Tag Archives: Halloween

Hallows Eve — Great Writing & Great Voice

Posted on by

I’ve contributed to the Kill Zone for around three years now. It’s a unique publishing platform where a regular contributor has free rein—carte blanche—to submit whatever they please provided they keep it clean and refrain from sex, religion, or politics. That’s it. Pretty wide open to decency.

Generally, we stick to the theme of thriller writing or somewhere in that arena. But sometimes we exercise creativity and explore whatever we like and feel others reading the blog would be interested in, too. Kind of a win-win/writer-reader relationship.

As a creative writer (read that someone who loves making stuff up), I’m acutely aware of the terms “great writing” and “great voice”. Being subjective, I leave that evaluation on my stuff up to readers, however I’m entitled to pass great writing and great voice judgements on others.

Trust me. I’m going somewhere with this.

The other day, I was e-yakking with another Kill Zone contributor. Let’s call her Debbie Burke. Debbie said, “You’re up for a post on Halloween. Are you gonna write something spooky?”

I gave that some thought. What came to mind was the spookiest true crime case I ever heard of. In fact, it happened to me when I was a homicide detective. This guy hid in his ex-girlfriend’s attic for two and a half days with an ax. He crawled down at 3:00 am and chopped her and her new lover to death.

I wrote a book on it. You can download In The Attic for free on all the e-tailers. It’s my lead magnet for an 8-part, based-on-true-crime series.

But that spooky work has already been done. As I tumbled the idea about the polisher of my mind, an earworm crawled in and wouldn’t let go. It was the tune and some of the words to Hallows Eve written and sung by Rachelle (Elle) Cordova, aka Reina del Cid.

If you don’t know of this lady with the great writing and the great voice, then you need to get to know her. Elle and Toni Lundgren started out as a cover duet. Now with over 400 Youtubes made, Elle is creating original work. In my humble opinion, aka IMHO, the writing in Hallows Eve is only outperformed by Elle’s song delivery. Here are the lyrics and a link to watching her video:

Note: Full attribution is given to Rachelle Cordova for the lyrics and performance. There is absolutely no financial or other gain on my part for posting this.

Throughout the year

We shrink from our fear

Hide from our demons

Till the daylight appears

But on one hallowed night

When the moon is just right

We seek out the darkness

Welcome the fright

chorus

On this Hallows Eve

I’ll make friends with the ghosts

I’ll gather the monsters

And raise up a toast

A feast for the ages and I’ll be the host

So come one, come all this Halloween

Come one, come all this year

verse

I’ll start with the monster

From under my bed

Though we haven’t spoken

Since I was a kid

And I’ll tell him to bring all his scariest friends

The famous and the feared

Come one, come all this year

verse

We’ll fling the message far

To the goblins where they are

From the vampires in the East

To the garden of the Beast

chorus

Now it’s Halloween night

And the ghouls have arrived

The werewolves of London

The ghosts of Versailles

If you invite Jekyll you also get Hyde

The demented and the dear

But come one, come all this year

chorus

Godzilla is picking a fight with King-Kong

And Medusa and Hydra just don’t get along

It so happens the Kraken is gifted in song

And he sings them all to cheer

Come one, come all this year

verse

The bogles and banshees are briefly ensnared

By the Boogeyman’s pageant of cheap party scares

And Rochester’s wife is descending the stairs

“My god,” she says through tears

“I’m not alone this year!”

chorus

The Sirens play guitar

For the gargoyles at the bar

They pass the spirits round

As the Triffids hand them down

Quasimodo is only a ringer of bells

And the witches of Salem don’t know any spells

Boo Radley would gladly just keep to himself

So let’s pour them all a beer

Come one, come all this year

bridge

Bigfoot and Grendel though transcontinental

Are sharing a moment that’s quite sentimental

And the great chupacabra lights his candelabra

And dances ’till first morning light

outro

Daybreak arrives with the fading of ghosts

And Count Dracula is the last one to go

I bid him farewell and I hand him his coat

And with a wink he says, “My dear

We’ll meet again next year, don’t you fear

Come one, come all next year!”

Kill Zoners — What do you think? Hallows Eve – Great writing & great voice or what?

This Is (Almost) Halloween…

Posted on by

I know. Perhaps it is too early for me to be writing about Halloween. I’ve been seeing  merchandise for the unofficial holiday in stores since September 5th, however, so I’m actually behind the curve. Herewith please find my subjective list of Top Five frightening reads that will carry you through the next few weeks:

MISERY — I was given this newly published book as a present for Father’s Day 1987. I started reading it that afternoon and did not stop until I finished it that evening. Some dad, huh? Stephen King’s now-iconic tale of popular author Paul Sheldon’s extended visit with defrocked nurse Annie Wilkes — his Number One Fan — more than stands on its own merits. It makes/tops my list, however, because I had a relationship with someone very much like Annie, right down to her potentially dangerous mood changes and odd turns of phrase, the manifestation of which always preceded what I would come to call an “episode.” I read this book at least once a year, repenting at leisure and recalling the exhilarating sound of doom whistling by me at a near-miss.

THE SHINING — This tale about Jack Torrance, a struggling author with writer’s block the size of a Jersey Wall, and his family was already quite well known when it was adapted for a (lesser) film by Stanley Kubrick. I screamed twice while reading it. The first was during young Danny Torrance’s encounter with the girls in the hall.  To this day, when I am in a large hotel with a long, carpeted corridor, I think of Danny and the girls who wanted to play with him forever.The second was during the bathroom scene. I have, unbidden, remembered this scene at inopportune moments over the course of my adult life, with unhappiness ensuing. The book as a whole, however, is a terrific example of how to wring every bit of drama that can be wrung out of a single location.

THE EXORCIST by William Peter Blatty — This early 1970s novel was a potboiler for sure — and that is one of my highest compliments — but it is a cringe-inducing tale of demonic possession and the efforts of a heroic priest to save the life and soul of an innocent girl  which fed right into my Roman Catholic upbringing. My father, who spend serious and quality time in Seminary school, assisted in an exorcism and told me that Blatty’s account of possession was mild compared to what he witnessed. That might have been, but it is hard to believe that what (almost) Father Joe experienced was any more frightening than Blatty’s description.

‘SALEM’S LOT by, ummm, Stephen King — I have always enjoyed well-written vampire novels — there aren’t many of them — but there is a special place in my heart for this story of the Undead and love lost in a small town on its last legs. King’s second novel published under his own name is a textbook example of how to plant a slow, unnamable dread on the first page, nurture it, and grow it to full blossom stark terror. The television adaptation, with David Soul in the lead role, has its weaknesses but actually stands up quite well. A planned sequel was later incorporated into the Dark Tower series in THE WOLVES OF THE CALLA and SONG OF SUSANNAH but neither quite reach the atmospheric levels of fright found in this book.

THE BODY SNATCHERS by Jack Finney — I saw the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers before I read the book upon which it is based. That august novel, although almost as old as I am, has held up much better than either myself or its film adaptation. Marketed as science fiction, THE BODY SNATCHERS is a paranoia-laden horror story about alien seed pods that land on earth and begin producing a duplicate replacement copy of each human being. You have almost certainly seen at least one of the three films based on the book but you can’t beat the source material on any level. Five-year-old mini-Me was also certain at one point that his parents had been pod-snatched. You might as well, but take a chance and pick up a copy of this classic if you’ve never read it.

You know what I’m going to ask now, I’m sure: what are your favorite horror/scary novels? And why? Thank you.