Monthly Archives: October 2023

I Need A New Name

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As I have previously mentioned I am currently writing a horror novel about werewolves in the far north of Idaho. The process is going surprisingly well considering that is also an experiment in writing a long form piece of fiction without my traditional outline to guide me. In the five-act structure I have adopted as my preferred story framework the first draft of The Wolves of Wallace Point, I have reached act 4 and haven’t yet struck the shoals that might sink this enterprise.

I have reached out to an editor that I am on fairly decent terms with and expressed that the novel could be finished soon and if they were interested heading out in their direction early in 2024. The reaction was favorable but with the caveat that given my previous novel was seriously science-fiction and a commercial train wreak it was likely that this book and subsequent horror novels would require to be published under a pen name.

In my traditional fashion of being overly concern way ahead of the need I find my thoughts returning again and again to the idea of a pen name.

What sort of name should it be?

Something wild and obviously crafted for the cover? Something to honor family members who helped me along the way? Something that places it near the front of an alphabetical list, so the book is near the front of any horror section in a bookstore? Something unique as to stick in a shoppers memory?

So many considerations and I have no guidance in how to proceed.

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Spooky Season Starts: Thirteen Women (1932)

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I decided to kick off Spooky Season 2023 with a bit of classic horror that I had not seen from the pre-code era, 1932’s Thirteen Women.

Warner Brothers Studios

In what could be considered a proto-slasher Thirteen Women, adapted from a novel of the same name by Tiffany Thayer, is the story of a collection of old-school mates, each of whom has gotten a foreboding lettering advising that their personal horoscopes predict doom and death for each of them. The predictions come to pass with terrifying accuracy including the suicide of the mystic casting the horoscopes. The film doesn’t dwell long on the mystery of the person behind these forecasts but does, in fashion of slashers to come, hold back the person’s motivations until the film’s final scenes.

 

 

At just over an hour long the movie is really too short for the subject. Not all thirteen women are represented on the screen, and often the manipulations that bring each prediction into reality is presented too quickly and glibly for any real suspense or impact.

That said this movie has a number of rather surprising and well-executed sequences for 1932, including a stunt sequence where our heroic detective must climb from one car to a driverless and out of control limousine.

The cast includes Myrna Loy before her fame in the Thin Man series of mystery movies, as the villainous Ursula Georgi. In this period of her career Myrna Loy often played ‘exotic’, that is to say non-white, characters that were evil and manipulative while performing in the ghastly practice of ‘yellow face.’ While the film both in the employment of ‘yellow face’ and presenting Asian characters inscrutable traffics in the accepted racism of its time it also presents an argument against that racism detailing in part the harm it creates.

Far too short for it material and marred by casual racism Thirteen Women is not without merit and the film’s final 25 minutes or so were thoroughly compelling. This is perhaps something that could be remade into a project of real interest.

Thirteen Women is currently streaming on Criterion Channel as part of their ‘Pre-Code Horror’ series.

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