M R James Short, Whistle & I'll Come to You

If you are an MR James fan, please watch this short. Believe it is a BBC production.

There are terrific C-R-E-E-P-Y moments. Example: I have stood alone on the beach before. I have even stood on the beach with other people around. But I have never stood on the beach and turned to see a solitary figure watching me from a distance. And the bedroom scene. holy Jesus. Laughing Scared to the max.

The Thin People

Here are a few lines from the uber creepy Thin People short by Brian Lumley.

“No, no, we’re halfway there now,” he grumbled, hurrying along beside me, almost taking my arm in his nervousness. “And anyway, it’s a nice bright night tonight. They’re not much for light nights.”
“They?” I asked again.
“People!” Despite his short, bowed legs, he was half a pace ahead of me. “The thin people.”

Bejesus Stash.

Behind an abandoned greenhouse yesterday, I found a huge tarry pile of ... I wanted to say shit, but that's not quite the right word. Elephant chum. No, that's not right either. Anyway, I wondered what the hell I had stumbled onto, and then I found this entry and am convinced I found a Bejesus stash. Smelled a little like soured ambergris oil. Brought some back for examination. Hell, I always wondered when someone had the Bejesus scared out of him, who cleaned it up, where did it go? Is it recyclable?

Now I know. Bejesus is a natural hormone found within the bodies of most humans. It is generated at a steady rate by the bejesus gland, located somewhere between the feet and the brain. This hormone is what the religious types are referring to when they talk about finding Jesus inside yourself or say that there is Jesus in everyone. During times of fear, it is excreted from several holes in the body, hence the term to "scare the bejesus out of someone." For reasons stated below, the substance is much sought after."

Welcome to Laughing Scared

Here's the Cliff Notes to my Blog Title. Laughing Scared speaks to the tick I have -- a kind of nervous chuckle -- that comes out in moments of genuine dis-ease during spooky books, movies, or political campaigning which is inherently horrifying. Granted, it's not a unique response to fear but I am glad my Blog isn't called Peeing My Pants (if I were a Stephen King character maybe), or Shitting Myself Scared or, you get the idea. There is a theory of course.

Scientists say different versions of the same gene linked to anxiety can explain the way in which some people are not affected, while others enjoy the suspense and the gore. These findings may explain why people have different reactions to horror films. While many scream and some even faint in cinemas at scenes of spinning heads and shaking beds, others simply laugh.

Though I would disagree that laughing equals "not affected". I laugh because I am affected. Much like Shaggy laughs when he's up to his bell-bottoms in Creepers or what have you. If you want to jump into the thread, tell me what kind of fear response you have to horror. To caffeine pants. To the inexplicable amount of attention paid the Kardashian clan. To a movie or two that had you making weird noises, wringing your hands, crying, or maybe laughing scared.

Free Horror Fonts

Fontzilla, baby. A huge portfolio of horror fonts to download.

Masked Human on All Fours

if you survive this, let me know. This clip is from the Poughkeepsies Tapes, an otherwise a complete steaming turd of a movie. But this clip, this clip strikes a nerve. Pure nightmare. How unsettling, but freakishly graceful, is the crawl of that Thing?

The Unbearable Cuteness of Being Zombie - S8CLIP

Awww. Zombie love is in the air. We all went to see Super 8 today. Finally! Like a lot of film freaks I have been following the viral campaign online for months and counting down the days. (Love film foreplay with virals.) Here's an (almost too) sweet scene of the movie within the movie. Boy meets girl. Girl pretends to be zombie. Boy falls for girl. Seriously, I love the expressions on his face as she closes in. I think the real jolt of terror for him here are those adolescent love pangs in his chest.

More on Super 8 l8ter.

Goo of Death or Cottage Cheese

How can one resist headlines like Goo of Death Solves Headless Corpse Mystery? (Sounds like a job for Mystery Inc.)

Its texture can vary. While this corpse's adipocere resembled concrete, fresher adipocere can be softer. "A lot of people say it's greasy, I always think of it like a thick cottage cheese consistency, because it's kind of lumpy, also," said Ann Ross, an anthropologist at North Carolina State University, who has encountered adipocere in her own investigations. "Now you'll never eat cottage cheese."

Carnival of Horrors @ Blossom

Last October, I hired on at the annual Carnival of Horrors out at Blossom so I could pick up a little extra book money. By and large, the guests were the real freaks. Loud, drunken, high, obnoxious. All good qualities, just not in a dark spook house where I am not wearing a cup under my clown suit. I was slapped, shoved, scratched, run into, and one little girl threw a punch to my boys. I did have big fun working my makeups and listening to the crude banter in the make-up room before showtime--I heard the kind of twisted, f----- up hillbilly humor that makes Deliverance seem PG. Here's my moisty head wound BTW. Probably my best work, though the missing eye and bullet holes were not half bad for a rookie.

Click the red spot to make the pic big. I think you can even see some memories squirming around.

David B. Silva Through Shattered Glass

Lately, I have been scribbling notes and pecking away at a review of some kind for David B. Silva's Through Shattered Glass. My first horror book review. Based on the strength of his short story Dwindling (which I read in an anthology) I wrote and took him up on his "free PDF of the book for an Amazon review" offer. None of the other stories so far come close to Dwindling.

Bruise for Bruise - ICK Factor: 7

Here's an excerpt I pulled, wormy penis and all, from "Bruise for Bruise" -- a short story by Robert Davies that appears in The Best Dark Horror and Fantasy 2010, edited by Paula Guran.

The Eddington triplets were each born with an extra mouth on their foreheads; the better to sing His praises, Father Quine had said, smiling. Justice Peck arrived, took two deep breaths, and burst into silent blue flame. The great granddaughter of Old Khoas was born flower-faced and her every breath was a yellow cloud of pollen. Jirrup the Younger emerged limbless and scaled, and like the original beast his eyes were eyes of gold. The blind watchmaker’s daughter Undulia grew monstrously fat and fetid as she approached her blessed day. She spilled her blue-eyed daughter in a ruinous, thick tide. To the shock of all, this new born daughter, grunting and wailing, then gave birth to another smaller girl the size of a fist, swollen with child. This last tiny daughter, still nameless, still shivering with the chill outside the womb, stood shakily and birthed a finger-sized son whose wormy penis dragged on the floor.

Wow, beautifully written, horrifically disturbing. I would have to rank the Ick Factor at a high 7.