Home » Posts tagged "Friday the 13th"

Free Today: Fear the Reaper and Horror 101: The Way Forward

     

 

Crystal Lake Publishing has evidently decided to make this Friday the 13th your lucky day.

 

Starting today, and for the next 5 days, they are giving away free ebooks of  the horror anthology Fear the Reaper, and Horror 101: The Way Forward. Both of these contain work by some pretty celebrated writers, including Joe McKinney and the late Rick Hautala.

Crystal Lake is also holding a Two for the Price of One sale on Tales from the Lake, Vol. 1 and For the Night is Dark.

Have a great Friday the 13th!

Posted on February 13, 2015 by , Reply

Monster Movie Month: Friday the 13th

I’m guessing that since it’s Monster Movie Month and today happens to be Friday the 13th that you might wonder if I’m going to write about the subgenre everyone thinks about when the topic of horror movies comes up- slasher movies. Actually, I’m not that good at planning ahead, but when I realized today was Friday the 13th, I thought I should probably come up with something to say. Certainly, they were coming out in droves as I was growing up. But, honestly, this is a genre that I really don’t enjoy all that much, and outside of the first few Nightmare on Elm Street movies and a few of the more self-referential movies of the 90s and beyond, I haven’t seen the movies and don’t plan to.

It’s kind of hard to write about or even talk about horror movies without knowing the tropes, though. The plots and characters are so predictable that the denizens of the Shocklines horror community forum even compiled a horror movie survival guide... so predictable that moviemakers and can make fun of them and manipulate them (and movie watchers will enjoy it) in such films as the recently released movie The Cabin in the Woods (reviewed here, and accompanied by a great readers advisory one-sheet created by reviewer Benjamin Franz)

TVtropes.com provides a nice summary (with links) of the tropes of the slasher movie here. You can scroll down the page there to find a partial list of slasher movies. Along with Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th is considered an iconic film in the slasher genre, and the trope codifier.

If you’d rather try out a book in honor of the movie of the day, you can visit our page of reviews on Human Horror and Psychological Terror. Note that books in this genre are not for the faint of heart- they can be graphic, brutal, and gory, but much of the time they’re also psychological in nature, which makes them a different kind of creature.

Whatever your plans, may your day be a lucky one!

Posted on July 13, 2012 by , Reply

Hug a Triskaidekaphobic Today!

After all, it’s Friday the 13th, so they may need some extra support. If you, however, would personally like to get seriously creeped out by the number thirteen, I’d like to suggest that you check out the YA title Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. While we haven’t reviewed it here, I can tell you that for me at least it is one of those dark, unforgettable books that, months later, still unsettles me. Voices from beyond the grave can do that.

In other news, Sammy Terry is making a comeback! If you are of a certain age and time, you might remember a local midnight movie hour- they used to be fairly common. Think Elvira, but really, really low budget. In Indiana, the midnight movie show was called Nightmare Theatre and was hosted by Sammy Terry (played by Bob Carter) on WTTV, Channel 4.  He had totally grotesque makeup, a chilling cackle, slept in a coffin, and had a floating spider sidekick named George.  Sammy Terry’s show shut down in 1989, but now Carter’s son, Mark, is bringing Sammy Terry back! As usual, I am not the first in the know, but learning that Sammy Terry is back in business has made this Friday the 13th a memorable one for me!

Posted on May 14, 2011 by , Reply