The Nesting (1981) Horror Ghosts

The Nesting (1981) - This is the story of a agoraphobic writer Lauren (Robin Groves) drawn to a house to write only to solve the mystery of the house's history and her own as well. Lauren is experiencing agoraphobic anxiety attacks whenever she leaves her house. You have to like her attitude though, she is attacking the problem with her therapist and thinking about getting out of the city where the attacks are more common. So whatever is going on emotionally for her she is seeking solutions and in this case she heads out to a small town Dover Falls and rents a house where she can complete her book. Surprising to her is when she gets to the house it is the same one that is on the cover of her last book. An Octagon shaped place so unique that it couldn't be a coincidence could it? In real life the place is called the Armour-Stiner House and is just a beautiful piece of architecture.  We can glean from her therapy sessions that she has had some kind of trauma in her past. She is reluctant to be romantic with her friend Mark (Christopher Loomis) a wise cracker who is so in the friend-zone he does not stand a chance with Lauren.
 John Carridine) and managed by his grandson Daniel (Michael David Lally) the house has been empty for years so renting it out to Lauren seems reasonable. When she meets Col. LeBrun he takes one look at her and has a stroke. Later we learn this stopped him from saying who she looks like. So we have a haunted house, a woman with a mysterious past and an old man who has his own secrets.

In the cold open we see the house back in the 1930s or some such time and know from that scene that some murders took place there. So this appears at this point to possible be a haunted house movie?  If it were that simple I suppose we would all be very disappointed. This is a house with a history, once a brothel it is owned by Col. Lebrun (
  As haunting kinds of things happen in the house, Lauren who is still fighting her fears is sort of stuck there. Her plan might not have been the best when it comes to a house full of ghosts. I mean its scary when you are standing in front of the mirror admiring your own breasts and a pair of ghostly hands decide to cop a feel. That freaks her out enough to get her therapist Dr Webb (Patrick Farrelly) to rush out to the house. He finds her frantic on the roof of the house, its a story of how she got there but while trying to help her Webb is accidentally killed.
  The dying and the haunting does not stop there, it continues revealing to the audience the nature of the brothel. We see Lauren as part of the brothel workforce? Is that really her, is she losing her mind? All this is answered and more but first a bit of masculine hostility. After being rude to the handyman Frank (Bill Rowley), Lauren invites him to tea to apologize for her behavior. Well Frank being a horrible human makes it clear that if she talked nice to him she must want his cock in her. Lucky for Lauren the ghost intervene before Frank can get too far, frightening him out of the house and eventually to his demise.

  There are holes in this film and on IMDB it is only rated at a 4.8 of 10 still it tries to present a cohesive story. It's not that the film is bad but it weaves a tale that does not always make sense. In all this is a story about how Lauren returns to the house she was born in and this event initiates the ghosts of the former brothel get revenge on the men that slaughtered them. Lauren's arc is overcoming her fears and learning her own personal history. For the Colonel, Frank and Abner (David Tabor) it is about paying for your misdeeds in this case against their wills. The spooky is not spooky enough (One good birds jump scare early on), the crazy closer to being up to par. Especially Abner the murderous louse who chases Lauren in cars in what has to be the strangest car chase I have ever seen, it reason is so small for such a big event. In the end though I did not come away thinking this movie was anything special so I am not going to recommend it.

The Color Out of Space (2019)

The Color Out of Space (2019) My anticipation for this film was strong, a big fan of Director Richard Stanley, Hardware (1990), Dust Devil (1992) (I wrote about that here) and after recently seeing Nicolas Cage in Mandy, I thought he might be great for this film. Stanley is, a unique individual  a spiritual semi shaman who connects the coincidences of life to a higher interconnections of all things. He is an acquired taste as a personality but is a very creative and competent film maker. A family on an isolated farm sees strange happenings after a meteor crashes in their yard. The consequences are apocalyptic for the family changing their lives for ever. What isn't there to like about that? This is part of the sequestered series of movies, as we are all hunkered down trying to not catch the coronavirus. My daughter and I are taking turns picking film we both watch and then talk about to keep our sanity in our isolation. She is alone up in Burlington VT while I and my wife are in Central Massachusetts. My wife does not participate  in horror movies so she is upstairs watching Call the Midwife. The first movie in this series is Mara, you can read on this blog about that. This was my first choice.
  This film was produced by Elijah Woods company SpectreVision which also made a Nicolas cage film Mandy as well as putting money into some wonderful alternative vision of horror like Cooties (2014), Daniel Isn't Real (2019) and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). You have got to hand it to this company really throwing money at project most production companies would not touch. In this case a new adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft short story made by a director Richard Stanley who had not made a feature in twenty years. Then they get Nicolas Cage a mainstream actor to bring his envelope pushing experimentation to it, and throw in 83 year old Tommy Chong in a bit role but his first in a horror movie. He said and I paraphrase, that he always stayed away from doing horror movies because of the chance of the karma might be bad, he did not want to wake these spirits. Filmed in Portugal the lush beauty of the landscape may not be central Massachusetts but it certainly was interesting. It sets the location and gives a place to develop a horrifying story.
  The setup of the family and their world is the focus of the first act. Nathan Gardner (Nicholas Cage) has moved his family back to the family farm after his abusive father's death. He is seeking to do something with the place and is raising alpacas as the animal of the future. His wife Theresa (Joely Richardson) is the breadwinner of the family doing investment advising online from the farm. She has just recovered from a cancer and has yet to fully feel herself in her relationship with her husband. They have three kids, Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) the oldest teen practices Alexandrian Wicca, is using her ceremonies first to seek good health for her Mother and then to get the fuck out of dodge when the shit hits the fan. She is the teen that really wants to get back to civilization and off the farm. You can imagine growing up in the city and then in your late teens your parents pack you up and move you to a farm 12 miles from the nearest town. Her teen brother Benny (Brenden Myer) just wants to stay high, smoking weed with the local squatter Ezra (Tommy Chong) he is just trying to cope. Through both teens we get the picture that alpaca breeding is not the first scheme his Father has gotten involved in and is just trying to get through the ordeal. The last member and youngest is little brother Jack (Julian Hilliard) is adequate for having a child at risk.  We also learn that the family is hanging onto the farm despite the local mayor wanting to get them out of there so a new dam and reservoir can be built flooding the land. Ward (Elliot Knight) a surveyor, is a sort of love interest for Lavinia and outsider who can later intervene for the family. When I noticed that it was his voice that was narrating the story in the opening voice over I suddenly felt like the story might not have a happy ending.
  In the night a meteorite lands in the front yard, coloring the sky and glowing with a pink/purple aura. The event makes the local news but the meteorite itself seems to sink down into the crater it made. The foreshadowing of close ups of people drinking water and looking down the well should give you an idea of what is going on. Then things start to change, as the plants and animals on the farm are slowly transformed and the family members themselves face changes, losing time and not totally thinking clearly. As the farm transforms and some things are made hideous we have to appreciate the people doing the special effects on this film. It's beautiful the way the colors paint the scenes like an expressionist painting. The affects are shown  in small and large ways the transformation of the environment is exceptional. The grotesqueness of the animal transformation contrast that nicely reminding me of scenes in "The Thing". Being a  H.P. Lovecraft story we have the growing dread of the situation and the idea of the monstrous. Lovecraft once said this is his favorite of his story and the Director Richard Stanley seems to handle the look and feel with loving care himself. A story of an old forest in fictional town of Arkham Massachusetts a fictional hill town I can only imagine it as my town in Hudson MA some hundred and fifty years ago. But it probably more likely that Lovecraft was hearing about the making of the Quabbin reservoir which is Boston's water supply about 25 miles to the west of me. It was built between 1930-33 so Lovecraft would have heard of the plans for it in 1927 when he wrote this short story. The original is very similar in plot to the film but dated as you would imagine, there is a great version of the story you can listen to at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JH7nEjwbEY

  The effects become more complex spreading, maybe a better word is infecting is more appropriate. The environment changes and the family is effected at the same time the alpacas are transformed. Reminiscent of The Thing  for some physical effects and The Shining for the family dynamics, the effects are limited, probably for budget reasons but very effective. The color scheme and digital work is exceptional and even though the story stays small and on the farm the special effects of the changing farm is just wonderful. You could argue that this is a Nick Cage film, and he certainly has the chops to play the failing father in crisis, losing his shit he plays crazy really well with the right amount of unpredictability and menace. You could also argue that the protagonist is Lavinia and the film is seen through her eyes. She is connected through rituals she performs to the events in a metaphysical way, its not cause and effect but is is part of the interconnections this film emanates. As things fall apart, or come together the crisis in the family climbs to a level not totally expected.
  If there is a criticism you could have it may be that the film is a bit too tight. It is a localized story on the farm and in the family but maybe could have used a bit more scope. Because of this the voice over in the beginning and end of the film seem contrived to add a larger scope when it should have been shown not told. Not that the voice over isn't beautifully written it is, writers Scarlett Amaris and Stanley have a good script and it is appreciated. The third act where everything really comes apart for the family and Cage and Arthur really carry the film, but the outcome is blunted a bit and the logic of how the threat is overcome is hard to accept. No spoilers here because this is definitely getting a recommendation for you to rent, buy or see it any way you can. Overall this is a wonderful science fiction, horror movie.  As always you can leave a comment or write to me at movies@edhovey.com
  

Candyman (1992) Horror

Candyman (1992) - Stream Queens Podcast (part of the Zombiegrrlz family of podcasts) for the first time is having guests and all are going to be doing this film, this classic piece of horror and I am sure you like I can't wait for the episode. I wanted to repost this 2014 review of the movie as part of my listening participation. I really love this film and will also revisit it with a viewing before listening. Revisiting this film is like reconnecting to that cousin who you have great rapport with but only see at family reunions. It has all the elements that make a classic horror film and creating a horror icon via Tony Todd's portrayal of the titular character. Being hold up at home right now because of the Coronavirus outbreak is certainly giving me more time to view and write about movies and I am going to take advantage of it. I am a bit lucky in that I already work remotely so my work life doesn't change but my social life has been reduced. My darts league is suspended and the breweries I frequent only see me when I want to take beer to go. Needless to say even if the odds of getting the virus is seems to be growing so we all need to take some precautions avoid public spaces for a while. It is not that you are in an at risk age group but other you may come in contact with could be. My example is this, my wife regularly visits her 90 year old Mother helping with cleaning and personal care. If I was to get the virus, my wife might contract it before showing symptoms and then her Mother who is in a high risk group could get the virus all before any symptoms surface. So do the right thing. Rereading this review it looks like I actually did some research as opposed to just blabbing on and on about how it affected me. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment or shoot me an email at movies@edhovey.com with your thought about the film.
 Candyman created the first black horror icon in Tony Todd's growling desire filled portrayal of the titular character. In an interview with director Bernard Rose the Independent newspaper the story is shared of how in pre-production the backers of the film grew uneasy about whether a black "monster"  would be seen as racist. Rose said in that interview 'I had to go and have a whole set of meetings with the NAACP, because the producers were so worried, and what they said to me when they'd read the script was 'Why are we even having this meeting? You know, this is just good fun.' Their argument was 'Why shouldn't a black actor be a ghost? Why shouldn't a black actor play Freddy Krueger or Hannibal Lector? If you're saying that they can't be, it's really perverse. This is a horror movie. . .' ' ' Luckily for us all, the backers fears were relieved and we now have this character in the halls of iconic horror villains.
  There is so much done right in this film, starting with the basic setup. Instead of making a film about an urban legend writer/director Bernard Rose from a short story from Clive Barker creates a story about how urban myths are created and become part of the society they spring to life in. Rose takes the story out of the Liverpool setting of the Barker story and moves it to America. Wanting to appeal to a larger audience but also a setting where some social commentary can take place. In this case the setting is the infamous Chicago housing project Cabrini Green where, in the film murders perpetrated by a gang member have spiraled out in the telling to be the doing the Candyman. The origin story of a the character is he was slave who loves a white woman  and when the wealthy land owner discovered their relationship he cut the arm off the slave and shoved a hook in the stump, covered him in honey, threw him into the bee hives and then burned him to death. That story is later connected to the deaths in the urban prison that was Cabrini Green. Even though the murders in the housing project were not his handiwork but crimes of gangs Candyman was attributed them. That myth is exactly what Helen and her thesis partner Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) are researching. It is their doorway into the plot and deciding to go to the housing project as part of that research puts them in danger of a physical rather than metaphysical nature.
 Beyond just the story of the myth is the question of whether belief in a myth can bring it to life. William James in the 1890s argued in "Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking" lectures that belief in God's existence may actually depend upon our belief in his existence. His ideas seem to be building off St. Thomas Aquinas but I digress. The idea that something can come into existence because of peoples belief in it is a founding block of religious thinking so it is not a stretch to bring this idea into a horror film. Using urban legends an already accepted set of stories as a connector the film allows us to accept the Candyman as a boogeyman. It uses the Bloody Mary urban legend, to summon Candyman by repeatedly calling his name in a mirror to summon him into our world. It uses the bonfire legend where someone is trapped inside the pile of debris when the fire is started, and again from the interview with Rose in the Independent "...And the biggest urban legend of all for me was the idea that there are places in cities where you do not go, because if you go in them something dreadful will happen - not to say that there isn't danger in ghettos and inner city areas, but the exaggerated fear of them is an urban myth.'.
   It is also about the relationship between the Candyman (Tony Todd) and Helen (Virginia Madsen) that goes beyond hunter and hunted. At its heart it is a deranged love story that plays out in a horror setting. Not just a supernatural killer and a victim, Helen needs to summons the Candyman and he needs her to desire her fate as victim. Some later scenes between them are full of sexual energy subtle and not so subtle as the Candyman tries to seduce Helen into being his victim. Structurally this relationship is set up well also. Helen is a grad student who is married to her professor husband, Trevor (Xander Berkeley) so she was a student that he seduced and married. Early in the film we see the obvious signs that Trevor now is having an affair with a new younger student. He will not be coming to save her and when shit hits the fan for Helen. Trevor only sees it as a convenient way of freeing himself of the relationship. The back story of Candyman also has the element of his love for a white women. (Who in the mural looks remarkably like Helen.) So when he attempts his seduction of  Helen she is a woman without the hope of her marriage coming back together. Think about how the dynamic would have changed if she and Trevor were deeply in love with each other. How her acceptance of the Candyman's efforts would be completely resisted instead of the almost acceptance she shows in the scenes.
 The film is stark and menacing in its urban setting with the early danger coming from people and not the Candyman. Set in Chicago at the infamous Cabrini Green housing development  the location is a character in the tale. Cabrini Green  known for the crime, gangs and disrepair became the poster child for how not to provide housing for the poor. It's boarded up towers covered inside and out with graffiti convey the hopeless situation of residents that exposition could never equal.  Challenging for sure to film at the location but worth the effort in effect. Tony Todd talked to Daniel Schweiger, Fangoria, No 117, October 1992 about the shoot. "I tried to come there with no expectations, but I still felt fear. Anybody who didn't belong there was subject to danger. The cops told me to keep my eyes on the rooftops for snipers, and then I ran into a black woman and her two children. They were hustling back from the grocery store before it got dark, and thought the film security people were cops. She asked us when we were going to clean the projects up, which really got to me."
   When the storyline takes a turn where the innocent seem guilty the film really takes off. The body count although not large for a slasher type film is what I would call appropriate to the plot. There is a cool little slight of hand when the Helen wakes covered in blood in the bathroom of Cabrini Green resident Ann-Marie (Venessa Williams). We see the dogs severed head on the floor and then Ann Marie freaking out at the blood covered crib of her child.  At this point she sees Helen and freaks out about her baby. As the police arrive to find Helen holding a knife. I thought at this point that she had killed the baby. It was a clever deception and then when she is at the police station we learn the baby is just missing, completely the viewers relief.
  This is a great story and a wonderful film, of course it is recommended and I am purposely leaving out as many plot points as possible. If you have had your head in the sand on this film like I did take the time and watch it. It is available on Netflix so easily obtained.
Odds and Ends
 - Smoking on screen was a thing in 1992, oh how things have changed in twenty years.
 - Another couple things that set the films time period were the antiquated answering machine at Helen's place. The fact that there were no cell phones and that her camera ran out of film.
 - Roger Ebert loved this movie when it came out. I don't remember him as someone who often said nice things about horror movies but her then may be an exception. His review.
 - The epic soundtrack by Philip Glass alone should make this a classic.
 

Mara (2018) Horror Demon

 Mara (2018) Since my lovely daughter and I are cooped up at our homes during this Coronavirus crisis and all sports are cancelled, our normal riffing conversations are taking a hit. So we decided to take turn picking films to watch when apart and talk about in our calls. This is the first on of that series of films. If you want to play along we are moving onto "The Color of Space" next, so watch, come back to the blog and leave a comment or send us an email at movies@edhovey.com. We would love to here from you. Where to begin with this one?  Well with the public awareness growing about the subject of sleep paralysis there was bound to be a movie, and particularly a horror movie using it as a centerpiece. The Nightmare came out about the subject in 2015 and since then the growing awareness has made stories of everyday people's sleep paralysis a less taboo subject. Mara capitalizes on this by having the creature that comes in the night be a demon who uses sleep paralysis to get it's victims. Written by Jonathan Frank and Director Clive Tonge it is a story heavy on expository dialog to show us a tail about said creature. According to IMDB this film is director Tonge's first feature and Frank also with a shorter resume has a 40 million dollar film(reportedly filming) coming about a giant tsunami hitting Los Angeles. The writing on this film is okay but the nature of the story forces some labored exposition dialog that become a bit of a muddle at times. Not that it was not attempted within in character rants and doctor jargon, it is just that because they are really making up an urban legend that entire story, with its ancient history to modern day implications needs to be relayed to the audience and there was a lot to cover.
  The story centers around Kate Fuller (Olga Kurylenko) a young to the job forensic psychologist brought in to get a small girl, Sophie (Mackenzie Imsand) to talk about a horrific night in which her Father was killed. Her Mother Helena (Rosie Fellner) is being held for the murder but claims that a sleep demon name Mara is actually responsible for the death. Body actor Javier Botet is the demon in question. He is experience having worked as the creature of dozens of features.  Kate makes the mistake of promising Sophie she won't have her Mother committed to an institution but has to break the promise after coming under pressure from the detective McCarthy (Lance E. Nichols) who is running the investigation. Kate has a background where she too lost a parent at an early age and so has a strong desire to fix the mistake she made in the case by conducting her own investigation away from the police.
  This investigation leads to a couple rather lengthy, fill the audience in scenes, one with Dougie (Craig Conway) a victim of sleep paralysis who through a support group is trying to convince the world that the demon exists. He seems angry and a not but we learn because Mara has already targeted him he is forcing himself to sleep only 20 minutes at a time. When Kate interacts with him is fills in a long history of the monster and sets the rules the film going forward. There is a lot in these interactions probably on purpose there is a bunch of babble about the records that mention the creature. It is certainly also a purposeful move to not have all the rules worked out, leaving the question why is the creature going after these people. The second is with the doctor, Ellis (Mitch Eakins) who leads the support group, he is the science counterbalance to Dougie's crazy conspiracy theory. He gives his own description of what sleep paralysis is and how it operates as well as questioning the demon theory from a science point of view.
  As Kate gets more and more involved in the story she starts having sleep paralysis and seeing the demon. But why? Well, that is all about the third act, as Kate closes in on trying to solve the mystery before the creature kills little Sophie we get the promised scares a horror movie should have.  The final act works out the pieces that are missing earlier on in the film. I don't know if I really loved this movie, hell liking it is a stretch for me. It was okay, some things worked and others felt clunky. It also was not my favorite ending but I suppose they felt they needed something more than just saving the day.So I will reserve a recommendation for the film but that probably won't stop my 20 readers from looking at it. 

Darling (2015) Horror Thriller

Darling (2015)  Darling is a thriller with some horror elements about a woman named Darling (Lauren Ashley Carter) who after being traumatized has a breakdown while caring for a socialite's infamous house in NY City. Broken into chapters, Her, Invocation, Thrills, Demon, Inferno, and The Caretaker it is a film drawing on some other famous films set in city apartments most strongly two from Roman Polanski, The Tenant and Repulsion. Shot in black and white it definitely often looks like Repulsion. Where it is a film about a character losing her mind it is going to get a lot of comparisons to that film too. From the beginning we see the tightness in in the character, clothes hair makeup perfectly constructed like she is holding herself together through her appearance. Played beautifully by Carter with just enough facial nuance to let the audience know that Darling is not all she is presenting herself to be. She carries an edginess that enhances the script and manages to emote the chaos that boils behind her characters eyes.
  Chapter 1: Her is an introduction to Darling but also to the house. We see the Madame (Sean Young) of the house telling Darling about its storied history how the last caretaker threw herself off the upper balcony, but not only that but that there is an earlier stories of house being haunted. Darling in her controlled way assures the woman that this is not a problem for her. Much of this chapter is exploring the house after the Madame leaves for the weekend. The house becomes a character as we get some great setup shots of the different rooms. Originally the locations was going to be a working class apartment more like in The Tenant but by chance a renovated former boarding school in Harlem became available so the location was changed. It is a beautiful multi floored place and we see Darling going about checking different rooms. When she settles in her room she finds a rosary in on of the bureau drawers, but also the noises start to startle her as night closes in. I have always like slow builds and even though this film is a tight 78 minutes it does not jump right into the scares. Instead we get little things like the rosary, was it owned by the last caretaker who killed herself? Then there is the room that gets to that balcony which is locked, and Darling's strange dream where she is standing on the balcony. Finally when Darling walks to the store and is really scared by a man (Brian Morvant) returning the rosary she dropped to her we see that although put together on the outside she is really terrified and not totally together on the inside.
Chapter 2: Invocation, Now the definition of the noun invocation is "the action of invoking something or someone for assistance or as an authority." and in this chapter we see that Darling while laying in her bed at night see a Latin phrase scratched into the side of the nightstand. "Abyssus Abyssum Invocat" or "One misstep leads to another" when she reads these words we go to a shot from the POV of where the nightstand is looking back at Darling. What is cool is they use this shot so we can also see the bedroom door behind her as she lays in the bed. It opens by itself until it slams into the all startling Darling. I have always like that kind of camera shot, the use of foreground and background to give an effect, it still is very cool.  We also see that not only is Darling a bit of an insomniac but that she is starting to stare into space a bit. It well done by the actress and director to build slight changes in her behavior as she heads down the road to insanity. Then we see she is also starting to obsess standing in front of the Man's apartment building watching for him to come out. Let's remember that the interaction she had was random and innocent but now she is thinking about him a lot.
Chapter 3: Thrills, Is about getting the Man to pick her up at a bar. Darling stalks and sets him up leading him to talk to her in a bar and then inviting him back to the house. The awkwardness of the conversation is wonderful and Carter really shows her chops in this setup portion portraying Darling fragility with a nuance performance. Leading to the biggest turn of the film I will leave a lot of the detail of this chapter out, but we do learn a bit more about the house. It was not just the last caretaker's death that built the reputation as a haunted house but also as we learn through the conversation of the Man there is a longer history. That same locked room at the top of the house was a place where the former owner of the house tried to conjure the Devil. Adding weight to the location beyond an earlier tragedy. When the chapter gets rolling we see Darling's mental state cross a threshold that she will not be able to come back from. I really liked all the way through the things shown to show the slippage in Darlings thought process. From the beginning each morning the Madam calls to check in with her and with each call Darling is less and less able to engage with her on the phone.
Chapter 4: Demon is about dealing with the consequences of actions taken in chapter three. Darling must sort of become a demon to do what she has to do. She is a changed character at this point and we the audience see the breakdown of her sanity first hand. Chapter 5 : Inferno is about the psychological consequences of her actions and the realization in Darling that she sees her own illness and finally Chapter 6: The Caretaker is where the outside world reenters the story and the full horror of the events are witnessed.
  Overall the film, called a tribute to the other films mentioned above is really quite derivative of those films. It plays so close to the plot of Repulsion that it could sort of be a re-imagining of that film. Director Mickey Keating obviously knows what he is doing behind the camera. Under the age of 30 he already has five features all tight and well drawn that were made on small budgets. He is sort of a director made for independent horror. I am sure it won't be long before he is hitting with a film from a large studio. There are some great filming techniques used in this film like quite cutting and strobe lights, a killer sound design and the starkness of the black and white that all come together to make this an enjoyable film to view. This film deals with the effects of earlier abuse on the antagonist so be warned that this theme is there and important to the story.   I enjoyed it and would recommend that you take a look at it.

2019 BOOKS! What I filled my head with...

Last year I read twelve books of with a wide variety of subjects. In 2019 I continue to feed my brain and imagination with a variety of ideas.

I have a failed attempt to start this year. It is sad to me when this happens but with short story collections sometimes the stories just don't connect enough for me to make it through the entire book. That was the case with this first entry. I read about half the stories but it really started to feel like a slog to get through them so I set the book aside. Who knows maybe I will pick it back up later in the year.
The Year's Best Dark fantasy & Horror 2017 edited by Paula Guran - Really very little horror in the stories I read, a lot of classic motifs reworked into modern fantasy, and new versions of pulp weird tales that did not really capture my imagination. like I said I set this one aside and might try again at a later date.

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham - A historian Meachem uses the past to explore our current American leadership quandary with insightful command of past presidents and political movements. Really a great read from a good writer. It felt a bit rushed at the end chapters after being truly inspiring in the early parts of the book. It is a hard difficult line to find that masterfully connects the past to the present so we can learn from it. Meachem does an admirable job here making the book entertaining while still bring the history as a lesson to learn from.

American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America by David O. Stewart
This book was a delight! The Story of Aaron Burr a patriot, statesman, politician and would be emperor.  History is alive in the bright and energetic writing of David O' Stewart as he weaves the tale of the man who would have split the territories west of the Appalachian mountains into its own independent country. If not for bad luck and a particular betrayal the man may have succeeded. After his attempt we see Burr a master lawyer and manipulator of media and public opinion weasel out of charges of treason. Just a incredible story and a wonderful read.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
  This fictional retelling of the Story of Jesus supposes that he had a brother named Christ who working with agents from afar constructed Jesus' travels and speeches into a narrative that could be the foundation for the Christian church. Straight forward in its approach and without the haughty melodrama and metaphor of some texts on the story, the book comes through with a story of how the man and the church are two different creations. Pullman leaves us with a couple questions: "...if you could go back in time and save that man from the horrible death by crucifixion, would you or not? And if you think it would be better to let him die, how different are you from Judas?

Tibetan Peach Pie by Tom Robbins - I have been a fan of Tom Robbins most of my life. I have read all his books and enjoyed each and every one. Tibetan Peach Pie is not a novel but instead a collection of stories from Mr. Robbins life. Now past eighty years old the author recounts times from childhood through his writing career with the same wit, wonder and joy for life that comes through in every novel he has written. I had this idea that maybe I would reread Another Roadside Attraction prior to heading to Seattle this summer for my baseball weekend. I am both loving the idea of being on a Robbins journey but also fearing to see how much I have changed since I read last. I think I was 20 yrs and you know sometimes books don't hit you the same way years later. You have changed and thus your experience with a book changes too. It is like when I read Stephen King. When I was younger I would just blister through his books, but now all I do is wish they had spent more time editing them. So maybe I will try this but maybe not.

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston - My daughter bought this book for me thinking it would be something I would enjoy. She was right in that th
ought. This is a book right up my alley. The story of a team of journalists, archaeologists, enthusiasts, and the Honduran government who using new technology mapped and found the fabled "Ciudad Blanca" the White City. Told from the point of view of journalist Douglas Preston it is an amazing story of how an  emerging technology, lidar imaging was used to find a lost city in the middle of the Honduran jungles. I found this book so compelling I burned through it is a couple weeks. Preston brings not just the facts of the story but a rich sense of the history of the country, the political environment, the controversy created when new technology is brought into a field it has never been used in, and the person side of how the people on the expedition fought bugs snakes and disease to find the ruins of a civilization that was once great but long ago faded into history. The personal toll the trip took on those who participated is also an introduction into the spread of disease as more than half the members of the party developed a little known but virulent form of  Leishmaniasis. The writing is great the story fascinating so I can definitely recommend this book.

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano -  After getting into central America in that last book and reading about some of the exploitation of the region I sought out a book that tracks more in depth the intervention of Central and South America interested in learning some of the history of those areas. In this book Galeano explores this history not by region but by tracking the different commodities that have been exploited over time. From the first time European explorers first set foot in the new world the line of greed and exploitation has been a fixture throughout Latin America.  Gold and fine metals, coffee, lumber, slaves, oil over time all the natural resources have been stolen from the peoples of Latin America and Galeano does a great job of tracing that history. Written in the 1970s this book is still as pertinent today as when it was written. While reading I started thinking about the US role in the hemisphere and you can still see what was true 500 years ago with the Spanish is true today. Latin America is seen as a source of wealth but the powers that be mean to exploit it and take that wealth and through governmental manipulation leaving the region poorer and without the resources that could have improved the lives of the people. A good read but a bit of a slow one for me it did spur me to think about the role of my own country and how our absolute control of the world economy is built on the blood sweat tears and wealth of other nations. It gave me insight to the current effort the United States is making to destabilize Venezuela as we seek to steal the oil right from under their ground. Very interesting read glad I took it up.

The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela by Dan Kovalik - "Open Veins" got me thinking about about the US, our current government's role in the Latin America and how we continue to approach left leaning governments in our hemisphere. The Trump administration continues a long history of  bullying, exploitation and regime change tactics to make sure there is no successful leftist governments on this side of the planet. This book written with mostly old official US government documents non official sources, newspaper articles, other books and left leaning writers like Noam Chomsky but lacking any real proof other than observation. This weakness of the book is probably because our government classifies just about everything top secret and it will be 50 years before we will see the documents that could prove the books argument one way or the other. Although I found the book interesting the writer Dan Kovalik seems to be a real advocate for socialism and vilifies all that interfere with its success. The other weakness is the writers passion that comes across as a bit conspiratorial but of course if he is correct in his argument there is a giant conspiracy here so I can't too critical. I enjoyed the book which is easy to read and very thought provoking.

Doctor Who: The lost adventure by Douglas Adams - Shada by Gareth Roberts. Taking a break from more serious subjects I picked up a couple of my favorite things, Doctor Who and Douglas Adams. In this wonderfully completed story by Gareth Roberts, who used notes and draft scripts from Douglas Adams we get an adventure in the depth of a book that is very much in the voice of Adams. It is a fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) story where he, Romana, and K-9 with the help of Professor Chronitis and a couple of humans fight for free will to remain in the universe versus the evil Skagra. Skagra who sees the entropy of existence too unbearable has hatched a plan to control the minds of all beings in the universe in order to get everyone pulling in the same direction to combat the natural entropy that exists. He develops a collective mind that his will runs capturing the minds of all he has contact with regardless of  the choices of those beings. I love living in the world of the 4th doctor and this will also spur me into watching the Shada television episodes again since the book has a different ending.

Mr. Know It All by John Waters - Having just seen John Waters live at the Salem Horrorfest I was excited to pop on and get the latest book by the Pope of trash. We sort of got the abbreviated version of this latest book in the hour and a half monologue that Waters did in Salem but it left me wanting more. Maybe I should have paid for the Meet and greet part but I had already sunk so much money into events that I could not bring myself to do it. This book is a delightful romp through Waters life after finding commercial success.  It delves into the details of where Waters is in the world of entertainment post Hairspray with his energetic storytelling and a flare for the dramatic. I really like Waters as a film maker and appreciate that there is still such a subversive voice out there. It was a pleasure to see him live and the book is wonderful so go out and buy it.

Clawed (2017) Horror Sludge Monster

Clawed (2017) This film was originally called Sludge and it is the more appropriate title because the monster comes from a combination of some slime leaking from the ground coming in contact with toxic waste. I don't know if this writing will become anything but I am going to throw some words together on a little movie. I often skip the writing for films that don't connect with me and this one did not. I try to remember that making a film is hard and just because I get to sit in my TV room and pass judgement it is still an accomplishment to create and even if it is not art to me it still has value. Some films just don't grab me and some are just not good enough for writing paragraphs about. I know that seems a bit harsh but this film makes a case for actually using script writing structures. It is very difficult to connect to a film when the acting is unbelievable or the script is structured in a way that makes it confusing or the shots take you out of the moment.
  The framing story of the film is done through a pod caster interviewing the sheriff about the massacre at Bear Claw Mountain ten years earlier. The actress playing the podcaster chooses the most callus, gotcha politics style to ask questions. An airy voice asking questions like this is some kind of expose show and not really getting the gravitas her co actor is going for. It makes no sense as a choice when contrasted with the dower survivor who is the cop. In the end though her choice makes sense after you see the twist ending.  As he describes the incident giant claw scars covering one side of his face, we fade to that time and spend the better part of the film reliving the killings. Problem is there are no developed characters people come and go and die but you literally don't get to know any of them. We get a couple scenes sort of introducing the players like Jim the cancer ridden angry young man who heads off the Bear Claw Mountain to die only to be saved by the toxic goo that spews from the ground. He falls in it and looks to be dying but seems instead to ingest the stuff and it has some interesting effects on him. He is the closest to a lead character in this part of the film but we barely stay with him.

Instead we cut to a group from the local college out exploring the geothermal activity of the mountain.The problem with this script are numerous but the main thing is there are too many characters there for the sole purpose of dying. Cliche and poorly acted most of the ideas seem dredged from every other poorly written monster film over fifty years. You care about none of these characters so their brutal deaths at the claws of a maybe toxic chemically altered animal are not at all compelling. I am just saying that if you write good characters that can connect to the audience then their deaths mean something. this film really does not do that. Sure there is plot, seismic activity, goo leaking from the ground, illegal dumping of toxic waste, a rampaging monster but the story does not come from character development instead it is exposition by characters we don't really know, passed to the audience just so we can get to the killing.
 The people involved with this film do a great job of showing off their practical effects chops with lots of early gore scenes of people getting killed in various ways. The gore gags are pretty cool but since it is mostly daylight and the practical end of the effect sort of needs to be hidden the film maker uses really quick cuts when the effect is shown. This film is also plastered with these shots, instead of developing characters we seem to have a formula where every x minutes we get another gore shot. So really the characters are there to further the effects department instead of the story. When they do computer effects they are really shoddy and not very convincing.

Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) Horror Ghost

Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) - It's important to note that these thoughts are as I watch the film. They are not designed to be a review necessarily but more as thoughts while watching. There is so much spoiler information and guesses of what will come that you should be wary of reading this prior to seeing the film. You have been warned.
It's 1969 in small town America and Mary and her friends have not been the most popular of girls in the local high school. Some sudden attention from the jocks has her on a high because the guy she likes Willy has broken up with the prom queen to take her to the dance. It seems like it is going to be a magical night when Willie and the boys spike the punch of the three girls and a cruel alternative plan is revealed. Mary walking outside with Willy notices her friends all but passed out in the alley behind the dance and the Queen of the prom there beckoning to get the girls into the car. Mary runs and tries to hide in the school. Willie catches up to her and in the physical altercation that follows he accidentally kills her. Instead of doing the right thing he hides the body. Cut to teen girls in the bedroom during a sleepover telling the story. It is a legend.
  Samantha  (Kate Mara a young 22) is one of the young women telling and talking about Urban Legends. They makes some mentions to set the mood and also reference movies like Candyman (1992), before talking about how you do the Bloody Mary legend where you stand in front of the mirror with the lights out and say her name three times. She will appear and have a corpse face, and if you look at her she will drag you into her darkness unless you turn the light back on. Now the film immediately after setting up the rules breaks them because sure Samantha says "Bloody Mary" three times but she is lounging around with her friends not standing in the dark in front of a mirror. There is a desire by writers Mike Daugherty and Dan Harris to connect what is made up urban legend with well known stories in urban legend. This so he can blend the old with this new story they are trying to tell.
  Dougherty is so much the thing these days having written the already Halloween classic Trick r' Treat (2007), the wildly entertaining and I may say turning classic very quickly Krampus (2015) before graduating to blockbuster size films with Godzilla: King of Monsters this year. So when we cut to a creepy Bloody Mary appearing outside the house it is a head scratcher. Then when Mom comes in to wake the girls up they are all gone. A montage of scenes shows that the girls went missing maybe not to be found again. The girls suddenly came back and say they woke up in the cellar of the old mill, mind you with date rape drug in there system. Its weird because what we have here is the current story mirroring the events of 1969. This I am sure is on purpose as the Director Mary Lambert is going to integrate it all. Although I am wondering why include the urban legends stuff at all. It does not necessarily fit with the ghost story they are telling here and thus gives sort of a false read of the film.
  So my mind is going at this point, this seems like a classic misdirection as I pause the film to write this. The step father in the is family is Bill Owens (Ed Marinaro), running for mayor and I have a theory. Bill is Willie from the opening, we know his wife Pam was a prom queen so that matches. Then the fact the girls were drugged, maybe Bill never got over his need to drug girls like in 1969? What if the POV that seemed a bit creeper in its gaze when he checked on the girls the night they disappeared was a red flag purposely put in the film by director Mary Lambert?  It could be the current jocks who were established as being pissed at Samantha for a school article she wrote are the culprits. I think that was a misdirection though, creepy guilty of murder step dad is the suspect I am leading towards at this point. It is possible though. A parallel works here and I think there is a couple stories really taking hold at the same time.
  Talk in school is that the girls may have done the whole thing themselves but we quickly learn it was the jocks getting back at Samantha for her article. Twin brother David (Robert Vito) is trying to defend his sister but is ill equipped to do anything. The jocks are not pleased with the outcome worried that the girls will tell on them and get them into trouble. By the way this is exactly what should happen. All should be disciplined and kicked off the team but this is not the route the film takes. Instead the secret is kept so we can talk about this all happening before. Then we start to have incidents that are all very urban legend. One jock is fried in a tanning booth. Heather  (Audra Lea Keener) the lead jocks girlfriend although her relationship with Samantha has faded from when they were kids suddenly has the real life problem of a spider laying its eggs in her face. The absolute go for it attitude of the film makers having Heather pull off her face is pretty cool.
  There is a bit here on the effects of trauma but it is a bit over shadowed the linear story of the jocks wanting to blame people for the deaths of their friends. Instead we get even more urban legend deaths, like the guy getting electrocuted by pissing on a high voltage fence. The mystery seems to get bigger and bigger with Samantha and David thinking there is some conspiracy going on. There research leads them to the original disappearance in 1969 but it seems like all of the adults are suspects, like the step father and then the coach of the football team starts showing up being creepy himself. The children will always suffer the sins of their parents. The inexplicably builds this connection between the past and present even introducing premonitions that Samantha receives. So maybe this is really a ghost story where 35 years later the first crime is found out by the ghosts coming looking for justice? It is but is is wrapped up unnecessarily in urban legend talking points that sort of take away from a very reasonable revenge ghost story. Of course without all these extra shiny objects one might be reminded of the movie Stir of Echoes (1999) where a ghost gets her story told by using a neighborhood guy who was put under hypnosis to get revenge. The vengeful ghost is a motif after all so there will be many examples of this.
  The film takes the interconnectedness of all things and stands it on its head with what seems like a story that is not sure what it wants to be. Is this urban legends? No not really all those parts seemed disconnected from the real plot. A revenge ghost story? Yes it is a ghost that for some reason has to be reconciled at this time for no real reason other than that the children of the perpetrators are the same age as the victim when the original crime was committed. I am not really going to recommend this film but it isn't horrible just a bit too much.

Black Cobra Woman (1976) Exploitation Voodoo

Black Cobra Woman (1976) - It is not often that I get a DVD from Netflix and the quality is really poor but this is the case with this Jack Palance, Laura Gemser movie. Presented in full screen ratio from an old print including scratches and flaws the look and sound are not great. I don't know if writer / director Joe D'Amato was trying to push his sleazy films as travel movies but he often starts his films establishing the location, in this case Hong Kong by showing planes landing at the airport and ferries crossing the harbor in front of the city.  Eva (Gemser) has arrived in town to do a show and when she arrives she is talking to Jules (Gabriele Tinti) who is interested in seeing her show. I am going to guess that the show contains cobras hence the name of the film.  This film is early in the lovely Gemser's career this being her fifth film. Already a budding exploitation star with three featured characters in the Emmanuelle series of soft core exploitation movies she would go on to do more than a dozen of the films. Fresh faced and young in this one Gemser is just starting that twenty year film career. Her IMDB bio explains her early life as:"The exotic dark-haired beauty moved to Italy in the mid-1970's and made her film debut as Janine in the obscure Amore libero - Free Love (1974). However, it was Laura's small, but memorable role as a masseuse in Emmanuelle II (1975) that really launched her career in racy soft-core exploitation fare. Gemser achieved her greatest enduring international cult popularity with her incredibly erotic and uninhibited portrayals of the titular hedonistic and sexually adventurous globe-trotting photojournalist in the steamy "Black Emanuelle" series that were often directed by the notorious Joe D'Amato and frequently co-starred Gemser's real-life actor husband Gabriele Tinti." Tinti eighteen years her senior in real life and Gemser's husband plays Jules Carmichael a playboy who since he hit it off with her on the plain invites his brother Judas to go see her show. I wonder if that name will fit the character of the man. The DVD sleeve says that Judas falls for Eva and that is just weird in that he is a good thirty years older than she, but I guess the wealthy have the luxury of not paying attention to age norms in dating.
  Judas is smitten by watching the topless Eva dancing with a boa constrictor in a room full of men. She is slender and beautiful and it is all to establish desires, Eva touching a female friend under the table in the club establishes her willingness to be open sexually. Judas staring at this with an intense desire wants her. Later Eva is touching herself on a bed while thinking about her snake dancing and female lover. Judas a snake keeper himself takes her to lunch and then hires Eva to care for his reptiles. She having just met the creepy old man is not looking to immediately move into his house to be cared for by him. Such a strange approach the older rich guy offing to keep her and take care of her. This makes her Asian boyfriend jealous, he does not mind her taking woman lovers but the idea of another man in her life makes him angry. His anger is enough for her to allow him one more fuck before she takes the job with Judas.
  Things seem to go well when she joins the Carmichael residence but this film churns slowly while Eva is finding and wooing a bleached blonde Gerri (Michele Starck) and Julkes is seducing and then torturing Candy (Ziggy Zanger) with his brother's snakes. It slogs through the two women travelling around Hong Kong talking. There is some animal violence when they watch a snake being killed skinned and cooked at a local merchant stall. There is also a feeding of Judas' snakes that includes a python killing a mouse. Mostly there is a real openness to the films approach to bisexuality and lesbianism but unfortunately it does not empower those ways of life. More it is a male POV where we can see women caressing each other and getting naked, bathing together and often times in these scenes we see Jules peeping in from the other room always reminding us that this is material for the men to enjoy. Jules is a bit of a creeper, more so than his eccentric but seemingly harmless brother. His jealousy of the two women sharing a bed prompts him to put a deadly snake in the room with the two women. Gerri panics and incites the snake to bite her and she dies quickly. Devastated Eva leaves Hong Kong with Jules not knowing that he killed her lover. Or does she?
  There is a revenge aspect to this film and we eventually get there after a lot of slow plotting. Jules taking a Black Cobra up the ass because this special breed will eat its way free is an idea to be marveled at. She also has the gall to confess her crimes to Judas looking for him to back to the happier times when they lived together. She wants t show him she is the snake charmer and brings the green mamba out to dance with it. Unfortunately for her she is bitten by it and dies. This is a quick and remarkable dark ending to the film. I am not sure how worth the time this particular film is as it slogs most of the time and there really is not any redeeming qualities. I suppose the moral is don't kill with snakes or you will die by one? On a Gemser scale for nudity this film is like 2 of 5 nudes so if that was why you want to see it you may be disappointed in that also.

Mercy Black (2019) Horror Children

Mercy Black (2019) - This film is next up on the Zombiegrrlz podcast : Stream Queens and can be seen on Netflix. So go watch it, then listen to the pod when it comes out. Those two amazing women doing the pod will give you a very entertaining, insightful hour and a half. And when you have done your homework you can argue with them even though they can't hear you. What better way to spend your time sitting in traffic on the way to work. You got that Rachel? "Stream Queens saving your morning drive!"
Three girls head out into the fields and streams on a beautiful sunny day but only two come home. The mystery of the opening scenes which seems to show two of the girls killing their friend is seen only in short snippets. Those snippets are enveloped by a scene of Dr Ward (Janeane Garofalo) talking to young Marina (Jamy Lentz) trying to find out what happened that day. That is just the setup and we very quickly move to 15 years later when now grown Marina has been convinced that she was imagining the entire thing and was close to becoming schizophrenic thanks to 15 years with good doctor Ward. Let talk for just a minute about every time we have a mental health professional in a horror movie. They are either evil, crusaders or incompetent. Many times they are two of these things at once. Like the evil orderlies and non caring doctor Silverman in Teminator 2 : Judgement Day. Or a crusader like Dr Loomis trying to get people to understand just how dangerous Michael Myers is in Halloween. Or just incompetent like here in this film where because the therapist can't believe in the supernatural, then the patient must be ill. All of these instance make mental health workers look bad. I have something against that having worked as a counselor for eight years in my glorious past I know the majority of people in the field are in it for benevolent reasons. Because of the history of psychology and its really ill formed start as more punishment than a helping profession, mental health professionals get short shrift when it comes to morals. Often just mean people throwing straight jackets on patients and medicating them against their wills it has not been portrayed in a positive light. Ever. My pet peeve and soapbox. In this film Ward is seen as a logical smart professional but since she has no ability to connect to the supernatural aspects of the girls story, she just creates a diagnosis that covers what happened to Marina (Daniella Pineda). She sends her home after 15 years.
  Picked up by her sister we learn the parents are dead and the house a bit run down. Sister Alice (Elle LaMont) lives there with her son Bryce and the setup is what? Marina kills another child maybe Bryce? The creepy starts right away but in a very safe way. What could go wrong? Back in the house you lived in when you were traumatized. A kid creeping around while you are sleeping and having nightmares. A true crime friend Will Nylund (Austin Amelio) who comes over and want to talk about the murder of their friends in the name of Mercy Black. There really for some exposition we learn that the two friends didn't just kill a little girl with a rock but also stabbed her seven times. It widens the story letting us know that the story of two girls killing a friend has gone viral on this new invention called the internet. It also leads to a townie coming and scaring Marina with an effigy on the front porch. It also leads to the boy, Bryce finding out about Mercy Black, a guardian angel who seeks out sad kids and will take the hurt away if she receives a pure offering. "A perfect offering that will make her flesh and blood."
  The teacher, Lily Bellows (Lee Eddy) is suspicious letting Bryce get all kinds of information and trying to make it a bit of a mystery. This is not going to end well especially when she leaves the kid on the internet by himself. Just beside I get the we will see this woman again vibe so maybe the actress if foreshadowing her character a bit too strongly. At this point it is all innocent enough but I have a feeling about this one.
  A black feather to remind Marina about the crow they killed for their sacrifice. Will shows up to get Marina to consider getting on TV with her story. We also get more exposition where we learn Rebecca Kline the other little girl, was let out before Marina. Rebecca is the one who thought up Mercy Black and Marina portrays it as her idea to do those dastardly deeds. Will is a bit of an ass and can't keep his Mercy Black fandom contained when he talks to Marina making her really uncomfortable. She kicks him out of the house and he threatens the dog. So when they find the dog in the trash dead that night Alice is all in on blaming Will. When she confronts him she learns he has been researching stories of Mercy Black killings from around the world. The character does not make great sense as a friend but as a nutjob looking to profit off of Marina's history.
  Will is an antagonist who gets a bit of creepy himself. As it happens we see a frames image of the five of spades on his wall. Which a quick internet search reveals "The five of spades refers to your qualities and invites you to be careful. ... As a bad omen, the five of spades announces betrayal and the end of a romantic relationship or friendship, despite your implication and attachment. Playing on emotions and memories, this card refers to a sad time you will find hard to cope with." This plays right along with the myth they are building and it is time for the "monster" to start getting peopl so he is not a bad victim.
  Marina starts questioning her years of therapy and now in a quick reverting to crazy has to find out if  Mercy is real. Not calling back to the hospital for support but instead looking for Rebecca. We learn that after a suicide attempt that Rebecca is just a spaced out shell of a person. Well mostly. I like how everything even if a bit on the nose pushes the story forward. Mixed with the flashbacks of the children we get to see that the desire for Mercy to exist, even if made up by delusional kids may be enough to create the fiend out of imagination. We are really well set up in this movie. The mercy story has spread to Bryce and his imagination takes over while at the same time Marina is seeking to find out if her childhood trauma was just in her head. Both things are hopefully going to culminate with either a realization that it is a mental health problem or a real Mercy Black doing some serious damage. I would guess that since Marina is still the main character that she will be the one saving the boy from himself.
   Well constructed to this point we have all the pieces we need for a very creepy climax. We end up with Bryce and Marina in the house alone together and Mercy on her way. There is a great little twisty twist concerning the librarian who has been noticing Bryce's behavior. They do this thing though where they show a bit too much too soon and it cuts a lot of the tension out of the last quarter of the film. Still I think it works in a way. I am not sure it is the route I would have taken with the story but in the end it all plays out as a story about faith in what you believe in. Will there be time though for Marina to face her demons and still save the day? Again the ending was a bit stunted and not totally unforeseen. So overall I am saying this film is not so bad, a very passable little film which makes the recent choices on the Stream Queens like 3 for 3.