When it comes to many things I enjoy, the amount of “heart” they have is kind of important.

That basically means that they have some emotional substance, usually positive or, at least, humane. It’s something that makes the show or movie (or music or book or whatever) enjoyable on a deeper level. It’s the whiplash deep belly laugh to near tears that Robin Williams could bring out in movies like Dead Poets Society. Or when the Terminator says “I know now why you cry” in Terminator 2.

It even exists in horror films. A little more rarely, being that horror is mostly about people at their worst and/or most harried, but it still shines through sometimes. The scene between The Monster and the blind Man in Bride of Frankensteinien.

Heart is that moment when something suddenly becomes very, very real. When it crosses the line from just being entertaining to having meaning. At least meaning for you.

What you consider “heart” may just be “sappy” or “trite” or “twee” to someone else. That’s… okay. It’s about your experience with that bit of entertainment. It’s about how that creation interacts with the life forces within you.

The Final Girls is more of a meta-horror film than a straight horror film. It’s at least a horror-comedy… and commentary on the genre. But, as far as I’m concerned, it’s got heart. And, on top of the technically solid nature of the film, that puts it more than a little ahead of a lot of other things out there.

I may gush a little over the flick in today’s vlog.

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Another popular monster archetype today. Vampires have been a staple of horror for a really long time. They have changed more than a little in that time, though. I don’t even cover half of those changes, but I do look a bit at what those classic bloodsuckers mean right now.

Well, what they mean when they’re not sparkling and being fawned over by preteens.

After all, we’re talking about horror here, not bad romance.

Running with this one today leaves me in a bit of a bind for tomorrow, seeing as I have no idea when I’ll be back in my apartment. I’ve got an event right after work that usually keeps me entertained until well into the pre-dawn hours of Saturday.

Because of that, you may be getting my first attempt at a phone-shot walk and talk vlog on Friday. One that won’t have a “behind the scenes” component (or a fancy front card) until I get home and write one. We’ll see how that goes. (And we’ll see how busy I end up on Saturday, too… it may be a weekend of ad-hoc video-on-the-go posts.)

Anyway, sink your teeth into today’s bit about vampires.

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

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Werewolves. That’s what I vlog about today.

I kind of dig werewolves. But more the “adventure” style werewolves than the pure horror ones.

Why?

Because talking dogs are awesome.

Okay, that’s not the main reason. (It is a reason, though.) The main reason is because smart werewolves–ones that maintain control and aspects of the person they were–are fantastic characters. That inner conflict, that mixing of raw animal power and civilization, there are so many different ways that can play out.

Can there still be horror elements in that? Yep. But it’s often a completely different flavor of horror than you get with the human dreading the full moon and trying desperately to “remove the curse” from his life.

Don’t get me wrong, werewolves make great straight up monsters. They’re terribly hard to kill or otherwise dissuade from gnawing on your internal organs, and that’s always good for some “excitement.” But if you put a “good” werewolf against a “bad” werewolf… that’s some darn good conflict right there. Especially if you’ve got humans stuck in the middle of all that. (It’s worked really well for the Teen Wolf TV series. )

I haven’t managed to get too much farther ahead than I was yesterday… so I don’t have much of a safety net going vlog-wise. This is going to make things interesting over the next few days since I have a packed schedule without a lot of video-making time.

But, for now, you can check out my ramblings on werewolves.

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

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Looking at my calendar for the week (let alone the month!) I’ve got some busy days ahead of me. Thursday I’ll be checking out the opening night of the Spooky Movie Film Fest right down the street at AFI Silver Spring.

Then Friday I have to choose between the second night of that and the monthly game night I usually go to–which this month coincides with one of the host’s birthdays. (Plus another event going on down in DC, which I’d probably go to if nothing else was going on…)

So that’s two days where I won’t have time for the normal production schedule here.

Which is why I’m diving into this “Monsters & Meaning” series of things. A little more unprepared than I’d like, but it divides up into easy chunks nicely. I shot the first three and edited one today, so I should be able to edit the other two Wednesday and be covered until the weekend.

Not that I have a lot more time this weekend–at least not if I do everything I want to do–but it’s a small window of breathing room.

Yeah… daily vlogging… not exactly something that’s easy. At least not if you’re doing it like I am, I guess. Maybe it would be easier if I wasn’t so wordy. So very few of these have been five minutes or less (which was the original target).

Ah, well. Check out the first installment of Monsters & Meaning today. The intro and closing will likely be reused for the next few days… or I may decide to reshoot those tomorrow and then reuse those versions.

(Oh! I’ll also be running this series over at Hat From Hell, probably with some more relevant commentary… when I have a chance to write that.)

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

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