I finally took the advice of fellow writer, Dale Phillips, and put several of my short horror stories together in an anthology. ‘Terrible Things’ is a collection of works previously published, featured in online magazines, and a couple of tales making their début.
Currently available in paperback (and awaiting acceptance for e-book standards) on Amazon.
So most of us wake up to a blissful Sunday morning with a big breakfast or donuts before church. Wellllll, the Mister and I were awakened by our cat Maximillian wandering around in the rafters of the roof. A closet door was left open, and curious kitties will explore.
What’s the big deal about a closet door being left open? Well in our quaint New England home, all three closets lead to crawl spaces used for storage. We found bags full of MBTA transit worker uniforms when we first moved in. But anyway, Maximillian first roamed the crawl space. Pictured below is the crawl space where we first took turns watching for signs of Max.
Squatting here and trying to avoid damaging any tubes or insulation, we discovered how our kitty managed to get into the roof area.
Yep, a horrid, creepy shaft running inside the roof’s slant. So, I was already very frightened that Maximillian would be injured by nails or something else. But by now, my runaway imagination conjures ninja rats, rabid raccoons, freaky little fairies that eat teeth. Or worse: a spider.
Maximillian is finally lured down one of these shafts with some soft food. No nail punctures or evidence of being attacked by a horde of rats. But he was quite traumatized I think. At least for a few minutes. He tried to get into my closet a bit later. Sigh.
Zombie fans united this weekend at movie theatres to witness a depiction of the entire world at war with the undead. Based on Max Brooks brutally intriguing novel of the same title, “World War Z” is not your typical zombie film.
If you want missing body parts, blood spatters and intestines hanging out, watch AMC’s The Walking Dead, or any of the newer George Romero movies. For the WWZ movie is mostly void of the gruesomely detailed walking corpses or attacks as Brooks so masterfully writes in the novel.
But the film is packed with soldiers calling the zombies “Zekes,” shooting at them, and putting their lives on the line to save their country men. Bombs, including nuclear, fall. People panic and scream and fall prey to the infected and entire cities are lost as millions (possibly billions) of people turn. And these bad boys and girls don’t stumble around stupidly and aimlessly. These zombie biznaches run, climb stairs, leap, and even parkour throughout streets, building tops, and over obstacles. They pile on top of each other like ants, scaling buildings and walls. And these zombies are intelligent.
Viewers who have read the book will also find Patient Zero, a kick-ass female soldier, and most importantly, the horrid, radical, and seemingly irrational decisions that salvage human kind. Well, most of human kind anyway. And this last idea is what I believe is the premise of the novel.
If you are interested in seeing the movie, but have not read the book, don’t read it yet. Just go enjoy the film. Then pick up Max Brooks’ World War Z at your local library or book store. If you have read the novel and haven’t seen the film, be prepared that the film creators basically put Brooks’ idea on the big screen. Don’t compare it to the book.
And good luck surviving this version of the Zombie Apocalypse.
My mother said I was four years old when I settled on the floor in front of our television to watch The Wizard of Oz for the first time. She said I made it through the tornado ripping up the house and landing on the witch. I made it through Dorothy getting swarmed by munchkins. Yet when giant monkeys soared in, Mama said I propelled off the floor in a hissy and cowered in her lap.
And this weekend, thirty-plus years later, I sat in a theatre, again wowed by the land of Oz. Sam Raimi and teams of special effects artists delighted us with Oz, The Great and Powerful, complete with Munchkins, Tinkers, witches, and yes, flying monkeys. Though not seen at first, they howl and screech through the wind and cast menacing shadows on the land below. Once they make their appearance in hordes, they hiss and bare baboon fangs, and attack with clawed hands and feet. And now they are in 3-D. I squashed back against the theatre seat and wast tempted to duck.
Though obviously computer generated, Oz, the Great and Powerful is a beautiful movie. The costumes are quite imaginative. The characters are wonderfully executed, as James Franco is charming and marvelous. Rachel Weiss is wickedly lovely. And Mila Kunis is surprisingly brilliant. Oz is well worth the price of the ticket and a trip to a good theatre to view it.
Misseytwisted 