60 Page Review: Vampire Crush by A.M. Robinson

Dear oh dear.... What can I say? The title and cover pretty much review the book's content on their own, do they not? No. Well, not all of it. I found the writing to be very sloppy and at times awkward, as well as the narration. I don't have the book on me now, but I remember something like: "I poked at the grapes on my plate with my fork. They looked like little grenades, and I wondered if they might explode. They passed the test."

What? Even when not considering the total randomness of this thought (leave out unimportant words!), it doesn't make logical sense, either: grenades are not mines! They don't just explode when touched! They have pins!!

Another thing was the lack of subtlety. The vampire's name was not Edward Cullen, or even something cool like Richard Sklenar or Kolo (the latter two being of my creation; I write the occasional vampire tale too, just not lame type of which we see so much today). No, no, his name was Vlad. FREAKING. VLAD!!!! Are you gods-be-damned kidding me?? And this got published! What's scary is that the author works in New York City - in publishing. Gulp.

And while Stephenie Meyer, the infamous author of the Twilight series (often referred to as a "saga") did not invent the concept of vampire romance (not even sure who did, if not Bram Stoker - but his was not nearly as stupid; in fact, Dracula has become a favorite of mine), this book rips off Meyer's work in numerous ways, what with the strange family moving in and the Hot Guy ignoring her and sitting with her in class and...you get the idea. This book, or at least the sixty pages I forced myself to read in order to get it off the list at my book club, is unoriginal, poorly written, and ultimately a sheer pain to read. I think I'll read something by Stephen King now, or maybe Mary Shelley's Valperga when I can find a copy. And I do hope Jenny Hubbard writes another book. I intend to be done with Robinson, but who knows? - I might have to do this again. Wish me luck.

Final grade: F

A better review here.

Au revoir!

- Lewis

Movie Review: The Woman in Black (2012)

My three favorite genres in film and literature are, from greatest to third greatest (because I hate to say "least"), fantasy, science fiction, and horror. This film is the latter, so I had dearly hoped it would not disappoint.

But first, let me say this: The Woman in Black, so far as I know, is my first Daniel Radcliffe movie other than the Harry Potter franchise. I know he does, or at least did - I hope he still does - live theatre back in the UK, such as David Copperfield and Equus, as well as the American Broadway hit How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I saw none of these; I had not the fortune. So he's a great actor. If I haven't established that opinion already, I do it now in a frank manner. Acting aside, this movie had loads of "jump" scares. And I didn't like it.

I loved it. Even if it did have a lot of loud and startling moments, it was very creepy on both literally morbid and deeply mental levels. The plot, to put it in my own "pitch" form for brevity, is "A lawyer must travel to an old cursed house for business purposes." There's the whole not-believing-it factor, which one could call cliche; but then I'd permit one to call human main characters cliche. I think it's perfectly realistic to be skeptical in this sort of situation. The moments with the titular Woman in Black honestly chilled me to a degree only a few other things have:

• Dracula's moans of pain as Van Helsing stakes him off-screen in Dracula (1931)
• Mina (Lucy in the book, for some reason they like to trade names in movies) coming to her father as a pale vampire ("Pa-pa?") in Dracula (1979)
• Danny Glick floating outside Mark Petrie's window and tapping softly-yet-eerily to be let in (Salem's Lot [1979])
• The ending to The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• The corpse of the evil queen (The Tenth Kingdom, 2000, but the same one who poisoned Snow White; TTK is a fairy-tale spin-off, and remember, I was nine when I saw this scene, so it might or might not still horrify me)
• The greater part of everything in 1408 (2007)
• The "dead" people in The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)
• Voldemort, especially in Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

That may look like a lot, but I've seen many, many movies (although I still have so many to see) and I really don't spook very easily. But The Woman in Black was truly a very frightening experience. If you're up for that sort of thing, go see it! It's well worth the money in my opinion. And little Harry Potter is a grown-up now.... He's older than I, true, but I still watched him grow up through the HP movies. I think being scary is harder now than in past decades. Even I am not scared by most horror flicks, even if I love them. The Shining with Jack Nicholson comes to mind: creepy, and a great movie, but it didn't send me to bed with the light on, if you get my drift. I need to finish that book, and the Mick Garris remake.... Anyhow, there's a very precise art to being scary. You have to probe the mind, I think. Something along those lines. I've seen at least a couple of non-horror movies which I found unsettling: The Silence of the Lambs; Coraline; and Inception. Arguably the first two might be considered horror, but my point is that scary is harder now. I do wonder if vampires will ever be scary again: even if (WHEN) the fad wears down, it will still have existed. Pity - as you can probably surmise, I'm a vampire geek and a Dracula nerd. The same applies to originality in any genre: there are so many writers, and even with many writing the same thing - in fact this may be part or all of the cause and/or effect - it's hard to come up with a decently original idea. Trust me, I know it!

According to the amazing Cory Doctorow and the late, great Blake Snyder, nothing is one hundred percent new. Even if it seems that way, the core of the story is one of (ten?) formulas. I don't like Stephenie Meyer's books, but I must say she seems to have hit gold (even if Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992, had demonic romance in it). I love the Hunger Games Trilogy, but as I understand, Stephen King had already written The Running Man - I have yet to read or see that one, but it sounds similar. Now dystopias are the thing. I digress.

If you'll pardon my digressing a slight further, I must directly reprimand myself for these tangents, as I have an ACT soon and plan on taking the optional Writing portion. I seem to recall something about focus and clear sequential order of thoughts, as described in my preparation book. What an active hypocrite I might be here, even acknowledging it as I type!

The movie! It was great, but I do not recommend it for anyone who spooks easily or has medical conditions sensitive to sudden noise. If you enjoy a good spook, go for it! It's really brilliant.

Final grade: A

What are you going to do? I'm gonna do the best I can!

For those of you not aware, the above title is a quote between Santa Claus and Oogie Boogie from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - very clever movie. But the post itself is relating to the musical I am currently in. School House Rock Live! is actually rather a dull play, and my friend Ezra (who is more learned than I in the ways of the script) says the script is not very good. I'll have to take his word there. The conflict is not altogether fascinating, just a teacher who doesn't think he/she is prepared to educate - but it's what we have. Would I prefer to be in Dracula? Hell yes! But I cannot change that bit (although I can be in a different Dracula play sometime, I hope), so I will have to make do with what I have. Many of the kids here, particularly some of the younger ones, don't take acting seriously. They legitimately concern me. But this is my first non-school production and sort of a practice run for me. It can be compared to a rough draft in writing, or to a napkin on which to clean up. I'd prefer to make my inevitable mistakes here than to make them in a great work of art.

I consider myself an optimist, and if one does not agree with that statement, one ought to chew on this thought: I say an optimist does not pretend things are better than they are, but acknowledges the pain in the world and makes the best out of it. Otherwise to be a positive person, one would by definition be stupid and ignorant. And I prefer not to be either of those, although there is some debate as to whether ignorance is truly bliss; Olivia had a good post about that a while back.

As they say, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Of course there's the question of sugar and water, but I have to leave soon for a SHRL! rehearsal. Good-day.

Wishing the best to most,

Lewis

Slaying and Butchering

Slaying vampires is freaking awesome. Butchering their concept is not. What has happened to media!? It might have started with Twilight, my all-time least favorite book, but now they have an entire section at the bookstore devoted to paranormal romance. And now, apparently, there is paranormal erotica. If Count Dracula were still undead, he'd bite garlic, stake himself, or maybe run into daylight. And I'm sure Bram Stoker is spinning in his grave.

I think I'll do a numerical list:

1. They do not bloody sparkle! That is the least menacing thing ever.
2. Don't date them! They will bite you and have you drink their blood in exchange! Eek!
3. Why are they made out to be sexually attractive? If I fell in love, I'd prefer my partner to be, well, alive. Ugh.
4. You YA romance writers are crowding out most chances of us actual fantasy and/or horror writers publishing vampire stories. It's become a cliche and horror publishers are apt to assume that we are writing about fairies as opposed to bloodsucking demons.
5. What ever happened to the awesome backstories? Satan, the Reaper, werewolves, snakes, bats, crows and ravens, underworld, Hell, necromancy, wolves, spiders, rats, mist, smoke, curses, and so on? Now they are just overdone humans.
6. As a continuation of #5, where did the scary go? The only reason Edward makes me shiver is that he watches Bella sleep, and teenage girls find it acceptable. Vampires, nosferatus, used to be an emblem of terror. Watch Dracula or Salem's Lot (both the 1979 versions - year of vampires?) and you'll see what I mean. Undead Mina approaching her father under the cemetery and saying "Papa?" (Dracula) and demonic Danny Glick tapping on Mark Petries window (Salem's Lot) are both spine-chilling. The books of both are even better, although I loved the appearance of Kurt Barlow (Salem's Lot master vampire) ,and Count Dracula's ability to crawl down walls was beyond really cool.
7. Werewolves. I actually thought the ones in the New Moon film were pretty cool, although I have no plans to read it, and I don't consider the wolves to be "were-". They are supposed to change at the full moon, not by will, and they become a wild beast instead of fully-in-control teddy bears. If you want good werewolf movies, watch any Wolf Man film (I've seen the newest one and half the 1941 version), The American Werewolf in London, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, or Van Helsing - VH is not a perfect film critically speaking, but the vampires are really cool, as are the werewolves. It's a fun watch. And it also has the Frankenstein monster and Mr. Hyde - a bit of a mash-up of horror beasts.

I suppose that is all. I have school tomorrow and this is my third post tonight, so I'd better hit the hay!

Long (unlive?) the true meaning of necromancy and vampirism! Sanguis bibimus! Ave Draculea!

Living, breathing love from,

Lewis

Book Review: Dracula by Bram Stoker

My first experience with Count Dracula was the movie Van Helsing, and my second a play from Cary Applause! in October 2009. Shortly after that I watched the 1979 film with Frank Langella, then the 1992 one with Gary Oldman, and earlier this year (I think) the one with Bela Lugosi, released in 1931. I loved all of these, but the book is better than any of them.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bram Stoker's classic horror novel, woe unto thee, it is set (and was published) in 1897. Jonathan Harker goes on a business trip to the Carpathian Mountains of Romania to work for Count Dracula, who he soon realizes is not altogether human. The Count later shows up in Harker's home of London, where he hopes to make his residence and take over, for during his lifetime the Count was a fierce warrior who conquered lands. Harker and a small band of vampire hunters team up to hunt down the terrible Count before it is too late.

This novel started out rather slow, but one, I don't mind slow and two, it was written in 1897, before people had the distractions of video games and telly and all that. It had a very gloomy tone to it, which I loved. The only thing that I didn't quite understand was how Dracula transformed himself into a vampire without being bitten. I often wonder at this, and for werewolves too: where did the first come from? Before there was one to be bitten by?

Otherwise I really loved this book, and it's about time I've finally read it. I recommend it to any horror, vampire, or dark fantasy fan.

Final grade: B

Books, Books, Books!

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I recently discovered the website Goodreads via my former Creative Writing teacher's blog. I already have a Shelfari, but I went ahead and created an account anyway. I like this site because I can sort things onto multiple "shelves". I don't prefer it to Shelfari, nor vice versa, but it's a good site. I found someone from my book club there and discovered we are both huge Neil Gaiman fans. One of the many things I'm currently reading (semi-reading in this case) is the second Sandman graphic novel by Gaiman, titled The Doll's House. I loved the first one because it was of the mind-bending variety and featured the Lord of Dreams. Very interesting.

I am currently nearing the end of Dracula and really liking it. Vampires - when they don't sparkle - are something I love reading about. Until recently my favorite book was Stephen King's second novel, 'Salem's Lot (it is now The Two Princesses of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine). If anyone shares this affinity, he or she ought to check out The Vampire Archives, edited by Otto Penzler. It contains over a thousand pages of centuries of vampire fiction, including M.E. Braddon, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ray Bradbury, Anne Rice, Bram Stoker, and countless others.

I must read Wither by Lauren DeStefano soon for Printz, so that I know what everyone is talking about. I just wanted to have a post about books, and I can guarantee more of these. But for now I must leave.

Au revoir,

Lewis