I have often derided myself as a “lightweight” when it comes to horror movies.  

Many people talk about how horror movies are fun because they let you get frightened in a safe environment.  You get all the fun stuff without any real danger.  And this makes a lot of sense to me.

But I’m one of those people who gets deeply immersed in the virtual world when I’m watching a movie.  On some level, I become part of that world, and I forget that it isn’t real.  Brutal violence leaves me profoundly shaken and it takes me a while to pull myself together afterward.

Lots of gore, body horror, intense personal violence — these things are just not my speed.  I barely made it through the original Evil Dead.  The original Dawn of the Dead left me shaken and weeping.  I had to bail on Hellraiser and Blade II.  I don’t even want to think about the Saw movies.

There are few movies out there which bring enough other valuable stuff to make the distress worthwhile.  A Clockwork Orange and Pan’s Labyrinth come to mind; and I’ve still only been able to watch them once.

But all of that doesn’t mean that I dislike horror movies.  Far from it!

Monster movies, kaiju, the work of studios like Universal in the 1930s through the 1960s, Hammer, Amicus — I love that stuff!  I relish the creepy, the occasionally gruesome, the mysterious, the atmospheric.

If the violence is restrained, or just unrealistic enough that I can abstract myself and remember that what I am seeing is imaginary, then I can get frightened, creeped out, even excited by the possibilities of a mysterious and supernatural world.

I spent several very key years of my childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area and spending my late Friday and Saturday nights watching Creature Features.  It was the late 1970s, and things were quite different from the way they are now:

There was only one “Star Wars” movie.  It was called Star Wars.

Home video games were limited to the brand-new Atari 2600, which with a price tag of over $800 in today’s money, was a toy for the well-off.

It was more or less accepted that smoking was bad for you, but most people did it anyway and it was legal just about everywhere.

Home video recorders didn’t exist.  If you wanted to watch a TV show, you had to plant yourself in front of the set when that show was on.  And you’d better hope no one else in the house wanted to watch something on another channel.  Most folks had only one TV set in the house.

During that time, I often spent Saturday staying over at my best friend’s house.  Sometimes we’d swim in her pool.  Other times we’d play games on the Atari, which I was terrible at.  (Some things don’t change.)  We also played with our Barbie dolls, making up stories that were much more befitting the movies we’d be watching later than the usual clothes, cars and glam stuff.

After dinner, we’d make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, finishing up with one giant cookie each, and took that still warm and gooey treat into the den and settled in to watch Creature Features.

We’d get the tail end of The 10 O’Clock News.  And then came the funky theme music and the decidedly un-funky host, Bob Wilkins.  Unlike many horror hosts, he didn’t go in for costume or schtick, but simply sat in his chair in a spooky old house set, smoking a cigar and telling us a little about the movie we were about to see.

As often as not, he’d caution us that we’d best not expect much.  I don’t remember ever being put off, though.

Our favorites were the Godzilla movies.  We’d make up Godzilla’s dialogue, our own translations of what everyone’s favorite giant radioactive lizard was saying with those weird roars.  Those roars have echoed down through the years and informed a lot of my taste in movies.

Come to think, Godzilla movies (along with You Only Live Twice) were probably my introduction to Japan and Japanese culture, giving me a curiosity which blossomed into full blown fascination when I discovered anime almost a decade later.

We saw lots of other movies on Creature Features too.  Universal monster movies, spooky haunted house flicks, William Castle weirdness, goodness knows what else.  I might have even seen Night of the Living Dead there, although I doubt I made it through the whole thing.

Or maybe I did, and that’s why the movie disturbs me so much to this day.  Who can say?  I certainly can’t.

I probably saw my first Hammer films on Creature Features too, but my strongest memory of a Hammer film comes from the fall of 1984.

I was alone in a college dorm TV room, stitching trim on a cape and watching a movie with the (as it seemed to me at the time) outlandish title of Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter.  Outlandish or not, that movie ended up having a lot of influence on my writing, and still does.

Now that I’ve shared my background, I’d like to contribute more to this blog.  I’ll be offering my takes on some old favorites and new discoveries.  I hope to share an “old school” perspective, and maybe even show how “lightweight” can be exciting, appealing and fun.  

After all, getting a broader perspective can’t hurt — especially when you have to look over your shoulder or into the dark.

For fuck’s sake.  It’s been a year.

I said I was going to keep up, but I didn’t.  Look, it’s just been fucking chaos.  Some good, all sorts of bad.  Even a fracture.

It hasn’t been easy, but we’re trying to keep the faith.  Today, I offer proof. Read the rest of this entry »

So what happened to Afterhell?

Did anyone notice that we were gone?  Or that we were ever here?

Yeah, that’s right.  I’m feeling defensive about the whole thing.

I’ve been putting off this post, figuring that it would be hard to explain the long absence to an invisible audience.  I know three people are out in the ether, following all this.  And they already know most of the details.

But I’m also aware of the trolls, griefers, and spammers out there.    You know, the ones with the knives out.  And beyond them lies a vast, cold indifference.

So is there a point in saying anything?  I wondered.  For a long time.

I took too long.  I know that.  So yeah.  Feeling defensive.  And embarrassed.  Bitter.  Feeling lost at sea.  Most of all, I feel like walking wounded.

Bear with me.  If you want me to answer the question of “where were we,” keep reading.  Follow the white rabbit.

Short version:  Ollin Productions has been a troubled house.  We suffered many personal losses, a few professional ones, and it fell hard.  Now we’re doubling our efforts.

Shorter rude version:  Fuckyou youdontknowwhatIvebeenthrough wherethehellwereyouwhenallthisshitwasgoingon

Sorry, I had to get out of my system.  Let’s do the long version.

A lot of things went wrong.  Not everything.  Just a lot.

For Ollin Productions.  For Afterhell.  For me and Jamie.  In the end, they all mean the same thing.

Or so I thought.  That was the first problem.  The big one.  I’ll save that for the end.

The perfect storm for us was death.  Not the boogeyman we flirt with in horror fiction.  Every few months, for four fucking years, death ran through our extended family like a wave.

First it was my father.  Four of my aunts.  My cousin.  Over six weeks, all of our cats died.  A dead cat every two weeks, like some twisted subscription service.  Then Jamie’s uncle.  To say nothing about all the heroes, icons, and inspirational figures — but those fine people didn’t tuck us in or hug us by the shoulder while saying, “Welcome to the family.”  They were background radiation compared to all this.

After months and months of shellshock and grey days regardless of the sun, Jamie and I were left empty.  We knew.  We’d suffer loss before.  But this felt like war.  We were losing.  And we were trying so hard not to surrender — to find a deep enough bottle and never come out.

Seriously, Death.  I’ve long suspected you were beautiful and well-meaning even before Neil Gaiman stuck his fine nose in.  But seriously, Death, fuck you.

Christ, I’m still crying.

And considering how many times Afterhell had been written off, dismissed, publicly mocked, literally thrown back in my face…  honestly, would you have bothered to keep it going?

Even for a shoestring production, Afterhell is an intimate process.  Friends were brought together and separated by personal concerns, not market forces.  There was no business plan.  No concern about mainstream radio or podcasting (which was bleeding edge tech at the time.)  And no awareness of online communities that might like us, shag us, or throw us over a cliff.

We found out later that most of them would do all three.

Old Time Radio groups glommed onto us, only to disavow us because our horror wasn’t corny and our sound was too digital.

The Horror Writers Association dismissed us out of hand because our work is self-produced and uncommissioned.  Self-published horror comics are okay, but fuck audio.

Audiodrama discussion groups romanced us like codependent partners from hell, openly courting us and avowing their undying friendship, then squelching any difference of opinion.  Quantity over quality and mutual admiration societies.  Otherwise?  Yerrrr out.

Real audiodramatists, professional artists instead of fanfic writers, embraced us until they realized our content wasn’t family friendly or sufficiently highbrow.  “You’re a great writer, but sorry, Afterhell is out.”  BOOT.

And I won’t even get into radio programming directors.

I once called horror audio fiction the crazy aunt locked in the basement.  That’s how Afterhell is treated.  Sometimes it sucks to be right.

So I really didn’t think anyone would notice whether we’d gone away.

I don’t say this to rationalize our non-existent turnout.  We haven’t produced new episodes in years.  Or blogged.  Or tweaked code.  Hell, I’ve gone months without looking at the damn site.

Remember the worst part?  Here it is.  The clincher.  The nail in the coffin.

I was the only member of Ollin Productions who wanted Afterhell to happen.  Jamie was done with it.

It wasn’t just the grief.  Jamie was never really into it.  She gets vampires (old school vamps, none of that Twilight crap) and Lovecraftian horror to some extent.  Between the extreme content and the public disapproval, she walked away from Afterhell.

Before someone gets mad at her, let me tell you something.  I was on the verge of doing the same.

But I’m getting so damn tired of crappy horror.  Sturgeon’s Law probably applies.  It usually does.  But instead of demanding better, horror fans embrace the crap.

No, I mean it.  We applaud the gore and the cheese.  We’re making deliberately shitty meals out of all the gore and cheese.  Not tolerating lackluster production values for the sake of a fun story.  Just eating the shit sandwich.

Zombie stories are everywhere.  A dime a dozen.  Ripping off Max Brooks or George Romero doesn’t cut it.  Stupid people doing stupid things for the sake of the plot is stupid.  And vampires are worse.  Whether it sparkles or splatters, the characters and the story they’re have to be interesting, people.

And making them interesting takes a lot more effort than it seems.  And fewer creators are making the effort.

Look at The Strain.  Or better yet, don’t.

Instead, just read it.  You’ll find intriguing, sympathetic people in a crisis.  The absentee father who chases plagues.  The married couple, lonely and growing apart while passion still gnaws at them.  The grieving vampire hunter, haunted by the depths of true evil.

Watch the premiere episode and you’ll get bored.  And irritated.  It feels like some droning lecture masquerading as a puppet show.  Stuff happens and there’s no one to care about.  Only divas and dimwits.

Where’s the likeable, driven scientist?  We get a pushy, self-important jerk who kisses and pats his son like a puppy.  There’s a vamp hunter and he’s kind of tragic.  He’s sharp enough to scare the crap out of a hardcore thug, but not smart enough to keep his fucking cashbox out of reach.  And of course, the archetypal dying rich guy pulling all the strings.

This isn’t a horror story.  It’s a one-stop cliche superstore.  The grieving parent who lashes out at the hero.  The lab tech that touches scary shit with his bare fucking hands.

But surely, this is a horror story!  There’s blood and goo and dissected people.  Little worms that poke through people’s eyes.  Yea, verily, an ample opportunity for gross-out.  And spooky stuff.  Oh, such spooky I shall give thee.  Nay, I reject thy claim of compact comestible shite–

Look, I don’t care.  Maybe I’ve gotten old or more jaded by life.  But I was never impressed by gore.  Part of my problem is that I’ve already read the book, so I know the gross-outs are coming.

But everyone’s expecting the gross-out.  The promo art.  The worm in the eye.  Everybody knows it’s coming.  So that couldn’t be the only attraction for the audience.  Can it?

Judging from all the tweets and reviews… yup.  Only one negative review so far.  And I usually hate that guy.

We’re talking about Guillermo del Toro, I know.  I get that.  Boy, do I get that.  I’ve been a fan of his movies for years.  He makes movies I wish I had made.  He lingers on shadows and turns them into magical worlds.

So watching The Strain on FX was really, really depressing.  I know pilot eps usually suck, compared to the whole series.  But Cthulhu on a crutch, our pilot ep was better!  And we were learning! We were struggling, praying that we were doing something right.

Guillermo, you let me down, man.  I’m disappointed.  Utterly furious.

And then I see some more horror news come down the pike.  Chris Carter is producing a post-apocalyptic show called…

The After?

The After?!

A violent, unpredictable world called THE AFTER?!

Did someone declare war on me?  Ugh, just walk away.  Find a dumpster and do penalty throws.  No more struggling.  No more nightmare wrangling.

No.  I was here first.  Not my friends.  Not the fans.  Not my allies.  Just me.

I was alone with my nightmares.  I saw things.  People.  Things they did.  They appeared in my dreams and mutated.  Every time I fell asleep, I had nightmares that I still can’t talk about.  They tore at my waking hours.  Kept me from sleeping for weeks.

Weeks.  Days and days of being afraid of your own head, of the crap inside it, terrified of closing your eyes.

Do you know what that’s like?  Fuck Nightmare on Elm Street and that pervy boogeyman bullshit.  Do you know?

One day I started writing them down.  And I was so tired.  Enough to fall asleep.  And the nightmares stopped.  They were on paper, given a place to live, so they let me go.

I went through it.  I lived it.  I’m still here.

And nobody.  Fucking.  Helped.

Despite my reputation, I try not to complain.  I do anyway.  But only because I’ve had enough.  The meter reads full and I have to let it out sometimes.

So I don’t like to share my troubles.  Big or small.  Heartbreaking or stupid shit.  I don’t know.  I just assume everyone has something better to do.

But now I’m telling you.  This is why.

Afterhell disappeared for a while.  Whatever the reasons, I just stopped doing it.

And now it’s time.  Put up or shut up.

Afterhell delivers to live.  There is ample evidence of a need, regardless of whether the need is mine or that of others.  But if you’re smart, you’ll keep up.

I’m going to do my best to give you the best nightmares you’ve ever had.

Start running.

Any good zombie story deserves a sequel!  Spotted last Saturday in Oakland:

Zombies lurch down Telegraph to support libraries, brains

Zombies are all the rage these days — and now, it looks like they’re joining the “Days of Rage.”  A group of zombies was seen recently, heading for the Wisconsin state house in Madison:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/03/963087/-New-developments-in-Wisconsin-solidarity:Zombies-on-Parade!UPDATE:Faux-News-reports! (from DailyKos)

Any protest is better with a zombie horde on your side!

We will be vending at the third annual Portland Hallowe’en Bazaar this Sunday, October 10, from noon to 6pm.  This grand celebration of all things delightfully spooky will be at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland.  It’s in a giant tent, so you don’t have to worry about rain!

Crafters and entertainers from all over the region will be there, giving you the opportunity buy handcrafted Halloween goodies you won’t find anywhere else and definitely not at the chain stores!  All ages are welcome.

We will have “Afterhell” CDs for sale, as well as discs from our friends at the Willamette Radio Workshop and Transdimensional Media (including a brand new release!)  We’ll also have Mexican-style sugar skulls to help you celebrate Dia de los Muertos, and spooky jewelry from the House of Sailbourne!

That’s not a reference to some new sound presentation technology (though that’s sure to happen eventually), but rather, to the state of Arkansas!  Self-described “Benton Resident.  Rogue journalist. Recovering attorney.” Ethan Nobles has written an excellent article about “Afterhell” for the First Arkansas News (FAN) website:

And now for something completely different …

Ethan interviewed Joe and I via Skype a few weeks ago, and is presenting our story as part of a series on modern audio theater.  We talk about where “Afterhell” originated, the challenges involved in getting the word out about a series that’s so different from everything else in the field today, and even offer a brief preview of the “Dicebag Theater” project.

Share and enjoy!

We’ve just uploaded the Afterhell story “Dead Peasants” on our podcast feed.  If you would like to download the file without subscribing, you can do that right here:

\”Afterhell: Dead Peasants\”

We’re posting this after being inspired by Keith Olbermann’s latest Special Comment about health care reform.  He mentioned COLI, otherwise known as “dead peasant” insurance.  We first heard about this rather ugly practice back in 2005, and Joe was inspired to write the story “Dead Peasants.” It originally appeared on the Afterhell Volume 2 disc.

If you want to help the cause of health care reform, please click the button below to make a donation via PayPal.  We will send all donations on to the National Association of Free Clinics, to help them in an effort to put on free health care fairs in the principal cities of states whose Senators are key to getting health care reform passed.

Sorry, sorry… less than nothing for months, but tons of waiting.  If you’ve been able to read the Twitter box on this page, you’re probably aware of one of the many reasons why you’re still waiting for new eps.

In the meantime, I couldn’t pass this up:

Olbermann: Next GOP obsession could be zombie attacks

Ollin Productions is planning a new project we are calling “Dicebag Theater.”  This new show draws on our experience as gamers (we’ve both been playing role-playing games for nearly 30 years) as well as our audio theater experience to bring you a new and unique view of the gaming hobby.

Each episode of “Dicebag Theater” will combine recordings of actual gameplay sessions with dramatizations of the scenes that have been played out in the game.  We hope to thus give listeners a peek inside the gamer’s imagination and foster a greater understanding about a hobby that is frequently misunderstood at best and feared and demonized at worst.  Joe has said that our goal is “to make the show for folks who fear RPGs, to show there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

We will release “Dicebag Theater” on our podcast feed.  It’s our plan to make the show as family-friendly as possible, as we believe that RPGs can — and should — be a hobby the whole family can enjoy.

We’ve gotten permission from several game designers to feature their games on the show, and we’re working now to gather both gamers and actors who are interested in helping us out with this project.  If you fit into either (or both!) of these categories, please get in touch with us!

We’ll keep our fans and friends updated on developments as work on “Dicebag Theater” progresses.  Spread the word!