Search Results for: best of the year so far

It’s time to say goodbye to Jade Daniels.

It’s been four years in prison since she last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho — the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront . . . until Jade comes back to town. …

You won’t find a more hardcore eighties slasher fan than high school senior Jade Daniels. And you won’t find a place less supportive of girls who wear torn t-shirts and too much eyeliner than Proofrock, nestled eight thousand feet up the mountain in Idaho, situated in Pleasant Valley right alongside Indian Lake, home to both Camp Blood — site of a massacre fifty years ago — and Terra Nova, a modern-day American Camelot currently under construction, which is quic…

Washington Post

Salon

LitHub

Old article-thing here. It originally ran on The Cult back in . . . sometime between 2005 and 2008? But The Cult went away sometime the last year or two, so I had to dig this up from a cache, copy and paste it here to sort of save it:

—SGJ

The biggest lie I tell myself about revising is that I do it as I go. You’ve heard this, right? I don’t think I’m coming up with anything new here, anyway. And, it’s a seductive thing to believe-to want to believe, at least. And th…

Ten years ago outside Browning, Montana, four Blackfeet shot some elk, and then went on with their lives. It happens every year, it’s been happening forever, it’s the way it’s always been. But this time it’s different.

Ten years after that fateful hunt, these men are being stalked, are being hunted themselves. By who? By . . . what? And why?

Some hunting expeditions, they’re never really over.

This one’s just beginning.

Saga’s …

Just re-re-watched this one, and, wow, holy everything, Batman, this is STILL my favorite horror movie of the year. By miles. Really? It’s the best slasher I can think of since . . . Happy Death Day, yeah. Which was far and away the best since . . . You’re Next, maybe? And before that it’d be The Cabin in the Woods. 

What it gets so, so right:

• actually IMPORTANT people die
• the final girl isn’t bookish and morally bulletproof. she’s just

I remember not long after House of Leaves came out, with Lethem’s way cool blurb on back, that there was an article or interview somewhere, where he (Lethem) was saying his agent was making him not do blurbs for six months or a year. Just because he, being him, wanted to do them all, of course, and that was clogging up the works. And he’s all of us—me anyway: I want to give each writer, each book whatever small boost I can. 

You can’t, though, I’ve found. See…

By category, sub-genre, branch, type—whatever’s under “Horror” and’s on the movie shelf, and not getting too granular. But, “15,” right? I know. I tried to keep it to a properly spooky “13,” but things happen. Though, if you take #11 and #15 out (which would shatter me), as they’re not really ‘categories’—”Scariest,” “Perfect”—then this does slide in more like “…

Isn’t that mask just so expressive? It’s supposed to make Michael Myers faceless, but really it kind of gives him a soul. A dark, evil, tortured soul. Anyway, I think it’s going to be a touch before I get to actually talking about this latest version, BUT:

• if you haven’t seen it yet
• AND you don’t like spoilers
• AND you can’t help but finish every post you start reading, then:
  • maybe don’t start this one yet?

Which is to say, spoilers wil…

I’ve always figured that the many-worlds interpretation was neat, maybe even gives some other theories a get-out-of-limbo-free card, but pretty much useless. Not because we’ll likely never prove or disprove it—that’s always a weak reason for dismissing a possibility—but because it makes all human action meaningless: if each branch-point goes both ways and I’m functionally making both decisions at once, just capillary’ing on into t…