According to NPR, William Blatty has written a "revised and polished" edition of his novel The Exorcist. In addition to the stylistic updates, the recently-released 40th Anniversary Edition also includes a full chapter of new material.
Note: NPR is also offering a short but intriguing list of horror recs from classic literature, none of which I've read. I think I'll skip the Herman Melville collection (stories about "the hopeless patience of the tortoise who is hunted for its meat" sound a little too horrific for my taste), but I might give the Louisa May Alcott book a shot.
There's a trailer out for the upcoming horror film The Woman in Black, which is based on a 1983 horror novel by Susan Hill and stars Daniel Radcliffe. Behold:
I don't know about that "most chilling ghost story of our time" thing (uh... whatever), but it looks creepy enough, and I'm glad to see Radcliffe's patented Harry Potter-stumbling-back-in-terror shtick is still getting him work.
And speaking of Jane Austen, did they really need to write a sequel (as well as a prequel, and a comic book book adaptation, and an upcoming movie version) to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Like zombies themselves, WHY WON'T THIS TREND DIE?
Creepy real estate doesn't bring in the cash that it used to, apparently.
The house that inspired Jay Anson's "nonfiction" book The Amityville Horror: A True Story has once again been sold, this time for $200,000 less than its asking price of 1.15 million dollars. I'm not sure why anyone would be leaping to buy this horror icon (which, admittedly, now looks a lot like any other upscale Colonial) but maybe the constant gawking and the ghost-hunting geeks lurking in the bushes won't upset the new owners.
Behold, two limited-edition perfumes oils inspired by Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
Aren't they cute? I'm not sure I actually want to smell like a spicy pumpkin, but for a mere $12 apiece I'm mildly tempted to find out. You can buy these suckers via The Morbid the Merrier's Etsy shop.
If you're looking for a genuinely creepy take on the vampire genre (versus, say, a mopey, dopey, heavy-on-the-sixpack-abs one), check out the trailer for Let Me In, the upcoming film remake of the 2008 Swedish movie Let The Right One In, which was based on a 2004 novel by horror writer John Ajvide Lindqvist. I've never had the stomach to read the book (there's more horror in it than just the vampire stuff, apparently), but I hear it's very good.
Great horror novels usually feature two things: a terrifying antagonist and a plot capable of lending weight to what would otherwise just be a lot of running and screaming. Catherine Jinks' novel Living Hell is weak on the plot front, but her villain was so memorable that it took us a while to notice.
Living Hell is narrated by 17-year-old Cheney, a second-generation inhabitant of the Plexus, a self-contained spacecraft searching for a habitable planet. The Plexus is designed to promote humanity's survival, but when the ship drifts through a bizarre cloud of energy, its mechanical elements begin transforming into organic ones. As the ship changes into a living thing, it begins to identify the humans living inside it as alien organisms—organisms that need to be eliminated.
We had several technical complaints about Living Hell: it was too short, it would have worked better as a series, it featured an implausible collection of survivors, etc. (Plus, the central plot conceit strained credulity, but the popularity of Lost proves that Americans can overlook a lot of credulity-straining.) However, none of these thoughts registered until after we'd closed the book. While we were actually reading, all we were thinking about was how SUPER CREEPY the "ship as a human body" metaphor was. We've seen scarier villains than a sentient spaceship (read: clowns), but not many, and definitely none as the Big Bad in a kids' book.
ApartmentTherapy recently did a very Halloween-friendly post about a H.P. Lovecraft-themed walking tour in Providence’s College Hill, which includes many of the houses featured in his horror stories. Frankly, a single visit to the house above (the Arts and Crafts Fleur-de-Lys Artist Studios, a building described in Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu) would be more than sufficient for me to consider my Halloween appropriately celebrated.
I've been trying to hunt down a copy of Robert Bloch's Psycho, the novel that inspired the Hitchcock movie of the same name. I'm not about to pay $25 for this edition (seriously, are they insane?), but pickings are strangely slim. Why has no one published an appropriately pulp-fiction-y edition of this book recently? Don't they realize that Halloween is coming, and some of us might like to get into the mood with a little vintage horror?
So, the film adaptation for the first book in Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak series is coming out, and I'm not sure what to think:
On one hand, the trailer is strangely hokey*, but on the other, those are some very recognizable actors.
*Not sure why: the music? The moderately cheeseball main actor? The fact that the author named the main character after himself? Some combination of all three?
Here's hoping they invest in better CGI than the New Moon producers
We've had a review copy of Maggie Stiefvater's novel Shiver floating around Wordcandy HQ for a few months now*, so I was interested to see that it's been picked up by the producers of the Lord of the Rings movies, who plan to turn it (and, I'm assuming, its sequels) into a feature-length film.
*The book has great cover art, and I keep meaning to read it, but Nathan picked it up and said something about the werewolf hero trying to eat the heroine in the first chapter, which I find totally off-putting. I'm not sure why, seeing as I read vampire books all the time, but being torn apart by wolves just sounds so messy....
According to Yahoo! News, the Japanese have brought us another glorious new product: a horror story printed on toilet paper. Each roll of the paper contains several copies of a nine-chapter novella written by Koji Suzuki (who wrote the story the Ring movies were based on).
According to the article, "[The short story is] set in a public restroom, takes up about three feet (90 centimeters) of a roll and can be read in just a few minutes". The toilet paper will sell for 210 yen ($2.20) a roll.
Ooh, news to warm my Underworld-loving heart: Kevin Grevioux (one of the co-creators of the Underworld series as well of one its actors--the fanged dude, featured at right) is working on a new comic book/film combo: according to Cinematical, the project "brings back many beloved classic monsters including Frankenstein's Monster, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Invisible Man, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde plus many more, in a re-imagined contemporary setting."
The project is called I, Frankenstein. It will be based on Grevioux's upcoming comic book of the same name, and I, for one, can hardly wait. After all, it can't be worse than Van Helsing, can it?
Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son, by Chuck Dixon and Brett Booth
Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son is Chuck Dixon and Brett Booth’s comic book adaptation of the 2005 novel of the same name by Dean Koontz and Kevin J. Anderson, which is in turn a modern-day continuation of Mary Shelley’s classic horror story.
As the story opens, Deucalion, Frankenstein's original monster, is chilling out in a Tibetan monastery. He’s having a reasonably good time, getting some hardcore facial tattoos and—judging by his underwear-model abs—doing a lot of sit-ups, but his peaceful existence is rudely interrupted by the news that Victor Frankenstein, now known as "Helios," is alive and well in New Orleans, where he has been secretly creating hordes of genetically-engineered slaves. Victor controls his creations with an iron fist, but one has escaped and taken up serial killing as a hobby, thereby attracting the attention of Detective Carson O’Connor and her partner, Michael Maddison. When Deucalion arrives in New Orleans, hoping to expose his creator’s crimes, he turns to O’Connor and Maddison for help, but even their combined efforts might not be enough to stop Frankenstein’s plans from coming to fruition.
Prodigal Son might look to 19th century literature for inspiration, but Alan Moore’s cerebral, nuanced League of Extraordinary Gentlemen this isn't. Instead, it's a well-paced thriller with enough gross-out elements to appeal to horror fans and enough literary references to lend it a veneer of respectability. The biggest letdown about this adaptation is Booth’s competent but generic artwork, but if you adjust your expectations to “fun but forgettable” (and don’t eat anything immediately beforehand, particularly if you choose to read the bonus story at the end of the volume), this is a solidly entertaining effort.
The Shirley Jackson Awards, honoring outstanding work in the genres of psychological suspense, horror, and the "dark fantastic", is currently holding an online lottery to raise money for their award.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the name, Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was the author of several horror novels, including such classics as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. She also wrote one of the most unforgettable* short stories of the 20th century: 1948's "The Lottery" (thus the lottery-style fundraiser).
This event is running through February 23rd, so be sure to check out the prize list soon--there's some good stuff on there!
*Seriously. You might want to forget it, but no dice.
We were impressed by Justin Gustainis's gore-filled monsterfest Black Magic Woman, so we're stoked to see the sequel is almost out. Evil Ways will be on shelves on December 30th, but if you're all a-quiver for an early look at the story, you can read a lengthy (and R-rated--shield your eyes, young readers!) excerpt from the novel at Bookspot Central.
...Will Smith has signed on to star in a prequel to the blockbuster I Am Legend (which was based on a novel by acclaimed horror/sci-fi writer Richard Matheson). According to Variety, the film will "chronicle the final days of humanity in New York before a man-made virus caused a plague that left Smith’s character the lone survivor among a mutated mob in the city."
I just finished reading Kelley Armstrong's The Summoning—her first young adult novel, as well as the first book in a projected trilogy—and I thought it was awesome: totally fun, totally exciting, creepy in the best possible way. Even the cover art was about a thousand cuts above her usual stuff (although a little too reminiscent of Cynthia Leitich Smith's Tantalize). BUT! HOWEVER! HEED MY WARNING! This story ends on a nasty cliffhanger, and the next book isn't due out until May of 2009, so bear that in mind. Really slow readers should pick this up around Valentine’s Day, average-speed readers should wait until Easter, and speed readers should probably hold off until just before the next book comes out, because I promise: you'll be climbing the walls.
Neil Gaiman—who's obviously in full promotion-mode for his upcoming novel The Graveyard Book—has compiled a list of his 10 favorite "New Classic Monsters" for Entertainment Weekly. I’m not sure I agree with his choices (apart from Pennywise the Clown, who is, obviously, creepy as hell), but it’s worth a look-see.
According to NPR, William Blatty has written a "revised and polished" edition of his novel The Exorcist. In addition to the stylistic updates, the recently-released 40th Anniversary Edition also includes a full chapter of new material. 
