Welcome!
This is my word garden on the internet. I’m Michael Walters, author of The Complex, a novel out with Salt Publishing. I’m deep in the writing of a follow-up. I also have a PATREON where you can follow me and get more about my writing in particular, including notes on the novels I’m reading.
And check out my film collections in the sidebar—I do love a film challenge!
October 25 2020, 08:00
Christine (1983)
Stephen King is brilliant at weaving vivid teenage experiences into his novels. Christine was one of the formative books of my childhood. But this is a horror film first and foremost.
October 24 2020, 08:00
Prom Night (1980)
Like Scream’s Ghostface, the killer in Prom Night can be dodged and knocked over. This is not Michael Myers. There is a lot of disco.
October 23 2020, 08:00
A Cure for Wellness (2017)
The vampiric financial services industry meets the parasitic wellness industry in a fairy tale where an ambitious young man is sent to a Swiss sanitorium to bring back his company’s rogue CEO.
October 22 2020, 08:00
The Dead Center (2019)
In a Nashville morgue, an unnamed man comes back to life and walks out. A short, sharp film, less than ninety minutes, and it zips along.
October 21 2020, 08:00
It Follows (2015)
The film opens with a wide shot of a leafy suburban street, and we look closely for whatever we think the director wants us to see. Like Jay, we are trained from the start to scan the horizon for trouble.
October 20 2020, 08:00
The Beyond (1980)
There is a portal to hell in the basement, and people get mysteriously hurt while working in the house. Like Hellraiser a few years later, the dead return to claim the ones that escape from hell.
October 19 2020, 08:00
#Alive (2020)
After Fulci’s barely moving dead, these running zombies are a bit of a shock. Technology is an ally, but the adult Joon-woo seems to be in a semi-infantile state.
October 18 2020, 08:00
The Mummy (1932)
The original Universal horror films are a bit of a blind spot for me. Imhotep has many magical powers, including mind control. Boris Karloff’s stare is a thing to behold.
October 17 2020, 08:00
City of the Living Dead (1980)
Zombies really bothered me as a kid. Seeing the insides of the human body spill out was as pure a vision of horror as I could imagine. Guts should not be outside of your body.
October 16 2020, 08:00
Blade (1998)
Blade is like a magical source of future movie ideas. The opening sequence is brilliant. A fun, if empty, blockbuster
October 15 2020, 08:00
Cure (1997)
Takabe, a detective in Tokyo, investigates a series of murders, each by a different killer, but all carving a cross into their victims throats.
October 14 2020, 08:00
Spring (2014)
If Guillermo del Toro shot a film scripted by David Cronenberg, based on a story by HP Lovecraft, then had it edited by Richard Linklater, you would get Spring.
October 13 2020, 08:00
Jacob’s Ladder (1991)
Jacob is beset by visions and fever dreams. We constantly switch between realities, from the Vietnamese jungle, to his home in New York City, and it’s bewildering, for him and us.
October 12 2020, 08:00
Noroi: The Curse (2005)
This mockumentary is made from grainy handheld video and low-resolution clips of Japanese televison shows. It revels in its fragmentary, low-fi nature. It feels cursed.
October 11 2020, 08:00
Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Gilderoy is a fish out of water in a remote Italian sound studio. He thinks the film he's working on, The Equestrian Vortex, is about horses, but in fact is an Italian horror film about the torture of witches.
October 10 2020, 08:00
Piranha (1978)
Being nibbled to death by a swarm of piranha is a different agony, I imagine, to being bitten in half by a great white shark. It’s fun, with a surprisingly dark heart.
October 09 2020, 08:00
Fascination (1979)
Marc, a thief, steals a bag of gold from a gang, and is chased by them to a nearby chateau, where two women, Elisabeth and Eva, are waiting for the arrival of their marchioness.
October 08 2020, 08:00
Vampyres (1974)
The first of my #31DaysOfHorror choices this year that I would say is exploitation cinema, I chose Vampyres, naturally, because of the cover art.
October 07 2020, 08:00
Knife+Heart (2018)
Knife+Heart (Un couteau dans le cœur) is a modern giallo film that plays out in a gay porn production company in the summer of 1979.
October 06 2020, 08:00
Death of a Vlogger (2020)
A bang-up-to-date social media horror mockumentary. Twenty years on from Pulse, people still feel empty and disconnected, but now everyone has a webcam. Affecting, funny, and unnerving.
October 05 2020, 08:00
Pulse (2001)
The Tokyo in Pulse is empty and eerie. People are lonely and disconnected from each other. The characters are all young and, in one way or another, alone.<< < Previous | Next > >>