John Saul (born 1942) is one of my favorite horror authors. His books are numerous and a bit similar to Stephen King works but with one big difference. There are many Saul’s novels that have no happy ending and are pretty bleak and depressive. Also, many of his novels deal with families, children and, how should I put it, ordinary people in ordinary situations that become horror due to some curse or other reason. This time story takes us to little Californian town by the ocean where lives family Conger who were once the richest and most influential family of that time. But, there is a curse on that family which involves suicide, accidental death, eerie family portrait and two daughters who roam at night through the woods and in the ancient cave. Then children start to disappear and something evil lurks around.
Book is divided into three parts, kind of intro, past and present represented in last two or three chapters. This is a slow one, with couple of gory scenes and kind of sad ending, not to spoil it right now. This is not Saul’s best work in my opinion from what I read until now, but it is a decent horror novel. No nudity, a little gore and mainly suspense and mistery. Okay one.
Toilet Rats are hailing from Minnesota and this is their brand new opus. This is a bit different from other bands and projects reviewed on the pages of this webzine. This one offers 10 songs that are basically electro pop with horror lyrics, but also industrial and some horror punk thrown in with gothic for good measure. Vocals are beautiful almost other worldly and fit perfectly to the songs. The melodies are perfect and would be awesome in any horror punk band out there, even better. All of this sounds like a perfect soundtrack to the eighties horror movie, some slasher or creature feature. My personal favorites are Haunted Haus, Carol Kane, Sensory Overload. Good album for some who like it different.
Shudder continues to bring us great horror and thriller movies and I have not seen one bad movie that bears their logo. This one is no exception. This French movie is set in Africa where a trio of mercenaries saved a Mexican drug dealer from military putsch in Guinea Bissau. They travel to remote compound based by Saloum river in Senegal. There they try to recuperate and get gasoline for further escape to Dakar, but things are not what they seem.
Well, this movie is great for three reasons. First, it is filmed beautifully, exteriors are so fantastic, it just looks fantastic. The second are characters which are carefully written and I love the main storyline about mercenaries boss Chaka and his focus on having revenge for the past. Also, the movie touches themes about modern slavery in Africa, child soldiers and child molestation. Third, I love how movies suddenly twists from war torn thriller to Carpenter inspired horror about a group of people trapped in a compound trying to survive and get free being surrounded. The ending is bittersweet, kind of almost poetic but sad in lots of ways. This is a superb movie and possible one of the best Shudder releases that came out this year.
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