Movie Review – The VVitch

Movie Review – The VVitch (2015) Directed by Robert Eggers – Rated R – Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, and Kate Dickie.

As the 7x-great grand niece of Rebecca (Towne) Nurse, the 71-year-old woman accused and executed in Salem Village for witchcraft in 1692, movies and books dealing with the topic of witchcraft in New England hold a certain appeal to me.  The trailer looked promising anyway.

We begin with William (no surname), his wife Katherine, and their four children being banned from their Puritan village for reasons I was completely unclear about. They leave the village and go off and set up their own homestead some miles away. Their 5th child, a son named Samuel, is born shortly after and while under their daughter Thomasin’s watch, goes missing. It’s assumed instantly that the Witch of the Woods had taken him though William insists it was a wolf despite the unusual circumstances.  Next, their eldest son, Caleb, also gets lost in the woods only to return ‘bewitched’. The blame turns towards Thomasin when her youngest siblings, twins Mercy and Jonas, accuse her of being a witch. Thomasin returns the favor by accusing them based on the way they talk to and play with the family’s black Billy goat, Black Phillip.

This film is a very dark, both literally and figuratively. In that way it works well to convey an authentic atmosphere of what it may have been like to live during these earliest days of American history. You really feel that sense of doom, gloom, poverty, hardship, and religious fear. During the all too brief hours of daylight, hope tries to return, but with little success. The darkness comes again, night after night, and the light simply can’t penetrate the curse that hangs over the heads of this family and the evil lurking in the woods nearby.

What did not work was the use of the Old English dialogue and the tendencies of the characters to mumble their lines. It made the conversations difficult to follow and that’s why I was so unclear about why the family had been banned in the first place. There is indeed a witch in the woods, but there’s no kind of back story or understanding or rumors expressed by anyone along with way to indicate where she came from or who she is or why the family thinks she’s there to begin with; at least none that I caught perhaps due to the aforementioned dialogue. A lot of what happens goes unexplained like what happened to Caleb while he was with The Witch, why or how the twins communicate with Black Phillip, and Katherine’s encounter (dream??) involving a baby turned raven. At least Thomasin’s transformation at the end sort of made sense. Sort of.

It all left me scratching my head, feeling like I’d missed some sort of vital element to what was going on.

It wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t great. It was entertaining and atmospheric.

3 out of 5 Ravens

In Search Of… Horror.

Visited our local *Buns & Noodles store this afternoon. As we wandered the aisles I came to realize something I’d never noticed before and frankly, I’m annoyed.

We always seem to gravitate towards the YA section first so Jim can see if Cousin Scott has come out with something new we’re unaware of. He’s sneaky like that. This time I wanted to check out Book #3 of the Peculiar Children series. I’m in the middle of #2. It’s only available in hardcover now so I’m going to wait for the paperback. Sorry, I’m cheap like that.

After the Young Adult section, we’re on our own. They have the Children’s section, the Romance, and the Sci-Fi sections. There’s History, Mysteries, Cooking, and Self-Help. Manga and Graphic Novels have their own section as does Religion, Travel, and Crafting.  All of these are nicely labeled with big, bold signs over the tops of the shelves making them oh-so-easy to find. What they do NOT have is Horror section. WTF B&N!? If I want to find Horror I have to search through the ‘Fiction & Literature’ section. How much more vague can you possibly get?

I’m aware of a good many Horror novelists, but I sure as heck don’t know them all and those that I am most aware of, like Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub have been around for decades and are maybe considered a bit Old School. If I’m looking for something or someone new, I’m rather clueless. Directing me to the ‘Fiction & Literature’ section isn’t going to be very helpful. And for as much as I love to browse a bookstore or library, damn it, at least let me be in the section I am most interested in so that I know that every book I pick up is a Horror contender.

I ended up getting Stephen King’s “Doctor Sleep” because I’ve heard of him, know he’s good, and know he mostly sticks to the Horror genre with a few exceptions. I’d love to have given a lesser-known writer some business, but pft … damned if I have the time to stand there reading every single back cover of very single book that looks like it might be what I’m interested in.

*Barnes & Noble and all you other bookstores, big and small, can you PLEASE create a Horror Section? I and so many others like me would truly appreciate it.

Author Appearance & Book Signing

Witches, Shadow People, and Ghosts, oh my! Just in time for Halloween!

On Friday, October 7th, I’ll be at Riverow Books for the final 2016 First Friday Artwalk event in Owego, NY from 6-8pm. I’ll have hot of the press copies of my latest horror release, No Rest For The Wicked along with copies of my murder-mystery titles, Secrets of the Scarecrow Moon and That’s What Shadows Are Made Of.

We’ll be signing, selling, and chatting it up for two hours and we may or may not have cookies.

Hope to see you there!

Book Review – The Jersey Devil by Hunter Shea

Back in 2014 we had the chance to pass through a small portion of the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, the setting for horror writer Hunter Shea’s latest cryptid masterpiece, The Jersey Devil. Having had an interest in these sorts of creatures my whole life, I’ve known the legend of this particular being for many a moon. We passed through in the middle of the day so our chances of seeing this sinister fellow were slim to none. If Hunter’s portrayal of the Devil is even half-fiction, I’m deliriously happy that it and our paths never crossed, not even for a second.

In short, the Legend of the Jersey Devil dates back to a dark and stormy night in 1735 when Mother Leeds gave birth to her 13th child. The midwives that had come to her aid swore she’d given birth to a demon. The Jersey Devil stands upright on two goat-like legs with cloven hooves. Its upper body resembles a dragon or snake with short arms ending in razor sharp claws while a pair of massive bat-like wings give it flight. The head of the Jersey Devil is said to look like a horse or large goat and its eyes glow a fiery red in the dark.  The native Lenape People called the area Popuessing which means, “place of the dragon”. Later the Dutch would dub it Drake Kill or Dragon Channel.

According to Hunter Shea, one too many thrill seekers decide to explore the Pine Barrens at a crucial time in the Devil’s life and the Willet Family, who have a long-kept family secret in regards to the Devil, want to be at ground zero, locked, and loaded when this bad boy shows up again. They watch the news reports, they read the articles in the papers, and take them all very, very seriously. One person, one couple, one group of foolish campers after another start to go missing and the body count is rising fast as they and cryptid hunter, Norm Cranston, enter the Barrens ready for the battle of a lifetime.

What is going on? After years of nothing more than a few random sighting, the Devil’s MO is getting a little sloppy. He’s being spotted a lot and he’s not doing much to hide the evidence of his kills.

The Jersey Devil is a thrill ride of head-ripping fun. Dismembered limbs are flying and heads are rolling, literally. Blood and gore abound and nowhere is safe.

And all this is even before the hunters meet one of the decedents of Mother Leeds who is reluctant to help them despite, or maybe because of, the recent uprising of violent activity.

Planning a trip to New Jersey? Tempted to take a stroll through the legendary Pine Barrens? Read Hunter’s rendering of The Jersey Devil before you go and you may just change your mind real quick like. If not, well, don’t say you haven’t been warned.

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I give it 5 Ravens out of 5.

 

They Who Scream The Loudest, Win.

I took my final stroll down Dark Hollow Road on August 9th, as in I finished the first draft. My practice is to then put it away for at least a month, no peeking, and either move on something else or not write at all. It’s not been a month quite yet and well, I DID edit a couple of chapters of DHR, but that’s it.

Apart from working on settings and characters notes for The Witch’s Backbone I’ve kept the writing down to a dull roar. But now, while on my honeymoon, new fodder has risen to the surface.

We’re staying in one of many of the places that offer cabin\cottage rentals up along the St. Lawrence River in Upstate New York. It’s a cozy little place and for a few days we were the only ones here. Nothing really creepy about it at all, well… not to the normal-minded person but then I have never claimed normalcy.

As we opened the screen door and stepped onto our little closed-in porch, I looked at the old tongue-in-groove door and the slightly bent numbers nailed to the front, 14. Cabin 14. Helpless to The Muse and her methods, the ticklings of another book started to arise. Jim and I both took pictures of that door and I began my mental and literal note taking.

After dinner last night, we took a walk down to the river to watch the sunset and as we strolled back I said aloud, “I don’t see a Cabin 13. I wonder if they skipped it like some buildings skip a 13th floor?” This morning I looked it up on their online map of the accommodations. Sure enough, there is no cabin numbered thirteen. Technically speaking, WE should be in Cabin 13, yes?

Me being me finds this all quite amusing, of course, but now I face a dilemma. Do I work on The Witch’s Backbone as planned or do I delve deeper into the world of Cabin 14?

I guess whoever screams the loudest while I’m working on edits and rewrites for Dark Hollow Road will determine the answer to that question. Let the characters fight it out!