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horror

3 Seriously Disturbing Mother/Child Relationships

May 5, 2016

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and it’s the perfect topic for my blog because, let’s face it, who is more frightening than your mother? Though most of us love our mothers dearly we still have some serious fears related to them that range from losing them to being just like them. Here I give you my top 3 seriously disturbing mother/child relationships.

  1. Goodnight Mommy

 By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47698633 

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47698633

  • In this film we aren’t really sure who to be afraid of, mom or the boys, until the very end. Children certainly aren’t perfect but neither are parents and we learn that time and time again in this film. After a strange surgery that sends their mother home with her face wrapped in bandages, these twin boys are not sure if the mother that left them is the same mother that has returned and neither is the audience. The boys struggle to resolve the love that they have for their mother with this new woman and wonder if they can ever really love her. Is this new mommy really out to get them? Watch to the very end to be sure.
  1. Mama

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37412343

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37412343

  • Did I mention that this is one of my favorite movies? Yes, it is. As the name implies, this film is all about Mama and full of disturbing connections and correlations. Despite the fact that these two darling little girls, Victoria and Lilly have a very short relationship with their biological mother, who is killed by their father when they are very young, they develop a deep connection with a ghostly mother that cares for them when they find themselves alone in an abandoned house in the woods for years. A mother who becomes dangerously jealous of any attention or affection the girls give anyone else, especially the mother figure that they find in their uncle’s girlfriend once they are rescued from the forest. In the end, Lily follows her ghostly mother as she has never known any other, but Victoria who remembers her life and parents before Mama stays behind to develop an earthly relationship with the real woman who has taken a mothering role in her life, which does not make Mama happy, but in the end, each mother gets their daughter.
  1. The Babadook

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42530460

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42530460

  • Clare is the single mom of Sam, a troubled little boy and it literally drives her to the brink of madness. The dark, terrifying monster that symbolizes her child’s issues, Mister Babadook, haunts this mother relentlessly driving a wedge between her and her boy so deep that the monster comes to possess her physically and motivates her to try to kill her child. The relationship that this film illustrates so cleverly is so terrifying because it plays out in real life more often that anyone would like to admit. In the end, this mother digs deep to find and rekindle her unconditional love for her son, despite the influence of the monster and the two of them, together, conquer Mister Babadook and are able to keep him under control enough that they can revitalize their relationship and grow. We learn that Mister Babadook isn’t so scary once we learn how to deal with him (by chaining him up in the basement)…if only our real mothers could be that easy to control.

Hug your mom and thank the universe that your relationship is not nearly as “interesting” as any of the ones above. Happy Mother’s Day.

Jean Nicole Rivers

Jeannicolerivers.com

@jeannicole19

https://www.facebook.com/JNicoleRivers/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5832487.Jean_Nicole_Rivers

This Old House

April 14, 2016
This Old House

This Old House

Constructing her coffee with scientific precision each morning, two vanilla creams, no sugar, was just the first part of her stringent routine, routine and repetition being some of the only things left in the world that kept Darby Morgan sane. Often she wondered why she even bothered since it seemed that all of her senses had been dulled to the point that she had trouble with smelling, tasting and even feeling, but for that last loss she was grateful as she could hardly go on living were she forced to feel the bottomless emotional maw left within her from recently losing her husband, Wayne, and 16 year-old daughter, Maya.

What emotions Darby did feel, she had lost the ability to properly categorize. Again and again they came sweeping over her in tidal waves of paradoxical sensation, guilt and rage, helplessness and sadness. She hypothesized that in the instant that she had beheld the oncoming collision, that she instinctively knew would be catastrophic, her life, in that well-established spiritual tale, flashed before her eyes in an electrically charged flicker of love, hate, fear, joy and all the others and had been captured within her like a rare photograph snapped at the moment of a distinct phenomenon otherwise utterly elusive to forecasting or preparation and it seemed now that as a result she had a hard time picking those emotions apart.

Late morning light from a sun that Darby could not recall her last unfiltered sight of engulfed the living room. On the couch where she had once plopped easily into her preferred spot with her family to watch a Friday evening movie, she sat lightly and with visible discomfort as she did every morning since the accident like a person sitting on a psychiatrists’ chaise lounge for the first time. She could hardly digest how familiar and foreign her things seemed to her at the very same time. Wayne’s cologne haunted her here, his favorite, and the same cologne that he had worn since college. It was light and woody with the slightest of floral touches and she could smell it almost every day as if they were still having coffee together on that couch as they used to do each morning.

Every day, for a mother who lost a young child, was groundhog’s day, but it was especially so, for a mother who lost her child and husband, in one day, in one accident, the same accident that left her practically unscathed. Perhaps, it was punishment. If it weren’t a punishment, it most certainly felt like one. Darby knew that for people like her, routine was the last link to normalcy without which sanity would surely fade, losing ground quickly to the impenetrably dark army of depression and despair. Routine was the only thing that she had left, awkward but comfortable like a budding adolescent boy still holding tightly to a ripped and stained baby blanket, but still she sometimes wondered if the dizzying monotony of it all wouldn’t soon demolish what was left of her faculties anyway.

Leaving this old house was out of the question, she needed the customary creak of the hallway door, the aromatic curry odor that was cemented into the curtains from years of preparing her husband’s favorite dish at least once a week, the electric blue stain in the white carpet where Maya suddenly learned first-hand why Darby always insisted that she paint her toe nails over newspaper. All of these intimate catalysts were necessary, they held all of the pieces of her broken self in place like the backboard of a puzzle without which the parts that composed the complete picture would crumble into meaningless shards. Besides, everything outside of these four walls, now petrified her. There were many days Darby stood at that door with her hand on the knob ready to try again, but paralyzing fear always won out. Inside was safe.

Since the accident, she had not been out at all and the hours dissolved into days and the days into years, sometimes quickly and at other times it seemed as if the clock hardly moved. Hours passed as she engaged in one of her countless monotonous customs, the ones that filled the time between the aroma of her husband’s cologne and Maya’s sweet whispers, studying the burnt orange floral patterns on the couch pillows, counting and re-counting the exactly 167 flower petals contained on each side of the set. Now, Darby wasn’t sure if the accident had occurred one week ago or one year ago, not that it much mattered anymore.

After a nap Darby woke to the muddled scent of fresh baked cookies of some sort. It was Mrs. Candela, she must have stopped by to leave them the way she always had, once a week, before the accident and even now, after the accident, she did not abandon the once cheerful duty, now, decayed into dreadful chore. Before leaving for vacation once, Darby shared a house key with Mrs. Candela that she never bothered to reclaim and when after the accident she refused to answer the door or come out of her home, Mrs. Candela had resorted to sneaking in while she slept and leaving only her cookies to signal her periodic presence. Darby enjoyed the smell of the treats more than the actual flavor as they never tasted like much anymore.

Everything in the present was of such little consequence, memories were paramount now, Darby thought as she swung open the door to her daughter’s room, which had gone unchanged. There was the faint and fleeting fragrance of her shampoo which put one in the mind of island vacation, coconuts and fresh papaya. Nothing less than a complete miracle, Maya was perfect and Darby had found herself thanking God on multiple occasions that she had not been delivered one of those drooping, slack-faced teens, like Bethany, the bird-faced neighbor who lived on the corner with her aloof husband and a son from her first marriage. A boy for whom they all shared a secret, community fear that he would one day soon be starring on the nightly news for gunning down a group of jovial teenagers at Mountain View High School. No, Maya was whimsical and fun, but predictable in an all American way, her personality always putting her mother in the mind of easy Saturday mornings, sharp, sunny and saturated with optimism.

Admiring the plush, pink comforter, Darby studied the Polaroids of friends and family that her daughter taped to the wall in the shape of a heart. Once again, she heard her daughter’s voice, laced with a soft, emotional lilt, the way Darby often heard it, when she came in Maya’s room to be with her. “Mom, I’m here.” The voice called.

Darby felt the tears puddling painfully at the corners of her eyes.

The IV monitor beeped rhythmically along with the silent tap of Mrs. Candela’s foot as she sat stiffly in the corner chair of the hospital room holding the plate of cookies that she brought every week. Wayne Darby sat, dutifully, at the head of his wife’s hospital bed as he had at least three nights a week for the last five years.

“Doctor, do you think that there’s still a chance that my mother will ever wake up? It’s been five years since our accident.” A young woman asked.

Dr. Diaz was sympathetic but firm, “Maya, we just don’t know. We are really lucky that all three of you even survived. Not much has changed, your mother’s brain activity is good, but I can’t promise you anything. She could wake up from her coma tomorrow, ten years from now or not at all. We just can’t be sure.”

“Do you really think that she can hear me?” Maya, now a college student junior wanted to know, seeking desperate confirmation for a question that she had asked repeatedly to anyone that would listen.

“Yes, I think she can hear you.” Dr. Diaz confirmed.

Maya turned and leaned into her mother who had been silent in a coma for the last five years. Taking her mother’s emaciated hand into her own, she whispered, “Mom, I’m here.”

Jean Nicole Rivers

Jeannicolerivers.com

https://www.facebook.com/JNicoleRivers/

@jeannicole19

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5832487.Jean_Nicole_Rivers

 

Little Miss Dupree

April 7, 2016
Caydence Alise by Locked Illusions Photography

Caydence Alise by Locked Illusions Photography

There once was a girl named Little Miss Dupree who lived in a house on Hickory Street.

She’d peek through the windows and creep through the halls, opening doors and tapping on walls.

Her sisters played nervously, her mother could hardly sleep, her father never stopped looking and her brother wouldn’t say a peep.

Some days the girl laughed, but most days she cried and how she wished, she wished she were still alive.

 

Jean Nicole Rivers

https://www.facebook.com/JNicoleRivers/

@jeannicole19

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5832487.Jean_Nicole_Rivers

How to Create A Book Trailer That Does Not Suck (Oh and on a budget)

March 15, 2016
On set for The Unwanted.

On set for The Unwanted.

As I finished up my sophomore novel, Black Water Tales: The Unwanted, I decided that I should take my marketing plan up a notch by creating a book trailer. Great idea, right? Yes, until I began my research by Googling “book trailers”. Talk about disappointment. Most book trailers (the ones not promoting big-budget authors like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling) were packed with stagnant images rolling languidly across the screen, music that failed to capture the sentiment of the story and bad font, but ALL of this was not even the worst part. When I began researching the companies responsible for these projects and their prices, I nearly fell out of my seat. To get little more than a glorified PowerPoint, prices started no less than $500 (and that was on the low side). For trailers, still simple, but with a more cinematic feel, I was looking at thousands, some of them up to $10K, which is ridiculous and completely out of touch with reality when targeting the indie or small press author.

But lucky for us, there’s a work around.

Because I also have some background in acting, I figured that I could produce my own book trailer and so can you. Check out my book trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAt_s6NlfM

Here are some tips for producing your own cinematic book trailer on a budget.

  1. Keep It Simple: A budget-friendly book trailer is simply NOT the place for moon walks, explosions and high-speed car chases, but uncomplicated does not necessarily equate to unimaginative or valueless. Simple equates to budget friendly. You will have to get creative, but creative is your specialty, right? If you have an action book, you may not be able to shoot the woman parachuting out of the plane, but you can film the assassin on top of the building about to take out his highly sought after target. No matter what genre you write or what your book is about, you can easily create a scene or theme to shoot that captures the essence of your work.
  2. Find the local film community: It will be a little more difficult if you live in Preston, Idaho, but even in smaller areas, you can find people. There is always a film community, it may not be the exact same kind or size that it is in Hollywood, but that is not important. Look into local film industry meetups or contact acting schools or community theaters, who many times have a database of actors and crew and would be happy to send out your crew call and casting call for free.
    1. Most times you have to pay your crew, but not necessarily. Everyone is always looking to gain experience. Shooting a horror trailer, you may meet a video editor who has all of her own equipment and is willing to work for little to nothing because she’s been wanting to add some horror to her portfolio.
    2. Actors are more willing to work for credit and footage. In no way am I encouraging taking advantage of actors; if you have the money, pay them, but if you are on a super tight budget and you will not be making any profit from the book trailer, your actors will likely be willing to participate in exchange for the professional footage for their demo reels.
    3. Be up front about your budget (or lack thereof). Let people know that you are paying for everything out of pocket and/or that you are on a shoestring budget. Trust me, if anyone understands money woes, your local film community does and may have mercy on your wallet.
  3. Get organized
    1. Shooting a film, even a super short that will ultimately be made into a book trailer is no small amount of work. By the time you hire cast and crew, you should have an outline of how you want the trailer to look, a script, a budget, etc. The most important role will be your cinematographer, hire that person first, then other crew if you need them and last, the actors.
  4. Trust Yourself
    1. No one knows your book or understand your vision better than you. So what, if you have never directed a book trailer before, ultimately all that you are doing is bringing your work to life and no one will work harder to extract moving, vibrant life from your work.

By no stretch of the imagination am I saying that my book trailer is the best one out there, but what is key is that it is an authentic reflection of my work and within my financial plan. For a professional cinematographer, actors, editing, the little stock footage (images, sound, etc.) that I did use, I spent approximately the same amount that I would have paid a company for one of those slow moving PowerPoints. By producing my own trailer, I got a product that I am proud to put my name on and I could not ask for much more.

Jean Nicole Rivers

www.jeannicolerivers.com

www.facebook.com/JNicoleRivers

@jeannicole19

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5832487.Jean_Nicole_Rivers

https://www.facebook.com/Simply-Stylus-182082092179935/