A Horror Blog for the Dark Corners of the Mind.
These books were all written by Koji Suzuki, who is often hailed as the "Japanese Stephen King." This isn't surprising, because he writes extremely well. The idea that watching television could kill you is revolutionary but...(spoiler alert!)...the idea that a video could contain a virus, which mutates and is, for all intents and purposes, the perfect killer, is AWESOME.
To celebrate Halloween, most blogs are doing a month-long feature. My blog will focus on the greatest pieces of horror literature. When I can, I’ll try to provide some text with each feature, but school and work are pretty crazy, so a few pictures or a video might be the best I can do.
For the first entry, I’ve chosen my favorite piece of literate of all time: Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series, six volumes of short stories. First, let’s talk about the movies that have been made from these stories. The Book of Blood is based off of the two stories that begin and end the series. It’s not really a good movie, but the stories are fabulous. The Midnight Meat Train is next—that movie is pretty great. Book two feat
ures Dread, one of the best movies I have ever seen (the picture to the right is artwork from the film); it’s also my favorite story in the series, save “Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament.” I cannot recommend Dread enough. The story is supreme, the acting is spot-on, and it is actually scary. It gets under your skin. Book three’s standout, “Rawhead Rex,” was made into a film but it is so bad Clive has disowned it and I can’t even find a copy to watch it. Volume five of the series has “The Forbidden,” which was adapted into Candyman; I maintain that movie is a poetic masterpiece. Volume six has the near-novella “The Last Illusion,” which Clive adapted into his third film The Lord of Illusions. Of all Clive’s films this one is the best—complex story, great special effects, and Clive managed to merge a horror film with a detective drama with ease. Anyway….
OH MY GOD this is the best collection of short stories I have ever—EVER—read. Take a chance and read them; you’ll enjoy it. Clive did a special series of paintings to serve as the covers for the 1986 reprint (the second from the bottom, of the woman with skull earrings and spirits in her hair, is the adaptation of “Jacqueline Ess,” which hangs proudly on my wall).
not technically Friday yet, but I'm going to a midnight showing of Let Me In and I want to work on a review tomorrow. So, I present to you the debut image for Foreign Poster Friday! This one is a classic example of how to do it right. It seems no coincidence that this is for a Cronenberg movie.
Don’t Look Up (2009)
Let’s get down to business, shall we? There’s a reason this was direct-to-DVD. Most of the film is terrible. My best friend found it at a Redbox for crying out loud! Not a good way to get your film noticed; McDonald’s isn’t a place horror movie freaks go to find their latest fix (-1). Add to this that the film is a remake. But wait, there’s more! It’s actually a remake of a film that’s about remaking a film! How clever! Not really (-1). For those that are wondering, here’s the synopsis, courtesy of IMDB: “Evil spirits released from old celluloid causes a film crew to slowly go insane while in production on a new project.”
If you watch the trailer, you’ll notice it hypes the original director, Hideo Nakata, who “created” The Ring and Dark Water. Neither of those movies is really any good. Also, Nakata did not create The Ring. That honor goes to Koji Suzuki, who wrote the trilogy (get up and go read something!). For not giving credit where credit is due (-1). Also, Fruit Chain is not an “acclaimed director” in the States. He should be, but he isn’t. Good try, though.
As stated earlier, Fruit Chan (who did the “Dumplings” segment from Three… Extremes) directs, and Eli Roth stars as a temperamental horror film director (true to life?) who dies in the first
two minutes. For these, and yes, I mean director, actor, and his death 2 minutes in, (+2). That character also has a great moustache (+1). To his credit, Eli gives the best performance out of the entire cast, something we can probably thank Quentin Tarantino for (+1). That said, the leads do well for themselves, holding their own amongst almost-standard direct-to-DVD fare. But it's not enough to really pull this film out of the vaults.
One thing that does stick out about this film is the special effects. There’s not a lot of gore, but what bloodshed we do see is just red and creepy enough. Way to go! (+3) Most of this film’s power lies in its atmosphere; it’s more like a ghost story/mystery than it is a traditional horror flick (+2 for subgenre-mashing). Every time I think about this movie I want to say that it’s called Don’t Look Now, but that movie’s awesome; for confusion and not having Donald Sutherland (-1).
Total score: 5/10. It wasn’t all that bad, but it’s not all that good either.
