Alan
10-25-2008, 04:16 AM
Hey dudes, my name is Alan. I live in Minnesota and work for help desk at a law office. My real goal, however, is to publish a horror novel. I started writing horror stories when I was six or seven, largely because my dad would make me sit through them with my older brother when I was four and five. The first few horror movies I remember vividly watching were "The House That Dripped Blood" and "Don't Go In The House." I was a kid, so as you can imagine, I was scared shtless.
As my brother and I grew up we started collecting them. "Summer of Fear" with Linda Blair was the first horror VHS I owned. "The Watcher in the Woods" was second and soon they started growing from there.
I saw all of the the major series of the 80's and about every single movie with the last word MASSACRE you can imagine. Slumber Party. Sorority House, Nail Gun, god knows what else. A few of my favorites I can remember were Retribution, The Pit, The Mutilator, The Burning, The Dark, The Club, The Nest, Witchboard etc. My brother and I would always go to the 2.99 sales at video stores in search of obscure titles. We would also rent them, copy the VHS and then go to Kinkos and make a copy of the cover art. We also watched the more campy ones like Creepazoids, Dreamaniac, Night of the Demons, and Slaughter High. At one point in time we had around 2,000 different horror films.
A few of the most gruesome titles that traumatized me were the infamous Make them die slowly, Cannibal Ferox/Hollocost movies. I have yet to see a movie capture such brutal violence then those three. There was also SS Experiment Camp. That was more of a weird action movie about the experiments done by the nazi's but the stuff they did was brutal.
I still watch some of the new ones that come out today, but most seem to be elements from other movies or shorts I've already seen. I watched a lot of the old horror tv shows like Night Gallery, Tales from the darkside, Alfred Hitchcock, Friday the 13th, and Monsters. I really wish they would come out with something like that again. All in All it is hard to come up with a new idea that is intelligent and not like the first story I wrote as a child called Electric Eels. I saw piranha and wanted to come up with my own aquatic nightmare. Eels can be scary and they have yet to make a movie about killer ones. (Let's hope they don't)
As far as Authors are concerned Richard Laymon is by far the most original writer I have read. It's a shame they have yet to make a film version of some of his greatist novels such as The Traveling Vampire Show, Funland, The Beast House and The Glory Bus. I highly recommend reading one of his works because he has a unique style that pulls you into the story right away. I also enjoy King and Koontz of course. Lovecraft is great stuff and he uses the most odd words in his stories. Some of the newer horror novelists that have been surprisingly good are Brian Keene, Edward Lee, and Bentley Little. The last novel I have just finished was the Woods are Dark by Ramsey Campbell. By the title you can think of a large collection of ideas about evil woods, but Campbell pulled off original characters and a solid story.
Some of my latest stories completed are The Cesspit, Buried Treasures, Fidlers Woods, and The Eaters. They all take place in the town of Woodland and the final story I am crafting will connect them all together in one complete plot. I've been submitting like mad and hope that at least one day a few of my stories can be enjoyed by other horror fans like myself. There is also the novel Rage I have outlined. Its not the name of a virus or about mass chaos engulfing the world. The main character Myles hears these archaic voices that are telling him to kill himself and seem to give him hallucinations. Because they are so angry and evil he calls them Rage.
Well that's my history of the macrbre. Its always good to chat with other fans of the genre because most people don't seem to see the true value and ingenuity in the horror film.
As my brother and I grew up we started collecting them. "Summer of Fear" with Linda Blair was the first horror VHS I owned. "The Watcher in the Woods" was second and soon they started growing from there.
I saw all of the the major series of the 80's and about every single movie with the last word MASSACRE you can imagine. Slumber Party. Sorority House, Nail Gun, god knows what else. A few of my favorites I can remember were Retribution, The Pit, The Mutilator, The Burning, The Dark, The Club, The Nest, Witchboard etc. My brother and I would always go to the 2.99 sales at video stores in search of obscure titles. We would also rent them, copy the VHS and then go to Kinkos and make a copy of the cover art. We also watched the more campy ones like Creepazoids, Dreamaniac, Night of the Demons, and Slaughter High. At one point in time we had around 2,000 different horror films.
A few of the most gruesome titles that traumatized me were the infamous Make them die slowly, Cannibal Ferox/Hollocost movies. I have yet to see a movie capture such brutal violence then those three. There was also SS Experiment Camp. That was more of a weird action movie about the experiments done by the nazi's but the stuff they did was brutal.
I still watch some of the new ones that come out today, but most seem to be elements from other movies or shorts I've already seen. I watched a lot of the old horror tv shows like Night Gallery, Tales from the darkside, Alfred Hitchcock, Friday the 13th, and Monsters. I really wish they would come out with something like that again. All in All it is hard to come up with a new idea that is intelligent and not like the first story I wrote as a child called Electric Eels. I saw piranha and wanted to come up with my own aquatic nightmare. Eels can be scary and they have yet to make a movie about killer ones. (Let's hope they don't)
As far as Authors are concerned Richard Laymon is by far the most original writer I have read. It's a shame they have yet to make a film version of some of his greatist novels such as The Traveling Vampire Show, Funland, The Beast House and The Glory Bus. I highly recommend reading one of his works because he has a unique style that pulls you into the story right away. I also enjoy King and Koontz of course. Lovecraft is great stuff and he uses the most odd words in his stories. Some of the newer horror novelists that have been surprisingly good are Brian Keene, Edward Lee, and Bentley Little. The last novel I have just finished was the Woods are Dark by Ramsey Campbell. By the title you can think of a large collection of ideas about evil woods, but Campbell pulled off original characters and a solid story.
Some of my latest stories completed are The Cesspit, Buried Treasures, Fidlers Woods, and The Eaters. They all take place in the town of Woodland and the final story I am crafting will connect them all together in one complete plot. I've been submitting like mad and hope that at least one day a few of my stories can be enjoyed by other horror fans like myself. There is also the novel Rage I have outlined. Its not the name of a virus or about mass chaos engulfing the world. The main character Myles hears these archaic voices that are telling him to kill himself and seem to give him hallucinations. Because they are so angry and evil he calls them Rage.
Well that's my history of the macrbre. Its always good to chat with other fans of the genre because most people don't seem to see the true value and ingenuity in the horror film.