The Ruins of Characterization! -- Sarah Pinborough's FEEDING GROUND

To my utter surprise, I recently found out the title of Ms Sarah Pinborough's latest novel: Feeding Ground (2009); and 'let there be light' how I'd love to read yet another Pinborough paperback. Why is that? Haven't I already told you that she's going downhill? Yes, but you see: Feeding Ground is supposed to be, as it were, a sequel to the ultra entertaining second book of hers: Breeding Ground (2006) -- an apocalyptic story about how monster spiders incubate in all women to later feed on all what's remaining... Yes, I assume you got that little gender angle right there too, if you're interested... Anyhow, it's plain entertainment, gore and not-so-fun creepy white arachnids also, and that's all that matters to me.



So, I grabbed Feeding Ground with great anticipation that it would be another tight horror thriller filled with chills and gore galore... But alas, poor Yorrick! Though I have a few chapters left (for a final exploding showdown, dare I hope?) I find that the highly promising composition with a bunch of young drug lords with their prostitutes turning into failed, drug addicted spider junkies has come seriously to a standstill, due to too much dialogue and failed characterization attempts. What was supposed to be an entertaining romp has become quite a bore, in fact, except for an occasional spider attack and a few cocoonings and such. But this is not enough! Get yourself together now Ms Pinborough. Consider what made you such a big time player with your first couple of novels -- The Hidden, Breeding Ground and, why not, The Taken -- and forget about trying to weave complex but forgettable characters in plots that're supposed to be fast paced, horrific and entertaining. Enough said!

This is ONE HELL OF A NEWBORN! -- Bentley Little's THE REVELATION

Late in the year of 2000 I turned my eyes towards a feller by the name of Bentley Little; it was, as usual, in manner the manner of "you want to read similar things by other writers?". And so I got stuck on this guy that, beside computers and modern technology, hates everything to do with religious fanaticism, large-scale corporations, gated communities ... and mailmen!

The book I read (a novel from the latter part of the 90s when, unfortunately, ha started going downhill) was not that great, but it incorporated one of the most nasty, absurd and hilarious horror elements I've ever encountered -- a woman giving birth to a humanoid cactus! Now how can I go wrong from here, I thought, and began persuing every little work of his...

So, a few months later, I got hold of this author's debut: The Revelation (1989). By far, this is not the greatest achievement of this man. However, it's quite a forceful first novel that does not yield at all in the ways of the absurd, macabre and grotesque. The most disturbing scene of the entire book would pehaps be where a demented and geriatric old woman of almost 100 gives birth to a dead and deformed, humanlike creature... To sum it up, though, it's a fast paced read and tells the story of the small town of Randall, California: A strange preacher has come to fight the Devil, as always since the beginning of time, in this very place. He has to have the unfailing help of a few townies whose ancesters fought by his side the last time, ages ago.

The Dark Forces has gathered the lost souls and corpses of all the aborted and miscarried, abandonned and buried fetuses of the town, now and through endless time... And with this army Satan will wreak havoc on earth. The only once able to stop Him from defeating God and mocking the whole Creation is four men with pitchforks, fresh blood and a dried up fetus (you know about Communion, don't you...)

The Revelation is well recommended should you decide to try this Arizona born gentleman on for real. It is quite an easy read and it's basically only focusing on the die hard repulsive and offensive material, and not concerned with the more apparent social commentary that Little later on began to mix with his more or less strange atrocities.

"Here is Denmark, excreted from limestone. There is Sweden, chiselled from granite. Danish scum!" -- Lars von Trier's The Kingdom

Then: Once, right on the spot where the bleachers used to work, they built "Rigshospitalet" (more known as "Kingdom Hospital" to English speakers, I assume...) to the praise and enforcement of knowledge...

Now: For the gazillionth time old Mrs. Drusse has been taken in to the great hospital for observation. But she's not sick; she only wants to get in tune with the spiritual denizens of the old crumbling building... And she has come into contact with the manifestation of a small girl with a restless soul. Thus, the old woman wants the girl to get into the light, so to speak...







The Swedish doctor, Stig Helmer, disinherited surgeon cast away from his own country, has been hired by "Riget" and though he hates all that Denmark stands for the grudgy and cynical Dr. Helmer has to put up with the strange people and their unscientific methods. Above all, he has to cope with that woman accusing him of making her little daughter a vegetable through a failed brain surgery...








The walls of "Riget" are beginning to crumble with the forces of the supernatural. More and more frequently strange things are happening within the hospital and among its staff -- the girl child is roaming the elevator shaft; an ambulance without patients or drivers appears and disappears; there is a peculiar freemason lodge among the executives, and two Down syndrome dishwashers predicting the future; the son of the hospital director cuts of the head of a corpse to impress on a lady colleague he fancies... and many more strange and uncanny events will follow...





Finally, I've started watching Riget and Riget II (aka. The Kingdom: Denmark, 1994; 1997). I have a faint memory of it from my youth, but I wasn't able to follow it through (even less understand it). However, a few years ago a found these "zentropa kollektion"-discs for a bargain at the local videostore (incidentally, the first case with carried the Swedish title Riket while the other stated the original Danish title Riget II; an irregularity that I just have to deal with I suppose...)





Until now I've only watched the first two one hour episodes, but cannot see how it will be hard continuing to follow this series... and finding out, finally, what the fuss was about. I cannot say that I'm familiar and/or a follower of Lars von Triers work, but only to be able to see the acting and genious presens of the enormously talented and uniquely wayward Swedish actor Ernst-Huge Järegård (rest his soul!) is enough for me. For those of you who haven't seen it I more than highly recommend studying his performance on the rooftop of the hospital when he is watching the neighbouring Swedish nuclear power plants (always hated by this time by Danes and especially the Copenhagens), praising Sweden and cursing Denmark: "DANSKJÄVLAR!!!"

Rituals + JBD -- Stuck between a killer and a hard place!

When I finally decided it was to be a memorable movie, I subsequently got hold of the MediaBlasters' edition of the apparently quite disremembered little slasher/survival/wilderness flick Just Before Dawn. Lo and behold, I found it was not just fairly good -- it was great! A masterpiece of excellent directing, good characters and acting, and above all with an extraordinarily beautiful scenery as a contrast to the nastiness that's going on both on and off screen.

So, what did my friend and brother tell me to do then? He told me that what I did was good, but that I had to see another film, too -- "Make haste to see Rituals (1977)!"

And so I did. Not in that a haste, mind you... But now I've seen this piece, also. And found that it was not good, but perhaps as good as Just Before Dawn -- I'll be damned if I know how it happened.

Hail to the King Holbrook! The meanest and toughest upper class doctor between the desert and a hard place.

When you wish...

Something strange happened to me last winter; I started looking up in the sky after sundown. I don't recall exactly what made me raise my gaze towards the dark heavens trying to figure out the gleaming dots out there in space. Naturally, I've always been interested in "astronomy" (or at least some parts of it...) and along with geography (cities and countries, mostly ;-) it was the major passion of my childhood and early youth. Unfortunately, it wasn't considered "cool enough" among my peers to be a "space nerd" in a class cramped with wannabe little scientists that thought the hardcore experiments in Physics class was all there is to know about the movement of their small little existence...

Even then, when I was at the peak of my yearnings for the extra terrestrial worlds, I cannot imagine that I ever really looked up in the sky and tried to figure out the stars or constellations far away, above my eyes. Had I ever asked myself what they were... and why? So one late afternoon, almost a year ago, when I was visiting my mother at the hospital I came to a standstill on the way to my car and just found myself wondering about the strong and lone, white light rising up the darkening blue sky. I wondered: "Is this Sirius or is it Venus?"

Well... Of course the it was Venus, "the Evening Star"... And a month or two later another star, almost as bright went up in the southern part of the sky, when our closest planet neighbour had wandered towards the southwest to shine through the drapes of my children's bedrooms...

Nowadays, I cannot help myself from thinking about stars of all kind, colour and shape. And soon my boys will talk more and more frequently about these stars I've told them about all year. Because, though there are many stars present right now, the greatest and most spectacular of the bright shining objects will appear soon in the dark winter skies in the evening and at night... and not in the early mornings of autumn, as they do now...

The Turn of the ... Haunting!

I first stumbled upon James Herbert in a decrepit and crumbling log cabin of a store. I remember, though aeons ago, because I was looking for books and found a hardcover novel of Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf (of course with the Swedish title Varulvens år). Unfortunately, the King novel cost too much (I thought then and lived to regret it...) and insted I found another book that interested me -- It was a book called Det magiska huset (The Magic Cottage, 1986) and was supposed to be about a young couple who moves into a cottage in the country and stumble upon magic, ghosts, bats, sects ... and a squirrel by the name of Rumbo (I believe it was...)

Later on, in a bookstore, I discovered a softcover novel by the same author, James Herbert; something with the Swedish title Det onda huset (Haunted, 1988). I read it ... and I dug it! So, just recently (meaning: a few years ago...), I got hold of a small hardback of the original edition from Hodder and Stoughton, with a nice dustjacket, to boot. Then, last week, I read it during the short stay with my family at my brother-in-law's. I had forgotten quite a lot, though I knew the main plot and twists: It's about David Ash, working for an agency dealing with paranormal disturbances, a man subconsciously tormented from childhood with the death of his wicked older sister. Despite working with "ghosts" and suchlike, he is a stone cold sceptic who has devoted his entire adult life to debunk frauds, charlatans and finding reasonable and scientific explanations to what appears to be hauntings of different kinds.

This time he is hired by an excentric family to investigate their haunted house... and this time David Ash is about to be the victim of the most malicious, cruelest prank ever played upon a living human being...

I don't want to spoil the sheer entertainment for those who haven't read this one yet and would consider it -- I wholeheartedly recommend it! Haunted is a genuine work of ghosts and hauntings with all the aspects of creeping dread in a true tradition of those old geesers like Henry James, Shirley Jackson ... and so on and so forth...

So, pick this one up at your local store and enjoy, guys and ghouls!

White Trilobites With The Lobster...

I The Wells of Hell (1981) lämnar Masterton för ett ögonblick sina kristna influensen samt den röde mannens magi och tar 1900-talets häxmästare Howard Philip Lovecraft till sitt hjärta för första gången (i bl.a. den utmärkta Prey, långt senare, kommer han att vidareutveckla HPLs mytos på ett utmärkt sätt...). Liksom övrig Masterton-pulp inom denna genre och under denna period så innehåller den samma raffel, humor och enkel men gedigen underhållning byggd på olika sorters myter inom olika kulturer och etniska grupper.

Tillsammans med en misslyckad psykologistudent till rörmåkare får vi följa kampen mot den gamle Cthulhu som spritt sin säd när Atlantis gick under en gång för miljontals år sedan. I modern tid förgiftas en familj av brunsvattnet och börjar förvandlas till gigantiska humrar som har till uppgifta att föda och väcka upp sin uråldrige herre att härska över människornas värld igen...

The Wells of Hell är den sista okulta romanen runt 200 sidor och det känns nu som han nu har kommit igång lite i sin författarkarriär (det här är klart en av de bättre tidigaste romanerna) och snart kommer vara redo för lite större doningar framöver... Vi får väl se...

Ska avsluta den idag... Om jag pallar med fisklukten förstås... ;-D