Some will not sleep..a feast of horror and weird and grotesque

I discovered Adam Nevill's fiction in September 2012, I still remember clearly the date since I keep a small date inscription on books I enjoyed reading. LAST DAYS made me buy APARTMENT 16 and THE RITUAL and APARTMENT 16 made me crave more of Nevill's books. When HOUSE OF SMALL SHADOWS was released in Dubai, I couldn’t wait and drove the same day to the bookstore to buy it before heading back home after a long day of work.  And so it continued. I chose to write this small introduction about my personal experience with Adam's fiction to illustrate how intense and huge the impact this incredibly talented author leaves on his readers.

I read once in one of the horror anthologies where Adam wrote a story, "If anybody has proved the persistent popularity of supernatural fiction then it is Adam Nevill...Adam's love for the genre comes through in every one of his tales..." because it is evident that Adam goes very deep inside to dredge out these tales. They come from him, his personal experiences, his fascination for the genre and in the unique voice in which he weaves those tales. It is that dedication and passion that engages the reader; deeply entangled in the story, emotionally affected by the images and atmospheres created there. Novels or short stories, the outcome is sheer dread and a new riveting experience. WARNING! SOME WILL NOT SLEEP is no different.  As with all of Nevill's stories, the reader will be drawn to 11 selected horrors and dark nightmares involving the bizarre and the grotesque made solely to haunt and affect minds, 11 tales of disturbing images, of childhood fears and ghastly characters and heart- stopping situations. 11 yarns presented in the author’s very fine prose, his evocative and atmospheric style, his some time simple and clear tone, and at other times subtle and lyrical. Simply put, they are beautifully written.

With the opening tale, WHERE ANGELS COME IN, a child ventures with his friend to enter the tall scary house on the hill which ''no adults like to talk about''. This story fears ranging from that of the old house and the fear of social ridicule and disapproval. Those fears, expressed in the first person narrative of a genuine child voice, take the reader back to childhood memories of old ghost stories and absurd dares. The story is also an homage to M.R James, but like the author said " It is in the spirit of the master than anything else”.  It is in that uneasy feeling sinking inside the reader when the children traverse the gate, in that dread seeping from the morbid stillness and eerie surroundings of the house and its weird statues in the overgrown garden. It is also suggested in that inevitable anticipation of what resides in that sinister house and what would happen to the children if they encounter the residents of the old house?

In SOME WILL NOT SLEEP, children have another two shares manifested in PIG THING and ANCESTORS. As the title suggests, in PIG THING, the tone is juvenile. It is the name given by one of the children to the beast she saw lurking behind the bushes. A story about children who find themselves trapped in their house in New Zealand, new land, after their parents ventured outside to check that hairy swine/human thing. The sense of that morbid, endless waiting the children feel, the hopelessness of their doomed situation in a foreign new place and that terrible thing outside build up the tension and anticipation of what is coming, all this engulfed in a thin film of dark melancholy floating in the air. In ANCESTORS, the author transfers us to Japan and Asian horror. This tale is seen through the eyes of the child and her naïve innocent perspective of the new old house the family moved to, where a new friend lives, where haunted toys also live and move at night. The elements of Asian horror are depicted in the bleak atmosphere, old creaky house, unstoppable rain and in the basic description of ghost with its entangled, long hair and white teeth, of the bones found in the chimneys, the legion of haunted toys with a grudge and the incomprehensible surrealism through the eyes of a child. 

The origins of THE RITUAL and APARTMENT 16 are actually found in this collection. With THE ORIGINAL OCCUPANT, the reader is taken back to those forsaken boreal forests and offered a glimpse of what lurks within.  A different approach of story layers is adopted here. “To tell stories within stories" is narrated in the first person and this time  in the voice of a sophisticated and erudite character recounting the story that was told to him, again in first person, by a friend who went searching for a mutual friend who had disappeared in Radalen in the Scandinavian wilderness  where  "legends of the Ra and human sacrifices " exist. The description of Ra "a wet snout, yellow canines and blood-spoiled eyes” with its fetid smell, brings back to mind the demoniac image of Moder from THE RITUAL. The atmosphere in this story is of a crushing heavy nature coming from the morbid stillness of the backwoods, the rudimentary dark ambiance of the Stuga along with an intensifying terror generated from the letters exchanged between the two friends, the nefarious reputation of Radalen and what lives there, and the horrific sketches left by the disappeared friend.

And before APARTMENT 16, there was TO FORGET AND BE FORGOTTEN and DOLL HANDS where Adam returns to his origins and  his unique territory. TO FORGET AND BE FORGOTTEN  takes place this time in Antwerp, Flemish Belgium instead of upper London. The reader follows the story of  a “gentleman of absence’’, seeking a lonely existence away from a society ruled by human baboons and executive trolls, accepted to work as a night-watchman in the prestigious Dulle Griet Huis, where a few very elderly residents live. Like Barrington House in APARTMENT 16, the overshadowing Dulle Griet Huis has another ghastly face to show. Sudden flits of movements, the shadows coming down the stairs, the doors banging, footsteps running, voices inside empty apartments, all this cannot combat the building’s horrid eccentric residents who were to be awaken from their hibernation. The dread and the weird are displayed in every trait given by the author to those elderly creatures, something taken from a parallel demonic dimension. TO FORGOT AND BE FORGOTTEN is an unsettling story of horror and entrapment and despair. A doomed fate where the protagonist fled the annoying familiar to be trapped in the horrid unfamiliar. In DOLL HANDS, it is 2152, some dystopian future comes out as “painting of Francis Bacon”, as the author calls it in his story notes. In that particular painting he chose to draw a distorted image of humans, where people shed their humanity and cannibalism becomes a delicacy. In Gruut Huis, the backdrop of the story, the rich feed on the poor served by the facilitators/caterers. People are like animals, the rich -Vultures, the caterers are weasels and the poor nothing but livestock. It is a dreadful disfigured realm of disfigured characters  who shock the unshockable. "I am  the one with the big white head and the doll hands’’.

Like all his writings, Adam shows a huge fascination for the grotesque aesthetic and the world of bizarre and strangeness. And MOTHER’S MILK and YELLOW TEETH  were made with the same fabrics. The surreal images of MOTHER’S MILK and the very disturbing characters who live there are exhumed out of the deep darkness of the author's very creepy nightmares.  Starting with the characters, it is difficult to define what the mother and her kin are. A bizarre incongruous combination between bestial and human. Their physical description is beyond imagination, stick legs, hairy back, buzzing, madness. And that addiction to the mother's milk craved by the protagonist/narrator, doomed by his inescapable situation in that place, leaves in the reader a sickening feeling that cannot be shaken away. As for YELLOW TEETH, the story is the invasion of a squalor and a festival of all odours. The situation is summarized by the beginning sentence said by the narrator “I made a terrible mistake’’ when he let an acquaintance inside his house and his whole world is metamorphosed into a temple of filth for a wretched goddess. The sensory images, the meticulous description of each detail, the intense metaphors, the blunt pictures, all come to violate the worlds of both witnesses of this sacrilege, the narrator’s  as much as the reader’s. Simply the story stains your brain. All of this is accompanied by the uncanny elements that find their climax at the end of the story.I should mention that this story reminded me of NO ONE GETS ALIVE, the miasma and filth surrounding Fergal in his summoning  Black Maggie.

The evil cult manifests itself in this collection and this time in the western American wilderness  with WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT? It is a journey of revenge and culling taken by the dragoon in search for his sister who was taken by the undead Fair-Skinned Nephites and their malevolent prophet Levi. A fast pulpy tale that takes place in harsh western America and that has elements of uncanny and macabre about that Black Carriage, black horse, a preacher-devil. Although, I haven’t read any of Cormac McCarthy’s books, but it is important to say what the author mentioned in his notes that WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT? was inspired by McCarthy’s fiction with regards to its western atmosphere. However it is a story written in the very unique voice of the author.

In Adam Nevill’s books, monsters come in different forms and different faces. And in AGE OF ENTITLEMENT, it is a human face. When an unstable man discovered that his friend has been exploiting him for decades, the betrayal is killing and the result in Nevill’s world is nothing but  catastrophic. I loved the subtle mysterious tone of the story and the dominating eerie atmosphere. The setting is Battlefields of Normandy in France, the description of the place is dismal and macabre and foreboding, the graves, the cruel sea, the old buildings and those like- living statues and those odd few locals intensify the sense of irritation, abandonment and loneliness similar to the protagonists betrayed hurt feelings.

The closing story is FLORRIE; a tale of an unconventional haunting where the old occupant antics and traits are possessing the new resident. The lingering sensation of the listless soul who lived there, the intensity of its grief, its age and pain, and the metamorphosis of the new resident will make the reader shudder. The transformation begins with an unexplained sense of attachment, by surreal dreams, by manifestation of that indistinct figure, by erasing every inch of personality of the other. FLORRIE comes with a sense of dread not only from the odd imagery- the figure on all fours and its milky eyes are hard to forget-it is also from the desperate feeling of entrapment again that the protagonist senses.

Needless to say that the author’s story notes at the end of the collection are priceless. They recount how these stories came to life and which personal experiences and inner thoughts have shaped them. They definitely reflect a certain period of the author’s life dominated by feelings of frustration, isolation, despair and a deep desire to escape society where greed and inequality reign.

In brief, Adam Nevill proves in  SOME WILL NOT SLEEP  that he is a master of the craft, like every book he wrote, he has demonstrated incredible skills to hook the readers and to entrap them with his characters in a spiral of incremental madness and abject fear. It is how gripping his writing can be, how original and unique the stories he whips up and how real and chilling the primal fears he induces in dark backwoods, in a haunted house, ancient buildings: his frights come along with puppets and creepy dolls, they are inflicted by an evil cult or demonic creatures, dreadful monsters who come in all forms and shapes. Frights to bear for SOME WILL NOT SLEEP, a book that exceeds 5 star rating, a remarkable feast of horror, weird and grotesque. 

Finally a special thank you to the author for sending me ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Clickity, click, click... a creepy tale of witchcraft

Clickity, click, click, click...

Forsaken was given to me by Maxine Booklover Catlady Publicity for an exchange of an honest review.It is important to mention first  that I'm not a keen fan of witches, sorcellerie, witchcraft horror. Like vampires and werewolves, I find that witchcraft is so overused in the genre that it lost its scary glamour. However, I should add that very few writers proved to be an exception to that as they knew how to employ their crafts smartly to surpass the mediocre clichés and succeeded to introduce strong plots with real frights. Their witches are real, very wicked and so evil to make the devil their apprentice. And, I found that in few books such as Banquet for the damned by Adam Nevill, a book crafted to perfection for a debut and in Forsaken by J.D Barker which also strives to deliver the eager readers a dreadful atmosphere, a hideous witch and a family at stake.

In the beginning it was a journal and a promise.

Thad McAlister is a famous horror writer living with his family in Charleston Sc. This time, he has written his masterpiece, a dreadful book journal about the trial of a very evil witch who terrorized the Shadow Cove township. It is a book that poured itself in his mind. A tale which was told by someone inside his head without any intervention or assistance from him. That's  when the problems started and the gates of hell began to open. When Thad leaves to New York in order to sign a movie offer, terror and nightmares will shake the life of McAlister family. Separately, they will engage on a journey of horror where the evil character of Thad's  doomed book is taking shape in this world  through her familiars and lunatic followers, and turn McAlisters' nightmares real. On her side, Rachael, Thad's pregnant wife, is left to live the most dreadful moments of her life, alone with her daughter and housekeeper, isolated from the outside world, under the watchful eyes of evil minions of the witch.  At that moment, Rachel needs to fight back if she wants to save her life and those of  her daughter and her unborn baby against a pure evil that is waiting to claim something that Rachael had promised to give long time ago.

The  book has built up an atmospheric psychological tension starting with the prologue where the author gave us a direct hint about the actual sources of the problem; it is an old  journal and a secret promise who brought all that.

A fast paced book where actions follow without a break. Short chapters have infused the sense of rapidity in laying out the story. That also has created an eagerness in the reader to turn the pages without stopping in order  to know what is going to happen next. The style is well written with nice short sentences, fine prose. Description is not burdened with long boring phrases, the premises between the McAlister house, the forest of Shadow Cove, the unstoppable rains and the bougainvillea are perfectly displayed. The elements of earth, water and fire are smartly used to enhance the sense of the witchcraft. A feeling of creepy enchantment reigns along the chapters where the characters are no longer in possession of their will nor freedom and that is scarier then any other spooky things, when someone fully controls you is another form of possession. The description of the witch, shifting between old woman and beautiful girl, her long nails clicking, her rottenness, her hissing voice are so real, and when her dark shadow comes to exist through her followers, the reader can't help but to feel with the protagonists a dreadful unease. Their desperation is morbidly contagious. Pregnant in contractions, Racheal comes to face alone a pure evil, she is trapped with her daughter and housekeeper in their house unable to leave as it  became quarantined by thorny nasty bougainvillea, and guarded by wicked minions, Racheal is desperate but she has to fight for her family's sake. From his side, Thad is struggling to keep his sanity when his world is invaded by his main wicked character who manifests herself through Christina, a fatal beauty that reeks of foul manipulation and pure evil. She lures Thad into her world by sex and threats sending him to the hell-mouth.

I loved the way the author weaved in two stories in one, chapters that vary between the present and the very far past when those witch trials took place. The author represented those trials in the form of chapters taken from the journal of Claytone Stone_1692  of  Rise of the Witch, Thad's evil masterpiece. There is  an eerie cold atmosphere in those chapters and the very disturbing facts regarding the witch and the town are creepy. A feeling of hesitation and doubts are floating in the air, and together with the scribe, the readers  do not know how to react towards the accusations of the residents of Shadow Cove against the witch who looks only like a sixteen year old girl, an orphaned child. The readers find themselves dragged  with Claytone by the deceiving innocent look of the girl/witch who  controls his mind and whereabouts. Thus, readers are perplexed to believe or not the atrocities inflicted by the witch whose angelic beauty deemed  frightening and creepy. I love the fine sentences used in those chapters, they have a bit of  lyrical  with an eerie enchanting ambiance.

For me, I should say, Forsaken excels more in the psychological terror than the supernatural evil dark powers. When you are stripped of your will, of your strength and ability to even move and fight is very scary. Scarier than those Minions scattering around. I couldn’t find them frightening despite their sharp teeth and beady eyes. However,  the portrait of the witch the writer gives is very unsettling.In a quick note, I found the homage given to Stephen King's  famous work Needful Things amusing for being myself a huge reader of King.

Finally I will be definitely waiting for the next book in the series of Shadow Cove Saga  to be released because J.D Barker has become  among those who are constantly on my radar.

Thank you again Maxine for sending the book. You definitely rock.

Clickity, click, click, click...

بالعربي: الفتاة الضائعة لآدم نيفيل، رحلة الانتقام والدم

رواية "الفتاة الضائعة " Lost Girl للكاتب البريطاني "آدم نيفيل" Adam Nevill هي من الروايات الأدبية التي تندرج تحت ادب الديستوبيا أي الواقع المرير أو المدينة الفاسدة. تستحق هذه الرواية أن نقف عندها لأنها تحفة أدبية رائعة ذات حبكة درامية متقنة من حيث الموضوع والأسلوب السردي واللغوي المميز الى جانب الوصف البليغ سواء على مستوى الاشخاص أو الامكنة.

انه العام 2053 عالم مثقل بالكوارث البيئية والفياضانات في كل مكان نتيجة للتغير المناخي، هناك نقص في الغذاء والماء، الحروب والحرائق لا تنتهي وملايين من اللاجئين يجتاحون بريطانيا التي أصبحت ملاذا للمتاجرين بالبشر والمتحرشين ,وحاضنة للأمراض والاوبئة.

يبدأ الأب، بطل الرواية، رحلة الانتقام والدم في هذا العالم الموبوء لإيجاد ابنته التي إختطفت قبل سنتين من حديقة منزله، فيغوص القارئ في غور النفس البشرية المعذبة للأب التي يصورها الكاتب بشكل عميق. يبقى اسم الاب مجهولا وذلك رغبة من "نيفيل" لتجريده من شخصيته القديمة ليجعل منه فقط والد الفتاة الضائعة، فهو باختصار يعرّف نفسه ب "والدها" وهو أيضا "الأب الأحمر" الذي يدفعه حزنه البليغ وغضبه المشتعل ورغبته في الانتقام لمعاقبة المذنبين في رحلة البحث فيجد نفسه وجها لوجه مع عصابة ملك الموت التي تتفشى كالوباء في كل مكان.

يجدر القول بأن ما يميز كتابات "نيفيل" هو إبداعه في الوصف العميق والقوي لشخصياته! حيث يرسم صورة شاملة ومخيفة لوحشية أفراد العصابة الذين "يعيثون الفساد" في كل زاوية ويبثون الرعب بالتعذيب والقتل الجماعي وقطع الرؤوس. كما أن طقوسهم الغريبة التي تتجلى في رسومات عرًافيهم التي تغطي الجدران والتي تصور كل ما هو دمار وموت وقتل ترمز الى قرابين لملك في ثياب رثة ينتظرهم في ظلمات ما بعد الموت. كل هذا يدل على مسحة ميتافزيقية أراد الكاتب إضافتها على الرواية ليخلق شعور بالخوف والرعب والغموض.

كثيرة هي المواضيع التي تطرحها هذه الرواية ونذكر منها فلسفة العدمية! الموت يأخذ كل شيء والبشر هم أشبه بلطخة في هذا العالم لا قيمة لها، مجرد غبار، باختصار هم لا شيء. كما يغلب الطابع الإنذاري فيها ويهدف منه الكاتب بشكل غير مباشر الى التذكير بالواقع المرير الذي نعيشه الان من قتل وإرهاب وحروب على الأرض واحتباس حراري مخيف. أنه المستقبل المشؤوم الذي ينتظر البشرية. 

لغة محكمة تم توظيفها في إبراز أدق تفاصيل الرواية، و"آدم نيفيل" يبرع بشدة هنا، الصور المجازية رائعة وعميقة ، ترابط الجمل محكم وبليغ حيث على سبيل المثال يشبه الناس بالقوارض والزواحف، عيونهم خرزية ماكرة وجلدهم لزج مخادع ليبين الجشع والانحطاط الأخلاقي في أبشع صوره. أنه وصف يتجاوز الحدود المادية للكتاب فتتحول كل كلمة الى صورة حية أمام عين القارئ. أكثر ما اعجبني في الرواية هو الحب الأبوي المثقل بالذنب والحزن، المتسم بالإصرار والنضال والمقهور باليأس لكنه مفعم بالأمل، وقد أظهره الكاتب بشكل طبيعي خال من مبالغات أو تجميل. باختصار انها رواية ملحمية لأحد أكثر المؤلفين المعاصرين تفردا وإبداعا في أدب الرعب والخيال العلمي والديستوبيا فهو كما تصفه جريدة "الغارديين" The Guardian بأنه الشبيه البريطاني ل"ستيفن كينج" .Stephen King.

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Don't Breathe, where literally you won't breathe

In the beginning it was Evil Dead. A movie that scared me witless when I was only 12 years old. First attempt to watch it was a total failure as I only saw the first part, was too frightened! 

Couple of years later, I gathered my courage boosted by the presence of my siblings and the daylight of course, to watch it with the sequels. And after more than a decade, I went "solo" to the cinema to watch the remake, because my people of friends of family were and are still unable to enjoy good frights, something I savour thoroughly. 

This long introduction is simply written to point out at the two genius behind that masterpiece, Sam Raimi who founded Evil Dead franchise and Fede Alvarez who made the remake, and to say that when those two met, the outcome was tremendously terrific for Don't Breathe' proves to be a master horror thriller.

Indeed a master horror from the opening until the closing scene, tension and horror create together a chilling ambiance and an uneasy feeling of entrapment where every breath is hold in a dreadful anticipation of what is coming next.

In Don't breathe, we meet Roxie, Alex and Money, three delinquents living off the things they steal from the houses they burglarized, houses secured by the company where Alex's father works. When the three decided to go to a new level, their next target would be a blind war veteran who is living on top of 300,000 dollars, received as a settlement money for the death of his daughter who was killed in a car accident by a reckless wealthy woman.They think that this one will be an "easy" robbery that would start by breaking into the blind man's house which is located in an abandoned block in Detroit and by drugging him and his Rottweiler, the money would be theirs. Little did they know that by entering the den of the lion, their worst nightmare is going to materialize, and the roles will be swapped and the prey becomes the hunter in chase of every escaping breath they draw.

It is important to mention that the audience will be left with mixed feelings towards unsympathetic characters from both sides, protagonists and antagonists. Money is an arrogant idiotic criminal, Alex, is trying to gain the audience trust because he is obliged to go along with them because he is in love with Roxie, who is the least despicable, and he wants to help her to get her little sister out of a miserable reality of a neglectful mother and her alcoholic boyfriend. As for the blind man, an emotional confusion will fill us as we remain for a long time unable to define exactly how we really feel about him. Is it sympathy, pity, anger, hate, fear? Shall we give him excuses for his revenge or should we be in great shock about his reactions? The performances of Jane Levy as Roxie and Stephen Lang as the blind man deserve to be highly praised.; we are thrown in their world, following carefully their acts. In one scene we are fighting to hold tight our breath with Roxie, imitating her fear involuntarily by covering our mouths with both hands, petrifying in our seats for fear to be heard by Lang who excels in the world of the blind, where his world of darkness rules and all his concentration are directed to every sound around him, to which his body language perfectly reflexes with each muscle and twitch.

The setting and premises are nothing but the old house with his bolts and locked doors in an abandoned derelict neighborhood and those elements are used cleverly to intensify a feeling of trapping and isolation from the outside world. Once the three were in, the audience knew that they are trapped with no way to get out. Very efficient cinematography and visuals from a heated chase, a struggle and fight, black pitch darkness, along with a astonishing soundtrack of hard breathing, creaks betraying dead silence, nasty barking of a dog, deep shouts of enraged anger mixed with pitiful sorrow and muffled whimpers and cries.

Movie lovers, I can simply say that Don't Breathe is your movie of 2016. Check it out now.

Mine -Uncut Version: Potential veering towards disappointment

Mine Uncut Version was sent to me by Maxine-Booklover Catlady Publicity in order to give an honest review of it. The book is about Jenna, a young beautiful woman, married to an older sadistic man, Ben, a cold violent abusive husband, starts an affair with Andrew, their lawyer, a charming man who will turn her life upside down. Unfortunately, I didn't like the book and couldn't give it more than 1 and that was for the following:

1. Despite that the book has good potential ideas to make it interesting and enjoyable, however the author failed to develop them or even make them convincing. For instance, the abuse, the fear, the desperation, genuine feelings were just kept at the surface just floating themes without any depth.

2. The writing style was poorly done and suffers from basic simple sentence construction, unvaried syntax, to flabby descriptions and boring repetitions of words without any efforts to swap out overused words, adjectives. Briefly, the book is built on very simple basic phrases, monotonous dialogues, limited vocabulary with no sign nor proof of editing.

3. Illogical and absurd situations and the book abounds with incoherent transitions, vague incidents, plot holes almost every other chapter. For instance, condoms are always at ready everytime they have sex, even at a benefit, the unexplained interruptions of Eric barging in everywhere Andrew and Jenna are about to do something, another example of plot errors in the book is one of the scenes where Jenna donned a "SUMMER DRESS", she meets with Andrew, he reaches for the hem of her "SKIRT". Example of absurdity and illogical scenes are when Ben hurts Jenna really bad that her Achilles tendon is ruptured and her leg is put in a cast, she is fit enough to clean, tidy up Andrew's house, JUMP DOWN from the kitchen counter, cooks!!! Andrew with his friends broke in Jenna's house to save her and the author forgot to explain how they managed to pass the crazy senator and his bodyguards, etc.

4. The characters are flat, unconvincing and one dimensional. The author failed to build up good deep characterization to relate to or feel for. From the abuser husband to the victim wife and the savior lover. The author didn't deliver convincing personality traits of each. Starting with Ben Krammer, wife beater and abuser but doesn't show convincing paranoid and jealous side, for example, as a paranoid abuser, he won't send his wife to submit some documents to Andrew, a very handsome man. An hypersensitive controlling crazy would pay more attention to every small detail that may point to her affair. As for Jenna, although she is an abuse victim and has been battered for years, she shows contradictory characteristics. Someone who lives in constant fear of her husband, should be socially isolated and has trust issues, however she was able to open up quickly to Andrew and after few days of their meeting, she ended up in his arms, an alpha male with traits to be hated for and not be trusted for being arrogant, rude, domineering.

The only thing I liked about the book is the message and information left by the author with regards to abuse victims.

Ice Twins: Enchanting read

This is a book that will move you from the first chapter. Beautifully written, S.K Tremayne delivers a poignant story of a family shattered by the loss of a daughter, a tale of betrayal, hatred and lies. All displayed with the bleak backdrop of Eilan Torran, the Thunder Island as the locals call it, where the reader will feel suffocated by the sense of isolation and cold grayness. The mystery revolves about the absolute perplex of a bereaved parent before confused identities of her twins: the terrible question that haunts the protagonist Sarah Moorcroft; who actually died in that doomed day? Kirstie or Lydia? the living and the dead meet in Eilan Torran which is haunted by coldness, infested by rats, surrounded by water and mudflats.

who really died there?

The author succeeded amazingly to tell this heartbreaking story in a very poetic and lyrical way. Starting from the beautiful yet cold Scottish setting, the sensations and senses find their home in the book, the cold nips at your fingers, the isolated place gives you a feeling of despair, the thunder screams in your ears, those sensations are perfectly described along with the feelings of guilt, anger, despair, anguish and grief that overwhelm Sarah and Angus before the confusion of their surviving twin.
The last chapter should be praised alone for its intensity that I had to read it twice in order to absorb each sentence and fact about an answer that will be left to the readers to decide on.
Book lovers, I highly recommend this one to read, it will really fulfill your reading buds.
S.K Tremayne will be absolutely on my radar.

The Evil Inside: A nasty journey towards madness

I received The Evil Inside from Maxine Booklover Catlady in exchange for honest review. I should say this is a book that comes with mixed feelings when you read it, you love it and you hate it equally. I believe it is a strength since it leaves an impact on you and that is a trait of a talented author. The plot is good, the writing is short and quick, the characterization is well built, although, it is more focused on the main character Guy Russell and little invested on other characters, Mia, Callum, etc. Maybe, the author did this in purpose in order to draw the readers' full attention on the hellish internal journey that Guy Russell will begin.

Guy and Mia moved to New York with their son Callum searching for a new fresh start after the tragedy that happened in their hometown in Australia. Losing their unborn baby is something they want to leave behind with in a new place, new job, new country. It's New York where they landed and where Guy started a new job at an Advertising company owned by an old friend. Their new temporary home is nothing the Hotel Olcott, an old building with a dark past. And there Guy begins to witness the disturbing changes creeping slowly to his household, in his wife's withdrawing attitude verging towards breakdown, his son's eerie behaviour. All this and the whole surroundings will bring Guy back to his dark childhood, to his relationship with his mother, to his deep secret buried for a long time.

I should say that the author succeeds to describe the slowly downfall of the main character, and his transformation from a normal caring father and husband to the paranoid unhinged thing he became. It is a self-destruction we witness here, a lost soul tortured by guilt and confusion. The paranoia will subdue, confusion will rule along with fear, suspicion, degradation, in one word it is a psychological chaos, a mental wreck, all this is combined to describe Guy Russell. As for the other characters, the author gave a brief picture of their traits and dilemmas, speaking here of Mia and Callum. He only shows a Mia, a bereft mother, unable to overcome the loss of her baby, drowns herself in booze and oblivion, receding and withdrawing from her reality, her husband and her son Callum. She is also bitter and evasive. As for Callum, the author portrays him only through the eyes of Guy, waving between normality as his child and strangeness and monstrosity as "not his child".
Another strength attributed to the book is the flashbacks between the present and the past of Guy Russell, the author gives us bits of the dark past of Guy, tantalizes our curiosity, makes us wonder what happened then; he reveals slowly the outrageous relationship between son and mother engaging us through those flashes to look into the childhood of Guy to see the true evil there, how twisted the human nature can be, how low the bottom someone can reach.
I gave the book a rating of 3.5 because sadly the author fails to introduce the sense of dread and fear, even the descriptions of the supposedly unnatural creepy events are more like boring and dull. And that's why the book should be included under the genre of psychological thriller, because the actual horror here emanates from the disturbing transformation of Guy and the inevitable gloomy disastrous destiny he is rolling down to, his paranoia and hallucinations have a snowball effect.
The writing style is short, effective, smooth and vivid. The author didn’t need long complicated phrases to attract the reader attention and engage him with the story. However, the author couldn’t shake away the impact of his advertising background which resulted into unnecessary scenes of Guy’s work tasks, made them a bit tedious to follow. The backstory of the Hotel Olcott needs to be more detailed with respect to its effects on the changes happening in Guy’s life, as it stands blurry and confusing . The author didn’t tell clearly if the hotel’s notorious history was haunted and it is implicated in Guy's downfall.
Overall, The Evil Inside is a good debut you would really enjoy reading if you are searching for a disturbing psychological horror, but definitely it won't be the one for you if you are the hardcore horror seekers.

My thanks go again to Maxine for sending me the book.

Green Room, a gruesome fight between punks and Nazis.

Green Room is where a punk band comes versus Neo-Nazi skinheads, where blood is shed, limbs are slashed and necks are mauled, heads are blown and a scene of disembowel is performed. A new movie of Jeremy Saulnier that will leave you in shock and awe for multitude reasons that vary from a clever plot, calm performance, visuals abundance, music backtrack associated with violence and brutality that are displayed craftily and shockingly. In Green Room the gruesome comes to serve the emotional terror of people struggling to survive a doomed situation that merely happened for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The movie follows "Ain't right", a rock punk band members who are down on their luck from the first scene. Out of petrol, out of money, they use their ruse to solve the first setback and continue a long unsuccessful tour leading them to a remote old club run by Neo-Nazis in the backwoods in Oregon to perform a final gig they got by chance.
In this venue and with their first perform of " Nazi punks fuck off", the viewer prepares to witness the deadly fight that will begin between the two and which materializes just before the departure of the band when accidentally one member finds a dead body on the floor in the green room where he returns to fetch a phone. Against their will, the band members are locked and trapped by the supremacists in the same room where they will wait and prepare for their life-death fight of survival.

The filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier builds up slowly the tension from inside the room and outside the club. Preys and predators will switch roles consecutively and the cunning will win. A clever plot that won't disappoint the viewer and shows no holes nor missing parts. The horror is flavored with a dark humor shown in the dialogues and acts. Performance to be praised with Patrick Stewart starring the maniac owner of the club that won't hesitate to wipe out everyone who comes across from band members to even the audience if necessary, just to protect a shady business. He is the calm calculating narcissistic psychopath. The visuals are artistic about the settings. A remote club, a tattooed audience, a confined crammed room, a bleak atmosphere, details in abundance in every corner all this associated with a hard rock music, violent language and dogs barks. In addition to that, the thrash heavy metal and their death shrieks are cleverly added soundtracks to create a sense of the forthcoming ugly end of the characters from both sides.
The gore and brutality are intelligently used in the sole aim of causing emotional shock to shake the viewers to relate them more with the characters; to feel what the ordinary people feel when they come face to face with an extraordinary situation. When the survival evolves into killing and hurting and mauling with box cutters, machetes, gunshots and pit bulls.
Finally I should add, in my opinion, the director's choice to make the final scene similar to the opening one, in the woods with the same materials, is a deliberate act to tell the viewer from the beginning that the cunning will rule out the fittest, always.
In brief I loved Green Room, it made me discover Jeremy Saulnier's work. Having said that, his other movies will be definitely on my radar.
Recommended with a must to the ones who can savour good horror thrillers with gore à la Banshee.

Adam Nevill's The Ritual heading to movies land

Great news, finally!!! Having known that, I felt the need to post it on my blog.

The Ritual by  the super talented Adam Nevill to be adapted into a movie produced by Andy Serkis. Great news, can't, can't wait. Please check the link below regarding this amazing news.

Adaptation of Adam Nevill's The Ritual to be produced by Andy Serkis: Published in 2012, author Adam Nevill's novel THE RITUAL told the story of four friends from college who head off into the Scandinavian wild ...

10 Cloverfield Lane, where monsters live.

10 Cloverfield Lane proves to be really good, captivating and outstanding. A solid story, a brilliant cast (John Goodman's performance is highly praised with every  movement and breath.) The confinement of the place, the paranoia and suspicion building up, the development of the story before reaching the climax captivate all senses. It combines different genres together: apocalyptic kind of science fiction and the tension of psychological thriller. Monsters of different kinds meet together to create a movie that will keep you attentive and alert until the last minute. Tension keeps going higher and higher until teeth -biting - knuckles moment actually happens.

The movie begins with Michelle gathering her stuff and leaving her boyfriend before crashing her car. She wakes up and finds herself chained to a wall in a concrete room in a basement turned into a bunker owned by Howard (Goodman) who claims that he saved her from the world upstairs that doesn't exist anymore. An outsider chemical attack or maybe an alien invasion has made the air poisonous and wiped out the earth; according to Howard,  no one could ever survive this attack,  and that is confirmed by Emmet, a survivor, who fled to Howard's bunker.

With her doubts and suspicions  about what actually  happens, Michelle and the viewer can't decide what to believe: is Howard telling the truth or is he lying? Is he just harmless odd fellow or some kind of sick pervert kidnapper? Howard is safe or he is creepily dangerous? A human or a monster?

The movie gets plenty of surprises for the audience that will keep unwrapping them until the final scene and when they think that the mystery  is resolved, another one comes in. A well crafted image of the three characters is represented. They are shifty in their claustrophobic environment and horror and paranoia will engulf their seemingly camaraderie they are obliged to have. They struggle in their own ways to survive the dangers that lurk outside and inside as well.

Nice music tracks that go well with the situation and a perfectly built bunker to enhance in viewers  a feeling of unease and a sense of being trapped.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a movie to be watched savourly. Because it has everything to keep your nerves  on the edge. Adrenaline will boom. Highly recommended.

Lost Girl: Amazingly epic.

And another book by Adam Nevill that will leave you breathless gasping for air from the first chapters until you reach the last one. Rare are those who can achieve that and excel in delivering it "impeccably" but Adam does it once again with Lost Girl; His books deserve to be considered epic because they are in one word EPIC. Like its precedents, Lost Girl is not an easy read! It challenges your mind to absorb what is laid before! it is a ride made in hell, it takes your hand and walks you to the cliff before pushing you into the abyss of its horrors! Horrors that vary from terrifying supernatural to the dark side of the human nature! Adam proves again that horror doesn't reside only in the haunted apartments or about ghoulish figures or creepy shadows or with the demonic entities; similarly or maybe more terrifyingly, horror resides in our depravity, comes from our derangement and lives in our narcissism. Horror is what we are capable to inflict on each other with no mercy.

In Lost Girl, it is year 2053, the world is collapsing and crumbling fragment after another! It is a world torn by wars, defeated by climate change, stricken by food and water shortages, invaded by the massive number of refugees, affected by pandemics and diseases; where every corner is infested by human traffickers and pedophiles, reeked by depravity and sex slavery and where King Death gang "reigns supremely" with no rivalry! Before all this, the Father engages in a journey of guilt and fury and revenge to save his daughter who was abducted two years back. A JOURNEY OF BLOOD!
The father's name remains anonymous in the book, that was a clever approach from the author to strip the protagonist off everything relating to his old personality and his character and traits; the father is nothing but the father of the lost girl and that's how he defines himself "he is only her father'', an oblivion to what and who he was before, because for him nothing else really matters. He is the Red Father driven only by his grief coiled with a flaring anger and engulfing revenge to find his daughter. His transformation into a "vigilante" is ultimatum, punishing and destroying every culprit who comes in his way. A morbid determination that will keep pushing him in his quest until the end.
And yes the Book has a supernatural side: what is that patron who lurks waiting in the deep darkness of the after death, you wonder, and what are the signs that confine the Father to his antagonist Oleg?! I should add as well that I found the father's surreal dreams in chapter 19 and the creepy mural depictions in the chapel along with the hallucinations of Oleg Chorny disturbing and scary! Every detail there leaves you with an eerie sensation, though too blurry to define it!

Another thing that makes Adam's books special is his deep and strong characterization of both protagonists and their antagonists! And here the reader will see that antagonists in King Death gangsters. A horrid picture is drawn about their atrocities inflicted by their lieutenants and creepy rituals daubed by their seers on the walls! Growing tension and fear the reader feels for the Father in his hunt and run from them, unfathomable is the doomed destiny if they capture him. Among the various themes of the book are the ominous and the philosophical ! Ominous of the doomed future that awaits us if we continue our destruction and philosophical about Nihilism and existence of man where the sentence ''L'homme devant la mort" simplifies this existence. We are nobody before death, nothing but a smudge in this world, simply a dust!
And speaking of details, Adam has an eagle's eye for everything and he delivers his observations in his fine impeccable way. In Lost GIRL, humans shed humanity, only greed and depravity rule! they are rodents, they are reptilians with calculating beady eyes and slithery skin. The descriptions in chapter 13 in brief surpass the physical limits of the book and transform every word into living pictures before the reader's eyes. The Grotesque comes in the flesh!
What I liked the most about the book is how the author depicted the fatherly love for his child! His guilt, his struggle, his despair and hope, etc. it was perfectly done, very genuine without mere exaggerations or embellishment.
Needless to say that the writing style is astonishing as always for the author is one of the finest! Book lovers, this is a book that you will never forget, a book that will leave its mark for sure, my advice for you is to grab it and read it Now😊🤓! extremely and highly recommended!

The invitation, where death awaits.

No seats for Batman vs Superman last week got me to see Karyn Kusama's new psychological thriller "The Invitation" , an indie movie with a tiny budget , that was amazingly crafted, and in my opinion, deserves to be among the winners.
A thriller that will slowly build up the tension around unsettling suspicions and delirious paranoia. Again a movie of the mind and its tricks and its madness before grief and loss and what do we do to overcome a tragic situation.




The protagonist... Will doesn't feel right about the dinner party that he is invited to with his girlfriend Kira. Something in the air seems odd and weirdly awkward about that lavish dinner thrown by his ex-wife Eden with her new husband David to reunite their old friends. Will stands alone confused and wary. Maybe it is the locked doors and new barred windows of his old house are making him suspicious or maybe it is just the painful memories of his lost son that turn him paranoid. But again the is not feeling comfortable with that strangely cheerful behavior that Eden shows or is it just the grief that is actually still there and never faded. And that will trigger worrying questions that need to be answered, weird behaviors that scream for logical explanations; is he going crazy of sadness or there is something sinister going on? A cacophony of images and sounds will go wild in Will's head and the presence of the couple's pair of guests Sadie and Pruitt will just intensify that and worsen his inner conflict.
A beautiful music and good soundtrack that go in harmony with the creative imagery displayed on the screen. Talented cast whose performance should be highly praised. Logan Marshall-Green(Who looks like an American Tom Hardy, the similarity is just killer) presents a heartbreaking picture of a father tortured by loss and sadness and anger and maybe the first scene of Will mercifully killing a coyote that he hit with his car summarizes his feelings between deep sorrow and buried anger. Another character caught my attention is Sadie, portrayed by Lindsay Burdge, a frail woman with an odd behavior that is reminiscent of a mentally broken and disturbed person, a cult brain-washed member.
Beautiful movie, well-crafted story, solid characters that will not disappoint you FOR SURE. 
Special shoutout to everyone who appreciates a good movie experience