Wonderfully Grotesque Family Vacation
596129
One can understand how this film got so many Academy Awards. It is one ginormous mutant road trip movie that is amazing.  Unlike Gibson's films, this lacks soul and one does not form affection for the characters - you just sit back and enjoy the bizarre and spectacular way almost everyone dies.  You can't help but laugh at some of the unbelievable action and what you are seeing on film - I.e., the chained rock guitarist with a huge flamethrower Fender who is caged in the front of one of the Bizarro world vehicles. This movie is definitely heavy metal horror.
439513
If you're looking for a different reading experience, this novel may be the answer.  The setting, an island off the coast of Greece, is beautifully described and that description is transporting.  The characters are equally rounded out with detail that allows easy likability - or dislike.  The plot keeps the pages turning.
What these characters drum up in the heat of a Hydra summer, skirts unbelievability and in no time, we feel the foreboding, the inevitability of evil intent's probable conclusion.  The results, however, are even worse than the reader's imagination could conjure up!  And, that's about all this reviewer is willing to give away.
This a comfortable read writing-wise - Osborne's prose is vivid and sinister at the same time.  And you will be left with thoughts of three characters who must live with what they have wrought - forever.  And, you'll wonder if it is really possible to do that without consequences.
3905754
Add water to a box of five-inch-tall frozen monsters and--as Anthony and Sarah, the sibling protagonists of Bruce Coville's *The Monsters of Morley Manor* discover--surprising things can happen. *Monsters* is full of the creepily appealing: the aforementioned reanimated creatures--including a vampire, a modern-day Medusa, and their lizard-headed brother, Gaspar--the monsters' haunted mansion of a home (complete with laboratory), disembodied grandparents, ill-intentioned, scaly aliens, malicious monkeys, interplanetary travel, magic, and, naturally, a plot to take over the world. The result is a captivating and well-written book, happily lacking the bland prose that one often finds in novels written for this age group: "'I can have a midlife crisis or a midlife monkey,' she [the protagonists' mother] announced on her fortieth birthday. 'I've decided to go for the monkey.'" (Gaspar's speech, often unusually formal--he is older than he looks--is particularly charming: "I must get to a lawyer immediately. They may be a vile species and the curse of humanity, but they're our only hope for the moment.") The Monsters of Morley Manor is a good book to read aloud, and its plot is intricate enough and the story serious enough in parts that it may prompt interesting discussions. Parents and children will both enjoy it.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
3052346
A highly inventive and thoroughly creepy series of loosely connected stories and vignettes set that bring out the terrible evil lurking beneath a seemingly placid and charming western Northampton.  This book is distilled horror, plunging the reader from page one into a world of confounding, skin-crawling evil--all centered around the ghostly transmissions from a mysterious radio stations that seem to emanate from some malevolent, spectral world.

This book isn't for the reader who needs clear plot lines or and explanations.  The narratives are fractured and uncanny, the language poetic and tinged with the must of old forgotten books and the descriptions vivid and horrifying.  Gateways to Abominations takes more chances and has a far bigger payoff than your run-on-the-mill horror novel. If your goal is to while away your time at the beach, stick with Dean Koontz.  But if you want to actually feel your flesh crawl, try this book.
1438158
This novel was a monster of a ride; a revolutionary approach to horror. In the black planet, God is a hideous dictator. He hides in the TV behind a black mask and punishes humans; by kidnapping them on his hell shuttles or launching deadly plagues through iron plague machines. Among all this despair, some people choose to become deadheads zombie-likes. The hero, Charles, will leave behind his deadhead mother and sister in order to look for answers.

With a clockwork and gifted imagination, Autumn Christian seasons her story with all kind of gentle monsters. Shocking scenes were: a saint holding a flame-thrower, a crazy sister hanging knifes from the ceiling all around the house; Jolene, the deadly woman who lives in a swamp or a parade in the honor of a woman who slaugthered her eleven children. This novel will remain in my mind for a long time. I hope to make some room for the rest of Christian's work soon.
1206212
Ah, "The Mummy" on Halloween night! What could be better? My brother and I, now aging boomers, were allowed as children the special treat to stay up on Friday nights to watch Horror Theater (or whatever it was called) and scare ourselves silly. This was in the late '50's. "The Mummy" was a favorite, so when I found this VHS tape in the library, I took it home for Halloween.

After a couple of hours of Trick or Treating, the three children were ready to go home. We put on the movie, expecting magic to revisit. Their grandfather (my brother) and I expected to pass on a tradition. We really thought the nine-year-old boy would delight in the movie. He loves things like this. However, it was too slow for him--he fell asleep soon into the movie, as did the other two children.

That left my brother and me to stroll down Memory Lane with the Mummmy! It wasn't the same story we both remembered. We had the notion of lots of wrappings with the mummy walking all over the place with arms outstretched and killing people. Another reviewer said this wasn't "The Mummy" he saw either. Probably a sequel.

Let's return to the reality of the story. We discovered how faulty our memories are. However, the film did surprise us with what was there.

In the 1920's when the discovery of the Tutankhamun tomb was the rage, three other English archaeologists were certain to make a find. Indeed, they did--an ancient sarcophagus with a box attached: Do not open this coffin upon threat of death. Two are wise enough to discuss it. The third cannot control his eagerness and opens it. In a few minutes the mummy is mysteriously wrought to life, and sidles out the door. The archaeologist witnesses this and goes stark raving insane. A chilling scene. The viewer sees only a piece of wrapping sliding out of sight--the only view we get of a newly awakened corpse. Then the hysterical laughing. Everything is always just out of sight. A suggestion of evil. A suggestion of terror. A scream.

The mummy comes back as an Egyptian attached somehow to the museum. It's Boris Karlof in a dark role. Why no one was not creeped out by his persona is beyond me. Bring in the the son of one of the original three archaeologists and the daughter of the museum director and you have a triangle about to happen. Karlof's mummy/man believes she is the reincarnation of his beloved temple virgin from back in the day. He is determined to take her back and almost succeeds.

Today's filming shows all and then some. Old films like this tell the story with suggestion, little nuances, creating creepy atmosphere and mood. As I watched, I slipped in and out of sleep. In one dream sequence I was in the movie, going down one of the underground passages. Only in my dream I rounded the bend to see what veiwers could hear. Black-clad, wispy creatures were stirring around a walking, stalking mummy. I fell on the rocks, they turned toward me. Of course, I awoke, further creeped out.

A successful movie-- "The Mummy"--even now!
3659786
First published in 1930 and the first in a long series of books featuring the characters, this novel introduces the Walker children, whose mother is renting a home in England's Lake District during the summer holidays (the father is a naval officer and at sea). John, Susan, Titty, and Roger are wild to camp out on their own on a small island across the lake from the rental home, and since they can all swim (Roger is just a beginner) and sail, their father and mother give them permission. When they arrive on the island in their little sailboat Swallow, they find that someone has camped there previously and they re-use the fireplace the campers have made. They haven't been there long when they meet the previous campers: two tomboyish girls, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, who crew a small sailboat named Amazon and who love playing pirates.

This is one of those wonderful kids' adventures where the children are virtually unsupervised (their mother keeps tabs on them by hearing from the farmer's wife who provides them with milk and other goodies each morning) and just live fancy and free on their own. Once they meet the crew of the Amazon, they engage in a pretend "war" with them to determine which group will have the flagship, and commiserate with the girls about their usually fun uncle, whose writing project has left him ignoring the twountil his houseboat is robbed and they are accused.

Modern parents would be aghast at leaving kids 7 through 14 on an island alone, but both the Walkers and the Blacketts have been taught to be self-reliant and responsible, so they can have fun without all those bothersome adults around, just like when I was a kid. The kids swim, sail, row, hike, and then eat lots of fresh food and homemade treats. Yeah, the sailing terminology sometimes is a little deep, but Ransome explains it well enough that you can figure out what the kids are doing. Just enough mystery and adventure without putting the kids in danger. For a nostalgic look back at kids' vacations in 1929, this one can't be beat.
3910338
What a lovely read for summer vacations.  If you've ever wondered about relocating to another country with your family, this is a great way to experience the adventure and the upheaval.  It's funny, tender and very real all at the same time.  I really enjoyed this.  Good twists and really makes you think about what we value in life.
2321416
I am a fan of the Sisters of Slaughter, and had a great time reading these two short stories, as I knew I would. The redoubtable team of Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason have a knack for conjuring up interesting, down-on-their-luck characters who are suddenly confronted with extreme horror, giving them an appreciation that maybe their previous life wasn't so bad after all. While their stories are intense and horrifying, I often detect a sly wink of humor lurking just behind the action. I remember a Gary Larson Far Side comic depicting an airplane traveler heaving a sigh of relief that a monstrous looking co-traveler has passed by the vacant seat beside him, heading for the rear of the airplane. What he doesn't see is a larger, doubly monstrous co-traveler coming up the aisle behind the first one. It is just this kind of "well, you think you have it bad now? We'll show you!" suggestiveness in the tales of the Sisters of Slaughter that I find delectable.

The story loaded into the first barrel is "Just a Few". A junkie tries to convince police that during a residential break in to steal some percocet tablets he saw a hideous monster roaming through the home of an 80-year old church deacon and his wife. The excitement starts when he convinces the police to investigate. The second barrel is loaded with "Tenant Rights". Down on her luck newly divorced Sharon can't get any sleep in the low-rent Arizona house that she has leased from a slum lord. The lights and air conditioner keep malfunctioning, something keeps making scratching sounds in the ceiling, and she is getting covered by bites from vermin. She has put in 15 calls to her "lazy fat-ass" landlord Neal to no avail. She finally gets a call back from the repentant Neal, who offers to break the lease. Unfortunately for Sharon, while Neal is explaining to her the  horrors of the house that he somehow forgot to reveal to her before she put down her money, Sharon is experiencing those very horrors in person.

This book is highly recommended to readers looking for an hour or so of extreme horror and fun.
2111082
Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy teams up with his wife, the illustrator Carson Ellis, in this sequel to their popular fantasy WILDWOOD, set in a Portland, Oregon that's only partly recognizable.

Ever since her previous adventures in the area known as the Impassable Wilderness on maps and as Wildwood to its inhabitants, seventh-grader Prue McKeel has been out of sorts. Her grades have plunged, her relationship with her parents has deteriorated, and she has a disturbing tendency to black out. What's more, she seems to have developed the ability to hear plants' thoughts and feelings.

There's only one person with whom Prue could discuss all of this: her friend Curtis, who is still back in Wildwood, undergoing a rigorous training program to become a bandit. When Prue confides in her mysterious (and disturbingly friendly) teacher instead, her revelations have unexpected and dangerous consequences. Fortunately, Curtis and his rat, Septimus (mounted on the backs of a talking heron), rescue Prue just in the nick of time and return her to Wildwood, where she's soon swept up in a quest that will take the fearless adventurers into the bizarre, mole-inhabited environs below Wildwood. After all, as one character says, "'You have to go under to get above.'"

Meanwhile, back in the "real" Portland, Curtis's parents are distraught over their son's disappearance. When they receive word that he might be overseas, they deposit Curtis's sisters Rachel and Elsie at the local orphanage, The Joffrey Unthank Home for Wayward Youth (and Industrial Machine Parts). Despite the orphanage's truly creepy atmosphere, Rachel and Elsie's parents are determined to leave the girls there, and soon the sisters are involved in a quest of their own --- how to escape from the frustrated industrialist Joffrey Unthank and the washed-up Ukrainian B-movie actress Desdemona, who run the place with an iron fist while secretly trying (and pretty much failing) to further their own aspirations.

Much like its predecessor, UNDER WILDWOOD is full of whimsical and charming details, both in its text and in its delightfully drawn illustrations. It also strikes the right balance between fantasy and humor --- the character of Septimus, in particular, can almost always be counted on for a laugh. Consistently shifting viewpoints and vistas help move the story along despite its 500+ pages. If the pace lags, it's primarily when the story segues into discussions of bureaucracy or political minutiae, all of which seem at times more relevant to the adult world than to that of the child reader. That being said, the Wildwood Chronicles remain as captivating and imaginative as ever, and readers of all ages will enjoy the return journey to --- and under --- Wildwood.

Reviewed by Norah Piehl
3817614
Welcome to Hostel, where cute, nave American backpackers are gruesomely tortured and killed...at least the girls are gorgeous.

When released, Hostel was characterised by the press - at least in Australia - as little more than a cheap gore-fest. It isn't. Much like another recent release which I have reviewed, Wolf Creek, Hostel is a deeply disturbing and hyper-realistic horror film. Such films, even among the dross which has dominated the genre in recent years, have convinced this horror fan that the form is experiencing a renaissance in quality.

The story sees a pair of endearingly boorish young yanks, with that uniquely adolescent mixture of bravado, awkwardness and limitless sexual appetite, let loose in Amsterdam with their recently-acquired Icelandic companion. While he and the hotter of our two Americans, played by an impeccably cast Jay Hernandez, enjoy what is on offer, the more sympathetic lead has reservations, his horniness tempered by yearnings for his ex and, just maybe, the slightest of moral objections.

But even he cannot resist the promise of carnal delights lying farther to the east, in a ridiculously opulent hostel in small-town Slovakia, no less. There, the boys bed some beautiful women, who are admirably unrestrained in their exhibitionism, the Icelander disappears, and Hostel swings itself - and its chainsaw, scalpel and other implements of torture - into gear. And it doesn't slow down.

Whilst the set-up is a variant of the "kids wandering into places they shouldn't" horror clich, it is a certainly a sophisticated one, full of thematic possibilities. Director Eli Roth (who previously directed the iffy Cabin Fever) sensibly leaves these themes to their own devices, concentrating on the chilling narrative and visuals which are almost universally incredible.

The only real gripe I have about the film is the somewhat over-the-top decrepitude, darkness and dirt which characterises the sets used in the torture "money scenes". This is becoming a trend, films such as Saw suffer the same evocative extravagance. Less can be more, the backdrops should support the impact of the terrible deeds done within them, not overwhelm it.

Another genre offering not for the faint-hearted, horror fans should definitely buy this DVD for their collection, but, then again, they probably already have!
2765093
Ahhhhh...the lovely Demarko Family funtime hour....includes some child abuse, spouse abuse, rape, incest, weird special effects, and an insane priest....and you got one heck of a campy, crazy ride.
3630634
I loved this book!  I think AK Turner has developed a fantastic series in her Vagabonding with Kids chronicles.  The books are not formulaic in their writing.  There isn't a rote exposition chapter at the beginning reiterating her family's way of life, how they afford their travel through house swaps and her husband's  telecommuting job.  These details emerge naturally in the first few chapters.  The girls, Turner's daughters, in this book are written about by an adoring mama, but she remains objective about them--they whine like all kids, want candy at odd times, love toy stores, etc.  They're lovely but not perfect angels.  The description of the travel is glorious. I am not outdoorsy  myself, but she makes Alaska, and the areas passed through on the Turners' road trip, sounds so enticing with her descriptions of the land, coast, wildlife and forests.  All told, I must recommend this book to parents, travelers, either actual or armchair, Alaskans, and everyone else in between!
4450039
Monica Bhide's  A Life of Spice is an engaging trip through places as dissimilar as Bahrain, India and Virginia with a wonderful, interesting family.  It's also full of unusual tips and enthusiasm for cooking, as well as life, in general.  I once met Monica briefly, as she lives close to my oldest nephew in VA, but the family member I remember so fondly was her oldest son at about 5 years of age.  I was taking care of my great niece for some weeks some years ago.  Now and then Bhide's son wanted to show me some plant or animal he had found in the woods around his home.  I remember his self-assurance and enthusiasm for life.  That's what you will take away from this book.  Cooking leads you in all sorts of interesting directions and it can be a lot of fun.
1024646
I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review of this book. As always, here it is:

This is one of the better books Ive had the pleasure of reading before publication. The tone of the book reminds me (maybe you will not feel this way, but I certainly felt it!) of Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. Told in first person, with elegant touches of descriptive mood.

Taking the reader from Alaska to Brazil to the Alps, the scenery is written so well you feel you are actually there. There are scenes where the  reader may not want to be but cant take their eyes off the page.

The third twin concept is jaw dropping (and yes, I know Ken Follett wrote a book of the same name). The protagonist has a set, one of whom died at childbirth, one who died later, and the surviving one, who goes to Brazil with her father, who is a free-lance travel writer. When the second of the twins dies, as so often happens at the death of a child, the marriage likewise died.

Brazil did not go well. Upon returning home, his daughter suffers a tragedy. In an attempt to discover why it happened, the father to the Alps, to take a backpacking trip with two others who know the third twin phenomena, ultimately discovering the last member of the group, a photographer, also knows.

As I said, the descriptive scenes in each of the countries is amazing. As the mood darkens, the descriptive scenes also darken, and you can picture yourself there. As the horror grows, the mood does not change: you are still there. And the horror does grow. Unexpectedly. Dragging you along, even though you cannot tell until you are there that you are headed to disaster.

I hope to continue to read Mr. Speegle's books. I don't say that about a lot of writers -- by name, I mean -- but in this case, I make exception. His writing is tight, descriptive (I've said this word a lot in this review, for good reason!), and seamless.
2516816
For something a little less gritty, check out this clever, often side-splittingly funny romp.  You think your family is dysfunctional?  Check out the Posts, who take a vacation with their adult children and gay friends to the island of Mallorca, Spain.  There is lust and fighting aplenty, yet somehow Straub manages to make every one of her characters likeableplus, she has some extremely wise, tender  observations about love, family, and friendships to share along the way.
2811424
This novel tells the story of a dysfunctional Canadian clan that finds itself in Florida in 2001 to watch its only overachieving member take off as a member of the space shuttle crew. It's possible that one has never met a family quite as dysfunctional as the Drummonds. Their promblems include AIDS, liver cancer, suicidal depression, thalidomide-caused birth defects, baby-selling, adultery, illegal prescription drugs, just to name a few. You wouldnt' think that a book about this much tragedy is funny, but indeed it is. In fact, this book is very funny indeed. It's nearly impossible to explain the plot without spoilers, so suffice it to say that the novel jumps back and forth between the family's past and present, showing that they've always had issues. This is a great book for when you need something laugh-out-loud funny. Coupland has a tremendous gift for the bizarre and absurd. When you're done, you won't think your life is quite so strange after all.