Black Christmas (1974)

I’m always amazed at how ‘unknown’ the original Black Christmas is to the mainstream movie going public. Mention Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or Psycho and everyone nods their heads with recognition even if they aren’t fans of such films. Some of them might have even seen one of the above movies or parts of the movie due to the frequency with which they are shown on TV, especially in October, a dangerously curious part of their mind allowing them to sit down and watch it until things get too brutal. Others might recognize them due to the endless string of sequels one sees when crossing through the section in the video store, their eyes forced to accept the title in some form as they carefully make their way through to a more wholesome and mentally inspiring selection. Whatever the reason people recognize these titles even if they aren’t frequent horror movie watching individuals, but mention the original Black Christmas from 1974, and they just stare at you blankly, their minds maybe picturing some blaxploitation film, or some Christmas drama or comedy that just didn’t work with the public and sank to obscurity. The conversation gets even worse when you mention that it is a really well made horror film -- an early slasher if you will -- because then their mind automatically thinks ‘oh another killer in a Santa suit chasing around sex obsessed teenagers that are under dressed for the weather outside and conveniently have powerful circulatory systems that will squirt blood all over the place when opened with a sharpened candy cane’. Of course those of us in the know understand that this isn’t the case with the original Black Christmas, but the chances of successfully conveying that message to the mainstream world without tying each one to a chair, taping their eyelids open and hitting PLAY on the remote.

For those that have never seen it before Black Christmas is the story of handful of college girls in a large sorority house who are being plagued by strange obscene phone calls every couple of hours. Unlike most depictions of sorority houses these girls aren’t the typical big breasted brainless sex crazed young adults that one usually sees in these movies, and instead are all grounded in a reality that one would expect to find on a real college campus no matter the time period. More important their reactions to these calls, which grow more and more bizarre, especially once multiple voices are used and fragmented conversations between the two begin, are realistic and help translate their growing fear to the viewer. Making the situation more terrifying, the father of one of the sorority girls who everyone thought had left for the holiday break shows up wondering where his daughter is, his concern spreading quickly through the fellow sorority members who know she wouldn’t just run off with someone. Sadly the officer they first report the situation too doesn’t share their concern. This changes when a mother comes in to report that her 13 year old daughter has disappeared, one whose body is eventually found that night by a search party not far from the sorority house. Unsure what is going on the police put the sorority house under surveillance and tap the phone, their theory being that everything might be connected and that they will hopefully be able to trace the next obscene call to the perpetrator of this horrible crime and put a stop to everything before anyone else gets hurt. Meanwhile the remaining girls lock themselves inside the large house and wait, their minds completely unaware that they are located in the worst possible place, one that gets more and more quiet as the girls are picked off one by one -- that is, until the phone rings again . . .

As stated above, this early ‘whodunit’ slasher film is not the typical ‘stupid naked sorority girls being sliced and diced’ affair that many would brush it off as when reading the description, and is, in fact, a very well made scary horror film, one that should be given the same respect as Psycho or Halloween. It also doesn’t feature a dirty looking Santa killer which so many Christmas theme horror movies seem to require, and instead uses the Christmas setting as a simple yet surprisingly creepy background, one which adds a level of terror to the film that one wouldn’t expect from such a cheery holiday atmosphere. Unfortunately it is this atmosphere which probably makes the film so unknown because movie stations seem reluctant to show disturbing Christmas movies like this during the holiday season, not when people are expecting things like Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life to brighten their screens; yet also hesitate to show it during October or any other time of year because of its Christmas elements. Stumbling upon it in a video store is also unlikely for those that aren’t specifically seeking it because the stupid remake clogs up the allotted space. Once found, however, this film will become an instant classic to anyone who appreciates true horror films, ones that understand that fear is not driven by excessive blood and guts, but by well thought up settings, camera angles, music, and characters the viewer cares about.

Christmas Evil (1980)

I’m not sure why but I have always found the idea of Santa Claus a little bit spooky. I mean, look, we have a fat white haired man in a red suit that lives with hundreds of tiny elves all year long in the frigid North Pole, one who somehow watches the children of the world and catalogues their actions all so he can figure out what toys to give them when he mysteriously slips into their house through the chimney in the middle of the night. Good god, who came up with this and why do people so easily accept the bright cheery aspects of it without worrying about the underlying terror? Seriously, remove the toy element from this idea and all you have is an unshaven fat ass with long unruly hair in a red suit who is obsessed with children that has the ability to slip in and out of a person’s house undetected while everyone is asleep. Really, what kid needs the promise of toys to stay good all year round when they have a visit from someone like that hanging over their head? I wouldn’t. Also, even if the toy element is true and the man in the red suit stays jolly throughout his entire existence, one has to consider the possibility of other powerful beings roaming around; beings that might not have gotten such a nice jolt of holiday cheer when being created. After all, if you believe in one magical creation you can’t really dismiss the possibility of others, right? It just doesn’t work that way. Even worse, without a foundation for the imagination to create these horrors one doesn’t really have any restrictions into what their mind conjures up. Kind of makes you glad you stopped believing in Santa at such an early age, right, so you don’t have to deal with all these thoughts later on?

Of course one doesn’t need a supernatural Santa Claus to conjure up a horror story about Santa Claus, because if there is one thing humans are good at it is taking a positive thing like Santa and unconsciously warping it into something negative -- all while thinking it still is positive (religion always being the perfect example of this). In Christmas Evil -- aka You Better Watch Out -- we meet a man named Harry Stadling who does this. Though a bit odd from the beginning due to his unusual love of Santa and toys -- his apartment décor a testament to this -- Harry Stadling doesn’t seem all that dangerous until it becomes evident that he has spent a considerable amount of time spying on and keeping note of the actions of the children in his neighborhood. Even then his true potential for madness isn’t realized until he dons a Santa suit one Christmas Eve and tries to fill the boots of his beloved mythical hero, a roll he does a nice job with at first when he delivers a bunch of toys to a children’s hospital, even if they were all stolen from his work and the kids on his naughty list -- something which nicely exemplifies the fine line his mind is treading upon. Leaving the hospital he tries to continue delivering holiday cheer to the masses but then gets distracted by a bunch of adults leaving a midnight service at a Catholic Church, ones who start making fun of him. Unable to control himself Harry uses the toys from his sack to kill three of these adults, and then flees in his white paneled van, one that he has painted a Santa’s sleigh on. From there he continues to dish out holiday cheer and fear, all based upon the initial reactions he gets from the people he meets (a coworker who lied to him before Thanksgiving being the only exception to this ‘trial by first impression’ he randomly engages in) until finally he comes upon a crowd the following night that wants to put an end to his holiday terror.

Though often listed as an early eighties slasher film, Christmas Evil is actually a psychological study of a disturbed man who has spent a lonely life teetering on the edge of madness before finally snapping. Furthermore, if one goes into this film thinking its going to be a typical fast paced ninety minute slasher experience (as I did) there is a good chance it will be switched off long before the horror actually begins (which I almost did), because the film takes quite a bit of time immersing viewers into the life of the main character. Worse, viewers might feel let down by the time the movie concludes because the slashing aspect, though sometimes gruesome, most likely won’t be enough for the average slasher fans who sat through this extensive character build up expecting some sort of bloody reward. Instead one needs to go into this film the way they would with something they picked up in the drama section of the video store, their minds understanding that they are going to be getting a gritty almost dirty rambling look at a man who tries really hard to keep the magic of Santa Claus alive only to fail miserably as the psychotic side of his brain takes control, all because he accidentally witnessed his mother having sex with his father while dressed like Santa Claus one Christmas Eve as a young kid. Needless to say this movie is not for everyone and if you go in hoping for something similar to Black Christmas you probably will be disappointed, especially if you searched long and hard for this title.

"Help Me" Short Story Accepted, But Never Published

I made an interesting little discovery today, one which really has no significance beyond my own mind, yet is something I felt like sharing. And who knows, some of you might enjoy hearing about it, especially if you are a writer that has had a similar experience, or like hearing about the experiences of a writer. It happened while I was in my storage area looking for a box of large envelopes so I could submit a chapter sample of my novel JIMMY to an agent. In my early days of writing I would have had the box of envelopes on my desk within easy reach but several years ago agents and publishers started accepting submissions electronically and my need for such envelopes quickly diminished. Anyway, while looking for the box of envelopes I stumbled upon an old acceptance letter from a magazine called Escaping Elsewhere that had been safely tucked away inside a folder, my plan being to use the acceptance letter as a bookmark for the story once I had the magazine on display -- I do that with all my published stories. My chance to display the magazine never arrived.

The acceptance letter was typed on December 16, 2005 (nice coincidence right -- caught my eye right away) and gave the usual ‘Congratulations, your submission (insert story title) has been accepted for publication by (insert magazine title)’ and then went on to talk about their publishing policy and how to go about signing over the First North American Serial Rights (some magazines just have you write your own statement, others have a form that you sign, one which usually also talks about payments if the magazine offers compensation). It was a type of letter I had grown somewhat familiar with that year given my sudden rapid fire success with short stories, but not to the point where receiving it wasn’t still exciting -- I don’t think that will ever happen. I remember I was standing in my kitchen making a bacon sandwich when the mail arrived that day, my mind having just completed my last final for that semester a few hours earlier, one which I thankfully got through quickly because ten minutes after turning it in I got hit with some nasty diarrhea (never fun while taking a final). Even more important I was able to make it home before a significant snowstorm hit, something that I would have hated trying to drive through with the painful bubbling brew sloshing around inside my colon. So, there I am, final complete, colon cleared out, a cooling bacon sandwich waiting, and I get an acceptance letter for a story I had written two years earlier and never could find a home for with previous submissions. Can a day get any better than that?

For me one of the greatest joys of being a writer is getting that first look at something once it is in print, my anticipation and desire to see it growing and growing as the date of its probable arrival draws near. I also will purposely stay away from the magazines website so I don’t accidentally see the cover of the issue my story will be in, my eyes wanting to see everything all at once and ‘in the flesh’ so to speak. With my story ‘Help Me’ this never happened. It was accepted, I signed over the first North American Serial Rights, and was told it would be in the next issue, but when the time came for that issue to arrive the mailbox was always lacking it. After a while I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to check and see what the magazine looked like online (and to see if there were any reviews in), which was when I discovered the website was gone. Thinking it was probably just some sort of technical difficulty I sent the publisher a letter asking about the story, but it was returned unopened, which is when I realized another magazine had bit the dust. It wasn’t the first time this happened with a magazine I had worked with, but it was the first time it prevented a story from appearing in print.

Eventually I did decide to try and sell the story elsewhere, but no one ever wanted it and after a while it found its way into that fabled ‘writer’s trunk’ that writers sometimes talk about. It has been there ever since, though the idea behind the story did escape one day earlier this year and demanded to be turned into a short novel, one which I will probably finish next month. Hopefully someone will like it and accept it, and stay in business long enough for it to be printed. Once that happens I will again haunt the mailbox waiting for my copy, the old acceptance letter and the new one waiting to be tucked inside.

Anything like this ever happen with anyone else out there? I know Stephen King once experienced a similar situation with his story ‘The Float’ way back in the 1970s, though he was paid for its publication and does believe the story did end up in print somewhere. Mine most certainly didn’t.

My Haunted Apartment

Anyone who knows me on Facebook or checks my status updates frequently will know that I have been having some interesting and somewhat frightening experiences in the apartment I moved into last September. Now, being a fan of the horror genre many might think I am overly susceptible to ‘hauntings’ and ‘ghostly experiences’, my warped mind automatically thinking anything out of the ordinary has to have a paranormal explanation, but this isn’t true. I may believe stuff like that can happen, but I also understand that there usually is a perfectly rational ‘non-paranormal’ explanation for most of the stories we hear, explanations that don’t really disprove the existence of the paranormal, only that it wasn’t involved in that particular situation. I’ve taken the same approached when dealing with the strange occurrences in my apartment and so far haven’t been able to come up with any ‘non-paranormal’ reasons for what is happening. Even my good friends who have helped me try to recreate some of the occurrences can’t explain it.

Before I Rented the Apartment:

Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened when I was visiting the apartment in the weeks before I moved in -- this would have been late August. The apartment was originally a house, one which has been divided into three separate apartments -- a basement apartment, a first floor apartment, and a second floor apartment. My friend Bob rents the first floor apartment and he was the reason I was the first to know about the second floor apartment when it became available. He also was able to let me in many times through the stairway connection between the first and second floor to see the apartment -- there is also an outside connection so that one doesn’t always have to walk through the first floor apartment. During one of these visits I did notice something a little odd; the previous owner had put locks on the doors leading into the two unfinished storage like areas that open up into the apartment. Why anyone would do this was beyond me, though I do remember joking with Bob that maybe the rooms were once used to hide kidnap victims (what can I say, I am a horror writer).

The Double Doors:

It didn’t take long for me to decide I wanted the apartment and within two weeks I had signed a lease that allowed me to move in on September 1, 2010. Bob and my other good friend Tom helped me move and it didn’t take long for the three of us to get my stuff inside -- I really didn’t have much stuff, mostly just boxes of books. Bob’s son Shawn got off of work right around the time we finished and came up to help put together a table desk Bob had pulled down for me from within the garage. Once that was finished Bob, Tom and Shawn headed downstairs to Bob’s apartment to order a pizza while I stood in the stairway doorway of my own to look around for a moment. At the bottom of the stairs Tom and Shawn started talking once they passed the doorway. While doing that the double doors slowly closed and latched shut. The three of us watched this happen and were pretty surprised by it because those doors had been standing open during the entire move without incident. Further we tried making them close again after opening them but could never get them to close like that and latch even when we pointed two fans at them. It was spooky, but not overly frightening, and none of us really thought too much of it at the time. Later, however, we talked about it quite a bit given all the other stuff that started to happen.

My Glasses:

A few nights after moving in another odd and this time frightening situation occurred. I had arrived home from school and spent about an hour talking to Bob down in his apartment before heading up to my apartment to read and watch TV. Before sitting down to read I made a pot of tea. Once it was ready I brought the tea to the couch and set it on my makeshift coffee table (overturned box), and then started flipping through the channels to see if anything was on. Nothing was so I opened my book and started to read. Eventually my eyes shut for a second and when I opened them something didn’t feel right. I didn’t make a big deal out of it, however, and started to read again. After a few pages I went to reach for my tea and it was then that I realized I couldn’t see (I can read without my glasses, but anything beyond book holding distance becomes blurry). Thinking my glasses had fallen off when my eyes closed earlier I started searching the couch for them, and then shook out the blanket, but they were nowhere to be found. I even checked under the couch to see if maybe I had kicked them at some point but they weren’t there. Startled, I started looking all over the apartment even though they should have been right there, and eventually found them folded up on the back of the toilet in the bathroom, which I hadn’t even used since coming home. I also know that when I sat down at the couch I had my glasses on because I flipped through the channels. Even if I hadn’t done that though I obviously hadn’t left on the back of the toilet that morning after my shower because how would I have driven an hour to and from school?

The Storage Area and Empty Boxes:

Remember the storage area with the locks on it? After a while I figured out why the locks were there. The door opens at night for some reason. Even worse I can see that doorway from my bed and will often hear it start to open and then watch it while laying there. I have no idea how this happens especially since every time I open it myself I have to really pull due to the carpet which it snags on. I can’t even swing it shut on its own without the carpet stopping it halfway, and actually have to push it all the way in. Because of this I decided to lock it one night, my mind thinking I now understood why those locks were there to begin with. Of course the door still opened that night, the knob having completely fallen off at some point. Waking up to that was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. It also felt as if someone were in the apartment with me after that and I ended up spending the rest of the night sitting on the couch with all the lights on.

A few days later, however, I really got startled while I was finishing up with my unpacking. I had that same storage area open and was putting all the empty boxes inside. At one point I got tired and sat on the couch. About a minute later the storage door slammed shut on its own right in front of me. When I opened it again a stack of boxes that I hadn’t stacked up myself fell out onto me. How does something like that happen? Boxes don’t just stack themselves up and then lean themselves against the door, and no one was inside my storage area to do it -- at least no one that I know off.

Ouija Board:

A few weeks after the glasses and storage area incidents Bob’s son and daughter decided to bring a Ouija board over to the apartment to see what would happen. Things had been quite for about a week so I wasn’t actually sure this was a good idea but then decided I was curious as well. They came over on a Saturday night with it. At the same time my friend who is pretty sensitive to paranormal activity was over. He wasn’t too keen on the Ouija board idea but decided to head up from Bob’s apartment with me and the group carrying the board just to see what would happen. We barely even got into my apartment with that board when the storage area door slowly opened in front of us all. Once we saw that my friend and I went downstairs. The group with the Ouija board stayed and I told them to have fun because I was now not going to have any part of it.

TV Clicker Incident:

As some of you may know I often go to bed with the TV on, therefore I take the clicker with me. For about an hour I usually watch TV, my mind slowly drifting off to sleep, my hand sometimes shutting off the TV before I completely pass out. One night I woke up and the TV was still on and the volume had been turned way up. Thinking I had rolled over onto the TV clicker I started searching for it but it was nowhere to be found. At some point I also noticed my storage door was open again. Guess where I found the TV clicker? Yep, after putting my glasses on and a bathrobe I walked over to the storage area and the clicker was in one of the empty boxes. Needless to say I decided to stay up the rest of the night on the couch with the lights on again.

The Black Shadow Thing:

Now, I should point out that up until this next incident I never actually saw anything in my apartment as far as ghostly figures or spectrums or orbs are concerned, and every time I’ve taken a picture nothing out of the ordinary has appeared. About a month ago that changed. For several weeks things had been quite. Many of my friends joked that it was because I now had my cats living with me and that they had scared the ghosts away. Then one night something happened. I woke to my cats jumping up onto my bed, which is a normal nightly activity, only they weren’t playing this time. They both came to the corner of the bed near my head and just stayed there looking out toward the storage area, which I had been keeping blocked by heavy objects so it wouldn’t open and allow the cats inside -- too many things they could get hurt on in there. The door had opened a bit, but not all the way, the heavy object having successfully stopped it. Then, without warning, I felt as if something was staring at me from that area and then suddenly saw a black shadow like thing move from the ceiling down to my desk chair, which then swiveled around as if being sat upon. Completely freaked out I reached over to turn on the light but it wouldn’t switch on because something had flipped the switch on the other side of the room, the switch that controlled the outlet the light was plugged in to. Thankfully the TV clicker was still on the bed and I was able to light the room by turning that on. Once that occurred the black shadow thing was nowhere to be found, however, one of the arms on my desk chair simply fell off the next morning when I sat down (coincident?). Now, making that night even more interesting was the text message I found on my phone the next morning, one which had unknowingly arrived at some point. It was from my friend who is sensitive to this stuff, and he was asking me if anything happened that night because he had sensed things were unsettled.

What Do You Think?

I have no idea what is going on in my apartment, but I do know I have never experienced anything like this before. Just waking up and feeling like someone was in the room with me isn’t normal and has happened many times since I moved in, which then usually results in me sitting on the couch with the lights on. Some of my friends think it is all just silly and nothing is really going on and that I’ve been reading too much horror, others who know me a little better and know I wouldn’t jump to these conclusions without good reason and understand that something out of the ordinary is happening. Unfortunately just what that ‘out of the ordinary’ thing is we don’t know.

Hardcase by Dan Simmons

I’m not sure what it is about fictional badass characters that I love so much, I just know that I can’t get enough of them, and always enjoy finding new novels that chronicle their adventures, especially if those novels are just the first in a series that will snag my attention over and over again, my mind always eager to know what happens next. Thankfully my desire to read such tales is not unique. Even better authors and storytellers have been creating badass characters for as long as there has been an interested audience which means I will probably never run out of reading material. That said, it can still be difficult to find authors who have the ability to create likable badass characters, because, as one can imagine, there is a balancing act involved in writing these stories, and if one gets a little too carried away with the ‘badass’ element, readers may be turned off by the character, which isn’t good. At the same time if the ‘badass with a huge heart of gold’ approach is overplayed, readers might not buy it, and that too isn’t good. After all, one of the great appeals of reading a story with a badass main character is the ability to set aside reality for a brief period of time and live life through the character. This can’t happen if the reader is unable to picture the character as a real person and keeps getting reminded that they are just a figment of a writer’s imagination. Fortunately Dan Simmons is a writer that is able to find this necessary balance, his novel Hardcase being a prime example of what readers like myself want in a ‘badass’ character.

Joe Kurtz was once a successful private investigator in Buffalo, New York, but after deciding to take revenge upon a man that killed his female partner and lover Samantha -- a very savage revenge that at one point involves a garbage disposal -- he can no longer work as a licensed private investigator due to his ex-con status. Fortunately his eleven years in Attic prison weren’t a complete waste of time, and his help in protecting a young man from the aggressive and violent butt loving gangs within those walls opens the door for him to work a private investigator like job for a crumbling mob boss who just happened to be the father of the young man he protected. Being an ex-con, however, Joe Kurtz also has to show that he is working a legal job; therefore he hires his old secretary Arlene to help him set up and run a website business that reunites old lovers and sweetheart with each other. Located in the basement of a seedy porn shop, the business is nothing more than a cover for his real dealings (though it actually does turn over a nice profit), one which allows him to not only uncover the truth behind a missing mob accountant, but also set himself up as a target for all those wanting their own revenge upon him, something he wants to put an end too quickly so he can go about his post-prison life without having to always look over his shoulder. Actually, given his new line of work and the way he conducts business, Joe Kurtz will probably always be looking over his shoulder, but at least it will be with new enemies and not the old ones who have been counting down the days for him to get out of prison. Needless to say many of these ‘old enemies’ probably should have let whatever wrongs Joe Kurtz committed against them be forgotten because he isn’t the type of person who will go down easily.

As many of you probably know from some of my previous posts, and the ‘recommended reading links’ I sometimes put up on my Facebook profile (if you have added me as a friend that is), Dan Simmons is one of my favorite authors. He is also one of the most unique authors I read because he is able to successfully genre hop in a way that I have never seen before, a way that makes it possible for him to be labeled as a legitimate author of whatever genre he has decided to place his novel in rather than an author who is simply ‘crossing over’ and ‘testing’ the waters. For example, dark crime fiction fans who love the Parker novels by Donald E. Westlake’s alter ego Richard Stark would love this title and the ones that follow, and would be hard pressed to find fault in the writing style displayed. The same is true of the horror fans that find horror titles by this author, and fantasy fans that find fantasy titles. No matter the genre Dan Simmons is able to deliver, and he does so in a way that makes it possible to find his name in multiple sections of the store rather than just clumped together in his most prevalent genre. Of course this also can cause confusion when looking for his titles, and anger if someone buys something that has been misplaced within their genre, but that is quickly fixed once a reader becomes familiar with the works of Dan Simmons. It also can create a love for different genres, one which opens up a whole knew world of stories some might never have been exposed too. So, if you want to experience a writer that is one of the best in whatever genre he decides to place a book in, and more specifically want to read a really faced paced story about a real badass named Joe Kurtz, give Hardcase a try. You won’t be disappointed. Just make room on your bookshelf for more titles, because once you are finished with this one you will seek out more.