The Cabin in the Woods

This looks interesting. It’s kind of a cross between The Hunger Games and Friday the 13th, written by Joss Whedon (Buffy) and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield).

What do you think?

The River Poddle

For anyone who’s read my book Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent, you’ll be aware of the importance of the River Poddle in the plot. In one major scene, Arthur, Ash and Will explore the river under the city of Dublin.

Here’s a great clip from an RTE documentary a few years ago that tells you all about the Poddle, as well as giving us a glimpse of the river itself. Watch it to the end to see the grate that features in the book, too!

 

EDIT

And here’s the actual programme that inspired me to write Arthur Quinn. When I saw the Poddle in this, I just knew there had to be some sort of monster hidden there! (The Poddle part starts from the 4 minute mark.)

The greatest TV show never aired

For those of you who don’t know, I studied Film & TV production in college. I, like most of my class, leaned more toward the film end of the course. I suppose we liked to think of ourselves as artists. Some of us still do. And some of us are artists.

Anyway, for our final year grad projects, the majority of us worked on short films or music videos. But two students – Paul Curran and Padraig Whitmore – conceived and produced this fantastic little kids quiz show. I thought of it recently while watching an episode of Horrible Histories. It’s got the same irreverent tone and a fantastic host in the disembodied floating head of Zorlax. Read the rest of this entry »

Locke & Key

Joe Hill is one of my favourite new horror writers. His work is always so original and manages to meld fantasy and terror as well as Neil Gaiman. He writes characters you care for and the plots keep you guessing right up till the last page.

So I was thrilled when I heard that Fox were adapting his comic-book series Locke & Key for TV.  I was even more thrilled when I heard that the cast would include the much underused Nick Stahl and Ireland’s own Sarah Bolger and that it would be directed by Mark Romenek (‘Never Let Me Go’, Johnny Cash ‘Hurt’ video, etc).

But then Fox, in their infinite wisdom, have decided not to screen the episode. At all.  Read the rest of this entry »

Film Review: Super 8

Allow me to preface this review by stating categorically that I have never liked any JJ Abrams film. To me, Mission: Impossible 3 is little more than a generic action film, Cloverfield is a failed experiment and Star Trek is just plain boring.

But now, with Super 8, Abrams has finally lived up to his hype.

The film tells the story of thirteen year old Joe who, along with some filmmaking buddies, are at the site of a train crash and accidentally record some blurry beast stepping from the wreckage. When the Air Force show up and put the town under lock-down, only the group of friends can work out what’s going on.

Read the rest of this entry »