Comedic Horror, kinda.

Been a decent weekend for me. Had a panic attack over my second book, found a solution, got about another 4,000 words down. Plus I've almost fixed my zombie dragon. Still missing a piece, but that's what I love about zombies, missing parts only make them look more authentic.

Spent more time reading up on self-publishing, including formatting and looking at cover art. My first book should be a very interesting exercise. Still waiting on the first draft to come back from the editor, but it would be really nice to get all my ducks in a row before the final version is complete. Would love to have everything in order and then be able to send it out to a few people for reviews before I publish. That's one thing I don't care much for as far as the self-publishing goes. Traditionally, you would get a publish date where your book would become available which could be months down the road, but you could still get full copies to send out to magazines, newspapers or what-have-you. The advent of self-publishing though, is that once you hit that final button, it's there for purchase to anyone almost instantly, there's no pre-sale copies available unless you're emailing people the manuscript. Which isn't quite the best thing to do, because if it falls into the hands of some unscrupulous characters, all they have to do is slap their name on it and click the publish button themselves. Then it's on with legal battles before your first book is even out.

So, in case the zombie dragon comment didn't give it away, I don't really have a specific topic for this post. After last week's little expose on the technicalities of finding a place to submit a short story, I wanted something a little more relaxed. Thing is though, writing is a serious business for those that choose to go that route and Horror, even more so. With that in mind though, Horror-Comedy seems to be a real thing these days. A lot of movies have tried to pull it off (and I'm not counting spoof movies here.) but I think Shaun of the Dead was the first one to really shine. And yes, that is where I picked the name for this blog. As that is exactly my name spelled correctly, and Simon Pegg is just a freaking awesome actor.

Humor in horror movies itself isn't that uncommon, with storylines so dark and horrifying, you need a good laugh every now and then to break the tension. Movies like this though are made to make you laugh because of how dark and horrifying they are. Like my previous post says, it's all about points of view. In the picture above, their first contact with a zombie includes her falling on pipe and standing back up, typical zombie fare really. If the camera had shown her from the guy's perspective as she rose and started moving at them again, it would've been ok, typical, but ok. Instead, as the girl stands up the camera is behind her, and you get a view of the boys through the new hole in her stomach. Suddenly, there's an element of humor to the scene despite what's going on. (Nick Frost getting ready to take a picture and thusly having the camera slapped out of his hand doesn't hurt either.)

Now we have a whole slew of movies, almost like a new genre has been invented. Zombieland is the next one that comes to mind. It shows how funny it can be as horror becomes commonplace and a part of life as people try to go about their daily activities. Who can forget Tallahassee's search for Twinkies? Coming out in the next six months we have a few different movies to add to the growing list of Horror-Comedies.

John Dies at the End looks like another movie which endeavors to be funny in spite of the horrific happenings in the story, while Warm Bodies seems to lean towards the more conventional awkward couple type of film. (To be honest, I'm a little worried Warm Bodies is just giving zombies the Twilight treatment, but I'll try to restrain that judgement until I've seen it, which will probably be quite a while.) It is also worth noting that both of these yet-to-be-released-as-we-speak movies are also already available in book form and have been for some time.

That'll do it for today, hope I was at least somewhat entertaining. Leave a comment about your favorite Comedic-Horror movie below so others can share in the fun, or send me an email about the movies I dared to not suggest.

 (OMG, How the hell could I have forgotten Army of Darkness with the legendary Bruce Campbell ??)

~ Shaun
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