today. I think it could be quite an effective action/horror movie and the ideas still have some depths that haven't been completely plumbed in the intervening years. As it is, this is a great piece of classic British sci-fi/horror and I highly recommend giving it a look if you haven’t seen it. It’s one of my favorites and I try and watch it every Halloween season.

Short-short horror: The Dismal Pool

There was a sound behind them and they both turned to see a small ripple near the middle of the pool, right where the line of distant shadow was reflected in the otherwise still water.

"Oh God!" Sarah moaned, "we're right back at the pool."

"Shut up." Meg turned and picked up a branch from the side of the path. It was partly rotten, but it was better than nothing.

"Can't you see the faces? Oh my god, the faces..."

"I said shut. Up." Meg hefted the branch and then, despite herself, at Sarah's swollen left knee. What was the saying? You didn't have to outrun the bear...

"What are we going to do?"

Meg looked at the daylight, staging a quick retreat up the distant hillside. She sighed, her eyes flickering one more time to Sarah's knee. "Okay, follow me." And she started down the path towards the pool, even as the first ripples reached the shore.

---

This is a pic I took in Crawford Notch in New Hampshire. There's a parking lot near a place called Flume Cascade. Usually people are just parking to take pictures of the cascade, but if you look carefully you'll see a sign that says "Dismal Pool" that points to a small path down a steep ravine. A few minutes walk takes you to the view above. It didn't really seem all that dismal at the time, but looking at the photo since then I've always thought it seemed a little - creepy. Especially with that little ripple in the center. And doesn't that cliff on the left look a little like a face? 

Short-short horror: The Old House

A few things on a forum I frequent - a thread about inspirations and prompts from images, a short horror poem and and a thread that encourages people to post scary Youtube movies - have been percolating in my head. I've wanted to combine the ideas (in Frankenstein fashion) and write short-short horror stories/scraps/sentences based in photos (or illustrations, pieces of music, that weird shadow in the corner where the light doesn't reach in the basement). I'm hoping to post something every once and a while - feel free to join in, if you want!

Here's my first one:

In the weed-filled backyard the final count was 17 vehicles of various models and ages - including the rusted out hulk of a Model A Ford truck. Some were found to have been registered to people listed as missing, but others were never positively identified as belonging to anyone. The house itself was unremarkable, an aging farmhouse with crumbling plaster-and-lathe walls, rotting floors, and decades of dust, spiderwebs, and silence. The basement was fieldstone with a dirt floor and smelled of motor oil and rotting fruit. No one had lived in the place for ages - though the newest car in the backyard was a 2012 Prius that had belonged to a missing New Jersey couple.

No bodies were ever found.





This is a real house I used to drive by often. It's on Route 1, just north of Searsport, Maine. You can see it on Google maps if you want.

The actual photo above is by a guy named Bob Adams and can be purchased as a print or poster here:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/baphoto54/works/9936708-homestead-searsport-maine

Fear Flashback Friday: Re-Animator

Re-Animator

I’m not sure why it has such a hold, but Re-Animator remains I movie I can watch again and again. I don’t think anyone’s ever mentioned watching Re-Animator and had me say “nah, I’ve seen it 999 times, let’s watch something else.” I’m always up for it, especially with a group of friends.

I can't pinpoint exactly when I first saw it - it seems like the sort of movie that would have stood out in the rows of direct-to-video slasher flicks that crowded the shelves of the Horror section at my local video store. However, I can't remember ever watching it while I was in high school, so it's likely that I first saw it with my roommates Bill and Chris in the late 80’s.

Our local video store back then had two floors and the horror movies were relegated to the second floor along with the pornos. You got it via a twisting staircase that always sounded like it was about to fall in - I think the owners used it a security device, as they could always tell when someone was heading upstairs. The heat in that small space during the summer was stifling and there always seemed like there was the danger of heat stroke while you perused the videos. The horror movie section was relatively large for the size of the store and it wrapped around the walls to blend, almost seemlessly, into the porn. Nothing was in alphabetical order, either, so there was no warning. You'd be passing by Ghoulies II and suddenly be looking at the cover to Anaconda Jones in the Temple of Boobs or something.

I'm almost certain this is NOT the video store we went to. Almost.

We spent quite a bit of time arguing over what movies to rent. We were college students and didn't have a lot of extra cash. Each of us would stake out a different section of the wall and look for something that looked interesting. Then we'd bring the box back to the others, who would, inevitably, curl their lip at it - "Redneck Zombies? No thanks - how about this one, Cannibal Hookers? No, it's not a Porno."

We did have one simple rule when it came to picking videos - it had to have gore or it had to have nudity and IDEALLY it would have both. Re-Animator would have been like the video gods coming down from on high and saying “BOB, BILL, CHRIS – HERE IS THE EXACT MOVIE YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOUR WHOLE LIVES.”

The Medium
My copy of Re-Animator is the double-disk release from Anchor Bay that came out in 2007. The picture quality is very good, though not high-def by any means. The extras are pretty fantastic, including two commentary tracks, a 70 minute documentary as well as multiple interviews, stills, deleted/extended scenes, the screenplay and more.  There's a Blu-ray from Image Entertainment that includes most of the extras, but I've never felt the need to upgrade. (FYI - the movie is also available via Netflix streaming.)

One note about the packaging - one of the reasons I picked up this version was because it came with a green highlighter pen shaped like the syringe from the movie. I have no idea where it is now - I can only assume a pale, cadaverous student of the dark arts has stolen it for some nefarious use.

How can you say no to that face? Also, do not try and inject highlighter fluid.

The Movie
Re-Animator is a loose adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft story, "Herbert West: Reanimator." (The complete text of the story is available on the DVD - and freely available on the internet, as it's now public domain.) The plot follows an idealistic young medical student, Dan Cain, as his life is torn apart by the arrival of Herbert West - a mysterious fellow medical student who has transferred from a school in Switzerland. Herbert, you see, has been dabbling in bringing the dead back to life... 

Dan's fiance, the Dean Halsey's daughter, Megan, doesn't like West from the outset and her instincts prove to be correct. When West is attacked by a cat he's brought back to life, both Dan and Megan are drawn in - and in the aftermath both Dan and Herbert are dismissed from the school.

"Trust me."

Of course Herbert is not one to allow a little thing like being expelled to stop him from his experiments, and he manages to browbeat/blackmail Dan into helping him move on to human subjects. Dead ones, of course. Things spiral completely out of control from that point and just when you think things can't get any worse an ambitious faculty member named Dr. Hill steps in - and things get worse.

Despite my saying that the movie follows Dan he's not really the focus of the movie - though he's obviously supposed to be the audience protagonist. It's Jeffrey Combs as West who is the star, with his manic and inspired performance. From the very first scene (in which we find out WHY Herbert had to leave Switzerland) Combs hogs (and hams) every frame he's in.

Which is not to say the other actors are slouches. I've given short-shrift to Bruce Abbott in the past - calling him the weakest of the cast - but watching the film this time around I realized the he's actually fairly good in all his scenes. His problem is that he shares so much screen time with Combs, and Combs is just so good, that Abbott's performances seem lacking in contrast. Barbara Crampton is great and, in a movie which requires a LOT of screaming, manages to do some of her best work when she's not making any sound at all - her facial expressions are sometimes priceless. David Gale nearly matches Combs in the hamming-it-up department and makes for one of the most memorable horror movie villains ever.

He's a doctor - of course his hands are freezing.

The cinematography is mostly excellent, with good framing and lighting. You'd never know that this was Stuart Gordon's first film, as the camera work and editing are top-notch. The music is very ‘Phsycho’ but, to my ear, manages to be unique enough that I can instantly identify it as Re-Animator in a few notes. The writing is very good, with lots of humor and pathos – and the Stuart Gordon manages to bring out both without going too far into slapstick or maudlin melodrama - for the most part, anyway. There is one scene with Dan and Megan that strays over that line, but it's momentary. 

Of course the gore effects are one of the reasons this film has such a reputation and the majority of them still hold up. There are a few issues if you look for them, but the sheer number and innovation keep you from focusing on the minor drawbacks.  The scenes with Dr. Hill’s headless corpse are incredible (and in one particular scene, incredibly creepy beyond even what you would think possible with a severed head).

I had the same reaction the first time I saw this scene.

The Bottom Line
To my mind this movie remains the best modern re-imagining of a Lovecraft tale. Gordon himself hasn’t been able to repeat his success (The Beyond is fun, but not in the same league, and neither are the sequels.) That’s probably due to the unique position the original story holds in Lovecraft’s bibliography (being a for-hire tale, intentionally humorous in tone), but I’m still amazed that there hasn’t been another adaptation that’s had the success this one has.

Dark Tower Illustrations

Kind of a Throwback Thursday post. These are a bunch Dark Tower illos I did almost exactly 10 years ago. I did this as part of a proposal put together by Kurt Belcher and it included drawings for each of the books from artists like Jeff Cram, Brad Mrock and Eric Mrock. It was a lot of fun, but of course they ended up 'going in another direction.' I love what Marvel ended up doing with the books - and the quality and talent was significantly better than my scratchings. Enjoyed the hell out of doing this, though!