There's such a huge catalogue of bad horror that it's difficult to single out specific entries. But in the last few years, Stephen King's ROSE RED stands out as a monument to poor filmmaking, characterization, casting, storytelling, pacing, acting, you name it.... I ended up turning it off halfway through, afraid that I might be arrested for criminal wasting of time if I left it on.

And speaking of STIGMATA, I'd include it in about the same category. It was a movie that tried very hard to disguise the fact that its whole premise was worse than flawed from the get-go....

Some of the timeless classics of terrible horror (and/or sci-fi) include the following (in no particular order):

THE GIANT CLAW: Features the ugliest puppet turkey-buzzard you'll ever see anywhere.

THE CREEPING TERROR: Stars the famous walking carpet that eats underpaid extras. Due to a lost and/or unusable soundtrack, the whole movie was narrated, to infuriating effect. The sound of the monster's roar was somebody twisting the dial of a short-wave radio.

THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION: The title character is a Volkswagen in a giant spider costume, which parades through a small town eating underpaid extras.

GOKE--BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL: A Japanese attempt at soul-searing horror that, with a 110-minute running time, runs 109 minutes too long. The original Japanese soundtrack is nothing to brag upon, but the English dubbed version is downright painful.

BARBARELLA: I have tried no less than a dozen times to watch this movie. I've never made it for more than 30 minutes at a sitting.

Every FRIDAY THE 13TH movie, except perhaps the first one, and it's iffy.

Every Michael Myers movie, except the first HALLOWEEN, which is a minor classic.

Every CHILD'S PLAY movie.

Every 1980s rip-off slasher film.

Every 1990s rip-off slasher film.

I do not include the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies, even though some of them stink worse than a week-old corpse; the first one was almost OK, and a couple of the follow-ups have their moments.

And on and on.... There are more entries than could ever be listed here....

There are a lot of "bad" or "cheesy" horror flicks that I love, though. Sometimes it's a fine line between being awful and being fun. A lot of low-budget movies that don't take themselves seriously can be hugely entertaining, even though by any objective criteria they hardly hold water. Some of my personal favorites in this category include the following:

BARON BLOOD
THE BLOB
COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE / RETURN OF COUNT YORGA
THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER
THE DUNWICH HORROR
FROGS
FROM BEYOND
THE GREEN SLIME
KRONOS
THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK
THE LEGEND OF HILLBILLY JOHN
THE MONOLITH MONSTERS
THE MONSTER FROM BLACK LAKE
MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS
PHANTASM (including sequels)
REANIMATOR
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (including sequels)
SASQUATCH--THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT
TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE
WILLARD

And on and on.... Again, there are so many here that I could wear myself out just thinking about them.

Your mileage may vary...

[shadow=maroon,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

Even before DUEL, Spielberg made a little horror film called SOMETHING EVIL (1972), which starred Darren McGavin (just prior to his NIGHT STALKER stint), Sandy Dennis, Ralph Bellamy, and Johnny Whitaker. It was a made-for-TV flick, and was downright terrifying to me as a kid. Watching it now, it still holds up as a very effective film, if not quite as scary as it was when I was 13.

It occasionally runs on the Flix movie channel, uncut. I recommend it highly if you get a chance to watch it.

[shadow=red,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

Ahhhhhh. . .I was at my parant's house in Ohio several weeks ago and Mom mentioned all the LPs she had--I looked through them to discover many that I had bought as a kid:  Partridge Family, Gary Lewis and the Playboys (remember them?) and--yes--CHILLING, THRILLING SOUNDS OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE.  Did I bring that back to Florida with me?  NO!!!  (Stupid me!)

I remember that album well, Brian. It belonged to my younger brother, but I think I listened to it more than he did. It's still in the attic of my Mom's house, if my brother hasn't claimed it, which he may have. I was thinking about it just the other day, as a matter of fact. It'd be neat to dig it up again.

I had Partridge Family albums, too. Several. You know what else? I've now got a slew of Partridge Family mp3s. Go on. Laugh all you want to. Bobubas made me do it. For real, he did. Ask Minja.

[shadow=purple,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

(One little aside to Gerard: Guess who's sitting here quaffing hot-pepper martinis?)

This is an interesting topic in that everyone is affected differently by the stimuli that horror provides. The world at large tends to equate the term "horror" with Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees, with an occasional nod to Stephen King (in other words, sneering at the whole concept); indeed, the horror field is the ghetto of "serious" literature, oftentimes deservedly. When horror is handled poorly by its creator(s), it rates as one of the lowest forms of entertainment on earth. Almost as low as rap/hip-hop (let's see if THAT opens a can of worms). Nowhere outside the horror field, perhaps, is Ted Sturgeon's postulate that "90% of everything is crap" more graphically illustrated.

I think there is a place for graphic horror; but in small quantity and as a complement to a theme--not as the focus. For example, the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, for all its cheapness and campy style, has a neat little undercurrent of authentic dread running through it (in fact, there's almost no gore in this movie; it's all done by suggestive camera work). Clive Barker has produced some effective material, both literary and film, although he tended to lose focus about 3/4 of the way (to be generous) through everything he wrote during the late 80s through the early-to-mid 90s (I haven't read any of his later work and can't comment upon it). There's a lot of "shocking" horror that has some merit; but the key is in the effect of its execution. And very, very few people have done it well.

Good horror, as in all fiction, requires an emotional connection with the characters, and in horror, it's easy to lose that connection because of the prerequisite need to suspend one's disbelief. As soon as a story goes over the top, it loses its audience if it doesn't provide something or someone to connect with on an intimate level. To agree whole-heartedly with Raineypark, this is why action-adventure films--characterized by the typical fluff of Jerry Bruckheimer, John McTiernan, and John Wu--rarely appeal to me.

The 1990s adaptation of THE HAUNTING characterizes just about everything that's wrong with the horror genre. And like Gerard said, you can predict every moment of a Jason or Freddy film down to a beat. Effective shock depends on effective suspense--for the very reason that "shock" requires nothing more than making you jump; anyone can do that. And most fright flicks just want to make you jump rather than tremble first. It requires considerably less brain power to induce a shock.

I detest the ubiquitous quip that audiences of today are "more sophisticated" than they used to be. What a load of crap. By and large, audiences today might be able to identify CGI, and they might quibble with a made-up iguana masquerading as a Tyrannosaurus, but they've lost a lot of their imagination. They laugh at the original, classic THE HAUNTING while extolling the virtues of the newer one's special effects, but that's because they've come to expect every detail being spoon fed them. The sounds of the reverberating booms through the halls of Hill House, without apparent source, are a thousand times more frightening than a silly pendulum whipping out of a fireplace to knock the head off of an unsuspecting actor. People nowadays are much happier with the avenging ghosts of wronged children than an unknown, inexplicable thing that might not be a ghost at all because they have a pat explanation. There's no need to engage the brain and ingest, interpret, and otherwise interact with the story.

Actual horror (not to be confused with terror) is the realization of sheer futility in the face of something beyond acceptance, whether that thing be supernatural or as human as you or I. You might know horror when you realize you are going to die because you are a passenger in a plane that's about to crash into a building. You're completely helpless. Worse, you're either a pawn or merely insignificant to the force that has devised your end. That idea, to me, is the appeal of Lovecraftian fiction, with its accompanying mindless, ambivalent, but altogether destructive entities; there's no more reasoning with them than with a shark. Yet there is purpose behind them. They aren't just there to make you jump out of your seat.

Exploring the emotions of horror and terror generate adrenaline; I think that's why many of us enjoy the genre. I think a lot of my interest in horror derives from the same source as my enthusiasm for roller coasters. But for the roller coaster to be effective, there has to be a gradual, logical build-up before the great descent. The big hill is the not the whole experience; just a part of the ride.

Lastly, since in most horror stories, death is involved at one point or another, there's hardly a better field where religion and philosophy can be explored at their farthest bounds. After all, we're all going to die. There's a certain fascination with that idea. Few of us know how we're going to die. In a story or movie, if we're engaged with a character and he faces a ghastly fate, we're there with him. If the [writer/actor/director/insert appropriate creative individual here] has done his job, for those few moments we experience the same thing vicariously. We're engaged emotionally as well as intellectually. To me, getting both is what good horror is all about.

[shadow=black,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

Heh heh, thanks for the requests; it's all much appreciated. Since I don't have anything ready as far as the synopsis goes at this point, I'll just post a note here when I do, and then perhaps put it on the Web space as well. I can't promise anything very soon, so y'all just gonna have be patient and don't hold yer breath too long. That can lead to unpleasant side effects.

[shadow=red,left,300]--M[/shadow]

I read both chapters today (at work) I am so naughty!!!  I loved the mood and the pace you have set. MORE!!!! Who are these shirts who rejected this book!!!! Lets gang up on them and have some one put the bite on them.... Keep it up! Say will you be at the Fest? and if so will you autograph your book Dream of the Dark for me?

Yep, yer naughty, Ldyanne. Keep it up.

This novel was not rejected; the DS book series itself was cancelled by HarperCollins, and no other publisher made a commitment to pick it up (with the possible exception of Tor, but even that has so far failed to produce any results). The editor at Harper knew about the proposal for Labyrinth, and since we worked well together on Dreams of the Dark, there's every possibility this one would have been accepted. But that became a moot point when Harper was bought out, the DS series (and several others) cancelled, and the editor moved elsewhere.

If time allows, I might one day complete Labyrinth as a work of fan fiction, but I have to put priority on paying projects, since writing is, in a very real sense, a job. Fortunately, it's not my only source of income, or I would be starving ; but time being such a limited commodity, it's business first, fun second. The best thing about writing part-time is that the two often go together.

Alas, no festival for me this year. Now that the young'un is out of college and paying her own bills (mostly), Peg and I are planning to go on a cruise to the Bahamas and Mexico later in the year. That's going to eat up the travel budget for quite some time. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Hoping to get to the fest and/or Tarrytown next year, though.

[shadow=maroon,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

I'm printing off each chapter and I'm gonna wait until all the chapters which have been completed are on-line and printed off before I read them.  I shall do so only then because such a joyous endeavor can only be done with a Skyy Blue martini (Skyy vodka with caracao poured sipped from a really neat art deco martini glass that I have).  Two chapters now printed off, waiting for number three, neatly stacked.

Gerard -- You shall receive the final installment only when you have forked over one of those drinks for the author's pleasure. You done flung a craving on me.

[shadow=maroon,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]