As an avid reader and fan of thriller, science fiction, horror and suspense entertainment, Joseph Armstead's involvement as a creator in the industry provides him an insightful perspective on the latest offerings in print and in cinema.
Book and Movie Reviews:
* Review of Clive Barker's IMAGICA: http://horror.about.com/od/books/gr/bk_imajica.htm
Book: "Imajica", by Clive Barker
From Joseph R. Armstead
The Bottom Line
The title Imajica itself refers to the known universe of five 'Dominions,' or parallel worlds, four reconciled, but the fifth, Earth, 'unreconciled', meaning it is unaware of the other four. Overseeing these parallel worlds is a tyrannical 'Autarch' who rules the Dominions, and the god-being 'Hapeximendios', who oversees all of the five (and who stole his power from ancient goddesses).
Pros
Thoroughly imaginative and original
Viscerally and intellectually stimulating
An intense and memorable work
Cons
The novel’s length is a bit daunting at 864 pages
There isn’t much in the way of traditional horror
Some may find the sexual excesses in the novel unsettling
Genre: dark-fantasy/horror
Illustrated? No
Publisher: HarperTorch Publishers
Review - Book:
"Imajica", by Clive Barker
Periodically, Hapeximendios has sent his sons, including Christ, to attempt through the enactment of magical rites, to unite the Fifth Dominion to the others.
Imajica is an epic horror-fantasy completely unlike any other that has come before it: it is a book of towering ideas and adventurous concepts, obsessively detailed in its world-building, and apocalyptic in its emotionally-intense resolution.
Although Barker’s mammoth novel is a tour-de-force of the imagination, its at times indulgent narrative, sometimes lengthy and running riot with ideas, inventions, graphic sex and violence, and filled with emotional and intellectual metaphors, threatens to derail what is, at its heart, a really good story.
If you want to read something different and challenging, something filled with strange visions and even stranger passions, then Imajica is just what you’ve been waiting for.
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* Review of Clive Barker's THE GREAT & SECRET SHOW:
http://horror.about.com/od/books/gr/bk_greatandsec.htm
Book: "The Great and Secret Show: The First Book of the Art" by Clive Barker
From Joseph Armstead
The Bottom Line
Often-controversial horror wunderkind Clive Barker creates the first installment in his epic three-book mythology exploring the mystery of dimension of Quiddity via a magical, decades-long duel between sorcerous demigods.
Intellectually challenging, populated with many quirky characters, profane and violent, and written in a lyrically dense style, this horror potboiler reaches for the proverbial brass ring and just barely misses.
Pros
An atypical horror thriller
Filled with wonderful imagery and very inventive dark concepts
Stand-out scenes of blood-chilling unease
It keeps you guessing
Cons
Very little in the way of true suspense or actual thrills
Far too many characters; too little time spent developing them
Archetypes used as leads, rather than empathetic characters
Description
Genre: Metaphysical, surrealist horror-dark fantasy
Illustrated? No
Published by HarperCollins Publishers
Review - Book:
"The Great and Secret Show: The First Book of the Art" by Clive Barker
Down-and-out Nebraska postal clerk Randolph Jaffe works in the Dead Letter Room, opening and inspecting loads of undeliverable U.S. mail. Jaffe is a depressed and bland little man dreaming of something more than what his life currently holds. Soon, reading through the mass of mail, through a series of cryptic dead letters, Jaffe finds clues to an alternative reality, Quiddity, governed by a set of sorcerous laws called "the Art."
Even though his reputation is one as a master of horrific, terrifying visions and nerve-jangling chaotic action, Barker’s novel is often slow and a little disappointing. He tries to do far too much as he creates his mammoth mythos and winds up slighting his readers with the drama and characterization needed to fuel his heroes and villains with passion enough to drive his epic.
An interesting and sporadically entertaining read, The Great and Secret Show is less than the sum of its parts.
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* Review of Clive Barker's EVERVILLE:
http://horror.about.com/od/books/gr/bk_everville.htm
Book: "Everville: The Second Book of the Art" by Clive Barker
From Joseph Armstead
The Bottom Line
Clive Barker continues the creation of his epic mythology with the second installment in his allegorical trilogy exploring the mysterious dimension of Quiddity and the Hieronymous Bosch-style reflections it casts on the real, waking world of normal humanity. A quest-style fantasy story, Everville has its roots deep into the dark side of Western Americana and parts of it are an exploration of human desire and sexuality.
Pros
Not just a sequel, Everville stands separately as its own novel
The sense of dread in the novel is palpable
Non-standard horrific fare shines thanks to Barker’s skill as a writer
Cons
Does not pick up where “The Great and Secret Show” left off
Readers expecting a squirmy, violent gross-out will be disappointed
At 704 pages, the book is a long and meandering read at times
Description
Genre: Dark, surrealist horror love story
Illustrated? No
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Review - Book:
"Everville: The Second Book of the Art" by Clive Barker
The novel begins about a century before events of The Great and Secret Show, with a band of pioneers pushing their way across the untamed wilderness to settle in Oregon, driven by the dream of starting anew in the American West.
One member of that wagon train is, Harmon O'Connell, who dreams of building a shining utopia that he has mapped out on paper. Inspired to this dream by a man named Owen Buddenbaum, O’Connell names the city “Everville”, and vows it will outshine all other cities built by man.
Everville is a more satisfying read than The Great and Secret Show, its plot being more coherent and the characters motivations being more clearly defined, but it is also more frustrating in that, now that the story is really getting off the ground, it is only the middle sequence in the game and the author has not yet written the ending. There’s plenty of drama and pathos as some characters are sacrificed in the adventure, but their fates are used to reveal more secrets along the way.
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* Review of Edward Lee's "INFERNAL ANGEL" for Wicked Karnival --
INFERNAL ANGEL
by Edward Lee,
Leisure Books 2004, ISBN: 0843952032
Okay, let's get this out of the way up-front: EDWARD LEE is one of the leading proponents of shock-rock/splatterpunk horror writing where "Gore is good". Nothing wrong with that. It's an acquired taste for a lot of people, but to Edward Lee's credit, he has become one of the more popular and well-respected authors exploring this sub-genre because he is inventive and he is literate.
Actually having talent helps.
In the novel INFERNAL ANGEL, which is actually a sequel to his earlier novel CITY INFERNAL, the premise for both novels is that Hell has become a sprawling metropolis where Evil predominates as the Natural Order. This Hell is a busy city where dead, haunted souls go to work at jobs just like regular earthbound people and where monsters and The Damned intermingle over mocha lattes and visit record shops. It is a perverse funhouse reflection of normal human existence with a generous dose of Hieronymous Bosch and Spike Mulligan here in the mix. In this place, the essence of Horror is harnessed as energy, and atrocity, torture, and murder are legislated. Satan, the CEO and Mayor, who resides on the top floor of a 666-story skyscraper, has now discovered a way to bring portions of his deranged and depraved city, called "Mephistopolis", to our earth. The Devil has a plan to destroy Christianity before it is even born via the intervention of a time-traveling device and a "Hex-Clone" of Jesus.
Cassie Heydon, the heroine of the CITY INFERNAL, is an "etheress" looking for her twin sister, a suicide, who possesses supernatural/celestial powers that rival Satan's own when she crosses the divide between this world and Hell. On Earth, however, she is an inmate in an asylum where she is undergoing evaluation for mental competency to be tried as the suspected mudererer of her own father. Lucifer wants Cassie as a key element in his plan to -- what else? -- establish "hell on earth" (which is, if you ask me, pretty redundant and verges on the mundane). Cassie main ally and guardian angel is Angeline - a "caliginaut" - one of the angels who spy on Hell for the heavenly Powers-That-Be. She's aided additionally by Walter, a classic awkward student geek, who is destined to become an "Etherean", the male flipside to Cassie, and who is irrationally enamored of a blonde woman living Mephistopolis.
Okay, got all that?
The truth of it is that all that is secondary to reading Lee's tongue-in-cheek, quasi-ranting, pun-filled travelogue through a technology-driven vision of Hell. The novel is told in Edward Lee's trademark quirky chaotic style, making the novel almost episodic in construction, and peppered with many scenes of violence, gore and degradation. Unfortunately, the dialog between the characters is sometimes stilted and sparkless, even, in some places, tedious, preventing the reader from connecting with the very, very fallible humans on their quest to defeat Lucifer's latest plan for world domination.
INFERNAL ANGEL is NOT nearly as good a novel as Lee's CITY INFERNAL, its predecessor, where his acerbic humor and sense of the Grand Guignol ignited this "Hell as a City" concept. However, this sequel is STILL head and shoulders above most the other so-called cutting edge horror being published today.
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Review - Book: (originally for About.com's HORROR pages)
CAMP CREEPY TIME, the Adventures of Einstein P. Fleet
by Gina Gershon and Dann Gershon
Young Adult
Putnam Juvenile
May 2007
Einstein P. Fleet is a 13-year-old Twinkie addict and internet blogger, a nerdish loner with a mischievous twinkle he tries to hide. Stranded in a summer camp set in the middle of the Mojave Desert (if that isn't odd, I don't know what is!) and shipped off to that camp against his will by well-meaning, if out-of-touch, parents, Einstein soon discovers that "Camp Creepy Time" is little more than the headquarters site for a smuggling operation run by aliens posing as Camp Counselors. Although the brochure for the camp promised his parents there'd be gourmet meals, horseback riding, and a sparkling lake, these weird, unhuman Counselors are turning his fellow campers into monsters, with plans of selling them to an intergalactic zoo.
The authors, siblings Gina and Dann Gershon, have a way with a sarcastic phrase and are on target for the type of quick-witted, teenaged, Disney Channel/MTV-lite humor that will amuse many young readers. However, the plot is random and unfocused and tends to pile events one on top of the other, with no rhythm or sense of drama. The story soon deteriorates into a series of confrontations with unscary monsters and talky aliens. Einstein, as the lead character and glue intended to hold the story together, is a one-note character whose main emotion seems to be resentment, of parents and authority and of his fellow camp-mates, that may make it a little hard for some readers to become attached to his predicament.
Still, as a "Tweener", middle-grade fantasy-horror adventure, this is, although not particularly insightful, a light summer read that is at least original and fast-moving.
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* Review of film "A Light In the Darkness": http://horror.about.com/od/dvdreviews1990s2000s/gr/dvd_alitd.htm
A Light in the Darkness DVD Review
From Joseph Armstead
The Bottom Line
"A Light in the Darkness" is a film I wish I could say more good things about, but, unfortunately, it falls into the category of a film whose potential far outweighs its delivery.
Pros
diverting enough
Cons
potential far outweighs its delivery
Description
Genre: Horror
Starring Karen Black, Geoffrey Lewis, Troy Beyer
Directed by Marshall E. Uzzle
Review -
A Light in the Darkness DVD
The plot is relatively familiar to horror fans: after years of being institutionalized at a state mental institution, Taylor Melnick (Matt Terzian) still suffers from unsettling hallucinations that revolve around his late mother (Karen Black), a tyrannical and harsh woman. On his release, Melnick returns to his hometown, an undistinguished suburban backwater community, and becomes dramatically re-involved in the lives of the people he'd left behind. His efforts to re-integrate himself back into his community force him to cope with his scheming Uncle Stanley (Geoffrey Lewis) and the family's alcoholic housekeeper Kira Hansen (Troy Beyer).
Technically, the film is very much a descendent of the current wave of "retro"-style modern movies that pay homage to the gritty, bizarre character studies of horror films of the 1970s. There are some effectively macabre sequences in the movie, particularly the dream-sequences dealing with Melnick's hallucinations, that shine as inventive and disturbingly intense, but, overall, this thriller offers very few surprises or original twists on what is a familiar story. The tension is uneven and the plot moves along mechanically. For their part, the actors do the best they can with the material they're presented, but more emphasis on action and less on soap opera style family melodrama would have improved the film.
Still, it is diverting, so "A Light in the Darkness" is a film that can provide a few decent chills on a rainy afternoon.
Essays:
"Sharks in the Waters" and "Televised Lithium" -- http://magnapoets.typepad.com/magnapoets_essays/
Television:
Showtime's "Masters of Horror" series (anthology), 1st Season --
http://freezenerve.proboards32.com/index.cgi?board=Movie&action=display&thread=1138649905
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SHOWTIME'S "MASTERS OF HORROR" SERIES, Season One --
Has anyone been watching this?
In a nutshell, this is an anthology series where the SHOWTIME cable network has contracted several popular motion picture directors to create one-hour movies based on original screenplays or not-as-yet filmed works of horror fiction, with an emphasis on dread, mystery, and shock value. The anthology was produced by Mick Garris.
Over all, the series has been relatively good and mostly interesting and the production values have been top-rate. They've managed to secure a fair number of B-List TV and movie actors to play the roles and they've wandered off the beaten-path to select some interesting subject matter. For the most part they have, pretty successfully I might add, stayed away from the campy, corny and slightly insulting "gooniness" of the "Tales From The Crypt" cable series (sorry folks, I HATED the CryptKeeper and those lame puns). Gotta give 'em kudos for that.
Some of the performances have been really good, but most are just so-so, and the script content has been pretty spotty at best. There hasn't been much here to challenge viewers. For a supposed showcase anthology showing "cutting edge" horror, this series has been, surprisingly, safe and homogenized. And, truth to tell, a couple of the episodes were damn near unwatchable because they were so out-and-out dumb.
The episodes that aired this first season were:
* "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road": directed and co-written by Don Coscarelli (the Phantasm film series, Bubba Ho-Tep), and based on a story by Joe R. Lansdale.
* “Dreams in the Witch-House” by Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story, Directed by Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator,” “Dagon”)
*“Dance of the Dead” by Richard Christian Matheson and directed by Tobe Hooper (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Poltergeist”)
*“Homecoming” by Sam Hamm, directed by Joe Dante (“The Howling,” “Gremlins”)
*“Jenifer” by Steven Weber (yeah, THAT Steven Weber of "Wings" sitcom fame and "The Shining" TV-miniseries remake), directed by Dario Argento (“Suspiria,” “Terror at The Opera”)
*“Chocolate” by Mick Garris, directed by Mick Garris (“Riding the Bullet,” “The Stand”)
*“Deer Woman” by Max Landis & John Landis, directed by John Landis (“An American Werewolf in London”)
*“Cigarette Burns” by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan, directed by John Carpenter (“Halloween”, "The Fog", "Prince of Darkness", "At the Mouth of Madness", “The Thing”)
*“Pick Me Up” by David Schow and directed by Larry Cohen (“It’s Alive,” “The Invaders”)
*"Sick Girl", Written by Sean Hood and directed by Lucky McKee
*“Fair Haired Child” by Matt Greenberg, directed by William Malone (“House on Haunted Hill”, “FearDotCom”)
* George Romero Presents "Haeckel's Tale", directed by John McNaughton, Teleplay by Mick Garris and based on Clive Barker's short story of the same name
OF NOTE: "Haekel's Tale" was a substitute for: *IMPRINT, Directed by Takashi Miike, Teleplay by Daisuke Tengan because SHOWTIME and Mick Garris found the subject matter of Miike's segment of the series far too disturbing -- and potentially controversial -- than what they had originally bargained for.
My own personal choices for best episodes were:
1) John Carpenter's "Cigarette Burns" -- hands down the best entry in the series: moody, unsettling, slightly blasphemous, gory, intelligent -- the tale of a search for a lost film that drives its viewers to madness, there is a beautiful, world-weary cynicism to this that vies with the sense of dread for your complete attention
2) Tobe Hooper's "Dance of the Dead" -- in your face and technically brilliant, far from perfect, but damn refreshing
3) William Malone's "Fair Haired Child" -- even though the plot was easy to see through and a little predictable, his gothic-nightmare execution of the story gave it a lot of "Oomph!"
4) Coscarelli's "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" -- it had a lot of energy and some visually great scenes, despite a trite and yawn-worthy battered woman-female empowerment storyline that's been done better elsewhere
Worse episodes:
1) "Deer Woman" -- tried to create a "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" vibe where it straddles the line between comedy and horror, but Oh my Gawd, how hokey
2) "Jenifer" -- explored the extreme self-destructive aspects of sexual attraction and sexual addiction, however I saw this one coming (the direction the story was taking) inside the first ten minutes and the suspense was non-existent
3) "Chocolate" -- didn't even finish watching it
4) "Haekel's Tale" -- a MAJOR, MAJOR disappointment, this episode, based on an excellent Clive Barker short story, should have rocked, but it fell amazingly flat.
The other episodes were modestly successful, but not particularly memorable.
It has been renewed for next season, so I guess it was a success, but I am really not enough of a fan of the final result to get worked up about that unless they up the ante and go balls to the wall with some seriously disturbing, creepy stories.
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