David Dubrow's Blog, page 50
May 11, 2015
GNoH Review: Black Cat Mojo
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed Adam Howe's Black Cat Mojo:
"It’s very funny, very gross, and very hostile to anyone living below America’s Mason-Dixon line."
But is it very good? Click the link to find out!
"It’s very funny, very gross, and very hostile to anyone living below America’s Mason-Dixon line."
But is it very good? Click the link to find out!
May 8, 2015
Friday Links: The Thirteenth Floor, Out of the Aeons, and The Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue
It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...
John Kenneth Muir analyzed the underrated 1999 film The Thirteenth Floor: "In other words, the sense of reality in the novel was layered, with worlds upon worlds stacked atop another. In each world, the individuals inhabiting it believed they were "real," not simulations...but were in error. The Thirteenth Floor faithfully recreates this creative dynamic, and features all the trappings one expects of the sturdy film noir format. The film then applies these standards to its science fiction premise with aplomb and meticulous attention to detail, both in the depiction of its 1937 setting, and in charting the possibility of multiple realities, with personalities overlapping."Sean Eaton deconstructed Lovecraft and Heald's Out of the Aeons at his compulsively readable R'lyeh Tribune: "Strictly speaking, Out of the Aeons is not really a story at all so much as a pastiche of ideas and imagery from other more famous works by the author. There is no dialogue, characterization, or conflict, and except for the final two sections, nothing actually happens other than scholarly research. To be fair, with careful editing, sections IV and V, and some of III might have formed the germ of an interesting and even unsettling story. The notion that petrified human remains might house an intact intelligence and consciousness over centuries is a perennially intriguing one."Frankensteinia brought us the Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue: "One year before BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), there was The Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue! That’s how Paramount Pictures pitched Mary Morris' character, "the vicious, venomous New York aristocrat" named Victoria Van Brett, as the sinister star of the 1934 chiller, DOUBLE DOOR."Nev Murray reviewed Marty Young's novel 809 Jacob Street at Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "Finished this story just a little while ago. My skin is still crawling. This is an exercise in how to write something that will have you reading with blinkers on until the very end, with nothing disturbing you." I think he liked it.At Wag the Fox, Gef Fox reviewed Dark Screams Vol. 2: "It certainly started off strong enough with the likes of Robert McCammon and some good ol' small town horror in a tale called "The Deep End." It's a really good, gripping story about a grieving father convinced it was a monster that killed his son at the town swimming pool and not the latest in a long line of drownings. Folks are always praising McCammon's novels and rightfully so, but if there is a collection of his short stories somewhere, then I need to track it down, because he has a real knack for those too."At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Alex Davis interviewed Phil Stevens about his horror film Flowers: "Most of my time is spent painting and drawing. In this process, there is no dialog. I don’t really verbally socialize, so there is no dialog even outside of my art. Therefore, a project without dialog came only natural to me. On the production side of things, I really hate writing and recording dialog - just wasting so much time and energy trying to get lines to sound halfway decent without burning out my cast."The Cathode Ray Mission showed us some stills from Battle Royale.Here, I discussed the terrible film
God's Not Dead
and pointed you to a review I wrote at Ginger Nuts of Horror for Alan Spencer's novel B-Movie War.Illustration by Nick Smith for Call of Cthulhu's
Cthulhu Casebook
supplement.
John Kenneth Muir analyzed the underrated 1999 film The Thirteenth Floor: "In other words, the sense of reality in the novel was layered, with worlds upon worlds stacked atop another. In each world, the individuals inhabiting it believed they were "real," not simulations...but were in error. The Thirteenth Floor faithfully recreates this creative dynamic, and features all the trappings one expects of the sturdy film noir format. The film then applies these standards to its science fiction premise with aplomb and meticulous attention to detail, both in the depiction of its 1937 setting, and in charting the possibility of multiple realities, with personalities overlapping."Sean Eaton deconstructed Lovecraft and Heald's Out of the Aeons at his compulsively readable R'lyeh Tribune: "Strictly speaking, Out of the Aeons is not really a story at all so much as a pastiche of ideas and imagery from other more famous works by the author. There is no dialogue, characterization, or conflict, and except for the final two sections, nothing actually happens other than scholarly research. To be fair, with careful editing, sections IV and V, and some of III might have formed the germ of an interesting and even unsettling story. The notion that petrified human remains might house an intact intelligence and consciousness over centuries is a perennially intriguing one."Frankensteinia brought us the Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue: "One year before BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), there was The Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue! That’s how Paramount Pictures pitched Mary Morris' character, "the vicious, venomous New York aristocrat" named Victoria Van Brett, as the sinister star of the 1934 chiller, DOUBLE DOOR."Nev Murray reviewed Marty Young's novel 809 Jacob Street at Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "Finished this story just a little while ago. My skin is still crawling. This is an exercise in how to write something that will have you reading with blinkers on until the very end, with nothing disturbing you." I think he liked it.At Wag the Fox, Gef Fox reviewed Dark Screams Vol. 2: "It certainly started off strong enough with the likes of Robert McCammon and some good ol' small town horror in a tale called "The Deep End." It's a really good, gripping story about a grieving father convinced it was a monster that killed his son at the town swimming pool and not the latest in a long line of drownings. Folks are always praising McCammon's novels and rightfully so, but if there is a collection of his short stories somewhere, then I need to track it down, because he has a real knack for those too."At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Alex Davis interviewed Phil Stevens about his horror film Flowers: "Most of my time is spent painting and drawing. In this process, there is no dialog. I don’t really verbally socialize, so there is no dialog even outside of my art. Therefore, a project without dialog came only natural to me. On the production side of things, I really hate writing and recording dialog - just wasting so much time and energy trying to get lines to sound halfway decent without burning out my cast."The Cathode Ray Mission showed us some stills from Battle Royale.Here, I discussed the terrible film
God's Not Dead
and pointed you to a review I wrote at Ginger Nuts of Horror for Alan Spencer's novel B-Movie War.Illustration by Nick Smith for Call of Cthulhu's
Cthulhu Casebook
supplement.
May 6, 2015
GNoH Review: B-Movie War
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed Alan Spencer's B-Movie War:
"It’s the third book in a trilogy that I haven’t read the first two of, and horror comedy is often very, very difficult to pull off with any degree of success. The premise is silly: B-movie monsters coming to life and trying to destroy the world."
Is this book destined to be a cult classic, a career-ending bomb, or somewhere in-between? Click to find out!
"It’s the third book in a trilogy that I haven’t read the first two of, and horror comedy is often very, very difficult to pull off with any degree of success. The premise is silly: B-movie monsters coming to life and trying to destroy the world."
Is this book destined to be a cult classic, a career-ending bomb, or somewhere in-between? Click to find out!
May 4, 2015
God's Not Dead: You Deserve Better
We need to talk about
God's Not Dead
. It's available on Netflix streaming.
Horror fans are a lot like Christian fiction fans: there are so many truly terrible horror movies out there that when one comes out that's even half-good, it gets lauded by fans of the genre as a masterful piece of filmmaking and praised way beyond its quality. Horror and Christian films are difficult genres to get right, but when they're done properly, they can be extraordinary.
God's Not Dead was not done properly. It's a terrible movie. I can't believe that anyone who liked it can say how great it was without including some pretty massive caveats. You shouldn't do that. Don't make excuses for bad art. Despite how bad it is, it made, according to IMDB, a staggering $60,753,735. That's a lot of money for such a bad film.
I understand that the film's intent is not to convert the non-believer, but to preach to the converted. That's perfectly fine. As a Jew, I'm not the intended audience. Nevertheless, I came in wanting to like the movie, not to poke holes in it or express derision for its explicitly religious themes. I like Christian fiction, even though I belong to a different faith.
The most glaring problem with the movie was its utter lack of subtlety in every aspect. None of the characters had any depth to speak of, and none of the situations portrayed were at all believable. Our willing suspension of disbelief works for horror movies and superhero flicks because we go to the theater expecting unbelievable things. God's Not Dead isn't a science fiction movie: it's a film about Christian apologetics, and requires a certain amount of realism to successfully carry its theme. The film was entirely unrealistic because almost every single character in it was a caricature, not an actual person. This is extremely problematic in a character-driven story like God's Not Dead.
Radisson, the antagonist, was awful in every particular you can imagine: he belittles his girlfriend in public and in private, insults anyone who disagrees with him, and even threatens the protagonist Josh with flunking out of school. He's not just an atheist, but an anti-theist. He literally hates God. Why? Because his religious mother died of cancer when Radisson was twelve. It's a popular belief that under the skin of every atheist is a living, breathing Christian once tragically disappointed by the apparent capriciousness of God. But there's no difference between that belief and the thinking that people who dislike homosexual behavior do so because they are themselves gay and fight against their hated urges through gay-bashing. Neither of these beliefs is accurate. They're childish. Some people just don't believe in God. Radisson's deathbed conversion (well, deathstreet conversion) was not just unsubtle, but insulting. None of Josh's arguments were persuasive enough to plant even the smallest seed of doubt in Radisson's mind. It simply took the fear of an eternity in Hell to get him to accept Jesus Christ. Doesn't that undercut the entire intellectual basis for becoming a Christian? The screenwriters had the nerve to use this quote from C.S. Lewis: "Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief," but entirely forgot Lewis's own conversion to Christianity: "When we set out I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and when we reached the zoo I did." Sometimes, even a lot of times, that's what it takes: careful consideration over time. Subtle changes leading to acceptance. It shouldn't take hitting people with cars to get them to see your point of view.
Amy Ryan's story was a carbon copy of Radisson's in theme if not circumstance. She begins as a ludicrous caricature of a leftist journalist, asking questions no real reporter ever asks (even on MSNBC), and finally begins to see the light of Christ when she's diagnosed with terminal cancer. We can only sympathize with her because she's going to die of cancer, not because she's nice or displays admirable qualities of any kind. Also, the Duck Dynasty stars' cameos were, let's face it, included to add dubious (and now waning) star power, not because they added value to the plot or characterization. Christian apologetics, as a philosophy, is deeper than the "no atheists in foxholes" argument, but we get little else in its practical application in Amy and Radisson's stories.
Marc the businessman was laughably evil: he broke up with Amy because she had cancer, and was later called the Devil by his own ailing mother. Josh's girlfriend Kara was the typical unsupportive, controlling female Josh had to get rid of to complete his task (the actress's performance of her was horribly wooden). Ayisha the Muslim got thrown out of the house because she just couldn't conceal her love of Jesus from her mute younger brother, but without buildup or conclusion, her story seemed out of place, unfinished. Reverend Dave's story was kind of nice, if clumsily written.
For the most part, the performances were fine. Kevin Sorbo was the stand-out, obviously relishing his role as antagonist. Shane Harper did okay, though his face could only make three expressions throughout the film. They didn't give Dean Cain very much to do. I'd last seen David A.R. White in Six: The Mark Unleashed , so it was nice to see him in this role. Benjamin Oyango had the best lines, and did the best with them (the accent helped).
Obviously, if all you want to do is reinforce faith, then you don't have to work as hard as you would to convert a non-believer. But don't you deserve better than this ham-handed effort? It could more easily have been made into a blog post pointing to great Christian philosophers like Blaise Pascal, C.S. Lewis, and William Lane Craig. Heck, Dinesh D'Souza made a documentary called America . Why not a well-produced documentary on Christian apologetics? You don't need Duck Dynasty for that.
If you saw it and liked it, great. You deserve better, though. You deserve something with depth. Don't subsidize bad movies because there's nothing else out there. Demand quality.
Horror fans are a lot like Christian fiction fans: there are so many truly terrible horror movies out there that when one comes out that's even half-good, it gets lauded by fans of the genre as a masterful piece of filmmaking and praised way beyond its quality. Horror and Christian films are difficult genres to get right, but when they're done properly, they can be extraordinary.
God's Not Dead was not done properly. It's a terrible movie. I can't believe that anyone who liked it can say how great it was without including some pretty massive caveats. You shouldn't do that. Don't make excuses for bad art. Despite how bad it is, it made, according to IMDB, a staggering $60,753,735. That's a lot of money for such a bad film.
I understand that the film's intent is not to convert the non-believer, but to preach to the converted. That's perfectly fine. As a Jew, I'm not the intended audience. Nevertheless, I came in wanting to like the movie, not to poke holes in it or express derision for its explicitly religious themes. I like Christian fiction, even though I belong to a different faith. The most glaring problem with the movie was its utter lack of subtlety in every aspect. None of the characters had any depth to speak of, and none of the situations portrayed were at all believable. Our willing suspension of disbelief works for horror movies and superhero flicks because we go to the theater expecting unbelievable things. God's Not Dead isn't a science fiction movie: it's a film about Christian apologetics, and requires a certain amount of realism to successfully carry its theme. The film was entirely unrealistic because almost every single character in it was a caricature, not an actual person. This is extremely problematic in a character-driven story like God's Not Dead.
Radisson, the antagonist, was awful in every particular you can imagine: he belittles his girlfriend in public and in private, insults anyone who disagrees with him, and even threatens the protagonist Josh with flunking out of school. He's not just an atheist, but an anti-theist. He literally hates God. Why? Because his religious mother died of cancer when Radisson was twelve. It's a popular belief that under the skin of every atheist is a living, breathing Christian once tragically disappointed by the apparent capriciousness of God. But there's no difference between that belief and the thinking that people who dislike homosexual behavior do so because they are themselves gay and fight against their hated urges through gay-bashing. Neither of these beliefs is accurate. They're childish. Some people just don't believe in God. Radisson's deathbed conversion (well, deathstreet conversion) was not just unsubtle, but insulting. None of Josh's arguments were persuasive enough to plant even the smallest seed of doubt in Radisson's mind. It simply took the fear of an eternity in Hell to get him to accept Jesus Christ. Doesn't that undercut the entire intellectual basis for becoming a Christian? The screenwriters had the nerve to use this quote from C.S. Lewis: "Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief," but entirely forgot Lewis's own conversion to Christianity: "When we set out I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and when we reached the zoo I did." Sometimes, even a lot of times, that's what it takes: careful consideration over time. Subtle changes leading to acceptance. It shouldn't take hitting people with cars to get them to see your point of view.
Amy Ryan's story was a carbon copy of Radisson's in theme if not circumstance. She begins as a ludicrous caricature of a leftist journalist, asking questions no real reporter ever asks (even on MSNBC), and finally begins to see the light of Christ when she's diagnosed with terminal cancer. We can only sympathize with her because she's going to die of cancer, not because she's nice or displays admirable qualities of any kind. Also, the Duck Dynasty stars' cameos were, let's face it, included to add dubious (and now waning) star power, not because they added value to the plot or characterization. Christian apologetics, as a philosophy, is deeper than the "no atheists in foxholes" argument, but we get little else in its practical application in Amy and Radisson's stories.
Marc the businessman was laughably evil: he broke up with Amy because she had cancer, and was later called the Devil by his own ailing mother. Josh's girlfriend Kara was the typical unsupportive, controlling female Josh had to get rid of to complete his task (the actress's performance of her was horribly wooden). Ayisha the Muslim got thrown out of the house because she just couldn't conceal her love of Jesus from her mute younger brother, but without buildup or conclusion, her story seemed out of place, unfinished. Reverend Dave's story was kind of nice, if clumsily written.
For the most part, the performances were fine. Kevin Sorbo was the stand-out, obviously relishing his role as antagonist. Shane Harper did okay, though his face could only make three expressions throughout the film. They didn't give Dean Cain very much to do. I'd last seen David A.R. White in Six: The Mark Unleashed , so it was nice to see him in this role. Benjamin Oyango had the best lines, and did the best with them (the accent helped).
Obviously, if all you want to do is reinforce faith, then you don't have to work as hard as you would to convert a non-believer. But don't you deserve better than this ham-handed effort? It could more easily have been made into a blog post pointing to great Christian philosophers like Blaise Pascal, C.S. Lewis, and William Lane Craig. Heck, Dinesh D'Souza made a documentary called America . Why not a well-produced documentary on Christian apologetics? You don't need Duck Dynasty for that.
If you saw it and liked it, great. You deserve better, though. You deserve something with depth. Don't subsidize bad movies because there's nothing else out there. Demand quality.
May 1, 2015
Friday Links: Super Metroid, Dust of the Dead, and Automata
It's May Day! It also happens to be Friday. What happened in horror this week?
At This Is Horror, Jason Hicks reviewed the movie Automata: "It seems that as time goes on it is becoming increasingly rare to come across a science fiction film that is fresh and filled with new ideas. For every film that is inventive in vision and storytelling, such as 2009’s District 9, there seems to be a thousand more that hold little substance and appear happy to rehash visual and story ideas that have already been explored to much better effect. Unfortunately, Automata from director Gabe Ibáñez is one of the later."Nev Murray reviewed Dust of the Dead at his Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "A zombie apocalypse tale with a difference. That’s how I, and many others see this book. Not your normal run of the mill “zombies running around eating everything in their path” type book. Refreshing. Opportunities to make this an epic, new zombie genre possibly? It has all the ingredients for it. Sadly for me it just doesn’t deliver."Too Much Horror Fiction brought us the 1987 horror novel Spectre by Stephen Laws: "Not quite a coming-of-age story, Spectre introduces the reader to a group of inseparable friends from Byker, a blue-collar town in Newcastle in the northeast of England. Although they grew up together, and dubbed themselves the Byker Chapter, Laws doesn’t spend too much time detailing their childhoods like, say, Stephen King; he flashbacks mainly on their university years a decade ago. It’s the present, as they enter their 30s, that Laws is concerned with. The horrific death of one of the Chapter opens the novel, as Phil Stuart languishes drunkenly in his flat, TV and radio blaring to vanquish the fear and depression that has plagued him for weeks."Nekrogoblikon's album Heavy Meta got a positive review at Terrorphoria: "You've no doubt already been swept up in the hysteria of goblin metal that was unleashed back in 2006. Classic records like Goblin Island and Stench, along with the Power EP captured the hearts and minds and guts of the public. To be a fan of Nekrogoblikon is to acknowledge your love of quality art."George Lea at Ginger Nuts of Horror reached into the Wayback Machine to bring us an updated review of the video game Super Metroid: "Go back and play it again. Look at it through adult eyes. The title screen alone borrows from a number of fairly evident sources (not least of which is Ridley Scott's Alien, which originally inspired the Metroid series) all of which are iconic of horror cinema. The camera panning over a darkened space, bodies littering the floor, the music chiming rhythmically, almost emulating a heartbeat, the chirruping of something unseen, something alien...panning out, revealing the creature at the heart of the carnage, as iconic in video gaming as the “xenomorph” of the Alien franchise is to cinema: The Metroid."At Ghost Hunting Theories, we learned about a (purported) UFO crash in 1897: "Most people have heard about the Roswell supposed alien UFO crash of 1947, and the majority would say that was the first crash. Not so. There was a reported crash, a few years before the Wright Brothers even started the first flight. The 1897 alien crash defies what we thought we knew about man's flight-oriented way of seeing alien visitation. These folks were not used to anyone ever being up in the air except the occasional dirigible in big cities for special occasions. And, what the citizens reported was very vivid an a bit chilling when compared with Roswell."Sean Eaton celebrated his two year blogiversary at his must-be-named-but-must-not-be-missed R'lyeh Tribune: "The R’lyeh Tribune will continue to explore the work of Lovecraft and his colleagues, and the importance of their contribution to the field of weird fiction. As long as Kaleidoscope Books in Ann Arbor continues to operate, and the health and vigor of its proprietor is sustained—God bless and keep him!—I will have access to a deep vein of pulp horror, science fiction and fantasy."Here, I pointed you to two reviews I wrote for Ginger Nuts of Horror:
AnotherDimension Magazine Issue #0
and
Neon Phantoms
. I also wrote a review of the movie
The Babadook
.Illustration by Lynell L. McAdams, taken from Call of Cthulhu's
Cthulhu Now
supplement.
At This Is Horror, Jason Hicks reviewed the movie Automata: "It seems that as time goes on it is becoming increasingly rare to come across a science fiction film that is fresh and filled with new ideas. For every film that is inventive in vision and storytelling, such as 2009’s District 9, there seems to be a thousand more that hold little substance and appear happy to rehash visual and story ideas that have already been explored to much better effect. Unfortunately, Automata from director Gabe Ibáñez is one of the later."Nev Murray reviewed Dust of the Dead at his Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "A zombie apocalypse tale with a difference. That’s how I, and many others see this book. Not your normal run of the mill “zombies running around eating everything in their path” type book. Refreshing. Opportunities to make this an epic, new zombie genre possibly? It has all the ingredients for it. Sadly for me it just doesn’t deliver."Too Much Horror Fiction brought us the 1987 horror novel Spectre by Stephen Laws: "Not quite a coming-of-age story, Spectre introduces the reader to a group of inseparable friends from Byker, a blue-collar town in Newcastle in the northeast of England. Although they grew up together, and dubbed themselves the Byker Chapter, Laws doesn’t spend too much time detailing their childhoods like, say, Stephen King; he flashbacks mainly on their university years a decade ago. It’s the present, as they enter their 30s, that Laws is concerned with. The horrific death of one of the Chapter opens the novel, as Phil Stuart languishes drunkenly in his flat, TV and radio blaring to vanquish the fear and depression that has plagued him for weeks."Nekrogoblikon's album Heavy Meta got a positive review at Terrorphoria: "You've no doubt already been swept up in the hysteria of goblin metal that was unleashed back in 2006. Classic records like Goblin Island and Stench, along with the Power EP captured the hearts and minds and guts of the public. To be a fan of Nekrogoblikon is to acknowledge your love of quality art."George Lea at Ginger Nuts of Horror reached into the Wayback Machine to bring us an updated review of the video game Super Metroid: "Go back and play it again. Look at it through adult eyes. The title screen alone borrows from a number of fairly evident sources (not least of which is Ridley Scott's Alien, which originally inspired the Metroid series) all of which are iconic of horror cinema. The camera panning over a darkened space, bodies littering the floor, the music chiming rhythmically, almost emulating a heartbeat, the chirruping of something unseen, something alien...panning out, revealing the creature at the heart of the carnage, as iconic in video gaming as the “xenomorph” of the Alien franchise is to cinema: The Metroid."At Ghost Hunting Theories, we learned about a (purported) UFO crash in 1897: "Most people have heard about the Roswell supposed alien UFO crash of 1947, and the majority would say that was the first crash. Not so. There was a reported crash, a few years before the Wright Brothers even started the first flight. The 1897 alien crash defies what we thought we knew about man's flight-oriented way of seeing alien visitation. These folks were not used to anyone ever being up in the air except the occasional dirigible in big cities for special occasions. And, what the citizens reported was very vivid an a bit chilling when compared with Roswell."Sean Eaton celebrated his two year blogiversary at his must-be-named-but-must-not-be-missed R'lyeh Tribune: "The R’lyeh Tribune will continue to explore the work of Lovecraft and his colleagues, and the importance of their contribution to the field of weird fiction. As long as Kaleidoscope Books in Ann Arbor continues to operate, and the health and vigor of its proprietor is sustained—God bless and keep him!—I will have access to a deep vein of pulp horror, science fiction and fantasy."Here, I pointed you to two reviews I wrote for Ginger Nuts of Horror:
AnotherDimension Magazine Issue #0
and
Neon Phantoms
. I also wrote a review of the movie
The Babadook
.Illustration by Lynell L. McAdams, taken from Call of Cthulhu's
Cthulhu Now
supplement.
April 30, 2015
GNoH Review: Neon Phantoms
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed Sean McCloy's Neon Phantoms:
"The novel begins and ends with Hal, a typical hapless Nowhere Man who manages The Overlook Video Store for Malcolm, the store’s endlessly grouchy (and hysterically funny) owner. Hal gets hold of an ultra-rare horror movie by the tragically-dead Italian director Giacomo Nero called The Jack-o-Lantern Man, and things begin to go off the rails from there."
Would Siskel and Ebert give this novel two thumbs down (from the afterlife), or is it a cinematic, literary thrill ride? Click to find out!
"The novel begins and ends with Hal, a typical hapless Nowhere Man who manages The Overlook Video Store for Malcolm, the store’s endlessly grouchy (and hysterically funny) owner. Hal gets hold of an ultra-rare horror movie by the tragically-dead Italian director Giacomo Nero called The Jack-o-Lantern Man, and things begin to go off the rails from there."
Would Siskel and Ebert give this novel two thumbs down (from the afterlife), or is it a cinematic, literary thrill ride? Click to find out!
April 29, 2015
Movie Review: The Babadook
I'd read nothing but good things about
The Babadook
, so when it became available for Netflix streaming, I couldn't wait to see it. It had been hyped as a terrifying, low-budget horror story that apparently scared the hell out of William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, so it had to be awesome.
It wasn't awesome. But it was really good.
This review will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, go see it before reading.
slasreveR eloR: A great strength of the film is that you weren't ever sure who the true antagonist was until the end. Samuel started out as the obvious antagonist, and everything Amelia did made her the victim of his mood swings until she wasn't anymore. Over the course of the film, her anguish made her the actor instead of the acted-upon. It was only at the climax, when the Babadook manifested itself as an external expression of Amelia's grief, that the antagonist could be defeated.Samuel: Some of the earlier scares surrounding Samuel were blunted somewhat by his general unlikability. The actor did an extraordinary job of portraying a disturbed child, a performance made even stronger by the film's ending, when you finally begin to sympathize with him. At the beginning of the film's final act, when you weren't sure if there actually was a Babadook or not, Samuel transformed effortlessly into the hero.Amelia: One of the film's more effective subtleties was that Amelia didn't have an obvious mental condition to blame for the Babadook's presence. She was grieving and at loose ends with a difficult child, but who could blame her? There was no one triggering event that manifested the Babadook; it just sat within her until it was time to come out. Don't forget, though, that she wrote The Babadook book, and even added pages to it until she cooked it on the grill. Despite everything, she was (and probably still is) mentally ill.F/X: The Babadook has been labeled a low-budget movie, but it didn't look that way. There was no CGI and very few actual sightings of the eponymous monster, which worked very well. The filmmakers did a great job with the budget they had, and there was little reason for the audience to walk away from the film unsatisfied.Whither the Babadook?: Samuel's gadgets at the end seemed a little reminiscent of Home Alone, but they worked well enough to exorcise the Babadook from Amelia. Allegorically speaking, I think that the film is telling us to try to make peace with our demons, but it's a bit muddled. If you can't keep the Babadook down, how long will it stay in the basement, eating worms? Can Amelia write a new ending for it, finally banishing the monster forever?A bit long, a bit thematically muddled, but definitely worth watching. Four out of five stars.
(I'm also looking forward to the sequels: The Baba Ghanoush, about an Arab family dealing with a childhood monster, The Gabagool, about possessed Italian cold cuts, and Baba Black Sheep Squadron, about WWII U.S. Marine pilots fighting off a clawed black monster.)
It wasn't awesome. But it was really good.
This review will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, go see it before reading.
slasreveR eloR: A great strength of the film is that you weren't ever sure who the true antagonist was until the end. Samuel started out as the obvious antagonist, and everything Amelia did made her the victim of his mood swings until she wasn't anymore. Over the course of the film, her anguish made her the actor instead of the acted-upon. It was only at the climax, when the Babadook manifested itself as an external expression of Amelia's grief, that the antagonist could be defeated.Samuel: Some of the earlier scares surrounding Samuel were blunted somewhat by his general unlikability. The actor did an extraordinary job of portraying a disturbed child, a performance made even stronger by the film's ending, when you finally begin to sympathize with him. At the beginning of the film's final act, when you weren't sure if there actually was a Babadook or not, Samuel transformed effortlessly into the hero.Amelia: One of the film's more effective subtleties was that Amelia didn't have an obvious mental condition to blame for the Babadook's presence. She was grieving and at loose ends with a difficult child, but who could blame her? There was no one triggering event that manifested the Babadook; it just sat within her until it was time to come out. Don't forget, though, that she wrote The Babadook book, and even added pages to it until she cooked it on the grill. Despite everything, she was (and probably still is) mentally ill.F/X: The Babadook has been labeled a low-budget movie, but it didn't look that way. There was no CGI and very few actual sightings of the eponymous monster, which worked very well. The filmmakers did a great job with the budget they had, and there was little reason for the audience to walk away from the film unsatisfied.Whither the Babadook?: Samuel's gadgets at the end seemed a little reminiscent of Home Alone, but they worked well enough to exorcise the Babadook from Amelia. Allegorically speaking, I think that the film is telling us to try to make peace with our demons, but it's a bit muddled. If you can't keep the Babadook down, how long will it stay in the basement, eating worms? Can Amelia write a new ending for it, finally banishing the monster forever?A bit long, a bit thematically muddled, but definitely worth watching. Four out of five stars.(I'm also looking forward to the sequels: The Baba Ghanoush, about an Arab family dealing with a childhood monster, The Gabagool, about possessed Italian cold cuts, and Baba Black Sheep Squadron, about WWII U.S. Marine pilots fighting off a clawed black monster.)
April 28, 2015
GNoH Review: AnotherDimension Magazine Issue #0
At Jim McLeod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed Issue #0 of
AnotherDimension Magazine
, helmed by Editor-in-Chief Angel Leigh McCoy:
"AnotherDimension Magazine is a new literary magazine seeking to recapture the feeling of vintage television programs like Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, but with a 21st century sensibility. Currently, Issue #0 is available as a free download on its Kickstarter page."
Click to find out if it's worth not just a free download, but a minor investment (spoiler alert: the answer is yes).
"AnotherDimension Magazine is a new literary magazine seeking to recapture the feeling of vintage television programs like Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, but with a 21st century sensibility. Currently, Issue #0 is available as a free download on its Kickstarter page."
Click to find out if it's worth not just a free download, but a minor investment (spoiler alert: the answer is yes).
April 24, 2015
Friday Links: Scanner Cop, Monolord, and Vegetable Existence
Here's what happened in horror last week to ease you into the weekend:
Go to the House of Indulgence and get an in-depth analysis of the 1990's classic Scanner Cop: "The explanation as to why the rest of the film is so darned compelling can be summed up with these six simple words... (Wait, let me guess: Darlanne Fluegel in a pleated skirt.) Hmmm, I was going to going to say: Help! Deformed baby heads are protruding from my Dad's forehead. But since that's not even close to being six words, I'm going to have to say, yes, the reason this film is so darned compelling is because To Live and Die in L.A.'s Darlanne Fluegel wears a pleated skirt in one scene."Terrorphoria reviewed Monolord's album Vænir: "Doom metal is really popular right now. Like, maybe even a little, TOO popular. The term gets bandied about and applied to a lot of heavy music releases that don't quite fit the bill. Monolord is NOT in this group. These guys are the real deal."
Nev Murray scored a great, confession-style interview with author John Connolly at Confessions of a Reviewer!!. This one's a video interview and a must-watch.Bob Pastorella reviewed Skullcrack City at This Is Horror: "With great bizarro comes great accessibility. Writer’s of the genre are like circus jugglers, hoisting plot, characterisation, pacing, and the weird and strange all in the air, while refusing to water any of it down to make it easier to swallow. The weird and strange is heavy-duty in Skullcrack City, fostered by a solid mythology that makes the Illuminati seem tame by comparison. There are doomsday cults using ancient voodoo mojo, mixing science and religion and strange weaponry to send intended targets to otherworld dimensions; a reality TV show centred around the most extreme body modifications conceived; mad scientists enslaved to their methods creating human/gorilla hybrids capable of biting through human skulls; hex-addicted tweekers on the front line, sedating the world one mind-trip at a time; evil corporations corrupt from the inside financing the end of the world."Sean Eaton at his incisively trenchant R'lyeh Tribune delved into the philosophy of vegetable existence: "Other interesting notions are considered. What sort of intelligence or psychology would evolve in an advanced form of vegetation? What would motivate a highly intelligent plant? Burlingame hypothesizes that vegetable life is motivated by necessity whereas animal life is motivated by desire. Awareness and individuality are shared by Oscar and his kind, (“We are all Osca.r”), who reproduce asexually via aerial spores."At
Ginger Nuts of Horror
, Joe Young interviewed legendary actress Françoise Pascal: "In 'Bloodsuckers' as we know it, I did not work with these wonderful actors, they brought me in to supply excitement to the film as it turned out to be a very dull film. I was working with extras and made a good addition to the film, sadly the film got panned from the critics and I ended up without a credit. I knew Peter Cushing, Edward Woodward and Patrick Mower as colleagues in the business. I did work with Patrick on a show called Cluedo and Give us a Clue too."Here, I reviewed the movie Noah and pointed you to my Ginger Nuts review of Troy Aaron Ratliff's Do I Bother You at Night?. For those more politically inclined, I also updated my Liberty Island blog with a piece about white, straight men in publishing.
Go to the House of Indulgence and get an in-depth analysis of the 1990's classic Scanner Cop: "The explanation as to why the rest of the film is so darned compelling can be summed up with these six simple words... (Wait, let me guess: Darlanne Fluegel in a pleated skirt.) Hmmm, I was going to going to say: Help! Deformed baby heads are protruding from my Dad's forehead. But since that's not even close to being six words, I'm going to have to say, yes, the reason this film is so darned compelling is because To Live and Die in L.A.'s Darlanne Fluegel wears a pleated skirt in one scene."Terrorphoria reviewed Monolord's album Vænir: "Doom metal is really popular right now. Like, maybe even a little, TOO popular. The term gets bandied about and applied to a lot of heavy music releases that don't quite fit the bill. Monolord is NOT in this group. These guys are the real deal."
Nev Murray scored a great, confession-style interview with author John Connolly at Confessions of a Reviewer!!. This one's a video interview and a must-watch.Bob Pastorella reviewed Skullcrack City at This Is Horror: "With great bizarro comes great accessibility. Writer’s of the genre are like circus jugglers, hoisting plot, characterisation, pacing, and the weird and strange all in the air, while refusing to water any of it down to make it easier to swallow. The weird and strange is heavy-duty in Skullcrack City, fostered by a solid mythology that makes the Illuminati seem tame by comparison. There are doomsday cults using ancient voodoo mojo, mixing science and religion and strange weaponry to send intended targets to otherworld dimensions; a reality TV show centred around the most extreme body modifications conceived; mad scientists enslaved to their methods creating human/gorilla hybrids capable of biting through human skulls; hex-addicted tweekers on the front line, sedating the world one mind-trip at a time; evil corporations corrupt from the inside financing the end of the world."Sean Eaton at his incisively trenchant R'lyeh Tribune delved into the philosophy of vegetable existence: "Other interesting notions are considered. What sort of intelligence or psychology would evolve in an advanced form of vegetation? What would motivate a highly intelligent plant? Burlingame hypothesizes that vegetable life is motivated by necessity whereas animal life is motivated by desire. Awareness and individuality are shared by Oscar and his kind, (“We are all Osca.r”), who reproduce asexually via aerial spores."At
Ginger Nuts of Horror
, Joe Young interviewed legendary actress Françoise Pascal: "In 'Bloodsuckers' as we know it, I did not work with these wonderful actors, they brought me in to supply excitement to the film as it turned out to be a very dull film. I was working with extras and made a good addition to the film, sadly the film got panned from the critics and I ended up without a credit. I knew Peter Cushing, Edward Woodward and Patrick Mower as colleagues in the business. I did work with Patrick on a show called Cluedo and Give us a Clue too."Here, I reviewed the movie Noah and pointed you to my Ginger Nuts review of Troy Aaron Ratliff's Do I Bother You at Night?. For those more politically inclined, I also updated my Liberty Island blog with a piece about white, straight men in publishing.
April 22, 2015
GNoH Review: Do I Bother You at Night?
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed Troy Aaron Ratliff's
Do I Bother You at Night?
"Long passages about Sylvester’s feelings, motivations, and thoughts take up the majority of the text; in a way, it reads like an Anne Tyler novel without the constant dry humor and bizarrely quirky characters."
Will this novel bother you at night, or put you to sleep? Click to find out!
"Long passages about Sylvester’s feelings, motivations, and thoughts take up the majority of the text; in a way, it reads like an Anne Tyler novel without the constant dry humor and bizarrely quirky characters."
Will this novel bother you at night, or put you to sleep? Click to find out!
