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Archive for May, 2006:


4.01 Contest Updates

We have two winners in the ‘spaminot’ contest from Goreletter 4.01! But one contest still remains open, so subscribe soon and you can still enter.

The “spaminot” contest asked readers to guess which of the following phrases was NOT a real spam header I received: aggressive mannequin, be decomposable, cuddle grime, diabolical meathead, drive by grimace, efficiency nose ring, goth seniority, grandmamma warlock, medication madhouse, open face surgery, sanity immersion, toucan retardation, undeliverable baby. (Can you believe the sick ingenuity of spammers?). The made-up phrase was “diabolical meathead.” Guess I wasn’t so diabolical after all.

Craig Clarke wins 1st prize, nabbing an autographed Advanced Review Copy of my novel, Play Dead, a copy of The Dead Cat Poet Cabal (constructed by Gerard Houarner), a signed Play Dead book jacket, and Horror Library Vol. 1 (edited by RJ Cavender).

Tracy Mowdy came in 2nd with the winning entry, earning an autographed copy of Mythic Delirium #14, a signed Play Dead book jacket, and a copy of Butcher Shop Quartet (edited by Frank J. Hutton).

Congratulations to Craig and Tracy.

The currently open contest — a subjective draw which invites subscribers to send me a witty interview question for my weblog on amazon.com — will remain open until June 10th, when I pick my favorite question and answer it. To participate, all you need to do is subscribe to the e-mail edition of The Goreletter and follow the directions in the latest issue. The winner will receive a free and highly collectible deck of playing cards with art by Dave Liscomb inspired by my novel, Play Dead!



Goreletter 4.01 Mailed

The Goreletter Vol. 4, #1, with the title “Tender Cuts” was mailed to subscribers on 25/May/2006 23:08 est. It contains two contests for prizes and extra material not available here on the weblog version. If you subscribe and did not receive this issue, e-mail me for a replacement or review the archives at gorelets.com.

Subscribers to this newsletter receive bonus material — and have access to exclusive discounts, contests, and other benefits. Subscribe today…it’s painless, fun and free! (But probably not completely pain-free). — Mike Arnzen



Crazy Concept Bands

Hatebeak

The Electric Amish

Cookie Mongoloid

[Thanks to Bruce Siskawicz and Rick Fleck for suggestions.]

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It Wants You to Eat It

Most free movie-inspired online games are trite gimmicks, and Slither: Hunting Season — based on James Gunn’s 2006 campy horror film Sliver — is certainly one of them. But Hunting Season is astonishingly well-made for a simple 3rd person shooter that has you do little more than point and click to shoot at random on-coming targets while offbeat sound bytes from the film randomly play over the speakers. The game puts you, a desperate cop with a rifle, slightly off the center of the screen, generating a sense of helplessness as the camera peers straight down from above in an bird’s eye view. The player’s job is to keep on the lookout for approaching monster worms, targeting the cop’s rifle at them as quickly as possible. As if pinned to the hub of a wheel, you don’t get to move. Instead, things come crawling at you — and the better you are at picking them off, the harder and harder it gets to shoot them all. The game play is excellent, because it truly succeeds in making you feel “surrounded” by the enemy… which wants to jump in your mouth, wriggle down your throat and infest you with its slimy body. You’ll get a gratuitous gore clip when you get killed in the game, which makes the impossible survival of the onslaught sort of worth it. (“What kind of animal WANTS you to eat it?” one sound byte from Slither asks. The answer? Hollywood.)

Bring on the worms: http://www.slithermovie.net/hunting/

Hunting Season requires the latest Shockwave Player (installed automatically as a browser plug in). It may also require a fast internet connection and a decent graphics card in your computer, because the design is richly competitive with most modern shooting games for the PC.



The Nurse Wears Black

“Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.”
– Tennessee Williams (died 1983)



Twisted Prompts for Sicko Writers

+ Reveal a horrifying disfigurement behind a woman’s veil.
+ Something is “bulging” beneath Charlie’s sweater. Jane is obsessively fixated on this. Dramatize the revelation of Charlie’s hidden surprise.
+ Create a character who has no fingernails. What happened to them and what surprising skill can he perform without them?

***
I’m sad to report that my weekly “Instigation” column will no longer appear in Hellnotes newsletter, because it is a newsletter no more. Moreover, the “Wee Small Hours” flash fiction webzine has been canceled. But not to fear: Hellnotes is still alive under the editorship of David B. Silva, and has evolved into a new FREE syndicated weblog that you should visit regularly!

And I will continue to regularly publish “Instigation” in The Goreletter.