In Fear

 

I watched this last night and I could not have been more disappointed in this awful attempt at a horror movie. I really like Iain De Caestecker in Agents of SHIELD, but even he couldn’t make this movie interesting to me.

 

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

 

So something happened at a pub. Want to know what happened? Sorry, we never find out. Then we have our two main characters, Tom and Lucy driving around the countryside looking for a hotel they have reservations at. They are being chased and tormented by some unnamed psycho that is moving signs around to keep them lost.

 

Then they pick up some wounded guy named Max, and right away I knew this guy wasn’t on the up and up. His forehead is cut and he is bleeding like crazy and insisting that he was attacked. Later we find out that he was the guy who was doing everything.

 

Okay so how did he manage to get ahead of them and switch the signs around every time they came up at a crossroads? Was he teleporting around the woods? Also how did he manage to cut this tree down without them hearing it? Did he have a chainsaw that was completely silent? Plus what happened to Tom? He just left the car and suddenly he was gone with no explanation of what happened to him.

 

Then Lucy is back in the car and finally finds the hotel they’ve been trying to find. Turns out it is completely run down and has broken down cars everywhere around it that shows us that this Max guy has been doing this for a LOOOOONNNNG time to unsuspecting travelers. Why can’t we know about that!?! That sounds much more interesting than following these two boring characters around! I’d love to know Max’s story and about this run down hotel!

 

And the ending? Lucy manages to find the main road again. How did she do this? Sorry, we never find out. Then she sees that Max is in the middle of the road and taunting her to hit him. She guns the engine and races towards him and just as she is about to hit him, we cut to black and the credits roll.

 

Really!?! You pulled a Sopranos on us!?! We don’t even get to see if she actually hit him or if it was a trap!?! What a gyp!

 

***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS***

 

The story was just lame and uninteresting. The whole time I was playing with my dog, checking my phone and surfing the web. The story wasn’t engaging at all and was just boring. The only good thing about the movie was the soundtrack. The music was actually good and helped to build atmosphere, but the story failed to deliver and music can only do so much to carry a movie.

 

Give this one a pass.

 

1 Star

He Sees Me by John Sivils

This has to easily be the best Slender Man story that has ever been written! I mean it! It’s easily on par with the Marble Hornets story that is on YouTube. Any fan of the Slender Man genre will enjoy reading this and it’s a great addition to any horror/Slender Man fan’s library!

There are only a few minor complaints about this book that kept it from being 5 stars. First of all there are a few spelling and grammatical errors sprinkled throughout the book that a proofreader or an editor would have helped to catch. The next part is spoilery for the ending so here are my spoiler tags.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

The creatures that people become when they are obsessed with Slender Man turn into just sound kinda silly. They don’t really fit into the continuity of Slender Man, but I can understand why the author would want to expand on the mythos of the genre.

The last thing I didn’t like was that at the very end we find out that there are more than just one Slender Man, there are many. In my eyes there is only one Slender Man and he can never be defeated, only temporarily escaped from.

***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS***

Even with these minor issues the book is really gripping and is an incredible story! Check it out!

4 Stars

Catalyts by Charles Yallowitz

Now this is an author whose work I try never to miss. I love his Legends of Windemere series so of course I had to pick this one up!

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

I have to admit that this is not this author’s best work. However I will give props to Mr. Yallowitz for trying to branch out into a new genre other than fantasy. After all, everyone needs to try something new once in a while.

I really liked that the majority of this book takes place at a sci-fi convention at a hotel. I love going to conventions myself and I know how fun they can be! We have main characters that are scattered around the hotel and are trying to get to safety. My two favorite characters are trapped together in an elevator and are ready to tear each other apart! They also find out that they have more in common than they ever thought they would.

Moving on, there are evil spirits/shadows that are taking over people’s bodies and forcing them to rip people to shreds. They can be killed like a normal human can, but they are tougher, stronger and faster than a regular human.

It’s vaguely hinted that children are immune to these shadows and it’s a little disappointing that this plot po reint is never explored. But it is shown that when the crazies die, these spirits/shadows flee the bodies.

The ending is just okay and I won’t ruin it for you here.

***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS***

Back to what I said, this wasn’t this author’s best work, but I can see potential in him to write a better horror story than this one. Not everyone is going to like this story, but if the author tries his hand in horror again I’ll surely pick it up.

Slender Man: The Awakening by Mauro Neaus

I’ve been getting into the Slender Man craze lately and this came up in a search so I had to check it out since it was very cheap and seemed to have middle of the road reviews.

At first it seemed kinda cheesy like the author was trying too hard to establish that these characters were scared. But I quickly found myself liking the detective who was investigating the Slender Man appearances and rooting for him. It was also a little silly to see him running through the woods picking up pieces of paper, just like you do in the Slender Man game, “Slender.”

The author is excellent at creating an atmosphere of creepiness and also really captured what it meant for a person to be scared and feel like someone is always watching them or is coming to get them. Also it reminded me of other horror genres where the main character is so deep into what is going on that he knows he is in danger, but he just has to know what’s going on because it’s just eating them up inside.

The only thing I didn’t like about the story is that it is too short and there doesn’t seem to be a sequel out yet. Also 1/3 of the kindle version is exerts from other stories the author is writing that I really had no interest in.

If you like the Slender Man or have the “Slender Sickness,” you’ll really enjoy this one!

4 Stars

Rise Again: A Zombie Thriller

Just to give you, my readers, an idea of what my reviews are like, here is one of my older reviews that I posted on Amazon.com about a book called “Rise Again: A Zombie Thriller,” by Ben Tripp.  Hope you enjoy!

Okay lately I’ve been reading zombie novels hoping to find something that can live up to my expectations and so far I’ve been very disappointed with what I’ve found. Then I was given this novel for Christmas and let me tell you, I was utterly BLOWN AWAY by how good this book was!

Seriously! This book is awesome! I kept looking for something wrong with it and something to complain about, because as a critic I’m always looking to point out what is wrong. Well my inner critic took a back seat to my inner zombie geek and I just enjoyed the ride!

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

Ben Tripp introduced the awesome character of Danny, a tough as nails mountain sheriff who is also a veteran who survived multiple tours in Iraq. The zombie plague breaks out and she keeps her little group of survivors alive and in one piece all the while she is looking for her sister who took off at the beginning of the book. Eventually she does find her at the very end and the story does wrap up nicely.

Now the origins of the zombies in this book are only vaguely explained as being the result of a terrorist cell releasing some kind of virus into the public all over the group at the same time. I loved this! It was quick, didn’t bog down the story with too many details or technobabble, it got the point across and kept the story going. Then the zombies are the usual dumb shambling zombies, (my personal favorite!), and they are killed by head shots and eat human flesh. Again, perfect!

Later our main hero goes to the burning remains of San Francisco to find that the government is trying to hold onto what little control it has left over the people of the nation. This is the only part of the book I didn’t like. It had the author’s political agenda in it and it kinda dragged the story. But I LOVED how Danny just waltzed in, told the remaining government official how she was stupid and that trying to use this catastrophe to further her career was going to get everyone killed.

Then the zombies became fast and started being a little smarter. Normally I don’t like this, but it was done so well that I didn’t mind. The zombies rotted if they didn’t eat flesh and if they did they were preserved. All through the book it is hinted that the zombies are evolving and that they are getting smarter and becoming more like us. The very last sentence in the book really drives this message home as to just how much these zombies have evolved.

***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS*** ***END SPOILERS***

I seriously hope that the author writes a sequel to this book! I am giving the book only 4 stars because the author did kinda write in his own personal political views. Other than that the book was mind blowing. Definitely check this one out!