Careful Now!

We interrupt this haphazard Halloween Horror Month to bring you... an annoyed rant.

This morning, when I was blearily checking over the BBC News website to see what was happening in the world, I happened to notice this story: Amazon removes abuse-themed e-books from store. And what passes for my soul died a little, for I knew what this was all about.

For those who don't know, I write erotica e-books when I have the time. I haven't written for a while (which I'm trying to rectify) because hey, between my own problems and Nick's it's hard to find the time to be able to sit down for a few hours in the right mindset to be able to write. And in the eighteenish months since I started doing this, I've seen several little "moral panics" pop up about the "filth" on sale in online bookstores. This is just the latest one, but it bothers me more because of some of the wording and things being bandied around.

Okay, to get a few things straight: I don't like bestiality, incest or rape porn, and have never written any. That being said, I'm still anti-censorship enough to be really uncomfortable with the idea of banning them, because they're fantasy, not reality. And because every time this comes up, I never see Lolita, The Story of O or The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty included in the lists of things to ban. I've seen this double-standard before, when In The Realm Of The Senses got classed as "art" with its full-on hardcore sex scenes, while at the same time 39 other films were being prosecuted for being "obscene" despite having little to no simulated sex at all in them, just horror (the infamous Video Nasties of the early 1980s). So yeah, this bugs me. A lot.

So this time it's the "rape/forced-(pseudo)-incest" books being targeted, with the occasional bit of bestiality thrown in. Well to be quite honest, I always did wonder how those books were getting past Amazon's censors when most of the erotica writers I knew were fighting to get a cover with a "hand-bra" past them. Plus whenever the press gets onto this topic they're always the ones they point to as examples of the "depraved filth" out there. So there's a small, almost traitorous part of me that's not sad to see them go. But the BBC - and the article which started this latest witch hunt off - claim that "the search function automatically suggested explicit topics to readers typing seemingly innocuous keywords - without age verification taking place."

Well, duh. Search engines don't and can't check for age, for one thing. It would give extra work to the engine and thus slow it down, and unless we're now suggesting scanning something like a driving license or ID card in every time we want to look up something online (which would screw me over as I have neither) everyone's just going to lie anyway. So as stupid ideas go, that one ranks right up there with "try before you buy underwear". Secondly, what "innocuous keywords" were being used? Because I tested several - even some I knew should come up with erotica because I wrote them - and couldn't even get to my own books, as Amazon has already filtered them away from innocent and/or easily offended eyes months ago. And as I said, I don't even write any of the stuff referenced here.

So, having dealt with that issue, I now move on to the far worse one - the language of the article that started this all off.

"kindle filth"
"depraved amateur literature"
"illegal and immoral acts"

My gods, it reads like a Daily Mail artic-oh.

Let's ignore the subtle call to harrass the poor author they've focussed on (by pointing out what she says in her author blurb and pointing out that she "hasn't done much to hide her identity" - oh boys, everyone uses a nom de plume in this business) and focus instead on their persuasive language. In case you hadn't guessed, that's the quotes above. They're very carefully crafted to create an emotive response from the reader - in this case a knee-jerk one. Ironically, erotica does the same thing, but with a different response in mind. And it's exactly the same kind of wording used for the video nasties panics, the violent video game panics, and so on. I take specific offence at the use of the word "amateur" to describe erotica authors. We're published, people buy our works, we make money from this. What, exactly, is "amateur" about that?

*sigh*

So it goes on. Despite the popularity of books like 50 Shades of Grey; a book that was originally Twilight fanfiction and therefore is probably far more appealing to "underage" readers (and which also isn't under an age filter), we're still shaming anything that doesn't fit our narrow definition of "acceptable" smut. We're clucking our tongues disgustedly at books featuring fantasy creatures having sex with humans while smiling down on Lolita. Pearl-clutching at fantasies while ignoring the slut-shaming of real rape and abuse victims. And most people are going to fall for it.

And that, more than anything, makes me angry and sad.

Halloween Horror Month - The Stuff

Two miners working underground strike an underground well of yoghurt - or something resembling yoghurt, at any rate. Being the sensible, scientific types that they are, they decide to eat some of this mystery substance bubbling up from the ground, and find that it tastes great. It isn't long before The Stuff is on shelves everywhere in America, and the ad campaign proudly states that "Enough is never enough". Other snack manufacturers aren't happy with being pushed out by The Stuff, however, and so they hire an ex-FBI and current industrial spy to find out the secret of The Stuff so that they can emulate it.

Of course, it turns out that there's something not quite right about an addictive goo that bubbles up from the centre of the earth - in this case The Stuff takes over the bodies of the people who eat it, eventually hollowing them out and wearing them like meat suits. In the end it's up to the spy, a PR woman, a 12-year-old boy and a slightly crazy milita leader to save everyone from being eaten alive by evil yoghurt.

The Stuff is a great movie. It's both a B-movie and a satire of consumerist culture; how people will buy anything if it's marketed to them right. It also feels like director Larry Cohen's version of what The Blob would be like if people ate the Blob instead of the other way round. Having Michael Moriarty in the lead role certainly doesn't hurt matters either. Most of all though, this is a movie that will make you worry about being chased by a giant sea of sentient, evil yoghurt. Not to mention the sight of what The Stuff does to your insides as it hollows you out will stay with me for a long time - not a bad effect at all for a low-budget 80s B-movie.

Halloween Horror Month - Burial Grounds: Nights of Terror

A professor with a beard that would make Daniel Bryan jealous heads down into an old crypt muttering about the "discovery" he's made. As he's chiselling away at some stonework, some heavily clay-faced zombies turn up, attack and eat the professor even as he's begging them not to hurt him because he's their "friend". Then we cut to three couples (one with the strangest-looking son in existence, who we'll get to later) arriving at a villa that just happens to be next door to the crypt and where the professor was staying. It doesn't take long before the Etruscan zombies turn up there and lay siege to the villa, hoping to get to chow down on the tasty humans inside.

Yes, this is a zombie movie, and even better, an Italian zombie movie from that wonderful time period of the late 70s/early 80s. Bad acting, bad dubbing, bad writing, remarkable zombie makeup, gore and a fair amount of female nudity. None of this is what makes Burial Grounds: Nights of Terror so infamous in the zombie movie subgenre, however... but again, we'll get to that a little bit later.

The zombies in Nights of Terror aren't like your average zombies, however. In addition to having heads that looked like baked clay pots gone terribly wrong, they can also think well enough to use tools and lay traps. At one point in the film they even use a battering ram to break into the villa. There's no explanation for why these zombies scored higher on their cognitive skills rolls than the average zombie - but then again there's no explanation for why they're up and walking around either, save for the professor's vague mutterings about his "discovery" at the beginning of the film. The audience is really just expected to go with it and not ask too many questions.

With that in mind, there's not too much of a plot or any coherent writing in the film, either... and this is where the earlier points I alluded to come into play. You see, someone in their infinite wisdom when writing the screenplay for this movie decided that two of the characters would be a mother and her 12(ish)-year-old son, and that the best thing to add into the mix of a zombie movie would be an Oedipal/incest subplot. To accommodate this, they cast a 26-year-old dwarf in the role of the son. It's safe to say that the actor, Peter Bark, steals the film in this role, because you just cannot believe what you're seeing whenever he's on screen trying to act like a small child one minute and feeling up his mother the next. Truly, in the ranks of batshit insane Italian horror films, Burial Grounds: Nights of Terror has a special place.

Halloween Horror Month - The Lords of Salem

There appear to be two camps of opinions when it comes to Rob Zombie's films, much like Marmite really. I happen to fall into the category of enjoying them (although I also hate Marmite). I see House of 1000 Corpses as his experimental art film, adore The Devil's Rejects (and recognise it as Zombie's love letter to 70s exploitation films) and see his two Halloween films has his attempt to put a modern spin on the Michael Myers story, with what we know today of serial killers and how they are 'formed', and the media's love affair with them and their crimes. So I've been interested in seeing The Lords of Salem for a while now.

It's a mindfuck of a film, I can tell you that.

Heidi is one of the three DJs that make up the "Big H" DJ team for the radio station in Salem, Mass. She's got blonde dreadlocks, wears glasses and is a cute, generally 'hip chick' who can keep up with the boys. Then one day she receives a strange record from a group with the mysterious name of "The Lords". The record consists of one song - a slow, dirge-like piece that doesn't have a melody so much as it seems to be attempting to find the Brown Note - and hearing it seems to have a strange effect on some of the women of Salem, particularly Heidi, who starts to sink into strange dreams and fugue-like states where she sees strange Satanic imagery and seems to be being called by the original coven of Salem witches from 1696. Has the curse of executed witch Margaret Morgan come back to get its revenge on the town?

One way to describe this film would be to say that it's a series of album covers tacked together with a plot for glue. It's a very artistic film, beautifully shot - but that's something that people should have come to expect from Zombie by now, as even I will say he's more of an artist than a filmmaker or even a storyteller. So admittedly the actual plot is a little flimsy in places, with the feeling that the editing scissors were heavily-used in some parts.

Another way to describe it would be to say that it takes aspects from The Crucible, The Devils, Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion and maybe a dash from The Witches of Eastwick and blends them all together to make one very weird, but interesting film. We're never entirely sure for a lot of the film just what is going on - is Heidi just hallucinating everything, a combination of a mental breakdown and her falling back into drug usage? What is the role of her landlady and her two sisters and were they always aware of it? What is in Room number 5?

The Lords of Salem isn't going to be to everyone's tastes, that much is certain. But those who like Zombie's work, or who are prepared for a more than a little weird surrealism in their horror should definitely give it a look.

Halloween Horror Month - Rites of Spring

The film gets off to a bit of a jarring start for me when the opening titles tell us of the missing girls over the years, one of whom has the name Tara Grinstead. Turns out the filmmakers managed to pick the name of a real life missing person for an incidental part of their backstory, which didn't go over too well with some people. Awkward, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they just managed to hit upon a rather macabre coincidence.

Then again, on the subject of coincidences, Rites of Spring relies on a lot of them for the plot. We start off with not one, but two plots - one is a farmer kidnapping women to apparently sacrifice to the cousin of He Who Walks Behind The Rows to ensure he gets a good harvest; the other is a group of kidnappers planning to hold the daughter of a rich businessman for ransom. It doesn't take anyone particularly genre savvy to realise that these two plots are going to collide and they do so, and messily at that. After that it's the survivors of the two groups running around an abandoned school trying to escape from the "Creature" (and whether intentionally or not, some of those scenes reminded me of some of the scenes from the Silent Hill game series). Other coincidences in the film include one of the kidnappers knowing one of the girls intended for sacrifice, as well as the fact that they also both know the father of the kidnap victim. Actually, I'm not too sure if these are coincidences so much as they are rather obvious tropes, as they're telegraphed right at the start of the film and so you'd only not have seen it coming if you hadn't paid attention to the opening five minutes.

Rites of Spring has a lot of stuff that's really, really obvious. If the title didn't clue you in to what was going on with all the missing women, you figure it out pretty quickly from the farmer's behaviour even before you see him praying to the giant goat-skulled idol in his cornfield. The kidnappers are a trope in themselves, consisting of the reluctant one, the girlfriend, the psychotic one and the one who's fate is to mess up and die first. It's also got plot holes-a-plenty, not the least of which is the throwaway implication that (highlight for spoiler) the whole town is in on the ritual sacrifice thing. Not to mention (highlight again) we're never shown what happens to the kidnapped girl. I suppose it's implied she ends up as a sacrifice as well, but she just disappears from the film abruptly and no-one asks about her.

All in all, Rites of Spring has some good ideas, but falls flat somewhat in their execution. That and the glaring plot holes and obvious plot twists make it something of a frustrating film to watch, because you just know it could have been better if it had tried just a little harder.

Horror Movie Month - Halloween III: Season of the Witch

In ancient times...
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people... the Druids

No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock... Of Stonehenge

[...]

And where are they now?
The little children of Stonehenge 
And what would they say to us?
If we were here... tonight

(Spinal Tap; Stonehenge)

Well, according to the events of this movie, the Druids moved to America, started up a wildly successful Halloween mask company, then secretly shipped one of the Stonehenge slabs over to an underground lab so they could chip bits off it to insert into their masks as part of a ritual to kill millions of children when they tuned into the Silver Shamrock Halloween 'show' on Halloween night while wearing said masks.

Yes, really.

After Halloween II, John Carpenter had the idea that each year a new Halloween film would be released, each with a different Halloween-themed story and none of them featuring Michael Myers from the first two films. Halloween III: Season of the Witch was the result of this idea, and after that they just decided to being Myers back again, which probably tells you most of what you need to know about this film.

I guess the nicest things that can be said about it is that it's certainly a memorable movie, and it at least has an original story (Nigel Kneale of the Quatermass TV serieses, among others, was the original writer until he sued to have his name removed because of how violent he felt the movie was). Other than that... I can only imagine that there were mind-altering substances involved during some of the film's shooting. Evil druids, okay. Evil druids owning a Halloween mask company, okay. Evil druids owning a Halloween mask company who want to use said masks to sacrifice millions of children on Halloween as a return to the old ways... okay, I'm still with you, just. Evil druids owning a Halloween mask company who want to use said masks to sacrifice millions of children on Halloween as a return to the old ways who have stolen part of Stonehenge and are using it to create microchips that, when activated in the masks, cause spiders and snakes to materialise out of nowhere and fill the masks to kill the children and anyone around them... yeah, now I've got to stop you there.

Oh, and there are androids too. I forgot to mention the androids. They're druid androids.

The main character of this film, a doctor who accidentally stumbles onto the druids' plans when an ER patient who had been ranting about the dangers of the masks gets his skull pulled apart by a mysterious man who then gets into a car, explodes and leaves only mechanical parts behind (bet you can't guess what the twist is there...) spends most of the movie investigating the Silver Shamrock company, only to quickly get captured. In the end this saves him quite a bit of time as the head druid ("Conal Cochran", just to make it really clear that the man owning a company called Silver Shamrock is Irish) is only too happy to tell the doctor everything and even give him a guided tour of the facilities before leaving him alone in a room and shoddily tied to a chair. But will the doctor escape in time to stop the druids' plans, and then stop a TV ad from going out on all channels across the country at the same time? And just how did they get that slab from Stonehenge without anyone noticing? 

(Actually, considering that in the 1980s the British countryside around Stonehenge was apparently full of people making crop circles overnight and no-one noticed them, I could very well see an evil corporation of druids pulling up with a big moving truck one night, swapping a slab out for a styrofoam fake and driving off with no-one being the wiser.)

This is most definitely a movie to watch with friends while drunk, or giving it the MST3K treatment, or both. Probably both.

Aftershock (2012)

I think I've just seen one of the most depressing and mean-spirited films I've seen in a while, and considering my track record with these sorts of films, that's saying something.

Aftershock is a film produced by Eli Roth, co-written by Eli Roth, and starring Eli Roth. So it's safe to say that Eli Roth had a hand in this film, and it's also safe to say that some of his signatures are also all over it. It's about three friends in Chile - one is on holiday there, the other two are natives - who are out to meet women and do so at a nightclub one night. They decide to stay together, and the next night visit an underground nightclub that is supposed to be one of the hottest events there. Then an earthquake happens. And then things go from bad, to worse, to oh dear gods why bother going on.

Now don't get me wrong. I have a not-so secret love of disaster films. I grew up on The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure and came out with only minimal mental scarring. But one of the key points of the disaster movie genre (at least in my opinion) is the hope that things will get better for the plucky survivors whose struggles to survive we're following. OJ Simpson will get that cat to safety! Gene Hackman will lead the survivors to the bottom of the boat and therefore the surface! It makes us feel better when we see people survive this kind of adversity, while also reinforcing our secret fears about ocean liners, skyscrapers, glass lifts and using lifts at all during fires. But Aftershock doesn't give us this. Instead we watch as, one by one, the main characters are brutalised and taken out one by one until it feels more like we're watching a slasher movie where Jason Voorhees has been replaced by an earthquake, a prison break and more besides.

I didn't go into the film with any false expectations either. I knew it was Eli Roth; I knew it was going to be pretty shocking and extreme. But I still wasn't expecting the level of... meanness that the film gave us. Meanness and some pretty transparent plot twists, actually. There's one moment in the film where I saw exactly what was going on and what was going to happen, and yet it still took an extra half-hour or so before the rest of the (surviving) cast knew and even then it wasn't a shock.

It also piled a lot of contrivances on top of each other and expected us to accept them all. Earthquake in an underground club causing utter carnage, yes. Risk of tsunami afterwards, yes. Earthquake also just happening to destroy the nearby prison to let out all the gangmembers who, instead of getting the hell out of Dodge, decide it's time to go on a rape and murder spree? This is where I have to draw the line. (Also for those sensitive to those sorts of scenes, be warned - there's a very unpleasant scene that I found very uncomfortable to watch, and I'm not triggered by that sort of thing.)

So yeah, I'm not 100% sure what I make of Aftershock. I watched it to the end, but that was more out of horrified determination to see how it ended than any actual enjoyment of the film. I can see it appealing to fans of Eli Roth, or those who like a certain bleakness in their movies, but it just left me feeling slightly unwell. And that's a pretty difficult thing to do.