The Fear County Chronicle #17
It's Valentine's Day! Give your sweetheart your heart and maybe she'll give you hers in return. If she does, be sure to keep it in formaldehyde in an air-tight jar.
2023 is moving right along as February picks up speed and balmy Spring grows nearer. So far, the year has proved to be a busy one for Ol’ Ron, with the release of Fear: Author’s Preferred Edition and work in progress on various projects, including the upcoming Tales from the Southern Fried Crypt and Fear Eternal.
Hardcovers of FEAR: AUTHOR’S PREFERRED EDITION are now back in stock!
After selling out of 30 hardcovers of Fear: Author’s Preferred Edition at my RKHORROR online bookstore, they are now back in stock. This new edition of Fear includes an introduction by Brian Keene, a Fear testimonial section, two bonus stories — The Seedling and Beneath the Branches —, and an afterword by Ol’ Ron. Fear is also available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook (narrated by J. Rodney Turner).
Terrifying Tomes of Terror Episode #53 (LIII)
My episode of Chance Forshee’s Terrifying Tomes of Terror podcast is now live. In Episode #53, Chance and I talk about Fear: Author’s Preferred Edition and its sequel-in-progress, Fear Eternal. We also discuss our favorite horror movies like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, The Thing, and Doctor Sleep. Tune in and listen to Episode LIII now!
2023 Author Appearances!
Here are the horror and book conventions that I will be attending (so far), as a guest author or a vendor during 2023:
On March 31st through April 2nd, I will have a vendor table at Scares That Care AuthorCon 2. Come by and see me and the lovely Mrs. Joyce at the Southern-Fried Horror Table. I’ll have all of the paperbacks and hardcovers that I currently have in stock on RKHORROR, as well as Southern-Fried Horror apparel and Justin T. Coons Southern Fried & Horrified art prints.
On May 26th through 28th, I will be a Guest Author at the first annual Horror on Main in Hunt Valley, Maryland. This new horror convention with feature authors, artists, actors, directors… just about any sort of creator of the macabre. Join me, Tim Lebbon, Jeff Strand, Lynn Hansen, Clay McLeod Chapman, Sara Pinborough, and many others during this three-day event on Memorial Day weekend.
On Saturday, October 7th, I’ll be a Featured Author at Next Chapter Con in Dalton, Georgia. Other Tennessee storytellers who will be guests are Western Horror authors B.L. Blankenship and Chuck Buda. If you’re in the Dalton/Chattanooga area come by and say howdy!
RETRO HORROR/SCI-FI MOVIE REWATCH (Part 1)
Lately, I’ve been taking a nostalgic journey, buying and watching some of the old horror and science-fiction movies that chilled and thrilled me as a kid. Of course, most are the traditional Universal monster movies like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, and my all-time favorite The Creature From the Black Lagoon. But there are others that I saw between the ages of six and twelve on Nashville’s afternoon movie fest, The Big Show, and the Saturday night Creature Feature with host Sir Cecil Creape. Here are a few I watched again — for the first time since I was a monster-loving kid — during the past couple of weeks.
MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS (1958)
I remember this movie chilling me to the bone when I was around eight or nine years old. Arthur Franz plays a stoic college professor/scientist who has a prehistoric fish from Madagascar shipped to his laboratory. As it turns out, the brackish water the fish was shipped in changes dogs, dragonflies, and humans into primeval versions of themselves. The good professor himself turns into a murderous neanderthal man several times before he figures out that he’s actually the killer. There were some genuinely horrifying scenes in Monster on the Campus, including a jump-scare shot of the first woman victim hanging from a tree limb by her hair, her eyes wide with terror (to tell the truth, there was a lot of pulling-women-by-their-hair bits in this movie. I reckon they played the old misogynic caveman-dragging-woman cliche for all it was worth in this film.) I liked the look of the monster, with his bulging hairy shoulders bursting from his shirt, his long-fingered hands, and a bestial face that looked remarkably like the Mister Hyde masks worn in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (given that both were Universal pictures, it may very well have been).
THE MOLE PEOPLE (1956)
This had to be one of my favorites growing up. It had adventure, archeology, a lost civilization, and creepy, subterranean mole creatures. What more could a ten-year-old want in a monster movie? The Mole People starred John Agar, Alan Napier, Hugh Beaumont (Ward Cleaver on the Leave it to Beaver TV show) and Nestor Paiva (who played the crusty Amazon boat captain in The Creature From The Black Lagoon). When an avalanche uncovers the entrance to an ancient temple in the Himalayan Mountains, Agar and his men travel to an underground cavern that houses a lost civilization that has never seen the light of the sun. All they eat is mushrooms, which are harvested by a race of bug-eyed, claw-handed Mole People in black hospital scrubs. Some of the effects and sets for this one was a lot cheesier than I remembered as a kid, but it was still fun seeing the Mole People drag people, kicking screaming, down into the earth, as well as some chained skeletons of the monsters dangling from a cave wall. The one scene that really grossed me out the most when I was ten was the pale-skinned soldiers of the lost civilization toting the charred bodies of three women victims from a sacrificial oven (flooded by daylight) on stretchers, their blackened arms dangling from beneath the sheets that covered them. (Yes, even more evidence that 50s sci-fi horror movies were heavily male-oriented with women only as love interests or helpless victims).
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957)
I remember this being one of my favorite childhood movies. Grant Williams plays a man who is engulfed in a radio-active cloud during a boat ride, which alters his DNA and causes him to begin to shrink gradually over time. This causes friction between him and his wife, played by April Kent. Before long, he is small enough to live in a dollhouse. The family cat attacks the dollhouse, plays with him like a mouse, and he ends up falling into the basement. His wife finds a scrap of his clothing and believes he is dead. He then has to survive and build a life in the dank cellar, as he continues to shrink inch by inch. Given that this movie was made in the late 1950s, the sets and special effects were pretty danged good. My favorite scenes were the cat attack and the shrinking man’s battle with the giant spider. Years later, I would discover that the screenplay was written by Richard Matheson from his novel The Shrinking Man, which, in my opinion, was even better than the film. One big difference in the book was that the Shrinking Man was subjected to a bird attack in the back yard instead of the cat attack in the living room.
If you’d like to give these science fiction/horror flicks a watch, I suggest you head over to Amazon and order The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection, which features the three movies mentioned above, plus Tarantula and The Monolith Monsters. You can’t beat that much B-movie goodness at only $12.69!
RK Art Print Sale at RKHORROR!
From now through February 18th, all RK art prints are 20% off. These are printed on Neenah Bright White 65lb cardstock and signed by the artist (little ol’ me!). While you’re there, browse the novels and story collections, as well as the Zebra Books Alumni and Southern Fried Horror t-shirts!
Well, it looks like it’s time for me to head out. Got to break out the tie and tails, and head for the Overlook. Ol’ Jack has a deadline and can’t make it to the party tonight (all work does make him a dull boy, doesn’t it?) The lovely Mrs. Joyce is supposed to meet me in the ballroom, but she’ll probably be holed up in the bathroom with a butcher knife, so I’ll have to fetch the fire axe to bust her out.
Ya’ll behave yourselves and be nice to one another, and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with more Southern-Fried shenanigans (maybe another Zebra cover autopsy or monster movie feature). Until then, Many Happy Nightmares!
Just ordered the Fear hardcover. Looks great! Can’t wait to have it in my greedy mitts. 😊
Happy Valentine's day to you and your wife. Fear Eternal. I have wanted a second part to Fear since I read it when it first came out.