The October Book Haul

Between watching horror movies for Hail Horror 6, playing Batman: Arkham City until my eyes fell out of my head, helping my grandmother move out of the family home, and being laid out with a respiratory infection for close to two weeks, the fates didn't leave me a lot of time for good old fashioned book readin'.  I made the decision this month to severely cut back on my weekly comic haul - as much as I love my LCS (Grasshoppers Comics in East Williston, and a nicer man than John Riley you'd be hard pressed to find), I've been getting less and less interested in physical copies of comics I'll never read again, preferring to catch up on collected series I can read together, either on my iPad or in a trade.  So going forward there should be a lot more free time to dive into the enormous pile of great books I've either picked up, downloaded, or just plain coveted from afar.

And what a freakin' pile this month.  With less than a week in October remaining, it looks like the only book besides Petrograd (reviewed here) that I'll complete is Neal Stephenson's latest 1,000 page (well, 923 pages to be exact) behemoth, Reamde.  Stephenson's all over the map in terms of genre, getting his start in landmark cyberpunk SF like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, he's also fearlessly tread into WWII action (Cryptonomicon), political activism (Zodiac), far-future alien/mathematics insanity (Anathem, reviewed here) and, of course, he's perhaps best known for his mammoth 3,000 page Baroque Cycle a trilogy I sheepishly admit having defeated me on three seperate occassions.  And while Reamde seems on the surface to be his most accessible work, a modern action thriller about a computer virus that affects millions of players of a World of Warcraft-like game that spins into real-world terrorism once it crosses paths with Russian mobsters and Islamic jihadists, it still displays all the quirks that make reading Stephenson a delight: massive amounts of details and and explorations into how the building of a MMORPG works, characters that start out as broad sketches, only to slowly deepen and glow with an inner life that makes the action that much more thrilling, and of course the ideas on top of ideas on top of ideas, both technological, philosophical and cultural.

The rest of the virtual haul looks like this:

• The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins
• 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
• The Night Eternal - Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
• The Children of the Sky - Vernor Vinge
• The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides
• Damned - Chuck Palahniuk
• The Visible Man - Chuck Klosterman

Going forward I plan to have reviews for everything I read, but I'll continue the book haul on a monthly basis.  In the meantime, what are you reading?

Petrograd | Philip Gelatt and Tyler Crook

Here’s the cold, hard truth about comic books and the comic industry: unless you’re steadily providing fodder for the Hollywood Blockbuster Machine, or you’re making press-grabbing headlines about your re-launches (DC and Marvel) or re-numberings (DC and Marvel) or bringing people back (DC and Marvel) or killing them again (DC and Marvel – notice a trend?)…let’s face it: unless you’re DC or Marvel, the public at large doesn’t give much of a damn about you, and doesn’t much care to know anything about you.

Which is a damn shame, because for all the talk about whether it’s a good time to get out of comics, or get into comics due to the hullabaloo over at the Big 2 publishers, little attention is paid to the uniformly excellent work being done at the smaller, independent publishers.  Even ignoring the great work at Image and Dark Horse, two larger (but still independent) publishers who are putting out great regular titles like The Walking Dead, Chew,  B.P.R.D. and FEAR Agent, there are fantastic series and OGNs (original graphic novels) by scores of publishers you may not even know are out there.

Case in point: the excellent Petrograd, written by Philip Gelatt and illustrated by Tyler Crook (who as we speak is gearing up to take over the drawing reins for B.P.R.D.) and published by Oni Press, who has one of the best monthly titles out there right now with The Sixth Gun.  Petrograd is a historical spy thriller that uses as its launching point the political turmoil of 1916 Russia and the conspiratorial murder of the Mad Monk himself, Gregorii Rasputin.  Told through the eyes and actions of Agent Cleary, a small-time operative working as a double agent for British Intelligence, Petrograd weaves multiple  story lines that vividly captures the atmosphere of Russia and its denizens’ attitudes towards the madness permeating from behind the walls of the Czar’s palace, but also the inner workings of the other side, as the “good guys” often end up being just as nasty, perverse, and chaotic as the Monk they wish to topple.

Great ideas for any book, but since we’re talking comics none of this would work worth a damn if the pictures didn’t sell (and tell) the story, and it’s hear the Petrograd really works its magic.  Crook is simply stunning, using a less realistic, cartoony style with a minimum of color (the book is almost entirely bathed in pinkish, orange hues) to accentuate the action, and it serves to highlight the humanity of the situations in a way that using a more realistic approach could never achieve.  The layouts are equally dynamic, often skewed and slanted to accentuate tiny slivers of importance.  Eyes are prominently featured: whether behind a newspaper or enraged with symbolic skulls, Crook draws your attention exactly to where he wants it to be, while simultaneously letting you in on all the tiny details that make every panel a piece of art.

Beautifully packaged, superbly plotted, and exquisitely drawn, Petrograd is just one piece of evidence that comics are more than capes, cowls, and merchandising.  Whenever I feel myself getting let down or tired by the monthly grind of the mainstream publishers, it’s titles like Petrograd and publishers like Oni (and Image, and Boom, and Drawn & Quarterly, etc.) that remind me of the allure of and magic of comics, and why I continue to be held in thrall of the word balloon.

Busy Beating Gotham Scum

Look, I really want to finish writing up THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE for Hail Horror 6.  I do.  I also want to get back to watching some vintage and new horror films - I have the Director's Cut of MIMIC sitting at the house, as well as HOSTEL II and a slew of Italian giallo to choose from on Netflix Instant Streaming.

But I can't ignore the cries of the helpless, and if I don't clean up the streets, who will?

Equinox | 1970

The secret to enjoying EQUINOX, the 1970 creature-feature throwback made by a teenage Dennis Muren and friends, is to understand that the film is exactly that: a loving tribute made by a bunch of kids to the kinds of films they grew up devouring, particularly the stop-motion monster features like THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, THE BEAST OF 20,000 FATHOMS, and the granddaddy of them all, KING KONG.  Made over the course of a summer, Muren, Mark McGee and David Allen took what they learned working in their basements and backyards and crafted a silly, fun little supernatural horror adventure that has a bit of everything - mutant apes, giants, alternate dimensions, a Lovecraftian tome, and the Devil to boot.

The movie open with David, a young geologist running for life through the woods, from what we have no idea.  he makes it to the street where he's immediately hit by a car with no driver (never mind that in one scene we can clearly see a driver).  He's taken to a hospital where he lies essentially catatonic for a tear when a reporter shows up to see if he can get a follow-up to David's story.  Unresponsive except to gaze intently at a small crucifix, the reporter instead listens to a tape recorder made the day David was admitted to the hospital, and the film rewinds to the beginning where David receives a call from his old Geology professor asking him to meet him up in his cabin in the woods.  David, along with his friend Jim and two lovely ladies make the trip, only to find the cabin in ruins, no sign of the professor, and an ancient castle no one recalls ever seeing before:

The first 45 minutes are a bit of a rough ride - you have to remember this is essentially a kid's film, despite being picked up and supplemented with additional footage by Jack Woods, who bought the film for distribution and also plays the key role of Asmodeus, the "friendly" forest ranger.  There's a lot of walking around, really bad dialog, and a definitely sense of padding.  Stick around though, and you can see why this film has the reputation it does, and why it was picked up and released in a beautiful package by Criterion:  once the first monster shows up, EQUINOX literally turns into another movie, one that is frantically paced, full of ingenious effects, creatures, and set-pieces, and delivers a clever, sinister little story that not only has a couple genuinely creepy moments, but turns what we saw before on its head by the film's end.  There's a great little sequence where David's protection is unknowingly destroyed, the end of the film has a wonderful twisted close that brings home the sheer joy had at making something for the love of it.

Muren, who later went on to work with George Lucas on STAR WARS and would eventually win eight Academy Awards for Special Effects, wasn't alone in this labor of love.  A close look at the names associated with the production reveal all sorts of delights - the missing Professor is played by SF legend Fritz Leiber.  Voice over work and (one would assume feedback and criticism) was provided by Forrest Ackerman.  The film co-stars Frank Bonner in a role that echoes his later star-turn on WKRP in Cincinnati.  Even Ed Begely jr. makes an appearance, behind the scenes of all things as an assistant camera operator. 

But the stars of the film are the three kids who went ahead and didn't let something as silly as experience or money dissuade them from chasing their leviathan dreams.  For anyone who wants to make films but is too busy "waiting" for everything to be just right, EQUINOX is a film to check out.  I don't know that I would recommend ever buying the film, but if you love Criterion you probably (hopefully) subscribe to Hulu Plus, where EQUINOX and hundreds of other films are ready to go for instant streaming.  Definitely worth a check-out!

There's a great essay about EQUINOX courtesy of the Criterion Collection here.

Stake Land | 2010

It's a gamble any time a film attempts to stretch outside its genre constraints. Successfully merge two or more ideas in a film and it can do wonders. All too often though, what you wind up with is a muddled film that can't decide what it wants to be.

Not so STAKE LAND, the 2010 vampire/post-apocalyptic/road movie/coming of age film that works on a variety of levels, being genuinely thrilling and action packed, disturbing and at times truly frightening, while also manaing to be a commentary on the perils of religion and the evil of man without condemning faith as a whole. Working on a small, independent budget (the film was produced by indie/horror auteur Larry Fessenden and distributed by his Glass Eye Pix), STAKE LAND is beautifully shot, well-acted, and juggles multiple conventions without slipping, an incredible feat from writer/director Jim Mickle in only his second feature film.

The film is loosely narrated by Martin (Connor Paolo), a teenager traveling North with the hardened, battle-scarred man known only as Mister (played by co-writer Nick Damici). Without relying on too much explanation, we learn that something happened in the South, releasing a plague that has turned much of the world into bloodthirsty vampires. The reality of the world is captured in an early scene where Martin simultaneously loses his family and meets Mister: in a few moments we get all the explaining we really need to understand the world Mickle and Damici have created , and it's wrapped up in a great fight scene to boot. After this meeting the film comes back to the present where Martin, now a few years older, is traveling with Mister North to Canada, dubbed "New Eden" because it is supposedly free of vampires. Mister and Martin train constantly to be proficient and efficient vampire killers, a jot hat carries weight in the various lockdown communities that dot the American landscape. Along the way they save a nun (Kelly McGillis) from being savagely raped by two men who belong to The Brotherhood, a religious cult that has sprang up under the leadership of Jebedia Loven, who has proclaimed that the vampires are a plague from God to assist with the purifying of the Earth. Indeed, Loven and his crew do seem to have some small influence with the beasts, and STAKE LAND continues to escalate the risks and scares as Martin, Mister, and their growing family contend with evils both human and supernatural as they continue to make their way North to a sanctuary that may or may not exist.

There is a keen sense of America in STAKE LAND. The landscape of Middle America is used to great effect, and for such a small movie, the scale of the apocalypse is remarkable, precisely because Mickle wisely remembers to have the world be something we can instantly recognize and be familiar with. As the. And gets further North and the landscape becomes colder, whiter, it actually begin to get more beautiful. It's a unique look for a film like this, and the big set pieces: a small town square, a corn field, a junkyard, all feel tangible and found, as opposed to specifically constructed for the purposes of a film. This may be one of the few vampire films where there's more day than night scenes.

The vampires of the film act as a force of nature in STAKE LAND. Mindless berserkers can only be killed by piercing the brain stem, while other, younger beasts can be stopped with a stake in the heart. All perish by the light of the sun, but we see this used more as a release for the survivors, as townspeople chain captured vampires to boards to watch them fry as the sun rises. What's interesting about the vampires is that the film doesn't see too concerned with stopping them: they're a part of the fabric now, an elemental force to contend with the same way you would a savage storm or pack of wild dogs. The pack imagery is used to great effect in a chilling chase sequence, perhaps the best sequence of the film, a small town party is interrupted by The Brotherhood in a way that you never see coming.

STAKE LAND is truly a wonderful surprise, not only as a horror film, but as a film. It's a great example of a lot of disparate ideas coming together in a singular vision that manages to stretch beyond its confinement as a "genre" film, and a testament that you don't need a lot of money to execute grandiose ideas. This film deserves to be widely seen, so check it out.