The Fractal Hall Journal

Dead Space

Holy crap, is this game terrifying. And that’s just the intro. Sure, the creepy nursery rhyme theme is a little derivative but I think that’s something computer games are actually really good at. You take the really good bits from genre work (films mostly) and you squish it all together (see Halo, amongst many others). It’s not art, but it’s fun. And this game is packed full of blood-squirty dismembering fun.

The only possible hiccup is that like Condemned and Call of Cthulhu before it, it may be too scary to finish.

Why yes, I am a scaredy cat.

Fallout 3

Depending on what mood I’m in, I could well call Oblivion my favourite computer game. It’s certainly the game I’ve spent the most amount of hours on, by a hee-uge margin. I got it years ago, and because of the finding time thing, I still haven’t completed it. So I’m very much in the target market for a post-apocalyptic version.

Not spent loads of time on it yet because I really do want to finish Dead Space, but I should imagine a lot of ‘09 is going to spent on this one. And, hopefully, Elder Scrolls V in ‘10.

The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire

I’ve been meaning to get this one for a while. The follow up to Deadly Genesis (reviewed here previously), and like the previous story an entertaining yarn. Brubaker’s an excellent writer, and very good at doing a Claremont-style story in the modern Marvel house style. I feel like I’m damning with faint praise, but that’s not the intention. To be honest, it’s nice to read a superhero comic that doesn’t irritate me on any level.

Lovecraft’s Haunt of Horror and Cthulhu Tales

Sorry, that last one got a bit catty.

A couple of Mythos comics were added to the haul this year, and although I haven’t had chance to read them yet I’ve skimmed through. The MAX title is the hardcover of Richard Corben’s straightforward Lovecraft adaptations, and looks gorgeous. The second is the first paperback collection of BOOM! Studio’s ongoing anothology title. BOOM! Haven’t made a single misstep yet with their Cthulhu titles, and I doubt they’re going to start here.

Arkham Asylum 15th Anniversary edition

Really needs a post to itself. In short: brilliant, better than I remember it. Unfortunately the good bits were all left in Morrison’s original script, so this is the first version I’ve ever read that makes a damned bit of sense. A flawed masterpiece.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Late to the party on this one, as I’ve only just upgraded to a graphics card that can handle the game. I assume we’re all geeks here, and we’re all familiar with the Games Workshop property that is, perhaps, nerdness incarnate.

Let’s just say, if Fallout 3 doesn’t suck up all of my time, then Dawn of War will be getting the rest. Hoo boy, I hope you’re all ready for another dip in productivity. Damn shame I’m fucking awful at RTS games.

The Steel Remains, by Richard Morgan

Britain’s best SF writer tackles fantasy. Half way through this, and it’s very good.

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom

Picked up at random for being a haunted house book on the cheap at Asda. Last book I got from there was Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box, and that one was fantastic.

Again, only half way through it. Good points and bad points and I haven’t made my mind up about it yet, but it’s entertaining and it cost about three quid so I shouldn’t really complain either way.

That’s that faint praise thing again, isn’t it?

Anyway, turns out there’s a competition running in connection with the book, and the first prize is a weekend in that haunted hotel in Ludlow (Ludlow?) that’s been mentioned here before, more than once. The town’s obviously cornering the market in this kind of thing.

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Daniel Morgan was born in the town of Rhydaman, Carmarthenshire, on June 30th, 1908. He was born into a large family, the fifth of seven children. Little is known about his parents, William and Rose, or what became of his siblings. His father was known locally as Bill Pengam, the meaning behind the nickname unclear. It could indicate he was originally from the village of the same name, or it could be derived from the Welsh word for “wrong-headed”. Some sources have claimed that Daniel was in fact the product of an affair between Bill and an unknown woman, and that his father forced his wife to raise Daniel as her own.

At the age of 13, Morgan moved to Abertridwr, in the South Wales Valleys, to work underground at the Windsor Colliery where several of his cousins were already employed. Some time later, on January 3rd, 1925, Morgan was trapped by a cave-in following a localised gas explosion. Five other miners were killed instantly, with Morgan and one Thomas Jones the only survivors. Jones later died of his injuries.

In 1926, Morgan was involved in industrial action related to the General Strike, but along with his comrades was forced back to work in November of the same year. This event provided the impetus for him to leave Wales for good, emigrating to the United States in January 1927. America wasn’t an unusual destination for the Welsh during that era, or for any other nationality for that matter. But Morgan’s motives were fairly unique.

During 1925, the barely-educated collier began what became a long series of correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft, author of some of the most influential ‘Weird Fiction’ of the 20th Century. How exactly Morgan discovered Lovecraft’s work is unclear. Contemporary records from the Abertridwr Miner’s Institute Library, where Morgan was known to spend the bulk of his free time, show that they stocked little if any of the pulp magazines that carried Lovecraft’s writing. Lovecraft’s biographers frequently disagree on whether Morgan could be considered one of the author’s inner circle; the former was famous for the amount of letters he sent to various people, and despite Morgan’s later claims there is no convincing evidence that Lovecraft placed any special weight on the Welshman’s communication with him.

After several years of living and working in New York, Morgan had gained a reputation as a solid, though not particularly brilliant writer. Despite a series of humble day jobs, he spent the rest of his time creating short stories for pulp magazines. He became known for lurid, grotesque tales with a distinctive, pessimistic tone, though he was employed more for his ability to meet deadlines than storytelling skill. As with many of his contemporaries, his work has been better appreciated by later readers than audiences of the time.

Perhaps his most influential work, however, wasn’t anything he had published, but a kind of manifesto that circulated amongst the pulp community. It was unclear if it was purely a deliberate work of fiction, or whether Morgan honestly believed what he had written. The document set out a belief that should enough people become exposed to the ideas and themes of power and horror in the tales writers like Morgan told, a doorway would be opened between this world, and the world that lay beyond.

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Well that was a close one, readers. Turns out I didn’t have Ebola Gulf-A after all, but whatever I did have has burned out my blogging mojo, because I’ve started writing this post four times now, and haven’t managed to get further than the first hundred words. Let’s see how I do this time.

I mean, it’s not like there’s a shortage of things to talk about. Like Russell T. Davies’ new book (well, collection of emails), “The Writer’s Tale”. I’ve read the first couple of chapters of this particularly heavy tome, and so far it’s been fascinating. As well as having some candid information about the nuts and bolts of getting Doctor Who made, because it’s made up of the typed back-and-forth between him and Benjamin Cook it’s almost like going through someone else’s inbox. It’s particularly interesting how similar his writing here is to his demeanour in television and print interviews. If nothing else, the man is exceptionally enthusiastic about damn near everything. If you’re a Whovian of any stripe, you really need to read this.

I was going to do a bit on violence in comics, and in popular culture generally, but to be honest people’s reactions to the subject (sometimes valid, sometimes not) have convinced me to shelve it until I can think a bit more clearly about it.

I will say this, though: the phrase “torture porn” has been thrown around a bit in recent years. In some ways, depending on what exactly we’re talking about, I think it’s a misnomer. I mean, I know I’ve used the phrase as a criticism in the past, and to be honest in retrospect I think I was wrong. What it comes down to is that the creators of either the Hostel films or the Saw series didn’t write them to get people off. They just didn’t. Yet that’s what the “porn” tag suggests.

Horror fiction has a very specific function. I am absolutely certain we get attracted to darker types of fiction, be it Silence of the Lambs, Dexter, or even Lovecraft, not because we want to actually eat human flesh/slice people up/summon slimy tentacled nethergods to consume our very Reality, but because it’s a relatively safe way of facing our worst fears, and our own inevitable death. It’s no different to the way comedy makes us face our own pomposity, absurdity or prejudice, and for that reason it doesn’t really surprise me that comedic films and shows get criticised almost as much as slasher flicks do.

Let me put it this way: the Saw franchise is hugely profitable. They are relatively consistant in quality (regardless of what initial value anyone may place on that quality, and besides, compare Saw IV to, say, Halloween IV, and tell me the series doesn’t buck the usual nosedive trend of endless horror sequels), cheap to make, and every film so far has made over $100 million dollars world wide. Leaving the DVD sales to the side for a moment, that means at least 10 million people on the planet have seen at least one of the films. Does anyone honestly want to tell me that these 10 million people wanted to see it because they get off on the violence? Of course not. They went because they wanted to be scared, and that isn’t the function of pornography.

When it comes down to it, people like to be scared. And that kind of catharsis isn’t necessarily damaging.

Wow, this week’s Google hits are going to be interesting.

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Mick Trimble notes some howling (literally) omissions from last week’s Horror list, which provides a convenient excuse to submerge ourselves one more time in the inky depths of Lake Terror.

The Howling.

Another modern-era take on werewolves from around the same time as An American Werewolf In London, this would undoubtably on the list had I actually seen it. Oddly, I’ve never got round to this one despite taping it off the telly years ago, and I say odd because it sounds like the kind of thing I’d like. Unfortunately, the VHS has long since been misplaced, but I’m sure I’ll pick it up cheaply at some point.

This reminds me, actually, of a horror film challenge I started ages ago but never completed. Empire did a series of “100 best…” magazines once (100 Best Action Movies, Comedy Movies, etc.), all of which were entertaining and re-readable to the point that they’re still on my bookshelf. The Horror edition was particularly good, and I planned to watch everything listed in the magazine. I might have a crack at it again, and The Howling’s probably a good place to start.

The Devil’s Backbone.

I missed this one on its original release, and Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth has increased my enthusiasm for watching it. Expect a review sometime soon.

Curse of the Werewolf.

Oliver Reed in a Hammer flick as a gypsy werewolf? Consider this one underlined on the to-watch list.

Hellraiser

I first saw this film (and Candyman, as I recall) when they were on the idiot box in the late 90s, possibly as part of a horror movie season. Around that time, I remember both films getting a lot of stick for being crap. In retrospect, I think this is more due to the increasingly dumb sequels rather than the originals themselves.

Of the two, I prefered the latter, partly because it’s an almost Grant Morrison-like take on the construction of modern-day myths and legends and the power of belief in closed-off communities, but mostly because Tony Todd is fucking awesome. But the original Hellraiser is also worth a look, if for no other reason than there’s never been a horror film quite like it. It’s surreal, disturbing and very, very gory, and while Clive Barker isn’t necessarily similar to HP Lovecraft in the classic sense of the Cthulhu Mythos, no one else had done a better job of capturing an atmosphere of screaming unknowable madness from Beyond and putting it on film.

The only negative thing I’ve really got to say about the film is actually pretty nerdy: because it used this particular title, John Constantine was saddled with “Hellblazer” for his ongoing series, which always disappoints because “Hellraiser” makes way more sense for him.

The Shining

Some time ago one of the guitar magazines (Total Guitar, probably) devoted most of an issue to lists world’s best guitarists under various headings, like “best dead guitarists,” or “best guitarists of the 60s”. It sticks in the mind because it provoked one of many arguments between me and a pal over whether Clapton or Page should come first after Hendrix.

On the “Best of the 80s” list, the writer neglected to note Slash (in the Guns ‘n’ Roses sense, rather than Kirk-boning-Spock fan-fic). The editor let it slide, assuming the writer had a good reason for leaving him out. Of course, after the issue came out the office gets inundated with hysterical letters from people outraged by such an omission. When the editor checked up on the reason Slash was left out, the writer went a funny colour. Turns out he’d just completely forgot one of the foremost axe-slingers (yes, it’s a real description and no, it’s not just me who uses it) of his era.

Which is exactly what I did by overlooking the Overlook. Mick graciously gives me the opt-out excuse that it didn’t neatly fall into any of the inital categories, which is kind of true in that it isn’t quite a ghost story in the classic mold of films like The Haunting. But it should have been mentioned, and deserves a post all to itself in a future instalment.

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A month too late for Halloween, and it’s horror week at the Hall. I’m writing this intro after drafting the rest of this week’s posts, so I’m going to mention a few things that got left out.

Tomorrow’s post is about Hammer Horror’s original Dracula. Even rubbish adaptations of the story are usually of interest insofar as it’s fun to see what gets chopped and changed this time round. I know I’ve never seen a film or television version that’s completely faithful to the novel, although a friend more knowledgable than I has told me that the BBC did an accurate one in the 70s.

The original film version, Nosferatu, had largely cosmetic changes due to copyright issues. Universal’s movie made the Count a Hollywood icon, but took as its source the cut-down stage play of the book. In more recent times, from the Langella/Olivier flick through Francis Ford Coppolla’s, to the BBC’s decidedly odd take last year (by odd, I mean crap), the tale has been edited out or added, in particular with regard to Dracula’s secret origin as Vlad Tepes.

Presumably due to the novel’s large cast the vampire hunters tend to find their numbers reduced, though rarely does either Mina or Lucy get the boot. While I can understand cutting down an unwieldy number of players, I have no idea why the women’s names and roles get switched so often. Perhaps the plot of the novel has become so familiar that the film makers are forever looking for a fresh take on the material. Whatever the motive, the most faithful film adaptation of Dracula would probably consist of a selection of various scenes taken from all the different variations.

At the end of the week, I’ll highlight some horror films according to type. One heading that’s conspicuously missing is Lovecraft-inspired movies. Here at the Hall, it’s fair to say, we’re huge Cthulhu Mythos junkies, from the sickly old bigot himself to his legion of emulators and torchbearers. There’s a real difficulty in creating effective Mythos spin-offs on celluloid (or, to drag ourselves into the Twenty-First, digital). While there are plenty of comics and written fiction that deal with HP’s themes effectively (I’m thinking of addressing some of these under the tentatively-titled Tentacled Tales of Terror banner, though that’s a little too much alliteration for a Monday morning), there are few other versions that merit attention. While many video games appropriate themes and iconography (Half-life springs to mind), the best in terms of atmosphere and accuracy has to be Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, a game so terrifying I had to stop playing it for fear of being driven mad.

Film wise, there’s a natural speed bump in the development process where the most effective Lovecraftian beasties are never truly on stage, but rather hinted at, because what the audience imagines is far more powerful blahblahblah etc. There’s low-budget Mythos film knocking around that I’d be very interested to see, one that takes A Shadow Over Innsmouth as its starting point, and using some of Lovecraft’s themes as a metaphor for society’s treatment of homosexuals.

Without a doubt the finest concept for a Mythos film is 2005’s Call of Cthulhu, a modern take on a silent film and a must-see for anyone who likes their horror, the hook being what if the fledgling film industry had made a contemporary Lovecraft adaptation, complete with Cabinet of Dr Calgari style lighting effects and a truly spectacular stop-motion Elder God…?

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