A Bunch of Book Reviews

I haven't blogged much in the past few months and now I have a lot of books to review. So I'm going to review them in groups rather than a post per book because otherwise I won't get around to reviewing them all.

Slugs by Shaun Hutson

I thought this book about human-eating slugs would be more entertaining than it actually was. The main character - the health inspector, which he is referred to in the novel so much that I don't remember his name - was so dull. The characters were all one-dimensional, boring and I really didn't care if they were eaten alive by slugs or not.  And the explanation behind why slugs suddenly grew teeth and started taking bites out of people made no sense.

Okay, I guess maybe I expected too much from a book about killer slugs. I didn't completely hate it - there are a few good, gory scenes that I enjoyed. If you read it with low expectations then you might like it more than I did.

This was also made into a 1988 film of the same name. I haven't seen it but I think the story might work better as a movie.

Rating: 3/5

Mandibles by Jeff Strand

This is another book about killer insects, this time ants.

I enjoyed Mandibles much more than Slugs. It's funnier, has more interesting characters and the existence of the giant killer ants is explained better and actually makes sense (as much as the thought of insects eating humans can I suppose).

The Kindle edition is available for only $2.99.

Rating: 4/5

Stranglehold by Jack Ketchum

As I've already said before on this blog, Jack Ketchum is my favourite horror author. So when Crossroad Press started releasing some of Ketchum's novels as cheap e-books, I was thrilled and bought a bunch of them for my Kindle - including this one.

Stranglehold reminds me a bit of The Girl Next Door because they both deal with child abuse, only this book isn't quite as gruesome. It's still very disturbing and realistic though. I don't want to give too much away about this book so I'm simply going to say it's amazing and I think all horror fans should read it.

Rating: 5/5

The Nightrunners by Joe R. Lansdale

This book is a lot like the movie Straw Dogs, but with a supernatural twist.
After a woman, Becky, is raped, she goes on a vacation to a cabin with her husband, Montgomery, to help them forget about it. Montgomery feels bad about his inability to protect his wife and claims to be a pacifist to cover up the fact that he's a coward.

The man who raped her is sent to prison and hangs himself. But he was the leader of a gang that is involved with an evil entity called The God of the Razor. It wants death and destruction - and for them to finish what they started and kill Becky.

The Nightrunners is incredible - definitely one of the best horror novels I've ever read. It's suspenseful, has an interesting plot and likable characters. If you haven't already read it, do it now!

This is the first book by horror legend Joe R. Lansdale I've read, but after reading The Nightrunners, I'll definitely be reading more. I bought The Complete Drive-In because I heard it was good, but have yet to read it.

Rating: 5/5

Ghoul by Brian Keene

Like It by Stephen King, Ghoul is a coming-of-age tale where a group of kids battles a monster. The trio of boys in this book make a clubhouse in a cemetery where they come across a ghoul.

I loved everything about this book - I even liked it more than It (which I found to be waaay too long and boring in spots). I highly recommend it to all horror fans.

Ghoul was made into a movie for Chiller which aired April 13 starring Nolan Gould (Luke on Modern Family), but unfortunately I couldn't watch it because Chiller isn't available in Canada. Hopefully it comes out on DVD soon so I can watch it. Has anyone seen it? I'm curious if it was as good as the book.

Rating: 5/5

Suffer the Flesh by Monica J. O'Rourke

I actually hadn't read anything by Monica J. O'Rourke when I interviewed her last year for Women in Horror Recognition Month. In the interview she said "My co-author (Wrath James White) said he approached me to write Poisoning Eros with him after reading Suffer the Flesh because he was shocked a woman had written it. I get that a lot, how people are surprised a woman could write something so extreme. I’ve been told I 'write like a guy.'" That made me want to seek out her work even more. When Suffer the Flesh was released as an e-book for a mere $2.99, I bought and read it immediately.

I can definitely see how others could be surprised that a woman wrote it. Suffer the Flesh is extremely gory and features many rape scenes. It's about an overweight woman (Zoey) who is captured off the street in New York after browsing the self-help/diet section of a bookstore and is taken to a secret research centre where they "help" women lose weight by raping and torturing them. 

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was suspenseful - I couldn't stop reading because I wanted to find out how (or if) Zoey would get out of this situation. I also found Zoey to be a very sympathetic character. I could relate to her weight loss struggles and hoped she would get out of there alive. I recommend this book for people who can handle extreme gore - including sadistic rape.

Rating: 4/5 

Dismember by Daniel Pyle

This is a backwoods novel with a twist. When a young boy is "rescued" by a man who lives in the woods after surviving a car wreck he has no idea that worst is yet to come.

Then the narrative moves forward several years and the boy has become a man not unlike his captor. Now he's looking for a new family to replace his.

The only thing I enjoyed about this novel was the first chapter. The plot is boring and excruciating slow. It took me a whole month to read Dismember and I struggled to finish it. There's no action or suspense. Other than the car accident in the beginning, there are maybe two deaths in the whole book. With a title like Dismember and a cover with a bloody axe, I expected it to have much more gore.

If you're still interested, it's available for Kindle for $3.99, but I recommend skipping this one.

Rating: 2/5

Super Fetus by Adam Pepper

When a fetus realizes its mother's intentions of having an abortion it begins working out so it can stand a chance against the doctor. But when it defeats the doctor its mother takes matters into her own hands....

Super Fetus was the first bizarro book I've read and I enjoyed it a lot. Weird and disturbing yet highly entertaining. At times I would be laughing, then read the next few pages and stop reading in disgust. Well, there were only a few moments in the book that I found gross, but they were very gory/disturbing (just thinking about them now makes me shudder). Recommended for horror fans looking for something different and humorous.

Rating: 4/5

BOOK REVIEW: Shades of Green by Ian Woodhead

One day Holburn is the average small English town, and the next it is transformed into a Hell with killer plants, monstrous spiders, demons and other horrors. Survivors Damian, his girlfriend, Jen, his brother, Alan, Jen's uncle, Pete, his friend, Dave, an old man, Arthur, and a hobo, Ernest, struggle to escape the town and attempt to figure out what is happening.

Shades of Green has an interesting, but convoluted, concept. At the beginning, the reader is placed in the middle of the action and it takes awhile to get into the book because you have no idea what is going on. There are also several dream sequences which make you question whether what you're reading is real, or just another dream. I was unsure of what was happening throughout the book and I still don't fully understand because the resolution was confusing as well.

The typos don't help to understand the plot either. The book is full of major errors, which change the meaning of sentences. I had to re-read some sentences several times and guess at what word Woodhead actually meant to use. For example, in the first chapter the names of the two brothers are reversed. Damian is described as the older brother who has a fear of germs and Alan is the younger brother who is dating Jennifer. Then in Chapter 2, they are the opposite. It was incredibly confusing and I didn't know which was the mistake.

The characters aren't developed well and are basically just names on a page. I constantly confused Arthur, Dave and Pete because they were all referred to as "old men" and didn't have many other discerning qualities.

But Woodhead writes great descriptions of the disturbing scenery in Holburn, making it easy to picture the ruined town and also creates some very gruesome images.

Shades of Green would be a decent novel if it was edited better. If you don't mind typos, you can buy it for only 99 cents on Amazon. But I would recommend skipping this one.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: 13: Game of Death

Remember that reality show Fear Factor where contestants would perform crazy stunts and eat disgusting things to win a whopping $50,000?

Well, 13: Game of Death is like that show crossed with a Saw film. But instead of getting a new lease on life after you've finished your gruesome challenges, you win one million dollars.

Chad just got fired from his job and is deeply in debt. When he gets a call from a stranger offering him one million dollars in exchange for completing 13 challenges, his money problems are solved. ...If he can push aside his morals to do horrible, difficult and disgusting things, that is.

But with the exception of a few challenges, the film isn't gory. There was a lot of potential for crazy gore scenes because essentially the story-line is about forcing Chad to do the most gruesome things imaginable (he is getting a million dollars out of it, after all), but the film doesn't deliver.

The film is more of a drama with a few gory scenes thrown in, making the pace sporadic. There would be an exciting challenge, then a dull one, then another exciting one. I found it hard to pay attention the whole time because it is very boring at times.

And the big "twist" ending is a big disappointment. It's not that I saw it coming, I just didn't think it was interesting because there was only three minutes of back-story to explain it.

13: Game of Death has an interesting concept, but I would've enjoyed it more if it had been 100% horror. This is a Thai film and the version I watched was badly dubbed, so if you decide to check this one out make sure you watch the subtitled version.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Zombie Strippers

I just got Bell satellite and for the next two months I get the Super Channel package (consisting of four movie channels) for free! They show tons of horror movies and I also just got a PVR, so I'll have lots of reviews to come. The first horror film I watched is Zombie Strippers.

I don't know what I expected from a movie titled Zombie Strippers. I guess I hoped it would be funnier than it actually is. What you get is zombies and strippers. That's it. Not much humor, or interesting characters or passable dialogue. Just zombies and strippers - oh, and eventually you get zombie strippers.

When the American government develops a virus that brings the dead back to life, a soldier gets bitten by a zombie. Later, he checks out a strip club and ends up biting one of the strippers, Kat (Jenna Jameson). Instead of killing her, the owner of the strip club, Ian (Robert Englund), allows her to continue stripping and she becomes the most popular stripper in the club. Soon all the girls must become zombies to compete and the strip club is making loads of money. Even when the girls start eating/turning patrons into zombies, Ian looks the other way. But soon there are more zombies than humans in the club. Will they be able to kill the zombie strippers before they get eaten?

There isn't much of a plot. As I already mentioned it's about zombies and strippers, and strippers who eventually become zombies.

The characters are all stereotypes - the Mexican janitor, the Christian stripper who desperately needs money for her Nana's operation, etc. This wouldn't matter if they had been funny, but they weren't. And the acting is awful - except for Robert Englund as the sleazy owner of the strip club. At least he has a few funny lines.

There are so many other zombie comedies out there that are actually funny (Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, Dead Alive, Dance of the Dead, Attack of the Vegan Zombies, just to name a few), so I would skip Zombie Strippers and watch one of those instead.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Mortuary (Horror Collector's Set Part 2)

Alfalfa (Bug Hall) from The Little Rascals movie (1994) plays a punk/zombie in Mortuary, which excited me because I adored that movie when I was growing up. Unfortunately, that is the only excitement I felt during the film. I don't know what happened to Tobe Hooper, but he is no longer reliable as a horror director. From now on I will proceed with caution on all his projects.

Leslie Doyle and her two children, Jonathan and Jamie, move to a small town so she can take over as mortician at the Fowler Funeral Home and cemetery. But there's a town rumour about the Fowler family and their son, Bobby. As the story goes, Bobby is horribly deformed and supposedly murdered his parents. Now he lives in a tomb, only coming out at night. Soon the Doyles realize that the story isn't just town gossip.

There were a few so-bad-it's-good scenes in the film, but not enough to make it good, so it's basically just a bad film. Seeing the mortician mother onscreen was usually good for a laugh. Especially her attempts to embalm dead bodies while consulting her medical text.

The plot is the same old zombie plot with a few weird quirks - such as zombies puking on people to turn them into other zombies.

The acting isn't bad. The film features a few horror movie veterans like Denise Crosby (Pet Sematary) and Lee Garlington (Psycho II & III).

Mortuary is pretty awful, but at least it's not as bad as Bloody Mary.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Dead Mary

Oh how I love to watch movies on TV. Instead of wasting 1 hour 40 minutes on a crappy film, I spent 2 hours 20 minutes watching Dead Mary on Dusk, a channel which has a commercial break every 10 minutes. Definitely not worth my time.

A group of old friends - a recently broken up couple, a new couple, a married couple and a single friend - reunite to spend a weekend at a remote cabin in the woods. One drunken night they decide to play Dead Mary. Dead Mary is a game which is basically a clone of Bloody Mary, except as they explain in the movie, "Bloody Mary is the lame version." They take turns repeating Dead Mary in the mirror three times and go to bed afterward, only to be woken up in the middle of the night by screaming. One of them is dead and one of them is a killer. But what would possess someone to murder one of their friends? Or who?

As you can see, the plot is fairly cliched and unoriginal - except that instead of having a ghost/demon/ghoul/zombie summoned from the repetition of her name in the mirror, she possesses one of the friends and the film becomes a sort of whodunit, with the group trying to figure out who the killer is. But too much of the film concerns a dull subplot about who has been sleeping with who, which drastically slows the plot, having murders interspersed with heated arguments about cheating.

Dead Mary has only one setting and very little action, so I looked to the characters to immerse myself in the film, but not a single one was likable. They were all cheaters or self-centered or weak or stupid. Actually they were all pretty stupid (let's wait for 24 hours and when it's nighttime, everyone is almost everyone is dead and it's pouring rain, we'll go for help). The unlikable characters made an already weak film almost unbearable.

And the ending gave no answers, or even a resolution. There was no explanation of who Dead Mary was, how the legend started or why she possesses and kills people.

But for all my complaints Dead Mary has some redeeming qualities. A few scenes are atmospheric: walking through the pitch black woods in the middle of the night, hearing strange noises barely audible over the sound of crickets, but knowing that something is out there and then: BAM! it jumps out of nowhere. Although that scene gave me chills, the whole film isn't worth watching just for it.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Leprechaun 2

"She sneezes once, she sneezes twice, she'll be me bride when she sneezes thrice."

On Leprechaun's 1000th birthday, he gets the chance to make a woman his bride by getting her to sneeze three times. But her father spoils his attempt, so he has to wait another 1000 years before he can try again. He decides to make the woman's descendant his bride, but her boyfriend isn't going to let him have her without a fight.

The film is slow and drags a lot. I was bored and kept wondering when the leprechaun would kill someone. When that finally happened, it was disappointing because the gore was shown off screen.

The acting from the two leads is atrocious. Leprechaun's bride is one of the worst actresses I've ever seen and I could barely watch her - even her scream is terrible. But there are funny cameos from Michael MacDonald (MadTV) and Clint Howard.

This film isn't as funny as its predecessor, but it still provides a few laughs. Especially the scene where they trick the leprechaun into getting drunk. But I didn't find the few laughs I got from this film to be worth witnessing the horrible acting and dull scenes.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf

This sequel to The Howling is pretty bad. And not so bad it's good either. There are a few funny scenes, but mostly this movie is just a mess.

Karen White is dead and at her funeral, her brother, Ben (Reb Brown), and his friend Jenny (Annie McEnroe), meet Stefan (Christopher Lee), a werewolf hunter. They accompany him to Transylvania to stop Stirba, Queen of the Werewolves. If they don't kill her by the next full moon - which is the tenth millennium of Stirba's birth - at midnight on that day, all werewolves will reveal themselves.

I enjoyed this film up until the point where Stirba starts using magical powers - complete with lightning bolts flying out of her hands - to defend herself from the werewolf hunters. Why does a werewolf need magical powers? Just shapeshift and tear them to shreds! The movie just got worse from there.

The special effects were nowhere near as good as the first film. The werewolves looked more like bears than wolves.

The music was horrible. It basically consisted of one crappy 80's new wave song that they played over and over. The werewolf-centered lyrics of that song rival the lyrics R.L. Stine wrote in Bad Moonlight.

Howling II is just too ridiculous and nonsensical for me. I did enjoy the gore scenes though - especially the eyeball exploding scene. Oh, and this is another movie I watched for free on YouTube.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Animals

I was looking forward to this film because it's based on John Skipp and Craig Spector's 1992 novel of the same name, which unfortunately I haven't read yet because it's notoriously hard to find. Actually there's a copy on eBay for $45 right now, but I don't even have enough money to buy a $10 paperback let alone that. But I've liked everything I've read by Skipp and Spector so far, so I thought this film would be worth a look, especially since the screenplay was adapted by Spector (he and Skipp also wrote the story for A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child). It wasn't. Even John Skipp said it's crap on Brian Keene's website forum.

When an injury ruined Jarrett's (Marc Blucas) football career, he returned to his small hometown. Now he spends his days at his lousy dead-end job and his nights at his friend's bar. One night a mysterious woman (Nicki Aycox) enters the bar and she begins an affair with Jarrett. But he doesn't know that she's a werewolf and has a dangerous werewolf boyfriend (Naveen Andrews).

I don't know where to begin. The storyline wasn't that bad, but nothing was explained, and at times I had no clue what was going on. Especially during the dozen flashbacks at the beginning. I had no clue what was the present and what was the past.

There was a sex scene every ten minutes, which was unnecessary and wasted at least 20 minutes of the film. And Jarrett hardly talked to his lover because all they did was have sex. I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be in love or it was just a fling or what.

But the worst part of the film was the CGI ghost wolves. Yes, that's right, ghost wolves. When a wolf appeared, there was a cloud of smoke and then a see-through wolf would be onscreen. They were the most ridiculous looking animals I've ever seen in a film (and I've seen Rodentz with the man in a rat suit; at least that was funny).

The tons of slow motion scenes, flashbacks and crappy techno soundtrack also added to the lousiness of this film.

I'm going to give Animals a 2 because I think the plot could've been promising (it was based on a Skipp/Spector book, after all) but the direction was just awful. Animals hasn't been released on DVD yet, it's only available on Video on Demand, which may be for the best.

Rating: 2/5

BOOK REVIEW: Borrowed Flesh by Sephera Giron

About the Author

Sephera Giron is the author of Eternal Sunset, House of Pain, The Birds and the Bees, Borrowed Flesh, Mistress of the Dark and Hungarian Rhapsody. She lives in Toronto and is the Horror Writers Association Ontario rep. In addition to being a published author Giron is an actress and has appeared in a community theatre version of Evita, and is also a tarot card reader.

Review

The back cover blurb of Borrowed Flesh is misleading and had me pretty disappointed. Basically, it says the book is about a witch who kills virgins and bathes in their blood in order to gain eternal youth. This only happens twice (providing the only gore and horror) and is not the focal point of the novel. Here's what the back cover blurb should say:

Vanessa is a witch with eternal life who makes a living reading tarot cards. When several of the town's women residents come to her for help with their straying husbands, she has a feeling there is something else keeping the men away. When she tries to solve the mystery she realizes she's not the only witch in town.

Borrowed Flesh should have been marketed as a paranormal romance because the novel focuses Vanessa's budding relationship with David. The parts where she bathes in virgin blood could have been easily cut out because it's not essential to the plot and are the only parts that could be considered horror.

The characters aren't very deep and I didn't find myself caring about what happens to them. Vanessa is portrayed as a "good" witch, yet she kills innocent virgins to obtain something as frivolous as looking young, which made me dislike her. She's the heroine of the novel and Giron tries to make her seem caring, but I couldn't get over the fact that she murders young women and bathes in their blood just to look pretty. Also, some characters are mentioned over and over without explaining them. Sophie constantly appears in Vanessa's dreams but there's no explanation of who she is or why she is significant to Vanessa's life. And Vanessa's ex Demian is described a bit, but there's no clarification of why he and Vanessa broke up or what their relationship was like, Giron just says how Vanessa will always love him over and over.

Although I didn't care for the characters, the novel held my interest until the end because of Giron's direct writing style and my curiosity of why the husbands went missing. Which brings me to the part of the novel which I hated the most: the anticlimactic ending. I got to the end just to find a measly five pages dedicated to the fight between our heroine, Vanessa, and the "bad" witch. And the reason behind her holding the men hostage was so ridiculous that it made me upset I wasted my time on the rest of the book just to reach this crazy conclusion.

I like Giron's writing style and will read more of her work, but I would recommend skipping this one.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Ogre

I keep catching bits and pieces of this film and finally sat down to watch the whole thing when it aired on Showcase (the home of Kenny vs. Spenny and Trailer Park Boys!) tonight. I could tell from the beginning that it was a made-for-TV Syfy Channel movie - and made in Canada - but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've had fun watching other Syfy films. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for this film.

Residents of a town make a deal with the devil in the 1800's to grant them immortality. The only catch is that they have to sacrifice one person per year to a hungry ogre. When two young adults stumble upon the community, the townspeople have a chance to save one of their own....

The plot is kind of like The Village meets Pissed Off Bloodthirsty Shrek. It is very convoluted and hard to follow. I don't understand what an ogre has to do with the devil. And the film didn't need the addition of a town magi and spells. Ogre had potential if it had simply been a film about an ogre eating people.

The CGI ogre is awful; it looks ridiculously fake. The ogre bears resemblance to Shrek in that it looks like it should be in an animated film. Oh, that and the fact it's wearing clothes. Can't leave his cave and stomp into town to eat people without getting gussied up in the finest loincloth. Here's a picture in case you don't believe it:

One aspect of Ogre that's good is the acting. It features one of my favourite scream queens, Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps), John Schneider (who most people know as Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard, but I know as the father of teen dramas - particularly Smallville and The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and Chelan Simmons (Final Destination 3).

I would skip this one, unless you want to see an ogre looking all fancy in his loincloth while killing people.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead

The first Wrong Turn film is one of my favourite horror films and I loved the second one almost as much as the first. So I had high hopes for the third film, Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead, but ended up being disappointed.

While a group of prisoners are being transferred from one jail to another, their bus is run off the road by inbred mutant Three Finger. The prisoners see it as a chance to escape and run off into the woods, not expecting it to be inhabited by inbred cannibals. When two of them find a van filled with money, they have more motivation to survive.

The plot wasn't anything new and the subplot about the money was dull and unnecessary. It seemed like they didn't think inbred mutants killing people was enough for 92 minutes, so they added it. And it felt like more of a prison film than a horror film. Prison movies don't interest me at all, so I just sat there waiting for the next gory kill. There was a lot of gore, but nothing to set it apart from the first two films.

The film moved slowly, focusing more on the money subplot and arguments between characters than on Three Finger and his family. And the characters were the standard prisoner cliches. Most of them were assholes and I wanted them to die.

Although Wrong Turn 3 has some okay gore scenes, skip this film and watch the first two instead.

Rating: 2/5

MOVIE REVIEW: Lost Boys: The Tribe

This movie was wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - almost, but not quite. Corey Feldman reprising his role as Edgar Frog saved it somewhat from being a total bomb.

After their parents die in a car accident, siblings Chris (Tad Hilgenbrink) and Nicole Emerson (Autumn Reeser), move in with their aunt. When Nicole falls for a vampire (Kiefer Sutherland's half-brother, Angus Sutherland) and unknowingly drinks blood, she becomes a vampire. Before the transformation is complete, Chris must find and kill the head vampire. But he'll need the help of veteran vampire slayer, Edgar Frog.

This movie doesn't have the cheesy 80's charm of the first. Instead, it has the MTV music video feel of the 00's. Teens partying, having sex and lots of rock music make this movie like The O.C. with vampires. It's 3/4 teenybopper flick, 1/2 horror movie. Every horror scene was extremely gory, as if to make up for the rest of the film being lame.

I was bored throughout most of it. This was the movie: they're surfing, then they're at a party, then someone is having sex in a shower, then someone else is having sex, then they're skateboarding, then they're riding their motorcycles. Oh wow they're bad asses.

Lost Boys: The Tribe is missing the humour of the first film, which is unfortunate because that's what made the original great. The characters are bland, cookie-cutter teens, unlike the original which featured eccentric characters.

Oh, and don't turn the movie off when the credits start. Corey Haim has a sweet cameo. It would have been better if he was in the whole movie instead of one scene during the credits. And where was Jamison Newlander?

I give this movie a 2, just because the scenes with Corey Feldman were okay.

Rating: 2/5