Horrorfest 4

This year's entries into Horrorfest have been much better than past years.

• Dread: This one based on a Clive Barker story and stars a Cullen, but man it sure was icky. These college kids decide to run an experiment investigating people's biggest fears. Problem is, the ringleader just happens to be nuts, and he decides to make people face their biggest fears in hopes of learning how to cure his own. The paintings in this one were beautiful.
  
• The Final: The opening says this was based on a true story and it was filmed in McKinney and area up here in North Texas, so I can't help but like the story of a group of tormented high-schoolers who turn the tables on their bullies in most gruesome and psychological ways. One even wears an Audition costume, so of course I like it.
  
• Kill Theory: A group of long-time college friends head out to the lake to celebrate graduation, only to find themselves trapped by a psycho who says they must kill each other one by one and have one left standing at 6 AM or he will kill them all. This one was quite good. I can see why maybe it didn't make it to the theater but it is definitely worth a watch.
• The Graves: Sisters Megan and Abby Graves are taking a cross country trip before Megan starts a new job in New York. On the way, they decide to check out the road-side attraction called Skull City Mine. As these things go, they find something not so pleasant. Slicing and dicing and spooky stuff happens, and things get a bit disjointed towards the end, but I can't help but love a movie that has two goth girls who love comics and can kick ass.
  
• The Reeds: A group of Londonites take a weekend trip through the reeds of Norfolk on a hired boat. From the start, things get creepy, with the crochety old boat guy and the pesky teens that keep popping up here and there. It ends up in disaster and blood, and a mystery to be solved. It was quite good.
  
• Lake Mungo: A somewhat slow, creepy supernatural movie that deals with an Australian family's grief at losing their teenage daughter to drowning. It's shot documentary style. I was watching it by myself and I got a bit creeped out, so stick with it.
  
• Hidden: The foreign film entry into this year's horrorfest. A guy goes back home after his mother's death and faces the fears from his childhood. Someone is murdering people- is it a ghost, is it the boy from his childhood? It was spooky in places but also very slow.
  
• Zombies of Mass Destruction: Zombies! Need I say more? Yes, well then - zombies started by terrorists in a small town, gore and hilarity happens, boy comes out to mom, girl comes to term with her roots, brains get munched on.
  

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

I will admit to finding Patricia Highsmith only after The Talented Mr. Ripley became a movie, but I have been slowly but steadily buying her books used very since. Strangers on a Train is her first novel, and it is a remarkable one. Most first novels you read end up being iffy, with promise but that certain tinge of not quite polished prose. Strangers on a Train had so little of that feel that I struggle to even remember it. Mr. Hitchcock liked it so much he felt compelled to make a movie out of it and we know Hitch knows his suspense.

In SoaT, Guy is just a guy (heh) who would really like to get a divorce from his poorly chosen first marriage so he can marry the sweet, rich girl of his dreams. (He really loves her; it's not a money thing.) He is taking the train back to his hometown to finally file the papers, and on this trip he meets Buddy, a spoiled rich kid who has it all but thinks his father is in between him and happiness. Buddy invites Guy back to his train compartment to have dinner and a drink, and Guy reluctantly accepts. It's probably the worst decision he ever made. You see, Buddy is a sociopath who feels he has hatched the fool-proof plan for murder. He tells Guy you kill my dad, and I will kill your medlesome wife. No one will ever know. It'll be great. Guy is horrified, and what follows is one of the tautest thrillers I have read.

Highsmith really knows how to show a man completely dissolve all of himself. She shows him lose everything that is pure and hopeful, and makes it so real you know it could happen to you. That's why I love her work. The heroes in her stories aren't perfect; they are everyman. You could be there; you could be that person, clinging desperately to sanity and hope but all the while knowing it is over. She starts that path in Strangers on a Train. It is an excellent one.

Rating: 5 Purrs for a brilliant first novel

Horror Classics Remade: Friday the 13th, The Uninvited, and My Bloody Valentine

I couldn't have been happier to hear they were remaking My Bloody Valentine, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Friday the 13th. Well, maybe I was less excited about Friday the 13th, since it's probably my top 1 or 2 in my list of favorites, but I was really interested to see what they would do the TofTS and My Bloody Valentine.

My Bloody Valentine: In 3-D! I really liked the original because it felt so real. The people cast in the film actually looked like people who would live and work in a mining town (think less WB Dawson's Creek and more like Norma Rae), the mine and other settings were spooky, and there was plenty of good old killings. The remake has the added bonus of being in 3-D, so it was extra fun to watch with the pick-axes swinging out at you and the like. The cast was prettier this time around (Gotta drool on Jensen Ackles. Delish.), but filming in Pennsylvania certainly gave it the mining town feel. The remake was bloody and gory, with some good shocks. The story was pretty close to the original, with enough deviations to make it worth remaking, but not enough to make it feel like a completely different film. I am not really sure I liked the ending, but well, it could be that I am partial...

Rating:  4 1/2 Purrs Loved it!

The Uninvited: This remake of A Tale of Two Sisters was a big old disappointment. The original blew me away, with high levels of creepiness, a twisted plot, and a holy shit did that just happen ending. The Uninvited brought nothing really new to the table, but the actors were good and the setting was beautiful. Elizabeth Banks brings a nice amount of creepiness to the wicked step-mother role. I probably would have liked it better if I had no idea what was going on, so the twists would have been less obvious to me. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs - I probably would have liked it better if I hadn't seen the original. 

Friday the 13th: Let's just say that even Jared Padalecki couldn't save this movie. It's like they took the original 4 in the series and squished them all into one film, so basically any plot or minimal character development on any of the "extra" characters is lost. Plus, how do you have a Friday the 13th movie with minimal time at the freakin' Camp Crystal Lake? Jason was good, but really, why do all of the characters around the lake have to be rejects from the hillbillies-r-us casting agency? I am glad they didn't just reshoot the movie almost shot for shot from the original, but I really liked the "camp counselors at the camp" enties in the series. Why deviate from the tradition so soon? Wait for the sequels at least, and stick to the original formula for the first in the reboot. You can bring something new to the table without ignoring what made the original so great. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs...Man, I wish I could reboot this reboot. 

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

I picked up Lonesome Dove because a friend told me that it was his favorite book. I don't meet many people who love to read, so when someone tells me that a book is his favorite, and he is able to defend it when I respond, "Seriously? A Cowboy book?", I figure I really should give it a shot. I stand corrected. Lonesome Dove is much more than just a cowboy book.

Lonesome Dove is about a cattle drive and the people who participate in it or are affected in some way by it. You have my favorite character, Augustus McCrae, former Texas Ranger and current easy-going drunkard, who follows Woodrow Call, his former Captian and best friend, on the drive up to Montana. Jake Spoon shows up in Lonesome Dove, TX one day and tells his former Texas Ranger pals that the real paradise is Montana. The undiscovered, ungrazed country, so to speak. Call decides it's an opportunity not to be missed, and hires a bunch of local boys to drive a huge herd of cattle up to Montana to start one of the first cattle ranches before the wilderness is lost. He misses the urgency, the spectacle, the danger of his former days in the Texas Rangers. (Many times Gus & Call discuss the comfort of the area they have helped civilize, with Gus wondering why anyone would need to leave it.) Jake, however, has his own problems, and never really intends on joining the boys on the drive. Jake is a man of appetities, of luxuries, gambling, and using up women. When he meets Lorena, he thinks he's got it made, until she holds him to his promise to get her out of Lonesome Dove. (Lorena is another one of my favorite characters. I didn't like her much at first, but her character really grew on me. You start off thinking she will just be the hooker with the heart of gold type character, but instead she ends up being so much more complex.) Lorena joins them on the drive, along with lovesick Dish, the top hand, Newt, the youngest of the crew, and others. They face the difficult, long drive to Montana, driving the cattle across rivers, on the look out for Indians, protecting their horses and their own skin, and battling the weather.

What I liked most about this book was from the moment I started reading, I knew I was in Texas. You could almost feel the swagger, the hitching of belt buckles, the chewing of tobacco. Gus is a wonderful character, on the one hand so easy-going, and on the other, so cruel and exacting when rescuing Lorena. Lorena's whole storyline tore me up. Her grief was almost too close to home. I could see it in my head so vividly. But what I loved the most was despite the epic scale of the cattle drive, the growth of the characters, even the interplay of all of the characters, McMurtry never says this is epic. This is historic. This is significant. In fact, he leads you to question whether the whole thing is simply folly, an old man catering to his needs of danger, heroism, and valor, and whether the cost of it is too great. It's mythic and tragic all in one. You are left to question whether any of it really made any difference, even at the cost of so many and so much.

When you think of Lonesome Dove, don't think cowboy book. Yes, it is a Western. You can't deny that. But it can be so much more if you look beyond the cover.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs

Even more acquisitions to the library

My nephew challenged me this weekend. He said that he had more Hot Wheels than I had books. I hated to contradict him, so instead I took advantage of Half-Price Books 20% off sale and added a few more to the shelves. 

• A Wizard of Earthsea and The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin - The final books in one of my favorite series when I was a kid. I had the second, but not the first or the third. 
• The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe 
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - Not the type of book I would normally read but it comes highly recommended by a friend. We'll see if I agree with him. 
• Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I pretty much adore Mr. Fitzgerald
• In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien - Given to me to read by a friend years ago. (Not a friend anymore but at least she introduced me to this book.)  I finally got my own copy.
• Coyote Blue: A Novel by Christopher Moore - I'll read anything he writes. 
• Spaceman Blues: A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery - This has been on my wishlist so long I don't really remember why - I think I read about ti in Entertainment Weekly. 
• All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy - I'll also read anything he writes, or at least, I am working on it. 
• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe - One of those that I should have read a long time ago. 
• The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border by Teresa Rodriguez - The murders happening down there are so scary.
• Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
• Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
• City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room (New York Trilogy) by Paul Auster
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• The Good Guy by Dean Koontz - I don't read a lot of Koontz but I saw this on Stephen King's best of list so I thought I'd check it out. 
• Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
• Presumed Innocent: A Novel by Scott Turow
• The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons - The first science fiction/fantasy book I ever read was Hyperion. Many, many years later I discovered there were sequels. I will say that these are some of the very few science fiction/fantasy books I really, really enjoyed, so I picked them up fro Steve to read. He owes me big time for the Dragonlance books. 
  

Devour

I picked up Devour because I can’t help but have a super crush on Jensen Ackles. He is from Texas after all. I am so very thankful he got his role on Supernatural so he can have better character to play, because Devour, well, it sucked.

In Devour, Jake Gray (my favorite snarky demon fighting brother, Jensen) keeps having these really nasty nightmares. He’s in the woods hunting something, or sees his friends covered in blood, things like that. His two best friends decide that for his birthday they will sign him up for this weird online game called the Pathway, cause, you know, all the kids are doing it. Soon, his dreams get worse, his friends are starting to go a little but nuts, and he starts losing them one by one. Soon Jake is investigating the game with the help of the new gal in town, thinking somehow it is responsible for what is happening to his friends. Is it connected with the Devil somehow, and how is Jake connected?

It could have been an okay movie, if they had just left out the stupid game, or if they were going to have the game be a major player, make it more interesting like say, Stay Alive. Maybe tried to, I dunno, not try to mix a bunch of different ideas together like they threw darts at a dartboard. Overall the acting wasn’t atrocious, you could tell the actors were trying to do something with the poorly written dialogue they were given. The atmosphere was decent at times, I always love a woodland setting.

I can’t really recommend Devour, even though Jensen is in it. Just rent or buy Supernatural and watch that instead. Trust me.

Rating: I can’t even give it a 3 Purrs for Jensen being in it. This one has to get a Hiss. I hate to do it, but there it is.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

On the Road is really my first real introduction to the Beats, other than some poetry reading here and there during college. It’s a shame to think I graduated from college with a degree in Literature without more of it under my belt, but you know how those classes go – and to be honest, I did tend to focus more on those women’s studies and contemporary lit classes than post war literature. On the Road wasn’t quite what I was expecting, and I read it mostly because Pandabob has delved into his Beat era interest and he handed it over to me.

In On the Road, Sal Paradise (or Jack Kerouac, since this is a thinly veiled autobiographical work) chronicles his travels back and forth across America and into Mexico after the war. His pal, Dean Moriarty, has inspired him to hit the road to expand his horizons. He takes you on the journey with him, but it’s a journey of the days where you drive cross-country, pick up hitchhikers or become one yourself. You live free, have very little if any money, and eat cheap sandwiches made from the bread and meat you snatch from the roadside gas stations while the owner isn’t looking. There is a naiveté about it, a gleeful freedom, an energy and drive that still captures the itchy feet anyone gets sometime in their lives – the desire to break off from the known and head out to somewhere, anywhere that is different to see what there is to see – to live abundantly and honestly and free in the world at large. There is all of that, but I also felt there was also an underlying unhappiness, a feeling of drifting, with few ties to anyone or anything.

I understand the place On The Road has in American literature. It’s an important work. It’s bohemian, it’s raw and full of honest, simple language, much like you would expect. I understand that it’s highly influential. I just had a very hard time getting past just how much of an asshole Dean Moriarty is. So even though I can respect the feel of the work, what Kerouac was doing, his purpose in writing it and the movement he spawned by doing so, I also want to reach into that damn book and slap that fool Moriarty around for being such a jerk. But you know, maybe that’s just me. Part of me wanted to get in the car right then and drive, and every time we get in the car and drive to New Mexico, maybe I'll carry some of that spirit with me. 

Rating: 4 Purrs for being a great work of art, and for Kerouac for being honest enough to show the warts on himself and the people he knew

Grindhouse: Planet Terror & Death Proof

I love Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, and I will pretty much see anything they make. The idea of Grindhouse made me wiggle my toes I was so happy, and unlike a lot of other people, I was toe-wiggling happy with how it all turned out.

Grindhouse is a great tribute to the old exploitation movies of the 60’s and 70’s. It starts up with a couple of grainy trailers, which I just loved (and to be honest I can’t remember them all now). Enter then Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez’s installment. What more could you want- poison gas, flesh-eating zombies, strippers, and machine guns? After a gas is accidentally released near a military base in Texas, people start turning into crazed, brain-eating zombies. An rag-tag group of people, Cherry Darling, a local pole dancer, her boyfriend mechanic, the sheriff (Michael Biehn – woot!), a crazy doctor, his assistant wife (who has Fergie as a lover, thank you), and a group of others have to fight off the zombies, crazy military men, and all the rest to get to safety. I can’t even list how many familiar faces are in this movie: Marley Shelton, Michael Biehn, Rose MacGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Fergie from the Black-Eyed Peas, Tom Savini, and more. It’s awesome. Of course, I love zombies, so naturally I would love this half of the Grindhouse.

After a few more trailers, we get to see Quentin Tarantino’s half: Death Proof. Here, Kurt Russell plays a crazed stunt man who has a special car, a “death proof” car. He has an affinity for pretty girls, which he likes to dispatch via stunt car driving. He’s a bit kooky and over the top. Soon he meets a group of ladies who won’t take his crazy and dangerous driving lying down. They fight back, and that’s where the great car chases and action begins. It’s fun with some really awesome car chases and stunts. Zoe Bell is not a great actress, but you can tell she’s pretty excited to be doing what she is doing.

Overall, Grindhouse is everything I could have hoped it would be. Unfortunately, I had to buy 2 different DVDs to get the movies, and they are missing all of the very funny trailers that accompanied the movies the first time around. Each film has the touches of their directors, but neither one is at their best. Grindhouse isn’t for everyone, but if you like the nostalgia idea, see it for the fun.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs for well, everything. I mean zombies and chicks driving stunt cars. Come on!

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

I can hardly believe I rented Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. I liked the remake, and I liked the original, so I thought I would give this one a try. After all, it has Jordana Brewster in it, and I’ve liked her since The Faculty. Ugh. It wasn’t much to speak of, and brought nothing new to anything.

In TCM: TB, we see that the Hewitt family is in trouble. The meatpacking plant where they and Leatherface worked is closing down. The family faces starvation, and since they are obviously backwoods hicks with several screws loose, they follow right along when the head of the family kills off the sheriff of the town and serves him up as dinner. A trend is born, more or less, and old Leatherface gets to keep on doing what he is doing. This time, the first time, he gets to do it to a couple of brothers and their girlfriends on their last trip before shipping off to Vietnam. The four are appropriately pretty and very, very 70’s. Blood and guts follows, and madness ensues.

Diora Baird does a better job than I expected, since all I have seen her in before was some bit parts in movies and a Playboy photo spread. She does bring a bit more to the part than just a pretty face. She is terrified and stupefied in just the right moments. Jordana Brewster also does a good job being the plucky heroine who preservers and tries to kick butt. R. Lee Ermey is the nutso head of the family, but pretty much plays the same part he always plays: the loud, mean, crazy leader. Leatherface is just one big old lunk hauling around a chainsaw. He isn’t scary; he’s just sad and deformed.

I really hate the trend I have seen lately in horror films. There’s little plot and mostly just guts. There was no reason for this film except to show a bunch of people getting gutted and tortured. Now, I am not opposed to blood and guts. Giallo films are chocked full of it. Jason chops people in half all of the time. Honestly, I really don’t know why I disliked this movie so much. Maybe I am just tired of rampant blood and torture; maybe it’s just that there was no excuse for this movie anyway. Or maybe it was the fact that I am very, very tired of Texas always being the place where people are portrayed as backwards hicks who breed with their families, raise deformed serial killers, and scream crazy religious crap to terrorize sexy teenagers. Regardless, this movie was a waste of time, and for me to say that, you know it’s got to be bad.

Rating: 3 Hisses, for all the crazy backwards Texans and chainsaws up the gut and 1 Purr for Jordana Brewster and Diora Baird for playing sexy 70’s chickies and rising above the ickiness of this movie

Black Harvest by Josh Howard

I found Black Harvest accidentally. I had heard of Dead at 17, but I hadn’t read any of them before, and when I saw this on the rack at Titan it looked cool so I snatched it up. I wasn’t disappointed, and now I have the husband looking for all of his Dead at 17 issues in his long boxes so I can catch up on all of Josh Howard’s work.

Black Harvest takes place in Jericho, Texas, where the yearly Jericho Lights bring out the alien watchers and tourists to stare at the skies. This year, Internet blogger Daniel Webster has come out to see the Lights and see if he can find out their cause, but instead he finds Zaya Vahn, a girl who vanished mysteriously 3 years before. The people of Jericho think maybe Daniel had something to do with it, and he is strangely drawn to Zaya on his own. Something’s afoot in Jericho, and Zaya has come back to make things right, with Repent etched into her skin and vengeance in her heart.

I loved this graphic novel. I know I can’t marry it, since I am marrying Snakes on a Plane already, but I would at least date it regularly. I like Josh Howard’s art style, and I love the fact that he’s a Texas guy who writes about Texas without making us look like freaks. If you like tough chick comics with a weird supernatural slant, pick up Black Harvest and give it a try.

Rating: 5 Purrs for hot Texas chicks in comics and the Marfa lights