demons | Lorelei By Starlight

Another of my all-time Halloween favorites is, Evil Dead II. The second in Sam Raimi’s series of films, this one definitely beats the first (The Evil Dead) for me. I still remember the first time I watched this film, and it was one of those experiences where I just fell in love. This is undeniably one of those landmark films, and whenever I see a movie now with a cabin in the woods this is the film that I go back to. It’s where that specific sub-genre of horror was first created for me. I think that this film also was one of the first that successfully introduced the combination of comedy with horror, something that seems to a be a more focused area of development over the past few years, especially with films like Cabin Fever and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

Here are the things that bring me back to this film over and over again:

First and foremost, Bruce Campbell. The man is a genius of physical comedy and his performance as Ash is incredible. There is a ton of slapstick comedy in this film. And, it’s basically a beat the hell out of Bruce Campbell film. He gets physically harmed in almost every scene, and while that may not sound funny – trust me, it is hilarious.

The sound the demons make as they are coming up on the cabin through the trees. It’s like a demented motorcycle.
When Ash, after being infected by the demons the first time, pretty much just curls up and takes a nap halfway in a mud puddle for the rest of the day (as you would). And then, when he wakes up and freaks out, that great cut scene to him peeling out in the car.
That image of the bridge, busted and all curled up like some huge hand, and then the wide shot of the chasm in the fading sunlight.

That scene where Ash is standing by his car at the busted bridge and he realizes that the sun is going down – quickly. All that orange fading into gray darkness.
The number of things that become possessed by the demons: inanimate objects (moose head, table lamp, mirror), trees, Ash’s hand, all in addition to any spare dead bodies that might be laying around.
Linda’s headless corpse dance in which the corpse uses the head in the manner of a top hat prop. Also, the special effects here are so creepy. Today’s CGI would look much different and more polished, but the jerky movements of Linda’s quickly decaying corpse are much better.
Flying eyeball into mouth.
Chainsaw.
Chainsaw instead of hand gone bad. Also, the quick modification of the shotgun as Ash gets armed and ready to take on the demons.

So. Much. Blood. Also, many colors of blood. There is red, black, and at one point some green.
The creepy freaking cellar. Henrietta is bad, yes, but that cellar on its own would just be horrendous.
The ending. It is just so in keeping with the trials and tribulations that have been visited on Ash.

If you have never checked this movie out, you should definitely add it to your list. It’s a horror classic!

I read several reviews for Robert Jackson Bennett’s American Elsewhere and became increasingly intrigued because none of them could seem to explain what exactly this book was about. After reading it, I see the problem — it really doesn’t quite fit into any particular mold, something that Bennett has mentioned himself in a few interviews. That being said, the book is one that sucked me in immediately and which I had a hard time putting down.

The first chapter pulls you into a kidnapping in progress. A man is forcibly taken from his home, driven out to the woods, and then left there — with a small rabbit skull on his chest. The skull then proceeds to kill(?) him. From there, the book just gets weirder.

The protagonist of the story is Mona Bright, whose father has just died. She has been mostly estranged from him since the suicide of her mother, but comes back to see to his final arrangements. He has left her an awesome car (which she was expecting) and a deed to a house her mother owned (which she had no idea about) in a strange town called Wink. The town of Wink is a mixture of Los Alamos and Stepford — a former haunt of brainy scientists gone all Pleasantville after the lab shut down. As soon as Mona gets there, she realizes that something isn’t right. From her odd encounter with the motel manager, to the even weirder lady in the town records office, she becomes more and more entangled in the town and the mysterious history of the mother that she never really knew.

The reason that the reviews I read of this book didn’t tell much about it is because you just can’t without giving away the fun of the surprises that Bennett has in store around every corner. Just when you think you know what’s going on, you are reminded that you really have no idea what is going on. The story weaves mystery and oddball characters with atmosphere in a manner that is reminiscent of Twin Peaks, and the underlying secrets that Mona uncovers are something different altogether. Bennett can go from a feeling of almost normality to one of eerie darkness in a flash. Some characters are just too dark and weird to even comprehend. For example:

“There is a man standing in the exact center of the garage. He is very tall, and he stands motionless with his arms stiff at his sides. He wears a filthy blue canvas suit, streaked with mud in a thousand places, and sewn onto the surface of this suit are dozens and dozens of tiny wooden rabbit heads, all with huge staring eyes and long, tapered ears. On his face he wears a wooden helmet – or perhaps it is a tribal mask – whose crude, chiseled features suggest the blank, terrified face of a rabbit, complete with curving, badly carved ears. Where its eyes should be are two long rectangular holes. Somewhere behind these, presumably, are the eyes of the mask’s wearer, yet only darkness can be seen.”

Why rabbit heads, Bennett? (I kept thinking of Anya on Buffy who was scared of rabbits.) The answer is actually in there for the reader, and I appreciated that Bennett didn’t spoon-feed it to us, but rather let us puzzle it out on our own. This book is a smart and interesting synthesis of a variety of genres, and it was a fun read. I’m definitely looking forward to checking out some more of Bennett’s work!