dedicated to 80’s horror on film and on the almighty nes

I’m sure there’s an scathing essay to be written about how what I am about to say could be a symbol of the decline of civilization, but an animated gif of Johnny Depp being sucked into a bed followed by a fountain of blood is a very nostalgic image of my childhood.

What can I say, I was a horror buff pretty much right from the beginning. I couldn’t wait to watch movies I spied in the blood splattered section in the video store. (I also vividly remember seeing a curtained off area with rated X movies, and thought to myself “How scary can a movie be to be X rated??”)

I feel like horror geek kids don’t quite exist in the same way anymore. Remember the kid in Salem’s Lot who’s obsessed with monsters? He and all like him have grown up, and instead of nerdy rooms packed with Fangorias, we have tumblrs like F— Yeah 8 Bit Horror to view, share and remember our favorite gorey moments in cinema.

The site focuses on the golden age of horror, the 1980’s. There’s lot of stuff from the Nightmare on Elm Street series (which is fine with me, since making Elm St. movies was what I wanted to do when I grew up for years). There are also a few I haven’t seen (Trick or Treat looks like a must see).

A great example of a good tumblr.

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Posted on January 15, 2012

by Doris Lessing (1988)

Devilish children, whether possessed or born evil has been the subject of many a horror book and film (for a couple good ones see The Bad Seed, A Good and Happy Child, and of course, The Exorcist).

Doris Lessing‘s The Fifth Child does something slightly different with the genre. The horror is subtler, the child isn’t even recognized as being anything but spirited and unloved by doctors, and the unease taps more into the guilt and paranoia that comes with parenting rather than fear of a murderous tot a la Damien in The Omen.

It’s far more realistic than many like minded stories and in that way all the more terrifying. Even Lessing found writing it very “upsetting”.

It reminded me of an article I read many years ago about parents with overly aggressive sons whom they feared yet had to take care of. There was nothing they could do about it, and the futility and complete control the situation had over their lives, it stayed with me and scared me.

After all, in our real lives, isn’t it losing our happiness: happy marriages, happy family dynamics, happy sense of peace that is most frightening?

In the novel, that’s exactly whats threatened by Ben, the titular fifth child when he arrives in a bustling, loving family.

With his dead eyes, hobbit like appearance, incredible strength and tendency to kill animals he slowly destroys a happy family.

Lessing’s writing is sharp, like a great wit that never quite has anything nice to say about anybody. I breezed through the book in one day. While it frankly probably would have been a dissappointnent to a young me looking for more outward appearing horrors, it is a page turner for adults, especially parents that hold their small pleasures dear and know what they have to lose.

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Posted on October 25, 2011

by Wicked Witch (1978-86)

Hands down Chaos 1978-86 is the weirdest album I’ve discovered.

You know how they can record your thoughts as those grainy distorted images? This is kind of the music version of that. So lo fi it feels like it’s inside this awesome basement musicians own mind and his mind is filled with spooky sounds, avant-garde takes on cop movie soundtracks and strange interpretations of Parliament and Rick James.

I feel like this oddity will only grow on me more and more as it seems to offer new sensations every time we listen to it. So I was almost hesitant to write about it until it had totally washed over me, but it’s really too cool, bizarre, and unique to keep a secret from you all any longer.

I really want to thank the blog Music to Flip You Around for introducing this to me (during a random image search). You can get a down-loadable zip of the album from them too.

We have a new creative hero in our house, and his name is Wicked Witch.

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Posted on October 9, 2011

By Christine McVie (1984)

Got a Hold on Me is often mistaken as a Fleetwood Mac song but it’s pure McVie.
Shunning the spotlight for the past many years, she left is this lovely adult contemporary love song behind before taking the high road to peaceful living.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

by David M. Alexander (1981)

There’s not a ton of information about the fun imaginative sci-fi novel, Fane but that David M. Alexander is, like me, a huge fan of Jack Vance would be apparent even if he didn’t state his admiration in his dedication to the author.

The tale begins with a lazy, selfish young man sent by his powerful wizard Uncle on a seemingly simple errand, which he promptly messes up. This leads to quite an adventure on the planet Fane, which is ruled not by known rules of science but bizarre magical powers. Can our unwilling hero harness these powers to not only save his own hide but those of his alien companions and the planet races as a whole?

Man, I better hope that Van grows up with the same love of goofy, fun science fiction, or else I am going to have a whole lot of out of print paper backs to find a home for.

While this particular out of print paperback is a little hard to find, I’ve learned that it’s been re-released under the name The Accidental Magician and now sports some insane cover art that unlike the original, doesn’t really have much to do with the storyline.

PS, this forgotten little book is not to be confused with the Fane werewolf romance series by Susan Krinard.

See more: Books 1980s Sci-Fi Young Adult

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Posted on June 24, 2011