Film Review, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf-Man

I can smile about it now but it wasn’t the sleep of angels that my thirteen-year old self was sleeping, in my recently-departed grand-uncle’s bed, in my granny’s house that nestled cheek-by-jowl against Newry’s RUC barracks, in the early years of ‘The Troubles’, after just watching Lon Chaney’s Jr. in ‘The Wolf Man’. The prolonged electrical storm didn’t help matters, either, nor did the bomb that went off a stone’s throw away, sometime during that storm/nightmare-interrupted sleep. (although of course I didn’t learn about that until I was awake but not feeling entirely refreshed, the following day.) Of course now I can look back on it fondly, and of my gran’s house and street later resembling an under-siege Warsaw ghetto, in the darkest days of World War II. (Of course she survived to tell a few tales and to torment my father when she later came to stay with us for a few months, – “too long”, my father would probably have confided to me, when both my mother and gran were out of earshot - until she got fixed up in her new, safer home – a few stone throws away from her former home, and well out of harm’s way. But she had the last laugh, outliving him by a few months.) Not that all that is particularly relevant to a review of ‘Frankenstein Meets The Wolf-Man’, but I thought it appropriate since the latter proved to be far more enjoyable than I could really have expected it to be and because – crucially – Lon Chaney Jr. (and, crucially, his makeup man) didn’t disappoint either those memories or my critical faculties. I’d been looking forward to it to see how well Bela Lugosi fit ‘Frankenstein’ (played by his “limey cock-sucker” rival in the original, of course!), but he was a massive disappointment: no competition for either Karloff’s interpretation or, here, Chaney. He didn’t say much apart from the occasional grunt so it would’ve been a doddle for Martin Landau (of whom, more anon.) I’d been expecting a creaky plot with cheapo-cheapo special effects and risible dialogue but in the latter case at least I was to be disappointed: the dialogue might have even been more literate than the original and certainly compared well with the ‘Bride’ Masterpiece. Of course the dam and castle were obvious models but then didn’t Hitch and Melville and other greats deploy models to similar great effect? It boasted quite an impressive cast-list besides the two icons: Lionel Atwill; Patric(k) Knowles (star of Robin Hood and ‘The Big Steal’, to name but two faves) and beautiful Teutonic (albeit a Lugosi compatriot) ice-maiden, Ilona Massey. Lon, of course, shone brightest for me (his Dad would have been proud of him, although he might have been pissed at the Jr. being dropped from his son’s name in the credits, if he deduced the inference that Hollywood had forgotten him.) Lon was the star but the actor who played the village innkeeper almost stole it from him; he was a grumpy, combative bollocks who hadn’t a good word to say to or about anybody who was in anyway connected to the late and unlamented Baron Frankenstein. Of course it was only fitting that he should light the fuse which exploded the dam, which released the torrent of water which washed away Castle Frankenstein and all who sailed in her. (Of course, given that Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man had risen from the dead at the beginning of this one, it’s not unreasonable to assume that both he and the Monster were reborn, to grace at least one more sequel and offshoot.) Not so much as a guilty pleasure as a most pleasant surprise; I’ll watch it again soon, and I’ll check out other unfamiliars in my too-long-neglected ‘Monsters of Horror’ set. Better than Netflix, anyday!

The Sniper

My third novel, but it will be the first I will progress beyond the first draft stage.
Although 'The Sniper' is its proverbial 'working title', I can see that I'd like to retain it as the title, even though the only true sniper in the novel has only a line of dialogue, and that reported as having been spoken by him.

But his actions , if not quite critical, have a significant bearing on actions on a number of the novel's key characters.

I intend to write more frequent blog posts in the coming months detailing my progress: I'm targeting the end of April for its completion
(I'll also be writing a radio play for submission to RTE's PJ O'Connor radio drama competition, so I won't be focussed solely on the novel)

I'll be starting my review/revision work on this coming Monday, January 23rd.

I Love The Night, latest

I haven't done anything further with this first draft, as I've since written two original novels, although each only to first draft.

First draft, for me, will probably always be: complete what I expect will be the essence of the novel, without using either a spellchecker or thesaurus, but just basically getting the main elements, plot, scenes, characters, ...yadda, yadda, yadda,.... down on paper, so that I will then have something to work on

Short Story Competition

Submitted my (first) entry to the annual Francis McManus short story competition today
(deadline day).
I called it 'A Desert Mystery', although its actually more horror, than mystery story.
Its got a nice little twist in the tail which I don't believe anybody would see coming from halfway into the story.

I'm quite pleased with it although I was very surprised the amount of revising I had to do, particularly after now having written three novels, admittedly each only to first draft stage; a radio play, and another short story competition entry (Dublin City library competition).
Part of the reason for this was the nature of the story which required me to blend two completely different tones, and styles of writing.
Also I completely changed the starting-off point for the story after discovering I had so much more story that I needed to tell, when I'd already neared half-way on the original draft.

Although I may yet find out to the contrary when I'm working on reviewing/revising 'The Sniper', I think you can be that much looser in your language with a novel, - particularly a genre novel, - than you need to be with a short story
Even a genre story

First Draft Completed

I've just finished the first draft.

It clocks in at just over 33,000 words which apparently in industry terms is more usually termed a 'novella', or at best a 'short novel', but I deliberately wanted to strip things down and keep things fast-paced, as befits the story.

Although I haven't yet re-read it, or even spell-checked it, I'm very pleased with how I was able to change it substantially from the original, including making changes 'on the fly', yet still arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, which wraps things up very neatly.
The ending might not be a total surprise, but it is decidedly different from the original, and is nice and abrupt.
In any event, where surprise endings are concerned, one always has to be sure that it could have been flagged at some stage during the preceding narrative, as 'deus ex machinas' are a big no-no, if a novel is to have any credibility.

I'll be sending this first draft to a friend and crime fiction fan to see what she thinks as to how it stands up, and reads.
At this stage the narrative is probably a bit rough and ready but I'm happy with the dialogue, pacing, and characterisations, so the main issues to be addressed are possibly fleshing out some scenes, and fine-tuning some of the narrative, and possibly also tweaking some of the pacing

The Green Router

This is probably going to be the point where all my planning can be seen to have gone out the window, other than as a memorandum of the characters and plot line of the original to ensure I don't lose sight of what the story was about.
I've already decided that the reader should know at this point that they'll never see Luke alive again, but thats partly because I want to set a bookmark for when Hans felt guilty about his treatment of Luke.
But the variations from the original will be coming thick and fast, now, and I'm also finding a number of uses for a major new character I introduced, Hans' old cop buddy, Ed Doran, who'll help me get around a number of problems I had with the original.

Unless I either need to do a major rethink if I've allowed the plot to run away with things, for the foreseeable future I'll be planning 'on the fly', according to scene dictates, although I'll be making sure that the characters are true to themselves

Decisions, Decisions

I've already decided to inform the reader in advance of the last time Hans was to see Luke alive. In the original his death was a shock, but not completely so, given Hans' restless sleep.
I'm considering the various ways that Luke's body could be discovered, and the consequences for Hans.
And also, then, how to introduce the Assistant DA into the story, if I stray too much from the original plot