American Made Music to Haunt By

You all know this is my favorite time of the year.  You also know that storytelling and film is my true passion.  But one of the things I always loved to do when writing a screenplay was adding music cues to help tell the story.  As I think I've mentioned before, the band Godsmack played a big role in my Boogieman screenplay, "Nite-Lite", and my love for '90's R&B is everywhere in my original AFI screenplay, "My Own Lily".

And even though, these days, all of my creative energy is going into by ebooks (for now), I can still hear the guitars playing in my head.  So, this time, I thought I'd share it.

As you know, this week, in anticipation of Halloween, I'm offering my horror short, "The Trick-or-Treaters", for free, exclusively on Amazon.com.  But, for a little extra something to take your reading experience to the next level, here's my semi-unofficial Trick-or-Treaters soundtrack, featuring the likes of Rob Zombie, Type O Negative, Outkast, Korn, DMX, and Diana Ross.

Yes, Diana Ross.

Kick back, relax, and let it scare the Hell out of you.

Trick or treat. Or else.

They're back.  And, this time, they're free.  Check out "The Trick-or-Treaters" for free all week long, exclusively at Amazon.com.

 

2 More Days 'Til Halloween. Read Four for $4.

Now that I've taken you through all four of my current short stories, my Halloween gift to your Macroscope readers is a Four for $4 deal.

Get all four short horror stories, including "I'll See You In Hell", "The Worst Place On Earth", "The Monster That Ate My Summer Vacation", and the very latest, "The Trick-or-Treaters", for $0.99 each. Just check out my Author Page on Amazon and you can score them all.

Enjoy, and don't stay out TOO late this weekend.

3 More Days 'til Halloween, but "The Trick-or-Treaters" are already here.

I used to live in a working class neighborhood in a not-so-great area of Los Angeles.  If you looked at the crime maps on the internet, the area was a virtual collage of color-coded crimes and misdemeanors, but it was also an area with mostly houses for blocks & blocks.  The population was less transient than streets lined with apartment buildings, and, as a result, there were more children.

And more children mean trick-or-treaters on Halloween evening.

It all sounds great - little kids in cute costumes with their mock attempts at candy blackmail.  I was in to it, ready to play along with my buckets of Hershey's kisses.

But once the sun had completely set, I figured it would only be another hour or two before the parents packed the kiddies away and off the mean streets.

Imagine my surprise when I settled in to watch John Carpenter's Halloween for the billionth time when, at around 9:30, there was a knock on my door.

There was no peep hole and my lights were already on, so I couldn't peek through the window in secret.  There was, however, a pretty solid screen door, so I opened the main door to take a look.

It was a person, at least as tall as me, but clearly heavier, wearing saggy jeans, a dark hoodie, and wearing a plain white hockey mask and holding a sack full of.... who knows.

He didn't make a move.  He didn't make a sound.

He just stood there.

And I just shook my head and laughed, saying "No, dude.  Not tonight", before closing the door and waiting for him to leave.

He was probably just some teenager who wanted in on the fun.

Probably.

But what if...

My latest horror short is called "The Trick-or-Treaters."

It starts from that idea and runs with it into some pretty crazy and surprising places.  I can honestly say that how I imagined this story would end is no where close to how it actually concludes.  And there are definitely some moments where I had an idea to write something where I thought, "wow, that's really, really wrong."

I'm reminded of a term Marlon Brando uses in "Apocalypse Now":

Moral terror.

It's brand new and available in the Amazon Kindle store today.  And definitely pay attention to my Macroscope post on Halloween proper.  I've got a little special something cooked up.

10 more days 'til Halloween. Read "The Worst Place On Earth".

Keeping in the spirit of the month, here's a little bit on my next horror short ebook.  It's actually a title I used once before for a Macroscope post about my love of horror movies that I wrote in the wake of the first time I'd ever seen Eli Roth's "Hostel". 

But the title is really inspired by a feeling, and it was a feeling I had after watching one of the earliest trailers for "28 Days Later".  I've literally searched dozens of times for that particular version of the trailer, but I've never been able to find it.

Maybe it was a nightmare I had after watching the trailer.

But, there's a moment where people are running away to hide from something terrible, but they're running into a deep, dark, wet place that, under ordinary circumstances, they would never EVER go.

I was just struck by the sensation of the awful choice: what's after you is bad, but where you're going to escape it is worse than you could possibly imagine.

It's the worst place On Earth.

And, like any good writer, there's lots of double meanings in that title.  But I'll leave it to you, oh, intrepid reader, to suss that out for yourself.

I mean, at this point, if you're following my writing, you've already gone to Hell.  How much worse can it be? :-)

Right?

12 more days 'til Halloween. Read "I'll See You In Hell"

Those of you who've never seen "Halloween III: Season of the Witch", may not get the joke, but I'm not going to spoil it for you.  :-)

We're counting down the days to All Hallow's Eve, which struck me as the perfect time to re-share my horror shorts.  So, taking it from the top:

The first story sort of started from that scene in "Unforgiven", where a certain character who's staring down the barrel of a shotgun says to his tormentor:

"I'll see you in Hell."

And, to a person like me, that's the kind of line that gets your mind racing.  Would they really see each other in Hell?  And how would that go down?

Bad people doing bad things in a really bad place.

It's like an episode of "Oz" on steroids.

Hence, my very first ebook.  It's really pretty crazy.  But, at the end of the day, if you're not going to create something crazy, what's the point of creating in the first place?

I prefer to think of it as "innovation", right, Steve?  :-)

Anyway, if you want to go on this sick, horrified ride, jump on board.  Download it.  Read it.  Be scared.

And, if you've already read it, share the love (or hate, as it were :-)) with your horror-loving friends.

It's that time of year.

The Most Wonderful Time of The Year, or why I love Halloween

There are certain times of the year that tickle my heart as a filmmaker and a deep lover of movies.  I love February, when all of the classic Oscar-winning films suddenly get new life on TV.  I love December, when your favorite holiday movies return while the studios generally offer the highest quality films they've made all year.  I love May, when the biggest, loudest popcorn movies of the summer come roaring into the multiplexes.

But my dirty little secret is that I love the month of October most of all.

I love scary movies.  And these 31 days are the days that they all rise like zombies, shambling across the quiet countryside to frighten a new generation.  These old horror films are like old friends:

The tightly coiled maniacal genius of a medical student who can Re-Animate the dead.

The terrible thing Creeping inside the crate beneath the university staircase.

The little boy in the clown costume with the butcher knife on Halloween night.

The puzzle box that Raises a little Hell every time someone is fiendish enough to try to solve it.

The Thing inside that snow dog running across the Anarctic.

I could talk about Val Lewton and William Castle.  I could talk about Vincent Price and Peter Cushing.  I could talk about Universal and Hammer and Dimension and Artisan and Lions Gate.

I could talk about the newbies, like the people who can't help but video tape the things that go bump in the night, or all the poor souls who've forced to live or die and make their choice.

In many ways, I think a good horror film is the highest order of filmmaking.  Think of the skill it takes to craft a movie that can terrify and amuse, that can horrify but still attract repeat viewings, that can attract the best talent, that can push the boundaries of special effects.

Psycho
Jaws
Alien
The Silence of the Lambs
Cape Fear

I could go on and on and on.

But I won't.

I'll just ask you to turn on the TV or go to the theater, hold on to your sweetheart, and enjoy the rush of getting the daylights scared out of you for the next two weeks.

13 Scariest Films Ever, according to EW Readers
Since this is the season (for Halloween, that is), I think this list is wholly appropriate, especially since they actually include just about every movie on my own personal list. The only one I wouldn't include is Rosemary's Baby. I remember watching it and thinking "What's the big deal?", even though I think the ending is one of the most insanely hilarious things I've ever seen ("Praise Satan!!!" What a bunch of fruitcakes). But any list that gives John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, and George A. Romero their propers is A-OK in my book.