Review: “Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet”

Based on an urban legend, “Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet” takes a page from the folklore, which can’t even decide where the legendary events took place.

The movie tries too hard to play homage to the classic horror of “Friday the 13th” or “My Bloody Valentine,” while also attempting to be “intelligent cinema” by pumping in too much information about a rare mental disorder. (No spoiler here, as they bring it up in the opening credits, but there have only been 250 documented cases of menstrual psychosis in the last 100 years.)

It’s the typical slasher flick set-up: a group of teens celebrating a local-tragedy-turned-holiday, partying in the house of the girl whose parents have conveniently left town. And the clichés start racking up from there, from a cleverly-yet-transparently disguised Ouija board to the moment where all modes of transportation and communication are cut off from our teen heroes. Yawn.

Let’s hit the low points, so that we can end on a higher note. And yes, there is one. Read more

April 12, 2010 | Filed Under Movies, Reviews | View Comments 

Review: “The Atrocity Archives” and “The Jennifer Morgue” by Charles Stross

Here’s the easiest way to decide whether you’d enjoy the three novels, one novella, and three short stories that so far make up The Laundry, a horror/sf thriller series by Charles Stross. See how many of the following statements you agree with:

  1. I enjoy the idea of Lovecraftian horrors.
  2. I enjoy James Bond and/or other British spy series.
  3. I’m a geek, or at least I appreciate geek humor and geek terminology.
  4. I am familiar with and have contempt for the bureaucratic nonsense of large organizations. Specifically, I hate PowerPoints.
  5. I watched Animaniacs in the 90s.
  6. I like conspiracies.
  7. I enjoy sci-fi, and/or I like the idea of string theory and multiverses.

If you agree with at least four of those statements, give the Laundry books a shot.

Okay, more details: the stories take place in the present day, in our world, but there’s a lot about our world that various governments keep hidden from average schmucks like you and me.

For one thing, Alan Turing–the famous (and real) cryptographer who cracked German codes in WWII and is the sort of the father of computer science–uncovered a final mathematical proof that just happens to allow access to other universes in our multiverse. Sometimes there are very hostile entities in those other universes, things that feed on information and that can take hold of a person’s body, eat his mind, and spread by contact to other people in milliseconds. Read more

April 8, 2010 | Filed Under Books & Writing, Lovecraft, Reviews | View Comments 

Victims of British serial killer speak in “The Drowning Girls”

“The Drowning Girls” is a play by Beth Graham about three women killed between 1908 and 1914 by George Joseph Smith, a British serial killer who was eventually convicted of murder and hanged. A lifelong criminal, Smith married repeatedly (and simultaneously) and in at least three instances murdered his wives by drowning them in bathtubs.

The landlord of a boarding house where Smith and one of his victims lived first noticed how the woman’s death matched a story at another boarding house, and brought both stories to an inspector’s attention. A third suspiciously similar death was then discovered, and after some investigation the inspector realized that the husband in all three cases was the same man. Read more

March 22, 2010 | Filed Under Arts & Entertainment, Crime, History | View Comments 

My zombie baby will never grow old

I love my baby so much! She will never grow up and tell me she hates me and go on dates with high school drop-outs who just want to use her! That’s because a) she’s a doll and b) she’s a zombie doll. A really horrible looking one that will make your friends feel bad if you ask them to babysit.

Etsy craftsperson/artist Shain Erin creates “morbid art dolls” meant for the unstable doll collector in your life. (Meaning you, most likely, if you’re reading this.) He also creates some pretty creepy but beautiful sculptural items, like this disturbing cross between a fertility goddess and a demonic root monster that wants to climb out of the garden and eat you:

If anyone wants to buy me that root sculpture, feel free to, kthx.

“Morbid Art Dolls by Shain Erin” [Etsy via Craftastrophe]

March 17, 2010 | Filed Under Fine Art, Shopping, Zombies, dolls | View Comments 

Review: “Infected” by Scott Sigler

Infected
By Scott Sigler
Published by Three Rivers Press / Random House

Scott Sigler’s invasion horror novel “Infected” combines ideas from Parasite Rex, delusional parasitosis (and Morgellons), Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Cronenberg’s old body horror flicks, and, uh… I guess a medical thriller? An otherworldly invasion launches its first wave against humanity by sending out tiny parasitic creatures that take up home within a human host’s body, then quickly grow and take over the person’s willpower, turning him or her into an insane killer. Luckily that doesn’t last for long; unluckily, it ends when the creatures kill the host and erupt forth in as grotesque a manner as you can imagine.

The lead character, Perry Dawsey, is an ex-footbal player who has anger management issues, and when he realizes that there’s something else living in his body, he fights back. With a knife, usually. Okay, think about that for a moment: he fights back against the parasites in his own body with a knife.

Read more

March 11, 2010 | Filed Under Alien, Books & Writing, Reviews | View Comments 

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