Don't Look Back in Anger

I've lifted this from a VideoGum post. The Mirror Scare is truly a classic. Medicine cabinets close so quickly so they're great for hiding stuff for jump-scares... even though you really can't use the tactic anymore unless you twist it up or parody it because it's so well-known. (And well-parodied, really.)

Also check out Paul F. Tompkins's hilarious "Sink and the Mirror" bit.

Look Around You: Brain

Look Around You!

Look Around You: Iron

Look Around You: Music

Look Around You: Sulphur

Look Around You: Ghosts

Look Around You: Germs

Look Around You: Water

Look Around You: Maths

Look Around You: Calcium

2010: The Year We Make Contact

Making good on my determination not to go a whole month without posting something here. First post of 2010 and I wish I had some more official news to publish...

The "Sorrow" team has been meeting with directors...

There are several other projects I can't quite talk about, as there always is...

Continuing to work on an original piece called "Hayride" that promises to be a real scream...

I know that every year begins with the hope that "this is the year that all the hard work pays off"... but this REALLY IS THAT YEAR, dammit.

You may not believe me now, but you will.

(And if it doesn't happen, I can always go back and revise this entry.)

I've Started to Think About Leaving Tonight

I do try not to go without posting something here at least once a month. If only for the show.

Staring down the close of this brutal year. Brutal decade, if you want to compartmentalize time like that. It was an education. Everyone needs to get taken to school.

Hopefully by the time anyone reads this, I'll have moved beyond this famine period.

What can I tell you, silent lurker?

I'm writing. Need to write. Writing is my only salvation. Need to get these stories out of my head and into the world.

Enough crypto-quotes? Can I be more oblique here?

Working on something original called "Hayride".

More to come in the new year. The game changes in the new year. For real.

Sorrow and Savagery

The first press release regarding a project I've been developing with our blessed friends at Twisted Pictures is officially out. (This is the first press release that I've actually participated in, for the record.)

An adaptation of "SORROW", a graphic novel by Rick Remender, Seth Peck and Francesco Francavilla.

I've been developing a number of diverse projects beyond THE BUTCHERHOUSE CHRONICLES but this one is the first to go all public-like. (It's a curious business.)

Sooo... you don't know what "The Butcherhouse Chronicles" is, you're not familiar with "Sorrow" and you most certainly don't know who the hell *I* am... and yet you were curious enough to make your way to this remote corner of the internet.

You can pick up a copy of "SORROW" and get a good sense of the project, if the curiosity spurs you to that length. I'll safely say that even if you're familiar with the original graphic novel, the movie adaptation will have a fair amount of surprises. We're building upon the foundation that Remender/Peck/Francavilla set down and I'm personally excited about where we're going with this. That talented trio have created a really evocative piece and we're having a lot of fun with the playground they've built.

It's going to be really different. I know that Twisted Pictures is forever linked to the SAW franchise but this is nothing like SAW. The producers have been excellent to work with and they've been on board with what I've brought to the project. There are some great characters in this and I'm especially excited about the strong female protagonist.

I know that updates here are infrequent but more on this ASAP, I promise.

And (crossing fingers) more on the "Butcherhouse" adaptation, too...

Thanks for stopping by, Internet!

What is "The Butcherhouse Chronicles"?

Invariably, whenever there's a press announcement concerning "The Butcherhouse Chronicles" movie, this blog encounters a spike of curious people looking for some information...

"The Butcherhouse Chronicles" was and *is* a deeply personal stage play that I started writing in April of 2003. My life was very different back then. I was getting ready to get married, locked into a dead-end job, trying to keep the dreams alive. I finished writing the first draft of the play about six months later, around October of 2003. Though I'd written a series of short pieces and one-acts, this was my first full-length stage play.

CUT TO a few years later, 2006. I'm getting a divorce, the play is staged at the Summer Play Festival and gets optioned by Paramount about a month after that festival production.

There's no shortage of snark on the internet. No way to really combat it. But this project is very near and dear to me.

No, it's not simply another "horror remake". It's an original stage play, conceived as a stage play, being adapted into a movie. A stage play designed to dismantle the archetypes of a typical slasher movie... which then had to be reverse-engineered into an actual slasher movie. Which is probably one of the reasons it's taken a little longer to get going than I would've wished.

I'm working on a lot of different projects but this is my breakthrough project. Everyone has to have a breakthrough project. Yes, it's a high-concept studio movie now, but it's also a deeply personal piece... at least at its origins.