Month: November 2023

Maven the Death Mage

I‘m working on a series of fantasy stories about a death mage named Maven.

Last summer, the mother of all trees fell on my house during the pappy of all storms. During that week of intermittent power and zero internet service, I found myself daydreaming about a monster who crawls out from underneath a fallen tree and terrifies a village. How did the monster get there in the first place? I wondered. More importantly: What kind of hero (or anti-hero) could dispatch it? A day later, I had completed the first draft of a short story called The Fallen Tree.

I’m a simple man. I write what I see.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the death mage and ended up writing two more stories in short order. In the sequel, Master Death Theater (a title that should give you an indication of just how serious the overall tone is), Maven joins a wandering troupe of actors and must use his magic to resurrect their star performer. This one is inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft by way of Stuart Gordon, particularly Re-Animator. Here’s an excerpt:

A caravan of wagons was parked on the beach in a loose circle. A group of performers half-heartedly recited dialogue as they went about washing their clothes in a communal tub.

“Welcome to The Wandering Theatre,” the woman said. “Part of it, anyway. Our fortune teller sleeps during the day and our knife thrower is no doubt lying in an alley somewhere, same as you were.”

“What do you do?” Maven asked.

“I’m like a falconer, only my act involves a bat.” The woman gestured at the cloth sack on her shoulder. “Isabell also sleeps during the day. Come, I want you to meet the lead performer of our troupe.”

The bat keeper walked to a wagon which was more ornate than the rest. She pulled a lever and a pair of mechanical steps dropped down below the door. Maven followed the woman inside. The room smelled of alcohol and death, two things which greatly pleased the mage’s nostrils. A rotund man lying on a bed was the source of both odors.

“Ah,” Maven said, unsurprised.

“We’ll begin auditions for his replacement as soon as we can, but we’re obligated to perform in the royal hall tonight. We believe he drowned in his own vomit.”

“Better than someone else’s,” Maven said, picking up a half empty stein from the bedside table. He swallowed its contents and lifted the dead man’s arm to see how much stiffness had set in. “He died shortly before daybreak. His joints need exercised.”

The bat keeper worked the dead man’s appendages, starting with his toes and working her way up. “You can bring him back?”

“As long as you agree I’m not responsible for anything that happens after his resurrection. And it’s important no one tells him he’s dead.”

“That would break the spell?” 

“No, it would only ruin his performance—preoccupied mind and all that.” Maven sat on the bed next to the dead man and parted his lips. He breathed into the actor’s mouth and, with a wooden finger, drew the sigil of resurrection in the air. “Come back to us, friend.”

from Master Death Theater

I’m hoping to get the first story out pretty soon. Whether that means posting it here or submitting it to more traditional markets, I don’t know yet. The rest I plan to shop around, so I’ll keep ya updated on how that goes. Now, if you’ll excuse me… I’ve got some more tales to write.

Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving

Let this sink in: it’s been sixteen whole years since Grindhouse premiered in theaters. You got two movies for the price of one: Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, garnished with four fake trailers directed by Rodriguez, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, and Eli Roth. After the experiment mildly failed at the box office (it released on Easter weekend of all dates), the movies were regrettably split into individual entities for DVD and VOD. The fake trailers were relegated to the special features section and low resolution YouTube videos.

One of those fake trailers absolutely blew the roof off with laughter: Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving, which was the horror director’s 2-minute ode to pre-Scream slasher flicks. The audience reaction probably could have tipped the Richter scale in the theater I saw it in. Nothing is more cathartic than a group of strangers laughing at things you ought not laugh at in polite society—and here was a mainstream movie doing it. And now, almost twenty years later, Eli Roth expands the two minutes into approximately ninety.

The movie opens on Thanksgiving day, 2022, as a Plymouth electronics store is about to open its doors for an early Black Friday sale. The rabid shoppers are gathered at the front doors, foaming at the mouths, when a misunderstanding sparks a riot that devolves into Final Destination levels of violent mishaps. Throats get slashed, heads get scalped, and people punch each other’s faces in over the limited supply of discounted waffle irons. Exactly one year later, a killer wearing a John Carver mask begins picking off the shoppers and security personnel responsible for the carnage. It’s up to a group of high school seniors to figure out who the killer is.

The killer’s identity doesn’t really matter and the reveal at the end is not particularly shocking. Eli Roth knows this and the audience should intuit this, too. I don’t think anyone was expecting a clever whodunnit when they purchased their tickets. What you should be expecting instead is an old fashioned slasher that just happens to be made in modern times—not to be confused with a “modern slasher,” which in this day and age is typically about as joyless as… well, getting cooked in an oven alive.

I couldn’t help but think of four other movies while watching this one: Pieces, Blood Rage, Deranged, and William Lustig’s Maniac (which I’m surprised to find I’ve never featured on this blog because it’s a doozy). If any or all of those are your cup of tea, then so is Thanksgiving. Otherwise, avoid it all costs because it’s really not intended for polite society. I must say that Eli Roth feels about 5 to 10% tamer in his depiction of gore as he remakes the fake trailer moments with varying levels of success.

Here’s what I’m thankful for this holiday season: Thanksgiving isn’t Cocaine Bear, which mocked the bygone era of exploitation films instead of embracing the genre. This one’s an honest-to-god slasher flick whose performers play it as straight as Leslie Nielsen did in his best comedies. There’s no winking at the camera and no indication the filmmakers think they’re above this kind of material.

The only characteristic Roth doesn’t nail: the acting isn’t bad at all, actually, and I wish the film stock looked more messed up like its Grindhouse counterpart. Other than that, it’s a fine antidote to the usual holiday offerings.