Today, I’m excited to be hosting a guest blog by horror author Ray Garton on my blog.  For horror readers, Ray needs no introduction.  The Grand Master of Horror award-winning author has written over sixty novels, and has been delivering the graphic, visceral horror goods in his books for thirty years.  His Bram Stoker Award-nominated NYC Times Square set vampire novel, LIVE GIRLS, is one of the great modern vampire novels, take it from me.  Author Dean Koontz said that book is “Gripping, original, and sly. I finished it in one bite.” In his blog, Ray has some interesting things to say about the fascination and appeal of horror for us…

Is There in Horror No Empathy?

by

Ray Garton

A young woman named Alice Robb recently pissed off most of the horror community (a community of which she seems to be blissfully unaware) with her appallingly unprofessional and uninformed New Republic article “What it Says About You if You Enjoy Horror Movies.”  (You’ll have to Google it because I’m not going to link to clickbait.)

Normally, I would not read an article with that title.  A title like that sets off all of my bullshit alarms at once.  No matter the subject — movies, books, TV shows, cars, pets — people are simply too complex to profile based on one piece of information.  Any article that offers a character analysis of you based on one single thing — like a fondness for horror movies — is the kind of tabloid excrement the National Enquirer and Weekly World News used as filler back in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I’m not going to address the outdated research cited or even the fact that Miss Robb appears to be unclear about what a horror movie is or is not (Avatar and The Passion of the Christ are mentioned with movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scream).  But I want to touch on the four things Miss Robb claims are more likely to be true of you if you’re a horror movie fan.  From bottom to top:

According to numbers three and four on her list, if you like horror movies, you are more likely to “Be a man” and “Be a man accompanied by a frightened woman.”

At number three I can only laugh.  Female horror fans — and female horror writers and directors and artists and creators of every stripe in the genre — are everywhere.  It is not an exaggeration to say that most of the women I know, of all backgrounds and all ages (from their 20s to their 70s), are devoted fans of horror movies or fiction, or both.  Of course, it’s probably safe to say that, after writing horror fiction professionally for 30 years, I know more serious horror fans of both sexes than the average person, but my point is that anyone who thinks horror is a sausagefest is simply uninformed.  And if that person is writing an article to that effect, that person is also deeply lazy, because it doesn’t take much effort or time to find out how wrong-headed this article is.

A list of women who write horror fiction, for example, would be longer than the line outside the first legal marijuana dispensary on opening day.  (Keep in mind that horror writers are horror fans and typically watch a lot of horror movies.)  A number of those women are writing horror that’s every bit as extreme and graphic and viscerally horrifying as anything written by men, and if you don’t believe me, give writers like Monica O’Rourke, Elizabeth Massie, and Charlee Jacob a try and you’ll see what I mean.

Of the people I’ve known who simply cannot watch horror movies because they find them too upsetting — there are plenty of them and, as a result of this condition, they tend not to go to or watch horror movies — at least half have been men.  Of the women I know who love horror movies, at least half actually prefer those with plenty of bloodshed and evisceration.  The gorier the better.

This is not the result of any kind of scientific process, of course, I’m just referring to my own personal experience.  And my personal experience with horror movie fans makes number three on this list laughable.

Number four cites three-decade-old research to suggest that most men enjoy horror movies more when they are accompanied by a woman who is “distressed by it.”

The mind reels.

Again, it appears that Miss Robb has failed to grasp the concept of the horror genre and the reason for its enduring popularity.  Just as the people who are upset by them don’t watch them, those who watch them do so, in part, to be upset by them.  That’s why we watch horror movies and read horror novels, because we want to be “distressed by it.”  We want to be horrified, frightened, and shocked — while remaining in a safe environment.  That’s also one of the reasons so many people ride roller coasters, or play video games, or watch Nancy Grace.

Miss Robb implicitly suggests that most men who like horror movies are sadistic bastards who enjoy watching women in distress.  We’ve all heard and read the stories, they’re in the news all the time, about women being dragged by the hair into movie theaters to watch horror movies against their will, or tied to chairs at home in front of the TV with their eyelids taped open, forced to watch nothing but horror movies around the clock.  Happens all the time.  And who does it?  Men.  You never hear about men being traumatized because their wives or girlfriends force them to watch bad romantic comedies or something by Tyler Perry.  It’s always men.

But seriously, this is the kind of spiel I used to get from pastors and church ladies when I was growing up an enthusiastic fan of the horror genre.  They used to tell me that watching Night Gallery and Creature Features would turn me into a horrible person and give Satan free reign over my life.  Now Alice Robb is telling me that the only people who really enjoy horror are the kind of men I was told I would become if I kept watching and reading horror.

Horror fans, according to number two, are more likely to “Be aggressive and thrill-seeking.”  It was at this point that I began to wonder if Alice Robb was not, in fact, a real person but a bot and I was reading borderline gibberish.  No such luck.  She’s real, she’s serious, and she appears to be out to get horror fans.  She cites studies from 1985 and 1998 and claims they “give horror-movie junkies something to worry about.”  I think it would be more accurate to say that they give Alice Robb something to gnaw on.

My work has connected me to a lot of horror fans over the years, and a lot of horror writers, too, all of whom, again, started out as and remain horror fans.  I can’t think of a single one to whom “aggressive and thrill-seeking” would apply.  Again, that’s just my own personal observation, not a Gallup poll.  But it segues nicely into number one on Robb’s list:

If you like horror movies, you are more likely to “Lack empathy.”

It’s almost enough to make your head explode.  Horror stories, on the screen or the page, don’t work without empathy.  If an audience doesn’t care about at least one character in a horror movie, doesn’t connect emotionally in some way and want that character, or those characters, to survive the ordeal, then the audience doesn’t care what happens to anyone in the movie or book, and the movie or book fails.  The suspense and scares fall flat because the audience has no investment in the characters involved.  In order for a horror movie to work, it must tap into an audience’s empathy, make the viewers care, and then, as Alfred Hitchcock so wisely advised, make them suffer.

The claim that a fondness for horror movies means one lacks empathy is moronic bloviating.  The horror community, made up of writers, readers, directors, publishers, producers, and so many others, is living proof.  I’ve seen so much generosity, kindness, and empathy in that community that Miss Robb pissed me off, too.  It is made up entirely of people who enjoy and watch horror movies, and it does not lack empathy.  If anything, it has an abundance of it.

In 1985, I went to the Egyptian theater in Hollywood with a group of horror writers to see Re-Animator.  During an especially over-the-top scene, I looked down the row of horror writers, guys who made a living writing stories and books to disturb and frighten, and saw that most either were covering their faces or were bent forward with arms over their heads, too horrified to look.  Rather than a lack of empathy, I think that was an expression of it.

There are no more people who lack empathy or are aggressive among horror movie fans than there are among, say, sports fans.  Well … now that I think about it … horror move fans didn’t set cars on fire and tear up the streets when Silence of the Lambs swept the Oscars in 1992, or when Stephen King won the National Book Award in 2003.  Maybe that was a bad example.

This is an old argument regularly dug up by uninformed moralists who have no interest in the truth about the dead horse they’re beating.  Are there sick, disturbed people who enjoy horror movies?  Of course there are.  And if they also shopped at Target and Safeway, it would have no more significance than their fondness for scary flicks.

The horror genre is impolite and politically incorrect and has always been the target of sermonizing zealots and angry, misled activists, and many other groups.  It always will be.  Take comfort in the fact that, when it comes to horror, those groups have always been wrong.

Ray Garton has been writing novels, novellas, short stories, and essays for more than 30 years.  His work spans the genres of horror, crime, suspense, and even comedy.  His titles include Live Girls, Ravenous, The Loveliest Dead, Sex and Violence in Hollywood, Meds, and most recently, Frankenstorm.  His short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and have been collected in books like Methods of Madness, Pieces of Hate, and Slivers of Bone.  He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and, in 2006, received the Grand Master of Horror Award.  He lives in northern California with his wife, where he is currently at work on several projects, including a new novel.

Visit his website at http://www.raygartononline.com/

“Zombies in Space: A review of Containment”

“Eric Red, the screenwriter (The Hitcher, Near Dark) and author, first had his zombies in space graphic novel published by IDW back in 2005. It’s been out of print for a while but is now coming out of cryosleep and is now available in both paper and digital again.

How do you approach a comic book that has an introduction by Wes Craven who warns you about what’s about to hit you. You approach it carefully, that’s how.

Craven suggests you’re not going to be sleep after reading. I don’t know about that. Zombies have had a good decade since 2005 and perhaps we’re all a bit familiar with their antics now. Biting your nose off? Chomping through your friends? Yeah; we know what to expect. What makes Containment particularly hard hitting is the skill of Red’s storytelling and Nick Stakal’s dark and edgy art.

I don’t think it is the relentless zombies that are the true horrors in Containment. It’s not even the technological malfunction that created them. It’s the people. It’s the supposed friends of humans on board.

In fairness to the humans that freak out on board this NSAS space ship millions of miles from Earth – what would you do? You’re surrounded by the bleak expanse of space and the zombies in your ship are dismantling the air supplies. You can’t sit and wait. You can’t run. Whoever wins a zombie encounter by taking the fight to the shambling horde?

Stakal’s dark colours and lines do a great job at presenting this oppressive challenge and the sense of entrapment. Eric Red knows where the true fear is.

I’m not surprised that Containment was a success when it came out in 2005. Even today, nearly 10 years later, the graphic novel still packs a punch. Yeah, sure, I think some of the zombiehorror is a little familiar know but that’s like dismissing a Lovecraft as “yet another unspeakable horror trapped in the ice” story.

Overall? One for zombie fans! Like me.” – Andrew Girdwood

Read the full review on Geek Native at http://bit.ly/1JX4ize

View the graphic novel trailer at http://bit.ly/1y5RUZC

CONTAINMENT is available from amazon.com at http://amzn.to/1rzGlT2 or directly from the publisher, SST Publications, at http://bit.ly/1ClMdcB

Today I am pleased to be hosting a guest blog by Brian Moreland, one of the team of authors at my publisher, Samhain Horror.  Brian’s books include Dead of Winter, Shadows in the Mist, The Girl from the Blood Coven, The Witching House, The Devil’s Woods, and The Vagrants.  Cited as “a major new talent” by New York Times bestselling author James Rollins,, Brian is going to discuss his quite literally chilling novel, DEAD OF WINTER. It’s a book that New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston says is “an exceptionally well crafted horror novel. The atmospherics are outstanding and the story offers plenty of surprises right up to its shocking and violent conclusion. Highly recommended.” Let me give the floor to Brian…

Lust, Hunger, and Terror in the Canadian Wilderness

by Brian Moreland

My novel, DEAD OF WINTER, is a historical horror thriller set in Canada during the blizzard season of 1870. The story is based partly on true events and an old Algonquin Indian legend that still haunts the Great Lakes tribes to this day. It’s also a detective mystery and even includes a couple of love triangles, since I am also a fan of romance and steamy sex scenes.

The Victorian mystery takes place near the end of the 19th Century at an isolated fur-trading fort deep in the Ontario wilderness. Inspector Tom Hatcher, a troubled detective from Montreal, recently captured a deranged serial killer, the Cannery Cannibal. Gustav Meraux is Jack-the-the-Ripper meets Hannibal Lecter. Even though the cannibal has been locked away in an asylum, the case still haunts Tom, so he has moved out to the wilderness, bringing his rebellious teenage son with him. At the beginning of the story, Tom has taken a job at Fort Pendleton to solve a case of strange murders by a cannibal more savage than Gustav Meraux. Some predator in the woods surrounding the fort is attacking colonists and spreading a gruesome plague—the victims turn into ravenous cannibals with an unending hunger for human flesh. In Tom’s search for answers, he discovers that the Jesuits know something about this plague. My second main character is Father Xavier, an exorcist from Montreal. The Vatican sends the priest to Ontario to help Tom battle the Devil’s Plague.

While indeed a work of fiction, I wanted this book to feel real and authentic. Throughout the story I interweave several facts I pulled from history books and an interview I did with a descendent from a Canadian Ojibwa tribe. During my research, I came across some unexplained stories that the Ojibwa and Algonquin tribes all around the Great Lakes region, including Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, and Minnesota, feared a supernatural creature that lives in the woods and stalks people every winter. The tribes migrated every year because of this superstition. This legend also spooked the white fur traders, like the men of Hudson’s Bay Company, who lived in isolated forts all across Canada and traded with the Indians (now called First Nations). In my novel, Fort Pendleton is a fictitious fort named after one my characters, a tycoon by the name of Master Avery Pendleton. When the mysterious killings start plaguing the colonists living within his fort, Pendleton hires Tom Hatcher to solve the case. Tom teams up with an Ojibwa tracker and shaman, Anika Moonblood. She doesn’t believe the killer is a man or animal, but something much more terrifying. In the book, everyone in the neighboring Ojibwa tribe is spooked by the stalker in the woods. I studied the customs of the Ojibwa people of that era, as well as shamanism, and put much of what I learned into the book. To authenticate my priest characters, I studied Jesuit history, demonology, and countless cases of real priests performing exorcisms. From the scriptures I gathered on battling demons, I could probably do an exorcism myself, not that I would ever want to.

As I researched Canada’s legendary evil spirit even deeper, I discovered an article about a real isolated fort in Quebec where all the colonists went crazy and turned cannibal. In the late 1700s, a Jesuit priest who visited this fort documented the case in his journal, describing the deranged colonists as possessed by the devil. This is all factual and documented by the Catholic Church. I also did extensive research on the history of frontier life in Canada in the 1800s. During the long winter months, cannibalism became a way of survival for isolated villages that ran out of food. After consuming human flesh, people often turned insane, or what the Jesuits would describe as “possessed.” Sometimes soldiers would arrive at a fort to find that all the colonists dead except one man, who survived by eating the others.

While my novel is definitely a horror thriller, I mix in other genres like the detective mystery and romance. As Inspector Hatcher hunts for a backwoods serial killer, two women residing at the fort fall in love with him. One is his boss’s wife, Lady Willow Pendleton, a spoiled debutant who hates her cheating husband, Avery. The other woman is Anika Moonblood, the native tracker who has been assigned to work with Tom. Theirs is a love-hate relationship, because Tom only sees Anika as a heathen. To make matters more complicated, she is Avery Pendleton’s mistress, albeit against her will. While Tom feels burning desires for both Willow and Anika, getting involved with either has dangerous consequences, for Master Pendleton is not a man to cross.

I had a blast writing DEAD OF WINTER and I hope you enjoy reading it. My imagination was running wild at the time. I also enjoyed seeing the mystery unfold. When I write, I never know how a book is going to play out. I have a general idea that gets me started writing, but most of the time I’m solving the riddle right alongside my detective. I did my best to make DEAD OF WINTER the scariest book that I could write, while igniting not just fear and terror, but all the emotions to offer readers a truly visceral experience. I am grateful that Samhain Horror released my novel and I’m excited to share this story with readers. Enjoy the adventure!

DEAD OF WINTER is now available in paperback and e-book.

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Author Bio: Brian Moreland writes novels and short stories of horror and supernatural suspense. His books include Dead of Winter, Shadows in the Mist, The Girl from the Blood Coven, The Witching House, The Devil’s Woods, and The Vagrants. Brian lives in Dallas, Texas where he is diligently writing his next horror book.

Website: http://www.brianmoreland.com/

Follow on Twitter: @BrianMoreland

Like Brian’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HorrorAuthorBrianMoreland

Brian’s blog: http://www.brianmoreland.blogspot.com

Now available in audio book: The Devil’s Woods and The Witching House.

“Verdict: Aquatic shockers seem few and far between, but in 2014 Eric Red gifted us a beauty with It Waits Below. This one has a little bit of everything, but the claustrophobic nature of the tail, and the balls-to-the-wall conclusion help push it into near uncharted territory. Red is a beast!” –Matt Molgaard.

Read the full article at http://horrornovelreviews.com/2014/12/25/the-top-10-horror-novels-of-2014/

IT WAITS BELOW is available in trade paperback and eBook on amazon at http://amzn.to/1zsCCtW or directly from the publisher at http://bit.ly/1l0rMu3.

Read the full review at: http://www.buried.com/fictionreviews/guns-of-santa-sangre-the-2014/847/

Read the full article here: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/81770/zombies-space-graphic-novel-containment-gets-re-release/

“Graphic novels had never much interested me, until I got my hands on First Comics, Inc.’s version of Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné in 1986. Now, having devoured Eric Red’s horrifically mesmerizing Containment, I see just how far graphic novels can be taken when produced by author/artist pairings such as Red (screenwriter for The Hitcher, Near Dark, and others) and Nick Stakal (Hyde, Silent Hill).

In 2025 a NASA vessel—the Explorer—200 million miles from Earth, and on year 26 of a 32-year mission, is in big-time trouble. A problem with the life-support system forces the 12 crew members to be “thawed” from hypersleep. Commander Stark soon discovers that not all of them have emerged from the pods in the same condition they entered 26 years ago. She and Trumbo, Tulsa, Langtry, and Hobbs find themselves in a dire situation, perhaps best captured by this poetic maxim: “…In space, nobody knows you’re dead.”

After several brutal encounters, the crew figure their violent mates have been rendered so by cryogenic fluid tainting their blood. And that’s not the only threat. Explorer has been damaged, and needs repair quickly, or else…well….

Red’s screenwriting experience obviously carries over seamlessly into this format, with Stakal’s detailed—yet somehow also impressionistic—illustrations the perfect match. The echoes of Alien and Aliens soon faded as I was yanked into this very dark, fast-moving tale—barely time to catch my breath between scenes. That Red and Stakal are able to sustain this pace (while showing the crew’s frantic discussions about what to do) is impressive.

Hats off to Paul Fry’s SST Publications for taking on Containment, and doing a visually striking job.”  –Reviewed by William Grabowski

Read the full review on Hellnotes at: http://bit.ly/1IrkdoC

“It’s all in how you tell the tale, and Red tells the tale like a seasoned skipper surrounding a bonfire and his mates on a rarely visited island off the coast of No Man’s Land. The action is steady, the mystery is alive and the novel’s conclusion will leave your head spinning 360 degrees. There isn’t a base that goes uncovered in Red’s latest, and if terror on water tales float your boat, this is an absolute must-read.”

Read the full review at: http://horrornovelreviews.com/2014/10/31/eric-red-it-waits-below-review/

IT WAITS BELOW is available in trade paperback and eBook on amazon at http://amzn.to/1zsCCtW or directly from the publisher at http://bit.ly/1l0rMu3.