GRAVITATIONAL WAVES to be published

The science fiction tale will make its debut in 2017. Details will follow.

And WHERE THE AIR IS CLEAR

can be found here:

http://schlock.co.uk/pb/wp_35b825b3/wp_35b825b3.html

WHERE THE AIR IS CLEAR

is here

Where The Air Is Clear to be published

Details to follow.

SCORCHED is published and here

Out Now

We are blessed to have stories in these two publications this month to close out 2016

Me, lurid-lit and Bob Dylan

No its not the set up for a bad joke. It's real:
http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/12/music-review-bob-dylan-1966-live.html

SCORCHED to be pubished

Details to follow.

Lurid.Lit is my soapbox today

About the state of the arts in this most divided and schizophrenic of nations.

We suck and here is why:

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/11/still-afraid-or-just-bored.html

Update on NO Updates

I have been asked if there will be periodic updates on the film projects. NO this not a rehab house. I am not, and have agreed to not step on the toes of any public relations or publicity department for any studio and/or film maker.

We are adults here.

Available NOW!

Includes PENANCE and be purchased on www.lulu.com

PENANCE to be published

ROGUE PLANET PRESS has announced the release of the DARK DREAMS anthology for November 15 which includes in the continuous flow PENANCE.

Thank you ROGUE PLANET PRESS and MARK SLADE.

Saugus Ghost Story Contest 2016: High School Winners

Understand there are three judges for each age group so I was reading with two other judges reading as well. We did nit communicate. In fact we did not know each others identity.

Here are the High School winners:

Third Place: A Shadow by Arya Ganesan

Second Place: Home of the Wild by Olivia Seidmeyer

First Place: The Ghoul of Maple Hill by Benjamin Andrew Fouche

Wow, my order too. Congratulations everybody and great job to all.

What I am not reporting on.....

will be the Saugus Adult winners since I was not involved there. Good luck to those winners when announced as well. I know I felt a thrill as I waited on my two entries and I felt on top of the world when I found out. I can feel your anticipation. Go get 'em guys.

Saugus Winners for Middle School stories

Third place: The Birthday by Sanya Shetty
Second Place: Them by Jason Gale
First Place: Gateway to Oblivion by P. Malone

My three favorites as well. Congratulations guys.

Saugus Winners for Elementary School

Third Place: My Ghost Friend, Samantha by Felicia Alexander
Second Place: The Secret Basement by Madison Lopez
First Place: Camari and her Dolls by Michelle Fang

Michelle is ten years old and this story is creepy. I found it to be one of the best of the entire contest in its conception and execution.

Congratulations to all the winners and all participants.

The Elementary submissions were of a higher caliber this year so the future of literature looks bright.

By the way these three were in my top 4 picks with Camari being first.

Congrats again guys and keep writing.

Saugus Winners will come tonight

and we will let you know about each category of the Saugus Ghost Story Contest.

Happy Halloween Everyone

Let's drop all the political correctness and find the innocent joy in a day that should be celebrated by children and adult alike.

Let's drop all the pretense have fun, embrace the innocence of spooky and the ideal of giving and giving joy as the holiday season kicks off.

Happy Halloween.

Saugus Ghost Story Contest

Started the process of judging. I am so sorry to say the pickings this year are sparser. I pray this isn't a trend but read my prior article....

Halloween is coming.....really?

I don't know about your city or state, your country or borough but this year especially I sense an impotence of and assault on Halloween. It just doesn't feel like Halloween. That sense of magic, of eeriness, of mystery just isn't there and I fear that sense diabolically purposeful and is permanent.

Maybe it's because of the crazy clowns. And that sense of public safety is a safe excuse for our overlords to shield us.

Maybe we've lost our sense of fun and our majesty. Maybe the more enlightened Prius driving phone addicted skinny jean society has more technological concerns. Who has time to play? They are serious people needing more time for themselves and their adult coloring books.

Maybe it's those colorfast National Football League uniforms worn on Thursday nights and Thursday night football itself. Hell, everything is crap.

It just doesn't feel like Halloween.

I have noticed the store stock has been less. Even though the same hasn't stopped me from buying some super items. There just is less Halloween pickings from last year. And today, four days BEFORE Halloween, that stock is gone and Christmas has taken its place.

Hey are they cancelling Thanksgiving too?

Maybe it's the election and we are all too focused on the real terror staring us in face: paint suits and barking, diabolical laughing and lies, socialism on steroids.

She's incompetent and a felon and no one minds.....yet everyone is on Mike Zimmer, coach of the Minnesota Vikings for those mutilated stuff animals......

And then there is thew established government. Those fine Democrats and Republicans alike who have done their best to cancel Halloween in towns all across this nation for the children who used to trick or treat and for the adults for decorating.

Stories of fines and arrests have been filling my pumpkin rather than candy and tales of ghouls.

The government has already taken our sweets, making them almost microscopic and far more expensive with homilies of how they are poison.

Now our holiday is being replaced with  'fall celebrations' and ordinances against decorating lawns because of complaints by religious fanatics and 'terrified children'.

Yeah it doesn't feel like Halloween. It feels far more sinister.

MENTOR has been published TODAY!

http://www.schlock.co.uk/pb/wp_fe6d6da7/wp_fe6d6da7.html     Right here, corpse speaking to corpse. You won't be lonely in death.

MENTOR to be published

Details to follow....Flash Horror is back.....

SAUGUS GHOST STORY CONTEST

We will be judging again this year and details will follow....

Lurid-lit and the first issue of HORRORVILLE MAGAZINE

Is here:

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/10/magazine-review-horrorville-magazine.html

LAMPS is here

LAMPS is published

in THREE MINUTE PLASTIC today................

http://threeminuteplasticmag.blogspot.com/2016/09/lamps-by-joseph-j-patchen.html

Peter Cushing is my subject on lurid-lit.....

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/09/book-review-peter-cushing-complete.html

'Nuff said as another great man said.....

TIRED is here:

http://www.schlock.co.uk/pb/wp_012a02b7/wp_012a02b7.html

TIRED is published

I SLUMBER IN MOIST SOIL has been published

In FARTHER STARS THAN THESE, right here and right now.

http://www.fartherstars.com/2016/09/9816.html

TIRED to be published

A short story built between two pieces of unpublished poetry it tells the story of a man immersed in fantasy even in death. The poems I used were titled TIRED and THE NIGHT.

Thank you Schlock! Webzine for continuing to recognize what I am doing and how different I present these tales as opposed to the tokenesque 'literary' politically correct four letter laden writers who have brought this genre to its knees.

The story will make its debut next week, Saturday September 10th; details and links to follow....

Ghost Hunting.....Watch Your Sugar Intake or Michelle will throw a squash at you.....

My next stop is Orange, Connecticut. Finding nothing in Milford I take a short drive to EDISON ROAD.

The blogs and blurbs are not specific except to say that a vacant lot is haunted. Here a barn used to sit or maybe it was a house or maybe it was a barn and a house. Anyway, two people die in an all consuming fire some time ago.

Feelings of dread and a feeling of being watched pervades....

Here is what pervades, a feeling of emptiness, a deep sucking void....Why? Because there is NOTHING THERE!!! There never was.

I have titled searched this whole area. There was never any fire. There were never any deaths. And developers took down the houses and barns of yore.

And the purveyors of this clap trap can never tell you who died, their names, their ages, their relationship. There is no address or even a year the fire occurred. This is an urban legend, a lazy urban legend that was so lame and cliche ridden to start, I can understand why it was never fully developed.

But I do think it is good place to visit.

If you travel through the area, passing the commercial entities there you will find one haunt that I do highly recommend. PEZ is here with a marvelous visitor center and store. It is a great short stop for young and old. Collect. Eat. Enjoy.

Just don't tell Michelle you know who about the sugar else she will throw a squash at you.....

Ghost Hunting.......Missing You....St. Mary's Cemetery, Milford, Connecticut

70 Gulf Street is the site. Of all the purported Milford hauntings this one has the most credence, however we are still talking Milford, Connecticut which means the bar isn't raised very high.

The prototypical wandering ghost haunts this boneyard in her long white gown in search of the husband she lost to World War I. Since his body never returned home the search is all that more desperate. The story goes this lady is not shy and will approach individuals as well as groups.

Google can deliver you various photos of orbs, mists, and light arcs. All purport to show the broken hearted phantom  in full search and confrontation mode.

This proves her existence says the amateur ghost buster.

Well, I am not sold.

1. Who is this woman? Many ghost hunters live and hunt in this area and tout and tout. Where is the historical basis? Hunting is more than playing with electronics and repeating the wandering cliche.

2.  Why a cemetery? Why this cemetery? There are comparable aged cemeteries in the area. Again, the paranormal investigators in this area are sloppy. Why, why, why, why.....

3.  I need something lore than orbs aka dust aka bugs; mist aka smoke aka car exhaust aka vaping; and/or light arcs aka bugs. The people who post these photos saying 'lookie here' don't give us any explanation on the conditions and the equipment used.

Where are the mediums? Where are the EVPs? Where is the information?

There is much lacking. In my visits I have found nothing.

I don't believe this haunting but it makes for a good urban legend.

I get musical on LURID-LIT.....

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/08/music-review-hardwired-by-metallica.html

Me and Metallica......

Just sit right back and hear a tale....Hauntings On An Milford Isle

Legend has it that Captain William Kidd, a real non-Disney pirate, buried a portion of his treasure on the 14 acre island in 1699 on his way to Boston and an arrest and extradition to England for execution. Kidd purportedly cursed the island and anyone who would attempt to seek his treasure buried under a huge boulder.

Great for tourism and the yearly theme day where people cosplay until drunk.

The Island is largely off limits and rightfully so because of endangered wildlife inhabiting there. The
disembodied voices, phantoms in trees, weird lights; all the standard ghostly stuff except for piling chairs is well recorded by people who are nameless.

Let's cut to the chase. In all my years here the legend is simply that. Captain Kidd did come here. He had a squeeze here and his men enjoyed the tavern and its local talent, nudge, nudge. But ghosts? Yeah there are as many ghosts as there are doubloons and buffoons who believe this tale of terror.

It is in the mind and chatter of people who enjoy mystery. Wildlife of a feathered variety and bugs are here. No ghosts, but an arrest if you caught there screwing around looking for ghosts.

Want some friendly advice from someone who lives here --- delete the story from your ghostly bucket list.

Next up a cemetery and a grieving woman. I stay in Milford because I am having so much luck.

Ghost Hunting....yeah Ghost Hunting.....You have a problem with that Milford? Part 1

Hunting spirits is all the rage and has been so for the past decade. Ghost hunting groups have formed in every corner of every town, city and burb all over the United States of Entertainment. Frankly sitting in the dark in someone's basement with a converted transistor radio watching lights and waiting for a whisper is not my idea of fun. And frankly if a house or spot is haunted it should be more evident than a slumber party.

The scientific method suffers here as amateurs whose only paranormal education is Saturday night cable television try to lend credence to something that I believe is a lot more complicated than 'did you hear that?'

My plan for this and future columns is this: visit these purportedly paranormal places in my home base of Connecticut and see who I happen to run into or through because they are ectoplasm and are not solid.

I live in Milford, a hotbed of pirate history with a couple of ghosts thrown in. Tonight I will address three houses and one site being heavily and publicly pushed as a nest for phantoms.

The Milford Historical Society, I used to be a member, claims that three of its houses are haunted: Eells-Stowe, Clark-Stockdale and Bryan Downs. The story goes that docents and volunteers claim to hear voices; feel prying eyes, etc.

I lived here over twenty years and was an active member, and up until the last year or so there has never been any talk of this. The houses don't sit on their original lots and well, it is a Hell of a marketing plan to attract new members.

In the articles I have read an unnamed paranormal group purportedly collected EVPs which the logic dictates proves a haunting.

Well as someone who has been in these buildings both during the day and during the night I have never heard voices, I have never experienced someone else in the room with me, etc.

I would love to hear the EVPs. I would love to speak with these hunters and discuss their methodology. I would love to accompany them on a lock down until then I believe this to be a marketing ploy as there is no real basis for these hauntings.

There is no back story to lend credence; there is no history of activity and frankly there is nothing to believe here unless the Society brings more to the table.

I will stay in Milford for the next hunt which will involve pirates and I don't mean that team once Managed by Danny Murtaugh.

 

I am an OBSOLETE MULE on Lurid-lit with the FINAL DELETION

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/08/television-review-final-deletion-need-i.html

Great cover and billing.......

LAMPS to be published

by THREE MINUTE PLASTIC. Details to follow......

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER DAY to be published

Details to follow.....like it will be in SCHLOCK! WEBZINE next Sunday.

I have seen Hell: EVENT HORIZON

I review the dvd set of thsi science fiction...oh wait a minute this brilliant horror infused morality play on lurid-lit NOW:

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/07/dvd-review-and-recommendation-event.html

Follow me to see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fight crime.....

And it is not on the idiot box......

www.lurid-lit.com

PENANCE to be published

As part of the interlocking story in the Horrified Press anthology titled DARK DREAMS. Details to follow.

Spring 2018

The seven will appear in some combination either on the big screen or dvd. Hey let's hope for the former and action figures.

HATE goes on Hiatus, for now, just resting....et al

We have pulled the plug on HATE with indie film dudes. The scripts never captured the meaning of the story. Illiteracy is rampant among some of these hipster writers.

The tale IS NOT about gun control but the hate that is in the world, that is in the souls of many a man.

There is interest in the story and we will look to get this project sold or partnered in the coming months.

I SLUMBER IN MOIST SOIL to be published

in the September 8th issue of FARTHER STARS THAN THESE. This horror/sci-fi tales takes a look at climate change.

HORROR FICTION BOOKS goes on hiatus

Re-launch will be October 1st. The site remains up and my two stories are there. New content will appear  in October per the publisher.

I am posting another column on lurid-lit......

YES TWO IN ONE WEEK. OMG! OMG! DON'T YOU HAVE ANY WORK TO DO JOSEPH? TWO COLUMNS!! OMG!!! OMG!!!

Yeah and I have fiction deadlines too.

And an overflowing desk from my office.

It is quite nice actually.

The second column with Curtis Lawson's latest will be up within hours.......

Amazon Author Page Updated

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_5?ie=UTF8&text=Joseph+J+Patchen&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Joseph+J+Patchen&sort=relevancerank

Read this or be a pencil necked geek.....

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/06/i-really-am-heel-and-i-have-comething.html

Where most of the daily action is....

https://twitter.com/josephpatchen

More in the chute

Yeah there is. Work is getting busy. Writing is getting busier. New projects coming. We have accepted a deal to write an updated version of 'twilight zone' that ties a character in with other tales in the series.

Nuff Said

In print. On sale now.

STARVED has been reprinted

Volume 2 Issue 6 now on sale  at www.LULU.COM

WATCH THE BOUNCING BALL is published

http://www.schlock.co.uk/pb/wp_f09d612c/wp_f09d612c.html

I hav some CREEPY NEWS for you

on www.lurid-lit.com Give it a look.

WATCH THE BOUNCING BALL to be published.....

May 22nd in Schlock! Webzine. Details and links to follow. Please keep your heads......

Come and read my NURSERY RHYME......now published

http://horrorfictionbooks.com/nursery-rhyme/

I am....

http://horrorfictionbooks.com/dr-death/

Alive. Read above.

Me and My Shadow Man

We can now announce...

That Horrorfictionbooks.com has approached me and I have accepted to become one its team of contributors going forward. The fledging horror zine will be publishing two flash fiction pieces from me a month with the possibility of other content to be added by way of articles and reviews.

I want to again thank Neil for the opportunity to join his stale of writers and artists in this international project to bring horror to fans and aficionados alike.

A NURSERY RHYME to be published

With HORRORFICTIONBOOKS.COM from Ireland. Link to follow.

ME AND MY SHADOW MAN to be published

With HORRORFICTIONBOOKS.COM from Ireland. Link to follow.

Book Review: Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula A Facsimile Edition, McFarland & Compant, Inc., 331 pages, 2008

Not here. Go to www.lurid-lit.com . Seriously, it will be there today. I am just jotting it down as a draft. And while you are there read some other stuff.....Thank you.

The Doctor is a Quack

Every year I take a piece that I have already had published and send it out to the most pompous e-zine I can find that evening. These are the journals of the beautiful people. These are the journals of the most intelligent. They will remind you, constantly.

These are the journals of the Ivy League. These are the journals of the real writers -- the real people of letters who are known and loved in Manhattan and Boston circles. After all they have a piece of paper generated from an overpriced lump of bricks that says so.

By the way, I have a doctorate.

I have rubbed shoulders with these people. I detest them. My idea is to expose them for the hacks they truly are. Their names while not appearing on this site will be part of a larger volume that I hope to have published by mid 2017. I have a publisher with an interest; an interest in resurrecting literature and wresting it from the boring and non-talented, as well as an interest in defeating the hack-o-rama wherever and whenever it appears.

In this particular case the writer guidelines advertised that all genres were welcome. Yet the hate filled publisher felt it necessary to inform me that horror was a junk genre; the least interesting and most socially ignorant genre there is after all it can't change the socio-political structure that we are all waged in battle with.

Really? None of your stable of writers seems to be known beyond your sideshow. What are these writers shaping? These mirror images of the overblown New Yorker cartoon of mush mouth gibberish that the clueless sheepishly hail as genius.

Just read them.

The standard buzz words were used for the standard rejection: lack of rhythm, forced rhymes, pass. But what stands out here is a new layer of condescendence. Because I submitted and because I lack both the knowledge and talent to know better I will be receiving a monthly newsletter outlining the talent that will appear that month and of course, a offer to donate money to keep the e-zine alive.

Sounds a lot like Public Television and Public Radio which is already subsidized by our taxes. Sounds a lot like both the Democrat and Republican parties.

Enough.  

Poetry is in the air...

Just finishing NURSERY RHYME. Poems are tough to publish these days. Most editors want a third rate rhythm and rhyme screen involving marital aids. Others want disjointed and random thoughts allowing the nonsense to disguise as literary highbrow tripe.

Resistance is what we seek.

STARVING to be re-published

In the next issue of SCHLOCK! BI-MONTHLY which means best of and which means on paper. Details to follow.

BE MINE has been published

In print on AMAZON.

THE CONTRACT is published

Here as part of HORRIFIED PRESS' anthology SUPERNATURAL. On the shelves now.

I write about some special ladies on Lurid-lit

It's me and the Hammer Honeys. Check out this piece of theatrical history....

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/04/book-review-hammer-glamour-by-marcus_3.html

Film Review: A Slit-Mouthed Woman, aka Carved, Directed by Koji Shiraishi, Japanese, 2007.

Touted to me as a creepy memorialization of the Japanese legend, this film had a magnificent first ten minutes. The rest of the film should have been slit to the cutting room floor.

Despite the gore, think Monty Python Pantomime characters. The middle of this film would be best seen during a nap and the ending is more predictable than professional wrestling.

I don't need to go. I don't need to discuss specifics. I was asleep for most of it and honestly didn't miss a thing.

So much could have been done, but maybe the film maker and his writers fell asleep as well.

I have no original way to say this......

Thank you BLACK SABBATH:

Now in darkness the world stops turning;
ashes where the bodies burning.

I am laughing and spreading my wings.

Thank you......

BE MINE to be published

A love story of obsession and death has been selected by the editors of Schlock! Webzine for their anniversary edition which will appear in print and on the web.

Details and cover to follow.

STARVING is published.

Now in Volume 9 and Issue 16.

Read a truly original story not a rehash of hack.

On the stands APRIL 10TH

From ROGUE PLANET PRESS:

WICKED GARDENS

With a knick knack on LURID-LIT.....

Don't make any jokes. The Irish Mob and its bloody history on lurid-lit now.

On Sale Now.....

Publisher put it on the stands early. See LULU.Com thank you.

Me and Chris on Lurid-lit

Mr. Lee that is. Actually Sir Mr. Christopher Lee.

Check it out.

CHOICES has been published

Today.

http://threeminuteplasticmag.blogspot.com/2016/03/choices-by-joseph-j-patchen.html

STARVING to be published March 27th

in the United Kingdom's SCHLOCK! WEBZINE.

A story that introduces to tired tropes to each other with a twist and novel and creative twist.

All mine.

Coming March 15th from Thirteen O'clock Press

with AFTER TASTE.

I am finding my way back to lurid lit

With an article about writing itself. We as a community need to take this craft seriously. Check it out.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know......

No class this semester and I will only be offering my writing class for one more semester. I will discuss those reasons at that time.

Happy?

CLOSET to be published

By HORRIFIED PRESS in their anthology WICKED GARDENS. This project was originally dead back in November 2015 but thanks to Mark Slade and Gavin Chappell the horror apartment house stands.

The galley is being developed by the editor and details with a publishing date will follow. Here is a peek at the cover.

STARVING

First draft completed. I am pleased with the direction and point of view. Revisions now....

Editor's Notes: Can we please stop it!! Every piece of fiction looks like a bad vaudeville joke

Why do we need to tokenize our fiction? Why do editors, mostly in the United States, insist on the ethnicity of characters rather than on the creativity or the intelligence of the prose?

Why?

Because society has become a check list where creativity is dashed in favor of the dreaded political correctness. If someone has problems 'identifying' with a character they are reading about I doubt very much that person has the intellectual ability to understand the story.

I am not a whale, although you may disagree because of my girth, but I understand the whale in Moby Dick.

Imagination used to be lauded. Now it is subordinated to first chapters that read like cheap jokes. Think about it; a white man, a Jewish woman, A Japanese man, an African American woman and a bisexual Swedish transsexual go into a haunted house.

Yeah, that is where we are headed.

Can we please get over the narcissistic identity politics and dial up creativity.....

Riff

I knelt before him in fear and awe. The zombie Pope blessed me from afar. I came to bathe in blood and marrow. I came from the land of tomorrow.

Don't forget TWITTER

Yes I am riffing there @josephpatchen

AFTER TASTE creeps toward print

Just notified by Horrified Press that the vampire anthology ONCE BITTEN that includes my tale is off to formatting; print is near.

Film Review: Horrors of the Black Museum, 1959.

Unlike the Scotland Yard's actual Black Museum this foray into a slight retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is better left unwatched. Michael Gough is truly contemptible but his performance cannot rise above the camp of what was intended to be a serious film.

Originally released in "Hypnovision", this is the tale of a famous crime writer who creates his own crime, i.e. murders through the hypnotism and the injection of a formula into his hapless assistant.

The supporting acting is one dimensional and amateurish. In short someone should have hid every pen, pencil and typewriter in a two mile radius when Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel decided to write this.

STASIS has been published

in FARTHER STARS THAN THESE. Science Fiction today in the form of STASIS.

http://www.fartherstars.com/2016/02/2416.html

Thank you SXSW and its creative base for all the kind support

We are generating a lot of followers through SXSW and I want to thank all the creative artists who have given me a look, a kind word and a follow. It means a lot to be accepted and welcomed into the creative community, particularly in this country. Thank you.

Captive, a new story

To many a tired trope. To others a destroyed theme. No sparkle here, just a new vampire tale told from a different and tarnished perspective. The writing is slow yet deliberate. I think we have something to break ground with when we are done.

Godzilla and Me

No, not a comedic travel film but my newest review on lurid-lit.com.

And no I am not reviewing a film. I am reviewing a toy, or that is a collectible.

Have some fun with 30 points of articulation including a hinged jaw.

http://www.lurid-lit.com/2016/01/toy-review-godzilla-monster-of-monsters.html

CHOICES to be published

By THREE MINUTE PLASTIC. Details to follow....

Classic Movie Review: Dark Water

As most of you are aware the Japanese film preceded the American version by three years, that is 2002 versus 2005.

The films are based on the short story Floating Water by Koji Suzuki published in 1996.

The plot is well known; a woman in the throes of divorce attempts under extreme earthly and other worldly pressures to protect her young daughter.

This is a solid ghost story all around but what struck me are the differences, some subtle and one overriding between the two film versions.

No laundry list here, the umbrella is simply that the Japanese version is more faithful to the supernatural than the American. The original film is more eerie, more atmospheric and, in my opinion, the superior of the two.

Don't get me wrong Walter Salles' version is a good film. Jennifer Connolly's performance is impeccable but if your 'thing' is horror the 2002 version is better than the remake.

There is something about a ghost child, a demon little one skulking around the edges that is most unsettling. The color yellow as well is a powerful visual device to heighten the fear amidst the grey and dark of the film. And the early emphasis on the missing girl stamps this version with an air of mystery and misdeed.

And also for that reason, a more faithful adaptation to the original tale, I believe the first script is superior. The linear dimensions of the story telling are clearer, tighter and heighten the tension in shorter and stronger spurts.

So what if you have to read subtitles. You can read right? But if you know the basic story, you can watch Hideo Nakata's original version with the sound off. His direction is that pure.

Dear Hollywood --- Stop Dumbing Us Down

I know there is big money in blowing up things. I know a lot of people like to watch things blow up. I know a lot of money is at stake but why can't we go back to Darwinism and have the smart eat the stupid? Why can't we tell intelligent stories without third grade humor and situations?

You have done it. Maybe accidently, but you have done it.

Can we stop the polarization and the politicizing? Can stop the chest thumping and the teaching? Can we just tell a story? A good story?

Can we stop sanitizing and manipulating? Can we stop being stupid and can we stop dumbing us down?

Wishful thinking for a culture in decline, eh?

There is still a heart beat and a chance... ;)

Classic Movie Review: Repulsion

Talk about irony. This 1965 Horror/Thriller about a woman who was raped as a child and left to scar because her attacker was never brought to justice was directed and co-written by Roman Polanski. Catherine Deneuve stars as a virgin, or that is what we are led to believe, who works as a biting her own nails manicurist who seems to be constantly lost in her own introspection.

Slowly though we are introduced to her psychological Hell; her hallucinations, her fears and loathing of men and of sex. This leads to a breakdown full of symbolism as she crawls closer and closer to a violent and disturbing climax.

This film was one of the first of its kind and first in that the killer is a woman. Colorization would certainly ruin the look of this masterpiece and Ms. Deneuve's performance is nothing short of miraculous.

She stumbles her way through life, never making eye contact as she delivers lines in between lulls; at times robotic and at times creepy.

In all she powerfully evokes pity even while killing.

The film is tight in terms of art and entertainment. This film blazed a trail that those who have followed have never done it justice.

You need to find this one

Classic Movie Review: GOJIRA

Which is the original Japanese pronunciation for Godzilla. Theatrically released in 1954 and directed by Ishiro Honda, this film is not to be confused with heavily and ineptly edited American version starring Raymond Burr.

This is the first appearance of the King of Monsters as we soon find he is a legend before his time and appearance while wreaking havoc in the fishing lanes of Japan. Elders tell us that he is a mythical creature who rising from the sea and demands a sacrifice.

While this portends the franchise to come, soon the lumbering monster takes to land, begins munching on a train and the fun begins.

This is the template for the franchise to come although what may not know and what I will spoil is that Godzilla is killed and rendered into a skeleton on the bottom of the ocean.

But in a twist before the credits can roll we are warned about the continued effects of nuclear testing and the potential of it releasing another Godzilla upon humanity.

A brilliant piece of writing keep the doors open for sequels and at the same time leaving the possibility of getting out of town if the flick bombs.

Well you know the history.

I recommend you find this on DVD and see how history is born as well as hatched.

Organizing and Planning

Since TWITTER is the actual newsfeed for the internet blogs have become blobs with less and less relevance. But I like my blog and I want to use it more.

Really.

As I venture back out of the wilderness I have been doing a lot of thinking. And with some big news pending I can only do one of two things: 1. Close this blog or  2. Get off my ever expanding butt and get back to work.

What choice is there? The only thing to do is to re-immerse and do what our gut tells us. As other blogs and e-zines go by the wayside destiny is calling.

My plan is to bring reviews of classic works, both in literature and film. Classic works being the older stuff many of you millennial types may have not heard of. Classic works, the foundation upon we are built which may explain much of the muck and crap we have to trudge through today to find that gem.

It's time.

Spring Semester Writing Course

has hit the catalog for Milford (CT) Adult Education. If you are in the area give it a try.

STASIS finished, submitted and to be published

One hour from submission STASIS will be published in FARTHER STARS THAN THESE. This science fiction tale is about the end of the world, the last man and the last ghost.

FALSE ALARM lives up to the name

At least one person will be happy to read this. Production on this radio play has been halted. The producer says the series this is part of has been cancelled do to 'technical' issues.

I was not happy with the re-writes anyway.

I retain all ownership of the piece and we will see if we will can salvage it in prose form or simply kill it.

I am back on Lurid-lit.com Mea Culpa

I open 2016 with an apology as to where I have been and what I have seen. I make a pledge as to how I am going to pepper you guys with reviews. Game on.

SAIL has been published

http://www.schlock.co.uk/pb/wp_35b825b3/wp_35b825b3.html

Enjoy..........