Perfume: The Story of a Murder by Patrick Suskind

I bought this book because I heard about the movie and it sounded very interesting. I ended up reading it very quickly, as it was very, very engrossing. Of course, it is a story about a serial killer, which if you know me makes complete sense as to why I would really enjoy it .

Perfume is about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a child born in the filth of 18th-century Paris. He has no scent of his own, but he has an amazing nose and files every scent away in his head. He decides to apprentice to a perfumer so he can learn to capture scent. Specifically, the scents of certain young girls. Funny how those young girls mostly have red hair, are beautiful, and are virgins.

It's a creepy subject, but the character is just as good as Hannibal Lecter, except instead of cannibalism, this guy just wants to keep your smell around, which you know actually seems a wee bit creepier.

The book was beautifully written, with some very vivid imagery. The movie totally did the book justice, and honestly I wasn't sure if it would be able to do so. I liked them both, quite a bit.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs

Horrorfest 2009 - How many horror movies can I watch? Part 4

So I skipped out last night on the movie viewing, and read a whole bunch instead. So tonight I am back on track, especially since I am off work for the next few days and I can stay up late.  Never fear, I am trying really hard to meet my sister-in-law's expectations of 25 movies while the spouse is out of town I'm on 15 now, for those who are counting). So tonight is a night of classics rather than  B-Movies. Tonight I watch the good stuff. (I don't think I have Suspiria in me tonight, but it's on the list.)

• The Shining: God, I love this movie. I remember reading the book when I was in high school and being overwhelmed with how terrifying the story was and yet also how beautiful. Kubrick takes Stephen King's vision and makes it his own without ever really losing the essence of the story that King created.  Jack Nicholson is damn frightening, the kid is so cute and creepy, and Shelly Duvall is terrified. You can tell she is totally stressed out by working with Nicholson and Kubrick. 
• Jaws: I watch this movie even if it's showing on regular TV with commercials and all the good stuff chopped out. Stephen Spielberg makes good movies, but I think this is one of his best. It seems sometimes crap happens for a reason, so I can't help but be happy that Bruce the Shark was such a pissy creature that they could only show him towards the end. It certainly makes that first appearance a shocker, even on the 100th viewing. Plus, that opening scene is downright scary, no matter how many times you watch it. Jaws did the ocean for me like Psycho did for some and showers. I still can't get in the water much more than hip deep without thinking about this film., and to me, that says perfection. That says true horror - forget all the slash, slice, dice and naked teenagers (not that I don't like watching those too of course). 

Just After Sunset by Stephen King

To be honest, I didn't think Just After Sunset was nearly as good as Everything's Eventual, Stephen King's previous short story collection, but I do love how King writes those short stories. 

I think my favorite might be The Gingerbread Girl. The main character here takes up running after a tragedy strikes her family. When I say takes up running, I mean seriously running. Like all the time until she feels like dropping dead (which I have totally felt before but that's because running is like Heaven and dying to me. It's a weird combo, I know.). Of course, this obsessive/compulsive running comes into play later in the story when she has to run with purpose. 

Otherwise, the stories all kind of ran together for me. I'm not saying they weren't good, but none of them really stood out to me like The Gingerbread Girl, except for maybe N., which channels Lovecraft (even if King says it doesn't). I love the play on obsessive/compulsive behavior in that story. 

Overall, I will always love Stephen King's ability to write short stories. It seems like a lost art form these days.  But despite that, I can't wax poetic about this collection.

Rating: 4 Purrs for The Gingerbread Girl, 3 1/2 for everything else

X-Files I Want to Believe

I can't believe that I missed X-Files in the theaters this summer, but somehow I did. It even was released right near my birthday for crisssakes. Geez. Well, I soon remedied that by watching it as soon as I could get my grubby hands on the DVD release.

It. was. awesome.

Remember Star Trek: First Contact? It felt like a longer version of the TV show, but with uber-budget right? (It did to me anyway.) But then you saw Star Trek: Insurrection and you just cried a little inside? Well, X-Files I want to Believe was like the first - but without the overarching mythology banging you on the head. It reminded me so much of the Season 3 episode, Grotesque, hands-down one of my favorites, that I couldn't help but love it. Plus, I'm a shipper, so the little bits of relationship stuff mixed in there between Mulder and Scully just made me squee with happiness. (Literally, Pandabob could hear me in the other room. Squeeing. The beard thing, I couldn't help it. I clapped.)

My one complaint - it took forever to bring in Skinner. I love Skinner.

The plot in brief is this: Scully gets an unexpected visit from an FBI guy - they need Mulder's help. All is forgiven. They have this psychic, and for some reason the FBI wants Mulder to come in and verify what he is saying is true. And FBI agent's life is on the line; she's missing and it looks like there's a serial killer on the loose. So of course, Mulder and Scully some in to save the day. It gets dark; it gets creepy; it gets gross; Scully gets sassy. (Yes. I know. It was AWESOME.)

I don't want to say anymore than that because I don't want to spoil too much. Long story short (too late!), if you liked the show you'll love the movie. Unless you were one of those who never wanted Mulder & Scully to get together; in that case, stay away. Also stay for the credits. On the DVD they have candids of the cast & crew throughout.

Rating: 5 stars. Lets' see: the beard thing won me over. The grossness was spot on. What did this make me do? It made me want to pull out my DVDs and start watching from Season 1 on again, because I want the show back so much. I've loved a lot of TV in my time, but X-Files had me at Hello and I just never stopped loving it, even the last season.

Theater of Blood

I love old Vincent Price movies. You can imagine how excited I was when saw this one was on my Monster channel (before I lost it – phooey on you DishNetwork), I was very, very excited, because outside of the Dr. Phibes movies, Theater of Blood is my favorite Vincent Price movie. 

In Theater of Blood, Vincent Price plays Edward Lionheart, a very egotistical actor who all he really wants for Christmas is an award usually given by the Critic's Circle for the best actor in the theater. Unfortunately, he's overlooked, shunned, and critically flamed by the Critic's Circle, so he decides to attempt suicide after confronting the harpies. Too bad his suicide is just one other thing that doesn't seem to go right in Lionheart's life. He survives his swan dive into the Thames and  is rescued by the crazed tramps living in the area. Cue the revenge. (I love Vincent Price's revenge movies - they are always so dramatic.) This time, instead of the plagues or some such like Dr. Phibes, Lionheart's revenge follows the many grisly deaths that took place in the Shakespeare plays in which he starred. He slowly takes out the critics who denied him his just reward while the police are helpless to stop him. 

Vincent Price really hams it up and Diana Rigg is just amazingly beautiful. You know what else makes me really love this movie? The fact that they both consider this one of their best and favorite films. They have very good taste, if I do say so myself. 

They just don't make them like this anymore, and I hope beyond hope no one gets it in their craw to remake this anytime soon. Theater of Blood is very much a movie of its time - it has just the right amount of camp and buckets of bright red theater blood to make a perfect pie - even if it is stuffed with poodles. 

Rating: 5 Purrs  - it' s my favorite Vincent Price movie ever. How could I not give it all 5 Purrs? 

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

I picked up Natsuo Kirino’s Out on a whim, mostly based on the cover and because it was on the end cap at Barnes & Noble. I loved Out. It was bloody, feminist, thrilling, tightly woven. When I saw that Natsuo Kirino had a new book out, I could barely wait for it to hit paperback (which I didn’t, I waited for it to hit my Quality Paperback Book Club). I was worried it wouldn’t be as good, but I was wrong. Grotesque was different, but still excellent.

Grotesque is a dark, brooding novel, much like Out, in which Kirino continues to peel back the dark corners of modern Japan and the everyday darkness women there face. Her characters, though, face the world in such colorful ways – like slicing up abusive husbands in showers. This time around, Kirino tells the story of two women in their 30s who have been killed almost a year apart in the same way. Yuriko and Kazue knew each other a long time ago, and now both turn tricks (one for fun and one to make the rent).  It may seem like the only things these two women might have in common is their professions and their deaths, but really what ties them together is the narrator – a nameless woman who happens to be the older sister of one and the former classmate of the other who tells the tale is an almost monotone and yet self-protective way.

The narrator slowly tells the histories of these two women, telling her own arrogant, desperately clinging story as well. Yuriko is beautiful; in fact, she is pretty much doomed by her looks, as she soon decides it is the only way to make her way in the world. Kazue, on the other hand, is awkward and unpopular, constantly trying to rise and yet getting nowhere.  The narrator is miserable and spiteful of everyone from the beginning.  These girls grow up in a world where survival of the fittest is evident in every move they make.  In this world, conformity is king; there is a place for everything and everything should be in its place. Yuriko is too beautiful. Kazue’s drive for success and popularity is too evident to be accepted.  They really have no chance – and in the end find freedom in their grotesque and monstrous selves.  To become free – to sell themselves as prostitutes - allows them a freedom most in Japanese society can’t find. In the end, that freedom gives them the chance to be murdered by a foreigner and be envied by the narrator, who wallows in her bitterness and hatred.

It’s a powerful indictment of the world Natuso Kirino lives in, and a very powerful voice to be heard. I think Kirino is an amazing writer. You can enjoy her work on a purely superficial level, reveling in the grotesque and disturbingly bloody images she creates, or you can look and see her deeper message. Either way, it’s a deeply disturbing and yet truly enjoyable read.

Rating: 4 ½ Purrs – just what I was looking for – a truly disconcerting and liberating book. It would be 5 Purrs but it wasn’t quite as good as Out.

Killer on the Road by James Ellroy

I love James Ellroy. The man has such a twisted brain and such a way with words. His books always bring out the dirtiness in the places the sun shines the brightest, and this book, Killer on the Road is no exception.

The Killer on the Road is Martin Plunkett. He’s a super smart guy with no soul, a guy who discovers his true vocation as a murderer in the occasionally sunny town of San Francisco. He relishes his ability to commit the perfect murders, and spends the next decade traveling across the states wrecking havoc until he finds a true soul mate, which proves to be his undoing.

Ellroy uses first person narrator here and uses it to show you just how twisted this Martin Plunkett is. It’s very effective. Plunkett grows up, refining his technique to the tune of the Manson murders and sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. His mind is terrible, and it’s even more eerie if you have read Ellroy’s autobiography of sorts, My Dark Places. Plunkett’s beginnings remind me much of Ellroy’s own. (Not that I think Ellroy is a serial killer or anything, just that he obviously knows a thing or two about breaking and entering.)

I think Killer on the Road is second in my list of favorite Ellroy books, following closely behind The Black Dahlia. It’s just so evil.

Rating: 4 ½ Purrs for just being you, Mr. Ellroy. No one writes quite like you do.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I picked up Sharp Objects because it sounded dark and spooky and a murder mystery to boot. It delivered on all of those counts, and then some. I tore through this book in just a few hours; I just couldn’t put it down.

In Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn tells the story of Camille Preaker, a Chicago journalist called back to her hometown to write a story about a murdered young girl.  Camille’s trip back to her hometown of Wind Gap, MO isn’t all wine and roses, in fact, her troubled childhood was enough to drive her to self-mutilate, carving words into her skin. Her highly dysfunctional family plays a key part of this novel, and to describe them in too much detail would take away a great deal of discovery. Camille’s mother is devoted to her youngest daughter, trapping the girl in a forever childhood. The father is barely there, bowing to the mother in all things. Camille isn’t so sure the police will solve the case; they think it’s a transient. Camille thinks it’s someone local. Who has killed to girls, and why? Will Camille find the truth?

Gillian Flynn does a great job building the suspense and slowly revealing the truth behind the mystery. The end is a double-whammy; you think you have it all figured out and then it’s something else, and then wham! It’s great and suitably disturbing all in one.  

This book was so much more than I expected. I thought I would find a decent mystery with a “cutter gimmick.”  Instead, I found a finely crafted mystery thriller way above the normal paperback thriller you take to the beach.

Rating: 5 Purrs for the creepiest mother since Joan Crawford

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I first picked up a Preston and Child book because I really liked the movie Relic and I was curious about the source material. The book was substantially more robust, as you would expect, and different enough that the story was surprising. The Cabinet of Curiosities is the third story by Preston & Child to feature the mysterious Agent Pendergast and have a ton of interesting historical info on museums, natural history, and New York history.

In The Cabinet of Curiosities, construction workers at a new building site uncover a ghastly collection of bodies, all mutilated in the same fashion. Enter Agent Pendergast, the tall, pale agent involved with the earlier Relic and Reliquary novels who seems to be extra rich, full of endless facts, and borderline sexy (maybe that’s just me). Pendergast investigates with the help of Nora Kelly, an archeologist at the New York Museum of Natural History, much to the chagrin of her bosses and the building’s developer, who has the mayor pretty much in his pocket. Things heat up when the city is plagued by new killings that mimic the bodies found at the construction site, and Kelly’s boyfriend, William Smithback Jr., Times reporter, starts throwing out clues in the press. Is the serial killer just mimicking the19th century scientist who was looking for the secret to immortality or is the killer that same scientist become immortal.

I really liked the story here.  Why I like most about Preston’s & Child’s books (at least those that I have read) is the crazy amount of detail that is included about whatever the main storyline is – Relic and the whole DNA sequencing bit, this one with urban archeology.  The incredible detail about the museum and the mechanics of how it works is so interesting to my Art History, museum studies brain. Plus, I find the tall, pale, spooky Pendergast sexy in a weird sort of way. It’s probably the oversized brain he seems to have and his interest in the weird and spooky cases. It’s probably a hold over from my Spooky Mulder crush days. (Okay, so I still have a Spooky Mulder crush. I’ll admit it.) The story seems long at points but the tightly woven climax is page-turning.

What I didn’t like – Nora Kelly actually falling for the slime bag Smithback. I didn’t find much of value in his character but hey, maybe it’s my Pendergast crush talking.

Overall, if you like Michael Crichton books and his ability to turn future science into interesting stories, but like a little horror/sci-fi thrown in, you might check these guys out.

Rating: 4 Purrs, and not just because of Agent Pendergast

Immortality

Immortality sat in my NetFlix queue for a very, very long time when it finally reached the top. It had been pegged as one of those artsy vampire movies, which I wanted to see because Jude Law is in it, but didn’t want to see because it was an artsy vampire movie. It finally appeared in my mailbox, and to be honest I am glad it finally did. The movie was beautiful, weird, and the actors were excellent.

Steven (Jude Law) is a handsome Londoner with a very weird name. He is good at seducing women, and it is obvious at the beginning of the movie that he has seduced many of them. He is also ill, and needs a woman’s love to survive (enter the vampire mythos). The only way he can feed on that love is by drinking their blood and absorbing it into his bloodstream. He has yet to meet a woman who truly captures his heart until he meets Anna (Elina Lowensohn). She doesn’t know who he really is, and he isn’t quite sure he can kill her when he needs to. Also, he has the added trouble of a pesky policeman who suspects he is somehow involved with the deaths of his previous girlfriends. Will he do it, or will he waste away?

The movie is quite lovely to look at with beautiful locations and a vivid use of colors. The use of color is striking in almost every frame of the film. Jude Law is seductive and creepy, pitiful and ruthless. You genuinely begin to pity him. The only thing I found difficult was some of the vampire mythos and the way it was adapted. The crystals took some thinking to figure out what was going on there.

Overall I wouldn’t go into Immortality looking for a vampire flick. It is really more of a seductive thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Body Double, and Fatal Attraction.

Rating: 4 Purrs for a beautifully shot thriller with excellent acting, and that very striking painting Jude Law's character has hanging in his flat. It's so freaking haunting, I can't get it out of my head.

Giallos: More Fun, More Kool-Aid

I simply cannot get enough of Giallo cinema. You would think that after watching as many as I have I would get tired of them, but somehow the flashy Italian fashions, the ultra-mod furniture, and the bright candy apple red fake blood just get me very time. Here are three Giallo films I watched recently. They aren’t Deep Red by any means (and really, how much really can be?), but they are good examples of the genre.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

In this Giallo, a wealthy lord is having trouble getting over his wife’s death. He is obsessed with her as much as he was when she was alive and he was worried she was cheating on him. He tours the local bars, finding red-haired women to come back to his castle and fool around, where he later tortures and kills them. Later, his doctor friend convinces him to marry again, this time to a blonde, hoping it will help heal his slowly rotting mind. Of course, due to the nature of the Giallo, it really doesn’t help at all. There’s the gloved killer murdering women in gruesome ways, the creepy castle, the crazed lord who may or may not be killing people, and of course the beautiful women getting sliced and diced. It’s one of the better Giallos out there, once you move past the masters of the genre, and it’s well worth checking out.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

Two sisters have a past, with a secret tragedy and a horrible fairy tale that haunted their child hood. Even to this day, they remember the tale of the “Sisters in Red,” two murderous sisters will return on April 6, 1972 and continue their lethal behavior. So when the day arrives, they aren’t terribly surprised to have people around them dying, and a young woman in a red cloak being present at the scene of the murders. This Giallo was almost as good as The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, in fact it makes a good double feature, and this once stars the very lovely Barbara Bouchet.

The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail

This Giallo is heavy on the mystery – a very rich businessman dies in a plane explosion, and his unfaithful wife is the beneficiary of 1 million dollars. The insurance company wants to investigate before they actually pay out the weeping widow, so an investigator arrives on the scene to determine if the widow had anything to do with the murder. A mysterious black-gloved murderer steals the money and leaves a trail of bloody bodies in his wake.

If you are a Dario Argento or Mario Brava fan but are looking for something more, maybe you haven’t seen these. Check them out. If you want to know what Giallo is, I would start with some others, like Deep Red or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and then, if you like those, move on to some of these Giallos.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs for nice Giallo cinema. Gotta love those titles and those very lovely pantsuits.

The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub

I started reading Peter Straub a long time ago, and then forgot about him. Then I remembered Ghost Story, and picked up The Talisman. I was hooked by his very detailed and realistic take on horror. One of the last runs to Half Price Books I picked up The Hellfire Club. Wow.

The Hellfire Club is about Nora Chancel, wife of Davey, son of the head of a big publishing company. Women in her Connecticut suburb are dying violently, and Nora can’t shake the feeling she is next. After being accused of kidnapping a supposed victim, Nora is kidnapped herself by the madman murderer, and she travels with him into her deepest fears. Chancel House has a book called Night Journey, a book that has an illicit past. It’s a book that seems to capture the minds of those who read it, and causes an obsession in its fans that borders on psychotic. Davey is under its spell, and Nora is now in the arms of a man who is determined to protect the history of the book at all costs. She has to find strength deep within herself to survive, and to search out the truth behind Night Journey and the family she married in to.

The Hellfire Club is less a horror story and more a mystery-thriller. Peter Straub builds a pretty tight plot that moves along rather quickly once you get introduced to all of the characters and Nora ends up tethered to the crazy killer. I figured out the secret behind Night Journey and some of the other elements pretty quickly but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the story. The only things I really didn’t like were Davey and some of the torture of Nora. Davey was an annoying, whiny, faithless baby and I could never figure out exactly why Nora married him in the first place. I also hate rape scenes, and I could have done without reading Nora getting abused that way. Those scenes were horrific and made my stomach churn. But, to be honest, both of those elements didn’t make me put the book down. It was too good of a story and a mystery to quit before I finished it.

I liked The Hellfire Club and I like Peter Straub. I’m not sure I’d put The Hellfire Club at the top of my list of his books, but if you like a good mystery-thriller, touched with fantasy like elements and Vietnam memories, you’d like Peter Straub’s books and definitely like The Hellfire Club.

Rating: 3 ½ Purrs for a tightly-woven plot and an excellent and tense last few chapters

Italian Giallo Three-Fer

One thing I just love about Giallos is the wonderful title of each film. Another thing: Edwidge Fenech. She is such a beautiful woman.

5 Dolls for an August Moon

Mario Brava brings us a version of Agatha Christie’s 10 Little Indians. It’s a very stylish movie, with very modern furnishings and very 70’s chic fashions. A group of people are out on an island with a very wealthy scientist who has some secret that these various people want to buy from him. (Edwige Fenech stars as one of the guests.) He refuses, and one by one the different people are murdered. There’s plenty of blood to go with the twist ending. It’s an average Giallo, and you shouldn’t miss it if you are a fan of the genre.

Rating: 3 Purrs

What Have You Done to Solange?

A teacher at an all-girls school is having an affair with one of his students, and while they are out frolicking, the girl sees a flash of a knife and possibly a murder. After the police find a dead girl from the school in those same woods, the girl comes forward and then one by one, more girls are killed most brutally. A group of girls at the school seem to have a secret, one that someone wants to kill them for. It’s an excellent entry to the Giallo genre. If you don’t mind seeing movies with overdubbing, and you like a good mystery, check it out.

Rating: 4 ½ Purrs

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

Edwige Fenech stars in this lovely Giallo as the wife of a stockbroker with some seriously naughty sexual vices. A straight razor serial killer is stalking her and other beautiful women in Venice, and she thinks it could be one of the men in her life. Her ex-lover, Jean, is the one who used to satisfy her sadomasochistic vices, and he thinks he can win her back. Her husband may be jealous of her past life, and might be killing women to revenge his love. George, the cousin of a good friend is newly rich and very handsome, but he seems to be hiding something of his own. There’s lots of nudity in this one, and lots of razor slashing. The atmosphere is gloomy and mysterious. Jean is creepy, George is seductive, and Edwige is luminous if somewhat too trusting. The twist here is old school, but perfect. This is my favorite of the three I just watched. It’s very much worth your while.

Ratings: 5 Purrs

Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter came to me as a suggestion from my book club, just like many of the surprises in my bookcase. As usual, the paperback book club did not steer me wrong, and I devoured the first Dexter book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, in a couple of hours. I anxiously awaited the sequel Dearly Devoted Dexter to reach paperback (cause I am cheap reader like that) and when it finally did, I ordered that puppy as fast as Amazon could ship it to me. Jeff Lindsay and his friend Dexter did not disappoint me.

Dexter is a blood splatter expert for Miami-Dade PD. He has a girlfriend, a sister, and is the foster son of a cop. He is also a serial killer who preys on other killers, if they pass the Harry Test (Harry was his cop father. You learn in the first book that he knew about Dexter’s tendencies and instead of stifling them, trained them to “benefit” society). This time around, Dexter has to deal with his sister coming to terms with what he is, an angry cop trailing him wherever he goes, a girlfriend who expects to move to the next level of the relationship, and a particularly icky serial killer who maims his victims in a really disturbing way. I won’t spoil it for you, cause you need to read that first encounter with fresh, unspoiled brain cells.

The whole premise sounds a bit cliché, and I suppose it is on one level. Serial killers are all the rage, especially since Silence of the Lambs. It’s not often though, that you read about a guy like Dexter and find him to be the hero of your novel. He’s funny, but he’s also cold, and believes that his punishment should fit the crimes of those he kills. He is not a good guy, but somehow you forget that. Somehow, Jeff Lindsay makes Dexter into someone you like, someone you scarily enough, can identify with. That’s what makes these books.

I’m not sure if I found Dexter’s comments about his “Dark Passenger” more annoying in this book because this was my second time around with Dexter, or if it was because Lindsay mentioned it more this time. I do know the killer Dexter hunts is not someone you would want to meet on a dark street, but even so, he too is a believable antagonist. He’s scary, but not so scary that you have to imagine that people like him could not possibly exist. You see too much in the news these days to not believe he could, and that adds even more unease to your psyche while you read.

I wasn’t scared while reading this book, but it did give me chills. I would give the first installment of the Dexter story 5 Purrs, but I can’t give this one a perfect score. Too much “woe is me, Dark Passenger” musings this time for my taste, but it was well worth the read.

Rating: 4 Purrs