Book Review: Rot And Ruin

Well it's another winter storm here in Philadelphia, and I find myself "working from home." In other words: SNOW DAY! Both my wife and I decided it would be safer (a.k.a. more convenient) to not drive in this frightful weather, so I have some time to write the book review I've been meaning to get to for a little over a week.

The book is called Rot and Ruin, and it's another novel from one of my favorite authors, Jonathan Maberry. Originally a short story called "The Family Business," Rot and Ruin tells the tale of brothers Benny and Tom Imura. They live in Mountainside, one of the few walled towns that serve as a safe haven from zombies, who have taken over much of the world after they first started to appear 14 years before the beginning of the story.

While zombies obviously play a large role in the plot, I think the story concentrates more on the ways in which people cope with the catastrophe as opposed to the catastrophe itself. This is nothing new, as we see this approach in a lot of zombie stories, even as recently as the TV show The Walking Dead. Since it's not fresh territory, a story like this lives or dies based on whether or not you actually care for the characters enough to give a crap about how they are coping.

As usual, Maberry succeeds to this end. I enjoyed reading the developing relationship between Benny, the story's narrator, and his brother Tom. I do need to note that Benny is only fifteen years old, which is important because you're constantly reminded through his opinions and actions that he is a teenager, and that teenagers are sometimes really stupid. Even though the story is told through his eyes, you figure out pretty quickly that he has a somewhat skewed image of his brother Tom, a well-known zombie hunter for the town.

According to Benny, Tom is weak and even something of a coward. His first "memory" is of Tom running away with Benny and leaving their mother to the zombies. And even as a zombie hunter, Benny doesn't see in Tom the cocky swagger of other zombie hunters like "Pink-Eye" Charlie Matthias, Benny's idol in the beginning of the book. Pink-Eye is a large albino who regales the town with stories of his conquests out in the unprotected area outside the city. But let's face it. As a large, ugly albino, there was little chance that he was ever going to be the good guy of the story. As a matter of face, like in any good zombie story, he turns out to be more of a villain than the zombies themselves.

But this is the type of message that you have to write on a shovel and hit Benny in the head with to make it sink in. As the reader, we can figure out rather quickly that Tom's philosophical approach to his work hides a natural ability to kick ass. The indications of said ass-kicking ability aren't really subtle at all, but I think that stems from the fact that this book is geared towards teenagers. I actually found it in the "Teen" section of the library. Before anyone starts giving me shit, I should remind you that there were plenty of adults waiting in line for the midnight release of the last Harry Potter book. My point is that in a story narrated by and, presumably, read by a teenager, sometimes subtlety is passed up for melodrama.

Realism, unfortunately, has to take a backseat at times as well. Much of the language, for example, has been sanitized for the sake of the book's younger audience. And I don't mean to say that a book is bad if you don't curse as much as possible. But at the same time, if you're a 15-year-old being chased by zombies, I can't help but think that you might say the word "fuck" a couple of times.

But don't worry, while the language might be a tad watered-down, the fun zombie gore is still intact. With Tom's weapon-of-choice being a katana, you get all kinds of hacked limbs and blood splatter. Not to mention that it's hard to even describe a zombie without some macabre imagery. And what's important is that all of this gory gravy covers the meat and potatoes of a story about characters that I did in fact care about, even if they weren't terribly nuanced.

Grade: B

Get To Know A Horror Classic: Dressed To Kill

Dressed To Kill (1980)

Starring: Michael Caine, Angie Dickenson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon

Director: Brian De Palma

I'm not positive that this technically counts as a horror movie, and the fact that I'd never even heard of it until recently makes me question whether or not it could be considered a classic. But it was another movie mentioned in Jason Zinoman's Shock Value, and more importantly, it was free on Netflix, so here we are.

Before I go any farther, let me go ahead and roll out a blanket spoiler alert for this segment, because most of what I have to say revolves around the movie's big plot twist. So if you haven't seen it (you've had 31 years to do so) and you don't want the ending to be ruined, proceed not. Thou have been warned.

Now, when I read about this movie in Shock Value, author Jason Zinoman focused on the feelings of loneliness and insecurity that lead Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) to the bed of a stranger who would apparently go on to murder her. He compares her relationship with her son, Peter (Keith Gordon) with that of Brian De Palma's relationship with his own mother. Peter is forced to become a psuedo-private eye in order to find Kate's killer, and De Palma was forced into a somewhat similar situation, not to find his mother's killer but rather working on her request to catch his father in the act of infidelity.

So when I started the movie, I expected the film to focus on that relationship. Little did I know that most people who have seen the movie probably paid most attention to the fact that not only is Michael Caine the killer, but he's also a a transsexual. Yeah, I didn't see that one coming either. In fact I didn't even know Michael Caine was in the damn movie before I watched it.

But apparently, his character, a therapist named Dr. Richard Elliot, takes the phrase "physician, heal thyself" to a whole new level. His inner conflict over his desire to become a woman drove him to multiple personalities, and the female personality, Bobbi, becomes so angry over his inability to give in to that desire that she kills anyone who engages his male sexual urges.

Caine's character drew a bit of backlash from the gay and transgender community, who chastised the movie for propagating negative stereotypes of gay and I'm going to go ahead and call shenanigans here, however. We don't blame Hannibal Lecter's European descent for his being a cannibal, do we? Just because the Jaws was a shark isn't necessarily why he eats people. Ok, bad example. The point is that true equality means that homosexuals and transsexuals have just as much chance to be fucked up as the rest of us. (Note:  Since I originally wrote this post a few years ago, I've amended my line of thinking.  In a culture where transsexuals/homosexuals are still depicted as abnormal, the depiction of a transsexual as mentally ill only further entrenches an incorrect stereotype, particularly since there are no depictions of healthy transsexuals in the movie.  To take the stance of "equality means everyone can be fucked up" ignores the fact that transsexuals are too often depicted as "fucked up."  I considered removing this paragraph entirely, but I figured it would be better to address the flawed thesis rather than ignore it).

Odd tangent on social relations aside, Dressed to Kill works as an entertaining murder mystery mainly because it takes such a ridiculous concept so seriously. This is a movie where a bored, lonely housewife is slashed to death by a pre-op transsexual, only to have her death investigated by her vengeful son working with the hooker who has been falsely accused of the murder. Oh, and it also has Dennis Franz before his transformation into a troll was complete.

Aw, that hair is just hanging on for dear life.

Even with all of this crazy shit going on, the movie never winks at the camera or slips into camp. It treats this bizarre sequence of events seriously enough that I found myself taking it seriously (most of the time). De Palma pulls this off by making his characters either likeable enough (Kate and Peter) or at least interesting enough (Dr. Richards) to become invested in them. That's usually the element that will make or break a horror movie, and Dressed to Kill passed that test. Plus, if nothing else, it adds an extra twist to the Batman movies when you picture Alfred wearing four-inch pumps and a black cocktail dress while Bruce Wayne goes out to fight crime.

Get To Know A Horror Classic: Masque Of The Red Death

Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Starring: Vincent Price, no one else of consequence

Director: Roger Corman

Before last night I'd never watched a Vincent Price movie (I'm assuming Edward Scissorhands doesn't really count) nor had I ever seen a Roger Corman movie. So, I figured what better way to start off than with a movie from both men, an adaptation of Edgar Alan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death."

In Poe's version, the hedonistic Prince Prospero holes himself and one thousand of his courtesans in his palace to ride out the Red Plague, a disease that, over the course of about 30 minutes, kills its victim and leaves their face a deep, blood red (hence the name). Anyone familiar with Poe's work can probably guess that the plan doesn't go particularly as planned.

I was a little apprehensive about how Corman's take would stand up to the original story. I'd heard that Corman's modus operendi is to shoot a movie as quickly and as cheaply as possible, so my hopes weren't too high that I'd be in store for anything more than a campy laugh. And the trailer doesn't do much to quell those fears.

On one hand, I wasn't surprised to find that Corman takes quite a few liberties with the script. While Poe's version of the story is very single-minded in telling the story of Prospero's party and the lead up to the court's inevitable destruction at the hands of the Red Death, Corman's version pads the tale by creating an antihero out of Prince Prospero, a Satan worshipper, peasant-torturer, and all around prick. Corman also adds a hero in Gino, the young peasant trying to rescue Francesca, another peasant kidnapped by Prospero. Oh, and for some reason there is a dwarf named Hop Toad who has a completely separate subplot going on with Alfredo, a less-powerful but no less douchey member of Prospero's court who slaps Hop Toad's lady friend around just to prove how douchey he is.

On the other hand, I think Corman was very faithful and effective in producing the same sense of unease the Poe creates in the original story. Poe always preached the need to produce a singular effect in a lot of his work, but I always thought a lot of his work was too busy trying to sound smart to truly create its intended effect. "Masque," however, is perfect because it is succinct, with every word adding only to the effect of giving the reader a a sense of impending doom.

Even with all of it's added subplot, Corman's version accomplishes the same effect. For every atrocity that Prospero commits or every selfish excess played out by members of his court, you know their all getting closer and closer to much-needed retribution. The main difference in the movie is that the audience is likely cheering on said retribution a bit more than they would be in Poe's version. Especially in the case of that douche Alfredo.

One area that did disappoint me was how Corman handles the seven colored rooms in Prospero's palace. In the short story, Poe describes seven rooms, each one designated with a color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. Unlike the other rooms that had windows colored in accordance with the rooms's tint, the window's in the black room were colored crimson red (I wonder what the symbology is there?). I always pictured these rooms as large, almost sublime works of architecture that overwhelm you at first glance But I think Corman's shoestring budget really hurts him in depicting these rooms.

For one thing, there are only four rooms. Green, orange, and violet get the shaft entirely. And the rooms that are depicted are small, half-assed versions of what Poe describes in his story. I'm guessing a few stage hands just took a morning to spray paint 4 stock rooms one color and called it a day. This may not have been as big a deal if not for the fact that the rooms are part of what creates that sense of impending doom.

Cheap sets aside, I was actually pleasantly surprised by Corman's version of Masque. It had a little bit too much melodrama to really ever scare me out of my seat, it did effectively give me the creeps by going down some roads that were darker than I figured a Vincent Price vehicle would be willing to go. It's a good watch for the halloween season, and a great companion piece to Poe's original.

Oh, and because I can't think of Vincent Price without thinking of his "guest spot" on the Simpsons, here it is!

Happy Christmas...Er, Halloween

After a long, sweltering summer there is nothing more satisfying to me than a crisp autumn day. Not too cold, but deserving of a light jacket or a fleece. Maybe a morning where you can just see your breath, but perfectly pleasant while the sun shines with just enough warmth.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that we'd be going straight to winter. No passing go. No collecting $200. Just go directly to a goddamn Nor'easter! What the fuck, Mother Nature? I realize the human race is doing all we can to piss you off but this is just cruel. I even got screwed out of my annual haunted hayride trip since, shockingly, most of the people running those things didn't think they'd need to attach a fucking snowplow to the front of their tractors. Jesus.

Anyway, I figured it might be best to concentrate on the things about Halloween that make me happy to take my mind off of this douchebag weather cycle. So here's a few random things that I always look forward to about Halloween.

Halloween-Themed TV Episodes

These are always the first sign that Halloween is almost here. When I was a typical dateless wonder in the mid-to-late nineties, the apex of the season was, of course, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors. There are a lot of great moments so it's hard to pick one out of the rest, but just because I read about it online recently I have to point out the Tron joke from "Homer 3."

But nowadays I'm more interested in finding a show that takes Halloween into a scarier direction. This year's winner has to be the Halloween episode of Castle. Nathan Fillion is one of an surprisingly long list of man crushes that I have, and it's fun watching him geek out at the idea of that a ghost could be the perpetrator in the murder case he's helping investigate. Of course it wasn't a ghost, but the reality of the case was still nice and creepy. Good show, Castle.

AMC's Fear Fest

I'm a child of 80s horror. I can't get enough poorly written slasher movies where 25-year-old "teenagers" get chased down by a maniac in a mask who somehow catches them while never speeding above a leisurely stroll. And apparently, neither can AMC. Friday the 13th and it's many sequels, Halloween and it's almost equally many sequels, and an array of my favorite horror movies. Plus, now I also get The Walking Dead thrown in for good measure. Just great stuff all around.

Haunted Hayride Websites

So, yes, this one is kind of sad. But every year, by early September, I find myself going to the sites of my favorite haunted hayrides to see if they've updated for the new season. I'll probably never wind up going to 99% of the actual attractions that I check out online (or 100% in the years that it fucking snows), but this is another instance of building my anticipation for the Halloween season. Plus, the ads on the websites usually turn out better than the actual hayride.

I guess the good thing about my favorite things to do around Halloween is that they aren't really weather dependent. Sure, I had to miss the annual haunted hayride trip, and I'm not allowed to go trick or treating since no one seems to buy that I'm just wearing my "27-year-old with a beard" costume. But at least during Halloween I can watching horror movies until 2 am and not feel the same sense of shame as when I do it during New Year's Eve.

Get to Know a Horror Classic: Night of the Living Dead

Boo, motherfucker! That line would account for about 85% of the scares in I horror movie if I'd written it. But while I have absolutely no business creating a horror movie, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate ones made by people who know what they're doing. I've already alluded to that fact a few times before, but after reading Shock Value last week I feel like taking a tour of some of the classics I've never seen. And maybe I'll take the opportunity to revisit some great ones from when I was a kid.



This week, I'll start with the zombie movie that led the way for all other zombie movies, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Made in 1968 in Monroeville, Pa, only a few hours away from where I currently sit, Night of the Living Dead isn't terribly new by today's standards. A small group of people are surrounded by a swarm of ghouls who want little more than to chow down on them. But before Night of the Living Dead, this scenario was unheard of, and it paved the way for a whole host of zombie movies (about 50% of which seem to have been made by Romero). What I wanted to know, though, is how does the movie stand on its own, rather than as a piece of horror movie history?



Well, the first thing that has to be said is that this movie it looks very dated. Even though it was made well after color was put into widespread use, its shoestring budget forced the use of black and white, so it looks like something out of the 40s or 50s as opposed to the late 60s. While this was a flaw for me at first, it actually made the harsh violence that much more shocking when contrasted with the old-style feel the movie has. If someone glanced at the screen, they might expect this movie to be a campy flick about giant radioactive ants or some poor guy stomping around in a crappy rubber suit. Instead, they'd get this:







That is a brutal piece of film work. Sure, there have been gorier scenes since, but the very concept is extremely dark. Firstly, Romero essentially killed a kid, which is usually taboo, even in horror. Secondly, the undead child then proceeds to kill both of her parents. And Romero has no qualms about drawing out the mother's murder, keeping the viewer believing that someone would come down and save her at the last second. Instead, the undead child repeatedly stabs her over and over again. Definitely not something for the feint of heart.



Speaking of harsh, the ending is definitely not geared for folks who want the good guys to win. Ben is not only maybe the only black protagonist in a 1960s movie not played by Sidney Poitier, he's also one of the only black men ever to make it to the end of a horror movie in the history of horror movies. But unfortunately, he only survives the zombie attack to be mistaken for one of them and shot in head by a gaggle of hillbilly zombie killers.







The shot takes place at around the 4:15 mark, but what's worse is the build up. If I'd seen this without knowing what was going to happen it would have been tense, but I think it's even worse knowing what's coming. You want him to make it so badly, and he'd be just about to do that if not for Jethro and his posse. So the fact that Romero teases you with the possibility of a happy ending only to pull the rug out from under you is a real kick in the gut.



Night of the Living Dead is not without its drawbacks. The acting is wooden in a lot of areas and there are a lot of scenes that drag on for way too long (how long can we watch a guy board up windows while a catatonic woman babbles to herself?) but all in all it's still a worthwhile watch, especially when you consider you can see it for free pretty much anywhere since Romero didn't have the foresight to copyright his work. I'm hoping that's a mistake he corrected when he made the sequel, Dawn of the Dead, which I'll likely get to in a later post.

Shock Value: People Who Like Horror Can Be Smart, Too

I finished a great book called Shock Value today. Well, that's not the full title. The full title is Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror. But you're crazy if you think I'm going to keep typing that bastard of a title. I'd probably write SV if I didn't think it sounded like a new sexually transmitted disease.

And that random nugget of stupid actually segues nicely into the reason I liked this book so much. It's author, Jason Zimoman, is able to talk intellectually about what draws people to horror, specifically the New Horror of the late 1960s into the 70s. As he describes the work of classic horror directors like John Carpenter, William Friedkin, and Brian De Palma, he has a knack for discussing these films without looking down his nose at them like the majority film critics. At the same time, he also avoids the fanboy ravings that people like me would be prone to use. Whereas I'd be pointing out that most critics are stuck up douche bags and horror movies kick ass, Zinoman takes a very calm, scholarly approach to his topic.

Zinoman's inner fanboy does peek out subtly a few times, however, towards the end of the book as his tone shifts to one of wistful regret as he describes the horror movies followed the revolution of the 60s and 70s. He doesn't dismiss work in the 80s, 90s, and 00s entirely, but there's a sense that something about those movies just isn't the same. Even later work by the directors he discusses in the book is relegated to afterthought. I realize this is a book about a specific genre in a specific era, but when talking about Brian De Palma's later work, he briefly lists the gangster movies that De Palma made. The fact that these movies were Scarface and The Untouchables means absolutely nothing to Zimoman.

Another great aspect of the book is that it takes you through all the crap that these directors had to go through just to get these movies made. While reading about the ties that the production of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had to both Texas politicians and the New York mob, I couldn't help but think what a dull story the making of Avatar must be. I guess it would go without saying that the stories about people breaking into Hollywood are more interesting than those who are thriving there, but Shock Value brings that comparison into focus.

Now, while I'm trying very hard to emulate Zimoman's scholarly approach to writing about horror, I must admit that the best thing about Shock Value for me is that Zimoman pointed out some cool horror flicks to watch. One of my secret shames is that I call myself a horror fan but I still haven't seen Night of the Living Dead or The Exorcist. I'm a child of 80s horror like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. But Zimoman has me excited to finally give the classics a shot, along with a number of other titles which, lucky me, are in Netflix's Watch Instantly selection. So check back in the future as I'll probably be sharing my thoughts on them in the coming weeks. And, yeah, I'll probably babble quite a bit.

Back Just In Time For Halloween

Hey assholes! I'm back from the honeymoon to Italy, which means 2 things: 1) I can save time on my blogs by just saying Mrs. Grump instead of Mrs. Grump-to-be (oh and I have a lifetime partner, soulmate, etc). 2) I have plenty of European adventures to describe and, more importantly, to bitch about. Starting Monday, I'll be posting ten days worth of sharing my thoughts on what's great and what sucks about traveling to Italy.

Today, however, I need to warm up the old blogging muscles so I'm going to give a shout out to my favorite holiday: Halloween. And to do so, I'll be hitting you up with a list of some spookiness that can make your Halloween just a little bit more...er, Halloweenier? Ugh, I really do need to shake the cobwebs off here. Anyway, on to the list!

Halloweentastic Movie: Stir of Echoes


Most people go for the obvious classics on Halloween, especially the John Carpenter movie of the same name. And while I'm usually an 80s slasher guy, there is something special about Stir of Echoes that keeps me coming back for more. A large part of that is due to a great show by Sir Kevin Bacon, who plays a man who's been hypnotized and gains the power to see a ghost trying to give him a message. More importantly though, is that the movie is just plain creepy. There's not a lot of gore, which is admittedly not often a plus for me. What it does have, however, is enough tension and atmosphere to make a freaky goddamn movie. Even after repeated viewings, it still gives me chills.

Halloweentastic Television: Psych-"Tuesday the 17th"


I was going to let my geek flag fly here with a nod to Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, but I can only take so much of people laughing at me. Fortunately I've been watching the third season of Psych today and my favorite episode came on. If you aren't familiar with Psych, basically it's a better version of The Mentalist that came out before The Mentalist. In the epidose "Tuesday the 17th," fake detective Sean Spencer is asked to solve a mystery at a camp where there was a mysterious death years before. It's essentially just a nod to every great slasher horror flick of the 70s and 80s. Even if you wind up not liking the show, you can play a drinking game where you drink every time there is a horror reference.

Halloweentastic Book: The Dragon Factory


I did a post on Jonathan Maberry a little while ago and I mentioned that I was looking forward to his new book, The Dragon Factory. I used down time during the honeymoon to finally get around to reading it, and it's another winner from Maberry. It's filled with evil science run amok, and a great group of love-to-hate-em villains to make great matches for the good guys lead once again by Joe Ledger, one of my favorite horror/action badasses. If you're anything like me, you'll probably want to start off with the first book of the series, Patient Zero, but if you're not bothered by starting from the beginning than you probably won't lose much in terms of understanding what's going on in The Dragon Factory. It's just a lot of good, bloody mayhem.

Halloweentastic Short Story: "Masque of the Red Death"


I'm actually not a big fan of a lot of Edgar Alan Poe's work. My tendency towards the spooky made me really want to like him, but to be honest he gets a little too up his own ass using big, highfalutin' words to be truly scary. Or maybe I'm just one of the dumber people to bullshit his way to an English degree. Either way, I just can't get into most of his stories. Masque of the Red Death is different. Poe claimed that a short story should elicit one emotion from beginning to end, and "Masque of the Red Death" does that perfectly. The tale depicts a group of aristocrats who isolate themselves in a castle to protect themselves from a plague, when they are confronted by a silent stranger. The only emotion that I felt throughout the story was one of impending doom. There really aren't any surprises, but that doesn't make it pack any less of an impact. Take five minutes at around midnight tonight and read "Masque of the Red Death." Good luck getting to sleep afterward.

Halloweentastic Video Game: Friday the 13th


Ok, so let's just get something out of the way. As video game experiences go, this game is pretty fucking stupid. As a counselor at Camp Crystal Lake, it's your job to protect the campers from hockey-mask donning zombie hillbilly Jason Voorhees. And if that seems like a bad idea for a game, well you're pretty much right on the money. It's repetitive and it was made for the original Nintendo so the graphics suck. But I can't help but like this game and for some odd reason it actually still kind of scares me. The soundtrack is actually quite eerie for something that sounds like it was composed on the dial pad on a telephone. Plus, the game tells you what cabin you need to go to in order to find Jason, which surprisingly adds tension as you wait for the moment when he's going to pop on screen. Although, since this is what he looks like in the game...


I guess it's hard to be too intimidated. But what can I say, it's an entertaining homage to one of my favorite horror franchises. I'm kind of obligated to like it.

So there you go. Just a few things to darken up your All Hallow's Eve and to get me writing again. If you've got any suggestions for me I'm always looking out for new things to give me the heebie jeebies. Otherwise, I shall see you all again on Monday, where I'll be starting things off by tearing Lufthansa a new asshole for fucking Mrs Grump and I over at the start of our honeymoon. I know, airline humor...that's some original shit right there.

Oh, and just in case "Masque of the Red Death" doesn't keep you up tonight, enjoy this Halloweentastic costume: The Tron guy.