Tag: video

Reflections on a Wasted Life

Here is a video I created as an experiment, not to tell a story so much as to capture a mood.

Here is a video I created as an experiment, not to tell a story so much as to capture a mood. Let me know what you think. What mood do you think it captures? How does it make you feel? How much part does the music play in reflecting what is happening in the films as well as in setting the mood.

By the way, I made this film from elements available in the public domain. I did no actual filming myself. I certainly did not compose the music.

Special Feature: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

On Sunday, March 7, a friend of mine, Tim Stamps, whom I have known since college way back in the dark ages of the 70’s, sent me this link to a truly dark video. I thought it would make an excellent special feature for The Chamber. Here’s what he says about it:

“Hey Phil, check this out —A friend [Samuel Hanon is the name on the video] put this together. Playing the Twilight Zone version of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” with a Pink Floyd concert CD “Live at the Empire Pool, Wembley Park, London” recorded in November, 1974. Nothing is edited out or changed, except color effects added. All the lyrics and everything synchronistically match on queue. Play here: https://www.facebook.com/samuel.hanon.3/posts/545802596336504“

As you will learn with Rod Serling’s narration during the intro, this is not a Twilight Zone production per se. This is a French telling of the classic tale “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. It was the winner of the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and of several other international prizes as well. The original version is truly haunting, but the additional soundtrack and colorization take it to a whole new, nightmarishly surreal level.

What I find interesting about the story is that, when it was written in 1890, feelings about the Civil War were still very intense. After all, the Civil War had erupted only thirty years earlier in 1860. Many soldiers on both sides were still alive. Many African-Americans were still alive who had been slaves. Bierce had served with the Union Army and had seen combat several times including at Shiloh. He sustained a traumatic brain injury at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, whose effects he felt for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, Bierce penned this story about the hanging of a Confederate soldier told from the rebel’s perspective. Bierce did not see his former enemies as inhuman monsters, which I am sure many former Union soldiers did. He recognized the humanity in them and he brings this out in this story, making his readers, many of whom doubtlessly still had strong feelings about the war, feel sympathy for their suffering as well and made them see the former rebels as human.

In our current atmosphere of political turmoil (which cannot hold a candle to the turmoil before, during, and after the Civil War), there is a lesson for us in this classic work of American literature. It shows us that in spite of our feelings about current political and national issues, no matter how intense they are, we must not lose sight of the fact that our political opponents are as human as we are and feel as deeply and as intensely as we all do. We are people with differing opinions, but we are all still people. We must not lose sight of that fact.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Follow this link to the original short story on AmericanLiterature.com.

By the way, I will take submissions of links to dark videos or films so long as they meet the stipulations in The Chamber’s submission guidelines and so long as the person submitting owns the copyright. There are a wide range of formats to which I can link, so please query first and I will let you know if I can link to it.

Creepy Cabin in the Woods

As you may know, I live in house in the remote backwoods of Arkansas on what was once a civil war battlefield. A few thousand probably died here and my house is probably very near where the Union commanding officer stood while directing the fight, which was only a hundred yards or so away.

Being so solitary and the woods are often filled with strange noises, especially at night, this can be a spooky place to be at times, particularly at night when foxes scream searching for a mates while barn owls scream at nothing in particular. Both of these sound very much like human screams. Once when both were going on together, stepping out the back door was like listening to the screams from a not too distant torture chamber. Thankfully this doesn’t happen too often.

As you may also know, I am into ambience videos which run for hours on end and aim at setting a certain mood. There are some that set a happy or light mood or a fantasy mood like you might find in The Lord of the Rings or set in some idyllic medieval world or even on another planet. I like spooky ones or dark and mysterious one. There are a few that emulate the atmosphere of Blade Runner, which I have found recently and which I really enjoy.

I found this video today while searching for ones that set a “werewolf ambience” to play while I continue writing Lycanthrope.

Right now, it’s almost 5:00 p.m. and overcast and wet following a few days of rain. The temperature is near 60 (Fahrenheit). Twilight is coming soon. I stepped out the front door just now to check the outdoor temperature on our outdoor thermometer and I heard birds singing not too far off. There’s a slight wind blowing. Although gray and dreary, it’s rather pleasant.

If the wind picks up, as twilight encroaches, the atmosphere around my house (which is quite modern as opposed to the rundown one seen in this video) will be a lot like that in this video. I don’t hear the insects now as in this video, but they will come out as summer approaches. I hear owls like this often. There is an eerie, ghostly waver I hear in this that I don’t hear (of course) out here. Nonetheless, this video captures the spirit of what the woods around my house will be like in an hour or two. And it’s now February, not Halloween.

Enjoy.

Incredible Documentary of Lizard and Snakes

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I ran across this video on Twitter and just had to share it, though it has nothing to do with writing or literature. It would make a good story or even an Aesop’s fable. It has drama and is loaded with tension and suspense. Check it out.

 

girl wearing mask
Wear your mask.

Book Review by Ligeia Resurrected: Justine by the Marquis de Sade

the Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade in 1760, age 19.

Today is the birthday of Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade. In remembrance of that (for better or worse) I am posting a review of one of de Sade’s most famous works, Justine. The review is not for the faint of heart and comes with a few disclaimers and warnings. Seriously, the review is excellent, but it touches on some exceptionally cruel and obscene subjects. If you can’t handle the review, you by no means want to read the book. There is a reason sadism was named for the Marquis. If you want to know more about de Sade in addition to where the link above leads, there are some good videos about him on YouTube.

I am posting the video in case any of my followers has a burning curiosity about the Marquis or his works. I was in that situation last week, Now that my curiosity has been sated, I will continue to be interested in de Sade’s life story, but probably not in his works.

Though his works are generally not considered to be of the horror genre, they probably should be. De Sade’s works contain things that would nauseate Stephen King and Clive Barker as well.

Personally, I do not advise reading de Sade’s works. They are…”inhuman” seems to be the most apt term I can conjure up. Cruel and obscene seem inadequate in describing his works. Although you have probably heard the term sadistic many times, you probably will not conceive of its true spirit until you have read a few pages of Justine or of his other infamous work 120 Days of Sodom,

Once, a few years back, I picked up a copy of 120 Days of Sodom in a bookstore somewhere and read the first two to three pages out of curiosity. I read only two to three, because that was all I could stomach. I left it where I found it and will probably not pick up another of his works again. In fact, if I ever find out that someone I know is a fan of de Sade, I will probably not let him or her into my house ever again.

I have not read any of Justine. If you are mildly curious about it, there are a few YouTube videos on the movie (or two) that is based on it. You can actually find the trailer for it on YouTube.

When I was digging into the story of de Sade himself, I did find him to be a fascinating and tragic character. I would love to read a psychological study of him. He apparently had a lot of resentment toward his mother, who abandoned the family when he was quite young. That seems to be the reason the women in his works suffer such terrible fates, particularly if they are a mother. He seems to have been a man controlled by the mother (no pun intended) of all obsessions. Yet, in spite of blatant and cruel dalliances, there were women who loved him dearly though they knew of his numerous sordid affairs. Perhaps, he was their obsession. Perhaps not. I feel certain that anyone who had anything to do with de Sade for more than a few day would probably be an interesting psychological case in his/her own right.

I recommend that you read a biography of de Sade rather than one of his works. Maybe read a few pages of one of his works, so you get a (somewhat sickening) feel for them, but don’t force them upon yourself. Read only as much as you can tolerate, then put the book down, and never pick it up again.

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy the video.

Au revoir.

Book Review by Ligeia Resurrected: The Dark and the Disturbed by Guy de Maupassant

I recently discovered Ligeia Resurrected. Her focus is on all things Goth, but the majority of her videos seem to be on gothic literature and music, dress, make-up, and absinthe, naturally. I enjoy her book reviews and will start posting them here occasionally. I am considering having book reviews by myself or others at 8:00 p.m. on Fridays, but that is still in the concept stage. If I do them, they will probably be written as my video production skills are rudimentary at best. I may make videos of them later. I hope you enjoy this presentation.

The Saturday Night Special: The Animated “Dagon” by H.P. Lovecraft

I am trying something different for this Saturday, something that I hope will turn out to be quite enjoyable.

I linked this post to an animated version of Lovecraft’s “Dagon” on YouTube. I watch YouTube a lot and they have scads of interesting videos. If this works out, I will do this more often. Let me know what you think. To get the full effect, hit the “full screen” toggle in the lower right which looks like a box with a hole in each side. To exit this, hit your escape button. The video last 18 minutes and 55 seconds.

I apologize for any commercials. I am not certain if they will turn up when you view the film or not. Unfortunately, commercials are the sine qua non of YouTube and many other media.  But these will be either very short or you can skip them by pressing “skip ads” in the lower right after five seconds. I am sure you are used to this kind of annoying marketing. It’s a fact of 21st century life.