'Blade' coming to Spike

Blade, the half-vampire, half human Marvel superhero, is coming to Spike TV as a series. From Coming Soon:

Spike TV has given the green-light for a television series based on Marvel Super Hero Blade as the network's first original scripted series. The network has ordered 11 one-hour episodes, in addition to the previously announced two-hour kick-off episode, to be produced by New Line Television, set to commence production in Vancouver this spring. Blade premieres in June 2006.

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Vampire candidate arrested

Remember that self-described vampire running for governor of Minnesota? He was arrested in Indiana. From UPI:

Self-described vampire and Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey has been arrested on Indiana charges of stalking and escape. Sharkey is wanted in Indianapolis on the charges on which bond has been set at $100,000, the Princeton (Minn.) Union-Eagle reported. Princeton police said their search discovered the May 2005 warrants that led to Sharkey's arrest Monday.

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Turn your friends into zombies

Bibi explains how.

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final girl's life off line

Go read this post by Stacie at final girl. I did not one, but two spit takes. Also she links to the new Silent Hill trailer. I saw the trailer at the theater and this movie is going to rock.

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Haunt X

I don't usually feel like this, but some days I wish I had unlimited wealth. Then I would just drop everything and spend a week at Haunt X.

Haunt X is an event for people who prefer the "dark" things of life! This one-of-a-kind horror, haunt & Halloween expo features horror film celebrities, exciting tours, a real paranormal investigation, séances, Halloween & haunt seminars, world class speakers, horror movies, a to-die-for costume ball, special events and a giant dealer's room filled     with the latest and greatest spooky merchandise and collectibles. 

Now that is my kind of expo.

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Monstrous behavior

Jesus' General and Ginmar cover behavior that is worse than anything a horror writer could imagine.

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Battling the forces of darkness and evil

In case you were wondering, two of the site's contributors have not been posting. I wish to go meta for a moment to explain why. Cookie Jill is bravely facing the forces of darkness from California. I suspect the troubles are werewolf related. Pastor Dan is battling evil, this time in Pennsylvania. Plus he's carried me on his blog Faith Forward for years. Should they need assistance in their fights, they need simply to put up the vampire bat signal and help is on the way.

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Scary Personals

I'd love this blog even if the owner hadn't just made me a lot of play money in Blog Shares.

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Steam-powered tanks and robots

Makes me want to write science fiction in the Victorian era. Via Boing Boing.

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Flying car and black helicopters

The Register in England has fun with Google Earth. The "flying car" and the "spot the black helicopter" series.

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Strange skeleton found in Malaysia

The New Straits Times has the details.

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The curse of Stonehenge

Any reader of my vampire novel knows the special regard I hold Stonehenge. From The Guardian:

West of Amesbury on the A303, the road dips and rises towards a meadow in the distance. In the meadow stands a clump of grey stones, looking like dominoes rearranged by a shell from the neighbouring artillery range. The clump is Britain's greatest stone-age monument. Nobody can touch it. Stonehenge is cursed. I have bet every chairman of English Heritage - Lord Montagu, Sir Jocelyn Stevens and Sir Neil Cossons - that no plan of theirs to meddle with the stones will ever work. This week the latest tunnel proposal collapsed, following last year's rejection of a new visitor centre. The fate of the site is consigned to that Blairite neverland called "consultation", joining St Bart's and Crossrail among the living dead, projects which move only because they are maggot-ridden with costs. I have attended many Stonehenge consultations. They are raving madhouses. The sanest people present are the pendragons, druids, warlocks, Harry Potters, sons of the sun and daughters of the moon. They have a clear use for the stones and speak English.

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"We think it was pirates"

We haven't had a good pirate story in a while... From France:

Frustrated detectives had been trying to identify the woman, said to have been in her 30s, for two years without success. Her skeleton was found in December 2003 during an exceptionally low tide near the Brittany seaside town of Plouezoc'h. Police reckoned a 14 cm gash to the skull suggested she had been bludgeoned to death with a hatchet or other sharp object.

No luck with missing persons or DNA or, well, anything. Then they radio carbon dated the skeleton - and found that she'd died sometime in the first half of the 15th century.

François Gerthosser of the local police said the case was now closed. "We are satisfied because at least we know the date now. We think it was pirates," he said.

D'oh! Now that's a cold case... [via Charles Stross]

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Indian sovereignty

Have you ever read blog posts and suddenly felt enlightened about what is really going on, that fills in the piece that is missing from a puzzle so it suddenly makes sense? Down the wrong rabbit hole, Part 1. A Clue! A Clue! Forget About The Little Fish The Metaphysics of Indian Hating Redux

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Mayfair Witches

Bella on the Mayfair Witches.

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College students spot ghostly battle

Shepherd College is on the bank of the Potomac River on the West Virginia side. It is near where the Confederate troops retreated after the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in the Civil War. One Union regiment that followed was badly mauled while crossing the river. Keep that in mind while reading this email report from Susan Crites of the West Virginia Society of Ghost Hunters:

Several students from Shepherd College called to report...at the top of their lungs...a ghost sighting from the bank of the Potomac River on the WV side looking at the river bank on the Maryland side, near the old bridge uprights. They were near the river at the old Tobacco Warehouse. There is a small park-like area below the warehouse which is suitable for late-night "socializing." From this vantage point, they said they couldn't see much. [LOL] They heard screams, gunfire... "all hell breaking loose." It went on long enough for several to jump from the back seats of their cars, find the source of the noise [across the river] and focus on a remarkable scene. They said they saw fighting between ghostly men in uniforms. The could see the men but could also see the trees and foliage THROUGH them. They estimated that the ghostly event lasted between one to two minutes.

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'Doom' poster deemed too scary

From New Zealand's Stuff:

An advertising agency may be the victim of its own success with a ruling that a horror movie poster was too scary to be displayed at bus stops and on billboards. The Advertising Standards Complaints Board has ruled the placement of the posters – which were headed "No one gets out alive" and features a distorted evil-looking face of a monster for the movie Doom – failed to fulfil their social responsibility to consumers and society. Five people complained to the board that posters were likely to scare the complainants' young children and give them nightmares. "This is totally unsuitable to be seen in public places," one wrote.

Hat tip to Keith of Old Haunts for emailing me the link.

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Final Girl on Pretty/Scary

Final Girl posted her first column on Pretty/Scary, a horror site aimed at women. Yes, I'm a week behind on this news.

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Dracula Machinima

There are whole cultures existing in the vastness of the Internets that I had no clue existed. Via Dracula Blogged which got it from Boing Boing, Candlelight Stories has made two Dracula movies using computer game animation. Other movies from cartoons for kids to horror flix also available on the site.

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Needs more Whedon

Now that UPN and the WB are merging into one network, Chicago Tribune TV columnist Maureen Ryan has a fantastic suggestion on how to build its popularity:

Monday: Right now, the UPN has a block of mostly so-so comedies and the WB has “Seventh Heaven,” which is gone after this season, and “Related,” a struggling comedy-drama. This is a prime spot for some fresh, bold programming. Get "Buffy," "Angel" and "Firefly" creator Joss Whedon on the phone and have him whip up one of his patented, obsessively loved cult dramas. Cowboys in space, vampire detectives, superhero gals -- whatever. But making Whedon the cornerstone of this night would be a smart move (and in this iTunes-oriented and DVD-crazed age, there’s no doubt The CW would make a mint from ancillary sales of any Whedon drama). It would make sense to pair up Whedon’s new show with the critically acclaimed “Veronica Mars” (which Whedon adores and has guested on). The downside: My head might explode from sheer joy.

I agree with her.

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Carter on UFOs

Best selling author and Nobel Peace Prize winning former President Jimmy Carter discusses the difference between being evangelical and fundamentalist, greedy Republicans and UFOs in GQ:

GQ: One of the other aspects of your life that struck me as a conflict between your experience and your scientific training was that you saw a UFO. Carter: I saw an unidentified flying object. I’ve never believed that it came from Mars. I know enough physics to know that you can’t have vehicles that are tangible in nature flying from Mars, looking around, and then flying back. But I saw an object one night when I was preparing to give a speech to a Lions Club. There were about twenty-five of us men standing around. It was almost time for the Lions Club supper to start, which I would eat and then I would give a speech. I was in charge of fifty-six Lions Clubs in southwest Georgia back in the late ’60s. And all of a sudden, one of the men looked up and said, “Look, over in the west!” And there was a bright light in the sky. We all saw it. And then the light, it got closer and closer to us. And then it stopped, I don’t know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees. And all of a sudden it changed color to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white. And we were trying to figure out what in the world it could be, and then it receded into the distance. I had a tape recorder—because as I met with members of Lions Clubs, I would dictate their names on the tapes so I could remember them—and I dictated my observations. And when I got home, I wrote them down. So that’s an accurate description of what I saw. It was a flying object that was unidentified. But I have never thought that it was from outer space. GQ: One of the promises you made in 1976 was that if you were elected, you would look into the reports from Roswell and see if there had been any cover-ups. Did you look into that? Carter: Well, in a way. I became more aware of what our intelligence services were doing. There was only one instance that I’ll talk about now. We had a plane go down in the Central African Republic—a twin-engine plane, small plane. And we couldn’t find it. And so we oriented satellites that were going around the earth every ninety minutes to fly over that spot where we thought it might be and take photographs. We couldn’t find it. So the director of the CIA came and told me that he had contacted a woman in California that claimed to have supernatural capabilities. And she went in a trance, and she wrote down latitudes and longitudes, and we sent our satellite over that latitude and longitude, and there was the plane.

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Tales of Hot Rod Horror

Laughing Squid previews:

A psychedelic ride with a disembodied eyeball, a deal or two with the devil, the true story of James Dean’s car, a Lovecraftian Day of the Dead hot rod race, cars that drink blood, and many other stories to rattle your bones are included in this volume. Created by some of the finest up-and-coming writers and illustrators working in comics today, this collection is guaranteed to satisfy your need for speed and terror!

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Medieval cemetery discovered

Evil Mommy digs up a story of the discovery of a medieval cemetery in Leicester. Archaeologists have found more than 1,300 skeletons, buried tentatively between 1100 AD to 1573 AD. For the record, I issue my standard denial. I had nothing to do with those bodies found in Leicester.

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Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon was born this day in 1947. He sang of werewolves and bad men. "Send lawyers, guns and money. The shit has hit the fan." Two sentences that pretty much sums up the 1980s. My favorite, probably not surprisingly, is his classic, Werewolves of London.

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's Going to get himself a big dish of beef chow mein Werewolves of London If you hear him howling around your kitchen door Better not let him in Little old lady got mutilated late last night Werewolves of London again Werewolves of London He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair Better stay away from him He'll rip your lungs out, Jim I'd like to meet his tailor Werewolves of London Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen Doing the I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen Doing the I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's His hair was perfect Werewolves of London Draw blood

Zevon also wrote this horrific gem, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner:

Roland was a warrior from the Land of the Midnight Sun With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done The deal was made in Denmark on a dark and stormy day So he set out for Biafra to join the bloody fray Through sixty-six and seven they fought the Congo war With their fingers on their triggers, knee-deep in gore For days and nights they battled the Bantu to their knees They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese Roland the Thompson gunner... His comrades fought beside him - Van Owen and the rest But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best So the CIA decided they wanted Roland dead That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen blew off Roland's head Roland the headless Thompson gunner Norway's bravest son (Time, time, time For another peaceful war But time stands still for Roland 'Til he evens up the score) They can still see his headless body stalking through the night In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun Roland searched the continent for the man who'd done him in He found him in Mombassa in a barroom drinking gin Roland aimed his Thompson gun - he didn't say a word But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg Roland the headless Thompson gunner... The eternal Thompson gunner still wandering through the night Now it's ten years later but he still keeps up the fight In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun And bought it.

The Essential Ghoul's Record Shelf has this terrific post from July 5, 2005 on Zevon. Tip of the hat to Maryscott.

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Stephen King's 'Cell'

The New York Times reviews Stephen King's "Cell":

"Cell" begins with a big, graphic jolt. On a pleasant October afternoon in downtown Boston (beware any scene featuring an innocent ice cream truck), everything suddenly goes crazy. People attack strangers, break things and speak in wild gibberish, all as a consequence of the brain zapping that the book calls The Pulse. It has been delivered via cellphone. Only the Luddites and phone-phobes are safe. So far, so good - although it would have been better had Mr. King not agreed to promote "Cell" with cellphone ring tones being sold by his publisher. Anyone who uses a cellphone (Mr. King does not) has been zombified: in a book dedicated to two pioneers in this thematic area, Richard Matheson and George Romero, Mr. King creates a "Night of the Living Dead" scenario with a technological twist. "Except these people aren't dead," explains a still-sentient Boston police officer. "Unless we help them, that is." Mr. King spends part of "Cell" contemplating the essential darkness of human nature. Stripped of social constraints, the Pulse people create a Hieronymous Bosch tableau of hellish depravity. They can be found reeling, staggering, biting their own mothers or fighting over Twinkies. The author's mouthpiece, a comic book artist named Clayton Riddell, finds time to take the long view about this disintegration and comeuppance. "Three days ago we not only ruled the earth, we had survivor's guilt about all the other species we'd wiped out in our climb to the nirvana of round-the-clock cable news and microwave popcorn," Clay observes. "Now we're the Flashlight People."

Positive review overall. I'm looking forward to reading it.

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Howling at the Dog Soldiers

Ginmar's been on a werewolf kick. Here's her reviews of Dog Soldiers and the Howling.

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Skull cane sold on eBay

Via Boing Boing, a cane from about 1900 with a naturalistic skull carved from ivory sold on eBay:

On top of a long & slender rosewood shaft we find a knob shaped ivory handle boasting the portrayal of a human skull. Due to the complete set of 32 teeth and the count Dracula style collar that is visible at his neck it appears as if the skull was proudly grinning and alive, adding a mythical and slightly humorous note to this fine artwork. The skull cap is hinged and can be opened up revealing a hollow container where small items such as money coins, medicine or tobacco can be safely stored. The hinges, the collar and the small globules on the jacket collar are made of silver. The ivory portrait of the skull is highly expressive and very neatly executed with immaculate attention for anatomical detail such as the nose, the eyeholes, the cheekbones or the teeth. Especially remarkable is the naturalistic surface of the skull – the artist achieved to create a real bone texture with delicately incised indentations and skullcap joints.

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Moon River Brewing Co. update

Curt at The Groovy Age of Horror does some paranormal sleuthing for me at the Moon River Brewing Co. and interviews a bar keep who works there.

ME: Do tell? HER: Yeah. One time I got pushed down the stairs. I looked back and there was no one behind me. Another time, I got chased up the stairs. I was just coming down, and all of a sudden this spirit started to appear in front of me. This great fear came over me, so I ran back up as fast as I could.

Entire post well worth the click. Here's my original post that put Curt on the trail of the haunted pub. Horror bloggers will go to any lengths for a good beer haunting.

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'Supernatural' like a weekly horror movie

I don't watch much television so I don't know how accurate this article is, but it makes me want to check out the show. From The New York Times:

In a recent episode of "Supernatural," the two lead characters, both good-looking men in their 20's, walked down the hallway of an abandoned, haunted insane asylum. "Hey, Sam," one said to the other. "Who do you think is a hotter psychic, Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt or you?" The line was an acknowledgment of the large number of current shows (the hot psychics appear on "Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer," respectively) that share the otherworldly subject matter. But it was also an indication of the wry, self-aware humor that has made this show stand out. "Supernatural," shown on Tuesday nights, chronicles the adventures of two brothers who crisscross the country's back roads in a 1967 Chevy, pursuing and destroying evil as they search for their missing father. The show has emerged as WB's only new hit of the fall season so far, attracting a loyal audience of young female viewers as well as bringing in more young men, which is one of the network's main goals. Before its debut in September, "Supernatural" was just one of a crowded field. "We were in that mix, the one-word genre shows," said Eric Kripke, 31, the show's creator, in reference to "Threshold," "Surface" and "Invasion," new science fiction series begat by the success of "Lost." "But it's like, we're a horror show," Mr. Kripke said. "We weren't a paranoid, government-conspiracy, alien thing. We weren't an endless-mystery 'Lost'-style format. We're just this rollicking, red-blooded horror movie."

Anyone seen it?

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'Murderous, blood-thirsty thugs'

An open letter to the so-called Rev. Fred Phelps of the notorious God hates campaign,

I never thought you would make me proud of my adopted state of West Virginia.

But as your latest press release makes clear, West Virginians have got some crowing to do. From your Westboro Baptist Church statement:

(Apologies to my gay brothers and sisters for the hate speech I'm quoting, but I think it's important to see what we're dealing with)

West Virginia is by far the worst. Murderous, blood-thirsty thugs is not too strong. Foul-mouthed issuers of terroristic threats - which is felonious conduct in most states. Not the Castro faggot district in San Francisco; not New York's sodomite Village; nor any of the lesser famous hotbeds of perversion like the French Quarter of New Orleans - all of which places WBC has picketed on multiple occasions - none rivals West Virginia for filthiness. WBC members will testify against you on Judgment Day. 500 West Virginians threatened to kill us.

snip

WBC to picket the fag-infested University of West Virginia [sic] in Morgantown on the first day of their shameful, infamous Gay Pride Week - Monday, April 3 - in religious protest & warning: "God is not mocked!" God Hates Fags & Fag-Enablers! Ergo God hates West Virginia

Let me interrupt you right there, Phelps. Now I've got to give you points for the headline of "Brokeback Mountaineers." It's kind of catchy. But it's West Virginia University not University of West Virginia.

Dumb ass.

I take pride in the fact that of all the places you've picketed, the worst "by far" reception you ever received is in West Virginia. And yes, we are blood-thirsty thugs. Keep that in mind when you mess with one West Virginian, you mess with the entire fucking tribe.

I see you're also planning to picket the Sago Baptist Church in Tallmansville -- again like you did at the memorial service for the 12 miners.

You write:

...for blasphemously misrepresenting the sovereign, predestined providences of The Almighty in the Sago Mine matter. When God punishes a nation with death-dealing lightning bolts, hurricanes, and IEDs, it slanders the Great King to utter maudlin preacher-lies in vain attempts to gloss over God's condign wrath so as  to avoid repentance.

Phelps, keep in mind what you wrote about West Virginians. You looking for wrath, you just might find it. The people in coal country are not people to mess with -- even when you've got field artillery and the U.S. Army behind you as people found out in the Coal Mine Wars of the 1920s.

I believe God is loving and merciful.

But you fuck with West Virginians at your own risk.

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Claymont ghost hunt

The West Virginia Society of Ghost Hunters conducted an investigation at the Claymont Court Mansion. Here's a report from Leigh, a senior paranormal investigator:

I'm late getting this written, but when you get old like me it takes longer to do everything. I have a hard time walking up steps, so I didn't spend much time in the house. I did pick up a few orbs in a couple of the rooms downstairs. I decided to take off and explore the grounds outside. Not long after walking the grounds I felt a presence beside me. I could hear foot steps walking beside me. I tried to get pictures, but it seems to move, as if it didn't want to be photographed. I continued to explore some paths into the wooded areas. I met up with Jay and Sharon and we proceeded down one of the paths. We ran into some cold spots, and the path sometimes in front of us was almost black. I did have some problems walking from the energy that was there. Sharon and I both felt like there was a heavy pressure on our chests. I did pick up some orbs in that area. We went down another path we thought would lead us to the barn? As we continued down this path I still felt this presence with me. There was an erie slience as well. There were times we ran into some really cold spots where the temperature must have dropped about 10 to 15 degrees? We also detected tobacco smoke as if someone was smoking a pipe. All the way down the path there was this feeling of extreme cold on the left side of me. The futher down the path we went we realized this was not the path to the barn. We did however come upon an old house and shed. I did get quite a few shots of miasma while on this path. The presence that followed me continued to stay by my left side. We left that path, and found the path that did lead to the barn below the house. The closer to the barn we got the stronger the energy was, and we felt the colder temperature once again. It was quite an experience. There was heay miasma in that area. Susan called me back to the house, because we were getting ready to leave to go to another barn. I was able to take a few more pictures of the house and I said goodbye to whoever the enity was, that had kept me company. We arrived at the other barn, and I didn't like the smell inside, so I went back out into the yard. I continued to take some pictures of that area. That area seems to have quite a bit of energy. There also I was able to get quite a few shots of miasma before we left to come home. I really enjoyed being at Claymont, at times I could vision how it must have been living there! One more thing I would like to add about the ghost hunt. I mention earlier how I felt a presence walking on my left side, and how cold my face was on that side. When I got home and looked in the mirror, my cheek on the left side was red and very cold to the touch. The other side of my face was warm. If you have never been touched by a ghost, you are in for quite an experience. After looking at the pictures I took on the path, the miasma in the pictures there, showed up on my left side.

More on Claymont at the official site:

Fashioned after a design by George Washington, the Claymont mansion was built by his grand-nephew, Bushrod Washington, in 1820. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion is a picturesque and protected environment for seminars, conferences, workshops, or retreats. Original oak paneling and crystal chandeliers preserve the architectural integrity of the building. Up to thirty participants can be accommodated overnight in the mansion. The simply furnished libra