Mark Sieber Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Cemetery Dance Online

Horror Drive-In: Scaaaa-REEM!

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 4, 2022January 30, 2022Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark Sieber, ScreamLeave a comment

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I am the perfect age to be a slasher fan. Halloween was released when I was seventeen years old — roughly the same age as the victims in John Carpenter’s masterpiece. I saw it in a walk-in theater and the experience was truly transformational. I was on the verge of adulthood and this movie, which was based on an oft-told urban legend, felt like the beginning of something entirely new.

Halloween was a runaway success and along with the inevitable sequel, imitator movies were quickly made and released. The biggest of them is, of course, Friday the 13th. I was eighteen years old.Continue Reading

Revisiting T.E.D. Klein, The Ceremonies, and Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone Magazine

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 30, 2021December 19, 2021Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark Sieber, Rod Serling, T.E.D. Klein, The Ceremonies, Twilight Zone, Twilight Zone Magazine1 Comment

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I like to read something special for a holiday. In 2020, deep in the pandemic, I spent a long week whiling over The Cider House Rules, a novel I read and absolutely loved when it first came out. I was considering what to read this year, when it occurred to me that I had not read T.E.D. Klein’s The Ceremonies since it was originally published. That was quite a few moons ago, and my memories about it were vague. The Ceremonies is a book that requires attention and a little patience, so a week off is the perfect time to indulge in it.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: The Doll Who Ate His Mother by Ramsey Campbell

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 3, 2021November 21, 2021Dead TreesColumns, Dead Trees, Mark Sieber, Ramsey Campbell, The Doll Who Ate His MotherLeave a comment

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Who is the best living horror writer?

The obvious, and most popular answer, is of course Stephen King. I almost agree, but King has done too many different types of fiction to be stigmatized as merely a horror writer. A lot of it can even be construed as science fiction. Especially when one considers how psi talents were an SF staple for years and years.

Despite my love of his work my answer is not Stephen King. I’d have to go with the inimitable Ramsey Campbell.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: The Fates by Thomas Tessier

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 29, 2021October 24, 2021Dead TreesColumns, Dead Trees, Mark Sieber, The Fates, Thomas TessierLeave a comment

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I read all kinds of fiction. Horror new and old, classic science fiction, modern domestic suspense, mainstream, whatever suits my fancy. There’s a special place in my heart of hearts for small town horror. The good stuff from the late seventies and early eighties. Charles L. Grant and his Oxrun Station stories come most immediately to mind. There’s Rick Hautala’s Maine. Matthew J. Costello and his early paperbacks. Peter Straub and the Chowder Society. Alan Ryan, Lisa Tuttle, Chet Williamson, A.R. Morlan, Al Sarrantonio, and T.M. Wright all set stories in cozy small towns. Let’s not forget Mr. King and his Castle Rock fiction.Continue Reading

We Thought We’d Always Have the Drive-In

Cemetery Dance OnlineSeptember 3, 2021August 29, 2021Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark SieberLeave a comment

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If you had asked me if I knew that life was constant change, and that none of the things I loved would last forever, I’d have surely shrugged and said, Sure, everyone knows that. But when you get right down here, where it counts, I believed it all was permanent.Continue Reading

Horror Drive-In: Reflections of a Sixty-Year-Old Horror Fan

Cemetery Dance OnlineJune 25, 2021June 7, 2021Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark SieberLeave a comment

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We all have our number of days in this world. Stick around long enough and you become the old guy. I certainly miss being young, but I could not be happier about the time of my life in the horror genre.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Old Fears by John Wooley and Ron Wolfe

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 21, 2021May 20, 2021Dead TreesColumns, Dead Trees, John Wooley, Mark Sieber, Old Fears, Ron WolfeLeave a comment

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I like a lot of new horror fiction. I just recently read one of the best, if not the best, novel in years: The Last House on Needless Street.

I never want to stop reading current writers, but I spend a lot of time back in my roots. I’m talking about the early 1980s. Post Stephen King, but pre-Splatterpunk. A time of small towns, ancient evil, diabolical children, delightfully garish paperback covers, and bookstores everywhere that still had horror sections.

It didn’t take a lot to please me. I trusted blurbs from other writers! That alone shows how different a time it was.Continue Reading

Horror Drive-In: To Vomit or Not to Vomit

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 19, 2021March 18, 2021Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark SieberLeave a comment

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I’m a member of the Books of Horror Facebook page. They are mostly a good crowd of modern readers, but I have been feeling alienated. Out of touch with the new trends. There is so much talk of grossout fiction. People crave disgusting, perverted, vomit-inducing horror stories.

I’m not pointing fingers. How can I?Continue Reading

15 Years of Horror Drive-In

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 20, 2021January 18, 2021Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark SieberLeave a comment

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It was early 2006. Before Instagram. Before Goodreads. Horror fiction fandom was a very different thing than it is today. I had been heavily involved in message board moderation, and extraordinarily successful at it, but I wanted something more.Continue Reading

Horror Drive-In: Preserve Our Heritage: Collect Physical Media!

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 8, 2021January 4, 2021Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark SieberLeave a comment

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photo of a stack of vhs tapes I have a bad habit of thinking that the things I love will always be there. Like drive-in theaters. We had three of them in my hometown. I went as much as I could, but I thought they were forever. I should have been out there every damned weekend.

It seemed that the cool bookstores would always be there. I had no idea Amazon and their Kindle would tear the guts out of our communities.

It wasn’t that long ago when I used to see great old VHS tapes at the thrift stores. I’ve been buying a lot of genre stuff up as interest in them has risen. Mostly I find later things from the latter half of the ’90s and first half of the 2000 decade.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Peter Straub’s The Hellfire Club

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 2, 2020September 27, 2020Dead TreesColumns, Dead Trees, Mark Sieber, Peter Straub, The Hellfire ClubLeave a comment

No one — no one — has ever done it better than Peter Straub. I admit that some of his work leaves me a little bit cold, but when Straub is on, he is on.

Not everyone agrees. I’ve heard a lot of people say they can’t read Peter Straub, or that he simply isn’t for them. The thing about his writing is, it takes effort. Most worthwhile things do require determination and patience, but the effort pays off. He isn’t an easy writer, but the rewards are well worth the investment.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Dead Lines by John Skipp and Craig Spector

Cemetery Dance OnlineJuly 31, 2020July 22, 2020Dead TreesColumns, Craig Spector, Dead Lines, Dead Trees, John Skipp, Mark SieberLeave a comment

I first heard of and begin reading fiction from John Skipp and Craig Spector in the mid-1980s. That era is still my favorite period of the horror genre. Thanks to Stephen King, horror had been doing pretty big business, but by 1986 things were really getting wild. For most people it all started with Skipp and Spector’s The Light at the End, a new kind of horror novel, and a vampire story for a hip young readership.

The Light at the End was a radical departure from the horror fiction that came before it. Skipp and Spector’s characters were people I knew. People I partied with. There was influence from classic horror, to be sure, but these were people who listened to punk and metal. They were weaned on midnight movies, Frank Zappa, William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Joe Bob Goes to the Bookstore

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 8, 2020May 6, 2020Dead TreesColumns, Dead Trees, Joe Bob Briggs, Mark SieberLeave a comment

I first saw Joe Bob Briggs when he was on The Movie Channel. This was in 1986, before he even had his own weekly show on the network. My initial impression was something like, “Who is this chicken-fried cornball?” I was not much of a fan of redneck humor.

I didn’t give JBB a chance until I stayed up late one Friday to watch David Cronenberg’s The Brood. It was on The Movie Channel, and at first I was disappointed to see that hillbilly hayseed doing an introduction. I watched, not wishing to miss the opening credits of The Brood. I was taken aback when Joe Bob said some fairly astute things about David Cronenberg. He obviously wasn’t another braindead movie host going through the paces.Continue Reading

Horror Drive-In: A Loving Look at The Monster Squad

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 20, 2020March 15, 2020Horror Drive-InColumns, Horror Drive-In, Mark Sieber, The Monster SquadLeave a comment

I look back at the nineteen-eighties, which some consider the Golden Age of Horror. I was a rabid fan at the time and I continue to be one. There were milestones in the genre in this renowned era, especially, I’d say, from 1984 to 1988.

Stephen King’s It certainly qualifies. Clive Barker’s The Books of Blood brought a baroque aesthetic to horror fiction. John Skipp and Craig Spector’s The Light at the End ushered in a new breed of horror and a new breed of fan. Robert McCammon’s Swan Song would make the list.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Nightmare Seasons by Charles L. Grant

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 17, 2020January 5, 2020Dead TreesCharles L. Grant, Columns, Dead Trees, Mark Sieber, Nightmare Seasons1 Comment

2020. As I write this, the new year and new decade are seven hours away. I think back to the years and years I have spent as a horror reader, and I am reflecting on the one moment when it all crystallized and became embedded into my soul.

I’d have to say the year was 1984. Thirty-six long years ago. Years that brought joy beyond belief, heartbreak, laughs, fun, agony, laughs, tears. All of this and lots more.Continue Reading

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