Snog? Marry? Avoid? Horror...

To all who are reading this,

Today we take a voyage into the dark realms. Where things go bump in the night, where shivers crawl down your spine, and there are dark houses filled with spiders.

Or perhaps maybe not. I suppose it depends on your definition of today's topic.

Horror!

Now horror has changed over the years and many people are becoming desensitised to it. We are supposed to be frightened, scared and startled. Many old the older tales that have origins back from the eighteenth century, and used to be centric of the afterlife, death and evil entities.

Nowadays we can combine many others such as demonic pacts, ghosts vampires, werewolves, witches, and zombies.

There are many defintions of what makes a good horror novel. Some also argue in the case of poetry, such as Edgar Allan Poe. Horror films leave audiences puzzled and often in disagreement with the others around them.

Here are three examples of horror, right here, right now.


1. Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
"Twelve-year-old Oskar is an outsider; bullied at school, dreaming about his absentee father, bored with life on a dreary housing estate. One evening he meets the mysterious Eli. As a romance blossoms between them, Oskar discovers Eli's dark secret - she is a 200-year-old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood."

First published in 2004, the book originates in from Stockholm, in Sweden. Naturally, this is where the novel is set. I read this in a few days on holiday and I was pleasantly suprised. I thought it was a typical vampire novel, but it had me scared and ultimately, suprised. There are many twists in the novel, besides the realisation that Eli is 200. Oskar is perhaps the most engaging character. His perspective is intriguing and his innocence is a grear contrast with some aspects of his personality, which really begins to shine through as the novel progresses and as he meets different characters. The ending leaves us hanging, and makes you yearn to read the short story which Lindqvist later published in an anthology.

Nowadays, it is a successful film, and later there was an American remake, which changes things, leaving original fans very disgruntled.

I give this: SNOG!

2. The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert.
"The Caleighs have had a terrible year... They need time and space, while they await the news they dread. Gabe has brought his wife, Eve, and daughters, Loren and Cally, down to Devon, to the peaceful seaside village of Hollow Bay. He can work and Eve and the kids can have some peace and quiet and perhaps they can try, as a family, to come to terms with what’s happened to them... Crickley Hall is an unusually large house on the outskirts of the village at the bottom of Devil's Cleave, a massive tree-lined gorge - the stuff of local legend. A river flows past the front garden. It's perfect for them... if a bit gloomy. And Chester, their dog, seems really spooked at being away from home. And old houses do make sounds. And it's constantly cold. And even though they shut the cellar door every night, it’s always open again in morning..."

Published in 2006, this is just one of Herbert's books. This is gripping and downright thrilling. Compared to its recent television adaptation of the same name, it's fantastic. There is a good balance of intrigue, mystery and suspense. The small chapters are a welcome break from some of the longer, and often give as much information as them. The switch in narrative from 1943 and 2006 are well handled. There was a slight bit of repitition, but you have to remember that occasionally, we get a different perspective, and in this case it ws the youngest daughter, Cally. Often we are told the story through Eve, who has a great deal of trauma to deal with. The dark themes are portrayed well, even with recent cases of abuse that is brought to the forefront of the media.

I would read more of Herbert's texts. He's as good as Stephen King.

I give this: MARRIAGE!

3. Rose Madder by Stephen King.
"Roused by a single drop of blood, Rosie Daniels wakes up to the chilling realisation that her husband is going to kill her. And she takes flight - with his credit card. Alone in a strange city, Rosie begins to build a new life: she meets Bill Steiner and she finds an odd junk shop painting, 'Rose Madder', which strangely seems to want her as much as she wants it. But it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder. Rose-maddened and on the rampage, Norman is a corrupt cop with a dog's instinct for tracking people. And he's getting close. Rosie can feel how close he is getting..."

Now people bear with me! I know I just praised King and Herbert in the same review, but there was something about Rose Madder, published in 1995, I just didn't like. It wasn't as good as other King books, such as Carrie, or short stories, such as 1408. I felt that the reptition got in the way of the story, and occasionally, I had to reread chapters or pages to get a feel for it. I had to put it down for perhaps an hour to get my breath back, and then come back to it. His use of Greek mythology was sometimes confusing, and it felt as though he was using it to fill pages, and that it was too research based. Though, I have to praise his portrayl of domestic abuse, which is not something to be praised! The blows dealt by antagonist Norman felt real. Sometimes too real, especially during the prologue.

King himself once stated that Rose Madder was "a stiff, trying-too-hard novel", and I have to agree with him.

I give this: AVOID!

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Watch out for tomorrow's blog post about YA (Young Adult) fiction!

Yours, with eternal ink,

Zoe

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Currently reading: Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl