Horror Blog Spotlight: And Now the Screaming Starts

Would you read a 1,000 word review? If you're like me, the odds of doing so are fairly slim, unless the author manages to break free from the "Intro-Synopsis-Pros-Cons-Conclusion" mold most film bloggers adhere to, instead preferring to give you a more analytical approach. Take for example this review of the movie Triangle, the Chris Smith-helmed thriller that has absolutely borked the minds of most who watched it (and the current Horror Squad Movie Club film). Written in two-parts and comprised of 6,300 words, this...Cadillac of reviews breaks free of convention and gives you not only a review but an in-depth look at the physics behind the protagonist's plight. Here's a snippet to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

"So basically, we need a way to get an oceanliner stuck in a time loop without punching holes through space-time or fitting the ship with a warp drive. Luckily, a quirk in quantum mechanics does all this for us without us so much as breaking a sweat. For our answer we return to the work of Igor Novikov (who along with Thorne cooked up the self-consistency principle) and the concept of the "jinni" - or an item that, through a loophole in quantum mechanics, has a looping world line."

The beauty of this is not in his ability to break from the norm, but the fact that he manages to do it in such an engaging and entertaining way. This is one of the main reasons everyone should read And Now the Screaming Starts.

One of the first blogs I came across when I decided to start my own, ANTSS has remained, at least for me, the standard of excellence among horror bloggers. The author, who writes under the pseudonym CRwM, possesses a unique and insightful approach toward horror films, which many consider to be a "dying genre." When asked him his opinion on the current state of horror films (a topic brought up, however subtle, by most everyone associated with horror), he responded with great enthusiasm, citing three main reasons for it being "as healthy as he's ever seen it."

"First, it is just a demographic thing. Teens like cinema carnage and the rising generation of post-X kiddies is the largest generation on record. Furthermore, women are now in the driver's seat when it comes to horror fandom. That's a huge audience that didn't pack horror screenings previously...Second, we've the unprecedented access to the genre's past. This acts as sort of informal "horror school" that any would-be creator or fanboy/girl has access to...Third, horror fans as a whole seem a lot more comfortable with foreign productions."

More important than his unbridled optimism, however, is the fact that CRwM is a writer for the sake of being a writer. He has no concern for blog rankings or guerilla advertising. Each piece he writes, whether it's 200 words or 2,000, is written by the hand of a man who simply loves to write. In fact, he cites this as one of the reasons readers keep coming back. "...I'm happy remaining a hobbiest. It keeps me from getting delusional about my influence and wisdom. But if it gives me a rep as the Steve Albini of horror bloggers, that's cool. That's not a bad rep to have."

Do yourselves a favor and check out And Now the Screaming Starts. I guarantee it'll be worth your while.