Take Out The Trash
I’ve been expanding my range of 3D printed products again. These bins will be useful in adding detail to dioramas, or for parking 1:32nd scale cars beside.
Yearly archives: 2017
Who’d have thought that Police cuts would lead to an increase in crime?
I’ve heard of people being told that the crime against them won’t be investigated because the sum stolen was too low. Even though the criminal had cleared out their bank account. If they were wealthier, perhaps the Police would have investigated, but poor folks aren’t covered because the return is too low.
Something to remember when I get started on the next Rain and Bullets story.
Crime is rising in the region as crooks ‘take advantage’ of policing cuts, force insiders and fed-up victims have told the Manchester Evening News.
Home Office figures show that crime rose by 31 per cent – an additional 70,000 crimes – in the year up to June 2017.
The statistic represents a crime report every two minutes.
Source: ‘We can’t keep up’ – crime rising as crooks take advantage of police cuts – Manchester Evening News
White Supremacists Share Bomb-Making Materials Online
US white supremacists, but we have our share of home-grown equivalents.
In May, federal agents searching the Tampa home of 21-year-old Brandon Russell discovered an array of explosives and bomb ingredients: fuses made from rifle shells, a white cake-like explosive substance called HMTD, more than one pound of ammonium nitrate and other explosive precursors, and two different kinds of radioactive material. The agents promptly arrested Russell, who was both a member of the Florida National Guard and a leader of Atomwaffen, a small fascist group calling for a “white revolution in the 21st century.”
Source: White Supremacists Share Bomb-Making Materials in Online… — ProPublica
Were-sharks and Nazi leprechauns: the rise and fall of the horror paperback | Books | The Guardian
The Lost Picture Show series I write as Garth Owen, is inspired by genre film. But horror paperbacks of the seventies and eighties are sneaking a bit of influence in there as well.
I don’t have anywhere near as many to read as the guy interviewed here (the book he’s just published is on my to-read list, though, so I can find more to look out for). My interest was renewed a couple of years ago, by re-discovering the works of Guy N Smith (Crabs, etc), and finding a big pile of them in a charity shop. I need to sit down and devour half a dozen or so over a week some time soon.
The next planned Lost Picture Show story is going to have a few nods to the sub-genre, with satanic rituals, sex in odd places, and gore. All updated and given a smartphone and internet twist.
Source: Were-sharks and Nazi leprechauns: the rise and fall of the horror paperback | Books | The Guardian
B-Movie Night: “Zombies! Thousands of them!”
In the run up to the launch of Northern Gorehouse, and then for the week until Halloween, I’ve watched a few zombie films. I shuffled over 70 of them to the top of my rental list at Cinema Paradiso (my chosen, and recommended replacement for Lovefilm). Obviously, I didn’t get through all of them, but maybe I’ll keep adding undead reviews to this post as they arrive.
Zombie Creeping Flesh (AKA Hell of the Living Dead, in the print used for this disc)
Something called the Hope Project is working to solve the problems of overpopulation and food shortages. Of course, they’re doing this by creating a eugenics gas that will be used to kill off the world’s poor. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work, and has unforeseen side effects (can you guess what they are?)
After a couple of establishing scenes- a gas leak at the Hope plant, involving a cool zombie rat moment, and a hostage situation at the US consulate in an unnamed country- we get into the action proper. Four special forces operatives, previously seen gunning down the hostage takers, are in Papua, New Guinea on a secret mission. Pretty soon, they stumble upon a reporter, her cameraman, and their unfortunate guides. The guides have brought their seven year old son along, and he’s been attacked by a “crazed native”, and will soon die. Cue the soldiers’ first encounter with zombies, and an undead toddler who was genuinely creepy.
After this, the group stumbles around the jungle, meeting zombies everywhere and, each time, forgetting the lesson they’ve learnt about shooting them in the head. The best sequence is when they come upon a native village. The reporter says she spent nearly a year with local tribes, and knows how to gain their trust, promptly stripping off and daubing on body paint. The villagers are carrying out funeral rituals for their dead, who have all succumbed to a mysterious disease in the last few days. When the corpses come back to life, the soldiers and their passengers take off and abandon them.
One by one, the group are picked off by the undead, the soldiers proving too highly strung and incompetent to save themselves, let alone the rest of the world. They find the chemical plant and…. do nothing. The epilogue shows us how the gas has carried to the rest of the world and the true zombie apocalypse has begun.
This Italian production was one of the ‘video nasties’ banned in the UK in the early eighties. It certainly has the gore effects to merit that, all appropriately gruesome, backed up by stock footage for scene setting. It wanders from one bloody set piece to the next, lacking a coherent plot, but, be honest, it’s the blood that the story’s all about.
Not a classic of the genre, but a fun time capsule of blood and entrails.
Low-to-no budget efforts such as this should be applauded for seeing the project through to the end. However, a participation medal is all I’m willing to give out to this uninspired film.
The tautologically twisted title hints at the lack of invention inside. A dirty bomb has gone off in a British city, and a bunch of survivors are trapped in a provincial hospital filled with undead and with only one way out. They go nowhere for most of the film. Stilted acting struggles with a clumsy script, shot with little thought to production design and no obvious colour correction or grading to pump up the flat imagery.
Gore effects are good, and the mini movie in the closing titles is better than the rest of the film put together. So there’s hope. Best of luck to the team behind this, and I hope they come up with a more original idea next time, do a few more drafts of the script, and take the time to frame better shots.
Very few zombies in this one, despite the title. The ones who do show up are more brain damaged slaves than shambling undead. This is actually a cannibal film.
After a bunch of cannibal attacks across the US, a team of anthropologists is sent to the place the protagonists all came from. This place is the mysterious island of Kito in the not-at-all-insultingly-named Mullato chain. Along the way, they visit a famous surgeon who’s dropped out to do missionary service in the islands. Following his directions to the wrong island, they end up on Kito nonetheless.
Soon enough, their guides are being picked off and eaten by the natives. Whittled down to a final two, they eventually find out why one of this film’s alternate titles was Doctor Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviant).
The gore effects are mostly well done, there’s some gratuitous nudity, and the evil doctor gets his deserved comeuppance. But the storytelling is disjointed, the way so many Italian horrors of the era could be, and the racism inherent in the sub-genre.
Bonus material on the disc included a documentary about the short-lived cannibal genre, which produced few great works of art, but was well represented on the video nasties list.
Zombie Virus On Mulberry Street
Another case of false advertising, because it’s actually a were-rat virus. As the infection takes hold across Manhattan, the occupants of an apartment block on the eponymous street fight to survive.
It’s another low budget effort, but not as low as Zombie Undead, and definitely better scripted and directed. It also helps that it takes place in the Big Apple, rather than some non-descript English market town.
Similar in many ways to Mulberry Street, this Spanish horror is even more tightly paced and chilling. Its creatures are closer to the traditional zombie as well.
A two person film crew from a local television station is shooting a night in the life of a fire station. Responding to a call in an apartment block, they’re soon out of their depth as an unknown infection turns the occupants into flesh eating monsters.
With its found footage technique of viewing everything through the news cameraman’s lens, and the characters trapped in the block for most of the film, it’s more effectively claustrophobic than Mulberry Street. In that one, at least they got to pop to the bar next door. There aren’t many occupants in the block, but the confined space means that each one that changes increases the threat level immensely.
This one sneaked in as a last gasp from Lovefilm. A low budget vampire romantic dark comedy, it stars Jason Mewes, who’s initially unrecognisable without the long hair he sports as Jay in all those Kevin Smith films. He plays Jack, a lovelorn paramedic trapped on the night shift with his arse (well, ass, as this is a US/Canadian production- but I can’t bring myself to say ass) obsessed co-driver and only friend.
When Jack meets Danica, she’s covered in blood down a dodgy alley near his home. Trying to help her out, and clean her up, he falls in love almost immediately. Things are going great, until he comes home to find she has taken a big chunk out of his ex-girlfriend’s neck.
Desperate to sate his vampire girlfriend’s thirst, Jack initially helps her feast on the local drug dealers and hide their bodies. But things soon get out of his control.
Not a masterpiece, but I’d definitely call this a little known gem. The Apocalypse part of the name is a bit off, and it seems the original name was Bitten, which is more appropriate.
This one hits the new low, taking the prize away from Zombie Undead. On top of the poor script, direction and acting, there’s also some really bad CGI as well.
In the future, everyone lives on walled cities, spending all their time in virtual reality. Five wannabe real-life hunters break out, intent on bagging a deer. Unfortunately, the place they’ve chosen is just over the hill from a secret military research establishment which has just created, and leaked, a magical wound healer that also raises the dead. Cue boring, tension-free, useless zombie killing.
Another little gem, this one is full of inventively gory Aussie humour. After meteor chunks and/or aliens- it’s kept nicely ambiguous, right to the end- land in an outback town, people start turning into white eyed walking corpses. A slowly dwindling bunch of survivors tries to fight their way out of the town. I won’t try to break down the action for you, but recommend going off and watch it yourself.
Kalashnikov Electric Motorbike, Anyone?
Harking back to an earlier Garth Owen book These bikes are just the sort of thing the characters in Pickers would have been riding around on.
Kalashnikov company, the one that makes AKs, started making electric bikes. They have been already ordered by Russian Army and Moscow police. Till next year fifty or more electric police bikes gon
B-Movie Night: Snow White (and the Curse of the Axe Man)
It was all a dream.
I wish I’d slept through this dull film, like the main character did. Dull story, awful script, no tension, no excitement, and only connected to the fairy tale by the presence of an evil stepmother.
Northern Gorehouse: Zombies vs Vampires on the streets of Manchester
Available from Amazon.
An ancient evil looks down on the city of Manchester. But there are things even immortals fear.
Manchester’s newest tower is home to a coven of vampires, headed by the woman known only as Mistress. They have corrupted local government, and prey on the city’s most vulnerable.
When Mistress turns a homeless boy, to take as the latest in a long line of lovers, she sets in motion events that could destroy the coven, and will scar the city.
As the boy’s sister tracks him down, another, hungrier, kind of undead creature has been raised. Zombies stalk the streets, heading for the tower and Mistress.
Northern Gorehouse is available now.
Fangs – A Writer’s Life 12
How I made the cover for Northern Gorehouse.
The book is out on 24th October through Amazon. Buy it now.
B-Movie Night: Battles Without Honour And Humanity
This five film series- based very loosely on a Yakuza member’s prison memoirs- traces gangland conflicts in Hiroshima and neighbouring Kure from the late forties to early seventies. Shozo Hirono is the character based upon the author, but not the lead in every one of the films. Calm and honourable, he’s permanently being undermined by the hot-headed behaviour and back stabbing of Yakuza in his own and others’ families.
The Yakuza life is presented as less than glamorous, shabby, even. Violence, when it breaks out, is realistically gritty, clumsy and brutal, more scuffle and brawl than bullet ballet. If, like me, you have problems keeping track of characters’ names, it gets tricky following exactly which factions are working with or against each other. But that’s just me.
The series is- Battles without Honour And Humanity, Hiroshima Death Match, Proxy Wars, Police Tactics and Final Episode. Special features on the Arrow Video releases include some interesting featurette documentaries, interviewing the series’ fight co-ordinator, one of the script writers and an assistant director, as well as revealing the ‘Piranha Army’ of bit players who kept the backgrounds full of activity.
Real Junk Food – A Writer’s Life 11
A rare escape from the flat this week, to have a quick look at a new cafe opening on Oxford Road.
Cover Model – A Writer’s Life 10
A blast from the past in today’s video, but also a hint at things to come.
The Return Of The Dis From Brazil
I’ve been avoiding the Di-fest marking the twentieth anniversary of her death, but I just remembered this post I wrote back in 2008- The Dis From Brazil.
Extrapolating from a conversation last night.
There must have been enough genetic material to be swept up from the Parisian tunnel that someone could have got a decent bit of DNA from it. Replicate that, stick it in a few dozen eggs and set yourself up with a baby farm somewhere in South America (or certain parts of eastern Europe, where they’d be even less obvious) and wait. Then, in 2016, when they’ve all turned 18 break out the bowl cuts and let your army of simpering blondes loose to be bedded by older toffs, rugby players and cads. They will also steal the hearts of Britain whilst you carry out your nefarious deeds unnoticed. We won’t even have Gregory Peck around to sniff out the conspiracy.
(2012 would make a more dramatic year for them to be released, what with the Mayan calendar ending and the London Olympics, but they’d only be 14 and that’s wrong.)
(There’s a listing in imdb for The Boys From Brazil due 2009, but no information. What’s the betting it’s yet another unnecessary remake?)
My 2016 deadline came and went, and the girls didn’t appear. Maybe whatever shady cabal created them thought they’d have the wrong effect on the desired result of the EU referendum.
The Boys From Brazil is still listed as ‘In Development’.
A Writer’s Life 9 – Back In The Office
I went back to the John Rylands to do a bit of paper editing on Northern Gorehouse. Then I went for a wander around the building again.
Recent Research Reading
A few articles that have been sitting in open tabs for too long, that I’ve finally got round to reading-
During the 2008 financial crisis the theory emerged that certain companies, particularly financial institutions, were “too big to fail.” These firms were considered to be so large and entwined with other companies that their closure would be catastrophic to the entire economy. In today’s Navy, the aircraft carrier has become “too big to sink.” When it functions as designed, it is an extremely powerful platform that has remarkable economies of scale. But carriers are crucial to so many of the fleet’s missions that if the enemy can defeat them, the results would be catastrophic for both the Navy and the nation. The loss of a $12 billion capital ship, more than 5,000 American lives, and a powerful symbol of U.S. military superiority would send shock waves around the world.
Too Big to Sink – Proceedings Magazine – May 2017
Perepilichnyy, who faced repeated threats after fleeing to Britain, was found dead outside his home in Surrey after returning from a mysterious trip to Paris in 2012. Despite an expert detecting signs of a fatal plant poison in his stomach, the British police have insisted there was no evidence of foul play, and Theresa May’s government has invoked national security powers to withhold evidence from the inquest into his cause of death – which is ongoing.
Poison in the System – Buzzfeed (Part 1 of 5)
Lavish London mansions. A hand-painted Rolls-Royce. And eight dead friends. For the British fixer Scot Young, working for Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic meant stunning perks – but also constant danger. His gruesome death is one of 14 that US spy agencies have linked to Russia – but the UK police shut down every last case. A bombshell cache of documents today reveals the full story of a ring of death on British soil that the government has ignored.
From Russia With Blood – Buzzfeed (Part 2 of 5)
His nuclear research helped a judge determine that former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko had been assassinated – likely on Putin’s orders. Just months after the verdict, the scientist himself was found stabbed to death with two knives. Police deemed it a suicide, but US intelligence officials suspect it was murder.
The Man Who Knew Too Much- Buzzfeed (Part 3 of 5)
After the dead body of an MI6 spy was found locked in a sports bag in London, police said the death was “probably an accident” – but British and American spy agencies have secret intelligence suggesting Gareth Williams may have been assassinated over highly sensitive work on Russia.
The Secrets Of The Spy In The Bag- Buzzfeed (Part 4 of 5)
Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was murdered in Washington, DC, on the eve of a planned meeting with the US Justice Department, according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US government’s official explanation of his death.
“Everyone thinks he was whacked”- Buzzfeed (Part 5 of 5)
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukrainians have long struggled with fake news from Russia, but last week, they discovered something even more insidious: a fake journalist.
Masquerading as Reporter, Assassin Hunted Putin Foes in Ukraine- New York Times
Reports of satellite navigation problems in the Black Sea suggest that Russia may be testing a new system for spoofing GPS, New Scientist has learned. This could be the first hint of a new form of electronic warfare available to everyone from rogue nation states to petty criminals.
Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon- New Scientist
A Writer’s Life 8 – I tried to warn you about Trump
Well, I tried to warn you about Palin, really. This week, I’ve taken a break from talking about my current work to say a little about Sounds of Soldiers.
Get Sounds of Soldiers-
A Writer’s Life 6 – Cover Versions
Here are some of my early thoughts on covers for Northern Gorehouse.
More ways to get my books
I won’t bore you with the details of how I get my books distributed. But I will tell you that there are now a few more places you can find them. (I’ll fill in the links as they go live.)