Night of the (Predictable) Demons

Two reasons to see Night of the Demons:


Ugh. Sorry. I don’t know what came over me there. The sixties maybe. Or a strong urge to put on a flat cap and take t’whippet for a walk.

Anyway. The attractive lady is Bobbi Sue Luther, who also happens to be the face of St. Pauli Girl beer. Not that I make a habit of stalking attractive scream queen’s Wikipedia pages or anything. Um…

Sadly, the film is rather disappointing. No fault of the gorgeous Ms Luther. It's all a bit too predictable—place a cast of attractive plastic people in a spooky house and kill them off in gory fashion over the course of ninety minutes or so. Nothing new there. Bobbie Sue Luther plays the one-who-drinks-too-much-and-must-die; Diora Baird plays her friend, the slutty-one-who-has-sex-and-must-die; and Monica Keena rounds out the trio as the goody-two-shoes-who-obviously-survives.

*gnashes teeth at predictable, crude, clunking horror movie morality*

There’s an interesting scene that hints at what the movie could have been. Diora Baird’s character, fresh after being converted to demonhood, pushes a lipstick into her breast, which then travels down her body and exits in a puddle of blood presumably from her intimate nether regions. It’s kinky and perverse and it would have been a far more interesting film if the makers had taken that theme of demonic perversity and dialled it up to eleven. Instead the film falls back onto the safe old clichés of snarling, fright-show mask demons jumping out of the darkness and pulling out their victim’s entrails. It’s fun, but it’s been done before and much better in countless other horror films.

I’ve been disappointed with most of the spate of recent horror remakes. Compared to the inventiveness and craziness shown in some of the recent Japanese gore movies, the US films look staid and straitjacketed. Where’s the sense of fun that was around back in the days when Sam Raimi was running around with a camera strapped to a plank?

Song for the Week: Shining (NOR) - Fisheye

Some more musical craziness from Norway. This is Shining (NOR - there's also a Swedish black metal band with the same name just to confuse matters) with "Fisheye" from their recent Blackjazz album. Bonkers.

Monster Girl Quest: Chapter 2 Demo Out

Hmm. Hits are down. Need to drum up some interest to get the publicity for Succubus for Halloween rolling. Let's blog about Monster Girl Quest! :)

Torotoro resistance has put up a trial version for Chapter 2 of Monster Girl Quest (or Monster Girl Assault or whatever is the best translation in English). You can check that out here. And if you want a version you can read, the ever-resourceful IchigoGyuunyuu/RogueTranslator has already done a translated version, which is...uh...not there, because Hongfire is moving to a new datacentre. Awkward.

I'll post that link when it resurfaces again.

The demo is set in a succubus village—Yum!—and features some amusing comments from the ever-snarky Alice as to the real reasons why heroes from all over the land have arrived there to “defend” the village from succubus attack. The trial fight is with a freshly converted succubus and she sports a new level drain attack. I’d have preferred a different fight being trialled as she’s a bit too ‘fresh’ compared to the more classic succubus, Arumaeruma, from the first chapter, but this is to be expected in a game where the creator has gone out of their way to try and encompass as many different tastes (perversions? :)) as they can.

Something to whet the appetite, and hopefully it means chapter two is not far from completion.

2011 2nd Quarter Royalties

My second quarter royalties for 2011 came in from eXcessica today. At $180 I think it's safe to say I won't be handing in my notice at work tomorrow. :)

$180 is still $180. Can't sneeze at that. Both Succubus for Christmas and Succubus for Valentine's Day have sold nearly 150 copies each now. With Succubus for Halloween coming out next month (more on that later!) I'm hoping it'll create enough of a bump to take the overall year up to somewhere between one or two grand. I know my stories are far too extreme to ever trouble the mainstream, but it's nice to have a little sideline and maybe sow the seeds for a little longterm notoriety.

Thanks to everyone who bought the books and I hope you enjoyed them. Plenty more on the way if all goes to plan ;).

Now the question is, how much of that $180 to plough into a nice book cover for Succubus Summoning 101 after I finally acknowledge I'm too rubbish to do it properly myself...

Song for the Week: Kvelertak - Mjød

Love those crazy Norwegians. There's still a bit of that viking blood bubbling away under the surface. "Mjød" from Kvelertak's eponymous album:

The Importance of Pseudonyms

This little furore, where a teacher was suspended and reinstated after being found out as a part-time stripper, reminded me of the importance of pseudonyms. The thrust of his defence is correct (apart from the facebook part—teachers shouldn’t really friend pupils for good, professional reasons), but even in The Guardian, a paper so wet it would make your fish’n’chips soggy if you wrapped them in it, there were plenty of comments along the lines of, “I wouldn’t want you teaching my child.” Presumably these would be the same people who, a decade or so ago, were totally against openly homosexual teachers working in the classroom for fear they might “infect” their cherished offspring.

The other type of comment—“Well, he’s a male stripper, that’s not as bad as…”—completely misses the point. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times again: What consenting adults get up to in their own time is their own bloody business. Would it matter if a teacher, a good teacher, worked—legally—as an escort after hours, or liked to frequent fetish clubs and have their arse paddled red? Should it? Obviously, it would be a problem if that teacher abused their position to tout for business amongst pupils/parents, or turned up too tired to do their job properly, but most people can and do successfully partition their public and private lives. Sadly, a lot of people are too judgmental, resulting in this kind of silliness.

I’m not ashamed of what I write about, but I’m realistic. I don’t and probably won’t ever be able to make full-time living from my writing. I don’t want to find myself blacklisted from future employment prospects because a recruiter googled my name and found out I wrote some bizarre, creepy porn stories a decade ago.

While future employment prospects are a concern for me, it pales into insignificance when compared to people in other parts of the world, where they face imprisonment—or even death—for having incompatible views, beliefs or sexual orientation.

So to facebook, google+ and the rest—first guarantee me a world where I won’t be killed, imprisoned, ostracised, or have my current and future livelihood damaged for what I write/post, and then I might give you my real name.

12th Annual Literotica Awards

It's time again for the Annual Literotica Reader's Choice awards. It's not as grand as it sounds. I don't think most of the readers know or care it exists, and there's usually a writer or three making a tit of themselves by taking it far too seriously.

It's hard to take it that seriously. There's no prize other than bragging rights and it's an internet vote that struggles to scrape double figures. Mind you, I'm probably just bitter I get nominated for the Erotic Horror category every year and never win it. Not even with "Succubus Summoning 114" surprisingly, and that's been the number one chapter/story on Lit's Erotic Horror all-time top list for just about forever.

This year "Succubus Summoning 202" is up. I keep trying to tell myself it's not important, nobody actually cares, and I should ignore it, but I have a stupid competitive streak That. Won't. Let. It. Lie.

So, to keep it happy, here's the link where you can vote. Or even check out some of the other nominated stories to see what the other writers on Literotica are up to.

The embarassing part is realising just how long it's been since I posted that chapter. I really need to get back to that series.