DVD pick of the week, when life imitates art: Chariot

Things you never see black people doing in horror movies

Thing # 10: Investigate

As a science fiction writer I seem to be acutely aware of when scientist in real life conduct experiment that titter of the precipice of the insane. In 2010 I reviewed a movie called The Thaw, which is one of the most frightening movies I have ever seen.  (Review below)

DVD Pick of the week...a month in review

In Thaw, a research expedition to the Arctic discovers that a melting polar ice cap has released a deadly prehistoric parasite, and of course there is no cure. Just this month a 30,000 year-old giant virus was unearthed in Siberia.

Professor Philip M. Parker has created a program that can write books.  “To be clear, this isn’t just software alone but a computer system designated to write for a specific genre.” This system that Parker designed mimics the thought process that an expert would necessarily go through in writing about a topic in a particular field/genre…mimics the thought process… Okay, let's let that sink in for a minute. 

Anyone who spends more than 15 minutes w/me will come to realize that I super heart conspiracy theories, the weirder they are the more I love them. Check out this one about Walt Disney & the Illuminati lol

At the time of this post Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had been missing since March 8^th 2014. It seems to have literally vanished off the face of the planet. Losing an airplane in this day and age defies logic, there’s absolutely no evidence of anything: No debris. No calls to loved ones via satellite phone. No twitter, instagram, or facebook status updates. No ‘leaked’ information from ground crews from a remote landing strip, nothing. And because no one has any idea or answers as to what might have happened the conspiracy theories are popping up everywhere like a rapid spreading plague.

Which brings us to the topic at hand.  Eric Vales’ Chariot 2013

Plotline: So the plot of this movie is based on conspiracy theory called the Chariot program, which grew out of the disappearance of Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 (as of today no parts of that plane were ever found). The Chariot program is the evacuation plan for citizens deemed too valuable to lose in the event of a nuclear  attack. However, writer Eric Vale updated the plane and changed the weapon to cater to present day scenarios 

Scariness Factor: This movie is more suspenseful than it is scary, but some of the plot twist and sudden action scenes will make you jump

Gross Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: Chariot follows all the basic rules of people waking up and trying to figure out why they were the ones who find themselves in an isolated situation which means a lot of what’s going on is predictable

High Notes: What makes this movie work is that Vale uses the predictability to conceal a double plot twist and a kick ass ending that you don’t see coming. I’ve always and will continue to say that the ending of a story is the most important part, and in my opinion these guys got it right.

5 Stars

Where I rented it: Redbox

It all fun and games when stories like these are brought to you by the imaginations of fiction writers, but there is nothing funny or fun about it when it happens for real. Like everyone else in the world my prayers and thoughts go out to the family, friends, and loved ones who are praying for the safety of all the passengers and flight crew of  Malaysia Air Flight 370 . 

Establishing a Chain of Custody

Things you never see black people doing in horror movies thing #6

Get mauled by a pet tiger.

Back in high school I wrote a smart ass report for my English class. Recognizing my talent my English teacher came to see me while I was sitting in detention to talk to me about intellectual property. Back then I wasn’t thinking about growing up and becoming a writer my biggest concern at that moment was getting the hell out of my little town I was ‘trapped’ in, I wasn’t the only spoiled brat who thought that way. Out of the 1,124 of my graduating class 812 of us joined the military, a handful joined the peace or job corps and the those who stayed there are still there, but the town is not so little anymore.

Years later, and I mean years I heeded every … single … word that my English imparted to me in the 10^th grade. When I sent my 1^st manuscript for consideration I sent two copies. One to the publisher and one to myself. When that large manila envelope came back to me, as instructed by Miss Carter, I didn’t open it but put it away in a safe place.

The military calls this ‘establishing a chain of custody.’ My English teacher was very blunt, she said “people steal and its going to be really hard to prove that somebody stole something this good from a hardheaded, smart mouthed, know-it-all  little brat … unless you have proof.” She explained that the post office puts a stamp on every single piece of mail that they mail and that stamp, in a court of law, would be indisputable in a court of law. She also warned that the most important thing was NOT to open the envelope. She said that the judge should open it. She went on to explain “that the post office stamp would  let the judge know that you wrote it first and the sealed envelope would show the judge that the contents inside had not been tampered with.”

Sage advice. I still have all nine packets and they are still unopened. When publishers changed the submissions guideline from snail mail to email, I essentially did the same thing. I created a private email account and every story I have sent for consideration I’ve also sent it bcc to my private account and those emails are still sitting there unopened and unread.

I think about Miss Carter all the time because she looked past my little bad ass and saw in me what I didn’t see in myself. When I sent her a copy of The Darkness she wrote me back to tell me she wasn’t the least bit surprised.

But the reason for this blog post is because lately, I always get on Facebook statuses linking articles about author’s who have had their work stolen, author’s like Sophia Steward and Sheila Moss, but most times it's about the author’s who are committing the crime. Author’s like Jordin Williams, Steve Jeffery, and Jon Flatland. I can’t imagine what it would be like if someone I trusted with my story took it from me. So I guess I just wanted to say be careful, and research the editor’s and publisher that you’re considering working with and no matter what always try to establish some type of paper trail.

Here are some more helpful tips

 http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2010/10/cold-iron-david-boyer-plagiarist.html

A Tale of Two Houses

Things you WILL see black people doing in horror movies, thing # 26

If anyone says: "Let's see what this does," "What does this do," or "Let's try this," we're already questioning the situation and thinking up escape plans or excuses to leave.

Dudes! Me and my kid sis kicked it this weekend, we went to two haunted houses, a convention, got lost in the middle of now where twice, meet all kinds of awesome people, spent way too much money and are gonna eat dinner at mom's house tonight cause now we're both broke! 

I don't have a DVD pick of the week this week so instead I am going to be reviewing the haunted house we went to.

1^st up: Friday Night: Georgetown Haunted Morgue

The 1^st thing we noticed right off the bat was how long the line was... 

Usually for me that goes in the con side but with some of the actors walking up and down the line scaring people and a guy with a chain saw chasing people thru the food court the organizers turned it into a pro. 

When we heard screaming from behind us we turned around and came face to face with this monster!

I stopped her and asked if she would pose w/me. She did, and apparently that was the million dollar question because after my sister took this picture she upgraded us to VIP and moved us up to the front of the line.

The special effects and ambiance were really good. There was a real feeling of claustrophobia, the sets were believable and the actors were great. Even thou it seemed longer it was only about 15 minutes, which was time enough because there was so much stuff going on it causes a state of sensory overload. The highlight of that haunt was when we thought we were trapped because we could open the doors and then we realized that we had to squeeze thru these giant balloon air table things stacked high with body parts anhalf way thru Pinhead shows up to block our path. When the clown w/the chain saw popped out my sister went all 'save yourself' on my ass and left me as she bolted from the manic clown.

House #2 Saturday Night: Nightmare at Beaver Lake

Ok so this one is a haunted trail in the middle of the woods.

This is the only picture I got because we were at Geek Girl Con http://www.geekgirlcon.com/ earlier in the day and my phone died. The location itself and the weather became huge characters in this haunt. It was foggy making it darker than it was already was, distorting the things you actually saw along with thing things you thought you saw and muting the natural sounds you would expect to hear while walking thru a forest. And then it started to rain.

A highlight of this haunt was the fact that a huge part of the cast of characters are children. We knew we were going to stumble into a Deliverance scene because we heard the banjo but the spine chiller for that set was when a child who is far too young to have seen that movie sneaks up behinds you and starts quoting from it...and nails it! One of the things that unintentionally heightened the tension for my sister was when some of the monsters and even a zombie called me by name. The horror community here in Seattle runs in small circles so a lot of us know each other, but she was completely caught off guard (and I was too) and she didn't like it. Another awesome feature was the fork in the trail that gave you the option of scary or scarier of course we went down the scarier trail and paid dearly for it =D

The part that fucked us up were the horses, we didn't hear them coming and by the time we saw them we were nearly right under them and it wasn't until I backed away that I saw the headless riders!  

The Georgetown Haunted Morgue is a traditional haunted house and if you've been to enough of them you can predict what's just around the corner. But with that being said, it was scarier than I thought it was going to be and with the way the organizers worked the crowd I am going to have to rate it 4.5 stars. Out of the two this is the one my sister liked the most.

The Nightmare at Beaver Lake was my favorite and here's why. The wooded trail, fog, and rain made everything scarier because it let's your imagination do most of the work. Another thing that turned into an unintentional bonus was my sister hurt her ankle so we couldn't run so we moved out of the way of those who could and the result was that we spent most of our time on that trail alone. Just me and my little sister...In the woods at night...Holding hands breathlessly awaiting the arrival of zombies, vampires, headless horsemen and...

I'm giving this one 5 Stars. Have a good one guys 

From my friends & fans with love!

Things you never see black people doing in horror movies, thing #1:
Vacation at Chernobyl

This DVD pick of the week comes to you via my friends, fans, and followers on Facebook. I watch a lot of horror movies and the ones with at least a 3 star I like I review and post them here on my blog.

I'm a tough customer, so for the most part, while watching horror movies, all I do is scream at the people on the screen and post my frustrations as status updates.

Well about around 11pm last night I got multiple posts of this movie trailer to my wall with everyone saying the exact same thing...'this made me think of you' lol, I can't tell you how happy this movie trailer make me and I never get tired of watching it! Its hard to pick but if I had too my favorite part would be the VCR scene. Well without further adieu here is the trailer for the movie

Hell No.

The Rhythm: a Short Poem

This pen of mine is alive.
This pen of mine can breathe.
This pen of mine can bring the dead back to life.
This pen of mine is the rhythm.
Can you feel it, like I feel it?
This pen of mine...
Sent from the digital pen of The Wordsmith.

FAMILY, FRIENDS STUNNED! LITTLE DOG DEVASTATED.

In local news:

Nearly famous, best-seller wannabe author Crystal Connor falls victim to The Creature of The Mist, as she ignores her own advice posted here and on Facebook and wanders off, alone, in the dark, snapping pictures for Instagram.

At 2:37 AM a neighbor called police to report an 'eerie silence' coming from the upstairs apartment. The police attempted entry but was halted by a little black dog hording what seemed to be a 1,000 tennis balls and aggressively guarding snacks. A sweep of the area only revealed the author's phone.

"This is just so unbelievable," the downstairs neighbor said requesting to remain unnamed. "Between the hours of like midnight to about four in the morning, I would hear her screaming bloody murder to some poor lass in a horror movie who was lost in the wilderness or had hid in the closet. To think she now shares their untimely fate, I guess you never really know someone. I have no idea how I'll ever be able to sleep engulfed in all this peace and quiet."

Here are a few of the images retrieved from the word-smith's phone. To view the entire college entitled "It Was a Dark & Stormy Night" and other random ass pix please visit and follow her on Instagram:

The Abandoned 

No Outlet

The Last Walk (of the night)

Upcoming photo ops!

LOL. Just kidding. Oct is a big deal for me being that I spin tales of horror from the tip of my pen. And I am happy to say I have a lot going on the month.

For those of you in Seattle on Oct 3 I am one of seven authors that will be doing a reading at an event called 'Book Date with Morgue Ann' at the rendezvous jewel box. Come by and hey and get your books signed.

I'll be a panel guest at Greek Girl Con and I'll also be at the kick off party the week before =D

If your not in Seattle don't fret, I am back on tour for the anthology starting on the 17th (whoo hoo) and on the 25th I will be on a panel discussion via Skype at the Alien Encounters con held in the ATL so hopefully you can either come see me in person, chat w/me online, or call in on Skype...until then have a good one.

Sent from the digital pen of The Wordsmith.