PARANORMAL ROMANCE
By Brian E. Niskala

With the crazy success of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer which has grossed close to a Billion Dollars to date with a bunch of Bedazzled vampires it is clear to see romance sells but Paranormal Romance Sells BIG!
                I am a fan of the Twilight series even though I have a tough time getting past the shimmering Robert Pattinson  who my daughter defines as  ‘Dreamy’ or the attractive Kristen Stewart who my sons seem to stare at from the corner of their eyes as we pass her movie posters at the malls. I must confess I do try to steal a glance as well. But you cannot ignore the huge $$$’s that this series brings in on the screen, DVD and of course the books, millions of them!

I think the paranormal romance is far from a niche market considering the billions they rack in. They cross all genres, both Horror, Romance combining Science Fiction cross over, Action, Adventure, Drama and a very small touch of Comedy. With this alone you can conquer any demographic from adult to teen from male to female. They only genre left untouched are those of Musical, War and Western but I am sure Hollywood is working on a Western themed vampire Civil War film as we speak. Hmm, Gone with the Wind Meets Vampires! (Sorry I already have a working titled registered at Copyright.gov!)

        Many publishers of romance novels have all done the ‘Boy meets Girl’ scenario and I guess there are only so many combinations of the regular human romance that one can stand or sell.

Out of sheer boredom came the dawning of modern Paranormal Romances such as the Twilight series, ‘True Blood’ (Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series books) and ‘The Vampire Diaries’ to name a few. Paranormal Romance has been around since ancient times in literature. Take example of Greek Mythology.  It is littered with gods who visited humans to spawn half-human, half-god, Heroes. In fact the direct translation of heros from the Greek definition; ‘Mythological or legendary figure, often of divine descent, who is endowed with great strength or ability.”  

• Heracles (Hercules) – the greatest of Greek heroes and almost a god, known for his superhuman strength was a son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene.
• Perseus – beheaded Medusa and inspired the film Clash of the Titans
• Jason - of Argonauts fame
• Theseus – king of Athens who killed the Minotaur with a magic sword
• Oedipus – accidentally killed his father and slept with his mother
• Achilles – hero of The Iliad
• Odysseus – hero of The Odyssey

 Though some of these stories can be horrifying it is not close enough to what we have been accustomed to classify as horror. But this was just to; briefly show the ancient ties to modern paranormal romance and how it still has ties to good defeating evil to this day. But honestly if you think about it, vampires the main subject of the paranormal romances thrives on the blood of humans in such quantity to kill its host. So thinking of the actual relationship becomes awkward. Kind of like someone keeping a pet turkey all year round and then chopping its head off Thanksgiving Day to cook it for dinner.

It was a pet a few hours ago and now table dressing ready to eat. Morales of this… modern paranormal romance go right up to that kind of edge.
Since we are going a bit of all over the place, let’s continue this bizarre journey. Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ not to be confused with the 1987 CBS series of the same named. Starring Linda Hamilton (Terminator movie series) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) visits a classic paranormal encounter and romance. A beautiful human girl who meets a dreaded sub-human beast who had a spell cast upon him making him half-animal and half-human kind of like H.G. Wells ‘Island of Dr. Moreau’ meets Disney World. Great story, children love it as Disney glosses over the horror and sugar coats it into a saleable item in its fantasy filled franchise. Then it was a Broadway show and then on ice! Looking deeper into it, it is a horror with the modern day Paranormal Romance that everyone is trying to cash in on.

The emphasis being on the Beautiful Belle in her French country side dressed glamour. With the cute inanimate objects coming to life; also cast into the evil dark spell.

Being an avid bibliophile I see the daily trend of books trying to cash in on this modern phenomenon with new vampire themed romances showing up weekly at Barnes&Noble and Amazon.com. I myself found when I was writing my book ‘Rhinehoth’ that I was writing a Dark Gothic novel with a small part with paranormal romance. But in testing some chapters I found that it was only appealing to 5% of women.

It was not until I expanded the romance plot that my potential readership climbed to 40% just by heightening the paranormal fantasy that the women seemed to crave. Did I sell out? Or rather cash in?

So what is the deep attraction of this dark type of romance? It is like anything else about literature; it is entertaining and brings you to a world beyond the reach of your normal life. An escape from mediocrity with a fantasy world that could not exist in our know worlds. But the story tellers have done a great job creating a credible (somewhat) imaginative get away for a price of a book or a movie ticket. 

Written by: Brian E. Niskala, Author of Rhinehoth, a Dark Gothic Horror Novel available on Amazon.com & BarnesAndNoble.com Fan page on Facebook:  Rhinehoth 

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LIVING DOLLS
By NIGEL HONEYBONE

I've just finished reading a couple of excellent Horror News articles written by Selina Alaniz and Christy Lou concerning scary dolls in films. Selina put forward the reasons for own fear (Sigmund Freud claimed that most children fantasise about dolls coming to life), without exploring the reasons why other people might have similar fears.

Psychologist Ernst Jentsch theorised that uncanny feelings arise when there is an intellectual uncertainty about whether an object is alive or not, and also when an object that one knows to be inanimate resembles a living being enough to generate confusion about its nature. Robot engineer Masahiro Mori expanded on Freud and Jentsch's theories to develop the 'Uncanny Valley' hypothesis, which states that, as a robot's appearance becomes increasingly human-like, a human will have an increasingly positive response to that robot, until a point is reached where the response changes quickly to one of repulsion.

If an object is obviously enough non-human, its human characteristics will stand out, and be endearing. However, if that object reaches a certain threshold of human-like appearance, its non-human characteristics will stand out and become disturbing. Although Mori was concerned particularly with robots, his theory has been seen as applicable to all inanimate objects that sufficiently seem as though they might be animate.

The Great Gabbo (1928) follows a brilliant ventriloquist known as Gabbo (Erich Von Stroheim) who, as he spirals into madness, increasingly uses his dummy 'Otto' as his only means of self-expression - an artist driven insane by his work. Gabbo's gimmick is his astonishing ability to make Otto talk and sing while Gabbo himself smokes, drinks and eats. Gabbo's girlfriend and assistant (Betty Compson) loves him, but is driven to another performer (Donald Douglas) by Gabbo's deteriorating personality.

The film's basic plot and themes would later be resurrected many times, most famously in the British anthology film Dead Of Night (1945), two episodes of the classic television series The Twilight Zone (Caesar And Me, and The Dummy), as well as the 1979 Anthony Hopkins film Magic.

The Twilight Zone episode The Dummy opens with ventriloquist Jerry (Cliff Robertson) and his dummy 'Willy' performing in New York City. After the act he goes back to his dressing room and begins to drink from a liquor bottle. He tells his agent that Willy is alive and that he is at the mercy of the dummy. The agent does not believe him and thinks he might need psychiatric help. Jerry decides that he is going to perform with a different dummy - 'Goofy Goggles' - and locks Willy in a trunk. After the second act, Jerry says he is leaving to go to another city and try to get away from Willy. His agent tells him that it doesn't matter where he goes, he'll still have this delusion if he doesn't deal with it here and now.

While he's standing outside of the back door to the theatre, he hears faint whispers of Willy's voice. He sees the dummy's shadow and continues to hear his voice until a co-worker from the theatre walks up and asks if anything is wrong. Jerry invites her to get a coffee, but does it nervously and eccentrically, thereby causing the woman to become frightened and run away. As soon as she leaves, he hears Willy's voice again and runs back into the theatre. He goes into the dark dressing room, opens the trunk and throws the dummy on the floor, smashing it. But when he turns on the light, he realises that he smashed Goofy Goggles.

He can't understand how he could have been mistaken. He sees Willy sitting on the chair, laughing. Jerry asks how he can be real when he's made of wood, and Willy tells him that it was he, Jerry, who made him alive. Realising the truth, Jerry lowers his head as Willy cackles crazily. The scene cuts to a stage in Kansas City announcing that the next act will be 'Jerry and Willy', and we see the back of the man who walks out. As the camera rotates to the front, it is revealed that the man is actually Willy, and he is holding a dummy that looks just like Jerry.

In the other classic Twilight Zone, Caesar And Me, an unsuccessful ventriloquist commits robberies based on the advice of his dummy 'Little Caesar'. The landlady's niece (who loves to play with a blowgun loaded with pretend 'poison' darts) learns about his crimes and decides to call the police. Unable to defend himself, Jonathan is taken to jail, and the dummy gets away with it. The dummy then plans to run away to New York with the landlady's niece. "What about my aunt?", the niece wonders. Caesar asks, "you still got those poison darts?" He then chuckles at seeing the girl's fiendish gleam in her eyes.

In the 1979 film Magic, Anthony Hopkins plays Corky Withers, ventriloquist with a foul-mouthed dummy named 'Fats' and is becoming a huge success. His powerful agent is on the verge of signing Corky for his own television show, but Corky bails out, claiming to be afraid of success. In truth, he doesn't want to take the required psychological testing because doctors might find out that he suffers from a multiple personality disorder, and that even off-stage he hears Fats talking to him.

He meets with his high-school crush, Peggy Ann Snow (Ann Margaret), who is in a passionless marriage. After a tense confrontation in which his agent discovers the truth about Corky's mental state, he demands that Corky get help. Fats, however, convinces Corky to kill his agent. Corky does this by using Fats' hard wooden head. The next morning Fats becomes even more possessive and jealous when Corky says that he plans to leave Fats behind so that he and Peggy can go away together.

When her disgruntled husband Duke decides to search Corky's cabin, Fats kills him with help from Corky (the dummy stabs Duke while Corky is covered by a curtain behind him). Peg thinks everything is fine until Fats tells her that Corky's card tricks are only a ruse he uses to seduce women, and that Peg is only the latest of his conquests. Repulsed, she rejects Corky and locks herself in her bedroom. Fats immediately asserts his authority by ordering Corky to kill Peg. A short while later, Corky returns with a bloodstained knife, and Fats seems pleased - until it is revealed that the blood on the knife is Corky's, having committed suicide so that he won't kill anyone else. As a result, Fats also feels 'faint' and they wonder which of them will die first.

Although there have been many chilling films featuring living dolls, doll-like people, and ventriloquist dolls, most baby-boomers will remember the made-for-television movie Trilogy Of Terror (1975).

They may not recall the title of the film or its star (Karen Black) or even the first two comparatively bland stories, but they can often recall the events of the third tale, adapted from the short story to the screen by its author Richard Matheson, who based Amelia on his own short story, Prey. Amelia lives by herself in an apartment. She arrives home after shopping and unwraps a Zuni hunting doll, equipped with razor-sharp teeth and a spear. A scroll comes with the Zuni, claiming that the doll contains the actual spirit of a Zuni hunter, and that the gold chain adorning the doll keeps the spirit trapped within. The moment Amelia leaves the room, the Zuni doll's golden chain falls off without her knowing. Later, Amelia is preparing dinner, using a carving knife. She enters the darkened living room, and realises the doll is not on the coffee table. A noise is heard in the kitchen and when investigated, the knife is missing.

Lured back into the living room, she is suddenly attacked by the doll, which stabs at her ankles viciously. Bloodied and terrified, Amelia flees, and manages to get in her bedroom and calls the police, but the doll enters the room, prompting her to keep running, shutting the bathroom door behind her. Sitting in the bathroom, the doorknob begins to turn and the doll runs in quickly. Amelia grabs a towel and covers the doll, trying to drown it in the bath tub. The ongoing struggle moves into the living room closet, where Amelia ends up trapping the doll in a suitcase.

The doll uses the carving knife to cut it's way out of the suitcase and attacks Amelia once more. She runs into the kitchen, and disarms it with a kick, and receives a nasty bite to the neck. She manages to hurl it into the oven and listens to it howling and screaming as it catches fire. Soon the screams eventually stop. Wondering if her ordeal is over, she opens the oven and is suddenly overcome - fade to black. The next time we hear her (but do not see her face) placing a call to her mother, inviting her over. She then rips the bolt from her front door and crouches down low in an animalistic manner, hiding in the corner with a butcher knife. She stabs at the floor with the weapon, grinning ferally and revealing the horrific teeth of the Zuni doll.

Needless to say, we've been terrified by dolls or doll-like creatures since the invention of the cinematograph and before. There are other classic Twilight Zone stories, such as Living Doll (Talky Tina) and The Invaders (doll-sized aliens that are revealed to be humans on an alien planet of giants). There's Mister Sin, the murderous ventriloquist doll played by actor Deep Roy, in the Doctor Who story The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. The Homunculi in The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), tiny criminals in Devil Doll (1936), Doctor Cyclops (1940), Attack Of The Puppet People (1958), a ventriloquist doll named Hugo in Devil Doll (1964), Asylum (1972), Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (1973), Deep Red (1975), etc.

The list of films goes on forever and would, of course, require far more space than is available here. So please join me next week when I have the opportunity to present you with more unthinkable realities and unbelievable factoids of the darkest days of cinema, exposing the most daring shriek-and-shudder shock sensations to ever be found in the steaming cesspit known as...Horror News! Toodles!

(Nigel Honeybone presents the finest examples of B-grade horror on THE SCHLOCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Please go to http://www.myspace.com/nigelhoneybone or http://www.horrornews.net for more information.)

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EVERYTHING i LEARNED ABOUT DATING I LEARNED FROM RENTING HORROR MOVIES
By KILLION

There are many lessons a person must learn in life, and there are various ways that one can go about doing it.  One of the hardest lessons for some to learn is that ability to meet and actually get to know that special someone that they just might be able to spend the rest of their life with.  There are many ways for people around the world to do just that, yet most simply rely on the most untrustworthy and risky manner of doing it.  Every night at taverns around the globe young and old hopefuls sit in the dingy darkness waiting for their chance to find love, even if it’s just for one night.

These encounters in the smoke filled bars can lead to relationships, Lord knows I have met a few this way, but in the long run the bar scene is hardly a safe way to do it.  Inside of those smoke filled taverns is a host of strangers who could end up being not at all what you might think or want them to be, and these days it is better to be safe than to be sorry. 

I have taken all of the things I learned from my youth at the small video stores and applied it to these bar settings and you would be surprised just how similar they really are.  How you might ask exactly is finding that special someone in the world like finding a sun faded VHS copy of Dawn of the Dead, well read on and I will explain everything.

First one must look at the two locations that are in question.  I have decided first to use the video store that I frequented while I was at college.  The store was a very small one and it was just half a block from campus, a great way to lure the crowd in.  The store was always dirty and everything was cramped close together, you never had to worry about being hounded however because the size and set up of the store allowed for the one employee who was usually working to easily watch the entire inventory to make sure no funny business went on.

Since the store was a small and independent one there were loads of films that one wouldn’t find on a shelf at the local video chain so obviously it became like heaven to me.  The horror section was right next to the room where the adult films were kept, so often one would run into several horny young men who would embarrassingly walk into the room and walk out with their purchases safely hidden from view underneath their arm.

The local tavern here where one goes to meet others isn’t a far stretch from this video store.  The place is usually pretty packed tight and it’s usually full of things that won’t really grab for your attention.  The floors are sticky and it isn’t uncommon to find people doing drugs in the bathrooms, again as I have stated dating within a bar scene is hardly safe.  The music that is played at the tavern is hardly enjoyable to me, though the packed dance floor usually assures me that at least someone out there likes it.

At first the two areas really do not seem at all that similar but let us take a closer look at the two shall we.  The horny guys who would come in and out of the video store are also there at the tavern, except they aren’t hiding a seedy title under their arms, instead they are walking out with phone numbers or women under their arms.  These guys are often desperate and know what they want so they just go right for the things that are going to give it to them.  Both of the establishments had sticky floors and how they got that way no one really knows.  The establishments are also full of the young and inexperienced that really has no idea what they are looking for; they are just hoping that they can find something to get their interest.

Horror fans aren’t strangers to traditional romance; if one were to simply watch some of the films it is easily discovered.  Films such as Shaun of the Dead (which has become somewhat the horror film fans date movie over the last five years) are full of romantic stories of blundering morons who finally see the way things are meant to be.  Brain Dead (aka Dead Alive) also has a romantic twist in the film, both Brain Dead and Shaun however have a very strong female character, the male character comes off as a silly immature boy most of the films with the woman stepping up to fight off the things that come their way.

Even the once attacked slasher genre embraces the idea of romance.  For the last thirty plus years the slasher genre has pretty much made an entire career out of boys chasing pure and virginal survivor girls, I’m sorry ladies there aren’t too many survivor boys and what there are end up being like the kid in The Burning.  In these films the good girl is the one who lives and the one who has the final battle with the said monster that is after her and her friends.  Male horror films fans are imprinted with images of these women in hopes that one day just maybe we can find a woman like Ginny from Friday the 13th Part 2.

Though these relationships can be very happy, usually the slasher movie will end with the boy kissing the final girl right before the final scare; there are the films out there that don’t portray such a happy image of romance and relationships. 

Films like May and Love Object deal with people who are alone and social outcasts, I like using these two films when I discuss this because May has a woman and Love Object’s main character is a man. 

Neither of these characters have very many social skills and neither one really knows how to talk to the opposite sex so they create their own way to do it with horrifying results.  There are also characters like Brazil’s Coffin Joe who have been chasing the idea of the “perfect woman” for nearly forty years, even though Joe’s attempts are more on the harsh end of the spectrum. 

Okay there is some romance in a lot of these movies anyone can agree to that, but some of you still might not see where I am going with this so let me describe some of the inhabients of the video store’s shelves and some of the people one might see dancing around the tavern.

As I stated up above yes those horny guys are in both places, there is also the creepy people that seem as if they stare through you.  However most guy’s eyes are on the pretty blonde girl who is dancing on the dance floor.  The said pretty girl probably spent hours getting ready to go out into the tavern and she wears clothing that suggests she put on several outfits before it to try it out. 

This woman is a lot like the title Hell of the Living Dead.  The pretty blonde looks the way she does because that is what the media and the rest of the world projects on her.  This goes way back to when you were younger staring at those VHS boxes and the images would start to promise you sights you would never forget. 

Of the titles I saw on the shelves as a younger man Hell of the Living Dead always screamed out to me, that zombie on the cover just looked cool and I kind of thought it looked like the same zombie that was on the cover of City of the Living Dead.  However when I took Hell of the Living Dead home I was disappointed on a major level, genre fans who know of this film already know about its disappointments for those not in the know the film mainly takes advantage of a lot of stock footage and blatantly plagiarizes Goblin’s score to Dawn of the Dead. 

The lesson learned by this one, done judge based on outward appearances because once you get it home and away from all the lights you are going to just find it’s full of the same of stuff you’ve already seen and really doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

There is a sense of danger when one goes to meet others in tavern like environments that can’t compare to a video store.  There are some people in the world that are just sick and deranged, this doesn’t mean that they are going to personally kill you but how do you know that perfect person across the bar isn’t shooting illegal drugs in-between their toes just so they don’t leave marks?  It is impossible to know and sometimes one feels like I did when I was younger and took home a copy of Faces of Death.  Faces of Deaths cover just screamed cool at me and the stories I had heard about it just made me really want to see that movie (stories about tavern patrons is a whole other article in itself not even related to horror movies).  When I got the film home and half way through it I realized what it was I started to feel violated and somewhat cheated. 

Here was a film where there wasn’t a plot what so ever just set up after set up where a death occurs at the end of each one.  This wasn’t the kind of movie I wanted so although I enjoyed various segments of the film as a whole the experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

There are the older types in both of the establishments, and these older types usually have a thing or two to bring to the table.  In the taverns the older men will often jump to the protection of a young woman like the knights of old times.  In the video stores the old titles sit on the shelf with their covers faded by the sun just waiting to be seen. 

Films such as Torso and Bay of Blood might look boring at first when one glances at their cover but once they are taken back into a viewer’s house the viewer learns that these nasty little films pretty much influenced almost everything that they were looking at on the shelf that particular night.  Torso and Bay of Blood have been called the “grandfathers of the modern slasher film”, and with good cause Friday the 13th Part 2 blatantly plagiarized two death scenes from Bay of Blood alone!  These old titles are the things that influenced all of the young titles in the first place; to them there isn’t anything new.

At any given tavern on any given night there is also that person who has just had way too much to drink and is making a fool of themselves; Lord knows I have been that guy in the past.  These people are represented on the video store shelf by such titles as Troll 2, Pink Flamingos and pretty much anything directed by Ed Wood.  These things are all fun at the time, but once their novelty wears off they become really not all that amusing.

Eventually when one rents videos they will start to notice trends that they like in the films, this isn’t too far fetched from dating where one finds traits they like and eventually does develop a type.  When a horror fans discovers something they like they usually will begin to devour everything they can with that something in it. 

Tom Savini’s FX work for example is a staple among many genre fans, a fan will like the deaths scene in the original Friday the 13th and start to track down other films where Savini has done the FX eventually causing them to see titles such as Maniac and The Prowler (two nasty little films that contain some of Savini’s most gruesome FX work).  A horror film fan might also watch Lucio Fulci’s Zombie and eventually find their way into seeing The New York Ripper or Cat in the Brain (which contains an excellent scene of Mr. Fulci running over a hippie’s head multiple times with his car!).  Sometimes this can back fire though, just because you liked Friday the 13th doesn’t mean you are going to like Don’t Go into the Woods.

The hardest lesson one has to learn though when comparing the tavern to the video store is:  What one takes home from the video store can easily be returned with just a shudder of a bad memory, sometimes what one takes home from a tavern will always stay with them.  We are living in modern times and the art of renting films is slowly starting to dwindle away.  Some folks steal their films off of the internet just like some people date using the internet.  With the prices of high definition players shrinking a lot of horror fans are simply starting to buy their titles, this is very similar to when one gets older and stops attempting to take home everything that catches their fancy.  These home libraries though they contain some stinkers usually contain only the best of the best that the genre has to offer and how did they discover all of this by safely renting.

There is also the most important lesson one has to learn in dating and in renting horror films.  Sure one can go into the store and walk out with any title they want but if you want to watch The Mutilator and it isn’t there you are just going to have to suck it up and come back later and hope that it is.  The waiting like Tom Petty said is the hardest part in dating and renting horror films, but most often those titles that you have waited on will become the most cherished memories when you get older.

WHO: josh howard - comic artist
what: dead@17 witch queen

Hey everyone. I recently had a chance to chat with Josh Howard, the creator/writer/artist for Dead@17, about the newest chapter in the series debuting in March 2010. If you have not had a chance to check out any of the Dead@17 stories I highly recommend doing so. The books have good depth and are very original. Josh's art style is very attractive to the eye as well. I recently became a fan of this book after picking up the Ultimate Edition trade, and then reading all of it in a matter of a few days.

So lets jump right and and see what we can find out about Josh and Dead@17: The Witch Queen.

DD: Alright so lets start out simple. Who are you?

JH: Josh Howard, creator of Dead@17 and other ridiculous concepts.

DD: Comic wise what have you already done?

JH: Lost Books of Eve, Black Harvest, and Clubbing are the main things I've been involved with.

DD: Alright so what do I need to know about Dead@17?

JH: It's about a teenage girl named Nara who discovers she's the key to the end of the world. Her adventures have spanned 5 mini-series with 2 more on the way.

DD: Where did the idea for the series come from?

JH: Its earliest influences were Evil Dead/Army of Darkness, Twin Peaks, C.S. Lewis, and Biblical concepts.

DD: How much fun are you having creating with this universe?

JH: It's been fun but it's also been very difficult and trying at times. But I'm probably having more fun with it now than ever.

DD: How much farther can you take this series? Do you see an end in site?

JH: After "The Witch Queen" in March, there will only be one more mini-series and that's the end.

DD: So after the events in Dead@17: Afterbirth, where do we find Nara now?

JH: Nara is now banished to Purgatory while the devil is roaming free upon the Earth.

DD: Can we expect any surprises coming out of Dead@17: The Witch Queen?

JH: Definitely. A new character is introduced who has answers that Nara has long been searching for.

DD: For new readers is this series going to be a good place to jump on board?

JH: Unfortunately, no. New readers would be best served by picking up the Ultimate Edition (containing series 1-4) and Afterbirth (series 5) before jumping into "Witch Queen."

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