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a weekend of horrors
I’m back from my trip to London for the horror film festival FrightFest, and I had a lovely time. The weather was great, mostly, and I avoided the occasional showers. When I wasn’t watching movies, I strolled around Soho in the sun, bought a bowler hat, and met up with mates who’ve moved to the city. This year I tried a new strategy in relation to the festival: don’t watch everything. There have been FrighFests in the past where I have attended every single screening over the five days. It’s not recommended, and impossible now since there are two streams of programming. This year I skipped all the late films,…
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get some direction, quick
Before I inflict my weekly tiny piece of prose upon the web I’ll mention a couple of items that might be of interest to some of my readers. First off while perusing the films appearing in the forthcoming Spanish and Latin American Film Season at the IFI in Dublin I noticed that on Monday May 11th it’s showing a Mexican science fiction film called Sleep Dealer. We don’t often get opportunities to see sf films from other countries in Ireland, and it looks like it will be at least entertaining. Also, I’ve posted an entry over on the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild’s Blog about a new screenwriting conference, called…
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FrightFest 2008 Roundup
Another year, another FrightFest. Here are a number of horror movie clichés I could do without in the future: A blood-covered girl being chased in the woods as a hook to start a film A woman being captured, locked up, and tortured Stating at the beginning “Based on actual events” Yuppies being menaced by psycho assailants Creepy mirror scenes that aren’t scary enough Comedy horror flicks that have more gore and rubbery intestines than story or funny lines Oh gosh, the bad guys are kids! The countryside is occupied only by crazies – even if you escape, you can be guaranteed you’ll fall back into their clutches just as you…
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good reading and poor viewing
Hurray! Today the postie delivered my handsome contributor copy of Shroud Magazine, issue 2. I’m sharing the edition with my rather more famous countryman, Kealan Patrick Burke, along with Colleen Anderson, Steve Vernon, Marie Brennan, Nathaniel Lambert, Nate Kenyon, Tom Piccirilli and Ken Bruen, and Christa M. Miller. It’s a beautiful, well-produced, magazine. I’m proud my short story “Home” is in it. Recently, a mysterious benefactor in RTÉ sent me a free copy of Halloween (2007), the version (re)written and directed by Rob Zombie. I’ve gone on record in the past of not enjoying Rob Zombie’s films. Mr. Zombie likes the monsters who chop up and mutilate other folks. The…
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one for the calendar
IFTN mentions an event that should interest Irish screenwriters, playwrights, and film aficionados. A new play by New York playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck, Alive) will debut in Ireland on Thursday 26th October at the Abbey Theatre. The Tony-winning play is called Doubt, and is set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964. Following the premier of the play there will be a free post-show event, which will start around 9.30pm. Oscar nominated Irish writer/director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In America) will be “In Conversation” with John Patrick Shanley, and the two men will discuss the play, Hollywood, and filmmaking. It should be an event well…
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"I hope her bones are firm. "
During the past week I watched all three of the Lord of the Rings movies. I still like them. It makes Jackson’s recent offering, King Kong, look rather shallow in comparison. There is no excuse for the unforgivably-long pre-Skull Island sequence, which is supposed to establish characters and motives, but only tires us. King Kong is a B-movie. It’s a beauty-and-the-beast story, where a big ape falls in love with an incompatible mate. It’s equal parts action and melodrama. Or at least, it should be. The CGI Kong is the true hero of Jackon’s movie, and once he’s on-camera, ripping apart dinosaurs or bonding with Ann Darrow, then the movie…
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good men do nothing at Black Rock
Last night I watched Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) on TCM. Don McGuire and Millard Kaufman wrote the script, and it’s based on the Howard Breslin story “Bad Day At Hondo”. John Sturges helmed the film, a director that few people pay attention to any more even though he left a legacy of popular movies such as Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Old Man and the Sea, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Ice Station Zero, and The Eagle has Landed. Bad Day begins with the classic scenario beloved of Westerns: a stranger comes to town. In this case the stranger is John J. Macreedy (Spenser Tracy), a…
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star light, star bright
I’ve been reading The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri recently. It’s one of those books that writers tend to lavish praise upon, so it’s been on my “to read” list for some time. The first chapter on premise is particularly good, and pretty much echoes the conventional advice I’ve gleaned about how to start a project: make sure your premise (or concept) is solid. This is partly why the progress bar on the right has not advanced, because I’m worrying at my concept. I don’t want to advance further into the outline stage until I’m certain about my central concept. In the meantime I’ve written another piece of…
