Riddick: Pitch Black or Chronicles?

Posted on by

If won’t be long until Vin Diesel returns as in his third outing as Riddick in the aptly named Riddick.  Diesel’s first appearance as the character was in Pitch Black.

Not only was Pitch Black Vin Diesel’s breakout film, it was also the movie that put writer/director David Twohy on the map.  It’s obvious that they would have an affinity for the Riddick character, and thankfully so did movie fans.

It was only natural then, that Riddick would appear in a sequel.  Twohy and Diesel had big, big plans for the character.  The Chronicles of Riddick was born.

The Chronicles of Riddick was to be a huge tentpole movie which took Riddick into the Neccromonger underverse.  As Twohy explains…

“Had Universal said to us, ‘Let’s roll over, let’s pick it up right at the end of the last movie’ and funded it, we would have ventured into the Necromonger underverse and we would have had a big The Lord of the Rings-style movie on our hands.

The Chronicles of Riddick under-performed at the box office and many thought that would be the last of the Riddick character.  Yet, Twohy and Diesel realized there was still a lot of potential left in the character.

They got the rights back and decided to make a third movie. Although this time Twohy and Diesel had a more limited budget, they also had a clear idea of what made Riddick in Pitch Black work so well.

Trent Moore, at Blastr asks…

But imagine what could’ve been if Chronicles had performed a little better. Would you have liked to see a big budget sequel, or do you prefer the current plan for Riddick?

For me the answer is easy.  I prefer the current plan for Riddick.

Hinkson, Beetner & Robinson

Posted on by

Look what was waiting for me when I got home tonight…

The Posthumous Man by Jake Hinkson

When Elliot Stilling killed himself, he thought his troubles were over. Then the ER doctors revived him. It’s infatuation at first sight when he meets his nurse, Felicia Vogan, a strange young woman with a weakness for sad sacks and losers. After she helps Elliot escape from the hospital, she takes him back to her place. He’s happy to go with her, even when she leads him straight to a gang planning a  million dollar heist. Does Felicia just want Elliot to protect her from the outfit’s psychotic leader, Stan the Man? Or is Elliot being set up to take the hard fall? One thing’s for sure: if he’s going to survive this long night of deceit and murder, Elliot will have to finally face himself and his own dark past.

One Too Many Blows to the Head by Eric Beetner

Kansas City, 1939. One story from two points of view: the hunter and the hunted. Ray Ward – seeking revenge for his brother’s death in the boxing ring. Detective Dean Fokoli – hot on a killer’s trail.Ray’s hunt takes him underground into Kansas City’s criminal nightlife. Dean Fokoli lives there full time but he’s on the run from his own troubles. Two men racing forward to collide like a knockout punch.A razor-edged story of revenge, redemption and what happens when you confront the ghosts of the past.

Dirty Words by Todd Robinson

From the creator of Thuglit.com–DIRTY WORDS The first collection from award-winning short story writer, Todd Robinson. Featuring: SO LONG JOHNNIE SCUMBAG—selected for The Year’s Best Writing 2003 by Writer’s Digest. The Derringer Award nominated short, ROSES AT HIS FEET THE LONG COUNT—selected as a Notable Story of the Year in Best American Mystery Stories 2005. PLUS eight more tales of in-your-face crime fiction.

Dig Two Graves by Eric Beetner

Dig Two Graves is a novella-length piece about Val, an ex-con who thinks he has figured out the trick to continuing his bank robbing life without ever getting caught. Except then he gets caught.

It’s not his plan that backfires, oh no. There’s a rat somewhere and Val is pretty damn sure who it is. Ernesto, his prison lover who has joined him on the outside as his partner in bank robbery.

Val stalks the city night on the hunt for Ernesto to exact revenge for breaking the ultimate criminal code: you don’t rat out a partner.

A Bouquet of Bullets by Eric Beetner

From Award-winning short story writer Eric Beetner comes a collection of hardboiled crime tales about losers, punks and wanna-be criminals. These gritty stories bleed and sweat all over the page, but always with a pitch black sense of humor. For fans of Victor Gischler and Duane Swierczynski as much as Cornell Woolrich and Raymond Chandler these crime tales represent the new wave in pulp writers at its best. Winner of the 2012 Stalker award for Most Underrated Author, a finalist in the Derringer Awards, the Watery Grave International and the Million Writers Award, Eric Beetner’s short stories have appeared in Thuglit, Needle Magazine, Crimefactory, A Twist Of Noir, Beat To A Pulp, Pulp Pusher, Powder Burn Flash, Darkest Before Dawn, Thrillers, Killers N Chillers, Flash Fiction Offensive and more.

The toughest part will be deciding which to read first.

Meet Crime Writer/Reviewer Eric Beetner

Posted on by

I first learned about Eric Beetner from his 60 Second Book Reviews blog.

Beetner and I like the same type of books [crime fiction]. His reviews, for the books that I’ve read, are directly in line with my thoughts. So, if Beetner likes it, it’s a good bet that I will as well.

Then I learned Eric Beetner was a writer of crime fiction and his books were all getting 5 star reviews. Now I was intrigued.  So I bookmarked Beetner’s blog.

Next I discovered this trailer for Beetner’s The Devil Doesn’t Want Me. Nice.

So the other night I broke down and ordered Beetner’s Dig Two Graves; One Too Many Blows to the Head and A Bouquet of Bullets.

Well played, Eric Beetner.  Well played.

Are Drive-Ins Making a Comeback?

Posted on by


It’s no secret that I love drive-in theaters.  Most people my age, do… or did.  I say did because there aren’t many left [drive-ins, not people my age].

The fact that there aren’t many drive-ins around these days is no surprise.  The year I was born, 1958, was the peak for drive-in theaters in the United States.  Since then, drive-ins have been on the decline.  But, believe it or not, a little over 350 drive-in theaters are still hanging in there.

The real surprising news is that some of these remaining drive-in theaters are upgrading to digital technology.  Could this be the start of a comeback?

My guess is no.  But I’d love it if I was wrong.

Can This Dog Solve the Black Dahlia Murder Mystery

Posted on by

On February 3, 2013, The Daily Beast posted Can This Dog Solve the Black Dahlia Homicide? by Christine Pelisek.  If you have any interest at all in the world famous 70 year old unsolved murder, then you should check out the article.  Here are a few tidbits…

No one has ever been charged with the gruesome slaying, despite years of police work, nearly 50 discredited confessions, and intense media attention…

The most intriguing theory, though, may be the one posited by Steve Hodel, whose says his own father did the deed.

… his father, George Hodel, a surgeon, killed Short after a romance between the two turned ugly. He also believes his father killed close to a dozen women in the 1940s in his Hollywood home and then gruesomely posed them in different locales around the city.

The elder Hodel, it has been revealed, was indeed a suspect in the Short murder, but his son says he was never caught out of a combination of high-powered friends (who may have had dirt on the police) and inept detective work.

Last November, Hodel joined forces with former California police detective Paul Dostie and Buster, his rambunctious 9-year-old cadaver-sniffing black Labrador, for the first-ever forensic search at Hodel’s former home.

Buster was turned loose to search for scents related to human decomposition—and he perked up, or “alerted” as Dostie calls it, at several potential clues in the basement. Soil samples were taken and results are expected next week.

Check out the article for the full story!