May Monster Madness #5 - Monsters That Could Be Real

This is my fifth post for the  May Monster Madness Blog Hop.

As I write this post, I am sitting watching The Relic, a horror movie favourite of mine, because reading all the posts from this blog hop has put in the mood for some good ol' scares.

The Relic, about a monster created from consuming a fungus loaded with many, many different different animal hormones, falls into a class of 'almost possible' monster movies. This is the type of movie where science and fantasy combine. The film goes on and on about DNA and evolutionary biology, but the key to the whole plot is superstition and the unknown, that's why it is scary. The mixture of known and unknown, science and fantasy, make it that much scarier, because this thing might be real.

This is something that some science fiction does really well, take something familiar and turns it into something monstrous. The Wirrn from Doctor Who, the Ark In Space is an example of this. The Wirrn are a space-going insect, much like our wasps, and, like the parasitic versions of that species, the Wirrn plant themselves into a living organism and the parasitic grub then takes over the host, consuming them.

This is nasty enough and can be seen in our own nature, so it's not a leap for the viewer, if we accept aliens existing, that one of those races could be parasitic. However, to add another level of menace, the Wirrn grubs can also reproduce themselves by spreading their slime onto another host, something that happens to Noah, the commander of the space station which is the ark, and we see him slowly turn into a Wirrn, his intelligence, as well as his body absorbed into their hive mind.

You may think that this is far fetched, but, there are some parasites who take over the minds of their victims in our nature, there is one that takes over a snail and encourages it to go upwards towards the light so birds can eat it and the parasite can then gestate in the bird faeces. So, it's not so unreasonable and that makes it all the more monstrous when we see it happen to one of our own species!

Another monster that makes me shudder every time is the alien from The Thing. Again, it works on our fear of parasites, something that can absorb something else so completely that it can actually take on the shape of that thing. That's the genius of The Thing, you don't know who it is and as well as man against alien, we see man against man as well. I admire the moviemaker's magic in The Thing, but it gives me nightmares every time, so I don't watch it very often! ;P

I don't think something has to be biological to be a monster, either, there has been many a super computer looking to take over, control, or otherwise subjugate its masters. Computers exist, we have ones that can now hold conversations to a level where it is difficult to tell them from us, so the leap to making them intelligent and sentient is not a big one for the layman. Thus we have HAL in 2001, the support structure that strangles those it is meant to support. Also, we have Vger from Star Trek The Motion Picture, a monster destroying all in its path when we first meet it, but later, one of those loveable monsters, or, at the very least, a child that brings out the sympathy of the viewer.

And I want to finish with the monster that is all too real, the horror that already exists in our society, so is perfect fodder for horror writers: the serial killer. In this creature of nightmares, reality is almost worse than fiction, because it is so horrific to believe what one human is capable of doing to others.

Harold Shipman killed over 200 of his patients just because he wanted to. Ted Bundy lusted after slender young women with long dark hair and he killed them without conscience. So when we see the likes of Johnny Bartlet on The Frighteners, we easily accept that he is a serial killer and the horrors he has perpetrated are a shock, but not anything beyond our realm of possibilities. Thus the leap that makes him more terrible for the viewer is not his murderous nature, it is that he is a ghost carrying on his serial killings from the urn. Okay, so that bit is a lot harder to swallow, if you don't believe in ghosts, but the fact that he has a deluded girlfriend talking to him and helping him is, sadly, not so unusual. Serial killers make good horror.

So, that's me for today. If you have any ideas about monsters that could possibly, I'd love to hear about them. :)

May Monster Madness #4 - Monsters with Beautiful Faces

This is my fourth post for the  May Monster Madness Blog Hop.

This post is all about those monsters that hide behind beauty: I'm talking about evil step mothers and wicked fairies. In these creatures from fairytales and fantasy, beauty is ice cold, their ugliness hidden behind a mask, but that makes them no less monstrous than an ogress. 

The first beautiful monster I want to talk about is the Wicked Step Mother from Snow White. A woman who wants to kill her own step daughter simply because the developing young woman is more beautiful than her. She is the ultimate in self-centred ruthlessness and many different actresses has relished playing her. Charlize Theron plays a wonderfully demented bitch queen from hell and is, IMHO, the best part of Snow White and the Huntsman. However, for deranged monster, Miranda Richardson gives her a run for her money in a Hallmark version. Of course, though, Disney, on film at least, gave us the original!

 Sticking with fairytales, but moving away from mothers to fairies, one of my favourite Disney villains is Maleficent, the wicked fairy from Sleeping Beauty. For not being invited to the baby princess' christening, she turns up and curses the child to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. And then of course, she does her utmost to ensure that her curse comes true. Only Aurora's fairy god mothers' intervention turns death into sleep, but Maleficent is not finished. When the prince comes along to awaken his Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent turns herself into a dragon to prevent him from waking the damsel. This monstrous fae will stop at nothing to see her will win out.

Fairytales have their fair share of evil beauties, but they are not limited to this genre. In fact, science fiction has one memorable one for me, because she is introduced as a angel of mercy, a nurse, but she turns out to be anything but that. In Dr Who's, The Pirate Planet, we are introduced to The Captain, who rules Xanak with both a stick of rigid control, but also with the carrot of repeated Ages of Prosperity, where jewels and luxury are provided to all those who don't ask too many questions. The Captain has a pretty nurse looking after him. However, as the story progresses, this woman reveals herself as not only less than merciful, but also the new body for the evil Queen Xanxia, who was not only a despot, but used up all the resources of her own planet and has destroyed hundreds of others in the quest for eternal life. She's a mass murderer on an almost limitless scale and thus earns her place on my list of beautiful monsters.

Finally, I couldn't leave out my favourite genre and my favourite type of monster, that being paranormal fantasy and the vampire. In modern times, there have been many handsome/beautiful vampires gracing our screens, but I'm going to pick just one, because she is so coldly murderous, but intensely sexy that she deserves a mention. I'm talking, of course, about Vampire Willow from Buffy. Of course, she does have her ugly face, some would say her true face, but, like many of her type, her beauty is one of her weapons and when combined with her depravity is chilling.



So, that's it for today and I hope you enjoyed my little trip through monsters with beautiful faces. Do you have any favourite evil beauties?

May Monster Madness #3 - Loveable Monsters

This is my third post for the  May Monster Madness Blog Hop.

My subject today is loveable monsters, those (sometimes) ugly creatures that are a bit scary but that turn out to be adorable.

Jim Henson was a master at creating loveable monsters. From Animal in The Muppets to Ludo from Labyrinth, he could conjure up characters that were instantly a little bit dangerous/insane but were also totally hug-worthy.

Animal has long been a favourite muppet of mine. Just left of totally insane, this drummer extraordinaire always made me laugh as a kid. He has so thoroughly entered the collective consciousness of the western world that we only have to see him on a T-shirt to know that the wearer is trying to propose a little anarchy :)

Ludo is a loveable monster right from when we meet him in Labyrinth. He's a big, hairy, lumbering giant with few words, but a wonderful heart. He is a gentle creature whose heart is far from stone, even though some of his best friends are rocks ;)

Labyrinth, by its very nature, had more than its fair share of monsters in the form of goblins and even talking door-knockers and, the fairies are right little monsters as well, be careful, they bite! Because we are seeing them through the eyes of Sarah (whom Ludo lovingly calls Sawah ;)), most every creature she meets in the Goblin Kingdom is monstrous. This is not true in other fantasy realms where we may be looking/reading through the eyes of a person who would themselves be considered a monster by we humans, so, being a monster is relative and depends on the reaction of the protagonists in a story.

In Krull, most of the heroes are human, but they are joined by one cyclops (played by Bernard Bresslaw), who is viewed as somewhere between monster and man by the others until they get to know him. This is because cyclops are a reclusive people who do not mix with men. He is a sad character, as all cyclops are, because the true monster, 'The Beast' that Prince Colwyn needs to fight to rescue his betrothed, has given the cyclops the power to see the future, but only to see their own individual deaths. As a child, I always wanted to be able to give him a hug.

Science Fiction has its own share of loveable monsters as well. I would put E.T. into this category: he's short, round, wrinkly and alien, but those big, round eyes and his inquisitive, friendly nature make him one of the most adorable monsters of all time. I have heard it said that the US government bankrolled E.T. to get Earth ready for meeting aliens - whether it's true, or just a very cute conspiracy theory I will leave up to you, but I would say that in E.T. we have a really great boon to Earth-Alien relations ;P.

Of course, there are some 'monsters' on our screens that we love to love for completely different reasons: I'm talking about the suave monsters whose possibly murderous nature we ignore in favour of them being rather sexy ;). Dracula fits the bill here, and Edward (if you're into the sparkly one). Personally, I started fancying vampires in The Lost Boys. Vampires ooze sex appeal, they are seducers and monsters that make us wonder if we are that bothered about being bitten o.O.

Of course, there are some not-so-loveable vampires, but they don't fall under the loveable label, so I'll leave them to another post! Werewolves and even, dare I say it, zombies are also getting in on the sexy act as well these days. These are the characters we find in our paranormal fiction, and I've even been known to throw in a sexy ghost as well to my writing (The Need In Me). They're our strong-man, risky relationship fantasies and, I don't know about you, but I enjoy reading, watching and writing about them.

So, there you have it, my gallop through monsters we can't help adoring. Are there any monsters you want to give a hug, or maybe even a little bit more? ;)

May Monster Madness #2 - The Woman In Black

This is my second post for the  May Monster Madness Blog Hop.

I've written, or rather, raved about The Woman In Black before on this blog, under Hammer's The Woman In Black and from that post, it is pretty obvious I am a big, big fan of this story in all its forms, book, stage play, TV adaptation and movie. However, today I want to concentrate of The Woman In Black, herself, Jenette Humprhey, who, to me, is a brilliantly terrifying monster.

WARNING - SPOILERS!

May Monster Madness #1 - Monsters & Me

Being a big fan of monsters and ghosts and ghouls, The May Monster Madness Blog Hop has it all for me ;) This is their second year, but my first.

I thought, since this is my first post in the blog hop, I'd tell you a little bit about myself and why I find monsters are great to watch, read and write. I'm a writer, and I firmly believe my taste in genres is down to my 80's upbringing watching and reading some great horror, sci-fi and fantasy.

I grew up watching the likes of Dr Who, with Daleks and Cybermen and weird creatures made from bubble wrap and green paint that could kill with one swipe of their slime. I hid behind the proverbial cushion and screamed at the right times. I remember distinctly as a small child being terrified by Davros, the creator of the daleks. He is humanoid, but so twisted and devoid of any humanity that the memory of his blind, crinkled face still gives me the shivers!

I was watching Dr Who as a young child, the evils the Doctor battled were my first monsters, safely PG, although they did some of the most dastardly things. I watched and read other sci-fi and fantasy as well as a child: fairy tales; V; Jason and the Argonauts; Invasion of the Body Snatchers had me looking under my bed every night for years! ;P

However, I was in my teens before I graduated to what I define as 'real horror'.  Movies such as Evil Dead, Salem's Lot, Nightmare On Elmstreet and the darkness of books by Stephen King and James Herbert. I've always preferred a good scare, as in ghosts and things going bump in the night to blood and guts and gore, but some of those movies from the 80's impressed me. Evil Dead, especially, which they have just remade, but I have yet to see the remake. The first in the Evil Dead series was produced on a shoestring budget by young men straight out of college and it has its naff acting in places, but it also has a creepiness that gets me every time I watch it. Sam Raimi proves he has the instinct for horror right from the get go, but the scariest bit in the movie for me is where Ash's girlfriend is sitting in the corner, possessed, looking like a demonic doll and she is just giggling, nothing else, just this high-pitched insidious sound. It is a moment straight out of nightmare and is spine-chilling in it's madness.

There was something about those 80's movies that I think has become lost in the over-blown CGI of many lower budget horrors of today. There was an effort to the cinematography that in a lot of movies has been replaced with computer effects. They lost the scare-factor by making the horror too big. However, there are still some good story tellers out there, in my opinion, where the story and talent of the director outclasses the budget. Boo! is one of those movies for me. It's an old fashioned situation horror, featuring, yes, that old favourite, the haunted mental hospital, but it takes the story of a mismatched bunch of people trying to get out of the nightmare to some interesting new levels with some good old fashioned camera work that scares the hell out of me. The camera sweeping past a shadowy figure at the back of the lift still gives me goosebumps :).

So, y'see, I like a good scare along with the best of 'em, but my monsters have to come with a good dose of suspense. I don't like pure slasher movies, there has to be something about monsters to me that is otherworldly: darkness has to be surreal. What do you think about monsters, are there some that you remember from childhood that still scare you?

Quartet - A Review

I am going to be brutally honest and sum up my opinion of this film in one word - disappointment.

Now I'll explain why that, sadly, my view is thus.

Quartet is about a home for retired musicians, but more than that, we're talking about divas and maestros all rubbing shoulders together in a rather lovely country house. Perfect basis for comedy with just a touch of bitter-sweet retrospect - at least that is what I thought. And the cast: well, some of Britain's best comedic actors, Dame Maggie Smith, Tom Courtney, Bill Connolly and Pauline Collins play our foursome of the title, plus there's Michael Gambon blustering away in the background and a host of other recognisable faces.

So, when the DVD arrived on my doorstep, I sat down eagerly in a prearranged viewing with my mother and father, who, being big fans of Maggie Smith, have been waiting for this movie since it was announced.

It started quite well. We are introduced to three of our four protagonists, Reggie (Tom Courtney), a rather sniffy, once lauded opera singer, Wilf (Billy Connolly), who is what he describes as a jobbing musician (also a rather good operatic singer), who has had a stroke and blames his lecherous activities on not being able to censor himself, and finally Cissy (Pauline Collins), who is a very sweet lady, with great memories of the glory days, but not too many memories of what she had for breakfast. They make an interesting trio, harping at each other, observing their world and, in Wilf''s case, making hell for Cedric (that's pronounced Seedric ;P Michael Gambon's bossy maestro who is taking the credit for organising the concert that is at the heart of the story even when others are doing most of the work).

However, my interest waned within about the first ten minutes. The reason being, I began to find everything about the film was muted, like I was viewing it through some dream that meant no-one could show their emotions. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was something about the directing, I think, that cut me off from the characters.

Be in no doubt, there was material enough for a good film in there, but let me address the failures in each:

• a home for musical artists - a perfect opportunity for eccentricity and colourful characters, a mainstay of British comedy-drama. Yes, well, we got the odd flourish of colourful characters and the montage at the beginning started very well, but as the film began to concentrate of the four members of the quartet, I think the film lost that background, relying mostly on the buffooning of Michael Gambon and the concert committee with the odd skit from the residents thrown in as they practiced for the concert - it was all a bit remote.
• a concert that has to be a success or the home will close and everyone will have to go into a world that doesn't understand their artistic temperaments.  I got the feeling, although it was just a hint, that the home catered to the needs of musicians in a way that other places didn't, but, like most of the rest of the film, I don't think enough was made of this. Sheridan Smith played Dr Lucy Coleman admirably, but it was all smiles and the occasional roll of eyes, there was no real interaction, nothing that showed us she was really worried about the future of the home, nothing to sink a connection with her character into.
• a diva leaving her home and moving into a new environment. Jean (Maggie Smith), is a famous opera star who has had to leave her London home for the only reason we are told is that she is recovering from a hip op (not really a good reason IMO, I would liked to have known more, what made her decide she needed to go into a home, why did the hip op make her decide she was vulnerable). I love Maggie Smith, my favourite of her roles is in Gosford Park. However, quite frankly, her slightly broken diva was lack-lustre by any standards, again, I feel the hand of the director here. I wasn't looking for OTT temper tantrums and histrionics, but what diva there was visible seemed to have been instructed to under act, which threw away a lot of moments in passing in the film that should have made more of an impact.
• An old romance that has left both parties damaged. Jean and Reggie were once an item, a married
  
  couple, in fact, and they parted on bad terms. Both thinks they made a mistake in leaving the other, but, of course, neither says it, and thus we have the 'drama' part of our comedy. Now, there were some wonderful lines written for Jean and Reggie for this part of the plot, but, and yes, I am repeating myself, they were delivered in such a throw-away tone that it took me a little while to catch up, and I know I was supposed to laugh at some of them, but the timing was all wrong and I just didn't. Even the inevitable ending to this missed romance was played in such a muted way, I had to make an effort to be happy about it.
• trying to persuade Jean to sing in the concert. Jean doesn't want anything to do with the concert. Actually, a poignant bit of the movie that I will give it points for is the moment Jean confesses to Reggie that she gave up singing because she couldn't cope with the pressure of having to be better and  better. Now, this was an important fact, it should have informed much of the action at the end of the film, but, it didn't - there was some mumbling about just get out there and sing, but no tragicomedic moments around self doubt and not wanting to go on - at least, if there were, I missed them.

All in all, Quartet felt like there was a good movie wanting to get out of it somewhere, but opportunities, both dramatic and comedic wandered by without the right timing or emphasis they deserved. And I think the ending summed it up - the quartet the whole movie has been about, the piece of music these four are famous for singing together, was done off screen, in music only. Now, I know actors aren't singers and miming is not always effective and the director was doing it deliberately, but since everything else about the movie had been so muted, I wanted my uplifting moment, thank you very much, and what I got was a view of the country house and the credits.

Farewell A to Z - It's Been Fun! Reflections

Well, that's it, May is upon us and this is the end of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge. 30 days of constant blogging, of searching out subjects, of deciding those subjects were interesting and then talking about them. Then of course, fitting in between all the writing the time to go and check out other people's blogs. I'm still doing that, there are so many that it will probably take me the rest of the year to check them all out. Still, I've found some interesting blogs that I've followed and some lovely people have started following me, or at least commented on some of my posts, letting me know I'm not just talking to myself ;).

Reflections
This was a really easy challenge to sign up to, just added my name to the list on the A to Z site and started writing. I do hope that list stays up, because I have a whole heap of folks I never got to, because there are so many people on the list and, as I said above, I want to carry on wandering around the blogs. I only had one 'interaction' disappointment - I had two blogs in this challenge, and when I found the same generic message from one person on both, which said nothing about the post itself, it gave me a big hint that they might be doing that to lots of people, and, well, I know there were a lot of folks to get round, but it would have been nice to know they'd actually read the post they were commenting on.

I think this challenge has helped me improve my blogging technique. I've been able to check out how other people do it, and jumping into other blogs blind has shown me how not to do it as well. Some blogs are well laid out, with easy to find background on the blog and the blogger, and easy links for following the blog by several mechanism. Others, well, some of them I couldn't even find a blog post about A to Z, let alone a follow icon! ;P I have actually begun adding menu items to my blog when seeing where it has been done well on others.

The advice from the A to Z team to pre-schedule posts was a really, really good one, because, despite having stacked up about 50% of my posts in advance, I wrote the final one the day before it was due to go out, because, whaddaya know, life gets in the way of a little thing like producing a blog post on 26 out of 30 days o.O.

Finally, in this reflections section, I just want to thank the A to Z Ambassadors who came round before and during the challenge, you really made me feel like I was part of something *hugs*! :D

So Feeling Accomplished?
In 26 posts, over 30 days, I really have bounced around a bit in my interests, from blogging about failure and how to embrace it all the way to xenoliths (and no, I didn't know what they were either until I was desperate for an interesting word beginning with X and they proved to be a rather good analogy for Alternative Universe fiction in fandom ;P). I'm also happy that I had a chance to test by fiction-writerly muscles, as I kicked off a new story, A Fork In The Road (The Hidden War #3), the first two parts of which are serialised in the A to Z under K is for Knowing and Q is for Questions, and I'll be continuing with part three very soon, once I've had a short breather ;).

I even hosted a stop on the blog tour of author, Kia Zi Shiru, who is promoting her Black Sheep Trilogy.

I ended up creating a list.ly list for all my posts so I could keep track of them and make sure I didn't repeat myself!

Well, congrats to everyone who 'survived' the A to Z, I hope we're all feeling accomplished. :) 

Keep blogging, keep interacting - I know I will!

(psst - seekrit admission, I even joined tumblr thanks to this blog hop, because one of the blogs I really liked, Coffintree Hill, is on there)