the jaded viewer

I am proudly the 3rd entry in the Mr. Horror Blogosphere over @ Zombies Don't Run. I answered the questions to the best of my ability, but they were harder than a DMV driver's test.

Why no picture you might ask?

Well, I just forgot to send one. But more importantly, I'm going with the mysterious Ninja approach to the Mr. Horror Blogosphere. He's unseen, he's like a shadow...he's does not exist.

Hell, I'm not even writing this.

So check out my entry over at Zombie's Don't Run and remember...vote for the other guy!

Labels: horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I've decided to put a corner of the jaded viewer on Facebook so you can get a decent feed while your Facebooking. So instead of checking your Blogger dash reading list, you can become a fan via Facebook.

I'll link all the newest stories I put up and it'll be a place to drop me a line if your so inclined (and if you hate captchas and don't wanna comment) I've put the little Facebook widget on the right nav bar as well.

Labels: horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Over the last few weeks, the horror blogosphere has had it's share of controversial issues (awards, etc) which seem in retrospect were a little nitpicky yet oddly mesmerizing.

We went into an award frenzy. But that's not the main point of this post. More so it's the fact that somebody decided not to divide the blogosphere but unite us.

That's where Carl @ I Like Horror did. Early this month, he started the Horror Blogger Alliance.

What is the Horror Blogger Alliance? Simply an organization on the interweb to unite us all horror bloggers together and get us to talk about horror issues, debate on some interesting questions and link up on our common reviews and posts.

So far it's been awesome. And the best part?

Anybody can join!

Now up to over 130 blogs, if you have a horror slanted blog you can join the Alliance. No fancy membership process, no gender or racial divide. Nothing. The only so called rules is your blog should be horror-rish.

Think about it. There are probably well over 200 horror blogs running right now (I totally just made up that number based on minimal info). Until Carl created the HBA, nobody thought to organize a grassroots org like structure for all these blogs. Sure there are the League of Tana Tea Drinkers and now the newly formed Tea Party of the Dead but special criteria applies for these.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have these orgs as well, but it's more like a frat/sorority horror blogging group rather than an all inclusive group like the HBA. No disrespect to the LOTTD or TPD as I'd be honored if chosen to be part of the LOTT D (though for the TPD, I'd have to get a special operation to join).

My main point is that after all the weird bullshit with the awards crap which even resulted in the LOTTD's Bloody Blogger Awards being cancelled, we finally have a org in which everybody can join and feel like they're part of a real internet community.

I just wanted to say thanks to Carl for creating the HBA. He picked a damn good time to start it up and its looking like it's just what we needed after all these weird awards issues that came up.

So if you have a horror blog, head over to the Horror Blogger Alliance and join up. Damn good idea Carl. I gotta think of one too.

Hmmm, maybe I should start up the Van Damme for President Blogging Federation. Who's with me?

Labels: horror blog, horror blogging

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Labels: horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I've noticed a lot of new bloggers starting their own horror blogs recently. That's good to see. People who are passionate about the horror genre and want to chime in on their thoughts makes this little horror blogosphere better. Joining this horror blogosphere is supe duper awesome. All the people I've talked to, tweeted, e-mailed and left comments for are some of the uber coolest people from across the country and the world. All have a unique style to their writing, some are cleverly Tricks are for Kids hilarious and others come up with theme posts and running gags that never get old.

But starting up a blog is a huge undertaking (ok maybe not, it's pretty much like tweeting but longer).

Anybody can write a blog. Right now, as you're reading this, some 14 year old tween girl wearing black nail polish and listening to Sonic Youth is writing on her Twilight blog and is anxiously waiting for that first comment. (it usually is "FIRST!") In another part of the country, a 38 year old film school dropout just watched Saw VI and wants to share his thoughts so he's registered DiscountJigsawsTraps.blogspot.com.

I don't know the exact figure but shit, I'd say 5,000 people a day start up a blog. Some write 3 posts and forget about it, some write 25 posts a day. But to be effective as a horror blogger, you have to go with a few foolproof generic posts that will get people engaged. I'm here to show you the ropes, give you some tips and tricks of the trade and for only two easy payments of $19.99 make you the next jaded viewer.

(Some of you may be saying...Jeff, why are you qualified to teach ME about horror blogging? Your site SUCKS BALLS and is filled with lists, pictures of horror queens I've never heard of and your reviews are like Bible long. And your taste in horror movies is equivalent to a poor man's Dread Central. Well if you put it that way......you're right. You guys are mean. Fuck, I'm going to watch Avatar again. Oh screw that Mr. or Ms. Horror Bourgeoisie! Yeah my qualifications can be called in to question, but I promise you like a Billy Mays infomercial, you'll find it funny, slightly interesting, very arousing and you'll use what I have to say)

Still interested? OK let's list a few tricks to get you started.

Lesson 1: Picking a name for your blog

Well this is it. The single most important thing you can do is pick a fuckin awesome name for your blog. Remember this is the name that you're going to promote the shit out of. It has to be clever, easy to remember and really works if its 4 words or less (though this can be ignored if your name is really clever like Chuck Norris Ate My Baby). The easiest route is to put "horror" in some form in the name. My suggestion, use a variation of a title of a horror movie or play Scrabble.

For inspiration, check out the blogs to the right.

TANGENT ALERT!!!

(Oh yeah, you gotta pick a place to create your blog. I'd suggest Blogger as its already got a built in horror community so you can Follow peeps and easily comment. Wordpress is fine. Their layouts look way nicer than Blahger. Only drawback on Wordpress is you're gonna have to PR the crap out of it)

END TANGENT ALERT!!!

Lesson 2: A post title that LOLs or that can easily offend most of America

OK, now that you got your name, you need to actually write shit. Everybody on the Internet has ADD and usually skims through post titles so you need to either tweet a good subject line or fill it with high levels of vulgarity.

Examples are:

My favorite Ice Cream flavor: Zombie Brains!

or

Trick R Treat fuckin sucked monkey nards (if you liked this movie you have the IQ of a Triceratops)

Lesson 3: Reviews of mainstream horror movies where you make fun of the audience

OK, its guaranteed that the most reader response will come from horror movies that everybody has seen. It's definitely OK to write a review of Zombieland. People love that movie. It's total water cooler horror. But filling your review with "Bill Murray was awesome!" and "Clown zombie was scary!" is not gonna cut it.

To get people to comment, you now have to make fun of the audience for no apparent reason. Why? Because they won't see it coming! Like a bad M. Knight movie, you'll sucker the reader into a false review read and then make fun of them because they didn't see the twist coming.

I'm writing this totally buck naked.

See! There ya go. Who saw that coming? Fuck, it's kinda chilly in here and even I didn't see that horrible horrible thought in the middle of this lesson.

Lesson 4: Arterial Spraying + Gratuitous Nudity + Lists Lists Lists! = Jello

Who doesn't like jello? It can look like brain matter, jiggles like a pair of D cups and it taste yummy. As a horror blogger, there are a few foolproof things to write about that will get people hyped.

1.) Writing about gore and splatter movies gets people highly excited. Everybody loves a good arterial spraying and decapitation so writing a lot about splatter movies is guaranteed to get people to word verify.

2.) China can't see pornography so they have to rely on you to post nudity in your blog to get their fix. Write about nudity in horror, post pictures of horror hotties and talking about hottest zombie women can only get that hit counter moving.

3.) When you're scraping the bottom of your brain for something to write about, the old reliable horror list is the way to go. Who doesn't like a list? Like some mac and cheese, you can nuke up a list in about 2 minutes. Shit, it don't even have to be a good one.

Lists are like cocaine to horror fans. We're addicted! Look, I'll show you.

Top 3 Japanese Horror Movies where technology tries to kill you

1.) The Ring
2.) One Missed Call
3.) Pulse

See...that list got you as high as Lindsay Lohan at a BYOW party.

Lesson 5: Be a productive member of the horror blogosphere, Comment!

Well this is actually the hardest of all because you have to visit at least a dozen sites and leave your mark. Long, elaborate comments on the other person's blog is good. If you didn't agree with what they wrote, say so. People love defending their work and they will reply to your comment.

Instigate a tsunami of replies by disliking something everybody likes and leaving a comment. They'll all be so intrigued that they'll comment on your blog and if your lucky...send you hate mail.

If you want to be a "good" blogger, leaving a comment praising the article is the way to go. But don't expect it to be regifted.

Well there you have it. This concludes Horror Blogging 101. If I get a lot of people interested in this class, we'll have a 102. OK I see you raising your hands. If you have a question, leave a comment and I will definitely answer it.

Labels: horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

WOW! It seems people actually read this thing. Yay me! Well, the jaded viewer got some praise from the horror blogosphere last week and after my post last week about how far the site has come in 3 years, it's finally resulted in some nominations for some neat-o awards for the site.

First up, the Kreativ Blogger Award (yup that's how its spelled)

Thanks to....

Matt @ Chuck Norris Ate My Baby
Chuck @ Zombies DON'T Run
Rev. Phanton @ Midnight Confessions
Hayes @ Hayes Hudson's House of Horror
Cortez the Killer @ Planet of Terror
B-Movie Becky @ The Horror Effect
Aleata Illusion @ Gore Gore Dancer

Lastly, the One Lovely Blog Award



Thanks to....

Chuck @ Zombies DON'T Run
Sarah @ Scare Sarah
Hayes @ Hayes Hudson's House of Horror
Cortez the Killer @ Planet of Terror
Chris @ All Things Horror


Seems I have to follow some rules for the Kreativ Blogger Award and return the favor. They are as follows:

1.) Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2.) Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3.) Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4.) Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5.) Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6.) Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7.) Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated

OK here we go.....

1.) Done!

2.) Done!

3.) Done!

4.) Well this should be educational.

• I was a college radio station DJ for 3 years and would play punk rock and talk about myself in the 3rd person. I even got a cult following of tweens from a small upstate NY town.
• I was walking in the East Village in NYC and almost stepped on Famke Janssen's dog
• I worked at a video store while in college and worked in its "adult" section. I can now no longer look at porn the same way again.
• Years ago, Insano Steve and I drove to at least 5 different video stores across a hundred miles looking for Cannibal Ferox (we eventually found it in a video store next to a farm)
• I work for a video game/movie website doing tech related stuff
• I love Man vs Food and competitive eating
  
• I am a die hard Mets fan, bleeding orange and blue

5.) Well it seems the blogs I want to nominate have already been nominated. So I'm just gonna give my thoughts on how I feel about everybodys blog....screw the rules!

All Things Horror: Mike and Chris's opinions are always dead on and in sync with mine. One day I want to go to one of their screenings!

Basement of Ghoulish Decadence: Jayson's got a awesome collection and he shares them with all of us. Solid blog and eerily we got the same taste in flicks

Chuck Norris Ate My Baby: Matt can kill two stones with one bird. Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a CNAMBtatorship.

Dollar Bin Horror: From my little quote: Dollar Bin Horror digs into the used bin of films and books that have gone the way of the dinosaur, repackages them into small morsels of insightful funnyness and keeps you posted on all things horror. And it's free to read!

Entertaining Evil: Rene spews his venom at all things pop culture. Dude curses more than me.

Freddy in Space: We all know Johnny and FIS. I gather horror inspiration every time I read his posts.

Full Moon Reviews: Fred's reviews are hil-freakin-larious. His Things I Learned from... are clever and creative. Good times.

Horror Dose: The rookie on the block. Chris's blog is right up my alley, short and to the point.

The Horror Digest: Andre's "Way to Go Moments..." keep making me comeback to the site over and over again. One of the best in the business.

Hayes Hudson's House of Horror: Hayes is a rookie but he's got my rookie of the year vote. Good stuff coming out from the House of Horror.

The Horror Effect: B-Movie Becky's reviews are hilarious and damn informative. Her reviews of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series were muy bueno awesome.

Midnight Confessions: A brother in sleaze and exploitation flicks. We both keep the genre alive!

Planet of Terror: Well I won my first contest over at Planet of Terror. But Cortez the Killer sheds light to the good, the bad and the ugly of horror and its always unbiased and opinionated.

Scare Sarah: I don't know anybody from the UK. But Sarah's blog gives us an unAmerican perspective which is refreshing. Fantastic insights ranging from flicks to books.

Zombies DON'T Run: You never know what you'll get when Chuck puts up a post. It's like a grab bag of horror goodness.

Those are just a few of my little bloggity blog reviews of the horror blogosphere. Every blog on the right hand nav bar is awesome. Different spectives on horror.

If I missed anybody, don't worry. I'll write up something for you on the next award viralness that comes out.

Thanks you all for your support! Now I return you to your regularly scheduled program.....

Labels: horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I ran out of horror movies to watch.

That's a first. Don't worry, my dealer sent me a new flick to review and it should be up before the week is up. In any case, after reading this post from Freddy in Space I too got inspired to chime in on the awesomeness of being part of the horror blogging community.

Taking a cue from BJ-C from Day of the Woman who lists 7 things on why the horror blogging community is the coolest I figured I'd go on a different tangent. I'm going to list the things I think we have in common. These may be dead on or waaay off. But here it goes. I'm doing my best George Carlin "little things we all have in common, universal moments we share..." impersonation.

-We visit Bloody Disgusting, Fangoria and Dread Central every day
-We have Blogger all tabbed up and ready to go
-We have comments e-mailed to us and reply within 15 minutes
-We check our traffic every 2 days
-We skim the RSS feeds of other horror blogs and click on only our faves
-We IMDB a movie of a trailer we've just seen, then click on Trivia (if any), check out the user comments and/or click on external reviews
-We constantly add our reviews to external reviews on IMDB
-We check on Google Followers we have
-We check on how many Twitter followers we have
-We read each and every comment posted on our site even if its a comment on a post we did like 3 years ago
-We write our best posts way late at night
-We are easily encouraged when somebody likes our review and want to eviscerate Voorhees style anybody who disagrees with our reviews
-We write reviews with at least 2 quotable lines so just in case, a distributor may use it on the back of a DVD box
-We use horror slang in our everyday conversations like we're vocally blogging
-We've all been visited by a user from a country we cannot pronounce
-We are shocked when Hollywood actually comes out with a good hard R horror film
-We all moan when Platinum Dunes decides to rape our collective horror childhood and remakes yet another horror classic
-We all know who Adam Green is
-We have all written a retro review (which all came from some late night viewing of something in our DVD collection)
-We have all attended one of the following (or all of em), Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, Chiller Theater, Fantastic Fest, NY or SD Comic Con, Cinema Wastleand, Horrorhound, Fantasia, Rue Morgue's Festival of Fear, etc.
-We have all got e-mails from filmmakers, directors and writers hoping to give some press to their flicks
-We all have a bootleg version of Night of the Living Dead
-We have all read Max Brook's World War Z
-We have at least 3 t-shirts of our favorite horror movies
-We get excited when we get a screener in the mail
-We have seen one of the After Dark Horrorfest movies and regretted it
-We think some of the monsters or animal/insect movies gone wild on the Sci Fi channel are funny good but will never admit it
-We have all met Kane Hodder
-We have all met Tom Savini
-We have all met George A. Romero
-We all went to see at least 1 3D horror movie and kept the Real D glasses
-We are constantly looking for classic horror or exploitation trailers on YouTube
-We all secretly love Judd Apatow films
-We all comment on each others blogs because we genuinely have something to say
-We all hope the next leap, will be the leap home

One day, I hope too meet other horror bloggers (any horror bloggers from NYC or the tri state area?) It would be awesome to talk about horror and whatnot. Be sure to check out all the horror blogs from all the links to the right. All these blogs are probably way better than mine, but not one of them covers Van Damme like I do. :-P

I'll finally conclude with this. They're listening.

The directors, fimmakers, distributors, studios and even some mainstreaminess media listen to what's going on in our corner of the web. I've gotten e-mails from directors, writers and studios who thank me and the horrorsphere for giving their indie horror flick some press or reviewing their indie movie via a screener. It's exhilarating to hear that praise and gratitude from the industry you cover and write about.

The horrorsphere is not dead.

It's growing and it's a shacky cam flick away from being remade.

Labels: fangoria, freddy in space, horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, links from the horrorsphere, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Well I'll be on hiatus for the Thanksgiving break. I need some freakin rest anyway. But I figured I'd take this opportunity to give thanks to everybody whose been coming to the site and leaving comments and reading my AWESOME reviews.

(OK OK, Sorry, I've been drinking too much obnoxious juice)

In any case, the site's been a great opportunity to link up with some fellow horror-ites, converse with people on a variety of common interests and promote some super duper good shit that people might have otherwise not known of.

And I just like writing reviews that will make people laugh.

So if you got a good chuckle out of anything I've written, then that's thanks enough.

(but leaving a comment wouldn't hurt too right?)


(And yes, I know every other horror site is going to put this brilliant Eli Roth trailer up like I did)

Labels: 80s slasher horror, eli roth, grindhouse, happy thanksgiving, horror blog, thanksgiving trailer, the jaded viewer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post