Halloweenapalooza Report!

Halloweenapalooza (formerly The Halloween Horror Picture Show) featured the most extreme content of all five years of the festival . Almost all of the features would have to be released unrated, and I don't mean "PG-13 movie that added the F-word to the DVD release so they could plaster 'Unrated' on the box." Sadly, it was another year of "Where the hell are all the people???" but still, as always, the event was gobs-o-fun.

The features...

HOODOO FOR VOODOO - A very entertaining horror/comedy with a great soundtrack. Though it's not quite as funny as it needs to be to justify the silly tone (there are some good sight gags and one-liners, but the movie needs more of 'em), there are some definite "Whoa!!!" gore gags and the whole movie is a lot of fun. A nice way to start the festival.

DEATH ON DEMAND - Six people go on a reality internet show where they must survive the night in a house where horrible, horrible events took place. This supernatural slasher flick is filled with unlikable-but-entertaining characters, lots of laughs, and sex-and-gore-a-plenty. A real crowd pleaser of a movie...even if it was a teeny tiny crowd.

THE BUNKER - Directed by Joseph Monks, who is totally blind. Ironically, the visual elements of the film are pretty darn good, but the story is padded to the point where it actually becomes laughable. It's got slooooooow opening and closing credits, an unrelated bookend story (which itself is padded out with an unrelated sex scene), several scenes that could be snipped with zero impact to the final product, and a late scene where a character explains What's Really Going On in a phone call, followed immediately by flashbacks that show us exactly what we just learned. THE BUNKER is well-acted and definitely has some effective moments, but it should've been a half-hour short.

100 TEARS - My wife and I didn't stick around for this one because we'd already seen it. But I'll cover it anyway. After the first 15 minutes, I thought that I might be witnessing the greatest slasher film ever. Unfortunately, it becomes repetitious very quickly (one shot of intestines spewing onto the floor is gasp-inducing; three or four of them...not so much) and though the acting is good, the writing is weak. Still worth seeing--it IS a psycho killer clown movie, after all.

GIMME SKELTER - A whack-job who believes that he's the son of Charles Manson and his followers embark on a killing spree in a small town. Though not officially a horror-comedy, the movie has some huge laughs (most notably the payoff to some "Missing Girl" posters seen throughout), more attention to character than you might expect, smart dialogue, and lots-o-gore. I loved it.

GHOST MONTH - The only "classy" film of the event, and also the only one shot on film instead of digital video. An effective little ghost story, but nothing we haven't seen before. Loses points because after one revelation, our heroine doesn't scream "And you're just NOW telling me this?!?" She really should have. But earns points because the ghosts are done with makeup and masks instead of being all CGI.

BLOOD CAR - Halloweenapalooza got this one on my recommendation. One of my favorite micro-budget horror efforts. Hilariously tasteless throughout, but the last few minutes in particular are an absolute masterpiece of dark comedy.

After BLOOD CAR, there was a block of nine short films. "Gruesome" is, of course, the music video based on Greg Lamberson's novel JOHNNY GRUESOME, which I'd already seen a few times but never on the big screen, so that was pretty darn cool. I won't discuss the others individually, but aside from W.O.R.M., I wasn't enthralled with any of 'em. Too many of them ended with no real answer to the question of "Why did people feel this idea was worth the time and energy?" Moving back to features...

THE BLOOD SHED - There is an audience out there that will find this to be the most hilarious, demented, messed-up horror/comedy of all time. I hope they discover it and treasure it always. But personally, I frickin' HATED this movie. It grated on me. It made me want to cry. When you don't care about or like any of the characters, it simply becomes weirdness for weirdness sake, and this has some of the most annoying, cringe-inducing weirdness I've ever seen in a movie. The only good thing about it is that it just sort of ends without much warning, when I was expecting the torture to go on for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Ranks up there with EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES and THE PIANO TEACHER as my all-time most unpleasant cinematic experiences.

ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! - Zombies vs. Strippers. That's pretty much all you need to know to make a qualified decision on whether this movie is for you. Obviously, this is not a motion picture that takes itself seriously, but it offers up plenty of zombies and plenty of strippers. The first few minutes were in 3-D, although the 3-D really didn't work very well (unless my eyes were just screwed up after a day and a half of movies). One of the most entertaining films of the festival.

The next film was 99 PIECES, which sounded good, but quite honestly after that many movies we were brain-fried and not up for what sounded like an interesting but probably slow-moving and quiet film. (I have no idea if that description is accurate, but the movie certainly wasn't zombies vs. strippers.) So we left. Hopefully I'll be able to track this one down and report back.

Will next year be the year the Halloween Horror Picture Show / Halloweenapalooza finally attracts the audience it deserves? I'll certainly be reminding you about it on this blog, so keep reading for the next year.

Survivor: Total Geek Post (Part One)

WARNING: This post rates the various twists Survivor has thrown into the game over the seasons. It obviously contains mega-mega spoilers for those of you who might be planning to watch prior seasons on DVD. And it's way too nerdy for most readers. Beware.

I'll start with season two, since that's obviously when they started changing the game. Ratings are on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being best.

AUSTRALIA: Actually, this game pretty much played it straight. The only "twist" was that after the merge, the players had to build a whole new camp instead of moving everybody to one of the already established ones. But they were pretty upset about it, which was fun to watch. Rating: 2

AFRICA: They happen all the time now, but the first team swap was a huge shocker. (My quote when they hinted at it in the preview: "They'd NEVER do that! It would be unfair!") And it was unfair...and it continues to be unfair as many a good players has gotten screwed over by ending up stranded from his or her alliance...but it does keep the game interesting. Rating: 3

MARQUESAS: In theory, this season had a big twist: The players were given no food!!! But Marquesas had plentiful dining opportunities, and the players actually ate better than previous contestants. Rating: 2

THAILAND: We were promised that "the game would start in a completely different way that would change the entire game!" This turned out to be...the players picked their own teams. Lame. Rating: 1

Thailand also had the voluntary team swap. But nobody took Jeff Probst up on the offer, even the ones who wanted to switch. This one earns an extra point just for Jeff Probst's pained smile when he said "Good, everybody's happy then." Rating: 2

But midway through, we were treated to the Phony Merge. The players were told that they were now two tribes living on the same island, but nobody took that literally, and Shii-Ann proceded to jump ship and ditch her "former" teammates. Of course, she then discovered that they were still her teammates, and quickly went bye-bye when they lost the challenge. The worst season of Survivor overall, but one of the greatest moments. Rating: 5

AMAZON: The teams were divided into Men vs. Women! Lots of fun followed. Rating: 4

Each team also had a mysterious black box that they weren't allowed to open. When they finally were allowed to do so, it basically just said "Okay, you started out as Men vs. Women, then the tribes swapped some players, and now you're going to merge." The point seemed to be to prove that the producers planned things out beforehand. Rating: 2

PEARL ISLANDS: The players thought they were on their way to a pre-game photo shoot...but nope, game on, and they started the game in their civilian clothes. Heh heh. Rating: 3

The players also started in a Panama village, where they were given some money to buy supplies. However, one team had (ultimate winner) Sandra, who spoke Spanish and thus gave her team a HUGE advantage. Mucho unfair. Rating: 2

And, of course, the most infamous twist in Survivor history: The Outcasts. The first six players voted out, who'd been relaxing in a hotel for up to 18 days, competed in a purely physical challenge against the remaining players. Of course they won, and two of them got to return to the game. And they proceeded to win almost all of the individual challenges. And Lil--whose pouty face we were HAPPY to see get voted out third, made it all the way to the Final Two. It was an interesting twist for sure, but way too much of a switch from the core rules. Rating: 1

VANUATU: Men vs. Women again, to much lesser effect. The opening, where the men participated in a native ritual while the women sat off on the sidelines, was too blatant of an attempt to generate conflict. Rating: 2

ALL-STARS: Instead of two teams of eight, we started with three teams of six! Not that big of a deal, except that it gave obvious targets (i.e., previous winners) even less chance to defend themselves. Rating: 2

Instead of a merge, there was a late team swap. On its own, this was a pretty mild twist...but the teams stayed the same, except for Amber switching to the other side. With the Rob/Amber power duo broken up, with the despised Jerri promising total devotion to Lex and thus giving him the ultimate Final Two opponent, and with Amber completely unable to defend herself, Lex decided to...vote out Jerri, in the hopes that Rob (who we'd seen from Marquesas was a shameless liar) would be grateful. It was the single stupidest move in the entire history of the game, Rob cheerfully screwed Lex over, and Lex acted like a big whiny baby about it. Rating: 4

To be continued...

Survived the Scary Review Site!

Had I known that Horror-Web was going to review THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR, I would've jittery and twitchy and pukey for the past couple of weeks. I've been treated kindly by them in the past, but if they don't like something, they take intense pleasure in ripping it to bloody shreds--this is NOT an "Everything is wonderful and we're all just super!!!" site. They rate books on a 1-to-5 star scale, though if they think your book REALLY sucks, you get the dreaded "black star." In that case, there's really nothing to do but weep.

Fortunately, THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR did not get the black star. In fact, we got not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but four-and-a-half stars! Huzzah!

"James A. Moore and Jeff Strand are a literary dream team. Devout readers of the genre are in for a real treat as these two horror heavyweights combine forces and battle their characters to the bloody death....Remember how it felt to inventory and consume your candy on Halloween night? That’s the atmosphere in the forest. You feel like a glutton, like you couldn’t possibly stomach one more gooey demise, but you turn the page and unwrap another nightmare anyway."

Check out the rest of the review right here:

http://www.horror-web.com/reviews/YaBB.cgi?board=Books;action=display;num=1192177383

Shipping Updates And Other Stuff

If you ordered a copy of THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR directly from Earthling Publications, you should either a) already have it, or b) pitch a tent by your mailbox, 'cuz you'll have it soon.

If you ordered it from a bookseller, you have a bit longer to wait--but not much, since big boxes o' books are hobbling poor postal employees at this very moment and should be in your seller of choice's hands any day now.

And the wait is almost over for DISPOSAL, which should ship in late October or early November.

Meanwhile, BEYOND THE MUNDANE: UNRAVELINGS is going out of print effective November 1st. My contribution to this anthology, "Abbey's Shriek," is part of GLEEFULLY MACABRE TALES, but if you want to be a true completist instead of a fair-weather completist, this is your last chance.

http://www.mundania.com/books-unravelings.html

Also meanwhile, Dark Arts Books is running a Halloween special on CANDY IN THE DUMPSTER and WAITING FOR OCTOBER--a couple bucks off the cover price and free shipping, plus a $9 savings if you buy both of 'em before trick-or-treat day. My WAITING FOR OCTOBER stories "Gramma's Corpse" and "Here's What Happened..." are not included in GLEEFULLY MACABRE TALES, so you'd best get to orderin', hear?

http://www.darkartsbooks.com/special.shtml

Beware!

I have a video camera now. Muahahahahahaha!!!!

Yes, I'm Posting About...Britney Spears

Usually my Britney Spears online experience consists of seeing that she's the top news story every day and then not clicking the link. It's a very simple, carefree way to go about my life. I did click the link today, however, because I just couldn't believe that it was on the Top News page on AOL.

The story was: Britney Spears' car wouldn't start.

Not: Britney Spears' car wouldn't start, and she tearfully begged uncaring passers-by for help, and when the tow truck showed up the driver said "I hope your tires rot off, skank!!!" and sped off, and she started throwing crumpled hundred dollar bills at random people, and then she started trying to eat her radio antenna.

Nope. Her car wouldn't start. And then...it did. Though the article leaves us hanging, I'm pretty sure that Britney drove away in her newly started car and probably went somewhere.

I don't typically include emoticons in my blog entries, but this is worth a frowny face. :( Mostly because I've been driven to devote a blog entry to Britney Spears. Crap.

It Exists! It Exists!

I got my author copies of THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR yesterday--well, not all of them. This was the special Earthling Publications "Maintain Our Authors' Sanity By Flinging A Few Copies Into The Mail ASAP" package. It's one niiiiiiiice lookin' book. I've already said how great the interior illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne are, but people who said "Whoa! What a cool cover!" should also know that the book has a full-color Chadbourne painting on the back cover as well.

If you take off the dustjacket, the cover is brown, and the endpapers are dark green, giving the whole book a nice "foresty" feel.

It's really an outstanding presentation--almost TOO outstanding for a novel that Publishers Weekly said was just a gorefest! Although Horror World had this to say:

"Moore and Strand heap scares upon plot twists in one of the freshest and most entertaining novels in recent years...Moore and Strand seem to play into each other’s strengths. Moore’s rich characterization is present throughout. There’s not a throwaway stereotype in this novel’s large cast. Each character is treated as a living breathing person, with a fully realized back story and distinctive personality. Jeff Strand’s brand of black comedy is abundant, along with Strand’s sure hand on the rudder of the story. The authors offer a frightening and high-octane tale, presented as an apocalyptic disaster movie. Sort of The Exorcist meets The Towering Inferno meets Dante’s Inferno."

You can read the rest of the review right here: http://www.horrorworld.org/reviews.htm

Meanwhile, GoreZone magazine will be saying:

"[An] absolute gem of a read...What comes next is over two hundred pages of non stop, in your face, gore drenched action...You will be exhausted by the time you reach the satisfying last page...Think Jurassic Park with bloodthirsty demons on an adrenaline rush and you have THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR."

GoreZone is a UK magazine with a 50,000 copy worldwide distribution. The review itself is actually way better than that excerpt, but I didn't want you to say "No way! The review can't be THAT good! You're making stuff up, Strand! Enough with your deception!" But once that issue hits the newsstands next month, you'll want to have already secured your own copy of this limited-to-500-copies collector's edition of THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR, unless you want to pay some kid named "BookHoarder777" big bucks on eBay.

Here is a trio of ordering options for your clicking convenience:

www.earthlingpub.com/jmjs_forest.htm

www.bloodlettingbooks.com/hafotobyjaam.html

www.deliriumbooks.com/catalog/product.php?productid=54&cat=11&page=1

Necronomicon & Halloweenapalooza!

Necronomicon 2007 is coming up this very weekend in Tampa, Friday through Sunday. I'll be taking up space on the following panels:

SATURDAY:

12:00 PM: "The Best Horror You've Never Heard Of."

4:00 PM: "Humor in SF & Horror."

SUNDAY:

11:00 AM: "Writing 'The One Damn Thing After Another' Story"

12:00 PM: "Manuscript Mechanics: What You Need To Know."

For the complete guest list, schedule, and everything else you need to know, check out the official site at http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm

And, hey, we're only a couple of weeks away from the fifth annual Halloween Horror Picture Show, now expanded to two days and renamed Halloweenapalooza. It looks like another great lineup this year (including the thoroughly entertaining BLOOD CAR). For $15 you get TEN feature films and nine shorts, plus director/star introductions and Q&A for several of them. In a world where our local AMC theatre is STILL playing that f***ing Rob Zombie HALLOWEEN remake, anybody in the general vicinity of Florida should really get out here and support this event. I'll be there from beginning to end.

(Okay, I've already seen 100 TEARS, which plays at midnight on Friday, so I might skip out early. But I'll be there for every other minute of mayhem!)

http://www.halloweenhorrorpictureshow.com