The Davis Girl (TDG): I am joined today via Google Hangouts by illustrator Shannon Stamey. He draws things. Welcome Shannon. Shannon Stamey (SS): Thanks for having me! TDG: You draw some pretty awesome things, Shannon. SS: Thanks! Sometimes I draw total crap. TDG: What do you do with the crap drawings? SS: There's a furnace in the basement of my apartment building. TDG: Oooooooh. SS: Other times, I keep them to remind myself where I've screwed up. TDG: I like to burn things, too. SS: I usually just throw them away. TDG: What is the the last thing[...]
Category
Classic Horror
4 Hello, lovelies! Sorry for the lame title but I can't think of any other way to express my fondness for middle grade horror. I LOVE it, and not just because I write it. There's something so magical about scaring kids. I remember hiding in the back shelves of the library, pouring over SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK. I was hooked on the shivers and the adrenaline I felt coursing through my veins when that girl's sore split open and spiders went ALL OVER HER FACE. When I read IN A DARK, DARK ROOM (and other scary stories), I became obsessed with the story, "Th[...]
Today, we're taking a trip in the wayback machine, kids. We're going to head back to about 1982 or 83, when an early chapter in my horror-loving origin story was written. When a man by the name of Wade Denning scared the holy hell out of me and helped instill my fascination with all things macabre for the rest of my life. In 1975, Pickwick Records released "Famous Ghost Stories With Scary Sounds," a collection of short horror stories by the likes of Edgar Allan poe, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving and more. Denning--who was well-known for his commercial jingle[...]
Morning, Kittens. As most of you know, children are kind of disgusting. They grow INSIDE another person, FFS. They come into the world screaming and covered in goop, and that's just the beginning. Now don't get me wrong, I love my tiny human. He is my teenie best friend and I wouldn't trade one second with him for the world. But he is, for lack of a better word, a little bit gross. Some of my favourite horror movies of all time are speckled with creepy kidlets. So in honour of Thanksgiving and kids everywhere, here are some terrifying tots I'm thankfu[...]
(This post contains spoilers for Silent Hill 2. You've been warned.) Yeeeeeah, I kinda hoped I never got desperate enough I resorted to writing about this one, because I'm pretty sure this will turn into a dissertation. There's been a lot of virtual ink spilt on Silent Hill 2 and honestly, I don't think there's anything I can I add to the discussion... so obviously there'll be at least three posts about the game I have to say about. Part One will discuss one meaning of the story while Part Two will look at the themes and symbolism, and Part Three will look at[...]
Hello Kittens, Happy Slasher Week!! Like my fellow bloggers, I'm a giant fan of slasher horror. I grew up hiding underneath my blankets, thinking the soft cotton would guard me from Freddy's claws. I know that if you're afraid of something in your house, you run outside...not upstairs. While I was terrified of these killers, I respected them. As I grew up, I developed a fondness for a certain type of crazed killer. Females. Nothing gave me the chills quite like a kind, motherly type cutting someone's throat. So, in honor of Slasher Week, I give you my[...]
To kick off October Fear Fest at The Midnight Society, Brian LeTendre hosted a live tweet of Sam Raimi's 1981 classic, EVIL DEAD. You can follow Brian on twitter @SeeBrianWrite, and follow @Mdnight_Society and #OctFearFest for more activities throughout October! [View the story "EVIL DEAD LIVE TWEET 9/30/15 #OctFearFest" on Storify] Join Brian for the tweet along of Evil Dead 2 with the hashtag #OctFearFest![...]
Welcome to The Midnight Society’s #OctFearFest! You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. - Stephen King When I sit down to think of the history of horror, lots of stuff comes into my mind (Frankenstein, of course) but if there's a type of horror I love best, it's comedy horror. There's nothing better than looking at something terrifying, and having a laugh. I'm sure that when people were first on this planet they were out there clubbing their dinner and laughing over the spray of blood, so the h[...]
Frankenstein's monster's stitches were done so roughly in the original film so people would immediately look at him and know he was a monster. Those stitches have since become a symbol for the monster. You can paint your nails black and green, with stitches tieing the colors together, and people will get the reference. Look at your monster nails! But the theme we come back to when we talk about Frankenstein, is that the creature wasn't the monster. Victor, the doctor who created him, was. He created this person, for his own selfish reasons, with no thought to[...]
When people ask me about the first horror movie I’ve ever watched, it’s usually Poltergeist that jumps to mind, mainly because I saw it when I was too young and that stupid clown scarred me for life. In reality though, Jaws was my first horror movie. I saw it when I was about six or seven years old, when my family was vacationing in Wells Beach, Maine. The TV was right next to the sliding glass doors of the cottage, through which I could see directly into the ocean. Yes, I watched Jaws less than a football field away from the water. To say that it profoundly[...]