Slashers and Splatterpunks

by David Byron

  ***

  Slashers & Splatterpunks

  80's Horror Faves By Chuck Parello 1. Don't Answer the Phone

  This is one of my all-time favorite flicks of all time! Nicholas Worth is so cool as the giggling rapist killer with the nylon stocking pulled over his face, God me and my baked friends really idolized this performance. We used to watch this baby over and over again, which exploitatively echoed some of the most horrific aspects of Los Angeles's Hillside Strangler case, so imagine my joy some years ago when I laid eyes on Nicholas Worth as he got out of his car in a 7-11 parking lot in North Hollywood, CA! I went right up to him and couldn't stop gushing about this flick. I'll never forget his words back to me, "It was a piece of shit, but thank you anyway."

  2. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

  One would think that "Henry" would be my first choice as an 80's favorite, in that I crusaded to get this classic released into theaters when it was still sitting on a shelf with an "X" rating, and that I ended up directing "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 2." Although DATP wins my top spot in terms of sheer viewing pleasure, "Henry" still holds a place very close to my heart. I'll never forget seeing it for the first time, on VHS many years before it was ever finally released, and being riveted from start to finish. I immediately wrote director John McNaughton a gushing fan letter and eventually ended up working for him. I guess you can say that "Henry," the serial killer, changed my life. One of the many highlights of being involved with "Henry" included meeting Michael Rooker (aka Henry) and having him drive me around to some of the spots in Chicago that the movie was filmed, like Lower Wacker Drive where the good samaritan gets it--I swear life doesn't

  get much better than that! 3. Friday the 13th

  I ditched High School with my cousins and went to see this gem. I didn't think the film had anything on "Halloween," which it was trying to rip off, but I was moved to tears and laughter nonetheless. And as a horny teenager, I must say I drooled a little when I saw

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  some of those pseudo sexy camp counselors doing the nasty. Also, the sight of Jason's mother getting her head hacked off with a machete elicited a laugh out of me that was so loud that people out in the parking lot of the theater heard it. I also went to see every sequel and enjoyed them just as much.

  4. Children of the Corn

  This is one of the dumbest, but best movies of all time..."It is he who walks among the rows." I love it when Linda Hamilton does a dance for her husband in her robe. My only complaint is that I would've called it "Children of the Cornhole."

  5. Motel Hell

  "It's laughing gas, you do the inhaling and we do the laughing." Farmer Vincent and his fritter making kinfolk always made me hungry for more. And I loved the actress who played sister Ida

  Vincent, Nancy Parsons. I squealed with delight when she showed up in another one of my 80's favorites, "Porky's." 6 . Child's Play

  Since this film, and it's many sequels, came out I've been called Chucky a lot, which I find flattering. I just wish I had a pair of cool GOOD GUYS overalls. I took one acting class when I was in college and my old professor has a bit part in "Child's Play." This same professor looked me square in the face one time and told me, "All's I see about you is that you seem bored and perturbed by everything." The nerve! What do you think he meant by that?

  7. Cat People

  This one just sticks out in my head as a super hot flick to watch because of Nastassja Kinsky's ultra gorgeous face and tight body, God she was one hot piece! The movie itself was a strange Paul Schrader mind trip involving virginity, incest, panther mating rituals and New Orleans voodoo that was well worth taking.

  8. Bad Taste

  Peter Jackson's hilarious splatterfest about extraterrestrials who come to earth looking for meat has to be seen to be believed. The wild gross-out humor in this flick is still as potent as ever.

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  9. Dead Zone

  Why can't all Stephen King adaptations be directed by David Cronenberg and star Christopher Walken and Brooke Adams? This flick, about a man who wakes up out of a coma with amazing psychic abilities, sticks out in my head as something that was exciting, well acted and actually quite moving at times. A great job!

  10. A Nightmare on Elm Street

  I actually wanted to be Freddie Krueger after seeing this film, he was so awesome with his burnt face and hand made of claws. I can certainly understand why this creepy child murderer, with a wicked sense of humor, has become one of the all-time horror icons, he makes people laugh and he slaughters stupid bratty teenagers who well deserve everything he doles out.

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  Fiction Slashers & Splatterpunks

  Lisa Morton Her short fiction has been published in numerous books and magazines; recent appearances include The Dead That Walk, Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, The Living Dead, and Cemetery Dance magazine. Lisa won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction, and the 2008 Stoker Award for Nonfiction (for A Hallowe'en Anthology). Her first novella, The Lucid Dreaming, was released in 2009 by Bad Moon Books, and her first novel, The Castle of Los Angeles, was recently published by Gray Friar Press. She currently lives in North Hollywood, California, and can be found online at http://www.lisamorton.com .

  ***

  "The Death of Splatter" By Lisa Morton

  “Stumpfuckers?” Lee Denny looks up from his laptop, and has to stop himself from gaping: The woman who has stopped by his coffee shop table and is commenting on his book title isn‘t really beautiful, but with her dark crimson hair, lean curves and hint-ofhusk voice she‘s certainly striking. She glances from the paperback book beside the laptop and empty coffee cup, up to Lee‘s face. Lee manages a smile.

  ―It‘s a horror novel.‖ She picks it up, scanning the cover art which shows a penand-ink drawing of a leering hunchback in overalls, and Lee‘s name in a jagged font.

  ―You‘re reading this?‖

  ―I wrote it.‖

  She cocks her head and arches one eyebrow, then reads his

  name out loud.

  ―That‘s me.‖

  Her next statement surprises him. ―I‘d like to read it.‖

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  He‘s embarrassed to realize that he has simultaneously become hard (thankfully under the table) and has flushed, heat enveloping his face, making him stumble on his words. ―It‘s... uh... pretty rough stuff.‖

  She glances at the book one last time, then sets it down. ―Sounds good. I‘ll pick one up.‖

  He tears off a piece of slightly wadded paper napkin, pulls a pen from his laptop case and scribbles down a URL for her. ―You won‘t find it at your average chain bookstore, but you can buy it online direct from the publisher.‖

  She takes the bit of napkin and starts to turn to leave. ―Are you here a lot? At this coffee shop?‖

  ―Almost every day,‖ he acknowledges.

  ―Good. I‘ll let you know what I think when I‘ve read it.‖

  With that she turns and strides off. He watches her go, liking the way her boots clink authoritatively on the asphalt and cause each hip to ride up with her steps, one side to the other. She finally turns a corner and is gone without a look back.

  Just then a waitress appears and asks if she can get him anything else. He actually jumps slightly, startled, and from her smirk he‘s sure the waitress has seen his erection. He tells the waitress he‘s leaving now, waits a few moments until he can walk upright again, then packs up the laptop and the paperback novel after laying a few bills on the table.

  He‘s quite sure he won‘t be doing any more writing today.

  ### When Jed Kunkel came down out of the Ozarks, he was 24 years old, seven feet tall, 400 pounds and hungry for pussy.

  At first he hadn"t liked the smell of the city – it smelled like garbage and puke and death. But then he"d gone into a supermarket, and had been surrounded by female odors. Now he"d decided to stay in t
he city for a while.

  He got a job as a bouncer at a trendy nightclub. He knew the owners and other employees and patrons all made fun of “the hick”, but he didn"t care,

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  because the nightclub was one big fuck pen. Jed came up with that phrase one night while standing at the door, and was so pleased by it that he smiled for hours.

  The nightclub also made trolling easy. Up in the hills, back home, it"d been getting harder and harder to get women. Since the mines had closed, most folks had moved away; the few females left in the area who weren"t heavily guarded had long since fallen prey to Jed or some other predator.

  But here in the city, at the nightclub, pickings were easy. Jed started one night with a thirty-ish, very drunken woman who"d been thrown out alone at closing. She got in his truck with a giggle and burp. He hoped she wasn"t going to barf. He hated that.

  He drove her to the abandoned factory. He"d found it earlier that week, in a run-down industrial area. He"d located a side entrance where he could park his truck, unseen. He"d sawed through one padlock and was in; he"d set the place up with what he would need.

  By the time he arrived at the factory, the woman had passed out. That was fine with him; in fact, it was better. It made it easier to carry her in, strap her down on the table, carefully cut away her clothes...

  ...and then saw off her left leg just above the knee. While his nose went crazy with the delicious scents.

  ### Lee finishes out the week in a haze of anticipation mixed with a need to produce, to produce more words, more books. He finishes Slit Thing, the sequel to Stumpfuckers (although truthfully he‘d had the novel sitting on the coffee shop table by his laptop for bait as much as anything else, a ploy that had apparently worked), and begins a new one.

  And all the while, the girl is never far from his mind. He goes to the coffee shop earlier every day, and stays later (to the great irritation of the wait help, but his attitude is fuck ‗em). He glances up often, even though he‘s calculated a minimum of two weeks for her to get the book, read it and report to him. Still,

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  he thinks she might be a fast reader, and the book, after all, is not that long a read.

  She‘s suddenly standing at his table on day eight.

  She tosses down her own copy of Stumpfuckers, this one with a broken spine (so, Lee thinks, she‘s one of those readers). He waits for her to tell him that it was disgusting, that it was sick, that he"s sick.

  Instead she tells him it was amusing.

  ―Is that a compliment?‖ he asks.

  She shrugs. ―Good in parts, but too unrealistic.‖

  ―Unrealistic?‖

  She picks up the book again and thumbs through it. ―Like here, on page 36 – you have a man being stabbed through the chest by a dildo. Not possible.‖

  ―Are you sure?‖ he asks with a slight smile, trying to sound provocative, flirting.

  Her answer, without hesitation:

  ―Yes.‖

  He feels as if he‘s somehow losing an important game. He has no idea where to go now, so he falls back on a criticism that has been leveled at him by other women he‘s known (usually briefly): ―Did you think it was... uh... misogynistic?‖

  She‘s smiling now. ―Of course. So what?‖

  He‘s at a loss again, when she adds, ―I bought your other books, too. I‘ve already read most of the scifi one...‖

  ―Wire Mistress?‖

  ―Right.‖

  A long pause, which he finally breaks. ―Well?‖

  ―Stumpfuckers is better. I don‘t really like science fiction. And what‘s more is... I don‘t think you do, either.‖

  ―Well, uhhh... ―

  She glances around his table, where a half-empty coffee cup is the only sign of an order once placed. ―Do you ever stop writing long enough to eat?‖

  ―I really just like the coffee here –‖

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  She cuts him off: ―I didn‘t mean here.‖ God damn, he thinks, this woman is actually asking me out. ―Oh. Yes, I do that at least once a day, usually at night.‖

  She leans down over him, so close he can smell the musk of her shampoo. She types an address and a name onto the end of his document.

  ―Meet me there at eight.‖

  He glances at the address, and has no idea where it is, but nods vigorously. ―Okay. Yeah.‖

  She starts to turn to go, then catches herself. ―Oh, by the way – you misspelled ‗Arkansas‘.‖ Then she smirks and exits sidewalk right.

  He watches her for a while, then glances down at the name she‘s typed.

  Claudia.

  ### His head had never quite healed from the surgery to remove the prohibchip. Of course the operation had been done by a blarket doc, most of whom had probably never even heard of medical school; it had left him with a gaping scar above the right temple, and a large scabby patch where hair would probably never grow again.

  Of course the woman he"d had tonight hadn"t minded – especially not after he"d slapped the neuropatch on the back of her neck. It had worked just as the doc had promised, and the girl had dumbly followed him to the abandoned tech plant he"d already chosen. Once he"d had her wired to the old steel work bench, he"d removed the neuropatch so she was again aware. It made him even harder to watch her struggle, to hear her shrieks and gasps.

  After the first rape, he got hungry, so he put the neuropatch back on her. He reckoned he could have just finished killing her, but he thought he might come back for more later; after all, a man got hungry for more than just food.. In fact, maybe he"d start a collection, a whole room full of his fleshtoys. In the meantime, while he was gone it wouldn"t due to have anyone who happened to be wandering through this derelict part of the cityburb overhear screaming. So

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  he patched her again, just to be safe. He went through her pockets and found her creddisk, and decided to eat at something better than his usual noodle takeout.

  Tonight his wire mistress would provide for him, in so many ways.

  ### Lee returns to his basement, thinking about Claudia, thinking about himself. Thinking about the last date he had, two years ago, with a comic book store clerk. Her name had been Vicky; they‘d dated twice, then she‘d been busy and had stopped taking his calls. They‘d never even kissed; worst of all, he couldn‘t go to that store again.

  Lee thinks about the first time he‘d been laid, when a college roommate had set him up with the stripper at a party. Fifty bucks had gotten him fifteen minutes in a hotel linen closet. The stripper had been in her forties, with skin like a worn leather bookbinding and hair like dead leaves; at the time he hadn‘t minded – he‘d finished the instant he slid into her – but later the thought of her made him nauseous.

  Now there is Claudia, the first woman who has shown interest in him in a very long time. She doesn‘t seem to mind that he‘s slightly paunchy, with rumpled clothes, fraying at the cuffs; that his hair is, at 35, definitely receding. She likes him for his work. She‘s intrigued by him. That makes her sexy.

  Lee begins to imagine their relationship going further, and sees potential problems: He doesn‘t work, and usually has very little extra money. He lives in a friend‘s basement; although his friend wouldn‘t mind seeing Lee with a woman (in fact, he‘d probably kneel and shout for joy), there‘s the matter of Lee‘s pride. He doesn‘t even have a car.

  But maybe Claudia won‘t care about these things. Maybe she‘ll be so taken by him that she‘ll overlook these small shortcomings. Maybe she‘ll become his muse, exciting both his body and his mind. Maybe she‘ll think he‘s great in bed.

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  He changes into his best shirt and the heavy boots he bought in a garage sale; they‘re a size too big and usually give him blisters, but he likes the way they look, rugged, slightly menacing.

  He takes the bus to the address she‘s given him. It‘s not a great sect
ion of town; in fact, it looks like an urban war zone. He feels reluctance when the bus pulls away, stranding him in front of a grocery store with signs in a language he doesn‘t even recognize and rusted bars across the windows. He checks the directions he‘s printed out from the online map, and sees it‘s only three blocks or so... three blocks down a street where most of the streetlamps have been shot out, and the graffiti is in layers. Half a block ahead of him are two six-foot tall teenagers with net shirts and tattoos, watching him in amusement. He tries to keep his head down as he passes them, and drops his feet heavily with each step, emphasizing the sheer heft of his boots. They ignore him, but he can feel their eyes on his back, and he finds himself walking faster.

  At last he‘s at the address, which turns out to be a hole-inthe-wall Thai cafe. It can‘t have more than half a dozen tables inside, lit by bare bulbs overhead. In the back is a dusty altar, with food and drink set inside a red alcove. There‘s a dead fly in one window.

  Claudia‘s inside, waiting for him.

  He enters and takes a seat, smiling.

  ―You‘re late.‖

  He smiles a sheepish apology, and tries not to stare. Stare

  at her leather vest, small and formfitting, with nothing on beneath it. A middle-aged Asian man in a stained apron mutely hands him a menu. He takes it and glances down the single page that looks as if it was done on a typewriter sometime in the 70‘s. He snickers at the name ―Prik King‖. Claudia tells him it‘s the best thing here, if he doesn‘t mind spicy. He assures her he doesn‘t, even though he knows that he‘ll pay for that boast later in the night.

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  The meal is uneventful, with very little small talk exchanged. The food is adequate; Lee‘s not that familiar with Thai, and thinks it‘s all too spicy. He‘s pleased that she offers to pay for herself, since it saves either his wallet or his pathetic explanations. Afterwards, they exit, into the asphalt desolation. Lee asks her how she found this place, and she tells him she used to come to this neighborhood to buy crystal.