Blu Gilliand Archives - Page 8 of 12

Review: ‘The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film’

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 4, 2017August 2, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Daniel Wallace, Dark Tower Week, Reviews, Stephen King, The Art of the Film, The Dark Tower1 Comment

The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film text by Daniel Wallace
Scribner (July 2017)
208 pages; $27.19 hardcover
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Some might view books like The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film as big, expensive brochures for upcoming movies, but for me they’ve always provided a fascinating glimpse into the process of bringing these large-scale extravaganzas to our screens. Even when they come from the kind of rich source material of, say, an eight-book series written by Stephen King, there’s a lot of designing and refining that goes into the look of a movie like The Dark Tower. This volume gives us a glimpse of that, but I’ll confess that it left me wanting much, much more.Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Process (is a Process All its Own)’ by Peter Straub

Cemetery Dance OnlineJuly 12, 2017July 11, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Peter Straub, Reviews, Subterranean Press, The Process (is a Process All its Own)Leave a comment

The Process (is a Process All its Own) by Peter Straub
Subterranean Press (July 2017)
96 pages; $40.00 hardcover
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

The majority of slasher fiction—whether it’s short stories, books, or movies—tends to focus on the hunt. Here’s a group of thinly-sketched victims, cannon fodder to be creatively knocked off one-by-one; and here’s a killer, often silent, usually masked, his or her motivations as mysterious as their identity. What comes after is, more often than not, a by-the-numbers recreation of the stalk-n-slash formula that’s been a staple of horror since the 1970s.*Continue Reading

Review: ‘Mormama’ by Kit Reed

Cemetery Dance OnlineJune 27, 2017June 23, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Kit Reed, Mormama, Reviews, Tor BooksLeave a comment

Mormama by Kit Reed
Tor Books (May 2017)
288 pages; $17.63 hardcover; $12.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

I love “quiet horror.” I love a book filled with tension, atmosphere, and that creeping-up-on-you sense of unease where you can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong, but you know something is.

Here’s the thing: eventually, all that atmosphere and tension and unease has to pay off. When it does, it’s magic. When it doesn’t, it’s like cracking open a cold soft drink only to find that it’s gone flat.

Mormama, I’m sorry to say, is the flat soft drink of haunted house books.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Final Girls’ by Mira Grant

Cemetery Dance OnlineJune 12, 2017June 8, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Final Girls, Mira Grant, Reviews, Subterranean PressLeave a comment

Final Girls by Mira Grant
Subterranean Press (May 2017)
111 pages; $40.00 hardcover; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Mira Grant mixes a diverse set of influences ranging from The Matrix to A Nightmare On Elm Street to produce her fresh, tautly-written new novella, Final Girls.

Heading Up the Skelton Crew: An Interview with Israel Skelton

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 25, 2017May 23, 2017InterviewsBlu Gilliand, Hellboy, Interviews, Israel Skelton, Joe Hill, Locke & Key, Mike Mignola, Skelton CrewLeave a comment

Locke & Key replica keys by Skelton Crew Studio. — A selection of Locke & Key replica keys created by Skelton Crew Studio.

Skelton Crew Studio, a comic book replica studio based in the wilds of Maine, was founded by Israel Skelton in 2008. A sculptor and creator for more than 30 years, Skelton first made a name for his studio with a replica key based on the critically-acclaimed comic series Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. Collaborations with a wide variety of creators soon followed, and Skelton Crew Studio’s work is now highly sought after among collectors and creators alike. Skelton Crew has a busy year ahead of them—more on that in a minute—so we appreciate Israel Skelton taking a few moments to discuss his work with us.

(Interview conducted by Blu Gilliand)Continue Reading

Interview: Ania Ahlborn

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 14, 2017February 13, 2017InterviewsAnia Ahlborn, Blu Gilliand, Essays, Interviews, The Devil Crept In, Women In HorrorLeave a comment

An Interview with Ania Ahlborn

Ania Ahlborn is the bestselling author of the horror thrillers Brother, Within These Walls, The Bird Eater, The Shuddering, The Neighbors, and Seed, and the novella The Pretty Ones. Her latest release is The Devil Crept In, out now from Gallery Books. Recently, Ania was kind enough to take time out from exploring the dark corners of her imagination to share a few words with us.

Review: ‘Universal Harvester’ by John Darnielle

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 7, 2017February 7, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, John Darnielle, Reviews, Universal HarvesterLeave a comment

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 7, 2017)
224 pages; $15.00 hardcover; $11.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

When you work at Cemetery Dance, you tend to make certain assumptions about the books publishers send to you for review. Sometimes, those assumptions are way off. John Darnielle’s Universal Harvester proved to be one of those instances….in the best possible way.

When I got the book (cleverly packaged in a plastic clamshell case like an old VHS tape, for reasons that would become clear when I read it) and scanned its press sheet, a few things jumped out at me: mentions of the “haunted, open landscape of middle-America;” “ominous and disturbing footage” spliced into a video store’s rental tapes; an investigation into “the origins of these unsettling scenes.” I took these tidbits and began to splice together my own version of the book.Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Devil Crept In’ by Ania Ahlborn

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 31, 2017January 30, 2017ReviewsAnia Ahlborn, Blu Gilliand, Reviews, The Devil Crept In2 Comments

The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (February 7, 2017)
374 pages; $11.04 paperback; $11.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

The Devil Crept In is the second people-go-into-the-woods-and-bad-things-happen book I’ve read this year (after Nick Cutter’s excellent Little Heaven), and the third in recent memory (including Paul Tremblay’s excellent Disappearance at Devil’s Rock). Ania Ahlborn’s latest novel stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those two—not just because of the premise, but because of the excellence of its execution. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Little Heaven’ by Nick Cutter

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 3, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Gallery Books, Little Heaven, Nick Cutter, Reviews1 Comment

Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (January 10, 2017)
496 pages; $19.87 hardcover; $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Little Heaven is the first major horror novel of 2017, and it’s going to take a monumental deluge of quality horror to keep it off of those end-of-year best-of lists that will start popping up 11 months from now.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Dead on the Bones: Pulp on Fire’ by Joe R. Lansdale

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 7, 2016ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Dead on the Bones: Pulp on Fire, Joe R. Lansdale, Reviews, Subterranean PressLeave a comment

Dead on the Bones: Pulp on Fire by Joe R. Lansdale
Subterranean Press (December 2016)
296 pages; $40.00 hardcover
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

“I was living in a pulp writer fury, a storm of imagination.”

That’s how author Joe R. Lansdale describes his early years, that delicate time when a steady diet of television shows, comic books and Edgar Rice Burroughs novels cemented his desire to become a writer. Dead on the Bones: Pulp on Fire is full of stories in which Lansdale seeks to honor those early influences that have given him—and, in turn, his readers—so much.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Slipping’ by Lauren Beukes

Cemetery Dance OnlineNovember 22, 2016November 21, 2016ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Lauren Beukes, Reviews, Slipping, Tachyon PublicationsLeave a comment

Slipping: Stories, Essays & Other Writing by Lauren Beukes
Tachyon Publications (November 2016)
264 pages; $9.75 paperback; $9.26 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Lauren Beukes’s work as a journalist in South Africa, where she covered topics ranging from slums to shark diving, gave her a sharp eye for detail and a sharp ear for dialogue. These tools are employed to great effect in in Slipping: Stories, Essays and Other Writing.

Review: ‘Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror’ edited by Ellen Datlow

Cemetery Dance OnlineNovember 3, 2016ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Ellen Datlow, Nightmares: A New Decade in Modern Horror, Reviews1 Comment

Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror edited by Ellen Datlow
Tachyon Publications (November 2016)
432 pages; $12.79 paperback; $7.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Ellen Datlow has been charting the course of horror fiction for over 35 years. In that time, she has maintained a balanced perspective in her numerous anthologies and collections, always casting an appreciative eye toward the established masters of horror while shining a light on the talent tasked with carrying the genre forward.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: ‘Season’s Greetings’

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 31, 2016October 30, 2016A Halloween Thing A DayA Halloween Thing A Day, Blu Gilliand, Halloween, Michael Dougherty, Sam, Trick 'r Treat1 Comment

hthing_banner

In 1996, Michael Dougherty released a short animated film called “Season’s Greetings,” which introduced a creepy, child-like character with a burlap mask and a love for Halloween. That character was named Sam, and you can see his introduction to the world below:Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: ‘Monster Problems’

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 30, 2016October 28, 2016A Halloween Thing A DayA Halloween Thing A Day, Adam Green, Blu Gilliand, Halloween, Monster Problems, Short FilmsLeave a comment

Halloween Thing A Day

Monsters in the closet….monsters under the bed….I think we all, at some point in life, believed in these things. We also believed that certain things would protect us from such creatures: keeping your feet under the covers…night lights…Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Silver Shamrock!

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 29, 2016October 28, 2016A Halloween Thing A DayA Halloween Thing A Day, Blu Gilliand, Halloween, Halloween III, Season of the Witch, Silver ShamrockLeave a comment

Halloween Thing A Day

Happy, happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween
Happy, happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

If you’re a fan of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, you might be
cursing me right now. That little ditty (from the Halloween countdown
commercials that play a huge part in the movie’s plot) is one of the
hardest-to-ditch earworms in earworm history, and I’ve just infected you.Continue Reading

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