The Dream Keeper

So, for those of you who don't know, the greatest horror film director of my generation passed away recently. I'm sorry I don't update this blog as often as I should, but sometimes the Fates Conspire...as they have today. So: Wes Craven. If you don't know the name, you definitely know his work: Last House on the Left, Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street, The People Under The Stairs, New Nightmare, Swamp Thing, Serpent and the Rainbow, Scream ........the man had not only a great take on the Horror Genre but a great take on Film-Making in general. Before linking you to some other remembrances, I'd like to go over what I think are his best works, and pay tribute to one of the biggest influences on me and my writing. Before we begin, let's address one of the best things about a lot of Craven Movies, and one of the themes he worked with that imprinted itself onto my mind forever: His Urban Fantasy. Urban Fantasy, as some of you may know (and some of...

At one point in my current novel, Trent - the protagonist - illustrates a mural in chalk on the side of his school. Of course, the teachers make him hose it down, but he recreates it for a two-page spread in the book. Near the top center are the Dreadful Wind Demons. Watch out, they're dreadful.

W H   E N Morning finally came, Jack had laid at the dead fire and tried to keep the scent of the ashes on his mind and not the scent of the black-heads. It was still there, thought they weren’t. They were nocturnal animals and they wouldn’t come back until tonight. “Would they?” He asked himself. If nobody was around to hear him, he might as well talk to himself. It would either keep him sane, or drive him crazy. But these were both the least of his problems. “Were they thinking animals?” He asked nobody. “Because it seemed like it. Distracting, whooping…” He was reading too much into it. Jurassic Park had been re-run too many times in his childhood. No, they were not giant super-intelligent ground-eagles, they were just giant ground-eagles. Still, not good, but not quite as bad as JP’s exaggerated problem-solvers. Only as bad as very well-equipped lions, he decided. He walked out into the Sunlight. In this totally foreign world, the sun was the only familiar f...

I don't know whose idea it was to combine creepy creatures and beings and such with candy, but that guy should've gotten the Goddamn Nobel prize. Cheers!

So, crossovers. It seems to be the order of the day with Hollywood recently, what with The Avengers and the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie, and old Franchises seem to be getting revived left and right. The New Star Trek was pretty good attempt at breathing new life into a property that (you'd think) had been beaten to death up until then (and then was promptly beaten to death, but with lens flares). Apparently Star Wars will be seeing some of that in the next two years or so (though I remain skeptical that it'll be anything worth seeing, but I'll have to wait and see).  Even though Disney made John Carter , which was in my opinion the best Space Opera ever filmed (Yes, better than any of the six Star Wars films. No, don't worry, I have the pitchforks and torches here at my house, just swing by whenever you feel like it's angry mobbin' time), I can't see them doing SW right. The original films had a dark edge to them, and the effects of the time a...