Beyond The Darkness 10
E-Ville Approaches...
First off, my apologies for not being able to get a newsletter out last Sunday. Life has been, as you can imagine, busy for full time worker with a fourteen month old child who’s desperately trying to get fictional words out on the page. I knew life with a child would be chaotic, but damn. But there’s no complaints on my end (okay, some complaints; my day job, I believe, is the reason all my hair is falling out.). So here we are! Back on the newsy-lettery horse.
Sort of.
Though I have this one out today, there won’t be one next Sunday, but for good reason. Next weekend I’m traveling back home to Indiana, not only to visit with family and friends, but to take part in my first convention of the year!
Evansville Horror Con will take place next Saturday and Sunday, March 11th and 12th, at the Evansville National Guard Armory. There will be about a dozen celebrity guests in attendance and over seventy vendors, including myself, selling an array of horror-related memorabilia. I, of course, will have copies of all my books with me, but not as many as I normally have considering I am flying to this show and can only fit so much in my luggage. All I ask is that if you live in the Tri-State area of Indiana, Illinois, or Kentucky, please consider coming out to support this show. I spent the first thirty of my life in the Evansville area and much of that time was spent listening to people (and even joining in myself) complain about how there’s nothing to do in the area. Well, now there is! Please, if not for coming out to buy books, come out and support the event. Though this is the first one, I hope this does indeed become a yearly event. Evansville desperately needs things like this, and it warms my heart to see it finally happening.
The show will be from 10am to 6pm on Saturday and 10am to 5pm on Sunday.
Hopefully I’ll see some of you there!
Tickets and more info: https://lind172.wixsite.com/evansvillehorrorcon
Last Saturday, I went straight from work to a local event where author’s Mary SanGiovanni and Brian Keene were signing books, but more specifically the event was to celebrate Mary’s new Alien novel, which technically comes out next month.
And holy shit…she actually co-dedicated the book to me!
I’m absolutely thrilled and excited and blown away by this honor. The Aliens film franchise is one of my all-time favorites, and to see my name inside one of their properties is mind-blowing. Thank you, Mary!
My Tales from the Crypt full series re-watch continues…
(Before I start this, I want to quickly say something. I was discussing this re-watch of Crypt with a friend who, lovingly, was giving me shit about my opinions on certain episodes of this show. They claim the episodes I don’t like are almost fully accurate to the original EC Comic series. Look, I’ll say this. I didn’t grow up reading comics. I only know Tales from the Crypt as a show I loved as a kid. I am not judging this show on how spot-on each episode is to the source material. I’m re-watching this as a thirty-six year old in 2023 who hasn’t seen these stories since I was probably ten. That’s it. It’s perfectly fine if people disagree with my views. As influential as it was to me, at the end of the day it’s just a TV show. Mileage may vary.)
Undertaking Palor (S3, E9)
Four boys find out that the local undertaker and a pharmacist are in cahoots to murder rich locals and profit from their funerals. Re-watching this, I could have sworn this was an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? It sure felt like one. Minus the little bit of gore, I think this could have easily fit in on Nickelodeon’s premier Saturday night middle grade fright fest. Not a bad episode, but not terribly great either. It was nice to see a young Ke Huy Quan in a small role.
Mournin' Mess (S3, E10)
A journalist tries to solve the case of a mysterious serial killer who's been killing homeless people all across the city. What he doesn't realize is how deep the conspiracy behind the murders goes. This was easily my favorite of season three. I think the gore was well used, the ghoul monster makeup was solid, and the acting was pretty great. With a cast that boasted Steven Weber, Rita Wilson, and Vincent Schiavelli I would hope the acting was great. I’ve always though Weber was a better actor than people gave him credit for. And seeing Wilson in this made me wish she was in more stuff.
Split Second (S3, E11)
A beautiful waitress marries the owner of a lumber camp and then quickly starts to realize that he is not what she really wants. This might be the horniest episode of TFTC yet. I remember seeing this one many years ago as kid when it was on Fox, so I wasn’t aware of how heavily edited this one was. Though there wasn’t anyone in the cast of note, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the great Richard Christian Matheson wrote the screenplay for this one. The end of this episode is completely ridiculous, but I absolutely loved it.
Deadline (S3, E12)
An alcoholic reporter is inspired by a beautiful woman to find a good murder case no matter what. I’ll be completely honest with you guys, I barely paid attention to this one. I started out boring, continued to be boring, and ended boring. That’s pretty much it. Completely forgettable filler episode.
Spoiled (S3, E13)
Janet is married to a doctor who's married to his work. She wants to live her life with passion, danger, and romance like Fuchsia Monroe, a soap opera character she watches religiously. When her television goes haywire, her friend Louise convinces her to get cable. With her husband unresponsive to her "needs," she begins a steamy affair with the cable guy. I take back what I said about episode eleven being the horniest one. This one was the horniest. Jesus Christ. I kept wanting to scream at the TV, “Just fuck you wife, dude!” It reminded me of the episode from season one called “Collection Completed” where the ending just made you laugh out loud with how absurd it was. Despite the over-the-top acting and tone of this one, I liked it well enough.
Yellow (S3, E14)
The year is 1918. During World War I, somewhere in France, it's the 49th day of continuous battle on the front lines. Lieutenant Martin Kalthrob doesn't want to be in the army anymore and asks his father, General Kalthrob, for a discharge. His father refuses but says he will transfer him to the rear if he leads a patrol to the German lines and fix the broken communication line. When he proves himself to be a coward, his father orders a court martial with penalty of death by firing squad. Though not my favorite, it was absolutely the highlight of season three, if only just by the level of actors they wrangled into this one. Kirk and Eric Douglas, Lance Henriksen, and Dan Aykroyd made this nearly forty minute episode a treat to watch. I remember this one as a kid, but watching it as an adult, it felt a little strange to have such a long, tedious buildup to literally a short punchline of a point in the last scene. You can tell the producers put quite a bit of money in this one, as the sets were very large and well put together.
And that’s it for season three! We start season 4 in a few weeks…
Writing updates…
This past week and up to this weekend, I was thankfully able to get the ball rolling once again on my novelette for the book author Wile E. Young are putting together. I’m really happy and excited with how this one is coming out. I know Wile E. is working on his story right now as well. The artwork is being completed right now and he and I will be getting a look at that next week.
Currently reading: Alien: Enemy of my Enemy by Mary SanGiovanni (I’ve only just started it, but so far it’s great!)
Currently watching: The Mandalorian season 3 (Looks like we’re in for another fun season.)
Currently listening to: Yep, you guessed it: In Flames
And that’s it. Thanks again, everyone. See you in two weeks!