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 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.
October 04 2020, 08:00
The Crow (1994)
Eric and his fiance Shelly are murdered by a gang of men on the night before their wedding. Eric’s soul cannot rest until he gets justice.
October 03 2020, 08:00
The Fog (1980)
The Fog is an old favourite. I watched it over and over again on VHS as a kid, recorded off the television, and it embedded Adrienne Barbeau’s radio DJ, alone in a lighthouse on the edge of town, as a lifelong crush.
October 02 2020, 08:00
Atlantics (2019)
Atlantics is art house, and it’s a romance, but it’s hardly a horror film. It is, however, fascinating.
October 01 2020, 08:00
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)
I wanted to start this year’s #31DaysOfHorror with a classic. I’m trying to watch only films I haven’t seen, and Creature From the Black Lagoon was the oldest unwatched horror film I owned.
September 30 2020, 16:39
October beckons
I love October. I love September too, but October is the favoured child.
September 20 2020, 12:13
In the foothills
Graham Swift once said, ‘All novelists must form personal pacts with the pace of their craft.’ Now I am in the foothills of my second novel, that quote is a comfort.
September 06 2020, 15:38
Doing 31 Days of Horror, 2020
With 2020 being a demented shitshow, I did fleetingly wonder if I wanted to do #31DaysOfHorror again this year, but then I remembered why I love horror films — they are an escape from reality.<< < Previous | Next > >>