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jellogram · 2 months

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On the concept of "elevated horror"...

The whole concept of "elevated horror" as a recent trend is not only flatly incorrect, but also insulting to everyone involved. First of all, people have been making arthouse, non-stereotypical, and/or high quality horror since pretty much the dawn of film, but you rarely see those films mentioned as "elevated horror." Like... Silence of the Lambs? The Exorcist? Rosemary's Baby? The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Vampyr? All really well-made and groundbreaking horror films that had something new to say. The idea of making high quality horror with actual themes was not invented by A24.

Second of all, I don't like how this term differentiates films based on quality. No other genre is so disrespected that people feel a need to separate out the best made films into a subgenre. Do you hear people say "This is historical fiction, but it's good historical fiction!" or "This sci fi film elevates itself above regular science fiction!" No. Because people don't automatically assume those genres are trash.There's no subgenre of "good horror" as opposed to "regular horror." There's good and bad horror movies just like in any other genre.

Lastly, I think you do a disservice to trashy movies by assuming they have no skill or themes or messaging involved. One of the first films people throw under the bus is Friday the 13th, but that was a successful franchise for a reason — the first movie is undeniably pretty good, subverts audience expectations, and also provides insight into cultural attitudes of the era. And because it's a long-running series, you can watch those cultural attitudes evolve over time just by watching Friday the 13th sequels. There's a lot of value to that.

There's a lot of value to "trash cinema" in general. A movie that doesn't have quality standards is a movie that isn't bowing to societal norms or acceptance. Those $10 budget, horrid SFX, cringe-acted horror films exist in a forbidden space where critical reviews and mainstream audience approval aren't there to censor them. That is incredibly cool. Every stupid little terrible horror movie we have that survived decades and got digitized is a gift to the culture. We deserve to know what film enthusiasts were doing when they weren't the kind of people who could get massive studio budgets. Notably, you also see a lot more queer people, women, and POC in those spaces too. Horror makes space for the people who have been spat out by the mainstream.

And that's kind of the root of horror films, I think. They dig up the forbidden and put it on screen. So if you think the only horror films with any value are the ones that mainstream critics approve of, that aren't doing anything to upset the status quo, then you're missing the entire point.

#horror #horror movies

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sam4samina-blog · 10 months

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Alternate History: This subgenre of fantasy offers a fictional account set within a real historical period, often with actual historical events included although rewritten to include some element of magic or fantasy. There are often "what if" scenarios that occur at important points in history and present outcomes that are different than what's on the historical record. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell His Majesty's Dragon

Arcanepunk Fantasy: Magic and science exist in the world simultaneously—they are two separate fields, but complement each other and are used together. Unlike Steampunk, Arcanepunk is not limited to Victorian-era London. Some people use the term Arcanepunk interchangeably with Dungeon Punk and even Magepunk. Arcanepunk is a more useful term, however, as the 'arcane' refers to magic that is not divine. Shadowrun Perdido Street Station

Arthurian Fantasy: Fantasy that incorporates the tale of King Arthur in some way or set in the same period (Celtic or period English history) and the courtly romantic elements. The Once and Future King The Mists of Avalon

Assassin Fantasy: The name of this sub-genre says it all—these are stories about assassins set within a fantasy world. The grey morality of an assassin is incredibly useful in these worlds. Jhereg Graceling

Comic Fantasy: These stories are humorous and often set in fantasy worlds, and might include parodies of other more serious works. Discworld The Princess Bride

Court Intrigue: With a high level of complexity, Court Intrigue Fantasy is about power, relationships, secrets, and the conniving characters who make up the high court of the land. The royal castle is filled with important people, traditions, and rituals—a difficult place to navigate surely, but that is what makes this sub-genre interesting. A Song of Ice and Fire The Goblin Emperor

Dark Fantasy: A fantasy subgenre that combines elements of fantasy with horror. Dark fantasy is often used to refer to horror fantasy and include stories about demonic creatures, mummies, vampires, and the like. The Blade Itself The Sandman

Fantasy of manners: This subgenre contains stories that rely heavily on the Comedy of Manners, which focuses on social commentary. Often taking place in an urban setting, this type of story will contain very little magic or fantastical creatures. Rather, it will focus on morality and social structures, particularly for women, sacrificing an elaborate plot in some cases to do so. Swordspoint The Tropic of Serpents

Flintlock Fantasy: Flintlock Fantasy is set in an era where flintlock technology is used, but steam power is not—specifically, it may be Steampunk's cousin, but it is not Steampunk. What makes this sub-genre different from Gunpowder fantasy is the specificity of the gunpowder technology and that it tends to be influenced by history. Flintlock Fantasy is considered by some to be a sub-sub-genre of Gunpowder Fantasy, and others see the terms as interchangeable. The only real pitfall of using the terms interchangeably is that gunpowder was in use long before and long after flintlock technology, which creates a somewhat murky definition. Powder Mage Lightbringer

Gaslamp fantasy: Gaslamp Fantasy is a genre bending sub-genre that belongs to both Fantasy and Historical Fiction and borrows tropes, themes, and even characters from Gothic fiction—the supernatural features heavily in sub-genre. Gaslamp was coined in order to separate works from the ever-growing Steampunk sub-genre because Gaslamp works are not 'punk.' Infernal Devices A Great and Terrible Beauty

Grimdark: Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent. The term is inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000: "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war." The Poppy War Prince of Thorns

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cafeleningrad · 6 months

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🔥 + vampires

Hello Anon, 'tis the season for such asks, isn't it? (And I recently talked too much about these creatures even though I'm not even a big fan of them?)

I think every onw has their littell indulgences in fictions far easier than certain themes, more tempting settings or creatures. For me it's dragons, for others it is vampires. This I personally don't get. Why is that sofor me? Pardon the pun but I think vampires in popcultre are remakrably defanged. At least they're very uninteresting in Western culture these days.

Dr. Jeff Holdeman said: "every age creates the Vampire it needs". Probably that can be said about any monster that cultures create creatures incarnating fears and cosmoplogy into a shaped myth. Vampires in particular are monsters created from fears of wasting, of fears of being robbed basic needs like rain for crops, draining people of energy and ressources they might barely have themselves, and a lot other anxieties- (Note that albeism and ageism are featured in these fears.) As concept the folkloric vampire can still transport anxieties into it's mythic form, there can be a lot done with it. In the Romantic and later ion Stoker's era, vampires became metaphors very often for artistorcrats sucking life forces of people socially weaker than them, breaking of boundaries. Additionally to fears of age, disability, and silent wasting diseases, came a social commentary component in anglophone literature which expands on the idea of a life sucking force can be. (Also interesting note, that Stoker might been more heavily inspired by Irish folklore than actual Central European one.) And of course what people see as silently corrupting others might differ form person to person. Meaning for homphobes, homosexuality can be a silently corrupting force. Queue Carmilla. It is no accident that in the 70s Hollywood was so fixated on the female vampire. In hindsight it is a perfect encapsulation of male fear of female sexuality. In the light of women's liberation movements soverignity women have and should have about their own sexuality stepped into the public light. Alongside the queer movement, the discovery of lesbian sex, men kinda realized male genitals were not necessarily needed for female orgasms. That breeds an entire subgenre of lesbian vampires. Apart from a homophobic literary predecessor, curious how the sexually assured woman who seduces other women, and (dentally) penetrates them becomes the monster. Speaking of sexuality. Eroticism and vampires are commonly linked these days, the metaphor is certainly there. Already with Lord Byron being parodied as a sexually exploitative vampire, Carmilla, later in cinema with Legosi, and Lee. I mean surely, horror plays with fears and tabaoos, if not fully diving into it. In times of sexualy repression the sexual component makes a lot of sense to incarnate in the modern US vampire. Not be another hater on Twilight, so much hate and ridicule was based on misogyny of a property for a femlae audience having sucess, however the vampires could've actually been any cerature as long as it was eternally youthful and sexually intriguing. (As demonstrated as the YA supernatural soft porn copy cats featuring angels and faes....) But why is Edward a vampire then? It's the animalistic appeal in him madly desiring a total normal girl into which the readers can easily project themselves into as an avatar, it's about the fantasy how badly Edward wants go down with Bella but is still safe as he will chastily surpress the urge for her virtue. There is a lot of itneresting stuff to unpack about the modern US vampire about his peak as sexual metaphor. Won't dwell to long on it because tumblr has already so many essays discussing Twilight, and vampires and (homo-)sexuality. What does annoy me, is that sexual repression is only one aspect of what a vampire can be. It follows only one branch of anglophone, and increasingly US-cultured pop-cultured, literary history centered around puritan anxieties. Don't get me wrong, the sexual aspects are there but if I have to read another Dracula take of puritanical Victorians... (For a "eat the rich" website the nobility cricism and Irish aspects are wasted... Also, wasting disease, and a certain tinge of xenophobia...) At some point that too can make a monster onesided, and repetitive if it only operates on one metpahor.

However, it is interesting that the vampire is pitiable, deserving of sympathy, maybe is romancable as endgame -monsters not being onedimensional evils anymore- falls togehter in an age where other stories very much invite the idea of understanding of the otherness as well. It can be very interesting. What is even more intersting to me how un-monstrous the monsterous is. Post Twilight, not all, but many vampiric centered shows used the mosnter as metpahor for understanding the other. But what does it say about the mosnter when it's nature is domesticated into easy alternative products, tamed, and is easily understood if it adheres to a very high beauty standart? (Del Torro's Shape of Water is the only bigscreen exception in Hollywood. I might be wrong but I can't recall much of another mainstream monster-monster romance title.) I think, there is a lot of interesting potential to continue using the monster as metpahor for understanding. Heck the compromise of it not being able to not harm the other person yet bargaining how to keep the harm at bay could make for an interesting story. The versions where the bloodsucking/lifeforcesucking is watered down to first sexual excitement just make the mosnter to a very bland idea of a sexual fantasy to me.

I mean, I know why these alterations exist like this, they're their right to exist. But in this form they simply are very boring. They're just the recycled idea of a "bad boy lover" but with a lot of money, and maybe Versailles cosplay, or dark leather, preferences may vary.

On the male side vampires are so ficking boring. Just overpowered beasts, can't die easily, there's a lot of blood, the goth imagery is there. I am looking at you Castlevania, Hellsing, and Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Perhaps every and genre era has macho hype fight fantasies. This one is so unbearbaly edgy wanna be cool to me.

All in all: Like every monster, the vampire was born out of very existencial anxieties. The concept ca be expanded onto fears of every era, and a lot of intersting things can be done out of them. A cerature that feeds of others, especially in invisible, barely inescapable ways - that metaphor can stretch so far, and play into some gerat horror ideas. Like with sexuality, abuse of social status, dealing with invisble illnesses. In previous discussions with anons they purposed ideas about vampires surviving over centuries and wirnessing history. Maybe less monstrous but also interesting to lean into what the massive passage of time can do. ("Interview with a vampire" really leans into the aspect of being stuck in time, being damned to actually remain in the age the turned person died while things still go on. Rice really wrote beautifully about the sensation of grief. So much in teh story comes back to trying to find a source for the characters' misery (the vampirism, being condemned to eternity, especially Claudia. I know, Lestat is a tumblr fave but the entire Vampire sage of hers is less interesting because it does exactly what I dislike about contemporary vampires: Defanging Lestat in his villanous aspects, swapping the more poetic stories but a more cool character image. Hearing good stuff from the show re-interpretation though.) In an age where everyone discusses class struggles, power dynamics between different demographics, word like "emotional labour" as well as clinical diagnosis are thrown around, scarcity of ressources is a big topc of anxiety, I think the concept of vampire can be easily used int stories - at least it can expand way beyond brachial discussions of sexuality. Or if leaning into sexuality, let's go back into the monstrousness. Aren't we in times talking so much about abuse? Why not make more of it? If understandig the monster why not go into also ageist and albeist origins of the the folkloric vampire? Why not talk about vampire metaphors historically harmful to minorities? They're such a rich source of ideas, and I am pretty suer that they're very good off-mainstream, outside-Hollywood titles using this creature in intersting ways. At it's current state of being afigure of "a rich, fancy seducer but within the boundaries of sexual comfort zone with a bit of excitement", or male power fantsy OP beast, they're just very unteresting to me. Both, as character and monster. (shout out to "Let the right one in", and "the girl who walks alone at night")

#Lewis rambling #Vampires

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amarrymeinbostonwriter · 3 years

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I don’t know why but things involving babies and their mothers have been especially affecting me lately. I’m not a mother but I probably would have been if I lived in the past (going by my age and social class). I’m guessing this is an age/hormone thing that eventually effects many women. :/

There was a video (a Tik Tok I think) where a horse mother lost her baby and another horse baby had lost his mother. They were put together and the horse mom adopted the horse orphan as her own son. It just hit me right in the heart so hard. I’m glad they have each other. <3

I just can’t imagine being a mother myself. So overwhelming. Babies crying is like torture to me. I want to help them even though I’m not their mother. Since I can’t help them, it makes me panic. (Yes, I’m aware this is not a normal reaction).

Horror movies with children or babies would absolutely work on me. And some of the horror/paranormal stuff I write sort of reflects those fears/anxieties that I have.

#horror is actually a subgenre of women's fiction #fight me #also I don't know what's wrong with my hormones lately #I was tearing up at the horse mother/baby video #the fuck is wrong with me #other people's small children make me nervous because I'm afraid that they'll go off #some of the real reasons I don't want kids is that I don't think I'd be able to handle them and that wouldn't be fair to the kids honestly #not sure if this bipolar related or not #It's probably more PCOS related if anything #I feel like I'm transitioning to the next stage of life #like why don't you have a spouse and kids yet?#For health reasons having kids is probably a bad idea #but so many people seem to want kids and the ones that don't don't like commitment so?#I really don't know what to do with that #but I definitely feel like I'm categorized as a housewife rather than a young girl now #which I guess is fair I'm almost 28 but still I'm NOT married yet #horror that I write does involve children and parents because I have a lot of anxiety around that #the world is pretty terrifying and we should protect children from it #spiral speaks #but does anything I say actually mean anything? :/

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benito-cereno · 3 years

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Hello would you recommend me some vampire movies?

Yeah, sure. I'm wearing a Dracula shirt at this very moment, so it seems timely.

You didn't ask for deep cuts, so there will be a lot of obvious ones in here.

Nosferatu (both the 1922 and 1979 versions are worth watching, but be aware that the 1922 version is silent and black and white)

Dracula (if you watch the 1931 version, watch with the Philip Glass score if possible. The 1992 version is also worth watching, and the 1979 version is very underrated. If you want to watch more Universal Dracula, follow up Drac 31 with Dracula's Daughter, but then skip Son of Dracula and watch Return of the Vampire instead. It's a serial-numbers-filed-off sequel to Dracula, but at least it has Lugosi. Then Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein)

Horror of Dracula (1958, imo the best Dracula movie. All of the sequels are worth at least a look, imo, but the first two sequels--Brides of Dracula and Prince of Darkness--are the essential ones. Note that Brides of Dracula doesn't actually have Dracula in it.)

There are plenty of Hammer vampire movies without Dracula in them that are worth a look, most notably the Karnstein trilogy--The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, and Twins of Evil--which are at least nominally based on Le Fanu's Carmilla, the first of which has Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing. Otherwise, check out Countess Dracula (which has Ingrid Pitt as Elizabeth Bathory), Captain Kronos, and Vampire Circus, the premise of which I probably don't have to tell you. Kiss of the Vampire is also pretty good.

Vampyr (1932, black and white, mostly silent, probably not what you're thinking of in a vampire movie, but also very cool)

Mark of the Vampire (1935, Tod Browning with Bela Lugosi, in a remake of Browning's own lost London After Midnight, which had Lon Chaney Sr)

Isle of the Dead (1945, a Val Lewton picture with Boris Karloff, though not a traditional vampire tale)

Black Sunday (1960, maybe vampire-adjacent, black and white)

Santo vs the Vampire Women (1962)

Black Sabbath (1963, this is an anthology and only one segment is vampires, but it's got Boris Karloff, so)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)

Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Blacula (1972)

Ganja and Hess (1973)

Martin (1977, George Romero)

Fright Night (1985, but the remake is also good)

Mr Vampire (1985)

Near Dark (1987, streaming on Shudder now after being impossible to find for years)

The Lost Boys (1987)

Cronos (1994, Guillermo del Toro)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Blade (1998)

Shadow of the Vampire (2000, fictional account of the making of Nosferatu with Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck)

Blade 2 (2002)

Night Watch (2004)

Let the Right One In (2008)

Thirst (2009, Park Chan Wook)

Byzantium (2012)

Rigor Mortis (2013)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Only Lovers Left Alive (2014, Jim Jarmusch with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston)

What We Do in the Shadows (2015)

Bloodsucking Bastards (2015)

If Dracula's Daughter and the Karnstein trilogy got you interested in the surprisingly robust subgenre of lesbian vampires, try:

Blood and Roses (1960, another Carmilla adaptation)

The R**** of the Vampire (1968)

Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

Daughters of Darkness (1971)

Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

The Blood Spattered Bride (1972)

Vampyres (1974)

Fascination (1979)

Hopefully that's enough to get you started, sorry if I didn't say your favorite. I haven't seen every movie ever made

#halloween #vampire #vampires #dracula

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samwisethebitch · 3 years

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The Bizarre World of “Feel Good” Murder Mysteries

When I think of murder, I don’t typically think of warm, fuzzy feelings. If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’m a fan of all things gritty and gory, so a lot of the books I read fall into the thriller/suspense subgenre. But not everyone likes their mystery novels with an extra helping of blood and guts — in fact, there’s an entire subgenre of mysteries designed to make readers feel good.

According to Wikipedia, “Cozy mysteries, also referred to as ‘cozies’, are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur off stage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.” Think Angela Lansbury a la Murder, She Wrote. It’s a very PG approach to a genre that is usually a hard R.

Like romance, the cozy mystery is a subgenre mostly read by women. According to cozy-mystery.com, a website dedicated to this type of book, “Many cozy mystery readers are intelligent women looking for a ‘fun read’ that engages the mind, as well as provides entertainment.”

Any time a genre is marketed to one gender over the other, I automatically wonder why. Is it because women are seen as less likely to enjoy “hardboiled” detective fiction than men? Is it because women “have weaker stomachs” or “can’t handle violence”? Is it because everything made for women needs to be cutesy and fluffy?

To try to answer these questions, I read three different cozies to see if I could determine why they’re so popular and why they’re marketed to women. Here’s what I found.

And Then There Were Crumbs by Eve Calder

Quirky settings seem to be a recurring theme in cozies, with more than a few of the subgenre’s beloved heroines doing double duty as amateur detectives and small business owners. In And Then There Were Crumbs, the small business in question is a bakery nestled in a ridiculously beautiful beachside town.

The mystery is not the main focus of this book. Really, it’s about Kate recovering from a messy breakup and trying to save a small-town bakery from going under. The murder is just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Unfortunately, the mystery was the weakest part for me. It’s not bad, by any means, but it does feel a little too clean. I’m the type of reader who likes to try to figure out the mystery alongside the characters, and this story didn’t really let me do that. There aren’t any compelling suspects to speculate about, and the solution is only possible after Kate stumbles onto a missing clue that brings everything together. This is a device used a lot by shows like Murder, She Wrote, and it’s always been a little bit of a pet peeve of mine.

The rest of the plot is well-written and full of warm fuzzies, but as someone who was mainly interested in the whodunnit I was a little disappointed.

One thing I will say for And Then There Were Crumbs is that it made me crave cookies so badly I had to bake a batch of snickerdoodles after finishing it. That’s gotta count for something.

Final Rating: 💀💀💀 (3 skulls out of 5)

Sinfully Delicious by Amanda M. Lee

Like in And Then There Were Crumbs, the mystery is not the main focus of this book. Sinfully Delicious is, at its heart, a second chance romance about a down-on-her-luck author who moves back to her hometown and reconnects with her high school sweetheart. That she happens to discover a dead body on her first day back, and that the previously mentioned high school sweetheart happens to be the police officer investigating the case, is incidental.

As I was reading this book, I noticed another running theme in the cozy subgenre. Both And Then There Were Crumbs and Sinfully Delicious go out of their way to establish that the murder victims were very, very bad people. Of course no one deserves to be poisoned or stabbed in a back alley, but if anyone did, it would be these guys. In a way, this makes the murders less disturbing since they almost feel justified.

Sinfully Delicious spends even less time on the mystery than And Then There Were Crumbs — at times, it almost doesn’t feel like a mystery novel. The romance really is the main focus here, and I had serious issues with it. Stormy’s ex-boyfriend/love interest has a girlfriend, and there is definitely some emotional infidelity — what Bustle calls “micro-cheating.” To make us feel better about this (and to keep Stormy a sympathetic protagonist), the author makes the girlfriend so unbelievably bitchy and unlikable that we can’t help but hate her. I’m very tired of girl-on-girl hate being used as a plot device in romance novels, and this book is one of the worst offenders I’ve encountered in a while.

The murder subplot was pretty standard. The last minute reveal that pulls the whole mystery together appears once again in this book, followed by a conclusion so outlandish, it actually made up for some of the lackluster buildup.

I did enjoy the fantasy elements in Sinfully Delicious. Stormy discovers that she is a witch and possesses magical powers, but like a lot of other cool things in this story, the witch stuff gets pushed aside to make more room for the romance nobody asked for.

Final Rating: 💀💀 (2 skulls out of 5)

Agatha Raisin and The Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton

The Agatha Raisin series is a staple of the cozy subgenre. With 30 books and counting, the series has been going strong since the early 1990s. Because this book (the first in the series) is quite a bit older than the other two I read, it isn’t quite as formulaic. It’s definitely heavy on the Agatha Christie inspiration (in case the protagonist’s name didn’t make it obvious), and it’s all very, very British.

Once again, the mystery isn’t the only thing going on here. This book is about Agatha, a fifty-something-year-old business woman who sells her PR firm, goes into an early retirement, and buys a cottage in the Cotswolds, only to realize that village life will be a harder adjustment than she thought. She feels torn between her new village, which isn’t at all like she imagined, and her old life in London, which is quickly moving on without her. Oh, and one of her new neighbors dies of poisoning after eating a quiche Agatha entered in a local baking competition.

I really liked Agatha as a character. It’s nice to see a single, middle aged woman who enjoys being single, and it’s interesting to read a story that deals with themes of getting older and planning for retirement. Agatha is also kind of a bad bitch, and I enjoyed reading about her aggressive, take-no-prisoners attitude.

The story really reminded me of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, which I’m sure is intentional. I can just imagine the author thinking, “But what if sweet Miss Marple was replaced by a London businesswoman?” and then writing this book. The supporting characters are all quirky and eccentric in some way, and some moments are genuinely humorous.

The murder mystery plays a more central role in this book than the first two I read, with Agatha doing lots of good, old fashioned snooping, breaking and entering, and harassing suspects. The conclusion was a little bit of a letdown for me — I think the author could have gone in a lot of different directions, but chose the most boring one.

Final Rating: 💀💀💀 (3 skulls out of 5)

Conclusion

I really can see the appeal of this type of mystery. These books are perfect for readers, both men and women, who want a fun mystery that they can try to solve alongside the protagonist, but who don’t want to read graphic descriptions of violence. I really do think there’s a place in the larger mystery genre for stories like this.

These books are also great for when you aren’t sure what genre you want to read. There’s a little bit of murder, a little bit of women’s fiction, a little bit of humor, and sometimes even a little bit of romance. It’s a grab bag of some of the most popular genres of fiction, and it speaks to readers with eclectic tastes.

Since I discovered the existence of the “cozy mystery” label, I’ve been using it to find books to read when I’m not feeling anything super intense. I read a lot of horror and thrillers, but sometimes I can get burned out on that type of intensely emotional (and often disturbing) story. When I want just a taste of intrigue without the blood and guts, cozies are a good option.

If you’re an avid reader of more intense mysteries, I recommend checking out this more lighthearted side to the genre. Who says a book about murder can’t be uplifting?

#cozy mystery #agatha raisin #book #book review #bookblr #bookish #bookworm #thriller #suspense #murder she wrote #agatha christie #romance #feminism #women's fiction #mystery #my reviews #mine #light academia #dark academia

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frasier-crane-style · 4 years

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Okay, this is a real hot take, so I’m giving it its own post. Just a few observations…

1. Do women even like action movies?

Obviously, some do, and you may be reading this and going “What are you talking about, I love The Mummy and The Princess Bride?” Okay, but do you love the parts where people are punching and stabbing—the actual ACTION—or do you love the comedic and romantic parts WITHIN the action movie? If I told you that in The Expendables, Terry Crews blows apart ten guys with an AA-12 automatic shotgun, would you want to see that or would you have to know that Terry Crews also does a funny dance or takes his shirt off? Is the action just a part of the soup that you take along with the stuff you actually like, or is it even something that you DISLIKE, but tolerate to get to whatever your idea of ‘the good stuff’ is?

I say this because I think there’s been a strange metamorphosis happening in action movies. We start off at a natural point of someone realizing that men will pay to see Sean Connery beat people up. At some point, another person realizes that women will also pay to see Sean Connery beat people up, if there’s a love story or some nice jokes, so they can make more money because the men largely don’t mind love stories or jokes either.

But with movies like Terminator: Dark Fate and the new Charlie’s Angels, political correctness has gotten to the point where they’re saying “let’s make the action movie entirely for women, actually saying we don’t WANT to appeal to men,” even though they’re the natural audience for an action movie. So you get movies, with very large budgets, that are targeting a very small niche of women who like action movies. It’s sort of like spending tens of millions of dollars making a movie that can only be profitable if many, many people see it, and then pitching it at lesbians. There are not many, many lesbians. (You could also argue that this is what Dark Fate and Charlie’s Angels tried to do.)

2. Why does every movie have to be an action movie?

You may have noticed that of the last several Star Trek movies, pretty much all of them have the same plot. There is a big evil villain, determined to get revenge for something, and he is armed with (usually) a very large ship or (sometimes) an exotic technology that will allow him to destroy either the Earth or, for a change of pace, another location with a great many innocent people who will need to be saved.

If you watch any of the Star Trek TV shows, you’ll notice this plot comes up fairly rarely. Sure, sometimes the Xindi want to blow up the Earth and Archer has to stop them, but more often there’s a disease they’re trying to cure, or a diplomatic crisis they’re trying to resolve, or a scientific phenomenon they’re studying. Beyond science fiction, the ‘genre’ of any given Star Trek episode could be anything from romance to drama to comedy to horror. Yet, every movie follows the same action-adventure blueprint, to the point where Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Into Darkness repeated the exact same setpiece of Kirk and a buddy flying through space.

This, in a microcosm, is what I see as a problem in Hollywood. Every movie of a certain budget has to be in the action genre and involve fight scenes, chase scenes, gunfights, etc, even if people aren’t interested in action setpieces on either side of the camera. Like, I know the John Wick people are interested in coming up with crazy new ways for Keanu Reeves to kill people, but is Kirsten Stewart interested in learning krav maga? Is Elizabeth Banks invested in staging an action scene the same way you could tell Steven Spielberg was invested in staging the truck chase in Raiders? Or do they just hand that shit off to stunt doubles and second-unit directors while they make the movie they want to make, which is basically a glorified comedy?

(Disclaimer: Behind biopics, the romantic action-comedy is the worst subgenre to exist. No woman thought Killers was romantic and no man thought Knight And Day had great action, so since there are only two genders, nobody likes those movies. The action-comedy can be good, but it’s on thin fucking ice, since most action movies have elements of comedy anyway, so an action-comedy just ends up being an action movie with shitty action and comedy that isn’t much better: Stuber, Central Intelligence, etc.)

I guess this is all to say that it would be nice if Hollywood could get away from every movie being a blockbuster and every blockbuster being an action movie, and just make some smaller movies that make a tidy profit even if they don’t set the world on fire. Can you honestly watch Fletch and say that movie would be better if it had a car chase, or look at Ghostbusters and say it needed more kung-fu? No, they’re just movies that are about what they’re about and they don’t try to outdo Bond for no reason.

You can just make a comedy! It doesn’t need to have a gunbattle in it! There don’t need to be a bunch of Eastern European gangsters arrested at the end!

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bereft-of-frogs · 5 years

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Do you have any horror book recommendations for someone who's never read horror before and would like to start getting into it? Like I know the obvious ones of like Steven King and H. P. Lovecraft, but I’d like some suggestions that aren’t white men and you seem like you have a huge amount of advice to give to us newbs.

Eeeeeeccckkkkkkkk oh no people take me seriously, I’m just a mere gremlin hiding under a bridge, the imposter syndrome, it burns-

Okay, dramatics aside, I’m obviously no expert, but I guess I have some recommendations. I will start by saying that I’m still actively working to read more (in general) by not-white-men, and I’m by no means perfect. (I’m reading more women, but I find my reading lists are still pretty white.) But I’m working on it!

To start with the White Male Classics (TM):

Stephen King at the top of his game is a great place to start. And a lot of his top books are pretty short - Carrie, Pet Sematery, Misery are my top three and they’re not long. Firestarter is pretty short, and The Mist is also great and novella length, so you don’t have to jump into his ‘bricks’ (to borrow a term from the Les Misérables fandom) like IT or Insomnia. In my personal opinion, The Shining book is also much better than the movie.

Fuck HP Lovecraft. Fuck him. Sorry for swearing so much on the answer to your ask, but I’ve just been having a month long argument with [Male Friend] about him. I refuse to read Lovecraft. I don’t care how ‘important’ he is, how influential, I don’t give a shit. Fuck him. I have a collection I’ve started three times, cannot get through it. Find his prose unnecessarily dense and boring, and the amount of times his ‘the universe is cold and unfeeling’ has been co-opted and weaponized against me by asshole Bros, I’m just done. He was also horrifyingly racist. This argument with [Friend] concluded with me sitting down on a sidewalk at midnight after [Friend] made a remark that revealed he hadn’t been listening to anything I said about Lovecraft **for days** and it might sound petty but that was the moment I was like ‘fuck Lovecraft’.

If you enjoy reading Lovecraft or enjoy what’s grown out of Lovecraftian horror, that’s great, but for newbies just know that if you don’t want to read Lovecraft, I support you.

[On my TBR list instead is Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom. Haven’t gotten to it yet, but it’s on the list!]

For ‘Classics’ I infinitely prefer Edgar Allen Poe. Since he is a poet, his short stories are actually enjoyable as pieces of writing, and he was much more influential to me growing up. I actually got to take an online elective in high school on his work and how he influenced horror, mystery, and science fiction. So, for your 19th century Problematic Favs, I personally say go for Poe. (Yes yes, Lovecraft was writing in the early 20th century, let’s say for your ‘pre-WWII Problematic Favs’.) Get yourself a nice little collection, and get ready for Halloween season.

Richard Matheson is another White Dude Who Is Worth It, I am Legend was really good, and he’s been quite widely adapted and is a huge influence on horror film, but usually the Horror Bros (TM) haven’t actually read the books themselves, so you sound impressive when you say shit like, ‘well in Matheson’s original text...’

NOT WHITE DUDES:

Mary Shelley - #Classic, I once nearly challenged someone to a duel because he said about Frankenstein, “it was written by a teenage girl and it shows.” Frankenstein was one of the few summer reading books I actually enjoyed in high school, also if you’re into apocalyptic literature, there’s The Last Man.

Another #Classic that’s getting a revival right now due to adaptations is, of course, Shirley Jackson.

On the topic of apocalyptic literature, I’m not 100% sure Octavia Butler counts as horror, but she appears on some lists (usually it seems for Fledgling) and her work often scares me so much I usually have to take a break after reading it.

Daphne du Maurier is another #Classic - Rebecca is the #classic, but she also wrote “The Birds.”

For more modern horror writers, I’ve been working my way through these two lists (and am just going to blanket recommend them as lists, because as you start getting beyond the ‘basics’ you’ll find that some subgenres appeal more than others and these lists go into more detail about what each book offers - for example, I love how the bookriot author talks about their love of VSH - Very Significant Houses XD ):

https://lithub.com/23-great-women-horror-writers-to-freak-you-out-this-october/

https://bookriot.com/2019/06/18/horror-books-by-authors-of-color/

Sarah Lotz’s The Three was okay, it was a decent read but then I got real defensive of it after some guy’s goodreads review listed all the problems I had with it (it builds tension well, but doesn’t follow through, doesn’t quite make full use of an innovative structure and premise) - and then only recommended books by white men to read instead. So I got weirdly defensive of it. So, I would say just go for it to spite that one dude. #petty

Also noticed that Lithub also listed Elizabeth Kostova in their honorable mentions, I did like The Historian and my friend and I were laughing the other day about how it’s actually a decent portrayal of historians (particularly in the way the main character hordes books in his carrel and then spends a lot of time trying to get archive permissions and then has to just wing a conference paper #BigMood.).

This is the problem with horror, it’s such a nebulous genre that I’m always like ‘oh yeah I guess that person counts?’ Anyway, I hope this helps! It’s a rainy day here and I think I’m going to eschew my other responsibilities and read some horror instead!!

Last link: NPR’s list is massive, well organized, and diverse, so you should probably ignore everything I just said and read this list instead: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/16/632779706/click-if-you-dare-100-favorite-horror-stories

#fright night #horror recommendations #oh god people are taking me seriously i hope i dont let you down #lol yay for imposter syndrome #Anonymous

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thewritingcaddy · 5 years

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11 Questions Tag

I was tagged by @hyba

1. What is the creepiest story you’ve ever read?

I don’t think I’ve read anything really, really creepy. It’s not my thing to read the really scary stuff. I’ve read (and love) Dracula and Frankenstein but the actual books aren’t that scary. They have a definite vibe though! I have probably read a short story that really bothered me, but none of them spring to mind at the moment. The Accident Season has a really good creepy vibe. So does Darkmere.

2. What was the first story you finished?

Something for school in my primary school days!

3. Are you the kind of person that makes a schedule and sticks to it, or do you prefer having a vague list of what you need to do and figuring out as you go along?

I am naturally a massive planner, and before I got fibromyalgia I would quite rigidly stick to it. Now I’m trying to balance between planning, so I can keep up with stuff, and being super flexible, so I can work around the fibro.

4. Other than writing, what are some of your talents / skills?

I’m good at cross-stitch. And I know a little BSL. I’m also probably a fairly good lipreader because of my hearing issues. And I have professional skills as a copy editor and as a proofreader.

5. What’s your biggest pet peeve in any one genre (romance, horror, thriller, fantasy, etc.)?

I love really good writing. So poor writing is something that winds me up in books. But in a specific genre? Well in medieval-esque fantasy I hate when authors religiously stick to the medieval “tone” and treat their female characters the same way actual medieval people would, and then say it was for “historical accuracy”. There are enough books from earlier periods where women are treated as less than men, or as belongings, or aren’t even there at all. Write me a female-friendly “historical” fantasy. What would the medieval ages have been like if women weren’t “owned” and assaulted by men?

6. If you had to stick to one genre, which would you choose?

It would have to be fantasy. It’s got a lot of subgenres too! But it would be fantasy anyway.

7. What’s the best writing-related gift you’ve ever received? Best in general?

My cousin gave me a soft-backed notebook one year, for Christmas, and that made my day! It was just like, she knows how much writing means to me. In general, I’ve no idea. It doesn’t feel fair to pick.

8. If you could draw your OCs, would you consider illustrating your book?

No.

9. What’s the funniest story you’ve ever read?

I don’t read a lot of humour. It isn’t fiction, but Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure is really funny.

10. Recently, someone described Apartment as having Secret Window and The Shining vibes. Use at least two books to describe the vibe your WIP gives out!

The Worst Witch meets Brightly Burning.

11. What’s the most terrible movie you have ever watched, and how would you make it better?

Sharknado 5, or maybe 6? Whichever one came last. I wouldn’t have continued the series this long. Or I would have kept it along the same tone, along the same lines, as the first two. The sci-fi elements and the general silliness they added further on just ruined it for me.

#originalblogging

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mackincaid · 6 years

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A few open submission calls for minority and marginalization themed markets

Note: This list was written in July 2018, and features markets that are not permanently open, so if you’re seeing this list ages after that time, these markets may be closed.

Not a writer? Some of these projects are available for you to read/listen to now, or are crowd-funded; if they sound interesting, check them out to back the projects and get your copy! Some are also seeking illustrators, comic artists, and podcast readers.

Also, most of these markets don’t actually restrict submissions to marginalized writers, they’re just asking specifically for stories featuring themes of marginalized identities, and obviously own stories are ideal. Without further ado, here are the markets!

Unlocking the Magic

Deadline: 1 November 2018 Payment: $300 per story, plus royalties Seeking short fiction 3000-6000 words.

In fantasy, we read about how people with mental illness are more susceptible to magic, closer to breaks in reality, more likely to be able to see the unseen. These stereotypes are harmful and contribute to keeping people from seeing the good in getting help, taking their meds, or talking to someone. This anthology is about changing the narrative and telling stories of strength and perseverance, of getting help despite the darkness. Not the myth that getting help will kill creativity and magic. Not the story our society tells about mentally ill people: that art and magic must come from suffering. I want stories that show what can be accomplished when we take care of ourselves and seek help. I want stories that show the reality of being mentally ill within a fantasy setting. I want to see how mental illness and its treatment affects the magic that lies within all of us. I want to read realistic portrayals of mental illness in magical worlds.

Fantasy only (no Science Fiction or Horror, although horror elements may be present in the story). Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Steampunk, and other genres of fantasy are all encouraged. Read the full submission guidelines here.

Bikes in Space: Trans & Nonbinary Edition

Deadline: 15 November 2018 Payment: “A percentage of net profits from the Kickstarter project used to fund the book will be split evenly between contributors, if the project is successfully funded. This payment will be at least $30 per story, plus 10 contributor copies per printing.” Seeking short fiction 500-8000 words.

For this issue, we’re looking to feature trans and nonbinary writers writing trans and nonbinary characters. At least one trans or nonbinary character should be a protagonist and centrally featured, though they don’t have to be the POV character. Their gender can be integral to the story or can be mentioned in passing, but please make the theme clear. Stories can be in any science fiction or fantasy – ish genre: high fantasy, hard SF, space opera, fairy tales, solarpunk, spec fic, slipstream, you name it—anything but fanfic. Note that we aren’t looking to ‘bury your gays’ (or trans/nb characters). All stories must contain bicycles—the story doesn’t need to be about bicycling, but this element must be central enough that removing it would change the story significantly. Same goes with feminism. Read the full submission guidelines here.

Nightlight Podcast

Deadline: No deadline, open and ongoing Payment: $75 for short fiction, $35 for flash, poetry, and reprints Seeking short fiction 4000-5000 words, and shorter flash fiction is also welcome.

Are you Black? It doesn’t matter what part of the world you’re from, or where you are now–as long as you’re Black and you write horror, you are welcome to submit! Read the full submission guidelines here.

Spoon Knife 4: A Neurodivergent Guide to Spacetime

Deadline: 30 September 2018 Payment: 1 cent/word Seeking short stories under 10,000 words, and poetry

We’re basically looking for work that examines and explores two fundamental ideas: time and space. Moreover, we want work that engages with themes of neurodivergence, queerness, and/or the intersections of neurodivergence and queerness. Read the full submission guidelines.

Not Just A Pretty Face Anthology

Deadline: 30 September 2018 Payment: $25 CAD + electronic contributor copy Seeking short fiction 2500-5000 words.

(This is a women only anthology to coincide with WIHM 2019) Behind those sparkling eyes, curvaceous figures, and pouting lips, lurk some of the darkest minds horror has to offer. These women are not just a pretty face and they’re out to prove it. Are YOU one of them? Send us your best, most horrific story and show the world woman are made of more than sugar and spice. Read the full submission guidelines here.

(On a personal note, this is a token pay anthology and I found the description of it kind of yikes? But your mileage may vary; I wanted to include it since it’s a women-only antho.)

Flame Tree Press also has an upcoming call for submissions on the theme of Afrofuturism (and pays professional rates), so keep an eye out for that one to open up if you’re a writer of that subgenre!

#writing markets #short fiction markets #writers markets

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How James Wan Launched Three Horror Movements in the 21st Century

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The highly secretive new horror project from James Wan, Malignant, has arrived in cinemas and on HBO Max, and it’s quite rightly been met with much anticipation. Because while on paper this looks like another mid-tier chiller with a decent cast and a generic title, with James Wan… well, you just never know.

Though Wan has proved he can play in the big leagues (Furious 7, Aquaman) he has also consistently returned to horror. And in doing so he has quietly – almost insidiously, you might say – managed to launch three distinct movements within the horror genre, and change the trajectory of the scary movie for the modern era.

On face value movies like Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring might not look like game changers in the way films like Get Out and Hereditary were immediately presented as. But we have no doubt horror history will remember and revere Wan in the same way it does luminaries like Wes Craven and John Carpenter. And with the interesting horror TV show Archive 81 (based on a podcast) in the works, it’ll be fascinating to see what Wan does next in that medium. Here’s how he changed the horror movie landscape:

Saw (2004) – Torture Porn

Though this ‘honor’ should be shared with Eli Roth’s Hostel, Saw was the movie that really put this early aughts subgenre on the map. Essentially, these are movies which fetishize the kill; the more elaborate, the better. Torture porn movies weren’t about racking up a body count, they were more interested in the excruciating detail and in coming up with ever more inventive ways to off someone. As the franchise progressed, it grew more and more convoluted but it should be noted that the original, rather than a cynical bit of nastiness for its own sake, is actually a very smart three-hander which, without the flashbacks, would have worked just as well for the theatre. Though not to everyone’s tastes, and kicking off a movement which had its share of detractors, it’s also worth pointing out that Saw is a relatively gender-neutral franchise – it is not specifically about torturing women, and sexual assault of any kind just isn’t its MO.

It was made for just $1.2 million and grossed over $103 million worldwide, and that’s before you get into the incredible staying power – and profits – reaped by the franchise as a whole which extends to nine movies not to mention fairground rides, comics, games and toys. Though Wan only directed the first film, the series ran and ran inspiring many more movies attempting to get in on an audience with a taste for gore, perhaps in reaction to the somewhat gentler and more bloodless post modern teen slashers that had prevailed in the late 90s.

See also: The Collector, Captivity, the Hostel franchise

Insidious (2010) – Low Budget, Big Stars

For his next trick, Wan pivoted completely away from torture and moved into a kind of sincere, genuinely scary and original horror model that Blumhouse would pick up and run with. Insidious was glossy, had actual famous people with a lot of talent in it (Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson), wasn’t part of any existing property (Wan teamed once again with writer Leigh Whannell with whom he co-wrote Saw), and delivered some seriously effective jumps. It was also made for just $1.5 million, and took almost $100 million worldwide (and once again launched its own franchise).

This movie provided the model which Blumhouse relied on for years, taking punts on brand new material if the movie could be made for less than $5 million. Though the sequels offer diminishing returns, the original is a genuinely good film. It also cemented a return to a kind of modern domestic horror – scary movies set in and around the home and featuring grown up married people and often children. While one might argue these films placed an over-reliance on jump scares, they did contribute to a reversal of the trend Wan himself started with Saw, which eschewed jumps in favor of lingering pain.

See also: Mama, Sinister, The Possession, anything in the Blumhouse early mold.

The Conjuring – The Horror Expanded Universe

Though The Conjuring carried on Wan’s ‘domestic horror’ style – and featured a happily married couple at the center, helping out a family with five daughters here – the lasting impact of this movie is how it managed to create an MCU-style shared universe, not something we’d really seen in horror before. The ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are at the core of this franchise, which extends to three movies. It’s unusual for the ‘goodies’ to be the recurring characters rather than the baddies, making this more like detective fiction than a traditional horror franchise. Additionally, rather than just being a single, linear series of films like Insidious, The Conjuring universe, like the MCU before it, allows for spinoffs that can play with subgenres, eras, countries, stars and styles.

The main Conjuring films rely on the ‘based on a truth story’ hook, but the spinoffs don’t at all. Take Annabelle Comes Home, for example, which is a ‘one wild night’ ghost train of a movie which features a werewolf. Spoiler alert: it is not based on a true story. While the horror genre in general doesn’t seem to have lept on this tactic – highly successful though it has been – we are starting to see glimpses of it. Most recently the Fear Street movies on Netflix – a trilogy which form one overarching story – has set itself up so that should the powers that be decide they want more, it would be possible to introduce further spinoffs that exist within the same universe.

Fear Street, like the wider Conjuring movies, played with different subgenres. In this case more overtly. While the main Conjuring set, and the first two Annabelle movies as well as The Curse of La Llorona and The Nun all played in a similar sandbox – not too gory, jump scares over out and out nastiness, Fear Street opted to go for a 1990s slasher vibe, a ‘70s/‘80s slasher vibe, and finally a folk horror. There is, however, no reason The Conjuring shouldn’t branch out too. Indeed, the most recent instalment in the franchise’s mainline series, The Devil Made Me Do It, ventured into true crime territory to middling success. The films in the universe (eight in total) may be of varying quality, but they are all still commercially successful and show no signs of disappearing any time soon.