Frankenstein, Harry Price and Weird Pumpkins!
Every Day is Halloween #77: The Official Newsletter of Lisa Morton
Hey Crew!
It’s been a busy last month with multiple book proposals going out into the publishing world, StokerCon stuff to get ready, and the usual daily work sked. Plus…WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE WEATHER? L.A. at the end of May feels like L.A. at the beginning of March - cold, wet, and gloomy. As a gardener, I never know whether to water or not because we keep getting little sprinkles. Welcome to the post-climate change future, right?
Anyway, enough about that. If you’ll be at StokerCon, check out my schedule in the “Upcoming Appearances” section below, and please come and say hi at the convention. I’ll also be attending Readercon (for the first time) in July, in Boston.
Lisa
NEW STUFF I LIKE
(Okay, I’m cheating this month because this is really about old stuff I like.)
For some reason (well, or the reason is…because), I recently decided to re-watch all the Universal Frankenstein movies in order. I bought a cheap copy of the Frankenstein Legacy DVD set, which includes all of them, and dug in.
Some of these I haven’t seen in decades, but the one I had no memory of whatsoever was The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), the fourth film in the series. The first two films - Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein (for my money, Bride remains one of the greatest horror films ever made) - are classics, and then they become goofy monster fests after that, but they’re still great fun.
I actually preferred Ghost to the one that immediately preceded it, Son of Frankenstein. Ghost stars Lon Chaney as the Monster, and it begins with Igor (Bela Lugosi) digging him out of the sulfur pit he fell into at the end of Son. Igor takes him to Frankenstein’s son Ludwig (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), who is conveniently also a doctor experimenting with brains. The monster crushes hard on a cute kid in the village, is chased by hateful mobs (okay, yeah - I know mobs are pretty much always hateful), and ends up getting Igor’s brain (and voice, strangely enough - did the mad doctor also transplant Igor’s vocal cords?).
The script is frequently utterly nonsensical, but Lugosi is wonderful as Igor, Lionel Atwill is there as a scheming assistant to Dr. Frankenstein, the always wonderful Evelyn Ankers appears in one eye-popping Vera West gown after another, and Chaney makes a fine monster. And how weird to see the brilliant Dwight Frye (Fritz from the first movie, as well as Renfield in Dracula) in a tiny part with about three lines.
This was the last film in the series with only one monster, so onto the monster mash-ups!
THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT
I wasn’t going to grow pumpkins this year - they are a LOT of work! - but then my friend Rena Mason sent me a gift of seeds from some oddball varieties, so I had to.
When we think of pumpkins, we tend to think of just big orange gourds…but there are actually HUNDREDS of varieties, in different colors, sizes, and textures. There are silver and blu-ish pumpkins, huge “Goliaths,” and “Warty Goblins.”
Rena sent me some I’d never seen. I ended up picking three out of what she sent: an all black pumpkin, one called “Batwing” because it looks like it has black wings coming up from the bottom, and one that’s a mystery because there was no label on the seed package.
I started them inside back in March (here in Los Angeles you have to start pumpkins early now because thanks to climate change our summers are so hot that plants have to be well established by then or they just fry and you get zero fruit), and transplanted them in early April. And now, at the end of May, I’m starting to see the little baby pumpkins forming.
Stay tuned and together we’ll see how these sweethearts turn out!
STRANGE DOINGS
If Harry Houdini was the first star ghostbuster, surely Harry Price was the granddaddy of ghost-hunters (in fact, although Hans Holzer would later claim to have coined the term “ghost-hunter,” Price used it several decades earlier).
Born in London a year before the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded, Price was an avid amateur magician who joined the Society in 1920 and very soon established himself as an expert debunker. Price left the SPR in 1925 but continued his investigations under the auspices of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, which he founded; Price might also invent equipment (like the “voice control recorder”) when new claimed abilities were presented to him that couldn’t be tested by existing devices. Price became most famous for his investigation of the Borley Rectory, a large and supposedly extremely haunted estate in Essex (in his book Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter, Price called it “the most haunted house in England”).
Price wrote extensively about his time in the house, which began in 1929 and continued for almost the next decade, and his documentation of his various visits to the house forms a fascinating history that runs the gamut from inexplicable occurrences to unveiled fakery. During his first visit, Price witnessed a shadowy figure, said to be the spirit of a nun who had been walled up in a church that once occupied the grounds after she was discovered in an affair with a monk; he had a glass candlestick hurled at him (from an unoccupied floor), saw a bar of soap fly through the air, and took part in a séance during which the spirit of a previous resident of the house supposedly provided knowledge about his family that none of those present could have known. His findings were later questioned by members of the SPR, who believed that he had fabricated evidence (Price was well-known for his showmanship).
Two years later, a new family occupied the building and Price investigated again, but this time the phenomena he experienced all proved to be the work of a wife covering up an illicit affair. In 1937 Price returned to Borley, taking out a one-year lease; he involved a number of students in the lengthy investigation, but results were inconclusive. Borley was demolished in 1944 and Price died in 1948, so the final truth will likely never be known. What is indisputable is that Price left behind books, a continuing fascination with Borley Rectory (a number of movies have been set around its haunting) and a legacy that helped refine the very notion of ghost-hunting.
BEHIND THE SCREAMS
“Poppies” from Spine Tinglers
A few years ago, the producers of the Ghost Magnet with Bridget Marquardt podcast started talking to me about doing my own show. We threw around some ideas, and ended up deciding on doing original short fiction pieces. I would write the stories, the producers would find celebrity readers, and we’d make a weekly original fiction podcast called Spine Tinglers.
Well, writing the stories turned out to be the easy part! Because these were designed to be read, they had to be fairly short, preferably about 15 minutes long. This means the word length was under 1,500, and I could write one in as short as an hour.
I loved writing these; sometimes I’d come home on a hot summer day after eight hours of work, take my laptop into the backyard, and sit in the cool evening until I had a finished story.
I wrote nearly 40 of these little short pieces, but everything from the pandemic to time crunches got in the way of production, and the show stalled out after only 11 were recorded.
Of those, I think my favorite was “Poppies.” I wrote this during both the Covid pandemic and a wildflower “superbloom” here in Southern California. The bright orange flowers are always gorgeous, but they gave a particular pleasure during the gloomy days of the pandemic. Me, of course, I wondered what would happen if the gloom was actually in the poppies, not the sky…
Actress Ella Smith (from The Nevers) did a fantastic reading of this. You can listen to it for free here.
As for the rest of those unrecorded and unpublished Spine Tinglers stories…at this point I have no idea what will happen with them. Right now they’re sitting in my files waiting…
THE WRITE STUFF
Let’s talk ideas.
I’ve talked about ideas before, but mainly in regards to creating a story idea for a themed anthology. What about something unthemed, when it’s just you and a blank screen or page and you’ve used up your idea stash?
Here’s the great thing about ideas: They’re EVERYWHERE. Look at the picture above: it’s the view out my office window, what I’m seeing right now if I look up from writing this. It looks like a nice spring garden, right? But let’s look at all the things going on:
There are thorny bougainvillea vines right in front of the window.
There are roses in the lower left corner that are nearly black.
With all that vegetation, there has to be a ton of insects out there.
Is that sky too gloomy for spring?
What’s with the little thing hanging inside the window?
You may spot even more things in that single photo.
I say all this not to point out that I’m an avid if messy gardener, but to demonstrate that any of those idea above could be turned into a story. Who grew those plants? What’s going on with the weather? Are there unseen bugs out there that have NEVER been seen? What if the little hanging thing isn’t just a ceramic planter?
As with anything else, I think your brain can be trained to manufacture ideas - the more you do it, the faster and easier it gets.
If you ever feel like you have writer’s block, just take a walk and look around. Study people. Study animals. Study nature. Study machines. Study the grain of granite your toe just rolled into the street. It’s all free for the taking. Make it yours.
NEWS & WORKS IN PROGRESS
I was finally given the greenlight to share the spectacular cover for The Art of the Zombie Movie! Coming October 1 from Applause Books.
I wish I could share some of what my agent and I have been up to, but not quite yet. Soon, though, I hope to have some pretty flabbergasting news.
UPCOMING APPEARANCES
If you’re attending StokerCon, I hope to see you there! Here’s the list of things I’ll be doing:
Friday, 11 am - I’ll be presenting a workshop on “How to Create, Edit and Publish an Anthology”
Friday, 8 pm - I’ll be a judge for the Final Frame Short Film Competition
Saturday, 12 pm - I’ll be conducting an interview with Lifetime Achievement Award winner Elizabeth Massie
Saturday, 2 pm - I’ll be on the panel “The Night Strangler: 51 Years of Kolchak”
Saturday, 4 pm - I’ll moderating a panel on “The Zombie From Slave to Flesheater”
Saturday, 8 pm - I’ll be the Keynote Speaker during the Bram Stoker Awards ceremony, and I’ll be co-presenting the Long Nonfiction Award with Ben Rubin.
Okay, so I somehow missed signing up for the Mass Signing, but hey - if you want something signed, I won’t be hard to find, obviously! Feel free to hit me up after any of the above and I’ll happily scribble my John Hancock.
I also recorded a reading for those attending virtually: I’m reading the introduction to The Art of the Zombie Movie.
In addition to StokerCon…
I’ll be attending Readercon in Boston, July 13-16.
I’ll be signing The Art of the Zombie Movie at Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City on October 1.
I’ll be signing The Art of the Zombie Movie at Dark Delicacies on October 8.
WHERE YOU CAN BUY MY BOOKS
ebay - I’m selling a few of my author copies - CHEAP! - and will be happy to personalize them for you. I’ll be adding to this every day, too.
GIVEAWAY
I haven’t been able yet to get email links to work reliably here on Substack, so until I can figure out a better way to handle contest entries I’ll post free stuff to read here. Here’s “Poppies” from Spine Tinglers.
Poppies
Jazmyn stood next to her mini-Coop, staring out at the endless sea of orange blossoms.
“Okay,” Shaun said from the other side of the car, “I gotta say that’s beautiful.”
She nodded, and he knew she was probably glad he’d said that. He hadn’t really wanted to come on this drive – 90 minutes from Silverlake, up into the foothills where the California poppies were in full bloom – but she’d promised him lunch afterwards at his favorite taco joint and he’d acquiesced. Besides, not as if he had much else to do, since he’d been an unemployed barista for the last two months.
The field of golden flowers was separated from the winding two-lane highway by a low picket fence; signs were spaced along that border reading “NO TRESPASSING” and “PLEASE DO NOT CROSS FENCE.”
Jazmyn raised a leg in preparation from stepping over the pickets.
“What are you doing?” asked Shaun, mildly alarmed but also amused.
“C’mon, we drove all the way up here, so let’s run through the field, like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.”
“I think she was running across grass in the Alps, Jaz.”
“Whatever.” Jazmyn stepped over the fence and stood in the field. The poppies came almost up to her knees, the growth so dense that her feet were lost from view. “Dude, let’s do this.”
Something itched at Shaun like a tick digging in. He looked around, his uneasiness growing. “Where is everyone else? Isn’t this whole poppy thing huge in the news?”
Jazmyn shrugged. “That’s why I picked a Monday morning. Yesterday it was probably jammed.”
Shaun finally figured out what was bothering him: it was the cars. They lined both sides of the highway, pulled over on the dirt shoulders next to the picket fences; a lot of them were SUVs, meaning families were here…or had been. “If nobody’s here today, what’s with all the cars?”
Jazmyn was getting irritated. “I don’t know – maybe people park here to car-pool or something. Who cares? Come on!” She turned and started running through the poppies, their orange heads nodding and parting before her.
Shaun reluctantly stepped over the fence. The ground on the other side was surprisingly soft underfoot, not hard-packed like the clay soil of the shoulder. He took a few steps forward, finally breaking into a jog to reach his friend.
“I love this!” Jazmyn called, running across the field with her arms widespread.
Shaun ran forward a few feet then stopped, taking in the surroundings. He turned 360 degrees, seeing poppies in every direction. He remembered being frightened by the poppy scene from The Wizard of Oz as a child, but those poppies hadn’t been orange like these. He inhaled deeply, surprised by the slight scent of something musky, almost…meaty.
He saw that Jazmyn had stopped running and was looking down. “What?” Shaun called to her.
She bent down, scrutinizing the greenery beneath the orange. “I just tripped on something…”
Shaun took one step towards her – and gasped as his right foot sank into the earth. He yanked it back, but it was caught on something. He pulled harder and it came free. He raised it to look, balancing on one leg, and saw some sort of brownish, dirt-covered root still wrapped around the toes of his sneakers. “Huh?” he said to himself, wondering how the root could have wrapped all the way around his foot in a split second.
Shivering in the warm, still air, Shaun shouted to Jazmyn, “What if there are snakes or scorpions or something out here?”
To his surprise Jazmyn didn’t laugh the suggestion off. “Maybe…” she said, looking around her own feet.
“I’m going back,” Shaun said, before he tripped and went down.
His hands landed on something moist and squishy buried below the poppies, something that didn’t feel like soil. He grabbed a mass in his right hand and pulled it free to examine. It was a dirt clod, the size of a softball, something pale just visible beneath the dark brown. Shaun shook it to remove some of the dirt, crying out as he saw what was plainly part of a human hand with two fingers still attached. He dropped the gruesome remains in shock, leapt to his feet, and turned to see Jazmyn making her way towards him. “Fuck, Jaz, I just found part of a hand.”
“Part of a what –?” She broke off as her legs were pulled out from under her and she went down, half-hidden beneath the poppies.
“Jaz!” Shaun shouted her name over and over and started to run towards her. Jazmyn began to scream, her hands flailing.
Shaun was twenty feet from reaching her when his own ankles were grabbed and he fell. He began tearing at his feet, finding them entwined by thick, ropy roots that were pulling him down into the spongy ground. His hands grabbed frantically, and felt more of that stuff beneath him that was neither dirt nor plant, and he knew then what had happened to the people who had been in all those cars. Fertilizer, he thought as he struggled.
Shaun fought, thrashing and fighting his way to a standing position. He realized Jazmyn had stopped screaming, and one glance back showed no sign of her, only a slight depression in the poppies where he thought she’d been.
He turned back in the direction of the road, maybe fifty feet away. He already felt his legs being circled again, he began kicking and pulling at roots, which wrapped around his hands, he knew he didn’t have long left unless –
He saw a police car cruise along the two-lane highway and stop. He shrieked for help, trying desperately to raise his arms.
Two uniformed cops got out of the car.
“Help me!” Shaun screamed, “HELP - !”
The cops stood beside their cruiser, watching impassively.
Shaun tried to scream again, but there was a root in his mouth, gagging him.
The last thing he saw was the cops, standing safely on the asphalt, directing the arriving tow trucks to remove the cars.
Your weather sounds the opposite of Michigan. Here we are in the 80s, which is very warm for end of May/beginning of June.