Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 24

“I don’t know, it gets a bit creepy sometimes. It’s a bit like one of those houses in horror films.”

107. The Strickland Demon – Jack D. Shackleford

This is exactly like reading a Hammer or Amicus or Tigon, I’m thinking Tigon right this second and the Curse of the Crimson Altar aka The Crimson Cult, movie from the late 60s early 70s. I can see that color palette in my head and also the level of sexy weirdness and style all those movies have. Especially the Curse of the Crimson Altar with the very sassy dream sequences. They even mention Dennis Wheatley novels, although those were filmed by Hammer with varying degrees of success. But that is the vibe here and it is a fun one.

Spinneys, the house with the “secret” which is also huge and maintained by minimal staff now is inherited by a newly married young couple after a car crash kills Mark’s parents, before his father could tell him “the secret,” which is super important. When they ask the staff, Bennett notes there were six dates throughout the year where they all had to leave except Mark’s father and previously his grandfather and the American wife recognizes that the dates are all witchcraft related. Clever girl, Shirley.

They enlist the help of a sexy witch who is really strong and helps them contain it for a bit and who knows exactly what scary black magician to contact about figuring out that there are rites to be performed to hold up the pact made that she doesn’t know because she’s not an evil witch. I could easily see Christopher Lee making a cameo as said scary black magician, he knew what to do. So, if you’ve seen any of the style of movies I mentioned, you know it’s all naked rites and staying in the circle if they can and trying to figure this old demonic business out in style. I will say, though, The Strickland Demon comes with the wink of a real Witch being the writer.

 

If there’s parsley in the circle, Finny might stay in it.

It may be Seventiestember…

64. Legacy of Evil – Ariadne Pritchett

It was hard to tell what time period this was set in at first because an orphan who happens to be a lady is also making her living as a painter, but there are no cars and they kept dimming the gaslights…I do not have much frame of reference for olden times womenfolk artists being allowed to be successful. At least, as successful as Eudora, who has her own studio, a gallery that wants to show just her, and was displeased because no one was buying her real art and they just wanted her representational stuff at her gallery show. Say what? Lucky Eudora, in any time period it’s really just fun to be mad about that when you’re an artist because it means you’re selling work! At a gallery show! That’s all your work! Lucky duck. When I was in gallery shows, it wasn’t just my work, one of my bigger prints did sell within a few days though, so, dim the gaslights for me this time.

Anyway, one dude’s interested in Eudora’s Stonehenge painting that I guess is not terribly representational, I can’t figure out what that looks like. His name is Keith. Keith who has a past he doesn’t want to talk about at all and whose family lives on Lonsdale Hill, where you can see Stonehenge, apparently. I think liberties were taken with place names as they are in many other concepts in Legacy of Evil. They are in London initially, which I should have mentioned as part of the extreme suspension of disbelief for affording your own studio and home to live in while an orphaned human lady in gaslit street lamp times. They go to tea quite extensively and Eudora lets Keith into her studio to watch her work (she really likes him, I can’t be around anyone but guinea pigs when I work and I know I’m not alone in that – some artists don’t even have guinea pigs).

Then Keith reveals his dad is dying and he must return to Lonsdale Hill and Eudora’s totally going because at this point they’re engaged. And that’s where it all goes a bit moot. Honestly, I feel like Pritchett didn’t think through the whole old scary society, suspense of “Am I going crazy?” engagement situations, or what creepy rituals Eudora could have been running hysterically away from. There just wasn’t much there, like she was writing a different novel and then tacked on an idealized Stonehenge influence without thinking about how she could actually explain something about what was happening! Research scenes, they’re for everyone, especially if Keith has trouble controlling her mind, which he does. Eudora also inspires him to ruin his own life and stop the ritual, which he didn’t seem at all interested in doing once he took a turn for the worse at his home.

It was a weird ending and there was enough weirdness in Keith’s character that he reminded me of Mike Raven as the lech artist in Crucible of Terror, who was all about rituals and ladies, but in a grosser way (to him ladies are just models or sacrifices, and those are the ones he wants to sleep with). Mike Raven could easily have played Keith. So easily.

Hen Wen says you should run, not her, but she knows what she’s doing. Always calls her own shots. She’s like Eudora without the steep random decline. And Salem is way better than Keith.

 

See. She calls her own shots, even in a 70s Gothic cover. That’s just how Hen Wen is. Perfect.
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Here’s Hen Wen checking the edges of the painting of herself for places to run.

 

All three paintings for the Hen Wen and Salem 70s series in progress.

 

Salem really does love his 70s macrame plant blankets, which were in fact the inspiration for painting him with his plants that he could only cultivate in paintings. He loved 70s colors and has really pushed my artistic interests further in the direction of those styles because between his taste and Peregrine’s coloring being that of a 1970s couch, I had no choice but to look into the 70s design abyss and I like it. I like being reminded of Pere and Salem and I do love Christie-style fonts.

 

He’s not hiding super effectively, but it’s the sentiment of hiding for Salem that matters. He’s both confident and not as a prey animal.
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Salem and Hen Wen would often cuddle in the hanging chair, perhaps after or before having a discussion about whether they should move in somewhere that has standing stones and teeny cultists in the yard.

 

Sometimes the available houses in the country come with weirdness, if British movies and television and my painting are to be believed. Even for guinea pigs.
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And here’s Hen Wen running from all of the paintings…

 

It meant a lot to me to finally get these paintings done. I’ve been thinking of them for ages, but they were really intensive, in no small part because they’re the first work I’ve painted of Salem after he had a catastrophic and sudden medical incident that’s not super common in guinea pigs, but becoming more common (gastric torsion) and surgery was not a good option for him. I wanted to immortalize him and Hen Wen’s sweet relationship, i.e. I cannot count how many times I’ve taken pictures of them napping together or they chose me as their napping base ala this photo, they were glorious and I think that comes through in the paintings for this miniseries.

“Well, hi. What are you doing out in this mess?”

100. Nightmare Hall: Truth or Die – Diane Hoh

Parrie unwittingly finds herself in a game that not only sucks, but has turned into a revenge plot for a situation that has nothing to do with her. But, I just gave the plot away, except for the part about it being summer camp-related…oops.

Anyway, I feel bad for Parrie. She’s a freshman and none of her friends came to Salem U, perhaps to avoid Nightmare Hall and all the creepy ghost rumors, so she’s on her own in a haunted place and the first womenfolk she meets are all playing an escalating game of truth or dare. Thankfully, Parrie’s dare involving stealing a dude’s underwear leads to her meeting someone she can actually trust. Good job timing your shower, Bryan. Good job.

 

Thaddeus and Pammy would be all in on the ghost hanging out part, they’re ghost hunters and not scared of any dares or truth.

 

Peegshow is the ultimate in demonstrating how not scared of challenges my guinea pigs are.
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Shouldn’t this be college prep of some kind?

45. Night School – Caroline B. Cooney

A night class sign-up sheet with no topic for the class ensnares Mariah (who has been having a really good time with her friends in her head), Andrew (he’s perfect in Mariah’s head and also he thinks in real life), Ned (nerd), and Autumn (she’s part of the popular girls terrorizing the populous group…but she wants to break free). When they get to class, they find out it’s about leaving your body behind so you can scare people. And they have to pick a person and Mariah does not want to pick her sad, lonely brother Bevin because he’s not someone she actually wants to be sad and lonely. So they pick a substitute teacher. You know, substitute teachers are an easy target. They’re a little stuck. So they scare poor substitute Mr. Phillips half to death and then realize it’s exhilarating and awful to cause people terror.

Next, they must choose a new person to scare and frankly, the instructor, who is essentially a disembodied spirit, is really intimidating about it. So they choose Julie, who rules the school through insults and projecting her insecurities onto others and ruining their day, and technically is one of Autumn’s best friends. Julie, however, proves formidable. She doesn’t like the dark, no, but she will rush out and help someone when accidentally given the chance. And of course, she ends up helping Bevin, and then they all go out for pizza and quit night class, even though the teacher told them they couldn’t quit.

I found this really confusing because I associate night classes with like people who have jobs trying to gain additional skills or when I was in high school a group of art students went to a night figure drawing class at the closest museum. I really think the instructor, who was apparently just disembodied evil trying to get them to choose evil by smirking and blackmail, should have had something besides acronyms for a lesson plan. SC and ETS, Scare Choice and Easy To Scare, and I kept forgetting them. Guess I’m not ready for astral projection and being evil because it’s dark out class.

 

Snuffy’s been taking night class, but Wisting may not be the best Scare Choice.

 

Also a terrible scare choice – Peregrine in The Pig. That monster doesn’t have a chance.
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“I’m never last picked, I’m a cheerleader chick”

66. Terror Academy: Student Body – Nicholas Pine

Popular girl vs. fat woman…and the reader is supposed to side with the popular girl. This is a bit stereotypical and of course, having the popular girl’s perspective, we must be cruel to the fat woman cheerleading coach and the dweeb who doesn’t realize he shouldn’t ask the popular girl, who is also cheerleading captain, to the Homecoming dance right after she and the football star break up. Even if their relationship was a bit shitty.

Then the random attacks start, first with Abby the popular cheerleading captain herself, who doesn’t die and has a near death experience to supernatural up the rest of the book. A rogue being from the other side really likes her, just like the entire school. Lucky her. Her being attacked also brought back her negligent parents. Woo! Popular! Even with ghosts!

 

No really, Murderface and Pickles, they expect you to side with the popular girl who is mean to people. Really.

 

My first golden herd would rather play cards than sympathize with someone who is a jerk. Sorry. They’re true friends and/or enemies.
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There are skills in high school football and talent, but it’s not exactly a craft.

27. Twilight: Play to Live – Charles Veley

I was only concerned with high school football in terms of having to show up for marching band because we were the half-time show. Thus ends my concern. However, I am aware that some people get things like scholarships and enjoy said game. Fine. Joey Prescott needs a way into college and a good future because his family has to move all the time and his dad apparently has a gambling problem, so, there goes any hope of a college fund. Joey’s a senior, so it’s his last chance. But Norwich, in the US and therefore free of Alan Partridge sadly, is under the spell of some dude named Mr. Wynn who wants to be called “Willie Boy” for an insidious reason once you get to know him.

All the main players and jerks seem to be fine with the whole “this town is all about high school football” arrangement, but Joey thinks it’s strange. And the cheerleaders who don’t go in for the football team are also of interest to him. See, there’s an unofficial rule that the team gets whatever they want from the cheerleaders, like, if they ask one out even if she has another boyfriend, she will go out with that team member. Joey both does and doesn’t want to use this on Bonnie, whose boyfriend then somehow goes missing to “prep school.” Only an outsider like Joey and Mr. Minos the new geometry teacher think this endless succession of winning is wrong and not a good way to keep a town going. They’re the weirdos, mister.

 

Ozymandias and Danger Crumples want to break free of this laundry basket; it’s exactly the same as breaking out from under a spell of endless winning. Exactly.

 

Ace climbing the stairs is a good example of what guinea pigs actually achieve athletically. She was quite a winner at stairs.
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“Let’s tune our weapons!”

10. Horror High: Hard Rock – Nicholas Adams

The narrative doesn’t really do Larry any favors. First he spends the money to put in Cathy’s ad on…something…and then when Cathy gets it in at the last minute, the ad for their band that plays heavy metal and reggae… he’s ogling the potential singer and Cathy’s neighbor who seems to want to be a groupie for a band that doesn’t exist yet, Margo. Larry is kind of an idiot. He’s also a good drummer, which is one of the things the killer picks up on.

Once Cathy catches Larry cheating on her with Margo, ew, so quickly, she gets the rest of the band together and they replace Larry. Then they get their first gig at a junior high dance and it goes well, up until Larry shows up with Margo and some goons to a junior high dance and pouts and threatens until he’s allowed to play. Then, after Cathy loosens some drums, Larry is humiliated in front of young children and leaves. But then, when they’re getting the show back together, the platform collapses and their new drummer is crushed and breaks his leg. And then at the hospital someone pushes him out of a window.

We continue on the path of Spinal Tap with one more drummer before the band starts getting constant offers and ends up in Battle of the Bands, the ultimate. They’re all suspicious of who might be doing this, it seems like Larry, but then it also seems like randomly killing drummers requires the kind of planning Larry isn’t capable of and Cathy still loves him, so, it isn’t him and he almost succumbs to the curse of drummers before the real killer, ambition, is revealed.

 

Thorfy achieving his greatest ambition, napping freely with his eyes almost totally closed and his little foot exposed.

 

Guinea Pig Snapshot – Snuffy & Thorfy, Heavy Metal Nerd. Thorfy is totally cooler than Larry, even if he is a heavy metal nerd. Yes he is.
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This school library needs help.

4. My Bloody Valentine – Jo Gibson

Apparently, there’s a high school in Wisconsin that doesn’t give their library money for books – in the 1990s. They need a new science section and that makes it seem like they’re not continuously updating their collection. That’s very weird. No collection development policy? Did they spend all the book money on READ posters? So weird.

Moving on, these kids today in the 1990s decided to raise money for the book fund via Valentine’s Day cards and snooty import Tanya also wants to make it a contest for Valentine’s King and Queen because she knows her rich boyfriend Brett will make sure she wins and that’s all Tanya really cares about.

Original kids Amy and Colleen and their friends are too busy hanging out at Hungry Burger and also assuming Tanya will win until Tanya gets weird valentine cards from “Cat” that essentially threaten her…and then she doesn’t show up to Hungry Burger…and has a weird “accident.” Except that the reader knows it’s not an accident because we’re also getting Cat’s perspective. Cat doesn’t want anyone to be queen who isn’t essentially perfect and kind, like Amy, or his dead sister, Karen. Anyone who made fun of Karen before she died is out for queen and weirdly, the list is made up solely of girls who did make fun of Karen or suck for whatever reason – and then Amy.

Meanwhile, Amy, while being good and kind, is learning to make out with Colleen’s punk band fronting brother Danny, who dropped out of school for the music biz and to become very worldly with the ladies and then came back to high school to finish two years later. He and Amy can practically finish each other’s sentences. It’s obvious if this wasn’t a YA slasher it would be a romance of opposites attract and Danny learning to put away his slutty phase.

 

Murderface was queen without any heart shaped votes. Some guinea pigs just are at the top of the hierarchy without even trying.

 

Speaking of being a queen, here is Murderface with the Monarch butterflies that share her colors. All queens here.
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“Someone trying to figure out where our tails went.”

24. Terror Academy: Science Project – Nicholas Pine

This time we start on a beach – with popular Andrea Hill, daughter of a doctor, ambition starting to finally kick in because she doesn’t want to have sex with Johnny the quarterback in the sand. Her friend Suzy tries to help her by alluding to her having already had sex with Johnny…which does make Andrea’s decision to break up with him even more solid before he does continuously try to assault her and she finally gets away completely with the help of Suzy, a bag of pretzels, and the ravenous appetites of seagulls. If this was a more supernatural story, the seagulls would have eaten Johnny but instead it’s an opossum from a lab experiment.

Andrea decides to change her schedule to classes that will actually get her into college and in advanced biology she meets the nerd with an attitude, Clark. For some reason Andrea is surprised that someone on the opposite end of the social spectrum can also have a bad attitude. Johnny won’t leave her alone and Clark does manage to be nicer to her while she hits back at his insults with things like telling him he reminds her of celery. Anyway, Clark gets acid on Johnny’s sweater and at the Homecoming Dance, Andrea and Clark go together and find out that Clark’s going to get beat up in the bathroom and Suzy, who is now of course with Johnny, is pregnant and then somehow gets murdered in the other bathroom. Johnny and his friend Chaz are spending a lot of time in bathrooms.

Clark also has a lab with many animals and is interested in reverting modern animals to their prehistoric equivalents, which seems like a jump of more than time. The opossum and Clark’s own dog seem to be okay with the serum and murder on command and so starts a bit of a rampage with the serum and Clark and Andrea that doesn’t end well for the mad scientist, but at least he didn’t go straight to cat= saber tooth. There are better ways to get into a good college, this was the 90s.

 

Horace is happy the guinea pig in Clark’s lab was only mentioned, but as a “big pig” of much muscle, he wouldn’t have minded seeing the prehistoric strength of a guinea pig on display. Imagine the gnawing.

 

Peregrine and Ozma are experimenting…or possessed…in Pigs of Darkness. Maybe the Satan-juice will make them prehistoric versions of themselves, maybe not.
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When I was grading, I often thought of the “Lowered Expectations” theme song from MADtv’s video dating parody.

47. Killing Mr. Griffin – Lois Duncan

Kidnapping your teacher is such a classic high school move…Not. Dude. Seriously? Psychopath Mark really knows how to manipulate people. And burn things down. And torture cats. And make girls like him. He even gets the senior class president involved and poor junior Susan, who just wants to be elsewhere and also has a crush on the senior class president, which is exactly how they get her. The basketball star and the cheerleader not applying themselves in English class is stereotypical, but also, they do have activities. Activities do sometimes get in the way of homework. Shit happens. Teams win tournaments and go to state and all that stuff that teams do. What’s great about this story is that all the types being used to create this motley crew of murderers are very different. They aren’t easy to mistake for each other and that’s the mastery of Lois Duncan’s teen novels, she’s got all the voices down.

I will say that Mr. Griffin seems harsh in expecting high school students to understand the concept of pushing themselves to do their best work. I don’t think he deserved to be accidental-murdered over it, but, still, he’s clearly not seeing what’s there in his class even in the before-smartphones and AI time. I do agree, based on my time grading college papers, that a lot of students don’t seem like they’re applying themselves and get really angry when you point that out and I was only pointing out that they had a rubric they could have thought about applying themselves to instead of just going on and on about Tom Cruise in The Firm or using the dictionary as a source that counted towards the minimum requirements for a research paper and not going over the requirements…sigh…so I understand where he’s coming from, but I also understand that’s not reality for lots of students for a variety of reasons. I would have loved it if even the worst writers in the bunch just tried to fit the requirements of the assignment. That’s all they needed to do. I wasn’t grading for style, I couldn’t because there were so few writers with it in the courses I graded. That’s okay. That’s real. Mr. Griffin doesn’t see that. He’s a perfectionist. And that’s essentially how he gets killed. Having high expectations and angina at the same time. And those meddling kids.

 

Merricat always put her best foot forward in class, in the window sill, when meddling, and when ordering deaths or produce. Always.

 

Merricat knows how easily something simple can go awry. She thought she just had a babysitting job on the night of the eclipse.
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