Sunday, December 28, 2008

Sharp Teeth


Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow, is a story of werewolves told in verse that is hard to put down once you've started reading.

From Publishers Weekly (starred review):

"Barlow's gut-wrenching, sexy debut, a horror thriller in verse, follows three packs of feral dogs in East L.A. These creatures are in fact werewolves, men and women who can change into canine form at will (Dog or wolf? More like one than the other/ but neither exactly). Lark, the top dog in one of the packs who's a lawyer in human form, has a master plan that may involve taking over the city from the regular humans. Anthony Silvo, a dogcatcher and normally a loner, finds himself falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman (Standing on four legs in her fur,/ she is her own brand of beast). A strange small man and his giant partner play tournament bridge and are deep into the drug trade. A detective, Peabody, investigates several puzzling dog-related murders. The irregular verse form with its narrative economies proves an excellent vehicle to support all these disparate threads and then tie them together in the bittersweet conclusion."

Public Service Announcement: Is Your Dog a Werewolf?

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Stupidest Angel


This is an excellent book by Christopher Moore to read during the holiday season. A Christmas story with zombies!

'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.

But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.

But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.

Move over, Charles Dickens -- it's Christopher Moore time.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Happy Toilet Day

Today is World Toilet Day!

In honor of this occasion, here's the toilet scene from Ghoulies II (1987).

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Devil's Dictionary


The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, is a satirical book published in 1911. It offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language which lampoon cant and political double-talk.







The Devil's Dictionary at [The Devil's Dictionary Dot Com]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary, audio and text

Sunday, November 9, 2008

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story by Ambrose Bierce. It was originally published in 1890, and first anthologized in Bierce's 1891 collection, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The story is famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending.

A 1962 French short film was based on this story. It was directed by Robert Enrico and produced by Marcel Ichac and Paul de Roubaix with music by Henri Lanoe. It won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards, and was also screened on American television as an episode of The Twilight Zone.



Saturday, November 1, 2008

The Midnight Meat Train

A FEARnet Exclusive Web Premiere. From Clive Barker comes the story of a man struggling to make it as a photographer. Today's assignment: Follow that guy into the NYC Subway. And by the way, he is a serial killer. Starring Bradley Cooper, Brooke Shields, Leslie Bibb, and Vinnie Jones.



(Click here to watch The Midnight Train on FEARnet.com)




Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Friday Night Frights: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!



Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the one that started it all. Night of the Living Dead is the classic genre-spawning 1968 horror film directed by zombie master George A. Romero.

The plot revolves around the mysterious reanimation of the dead and the efforts of Ben, Barbra and five others to survive the night while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse. Chaos descends as the bodies of the recently deceased inexplicably return to life and feed on human flesh. The only way to destroy the zombies is to destroy the brain!

Night of the Living Dead was awarded two honors thirty years after its debut. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 1999 with other films deemed "historically, culturally or aesthetically important in any way." In 2001, the American Film Institute named the film to a list of one hundred important horror and thriller films.

Click here to watch tonight's feature.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

War of the Worlds 1938 Radio Broadcast


"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. From the Meridian Room in the Park Plaza in New York City, we bring you the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra."

The sounds of "La Cumparsita" began to fill the airwaves. But within moments, the performance was interrupted by a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News, telling of strange explosions of incandescent gas occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars.

This dramatic approach - a performance interrupted by periodic news bulletins - is how writer Howard Koch adapted H. G. Wells's classic novel The War of the Worlds for radio broadcast. On October 30, 1938, the actors of The Mercury Theatre on the Air, led by twenty-three-year old Orson Welles, presented the adaptation on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Within the first forty minutes of the program, the actors had vividly described Martians landing in New Jersey and decimating the state.

It was Halloween Eve. As Welles explained at the end of the broadcast, the adaptation of The War of the Worlds was a holiday offering - "The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo!" But although CBS made four announcements during the broadcast identifying it as a dramatic performance, at least one million of the estimated nine to twelve million Americans who heard it were deeply scared by that "Boo" - scared into some sort of action.


You can listen to the broadcast by using the
POP-OUT PLAYER in the sidebar. The broadcast is the last item in the playlist. Happy Halloween Eve!



Source: About.com: 20th Century History

Monday, October 27, 2008

Fido

Friday, October 24, 2008

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