The Cutting Room (Ellen Datlow 2014)

[pbsplatter]

Dem is right, it’s a shame that there was never a Silver Scream II, but this is another film anthology I picked up years ago and never actually read. It cherry picks a few stories from Silver Scream and elsewhere, and then a bunch of it is more recent. The Hanged Man of Oz is a personal favorite.

The Cutter • (1988) • short story by Edward Bryant
The Hanged Man of Oz • (2003) • short story by Steve Nagy
Deadspace • (1985) • novelette by Dennis Etchison
Cuts • (1988) • novelette by F. Paul Wilson
Final Girl Theory • (2011) • short story by A. C. Wise
Lapland, or Film Noir • (2004) • short story by Peter Straub
The Thousand Cuts • (1982) • short story by Ian Watson
Occam's Ducks • (1995) • short story by Howard Waldrop
Dead Image • (1985) • novelette by David Morrell
The Constantinople Archives • (2012) • short story by Robert Shearman
each thing i show you is a piece of my death • (2009) • novelette by Stephen J. Barringer and Gemma Files
Cinder Images • (2012) • short story by Gary McMahon
The Pied Piper of Hammersmith • (2004) • short story by Nicholas Royle
Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of 'Fitzcarraldo' • (1989) • short story by Garry Kilworth
Onlookers • (2007) • novelette by Gary A. Braunbeck
Recreation • (2011) • poem by Lucy A. Snyder
Bright Lights, Big Zombie • (1992) • novelette by Douglas E. Winter
She Drives the Men to Crimes of Passion! • (2011) • short story by Genevieve Valentine
Even the Pawn • (2012) • short story by Joel Lane
Tenderizer • (2014) • short story by Stephen Graham Jones
Ardor • (2013) • novelette by Laird Barron
Final Girl II: The Frame • (2003) • poem by Daphne Gottlieb
Illimitable Dominion • (2009) • novelette by Kim Newman (variant of Illimitable Domain)

[dem bones]

Ah, thanks. Just found a pre-loved copy on Am*z*n for £2 which will do for me. Also from the early tens, if you've not already had the pleasure, Eric Miller edited two volumes of Hell Comes To Hollywood (vol 2 includes a second story re. the 'hanged munchkin' of Oz).

[pbsplatter]

I saw the thread on the Hell Comes to Hollywood volumes; it looked like a worthy spiritual successor to Silver Scream.

I think Datlow has a more recent Hollywood horror anthology out, but it's solely new material. And I have mixed feelings on Datlow at the moment after being burned by her Year's Best Horror collections, although not sure if that's her fault or the state of the genre? Too many of those stories that are just too obscure for me. 

[dem bones]

Jan 11, 2023 14:40:53 GMT pbsplatter said:

I think Datlow has a more recent Hollywood horror anthology out, but it's solely new material. And I have mixed feelings on Datlow at the moment after being burned by her Year's Best Horror collections, although not sure if that's her fault or the state of the genre? Too many of those stories that are just too obscure for me. 

I've given her stuff the widest berth since A Wh**sp*r of Blood, for me the epitome of up-itself 'nineties DFF (God knows, there was plenty to choose from). Only fancied this one on the off chance of some film-crew-in-peril and slimy fan action; and to be fair, those stories familiar from earlier anthologies - The Hanged Man of Oz, Dead Image, The Cutter, Cuts - are class.

Ellen Datlow [ed.] - The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen (Tachyon, 2015)

Cover design Josh Beatman

Geneive Valentine - Introduction
Ellen Datlow - Preface

Edward Bryant - The Cutter
Steve Nagy - The Hanged Man of Oz
Dennis Etchison - Deadspace
F. Paul Wilson - Cuts
A. C. Wise - Final Girl Theory
Peter Straub - Lapland, or Film Noir
Ian Watson - The Thousand Cuts
Howard Waldrop - Occam's Ducks
David Morrell - Dead Image
Robert Shearman - The Constantinople Archives
Stephen J. Barringer & Gemma Files - each thing i show you is a piece of my death
Gary McMahon - Cinder Images
Nicholas Royle - The Pied Piper of Hammersmith
Garry Kilworth - Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of 'Fitzcarraldo'
Gary A. Braunbeck - Onlookers
Lucy A. Snyder - Recreation (verse)
Douglas E. Winter - Bright Lights, Big Zombie
Geneive Valentine - She Drives the Men to Crimes of Passion!
Joel Lane - Even the Pawn
Stephen Graham Jones - Tenderizer
Laird Barron - Ardor
Daphne Gottlieb - Final Girl II: The Frame (verse)
Kim Newman - Illimitable Dominion

Blurb:
FIRE UP THE PROJECTOR. IT'S TIME FOR YOUR FINAL FEATURE.

The credits have rolled, but the lights are still off. Something is lurking on the other side of the screen. There are dark secrets, starving monsters, and haunted survivors who refuse to be left on the cutting room floor. But that's okay, right? After all, everybody loves the movies....

Here are twenty-three terrifying tales, dark reflections of the silver screen from both sides of the camera. James Dean gets a second chance at life — and death. The Wicked Witch is out of Oz, and she's made some very unlucky friends. When God decides reality needs an editor, what — and who — gets cut? These award-winning, best-selling authors will take you to the darkest depths of the theater and beyond.

Kim Newman - Illimitable Dominion: (Ellen Datlow [ed.], Poe: 19 New Stories of Suspense, Dark Fantasy, and Horror Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, 2009). Talent Agent Walter Paisley's increasingly desperate efforts to find movie work for star client, Boomba the Chimp, inadvertently triggers Roger Corman's early 'sixties Poe cycle. The author takes such offence at the end product as to relinquish his grave to let loose the Red Death.

A. C. Wise - Final Girl Theory: (ChiZine #48, Apr-June 2011). Jackson Mortar lives to obsess over every frozen frame (but especially the opening sequence) of 'sixties cult torture porn movie, Kaleidoscope. He is far from alone in this; Kaleidophiles across the globe argue themselves gaga over whether the murders shown on screen are for real. One blessed day, Mortar recognises the actress who played the final girl, his all-time #1 wank muse, Carrie Linden, drop in at the chemist. It would be rude not to stalk her home.

David Morrell - Dead Image: (Charles L. Grant - Night Visions: Dead Image, 1987). Has dead-too-soon 'fifties teen idol, James Deacon returned from the grave? Motor sickle horror, rebel without a pulse, etc.

Stephen Graham Jones - Tenderizer: Writer/ director Sean Mickles meticulously crafts an all-conquering hype campaign for his work in progress, a violence-free film examining certain aspects of the Woodrow School Massacre.

Geneive Valentine - She Drives the Men to Crimes of Passion!: (Ekaterina Sedia [ed.], Bewere the Night, 2011). A Capital studio's talent scout hits the jackpot with his latest discovery. 'Exotic Eva' Loba is an instant screen goddess, not that she seems the least surprised. And what's with that Aztec pendant she wears at her throat?

[dem bones]

"Maimi is gone, carpet-bombed back into swampland ...."

Douglas E. Winter - Bright Lights, Big Zombie: (John Skipp & Craig Spector [eds.], Still Dead, 1992). "Ahead is a checkpoint and you brush your pockets, trying to remember if you're holding .... A copy of Fulci's Zombie in your coat could get you six months, maybe a year with the right judge; don't even think about the contents of your apartment."

As the authorities struggle to keep order in the wake of a zombie apocalypse, emergency legislation is passed to ban all but the tamest horror films and materials related to same. This is particularly mortifying for our protagonist, the longest serving writer on a splatter magazine, whose erotic fantasies are haunted by the intestine-chewing ghost of his fiancée, one among mass casualties on Black Wednesday. As the need for a cannibal torture porn fix kicks in, he hooks up with a gal of similar tastes and a stash of contraband. Elaine and her fellow outlaws reckons the time has come to shoot a live-action Ruggero Deodato rip-off on the streets. It's not like they'll have to hire extras.

Companion piece to Less than Zombie in Skipp & Spector's Book of the Dead. On that occasion, it's a vacuous yuppie element among then unspeakably trendy Goth-industrial scene who are on receiving end.

Daphne Gottlieb - Final Girl II: The Frame: (Final Girl, 2003). A poem. Sound survival tips for the last girl standing in a slasher film.

Lucy A. Snyder - Recreation: (Christopher Conlon [ed.], A Sea of Alone; Poems for Alfred Hitchcock, 2011). Evidently, the partner wants her to star in a recreation of infamous scene from a certain movie. Maybe she could adapt the script to her own advantage.

Nicholas Royle - The Pied Piper of Hammersmith: (Time Out, Oct. 1997). Christ knows. Gist seems to be that bloke who endured lousy childhood herds blind folk into last carriage of tube train to film their murders for home snuff movie? I think the plan is to kill them as the train passes estranged father's flat.

Not really my thing. Doesn't matter. Can't like everything.

[pbsplatter]

Jan 22, 2023 12:12:57 GMT dem bones said:

"Maimi is gone, carpet-bombed back into swampland ...."

Douglas E. Winter - Bright Lights, Big Zombie: (John Skipp & Craig Spector [eds.], Still Dead, 1992). "Ahead is a checkpoint and you brush your pockets, trying to remember if you're holding .... A copy of Fulci's Zombie in your coat could get you six months, maybe a year with the right judge; don't even think about the contents of your apartment."

As the authorities struggle to keep order in the wake of a zombie apocalypse, emergency legislation is passed to ban all but the tamest horror films and materials related to same. This is particularly mortifying for our protagonist, the longest serving writer on a splatter magazine, whose erotic fantasies are haunted by the intestine-chewing ghost of his fiancée, one among mass casualties on Black Wednesday. As the need for a cannibal torture porn fix kicks in, he hooks up with a gal of similar tastes and a stash of contraband. Elaine and her fellow outlaws reckons the time has come to shoot a live-action Ruggero Deodato rip-off on the streets. It's not like they'll have to hire extras.

Companion piece to Less than Zombie in Skipp & Spector's Book of the Dead. On that occasion, it's a vacuous yuppie element among then unspeakably trendy Goth-industrial scene who are on receiving end.

Daphne Gottlieb - Final Girl II: The Frame: (Final Girl, 2003). A poem. Sound survival tips for the last girl standing in a slasher film.

Lucy A. Snyder - Recreation: (Christopher Conlon [ed.], A Sea of Alone; Poems for Alfred Hitchcock, 2011). Evidently, the partner wants her to star in a recreation of infamous scene from a certain movie. Maybe she could adapt the script to her own advantage.

Nicholas Royle - The Pied Piper of Hammersmith: (Time Out, Oct. 1997). Christ knows. Gist seems to be that bloke who endured lousy childhood herds blind folk into last carriage of tube train to film their murders for home snuff movie? I think the plan is to kill them as the train passes estranged father's flat.

Not really my thing. Doesn't matter. Can't like everything.

I was always surprised Winter didn't complete the cycle of late 80s/early 90s 'yuppie decadence' pastiches with an "American Psycho" one; it would seem to be obvious. 

[dem bones]

Stephen J. Barringer & Gemma Files - each thing i show you is a piece of my death: (Mike Allen [ed.], Clockwork Phoenix 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, 2009). The Wall of Love Experimental Film Collective request footage toward a patchwork film. Donations received include a century old clip of a man's razor suicide. The dead man fast achieves cult status for his alleged infiltration of several mainstream movies releases and music video; the premier of the new Angela Jolie is rescheduled when "Background Man," naked but for a red "necklace," turns up in the playbacks. All the makings of a classic urban legend - until the footage is linked to a series of suspicious deaths. Story told via police interviews, retrieved e-mails, blog entries & Co. Title on loan from Marilyn Manson's Anti-Christ Superstar.

Gary McMahon - Cinder Images: (Ross Warren & Anthony Watson [ed's.], Darker Minds, 2012). Man wonders why he's been invited to a private showing of harrowing war footage at the multiplex, a short clip of a burnt and bloody child running for her life. As he leaves disgusted, if a little turned on at what he's seen, an attractive woman comes on to him, "They arrive back at her place, where the burning girl awaits to die again, this time in company.

"This could be Vietnam, it could be Cambodia: it might be Serbia, Afghanistan, or the West Bank. It could be anywhere, at any time.
But it is England.
It is now."

See Nicholas Royle.

F. Paul Wilson - Cuts: (David J. Schow [ed.], Silver Scream, 1988). Big shot director Milo Gherl fails a first time author with a dire film treatment of his Haitian voodoo novel. Gherl adds insult to injury by addressing Bill Franklin's legit complaints with "you've had it too easy, you need to suffer for your art" banalities. It really does not pay to provoke a suicidal masochist with a Houngan's command of the Black Arts.

[dem bones]

Peter Straub - Lapland, or Film Noir: (Bradford Morrow [ed.] Conjunctions # 42, Spring 2004). Reads like a treatment for a thriller comprised of genre clichés. Author omits entire lines of text, so it's almost certainly proper literature.

Joel Lane - Even the Pawn: (Stephen Graham Jones [ed.], Crimewave #10: Now You See Me[/i], 2008). Aspiring director Matt Black films a censor-baiting reconstruction of the short life of a sex worker brutally murdered in Yardley. A year on, with Black gone missing, our detective narrator catches up with the late Tania's most regular client. Liked this one right up until it lost me on the penultimate page.

Just when its beginning to feel a lot like an Ellen Datlow anthology;

Garry Kilworth - Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of Fitzcarraldo: (In the Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave: A Novel and Seven Stories, 1989). Guerilla filmmakers pursuing Herzog's documentary crew escalate tensions between rival jungle tribes by shooting arrows at a canoeist. Their souvenir footage gains a belated notoriety ....

Gary A. Braunbeck - Onlookers: New York, 1965. A little boy is frightened by a camera-headed man among the crowd watching the filming of a street scene for Samuel Beckett's short, Film. A genial Buster Keaton placates Patrick with his magic porkpie hat, which he must promise to look after in case one day the actor needs to loan it back. Three decades on, Patrick wonders about the guy with the camera head, how come nobody but he and Keaton noticed him. Tragically, his obsession with Film alerts the ever-vigilant Onlookers, covertly recording our every move ...

[andydecker]

Jan 26, 2023 19:01:36 GMT dem bones said:

Garry Kilworth - Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of Fitzcarraldo: (In the Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave: A Novel and Seven Stories, 1989). Guerilla filmmakers pursuing Herzog's documentary crew escalate tensions between rival jungle tribes by shooting arrows at a canoeist. Their souvenir footage gains a belated notoriety ....

I can't imagine the story can do the great title any justice.

[dem bones]

Jan 26, 2023 19:32:04 GMT andydecker said:

Jan 26, 2023 19:01:36 GMT dem bones said:

Garry Kilworth - Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of Fitzcarraldo:

I can't imagine the story can do the great title any justice.

Let's say I was all set to abandon book until Mr. K's story revived morale. Also enjoyed Gary A. Braunbeck's surveillance Hell featuring a story-stealing performance from Buster Keaton. Most horrific thing is Onlookers is already long redundant. No need for cameramen dressed up like refugees from the Residents when you've CCTV/ facial recognition cameras surreptitiously monitoring us around the clock.

[dem bones]

Love both of these

Robert Shearman - The Constantinople Archives: (originally appeared as Matthew Tozer on justsosospecial.com, 26 Aug. 2012). Non-fiction interlude. A dissertation on Byzantine silent cinema during the siege of Constantinople in 1453. Highlights the magnificent contribution of Matthew Tozer, originator of several enduring movie clichés, not least the heroine tied to the railway track several centuries before the invention of the locomotive engine. Mr. Shearman truly is just so so special.

Laird Barron - Ardor: (Steve Berman [ed.], Suffered from the Night: Queering Stoker's Dracula, 2013). Sam Cope, private detective, is hired to investigate the disappearance of Molly Linstrom, a young actress last seen taking it up the backside as a Bride of Dracula in the French-Canadian vampire porno, Ardor. Her broken parents fear the worst. Also vanished, seriously shady bit player, Ralph Smyth, veteran of the Hammers, bibliophile, antiquarian, cannibal and suspected serial-killer. Cope takes off with a helicopter crew for Smyth's last known whereabouts, the Alaskan wastes ..... Multilayered and fractured in the telling. Tried my patience early on, but glad to have stuck with it.