Mladen and Del review ‘Anaconda’
Image courtesy of Sony Studios.
“Anaconda” Starring Jack Black as Doug McCallister, Paul Rudd as Ronald Griffin Jr., Thandiwe Newton as Claire Simons, Steve Zahn as Kenny Trent, and Daniela Melchior as Ana Almeida, and others. Directed by Tom Gormican. Rated PG-13. 1 hour, 39 minutes. Theatrical release.
Plot summary: In this sci-fi-like horror comedy some folks decide to re-make 1997’s ridiculous and wonderful “Anaconda.” Unfunny foibles ensue.
Spoilers: How does one write a movie review without spoilers?
Mladen’s take
Jack Black must be feeling cowed right about now. From starring in one of the highest grossing movies – “A Minecraft Movie” – of 2025 to playing a central role in what will be one of the year’s crappiest, Black is proof that previous success ain’t a guarantee of future performance.
“Anaconda,” now playing in theaters, is a miss. It barely deserves a C-. Only a couple of funny-ish scenes keep it from entering the Brazil Rain Forest of The Doldrums. Note that “Doldrums” starts with a ‘D.’
Where to start? A plot summary, I suppose.
Lifelong friends McCallister, Griffin, Simons, and Trent decide to “re-imagine” the delightfully campy “Anaconda” film all of us know and love made some 28 years ago. They see their “Anaconda” re-boot as the ticket to lives they always imagined for themselves. That life is Hollywood stardom, show awards, and self‑respect. Toss in a subplot about illegal gold mining in the Amazon and you get an idea of the movie’s narrative.
The above‑mentioned Gang of Four dragged us through a film with meek slapstick, no good jokes, some okay VX, and predictable intrigue.
Black is cliché Black in “Anaconda,” too kinetic. McCallister’s sing-song-y impromptu riffing failed most of the time.
Rudd is too Rudd. Griffin demurred a lot but always followed his good-hearted nature, which generally led to bad things happening to those around him.
Newton as Simons seemed to be cast because the producers felt a woman – the J Lo mimic – had to be present.
Zahn is the funniest meatball in this non‑zany movie but not so funny that I remember anything he said.
Ice Cube’s appearance in the new “Anaconda,” he starred in the original, is uninspiring. His modern equivalent of jive talk during the minute or two he’s on the screen is annoying.
Also, the snake in the new “Anaconda” fails to menace. There’s nothing malevolent about the critter. It blasts through decks like an RPG. It slithers through detonating pyrotechnics. It chases its prey like a cheetah. The 1997 great‑grandaddy anaconda lurked. It ambushed. It was patient. Remember the overhead shot of the predator weaving among the group of ship‑wrecked meals‑to‑be as they waded through a wetland? Top notch stuff. Or, is that scene in the second “Anaconda” film (2004)? No matter. You get the point.
More than anything else, today’s “Anaconda” sucked at two fundamental levels.
The first suck was its Hollywood self‑parody, including taking shots at Sony, the studio that produced the original “Anaconda.” If I have a complaint about Sony, it’s about the television in my living room. Sony, why did you use a Google processor in the “smart” TV? The Google device is as glitchy as Trump’s brain.
The second suck is the piss-on-a-snake-bite-wound scene that went on and on and on. I swear, the movie‑makers added the scene just to make the film feature length. Man, the script writers couldn’t even come up with decent synonyms. All I heard was “piss” and “pee.” What about “urinate?” Or “tinkle?” Or “wee-wee?” Or “drain the main vein?” The latter would’ve been perfect because the scene is juvenile.
I like all the actors in “Anaconda.” I wanted, nay, expected, the movie to be funny considering the cast and the plot. It wasn’t. Damn.
Del’s take
My decline into geezerhood must be accelerating because I largely agree with what Mladen says about the new “Anaconda.” That can’t be good. Make a note to my doctor: Agreeing with Mladen. Look for signs of cognitive collapse.
The new “Anaconda” has one big problem for a comedy – it ain’t funny. That might be all you need to know.
I blame its lack of humor on two crucial factors:
1. The writing.
2. Paul Rudd.
Let’s tackle the writing first. The movie’s approach to comedy is lackadaisical. The humor is often overwrought – it drawls past the inflection point of a well-timed joke and plods into a realm I would describe as tedium. Watching these actors mumble, shrug and shuffle as the joke lies there, flopping like a beached flounder, isn’t funny. There were two scenes I thought rose to the level of hilarity: the afore-mentioned pissing scene, and Jack Black hightailing it across a grassy field with a live pig duct-taped to his back. The rest was, I hate to say it, b-o-r-i-n-g.
And whatever patina of meet-cute charm Paul Rudd might have possessed in the past has vanished from “Anaconda.” He looked haggard – middle-aged haggard – and struck me as a tragic character, worthy of pity more than anything that could be called relatability.
All the characters are either poorly developed or so trite the writers must have felt they didn’t need to give them backstories and personalities. Ronald’s budding romance with Claire just sort of happens. Steve Zahn’s character, Kenny Trent, is a cipher. The snake handler, Selton Mello as Santiago, seems to spring from the ethers, as does Ana, the sultry boat captain who is on the run from mysterious armed men. Who are these people? Where do they come from? Why should I care about them?
Also, the movie never really seems to find its center. It orbits between Black and Rudd, with both offering mediocre to non-existent reasons for anyone to give a damn about them. And the plot? Trust me, you’ve seen it in a thousand movies.
The snake, the real star of “Anaconda,” sucks as an antagonist. It’s a CGI joke that simply appears without provocation and runs through its scenes minus tension or menace. It’s the Alien on a coffee break.
I wanted this movie to succeed but it didn’t. My impression is that it was rushed through its design and construction without much thought given to its comedic elements and plot. It’s a paint-by-number comedy-horror flick that will quickly be forgotten.
Like Mladen (Lord help me, I need another Prevagen) I’m giving it a C-. If the movie had been longer, with better-developed characters and a plot that at least aspired to something original, I could have been more charitable. But in my opinion it’s a lash-up that doesn’t warrant anything higher than a lackluster score.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
All images courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” Starring Sam Worthington as Jake, Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Stephen Lang as Quaritch, Oona Chaplain as Varang and others. Directed by James Cameron. Rated PG-13. 3 hours, 17 minutes. Theatrical release.
Plot summary: Jake, Neytiri and the kids – Tuktirey, Lo’ak, Kiri, and Spider – depart the Metkayina clan to return Spider to humanity, as he cannot breathe Pandoran air. Along the way they are ambushed by the Mangkwan clan, who eventually throw in with the RDA to slaughter the whale-like Tulkuns and claim dominion over the moon and its resources. Jake and the allied clans must rally to defeat the Mangkwans and humans, or Pandora will be plundered and looted for its riches.
Spoilers: Yes.
Del’s take
Dear James Cameron,
It’s beautiful but … enough.
Nobody denies your spectacular vision, the unparalleled special effects and stunning complexity of the world you’ve created in Pandora, but …
Enough.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is an excellent movie … but. …
I’m tired.
This is the third time you’ve told this story: Noble savages frolic amid the idyll. Evil outsiders invade. Noble savages and outsiders skirmish. Then, in a final showdown, noble savages and outsiders wage all-out war. Somehow, noble savages prevail. Idyll restored. Frolicking resumes.
“Avatar,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” and now “Avatar: Fire and Ash” are essentially pastoral myths, which extol the purity and virtue of a life allied with nature, devoid of the corrupting influences of urbanization, pollution, and the refined moral essence of mankind, which is something selfish and destructive. And for the most part I agree with those tenets – until I need a dentist or want my garbage picked up. Then I’m full Team Civilization.
I want to repeat what I said earlier: “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is an excellent movie. People should see it in a theater, preferably one equipped with an IMAX screen and Dolby Atmos, not their (likely) crappy home monitor (unless you’re my friends Jim and Karen, who have a 98-inch OLED TV that looks more like a picture window than a monitor … that thing blows me away). The special effects are groundbreaking and the world-building is the most intricate I’ve seen in a film, EVER, and that includes “Dune” and “Blade Runner.”
But please – and I say this not as a person who could do what you’ve done, but as a member of your audience, just some schmoe from the panhandle of Florida – now that you’ve conquered those other aspects of moviemaking, concentrate on improving your stories, because they’re all the same. “Fire and Ash” is essentially “The Way of Water,” which was a retelling of “Avatar.” We get it. Natives = good. Humans = bad. There’s got to be a new wrinkle to this epic, one that’s worth all the visual firepower you bring to the table.
And please, work on the dialogue. Apart from Stephen Lang’s Quaritch, who gets the best lines of the movie, your characters speak dialogue so cringeworthy it makes the fillings in my teeth ache. It comes across like middle-school moralizing. That scene with Jake and Spider, which by the way was the most emotionally fraught of the entire film, was nearly ruined by Spider’s corny acceptance-of-his-fate speech. Thank God it lasted only a few seconds.
I’m dismayed to hear this is not the end of “Avatar,” that there’s a fourth installment in the works for 2029, and a fifth for sometime in the 2030s. In fact, it’s distinctly possible this could become a continuing series of film and streaming series. IF that’s the case, then you’ve got to bring more to these films than just clashes between city people and country folks, because that conflict is getting old.
I’m giving your film an A-. Its technical achievements and the sweeping vision of the story are undeniable. But the quality of the plot doesn’t match the epic sweep of the storytelling. In that regard you could take pointers from the extended versions of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is an excellent movie, yes. But I guess what I’m trying to say is: You can do better.
That’s it. I’m done. I hope you’re not mad at me.
Please tell Sigourney hi for me. I’ve always been a fan.
Del
Mladen’s take
I learned a couple of, ah, truths, about myself watching “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
The first realization? I’d have no trouble sharing a bed with an alien if the entity is as soulless, ambitious, take-no-prisoners, and sultry as Varang. She is the evil asshole boss of a clan of very human Pandora natives portrayed in the recently released Avatar III.
Second, I’m unable to cope anymore with stories that extend the myth of other‑than‑earthly hopefulness conveyed in earlier sci-fi movies such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “2010: The Year We Make Contact,” or any such movie that argues there’s a heaven waiting for us when we die. There’s no supernatural something that’ll save us mortals from mortality. Yours truly agrees completely and without a shred of doubt with Bob Marley and The Wailers – “If you know what life is worth, you would look for yours on earth.” Or Pandora. God almighty, wait until you see how Pandora’s planet god Eywa manifests as a physical being. My head almost exploded it was so derivative and blatantly Space Odyssey.
Yes, the good Na’vi fight the bad Na’vi and the human colonialists still digging for Unobtainium and killing Pandora’s whale equivalents for the secret sauce contained in their bodies. But, that’s insufficient because the good Na’vi almost get their butts kicked and sustain terrible loss of life across species in the process. I offer this. Had the good Na’vi assumed that Eywa was, at least, indifferent to their lives, they would have fought harder earlier, kicking the crap out of the bad Na’vi and squalid humans while sustaining fewer fatalities by going on the offensive. Rely on a god, and all gods are unreliable, and it might be too late to save your only life when the shit hits the fan.
Third, what do you do when the bad guys are more charismatic than the good guys in a movie? I ask this because, more and more these days, people apply the fiction of moviemaking to their beliefs in actual life. Beautiful feline Varang and steadfast Quaritch, both very bad folk, are more entertaining than Jake and Neytiri, who are unentertaining and conscientious good folk. Entertainment is what ordinary Americans, and the rest of the peasants on this planet, want. What’s the result? A deranged orange blob at the head of the U.S. Senate‑sanctioned and Supreme Court‑unleashed Executive branch. Fascists running Argentina, El Salvador, Hungary, Israel, and Russia, to name just a few countries.
Fourth, I was forewarned. After we saw “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” Del said that he’d write a thoughtful and fair review. He did, unfortunately. I’m unable to disagree with what he put to e‑paper. Expect the movie’s grade. The third Avatar is way too first and second Avatar. It’s as bad as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which mimics its excellent and ancient predecessor “Star Wars” or, as it later came to be known, “Episode IV – A New Hope.” I hope there’s no Avatar IV but there will be. Varang and Quaritch, thankfully, survive in Avatar III. They’re the couple who is most likely to make the next Avatar slightly better than unpalatable.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” gets a B-, eh, a C+ from me and that’s generous. The movie delivers fabulous sight and sound. Del and I should’ve seen it in a Dolby theater because that might have distracted me from noticing the film’s irredeemable wankiness.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Image courtesy of Netflix.
“Troll 2” Starring Ine Marie Wilmann as eccentric troll chaser Nora Tidemann; Kim Falck as lovable self‑sacrificing Andreas Isaksen; what‑a‑great‑name Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as studly but kind Major Kristoffer Holm; Sara Khorami as sultry scientist and bureaucrat Marion Auryn Rhadani; and others. Directed by what‑another‑great‑name Roar Uthaug. 1 hour, 45 minutes. Rated TV-14. Streaming on Netflix.
Plot summary: After centuries of hibernation, a gigantic mountain troll is awakened and goes on a revenge-fueled rampage. A scratch group of lovable but eccentric scientists and lovable but bumbling bureaucrats must stop the creature before it reduces Norway to rubble.
Spoilers: Yes, this is a movie review after all.
Mladen’s take
When I imagine a troll, it’s a humanoid shape with a size that falls somewhere between a dwarf and an ogre or, in real world terms, between Rubio and Trump. I’m wrong about their size, if you believe Norwegians know more about trolls than me, a Croatian. In both the original 2022 “Troll” and the recently released “Troll 2,” these mythical creatures are, what, 15 stories tall, sentient, and scruffy. Without question, they should take some hair styling cues from Del.
While “Troll” is a very good movie, “Troll 2” is not. It just makes the cut as a B- because it’s too derived from the first “Troll” movie and predictable. But, “Troll 2” does have some merits despite its paint‑by‑numbers plot.
Ah, yes, the plot.
The federal government of Norway has shackled a tough‑looking mature male troll that was found hibernating. How do I know the troll is a male when its pubic region is covered by a thick growth of lichen? It lacks boobs, that’s how. Come to think of it, the algae beard is a bit of a giveaway, too.
Anyway, government scientists have reached a dead end studying the critter. They recruit troll whisperer Tidemann to help. She becomes instantly disgruntled because the bureaucrats and the military are treating the troll as an object and a threat because the troll in the first “Troll” movie rampaged trying to find its home in the mountains. Poof, in no time Tidemann is at the top of the scaffold erected near the troll. She approaches the troll, touches its warty nose, hums a Norwegian lullaby, and, whamo, the troll awakes. Mayhem ensues after the grandaddy of trolls, who I’ll call Buster, breaks free, steps on a few humans, and busts through the mountain redoubt where the government has been hiding him.
You may be asking why Buster is so angry, so determined, so focused on whapping Norway, whose people I’ve always thought of as being among the happiest and nicest in the world. Well, as it turns out, Norwegians haven’t always been so nice, especially when one of their medieval kings decided to force feed them, and trolls, Catholic Christianity.
I was enjoying the movie until Tidemann, accompanied by Isaksen, Holm, and Rhadani, commits a very non‑science‑y act. She goes to a cave where a late puberty troll is hiding from the world. She then asks the kid troll to stop the adult troll from wrecking Norway. And, I’m like, girl, ain’t no way your troll, ironically nicknamed “Beautiful,” stands a chance against Buster. So, yeah, Buster takes out Beautiful without the former every laying a hand, a paw, whatever, on the latter. I concede that the no‑fight is one of the cooler scenes in the movie. It deftly illustrated that Buster was a smart troll, indeed, but that scene, and a couple of others, aren’t enough to elevate the second movie to the original film’s level.
The CGI in “Troll 2” is good. The characters likable. The soundtrack adequate. Despite my unenthusiastic grade for the film, I recommend that you watch it. “Troll 2” has just enough moments sprinkled through its reasonable runtime to make it enjoyable. And, though you don’t need to see the original “Troll” to enjoy the unoriginal “Troll 2,” it won’t hurt. The way I figure it, you may as well see both to better prepare for the third Troll universe film that’s on the way.
Del’s take
First things first, let’s sort out the plethora of troll movies.
Back in the ’80s we had “Troll,” a not very good B horror movie, followed by a sequel in 1990, “Troll 2.” Didn’t much care for either. The trolls looked like Rat Fink dolls. (Fun facts: The lead actor in “Troll” was Noah Hathaway, who played the young boy Boxey in the original “Battlestar Galactica,” and Atreyu in “The Neverending Story.” His “Troll” character’s fictional name was “Harry Potter.”)
Then in 2010 came “Troll Hunter,” the first feature-length movie I watched on Netflix. That movie blew my mind. Or it might have been the six-pack of Corona I consumed while watching it. Either way, “Troll Hunter” set the standard for troll movies. I mean, c’mon on – a troll as big as a mountain contracting RABIES? What a trip!
Then in 2022, Netflix rolled out “Troll,” unrelated to the ’80s “Troll” or “Troll Hunter.” This new troll became Norway’s Godzilla – it stomped around, squashing buildings and whatnot. No fire breath. That could have helped. I liked it, though not as much as “Troll Hunter.”
Now we have “Troll 2,” another Netflix production and a sequel to the 2022 film. Same characters, same dilemma, just a tad sillier.
This movie’s strong points are its special effects, its setting (I never tire of seeing Norway’s beautiful back country and fjords), and its premise – that once, human beings and giant, humanoid creatures lived side-by-side in harmony, until religion arrived. That’s when trolls became persona non grata and were hunted down by marauding humans until only a few relics, unknown to modern man, remained within the deepest recesses of Norway’s Dovre Mountains.
“Troll 2’s” problems are as follows: It skimps on action, instead wasting valuable time re-establishing character backstories and hinting at romantic entanglements that go nowhere. As it happens, the pogrom against trolls is just one big screw-up resulting from a torn piece of paper – not even plausible in the error-prone Trump regime. Also, in my opinion, it relies too heavily on the viewer having seen the first movie. Apart from the viewpoint character and her military pal, I struggled to remember who these people were.
You’ll forgive my lack of wokeness on this issue, but the thought of gigantic, possibly rabies-infected monsters striding through major population centers leaves me feeling less concerned about their right to exist and more concerned about my right to not get squashed flat or eaten by said gigantic monster, which is exactly what happens in one ghastly scene where an enraged troll rips the roof off an Alpine disco and makes a quick snack of the badly dancing inhabitants within.
“Trolls 2” doesn’t give you much opportunity to worry about that. Instead, we see the military commander tasked with stopping this thing bringing his new love interest along on missions, which confused me. I thought the Tidemann character was his girlfriend. She’s not? Somebody better let her know because she, in her eccentric way, is still flirting with him. We see the newly married bureaucrat trading Star Trek puns with his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, who will be named after a Star Trek character. At that point you know he’s doomed to Red Shirt status. And we see the military commander’s bitchy girlfriend undergo a total character transformation so that by movie’s end she’s solidly Team Troll. It’s all a little too convenient and trite for my tastes.
Sounds like I didn’t like it, eh? Not true. It was OK. I don’t think it was equivalent to the first “Troll” but the premise was so interesting I couldn’t NOT like it. I’ll go along with Mladen’s grade of a B-, though I should give it a B just to disagree with him.
“Troll 2” continues a legacy of Scandinavian filmmaking that does not receive the credit it’s due. “Troll Hunter” is a classic, as is the Norwegian adventure movie “The Wave” and its followup, “The Quake.” Throw in the Finnish Nazi zombie movies “Dead Snow” and “War of the Dead,” the two Sisu films and the superb Swedish horror film “Let the Right One In” and you’ve got a fine collection of provocative – and evocative – speculative movies that deserve more attention than they’ve received.
“Troll 2” is not on the same level as those films but it comes close.
You can see it on Netflix.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Karen Wolfe (Jarnigan), Del Stone Jr., and Elizabeth Hefflefinger goof around in the parking lot of the Daily News in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., waiting for snow that was forecast to fall one Christmas Eve in the mid-1990s.
It’s a cold, gray day here in the panhandle of Florida and I’m remembering Karen Wolfe Jarnigan.
Thanksgiving Day, 1993. Karen is hosting a holiday get-together for us newsroom types at her Okaloosa Island townhouse. She’s got the Dolphins-Cowboys game on TV, and as a Dolphins’ fan, I’m mesmerized. She and I make plans for a concert in Pensacola. Then, a miracle on ice: A Cowboys player slips on the sleet-coated field and knocks the ball into the end zone, giving the Dolphins a chance to kick a game-winning field goal. They do. Dolphins win, 16-14.
Monday night. I’m city editor. Karen is cops reporter, something she doesn’t normally do. She must be filling in for somebody. There’s been a triple homicide, the ghastly Edward Zakrzewski case. The details are so horrible Karen is on the verge of tears, but she works the story and somehow gets the name of the suspect, which we report, exclusively, the next morning.
Five o’clock in the morning of Oct. 3, 1995. My telephone rings. I pick it up. “THERE’SACATEGORY3HURRICANEHEADINGRIGHTATUSCANIEVACUATE – ” I hold up my hand, placating, though she can’t see it because she lives 10 miles away in Mary Esther, with Tracey Steele and Marley the cat. I tell her to let me check the TV. I’ll call her right back. I turn on The Weather Channel. There’s John Hope, TWC’s geriatric hurricane expert, pointing to a nasty vortex called Opal, smack dab in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, racing for the western Florida panhandle. I call her back. “You can – ” “OK bye!” she shouts and drops the phone. Thus begins a strange evacuation odyssey that will be retold in stories for years to come.
I’m driving down Hollywood Boulevard one sleepy Saturday afternoon and I spot the complex of Cumulus radio stations coming up. On impulse I pull in to wave at Karen through the studio window during her afternoon gig. She drags me into the booth and we have an impromptu on-air session.
Doc calls and asks a favor. He wants me to make sure Karen is in the newsroom on a certain day at a certain time. He has something planned. So I come up with a cock-eyed story for Karen about an important interview subject dropping by the newsroom at the appointed hour. I need her to be there. Make sure she’s there! Karen asks questions. She knows something is up; she just doesn’t know what. We do this back-and-forth thing and I’m sure, I’m just POSITIVE, she’s going to bolt from the newsroom like a filly breaking out of its paddock. But finally, there’s Doc, over by Dorothy’s desk. He’s wearing a black tux. He’s carrying a dozen roses, so red they look like Disney roses. The newsroom falls silent as he threads his way through the desks to Karen. She’s understandably shocked. He drops to one knee, and Karen’s hand flies to her mouth, the way everyone’s hand flies to their mouth when they’re asked to share their life with another person. It’s all very, very good.
Karen and Doc’s wedding. It looks like most everybody from the Daily News and WKSM is there. It’s held at a church I’ve never attended; the room is bright. Everyone is happy.
Karen comes up with an idea. We should give a small award for people in the newsroom who’ve done a good job on a story, photo, column, page, or whatever. These awards would be given out each week during our Wednesday staff meeting. The presenter would rotate among the staff and would be responsible for picking out a token gift – a candy bar from the vending machine, an inexpensive plastic cup, just something. Everybody loves the idea. Thus, the Wolfie Awards are born, named for their creator. Eventually the newspaper pays a $25 stipend for each Wolfie. Even today, when Daily News vets from the ’90s and ’00s get together, the subject of the Wolfies comes up.
The year is 2000. I’m in Dayton, Ohio, for my niece’s wedding. At the reception I’m talking to Chris, a wise guy from the same part of New York where Karen once lived. I take out my brick of a cell phone, a trusty Nokia perpetually strapped to my waist, and call Karen. I tell her I’m talking to a wise guy from the same part of New York where she once lived. I hand the phone to the wise guy. He and Karen talk New York stuff. I approve. This is appropriate for a guy who’s four beers into his niece’s wedding reception.
Other memories, floating in my mind like confetti:
Karen ushers in the granny-gown-and-combat-boots look for the newsroom.
We go to the concert in Pensacola and people think I’m her dad.
I make Karen cry by being a jerk to her in a budget meeting.
Karen, Elizabeth Hefflefinger and I stand in the Daily News parking lot on a cold and cloudy Christmas Eve, watching for snowflakes that never fall.
And now, another memory. Of a phone call missed, and a text message with the terrible news.
Karen was a sweet soul.
She loved fiercely and she was loved with equal ferocity, not just by those who knew her but the community at large, which made her acquaintance through her stories in
the newspaper and her sessions at the radio station.
She is remembered by more people than we’ll ever know.
I’ve missed her for years, and I miss her even more knowing I can’t pick up the phone and yell, “Hey Wolfie! What are you doing?”
A sad day.
I want her husband, Doc, and her kids to know they brought her all the happiness a person can want in this world. In fact, I can’t think of a better epitaph for anybody:
She was happy.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .