Movie Knol

I'm experimenting with Google's new service, Knol, which is being likened to Wikipedia.

I've created a knol for "movie."

Don't know what a knol is?

Check it out and let me know what you think: movie.

New Action/Horror Blog

I've started a new blog dedicated to the Action/Horror genre.

Check it out: Action/Horror

Rave reviews for RED WEDDING

I entered my novel-in-progress, Red Wedding, in literary agent Nathan Bransford's The Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge.

He asked for writers to post on his blog the first 500 words of their novel, and offered to read them, pick winners, and give out various fun prizes.

Other bloggers started critiquing the entries and posting reviews on their own blogs. I found a couple of reviews for my novel:

OxyJen says:

"402. Red Wedding - That's one of the most awesome opening lines I've ever read. Brilliant! The rest of the piece has wonderful imagery and descriptions, too. I'm a little worried about the lack of a conflict or dilemma, but the storm seems to be foreshadowing disaster, and your writing voice is so engaging, that I would definitely read on. I really liked this!"

Chro says:

"82. David Wisehart - Red Wedding

Another good example of escalating conflict. Wedding + storm + isolation + chance of power failing = interest and empathy. I also like the little hints of issues yet to come -- like her father not being there. Not my usual taste in novels, but I'd read on."

Needless to say, I'm pleased with the response so far!

Red Wedding, the Novel

I'm turning Red Wedding into a novel, and I've posted the first chapter on my website.

Check it out!

Red Wedding, Chapter 1

Horror Boom about to Bust?

The Los Angeles Times weighs in on the state of the horror film market:

So has the horror bubble burst?

Those who traffic in mayhem insist not, though almost everyone admits that this year's crowded market, filled with horror retreads, has left splatter fans unimpressed.

"There became a glut of so many horror movies, and I think the audience is oversaturated," says Dimension Co-Chairman Bob Weinstein, who launched the horror film craze with the satiric slasher flick "Scream." "Sometimes the industry has the habit of making the same movies over and over again."

Moreover, topping the last thrill is intrinsically hard. "There's nothing you can do to a human being on screen that is taboo anymore," says Oscar-winning writer-producer Akiva Goldsman. "Over and over again, people are breaking the boundaries of the body, hurting people, chopping people up, ravaging people…. For things to be truly scary, we're going to have to find new boundaries to tread on."

Undeniably, horror, one of cinema's most enduring genres, is having a spiritual crisis. Once the playground of such iconic directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott, the genre has gone way down-market. Not that it's mattered much to the businesspeople who run Hollywood. Ever since 1996, when "Scream" snagged $100 million at the box office, the town's love affair with horror has been reignited. The films cost little to make and historically have delivered big returns. In recent years, whole divisions of major studios — Dimension, Rogue Pictures and Fox Atomic, to name a few — have been staked on horror's vitality.

For smaller studios, horror can be the IV that keeps their hearts beating. "It costs less to make a good horror film because you don't have big visual effects budgets or the $20-million stars," says Tom Ortenberg, president of theatrical films at the independent company Lions Gate.

And expectations are more modest. As Joel Silver, who heads Dark Castle Entertainment, a genre label, characterizes the horror business: "We're only looking for doubles and triples. We don't need home runs."

Read the full article here.

Next Steps

After Red Wedding made the semifinals in the Slamdance Horror Competition, I received a half-dozen requests from producers, directors, and managers who wanted to read the script. I sent out copies and am still waiting to hear back.

Meanwhile, I'm considering producing and directing the film myself.

In researching my options, I came across filmmaker Scott McKinlay's blog, where he discusses the making and selling of his first low-budget horror film, Gag.

So, let’s say you are thinking about making a movie…first, and this is very important–unless you are seriously wealthy and don’t care if you make your money back and unless have at least a million dollars for a production budget AND at least one name actor to star or at least appear in your movie–you MUST make a horror film…like it or not, horror films are about the only movie genre people will see even if your movie is low budget.

Check it out at Gag the Blog.

The Elliott Wave Theory of Horror

The horror film genre is booming right now, as it does from time to time.

We've seen previous horror booms: the 1930s, for example, and the late 1960s to early 1970s.

Inevitably, the boom will crash, only to rise again like a mummy from the tomb.

But why?

What drives the boom and bust cycle in the horror genre?

Could it be tied to the stock market?

To social trends?

To general pessimism?

Robert Prechter thinks he has the answer.

It's called the Elliott Wave Principle, and it predicts not only stock market cycles, but social cycles as well.

According to the new field of socionomics, which is built on Elliott Wave theory, mass psychology rides predictable waves of optimism and pessimism, and these waves can be seen in outward phenomena such as the stock market, movie trends, women's fashions, presidential popularity, interest in political scandals, the rise of terrorism and warfare, etc.

Prechter believes that our economy is already in a bear market (despite the rise in the Dow), and says the horror boom is related to that. So is the Iraq war. And Bush's low poll numbers.

"All the popular, groundbreaking horror movies were produced in bear markets - Dracula, Frankenstein, King Kong, The Mummy, Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde, all those were produced from 1931 to 1933, two short years during which time the Dow Jones Industrial Average was plummeting," says Prechter in History's Hidden Engine.

"You didn't have a situation like that ... until the late 1960s and then you had Halloween, Night of the Living Dead and the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and all of these groundbreaking horror movies that were popular and you don't see that sort of thing in bull markets."

The fact that some of the most internationally successful horror films of recent times (such as The Ring (Ringu) series) have been coming out of Japan would seem to back this up. Japan has been stuck in a psychologically wearing bout of deflation for many years, a situation which occurs when money's purchasing power strengthens, and the onerousness of debt rises. Prechter has said that he expects that the crash in stock markets will be accompanied by a period of global economic deflation. As this takes hold it will cause suffering and socio-political instability.

He believes that you can already see this in the movies being produced. Writing by email he says: "We are already in a roaring renaissance for cutting-edge horror movies. The theme in the '30s was monsters; in the '70s it was zombies and slashers; now it's torture: Saw I and II, Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, The Devil's Rejects, Wolf Creek, etc. We are deep in a bear market psychologically, which also shows up in the President's low popularity. This is not unusual in bear market rallies, such as 1968 and now."

Read more about Elliott Wave Theory and the horror genre here.