After reading a handful of The Dark Country stories, I began to think of the paintings of Edward Hopper. At first my reaction was a puzzle. I wonderer why. After all, Etchison writes vividly of Southern California in the late 70’s and early ‘80’s, of LA airports, highways and rest stops, of laundromats and convenience stores. Hopper, on the other hand, paints the East Coast in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, depicting New York railway compartments, gas stations and chop suey joints, movie palaces, furnished rooms, and owl-wagons. But if Hopper is noir, then Etchison is neo-noir: in each, a severe scene and its human figures are circumscribed by a small patch of merciless light, a light which whispers of isolation and the lonely darkness beyond. Hopper’s light is incandescent, Etchison’s fluorescent, but both lights cut right through to the bone.I think my favorite group of tales is the strongly noir-ish: “It Only Comes Out at Night” (set in a desert rest stop with lots of cars and no people), “Sitting in the Corner, Whimpering Quietly” (a bizarre laundromat confession), “The Walking Man” (Double Indemnity/Body Heat, with a twist), “We Have All Been Here Before” (a police psychic with an agenda), “The Pitch” (a “Mr. Popiel” type pitchman with an agenda), “The Late Shift” (something is very, very wrong with those creepy late-night quickie mart clerks), and “The Dark Country” (a random homicide disrupts an American resort in Mexico). Still, the more mysterious, open-ended stories may be even better: “The Nighthawk” (a were-hawk and his human sister), “It Will Be Here Soon” (an old man listens to strange voices on used cassette tapes), “Death Tracks” (a couple finds that TV laugh-tracks are a way of communicating with the dead, and—perhaps best of all—the haunting “You Can Go Now” (a cross-country airplane odyssey by a man who may—or may not—have committed a terrible crime).I wasn’t a big fan of all these stories. A few (“The Daughter of the Golden West,” “Today’s Special”) were more gimmicky than ghastly, a few of the open-ended stories were more confusing than mysterious, and I didn’t much like “Transplant Trilogy,” even though Ramsay Campbell—who wrote the introduction is a better judge than I am—disagrees. These criticisms, however, are minor. The Dark Country is a book of well-crafted stories, touched with a beguiling ambiguity and capable of evoking genuine terror. I urge you to give Etchison a try.

Bizarre radio broadcasts luring dissolute souls into the dark woods of Western Massachusetts. Sinister old men in topcoats gathered at corners and in playgrounds. A long-dead sorcerer returning to obscene life in the form of an old buck goat. Welcome to Leeds, Massachusetts, where the drowned walk, where winged leeches blast angry static, where black magic casts a shadow over a cringing populace. You've tuned in to WXXT. The fracture in the stanchion. The drop of blood in your morning milk. The viper in the veins of the Pioneer Valley.

Erotic horror anthology series where the hosts Terence Stamp (in season 1) and David Bowie (in season 2) eccentrically introduce each of the steamy, erotic and often supernatural tales of power, sex, lust, and driving urges.

British/Canadian television horror anthology series

Charlie's ex-wife disappears, and he travels to where she grew up--a rural town in the Midwest--to look for her. But, surprisingly, nobody knows about her or any of her many relatives, the Newmans. He meets aliens; but when he contacts the FBI, they don't believe him. He tells his story to a tabloid; and suddenly, he is chased by the aliens.

Following an accident, young Jay Ziegler falls into a coma. While his family and friends must continue their lives in the Real World, Jay finds himself in the magical Downworld on a quest to return home.

adventure-fantasy television series from 1992 to 1994

A young man discovers that his father was from another dimension and that he is the key to the operation of a crystal that can be the deciding factor in a war crossing the dimensions.

In 2038, Earth's mineral resources are drained, there are space fights for the last deposits on other planets and satellites. This is the situation when one of the bigger mining corporations has lost many mineral moons except one and many of their fully automatic mining robots are disappearing on their flight home. Since nobody else wants the job, they send prisoners as a last resort to defend the mining station. Among them, internal affairs agent Felix Stone, assigned to clear the whereabouts of the expensive robots. In an atmosphere of corruption, fear and hatred, Stone gets between the fronts of rivaling groups and locates the person committing sabotage.

In the nuclear ravaged wasteland of Earth 2087 water is as precious as life itself. The isolated Lost Wells outpost survived the holocaust and the inhabitants guard the source of their existence. Now an evil cult of renegades want control of their valuable water supply. And the villagers are no match for such brute military force. Only one man can help the stricken community - a mercenary living in a distant cannibal city. But even he, and his strange henchmen, may not be able to survive in the world gone wild.

A video store clerk stumbles onto an alien plot to take over Earth by brain-washing people with a bad '50s science fiction movie. He and his friend must find a way to stop the aliens before the tapes can be distributed worldwide.

Before they can complete renovations on their new inn, Widower (Ben Wilson) and daughter (Hillary) are visited by a woman seeking immediate lodging for her strange group of travellers. Why they won't stay at the hotel in town is just the first of many mysteries surrounding the group that lead Wilson to a startling discovery affecting his family and neighbours.

Miles buys himself a state-of-the-art computer that starts expressing thoughts and emotions after a having champagne spilled down on him. Things start getting out of hand when both Miles and Edgar, how the computer calls himself, fall in love with Madeline, an attractive neighbour.

Michael and Ellie break into a military junkyard to find a science project for Michael's class, and discover a strange glowing orb which absorbs electricity. When the orb begins to blend past, present, and future, its up to Michael and Ellie to stop the orb and save mankind.

A series of short sketches, most of which parody late-night television and the low-budget movies one often finds there. Other skits include a man being attacked by his apartment, a funeral hosted by classic comedians, and a teen-age boy's big night turning into a nightmare.

1987 film directed by Peter Horton, Carl Gottlieb, Joe Dante, Robert K. Weiss, John Landis

Karl Hochman is a technician in a computer store. He is also known as the "Address Book Killer" due to his habit of stealing people's address books and proceeding to murder anyone listed in the book. Terry Munroe and her son Josh come into the store to purchase software, and a salesman uses Terry's address book to demonstrate a handheld scanner. Karl obtains the book, and while driving to Terry's house that night in a thunderstorm, his car runs off the road and lands upside down in a cemetery. While Karl is undergoing an MRI at a hospital, a surge of lightning courses through the building, and Karl's mind is transformed into electrical energy. Karl uses the electrical grid and computer networks to continue his killing spree. It is up to Terry, Josh, and computer hacker Bram Walker to stop him before it is too late.

Jesse, an alien exiled to Earth, finds himself in Los Angeles. His only companion is a floating, orb-shaped robotic parole officer named Control. Doomed to stay on Earth until Jesse can show compassion, Control helps him lead as normal a life as possible, but not knowing Earthly ways Jesse often finds himself in trouble.

LA in the near future, Harry Wykoff accepts a job as presidents of a gigantic TV company. Het is confronted with a total new technology called "The New Reality" where three-dimensional TV animated pictures are projected in living rooms all around the world. Harry launches to the top of the company with his career but once there he is caught in a web of intrigues, betrayal and murder. A game of life and death begins...

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