Steve Hockensmith's blog

Do You Want to See Something REALLY Scary?

Here's a weird thing for a guy who writes zombie novels to admit on Halloween: I'm not all that big on horror movies. Oh, there are a few I love. Enough for a top 10, even. (And if you think you're getting out of this blog post without seeing that top 10, you don't know how Halloween blog posts work.) But I have pretty much the same relationship with the horror genre that I have with rap and heavy metal. Every so often I find myself enjoying it -- when I hear De La Soul, say, or "Ace of Spades" -- but 99% of the time it's simply NFM (Not For Me).

Part of the problem: I'm the kind of weirdo who doesn't enjoy watching people suffer and die. I was very much digging the film Cabin in the Woods recently -- it's a pretty darned amusing meta-riff on horror -- but about 20 minutes in I had to take a break and watch a 30 Rock instead. Why? Because that's when the suffering and dying kicked in. I was having such a good time up till then I almost forgot I was watching a real horror film and not the driest, cleverest, most restrained entry in the Scary Movie franchise.

HYPOCRISY ALERT: I love mysteries and (good) action movies, both of which need bloodshed (and sometimes plenty of it) to fuel themselves. What's absent -- from the ones I enjoy most, anyway -- is the suffering part. There are a lot of bodies in your average Thin Man outing, but terror, torture and dismemberment? Not so much. And James Bond kills, like, 75 anonymous henchmen per hour, but he's not doing it just for sadistic giggles. Somebody's got to blow up that freeze ray, dammit!

So, to summarize. Gunning down a hundred jumpsuit-wearing lackeys: O.K. Chopping half a dozen teenagers into camp counselor pate: not O.K. In my book, anyway.

(And I don't just point the hypocritical finger of judgment at the horror genre, by the way. I absolutely loathe serial-killer thrillers. Really. Loathe! Don't get me started on 'em...and please don't tell my friends who write them.)

But it's not just the cheering-at-the-Coliseum aspect of horror movies I don't like. I'm also irritated in a silly, pedantic way by most depictions of the supernatural. If you say "Candyman" five times while looking in a mirror, he'll come and kill you? Really? Why? And you can send the demon back to Hell if you take Ye Olde Convenient Book of Spells to the top of Mt. Plotpoint and spout Latin mumbo-jumbo at midnight? Why would the universe work like that? I mean, is that midnight according to your wristwatch or the demon's? 

No. If you want to spook me with the supernatural, you have to capture the real reason it's unsettling: because it's something we don't and probably can't understand. There are powers greater than us in the universe, and they're capricious and unfathomable and not necessarily nice. Slap a bunch of stupid hocus-pocus rules on them, and you might as well be making Bewitched. 

That's why most movies about Satan and demons and ghosts are bunk. They treat The Unknown as not unknown at all. Everything's easily codified and demystified. Confused? Just ask the old gypsy lady/moody psychic/creepy guy at the gas station/"parapsychologist"/mystic/priest -- he/she will explain what's going on. That's why Eraserhead is a creepier movie than Jan de Bont's remake of The Haunting by about a million times. It's freaky, and the movie about a house full of extremely unfriendly ghosts isn't.

Anyway, you get the idea. Horror = NFM...usually. Behold the exceptions!

Steve's Highly Subjective and Probably Not All That Original Top 10(ish) Horror Movies

(1) The Shining (because it is freaky)

(2) The Exorcist (see above)

(3) The Thing from Another World & The Thing (because it's possible to love them both)

(4) Alien & Aliens (see above)

(5) Dawn of the Dead & Shaun of the Dead (see above above)

(6) An American Werewolf in London

(7) Poltergeist (because in spite of the dated special effects and the silly ending no other film better captures what it's like to be a 9-year-old alone in your bedroom at night)

(8) The Ring (see way above, re: freaky)

(9) Pan's Labyrinth (see above's "see way above")

(10) Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (just because)

Honorable mentions: The Legend of Hell House, Return of the Living Dead, Psycho & Silence of the Lambs (because I don't hate all serial-killer thrillers...just most of them), They Live (although isn't it really science fiction?), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 1978 version, actually...and isn't it really science fiction, too?), The Sixth Sense, Zombieland, Let the Right One In, Tucker & Dale vs Evil and a bunch more good movies I've forgotten but will soon be reminded of...right, guys?

The Blender in the Swimming Pool

It's been two years since my last Bouchercon, so I recently marked the anniversary by having a nervous breakdown. Not a big one. Just the kind a Bouchercon would have brought on. One where I was racked by insecurity and tortured by paranoid fever dreams about people I might have accidentally insulted and friendships I might have pissed down the tubes.

Fun!

Bouchercon, by the way, is the mystery world's largest annual convention. Fans come to hang out with other fans and maybe get a book or two signed by favorite authors. Writers come to hang out with other writers and score as many free drinks as possible. Editors and publishers come to hang out with their most successful authors and, if possible, get them drunk. Agents come to keep their drunk clients from signing anything legally binding. Book sellers come to sell books. And unlike some conventions, there are very few prostitutes. Of the sex-trade variety, anyway. Ba-da-BING!!! 

For a time, I went every year. I wrote mysteries, so I figured Bouchercon was part of the gig. Plus, I met some great people at Bouchercons. Smart people. Nice people. Fun people. Oh, sure -- I ran into some dicks, too. But back to the smart, nice, fun people. There were lots of them! So why did I leave every Bouchercon feeling like Frodo dragging his little ass back from Mordor? 

Yes, there were Incidents. The time I rubbed a clique of would-be hipster-rebels the wrong way and was made to feel their hipster-rebel wrath. The time I went drinking with an Irishman (unwise!) and ended up unable to tell left from right, up from down or real from unreal. (That became my story "Blarney," BTW.) The time I watched a big shot of my acquaintance cold-shoulder a perfectly nice writer because the guy didn't sell enough books. And then the inevitable time a couple years later when that same big shot cold-shouldered me.

Yet even without Incidents, Bouchercon was rough. If nothing traumatic happened, my brain would simply fill in the void. I think that guy thinks I dissed him! I think that other guy thinks I dissed a friend of his! I think that gal saw me peeking at her name-tag because I couldn't remember who she was and now she thinks I was ogling her breasts! I THINK THAT OTHER GAL CAUGHT ME OGLING HER BREASTS!!!

(Note: I do not actually ogle women's breasts in public. Like all decent, modern men, I do so privately, in front of a computer.)

There were other reasons not to go to Bouchercon. It can be expensive. I have young children. My wife works, and my son has special needs. (Actually, I'm not sure if my son has "special needs" or not. What does "special needs" cover, exactly? It makes it sound like he needs the blood of a unicorn and a griffin feather every morning or he'll turn into a tree. My son's needs aren't that special. They're just a lot for a working mom to deal with on her own.)  

Anyway, upshot: I stopped going to Bouchercon and I told myself it was for all of these perfectly valid reasons. But it wasn't until this summer that I finally understood the real reason I didn't want to go anymore. 

While on vacation with my family, I read an amazing book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. My wife saw me nodding a lot. She heard me muttering things like, "Yes! My god, yes!" She watched my eyes go wide and my jaw drop as I discovered myself in the pages of a book written by a stranger.

Hi. My name is Steve, and I'm an introvert.

Noisy, crowded spaces throw me off. I find "mingling" physically and emotionally draining. I need a lot of time by myself and prefer meaningful conversations with a small group of people to soirees with lots of idle chit chat. 

None of this was news, of course. I've been me for...oh, forty some-odd years now. What was liberating was finding that there's a reason I am the way I am. I didn't have to feel badly about being a Bouchercon washout anymore. I simply wasn't wired for it. You don't throw a blender in the swimming pool and then wonder why it doesn't float.

Of course, we blenders can't stay on the kitchen counter all the time. Because by "we blenders" I mean "we introverts," and we're human beings with complicated lives and important responsibilities. We can't just say, "If you want a margarita mixed, great, but get those goddamn carrots away from me! What do I look like, a f___ing Cuisinart?" No. We have to be more flexible than mere blenders, more versatile. Like something made by Ronco, maybe. We can stay true to who we are, yet there needs to be that "But wait -- there's more!" as well. 

So I don't know. Maybe you'll see me at another Bouchercon one of these days. If you do, come up and say hi. I'd love to talk...in the quietest corner of the hotel bar.

Just don't throw me in the pool, O.K.?

Hot Links

It's about time I wrote a new blog post, but I'm not feeling very inspired today. Good thing I've got new content to link to everywhere but here!

*Over at the L.A. Times's Hero Complex blog, I've written about how I almost beat Sherlock and Elementary to the Holmes-updating punch. My old pal Gina McIntyre took over Hero Complex recently, so look for me to pop up there from time to time with more goofy pop culture musings.

*The fine folks at Crime City Central have included a reading of my story "Fred Menace, Commie for Hire" in their latest podcast. Mike Boris does a great job with the narration, so if you don't know the story (or even if you do) you might want to check it out.

*Blogger-reviewer-Great White Northerner and all-around good doobier Neal Munro has posted a new Q&A with me on his website, Gutenberg's Son. Well, the Q&A's not that new, actually. I just forgot to promote it when it first appeared a month ago. Oops. I guess that makes this a Cold Link. Maybe we can warm it up with a little Web traffic, whadaya say?

*And finally, mistress-of-all-things-zombie Jess D'Arbonne has given Cadaver in Chief a rave review over at the Denver Zombie Examiner. Just in case you don't follow the link, I'm going to quote my favorite lines here. [Clears throat.] "Probably the best thing about Cadaver in Chief is that it is genuinely, wickedly, intelligently funny...It is a textbook example of how to use zombies effectively in comedy." Thanks, Jess! And I'm happy to say she's not the only one singing the book's praises: It's racked up 16 five-star reviews on Amazon. And that's out of 20 reviews! Not a bad batting average. If you haven't given the book a try...well, dang it, what's the hold-up?

Coming Soon: a real update.