F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Hallowe'en

The Mummy (1932)

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Sir Joseph Whemple: [translating inscription on Scroll of Thoth box] “Death…eternal punishment…for…anyone…who…opens…this…casket. In the name…of Amon-Ra…the king of the gods. Good heavens, what a terrible curse!

Ralph Norton: [eagerly] Well, let’s see what’s inside!

I love this movie!

The above clip is my favorite scene in the entire film…I love the absolute subtly of it! The slow, weary opening of the mummy’s eyes as it’s

English: The Mummy (1932) film poster.
English: The Mummy (1932) film poster. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

being summoned back to life (the eye is opened sooo slow!)…the movement of the hands away from the chest…the dessicated hand entering the scene to touch the scroll…the sloughing away into the darkness by only showing the trailing mummy wrappings (and at a mummy’s gait!)…and the gone-mad stare and laughter from our forever traumatized “Oxford chap” archeologist, Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher)!

“He went for a little  walk! You should have seen his face!”

I love the whole black-and-white atmosphere, the story partially inspired by the real Tutankhamun (or -amen) discovery in 1922. I love how much is left to the imagination through use of light and dark…shadows. Implication.

And then there’s the line uttered by Zita Johann and made famous by a Rob Zombie song: “Do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with?”

Ah, the eternal question for some!

Click here for some additional The Mummy info.

The above link mentioned there was a reincarnational scene deleted from the movie. The slideshow creator (see “Reincarnation Deleted Scense” slideshow video, below) said there had been downright animosity between the director, Carl Freund and Zita Johann (who played Helen Grosvenor), hinting that might have played a part in the removal of the scenes. I wonder if it may have taken movie goers “out” of the movie, the “mummy atmosphere” that had already been created. There is also a scene where David Manners (Frank Whemple character) tells Zita/Helen, in the scene where Zita is brought to the elder Whemple’s home and couch that there was something about “her head” (“I say…now, I know what it is about you…there was something about her head…”) and the head of the discovered mummy of Princess Anck-es-en-Amon…implying she’s got the same body (and head…face…) as the ancient Egyptian princess…while in the deleted scenes there are different actresses playing some of her different reincarnations. I know about the ideas of reincarnation for both the souls taking on new bodies, but also keeping various “versions” of their previous bodies (and every variant in between)…but it could have been a problematic issue, just the same. Anyway, for me, watching this slideshow had a “weird feel” to it, perhaps it was the contemporary video composer’s composition…including music and included contemporary slides to complete the deleted tale…but I’m not sure it would have lent anything “more” to the movie. Who knows….

In any event, here is the slideshow, showing some of those deleted scenes (again, intermixed with more contemporary scenes for “completeness” sake, I can only assume):

The only drawback (and it’s a minor one) I can find to the movie is that there aren’t many mummy-in-wraps scenes beyond the opening (minus the flashback). However, in direct contrast to that statement, I do love how the film transcends the mummy-ness into a character who interacts with the living, beyond deadly brute force! So, there lies the dichotomy. There are other mummy movies I love, like the Christopher Lee version, where he stays-as-mummy and terrorizes, but this 1932 film, with its “intelligent” script, remains at the top of my list!

And, lastly, enjoy this 1957 Boris Karloff, This Is Your Life, interview:

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The Uninvited—Now In Paperback!

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The Uninvited - Paperback (© F. P. Dorchak and Duvall Design)
The Uninvited – Paperback (© F. P. Dorchak and Duvall Design)

“The images invaded my thoughts when I wasn’t reading the book.”

CDurandette (The Uninvited reader)

Just in time for Hallowe’en, The Uninvited is now available as a 6 x 9 trade paperback!

Right this moment (October 26th), it’s just available through CreateSpace’s link, but keep checking for the Amazon link update. Though the page counts differ between the e-book and paperback (327 for e-book, 282 for paperback), nothing is lost. Same story, just different formatting

Karen Duvall, of Duvall Design, designed this cover. I will be interviewing her next month. Thanks for the bang-up job, Karen! My interior formatter was Pam Headrick, of A Thirsty Mind. I plan on interviewing her in no short order, too. Pam is quite patient and ever so thorough—thanks, Pam!

Recent events have forced me to reconsider my earlier timeline of releasing some other work, this year, so I no longer plan on releasing anything new in the remainder of 2013. Further releases of pending novels will now be sometime next year.

So, if you’re looking for another creepy read, please do check out the paperback version of The Uninvited! I’ve written with you in mind….

Praise for The Uninvited:

“This book was quite an unexpected pleasure. I began by following a journalist into a gruesome crime scene in Florida and in a short time I found myself thinking about this novel when I was shopping, having coffee or doing chores. The characters are interesting and well developed through the book to the very end. The development of the storyline was unanticipated so I hate to tell you too much about it here in the review, but I highly recommend this novel as a good way to spend your time.”

CDurandette (an Uninvited reader)

“I get the chills… a most impressive work.”

Rob Butts, Seth Material Facilitator/Author, The Seth Material, The Early Sessions, The Personal Sessions

“At some point in our lives we contemplate, among numerous things, the demise of past souls and the inexplicable ‘natural’ comfort (or immediate aversion) we feel with some upon first meeting. F. P. Dorchak’s The Uninvited presents the possibilities through an ominous tale that explores and may provide reason for such sensitivities, while explaining the evil borne (and perpetrated) by society’s sinister few.”

Jan C.J. Jones, CoExecutive Producer – Researcher/Writer, Forest Rose Productions, LLC

“The Uninvited is a dynamic, intense novel. F. P. Dorchak weaves his story adeptly, with skill and precision. He easily intertwines the worlds of reincarnation and quantum physics to create a powerful, suspenseful experience for the reader.”

Sydney Heflin, Ed. D. Former Research Chair, International Association for Regression Research and Therapies.

“If psychological and even physical characteristics can follow us from lifetime to lifetime, can revenge and retribution be far behind? In his chilling novel, The Uninvited, author F. P. Dorchak explores the dark side reincarnation. It’s a good read. Hard to put down.”

Dr. Robert T. James, author of Passport to Past Lives. The Evidence.

“I found I could not stop reading… I became totally fascinated by the depth of Dorchak’s exploration into the many influences beneath the hostilities performed. I was especially delighted with his reference to the modern pioneer in metaphysics and philosophy, Jane Roberts—right there beside the famous psychic Edgar Cayce. Today’s police and lawyers need this novel!”

Madelon Rose Logue, Editor/Publisher The Black Sheep

(© F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
(© F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
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My Favorite Horror Movies!

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Come With Us If You Wanna...Eat... (Night of the Living Dead. Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Come With Us If You Wanna…Eat… (Night of the Living Dead. Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I will take you places you have never been…and I will show you things you have never seen….

Well.

I don’t think I’ve yet done a post on my favorite horror movies, I’m quite surprised to say (though I did touch on some last year)! I was inspired for this post by Chiseled in Rock. Thanks, Gusto!

You’ll also note that not many of my favorites involve more recent fares. There’s a reason for that. I just don’t like most of the recent crop. I know my tastes have changed over the years, perhaps the current horror films are too nasty (like the Saw flicks—just cannot bring myself to see any of them, no matter what people try to tell me about how “psychological” they may be), but nearly ever time I go to a new horror flick, I leave disappointed. So, I pretty much have stopped going to them, unless something really grabs me, like The Woman in Black. There are other films I like, but at the time of writing this, they didn’t come to mind. If I think of them, I’ll add. And I am only talking horror/supernatural films, not SF or anything else, like Village of the Damned, which I also really like.

Curiously, I haven’t seen any of Rob Zombie’s films/remakes. I need to do this…but it just doesn’t seem “to happen.” I love his music, his artistry and imagery in his songs, but have heard some of his work is kinda graphic, and (not to be a wimp…), but graphic isn’t usually my thing, though some of those on my list can be graphic. I think the graphic-ness has to be balanced by story and amount…even humor, however black, like Bill Paxton’s killer bar scene in Near Dark (“Finger lickin’ good!”). And there are undoubtably those films, like Gothika or maybe even Ghost Ship (I give them honorable mentions and links, because I do seem to remember really liking them) that I’d seen and really liked at the time, but I just don’t remember that much about them any more….

Also, I must admit, I haven’t seen most of these movies in years. As of a year or so ago (when I last spent some time looking), some are extremely hard to find, like Nomads. I’ve looked for the movie for years and haven’t been able to find it, and I don’t belong to any movie subscriber services beyond our cable provider, so that may be an issue. I hope as time goes on, more and more of these older films will resurface. I’d love to see some of them again, to see if I would still enjoy them in my current mindset, like The Other (I last saw this film when I was a kid, and though I don’t remember a lot about it, the overall feel of the film has stuck with me all these years!).

So, here, in alphabetical order, are a list of my 20 favorite horror films! I’ve linked their trailers to them. Feel free to mention a few of your own! And since it’s early October, there’s still plenty of time to catch these before Hallowe’en!

An American Werewolf in London

Dog Soldiers

Evil Dead (1981)

Ghost Story

Halloween

It

Near Dark

Night of the Living Dead

Nightmare on Elm Street

Nomads

Nosferatu (1922)

Psycho (1960)

The Lost Boys

The Mummy (1932)

The Mummy (1999)

The Mummy’s Curse (1944)

The Other

The Shining

The Sixth Sense

The Woman in Black

Where’s Mummy?

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English: A screenshot from The Mummy Italiano:...
Who’s your daddy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ok, I’ve been having fun this month with all-things Hallowe’en (man, next month I’m really gonna have to get back to my mss work…), but all this talk about the undead got my juices dessicating! So…I’m going to put myself to a test.

Next week I’m going to post a prose poem about my favorite monster. Now, I’m not saying this is going to be another Ozymandias, or anything, but I’m going to give it my best shot and come up with something I’ve wanted to pen for a little bit. I’ve actually already started it and hope to post soon.

Now, as a kid I had several monster interests. Though I was interested in the Bram Stoker version of Dracula in vampyres, werewolves were a pretty strong interest. One of my favorites stories was The Werewolf of Ponkert, by H. Warner Munn, which was actually two stories. It’s interesting looking at some prices of this book today—geesh!
I also got into some of the Dr. Phibes, work (books and movies: “Love means never having to say you’re ugly”; I know, très unPC, but check out the man’s visage), like Dr. Phibes Rises Again! I was a huge Vincent Price fan. And who could forget “Vulnavia,” played by Virginia North? I mean, whata cool name! The Dr. Anton Phibes movies were so campy, over the top, and full of dark humor, I loved them!

(in case the above doesn’t work, try this link: http://youtu.be/yBo0H3oYSoo)
What’s not to like, right?
Vulnaaaviaaaa….
I was also, as you may have guessed, into your basic “undeads,” rising from the deads, clawing out from grounds, ghosts, that kind of thing. I was, basically, a fan of all kinds of Hammer Films movies about anything supernatural, and it looks like they’re still around, which is interesting, since I haven’t heard anything more out of them, since I left home for adulthood.
But, when it really came down to it, I became quite interested in one monster in particular, and it was my last teenage dress-up for Hallowe’en. Even as a teen, I had an eye for authenticity, and I pulled out the needed sheet and begged and pleaded to my mom to do the unthinkable: rip a perfectly good bedsheet into shreds. Well, to this day, I’m always amazed that she let me do that, but, hey, that’s what mom’s do, right?
So, on my last teenage Hallowe’en, I wrapped up and went out horrorizing the neighborhood, and painted “Denn die Todten reiten schnell”  (“For the dead travel fast,” from Dracula) on rocks all along the railroad tracks from which I lived across (yeah, literally), in green flourescent paint.
Mummy Me, c. late 1970s
Mummy Me, c. late 1970s
So, if you haven’t figured out my favorite monster, stay tuned! I hope to have something. ummm, unwrapped, next week….