Back in September, I was browsing at the local Barnes & Noble (as I frequently do, given the lack of independent bookstores around here) looking for something to review this Halloween season. I’d just finished with Stephen King’s REVIVAL (Pocket Books paperback, 2017), and while it’s good, everybody does King this time of year, and I wanted something different. I wandered through the fantasy section, and waaaay up on the top shelf I spotted a title that caught my interest. DARK DETECTIVES: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries, combining two of my favorite genres, horror and detective fiction! Curiosity piqued, I grabbed the book and bought it (along with the great James Lee Burke’s latest novel, ROBICHEAUX).
DARK DETECTIVES, first published as a limited edition in 1999, features ten short stories, some old, some written especially for the anthology, by authors I’m familiar with (and I assume you are too, if…
If you were to ask me to recommend one book to someone who is looking for an introduction to the world of Italian horror, Eaten Alive is the book that I would recommend.
That’s largely because this book was my introduction. Way back in 2006, I came across a copy at Recycled Books in Denton, Texas and I bought it. I bought it because, at the time, I was already into horror movies. However, after reading the reviews and the essays in this book, I discovered that I wanted to learn much more about Italian horror. Outside of Suspiria and a few giallos like Blade in The Dark, the first Italian horror movies that I specifically tracked down and watched were the movies that I read about in this book. If not for Eaten Alive, I would never have seen the wonderfully macabre and disturbing Beyond the Darkness. This was book was also my first real exposure to Lucio Fulci. If not for this book, I never would have seen Zombi 2. I never would have discovered the Beyond trilogy.
In fact, considering that Arleigh and I first bonded over Italian horror, it’s doubtful that I would be writing for this site if I had not made that decision to buy Eaten Alive.
As for the book itself, it’s a comprehensive overview of Italian cannibal and zombie cinema. Along with containing information about every Italian cannibal and zombie film released in the 20th Century, it also features interviews with stars like Ian McCullough, Catriona MacColl, and GIovanni Lombardo Radice. (Radice even reviews one of the films himself.) The majority of the films are reviewed by Jay Slater but there are also contributions from writers like Ramsey Campbell and Lloyd Kaufman. (In fact, Kaufman writes a rather stirring defense of one of the more controversial films to be found in Eaten Alive, Cannibal Holocaust. Campbell, meanwhile, thoroughly destroys Nights of Terror.)
Seriously, if you’re interested in learning more about Italian horror or if you’re already a fan, this book is a must!
Way back at the end of August, in anticipation of the TSL’s Horrorthon, I went down to my local Half-Price Books and I explored their collection of old horror paperbacks. Among the books that I pulled off the shelf was the 1981 horror novel, The Beast Within by Edward Levy.
The book opens, in the 1920s, on the Arkansas farm of Henry Scruggs. Henry is a cruel religious fanatic, one who views fornication as being such a sin that he refuses to even have sex with much younger wife, Sarah. (Sarah, for her part, was practically sold to Henry by her father.) One day, an Englishman named Connors shows up at the farm. He’s a traveling bible salesman who specializes in seducing farm girls. When he attempts to do just that to Sarah, they both end up getting caught by Henry. Henry sets his wife on fire and then chains up Connors in the basement. That’s where Connors spends the next 20 years, while Henry prays for his soul.
By the time Henry dies and Connors manages to escape, Connors is no longer human. He’s been turned into a savage beast, who lives in the woods and eats anything that he comes across. The beast eventually attempts to catch a snake and ends up getting a poisonous bite as a result. However, before it dies, the Beast rapes Carolyn McCleary.
When Carolyn subsequently gives birth to a son named Michael, both she and her husband, Eli, convince themselves that Michael is Eli’s child, even though there’s no physical resemblance. As a child, Michael has a terrible temper and is sometimes violent. He has terrible dreams and sometimes wakes up covered in the blood of other animals. After Eli and Carolyn are forced to resort to extreme measures to control Michael’s impulses, it seems as if Michael has recovered. He grows up to be a relatively normal boy.
But then puberty hits….
The Beast Within is a grim, dark, and occasionally depressing little book. It’s also compulsively readable. Though many of the scenes between Henry, Sarah, and Conners verge a bit too much towards the cartoonish side, the book picks up once Henry’s out of the way and the focus shifts to the McClearys. You find yourself hoping the best for Eli, Carolyn, and Michael, even though you know it’s doubtful that this story is going to have a happy ending. The Best Within is short, sordid, pulpy as can be, and undeniably effective.
Where do stories come from? Not important or interesting. Why are some stories shot out like a cannonball from an artist’s brain in a matter of days like Kerouac’s “On The Road” and even written on a scroll; whereas, some stories take a decade or more of developing until they are born like Stephen King’s The Stand? Very Important and Very Interesting! I will not be discussing King’s opus The Stand, but rather how it evolved from Night Surf.
Night Surf was written for the University of Maine literary magazine in 1969 when King was twenty-two. Night Surf introduces us to the plague that kills off mankind and how people can be pulled to darkness when no one is looking. The disease is even called “A6” just as it was called in The Stand, but The Stand didn’t get published until 1978. Why did it take so long for The Stand to incubate and his other stories seem to shoot from him like they are on a sluice?
I see this dichotomy in my own writing. For some stories, I’ll get pieces of dialogue and scenes in my head that kick around for years, but I don’t know how they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle with too many smooth edges. I can’t speak for Stephen King, but for me the longer developing stories occur when I’m picking at something personal like an emotional wound that’s been puffed out by pus, but not yet ready to drain. I guess I just want to hold onto the pain; maybe, King does too?
Night Surf takes place on the New England coastline when summer’s ending, but it’s not just the leaves dying on the trees; humanity is blowing out from a massive viral extinction event. The disease is called A6- a superflu. In The Stand, he refers to the virus also as Tube Neck and Captain Trips. The world is not quite dead yet, but it’s getting there. The story is narrated by Bernie who is spending humanity’s last days at a beach town. At first, the group believes that they are immune from the disease and demonstrate their superior immunity with the most primitive act of all: Human Sacrifice. A man who’s dying from the flu comes to their town and, instead of caring for him and helping him die, they burn him to death in a bonfire.
Why burn him? They describe it almost like a sacrifice to the beach itself. The act seemed to me to be more like a line in the stand between the dying world and themselves. The mere mortals are simply cord wood and can be used for fuel. Their perception as the kings of humanity is vindicated by their health because they are immune and the rest of humanity perished. It harkens to the idea of the Puritans where the Select were touched by God and were guaranteed success in life and VIP treatment on the ethereal plane. Of course, the Puritans would balk at using lesser people as a duraflame.
Soon after burning the flu victim alive, Bernie realizes that one of his comrades has A6 symptoms and will soon die, indicating all of them might expire soon. The story forces us to look at what allows us to be moral. Are we only good because society will punish us if we are bad? It could be argued that they looked at the immolation as a last hurrah, but I think that is wrong because at the time in the story, they believed they were immune. If their friend had developed symptoms before the unlucky traveler arrived, would they see him as their brother or would they have burned them both to adamantly declare their superiority?
The theme of people being seduced to darkness is throughout The Stand, but in this story, they don’t get the devil made me do it excuse; the group murdered because they could and felt like doing it. After the immolation, we return to Bernie’s backstory, humanizing him even more. It seems King is saying that this horrendous act was just another act in a number of countless acts that Bernie did from birth to his upcoming demise. Maybe doing evil is just as common as getting the paper? I hope not, but as the great philosopher Bobby Dylan said, It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.
This story is more relevant to me today than when I first read it years ago. What makes it more difficult for me is that the people in the story are just so normal. I hope none of my readers will ever have to do this, but I’ve looked right into the face of evil once and the man looked like he could have been a cousin. When I remember the encounter, it still chills me to the bone. I met a Bernie once; maybe, you have too, but you didn’t know it.
The “Lawnmower Man” by Stephen King really makes me understand the power of peyote. Stephen King has is very open about his drug and alcohol addiction and in the 1970s even regular folks were dabbling in the Yayo. In fact, he has said that he doesn’t remember writing The Shining. In those days, he would use cotton balls up his nose from the constant nose bleeds from his cocaine use. The Lawnmower Man has to be seen in this context.
Harold Parkette is a typical suburban man. He’s lawn obsessed and needs to make it purdy.
Sidenote: This story takes me back to me youth. In my football and track days, I would mow lawns and split wood to make extra cash. I would never wear a shirt because I would get hot. I never understood until later why only the wives would call me to do the yard work, would make really odd excuses to give me extra lemonade, and cash. A lot of times they’d just sit on their porch, watch, and occasionally wave.
The Lawnmower Man is not that kind of story. Harold gets an odd landscaper who starts working and then Harold takes a nap. When Harold wakes, he sees that the lawnmower is moving on its own and the lawnmower man is eating the clippings. The image that stuck with me the most is that grass was growing on the lawnmower man’s teeth- yuck. The Lawnmower Man reveals himself to be the Greek God Pan and proceeds to eat Harold.
This story is just plain weird. Pan was into wine and sex, not landscaping. Also, I get the economy can be tough, but if you’re a god wouldn’t you do better than a solo landscaping biz? All around, I’m very confused.
Sometimes films are done poorly. Sometimes films stay true to the source material. Sometimes they are just kinda fun.
This adaptation of Stephen King’s- “Strawberry Spring” is just kinda neat. I was looking for Strawberry Spring images online for my post and here this was. It’s a High School student film of Strawberry Spring. It’s just straight up fun. All of his friends are obviously in the film and the director did a pretty good job.
The story of Strawberry Spring is that a serial killer slasher is on the loose at a New England liberal arts school in the 60s. The narrator is more than unreliable; he is a possible suspect. The Strawberry Spring refers to a false spring that occurs in New England similar to a blackberry winter where warm weather occurs and then a severe nor’easter hits. The book makes a point that a mist appears before the murders and that the mist itself is likely sapient who infects the narrator, causing him to kill. The campus is terrorized by a series of murders and then when the Strawberry Spring ceases, so do the murders.
This student film tries to dramatize the story and although there a bit of overused fog machine sequences, it deserves a lot of credit. There was obviously a lot of effort put in and I give a tip of the hat to these young artists.
You can watch it here and if you have 15 minutes to definitely check it out!!!
Happy Horrothon……wait a minute…this isn’t a horror movie!!! Nope, but it is going to win Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director.
First Man is a biopic of Neil Armstrong from his test pilot days, Gemini missions, Apollo Mission and return home. I was moved. Ryan Gosling inhabited that man’s very soul. I have not seen acting that good in years and years. At every point in the film, you are more on the edge of your seat than you have been in decades. I knew he would land the LEM on the moon, but it was so close to disaster that you felt for him.
The picture opens with Neil doing test piloting. He’s already getting tapped to be in the Gemini missions, but he almost passes. He has a daughter that stricken with cancer and we share in his grief throughout the film’s entirety. I won’t spoil it, but there’s a moment when Neil is on the moon with his late daughter’s bracelet and …. oh man. Once his daughter passes, his wife pushes him to take the Gemini mission and we rapidly see that she is his ROCK! We see it when his daughter passes and when the stress of the burden of achievement weighs upon this Great Man.
The weight of greatness and death is looked dead in the eye in this picture. Brave men are facing and dealing with mortality in nearly every scene. We see that the cost of putting the first man on the moon is paid in blood. So many great men die in this heroic quest that it begins to feel like a Homeric adventure or great tale of an ancient Samurai told through a modern lens. All the while they are struggling to make this great achievement, we hear the familiar whining of lesser men moaning in the background like white noise.
Once it is clear that Neil will be Commander to go to the Man, his wife demands that he explain the risks to his two remaining children. He tells them and we feel his paternal pain twisting in him like a blade because his destiny is set. We get closer to the other two members of his team – one I can’t remember and the other is Buzz Aldrin who is portrayed as complete asshole. I mean…wow…what a dick!
When Neil approaches the moon, the LEM is heading for disaster and fate tempts Neil to abort, but it’s obvious that Neil will succeed or he will die trying. There was no going back empty handed for him. There’s a lesson here: the greatest achievements require sacrifice up to and including your life.
The film allows us to see this amazing quest through the eyes of our greatest American Representative. It is also clear that the Space Race, Humankind’s greatest achievement, was a road that led to victory and was paved with blood.
A few years ago, when I reviewed the entire Friday the 13th film franchise for this site, one of the main resources that I used in my research was the 2006 book, Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.
As you can probably guess from the title, the book is a nearly complete history of the Friday the 13th franchise. (I say nearly complete because the book was published to coincide with the release of Freddy vs. Jason so there’s no information about the later reboot. That’s okay, though, because the reboot sucks and deserves to be forgotten.) What sets this book apart is that it’s an oral history so you’re learning about the history of the Friday the 13th films from the people who were actually involved.
It makes for compelling and interesting reading, providing a portrait not just of the franchise but also of what it was like to be involved in the world of low-budget, genre film making. Friday the 13th may have started out as an independent American giallo just to then become a studio slasher franchise but the one thing that remained consistent was that, no matter how much money the films made, they weren’t ever given much respect. One of the recurring themes in the book is that the actors who were cast in the films were often happy for the work but it was rare that getting killed in a Friday the 13th film ever led to stardom. (Kevin Bacon, of course, is the exception to that rule. Though Bacon isn’t interviewed in the book, everyone who worked on the first film seems to agree that he was fun to work with.) Some of the actors interviewed are just happy to have been a part of an iconic franchise. Some of them display a commendable sense of humor while other seem rather annoyed to know that they’ll be forever associated with Friday the 13th. Some, like New Beginning‘s Jerry Pavlon, worry about the franchise’s subtext while actress Barbara Howard jokes that she calls her annual Final Chapter residual check her “blood money.”
Another recurring theme in Crystal Lake Memories is that of the bitter screenwriter. For the most part, the people assigned to write the scripts for these films come across as being a uniformly bitter lot. It’s actually understandable, as the majority of them attempted to add a new twist to the franchise just to be told that the studio just wanted more scenes of Jason killing camp counselors. That gets at a larger frustration shared by almost everyone interviewed. How do you add your own personal touch to a set of films that are specifically designed to be as impersonal as possible? That’s the question that everyone involved with the franchise had to answer for themselves and it makes for an interesting and relatable read.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book deals with the lengthy development of the Freddy vs. Jason film. We’re told that one of the executives involved with the film believed that, if she added an environmental subtext to the story, Freddy vs. Jason would be the first slasher film to win an Academy Award. As for the films themselves, it sounds like Friday The 13th: A New Beginning had the most out-of-control set while Friday the 13th Part 2 was the fun set. The set I would have wanted to avoid would have been Friday the 13th 3D, where everyone was apparently too stressed out over the special effects to actually have any fun.
This book is a must not just for Friday the 13th fans but for movie lovers in general.
Happy Horrorthon! Hill House came early this year. Here we go!
Hill House has been remade many different ways. This time it’s done by Mike Flanagan of Gerald’s Game (Netflix). The show splits its time between then and now. It opens “Then” with Timothy Hutton in a very big and creepy house with a bunch of kids. We learn through A LOT of exposition that Steven has grown up to be paranormal writer. The cuts between then and now aren’t too bad, but it does diffuse the tension.
The kids handled the trauma of growing up in a haunted house with varied acceptance. Steven is a paranormal investigator. The oldest sister works at funeral home. Luke grew up to be an alcoholic. Nellie grew up to be disturbed. There’s another sister who’s a sex addict. I’m halfway into the episode and I am kinda bored. They try to sell the show as the next Stranger Things, but I’m not sure if this show is even the next Whitney. This show is a lot of things, but it is not worthy at this point of being in the same sentence as Season 1 Stranger Things.
This show has 20 minutes left to get good and my hopes are low.
Nellie is one of the many family members who has grown up all messed up. She is drawn back to Hill House I suppose because she wants to do some lawn maintenance.
The story, once again, shifts to the past and Steven and the dad need to escape the house because they are being pursued by a ghost. Apparently, their mom was possessed by a ghost and they have to flee and leave mom behind (awkward mother’s day coming up). Funny how divorce can just creep up on a couple after 20 years of marriage; you look over and realize that you and your spouse are different people; in that, you are a person and she is possessed by a demon.
Nellie has returned to Hill House literally and starts dancing around. It’s weird. The show jump cuts to Steven to an explaining session that her house is not haunted, but he’ll make it seem haunted in the book and the lady looks at him with contempt because he’s a fraud. We learn that Steven is a failed novelist who cashed in on the family drama by writing the Haunting of Hill House. This caused Steven and his sister to become estranged.
The show flashes back and actually does a good job at showing why Luke is so traumatized. Apparently, one of the Hill House ghosts was harassing him when he was young and that trauma triggered his lifelong addiction.
The show flashes to Steven again as an adult. He catches his brother with the substance abuse problem leaving his apartment with all of his electronics. Steven gets the brother to give him his stuff back. When he finally goes inside, he finds Nell at his home and the first scary thing happens in the whole show: Steve’s dad calls and says that Nell went to the hill house and she’s dead. So……the Nell that is in Steve’s house is a GHOOOOOOOST. BOO! Nell does some ghosty stuff that’s kinda spooooky.
I don’t know if there will be second review of this show. I will definitely watch another episode, but I’m not ready to get married to it yet. I think it could have some potential, but Stranger Things had me the first murder in the first 30 seconds. So far, this is more slow exposition than slow burn, but I will give it a fair shot.
Happy Horrorthon!!! I decided to do a bit of a hybrid review of one of my favorite stories: “Battleground” by Stephen King. This book is part of a short story anthology in Night Shift. Battleground was written in 1972 by King. This was back in the days when he wasn’t just hungry, he was starving. He was working in laundries, substitute teaching, maybe even a paper route. This particular work was published in Cavalier, which was a low-rent Playboy. In those days, he would sell stories to Swank – a low-rent Penthouse as well. Many of these stories were real gems or at least gems in the rough. For example, Night Surf (Cavalier and Night Shift) evolved into his opus The Stand about a decade later. Battleground was made into a 52 minute long episode of the above short-lived series (watch them on youtube before they are taken down!!!).
This episode starred William Hurt and like the short-story there is ZERO dialogue, giving the episode a silent movie feel that is very compelling. Throughout the episode, you only hear ambient noise or grunts or yells, but no spoken dialogue. In fact, even when a newscaster is announcing that a murder has taken place, it’s done with subtitles. This is as close to genius television as it gets. I was truly saddened that it was not renewed.
The episode depicts William Hurt as a nameless hitman who is taskered to kill a toymaker. He does. When Hurt goes back home to his San Francisco condo, he receives a package. Inside the package is compilation of army men and “additional surprises”. These aren’t your grandpa’s plastic army men; however, they are alive and they have cruel intentions for Mr. Hurt!
Within moments of opening the package, the army men attack William Hurt in very Army like fashion. They take a covered position under Hurt’s couch and open fire, forcing William to flee to the bathroom. This solace is short-lived because they have mini-howitzers. Yes, I was primed to like this one. There are even mini-helicopters that attack Hurt and they send nasty notes to one another demanding and refusing surrender.
The battle to avenge the toy maker’s death continues even out to the ledge of the building, which is likely an Easter Egg to another King story “The Ledge”. Hurt prevails against the army men, but there are two more “Additional Surprises” 1) a commando who very resourceful and 2) a mini thermonuclear device. The mini thermonuclear device is the only dumb part of the story because there is no such thing as a tiny Thermonuclear reaction – these are atoms we’re fusing or splitting afterall. If detonated (regardless of its “mini” nature) , it would’ve destroyed all of San Francisco, but let’s give King- a liberal arts major- a break on that one because it’s still a fun story.
I will review a few more of these stories that were in Night Shift or episodes from this show.
Through the Shattered Lens 