DULL AS DISHWATER: Reading Twilight Saga is like watching blood dry.
By C. Michael Forsyth
I put off reading the Twilight books for a long time. That “young adult” label wasn’t a big plus for me, sounding just a notch above “tween.” But if I’m going to bill myself as a horror expert, I figured I need to familiarize myself with what’s popular, so I picked up a paperback copy of Twilight: Eclipse.
I wasn’t expecting The Naked and the Dead, but I’m pretty disappointed — and, frankly, bewildered as to why this series is so phenomenally successful. At 629 pages it’s the slowest moving novel I’ve read in any genre, and I’m including Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. My God, reading it is like watching paint dry. At 95 pages in, essentially nothing has happened. At that point, we’re treated to a page-long description of the main character rearranging her refrigerator magnets. A sample:
“The last two magnets — round, black utilitarian pieces that were my favorite because they could hold ten sheets of paper to the fridge without breaking a sweat — did not want to cooperate with my fixation. Their polarities were reversed; every time I tried to line the last one up, the other jumped out of place.
“For some reason — impending mania, perhaps — that really irritated me. Why couldn’t they just play nice? Stupid with stubbornness, I kept shoving them together as if I was expecting them to suddenly give up. I could have flipped one over, but that felt like losing. Finally, exasperated at myself, more than the magnets, I pulled them from the fridge and held them together with two hands. It took a little effort — they were strong enough to put up a fight, but I forced them to coexist side-by-side…”
The magnet dissertation drags on for four more paragraphs. One more word and I would have put a stake in my OWN chest!
What ever happened to young people today having short attention spans? I’m no spring chicken. I don’t want to date myself, but let’s just put it this way: When I was born, “Howdy Doody” was the hottest show on TV, Ike was President, Uncle Sam was hailing a young, charismatic Fidel Castro as the liberator of Cuba, the U.S. was welcoming Alaska as the 48th state, and NASA was introducing Americans to a new type of hero called an “astronaut.”
And this book was too slow for ME!
The heart of the problem could be the protagonist, Bella. She’s one of the dullest literary characters I’ve ever encountered — as colorless a narrator as Sookie Stackhouse of the “True Blood” books is colorful. Since the story is told in first person, we spend the entire book in her head, and it’s like being inside a vacuum. In fact, she’s so vacuous that when she’s faced with the prospect of marrying a vampire and spending the rest of eternity with him, her only concern is that her friends might think she’s marrying too young, in a trailer-trash kind of way.
On top of the elephantine pacing, there’s a lack of drama. Potential conflict is set up, then quickly defused. Bella must choose whether or not to become a vampire herself and sacrifice her humanity — but she has no inner debate whatsoever. Her vampire beau Edward and hunky werewolf Jacob are both in love with her — but she‘s not torn between them. A large band of enemy vampires is mounting a surprise attack on the stronghold of Edward’s coven — but he and his clan learn this way ahead of time, and have a chance not only to plan an ambush, but to hold multiple training sessions before the bad guys arrive!
I suppose Bella’s appeal is intended to lie precisely in the fact that she is an ordinary teen, with whom female high schoolers can identify. But that was done so much more effectively in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” When the Edward and his family learn that the massive vampire army is coming to kill Bella, they swing into action — planning her graduation party. This is not intentionally funny. Contrast that to the wicked irony of “Buffy.” (I’ll never forget a scene in which Buffy’s mentor quizzes her on SAT words as they wait in a cemetery for the undead to rise from their graves.) Hey, the last dance step I mastered was the Lambada, but the Twilight Saga just isn’t hip enough for me.
Even stiff, priggish Edward is surprisingly lackluster as bloodsuckers go. If you interviewed this vampire, you’d probably fall asleep halfway through! I guess that the idea of a having a vampire boyfriend must sound oh-so-romantic to some inexperienced young women. But it’s not exactly a fresh concept — again, Buffy got there first (way back in 1997). And unlike Bella and Edward, she and Angel actually have sex.
Yeah, yeah, we preach to teenage girls today that “abstinence is sexy” (and I sure plan to tell my two daughters that) but let’s be real. It’s kind of boring.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate the book; there are some good parts. I actually found the writer’s setting of the werewolf origin mythology within the context of Native American culture quite creative and believable. It’s just that reading it was rather frustrating — as if somewhere in this lumbering 629 page book there was a really great 325 page book trying to get out.
Obviously, author Stephanie Meyer has legions of fans, so she must be doing something right. I invite any of them out there to tell me what’s so special about these books.
Copyright, C. Michael Forsyth
Howdy Doody entertained millions during the Golden Age of TV
Now HERE's a hip horror book! Set on a college campus, C. Michael Forsyth's novel is scary as hell!
Is God, depicted here by Michelangelo Bunarroti, no different from Allah?
By C. Michael Forsyth
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A centuries-old controversy has finally been settled. Contrary to what your preacher may have told you, God and Allah are one and the same, according to a top FBI expert who has confirmed that they share the same fingerprints!
“We examined a fingerprint found in the ruins of the King Belshazzar’s palace, where the Bible tells us God’s hand wrote on the wall,” explained Roger Temworthy, who analyzed more than 40,000 sets of fingerprints as a consultant to the FBI over his 30-year career.
“We compared that to a latent print recovered from the famous Black Stone of Mecca, which, according to Islam, Allah placed in the Garden of Eden at the time of Adam.
“The fingerprints match precisely — every loop, whorl and arch is the same. I would put the odds of these prints not belonging to the same individual at approximately one in 75 trillion.”
The question of whether the two deities are the same has been hotly debated by theologians for more than a thousand years. Some Bible experts say it’s “obvious” that they are. Others vehemently insist that they’re not.
“To say that Christians and Muslims worship the same God is beyond naïve — it’s blasphemous,” railed a prominent Texas biblical scholar recently.
So many preachers have argued that case from the pulpit that a recent poll showed 79 percent of evangelical Christians believe that God and Allah are not the same. But the new evidence proves that they’re dead wrong.
“Fingerprints don’t lie,” declared the Reverend Herbert J. Furmane, one of 26 ministers from four denominations who recruited Temworthy for the investigation. “We wanted this question resolved once and for all, and now it has been — beyond the shadow of a doubt.”
Temworthy, who retired six years ago, admits he was a skeptical when the ministers first approached him.
“When they phoned me up and told me what they had in mind, at first I thought it was a prank call,” he recalls. “But after two hours on the phone they had me hooked. I was intrigued by the technical challenges. And as a devout Catholic who hasn’t miss Mass since 1984, I was eager to learn the truth myself.”
The “writing on the wall” Bible story is a familiar one. According to the Book of Daniel, one night the arrogant Babylonian king was holding a drunken feast, using sacred gold and silver vessels looted from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Much to the revelers’ dismay, a giant hand suddenly materialized and wrote a cryptic message on the wall.
King Belshazzar was so petrified that “his knees knocked together.” (Dan. 5:1-6)
King Belshazzar freaks out when God’s finger writes on his palace wall, in familiar Bible tale.
The prophet Daniel warned King Belshazzar that the words meant that God had judged him and his days as a ruler were numbered. Sure enough, that very night the tyrant was slain.
The discovery of remnants of the wall in what is now Iraq’s Babil Province, made by a team of French archaeologists in 1973, made the fingerprint study possible.
“The key was the final period at the end of the sentence,” revealed Temworthy. “It formed a perfect print of the right index finger. And the fact that it was the size of my head made it very easy to examine.”
The Black Stone, also known as the Kaaba Stone, is housed in the center of the Grand Mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The shrine is visited by millions of Muslim pilgrims every year, and believers often stop to kiss the mysterious stone, as the Prophet Mohammed is said to have done.
MYSTERIOUS Black Stone, believed to have been placed on Earth by Allah Himself, is housed in sacred shrine in Mecca.
“The Saudis are, understandably, very protective of the stone,” said Temworthy. “But after two years of begging, pleading and writing, we received permission from the Saudi government to take a look at the stone, discreetly.”
Initially, the jet-black stone showed no evidence of bearing any prints. But when the expert applied a chemical similar to ninhydrid to its surface, the relic began to give up its secrets.
“The friction ridge impressions of an index and middle finger slowly began to appear,” recalled Temworthy. “It was like watching a miracle unfold. The prints were remarkably distinct. It was awe-inspiring to think they had been left countless thousands of years ago at the dawn of time.”
Temworthy displayed a slide of the look-alike prints for a side by side comparison.
Each person’s fingerprints are unique, experts say
“On God’s print, to the left, you see a peacock’s eye whorl next to this tented arch — and on Allah’s print to the right you see exactly the same pattern,” explained the expert, whose field is known as dactyloscopy.
For the most part, religious leaders from around the world are greeting the results joyfully.
“This is wondrous news,” declared the Reverend Jonathan Blavelock, an Anglican clergyman in London. “It means that all the conflicts between Christians, Moslems and Jews over the centuries have all been one big misunderstanding.”
A few ministers have refused to embrace the discovery, citing the .0000000000075 percent chance of a false positive.
And one adamantly rejected the possibility that the Supreme Being of the Bible and of the Koran could be identical.
“I don’t care what the facts say,” exclaimed a leading Baptist preacher in Mobile, Alabama. “Faith is stronger than any fact.”
But so far, the vast majority of Christian and Jewish ministers appear to be accepting the truth — and even hardcore Islamo-facist fanatics are keeping an open mind.
An Al Qaeda spokesman said, “If our experts confirm these findings — and I’m not saying they will, mind you — we may have to reconsider this whole Jihad.”
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
If you enjoyed this mind-bending story by C. Michael Forsyth, check out his collection of bizarre news, available on Kindle and in other eBook formats.
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UNRELENTING HORROR: The opening of C. Michael Forsyth’s novel has been called “the scariest 10 pages ever written.” To hear Chapter One FREE click below.
Click HERE to hear Chapter One of the riveting Hour of the Beast.
WE'RE THE GOVERNMENT AND WE'RE HERE TO HELP: Judy (Radha Mitchell) is taken under wing by Uncle Sam
By C. Michael Forsyth
Generally, I’m not enthusiastic about remakes. Unlike many horror and sci-fi fans, I don’t thrill to news that a “re-imagining” is in the works of gems that were perfectly executed the first go-around, like “Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Total Recall.” Self-cannibalization is sickening to behold, so when I observe my own culture indulging in the act, I take a dim view of it. Did we really need “Halloween 2,” the sequel to the remake of a film that inspired nine sequels and spawned 147 knock-offs. (Okay, I confess I made that last number up, but you get the idea.) Did we really need to revisit “Friday the 13th,” a franchise that had already generated TWELVE films? Even that term “franchise,” when applied to an art form, betrays a grotesquely cynical and philistine attitude. But what really gets my goat is that this is an industry which prizes youth — a 40-year-old trying to launch a career as a TV writer is considered over the hill. No, executives are looking for “fresh” talent and ideas. Ha! I read that one of these young lions pitched the fresh idea of “ ‘Die Hard’ in an office building” — being so young and fresh that he’d never seen the original! You just know that somewhere a Hollywood bigwig is asking, “Is it too soon to remake the 1993 ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ movie?”
That having been said, I loved “The Crazies“!
There are cases where there has been an amazing leap forward in technology (as with “King Kong“) or where the original was deeply flawed, or where society has changed so much that a remake can be justified. “The Crazies,” a remake of George Romero’s low-budget, Nixon-versus-hippie-era picture of 1973, falls into the last two categories. That little-known film featured stilted dialogue, poor pacing, and was made at a time when the thought that the federal government might not always be a force for good was a relatively new and alarming idea.
The updated “Crazies,” now on DVD, is a scary, crisply directed, action-packed thriller, that — divorced from the now-antiquated political discussion — consistently delivers the goods.
The plot in a nutshell: A military plane carrying a genetically engineered virus crashes in a swamp near a small Iowa town. Designed to throw enemy cities into chaos, the “Trixie virus” slowly drives the townsfolk mad, transforming them one by one into crazed killing machines. To contain the epidemic, the government cordons off the town and sends in droves of gas-masked storm troopers to round up both the sick and uninfected citizens, whisking them away to an unknown fate. The intrepid Sheriff David Dutten (ably played by Timothy Olyphant) leads a small band of survivors, including his pregnant wife Judy, as they try against all odds to escape the town without falling victim to the zombie-like plague victims or the marauding army goons.
Director Breck Eisner creates a creepy atmosphere, starting with an early scene in which the town drunk interrupts a friendly community baseball game by marching onto the field toting a rifle. The film boasts some thrilling set-pieces, such as the Sheriff’s encounter with a runaway bone-cutting saw. In one of most nail-biting scenes in my recent memory, a character lies helpless, strapped to a gurney, while a madman lurches toward her, plunging a pitchfork into the chest of one fellow patient after another.
I like that, unlike many such flicks where the law enforcement officials are fatally slow on the uptake, the Sheriff quickly figures out what’s up. He makes all the right moves, beginning with shutting off the water that’s the source of the contamination (to no avail, needless to say).
I’ve always favored horror films that feature multiple menaces, as is the case here. The heroes must contend with not only the crazies and the trigger-happy soldiers, but also the threat from within. They must constantly ask whether their fellow survivors are becoming unglued due to the extreme situation — or because the disease has made its way into their brains. In some instances, all three threats are operating simultaneously, most memorably when a car wash is transformed into a hellhole of panic and mayhem.
Some will argue that “28 Days Later” trod the same ground, because those monsters, too, were not technically zombies but victims of a “rage virus.” But, apart from their accelerated speed, they behaved exactly like the shambling revenants of “Night of the Living Dead.” Here, interestingly, the infected talk and retain a good deal of their personalities, albeit dangerously altered — such as a trio of good ol’ boy hunters who take to hunting humans with guns after they lose their minds. The director’s choice in opting for makeup inspired by real diseases like rabies as opposed to the traditional rotting-corpse look also sets “The Crazies” apart from an ordinary zombie movie and lends the film realism.
Sure, we’ve been down this road before. So often, indeed, that it’s now a given that in the event of a plague, the government will round people up and put them in concentration camps. (Hey, some in the Sarah Palin crowd think Uncle Sam won’t even wait for a plague!) The 2008 movie “Quarantine,” in which the quasi-zombie outbreak takes place in an tenement, amped up the terror-level by introducing a more claustrophobic setting.
But “The Crazies” is a genuinely frightening, well-made movie any horror fan would be out of their mind to miss.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth. All rights reserved
GROOVY, MAN: Original 1973 version of "The Crazies" might really have been in need of an update.
George Romero would definitely approve of C. Michael Forsyth's novel.
FREEZE, BLOODSUCKER! Freedom fighter Elvis (Willem Dafoe) gets the drop on vampire scientist Edward (Ethan Hawke).
By C. Michael Forsyth
The strangest nightmare I ever had was an astonishingly vivid dream at age 13 in which vampires were taking over my native Manhattan. I woke up screaming and returned to sleep with difficulty. But here’s the weird part: when I awoke again, I was in the New Jersey woods and a trio of strangers were hovering over me. When I asked who they were, they reminded me that they were with “the Resistance.” In short order, we were heading across the George Washington Bridge, armed with crossbows, on a “reconnaissance mission” into New York. After some misadventures, I woke again in my bed, to the pleasing face of my mother (without fangs).
Since that time, I’ve always awakened in the non-vampire reality, knock wood. But I was intrigued by the notion of writing a novel in which vampires had taken over the world. I was a bit disappointed to soon learn that I’d been beaten to the punch by the original “Last Man on Earth.” Yet I remain fascinated by the idea.
“Daybreakers,” now on DVD, adopts that very premise. Set in the year 2019, it depicts a future in which vampires have finally achieved world domination. The bad news, for them, is they’ve succeeded only too well – there are almost no humans left to prey upon and the blood supply is rapidly running out. The movie has only a few scary moments. Most memorably, the vampire protagonist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) and his brother are set upon by one of the “subsiders,” C.H.U.D.-like wretches that have transformed into bat-winged, pointy-eared monstrosities as a result of blood-starvation.
But the film works best as social satire, presenting a cleverly thought-out dystopia, a kind of 1984 or Brave New World with vampires. Everything follows logically from the idea that our society is the essentially the same, but populated by vampires. There are nifty inventions such as shuttered, high-tech cars that employ cameras and computer technology to allow vamps to drive in daylight. A bloodsucking pharmaceutical giant is now literally a bloodsucking pharmaceutical giant, warehousing unconscious humans in vast bays, hooked up to tubes that drain their blood for sale.
The reliable Sam Neill, a terrific movie hero in “Jurassic Park,” is equally effective as the loathsome head honcho of the pharmaceutical company. Former child actor Hawke, who seems gaunter and more intense with every role, is compelling as a reluctant vampire who pines for his lost humanity. A drug-company hematologist, he is racing to develop synthetic blood before the entire population is converted to subsiders, then wiped out by famine.
Yes, there is a Resistance. And yes, as with just about every such saga from “Red Dawn” to “V,” there’s an element of World-War II nostalgia to it. But there’s a twist. It turns out that one of the leaders, played by William Dafoe, has a remarkable trait that may offer a solution to the vampire dilemma before society collapses.
WATCH the trailer for the terrifying novel Hour of the Beast by clicking on the link below
"DON'T HURT ME" Osama Bin Laden has lost his nerve, a Pakistani reporter claims.
Once dreaded as the two-fisted titan of terror, Osama Bin Laden has reportedly turned into a whimpering coward who’s literally afraid of his own shadow!
“All these years on the run, hunted in every corner of the world, have taken their toll. Osama has become a nervous wreck,” confirms respected Pakistani journalist Ahshan Dareshuk, who was granted a rare interview with Al Qaeda’s head honcho.
“Just as I was sitting down with him, there came a loud bang and Osama dove for cover behind the skirts of an old woman who was serving us hummus.
“He crouched there trembling like a leaf until someone came in and told him it was just a car backfiring.
“Later, when Osama was giving me a tour of his new cave complex, he saw something slinking along the wall. He started pointing frantically at it, hopping up and down and shrieking like a little girl with spiders in her hair.
“I told him it was just his shadow. He swore it was a cat. Either way, It’s evidence that Osama Bin Laden has lost his famous nerves of steel.”
Dareshuk conducted the eye-opening interview in late November and his article ran in the December 15 edition of the Islamabad Journal-Courier.
“I don’t agree with Osama’s politics, but it was a sad spectacle,” says the journalist. “Here was this 6-foot-5 giant of a man who once faced down Russian tanks with an AK-47, laughed in the face of danger and even thumbed his nose at the United States – the most powerful military force the world has ever known — taunting ‘Come and get me.’
“Now he’s in such constant terror, his hand trembles when he tries to pour a cup of tea.”
An Al Qaeda spokesman angrily denounced the use of the word “coward” to describe their leader, revealing that Bin Laden was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“To call someone who has become a little jittery due to PTSD cowardly is an insult to all the brave fighting men and women on both sides of the war on terror who’ve been afflicted by this disabling condition,” declared the spokesman.
But retired Marine Colonel Larry “Bull” Garworth, who spent five years tracking the elusive Al Qaeda bigwig, insists the coward label fits Osama to a T.
“Bullies and tyrants come off as tough guys, but sooner or later they show their true colors – and that color is always yellow,” he said.
“Think of Adolf Hitler, hiding out in his bunker as the Allies closed in and then taking the chicken’s way out.
“I bet Osama’s going to go out the same way – on his knees, crying and begging for his life before some gutsy American G.I. pumps six bullets into his chest.”
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth. All rights reserved.
Th-th-th that’s all, folks? Brooks (Tina Huang) faces the business end of a tusk in this oddly familiar scene.
By C. Michael Forsyth
“Jaws” with a giant pig might not sound like a promising premise for a horror movie. Yes, I know that wild boars can be highly dangerous, but I’ve just never found pigs scary. Sooey me.
Indeed, when I heard about the cult horror flick “Pig Hunt” (2008), I thought that it had a lot of “Night of the Lepus” potential. (That’s the ’70s bomb about giant rabbits, for you young’uns).
But “Pig Hunt” turns out to be so much more than a mere Man versus Nature movie. It’s “Jaws” meets “Deliverance” meets “Road Warrior” meets “Helter Skelter.”
The fun begins when ex-soldier John Hickman (Travis Aaron Wade), his three buddies and his girlfriend embark on a pig-hunting trip on John’s uncle’s property in the remote Northern California woods. They are not dissuaded by rumors of a rampaging 3,000-plus pound boar dubbed The Ripper – and even their discovery of a pair of human hands in the belly of one of its PIGLETS is not enough to send them packing.
It’s not long before things go awry and the party must battle John’s creepy cousins, an army of crazed hillbillies from Hell and a band of Manson Family-like hippies…all BEFORE they face the man-eating Ripper.
Sure, there are elements of this picture we’ve seen before. Even “Aliens” is sampled, when John’s girlfriend Brooks is face to face with the monster. But what I love about this movie – and why I give it a four oink rating – is that it combines the elements of the flicks it rips off in an engaging way. And most of the borrowings have the feel of loving tributes by filmmakers that really know their horror movies.
Even minor characters are given personality. When the vengeful rednecks come after our heroes they transform into a “Road Warrior” type armada. Each of the unnamed backwoods bad boys sports a unique look, including one I’ll call The Preacher, who wears a collar and spouts prayers before offing his enemies.
The dialogue is crisp and sometimes hilarious. When one of the hillbillies does battle with a black hippie sporting a huge gurkha knife, he taunts him, “Come on, O.J.”
You could quibble about Wade’s performance as our hero. Yeah, he’s supposed to be the strong, silent type, but he shows absolutely no emotion throughout the film until he finally goes toe to toe with the Ripper.
And there are a few stereotypes. It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that one member of the hunting party – weak, panicky, flabby, over-citified Quincy – isn’t on hand when the closing credits roll. The only question is whether he’ll receive the full “Deliverance” treatment before he bites the dust.
But most of the characters are well drawn. One treat is that Asian-American Brooks (Tina Huang), who initially comes off as the annoying Yoko Ono of the band, emerges as a spunky, resourceful heroine.
All in all, “Pig Hunt” is an entertaining, testosterone-fueled rollercoaster ride. It offers yet another reason not to ever set foot in the woods. On the other hand, we should bear in mind that white water canoeing actually became MORE popular after “Deliverance” came out. Maybe “Pig Hunt” will do the same thing for the fine art of boar hunting.
If you enjoyed this review by C. Michael Forsyth, check out his new graphic novel Night Cage,in which vampires take over a women’s prison. Think ‘Salem’s Lot meets Orange is the New Black.
CLICK HERE, then pick VIDEO to see the HOUR OF THE BEAST book trailer.
Word to the wise: If a guy who looks like this knocks on your door, don't let him in.
By C. Michael Forsyth
CHOCHOLOW, Poland – Residents of this remote rural village have fought a losing battle with vampires for generations. But they’ve finally hit upon a solution to their woes: they stopped giving bloodsuckers permission to enter their homes!
At least 420 people had been killed by vampires and scores of others forcibly “converted” since the vampire plague erupted in 1879, according to church records. But since early November, when citizens wised up and stopped giving vampires the okay to come in, the killings have dwindled down to zero.
“It simply never occurred to any of us before,” says town councilman Dominik Wozniak. “We all feel a little foolish now. I suppose as word spreads, we’ll be the laughingstock of Eastern Europe.”
According to most serious texts on vampires, the creatures can only enter a home after having been invited in by the owner. In most communities around the world, people began to refuse admittance to vampires centuries ago.
“That is why vampires are virtually extinct throughout the globe, even in the third world,” explains expert Donald Floodgut of the London Institute for Paranormal Studies. ”Their blood supply ran out and they starved.”
The problem in isolated Chocholow is that only a handful of the roughly 1,135 villagers are literate.
“Also, few people own DVD players and those that do are generally too devout to watch horror films,” says the researcher. “There was no way for them to find out about the old don’t-let-them-in trick.”
Eight years ago, the beleaguered villagers dug up some pamphlets on vampire-fighting that had been sent by the Vatican in the 1930s. They turned them over to the most educated man in the village, housepainter and poet Aleksander Gorski, and begged him to scour them for anything that could aid them in the war on vampires. He now admits he didn’t give the vampire material his full attention.
“I prefer to devote myself to classics of literature by authors like Tolstoy, Proust and James Joyce, and to the writings of the great existentialist philosophers,” explains Gorski, 38.
“The vampire booklets didn’t seem very challenging to me, so I gave them a quick once-over. Obviously, I must have missed the part about not letting vampires in.”
This past October, councilman Wozniak paid a rare visit to Krakow to settle the estate of a distant relative. On Halloween night, he caught a midnight showing of a Swedish movie titled “Let the Right One In,” in which a girl vampire enters a home without securing the owner’s permission and immediately begins to self-destruct.
“When I got back home, I asked Aleksander to take another look at the old books to see if there could be any truth to such a thing,” recalls Wozniak. “He said he didn’t think so, but I cajoled him until he put on his glasses and started thumbing through one of the booklets. Sure enough, he found a page that talked all about not inviting vampires in.”
Wozniak hastily called for a meeting of the village council, which imposed a set of new rules.
A strict 6 p.m. curfew was put in place, and “no vampires allowed” signs have been posted on every front door, including the local hotel. No one is allowed to admit visitors after sundown.
“You can usually tell who the vampires are from their pale faces and their sharp, long teeth, but just to be on the safe side, we tell people not to let anyone in,” says Wozniak.
“It seems to be working — we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
Researcher Floodgut predicts that within six to 10 weeks, the vampires of Chocholow will be history.
“Vampires are like fruit flies,” he reveals. “Cut off their food supply and they quickly disappear.”
What the people of Chocholow lack in education, they make up for in bravery. During the decades since the first recorded vampire attack in April 1879, they have valiantly battled the legions of the undead.
“Our young men would arm themselves with wooden stakes and crossbows and there were pitch battles in the streets between vampires and humans,” says Wozniak. “Sometimes in a single night we would lose a dozen fighters.
“If only we had known we could simply stay at home and lock the doors.”
When vampires got the upper hand in these fights, the gutsy humans would barricade themselves in a building and make a last stand.
“We would always give the same defiant shout, ‘Chodz!!’ and brace ourselves for the vampire onslaught,” remembers Wozniak, 48.
“It’s a Polish phrase similar to your ‘Bring it on,’ but it literally means, ‘Come on in.’ In retrospect, we would have been better off shouting something like ‘Go away, vampires!’”
Shopkeeper Cyprian Tomaszewski says that for weeks his family had been terrorized by a vampire who fed from his 21-year-old daughter nightly.
“Each night he would appear at the back door and demand to visit my daughter Agata’s bedside,” says Tomaszewski, 54. “I knew that it was only a matter of days before she would die and join the ranks of the undead. But the monster said that if I resisted, he would take my other five children and my wife as well.”
When the shopkeeper learned of the vampire-busting “secret weapon” at the council meeting, he was overjoyed. The next night, when the vampire knocked on the door, Tomaszewski told the fiend – once a local baker named Bronislaw – that he couldn’t come in.
“The look on his face was priceless,” Tomaszewski recalls with a satisfied smile. “He looked like a little boy who’d been told he wasn’t getting any toys for Christmas.
“He said, ‘Excuse me?’ And I repeated myself.
“Bronislaw said, ‘You’ll be sorry,’ and stormed off in a huff.
“About 20 minutes later he showed back up wearing a greasy, black, shoe-polish mustache and claimed to be a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. But I wasn’t buying it. I told him to get lost and he slunk off sadly into the darkness.
“I hear Bronislaw tried the same thing at two or three other houses on our street before he gave up.”
Residents are ecstatic that the long nights of terror appear to be over, but anger remains. Many feel that generations of village intellectuals let them down.
Aleksander Gorski had become a local hero in 1998 when one of his poems was published in an anthology of promising young Polish poets. Hundreds of villagers proudly displayed copies of the book in their homes, even though they were unable to read. But now that it’s known that Gorski overlooked the simple solution to the vampire problem for years, he’s gone from hero to zero. There’s talk of gathering every copy of the book in town and burning them in a bonfire.
“It’s not fair,” Gorski moans. “I never claimed I was an authority on fighting monsters.”
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth. All Rights Reserved.
SPEAKING OF VAMPIRES…
PRISON life becomes even more hellish when a vampire epidemic erupts in a women’s prison.
I’m excited to announce the launch of my first graphic novel, Night Cage! The premise of the horror story is simple: Vampires take over a women’s prison. Just imagine Orange is the New Black meets Salem’s Lot.
The project is being funded through Kickstarter. Folks who jump on the bandwagon will get a boatload of goodies and rewards, ranging from advance copies of the book and exclusive art, posters and T-shirts to a chance to be drawn into the graphic novel as a character!
Please check out the video out HERE, and share the news with all your social media friends!
PRISONERS fight for survival against a bloodthirsty army of the undead in the graphic novel Night Cage.
DON'T be the last one on your block to read C. Michael Forsyth's shocking horror novel.
To hear Chapter One of HOUR OF THE BEAST, click HERE.
We love movies that scare us. We love movies that make us laugh. Movies that do both can be among our favorites. Below are my picks for the best horror-comedies of all time. I’ve kept off the list movies that are unintentionally funny, or so-bad-they’re-good, like “Plan Nine From Outer Space.” At the bottom is a poll asking which is your choice for THE best horror-comedy ever. In chronological order:
1) “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948) – One of the first of this genre, it sets the bar high for future horror-comedies. Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. reprise their roles as the classic Universal monsters Dracula and the Wolfman respectively. (Boris Karloff refused to return as the Frankenstein monster, but personally trained a lookalike). What makes the film so brilliant is that they play their roles absolutely straight. The humor comes from the reactions of America’s most famous comedy duo. Favorite scene: Costello searches for Lon Chaney’s character Larry Talbot in his hotel room, unaware that the Wolfman has transformed. The werewolf keeps diving for him – and missing!
LOOK INTO MY EYES: Bela Lugosi plays it straight as he puts the whammy on Lou Costello
2) “The Fearless Vampire Killers” (1967) – Just as Abbott and Costello spoofed the Universal horror movies, director Roman Polanski sends up the Hammer pictures of the ’60s. With loving attention to detail, he recreates the look, the atmosphere — and yes, those heaving bosoms. Polanski himself proves himself quite an adept comedic actor as the buffoonish assistant to a Van Helsing-like vampire slayer. As one might expect from the master director, there are plenty of artistic touches. In one scene, a human woman dances at a crowded ball in a vampire’s castle, then it is revealed in a mirror that only she casts a reflection. Adding to the creepiness of the film, the leading lady is Sharon Tate, who two years later would meet her end at the hands of real life monsters – the Manson family.
HAPPIER TIMES: Roman Polanski comes to rescue Sharon Tate from bloodsuckers
3) “Young Frankenstein” (1974) – Mel Brooks, the comic genius who created “Blazing Saddles” and TV’s “Get Smart,” affectionately parodies the early Frankenstein movies. He perfectly mimics the sets, lighting and costumes – and even got his hands on actual laboratory equipment and props uses in James Wale’s 1931 masterpiece “Frankenstein.” The movie was shot in black and white, a highly unusual choice at the time, especially for a comedy. The dead-serious look of the film makes the antics of Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman and the rest of the cast all the funnier. My favorite scene: Wilder, as Dr. Frankenstein’s descendant, demonstrates his new creation’s abilities in front of a theater full of colleagues – by joining the Monster in a tap-dancing rendition of the musical number “Putting on the Ritz,” complete with top hats and tails!
IS HE ALIVE? Gene Wilder and Teri Garr inspect The Monster (Peter Boyle).
4) “Love at First Bite” (1979) – Throughout the 1960s and until the tail end of the 1970s, George Hamilton was a perennial favorite on talk shows and one of the most famous movie stars in the world – without ever having had a starring role in a major motion picture! He was one of those celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was famous for being famous, a handsome, amiable fellow with a terrific tan. But here, in his role as Dracula, he demonstrates a surprising flair for comedy. Hamilton followed this movie up with the lesser known but equally funny “Zorro and the Gay Blade,” one of the few comedies that literally made me laugh until I cried.
NO TAN: Who knew George Hamilton was funny?
5) “Ghostbusters” (1984) – Bill Murray is at his smirking, wiseass best, while fellow “Saturday Night Live” alumni Dan Ackroyd earns laughs with his trademark mock-serious delivery. Rather than spoofing any prior film, “Ghostbusters” introduces a highly original – and hysterically funny — concept: a ghost-hunting team that operates like a pest-control company. Ackroyd, himself an armchair paranormal sleuth, wrote the first version of the story and his genuine interest in psychic phenomenon lends an air of loony authenticity to the jargon. As he often does, Murray ad-libbed many of his one-liners. My favorite is when confronting a possessed Sigourney Weaver, he says, “This chick is toast!”
WE AIN’T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTS: Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd take on pesky poltergeists
6) “Return of the Living Dead” (1985) – A direct sequel to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead” that ignores previous follow-ups, this black comedy has become a cult classic in its own right. The premise is that the zombie outbreak of the original film actually occurred (in slightly different form), but was covered up by the government. When a pair of bungling employees at a medical-supply warehouse accidentally release toxic gas from a barrel containing zombie remains, all hell breaks loose. The movie owes much of its success to the wonderful comic timing and dead-pan delivery of Clu Gulager – an actor I’ve never seen before or since — as the warehouse owner. My favorite scene is when he’s asked by a suspicious cop what’s in a garbage bag full of squirming body parts. He replies, “Rabid weasels.” A bonus is the appearance of scream queen Linnea Quigley as a skanky punk girl who is stripped and ravaged by a gang of male zombies. She emerges as a ravenous zombie and remains nude for the rest of the movie, her perfect body inexplicably – and gloriously – intact.
OUCH! Zombies can take a licking and keep on ticking.
7) “Army of Darkness” (1993) – In the final installment of the “Evil Dead” trilogy, director Sam Raimi continues the progression from nightmare-inducing horror to comedy. Bruce Campbell’s protagonist Ash, little more than a pointy-chinned hunk in the first movie, here emerges as a full-fledged comic character, a cowardly hero of the classic Bob Hope variety. Macho, blustering and alternating savvy and stupid, Campbell is a joy to watch as a modern-day American trapped in a medieval kingdom beset by a horde of demons. There are genuinely scary scenes, such as when an old serving woman suddenly becomes possessed in the supposedly “safe” castle. But the real appeal of the film comes from Ash’s wisecracks and the slapstick comedy. At one point, Ash engages in an eye-poking Three Stooges routine while battling a skeleton. My favorite line: A woman in the S-Mart where Ash works turns into a horrifying demon, and the shotgun-toting hero tells her,” Lady, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the store.”
GIVE ME SOME SUGAR BABY! This poster captures the film’s goofy high heroics.
8) Scary Movie (2000) — Keenan Ivory Wayans, creator of the hysterical sketch-comedy show “In Living Color,” directs this “Airplane”-style parody of Wes Craven’s “Scream.” The most pleasant surprise here is that his kid brothers Shawn and Marlon are actually funny, for the first time on film. The spoof of the super-successful slasher flick brings on the gags fast and furious. My favorite scene: the heroine Cindy (Anna Faris) is terrorized over the phone by the masked killer – then, when another call comes in, puts him on hold to babble girl talk to a friend.
CURVACEOUS Carmen Electra takes time out from fleeing a knife-wielding maniac to flaunt her gorgeous figure.
9) “Scary Movie 3” (2003) – Number 2 was a disappointment, but the series gets back on track in the competent hands of director David Zucker, co-creator of “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun.” The movie spoofs “Signs” and “The Ring,” combining the plots imaginatively. Like “Airplane,” and as in the case with the best comedies, the plot makes sense. Indeed, this parody actually comes together more logically than “Signs.” If you recall, in that M. Night Shyamalan thriller, the invading aliens are capable of interstellar travel yet incapable of getting into a boarded-up house; they had plotted their attack for decades, but neglect to wear suits to protect them from water — which kills them on contact!
WATCH THE SKIES: Anthony Anderson, Simon Rex and Charlie Sheen prepare to do battle with aliens.
10) “Shaun of the Dead” (2004) – If you’ve only seen Simon Pegg as Scotty in the “Star Trek” reboot, you missed out on one of Britain’s finest comedic actors. Look for him in movies like “Run, Fat Boy, Run,” and “Hot Fuzz.” Here, he’s engaging as a loser who rises to the occasion when England is overrun by zombies. Though funny as hell, the movie actually works as a zombie flick. My favorite scene occurs when Pegg, as Shaun, proposes to a group of survivors that they take refuge in the oaken-doored bar where he took his girlfriend the previous night. His snooty love rival shoots back, “How can you put your faith in a man whose idea of a romantic nightspot and an impenetrable fortress are the same thing?”
FAUX ZOMBIES: Shaun (Simon Pegg) and fellow survivors attempt to “blend in” with zombies.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth. All rights Reserved.
HORROR GETS THE MAX IN NEW GRAPHIC NOVEL!
Vampires run amok in an underground, escape-proof women’s prison in this gorgeously illustrated, 80-page graphic novel. Check out Night Cage!
Unlike this creepy dude from 1943's "I Walked With a Zombie," real zombies rarely attack humans unless provoked.
By C. Michael Forsyth
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Police have rescued an American college coed who was held prisoner by an alleged voodoo priest for four harrowing years!
Authorities say that Kaitlan Orangeby, 24, was abducted by Henri Duclaire and “turned into a zombie by means of a powder.”
“The powerful potion put her in a deep trance and she became one of the ‘walking dead,’ ” police spokeswoman Marie Pressant said at a press conference. “She was unable to resist Mr. Duclaire’s commands.
“From what we’ve been able to piece together from the victim’s account, her body was used in every way imaginable — and in some ways you could not even begin to imagine.”
Kaitlan, who was pulled out of a squalid hut on her captor’s lavish estate on October 29, is now recovering from her nightmarish ordeal in her parents’ home in Darien, Conn.
Mercifully, her memories of her years as a zombie are dim. But in a phone interview, she said, “Henri told me I was dead and that he was my master. I totally believed him – I felt like I WAS dead. It was like I was sleepwalking and couldn’t wake up.
“Way in the back of my mind, part of me wanted to resist him, but I couldn’t. I was totally at his mercy. He’d snap his fingers and say something like, ‘Give me a foot massage,’ and I’d find myself doing it.”
The attractive blonde coed’s journey into Hell began on July 16, 2006, when she was vacationing on the island with her wealthy parents. The trip was great fun, with plenty of sunbathing, souvenir-shopping and touring, until their fateful visit to the rural town of L’Estere.
“The voodoo master was giving a lecture under a tent and we stopped to listen,” recalled Kaitlan’s mother Stephanie.
“When he got to the part about zombies, Kaitlan – who was wearing white ‘short shorts’ and a tank top that showed off her midriff — started to giggle. The voodoo man asked her what was so funny and Kaitlan said, ‘You are.’ ”
“Everyone in the small crowd laughed and Kaitlan laughed louder than anyone. He gave her this angry look and I remember a chill going up my spine.”
The family returned to their hotel in the capital. While the student’s parents slept that night, Kaitlan went partying at a popular nightclub – and never returned. Her frantic mom and dad hired a private detective to track her down, to no avail.
“It was as if she’d vanished into thin air,” her mother said.
Revealed Kaitlan, “I remember being force-fed this strange powdery stuff and the next thing I knew I was lying in a cold pit and someone was shoveling dirt on top of me. I realized I was being buried but I couldn’t get up or move.”
After what seemed like hours underground, she was unearthed and hauled from the grave.
“I felt really funny and when I climbed out of the grave I moved slowly and stiffly,” Kaitlan said. “I saw the voodoo priest standing there with this gleeful little smile on his face. He told me, ‘You are one of the walking dead now and I am your master.’
“I wanted to say, ‘Screw you, numb nuts,’ or something like that, but my mouth wouldn’t work. I found myself nodding.”
The young beauty remained totally mute for the duration of her captivity. Kaitlan, who was accustomed to designer clothes, was forced to wear a plain, raggedy white skirt and sleep in the tiny wooden shack near the successful voodoo practioner’s sprawling 20,000-square-foot mansion.
“I slept on a wooden bench and had to do my business in a slop bucket,” she recalled.
“Whenever Henri summoned me with his gong, I would rise and shuffle over to the big house with my arms raised. When I got there I would do whatever Henri commanded.”
To add insult to injury, Kaitlan was also forced to do light housekeeping in the mansion. To the once-pampered New England rich girl, this was more degrading than anything else.
“I had to sweep, scrub toilets, make beds,” Kaitlan said tearfully. “I had never cleaned a toilet in my life before then. We always had maids to do that. It was humiliating, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was like a mind-controlled robot.”
The nightmare finally ended when a heavily armed police task force conducted a raid on the estate, looking for a suspected drug den. No illegal drugs were found in the search – but the cops did find the bedraggled blonde zoned out in her hut.
“I saw her glassy-eyed stare and I knew immediately what the score was,” said Police Corporal Marcel Celestine. “I’ve seen the look before in other pitiful wretches we’ve rescued from zombism.”
Kaitlan was taken to a hospital in Port-au-Prince, where an antidote to the zombie potion was administered.
Until the 1980s, zombies were generally believed to be the stuff of Hollywood myth. But that misconception was put to rest when Harvard ethnopharmacologist Wade Davis traveled to Haiti to investigate the zombie mystery. He discovered that potent chemicals from plants and animals – including the puffer fish – are used to create a secret zombie powder. The drug paralyzes the victim, who is buried alive. When revived, the hapless victim is in a deep trance, with their free will evaporated, Davis revealed in his groundbreaking 1985 book “The Serpent and the Rainbow.”
“Zombies really do exist,” confirmed Haitian researcher Dr. Claude Bosquet. “But they are not the flesh-eating monsters you see in movies. They are actually quite docile creatures who are often exploited for farm work and menial chores.
“They are more to be pitied than feared.”
Outrageously, although Duclaire was caught red-handed, the evil sex fiend will probably never serve a day in jail for his heinous acts. Haitian law does not acknowledge the existence of voodoo, and the substance used to make zombies has not been banned.
“My client has done nothing illegal,” insisted attorney Yves Rimbaud. “Any love acts were completely consensual. The police report clearly states than no ropes, chains, or restraining devices of any type were found on the premises. The so-called ‘victim’ was free to go at any time.
“The notion that ‘voodoo’ can be used to control someone’s mind is superstitious nonsense.”
Brave survivor Kaitlan is expected to make a full recovery. She plans to return to college in the spring and to resume her studies.
“I guess it goes without saying I don’t plan to spend spring break in Haiti any time soon,” she said.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth. All rights reserved.
SEAN CONNERY would never abuse Her Majesty's gadgets.
By C. Michael Forsyth
LONDON – A British secret agent faces severe disciplinary action after he used his car’s ejector seat to propel his yappy girlfriend from the vehicle!
The 38-year-old operative, whose name has been withheld by MI6 officials, admits that he exercised “exceedingly poor judgment” when he engaged the device as his vintage 1963 Astin Martin DB5 barreled down a country road at 75 m.p.h.
“She kept going on and on about how I was a ‘womanizer’ and was ‘afraid to commit,’” the spy confessed to his superiors. “I kept warning her that I was going to push the button, but the little fool wouldn’t listen. Finally, I just snapped.
“The last thing I remember hearing before she went airborne was, ‘You wouldn’t dare…’ ”
Miraculously, the 24-year-old brunette came down safely in a farmer’s field 150 feet from the road.
“She landed on her bum on a haystack,” said Police Constable Graham Lockenby, who responded to the incident. “Luckily, nothing was injured but her pride.”
According to reports in the British press, the field agent has had his license to kill suspended and he has been reassigned to a desk job pending a full investigation.
Some female officials at the intelligence agency are calling for the employee’s head.
“This is just the kind of reckless, misogynistic behavior we’ve been trying to eradicate from the espionage community for years,” fumed one administrator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“This irresponsible ruffian doesn’t deserve to carry a driver’s license, let alone a license to kill.”
Some of the agent’s male colleagues were more charitable.
“The old boy had been having a spell of rotten luck,” revealed a fellow agent. “He lost his favorite watch in a pool full of man-eating sharks, and he spent most of the morning trying to fit his miniature helicopter back into its suitcase.
“Yes, his conduct was unbecoming an English gentleman, but it was the sort of silly thing any of us might do at the end of a frustrating day.”
The agency has convinced the young woman, a West End beautician, not to file a lawsuit, for the “good of queen and country.” But she hasn’t yet forgiven her superspy sweetheart for his ungentlemanly behavior.
“These blokes think that because they have one of those bloody licenses to kill they can do whatever they please,” she told a London tabloid.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth. All rights reserved.
The scariest werewolf novel you'll ever read: Hour of the Beast by C. Michael Forsyth
C. Michael Forsyth is the author of "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Harry Houdini in The Adventure of the Spook House,""The Blood of Titans," "Hour of the Beast" and "The Identity Thief." He is a Yale graduate and former senior writer for The Weekly World News
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