Category Archives: Horror Movies
CANDLEWOOD movie available to stream, DD interviews director, behind-the-scenes and my hometown location notes (spoiler and review free)
The horror movie Candlewood—which was filmed in my hometown of New Milford, Connecticut, and in which I was an extra a while back—is now available to rent or view on many streaming platforms, including Prime and Apple TV!
Produced by Bandstand Pictures, directed by Myke Furhman, and written by Victoria Flores-Argue and Joseph Patrick Conroy, Candlewood, from the official description, “follows a blended family that moves from New York City to a small, isolated town in Connecticut. Once there, a local urban legend wreaks havoc, fracturing their family dynamic and causing them to go insane.” The film runs an hour and half.
To watch the trailer, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ze6srALIQ8
To visit the Candlewood website, click here: https://www.candlewoodfilm.com/
To check out Candlewood branded gear, visit here: https://www.candlewoodgear.com/candlewood-they-were-here-first
I appeared in the supermarket scene. What was really the most fun Read the rest of this entry
Recommended film: STOPMOTION
There were several enticing trailers on the DVD Late Night with the Devil that I’d purchased, but the one that looked the most fresh and original was called Stopmotion—about a struggling stop motion filmmaker who suddenly is confronted with her creations coming to life.
I’m going to be spoiler-free, here; this movie is excellent, and for those who enjoy what we publish in 34 Orchard, this is most likely for you.
This is a quiet little film, but where it excels is in its Read the rest of this entry
StokerCon 2024 – Virtual Tickets Still Available!
StokerCon—the Horror Writers Association’s annual gathering chock full of panels, readings, special events, awards ceremonies and other things horror writing—takes place this coming weekend, May 30—June 2, in San Diego.
If you, like me, can’t make it to California but would like to check out some live and pre-recorded content on the same weekend it’s all happening (including a super-cool horror film festival)—and enjoy a panel and a reading featuring yours truly—you still can! Tickets for the virtual event are $75 ($100 if you’d like the souvenir anthology) and include The Final Frame Horror Short Film Competition and can be purchased here: https://events.ringcentral.com/events/allaccesscon-presents-stokercon
For my part, I’m on a panel called Dark Fantasy – A Discussion on Horror with Fantasy Elements, which was pre-recorded in April, and what a fantastic conversation with writers Holley Cornetto (Moderator—We Haunt These Woods), Lee Murray (Into the Mist), Ai Jiang (I Am AI), Corey Farrenkopf (short fiction in many publications), Jonathan Duckworth (The Book of Never), and Austin Shirey (City of Spores). Several other panels fill out the schedule.
I’ll also present the first portion of my short story, “King of Bull,” which will be published next year in my next collection, Songs for a Dying World (cover release coming shortly!) In “King of Bull,” a boutique brewer Read the rest of this entry
Oh, What a Night! Behind-the-Scenes of CANDLEWOOD: filming and the red carpet premiere!
My photos from filming as an extra in the horror film CANDLEWOOD back in 2022—and from the red carpet premiere at Bank Street Theater in my hometown of New Milford, Connecticut, where the movie was shot—are below! What a magical filming experience and a stellar night—things that’ll always live gloriously in my memory. I’m so thrilled and excited for everyone involved.
Wanna get your chance to see the film everyone’s talking about in a limited run before it goes national? You CAN, right NOW, at Bank Street Theater through the month of February! A new showing was also just added, since several have sold out.
GET TICKETS HERE: https://www.candlewoodfilm.com/tickets?fbclid=IwAR0DGSn13fCXoOpmtixzoiUk6GiT5b16idUICIL1ULJ84pY8GpKg6OMV5cw
I-95 Rock’s “Unveiling the Magic of ‘Candlewood’ – Red Carpet & Beyond” here: https://i95rock.com/unveiling-of-candlewood-world-premiere/
Danbury News-Times Event Coverage: https://www.newstimes.com/entertainment/article/candlewood-horror-movie-new-milford-ct-premiere-18634628.php
And now…
FILMING AT THE MARKET-CT (formerly the Northville Market): October 25, 2022
GETTING READY FOR THE PREMIERE: January 27, 2024
AT THE PREMIERE: Bank Street Theater, New Milford, CT Read the rest of this entry
If you missed the “Candlewood’s Creepy Tales” I-95 interview… listen here
If you missed the Halloween drive-time Ethan & Lou Show interview on the creepy tales of Candlewood Lake, you can listen to it here…lasts about ten minutes!
The original “7 Creepy Tales of Candlewood Lake,” in case you’d like to read those, are here:
http://nehw.blogspot.com/2016/08/legends-of-candlewood-lake-guest-blog.html
Just in time for summer: dive into THE DEEP HOUSE
I grew up on a lake that was created by flooding abandoned towns, and so we had our share of urban legends about the lake and what lie beneath. When someone on Insta posted about the 2021 movie The Deep House (2021, 1 hour/25mins), I couldn’t resist.
This movie is French-made, but is in English, so no, you won’t be reading subtitles unless you have the CC on.
*MOSTLY SPOILER-FREE – ONLY REFERENCES ARE TO THINGS THAT CAN BE SEEN IN THE TRAILER*
This movie is definitely in my wheelhouse and has echoes of my short story, “Rightfully Mine,” which I wrote back in 2016 and was published in Sanitarium #49 here, in the same year (and although I promise a spoiler-free review, one of the spectral beings totally looks like the woman in my story, at least she does the way I pictured her in my head). I can’t recommend this enough—The Deep House gets high marks for Read the rest of this entry
It’s GENERATION X-ED Pub Day!
I’m not so thrilled about that god-awful sweater I’m wearing in that photo, but I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that Generation X-ed, which contains my short story “Nothing to See Here,” is now available in dust jacket hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook!
Crammed with all sorts of throwback goodies and the original collection written completely by those of us who lived through them, this should definitely be on every GenXer’s shelf (and makes a great gift for that impossible-to-buy-for GenXer in your life because JARTS are hard to find)! Here’s a look at the stellar TOC!
In From the Cold – Adrian Ludens Read the rest of this entry
Three Good Flicks for Haunted House Junkies
It’s stating the obvious: haunted house movies—even not so good ones—are scary, because, on a metaphorical level, what they’re really about is what happens when someplace we deem safe isn’t really safe at all. The house is the stand-in for that secure thing—an actual home, a family structure, a romantic relationship, a job, our physical health—and the “haunting” is the stand-in for anything that threatens it: fire, foreclosure, death, infidelity, unfair treatment, terminal illness. In the end, why haunted house movies are effective—and popular—is because they prey on our fear of destabilization.
This is probably why so many of them have the same tropes—but if you’re a junkie like me, who’ll give any haunted house movie a fair shot until it proves otherwise—you’re used to that; in fact, you expect it.
That said, here’s a couple of recent ones on Netflix Read the rest of this entry
Ruminations on Romero’s THE AMUSEMENT PARK
I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not even close to knowing much about the late George Romero’s films, and in fact, I’m not even a fan of his work—mostly (I know, understand, and can appreciate its brilliance, and I think he was a genius. Zombies are just not my thing). He has, however, thanks to Night of the Living Dead, become synonymous with a specific brand of horror, so fan expectations are set.
I just watched George Romero’s gorgeously restored lost gem, 1975’s The Amusement Park, which has been available as a Shudder exclusive for a while now. In my opinion, this is one of the scariest films I’ve ever seen; if you enjoy the work my magazine, 34 Orchard, publishes, then you will definitely be into this—this is profound, visceral, disturbing, real-world, inevitable horror.
I will keep this all spoiler-free, Read the rest of this entry
VIRTUAL tickets for the HP Lovecraft FILM FESTIVAL on 10/8 (that’s Friday!) AVAILABLE NOW!
How AWESOME is this octopus skeleton? He’s my festival buddy this year!
Love horror short films? HP Lovecraft? A weekend of eating popcorn in your PJs? Looking for something special to spice up your Halloween season? Then you’ll want to get your tickets for the VIRTUAL EDITION of the HP Lovecraft Film Festival!
The festival starts at 7 pm Pacific Time (that’s 10pm if you’re Eastern, like me) on Friday, October 8, 2021. Tickets are $75 for the full weekend of programming, but you can also piece-meal it, too: $25/Friday, $40 each for Saturday and Sunday. More information and ticket purchase is here:
