Less Than Pulp, Issue 23

Post-Halloween Blues, New Writing App, & The Brilliance of Barbarian

I always get sad when Halloween is over. I’m sure most horror fans do. Spooky season is the one time a year when the rest of the world seems on our wavelength. We see houses even in the most basic of suburban neighborhoods bedecked with skeletons, ghosts, gravestones, cotton spiderwebs, and all manner of macabre imagery. The decor ranges from the classical and campy to the bloody and disturbing. The kiddos get to gather sugary treats, while adults like me indulge in horror movie marathons.

This year, after the kids came in from trick or treating, I watched Killer Klowns from Outer Space, a longtime favorite of mine. It’s a masterclass in practical effects, pastiche, and taking an outlandish concept to its fullest potential. And that theme song by The Dickies slaps so hard.

The first time I saw the movie, I was eight years old. Dad called me in from playing in the front yard during the scene where the clowns march into the unsuspecting town—passing an obviously hand-painted sign showing its name. I was totally engrossed.

Over the years, I made a habit of renting it, but I could never find it for purchase. Eventually, a very generous video store employee made a VHS dub for me that I subsequently wore out until MGM gave Killer Klowns an official DVD release sometime in the late 90s. I watch this movie at least twice a year.

With the holiday and a corresponding story behind me, I’ve set some new writing goals and refined old ones. I’ve written a little of my supernatural thriller The Uncanny Chronicle. I’m still being tight-lipped about the plot, but basically, it’s like The Dark Half meets a working-class X-Files. What excites me most about it is that it will most definitely be a full-length novel, and it has some sensibilities I think will appeal to a wider audience.

With new writing projects on the horizon, it’s been necessary to find alternative ways to write distraction-free. For this, I recommend StimuWrite by author and programmer Eve Harms. Her design skills are every bit as impressive as her writing. The app allows you to write with a black background, gives you the dopamine hits of engagement on the social sites by giving emoji reactions as you hit your writing goals, and you can customize the sounds of the keys (I prefer the typewriter sound). She designed it to make writing addictive, and I think she succeeded. On Friday, I put my headphones on, opened the app, put on a vaporwave mix, and got to work on my first ghostwriting gig. Oh, yeah, that’s a thing I’m doing. More on that at another time, though.

Bottom line, I can’t recommend StimuWrite enough.

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Barbarian is a horror film that has gotten a lot of hype this year. I’m always wary of movies that get a lot of hype as I came of age during the feverish anticipation around The Phantom Menace, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said, enough people of varying tastes recommended Barbarian, so I finally broke down and watched it on Wednesday. Holy shit! This movie lives up to the hype, and then some. I will keep my thoughts spoiler-free here, but let’s just say that it’s the sort of horror movie I’ve been waiting for these past few years—and I didn’t even know how badly I wanted it. The flick is serious without losing its sense of fun, as well as genuinely disturbing and shocking. Most impressive is how it handles its dramatic tonal shifts. A lesser creator wouldn’t have been able to pull off the ways this one kept me guessing, but Zach Cregger nailed it. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for anything he does going forward.

This week on Make Your Own Damn Podcast, Jeff and I discussed the disaster movie genre, with a specific focus on the much-maligned, borderline pornographic output of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Spoiler: we love it and argue for the validity of these works. You can listen to the episode here, or by clicking the video below.

Last bit before I go: this newsletter finally hit 100 subscribers, so huge thanks to everyone who shared this week. I said I’d give away something special when I hit that milestone, so I’ll announce the winner in next week’s issue.

I greatly appreciate all of you, so take care of yourselves this week.