Thursday 22 August 2013

Torture Porn in Horror: A Discussion

     What is ‘Torture Porn’? A panel at the World Horror Convention in New Orleans recently tackled this topic in particular. The actual panel topic was about extreme horror and begged the question of how far is too far.
     In my opinion, torture porn is one of those stories/books/films that’s filled with pain, violence and torture simply for the sake of. There is no true purpose for the existence of that violence and the work has possibly no plot at all. And, I’d hate to say it, but most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies fall into that category. I’ll give the first movie a pass because it was a cool concept. However, the sequels featured cardboard characters that were destined to be cruelly murdered. I don’t always believe that you have to ‘care’ about any character in fiction, but you should care that they died for their death to be meaningful. Somehow, some way, it should matter to you that they died. Otherwise the audience is simply lauding their death and probably laughing at the acts of violence.
     Jack Ketchum has been tormented by the torture porn tag for a hefty chunk of his career—if not his entire career. Off Season, his 1981 debut novel, wasn’t even published in its entirety until much later due to its extremely violent, but it was his 1989 novel, The Girl Next Door that sent shockwaves through the horror community. And just about everywhere else.
     The jury is out—and may be out for a long time—about the purpose of the novel’s violence. Some readers will tell you that it is about a man who recalls the time he and a group of young men tortured a disabled girl in her basement. Other readers will tell you that the story deals with the cruelty and evil that exists in this world and that we regular people have to share the world with some truly sick individuals. And therein is the real horror.
     I once used the term ‘torture porn’ to Jack Ketchum and he seemed visibly annoyed by it, even though I’m sure he understood why I was using the term. From our discussion (this was in Austin, Texas in 2011), I could tell that he is trying to horrify the readers and not titillate them with violence.
     And that’s another part of the discussion: should the violence be titillating? Should authors be attempting to titillate their readers with detailed descriptions of violence? In my opinion, only the violence that’s needed to advance the plot should be included. If that happens to be in copious amounts then . . . so be it. But certainly it shouldn’t be there if it doesn’t belong there.
     And I would say the same about sex and taboo subjects. You really can’t just manufacture that stuff just to catch a reader’s interest. If it belongs there then that’s cool. If it has no rightful or legitimate place in your story then it really should be left out.
     This is a discussion that bears continuation.
     What are your thoughts?


Wednesday 22 May 2013

Rapture by Thomas Tessier










     Maybe I’m an ignoramus, but I’m not sure if I understand why Thomas Tessier named this novel Rapture. Still, it’s a pretty solid book. It was first published in 1987 and later reissued by Leisure, so you’ll need to use your imagination a little bit about the protagonist (technically the antagonist, really), can and does the things that he does.
     Rapture follows Jeff Lisker who returns to Connecticut for his father’s funeral and makes a point of running into a woman he had a crush on in high school. They’d participated in double dates together but never actually dated each other. This triggers a series of events that includes killing the woman’s husband and daughter—with whom he has an affair and he wonders if he’s actually in love with her—all done in in stalker fashion.
     A good comparison that comes to mind is Billy by Whitley Strieber, partly because of the entirely non-paranormal plot. But that isn’t really what makes them similar (you could argue the same about most Jack Ketchum novels). In this novel, a fairy innocuous central character is a true predator that simply cannot be trusted. And, if it’s happening to the characters in the novel, it can happen to you, too.
     What I liked about Rapture is that there’s no clear line between protagonist and antagonist as Jeffrey technically plays the role of both at varying points in the novel. He’s more than a bit of a sociopath—he sees nothing at all wrong with what he’s doing—and, really, that’s the whole point. Some of the world’s biggest monsters don’t see the wrong in what they’re doing. Just about anything they want is fair game to chase after.
     So, even though this book might seem just a touch outdated, it’s worth picking up and giving it a look.

Friday 22 March 2013

Left-Wing Rants, Cigars and the Macabre -- My Memories of Rick Hautala





“What’s the difference between a horror writer and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four.”
 – Rick Hautala in his acceptance speech for the HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Salt Lake City, 2012

     I came home from Buffalo last night to receive the sad news that Rick Hautala had died suddenly at the age of 64. This is the second such blog post I’ve written in less than a year. Like the first one, the one I wrote about the late Michael Calvillo, everything I’m about to say is true. It’s easy to say all kinds of nice things about someone who’s just died, but in these cases, it’s a given.
     Very often people will bring up the fact that Rick went to college with Stephen King, but I’d prefer to set that one aside. Rick had a million-copy bestseller and he should be remembered as a standout horror author and someone who made his mark on our precious genre.
     He and I shared the same liberal politics. The expression of his ideals sometimes landed him in hot soup with some of his more conservative contemporaries, though I won’t remember him as a political man per se. I’ll remember him as a man who truly cared about people, about equality, fairness, justice and peace.
     Social media has made the world much smaller, but I was fortunate enough to have met Rick in person and to have enjoyed phone conversations with him as well. While he was a Necon regular, his appearance at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City was a true rarity. I caught up with him outside the hotel where he was enjoying a cigar and he told me that it was the first big convention he’d attended in nearly thirty years. I find it hard to imagine, but I know he kept in touch with his horror peers in other ways.
     In my desk drawer I have a tape of an interview I conducted with Rick a while back. This interview will be part of a collection of interviews soon to be published. What’s important about this is Rick’s willingness to take part in the project. Let’s face it: a man in his position needn’t give a rat’s behind about my project. It isn’t something that will advance his career or sell more copies of his books. But he accepted my offer without question or hesitation, which speaks volumes about the man he was. He could easily have turned his nose up at me or not even bothered to answer. But instead he promptly gave me his home number and, when the interview concluded, he suggested that I phone him anytime I felt like chatting horror.
     The horror genre is no stranger to tragedies like this one and it’s always hard to deal with it because colleagues become like a unique family. We share a passion for a niche that’s sometimes hard for others to understand, but we all have each other in that regard. When someone in the genre passes, it’s like literally having a death in the family, even if you’ve only met that individual in person a limited number of times.
     After Michael Calvillo died, I made a point of contacting friends in the genre who I don’t see nearly enough just to see how they’re doing. I learned my lesson about that a while ago and Rick’s passing has cemented this philosophy. I can’t drop him a line just to say hello anymore, but maybe I’ll listen to that interview tape, just to remember all the joking around we did while conducting it, and to further appreciate what the world has lost.

Thursday 21 March 2013

A Book of Horrors, edited by Stephen Jones







    Recently, I picked up A Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones. I kind of stumbled upon it by accident, picked it up and then saw that it included an original short story by Stephen King: “The Little Green God of Agony”. King’s story was more or less up to snuff, but what I really want to talk about is “The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer” by John Ajdive Lindqvist. He’s the author of Let the Right One In and the story is translated into English from the Swedish.
     In this story, a widower bribes his son to learn to play the piano because he feels he spends too much time playing video games. They become aware that the house they’d moved into was once inhabited by a child-murdering musician who hung himself inside the house. The strange music the boy plays becomes a connection between the boy and the murderer.
     I won’t spoil this by telling you the rest, but I will say that it’s one of the most legitimately scary stories I’ve read in a very long time. And that’s what I read horror for—to be made to feel genuinely uncomfortable if not scared to death by what I just read. You know, in a tasteful way. And it’s very welcome in an era of sparkly vampire love interests.
     Though I actually borrowed this from the library where I work, this story is worth the price of admission alone. Also notable is “Ghosts with Teeth” by Peter Crowther. As with most anthologies, it’s a bit of a mixed bag (though there is no repetition in it). Also, unlike quite a few Steve Jones anthologies, these are original stories. So, if you want try scary, I definitely suggest picking this up.