I figured now that since Mr. Husky Love himself is rocking the Corpse Cast, maybe we should get to know him a little better. What better way to get to know him than to check out some of his work?

Here’s an oldie (but a goodie) from Shane’s band DieMonsterDie. Make sure not to soil your panties when you see the sexiness of the drummer in this video!

Let’s face it; being a horror fan can sometimes be quite expensive. Between picking up our favorite DVDs, books, posters, action figures, comics and other bits and pieces, horror fans can find that although their collection is impressive, their wallet may not be. However, if someone knows where to look, there are many resources available to the horror fan that can provide excellent genre entertainment for free.

The first step in the hunt for free horror entertainment, is learning what the public domain is and what it has to offer. Wikipedia.com defines public domain as “a range of abstract materials—commonly referred to as intellectual property—which are not owned or controlled by anyone. The term indicates that these materials are therefore “public property”, and available for anyone to use for any purpose.” The only question now is: How do I get my hands on these free films?

Many companies have gathered works found in the public domain, repackaged them, and then sold them as a pack of many horror films. Millcreek Entertainment has put together multiple collections of horror and sci-fi films and sold them for pennies per movie. However, if you would like to find public domain works completely for free,  The Internet Archive is a great place to start looking. The Internet Archive (Archive.org) is an online resource that provides a collection of links to download films, texts, and audio.

On Archive.org, you can find a landing page that is the portal for horror and sci-fi films. Here is the gateway to find films by luminaries of the genre such as William Castle, George Romero, Roger Corman, Dario Argento, Peter Jackson, and many more. There are many formats available; however, the most common formats are MPEG4, MPEG2, and OGG. Before downloading any of these films, it’s a good idea to read some of the comments that have been posted. These comments may give the downloader important information such as an idea of the quality of the file to be downloaded.

Films, however, are not the only thing that can be found on The Internet Archive. Horror novels can be found in both text and audio format. If you’re a fan of Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, or Edgar Alan Poe. These works are typically read and recorded by volunteers for organizations such as LibraVox. LibraVox has a mission to “to make all public domain books available as free audio books.” Their noble efforts give us hours and hours of free entertainment. Although these volunteers are not professional audio book readers, the quality of the readings are typically very good. The quality of the audio file itself is also very good in general.

The resources discussed in this article hardly scratch the surface of horror entertainment that can be found on the World Wide Web for free. This will be the first of many articles to be found here regarding free horror entertainment and where it can be found.

As a second part to the series of articles regarding resources to get horror entertainment for free, this article discusses the little-known resource which is audiobooks in podcast form. It’s amazing how many very talented writers are willing to write, record, and release their works for free using the podcast or other episodic technique.

There are a couple of things that one must know when choosing a podcast audiobook:

• Understand that these books in podcast form may be released on a chapter to chapter basis. There may be a wait between each chapter’s releases.
• A podcast book may have chapters released before the author is finished writing the book. This may mean nothing, but it may mean that the author may not finish the book on schedule and may leave you hanging.
  • Typically, an author will let their listeners know whether or not a book is completed. Some popular podcast book websites will allow a search parameter to only display finished books.
• Free podcast books are typically read by non-professional readers. Sometimes it is difficult to notice a difference between this book and an audiobook read by a professional, but other times it is fairly obvious.

As far as horror fiction is concerned, Podiobooks.com has a good collection of freely available audiobooks ready to be downloaded in episodic form. The quality is higher than the typical book in podcast form because there is a set of guidelines that each author must conform to in order to have his work published on this website. There are also many podcast audiobooks that are waiting to be found by searching in iTunes or just in your favorite search engine.

This resource is very deep and there are many books to choose from. However, since many of these authors’ haven’t quite made their names into a household staple, choosing a book may be tricky. Here are some book suggestions to get you started:

• Sleepwalker – Keith Latch , author of the chilling book Cemetery Things and his latest Bestseller, has released his podcast audiobook entitled Sleepwalker on podiobooks.com. Sleepwalker is a mystery/horror novel that Sleepwalker tells the story of a newspaper editor with a dark secret. Keith does a great job of keeping his readers guessing as to what is really going on and always delivers on the scares.
• The Zombie Chronicles – Escape – The first book in a forthcoming series, James Melzer treats us to a very interesting and unique story about zombies and a government conspiracy. James Melzer does a great job reading the book. This book is full of scares, intrigue, and humor.
  • All Kinds of Things Kill – a nine story anthology, Robert R. Best (http://www.robertrbest.com/) shows his readers how flexible and talented he is. Every one of the stories in this collection is engaging. The reader of these stories does a wonderful job translating the thoughts and emotions that Mr. Best intended to be shared to audio form.
  • FETIDUS – The Damned Heir – James Durham not only has written one of the most unique books that I’ve listened to, but he adds his voice talent and his original music to the production. FETIDUS stands for The Foundation for the Ethical Treatment of the Innocently Damned, Undead and Supernatural. FETIDUS is an advocacy group fighting for the rights of all sorts of supernatural and undead beings.

These short descriptions that are here in this article really don’t do any of these stories justice. This column will dig deeper into some of these free podcast audiobooks with reviews and a deeper plot synopsis. Hopefully this column will also have interviews with some of these authors in the near future. These books all have a high level of quality and professionalism but this is not unlike many of the other books available. The books mentioned in this article are just a small sample of what horror stories are available for free both in podcast form and on podiobooks.com.