Who I'd Save: Friday the 13th

If a horror movie is worth a damn, you inevitably have victims that you wish would have survived.  Maybe you connected with the character in some way, maybe they were sympathetic, maybe you just think the death they received was gratuitous or especially horrible.  Hell, maybe you just think they are attractive and hope for an appearance in the sequel.  Whatever the reason: you want them to survive, but they didn't.  So I thought it might be fun to go through several of the franchises I own and pick out who I would save.  And what better to start with then the most prolific of the horror movie franchises (give or take Hellraiser)?  So, without further ado, here is the character I would save from each of the twelve Friday the 13th films.

Friday the 13th: Brenda

This was a hard one: there are at least three that I would spare from their fates:  Annie, who was just excited to cook for and work with kids and Bill, who just seemed like a solid guy, were the other two I considered.  But for me, Brenda strikes me as the most unfair of the kills in the first movie.  Mrs. Voorhees is punishing the counselors for not protecting Jason, but she kills Brenda who runs out into a storm (in her nightgown!) when she hears a child crying for help?  If anything, Brenda should have been deliberately spared - it's not like the camp was going to open with the five other murders that had already occurred.  Brenda deserved better!  Also: how often is a non-nerd character shown just reading for fun in a horror movie?

Friday the 13th Part II: Vickie

This one was fairly easy: Vickie is a sweetheart and the gusto with which she pursues Mark (pictured above with her) is probably the most relatable subplot from amongst the doomed counselors.  She at least gets to last the longest of those left behind.

As an aside, I think most people would pick Mark since it kind of sucks to be stuck in a wheelchair with a murderer stalking about, but I kind of appreciate the chutzpah of killing him - given the period in which the film was made, it feels slightly taboo, particularly with how graphic it is compared to the other deaths.

Friday the 13th Part III: Vera

Vera gets the shit end of the stick.  The first of the main group to get killed (though Shelly is the first to encounter Jason, he lives long enough to die in front of Chili), she's an add-on brought along to potentially hook up with Shelly.  Even then, when she very kindly turns him down, he still calls her a bitch.  She's even trying to get some of Shelly's stuff that fell into the lake out when Jason comes along and kills her.  Vera deserved better.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: Mrs. Jarvis

Another character done dirty.  Mrs. Jarvis lives on the lake with her two children - why does Jason suddenly go after them?  Is it because of the teens next door?  That isn't her fault!  Plus, it sucks that our final two - Trish and Tommy Jarvis - are orphans at the end of the movie.  Plus, she doesn't even get an onscreen death or even an acknowledgement of it during the movie.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: George

I was tempted to go with Joey, if only because preventing his death would have saved the entire cast, but that feels a bit like cheating.  Instead, I'll go with George, the grandfather of Reggie who seems like such an odd kill.  Granted, almost all of Roy's kills don't make sense (Vic, the one who kills Joey, is ironically one of the few survivors of Roy's rampage), but for all appearances, George was very kind and helpful to all of the troubled kids, so killing him seems more like increasing the body count than out of any real motivation for Roy.

Honorable mention to Vinnie and Pete, who I have as a gay couple in my head-canon.  They were just passing by, no reason to murder them.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Lizabeth

This one was an easy call: Lizbeth saw Jason standing there threateningly, and was very quick to say 'Let's GTFO' - if only her companion, Darren, had heeded her advice.  Instead, they both bite the dust.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood: Melissa

An odd choice, to be sure, but we stan an unapologetic bitch.  Melissa wears it like a mark of honor, and even has one of the most honest reactions to someone telling her about Jason - thinking it is a crazy story.  Granted, he is very real, but can you blame her for not believing Tina or Nick?

Honorable mention on this one goes to Eddie - a victim of Melissa's machinations.  But that has more to due with nerd sympathy than anything else.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan: Colleen

There were several victims I would spare in this film, but Colleen tops the list:  The kind teacher to final girl Rennie, Colleen doesn't even get the dignity of dying by Jason's hand - instead dying in a car explosion after Rennie hallucinates a kid Jason in the middle of the road and crashes their vehicle.

Honorable mention to Eva, whose death always seemed especially brutal to me (I think it had to do with how Jason threw her to the ground after strangling her) or J.J. who just wanted to play her guitar.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday: Vicki

The second Vicki on our list!  She's much more of a badass though - when the Robert-possessed Jason starts murdering everyone at the diner, she quickly busts out a shotgun and also impales him with a metal rod.  Not bad for a non-final girl!  She also is just an all-around helpful person, and it sucks when she gets killed.

Jason X: Sergeant Brodski

Guy sacrifices himself to stop Jason and save the remaining people from the Grendel.  Just an all-around badass, and one of the few characters to have a normal name.

Freddy vs. Jason: Linderman

This has more to do with the actor - Chris Marquette - being on Joan of Arcadia, than anything to do with the character.  I guess there is some nerd solidarity in there, but most of my sympathy belongs to Mark.  However, Mark is a Freddy victim, not a Jason one, so Linderman gets the tiebreaker.

Friday the 13th (2009 Remake): Jenna

Given the fact that most of the characters suck in the remake (a product of the tendency in the late aughts to make all of the victims assholes), Jenna is pretty much a no-brainer.  While Chewie and Lawrence aren't too awful, they also don't do anything to help Clay find his sister, so Jenna gets the save.  Her death was honestly shocking to me when I first watched the film, so losing that fake-out is a bit of a bummer, but again, I'd like the non-crappy character to live.

And that covers all of the films!  What series should I do next?

Review: Halloween Kills

 

What an absolute and total piece of shit. That alone could be my entire review for this movie, but even that simple sentence - as all-encompassing as it is in my complete disdain for this self-important crime against the franchise - is not enough to satisfy me.  This movie both does and doesn't deserve the time and effort I am going to put into this review.  I am so angry at this film - and imagine that word used in its most pretentious form, because the director and writers very obviously refer to this movie in such a way - that merely dismissing it is not enough.  This is the cinematic equivalent of a festering boil sitting a half-inch from an unwiped asshole - pulsating and leaking pus - and I am going to lance this motherfucker.

Set immediately after the events of 2018 Halloween, this movie looks at what worked and didn't work in the previous entry, and doubles down on every single part that didn't work and tells the audience 'You will appreciate it his time!'  It's fitting that a key piece of imagery in this movie is a baseball bat, since director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride metaphorically beat the audience into submission with their 'vision' of what should be enjoyed when watching a Halloween film.  Not what people actually enjoy, mind you, what they think you should enjoy, and it's your fucking problem if you don't.

(As an aside, I realize that there is a third person credited with writing the screenplay, but I am confident that all the worst instincts of this script can be traced to McBride, with an assist from Green, so Scott Teems escapes my wrath for now)

They think they have done something so special - so subversive and hardcore and never-before-seen - when they have done something so utterly basic and trite and predictable.  "Look, we brought back a whole bunch of characters from the original movie - played by their original actors! - and you don't know who will live and who will die!"  Wow, just like how Halloween 6 brought back Tommy Doyle (played in that film by Paul Rudd in his debut) or how H20 brought back Marion Chambers as it's opening fucking kill.  Wow, how brave and different, you guys.

It's not even shocking when they kill the (vast majority) of those characters off - it's so obvious that the whole reason they were brought back for this movie was for that very reason.  If anything, they used those characters as a crutch to carry the weight of their 'message' (a stupid been-done-a-thousand-times-and-better-by-any-Living Dead-movie message: Who are the real monsters?) In fact, the whole major plot point of Tommy Doyle starting a lynch mob that goes after the wrong person (spoilers, fuck you) is so completely unnecessary to the plot of the film that it feels added in to give the movie a proper runtime more than to do anything worthwhile.  Well, a proper runtime and another needlessly gory death to add.

Jesus Christ, the gore in this movie.

I appreciate good gore effects - I will sing the praises of 1980's The Thing or 2010's Piranha 3-D to anyone willing to listen - but this movie goes right past excessive straight into exploitative.  It's one thing to show a brutal head crush or stab wound, it's quite another to linger on the suffering of the victim, or to all but caress the visual with the camera.  There's a difference between 'look at this cool shit we did with a gore effect' and what this movie does.  This movie enjoys the suffering it inflicts on the mostly-nameless victims.

And understand, this movie has a high kill count, and precious few are ones we have any connection with.  This is why bringing back the original characters all but assures their doom: The movie does nothing to make you care about any of the victims.  It's counting on nostalgia to make you care about these characters, given how precious little we get of them prior to the mayhem.  The only characters to get any sort of character work are the black couple seen getting into their car from the first film and the gay couple.

And now we are going to talk about that gay couple.

Played by Michael McDonald and Scott MacArthur, it is very obvious from the get-go that you are supposed to laugh at these characters.  The affectations, the ridiculous behaviors, the fact that they refer to each other as Big John and Little John - these characters are ridiculous and on the same level as Deputies Nick and Tom from Halloween 5 - the two deputies that famously had clown music accompanying their every appearance.

This movie so thoroughly ridicules the two - spending as much time on them as they do several of the returning characters, which is damning on multiple levels - that when Michael appears to inevitably kill them (they live in his original house) the audience at the theater I was at laughed as they were stalked.  They even laughed as they were murdered, which was a real comfort to me as I sat watching the movie with my boyfriend.

I can tell with these characters and the gratuitous kill of the possibly-gay child in the 2018 film that, again, they think they are doing something different and edgy with their movie.  And it might've been if this film had come out sometime during the first two seasons of Family Guy, since that is about the level of edge it actually is.

(And for those that might try to defend the child murder in the 2018 film, it is implied that Michael kills another in this one - but it is only implied, not shown - and you will not convince me that the sexuality of the two characters didn't play a part)

This movie also makes goes to Thorns levels of stupidity with Michael's apparently supernatural powers.  He teleports, he has ninja skills, he is impervious to gunshots and stab wounds - it's a miracle they kept him contained for 40 years, given his superhuman abilities.  And this isn't a few minor instances, like in the 2018 - there are major points in the film where Michael is able to apparently fight off 8+ people - all of who are wielding weapons of their own - with ease.  And in both of these cases, he has been stabbed/shot/beaten/burned beforehand.  There's even a scene where he expertly kicks a door to knock a gun so it faces the person shooting it as it fires.  And it is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

I fucking hated this movie.  I don't think a horror movie has completely and utterly pissed me off to this level since 2014's Tusk.  That movie was terrible because it was obvious that everything about it was half-assed.  This movie obviously had lots of effort put into it, but apparently no one around to throw ice water on the production crew to keep them from masturbating to their own awesomeness.  At least Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer got paid (and they both gave performances far better than this movie deserved ).

Oh, also: fuck the ending.  We all knew there was going to be a third one, but ending it they way you did?  Fuck the director and fuck the writers for thinking that was acceptable.

Book of the Month: December 2018

 

Offered Books:

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

One Day in December by Josie Silver

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Severance by Ling Ma

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Selected:

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Others Purchased:

Severance by Ling Ma

Sometimes a novel is hard to review through no fault of its own: maybe it was a genre that the critic is overly familiar with, so twists and turns are more easily spotted.  Maybe they couldn't connect with the main character for whatever reason, so they didn't get as invested in the action.  Or maybe the reviewer is just not in a reading mood, but still forces their way through the book out of a sense of obligation.  That final point colors my opinions on this book.

I am a big proponent of reading what you like (get 30 pages into a novel and not enjoy it?  Shelve it and move to something else!) and have thankfully reached a point where I will not force myself to continue reading a book that I do not enjoy just because I have finished it.  Life is too short to turn a leisure activity into work.

The problem with this book is, when I started it, I very much enjoyed it.  It follows Darby Thorne as she drives back to her dying mother, but gets caught in a snowstorm in Colorado and is stuck at a rest stop with several other people.  While there, she discovers a kidnapped child in one of the other vehicles, with no idea who drives it.

Great premise, right?  I got to around the point where Darby finds the child when I suddenly hit a wall:  I just didn't feel like reading.  And not just this novel - any other book I picked up was quickly set aside.  This is not a rare occurrence in of itself, but for it to happen in the middle of a novel is rare.  To make matters worse, despite forcing myself through this book, it still took me around two months to finish it (for context, a novel of this length is normally something I can read within a day or two).

Which is why reviewing this book is hard - so much momentum was lost just in the process of reading it that I don't know if the novel was draggy in areas, or if it was a symptom of my reader's block (for lack of a better term).  Thinking about it, I do think it was a bit slow towards the beginning, but once the main action started, it was a solid read.  The characters were believable, the villain was appropriately threatening, and Darby is an all-around great protagonist: I just had a hard time reading the book, so it is hard for me to say that I loved it, or even give it a full-hearted recommend.

It's worth a read, and maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did.

2.5 out of 5

If No Exit was a novel that just had the misfortune to be read at the wrong time, then Ling Ma's Severance is one that benefited greatly from the timing of its reading.  It follows Candace Chen, a millennial working an office job that she does not love - but pays well - when there is suddenly a worldwide plague that is killing off the majority of the population.  While initially everyone thinks 'Shen Fever' will be easily handled, it soon upsets the global supply chain and Candace finds herself essentially alone in New York City.

This was released in December of 2018.

It boggles my mind how prescient this novel ended up being when I finally read it in March of this year.  While it was initially categorized as a satire, it's hard to read it as one in a post-COVID world.  And it makes me glad to have read it later: I was already the in target audience for this novel and reading it this year gives me an appreciation for how well Ma crafted not only her protagonist, but how well Ma understood how a global pandemic would effect people.

Candace is an outstanding character - the novel is told entirely from her perspective, and Ma allows the reader to see both the good and the bad of her without having Candace be too knowledgeable of other character's motivations or softening Candace's harder edges.

The first half of the novel primarily focuses on getting to know Candace and how she arrived at her current job, with a bit of alluding to the world at large and the growing problems also.  The second and meatier half focuses on Candace after she meets with a group of survivors and starts traveling with them.

The part of the book focusing on the group is where the novel really shines.  Bob, the antagonist of the novel and the leader of the group, is a perfect villain: banal in his cruelty but savvy in his leadership.  The other members of the group have enough personality that you can differentiate them from one another, but not so overwhelming in idiosyncrasies that it detracts from the novel.  I might've liked more of the group dynamic to be explored, but - without giving too much away - it is understandable that Candace wouldn't be able to expand on that aspect.

I really enjoyed this book.  Maybe it hit me a bit harder than it normally would have due to COVID, but every millennial should give this one a go, or just any lover of post-apocalyptic literature.

5 out of 5.

Author Links:

Taylor Adams

Ling Ma

Book of the Month: November 2018

 

Offered Books:

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Selected:

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Others Purchased:

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

One of the goals I set for myself when I first signed up for Book of the Month was to force myself to try and read books in genres I normally skip.  With Jasmine Guillory's The Proposal, I finally ventured into a genre I still, to this day, only rarely go to: Romance.  I greatly enjoyed this foray into the genre - enough so to take another venture into it with another (future) Book of the Month selection - but, at the same time, feel woefully unsure of how to approach a review for a genre that I am so unfamiliar with.  Nevertheless, I will try.

I would venture to guess that one of the most important aspects of this sort of novel would be likeable characters - and our two main protagonists (Nikole and Carlos) have charm to spare.  Really, that would be a good one-word description of this book: charming.

I know the plot is a bit pedestrian - I could easily tell where the story is headed and what would happen next, even with my unfamiliarity with the genre - but the charm mentioned early easily buoys it as it progresses.  It does have one banger of an opening, and the resolution works well.  I can't really point to any aspect of the novel that doesn't work.

I think it is common when discussing books to look down at certain genres - YA, romance, non-Stephen King horror, among others - and often it is overlooking the fact that not every book needs to be the next Great American Novel.  Sometimes you need the literary equivalent of cotton candy - something sweet and fluffy to enjoy.  And there is nothing wrong with either reading or enjoying these types of novels.

Which might sound like long-winded way of saying I liked this book, and recommend it, but nevertheless, both of those facts are true.

3.5 out of 5

It feels a bit late to get to this review - he says writing this review almost 3 years after getting the book - especially with a limited series now airing for it (which I have not watched, but might try out).  But all of these reviews are late, so why let something like that stop me?

Nine Perfect Strangers follows... well, nine strangers, as they go to Tranquillum House, a health resort that promises to fix whatever it is that ails them.  Run by the enigmatic Masha, the book does a good job of following not only the journeys of each of the nine strangers, but also Masha and her employees.  There is not a single underdeveloped character in this book, which is a bit of a surprise given the size of the cast and how much happens during the novel.

I had heard of but not read any of Moriarty's previous novels, so I cannot compare it to her other works, but I can say that I was a fan of this one.  It's well paced, all of the characters are interesting - I cannot remember actively disliking any of them! - and the plot goes to exciting places without ever feeling histrionic or contrived - a tight rope to walk, given the events of the novel.

In fact, one of the greater issues I have reviewing this book is that it is best to go into knowing as little as possible.  Any deeper into the a summary of the plot would give too much away, and the most I feel like I could get away with is that Masha has unusual methods and things escalate.

However, anyone who loves high-stakes fiction is likely to enjoy this.  It's an easy recommend - and it is probably better to read this before watching the show.

4 out of 5

Author Links:

Jasmine Guillory

Liane Moriarty

Book Review: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon follows Trisha - the titular girl - as she wanders off a hiking path and finds herself lost in the woods after attempting a shortcut and falling down an embankment.  While lost, she believes herself pursued by the malevolent God of the Lost - which may or may not be a hallucination - as she tries to find her way back to civilization.

Right out the gate, this is a promising premise for King to tackle , but in customary King style, he adds to it beautifully and both uses and subverts the tropes of this well-worn story type to explore self-reliance, loneliness, and wonder.

This is a shorter King novel - only 219 pages - but he uses each page wisely: Almost the entirety of it is focused on Trisha, with only a few bits here and there to let the reader know what is happening with her family and explaining how the search is going.  This allows King to really delve into her thoughts and feelings in a way that many of his other novels - with their large casts and multiple subplots - cannot hope to.

And Trisha is a great character.  While King definitely struggled with his women and girl characters in his earlier works, Trisha doesn't have any of those issues.  He manages to credibly make her self-reliant while still maintaining her childishness (Trisha is 9 years old).  This allows him to grow the character in interesting ways as she is forced to survive, and helps with the ambiguity of the supernatural events she may or may not be experiencing.

The supernatural aspects - though sparse - are also well done, especially since King never lets the reader know for certain if Trisha is truly experiencing them or hallucinating due to malnutrition and sickness.  Her first experience with it reads as both a dream and reality, and it is a harrowing read even if you do ultimately come down on the side of it being her imagination.

While this isn't listed as one of King's best novels - and, indeed, I'm not quite sure where I would rank it out of his 70+ books - I do think it might be one of his more underrated ones.  Whether because of its simplicity or because it found itself released between two more prominent of his novels (Bag of Bones and Hearts in Atlantis), I think it is often overlooked.  Which is a shame, because I would definitely recommend it - especially for first-time King readers.

4 out of 5

Stats:

Pages: 219

Movie?: None yet, though one is supposedly in the works with Lynne Ramsay set to direct
Dark Tower?: Like Carrie, this is the rare King novel that has no obvious connection to the Dark Tower

Child Deaths?: None, though this isn't surprising given the small cast

Book Review: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Max Brook's Devolution follows the citizens of the small community of Greenloop - primarily told through the diary of Kate Holland, with occasional interviews from people outside of the community - as they deal first with a volcanic eruption, then the invasion of their community by a large tribe of sasquatch seeking food.

Brooks makes quite a change in narrative style in this novel, compared to his previous two: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z.  Rather than it being a collection of recollections like the latter, this is a straightforward story, albeit one that has interviews interspersed that harkens back to it.  The structure suits him, and the story is engrossing and remarkably well-researched.

The main conceit of the novel is making this small community believably cut off from the rest of the world, and Brooks sets about explaining that quickly and efficiently:  Greenloop is a new type of village, intentionally set away from large cities and built to be as eco-friendly as possible.  Food is delivered by self-driving vehicles or by drones, the buildings are powered with solar panels and from recycled waste - any detail the reader could think of for this small group of people (all told, the town has 11 people) has an explanation ready and - more importantly - delivered naturally through the novel.

Because of this 'low carbon footprint,' the city lacks many necessities the one would normally have present, and once the volcano erupts and starts the main action of the story, they realize the folly of this type of idealized living.

Not that they are completely helpless.  While the main organizers of the community, Tony and Yvette, become rather unhelpful, one of the more fascinating members - Mostar - takes charge.  While much of her story is a mystery - aside from one interview (pre-Greenloop) towards the end of the novel, Kate never brings herself to delve too much into Mostar's past, enough is hinted at that both Kate and the reader get a good idea of what she has survived and how she will use her history to help the community.  And that's before the titular sasquatch make their appearance.

If there is one shortcoming to the novel - and this is minor at best - it is that we don't get much of the other residents due to the story told entirely through Kate's diary.  Aside from Kate and Mostar, the only other developed character is Kate's husband.  Some of the characters are enough of 'personalities' that the reader can do the heavy lifting of characterization, but most of them fade into the background.

Which is fine - this novel is Kate's story and her growth throughout is a wonder to read.  Brooks manages to do this subtly despite it being Kate's own recollection of what happened.  When discussing her with friends, it became a game to guess who would play her in the inevitable movie (this is lean enough that it could be a film fairly easily, rather than a miniseries).

While some might complain that the novel takes too long to get to the actual beasts of the title, I think Brooks does a good job of setting the scene and building to their appearance.  After all, there aren't that many people in Greenloop, and if a massacre is going to happen (and indeed, it does), one cannot jump into the action too quickly.  I think Brooks manages this tightrope fairly well - having interactions with the creatures that are both thrilling and scary without having too much occur that the reader cannot keep up.  He paces himself, and reader is rewarded with several different encounters - no repetition here - that increase the stakes for the characters.

I cannot praise this novel enough, and would recommend it to anyone that likes strange creatures and horror.

4.5 out of 5

Author Link:
https://www.maxbrooks.com/

Book Review: The Body in the Woods

The Body in the Woods, by Joshua Burleson, follows William and Diana after the married couple hits a man while driving home one night.  Rather than call the police, they opt to bury the body in the woods.  What follows is how the couple deals with the aftermath, grappling with guilt while also struggling to act as if everything is normal.

The book is split into two parts, one focusing on William and the other focusing on Diana - both told from that character's perspective.  Without hesitation, I will say that William's half is much stronger.  William, as the one driving, feels the bulk of the guilt for what has happened, and Burleson does a great job of writing the character's growing guilt.  There's some structural issues that hurt the Diana half, but William's half is solid from beginning to end.

Diana's half, while interesting, suffers a bit from Burleson needing to expand the story outside of Diana's perspective.  So, rather than the entire half being told from her point of view, the reader is forced to essentially step outside of her story to see what is happening with the investigation into the dead man's disappearance.

I think the novel might have been stronger with a triptych structure, rather than just a split: Keep Diana's section completely focused on her reactions, then have a third part focusing on the detective's.  This would not only give the two of them fuller characterizations - having to jump back and forth between the two shortchanges both of them - but it would also allow Burleson to approach scenes where the characters interact from multiple angles, which would further enrich the story.

The detective character, Charon, is the only part of the novel not told in the first person - another reason I think three divisions would work better than just 2 - and these parts feel almost awkward compared to the others.  The character isn't a bad one, but losing that inner perspective while also having him drive the bulk of the action in the final parts of the book doesn't quite work, structurally.

Another reason I would push for Charon to have his own section is that several breadcrumbs for a future sequel feel forced in rather than a natural part of the story, and the dynamic he has with his partner feels underdeveloped, especially with some of the leaps the story takes in the last third.

Even with those criticisms, this is a solid debut from Burleson.  I'm willing to read whatever novel he self-publishes next.  I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to support independent (and local!) authors.

3 out of 5