Psst!
A lot has happened out in what is known as real life, but the Omelet should be returning this month. I’m sure Netflix DVD will be glad to get a few discs back…
Author: J. A.
It reads. It writes. It watches. It researches. It overdoes many of those things!
Finally? Friday: The Horror on the Links (Jules de Grandin vol. 1)
Why Finally? While I’ve absorbed my share of old weird fiction. I’d never before read anything by the splendidly named Seabury Quinn, whose writing career overlapped with H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and the rest of the classic Weird Tales crowd of the early 20th century. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an occult detective story, and The Horror on the Links collects stories about Quinn’s own recurring occult detective, Dr. Jules de Grandin, so I figured I’d take a peek.
The Premise: Dr. Trowbridge of New Jersey is introduced to dashing physician, WWI veteran, world traveler, detective and general awesome person Jules de Grandin (of the French Sureté, a fact de Grandin points out approximately three billion times in this first volume of stories alone). They form both a friendship and a Holmes-and-Watson-like team, solving cases that can best be described as “what if every mystic fraud debunked in the Father Brown stories were true and also there were a bunch of monsters running around?”
Reader, it took me months to (sometimes) slog through this collection. I was initially knocked off my stride by the character’s introduction, in which de Grandin is said to have just a trace of a French accent and then goes on to talk like Hercule Poirot [ETA: a pretty Deadwood version of Poirot, on second glance] for the entire run.
The stories themselves are uneven: one adventure tale with pirates and a sea monster (“The Isle of Missing Ships”)ends with the monster being poisoned “offstage”… and I’m usually on Team Kraken to begin with. Another (“The Dead Hand”) has the detective correctly deducing, on scant evidence, that the culprit is a mesmerized corpse hand.
Of course it is.
That one almost caused me to stop reading altogether, but it was followed immediately by an excellent, if gruesome, mutilation story that could have been an episode of Criminal Minds. The Horror on the Links is an interesting assemblage of creatures, vampires, old gods, pirates, murderers, curses, and pretty much anything you can think of (especially if you were thinking of ghost Templars).
The Verdict: If these collections were a bit cheaper, I might read more Jules de Grandin; there’s a certain monster-of-the-week quality to these stories that appeals to me, even when the monsters themselves are silly. Like a lot of weird tales from this period, the de Grandin stories traffic in silly stereotypes about “foreigners,” but at some level, this includes the French-swearing detective himself; I’m not sure what to make of that.
I’ve read in various places online that these stories aren’t Quinn’s best work, and I can believe it. Proceed with caution. On the other hand, though… ghost Templars.
Might go well with: A charcuterie plate. And don’t forget the cheese!
Next time: Despite often saying that Lovecraft’s fish-people stories separate those who kind of want to be mermaids from those who really, really want to be mermaids, I’ve never seen Dagon all the way through—until now.
Found… Pretty Much By Accident Friday: Fright Night 2: New Blood (2013)
…What happened? As you probably guessed, I was trying to get the Fright Night sequel from the previous century. I didn’t even know the 2011 remake had a sequel—and it doesn’t, really; this is more in the vein (…) of another remake, now with a female vampire.
On the other hand, that female vampire is played by Jaime Murray, best known in the US as H.G. Wells from Warehouse 13. (To me, she will always be Stacie from Hustle, an excellent British crime show everyone should watch.) So how bad could it be?
…
You’d think a horror fan would know better than to say things like that.
…
The Premise: The study trip to Romania was supposed to be fun times for Charlie, “Evil” Ed and Amy; they’ll even get to tour some of the haunted sites featured on Peter Vincent’s ghost-hunting show! Unfortunately, Amy and Charlie broke up right before the course started.
Lonely, creepy Charlie thinks he’s hit the jackpot when he realizes he can spy on his hot lecturer, Gerri Dandridge, from his window—until, of course, she turns out to be a vampire. (This happens about five minutes into the movie, so Charlie isn’t happy for long… which makes a nice five-word summary of the entire Fright Night franchise.) Ed and Charlie figure out that Gerri is really the Blood Countess Bathory—who was from Hungary, not Romania, although per Wikipedia she apparently owned land there. They enlist (read: bribe) Peter Vincent to help them out.
Cursed to wander the earth until she finds a very special kind of virgin blood, Gerri/Elizabeth is at first concerned with making sure the teenagers don’t out her dining habits. She soon realizes that Amy is the vintage she’s been looking for the whole time, setting off some zippy special effects, very neat echolocation, and a climactic battle at a blood-filled swimming pool I imagine would smell just awful.
The Verdict: As a movie, Fright Night 2 is… okay. It has some great visuals, an entertaining take on the Peter Vincent character—it seems I will never get tired of watching cynical ghost hunters get their comeuppance—and a lift-the-curse plot I shouldn’t complain about, even though I’d like to, because I loved the Dark Shadows revival. The charm of bringing a Dandridge to Dracula’s home notwithstanding, New Blood is strictly for completists.
My viewing did suggest that, for me at least, Jerry Dandridge and Fright Night have become iconic. Just as I’ll happily watch a movie with Count Dracula as a woman/a CEO/a 1970s Chelsea nightclub dweller/George Hamilton, I’ll enjoy any variation on the Fright Night story.
Might go well with: Goulash. You know, the Hungarian dish. No, I’m not going to let it go.
Next time: I review a book it took me months to get through. Weird fiction ahoy!
I’ll Come In Again…
So I’m getting the blog back together! Life stuff, hard, etc.
I’m pleased to see that people have been visiting the site in my absence: my review of Blacula is now the most-read thing here at the Omelet, which is great because Blacula is fantastic and you should all watch it. (Number two is my review of Forever Knight S1, and I can report from my hiatus that season 2 is better, possibly because it focuses less on Nick.)
As for me, I have been generally Sorting Things Out. I don’t know if I’ll ever get my Jonny Quest enthusiasm back, but I have a backlog of movies, TV and books to talk about, so Friday posts resume this week with the one I got by mistake, 2013’s Fright Night 2: New Blood. See you in a few!
The Quest For Monday! Part 61: Down A Dark Hall
(Post title reference here)
(Episode: “The Dreadful Doll”)
Synopsis: The Quests are diverted from marine biology, first by the appearance of a spy sub, then by villagers with a voodoo problem. The voodoo is a smokescreen…er, zombie-drug-screen…to hide the construction of an undersea base, and the situation escalates faster than you can say “Wade Davis.” Highlights of this episode include turbanless Hadji and Bannon beefcake, because the dreadful doll is a doggone distraction.
Welcome back, campers! We all needed a break after fighting that giant turkey, no doubt. (Note to self: do not accept holiday food gifts from Dr. Zin.) Let’s check in with the Quest clan from a rather academic point of view.
Tip 61: Knowledge can be applicable in, shall we say, all sorts of places.
In the director’s commentary to his horror classic The Fall of the House of Usher, Roger Corman goes on at enthusiastic lengths about the Freudian symbolism of the burial chamber.
What does that have to do with the price of voodoo in Questland, you ask?
Fortunately, such profound psychological pondering doesn’t get in the way of a daring Quest rescue, followed by an explosion.
So it all works out in the… *immature giggle*
Next time: I come up with a Friday category for “Thing I got from Netflix thinking I was getting another thing, then watched it anyway.”
Next time on TQfM!: We start an episode titled “A Small Matter of Pygmies.” This is not my fault.
Finally! Friday: Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon (1957)
Why Finally? I’ve known for a while that Dana Andrews, an excellent actor who played the guy standing next to Vincent Price hero in the classic noir Laura, starred in an adaptation of M.R. James’s story “Casting the Runes.” While it isn’t my favorite James story , it’s pretty close.
Curse of the Demon and Night of the Demon, which I believe are the UK and US versions respectively, are available on one DVD.
The Premise (original story): When Mr. Dunning gives Mr. Karswell’s alchemy book a bad review, he has no idea the author already tried out all the spells; he soon finds himself under a death curse. Dunning must join forces with the bereaved brother of a previous scathing reviewer, Harrington, in order to return Karswell’s all-too-practical magic to sender.
The Premise (movie version): American John Holden (Andrews in an updated version of the Dunning role) arrives at a convention in time to learn of the death of Harrington, who played a part in bringing down sorcerer Karswell’s notorious cult. When he crosses paths with Karswell and begins to feel strangely hunted, Holden teams up with Harrington’s niece to defeat this oddly jolly evil wizard who lives with his mother.
Also, if anybody saw Laura and wanted a shower scene, this movie has you covered.
Night/Curse of the Demon was directed by master of film mood Jacques Tourneur, and it shows in the spooky landscapes and shadows that seem alive as Karswell’s curse draws closer to fruition. The real treat, as far as I’m concerned, is the character of Karswell: he lurks on the fringes of the James story, but here he’s front and center, with a tantalizing library and an engaging habit of doing magic shows for the children of the village while in clown makeup, all while plotting your death.
Like most older horror films, Night/Curse of the Demon does suffer a bit in the effects department, in a way I found very rewarding. (SPOILER: the titular monster appears in the second shot below, so if you don’t want to see it, scroll quickly after the leopard attack.)
The Verdict: From the portentous prologue against a shot of Stonehenge to the final demon action, I really enjoyed Night of the Demon. Though it’s by no means a slavish adaptation. Night/Curse of the Demon uses a more nuanced, pervasive Karswell and his cult (which is not in the James story) to create a tense, updated variation on “Casting the Runes.” Very worth watching.
(The trailer gives too much away, as usual.)
Might go well with: Comfort food, a glass of port, and the double episode of A Podcast to the Curious dedicated to the original story, which is where I first found out about Night of the Demon.
Next time: We finish up “The Dreadful Doll” so the Quest family can move on to something with an even more embarrassing title.
The Quest For Monday! Part 60: The Hunt For Just Some Goober
(Episode: “The Dreadful Doll”)
Synopsis: The Quests are diverted from marine biology, first by the appearance of a spy sub, then by villagers with a voodoo problem. The voodoo is a smokescreen…er, zombie-drug-screen…to hide the construction of an undersea base, and the situation escalates faster than you can say “Wade Davis.” Highlights of this episode include turbanless Hadji and Bannon beefcake, because the dreadful doll is a doggone distraction.
Tip 60: There are subs, and then there are subs.
Always be clear what you mean, campers: This “sub,” for example, is a secret evil construction project built under cover of voodoo.
Meanwhile, the voodoo guy himself is called upon as a sub: a substitute for a decent guard.
Clarity (with no small help from any children who may come to your aid in time of need) will see you through.
Next time: To hell with “based on a true story”; Night of the Demon is based on a good story, and I’ve finally watched it!
Next time on TQfM!: Another rescue, the ghost of Sigmund Freud has a laugh, and the episode ends.
(Sort-Of) Found-Again Friday: Slasher Season 2
Why Finally? Readers of this site—if any are left after my absence—may have noticed my preference for supernatural horror over slasher/torture films (given Freddy, Jason and Michael, slashers aren’t exactly supernatural-free, but never mind). This is partly my own squeamishness and partly some ingrained impulse: asked to choose between “movie in which a live guy kills a bunch of people” and “movie in which a dead guy kills a bunch of people,” I’ll pick the cranky spirit every time.
So it was surprising last year that I enjoyed the first season of Canada’s Slasher series on Netflix. From its Halloween-massacre beginning to its maybe-supernatural coda, I was fascinated by the web of small-town intrigue, revenge, and (very) bloody murder, and I highly recommend it even to people who will have to cover their eyes. I hadn’t realized the show was coming back, but the second season teased an unrelated story of concealed murder at a summer camp (subtitled Guilty Party)—what could be more classic?
The Premise: When a revenge scheme gets out of hand and a girl dies, a group of camp counselors forges a pact of silence. Five years later, they come together to move the body before the commune that now owns the property expands its facilities to the burial site. Before the guilty parties (ha!) can even get unpacked, their only transportation out of the wilderness has an abrupt meeting with a chainsaw. The conspirators are trapped with the commune members in a snowy mountain retreat with a vengeful killer on the loose.
That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And if I said that everyone in that cabin is hiding something terrible, even the vegan yogis, it would sound even better. Yet this story disappoints: things you think are red herrings become things you hope are red herrings, then pretty clearly become exactly what’s going on. Watching the commune members descend from hippy-dippy camaraderie to paranoia and violence is a large part of the seven episodes, but any psychological interest to be had from this can’t make up for the other deficiencies.
The Verdict: Despite good pacing—especially when unfolding the camp story—and enough character development that I was rooting for very different people at the end of the series than at the beginning, the second season of Slasher just didn’t quite achieve the heights of the first. Add to that a sense that some events are there purely for shock value (above and beyond the usual creative kills, I mean) and while I’ll likely check out any third season, this iteration of the series let me down.
Might go well with: The first Slasher season. The first Friday the 13th. And I ought to warn readers that there’s a whole plot about meat vs. vegetarianism, with somewhat predictable results, so choose your food with care.
You can find the trailer here.
Next time: I get to spend my weekend gearing up to resume The Quest For Monday. Race Bannon’s the nerdy redhead, right?
Very, Very Late Finally! Friday Halloween: The Conjuring
Why Finally? My attraction to spooky stuff has existed as long as I have; that’s why, at the age of eight or nine, I was already familiar with the work of psychic investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, on whose real-life adventures The Conjuring movies are based. (A bigger mystery is how I made it through seven years of Baptist school pursuing this stuff without being burned as a witch or, more prosaically, getting booted for Satanism.) Perhaps that seems too scary for a kid, but it was comforting, as I lay in bed at night playing the popular game “Dad Snoring, Or Bloodthirsty Demon-Thing Growling?” to know the boogeymen had opponents and the living had defenders.
On the other hand, I am also a big fat coward, so I suspected The Conjuring might be something of an endurance test.
Hey, look, an opening shot of the fractured eyeball of Annabelle, The Possessed Doll Of Evil! Maybe I’m clairvoyant too!
Thanksgiving Christmas Valentine’s Day St. Patrick’s Day Easter Memorial Day the NEXT Halloween?
Among other, more personal reasons, I didn’t want to screenshot the damned doll. Happy?
The Premise: Famed psychic investigators/demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are called upon to help the Perron family with their newly acquired haunted house.
Annabelle, the most horrific thing in the film by a large margin, is a mere side plot as she breaks out of the Warrens’ Friday the 13th: The Series-like storeroom and menaces their daughter. The outline of the main story will be familiar to anyone who ever caught The Amityville Horror on cable: the fixer-upper that turns into the fixer of little red wagons. And like those other movies, it’s easy to see how, given a sufficiently large space and a large family, communication breakdown can delay seeking assistance for even the most aggressive haunting.
Eventually, the family’s matriarch Carolyn becomes the focus of the activity, and as you might imagine, things get worse before they get better.
The Verdict: Mixed. As a haunted-house movie, The Conjuring is effective to the point of creeping dread, even when characters are just walking between rooms. The casting is also superb: in addition to great performances by Wilson and Farmiga, Lili Taylor is perfect as Carolyn, the terrorized wife and mother who eventually takes on the darkness. My only objection is to the ultimate source of the haunting, which struck me as a tad goofy. Given that the movie is (depending how one feels about the Warrens) based on a true story/”based” on a “true” “story,” that may have been unavoidable. Certainly it’s not enough to stop me from checking out the sequel, and maybe even the Annabelle movies. No later than 3 p.m. and in strong daylight, of course.
Might go well with: Anything you can nibble without taking your eyes off the screen, House Hunters, NO DOLLS.
Next time: The recent second season of a Netflix series. Nope, not that one.
Just In Time…
So I wasn’t back after all. This sorting out of personal stuff is harder than it looks.
I will, however, be back on Friday. And someday my review of The Conjuring will publish. But those are probably going to be two different things.
In the meantime, here’s a mantis who spent an afternoon hanging onto my house.
