Hunter Shea Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Cemetery Dance Online

Your Dog Secretly Hates You — A Decade of Animal Revenge Flicks

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 14, 2020February 13, 2020Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, Video Visions2 Comments

You think climate change fear mongering is something new? Well, then you never watched a nature gone wild movie from that gloriously gritty decade, the ’70s. When we weren’t terrified that the Rooskies were going to strafe us with A-bombs, we were pretty damn sure the ozone layer would be gone any day and the end of the world was nigh. The ’70s is when we got woke that we were making a mess of the planet, and the ensuing guilt had to find an outlet, a way to make us pay for our wrongdoing. Or at least pretend to pay, just like Earth Day is when we pretend to be nice to the world. Continue Reading

Video Visions: Drilling Down into The Slumber Party Massacre

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 11, 2019September 1, 2019Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, The Slumber Party Massacre, Video VisionsLeave a comment

With the coming of my latest Flame Tree Press book, Slash, I’ve decided to spend the rest of the year exploring the slasher genre that was the backdrop of my youth. Nothing like transitioning from “coming-of-age” to “psychos murdering people in creative and sometimes amusing ways.” Continue Reading

Video Visions: Why Slashers?

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 12, 2019April 4, 2019Video VisionsA Nightmare on Elm Street, April Fool's Day, Black Christmas, Columns, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Hunter Shea, Last House on the Left, Psycho, The Burning, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Video VisionsLeave a comment

Any horror fan who grew their first pubic hairs during the golden age of the genre in the ’80s has a special place in their cold, dead hearts for slasher movies. How could we not? We were surrounded by game changing flicks like Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (a VHS darling in my neck of the woods), and A Nightmare on Elm Street. And then there were the likes of Maniac, The Burning, Madman, My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night and so many others, good and very, very bad. It seemed like every month there was a new villain hacking his way through scores of pot smoking, beer swilling, hormone raging teens and twenty-somethings. Continue Reading

Video Visions: Embrace of the Holidays

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 21, 2018December 20, 2018Video VisionsAlyssa Milano, Columns, Embrace of the Vampire, Hunter Shea, Nosferatu, The Nosferatu Diaries, Video VisionsLeave a comment

This will be my sixth Christmas without my father. I miss the son of a bitch something fierce, but the hurt always gets a little more tender during the holidays.

What gives me comfort, especially at night after a long day, is the video shelf of movies he bought for me every Christmas. He was a huge movie buff and liked to pick out offbeat “classics” he knew I would enjoy like The Rounders or Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. He would spend the year curating special movies for the family, but I don’t think anyone enjoyed his staff picks as much as I did. Continue Reading

Video Visions: Horrortober Essentials

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 19, 2018October 13, 2018Video VisionsColumns, Halloween, Hunter Shea, Movies, October, Video Visions1 Comment

About six years ago, as my partner Jack and I were waxing poetic about the Halloween season on our Monster Men podcast, I started calling the 31 days of spookiness Terrortober. For some reason, midway through the month, I changed it to Horrortober and it stuck. Now I’m not saying I was the first, but I don’t remember anyone else calling it that back then. Okay, maybe I am saying I was the first.Continue Reading

Video Visions: I, Robot Lover

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 17, 2018August 12, 2018Video VisionsColumns, Forbidden Planet, Hunter Shea, Lost in Space, robots, ROM, Saturn 3, Silent Running, Star Wars, The Black Hole, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Video Visions1 Comment

I grew up obsessed with robots. How I haven’t run off with a replicant is a mystery to me.

When I was a wee lad, there was a particular show I watched with my mother every single day that sparked my infatuation with, as the show’s evil/comedic doctor would call them, “ferrous Frankenstein fiends in tin clothing.” That show was Lost In Space — the original from the ’60s, not the okay reboot on Netflix. Continue Reading

Review: Creature by Hunter Shea

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 13, 2018August 12, 2018Reviews- Frank Michaels Errington, Creature, Flame Tree Press, Hunter Shea, ReviewsLeave a comment

Creature by Hunter Shea
Flame Tree Press (September 6, 2018)
282 pages; $24.95 paperback; $14.95 paperback
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Yes, I consider myself a Hellion. That’s how Hunter Shea refers to his most ardent followers. I can’t say I’ve read every one of his books (he’s remarkably prolific), but I’ve yet to read one I didn’t care for.

Creature is the second book I’ve read from new publisher Flame Tree Press, who looks to publish both established authors and new voices in horror and the supernatural, crime and mystery thrillers, as well as science fiction and fantasy. It’s also a bit of a diversion for Hunter. It’s easily his most personal work to date. Sure, there’s a monster, that’s evident from the title, but this book is so much more.Continue Reading

Video Visions: There’s Spaghetti Sauce in My VCR—Why I Don’t Love Italian Horror

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 11, 2018May 6, 2018Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, Video Visions2 Comments

I’m going to be brutally honest here and you may try to take my horror club card away, but here goes.

I’m not a fan of Italian horror. I mean, at all. I am a fan of Italian women, so much so that I married one. But I digress. I know that people wax poetic over the artistry of Argento and the trippy avant garde mastery of Fulci, but at best, their movies leave me scratching my head. Or dead asleep. I tend to sleep a lot when I watch Italian horror. And this from a guy who can stay awake through The Haunting of Whaley House (as bland and uneventful as the actual Whaley House tour) and The Darkness (even Kevin Bacon can’t win them all). Continue Reading

Video Visions: I Killed the Video Store

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 9, 2018February 25, 2018Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, netflix, Video Visions3 Comments

As an early adopter of Netflix, I take full responsibility for my part in the demise of the neighborhood video store. Little did I know that my yearning to get a new DVD each week for a low monthly fee (my first Netflix rental being 1978’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers) would seal their doom. To be honest, I thought they would complement one another. There were just so many titles the little shop near me could handle. Netflix would simply fill in the gaps. And let’s not forget the biggest draw of Netflix back then—no late fees!

Ah, hindsight is always 20/20. Continue Reading

Michael Myers Death Mask

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 27, 2017October 19, 2017Video VisionsColumns, Halloween, Hunter Shea, John Carpenter, Michael Myers, Video Visions4 Comments

I was ten years old when Halloween hit theaters. My friends and I trudged the three blocks to the Kent Theater on an October Saturday afternoon and had our tiny minds blown. The good thing about 1978 was no one cared who went in to see a movie, even if it was four ten-year old boys. Continue Reading

George Romero Can Never Die

Cemetery Dance OnlineSeptember 1, 2017August 27, 2017Video VisionsColumns, George Romero, Hunter Shea, Video VisionsLeave a comment

Ever since I heard of the late, great George Romero’s passing, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much he influenced my life. Thanks to Dawn of the Dead, my first foray into Romero’s visionary work, I went from a normal kid who collected baseball cards to one who studied every mall, shop and house, figuring out how to fortify it against zombie hordes. Instead of daydreaming about Karen Marone letting me hold her hand after school, I fantasized about commandeering the sporting goods store, blowing zombie heads into tomato juice and eating Spam every night (because…well, it’s got its own key).Continue Reading

Where Have all the Freak Shows Gone?

Cemetery Dance OnlineJuly 28, 2017July 24, 2017Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, The Funhouse, Video Visions1 Comment

Growing up, humid days and warm nights meant the Westchester County Fair was rolling into town. The fair took over Yonkers Raceway for a couple of weeks, a real hoedown for us city folk. Along with shaky, suspect rides, there were carnival games, artery clogging fried foods, livestock shows, performing monkeys, a demolition derby and my favorite, the freak show. Continue Reading

Witchboard of the Dead

Cemetery Dance OnlineJune 23, 2017June 20, 2017Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, Tawny Kitaen, Video Visions, WitchboardLeave a comment

Tawny Kitaen is completely to blame for my messing with dead people.

In lieu of today’s penchant to never take personal responsibility, I’m quite comfortable laying all of this at Tawny’s lovely feet. Mind you, I’ve never met the woman. However, I feel as if she’s an old friend with wild and wonderful scarlet hair thanks to Bachelor Party, writhing on the hood of a car in Whitesnake’s video for “Here I Go Again,” and last but not least, 1986’s Ouija horror film, Witchboard.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Savage Jungle’ by Hunter Shea

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 16, 2017May 14, 2017Reviews- Frank Michaels Errington, Hunter Shea, Reviews, Savage Jungle, Severed PressLeave a comment

Savage Jungle by Hunter Shea
Severed Press (April 2017)
198 pages; $11.95 paperback; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Fresh from their adventure in Scotland, Natalie McQueen and her brother Austin are called upon to aid Henrik Kooper in his quest to find the lost city Gadang Ur and the elusive Orang Pendek. Go ahead and Google it. You’ll find it’s every bit as much of a thing as Bigfoot, Yeti, The Jersey Devil, and The Loch Ness Monster—all cryptids Hunter Shea has written about in previous books. As a matter of fact, Savage Jungle is a sequel to his book Loch Ness Revenge.Continue Reading

Cutting Class for a Higher Education

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 12, 2017Video VisionsColumns, Hunter Shea, Video Visions7 Comments

Here’s a little public service announcement that you’ll never get on TV.

Nothing helped foster my career as a horror writer more than cutting entire days of class when I was in college. Not only that, it also provided the foundation of my marriage.

Now there’s a one-two punch I never would have gotten from another psych or communications class. Continue Reading

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