Back again

Oh man, a few posts and a couple of weeks ago I promised I was going to list my 'influences', as a far wiser man than I once said, "Wha' happen?" Well, it'd just be tedious wouldn't it. I did start writing something, then I stopped because it was full of justiciations, caveats, asides and general nonsense. So I tried to do a list, but part way through it I realised I wasn't telling myself anything I didn't know and couldn't for the life of me think why anyone else would care. Talking about your influences is what you do when you're famous and being interviewed. So I just kept quiet for a bit.
But now I'm back.
With nothing to say.
Bugger.
Okay, how about I tell you that Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things has got a R2 release and it's a hell of a lot of fun. After suffering a few really bad big budget slick movies I'm getting really fed up with them. There was an article in the Guardian about a week ago talking about the latest death of the blockbuster and I'm inclined to agree. Of course there's a scare in Hollywoodland every few years and it usually works out, but this summer has been pretty sucky for decent popcorn fodder, which is saying something considering some of the naff stuff we've had before. Thank heavens then for films like CSPWDT (hate to anachronym-ise such a great title) reminding me why I like films. Smart, dumb, fun and just a delight to watch folk make a film for the love of it and not for the money or out of habit or just cos they can. Of course horror movies are suffering lately thanks to them becoming popular due to the likes of Scream. I miss the days when horror was rated 18 or just turned up on video unannounced outside of Fangoria. I guess that stuff's still out there but like so many things it's harder to find because it's buried under the uninspiring hack churned out by hack directors with too much money and the left over cast of the last not so popular anymore teen TV show. I don't like these new hacks, give me the old ones anyday.
The only other thing worth reporting is that Simian Smith is almost finished (again!) and I've decided to write a zombie book. Amazingly there's not many zombie novels out there (although there's some pretty good Zombie comics, 'Walking Dead' being a fine example), and the ones that are seem to be pretty poor affairs cobbled together by writers who've overdosed on bad 80's metal. Actually far too many modern horror novels read like that, it's amazing Garth Marenghi was ever recognised as a comedy creation when he was barely any different from far to many real life authors. Anyway, will my zombie tale be any different from the others? Will I actually complete it? Ah dunno!