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Women in Horror Month: An Elvira-stravaganza! Graphic Novel Review: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, vols. 1 & 2 by David Avallone, art by Dave Acosta and The Shape of Elvira by David Avallone, art by Fran Strukan and Pasquale Qualano

cover art for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, vol. 1: Timescream

Amazon.com )

 Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, vol. 1: Timescream by David Avallone, art by Dave Acosta

Dynamite, 2018-2019

ISBN-13: 9781524108533 (vol.1)

Available: Paperback, Kindle, comiXology (for single and TPB digital issues)

 

I grew up watching Elvira, Mistress of the Dark introducing wonderful and often terrible horror movies, and then starring in a few of her own. I fell in love with her humor and sass, not taking anyone’s crap and going after what she wanted. She holds a special place in my horror-loving heart. When Dynamite announced Elvira would be getting her own comic series starting in 2018, I knew I had to pick it up. I have been collecting the single issues, and what follows is a review of all of them to date. They have now been published as graphic novels, in two volumes. Volume One collects issues 1-4.

 

#1: Timescream, Chapter 1: Frankenstein is the Name of the Doctor: After the leading man in Elvira’s new movie has a wardrobe malfunction (don’t worry, it’s only his dentures falling out), she goes back to her trailer for a long-needed break. After being sucked into a mysterious coffin in her trailer, the Mistress of the Dark meets Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron during the infamous weekend that led to Mary’s penning Frankenstein. They find themselves on the run when Vlad the Impaler crashes the party. Elvira’s journey doesn’t end there, as she finds herself meeting another horror legend after she once again falls into the time traveling coffin.

 

#2: Timescream, Chapter 2: Nevermore!: Elvira is transported to 1838 Philadelphia, coming face to face with one of the greatest poets of horror, Edgar Allan Poe. While are sharing some absinthe at Poe’s favourite pub, Vlad busts in the door and demands that Elvira, who he addresses as Witch, return him to his own time. Will she and Poe come up with the perfect plan to get everyone back to their respective timelines? No, but they’ll sure have fun trying.

 

#3: Timescream, Chapter 3: Stoker? I Hardly Know ‘er!: Elvira time-traveling adventures take her to the author of Dracula himself, Bram Stoker. His wife, Florence, is less than impressed with the Mistress of the Dark upon their meeting. Vlad bursts onto the scene and soon mesmerizes Florence, running away with her. When Bram and Elvira attempt to rescue her, Dr. Faust appears to reveal his part of the story.

 

#4: Timescream, Chapter 4: Fauster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!: Elvira finally gets back to Los Angeles, but unfortunately to the wrong time. She’s dropped right in the middle of the filming of the iconic Frankenstein with the mysterious Dr. Faust and Vlad in pursuit. What ensues is a chase through various Hollywood film lots, much to the frustration of the directors and actors everywhere. One of them is running out of time…

 

 

cover art for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, vol. 2: Elvira's Inferno

Bookshop.orgAmazon.com )

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, vol. 2: Elvira’s Inferno by David Avallone, art by Dave Acosta

Dynamite, 2019-2020

ISBN-13: 9781524112677

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, comiXology

 

#5: Elvira’s Inferno: Canto One: Elvira and Faust are both dumped in Hell after running into Mephistopheles. Dr. Faust, living with an angry, drunk, and violent Helen of Troy, is left to his personal hell when Mephistopheles agrees to lead her to talk with the Devil himself to get out of Hell.

 

#6: Elvira’s Inferno: Canto Two: Elvira makes her way down to the manager of Hell. Literally. She talks to a demonic whip wielding task master dressed in business attire looking for the way to her destiny. Her journey to Cerberus is fruitful, and she discovers a way to tame the beast to gain passage. She is finally met by her guide through the remaining circles of Hell, a man dressed in plain robes named Glenn.

 

Spring Special: Elvira in…Drive-In of the Dead: Elvira is the horror hostess at a genre film festival at the local drive-in when she discovers the opportunity to star in a film produced by the famous George Rottmero, who makes extremely most realistic horror movies. She finds out the disturbing secret behind the producer’s success, but it may cost Elvira her life. The second story in the Spring Special is “Elvira in…The Satan 500”.  After an eventful trip to the grocery store, Elvira is greeted by outside by Satan who challenges her to a car race. If she loses, she must marry him. She’s got one hope, and he’s sitting in her vehicle and calls himself Jason Voorhees.

 

#7: Elvira’s Inferno: Canto Three Elvira and Glenn, with Faust on their heels, travel further into Hell. Elvira and Glenn face the Minotaur, the traffic jam of the damned, and other unthinkable horrors before they can deal with the Devil.

 

#8: Elvira’s Inferno: Canto Four: Elvira finally meets Satan himself, with the watchful guidance of Glenn at her side, and her journey reaches its amazing conclusion. Our beloved Queen of Halloween must plead her case to the Devil to get out of Hell. Armed with her sassy wit and with Glenn and his secret identity by her side, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

 

#9: Vroom Vroom, Witches!: Elvira, back in her own time and back on the movie set, she thinks she can finally get back to normal (well, normal for her) life. Little does she know that an evil coven of warlocks is attempting to enact a ritual that may mean her doom.

 

#10: Witches Get Stitches: A cult has taken Elvira to a hospital and has stolen her Darkness, her source of power. Her iconic dress and roadster even fall to the effects. At her time of need, she meets the mysterious superhero, Soul Survivor, who has also been on the chase for the cult. Together, they head out to face the cult members and regain the Queen of Halloween’s Darkness.

 

#11: Witch Way to the Apocalypse?: In the last issue, Elvira became separated from Soul Survivor and found herself magicked back to her house, Gonk greeting her upon arrival. She hops in her white roadster and tracks the cult to the Dark Ages Dinner Theatre where she faces her most frightening challenge yet: amusement park mascots! Can she get to the Soul Survivor in time?

 

#12: Vlad to See You Again: What, did you think Elvira was safe from the Impaler? Elvira and Soul Survivor are ready to vanquish the cult, but the cult is successful in summoning Vlad from Hell. He’s not having it. He captures our Mistress of the Dark but may not like the results when Elvira discovers the way she can regain her darkness.

 

Avallone and Acosta make a fantastic team on the Elvira: Mistress of the Dark series. Avallone captures the campy sass of Elvira, which of course is full of double entendres and terrible puns, all while weaving a compelling tale that keeps the reader’s interest through each issue. Acosta’s art is a great complement to the stories. He is able to depict the likeness of Elvira perfectly. Both volumes are highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth illustrated by Sara Lautman

Cover of Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth illustrated by Sara Lautman

William Morrow & Company, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-0062942852

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audibook, audio CD ( Bookshop.orgAmazon.com )

 

 

Emily M. Danforth, author of the YA novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post, stretches her boundaries in this unsettling, haunted novel that reveals a buried history of queer romance and horror and some seriously creepy hornets.

The story moves smoothly from events in 1902 that led to the deaths of three students at the Brookhants School for Girs, tied to an uninhibited and shocking memoir by openly bisexual feminist Mary McLane, to a present day where author Merritt Emmons has written a book about the deaths that is about to be made into a sapphic “Blair Witch” style horror movie.

Two of the girls who died were co-founders of a club called The Plain Bad Heroines, which admires Mary’s unapologetic attitude, are found dead in the woods with a copy of the book,  attacked by a swarm of hornets in an orchard of rotting fruit. The third acquires it after their deaths and is literally poisoned by reading it near a plant in the campus greenhouse where she is caretaker. The headmistress confiscates it, convinced that it is cursed. As the students abandon the school, both the headmistress and her relationships begin to disintegrate, and trapped almost alone in a snowstorm, it’s hard to tell how much of a grip on reality she has left.  She’s also left remembering her college days, where a love affair led to her eventual inheritance of Brookhants, chosen by her husband because of its reputation as a spiritually important location, in a very strange manner.

The horror movie based on Merritt’s book will star the popular actress Harper Harper and the less well-known actress Audrey Wood. Merritt initially is starstruck by Harper and they hit it off; her interactions with Audrey are more negative. The movie will be filmed at the actual Brookhants School and on the grounds, adding atmospheric creepiness.  Once the filming starts, it seems nothing can go right– it’s almost like the production is cursed. This leaves Harper, Audrey, and Merritt, a lot of time for exploration on the Brookhants estate. Black apples, rotting vegetation, and ominous swarms of hornets in the woods ratchet up the tension, and eventually the story behind the Brookhants curse is revealed.

This is a doorstop of a book. After its tense begining, it slows down for some time and, had I not known there would be a payoff, I might have set it down. I think a large chunk of the Hollywood segment could have been easily eliminated  to slim it down. This is where a lot of the present day characters’ personalities are established, and Merritt’s romantic interests start to develop, but it is just too drawn out.

Danforth isn’t subtle about centering lesbian and bisexual characters. It is even a point of contention in the casting of the movie, where Merritt objects to Audrey playing a lesbian role, assuming she must be straight, to have Audrey come out and say she’s bisexual. The headmistress’ memories of inheriting the school are all related to the romantic love she and her partner had for each other. even as she turns on her.

Plain Bad Heroines is also about as metafictional as you can get; it’s a fictional story inspired by a book by a real person, containing illustrations and images of what I’m pretty sure are news articles about the book, that a fictional author has written a fictional nonfiction book about, that is being made into a fictional movie being filmed found-footage style, as if it is nonfiction. Both the director and Harper Harper use social media to affect the narrative, so Harper’s Instagram posts document the movie shoot and all of its “cursed” problems for her followers, creating a Blair Witch effect of convincing the audience for the movie that the haunting is real. Even the people around Audrey and Merritt are in on the gaslighting, so that none of them know whether they can trust each other or reality. It’s clever, and the unreliability of the people around them and the way the reader knows the three women are being manipulated is distracting, but it doesn’t detract from the sense of atmospheric creepiness, dread, and tension, with hornets and rotting vegetation always around. You will never feel the same about hornets after reading this book.

Danforth actually has an author’s note where she discusses her discovery of Mary Maclane in researching hidden sapphic history, and that she wanted to bring that to light through Plain Bad Heroines. I never had heard of her and I found this fascinating. Unlike The Miseducation of Cameron Post this is not a YA novel, although it might be appreciated by some older YA readers, but certainly it is an original book with plenty of dread and some well-drawn lesbian and bisexual characters that will draw in readers of historical and metafictional horror, Hollywood, and haunted houses. It won’t be for everyone, but this book will certainly find its audience. Recommended.

 

Contains: violence, murder, body horror, sexual situations, insects

Vault Guest Post: Wither, O’Zombie by Jonathan Maberry

Editor’s note: This guest post was originally written for Monster Librarian and published in April of 2012. A lot has happened since then, so it’s not as current as it could be, but it is still relevant.

WITHER, O’ ZOMBIE?

 

You’ve come a long way, you shambling, lifeless, flesh-eating sack of dead meat.

 

And I say that with deep affection.

 

Look at the way things have changed.  When I was a teenager back in the 1970s, we used to pile into cars to go to the drive-in to see midnight shows of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  We referred to those monsters as…the living dead. The wisest among us floated the word ‘ghoul’. And that’s what Romero called them. No one had used the Z-word yet.

 

Then in 1978 Romero released his follow-up flick, DAWN OF THE DEAD.  That film includes a single oblique reference to zombies.  Early on in the film, Peter (played by Ken Foree), says, “You know Macumba? Voodoo. My granddad was a priest in Trinidad. He used to tell us, ‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.’”

 

That’s the closest Romero got to calling his monsters ‘zombies’.  It was only after the film was recut by Italian director Dario Argento and released as ‘Zombi: Dawn of the Dead’ that the Z-word became connected to the genre. Once it was there, it was there for good. It didn’t matter that Romero never considered his monsters to be zombies, despite that one reference in DAWN.  They were ghouls to Romero, but for the rest of the world and probably the rest of history, they became zombies.

 

Since DAWN had a much larger release and was a more popular film (color, better acting, higher production values, and Tom Savini’s gruesome make-up effects gave it serious legs), a larger chunk of the mainstream audience began to become aware that there WAS a zombie genre.  Though still loosely referred to as ‘those living dead’ films, the genre was in the process of expanding, with domestic and foreign films popping up everywhere.  Some good (such as LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE), some bad but highly entertaining (TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD), and some so appalling that it hurts my fingers to type their titles. So I won’t.

 

At the same time we had the first wave of zombie literature.  It was John Skipp and Craig Spector who accomplished that with their legendary anthology, BOOK OF THE DEAD, featuring stories by Stephen King and a veritable A-list of horror writers.  The book was a big hit and it proved that there was tremendous depth and scope in the genre.  In his nonfiction book on the horror culture, DANSE MACABRE, Stephen King declared that zombies had become their own trope, as valid and individual as vampires, werewolves, and other notable monsters. He was right.  (Uncle Stevie is often right when it comes to pop culture issues related to horror.)

 

Seven years after DAWN, Romero gave us DAY OF THE DEAD. The original script was ambitious, and it was a biting social commentary on the build-up of Ronald Reagan’s military-industrial complex. Unfortunately Romero didn’t get the budget to shoot the script he wrote. My personal opinion is that his DAY script would have likely resulted in the best damn zombie film ever made. It was Romero’s best writing without a doubt. But the bean counters in Hollywood chickened out. The result is an entertaining, if talky, third entry in the genre. It isn’t my favorite of Romero’s flicks (DAWN holds that spot), and it’s not the worst (SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD owns that trophy). 

 

However it isn’t in the zombie movies that the best zombie storytelling is happening. Zombie books and comics have long since laid claim to the honor of driving the genre forward in the most interesting ways.

 

With Skipp and Spector’s BOOK OF THE DEAD and its sequel, STILL DEAD, standing as the establishing monuments of zombie lit, the bar was set very high.  For the next decade or so the short story was the primary vehicle for fictional zombies.  Then in the late 1990s there was a series of novels based upon and inspired by the Resident Evil video game.  These books, written by noted media tie-in writer S.D. Perry, were very successful and the numbers intrigued publishers who began to scout around for other zombie books.

 

Then came the double-punch of Brian Keene’s THE RISING and Max Brooks’ THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE.  Keene’s book is widely regarded as the novel that kick-started the zombie fiction firestorm. And it’s a corker, too. Rather than riffing on Romero’s zombies, Keene spins the story in a new direction, bringing in demons from the outer darkness. These books are thrilling, action packed and depressing enough to warrant being sold with a bottle of Prozac. Keene is a ‘take no prisoners’ kind of writer.

 

Brooks, on the other hand, was a comedy writer for SNL (and the son of Mel Brooks). He took a standard survival guide and rewrote it as a tongue-in-cheek manual for how to survive a zombie apocalypse. The fact that it’s played with a straight face sells it, and the book became a massive hit that crossed genre lines to sell deeply into the mainstream market. Well over a million copies have been sold.

 

Based on the strength of these two landmark books, the floodgates were opened for zombie literature.

 

Keene went on to write sequels to THE RISING, and even a Romero-esque standalone, DEAD SEA.  He’s since moved onto other areas of horror and continues to scare the bejeezus out of his well-earned legion of rabid fans.  (I count myself lucky to be both a fan and a friend of Brian’s. Had it not been for THE RISING, I doubt I would have tried my hand at zombie fiction.)

 

Max Brooks switched to fiction and wrote WORLD WAR Z, which is one of the most successful zombie novels ever written.  WWZ is also a landmark book in that it is far from being a gore-soaked adventure novel. In fact, it starts ten years AFTER the zombie war is won.  The whole story is written in what –in other hands—would be a dry style: a series of interviews conducted by an historian who is writing a socio-political account of the zombie outbreak, its spread, the near-apocalyptic war, and the aftermath.  This book stands as one of the most insightful books on modern politics, and it’s proof positive that allegory and metaphor are solidly at the heart of the zombie genre.

 

With those two books serving as guideposts, the zombie literary scene was ignited. The genre blew up so fast and so big that it’s impossible to create a definitive list of subgenres.  However here are some notable works that are, in their way, crucial milestones in the ever-evolving world of zombie lit.

 

BREATHERS: A Zombie’s Lament by S. G. Browne is biting social commentary, told from the point of view of a recently reanimated corpse.

 

PLAY DEAD by Ryan Brown is a sports novel with zombies. Dark humor, lots of action.

 

THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan is the first dystopian zombie novel for teens; and the first of a series.

 

BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest is a wild mash-up of Steampunk, apocalyptic action, science fiction, and fantasy.

 

DEAD CITY by Joe McKinney is an action novel with a strong message about the failure of government infrastructure during catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina. McKinney injected pure adrenaline into the genre.

 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES by Seth Grahame-Smith is a collision of classic literature and flesh-chomping horror. It was so wildly successful that it’s regarded as the best-selling zombie novel of all time as well as the book that kicked-off the literature/monsters mash-up genre.

 

MONSTER ISLAND by David Wellington is the first of a gritty, intelligent trilogy of novels that combines elements of dark fantasy with global politics.

 

GENERATION DEAD by Daniel Waters is the first teen angst novel featuring zombies.

 

PATIENT ZERO by Jonathan Maberry (yeah, that’s me) was the first action-oriented technothriller to feature zombies.  It launched the Joe Ledger series of weird-science thrillers.

 

AUTUMN by David Moody, the first in a series of zombie novels that takes the genre in a fascinating new direction.  If John Wyndham was alive and wrote zombie novels, they’d read like this.

 

DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON by J. L. Bourne is the first of a series of geo-political military thrillers set during a zombie apocalypse.

 

THE MORNINGSTAR STRAIN by Z.A. Recht is a series written by the late (and much missed Zach Recht) that explores the nuances of a global pandemic.

 

DYING TO LIVE by Kim Paffenroth is a series of zombie novels that explores the spiritual implications of the apocalypse.

 

XOMBIES by Walter Greatshell is one of the first major novels in the genre to focus on the female point of view.  Great stuff.

 

Of course there are many other zombie books, some of great note, others less so, but in terms of impact on the genre, these books are all landmark.

 

So…where does the genre go from here?

 

That’s a good question.  The genre lends itself to reinvention. The variety of storytelling we’ve had so far proves that.  If you take any single subgenre mentioned above and read the other books in that specific subgenre, you will seldom find significant similarities. Take the Young Adult genre for example. Carrie Ryan’s FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH is radically different from Alden Bell’s THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS, just as that is different from Charlie Higson’s THE ENEMY, and my own ROT & RUIN books.

 

You see, this unlimited variety comes from the nature of the monster itself. The zombie, with very few exceptions, has no personality. It is ‘The Threat’. It’s a symbol, a metaphor for other things that we’re afraid of, and since each of us is afraid of different things, and afraid of those things in uniquely individual ways, each book reflects that individuality. As long as we are frail humans with our many fears and vulnerabilities, we will always want to explore how those weakness or threats can be addressed and (ideally) understood and conquered. That’s pretty much the basis for all true drama right there.

 

I even put a new topspin on the ‘Zombie Outbreak’ subgenre with DEAD OF NIGHT, my latest novel. That book deals with a modern catastrophe that grows out of the misuse of Cold War bioweapons research. It was the fourth zombie novel I’d written, and it’s not even remotely similar to my other books. The genre is like that. Always different, always changing.

 

So…trends in zombie fiction?  Anything.  Everything.

 

Keep reading…it’s going to continue to be pretty damn exciting.

 

-Jonathan Maberry

April 2012

 

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Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestseller and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor and Marvel Comics writer.  He has written pre-apocalypse novels: Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, Patient Zero, and The Dragon Factory; an apocalypse novel, Dead Man’s Song; apocalypse comics: Marvel Universe vs the Punisher and Marvel Universe vs Wolverine; and post-apocalyptic novel, Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, and Flesh & Bone. He hasn’t tackled Dystopian fiction yet…but you can pretty much assume he will.  Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com and on Twitter, Facebook and GoodReads.

 

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DEAD OF NIGHT by NY Times best-seller Jonathan Maberry

St. Martin’s Griffin; available in trade paperback, hardcover, e-book and audio

 

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave.  But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects.  Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up.  Hungry.  Infected.  Contagious.

 

Small town cop Dez Fox and her partner JT are caught in a wave of murder as everyone they know and love die…only to rise again as the ravenous living dead.  If Dez and JT can’t contain the plague inside the town limits, the infection will spread beyond all control.

 

This is the way the world ends.  Not with a bang…but a bite.

 

Praise for DEAD OF NIGHT:

 

 

“Jonathan Maberry is the top gun when it comes to zombies, and with DEAD OF NIGHT, he’s at the top of his game.  Frankly, I’m shocked by how effortlessly he moves between the lofty intellectual heights of T.S. Eliot’s poetry and the savage carnality of the kill.  DEAD OF NIGHT develops with the fevered pace of a manhunt, and yet still manages to hit all the right notes.  Strap in, because Maberry’s latest is one hell of a wild ride.  I loved it.” – Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and FLESH EATERS

 

“Jonathan Maberry has created an homage to death itself and an homage to the undead that is as poetic as it is terrifying.  It’s a brand new and intriguingly fresh slant on the zombie genre that we all love!” -John A. Russo co-screenwriter of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

 

“Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension.  The pacing is relentless.  He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding.  It’s almost impossible to put this book down.  Dead of Night is an excellent read.”  —S.G. Browne, author of BREATHERS

 

“It would be enough to say that Jonathan Maberry had topped himself yet again with an epic zombie novel that is as much fun as it is terrifying.  But that he has also created a story of such tremendous heart and social relevance only further cements his place as a master of the genre.  It also doesn’t hurt that in DEAD OF NIGHT he has created one of the most compelling heroines I’ve read in years.  Dead of Night blew me away!”  –Ryan Brown – Author of PLAY DEAD

 

“Once again, Jonathan Maberry does what he does best; Take proven science, synthesize it and create something truly terrifying.  In DEAD OF NIGHT, Maberry lays the groundwork for a Bioweapon that could very well create zombies in the real world.  Combining great characters (I fell in love with Dez Fox from the moment she was introduced) and taut, blindingly fast action, DEAD OF NIGHT, is a runaway bullet train of a ride. This is Jonathan Maberry’s best writing yet.” –Greg Schauer, owner Between Books, Claymont, DE

 

“Dead of Night stands drooped head and lurching shoulders above most zombie novels. The nightmare increases exponentially – from minor outbreak to major crisis with unstoppable speed, building to a heart-stopping climax you won’t be able to put down.” –David Moody, author of the HATER and AUTUMN books