Category Archives: Book

Horror Book Review: Encyclopedia Of Vampire Mythology by Theresa Bane

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now, here’s the interesting thing about vampires:

They’ve been around forever.

Seriously, long before Bram Stoker first put pen to paper, there were legends about vampires.  Of course, they weren’t always called vampires.  In the Middle East, there was talk of the Afrit, which was the soul of a murdered person who would return to the spot of its death and drink the blood of anyone unlucky enough to cross it.  In Macedonia, it was said that certain people who had lived wicked lives and never eaten pork would return to life as a blood-drinking wild boar.  In Iceland, it was the Alfemoe who sucked blood while the ancient Greeks could tell you all about Empusa, who drank blood to maintain a youthful appearance.

Of course, we all know that vampires don’t exist, or at least they don’t exist as supernatural creatures.  Still, it is somewhat amazing that all of these different societies and cultures developed essentially the same myth at roughly the same time, despite not having much contact with each other.  There is just something universal about both the threat and the allure of the vampire.

With all of the different legends out there, it can be difficult to keep your mythological vampires straight.  Fortunately, the Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology is here to help!  Written by a vampirologist (albeit one who goes out of her way to make sure that we understand that she personally doesn’t believe in them), this encyclopedia has entries for all of the various mythological vampires and their legends.  With the exception of Dracula, this encyclopedia doesn’t include any of the “fictional” vampires from television or film.  If you’re looking for an entry on Angel or Edward Cullen, this is not the place to look.  But what the book does have is entries on the legendary beings who came before the celebrity vampires of today.  It makes for interesting reading and it also serves as a reminder that there’s more to the vampire legend than what we’ve seen in the movies or read in novels.

For both authors and readers of vampire fiction, the Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology is a valuable resource.

 

Horror Book Review: The Lovecraft Lexicon by Anthony Pearsall

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Are you planning on searching for Cthulhu this October?

If you are, you might want to think again.  Seriously, Cthulhu does not like being woken up.  The majority of people who have gotten on Cthulhu’s bad side are dead and the one who survived have gone insane.  Add to that, it’s not always easy to track down Cthulhu.  I mean, sometimes it can be difficult to tell one lost city from another.  I guess you could try to track down your local Cthulhu cult or maybe you could summon Nyarlathotep and ask him for directions.  If I remember correct, I think that’s what Randolph Carter used to do.

If, despite all the warnings, you’re really determined to track down Cthulhu this summer, you need to order yourself a copy of Anthony Pearsall’s The Lovecraft Lexicon.  First published in 2005, The Lovecraft Lexicon contains all the information that you could possibly want about all of the persons, places, and things in the tales of H.P. Lovecraft.

It’s set up like an encyclopedia, with entries on …. well, everything.  You want to know about Charles Dexter Ward?  He’s in here.  Curious about Azathoth?  This book has all the information that you need to find.  Pearsall details the adventures of Randolph Carter and also sorts through the many legends about the Necronomicon.  This book is the next best thing to taking a course at Miskontic University.

However, the Lovecraft Lexicon is more than just an encyclopedia.  It’s also a reader’s guide, one that examines just what may have been going through Lovecraft’s mind when he wrote about some of his most infamous creations.  The book not only takes a look at Lovecraft’s work but also at the man himself and, to its credit, it’s honest about both Lovecraft’s flaws as a person and his strengths as a writer.  In the end, the book celebrates Lovecraft’s imagination and his influence on future writers.  Whether you’re a reader who is just now starting in on the works of H.P. Lovecraft or a writer looking to continue to tales of Cthulhu, The Lovecraft Lexicon is an invaluable resource.

Joker, Book Review, By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

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Happy Horrorthon! 2008 – Barack Obama was becoming a household name, I still had some hair, and Heath Ledger’s Joker brought the absolute evil of clowns to the silver screen.  I understand that some of you might think that the comic Joker is not a horror comic, but guys it’s got a clown right there on the cover; they are ALL trying to kill you. IT COUNTS!

Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo sought to bring Ledger’s Joker into a comic form and dig a little deeper into the psychology of Joker and why someone would follow him.  The story is narrated by Jonny Frost – a small time gangster- who wanted to be big.  Jonny figures that he himself is not larger than life, but by being near bright evil, he too could shine like the moon does with the earth.  He picks the Joker.

Christopher Nolan described the Joker as an absolute. He is an id of Corruption and destruction.  In this story, the Joker has gotten out of Arkham….again.  SIDE NOTE: what’s with Gotham?! They must have the single party liberal governing that we have in Seattle because you’d think they’d have a Three Strikes Rule or the Death Penalty by now.  I mean, why let the Joker continue to keep breathing? I get how Batman has this weird code- he wears rubber, cape, lives in a cave, and is all kinds of weirdo, but why do the rest of Gotham’s citizens have it? Do they not vote? Do they have only one ballot choice? So, the Joker meets Jonny Frost the second that he leaves Arkham and Jonny works as a toady and hanger on for the majority of the book.

Jonny narrates the Joker’s return to power as he reaps through the underworld, but he burns most of his possessions down and kills all of his own henchmen and even shoots Jonny at the end.  Really, the story depicted the Joker as a force of Anti-Creation.  While it was a deeper dive into this Super Villain, it left me wanting because it was told through the lens of this mediocrity Jonny Frost.  It says Joker right there on the cover so you’d think it would be all about the Clown Prince of Crime, but instead it was this tangential view of him.  I would’ve been more captivated by a story just about the Joker without a go-between.

The story was strong and depicting LOTS AND LOTS of gore.  In fact, the Joker kills more people than the Spanish Flu.  He’s Lucifer and Death combined to cause havoc.  In the end, we get the obvious conclusion that he’s just this disease of evil and that Batman is really just a treatment, but not a cure.  It seems that Gotham’s real disease is a soft on crime public policy.

N. By Stephen King; Review By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

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What if you’re not crazy?  What if you’re finally seeing the truth that everyone else is too afraid to see?  Is the revelation too much for your mind?  Could your mind be both the doorway to hell and the gate keeping the evil old ones at bay?  Most importantly, can a person’s mental illness infect another person?  Stephen King’s “N” is a hybrid of Lovecraft and Modern Psychology where we are forced to learn the answers to these questions.

The story was both a novella and adapted as a comic book/olde-timey radio-show.  Confused?  Let me explain.  N was first published as a novella, but instead of getting made into a comic book or as is typical of King’s work- a movie or miniseries, it became something else.  Marc Guggenheim adapted the work as an all dialogue webseries similar to the serials of the 1930s and 40s and presented the story as a series of hyper-detailed comic illustrations.  You can see it in its entirety below.

I have also read the novella several times.  Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure why I like a particular Stephen King story more than another, but it seems to be when the characters are so real that they could be you or your neighbor.  Yes, the monsters are spooky, but it’s the people, their story, their lives, who just happen to have to also deal with a monster or four.

The story begins with Sheila Bonsaint who is in mourning from her brother’s suicide.  She is calling her friend who is reminiscent of Anderson Cooper to look into why her brother John killed himself.  She believes it’s because of his contact with a patient named N.  The story shifts to John’s perspective describing a patient N who suffers from extreme OCD.  N believes his OCD rituals keep the portals between our world and the hell world closed.

N describes how he encountered a field with rocks similar to Stonehenge in Maine and that by viewing the structure, he caused the structure to activate and potentially release an ancient evil that will consume mankind.  He begins to do OCD rituals to keep the portal closed, but realizes that he must sacrifice his life in order to shut the gate forever.  Unfortunately, John becomes infected by N’s mental disorder and becomes overcome with the need to investigate the structure, which activates it again and causes him to spiral into the same OCD as N.

This story struck a very strong chord with me.  Last year, I began to take a long road into facing my own PTSD experiences in the Army.  When I would tell the medical professionals in the VA about what happened, one cried.  My stories had infected them and left them different afterwards.  The world was less clean, less safe, and much darker.  Now, like N, if I have to tell a person the stories, I begin by saying that I am sorry because what I will tell you, will change you.  I suppose that is what humanity does; we share our burdens and our curses.  Maybe that’s how we keep the gate to hell closed?

Book Review: Air Force One Is Haunted By Robert J. Serling

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

OH MY GOD, AIR FORCE ONE IS HAUNTED!

A few weeks ago, I was going through my aunt’s collection of old paperback novels, searching for anything that I could possibly review during October.  While I found a good deal of promising books, I have to admit that I almost squealed for joy when I came across Air Force One Is Haunted.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I had never heard of the book before and I knew absolutely nothing about the plot.  But I saw that title and I knew I just had to read it.  I mean, seriously — Air Force One Is Haunted!  That’s like the greatest title ever!  I looked at that title and I asked myself, “What’s haunting Air Force One?  Angry druids?  Zombies?  Succubi?  Woodrow Wilson?”  Either way, it sounded like it had the potential to be terrifying!

Then I got home and I read the book and I discovered that …. well, let’s just say that my imagination got ahead of me.

Air Force Is Haunted was originally published in 1985 and the author was not only a world-renowned aviation expert but he was also the brother of Twilight Zone-creator Rod Serling.  So, it’s perhaps not surprising that Air Force One Is Haunted feels like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.  It’s one of those things where a good but conflicted person has the chance to do something that seems like it might be good for him but it will also be bad for the world at large.  Fortunately, a ghost shows up and gives him a lot of advice.

The conflicted person, in this case, is President Jeremy Haines.  Haines is in his second term and it seems like the entire world is falling apart around him.  America’s in the middle of a great depression.  Russia and China are teaming up to possibly try to take over the world.  President Haines could always launch a first strike, which would wipe out Russia as a world power but which would also kill a lot of innocent civilians.  He can’t make up his mind what to do and, as a result, people across the world are starting to view him as being weak.  The President has even started to see a psychiatrist but they’re soon too busy having tasteful, mass market paperback-style sex to actually do anything about the President’s issues.

If only there was a mediocre ex-president that Haines could talk to and get some advice from!  However, it appears that even Jimmy Carter is refusing to take his calls.

That’s when FDR shows up.

That’s right.  It turns out that FDR is haunting Air Force One and, whenever President Haines boards the plane, he ends up getting advice from him.  FDR has a lot of stories to tell about governing during an economic depression.  He also says “Bully,” a lot, even though that was Teddy’s phrase.

Anyway, I think the book would have been a bit more interesting if FDR had turned out of be some sort of malevolent demon who intentionally gave President Haines bad advice that eventually led to World War III.  And, to be honest, I kept expecting that too happen.  I kept expecting FDR’s eyes to suddenly burn like hellfire as he said, “Burn it!  BURN IT TO THE GROUND!”  But that never happened.  Instead, this is one of those books where FDR is the greatest dead president ever and, in the end, middle-of-the-road liberalism keeps the world safe for democracy.

As you’re probably guessing, this is kind of a corny book but it is written with a lot of sincerity.  One gets the feeling that Serling really did feel that, if only America’s leaders just looked to the ghost of FDR, every problem in the world would be solved.  The book is also overwritten in the way that well-meaning, melodramatic novels of the past often were.  One character is identified as having a “gnawing ulcer of doubt” deep in the “bowels of his conscience.”  (Ewwwwwww!)  That’s the type of book that this is.  It’s definitely a product of its time but, if you’re a history nerd like me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If anyone is haunting Air Force One, I personally hope that it’s Rutherford B. Hayes.  He was the best!

Horror Book Review: Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, it’s October 1st and you know what that means!

It’s time to put together a Halloween reading list!

(Actually, to be honest, you’re running behind.  You should have started selecting the books for your October reading list way back in July.  Really, what have you been doing all this time?  Well, anyway….)

When it comes to putting together a Halloween reading list, there’s no better place to start than with Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell!

First published in 2017, Paperbacks From Hell is a compulsively readable and fun overview of the horror-themed paperbacks that scared readers in the 70s and the 80s.  Every genre of paperback horror is covered, from the demonic possession novels that came out after the success of The Exorcist and The Omen to the “based on a true haunting” ghost novels to the extremely gory and rather unpleasant serial killer stories of the late 80s.  Along with discussing the best sellers of that era, Paperbacks From Hell also includes hundreds of wonderfully sordid and often rather bizarre paperback covers.  Have you ever wandered what a bunch a Nazi dwarves would look like?  Well, just check out the cover of The Little People:

I mean, seriously — AGCK!

Paperbacks From Hell isn’t just a book about scary paperbacks, however.  It’s also a social history.  So many of these books were designed to appeal to whatever was scaring suburbanites at the moment and, as a result, the history of horror paperbacks is also a history of moral panics.  From Satanic cults to dirty music to environmental catastrophe and evil children, there’s a paperback for every one of them and, in all probability, the cover of that papeprback can be found in Paperbacks From Hell.

Paperbacks From Hell is a definite must-have for anyone who loves history and horror.  After I read it, I decided that I would read every single paperback that was mentioned in Paperbacks From Hell.  That turned out to be a bit more difficult than I thought it would be because, sadly, a lot of those classic old paperbacks are out-of-print and being sold for hundreds of dollars on Amazon.  I mean, I would love to read Satan Sublets by Jack Younger but I don’t know if I want to spend four hundred dollars to do so.  That said, even if some of the books that scared our parents and grandparents are no longer readily available, at least we have Paperbacks From Hell.

If you don’t already have a copy of Paperbacks From Hell, order it.  It’s addictive reading at its best.

 

Into the Dark, “Down”, Dir. Daniel Stamm, Review By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

Down

Happy Horrorthon!!!!

Should some people embrace their creative mediocrity? YES! Yes, they should.  I don’t mean that what they write or direct is bad. It’s simply unoriginal, predictable, with characters who make obviously bad decisions REPEATEDLY, and still are amazingly fun! I never thought I’d get into Lifetime movies until Lisa got me into them. I discovered how fun Hallmark movies are these past few years.  Law & Order embraced its predictability so much that their main sponsor Listerine would break the show down in the Commercials: Body discovery, Wisecrack, Investigation and Arrest, Prosecution, and Verdict. Law & Order lasted 19 years.  Case, what’s your point?  My point is that mediocrity can be fun…a LOT of fun.

Hulu’s “Into the Dark” series is the fun trash that is great to watch and nothing more (accept for the episodes that are hamfisted, political, and preachy) ; it’s like the Jack in the Box Munchie Meals…yeah, they’ll give you a bit of diarrhea, but come on, sometimes you just gotta have a Sriracha Curly Fry Burger.  That’s just science!

“Down” is awesomely bad.  The actors mug, the character decisions are stupid, and it’s great for the elliptical or exercise bike and probably safer to watch as you’re burning those last Lbs.  The plot is simple and doesn’t try to go into a supernatural direction. It’s fun because it never tries.  Jennifer Robbins ( Natalie Martinez) is trapped in an elevator on a holiday weekend with Guy (Matt Luria), BUT is Guy hiding something sinister? Yes…yes, he is and you can tell because he mugs A LOT!

If Lifetime went down the horror route, this would be the premiere.  Guy is in fact Jennifer’s stalker and manipulates her into having sex like the Lifetime movies with the Single Moms and the Predator Next Door.  Lifetime movies are better than “Down” because with Lifetime movies once the heroine realizes she has to fight; it’s to the death.  Here, when Jennifer realizes Guy is a Psycho Killer she doesn’t Run….Run…Away.  In fact, he tries to kill her a lot and then she gets the upper hand, but does she finish him off? Nooooope.  She fails to deliver the Coup de Gras not once, not twice…no, we’re talking six times here when she could’ve finished the movie and literally had a smoke after the 45 minute mark, but 45 minutes of filler was fine for my physical therapy time.

I know that this reads harsh, but these movies have their place; they’re fun.  If the pacing and plot points matched with a Lifetime MOW, it would’ve been that much better, but you can’t have everything, nor should you! Will I review a bunch more of these Into the Dark quasi-episodes? YES, Yes I will!

Happy Horrorthon!

Book Review: THREE DOG NIGHTMARE: The Chuck Negron Story (4th edition; independently published 2017)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

From 1969 to 1974, Three Dog Night was one of the biggest rock bands in the world, known for smash hits like “One”, “Eli’s Coming”, “Mama Told Me Not to Come”, “Shambala”, “Black & White”, and of course “Joy to the World”. Their squeaky-clean, family friendly image made them popular with both teens and adults, but behind that image lurked a deep, dark secret – co-lead singer Chuck Negron, the long-haired, mustachioed one, was an unrepentant heroin addict.

THREE DOG NIGHTMARE, first published in 1999 and revised in 2017, tells the harrowing tale of the horrors of drug addiction by the man who lived that nightmare for over twenty years. And ‘nightmare’ it truly was, as Chuck tells his tale of going from the pinnacle of the rock’n’roll universe to a Skid Row junkie, lying, cheating, and stealing his way through life leaving nothing but sorrow and devastation in his…

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Book Review: Steve McQueen: Portrait of An American Rebel by Marshall Terrill (1994 edition, Donald I. Fine)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Last night, I watched Tom Horn.

This western was the actor Steve McQueen’s second-to-last movie.  He died a few months after it was released in 1980 and McQueen looks frail throughout most of the movie.  Despite his obvious ill-health, McQueen still gave a strong performance as a real-life former frontier scout and cowboy who was executed for a crime that he probably did not commit.

After I watched the movie, I searched through my collection of film books until I found my copy of Marshall Terrill’s Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel.  Terrill’s book is one of my favorite actor biographies.  It covers all the details of McQueen’s underrated acting career and his turbulent personal life, including both the time he ran into the Manson Family and his relationship with Ali MacGraw.

Best of all, the book ends with a detailed list of every film that McQueen turned down over the course of his career.  After he appeared in The Towering Inferno, McQueen became very selective when it came to picking his film roles.  He was tired of just doing action movies and he also didn’t want to spend too much time apart from MacGraw.  Directors still wanted to work with McQueen but McQueen didn’t always want to work with him and, as a result, the movies that McQueen turned down make for a truly impressive list.

Here’s just a few of the films that McQueen was offered but turned down:

  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s (The George Peppard role would have been a rare intellectual role for McQueen)
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (McQueen was the first choice for the Sundance Kid but he and Paul Newman could not agree on who would be billed first.  This same issue nearly kept them from working together in The Towering Inferno.)
  • The French Connection (The French Connection was greenlit due to the success of Bullitt so it’s not a surprise that McQueen was offered the role of Popeye Doyle.  McQueen, however, was tired of playing cops.)
  • Dirty Harry (Again, McQueen was tired of playing cops.)
  • The Great Gatsby (This film was originally envisioned as starring McQueen as Gatsby and Ali MacGraw as Daisy, both of whom would have been better cast in the roles than either Robert Redford or Mia Farrow.  As a former juvenile delinquent who became one of the richest men in Hollywood, McQueen was Jay Gatsby.)
  • Jaws (Spielberg considered McQueen for the role of Brody.)
  • The Driver (Ryan O’Neal was cast instead and gave a performance that was clearly influenced by McQueen’s style of cool)
  • A Bridge Too Far (Everyone who was anyone was offered a role in A Bridge Too Far.  McQueen was one of the few actors to turn it down and, as happened so often in his career, the role instead went to Robert Redford.)
  • The Gauntlet (This was originally envisioned as starring McQueen and Barbra Streisand.  It was eventually made with Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.)
  • Close Encounters of The Third Kind (McQueen turned down the role of Roy Neary because he didn’t feel that he could convincingly cry on screen.)
  • Sorcerer (William Friedkin later said that the biggest mistake of his career wasn’t fighting harder to get McQueen to star in his remake of The Wages of Fear.)
  • First Blood (McQueen was one of many stars considered for either Rambo or Sheriff Teasle before Sylvester Stallone came aboard.)
  • The Bodyguard (Famously, this was written for McQueen and Diana Ross.  It was eventually made with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston)
  • The Cannonball Run (After McQueen turned down the project, the script was rewritten to play up comedy over action and Burt Reynolds was cast in the lead role.)
  • For me, the most intriguing project that McQueen turned down was Apocalypse Now.  McQueen was Francis Ford Coppola’s first choice for Capt. Willard but McQueen turned him down because he didn’t want to leave Ali MacGraw alone for the months that would be required to make the film.  Even after being turned down the first time, Coppola offered the role to McQueen twice more, once after firing Harvey Keitel and once after Martin Sheen’s heart attack.  When McQueen again refused to play Willard, Coppola tried to interest McQueen in playing Col. Kurtz.  While I think McQueen would have been a good Willard, I also believe he would have been a great Kurtz.  McQueen would have been more believable as a feared warrior than Marlon Brando.

And that’s just a few of the roles that McQueen turned down!  Terrill’s biography includes a comprehensive list.

Even after his death, McQueen has remained an icon of cool.  Damian Lewis plays him in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.  I’m looking forward to seeing that movie this weekend.  I’m also looking forward to rereading Marshall Terrill’s biography of Steve McQueen.

Book Review: BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME by Burt Reynolds and Jon Winokur (Putnam 2015)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

While doing my usual browsing around Barnes & Noble recently, I came across a real bargain – Burt Reynolds‘ 2015 memoir BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, for the low, low price of just $6.98! Naturally, being a long time Reynolds fan, I eagerly snapped it up and bought it (and no, Mr. Salesperson, for the umpteenth time, I do not want to join your book club!). Cowritten with Jon Winokur, who also coauthored a 2011 memoir with James Garner, the book is unlike your typical star ‘autobiography’, as Burt looks back on his life and, most importantly, the people who influenced him most, for better or worse.

Florida State running back “Buddy” Reynolds, 1954

Burt (who died last September at age 82) was Hollywood’s #1 box office draw from 1978-82, and ranked in the top ten for 12 years, but the man certainly paid his dues to get there. A…

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