Talking about: Great finds

--> Hey, Yikes. You around?

Oh, I'm around.

I haven't seen you in a while. What have you been up to?

Searching. . . searching. . .

Oh yeah? What are you looking for?

For the tormented, crazed, misbegotten and forgotten sons and daughters of the most demented creatures to ever walk this earth!

So some new pals to hang out with?

Exactly. I thought I might pick up some cheap household items, too.

Household. . . ? And where have you been looking exactly?

The most forbidden of pits. The places where only the forgotten damned can be found. Where creeping, broken-down, black hearted cast-aways are left to writhe in the darkness. . .

You're talking about garage sales.

I'm talking about garage sales.

How did that go? Find anything good?

Yeah! And I only had to spend about 10 bucks. Have a video!

Introducing Threads of Fear

Something happens to our fear as we age. The acute terror of the monster in the dark becomes the dull, cold dread of reality. The heart-pounding terror of a demonic presence felt in your room fades with time, traded for late-night anxieties about job stability, bank overdrafts and the body's slow decay into old age.

So you're saying being old isn't cool? You're actually going to hate on senior citizens right now?

Our childhood fears of the supernatural never become real, so at some point we begin to fear reality. Somewhere along the line, I think we begin to miss that sharp fear, that simple black and white “Is it going to get me?” feeling. If you ask around, it seems that most people would actually prefer a zombie attack to cancer. Even something survivable, like knee cancer.

Nobody wants knee cancer.

So, often we turn to movies, books, games, looking for that old scare. We want to find that hovering demonic presence, the witch outside our window, the ghost in the hallway. Sometimes we even get lucky (and then maybe we regret it, laying in bed at night, afraid of what might come crawling out of the TV). In a horror story, we might find that thread that reaches the scared child inside of us.

What thread is that?

I think at the core of these things scary, there's a thread of our primal fears. If you could take fears like aging, loss of money, the car breaking down, and you distilled those fears down, I believe you would have to come back to the original fears. Fear of death, of being hunted, of the unknown.

That's logical, but where are you going with this?

Well, I was thinking about horror and about the evolving art form it is. There's a common thread that runs through every sub-genre of horror. Take something like Frankenstein. You can follow it from the 1931 film all the way through something like Re-Animator. Along the way, you'll find it winding its way through the works of Lovecraft and going on to inspire someone like Rob Zombie.

Before the movie is the novel, though.

Of course, and coming before that are the things that inspired Mary Shelley to write that tale on a stormy night in the early 1800s: Her own nightmares, scientific discoveries of the time and a collection of Germanic ghost stories.
The horror genre is like a bundle of roots buried in the past, which have spread out into thousand different branches, all twisting in different ways but can be traced back to similar origins.

You want to climb down the tree, I suppose. That could take lifetimes. For you, at least.

Well, I'm going to take it one at a time. We're going to start next time with an easy one that everyone can follow.

Next time? So I can get out of here now?

You can, but don't be late for next time when we present:

Threads of Fear: The Vampire!

Talking about: 2013

Two thousand, thirteen.

Twenty thirteen!

It is, indeed, 2013.

Twenty. . . THIRTEEN!

What does that make you think of?

A masked killer in the woods, getting some work done.

It makes me think of a black cat under a ladder, a hanging horse shoe falling over and letting all the luck spill out.

All of the luck?

All of it.

All of that luck stuff is just mumbo jumbo.

Sure, sure, bad luck, curses, black magic, the supernatural, possession of inanimate objects, devil dolls, killer puppets. Total fantasy.

Hey now, that isn't all the same.

Maybe not, but since this is the only 13-year we're going to get for the next century, I think we should do something to mark the occasion.

How do you mark the "occasion" of a whole year?

Well, how about we have a special update every month of the year, on the 13th?

We could do that. Or you could. I don't really like to be held to a schedule. It' so restrictive.

I got it under control. Just try to meet me here every month on the unlucky day. It'll all lead up to the big release in October.

That sounds. . . questionable.

Just trust me. It's going to be good.

Talking about: Motor City Nightmares

Motor City Nightmares 2012

I had a disturbing nightmare last night.  I was in a field, and dozens of bumble bees arose from the grass around me.  With nowhere to go, I could only accept my horrible fate of being stung to death.  

I blame Tony Todd.

Well, you did have an opportunity to meet him yesterday.

Holy crap! What happened to your neck? Do you have a neck?

I had a little accident at the con.

Did you get trampled or something?

Why would I get trampled?

Oh, you know, I mean. . . your stature?

I may be an uncommon individual, but there's nothing wrong with my stature. Let me tell you what happened.

Go 'head!

Well, we get to the con, and it's a cool place. Everyone seems nice, no one's pushy. There's a guy selling cool horror themed clocks right by where you get tickets.

Yeah, I got a cool Friday the 13th themed one. It's one of those few series that can actually fill an entire clock face with movie entries.

Well, you went to go do whatever you did. . .

I hit up the Dark Shadows promotional people. I won a mini poster.

I went straight to the people that would appreciate me: the other horror celebs.

Other?

So I talked to PJ Soles, you know, from Halloween and Carrie and all that. She was really friendly.

Please tell me you didn't piss off Norma from Carrie.  She was very nice when I met her.

Why would I cause trouble? I met up with Tony Todd next, and he wanted a photo together.

Of course, it was his idea. You didn't say something stupid about bees then?

It's not really in my nature to say stupid shit.  After that, I got to meet up with Michael Berryman. You'll probably remember him as one of the protagonists defending his land in the original The Hills Have Eyes.

Uh. When is the last time you watched Hills Have Eyes?

A few days ago. Why?

Just, uh, different interpretations. Go on.

Well, he's really chummy, and he wanted a photo, too. I don't usually do a lot of picture posing, so it was fun.

Pretty cool. I'm not really sure I'm following how this is going to lead to a sprained "neck," though.

Believe me, I'm getting to it.  If you could fight your way through the crowd back there, eventually you got to Kane Hodder.

Oh yeah! A big fan favorite, and he's always so nice at these things.

Yeah. . . well, I get up there, and Jason is one of my favorite stabbers, you know? He kind of inspired me to get into the business in the first place.

The stabbing business.

Absolutely! And here's the thing. I got more excited than usual, and I started talking about the Friday films, and I mentioned something about Freddy vs Jason being my favorite in the series.

Uhhh, that is a really good one, but I'm sure you pointed out the one glaring, obvious flaw in the movie, right?

Well. . .

I mean, you said "Oh yeah that's my favorite Friday flick, except for it only having the second best Jason," right?

I may have neglected to express my full thoughts on the film.

So you met a horror icon more stabby than yourself, but only actually got your "neck" wrung.  


Man, I don't even feel bad for you now. I suggest next time keeping the talk restricted to his book.

I thought maybe he'd sign my neck brace!

I think maybe next time we'll go on different days.