Category: Review

Valhalla Online by Kevin McLaughlin

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

I could have sworn this isn’t the first entry in the LitRPG genre I’d reviewed, but I’m damned if I can find the previous one. So, just to be safe, I’m going to explain what LitRPG is: apologies if this is unnecessary! Basically, it takes the structure of role-playing games (RPGs) – things like character levels, ability scores, etc – and applies them onto a story structure. Obviously, the overlap between RPGs and books has been a long one: Dungeons & Dragons is heavily influenced by the work of Tolkein. But it has been mostly one-way traffic. The LitRPG genre sends things back the other way, producing novels that adopt the practices of the games.

Quite how this is managed, is up to the author. Here, the heroine is Samantha, a military police officer who wakes to find herself part of Valhalla Online. This is a fantasy-based online RPG, which was intended to act as a virtual repository for the personalities of the deceased, granting them eternal life. Which comes as a shock to Sam, because she never signed up for this very expensive process. However, for good reason, the “virtual dead” are extremely limited in their ability to communicate with the outside world. Only those who complete the entire game are allowed to do so. This means Sam will first have to figure out how to rack up a high score, in order to begin finding out how she got here and what’s going on. Her army training might help. But even West Point didn’t prepare her for dealing with magic spells and storming castles.

It’s a quick and light read, one which contains few surprises at all. We don’t learn much about Sam’s life before Valhalla Online, and I’m not even sure we even discover what she looked like in the real world. All we’re told is that in-game, “Her hair seemed to be about the same color. Her skin tone looked familiar to her.” The cover tells you more than the entire novel. It would probably help to be loosely familiar with at least the concept of RPGs, though McLaughlin does a decent job of explaining the game mechanics, without getting bogged down in it.

The main issue is that death literally has no sting here. If Sam suffers a mortal wound, she just gets sent back to a set location. She may lose some of her equipment, and suffer a bit of psychic shock, but that’s about it, despite the author’s efforts to put over some mental trauma. It’s accurate enough as a computer game goes, but shows that what works there doesn’t necessarily transfer to other media. This lacking of a sense of mortality may partly be why Roger Ebert said in 2010 that computer games can never be art. But that aside, this keeps moving forward at a brisk pace, and for obvious reasons, the reader learns about Valhalla alongside Sam, which makes for a smoothly entertaining experience. It’s more or less standard hack and slash, though towards the end, she subverts things nicely by recruiting a pack of enemy kobolds (think: mini-orcs) to her side. Pretty sure that wasn’t in the tutorial…

The ending is little more than a save point, though it does come after a neat bit of loot sniping. Again, the lack of mortality applies as much to Sam’s enemies as to her; there’s little sense of triumph when the villain will simply re-spawn tomorrow. I finished the first volume having been pleasantly entertained, just not much more. I feel I probably don’t need to buy the remaining entries, because I suspect I can largely figure out how things are going to progress in them. There’s just not enough replay value to be found here.

Author: Kevin McLaughlin
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Valhalla Online series.

Crazy Mama

  By

★★½
“What’s the good of being an outlaw if you look like an in-law?”

This upper-tier B-movie, produced by Julie Corman, is notable for a handful of reasons. It includes not one but two Oscar winners. Director Demme would go on to receive one for Silence of the Lambs, and star Leachman had already won for her performance in The Last Picture Show. There’s also a small role here for Sally Kirkland, who’d be nominated for an Academy Award down the road. And perhaps most trivia-worthy are the presences in uncredited roles, of Bill Paxton and Dennis Quaid – both making their screen debuts.

It begins in the Great Depression, with mother and young daughter Shelba and Melba Stokes losing their man and the Arkansas farm. They head out West to California in search of their fortune. Fast-forward to 1957, according to the poster. Although it would appear to be a somewhat loose version, as far as historical accuracy goes, given the presence of Vertigo on a cinema marquee (not released until May 1958), or the repeated presence on the soundtrack of Money (That’s What I Want) – a song which came out in August 1959! Shelba (Sothern) and Melba (Leachman) now run a hair-salon, but they’re evicted from that too, after not keeping up on the rent. Shelba leads the family, now including Melba’s daugter Cheryl (Purl), on a cross-country road trip and crime spree, to raise the funds to buy the farm back. They progress from gas station hold-up to bank robbery and fake kidnapping.

Along the way, the gang expands to include various odd-ball characters, including a biker (played by Leachman’s real life son), a Texas mayor and an octogenarian biddy, and the law takes an increasing interest in their exploits. It’s almost relentlessly light in tone, though does take a darker tone towards the end, when one member dies in a fiery attempt to break through a police road-block. It ends in Shelba getting her wish, to confront the man who foreclosed on their farm a quarter-century previously, with the property now a country club. Though the results hardly seems worth the effort, and I was expecting a better resolution overall – the film basically ends as it began.

If a slight cinematic confection, it’s one whose period atmosphere had likely been enhanced by the passage of time. At the point of its release in the mid-seventies, the setting would be relatively recent, less than a generation in the past. Now, it all seems like another world – one curiously devoid of black people… Still, on the positive side, seeing things like fifties Las Vegas or the Wigwam Motel chain (a couple of branches of which still operate) is certainly a kick, and the soundtrack provides a cool selection of tracks from that time. There’s just not much on which to hang your hat, in the way of character or story development. Outside of one tasselled Vegas dancer and the road-block mentioned above, it’s not even pleasantly exploitative in the fields of sex and violence.

Dir: Jonathan Demme
Star: Cloris Leachman, Ann Sothern, Linda Purl, Jim Backus

Jessi’s Girls

  By

★★★★
“And not a Rick Springfield in sight.”

It’s about the year 1880, and Jessica Hartwell (Currie) is heading out West in a wagon with her preacher husband. They encounter the gang of Frank Brock (Frank); they repeatedly rape Jessica, before shooting her husband fatally, and leaving her for dead. She survives, returning to health with the help of prospector Rufe, who sports an unfortunate, obviously fake beard, yet also teaches the young woman how to shoot. For Jessi has vengeance on her mind, and to assist her in this path, she liberates three other women from the custody of Sheriff Clay (Lund). There’s outlaw Rachel (Jennifer Bishop); saloon girl Claire (Regina Carrol); and Indian Kana (the not-exactly Indian Stern), who had been a part of Frank’s gang until he abandoned her.

While director Adamson was best known for his horror films, some of his work has been covered here before: The Female Bunch and I Spit on Your Corpse! This is his best entry yet, which is straightforward, short on pretension and all the better for it. It certainly doesn’t hang around; we’re barely a few minutes in before the reason for revenge is under way, and it’s not easy viewing. It sits particularly uncomfortably, since just a few minutes earlier, the audience was enjoying the sight of the lead actress (also seen in Mama’s Dirty Girls) skinny-dipping. For the film doesn’t forget the sex in exploitation. Jessi is surprisingly quick to forget her late husband and bed the Sheriff, with most of the other female cast similarly disrobing at some point.

On the other hand, there are occasionally surprising elements, such as Tana’s refusal to help a wounded Apache; often, films lump all native Americans together, forgetting that tribes were sometimes disparate groups, who hated each other. It’s a decision which causes conflict – of the muddy, cat-fight kind – between her and Claire, a diversion on the otherwise fairly straight arrow journey towards the expected and likely inevitable confrontation with Brock. This, along with other forms of more brutal attrition, do mean that by the time Jessica arrives at her target’s hideout, the film’s title is no longer accurate. Indeed, Jessi is back to ploughing an almost solitary furrow on her mission, made all the more hazardous by Frank knowing she’s on her way.

The supporting actresses are not exactly given more than simple sketches, yet manage to make them feel like actual people. The focus is firmly on Jessica, and I liked Currie in the role, with her managing to portray both a vulnerable side and a steely determination that will not be swayed from her intended path of retribution. Her coolest moment is probably at the end, lighting sticks of dynamite off her cheroot and tossing them to great effect. Admittedly, when it comes to the finale, Brock and his men tend to demonstrate all the shooting skills of Imperial Stormtroopers, and you wonder how they ever managed to rob anyone. A great ending though, with a twist I did not see coming, providing the icing on the cake of a unexpectedly pleasant surprise.

Dir: Al Adamson
Star: Sondra Currie, Ellyn Stern, Geoffrey Land, Ben Frank

Burst Angel

  By

★★★
“Jo…just Jo. Forget about the rest!”

A couple of years ago when I wanted to rekindle my interest in anime, I stumbled over this series. Having been spoiled by the high quality of the GWG-anime Black Lagoon, I watched a couple of episodes of Burst Angel online, then left it and later couldn’t find it anymore. But also I didn’t bother, as the Youtube reviews I found painted a very dismal picture. According to one reviewer the series would later become stale, and always repeat the plot twist of the character of Meg being kidnapped and rescued by action girl Jo. Another – female – reviewer complained about the characters being sexually fetishized and getting bigger breasts in the inevitable “beach episode” (a standard in anime series which always gives a reason for some good-natured laughter).

Flash forward to today when – after having consumed around 40-50 more anime shows – I rediscovered the show on the German amazon.prime. I have now seen the entire 24 episode run and can definitely revise my ill-informed opinion.

The story so far. Time: The future. Young student and upcoming cook Kyohei (Ueda) starts a new job, becoming cook to four girls of different ages. They all live in a very comfortable and large-sized  mega-mobile home and also command a giant mecha. Financed by the mysterious organization “Bailan”, the four are always getting into action, after they get a (paid?) mission to fight monsters, giant robots or other strange creatures that suddenly appear.

Usually that means that tough grey-haired red-eyed Jo (Watanabe) gets into the mecha-armour and beats the opponent, until it stops moving. Who is behind these action usually stays unresolved. The other girls are Amy, a very young computer nerd; useless but obviously absolutely possessive Megan; and the older, leader of the team, Chinese girl Sei. Named after the characters in Little Woman (no, really!), they all assist and support Jo. And of course there’s Kyohei who is… just there. Which is strange, as it seemed in the beginning, he would be the main character – or that the story would at least be told from his perspective. But the series quickly all but forgets about him.

But to be honest, most of the characters don’t serve much purpose. The action usually centers almost all around Jo. Jo is a tough cooky from the street. As told in a short manga series, she and Megan originally formed a duo that would take on any job, before they formed a team with the other two girls. As a matter of fact, one episode even depicts how Jo meets Meg and her gang for the first time. Strangely, Meg appears in this episode much more grown-up and tougher than the rather infantile cry-baby she is depicted as, throughout most of the series.

The series is certainly not so uninspired or repetitive as one of the Youtube reviewers claimed it would be. It tells a range of stores stories, and also brings new elements into its narrative over its course. Every girl gets an episode where she can shine. So we see young Amy fight against robots in the Cyberworld, or Sei being confronted with a renegade faction within Bailan who wants to take over the organization by getting in possession of a powerful seal.

But the most interesting character is naturally the super-cool, calm Jo. Originally, my interest in the series grew because I thought she would be similar to Revy from “Black Lagoon”. Well, that might be a bit toi much of a compliment. While Revy is a three-dimensional character, Jo appears one-dimensional, almost a cliche, in comparison. The series gets its act together in the last few episodes when we discover Jo is one of two survivors from a biological weapon program run by an evil organization, who lost her memory. The show ends with her having to win her final fight, against the other, superior combatant spawned by the program.

This means lots of tears for Meg, as she clearly has to grow up now! ;-) In any way, while the series had a clear (and satisfying) ending, I amn’t so sure that things are quite as they seem, or that the dissolved team will never come together again. Though I hope the friendly Kyohei – whom I really wanted to see get a girl-friend – will find a better, or at least, more peaceful workplace in the future!

My personal judgement: Burst Angel is a good, solid and entertaining girls with guns show. There might be some improvements that could/should have been made but overall it’s good entertainment. Yes: stupid, sometimes downright silly Meg gets kidnapped more than once, though it didn’t bother me too much, and it’s not as apparent as you might think. I have much more an issue with the general uselessness of the character, though even she had an arc where she could do something, going undercover in a girl’s boarding school.

Concerning “sexually fetishization”… yeah, right. This is an anime show, what do you expect? But honestly, in comparison to other series – now I’ve got the experience to make a balanced judgement – the teasing is very limited. You want sexually fetishization? Watch “High School of the Dead” and then come back to the discussion. I’ve no problems with that, at least not in Burst Angel. You also don’t complain about Superman having a large chest or Batman wearing black latex and leather, do you?

Overall: A good show, though in the genre segment covering science fiction/fantasy action girls with guns, there are better shows with more developed characters. But as I said: I had a lot of mindless fun.

Dir: Koichi Ohata
Star: Akeno Watanabe, Megumi Toyoguchi, Rie Tanaka, Yūji Ueda 

The Sun At Midnight

  By

★★★½
“Nothing here but mosquitoes and bear shit.”

While certainly more relaxed that many of the films we cover here, this makes it in on the strength of its heroine’s character arc. That belongs to Lia (Jacobs), a teenage girl in the Northwest Territories of Canada, who is being raised by her father. When he has to go off for work, she gets sent north of the Arctic Circle to live with her grandmother (Jerome) for the nightless summer. She hates the rural life, and runs away, stealing a boat in the hope of reaching Dawson City, the nearest big town – not realizing it would be four weeks journey. She falls overboard after her boat breaks down, and is lucky to be rescued by Alfred (Howard), a hunter from the local Gwich’in tribe. As they cross the remote wilderness, she begins to appreciate it, bonding with the thoroughly down-to-earth Alfred and learning from him – wolves hate the smell of tobacco, apparently. But when an accident befalls her guide, Lia is going to have to dig into her own resources.

I’m about as much of a city mouse at Lia, whose initial opinion of the countryside is largely summed up by her line at the top. Early on, she just seems like another annoying teenager, whose attitude sits permanently between surly and self-obsessed. Admittedly, it doesn’t help that the locals don’t take to her, and she’s the subject of bullying by them, but until she meets up with Alfred, she’s not very likeable. To her credit, Lia is prepared to learn from someone who has forgotten more about the wilderness than we’ll ever know. As she grows to embrace the untamed landscape (and her hair returns to a more natural shade!), so does the viewer. Alfred clearly doesn’t stand for her city-slicker ways, yet generally disarms them with patience rather than anger, though his dispatch of an injured animal reminds us that nature can sometimes be brutal. They also bond through the shared experience of losing someone close to them – his wife and her mother respectively.

It has to be said, the drama which eventually appears toward the end is rather lacking on the dramatic front. Initially, it appears it will involve Lia in a race against time, to bring help to Alfred. However, that’s never fulfilled and it’s almost as if the director got bored of the idea and decided not to bother, instead looking around for a way to close things out in the least exciting way she could find. Similarly, Lia’s encounter with some less-friendly hunters feels an obligatory incident, unnecessary to proceedings. And, yet… It doesn’t particularly matter, in terms of my enjoyment. This is one of those movies which is considerably more about the journey than the destination, as well as (at the risk of sounding trite) the people you meet along the way. It’s undeniably low-key and understated, yet if you are in the right mood, it hits the spot, particular in its dialogue, which fits those delivering it perfectly.

Dir: Kirsten Carthew
Star: Devery Jacobs, Duane Howard, Sarah Jerome

Scarlett

  By

★★½
“Better red than dead.”

I was looking forward to this one quite a bit. Lyde is no stranger to these pages, having a track record of low-budget action heroines to his name: Survivor, 626 Evolution and a couple of entries in the Mythica franchise, including the best of them, Mythica: The Iron Crown. The star here, Melanie Stone, was also a big part of Mythica, where she played Marek the necromancer, so I was excited to see what their reunion might bring. And… s’okay, I suppose. In particular, you will need to be in a very forgiving mood as far as the plot goes. The heroine is Scarlett (Stone), a nursing student at odds with her father, Cal (Krause), a single parent who keeps her on a tight leash and has trained Scarlett in all manner of unusual skills, from martial arts to pursuit evasion. For we know, and Scarlett doesn’t, that her father is a globetrotting spy, who is concerned his pigeons might come home to roost one day.

Turns out, he’s right to worry, and he is kidnapped by people who want a bioweapon he is holding, so they can sell it to the highest bidder. Scarlett has to turn her skills to practical use, locate the people who abducted her father and release him. Except, her first attempt instead frees Sean (McConnell), an associate of her father who had also been kidnapped by the bad guys. Somewhat reluctantly, he teams up with Scarlett as her investigation brings her ever closer to a face-off where she’ll exchange her father for the vial of bio-nastiness. One of the numerous problems with the story is, the twist in the second half is blatantly obvious. I’m usually easy to fool, but spotted it quickly. Even worse, Chris wandered in about half-way and within five minutes, had also nailed it. That Scarlett was apparently oblivious, doesn’t quite jibe with her supposedly razor-sharp abilities, that let her easily out-think and out-fight the professionals the rest of the time.

Stone is not bad, clearly doing a lot of her own action, to decent effect; even simple things like a foot-chase, which sees her leaping fences in a way which would have many actresses calling for a stunt double. However, it feels as if she takes a back seat to her father as things proceed. While Krause is actually surprisingly good, he’s no Scott Adkins – and to be honest, we’re not here for him, but the action promised by the sleeve, which puts Scarlett front and centre. I think this might have worked better had they been a fully-functional and active father-daughter partnership before his abduction (the end vaguely hints at that as a possible future direction). As is, the repeated flashbacks needed to cover her training makes for a bit of an awkward structure, not adding much to  proceedings.  The film is a good idea, and the low-budget is well enough disguised not to be a problem. The script, however, is well below par, and ends up taking the whole endeavour down with it.

Dir: John Lyde
Star: Melanie Stone, Brian Krause, David McConnell

Strider

  By

★★★½
“The loneliness of the long-distance runner.”

This is certainly a borderline entry for the site, in terms of “action”. There’s running. Lots of running, through the very scenic, beautifully photographed New England countryside. And that’s about it. if you’re expecting fisticuffs, gun-play or mayhem… look elsewhere. That, I must stress, doesn’t make this a bad film. Admittedly, it falls close to Generic Sports Movie 1.0.1. Teenager Jody Sue Brightwell (Friedman) is spotted by a “between jobs” track coach, Hannah Dalton (Alexander). as Jody Sue runs on the road, largely to escape the problems of her everyday life – such as an absent mother and her two, hell-spawned younger brothers. Hannah sees raw talent and agrees to take her on, with the goal of getting her ready for the Pinnacle Games, where a good performance could open the doorway to a professional career.

Of course, between here and there, various problems get in the way.  The doubts of her father (Lewis), who knows Jody Sue’s past history of giving up. The approach of Hannah to training, which gives no quarter to anyone’s feelings. Jody Sue’s new boyfriend, Tim (Schneider), who wants to support her, yet ends up being a potentially fatal distraction to her chances. Really, there are only two ways this can go at the end. Jody Sue can triumph in the Big Race, or not, and both are almost inescapably cliched. Either way, along the road (literally, in this case), relationships will be tested, lessons learned, and limits tested. If you’re looking for anything groundbreaking in the story… again, look elsewhere.

But this is absolutely one of those cases where the journey is more important than the destination. Crucially, the characters here all feel incredibly genuine. Thanks to both a solid script and performances that are all good or better, they speak and behave in ways which make them feel real. They’re all – well, with the exception of the Hell-spawn – nice folk, trying to do the best they can. There are no villains here, and while that does limit the scope for dramatic conflict, it makes for an engaging experience. These are people with whom it’s a pleasure to spend time, and that’s perhaps rarer than you’d think in cinema. Despite occasionally awkward gaps in the narrative – why, exactly, is Hannah apparently unemployable? – you should find yourself caring about them as events unfold.

Helping matters, the technical aspects are excellent. The film looks incredibly crisp, as mentioned above, with some great aerial photography work, and the soundtrack does a very good job of enhancing the overall experience. Finally, I actually watched the second half of this while getting in my daily miles on the elliptical in the living-room. It seemed appropriate to be running, while watching a film about running, right? But for whatever reason, I ended up cracking through more calories than I had for several months. I guess this can truly be considered an inspirational movie…

Dir: Mark Lewis
Star: Yelena Friedman, Maggie Alexander, Scott Lewis, Josiah Schneider
[The film is currently available on Amazon Prime]

Exit Strategy, by Kelley Armstrong

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Canadian author Kelley Armstrong is best known as a bestselling writer of urban fantasy. Her Nadia Stafford trilogy was her first foray into the mystery/crime fiction genre. Having already read the sequel novellas that conclude the series, I really want to read the original trilogy. This first volume didn’t disappoint!

After a short, grim prologue in third person, Chapter 1 introduces us to series protagonist Nadia, who’ll be our first person narrator for the bulk of the novel. (The parts from other viewpoints are in third person.) Now 32 years old (so, though the books were written from 2007-2017, the story arc of the series actually covers just three years in her life), she owns and operates a guest lodge in the northern forests of her native Canada. Raised in a family of cops, she’s always had a strong compulsion to serve justice and protect the innocent, which deepened and became more driven after the death of her much-loved cousin, who was murdered when the girls were in their teens. (Nadia still blames herself for not keeping Amy safe.) When she followed in her family footsteps by joining the force, that compulsion had to be tempered by laws and procedures protecting suspects and requiring due process, that exist for a good reason. In her early 20s, there came a triggering incident where her reaction couldn’t be tempered, and boiled over in an act of vigilantism that cost her her badge. Investing in her lodge was a way of rebuilding her life. But she’s fortunate in employing a married couple who can manage the place at times if she has to be away for awhile; because she has an un-advertised side occupation.

The lodge barely breaks even, and six years ago was on the verge of bankruptcy. A regular guest was aware of her financial troubles, and of her history. He happened to be a high-ranking member of New York City’s Tomassini Mafia family. His family aren’t philanthropists, and don’t have much in the way of ethical values –but he could respect hers, and understand something of her mindset. Occasionally, the Tomassini’s interests call for the elimination of some genuinely bad person, who really is a threat to the innocent; and at those times, they’re willing to pay top dollar to someone who can accomplish their purpose capably, without getting caught. So, he had a business proposition for her; and when she accepted it, she saved her lodge.

But she also crossed a line that put her permanently on the wrong side of the law, precluded much possibility for normal close human relationships, and set her on a dark and morally problematic path. She doesn’t relish killing in itself, even of the deserving and dangerous, and is painfully aware that a regular diet of it is troubling and unhealthy. But it does allow her, in some sense, to fulfill her inner compulsion, and it’s become an inescapable part of the person that she is, which she shoulders responsibility for. Her narrative voice looks at herself honestly and self-critically, but without apology. So if you, the reader, are going to be friends with her, you’ll have to look her in the eye and decide whether you can accept her as is. (Obviously I can, since I’m a series fan.)

Early on here, she gets a visit from her taciturn older acquaintance Jack. She’s gotten to know him some (though that’s not easy) in the last few years, since he first showed up at the lodge and let her know that he’s also in her illegal line of work. He’s been back sometimes since, and become a bit of a mentor, with professional advice that she’s found useful. Now, he’s bringing news of the Helter Skelter Killer who’s been terrorizing the U.S. (she’s heard of the case, but deliberately refused to immerse herself in the details). Over a period of nine days in October, across several states, four very diverse people have been murdered, in different localities and all by different means; the only unifying factor is a page torn out of the book Helter Skelter and left beside each of the victims. The chilling twist, though, is that law enforcement officials believe the perp is actually a professional killer, who’s gone rogue and is now dropping random bodies. This has produced an unusual spotlight of police attention on the very small world of long-term hitmen/women, resulting in a couple of arrests, much inconvenience, and a general climate that’s very bad for business.

By nature and necessity, the denizens of this circle are not a gregarious and chummy bunch; but to the extent that they do share information and opinions, their general consensus is that this wacko needs to be identified and stopped, NOW. Jack wants to know if Nadia’s willing to bring her cop skills to the table and partner with him in this hunt. She’s not too keen about coming out from behind her curtain of anonymity, even just among other assassins; and while talking to Jack sometimes at her lodge is one thing, she’s got some trust issues about going off to the States with him and working together. But …the precious lives of more potential victims that this killer might take are at stake, and Nadia is Nadia. Having gotten to know her by reading the novellas, I wouldn’t have been surprised by her answer even if I hadn’t read the cover blurb of the book. :-) So, as Sherlock Holmes might have said, the game is afoot!

As a rule, I don’t care for the idea of serial-killer fiction, and mostly avoid it (the one other exception being Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders). I’m also not usually a particular fan of romantic triangles, despite my liking for the Twilight Saga, and we get something of that vibe here. (Having read the later books, I already knew how that would play out –and my reviews of those books would be “spoilers” for that aspect!– but reading the series in order is probably the best way to experience the character arcs and relationship developments.) Unlike in the Christie book, we do experience most of the serial killings directly, although they’re done quickly and Armstrong doesn’t wallow in the gore, and we do get in the killer’s sick and disturbed head some –thankfully, only at times and briefly, but it’s an unpleasant place to be.

Coupled with the mitigating factors, though, the author’s strong character study of Nadia herself made this a worthwhile read. She’s a fascinating, complex character (and when the chips are down, an actual heroine despite the ethical issues some of her life choices present), and not the only one of those here; very vivid, round and complicated characterizations are one of this author’s particular strengths. Even minor characters who only appear for a few pages are often illuminated clearly enough to be memorable. Not many of them are particularly likeable (although Nadia honestly is, at least to me, and that’s an assessment I think series fans in general would echo), but you do understand them –or, if you don’t, you’re intrigued enough to want to peel back more of the layers.

This is a genuine, challenging mystery that takes detection and deduction to solve, and Nadia and her unlikely fellow sleuths don’t have access to the kind of crime scene investigation and witness interviews that the FBI does. (Fortunately, though, which partially compensates, they do have more knowledge of the shadowy world of killers for hire than the authorities do.) It’s definitely a mystery of the “American” school, not its staid and cerebral British counterpart: gritty, violent and fraught with danger, and peppered with bad language, though I considered the level of the latter legitimate in terms of realism for these characters. (There’s no sex, explicit or not, but there is some reference to it; Nadia isn’t often promiscuous, but her attitudes are colored by the fact that she doesn’t expect marriage to ever be in her possible future.) The investigation snakes through a dark underside of America, where not only the serial killer but other nefarious types as well have dark secrets, and no scruples about eliminating the nosy. And while Nadia’s very protective of innocent life, even when it’s not convenient to be –despite her hit woman credentials, you could totally trust her to babysit your toddlers!– thugs who want to kill her may find her quite lethal.

Overall, this is a gripping read right from the starting gate (Armstrong leaves two dead bodies lying on the first nine pages), with a lot of action and a real page-turning quality. With the above-mentioned caveat for language issues, I’d highly recommend it to mystery/crime fiction and action “thriller” fans.

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: KLA Fricke Inc.; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Savage Creatures

  By

★★★
“Vampires vs. Zombies”

Is it possible for a film to try and cram in too much? This might be guilty of that, being simply too full of ideas. It begins with a serial killer mother and son pair, who are also cannibals, to boot. They think they’ve found their next victims, when they pick up a pair of young hitchhikers, Ursula (Steadman) and Rose (Brown). However, the psychos are in for a shock, because their targets are actually a pair of vampires, centuries old. But, wait! There’s more! Weird meteorites have landed on Earth containing alien creatures, that devour human souls. Those they infect turn into aggressive, zombie-like creatures, that can only be terminated by destroying their pineal glands. And I haven’t even touched on Father Cooper (Travis), and his “nun with a gun” associate, Sister Gigi (Smith, right).

You certainly can’t fault this for its inventiveness, and some of the ideas work very well. For example, the soul-stealing aspect of the aliens fits nicely with the vampires; they’re immune to this, because they have no souls. The two leads have good chemistry, exhibiting the easy rapport you’d expect, from people who have known each other for hundreds of years.Yet, they both have their own traits, and feel like individuals. It’s perhaps this angle which feels most pushed out by all the other stuff, and it is a bit of a shame. The idea of vampires dealing with an alien invasion or the zombie apocalypse is strong enough to carry a film. All the other stuff piled on top, feels kinda superfluous, operating as a series of distractions, rather than adding dimensions to proceedings. That’s especially true, given the relatively short running time of only 75 minutes. 

Ursula and Rose provide a no-nonsense response to their predicament – or, more accurately, series of predicaments. Their fangs are far from their only weapon; indeed, they’re not much use when it comes to destroying pineal glands. Semiautomatics work much better, and the pair wield them with some enthusiasm. For a low-budget entity, the technical aspects are pretty decent. The model alien which gets dissected with cutlery by our heroines (technically, one of them; the other has a bit of a weak stomach) being a particular highlight. 

The other main issue is a lack of escalation. Rather than plot threads being developed, they get replaced. As a result, we reach the end, and almost nothing has been resolved. The aliens are still invading, as the vamps hit the road again. They don’t even seem too fazed by the thought of their food supply being zombified. After all, as one of them points out, there are enough blood-banks in the country to keep them going for a good century. It’s one last piece of invention, in a film that hardly needs it. Yet it seems churlish to complain about too much of that, and this remains a pleasant slice of energetic horror/SF, powered by two heroines with whom it’s fun to spend time.

Dir: Richard Lowry
Star: Victoria Steadman, Kelly Brown, Greg Travis, Kannon Smith

Wait Until Dark

  By

★★★★★
“The missing link between Psycho and Halloween?”

I’m quite serious about the above. In 1959, Hitchcock’s classic psycho-thriller, which gave an entire genre its name, showed a normal, self-confident woman falling prey to a psychotic serial killer, while John Carpenter’s Halloween, also now a classic, had its heroine fighting off menace Michael Myers. In between these two iconic movies, there is not much that is worth mentioning. Some final girls in Italian gialli maybe managed to survive, I guess – but there’s nothing in big screen thrillers that the average Joe or Jane would be able to name.  Except… This movie, in which blind heroine Susy Hendrix (Hepburn) is able to see through the ruses of three gangsters, fight them off, and even win in a final confrontation against evil-as-evil-can-be psycho Mr. Roat (a very young Arkin – gosh, this guy is now 86 at the time of writing).

The story: gangsters Talman (Crenna – best known as Rambo’s boss) and Carlino (Jack Weston) meet the gangster Roat, previously unknown to them, in an empty apartment. Roat is obviously working for – or may even be the boss of – a drug-smuggling ring. A doll that was used to smuggle drugs had been given, for later collection, by their colleague Lisa (Samantha Jones) to an innocent photographer Sam Hendrix (Zimbalist). Sam lives in this apartment, with his blind wife Suzy (Hepburn). As a quick inspection of the flat didn’t lead to the doll, Roat recruits, or more accurately. blackmails the two men into helping him.

As Sam is away for the week-end, the three men are going to put on a kind of play for Suzy. The intention is making her believe Sam is suspected of murder of (the already dead) Lisa, putting psychological pressure on Suzy to reveal the whereabouts of the doll. Fortunately, Suzy may be blind but she is not stupid. Very soon, she notices little things in the behaviour of the men that suggest something else is going on. With help from a young girl who lives in the flat above (Julie Herrod), her suspicions are confirmed and she suddenly realizes she is on her own against three men. The worst of whom is Roat, not just a normal criminal, but who enjoys killing – and from the get-go had planned to kill everyone off, once he gets what he wanted.

Oh, my… ! This movie was (and IMHO still is) a real nail-biter. Based on a play by Frederick Knott who also provided the basis for Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1953), the movie very much breathes Hitchcock’s air and makes good use of the master’s famous “suspense” techniques, in which the audience knows more than the movie’s protagonist. By this method, very special tension arises, as the viewer constantly wonders what will happen when the hero/ine finds out, and how s/he will escape the situation. Of course, this works much better when you have real danger imperilling the central character, so you can worry about them, and get caught up in the web of “suspense”.

For this to work, you need a character the audience likes, feels for and identifies with. In a Hitchcock movie, that might be your average, normal guys like James Stewart or Cary Grant, or later, much less lucky female characters like Janet Leigh or Tippi Hedren. There is no doubt that Audrey Hepburn’s casting here was a stroke of genius; she was at that time probably the most likable and beloved Hollywood star. Having her play a blind woman even contributed to the sympathy and fear felt for her, in a movie that was a very unusual genre for Hepburn.

Until then, she had been seen mainly in sweet love stories like Roman Holiday (1953) and Sabrina (1954), or comedy-thrillers like Charade (1963) with Cary Grant, or How to Steal a million (1966) with Peter O’Toole. She had broken through as a serious actress with The Nun’s Story (1959) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). She had even been cast by Hitchcock in an adaptation of Henry Cecil’s novel, No Bail for the Judge. But other commitments, qualms about a rape scene in the script, and a pregnancy combined to scupper her involvement and, eventually, the movie itself, which infuriated the master of suspense. So Hepburn had never previously played in a movie like this one.

Wait Until Dark is a dark, almost nihilistic thriller. This time, Hepburn’s heroine is all on her own, and if she isn’t able to put the puzzle pieces together and use her own wits, she will end up dead like poor Suzy in her cupboard. There is no Cary Grant or George Peppard coming to the heroine’s rescue. Even the not unsympathetic Crenna isn’t able to help. The gloves are truly off this time. It was kind of a gamble. There is a tradition of blind people in thrillers now; to name just some, Jennifer 8 (1992), Blink (1993), In Darkness (2018), or home-invasion thrillers e. g. Jodie Foster in Panic Room (2002). But these genres are relatively new, and not that often used then: 23 Paces To Baker Street (1956) and The Spiral Staircase (1945) with its deaf-mute heroine come to mind.

Also, would fans of Hepburn accept her in such a role? A cold, chilling thriller? Her husband, and producer of the movie, Mel Ferrer (himself a former film star whose fame was fading, though he stayed in the business as a successful producer) wasn’t quite sure it would work. But he convinced Audrey, who wasn’t nearly as confident as many believed her to be, to accept the part. But it worked really well. Director Terence Young was a great admirer of Hitchcock’s techniques and had already successful applied them to his James Bond movies Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball as well as WWII thriller Triple Cross (1966). Together with Henry Mancini’s highly effective soundtrack, the movie creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic doom around the sympathetic heroine.

In a way, the film somewhat ended the career of Hepburn, as at the same time it started the career of Arkin – though he had some way to go before achieving the status he has nowadays. After this movie, the already rocky marriage between Hepburn and Ferrer came to a quick, unhappy ending. She stayed away from movies for the next eight years until she played opposite Sean Connery in Robin and Marian (1976). But none of her later movies would achieve the iconic status of the string of classics she did in the 1950’s and ’60’s.

She plays Suzy as a sympathetic, sweet woman who tries to be the best she can, even though she complains to her husband about whether she really has to be “the queen of the blind”. It’s nice to see a movie where a man isn’t the big saviour of the damsel in distress, but instead supports her in doing things by herself. Suzy is not without flaws; she insults and hurts the girl neighbour, though more by lashing out, regretted the next moment. It’s a more modern version of the classic Hepburn film persona. But Arkin leaves the strongest impression. His Roat comes off as evil incarnate. Wearing dark glasses throughout – you don’t see his eyes until the finale – and with the typical ‘bowl’ haircut of the time, he looks like an evil version of one of the Beatles! His cold, precise speaking style and efficient, smart handling of things give us the feeling that guy is a terrible wild-card.

The film was a great success. On a budget of $3 million, it made $17 million at the North American box office alone, and earned Audrey Hepburn her fifth and final Academy Award nomination. The plot may seem overly complicated, in how much trouble the gangsters go through for a few grams of drugs, knowing on what scale drug-dealing is executed today (I refer you to the James Bond movie Licence to Kill). But the film is extremely effective, delivering the kind of Hitchcockian experience that, at the end of the decade, Hitchcock himself wasn’t able to provide anymore, experiencing a creative trough at that time.

Arkin was watching the movie at the time with a studio executive and when the audience jumped out of their seats at the final moments of the film, when he came out of the shadows, the exec leaned over to him and said: “Do you realize that’s because of you? You scared them to death!” I think I rest my case there. Wait Until Dark makes a fine link between Psycho and Halloween, making Hepburn probably the most famous “final girl” of all!

Dir: Terence Young
Star: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.