Black Phone is the sort of movie that sneaks up on you and takes you for a ride that you don’t expect. I didn’t have much expectations for this movie coming into it. The only thing I knew about the movie was that it was based on a Joe Hill short story, but that didn’t mean much by itself since adaptations can go either way. The movie crushed any expectations I had and delivered in a way that I have seldomly seen in horror movies from the past decade or so.
The movie was set in the 1970s in a suburb of Denver. It’s part crime drama, part supernatural thriller. In this town, a serial abductor/murderer has been abducting teens. Finney, the main character, becomes a victim of this abduction. Meanwhile, his sister has dreams that give fragments of these abductions. After his kidnapping by the Grabber, played by Ethan Hawke, Finney is kept in the basement of a house and keeps receiving phone calls on a black phone that has been out of service for decades. The calls come from other kids the Grabber has taken and killed.
This movie is so well written that it comes as a pleasant surprise to the usual drivel I get when watching horror movies such as the Jordan Peele nonsense. I really enjoyed how each of the phone calls lead to the climactic actions. The characters are excellent and the kid actors who play Finney and his sister, Gwen, are surprisingly terrific. The build was suspenseful and intelligent. The climax delivered in a big way. This was the best horror movie I have seen since The Conjuring, and I would give it a strong recommendation. You will not be disappointed.
Prior to reading The Outsider, I watched the mini series on Netflix, so I knew the basic story line. In the early going of the show, they stayed true to the novel, but then diverged as it progressed. The concept of the novel is very compelling. Terry Maitland, a little league coach and teacher who the community respects has unassailable physical evidence and eye witness accounts that he murdered an 11 year old boy in the most heinous way possible, except that there is equally compelling physical and eye witness accounts that Maitland was far away when the murder happened.
Stephen King is without a doubt my favorite writer of all time. His early stuff is fantastic. He had a terrible stretch after his accident where his writing was subpar to be kind, and now he is definitely hitting his stride again with terrific fiction. The Outsider was top notch with excellent writing, a great plot, well-developed characters, and suspense that made me want to keep reading. It was one of King’s better works in what I consider the third phase of his writing career.
The supernatural and horror elements to the story are very well done. Everything was believable within the context of the story and the world the author built. There were no obvious flaws. My favorite part of the novel was when they were investigating Terry Maitland’s computer and found that he was watching Ozark on Netflix, making me wonder if Stephen King had any inkling that Jason Bateman would be playing Maitland on the HBO show. This is a novel that I would recommend.
The third and final season of Lock and Key was a complete and utter disappointment. This show clearly went one season too long. I’ve never been a big fan of the show, but it always held my interest. Mostly it was the concept of the show, with all of the keys and how they can be used was very creative conceptually. It was enough to overcome many of the show’s flaws, but this season was just a trainwreck.
There were so many things wrong with the final season, it’s hard to figure out where to start. The show’s writing has always been weak. There are gaps in logic that have always been problematic, but the characters’ dialogue has also been subpar. To make matters worse, this subpar dialogue is delivered by some really lousy actors. I had never heard of any of these actors prior to watching the show, and I don’t anticipate seeing much of them afterward. With a couple of exceptions, they seemed to be scraping the bottom of the barrel of Hollywood talent.
Storywise, the show falls apart this season. When it first started, only a few of the characters knew about the keys, and the show worked better that way. By season 3, it seemed as if every character on the show, no matter how insignificant they were, knew about the keys. Not only was the wedding scene unnecessary, but then Duncan is gone for the rest of the season, so what was the point of it? Kinsey’s boyfriend had about five minutes of screen time all season. Tyler’s new girlfriend driving across the country because he hadn’t shown up for work for a few days was utterly ludicrous—and they weren’t even a couple at that point. This season was just so bad in so many ways. Fortunately, the episodes were short, and mercifully it came to an end.
In book 2 of Daniel Arenson’s Requiem for Dragons trilogy, the book continues immediately after book 1 with little regard to bringing readers up to speed with what happened in the previous novel, which is fine if you are reading them one after the other like I did, but if there was a gap in between books or you didn’t read book 1 you would be lost.
In book 2, Cade and the other weredragons are attempting to create copies of the book of Requiem to spread among the people to show that weredragons aren’t so bad, while the paladins of the Cured Temple hunt them down. Elsewhere, other weredragons are trying to lead an attack against the Cured Temple.
I thought the first book in the trilogy was okay. I liked the concept and thought there was entertainment value and potential but this second novel has left me disinterested. The biggest problem is that the writing is flawed. The author doesn’t bring the action to the reader. The descriptions in the action sequences lack the kind of sensory detail to make me as a reader feel what the characters are feeling. Characterization is also lacking. Every major character in this story falls in love with another character at the drop of a hat. They barely know another character and are already madly and deeply in love with them. If this was isolated to one instance it would be okay, but basically every character has this happen to them. They also each harbor terrible, dark things that have happened in their past. Basically, all the characters are constructed the same way. The three main antagonists in this story are just poorly constructed.
I gave book 2 a try, but I just can’t muster enough interest to complete the trilogy, even though I already have the ebook for book 3.
In The One You First Expect, Tony Anastos makes micro budget splatter horror movies with very little recognition or ability to make money. Things change when he meets Anna, his coworker at the grocery store he works at when not making these movies. Anna has far greater aspirations as an actress and works with Tony on a kickstarter for his new movie—something that becomes a smashing success when Anna actually kills someone in the kickstarter video. That’s only the start of what Anna is willing to do. Her bloodthirstiness seems to know no bounds.
The writing in this novel is probably the strongest aspect of it. The books moves at a fast clip and is an easy read. There is nothing heavy duty in this novel. The concept is interesting and the execution is done well. The character that really stands out for me is Anna. She’s basically a sociopath hiding under a pretty veneer. But she’s a well developed character who knows what she wants and will do what it takes to achieve her goals. Tony is not nearly as strong as a character. He just goes along for the ride and doesn’t drive any of the action. He’s a character who has things happen to him rather than making things happen. Perhaps this is done by design to make his character contrast with Anna.
This was a fun read, and if you’re looking for an enjoyable horror novel, The One You First Expect delivers. Here is a link on Amazon.
