It’s still August 20 in my time zone as I type these words, so it’s not too late for me to send out this year’s Lovecraftian birthday acknowledgment into the cyber-ether. Thus: Happy Birthday, Howard, wherever you are or are not. If it’s the former, if you really are somewhere, then I know you’re eternally…
Category: Arts & Entertainment
In praise of horror movie music, from Bernard Hermann to Goblin to Ennio Morricone to John Carpenter
A recent engaging article from the Guardian pings on a number of my most cherished horror film themes and composers by examining the contributions of, among others, Bernard Hermann, Howard Shore, John Carpenter, Goblin, and Ennio Morricone, and by invoking the cinematic legacy of such directors as Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, and William Friedkin.
Ray Bradbury and Mike Medavoy (producer of BLACK SWAN and SHUTTER ISLAND) adapting ‘Dandelion Wine’ for the screen
This is rather exhilarating news to accompany Ray Bradbury’s imminent birthday (August 22). It also coincides nicely with the the fact that I’ve been listening to a truly outstanding two-hour audio dramatization of his Something Wicked This Comes over the past couple of days (and have been finding that it sharply intensifies my already intense…
Which movies horrify the masters of horror?
Jason Zinoman, a theater reporter for The New York Times, has been showing up virtually everywhere in media land this summer thanks to the publication of his new book Shock Value in July. Subtitled “How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror,” the book has been characterized as the…
H.P. Lovecraft, DMT, and the mysteries of the pineal gland
Does Rick Strassman’s DMT research provide a kind of real-world verification of Lovecraft’s fictional hypothesis in “From Beyond”?
Cosmic Horror and Cosmic Wonder: Revisioning Our Vision of H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft, the recognized master of cosmic horror, was actually moved as much by a sense of cosmic wonder.
My new column about religion and philosophy in fantasy, SF, and horror
This month I started writing a new column for SF Signal, the massively popular blog about fantasy, horror, and science fiction. The title is Stained Glass Gothic, and the column is devoted to exploring the mutual meanings and implications of fantasy, horror, science fiction, religion, philosophy, and spirituality. I think it’ll be of considerable interest…
Economic doom redux: REALMS OF FANTASY and DREAMS OF DECADENCE shutting down
It’s official: Realms of Fantasy magazine is now history, as announced by publisher Warren Lapine at the magazine’s website today (“A Farewell Note from the Publisher“) and repeated by Locus (“Realms of Fantasy Folds“). We’ll all recall that ROF previously announced they were folding early last year. Some of you will also recall that I…
Is truly great cinematic science fiction really rare?
In a column at the Guardian today (“Why Hollywood can’t get the hang of science fiction“), Damien Walter, always an astute observer of trends in the speculative genres, claims there are only two truly great SF films, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner, because these are the only ones that avoid the Hollywoodistic reduction…
Jimmy Webb says Ray Bradbury and SF taught him how to write beautiful lyrics
How very unexpected, and how absolutely fascinating: songwriter Jimmy Webb, who’s responsible for a boatload of modern pop classics (and much more; he hates being branded as a “middle-of-the-road pop-music writer”), is a deep-thinking science fiction fan who says he learned a lot of his lyric-writing panache from Ray Bradbury. I’ve long felt like I…