Film Noir Reader 2 edited by Alain Silver & James Ursini

 

(oversized pb; 1999: nonfiction/essay collection)

From the back cover

“In the wake of the remarkable success of Film Noir Reader, this new collection further explores a genre of limitless fascination—and one that continues to inspire and galvanize the latest generation of film makers.

“Again heavily illustrated, with close to 150 stills, Film Noir Reader 2 is organized much like the earlier volume. It begins with more ‘More Seminal Essays,’ including a New York Times attack on crime pictures, written more than half a century ago, before the French had even given the genre a name; a look at its early development by the noted French director Claude Chabrol; and an analysis, by the American critic Stephen Farber, of how film noir reflects the violence and ‘Bitch Goddess’ values of contemporary society.

“Part Two, ‘Case Studies,’ covered specific films, with Robert G. Porfirio comparing the 1946 and 1981 versions of The Postman Always Rings Twice, editor Alain Silver exploring ‘Hitchcock’s Noir Landscape,’ Grant Tracey’s reading of ‘Samuel Fuller’s Tabloid Cinema,’ and Francis m. Nevins tracing the transformation of Cornell Woolrich’s fiction into such movie classics as Rear Window and Phantom Lady.

“‘The Evolution of Noir,’ the book’s final section, focuses on the neo-noir of our own time: ‘Son of Noir’ (Richard Jameson), and such timely subjects as ‘Noir Science’ (editor James Ursini) and ‘Girl Power: Female Centered Neo-Noir’ (William Covey). It also considers British film noir (Tony Williams) and the cross-cultural movement of ‘Abstract Expressionism and Film Noir’ (Kent Minturn). . .”

 

Review

This multiauthor essay collection, like many anthologies, is hit-and-miss, depending on who’s writing and what they’re writing about. The essays I didn’t enjoy were largely über-academic and pedantic, as if written to impress (hoped for) peers rather than edutain/educate laymen readers like myself (which is fine, if that was their intent; that said, this is a volume largely intended for the public at large, not an purely academic journal). Also, some of the essayists seem perfectionist, almost snide in their assessments/tones (e.g., Claude Chabrol, who’s made some good films, but has his fair share of less-than-stellar works). Some readers may well disagree with my reaction to those oh so lofty, high on intellectualistic language writers, and that’s fine—I’m guess that’s why Silver and Ursini included such a mix, to appeal to a wider audience. At any rate, the following essays stood out in their overall, straightforward excellence, relative conciseness, lack of five-dollar words (when fifty-cent words would do the trick), and worthwhile observations:

“Three Faces of Noir” – Tom Flinn (1972)

“Violence and the B**ch Goddess” – Stephen Farber (1974)

“Whatever Happened to Film Noir? The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946-1981)” – Robert G. Porfirio (1981)

“Creativity and Evaluation: Two Film Noirs of the Fifties” – Robin Wood

“Translate and Transform: from Cornell Woolrich to Film Noir” – Francis M. Nevins

“Film Noir and Samuel Fuller’s Tabloid Cinema: Red (Action), White (Exposition) and Blue (Romance)” – Grant Tracey

“Son of Noir” – Robert T. Jameson

“Writing the New Noir Film” – Sharon Y. Cobb

“Girl Power: Female-Centered Neo-Noir” – William Covey

“Noir 101” – Philip Gaines

Ultimately, Film Noir Reader 2 has enough interesting, generally worthwhile essays in it to make it worth reading and buying, particularly if you’re not familiar with the genre and looking to fix that—even its bordering-on-obscurantist works are an educational, in the sense that it warns film noir neophytes the kinds of [censored] they might have to deal with while wading through the murky shadows of noir cinema.

Elvira: The Boy Who Cried Werewolf by Elvira with John Paragon

 

(pb; 1998: YA novel. Third novel in the Elvira trilogy.)

From the back cover

“I thought I had bad hair days!

“I’ve dealt with wolves before, but never like this. The kind I’m used to are all bark, no bite. They howl, they drool, and who do you think gets stuck with the check? I mean fangs a lot, fellas!

“Now my young friend Whitney keeps trying to convince me he’s a werewolf. As if, I mean, I like a good practical choke as much as the next ghoul. But if this kid doesn’t give it up soon, he’s off to his tomb with no supper.

“There he is now. Look at him. What’s with all the fur? And those fangs—hasn’t he heard about caps? Still. . . the blood looks pretty real. That arm in his mouth, too. You don’t think. . .

“Jeepers creepers! I better give Whitney a yelping hand before the neighbors scare up some silver bullets. I tell ya, a ghoul’s work is never done!”

Review

Caveat: (possible) reference spoilers in review. 

The third and final Elvira novel, not linked to the 1973 or 2010 films, is my favorite book in this bunch. In Boy, a rest stop trailer gypsy curses one of Elvira’s adolescent, easily influenced friends (Whitney Benedict) with lycanthropy just as a string of bloody (briefly but not gratuitously described), full-moon murders terrorize Elvira’s chosen town, Beaver Hills. Is Whitney the furry killer, or is it the craven Dmitri Ouspensky (son of the gypsy) or Officer Paul Tanner (the wolfishly aggressive and charming cop who’s won Elvira’s heart)? As the body count mounts, Elvira, with help from Kimberly Henning (Whitney’s girlfriend), investigates, risking their lives and the lives of those around them.

Like the first two standalone books, double-entendres and horror film references/set-ups are seamlessly, often hilariously baked into the deftly paced storyline, a work suited for older teens who are familiar with the horror host’s work. Appropriately, references are made to The Wolf Man (1941), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), and The Howling (1981) as well as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Stephen King (specifically his 1983 novel Christine, which resulted in a same-year John Carpenter-helmed film). What elevates the Elvira novels above other “light”/young adult books is that it balances horror and humor in equal measure, an excellent terror-flick introduction work worth owning (if you can find it for a reasonable price, it’s an out-of-print book).

Jealous Woman by James M. Cain

 

(pb; 1950: loosely linked sequel to Double Indemnity)

From the back cover

“James M. Cain. . . pairs Jane Delevan and Ed Horner as new lovers in this sizzling divorce novel set in Reno. Cain’s famous insurance investigator, Keyes, straight out of Double Indemnity, puts in a surprising appearance, seven years after solving the earlier murder. When Jane Delevan’s estranged husband Tom shows up, with his first wife, Lady Sperry, in tow, who sets her sights on Ed Horner, Cain serves up a generous helping of Hollywood-ized sloppy behavior. This is Cain’s only true ‘mystery’ novel.”

 

Review

Seven years after the happenings of Double Indemnity, Barton Keyes, often unlikeable insurance investigator for General Pan-Pacific of California (“Gen-Pan for short”), finds himself attracted to his own possible femme fatale (Constance Sperry) while he works with another Gen-Pan agent, the grudgingly honest and promotion-obsessed Ed Horner who’s in love with another dangerous woman, Jane Delevan (whose husband just took a header over the roof of a building). Things are complicated, fast-moving when another corpse turns up, both tied to the two women as well as Harriet Jenkins, Richard Sperry’s British secretary.

Jealous is not as fun to read as Double, nor is it as easy to follow. Keeping voice-true to its chatty, run-on sentence-spouting narrator (Ed Horner), it moves quickly (with sometimes awkward transition-twist sentences) and piles on the red herrings and twists. A breathless, adrenaline-charged read, it’s a sometimes solid, often dizzying work, one worth checking out if you’re fine with its borderline stream-of-consciousness “voice” and/or a die-hard Cain fan.

The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley

 

(pb; 2003: humor/cartoon book)

Review

This fifteen-minute, fast-read cartoon collection is a darkly hilarious, goreless and simply illustrated work for those of us with an appreciation of black-but-relatively-gentle wit, suggestive of horrible death but not explicit. (I’m a reader/media viewer who get ticked off at media that kills animals, even “off-camera”, to make an unnecessary plot point, but doesn’t mind a dead bunny joke.) If you share that darkly silly sensibility, then you may be a prime reader for Riley’s Book, which has a sequel Return of the Bunny Suicides.

Dune: The Heir of Caladan by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

 

(hb; 2022: third novel in the Caladan trilogy. Twenty-third book in the Dune series.)

From the inside flap

“In Dune: The Heir of Caladan, the climactic novel in the Caladan trilogy. . . we step into the shoes of Paul Atreides. Not yet a man in years, he is about to enter a world he could never have imagined.

“The story that began with Duke Leto’s rise to power, then continued with the consequences of Lady Jessica’s betrayal, will now conclude with Paul becoming the leader that he needs to be on the way to his pivotal role as Muad’Dib.”

 

Review

 The third and final entry in the Caladan trilogy is a slick, well-edited action/adventure space opera, an entertaining, direct lead-up to Frank Herbert’s original Dune (1965). In Heir, readers can see the seeds that come to character- and event-based fruition in Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965). While not vital to the Dune timeline—it’s been a while since any Dune book has been—Heir, like most post-God Emperor of Dune (1981) books, is a thrilling, steady-build and twist-effective ride by excellent writers, with recurring, beloved and beloathed characters. Worth seeking out, this.

Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow

(pb; 1979, republished 2020**)

From the back cover

“The world is being devastated by zombies. No one knows how far they have spread, or how to stop them. And as the living fight to save themselves, society collapses.

“Four people escape the chaos of downtown Philadelphia and find shelter in a shopping mall. But as the survivors exhaust their greed and the undead scrape at the doors, the refuge becomes a prison.

“And soon there will be nowhere left to hide.”

 

Review

Romero and Sparrow’s movie tie-in novelization of Romero’s 1978 landmark undead film is intense, immediately immersive, splatterific (at points), action-punctuated and character expansive (when compared to the film), a worthwhile companion work to the film. There isn’t a lot that’s different from its cinematic source-work (that I remember), but it’s a fun, fast and slickly written (and slightly icky) read, one worth seeking out.

[**republished/included in Second Sight’s 2020 seven-disc Blu-Ray Dawn of the Dead set]

In the Scrape by James Newman and Mark Steensland

 

(pb; 2019)

From the back cover

“Most kids dream about a new bike, a pair of top-dollar sneakers endorsed by their favorite athlete, or that totally awesome videogame everyone’s raving about. But thirteen-year-old Jake and his little brother Matthew want nothing more than to escape from their abusive father. As soon as possible, they plan to run away to California, where they will reunite with their mother and live happily ever after.

“It won’t be easy, though. After a scuffle with a local bully puts Jake’s arch-nemesis in the hospital, Sheriff Theresa McLelland starts poling her nose into their feud. During a trip to the family cabin for opening weekend of deer-hunting season, Jake and Matthew kick their plan into action, leaving Dad tied to a chair as they flee into the night. Meanwhile, the bully and his father have their own plans for revenge, and the events to follow will forever change the lives of everyone involved.”

 

Review

This 94-page novella, told from the vivid perspective of thirteen-year-old Jake Bradersen, is a straightforward tale of abuse, violence and redemption, with a few effective twists in the mix—a solid read by excellent writers, it’s a dark, wrong-side-of-the-woods coming-of-age work.

Carnival of Spies by Robert Moss

 

(pb; 1987)

From the back cover

“In the seething cauldron of Germany between two world wars. . .

“Young Johnny Lenz found his manhood and his cause. Loathing Fascism, growing up in chaos, he became a valued soldier of the Communist revolution. Fiercely loyal to his Moscow leaders, he fought, killed, and bled for them. Until Stalin’s bitter pact with Adolf Hitler brought disenchantment. . . until murder, torture and corruption revealed to him the great Communist lie.

“Rio De Janiero, 1936. . .

“An exotic city celebrating Carnival with extravagance and abandon. . . and a country in the midst of one of the century’s most daring attempts at revolution. Now Johnny Lenz will make his own life a perfect lie, balancing on a razor’s edge between rival agents and two sisters whose urgent passions could betray him. Now he will engineer a violent coup in the name of Communism—as a double agent for British Intelligence.”

 

Review

Moss’s complex, ambitious political thriller is one of those rare works where the personal and the political come together in an effective, harmonious manner. Johnny Lenz, an anti-Nazi and (relatively) kind-hearted believer in Communism, joins the party and rises quickly in the ranks, only to discover that his political party is riddled with corruption and other vices, vices that not only erode his initial hopes, but affect the love of his life (Sigrid Eckhardt, an artist), threatening to drive them apart—not unlike the way international politics and espionage, and national temperaments are split and exploited. His broken-faith/double-agent journey spans decades and continents, flavored with vivid descriptions of danger, rich characterization, sudden bursts of violence, romance, and locations, without any lags in the pacing and storyline. (Fans of barebones, lean-writing thrillers may disagree, but given Carnival’s scope, this is another excellent work by a master thriller writer, one worth owning, and perhaps in a few years, re-reading.)

Elvira: Camp Vamp by Elvira with John Paragon

 

(pb; 1997: YA novel. Second book in the Elvira trilogy.)

From the back cover

“Me? Elvira? Camping? Take a hike!

“Sleeping outdoors in nature is not my idea of a good time—it sounds so unnatural. But how could I refuse the Happy Campers? The girls were desperate enough to ask me to be their chaperone. And why not? I’m as campy as they come!

“First, I followed the Happy Camper Motto (Be Over-Prepared) and packed the three basic beauty groups: clothes, make-up, and plenty of hairspray. The essentials. Then, we headed for the hills at the crack of dawn (my bedtime).

“Someone tried to warn us about the legendary killer beast. But did we listen? Not. Even the human skulls along the trail didn’t scare us. But when our tents got shredded by giant claws, I knew this was no secret admirer. This freak needed a manicure!

“Now it’s up to me to soothe the savage beast—or the Happy Campers could be turned into an unhappy meal.”

 

Review

The second Elvira novel is a fun, fast-moving, wordplay- and double-entendre flirty YA (think mid-to older teens readers) work, more low-key than Elvira: Transylvania 90210 until its last-few-pages and briefly PG-violent and bloody Reveal/climax which fans of The Hills Have Eyes (1977), My Bloody Valentine (1981) and Wrong Turn (2003) may appreciate. Some of these elements might run a big dark for non-horror fans, but the elements, along with Elvira/Cassandra Peterson and Paragon’s effective use of iconic horror imagery, are mostly tell don’t show, so it’s generally adolescent friendly.

Camp Vamp, like Transylvania, works as a standalone, 169-page book, one that’s worth checking out, whether you’re an Elvira fan or a general PG-rated horror fan—bear in mind Transylvania, Camp Vamp and its follow-up, Elvira: The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, are out of print and often pricy.

Fear Today—Gone Tomorrow by Robert Bloch

 

(pb; 1971)

From the back cover

“HORROR—

“Harvey Wolf had his first taste of it when a witch doctor offered him a warm red drink from a hollowed skull—and Harvey developed cravings that nothing in this world could ever satisfy.

“HORROR—

“Crothers created it when he devised a much-too-successful solution to population control: a Madison-Avenue-launched suicide craze that swept the globe—and swept it clean.

“HORROR—

“Dave Larson looked into its eyes and read its history—as ancient as tribal sacrifice, as destructive as war, as bloody as the hands of a mass murderer. And then he become its most devoted servant.

“HORROR—

“The men of Earth invited it when they under-estimated the power of a woman—Venutian variety—and discovered, too late, that lovers can sometimes be terrifying strangers.”

 

Review

Bloch’s Fear, about aliens plotting the acceleration of mankind’s demise, is an ambitious, often darkly clever (a Blochian trademark) and piece-meal work, one advertised as a novel. It should’ve been back cover-blurbed (and advertised) as a loosely linked anthology, given how many word-sketched and loosely linked characters play their parts in Fear’s wide-ranging and blink-and-you’ll-lose-track storyline(s) before the characters permanently disappear (usually for good reason). Also, Fear jumps around a lot, a la Ray Bradbury’s theme- and location-based story collection The Martian Chronicles (1950), but where Bradbury’s iconic work succeeds, Bloch’s feels (too) abstract, dialogue-chatty, and scatter-shot in its thematic arc to be effective or reader-rewarding in its wrap-up. By the time this reader got to the end, I was just glad it was over, despite its sly wit, fast pacing, and wild genre elements (with mythic sourcing—hello, Minerva).

A hard-to-follow novel by a great writer, this is best read as a story anthology, with a loosely defined theme (humanity is likely doomed), buoyed in fleeting parts by Bloch’s black wit and (sometimes, in this case) tight set-ups and events. Worth reading, with the right expectations.

King Diamond: Abigail by King Diamond, Dan Watters, Damien Worm and others

 

(pb; October 2021: graphic novel, based on King Diamond’s 1987 concept album. Publisher: Z2 Comics.)

From the back cover

“King Diamond’s classic horror story featured on his 1987 concept album Abigail has received a masterful in-depth overhaul and is brought to life in a whole new way in this. . . graphic novel by Dan Watters, Damien Worm, and King Diamond himself!”

 

Review

Summer 1845. Jonathan Lafey, in financial trouble in London, inherits a mansion from his never met and deceased uncle near the rarely visited and superstitious village of Wodenstone. Jonathan flees London with his second wife, Miriam, an eighteen-year-old, talented artist. (His first wife, Sarah, died during childbirth as did their child.)

While traveling through dark woods near Wodenstone, seven shadowy and supernatural horsemen stop the Lafeys’ carriage to warn Jonathan and Miriam to turn back, that the castle is a bad place. Of course, Jonathan scoffs at this (despite his spine-shivery response to the suddenly disappeared horsemen), and he and his wife travel on. Once in Wodenstone, they get a chilly silence when Jonathan asks where La Fey House is—not that they need directions once outside, they can see the mansion atop a nearby hill.

A stink (“It is iron and offal scent of botched surgeries. Of spilled amniotic fluid thickened by blood”) permeates Lafey House, although Miriam claims to not smell it. That’s just the beginning of their troubles in the abode where Count Lafey, Jonathan’s uncle and by most accounts a cruel man, murdered his wife and child—the latter a restless and hungry spirit named Abigail.

King Diamond’s spooky, bloody, and mood-immersive sonic work gets comparable graphic novel treatment, with a nightmare-inducing house with way too many shadowy corners, paintings, and secret places. Damien Worm’s artwork captures well the spirit of Diamond’s melodic and guitar-heavy tale, and Dan Watters’s writing is spare enough to not belabor the source album’s story yet detailed enough to supply further mood-effective details to Abigail.

I’d recommend this graphic novel to fans of Gothic horror, haunted houses and, of course, King’s 1987 album. Here’s hoping Z2 follows this up with a companion work to its 2002 sequel, Abigail II: The Revenge.