Saturday 15 September 2012

Wailing Well

2 comments:

Oscar Solis said...

Wailing Well is the ultimate camp story. I actually told it to a large group while on a campout. I would like to say everyone was frightened but unfortunately it generated only a polite reception.

The more popular where's my arm (told by someone else) did a lot better.

It sort of bothered me, thinking I had done a lousy presentation but I realized that what todays audiences seem to want these days, or this particular group anyhow, is the simple scare in a very short and compact story. The influence of too many bad horror movies I guess.

A bit of a downer but there it is.

valdemar said...

For a second there I misconstrued your use of the word 'camp'!

I think you've hit upon one of those 'sad but true' facts. I wonder if M.R. James' stories are now more or less unreadable to horror fans? I'm not sure if it's bad horror movies to blame - I like horror movies and some modern ones are very good. But it's a different skill - listening to a story requires an ability to be attentive, remember details, and anticipate events in the mind's eye. Films do much of our imagining for us.

LET YOUR HINGED JAW DO THE TALKING by Tom Johnstone (Alchemy Press)

ST 55 features a tale by Brighton's finest purveyor of contemporary horror, Tom Johnstone. And it just so happens that Alchemy Press is...