The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Cover Reveal for THE REDEEMED by A.G. Porter

3/31/2016

The REDEEMED will be available April 29, 2016. It is book 3 in the DARKNESS trilogy.

Nightmares. The oncoming war. More Gifted emerge and not all of them are on her side. Secrets about her father are revealed. Who are The Children of The Light?
Will Rayna be able to resist the powers of The Shadow with Jayce’s help? She had planned to face down her demons with Liam by her side, but now that he's lost his soul, is he really lost to her forever?
Question after question, obstacle after obstacle present themselves in the last installment of The Darkness Trilogy. It's coming to an end - the battle, the war. The only question Rayna Stone wants answered is whether or not she and her friends make it out alive.

You can buy it here, and it will be available for pre-order soon::
http://www.amazon.com/A.G.-Porter/e/B00IQL0P2S/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A.G. Porter is the author of The Darkness Trilogy, a YA Paranormal Thriller. She is an Independent Author (Indie Author) who enjoys writing scary stories as much as she loves reading them. When she isn't writing, she's either taking pictures, reading, making nerdy jewelry, watching movies or spending much needed time with her family. A.G. lives in New Hope, Alabama with her husband, Billy, stepson, Brenton, and their 4 dogs.
A.G. enjoys writing stories about real people in supernatural situations. She also puts a lot of her faith into her books because she knows that without Christ she is lost and without God she is nothing.

Movie Review - SUSPECT ZERO

3/29/2016

Parts of this movie were quite disturbing, such as the view of a FBI agent who beats a man to death. Sure, he might have deserved it because he was a serial killer of children, but that isn't the point, the law doesn't murder because it can. And why is the main character willing to kill one serial killer and not another. Because he can, he needs to work on who is justice.

Sir Ben Kingsley is an actor who I am willing to watch in pretty much anything he has done, he is up there with William DeFoe and Gary Oldman. Kingsley is a serial killer killer. He hunts down and kills other serial killers, leaving watercolor paintings and chalk drawings behind, but the real question is - does he have a gift or is her just crazy?

Aaron Eckhart play the FBI agent who is hunting Kingsley. He his a little crazy himself and must tame his inner monster.

This movie was released in 2004 and was an interesting take on serial killing at the time. Not many movies were about serial killers killing other serial killers. One of the serial killers is a very interesting killer, who keeps a trunk full of well organized trophies. One annoying part of the movie, however, was the sound effects and the buzzing they kept replaying in the background. It was terrible, and got on my nerves. It was so grating I almost turned the movie off, but I wanted to see where things were going to go.

Another annoying thing in this movie was the red tinted views that were used every now and then. It actually gave me a slight headache. I don't recommend watching this movie if you are already nauseous or if you are experiencing a headache or migraine.

This is a short review, but it says as much as I can about this movie. It was an interesting movie, and I'd recommend watching it once. Not as gritty as SEVEN, although that may be what it was trying for, but a good movie nonetheless.

Writer's Block

3/28/2016

For about two months now I have been suffering from writer's block. Every writer does, and sometimes it goes away fast, while other times it seems to prolong the torture of not being able to write. As a writer, this feels like the flu. I can't sleep, but I'm always tired. I sit down to work, and have ideas in my head, but nothing gets splattered on the paper. I shake from both exhaustion and anxiety. I feel lightheaded and heavy headed at the same time. I don't know what to do.

I have been working on the same story for these last two months, and I have made some progress, but I can only write and re-write the same scene so many times before it is just overworked. I know where I am going with this story, I know what I am doing, I know who I am killing, but the words just don't want to work together. In fact, besides the movie reviews on this website and this right here, I haven't written more than one paragraph to be used in anything.

Those who don't write really don't understand. It isn't just about writing, it is also about the feeling that I am suffocating in my own head. There is nothing coming out and I don't know how much longer I can take it. I have a job to do, and yet I can't do it. If you have a job, a job you love, you can understand. If you were unable to do your job your entire life would suffer. You would become depressed, and lonely, and you'd wonder when things were going to get better because you can't live like this.

It isn't just about not being able to write, it is all of it. I can't create. Everything I do feels like it has been done before. I know there are some original ideas, actually there are quite a few of them, and yet I am stuck.

You don't have to be a writer to understand. It isn't just about not being able to work, it's about not having an outlet. I currently don't have an outlet for my frustration, anxiety, troubles, happiness, anything. It is all stuck inside of me. It is all building up. One day I will explode. I know it will happen, but I hope soon, really soon, that I will be able to write.

I need to be able to think. I need to be able to let go. Soon I hope.

Movie Review - THE MIRROR

3/28/2016

Another "found footage" type of movie, yay (I say this sarcastically). From IMDb - "Three intrepid flatmates who purchase the supposedly haunted antique on eBay and set up round the clock cameras in the hopes of capturing evidence of something going bump in the night." This movie was released in 2014, and I don't think it was new when it was released, meaning I am pretty sire there were several others like this when it came out.

Three young people, two men and a woman, are trying to win a chance at a million dollars, and yet nothing much happens. The first 40 minutes of the movie are dull. All it involves is a mirror, a GoPro, a possibly haunted mirror, and the insanity of a young man walking around at night not knowing what he is doing. Again this was another dull movie about a haunted or possessed object, that infects those around it. Really, what it seems to do is make the two dudes and the girl depressed. Which I totally understand since they aren't doing anything but watching television, and watching a mirror, while videotaping everything. The shaky camera angles have already been overdone, especially by 2014, and there really isn't much new that can be done.

These "flatmates" just wander around their flat, hoping to catch the mirror doing something, when of course it isn't the mirror that actually does anything, it's the mates who are infected by whatever the mirror is possessed by.

It goes round and round, and in reality it is just dull. The knife welding young man just gets annoying and it is so obvious by the end what is going to happen. Movies like this should try to be just a little less predictable.

Movie Review - ASYLUM

3/28/2016

Asylum was released in 1997 and I am so glad I missed it. According to IMDb this movie was about "A private investigator, mentally disturbed by his father's suicide, goes undercover in a mental institution to discover the murderer of a friend who was a doctor at the clinic." It starred Robert Patrick of TERMINATOR 2 fame as the main character Nicholas, and had other actors (such as Malcolm McDowell) in minor and unexplored roles.

I often look forward to movies set in asylums, but this movie just didn't deliver in scares or interest. The viewer isn't told much about the suicide of Nicholas's father, and it only comes through in flashbacks. The "friend" is actually Nicholas's doctor, who called the night before because he wanted Nicholas to investigate the disappearance of several patients. I knew almost right away who the bad guy was, and this movie didn't strike me as different from any other movie set in an asylum. There were crazy characters, one female character who was often in trouble or being used by male orderlies, and the one crazy person who was crazy but maybe not crazy.

This movie was dull, in fact it was so dull I din't actually pay a lot of attention as people were murdered. I was utterly disappointed because I like Robert Patrick and Malcolm McDowell, and this was just a waste of their talent. None of the characters were that interesting to me, and I was actually not invested in any of them. I didn't care about what happened to them, and as the main character was a private investigator, I was surprised how clueless he seemed to be. He wandered around the asylum like a bonehead, almost everyone knew who he really was, and there was no one taking care of anything. It was just annoying and boring.

So, do I recommend this movie? Absolutely not. Was it at all scary? Absolutely not. Was it worth an hour and a half? Nope.

So don't waste your time. Skip this one.

Happenings

3/15/2016

So I figured I should tell everyone where I will be this weekend, and other exciting things that will be happening.

I will be here this weekend: https://www.facebook.com/HuntsvilleComicExpo/

I will have shoes, books, bookmarks, and my smiling face!

Here are some examples of the items I will be bringing!

Also, if anyone is around towards the end of May I will be in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, put on by Rocket City Shakespeare.

Besides all of this, I am creating new product and I am working on killing everyone in my book. I hope to get ZOMBIE WASTELAND out in an ebook next week. I am working on the free short story that goes between ZOMBIE WASTELAND and ZOMBIMERICA, and hope to have that out by May.

Hopefully, by the end of this summer I will have 99% of ZOMBIEMERICA done.

Movie Review - EVIL DEAD (remake)

3/2/2016

I was warned not to watch this. I was warned that this wasn't as good as the original. I was warned that if I had seen the original I was going to be disappointed in this one. Those warnings were all correct.

If you haven't seen either movie, first watch the original, second don't watch the remake.

This movie is about a group of friends who go off to a cabin in the woods. They are there to help one of them get off of drugs and sober up. All of this is going just as planned until someone finds a book, bound by barbed wire. He finds it fascinating, and like a complete idiot he reads some passages out of it, unleashing an evil that has been waiting for several years to create havoc on earth. One by one each person is affected until only one remains to fight the evil on their own.

I understand, we need strong female characters, but seriously, what the heck was the point of the remake of this movie. None of the women or the men stood out to me, unlike in the original movie where Ash still stands out. The most interesting character was the long-haired Eric, who is the one who reads the book and sets hell on earth free. He fights throughout the movie to stay alive. He is stabbed several times, shot with a nail gun, hacked at with a knife, hit over the head with a large crowbar, and even though he is being literally beaten to death he still tries to help his friend.

Other than him, the rest of the movie was just eh. The ideas behind some of the violence were a little unrealistic. I seriously doubt you could cut off a body part with an electric knife, once you hit bone those things usually stop. I have yet to see one strong enough that it could cut off a limb. And how on earth, are you going to walk around if you are spurting arterial blood? Cauterize the damn wound already. Geez!

I understand, I'm expected to suspend my belief, but for this movie I just could not do it! I know, the original is just as unbelievable, but I think since it was new, and I wasn't expecting a lot of it, I could watch it without wondering about wound care.

Just don't. I didn't heed the warnings, and I really should have, I wouldn't have wasted an hour and a half of my life watching just another remake that didn't need to be made.

Movie Review - HOLD YOUR BREATH

3/1/2016

Another movie from 2012, and this one is a stinker.

Another movie about a group of friends going off to a vacation, where things go terribly wrong.

From IMdB - A group of friends on a weekend camping trip find themselves being picked off one by one when one member of the group refuses to abide by the urban myth that you can breathe in evil spirits when passing cemeteries.

The movie starts in a prison with the execution of a prisoner, which of course goes all to hell. Then the movie moves to a group of friends in a van, and once again you've got the same group. There is the horny girl, the horny guy, the couple that can't get enough of each other and have sex whenever they can but are really supposed to be the leaders of the group, the smart guy, the stoner/drunk guy, and the lone girl who is there just because there always seems to be an extra. One by one the group is possessed by the ghost of a murderer, who in turn makes them do horrible things that they only remember in their nightmares.

This movie is very slow, entails lots of unnecessary nudity, and for some reason everyone curses at everyone because they are all in a pissing contest with this backwoods redneck guy who is trying to keep them safe. Everything goes as one expects in a movie like this. The redneck guy, who used to be a guard at the asylum in the movie, has the best lines in the movie, and is pretty freaking awesome, but underused. One of his best lines is, "You take another step closer to me you'd rather jack off a bobcat." These lines kept on continuing throughout the movie.

Then there was the head guy of the group, a studly blond with a hot girlfriend, who argues constantly with the redneck.

Not a terrible movie, but not great either. This followed the same formula of a lot of movies in this genre. Movies about groups of friends going out and trying to survive the night while some weird evil is killing them off one-by-one.

Movie Review - MINE GAMES

3/1/2016

This movie is from 2012, so it's an older movie, and it is kind of weird.

The movie involves (like most movies seem to) a group of friends going on a vacation. They end up at a nice cabin in the woods and are set to explore and relax. Of course, with several movies in this vein, some of their friends are missing when they get to the house, so they decide to wait. Exploring the area they stumble on an abandoned mine, and like complete idiots they decide to explore it. Hello every horror movie ever.

After leaving the mine they begin to worry about their friends, and decide to give it a day before leaving. Do they enjoy life, swimming, hiking, going back to the mine, drinking, normal things one does when on vacation. Oh except this one chick, nah she decides to take a 'shroom and ends up having visions of all of her friends dead. The movie continues with a weird discovery, a parallel universe, and again, a circular plot.

This movie didn't suck but it was very obvious who the bad guy was going to end up being because they kept referencing their "psychological problems". I wish they hadn't made it so obvious and had made the bad guy someone else. There was an interesting twist involving the mine, but after that it was all obvious.

I can't say I recommend this movie, even though I thought it had an interesting idea. The characters were all pretty much the same as every other movie in this line. There was a drunk/stoned horny guy who was always trying to get with this one blond girl. There was a loving couple where the girl was constantly worried about her boyfriend because he has issues. There was the single smart guy who was trying to figure it all out. And then there were some extra characters who were the ones obviously there to die.

The ending was pretty good, because it wasn't who you'd expect to be the one warning the others of what might be happening. And for this reason I enjoyed the movie.

Movie Review - THE DIABOLICAL

3/1/2016

A young mother with two children is trying hard not to lose her mind. Her and her children are being haunted by several different supernatural beings. And that is the entire movie.

Okay, this movie was just not wonderful. I like movies that are different, but in all honesty this movie was billed as a horror movie when it was really more science fiction. Yeah, it did have horror elements, like monsters with no skin and gory faces, but it was all about the science.

A young mother (played by Ali Larter) is haunted by ghosts in her house, or what might be ghosts. She is often asked by her son when they are going to move or leave the house, and her constant reply is, "I'm working on it." Which I found really annoying, because she never seemed to be working on anything, like nothing. I don't even know what she did for a job. Maybe she was a teacher? Maybe she worked at home? It was never developed. And this brings me to the first problem in this film. The characters were all very flat. The mother was dull and she didn't seem to be protecting her kids, or trying to fix the situation in her house. The son was supposed to be very angry but really we don't know why, even when the mother keeps saying, "You're just like your father." There is a young girl but she is never fully developed, and there is a boyfriend, but he too is flat. All we know about the boyfriend is that he is a teacher and a science person.

Throughout the movie the mother talks about the father and why he left or she left him, but we have no idea if he is dead or alive since it is never explored. There are so many holes in this movie it made me want to scream. I wanted to like it, mostly because I don't think Ali Larter is a bad actress, but I just couldn't. It was dull, the plot made no sense, and everything in the movie was circular, which means it ended where it began before it could really end. The viewer is never told how the bad guy came to be, although there are hints to it, and throughout the movie the scares were not scary. I was never given the chance to care for any of the characters, so I didn't.

I don't recommend this movie to anyone. It's was just dull and pointless. The idea could have been interesting if it had been developed correctly, but it was too all over the place. Also, if they had kept it just a science fiction movie and skipped the horror elements it might have been a more successful film.