Scary movies with real life backgrounds

 
**The $25 Amazon Gift Certificate goes to... Brenda!**
Thanks, everyone, for your comments.


As Spooky Day approaches, I thought I'd take a look at some popular scary movies that have more behind them than just a screenwriter eager to cash in on the paranoramal craze. These are oldies but goodies, and if you haven't seen them (or if you have), you might want to search them out for your Halloween fright-fest. Your friends might not believe you when you them them the background of these movies!

Jack Nicholson in The Shining

The Shining (1980)

This movie takes place in an isolated location, a large and luxurious hotel that is closed down for the winter due to impassable roads. This means the few who remain (caretaker, etc.) are trapped there as both the snow and the isolation deepen. Terrible things have happened at the hotel and left ghostly impressions behind that aren't exactly friendly to the humans in their midst. It's a psychological drama as well as a horror movie that will have you breathing fast.

Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO

The background: The movie was based on the book The Shining by Stephen King. He was inspired to write it after a stay in Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. In 1911, a housekeeper was nearly killed by a gas leak explosion in Room 217. Doors open and close and lights turn on and off by themselves in that room. Stephen King spotted the ghost of a small child who calls out to his nanny on the second floor. According the the staff, Room 418 is the most haunted room in the hotel. Ghosts of children playing can be heard in the hallway. The movie was not filmed in the Stanley Hotel, as many think, but the hotel does offer ghost tours and ghost hunts based on its many reported hauntings. EMF paranormal detectors are provided. There are tunnels beneath the hotel. Ooh!

Hollywood's Amityville Horror House

The Amityville Horror (1979)

In this movie, a newly married couple and their three children move into a large house on the coast of Long Island. They've been warned about the house's history by the real estate agent. A man had murdered his sister, two brothers, and father in the home, claiming that ghosts had lead him to do it. The couple bought the house anyway because it was perfect for their family and because the price was low due to the tragedy. But there's an evil spirit in the house, or is it the house itself that's evil?

112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, NY

The background: The movie was based on The Amityville Horror: A True Story by Jay Anson. The book was a purportedly factual accounting of the paranormal experiences of the family of George and Kathy Lutz. In 1974, Ronald DeFeao did murder his four relatives in the Amityville home at 112 Ocean Avenue. George and Kathy Lutz moved in, dismissing the warnings by locals that the house was haunted. The next 28 days convinced them otherwise. Among the sightings in the house were a little boy on the second story landing and a dark cloaked figure. The one that creeped me out the most was that daughter Missy had a ghost friend named Jodie. Missy described Jodie as an "angel who could change shapes" who told her "You'll live here forever." Uh oh. The Lutz family fled the house on a dark and stormy night.

Movie's Regan, possessed girl

The Exorcist (1973)


During the early 1970s, there were several movies dealing with possessed innocents (or not so innocents), including Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and The Exorcist. Entertainment Weekly considers The Exorcist the scariest movie of all time, a prime endorsement for your Halloween entertainment. I've seen this movie several times, and it has me ready to run screaming from the room every time. Mom Chris MacNeil has a good relationship with her daughter Regan until the girl begins having seizures and levitating, all the while cursing creatively. After exhausting all other avenues (doctor, psychiatrist), Mom turns to a pair of priests to force the demon from her daughter.

Ronald E. Hunkeler,
possessed boy

The background: The movie was based on the book The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, describing the lengthy exorcism procedure performed on a teenage boy in 1949. The boy's name is Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. First in a private home and then in the psychiatric wing of Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, Fr. Raymond J. Bishop, Fr. Walter Halloran, and Rev. William S. Bowdern performed the ritual of exorcism. Rev. Bowdern took the main role; he was The Exorcist. The bed shook, Ronald spit and cursed, markings appeared on his body, and Ronald broke Father Halloran's nose while thrashing around in bed. A detailed diary was kept. Forty-one witnesses, including the priests who performed the ritual, signed statements that they believed the exorcism was authentic. Today Mr. Hunkeler is a married man with three children who lives in Maryland and has only vague memories of the events that took place when he was 14 years old.
 
What do you think of these supposedly true stories? Let me know by commenting below for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate. The drawing ends at midnight CST on November 2nd. Plenty of time to trick-or-treat and still enter!

I'm starting a Facebook fan page because my profile page is going to hit the 5,000 friend limit. Please like the Dakota Banks page, where you can enter a drawing to win a Nook Color e-reader (drawing ends November 15th). Let your friends know, too!

Hunky vamps for Halloween!

Congratulations to Regina from Maryland who won the signed Vampire Mine poster and book! Many thanks for all the comments! Please come back November 25th for another chance to win a signed book.

In honor of Halloween and to thank my awesome readers, I'm posting photos of handsome vampires! Here's the first vamp who convinced me to throw away my wooden stakes and leave the window open at night: Frank Langella.

And are you excited about the upcoming Dark Shadows movie where Johnny Depp will play Barnabas the vampire? Aw, Johnny! Love Alex, too!

And here are more handsome vamps for you to enjoy cause you guys are the best! I've been on tour lately, and everywhere I go, some readers stop by to make my day. In Portland, a reader brought a tray of Chocolood cupcakes! And another brought bags of Gummi Vamps and Gummi Weres! At my last signing in Katy, TX, readers drove from San Antonio -- that's a six-hour round trip, and one came all the way from Dallas-- a ten-hour round trip!!

The tour will continue into Ohio (Cleveland and Cincinnati areas) and Lansing Michigan. Please check the Appearances page on my website, www.kerrelynsparks.com for details. I would love to meet you!

And how about this gorgeous vamp-- Connor on the cover of Vampire Mine! To thank my readers, I'm giving away the small signed poster of Vampire Mine (9 x 5.5 inches) plus a signed copy of the book, Vampire Mine. Just leave a comment telling me who you think is the most handsome vampire. International entries are welcome, and the winner will be selected at random. Good luck and Happy Halloween!

Want to know more about the gadda?

My secret project has been revealed. http://gadda.info is the resource for all things gadda, the secret race I developed for the Dream of Asarlai series. It's written from the point of view of one of the gadda, so was loads of fun to create.

If you want to know more about the secret people that live among us, go have a look!

Bringing the Passion

Write while the heat is in you. -- Henry David Thoreau

Passion translates through the pages and to make sure readers are enthralled, the writer must be too. But deadlines don’t go away when there is a lull, or the holidays have arrived, or there’s a new show on HBO. Writers must write, high, low, rain, sleet or perfect beach weather. Where does the inspiration come from? Here are a few ideas:

Tip #1 Show up: Writing is like a date; you have to show up if you want something to happen. Get to your desk every day, turn the computer on and say here we go! Sooner or later the Muse will be there, but you have to make the first move. Always.

Tip #2 Set an intention: State your goal for the day. Say it aloud. You might also write it down on a post-it and stick it to your monitor. It might be, two thousand words a day, flowing like a river, or ten pages edited, clean and easy. Setting an intention keeps the goal in sight. Adding a ‘feel good’ to the statement lifts the spirit.

Tip #3 Write what you love: This is major. If you aren’t passionate about your story, readers won’t be either. This isn’t something you can fake. Write what lights you up. If your current assignment doesn’t, find a way to change your mind about it. Throw caution to the wind. Fall head over heels. You have to LOVE the thing to make it sing!

Tip #4 Look after yourself: When others are on holidays, splashing in the pool or gliding down the ski slope, the ‘blank screen’ can seem like a punishment. When this happens, amp up the self-nurturing! Good food, power naps, exercise and socialise. Deadlines to not equate with prison sentences. You’ll get more done if you schedule in daily ‘me’ time.

Tip #5 Evoke the muse: In ancient times, no story told without calling on the Muses. ‘Tell me, O Muse,’ Homer begins, and we know where that got him. Stephen King suggests that when writers feel blocked it’s not because the Muse has abandoned them: I think what happens is that the writers themselves sow the edges of their clearing with poison bait to keep their muses away, often without knowing they are doing it. Love your Muse and she will love you back! More on evocations

Tip #6 Ghost write: If the keys aren’t clicking, open a new word .doc and write a few paras in another voice. Choose some author with a different style. Ask yourself how Dostoyevsky, Oscar Wilde or even Homer Simpson would write. After a few hundred words, take a break. Have a cuppa. When you come back to your work, your fingers will fly!

Tip # 7 De-clutter your desk: Clear out all the old cups and wrappers, organise your notes, clean the draws and vacuum under your chair. This Feng Shui tip really lights a fire in the belly. You can clean up your virtual desktop too, and tighten your backups and files. The outer environment reflects the inner. Take a look around and see if anything is askew. It will boost you Qi big time.

Any other ideas? I’d love to hear how you all bring the passion!

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing epic science fantasy novels. Kim’s latest series is Quantum Encryption. You can find out more about her at kim.falconer.com. She posts on the 16^th of every month.

Trick Or Treat!

Trick or treat,

Smell my feet,

Give me something

Good to eat!

Ah, saying that felt good, just like it did when I was a kid.  That's why I love Halloween so much now, as an adult... it's the one time of year I truly do get to feel like a kid again.  I can be anyone I want to be: a witch, a ghost, a zombie, a fairy princess, or even the Pillsbury Doughboy.  I can decorate my house with cobwebs and put gravestones in the front yard, I can make cupcakes with fake spiders and gummi worms on them, and spike the Halloween punch with ice molds that look like body parts.  I can turn on the fog machines, the green and purple floodlights, and have my friends over for Blood Lite and Guacamoldy (with chips!). But the best part of Halloween, to me, has always been handing out the candy to the adorable little ghouls and goblins who come knocking on my door.  We have so many kids in our neighborhood that my husband and I don't even bother to go inside... we sit on the front porch and watch the freak show parade go by.  :)

Anyway, in the spirit of Halloween (as I do every year), I'm giving away some ghoulishly great treats to my readers! 

First up, during the month of October, you can not only download the e-version of DEAD GIRLS ARE EASY for the limited time price of $2.99 (that's $5.00 off!), but you can win one of the super cool DEAD GIRLS ARE EASY t-shirts to go along with it!  You can find out all the details, including quick links to all the different e-book versions, by taking a peek RIGHT HERE.

Don't have an e-reader?  No problem (even though Kindle has a PC app that will allow you to read e-books right from your desktop), because I'm giving away a couple more t-shirts AND a really cool "Come to the Dark Side" gift basket, filled with an autographed set of all five books in the Nicki Styx series, and a Come to the Dark Side, We Have Cookies t-shirt, too!

Yep, signed copies of DEAD GIRLS ARE EASY, A MATCH MADE IN HELL, YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I HAUNT, SILENT NIGHT, HAUNTED NIGHT and the anthology WEDDINGS FROM HELL, along with a t-shirt, some Halloween candy, and matching bookmarks, all in a cute Halloween tub.  No tricks, ghoulfriends, only treats, treats and more treats!  Pop on over to my special Halloween Contest Page to find out how you can enter!

In the meantime, I'm curious - anybody else out there a fellow Halloween fiend?

Halloween Cometh

CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED:
Congratulations to Jennifer Mathis!! You won a $25 Amazon gift certificate, plus a copy of FEAST. Yay and have a Happy Halloween!!
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ORIGINAL POST:
When I was a kid, Halloween was always my favorite holiday. Autumn came with brisk winds and falling leaves and carved pumpkins that lined everyone’s porches. Days grew shorter and shorter, as if soon it would be one continuous night. My neighborhood was filled with old, Victorian homes, tall houses with wrap-around porches and too many windows. It always seemed like some creepy person was watching me from behind the curtains, so that made trick-or-treating seem all the more dangerous.


For years, all of these elements stayed with me, through my teenage years and adulthood. Whenever Halloween approaches, my skin shivers and I expect something—insert sound of creaky old door opening here—unexpected, but slightly magical, to happen.


That was why I wrote FEAST: HARVEST OF DREAMS, and why I set it in a quiet mountain village, during Halloween. I wanted to share those emotions and expectations I had as a child. My main character, Ash—who is more than a little bit magical and possibly quite dangerous—even lives in a creepy, old Victorian house.

So, to celebrate the approach of one of my favorite holidays, I’m having a giveaway.

I’m going to give away a $25 Amazon gift card and a copy of FEAST to one individual, hoping to make his or her Halloween really special this year.

Here are the rules and the points you can earn toward the prizes:

1. Comment below. Tell me what your favorite Halloween candy is. (Yum!) Also, include your e-mail address in your comment (so I can contact the winner.) Doing this will earn you five points and enter you in the contest.

2. To earn another five points, post a link and a comment about this giveaway on Twitter.

3. To earn yet another five points, post a link and a comment about this giveaway on Facebook.

4. And if you want to earn another five points, post a link and a comment about this giveaway on your blog.

The winner will be chosen and announced here on this blog next Thursday, October 20. (Yay!) That should give me time to get the winner his/her prizes in time for Halloween.

And thanks for entering!!

Single-tasking in a Multi-tasking World

WINNERS:

AMY VALENTINI

RONI

Please email me your addresses: pamela@pamelapalmer.net

I'm the first to admit that I'm a terrible multi-tasker. And though I'm a decent juggler, able to keep an impressive number of balls in the air at one time, I much prefer to focus on one thing at a time. I actually love being under deadline. I love that crunch at the end when everything else must, out of necessity, be pushed aside. Because then I get to focus on ONE THING. The book. Nothing but the book. And I love that.

I've often tried different ways of scheduling my days. At one time, I attempted to partition each day--write a couple of hours, cleaning/laundry for an hour, website updates/answer emails for a couple of hours--you get the idea. But this kind of schedule never works well for me. It takes me time to switch gears and I don't like doing it. I've found that I work best when I can partition weeks, not days. Devote five days to writing...and nothing else. (That's not to say I don't do anything else, but that I don't have to.) The other two days are for everything else. If I wake up knowing it's a Business To-Do list day, I'm ready to tackle that list and tackle it hard. I can get so much done when that's my focus. If it's a writing day, my mind goes to the book and stays there, even when I take breaks to fold a load of laundry or empty the dishwasher or take a walk around the neighborhood. Switching from writing the book to writing a blog is painful. For me, at least.

We all work best in different ways and it's taken me years to figure out what works for me. For the past couple of weeks I've been swamped with business To-Dos (website updates, launching my blog, writing blogs and interviews for guest appearances in conjunction with the upcoming release of Ecstasy Untamed, prepping packages for mailing, etc.). I've also been working on revisions of my first Vamp City book and copy edits for my third Esri book. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. In that light is the time to start writing Feral book 7 and that's what I'm looking forward to, immersing myself in the writing once again. Another week, I think, and I'll be there, back to my five writing days, two business days schedule. And that's the one I like the best.

On another note, for a limited time Avon has dropped the ebook price of DESIRE UNTAMED, book 1 in my Feral Warriors series, to $1.99! If you haven't read my books, yet, here's your chance to get book 1 at a great price. If you do read my books, don't forget that ECSTASY UNTAMED comes out in less than two weeks, October 25th!

Back to the multi-tasking discussion. What about you? When you can, do you prefer to concentrate on one task at a time, or juggle several at once? I'll give away signed copies of PASSION UNTAMED to two commenters.