Alfred Hitchcock – Looking to God

Zombie Pranks Revisited

Posted on January 4, 2016January 3, 2016 by Jack Flacco

I tend to ask silly questions, questions people avoid asking because it either may prompt a negative reaction or actually provoke discussion. Now you’re wondering what the question is.

Zombie Experiment NYC - Boy (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Boy (Photo credit: AMC)

What will it take to horrify people?

In my Monday Mayhem series, I’ve always included something to stir an emotional response. Given I’m writing horror in the context of terror, I wonder many times what horrifies a person.

Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense. He once explained how a person simply sitting in a chair could turn into a scene filled with anxiety and breathless moments. Of course, it’s not very suspenseful when someone sits in a chair. It’s actually quite boring. But, as he once said, place a bomb under that chair, and all of a sudden the scene becomes interesting, suspenseful and replete with horror. Will the person remain calm? Will they run? Will they try to defuse the bomb? What will run through their mind during the last seconds of their life? How did it get there? Who put it there? Why did this person have to be the one sitting there?

Once again, I ask, what will it take to horrify people?

I’m an avid YouTube watcher. I have several set-top devices that can stream video directly to my TV or display device. Most of my viewing, though, happens on my computer. I enjoy searching for fascinating videos I feel no one else has seen before.

The other day, I came across a genre of videos I first found funny but under later analysis found equally shocking. They are zombie pranks. You can search for it yourself and you will see a multitude of content specifically geared toward humor.

The very first video I saw Zombie Experiment NYC deals with zombies roaming the streets of New York City. If you’re thinking actors in zombie suits and makeup, you must’ve seen it before. The video quality and presentation is top-notch. I later found AMC produced it as their answer to Dish Network’s removal of its network.

Zombie Experiment NYC - Mailman (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Mailman (Photo credit: AMC)

Zombie Experiment NYC - Girl 1 (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Girl 1 (Photo credit: AMC)

Zombie Experiment NYC - Girl 2 (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Girl 2 (Photo credit: AMC)

Zombie Experiment NYC - Girl 3 (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Girl 3 (Photo credit: AMC)

Zombie Experiment NYC - Bench 1 (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Bench 1 (Photo credit: AMC)

Zombie Experiment NYC - Bench 2 (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Bench 2 (Photo credit: AMC)

Zombie Experiment NYC - Walker (Photo credit: AMC) — Zombie Experiment NYC – Walker (Photo credit: AMC)

What I find utterly fascinating is the reaction of people on the streets to these zombies. Some are dressed in city worker clothes, much of their costumes authentic, dripping in blood, skin in pieces, yet some folk do not react at all to the zombie invasion. Seriously—I write about zombies, and if one of these actors approaches me with death in its eyes and hunger in its jaw, I’d run for the hills!

Another video I found is London Zombie Prank. It’s one guy in London dressed as one of the undead, blood and all, horrifying the British in their parks, streets and historical sites. Funny stuff. But, again, what if the guy was real? I saw folks laughing at the thing. One fellow ran after the zombie. No fear.

The last video, which I will not link to, had a guy in a zombie outfit crawling into the middle of dimly lit road from a cemetery. You read that right. Cars passed, yet no one hit him. He should be thankful.

I’m not sure what to make of the reactions of the people in the videos. Perhaps laughter is the body’s mechanism to cope with shock and disbelief. Perhaps standing around doing nothing in a horrifying situation is the mind’s way of shutting down to other gruesome acts. Not sure. Or is it we’ve become so desensitized that we recognize truth from fiction? Your guess is as good as mine.

Get the Ranger Martin trilogy now!

What will it take to horrify people? Have you ever played a prank on someone?

Monday Mayhem

What Scares You?

Posted on October 5, 2015October 4, 2015 by Jack Flacco

Somehow, whenever October rolls around, I feel a definite shift in people’s attitudes. I think a lot of it has to do with Halloween coming at the end of the month. I also think the time change at the beginning of November has people thinking of the darker evenings. For some, it brings SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and for others, the shorter days can prove a great motivator to flee for warmer climes.

However, for today’s Monday Mayhem, I’d like to concentrate on one thing: Horror movies.

For some, Horror movies can be a sensitive subject. Depending on the story, the film can act as a portal for demon possession. Don’t ask me where I read that. I just did. I can’t blame anyone for thinking that. If you’ve seen The Exorcist, you would think there is more to that film than the simple possession of a little girl on screen. I saw it when I was ten years old. I couldn’t sleep for a week. Years later I read somewhere that two main characters connected with the film died unexpectedly shortly either before or after the premier. Reports surfaced that during the film’s run, certain members in the audience passed out in the aisles while watching the film. Stationed outside movie theaters were ambulances waiting for more and more victims. A few of the cast members once said they believed the set was haunted.

The Sixth Sense had a similar effect on audiences, but in a different way. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched that movie. I would consider the flick a perfect case study for writers who want to learn about plot, pacing, character development and escalating action. The film also sports an ending that few, if any, could have guessed. I know I didn’t have a clue.

I consider The Sixth Sense a Horror movie, but not in the way that others might consider it Horror. The escalating images of dead people with its eerie musical cues and scenes written in the Hitchcock style, makes this film more than an ordinary Horror film. It’s scary, not because of what you see, but because of what you don’t see.

The whole Horror genre nowadays has changed. More and more filmmakers attempt to outdo each other with graphic scenes of gore that would even make a serial killer take notice. As the audience desensitizes to yesterday’s splatter count, they also want more. Gone are the days when a filmmaker could get away with not showing the murder. In fact, if I may be so bold in saying, today crime films can fit into a category all on its own for being a cross between the Detective and Horror genres. Throw in a couple of demon possessions and there you’d have the perfect genre.

Nevertheless, knowing all this, I have a question for everyone—and I’m genuinely curious about your thoughts about this subject.

What scares you?

What I mean is, what really scares you?

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RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.

What scares you?

Random Thoughts

Posted on June 19, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

I haven’t written one of these random posts where I talk about nothing for a while now. I guess I could do it today. What do you think? I’ll write it and if anything comes from it, I’ll keep it. If not, you’ll never know I had written it for Freedom Friday.

The first thing on my mind is the Apple EarPods I’ve been using for the past year. I’ve had the older model where the sound just didn’t quite make the cut in quality. The music sounded like it was playing through a tin can. I had wished a redesign of them since they came out with the first iPod I had purchased in the early 2000’s. Well, to say the least, these new ones are impressive. I love the warm sound they give, and I enjoy listening to things in the music I never heard before. Equally as great is the comfortable feel in my ears. I wish I had these years ago before I went out to buy expensive headphones that don’t nearly give the same awesome sound. Am I the only one who feels this way?

Next on my list of random things I’ve wanted to mention for a while is 3D in movies. I’m not sure, but is anyone else feeling 3D has had its day in the theater? For instance in Jurassic World, don’t worry I won’t spoil the movie, a few of the flyby scenes showing landscapes seem too clean and precise. Helicopters, especially, look like models. I’m not knocking the movie. I thought it was intense and I got my money’s worth. The thing about it though, 3D didn’t do justice to this film. That’s my opinion, of course. Avengers: Age of Ultron is the same. I saw it in 3D, but there really wasn’t a wow factor associated with the film. I suppose if the film is great, then the 3D is great, but that’s neither here or there. However, Furious 7, which I didn’t see in 3D, was awesome. It proves to me that story is everything, regardless how much studios would like to convince its audience 3D is better.

Movie trailers are on my list, too. When did all of a sudden movie trailers become mini movies? Even more so, why do trailers have to give away vital plot elements to lure the audience into seeing the film? Take the original trailer for Jurassic Park from 1993. Watching it, you’d declare an oath you saw all the dinosaurs featured in the film. If you think that, you are wrong. What you see is a foot, a paw, an eye. You don’t see the entire dinosaur in all its glory. That’s because trailers back then were cool. They didn’t reveal the film, but they did know how to entice an audience with sights and sounds much like Alfred Hitchcock did with his movies. He didn’t show the murder, but you knew it took place because you heard the screams, you saw the knife, and you saw the terror on the victim’s face. Trailers nowadays, reveal too much.

Last thing on my list is mowing the lawn. I agree, it is a weird topic. Hear me out, though. Doing the lawn is fun again. Last year, I bought one of these fancy schmancy lawn mowers that propels itself. Actually, that’s not true. I have to hold it, but I don’t have to push it to where I want it to go. I point the way and it travels on its own. It’s a marvel of technology. Considering my backyard is hill country, this lawn mower beats dragging my tail to get the lawn done. I’m telling you, it’s the next best thing since the invention of the fridge.

Okay, that’s all I had on my mind.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.

What’s on your mind? Anything new and exciting you’d like to chat about?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Sounds

Posted on October 28, 2013October 30, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Whenever I watch a zombie movie, the very first thing I notice is the sounds emanating from those vile beasts. If I hear cricking and cracking, then I know I have a winner on my hands. It’s those movies where the undead lurch but remain silent that I think why hadn’t the director thought of what real corpses sound like and insert those effects into the picture. Monday Mayhem is all about zombies, and today I want to spend some time on zombie sounds. Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

In my previous posts Rising from the Dead and Indestructible Zombies I detail the various states of human decomposition. One of the phases that a body goes through once it dies is Rigor Mortis. In this state, the body stiffens to the point of rigidity whereby muscles harden and become difficult to move by an external force. Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy depicts a perfect example where someone attempts to compel a body to do what it can no longer do due to stiffening. In Frenzy’s case, the murderer attempts to retrieve a lost object but then has difficulty doing so because of the body’s inability to bend like it did when alive.

That’s why the movie The Mummy has a certain appeal. Throughout the entire film, the mummy, which is nothing more than a glorified zombie, cricks, cracks, spurts, and oozes all sorts of noises toward its transformation to becoming human again. Why don’t all zombie movies sound like that?

My town's cemetery at twilight — My town’s cemetery at twilight

Imagine if you will a horde of the undead giving chase. You hear the dragging. You hear the hauling. You hear the moaning. Wouldn’t it be all the more terrifying to hear their bones snapping back and forth on their way to making their victim their supper?

There’s a saying: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. What if the saying went: Where there’s cricking and cracking, they’re zombies. Wouldn’t that be something?

I suppose the sound of zombie cartilage readjusting is impossible in a movie where a virus takes over the victim. After all, depending on the virus, the victim hasn’t really died—at least not in the traditional sense of the word. They’ve only changed to become movable corpses. And if an antidote exists for zombies in the form of changing them back to their former selves, then by all accounts, they never really died in the first place.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

If they never died, there’s no opportunity to make the sounds I wish they could make. The only way that could happen is if zombies rise three hours after death just when Rigor Mortis had set.

Then again, zombies could rise during that sweet moment after death with bodies unaffected by the decomposition phase. In that instance, you will not hear them coming. In a sense, they could appear and eat you while you’re still alive.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather hear them coming.

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What do you think? Should future zombie movies have the undead sounding like an army of breaking bones as they march for the attack? Or would you fear them more silent?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Marion Crane

Posted on October 16, 2013October 13, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic masterpiece Psycho features a rich score written by veteran composer Bernard Herrmann. Just as identifiable as John Williams’ music from Jaws, the piercing violins replicating knife slashes has become a staple trademark in horror movies utilizing the theme’s signature in multiple variations. But the subject of the film’s music is the woman in the shower scene, and the stabbing that goes on as the music repeatedly plays that recognizable theme.

Women Who Wow Wednesday presents Marion Crane, the woman in the Psycho movie who meets with a premature death, shocking audiences in 1960 into an unknown they’ve never had the opportunity to explore.

Played by Janet Leigh, mother to scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis star of the Halloween franchise, the part entailed Leigh to work a full three weeks on set, seven days of which she partook in the infamous shower scene.

The making of the film is a story in itself. Hitchcock declined his usual $250,000 directorial fee for a 60% cut of the box office. He made $15 Million, which adjusted for inflation translates to $150 Million in 2006 dollars. Additionally, to thwart MPAA censors, he had added obvious red herrings to the film in order to confound them into removing the red herrings all the while keeping the objectionable scenes intact.

As for filming of the shower scene, Hitchcock used Bosco chocolate syrup to emulate the blood, since it appears better contrasted in black and white. Some audience members, however, believed they saw red when blood washed down the drain. Of course, this is a physical impossibility for the obvious reason the movie is not in color.

Further adding to the list of interesting tidbits, ophthalmologists approached Hitchcock soon after the opening to emphasize a truly dead corpse, as seen in Psycho, should not have contracted pupils but dilated instead. They suggested Hitchcock use belladonna drops to achieve the dead-eye affect in subsequent films, which he did.

Trivia’s all very well and fine, but what does that have to do with Marion Crane? The story goes something like this: Marion steals $40,000 from her employer and goes on the lamb. She changes cars in an effort to thwart discovery by the police and checks into a motel by the side of the highway—the Bates Motel. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

Owned by Norman Bates and his sick mother, the Bates Motel poses as the scene for the eventual turning point in Marion’s life. Thinking she’d gotten away with robbery, she didn’t think she might have walked into a far worse situation. As the cliché goes, out of the frying pan into the fire. As the movie’s title suggests, someone has to be the psychopath. It’s not Marion.

And this is what makes Marion Crane unique in Horror. Hitchcock purposely gave her top billing, even though she dies halfway through the film. Marion’s death in the shower is the most recognizable scene in movie history. When people talk about Psycho, in the same breath they’re talking about the shower scene. In so doing, culture made Marion Crane a poster child for how a good Horror flick should go.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale October 22.

Have you seen Psycho? If so, what did you think of it?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Pranks

Posted on July 1, 2013June 30, 2013 by Jack Flacco

I tend to ask silly questions, questions people avoid asking because it either may prompt a negative reaction or actually provoke discussion. Now you’re wondering what the question is.

Zombie Experiment NYC (Photo credit: AMC)

What will it take to horrify people?

In my Monday Mayhem series, I’ve always included something to stir an emotional response. Given I’m writing horror in the context of terror, I wonder many times what horrifies a person.

Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense. He once explained how a person simply sitting in a chair could turn into a scene filled with anxiety and breathless moments. Of course, it’s not very suspenseful when someone sits in a chair. It’s actually quite boring, to say the least. But, as he once said, place a bomb under that chair, all of a sudden the scene becomes interesting, suspenseful and replete with horror. Will the person remain calm? Will they run? Will they try to defuse the bomb? What will run through their mind during the last seconds of their life? How did it get there? Who put it there? Why did this person have to be the one sitting there?

Once again, I ask, what will it take to horrify people?

What I find utterly fascinating is the reaction of people on the streets to these zombies. Some are dressed in city worker clothes, much of their costumes authentic, dripping in blood, skin in pieces, yet some folk do not react at all to the zombie invasion. Seriously—I write about zombies, and if one of these actors approaches me with death in their eyes and hunger in their jaw, I’d run for the hills!

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale October 22.

What will it take to horrify people? Have you ever played a prank on someone?

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