Real Psycho: Scott Johnson

Scott Johnson

Scott J. Johnson was convicted in 2009 of the death of three teenagers after he (seemingly at random) opened fire on them at the local swimming hole. On the evening of July 31st, 2008, an unidentified man in camouflage fired at a group of nine teens at the Menominee River on the border between Michigan and Wisconsin. Three (Tiffany Pohlson, 17; Anthony Spigarelli, 18; and Bryan Mort, 19, all of Michigan) were killed, and one injured. Johnson fled on foot. He was captured the following morning after a massive manhunt with more than 100 law enforcement officers from ten local and state agencies participating. After a short deposition, Johnson plead no contest to ten felony charges, and was sentenced to life in prison. His lawyers briefly entertained a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but Johnson refused and got a new lawyer to enter the guilty plea.

Johnson memorably compared the killing spree to spilling a glass of milk. In an interview with the associated press, he remarked “Do you get all upset about it? No, you just clean it up and get another glass of milk. It might sound sick or sadistic to come off that way but that's pretty much it.”

Among the charges for first degree homicide and attempted first degree homicide, Johnson was also convicted of second degree sexual assault when it came out that he had attacked a woman the day before the shootings. Though seemingly proud of his murders, Johnson maintained his innocence of the second degree rape charge during the sentencing. He eventually admitted to the rape and expressed some remorse over it in an interview, saying: ”I think what it is is, I betrayed her trust. I've been betrayed in the past and that hurts a lot.”

Everything seemed to start for Johnson with the sexual assault. He was unemployed at the time of the assault, and the two knew each other. He convinced her to accompany him for a bike ride, and assaulted her near where he would eventually ambush the teenagers. He claimed during his sentencing that it was not rape, and that the whole thing only lasted a few minutes. But when he learned from his mother that the police were after him, he thought being labelled a sex offender would make it impossible for him to ever find work. Feeling that his life was effectively over, he decided to either get himself killed by the police or spend the rest of his life in prison. His plan was to shoot the kids to lure the police in, then open fire on them as well. His rampage the next day ended after only 17 shots, when his rifle jammed.

Johnson was viciously unapologetic at the his sentencing. Among other niceties, he told the victims and the families of his victims to “get over it”, and claimed that once he was in jail he would “laugh, make jokes, and sleep well.” At the sentencing, he went on for about half an hour, and his speech was vitriolic enough that many in the audience walked out of the court room until he was finished.

Prior to the spree killing, Johnson was a troubled man. He enlisted in the army after high school, and was eventually assigned to Fort Polk in Louisiana. There he met his future wife, and the couple had two children before the marriage ended in divorce in 2001. After the wedding he became domineering and controlling, keeping a loaded gun in the house and on at least one occasion threatening her with it. She also claimed that during a fight, Johnson threw their pet cat at the wall.

After the divorce he threatened her regularly, saying he would torture her or kill her parents. He quit his job and turned increasingly to marijuana and alcohol, and periodically wrote bad checks, leading to a number of warrants. When his child support payments became too high, Johnson moved out of Louisiana and back to live with his mother. It was while living there that he hatched his scheme and was eventually arrested.

Johnson was sentenced to three consecutive life terms for the three charges of homicide, and a combined 295 years for the six charges of attempted homicide. In 2010, he was additionally sued by the survivors for 10 million dollars, to prevent him from ever selling his story for profit.

Joyride

Joyride
by Jack Ketchum

I did not care for this book. I don’t think the reader is supposed to. To paraphrase Mr. Weaver, I think disliking this book only indicates that I am still sane.

Wayne Lock didn’t interest me. His back story was cheap and tacked on (“oh, hang on, we need a reason for the crazy. Make his mom a nutter. There, that’s good enough”). He was physically weak, childish at times, and self centered. The God-complex and Love-with-a-capital-L he develops in the final chapter might be realistic psychologically speaking, but it didn’t fit his depiction in the rest of the novel.

Another issue is that this book really doesn’t give you anyone to root for. I wanted to feel sorry for Carole, but somehow that was difficult. The extent of her abuse was hard to process--it was too much, and I thought of her more as a character that the author decided to heap abuse on than as a real person. There wasn’t anything to her other than the abuse. Lee, likewise, was more of a shell than a realized character. He was ineffectual at pretty much everything. When Lock finally shot him, my response was “oh, finally.”

Lt. Rule spends so much time duffing around that it’s easy to dislike him. His scenes with the psychiatrist may have made him a more realistic character, but it also made him an ineffective one. He’s whining about a failed relationship while this murderer is killing half the town. His character in particular reminded me of Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men. But whereas Bell comes off as a realistic portrayal of a cop trying to make sense of senseless horror, Rule seemed almost like a caricature. His hopeful ending felt phony.

There were other things working against this piece. I have a hard time with sexual assault in general, and reading about it in this kind of lurid detail was almost as much fun as the spider-monster book I had to read last semester. Elements of the plot played out more like a B-movie than a book. The final murder spree, for example, struck me as basically a less hilarious version of this. All the details from the victims’ POV about how full of hope and possibility their lives were was repetitive and heavy-handed. Lock’s mother was a cliche.

Ultimately, I found the story of Wayne Lock and his victims lurid. The subject matter is grotesque and ultimately uninteresting.

Which, taken by itself, is kind of interesting. Why don't I find this as interesting as other horror books? Why is Hannibal Lecter more fascinating than Wayne Lock? I think it has to do with character. Lecter is more about the man, his reasons for what he does, his beliefs and ideas and thoughts. Lock is about the act. The focus of this book is on what he does, the gritty details of the murders and the torture and the rapes. At the end of the book we know almost nothing about Lock, other than he’s crazy. Admittedly, that was the point of the book -- people do evil, horrible things for no reason. But without characters we actually care about, it wasn’t enough to carry the novel.

The Killing Joke

The Killing Joke
by Alan Moore
Illustrated by Brian Bolland

The Killing Joke is one of the first graphic novels I ever read. When I was an undergrad and considering a career as a librarian, I decided I should educate myself in the genre, and the first one I picked up was the Watchmen, also by Alan Moore. The Killing Joke was next to it on the shelf, so I thought why not. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s my favorite graphic novel to feature the Batman (that honor belongs to the Dark Knight Returns), but it’s high on the list.

The Joker is a great villain, and I’m glad that Moore and Bolland took him out for a spin. While I side with those who say the Joker is a better character without a backstory, I love what they came up with and the open ended presentation. Probably the strangest (and best?) part of this book is wondering how aware of the flashback story the Joker is. He claims he doesn’t remember his own past - but he is also a pathological liar. His insistence that going insane is a reasonable response to the horrible things happening to Jim Gordon is, in itself, a rational argument for him doing the same thing. But if he’s making a rational argument, then it’s evidence he isn’t actually insane. He just wants to be. The fact that it isn’t laid out in black and white both adds to his apparent insanity and the depth of the character.

I purchased the hardcover deluxe edition to re-read for this post, and the artwork is gorgeous - especially the art on book cover itself, beneath the dust jacket (I used an image of it above). I can’t figure out why they covered it up. I sort of want to buy one of the earlier editions (the artist re-colored this version) to compare. It’s the details in the artwork that really tie this piece together, from a narrative standpoint. Each jump from scene to scene carries over a word, phrase, or image (as in the case of the Joker’s memories, where his facial expression is the carry over, or the switch from the dead carnival seller to the joker card). The only exception is the doors from Gordon’s train ride - although arguably those goblin faces represent the Batman as he investigates. The carry over elements invite comparison to other parts of each panel - the Joker’s pregnant wife is in the same place as “the fat lady” in one of the first jumps, underscoring his actual opinion of her.

One of the other things that stood out to me when I returned to this piece after reading more widely about the characters is the treatment of Gordon and Barbara. Both are ineffectual, almost pitiful characters. Barbara can be excused, on account of getting shot before she has a chance to react (although one would still expect the former Batgirl to put up more of a fight), but Jim Gordon has no excuse. He never even lands a punch against the thugs in the apartment - compare that to his strong presence after the bomb detonation in The Dark Knight Returns, or his fight against Detective Flass in Year One. One of the risks of working within a shared universe like this is that readers come with certain expectations based on other titles and other authors, and sometimes when those presentations clash it can jar the reader.

On that same note, it was also very difficult not to read the Joker’s lines in Mark Hamill’s voice. But I’m not complaining about that one.

All in all this is a great Batman title, and it does it without Batman being the main character. The Joker is center stage, and he steals the show.

Se7en

Se7en (1995)
directed by David Fincher

Se7en is a gruesome film that explores good and evil through the lens of a serial killer obsessed with sin. John Doe commits several stylized murders based on the seven deadly sins in an attempt to alert the population to their apathy toward sinful behavior. Two detectives try to track him down, and come symbolize different worldviews that are brought into deep conflict by Doe's crimes. John Doe is a compelling villain, but the detectives deserve some mention as well.

Detective Lt. William Somerset (whose name references the author of "Of Human Bondage", W. Somerset Maugham -- one of the books on John Doe's library list, and a favorite author of the screenwriter) represents a world-weary view. Somerset has seen the worst in humanity over the course of his career, and he no longer expects people to do good things. People are, at their most basic level, selfish and violent. Society exists because people agree, on some level, to reign in those baser urges with the expectation that their neighbors will do the same. We achieve safety only through mutually assured destruction. To use biblical terms, Somerset believes in original sin -- deep down, we're all evil.

Detective David Mills, on the other hand, is almost a caricature of the 'rookie' detective, right down to the short temper. He's young (watching this and seeing Brad Pitt that young made me feel SO OLD) and idealistic in some ways, epitomized by his belief that he can "do some good" and a conviction that he can make a difference in the city by working hard. Of course, this worldview comes to a screeching halt in the face of John Doe, who neatly illustrates that when the social contract is broken, all bets are off. When he destroys Mills' family, Mills reacts with violence. Although he claims to believe that people are good deep down, he demonstrates that people are capable of murder and extreme violence when they are pushed. His actions reinforce what Somerset has believed all along.

John Doe is a fascinating killer, and not just because he might be Kaizer Soze. I re-watched the scenes where the detectives first enter his apartment a number of times, to catch glimpses of what his day to day life was like. The most memorable images still stand out from my first viewing: the bright red cross over the bed, the photos hung to dry in the bathroom, the library piled high with his notebooks (interesting side note: the journals were all hand-made and cost the production $15,000. They only got used for the opening credits as an afterthought.) But some other details appeared that I didn't notice originally. John Doe has a pretty nice set of woodworking tools in one of his cabinets. He mounted trophies from each kill in what appear to be medicine cabinets. All of his clothes are covered in plastic. And that giant red cross is literally surrounded by smaller ones, too many to count. All of this background creates an atmosphere that neatly illustrates Doe's compulsions and bizarre behaviors without a single word of dialogue.

Part of what attracts the viewer to Doe is the extreme violence in his crimes. I've had arguments with people (and probably will again) about which victim suffered the most. Sloth has a strong case, but arguably he's insane after a while and no longer aware of what's happening. I think the male Lust victim had it worse, because he has to live with what he did. Each crime is unique and brings the same level of classical education that works so well for Dr. Lecter. One of my favorite scenes with Doe on screen is his defiant argument in the car, where he claims to be in complete control of the situation. And he was. The shocking ending remains one of the best I've ever seen and still packs a punch. Se7en holds up really well over multiple viewings, and there's a lot in the film to sort through. Although the voice over line doesn't quite fit the rest of the ending, it's still one of my favorites.

The Sculptor

The Sculptor
by Gregory Funaro

The Sculptor is an awkward novel about a serial killer obsessed with the work of Michelangelo.

I didn’t care for it.

Yes, this book was annoying. You see, when a narrative uses certain tropes over and over, I sometimes feel like it deserves to be mocked. Yes, Mockery, as you know, is the practice of derision or ridicule and comes from the old French mocquer. Thus, while reading this book, you see, I got the feeling that it was the sort of book that, yes, deserved mockery. So it was that the book was destined to be mocked and that I, yes, was destined, you see, to mock it.

Anyway. The psycho featured in the novel is Christian Bach, who was raised in an incestuous relationship with his abusive mother, which led to his obsession with sculpture and Michelangelo’s Pieta. Also serial killing, because that's what happens to all victims of abuse, no matter what. The connection between these things and Dr. Hildebrant’s book was, to be honest, lost on me. Nevertheless, Dr. Hildebrant somehow intuits Bach's incestuous feelings with complete accuracy. This stunning (almost miraculous) feat of empathy was one of many things that left me unimpressed.

Bach is a cliche. He is extraordinarily muscular, cultured, independently wealthy, and is a polymath in art, chemistry, medicine and anatomy. He has an enormous lair that conceals all his nefarious activities and consistently outwits the police and the FBI. Basically he’s a Batman villain, complete with Capitalized Villain Name and themed crimes.

So close . . .

I found almost every aspect of his character to be either a general cliche or an idea taken from another source. It reads like a blatant attempt to capitalize on the popularity of other works - a fusion of Hannibal Lecter with the Da Vinci Code.

Toward the end of the novel, when Bach’s back story is finally revealed to the reader, we learn that he was sexually and physically abused by his mother and that they saw a sculpture of the Pieta in their church and decided they liked it. At best, this explained a fascination with that particular sculpture, but there was no real effort to explain the connection between this dysfunction and sculpture in general, aside from one instance of playing with play doh as a child. There was likewise no rationale for how any of that inspired him to use actual dead bodies for the sculptures instead of, say, wood. Or plaster of paris. Or marble. Or literally anything else.

Nobody had to die.

The other characters were similar in their striking resemblance to other figures from fiction. I stopped keeping track of the parallels between Dr. Hildebrant and Dr. Langdon after only a few chapters. I couldn’t quite decide which of the various ace FBI profiler characters Sam was meant to resemble (personally I think he was a watered-down Agent Pendergast, but that may just be because I’m a fan) - he may as well have been all of them. Both characters were flat and broadly uninteresting. Agent Markham’s back story was at almost complete odds with his actual behavior toward Cathy (I will never love again and will dedicate myself to avenging my wife . . . until I meet an attractive woman), and hers consisted exclusively of “recently divorced.” There wasn’t much there to make me want to keep reading, and their inevitable happy ending undermined both his drive to avenge his previous wife and her new-found independence from her cheating husband.

In closing, I will repeat that I didn't care for this book. Usually in these posts I try to balance my negative thoughts with positives, but in this case I couldn't find much I liked. Your mileage may vary.

Misery

Misery
by Stephen King

Misery is almost a straight-forward torture story. Paul Sheldon is held against his will and systematically abused, both physically and emotionally. The novel starts when he’s captured and ends when he’s freed. But the stories within the story are what separates this novel from routine gore and makes it something unique. Misery is one of my all time favorite Stephen King books.

Annie Wilkes is everything you want in a villain. She’s acutely insane, but manages to maintain well enough to believably escape detention in spite of a criminal career that spans decades and includes dozens of murders. The character was loosely inspired by real-life killer nurse Genene Jones, who was convicted of poisoning children with the intent of resuscitating them. But where her intentions were not explicitly murderous, Annie’s are. The catalog or horrors she inflicts on Sheldon are numerous, and her gradual descent as she stops trying to hide her real nature from Paul is one of the most compelling parts of the book.

Annie is, in many ways, a child. Her refusal to swear (and the ridiculous babble she concocts instead) is somehow scarier than any string of curses. She’s just as petulant as a child that doesn’t get her way, only with substantially more dire consequences. King does an excellent job of using her childish behavior to create tension. These small touches early in the novel let the reader know that something is deeply, deeply wrong.

Paul Sheldon becomes a bit of a psycho in his own right by the end of the novel. Partially because of addiction and partially just because of the brutal conditions, Paul starts to lose it after only a few chapters. This is the first book we’ve read this semester where the psychosis seems to be catching. By the time he’s finally found by the police, Paul can’t even string together a coherent sentence. Living with Annie’s insanity has eroded his own, to the point that he is no longer functional, even after rescued. The lingering effects of that paranoia and extreme fear in the final chapters feel real. It’s true that in many other types of story, the reader would never see Paul after he was rescued. His long convalescence is no happy ending. But it fits perfectly for the self-aware yarn on writing that King is spinning.

From a mechanical standpoint, the story is unique in several ways. Almost the entire novel takes place in a single room, with a single character, who is more often than not talking to himself. There’s a great deal of self awareness in this trick - King likely was also alone in a room somewhere when he composed it. He is writing about his own process for writing, his own ideas about what works and what doesn’t (and why). He manages to sneak a lot of his ideas about what is and isn’t good writing into the mouth of Paul Sheldon, and because of the story it doesn’t seem forced. 

It’s amazing that King is able to accomplish so much without losing the story. At the end of the day, it’s still a book about a man who is being tortured. Misery is a very complex book, and those layers are what makes it a fan favorite.

Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs (1991)
directed by Jonathan Demme

The Silence of the Lambs is an excellent film and one of my all time favorites. Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Ted Levine are all excellent in their roles, and the film remains a modern day classic of suspense.

Arguably both Buffalo Bill and Dr. Lecter serve as the film's primary antagonists. It's difficult to say which of them is creepier. After this most recent viewing, I personally vote for Bill. Whereas Lecter is deeply disturbed and unsettling, Bill's psychosis is much more pronounced. He seems genuinely unable to function in a normal way. His interaction with Starling at the end of the film, for instance, shows an almost complete breakdown. Even if she didn't see the moth, I think she still would have questioned him - he wasn't able to maintain a facade.

Incidentally, if you want to make your brain hurt, watch this film and then watch one of the campier episodes of Monk.

Gumb was a sort of fusion of different serial killers - his method of capturing Catherine was essentially the same as Ted Bundy's, including the fake cast. His fascination with skin and questionable sexuality came from Ed Gein. The inspiration for the basement torture room comes from Gary Heidnick, who kidnapped and imprisoned women in his Philadelphia home. Gumb's pathology is said to be due to childhood abuse, which is common for killers. More of his backstory is available from deleted scenes or the documentary "Silence of the Lambs: the Inside Story", but to be honest I kind of liked not seeing it. After reading Red Dragon and seeing some of the drawbacks of going deep into the killer's background and POV, it was a little refreshing to have Bill stay a mystery.

One of the most fascinating elements of Lecter's character is how self aware he is. The way Hopkins portrayed the character is as though Lecter knows he is playing a role - the monster that knows he is a monster. He is perfectly aware of what the other characters think of him, and he plays to that expectation on purpose. In the break out scene, for example, he takes the time to string up one of the bodies in a grotesque but artistic display. Doing so serves no purpose, other than to intimidate the other police and live up to his reputation.

In spite of that reputation, Lecter is more able to hide in a crowd than Bill is, after a manner of speaking. When he's in his cell and everyone knows he is a monster, he revels in that role and enjoys the attention it brings. But after he breaks out, he seems to have no trouble disappearing. Unlike Bill, he can hide in plain sight. He's only creepy when he wants to be, and he only decides to be that way when it suits him. And of course, his escape makes sequels possible, and for a great film and a great character, that's a must.

Red Dragon

Red Dragon
by Thomas Harris

Red Dragon is a fascinating book that takes the unusual step of getting into the killer's POV early and often. The unique narrative gives the reader greater insight into Francis Dolarhyde's motivations and beliefs, and at times almost paints him as a sympathetic character. However, that very structure makes the novel a little unsatisfying in some ways.

Compared to some other killers in fiction, Dolarhyde is a nuanced character. He undergoes some change throughout the course of the book and has a fleshed out history. He fits many of the profiles for serial killers (childhood trauma, sexual repression, sadism, etc.) but the change in his character when he meets Reba starts to unravel his perception of himself. It was an interesting way to take a more or less stock "serial killer" character and turn him into an actual person, with actual emotions and relationship issues. It was as though not only did the reader learn that Dolarhyde was more than just a cardboard cutout of a monster, so did Dolarhyde.

What was unsatisfying about it was the way he went right back to where he started. He sees Reba with another man and snaps, and all the tension from his character building arc abruptly stops. The scene between him and Reba in his house near the end of the novel sort of worked, until it turned out that he was merely faking the whole thing as a way of escaping capture. What previously looked like real emotional trauma turned out to be fake, and the fact that the reader didn't get to see Dolarhyde preparing for this switcharoo (where previously we had a front row seat to his side of the story) felt like a cheat. It really undermined a lot of the other work that had been done on that character.

Will Graham is also an interesting character, and his ability to mirror the thinking patterns of others is pretty fascinating. Harris does a great job with the reasons that sort of ability would be more of a curse than a gift - particularly given Graham's line of work. It's odd how he feels that being able to empathize with a killer makes him a villain as well -- an uncomfortable line of thinking, considering we're writers trying to train ourselves to do the very same thing.

I'm not going to say much about Lecter in this post, mostly because I'll have more about him when we watch Silence of the Lambs. One thing that does fascinate me about him is the way he was handled in the film version of Red Dragon, released in 2002. He gets a much bigger role in the film,  acting as an advisor to Graham, presumably to parallel the relationship he later develops with Starling.  He's really quite a minor character in Red Dragon, but he's definitely the breakout of the group, and it's neat to see him retroactively become a major character in that version of the story.

The Church of Dead Girls

The Church of Dead Girls
by Stephen Dobyns


Spoilers ahoy -- don't read this 'till you finish the novel.

Stephen Dobyns’ haunting story of a town ripping itself apart in the aftermath of children disappearing was a great read. The horror was subtle for the most part, although there was enough graphic descriptions of sex and violence (particularly toward the end) to keep a veteran horror reader interested.

There are, to my mind, two ‘psychos’ in this novel. The first, and perhaps least interesting of the two, is the primary antagonist, revealed at the novel’s conclusion to be Donald Malloy. I say uninteresting because of the rather cut and dried depiction of his insanity--at the end of the novel he has become quite unhinged (rather suddenly, I might add) and spills his whole story out in one great swoop. And it all fits together rather neatly. His pedophilia and deranged attitude toward sex leads him to fixate on hands, specifically the left or ‘bad’ hand (interesting side note: the Latin for left, sinistra, is the root for the English word “sinister”. There are lots of theories as to why this is: a popular explanation is that prior to the widespread use of toilet paper, the right hand was used for eating and the left for cleaning up waste). Several of his victims were simply people who knew that he had unusual sexual appetites. It was a little too simple for me. It reminded me of episodes of CSI, where the cop tosses off a casual explanation for the crimes and kind of shrugs. I expected a deeper pathology, particularly after that much build up.
   
The reveal that Donald was the kidnapper/murderer was disappointing not just because of the clinical way in which the madness was treated, but also in the way he abruptly becomes insane. Whereas previously he is a ‘professional man’ who seems perfectly able to go about his business and blend in with society, the moment the reader realizes he is the bad guy he becomes an irrational boogie man that literally carries body parts around with him and basically commits suicide-by-cop. I was left wondering how on earth someone that far gone could have remained hidden as long as he did.
   
The second and substantially more interesting disturbed character is the nameless narrator. I suspected him throughout the novel (and so did the other characters, which was fun). It was clear that the author was playing with the expectations of the reader throughout, and I very much wanted something to come of the little quirks revealed throughout the book about him. Ultimately I was very disappointed by the ending. His open admission of defiling the corpse of Donald was, in my mind, unnecessary. The line from the psychic who departed the city, saying the hand was now in “a jar among other jars” was brilliant. I literally stopped reading and put the book down for a moment to savor that one line and everything that it insinuated. If he'd stopped there it would have been fantastic. But to have the narrator admit that it was him shortly afterward ruined the effect.
   
The story of the novel really wasn’t about either of these two characters, though. The story was about the town and a host of other people who live there, told under the backdrop of these crimes. There was a lot going on in the book; too much at times. I agree with reviews that have accused the book of having too many characters and spending more time than necessary on description and exposition. The narrator was fun to read about, but seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the town and its residents. Many scenes contained far more detail than the narrator could plausibly have heard from the other characters, particularly in scenes with characters who had an avowed dislike of the narrator (Ryan Tavich springs to mind).
   
All in all I enjoyed this novel. It was an interesting story, and well told. This is the first novel I’ve read by this author, and I will certainly read more of his work.

Psycho

Psycho

by Robert Bloch

The story of Norman Bates is probably familiar to most readers. Psycho is about a man with what would now be called disassociative identity disorder, more familiarly called multiple personalities. While acting under the delusion that he is his dead mother, Norman kills a young woman, and later a private investigator. The character was inspired by real-life killer Ed Gein. In some ways, the novel fails. Almost two thirds of the penultimate chapter is a block of exposition, painfully delivered through once-removed dialogue. The majority of the characters are pretty flat. The portrayal of women is less than enlightened. But it works as a compelling story, and that's mainly due to the central character and antagonist.

Norman Bates is an unassuming man who, by all appearances, is perfectly normal. His appearance (an overweight, balding man in his forties -- it's interesting to speculate about why a much younger man was cast for the part in the film) is consistently contrasted with his inner mind -- something the author was intentionally playing with throughout the narrative. The same theme crops up with Mary. Her thievery reveals her inner self and conflicts with her outer veneer of normalcy.

Norman has a host of neurosis, many concerning sex and women in general, but his mother specifically. These are revealed gradually throughout the narrative -- for example, in chapter 5, he is drawn to looking at his mother’s thighs and breasts, but also recognizes that he should not do so. He owns pornography, but chastises himself for spying on Mary in the bathroom. This conflict was explored more fully in some of the film sequels, in which Norman’s character lashes out against any woman he feels attracted to.

One of the interesting things about re-reading Psycho was to catalog some of the things about Norman that were meant to imply or show that he was crazy. First time readers of the book (who somehow managed to avoid the cultural touchstones of the film) weren’t supposed to know just how far gone Norman was until the reveal in chapter fifteen. Some of the clues were obvious -- his behavior is certainly abnormal, particularly when drinking and spying on Mary in the bathroom. There are also strong hints in his conversations with Mother. At one point she even says that if she were to be committed to an institution, she wouldn’t go alone. But his hobbies also hint at madness. His taste in books and interest in the occult is seen as damning evidence. Similarly, his interest in taxidermy is considered odd, although more was made of this in the film than in the book. The fact that Norman lives alone and was a life-long bachelor is also cited.

Another interesting element is how Norman has ended up in the collective unconscious as a serial killer. In the book he is only responsible for four murders -- his mother and her lover, Mary, and Arbogast. There was no direct indication that he had killed other guests at the motel. But somehow it's easy to believe that he's been doing it for years. The neighbors and locals in the book soon suggest Norman is responsible for other murders, and in the film the psychiatrist suggests that Norman is responsible for a series of unsolved missing persons cases in the area. It's certainly more disturbing to think that this episode was simply the most recent one, and that Mary's theft is the only reason Norman got caught at all.

Norman is, in many ways, a sympathetic character. Even his almost-victim Lila feels sorry for him, and admits that he has probably suffered as much or more than his victims. He seems to have been molded into a psychopath instead of choosing to be one. The portrait of Norman that comes out casts his Mother as the villain. She is thought to be the one who drove him to the madness that eventually led to her death, and to his own insanity. But it’s too difficult to separate Norman from his Mother -- everything the reader knows about Mother comes through the filter of Norman. He blames her, but is she really responsible? After all, the Mother character is just his beliefs about what she was actually like.

In the end, it’s all him.

Snow

Snow
by Ronald Malfi

Snow is the tale of a small group of survivors trying to fight off an invasion from unknown creatures that appear to be made of snow. The plot is something of a standard (almost a cliche), but the unique monster made this worth reading.

The monsters of Snow come in a few different shapes and sizes. At first, the creatures appear as nothing more than swirls of snow, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the storm. The only way to spot them is to look for patches of snow moving against the wind or try to spot the silver filaments at the center of the creatures. At times, the snow solidifies to create bladed arms, which are then used primarily as weapons. The snow monster is weak against fire. When exposed to fire, the creatures take on a solid form which is described as rubbery, pale, thin (its bones press against its skin visibly) and having only a single eye. In some sequences, the overall shape is described as resembling a manta ray. The creatures are capable of flight, and can join together to form a giant worm-like creature.

But apparently all that neat, unique, interesting stuff wasn't enough, so they threw in a horde of zombies too. I know, I know. I'm supposed to be the zombie fan, and I am. The sequence at the beginning of part two, where Shawna fights her way up the stairs, only to meet a horde of them at the top was an great chapter. Excellent zombie scene. But it didn't belong in a snow monster story. Neither, for that matter, do the strange no-face children.

A further word on the no-face children. I cannot quite fathom how, or why, the children's faces disappear, or why the monsters keep infesting children even after they learn they won't be able to eat in that form (which is supposedly the goal of the whole affair). The given explanation doesn't really provide any indication of how the children grow extra skin - and none of the other creatures endure any physical change as a result of the possession. It was a creepy visual, certainly - but every time it was mentioned I got pulled out of the story wondering how that could physically occur.

The setting was well described and even though it was playing with a familiar trope in the 'rag tag group of survivors' genre, the writing was well done and carried me into the story well. I read this early in the semester, and again before posting, and both times it was a fairly quick read. The zombies were more of an issue the second go-around, but both times I liked the natural progression of the story and rooted for the protagonist, despite his faults. This is the first title I read by Malfi - I recently purchased and read 'After the Fade', a novella he published in 2012. In it, strange monsters invade a small town and turn the population into zombies. Go figure.

Relic

Relic
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Before I get too far into this post, a confession. I am absolutely infatuated with Special Agent Aloysious X. L. Pendergast. I love his funereal suits, excessive list of preternatural abilities, and the delightful deep southern style. That said, this is not my favorite book to feature him (although it is the first) - that honor belongs to Still Life with Crows, which I heartily recommend. Brimstone is a close second. But they're all good and everyone should go read them.

Now then.

Relic is something of a convoluted tale with a simple premise - monster runs amok in museum. The convolutions come about as a way to get the monster there in the first place. The museum of natural history is a great setting and I love the way it is featured in the book, but the authors have to go to great lengths to explain how the creature came to be in NYC to begin with. These narrative gyrations came across as heavy handed to me, particularly in the final chapter where Dr. Frock summarizes everything for a roomful of people who already know what he is talking about. The epilogue, though it contained new information and was largely a teaser for the sequel, was guilty of the same.

The monster of the piece, Mbwun, is gradually revealed to be the results of mutation caused to an explorer by ingesting a virus-infected plant. The creature has a mix of ape and lizard DNA and is described as having a very foul odor, three claws on the forelegs and five on the back, and a simian face. The creature is said to have human intelligence (explained later in the novel by the fact that it was once human), but poor eyesight and superior smell and hearing.

Mbwun was an effective monster in most of the important ways - it stalks through the museum and picks people off at a steady rate, and its later appearances during the exhibition fiasco was suitably dramatic. The creature is extremely dangerous and difficult to kill - almost comically so. A greater part of its invulnerability is the fact that no one believes it's real, a factor which gradually became less and less believable. The trope of the creature's odor giving away its location worked reasonably well, although it did get repetitive. But it was a clever enough creature to keep things interesting, and the way it played off of the museum setting and the Superstition exhibit made for a good combo.

The setting plays a big role in this novel, and for good reason. The Museum is pretty much a character in its own right, and it is the perfect backdrop for this creature out of legend and history. The story just wouldn't be the same if it took place in an abandoned steel mill or an old railway station. The only downside of the setting (and the characters necessary to populate it) was that there were a number of scenes that seemed to serve no function beyond saying "look how smart we are". It reminded me of CSI in that respect.

Relic is a fusion of mystery and horror - it starts out as a whodunnit, with characters trying to piece together the cause of grisly murderers. A shift occurs in the middle of the book, once the characters discover that the murderer is actually an honest-to-goodness monster, and the book shifts gears into a horror survival story. It's an effective combination, and made for a compelling and enjoyable read.

The Thing

The Thing
1982

This was the first time in recent memory that I've actually sat down and watched this movie in its entirety. The Thing is the story of an ancient shape shifting alien that is discovered in Antarctica and lays waste to its discoverers. The Thing (arguably Things) assimilates and then copies life forms that it encounters, including humans. I enjoyed the film in spite of a few plot holes, but I'd like to focus here mostly on the Thing itself.

The Thing's motivations are left unclear, as the viewer never gets to hear its side of the story. All the speculation about its desires and goals are told through the mouthpiece of the humans who are trying to locate and kill it. While it is undoubtedly a violent creature, it is unclear whether the Thing is acting out of malevolence or is just trying to survive, either as an individual or as a species. All we know for sure is that the Thing seeks to escape via the ship which Blair constructs - but is it escaping only from the situation to spread into the rest of the planet, or trying to go home? The film doesn't really delve into this area, instead focusing on the climate of paranoia and suspicion that the Thing's presence creates.

One of the more interesting elements of the film is the frequency with which the audience gets to see the Thing transform. The transformation sequence in the dog kennel is the first of many instances where the Thing ballons into a disgusting pulpy mix of various animal and humanoid body parts - most consistently dog, squid, spider, and human. The cephalopod and arachnoid parts don't have any origin in the film (we never see the Thing interact with either directly) but frequently crop up in the mutation sequences either as weapons or ways to move the creature around. Conversely, the tentacles and segmented legs might be what the Thing actually looks like when not mimicking another creature. This is never made explicitly clear in the film. Carpenter departs here from the practice of many other horror films, which keep the monster in the shadows. I think it works to good effect in this film, because the monster's chameleon ability keeps the audience guessing about where (or what) it is. The on-screen mutation scenes become necessary as a way to show what is being hidden by that ability.

Another question the creature raises is how many of them there are. The 'first' Thing is exhumed from the ice by the Norwegian team, and is subsequently killed, but not before infecting at least one other creature. The process of infection is cellular - after a period of time, the host becomes a Thing. The question now is, is this a new Thing, or has the original one just extended itself into another body? Is there a hive mind through which the various Things communicate? The scene with the blood reacting to the hot wire implies that there is not - otherwise the blood could be instructed to allow itself to die as a way to ensure that the host stayed alive. Of course, it's just as plausible that one of the people who 'passed' the test did exactly that, and the one who failed sacrificed itself to protect the species.

I personally view the Thing as a virus - in which case there is no single "Thing", only instances of infection, each of which has a strong survival instinct of its own. The body dug up in the ice could plausibly be a creature from another planet who simply contracted the Thing, or the remains of a human infected that began shapeshifting.

The final aspect of the Thing that fascinated me the most was the skillful way in which the narrative left the audience guessing about who is and is not infected. The nature of the monster lends itself wonderfully to this kind of speculation. One theory posits that the hero, MacReady, is infected throughout and is ultimately responsible for the infection of both Blair and Childs by sharing infected drinks with them. Others suggest the opposite, that Childs is infected and ultimately wins. The fact that there is such widespread disagreement and discussion 30 years later is a great testament to the skill of the writers and filmmakers.

The Wolfman

The Wolfman
by Jonathan Maberry

This might be the first time I've ever read a tie-in book (a book based on the film rather than the other way around), and the 'hollywood'ization of the plot is pretty obvious from the start. Things in this book happen in a formulaic way - they have to, because that's the way it happens in big budget films. The novel retains many elements from the 1941 film of the same name, but goes into new territory with Lawrence's history of mental illness and Sir John's role.

The Wolfman (and the Werewolf) is the major villain of the piece, and it suffers in my opinion from a common disease amongst Hollywood monsters, similar to the effects of gamma radiation: the monster is unusually large, impossibly strong, uncontrollable, and invulnerable to conventional attack. All it needed was green fur to complete the look. Maybe I'm being a purist, but the werewolf monster is meant to combine the predatory skills of a wolf (speed, superior sense of smell and hearing, and natural weapons in the form of teeth) with the cunning and intelligence of a man. Making the wolfman 8 foot tall with sharp claws, hyper-senses, and super strength was a departure from the myth, and felt unnecessary. If they'd reigned it in a little, the wolfman would be more about stalking and trapping his victims, and less about violent mayhem, and that's what I was expecting.

Werewolves occupy unique territory for me. The idea of a werewolf is compelling, particularly when it is not realized in the direct terms of wolf and man. I'm thinking of Jekyll and Hyde, or Norman Bates and his mother. A man and a monster occupying the same body. There's a lot of fertile ground there. Once the fur and fangs come in, though, it is easy to descend into the basic werewolf formula: unbeliever is bitten, transforms, becomes a believer, tries to kill a loved one, and dies.

One of the things that surprised me when I read this book was the character descriptions. I haven't seen the movie and don't plan to, so I had no idea that Sir John, described as  "tall and imposing", was played by Anthony Hopkins. Sir Anthony is 5'9" - hardly an imposing height. I was picturing someone more along the lines of Ian McKellan, or Peter O'Toole. And likewise to think that the "brutally handsome" Lawrence was portrayed by this man. It's amazing how even in a tie-in novel, the characters can seem vastly different in the reader's head than in the author's.

And may I also say, Maberry missed a real opportunity in that section by not describing Lawrence's hair as perfect.

Maberry has skill with description, setting and dialogue, but I think this particular book was severely hampered by the script he had to use. They hired a good writer to try to make a novel from an unwieldy plot. Consider Chapter 42, where Sir John appears in Lawrence's cell and explains away several questions about what has happened so far. A common tactic in films (I refer to it as "A Visit from the Department of Backstory"), but it comes off as an info dump in a novel. The love interest was forced and hollow - the two characters hardly exchange any dialogue before they inexplicably hook up.

Bottom line, I would have enjoyed seeing this story naturally develop in the hands of a skilled author without having to hold to the expectations of a blockbuster. I suspect it would have turned out much differently.

Alien

Alien
1979

Ridley Scott's masterpiece blends science fiction and horror, with an all star cast and some of the most stunning visuals presented in film. Though the titular monster deserves much of the praise for the film's success and eventual sequels and spinoffs, I think the setting is where this one really shines. Between the amazing set design by H.R. Giger and Jerry Goldsmith's haunting score this movie establishes and maintains a brilliant level of tension.

The alien itself was brazenly meant to represent sexual violence - specifically male rape, something that is not often touched on by the media. The image for the Alien was chosen from Giger's work for its sexual connotations, and its primary method of attack is overtly phallic. There are three stages to the alien life form (mirroring the life stages of some forms of insects): the face hugger, the chestburster, and the adult. Both the facehugger and the egg were designed to mirror the vagina - in fact, the egg had to be redesigned because it looked too much like one when it opened. 

The alien has no eyes - this was intentional, as the filmmakers thought it made it scarier to not know where it was looking. It also made it extraordinarily difficult for the actor in the alien suit to perform (interesting aside: the costume for Big Bird has the same problem. It uses a camera system and has a monitor in the stomach for the actor to 'see' out of). Part of what makes the alien work so well as a monster (beyond the pants-fouling terror of the whole concept) is that we hardly ever see it, even when it's in the shot. The scene at the end, with Ripley reaching for a something only to discover part of the wall is in fact the alien's head was amazing - we all knew it was in the room, and even after multiple viewings I forget where the arm is going to come from. 

I mentioned that the setting is one of my favorite parts of this movie, and that's because it's brilliant. The alien ship they find really tried to make the aliens seem otherworldly. The ship models were made from a mixture of organic and inorganic materials, and the result was something that's honestly difficult to describe. It doesn't look like something man made, but it is obviously something constructed. It hits just the right notes to seem functional, but extraterrestrial. The Nostromo, although it doesn't have the same wonderful architecture, got just as much attention. Although I am probably not the first to wonder why the intergalactic spaceship was 2/3 massive basement, it worked. The chains dangling from the ceiling, the tall shaft where water inexplicably fell constantly, the utterly delightful computer control room - it was all mysterious and strange, and none of the actors reacted to it at all and that made it work. It was normal for them.

I've rambled quite a bit, but I do want to end with a few notes about the sequels. Oh, the sequels. Aliens (1986) is probably the only of the three direct sequels I would advise anyone to watch. Alien 3 is notable only for having the alien hatch out of a dog instead of a person, and Resurrection is a pure popcorn flick. But my favorite spinoff isn't actually a movie. It's a comic book.

Superman versus Alien.

I'm not going to say much about this other than that you should go read it and that I'm going to spoil the end (Superman wins), but here's a brief synopsis: Superman hears the language of Krypton (which he would have no reason to recognize, since he was raised on Earth) and flies into outer space to investigate. He finds a planet full of Kryptonians (who shouldn't exist, because Krypton was destroyed) who are fighting a war with the Aliens. Superman is depowered because the sun for this planet is the wrong color (Science!) but, in spite of the fact that he's now just a buff dude facing the galaxy's most ruthless rapemurder machines, he still refuses to kill. Except when he fights with a queen alien and he has to eject it from the air lock, which is the only proven way to kill an alien.

Except the queen is still in his chest. And Superman is his own space ship. So when I say blow it out the airlock, I mean . . .

World War Z

World War Z: An oral history of the zombie war
by Max Brooks

I first read World War Z when it came out, and re-reading it for class was a pleasure. I love this book. I loved the Zombie Survival Guide too, for that matter. I've said before in this class that zombies are a personal favorite of mine, and this book illustrates a lot of the reasons why.

Zombies can be anywhere. They're in the swamps, in the deserts, under the ocean. They're in the streets, in your house, all over the world and in every country. I'm amazed one didn't end up on the space station. The plague of zombies spread quickly, not so much because of the rate of infection, but because people refused to believe it was happening. Governments and hospitals were unprepared. The military was helpless (the battle of Yonkers is one of my favorite scenes because it seemed so very much like what would really happen). I loved how there really was no 'safe' place, not anywhere. Heck, even without a zombie on the ISS, the astronauts still came to a bad end because of the plague.

The zombies were pretty classic, George Romero types - slow moving cannibals that can only be killed by destroying the brain. The horror is two-fold: first off, the creatures attacking you used to be your friends, neighbors, and family; and secondly, once you get past them, there are like a million more waiting outside. One of my favorite details about the zombies is the different names given to them by different nationalities - zombies, ghouls, Gs, zedheads, zack. It was realistic (there's no reason to think they wouldn't get different nicknames) and a simple way to make the narrative seem more real.

Other blogs have talked about the fact that the book is more about people than it is about zombies, and I agree. But that's part of the fun, at least for me. I like this book partially because the humans actually win - which again seems realistic. Once people accepted that this was happening, they dealt with it, and that's probably what would happen. The fact that this book ended on a positive note was probably my favorite thing about it. Sure, awful things happened and lots of people died, but the world moves on. It was a hopeful message - at least, more hopeful than it could have been.

There were a lot of great characters in this book - a few favorites are Todd Waino, the 'average Joe' soldier, Darnell Hackworth and the K-9 units, the infamous Paul Redeker (side note: the version I got on my kindle had the footnotes messed up, and it wasn't until I googled Redeker to see if he was in the film version that I found out the guy who hugs him is Nelson Mandela), and Tomonaga and his shield society. Honestly, just about all the sections were exceptional in their own way. Given that he doesn't spend much time on any single character or setting, Brooks does an excellent job bringing people to life.

One last point I want to make about this book is that it is a stretch to call it just a horror book. I don't think this is a title that can be put into a single genre - too much happens, there are too many blends of ideas and concepts. I've read a lot recently in how-to books about horror genre vs. literary fiction, and this book illustrates that sometimes there's no simple distinction. You can have a horror setting and still get a "literary" novel.

The Yattering and Jack

The Yattering and Jack
by Clive Barker

The Yattering, essentially a poltergeist but described variously in the text as a demon and as a fury, is a small, invisible, demon sent from hell to drive Jack Polo insane. He fails.

Like Rawhead Rex, this story suffers a bit from character POV switching - in my opinion, the end effect is more problematic here than it was in Rawhead. Letting the reader know that Jack is aware of his antagonist and is ignoring him is amusing, but it is revealed far too early in the text. The second reveal, when the Yattering finally figures it out, is robbed of impact because Jack is no longer a 'victim'. He's been playing with the demon (and the lives of his family) all along. It'd have been funnier to save that for the end.

The Yattering itself is a low-level demon, presumably with limited powers. His situation reminded me strongly of the set-up in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, in which an older middle-management demon mentors his nephew. The idea of Hell as a bureaucracy is a fitting one - it is something most people will have to interact with at some point, and it will never be a pleasant experience. And we can all relate to the feelings of helplessness and the sense that we've been given an impossible task.

The Yattering is described as being fairly small, but also strong - he fantasizes about crushing Jack's head between his hands, which indicates that if he were able to touch people he could do some damage. The extent of his supernatural abilities isn't clear, but they include invisibility and telekinesis, and he doesn't seem limited in touching his environment. He is able to animate dead things, and can torture other living creatures. In a nod to Faust, he is surprised when Jack doesn't ask him to perform the same miracles as Mephistopheles - leading me to think he has considerably more power than he was able to use against Jack. He is cruel - three cats are slaughtered with increasing violence, the fish get boiled, and one of the daughters has her mind essentially broken. But with those strengths are key weaknesses - he is unable to touch Jack physically, and unable to leave the house. However, he breaks both rules, which leaves me to wonder if he could do so again and break away from his new master.

The Yattering wasn't terribly scary. The story plays him to a comedic effect rather than straight horror, and Jack ignoring almost all of it detracted from what would be terrifying if it actually happened. I wanted to sympathize with the Yattering but he was too cruel for me to really feel bad about the situation - if I felt bad for anyone, it was the two daughters. They've got nothing at stake and no idea what's going on. If Jack was any sort of a decent parent he'd have gone to their house for Christmas where they'd be safe - he knew the Yattering couldn't follow him. Then he and the Yattering could duke it out on New Years or something.

Besides which, the Yattering wasted a perfectly good turkey dinner. And it had bacon on it. BACON.

30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night
by Steve Niles
Illustrated by Ben Templesmith

30 Days of Night had a brilliant concept. After reading it I did some research on the author and the storyline, and found out that it started life as a screenplay - and I think that shows in the final product. It felt more like a story-board for a longer piece than a complete novel. Length is a factor - it is short enough that I re-read it on my lunch break - but the pacing is also extraordinarily fast. The month of darkness flies by, and the reader misses out on a lot of the tension and dread that could have been built up in a longer piece or a different medium.

I have conflicting opinions about the artwork - it was difficult to make out what was meant to be happening, and there was so much black on each page. At the same time, the ephemeral style suited the wintery setting, and there were some really well done individual panels. The style of the artwork left things very murky and undefined - there weren’t a lot of hard edges or obvious features. The pit of burnt cell phones, for example, has only six cell phone shapes in it, and only three are clearly phones. Faces were often obscured. Teeth and noses were really some of the only well defined features. Periodically small print words would appear in the images, which I found distracting and borderline annoying - the page introducing Vincente and his two assistants naming each with small text hovering over their heads, for example, or the page when vampire-Eben has the words "badass time" hovering behind him. It gave those panels a rough draft feel, like it was an artist’s conception for what the finished page would look like instead of the final product itself.

The vampires of 30 Days of Night are stereotypical in some ways - superior strength and speed, invulnerability except a weakness to sunlight. They are much more brutal than some other vampire depictions. Their facial structure is unique - the black eyes and rows of teeth bring to mind human sharks, with snake tongues. The strength of these monsters is such that they effectively control the town from the moment they arrive. The scares come mainly from gore, perhaps at the cost of building tension. I think the things that would frighten me the most about this type of monster come from empathizing with the survivors - the constant hiding, the shock of seeing attacks on others, the unending tension from knowing you couldn’t win a direct conflict. This was absent from this book because of the length and pacing. Everything happens so fast you don’t get to read the day to day survival. The whole siege of Barrow may as well have happened in a single day. Then again, focusing on a gradual build up of tension can push the monsters into the background, which was a problem in I am Legend and Breeding Ground. I’d like to think there’s some sort of happy medium somewhere.

There is a minor plothole with the end of the story - Eben is able to undergo his transformation without losing his humanity, but another survivor who is turned immediately becomes a bloodthirsty monster. I wouldn’t have questioned it if not for the scene with the other survivor - I’d be willing to believe the vampires in Barrow are the ones who really enjoy being vampires and get off on the ultra-violence, whereas the quiet, contemplative vampires probably stayed home. But the scene where Ted turns and instantly becomes bloodthirsty and crazed implies the vampires have no control over this - which in turn contradicts Vincente’s apparent restraint and Eben keeping his humanity. It made the vampires more akin to zombies, and not necessarily in a good way. Part of the appeal of these monsters is that they are just as cunning and clever as the humans are.

Those things aside, this concept was well done and the overall plot was totally believable for me - vampires come out of hiding for a bit of debauchery and murder because it’s the only place and time they could possibly get away with it. The subplot with the helicopter is obviously only there to set up a sequel, which I have not yet read. I am hoping that it will be a little longer and a little bit slower paced. I’m also looking forward to seeing how the story was changed for the film version, which is next on my netflix queue.

Rawhead Rex

Rawhead Rex
by Clive Barker

Saturday night I read the short story Rawhead Rex, and Sunday morning I surfed around a little and found/watched the 1986 film by the same name. Both left me with the same question.

Why does Rawhead do what he does?

It isn’t necessarily that he lacked motivation. It was that the motivation was part and parcel of his existence. Rawhead’s only purpose in existing is to rape, kill, and destroy. In Barker's words: "He lived in the eternal present of his hunger and his strength, feeling only the crude territorial instinct that would sooner or later blossom into carnage." He’s not fulfilling needs by doing it. He defiles whatever he comes across, unless it is a lady having her lady-time.

More on that later.

The name for the creature seems to come from a figure in British folklore dating back to the early 1700s, which was used as a boogey man to frighten children. But the figure from the book has little in common with this incarnation - instead, Rawhead more closely resembles the giants from Welsh mythology. He is effectively immortal, hugely powerful, brutal, and eats children. Or, to be more accurate, he prefers children: he’ll eat anybody.

Rawhead is kind of unusual in that his lack of meaningful motivation is part of his character - it is intentional. There is an image that crops up for me in fantasy settings quite a lot. The evil king, sitting on his throne made of skulls, killing his lieutenants every so often and turning the countryside into a desert. What bugs me about that kind of character is that there’s never any reason to do those things - it’s just a way to show they are evil, like wearing black or having a spooky helmet. A basic thing about thinking creatures is that we all think what we’re doing is justified. Even if we’re doing something awful, we think deep down that it is the right thing to do in the circumstances. That’s why we do it. Those characters don’t have internally consistent motivations, and neither does Rawhead. But where I find it annoying in other circumstances, here it works. Rawhead doesn’t think in those terms because he’s a force of nature, not a rational creature. For this type of monster it doesn’t occur to ask “why am I breaking everything in the house? I could use some of this stuff”. He breaks it because it’s there.

Rawhead is sort of the ultimate monster - he’s a weird blend of animal and man with a totally foreign way of thinking. Presenting him is a balancing act - but it’s done well, and I think he is a compelling figure. Making him a figure out of the past helped enormously with distancing his thinking process from what we’d think of as ‘normal’.

Now that’s not to say the story was perfect. Making Rawhead afraid of menstruating women was an odd choice, at least to me. I understand Barker was setting up a parallel for women as ‘creators’ to be the opposite of Rawhead’s pure destruction, but it just seemed like a reach, considering his willingness to perform rape and his food of choice. I also objected strongly to the way some characters responded to Rawhead, particularly Declan. Setting Rawhead up as a figure that people would worship pulled me out of the story. It is an idea that comes up in many of the stories in Books of Blood, and each time I have been bothered by it. I can’t fathom of someone seeing a horrible monster and thinking the best course of action is to pray to it. Especially if that involves being peed on.

Interestingly, that scene was in the film version. I thought sure when I found out there was a movie they’d do something else to show the ‘baptism’ of Declan. And in a way, they did - the scene was shot in such a way that it looked more like Rawhead was . . . er . . . doing something else. I think it was mostly because of the noises the actor was making.

On the subject of the film, holy rusted metal, Batman. I don’t think there was a single scene with Rawhead’s face in it that didn’t make me laugh - he looked like a horse and a dog had a baby and dressed it up like a hell’s angel. The clearly fake rippling torso was just as bad. And they didn’t even try to make him seem bigger than a normal man. There were a few changes to the plot: family man Ron doesn’t save the day, his wife does (the statue is only effective if held by a woman - which actually made more sense than the story ending), and the priest played a much smaller role in the film. The story was thought provoking, but the same cannot be said of the movie.

Breeding Ground

This is what I choose to believe the widows look like

Breeding Ground
by Sarah Pinborough

Like many people, I responded to this book on a visceral, emotional level. Not because I liked the characters (I didn't), or because they were well drawn (they weren't).



This book scared me because I'm scared of spiders.

Parts of this book worked really well for me. The premise is horrifying. The monsters are dreadful. The scenes that the book opens with, where Chloe is transfigured and eventually killed, are deeply disturbing. I think the book raised interesting questions about pregnancy, disease and abortion.

Unfortunately, raising the questions was about as far as it got. Instead of pursuing any of those leads, the author gives us one of the cheesiest attempted explanations for monsters that I think I've ever come across. I can't even begin to wrap my head around how genetic modification of plant crops was meant to eventually connect up with spider monsters. Or the blood of the deaf. Or telepathy. Or abrupt climate change. I would go so far as to say that the explanation of the monsters undermined their terror for me (and considering how I feel about spiders, that's saying a lot). The book went from being a thought experiment about something horrible to being a commercial for whole foods. It was jarring, to say the least. But more than that, it failed utterly to do the monsters justice.

I started the post by mentioning the characters. Ignoring the protagonist for the moment, just about every character is an archtype that can be described in a few words. The wise old man. The petite spunky girl. The creepy businessman. The friendly drunk. The wacky scientist. The withdrawn child. Some of them can best be described as non-descript (Dan. Mike. Jeff. I'll be honest, more than once I lost track who was who). Most of the characters never really rise above the conventions we expect from them. Nigel is consistently whiny and self important. George never loses his temper and always knows what to do.

The narrator was a major issue for me, as a voice and as a character. His responses to the situations he found himself in were immediate, but short-lived. Within days of his wife's death he has the hots for Katie. Within days of her suicide, he moves into bed with Rebecca. Minutes - literally minutes - after fleeing his former home, dead family, and the realization that spider monsters have killed nearly everyone else world wide, he sits down to "fresh coffee and a fry up."  The next line just sums up his whole character for me -  "If there was a morning for spoiling myself, then this was it." That's not just a guy being shallow - that's poor writing.

I've had a lot of negative things to say about this book (and I haven't even started in yet on the end of chapter sixteen, where for some reason the horror novel got mixed up with the penthouse forum). But in spite of these issues there was something about it that made me keep reading. I'm not sure if it was because of my arachnophobia, but I was frightened by these monsters. They were compelling, and the pacing of the novel made me want to finish reading it, in spite of how annoying parts of it became.