Back when I was discussing Shades (co-authored with Geoff Cooper), I discussed how much I was looking forward to further narratives featuring Levi Stoltzfus, the strange, sad magician whose path to victory over the forces of darkness is kind of the definition of pyrrhic.


I was also pleased to be revisiting the setting of Keene’s blood-on-the-page story, Dark Hollow: LeHorn’s Hollow felt like a setting that wasn’t even close to played out, following the events of that book, and so it proved to be.


The novel features three main protagonists; in addition to Levi, we are introduced to Maria Nasr, freelance journalist for various outlets, including the local York Dispatch, and Ken Ripple, who is a relatively recent widower, working his way back to the world by designing and organizing the ‘Ghost Walk’; an outdoor halloween attraction to raise funds for women’s cancer research. And, of course, the perfect local setting for said attractions is obvious; the vast woods surrounding LeHorn’s Hollow, most of which, we are not-at-all reassuringly informed, survived the fire of a few years back.


I swear, by now, you’d think the poor sods would have some kind of inkling they were in a Brian Keene story.


But the story doesn’t start there. It starts, in true, glorious pulp horror fashion, with a lone poacher (down on his luck does not even begin to cover it) discovering (or being drawn to) a strangely carved rock in the heart of the burned out hollow. And it’s an instant classic. Keene’s always notable talent for drawing swift yet deep character portraits feels to have taken a step change in quality with this story; Richard Henry might look like a cliche in summery - blue collar, lost his son in Iraq, drink problem, ex-wife, no job, spiraling debt… and, though he doesn’t have the language for it, a crushing depression that is leading him to a state of near-constant suicidal ideation.


I’ve talked before about how Keene writes blue collar characters like few others, and this opening chapter really is an exemplar of what I’m talking about; long before the supernatural nasty starts doing the tango up and down your spine, here’s this guy, and life has just crushed him. The arbitrariness of it, just an ordinary person subjected to unbearable pressures by forces entirely outside his control; it’s brilliantly observed, empathic without being sentimental or pitying, and when the darkness inevitably claims the man at the end of the chapter, there’s an awful way in which it’s like the poor sod has come home at last.


Oh, and let’s talk about the Big Bad, here, because it’s something of a treat: no less than the nameless entity that is the most powerful of The Thirteen - the core forces of apocalypse that form the center of the Brian Keene multiverse. Appropriately enough, it either is not or cannot be named, and it’s nothing more or less than darkness incarnate. Thanks to LeHorn’s use of magical portals, the walls between worlds around The Hollow have become weakened, and now, The Darkness has found a possible route into our world. The walls are weakest at Halloween (because of course they are), and that darkness is out to recruit living puppets to ensure that come the day, it will be unleashed and destroy, well, everything.


What’s interesting is the mode of that possession: unlike the Squism of The Rising series, this force doesn’t animate dead flesh; rather, it obliterates the souls of it’s vessels before inhabiting them. And it does this by showing them the essence of their deepest loss, an avatar of their despair, and then simply removes everything that makes them them.


Now, as metaphors for depression go, it’s not exactly subtle. What I think is more subtle is the inference as the story progresses that every person carries within them the capacity for such despair, some deep regret so powerful and irreconcilable that, under the wrong circumstance, any one of us could become overwhelmed, consumed by the darkness.


There but for the grace of… well, let’s maybe hold that thought.


The novel is well paced, with scenes of the three protagonists, each with a few pieces of the puzzle, slowly figuring out the big picture (Levi, admittedly, holding more pieces than most, as you’d expect) intercut with the darkness claiming more and more vessels, building to the inevitable climax when the big day for the Ghost Walk arrives and the visitors get rather more than they reckoned for.


In keeping with the themes of despair, Levi’s only solution to the catastrophe involves breaking Adam Senft - the author and POV character from Dark Hollow - out of a secure unit for a dangerous ritual, which, like in Shades, ends up requiring rather more of the participants than they might have bargained for.


And for me, as much as Maria and Ken are well realised characters that I enjoyed spending time with, it’s Levi who captivated my imagination once more. His magical system is Old Testament, but it’s the way that sits alongside his morality and faith that I find so fascinating; here’s a man who sincerely believes in the divine, and that he will have to atone for his sins in the next life… and he uses deceit and manipulation to force (relative) innocents into positions of sacrifice in order to save the world. Dude is complex, in other words, and I like how Keene never takes the easy path with him, either having him be too callous or too pious; Levi feels the weight of what he does keenly; at the same time, when he sees what he believes is the correct path in front of him, he doesn’t hesitate. This makes him a brilliant protagonist, and I look forward to future appearances with great interest.


Overall, I found Ghost Walk to be superb; tons of heart, characters that leapt off the page, and the classic pulp horror collision of ordinary, recognisable people with impossible circumstances. The prose is as lethally readable as ever, and even the always-tough ‘infodump’ segment was relatively smooth this time; perhaps because it doubled as a character moment, with Levi desperately trying to convince Maria of the scale of the threat they were facing.  I also really dug that threat this time out; the method of corruption required Keene to dig deep into all the characters, looking for that one shameful thing, or one great loss, that had the power to destroy them. The implied thesis of the story - that all of us have such a seed inside us, that we should take care not to give too much water or light - is something I find extraordinarily unlikely won’t pop up in my own work at some future date. As Ligotti said, consciousness is the real horror story, and with Ghost Walk, Keene gives us a glimpse of what that darkness, left unchecked, could do to any of us.


Or all of us.


Next up, we're back to The Flood, with Earthworm Gods: Selected scenes from the end of the world. Looking forward to it.


KP
24/5/21

Way back in my write up for episode two, I talked about how Tobe Hooper’s episode ‘Dance of the Dead’, while holding up better than I expected, has never been one of my favourite episodes of the series. ‘The Damned Thing’ on the other hand, I have very fond memories of. In terms of plot, my recall from my initial viewing was vague, but there are some set-pieces in this episode that are pretty damn unforgettable, and I was looking forward to getting round to this episode for this series of articles to see if it justified these positive recollections.

Things get off to a promising start with a tense and sincerely scary opening that disorientates while events spiral out of control quickly and without warning, culminating in a memorably gory scene. The episode opens on a husband and wife sitting down to dinner with their young son, the camera never keeping still as it pans round and round the table as the family indulge in some idle chit chat. The mother and son get up to surprise the dad with a birthday cake, but he has a surprise of his own waiting for them. There are lots of subtle clues that something is not quite right and they get more overt as we see a black stain spreading across the ceiling as the father walks in, shotgun in hand, his face a mask of regret and misery. The mother and son aren’t quite sure what to make of this odd turn of events, until the father turns the gun on her, all but cutting her in half in a shocking moment that breaks the tension and kicks things off. The son races out the door, dad in pursuit, and it seems like he’s done for when the father corners him at the edge of their house, but an unseen force intervenes at the last minute, pushing the father against the door of his truck and literally tears him to pieces. It’s a great practical effect that looks fantastic on screen and leaves us with plenty of questions as we fast forward twenty-four years.

The young boy is now grown up and is Sherrif, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, of the same quiet town he grew up in. He spends his days sitting in his cruiser and eating at the diner with his deputy (Brendan Fletcher). His trauma of the events of his childhood has soured his marriage with Dina (Marisa Coughlan) and young son, as his obsession with protecting his new family from the monster that destroyed his old one is, ironically, the very thing that has driven them away.
   
This was one of those episodes where a lot of the cast were instantly recognisable. Ted Raimi, who has a great extended cameo as a priest, is a familiar face to horror fans, and Brendan Fletcher, who plays the towns scene-stealing, would be cartoonist deputy, is no stranger to horror, having starred in ‘Freddy vs Jason’ before Masters of Horror, and the Uwe Boll directed ‘Rampage’ series shortly after. Throw in ‘Boondocks Saints’ star Sean Patrick Flanery and bonafide movie star Marisa Coughlan as his estranged wife, and you have a very impressive group of actors, especially for a cable TV show.

The Sherriff’s twenty-four year-long concern over the Damned Things return turn out to be justified, as strange events start occurring all across the town. Residents become enraged for no apparent reason, either taking their own life or lashing out at those around them. The most impactful example is a cut to a man out by the side of his house, fixing his ladder. The sun is blazing and you assume that the heat is making him irritable as he starts to lose his composure, hitting himself in the hand with the hammer he’s using to nail the steps back into place. He takes his rage out on the ladder with the hammer, lashing out at it wildly. Then, out of nowhere, he then starts to manically smash himself in the face with it. It’s very well shot, the bright sunshine making the hammer and the streams of blood coming off him gleam, and it makes it so much more shocking to watch.

As an adaptation of the classic Ambrose Bierce story, it is a very loose one. While the story was more of a ‘weird tale’ than outright horror and focused largely on the aftermath and inquest rather than the event itself, Hooper has his camera trained on the bloodshed and mayhem from the very start, taking the broad concept of the short and running with it, much like Stuart Gordon did with his Lovecraft adaptations. As much as I like the Bierce short, I think Hooper’s more brutal and overt approach works fantastically well for the screen.

The episode goes full-on ‘Needful Things’ by the end, every single one of the towns residents both terrified of being the next victim of this unseen intruder and angry enough to make someone the next. The creature that took the Sherriff’s parents over two decades ago is revealed to be part of a family curse, one that took his father, and his father before that, and has now come for him, and has no qualms about killing half the town to get to him. Will the Sherriff find a way to break the curse and save the town, or is it doomed to continue, taking him then coming back for his son twenty-four years later? I’m not telling…

I did have my issues with the episode, but they were minor and didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment. There is a voiceover that runs throughout the episode, only cropping up very occasionally and, in my opinion, unnecessarily, and I found it oddly jarring when it was there, particularly in the Sherriff’s closing scene. The manner in which we get fed information about the titular ‘Damned Thing’ also feels a little redundant, as the events of the story fill in the gaps we need and the rest just drags the pacing down. These are small quibbles, only noticeable because the rest of the episode works so well.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode a lot more than Hooper’s first season offering. The concept is a fun one, and the creature and its motivations are kept wisely vague for the most part. The cast are great and the episode is surprisingly ambitious and big in scale. As much as I enjoyed the story, it’s the gory set pieces that stay with you. This is the polar opposite of Hooper’s best-known work (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) where a lot is suggested, but there is surprisingly little violence, and it’s the dark and dirty tone that gets under your skin. With ‘The Damned Thing’, the violence is front and centre, well lit and gloriously over the top. It’s a strong opening episode for an underrated season two of the series.
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Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode two of the second season, John Landis’s ‘Family’. See you then!

If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page ​
THE MASTERS OF HORROR 

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​Richard is an avid reader and fan of all things horror. He supports Indie horror lit via Twitter (@RickReadsHorror) and reviews horror in all its forms for several websites including Horror Oasis and Sci Fi and Scary

​The Ginger Nuts of Horror website is proud to bring you news of a new queer horror collection from Roan Parrish, that blends music and prose to bring its haunted worlds to life. Scroll down to find an exclusive audio extract from this collection. 

Audio excerpt of Sea Legs by Roan Parrish 

Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia, where she is gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre.

When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.

For more info check out Roan's website here 

Horror fans who watched Masters of Horror only when it first aired and haven’t revisited the show since may not recognise this episode. It is the only one of the twenty-six produced that never made it to screens in the U.S. and was only available as part of the subsequent DVD boxset, as it was pulled for extreme content. Masters of Horror initially aired on Showtime and, as a cable TV channel, there were far less restrictions in terms of content, allowing the various masters of horror to go as big as they wanted, or so they thought. Despite episodes coming from some of horrors most infamous directors (Tobe Hoope and Dario Argento to name just a few) it took Takashi Miike to finally cross the line.

The prolific director of ‘Audition’ and ‘Ichi the Killer’ considers Imprint his scariest work to date and given the notoriety of some of his horror output, that is a hell of a statement. Watching it now, I can not only see why the episode was pulled, but also why Miike still speaks so highly of it to this day.

Set in the late 1800s, the episode opens with Christopher (Billy Drago), an American journalist travelling to a remote island in Japan populated by criminals and prostitutes. The river that leads to the island is littered with dead bodies and, upon his arrival, he walks past cages filled with girls clamouring for the attention of the decidedly unsavoury looking locals. We soon find that he is looking for a woman named Komono (Michie Ito), and while the locals are suspiciously vague about her whereabouts, it is confirmed that she has been here. With a longer stay now on the cards he books a room for the night and is accompanied by one of the women (played by Youki Kudoh).

At this stage we’ve been introduced to the two leads and while Billy Drago is always an engaging presence, Youki Kudoh is a scene stealer throughout the episode, her character getting to run the full gamut of emotions in the 60-minute runtime. She plays a deformed escort who, at first, comes across as meek and shy, opening up slowly as the episode progresses until she becomes completely in control of the situation and we see a whole other side to her. Couple this with flashback scenes, some of which we later find may not be the full truth, and it’s a big role that asks a lot, and Kudoh delivers.

As the episode progresses Christopher asks her what became of Komono and she weaves him a story, shown to the viewer in flashback, of her tragic upbringing after her midwife mother loses her husband and can no longer afford to look after her. She finds her way to the brothel she now works at, where she met Komono, who was kind to her and the envy of the other women for her good looks and kind heart. Her story takes a sinister turn when the brothels Madam find a piece of her jewellery missing, and Komono is wrongly accused of taking it. She suffers terrible tortures at the hand of the vindictive Madam, and takes her own life rather than continue to suffer.

Anyone who has seen ‘Audition’ before, knows all too well that Miike knows how to create a memorable torture scene, and the one inflicted on poor Komono is absolutely horrifying. After she has been burnt under her arms with incense sticks, she has needles pushed under her fingernails and through her gums, leaving her hanging by ropes from the ceiling to suffer until she confesses to a crime she didn’t commit. The whole scene is shown mostly in close up, few cuts, no music. It is unflinching, graphic and tough to watch and, one imagines, a big part of Showtimes reasons for not airing the episode.

Upon hearing of Komonos death Christopher is obviously distraught, but he suspects that he has not been told the truth. The woman confesses that she was not entirely honest and retells the story with a few minor differences. Her upbringing appears to be more traumatic than her initial story suggested, her mother actually an abortionist and not a midwife, her father a violent alcoholic who she kills before being sold into prostitution. In this version of the story, she makes it clear that it was she who stole the Madam’s jewellery, leaving Komono to take the blame.

Through these flashbacks, particularly those which focus on her childhood, we see another (and perhaps major) reason why the episode didn’t make it to air. Scenes of her mother working as an abortionist are shockingly explicit and I’m hard pressed to think of a TV show quite as graphic as Imprint is in showing such difficult subject matter quite so overtly. It is brutally honest to the point where it is difficult to watch, but ultimately important thematically to the story being told (as we will later find out). 

If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page 

THE MASTERS OF HORROR ​

​The Ginger Nuts of Horror website is honoured to welcome R.L. Boyle to the site with an article to celebrate the release of their new novel The Book of the Baku, published by Titan Books. 

Horror fiction is populated by some of the most complex, intriguing characters ever created, and it’s difficult to know where to begin when deciding which are the most terrifying. I love them all, from The Phantom of The Opera to Bruce the Shark, Pennywise to The Pale Man. Each offer their own specific brand of horror, and as other characters fade to black, the best antagonists linger in our minds long after we turn the last page of the book or watch the final credits roll. 


Here are just a few of my personal favourites: 

A Monster Calls meets The Shining in this haunting YA dark fantasy about a monster that breaks free from a story into the real world.

Sean hasn’t spoken a word since he was put into care. When he is sent to live with his grandad, a retired author and total stranger, Sean suddenly finds himself living an affluent life, nothing like the estate he grew up in, where gangs run the streets and violence is around every corner.

Sean embraces a new world of drawing, sculpting and reading his grandad’s stories. But his grandad has secrets in his past. As his grandad retreats to the shed, buried at the end of his treasured garden, The Baku emerges.
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The Baku is ancient, a creature that feeds on our fears, and it corrupts everything it touches. Plagued by nightmares, with darkness spreading through the house, Sean must confront his fears to free himself and his grandad from the grip of the Baku.

Rosanna Boyle studied Classical Civilisation at the University of Leeds, after which she worked in a variety of jobs – none of which had anything to do with her degree. Rosanna lives in Leeds with her husband and three sons. The Book of the Baku is her debut novel.
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