...wow, unbelievably stressed here...

But I wanted to touch base with you enlightened souls.

Here's where it stands with THE HORROR BOOK OF LISTS....

We have lists (actual lists, not promises, but LISTS) from...

Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Karl Edward Wagner, John Skipp, Tim Lucas, Michael Marshall Smith, Jack Ketchum, Barry Gifford, Richard Stanley, Edward Lee, Weston Ochse, Yvonne Navarro, Stephen Volk, Karim Hussain, Bentley Little, Deborah Leblanc, T.E.D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti, Caitlin Kiernan, Gary Brandner, Sarah Langan, Victor Salva, Joel Lane, S.P. Somtow, and MANY OTHERS (including a couple of guys named Mark Justice and David T. Wilbanks)...

I promise you guys, this going to be AWESOME.

The book comes out a year from now, from HarperCollins.

'Til then, here is my very rough draft list for the book (with bio)...

SB

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Scott Bradley’s 10 Ultimate Horror Film Crushes

Scott Bradley is the co-author of The Horror Book of Lists. He likes the following characters (and the ladies who play them) a great deal, but by far prefers his girlfriend/co-author Amy Wallace to any of them.

1. Lulu (played by Louise Brooks) in Pandora’s Box (1929) – Not a Horror film, you say? Perhaps. But this silent classic – directed by the great G.W. Pabst - is plenty horrific. Former Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks defined and influenced a generation of flappers (and their hairstyle!) with her portrayal of Lulu, who manages to destroy everyone in her orbit with her untamed sexuality, and then gets snuffed by Jack the Ripper (also making her an early victim of that slasher movie policy of punishing promiscuity). Damaged goods never looked so good.

2. Dorothy Vallens (played by Isabella Rossellini) in Blue Velvet (1986) – Ingrid Bergman’s daughter plays the ultimate damsel-in-distress in writer/director David Lynch’s mind-blowing autopsy on small-town America. That Dorothy also corrupts (or educates?) our straight-arrow young hero Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) only adds to her appeal: “Are you a bad boy? Do you like to do bad things?” Good girl Sandy (Laura Dern), while undeniably cute, never had a chance in my book.

3. Milena Flaherty (played by Theresa Russell) in Bad Timing (1980) – It’s a toss-up whether this lady or her shrink boyfriend Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel) is more the monster in this groundbreaking psychological Horror film. Either way, their outré relationship makes the title of this Nicolas Roeg picture (written by playwright Yale Udoff) all-too-literal. And the staircase scene is both a nightmare and a turn-on. Go figure.

4. Irena Gallier (Nastassia Kinski) in Cat People (1982) – What’s a girl to do if she turns into a rampaging panther every time she has sex? Have an incestuous coupling with her similarly cursed brother (Malcolm McDowell)? Or try a “normal” relationship with the zookeeper (John Heard) who admits that he “prefers animals to people”? Director Paul Schrader made Irena an ultimate Horror dream girl in this remake of the Val Lewton-produced classic by reinventing the story as a perverse fantasia on Dante’s La Vita Nuova, with the beautiful Irena as a shape-shifting Beatrice.

5. Baby Firefly (played by Sheri Moon Zombie) in House of 1000 Corpses (2002) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005) – If writer/director Rob Zombie didn’t want us to have nasty thoughts about his lady, he wouldn’t have trained his camera on Sheri in the way he did in these two films – maybe he just wants to see what a lucky guy he is. The perfect example: Baby’s entrance into Red Hot Pussy Liquor and her flirtation/humiliation of Goober in Corpses; that is the definition of a post-modern femme fatale. Build my gallows high, Baby (with apologies to Jane Greer).

6. Monika (played by Monika M.) in Nekromantik 2 (1991) – Monika is a necrophile, nurse, and singer (as evidenced by “Scelette Delicieux”). She’s also gorgeous, charming, and smart, which draws Mark (Mark Reeder) to a very bad end at her hands. Check out Mark barging in on Monika and her twisted friends watching atrocity footage: One of the most uncomfortable relationship moments in any Horror film. And then we get something even more staggering – a jaw-dropping (and perversely moving) cliffhanger - in the story’s denouement. Would director Jörg Buttgereit, his collaborator Franz Rodenkirchen, producer Manfred Jelinski, and – of course – the lovely Monika M. please privilege us with Nekromantik 3 so we can find out what happens next?

7. Annie Brackett (played by Nancy Loomis) in Halloween (1978) – Sure…we all cheer for Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. And we get all horny about P.J. Soles as Lynda (“Totally!”). But I’ll personally always go for Annie – the pothead daughter of Haddonfield’s sheriff, Leigh Brackett (himself named after the legendary screenwriter of The Big Sleep and The Empire Strikes Back) – for both her understated sex appeal and her smart-ass remarks. Cutie Danielle Harris did an interesting riff on this character in Rob Zombie’s remake, but I’ll always go for the first Annie.

8. Fran (played by Gaylen Ross) in Dawn of the Dead (1979) – Fran shouts down her boss in the TV studio when he wants to broadcast a list of inoperative rescue stations. She puts up with Flyboy (which alone should qualify her for sainthood). She learns to fly a helicopter. She gets pregnant. And she shoots zombies. Fran is the gal that we all would want backing us up in the event of a zombie apocalypse. And she takes no shit from the boys. Ever.

9. Billie (played by Sally Conway) in Prologue from Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America (2002) – In writer/director Douglas Buck’s conclusion to his devastating and brilliant trio of short films, Billie is the victim of a monstrous sex crime that has left her with a pair of hooks for hands. She returns to her hometown, and (seemingly in a single day) talks to her former boyfriend, confronts and shames the man who attacked her, and delivers a moment of transcendence to a homeless girl. And Billie also looks like a red-headed Sarah Polley. What’s not to love?

10. Asia Argento in anything – I’m cheating a little here, because this covers a lot of films and characters, including Trauma, The Stendahl Syndrome, B. Monkey, Land of the Dead, and, hell, even that terrible action flick XXX. Asia is the Goth pin-up girl. She’s the daughter of Horror maestro Dario Argento and actress/Suspiria co-writer Daria Niccoladi; as if that’s not enough of an endorsement, Asia is also an accomplished filmmaker (Scarlet Diva) herself. Yum!


'Til then, here

Scott:

I loved your list!

To get a list from Karl Edward Wagner, did you use a Ouija board?

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http://www.markjustice.blogspot.com

Nahhh...no Oujia board necessary for Mr. Wagner.

Here's our angel...

<<Reprinted by Permission of the Karl Edward Wagner Literary Group>>

Yes, it's that easy AND that difficult.

And, guys, I promise that THE HORROR BOOK OF LISTS is going to be worth all of my gassing-off...

Luv,

SB

Hi Scott! Nice list.

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http://www.davidtwilbanks.com