In The Shadows (2022) - Short Horror Film Review

I'm still recovering from New Years Eve, though I think some lingering effects of having had Covid recently are still present. Anyway, I needed a short horror to round out my week, and so I picked Jerrod Moore's In The Shadows at random from YouTube. Would it do enough to set itself apart from others of its kind though?

A man is sorting through a box of books at his house and comes across one he doesn't recognise. It's a black book with no title, and the pages are full of grotesque images of a monstrous being. That night the man is awoken, he comes to believe there is something in the room with him, could it be that same self monster from the mysterious book he found?

Short horror films often follow a similar format and sadly In The Shadows doesn't do too much to stand apart from all the others. On the positive side, I did like the design of the monster, and it looked suitably creepy on screen. I liked the initial idea of the monster being freed from within the pages of the book too. The whole second half of this did drag, with the creature barely appearing, instead the focus is all on the scared man. It was obvious where this was going to end, and it did, albeit in a vaguely different way to what I assumed.

The film was well made, the actor was absolutely fine as well, my biggest complaint was how this didn't leave an impression, simple ideas can be executed in a fresh way, but this just felt like all the others of its kind, even if the directing was to a higher level than a lot of them are. In The Shadows can be viewed on YouTube, at under five minutes you may as well give it a watch.

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The Elder Scrolls Online (2014-23) - Fantasy Video Game Review

I first intended to review The Elder Scrolls Online many years ago. This was the first MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that I played and so far remains my favourite. My problem with reviewing this is that it isn't really possible to complete. There has to be thousands of quests and new content is always being released. Annoyingly the game never tells you exactly how many hours you have sunk into it, I estimate mine must be somewhere between a hundred to two hundred hours.

It has been literal years since I completed the main storyline in the game and so I can't really say what the story would have been. Something concerning demons and cults most likely. The way I play the game is like a roving adventurer. I go to wherever my next quest is, rather than head to an area and experience everything it has to offer. It's an irritating limitation that you can only have twenty five active quests at a time, meaning there are so many new quest givers I have to ignore and walk on by, with the hope to remember where they were so I can revisit when more convenient. My travels take me all around the game world but the haphazard way I play the game means no quest really means that much to me. One moment I can be helping a lizardman out in the swamps, swearing to retrieve a cursed object for him, the next moment I teleport myself off to Skyrim to uncover a plot concerning killing the Skald-King. My journey keeps everything always feeling fresh.

I have tried the Final Fantasy MMORPG, but despite liking that world more, the quests are far more bland, and I absolutely detest that you are forced to go into dungeons with other real people. Elder Scrolls for the most part, allows you to experience much of the game on your lonesome. There have been plenty of updates over the years, my favourite was the ability to get an A.I companion to always be by your side. There was an update some years back that made all the weapons much stronger, making playing the game so much more fun. It can be frustrating that you start some quests, only to discover three or four steps down the line it was intended as a group quest. The group dungeons are far too hard for someone to do on their own, but I have zero desire to play with real people.

The amount of quests is ridiculous, some are better than others, all feature fully voiced characters. From stopping an army of the undead, to investigating cults, travelling to the demon world and saving villages, there is always something to be doing. Best of all, and something which stopped me playing Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls has no monthly subscription requirements. Sure you have to pay for expansions, but there is no monthly cost. For many years I did pay the subscription, this gives you all minor expansions for free, as well as an unlimited inventory size and in-game currency each month. Worth doing if this is your main game, but I tend to play this in fits and bursts, whenever I have the space on my Playstation 5 hard drive to have it installed.

Graphically this isn't stunning nowadays, but at least on the newer consoles and PCs this loads really quick, and it certainly isn't an ugly game. This is one of the most popular games of its type, and if you like your straight faced fantasy then there is plenty here to appeal. It is a huge time sink however, and if you are the type of person who likes 'beating' games then this will frustrate. Overall though, I always come back to The Elder Scrolls Online, no matter how long I've been away, I love getting lost in the world.

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Mad Max 2 (1981) - Post Apocalyptic Film Review

As I said in my review earlier this week, I got my father the box set of the four Mad Max films for Christmas, due to him having visited the location where Mad Max 2 was filmed while on holiday in Australia recently. Mad Max 2 (also known as Mad Max: Road Warrior) is often placed relatively high on the greatest films of all time lists, and for a time it was thought of as one of the best action films ever made. Spoilers for the first film to follow.

This picks up around five years after the end of the first film, in the intervening years society has continued its downward trajectory, culminating in a worldwide nuclear war which has wiped out the final vestiges of organised society. Max (Mel Gibson - Braveheart, Lethal Weapon series), still broken by the death of his wife and child, has headed deep into the Australian outback, where he fights daily to find fuel for his beloved vehicle, and supplies for him and his dog (aptly named 'Dog'). His journey has him cross paths with the eccentric Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence - Children of the Corn remake, Dark City), who tells Max of a remote community who have untold reservoirs of fuel. Heading there, they discover the place is under siege by a warlord named Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) and his crazed army of marauders. Intending only to get fuel for his car, Max eventually gets caught up in the conflict between the two sides.

This was only the second time I had ever seen Mad Max 2, I can happily state the movie still holds up well today despite some slight issues I had with it. This sequel had a much larger budget than the original, and feels quite different in tone. Where the first film took place within the apocalypse, this is post-apocalyptic and set the benchmark for countless post apocalyptic media to follow. If you want an example, look no further than the legendary manga Fist of the North Star that took massive influence from the world that director George Miller created, I also saw some things here which I would most certainly say influenced Berserk.
My memory of this film was fuzzy, I remembered the fantastic gyrocopter, I also remembered the siege storyline, as well as the feral kid (Emil Minty) with his razor sharp boomerang. I had forgotten how many car chases there were here. When Mad Max: Fury Road released, I enjoyed it, but felt its constant car chases made it feel different. Well, that was down to me, Mad Max was a series of car chases, and while Mad Max 2 dedicates a lot of its story to the siege, it too features lots of car chases. The best one occurs in the films final act which is essentially one long fifteen minute chase sequence.

The film does hold up well today, other than the films score that is. I don't know why, but it sounded to me generic. That may not be fair seeing as I'm saying that about a movie that is over forty years old, but to me it sounded like the type of film score that wouldn't sound out of place in a James Bond film from the sixties. It was perfectly functional, but it wasn't at all memorable. Character-wise this was decent enough. Max, someone who already didn't speak much, does less so. I believe I read that Max only speaks sixteen times over the course of the ninety six minute film. Gyro Captain may be a comedy character, but he works due to the personality that Spence gives him, it also helps that he is more than capable, rather than being a hinderance to Max, he actually helps give the road warrior a more human side. The feral kid also grew on me a lot. On the antagonist side, much like Toecutter from the first movie, Humungus wasn't that thrilling a villain. Originally he was meant to be Max's best friend Goose, who was last seen in a hospital bed after being set ablaze in Mad Max. That would have worked better as an antagonist in my opinion. The most lively antagonist is Wez (Vernon Wells - Weird Science, Innerspace), played fantastically, he is a thorn in Max's side from the opening scene all the way to the end of the movie.

While I personally didn't think much of the music, and while I though this did drag a bit towards the end of the second act, all in all Mad Max 2 was, and remains a fantastic post apocalyptic action film. This was a thrilling film with memorable characters, and some occasionally wince inducing special effects, quite possibly the best of the four films.

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Mad Max (1979) - Apocalyptic Film Review

The post-apocalypse genre is a close cousin to horror, and so I am always happy to cover it on my blog. One of the greatest post-apocalyptic film franchises is Mad Max, a film which began in 1979 with a movie that I would more call 'apocalyptic' rather than 'post'. It was the subsequent sequels that more fit that moniker. I've always enjoyed the series, and it was due to my father that I am here writing a review of the original film. While on holiday in Australia recently, he visited the outback location where Mad Max: Road Warrior was filmed, and so I ended up getting him a Blu-ray boxset of the films for Christmas.

Mad Max takes place in an Australia that is on the brink of complete societal collapse, due to drastic worldwide fuel shortages. The police have been forced to adapt to this new world of roving gangs and increased crime, and so they all drive around in souped up muscle cars, with the old laws and rules only loosely followed. Max (Mel Gibson - Lethal Weapon series, Braveheart) is a cop, and after causing the death of a man calling himself 'The Nightrider', who had stolen a police car, he gets the attention of a psychotic biker gang, led by a man named Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne - Mad Max: Fury Road). Toecutter vows revenge on Max, and more by coincidence than planning, the gang begin to destroy everything that Max holds dear.

Mad Max is a film that teeters on the edge of being pure B-movie pulp, yet manages to stand slightly above that. There is a cartoony feel to the world that makes characters seem larger than life. Out of all the films, this was the one where some semblance of the normal world still existed, something that is alluded to in the iconic intro test that simply states 'A few years from now...'. I like how the unfolding apocalypse is never implicitly stated, with later entries adding in the suggestion that the world's oceans have also started drying up, explaining why everything later becomes desert. This is also a film very much of its time, the civilian population, in particular the younger characters have a hippy vibe to them, with their brightly painted vehicles.

Much of the movie takes place on the road, and features various vehicle chases, even opening on a thrilling police chase. Events sprint around from place to place, with story beats often rushed over in the race to the next action scene. I loved some of the more downbeat moments, for me my favourite scenes took place within the chaotic Halls of Justice. Here, the police are shown to be as obsessed with cars just as much as the criminals are. With the addiction characters have to driving it is no wonder that by the time of Fury Road this addiction has become transformed into a religion. 

There are plenty of violent moments throughout the film, but it is less gory than I remember. There are implied rape scenes, brutal kills, but a lot of this takes place between scenes, or occurs off camera. What I did love were the two moments where people get hit by vehicles, and mixed in with their death is a close up image of eyeballs literally popping out of the victim's head in surprise, it just adds to the comic book feel. The plot is a typical one of revenge, but remained entertaining, all the way up to the iconic ending where Max offers the final biker a hard choice.

Despite the chequered future that star Mel Gibson went on to have, Mad Max remains a pure classic apocalyptic action movie. It may be different in feel to the more wild later entries, but it has a wonderful and crazy vibe, the sometimes rushed feel to the way the story is told only adds to its charms.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for December 2022

The final post of the year, and the third news post of the week. In general terms I don't think 2022 will be remembered as one of the better ones, but that has been the case for the last few years now so I'm pessimistic 2023 will be any better.

I may not have seen the latest entry in the Scream franchise, but it is still one that excites me. Scream VI has been announced and follows the path of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and Leprechaun 5: In the Hood by moving the action to New York. In this one, the survivors of the latest Woodsboro Ghostface massacre head to New York to start over, but it seems the latest iteration of the Ghostface killer has decided to come along for the ride. Cast members include Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, Hayden Panettiere and Courtney Cox. This is to be directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, with a story by James Vanderblit and Guy Busick.

Two Dash One is an interesting sounding romantic drama directed by Nate Hapke. Two young lovers become reunited in the afterlife where they are given a second chance for their relationship. However, stuck in an eternal version of their vacation cabin, the two women struggle to 'find life amidst the monotony'.

Switching over to music news, Dark Delirium have a new album out titled New Era. This is a descriptive album title as it is the band's first output since David Jakob Ekse left as the vocalist and lyricist. The new album is '...darker, more brutal and experimental'. Track Echo Chamber features David on vocals (the last song written before he left), with the rest sung by Simeon.

A brief look at the JustWatch UK Christmas charts. With the top 10 films in the streaming chart I can see the classic Christmas horror Gremlins in at number seven. Over in the top 10 TV shows streaming chart, the excellent Wednesday is in at number two, while 1899 is at the tenth spot (a sci-fi period piece that I haven't really heard much about).

FredHeads is A Nightmare on Elm Street documentary that is releasing in February 2023 from Bayview Entertainment. This follows a group of friends who found each other thanks to the franchise. They set out to share other stories of fans whose lives were changed by the series.

The Legend of the Dark Clown is a new comic from Matthew Martino, available on Amazon. This comic  tells the sinister story of how a birthday clown became an evil super villain after joining the 'Killer Clown Mafia'.

I had intended to do more for this final news post of the year, but it turns out that Christmas has made me busier than usual and so I ran out of time to write more. The same will likely affect next week's posts due to having New Years Eve plans for a change.

The Rotting Zombie's Horror Film News Anthology December 30th

This is the second news post I am writing this Christmas Eve (at time of writing). I'm planning to watch a few films for review over Christmas and Boxing Day, so my three news posts shall be written today. Trying to decide which Christmas film to watch this evening, I do love Home Alone but am thinking maybe Die Hard, Batman Returns, or even The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Described as 'Saw meets Squid Game', Party Bus (directed by Carlos Berber) is a new horror film release from Acort International. The synopsis sees a man going on a bachelor party on the titular party bus. Included among the passenger's are the man's ex-girlfriend as well as some shady figures from his past. Needless to say, things do not go well.

Brandon Pennick's short horror film Sedalia is streaming on IVOX and PopFlick. This one is about a retired costume designer who moves into a remote farmhouse. After experiencing some paranormal events, the woman decides to research the home's dark history.

Finally for this news anthology, The Salamander House came to Blu-ray on December 27th from VIPCO and Bayview Entertainment. A writer travels to an old coastal house in Puglia, with the intention of getting inspiration for his next novel. This works out for him, as soon he is experiencing hallucinations that hint at the sinister past of the house. He also learns of a Satanic cult that operated in the area, and may possibly still have a presence.

Prince of the Crimson Void (2022) - Horror Film Review

It is always a pleasure to see that writer/director/actor (as well as many other things) Dakota Ray (Dante's Shadow of Sin, Sebastian's Unholy Flesh) is continuing to make films in his own unique style. Prince of the Crimson Void is the latest of these and remains as nihilistically bleak and dark as always. Known for infusing each of his films with a different coloured filter, this time around there is a red/pink one, as always this adds to the otherworldly vibe.

Ray stars as Fabian, a drug and alcohol addicted serial killer. In the past he had teamed up with another serial killer, a man named Kimball (Darien Fawkes - The Rise and Fall of an American Scumbag), and he has began to feel hostility to this man due to him showing signs of having a conscience. With the two sharing a burial ground for their many victims, Fabian heads there, with the intention to kill his former partner, hoping that doing so will add the killer's souls to his own, transforming him into a God.

At just under an hour long, Prince of the Crimson Void doesn't waste too much time. On occasion these films have slightly dragged in places due to protracted camera shots of the various (cool) items around the set, here, there are still plenty of these scenes, but they seemed a lot snappier and edited down. The movie is split into various chapters, something that is often the case for these movies. Even more stripped down than previously, the movie only features the two actors, with no supporting cast (unless you count the various corpses the two play with). Ray plays as always a deeply nihilistic killer, someone devoid of any remains of humanity. I found Kimball's character to be a great addition. I did wish he had more screen time to explore some of the more wild aspects of his character, in particular I liked the idea put forward that an alter-ego he created while killing people has weirded him out enough that he doesn't like to become it anymore. This is shown in a great scene where the alter-ego (a clown type mask with a huge nose) appears in his room and talks to him. Fawkes, who came out of acting retirement for this movie, was a great part of the movie.

The Rotting Zombie's Music News Anthology for 28th December 2022

Hope everyone is having a nice festive time at the moment. Bad planning has meant that I'm going to be putting up three different news posts this week. I'm writing this post on Christmas Eve, which I finally get off work for a change due to it being on a Saturday, happy times! I have lots of stuff I need to be doing outside of my blog, so this weekend I have split the post writing over three days in lieu of the traditional two day schedule. Onto the music news then!

Elemental Cry is the third single release from dark electronic folk band, Hem Netjer. The song is to appear on the band's new album, The Song of Trees, which is due for release towards the end of February. Elemental Cry is a song about facing your fears and finding your inner strength, with the verses written from the warrior's viewpoint, with the chorus from a general's viewpoint. The song is available on all major digital platforms.

UK goth rock band, Sirens of Light have released a new full-length LP, Nullus Margis Gothica MMXXI. This was designed as a concept album revolving around three themes; '...the power of the feminine, belief systems and how the individual constructs their reality around these concepts.' The album is available on limited edition CD and digital formats via Bandcamp, it will then be distributed globally from January 29th via Code 7 Music.

Finally, a little bit about Swiss nu-metal/metalcore band Chaoseum. Their first album First Step To Hell released in 2018. The following year saw the release of a live album, Live In Hell - Les Docks Lausanne 2019. In 2020 the band released their second studio album, Second Life, with their track Smile Again achieving over nine million views on YouTube. During the Covid pandemic Chaoseum worked on acoustic album, Second Skin. Now up to the present year, November saw the release of their fourth studio album, The Third Eye.

On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier (2022) - Horror Documentary Review

On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier is the latest documentary from Small Town Monsters (On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Journey, On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Discovery) and as the title obviously suggests, this is once again about the search for definite proof of bigfoot.While my father is convinced of the creatures existence, I am on the fence about it, of course I would love to believe, but am naturally skeptical. I would have thought I would have been bored of documentaries about the creature, having seen so many, yet I might actually suggest that Last Frontier is one of the better ones.

Directed, narrated and featuring Seth Breedlove, this ninety minute doc was filmed in Alaska, hence the title 'last frontier'. There is much made of why this might be a possible place for the elusive creature to exist, due to the sheer size of the area. I loved that there was a narration, I recall the last documentary I watched didn't have one and it felt sorely missing. This follows a familiar format and the vast majority is made up if eye witness accounts from various people. What made these eye witness accounts all the better was how much the people giving these accounts seem to genuinely believe what they are saying. This includes a man who is so overcome with emotion at telling his story that he literally breaks down in tears, and an account from an elderly woman who Breedlove notes is the most authentic sounding one he has ever heard.

What really set this apart from other Small Town Monsters docs was the emotive score, there is an epic sounding, but also bitter sweet music that plays over the whole thing, and it really added a lot of atmosphere to what was being spoken about. There are also the usual recreations, mostly taking the form of images of bigfoot hiding in the trees, or shown as a silhouette, and there are also lots and lots of drone shots, a staple of the Small Town Monsters documentaries.
The content here I found more interesting, with it suggested that the remote area, and distance from the equator has naturally resulted in larger, more monstrous creatures being sighted. There are even talk of different species roaming the areas, with various eye witness testimonies describing various types, such as the albino bigfoot. This gave more of a genuine horror vibe than earlier ones about the creature I have watched, it seemed from what everyone was saying that this creature, should it exist, is really not something that would be a happy experience to encounter.

Balanced against these eye witness testimonies are native american accounts of the creature that has made it into their myths and legends. Several of the people interviewed were native americans themselves who firmly believe in the creature. Breedlove takes a more measured approach in his narration, with it sounding more like he hoped the creature exists, rather than being a firm believer in it. He does throughout remain very respectful of the people he is interviewing, and as I said, these people really do believe in their experiences.
Having watched a lot of these, I was happy to see Last Frontier was one of the better ones, I really enjoyed my time with this, it is beautifully shot, and it ends well, finally giving some new evidence in the form of recordings captured during the making of the documentary, which included strange howls, random bangings and strange cries. On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier comes to cable VOD and digital HD on January 23rd.

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Amber Road (2022) - Horror Film Review

Going into this film with only the title to go off, I assumed Amber Road would be some horror taking place on the backroads of America in the same style as Clinton Road. Well, it turns out that was a stupid assumption to make as this horror (written and directed by B. Luciano Barsuglia - Zombie Farm) falls neatly into the torture porn subgenre of horror, a sub genre that I don't particularly like.

James (William McNamara - Age of the Living Dead TV series) and his wife Mary (Janet Wang) have found themselves kidnapped by Pauline (Rachel Riley - The Black Room), a sadistic killer who live streams torture onto the dark web, specifically a website named 'Amber Road'. Meanwhile Emma (Elissa Dowling - Tommyknockers), a local police officer who is on leave after the murder of her husband, learns of the couple's disappearance after being visited by a P.I.
Even further into subplot territory, the enigmatic owners of Amber Road, who facilitate the online killings, find themselves caught up in a power struggle.

I'm never a fan of prolonged scenes of torture in films and so Amber Road really wasn't designed with me in mind. To be fair, while there is a whole bunch of torture of the kidnapped couple, there is quite a bit of film time that takes place away from the torture chamber. On the surface it seemed that Emma would be the protagonist, but in fact there are a variety of different characters who feature, perhaps most notably Pauline. I found her smugness to be really off-putting, I guess it isn't the intention to make the primary antagonist likeable, but it meant I really didn't care for the character, and so I didn't like following her around in her daily life as the local mortician. She gets more fleshed out as the eighty seven minute film runs its course, including some flashback sequences, but even when there are suggestions that she might not be as black and white evil as she appears, I still couldn't stand her 'holier than thou' attitude. She does probably get the most screen time, it felt that there should have been more scenes featuring Emma, but she only really features in a couple of them.
Some of the subplots felt tangential, none more so than the one featuring the owners of the website. These did feature some recognisable actors, such as the always entertaining Robert LaSardo (Bridge of the Doomed) and Tom Sizemore (Tommyknockers), but the cheesy effects used to simulate the dark web, and their confusing storyline meant that these moments were completely lost on me. Talking of fun appearances, it was cool to see Gregory Blair (Ugly Sweater Party, Garden Party Massacre) in a tiny role here.

Ash and Bone (2022) - Horror Film Review

I first heard of Ash and Bone at the start of 2020, and now nearly three years later I have gotten to see it. Directed by Harley Wallen (Agramon's Gate), who also co-stars in this, and written by Bret Miller in his feature film writing debut, this sounded on its synopsis like a typical cannibal family type horror, and while I was interested to see it, my expectations were pretty low. I was pleasantly pleased then to see this did something a little different with the cannibal family sub-genre, something that came at the perfect time.

Lucas (Wallen) and wife Sarah (Kaiti Wallen - Agramon's Gate) have left Detroit to go on an extended vacation to Lucas's childhood home town. Along with them is Cassie (Angelina Danielle Cama - An Intrusion), the teenage daughter of Lucas who has recently gotten into trouble after falling in with a bad crowd. It is hoped the change of location will be good for the troubled girl, something that has caused growing resentment from her of her dad and step-mom. Sneaking off to a local bar, Cassie befriends two locals, and while talking about small town legends, she learns of a creepy family, the McKinleys, who live in a property on the edge of town, and who it is suggested are responsible for the many disappearances of young women in the area. Seeing it as something fun to do, Cassie convinces the locals to take her to the remote house, and they end up breaking in to have a snoop around. Having assumed the legends to have no basis in truth, the trio are shocked to discover evidence that is not the case, and while they manage to escape, their intrusion didn't go unnoticed by Clete McKinley (Jimmy Doom - Love Immortal) and his sister May (Erika Hoveland - Before I Wake).

After a fun little prologue in which a young woman is axed to death while trying to escape from the cannibal's home, the film goes to the arrival of the family. It isn't long before Cassie's ill fated expedition to the home of the cannibals, and it was here I expected the majority of the film would take place. That was when things got switched around, with Cassie and her new friends escaping relatively easily. Ash and Bone then changed track, with this becoming a character piece about the teen and her family. There are infrequent flashbacks to show Cassie with her city friends, which slowly reveal what led to her being taken away by her father. I really liked the family dynamic going on. Sarah for instance may be a step-mother, but rather than be a stereotype she actually came across as measured and rational. Then there is Lucas, far from the controlling stern father I would typically expect, he is also quite measured in his dealings with his daughter. I guess you could say Cassie was the weakest of the three, being a gloomy rebellious teenager, but she still had layers to her, with efforts to give at least her and Lucas some backstory that explained parts of their characters.

Cursed Words by I.D Russell (2022) - Comedy Horror Book Review

Cursed Words is the latest novel from I.D Russell (Under Blood Lake, The Killing Death), and like those other novels, this takes place in the same world, featuring some welcome returning characters. I always forget how dark parts of these novels can get, while there are certainly purposeful comedic moments, sometimes this is pushed to the side for some more concentrated horror.

Sick of his author girlfriend telling him how hard it is to write a novel, Dexter decides that to prove a point he is going to write one in a single weekend. He decides to travel to the Van Lundgren estate, a bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere, somewhere outside of his home of River City. He hopes that the peace and solitude there will allow him to focus on his task. The night he arrives however, also sees the arrival of a whole bunch of different characters, all there for their own reasons. With the estate having a dark past, this gets reignited with the arrival of the strangers.
Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Sergeant Frank Malone and his rookie partner Jimmy Hooper are travelling out of River City with the aim of making it to a favourite roadside cafe of Malone. Their journey eventually leads them inadvertently to the cursed estate.

While they are very much side characters, it was comforting to see the return of Malone and Hooper. My first experience with this shared universe was watching the 2008 comedy thriller The Killing Joke and so the images of these two characters are cemented into my mind as Jeremy Dangerfield and Tyhr Trubiak, making them seem more real. Malone in particular was as expected the stand-out part of Cursed Words. While he might not feature too often, he as always brings to mind Frank Drebin from Police Squad, coming across as a bumbling idiot, yet having a bizarre method to his madness that always results in him coming out on top. Much of the comedy revolves around him, it was a real highlight every time he got a chapter to himself.

The focus however isn't on this brilliant character, but instead much of the novel follows wannabe writer Dexter. This is good up to a point, but with the heavy supernatural elements playing out, a lot of the story falls under an unreliable narrator, by this I mean events happen that seem real to Dexter, but might not actually be taking place. Up until around the halfway point the book was easy enough to follow. The various characters are introduced at the estate and it feels like this is going to play out as a somewhat traditional murder mystery. There is decent backstory drip fed throughout Cursed Words, with ten chapters evenly spread throughout that are set from the mid nineteen fifties up to the mid nineteen sixties, concerning a troubled child that had unfortunate 'accidents' that follow him wherever he went.
I was surprised then to see this murder mystery quickly morph into something that was far more supernatural. The second half of the novel is a whirlwind of strange events that keep you ever guessing as to what is going on. Characters die in one chapter, but then return in the next none the worse for wear, the antagonist included. There are false leads and red herrings that are so well mixed in that it can be hard to parse what is real and what is fabricated. It led to me reading at an ever increasing speed, hoping that all would be resolved and explained by the books end. For me that never happened, from the last final twist I was left pretty confused with what had been going on, unsure if the unreliable viewpoint pointed towards literal supernatural goings on. If Cursed Words was a film then the whole second half would have gone deep into arthouse territory, containing as it does dream sequences that may actually be real, hallucinations that again may actually be real, as well as a lot of full frontal male nudity, so all very arthouse.
This confusing perspective did make the subplots a nice change of pace. Getting Malone and Hooper's outsider perspective calmed things down, as well as being genuinely amusing, while the sections set in the past gave definite facts to what was occuring in the present. With Dexter, I wanted to like the character, but struggled due to never knowing exactly what was going on with him.

As is always the case with Russell's novels, Cursed Words is written very well. As confused as I was, this wasn't due to the style of writing, it was very easy to visualise in my mind's eye what was happening. Some of the characters were well realised, of course Frank Malone as always was a pure joy to read about. I fear a lot of my confusion over the plot was down to me, over the days that have passed since reading this I have sorted out a lot of the story in my head. Regardless, Cursed Words is well worth a read, a murder mystery with an arthouse difference, and a story that goes to some very unexpected places.

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Dana (2020) - Short Horror Film Review

Dana is an award winning short eighteen minute long thriller that was written and directed by Lucía Forner Segarra (this received more than one hundred and twenty festival selections and forty two awards). This initially seemed to be inspired by the #MeToo movement, but it actually came about after the director herself suffered an assault, with the film made as a cathartic outlet for her trauma. At its heart this is a revenge thriller, a subgenre of horror that I typically enjoy, and with this Spanish entry I certainly did.

Thais Blume stars as Diana, a woman who while walking to her car late one night is attacked by a would be rapist. Having killed the man in self defence, she returns to to her caravan home traumatised. As the days pass and no one visits, she realises she has gotten away with her possible crime. She sees this as an awakening and becomes a vigilante who protects woman that find themselves under assault, leaving her calling card at the scene of every murder.

There is a lot packed into this eighteen minute film and it goes along at a fast enough pace that it tells its story competently. Blume is the highlight of the film, perfectly cast, she shows both strength and frailty in her role. Aside from best friend Tomás (Niko Verona) the rest of the cast only have fleeting appearances, many of which appear as various rapists set during a montage of murder. I think it was important for the protagonist to have a male best friend to show that her actions aren't created from hatred of men, more that she has taken matters into her own hands due to a failing criminal system.
This reminded me of #MeToo due to the snowball effect her actions bring to the film world, and while this is fantastical in how this normal woman becomes an unstoppable killer, it was a satisfying film to watch. Special mention goes to the blood spray mask that she brings with her, added a nice little comedic element to all the bloodshed that occurs.

With a great soundtrack that includes eighties synth among the musical choices, and with a strong and believable lead in Blume, Dana was an enjoyable thriller, impressively paced and with a story that seemed vaster than its short run time.

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