Post by Admin Kbatz on Feb 25, 2019 23:31:07 GMT -5
There was horror, and there were vampires - werewolves, zombies, and Tom Hiddleston with a dose of Hitchcock, too. Read on for the transcript from our zany but no less informative Monday Night Dinner chat with Yours Truly!
Admin Kbatz: Our Next Live Chat is 8 pm eastern Monday February 25. Horror Author and Frightening Flix columnist Kristin Battestella answers your horror questions!
Admin Kbatz: For Full Chat Transcripts visit the Horror Workshop Section at HOW: horroraddictswriters.freeforums.net/board/14/writing-horror
Admin Kbatz: When other kids were playing with dolls and teddy bears, this South Jersey born and bred addict KBatz was watching Price, Lee, Hitchcock, Dark Shadows, Alien, anything and everything in analysis of what was scary and why. Be it vamps, scares, or weres, you name it-freaky or macabre and she is there. For more bent paranormal fiction and horror film, television, and literature reviews, find Kbatz at ithinkthereforeireview.blogspot.com/
Admin Kbatz: In the nineties actually. Back then there wasn't much to read when it came to vampires, beyond the biggies. Now it seems strange to say.
Emz: Lmao I know what you mean. I was there too. But no publishers wanted vampire fiction. They said it was overplayed and that Anne Rice did it all... there was no room for newbies.
Emz: When did your first book come out?
Admin Kbatz: 2005. It seems like such a long time ago and e publishing has changed drastically since then.
Emz: Wow! But you hit before Twilight. That's awesome. Mine was 2008 so it was either right as or right after... can't remember. But... how did your fan base change after Twilight popped? Was it is easier or harder to sell books after?
Admin Kbatz: That was such a strange time, you still had to explain how you were not like Twilight and came before. I had to deter kids because my vampire series is not for young audiences.
Emz: I remember the first time I started being ask... "Do they sparkle?" I'm like... huh? What is your answer to that question?
Admin Kbatz: No they DO NOT sparkle.
Admin Kbatz: My vampires are not for teens at all. I don't have the young adult writing mentality. I'm concerned with deeper light versus dark themes, and I was writing vampires before it every became a tween romance thing. I suppose I could write schlock but no.
Emz: Do you remember how you heard about HorrorAddicts.net and how/when you came on board?
Admin Kbatz: Writers have to know their audience but trying to write to an audience that's popular or talking down to a reader is always troublesome
Admin Kbatz: I think we met on another vampire writing website. I did a guest spot and kept writing more and more so I was brought on board as a regular
Admin Kbatz: HorrorAddicts.net has really expanded since then. I think that was five years ago.
Admin Kbatz: I do remember that no one could pronounce my name on the podcast so we just went with Kbatz, ironically because that was a Rpatz shortening thing to do at the time.
Emz: Hehhee cool! i am glad you came! Site wouldn't be the same without you.
Admin Kbatz: A lot of the websites and e publishers from that time are gone.
Emz: When did you start your "I think..." site?
Admin Kbatz: I Think, Therefore I Review came together eleven years ago now. I had written a lot of reviews and articles that were scattered on different websites or from mags and papers that folded, so I made a blog for them that just kept getting bigger and bigger. But then I started writing more and the site itself became its own thing. I don't just write horror, but critique television and classics movies.
Emz: Do you ever write short fiction? Or are you a novel kinda gal?
Admin Kbatz: I've done both short and long fiction. When I was younger I wrote shorter stories, but then had also had epic novels. I think for me it is more the material, if it is a smaller story or something complex, rather than being one or the other
Admin Kbatz: I'm writing less fiction though in recent years. Often for me it is a back and forth between writing shorter non fiction and longer fiction.
trin: I notice a number of my friends who write horror also have some aspect of their work involved in film critique. How did you start down that path?
Admin Kbatz: I was writing music reviews actually, and then because I wrote horror fiction I had guest spots at different ezines and websites. They wanted other articles so I started writing about horror movies.
Admin Kbatz: There are a lot of parallels in movies and the publishing industry, both seem to be at a crossroads between audiences and new mediums.
trin: Horror is particularly prone to remake and reuse. Yet, people still seem to find fresh aspects to add to the films. Do you find yourself saying Oh, no not again very often.
Admin Kbatz: I have a How to Review Workshop here: horroraddictswriters.freeforums.net/thread/39/review-kristin-battestella
Admin Kbatz: Yes I wrote a piece about Horror Cliches I'm Tired of Seeing because there are so many tropes that seem to be repeated, that the industry falls back upon or goes in cycles over. There are new voices, but they are increasing tough to find
Admin Kbatz: Naturally now also, we are talking about horror on the podcasts and videos, too.
Emz: Yes. I write tons of reviews, but I HATE writing music reviews. I never know what to say. And it's weird because I love music, even was a singer and studied but... Do you have any tips on writing music reviews specifically?
Admin Kbatz: Music reviews I think most people are not students of musical theory, so you don't need to get technical about a lot of the terms and breakdown the whole scale so to speak. Sometimes it is easiest to just go song by song on an album, state what you like
Admin Kbatz: I have never used a star style rating, because that gets distorted over time when you compare your 4 and 5 stars with each other. Mainly I think if you say what you like or dislike and why and who the audience is of an album or a movie, that's half of it.
Admin Kbatz: I have never used a star style rating, because that gets distorted over time when you compare your 4 and 5 stars with each other. Mainly I think if you say what you like or dislike and why and who the audience is of an album or a movie, that's half of it.
trin: It's kind of a trope to treat Vampirism, or werewolf problems as a disease but if you think about it, that is exactly how a modern society would treat it if they figured out these immortals walked and killed amongst us. Treated like an ebola outbreak.
trin: Zombie films do it all the time. I agree with you about simply stating likes and dislikes. I don't like star systems.
Emz: I don't care for that trope. My vamps aren't that way. Are yours Kbatz?
Admin Kbatz: We discussed earlier about SF and Horror mixing and I think that is a lot of the science trying to explain the monster. Which isn't new, shades of Shelley even, but we sometimes are getting so technical. I miss sociological soft SF as well
trin: I remember when Dark Shadows first wrote in a doctor promising a cure. She had no intent of it and was evil herself but at the time it seemed a good twist.
Admin Kbatz: Zombies were also always there now there is a lot of body horror that is sometimes too depressing. I did write a short story many, uh decades, ago about Vampire Blood.
Admin Kbatz: But in Dark Shadows, they don't need to explain the how. She makes a few injections or transfusions and that's that. Today, it seems all the technological has to be explained. Takes the fun out of it sometimes.
trin: Ah, what a good point. I sometimes also find some horror too depressing. I don't need a happy ending or hero wins scenario but I also think there needs to be a lift along the way or the dark loses it's point.
Admin Kbatz: I enjoy examining the light versus dark in writing so when it is all dark, there doesn't seem to be much value for me. Depressing and in your face annoy me.
trin: I find myself drawn to werewolves. I'm thinking of writing wolf soon. Maybe other wereanimals. I've always enjoyed the werewolf films and really I'm a bit disappointed no one has pushed more limits on that mythology in film.
Admin Kbatz: I still like the Jack Nicholson movie Wolf. Just a creepy adult werewolf vibe. Werewolves always seem reduced though among other monsters and I don't know why.
trin: Yes. It was a good one. I have a theory about that reduction. I think it makes men uneasy. There are too many anologies to menstrual cycles in the mythology. It's like a male cycle. There are no were-bitches.
Admin Kbatz: Silver bullet is a good one. The Underworld movies really fell off, and then that entire action horror monsters are cool thing happened.
Emz: I do like werewolves too, to a point. I need them to either be human-ish or animal-ish. I don't like the in-between-hairy weirdos.
Admin Kbatz: Company of Wolves is another old one that gets into the prey/predator aspect
Emz: I also hate werewolf transformation. No matter what you think about Twilight, I thought the wolf transformation was really good. no one else makes them believable.
Admin Kbatz: I guess you don't like the werewolf stuntman on Dark Shadows with his wild wig and hairy gloves and little three piece Victorian suit
Emz: Lmao... no too cheesy. I like Blood and Chocolate and Gingersnaps Back
trin: A lot of Dark Shadows was cheesy. The movie was a disaster.
Admin Kbatz: That's part of my problem with Twilight, again it made it vampires versus werewolves and then there was the whole imprint thing and how a 200 year old vamp is like loving high school chicks. It makes me uncomfortable that it because popular and romanticize Emz: I didn't like Edward, but what about vampires that fall in love with mortals... is it not okay for them to love again? I love romantic vampire stuff. So for me, I never see the age as a problem.
Admin Kbatz: Foreign horror, not just another language but UK and Australian releases seem to be pushing the envelope more, they aren't catering to a mainstream box office need like in the US.
trin: I have a problem with vampires falling in love with mortals. I sort of feel they lose the ability for empathy as they age and progress as monsters.
Admin Kbatz: I don't like when everything is en masse. I think that is what happened with zombies, there are movies, tv, books, video games, real life flash mob crawls, zombie deer diseases in the news. Too much
Admin Kbatz: I think the monster having personal angst or sympathy can be done, but then romance is often tossed in just for the sake of it. It shows when it isn't intergral to the plot.
Emz: They aren't romances, but they fall in love with each other and most of the people are hundreds of years apart.
trin: I agree about the zombies. Although I really liked Zombieland and Shawn of the Dead. I like a little humor.
Admin Kbatz: I like horror that makes a social statement, mirror to nature, and that doesn't always have to be bleak.
trin: I think the romance can work if done right. I liked the vampire searching for release through love in Coppola's Dracula. I like the monster to need redemption but I want the monster to be a monster.
Emz: Kbatz... how did you think about creating a HOWCon?
Admin Kbatz: I had an epub years ago that used to do online workshops. I'm not actually a big social media fan, again a lot of authors blasting to each other and not necessarily connecting with readers or being able to find the books you want.
Admin Kbatz: I wanted to return to a more concrete format to which everyone could have some kind of access on their own schedule
Emz: Kbatz Brill idea. I love it!
Admin Kbatz: The industries like to peg anything that has a vampire as horror, whether it is scary or monstrous or not. Only Lovers Left Alive is frankly a drama that happens to have vampires in it. It is tough to call it a horror movie when nothing scary happens.
Emz: I know people liked Only Lovers Left Alive but I hated it. It was so slow and didn't accomplish anything!
Admin Kbatz: But that's the thing. It was marketed as a horror movie with vampires and then some people will be disappointed when it is saying something entirely different. I love it.
trin: What about Crimson Peak. A return to Gothic Horror but I found so many holes in the plot it distracted me. Pretty to watch though.
Admin Kbatz: One the problem with Crimson Peak is the way it was marketed. People see an October release with ghosts and jumps in the trailer and that's what they expect. The movie isn't a horror scare a minute at all but a gothic romance in the spirit of Hammer. Victorian horror that is about the atmosphere, color, lavish, dangers, pain and pleasure together.
Admin Kbatz: So the way it was promoted and then the way it was edited hurt it. There is supplemental material that fills in a lot of the backstory that is tremendous and you think why isn't that in the movie? It's only a few years old but today put it on tv. Make it a series with time to explore the world.
trin: I wanted the heroine to be stronger. By the end she had weak ankles syndrome and needed rescue.
Admin Kbatz: Honestly, if Crimson Peak was put out as an instant netflix original today, it would be a massive hit.
trin: I loved the waltz scene. It's still stuck in my head.
Admin Kbatz: That I wonder if was a case of casting, Jessica did better than Mia.
Emz: We are talking vampires, werewolves, Crimson Peak
kgfinfrock: The biggest issue my friends and I had with Crimson Peak was the sex scene. We both all said "not a virgin." and laughed a lot.
Admin Kbatz: Speaking of Hiddleston from earlier, there was a comment about monsters becoming superheros. I see a lot of that in his Loki character. I don't really think Loki is his best work. He is a trickster god yet people seem to make him sad and misunderstood. Are they making the love for the actor blind them to the villainy of the role? Loki will always be selfish and advantageous to himself, most villains are. There's nothing to misunderstand or justify.
kgfinfrock: I love the character Loki. The only reason to watch.
trin: I agree about the sex scene in Crimson Peak. Del Toro likes a dirty peak through the keyhole kind of view in his pictures. I think he could leave some of those out and have better pictures. That said the egg time bath and underwater love scenes worked.
Admin Kbatz: I thought that sex scene was meant to show she was strong or dominant and suggest he must be submissive but eh less than a minute ago x
Admin Kbatz: I didn't watch the Marvel movies until after I saw Only Lovers Left Alive.
kgfinfrock: a lot of people would agree with you. I get quite bored by these types of scenes.
nkassa: I like the sex scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula best. And, it's my favorite Dracula film, though some of the acting is a tad corny. (Cough! Keanu Reeves. Cough! Cary Elwes.)
Admin Kbatz: Well again it seemed like there wasn't enough time to explore it. In the companion book you read more about her yearning and his increasingly discomfort with his sister but in the movie it is too short. Separate conversation but that is the difference between erotica and pornography. Porn is a visual meant for quick gratification where erotica is literature meant for a stimulating anticipation
Admin Kbatz: Well how to sum up this chat! Vampires, werewolves, horror, sex...
nkassa: Admin Kbatz! Did you reveal your favorite horror film?
Admin Kbatz: Probably one of the biggies, Psycho, Alien, Jaws. My favorite movie of all time is The Searchers
trin: When I first saw Alien I was gobsmacked. It was a great jump out and bite me picture. My date had to run out to throw up. I count that as a winner in horror. a few seconds ago x
Admin Kbatz: Alien is steeped in sexual horrors. I think that is why it is so frightening. It isn't body horror look at the gore be afraid. It is about a violation and loss of power and control. Terrifying stuff
trin: One of the best in horror to this day.
Admin Kbatz: On Horror Addicts we argue because some only think it is science fiction.
trin: OMG I lOVE The Thing!
Emz: The Thing is good. I am one that thinks Alien is too scifi. lmao.
kgfinfrock: What about Fright Night vs the remake?
Admin Kbatz: I haven't seen the Fright Night remake. The original was fun enough that a redo wasn't needed. Generally I don't like remakes. The original Fog is excellent, not the remake
nkassa: I agree about remakes, Kbatz.
Admin Kbatz: Thursday night at the closing chat we can discuss what you did or didn't like about HOW. Maybe since the chats seem so popular we might do something more with this shoutbox for Horror Addicts ?
nkassa: Who is your favorite horror actor, Kbatz?
Admin Kbatz: My favorite actor of all time is Montgomery Clift. I love a lot of classic movie men. Horror wise I love Price, Lee, and Cushing. I don't like any modern American actors though it seems. They just don't do period horror well. I like Hiddleston more because his Shakespeare really blows me away. Fassbender has some real raw talent but he has fallen off hard and made some bad films I just don't enjoy. I also love Sean Bean, who's work I always enjoy no matter what it is.
nkassa: Oh I love Price, Lee, and Cushing! And Montgomery Clift is awesome in Red River! Did you mean the John Wayne version of the Searchers
Admin Kbatz: Yes I mentioned The Searchers earlier, it is my favorite movie ever followed closely by Red River
trin: I got to meet Christopher Lee on a couple of occasions when I was in college. He was every bit as handsome and dishy in person.
nkassa: Ahhh! I love both! I think Red River is my favorite John Wayne film, but North by Northwest is my favorite classic film.
nkassa: I love Steve McQueen but have never seen his Blob
Admin Kbatz: The 50s horror/sf are a genre unto themselves, interesting sociological study with all the veiled red scares and mccarthyism, too heavy a topic for tonight.
Admin Kbatz: Hitchcock doing a Bond film, that is North by Northwest. I talk about it briefly in the Hitchcock video I did for Horror Addicts. That and my favorite part of Psycho
trin: I love Notorious for suspense, pretty sexist, but good suspense. a few seconds ago x
Admin Kbatz: Crimson Peak does the whole key thing right out of Notorious
nkassa: Oh! I'll have to watch that video! He did! I like Spellbound!
Admin Kbatz: Spellbound is what I would say is my fave Hitchcock film, but it isn't so popular. I love the whole psychoanalysis layers
nkassa: Spellbound is so great! And, Salvador Dali did the pictures in the dream sequence.
trin: Spellbound was a bit over the top for me. I can't watch Topaz anymore because that scene where the woman is shot in her lover's arms and her skirt pools like blood on the floor carries too much punch for me.
Admin Kbatz: I Confess is also not as popular but I love the way Clift so internalizes the torment of not being able to reveal a murder confession and Hitchcock uses all the ecclesiastical visuals to create an overbearing parallel.
trin: We could do a whole night just on Hitchcock films. I enjoyed Frenzy but I agree with Kbatz. Psycho is at or near the top. I stayed overnight in the schoolhouse from The Birds. It used to be an Inn. Seriously creepy night.
Admin Kbatz: There is a poll and thread for participants to share your ideas and thoughts on HOW as well as a closed staff page to discuss ideas. Now that we have this forum, we can use it for a lot of things
trin: I think its a cool forum. It's better when the lag time is faster. 1 minute ago x
nkassa: It is!
Admin Kbatz: Here it is. If you have a request for something you want to see and do, tell us horroraddictswriters.freeforums.net/thread/42/
trin: Thanks Kbatz.
Admin Kbatz: Night Trin thanks for being here
Admin Kbatz: I guess that wraps this one, almost two hours! less than a minute ago x
Admin Kbatz: Thank you all