Son of Celluloid is Maynard Morrisey's Horror Blog of the Month

Every month Maynard Morrissey's Horror Movie Diary chooses a horror blog to bestow the honor of being Horror Blog of the Month upon. In the past they've recognized such luminaries as Horror Movie a Day, Zombies Don't Run, Back Online Back on Duty, Full Moon Reviews, and The Girl Who Loves Horror. Well folks, I'm proud to say that this month, it's SOC's turn in the spotlight. Yes folks, Son of Celluloid joins the illustrious list as July's Horror Blog of the Month. Click on that picture below to be transported to the interview I did with Mr. Morrissey. While you're there, take a look around, because there's a lot of awesome going on over there. Thank you to Maynard, thank you to all of the Cellmates, and "Welcome" to you folks checking SOC out for the first time. Stick around, I promise we don't bite...

Son of Celluloid recieves the 7x7 award!

I got an award! John at Horror Smorgasbord has bestowed upon me the 7 x 7 Award. Thank you very much John. Like I said on facebook; to quote Ric Flair’s retirement speech, “There’s nothing like the respect of your peers.” He writes a great blog, and all the Cellmates should go check it out. Apparently this award comes with rules. Rules? Aren’t rules made to be broken? Ah, what the hell, I’ll play along this time…

RULE 1: Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.

You know what? All joking aside, I’m about to get serious here for a minute. I’m going to put something out there that I don't discuss a lot because it's damn embarrassing simply because I’m tired of it being used as a punchline. Unfortunately, I currently live in my mother’s basement. There, I said it. Yep, I fit the stereotype that people like to use to insult horror fans and bloggers in particular. Two years ago, I was living in Savannah, thriving in my career as a tour guide, when I had a serious medical issue suddenly come up, nearly died, had to have emergency surgery, and was laid up for a while. During that time I couldn’t work, ran out of money, needed treatment I couldn’t get there, lost my place to live, and I won’t even go into what my so called girlfriend did. Basically, I had no other choice but to return to Atlanta, stay in my old bedroom in my mom’s basement, and regroup. For about 10 months I was recuperating and under doctors orders not to work. Then, for the past year and a half, I’ve been unable to find steady employment beyond temporary work and odd jobs. It’s not for lack of trying or laziness, there’s just no work. There’s my story, and I didn’t tell you that for sympathy. I said it to point out that not all who live in their mom’s basement have other options. I said it so maybe one of those people that like to make the dismissive “horror fans tend to be___________ who live in their mother’s basements” assumptions would realize that while they may be right, it’s a bitch ass thing to say. Roger Ebert, I heard you say it recently, so up yours asshole. Sorry to go off on a rant there, that’s just been rubbing me the wrong way lately. Rant over. I now return you to your regularly scheduled fun loving Nathan.

RULE 2: Link to one of the posts that I personally think best fits the following categories: Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, & Most Pride-Worthy Piece

Most Beautiful Piece: My Prophecy: Video Stores Will Rise From The Grave
Most beautiful piece? Really? I don’t think I’d describe anything I’ve ever written as exactly beautiful. I guess I’d have to go with this piece from May 2011 where I predict that the video store will rise from the ashes. It’s the only piece I can think of that anyone has actually called beautiful. Then again, my two posts from Women in Horror Month 2011 (Horror’s Unsung Heroines and Women of Italian Horror) might actually beat that one because of all of the pictures of beautiful women.

Most Helpful Piece: Review: Dear God No!

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to go with the piece I wrote that was most helpful to the blog or me being helpful to someone else. I guess I’ll go with the piece I feel helped the blog the most. That would have to be the Dear God No! review. That kicked off an interview with the director, James Bickert, which kicked off a friendship, which led to SOC’s first giveaway, etc etc. My association with the Dear God No family has led a lot of people to take notice of the blog, plus I just flat out love that flick and the guys behind it.


Most Popular Piece: 30 Day Horror Challenge Strikes Back Day 21: Character you would need a translator to speak to.
Well, let’s look at the old pageview stats here… looks like it’s a writeup I did about Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood back during the second 30 Day Horror Challenge. Interestingly enough, one of the search terms in the top 5 for leading people to my site is “hentai gore.” Since this is the only piece I have that mentions hentai, I guess I can thank all of you weirdos into animated tentacle porn for this one being the most popular. The second most popular post actually is less than 100 views out of first. That piece is The Horror Movie Darwin Awards #8: The Rapists in I Spit On Your Grave. Apparently a lot of people google “rape” too. I worry about you folks sometimes.

Most Controversial Piece: Review: The Orphan Killer
I debated about this one, ‘cause try never to name names publicly. I could have gone with the Guinea Pig piece that got me accused of racism, but that got used in the “most popular” category. I could talk about the “Horror’s Unsung Heroines” post where some feminist got her panties in a bunch over me including Debbi Sue Voorhees on the list due solely to her great tits, but that was just dumb. The Orphan Killer review, however, was the first time I got a filmmaker pissed off at me. I gave it a good review too, 1 ½ severed thumbs up, and was very complimentary, but I said that it didn’t quite live up to it’s hype. I shared the review on the director’s facebook page, and he went off. He had a couple of great tirades on there, slamming my reviewing skills and waxing on about how “this isn’t just some horror film, it’s a bloody revolution!” He went on about how unfortunate it was for me that he wouldn’t share my review because I didn’t see the brilliance of his film. My favorite part was “…one and a half severed thumbs up? Out of what?” I would assume that “thumbs” obviously indicates two, right?

Most Surprisingly Successful Piece: Review: Hostel Part 3
This is actually my third most viewed piece ever. I would never have imagined that a review of a direct to DVD flick that already had a ton of reviews online would hit the way it did. I still don’t get how this is my most read review. I mean, it was a pretty good flick, but it was read more than my reviews of indie scene darlings and huge Hollywood releases. Go figure.

Most Underrated Piece: "The Seussification of Night of the Living Dead" (30 Day Horror Challenge Day 30 - Your favorite horror film of all time)

I was writing about Night of the Living Dead for the millionth time, and I had to figure out a new angle on it. I decided that I would tell the story of the flick in the style of Dr. Seuss. I worked hard on it. I thought it came out good. Actually, if it got a good response, I was envisioning the “Seuss-ification” of various horror classics as a recurring feature on the blog. I was kinda excited about it, as I thought it was a cool concept. I posted it and…nothing. No comments, no one noticed, no nothing. Oh well. I still think it’s good.


Most Pride-Worthy Piece:Video: My interview with Sid Haig from Days of the Dead Atlanta.

You never feel more legitimized as a part of the “horror business” than when you’re sitting there interviewing Sid F’n Haig. One of the greatest moments of my life, and I owe it to Son of Celluloid. If you’ve ever wanted to see a man who is giddy as a schoolgirl barely containing himself, watch me in this video.

RULE 3: Pass this award on to seven other bloggers

There are a hell of a lot more than seven deserving bloggers I could give this to. There are so many of you out there doing this for the right reason, which is love of whatever it is you’re writing about, drawing, documenting, whatever, that I couldn’t possibly recognize you all. I didn’t want to give it to the big guys, those well known blogs that already receive a lot of accolades. I wanted to recognize the little guys, lesser-known gems, and…well…my peers. Also, some of the blogs that would have been in the running for the award already got it from someone else. So here, without further ado, are seven blogs that you should all be experiencing on a regular basis. If you’re not, then you’re missing out.

Dr. Terror’s Blog of Horrors http://drterrorsblogofhorrors.blogspot.com/

Back Online, Back On Duty http://www.backonlinebackonduty.com/

PromoteHorror.com http://www.promotehorror.com/

Hacked in the Head Reviews http://hackedinthehead.blogspot.com/

Cinema Head Cheese http://cinemaheadcheese.blogspot.com/

Shit Movie Fest http://shitmoviefest.blogspot.com/

Junta Juleil’s Culture Shock http://juntajuleil.blogspot.com/

Once again, I’d like to humbly thank John and Horror Smorgasbord for this award. Now go check out those 7 sites NOW!

Son of Celluloid's first blog award!

Son of Celluloid first blogging award has been bestowed upon me by John Squires of Freddy in Space. Not only is this my first award, but it was given to me by one of the bloggers that got me interested in doing this. If you’ve never checked Freddy in Space out…what the hell is wrong with you? Do it, do it now! Thank you John, I am honored and gratefully accept this award. Looking at that pretty, colorful award, I have a sneaking suspicion that it was never intended to reach a site like this. I love the irony of a horror blog being dubbed “Irresistibly Sweet.” I am truly stoked.

The idea of this award is that you receive it from someone who digs what you’re doing in your little corner of the blogosphere. I still always feel pretentious when I use that word. Then, you thank them for the award, give seven random facts about yourself, and bestow the award upon blogs that you deem worthy. So here we go…

1. In addition to being the Son of Celluloid, I’m also a son of a preacher-man. Yup, when I was a kid my family were traveling evangelists. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
2. I am scared of snakes. Actually, I am terrified of snakes. For some reason, people always seem to think that’s hilarious. In fact, in my opinion the scariest scenes in film history aren’t even in horror movies. It’s the snake scenes in the Indiana Jones trilogy. I’ll watch Cannibal Holocaust, Serbian Film, Salo, August Underground, Martyrs, whatever without batting an eye. Snakes on a Plane? No way in hell!
3. I can quote It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Garfield’s Halloween Adventure all the way through. When I was 8 I taped (yes kids, taped, as in VHS) these two Halloween specials of of TV, so the commercials are part of quoting it too. It was my favorite tape to watch as a kid and now it's required viewing, multiple times, in the weeks leading up to Halloween.
   
4. My other obsession is professional wrestling. It was my first obsession, actually. I've ended up being featured in crowd shots on the TV shows of all 4 major American promotions in the last 30 years, WWE, WCW, ECW, and TNA. There are only 6 wrestlers who can say that they were on all 4 companies shows (Shane Douglas, Raven, RVD, Sabu, Mick Foley, and Scott Steiner.)
5. While I mainly listen to horrorpunk, psychobilly, and metal, I am a big oldies fan. I love 50’s and 60’s music. A nowhere near complete list of oldies bands I’ve seen live includes Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett, Jerry Lee Lewis, Three Dog Night, The Beach Boys, The Animals, The Turtles, The Grass Roots, Tommy James, Johnny Rivers, Little Richard, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Percy Sledge, The Drifters, The Coasters, The Tams, Frankie Valli, Booker T and the MG’s, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Ben E King, and a whole lot of others.
6. There is one song, and therefore one movie that features this song, that can make me cry. Not every time mind you. Probably about 85% of the time. Remember the scene in The Muppets Take Manhattan in the bus station where they all go their separate ways and sing that “Saying Goodbye” song? Go ahead and laugh, but that’s the most heart wrenching song ever recorded. In fact, it’s the song I want played as they carry my casket out of my funeral.
7. If I ever win the lottery, one of the first things I’m going to do is buy a food manufacturing plant and make sugar free Little Debbie style snack cakes. I’m diabetic, and I can find a decent sugar free version of almost anything except that. I betcha I’d make a fortune. My kingdom for a Starcrunch.

There they are, seven random, and in some cases kinda embarrassing, facts about myself. Now to bestow the award on others. It doesn’t say how many though. John did 5, but I’m going to switch it up, make the award a little more exclusive, and narrow it down to one. That recipient is…

The Moon is a Dead World

This is a great blog. Ryne writes great reviews about horror flicks, books, music, comics, collectibles, and just about anything else you can think of. His Viewer Vomit series (which unfortunately for one reason or another I haven’t been able to participate in yet) invites you, the reader, to join in the reviewing fun. The blog’s recurring Horror Horizon feature breaks down each week’s releases and is an invaluable resource for staying abreast of what’s being released. Tons of good content and good writing going on over there, and for that I give you this award. Nathan says check it out.

So there you have it folks. I’d like to thank the academ…I mean John from Freddy in Space again for the award. Who knows, maybe I’ll get another one sometime soon and we can do this again. In fact…