Salvage (2009):

As I was watching Salvage – a movie that could easily have been tag-lined: Something Virulent This Way Comes! – I was reminded of a 4-part TV mini-series I watched in 1981: The Nightmare Man.

By age 13, I had long grown out of my ‘Dr. Who’ stage, and The Nightmare Man kept me gripped. After seeing the TV show, I read the re-issued novel, originally titled: Child Of Vodyanoi, by David Wiltshire.

Salvage has some similar themes to The Nightmare Man: a military secret, soldiers struggling to wipe out that which is prowling and killing indiscriminately, with the locals fearing if they are dealing with either a psychopath or a savage creature. Salvage was filmed on the same Merseyside TV set as the old and now cancelled British TV soap: Brookside. The plot is simple: a container found on a beach during Christmas Eve makes the news due to dead bodies also discovered at the scene. Soon the inhabitants of a cul-de-sac are contained in their homes by a team of soldiers ready to shoot anything they see moving. Among the chaos, a troubled mother fights to save her estranged daughter who is trapped in a nearby house. Can she get to her daughter without falling victim to either a soldier’s bullet, or the deadly ‘something’ that is stalking the area … which, disappointingly just turns out to be a guy with a gunky face!

A pity about Salvage; I wanted to like it. It was okay compared with so many other low-budget movies, but it ultimately lacked the way so many smaller-scale movies do: poor script, insufficient budget, some incoherent dialogue, and, despite the running around, a lot of screaming, and large helpings of blood and gore – there is a distinct lack of suspense. The actors (notably Neve McIntosh) do the best they can with the material they have, which sadly isn’t enough to lift the movie above mediocre. What could have been a welcome addition to the Dawn of the Dead / 28 Days Later genre finally came across as a bargain-basement offering that failed to deliver.

Pet Sematary, by Stephen King:

I was reminded of King’s novel by – of all things! – a clip from the 1980 episode of The Muppet Show, featuring Linda Ronstadt. One of the sketches in the show had Rowlf the dog singing: ‘The Cat Came Back’, updated from the song by Harry S. Miller, originally written in 1893.

The Muppet version’s a hilarious sketch and hearing the following lyrics from the chorus prompted me to re-read Stephen King’s Pet Sematary:

But the cat came back

She wouldn’t stay away

She was sitting on the porch

The very next day

The cat came back

She didn’t want to roam

The very next day

It was home sweet home.

Yep! A nostalgia trip back through Muppetville brought me back to King’s creepy classic for the second time! As a double-whammy, the song is also mentioned in the course of the story.

In Pet Sematary, Doctor Louise Creed and his wife, Rachel, fall in love with their new home in Maine. They have two children: daughter, Ellie, and son, Gage, who is still a toddler. They also have a cat, Church (named after Winston Churchill). The location of their home is not without its drawbacks: there is a wide road with trucks that thunder back and forth across it at every hour. Their elderly neighbor, the wise and friendly Jud Crandall, saves Gage from wandering into the road before they have even set foot into the house. After Ellie spots the narrow footpath leading into the woods, Jud senses their curiosity and takes them on a guided tour. It’s a long trek that snakes right into the heart of the woods and leads them to a place, created and maintained by children over many generations, called the Pet Sematary. Rachel is immediately spooked by the place as it triggers her phobia of death, relating to the tragedy of her deformed sister, Zelda, a victim of Spinal Meningitis. Ellie is fascinated by the grave markers and Jud explains that cemeteries are places of remembering, where the dead rest and the markers speak. Rachel takes the children to see her folks, but Louis declines the trip because of tensions between him and the in-laws. While the family are away, Church is found dead on Jud’s front lawn, presumably another road-kill victim. Jud leads Louis past the Pet Sematary, to an ancient Micmac burial ground and instructs him to bury the cat there. Afterwards, he urges Louis to keep the incident a secret. The next day, the cat is back, but its nature is markedly different. Tragedy soon strikes again and this time Gage is killed by a speeding truck. Will Louis’ grief drive him to the burial ground again? I first read this novel in 1983, when I was 15. The ending made the hairs rise up on the nape of my neck and the story stayed with me ever since. It was a treat to read it again after so many years.

The characters are rich and there are some brilliantly described passages, particularly the long trek through the woods, where the loons howl in the distance. There are also lines of narrative and dialogue in both the book and faithful 1989 movie adaptation that resonate in the memory: ‘Each buries his own … The soil of a man’s heart is stonier … A man grows what he can and tends it … What you buy is what you own … And what you own, always comes home to you.’

This is one of King’s best stories about tragedy, loss, bereavement, and the high price that can come from giving in to temptation.

Don’t be tempted to mess with burial grounds – Micmac or otherwise. As Jud Crandall warns: “What you put up there, isn’t what comes back. Sometimes, dead is better.”

Stephen King sets the tone for this story brilliantly from the beginning: Death is a mystery and burial a secret.

Pet Sematary is an eerie, morbid pleasure.

Here’s to your bones!

Christine, by Stephen King:

Ever wondered about those guys who say: “I love my car”, and look like they really mean it? Have you ever sympathized with wives and girlfriends who had a pained expression on their face as they complained: “He loves that car more than me”?
Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury, as red as the blood spilt during every term of ownership, in one of author Stephen King’s best horror stories about man’s abiding passion for cars, the need for speed, a greedy jealous love, and an obsession that turns into possession.
Arnie Cunningham is a lonely dork, bullied and rejected at school because of his looks and demeanor, in a plot thread reminiscent of King’s earlier book, Carrie, with the tormented being pushed to breaking point and taking bloody revenge on their tormentors. In Christine, the bullies are rebel Buddy Repperton and his gang, who torture weaker kids whenever they get the chance. Arnie’s only friend is football playing jock, Dennis Guilder, who narrates the story as a witness to the unfolding horror and ensuing tragedy. Arnie’s talent and passion is for auto-mechanics and he yearns for his own set of wheels. When he sees Christine, rusting and rotting away, in caustic old timer Roland D. Lebay’s driveway, it’s love at first sight.
Unknown to Arnie, Christine is possessed by a malign evil force that at first seduces and then destroys every owner.
Arnie’s attitude changes with his taste in clothes. His mood becomes darker and belligerent as he fixes up Christine, wins the most lusted-after girl in school, Leigh Cabot, and then alienates both his parents and Dennis.
For a while, Christine becomes the only good thing in Arnie’s life. She makes him feel invincible. But, like some bad people in society; the narcissistic, the sociopathic, those with no conscience who use, discard when there’s nothing left, then move on to the next victim, Christine is spiteful, seductively evil and relentless in her quest to take her owners on a fast ride straight to hell.It was filmed and directed by John Carpenter in 1983 and still stands as one of the most memorable movies of that decade, with an effective soundtrack and some great moments, particularly in the scene where the car rebuilds itself as Arnie watches on, and other scenes where the car communicates via the lyrics of rock ‘n’ roll songs from the era it was built.
Like Arnie points out: the thing about love … it eats … it has a voracious, all-consuming appetite, leaving no room for anything or anyone else.How far will you go for your love?


When you look at that prized possession in your life, that which Stephen King might have referred to in another of his stories as a “needful thing”, ask yourself a question:
do you own it, or does it own you?

Halloween … an appropriate night to revisit my favorite hotel.

Many people say that movies, not matter how great, lose something every time we watch them. That may be true of many movies, but not all. In 2010, one of my all-time favorite movies, The Shining (1980), turned 30-years-old. Like everyone, at some time during their life, I asked myself where all that time went – (into the past, I’m reliably informed) – and why it all had to go by so quickly – (because I got busy with stuff, I am also reliably informed). A lot has happened in three decades; good, bad, ugly, tragic, joyful … just like it has all through history, as it will no doubt follow with each year that still comes to pass; a mix of sadness and delight for everyone.
I remember one Saturday afternoon back in 1980 so clearly. I was 12-years-old, an avid reader, and already bitten by the writing bug, sitting on the couch reading the arts and cultural section in the middle of the newspaper because it covered the latest book and movie releases. That particular weekend there was a two-page spread on the release of the latest Stanley Kubrick movie. The release of one of Kubrick's movies always seemed like a major cinematic event in itself. That year it was The Shining, adapted from the novel by Stephen King, starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd and ‘Scatman’ Crothers. The news report didn’t give too much of the plot away, but just enough to hook my interest, and I had to know what was behind that now-famous maniacal grin that Jack Nicholson pulls so effectively, when he presses his face into the splinter gap in the door and says: “Heeeeere’s Johnny!”
The tagline on the poster repeated in my mind: “The tide of terror that swept America IS HERE”. In the weeks that followed, I saw a short “teaser trailer” on TV, a series of flash images: Jack running through the snow, hefting an axe, a young kid peddling a trike through narrow corridors, a woman holding a knife and running for her life through other corridors … I was hooked even before I’d seen the movie in full. I had to know what this story was about! In those days, 18-rated movies were given an “X” certificate. Back then, I was not even a teenager and there was no way I’d get to see it on the giant cinema screen. VCRs had been on the market for a while by then, but it would still be at least another year before the movie would be released on video cassette for rental, so I knew I had to wait.
In the meantime, I went out and bought the new edition of Stephen King’s source novel and read it before seeing the movie.

My first copy of the novel was the movie tie-in edition, with a yellow jacket and cover art from another version of the movie poster.
In the center of the book was eight pages of black and white stills from the movie.

Sadly, that copy fell apart decades ago because paperbacks will only stand so much re-reading before they disintegrate.
I would later buy a replacement copy of that particular edition and I keep it stored away because it’s now collectable.



These days, when I feel like rereading the novel, I have a cool hardback copy with a cover art image reminiscent of jolly Jack Nicholson’s grinning face from the movie.
The story is one of the best I’ve ever read: Jack Torrence is an ex-school teacher, a wannabe writer, and recovering alcoholic. On the edge of bankruptcy and losing his family, Jack is desperate for work. His friend, Al Shockley, puts in a good word for him and helps him to secure the job of winter caretaker at the Overlook hotel, which is isolated in the mountains and cut off during the months of heavy snow. At first, it seems the perfect solution to all their problems: for the months they are residing at the hotel, they have no rent to pay, plenty of food stored in the hotel pantry and freezer, they are being paid to stay there, once the snow cuts them off Jack will not be tempted to frequent a local bar, and there is no alcohol on the premises either. It is a time of quiet, almost monastic, solitude in which he and his wife, Wendy, and their young son, Danny, can recover from their troubles while Jack finishes his play.
The Shining of the title is the psychic ability Danny is born with, a gift shared by the hotel cook, Halloran. Danny experiences terrifying and prophetic flashes, but he is too young to properly interpret the visions. Jack also experiences similar visions, which suggests that Danny inherited the power from him.
From the back-story we learn how the marriage is in trouble, made worse when Jack lost his previous teaching position because of an alcohol-related incident. He also has a violent temper. However, they remain optimistic about their future … until they are shut in for the winter, the snow cuts them off from the outside world, the hotel begins to come to life and supernatural forces start to work against them.
They each occupy themselves as best they can through the following days and weeks, as the snow gets deeper, the wind howls, and time seems to stand still: Danny plays on his tricycle, using the long, deserted hotel corridors as a grand prix circuit, and plays with his cars and fire engine. Wendy cooks for the family, watches TV and attends to the daily routine of the hotel heating system.
Jack settles in the cavernous Colorado Lounge and makes it his own study as he tries to work on his book.


Jack’s gradual mental disintegration is frightening to watch. “Cabin Fever” is a real condition and frustration, isolation and boredom can have a debilitating effect on the human psyche. The eerie winding hotel corridors move in tighter as the evil force turns the family against each other.
There are several differences between the novel and movie, particularly with the endings, but both work in their own right.
Stanley Kubrick’s direction gives the story a suitably chilling atmosphere. The camera work is flawless, particularly the breathtaking fly-over of Wild Goose Island at St Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana, in the scene that opens the movie. This is followed by the aerial shots over the beginning titles, with the camera following Jack in his VW car as he follows the winding mountain roads, which lead him to The Overlook Hotel. The exterior of the hotel was shot at The Timberline Lodge, Mount Hood, Oregon.
This is far more than the average brainless stalk-n-slash story. The build up to the horror is slow and deliberate. As in real life, these things can be the result of a gradual build up of events.
However, The Shining is, at its core, a ghost story, with the ending of the movie version even hinting at … ah, but that would be telling.
To those who haven’t yet seen Jack Nicholson swing that fire axe and breaking through those doors with practised expertise, a skill acquired from his real-life time in the fire department, along with all the eerie pleasure and superb photography this movie has to offer, all I can say is save a dark evening, keep the lights off, turn up the volume on this one and enjoy a truly great movie.
I took this photo for posterity and the purpose of this blog, because wherever I go, the opportunity to watch and enjoy the movie always comes up. I was able to pass some time of a plane flight, with the screen on the back of the seat in front of me. It was a long flight and I was able to pass the hours with The Shining, followed by Stanley Kubrick’s 1963 black comedy masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove. Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963), and Ridley Scott’s swords and sandals epic, Gladiator (2000).

I spent a night in a hotel and, as I was relaxing on the bed watching the weather report on the TV news, propped up with pillows behind me, a scene from The Shining flashed into my mind. Here I was, reliving a scene from that movie: the part where Scatman Crothers, as Halloran, is relaxing in his hotel room, also watching the weather report on the TV news.
When I returned home, I re-watched the movie … again! It was partly to check my photo with the scene, which I could have done by using the scene selection and jumping to that particular section of the movie. But I didn’t. I watched the whole movie again, pausing when I reached that scene to compare my picture with it.
There was no portrait of a beautiful and voluptuous woman above the TV in my hotel room, or lamps on either side of the TV, or pillow beneath my feet ... but still - pretty close!
The Shining, both novel and movie have never lost anything for me over the years since 1980. Reading a favorite book and seeing a favorite movie can be like being visited by an old friend. It takes me back to other times in my life when I have either reread the book or watched the movie again. During the late 1980s, I was lucky enough to see it on the big cinema screen, a repeat screening, double-billed with The Border, a crime drama Jack Nicholson made in 1982, co-starring Harvey Keitel, Valerie Perrine and Warren Oates, another under-rated classic.
I wonder when I will watch The Shining again, where I will be in my life when I take another walk through those fictional hallways, what other goals I will have achieved by then, what news I will have from my friends, and what will be new in the world.
It was a great Halloween … an appropriate night to revisit The Overlook, my favorite hotel … not that I need an excuse to revisit that particular hotel any time.

Shine on everyone!

Bug (2006):

Seems all we ever talk about is bugs. But I guess I’d rather talk with you about bugs than nothing with nobody.

– Ashley Judd, as Aggy, In Bug (2006).

Horror that deals with the psychological breakdown of the mind is more cutting than any of the creature-features simply because mental illness is real and it can happen to any of us. Like the paranoia and bugs that are the themes of this story, mental illness can be insidious; it can creep up on us slowly and eat away at our reason and sense of reality.
Bug, based on Tracy Letts’ play (who also wrote the screenplay) and directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection), is a powerful and stylish horror that improves with each viewing. The cast give perfect performances and the tension builds from a relaxed opening to a nightmare climax.
Ashley Judd plays Aggy, a waitress leading a lonely existence in a rundown Oklahoma motel room. She’s also a cocaine addict, plagued by a ringing telephone, and her violent ex-con ex-husband, Jerry (Harry Conick Jr.), while grieving over the abduction of her six-year-old son.
Desperate for love and companionship, Aggy latches on to Peter (Michael Shannon), a nervous drifter who confides in her that he’s on the run from the army after they had experimented on him by implanting hybrid bugs into his body and pumping him full of drugs.
Aggy rejects the attempts of her only true friend, R.C. (Lynn Collins), and the mysterious Dr. Sweet’s (Brian F. O'Byrne) attempts to “rescue” them from their destructive situation. He describes Peter as “a delusional paranoid with schizophrenic tendancies”.
Now closed off from the world, Aggy and Peter hole up in the motel room and wage war against the infestation.
The power of this story is in its ability to raise questions in the viewer’s mind. What is really going in with Aggy? Are the bugs and Peter’s conspiracy theories real or shared delusions that Aggy comes to accept as her sanity crumbles? Is it a case that it’s not really paranoia if (they) are really watching you? Are the titular bugs really insect or in fact a new form of surveillance? Are Aggy and Peter the subject of a cruel experiment? Could it simply be that Aggy and Peter, fuelled by cocaine, paranoia and irrational fears, are both mentally ill and they drag each other down into the abyss? Are Peter and Dr. Sweet real or just Aggy’s hallucination?
It’s a telling detail near the climax of the movie, at the moment when Jerry attempts to break into the motel room. From the inside we hear the thunderous roar of a helicopter, the room shakes violently, and powerful search lights shine in through the windows. However, outside the door, from Jerry’s perspective, there are no helicopters.
Madness breeds madness.

I Shudder at Your Touch: Twenty-two Tales of Sex and Horror, edited by Michele B. Slung:

An eerie and erotic collection of 22 short stories, drawing on the themes of sex, death and insanity. One of the best in this anthology is Keeping House, by Michael Blumlein, describing a housewife’s mental breakdown as she loses her grip on reality and descends into violence and insanity. A mermaid, vampire, werewolf and more are within these pages. Dark, gothic, seductive, for adults only and not for the faint of heart.

The Mothman Prophecies, by John A. Keel:

The book came my way after I saw the movie, starring Richard Gere. I’m including both versions in this review as I feel the movie’s the better of the two: a sharper and more focused retelling of the accounts leading up to and including the Silver Bridge tragedy on the Ohio River, between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1967.
How much readers believe of the mystery surrounding the Mothman encounters and sightings depends on how open-minded they are.
The book is a catalogue of various sightings and experiences of not only the Mothman, but also a wide variety of paranormal phenomena, including angels, demons, alien visitations, mutilated animals, accounts of UFO sightings, testimonies from witnesses, including several who have been approached by the “Men in Black” – among them the enigmatic and indefinable Indrid Cold. Several witness were afflicted by a strange conjunctivitis, having seen “something” and been exposed to an energy that left them injured. Many of the Mothman witnesses share a mindset in common: what they saw frightened them, they don’t feel privileged to have seen it and they hope they never see it again.
The fact that people witnessed and experienced this phenomenon can’t be repudiated; there are similar accounts from all over the world and at different times throughout history.
The movie is fabulously intense, eerie and atmospheric with excellent performances from all the actors. It’s a mesmerizing story about the blurring of our perception of the natural and supernatural world, where the “sensitive” among us may glimpse things not usually apparent to the majority. One explanation I like is that this phenomenon has been around us all the time and they are a form of natural energy.
In the end, a lot comes down to faith. Many are simply frightened by what they don’t understand, or what doesn’t fit into their view of what constitutes “normality”. It’s easy to be sceptical, particularly when knowledge often comes marred in sound-bites, information overload and disinformation, but we live in a big world, surrounded by a vast, infinite universe.
How much of that is still mystery?
We have a need to know. But maybe it’s as the character Alexander Leek in the movie, played by Alan Bates, points out: we’re not allowed to know!

Carrie (1976)

“I got invited to the prom.”
– Cissy Spacek, as Carrie white. 

 

 























Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel succeeds on levels that not many horror movies ever have: it is both chilling and heart-breaking; a supernatural tragedy.
We are first introduced to Carrie White (Cissy Spacek) in an opening scene that sets the tone for the entire movie, as she fumbles a play, resulting in her team losing a volley ball game. One bully, Norma (P.J. Soles), slaps her with a baseball cap moments before another, Chris Hargenson (Nancy Allen), informs her that she eats shit!
Carrie is small, fragile and vulnerable, the school misfit and outcast everyone bullies when they aren’t ignoring. However, by underestimating Carrie, her tormentors have made the biggest mistake of their lives. Carrie is gifted with telekinesis, which we see as a power-spike of her emotions whenever she reaches a peak of her anguish or rage: the light bulb exploding in the ceiling of the shower room, an ashtray spinning from a desktop, a cruel child suddenly thrown from his bike after chanting at her: “crazy Carrie”, mirrors shattering, windows and shutters slamming closed.
Home life proves to be equally as hellish as the hours she endures at school. She’s ruled over and punished at every turn by her deranged, religious maniac mother, superbly portrayed by Piper Laurie.



Upon discovering that Carrie has begun to menstruate, her mother immediately jumps to the conclusion that it’s God punishing her for some sin she believes she must be guilty of committing. After ranting twisted dogma, Margaret White drags Carrie kicking and screaming into a small closet, where she makes her stay for hours, praying to a strange-looking effigy. In later scenes, Margaret tells her: “pimples are the Lord’s way of chastising you” and refers to women’s breasts as “dirty pillows”. Then she resorts to self-harming, scratching her own face and yanking at her hair because she is losing her hold over Carrie.
Amy Irving plays Sue Snell, seemingly the only student in the entire school with a conscience. She feels guilty after joining the others and mocking Carrie in the shower room and persuades her boyfriend, Tommy Ross (William Katt) to take her to the prom as a way of redeeming herself. Unbeknownst to her, chief bully Chris has plans of her own for Carrie, the prank to top them all, the ultimate humiliation in front of the entire school.



At first, Carrie and her compassionate gym teacher, Miss Collins (Betty Buckley), are suspicious of Tommy’s motivations, fearing that they are attempting to set her up again. But Carrie finally gives in and agrees to be his prom date.



My favorite scene is the dance they share during the prom. It’s perfectly filmed as the camera spins in one direction and the actors turn the opposite way as they dance. Carrie shares her first kiss with Tommy and her suspicions evaporate as he puts her mind at ease and confesses that the poem he wrote during class, which she loved, wasn’t his work. They laugh and spin faster, as the music swells to the lyrics: “I Never Dreamed Someone Like You (Could Love Someone Like Me)”, beautifully sung by Katie Irving.



At this point, Carrie, caught up in the magic of the moment, is at her happiest and she believes that she has finally been accepted and her life has changed for the better. Cissy Spacek is superb in the role and it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for the character she plays. Her joy and childlike innocence is also well portrayed in an earlier scene at the pharmacy, as she experiments with lipsticks.
We see Carrie at her best, beautiful inside and out, before she is humiliated for the last time and we see the worst side of her rage. She takes her revenge in a scene bathed in a blood-red light, matching the blood her tormentors have drenched her in.



Albeit a horror movie, this is a powerful examination of victimization and it’s consequences for perpetrators and innocent bystanders alike – the latter of which happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (as is often sadly true in real life) when Carrie was pushed over the edge.



Can Carrie be blamed for venting her wrath on the perpetrators who played one prank too many?
How far is too far?
Carrie is one of those rare horror movies with a great script, humorous and terrifying by equal measure, classily directed and brilliantly acted throughout, giving the movie a beating heart at the core and one of the best shock endings in movie history.
Watch out for the quiet ones; they can often be hiding the sharpest temper.

A Harbinger’s Tale & Three Days Without Grace, by Dale Reierson

A Harbinger’s Tale, by Dale Reierson:

If God asked you to be the Harbinger of the Apocalypse … would you do it? This is the question posed to both narrator and reader alike as both are taken on an original and refreshingly unpredictable fast-track into Armageddon and beyond.
On his eighth birthday, the narrator is blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the symbols of the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse on his body.
Is the narrator suffering from some kind of mental illness, brought on by the trauma of his parents’ deaths, followed by the horrific circumstances of his grandmother’s death and the nightmare of the foster home … or is he exactly who and what he claims to be?
A disaster on the moon results in calamity on earth, along with natural disasters, global warming on an extreme scale, entire nations wiped out. Survivors take refuge in an orbital space station, only to fall foul of the “have-nots” of the world. The cities that still stand and are still inhabited, then reform and reinforce themselves into “hives”, with the remaining factions of humanity clinging on to existence and a semblance of order. Mankind seems to finally have it locked down tight until the breaking of another seal unleashes demons and zombies.
This is a ferocious, thought-provoking, and darkly comic horror story, told with a dry, sarcastic wit.
Excellent book for discussion in reading groups.
As the song goes: don’t fear the reaper!

I also recommend by the same author:

Three Days Without Grace:

With similar themes of religion and horror as the author covered in his novel: A Harbinger’s Tale, this story focuses on the crucifixion and resurrection, retold from the point of view of mankind’s greatest enemy as he attempts to plunge the world into darkness and chaos.
A well-written short story about good ultimately triumphing over evil.