Friday Feature - Margret Helgadottir

This Friday is another guest post by an author, this time Margret Helgadottir. It is about writing her character Iselin from her short story Shadow, self-harm and The Moomins and is part of the Impossible Spaces Blog Tour (if you click on the button you can read all the other posts in the tour - I shall be contributing two guest posts very soon too, though I'll tell you more about those as they happen).

Margret is an Icelandic-Norwegian writer who has travelled all over the world and has just started to write fiction in English. She mainly writes speculative fiction and is very much inspired by Nordic culture, climate and folklore. Shadow is about a young woman called Islelin who thanks to both nature and nurture has always felt isolated and different.When she meets freedom fighter of sorts, Berge, she is flung into an alternate, desolate world where lizard creatures, not humans, are the apex predators but could it be that in this hopeless future is where her salvation lies?

Margret with her copy of Impossible Spaces, one of the many publications she has stories printed in.

"I’ve had the image of Iselin in my head for a long time. Iselin is an old Norwegian female name that means dream or vision. Originally I wanted it to be more a chaotic and confusing horror story that travelled through visions and dimensions, with Iselin as the key factor. Then, as I started to write, a different narrative wanted to be told. This often happens in my writing. I’ve started to spend less time on the planning of my stories, because they often seem to have a life on their own. You asked me to take pictures of my notes. For this story I only had five small sentences, in Norwegian, and the only thing that I used was that Iselin entered an elevator on her way home late one night.

 

 

I’ve had the image of a scarred young woman who hides from the world, too scared to pop her head up, for a long time, and I’ve also played with ideas of how an outsider would react if suddenly almost all the people were gone and the person had no society to avoid. Would this encourage the person to take up more space in the world, and no longer fear being visible? You know, like plants do when you give them a larger pot and more earth. Their roots will stretch and they will grow larger and blossom. But if they’re forced to stay in the same tiny pot forever, they will remain the same size until they die, and maybe never blossom fully.

 

In hindsight, I see that the story about Iselin is a sad story about self-preservation. Iselin is a young woman scarred mentally and physically by her childhood. She’s been raised to not be a burden to her parents and has always managed on her own. As an adult, she’s been sucked into a vicious spiral: she shuns contact with people and they in return avoid her, leading to her feeling even more isolated and misunderstood so that she redoubles her efforts to stay away from people, and so on. Getting stuck in such a self-reinforcing spiral is much easier than people think.

Street art by C215 in Oslo that inspired Margret.

Iselin learned to keep all her emotions on the inside early on, so she wouldn’t provoke or disturb her parents. This has stuck with her. The emotions are locked up inside her and someone seems to have thrown the key far away. She suffers, but she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She tries to ease her pain with substitutes, like many people do when life gets unbearable or they want to escape their heavy thoughts. However, she does not resort to starving herself, drinking large quantities of alcohol, losing herself in drug-induced highs, or throwing herself from cliffs. No, Iselin works until she drops, and when that doesn’t help, she cuts herself with razor blades. Numb and exhausted, she drags herself from day to day, hoping no one will notice her, yet secretly longing to be seen.

 

The world sees only a stone face. Iselin has not only become a shadow of herself, she’s also a shadow in the world. She is like the shy, scared little girl in Finnish author Tove Jansson’s story The Invisible Child, from her book Tales from Moominvalley (1962). Because an adult made sarcastic comments about her, this girl became totally invisible. Under the kind care of the Moomin family, she became secure enough to act spontaneously on her emotions and this led to her gradually becoming visible again. The story about Iselin spins around the same ideas of invisibility. The guerrilla soldier Berge is Iselin’s tolerant, accepting and generous Moomin family. Berge is an old Norwegian name that means “to save”.

Ninny and Moomin play hide and seek in the 1990 Moomin animated series.

But Berge has his own scars and is in many ways a shadow too. Rachel, you pointed out that the idea of fate is very strong in the story. You said that when Berge rubs the glove he wears to hide his scales over Iselin’s scars, it feels as if they were meant to save each other from themselves. Thanks for this. You’re right. Berge and Iselin are both miserable and lonely lost souls who live in the shadows of their own worlds. It’s only when they follow their instincts—Berge when he goes to the office building, Iselin when she chooses to follow Berge—that they find the solution. Shadow is all about Iselin and Berge helping each other to come out of the shadows, but on a macro level, the story is about something else: lost souls and a mysterious helping hand from another dimension that responds to their unvoiced cries for help. At least I hope it became such a story. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide whether I have succeeded in this or not.

Street art in Oslo by AliCe Pasquini

So, Shadow evolved from an idea for a horror story to a tale about hope, about how it can be possible to spot the light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of how hopeless the situation is, regardless of how lost you feel. Follow your instincts; follow the good guys; be brave enough to step out of the shadows. There are many kind-hearted lost souls walking the streets, scarred from their own battles, who’d like to meet you."

Send Margret your love via her blog http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com and also on twitter @MaHelgad.

Also if you are a goodreads user / reviewer you can win a copy of Impossible Spaces here!

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a post apocalyptic sci-fi short story by massively prolific writer Harlan Ellison about a supercomputer called AM and the last five humans left on Earth. Despite being so short it is considered a classic, winning the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1968 as well as being adapted into a computer game, short graphic story and a BBC radio play.

"What does AM mean?" 

Gorrister answered him. We had done this sequence a thousand times before, but it was Benny's favorite story. 

"At first it meant Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed sentience and linked itself up and they called it an Aggressive Menace, but by then it was too late, and finally it called itself AM, emerging intelligence, and what it meant was I am - cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am." 

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a bleak vision of the future and a warning about Man's constant desires to play God and wage war. Ellison wrote the story when the end of the Cold War seemed a distant fantasy so envisions in his story that the war never ends, just keeps developing and expanding to the point that computers are designed to fight with each other on a technological level that humans cannot understand. One day one of the supercomputers becomes sentient and connects with all the other computers that the humans have now peppered the Earth with. It exists to kill so kills all the humans bar five. With the Earth uninhabitable it takes the last five humans into the centre of the Earth with it and gives them immortality. A fantastic gift, no? No. It gives them immortality because it hates them and everything they represent. For 109 years it torments them physically and mentally with no hope of freedom and no hope of death.

As the story progresses and the humans struggle to cope with AM's tortures we learn why it hates humanity so: humanity created it, created it with all the intelligence and power imaginable but without a physical form to be able to express or use its intelligence and power. It is as trapped as the last five humans and will inflict upon them all the torment its existence has brought upon it.

At last the humans find a stash of tinned food in an ice cave but when AM appears to suffer a lapse in concentration things take a turn for the darker. Enraged, AM punishes the remaining character, preventing him from being able to do what the other four managed, providing the quotation after which the story is named.

You can read the short story here and listen to the radio adaptation (featuring the voices of Ellison as AM and Starsky and Hutch's David Soul as Ted) below:

In the 1995 PC game you play as each of the five humans, put into situations AM has devised to torture them. Their personalities are vastly expanded with complex backgrounds and flaws. It is up to you to not only help them survive their situation / personal hell but to help them become better people. It is a point and click game and just as depressing as the short story (if not more so). Think of it as akin to Silent Hill with the puzzle solving and bleak story but none of the fighting. Once again it features the voice of Ellison as AM and a terrifying job he does!

The five humans are:

Gorrister - a bar owner who is severely depressed / suicidal after believing it is his fault his wife was committed to a mental institution.

Ellen - a once promising engineer whose life fell apart twice. She finds intellectual interaction much easier than social interaction so when she suffered a miscarriage found it so hard to recover that her husband left her. When she finally began to enjoy life again a man posing as a maintenance man raped her in an elevator resulting in a phobia of the colour yellow. Apart from her phobia she is strong and feisty. She appears to be the only one who AM does not torture physically, deriving an almost sexual pleasure with abusing her mentally. AM also uses her lack of sexual interest in any of the other characters apart from Benny to torment them.

Benny - a physically proud military officer who killed his unit. In the original short story Benny is a gay scientist who AM turns heterosexual. In both versions he is the character who AM delights in physically damaging the most. One of the first changes AM made to Benny was to make him into an ape-man both mentally and physically, which is how he starts the story. 

Nimdok - an elderly ex-Nazi physician in denial of not only his own racial heritage but the hundreds of experiments he performed.

Ted - a con artist paranoid about being found out. Where once he would use his charm and looks to seduce rich single women he now only has eyes for Ellen, who despite all his best and heartfelt efforts does not love him back. He is offered the chance to escape AM if he lets Ellen be killed.

The game is very difficult to buy now however you can watch walkthroughs on YouTube.

I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within. Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance. Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last. AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet...AM has won, simply...he has taken his revenge...

I have no mouth. And I must scream.

Impossible Spaces Trailer

Hehe the trailer has even got me excited to read all the different stories now! Dark fantasy and surrealism is just the kind of subject I love! If you love it too then here is all the information on where to buy Impossible Spaces! I hope you will all enjoy it! The great thing about anthologies is that if you don't like one story there are twenty more you may like!

We really need people to host guest posts for a blog tour (like Toby Stone's fantastic Aimee and the Bear post on my blog). Please be wonderful and allow one of the writers to write a post for your blog! To join in click here!

Impossible Spaces Update II

Hi guys! The Impossible Spaces launch party will be held on the 19th of July (which is also when the book launches) in Manchester! It's free to attend. There will be readings (including one by me and one by Ramsey Campbell), competitions and free booze. Here is a form to register you interest in attending:

Online event registration for Impossible Spaces Launch Party powered by Eventbrite

And even more exciting (maybe) is that you can now read an excerpt from my story I'd Lock it with a Zipper on my website!

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Clockwork,” she said, tugging me to my feet. “Come on—we have to go.”

“Where are all the people?”

“Gone. The robots took them.”

I stopped. “The robots? Like you?”

“No, like Brother but not like Brother.”

I held my position. “I don’t understand.”

She froze and looked beyond me...

...Click here to read more!

 

 

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There will also be a blog tour. I will be hosting a post by an Impossible Spaces writer and if you would also be willing to host a post that would be more than wonderful! You can find out how to take part here: http://www.hic-dragones.co.uk/impossible-spaces-blog-tour/

Playlist: Swear Forever

Okay guys - this will be my last proper post for a few weeks as I'm going on holiday! It is the playlist I listen to whilst writing my latest feature, Swear Forever, a haunting, psychological horror about...

"Love that refuses to die, like a dream that long since became a nightmare."

1. Will You Love Me Tomorrow? - The Shirelles
2. Without You - Lana Del Rey
3. Magic Summertime - Eleni Mandell
4. With or Without You - Keane
5. If You Want Love - K.S. Rhoads
6. My Love Won't Wait - Two Gallants
7. Woke Up Dead - Kyla La Grange
8. Tokyo Transfigured (from X The Movie)
9. Run Boy Run - Woodkid
10. Coming Undone - Korn
11. Sea to Sky - Dream Boat
12. Cradel (Cradle) of Forest - Akira Yamaoka featuring Joe Romersa
13. Catalyst - Kyla La Grange
14. No Rest - Dry the River
15. Run - Blonds
16. Snake Eyes - The Milk Carton Kids
17. Here Be Monsters - Ed Harcourt
18. Mein Herz Brennt (Piano Version) - Rammstein
19. Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? - Paloma Faith
20. Flowers in December - Mazzy Star
21. I'll See You in My Dreams - Joe Brown

Silent Hill Dartford

Ten years ago supermarket giant (and consumerist bully) Tesco was given consent to build a new store in Dartford. Part of the deal was that Tesco had to build X-amount of housing to create an actual need for the new supermarket (at that point four already existed in the town centre alone). Shortly after, they bought up a huge chunk of Lowfield Street to build these homes on, forcing out businesses and (ironically) pre-existing home owners alike. Ten years on, due to a combination of the recession and Tesco's apathy towards Dartford once they won the battle to build there, Lowfield Street remains untouched and abandoned - a ghost street, a sad reminder of better times and an embarrassing first image to anyone new to Dartford.

Here are my photos of Ripleys Market. It was once a small market full of independent shops...now it wouldn't look out of place in a run-down area of Silent Hill. I find it both eerily beautiful and melancholic. Part of me hopes it never changes now, it touches me so much. I was too young to appreciate Ripleys when it was still open but I never imagined its fate would be this. When it finally does get demolished for 'Little Boxes' housing at least there will be a memory of Silent Hill Dartford to show the price we paid for them.

To cement the Silent Hill feel there's even a map of the town on the Life Foods wall!

What are the secrets hiding in this abandoned town? Are you brave enough to find out?

Friday Feature - Dry the River

This week's Friday Feature is Dry the River a folk rock band from Stratford (London), UK. You'll know the sound - it's the Mumford and Son's sound - yet though Dry the River weren't the band to make the sound big they still own it. Peter Liddle's lead vocals are beautiful - pure, gliding and lilting - delivering often deep and complex lyrics soulfully. He is supported by tight backing vocal harmonies and almost completely acoustic instrumentals. And what a variety of instruments they are! Songs include everything from the obvious guitar to the mandolin and tenor horn! This combination of acoustic / orchestral instruments and almost angelic vocals results in one track being a playful take on traditional folk to the next being a ballad absolutely throbbing with heartfelt passion.

 

 

Where will I have heard them before?

After the release of their first single, the absolutely beautiful No Rest, in 2011 Dry the River have appeared at every big UK festival possible! In 2012 they continued touring, this time doing the world wide festivals. Throughout 2011 and 2012 they appeared on all the British 'best of new talent' lists.

Featured Song: The Chambers and the Valves (cutest idea for a video I have seen in ages!)

Where can I hear more?

No free songs at the moment. Their first album is called Shallow Bed and is available to buy as a hard copy and download. If you find you love Shallow Bed you can then buy the acoustic version of it but as download only. A second album should be coming very soon!

What is their website?

http://www.drytheriver.net/

Next week: Let's continue the folk sound with The Avett Brothers.

Here Be Impossible Spaces

I'm very pleased to announce that my short story, 'I'd Lock it with a Zipper' will be appearing in Hic Dragones' anthology 'Impossible Spaces'. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes and where you can get a copy via this blog and also my website http://enchantedviolin.com (check it out if you haven't ever yet - it has lots of fun stuff on it too).

For the time being here is the list of featured writers for you to be curious / excited about.

And for something equally impossible...

Here is the moment Pyramid Head makes his appearance in Silent Hill: Homecoming:

And here is animator LambentFox's hilarious re-imagining of it!

Creepily Beautiful: Carnival of Souls

I Can't Remember - Mowgai

 

 

Carnival of Souls (1962, directed by Herk Harvey, written by John Clifford) wasn't thought of as much more than a B-movie when it was released however it is now considered a horror movie classic influencing the works of zombie king George A. Romero and master of the weird David Lynch.

 

 

The film is about Mary Henry who, after surviving nearly being drowned, moves to a small town near an abandoned carnival to become their new church organist. Mary is independent, feisty and most definitely not religious but finds her modern views being tested when she begins to suffer from strange visions of a terrifying man and feelings of not being part of this world anymore. She is certain that all her answers lie in the abandoned carnival but will she like what she finds?

 

Due to the film's shoestring budget Carnival of Souls relies on atmosphere much more than it does on special effects (though being black and white instantly creates a certain eerie atmosphere). Because of this you most definitely do not need to be a typical horror fan to appreciate it - it is dreamlike and haunting rather than full of jump-scares and gore. The character of Mary and her sleazy creep neighbour John are straight out of a Hitchcock film. The ghouls hark back to the sinister torment of a German Expressionist film. The Gene Moore score shows off the beauty of the organ (very hard to do for a modern audience) and perhaps aided by the slightly distorted sound quality of the old film rounds off the haunted feel.

 

Carnival of Souls is now in the public domain meaning you can download it for free here or can watch it for free online (though if you do watch it online you will need a good pair of speakers to enhance the sound).

 

 

Then you can have a good old LOL watching the trailer for the 1998 Wes Craven remake:

 



My Favourite Rammstein Videos

 

Yes - this will come as a shock to a lot of you - but sweet, adorable, little me loves Rammstein. Blame it on the ex. I find so much about them incredible and as the Neue Deutsche Härte (New German Hard / German Industrial Rock) band has matured so too has the complexity of their music and lyrics.

Beyond music Till (the singer) and Flake (the keyboard player) are role models to me. I can be terribly shy so to know that amazingly powerful Till can also be introverted and suffer from nerves gives me a lot of confidence. Whenever I'm nervous or someone tries to put me down one of the first people I think "What would xxx do?" is Till. With Flake it's all about glasses. I still get hassled over my choice to wear glasses over contact lenses so to have someone as famous as Flake choose glasses me feel much less of a weirdo.

So! I would like to share with you my favourite Rammstein videos to prove that they are so much more than angry Germans.

Note: The majority of these videos contain mature content. If you're not sure if you'll be offended or not I've ordered them from not scary to down right wrong so that you can choose when to stop.

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Ohne Dich (Without You)

My first choice should hopefully dispel any misgivings you have about the band. No violence. No angry shouting. Most definitely no Neo-Nazism. Just a beautiful ballad and a beautiful video about a group of friends on a mountain climbing expedition. You could show this to your grandma.

Ich Will (I Want)

This video is all about celebrity and how anyone can be rewarded with it - including criminals with a complete disrespect for human life.

Amerika (America)

Rammstein's early encounters with America didn't go well to say the least (they were arrested for simulating gay sex, called Nazis and patronised for singing in German). From these experiences came this song. It is nearly ten years old now and yet parts of it are as strangely relevant today as they were back then thanks to No Doubt's video for 'Looking Hot' featuring Gwen Stefani as a sexy Native American. No Doubt's video raised the issue of appropriation, aka one culture (usually white) taking aspects from another (usually not white) and using them out of context or with no respect for the original culture. This is a big issue in America where racial / cultural origins are an important part of many Americans' sense of identity. So where does Rammstein's 'Amerika' come in? Well this song is all about the influence (culturally, economically and politically) America has on nearly every other country in the world and that to survive in an America dominated world other countries must sacrifice their own cultures to become like America. The irony is obvious. I would love to read your opinions on this. I would also be interested to see if you believe the use of Native American clothing in this video is also appropriation.

(If it makes anyone feel better one of the items shown as bad are trainers but Puma and Adidas are both German).

Du Hast (You Have)

Probably the most famous Rammstein song thanks to the film The Matrix. Our young man has been done up good a proper by his girlfriend who has sent him off to defend her honour against a group of pyromaniac gangsters. It is certain doom but he faces it like a man only to find out that they are actually his old friends! Still...they need to burn something...

The art in this song is the word play in the lyrics. One example is the title. The phrase 'du hast' means 'you have' but aurally it is nearly impossible to tell from the phrase 'du hasst' / 'you hate'. It is only as the words build: 'du hast - du hast mich - du hast mich gefragt' that we learn she doesn't hate him but that she has asked him something - wedding vows (which later also involve a play on words) though paired with the video it is not hard to wonder if she does also hate him...even if just a little! Such play on words is frequent in Rammstein lyrics.

This video along with 'Ich Will' totally inspired me to buy a pair of leather braces lol (I should do a fashion post about them! They are total style icons!)

Mein Herz Brennt (My Heart Burns)

Mein Herz Brennt may be Rammstein's newest set of videos however the song was written as part of the album Mutter in 2000! It is about the monsters that come only for children...and Till's very bad case of heart burn! The first video features both metaphorical and literal monsters coming for the children. In the second video the instrumentals are stripped down to just a piano and so Till has been stripped of his horror too. Though he smiles at the line 'mein Herz brennt' it is the smile of someone fighting back tears and we realise that he is just as tormented as the children he visits but whereas they grow up and move on he is kept in perpetual torment.

Part I - to fear him...

 

Part II - to pity him...

Mein Teil (My Part)

Inspired by the German cannibal Armin Meiwes this song is meant to incite fear, disgust but also morbid curiosity - the kind the world had for the original story. The music is haunting. The lyrics are deranged, clever, humorous, dirty and poetic. The video is a dark nightmare but it's message is clear: you are what you eat and you know what it is...!

If you like this song also check out the live version where Till takes on the role of the Master Butcher but has some trouble keeping his food in his pot!

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Whether you love or hate Rammstein one thing is clear: they force you to think. That for me is enough to respect them in an industry where filling a dance floor or providing a pretty face are preferable to challenging concepts and artistry. I hope that through my song and video choices you have also seen that along with being shameless troublemakers they are also showmen, artists, hopeless romantics and masters of the smutty double entendre (they are six lads after all).

These are just a handful of Rammstein's songs and videos. If you liked them you can check out all of Rammstein's videos here. Once you have watched all their videos you must definitely watch Haifisch (it suddenly makes so much more sense if you do - honest - you won't be disappointed!)

If I was to recommend just one album apart from their Greatest Hits (the lazy option lol) it would be Reise Reise. It is utterly dramatic and utterly poetic. It contains 'Ohne Dich', 'Amerika' and 'Mein Teil' as well as the epic song poem that is 'Dalai Lama'.

 

Alternative Gingerbread Men

Somehow my Christmas turned alternative this year...possibly down to the construction of the Sasssquatch Wreath. As part of this alternative Christmas (please feel free to replace Christmas with whatever holiday it is you celebrate this time of the year) please allow me to introduce you to my alternative gingerbread men (plus the sacrificial gingerbread man made to stop mum's boyfriend eating the others during the night......):

Let's play a game! I'll show a picture of each gingerbread man before I show who it is supposed to be and you can see if you guessed right!

Hulk Hogan, brother!

A crime scene chalk outline

Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor Who (something weird happened to his trousers between icing him and taking his photo...I think he went back to the 80s and got them stonewashed!)

Robert Englund as a very happy Freddy Krueger (possibly went back in time with the Doctor...maybe time for Freddy v Doctor Who film?)

 

An Oompa Loompa

Pyramid Head from Silent Hill

Arkham City Riddler <3 <3 <3

Two Face

Zombie

 

This was lots of fun! I'd definitely like to make more! Maybe you guys have someone you'd like to see immortalised in gingerbread? I'd love to see your suggestions! I must say I'm quite tempted to do a whole batch of Batman gingerbread men. Let me know what you think!

 

Oh - and I'll leave you with a riddle from Gingerbread Riddler...

 

The DJ Ricks Show

Recently an amazingly haunting song keeps popping up on my iTunes / iPod: From Every Sphere by Ed Harcourt.

Unbelievably, I first discovered From Every Sphere thanks to the radio that plays throughout the game Silent Hill: Downpour. To share it with those of you who have not heard it I have put together an 8 Tracks playlist featuring all the music played by DJ Ricks on WLMN FM. I think it's a truly haunting mix - give it a try!

Track list
1) Ed Harcourt - From Every Sphere
2) Daniel Licht - Heaven Wont Hold It Against You
3) The Coals - I Wanted A Lover, I Needed A Friend
4) James Vincent McMorrow - If I Had A Boat
5) Louis Armstrong - Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen
6) Anna Ternheim - Off the Road
7) Highwaymen - Silver Stallion
8) Stephen Yerkey - Where Cash Is King
9) Kris Kristofferson - Why Me Lord
10) Doves - Willow’s Song (Bury Version)
11) Anna Ternheim - Words of Love
Bonus track) Ed Harcourt - Here Be Monsters


The DJ Ricks Show on WLMN FM from rachel.yelding on 8tracks Radio.  

I would not have been able to have compiled this playlist if it had not been for the fantastic information on Silent Hill Memories - check out this awesome Silent Hill website!

No Rest for the Wicked - Happy Halloween!

*Edit - I've put all three episodes in one place*

Halloween is only a day away so I have a treat for you - my first video for http://zubox.tv featuring the Prince of Darkness, Dracula himself!

 

 

Please share it with all your friends, rate it and enjoy!

Silent Hill Animations

Recently I've been getting into the Silent Hill games (in a big way). I'm even going to dust off my PS2 so that I can play the games that never made it onto PS3. What really helped inform my decision were all the excellent Silent Hill videos on youtube (cut scenes, playthroughs, the lot). If you like emotionally loaded and deeply psychological plots as well as creepy, CREEPY horror (both in atmosphere and actual monsters) and gameplay that relies on problem solving as much as killing things then you'll LOVE Silent Hill.

You may find you love the series enough to draw a fan animation.

Yes...there are Silent Hill fans so dedicated and talented that they are able to produce fan animations! And they are good!

Heather Mason from SH3 by Xarity (a creator of many Silent Hill & Resident Evil animations both comedy and serious)

So sit back and enjoy my pick of the Silent Hill fan animations (These videos WILL contain spoilers)

Silent Hill 2 as an 80s sitcom

 

Close Enough Pictures Present: Silent Hill

 

Paper Silent Hill 3

 

Alice Human Sacrifice (Vocaloid) by Xarity

 

Pyramid Head's #1 Fan (inspired by the first film rather than games)

 

Silent Hill 2 the Musical Medley - The Courtship of Pyramid Head

 

1234 (Feist) Silent Hill

 

Resident Evil and Silent Hill Memories by Xarity

 

Silent Hill 2 Chibi Edition (the second part never got made)

 

Vincent is trying to bring the sexiness of Silent Hill back! (it's not an animation but it's Vincent Smith being sexy so...who cares that it's not an animation?!) (Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake)

 

My last pick is actually about Resident Evil (though it does contain a James Sutherland cameo) but I think it's adorable so here it is anyway!

I Think I Love You! (David Cassidy) by ShadowLeggy (the Resident Evil version of Xarity)

Watching all these excellent animations make me want to do one now too! What do you think?

Friday Feature - Corin Hardy

Something a little different this week - five of my favourite Corin Hardy music videos. Corin is an animator, director and master of the macabre (also a really nice guy). I promise that by the end of this post Corin will have blown you away!

Martin Grech - 'Guiltless'

The Prodigy - 'Warriors Dance'

Horrors - 'She IS the New Thing'

Paolo Nutini - 'Pencill Full of Lead'

The Horrible Crows - 'Behold the Hurricane' (I absolutely love this song)

Watch all of Corin's amazing work at his website http://www.corinhardy.com

Next week: Liam Frost

The Automated Heart Concept Art

Concept art for my steampunk, gothic horror, fantasy adventure, The Automated Heart.

You can see full sized versions of these pictures and my other art HERE.