Category: Books Page 2 of 27

Connie will review the thriller/mystery/horror books of others and will keep you posted on her own writing.

Printers’ Row, 2023.

After much vacillating, I committed to spending my entire Sunday, September 10^th, in the streets of Chicago selling books at Printers’ Row.

I have done Printers’ Row with the Illinois Presswomen group for years, but last year, when I selected Sunday, it rained buckets. I took one look out the window and realized that we would not be journeying to Printers’ Row that day.

So, scratch Printers’ Row, 2022.

I had selected Sunday because it was $10 cheaper than Saturday, which was also true this year; it cost $130 to be present at the booth from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. My Presswomen group does not allow you to purchase half of the 8 hour time, which is unfortunate. I am good for 4 hours. In other years, have split up the time from 10 to 2 and 2 to 6, with me taking the late time. The plan was to pay me for ½ of the $130 fee when I showed up to relieve the first author in the morning slot.

This worked out well until the year before the downpour, when people who had said they would show up and man the booth from 10 to 2 bailed at the last minute. It was too late for me to secure another partner. This left me holding the bag

Ellie the Elephant and Elena Ashley.

for the entire day, which is exactly what happened this year. If I am “out” $65, I have a good chance of breaking even. Not so at $130.

I got up at 9 a.m. and was at the booth by 10 a.m.

By 2 p.m. I was ready to quit, but I continued until 5:05 p.m.

Considering that I am only able to stay awake for about four hours, this 9-hour shift pretty much wiped me out. I am not up to full strength after 33 radiation sessions for cancer. The Tamoxifen I have most recently been taking has a known side effect of extreme exhaustion. I just had blood work done on August 30^th to determine why I am only really “alert” for 4 hours.

My spot at the table was between a fun African American group selling books for $10 (like me) with a “one book for $5” offer and the words “gasp” frequently repeated, and a woman with a large stuffed elephant, who gave me a handout that said her name was Dr. Elena Ashley. I asked the author to my left if she had ever taught school about three times. I never really received a response that pinned that down, although Ms. Ashley has written “A Teaching Guide for Educators and Parents.” The characters in her books are apparently named Splunkkunio Splunkey, Detective and Peacemaker and Big Bully Holly Howler, in addition to Ellie the Elephant.

The stuffed elephant was quite large and Dr. Ashley kept speaking in a high voice to simulate “Ellie the Elephant.” As someone who used to travel with a costumed Cat in the Hat, I understand the desire to attract children with such ploys (although, in my own case, it caused very small children to run screaming from the library!), but listening to someone talk in a high falsetto voice for 6 straight hours can really be a trial. I may have been heard to mutter “Just shoot me now” after five hours of Ellie the Elephant.

I didn’t have as much table space as the elephant lady, because she had gotten there first. At various times she had her husband and a young African American child pulled up to the table on chairs. I felt like you do on a crowded airplane flight when you have nowhere to put your feet, because you have stuffed your purse under the seat in front of you and other stuff under the middle seat. In my own case, I had a large yellow bag with prop-up things for my books and table cloths and change boxes and my charged Square device. All had to be stuffed under the table, because of the 3 occupied chairs to my left and behind me.

Most of the people in my vicinity complained that the price of parking their car had escalated dramatically from $20 to $80. My spouse dropped me off and picked me back up; that went well, saving us $80. I also took my own lunch, which probably saved me a large amount, also. As usual, Art Brauer, our President, had done a great job setting up the booth and providing water and chips. (Thanks, Art.)

I never anticipate making any money at Printers’ Row. My goal is always to break even and to participate. I can’t make many of the Presswomen meetings, so this is something I can and should do.

I met a lovely woman from LeClaire, who had actually read all 3 of my “The Color of Evil” novels and talked about her plans to open a bookstore/tequila bar in LeClaire once she retires from her duties teaching at Pleasant Valley High School. I also met a political science professor, who said he was considering using my “Obama’s Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House” (Vols. I & II) as a text in his classes. Both of these were nice developments, but, if you want to measure my day in dollars earned, I made $65, having spent $130. However, as mentioned, if this had been a “normal” year, my investment would have been ½ of the time, or $65, and that means I broke even, like most years.

A lot of work to just “break even” but I’m told I need to “get out there” more.

I also picked up about 10 new names for the mailing list, which is now topping 6,000 names.

“The Boogeyman:” Stephen King Redux

By Connie Wilson

On June 19, 2023

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews, Scary stories

We were desperate for a movie to see at the theater on a weekend. The ones offered were grim.

Then, I noticed that the screenwriters (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) behind “A Quiet Place” had collaborated with a third writer (Mark Heyman) and taken an old Stephen King short story (from his “Night Shift” collection) and amplified it into a PG horror film. The second thing it had going for it was its lead, Chris Messina, whom I enjoyed in “Damages” (and “Argo” and “Air”). It was directed by Rob Savage who has been making films since he was eighteen that won him a “Star of Tomorrow” award.

Off we went to enjoy a truly good ensemble cast, which included Sophie Thatcher as Messina’s teenaged daughter Sadie Harper and Vivien Lyra Blair as her younger sister, Sawyer. Marin Ireland as Rita Billings has a nice cameo-length appearance as the deranged wife of Lester Billings (from the short story). Lester was portrayed by David Dastmalchian, who wanders into therapist Will Harper’s home office, tells him a harrowing story about his children dying one after another, and then, without enough of a preamble for the act, offs himself in a nearby closet.

Not since Jeffrey Epstein have we had a suicide as poorly explained. In fact—although I’ve read that the very act of barging in and killing himself in their house dooms the Harper family to what happens thereafter—I admit I don’t remember it from the source material. This explanation is not emphasized enough to satisfy me as the why for all that occurs after Lester’s untimely demise.

THE GOOD

I’m glad I saw this film in a theater, because it’s so dark that when it streams, the dark images will be difficult to decipher. The cast is uniformly excellent. The production designer (Jeremy Woodward) and the cinematographer (Eli Born) have worked together to use negative space and darkness beautifully. Since one of the lines from the film is “It needs the dark to stay hidden,” the framing and continual use of darkness is extremely well-done.

Most of us, as small children, had a fear of the dark. All of us, at any age, have a fear of what goes bump in the night. I was particularly struck by the sounds that foster the mood. I grew up in a very old house that had a heating system along the baseboards that pumped heated water to warm the rooms upstairs. The baseboard heating system made all sorts of ungodly noises. Id you were home alone, it was only a short putt from the strange gurgling noises to paranoia and incipient terror. So, well done, sound people!

I was impressed by the ominous music in the therapist scenes and elsewhere. Sometimes, the background noises are of a beating heart gradually slowing. Music is by Patrick Jonsson. Yes, the movie is more dependent on sounds and jump scares than on gory images, at least until the finale “Alien-like” scenes, but that was just fine with me. The “thing” that lurked in the closet and under the bed was well done when it finally is seen up close, but I’m partial to the build up of suspense by subtler means.

THE BAD

I had never seen a giant white ball that lights up in the possession of a child or an adult. It was an interesting prop for the “fear of the dark” theme, but, still, it seemed very unusual. While I loved the scene where the younger daughter uses the white ball to try to see the boogeyman, it was not a universal toy.

The grief that the family is experiencing, because of the death of the girls’ mother in a car accident only months prior, makes for a troubled backdrop for the teenager Sadie, in particular. Her friends at school, with the exception of one closer friend, seem like the cast of “Mean Girls.” When the wound of a lost parent is so fresh for the troubled teenager I found the extreme nastiness of 90% of her friends to be questionable, but, then, this is the age of Facebook shaming, so color me Old School. (Shame on them, by the way!)

I wondered, when Sophie goes to Lester Billings’ house, if you could really walk right in, as she does. The candles in the hallway, while a nicely spooky touch, seemed completely unsafe, but the scenes featuring Lester’s widow (Marin Ireland) were top-notch, as she attempts to lure the Shadow Monster from the dark using Sophie as unwilling bait. The dialogue made me smile, as when Sawyer, the younger child, says, “Just trying not to die.”

The old Polaroid camera in the closet, while a nice touch, was an anachronism. Who still sells or uses Polaroid cameras, and what, exactly, was the camera going to do to help Mrs. Billingsley? Sony got a nice product placement with a Sony Infolithium System. Use of the old Irish song “Tura Lura Lura” never seemed to be tied into the plot well, just as Lester Billingsley’s sudden suicide seemed precipitous and poorly explained. I blame this on my memory of the short story, which I read many years ago (and have not revisited.)

Lines that I liked (“The thing that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention,” and “”Sometimes it’s better to have something to blame than to accept things that happen”) were offset by the ubiquitous “You got this.” (That’s probably just me; I’m really sick of that catch phrase.)

Overall, while I agree that no new horror ground was broken by the film, the normal scary territory was well served. We enjoyed the film, especially glad that we had actually been able to see it because of the big screen. We’ve been watching “The Invasion” on Apple + and it’s so dark in the monster sequences that, frequently, we don’t know exactly what we’re watching.

Bob Odenkirk Rides Again: “Lucky Hank” Premieres at SXSW and Streams (AMC+) on March 19th, 2023.

By Connie Wilson

On March 28, 2023

In Books, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews, Television, Texas

“Lucky Hank” is Bob Odenkirk, in his first television outing since leaving “Better Call Saul.” The premiere episode of the AMC+ series premiered at SXSW on March 12^th (Oscar day), showing once and once only at the Stateside Theater in Austin.

Bob Odenkirk and cast members of “Lucky Hank”, streaming on AMC+ on March 19th.

The series owes much to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on which it is based, “Straight Man,” by Richard Russo.

The synopsis for the series reads: “An English department chairman at an underfunded college, Professor Hank Devereaux toes the line between midlife crisis and full-blown meltdown, navigating the offbeat chaos in his personal and professional life.” As IMDB further says, William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at Railton East University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park”

If this all sounds like a great vehicle for Bob Odenkirk, you’re right. The humor and sarcasm are on full display in this clip.

THE GOOD

The cast, headed by Odenkirk, is stellar. Mirielle Enos (“World War Z,” “The Killing”) plays Hanks’ wife, Lily, and she is a revelation. In the Q&A following the screening, she admitted that she “wanted to play a less closeted woman.” Her serious role in “The Killing” made her a natural choice for screenwriters Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman, who had worked with her on “The Killing.” Those representing the premiere in Austin referred to the cast as “spectacular.”

The writers are similarly spectacular. Although credit must also be given to the source material, as the writers admit that they constantly “went back to the book” while also adding depth to Hank’s character.

Bob Odnkirk and Mirielle Enos onstage at the Stateside Theater in Austin, Texas, at SXSW, on March 11, 2023.

Bob Odenkirk, onstage after the screening, talked about how he ended up working this hard so soon after “Better Call Saul” ended. “I had said yes to the show. I really thought it would take forever. It didn’t.” Factor in a heart attack that Odenkirk described as, “what happens when you don’t take your heart medication” and here he is in an 8-episode series that he praised as “A place for everyone to do their best” and “A lot of variety on a journey that goes somewhere.” Odenkirk added that it was “Great use of modern TV. We had 4 different directors and travel alterations. The stories and characters progress and it is more like an 8-episode movie.”

He also praised the dream cast and said, of his character, “He’s so different from Saul, who was a loner. There are people in the right relationships. You love your wife and then, if you’re married long enough, you hate them.” (This brought laughter and an admonition from the writers, “Bob! Your wife is in the audience.”) Odenkirk continued, “If it’s a great relationship, you find your way back and you don’t even know how.” He felt that Saul and Kim in “Better Call Saul” were loners, but “I liked the way this guy relates to other people.” Pointing out the fundamental differences between his Saul character and Hank he said, “It’s fun to do wildly different things. It’s one of the reasons I went into this business.”

THE BAD

For me, the bad is that I currently don’t have AMC+. In order to watch this wildly entertaining series, I am going to have to subscribe, which means that my spouse (of 55 years) is going to be gifted with a subscription to the series (which premieres on March 19^th). Since his birthday is March 21^st, thank you, Hank, for figuring out what to give the man who has everything. This looks like a totally enjoyable, witty, well-written and well-acted 8-episode series that will entertain mightily.

“Evil Dead Rise” Premieres at SXSW and Heckler Makes News

By Connie Wilson

On March 20, 2023

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews, Texas

The first film of the trilogy, The Evil Dead, as well as its 2013 remake, were so horrifically gory that they were actually banned in various countries including Finland, Ukraine, and Singapore. That should have been my first clue that I would hate this movie.

Eight months, one Covid lockdown, and 6,500 litres of fake blood went into making the latest in the Sam Raimi “Evil Dead” series, this one entitled “Evil Dead Rise” and shot in New Zealand. Its Irish director, Lee Cronin, earned a Saturn award nomination for Breakthrough Director at Sundance. I had high hopes upon entry to the World Premiere on Wednesday, March 15th, at SXSW’s Paramount Theater.

I was game to sit through “Evil Dead Rise.” As a former active voting member of HWA (Horror Writers’ Association) and the author of three novels some might call “horror,” this would be right up my alley for “The Color of Evil” trilogy author.

Wrong, Snore-Snout.

If 80% of a film’s success is casting, this one started out wobbly with a freakishly tall and extensively tattooed leading lady, Alyssa Sutherland. The tattoos may not have been real and the Australian actress/model’s height is listed as five feet eleven inches, so take those comments with a grain of salt. I didn’t buy any of the actors’ performances.

The synopsis read: “A twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them int a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.”

I reviewed film through the eighties, when slasher films were all the rage. After about twenty in a row, I swore off the entire series of films that attempt to entertain you by thrusting a knife into someone’s throat (Kevin Bacon in one memorable eighties cabin scene) or gross you out by having excessive projectile vomiting.

This film has taken the worst of those gross-out concepts and amplified them. If that’s your thing, as it seemed to be for the man next to me who was laughing hilariously and thoroughly enjoying this movie, then go for it. If this audience member hadn’t been very large (and blocking the aisle to exit) I might have left before the end, but, thanks to Mr. Laugh-A-Lot, I couldn’t escape. I saw the entire film (as did the heckler.)

Watching an eyeball fly across the room from a severed head and someone else inadvertently swallow it: gross. Buckets of blood in an elevator that bursts forth? Derivative of “The Shining” but with much less plot justification.

During the Q&A for the film, Bruce Campbell was brought onstage, the original Ash of the first 4 films, who raised the $350,000 for the very first film that Stephen King championed and ended up playing a lead in subsequent films (but not this one.) This new version moved from the woods to the city

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3yAZ67GsTA

As Campbell (“Ash”) was speaking, an apparently inebriated male theater-goer in the audience shouted out, loudly, “This movie effing sucks” (profanity euphemism substituted). Campbell demanded that the man—already on his way out— be removed from the Paramount Theater. (It made all the papers.)

You’ve been warned.

“Talk To Me” Is Horror Hit of SXSW

By Connie Wilson

On March 17, 2023

In Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews, Scary stories, Texas

Talk to Me Danny and Michael Philippou (“Rocka Rocka”) worked on 2014’s great Australian horror film “The Babadook.”

But this year they are directing a horror film, starring Sophie Wilde and Miranda Otto. It premiered at SXSW and is being distributed by A24, beginning July 28th.

The film opens with pounding intense music at a party. A young man wades through the crowd to a room in the back and pounds on the door, insisting that his brother open the door. When the brother does not open the door, he breaks it down. Mayhem involving a large butcher knife ensues. The Philippou brothers have our attention.

The plot involves a hand that supposedly belonged to a psychic who communicated with the dead. Teenagers come into possession of it, and all hell breaks loose.

You must grasp the hand (supposedly the mummified remains of the psychic who owned and used it previously. You must light a candle and snuff it out when done. You must say “Talk to me,” followed by “I let you in” and that’s when the fun and games begin. Did I mention that you, as the subject doing this for “fun” at a party are tied to the chair and that only 90 seconds must elapse before the candle is blown out, or else the spirit that inhabits you might not leave your body? If you go longer than 90 seconds and happen to die during the time the spirits from limbo are inhabiting your body, they will take your corporeal self over and you are theirs, apparently forever with a very long-term habit of terrorizing and torturing other normal idiots who take up the hand and use it as a party trick.

The Philippou brothers at a Buzz showing of “Talk To Me” at SXSW 2023.

If you’ve followed this, so far, be aware that some studios gave the directors notes on their script that said they must get the history of the hand and explore that more fully. One of the two directors, appearing after the screening, said, “When I read that, I said, WTF is this? I don’t want to do that. We’d get notes like ‘You’re fired if you can’t get these in,’ so we went the indie route.”The moderator noted, with only thinly veiled sarcasm, that U.S. studios have entire offices of people who give filmmakers horrible notes, which the successful directors learn to ignore.

The filmmakers, instead, chose to gather friends and people’s whose opinions on the horror genre they trust(ed); they used their feedback, instead. Asked if they would refuse to use any horror technique seen elsewhere, the answer was, “I found it fun to do a spin on certain tropes. We wanted to have the film be both horror and drama. Life isn’t all one emotion.” The director mentioned films he admires: the Russian film “The Return” or “Memories of Murder.”

The Philippous finally went indie because they had heard and read a lot about studios requiring directors to do things a certain way and the director not having final cut. As one said, “We wanted to make a horror story, not become one.”

Newcomer Sophie Wilde carries most of the movie on her slender shoulders, and she does a great job. The

Sophie Wilde, star of “Talk To Me.”

consensus was that we were in the presence of a movie star. When asked how she got into the frame of mind to do the most grueling scenes, she referenced music and said, “I’m a firm believer in music to get into that mood: techno and ambient to get to a dark place.”

This film is quite the dark place. The make-up people did not get the nod they deserve, as the apparitions that haunt those who use “the hand” were horrifyingly grotesque. Sophie, herself, noted that some of the scenes were shot in an extremely hot, small room and, “I thought I was possessed. I was so hot. I felt like I wasn’t a real human being.”

This is an auspicious beginning with A24 for the Philippous. It was much more creative than the bigger budget “Evil Dead Rise.”

to me

Directors:

Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou

Executive Producer:

Stephen Kelliher, Sophie Green, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Daniel Negret, Noah Dummett, John Dummett, Jeff Harrison, Ari Harrison, Miranda Otto, Dale Roberts, Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou

Producer:

Samantha Jennings, Kristina Ceyton

Screenwriter:

Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman

Cinematographer:

Aaron McLisky ACS

Editor:

Geoff Lamb

Production Designer:

Bethany Ryan

Sound Designer:

Emma Bortignon

Music:

Cornel Wilczek

Principal Cast:

Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, Zoe Terakes, Chris Alosio

Two Amazon Sci-Fi Films That Are Out There

By Connie Wilson

On December 2, 2022

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Reviews

I’m watching the Channel 5 news from Chicago here in Austin and beginning a week of supervision of our twin granddaughters. (age 13). We won’t starve, but I am definitely going to have to learn how to turn the thermostat up from 70. [I can take 70 if I’m in bed sleeping, but I’m going to have to have it warmer when I’m just sitting around, and I have on 3 layers of clothing right now!]

There is talk of watching a movie tonight, although the Crawdads movie is in competition with the “Everything Everywhere” film. We watched two movies last night that were among the weirdest I’ve seen in a long time.

One was called “The Wave” and starred Justin Long. Very weird.

The other one was even weirder, “Vivarium.” Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots are a couple seeking a new house. They tour a new development with a realtor. All the houses are green and identical. The only problem is that they are not able to leave. They also are saddled with an annoying automoton/robot child that grows throughout the time they are imprisoned in this not-that-ideal community.

The film was directed (and co-written) by Lorcan Finnegan, and it is easy to infer that the “trapped-in-daily-life” vibe from Vivarium is meant to emulate the dull, boring and hum-drum lives that most of us live. Nevertheless, point taken, it was a strange and weird movie. I could relate to the housing development’s completely uniform appearance and the ways in which the couple try to escape are interesting, but the character portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg begins digging in the front yard for reasons that are not very clear. It reminded me of the old saw about how you might dig your way through the Earth and wind up in China if you dug deep enough, and it certainly might have occurred to Eisenberg’s character, since he and Imogen had tried about everything else including climbing up on the roof and writing “Fuk You” in large letters in attempts to escape. A very weird commentary on how life just tends to go on in a routine that you can’t escape, no matter how hard you true.

On other news fronts, I am learning to play Mah Jong (m joined Newcomers Club and this is how desperate I a to try to make friends in a community when we (a) don’t have jobs (b) don’t have kids in school and (c) aren’t particularly “church-y.” I resumed my playing of “Hand-and-foot-canasta” that I learned pre-pandemic. I like the latter, but the vote is out on the former.

In watching the evening news from Chicago we are seeing projected temperatures of 11 degrees It was 84 here 2 days ago, although it has dropped off into the fifties since that record-setting day.

The two films I mention (above) are both Amazon films and free, so that earns them a Gold Star, but be prepared for a couple of weird sci-fi flicks if you try out either of them.

“Red River Road” Explores an Internet Virus Threatening the Schuyler Family

By Connie Wilson

On October 6, 2022

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Movies, Reviews, Scary stories

“Red River Road,” for the Schuyler family, is the answer to the question, “What did you do during the pandemic?”

The talented Schuyler family can honestly say, “We made a movie.” Considering the challenges of being both the stars of the film and the entire crew, it’s quite an impressive movie, at that. Paul wrote, directed, was the cameraman, and helped score (along with Cindy O’Connor) the music for the film.

The plot: “A family of four isolating against a pandemic virus that spreads through the Internet and robs you of your ability to perceive reality—often violently—begins to unravel when they suspect one or all of them might be infected.” One screenplay line: “That’s how it gets in here. It steals reality right out from under you.” Personally, as the parent of teenagers who were very creative at securing their phones after hours, I could relate to the two boys managing to get their phones back and access the Internet (when they were not supposed to do.)

Paul Schuyler (“Wasted,” 1996; “Runner”, 2017) organized his family of four into a cast to film this horror/thriller indie film. The acting is top notch. Wife Jade does a great job of portraying the worried Mom, Anna, of two teen-aged brothers, Quinn and Shaw. Paul is Stephen for the purposes of this fictional story. [His woodworking with a blade saw put me on edge.]

The flashbacks that occur intermittently in the plot are all formed from old home movies of the family, whether they are shots at the beach or the family climbing the Eiffel Tower. This was very effective.

Shot in 10 days on a budget of $225,000 in Harwich, Massachusetts, the trivia as to HOW one both films and acts simultaneously was interesting to me and worth sharing: “Any shots that featured director Paul Schuyler and any other family members had to be blocked and framed prior to action being called. Whichever actor was closest to the camera would ‘roll camera’ then enter the scene to start ‘action’. Only after the scene was shot could they go back and look at the take to make sure everyone was properly in frame. Multiple takes were required to get a usable take, as there was no one there to operate the camera.”

There are multiple dolly shots that include the entire family. With no crew, the only way to achieve this was to connect the dolly to an array of ropes and pulleys that were manipulated by one of the actors in the scene. Usually using another actor to block any “giveaway” movements that would reveal what they were doing.

Brody, the dog, also performed admirably, creating tension at key moments in the generally well-paced one hour and 29 minute film.

The film won a Special Festival Award, the Spirit of Independent Filmmaking, at the Stony Brook Film Festival; it is easy to see why. “Red River Road” is able to be rented ($4.99 and up) on Amazon Prime.

Nice work, Schuyler family. Definitely answers the question “How I spent my pandemic quarantine enforced vacation.”

“Program 1: Obsession, Compulsion and Disorder” at the 53rd Nashville Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 3, 2022

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews, Scary stories

Program 1: Obsession, Compulsion and Disorder.

I watched the films in the streamed package twice. There were 6. At the end, there was a discussion group with 9 films discussed. Not sure what happened to 3 of the films, but they didn’t reach me in Illinois.

Here are capsule summaries of the 6 I saw:

“Inevitable”

“The Inevitable”

Iranian Director Milad Faraholahi has created a very dark short that is synopsized this way: “A disturbed girl has a horrible nightmare in which two muddy figures ask her to open a mysterious box. To get rid of that, she decides to kill herself in her nightmare just to wake up.” I felt I needed to know more about what, exactly, unhinged the lead. Suicide is a pretty dire solution to a problem. As far as the scary quality of the house in which the young girl finds herself, thanks to excellent sound effects and music from Milad Movahedi and cinematography from Hashem Moradi, all of the tried-and-true things that are guaranteed to scare us are used super effectively. Creepy sounds. Lights that turn on and off. Dripping water. Mysterious footprints. A door handle that turns menacingly. Knives in water. Blood on pages of a book. I think some subtitles during the phone conversation would have helped, as my four years of French did not prepare me to know what was said. I could barely hear it; I did not understand it, as a result, although, at one point, my computer coughed up the directive “Une erreur imprevue d’est produite” so my complete comprehension of the plot was definitely compromised. Apologies. I did think the creepy sets and the unhinged performance of the lead served the piece well and that the director has a real future in making more shorts or longer films. There are many talented Iranian filmmakers and one, in particular, who caught my eye at SXSW and directed “Everything Will Be All Right” came to mind immediately. I hope this young director (and his crew) pursue more creepy, scary films, because this one was one of the most frightening that I saw…and I mean that in a good way!

“Bowlhead”

Would someone’s skull really make a good bowling ball? (Food for thought; it’s hard to say.)

The Winnetka Bowl has a dedicated bowler in Joe Harsley as Henry. I was immediately reminded of the 1986 film “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” starring Michael Rooker. This Henry is just as diabolical as that Henry, and his ruse of attempting to return a wallet lost at the bowling alley to a hapless victim leads to a scene that shows Henry overpowering the female victim and then making his victims’ heads into bowling balls (hence the title). Henry definitely comes off as someone who is “not right” and the rest of the plot proves it. (*Note to self: do not go bowling in Winnetka.)

“A Home Invasion”

“A Home Invasion”

Maddie Downes and Evan Marshall collaborated to make this serio-comic “AHome Invasion” short, which, they said, was inspired by the couple in Missouri who were seen brandishing firearms and threatening Black Lives Matter protesters in their front yard. The couple is seen fighting at the beginning of the piece, removing their wedding rings, and arguing about who will get custody of the dog, Cooper ( played by Scoober). Then, a friend (Nathan) finds the runaway dog outside the couple’s home and, while attempting to return the pooch, ends up uniting the bickering mates, who pull out guns and plan to face the assailant, (who is only trying to do them a favor.) Nathan is shot, for his troubles. Travis Prow handles the cinematography (nice shot at the opening, coming into the house through the window from outside) and the music is courtesy of Joshua Rutkowski. The cast of players, in addition to Evan Marshall (who was promoted to lead actor after an older actor dropped out) includes Jessica Bishop, Henry Koly and, of course, Scoober the dog (as Cooper). A sarcastic commentary on America’s fixation on guns (which seems to override all other preoccupations).

“Black Dragon”

“Black Dragon”

“Black Dragon,” filmed on location in Alamanee County, North Carolina, is one of the most polished of the shorts. It was inspired by the 1968 My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, which wiped out a Vietnamese village but resulted in only a 3 and ½ year prison sentence for those involved in the Ukrainian style war crime of wiping out an entire village. Matthew Del Negro from “City on a Hill” plays Colonel Palmer who has a small son (Eddy, played by Chris Day) about the age of the Vietnamese girl in the short, Chau, who is played by Celia Au. Chau has the power to bring the dead back to life. Eddy, the Colonel’s son, has suggested that his dad “has an angel watching over ” him. The angel is going to make some demands of the Colonel that will result in many deaths. Alex Thompson directed and co wrote the piece with Nathaniel Hendricks and Harper Alexander handled the cinematography while Jeffery Alan Jones was in charge of sound design. It is a very professional and polished short piece. If you click on Matthew DelNegro (see link above) you’ll recognize him from “City on a Hill” and it was a nice touch that his surname (DelNegro) fit the title of this short (“Black Dragon”).

“Lemons”

Lemons

Parker Gayan wrote and directed this short film about what would happen if you cut into a lemon and found a USB drive. He has a conversation with a Black friend (Stephen Guma) about his discovery, and there is an appearance from The Lemon Man. I was particularly taken with the idea that Parker is wearing a neck brace throughout the piece. When asked if the neck brace had anything to do with the lemon theme, he said, “No. It was an unrelated accident.” Parker’s attempts to look up something_something.lemon, which results in nothing, was also amusing. I couldn’t help but think of the simpler days before computers, which someone like me remembers. Not only would we never have imagined cutting into a lemon to find a USB drive, we didn’t have USB drives back in the dim dark ages of my youth. It also reminded me of a skit one of my 7^th grade English classes once put on for our Ad Campaigns in the Classroom unit, where the young boys who created a Mole-busters van also came into the classroom to the strains of the famous Ray Parker, Jr., “Ghostbusters” theme song (“Who you gonna’ call? Mole-busters!”) I enjoyed this loopy short way too much considering its lack of gravity and excess of levity. (The director, in an interview that followed the film, said you can get a really inexpensive Lemon Guy costume on Etsy, in case you were wondering.) I apologize for the random mention of the “Mole-buster” unrelated class unit, but it did win a Scholastic Books contest, at the time, naming me “one of the 10 Most Creative teachers in America” (it came with a cash prize). Somehow, this clip summoned such unrelated memories of random merriment, and random happy thoughts are always welcome.

“Lemons” by Parker Gayans.

“The Unlocking”

This one and “Inevitable” were probably the 2 creepiest shorts, although “Black Dragon” is close. Certainly a giant lemon is not creepy and the bickering couple with the guns, while concerning from the standpoint of safety to the community at large, is not “scary” or “creepy.” Both “Inevitable” and “The Unlocking” were. This is a Thomas Brush film and he certainly demonstrates an over-active imagination, as the character even says, “Please fix my brain!” It was interesting to me that the house where this was filmed was actually a childhood haunt, a home where a friend of the director’s lived . The director had always considered the house “creepy.” He got permission to use the house as the setting for the film (cinematography by Joshua Murray). This story of a completely bonkers guy in a tutu who will ultimately attack our hero and do substantial damage to him was frightening in the same way that a strange noise in your own kitchen late at night can be terrifying if you are home alone. First, we see the protagonist walking around in the house in the dark trying to investigate who might have come in when he left the door unlocked ( he was advised by others to leave the door unlocked; chaos ensues) but the OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) from which the main character suffers is not misplaced over-anxious worrying, but honest-to-God real-life danger,realized at the film’s climax.

“The Unlocking,” by Thomas Brush.

The filmmakers spoke about their films afterwards, often giving contact information and extra details (such as that regarding the house that is the setting for “The Unlocking.”) There were 2 additional shorts discussed at length, but I was not sent either short.

“223 Wick” Is an Amazon Offering With Lots of Explaining to Do

By Connie Wilson

On September 30, 2022

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Local, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews, Scary stories

This “thriller/fantasy” film caught my eye, initially, because it was very moody and scripted by Melanie Clarke-Pettiella and Jess Byard. I’m always in favor of letting more females write horror, (as a former active voting member of the Horror Writers’ Association), so I bought into this Amazon Prime movie, filmed on location in Youngstown, Ohio.

Let’s start with the good things: the music (Rolaz) is good—with the possible exception of a song at the end with the lyric “trapped under the ice.” There is no ice in sight; that line made about as much sense as the rest of the plot.

But on with the positive: great settings, although, if the film had answered an early question asked in the script (“What is this place?”) we would all have been better off.

The synopsis on IMDB says, “Plagued by visions and nightmares, a Catholic priest is ousted from his parish. With nowhere to turn, he follows the sinister visions calling him and discovers a deal he alone must stop.”

That synopsis bore little resemblance to the movie’s plot, [such as it is.]

Father John, played by Alexi Stavros (he has a great voice!) is a priest in a seminary who seems to be locked in a power struggle with the Dean of the seminary, Father Murphy (played by Jack Dimich). There is a second priest named Father McAndrew (Eric Vaughn) and a third named Arthur, who is played by Director Sergio Meyers’ son, Sergio Meyers II.

The film really does establish an appropriately creepy vibe, but almost nothing makes sense from that point on. Father John is not really “ousted from his parish.” He is admittedly in conflict with the head priest (Father Murphy) but he seems to get in a cab of his own volition and asks to be taken to 223 Wick Avenue, which is a building just as creepy as the seminary building he has just exited.

The plot becomes even more incomprehensible once Father John has relocated, starting with much falling and the fact that, for the rest of the film, he will wear a bloody bandage around his head. Why would he agree to spend the night at 223 Wick St. simply because he took a slight fall on the front steps? And, if he did agree to spend the night because he might have sustained a concussion, how does that lead to what seems to be an extended stay? Not likely. And not explained well (or at all).

Visions do plague Father John (migraines), but the vision is pretty much the same one, over and over. It looks a bit like a nuclear explosion. Another character who resides at 223 Wick Ave. (Paul) also seems accident prone. At one point, after Father John has spent the night at 223 Wick (because he fell down on the front steps and hit his head?), Paul asks Father John to bless the building, room by room, before he leaves, because its owner (Kat, played by Dawn Lafferty) thinks the building is haunted.

The dialogue is stilted, along the lines of “Give humanity back to the Ancient Ones” and “Come with me. Rule like a god.” Or, “This place will always call out for the energy it needs to feed.”

Most of the prinicipals in this largely incomprehensible plot do not live happily ever after [or at all.] The Brixtons own 223 Wick Ave. and there is some mumbo-jumbo about “secret societies” and an all male fraternal order that is over 100 years old, but we see little of that. The relationship between Kat and her sister is also shrouded in mystery and will remain a secret throughout the film.

The writers really needed to pick up the writing pace if women in horror are going to gain a better footing in the field than they had back when I dabbled in the horror/thriller genre a decade or so ago.

The setting, music, cinematography: okay. The plot: not okay.

Overall, this was a moody mess with no idea where it was going and no ability to convey a coherent plot to its puzzled audience.

Printers’ Row Rained Out For Me on September 11, 2022

By Connie Wilson

On September 12, 2022

In Books, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Politics

Well, if any of you were Chicago residents, you know that it rained A LOT today, Sunday, September 11th.

I have to confess that I did not make it to the IWPA booth at Printers’ Row for precisely that reason.

I got up about 9 a.m. (early, for me) and it was raining.

I had a cup of coffee and sat around for over an hour, thinking it would let up.

It did not.

I went back to bed and got up closer to 11 a.m., and I consulted the hour by hour weather forecast, which said that there was a 100% chance of rain for the next several hours.

About 1:20 p.m. the rain actually ceased…briefly. It was right back at it within half an hour.

BEE GONE: A POLITICAL PARABLE

Not to be too big a wuss, but dragging a box on wheels through the wet streets of Chicago is not great for paperbacks, and paperbacks were what I had with me. I was going to go with the political books of the hour, because, as we used to say about Nixon, “We won’t have DJT to kick around any more.” (Or so I fervently hope).

If you had your TV sets tuned to the Bears game at Soldier Field, right across the street from me, you will know that it was really pouring down during the game. Enough said.

My apologies to any of you who did make it out, but I could not imagine that there would be more than one or two folks brave enough to saunter down to Polk Street during the downpour.

The books I had with me are all available on Amazon, and I hope you check them out.