Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer

Completely at random I stopped by an actual brick and mortar store. Browsing the horror section, as I am apt to do, I was excited to see that Max Brooks had put out a Bigfoot book, Devolution, which I reviewed here. Quite by accident I saw a display for Secret Santa and the cover grabbed my attention. I figured it sounded good so while I was there I grabbed a copy.

The book, set in the eighties, has us following a young book editor named Lussi. She has lost her job due to some corporate mergers and while successful in bringing horror novels to market is struggling to find a new job. Her last hope is an interview at a stuffy company, Blackwood-Patterson, which leans more into “legitimate” novels. While speaking to the owner, who is dismissing her earlier work, he has a heart attack and later dies. Speaking to his son Lussi manages to work her way into getting a job as a senior editor with the promise to bring in the next Stephen King to the struggling company.

What follows are some resentful co-workers, spooky encounters with a mysterious man in the park, and a stolen fruitcake as well as a series of unfortunate accidents that may or may not be accidents. In fact there is something evil loose in the old office building Blackwood-Patterson occupies and it is killing people. Lussi eventually figures out her connection to the thing and tries to stop it, though that might come at a huge cost. 

This book is billed as a horror comedy in several of the listings I’ve looked at. I don’t think that is accurate as I never found anything funny about the story. That said I did appreciate the horror elements. This plays out much like an eighties low budget horror movie with a simple and predictable plot that checks the necessary boxes before reaching a conclusion that is both expected and satisfying. We even get a fun little epilogue that jumps to thirty years later where we see future Lussi and get a hint as to how things may turn out for her.  Much like the movies I compared it to earlier Secret Santa is an uncomplicated and easily accessible bit of fun. The story jumps right to the action and is a quick read. I finished it in around four hours spread over a couple of nights.

If you are of a similar vintage to myself, you might also get a kick out of some of the eighties references. Shaffer doesn’t beat you over the head with them but just gives the reader a tease to remind them when the story is set. The deaths in the book are tame, but this isn’t the kind of read that I would expect to be terribly disturbing or gory. We also don’t get much into the “head” of the creature and know what the motivations are beyond it being hungry for the pain of others. There was probably more meat on the bone of this story, but it was left behind to keep things humming along.

The word that keeps popping into my head when I am writing this review is lite. Secret Santa is a bit of fluff that is enjoyable but will probably be forgotten not long after finishing it. That isn’t a criticism as I really did enjoy the book. This goes back to something I bring up every so often and that is not everything has to be art. Sometimes it can just be fun. If you are looking to enjoy yourself with something a little bit spooky then I’d recommend picking up a copy.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Unhuman (2022)

Time to go digging into the offerings from Amazon Prime. I stumbled on this movie and thought I’d give it a chance. I’ve only recently discovered Marcus Dunstan’s Collector series and since he also directed and co-wrote this one with Patrick Melton (Piranha 3 DD) it had potential to be good. But was it?

The movie opens with our main character, Ever, getting ready to go on a field trip with her class. This group of kids are doing it for extra credit and involve the normal mix of outsiders and cool kids. Ever’s best friend Tamra is also going and picks her up in a sweet ass Gremlin. Not important to the story but I love those cars. They make it to the bus where their teacher/chaperone Mr. Lorenzo takes all their phones. So, no calling for help when things go sideways later on. They drive off down the road but along the way run into something and crash.

Right before the accident they hear a radio broadcast warning folks to shelter in place. There has been some sort of chemical or biological attack. There is something crawling around the outside of the bus and eventually it gets inside and attacks Mr. Lorenzo. This sends the students running off thru the emergency exit, though they don’t all make it off. Eventually Ever, Tamra, a couple oddballs named Steven and Randall as well as the bullies meet up and take shelter in what looks to be an abandoned apartment complex in the middle of nowhere. The infected, including the other kids from the bus, shamble up and lay siege to where they are hiding.

Okay now I need to enter spoiler territory. I can’t continue talking about Unhuman without giving some rather important things away. You can skip to the last paragraph of this review for my conclusion. I promise to keep that spoiler free. Now that the warning is out of the way let us continue.

What seems to be a straightforward infected/zombie type flick goes completely off the rails when it is revealed that it is all faked. The bus crash, news report, the elaborate setup of the “abandoned” apartment building was all part of the plan. Seems that the oddballs Steven and Randall are angry and want to switch things up on the bullies to teach them a lesson. They do this with the help of a couple adults in the bus driver who was bullied by the Mr. Lorenzo when the pair were in high school, and a drug dealer who likes to stir shit up. The latter is important because when they catch the students, they shoot them up with some drugs that make them super compliant which explains why they shuffle around chasing after the “survivors”.

Does it though? Unhuman strikes me as a movie that is trying so hard to be clever and in the end that is what kills it. The hoops you must jump thru to make any logical sense out of the plot are so enormous that after the reveal I couldn’t care less what I was watching and was just waiting for it to be over. I get it… this is a horror movie lighten up. Had this been an actual infected or zombie flick I would have been willing to suspend my disbelief. But they chose to reel that story back in and tried to set this in some sort of high school bullshit drama reality. As a viewer it isn’t my fault that I’m now expecting things to make some sort of sense.

There is no world where four people can have this planned out and think that everything will be okay after it happens. Folks get hurt, and while they may not feel it while shot up on the drugs (which is altogether a dumb narrative idea) they get hurt. Somehow they also have convinced themselves that no one will remember what happened. But not everyone is on drugs. Plus, the folks that they want to “learn” their lesson will have to remember or what is the point? And right from the start things get out of hand as the drug dealer attacks and kills Mr. Lorenzo. Why did they continue if this was an innocent bit of high school shenanigans? Oh, and I get it “they are just kids”. Well except for the two adults who will go to grown up prison, so yeah.

Then again, I’m thinking since Randall brought a bag full of weapons with him and beats the “zombified” bus driver to death with a piece of wood he maybe intended to kill them anyway. But then why didn’t any of his co-conspirators come free right then and there? I mean now there are two murders. How about a conversation to explain why this wasn’t a deal breaker? But then that would have required a well thought out and logical driven script which we simply don’t have here.

There isn’t much in the way of special effects work. No one really dies… well except for the bus driver… oh wait he is alive and tied up at the end of the movie, so I guess not. Well Mr. Lorenzo is dead as we have seen his dead body starring lifelessly for several scenes. Then he sits up and drops a one-liner as they get the bus fired back up and drive away. Was this supposed to be a comedy? It wasn’t funny so I certainly hope not. In conclusion no one dies, the entire movie is a fake out, and is a poorly executed one at that. I get that they wanted to do something different and give them credit for that. But you have to do a whole lot better than what we ended up with here.

If you want to see a decent angsty high school bullshit movie with actual stakes, then may I recommend the Christian Slater double feature of Heathers and Pump up the Volume. Ironically, they are far more realistic and have some funny black humor in them as well. Unhuman you can skip altogether as it is a mess of good intentions and poor execution.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Mansion of the Doomed (1976)

The movie opens with a desperate man on a mission. His name is Dr. Leonard Chaney, and he is an eye specialist. This is ironic as due to an accident his lovely daughter Nancy is now blind. Partially out of love but more so out of guilt (he was driving the car) he is determined to restore her sight. But how can he accomplish that? He decides the only way is to transplant the entire eyeball from a living donor! I bet you can see where this is going.

The first donor/victim is Dr. Bryan who is not only a colleague of Dr. Chaney but was also his daughter’s boyfriend/significant other. It is hinted at that he has left her after she lost her sight, so Chaney seems to think it is a good place to start. Amazingly enough she can see again, but it only lasts for a couple of weeks and her father is back starting all over again. By that I mean he keeps going out and finding victims so he can knock them out and remove their eyes. Though it seems futile because none of the other surgeries even temporarily restore her vision. But being a doctor, he won’t just kill the donors so soon he has a cage full of them in his basement. This leads to an attempted escape, his nurse being murdered by an angry victim, and eventually them being released to get their bloody revenge. Sounds like a good time, no?

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. I was a bit worried when the credits started off with “A Charles Band” production but this was back when he cared and was trying to make a good movie. The voice over from Dr. Bryan lets us know what he is thinking and sets his desperation up to heal Nancy right away. That then leads to him slowly becoming more and more monstrous as he keeps pushing. In his own mind we see him try to justify the blinding of his Guinea pigs with the “I’ll fix them once I have this perfected” only to conveniently forget that would mean blinding someone else. This total lack of logic as well as the performance from Veteran actor Richard Basehart sells the character and the story.

Speaking of actors selling the story we get a very young Lance Henriksen as the first victim and eventual ringleader of the blind Dr. Bryan. He disappears for a long stretch until his eyeless face is revealed in a cool jump scare. Once that happens we see a lot more of the basement and the caged victims interacting with each other. This makes what has happened to them so much worse. The script also takes the time to show different reactions from comatose, to wanting to escape, and finally homicidal rage for what has happened to them. I was shocked that the script has us spend that much time with them. I was expecting an exploitative drive-in movie, and this was far more than that.

We should talk special effects. This movie doesn’t have many kills as again the doctor tries to be humane; I mean other than ripping their eyes out and keeps them alive. When they do die it is tame with an escapee getting hit by a car and the nurse being strangled. Where the movie shines is the makeup used to show the eyeless prisoners as well as some gruesome gags with the surgeries. I was again shocked and surprised to see a familiar name connected with the work. This is a Stan Winston flick! He manages to make the audience squirm on a low budget, and I dug it.

The final thing that I wanted to note was the director. Michael Pataki is more well known as an actor appearing movies like Graduation Day, Halloween 4, The Return of Count Yorga, and my personal favorite Grave of the Vampire. He only has three directorial credits to his name with this being his first. From what I see here he had some talent as a director, and it is a bummer that we didn’t get to see more from him. If you haven’t figured it out yet I’m recommending Mansion of the Doomed. It is a fun, creepy, and at times gross movie that checks all the boxes I want from a drive-in horror flick with the bonus of an excellent script.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Throwback Thursday - Midnight Movie by Tobe Hooper

note: This is a review that I wrote ten years ago. I don't remember where it was originally published. I thought it was on my old website but I believe I had shut it down by then. 

So when I heard that director Tobe Hooper had written a book I have to admit that I was a bit dubious.  I mean the guy knows how to shoot a horror film and create atmosphere like no other.  Not only is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre genius, but Salem’s Lot is the best King adaptation ever and the Funhouse is very creepy.  But I’ve never felt like his strength was the plot or storytelling.  So how could this translate to a book where that is about all he had to work with?

The short answer is that I was wrong and totally underestimated Hooper.  The book tells the tale of his fictional first movie called Destiny Express.  When a local kid from Austin Texas digs up the only copy and decides to show it at a rundown bar he invites Hooper as a special guest.  But watching the movie has a strange effect on everyone that watches it.  Some become suicide bombers, others zombies, and some develop a strange STD that causes colorful things to happen.  Collectively this is referred to as the “Game” and it sweeps the country.  It falls to Hooper (his fictional self in the book) and others to stop the Game before it is too late.

I really enjoyed this book.  The story is told in a very interesting way.  Some of the events are written in the first person, as you would expect.  Though the perspective is changed from one character to another.  You also get excerpts from blog postings, twitter, and emails.  These help to fill in the blanks from characters that wouldn’t be around to explain things after the fact.  Now this could have been very confusing, but it is handled in such a concise way that it works.  There isn’t a wasted sentence or event described.  It makes for an interesting and entertaining read.  I found myself unable to put the book down wanting to read just one more chapter. 

One more item that I feel the need to talk about is the man himself, Tobe Hooper.  I’m not sure if it is his reputation or the fact that he has backed out of so many conventions that he was scheduled to appear at, but I never thought of him as someone whom I’d like to meet.  Admittedly there have never been rumors of him being a jerk or anything like that; I just thought he didn’t want any part of the fans.  My opinion has changed a lot after reading this book.  Sure it might all be fiction but I’d like to think that the self effacing and down to Earth Tobe from the book is close to the real one.  I say this because the Tobe in the book explains why he dreads public appearances and why they are such a pain.  It is almost like he is trying to explain himself to the fans thru the book.  Then again maybe I’m reading too much into it.

I highly recommend Midnight Movie.  It is a great read and worth your time.  I also have a new found appreciation for a director that whose work I’ve always liked.  Can it get better than that?

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Land Shark (2020)

A man and his son are fishing when they “catch” a cow’s head. If that weren’t weird enough for you a giant shark jumps out of the water and heads towards the nearby city. Then the action movies to three days earlier, which we know thanks to the helpful crawl on the screen. There are some science nerds doing experiments on a shark. Why? They want to cure cancer or so the evil… wait we don’t know that yet… the totally not evil corporate CEO tells us. He makes the lovely Dr. Ye move to phase three even after she warns him it is too fast to proceed. But they follow his orders, and the shark gets mad after the treatment. So mad that it starts to smash windows and eat people.

You may be asking yourself “what the hell is going on?”. I know that I was. Well, it turns out the evil… we know this now… CEO wanted to cure cancer by modifying the DNA of a shark by splicing in some Earthworm DNA. Why? SCIENCE BABY!!! This means that even when the survivors of the attack make it out of an escape hatch the shark can now swim thru the dirt to catch and eat them on the land. Neat. Evil CEO makes comic relief skinny guy and his side kick comic relief fat guy catch the shark. How does he manage that after they quit? Shoot a lady! Why? Because he is an EVIL CEO. Were you not paying attention? More shit happens, the Evil CEO gets chummed, the henchmen die, and our comic relief along with the still not dead Dr. Ye kill the Land Shark and save the day.

There has been a weird trend lately with these made for the Chinese domestic film market flicks showing up at stores or streaming online. The most recent one that I’ve covered before Land Shark was Curse of the Kraken. They all have the same formula which is a story that copies some elements of more popular movies, a mess of a cast that is mostly there to die (sadly offscreen omitting any of the red stuff), and an awful CGI beast/monster. This movie is no different. Clearly genetic manipulation of sharks leading to a bloodbath references a movie like Deep Blue Sea. There is the added Evil CEO character that is almost a must in monster movies (especially from Communist China). This gives the movie a “been there done that” feel that doesn’t help matters.

Road Trip with the Land Shark!

We are also inundated by a lab full of characters, only a few of which are ever given names. One of the “named” characters is actually referred to in the subtitles as “glasses guy”. I shit you not! This is how disposable the characters are in the story. Speaking of disposable just about the time when the cast is at a manageable level and you think “okay now maybe I can get interested” we get a couple SUV loads of random henchmen with assault rifles to muddy things up again. Spoilers none of them get names and all are dead before the credits roll.

Our monster is an awful CGI shark that they can’t seem to keep in scale. Just to be clear I’m not talking about it growing larger as it feeds. That I totally get. But when it attacks the lab what we see underwater could clearly not be swimming around in the two or three feet of water on the set that the actors are in. Even when it switches to the underwater shots of the shark in the lab it is generic footage that looks like it was intended to show it in the open water. I don’t expect Jurassic Park here fellas, but at least put some effort into it. I can’t remember the last time I was this bored of a movie and this thing only clocks in at seventy five minutes long. How did they manage that?

This is a terrible movie that I can’t recommend. When you make the worst Asylum movie look interesting, which Land Shark does, then you are in big trouble. Very big trouble. I really need to stop watching these… but maybe the next one will be good. I know I have issues.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Halloweenland by Al Sarrantonio

This was a random pickup from my local library book sale and was a total blind buy. I had never heard of Sarrantonio, but the cover of the book looked pretty cool and I thought the name could be something right up my alley. I decided to take a shot and tossed it at the top of my to read pile when I got home.

Bill Grant is a police detective in the small town of Orangefield where he has experienced “weird shit” which is how the character describes all of the supernatural things that seem to happen in his town. This includes a woman being visited by her husband, who at the time was lying dead in the back seat of his friends car after being run down on the road. That visit results in a child that is fathered by Samhain… who I think is death or maybe works for death. There seems to be something that I’m missing because there are characters and history referenced that I’ve not seen explained.

It was about this point where I realized that Halloweenland is a sequel to another book called Horrorween. That would have been helpful to have known before jumping into this one. Nevertheless I soldiered on. Grant gets caught up tracking down the child of this weird encounter after he is unsuccessful in stopping her birth, it is a girl. The kid is five when she returns to town to end the world. How? I’m really not sure as that is another thing that isn’t explained at all. This time I don’t think it has anything to do with the prior book though, just not fleshed out. Some characters die, who I think are from the previous book, and then it is over.

This book was a chore to get thru and it is only two hundred thirty-six pages long. The last seventy plus pages are the novella which is basically almost identical to the first seventy pages of the book which it was expanded to. I suppose this is a “bonus”, but I felt a bit cheated. In fact this entire book felt like a big cheat. The ending is rushed and isn’t satisfying at all. Though I wasn’t invested in the paper-thin characters but I did spend a few hours reading Halloweenland so I should get some kind of actual resolution. When I got to the final page I honestly muttered, “what the hell was the point of this?”. I mean other than to make a few bucks. I spent twenty-five cents on my copy at the sale and it wasn’t worth it.

I get that some folks might immediately think that I should read the other book before being too hard on this one. But a good author can and will make continuing stories accessible to new readers. Even if this is a brief conversation between characters recapping what has happened it shouldn’t be that difficult. Considering how short the actual book is, especially not counting the pages from the “bonus novella” it seems like they had plenty of room and that the effort to do so would have been minimal. Hell they don’t even mention anywhere on the cover that this is the second in a series or give any other warning to a potential reader.

What was on the cover of the paperback that I purchased was a quote from the Washing Post Book World claiming that the author was “A very talented writer.” With all due respect I believe we shall have to agree to disagree on this. Do yourself a favor and avoid this one. There are much better books out there that cover similar stories and settings. May I suggest the Oxrun series from Charles Grant a couple of which I’ve reviewed for the site here and here.

 

Ó Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Night Monster (1942)

This is an interesting movie. Before I start with the review, I have to mention that I was surprised as to the quality of Night Monster. I thought I was in for another poverty row studio production, but this is a Universal flick! Which further confused me because it isn’t ever listed on their Horror lists, and this certainly feels like a horror movie. But then I suppose it could also be considered a mystery. Check out my plot synopsis and let me know where you think it belongs.

Things kick off with three doctors being brought to a creepy old house in the woods. The owner is a man named Kurt Ingston and he has summoned the doctors who treated him for a terrible illness. There treatments failed and left him a cripple, but they seem to think that him asking them to come stay for a weekend is still a way to thank them for trying. It isn’t. Instead, he wants to show them the results from training he received from a yogi named Agor Singh. He shows them that he can conjure a skeleton from a far off land. Before the show can continue it is interrupted.

We also have Igston’s daughter Margaret calling for a psychiatrist. She is distraught for reasons that never are completely shared but wants her own doctor to tell her if she is losing her mind or not. This is how we meet our heroine Dr. Harper and thru her our hero/her love interest Dick. There is also a house filled with creepy servants, including Bela Lugosi as the butler and some locals, including the sheriff. He arrives because there have been murders, including the former maid who was killed after quitting and trying to warn everyone about the weird stuff happening at the Ingston estate.

More folks die, the secrets are revealed, and we get a fun ending. All of this is wrapped up tightly in an entertaining seventy three minute runtime. Night Monster gets right to the good stuff with the creepy old house, lecherous limo driver, and Lugosi being his creepy self in the first couple scenes. I was sucked into the story and while I figured it out early on the first time I watched the movie it was still a good time watching how it unfolds. To be clear the viewing for this review is maybe my tenth time watching this one. It was one of those movies that played a lot on my local hosted late night shows, and I think Svengoolie plays it every so often as well. I can confirm that it never gets old and is fun on repeated watches.

The setting of the house with most of the action happening at night when it is properly foggy gives Night Monster just the right atmosphere. This is continued with the reveal of the creature as well as establishing the supernatural bits with the yogi summoning the skeleton. This as well as the look of the monster itself is well executed for the forties and I think still looks pretty good today. Toss in Lugosi’s menacing performance as the butler Rolf as well as Lionel Atwill’s appearance as one of the doomed doctors and you have some legit horror cred. Though it is odd that both were given small supporting roles.

The movie also does a wonderful job of blending the horror elements into that of a mystery. Though again it is obvious who the killer is and how they are likely doing it. But still there are a few questions here and there that need answered. I still think that Night Monster should be on the “official” list of Universal Horror movies and was included in the initial Shock Theater package from Universal that put so many of their classic monster movies on television in the fifties. Either way if you consider it horror or consider it a who done it this is still highly recommended. If you could consider any Universal movie from the forties a hidden gem this is it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer