From Dusk Till Dawn by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Kurtzman

 

(pb; 1995: screenplay)

From the back cover

“You’d better hope you don’t cross paths with the infamous Gecko brothers—Richie and Seth. They’re fond of banks—robbing them, that is. They’re tough. In From Dusk Till Dawn, we follow them as they tear a path through the heartland of America on their way to the border. It is there, near El Paso, that they will meet up with their Mexican partners-in-crime to divvy up the loot they’ve acquired.

“Along the way, though, an innocent family will enter their lives—an ex-Baptist preacher, his teenage son, and sexy daughter. We watch as Richie and Seth enlist the family’s help in getting them safely across the border in the family’s Winnebago. When they arrive at their dreamed-about world south of the border, they are met with a terrifying twist.”

 

Review

Tarantino and Kurtzman’s down-and-dirty exploitation screenplay hits all its marks while creating a multi-subgenre stew that incorporates Blaxploitation, Mexploitation, vampires, 1970s road movies, sexploitation, and a lot of other -ploitations. Its well-sketched, sometimes -fleshed characters spout snappy dialogue, as rapid-fire as their wild what-the-hell situations and resulting, improvised re/actions. This is a landmark screenplay (and later, film) that truly felt down and dirty, nostalgic, yet distinctly 1990s direct-to-video sleazy and unique in its elements. Great read and great film, one worth reading, it you like sleazy genre works and swift, twisty action and characters.

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The resulting film was released stateside on January 19, 1996. Robert Rodriguez directed it, with a lot of notable—most of them great—players.

"Morbius the Living Vampire" Omnibus by various artists and writers (Part 1 of 2)

 

(oversized hb; 2019; graphic novel)

Overall review

Caveat: (possible) minor spoilers in this review. Part 2 of the review is here.

Morbius is a fun, distinctive (he’s a living vampire!), and overall good read, although the artwork, between its various illustrators, varies in quality (mostly it’s good though). Its main characters (despite the era-familiar/sexist damsel-in-distress female players) are mostly consistent and generally interesting—bearing in mind that, depending on the title, situations and the writers, Morbius veers sometimes from bloodthirsty maniacal to sympathetic anti-hero. Worth reading and owning, this.

These are the first twenty issues of the forty-one original issue run. 

 

Review, issue by issue

The Amazing Spider-Man: “A Monster Called. . . Morbius!” (#101): While hiding out in Dr. Curtis Connors’s (aka the Lizard) summer house (so Peter Parker/Spider-Man can undo an unsuccessful experiment), Spider-Man is thrust into combat with Morbius the Living Vampire for the first time, a situation that compounds into something worse when another unexpected guest shows up.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man: “Vampire at Large!” (#102): Spider-Man, caught between the Lizard (a transformed Dr. Curtis Connors) and Morbius, tries to fend them off, secure a serum for his additional four spider-arms, and transform Connors back into his human self, while subduing (but not seriously harming) Morbius.

 

Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and the Human Torch: “The Power to Purge” (#3): Martine (Dr. Michael Morbius’s distressed fiancée) contacts the Fantastic Four, seeking help in locating her transformed, missing fiancé. One of the four, Johnny Blaze (aka the Human Torch), with help from a combative Spider-Man, locates Morbius and tries to subdue the desperate, blood-deprived vampire—who’s also created another bloodsucker (Jefferson, a political radical, brother of the more even-tempered Jacob).

As one might expect, Blaze and Spider-Man’s efforts are thwarted by unforeseen complications.

 

Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and the X-Men (#4): Morbius kidnaps Hans Jorgensen, his former scientific partner, and kills some people. Spider-Man, suffering from the effects of the Morbius-based cure for his extra four arms (The Amazing Spider-Man #101-102), tries to stop Morbius, but runs afoul of the X-Men while doing so. Especially cram-packed with characters and action, this issue.

 

Vampire Tales: “Morbius” (#1): This black-and-white illustrated magazine chapter-story shows a guilt-tormented Morbius—recently escaped from the X-men—in Los Angeles, looking for his erstwhile love (Martine). After making accidental friends with a “Children of Satan” cultist “or just a carnie” (Carolyn), she takes him to Madame Laera, a no-frills spiritualist, who also tries to help him locate Martine. While with Madame Laera, they’re attacked by a kill-happy demon (Nilrac).

Especially fun Morbius micro-tale chapter, more bloodthirsty and fearsome than its color-cousin/younger audience mainstream run.

 

Giant-Size Superheroes: “Man-Wolf at Midnight” (#1): In another effort to procure a cure for his vampirism, Michael Morbius—less maniacal than usual—takes control of the Man-Wolf (John Jameson’s lycanthropic self) with the Moon-Stone, recovered from the East River in New York.

Morbius’s plan also includes Dr. Harold Ward, a hematologist working on an experimental cure for leukemia, and only Spider-Man can save Ward and possibly, Jameson/Man Wolf. This simple clever, self-contained story is fun, above average in its written and visual execution.

 

Fear: “Morbius the Living Vampire” (#20): The titular bloodsucker is strangely calmed by two men religious faith and science (Rabbi Krause, Reverend Daemond) is again experimented upon to see if Michael Morbius can be cured of his need for blood. Unfortunately, the situation goes awry (as it often does), and Morbius, cognizant of his humane aspects, is forced to stalk a new victim.

 

Fear: “Project: Second Genesis” (#21): After Morbius’s reluctant attack on Tara (a child who is more than she appears to be), the “man-bat” and the girl are drawn to the Caretakers, ancient, science-smart beings who compel Morbius to confront the traitorous, satanic Daemond, his mysterious female companion and a supernatural “jungle cat” (Balkatar). Another cliffhanger finish, with at least one shocking (for Morbius) twist.

This issue, like the previous Fear issue, casts Morbius in a consistent, well-meaning anti-hero light. This shift (also hinted at Marvel Tearm-Up #3 and 4 as well as Vampire Tales #1) is  a promising character- and series-expansive take on Morbius, a sea-change for the character.

 

Fear: “—This Vampire Must Die!” (#22): Morbius’s slashing fisticuffs with Balkatar, the intelligent and English-speaking jungle cat, are interrupted by a summoning by Balkatar’s also-biped/feline king (Gerark). Gerark has a terrible but seemingly necessary mission for Morbius, one that means life or death for Gerark’s subjects inside the mysterious land-prison of “within”—a place Gerark and his people are unable to escape.

 

Fear: “Alone Against Arcticus” (#23): In a land bordering the “within”, Morbius meets the denizens of Arcturus, a mix of cyborgs, a mutated super-race, and occasional humans—all of whom were subjugated by Gerark the wild-cat king and his ilk long ago, and all of whom seek to free themselves.

 

Fear: “Return to Terror!” (#24): Lord I (eye-faced, telepathic “potentate of Arcturus”) and Morbius return to our terrestrial realm where, surreptitiously espied by the Caretakers, the living vampire tangles with a bewildered Blade the Vampire Slayer.

 

Vampire Tales: “The Blood Sacrifice of Amanda Saint” (#2): In the more adult-oriented Vampire Tales chapter-tale, Morbius confronts another satanic cult, that of Demon-Fire, led by high priestess Poison Lark and her monstrous lieutenant (Katabolik), so that Morbius might save the virginal Amanda Saint from their “Triad of Solomon” sacrifice that would leave Saint dead. Cliffhanger finish to this fun, fast-moving (if stock-Morbius) microtale.

 

Vampire Tales: “Demon-Fire” (#3): Morbius interrupts Poison Lark (Amanda Saint’s murderous sister Catherine) and Katabolik’s mausoleum sacrifice of Amanda Saint to the spider demon Arachne, while “sweet, silly Justin”—Amanda’s love interest—reveals hidden depths. Also mentioned by Poison Lark: “the arcane text of Lemegeton”.

 

Vampire Tales: “Lighthouse of the Possessed” (#4): Amanda Saint and Morbius, having dismembered the San Francisco-based cult of Demon-Fire, head to Lovecraftian eerie Malevolence, Maine, to find Amanda’s mother and father, the former of whom (like Catherine/Poison Lark) joined Demon-Fire’s cult.

Shortly after their arrival in Malevolence, Morbius and Amanda are attacked by its citizens, most of whom are possessed by a skeletal-clawed hell fiend (Bloodtide), summoned by Amanda’s mother. At least one Scooby-Doo-esque end-twist makes this Vampire Tale especially fun.

 

Vampire Tales: “Blood Tide” (#5): Morbius and Amanda Saint continue to fend off attacks by the Bloodtide-possessed citizens of Malevolence, Maine—this time with help from locals Brock Killbride (a naïve political optimist) and the more cynical Arlene Randolph, while Monte Harris, a shady political consultant for Mayor Duke Mannery, skulks around the eerie town. Then Bloodtide shows up! Mayhem ensues.

Multi-POV storytelling issue highlights this issue, cutting between the story’s core characters.

 

Vampire Tales: “Where is Gallows Bend” (#7): In Gallows Bend, Nevada, Amanda Saint and Morbius, continue looking for Saint’s long-disappeared father. More minions of the Demonfire cult—notably Death-Flame—torture Morbius and Amanda with hallucinatory horrors in the Old West-style town. Appropriately melodramatic, crazy story with jarring POV shifts, something that highlights the rest of the Demonfire storyline.

 

Vampire Tales: “High Midnight” (#8): Howie Rivers (owner of the Old West town Gallows Bend, Nevada), his caretaker (Sagebrush Robbins), Morbius and Amanda Saint face off against Apocalypse and his hench-creatures (griffins, Reaper, Phineas T. Coroner, others) in the mostly satisfying conclusion to Morbius’s Demonfire story arc.

Like the previous six Vampire Tales entries, the characters and atmosphere are laid on thick, the writing’s locquacious  and for “mature audiences”, and there’s multiple POVs throughout (this time these POVs effectively gel).

Amanda Saint, self-aware heroine, gets short-shrifted in the Demonfire arc, often little more than a damsel in distress (especially by today’s standards) despite her intelligence and willingness to fight villainy.

 

Fear: “And What of a Vampire’s Blood. . .?” (#25): Picking up from Fear #24, separate from the Vampire Tales storyline: Caught between the 10,000-year-old Caretakers and the demon-priest Daemond, whose long war threatens all, Morbius and the psychically powerful girl-child Tara confront Daemond anew—a conflict Daemond seems likely to win.

 

Fear: “A Stillborn Genesis!” (#26): Character-based twists abound as the war between Daemond and the Caretakers comes to a head. Fun, wild wrap-up to the Caretakers/Daemond storyline.

 

Werewolf By Night: “Giant-Size Werewolf” (#4) – “A Meeting of Blood”: Michael Morbius (“the living vampire”) is reunited with his amnesiac fiancée, Martine, who may lead him to more than love, when a wolf-mode Jack Russell crosses their path and attacks them, possibly undoing Morbius and Martine’s shot at a sweet new life.

The Face-Changers by Thomas Perry

 

(pb; 1998: fourth book in the Jane Whitefield series)

From the back cover

“Jane Whitefield, legendary half-Indian shadow guide who spirits hunted people away from certain death, has never had a client like Dr. Richard Dahlman. A famous plastic surgeon who has dedicated his life to healing, the good doctor hasn’t a clue why stalkers are out for his blood. But he knows Jane Whitefield’s name—and that she iss his only hope. Once again Jane performs her magic, leading Dahlman in a nightmare flight across America, only a heartbeat ahead of pursuers whose leader is a dead ringer for Jane: a raven-haired beauty who was stolen her name, reputation, and techniques—not to save lives, but to destroy them.”

 

Review

Caveat: (possible) not-quite-spoiler series notes in this review.

A year after the events of Shadow Woman (1997), Jane Whitefield, retired from her guide business, is drawn back into intrigue and danger when her husband, Carey McKinnon, asks her to help his surgical/experimental-researcher mentor (Dr. Richard Dahlman) disappear after he’s framed for the murder of his co-researcher. Complicating Jane’s task is a woman who’s operating as Jane’s doppelgãnger, with a money-flush, murder-leaning organization backing the faux-Jane. Also in the violent mix: Alvin Jardine, a low-life, Jane-loathing bounty hunter, who might make an appearance (or a few) in future Jane Whitefield entries.

As with earlier books in the series, there’s an element/mention of Seneca/Native American mythology (in this case the titular “face-changers”, Creator-Punishment beings), a measured-pace, snappy writing, character-driven set-up with plenty of action, twists, fresh takes on familiar situations, and a satisfying resolution that rings true, as well as mentions from previous Whitefield novels (in this case, Vanishing Act, 1995, specifically: John Felker, duplicitous and sociopathic former client of Jane’s; Lewis Feng, a documents forger Jane worked with, later killed by Felker, as was another former Jane client, Harry in Santa Barbara).

Worth owning, this. Followed by Blood Money.

The Movie: "Barfly" by Charles Bukowski

 

(pb; 1987, 2006: screenplay)

Review

Bukowski’s character-driven, sometimes (suitably) booze-setting-chaotic screenplay maintains the warm, fisticuffs-brave tone of Bukowski’s other written work, a successful, charming genre-transitional effort that paid off with a truly independent, frak-Hollywood film with stellar, lots-o’-heart and distinctive characters. Worth seeking out, excellent.

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The resulting film, directed by Barbet Schroeder, was released stateside on October 16, 1987.

Mickey Rourke played Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s fictionalized self. Faye Dunaway played Wanda Wilcox. J.C.Quinn played Jim, daytime bartender for the Golden Horn Bar. Frank Stallone played Eddie, the Golden Horn’s nighttime bartender.

Sandy Martin played Janice, one of the Golden Horn’s barflies. Roberta Bassin played Lilly, another Golden Horn barfly. Gloria LeRoy, billed as Gloria Leroy, played Grandma Moses, an elderly oral-sex-leaning prostitute. Pruitt Taylor Vince played Joe. Book and screenplay author Charles Bukowski played an uncredited Bar Patron.

Alice Krige played Tully, a publisher. Jack Nance played Tully’s “Detective”.  

Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

 

(pb; 1973)

From the back cover

“Marian Rolfe, her husband Ben and their 12-year-old son David find a neglected mansion that can be theirs for the summer. It all seems absolutely perfect, but there is one hitch. . .”

 

Review

Marasco’s slow-build, low-key horror tale about a malevolent house slowly tearing a family apart is good, its relatable characters, descriptions of the house falling somewhere between a then-modern (early Seventies) feel with a touch of late nineteenth-century/early twentieth century nostalgia and atmosphere—this latter element is subtle but  effective in giving Burnt an especially classic spookhouse feel, much like novels like James Herbert’s David Ash series (Haunted; The Ghosts of Sleath; and Ash) and especially Richard Matheson’s Hell House, 1971). The ending is open-ended (and possibly disappointing for some readers), with an equally low-key and notably-different-than-the-1976-film finish, but the film ending (more striking and effective) lacks the sense of blissful revelation that one of key characters experiences in those moments. Highly recommended read for those who appreciate quiet character-explorations, an emphasis on atmosphere, and sometimes-subtle-shift thrills.

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The film version, true to the book's atmosphere and characters, was released stateside on October 18, 1976. It was directed by Dan Curtis, who co-wrote the screenplay with William F. Nolan.

Karen Black played Marian Rolf (an alteration of the book-version surname Rolfe). Oliver Reed played Ben Rolf. Lee Montgomery, billed as Lee H. Montgomery, played David Rolf. Bette Davis, who found Reed “loathsome” in real life, played Aunt Elizabeth.

Eileen Heckart played Roz Allardyce. Burgess Meredith played Arnold “Brother” Allardyce. Dub Taylor played Walker, the Allardyces’ surly handyman. Anthony James played the creepy Chauffeur.

Zombies Anonymous written and illustrated by Malcolm Johnson

 

(pb; 2021:  graphic novel)

From the back cover

“Witness the zombie apocalypse like never before, told never before, told through the point of view of the undead in recovery.”

 

Review

Written and illustrated by Johnson, this fast-moving ten-minute and short read is narrated by various cognizant zombies (“biters”) in an “incident” (read: death/zombification) recovery group whose stories are shown while their recovery group session is not.

The biters talk about how many days it’s been since they’ve bitten. Their voice-overs are sprinkled with quoted lyrics (e.g., Leonard Cohen, The Mars Volta), and the illustrations—basic, spare in relative detail, more effective for being so—make effective use of red (as well as black and white) and dark, sometimes red-splash humor.

Anonymous, an entertaining undead-themed, quick-read graphic novel with a fun wrinkle placed within familiar storylines, is worth your time.

City Primeval by Elmore Leonard

 

(pb; 1980)

From the back cover

“Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The crazed killer is back on the Detroit streets—thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his crafty looker of a lawyer—and he’s feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge. Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz thinks the Oklahoma Wildman crossed the line long before this latest outrage, and he’s determined to see that the psycho does not slip through the legal system’s loopholes a second time. But that means a good cop is going to have to play somewhat fast and loose with the rules—in order to maneuver Mansell into a wild Midwest showdown that he won’t be walking away from.”

 

Review

City’s modern-day cowboy Cruz and his law-enforcement associates face off against a sociopathic, brazen, and murderous criminal (Clement Mansell) whose low-life wiliness allows him to slip out of situations that would normally land another criminal in prison for decades. Leonard’s writing, at his best, is simultaneously slick, action- taut clever, with loquacious dialogue (but tightly edited), with a raw unpredictability thrown into the mix, and City reflects all these qualities. You know there’s going to be a showdown between Cruz and Mansell, just a question of where and when, and when it comes, it’s a doozy of a finale for a book that’s worth owning.

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City Primeval became the basis for FX channel’s upcoming limited series Justified: City Primeval, a continuation/spin-off of their 2010-15 show Justified, featuring Leonard’s book- and story-recurrent lawman character, Raylan Givens (starting with Leonard’s 1993 novel Pronto) in place of Raymond Cruz. As with the 2010-15 series, Timothy Olyphant played Givens. Justified: City Primeval is scheduled to begin airing on FX on July 18, 2023.

Cellars by John Shirley

 

(pb; 1982)

From the back cover

“Flesh for Satan.

“In a deserted subway tunnel far below the city, a young woman is ritually slashed to pieces. . . In an apartment building across town, a little boy, seething with demonic urges, lures a friend down into the sub-basement. . . On shadowed streets, hordes of shrieking children are stalking human sacrifices for him.

“Horror beneath the city.

“Evil has erupted from the pits of Hell, its blessed minions hungering for the flesh and blood of terrified millions. A city is clutched in the dripping talons of unspeakable horror, devoured in the nightmare battle between the forces of good. . . and the invincible armies of eternal darkness.”

 

Review

Cellar is an Old School/1980s horror novel that harkens back to the time when visiting Times Square could be a dangerous, overtly grimy and thrilling experience. In it, writer and researcher Carl Lanyard, is hired by his morally dubious and mysterious publisher (Trismegestes) to be an “occult consultant” to the police to help them solve a string of bizarre, especially nasty murders that hide deeper, darker and more ancient secrets. Like many novels of this period, Cellar is thick-vivid with New York-centric description, detailing its slime and charms, human and beyond.

If you’re familiar with this era of genre writing, you may well see where this cinematic, entertaining and well-written B-flick (and character-impelled) story is going, but it’s a joyously, unrepentantly gory, smutty, and hallucination-riddled ride with a darkly hilarious vibe, one worth checking out, especially if you’re a fan of William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel Falling Angel (and its resulting 1987 movie Angel Heart), Clive Barker’s 1984 Books of Blood Vol. 1 story “The Midnight Meat Train” (and its 2008 media-leap spawn film of the same name), and the Jack Cardiff-helmed The Mutations (1974; aka The Freakmaker).

Shadow Woman by Thomas Perry

 

(hb; 1997: third book in the Jane Whitefield series)

From the inside flap

“Jane Whitefield is a ‘guide’—she leads desperate people away from danger into safe places and gives them new identities. In Shadow Woman, Jane designs a harrowing escape for Pete Hatcher, a Las Vegas casino executive whose suspicious employers are about to kill him. Once her client is safe, Jane makes herself vanish and retires from her dangerous profession to marry the man she loves. But the risky business she left behind returns with terrible urgency on the night she receives Pete Hatcher’s call for help. A man and a woman who can only be an assassination team have found his hiding place, and Jane must beat the killers to their prey. She needs all the courage, fortitude, and intelligence of her Native American heritage to keep Hatcher alive. And this time, the killers know she’s coming.”

 

Review

Like the preceding Whitefield novel, Dance for the Dead, Shadow Woman is light on Indian practicality and wisdom tales and focuses on the action, immediate storyline, and characters—and what a doozy some of the characters are! Linda Thompson and Earl Bliss, within the context of the Whitefield novels, might just be the most hair-raising and perverse psychosexual skip tracers/murderers Jane has faced. Not only that, Pete Seaver, head of security and occasional killer for incorporated Las Vegas mobsters (Pleasure, Inc.) is beginning to have doubts about his Las Vegas employers and Thompson and Bliss, and has set out to get their prey, Hatcher and, if necessary, Whitefield.

For the most part, Shadow is an excellent, intense read, with a darkly funny ending. It deftly avoids (possibly) melodramatic situations between Jane and her laid-back fiancé, Carey McKinnon, who is—for this reader, anyway—so naïve and trusting he borders on people-stupid/unrealistic. Despite this relatively character nit, Shadow works as an above-average novel, one worth owning. Followed by The Face Changers.

The Killer Elite by Robert Rostand

 

(pb; 1973)

From the back cover 

“The day of the assassins.

“There were three of them, the best in the business. All were in England now, three free-lance professional assassins hired by the same power, three specialists in sudden death closing in one the same target.

“Just one man stood between them and the success of their murderous mission. A man with past failure to atone for; a blood to settle. A man whose almost insane pride would prefer death to another defeat. A man named [Michael] Locken, with nothing left to lose and no one left to trust as the faced the killer elite.”

 

Review

Killer is a tautly written, effectively character sketched action novel with a lot of character-based twists, some of them likely familiar to genre-knowledgeable readers, but many of them still-effective and masterful. This is a great action-genre read, one worth seeking out.

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Two film versions resulted from this Rostand novel.

The PG-rated first version, The Killer Elite, was directed by Sam Peckinpah. It was released stateside on December 19, 1975. Killer‘s screenplay was penned by Marc Norman, Stirling Siliphant, and Robert Syd Hopkins.

James Caan played Mike Locken. Robert Duvall played George Hansen. Arthur Hill played Cap Collis. Bo Hopkins played Jerome Miller. Mako played Yuen Chung.

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The second version, Killer Elite, was released stateside on September 23, 2011. Gary McKendry directed it, from Matt Shering and Ranulph Fiennes’s screenplay.

Jason Statham played Danny [cinematic stand-in for Mike Locken]. Clive Owen played Spike. Robert DeNiro played Hunter. Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje played Agent. Dominic Purcell played Davies.  

Shibuya Goldfish (books 1—11) by Hiroumi Aoi

 

(pb; 2017; eleven-book manga series)

From the back cover

“High schooler Hajime Tuskiyoda went to Shibuya that day hoping only to find inspiration for his next film. He never expected to find himself smack-dab in the middle of a real-life horror movie. Without warning, schools of massive goldfish descend upon the crowded streets, and the mystified onlookers’ confusion quickly turns to terror as the fish begin to feed. From their tentative shelter, Hajime and a handful of survivors await a rescue that seems more and more unlikely as the days and hours tick by. Meanwhile, all around them, the bloody feeding frenzy begins.”

 

Review

This fast-paced, sometimes melodramatic, action-oriented, folklore-based horror-fantasy manga about bizarre, oversized, man-eating goldfishes is an above-average read for the genre (even with its occasional upskirt/low-skirt/panty shots, to further keep teenage boys’ attention), one worth reading. The characters are mostly fun and fully explored (for manga), the artwork is wow-worthy, and the twists are solid as is the ending. Worth checking out, this.