witchcraft | Lorelei By Starlight

After seeing some reviews (some good, some less than positive) about Mercy, I decided to give it a shot. It’s possible that I’m in somewhat of a minority, but I typically like most Stephen King adaptations. (In fact, the TV adaptations are my favorite things to watch over the Christmas season.) Mercy is actually loosely based on a short story that King wrote called “Gramma,” which I somewhat remember from the collection in Skeleton Crew. The gist of the story is that a single mother and her two sons move back grandma’s house to take care of her after her health has failed. There have also been some problems at the nursing home, so they will need to care for grandma at home for the rest of her life, which no one thinks will really be that long. However, grandma — Mercy (Shirley Knight) — has some dark secrets in her past that quickly come to the surface.

The film is mainly from the viewpoint of the younger son, George (Chandler Riggs). He has always had a special relationship with his grandmother and is fine with moving back to take care of her, while his older brother definitely doesn’t agree. There’s also Uncle Lanning (Mark Duplass) who is not a fan of grandma, an unrepentant alcoholic, and basically not much use for anything but scaring the pants off of kids and depressing everyone. George’s mom, Rebecca (Frances O’Connor) is torn between flirting with her old high school flame, Jim Swann (Dylan McDermott), and focusing on doing her duty for her mother. And, it isn’t until a bit into the film that we realize that grandma hasn’t always been as nice to everyone else as she was to George. In fact, grandma was a real witch. I mean, she had a creepy spell book and everything. Oh, and there was a demon involved, too, which has apparently stuck around throughout the years. In short, George ends up having to deal with a lot more than just his grandmother’s death.

The film is beautifully shot. There are a lot of gorgeous shots of the countryside, which also serve to reinforce the remote location of grandma’s house. I was especially impressed by the dual horrors in the film. Regardless of demons and witchcraft, the natural process of aging and caring for an aging family member is shown from the viewpoint of George, a child, and it is extremely terrifying to see him witnessing the changes in someone he loves and struggling to figure out how to best cope.

In the more traditional horror aspects there is much to like here. For example, the idea of selling your soul is addressed, but instead of the traditional setup a different question is implied: What happens if you sell your soul to the devil but he doesn’t reclaim it all at once? We normally think of the payment coming due at the end of life, but what if it is instead a slow, creeping erosion over time? There is menace and dread in the way that the story plays out. There is some quick, shocking horror with an especially creative suicide by axe. There is a huge, spirit wolf creature that is lurking around waiting to grab a soul. And, there is the creepy imaginary friend that George talks to on occasion.

As far as horror films go, I would have to say that the ending was less satisfying for me than I would have hoped. However, I think that the film works, and that looking back on where the story originated and the character viewpoint, the ending makes sense. Overall, there is a good story here and I would definitely recommend giving this one a watch.

A good werewolf story is hard for me to resist, and M.D. Lachlan’s Wolfsangel manages to combine two things that I enjoy: werewolves and Norse mythology. Twin boys, Vali and Felig, are the center of the tale, one of whom carries the dark legacy of changing into a wolf, while the other is destined to be his brother’s captor and killer. At the center of it all, is a young girl, Adelisa, who loves both of them in her own way. Authun, the king of the Nordic settlement, is searching for a child said to be stolen from the gods and who will bring glory to his people and restore their kingdom. He finds more than he is looking for with these two boys, and unknowingly stumbles into something much bigger – a cyclical story that has been playing out for centuries and which will continue to play out until some future bloody end.

I love the Norse influence in this book and Lachlan uses runes throughout his work. The Witch Queen in his story learns these runes, but while the first rune she gained was not too difficult and showed her to be “chosen”, in order to gain use of more runes she must go through horrific physical trials to prove herself worthy. Once this has been accomplished, she is able to visualize them and call upon their powers. There is, however, a special rune – wolfsangel – that becomes important in the story.

The brothers, Vali and Felig, both fall in love with Adelisa, which is complicated to begin with, but the situation becomes worse as Felig gradually becomes more and more wolf-like. When Adelisa is captured, Vali and Felig team up to rescue her. These characters and their increasingly complex relationship are well-written, and their story is both bloody and tragic. Added to the mix, is a mysterious trickster figure appearing off an on throughout the story who may or may not be the boys’ father.

This book is incredibly dark, and I absolutely love Lachlan’s writing. There are scenes – mostly with the trickster character – that I find unbelievably magical. He does a great job of entwining story with myth, and he has a nice variety of characters and creatures: witches, a werewolf, and Viking berserkers. I enjoyed the book enough to also read the second in the series, Fenrir, which is actually even darker and bloodier than the first. The most clever part of Lachlan’s writing, though, is in his shifting of the roles the characters play in the ongoing tale of Odin, Loki, and Fenrir and the constant attempt to bring about Ragnarok. In order to fully enjoy this part of Lachlan’s writing, you need to read at least the second book, as well.

Finding the third book, Lord of Slaughter, was a bit more difficult, but it looks like it is available now and I have it on my list. I think this was probably due to some of the poor reviews that the first two books received. Quite honestly, I would say that the poor reviews are undeserved. The main problem with these books is that they are not easy reads. Lachlan writes in an interesting prose and he doesn’t babysit the reader. If you are not familiar with Norse mythology, you may not get as much out of what is going on, and he doesn’t stop to fill you in. Actually, to me, that was part of the fun of reading these books – figuring out on my own what he was doing, making those connections on my own to the myths, and then seeing how he had the story play out. So, if you are up for a slightly more challenging read, these books are worth the time!