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  • Endless Joke
    Endless Joke
    by David Antrobus

    Here's that writers' manual you were reaching and scrambling for. You know the one: filled with juicy writing tidbits and dripping with pop cultural snark and smartassery. Ew. Not an attractive look. But effective. And by the end, you'll either want to kiss me or kill me. With extreme prejudice. Go on. You know you want to.

  • Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip
    Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip
    by David Antrobus

    Please click on the above thumbnail to buy my short, intense nonfiction book featuring 9/11 and trauma. It's less than the price of a cup of coffee... and contains fewer calories. Although, unlike most caffeine boosts, it might make you cry.

  • Music Speaks
    Music Speaks
    by LB Clark

    My story "Solo" appears in this excellent music charity anthology, Music Speaks. It is an odd hybrid of the darkly comic and the eerily apocalyptic... with a musical theme. Aw, rather than me explain it, just read it. Okay, uh, please?

  • First Time Dead 3 (Volume 3)
    First Time Dead 3 (Volume 3)
    by Sybil Wilen, P. J. Ruce, Jeffrey McDonald, John Page, Susan Burdorf, Christina Gavi, David Alexander, Joanna Parypinski, Jack Flynn, Graeme Edwardson, David Antrobus, Jason Bailey, Xavier Axelson

    My story "Unquiet Slumbers" appears in the zombie anthology First Time Dead, Volume 3. It spills blood, gore and genuine tears of sorrow. Anyway, buy this stellar anthology and judge for yourself.

  • Seasons
    Seasons
    by David Antrobus, Edward Lorn, JD Mader, Jo-Anne Teal

    Four stories, four writers, four seasons. Characters broken by life, although not necessarily beaten. Are the seasons reminders of our growth or a glimpse of our slow decay?

  • Indies Unlimited: 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology
    Indies Unlimited: 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology
    Indies Unlimited

    I have two stories in this delightful compendium of every 2012 winner of their Flash Fiction Challenge—one a nasty little horror short, the other an amusing misadventure of Og the caveman, his first appearance.

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Friday
Feb072014

16. to 13. Staring Into the Abyss

13. Audition 

Takashi Miike's masterpiece, in my opinion, and one of the greatest examples of "abuse horror," a term I literally just made up. But yeah, it's beautiful and creepy in equal measure, and when the torture occurs, it's unrelenting and unflinching, which I admire while at the same time wishing it wasn't. The best horror should never depict femininity as weakness, and this certainly doesn't even try. Not so much a feminist revenge flick as a subconscious reordering, a reckoning. Honestly, rather than listen to me spout off, stop right now, seek out this film, and watch it.

14. Don't Look Now 

Whether you take Nicolas Roeg's piece of cinematic genius as a psychological depiction of how grief can undermine the deepest love, or whether you succumb to a supernatural interpretation, you will be unable to escape the cloying mood of sorrow, horror, and dread that pervades every crimson-tinged frame of this movie. Sutherland and Christie are peerless here, whether they are engaged in wonderfully carnal attempts to forget or are taking psychic leaps into a dark, arcane, almost pagan Venice. Creepiness and wrongness vie with a watery Renaissance city that still dreams darkly of ancient sins, murder, and illicit love amid its oily canals and murky piazzas, knowing we can never go back to the innocence of our past.

15. A Serbian Film  

Right on cue, here comes the gore. And the awfulness. And Exhibit A in why so many people label the horror genre despicable and morally bankrupt. Because, trust me, this film goes places most people in the genre won't. It lacks all restraint and good taste, and yet... despite what its haters say, it's not without merit. It's true to itself, to its political vision, and to a kind of faux snuff aesthetic. Sure, the themes are appallingly bleak—in fact, some see its transgressive nature as a political statement in itself—but it's consistent in its stark brutality, as well as extremely, unforgettably upsetting. The word "relentless" is overused, but here it fits like a dirty, infected glove. In fact, "relentless and infected" perfectly encapsulates the effect this film has on its viewers—those who are still left at the very end, that is. This is why I come to horror. Not for trinkets but for dripping viscera, lost terror, and to be thoroughly disturbed. Hard to condemn something for which you seek. If you have the stomach for it, watch it, but know you probably won't ever have the luxury of forgetting it.

16. Monsters  

By now, anyone foolish or bored enough to have been paying attention to my list might possibly have sensed a theme. Mood. Atmosphere. Dread. Disquiet. Don't get me wrong, I can be up there with the gorehounds, sometimes, reveling in the spectacular and the viscerally loathsome, but deep down I simply love the eldritch caress of light and shadow, of ambience, muted colour, subtlety, creepiness... and true fear. Not always, but for the purposes of this list, for sure. And you be sure to seek out the right version—a low-budget 2010 UK film set in Mexico. Again, it's probably best described as science fiction, but for me, the apocalyptic background, in which the compromised horizons crackle with anxiety, portents, and bad arrivals, works better on a horror level. And the story itself—of people desperate to find their way home against increasingly poor odds—is heartbreakingly human.

Saturday
Feb012014

Of Wharves, Loneliness, and Monsters

Yes, I know I've been discussing horror movies on a writing blog, and my justification is that I'm writing about them, aren't I? Okay, that's fairly lame, but it's my train set and I'll crash the engines into the bridge supports if I damn well want to, okay? But I also don't want to forget those little orphaned pieces of writing, or indeed writing news, that can so easily end up scattered amid a flurry of desktop files or even somewhere out there in cyberspace, where no one can hear them digitally scream.

First off, Indies Unlimited just published Indies Unlimited: 2013 Flash Fiction Anthology—their latest collection of Flash Fiction Challenge winners from last year—and I am particularly proud of my own small contribution. You can buy the anthology here, but I'll also repost my story with its prompt. Remember, these are accompanied in the book by the beautiful photography of K.S. Brooks, and I really urge anyone to get their hands on the full-colour print edition. So here's the prompt, followed by my story: 

This is where it had been happening. Back in the summer, when Gary Kessler disappeared, everyone had thought he had drowned. When they found his body, they knew differently.

Then there was the little Hamilton girl, Old Tom Billings, and half a dozen more.

Most of the time they never found the bodies. Sometimes they would find parts. The town council didn’t want to hear about it. They stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would go away. Deputy Aldridge knew differently. He had seen it. He saw it take Sheriff Wilson, and he knew it had to be stopped. He came here tonight to put an end to it. He just had to wait till dark.

***

Till Dark

Although he’d seen terrible things, a pretty sunset never failed to bring a tear to Deputy Aldridge’s jaundiced eye. And this was as pretty as any, down by the lake that lay placid as mirror glass under the warm hues of a fading day.

No time for sentiment tonight, however—he had come to stop a monster. A thing he called, simply, The Horror. The town had suffered enough. He would wait until full dark, the time it always indulged its predations, and he would end its thrall. Checking his Glock 17, he felt a strange calm descend.

Crouching in the dwindling light, senses alert to the gentle sounds of evening—the creak of a frog, water sounds, a distant train—he recalled the awful endings already endured by the townsfolk: the Kessler kid, rangy adolescent limbs torn off; old Tom’s unspeakable final minutes; and worst of all, little Lucy Hamilton. His nightmares about her fate alone fueled the raging insomnia he’d picked up after Gulf War I. No, it would end tonight. Only one of those killings had been prompted by cunning not bloodlust: Sheriff Wilson. His old friend had come so close to solving the mystery.

Aldridge was tired. No more. All light had leached from the sky, barring a sprinkling of stars. It was time. All was quiet. Even the frog seemed to hold its breath. Deputy Aldridge sighed, inserted the Glock into his mouth, pointed up toward his brainpan, and put an ending to The Horror.

Second, and this is a simple one, I wrote a haiku recently. It's my first, but I kind of like it. Here it is:

Now I am alone

I hear the windchimes sing, though

there's no longer wind

And last but not least, now and again I join Dan Mader and co on his blog for the free writing exercises he hosts there every Friday. The latest one had a two-minute limit which, as anyone who's ever attempted it knows, is actually very difficult in terms of building any coherent narrative. They're more ephemeral and impressionistic, usually. But on this occasion a tiny short story appeared unbidden, which you can read among the other excellent entries here, but I also felt like I wanted to embellish it a little, which I've now done and will post here for posterity... or because I hate to see lost little orphans. (Oh, and yeah, it's still short. Just not that short.)

Wharf

"It's down at the wharf." Lauren was insistent. Her frown was adorable, always was. "The thing in the water."

"Then we'll go there." I wanted to see it, after all.

"You'll see it." Trembling, tears beginning.

We were fast. Wharf rats ourselves, really. Running between the ancient guano-spattered pilings and docks, laughing in that serious way we always had. One that was also kinda sad, truth be told. 

Lauren needed this and I wanted her to. Show me, I mean.

But we looked everywhere. All over hell's half-acre and then some. Red neon Firestone signs from pure memory. A tawdry motel named The Shamrock. These were the years soon after the noisome winds blew garbage like soiled snow through the rusty alleyways and gunmetal gantries. These were the quiet days following. The high plains whistle inside our flinching ears.

And we kept looking awhile. Beneath the water and out. Backs of warehouses, well inside loading bays, deep within oily backwaters, long-dead feathers floating on scum. Alert we stayed. Studied reflections aplenty and craned our necks to the mostly birdless sky. Where light came. But we never once saw Lauren's creature. Sure didn't mean it never existed. Just never saw it is all.

Friday
Jan312014

20. to 17. Ice and Quiet to Disquieting Skies

17. Take Shelter  

Okay, another movie many would not classify as horror, but for me, what is more horrifying than having to choose between accepting your mental health is slowly disintegrating and acknowledging the possibility the world might be approaching apocalypse? Add to that an incredible performance by Michael Shannon, more than ably supported by the lovely Jessica Chastain, an eerie and haunting score, and atmosphere to spare—loveliness, loneliness, and dread braiding like the skeins of birds that dance in these bleak midwestern skies—and I've just talked myself into watching it again. These are ordinary blue collar people we can relate to, an important aspect of why this film is so effective. For that and more, Jeff Nichols is someone else to keep an eye on; his direction lends this film a powerful sense of quiet unease worthy of Lynch while splicing it seamlessly with a Malick-like lyricism. Given my own tastes, and everything mentioned above, that combination is damn near unassailable. I'm already regretting having this too low on my list.

18. Kill List  

Ah, England again. Ben Wheatley: watch out for him. There's little I can say that won't spoil it, so yeah, just find this gem and watch it. Unflinching is a word that leaps to mind. Unpredictable, too. Really, like many films on my list it's a hybrid—a pagan horror mystery thriller road movie. Yeah, just watch it. Be warned, though: it doesn't pull its punches. Thoughtfully brutal. 

19. Alien  

In light of my last choice, highly predictable, no doubt. But still. Pretty much everything I said about The Thing applies equally here. If anything, it's even more claustrophobic, has a slightly more iconic gross-out moment, asks questions about artificial intelligence many straightforward sci-fi films often flub, and there's a little more Yin to The Thing's Yang. As in Sigourney. Yes, it's hardly original of me, but I compare the two films in the darkened movie theatre of my head often enough for it to be unhealthy, and I love them both, and perhaps because it came first I rate Alien a tiny notch higher. As great as the XY ensemble in a whiteout was, the extra X in a black void just edges it. Oh, did I forget to tell you how goddamn terrifying it is? In space, no one... etc. 

20. The Thing  

John Carpenter's version, from 1982. Once again, the borders are blurry, but whether this is sci-fi, horror, or horror/sci-fi doesn't really matter when you sit down to watch it and realise far too late you're trapped in scary-as-hell world, except it's not hell, unless hell froze over, because this is Antarctica and your choice is: stay and fight (or hide from) whatever appallingly wrong thing has invaded your camp and taken over your friends' bodies or walk out into the ice and die. This film is relentless. And beyond the relentlessness, there's a purity, too. Just watch the clip. It's an incredible opening scene. Gorgeous, expansive, somehow lonely. But after this, everything closes in and becomes chillingly, hermetically sealed. (Highest resolution and full screen recommended.)

Friday
Jan242014

24. to 21. Faux Real to Surreal

21. Eraserhead  

More Lynch and perhaps more obviously horror than the last entry. But also surreal, not to mention darkly and disturbingly sexually repressed. Actually, there is no other film quite like Eraserhead, which is perhaps a mercy. Bleak, industrial, helpless, it depicts our forced (or chosen?) passivity in a world that wants to grind us into nothing. Well, okay, that's just one interpretation. Others centre on the fears new parents try desperately to suppress of their diseased, deformed, unviable, unenviable progeny. Low level industrial sounds vie throughout with the constant and often maddening mewling of the pitiful offspring who lies wrapped and helpless within what appear to be filthy, infected bandages that could only hasten its end. Basically, it's an unnerving, extended nightmare—in the words of one critic: "human reproduction as a desolate freak show." 

22. Inland Empire  

Wait, you say, Lynch? Really? Yes, to me, David Keith Lynch is one of our leading horror directors. He is the master of nameless dread, of the ostensibly mundane looming suddenly beyond terrifying. Now, I love Lynch, and though I still think this film is bloated and even self-indulgent in places, and could certainly use a diet (hey, anyone else notice how diet and edit are anagrams?), its moments of pure, inarticulate fear are peerless and shocking. Nightmarish in every sense. Existential sitcoms in which the characters are large, anthropomorphized rabbits. Laura Dern, a woman in trouble. Harrowing and sad Hollywood street scenes featuring embedded screwdrivers and discussions about bus schedules. Plus, anyway, how often have you been able to enjoy a roomful of extremely ordinary and likeable hookers dancing to "The Locomotion"? Okay, don't answer that. 

23. À l'intérieur (Inside)  

Wow. I mentioned French extreme stuff earlier, and this is a perfect example. Brutal violence and genuine terror done with style. Seriously, this (ostensibly) home invasion film is gory as hell and is steeped in Cronenbergian body-horror, taking home invasion to its logical and dismayingly intimate conclusions. It's truly relentless and please, non-horror fans, all the warnings you'd expect apply to this one, even the trailer. Gruesome and beautiful and there seems to be an ever-present femininity to these French films that's often lacking elsewhere in the genre—not necessarily feminist, but certainly not content to bring suffering upon womankind without some kind of an accounting. Plus, Béatrice Dalle. I repeat: Béatrice Dalle.

24. The Blair Witch Project  

Another divisive film. Some feel it wasn't even particularly scary, but I disagree. The low-key slow-build to one of the creepiest endings in any film ever was worth it for me (I still shudder when I think of it, as it reminds me of actual nightmares I've had, so this shit's personal, yo). Yes, even the annoying, leaky-nostriled Heather character was kind of essential to how all the various strands led to that one urban legend shocker of a moment. Besides, Blair Witch reignited the whole "found footage" concept that had burst into life with the infamous Cannibal Holocaust twenty years earlier, only to go oddly underexploited ever since. In a world filled to the brim with the likes of Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield, V/H/S, etc, that's hard to believe. But it's true, I tells ya.

If you're one of those rare types who haven't seen it (I feel you. I watched Titanic for the first time ten years after all the hype had died down and it was a'ight), don't even dream of watching this clip. 

Friday
Jan172014

28. to 25. Flapping Jaws to Buzzing Saws

25. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 

Ha, I can feel the hardcore horror fans starting to lighten up a little now (while mainstream fans balk). Just you wait. ;) But yeah, Tobe Hooper's low budget slasher film was a benchmark of massive proportions. As with Psycho, it was inspired by the repulsive exploits of real-life killer Ed Gein, although it took that inspiration in a whole different direction, but another predecessor deserving of a nod would be Deliverance, made just two years earlier. And since, there have been hundreds of TCM wannabes, most of them pale shadows. There's a scene where Leatherface slams shut a sliding steel door that still gives me inexplicable nightmares. And it's odd: the reputation of this film doesn't prepare you for its reality. It's not particularly gory, for one thing—plenty of smart misdirection and suggestion precludes the need for it. It's just kind of insane, creepy, and frightening. (And yes, I know the image is from one of a kazillion remakes, but I like its feel; for me it captures some of the dread of the original, and I like minimalist road shots. Whatever.)

26. Se7en  

Ditto. You could flip this and the last entry around. Both are doing a very similar thing: demonstrating the bleak, nihilistic heart at the centre of the police procedural/ forensic psychology subgenre (without these films, we may never have arrived at a CSI, a Dexter, or now, of course, a Hannibal). Crime, horror? The distinction melts away, along with any sense of justice, redemption or hope, with the now-infamous ending. But before we even get there, we've tripped over a series of gruesomely tormented corpses and witnessed some of the worst things humans are capable of. This is some dark and frankly terrifying shit. Casting and performances, as with the previous entry, were nigh on perfect.

27. The Silence of the Lambs  

This is the point where people get upset with me and say Silence is not a horror film. Well, its my list, dammit, and you can go make your own (aw, sounds meaner than I meant it to), and if you think this is a stretch, wait till you see what I have even higher up the list! But I say if this isn't horror, then what is? It's not just Lecter and his taste for both intrigue and human flesh, it's Clarice's courageous yet aching vulnerability throughout, it's the liberal use of real life serial killer awfulness to "flesh out" the backstory, it's creepy as hell from start to finish and finally, how can a movie featuring a man who is trying to fashion a woman suit from the skin of his victims not be deemed a horror film? Every bit as sharp as Thomas Harris's source material with an added feminist sensibility. A film balanced perfectly on its moment in time.

28. Night of the Living Dead  

Without Romero's classic film, we almost certainly wouldn't have had the relentless zombie mania of the last few years. And it always makes me smile that such a bleak, violent, and even subversive film made its debut between the so-called Summer of Love and Woodstock. Ha. Schizophrenic much, America? But like the Body Snatcher movies, Living Dead was read by more thoughtful critics as social commentary, in this case critiquing anything from the '60s counterculture, Vietnam and the Cold War, to American racism. And in terms of its reception, the critical arc went from "junk film" to the Library of Congress adding it to its National Film Registry. (This trailer is funny, yet the film really isn't.)