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Author: Tina Jens

The Frighteners: A Re-View in 3 Parts, Part 3: I See What He Did There

The Frighteners: A Re-View in 3 Parts, Part 3: I See What He Did There

The Frighteners 15th Anniversary Blu-Ray

Read Part I: The Real-Life Inspiration, and Part 2: Humor & Horror Examples + A Recap.

When I sat down to write about The Frighteners, I found myself writing around the “problem/s” with the movie. At first I thought it didn’t have enough plot, but it has plot points galore, and while every character seemed to be a trope or stereo-type, there were lots of hints about the depths of these characters and their relationships. I deleted a fair bit of what I wrote, after I realized that I wasn’t finding the problem. So I watched it a third time. It was like scales fell from my eyes. I think I understand Peter Jackson’s formula for the film, and having clued into that, I liked it ever so much more.

The Frighteners is two films sharing the same celluloid, but paying little or no attention to the other. The scary ghost story is unaware of the broad comedy, and vice versa.

In this world, average humans and average ghosts share the same locations and space, but are generally unaware of each other. The living are busy with their stuff, and the ghosts are tightly focused on their own problems (like avoiding bully ghosts). There are a scarce few ghosts, and even fewer humans, who are aware or care about what’s going on with the denizens on the other side of the veil, even if they’re standing physical elbow to ghostly jowl on the street corner waiting for the light to change.

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The Frighteners: A Re-View in 3 Parts, Part 2: Humor & Horror Examples + A Recap

The Frighteners: A Re-View in 3 Parts, Part 2: Humor & Horror Examples + A Recap

The Frighteners (Universal Pictures, 1996)

Read Part I: The Real-Life Inspiration here.

I hadn’t seen The Frighteners since it was in the theaters in 1996, until I watched it again last week. Twice. I had drastically different reactions between the second and third viewings.

After my first 2022 re-view, I came away thinking the movie was mainly just paying homage through pastiche to a lot of things. While it had interesting vignettes with diverse tones and styles, it never fully gelled into its own thing. It’s as if it went to a Halloween costume shop, tried on and modeled a dozen different outfits, then later said, “What did you think of my costume?” It was more a fashion show than a full narrative arc.

It was equal parts horror and humor. Often, an equal ratio doesn’t work well. It comes off as a split personality, or two different films sharing a movie reel. This is especially true when the humor isn’t a coping mechanism for the protagonist or an emotional vent for the audience. The humor was there, but it never really served a purpose in the way humor normally does when mixed with horror. The two parts seemed at odds.

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The Frighteners: A Re-View in 3 Parts, Part One: The Real-Life Inspiration

The Frighteners: A Re-View in 3 Parts, Part One: The Real-Life Inspiration

Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate are not familiar household names, unless you’re a true-crime or serial-killer enthusiast, or, perhaps, a Nebraska history buff. While they’d received lurid national news coverage at the time of the killings (Dec. 1957-Jan 1958), I’d never heard of them when my then-fiancé, Barry (now husband), first played the Bruce Springsteen song “Nebraska” for me. Those sparse but chilling lyrics are spare enough that you wouldn’t necessarily realize it was about a real, serial, spree killer and his teenaged partner-girlfriend just by listening to the song.

The song was on a 1982 album of the same name. Though MTV debuted in the summer of 1981, the slow, melancholy song featuring a mournful harmonica throughout, was not viewed as a contender for a music video to run on the manically upbeat and cheerful MTV.

But I got to see a music video of it. One put together by my TV news producer husband and one of the anchors at KMTV in Omaha. It was broadcast to homes throughout the country that were tuned into Lloyd Dobyns and Linda Ellerbie’s show, NBC News Overnight.

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The Haunted Mansion: A Halloween Re-View

The Haunted Mansion: A Halloween Re-View

I love spooky, Halloween fun, type films, especially those with ghosts and haunted houses. I watch them all year long, but there’s something special about watching them in October. I’m not keen on gory, dead teenagers, blood-fest flicks. There’s no amount of money in the world that would entice me to watch the Saw franchise, no matter how well written, acted, and edited. I’m not putting them down; they’re just not for me. Which means that come October, I’m more likely to look to Disney than Netflix for viewing ideas.

I recently re-watched The Haunted Mansion. My only previous viewing was when it came out in theaters in 2003.

Promotional copy for the movie says,

Here’s the fright-filled comedy adventure loaded with hair-raising laughs and eye-popping special effects! Eddie Murphy stars as a real estate agent whose family comes face-to-face with 999 grim, grinning ghosts in the creepy old Gracey Manor!

I don’t know if there are actually 999 ghosts in the film, but there are a lot. They hit the whole range of emotions, including the silly barbershop quartet singing graveyard busts, the wise-cracking Jennifer Tilly who plays the psychic trapped inside her own magic ball, and the briefly-scary zombies in the family crypt, to name just a few.

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Peter Straub: Men Love Him, Women Want to be Like Him 

Peter Straub: Men Love Him, Women Want to be Like Him 

TIna Jens and Peter Straub

Peter Straub, who passed away on September 4, was the Toastmaster at World Horror Convention 2006 San Francisco. Tina Jens was asked to write his “appreciation” essay for the program book. Here it is, in its entirety.

Barbie wants to be an astronaut. Geena Davis wants to be president. When I grow up, want to be Peter Straub. We’ve all got to have our dreams. And let’s face it, as dreams so, I’m shooting for a much farther star than Barbie or Geena.

Maybe it’s because, rumor has it, Peter still dresses for dinner each night. (And I’m not implying the alternative is Peter showing up for dinner in his skivvies.) If you’ve seen him at a convention, you know he looks damned fine in his custom suits. (We won’t talk about his old publicity photo where he looked like a dead ringer for Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show.)

Maybe it’s because he spent time as an ex-pat writer in Ireland, then London, or that he lists Raymond Chandler, Herman Melville, and Charles Dickens as his favorite authors, alongside Dennis Lehane and William Faulkner.

Maybe it’s because Rosemary Clooney, the brassy and beautiful singer of “Mambo, Italiano” was a family friend (which means he may well have had a play date with George Clooney). Although when he first told me that, I didn’t watch ER and was much more impressed that he knew Rosemary; but since we’re talking about it, Peter – can you introduce me to George?

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Columbia College Chicago Alumni Fantasy Writers Look at the Changing Role of Heroes in Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge Film

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Columbia College Chicago Alumni Fantasy Writers Look at the Changing Role of Heroes in Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge Film

Troll Bridge, Snowgum Films (2019)

The air blew off the mountains, filling the air with fine ice crystals.

It was too cold to snow. In weather like this wolves came down into villages, trees in the heart of the forest exploded when they froze. In weather like this right-thinking people were indoors, in front of the fire, telling stories about heroes.

This is the epic, atmospheric opening to Sir Terry Pratchett’s marvelous short story, “Troll Bridge,” set in his Discworld series. 

As I write this, it is not too cold to snow, though it’s much too nasty to be outside. The wind is howling and the snow is blowing, and here in Chicago they’ve predicted we’ll get a foot of snow in 48 hours. Texas looks like the Midwest in winter, and there’s damned few snowplows in the Lonestar state. A whopping 80% of the US currently has snow on the ground. 

In past winters, I have seen coyotes slinking around the park a block from our condo building, and one glorious Yuletime night, I saw a 10 point buck, antlers coated in ice, standing in the middle of Michigan Ave, on the Magnificent Mile. It was an icy, wind-whipped night, the type where the snow turns everything it touches into a glowing icicle. Only the buck and I were foolish enough to be out that night. That was 30 years ago, and I remember it clearly to this day.

As the wind howls past my window tonight, it takes little imagination to think packs of wolves might be coming down from the wilds of Wisconsin to stalk through the streets of Chicago.

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With Dark and Twisted Turns: Bad Times at the El Royale

With Dark and Twisted Turns: Bad Times at the El Royale

Bad Times at the El Royale

I just watched Bad Times at the El Royale and really liked it. It was clearly influenced by the best of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.

The cast is an impressive one, including Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth (giving a remarkable messianic performance worthy of Jim Morrison), and Nick Offerman (in a small role). Cynthia Erivo also does her own singing. Her voice, like her acting, is stunning, and she provides the soundtrack to much of the movie.

Dakota Johnson, Cailee Spaeny, and Mark O’Brien also turn in top-notch performances. All the actors are excellent, and I do mean that. I’ve never seen a movie that was more perfectly cast and perfectly acted.

It toys with who the protagonist or point of view character is, slipping in and out of each character deftly. Each is revealed to be not who we thought they were, and then when we think we know who they really are, that’s proven wrong, too. With dark and twisted turns it explores the question of what is good and what is evil. It posits that there’s more than a little of each in all of us.

The movie handles time slips really well, which allows us to see scenes from different perspectives, turning our understanding of the events upside down.

The pacing is unusual, which is probably why the movie wasn’t a bigger hit. In the beginning, particularly, you have to settle in and not try to rush it. It starts out at a low simmer, lulling you into a false belief that you know what’s coming next. That makes the reveals that are coming far more powerful.

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Many Faces of Bob Weinberg

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Many Faces of Bob Weinberg

Bob Weinberg and Tina Jens-small

Robert Weinberg and Tina Jens

In many ways, Bob was like the Tony Randall character in the movie 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. In the movie, Tony Randall is the “owner“ of a mysterious circus that visits a western town. He appears in different guises to teach the townspeople what they each need to know to become better people. Based on a novel by fantasy writer Charles G. Finney, the screenplay was written by one of Bob’s favorite authors, Charles Beaumont. To one townsperson, Dr. Lao is the oracle Apollonius; to another, the music-loving, goat-god Pan; to yet another, Merlin the magician and wizard.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Character Profile Sheet — Revised

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Character Profile Sheet — Revised

DandD sheet-small

In my last blog, “Getting to Know Your Omniscient Narrator,” I promised to share my personal character profile sheet. I used to use it on my primary and secondary characters for all my stories. But I haven’t use it in awhile. When I took a look at it, I realized it needed serious revamping. So, here’s the new and improved version.

In the process of revamping it, I realized my writing is stronger when I take the time to really figure out who my characters are: what their quirks are, what makes them an individual. My subconscious can then go to work connecting dots, finding patterns, devising solutions to problems that are uniquely suited to that character, discovering actions and reactions that FEEL right.

I know some authors use a basic RGP character sheet, such as Dungeons & Dragons, but for me, that doesn’t go far enough.

Knowing that my protagonist’s favorite ice cream flavor is peach pecan and they turn very dark and maudlin when they drink tequila may never come up in the story… but it might. Knowing lots of little details about them helps you inhabit your characters and makes them feel more alive.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Getting to Know Your Omniscient Narrator

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Getting to Know Your Omniscient Narrator

sky god

With the exception of “Folksy Narrators” we often think of omniscient narrators as omnipotent sky-gods who are so vast and powerful that they’re unknowable entities. But looking at them that way hides away a helpful tool in crafting and revising our fiction.

(My blog on folksy narrators is here.)

On Friday, I was leading a seminar for Myth-Ink, the Columbia College genre writing student group, on how to do public readings. They were gearing up for when they’ll be the featured readers at my Gumbo Fiction Salon reading series next week. One of the young women was practicing the first two pages of a story about dragons. Her first read-through was fairly lifeless. She didn’t have confidence in her own vocal skills, and it didn’t sound like she had confidence in the story. We had already gone over many of the basic tips, so I took another tack. I asked her some questions.

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