Theresa Derwin's terror-tree.co.uk

Welcome to the first in a regular post where I share with you what I get up to on a Saturday night (down boys)!

As a child, Saturday night was always horror night, so I’ll try my best to watch films you will want to watch, or warn you of films you really don’t want to watch! And maybe you’ll join me one evening.
Last Saturday I started with two films; The Possession and The Bigfoot Tapes. So here, for your entertainment is . . .

The Possession
Producer: Sam Raimi
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis
Running Time: 92 minutes
Release Date: 21 Jan 2013
Reviewer: Theresa Derwin

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Clyde) and Kyra Sedgwick (Stephanie) play estranged parents to two girls. The youngest girl buys a mysterious wooden box with her Dad at a garage sale and starts to hear encouraging voices from it. And that’s when things get really interesting! Of course I did want to ask if the child had ever seen Hellraiser or Seven. Don’t open the box! Never open the box!
The tension builds slowly in this horror flick, and there are genuinely scary moments. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is always reliable and Natasha Calis as the young girl Em, with some behavioural issues (think Linda Blair) is very convincing.
The scares start small and I have to admit I jumped a few times. The soundtrack is a little OTT, and there is a famous line from an equally infamous possession film used near the finale. It was also slightly ruined with a predictable ending, however overall it was a good solid horror film and addition to the sub-genre.

The Bigfoot Tapes
Producer: Stephon Stewart
Starring: Stephon Stewart, Davee Youngblood
Running Time: 82 minutes
Release Date: 6 May 2013
Reviewer: Theresa Derwin

This addition to the found footage films starts with a record of a call to 911 reporting a dog being eaten by a creature. The next scene we meet the ‘director’ of a Bigfoot ‘documentary’ as he pursues the caller of the 911 report. There are some technical errors regarding the colour of the abominable snowman mentioned, but only a geek like me would notice (having a cryptozoologist as a friend). The obligatory couple tag along with the ‘director’ played by real-life director Stephon Stewart on the search for the big hairy fella. The scenery is beautiful (a great advert for the tourist board) and the film rolls along at a reasonable pace, but it isn’t quite in the league of Troll Hunter. With the prerequisite rednecks/hill billies hanging around at Elk Creek Campground as the crew track down the oldest folklore legend in the USA. The dialogue is strangely authentic, with lines such as “the goats are tasty, so’s chicken.” Curiosity kept me watching, though a religious and poetic redneck was a little hard to buy. However the subversion of the stereotype (see Deliverance) works well. The Bigfoot visuals when they come along are slightly dodgy, but not too bad. Things get really tight for the film crew when they are abandoned in the backwoods. The question I always ask with these films is ‘would they still be filming lost as they are?’ When BF turned up on camera when their backs were turned, I really wanted him to do a dance routine like the Pandas in the Kit-Kat advert.
Overall, again I enjoyed this film, my only issue being a gratuitous scene near the end. The script and direction was good and it was kind of fun. Worth the effort.

If you were granted three wishes…

If you’ve read “Between Two Thorns” you already know that the fairy-tale trope of being awarded three wishes fascinates me. As a child I spent countless hours day-dreaming about what I’d wish for, ironically enough just like all good fae-touched children are encouraged to do in the Split Worlds.

Now the launch of the second part of the Split Worlds trilogy “Any Other Name” is on the horizon and I want to do something kind of crazy to celebrate. Are you ready?

I want to make a community of people publicly making three wishes and then, where possible, granting said wishes.

“These three wishes are part of a wish-making community organised by author Emma Newman to celebrate the release of the second Split Worlds novel “Any Other Name”. Can you make any of them come true? Come and see what other people are wishing for and find out how to join in at www.splitworlds.com/split-worlds-extra/three-wishes – who knows, perhaps someone could make one of your wishes come true.”

There are two reasons: One is that it enables people to find out about the wishing community so they can join in too. The second is that if you make that link active, (hopefully) it should make a little pingback doohicky appear in my email so I know you’ve joined in. Then I’ll summarise your wishes and link to them on there, so people can find you.

My three wishes are:
1. A book deal for my novel Mercy about witches and angels
2. My weight loss to continue (lost 8.5lb so far)
3. To get a holiday flat or chalet in the UK to take my Dad 79 years and poorly on a little break this summer to cheer him up.

I can grant a wish: Emma, I’m a small publisher Fringeworks with a horror imprint KnightWatch Press, and I would love to read your wish-makers novellas/novels. Forward them to me please.

Vampire Circus Author: Mark Morris Publisher: Hammer Page count/size: 344pp Release Date: 4th Oct 2012 Reviewer: Theresa Derwin Working with Arrow Books, Hammer films have expanded on their recent ventures into films by treading water in the horror literature genre. They have started by releasing new novelisations of classic Hammer Horror films introducing some original fiction too. Vampire Circus by Mark Morris is a new, fresh and modern take on the classic film. This edition includes an introduction by film Director Robert Young. The novel starts as two young girls, Jenny and Lynn, enter Mitre House, at a time when local children are mysteriously disappearing. On the road home from school, the two girls meet creepy teacher Mrs Miller who offers one of the girls a ride home. Chris Blaine has been hired to follow Anna Miller, as her husband believed she was having an affair. Blaine is shocked to see Anna taking young Jenny to Mitre House, the local haunted and apparently abandoned building. Ten years later, his memories of searching Mitre House having evaporated, Dr Jon Kersh, friend to Nick (Anna’s widower) notices a strange illness attacking the residents of Shettle, leaving him confused, exhausted and feeling helpless. Nick begins to think that he is losing his mind, after all, he sometimes forgets his wife Anna dies, or even that he had a wife. A miasma of illness swirls around Shettle, as a barrier that stops the locals from leaving town, and outsiders entering town. At the same time, a strange circus has arrived, with calliope music in the air and a dwarf littering the local school with flyers; no-one is able to resist its lure. But what dangers lurk behind the fun veneer? Reminiscent of Funhouse by Richard Laymon, with all the circus tropes present, Vampire Circus lovingly recreates the atmosphere and scenery of the classic Hammer tales, whilst putting a new spin on it. The characters are well drawn, the tension mounts and there are some nicely gruesome bits to please traditional horror fans. Morris has written a truly enjoyable yarn that entertains on every level. This is the future of Hammer.

Meet Chris Amies – he is the author of one published novel (“Dead Ground”, published by Big Engine) and several stories in magazines, anthologies and online publications. Recently he has been producing flash fiction, one of which was translated into the constructed language Toki Pona. He was born in Surrey and lived in London until a recent move to Birmingham where he works for a housing association. A languages graduate, he also works as a translator from French into English and is interested in translating French-language Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. He is currently working on a ‘remake’ of one of his unpublished novels, a fantasy set in West London, where much of his fiction takes place.

The Windup Girl
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Publisher: Orbit
Page count: 505
Released: 2010
Reviewer: Chris Amies

Near-future Thailand. In a world where disaster has befallen the food supply and calories are the hardest currency, an artificial person – a windup – escapes from servitude and finds herself at the centre of a time of political and social meltdown.

I have no idea if this is a well-depicted Thailand. I’ve only been there once, years ago as a tourist but the world depicted is an engaging and credible one. One character, Hock Seng, is a refugee from the Muslim fundamentalist state of Malaya, a name some people have taken as historical inaccuracy but which may just mean this isn’t quite the same country as our-world Malaysia. He and western expat Anderson Lake manage a factory whose motive power is supplied by ‘megodonts’. Megodonts are genetically-engineered elephants only larger (not sure why these creatures would exist instead of ordinary elephants which have been used for motive power in Thailand for centuries, other than ‘because gengineered four-tusked elephants would be cool’). In this post-peak oil world muscle power counts for a lot. What isn’t provided directly by large animals is stored up in kink-springs, which are spring-loaded mechanisms used in much the way petrol engines are today. And most of the world is under the control of food-supply companies as the plant gene pools have been attacked by genetic plagues.

Hock Seng and Lake are not the pivotal characters of this narrative – this would be the windup girl of the title, Emiko, who fled Japan and is now living a degraded life in Thailand. Also key to the story is Police officer Kanya, who with her superior officer and mentor Jaidee is witness to much turmoil in a country torn between past and present, between the wish for purity and isolation and openness to the outside world. Cheshires – ghost cats – lurk in the shadows, and there are airships up above.

It is a complex novel and one which does read like several linked stories, what with characters leaving centre stage only to turn up as minor characters later on. Even if this reader has no sense of what the real place is like it seemed compelling enough even if not very appealing – it is a largely dystopian future though more by implication. The outside world, which the Thais have been keeping at bay, is implied to be worse than what we see here.

The windup girl is in some ways better than human – but deliberately impaired so as to mark out her otherness (she moves with a jerky gait, hence the word ‘windup’ and the slang term for them, ‘herky-jerky’). This flawed nature recalls the strong, fast but doomed replicants of “Blade Runner” and the novel itself is not unlike, while twenty years or so on from cyberpunk. It’s quite an ambitious technology to be paired with a post-peak-oil civilisation, but really Emiko is a symbol, something fantastical like the Cheshires, a point that brings together the disparate lives of the people in this twisty novel. Bacigalupi has pulled off an interesting and attractive dystopia, and if that is a contradiction, well contradiction is the spring that drives SF.

Hi, meet my new Reviewer Andy Angel before he tells you about this book:
Andy Angel

Ok, my bio – I’m Andy, a 45 year old warehouseman who allegedly came out of the womb with a book in hand. In all seriousness I have been reading for as long as I can remember. The first books I remember were the Magic Wishing Chair and Faraway Tree books of Enid Blyton which probably set me on the path to fantasy books as I grew older.

Since getting a Kindle 18 months ago, I have been reviewing and recommending books on amazon, goodreads and my blog (www.ebookwyrm.blogspot.com).

My other hobbies are watching ice hockey (Go Steelers), travelling with my partner Marie, and pub quizzes (we even win sometimes). I also enjoy sampling single malts.

The Hammer and the Blade
Author: Paul S Kemp
Publisher: Angry Robot
Page count/Size: 416pp
Release date: 5th July 2012
Reviewer: Andy Angel
This is the first in the Tales of Egil and Nix (and hopefully there will be many more)

Our tale begins with tomb robbers Egil and Nix doing what they do best – robbing the tomb of Abn Sur. In the process they release a demon guardian, Vik-Thyss. They manage to defeat the demon and escape and that should be the end of it . . . but that would make things too easy.

Back in the city Lord Rakon Norristu needs a demon of House Thyss to fulfil a pact that keeps him in his position of power. When he finds out that Vik-Thyss is dead he needs to enlist the unwilling help of Egil and Nix to find and free another demon, Abrak-Thyss.

The action starts on page one and never really lets up until the final page, but it isn’t only the action and mayhem that makes this story a joy to read; there is also the banter between Egil and Nix. You instantly get a feel for the deep bond of friendship and the idea that here are two men who have been through a lot together.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable tale of sword and sorcery with demons, monstrous creatures, some Indiana Jones style tomb raiding and a quite despicable villain who gets his come-uppance in an ingenious and much deserved way.

Join Egil and Nix on a break-neck adventure – you’ll be glad you did!