Spidas in da Hood!

FEEDING GROUND by Sarah Pinborough (2009 Leisure Books / 310 pp. / mmp)

It's been 3 years since Pinborough's BREEDING GROUND, a creepy-crawly thrill ride loaded with some of the more vicious over-sized arachnids ever to grace a horror tale.

In this sequel that's as good as its predecessor, much of the action centers around a dread-locked gangsta named Blane who, with his childhood buddy Charlie Nash, are using the spider-apocalypse as a means to build their own empire in the London underground. Another group of survivors (school kids and their teacher) hang back in the shadows, waiting for a clear break away from the spiders AND the drug-dealing, prostitute-leasing gang.

In BREEDING GROUND, women were being used as incubators for the spider's offsprings; toward the end of the novel, men began to suffer a similar (although way more gruesome) fate. For some reason, Pinborough doesn't explore this in FEEDING GROUND and instead focuses on the female metamorphosises But, she gives the story a wickedly fun cult-film quality by having Blane keep his former ho's-turned-spiders high on crack, hence leading to his ability to control them. As silly as that may sound, it actually works, and makes Blane (with his crack-crazed mutant spiders by his side) one of the coolest antagonists I've come across over the past few years.

The claustrophobic climax in the London tubeway adds much to the creepiness factor, and there's plenty of room left for a third segment (although I hear the author is heading into a more mainstream thriller series, so I won't hold my breath). For now, FEEDING GROUND offers a lot of good old-fashioned "monster movie" fun.

ROSEMARY'S HORROR RAIN!

College sophomore Samantha needs money for her new apartment. She finds an ad for a babysitting job posted near her old dorm. Her friend gives her a ride out to a large, isolated house, where they're greeted by Mr. Ulman (played by Tom Noonan, looking semi-Phantasm-ish) and eventually his wife (the legendary Mary Woronov). Despite being lied to (they really need someone to watch over their aging mother), Sam takes the job anyway ("$400 for 4 hours work!") and all hell breaks loose during her first night on the job (which also happens to take place during a lunar eclipse).

Set in the 1980s, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL not only looks and feels like an unreleased late 70s/early 80s horror film (right down to the font and style of the opening credits), but plays out like one, too. While not much happens for the first 45 minutes, the second half builds some solid chills. Picture a cross between HORROR HOTEL, THE DEVIL'S RAIN and ROSEMARY'S BABY and you basically know what you're in for. Star Jocelin Donahue looks UNCANNILY like Jessica Harper in SUSPIRIA (especially one long shot of her looking out the window) and there's a cameo by THE HOWLING's Dee Wallace. Despite a lot of continuity problems and some unbelievable situations (especially a tied-up Samantha getting loose as her captors look on and do nothing), fans of occult horror will dig this---just give it some time to get started and check half your brain at the door.

One of the Best of 2009

BLUE CANOE by T.M. Wright (2009 PS Publishing / 191 pp. / hc)

Sub-titled "A Memoir of the Newly Non-Corporeal," Wright's latest offering of mind-bending, surreal horror follows the musings of a man named Happy Farmer as he attempts to recall his past from the confines of a nursing home (or is it a psychiatric ward . . . or even his grave?). In-between glimpses of his history, Happy shares his experiences of traveling across the lake (located right outside his window) in a blue canoe, and what he discovers in a little village on the other side.

Much time is spent recalling a woman named Epistobel; Happy swears she was real, then wonders if she had ever existed. He eventually remembers much about her funeral. He also spends much time dealing with a young woman who brings him meals, and contemplating a dog that continually runs back and forth across his doorway. Later in the story, Happy begins to recall the story of a missing young girl, Lily Hand, adding another dimension to his (already) manic viewpoint.

BLUE CANOE is a trippy, head-scratching excursion into a life that's either on the verge of Alzheimers, afraid of what waits on the other side, or is somehow penning this memoir FROM the other side (and it may eventually come to light that Wright is telling this from all three sides---only time will tell). Wright's writing is as sharp and witty as ever, this time sprinkled with more humor than usual. Few writers can make you truly care for their characters; Wright's ability to create characters who may or may not be real, who may or may not be ghosts, and STILL have the reader believe in them is an amazing accomplishment on its own. But placed in a story this deep and challenging, its pure genius. I read this in two sittings and didn't want it to end. Highly recommended.

Chaos Rules!

At its core, director Lars von Trier's controversial ANTICHRIST is a horror film, but not the type of horror film a Friday night multiplex crowd would appreciate.

A toddler manages to get out of his crib and finds his way to an open window. As he falls to his death, his parents (Willem DaFoe and French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, listed in the credits as "He" and "She") have sex in the laundry room. Flash to the child's funeral: She passes out during the procession and is taken to a hospital. He (a psychiatrist) thinks they're treating her the wrong way and she eventually heeds his advice by flushing away her medication. When all of his talking fails to help, the couple head to a remote cabin in the woods where He begins a series of physical and mental tests, trying to get to the bottom of his wife's grief, fears and anxieties.

She had spent some time alone with their son at the cabin the previous summer as she worked on a thesis based around wtiches and how women were treated in the 16th century.

Shortly after the halfway point, ANTICHRIST goes from a (mainly) psychological assault to a brutally physical one; while He latently torments She with psychobabble during the first half, She comes at He with all gloves off in the second (I'm betting even some jaded horror fans will get a jolt or two here). Just before these gruesome scenes that gave this film its reputation at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the wife's strange tales and folklore of the woods (ominously refered to as "Eden") begin to come true. One brilliant sequence features DaFoe discovering a still-living mutilated fox in the bushes; the film keeps its deadly serious tone despite the absurdity of what ensues.

ANTICHRIST is an assault on the senses (much help from the pulse-raising soundtrack and vivid cinematography) and a twisted view of the potential for evil all mankind has inside them. Critic Roger Ebert (google his fascinating review) believes this is an allegory of a reverse-creation story, and by the climax it's hard to argue with him. Either way, von Trier has painted a picture of a world where nothing positive exists and everything you thought you know has been turned inside out.

The final shot of the film looks like a living painting; ANTICHRIST is a unique art/horror hybrid that I won't be forgetting anytime soon. Willem DaFoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg have given their all to this project (Gainsbourg even won the Best Actress award at Cannes) and do things few actors would even dream of doing. This is dark expressionism taken almost to its limit.

(Be warned that the film is NOT RATED and features a couple of sequences that will easily upset mainstream film goers).

SUPER FETUS by Adam Pepper (2009 Eraserhead Press / 87 pp. / tp)

White trash mother Sue Ellen reminisces about the three times she got knocked-up. Inbetween, she's abused by her live-in boyfriend, tormented by her bratty kids, and wonders what on earth all that rumbling is inside her womb.

The other viewpoint of this quick & sick novella comes from the Super Fetus, an aggravated pre-born who spends his days working out and building his young body into a mini-mountain of pure muscle. When his mother decides that she can't handle another kid and tries to abort him, Super Fetus gets ticked; when the doctors fail to do the deed after several attempts, Sue Ellen decides to take matters into her own hands.

And this is when Super Fetus REALLY flies off the handle.
Despite the author's note that this tale isn't meant to be any kind of social or political commentary, I think there's some good humor that will work with those on either side of the fence.

Leave it up to Eraserhead Press to publish a tale dealing with abortion that's as funny as it is demented. My only gripe is Super Fetus doesn't "come out" until the end; perhaps a sequel is in order?

Been There, Haunted That . . .

AUDREY'S DOOR by Sarah Langan (2009 Harper / 412 pp. / mmp)

Langan (author of the excellent, Stoker-winning novel, THE MISSING), pens a haunted house story in the vein of such classics as THE SHINING and THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. Unfortunately, this one is so similar to Jeffrey Konvitz' classic THE SENTINEL I had a hard time appreciating the fine writing and well-done suspense.

A trouble-infested woman named Audrey leaves her boyfriend and moves into The Breviary, an Upper West Side apartment building that she discovers has a dark history. She's so determined to live on her own that she takes an apartment despite the super's mentioning a woman drowned her four children in its bathtub (yeah--okay!). From here the novel builds some decent tension, and the flashbacks of The Breviary's history are interesting and spooky. But it's the typical by-the-numbers conclusion (that REALLY reminded me of THE SENTINEL) that killed it for me and made me wonder why FANGORIA magazine named this their "Book of the Month" in a recent issue.

AUDREY'S DOOR, while seeking to pay homage to the haunted house genre, offers horror fans nothing new. Aside from a brief comment on modern society (something I think some will find unnecessary to the story), this is purely generic paperback pulp. I'm hoping Langan gets back on the killer track she started with THE KEEPER and THE MISSING.

Hefty Hefty Hefty...

EXPERIMENTS AT 3 BILLION A.M. by Alexander Zelenyj (2009 Ebionvale Press / 658 pp. / hc)

2 questions immediately popped into my mind when I lifted this hefty volume out of its box: Who in the world is Alexander Zelenyj? -and- A 658-page hardcover short story collection? Not that lengthy shorts collections are non-existent (i.e. Tom Piccirilli's DEEP INTO THAT DARKNESS PEERING), but one from a relatively unknown author is a kind-of ballsy move on the part of the publisher.

So I started with David Rix's brief Foreword (I had no idea who he was, either) before diving into the first story, 'The Potato Thief Beneath Indifferent Stars.' I was pleasantly surprised at both the writing and the unusually tender nature of what the editor chose for the lead off entry: this thing could go anywhere from here . . . and it does.

There's 40 stories, 20 published for the first time. Most deal with isolation and are hard to classify; Zelenyj jumps from sci-fi to horror to fantasy to bizarro, many times within the same story.

Highlights include 'Black Flies Inside,' a warped muse on obsession; 'Teenage Pirates and the Ghosting of Texas,' a wickedly fun pulp-style horror yarn; 'Let the Firefly Men Remind You,' a wonderfully eerie tale that puts a nice spin on the alien encounter thing, and 'In the City Where Dreams Wander the Sidewalks' where the author displays his skill of suggestion, here crafting a surreal tale of people's lives transformed by a mysterious man.

The final story (featured here in white font on black paper) is one of the best. 'Poppy, the Girl of My Dreams, and the Alien Invasion I can Detect Like Radar Through My Braces' is a quick yet fantastic apocalyptic, scifi love story with a genuinely heartbreaking finale.

EXPERIMENTS AT 3 BILLION A.M. surprised me from beginning to end. While it took me a while to get through its massive length (and the few head-scratchers), the majority of this fine collection is quite impressive, especially coming from an author I knew nothing about. Recommended.