Local Horror Author Panel Podcast

Last Saturday at the big downtown San Diego Central Library I took part in an event with a few of my fellow local horror authors where we discussed out favorite horror novels, short stories, movies and what it is about horror that gets our gears going. It was a fun and lively panel and Horror Imaginings Film Festival & Podcast brings the event to you this week in episode 147: Halloween Super Special with SoCal Horror Authors! Have a listen HERE. Pictured, from left to right: me, Ryan C. Thomas, David Agranoff, Bryan Killian, Scott Sigler, Miguel Rodriguez.

Robert's Random Musing #4

I Dig Real FX in Horror Movies

I'm a dyed in the wool old-school horror movie fan. As I get older I find myself less enthusiastic about new movies of any kind. I can't really say why, other than the fact that I hardly relate to movies anymore. Funny thing about it is that after watching the movie VHS a year or two ago I thought, "That was okay, but could have been much better." A lot of it made no fucking sense and the execution was mediocre, which really bummed me out because there was so much potential. A few months ago I watched an old movie called Garden of the Dead and thought, "Man, this movie is a total piece of shit," but I said it in an enthusiastic sort of way. I enjoy that kind of stuff a lot more than a modern effort with an equally flimsy budget, poor acting,

and Swiss cheese plot (all of which Garden of the Dead is chock-full of).

One of the reasons I'm not into modern horror film is the effects. I pretty much hate CGI with few exceptions. I agree, over the years CGI has improved (I recall a piss poor effect in the movie The Relic where a guy gets decapitated and a huge bubble-like glob of computer generated blood plopped out of his severed neck and I laughed out loud it was such a pathetic effort). My issue is that the CGI-heavy movies of today look like goddamned video games or ultra streamlined animated features. I'm just not into it, and I'm beginning to realize that I never will be. If I can tell that, in a Wintry scene, the snowflakes and the breath exhalations from the characters are fake, I get irritated. Yeah, I understand that the producers save money by inserting fake steamy breath instead of filming in a cold location or doing something crazy like creating an entire refrigerated set a la The Exorcist. But that's no excuse. You lost me with the first CGI snowflake and then I laughed when breath floated out of mouths like tiny ghosts dissolving into the air.

I figure if I cannot tell it's CGI, then the effects team did a good job. Once I can tell, I begin to lose interest. You can understand why I'm not a fan of action movies and all those super hero films that are so popular. I did enjoy Tim Burton's Batman, though. 'Course, it's almost thirty years old now.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, how is it Robert despises CGI so much and yet he likes old horror films with some of the most ridiculous and cringe-worthy ventures into latex and fake blood ever filmed? Oh, the fake blood--sometimes runny, sometimes syrupy and even orange (I'm looking at you, Dawn of the Dead). My simple response is that I grew up on that stuff. I devoured films like Dead Alive and Evil Dead and loved ever nasty effect, every drop of blood, every clay animated monster. I even dig the oatmeal faced zombies in I Eat Your Skin. My assumption is that young kids getting into film today feel the same way about CGI that I do about real-life latex and makeup effects. More power to 'em! Life won't last forever, so I'll just sit here with my DVDs and VHS tapes and watch all the old shit I love.

-Robert

We Are What We Are

I have a hard time finding decent horror movies these days. It gets discouraging, having to go through so many terrible films with horrid acting, bad cinematography, and cliched plots. Even the ones that are done right tend to be predictable.

Take the movie my wife and I watched the other night, We Are What We Are, the 2013 remake of a Mexican horror film released in America under the same name in 2010. The micro synopsis on Netflix said it was a film about a cannibal family struggling to hold onto their bizarre traditions. Right there they gave the first three quarters of the movie away. Before we started watching, we knew they were cannibals, yet the plot was designed to keep that important point a mystery, as if the viewer would be shocked when they discovered the family were indeed cannibals.

That bugged me. A lot. This film is a slow burn. The actors were great, particularly Bill Sage, who played the father, and his two daughters, played by Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers. I was drawn into the film by the performances. Mediocre acting would have been this film's demise, that's for sure. I mean they gave away a huge element of the plot before the damn thing started.

So, after slogging through a film that went exactly where I thought it was going to go, we were rewarded with a tense and brilliant ending. All of the elements of the first three quarters of the film came together, and it suddenly didn't matter that you began to feel that maybe you wasted an hour of your life watching a movie go nowhere. Oh, it went somewhere, and I was left thinking to myself, "What the fuck just happened?" The movie began with a match to a fuse that slowly inched its way toward what would prove to be a hell of an explosive end.

If you have Netflix, give We Are What We Are a shot. If you feel like the film is dragging, well, it is, but stick with it. The end is worth the wait.

Happy nightmares, fiends!