MONSTERS
Copyright © 2015 by Matt Shaw
‘Monsters’ according to Matt Shaw:
I do not read much horror, I
will be honest about that from the get go. The reason being is that I write it.
I do not want what I write to be influenced by the work of other authors in
this genre. I do, however, watch a lot of films and it’s from that perspective
I’ll be looking at monsters and - more specifically - what really, really
irritates me about the way they are depicted.
It seems more and more people,
these days, are painting monsters to be literal beasts but this does not
necessary make them scary. It makes them visually interesting at a glance, good
for posters and book covers etc, but - other than that - there is no real
depth. The beasts created are shallow and soon become uninteresting as the
creator simply looks for new ways of having their creation kill the (usually)
stupid victims. It gets boring very fast and the stories become similar; a
strong sense of deja-vu when you’re
watching them as you’re sure you have seen it before. Sure, going back to the
seventies and eighties, it was a little easier to have such monsters and keep
the audience on their toes. You had Leatherface, Pinhead, Freddy, Jason and (a
different sort of monster) Michael to name but a few. These guys worked because
they were the first of their kind - at least, the first to hit the mainstream
and get a wide audience. I am sure there are some more monsters that were made
before these guys but, in terms of slasher films, these were considered the big
boys and - since then - all of the creations seem to be ripping them off either
directly or indirectly. Like I said before it is stale.
So what do I consider to be a
monster? To me a monster is your every day man (or woman) who has been damaged
by a poor upbringing, some kind of trauma or even just start life off damaged
for no reason whatsoever. I’m talking about the Hannibal-type characters, the
Norman Bates… The kind of person you see walking down the street who seem
perfectly normal at a glance with only their dark-side becoming evident when
you find yourself as one of their victims. And that is what makes these people
true monsters. The fact they are normal until they suddenly snap and - more importantly
- the fact they could truly exist.
Take Frankenstein for a moment.
When chatting with youngsters, they believed the monster of the story was
Frankenstein’s creation but it wasn’t. The real monster was the man behind the
creation. He defied all sense of morals and set about creating an abomination.
Once he succeeded, he abandoned it in the wild for it to survive or (preferably
to his own agenda) die. These people exist. Sure, not on such extreme levels
(yet) but they are out there, they are running their tests and - scarier yet -
they are usually hiding behind a government’s permission. A different kind of
monster right there for you, a group of individuals who get to control a whole
country and dictate what they can and cannot do… But that’s another topic and
one I will not be going into.
So - in summary - the exciting
monsters, the ones we should pay attention to, are the complex ones. The real
people out there who torture and murder for whatever reason they feel they need
to. They’re scary because we can’t understand them. They’re unnerving because
they could be our neighbours and they’re frightening because you never know
when they’re going to strike until it is too late. We do not know what makes
them tick. We do not understand why they do what they do. These are the scary
‘monsters’ and I only wish more artists would tap into this lack of empathy in
these individuals to create more monsters to scare us through the years. No
more paranormal, no more over-the-top killers… Just subtle psychopathic tendencies
hidden by a charm that lulls us into a false sense of security. Make us feel
uncomfortable when we pass a stranger. Are they a monster? Are they going to
come after me? Are they following me?
That is a monster.
For Matt Shaw’s own monsters be
sure to check out ‘Happy Ever After’ and ‘Monster’ which was co-written with
best-selling author Michael Bray. All titles available via Amazon.
Find Matt Shaw here:
GIVEAWAY
Five ECOPIES (PDF’S) of Matt Shaw’s PORN!!!
To
win: go to the Official FB Event Page; find the post announcing today’s
giveaway; and comment, “I WANT TO WIN” in that post and you just
might!!!
AUTHOR BIO
MATT SHAW is the published author of over 50 stories. Although
known as being a horror author, he also enjoys spending time in other genres
too - something he had always planned to do in order to have at least one book,
in a wide collection, which would appeal to people from all walks of life. Shaw
was first published in 2004 with his horror novel Happy Ever After - the first
of his books to reach the number one slot on Amazon and the first of his books
to use his trademark style of narrating the stories through the first person
perspective. An extremely prolific writer, Matt Shaw is continually writing as
well as keeping up to date with his readers via his (some might say) crazy
Author Page on Facebook.
PORN:
A Novel of Extreme
Horror, Sex and Gore.
WARNING: THIS IS AN EXTREME HORROR NOVEL. There is gore. There is
bad language. There are scenes of a sexual nature.
PORN tells the tragic tale of Victoria Sheldon - a young lady who
wanted nothing more than to become an actress. With times being hard Victoria
finds herself in the world of the Adult Movie Industry where she soon carves a
name for herself. The offers are flowing in, as is the money, as she becomes
more and more popular amongst the producers but then she meets him...A man with
an offer she can't refuse even if she wanted to. A man who has other ideas
about how pornographic films should be filmed. A man catering for a much, much
darker audience.
From the Dark Mind behind Sick B*stards, Tortured and
Rotting Dead F*cks - PORN is a violent tale of sex and revenge. It is intended for a mature
audience only.
No comments:
Post a Comment