Notes from the Peninsula
On writing, films and living a creative life
Cure (1997)
Takabe, a detective in Tokyo, investigates a series of murders, each by a different killer, but all carving a cross into their victims throats.
Spring (2014)
If Guillermo del Toro shot a film scripted by David Cronenberg, based on a story by HP Lovecraft, then had it edited by Richard Linklater, you would get Spring.
Jacob’s Ladder (1991)
Jacob is beset by visions and fever dreams. We constantly switch between realities, from the Vietnamese jungle, to his home in New York City, and it’s bewildering, for him and us.
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Noroi: The Curse (2005)
This mockumentary is made from grainy handheld video and low-resolution clips of Japanese televison shows. It revels in its fragmentary, low-fi nature. It feels cursed.
Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Gilderoy is a fish out of water in a remote Italian sound studio. He thinks the film he's working on, The Equestrian Vortex, is about horses, but in fact is an Italian horror film about the torture of witches.
Piranha (1978)
Being nibbled to death by a swarm of piranha is a different agony, I imagine, to being bitten in half by a great white shark. It’s fun, with a surprisingly dark heart.
Fascination (1979)
Marc, a thief, steals a bag of gold from a gang, and is chased by them to a nearby chateau, where two women, Elisabeth and Eva, are waiting for the arrival of their marchioness.
Vampyres (1974)
The first of my #31DaysOfHorror choices this year that I would say is exploitation cinema, I chose Vampyres, naturally, because of the cover art.
Knife+Heart (2018)
Knife+Heart (Un couteau dans le cœur) is a modern giallo film that plays out in a gay porn production company in the summer of 1979.
Death of a Vlogger (2020)
A bang-up-to-date social media horror mockumentary. Twenty years on from Pulse, people still feel empty and disconnected, but now everyone has a webcam. Affecting, funny, and unnerving.
Pulse (2001)
The Tokyo in Pulse is empty and eerie. People are lonely and disconnected from each other. The characters are all young and, in one way or another, alone.
The Crow (1994)
Eric and his fiance Shelly are murdered by a gang of men on the night before their wedding. Eric’s soul cannot rest until he gets justice.
The Fog (1980)
The Fog is an old favourite. I watched it over and over again on VHS as a kid, recorded off the television, and it embedded Adrienne Barbeau’s radio DJ, alone in a lighthouse on the edge of town, as a lifelong crush.
Atlantics (2019)
Atlantics is art house, and it’s a romance, but it’s hardly a horror film. It is, however, fascinating.
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)
I wanted to start this year’s #31DaysOfHorror with a classic. I’m trying to watch only films I haven’t seen, and Creature From the Black Lagoon was the oldest unwatched horror film I owned.
In the foothills
Graham Swift once said, ‘All novelists must form personal pacts with the pace of their craft.’ Now I am in the foothills of my second novel, that quote is a comfort.
31 Days of Horror, 2020
With 2020 being a demented shitshow, I did fleetingly wonder if I wanted to do #31DaysOfHorror again this year, but then I remembered why I love horror films — they are an escape from reality.
Reality Bites
Reality Bites is still surprisingly affecting. I had low expectations. I’m not sure why. There is something about your early twenties that is particularly painful and potent.
Writers on lockdown
I miss the opportunities to write in a coffee shop, with the ritual of a double macchiato to get me into the groove, especially on my way into work.
Leaving Rebecca
It’s hard to pinpoint when I stopped reading Rebecca. I started in the middle of April, and I chose it for many reasons. There were so many little cues from the universe that it felt rude not to read it.
Website as digital garden
I’m doing okay in my little lockdown bubble. We live in a relatively rural spot, we have a garden, and we are working remotely pretty successfully. The days are going really fast.
The inner Wonder Woman
Last night, I had a deep dream of stasis and being held. I seemed to accept it, though there was a suggestion of pressing against constraints. I can’t remember any details. It’s a feeling from a fragment.
My favourite five books of 2019
In 2019, on Goodreads, I set myself the challenge of reading 52 books. Here are my favourite five.
A walk around my writer’s block
It took me thirty years to get from wanting to write a novel to finishing one. I walked away from writing several times, but I always came back...
Escape room
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed all of us back into our homes, and my writing room is now where I also do software development work for my employer.
First post, best post
I find it liberating to write whatever is next in my thoughts. The train doesn’t ever stop, not even for sleep.
Minimalism
I’m into minimalism this week. It’s been a useful concept as I try to solve some tricky problems.
Writing and reviewing
I’m a writer not a critic, but I have critical thoughts about other people’s books — what does it mean if a writer is a critic too?
Blogging with Jekyll
I’ve updated this website, hopefully in ways that aren’t obvious to the reader, but that let me have more control (and fun) in the months ahead.
On writing ‘The Complex’
The first shoots of the ideas that would combine to become The Complex appeared way back in November 2012, when I was fascinated by Lars von Trier’s film, Antichrist.
Anomalisa (2015)
Everyone looks the same to Michael Stone. He is in Cincinnati to give a talk at a conference. He is desperate for something real in his life, an authentic person who is not like everyone else.
Point Break
It’s tricky to find films that my fifteen-year-old son will want to watch with his forty-something parents, but this seemed to sit in the sweet spot — surfing, armed robbers, a cocky young hero, skydiving, a love interest and lots of banter.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Siblings Sally and Franklin come to a remote part of Texas to make sure their relatives remains haven’t been dug up from a local cemetery in a bizarre, gruesome local crime. But Franklin’s curiosity gets them into trouble.
Exhibition (2013)
A married couple, D and H, have created their own emotional ecosystem, balancing intimacy and distance, in a big modernist house somewhere in Central London.
High Rise
I read several Ballard books in the late nineties — my mid-twenties — starting with short stories, before being entranced by the original shiny silver paperback cover of Super-Cannes, and then going back to his earlier work.
I like being at home
Woke up late. My son is in Sydney for three weeks and when I walk past his bedroom the quiet inside makes me sad. I'm trying to be more mindful as I go about my low-key morning.
Red cabbage
It was mid-afternoon. I ate some of the cabbage wrapped in a slice of bread. It felt like a treat. Red cabbage. Simple pleasures.
Written on the Body, Let the Right One In
Week 1. I'm going to try to read a novel and watch a film each week in 2018. In time, I'll work out what I'm doing with it. We'll see if it sticks. I love the idea.
