When it comes to literary output, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone churning out gems as consistently or quickly as Mr. Malfi.
Authors Books & ComicsIf you’ve read a Ronald Malfi novel or story collection, odds are it won’t be your last. He’s an author with the kind of voice that reels you in and suggests you stay for the night. His characters are fleshed out and intimately flawed, and often they’ll let you see each and every scar. The situations these individuals fall into pulsate with dread. He’s the kind of writer you read and feel with. In other words, Malfi writes from the heart while going for the jugular.
His latest collection of terrors has a quote from award-winning author Philip Fracassi on the cover that correctly hails Malfi as “one of the all-time great horror writers.” One of the most prolific horror creators in the world currently, Josh Malerman tags Malfi as “a modern-day Algernon Blackwood.”
When it comes to literary output, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone churning out gems as consistently or quickly as Mr. Malfi. With seventeen novels, eight novellas and four collections since 2000, he’s not only one of the hardest workers in the industry but he’s also one of the most approachable. He corresponds regularly on social media with fans and he’s one of the most engaging and entertaining podcast guests you’ll find. When he’s not writing or talking about writing, there’s a good chance he’s commanding the stage as lead vocalist for the award-winning rock band, Veer.
It’s a small miracle Malfi has time to sleep, let alone sit down and discuss the books that have enriched our beloved genre for two decades and running. But that’s just what he did recently with Ravenous Monster.
Malfi’s latest collection, They Lurk, was released over the summer, and has earned rave reviews across the board. The book is a haunting ensemble of five novellas, four of which have been out-of-print for years and a new one that is sure to burrow into the darkest corners of your mind and stick around for a while.
Packed into 384 pages, it’s the sort of collection that plays best beside a fire during a weekend camping trip, preferably after midnight. Or on a sleepless night while a storm growls outside. Or after the kids go to bed and you’re left with just your imagination and the darkness outside. With the previous releases being outdated and largely unavailable, They Lurk was my introduction to all five stories. Paranoia, terror, maybe even a little disgust—this was one of the most satisfying collections I’ve read in a while. Naturally, I was curious as to whether Malfi approached a short story or novella differently than a novel.
“The approach is generally the same, no matter what I’m writing. It usually involves a lot of ruminating and stewing over the story before I actually set pen to paper. If I’ve got a year to write a novel, about nine months of that is spent in my head, thinking about the story, the characters, and just getting an overall feel for what it is I’m going to write. It’s no different with novellas, although in the past, the majority of the novellas I’ve written were not under some sort of deadline, so I could take my time with them. The novellas that make up my book Ghostwritten are the exception since that was contracted the same way a novel would be. I sort of had to divide my time evenly between the four novellas. But really, there’s no huge difference in my approach. I just need to be in the right headspace.”
That being said, Malfi doesn’t mince words when discussing which form he prefers.
“I prefer novels—big, rich, chunky novels. I like the idea of exploring the world of a novel in such depth that the reader can’t help but believe in the realness of it. That requires legwork, requires high page counts. I’m most comfortable in this form, because although I stress over every sentence, not every sentence needs to be perfection. You can have a boom-mic shadow creep into a frame, so to speak, and your readers will be mercifully accepting of that. This isn’t true with short stories. Short stories are more difficult to write, and I feel I’m just okay at writing them. Brevity is the name of the game, and your readership tends to be less forgiving—rightly so—about those boom-mic slips. I’ve written quite a few short stories, but they always feel like a chore. And they almost never come out the way I intended from the beginning.”
The ‘boom-mic theory’ is both interesting and sensible. The spotlight glares brighter on a short story because it’s turned on for less time. One would think, then, that there may be a different routine for Ronald when it comes to writing a novella versus a longer piece, but it’s simply a different process each time.
“It’s wholly organic. I don’t outline, aside from the occasional phrase scribbled on a notepad, and I spend most of my “writing” time just thinking about the story and its characters. Every book is its own thing, so there’s no set way I approach them. One might come easily, or one might require a lot of struggle and rewrites before I really find the story in it that I’m looking to tell. My novel Black Mouth was a lot like that—I’d written it to completion twice, then tossed it in the trash heap, because it wasn’t coming together. Yet I’d needed to do that because that act of writing and rewriting was what opened the door to that particular story for me. They don’t all work that way, but I’ve learned not to become too discouraged when it happens like that. There are a few novels I’ve written that have completely different versions tucked away in a desk or a trunk somewhere. That’s just part of the process. I suppose it might be different if I outlined first, but I fear that would strip away the organic nature of storytelling, and I’d just grow bored.”
Algernon Blackwood: Nature’s Dark Muse
All Hail the King: A Tribute to Stephen King’s Short Story Canon
The Music of John Carpenter’s The Fog
There’s nothing boring in between the covers of a Malfi story, and his prose is just as vital to his stories’ penchant for sticking with a reader for days afterward. In fact, Malfi has been referred to as a ‘lyrical horror fiction’ writer. That voice isn’t developed overnight, and the author has embraced the work he’s put in.
“I think [my writing voice] comes from reading a variety of different authors, and not just genre fiction. It seems that every time I pick up a new author or a new book, I learn something about myself as a writer, and feel that I grow a bit, too. The atmosphere and character thing, those are just ways of writing that appeal to me as a reader. If you describe your book as a fast-paced thrill-ride, yawn, no thanks, not for me. Give me a dense 800-page novel where the author describes the fabric of the goddamn drapes. That’s for me. I languish in language.”
When it comes to the voices that came before him, Malfi points to Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates and Peter Straub as driving forces during his formative years as an author.
“One of the biggest author influences on me was the late, great Peter Straub, who taught me that authors have the ability—no, the responsibility—to push the limit of their fiction, and that horror fiction in particular can be a beautiful, complex work of art.”
With a mutual love for Mr. Straub’s work, I was curious which of the late great author’s work is Malfi’s favorite.
“I love them all, but the one I find myself going back to the most is The Throat. It’s not even really a horror book, although there are some ghostly inferences in the first third. It’s just such a rich novel, at once beautifully crafted yet matter of fact in its prose, and it’s one twisty whodunnit ride. It kills me to think that there will never be another Peter Straub novel.”
Then there’s a literary icon who many wouldn’t associate with horror.
“I fell in love with Hemingway back in college, though I recognize that sounds a bit pompous. Truth is, Hemingway understood the power of brevity, of keeping much of your story hidden behind the curtain. There is so much depth to Hemingway’s writing that isn’t even on the page, it’s staggering.”
When you’ve got as many projects as Ronald does at a single time, it’s difficult to imagine how twenty-fours are nearly enough to complete a day’s work. He’s not just a writer and a musician—he’s a proud father and a grateful husband. There really shouldn’t be enough time. Yet somehow, he manages.
“I’ve got a pretty cool wife who holds down the fort while I do all this nonsense. Seriously, it’s a juggling act, but it’s all I do—my creative outlets and my family take up all my time. I don’t play golf, I don’t watch football, I don’t squander time doing countless other things. I’m either working or spending time with my family. Even my time with friends inevitably evolves into discussing various creative projects. I just can’t sit still when it comes to that stuff. Everything always has to turn into something, if that makes any sense. My band VEER has had a busy and successful year, and we released our second studio album, Soft Machines, in July. The four of us put so much into this record and I’m so happy with it, but at the same time, there were nights when I’d leave the studio in the middle of the night only to go home and write, because I also have deadlines. But really, the band and the writing aside, my family takes up the majority of my time, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean, we’re all chock full of family over here.”
Considering Malfi’s impressive music career, it was only right that I asked him to suggest a few soundtracks to listen to during my next writing session.
“I’m listening to John Carpenter’s The Fog soundtrack right now. I tend to get stuck on one for a while and play the hell out of it. That happened this past year with Richard Bellis’s It soundtrack—the score from the 1990s miniseries, not the newer films, whose music was largely forgettable. Another couple of favorites are Jerry Goldsmith’s Poltergeist and The Swarm, plus David Julyan’s brilliantly understated score for Neil Marshall’s The Descent. When I was in high school, I had an audiocassette of Danny Elfman’s Beetlejuice that I played until it was white noise. Nowadays, I prefer my horror music scores on vinyl, mostly because I write next to a descent record player and it’s convenient, but I do love the uncompromised, uncompressed sound of vinyl records. I recently learned that Frank LaLaggio, writer and director of the informative 1988 horror film Lady in White, not only composed the score for that film himself, but recently released it on vinyl, so that will probably be my next purchase.”
By now, you’re probably wondering what’s on Malfi’s agenda next. It was music to my ears when he told me he has a novel coming out next year, as well. While I avoided even the slightest whisper of a spoiler, I think it’s safe to say the horror world is anxiously awaiting the next work from one of the hardest working gentlemen in the industry.
You can read up on all things Malfi by checking out his author website here and check out his band at veerband.net. As I mentioned earlier in this piece, Malfi also is one of the most generous authors on social media with his time. Do yourself a favor and check him out.
Hey, are you obsessed with your own power? Are you possibly schizophrenic? Are you into extremely sadistic BDSM and degradation-play?
Movie Reviews Movies & TVHey, are you obsessed with your own power? Are you possibly schizophrenic? Are you into extremely sadistic BDSM and degradation-play? Into spicy, taboo brother-sister incest scenes? Do you hate social workers, and love a good beef bourguignon? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then take your brother or sister, and your other imaginary self out on a family date night to see Dark Star Pictures’ Megalomaniac in theaters this month!
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Karim Ouelhaj (L’oeil Silencieux, Parabola), Megalomaniac has been heralded by many horror critics and closet Clockwork Orange fans as “ultra-violent,” and I’ll tell you this my polly droogs, this film is very horrorshow. It secured the top Jury Prize for Best Feature at the Fantasia Film Festival. I wasn’t on the jury, but I can tell you I go to Fantasia every year dressed as one of the marching brooms from Fantasia and people literally throw cabbage at me, which is pretty fucked up, but the cabbage tossers at Fantasia know what they’re doing, and if the glove fits you must acquit. In this case, the jury ruling on Megalomaniac found it GUILTY … of being a scary-good watch. However, the jury is still out on whether director Karim Ouelhaj is blood-related to his fellow Belgian, The Butcher of Mons, not to be confused with Sal “The Butcher of Ham” at my local deli.
The film is inspired by and connected to the real-life—and still unknown—serial killer dubbed The Butcher of Mons, who, arguably (according to this list), is a real piece of shit. Now, considering The Butcher was never caught, the film builds on the dark and disturbing legend of the killer and imagines that he had two children, a boy, and a girl, who were raised to carry on his sadistic work of torture and murder.
Here are the pros of this film: It’s highly stylized with gothic overtones and it delivers on the brutality and the gore. Its cinematography is dark and gritty and harkens back to a Darren Aronofsky picture and in some of the scenes it’s even on par with the surrealist Tarkovsky.
My only con is an issue I come across a lot when reviewing newer horror flicks. There seems to be a disconnect between the initial premise, the actual story, and plot that unfolds within that story. The selling point of Megalomaniac is that it’s inspired by true crime and is supposed to build upon the legend of a serial killer, which, in theory, it does. But the film is more about two neglected, psychotic children carrying out acts of supremely sadistic violence.
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Yes, on paper, Felix, played by a seething and wicked Benjamin Ramon, is the heir to The Butcher of Mon’s legacy and is, in fact, carrying out his father’s murders, but that’s more of a backdrop to show you the horrible world where Felix’s sister Martha, played by Eline Schumacher, has to live. Schumacher’s portrayal of Martha evokes empathy, and she definitely reads as a more twisted Elizabeth Moss from The Handmaid’s Tale.
After we see Martha born and handed to her brother Felix, we flash forward to their current lives and Martha is working as a janitor in a factory where (trigger warning) she is raped repeatedly by co-workers. After being assaulted, and still having to clean the factory, Martha comes home to her gothic mansion where her brother works full time raping and murdering women. BRUTAL. Martha has no refuge from the cruelty of the world. I’m no Frasier Crane, but all this insane trauma might explain Martha’s dissociative episodes and borderline, split personality disorder. Martha has another self that she can see and talk to, and she can easily become lost in her nightmares and visions.
What’s equally insane is that just as you start to really empathize with Martha’s horrific plight, you slowly come to find out that she is as twisted, if not more twisted, than her professional serial killer brother. This is fully revealed when she asks her brother for a pet. She’s lonely in the mansion and asks Felix for a kitty. She even has one picked out that she wants her brother to bring home. The “kitty” is actually a woman they chain to a pipe by her throat. To be fair, Martha does feed her new pet and bathe her, but she also uses her new pet to take out all her frustrations.
If all of that wasn’t enough—BIG SPOILER HERE—Martha is pregnant with her rapists’ baby! She was raped repeatedly by two men at the factory while her cuck of a boss just listened to it happening and did nothing to intervene. So, Martha doesn’t know who the father of her child is, and as she gets closer to the due date, we see her unravel almost completely as she finally takes on the family trade of sadistic murder and mayhem that starts with the degradation of a woman trained to be a house pet to Martha bashing in the skull of her social worker with a meat tenderizer. I won’t spoil the very end, but it’s as savory as the beef bourguignon she prepares for her co-workers.
Megalomaniac has a lot of twists and turns, but they’re paced well as is the ultra-violence. It’s got style and substance, and it’s worth a couple of views if you have the guttiwuts for it (guttiwuts is Clockwork Orange slang for guts). Again, this could be the beef bourguignon I’m devouring and spilling all over my lap as I type this, but I smell a franchise simmering in Megalomaniac’s bloody broth.
Megalomaniac has the same kind of feel as the first Purge, Wolf Creek, and The Collector, where it’s building an extremely brutal world of sadism that’s worth more exploration, you know, if you’re into that kind of thing? No, kink shaming. I do not speak for Ravenous Monster at all. Legally, they’ve told me never to do that again, but I’d like to think we are a kink-positive horror webzine, but before you update your lists of dos and don’ts and add us on FetLife, think of the possibilities Megalomaniac presents in terms of cranking out more horror movies.
Now that Martha is pregnant, does that mean The Butcher of Mons’ work will continue? Will Martha and her brother train the next generation of Butchers? How long will the megalomania and mayhem cycle through Belgium? Will it cycle through all of Europe? Will there be more beef bourguignon in the sequels!? Chain me to a pipe and call me a little kitty, because this baby cat needs some more Megalomaniac (Just cool it on the brother sister sex stuff in the next one, okay, Karim?)!
Despite a brief revival in the ‘90s, it seemed for a good couple decades there that the Slasher had been killed off for good.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVThe Slasher Flick has had a bit of a renaissance lately, hasn’t it? Despite a brief revival in the ‘90s, it seemed for a good couple decades there that the Slasher had been killed off for good. A new one liked to come shambling around every once in a while, to little fanfare, only to eventually skulk back to its lonely grave and bide its time until the world was ready once again.
Luckily, the world seems ready, and Slashers are back in business.
Directed by Marcel Walz, That’s a Wrap is a throwback to Slashers that knows what made slashers so much fun to begin with. We’re not here for dense symbolism and over-wrought metaphors about the human condition. This is a B-Movie, and we’re here to see the three B’s: Blood, Breasts, and Beasts. That’s a Wrap delivers on all three fronts.
Granted, the slasher in That’s a Wrap is a human killer, so the Beast in this case is metaphorical. But we Slasher fans are poets at heart so that’s acceptable.
To celebrate the completion of his latest masterpiece, horror filmmaker Mason Maestro (Robert Donavan) invites the cast back to the studio for a wrap party. As the party goes on, the guests find themselves pairing off, either to meet with possible mentors and further their careers, or to meet with possible partners to fulfill their sexual appetites. To the surprise of nobody except the oversexed cast, a killer stalks the dark corridors of the set, ready to strike the moment they make themselves vulnerable.
That’s A Wrap is everything I could ask for in a movie. It’s garishly violent, unabashedly sexy, and an absolute blast to watch. Not content to simply stab a few people here and there, That’s a Wrap relishes its special effects showmanship and paints the walls with blood. Sometimes literally.
Beyond the extravagant murder sequences, what truly makes That’s a Wrap stand out among the contemporary Slasher wave is the mystery aspect. There’s plenty of movies coming out lately that focus on body-counts and gore effects (and God bless ‘em for it) but very few dig deep into what brought about the best of the golden age Slashers: The Murder-Mystery.
First Slashes: THIRTEEN WOMEN and the Dark History of the First Slasher Film
Wes Craven and Me: A Eulogy from Generation-X
Minutes to Midnight Movie Review
A nice Giallo-esque mystery is sorely missing from much of the modern Slasher landscape, even though the whodunnit plot is the most engaging and entertaining flavor of Slashers. It’s here where That’s a Wrap excels. Everyone is a suspect, and anyone can die at any moment.
The script by Joe Knetter and Robert L. Lucas skillfully obscures just who the main character is, lending itself to great tension as the cast splits off into small groups. By giving each character equally plausible motives for being the killer, there never comes a moment when the characters truly feel safe. From the moment they’re locked into the studio, no one can be trusted, and nothing is off-limits.
Knetter and Lucas have done their research, and they know how to make a good Slasher.
That said, they could have left a little bit of that research in the background. The biggest problem that plagues the modern Slasher is its desire to drop easter eggs referencing the classics that came before. Homages are great and can be a nice tip of the hat to let the audience know what kind of film we’re in for. But done too often, it starts to wear thin. That’s a Wrap never quite wears out its welcome with the references, but early on it insists on beating the audience over the head with its horror trivia knowledge.
It’s a dangerous game to play. If you reference an older (potentially better) movie within your story, you’re taking a risk in inviting the audience to turn off your movie and watch something they already know they like. Fortunately, That’s a Wrap manages to stand on its own two feet and the threat of a premature ending is quickly averted. But it would be better served if it dropped the constant references and didn’t insist of reminding the audience of other Slashers which they could be watching
The counterpart to excessive references is the self-aware and meta plot devices. That’s A Wrap falls victim to playing that card a bit heavy as well. I’m down for some meta-commentary, but it can also get real stale real fast.
Let’s review this plot to make sure I have this straight: The movie That’s a Wrap is about the cast of a movie also titled That’s a Wrap, which is about the cast of a horror movie getting killed at the wrap party after completing a horror movie. So now the cast of the movie about the cast of a movie getting killed at the after-party are actually getting killed at the after-party by the actual killer who helped in the making of the movie about people getting killed at an after-party.
Do I have that right? I think I have that right.
We’re going about ten levels too deep on the meta with this one. Just relax guys. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.
Despite these minor holes that it insists on digging for itself, That’s a Wrap succeeds in being one of the most fun Slashers to come out in recent years. It wears its influences a little too proudly on its sleeve, but at the same time it doesn’t let its fandom get in the way of its own success.
This is a fine addition to the Slasher canon. That’s A Wrap is wildly violent, flagrant in its sexuality and has no qualms about throwing a healthy number of bodies into the proverbial meat-grinder. It knows its roots and confidently follows in the bloody footprints of its ancestors. It’s the kind of movie perfectly crafted for those of us that are poets at heart.
The best time of the year is finally upon us, and I couldn’t be happier to kick off the spooky season with a film that’s been getting a lot of buzz ….
Movie Reviews Movies & TVThe best time of the year is finally upon us, and I couldn’t be happier to kick off the spooky season with a film that’s been getting a lot of buzz in the horror community.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I’m a sucker for a good werewolf film. Sadly, “good” werewolf films seem to be a hard thing to come by because a lot of them seem to fall flat in one regard or another, but I’m always willing to give them a try. So, when I saw the trailer for Wolfkin (Kommunioun), I was intrigued. Add in the positive feedback I keep hearing regarding this film, and I was all in. So, grab a snack and a comfortable seat as I share my thoughts on Wolfkin.
Brought to us by the writing team of Jacques Molitor, Regine Abadia, and Magali Negroni and directed by Molitor, Wolfkin is a fantasy/drama about a struggling single mother Elaine (Louise Manteau) and her young son Martin (Victor Dieu) whose sudden bout of aggressive behavior becomes worrisome. Seeking either help or answers for his behavior, she decides to pay a visit to Martin’s late father’s parents who live in Luxembourg. What she discovers is something much darker than she could have imagined.
Wolfkin starts out with a scene of sexy time in a dreamlike setting between Elaine and a handsome fella whom we later find out is Martin’s dad Patrick (Benjamin Ramon). During this scene, Patrick says something to Elaine and runs off into the woods, and we don’t see much more of him.
Fast-forward to Elaine waking up in the “real” world. We follow her hectic life at work, which is a seemingly crappy job in a restaurant kitchen. She gets a call from Martin’s school, asking her to come to pick him up because there’s been an incident. Turns out that Martin has attacked another student.
So, Elaine takes Martin home and talks to him to find out why and it’s revealed that he’s got issues. He’s just a lonely kid with no friends and is at that odd age of 10 where things are just tough. His dad’s out of the picture and all he really has in the world is his mom. They kind of have a weird relationship, but it is what it is.
Martin continues to act out and Elaine decides that something needs to be done. She reaches out to Patrick’s parents in Luxembourg for help, even though she’s not had anything to do with them since Patrick’s disappearance, and they have no idea of Martin’s existence.
Once Elaine arrives with Martin at Adrienne (Marja-Leena Junker) and Jean’s (Jules Werner) manor she’s met with a less than warm welcome. However, Martin is accepted with more excitement as he is their late Patrick’s son.
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Justifying the Stupid: My Weird Feelings for Howling II
As Elaine and Martin settle in, they’re told that they’re to become one with the family, but Elaine isn’t so comfortable with doing that. However, Martin becomes comfortable a little too quickly. Jules and Adrienne tell Elaine that there are rules and traditions that are to be followed, such as how, when, and what to eat and that she will be expected to attend church, among other things. Basically, it’s an Old World vs. New World battle as Elaine’s values don’t mesh with Patrick’s parents’ values.
Bizarre secrets are revealed the longer Elaine and Martin stay. A terrifying chain of events takes place and Adrienne takes control of Martin after she witnesses him acting out against Elaine. Elaine puts her foot down after she sees Adrienne’s forms of punishment, and she takes Martin home.
At home, Martin loses control and becomes something beyond Elaine’s imagination. Sadly, giving into her fear and heartbreak, she realizes that the old ways may be the only option to save her son and allow him to become what he truly is.
This isn’t your typical werewolf film, but I found it a refreshing take. While it isn’t super bloody, there are enough horrific moments throughout. Again, this is a heavily story-driven film, but it’s not a painfully slow burn. The plot is engaging and interesting enough to have kept my interest from start to finish.
Wolfkin is a really well-made, enjoyable film. If you want to give it a watch, it’s currently streaming on the usual platforms.
When it comes to writing a novel, no two works of art are alike, and every author has their own way of putting together their puzzle.
Authors Books & ComicsThe world of horror literature is as inclusive and expansive as it’s ever been thanks to the booming success of fresh voices and vicious ideas often thrust forward via social media platforms and enthusiastic readers looking for their next night terror. It’s a beautiful landscape of brilliant storytellers that spans the globe.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with a gentleman who has earned a ton of well-deserved praise this year following the release of his debut novel The Spite House.
Johnny Compton is a well-regarded short story creator who has seen his work shared across the entertainment landscape, including The No Sleep Podcast and a pile of collections over nearly twenty years. His debut novel, The Spite House, burst onto the scene compliments of Tor Nightfire in February of 2023.
That novel is what roped me into Compton’s world of anxiety and terror, a surreal but very relatable environment that I can’t get enough of. Think Shirley Jackson meets Peter Straub, with some Texas-sized gothic sizzle by way of Jordan Peele. He navigates the supernatural dread while balancing familial trauma and racial tension like a grizzled veteran of the craft.
The novel centers around Eric Ross as he tries to step out of the shadow of his past and forge a new path for his two daughters. Enter the titular landmark, a spite house built on a foundation of dread and trauma. Eric is a believer in the supernatural and the owner of the home is looking for proof that something isn’t right. As the secrets of the house are revealed, so too are the scars that Eric has lived with; scars that he wants to protect his children from. But those scars are still plenty raw after all these years.
When it comes to writing a novel, no two works of art are alike, and every author has their own way of putting together their puzzle. Oftentimes, that requires a writer to be flexible and adjust to the needs of each book individually. As a brilliant creator once told me, “You have to respect the terrain of the story.”
Compton holds himself accountable as a writer, but he has been doing this long enough to know that a strict routine doesn’t work for him. It’s quality over quantity.
“I try to break [writing] into chunks, preferably 500 words at a time, kind of like my old structure when I was in the 8-5 work force.” Compton has found that keeping the general workday structure keeps whatever project he’s working on crackling. He’ll get going in the morning, break for lunch, continue through the afternoon, and wrap it up in the evening. The target is 2,000 words per day, but he knows some days are better than others are.
The words ebb and flow, but that doesn’t mean the creative process slows down.
“I talk to myself out loud about stories I’m working through. A lot of authors do this, I know, and it helps me tremendously. It’s nice to know others do it, too.” He laughs at this, acknowledging that he isn’t concerned with ever ‘losing momentum’ on a project because the work doesn’t start or stop at the keyboard.
“You don’t want to ever full stop on a project, but for me, that’s not really a concern because I’m still writing, even when I’m not at my computer. I’m still talking about it to myself, working things out while I’m fixing lunch or running errands. I’m still playing the roles of different characters all day long. The momentum slows somewhat when I’m not actually typing, but nothing is ever actually stalled because things are always spinning.”
For his debut novel, Compton deftly keeps all the plates spinning. He is able to respect the haunted house terrain while also carving out his own passageways. The common tropes are whispers here, much like the specters behind the closed door, evoking the same icy thrill that Peter Straub’s Ghost Story gave me two decades ago. There are nods to Shirley Jackson. There is a dread that I had not felt since reading Jeffrey Konvitz’s The Sentinel.
Compton acknowledges that Ghost Story is one of his favorite books from any genre and admits there was one firm rule going into The Spite House.
“I wanted to bypass the part that is present in a lot of haunted house fiction, which is where the haunting incrementally passes through the family; first the kids see it, then the mom, et cetera. I wanted to get beyond that, and I thought, especially with the back-story with the characters, it all adds up. They’re already familiar with the paranormal so it was perfect.
“It’s important not to buck the trend for the sake of bucking a trend.” Compton continues. “So it needs to work for the book and story. But when you are so familiar with the genre, you see it so often and you want to get past those worn-out parts. I understand it’s a little paint-by-numbers in parts, you have to play the hits so to speak, but I thought it’d be really interesting to get away from that. I wanted my characters to be willing to accept it and embrace the concept of a haunting right away. That’s why the first day they’re in the house, and the door creaks a bit, the characters get it and want to process what they just experienced.”
We shared a few memories from our lives that just may have been laced with the supernatural.
“It’s really important to not lose sight of the fact that some people react more naturally to the supernatural than others. I feel many stories seem to fall into a tendency to portray characters as they think people might react, skeptics and believers alike. We hear a weird noise and there’s rarely a really strong effort to try to explain what the noise is. Instead, most people are just like ‘it must have been something, eh well,’” Compton laughs.
“People don’t really want to think about it. As someone who may be semi-agnostic to ghosts or whatnot, I’ve heard some interesting sounds from time to time at my home. I’ve heard people moving back and forth upstairs and I’m still kind of like ‘eh, well what are you going to do?’”
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When it comes to inspiration for the project, Compton was able to lean on a personal experience that would raise the hackles of even the most hardened horror aficionado.
“My partner’s sons are grown, but I heard one of them sneaking into the house late one night and I was thinking a girl was with them. We’ve all been that age, and I wasn’t looking to cause a commotion, so I went upstairs to politely tell them just to be decent. I wanted to be the cool-I-get-it kind of guy. So, I get up there and I start my spiel and … nobody’s there. I heard it. I know what the house sounds like, I know what the boys upstairs sound like. That’s how clear the noises were. But there was nothing there. I didn’t find anything odd about it, though. I just kind of accepted that something I couldn’t explain happened. Besides, most of us secretly know that once you start actually trying to figure things out, that’s when a horror story begins.” Compton laughs at this last part. If that doesn’t perfectly encapsulate the mind of a horror writer, nothing does. The self-awareness of both the supernatural and the mundane is what pushes Compton’s work to the top of the TBR pile.
“I’ve always been fascinated by Poltergeist. That movie is so great for so many reasons. The supernatural versus the mundane is not something explored enough, I don’t think, in literature.”
The Spite House was a labor of love, in every sense of the word. The first two-thirds of the novel took about eighteen months while the last leg took roughly three months. Compton admitted that natural self-doubt set in at one point.
“After I had a mental breakthrough with the book, I found myself at a point where the idea of ‘don’t self-reject’ is a mantra. It has to be. I lean into it and embrace it. I was at the Tucson Book Festival and was lucky enough to have met Weston Oakes. He did a panel where he was asked about self-doubt and kind of getting over those mental hurdles and he said something along the lines of ‘the only person who thinks that you don’t know what you’re doing is you. You’re the only person telling you that you aren’t doing a good job, or that it isn’t a good idea.’ For me, I always keep that in mind now. A lot of the self-doubt I had was me overthinking what the world was going to do with my work, how they were going to be evaluating my work, and so on. It was more about ‘what is the rest of the world going to do about this?’ and it really started to get to me.
“But in reality, you can’t get to that point before you actually put [the book] out. You have to put blinders on, so to speak, and pretend you’re the only person who exists. I’ve had stories rejected and picked up elsewhere, and that’s not to knock whoever said no, there’s just so many avenues and paths to success. Don’t preemptively presume the world at large is going to reject your work. All it takes is one person to tell you you’ve got something here. At the end of the day, it’s all about whether I can go back and be happy with what I put out there. That’s my thing, it was taken out of me. That kind of plays both in terms of blocking out the negativity and uplifting me during the tough times.”
At the end of the day, we all need some support and encouragement from time to time. Compton offers sage advice to debut authors. “Try to find something under-explored. Something that will help you stand out as far as the story goes. Find something near you—go look at websites that discuss the strange events, places or sightings in your state. Go back and find something unique to your life that not many people know about. There is so much out there to share and learn about. Stand out and make it your own.”
Compton attributes some of the success of The Spite House to the fact that the house itself doesn’t follow your cookie-cutter blueprint for a scary story. “Part of why I was able to break through is I wrote about something a lot of people hadn’t heard of. They see the title, they Google the term, and, suddenly, they may be interested in reading my book. I did my research. I realized this was a pretty untapped setting in horror and I went with it.”
Of course, the mechanics of the art form are just as important as the inspiration.
“Read less writing advice, I’ll tell you that. Read the book, not the list of writing advice. If you like a book, find out who that author likes to read. You’ll always learn more from the book itself than from a list of writing advice. I mean, adjectives are great. They’re helpful. There’s a regurgitated old creative writing piece of advice that you should avoid them. Don’t abuse them, but they help, for sure. That comes with practice. Like in sports, you learn when it’s time to progress. In basketball, you learn to dribble with your dominant hand before you start doing crossovers. Use the tools you know, the resources you’re familiar with. Get stronger and then keep moving forward. You got to get your reps in.”
Compton enjoyed a successful tour circuit for The Spite House, including a visit to the San Antonio Book Festival and San Diego Comic Con. Then there’s an enthralling interview on the Talking Scared Podcast, which put Mr. Compton on my radar.
I am eagerly awaiting Johnny’s next novel. While he’s staying mum on the subject currently, he will confirm he’s actively working on it. I don’t think it’s going to be an idea Compton and I enthusiastically talked about during our phone call, although it would make for one hell of a book. I mean, who doesn’t want to learn about what happens to the town after the events of Poltergeist wraps up?
“There are corpses everywhere. I want to dwell in the neighborhood. How did the neighborhood react? What lore grew from that night when the house just crumples up like a tin can and disappears? I want interviews with the neighbors, documentary-style. City officials, how are you going to handle this? Who is moving out? Who is suing their HOA to break their contracts? How do you reconcile this supernatural phenomenon with the mortgage crisis of going upside down on your home if you decide to move?
“Then the paranoia sets in—am I going to start hearing noises? You got to talk to the person who is confident it was aliens, of course. Because it’s always, at least sometimes, aliens. That’s almost a defensible reaction to a house straight-up just imploding into thin air! Then you’ve got the weirdo tourists coming to visit and take selfies. Religious people, the ghost hunters—they’re all going to be there.”
That’s a book any horror loving bibliophile would enjoy.
If you haven’t crept through the halls of The Spite House, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy wherever you buy your favorite books. Until his next release, keep your eyes on johnnycompton.com as well as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook for all things Johnny Compton. He’s a fan favorite on several podcasts, and for good reason, so don’t hesitate to search for him wherever you get your podcasts (I highly recommend his visit to Talking Scared Podcast).
Simply put, being true to yourself and your work is what really matters. Compton is well on his way to carving out a hell of a career doing just that.
The film has become a firm cult favorite over the last 50 years and some even call it the English equivalent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Featured Article Movie Reviews Movies & TVSubways and other underground travel systems have always evoked an element of fear. In addition to being many feet underground, there’s always a worry that you might get jumped by a criminal or a mentally disturbed tunnel dweller. Or maybe even swarmed by a horde of rats. Such fears are rarely justified, but there’s always that nagging voice in the back of your mind saying, “What if?”
Over the years, a number of films have used the dread of subways as the basis for thrillers. C.H.U.D. comes to mind. But no movie ever capitalized on such fears as much as a 1972 British film originally titled Death Line. That was the name it was known by in Britain. But in America, its name was changed to the more lurid … and frankly more horrific … Raw Meat. The film has become a firm cult favorite over the last 50 years and some even call it the English equivalent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The comparison is warranted in a general way, but Raw Meat is very much its own animal with its own atmosphere and surprising depth to a story that could have been pure exploitation. It was directed by Gary Sherman and featured strong performances by Donald Pleasence, Christopher Lee, and Hugh Armstrong. There is gore and unbearable morbidity, but also atmosphere, allegory and even some bizarre humor. And the cannibal fiend who terrorizes the London Underground emerges as an extremely sympathetic character.
The London Underground is the world’s oldest subway system, having opened in 1863. It is still one of the largest in the world and usually regarded as one of the most efficient. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a dark side to it. Director Sherman finds and exploits that dark side and comes up with a tale that works as a strange parable of class warfare, with deep roots in the Victorian era. It’s a story of what happens when people are discarded like trash.
Sherman and his screenplay writer Ceri Jones also take a lot of inspiration from the gruesome Scottish legend of Sawney Bean and his cannibal clan. Bean was a 16th century Scottish outlaw who used a network of coastal caves as his home base and headquarters. Bean and his wife were complete degenerates who begat an incestuous family that was 45 individuals strong at its highpoint.
The whole family took part in Bean’s crimes. Not only did they waylay, murder, and rob rural passersby, but they took the bodies back to the caves where they formed the main source of the family’s diet. Bean only let a witness escape one time and that was enough to be his undoing, as King James VI set out an entire military troop to rout the clan from their caves. The hardened army men were sickened when they discovered the cave full of body parts as well as much stolen loot. The crown’s vengeance on the Bean family was just as gruesome: the menfolk were savagely dismembered and left to bleed to death while the women were burned as witches. Even the youngest children, who supposedly showed signs of inbreeding, were not spared.
There is some doubt as to the veracity of the tale, but it was accepted as fact by many for years and became a part of Scottish history. Along with the crimes of Ed Gein, the Sawney Bean saga influenced not only The Texas Chain Saw Massacre but also Raw Meat.
Raw Meat, aka Death Line, had the grimy sleaziness of the early ‘70s grindhouse horror, but there was a uniquely British feel to it and a dark wit that made it a much different film. Let’s head into the tunnels and find out more about the actual story….
The movie certainly starts in a unique and lurid manner, as we follow a well-dressed stuffy looking fellow with a derby and an umbrella wandering through London’s red-light district, full of sleazy strip shows and porno shops. The music during this scene is priceless, as it sounds like the bump and grind soundtrack to a stripper’s routine. This is an “underground” of a different kind. Eventually the man finds himself in the empty Russell Square subway station where he hears someone pacing him. We hear a wheezing kind of a rasp, and it looks like the dandy is assaulted by somebody.
A little while later, American exchange student Alex (David Ladd) and his English girlfriend Patricia (Sharon Gurney) find the man lying unconscious on the steps leading to the Underground. Alex feels the man is just a drunk and urges Patricia to ignore him, but the girl is worried about his condition. They go through his wallet and discover he is James Manfred, a high government official. Patricia nags Alex to get the police to help him.
Before the two can bring a bobby back to the spot, Manfred vanishes. Alex and Patricia are brought before Inspector Calhoun (Donald Pleasence), who roughly grills them about the incident and even accuses the pair of robbing the man. As played by the always quirky Pleasence, Calhoun is a very peculiar policeman and not a particularly likable or even effective one. He has an odd sense of humor, loves his tea breaks, and is a bit of a bigot, snapping “get a haircut!” at Alex. Calhoun’s assistant is the long-suffering Sgt. Rogers (Norman Rossington) who seems resigned to dealing with his boss’ prickly personality. These two actors (and characters) work well together and bring a rather droll, eccentric twist to the otherwise incredibly grim film.
And it’s about to get really grim. We return to the Underground, to a strange hidden chamber that is unknown to the teeming masses that march above it every day. Here we find “The Man” (Hugh Armstrong), a shabby, disheveled fellow in ragged Victorian clothes. It is obvious right away that this is not a healthy human being, either physically or mentally. He seems incapable of speech except for one phrase which he repeats: “Mind the Doors!” The only words he knows, apparently.
He is living in a subterranean charnel house, which we see in great detail during an amazing seven-minute tracking shot that flows through the whole chamber. We see horribly mutilated bodies hanging on hooks like sides of beef while bunk beds are full of moldering corpses that have been dead for a long, long time. This shot is supremely gruesome and reminiscent of the opening scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre where rotting bodies are shown.
The Man is trying to tend to a female form lying in a filthy bed. It is obvious from his pathetic ministrations that he cares for this woman, who also seems to be pregnant. He even takes a mutilated part of Manfred’s body, the most recent addition to the abattoir, and tries to feed it to the woman. But she is dead, and he finally realizes it, beginning to moan piteously and finally roar in rage. He is finally alone in this strange, morbid world. Hugh Armstrong’s virtually wordless performance as The Man is incredible and he walks away with the whole movie. We already feel great pity for this lonesome, miserable creature, even as we are revolted by his actions. Such as biting the head off a rat and feeding on it.
Calhoun and Rogers, dismissive of Alex and Patricia’s story, find out that James Manfred is an important government minister who is indeed missing. We also learn that several people have vanished in the Underground recently. Calhoun snidely notes that when a minister disappears, things start happening, but apparently ordinary folk coming up missing is of little importance.
Rogers recalls a peculiar legend of the Underground: in 1892, there was a tremendous cave-in while workers were digging a new tunnel. Citing cost as the reason, the cave-in was never properly dug out and that section of the line was abandoned. There have been rumors over the years that some workers survived the cave-in but were trapped there where they have remained and even bred over the years. Calhoun laughs the story off, but now we know exactly what is going on with The Man.
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Back in the subway, three maintenance workers are in an almost forgotten section when they are brutally attacked and slain by The Man, now in a rage over the death of his companion. One worker gets a shovel embedded in his head, another gets a broom shoved all the way through his body and the last one manages to put up a pretty stiff fight before he is finally strangled and dragged off by the wounded Man to join his larder of dead bodies. When the victims are discovered, Calhoun and Rogers now know something very strange and deadly is going on in the Underground, but exactly what is yet unknown.
They follow up by investigating the now empty apartment formerly occupied by Manfred the missing government man. There they stumble upon a secret room and begin to discover just how kinky and twisted Manfred really was. Not only did the old boy apparently like naughty games, but there’s a TV set up to record them. But before they can learn more, the dapper and sinister Mr. Stratton-Villiers (Christopher Lee), who works for the ultra-secret M1-5 organization, appears, and tells them they are meddling in affairs that are none of their business.
The thinly veiled threats only serve to anger Calhoun, who stands up on his hind legs and tells Stratton-Villiers that when people go missing in his jurisdiction, he finds out what happened to them, no matter who is involved. Pleasence is great in this scene, and we get some respect for Calhoun we didn’t have before.
As for Alex and Patricia, they try to return to their normal lives but are troubled by their involvement with the missing Manfred. The formerly diffident Alex now seems motivated to look more into the affair, but Calhoun and the police don’t seem to want his help.
One night, they are in the Underground when Patricia realizes she left her college textbooks on the train. Alex goes back in to get them, but before Patricia can join him, the train doors shut, and she is left outside as the car starts to move. She yells at Alex that she will walk to another station and meet him at home, and she begins to trudge through the darkened, foreboding tunnels. It isn’t long before she hears wheezing and gasping behind her…The Man is after her!
He kidnaps her and brings her back to his hidden lair. Patricia is almost catatonic with fear, but it is obvious The Man is not interested in making a meal out of her or killing her in a rage. With his female companion now dead, he is looking for someone to replace her. In a pathetic scene, he tries to communicate by repeating the only phrase he knows … “mind the doors” … in a variety of different tones and timbres. It bears repeating once more how great Hugh Armstrong is as this grotesque, pitiable character.
It’s a total contrast with the similar scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre where Sally meets the Sawyer Family and is terrorized by them. We know The Man is trying to reach out with what little humanity he has left but he has been abandoned by the “real” world and can never be a part of it. The Sawyers have no respect left for life and wouldn’t join that world even if they could.
Alex is frantically searching for Patricia, and he is certain she has been kidnapped by whatever force is inhabiting the Underground. He tries to involve Calhoun and Rogers in the search, but they want him to stay out of it. Bit by bit, they are starting to figure things out, though, and they decide to put a police team together and scour the area of the subway where people have gone missing.
Things are coming to a head in the darkest parts of the Underground as all the parties finally encounter each other. What happens next? Well, don’t expect me to tell you!
Raw Meat (or Death Line … take your pick) works as only a quirky early ‘70s grindhouse horror could. It’s a crazy quilt of parts that makes a coherent whole and works as much more than just a gruesome horror. The Man is the ultimate victim of out-of-control capitalism. The Victorian tunnel builders worked in abominable conditions for low pay and when disaster strikes because of lax safety, they are simply abandoned like lost tools, considered as human trash by their bosses. But they have a will to live that drives them to cannibalistic horror.
Is it a chance for revenge against those who left them behind that keeps them going? Certainly, they strike back and become “consumers” in the most grotesque way possible. I would imagine the bowler-wearing government hack Manfred drew special wrath from The Man. Even after 80 years of living like animals, the cannibals can recognize him as an enemy of their kind.
Speaking of Manfred, it wasn’t necessary to the plot to show him trawling the porno shops and whorehouses of London. But it adds another layer of cynicism to the movie. It’s those who are the most respectable who commit the worst violations. This is what Calhoun and Rogers find out when they find the hidden room in Manfred’s apartment. But the sleazy secrets of the high-born are always protected, as Mr. Stratton-Villiers proves. The scene in Manfred’s apartment is another one that didn’t “need” to be in the movie. But its inclusion is fully warranted and adds to the story.
Regarding Christopher Lee’s appearance as Stratton-Villiers, Lee specifically requested to have a role in the movie strictly because he wanted to act with Donald Pleasence. He worked for a scale wage just to do the cameo. One wishes that Lee and Pleasence worked together more. Pleasence really gives Calhoun every ounce of quirkiness he has in his arsenal. There’s another “throwaway” scene where Calhoun and Rogers get drunk and play pinball at a pub that’s quite wonderful in its sheer absurdity.
As for the romantic leads of the film, David Ladd as Alex is rather stiff and uninteresting. He lacks the oddness that makes the other characters so memorable. As Patricia, Sharon Gurney is rather adorable and the very essence of the ditzy English “bird”. She’s sympathetic to everyone … even The Man! When Alex finally battles the cannibal, she yells “don’t hurt him!” … at Alex, not The Man!
Director Gary Sherman, a Chicago native who resides there today, really started his career with Raw Meat. While some panned the film because of its gory nature, many praised his innovative camera work, particularly the amazing tracking shot in the cannibal lair. He went on to do several “psychotronic films” like the excellent Dead and Buried, Vice Squad which teamed Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons, and Poltergeist III, about which the less said, the better. He transitioned into TV work later and today teaches at Columbia College in Chicago.
For a debut, Raw Meat was quite the potent film. Few other movies effectively combined gritty gore like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with uniquely British wit and social commentary like this one did. I’d recommend it to any fan of idiosyncratic horror. That is, if your stomach is strong enough.
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A group of people head out to a remote cabin in the middle of the woods. Cut off from all outside communication….
Movie Reviews Movies & TVTell me if you’ve heard this one before: A group of people head out to a remote cabin in the middle of the woods. Cut off from all outside communication, their situation slowly turns from strange to dangerous as the evil outside rears its ugly head. Isolated and unable to escape, they fight for their lives against an unstoppable force, hell-bent on bringing about their demise. Will they survive, or will they become the next victims of the ancient and unspeakable evil?
Wait, so you have heard that one? I’ll be honest, I’ve heard that one too. Many times. It’s a tried-and-true horror scenario, but it’s a solid one. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. And when it’s good, it’s unbeatable.
The Breach is the latest iteration of the trapped in a cabin story. Based on the novel of the same name by Nick Cutter and directed by Rodrigo Gudiño, it’s everything you could hope for in what can sometimes be a predictable subgenre. The Breach is fun, interesting, and fundamentally gross. In other words: my kind of movie.
The story begins when a body washes onto the shore of a lake. The local sheriff, John Hawkins (Allan Hawco) consults the town’s medical examiner Jacob Redgrave (Wesley French) hoping to learn what exactly happened to the dead man. Both men are baffled by the unexplained mutilation of the body, and its inexplicable lack of bones.
The investigation leads to the work of eccentric scientist Cole Parsons (Adam Kenneth Wilson) who rented a remote cabin to run his experiments. The duo recruits the help of the local wilderness guide Meg Fullbright (Emily Alatalo) to lead them through the lake and the forest to find the secluded cabin, and hopefully find some answers.
They find the answers they’re looking for, but quickly learn that some things are better left unexplained.
Cutter’s stories have a reputation for being top-notch body horror, and The Breach is one more piece of evidence supporting that reputation. As the horror elements come into play, the bodily disfigurement gradually ramps up from the moderately uncomfortable to the truly grotesque.
The pacing is on point. The film wastes no time in setting up the characters and their situation and moving things right along. Within the first half-hour or so, we’re at the cabin. From there the movie has no qualms with throwing a solid curveball at us to keep us on our toes.
Perhaps a tad too many curveballs, however. Cosmic horror is, by nature, meant to be mysterious and unknowable. That’s part of the appeal. However, The Breach dips its toes just a little too deep into the mysterious pools leaving a few too many things unexplained by the end.
What exactly was Dr. Parsons researching? Are there also ghosts in the cabin? How do the insects play into all of this? Do those things have to be naked?
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If you’re hoping for answers to these questions, you may come away disappointed. Fortunately, the rest of the movie is entertaining enough that you can just roll with it. While The Breach takes a few too many liberties on the shrouded-in-mystery department, it more than makes up for it with solid tension, gross-out effects, and great performances.
And as an extra gift for the nerds out there (me included), The Breach features an excellent cameo appearance from Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson. Conveniently playing a character named Alex, Lifeson handles the task of getting all that pesky exposition out of the way. He prattles off conspiracy theories about satanic cults and the Large Hadron Collider and offers a little bit of background information to help make sense of the goings-on at the doomed cabin of Dr. Parsons.
It’s never quite clear if his dialogue is meant to provide an actual explanation, or if it’s meant to be the musings of a crank. Presumably it’s a little of Column A and a little of Column B. Either way it doesn’t matter. Lifeson’s appearance breaks up the monotony of the earliest investigation scenes and gives us something to think about as we wait for the chaos to unfold. Plus, Rush rules so The Breach gets bonus points just for managing to sneak the legend in, even if only for a few moments.
Speaking of music legends, none other than Guns n’ Roses guitarist Slash takes the dual role of producer and composer for the film. I had reservations on how Slash’s work may shake out on the score front, but I had no need to worry. The score is a perfect companion to the film itself, successfully evoking a peaceful forest which hides an evil secret. Aside from the occasional moment of rocking bombast, the music consistently complements the imagery on screen, but never overpowers it.
The music, much like the writing and performances, manages to take what should be a generic movie, and forges it into something much stronger than it could otherwise be.
It’s not easy to craft another interesting cabin-in-the-woods type story. The simplicity of the premise lends itself to tired tropes and cliches. Try too hard to avoid the cliches, and you run the risk of straying too far into left field, undermining the very simplicity that makes this type of story worth watching.
Rodrigo Gudiño, along with screenwriter Ian Weir strike a delicate balance between the two extremes. They’ve crafted a solid newcomer to the fold. Mysterious, gross, and always entertaining, The Breach is a welcome entry to the evil-in-the-woods subgenre.
Waking Nightmare (or Sleepy Snoozemare?) shows us why we shouldn’t write and direct an independent movie while sleepwalking.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVWaking Nightmare (or Sleepy Snoozemare?) shows us why we shouldn’t write and direct an independent movie while sleepwalking.
In this horror/thriller, co-directed by Steven Craig (Running with Fear) and Brian Farmer (Blue Call), you may experience hypnopompic hallucinations from your own waking nightmare, aka sleep paralysis. Before you guys sleepwalk away from this review, I just want to set the record straight. The main character in this story is a somnambulist—aka a sleepwalker—which is not the same thing as someone experiencing a waking nightmare. A waking nightmare is another term for sleep paralysis. Just to be crystal clear, sleep paralysis is when you CAN’T MOVE while you’re asleep:
Cheyne (2003) entails a period of paralysis upon waking or falling asleep and is often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations. These hallucinations constitute a waking nightmare (w-nightmare) REM experience and are the original referents of the term “nightmare.” W-nightmare hallucinations are described by a three-factor structure involving experiences consistent with 1) threatening intruders, 2) physical assaults, and 3) vestibular-motor (V-M) bodily sensations.[1]
Reading about sleep paralysis is marginally more intriguing than being exposed to Waking Nightmare. By the end of my viewing, I was left wondering if I somehow received an earlier edit of this film from the directors’ film school capstone project. The version I watched looks like a film that was produced in 2010, but its notable cast scrambled my brain: Shelley Regner (Pitch Perfect), Stephen Wu (Brookyln Nine-Nine), the other frog brother from The Lost Boys (Jamison Newlander), alien-human hybrid Yan Birch (The People Under the Stairs) and two ‘80s Icons: Diane Franklin, who played the French foreign exchange student Monique in Better Off Dead, and the all-American werewolf David Naughton.
Shelley Regner plays the sleepwalking-murder-machine Jordan. Diane Franklin plays Jordan’s non-French, nervous mother, and Jamison Newlander, the other frog brother from The Lost Boys, plays the bagel-loving, indifferent, beer-swilling father.
Shelley Renger’s character suffers from horrible nightmares and PTSD from the suicide of her friend Jamie. (Actually, I’m still not 100% sure if Jamie is her friend or her sister?). This trauma causes her to sleepwalk and sleepstab strangers in the middle of the night.
For the first 20 minutes the scenes are a little too realistic, and not in an interesting way, but in a boring way, as if you’re watching the lives of average middle-aged parents dealing with a daughter suffering from sleepwalking in a very typical fashion. Awkward interactions with Jordan’s friends that don’t really add anything to the story are peppered heavily throughout the movie, and whenever they appear on screen, they completely distract from the only interesting element of this movie—the young woman murdering people in her sleep!
A lot of the emotional action is also snooze-inducing, and it’s hard to tell if it’s due to sophomoric dialogue in scenes that don’t really add anything to the plot, or if it’s due to the fake smiles and crude, simian-like mockery of human expression in place of actual acting. Even a visit to David “Dr. Pepper” Naughton is like watching a normal, uneventful doctor visit.
The tagline for Waking Nightmare is “How far would you go for the ones you love?” and, essentially, the heart of this concept is [SPOILER ALERT] a sordid tale of a mother and father protecting their sleepwalking daughter from being arrested for murder. The “twist,” if you can call it that, is that Jordan’s mother (Diane Franklin) and father (Frog Brother #2) have been covering up their daughter’s murders by murdering police officers and other witnesses. This factoid in the story isn’t revealed until about 50 minutes into the movie.
Diane Franklin’s great, gory performance as a frantic killer, carving up a homicide detective with a box cutter is the highlight of the film. If anything, these types of murder scenes should have been the bulk of the movie: less of the friends awkwardly smiling or randomly going for hikes and more of the mother and father murdering everyone their sleepwalking daughter bumps into.
Arguably the first cult horror film about somnambulism, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921), and Waking Nightmare (2023) both bored me. I had to write a report on both of these pictures. I had to write an analysis of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in my freshman English class (pretty boring), and here I am writing a review of Waking Nightmare for my freshman blog-writing class (not a real class, but still boring). Has anything changed? How much time has passed? Have I been half awake all this time just aimlessly wandering the earth? Why are my hands covered in blood?
If only I could get away from all this work and get some actual rest, some real, solid sleep…sleep…perchance to dream…I must find the mysterious Dutchman I met all those years ago in the Catskill Mountains and imbibe his liquor, with the Dutchman’s potent elixir, I can finally fall into a blissful 20-year-slumber and sleepwalk into a future where all we watch are somnambulist movies in a blissful trance without ever having to critique them, OR … I’ll just put on Waking Nightmare before I go to bed. THAT SHOULD KNOCK ME RIGHT OUT.
[1] Citation: Cheyne, J.A. Sleep Paralysis and the Structure of Waking-Nightmare Hallucinations. Dreaming 13, 163–179 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025373412722
Stephen Lang stars as an old man living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He’s reclusive, hardened, eclectic and, at times, terrifyingly insane.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVHi Readers! I hope you had a lovely 4th of July and are still in one piece. But, enough about that. It’s officially Spooky Season and the countdown to Halloween has begun! I hope this summer season thing is short-lived because although I’m a native Floridian, I’m not a fan of being outside in the heat. I know some, if not most of you, can relate. Enough ranting about this. Let’s get to the review.
The film I’m going to talk about is Old Man, written by Joel Veach and directed by one of my personal favorites, Lucky McKee. You may be familiar with McKee, as he’s known for other films such as the highly underrated May (2002) and The Woman (2011) among a few others. I was excited to see Lucky’s name attached to this project because he had not made anything for a good while, sadly. So, I went into Old Man with my hopes high for an enjoyable experience. Did I come out feeling as good as I did going in? Well…let me explain.
Old Man isn’t really a horror movie, but rather more of an odd thriller. Stephen Lang (Don’t Breathe) stars as an old man living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He’s reclusive, hardened, eclectic and, at times, terrifyingly insane. Lang’s portrayal of a man who is clearly troubled in ways we don’t know of yet is completely engaging. From out of nowhere comes a knock at the door of Old Man’s cabin. Of course, he’s taken aback but opens the door anyway. There stands a young man who introduces himself as Joe (Marc Senter). He tells Old Man that he got lost in the woods while hiking and just happened to come upon his cabin because he noticed the smoke coming from the chimney. So, while the two strangers are stuck in the cabin, they start talking…and talking…and talking for the better part of 90-minutes. Honestly, if you’re looking for a deep story, this isn’t the movie for you.
So, what are they talking so much about? Old Man and Hiker Joe swap stories essentially trying to one-up or scare each other by sharing things they’ve done or seen in their lives. Exposing secrets which invoke fear, anger, paranoia…whatever they can. Basically, this is the gist of Old Man. There is some entertainment to be found in this movie by way of Stephen Lang’s portrayal of the title character. He channels a kind of Nicolas Cage range of crazy, which is fun to watch, and the cinematography adds to the joy of watching Lang’s quirky emoting and mannerisms. However, the entire story takes place within the cabin and there’s little else that goes on until the end credits roll.
I did enjoy Old Man. It’s different, though—not what I was expecting. It’s just not very memorable. Once again, it’s an incredibly slow burn without any real action or anything else other than reactionary banter between the two main characters. Yet, there’s no real character development. The exchanges between the two are interesting but draining at times. I think Old Man would work better on stage rather than on film perhaps, but that’s just my two cents. Still, if it sounds like something you’d like to try out, I encourage you to do so.
Outpost is a psychological thriller/horror movie that delves into the dark and disconcerting world of domestic violence and the destruction it causes.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVIn, what is without a doubt, the darkest chapter in the Smokey the Bear mission to prevent forest fires, Outpost is a psychological thriller/horror movie that delves into the dark and disconcerting world of domestic violence and the destruction it causes.
Directed by Joe Lo Truglio, known for his comedic roles in shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and movies like Superbad and Role Models (“jingle-jangle”), the film showcases his ability to tap into a different genre and adds to the recent migration, perhaps exodus, of comedians moving into the realm of horror following in the footsteps of fellow Wet Hot American Summer alum Elizabeth Banks, who directed the tongue-in-cheek Cocaine Bear, former improv/sketch comedian Zach Cregger (Whitest Kids You Know) who directed Barbarian, and the granddaddy of the transpersonal ascension from comedy to horror, Jordan Peele, proving that the one universal truth in comedy may be that all comedians harbor evil, wicked hearts.
Playing on themes of isolation and madness showcased in horror classics like The Shining, The Lighthouse, and The Evil Dead, Outpost revolves around Kate, played by Beth Dover who’s best known as Linda Ferguson on Orange Is the New Black and is married to Lo Truglio. Kate is an abused woman seeking solace and healing by taking up a job as a fire lookout in the mountains of northern Idaho. Hoping that the peaceful solitude will help her overcome her traumatic past, Kate soon finds herself confronted by her PTSD and the overwhelming isolation of her new environment. As her mental state deteriorates, she discovers a darker force lurking within herself and the mountain outpost, and she loses what’s left of her sanity in the twisted fight for her survival.
Lo Truglio’s film skillfully tackles the sensitive subject matter of domestic violence and its impact. His direction is praised by critics, with many acknowledging his potential as a filmmaker, but the praise Outpost has received has been a bit backhanded. A lot of critics looked at this film as a great “first-attempt” with the “promise” of better films down the road once Lo Truglio learns more about editing. In fact, lots of complaints were leveled at the editing and camera work. Clearly none of these people watched the first Hunger Games; A lot of the “shaky” camera work in Outpost was done to capture the intensity and the shock of the violence that traumatized Kate without revealing it in graphic detail. This editing around the totality of the damage inflicted onto Kate could be the mark of a skillful director not wanting to glorify abuse towards women … OR Joe Lo Truglio just didn’t want to see his wife get mercilessly beaten on screen for longer than he had to. Either way, the film’s shocking and frank portrayal of the subject matter leaves a lasting impression and, without it, Kate’s descent into madness lacks substance.
The movie subverts the theme of isolation and madness, much like other films such as The Shining and The Lighthouse. However, Outpost goes beyond that by offering a deeper message about the constant fear women face from male predators. Kate’s traumatic past haunts her in hallucinations and vivid nightmares, creating a sense of paranoia and unease throughout the film. You start to see things from Kate’s perspective, and you begin to distrust everyone on screen more and more as the story unfolds. Every interaction becomes a potential threat, whether it’s the pervy Ranger Dan played by Dallas Roberts (My Friend Dahmer, 3:10 to Yuma) or the creepy, bi-sexual stoners camping on the mountain.
There’s obviously a thematic connection to nature and the wilderness, and the general concept is reminiscent of the video game Firewatch. However, Outpost sets itself apart by presenting a different kind of mystery and struggle, pitting woman against nature. Even the seasoned mountain man, Reggie (played by Dylan Baker who’s best known in horror circles for his role in Trick ‘r Treat), who initially appears as a helpful guide, eventually has his true predatory nature revealed in the film’s climatic twist.
The relationship between Reggie and Kate continues to build on the film’s metaphor for the underlying danger women face from men. Reggie’s acts of protection towards Kate, teaching her how to chop wood, and offering her herbal tea, are merely a facade to secure his own more sinister interests. Throughout the first half of the film, Kate is not only having wildly terrifying hallucinations of her attacker, but we see how the men around her gaze at her the way hyenas scowl at baby wildebeests before charging in for the kill.
Kate’s always being misdirected and leered at by the men around her, and, unrelated to her PTSD, she is extremely clumsy. She falls down when walking up the small knoll to the outpost when she first arrives, she drops her keys in a pit, she drops her phone from the tower, she throws her garbage into a bear trap, she knocks her coffee cup off the outpost ledge, and what’s even more unsettling is how many times Kate comes face to face with dead animals. All of this points to Kate being prey. She lives in fear and confusion, and, at any minute, could be devoured by the predators around her until she meets Bertha (played by Becky Ann Baker, best known for her roles as Jean Weir on the short-lived, well-regarded NBC dramedy Freaks and Geeks and Loreen Horvath on the HBO series Girls). At first, Bertha comes across not just as a friendly hiker, but as a healing guide helping Kate on her journey of self-sufficiency, and empowerment.
Bertha’s training transforms Kate from prey to predator, as she learns to hunt and survive. However, a twist redolent of The Shining and The Evil Dead reveals (SPOILERS AHEAD) that Bertha is actually the vengeful spirit of Reggie’s deceased wife, seeking revenge against him and the other conspiring men on the mountain looking to take a bite out of Kate. The film takes a savage turn as Kate goes from a helpless and traumatized victim to an unhinged, ax-wielding force of retribution.
In the film’s deranged ending, Kate becomes the predator, resorting to cannibalism and hunting down her victims. The once-helpless woman has transformed into a savage killer, evoking some kind of amalgam of Rambo and Jack Torrance. The final revelation of her month-long spree of eating people is intended to shock and horrify us, but, given the paranoia and trauma-induced hallucinations Kate was experiencing at the start of her journey, the film presents her less as an anti-hero at the end and more like an unhinged maniac hellbent on revenge. She has let the beast in and has gone full boar… she fucking ate people.
Earl (played by Ato Essandoh of Jason Bourne and Garden State) is the head ranger for the Firewatch and Kate’s boss, and he seems to be the only man in the film just trying to do his job as a park ranger to prevent forest fires. Earl did not exercise his best judgment as a leader/manager when taking his daughter’s recommendation to hire Kate. Kate needed EXTENSIVE psychotherapy, but Earl, who loves his daughter, tried to help a friend of the family, and it couldn’t have gone worse.
Below are a couple of action shots of Earl choking his employee with a steel chain.
I can’t imagine what his performance review is going to be like with the head of the parks commission:
“So, the woman you hired for the fire watch post … she became a kill-crazy, ax wielding cannibal? And, upon discovering the murder scene, instead of calling the authorities, you decided to choke her with a steel chain?”
Earl: “Yes, ma’am, that’s the long and short of it.”
Head of the Parks Commission: “And is she dead?”
Earl: “I don’t know. I used the same chains to lock her in the tower and got the fuck out of there.”
I’ll admit that the twist that occurs involving the spirit of Reggie’s wife turning Kate into a killer, while unsettling, left me more than a little confused. It feels as though it happens too late in the story. It’s like your first time watching From Dusk til Dawn—you watch the crime heist Tarantino half of the movie and then get completely caught off guard by the vampire blood bath that takes place in the middle of the film. Outpost would have had more of a horror impact if the switch from psychological thriller to gruesome, ghostly influenced kill spree had happened earlier in the story.
With all that said, Outpost offers a chilling and thought-provoking narrative that sheds light on the experiences of abused women and the lasting impact of trauma, but I kind of wish it gave them a hero instead of a maniac cannibal, but perhaps that’s the hero women’s rights need right now? I mean, the first cannibal hero that came to my mind was Detective John McClane from Die Hard.
Also, not to spoil the last Rambo movie, but Rambo cuts out a dude’s heart, ripping it out of the guy’s chest with his bare hands, so, the more I think about it, maybe Kate is a savage hero after all. All the men she ate were pieces of shit and even her male boss felt the need to choke her to death with a chain. By the way, I can’t get past Earl choking Kate with a chain. Earl MADE THE CHOICE to choke Kate with a chain twice. After the first chain choke, which arguably could have been in self-defense, he was free and clear of her and could have A.) called the authorities, B.) got the hell off the tower, or C.) restrained Kate with the chain until the authorities arrived, but Earl said, “fuck it,” and attempted to double down on choking her to death with chains as hard as he could.
I want a goddamn rematch. Earl is the final girl and Kate is fucking Jason Vorhees who funnels her savage strength from the cursed outpost tower. She’ll put out some fires WITH THE BLOOD OF HER ENEMIES!! I want her to kill a whole army of cops and park rangers who rush to the mountain to apprehend her, and I want it to connect to Cocaine Bear and the Wet Hot American Summer universe! Joe Lo Truglio, if you see this review, catch me on MySpace where we can gingerly touch tips to pen the second installment of Outpost 2: Out for Blood.