TV writer-producer-actor and filmmaker Mike Judge has a new TV series premiering tonight on ABC. It sounds like another winner for the politically incorrect satirist, writes S. T. Karnick.
Posts Tagged ‘ fiction ’
Asian Horror Films and Their Hollywood Remakes
Here’s an interesting question: Why are Hollywood remakes of popular Asian horror films mostly neither scary nor interesting? E! Online suggests an answer here. In summary, the writer, Leslie Gornstein, says the use of CGI makes the American versions less real and involving to audiences.
The Problem with Contemporary Detective Fiction
In an essay provocatively called "The Slow and Agonizing Death of the Private Detective", crime novel fan and critic William Ahearn argues that private-eye detective fiction is dead: The private detective is as dead as a two-dollar steak and would somebody please get a shovel and bury the stiff. That’s an incendiary way of putting it, and I’m sure that devotees of contemporary private eye fiction will be scandalized by both the content of the claim and Ahearn’s dogmatic expression of it. However, in the main I agree with his statement and endorse its tone.
A Very Good Film Dealing with Devil Worship
Tonight at 8:00 EDT Turner Network Television is showing a very underrated movie from 1957, Curse of the Demon (also released as Night of the Demon), directed by Jacques Tourneur. It’s based on a very fine horror story by M. R. James, "Casting the Runes." James’s metier was in creating horror stories that depended on strong characterization, a solid story with sensible motivation, great skill at conveying atmosphere and suspense, and some real intellectual power. He stayed away from sensational effects, and his stories were much more effective for it.
The Value of Plot; plus: Guest Review of “Night of the Wolf”
A few weeks ago I eagerly purchased a copy of the new book Night of the Wolf, a collection of stories by the French writer Paul Halter. Halter writes mystery novels and short stories, and he follows in the grand tradition of John Dickson Carr, creating thorny "impossible crime" puzzles in modern settings fraught with surrealistic events and gothic-style tension. What makes Halter popular in France and in translation in several other countries is what has probably held him back from achieving popularity in the United States thus far: his thorough and unapologetic devotion to plot-driven fiction.
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