Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

I have been aware of this movie for some time but haven't got around to seeing it until now.  Part of that is because the previews made it look like a found footage type movie, and I am really tired of those.  Good news; it isn't a found footage movie.  Bad news; It might as well be as it is a single camera that bounces around all the time and you don't get a clear shot of the monster until the end. 

The plot is about some extreme tourists that take a tour of Pripyat, Ukraine, the site of the Chernobyl reactor meltdown in 1986.  Of course things go wrong and our tourists are stranded there. 

The acting isn't all that great, the Australian guy was probably the best out of the bunch. I don't think the writing was all that great either, though.  The dialogue between the brothers didn't feel natural.  The characters continually make the most idiotic mistakes.  There didn't seem to be a payoff of character development, revelation, or redemption.

Take this one or leave it.  It isn't very scary and is horribly shot, directed, written, and acted.  You can watch it, just don't pay money to do so.   

House at the End of the Street(2012)-Spoiler Free

I remember seeing the trailers for House at the End of the Street last year and thinking that I needed to see it.  Then it came and went in theaters and I forgot about it.  I don't think it really made a buzz and that is a bit of a shame as the movie wasn't bad. 

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Elissa, a city girl just moving to a rural environment.  The house next door is infamous due to a double murder that happened there.  Turns out the son of the couple married, Ryan (Max Thieriot) still lives in the house.  Elissa, of course, falls for this quiet damaged boy. 

Jennifer Lawrence puts on a much better performance than she did in the Hunger Games as she does seem to have some chemistry with Thieriot.  Thieriot himself plays his part very well.  The mother's (Elizabeth Shue) dialogue comes across as strange.  She keeps saying things like "I am trying to be your mother" that I suppose indicates a back story of an irresponsible mother.  The mother is, however, a doctor, so, I can see absent but not really irresponsible. 

Overall- It was a pretty good movie that plays well as a horror/thriller.  I think it sets itself up for a sequel but don't know if the returns will ever justify making one.  There is some language and I think the PG-13 rating is pretty much accurate.  I might let my 12 year old watch it if she stated interest. 

Anna Dressed in Blood

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, this is her first book. Didn't realize this while reading, which is excellent. This is a great creepy book. My 11 year old picked it up at the Library and recommended it to me when she had finished. We are both fans of the show supernatural and it really feels a lot like that show. I think Ms. Blake is also as the main character has a run in early on with a man named Mr. Dean who has an old muscle car that is his baby.

While I saw some things coming there was some clever misdirection in the story. I would say that I didn't believe Cass's voice 100%. I thought he was a girl in the first chapter and he doesn't really think like a teenage boy. Given he is a strange kid, teenage boys will always be somewhat like teenage boys. He is more realistic after his encounter with Anna. That said, guys generally do a worse job writing girls.

If you and your kids like spooky/ultra violent books like Me and mine do, this is an awesome book to read together or share with each other. Blake spins a pretty original yarn here in the ghost story genre. I look forward to her other works.

View all my reviews

I Saw the Devil-Movie Review

I Saw the Devil is Korean thriller from 2010.  It stars Byung-Hun Lee (Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe) and Min-Sik Choi (Oldboy, Shiri).  It is probably one of Korea's most violent movies.

I watched this with a group of friends as part of a horror movie double feature.  The first movie we watched was Cabin in the Woods and we all loved that one and were wondering how we were going to follow it up.  XBMC (X Box Media Center, great way to organize your media in a visually pleasing manner) had this in the horror genre and had it rated higher than Cabin in the Woods and The Thing from 1982.  While my collection of horror is not the most complete, it has some pretty good movies in it and having this as highest rated was intriging, so we all decided this would be the second movie.  We were not disappointed.

The story is a simple revenge plot.  Kim (Lee) is after the serial killer that killed his wife (Choi).  The story does take some twists and turns along the way.

The acting was excellent.  Korea is very good for comedies as the actors tend to over emote, but there was none of that here.  The acors brought the weight into the performance that it deserved.  We attempted to watch it with English language dubs, but quickly changed our mind.  Watch this one in Korean with subtitles.  The English language dub is horrible. 

Overall, it was a great movie.  Not sure it was horror unless you consider man as the scariest monster their is.  I do.  It is our twisted minds that created all these monsters in the first place.  The only problem seemed to be the ability of the characters to recover from harm.  20 bashes to the skull with a metal pipe is going to kill anyone on Earth.  Maybe he should have worked the body with most of those strikes.  If you liked Silence of the Lambs and Taken, this one should be great for you.  I have heard it compared to Oldboy, but I still haven't seen Oldboy.  I don't think kids are ready for this one.  It was almost a 19+ in Korea. 

Silent Hill Questions

*warning: spoilers for a 10 year old movie follow. 

I remember watching this movie when it came out and liking it for whatever reason.  It has been called one of the best video game adaptions of all time, not that the bar is set very high.  I haven't played the game, so I can't compare.  Then new movie is coming out and it looks interesting, enough that I thought I might want to watch the original again.  It was on Crackle for Roku, what luck. 

I sat down with both my girls as I don't remember it being too scary and they like to be scared.  Now, my oldest didn't think it was scary enough and my youngest thought it was too scary.  Watching it for the second time and seperated from what was, then, amazing special effects, I had some questions about the movie.  Maybe these are answered in the game.

1.  So the little girl is all the good and innocence that was left in the girl they burned.  and the demon thing was under the burnt husks control?\

2.  Everyone was dead, right?  Because it seemed like everyone in Silent Hill was dead.  The cop had a motorcycle accident and was bleeding from her head, the mom and daughter also crashed.  In the real world they find the car and the bike but no bodies and they pretty much walk through the same areas without seeing each other. 

3.  If they are dead, how is the girl coming back for the second movie?

4.  Where we supposed to feel sympathetic for the demon possessed dead girl? She won and the mom helped her do it but I think it might be a 24 of one and two dozen of the other type situation.  It seemed like they were painting this as a tale of vengence but she also didn't really care who she hurt to get it. 

5.  If everyone is dead, does that make Silent Hill Hell.  Is that why the mom and daughter are allowed to leave at the end?  Was the cop lady martyred in hell?

Please feel free to discuss in the comments. Don't forget the Scare Me! blogfest on 10/31/12

Super Shorts: 20th Century Ghosts, by Joe Hill

I admit that I had a certain amount of skepticism about Joe Hill as a writer. Being the son of Stephen King, I couldn’t help but think that just maybe he hadn’t quite earned his entrance into the world of publishing the way that other writers had.

I felt a little vindicated with this feeling when I read his novel Heart Shaped Box, because I liked the book well enough, but I didn’t feel it was really ground-breaking or noteworthy in particular.

So, it was with a bit of a raised eyebrow that I noticed his short story collection 20^thCentury Ghosts had won the Stoker Award for Best Collection in 2005. Based on that award, I decided to give Hill another shot.

And I’m glad I did. 20^th Century Ghosts is stellar collection of short stories. As you might expect, there’s a good portion of horror, other “supernatural” type stories, and even a couple that are surprisingly sweet natured.

20th Century Ghosts, by Joe Hill

There are two trends in the stories throughout this collection that set it apart from other “good” horror collections. The first is the sheer imaginativeness behind so many of the ideas. For example, Pop Art was based on perhaps the most absurd-sounding premise I’ve heard in a long time, but in the end was probably one the best and most emotional stories in the book. My Father’s Mask was disturbing in that it portrayed a don’t-look-too-closely world that seemed like ours, but had some damn unsettling things going on behind the scenes.

The second thing that Hill excelled at in these stories is breaking the expected “horror story” formats and cadences. Hill even pokes fun at this in the first story, Best New Horror, which is about a horror magazine editor who has seen it all and read it all a thousand times. Like that jaded and cynical editor, I found something new, interesting, and occasionally truly horrific in Hill’s stories. They are constantly taking unexpected turns leaving the reader (or in my case, the listener) off balance. They also tend to end at unexpected times, almost in mid-story sometimes (or at least that’s the way it felt), leaving the reader to stop, put away their expectations, and consider that ending — and the entire story in a new light.

Just a superb collection. I will definitely re-visit these stories again and again.

Five stars.

Book Review: Graveminder, by Melissa Marr

A couple of months ago, I was casting about for a new audiobook to listen to and it happened to be right as Goodreads was releasing its Readers Choice Awards for 2011. Melissa Marr’s novel Graveminder won Best Horror, so I decided to give it a shot.

In the story, a young woman, Rebekkah Barrow (also, 2011 Egregious Name-Spelling Award Winner), is called back to her hometown of Claysville (vaguely Ozark-y/Appalachia-y) after her grandmother is mysteriously murdered. Rebekkah has fond memories of her grandmother, following her through graveyards as she tended the graves of the dead (I mean, who doesn’t?). Because apparently, the dead in Claysville don’t always stay dead…

What transpires is a tale the restless dead, family secrets, star-crossed love, trips to the Underworld, and deals with the devil, or sort of devil, or something, I’m not really sure, because it’s never made very clear, but it’s very clear that he’s The Bad Guy.

One thing that is very clear, however, is that Graveminder is a patchwork of supernatural cliches that never rises above formula and seems to be trying very very hard to capture the same audience as Charlaine Harris and Sookie Stackhouse. Sadly, this book sinks below what I would expect for even something mediocre — mostly because I feel that Marr was lazy.

At the beginning of the story, Rebekkah contemplates her youth back in Claysville from her apartment in the Gaslight district of San Diego. That’s a hard task, because there ISno Gaslight district in San Diego. It’s Gaslamp. Do you know how long it took me to find the correct use of Gaslamp versus Gaslight? About 40 seconds on Wikipedia. To me, that’s a lazy author (and editor). Now that may seem picky, but horror authors require readers’ suspension of disbelief to be effective, so being credible in other parts of the story is critically important. So she began to lose me almost from the outset. Still, I had hope.

Later, we learn that the “normal” citizens of Claysville get headaches and forgetful when confronted with anything supernatural. Seriously? That’s the way you’re going to handle the fact that someone sees a kid that died last week walking down the street? They just get a headache and forget it? How convenient. Then, when someone manages to man-up and ask a question, you get statements like, “Things are just different here” and “That’s the way things are here.” Oy. Again, I can’t suspend that much disbelief and for a storyteller, that’s just lazy.

Later, we find out that there’s a secret contract between the powers that be in the town and the Bad Guy. Rebekkah’s love interest goes to the Underworld and signs it (for a new generation) in blood without reading it. Without. Reading. It. I’m just going to stop here.

Clearly, by winning the Goodreads Readers Choice Award, there are a lot of people that liked Graveminder. Obviously, I’m not one of them.

One star out of five

Thankskilling

There just aren’t that many movies about Thanksgiving, especially horror movies.  Thankskilling aimed to change that.  I guess what was made could be called a movie, so, in that way, they succeeded.  I had heard so bad it is good things about this movie for a while.  It was horrible yes, but did this make it good?  Yeah, It kind of did.  The acting was horrible, the camera work wasn’t great, the turkey was horribly fake, but it looked like everyone was having a great time.  The plot was horrible and I especially love that the kids survive the night only for the Turkey to steal a car and track them down.  This movie wasn’t even trying to take itself seriously. 

It isn’t rated, but it is easily an R movie.  So children and pregnant women should not watch it. 

Friday Quiz-Super Spooky Halloween Edition

This week's quiz is guest hosted by Christine Hadden, who can usually be found talking horror on her own site Fascination with Fear.  You might want to stop by there and check out her super aggressive Halloween Festival  of Lists.  Every day this month she has created a horror related list numbered to correspond with the day of the month.  For example today is the 28th, so her list will have 28 items on it.  One of my favorites so far as been the kids in horror one.  On to the quiz.



$200-  What film is supposedly based on The Keddie Murders, an violent unsolved case of a brutal murder in the Sierra Nevada mountains?


$400-   What three Dario Argento movies combine to make the "Three Mothers" trilogy?  And what are the names of the so-called mothers?


$600-  What flavor of ice cream does Dick Hallorann give Danny in The Shining?


$800-  Name the real-life mall in which 1978's Dawn of the Dead was filmed?


$1000  Author and friend Peter Straub convinced Stephen King to put down and step away from what novel he was writing because the subject matter was so disturbing? 


Bonus-  Match the car to the movie


1.  1958 Plymouth Fury                                          A.  Death Proof
2.  1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88                                  B.  Christine
3.  1969 Dodge Charger                                          C.  Evil Dead 1, 2, and AOD
4.  1957 Ford Custom 300                                       D.  Psycho


Christine Hadden is the creator/editor/writer of Fascination with Fear.  She prefers frequenting dark theaters alone and avoiding most situations in which she is required to be social. She boasts an uncanny knack for sarcasm, an utter lack of conformity, and a raging hatred of the 3D phenomenon.  Vampires are her go-to monster of choice and she has a sincere love of Italian horror, ghost stories, Great White sharks, and Norman Bates.  She is a contributor to Fangoria, Paracinema, and The Blood Sprayer
  

The Doll- Review

Do you like campfire horror stories?  Yeah, me to.  In The Doll, J.C. Martin crafts a story in the campfire horror story tradition.  I could just imagine bringing a little Mexican Doll along and stashing it in someone's tent before telling the story.

This is the story of a woman and her child that come upon relics of an obscure religion.  This story ultimately warns you to beware which superstitions you would write off as silly.

The pace on this story is lightening fast and can be easily read in a half an hour.  I think it is accessible to anyone with the reading level to read it.  While it is creepy, it isn't too creepy for kids to enjoy.  As I stated before, it would make a great campfire tale.    You can pick this story up on Amazon for only 99¢.  J.C. Martin is also holding a giveaway on her blog with the possible prize of a kindle touch.

What are you waiting for, get on over to Amazon and pick up a copy, enter her give away, and support an up and coming writer.  Don't forget to sign up for mine own give away as well.  

Salvadora says buy the story.

Children of the Corn (2009)

Full disclosure- This remake of Children of the Corn was done by the people at SyFy.  That being said, I thought it would be a great horror movie for my 10yo that wanted to watch a scary movie.  That is, until the random teenage kid, 5 minute long, sex scene came on 1:45 into the movie.  Yowza. 

The story is actually closer to the Stephen King short story than the original version, but the pace was much slower.  It kind of holds your hand and explains pretty much everything, but that was great for my daughter. 

The acting is where this one falls down.  Dualla from BSG is in it and she totally sucks.  Every line she had, I kept hoping that they would kill her and do it soon (the character, not the actress).  The kids while not horrible, were nowhere near as creepy as the original children. 

Your Pretty, D, but your acting is suspect at best.

The violence in this one seems to be more graphic than what I remember of the original.  Gore does not equal scare though, as it just didn’t creep me out like the original did.  I didn’t feel threatened by these kids, while just looking at the face of the kids in the original, you can’t help but think they are pure evil.

Overall, not a bad movie.  By Syfy standards, it is Oscar worthy.  It wasn’t a good movie.  The random scene with nudity was a bit much and I guess was used to illustrate where babies come from, the original did that with just showing one of the teen girls as pregnant.  I couldn’t help but compare this version to the original, which both is and isn’t fair.  It didn’t have the budget of the original, I am sure, but it is a remake and remakes get compared.  I would opt for the original if you are only going to watch one.  It scared my daughter, so mission accomplished. 

American Horror Story-spoiler free review

FX, known for pushing boundries, debuted their new show, American Horror Story.  It is Rated TVMA for sex, violence, language, and brief nudity.  Yep, it had all of those things, a lot of all of these things.  This might be the raciest thing not on a pay channel right now.  So, be warned.

Horror wise, the show sets up the mystery of the house in the first 5 minutes and only builds it from there.  The sex scenes are actually somewhat contextual as they fit into the story, but don't get me wrong, they are definitely gratuitous.  I imagine this show will stir up some controversy.

Overall, the acting was done well, the special effects were good, and the story was very intriguing.  I will most likely be tuning in.  The wife didn't care for it at all, but she doesn't like horror and really doesn't go for the gratuitous sex scenes.  Make sure the kids are in bed for this one.  

oh, the young maid is hot!

The Human Centipede(2009)-Movie Review

Have you ever heard so many people say that a movie is disgusting and a waste of film that you had to check it out for yourself.  That is pretty much what happened with the Human Centipede and me.

Even some horror bloggers didn't care for this one.  It falls into the torture porn genre, I guess.  I personally see it as a mad scientist type movie as the good Dr's purpose was not to torture but to experiment.

If you haven't heard about this movie, the plot is basically that a mad scientist want to join three people mouth to anus to form a human centipede.  That is pretty much the entire movie.  I guess the torture porn label is kind of apt as the soundtrack is overwhelmed by whimpering, screaming, and sobbing for the most part.

The acting was okay.  It was a low budget film, but all most of the actors had to do was scream and cry.  Not a lot of depth needed.  Dieter was sufficiently creepy.  The girls may get some more scream time in other movies as they are attractive and proved that they are capable.

Overall, it wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't as bad as what everyone led me to believe.  I wouldn't say I enjoyed the movie, but I didn't not enjoy it either.  It was suspenseful and creepy which is what I wanted it to be.  I don't know if saw fans will like it as their is no elaborate contraptions or schemes.  Not sure about Hostel fans either as it isn't really a torture flick.  I would say the best match would be those that like weird Japanese movies.

The second movie is out and I am pretty sure that they upped the weird as it has been banned in the UK.   

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl



Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl is a movie.  It has a vampire like creature in it and it has Frankenstein type girl in it.  These characters are attractive Japanese girls, oh, and there is lots of blood spray. 



I forgot the characters names as they aren't really important.  All you need to know is that the vampire girl is the new girl in school and she has her eye on the same guy as the future Frankenstein girl.  She tricks said guy into eating a blood laced chocolate (well the blood was a trick, but he takes the chocolate pretty willingly).  This makes him half vampire until he drinks her blood one more time.  Franky will do anything to stop this relationship and gets thrown off the roof for her trouble.  Good thing her father and the HOT school nurse are psycho mad scientists that have been using students for their testing.  Now that she is augmented with the best body parts, she is out to get her man back. 

She is a messy eater.

This movie doesn't even try to take itself seriously and you shouldn't either.  It exists for the sole purpose of having blood spray, gore, and hot girls covered in blood.  In my book, that is an okay reason for a film to exist, but not a great one.  I mean I watched the whole thing, but it was lacking something, not sure what.  It wasn't nearly as gory as Machine Girl and the story wasn't nearly as good either. 





Overall, I thought that my time could have been better spent.  Some of the creatures were cool, but the movie just didn't bring anything to the table for me.  The social messages with the cutting girls and the gangaru girls isn't really socially relevant to me and the portrayals just felt over the top and ridiculous to me.  I am glad that the film introduced me to Eri Otoguro (Frankenstein Girl) as she is very attractive. 

Frankenstein Girl sans Makeup.  Meow!











Deadgirl (2008)

A lot of times when I am watching a movie or a tv show that my wife finds disturbing, she will ask me why I am watching it and ask how it will affect me or some other silly question.  Usually, I watch these shows because, at some level, I find them enjoyable.  She was asleep when I watched Deadgirl, which is funny because if she would have asked why I was watching it, I might have agreed with her and turned it off. 

It is a train wreck of a film.  Not that it is shot or acted bad, but train wreck in the sense that you can't look away.  I kept thinking to myself that I couldn't believe someone thought this movie up.  Well, actually I can, but I can't believe that they then wrote this idea down. 

Plot-  Two teens find a "corpse" in an abandoned mental hospital that isn't really dead and, it is later shown, can't be killed.  She is chained to a gourney and covered in plastic.  The bad influence teen is getting pretty excited about seeing a naked girl, even though he thinks she is dead.  The "normal" teen is getting pretty freaked out.  The evil teen then cops a feel and they realize that the body is indeed alive, and this is where the movie dives off the deepend.  Normal teen states he doesn't want to "have fun" with the chained down girl, but agrees to keep her secret. 
The next day, evil teen makes normal teen come back and witness that the girl can't be killed.  He apparently discovered this as the deadgirl started snapping her teeth and he wanted to teach her a lesson.  Of course the beating she sustained has done nothing for her looks and now she has bullet holes in her stomach from the second demostration.  Weirdo evil teen seems to be even more turned on and quits going to school to have sex with the zombie on a pretty much constant basis.  Worse he reqruits another kid at school to have sex with the zombie when he can't (maybe he thinks she will get lonely).  Not really understanding the movie at all at this point and it gets weirder from here. 
Characters-  They do a pretty good job of fleshing out the characters and the acting isn't bad, but I just am not sure that character motivations would have taken the characters where they go.  I find it hard to fathom that one person would act like that, let alone almost every character.  The film portrays men as nothing but sex addicts that will drop their pants for anything, and I mean anything, that is offered. 

Overall- I don't know that I can actually recommend this movie for anyone.  It has been a long time since a movie disturbed me and this one hit that note and hung with it from about 30 minutes in to the very end.  Not sure why I finished it.  I guess I was just hoping that the "normal" teen would redeem himself. 

Let Me In (2010)

Let Me In (2010)- This movie is at a disadvantage for me.  I have experienced it in two former incarnations that I enjoyed greatly.  First I saw the excellent Swedish film and then I read the book that it was based on.  I think order of experience will directly affect joy of experience for these works.  It is impossible to go any further without spoiling so note, here there be spoilers. 

Having read the book and seen the original movie, I have to wonder about some of the decisions that were made in this movie.  I think I read somewhere that the American film was written from the source material and not influenced by the Swedish film, but I don't see how that is possible after seeing the film.  It is really just a dumbed down version of the Swedish film. 

They keep the love story between Eli and Oskar (Emmy and Owen), but left out that Emmy was actually a boy, I think the American story is going with her being a girl, although there was a point at the beginning where Emmy is yelling at her "father" that she sounds like a boy.  Walking into the movie blind, it probably didn't make a difference. 

Hit Girl is an awesome actress, but I didn't really feel any empathy for Emmy.  I don't think it was her acting but just the way the story was told.  She never came across as a vulnerable little girl to me, she was always a powerful vampire that could rip out your throat in an instant.  The relationship with the "father" is likely the key here.  It isn't really emphasized and when it is, she comes off as controlling.

A lot of story was cut or condensed for the American version.  Let Me In is 116 minutes while Le the Right One In is 115 minutes.  The shorter movie actually had more characters and more story, but didn't feel rushed.  Both movie version cut quite a bit from the novel to begin with.  The novel is amazing by the way. 

I think that the American version is good, but I couldn't help but compare it to the earlier incarnations of the story.  I may have liked it better had I seen it without exposure to the other two.  Technically, it a beautiful movie, with great acting, and a wonderful score, but the story is condensed from an already condensed version. 

My review for the book and the Swedish Film.

Richard Matheson- A to Z

When most people think horror, they think Stephen King or George Romero.  But who do Stephen King and Romero think about.  The answer is Richard Matheson.  If you have only seen I Am Legend (in any of its incarnations), you are probably scratching your head as to why.  If you have read any of Matheson's stuff you know why. 

First off, his novel, I Am Legend, has never been made into a movie.  Well, unless you count night of the living dead.  Which Romero himself does and has apologized to Matheson for borrowing his idea.  I am legend is amazing.  His short stories are, stylisticly, all over the place and excellent as well.  I would suggest Mad House, The Funeral, and the doll that does everything. 
Several of his stories have been made into movies, such as Stir of Echoes and What Dreams May Come.  Most of the film adaptations of his work are unsuccessful, which is ironic as he himself moved into script writing. 

Fangoria has a recent interview with Matheson that I found very interesting.  Pick up a copy to check it out  Do yourself a favor and give this man a read. 

Japanese Horror- A to Z

A lot of American movies are now just remakes of foreign films.  In the horror genre this is done almost exclusively with Japanese Horror films.  I will not worry about the ones that do get remade (Dark Water, The Ring, The Grudge, etc.) but will instead tell you about some really good movies that they just haven't gotten around to remaking yet.

 

Audition:  Casting director desides it is time to remarry after his wife dies.  Why not set up an audition?  What could go wrong?

 

Infection:  Man is brought into a Hospital that has lost funding and is closing, he has a weird infection that spreads through the hospital.  Is it real, is it imagined.  I am not sure, but it was fun to watch as the ensuing blood bath takes place. 

 

Stacy: Attack of the School Girl Zombies-  Apparently, in Japan, a girl turns into a zombie at around age 16.  Who knew?  Good thing there are Romero Repeat Kill Troops to rekill them.  This is actually a heart warming love story.  No really!

 

Not as good but still fun are Eko Eko Azarak and Parasite Eve.

 

Cell Spoiler Free Book Review-A to Z Challenge

I went into cell knowing nothing about the book except that it was by Stephen King.  Imaging my surprise when I saw that the book was dedicated to George Romero and Richard Matheson.  I knew exactly what kind of book it was going to be at that point. 

Plot-  This is a survivor's tale.  I am unsure why survivors feel the need to travel, I mean for one character it is obvious why he wants to walk across two states, but the others made me wonder.  The story borrows from The Stand somewhat, which is okay because The Stand was an excellent book and very well done.  The Stand was better though.  Not sure that the book has aged well.  Cell phones are so different now then they were upon the writing of this book.  The story does start off lightening fast and then slows down into a strolling past and then kind of rushes to the finish.  Of course the ending will leave you guessing. 

Characters-  There is a comic book writer/illustrator, a religion hating gay guy, and a teenage girl that knows about Neal Stephenson (I strongly doubt that this is possible).  Not completely stereotypical yet they completely are.  We don't really get to know the characters all that well.  This story is plot driven and we get reactions of the characters but no real characterization.  In other words, you won't feel connected to these characters. 

Overall-  It was entertaining.  I have read better King and I have read better survivor tales, I have read better King survivor tales.  It isn't bad.  This book was about the idea and I get that, but I wish he would have fleshed it out a bit more.  It may have added a couple of hundred more pages, but it would have been a better book.  Kingophiles will have read this arlready,  but for everyone else I say you aren't missing anything by passing it up, but it is somewhat entertaining. 

Book Review: "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson

When you’re on Amazon, or Goodreads, or iTunes do you tend to explore the “if you liked x, you might like y” suggestions? It was because of this feature that I came across the audiobook of Shirley Jackson’s horror story The Haunting of Hill House. Of course, I’d heard of it before and it had always been one of those classic stories that I’d been meaning to get around to. Well, okay iTunes – thanks for the prompt. I’ll try it.

The Haunting of Hill House is widely considered one of the great horror novels of the 20^th century. In it, lonely single Eleanor Vance is recruited by a parapsychologist to join a few others in investigating the goings-on at a fabled haunted mansion, Hill House. The team – the invesitigator Doctor Montague, another “sensitive” Theodora, and a member of the house’s owning family agree to stay in the house and make observations in the hopes of documenting paranormal activity.

As horror stories go, the events that take place in Hill House are more about psychological terror than what I think most people would consider horror – and by today’s standards, it’d downright tame. But that’s not really where Jackson’s novel comes up short for me.

The Haunting of Hill House

Now, some books are classics because they’re excellent and some books are classic because they break new ground – and just maybe, they don’t hold up too well over time. To me, Hill House is that latter sort of classic. The story is mostly related through Eleanor’s eyes and she is hardly the picture of a modern (the story was published in 1959) female protagonist. Eleanor is a timid mouse of a women – who doesn’t need a haunted house to be a nervous Nellie – she’s practically afraid of her own shadow. Theodora is supposed to be the more “modern” woman, but her brazenness is a show and she’s really just a tender flower, too. The male characters were fairly two dimensional.

In the end, this is a pretty decent ghost story that gets kudos for breaking some ground back in the day. I really wanted to like it, because I love haunted house stories. Sadly, it just couldn’t get past the handicap of its stilted dialog and characters.

2 stars out of 5