To A Creepy New Year in 2011

Hello and welcome to the New Year of Horror on Hump Day! It's been a long hiatus, though maybe not the longest I've taken. Publishing a horror magazine will do that, even at the length of Killing Time - Horror E-Rag. It's become something of a tradition to look back and then look forward. Let us begin.

Looking back I am immediately struck by the recent posts about movies and television both before and after Hallowe'en's thirteen blogs. Both by the number and the ideas I hoped to express about them. There was even some motivational material, because honestly with all the negativity out there about the genre and its failings someone has to get on topic, push forward, and try to be a force of change.

To some degree it's a sad state of affairs that it has to be me, but really who better? I've always been trying to push for better horror, and painting the way as a consumer. Some could ask, who am I tell to anyone how to make something better? The answer is, I'm someone who enjoys horror so much I had to become a creator. Even that much commitment isn't necessary. All it takes is a passion for the material, the movies, the books, the games, the tropes, the feelings, the whole shebang.

The look back became the look forward. Might as well continue mixing it up. The past year I talked about a setting with witches, and more pertinent to the discussion witch hunters. It's kind of funny because I recently saw the animated video for "American Witch" NSFW by Rob Zombie, which seemed to me to be a companion piece to the "Lords of Salem" NSFW video, which I had seen significantly longer ago. The Lords video is very evocative of just how frightening the Witch Hunter General and his closest men are, to not only the common man, but also to even the blackest hearted witch.

I intend to look at some more settings. Like early in 2010 I also intend to look at horror from a RPGer's perspective because what is a pen and paper RPG for the person running the sessions (known as the Game Master among other names), a position akin to director on a movie set and at the same time scriptwriter--if both of those only worked with or wrote the minor characters and the setting/sets. I'm re-explaining this both for new readers and because there's been some recent controversy, but that's not something I intend to get into here. Beyond that, I never know what I'm going to write about until I start planning for the next week. Here's to new horrors and new looks at it.

Mood: stoked.
Music: American Witch by Rob Zombie and Werewolf Women Of The SS by Rob Zombie.

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One Step Around the Corner

Creators of genre fiction do not deal with regular everyday reality.  For example, noir or westerns, both of which could be entirely rooted in the real, will not remain there entirely.  There is some shift to the side.  There are considerations for mood.  There are considerations for genre conventions.  There are even considerations for author bias.  Those biases can take the form of the political, patriotically cloaked, and bigoted type discussed last week.  They can be less inappropriate biases than those too.  Then there are the personal biases formed in the direction of enjoyment and excitement where the creator enhances certain aspects for a better story in keeping with their own wants and desires in entertainment.  The bias may also be theme or message related.

Bigoted bias need not be about race or religion.  Some biases are economic--the rich versus the poor.  Some are intelligence motivated--leaning toward the literati or the cognoscenti and away from the ignorant and uneducated.  Some, perhaps too many, are directly political within the same country--Republican versus Democrat, Liberal versus Conservative, Left versus Right.  There is also the one-sidedness and accompanying struggle between capitalism and socialism.  Any of these, singularly or in tandem, form the basis of numerable character archetypes.  In turn these characters confer their views onto the narrative.  This is true whether one or more of them provide the narrative voice or there is an unrelated narrator.  That is unless that narrator provides voice, comment, or contrast otherwise.

Here is where the bias may be purposeful within the narrative.  A story's theme, or the message it looks to convey to the audience, it's very raison d'etre, can exist to illustrate, shine a bright spotlight on the injustice of such a bias, or to perpetuate it. News media isn't the only place where an agenda is pushed by focusing on certain segments of an issue, or group.  Of course angling to create tension within, distort the worldview of, and otherwise negatively influence the audience is a despicable thing to do.  Doing it within the populace of the created fictional world though is an exciting proposition.  Doing it provides the structure upon which to foster enticing plots, character-developing dilemmas, and at the higher level of the audience to forward themes, morals, and message.

Mood: valiant.

Music: Dream Of Mirrors by Iron Maiden and The Gunslinger by Demons & Wizards.

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