Rollin's Finest in HD

REDEMPTION FILMS have recently released five titles by the late French director Jean Rollin in new, HD transfers from the original 35mm prints (available on both DVD and blu-ray).  The first one to enter my collection is 1979’s FASCINATION, arguably one of Rollin’s best-looking films.

The year is 1905.  A group of high society types meet at a secluded butcher shop to drink the blood of oxen, allegedly a cure for anemia.

Jump across town to a thief named Mark who has just screwed four other thieves out of their share of a bag of gold.  Mark takes the one female thug as a hostage, but she manages to escape.  On his journey through the beautiful French countryside en route to London, Mark comes across an isolated mansion and decides to hide there until dark (the four thieves are on his tail).  Inside the mansion he meets two mysterious women, Elizabeth and Eva (played by the beautiful Franka Mai and the legendary Brigitte Lahaie) who he attempts to hold prisoner until he leaves.  But the women prove too slick for him, and eventually convince him to stay for a special reunion they’re having that night.  They won’t tell him who their special guests are, and Mark continues to ask why no one—not even the servants—are home.

When Mark tries to leave the next morning, the four thieves are waiting for him.  He’s trapped, but Eva decides to give the thieves the bag of gold in exchange for them leaving Mark alone.  She takes them to the barn for them to count the coins.  She seduces one thief, then dons a long, black cape and a scythe and dispatches the group (the effects aren’t very convincing, but the site of the lovely Lahaie in nothing but a cape makes up for it).  The last thief to get killed is the female, who Eva takes down with her scythe on the narrow foot bridge that leads to the mansion, also one of Rollin’s most iconic sequences.

When Elizabeth and Eva’s house guests arrive, they play a game of blind man’s bluff with Mark.  When what they intend to do to him is revealed, Elizabeth helps Mark escape, hiding in a giant pigeon coop.  Back at the mansion, the female guests (all dressed in ceremonial see-through robes) turn on Eva and take her down on the foot bridge, drinking her blood.

Mark confesses his love for Elizabeth, but she claims she’s not able to love him back and shoots him.  She returns to the site of her one-time lover Eva being drained of her life fluid, and the film ends as she is welcomed back into the blood-drinking cult by their leader.

If you’ve never seen a Jean Rollin film before, be advised that his films aren’t action packed, are often surreal, and rely more on atmosphere and mystery than gore and scares. In the case of FASCINATION, Rollin has created a group of aristocratic blood drinkers who aren’t vampires per se, but rather those who took a step too far in their fear of succumbing to a wide spread disease.  But considering Rollin’s use of a castle, capes, and much gothic scenery, it’s easy to label FASCINATION as another one of his vampire films.

Brigitte Lahaie and Franca Mai have never looked better, and here make an intimidating bi-sexual duo.  While there’s ample nudity (a Rollin trademark), it isn’t the centerpiece of the film, nor are the kill scenes.  The film’s ambiance and longing to find out who these mysterious house guests are keeps things moving, albeit at the director’s unique pace.

Redemption’s High-Def DVD looks absolutely gorgeous, and features a few nifty extras, the best being a 24-minute interview with Jean Rollin from a UK TV program called EUROTIKA!  Also included are two deleted sex scenes which the director shot in case he needed to turn FASCINATION into a soft core film (there’s no sound in these scenes, but Lahaie fans will love them anyway).  There’s also original French trailers for this and the four other titles Redemption has remastered, plus a 20-paged booklet with an informative essay written by Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog magazine.

Jean Rollin is definitely an acquired taste, but if you’re looking for a different take on vampirism, give FASCINATION a shot.  It’s one of the director’s best achievements, and is simply a beautiful film to look at.

 A prime example of Rollin's gore-geous scenery

 Mark realizes too late that Elizabeth is truly nuts...

 Elizabeth returns to the fold...

 Brigitee Lahaie and Franca Mai, two of the most beautiful sirens of euro cinema

 Death never looked so good...

 Eva seduces then takes out the first thief

The ladies play blind man's bluff with Mark

Jessie Shimmer Returns

SWITCHBLADE GODDESS by Lucy A. Snyder (2011 Del Rey / 323 pp / mmp)


The third in Snyder's Jessie Shimmer series finds our favorite mossberg-toting occult heroine sort-of recouping in a small Texas town after the events of SHOTGUN SORCERESS.  Like the pervious novels, the action kicks right in: Jessie is on a mission to get her familiar, Pal, healed.  He's still in the form of a giant arachnid yet has been sickened from bites by a pack of wererats.  Standing in her way is the brutal demigoddess Miko, who has found a way to enter Jessie's 'hellement,' a personal realm that has now become a torture chamber for Jessie and her boyfriend Cooper.


Jessie is still trying to control her ectoplasm-firing hand as well as her mystic-stone eye.  This time she's aided by her father (who commincates with her through compact mirrors), an energy potion concoted by her brother, and a humorous but sincere old witch who helps to heal Pal (I like what becomes of him).


Miko, the Switchblade Goddess of the title, is as sexy as she is hell-bent for blood and destruction.  Her backstory is one of the finer sections of the novel, and the torments she imputes to Jessie are beyond grim.


I'm loving this fast-moving series that combines modern urban fantasy with generous amounts of horror, action, monsters, and the supernatural.  Another cross-genre winner from Snyder.

The First GREAT Novel of 2012...

DESTROYER OF WORLDS by Daniel G. Koehane (2012 Other Roads Press / 181 pp / tp and eBook)


Corey Union moves his wife and young daughter away from the city to an isolated home.  Paranoid the world is about to end, he forbids newspapers or TV news from coming into the house.  He continues to travel to the city to work, and spends his off-time exploring his new vast, wooded property.  He also locates the key to a family heirloom; an ugly old clock, which eventually plays into his end-times apprehension.


Corey and his wife Samantha's closest neighbor is an attractive woman named Vanessa, whose actions being to trouble Corey.  She seems nice enough, but it becomes apparent she's attracted to both of them and things start to get uncomfortable.


And just why is Corey haunted by a local serial killer who is now locked behind bars for life?


DESTROYER OF WORLDS is a brilliant novel where nothing is as it seems.  The first half reads like a clever take on the end-times thriller genre with a serial killer sub-plot to give it a unique flavor.  But by the second half, Koehane assaults the reader with so many twists, turns, and surprises you won't know which way is up or down.  Add a satisfying conclusion and you have the first must-read novel of 2012.  Don't miss it.

Powerful Chapbook

THE MILL by Mark West (2011 Greyhart Press / 39 pp / eBook cb)


West's chapbook deals with a group of people who meet to counsel each other over the recent loss of a loved one.  When Michael's wife Nicola succumbs to breast cancer, he begins having strange dreams that a counselor had warned him about.  He soon disdovers that Saskia (another recent widow) has been having similar dreams about a local place where an old mill once stood.


THE MILL is a depressing yet eerie ghost story featuring some sharp writing and a dark yet comforting ending.  Fans of Gary A. Braunbeck will eat this up.

Gangs, Monsters, and Robots!

THE CRUD MASTERS by Justin Grimbol (2011 Eraserhead Press / 81 pp / tp)


Eraserhead Press continues their 'New Author Bizarro Series' with this ode to gang novels and giant monster movies. 

Boogers is a member of the Crud Masters, a group of outcasts who live on Shelter Island. Among their colorful members are Snuggles (a beefy guy who likes to hug people) and Pussy Bear, a rich woman who spent all her money to make herself look like a bear. With boobs. 

Shelter Island also has a heavy army presence: it seems giant sea monsters (called Dagoons) keep coming ashore and causing trouble, the military doing what they can to control them. Rival gang 'NOLA' (comprised of the island's rich kids) becomes unstoppable when one of their members reveals his van can turn into 'Swagatron,' a giant robot. The Crud Masters plan a way to compete, and manage to trap and train one of the Dagoons, leading to a showdown between robot and monster. 

With cyborg threesomes, rampaging monsters, animal attacks, and plenty of laughs, THE CRUD MASTERS is a wickedly fun novella, featuring simplistic prose that reads like a YA author on crack.

This Succubus Means BUSINESS!

PLEASE DON'T GO by Eric Dimbleby (2011 Pill Hill Press / 277 pp / tp)


Zephyr is a young grocery store clerk, dealing with the typical ups and downs of college life.  He's also planning on proposing to his girlfriend Jackie, both of them English majors.  One day he is assigned to deliver groceries to an old man who lives in an isolated house.  Charles Rattup turns out to be a writer who was once published in a classic anthology, quickly earning Zephyr's respect.  Charlie invites him to come back again, and the two develop a friendship built around literature and movies.


But Charlie begins to act strange, talking to an unseen presence, causing Zephyr to doubt the man's sanity.  But by the time he finds out Charlie isn't crazy, it's too late for Zephyr, as he is now held hostage by a sexually-charged entity that may or may not be the legendary Lilith, a demon common to many culture's folklore.


PLEASE DON'T GO is a clever take on ghosts, possession, and succubbi.  Dimbleby gives this one a truly unique flavor, along with a cast you'll care about and plenty of scenes filled with tension and dread.  The spirit controling Zephyr's life is as cunning as it is evil, slick as it is violent.  I was reminded of the film THE ENTITY only with a more brutal demon at play, as the torture she puts Zephyr through will get anyone's skin crawling.


This study of a man's desire to survive in the face of total hopelessness is also a genuine genre spook-fest, delivering the goods and concluding with a bit of a twist (and increasingly dreadful) finale.  Great stuff.

Flawed but Fun

DEVIL BAT DIARY by Peter H. Brothers (2011 / 221 pp / tp)


This mock journal tells the "true" story of what happened in a small American town during the summer of 1939.  The 1940 Bela Lugosi film THE DEVIL BAT was a watered-down version of these events, giving this book a "found footage" type of feel.


Chicago newspaper reporter Johnny Layton is sent to the small town of Heathville to get the scoop on the death of Ray Heath, an heir to a multi-million dollar cosmetics company.  Johnny is partnered with ace photographer "One Shot" McGuire, a "big-mouthed weasel" who Johnny can't stand.


It turns out someone is trying to kill off the Heath and Morton families with large killer bats.  The two clans are co-owners of the company, and Johnny Layton eventually discovers the bats attack those who wear a particular new brand of the companies' skin lotion.


Lugosi's character from the film, Mr. Carruthers, is here portrayed in a similar fashion, but some revelations on the "real" nature of other DEVIL BAT characters are quite funny.


DEVIL BAT DIARY is interesting for fans of the classic Lugosi film, but those not familiar with the source material might be put off by some of the goofy-sounding dialogue and an abundance of distracting slang (McGuire, Carruthers, and a local sheriff speak in heavy accents which the author spells out phonetically, which at times makes the prose a chore to sift through).


Flawed, but fun stuff for fans of classic monster movie fiction.