Category Archives: Uncategorized

This clever revision of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” attempts to create a song that, the songstress purports, is actually ironic. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even if it is the result of the widely held belief that Morissette’s song ironically does not contain any examples of irony. In my life, I have found that sticklers for grammar and the proper use of the English language often have no idea what they are talking about. No, Morissette’s song is not ironic in the classical sense of the word (nor, for that matter, is most of what we consider ironic). But I would argue that they do demonstrate “an incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.” Dying on your first flight–the safest form of travel–after a lifetime of avoiding it? I call ironic. Anyway, enjoy the song. 

It turns out that my posts about strange places I have visited are far more popular than posts about my misbegotten novels, so I’ve decided to give people what they want. Following in the footsteps of the post about my trip to Prypiat/Chernobyl and Cesky Krumlov, here is a chronicle of my trip to Centralia, Pennsylvania.

It’s a place you probably haven’t heard of before, but the curse that fell upon this now abandoned town is the story that inspired the creators of the Silent Hill series of video games* and movies. Want to know what happened? The story is told below, through the captions in these pictures. Like Chernobyl, the story of Centralia is one we all know–it is the story of the folly of man. Click on the pictures below to embiggen them and get the full story.

*Turns out that it only inspired the movie.

In 2003, The Zombie Survival Guide hit the market to little fanfare. But because of strong word of mouth and the hard work of author Max Brooks, the book soon became a cult hit and then a sensation. When World War Z was published in 2006, it was an instant bestseller, and speculation immediately began on when the book would become a film, with a bidding war breaking out over the rights between Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. Brad Pitt won.

And then . . . nothing. For years, the production languished. Costs bloomed. Rewrites were rewritten. Many speculated that Pitt might have a bomb on his hands. Instead, World War Z has been largely a success, with box office totals north of $300 million as of this writing. But the questions remains, is the movie any good?

Yeah, it’s not bad actually.

First, if you are going to enjoy this movie you need to forget about the book. There are homages to it here or there, but for the most part this is a different film that, at best, happens in the universe of Max Brooks’s work. The zombies are more akin to the infected in 28 Days Later than they are the walking undead of Romero.

Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a former UN investigator who now spends his days flipping pancakes instead of on the front lines of the world’s conflicts. But when he and his family find themselves in the middle of the zombie outbreak in downtown Philadelphia, Gerry agrees to go back into the field in exchange for his family’s safety. His search for a cure to the zombie plague takes him from Korea to Israel to Wales, with zombie attacks galore in between.

World War Z is a pretty good movie, but it has some flaws. First, it’s PG 13. Violence isn’t everything, but when you have a movie that is about the zombie apocalypse, having most things happen off-screen just takes something away from the proceedings. Worse, the movie feels like it would have been better as a miniseries. The set pieces are disjointed and poorly connected. It’s almost as if we are going around the world just cause. These scenes need more fleshing out. And yet, the movie also seems overlong. If it were twenty minutes shorter, the movie would have been stronger, in my view.

But I’m being overly negative. If you like zombies, you will enjoy World War Z. It’s not destined to be one of the great zombie movies in my opinion, but it is more than adequate for a summer blockbuster, and hopefully its excellent box office will encourage more zombie movies in the future.

3.5 Stars

My shared world anthology, Limbus, Inc., has been out for a month or so, but the final cover is only now coming together. Here it is, for the world to see.

Pretty awesome, huh? This cover will take over the old cover in a couple weeks. And that means the old cover will soon be a collectors item. Seriously, it could be worth tens of dollars one day. So click here, and buy it now!

If you follow this blog at all, you know I have a special place in my heart for the Lovecraft eZine, the best place on the web for anything Lovecraftian.

Here I am representing at the 2012 World Horror Convention.

Now they are running a special through the end of the day that is so good I had to share it. Click here to learn more, but here’s the down and dirty. If you buy  The Grimscribe’s Puppets, a collection of horrific short stories edited by the inimitable Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., you get the 2011 and 2012 Lovecraft eZine mega-packs, totally free! That’s an insane amount of Lovecraftian horror (including a story by yours truly). You really can’t go wrong with this deal, but go take advantage of it before it’s too late!

It is evident to me that the Southern Haunting Saga is only going to get better. “The Girl” was a wonderful read, but “The Lurker” is even better. And with hints that the larger secret haunting Crate Northgate is beginning to unravel, I can’t wait for the next installment. Another wonderful read from Bryan Hall.

5 Stars

Cute and pretty cool, too.

Very excited to be the featured author over at the Horror Aficionados group on Goodreads, the largest and best horror group on the site. I’ll be answering questions all month, so if there’s anything you want to know but have been too afraid to ask, come on over and see me! Click here to chat.

Two videos for everyone tonight as Fourth of July celebrations continue. One, the greatest presidential speech ever given. And two, Chinese New Year fireworks from my balcony in Shanghai last February. Enjoy.

Here’s the Star Spangled Banner, with the first AND the fourth verse, something most of you have probably never heard. If the first verse is about the struggle for freedom to survive, the fourth verse is about freedom conquering all.

And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave, o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.

–William Falkner, Intruder in the Dust

There are few places more evocative and more truly horrifying than Prypiat, the city that serviced the reactors at Chernobyl. A modern city of 50,000, abandoned in a matter of days, everything left behind, frozen in time by the radiation danger that sealed its fate. If ever there was a place to set a horror film, Prypiat should be it.

Which is one big reason that Chernobyl Diaries, a found footage horror movie from the creators of Paranormal Activity, is such a disappointment. The movie starts off strong. Four friends join an extreme tourism excursion to Prypiat, with the promise that they will see things that few alive have borne witness to. But when they arrive, the guards turn them away, much to the chagrin of their guide (and the best character in the film), Yuri. Not to be deterred, our intrepid explorers break into the city through a back gate. But once they begin to explore the ruins of Prypiat, they begin to suspect that they are not alone.

The strength of Chernobyl Diaries is obviously Chernobyl and Prypiat themselves. The movie does a fantastic job of recreating the abandoned cities, and the period while the group is exploring the city—before anything unusual at all happens—is the best part of the film. But once things go badly, the film lurches into cliché and typical horror movie territory. People do stupid things they shouldn’t do. They split up. They refuse to stay in places of relative safety. They turn their backs to dark hallways.

Chernobyl Diaries is pretty standard bad horror movie fare. And that’s a shame. It started off with so much potential.

P.S. In March, I took my own trip to Prypiat. If you are interested in checking out the pictures, click here.

Two Stars