A.C. Wise

I’m still slowly working my way through the 50 Horror Classics DVD set. Clearly my plan to blog about the films as I watch them has done nothing to keep me on track. To make up for being a slacker, I offer you a double feature review. Warning, the reviews will contain spoilers, but given that these movies are all at least forty years old, I figure they’re fair game. First up…

The Vampire Bat

This 1933 film staring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, and Melvyn Douglas, despite the title, features absolutely no vampires. Rather, it is about a mad scientist who uses superstition, fear and carefully placed puncture wounds to disguise his nefarious crimes. The movie is predictable, but well acted, though Fay Wray is under used.

As usual, the mad scientist’s plot is delightfully illogical. As far as I was able to tell, he was murdering people and stealing their blood for the sole purpose of feeding a living, breathing sponge - makes perfect sense, right? There is some nice humor, but no real scares. The subplot was more interesting than the main plot, with a mentally challenged man being suspected of the murders simply because he’s different. The movie misses an opportunity to make a statement regarding prejudice and the disturbing power of mob mentality though. The innocent man is chased to his death without a moment’s remorse and is never exonerated or even mentioned again.

Not the best of movies, but not a complete waste of time either. Onwards to…

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If I’m as clever as I think I am (how could I not be?), acwise.net should now be automatically mirrored on my livejournal (user name acwise) with little or no effort on my part. Feel free to comment on posts in either location. Now, let’s see if this actually works…

Kyle Cassidy has posted his photo gallery of fans from Worldcon/Anticipation. The pictures, as with all his work, are fabulous. Go check them out!

Speaking of fans, the fans of Strange Horizons are an incredibly awesome lot of people who have collectively donated over $13,000 towards the magazine. The fund drive will remain open until the end of the month, so there’s still time to donate if you want to support this wonderful source of free speculative fiction online.

And in reasonably unrelated news, DF Lewis, editor of the Nemonymous series, contributes to the 5th Estate website, discussing the series and the concept of anonymous anthologies in general.

I attended my first ever Worldcon this past weekend. The following post will  be long and rambling. Consider yourself warned.

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It’s that time of year again - Strange Horizons fund drive time. For nearly ten years, Strange Horizons has been publishing fantastic (in both senses of the word) fiction, free of charge. Despite their occasionally questionable taste in authors, if you are a fan of speculative fiction, then they deserve your support. Head on over, make a donation, and keep the free fiction flowing. Heck, you might even win yourself a fabulous prize.