Horror Meme

The incomparable Aaron Polson has tagged me in a horror meme over at his blog. Also picked to play were horror writers Jameson T. Caine (whose story 'The Wind Whispers My Name' is up this week at 52 Stitches), Kara McElhinny, Jamie Eyberg and Cate Gardner.

The premise for this meme is simple: If you're tagged, create a blog entry with screen shots from horror films that follow a central theme. Below are my photo selections. I can't say what all of the movies are, but the images are fairly nasty at times. This meme has moved about for a couple of days so I won't bother tagging anybody. Though, if you are a horror buff, consider yourself a tagged for this meme and come up with some horrific images of your own. If you are a dog lover, I recommend you pop over to Wag the Fox who posted a number of photos photos of dogs in horror films.

I'll save you the bother of guessing my theme as it's fairly obvious. In my opinion, the use of children in horror is the subject matter that hits home the most with the viewing public. I think that it touches something primal in the adult viewer, especially if they have small children. The thought of evil happenings to the most vulnerable of our society is most horrific.

I have attached a dozen photos that I found with a few searches on the internet. I'll note here that not all of the photos are from horror films and I'll start with the tamest and move along to the most graphic. Viewer discretion is advised, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure the kids aren't peeking over your shoulder. But keep them near by to give a hug to later. Evil, yet cute

Bad, bad boys

Evil-eyed school children

Partially buried children (Ick)

Cute, yet evil

Eyeless dolls

Young, bloody vampires (Let The Right One In, 2008)

Poor, poor Regan (The Exorcist, 1973)

Black eyes & bloody mouth (this one will give me nightmares tonight)

Evil mother and child dolls

Zombie mother and child-to-be

Black-eyed, bloody and innocent (*sigh* more nightmares)

Contest Update and Indie Horror Link

The day was a bit of a loss as far as writing is concerned. I did, however, look through many of the entries to the Land's Edge flash fiction contest. Some very cool stuff submitted and a few very interesting interpretations of holidays. In the next couple of days I shall meet with Laurita Miller, of Brain Droppings fame, and our third judge to load up on coffee and pastries go over the entries and select the top three and the honourable mentions. I am looking forward to naming the winners later this week and posting them here during the week after.

There was little time to come up with a worthy post for today but, while I had a five course meal on the stove my wife slaved away making supper, I surfed the net for a bit. You know how it is...you go to a follower's blog and start looking at their followers and their blogs...next thing you know you've run into something that really catches your eye.

I'll link you to Unleash the Flying Monkeys!, a blog by Leah Saylor-Abney. A couple of weeks back she presented a post called 7 Must-See Indie Horror Movies about indie horror films that are in various stages of production. I have neither seen nor heard of any of these, but there are trailers attached and links to official websites for each movie. Enough there to whet the appetites of all you horror buffs. Strange, low-budget and gruesome...

What Creeps you out?

I'm still set on quirky mode after this weekend's "lying blog" and reading of the sins of others...Natalie L. Sin's short Kinder surprise video left me sort of creeped-out. I got thinking about the sort of things that do that for me.



What I think is horrific in novels and movies is when something pops out of the human host (ala Alien) or say when spiders come out of a dead body's mouth. This may sound silly, but the thing that spooks me the most is when you have an antagonist levitating. Examples of this are the girls in "The Craft" and Gary Oldman in "Bram Stoker's Dracula." I was also reminded of this a while back while reading Stephen King's "Cell."

I read mostly blogs of people that write horror stories, and I know a few of those same horror people drop in here. Let's have an informal poll of sorts. I'm all for giving the reader what they want, so let's figure out what people find spooky. What creeps you out?

Good Ideas From Others

My mind keeps going back to Aaron Polson's blog from last week about using the stories of Poe (in various medium) to grab the attention of teenage students. He also had a second idea of using horror stories as a way of getting non-reading teens interested.

I think both or these ideas have a lot of merit. Do you want to know what I remember about english class in school? Precsious little...the things that stick in my memory the most are reading something from"The Martian Chronicals" by Ray Bradbury, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck and "Dracula", by Bram Stoker. Another thing that stays with me today is having watched the horror movie "Reflections of Murder" starring a young Sam Waterston. A tale about the murder of a private school headmaster (set on an island off of Seattle). That scared the crap out of me and surely shaped how I look at horror. I also went on to read a number of Poe's stories (my personal fav is "The Cask of Amontillado"). I appreciate all teachers (Lord knows that I couldn't step up there to face the kids) but I think that there are a few that go above and beyond with their trend setting ideas.