Crying Werewolf

One of the hardest parts of constructing a solid horror narrative is giving your characters a reasonable motivation to stay in the location where the terror happens--even casual fans will snidely ask, "Duh, why don't they just leave LOLZ" the minute spooky shit starts happening. Other then setting your story in the proverbial cabin in the woods (or going post-apoc), the most effective way to believably put your characters through the ringer is to employ the apocryphal (and false)  fable of the boiling frog. Start with innocuous but ambiguous happenings, ratchet up the tension and severity, and by the time your characters realize what kind of story they're in it's too late. One way to do this is to have a character cry werewolf--they are the only ones experiencing the most severe manifestations of paranormal activity (hey-oh), but for whatever reason the other characters don't believe them.

Hell House LLC almost gets this right.

In HHLLC, a crew of professional haunters crashes a creepy, abandoned hotel in order to turn it into the haunted house to end all haunted houses in time for the Halloween season. Head haunt-cho Alex has directed Paul to document their efforts, ostensibly to make it easier for them to replicate the experience when they rebuild everything the next year. Paul's the first one to notice anything out of the ordinary going on, and Alex blows him off when Paul tries to talk to him about it.

So far, so good--we've got a character experiencing crazy shit that would make most of us run screaming out of the house, but he's not the one in charge. Alex isn't seeing or experiencing anything other than being woken up in the middle of the night by his annoying friends/crew members, so he's got no motivation to leave. Paul does, but doesn't have the ability to make it so. This dichotomy gives them a realistic reason to stay in the hotel until everything goes well off the rails.

Unfortunately, there's one moment where everyone's motivation falls apart, and the damnedest thing is it's eminently fixable.

Paul captures a sequence of film that's undeniable--the immobile clown dummy from the basement standing at the top of the stairs, the dummy moving its neck (which the characters have repeatedly stated it could not do), and then disappearing. In the sequence of film everyone in the house is accounted for. Paul plays the film back for the other characters, who all go oh shit and then quickly assume it's just Paul fucking with them.

Which almost works, but there's a problem. It's clear from the footage that none of the guys could have dressed up in the clown suit--we see them seconds later on the other side of the house. In order for Paul to be pranking them, the footage would need to be doctored, and that particular plot point isn't set up well. There are moments where Paul is portrayed as an irreverent slacker, but not as a master prankster--if his character had been set up as a hipster Loki it would have worked. But given what we're shown, I'm not buying the reactions of the other characters to Paul's footage.

To fix this moment, and by extension the reasons why the characters choose to stay in this haunted hotel, a quick scene could have been inserted earlier in the film showing Paul executing a serious practical joke on the rest of the crew. Preferably involving video editing. That's all it would take for me to buy the other characters' dismissive attitudes.

So, to recap--have your character cry werewolf. Have a relatively powerless and reputationally-challenged member of the group bear witness to the real horror. Give the other characters plausible reasons for not believing him or her. And then let the terror ensue!

Building a Better Robo-Twist

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is an awesomely-80s movie about the daughter of a murdered mask salesman and an alcoholic doctor* who looks like the love child of Tom Selleck and Charles Bronson fighting a Celtic Bond villain and his robot henchmen to the tune of the most insidious jingle** this side of It's a Small World. This movie literally has it all--mustaches, shitty parenting, schlubby leading men, indoor smoking--all the things that made the '80s great. BUT it's also got a serious robo-twist at the end that doesn't quite work. 

After defeating the evil Conal Cochran*** and speeding away from the mask factory, the amazingly-named Ellie Grimbridge and Dr. Challis crash into a tree where it's revealed that HOLY SHIT ELLIE IS A ROBOT. It's a crazy, jolting twist, but one that doesn't quite work.

What makes for a good plot twist? The ideal plot twist is one that is completely obvious in retrospect but that the reader or viewer did not see coming. It's a delicate balancing act--the writer has to provide enough information for the twist to make sense and to be justified, but also has to misdirect even the most astute observer so that the game's not given away too soon. There's a reason why people bring up The Sixth Sense when talking about plot twists--it's highly effective. Sure, everyone has that one jackass friend who claims they totally guessed the ending (after drinking thirty-seven beers and getting a handjob from their super hot girlfriend who lives in Canada, no you wouldn't have met her), but for most of us it landed perfectly. 

So what of H3's robo-twist? Why doesn't it work?

There are two different options here:

1. Ellie was a robot all along.

2. Ellie was replaced with a robot double when Conal Cochran kidnapped her.

#1 doesn't make sense, because why would she bring Dr. Challis to Santa Mira in the first place? Challis has nothing Cochran needs to make his plan work, having the doctor drink and fuck his way through little Dublin until he wastes Celtic Blofeld and his robo-goons is just an unneeded irritation. Why introduce that element of risk? Unless of course Cochran has a literal sexual fetish for having his plans fucked up and catching a laser to the brain. But that seems unlikely to say the least. Occam's razor dictates he wants his plan to succeed, so why purposefully try to fuck it up****?

#2 makes even less sense than #1. Why didn't Robo-Ellie stop Dr. Drunkass from making it rain witchy laser buttons and taking out Cochran and his robo-goons? And while the robots all look lifelike, none appear to have the capacity to act human or even speak. Robo-Ellie would be like six generations beyond the goon-tech. Not to mention the fact that there's no history of replacing characters in the movie with robots. Maybe if they'd telegraphed the reveal by having Marge come back as a robot, it would make sense.

So how would I fix this robo-twist presuming I, as the H3 screenwriter, left it in and didn't have Michael Fucking Meyers pop up from the back seat ready to paint the interior of the car with Dr. Challis' .23 BAC blood?

Simple. Ellie's a robot from the beginning. Her job is to lure Dr. Challis to Santa Mira, but Dr. Challis isn't a medical doctor anymore--he's a world-renowned optical engineer. Once in Santa Mira, Cochran and Ellie manipulate the good doctor (not too difficult, since he's drunk AF the whole time) into helping refine the designs of the chips that go into each Silver Shamrock mask. This change makes Ellie's robothood make sense, AND serves a more important function--now when Challis tries to stop the mass murder of trick-r-treaters, the stakes are even higher because HE'S PARTLY RESPONSIBLE!

If David Gordon Green goes on to remake Season of the Witch, he better fucking hit me up.

*Dr. CHALLIS=chalice, GET IT? 'Cause he's a DRUNK.

**Happy, happy, Halloween, happy happy Halloween, happy happy Halloween, SILVER SHAMROCK! Boom, now it's in your head too. 

***I kept hearing it as "Colonel Cochran" and the Blu-Ray doesn't have subtitles, thanks assholes

****And if you're really into having your plans shit-canned, why recruit an alcoholic doctor instead of like an actual James Bond type?

Dead Herrings

Currently reflecting on a particular narrative choice made in The Belko Experiment, and can't decide how I feel about it. So maybe you can help, dear reader.

In Belko, a mysterious voice orders the various office drones employed by Belko Industries to off each other or face dire consequences. When these ordinary people understandably balk at this bizarre order, the voice demonstrates the power it holds over them by detonating explosives implanted in each employee's head--implants they agreed to when they took their positions with Belko, thinking they were tracking devices to be used in the event of their kidnapping. The voice also uses the explosive implants to prevent employees from removing cameras or from hanging banners from the roof asking for help. As a plot device, the explosives are highly necessary, as they provide an incentive for these otherwise normal people to murder their fellows.

Except there's one employee who doesn't have an implant.

Early on, we meet Dany Wilkins. It's her first day at Belko, a narrative device in and of itself--a way for other characters to deliver the exposition the audience needs by explaining things to the newbie. In her on-boarding meeting, co-worker Vince explains the tracking implants and tells her to make an appointment to get one.

Out of 80 people in the building, Dany is the only one who DOESN'T have an implant and isn't beholden to the instructions of the voice. She can disobey his commands at will, and not have to worry about getting her head blown up from the inside. 

Except she doesn't.

The movie positions Dany as a potential final girl, and then unceremoniously offs her. Dany's trackerless status is never brought up. It never matters. Instead we get a bit of a deus tech machina from good guy Mike Milch (after he beats the COO to death with a tape dispenser to become the last Belkite standing*). 

So is Dany's lack of tracker meant to be a red herring, a clue to confuse us and make us think she's the survivor? Or is it more of a dead herring--a plot point that gets dropped later in the narrative?

I'd argue it's more of the later, as her trackerless status isn't engaged with--less a misdirection than a dead end. If she'd been sent on a mission only she could accomplish, only to get dispatched in the elevator, I think her arc would have worked better for me. Making something matter, making someone matter, and then having them fail? That's so much more of a dagger to the heart.

*Bonus rant: wouldn't this have been an even better movie without the guns? Imagine if all the employees had been forced to kill each other with whatever they could find around the office. The movie would have been that much more gleefully gruesome. The gun cabinet made things way too easy.  

That's NOT How You Anti-Hero

Don't watch Anonymous 616.

Or maybe do, this post will probably make more sense if you've seen it, but I'm definitely not recommending this thing to anyone, so when you've sat through an hour and half of pure what the fuck don't look askance at me, okay?

As with everything I do here, SPOILERS.

I write about horrible people that do horrible things. Theoretically I don't have a problem with a movie about a pervert who smokes DMT, tortures his friends to death, and then cuts out a twelve-year old's heart and eats it in a misguided bid to become God, although with something that extreme it's got to be handled very, very carefully to be effective.

THIS MOVIE IS NOT EFFECTIVE, for one primary reason: this is not how you anti-hero.

Anonymous 616 follows Sgt. Hipster (I can't remember any of the characters' names and I don't want to give this thing's IMDB entry a single fucking click) and a bunch of cannon fodder including Director's Wife*, Bland Realtor, Other Chick, and Daughter. Oh yeah, and Reverend What the Fuck there at the end. None of the characters are interesting--Bland Realtor's main distinguishing feature is that he likes to play shitty butt-rock at a high volume because he can, Other Chick is Vaguely Ethnic™, and Director's Wife has godawful taste in men in both the movie and real life. We learn nothing of consequence about any of these people, and none do anything of note other than die miserable deaths at the hands of Sgt. Hipster.

I've got no problem with a morally ambiguous lead. I fucking grew up in the '90s, where every single character was an anti-hero including Superman for a hot minute. But anti-heroes need to have some sort of unorthodox morality, an interior code. Think the Punisher or Dexter Morgan--neither kills wantonly, both have certain types of people that they won't kill, selection criteria, etc. Dexter wouldn't have saran-wrapped Rita (RIP) to a table because of a paranoid suspicion that she was cheating on him.

Sgt. Hipster isn't an anti-hero, he's a creepy POS from the beginning, and there's really no conflict. His own personal Tyler Durden IMs him and tells him he can do whatever he wants, and he does--Jesus Christing his best friend to the wall with a nailgun conveniently left lying about, smothering his girlfriend with a plastic bag, and much, much worse. It's like if Hostel followed Saladhands for the whole movie. What the hell are we supposed to be cheering for?

If Sgt. Hipster had struggled with his destructive impulses in a meaningful way, this movie might have been kind of interesting. If Director's Wife, Other Chick, or Daughter had turned into the typical Final Girl and put a few nails into Sgt. Hipster's skull, this movie could have been a run-of-the-mill horror trifle. As it is, the movie forces the viewer to sit in an irredeemable garbage person's POV for an hour and a half with no one to root for. The good guy's don't have to win, and we don't have to follow them, but if the monster's front-and-center we need to be able to glimpse the humanity under all those teeth.

And here? There's not even teeth, just dentures and the meat that gets stuck in between.     

*Not 100% on this but pretty sure.

UPDATE: If you want to debate, great. I'm wrong about all kinds of shit. But don't fucking post your own movie reviews here or links to your blog, they will be deleted.  

Watch This

Editing the tenth or so draft of the latest novel and identified a new pet peeve of mine--the verb "watch" and all its iterations. While the word has its uses, most of the time it just doesn't belong. 

"Watch" is what I call a distance word. It creates unnecessary space between the text and the reader. We don't need to know that a character watched something happen, if we're in their POV it's implied. Here's an example from my novel:

"Jan watched sparks from the fire crackle in the night sky, drifting on a light, early summer breeze."

But how about just "Sparks from the fire crackled in the night sky, drifting on a light, early summer breeze."

The second one's better, right (maybe not good but better)? "Jan watched" doesn't add anything, but it does take up space. And it filters the image a bit, right? Instead of giving us the pure, unadulterated version, we have to picture someone else looking at the thing that's being described.  

Of course there are times when you have to throw a "watch" in. If a character's watching something is integral to the story, it might make sense. For example:

"Rock watched his friends laughing and hanging out and wished he felt like doing the same."

Here the "watching" is closely tied in to the way he's feeling. There's probably a more poetic way to put this, and I would never argue it's the best sentence I've ever written. But it does feel needed here. 

Or this one, maybe:

"Rats nipped out of their hidey-holes, watching carefully for the thing that stalked the hallways"

Here it's a description of rodents watching, not a character watching something. Which I think works. 

But most of the time, it's just not needed. Do we need to "watch" a monster creep closer, or can the monster just creep closer? I think it can, and should.

The End*

*of 2017

You probably couldn't tell from this blog, since this is one area I've definitely slacked on, but 2017 was one HELL of a year for me. In 2017 I:

1. Published stories in Deciduous Tales, California Screamin', and Zathom.com;

2. Sold stories to Behind the Mask: Tales from the Id (out now!), and a couple other places that I can't talk about yet but am super excited about;

3. Was elected San Diego Chapter President of the Horror Writer's Association;

4. Attended Stoker Con, Wonder Con, Comic Con, the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, and a bunch of smaller readings/signings;

5. Wrote a TON.  How much, you ask? This much:

Total Short Stories: 52
Shortest Story: 54 words
Longest Story: 31,869 words
Novel Progress: 255,299 words
Total Words Written 2017: 559,615 words

In the first couple weeks of the year, I've finished the novel and am mostly complete with another short story. Of my 2017 output, I'm hopeful most will see the light of day at some point. I just need to find the time to go back and actually do some editing--not that I don't have time I could repurpose, but my attention span means I want to focus on writing the shiny new idea instead of polishing up the old one I already explored. Not the worst impulse in the world, but not the best way to enable a career as a working writer either. The good news is I have some killer stuff planned for the year, and I can't wait to share it.

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News and Press, California Screamin' Release

We've been doing a bunch of signings and events to promote the new anthology California Screamin', a collection of horrific tales set in the Golden State. Yours truly made the paper a couple times in the past week in relation:

A quick recap of the Bay Books reading/signing:

https://coronadotimes.com/news/2017/10/30/a-california-scare/

And a review/feature of my story "Bumming Smokes" (calling me "a skilled artist who delights in gore" is one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me:

http://www.sdnews.com/view/full_story/27498657/article--California%E2%80%88Screamin--sheds-some-darkness-on-palm-trees-and-sunshine?instance=sdnews

California Screamin' is available in fine local bookstores, on Amazon, and directly from me, feel free to contact me if you'd like to buy a signed copy. 

https://www.amazon.com/California-Screamin-Danielle-Kaheaku/dp/0999449508/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510100118&sr=1-1&keywords=california+screamin&dpID=51XytCpor0L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

I'm Going to Kill You...Right After I Get This Dope-Ass Chest Tattoo

I had a lot of fun watching Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2. Up until the part where I started yelling at my TV, that is.  I mean I was still having fun. But angry fun.

Having not seen the first one, I'm not sure how much setup I missed out on. The movie starts in media res with Brian Austin Green playing Vince Vaughn and cleaning up the scene of Chromeskull's first rampage. We know he's in charge because he's wearing a suit and acting like a dick. I'm assuming he stopped by the gas station on his way from his day job as a Vegas club promoter and/or vape salesman. Something unrealistic happens with 2011 cell phones and then he stabs the last movie's final girl to death in a motel room with a crazy-looking dragon knife he bought in a Venice Beach head shop (probably).

So far, I'm in. Schlocky '90s actors and "hey, it's that guys?" Sure. The killer's mask looks cool AF, and the idea of a slasher requiring a support team actually makes a hell of a lot of sense. Unfortunately they don't go into the backstories of douchebag club promoter, ethnicish hot chick or nerdy tech guy, but I'm sure they all have reasons for being there. Mostly financial, but at least douchebag club promoter seems to be acting as an understudy to the titular Chromeskull (including having a couple random blacksmiths make him an uber-headshop knife in a scene reminiscent of Moe Syzlak's classic "and that's how I turned five guns into one gun").

Considering that I don't often question the motives of the faceless henchmen in Bond or Batman movies (although I've got an idea for a short story on that topic I'm going to have to write one of these days), it would be unfair to spend too much time picking apart the lack of motivation for Chromeskull's support team. Ditto the dumb decisions made by the cops solely in service to the plot ("let's send the CSI tech who has a gun for some reason to a suspicious location with no backup," "let's split up," etc.), or the extreme upper-body strength exhibited by the various villains that allow them to slice someone's face in half like it was a mound of butter. All that stuff I can live with. No, the thing that really killed this otherwise-entertaining flick was a pre-climax montage where douchebag club promoter becomes another Chromeskull. 

After telling his kidnapping victims to "run around the facility for awhile" and "find something fun to stab me with," he walks into another room where there's a tattoo artist hanging out for some reason (!) and then proceeds to get a three hour chest tattoo. 

I'm not a tattoo artist, but I've got a lot of tattoos. My Jack O'Lantern on my right calf is a similar size to the skull tattoo douchebag club promoter gets, and took about four hours. Granted there's some color in there, so I'll shave an hour off, but still--we are talking about a three hour minimum tattoo. Who takes three hours to get a tattoo (from a tattoo artist who is apparently totally cool with kidnapping and murder and is just hanging out in this warehouse in case somebody wants some new ink) when you've got victims to murder? Not to mention the incredibly inept police are probably eventually going to notice their missing armed CSI tech and come looking for her in the exact same place where she last reported in from? YOU DON'T HAVE THREE HOURS FOR THIS SHIT. Nor do you have time to stare into a mirror running your fingers through your hair before finally shaving your head.

And seriously, what's the point? Part of the Chromeskull costume, in addition to the rad mask, is a suit. His victims can't see the tattoo. It only figures into the storyline when the actual Chromeskull shows up and kills club promoter Chromeskull for eating his lunch, and there's this dramatic moment where real Chromeskull rips open club promoter's suit and sees the tattoo. And then decapitates him. Like it's okay to dress up like him, but getting a tattoo is a bridge too far? 

At this point I think I've put more thought into this movie than the actual writers, so I'll end on this. Including a transformational montage right before the climax slows down the story, and not in an anticipation-building way. More in a why the hell is he taking all the time to do this way. Having the main henchmen transform into the main bad guy in order to be dispatched in a flying too close to the sun moment (not entirely unlike Alex's death in Breaking Bad) is in fact a cool idea. But better to show him slowly taking on aspects and mannerisms of his boss throughout the film, than have him sit in the tattoo chair for three freaking hours while the cops circle the warehouse.

Building tension before the climax is a good thing. But having characters do dumb and unnecessary shit (to a horrible nu-metal soundtrack no less) to put off the final act will just have the watcher, or read, squirming in their seat. 

And not squirming in a good way.