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The Witching House by Brian Moreland

“The Witching House” by Brian Moreland, is a novella set in Texas which tells the story of the Blevin’s House. In 1972, twenty five people were brutally murdered in this house and the identity of the killer or killers has yet to be revealed 40 years later.

Enter Sarah Donovan, a young woman who has recently begun dating Dean Stratton. Where Dean is always looking for danger and adventure, Sarah is scared of just about everything. So, when Dean asks Sarah to join him and his friends Casey and Meg Ackerman on one of their Urban Explorer adventures, she’s hesitant but accepts in a an effort to appear as “the girl” for Dean.

Dean, Casey and Meg have a long history of friendship and many High Adventure stories under their belts. Their shared hobby consists of sneaking into rundown and abandoned buildings.  Though urban exploring is illegal, the group claims that they simply explore for a  few hours, take some pictures and go home;no harm, no foul.

Dean has recently met Ronnie, who happens to work at the pig farm owned by Otis: Otis is the only surviving member of the 1972 massacre and owner of the Blevin House. Ronnie tells Dean that he knows Otis’ schedule and can bring Dean and his Urban Explorer friends to the Blevin’s House when Otis is not there for a little exploring. Dean’s excitement over this adventure is palpable.

Despite Sarah’s extreme trepidation concerning this excursion, she, reluctantly,  goes along with it in a misguided attempt to pacify Dean. Initially, Sarah is a bit of a disappointment as far as female characters go: she seems to lack self esteem and her greatest goal in life is to please Dean and convince him to settle down with her. Happily, as the story and the horror progresses, Sarah quickly transforms into the strong willed woman that you knew was lurking under that girlish persona.

The events that take place inside the Blevin’s House are wonderfully horrific. This house is pure evil and it will take down anyone who has the hubris to believe that they can enter it and leave alive. The imagery is wonderful:just the right amount of description to really illustrate all of the nastiness without being crass or gross simply for the sake of it. This is a  great, fast paced horror novella. Moreland managed to make me feel uncomfortable quite a few times, without putting me off of the story. I found the characters to all be unique and easily relatable. The ending was satisfying and, for lack of a better word, lovely; I find this to rarely be the case with horror novels. Brian Moreland’s “The Witching House” is a perfect way to spend your Halloween evening. Give yourself a Halloween treat and go directly to Amazon and purchase this novella!

 

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The Page Turners – Kevin Johns review.

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The Page Turners is the debut novel from local product Kevin Johns.

It is evident from the early chapters that considerable time has been put into the character building process.  The plot generally moves at a good pace and it never tries to accomplish too much within its relatively short span.

Recently I took some time away from the website and stopped focusing on horror, unfortunately I was reading this book when that happened.  It is the type of book that I wish I had more time to delve in to. It’s one of the few books this year that I’m actually going to read again because it seems as though you can pick up more with multiple readings.

It was an enjoyable experience and is the first in an upcoming trilogy. I greatly look forward to the next two in the series because I absolutely want to see how it all plays out.

As mentioned above, Kevin does a great job of building characters that you actually care about. The dialogue never feels forced and has a very free-form feel to it. It’s also very light on the cliché one would expect from this sort of novel.

The world is wonderful and Kevin does a masterful job of making you feel like you’re actually there. The immersion level while reading was fantastic.

I highly recommend this novel and will update this review with a purchase link when one becomes available. This series is on my must read list for the remainder of 2013.

 

 

 

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No Reflection

For starters, I don’t really read many horror short stories.  I find that most of them follow the same general formula: build up for a little bit, then drop the quasi-twist hammer.  It’s something that finds its roots in Tales From the Crypt, The Twilight Zone, and O. Henry.  It doesn’t necessarily mean all horror fiction is bad, but it’s usually not my cup of tea.

Still, I dug into John Caliburn’s No Reflection, because I’m a sucker for short story collections.  As Fremont stated, it’s a decent first book.  It’s not without its problems, but there are some pretty good moments in here.

I liked “Delusional”, partially for a nod to Cthulhu, but mainly because it made me think of Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II.  I was waiting for the problem to be solved by curing a case of Carpathian Kitten Loss, but, alas, that was not how this story ended.  Still, it was a decent premise and a solid ending, even if Vigo never reared his ugly mug.

I also liked “Rustling Sheets”.  The idea of a carnivorous monster with razor-sharp claws taking up residence in the lower bunk is not something I would be okay with.  Unless he feels like sharing a little chipmunk meat in the middle of the night.  I could probably get down with that.  A man gets awfully hungry at night.

This was a pretty quick read, which helped.  But, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not without its problems.
Pretty much every story seemed to remind me of a similar story/movie.  Not that there’s really anything wrong with that (Koheleth famously stated “there is nothing new under the sun,” over 2000 years ago), but I didn’t feel like anything here separated itself from its influences.
It’s a bit strange to say about a book that barely cracked 100 pages, but these stories all could’ve been tightened up a little.  There’s nothing wrong with a two-page story if the story-telling is strong.  Some of these felt dragged out, which hurt the story as a whole (“Fear of the Shadows” definitely felt this way to me).
The writing could also be a bit stronger.  There were a lot of “or somethings” in here.  Too many of those tend to detract from the story.

All of that sounds like I hated this.  I did not hate this.  I didn’t love it, but it was enjoyable enough to keep me entertained.

This is a solid debut.  I’m curious to see what Caliburn does next.

No Reflection is currently available on Amazon.

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No Reflection & Other Short Stories

“No Reflection”, written by John Caliburn is a solid first entry into the horror genre. His first published collection, No Reflection has seven short stories and wraps up with a short poem. At the end of each story, the author has added a short explanation of his motivation behind the story. At times, the explanation was a disservice:”A Child’s Imagination” being the best example of this. This story is very reminiscent of “Where The Wild Things Are”, which is nice in a nostalgic kind of way. The plot was going somewhere interesting and then it ended in a very maudlin, unsatisfying kind of way. This being a horror collection, I suppose I shouldn’t be expecting a happy ending, but I would have liked to see Caliburn really delve into his inspiration for this story. He said that he wanted to explore the awful reality that children are, sometimes, the ones that commit murder. I couldn’t help but think of the film “Who Can Kill A Child?” and I really believe Caliburn is more than capable of reaching that level of terror, so, I felt a bit underwhelmed with the ending of “A Child’s Imagination”.

In the story “Delusional”, Caliburn uses H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos as a background device. I found this to be particularly interesting, but my partner Dusty will be the one going into detail about this particular story.

As a woman, I simply cannot let “The Magician’s Assistant” escape my critical eye. It’s a great little story with a wonderfully gory coupe de grace, but the degree to which the female protaganist is reduced to negative, female cliches was too much to ignore. She see’s herself as a “Plain Jane Brunette”, her self esteem seems to be in direct proportion to how her fiancee sees her, she’s paranoid, jealous and, worst of all, a typical “woman scorned”. Instead of simply asking her fiancee if he’s stepping out on her, she just smiles, keeps her mouth shut and, ultimately, let’s her insecurities and neurosis unfold in a homicidal rage. Typical woman, right? Even though it’s a short story, I still expect to see a woman who is a whole human being and not just a negative stereotype. Perhaps I’m being a bit too touchy, but it really took away from what was a nice “Tale From The Crypt” kind of ending.

Overall, this collection of stories shows great promise of future endeavors. The themes that Caliburn was exploring are ones that all of us can relate to;the inability to foresee your poor choices and the consequences that they incur, the responsibility that children believe they carry in their parents’ happiness, the monster in our room that no one else can see, fear of the dark and the inability to escape our punishments for our bad deeds. I enjoyed these stories, however, I wish there had been a bit more depth and character development. That being said, I look forward to Caliburn’s future works.

http://www.amazon.com/Reflection-other-Horror-Stories-ebook/dp/B00FUVIVWS/

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Wherewolves book review by Charity Langley

Wherewolves Review

 

This is the blurb found on Amazon for the book:

 

“KEPT ME ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT. GETS YOUR PULSE POUNDING.” -Author and award winning investigative journalist, Victor Malarek Using a fun, explosive style, full of new slang and fresh dialogue, WHEREWOLVES is the story of a group of high school seniors, most of them “military brats”, who are headed for an army-type survival weekend. “5 stars. It reminded me a bit of Lord of the Flies versus Silver Bullet but only way cooler.” “Chillingly terrifying.” The underdogs, Jeffrey and Doris, do not want to go as they fear for their safety among the disdain and cruelty of the popular students. Sergeant Tim O’Sullivan, their teacher, as well as their dysfunctional parents pressure them into going, but it is an unforgivable act by their peers that propels the pair to go. Likewise, Elie, a student resented because of his Arab roots, is even more determined to prove himself this weekend. In the background, a news report cautions of a wanted couple with alleged super-human strength supposedly brought on by a new drug on the streets. In the woods, the students hike, hunt, camp, and soon act in unity as the forest brings them closer together. But does it? O’Sullivan leaves them alone for the night. The students bond, chant, tell campfire tales, and quickly lose their fears and inhibitions. HOO-AH! Though sexual tensions are high, it soon turns to violence and everything quickly turns sour. When the kids start disappearing one after the other, the remaining begin to unwittingly “act like the natives” carving spears, ready to face whatever is out there. What has gotten into them? Amid blood-curdling growls and gruesome deaths, the story’s underlying layers are revealed. We see how misconceptions, prejudice, greed, fear, and hatred bring out the worst and best in them. What is out there? Can it really be werewolves? “This is one horror novel that will have you thinking long after you’ve finished reading.” Based on the screenplay, WHEREWOLVES, by John Vamvas and Olga Montes “SPARKLING DIALOGUE…THE WRITING IS SENSATIONAL.” -Emmy and Peabody Award winning writer, William Mastrosimone

 

I am reviewing the work I read. The screenplay version might be awesome, but the novel version is a train wreck.

 

I’m going to start off with what I liked:

 

The chapter titles were inventive.

 

The line: “Give me C.C.R., Warren Zevon—her daddy‘s music—or even fucking Duran Duran.” was a great addition to the story. (For those of you who may not get the joke as quickly as I did, see the bottom of this review.) Scott McCalla was also a fun tongue-in-cheek addition.

 

Now with that out of the way, I’d like to admit that there probably is a decent story hidden somewhere in the mess of this half-transitioned screenplay-to-novel disaster.

 

The person, or persons, who edited this for novel format failed miserably. The random use of onomatopoeia had me feeling as though I was reading an old comic book. Stage direction type lines like: “Cora tears open the bag: chicken wings and fries; some of the wings have been bitten into.” are also out of place and majorly distracting.

 

Description was another downfall for this novel. As I read, images from the movie Thankskilling played throughout my head because I couldn’t tell most of the kids apart. This is another place where transition from screenplay to novel absolutely failed.

You can movie a story forward through dialogue alone, but it’s difficult. With this many characters, you would need a mannerism, or particular language, almost every time someone spoke. In the screenplay, this wouldn’t matter because we can actually see the characters, but in a novel, where readers are forming images in their heads based on little squiggly lines on white paper, description is a necessity. The only standout characters in this novel were Dilly, O’Sullivan the teacher, and Doris, the rest were just faceless boys and girls.

 

The high-school cliquiness (for lack of a better word) went on forever. I understand that the authors were trying to help us understand the dynamic between each kid, but there was just so much of it all at once without any description that I kept having to reread sections just to understand what was going on between which groups. All the kids are military brats, many who lost parents to war. More could’ve been done to illustrate how individually affected they were by their parents deaths. Even through rereading, I didn’t realize that one of the characters suffered from such severe PTSD that she was mute until page 146 (digital version). As someone who spent seven years working in a public school system, mostly with special needs and at-risk kids, I’m also not understanding what made this character off limits. Kids are cruel, and they often band together against the weakest among them. So why was Dawn off limits? Did her brother stand up for her? Did the other kids know her before she stopped speaking?

 

The ending was decent, but I saw the major plot twist coming a mile away. Most avid readers will see it too. Based on this I’d have to say that as a screenplay this work might make a pretty average slasher flick, but a lot needs to be done to clean it up as a novel.

 

*CCR = Bad Moon Rising

Warren Zevon = Werewolves of London

Duran Duran = Hungry Like the Wolf