District 9

I was a little bit hesitant to watch District 9, for a couple of reasons. First of all, a movie that receives the hype it did usually disappoints, as it just can’t live up to the buzz. That’s why I watch movies like Supercroc. You don’t go in with the idea it’s going to change your life, or even be competent. The other reason is that it was well known District 9 was a “message” film, and filmmakers are generally terrible about doing such, getting overwhelmed by the idea of making their point and forgetting that people are irritated when they are preached to. (This is why Spike Lee infuriates me. He obviously possesses great talent, but he will make a movie that eloquently makes its case against racism or some other social ill for 90 minutes, then stop the movie dead so a character can deliver a “racism is bad” rant, as if you are too stupid to understand that from the rest of the movie. Then again, I do watch movies like Supercroc, so maybe he is right.)

Despite all this, which caused me to miss District 9 while it was at the theater, I finally got around to watching on DVD, and I was pleasantly surprised. While it is not a movie that will change your life or the entire future of movie-making, it is well-done, intelligent and entertaining. The message is there, but presented well enough it doesn’t seem like a sermon.

Twenty years ago a giant space craft reached Earth and hovered over Johannesburg, South Africa. Humans were eventually able to gain access to the ship, which they found to be filled with insect-like aliens, who are given the derogatory nickname “prawns” due to their resemblance to shrimp. The prawns seem to be workers/slaves, and whoever was piloting the ship has disappeared somehow. The prawns are taken to Earth, where they are segregated into “District 9”, a garbage-strewn ghetto. There, they are exploited both by the government and by gangs, who control them due to their addiction to cat food, and use them to try to get the secrets of the alien technology, which can only be used by the prawns, as it is somehow keyed to their DNA.

Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is a mostly dim bureaucrat in an agency tasked with managing the aliens. He is given the task of overseeing the eviction f the prawns to a new district, ostensibly to get them better living conditions, but really to discover more about the technology and the aliens’ other secrets. Wikus’ life changes when he is exposed to an alien compound which wreaks drastic changes on him, and he is forced to switch sides.

The parallel to apartheid is so obvious as to not be worth comment, but the filmmaker does something interesting. The aliens are shown to us as being ugly (to our eyes), somewhat dumb (or at least horribly naïve negotiators), and irrationally violent, so our sympathies in the early part of the film lie mostly with our fellow humans, even in scenes where a grinning Wikus destroys an alien “nursery”, including the infant prawns inside. When Wikus is forced to confront the fact there may be more to the aliens than he realized, we are being pushed to the same revelation, which allows us to “experience” the message of the film without being explicitly lectured as to what it is. Very effective.

Wikus is an interesting character. Not overly bright and certainly not given to deep thought, he is a mid-level bureaucrat. This type of protagonist dominates Russian literature, and appears often in some Asian books, but The Bureaucrat is rarely seen as an archetype in American fiction/film. We are more inclined to make the protagonist of a film like this one a crusading attorney, or something similarly higher class, perhaps because we see ourselves as more than we really are. Nevertheless, by containing our flaws, Wikus serves as an effective stand-in for the viewer.

The movie is not only about a message, as the second half becomes pretty much a sci-fi action movie. It keeps your interest as it takes some interesting turns. I highly recommend this film.
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Supercroc

Hopefully, I’m really back, now. And what a way to resume snarking, with the big-screen hit Supercroc!

Direct-to-DVD masters The Asylum have been very successful in branding their company. You always know what you are going to get when you pick up a DVD with their logo on it, and in no way do I mean this as a compliment.

At a lake/pond/river/ocean near Los Angeles, a group of soldiers have been sent to investigate something, although they don’t seem to have a clue what. They move through the brush, the leader usually silent hand signals to direct the squad. Although these are usually used to hide the presence of soldiers from the enemy, here the purpose may be because the squad leader of indeterminate rank couldn’t be heard over the incessant yakking of the other soldiers, mostly talk of weddings. Eventually, they learn that the thing they have been seeking is an enormous crocodile – a supercroc! – and seconds later, they are all fertilizer except for the cute female GI who was going to get married. Sadly, her fiancé is making his way through the supercroc’s alimentary canal, although she doesn’t seem too broken up by it. A second squad is dispatched and also goes straight down the gullet.

Meanwhile, a command center has been established to fight the menace, although they mostly just exclaim “Oh, my God” at appropriate moments. There is a sleazy scientist woman, with the hidden agenda of exploiting the supercroc for military purposes, and you’ve got to wish her luck with that. She masterminds the theft of supercroc eggs and sends them to Los Angeles, meaning the Supercroc heads that way, too, with mayhem on its mind. This is still probably better news for L.A. than Lane Kiffin, but I digress.

There is some anticipation of Godzilla-style pandemonium in Los Angeles, but it doesn’t happen. A few people get squished/eaten, including the evil scientist woman, stuff blows up, and the movie ends.

I always try to say something good about a movie, but this has me beaten. Terrible CGI, a terminally dumb script wooden acting…one of the techs at the command center does come out with a quip, but everyone else bitches at him about it, so he shuts the hell up. Recommend this one to your worst enemy.
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Pod of Horror # 58

The new edition of Pod of Horror is now online. You won't want to miss this one, since author Robert R. McCammon, who does few interviews, is the guest. Scott Sigler is also featured, and there's the usual craziness from Mark Justice, Nanci Kalanta, and Jason L. Keene. There's also a very good story by Matt Cowan, read by Mr. Justice. The whole thing will assault your ears if you click here: http://www.horrorworld.org/poh.htm.
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Getting Back in the Game

Posting has been light of late, what with the holidays and various weirdness in the real life, such that it is, but normal levels will return by next week. Don't look so thrilled. Anyway, during the hiatus, I've read several books, and watched a number of movies, including at least two that feature improbable giant reptiles, so you won't want to miss it.
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Children of Chaos

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Greg Gifune’s writing for some time, but I am only now getting around to checking his work out. To be honest, I had wondered if some of the praise was undeserved hype, since Gifune’s other job is as an associate editor at Delirium Books, and in the incestuous little world of our genre, there is a tendency to pump up people who might be in a position to help a reviewer land a later sale. Judging by my first Gifune book, Children of Chaos, he is well worth the praise he has received.

In the late 1970s, three teenage boys returning home from a carnival come across a strangely scarred man, with the word “Chaos” tattooed on his back, camping in the woods. With fresh news of the murder of a young girl on their minds, they attack the man, killing him with a sword found in his bag, and disposing of his body. The guilt they feel is intensified when they learn the dead girl was killed by her father instead.

Adulthood doesn’t work out well for the trio. Jamie fulfilled his ambition to become a priest, but was defrocked after having sex with a minor. Philip became a writer, but by his 40s is without a publisher, divorced, and well on his way to alcoholism. Martin wanted to be an actor, but after years of wandering, became the leader of a strange cult in the Mexican desert.

Martin’s seriously ill mother wants to bring him on before she dies, and hires Martin to go after him. Despite his reluctance, Martin needs the money, and is soon on a strange and frightening journey toward the fate that was sealed for the three friends the day they killed the scarred man. Will he find redemption or damnation at the end of his quest?

As Gifune discusses in his afterward, the parallels in the story with Joseph Conrad’s classic Heart of Darkness are pretty overt, and I was also put in mind of John Carpenter’s underrated film In The Mouth of Madness, but that may just be me. I don’t want to get all freshman English major on you, but Children of Chaos does echo many of heart of Darkness’ themes, most particularly duality, as explored in the conversations between Philip and Martin on the basic good or evil of mankind.

I found Children of Chaos to be a compelling work, one which managed to combine a fast-moving plot with genre-compatible chills and action with thoughtful ruminations on the nature of mankind. If, like me, you are late to Mr. Gifune’s books, Children of Chaos would be a good starting point. Highly recommended.
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The Story of Noichi the Blind

Chet Williamson’s short novella The Story of Noichi the Blind has an interesting fictional back story. It is presented as a Japanese folk tale, purchased in Japan by Williamson’s son, and written a century before by noted folklorist Lafcadio Hearn or one of his disciples. This is detailed in Williamson’s introduction, although the idea is discounted in the afterward by Hearn expert Dr. Alan Drew. Of course, Drew doesn’t exist, but it does add an amusing note to the story.

The story itself is written in the style of Hearn, and concerns a simple woodcutter named Noichi, who lives alone in the remote forest. Noichi is kind to all of the animals, who have in turn befriended him. One day Noichi happens upon Noriku, a servant at a brothel who has killed a samurai (by bizarre accident) and fled for her life. Noichi takes her in, and eventually marries her, and they are happy together.

The happiness ends when Noriku sickens and dies. The animals of the forest, when are so distressed to see their friend in pain, take action to make Noichi believe Noriku is still alive by inhabiting her body. The, er, interaction between Noichi and the late Noriku causes the corpse to give birth to a Tengu, a type of demon which wreaks havoc on the creatures of the forest.

The story is more interesting in concept than in execution. The "documentation" surrounding the authenticity of the story is better done than the story itself, which seems to try too hard to shock, with depictions of necrophilia and bestiality among other things. Ultimately, something of a letdown, although I imagine someone who is more of a fan of Japanese folk tales than I am might be more pleased with it.
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Freakshow

I struggle back from the near death of a severe cold to cop out and reprint something I wrote elsewhere. Oh, well at least it's a book that is well worth reading, Bryan Smith's Freakshow. If you actually read this site, you know that Smith (Deathbringer, Soultaker, House of Blood, Queen of Blood) is one of my favorite writers, and this is Smith's most gonzo, balls-to-the-wall action/horror novel. i guarantee you haven't read anything quite like it.

A carnival comes to a small Tennessee town. But this carnival is manned by strange creatures, who abduct the inhabitants of the town, savagely torture them, murder them, then replace them with clones under their control. They do this to one small town each year. The main characters are Mike and Helen, who in two parallel story lines fight for survival, and to end the carnival’s reign of terror.

Circuses and clowns have been used in horror before, but never to quite this much effect. It is filled with outstanding squirm-inducing thrills.

This isn’t a book for those looking for slow buildup, tepid pacing, and incremental character build-up. You are immediately dropped into the action, and it never slows down. In fact, I wondered at first if it was a sequel to an earlier book (it isn’t, although it does reference the author’s earlier work) since you are instantly in the thick of things. Most horror novels would start with the carnival’s arrival in the bucolic town, but when you start The Freakshow, the terror has already started, and most of the town’s residents are gone. The action is grisly, with scenes of incredible savagery, some sexual. The story really grabs you, you feel like one of the trapped townspeople, caught up and unable to escape. Although it should not be read by the squeamish, this book is highly recommended.

I'd love to see a sequel to this one.
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