Tag: horror

Take Back the Night

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★★★
“A girl walks home at night…”

This is not exactly subtle in terms of its messaging, or the underling metaphor. But to be honest, I kinda respect that. I’d probably rather know what I’m in for, from the get-go, rather than experiencing a film which thinks it’s going to be “clever”, and pull a bait and switch. Here, even the title makes it obvious enough. The ‘monster’ here is sexual violence, and should you somehow make it through the film oblivious to that, you’ll get a set of crisis helplines before the end-credits role. However, it manages to do its job without becoming misanthropic, largely by having very few male speaking characters, and is adequately entertaining on its own merits, not letting the movie drown in the message.

Up-and-coming artist Jane Doe (Fitzpatrick) is savagely attacked one night outside the warehouse where she’s having her show. Though she reports it to the police, the investigating detective (Lafleur) comes increasingly to the conclusion that Jane is making up the story. This is partly because of her history of petty crime, substance abuse and hereditary mental illness; partly because what Jane describes, rather than a conventional attacker, is a monstrous, smoky and fly-blown apparition. Nor is Jane’s sister (Gulner) exactly supportive, even after the creature returns, looking to finish what it started. Jane discovers an underground network of survivors, and lore stating that only a bronze dagger, forged by a hunter, can hurt it. Fortunately, as an artist, she has a very particular set of skills…

The makers have made some interesting, and rather brave choices. Jane is the only character with a name, and she’s not exactly relatable in a conventional sense. I found it easy to dislike her influencer ways – she seems happiest when telling her sister of an upcoming TV interview about her ordeal – or the random sex she has minutes before the attack. One element of the message is very much that none of this makes Jane ‘deserve’ what happens to her, though the film ignores the counter-argument that when our actions have negative consequences, we can’t deny entirely our own responsibility. You go swimming with sharks, you might end up losing a limb.

There are points which do require the audience to stretch their disbelief more than the grounded tone of this should need. I’d also have liked to hear more about the network. Indeed, the film feels like it finishes just when it should be starting. An entity more interested in entertainment might have compressed what we get here into the front thirty minutes, and developed the notion of a crypto-cult of female vigilante warriors battling these creatures, with their bronze daggers from the shadows. That would, however, likely have diluted the message here and, make no mistake, that is what matters most to the film-makers. Regular readers will be well aware of my problems with cinematic soapboxes. While this does not avoid the resulting pitfalls entirely, nor is it a complete failure like some I’ve endured, and is certainly watchable. 

Dir: Gia Elliot
Star: Emma Fitzpatrick, Angela Gulner, Jennifer Lafleur, Sibongile Mlambo

Ever After

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★★½
“Off-centre, not dead centre”

This is not your normal action heroine film. Nor is it your normal zombie apocalypse film. While it certainly nods in both directions, it seems entirely committed to going in its own direction. My mental jury is still out on whether or not this was a good thing or not. I think if I’d perhaps been prewarned what to expect, I might have been better equipped to handle this. It takes place after the outbreak of a plague, with the dwindling number of survivors now holed up in two cities: Weimar, where infection is an immediate death sentence, and Jena, reported to be trying to research a cure. 

The mentally fragile Vivi (Kohlhof) tries to do her part by volunteering on the fences surrounding Weimar, but a brutal incident on her first day sends her into a state of shock. She tries to head for Jena on the automated train which runs between there and Weimar. On it, she meets Eva (Lehrer), who is considerably more versed in the ways of survival. When the train breaks down, the two young women have to set off on foot across country. Which is where things get increasingly odd, as they bump into characters such as the Gardener (Dyrholm), who is running a market garden in the middle of the apocalypse. The zombies themselves also begin to mutate, such as the one on a wedding dress, whose face is half plant. Is nature healing? Or is a human apocalypse not necessarily such a bad thing from the perspective of the rest of Earth’s species?

There is a fair amount going on here to unpack, and it feels like the kind of party to which you have to bring your own booze. For the film offers no easy answers; indeed, I’m not necessarily certain what are the questions it is asking. At times it felt like there was a religious aspect with the Gardener being the snake in Eden. Yet at others, it is more about the different ways Vivi and Eva come to terms with the traumas they have experienced. Vivi shuts down, emotionally and mentally, while Eva adopts a hard shell, prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive. Also of note: there are almost no male speaking roles, though it’s subtle enough not to matter [The crew are also largely women]

There are still the required moments of threat, heroic sacrifice, etc. familiar from the genre. However, these feel almost perfunctory, as if imposed on the director in some kind of contractual obligation. The film might have been better to avoid the standard beats entirely, as these feel out of line with the rest of the movie. On the other hand, if it had gone full art-house, it’s possible I would not have bothered watching it, and almost certainly wouldn’t be reviewing it here. Still, it’s an approach to the zombie film I’ve definitely not seen before. Even if this wasn’t what I expected – or wanted, to be honest – that has to be worth something. 

Dir: Carolina Hellsgård
Star: Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Maja Lehrer, Trine Dyrholm, Barbara Philipp
a.k.a. Endzeit

Firestarter, by Stephen King

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Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Having watched both versions of the film, I followed up by reading the book on which they were based. Despite my general fondness for horror, I haven’t read very much Stephen King: this is only the second novel of his, after Salem’s Lot. First thought: at 576 pages in the mass paperback edition, it’s quite a door-stopper, and you can see the problems in adapting a work of that size into a movie. Inevitably, a lot of the detail and nuance is going to be excised. There’s no doubt, the 1984 version is more faithful; the 2022 adaptation takes the basic concept of a young girl with pyrokinetic powers, on the run from the government with her father, and does its own thing, more or less.

How you feel about those different approaches, probably depends on how you feel about the original book. Despite the length, it wasn’t a chore; I was typically reading 25-30 minutes a night, and never felt like it was a burden. King had a relatively straightforward style, that’s generally easy to read. The novel does, like the 1984 film, move back and forth in the time-line. It begins with Charlie and her dad trying to escape the experimental government program which spawned them, only later filling in how they got to this point – both the events of that program, and the subsequent surveillance, leading to the death of her mother. This, to me, worked better on the page than the screen, where it ended up becoming too convoluted.

You get a good deal more background on “The Shop”, the murky federal group behind everything, and its employees. In particular, a good portion is told from the perspective of near-insane operative, John Rainbird, Here, he’s very badly disfigured, the result of a friendly-fire incident in the Vietnam War, which seems to have helped push him over the edge. His madness is considerably more apparent in the book, along with the dubious nature of his psychological attachment to – almost dependence on – Charlie. The novel also delves deeper into Charlies’ internal struggle for self-control, fighting to keep hold of her talent, rather than letting it rule her.

While both film versions end with her fiery escape from the shop, albeit in radically different ways, the book has a fairly lengthy coda. [spoilers follow]. This covers Charlie’s return to the Manders farm, where she finds sanctuary once more. Inevitably, however, word seeps out and the Shop pay a visit, only to find their target already left. The novel finishes with Charlie arriving at the offices of Rolling Stone magazine, ready to tell her story. From a 2022 viewpoint, this had not aged well, with that publication now a de facto mouthpiece for the establishment, with as much counter-culture credibility as Teen Vogue or Buzzfeed. However, this remains an entertaining read, and if such a talent ever existed, you sense the events it depicts are quite plausibly how things could go down. Here’s hoping we never find out.

Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Pocket Books, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel.

Hyde

  By

★★½
“Hyde and sick”

This gets off to an impressive and intriguing start. Cora Fisher (Pribilski) has a perfectly normal life. Then, she’s involved in a car crash. The next thing she knows, she wakes up in a hospital bed. Oh, to which she is handcuffed. Before she can come to terms with that, she is informed that ten years have passed. And completing the triple-whammy, Texas Ranger Jim Krueger (Llorens) enters, and tells Cora he’s going to make sure she gets the death penalty for the murders she committed. It’s safe to say, the movie has successfully gained my attention by this point. Guided by mysterious cellphone texts, Cora escapes the hotel and goes on the run, seeking to find out the truth about what happened. 

It would be almost impossible for any film to live up to what is a cracking opening 20 minutes. You’ll perhaps have guessed from the star rating above, this certainly doesn’t. Part of the problem is the decision to leave Cora, when simply experiencing proceedings from her perspective would perhaps have been best, the audience discovering her past alongside her. Instead, it diverts into considerably less interesting areas, such as following Krueger. You’ll be forgiven if you’re making gestures towards your television set, trying to guide the plot back towards the heroine. The other problem is, when it does eventually get back there and resolution is obtained, the answer is considerably less interesting than the question. For spoiler reasons, I won’t go into detail, but it fell short of convincing to me.

I think the script ends up being pulled in too many different directions, and us not being able to do justice to many of them. For instance, there’s an odd Purge vibe, with people in masks, going round killing people with apparent immunity. It’s an angle that doesn’t seem to fit the psychological slant to much of the proceedings, and nor does it particularly appear to add extra value. The film is technically solid, and Pribilski does well enough in a role that must have been a dramatically challenging experience. The rest of the cast are largely functional. It does feel they are more like plot devices made flesh, there to move the story along.

But in the end, it is that story which represents the movie’s biggest problem. I’m always dubious about amnesia as a device. It often feels a lazy way for film-makers to generate mystery, which can then be equally easily solved by the protagonist miraculously remembering things again, as and when needed by the plot. This is a good example of that: without the convenient medical condition, the movie would have been over in about ten minutes. If you’re going to use it, the payoff has to be adequate for the disbelief you ask the audience to suspend. That definitely isn’t the case here and, despite some positives, this founders as a result, and struggles to make it over the finish line. 

Dir: Dallas Burgess
Star: Kelsey Pribilski, Chip Llorens, Avi Lake, Diana Rose

Brides of Satan

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★½
“Cool poster though.”

It’s probably significant that the opening credits of the film talk about the bands and the whiskey company involved. Any mention of the actual actresses taking part, is relegated to a secondary sequence, 15 minutes into the film. That seems to indicate where the priorities lie: if you told me the whole thing was made up to get freebies and as a showcase for the director’s mates, I’d have no problem believing you. Another warning sign is the way every post-production visual trick you can imagine is thrown in there; this often indicates an attempt to paper over flaws in other areas. There’s no doubt the film is certainly trying. However, Bizarro simply tries far too hard, and it’s not long before it becomes simply trying on the viewer instead.

It’s the story of Mary (Robinson), who takes her fiance to the Dirty Bird strip-club as a treat, only for both to be kidnapped by a trio of Satanists, led by Sidney Zero (McMunn). They sacrifice him, towards their goal of summoning the a demon and she only barely escapes with her life. Mary is rescued from the side of the road by down-and-out Lenny Lester (Troyer), who has previously had encounters with the same trio. He trains her in the art of violence – both physical and mental – so that she can take revenge on Zero and her crew. It’s a pretty thin storyline, and with precious little depth there, or for any of the characters. This is why we end up watching extraordinarily shitty variety acts in lieu of anything particularly interesting.

It’s told in a series of chapters, another pretentious touch which annoyed me irrationally, far more than it should. But it’s only in the final chapter, which starts about three minutes before the end credits roll, that the promised revenge particularly shows up. Prior to that, Mary gets to test-drive her skills on a gang of street punks loosely affiliated with Sidney… and that’s about it. Instead, there’s a lot of sitting about, chatting, flashbacks, and the previously mentioned dreadful “alternative” entertainment. Indeed, much of this reeks of the side of alternative culture which is all “Look at meeee!”, in lieu of significant talent.

Even the sleaze is curiously front-loaded, with an opening sequence which drives home the grindhouse philosophy for which Bizarro is apparently aiming… before then all but forgetting it for the rest of the movie. When the demon does eventually show up, it is disposed of with such ease, it feels as if the makers realized they didn’t have the resources to deliver much more than a Halloween mask, and decided to write the whole thing off as quickly as possible. They should likely have extended that realization to the rest of the movie, as outside of semi-decent performance from Troyer, this has nothing much to offer past an admirably punk attitude. It deserves an A for effort, and an F in just about every other area.

Dir: Joe Bizarro
Star: Mindy Robinson, Malice McMunn, John Troyer, Joanna Angel

The Retreat

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★½
“Striking a blow for equality. With an ax.”

After the unexpected pleasures of What Keeps You Alive, I guess what this proves, is that film-makers are able to make shitty lesbian horror movies every bit as badly as straight ones. Truly, a lack of talent is blind with regard to sexual orientation. This begins in a way not dissimilar to Alive, with a lesbian couple whose relationship is on shaky ground, heading out into the wilderness.  Sadly, things then diverge in just about every metric of quality. In this case, it’s Renee (Pirie) and Valerie (Allen), who are heading off to a country B&B to meet up with two gay friends.  Except, when they get there, the friends are nowhere to be seen. The new arrivals then proceed to ignore more red flags than would be found on May Day 1980 in Moscow, until they get kidnapped by the local homophobic psychos. They have a thriving business in live-streaming snuff films, and welcome the arrival of some fresh meat.

Well, until Renee and Valerie escape, and rather than hightailing it out of there – you know, like any normal, sensible person would do – opt to take on their attackers, because Rural Homophobes Must Die. Oddly, those subsequent deaths are shown in a degree of detail that borders on the gloating, while the murders of their victims take place out of frame. Hmm. Well, when I say “shown”, I’m talking loosely, because this has to be close to the most atrociously-lit film I have ever seen. At one point, our heroines are enjoying a nice picnic in broad daylight. Just a few minutes in story time later, it’s either the middle of the night, or an unexpected total solar eclipse popped up. Because the audience are left peering into darkness, trying to figure out which vague, blobby shadow is doing what, and to which other vague, blobby shadow. I don’t know whether it’s bad film-making, or a really bad transfer, but it’s borderline unwatchable.

From what I could determine, peering into the gloom, it doesn’t have anything much new to offer either. But then, the specific sexual orientation of horror movie characters is rarely relevant: I just don’t care. The film, meanwhile, seems to think that putting lesbians in, is enough to allow them to trot out any number of overused elements everywhere else. They’re wrong. A poorly filmed, cliched horror movie does not become any better because its two heroines are sleeping with each other. Dangling ends abound, such as Renee’s easy familiarity with firearms, which serves no notable point, and there is precisely one (1) decent kill. It even fails as a commentary on society, being far too obvious and simplistic to work on that level. To succeed, a film like this typically needs to have at least one of the following body-parts: a brain, a heart, or guts. Trying to replace all three with a vagina isn’t a recipe for success.

Dir: Pat Mills
Star: Sarah Allen, Tommie-Amber Pirie, Aaron Ashmore, Munro Chambers,

Dead Sushi

  By

★★½
“A fishy tale”

Perhaps I just expected more from the combination of martial artist Takeda (High-Kick Girl, Karate Girl) and Iguchi (Mutant Girls Squad, The Machine Girl). While this has its moments, it falls well short of the best works of either star or director, delivering neither the action nor the insanity, of which I know both are capable. The set-up is fine. Takeda plays Keiko, the daughter of a sushi master, who leaves home after being told by her father she’ll never amount to anything. She gets a job working in a Japanese hot springs inn, and isn’t much good at that either.

A pharmaceutical company are having a get-together there, but Yamada, a disgruntled employee is also in attendance. His invention which rejuvenates dead cells was successful, but had side-effects, for which he was blamed and arrested. So he has taken revenge by using his creation to animate the sushi being served to the company. Oh, and this is not only infectious, transmitted by the sushi’s bite, it makes them capable of flying. And breeding. It is, of course, up to Keiko and a few hardy allies to fend off the killer delicacies.

It’s mostly the stuff around the edges which is effective here. There’s a little egg sushi, looked down on as inferior by its fish-flavored relatives, who becomes a valuable ally to Keiko. Oh, and it sings. Yes, folks: adorable, singing sushi. You’ll never eat nigiri again. Some of the lines are also ludicrous enough to make me laugh out loud; here are a few examples.

  • When you hurt a sushi chef’s pride, his next dish is death!
  • Sushi has a pecking order too.
  • It is my duty to tell the boss we are under siege by man-eating sushi.
  • The sushi are mating!

However, there’s not much in the way of escalation or progression. Once you’ve seen one plate of attack sushi, you’ve more or less seen them all. About the only other thing the film has to offer isn’t until the end, when Yamada turns himself into a gigantic man-tuna and there’s a battleship made of fish eggs. While I will admit to not having seen either of those before, the imagination seems very sporadic otherwise, though I did like Keiko’s briefly-used sushi-nunchaku. This being a Noboru Iguchi movie, we do get multiple fart jokes, of course.

Takeda’s talents are also sadly underutilized. I don’t know whether Iguchi couldn’t be bothered to get anyone decent for her to fight, or if it’s more that the concept allows limited scope for karate to blossom. With the attack sushi being largely CGI, there’s only so much flailing at thin air anyone can do. Iguchi regular Asami has a supporting role here: while she has shown some solid action skills elsewhere, it’s indicative of something, that she and Takeda look to have about the same level of fighting talent. I was certainly hoping for better from Takeda, and the film in general.

Dir: Noboru Iguchi
Star: Rina Takeda, Kentarô Shimazu, Takamasa Suga, Takashi Nishina

Wreck

  By

★★
“If you go down to the woods today…”

I cannot, by any standard, call this a good movie. But was I amused? Yeah, guess I was. It really needs to embrace the idiocy of its central premise – a Bigfoot-like creature roaming the woodlands of suburban London (seems like Swindon, to be precise). This is apparently something to do with fracking, though quite how is never made clear. Into the creature’s territory arrives Sandy (Dean), a courier for unpleasant mob boss Mr. West (Loyd-Holmes). She and colleague Jimmy (Gilks) have been ordered to deliver a briefcase, with no doubt left as to the nasty fate which awaits should they fail. But their car crashes, leaving Jimmy dead and Sandy with her leg trapped under the vehicle. She then has to survive in her crippled state, fending off not just the monster, but also those who are keen to separate her from the case.

Let’s start with the creature, which is the finest you could come up with, given five quid and a roll of blue plush fabric. Really, it looks like a pissed-off refugee from Sesame Street. And that’s before it gets set on fire: the beast then looks more like an under-cooked turkey on the rampage. It is, of course, completely impossible to take seriously. So, despite some energetic gore, this doesn’t work at all as a horror film. As a survival thriller, it’s a bit better. I liked Dean’s performance, in little things like leaving her boss’s office and seeing a stripper performing – the look of “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” was palpable. 

The script, however, has too many flaws to succeed. For example, the way Sandy’s leg is immobile until necessary to the plot. At which point she not only frees herself, but is able to gambol about the forest like an armed gazelle. Or the way the monster spends much of the film defending Sandy, by attacking those who pose a threat to her. Chris said sardonically, “I think it’s in love with her”: this is a much better explanation than anything the film was able to provide. Sadly, no Swamp Thing-like romantic subplot ever arose, another example of the movie not going full speed ahead with the potential of its premise.

I was reminded of Hostile, which also had its heroine trapped after a car accident, menaced by monstrous creatures. While that film had plenty of weaknesses, it did at least put some effort into its scenario and monster; here, there’s precious little past “because Bigfoot.” However, at barely an hour long before the closing credit roll, it can’t be accused of particularly outstaying its welcome, and while you may largely remember this for the wrong reasons, you will remember it. As the saying goes, “If you watch only one British sasquatch movie this year… Wreck is probably going to be it.” I don’t exactly see this starting a trend that’ll prove me wrong.

Dir: Ben Patterson
Star: Gemma Harlow Dean, Ryan Gilks, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Tony Manders

I am Lisa

  By

★★★
“Another packet of Ginger Snaps”

Lisa (Vaganos) is a young woman who runs a second-hand bookstore, but has fallen into the bad books – hohoho! – of local bad girl Jessica Huckins (Anello) for some reason, who makes poor Lisa’s life a misery. There’s little Lisa can do, because Jessica’s mother (Halliburton) is the local sheriff and is fiercely protective of her daughter. The feud between Lisa and Jessica escalates, until it topples over into extremely violent unpleasantness. Sheriff Huckins orders Lisa’s near-dead body to be dumped in the nearby forest, as food for the local wolves. However, after only slight nibbling, she is rescued by a mysterious woman, and nursed back to health. Returning to town, she opts to lie low with best friend Sam (Seward), only for Lisa to notice she’s not the same person she used to be. For example, this former vegetarian now has a fondness for raw meat, and is considerably less passive, deciding to take the fight to Jessica, her pals and, eventually, to Sheriff Huckins.

I’ve seen werewoman movies before. Indeed, I’ve reviewed a few here before – most obviously Werewolf Woman, but also When Animals Dream, Blood Redd and The Big Bad. I’ve also seen plenty of revenge films, to the extent there is a dedicated tag for those on the site. But this is probably the first movie which is both. Such innovation is almost enough on its own to get through the running time, even if it’s inevitably going to be compared to the wonderful Ginger Snaps, and be found wanting. Bonus points here for skewing so thoroughly female, with the five lead characters all women, and it’s also clear there’s a lot more going on, of which Lisa is unaware. The opening scene proves this before we see the heroine, with the sheriff gunning down another werewolf and proclaiming “I guess we gotta find another.” Given this, it is a bit difficult to grasp why Jessica’s cronies are so surprised by subsequent events.

The script is rather undeveloped in some of the other directions it seeks to explore. For instance, it opens with two quotes, one pro-revenge, the other anti. Yet there’s never much sense that Lisa’s vengeance is other than justified, and it appears to have a relatively minor impact on her psyche. Well, compared to turning into a werewolf, anyway. It also took me a while to get into the head of the main character; Lisa as savage predator is considerably more interesting and engaging than Lisa as vegetarian bookshop owner. Obviously for budgetary reasons, the actual transformation is very restrained – not much more than claws and contact lenses. I guess it’s good enough to get the concept over, if you don’t look too closely. The restraint elsewhere is a bit disappointing, and harder to explain: I never got the sense Lisa was overtaken by, or surrendered to, her newly-found feral nature. However, it still makes for an interesting watch, even if the central character is more werepekinese than -wolf.

Dir: Patrick Rea
Star: Kristen Vaganos, Jennifer Seward, Manon Halliburton, Carmen Anello

Torn Asunder, by Michael Todd

  By

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

Katie Maddison is just your average chemistry college student, until she gets kidnapped for use by a Satanic cult, intent on summoning a demonic entity. Fortunately, she is saved from a fate worse than death, and is rescued just in time by a group of warriors known as “The Damned”. However, by that point, said demonic entity – going by the name of Pandora – has embedded herself inside Katie. The good news is, it’s less possession than symbiosis, with Pandora largely happy to chill and pass snarky comment. Though her presence acts as a supernatural power-up, enhancing her host’s strength, speed and healing abilities. The fact Katie is not under control of her dark passenger gets her an invite to join the group on their mission “to protect the uninformed from reality.” As their creed goes, “The sheep can sleep at night, because we don’t.”

The glaring issue here is the complete lack of threat the scenario presents. There are plenty of hints that Pandora is a powerful demon – perhaps even one of the “Seventy-Two”, the top echelon of Hell’s denizens. Yet, in this volume, she proves to be an entirely benign presence – or, as mentioned, very helpful to Katie in her new career. There’s certainly nothing which justifies her telling Pandora, “You are seriously one of the evillest people I have ever met.” She’s a bigger threat to others of her own kind, even helping Katie exorcise a lesser demon from one of her colleagues. Now, I suspect she may be playing a long game – this is an eight-volume series, so virtually everything here is going to be a long game. But combine the demon’s inaction and the relative ease with which the Damned take out virtually every other hell-spawn they meet [the only significant injury suffered is closer to suicide by demon], and you’ve got something in desperate need of additional peril. I would settle for simply extra challenge, since Katie breezes through everything with hardly any apparent effort.

Going by the notes at the end, it’s not quite clear how much Todd actually wrote, of what seems a collaborative effort. He says he was the creator and main script-writer, but “I’m not the person who was responsible for turning the script into the longer story.” Still, his name is on the cover, so he gets the blame. Debra Dunbar showed how demonic possession can be handled in an entertaining way, and Todd [perhaps better known under his Michael Anderle name, for the Kurtherian Gambit series] could learn a lot from Dunbar. Both in establishing your Satanic presence, which here comes over as little beyond a slightly more foul-mouthed version of Paris Hilton, and then in creating a credible threat for your protagonist. Instead, it plays a bit like an entry-level tutorial for a video-game, and certainly falls rather short of the “Supernatural Action Adventure Opera” touted in the book’s sub-title.

Author: Michael Todd
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 8 in the Protected by the Damned series.