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Archive for Vampire

Dark Shadows – Why?

May22

Title: Dark Shadows (2012)

Cast: Johnny Depp (Actor), Michelle Pfeiffer (Actor), Tim Burton (Director)

Genre: Vampire Comedy

Watched:  May 19, 2012

Summary: Why? Just why?

_

My dedication to all things vampire made me see it. I swear.

One wonders if Tim Burton ever works with anyone other than Johnny Depp. But the issue here isn’t really Depp’s deadpan Deppist performance, which is certainly one of the better things about the film. It’s basically in the meta creative choices and the writing. The source material is long, dramatic, or rather melodramatic, and convoluted. It involves stories being woven out over many episodes (1991) or years (2800 episodes of the original!). Any comedy was inadvertent.

Not so much here. There is no backstory. Instead, what happened between Barnabus in the 18th century (involving his affair with the witch Angelique and the subsequent death of his lover and conversion into vampire) is spelled out in a quick prelude. This is the best part of the film and the least comic. But its presence also leaves no room for any sense of mystery.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpWvkFlyl4M]

Then cut to 1972 and the awakening of our entombed hero. For a few moments the fish out of water comedy is funny, even if it’s all in the trailer. But that’s about it. There is pretty much zero character development here. The creators shove in a large number of characters from the original, even if in mutated form, but there is so much time spent with Depp that everyone else (with the possible exception of Angelique) is anemic at best. There isn’t even an attempt at a character arc for anyone. The conflict is minimal and simplistic. In fact, the movie devolves into a kind of “we have to save the family business” rivalry type film, even including one of my least favorite Hollywood devices: “everything can be fixed with a good party.” Which includes a 1972 Alice Cooper who looks exactly like 2012 Alice Cooper. But even the lame business conflict line is underwritten. The second half was just boring.

There are a few good moments of visual or deadpan humor, mostly involving slightly esoteric riffs to vampire fans. Willy’s character is good. Chloe Moretz is cute but stuck with perpetual curled lip. Eva Green is confused but sexy. Depp seems to have blended Jack Sparrow, Hunter S Thompson, and Max Schreck. I like what he does with his pointy fingered hands. He pivots up unnaturally out of his coffin. Many younger viewers will know this best from Coppola’s Dracula, but he too borrowed it from the 1922 Nosferatu. I liked the image of the vampire sleeping in the linen closet. These are small things, and definitely not enough to save the film.

My thoughts on the 1991 revival.

For more Film reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Dark Shadows – The Revival
  2. Near Dark – The Hurt Coffin
  3. Stake Land – Vampire Zombie Scramble
  4. The Way of Shadows
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Angelique, Barnabas Collins, Dark Shadows, EvaGreen, Johnny Depp, Max Schreck, Michelle Pfeiffer, Movie, reviews, Tim Burton, Vampire, vampires

Dark Shadows – The Revival

May10

Title: Dark Shadows

Genre: Horror

Watched: May, 2012

Summary: Old school gothic

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The upcoming Tim Burton remake reminded me that I wanted to rewatch the 1991 Dark Shadows revival. I saw some of it at release, but being a lover of all things vampire, felt it my duty to revisit. Now, that vampire-philia doesn’t extend so far as to actually watch all 2,231 episodes of the 1966 original, particularly when it’s black and white and shot live!

Anyway, back to the 1991 version. It has a certain production cheese. I think the photos to the right make that pretty clear. But the writing is actually good. This can not always be said of the acting (David Collins, I’m thinking of you!). Still, some of the leads are solid. Victoria Winters is cute, and Barnabus has an old school vibe. He even says yes instead of “yes.” Imagine the classic horror movie vampire voice as the italics. He has all that classic vampire goodness: No reflection, sunlight challenged, a fear of crosses and stakes. Fog machines follow him everywhere and when he gets excited, out come the red contacts and the pop in fangs.

This show has everything: vampires, dopplegangers, witches, ghosts, curses, familiars with low IQs, vampire-curing doctors, even time travel! And all that in just twelve episodes. There is a classic sensibility to all of it. Barnabus arrives (recently freed from his coffin) and poses as a long lost relative. What a coincidence, he looks just like his namesake from 200 years ago! And, the family tudor is the spitting image of his long dead love. I love a good Bram Stoker homage. I enjoyed that the writers actually plotted a real story with solid characters and a bit of complexity. There might be hammy moments, but the characters remained true to themselves.

Plus, the last four episodes are all set in 1790, which is always cool.

Check out more TV reviews.

Related posts:

  1. The Way of Shadows
  2. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 3
  3. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2
  4. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 6
  5. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 4
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Barnabas Collins, Dark Shadows, Television, Tim Burton, Vampire, Victoria Winters

Stake Land – Vampire Zombie Scramble

Feb27

Title: Stake Land

Director/Stars: Connor Paolo (Actor), Nick Damici (Actor), Jim Mickle (Director)

Genre: Zombie Thriller

Watched:  February 22, 2012

Summary: Impressive addition to the genre

_

Steak Land is a very ambitious film. On a diminutive budget, it attempts to paint a fairly complete vision of a post-apocalyptic America — and is successful enough to be impressive. There is nothing original in the set up.  Some kind of virus has devastated the world turning much of the population into vampires/zombie hybrids. Those that didn’t suffer this worse-than-death fate had their necks torn out or their brains eaten.  Our heroes are a teenage boy and a kick ass monster hunter known only as Mr. They travel across America seeking a monster free zone picking up various strays along the way.  Meanwhile, the zombie-like “vamps” pop out of nowhere on a continuous basis. And even worse there are homicidal religious maniacs deal with.

None of these themes are new. And the film feels a bit of the mashup of The Road, the Book of Eli, I am legend, Zombieland, and 28 days later. It’s on the darker side, rarely comic, and closest to The Road. But without the completely unrelenting sense of dread and hopelessness of that film. Despite costing a fraction of the above, Steak Land manages to feel pretty authentic. And it’s ultimately more successful and watchable than The Road or the Book of Eli.  the director spends time his characters, and in particular on post-apocalyptic America as well. By frequently lingering on the devastation, and on the multitude of corpses, he fairly effectively paints the bleak landscape. There some effort here to imagine different approaches to survival. Not only complete sense, but I give him an A for effort. The monsters a fairly interesting, combining the mindless qualities of zombies with some of the powers and weaknesses of vampires.

The same is true with the characterization. The writer-director  wants to make these fleshed out characters. And some extent he succeeds. There are occasionally cheesy moments, but they are certainly forgivable given the budget. His religious nut job villain is quite enjoyable — although when he inevitably vamps out a little gratuitous. And the concluding events felt a little rushed, robbing them of proper emotional depth. Still,  the film is a surprisingly impressive addition to the genre.

Interestingly, the film has many superficial similarities to Naughty Dog’s upcoming game The Last of Us.

For more Film reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 4
  2. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1
  3. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 5
  4. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2
  5. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 6
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Book of Eli, Connor Paolo, Jim Mickle, Movie, Movies, Naughty Dog, Nick Damici, reviews, Road, Stake Land, The Book of Eli, Ti West, Vampire, vampires, zombie, Zombieland, zombies

The Look – al-Nasir

Dec24

In the process of developing the interior look of my book, The Darkening Dream, I wanted to create glyphs to represent each point of view character. In general, despite my big library of occult titles, I find a lot of references on the web (Google for the win!). Ultimately, I’m trying to produce original works, but reference art is very useful in communicating with your artists.

Let’s start with one of the easiest: al-Nasir, my 900 year-old vampire villain.


In life, al-Nasir, was a Moorish warrior who ruled over the Caliphate of Cordoba. If this floats your boat, check out his detail page on the blog. He’s a violent warrior, so a sword was a natural. The above weapon is a photograph of an actual Nasrid sword from the eleventh century. Contrary to popular imagination, Moorish swords were not curved, at least in this period.


As the style I’m going for is an illustrated, “old school engraving” style, I showed the artists this image, which is a similar kind of sword, but as an drawing was useful in demonstrating how to convert the photographic image into a more illustrated form.


But al-Nasir isn’t just any old medieval Moor, no he’s a vampire, and one who specializes in the flying bat form. So I found this odd sixteenth or seventeen century engraving. The bat wings are really cool and in just the kind of naive wood block style I’m going for.


I rotated the sword, then used Photoshop to snip out the bat wings and build a composite to show the artists exactly what I had in mind. I call this “ghetto art” and it might be ugly but it’s invaluable in communicating visually. Below is the resulting final image, which they got pretty much dead on (haha) with the first try.

For more about my novel, The Darkening Dream.
To find out more about developing a style for the interior art, see here.
For more information on al-Nasir, the badass 900 year-old Moorish vampire.

By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: al-Nasir, Nasir, Sword, The Darkening Dream, Vampire

First Pro Review

Dec10

The Darkening Dream just received it’s first pro review, from Kirkus Reviews.

Read it here on the new review page. Highlights include:

 “A vampire novel with actual bite” and “wonderfully twisted sense of humor”

In other writing news, I’m through all the heavy lifting with regard to the Untimed line edits and hope to be done in a day or two! Woot! The book has shrunk 6,000+ words down to 75,000 without loosing any scenes.

Related posts:

  1. Video Game Page & Book Status
  2. The edits are all in!
  3. Villetta Update
  4. Revision Slog – Novel as Algorithm
  5. Website Upgrades Coming
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Indie Reviews, Kirkus review, Kirkus Reviews, The Darkening Dream, Untimed, Vampire, vampires

City of Bones

Aug31

Title: City of Bones

Author: Cassandra Clare

Genre: YA urban fantasy

Length: 460 pages, 131,000 words

Read: August 17-19, 2011

Summary: Fun until the end

ANY CHARACTER HERE

City of Bones is the first in a series of fairly typical urban paranormal. We have a girl who thinks she’s nothing special, but she discovers she’s part of this whole world of demon hunters, fairies, vampires, werewolves, etc. And right under our noses in New York City!

Seen that before?

Well yes. Certainly one of my biggest problems with this book is just how similar it is to lots and lots of other late 2000s urban fantasy. It’s much like Holly Black‘s stuff (White Cat, Tithe), but with a bit less atmosphere. In fact, the two authors are friends and share the same agent (coincidence?). But City of Bones is similar to a lot of other things as well. At times there’s a wee bit of a unique feel involving the Shadowhunters (that’s what this book calls the demon hunters clan the protagonist hooks up with). Just a little. There’s certainly very very little rooting in any kind of traditional mythology, but instead a whole hell a lot of stuff stolen from contemporary pop myth. Werewolves and vampires both, and guess what? They hate each other. Author Cassandra Clare started off as a Harry Potter fanfic writer, and that shows because she borrows a lot from HP. But not what you’d think. There’s next to no similarity of feel, no wizard school, etc. Instead City of Bones borrows things like naming conventions and loose bad guy structure. Names like “Pangborn” and the like. The evil guy (who faked his death) is back with a “Circle” (ahem Death Eaters) and their’s more. Clare loves capitalized terms like “The Circle,” “The Uprising,” “The Institute.”

Still, for at least the first 50-60% I really enjoyed reading this novel. It’s well written. Albeit overwritten. I can’t understand how the hell they let her through the gates at 130k words. At least 15% could be cut with just a good line edit and there are long long dialog exchanges that are either datadumps or serve only as barbed chatter between the male and female leads. The POV is a little wonky too, 95% of the time focusing on the female lead (Clary), but occasionally shifting to the male or even a baddy. Clary’s very very typical. She’s pretty, but thinks she isn’t. She dives into crazy life threatening fight scenes time and time again, but has no skills herself. But somehow you don’t mind her. In fact she’s pretty likeable. The male lead (Jace) is less typical. He’s genuinely obnoxious (verbally) but mostly tries to do the right thing in deeds. His aloof self is actually pretty well crafted, although annoying at the same time. There is some good tension in the interpersonal stuff — although not even the whiff of sex, which would have spiced it up.

All this criticism aside, I did actually enjoy the first half of the book. I even said to my wife half way: “I’m reading one of those rare urban fantasy’s that’s actually good.” Truth be told, there’s all sorts of drivel I don’t finish and don’t mention on my blog. City of Bones is a long book, and I flew through it to perhaps the 75% mark. I can’t exactly say what made it enjoyable, but it was. Despite the pretty derivative scenario, the characters were engaging for the most part. Clare’s a good action writer — not perfect, but her action scenes are to the point and clear. There’s a definite urban feel to things. Sometimes a little too much as this is one of those worlds where the fantasy types spend a lot of time at clubs posing as hip weirdos. They have “cool” swirly tattoos too (in this context quotes = sarcasm). There are twists and turns and reveals. Some of the big ones you can see a mile coming. Like the deal with Clary’s father. I guessed that one about page 20. The hints were slathered on like a redhead with the sunblock.

Really the only thing that prevents this book from being a solid guilty pleasure (it was never aimed at classic), and me from starting in on the sequel (which people say is actually better), is the cheesy final showdown. It totally lost me. Mired and tortured me in fifty pages of “bad guy gives lots of Scooby Doo explanation in the middle of a fight.” Yeah, he’s like stabbing with a sword and he has time to get about three pages of dialog in during each stroke. We even have this cheesy flashback from one of the older characters (a werewolf named Lucian — we’ve never seen that before!) to a supposedly crucial scene right around the time of Clary’s birth. A big flashback at the 85% point? It’s the only one in the book too. A couple lines of dialog would have told us what we needed to know. The whole end just felt forced. Clare should have kept the villain off screen or something, because he was so ham-handed he was begging for a slice of pineapple. Which is a shame, because there was enough craft in the other characters that I actually grew to like them.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: City of War
  2. Waterloo & City
  3. Waterloo & City is Victorious
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book Review, Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, Fiction, Harry Potter, Holly Black, New York City, Novel, Shadowhunter, The Mortal Instruments, Urban fantasy, Vampire

Fright Night (2011) – Not a waste of film

Aug21

Title: Fright Night

Director/Stars: Colin Farrell (Actor), Anton Yelchin (Actor), Imogen Poots (Actor), Craig Gillespie (Director)

Genre: Horror

Watched: August 19, 2011 (and before)

Summary: Fun update!

_

As a lifelong vampire fan — hell, my first novel is (somewhat) about vampires — I saw and loved the original Fright Night when it opened in 1985. Truth be told it was always one of my favorite vampire movies (up there with Coppola’s Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Let the Right One In, and The Lost Boys). The 1985 Fright Night offers up a clever blend of comedy and horror. Not only is the movie very funny (and it holds up well today), but it’s not a pure spoof. The plot’s moderately clever, and the vampire, played by Chris Sarandon (Susan’s first husband) has a sinister charm and a genuine sense of menace. In my opinion vampires need a sense of menace (even the goofy Master from Buffy Season 1 is menacing). No sparkles for me.

So it was with some trepidation that I checked out the remake. See the trailer below:

I was pleasantly surprised to find the new version pretty fricking good. The story is loosely faithful to the original film. Buffy writer Marti Noxon penned the screenplay. She’s a consistently excellent writer, with the exception of the incredibly sucky I Am Number Four (maybe someone butchered it after the fact?) with a knack for catchy dialog. Most of the original elements survived intact, but character and balance has been adjusted significantly. Most substantially, Roddy McDowall‘s campy older vampire-killer TV host has been replaced by David Tennant channeling a campy blend of Chris Angel and Russell Brand. But that works.

The casting is top notch. Anton Yelchin is fast talking, self deprecating, and likable as Charlie. Imogen Poots is smoking inferno hot — and 21st century feisty/competent — as Amy. Hers is a career to watch, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her carrying a movie in the next year or two. The rest of the cast is fun too. But it’s Colin Farrell that steals the show with his visceral new take on the ancient killer. Farrell’s Jerry isn’t so slick or romantic as the classical vampire, but he brings a feral intensity to the role which is extraordinarily predatory. Supremely confident, this Jerry starts off the movie as a mere “human” predator, clearly a man not to be trusted with the ladies. But when he senses the kids are on to him, he doesn’t just depend on the defense of disbelief that the original did (although he does have some good fun with this) but goes straight for the jugular — literarily and figuratively. Part white trash, part serial killer, part vampire, he’s all around delicious to watch.

Noxon’s script is full of dark humor and quippy (but not too campy) lines. The story has been rearranged to suit modern tastes. Essentially act 1 has been compressed to almost nothing. Gone is the first third of the movie where the characters (although not the audience) are trying to sort out exactly what they’re dealing with. Instead, we open with vampire, and by scene three (perhaps 4-5 minutes) Charlie’s friend Evil is desperately trying to convince him that the new neighbor Jerry is a vampire. The movie makes no bones about confirming this either. It leaps right into fang games and breaks into a very extended second act filled with big chase and action scenes. This could have ruined the film, but the scenes are slick and intense. The final showdown perhaps felt a little rushed, and there was at least one major story error (the vampires show up in Vegas at exactly the wrong time and place with no explanation of how they knew to be there), but none of this really detracts from the fun and mayhem.

The effects are top notch and don’t get in the way too much. Sure they’re gratuitous, but they’re supposed to be. The editing is more classic, not the frantic mess that’s popular these days. And the cinematography was often quite striking. Certain shots were highly memorable: particularly both fang outs (Jerry and another), the stripper’s final number, and many others.

So vampire fans, go see.

For more Film reviews, click here.
For more vampire posts, here.

Related posts:

  1. About Last Night
  2. Book Review: Tropic of Night
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Anton Yelchin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Colin Farrell, Craig Gillespie, Dracula, Film Review, Fright Night, horror, Imogen Poots, Lost Boys, Marti Noxon, Roddy McDowall, Vampire, vampires

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 6

Feb11

CONTINUED FROM PART 5 ABOVE.

The rest of the series can be found here: [1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6]

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:

 

Season 7:

So at long last we meander to the final, and worst, season. Not that it’s awful, but it does suffer from a number of serious problems.

1. The big bad is diffuse. This season, in an effort to be even more apocalyptic, they decided on an incorporal season villain called “the first evil.” A vaguely couched badness that takes the form of dead people, often Buffy herself (she did, after all, die twice). Frankly, the first is kinda lame, and not very funny. It certainly doesn’t measure up to Glory or the Mayor (although it occasionally looks like the Mayor). It’s “first” appearance (haha) where it slowly winds back through all the villains in reverse order is however kinda cool.

2. The slayerettes – About 40% into the season Buffy is inundated by a collection of 17 year-old idiots known collectively as the slayerettes. They totally suck, are just anoying, gum up the relationships we really care about, and often get themselves killed (good riddance). Only Kennedy has any redeeming qualities — mostly in the form of implied girl-on-girl action with Willow.

3. Andrew – For some reason, this lamest and most annoying of the “Trio” is held captive in Buffy’s house, where he can serve to annoy us, the viewers. He does have his occasional moments and lines, like “Episode one boring?” But mostly he grates on the nerves of the cast and viewer alike. Oh Andrew, why at least couldn’t you have died in “Chosen?”

4. Mysterious documentary-style shooting – Certain episodes have a more documentary style that is not evidenced anywhere else in the series. Notably “Storyteller” (deliberate there for sure) and bits in “Touched” and “End of Days.” It felt amateurish and out of place.

5. No good creative episodes – Nothing like “The Body” or “Once More with Feeling.” Nothing. They may have tried with “Storyteller,” but it was lame lame lame.

At least the writers knew it would be the last season, and so in a neat and orderly manner arced the story toward a decent conclusion. And the first half of the season starts pretty decently. The new character, Principal Wood is good. “Help” is a great episode and the Anya episode, “Selfless” has some totally priceless 1,000 year flash back scenes between Anya and Olaf the troll — totally priceless, and made all the better for being in some Germanic/Scandinavian tongue and subtitled. “Conversations with Dead People” and “Sleeper” aren’t bad either.

Ug. Then enter the slayerettes. The only compensating bit being the sub-boss bad guy, the “ubervamp” who is pretty cool and kicks some ass, including Buffy’s.

The second half of the season is uneven, including my least favorite episode in a long time “Storyteller,” but the pretty good “Lies My Parents Told Me.” The new sub-boss Caleb is decent too. Then we have “Empty Places.”

I don’t know what they were thinking, but it’s obvious the writers decided they had to separate Buffy from her friends for dramatic effect, and so they stage a show down in which they all turn against her. In no other episode of the entire series is there a moment where so many characters just act completely out of character. I can buy a few of them turning on her like this, but the writers failed completely to give each and every one of them a valid personal reason visa-via their relationship with Buffy to do so. I could barely watch it.

The return of Faith however is good, and the last three episodes are pretty strong, particularly the series finale “Chosen.” Despite the lame cameo from Angel, it does all end up in a pretty good place, and reasonably satisfying — a difficult thing to do after such a long and emotional series. Overall, it’s certainly a must watch, but just not on par with the magnificent pair of seasons that preceded it.

As with the previous two times I’m depressed that it’s over. This time I’m going to make a serious effort at Jos Whedon’s season 8 in comic book form.

Related posts:

  1. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 3
  2. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 5
  3. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2
  4. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 4
  5. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1
By: agavin
Comments (11)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Alyson Hannigan, Art, Buffy, Buffy Summers, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Fiction, Joss Whedon, Kennedy, Mayor, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Spike, Television, tv, TV review, Vampire, Willow Rosenberg

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 5

Jan29

CONTINUED FROM PART 4 ABOVE. And the whole series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:

 

Season 6:

The transition from season 5 into season 6 is the best of the entire series. After the season 5 finale, with its tear jerking “The Gift,” we slam right in with the two hour “Bargaining,” and it’s more or less continuation “After Life.” I’ve never managed to not watch all three of these together because until the end of the third hour things are so unsettled you just have to keep going.

Season 6 is dark, and in my opinion the seven seasons would be ranked 5,6,3,4,2,1,7. With all but 7 being fantastic, and five and six very close. Six is a bit darker, but I’ll give the edge to five just because I like Glory so much and the whole villain bit is more cohesive. But both five and six have almost no “one off” episodes, even those that technically have a monster of the week like “After Life,” or “Hell’s Bells,” are fundamentally crucial to the larger plot. And episode seven of season six is “Once More, With Feeling,” arguably, along with season 5’s “The Body,” the best episode of the entire series.

“Once More, With Feeling” is just mind bogglingly brilliant. Not only is it a musical, sung entirely by the cast and written and scored by Joss Whedon, but it’s a darn good musical. If you are new to Buffy, don’t watch this episode and expect to be wowed — I mean if you like musicals you might like it — but you have to see it in context of the series to really appreciate it. I’ve watched it no less than eight times, and I’ve been spell bound ever time. Plus I hate musicals. First there is the sheer audacity of it: to just up and write a musical episode, complete with MGM musical style titles in the middle of a long running dramatic series. I even own the soundtrack. But then, much more importantly, is how this episode is actually the most central to the season, the one in which everything comes to a head. It has the most plot, the most climax, of any Buffy episode. Nearly every character is pivoting here — and the music makes it happen. Sheer unadulterated genius.

After “Once More, With Feeling,” things grow really dark. This season our nominal villains are the Trio, three geeks who have ganged up to be super villains. They’re pretty funny, although not nearly as menacing as the mayor or Glory. They do have some tremendous lines like “episode one bad?” But really, their villainy is trumped by none other than the best friend. In the middle of this season Buffy herself struggles with Nihilism, and a career in fast food. But Willow… Her magic addiction threatens to destroy her relationship, her life, and ultimately the world. Lots of other stuff is self destructing here. Giles leaves, Dawn suffers teen angst, Anya and Xander implode, and Buffy turns to down and dirty sex to validate her dark self. This is good stuff, almost too dark.

Nearing the end we have the very emotional “Seeing Red,” and then the high speed tripple whammy of Willow’s vengeful meltdown. The end is good too, just not as deeply felt as “The Gift.”

If only season 7 could have stayed this good.

CONTINUED HERE IN PART 6.

Related posts:

  1. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 3
  2. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 4
  3. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2
  4. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1
  5. Book and Movie Review: Twilight
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Fiction, Gift, Joss Whedon, Once More with Feeling (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), reviews, Season 6, Television, tv, Vampire, Xander, Xander Harris

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 4

Jan18

CONTINUED FROM PART 3 ABOVE. And the whole series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:

 

Season 5:

Season 5 and 6 pretty much tie for the best of the seven! Pretty incredible how this show just keeps on getting better and better until the final season. With this season everything slips into a serious groove, but what’s really surprising is the depth of emotion pulled out of the viewers. Nearly gone are the episodic “one off” episodes (discussed in my Lost vs The Love Boat post), instead the story just rolls from one episode to the next with only a few exceptions.

The first episode (“Buffy vs. Dracula“)  is light, but it ends with a shocker, one that is reinforced in episode 2 (“Real Me“). Suddenly, and without explanation only-child Buffy has a little sister named Dawn. What casually might seem like a gimmick to spread the show demographic younger in fact becomes completely central to the season’s plot and deepens the character interactions immensely, particularly for Buffy. The season’s “big bad,” Glory — my second favorite after the Mayor — is a Hell God in need of a magical key to break open the barriers between dimensions. Some crazy monks rebuild the entire reality of the world to hide the key as Buffy’s sister, having altered all reality and history such that she existed all along. Pure genius.

What this really does is turn Buffy’s nice little dyad with her mother into a full-fledged family, upping the personal stakes immensely. And it isn’t all supernatural. Joyce (Buffy’s mom) develops a brain tumor in a long and very emotional arc that ties in brilliantly with the family aspect and with Dawn’s growing understanding of her esoteric nature. This comes to a series of shattering culminations in “Blood Ties” and “The Body.” This last episode is probably the best of the entire series, or at least tied with “Once More with Feeling,” and is a stunning piece of television. Written and Directed by Joss (as most of the great episodes are), it is a tour de force of film making. Free of music, almost free of the supernatural, but jammed packed with horror, reality, and emotion, this is a seriously tear inducing hour. And it includes network television’s first on-screen lesbian kiss!

Wisely after the disruptions in some of the formulas from the first three seasons that college (season 4) brought on, season 5 brings the gang into a stable new orbit. Giles has purchased the Magic Shoppe and this replaces the library as the central hub. Xander and Giles are back in full orbit, and Anya, Tara, and Dawn integrated into the team. But it’s Spike, and his new every episode role and gradual character transformation that really livens things up. In an amusing, poignant, and brilliant turn he falls for Buffy (hopelessly — at least for now) and she literally ends up making him a better man. But this doesn’t stop him from still being sordid, hilariously. “Fool for Love” in particular is a brilliant episode in which Buffy forces spike to recount the story of his creation (by Drusilla) and his killing of two other slayers. Plus the Buffybot is pure genius, and real Buffy’s turn playing the bot to get the truth from Spike truly touching.

There are some serious themes of loss and alienation going on here, growing and growing as we head toward the dark territory that is season 6 — Love it! The weight of the world, the family crises, and the burden of protecting Dawn, take their toll on Buffy. This comes to the world shattering conclusion in the finale, Joss’s brilliant “The Gift,” which even on the third viewing had me crying. Seriously, this show is that good!

As the poignant music surges, and Buffy runs from Dawn to dawn across the platform — Death is your gift!

Related posts:

  1. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2
  2. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1
  3. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 3
  4. Thoughts on TV: Lost vs The Love Boat
  5. Book and Movie Review: Twilight
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Art, Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, horror, Love Boat, Programs, reviews, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Television, Vampire, vampires

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 3

Nov07

CONTINUED FROM PART 2 ABOVE. And the whole series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:


Season 3:

Everyone must have thought: With the little half-length first season, and such a strong second season, that Buffy season 3 was heading toward a huge sophomore slump. But no, this season is even better than the second. Several things contribute to this:

1. The writers learn to deepen the mythology. They bring back old characters in surprising ways. They take gimmicks that made previous episodes great, and reintroduce them with new twists that get even better. Through it the characters and dialog stay strong, the veneer of comedy and fantasy is used to toe into, and then later delve deep into places where TV was usually afraid to venture.

2. The “experimental” or more radically different episode is introduced.  These special episodes shake up the viewers preconceptions about the show. Many of these are written and directed by Whedon himself, and make up some of the best episodes of the series, culminating in Season 6’s “Once more with feeling.” Season 3 comes out of the gate this way with “Anne” (Buffy alone in LA), and continues with “The Zeppo” (told entirely from Xander‘s perspective), and “The Wish” and “Doppelgangland” (where an alternate version of the town and characters are explored). These introduce vampire Willow, who heralds some of the long term changes in store. Willow: “It’s horrible! That’s me as a vampire? I’m so evil and…skanky. And I think I’m kinda gay.”

3. The main series arcs become more integrated with each of the shows. We get the best darkly comic villain of the whole series, the sinister “Mayor.” The arcing becomes so sophisticated that even the most standalone episodes have important changes affecting the relationships of the characters. We meet bad-girl Faith, who provides delicious counterpoint to Buffy’s honor-bound sense of duty — not to mention introducing sexy newcomer Eliza Dushku. Her presence, twisting as it does across the entire season and winding together with the overall villain arc helps stich the entire season together. The result is very few episodes that feel standalone, as even those with a monster of the week are moving forward the relationships between the characters.

4. Sub arcing involving character relationships, notably the love lives of Xander, Willow, Cordelia, Oz etc. proceeds fast and furiously.

 

Season 4:

This season could have sunk the show, as High School shows often fail after graduation. It’s stil a transitional season,  but it accurately reflects many details of college life (adapted to the Buffyverse). The show’s formula is mildly upset by the change. The relationship of the Scooby Gang (the main gang of friends) and mentor Giles teeters — enough that by season five, college will be downplayed and a new equilibrium established around the magic shoppe as headquarters.

Additionally, the main villain of the season is the weakest of the series, involving a government/army conspiracy and a frankenstein-come-terminator monster. Still, the great writing holds everything together through the change.

Many classic elements of a High Schooler’s transition to college are parodied successfully: college jitters, bad roommates, one night stands, over-drinking, fraternities, four-year lesbians, etc. The show keeps us engaged by continuing the ever evolving relationships. Willow and Oz explode, and she goes gay. Xander finds love with an ex-demon. Buffy has her only healthy relationship of the entire show. Spike, the popular villain from season two makes a return and begins a long an amazing transformation that is pretty much a Whedon halmark, where villains can become heros and heros villains.

The tradition of special episodes also continues with the groundbreaking “Hush,” the extraordinarily creative “Superstar,” and the oddball “Restless.” In “Superstar” for example a relatively minor (at this point) reoccurring character from the past literarily takes over the show. This extends to a meta level, involving the creation of a new custom title sequence just for the episode. There is a radical creativity here, a willingness to experiment and play with even the container and format of TV itself.

CONTINUE WITH PART 4 HERE.

Related posts:

  1. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2
  2. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1
  3. Thoughts on TV: Lost vs The Love Boat
  4. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  5. Book Review: The Passage
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Buffy, Buffy Summers, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Buffyverse, Eliza Dushku, Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Fiction, horror, Joss Whedon, Scooby Gang, Television, Vampire, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 2

Nov04

CONTINUING FROM PART 1 ABOVE. And the whole series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Buffy

 

Season 1:

The Buffy pilot is a work of art. In just 74 minutes, it manages to effortlessly introduce a big cast and a complex setup. But it’s the dialog that sells the entire series, and how that manages to consistently characterize a big cast of very funny, yet very real people, caught up in ridiculous situations. There’s a rhythm to it, capturing natural teen dialog, self referentially referred to as “buffy-speak.”

Xander: Well, uh, maybe I’ll see you around… maybe at school… since we… both… go there.Buffy: Great! It was nice to meet you. [walks away]

or
Willow: Well… when I’m with a boy I like, it’s hard for me to say anything cool, or, or witty. Or at all. I-I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away.
Buffy: It’s not that bad.
Willow: No, i-it is. I think boys are more interested in a girl who can talk.
Buffy: You really haven’t been dating lately.

Whedon even manages to make an info dump funny:

Buffy: [to Giles] To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly they’re just gonna kill you. Why am I still talking to you?

The pilot may be brilliant, but some of the other episodes in this mid-season 12 episode run are a little “monster of the week.” The special effects are laughable. But still, the dialog is spot on and the characters are great. Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, and even the evil Darla are all sexy, yet not fully stereotyped. Xander and Giles are just plain funny. Even in this early run, the season has an overall meta-villain, the sinister, yet silly “Master,” a rehash of all Most Ancient Vampires.

The Master: You’re dead.Buffy: I may be dead, but I’m still pretty. Which is more than I can say for you.The Master: You were destined to die! It was written!Buffy: What can I say? I flunked the written.

He’s totally silly, but he’s also kinda scary in his own goofy way. And he is a nasty killer. The connections between the pilot, a few of the intermediate episodes, and the literally killer finale (“Prophecy Girl“) give the show a nice hybrid continuity (see my article on this). Overall it’s the weakest season until Season 7, but it’s still fun, and the show slips in references to material from older episodes in such a consistant manner (much as real High School friends never let you live anything down),  that it’s essential to foundation for the greatness that is to come.

 

Season 2:

It’s with the second second that Buffy really starts to hit stride. As our season villains we get the awesome Spike & Drusilla, a pair of british vampire lovers who play marvelously against type. On first watch a lot of the episodes in this season don’t seem as integrated into the overall story and mythology as they will from Season 3 on, but the clever writing team retroactively mines them as sources for ongoing material in later seasons, therefore pulling them into the fold. The robot employed in “Ted” will eventually lead to Season 5’s robot girlfriend and hence the Buffybot. “Halloween” sets up Giles’ past as Ripper, and his old nemesis Rayne. The creation of a second slayer upon Buffy’s first season death at the hands of the master is revealed. And that’s just a few.

Across all the episodes the relationships between the characters start to really come into their own. Willow’s lifelong crush on Xander is stymied and she meets Oz and begins to dabble in witchcraft. Xander’s negative chemistry with Cordelia draws them both into something unexpected. Giles’ dark past begins to surface. Fundamentally, the writers aren’t afraid to play with their formulas. Since season one, Buffy’s relationship with the brooding reformed vampire Angel has been growing, and when on her 17th birthday she decides to give her virginity to him: Things don’t go exactly as planned. Writers before and after have used the supernatural as allegory for human problems, but never with such darkly comic panache. The show isn’t afraid to go dark. I mean really dark, and still be funny. Most shows would have just beat around the bush of Buffy’s sexuality, but here, she does it, and gets a metaphoric stake in the heart in return. This pivot drives the second half of the season into really dark territory, and it’s all the stronger for it. Watched back to back on DVD there is a raw emotional intensity to the arc, and it comes from just plain good writing. The characters are funny, yet real, and their genuine changes and growth irresistible.

CONTINUED IN PART 3, CLICK HERE…

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  4. Book Review: The Passage
  5. Book Review: Hex Hall
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Darla, Drusilla, DVD, Eliza Dushku, Fiction, Joss Whedon, Rupert Giles, Television, Vampire, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1

Nov03

Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Creator: Joss Whedon

Genre: Comedic Teen Contemporary Fantasy

Watched: Winter 2004-05, Summer 2009, Winter 2010-11, Winter 2012-13, Winter 2013-14, Winter 2015-16, Winter 2017-18, Winter 2019-20, Winter 2021-22

Summary: Best TV show of all time.

 

As a diehard vampire fan I saw the movie version of Buffy when it came out. I hated it so much I used to mock it as my pre Twilight example of lame vampires. I have this requirement that vampires need to be menacing, even if comic (Fright Night) or romantic (Interview with the Vampire). The Buffy movie undead were just flaccid.

When the TV show debuted, I was in the midst of the busiest year of my life, the year of Crash Bandicoot 2, when I was in the office every single day (7 days a week) between New Years and September 8th. Besides, the movie had been dumb. So the show even became a punching bag of mine (although I hadn’t seen it at the time) used to illustrate Hollywood’s creative drought: Hey, they’d made a show based on a terrible movie that hadn’t even made much money.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Finally, in November of 2004, after having “retired” from Naughty Dog, my wife having insisted for years that the show was good, I succumbed and ordered the first season on DVD. Thus began an obsessive binge where I watched all seven seasons, plus five of Angel, back to back over the next three months. Generally I consumed three or more a day, including watching 18 episodes of season 3 in one continuous sitting (home Sunday with a cold). My only breaks were the week back east for Thanksgiving and three weeks we spent in Sicily (yum!). Four and a half years later I re-watched all seven Buffy seasons during the summer of 2009. It was almost as good the second time, and I appreciated it more.

Despite a significant cheese factor, and a first season that suffers from being overly episodic, the show is absolutely brilliant. If you aren’t a fan you probably think, “Buffy has these weird obsessive fans, but that kind of thing isn’t for me.”

It is.

I’ve never met anyone who’s sat down and started watching from the beginning who doesn’t absolutely love the show. But that’s just it, you have to start from the beginning. Fundamentally the show blends fantastic writing, really funny dialog, off-beat but likable characters, zany and intricate mythology, a creativity with the TV medium, and quirky humor with a kind of hidden dark realism found in only the best dramas. By disguising drama with humor and the supernatural the writers are able to get at real human issues without freaking out the network, and because they’ve created characters we care about, it all works.

The casting too is inspired. Sarah Michelle Gellar is perfect as Buffy. She may be cute, blonde, and perky, but she isn’t a typical airhead. She combines practical cleverness, toughness, and hidden vulnerability, with a strong sense of duty. Fundamentally the show is about the weight that rests on her narrow shoulders, and what it takes to bear it. The rest of the core team is great too. Alyson Hannigan‘s Willow is every geek’s fantasy, the shy computer nerd who learns to kick ass, Nicholas Brendon‘s Xander provides the token maleness with more humor than testosterone, and Anthony Stewart Head‘s Giles is pitch perfect as the stuffy older advisor with a dark past.

But it’s not just the premise that makes this show rock, but what the writers do with it. I’ll explain when I CONTINUE IN PART 2…

The whole post series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

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  5. Book Review: Hex Hall
By: agavin
Comments (11)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Alyson Hannigan, Angel, Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Crash Bandicoot, DVD, Fiction, horror, Joss Whedon, Naughty Dog, Nicholas Brendon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Spike, Supernatural, Television, Television program, Twilight, Vampire, Willow

Book and Movie Review: Twilight

Oct31

TwilightTitle: Twilight

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Genre: YA Romantic Supernatural

Read: January 2008 and Oct 2010

Summary: Confused.

_

Since I’m such a vampire fan, having seen or read vast untold volumes of the stuff, I thought I should put my formal two-cents in on the strange source material that spawned the Twilight phenomenon.

First the book. I read it before the movie came out. There was a lot of buzz about it already, and I was excited about it. Generally, things that are really popular have a kernel of quality about them, and I love vampires and teen heroines. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite TV series of all time — I will blog about it one of these days. So I started reading Twilight in the Vegas airport while waiting for a flight. Despite the clunky prose (more on that later) I was actually pretty engaged in a low key way during the first half. Then Edward revealed to Bella that he was a vampire (not that I didn’t know) and the whole thing went to shit. I had to force myself through most of the rest, and the ending left me baffled. “Wait, where’d the fight go?  What about the climax?”

Back to the writing: It’s really clunky. I won’t go into too much detail, this other blogger did. But let me say Meyer is the anti Cormac McCarthy (I’m in the middle of The Road right now). He eschews punctuation, she loves it. Every long improper sentence is peppered with a random assortment of commas and em-dashes. She adores the em-dash, using it in approximately 50% of sentences, and usually not for its proper purpose of offsetting a parenthetical. Maybe she felt she had too many commas (she does), and needed to replace some of them with em-dashes for the hell of it. Oh, and she loves certain words or word combinations, like “cold fingers” and uses them several times a page in places. And she clearly choses random synonyms from the thesaurus without being aware of the connotations of said words. For example: “His expression shifted instantly to chagrin.” Can the word be used that way? I don’t think so. But none of this really matters when reading the book, you adjust and just role with it. I guess if you’re 14 and haven’t read a lot you don’t notice to begin with.

The plot and content: Given what actually happens in the first book, it’s pretty long: 118,000 words. Not much really does happen. We have a LOT of words devoted again and again to how pretty Edward is and how much Bella loves him. This isn’t really SHOWN too much, or justified, but she sure TELLS us about it a lot. But again, the first half was okay. However, once the reveal came in, it gets really silly. Basically they go play this ridiculous baseball game and the Black Eyed Peas (oops, I mean the evil vampires) walk onto the field, sniff Bella, and decide the most important thing in the world is to sink their fangs into her blood. There is no real attempt to sell anything in this plot, to provide any believable reasons, it just happens. You couldn’t possibly have more one dimensional villains — although they do compliment the one dimensional heros nicely. Then my all time biggest gripe, we close in on the unbelievable “final” confrontation of the book and Bella gets knocked unconscious (she is after all the narrator) and we miss the whole thing. It’s told to us by Edward after we know it came out okay so as to minimize tension. I had the feeling that the author didn’t know how to write an action scene, so she just chickened out.

The vampires: Oh my. It’s totally clear (particularly in later books) that Meyer doesn’t do research. This includes even watching a few vampire films or perhaps reading Dracula. Her undead aren’t really vampires, or even undead, except for being immortal and having a taste for blood, and “cold fingers.” They don’t seem dead, or particularly evil. They sparkle in the sun, they apparently have like, oh my God, no real weaknesses. And they’re all really pretty. We hear about that a lot. Let’s not forget their smorgasbord of cool psychic powers like seeing the future, and reading minds. These make hack plot construction really convenient. I actually started my novel a year before even hearing of Twilight, but reading it certainly motivated me to make sure my vampire heavy was a really bad-ass undead in a nasty evil way. He doesn’t sparkle in the sunlight but he will leave your entrails hanging from a tree to make a point — and he certainly wouldn’t ever concern himself to learn current High School vernacular.

Publishing mystery: Twilight had a very aberrant publishing history. As a first time novelist it was picked up by Jodi Reamer of Writers House really quickly. This is a very prestigious agency and that’s very rare. It was then sold quickly to a great publisher for a really huge advance. That Reamer showed interest in it is not what surprises me. There is a mysterious something about the first half of the book — it had potential. But what surprises me is that it was never edited — or if it was I’ve never heard of an editor that lax. The standard length for YA books is more like 50-70k, and there is a LOT of fluff in the book, not to mention the bad grammar and the flaccid ending that would be easy to fix. Having been through rounds and rounds of revision myself, the book was held to none of the standards my editors have exhibited. Of course it turned out to be a great decision for Jodi, but I still don’t understand why it was never edited.

The movie: Catherine Hardwicke directed the first movie. She actually did a really good job with the source material, and I think the movie is actually better than the book. Not exactly great, but better. The casting was excellent, particularly Kristen Stewart who does have a soft charisma, and she’s hot in a non obvious way. If you see her in some of her other films like Adventureland or Speak you realize that she’s actually a very fine young actress in certain roles. Twilight doesn’t provide a lot of room for subtle acting. I myself had casually known Hardwicke from when she did production design for Insomniac’s Disruptor in the mid 90’s (Insomniac was located next to my company Naughty Dog in those days). So I’d noticed when she started directing with Thirteen, which is a depressing but brilliant movie — particularly given what must have been a VERY low budget. Hardwicke brought the same kind of hand-held-documentary style to Twilight, and it worked well to offset the inherent cheese factor of the material. Not totally offset, but the result was somehow watchable. She did a nice job capturing Bella’s POV. This is tricky because in a novel, particularly a first person one like Twilight, so much of the book is dominated by the voice. With a combination of diary style voice over (more-or-less quoted from the book) and a peeping-over-the-shoulder viewpoint (as also used in Thirteen) Hardwicke pulls it off. For some reason, they ditched her with regard to directing the sequels, and the those devolve into further cheesiness. Of course so do the later novels. Can I just say Volturi?

Conclusion: I’m kinda baffled. Twilight isn’t particularly good, or well done, but it does have a certain appeal. However, the overall magnitude of success has left me totally confused. Harry Potter is ludicrously popular, but at its core rest three stunningly good initial books. The first book is really well written, the central premise is very novel and sold with incredible style. Even the ridiculously melodramatic Vampire Dairies is more fun than Twilight. I’m just left scratching my head and hoping the anti-vampire backlash isn’t too bad.

My reviews of New Moon and Eclipse or Breaking Dawn, part 1 or part 2.
For more Film reviews, click here.
Or read about my own paranormal novels.

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  2. Book Review: Hex Hall
  3. Book Review: Personal Demons
  4. Book Review: The Passage
  5. Book Review: Forever
By: agavin
Comments (16)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: Bella, Bella Swan, books, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Catherine Hardwicke, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction, Kristen Stewart, reviews, Robert Pattinson, Stephenie Meyer, Supernatural, Twilight, Vampire

Book Review: Hex Hall

Oct29

Hex HallTitle: Hex Hall

Author: Rachel Hawkins

Genre: YA fantasy

Read: Oct 23, 2010

Summary: Fun.

_

Continuing my unrelenting survey of both supernatural and YA books (together and separate). This is a vaguely Harry Potter-ish tale of a fifteen-year-old witch who ends up in magical reform school. It was surprisingly decent. Not great, not super innovative, but the first person voice was very enjoyable. Occasionally I found myself cringing when the events served the plot in ham handed ways. For example, the protagonist and boy she likes are both sentenced to the same detention — just the two of them. And there are vampires, but they are treated too casually like everything else. Still, it was funny and I enjoyed reading it, I didn’t have to force myself through anything. I plan on buying the sequel. This is actually pretty high praise for a reader as jaded as myself.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Personal Demons
  2. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  3. Book Review: Still Missing
  4. Book Review: Forever
  5. Book Review: The Passage
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book, books, Fantasy, Fiction, Harry Potter, Hex Hall, Rachel Hawkins, reviews, Supernatural, Vampire, YA

Book Review: The Passage

Oct27

The PassageTitle: The Passage

Author: Justin Cronin

Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror

Read: Late June 2010

Summary: Excellent.

_

One of this year’s top new vampire entries. It’s an odd book, long, and broken into three parts, but good. The first third is set more or less in the present and deals with how a viral epidemic that turns people into nearly indestructible vampire-like creatures gets loose and destroys the world. The writing is good and this section is a bit of an oddity in that the plot itself is minimal, but padded out with almost gratuitous backstory on nearly every character. Bit players that we meet in the gas station for one page get five pages of life story flashback. All these people, lovingly details, die quickly. Oddly, it works and is a compelling read. However, it makes me scratch my head as all the standard writing advice I’ve been given by editors, agents, and the like would’ve been to cut all these backstories. In fact, they certainly would’ve told me that the entire first third of the book is backstory, and the proper place to start was far later. At a certain level they are correct, because there is only one character — and an odd one at that — who crosses from this long prelude into the main two thirds of the novel.

The middle third of the book takes place 100 years later and totally kicks ass. This was some of the best Sci-fi/horror I’ve read in years. It’s post apocalyptic, taking place in this one compound somewhere in the California desert. They are under continual siege by vampires, and their numbers are dwindling. Their entire life and society is organized around survival, but slow attrition of their numbers is the only thing in their future. The Road Warrior meets I-don’t-know-what feel of this section is awesome. Cronin does a fantastic job of world building here, and the specific animalistic vampires (a bit reminiscent of I am Legend) is great. In some way’s it feels more like a Zombie apocalypse because it has that feeling of instant-death-at-any-second.

In part three, these same characters are forced out of their little sanctuary into the big bad world. This part is still good, but does a little shark jumping and borrows very heavily from things like the Stand, etc. I didn’t mind, but the ending felt a little forced and just didn’t quiet sustain the promise of the amazing middle section.

Still, the overall novel was excellent. Flawed, but the middle part was so great, and the first and third sections enjoyable enough, to make it one of the better books I’ve read in a while.

Related posts:

  1. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  2. Book Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
  3. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  4. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  5. Book Review: The Way of Kings
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, books, Fiction, horror, Justin Cronin, reviews, Science Fiction, The Passage, Vampire

Book and Movie Review: Let Me In

Oct26

Let Me InTitle: Let Me In / Let the Right One In

Author: John Ajvide Lindovist

Genre: Horror

Read: Mid Oct 2010

Summary: Liked it, but had issues with the second half.

_

This is the original novel (translated I believe from Swedish) that forms the basis of the recent movie Let Me In and last years Swedish film Let the Right One In. First I’m going to talk about the book, then I’ll also discuss both movies and a bit about the process of adaption.

The novel has a lot going for it. It’s a relatively new take on vampire feel — and I’ve certainly seen/read an exhaustive amount of vampire films/books. Lindovist loosely sticks to the basic lore tenants (some of which I regard as sacrosanct). No daylight sparkles, feeding on blood, requiring invitation, etc. But his vampire(s) live a more marginal less powerful existence than many. The emotional core of the story is about a human boy who is misunderstood and bullied in school, and how he is therefore ripe for the kind of symbiotic/parasitic relationship that the book’s central vampire needs to survive. This part I like, and the character of the boy is well done, as is the girl vampire and the relationship. For me it kind of depends on the pubescent pre-sexuality of the central couple. But there are some things the book does to work against itself.

It’s too long, and has an extensive subplot involving some neighbors in the apartment complex. I ended up skimming much of this and it hardly mattered. It should have been trimmed to the bone (which the movies did). In the later third the book also goes crazy with this hard to understand devolution of the vampire’s former thrall/Renfield type into some kind of weird brainless half-vampire. This also was cut from the movies for good reason. But most critically, in the later part of the book [ SPOILER ALERT ] the gender of the vampire is thrown into question back making her/him into a castrated boy, and tossing in a horrific undead on undead anal rape scene. I’m all for extreme, but this whole ending left me not only feeling grossed out, but requiring myself to kind of ignore it and try and pretend she was still  a girl to finish the book. I really didn’t see the point and this more than anything mared my overall opinion of the book. I try to like it despite the twist.

So this brings us to the film translations. The process of stripping down a longer work into the compact requirements of a feature film is interesting. You have to find the central story and rip everything else out. This is what the filmmakers did, and in my opinion, almost all for the better. By stripping down the subplots, removing the crazy monster, and most important the gender ambiguity (although there is a hint of it in the Swedish film, but not enough to bother) the story concentrates itself on the central relationship and becomes very effective. Both films are good. The Swedish one is a bit moodier and the vampire is a little more androgynous. In the American adaption, which at times feels like a shot by shot remake, the subplots have been stripped even further and the sexuality notched up just a hair (Chloe is very clearly feminine). The American version also adds a slight tragic-comic quality to the vampire’s old familiar which I liked. Both films are very good, and very similar (besides the language spoken). I really liked this combined take on the story. The only thing I would have borrowed more from the book was a sense of the strange pedophiliac relationship with the old familiar — which although horrible, jives well with the creepy mood of the work.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Still Missing
  2. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  3. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  4. Book Review: Summer Sisters
  5. Book Review: Forever
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: books, Fiction, horror, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In, reviews, Vampire
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