Kumquat is the first novel I have read from Jeff Strand that doesn’t involve any kind of horror element or at least something horror related. Despite the lack of horror, this was an incredibly enjoyable novel from beginning to end.
The novel starts off with Todd Bryan, a guy who doesn’t have much going on in his life but doesn’t seem to mind it. He goes to a movie festival and meets Amy Husk, who he immediately falls for. The only problem is that Amy has an inoperable brain tumor that can kill her any moment. On a whim, they decide to drive from Florida to Rhode Island to go eat a hot dog at a place that Todd saw on one of those man vs food type television shows.
This book is so enjoyable mostly because Strand’s writing is so fun to read. If I ever read a book by Jeff Strand that isn’t funny, witty, or enjoyable, then I know that this is clearly a sign of the apocalypse and that the end of days will soon be upon us. No matter what he writes, it’s simply top notch humor, mixed with poignancy, and a fun read that is over before you know it. I read this mostly on two flights on a plane, and it made the flight a breeze. So, if you haven’t read Jeff Strand, you should and this would be a good place to start.
I wanted to watch this movie because it was M Night Shyamalam’s daughter’s directorial debut. Since I’m a fan of Shyamalam, I wanted to give his daughter a chance. I saw that there were mostly negative reviews and did my best to ignore it. Perhaps it was the low bar that made me like the movie more than the critics, or maybe the critics are just stuffed windbags who don’t know what they are doing. Who knows?
In The Watchers, Mina is an American in Ireland who finds herself stranded in the woods where she encounters a group of strangers who must take shelter in a house from these strange creatures who observe them each night after the sun goes down. There are many rules that they have to follow in order to keep the Watchers happy and not kill this group of strangers. Mina, as the newest arrival, wants to find a way out of this captivity as the strangers begin to lose their sanity.
What I mostly liked about the movie was the building of suspense and mystery throughout the movie. There’s good tension, good build. The reveal of the Watchers comes about three quarters of the way through the movie, and it would probably have been better served for this to be the end of the movie. I don’t think the final part of the movie was as good as most of the movie, but there was an even deeper explanation of exactly who these Watchers are and then the final twist at the end. This twist wasn’t quite at M Night Shyamalam levels, just like this movie wasn’t as good as his best films, but way better than some of his clunkers. My final verdict is that this movie is worth watching but not worth rushing to the movie theaters to see it as I did.
In Chills, a ritualistic murder in small town Connecticut leads to a series of events starting with a freak snow storm in June. Kathy Ryan, who specializes in occult crimes, is brought in to investigate and she comes across a cult dabbling in dangerous magic that requires sacrifices to the Elder gods all in a plot to open a portal into our world and let these Elder gods in. The snow is not just the backdrop in this story. It is part of what is being brought in from another dimension. Kathy and her team have to stop the cult and the creatures being brought in before they not only take over this town in Connecticut but destroy the entire world.
This was a really enjoyable novel. It was a good blend of mystery, crime fiction, and cosmic horror with each part being skillfully blended in to a good mixture. Mary SanGiovanni does a fine job of handling these different elements like a master chef putting together a challenging recipe. The plot is laid out logically. There is good suspense throughout the novel. It builds up to a nice crescendo, and the ending delivers. All together, this is a novel that I would recommend, one that will keep the reader’s interest from beginning to end.
I had heard good things about Late Night with the Devil, and anything I heard did not do justice to this movie. This movie absolutely hit it out of the park and was exceptional in many ways.
For starters, the setting was excellent. For those not old enough to know what seventies and eighties talk shows looked like, this movie was a great replica with its set and the television audience and the overall look and feel of it. Similarly, the cinematography in general was top notch. The formatting of the movie playing out as the real time airing of the show including the behind the scenes footage during commercials was great. The buildup was excellent, starting off with a real light and breezy opening of the episode that made it seem like it was going to be a silly talk show episode, then starting off with a person who could commune with the dead, then bringing on a skeptic to all things supernatural, and finally the girl possessed by a demon and her handler. It was a slow build, and the dread continued to a crescendo. The scenes where the handler spoke to the demon inside the girl and the skeptic trying to disprove everything were my favorites. The only thing I didn’t care for was the ending sequence, which was a bit artsy for my tastes.
Finally, the acting was top notch, in particular the performance of David Dastmalchian as the Jack Delroy. A movie like this would never get any recognition from the elitist snobs who run the Academy Awards and whose idea of a good movie is one that will put you into a coma from shear boredom, but Dastmalchian should get an Oscar nomination. This is an instant horror classic, one of the best I have watched in years, and you should be streaming this movie ASAP.
In Silver Nitrate, Tristan and Montserrat, an actor and a sound editor from Mexico, both struggling to make a living, befriend an old director, who tells them of a tale of a Nazi who was a practicing sorcerer coming to Mexico in the fifties, and starting a cult of sorts who were captivated by his magic. The director made a film with the Nazi sorcerer that was never finished, and now years later he wants to redub the audio which has magical spells mixed in. After accomplishing this task, they set in motion a reawakening of this magic and the dead Nazi sorcerer that had been dormant for years. Now, they have to deal with seeing dead people, the rebirth of these cults and the sorcerer potentially coming back.
This novel worked at a lot of different levels. The narrative style was compelling. The characterization was strong. The story built at a good pace and worked itself to a crescendo. I listened to the audio version, and the narrator did a strong job at narrating. The world building was also well done. The setting of the story added some dimensions to it, and the author did a good job of conveying the time and place and putting the reader into it. This is the first novel I have read from Silvia Moreno Garcia but not the last. This is a novel that I recommend reading.
