Under Her Skin (2022) - Horror Poetry Book Review

Under Her Skin is an anthology poetry book edited by Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller. As everyone knows a good anthology needs a good theme, and in addition to every one of the roughly eighty seven (!) poems being written by women (cis and trans) and non-binary women, they also share a theme of body horror. I received this for review in October of last year, to be honest I don't know what I was thinking as I really don't get on with poems. They tend to drain me the same way attempting to do a jigsaw puzzle or crossword puzzle does.

The trouble with taking body horror as a theme is that a whole bunch of these felt like very similar variations on a theme. A large swath of these deal with people who are self mutilating themselves for various reasons. These destructive tendencies range from milder self harm like cutting themselves with a razor blade, to completely removing all their limbs and organs. That isn't to say these poems are boring, there are some here that even I appreciated. The best of the mutilation ones for me was Amanda Kirby's Sanctification that was so simple in form yet so effective. Smile by Nico Bell was another good one, a character who takes a drastic response to being told to cheer up. Self mutilation is such a common theme here, body horror often touches on a warped view of the self. From the amount of poems of this type it appears this is one of the key issues faced. Reading or watching films by females I never notice that strong of a difference, here though, poetry feels so much more intimate, the poems all feel like they are from a female perspective.

In anthology books I nearly always talk about each story in turn, of course I'm not going to do that when there are so many poems. I made brief notes on the ones that stood out the most. Outside In by Dalena Storm was one of the only poems which rhymes. It shows how little I read poetry as I thought most poems rhymed, rather than the other way around. I discovered that it is more how lines interact with each other, how well the various sentences interact with each other to give a satisfying cadence and flow. 

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Friday 15th July

 

Another week and another small news post. It is humid here in Northampton at the moment, never good weather for preventing my rotted limbs from deteriorating any further.
Starting with a quick glance at the JustWatch top streaming film and TV charts for the UK. I got sent this all the time but it rarely has anything that is worth mentioning. At number six in the steaming charts for films is the newest entry in the Scream series, Scream. Due to not enjoying Scre4m I haven't gotten around to watching the latest one yet, one day I shall. At number nine in the streaming charts for TV shows is season four of Stranger Things. I've currently seen the first five episodes of this and so far is shaping up to be another fantastic season.

River of Ashes is a Southern Gothic novel that was written by Alexandra Weis and Lucas Astor and has been selected as one of Apple's 'Most Anticipated Books for Summer'. The novel was apparently inspired by true events and is about a psychopath, Beau Devereaux who sets his sights on his girlfriend's twin sister. The press release states a warning that the novel contains 'rape, violence, and a psychopath's POV'.

The Golden Pith is a trilogy of 'experimental spoken word horror-fantasy fiction albums that blend surreal poetics with a crooked musical atmosphere'. This became free to download on July 7th. Included in this is Bludgeon, Sufferer's Skin and The Canopy.

That's actually all the news I have this week, it is good to be one top of the news I have been sent, though means I'm a story short for this news post. On a personal note I am currently playing through isometric cyberpunk fantasy game Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall, as well as The Dark Pictures: Little Hope. I enjoyed the previous game in that series, The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan, so am hoping this one is just as good (spoiler, its not).

Shadowrun Returns (2022) - Cyberpunk Video Game Review (XBox Series X)

Despite the title, Shadowrun Returns isn't actually a sequel, instead it is a video game adaptation of the Shadowrun board game. Further research suggests this may actually be a sequel after all, albeit, a sequel to a SNES/Megadrive game from the early 1990s. This game originally came out in 2013, but this year has seen the release of a remastered version of the game, alongside its two expansions (which were released as standalone titles). You may be wondering why a non-horror game is being reviewed here, that is for two reasons, firstly that dystopian futures are not too far removed from apocalypses (that are prime for being covered), secondly, I damn well love everything cyberpunk.

The game takes place in Seattle in the later half of the 21st century, a world where megacorporations run the world. So far so cyberpunk, the difference here is that the world of fantasy has been merged with it. Alongside hacking and cyberspace you also have magic and demons, as well as typical fantasy beings such as orcs, elves and dwarves. You play as a Shadowrunner (I think they are basically mercenaries) who has been sent a pre-recorded message from a former partner, Sam informing them of their own death. From beyond the grave they have requested that you bring their murderer to justice, with a large sum of money being the reward for doing so. It soon becomes clear that Sam was murdered by a serial killer, someone who has links to very powerful people who are set on irreversibly altering the landscape of the world.

So, Shadowrun Returns is an isometric tactical role playing game. Combat takes place on a grid system with your three action points allocated to moving your character around, shooting at enemies and using special abilities and items. The combat is basically the same as that of Gears: Tactics, but this part of the game has been merged with a more traditional RPG element. The game is split into chapters, each putting you and your team into a small area to either do some investigating or fighting enemies. This is dialogue heavy with conversations often being more detailed than you may expect, I kind of got Planescape Torment vibes. Rather than get experience points you instead are given karma points for doing actions such as completing mission objectives and surviving encounters. These points can be pumped into a series of skill trees that let you do everything from becoming better skilled at using weapons, to having better magic and better cyberspace skills. Talking of cyberspace, this is a whole different area of the game you can travel to optionally. Here you fight computer programs and can summon your own programs to fight alongside you.

Halloween Girl - Chapter 3: The Forgotten Boy (2022) - Horror Comic Review

Earlier this year in May I checked out the first two issues in the Richard T. Wilson created Halloween Girl series, which in itself had been based on a film and a web-series. This is issue is to be part of a seven issue series that makes up Halloween Girl - Book 1: Promises to Keep. The third chapter, titled The Forgotten Boy has now been completed.

Issue three is both a new story as well as moving forward the overarching plot. Eighteen year old ghost, Charlotte Williams, gets a new lead on just where her missing son Luke may be. The boy having been kidnapped by an evil secret society known as The Hollow, She discovers that a demon known as Jason (whose moniker is the titular 'the forgotten boy') may have him, and that for a favour he may release Luke. 

The story here is mostly set-up for future events but it does reveal more character story, especially with relation to Charlotte's spiritual friend Poe, who may have closer ties to The Hollow than she has let on. With dialogue the order of the day here there isn't much horror at all, but with an ongoing series it can't be dialled up to ten all the time. I've read a preview of the issue after this one and it provides a heck of a lot of backstory for Poe and just who she actually is.
The black and white art by Pietro Vaughan can on occasion combine to make really vivid looking art, especially when Poe and Charlotte are walking through woodland. Something I appreciated from before, the facial expressions, again I enjoyed, it is easy to see just what emotions characters are experiencing, which helps in giving life to the dialogue.

The Forgotten Boy may not be the most action packed issue of Halloween Girl but it is one that isn't afraid to focus on providing set-up for future events. I finished it with an impatience to see what happens next, something that I can only take as a good thing. The Kindle edition of this can be purchased here, releasing today, July 13th.

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Escape the Undertaker (2021) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Can you tell I'm dialing it in this week? I'm still getting over a cold/flu thing (pretty sure it wasn't Covid) and so I haven't dedicated too much time to writing blog posts. Escape the Undertaker is an interactive movie on Netflix, think Black Mirror: Bandersnatch but with less choices. At just half an hour long there isn't time for this to get too boring, though some of the ways the choices are implemented were not the best.

Wrestlers Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods have arrived at the remote mansion home of The Undertaker in order to take his magical urn. The trio make up the wrestling team New Day, and it is hoped the power of the urn will allow them to become even more positive people, helping their wrestling career. Despite the unwelcome intrusion, Undertaker, watching from a bank of monitors deep within his mansion allows them into his place, seeing this as a chance to steal their souls.

So this is very lighthearted with New Day being a goofy bunch of guys who seem the very definition of nice. The choices the viewer is presented with here send things down rational pathways, such as choosing which wrestler to follow, which results in one of three different scenes playing out. There are a few different endings based on what you decide to do, but seems to be one proper one, the others featuring bad endings. I didn't like how this culminated in that first time around I wasn't even aware I was at the end, making for confusion when I thought I was choosing a choice and instead found myself sent back five or so minutes into the film. Special effects are of the cheesy variety, magical lightning and other effects are quite low quality. The film can never become true horror as it is geared towards children, so Undertaker is over the top but hardly fear inducing. One thing this did get right was the set dressing, a highlight being a picture of Paul Bearer on the wall in one room. The house is full of traps and secrets which looked fun.

Escape the Undertaker was perfectly fine, but it was lacking on quite a few fronts. While it was fun to see wrestlers outside of wrestling I did find the three protagonists to be a bit annoying, perhaps as I don't know who they are, having never watched modern wrestling. Still, for what it is this was decent enough, hardly essential viewing but there are worse ways to spend a half hour. 

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Life After: The Phoenix (2014) by Bryan Way - Short Zombie Horror Story Review

Life After: The Phoenix is the third and final story in Bryan Way's short story trilogy that followed from his first novel in the Life After universe, Life After: The Arising. His second short story, Life After: The Basement went to some dark zombie free places, so I hoped this wouldn't go the same way. This one felt like the shortest of his stories, I managed to read the whole thing in under half an hour, it was perhaps also the best of the three.

Adam and Shar were in a relationship that came to an end several months previously. Now, Adam, who is still besotted with his ex, gets to see her for fleeting minutes during her break while she works nights at a supermarket. It is after one such meeting, one that resulted as usual in an argument, that Adam notices people behaving strangely in the carpark. He soon comes to realise that the strange riots that have occurred in a nearby town have spread, and so sets out to find his ex and protect her.

Way's male protagonists always appear to be quite flawed people and here is no different. With Adam you have someone who takes out his frustration by hitting things, not people, but things. This turns out badly here as he injures his hand even before he encounters the undead, making him in my eyes a bit of an idiot. Elsewhere however things hit a little closer to home, some of the dialogue that occurs between Adam and Shar were things I had heard before in real life, maybe slightly painful to read but it isn't often I resonate with dialogue in a book! As may be guessed, having an argument about a break-up while in the middle of an unfolding zombie apocalypse really isn't the best way you could be spending your time, leading to inevitable situations.

Seeming to not even be set in the same town as The Arising and the other two shorts, this felt the least connected. The connected threads however I did enjoy, we are provided with an alternate take on Anderson (my favourite character from the main novel), and even Grey is name dropped, the suggestion that he may be the best person to team up with during a zombie outbreak made me chuckle. I enjoyed Life After: The Phoenix, it has undead, it has action, and it has characters who at least in some small way felt real.

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House of Bones (2010) - Horror Film Review

From the brief synopsis of the Jeffery Scott Lando (Roboshark, Savage Island) directed House of Bones I assumed it was going to be a found footage movie. Well, it turns out it isn't, instead this is a haunted house film that throws everything but the kitchen sink at the viewer in order to scare them. The plot is almost nonsensical, the editing often confusing, yet at least there is a variety to be found.

The crew and cast of a TV ghost hunting show arrive at a plantation home that has been the site of plenty of mysterious deaths over the years. With the show's ratings falling it is hoped that this one will reverse their fortunes. Included among the group are a cameraman, investigator Greg (Marcus Lyle Brown - Battleship), producer Tom (Ricky Wayne - Real Steel), as well as a psychic, Heather (Charisma Carpenter - Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It isn't long when things start going wrong, one of the crew members vanishes into thin air, an ectoplasm type substance is discovered within the walls, and all the exits won't open. The hunters come to realise that they have fallen prey to the house itself, and that it does not want them to leave.

This is a pretty dumb movie that becomes a victim to some of the tropes it parodies. It begins in a good way, after a brief prologue set in the 1950s we then get the super (purposely) cheesy intro credits to the show within the film. This is one element that causes a disconnect, House of Bones never seems to know if it wants to be a scary film or a funny one. This can be seen with an entire comedy side plot going on with one of the presenters begrudgingly travelling to the house, played entirely for laughs. This then feels weird when we go back to the house where an attempt at proper horror is going on. The editing throughout was off, the many techniques used to flip between scenes, as well as the bombastic music made it feel like I was watching one of those actual ghost hunting shows.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology - Thursday 7th July 2022

Let me just stick a rotted stump into the bloody news sack here at The Rotting Zombie HQ and see what I pull out.
First up is the 40th Anniversary of Dario Argento's Tenebrae, which is being celebrated with a newly restored 4K Ultra HD release. In this classic, an American mystery author arrives in Rome to promote his new novel, Tenebrae. This coincides with the appearance of a razor-wielding killer whose murders strangely mirror those of the antagonist in the author's new novel. This stars Anthony Franciosa (Death Wish II), John Saxon (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Daria Nicolodi (Phenomena) and John Steiner (Caligula). This new limited edition release comes on three discs (2 UHD/1 BD) and releases on July 26th.

Adrian Esposito-Nomeika (Clowns in the Woods) has announced his next movie, Special Needs Revolt! that the press release describes as 'The Toxic Avenger meets The Running Man'. The synopsis has a man with Down syndrome who awakens from a coma to discover the USA is now an evil dictatorship in which people with disabilities have been forced into institutions. This action-adventure-comedy will be starring people with disabilities.

Finally, Swedish post-punk group Then Comes Silence have released their sixth studio album, Hunger, via Metropolis Records. Alex Svenson from the band states "What is the point of writing songs about the apocalypse and the inescapable future that's drenched in darkness, when the media already do it better? Instead, with our new album HUNGER, we give you the light".

Mad God (2021) - Horror Film Review

I'm dying to read other reviews of Mad God to see what on Earth other people have made of it. First though I need to write my own review without being contaminated by anyone else's thoughts. Mad God is a stop motion biomechanical nightmare that was thirty years in the making, written and directed by Phil Tippett (who has worked on visual effects for such films as the Robocop trilogy, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and The Twilight Saga). Over the years parts of this have been released as short films, but now the eighty three minute movie has been released in full. While undoubtedly impressive looking, I couldn't help but wish there had been more of a cohesive story.

Beginning with a biblical quote about God damning humankind, we then follow a masked man as he descends on a lift through a hellscape, this makes much of the first five minutes or so. This man, with the aid of a cryptic map, then heads off on his mysterious mission, journeying ever deeper into the nightmare world of wanton death and cruelty. This is just one part of a greater whole, with the many sights and experiences the man discovers leading to their own little stories playing out.

You cannot argue that Mad God is very visually striking. That this took thirty years to complete I'm not surprised. The world of the film is rammed with detail and movement. There are many different parts to this with the man's journey only the beginning. There are industrial nightmare sequences in which faceless humanoids work in vast factory settings where life is extremely cheap. There are more organic sequences involving small creatures that ooze fluids and feast on maggots and each other. There is even a sequence that plays out within a TV screen, showing just where the masked man originated from. All of this is achieved mainly with stop motion effects, though on occasion real actors are inserted into the madness, notably Alex Cox (credited as 'Last Man') and Niketa Roman (credited as 'Nurse, Witch'). The way this decaying world seems to be in a perpetual death cycle with itself I took as a view on humankind as a whole, all these societies already exist from before you were born and will continue no doubt long after you have passed.

The Brood (1979) - Horror Film Review

The Brood is one of those iconic classic horror films that I have never gotten around to watching. Written and directed by David Cronenberg (The Fly, Scanners) it features some of his concepts he is well known for, in this case body horror. While rough around the edges, this stood out due to its pint sized killers.

After Frank (Art Hindle - The Void) discovers bruises on his young daughter's back (Candice played by Cindy Hinds - The Dead Zone) he becomes determined that she isn't to visit her mentally ill mother, Nola (Samantha Eggar - Hercules animated film) any more. Nola is a patient of Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed - Oliver!, Gladiator) whose controversial scientific methods has resulted in the ability for his patients mental illness to physically appear on their bodies as unnatural growths. With Nola he has achieved something unexpected when her paranoia and anger results in the arrival of deformed and evil children, who kill anyone who Nola believes to be a threat to her happiness.

Having known so much about this movie before watching it I really cannot tell if it is actually a twist that the deformed killers here come from Nola. I haven't included a spoiler warning as I felt that it was apparent, the first murder sequence is intercut with scenes of Nola in therapy with Dr. Hal, talking about how much she hates her mother, of course it is her mother who becomes the first victim. In my head I had gotten parts of this mixed up with The Changeling and so kept expecting moments that never came. For much of this I was wondering where the typical Cronenberg style horror had gone to. The psychological horror is here throughout, and by the end some of his body-horror has appeared, in a notable scene involving Nola. The effects were pretty good when it comes to the look of the mutant child and for the growths. The murders themselves at first glance might not seem as effective. The fact that the murderer is a child though makes these scenes more disturbing, especially one that takes place in front of a classroom full of young children!

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 3rd July 2022

I had a bigger news post earlier in the week and now here is a smaller one to finish the week off with. Starting off with the official trailer for horror film Smile. This was actually something that had caught my attention even before I had got sent a press release about it. Sure, the idea of someone being afflicted with a curse that will cause them to die in a weeks time has been done to death (The Ring and One Missed Call spring to mind), but the trailer looked pretty fun. There really are few things as creepy as a smile that is perhaps a little bit too intense. This is directed and written by Parker Finn and is about Dr. Rose Cotter who begins to experience terrifying occurrences after witnessing a traumatic event with one of her patients.

Over in the world of music and Italian trap metal artist Marco Calanca has created a metalcore cover of Attack on Titan's The Rumbling. Becko said of his track "The Rumbling' cover of the Attack On Titan soundtrack is one of the best metalcore songs used in anime to me, it resonated perfectly with my taste". It has reminded me that I really need to get my best friend to watch some more of the anime with me, sometimes it's like pulling teeth from a hen trying to get her to watch our shows!

The Haunting on Gabriel Street came to DVD on June 21st from Bayview Entertainment. It is about the sister of a man who died, along with forty one others on Gabriel Street. Not trusting the government's explanation for what happened, she travels to her brother's house with two friends. In the house they discover 'not everyone in the house that night is dead...'

American Werewolves (2022) - Horror Documentary Review

American Werewolves is the latest documentary from Seth Breedlove (On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors, Momo: The Missouri Monster) and as the title obviously implies, this is all about werewolves (known here also as dogmen/upright canids). I wasn't even aware that there were still sightings of these creatures, I thought the only place they would be seen in modern day was horror movies.

The usual style of these documentaries will be a combination of eye witness accounts, expert analysis and a more typical narration. American Werewolves does things a little differently in that the majority of the hour and twenty five minutes is dedicated to eye witness accounts. The vibe here is one of horror, this is reflected in the style of music played, the dark recreations, and the effect used on some footage to make it seem like rough VHS footage.

Apparently each year in America there are dozens of encounters with upright canids reported in North America so it isn't too rare an occurrence. The eyewitness accounts making up most of this meant they needed to be engaging. What you have is around a dozen full accounts that range from the more mundane to the truly nightmarish. Some of these sounded so out there that they felt like a synopsis for a horror film than fact. The people telling their accounts all seemed to genuinely believe what they were saying, you can see the tears in their eyes as they retell their stories, hear their voice shaking at points. From a man telling about the time he was followed by something hidden within cornfields as he ran at night as a teen, to a man whose hunting trip goes very wrong when him and his hunting buddy find their campsite under assault by creatures with glowing red eyes. These accounts were interesting to listen to.

Larry II: The Squeequel (2015) by Adam Millard - Comedy Horror Book Review

I feel like Adam Millard is an author I really should have read more of by now. Back when the UK Festival of Zombie Culture was a thing he was a regular guest and always seemed liked a nice guy. One time I ended up picking up a copy of his comedy horror book, Larry and judging from my review I really enjoyed it. I say going from my review as my memory of the book is shockingly bad, but even despite that, getting into the sequel, Larry II: The Squeeequel was an easy feat. Spoilers for the first book inevitably to follow.

After getting chopped up, decapitated and burnt alive at the end of Larry it seems the geriatric slasher's path of bloodshed and murder was at an end. Life has returned to normal for 'final girl' Amanda Bateman and her friends. However, a year later, Larry's mother (with the aid of the carpet fitting brother of a witch doctor) manage to resurrect the pig mask wearing, axe wielding maniac, who discovers he now has a psychic link with Amanda and is able to pinpoint her location to the nearby city of Haddonfield. Amanda also is able to discover her old foe is back from the dead, and so teams up with her best friend Freddy, as well as enlists the help of a very butch Nun called Sister Geoff in order to stop the killer for good.

As I mentioned in the prologue to this review, my memory of the first book is very patchy. Larry II was a book in similar style to the more recent Don't Smell The Flowers! They Want To Steal Your Bones! by Duncan P. Bradshaw. That book was so jammed of nonsense and fourth wall breaking that it threatened at times to derail the story going on. Here, fourth wall breaking is very much in effect, there is a constant back and forth with characters seeming to be aware they are in a book, and often commenting on the descriptions and language Millard is writing with. There were also a heck of a lot of recurring gags throughout the two hundred and sixty six pages, something that I am a huge fan of thanks to the books of Robert Rankin.