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Comments
The second one is pretty much more of the first, it goes over some of the backstory. Most of the scares, though, are in the last 20 minutes.
But was it wrong of me to assume, and be correct in saying that Ice Age 4 was awful, from the trailer alone?
Yeah. You were. Totally. Because Ice Age 4 is actually one of the biggest comedy accomplishments since Annie Hall, It Happened One Night or Charlie Chaplin's entire career.
This is part of the reason why I like Campbell and Ligotti as much as I do: They have the vibe that Lovecraft was going for without exploiting any of the more obvious trappings of his work.
For the record, supernatural horror, particularly of the enigmatic kind, is probably my favourite genre of literature. However, this is not because I enjoy being scared per se, but because I find it... resonant. I appreciate the power of an author who can truly unnerve me, even for a moment, not only because it requires great skill but because it requires a mindset that I can, in some way, sympathise with. Fear is a very intimate emotion, and it's an interesting one to share.
By the way, JHM, you didn't warn me that Songs of a Dead Dreamer would range from $40-$500 (I think . . .). >:[
For what is worth, my opinion on horror is that it's probably the second most hard genre to write, just after comedy, if only because a good horror film or presentation requires for the writer to create and maintain an atmosphere that the audience finds resonant in a very specific way. So it's really hard to find horror that I find really satisfying, but overall I'm fond of it, even when it fails because I like seeing how different people react to fear, I guess.
Okay, two things, both of them exceptions to my prior rage about zombies:
Dead Pixel is fun, cheesy, and unashamedly-retro looking. It's prettymuch River City Ransom with zombies, and it's refreshingly plain FUN instead of dead serious (pun intended).
Also, Dead Island surprised me---it's quite fun. Also, the Fast Zombies in that one are genuinely terrifying---their high damage, their tendency to appear out of nowhere from the corner of your sight, and those inhuman screams of rage... Great fun in co-op, too.
That much said, I hope that Sergey jackass who headed up The War Z goes dead broke (pun intended).
For what is worth, zombies are overexposed and overdone so Sturgeon's Law applies. I am hoping that Warm Bodies proves to be pretty great, though.
@All Nines: I told you: If you can find it on the cheap... I really should have been more emphatic. It's an awesome collection, but not an easy find. Paperback editions are the least expensive, but even then, it's been out of print for a while (swanky limited reissue by Subterranean notwithstanding).
On second thought, if you see it and have the dosh, grab The Nightmare Factory. It has all but two stories from Songs, two-thirds of Noctuary (it's missing the vignettes), half of Teatro Grottesco (which is now readily available at any large bookstore), and all of Grimscribe in one gigantic book. It's well worth your cash, and will cost a lot less than most of the individual books.
Or, if you're really strapped... just get The Shadow at the Bottom of the World and continue as strikes your fancy.
If anything, I found Dead Island to be the nail in the coffin (so to speak, hur hur). Take the trappings of FPS games, give it RPG mechanics, decide those need to be MMORPG mechanics, place some quest-giving NPCs around, set the majority of the game on a tropical island during the day and then give it a really pretentious trailer.
But most of all, I just found Dead Island to be really boring. More a zombie-themed obstacle course than horror, and I had to put up with MMO-inspired mechanics and customisation (which exist due to the limitations placed on MMOs by technology) to do much. In many ways, Dead Island is Borderlands with zombies, so if you liked Borderland then no doubt you'll find Dead Island appealing. But the kind of skill trees, equipment customisation, quest-giving and such that's in these games just fails to engage me at all.
A zombie-survivor RPG in a first person perspective might work, but Dead Island really fell short of the concept through its art style, mechanical choices and whatnot. A zombie is a lot less scary when I can tell it's not a threat by the colour of its name, especially when the RPG mechanics implicitly state that I'll get high enough in stats to make it even more of a non-issue. RPGs aren't necessarily counter to horror (Skyrim gives us a potential example of their marriage), but Dead Island took a bunch of great ideas and then gave them the most appropriately braindead and directionless implementation possible.
@JHM: Oh. I guess I just didn't catch "more expensive than a hardcover even when well-worn" from that. Ah, well.
Shit, a local CD/book/game store actually has that one. Dunno how expensive, but mom apparently already ordered Songs.
Well, there is an upside to that: Ligotti collections, especially first editions, make excellent investments.
A bunch of Ligotti books have actually been released cheaply on Kindle, if you have that.
I wonder which...
EDIT: So, in descending order of accessibility, it's My Work Is Not Yet Done, Teatro Grottesco and The Conspiracy Against The Human Race.
Heh.
(I would have quoted that before the video, but, you know, stupid embeds.)
Yeah but there's a difference between judging a movie that hasn't been released and where the only footage is the trailer and judging a movie that has actually come out by its trailer.
If when Man of Steel comes out, it turns out to not be like anything that the trailer is selling, then awesome, I will watch it and I will enjoy it and I will rescind my commentary. But for now, I am not too sure that would happen, both because of the creative team involved and because of the commentary regarding the intentions by the men behind it.
I'm just sayin'.
Well, you'll notice that either way, it's not just the trailer that is rubbing me the wrong way but the people involved and what they intend to do with the movie. So it's not like it's just
>Watch trailer
>This is shit.
The Warm Bodies book was pretty fun for what it was worth. And the idea of zombies having their own society thing was kinda cool. And the brain eating memories shit.
Also - counterpoint to all the Ligotti praise - The man started a slasher style short story with the phrase knifey-wifey in the first paragraph. This is a horrible idea for a horror story. Any emotional reaction is suddenly replaced with bathos, because seriously, knifey-wifey in a horror story?
I wasn't aware Ligotti wrote fetish fiction on Malk's behalf.
So I love horror. The best way I can describe it is an emotional or vicarious high. Sort of like a recreational drug. Horror also has some of the best ways to convey emotional strife, paranoia, and fear. It can also lead to interesting character pieces (like Psycho or Silent Hill 2) or weird mindgames (like the first Saw or Virtue's Last Reward) Horror provides unique spins on ideas that provide a unique emotional connection because you're feeling the fear the character is having.
God I can't wait to play VLR.
^^^^ You're referring to "Conversations in a Dead Language", which... well, I always thought that the bathos was intentional. The POV(-ish) character is a Halloween-obsessed dweeb with no life and an awful sense of humour. He's a sad person, both in the "depressive" and "pathetic" senses. He'd make a pun like that, not because he has any evil intentions, but because he's basically an overgrown, morbid child with no friends to tell him he's being ridiculous.
Granted, it is implied later in the story that he kidnapped and killed a young boy, but how that plays out is less the classic slasher set-piece than... I don't even know what. Again, it's more tragic/pathetic than anything else, and too ambiguously rendered to say anything for certain.
All this being said, it's not a favourite of mine. Sure, the emotional verisimilitude is striking—the second scene with the girl is bleak as all get out—but the ending is baffling and the overall tone of the tale is just weird in a way that I can't get a good hold on.
I think I'll read it again to see if I feel differently this time. Maybe I'll pick up on something new.
Something like zombies could happen (albeit it would be more "The living with high pain threshhold and cannibalistic tendencies)
Still though, WANTING a zombie apocalypse is stupid. If it got to the point where even nuclear weapons couldn't stop it, then there is no way you're going to survive without being fit as hell, fucking smart, and really lucky (and even then I highly doubt it)
I dunno. As I've said many a time, the zombie apocalypse is one of the wussier, wish-fulfillier types. The one you really have to watch out for is the alteration of environmental conditions to such an extent that renders our way of life unlivable.
In Yahtzee's most recent book, he states that there's a certain kind of person that has failed and becomes enamored with the macho savage Conan-type character that they think that they'll be able to show their true mettle in a zombie apocalypse and become a real hero.
It's a bit more harsh, and I think he's ignoring the fact that society has failed people like this in numerous ways, but there is an element of truth to it.
Well...here's the thing. While it's only almost impossible for a zombie to happen, a zombie apocalypse couldn't happen because zombies are actually just kind of pathetic.
A plague of old-school revenants would be pretty damn scary...
(Oddly enough, there's a Ligotti vignette that's basically about just that. It's called "Autumnal" and it rocks. It's probably my favourite sort-of zombie story ever, and it's only about a page-and-a-half long. But yeah. I'll shut up about my pet author now.)
On topic, I really enjoy horror, even if I can't really put into words why.
28 days later says fuck you
I saw salad's video in the last page, and since I just love talking about Yume Nikki I'll say I didn't find the game as scary as everyone hyped it to be, but have to admit this was pretty horrible