Hollywood changes everything. A series of successful films and the commonly-held view of things changes. ‘Vampires turning to ash in sunlight’ is a good example. In Dracula, the Count can walk in the daylight but he hasn’t the power to turn into animals or smoke. This literary rigor mortis also Read More
In “The Supernatural Horror in Literature” H. P. Lovecraft selects three novels as the offspring of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “…Dracula evoked many similar novels of supernatural horror, among which the best are perhaps The Beetle, by Richard Marsh, Brood of the Witch-Queen, by “Sax Rohmer” (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), and The Read More
I love vampires. I hate Anne Rice. Not the person Anne Rice. I don’t know her. But the institution of Anne Rice. To be perfectly accurate: I hate Anne Rice vampires. I’ve always been of the Weird Tales/Kolchak the Nightstalker vampire variety. They’re bad. You stake’em, holy water’em, burn’em with Read More
Why write horror? Why not the socially more accepted Science Fiction or Fantasy, in which the reader experiences wonder and the heights of imagination? Why not the even safer Mystery or Western? Literary forms so conventionalized you don’t have to worry about stepping on toes. Go to even greater lengths Read More