CONTEST TIME! WIN A COPY OF JOHN LANDIS'S MONSTERS IN THE MOVIES!

Wanna win a copy of this gorgeous and exhaustive tribute to our favorite monsters on film? All you gotta do is comment below with your favorite monster! Winner will be chosen at random Sunday night!

JUST A SITE UPDATE, FIENDS

Laying back a bit for the month of November. There will be posts, but fewer than there was in October, as we prepare for our next big series of reviews; DEAD OF WINTER; The Best Winter Themed Horror Films. Right now I've got three guest posts lined up and they are kick ass writers and I'm very happy to have them on board.

DEAD OF WINTER seems like a no-brainer since, ya know, winter is coming, but really Stranger hasn't spent a lot of time in the snow and there are some really good movies I've been itching to write about, but just haven't gotten there yet.

I hope you've been enjoying our filmography series, which will be ongoing. If you've missed it, so far I've covered Rob Zombie and David Cronenberg and guest poster Albert Muller wrote an extensive and fantastic John Carpenter in the 80s piece. I plan to tackle Bill Lustig, Frank Hennenlotter, Abel Ferrera, and Wes Craven in the near future. I see this series as a sister piece to MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MONSTERS. Speaking of...

I had always planned fifty chapters of MHHABM, before I turned the series into a book. Well, Part 50 is right around the corner, but instead of ending the series I believe Part 50 will instead be a chance for a bit of course correction. If you've been with me a while, you'll have noticed (I hope) an improvement in content, presentation, and focus, because admittedly I had an idea about what I was doing, but at times lost focus. The big relaunch in October was meant to signal the first part of this course correction, and Part 50 will catch up and reboot MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MONSTERS and it will start to become more like the book I've always envisioned.

Since the October relaunch the site's numbers have been great! So thank you all for stopping by, I can't tell you how much it means to me to have so many people read my dumb little blog. I mean, lets face it-Stranger With Friction is far from the only horror blog out there and that you take time to pop in and read one of my articles, that's very humbling and awesome! I wish I got some comments though! I'd love to become more interactive with my readers. Let me know what you think, even if you think I'm full of shit.

Ok, I've got to get back to writing. I'm committed to getting my next book, MOTELS ON FIRE, out HERE.
early next year and it ain't writing itself, sweet heart. In the mean time, the first 'single' from MOF is available on Smashwords for you e-readers and a physical copy will be available very soon. The story is called THE LAST MASS and I'm really wearing my love for Fulci and Carpenter on this one. The 'b-side' is called SEEING HER AGAIN and it's a bit more of a down beat, slice of life story. You can get that e-book

Keep watching the sky, nerds!

BEYOND THE LIVING NEEDS YOU AND YOU NEED BEYOND THE LIVING

All hands on deck! This exciting new project has only 22 days left to close it's budget gap on Indiegogo!

Beyond The Living sounds like it's going to be pretty mind blowing and exciting; part horror/ creature feature part art house flick, it tells the story of Brandon, who has a hard time adjusting to society and spends a summer hiking in the south east with a couple of friends. As their journey goes on and Brandon's anxiety heightens, the veil between our world and the world of death begins to breakdown, until the three friends are fighting for their lives!

If you go the Indiegogo page (HERE) you can read more, see some test footage, a message from director William Hoppins, in-progress monster designs, and posters and t-shirts which are perks for donations. 

I met Hoppins for beers last night and after hanging out for a couple of hours and hearing about where he's coming from and who's influenced him, I feel very confident in calling all you fiends who can contribute to go do so. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished film, because it sounds like the exact kind of movie I like to watch. 

Hoppins name checks Ken Russell, Gus Van Sants, and HP Lovecraft on the page, but he's also a fan of Cronenberg and Lynch and the test footage he's already shot looks really good. To me it sounds like a project we could expect from Glass Eye Pix and Dark Sky Films, who've released some of my favorite movies of the last decade. 

So I seriously encourage all of you dear, dear readers to at least go check out the Indiegogo page and give if you can! And you can follow the film on Twitter @BEYONDtheLIVING. 

My Heroes Have Been Monsters Part 13

 When I was in the 4th grade my family got HBO. There must have been some promotion/special price, because there was never any money for such extravagence, but we had it and I had something special to go along with it...a lack of supervision! This was during the slasher boom of the 80's and on top of the cable I had a friend named Joey who collected Fangoria and brought them to school all the time, so I was hip to what was coming out and what was worth watching. And by my recollection there was no escaping the tv spots for Friday The 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. Hell, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince did a song about Freddy and Robert Englund appeared on Nickelodeon!

 When I was a teenager I started working my way through my local video store's horror section, finding brilliance and stupidity in equal numbers. Halloween become my favorite of the slasher franchises. For some reason Michael Myers captured my imagination and I continued to love all the sequels up to H2O. I thought the Friday the 13th films were a bit spotty, my favorites being parts 4, 5 and 6. Part 3 was the only one I found to be unwatchable (until Jason Takes Manhattan...bleh).

The thing about these films was that they were cool and sometimes cartoonish, but never very scary. Halloween and Friday both had moments that would haunt me, but I didn't find them to be particularly horrifying. Then I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Leatherface hit a nerve with me and I found myself half buried under a blanket on the couch by myself at two o'clock in the morning hating myself for putting the movie on...but I couldn't turn it off. I had to see how it ended. Gritty and grainy, super realistic. I mean, look at that pic to the left! Freddy's wise cracking doesn't compare. Even though you knew they would be back for another film, Freddy and Jason always got beat in the end. Leatherface was just left on the side of the road pissed off! Free to torture and maim beyond the credits! Nothing new now, but I was only in the 6th grade and had only experienced these mainstream slasher films, nothing so nihilistic.

 Unencumbered by rationale, the Nightmare On Elm Street films were by far the most imaginative and fun. Anything could happen, because it all happened in dreams. Freddy could be anywhere or anything, leaving the series wide open and limited only by the imagination of the writers and directors. Johnny Depp's death scene, in the first film, is still one of the most memorable death scenes I can remember. The only time I found myself disappointed with the series is about half way through part 6, Freddy's Dead, where what started off so promising began to feel like the film was just running out the clock trying to get to the conclusion with standard slasher filler. Wes Craven's return to the series (first time since the first film) with New Nightmare was nice and a fresh take and would have been a good final farewell to Fred, but who can say no Freddy vs. Jason, even if it sucked how could you not see that film if you grew up on these this stuff?

So these days we have all these modern classics getting remade. When they announced the TCM remake I was entirely unenthused, I watched it of course, and it wasn't bad at all, the same with the remakes of Friday, Halloween, Nightmare, My Bloody Valentine or whatever. The remakes are fine movies, sometimes they even improve some aspects of the original (remakes of The Fly, The Thing, and The Blob in the 80's certainly did), but why don't the studios just run the originals in the theatre again? I'd pay to see TCM 2, Nightmare 3, or any of the first five Halloween's on the big screen and I know I'm not alone. The other aspect of the remakes that rubs me the wrong way is that for every remake coming out that's an original film not being made. As a struggling writer I'm not encouraged by the trend of repeating. Of course, how many different Frankenstein films have I paid for? Oh well, when is the Halloween 3 remake coming out?

And just because I don't want to hear any complaining that I didn't mention Child's Play...

...that first one is still creepy!

Keep watching the sky, nerds!

My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters Part 12

The first thing that ever truly scared me so bad that I couldn't sleep for a week was an episode of George Romero's horror anthology tv series Tales From The Darkside featuring a little white monkey demon that lived in a little closet.

"Inside The Closet" was directed by FX master/gore guru Tom Savini-a name that didn't mean anything to me back in elementary school, but years later would be one that I sought out in my journey deeper into the world of horror.








Tales From The Darkside ran from '83 to '88, after the success of Romero's film Creepshow. That show haunted me as a kid, and I was one that would have nightmares if I saw a commercial for a Friday The 13th film. But the show never seemed quite as scary as the opening, until I saw "In The Closet". My heart was racing even before the reveal of the monster and when it was finally shown in all it's horrible glory, my mind shut down and I fled the room!
I'm not giving away any plot points, I'm just recommending you hunt down this episode. It's a fantastic series and has been collected on DVD. TV and horror have only been right together a few times, this is a shining example of a win.

Here's the opening...

Keep watching the sky, nerds!

My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters Part 11

Another pick from my kid, and one of my faves from childhood; The Wolfman! There hasn't been a glut of great werewolf films since Lon Chaney Jr-A few of note being Hammer's The Curse of The Werewolf, American Werewolf In London, Dog Soldiers, and I always enjoyed the Howling series and the tv show Werewolf. But Universal's The Wolfman will always take the top spot and I've got to give a thumbs up to Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (with Bela Lugosi as the monster)

Here's the trailer for Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman...

Keep watching the sky, nerds!

My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters Part 10

I didn't grow up near a comic shop, but the grocery store had a spinner rack. That rack never had Swamp Thing. I been following Detective Comics, Spectacular SpiderMan, The Punisher, and Daredevil, but I knew there was a whole world I was missing out on.
But there was a magical trip to Knoxville (the biggish city 45 minutes from my hometown) that finally put me next to a comic shop. I don't remember why we at that strip mall, but next door to where we were going was a comic shop and my parents dumped me there while they did whatever the hell they were doing.
I started digging through the long boxes, desperately searching for all those cool titles I'd only heard of, Swamp Thing was at the top of my list. This cover to the left was the first issue I pulled out of the box and the first of four I bought that day.
Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson created Swamp Thing who made his debut in 1971 in House of Secrets. His series debuted in '72 and was a successful and popular run, but sales began to dwindle towards the end. It was brought back ahead of the Wes Craven film adaptation. Writing duties were turned over to Alan Moore and the book became the first comic to abandon the Comics Code, becoming an adults only title. Moore's run is also notable for the great artists who worked on the book (Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette) and for the introduction of John Constantine, Hellblazer.

 Though sales dropped in the 90's and the book was cancelled, the character remained a fan favorite. There was a new Vertigo series in 2004 written by Andy Diggle. That series kicked off with Swamp Thing as the antagonist and his daughter Tefe trying to stop him. Swamp Thing's old nemesis Anton Arcane returned in a bloody story arc and horror comic legend Richard Corben contributed to some issues, but unfortunately low sales doomed that series, but fans would get a treat when Swamp Thing returned in Geof Johns' Brightest Day series.
Now the new series is set to crossover with another character that started off in the regular DC universe and crossed over to the adults only Vertigo, Animal Man (another favorite of mine, and currently one of the best books on the shelf).

I don't see much point in talking about the two movies, although the first isn't the worst thing ever and has some interesting moments. The tv series from USA network that ran nearly 100 episodes is much better and is now collected on DVD in three volumes.

 A search on Youtube will get you to the animated series I'm sure, but you don't want to go there...The theme song alone, ugh (shudders).

Hopefully this new Swamp Thing series will be around for a long run, Not one issue has been a disappointment.

Keep watching the sky, nerds!