Local ozploitation legend Anthony I Ginnane was joined by fellow judges Ursula Dabrowksy, David Michael Brown, Steven Kastrissios, Annette Slomka, and Bryn Tully, to make the big decisions on the horror movies up for awards. And for once I have to say I’m not disagreeing with any of the decisions. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m currently suffering through a bad dose of the flu, you know the sort where your joints ache, you break into a sweat whenever you get out of bed, and headaches rule your life. That’s just the socially acceptable indications that you aren’t exactly feeling like a box of birds. As such I’m at pains, no pun intended, to find stuff to entertain myself with while I don’t do things like type up entries on the internet. Having run through the entire three seasons of Primevil, re-read a couple of books, and eyed up my Dexter collection once again – anyone else can’t get enough of Dex? – I was left wondering if I could risk my wife taking a run to our local DVD hire place and seeing if anything interesting was in the new release section. Yes it’s apocalypse time when you seriously contemplate sending your non-horror loving partner out to bring in entertainment supplies. Thankfully, like a knight in shinning armour, Hachette’s Robert Watkins sent needed supplies in the form of the excellent Allison Hewitt Is Trapped novel! Talk about being saved just as the doors and windows were giving way. Yes it’s another zombie novel, really thinking of starting a zombie site, but this one rocks and shows the sub-genre is indeed maturing beyond the pulp levels of low cost publishing. So let’s chomp into that good stuff that Madeleine Roux sends our way.
Allison Hewitt is a graduate student earning some cash by working at the Brookes & Peabody’s bookstore when the zombie hammer comes down. Along with her boss, a number of co-workers, and some customers, Alison finds temporary shelter behind the thick doors of the break room. With supplies running low our survivors manage to escape to the apartments above the store, which offer a lot more comfort than junk food and cold sleeping arrangements. Unfortunately after being betrayed Alison and team are forced out into the wider world to seek a place of shelter. They gradually find as numbers are whittled and new friends are found that safety is in limited quantity and there’s more to worry about than flesh chomping zombies. Can the axe wielding Allison guide her group to ultimate safety or will they fall prey to predaters, undead or alive?
Best Novel
After what seems to have been something of a wait, but as the crows flies probably isnt, The Tunnel gets a release date Down Under. Transmission Films along with Paramount Home Entertainment Australia are releasing a disc version of the movie on May 19th to coincide with the planned bits torrent release. So folks you can either download the movie or purchase via normal channels, assuming the distribution works out better than the average Indie dark genre effort in this Country.
Carlo Ledesma directs what has been described as a claustrophobic nightmare that looks like one hell of a ride. A Journalist and film crew descend into a series of tunnels under Sydney to investigate a Government cover up. It quickly becomes apparent that something in the tunnels is hunting the interlopers. Now how good does that sound, and yes there are a series of abandoned tunnerls under Sydney that provide a feeling of reality to what could be one of the movies of 2011.
Producers Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey walked into a controversy when they announced The Tunnel would be distributed via bits torrent, normally the sworn enemy of movies and especially Independant movie. I must admit this site remains sceptical of the approach, will it promote Independant movies or will it simply expand the concept of gaining pirated copies of other movies via the Internet? But you have to give full respect to Tedeschi and Harvey for what is a unique strategy in the face of local Distributors that are far to quick to push Boredwood shite rather than putting support behind the local horror Industry.
Seems Ridley Scott has been distancing himself from the Alien universe while still comforting fans with the news that some threads between the Xenomorph night sky and the Prometheus universe will be maintained. So is this like Ridley is trying for the best of both worlds, or simply an attempt to say the mythology could be so much richer if we broadened our vision? Of course Ridley hasn’t been shy about his movie focusing more on the “Space Jockey” than the almost undefeatable interstella hitchhikers four straight Alien movies have dealt with. Please note I’m excluding those horrid AvP outings, let’s pretend those neve ever happened!
After some delay issue five of Midnight Echo, the inhouse magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association, is available to members. There will be a short delay before the magazine becomes available to non AHWA members due to technical issues, ain’t those a bear! So keep checking back as we’ll keep you well informed of when the magazine is available, and hey hold back the emails it’s not going to get it happening any faster folks. Nice to see some interest and excitement however going down in horror land.
See this is why I don’t edit things, you are held responsable when things go wrong and the invariable hold ups occur. Much safer to stick on the sidelines throwing stones at the people who take what is a pretty non thankful job on.
Big respect to Leigh Blackmore who has managed to get the magazine out under a barrage of personal and technical issues that would have had most of us throwing our hands up in the air in frustration.
Okay cool cover yeah?
Anywise what do you get in Issue 5, this is a preview not a review kids, an interview with Jeff Lindsay (yes the guy who writes those Dextor books), a graphic story by Mark Farrugia and Greg Chapman, and a whole bunch of short stories by various others.
But that of course isn’t all, there’s poetry for them that likes culture, more artwork than you can throw a wine and cheese party at, and a whole lot more. Sort of like xmas kids!
Okay Scaryminds.com can confirm they’ll have a review up this Saturday, so check there for a more indepth breakdown of the Issue, and once again don’t bother emailing we’ll keep you informed of availability.
For those that don’t know Midnight Echo is the inhouse magazine of the Australian Horror Writer’s Association. Each issue has a whole bunch of original stories, items of interest to the horror community, and the bits and bobs that float around horror circles. More over the magazine is an attempt to market Downunder horror beyond the fairly rigid confines of what has to be viewed as a fairly self contained community that doesn’t seem to want to grow much beyond the sort of organisations that Universities throw up each year. On the bright side Midnight Echo is generally a pretty engaging read and well worth having a look at if you can actually discover where the hell Issue five may be lurking!
While doing my normal surfing around the web checking out porn artistic shots of ladies happy to wear very little to support their art I came across, i.e was set the link to, a new graphic novel in twelve parts that has hit the web. Named Winter City the novel deals with a Psycho killer who thinks he is the grim reaper, and the Detectives assigned to bringing him in before he can cause further mayhem to a City under siege by the lawless, (no not Lucy, famed lesbian icon). The first issue is up and available to read on the web and I’m going to say that both the writing and artwork is superb verging on brilliant.
Superior Achievement in a NOVEL
HORNS by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
ROT AND RUIN by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster)
DEAD LOVE by Linda Watanabe McFerrin (Stone Bridge Press)
APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle)
DWELLER by Jeff Strand (Leisure/Dark Regions Press)
A DARK MATTER by Peter Straub (DoubleDay)
Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL
BLACK AND ORANGE by Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books)
A BOOK OF TONGUES by Gemma Files (Chizine Publications)
CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press)
SPELLBENT by Lucy Snyder (Del Rey)
Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION
THE PAINTED DARKNESS by Brian James Freeman (Cemetery Dance)
DISSOLUTION by Lisa Mannetti (Deathwatch)
MONSTERS AMONG US by Kirstyn McDermott (Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears)
THE SAMHANACH by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
INVISIBLE FENCES by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)
Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION
RETURN TO MARIABRONN by Gary Braunbeck (Haunted Legends)
THE FOLDING MAN by Joe R. Lansdale (Haunted Legends)
1925: A FALL RIVER HALLOWEEN by Lisa Mannetti (Shroud Magazine #10)
IN THE MIDDLE OF POPLAR STREET by Nate Southard (Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology)
FINAL DRAFT by Mark W. Worthen (Horror Library IV)
Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY
DARK FAITH edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon (Apex Publications)
HORROR LIBRARY IV edited by R.J. Cavender and, Boyd E. Harris (Cutting Block Press)
MACABRE: A JOURNEY THROUGH AUSTRALIA’S DARKEST FEARS edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
HAUNTED LEGENDS edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)
THE NEW DEAD edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Superior Achievement in a COLLECTION
OCCULTATION by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
BLOOD AND GRISTLE by Michael Louis Calvillo (Bad Moon Books)
FULL DARK, NO STARS by Stephen King (Simon and Schuster)
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY by Stephen Graham Jones (Prime Books)
A HOST OF SHADOWS by Harry Shannon (Dark Regions Press)
Superior Achievement in NONFICTION
TO EACH THEIR DARKNESS by Gary A. Braunbeck (Apex Publications)
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press)
WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE by Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel)
LISTEN TO THE ECHOES: THE RAY BRADBURY INTERVIEWS by Sam Weller (Melville House Publications)
Congratulations to Kirstyn McDermott, Angela Challis, and Marty Young, for flying the flag. Fingers and everything else crossed.