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In the spirit of Halloween, my girlfriend and I have been watching some horror classics of the ’80s this week. Not only were they both remakes of older films, but they represent the precious few instances where remakes are actually better than the originals. This happens so rarely it is practically a non-event.

The first film is a longtime favorite of mine – John Carpenter’s The Thing. Not only is it better than the Howard Hawkes’ original, it is far closer to John Campbell’s excellent short story “Who Goes There” (which may in part account for its superiority.) Fantastic special effects from Rob Bottin; no uber-sleek, fake-looking CGI here. When the Thing changes form, it does so by messily breaking into its dark menu of shapes. A head rips off its neck, sprouts legs, and scuttles away for safety. Bones break and reform, giving the monster a sense of dimension and reality… and something we can only hope doesn’t exist in some hellish corner of the galaxy.

But the film’s excellence is not rooted in its special effects wizardry. Here is John Carpenter at his absolute finest direction. He paints a picture of true isolation and paranoia; a morality-play on mistrust taken to its most demented extreme. Here also is a fiendish examination of biological life and its raw hunger for survival. Carpenter brings out the best in a superb cast led by Kurt Russell and Keith David, and juggles all film elements perfectly. He must have been truly inspired during the making of this movie — everything works from the instant the title opens like a blister popping from your TV.

Favorite quote: “I’d rather not spend the rest of this winter tied to this *!$&#@! couch!”

The second film we watched is also typical of 80’s horror; grisly with dripping special effects in splatter-based full-color. But it is nonetheless an excellent example of the genre: David Cronenberg’s The Fly. Like Carpenter’s The Thing, this is one of the few remakes superior to the original. Before he settled on playing nerdy caricatures, Jeff Goldblum gave cinema a chilling and credible performance of a brilliant man being ravaged by mutation and madness.

It’s too easy to dwell on the stomach-churning effects. Goldblum’s acting makes every moment so very credible. The script-writing is smart, chillingly effective. The scene where he talks about “insect politics” is, I believe, the most horrifying moment in the film; his awareness of the disintegration of everything that makes him a human being left a cold chill in my spine. It’s all straight-up Cronenberg, too, whose obsession about physical permutations is his signature style (existenz, Videodrome) and even finds its way into the dialogue (look for the scene where Geena Davis and Goldblum discuss flesh and how it even makes old women crazy.)

Favorite quote: “I’m saying… I’ll hurt you if you stay.”

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This week I was notified that two of my screenplays — Never Grow Old and Starspeaker — won Honorable Mention in the Writer’s Digest Annual Competition. They are historical-based films based on my novels, but since neither one deals with Halloween I’ll say no more about them right now!

If you’re going to come to New England to appreciate the autumn foliage, now’s the time.  Along Route 8 and throughout Litchfield County especially, the trees are ablaze in golds, reds, and oranges.

Two works of mine were accepted for publication this week, in two widely different genres. Boston Literary Magazine is publishing my flash fiction piece “Curtain,” a deviously dark metaphoric tale for fear-mongering around election season.  I’ll link to it as soon as it appears.  I suppose it would fall into the horror genre, and yet is not as divorced from reality as you might suppose.

And one of my poems, “Night Hunt,” was accepted for publication yesterday by Illumen, a high-profile poetry magazine.  This poem, which I will link to once it appears, is one of my favorites that I’ve written.  It presents a touch of the surreal in relation to cold reality… the lonely night wanderer who sees so much more when the blurring sun has gone to rest.  The night, it seems, can be wider and more full of possibilities than the day.

In other news, I am now a full-time Independent columnist for Examiner.com.  This came about as a result of a phone call from a recruiter, who found my “Honest Resume” I talked about in an earlier posts.  He said he enjoyed reading the resume so much that he had to give me a call and see what kind of person would write that.  We talked for about a half hour, and he mentioned that Examiner is looking to hire various writers of unique perspectives.  I have my doubts about this, but I decided to explore the path where it may lead.  Political websites, forums, and message boards tend to degenerate into troll country since the anonymity of the Internet brings out the very worst in certain people.  It reminds me of H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man in which the narrator, steeped in the limitless freedom of his condition, becomes a monstrous sociopath.  So I got my doubts, but I’ll give it a go.

This week, I finished writing an alternate history tale about how different history would have been if Alexander the Great had lived to a ripe old age.  I had such fun writing it; in my estimation, the world today would be almost unrecognizable… and in a good way.  The story is titled “The Empire Never Ended,” and I’m sending it forth to some interested parties.

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Today is Oscar Wilde’s birthday, as well!  Pretentious though he was, Wilde is one of the most talented men to ever set ink to page.  The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my all-time favorites.

And as a final note, a word on weekends. They should always be three days, and I use a Viking argument to make my case:

Tuesday through Friday are named after Nordic deities (Tiu, Wodin, Thor, and Freya.) These were hard-working Viking gods. But Saturday is named for Saturn, the Roman God of Time. And Sunday is named for the Sun, while Monday stands for the Moon. In other words, what Saturday through Monday are essentially saying is: “take Time off to enjoy the Sun and Moon.”

The defense rests!  Enjoy your weekends, wherever you may be and whether they be one, two or three days!

Watching this Week: Go, Winter Sleepers, and Swing Kids.

Reading this Week: Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould and re-reading one of my favorite books, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.

Quote of the Day:”We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” Plato