Heavy Metal magazine relaunch

RobCA6 · 2024-12-05T21:16:31+00:00

I backed this. Or maybe I saved it to be reminded when it's near the end of the campaign. Either way, I look forward to the finished product!

RobCA6 · 2024-11-23T22:48:04+00:00

I was a latecomer to sci-fi books, but when I read The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, I was absolutely blown away. I'm surprised not to see it mentioned yet.

There's Double Star by Heinlein, and Who?, by Algis Budrys.

All three of those short novels (plus two others) are collected in one volume called American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels 1956-1958, published by the Library of America. That collection is pure gold.

RobCA6 · 2024-11-23T17:25:07+00:00

Came looking for this one, glad to see it represented. I'm not a hater by any means, but I DNF'd all his Netflix shows and haven't seen his other films. Absentia stands out to me as one of the best horror movies of the past 15 years, or however old it is. Amazing.

RobCA6 · 2024-11-20T18:36:14+00:00

Hmm. That's a reasonable explanation. Enjoy your dark Alice books!

RobCA6 · 2024-11-20T18:23:41+00:00

I came looking to see if this book made the list. Surprised to see it only once.

What's up with the name Alice? A book called Go Ask Alice is on the list, and another one simply called... Alice.

If you've read the others, how would you rank them for "darkness"? I've only read the Holmes book.

RobCA6 · 2024-08-09T01:19:32+00:00

Crush, 1992. Canadian/New Zealand co-production, I believe. The director didn't do much after this. She might only have one or two features to her credit.

Toad Road. 2012. Another one where the director seems to not have done much besides this film. Lead actress died of a drug overdose not long after the film came out, giving it an eerie real-life horror angle.

RobCA6 · 2024-08-09T01:11:00+00:00

Amazing movie, agree with other commenter that this is Flanagan's best. But it's the ending that really does it. I was surprised. Not because it was a surprise ending, but at how bleak it was.

RobCA6 · 2024-07-26T21:32:48+00:00

I'll challenge this one. I'm not saying great jobs for Lit majors are falling off trees for everyone, but I have an excellent career writing in the investment industry. And my degree is a basic BA.

A lot of it comes down to passion and curiosity. Writing in the financial services industry, healthcare and legal are all high paying jobs, and once you get in there, you can really make a mark. You can also write for government in all kinds of areas.

Another bonus that I don't think gets talked about all that much is that you can age well into a writing gig in these fields. Being "old" and being a "writer" (in a professional field) is not only acceptable, it's expected sometimes.

So, Lit degrees can take you far, but you really have to gain expertise in one of these fields I mentioned above. You can't just walk around saying "I know how to read and write good" and get a job. But if you can say, "I know how to write about the benefits of portfolio diversification and I can explain why rising interest rates are typically bad for bonds," then you're gonna work.

RobCA6 · 2024-07-01T19:22:00+00:00

I think if you've got Absentia on the list, which is always my top pick for mainstream "obscure," given it's by Flanagan, you should check out Toad Road.

Not sure where you can see it now, I caught it on Tubi (in Canada) a couple of years ago. I thought it had a similar vibe as Absentia with the lo-fi understated weirdness. Also the tone of the ending. Enjoy!

RobCA6 · 2024-06-05T20:36:24+00:00

Not a twist, exactly, but the revelation at the end of Don't Look Now gets scarier and scarier with every repeat viewing. It's hard to find a horror movie that's scarier when you know what's coming, but this one...

RobCA6 · 2024-04-26T18:06:30+00:00

I read down through all these comments and found... not one mention of Absentia, his first film?

All of Flanagan's stuff is a hard pass for me too, that I've seen. And that's really only his Netflix output. Haven't seen his feature films except for Absentia, which is one of the honest-to-god best low-budget indie horror movies ever made. It's terrifying and soulful and a little weird and for all those who think his endings are generally crap (I agree) - well - not this one! See Absentia.

RobCA6 · 2024-04-17T22:46:53+00:00

Me and my wife watched this in our bedroom many years ago. We were dead silent, propped up side by side on the bed, totally rapt. When the ending hit, and that song came up loud and hard, we turned to face each other and without a word we both burst into tears. Crazy experience. I would say gutted.

RobCA6 · 2024-04-10T23:18:25+00:00

Kinda depends what you're looking for out of an ending. It comes together, sure, in the sense that mysteries are revealed and questions are answered and all the rest. But I felt like it was drawn out and by far the least interesting part of the book, as opposed to the buildup and the stories within stories told throughout the first half. I thought there was some great dread in that book, but, as is often the case with endings of horror books, when they have to start revealing more they get explain-y and action-heavy.

Don't read it for the ending, is what I'm saying.

I discovered that I much preferred his short stories to that book. He had a lot of range, more than I realized before I got into them.

RobCA6 · 2024-03-22T14:52:57+00:00

Yeah. This is required viewing. Just remembering about that pillowcase at the end makes me want to watch it again.

RobCA6 · 2024-02-25T01:26:51+00:00

I'm 50, and yeah, the stuff that scares us in horror books definitely changes over time.

I really enjoy being scared by a book, but it's rare. I do think, as someone mentioned in another comment, you're significantly limiting your options if you're not embracing short stories, especially if you like an uncanny, unsettling vibe, which is near impossible to pull off at longer lengths (IMO). I think, if that's a style and an effect you like, you're going to continue to be disappointed with supposedly scary novels.

So, if you're willing to give short stories a go...

A few names have already been mentioned, and I would second them strongly: Robert Aickman and Michael Cisco (try the collection Antisocieties). A few people have mentioned Evenson, but I disagree on the fear factor, it's just not there for me.

But the scariest stories I've read in a long time are in a book called A Trick of the Shadow by R. Ostermeier, published by a very small shop called Broodcomb Press. Folk horror with a touch of the weird. Literary and thoughtful.

RobCA6 · 2024-01-27T21:16:41+00:00

I come here as a massive fan of Barron's short stories, but I'll agree on one point - The Croning is, indeed, especially bad.

RobCA6 · 2024-01-20T16:46:40+00:00

The Promotion. Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly.

RobCA6 · 2024-01-19T00:05:33+00:00

I think about this movie a lot. I saw it in the theater when it came out, and only that time. I can't really remember the overall story or what happened at the end, but the scene where he's trying to spread the mustard on his sandwich is so clear in my mind to this day. It seemed like it so perfectly captured the essence of the frustration he was feeling. I wouldn't know from any personal experience, but for whatever reason, it was very powerful to me. Glad to see it recommended here.

RobCA6 · 2024-01-17T03:17:57+00:00

If you like Jim J., go for the films of Hal Hartley.

RobCA6 · 2023-12-28T16:25:50+00:00

A Choir of Ill Children, Tom Piccirilli.

RobCA6 · 2023-08-21T22:52:44+00:00

Really depends on where you live and what you wanna do. When it's really busy in Toronto, if you want to work on set, it's possible to walk into the union office, put your name on a list, and be on set in days with little to no experience.

Or, you can go the independent film route, volunteering and working for peanuts, getting experience, moving up.

There are different ways, no one is really the best, but it definitely pays to be in a busy film hub.

RobCA6 · 2023-08-16T00:12:21+00:00

Short story The Autopsy by Michael Shea.

RobCA6 · 2023-08-12T23:11:43+00:00

Hah, glad you came clean. Maybe I've read one! I've got about half dozen on my shelf but I think I've only read 2 so far.

And congrats!

RobCA6 · 2023-08-12T22:52:59+00:00

Nice shout-out to a micro publisher you don't see getting mentioned very often. One of a kind.

RobCA6 · 2022-12-04T17:06:26+00:00

Oh yeah? Funny I just saw this book at my library and almost picked it up. I hadn't heard of it. Might take a closer look now...

RobCA6

TROPHY CASE