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Writer in the Garret

~ A writer living one word at a time

Writer in the Garret

Tag Archives: horror

Horror can lie behind the ordinary…

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Ghosts, Hauntings

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

horror

Horror is all around us, waiting to be seen, waiting to be discovered in the most banal of circumstances. In the walk down the old stairs to the basement where the washing machine and dryer squat side-by-side, mouths closed…for now. That silence into which the drip-drip of fluid sounds…where is it coming from? Is it blood? No, it’s a leak from the water heater, in it the knowledge that the warm ablutions are no more until treasure has been spent, until the moldering body of the old heater has been dragged out into the forest to be buried secretly before dawn.

The odd silence on the third floor grows thicker as the minutes pass. The  heaviness of it weighs down the soul, and soon memories of past transgressions, of deeds left undone, consume the spirit and force a bitter review of the doors closed to redemption. Who knew how many clothes remained unfolded, away from their proper places?

Let me listen to the howl carried on the wind rather than the speeches made by souls sold for power…too soon? Let’s move on.

Not just blood, not just fear lie in wait for the wary. Our lives proceed down neat paths until the way is overcome with putrid vegetation and the unending tasks of the damned. April is coming, and we know why it is the cruelest month.

Stay with February, Women in Horror Month. Come join us to relish in the power of horror, in the particular force of the female perception of what makes us scream. See what we have for you at #wihm8.

Join us.

rmfwwihm-twitterpost

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 31: Happy Halloween

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Ghosts, Hallowe'en, Hauntings, Life

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

horror, imagination

wallpapersafari1

(Wallpapersafari.jpg)

We’ve looked at many aspects of Halloween this month, most of them spooky. We’ve whistled past some graveyards, viewed some monsters born of All Hallows Eve. We’ve read a spirited story (get it?) by Denver author Douglas D. Hawk called “Moonlit Dream Girl.”

We read the story “Halloween Jack” by Christine Valentor, and better understand why we see his image everywhere on All Hallows Eve. We traveled to haunted places in the U.S. where ghosts still shift among historic buildings in CR Richards’ “Halloween Blog Hop.”

We curled up with a bag or two of Halloween candy (bought purely to sample for good quality, right?) while we watched old favorite movies that still make us shudder or give us bursts of nervous laughter.

Why is it we wish each other Happy Halloween? What does it even mean? That you hope people have fun scaring each other? That dressing in costumes will help you avoid the evil spirits out and about on Halloween night? That we’ll all get bunches of candy we shouldn’t eat to help us get to Thanksgiving? That all of us will enjoy our humanity just a little more by wearing that costume, by giving that handful of candy to a child, by remembering old magic in our cells, where it lives under our work clothes and serious expressions?

Maybe magic can be reignited by following rules learned in childhood, by showing our true identities–only for a short while–and by feasting on the food of the spirits for a night to protect us from evil.

Thanks to everyone who participated in “31 Days of Spooky Stuff.” Hope you get good candy.

You can still enter the drawing (to be held late tonight) to win signed copies of my Wisdom Court books: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time.

The winner of the drawing will be announced tomorrow.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 29: What is it about clowns?

29 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hallowe'en, Spooky movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

horror

pennywise

I’ve never liked clowns, but wasn’t actively afraid of them. As a kid I watched Denver Channel Two’s kids’ show, Blinky the Clown, and didn’t particularly like him. I always had the feeling he wasn’t crazy about kids. I remember his honey-dripping voice when he talked about birthdays, and he was frequently shown visiting kids in hospitals, so I’m sure he was a wonderful guy. But he was a clown. He had makeup all over his face and you couldn’t read his emotions because of it.

The clowns at the circus jumped around a lot, filling up cars, tumbling over each other like maniacs. Little prig that I was, I couldn’t figure out why what they were doing was supposed to be funny.

polterg1

As you can probably tell from the pictures here, I underwent a change in attitude toward clowns thanks to reading/seeing some highly disturbing stories about them. And I’m not alone. Many adults dislike clowns now. Just the other day I read an alert about clowns being chased out of neighborhoods. My first response to that was, What the hell are clowns doing in neighborhoods?

For me, the drawback to clowns is the same I felt as a kid: you can’t assess their intent because they hide themselves behind makeup and costumes. Call me paranoid, but that’s a deal-breaker.

I’ve attached a link to an interesting article from The Washington Post titled “Why Clowns Creep Us Out.” Author Frank T. McAndrew, psychologist, gives plenty of reasons why those of us who are creeped out by clowns can make our cases for it. The portion about “The Phantom Clown Theory” is especially interesting.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Why+Clowns+Creep+Us+Out&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 Frank T. McAndrew

Have you ever noticed how few children have clown costumes for trick-or-treating? They know what they know.

To enter the amazing drawing to be held on Halloween, comment on this post. The prize will be signed copies of the Wisdom Court novels: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 25: They’re coming to take us away…

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hallowe'en

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

fever dreams, horror

…and not to the funny farm. To the place where broken, coughing bodies await release.

historythingscom

They say we’ll get better here, but I have my doubts.

[historythings.com]

norwichstatehospitalbyalicehughes

Room 745? Are you sure?

When are visiting hours? What do you mean, what visitors?

[dailymail.co.uk]

Stay away from the germs…

hosp1

To enter the Halloween drawing, post a comment. You’ll be notified if your name has been chosen. The prize: the Wisdom Court books, signed.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 23: Pestilence has descended over the house…

23 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hallowe'en

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

horror

halloween-pumpkins-pdThe ongoing respiratory junk I’ve been fighting has gone nuclear. I now sound like an out-of-work air raid siren and am coughing billions of germs throughout the house. Of course, the rest of the family is doing so as well. Pestilence has become the way of the world. So today I’m posting  pictures for you to peruse while I continue to get caught up with the coughing I’ve suppressed to write these deathless words. Gack.

Here’s hoping tomorrow is another day.

book-of-souls-pd

from the El Paso County website

To enter the drawing on Halloween, comment on this post. The prize is a signed copy of the Wisdom Court novels: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time

 

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 22: Werewolves a deux…

22 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in horror movies, Spooky movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

horror, imagination

were1I first saw The Wolf Man as a kid, watching it on one of Denver’s TV channels, probably presented as a “Fright Night” special. The story is basic, about a man newly returned  to his British home, at odds with his father, the lord of the manor. Lon Chaney, Jr., son of silent movie acting sensation, Lon Chaney, plays the son, Larry Talbot, as a sad outsider who soon falls victim to a nasty malady in the county: a werewolf bites him and thereafter he is forced to terrorize the area each month in search of blood. He searches for information–from the doctor, from the villagers, including the old Romani woman who finally tells him the truth. He is now a werewolf and there is no cure but death. His personal horror at what he’s become is what I best recalled  from my early viewing of the film. He fights to avoid hurting anyone, particularly the young woman who’s interested in him. He can’t connect with his father, leaving him alone with his terrible secret. It was that existential loneliness I remembered, heightened by its being filmed in black and white. Though the special effects were low-tech, the movie continues to have an emotional impact on me to this day.

wolf2

In the eighties, another werewolf movie was hot and happening: An American Werewolf in London. Two American students are backpacking across England, stopping at a Yorkshire pub for a pint. When they ask about the pentagram on the pub’s wall, the pub customers become hostile and the two leave. Warned to stay on the path across the moors, they are attacked by what appears to be a wild dog, and one of the boys is killed, the other mauled before the creature is shot. Of course, the wounded man is now a werewolf and will transform at the next full moon. Despite warnings from the shade of his dead friend, he ignores the danger. And when the full moon rises, he ends up killing six people.

Directed by John Landis, the film’s colors were garish and its special effects brilliant, especially the makeup by Kenny Baker, particularly in the transformation of the bitten man from human to werewolf. That sequence was almost nauseating in showing the biological details and the pain such a change would require. That was the most horrific thing about the story for me, the gag-inducing reaction to the sheer physicality of the process.

were5So, emotional horror as opposed to physical horror…There’s a place for both, no doubt, but I was struck, as I compared the two films, at how much more affected I was by the old black and white movie over the shiny, bloody one. I’m sure it says something about my esthetic state, but I’m damned if I know what. Both films are worth watching, especially during the month of Halloween.were3

 

Enter the Halloween drawing by commenting on the post. The prize: a signed copy of the Wisdom Court books, Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 20: The Night of the Hunter

20 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Gothic, horror movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

horror, shadows

nightofhunter1

This 1955 film is a strange, nightmarish depiction of evil loose in the land. As the Criterion Collection describes it,

The Night of the Hunter—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic—also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish and writer James Agee—is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil.

nightofhunter2

I first saw this film at the recommendation of a friend who’d seen it decades earlier, and who shivered when she told me about it. The memory of it still scared her after all those years. While I watched it, my critical side noticed the slow pacing and wondered at some of the artificial-looking sets, but as the story deepened, the film took on the quality of a dream. The children couldn’t run fast enough to escape the evil man pursuing them. No matter what they did, he was still close behind them. The shadows darkened, my heart beat faster, and I couldn’t tell how the horror would end.

The Night of the Hunter is a spooky movie and I hope you like it.

(I’m including a link to Roger Ebert’s review of The Night of the Hunter because I always liked his film criticism, and because I miss his work.)

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-night-of-the-hunter-1955

Comment to enter the drawing for a signed copy of each of my Wisdom Court books: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time. The drawing will occur on October 31.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 19: Poltergeist

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Ghosts, Hauntings

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bumps in the night, horror

I’ve been thinking about spooky stuff (guess why) and happened across a still from the movie Poltergeist. It’s one of my all-time favorite horror films and can to this day give me the big-time creeps. Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper do a wonderful job of creating a scare-fest aimed at middle class America. And aren’t we always more afraid of what we know? Or what we think we know?

polt1

A happy family living in a beautiful house in suburbia shouldn’t have to worry, right? Don’t bet on it. Where they live and how they came to be in that snug development spark a series of events not of this world, and it all begins when the younger daughter disappears into the great open eye of the television set. Much consternation and fright ensue, shown with fear and wit.

I think this is another movie I have to force my grandkids to see, just to get them in the mood for Halloween. I hope you’ll give it another look, in honor of the holiday. Heh-heh.

 

polt2

 

 

 

 

 

Comment to enter the end of the month drawing to win a signed copy of the Wisdom Court books: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 13: A favorite episode of The X-Files

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Grief, Hope

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Character, horror

clydeb1

I don’t know how much influence The X-Files has had on me, but it’s been significant. I’m grateful it aired when I was an adult, both because I was able to clue into most of the cultural references of its best writers, and because, growing up, I had enough nightmares as it was.

I started to write this post about the five scariest episodes of The X-Files, but ran into a problem I’m not willing to resolve. All the lists point to “Home” as either one of or the most frightening episode of the series. After seeing the preview of that episode back in 1995, I refused to watch it. (I have a deep and ongoing problem with monsters under the bed.)

clydeb2So today I’ll remind you of one of the very best of the frightening standalone episodes the series had: “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” about a psychic whose gift is the ability to see how people will die. The late Peter Boyle played this character with grace and melancholy, and the writing and directon by Darin Morgan and David Nutter are both creepy and morbidly humorous. It remains one of the most human of the series episodes–what, after all, is more human than death?

When I recall watching this episode, I remember the joy I felt at the skill of the writing, at the brilliance of Boyle’s portrayal. It’s been a favorite “ahhh” moment in my long history of TV-watching.

 

 

Comment to enter the October 31 drawing to win a signed copy of the Wisdom Court Trilogy.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 10: The Sixth Sense

10 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Grief, Spooky movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

horror

sixthsense3

What is the sixth sense? That brush of awareness across the back of your neck…the almost-sound of voices as you enter an empty room…the flash of motion from the corner of your eyes…

Some say they know when something bad will happen, that they receive a warning, either through a swift vision or an inner signal impossible to describe. Others recount detailed dreams in which people are touched by unanticipated events.

People with ESP, “the sight,” being fey, subject to visions…All of us have read about those who claim such abilities in real life, and we’ve heard stories, and seen movies of fictional characters trying to deal with such powers, trying to live with the sixth sense.

My favorite of those films is the 1999 movie written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The relationship between troubled eight-year-old boy Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) and child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a lovely and haunting human interest story that also happens to be the best horror film I’ve ever seen. The writing is beautiful, and the acting superb, particular Osment’s gifted performance.

The Sixth Sense is assuredly spooky. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and rent it. If you have, watch it again and revel in the craftsmanship of it.

sixthsense1

 

 

Comment and you’ll be entered in the drawing for a signed copy of The Wisdom Court Trilogy, to take place October 31.

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