Monday, October 31, 2022

Taking Shape: Developing Halloween From Script to Scream by Dustin MacNeill and Travis Mullens

 

(oversized pb; 2020: nonfiction)

From the back cover

“DELETED SCENES! UNUSED IDEAS! REJECTED PITCHES! ALTERNATE CUTS!

“Silver Shamrock. Thorn. It’s all in here. Join authors Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins for a deep dive into the evolution of Halloween’s vast mythology. Extensively researched, Taking Shape is the ultimate guide to the first forty years of Haddonfield history. Featuring exclusive interviews with filmmaker from every installment, prepare to gain new insight into Halloween’s iconic boogeyman.. .

Taking Shape includes:

Comprehensive story analysis on the entire series!

A look at what scholars got right (and wrong) about H1!

Exclusive details on Nigel Kneale’s original H3 script!

Comparisons of early scripts to the final theatrical films!

A rare interview with H5 screenwriter Michael Jacobs!

An exhaustive account of H6’s troubled production!

An examination of H20’s roots as a direct-to-video sequel!

A revealing look behind the grunge of the Rob Zombie era!

Insight into how test audiences and execs shaped the films!

In-depth dissection of the official novelizations!”

 

Review

Taking is one of the best books I’ve read about the Halloween franchise. Its chapters include all the movies up through Halloween (2018), living up to its excitable back cover description. It is indeed “exhaustive” (in a good way) in its balanced-tone detailing of how each entry in the series went from sometimes-misguided notions to silver screen reality as well as the many of the motivations of those who did (or didn’t) make those films happen. For now, it’s safe to say that Taking, for most Halloween (1978) fans, is a veritable bible on the subject—aside from some of the worthwhile movie novelizations, particularly Curtis Richards’s, for the first film. Worth owning, this. Followed by Taking Shape II: The Lost Halloween Sequels.

Halloween Ends by Paul Brad Logan

 

(pb; 2022: movie tie-in)

From the back cover

“The town of Haddonfield still lives in the shadow of Michael Myers. It has been four years since he mysteriously vanished. As Laurie attempts to put the tragedies of her past behind her, Allyson is desperate to get away from life with her grandmother in the dead-end town scorched by bloodshed.

“When local outcast Corey Cunningham discovers the truth of Michael’s whereabouts, he inadvertently unleashes a new wave of violence. With Haddonfield once more the backdrop to murderous impulses, Allyson endeavors to escape as Laurie prepares for one final confrontation with her boogeyman.”

 

Review

Logan, one of the screenwriters for the film version, is a mostly solid writer as far as expanding the story’s details and the background characters’ backgrounds (giving them names when they didn’t have them in the film, e.g., Christopher Nelson, the sewer bum who takes care of Michael Myers, and has a briefly linked past with the iconic killer). Unfortunately, Logan’s mostly solid writing can’t fix a disjointed story, with lead characters who, even if they changed in four years, feel like entirely different/new characters when compared to the first two films/novels—it’s as if the first two films/novels might as well as not existed, that this is not part of a wrap-up for the Halloween franchise. Rather, it feels like a side story that could’ve been titled Corey Cunningham: F**k-Up, with shoehorned appearances by Michael Myers, and a ridiculous final fate for Michael (which might’ve worked in a better-written film).

Ends, like its film version counterpart, has two competing storylines that should not exist within the same work. It’s like the screenwriters wanted to do a side film (that shouldn’t even be part of this supposed trilogy end-film/book) that also briefly showed Myers and a boring—yes, boring— and half-assed retread of Laurie Strode’s more-thrilling confrontations with Myers in Halloween (1978) and Halloween (2018). It’s nice that the filmmakers wanted to try something different (even beyond what they did in Halloween Kills, 2021) but this storyline is misguided, not scary, a “social message” Myers-has-new-psychic-powers film with truncated/badly patched-together scenes that add up to utter crap. If they’d stuck with Cunningham’s story (minus the possessed-with-Myers’s-evil element) it would’ve been an interesting Halloween side-story (perhaps titled Tales of Haddonfield) work. But it’s not. It’s disjointed, a betrayal of what went before with the characters (never mind the fact that Ends should’ve focused on Allyson, Laurie Strode’s granddaughter, like it did on the first two films, keeping with trilogic consistency).

Don’t waste your time with this unless you consider this a side Halloween alternate-universe work. Additionally, given Halloween Kills’s cliffhanger ending, it might be best to pretend Kills doesn’t exist, that John Passarella’s novelization of Halloween (2018) was the thus-far final (and worthwhile) entry in the Halloween franchise.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Elvira: Transylvania 90210 by Elvira with John Paragon

 

(pb; 1996: YA novel. First book in the Elvira trilogy.)

 

From the back cover

“I’m Elvira. Mistress of the Dark. Welcome to my nightmare.

“Think it’s easy being a glamour ghoul? Think again.

“My love life is so dead I have to dig up dates with a shovel. My bad hair days would make a werewolf eat a silver bullet. And my neighbors, well. . . my neighbors suck blood!

“You see, these weirdos just moved in next door, and their taste in furniture is early Mausoleum—I’m talking caskets here. Their servant is a total Igor. They only come out at night. And they seem to prefer a liquid diet, if you know what I mean. There goes the neighborhood!

“I like vampires as much as the next ghoul. But when they start chomping on my friends, look out. The new creeps on the block are about to receive a little visit—from Elvira’s unwelcome wagon.”

 

Review

Narrated by Cassandra Peterson’s sarcastic, smart Goth ghoulish alter ego, Transylvania is a consistently entertaining, funny-quip-filled young adult novel with PG-rated double entendre adult overtones (I’d recommend this for older teens). While reading it, I could hear Peterson/Elvira’s voice, Transylvania's silliness, horror and tone Elvira-true, and its quick-moving plot playfully dispensing with cliches, even as Elvira and her teenage friends figure out what to do when the vampiric Sevil Alucard and his bug-eating servant (Skreech) come to town. This 169-page book, out of print and pricy, is a thoroughly enjoyable romp, as fun as watching either of her movies or her any of her movie-host shows. Worth seeking, this.  Followed by Elvira: Camp Vamp.


Monday, October 24, 2022

White Shark by Peter Benchley

 

(pb; 1994; a.k.a. Peter Benchley’s Creature)

From the back cover

“At a small marina institute off the coast of Connecticut, only marine biologist Simon Chase realizes that a sixteen-foot pregnant Great White is feeding in the area. But even Simon doesn’t know a far deadlier creature is about to come out of the deep and threaten everything he cares for. A creature whose malevolence is unthinkable. Whose need to feed is insatiable. And whose relentless hunt for prey is unstoppable.”

 

Review

White Shark is a slick, fun, and fast-moving ocean-based thriller, with a gleefully B-movie elements (a mad Nazi doctor, a seemingly unstoppable and physically imposing monster, brief-but-effective gore), well-defined good guys and bad guys, and a tidy wrap-up that you’ll likely see coming but (maybe) appreciate anyway. Entertaining read by a great writer, this, worth picking up.

#

The resulting two-episode TV miniseries, titled Creature, originally aired on ABC on May 17, 1998. Stuart Gillard directed it from a teleplay by Rockne S. O’Bannon.

Craig T. Nelson played Dr. Simon Chase. Kim Catrall played Dr. Amanda Mayson. Cress Williams played Tall Man.

Colm Feore played Adm. Aaron Richland. Michael Riley Burke played Adam Puckett. Giancarlo Esposito played Lt. Thomas Peniston/Werewolf. Peter Benchley cameoed as "Exec's Buddy".






Thursday, October 13, 2022

Liarmouth. . . A Feel-Bad Romance by John Waters

 

(hb; 2022)

From the inside flap

“Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, desperate, she’s disturbed, and she’s on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth—until one insane man makes her tell the truth.”

 

 

Review

Waters’s first novel reads like his best, darkly hilarious, shocking, odd, and deviant-sex movies. Marsha Sprinkle is iconoclastic to the bone, beloathed by her family and all those who know her. After a normal airport suitcase-theft job goes awry for her and her sex-enthralled flunkie, Daryl, she flees from Dutch Village, Baltimore, to Provincetown, Maryland, with people—including her cultic, bounce-obsessed daughter (Poppy), her mother (Adora), Daryl (with his compromised sex) in mostly hateful pursuit. Fast-moving, at times loosely descriptive (but always in a true-to-effective form Waters way), Liarmouth builds to a howlingly funny and morally/physically icky climax that could’ve easily been one of his early films. Worth owning, this, if you’re a fan of Waters, or occasional-gross-out/scalpel-to-cultural-norms, criminal humor.


Sunday, October 02, 2022

Witches' Brew edited/presented by Alfred Hitchcock

 

(pb; 1965: crime anthology)

From the back cover

“Hitchcock loves little old ladies. . . especially when they have stringy hair, warts on their noses, broomsticks at the ready, and cauldrons bubbling over.  That’s why he’s dedicated this collection of terror treats to them. Here is sufficient horror to make a hag shout hurrah and enough evil to make a bride of Satan go on a second honeymoon. For all the rest of us, it’s the macabre most in bone-chilling magic. . .”

 

Overall review

Excellent anthology with good-to-great entries, presented by Hitchcock, worth owning.

 

Review, story by story

Premonition” – Charles Mergendahl: A woman (Martha Ricker) with “queer feelings” about impending, certain-to-happen events becomes convinced she’ll be the next victim of a killer whose M.O. involves neckties. Entertaining, highly visual story with a solid-twist finish.

 

A Shot from a Dark Night” – Avram Davidson: A popular businessman and politician (James Calvin “Jaysey” William) is jarred out of his comfortable life when an oddly familiar stranger (James “Jemmy” Buxton) shows up in Williams’s small town. Excellent story about secrets, guilt and small town life, one of my favorite entries in this story collection.

 

I Had a Hunch. . .” – Talmage Powell: A murdered woman’s spirit (Janet) haunts a cop (Joe) investigating her death, trying to influence him to her end for what it was, and arrest the culprit. Effective twists in this emotionally involving story.

 

A Killing in the Market” – Robert Bloch: An employee (Albert Kessler) of a Wall Street firm seeks out a highly successful investor for investment tips and finds himself in a world of deception and trouble. Intriguing story that plays with familiar tropes.

 

Gone, as by Magic” – Richard Hardwick: A year after a man (Frank Pilcher) disappears in a small, can’t-stop-talking-about-it town (Garrison), his best friend (Burt Webb) recounts, to the reader, the events leading up to Pilcher’s disappearance and its aftermath. Good, fun story.

 

The Big Bajoor” – Borden Deal: Clever, waste-no-words piece about a gypsy (Vanya) whose swindles of an old woman goes darkly, humorously awry.

 

The Gentle Miss Bluebeard” – Nedra Tyre: Miss Mary Anne Beard, sixty-five, begins killing people to help them in her peculiar way. Solid, “gentle” (as the title says) story.

 

The Guy That Laughs Last” – Philip Tremont: A gangster (Big Freddy), fond of practical jokes and paranoid that he’s being set up by his underlings, prepares for a supposed rendezvous with a pretty, young woman (Margo). The ending to this is blunter than I’d hoped, but it’s still a solid piece with good foreshadowing.

 

Diet and Die” – Wenzell Brown: Told in the first person to a police psychiatrist, a fine-food connoisseur admits to homicide, and his reasons for doing so are less than common. Fun, smart story.

 

Just for Kicks” – Richard Marsten: Charlie Frank, a successful advertising executive who gets no thrills out of life, tries murder for sport. The ending, not surprising, is striking and effective.

 

Please Forgive Me” – Henry Kane: A cop (Paul Matthew) becomes concerned that his eighteen-year-old son (Billy) has become a criminal lifestyle. Good story and emotional content, character focused.

 

A Crime Worthy of Me” – Hal Dresner: An employee sets out to rob his employer (Mr. Cumberly of Bainesville Home Finance and Loan Company), using a fictional detective story as his modus operandi.

 

When Buying a Fine Murder” – Jack Ritchie: A hitman is hired for a job by Walter Brandt, a man who’s never met him. The hitman’s target: himself. In trying to find out why Brandt wants him dead, the killer discovers things about those around him (including his “gorgeous” wife, Helen). Entertaining, sharply written, and clever—almost to the point of being disingenuous— tale (it barely works as short story, but in reality, a pro might not go to such lengths to correct certain issues).