Sky Tongues (2011) by Gina Ranalli
Reviewed by Anthony Servante

Welcome once again to the darkness with your host, Anthony Servante. In this, our sixth venture into horror, the grotesque, and their various branches of literary genres, we explore the ‘absurd’ and “Bizarro Literature” today. We will analyze “Sky Tongues” by Gina Ranalli and deconstruct its elements of absurdism and try to define the term ‘bizarro’ as it applies to literature. Right off, let me say that today’s use of the word, ‘absurd’, as ridiculous or exaggerated, is not the philosophical definition I am discussing here, where it is closer to ‘meaninglessness’ or nihilism, but when combined with the comically ironic that relies on a suspension of disbelief, it becomes bizarre. Quite simply, Sky Tongues, the character, is real in a bizarre universe that we can enter and share when we don’t accept it as real or validate its existence. But we can visit anytime just by opening the pages of Ranalli’s book again and again.

Let’s begin with Albert Camus, who helped define absurdism in his existentialist writings. He stresses that the absurd is the realization that the universe is without order, that man’s quest for meaning is endless and futile. He says, “The Absurd arises out of the fundamental disharmony between the individual's search for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe” (Wikipedia). But Philip Thompson in The Critical Idiom series, The Grotesque (1972), clarifies that Camus believes that in the ‘search’ for meaning, there is meaning; the journey, not the destination, is real, and the opposite of real is absurdity, such as one finding meaning in religion, love or in just being alive (suicide for Camus is not a solution for meaninglessness as suicide itself is an absurdity). So, let’s clarify. Absurdity is that which does not make sense, but the quest for truth in absurdity is valid, as long as answers are not reached. Thus, the question: Does life have meaning? is not limited to answering yes or no. We can simply recognize the question itself as absurd and consider other answers in addition to the negative or positive, including the grotesque possibilities, such as life is but a dream or nightmare.

The ‘bizarre’, Thompson notes, is the disharmonic elements clashing, similar to his definition of ‘the grotesque’ but with an absurd apportionment; the grotesque is revolting and frightening, but the bizarre is “eerie and comical”. Camus sums up the balance in this disharmony as freedom from a need for harmony: “By accepting the Absurd, one can achieve absolute freedom, and that by recognizing no religious or other moral constraints and by revolting against the Absurd while simultaneously accepting it as unstoppable, one could possibly be content from the personal meaning constructed in the process.” To embrace the bizarre liberates the subjective need for order. It becomes an ongoing process, a journey, a progression.

Thus Bizarro Literature must include elements in conflict but in subjective harmony and acceptance. Consider the world of animation. In the movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), Eddie Valiant’s brother is killed by a piano being dropped on him in Toontown, but when Eddie visits the animated town, and rides the lightning quick elevator operated by Droopy, he is flattened like a pancake at the bottom of the elevator floor, like a cartoon. Why isn’t he killed by the flattening? His brother was killed by a cartoon piano. Are the physical rules of Toontown variant? Do they apply differently to different people or are they constant? One could argue that in a cartoon world, there are no rules, and therein lies the crux of the matter. To find order in a cartoon is to give absurdity validity. To argue that toons can or cannot kill is a fallacy begging a conclusion. We are talking Roger Rabbit, folks. There is no answer, but seeking one gives one a greater enjoyment of the movie, itself a disharmony with its animated characters and the real actors blended into the same story. When we suspend our disbelief, the disharmony becomes harmonic and subjectively entertaining, but objectively, it is bizarre—just as bizarre as if Roger Rabbit, or better yet, Jessica Rabbit, walked right into the room like any flesh and blood creature or person and interacted with you. Some may be amazed, others horrified.

Which brings us to Sky Tongues by Gina Ranalli. The novel is a series of disharmonious elements coalescing into a bizarre world where we find ourselves accepting the absurdities as subjectively valid as we would a novel with harmonious elements. For instance, in Peyton Place (1956), “the main plot follows the lives of three women—lonely and repressed Constance MacKenzie; her illegitimate daughter Allison; and her employee Selena Cross, a girl from across the tracks, or "from the shacks." The novel describes how they come to terms with their identity as women and sexual beings in a small New England town. Hypocrisy, social inequities and class privilege are recurring themes in a tale that includes incest, abortion, adultery, lust and murder” (Wiki). We do not question such goings on in the “soap opera” town; we accept it without question, but when we approach the same themes in a world where disharmony reigns, the absurd is the standard, and to question it itself becomes absurd. To accept it is to accept the bizarre and its rules of chaos, an oxymoron in essence.

Gina Ranalli offers her own brand of the bizarre in Sky Tongues (ST). The story of a Mue (mutant) in a world of norms, mues and countless other humanoid and nonhumanoid characters, ST is the real world presented in absurdist fashion. Sky is an Outie, born inside out, with Tongues for fingers and toes. On the meaningful side, ST is the Horatio Alger-ish autobiography of a person’s rise from poverty, abuse and alienation to fame, wealth and power. On the other side, it is a fantastical world of environmental corruption and its pervasion of the human DNA pool—in other words, a world of mutations: people who are born inside-out, transparent, multi and single limbed, coated by shark skin, and many other variations of mutated humans. But this is not a story of fantasy, of science fiction, where the focus of the story is on the reasons and results of the polluted world, and in the solution to this “problem” comes a return of the DNA to ‘normal’ expectations for a happy ending to the human race. Instead, the focus of ST is on the ‘soap opera’ reality of a young girl tossed into a world she wasn’t ready for and her trials and tribulations in conquering this world. The bizarre DNA background is there like clothing on a character, but the story is character driven, not based on the bizarre circumstances or in what she’s wearing.

To tell Sky’s tale is to speak of human problems. Her father resents her for being an Outie, born inside out, yet he loves his son who was born with a glossy shark skin sleeker than his dad’s. We can parallel the description of skins throughout the book as metaphors for Blacks, Latinos, Anglos, Asians, etc, but that shifts the counterbalance of comical and eerie to “real” again and the flavor of the bizarre is lost. We are talking about Sky Tongues, a hermaphrodite who traverses two worlds, a famous Mue who exists between the world of accepted mutants and rejected ones. It would be too easy to simply say that Sky represents the story of a girl who goes to Hollywood seeking fame and encounters trouble and redemption. It reduces the bizarre effect. It is the story of a Mue who goes to Hollywood; it is the story of many Mues and non-mues living their lives in their world. Theirs is the Peyton Place of mutants, not the metaphor for humans in a soap opera.

So, Bizarro Literature utilizes disharmonic elements that create a world that can only be entered by a suspension of disbelief because the absurd structure (another oxymoron) requires a unquestioning journey into “real” lands in unreal places, for it is not “getting it” or making sense of it that makes Sky Tongues a unique and valuable read for fans of horror and beauty but the journey one takes in reading it without question or assigning it a value that makes Sky Tongues a remarkable accomplishment by Gina Ranalli in both Bizarro and literary fiction. I look forward to reading the rest of her books, many of which I’ve already placed in my library.

If you have found today’s Servante of Darkness a bit bizarre, then good—you understand. Thank you for coming today, dear readers. Sky Tongues can be purchased in paper or ebook at Amazon.com here

One last footnote about Bizarro Literature as I believe Camus may have considered it:
“For Camus, it is the beauty which people encounter in life that makes it worth living. People may create meaning in their own lives, which may not be the objective meaning of life (if there is one), but can still provide something for which to strive. However, he insisted that one must always maintain an ironic distance between this invented meaning and the knowledge of the absurd, lest the fictitious meaning take the place of the absurd”
(source: Wikipedia).

Sky Tongues creates its world and maintains its irony for the reader to enjoy as he would a bizarre journey.

Until next month, stay cool in the darkness.

--Anthony Servante

 

The Face of Pain by Tim Waggoner

Critiqued by Anthony Servante

The Summary:

THE DOCTORS SAID IT WAS CANCER,
BUT TRICIA KNEW THE THING INSIDE
HER WAS SOMETHING FAR WORSE

Tricia Everheart is diagnosed with uterine cancer, but despite
her test results, she can’t escape the feeling that she’s not
sick-she’s pregnant. When a mysterious red door appears in
the hospital, she steps through and finds herself trapped in a
nightmarish facility called the Red Tower.
There, a cult of sinister physicians known as the Physickers
worship a foul entity known as the Face of Pain… and they
believe Tricia is its chosen vessel. Her husband, Aaron,
Follows her into the Red Tower, desperate to bring her home.
But the deeper they go, the more they encounter horrors
Beyond comprehension.
Will they escape the Red Tower before the Face of Pain
enters our reality? Or will its birth unravel existence itself?

The Critique:

Horror is a place where you go inside the realm of words. Just ask Tim Waggoner. His place is hued, scented; it has temperature, and it is welcoming. It is also the spectrum of emotion, from fear to fancy, from loathing to love. You know of what I speak: Those dream worlds you visit in sleep, where nightmare and stream of consciousness build walls, towns, and homes, places you are familiar with, places where you've lived many, many times, lived in places with people you've known as long as you can remember, though they are but strangers and and the places unknown locations--except in dream and in well-written horror stories. We get caught up inside the Horror to the point where we forget it's just a book.

 

When Tricia Everheart realizes she is in the red place, there was no entrance or exit, only existence. She is already there when we, the reader, meet her and first visit the place. And this is our experience, too; we are just there, though you may say that you opened the page and closed the page, still, you are there without pages. That's Tim Waggoner's gift; He creates places that take us there and stay with us, crowding our dream and nightmare space with equal authority, long after we've read the story. But there is something else that accompanies the visit, the knowledge that we, the reader, know that this is not only where "Horror" with a capital h resides; it is also horror itself that we are visiting, not just a story. And it's a joy to get lost there. 

Tim Waggoner has a knack for writing such Horror. In The Face of Pain, he has laid out the welcome mat for you to visit a beautifully hellish place. Try not to let it get too deep in your head. Just try. 

 

Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Bodycam

Director: Brandon Christensen

Writers: Brandon Christensen and Ryan Cristenden

Not to be confused with Mary J. Blige police procedural Body Cam (2020), 2026’s Bodycam is yet another found footage movie, with the wrinkle suggested in the title. Our two protagonists (maybe anti-protagonists?) are Officer Jackson (Jaime M. Callica) and Officer Bryce (Sean Rogerson). The movie jumps right in as the pair are called to investigate a possible domestic abuse call. The streets are littered with tents and homeless people, and the house is a wreck. Notably, their radios and phones fail within the confines of the house.

In short order we see occult symbols and a massive well, a mutilated dog in a bathtub, and creepy people. One of the latter is carrying a bundle and charges rather supernaturally at Officer Bryce, who shoots the man and the bundle, which turns out to be a baby. A witness to this, a blood-soaked woman, digs into her throat with a bottle. 

Officer Bryce, whose wife is, of course, expecting, is desperate to erase the bodycam footage. To that end, along with the pleading Jackson, he goes to an army/navy store, apparently open 24 hours, where in the basement works a technical wizard character exclusive to movies like this, who can alter or delete footage. They play the footage. The technical wizard hears one of the creepy people say the word “Underman” and she kicks out the officers.

After fending off a barricade of street people who keep uttering the phrase “You took something from him, now he’ll take something from you”, they end up at a shelter run by Jackson’s mother, where more street people lurk, issuing the same threat. Meanwhile, Officer Bryce begins to hallucinate. Or at least that’s what the camera shows.

Ultimately, Officer Bryce shoots himself and Officer Jackson, in a very effective scene, seems to run into the house they first entered at every turn, even in the heart of the city, that same house with two lit-up windows on the second floor, until every building on the street is the house. We end with a burst of street people and a creature that may well be CGI but also could be AI, a many-armed Underman who, I can’t be sure, either wants people to descend, or to rise.

Bodycam plays out like a too-long outtake from the VHS anthology movie series. Its leads are effective, its atmosphere decently decrepit, its politics as muddled as its fictional mythology. The movie seems to want to duck accusations of using homeless addicts as villains by having Officer Jackson’s mother get mad when he calls them “tweakers.” It’s still, eh, iffy. Especially as characters in the credits have names like “Tommy the Tweaker” and “Tabitha the Tweaker.”

The last scenes in the movie, with Jackson moving about the interior of the house, look depressingly like a first-person shooter video game with a gun-wielding arm angled in from offscreen. There’s a brief but unmistakable homage to The Blair Witch Project, a denouement with more officers showing up at the house, a few people being dragged violently and quickly offscreen (de riguer in movies of late, and very much overdone), and another lunge at the screen from our AI Underman.

Bodycam is at least entertaining. Maybe it would have been better as a 20-minute VHS segment, however.

 

 

The Listed

Chapter Three

Miguel Winter slugged the alarm clock at 5:00 a.m. exactly, a micro-second before the buzzer sounded. The clock flew across the room and slammed against the wall as he sat up in bed. He yawned and scratched his face; he needed to shave. Damn morning again, he grunted. Damn clock. He'll have to buy a new one after work, one that didn't wake him up, one of those that tell time but don't buzz or wail or ring. 

Shaving took all of eight minutes; he had the bloody toilet paper wads to prove it. Men with craggy faces know his pain. So do women with craggy legs, he laughed. No wonder he was divorced twice, with no prospects in the foreseeable future. Like any good single man, he prepared his own breakfast: black coffee and black toast. He skimmed the morning newspaper, but stopped to read the latest on the Campus Killer. The bastard had claimed another victim. 

Number twelve, if memory served. College girls, blonde, attractive. Met with the killer on campus most likely, thus the name, and its seems the vics knew the person, which would account for trust issue. Why would the vics go with the killer?! He either knew him or trusted him. Maybe they did some escort work on the side to supplement their income. After all, higher education was expensive these days. Seems the police weren't pursuing that angle though, at least according to the paper. 

And maybe the girls just deserved it. He understood that motive. His exes sure understood that motive. He didn't mind putting them in their place if they questioned his whereabouts. Maybe the killer was doing everyone a favor. In his heart, he felt an affinity with this motive the killer may have. 

He imagined wetting a small towel and rolling it into a "rat's tail". Think you're better than me, college girl? He laughed at his morbid thoughts. Better get to work and write that article that will win me the Pulitzer Prize. 

The Editor called Miguel into his office as soon as he walked in. "I have a good reason for being late," lied Miguel.

"Who cares?!" Dennis Butler snarled. He handed the hungover reporter a piece of paper with a name and address on it. "Go here, interview that person, come back here, and write me second page piece on the Campus Killer."

"Now?" Miguel wondered. He hadn't even checked his messages. 

"Now! Everything can wait. You want the story or not."

Miguel nodded like an idiot. 

"Then get the fuck outta here."

Miguel didn't even notice that he was headed for Maitelin University to talk with the Head of the Psychology Department. For some reason, that gave him chills. 

The Seven Orbs

Chapter One

Wisdom and Winsome

4.

Wisdom, of the Jenri Clan, was 10 years old. His older brother was Winsome, just two years elder, he liked to say, and his mother, Jade, made up the Jenri home. The young lad never knew his father, but his mother was strong of body and spirit, both mother and father to the two lads. Wisdom was too young to remember the War of the Three Kings, but he always favored and loved King Terria, and couldn't wait to grow to manhood so that he could join the King's Guard. He placed his tiny hand over the wooden sword he kept tied to his side, just as the soldiers wore their weapons. 

From his hiding place in the Counsel Chambers, he heard the heated exchange between the two Governors and the King. When all the shouting was done, all but The Counsel remained. In whispers loud enough for the young boy to hear, the words "What have we done?' were heard. Then footsteps and the chambers door was shut. The Counsel had left. From behind the curtains, Wisdom emerged and saw the great throne of the King before him. He circled the great seat of power and plopped himself upon the chair. "I am King," he announced to the empty room, then looked around cautiously as he didn't mean to speak so loudly. He bowed his head as if to a mighty knight, removed his wooden sword from the handmade hilt his mother made for him, and tapped the wooden blade on each of the knight's shoulders. "Rise now, brave warrior, a worthy King's Guardsman." 

Someone was at the door, so Wisdom darted back behind the curtains, found the vent leading to a series of larger passageways, which in turn led outside the castle. It was a secret tunnel system used by the Queen to hide the children and provide them escape during the War of the Three Kings. His mother told him the story of how the Queen had helped her escape that night the castle was under siege and how she saw the terrifying dragon defend the castle of the attackers. That battle alone changed the tide of the War and placed King Terria on the throne as the sole King of the Three Kingdoms. He wondered who had entered the Counsel Chambers. 

Captains and Lovers

5.

Alone in the Chambers, Theo and Abora embraced. Theo broke the silence, "So, it's war."

"Yes." She grew sad as Theo pushed away from her. 

"Then this will be the last time we meet," he said.

"Don't lose hope. Please don't lose hope." She tried to touch his shoulder, but he pulled away. 

"You lead your father's forces in The East, I, Captain of the King's Guard. What little hope I had was to meet you once more before we meet on the battlefield. I knew the day was coming. The freedom of The East and The West was always at hand. It was my father who wouldn't, no, couldn't accept it. His Guardsmen, his Wizard, that damned Dragon. He always believed that this made him invincible. Warriors, magic, and that demon beast won him the kingship all those years ago, and they've kept the peace all these years. His pride brings to war." Theo dropped into the throne.

"Theo," Abora scolded him, "don't disrespect your father's throne."

"Wood and Iron don't make a throne," he answered. "The man does." He gazed into Abora's teary eyes. "Father would have loved you, would have loved his grandkids."

"Don't speak of the future as if it were past." She grabbed Theo's hand and pulled him up from the throne. "There's still a small chance. If the War should be short, maybe we could still...".

"Still what?" he asked when she couldn't even finish her sentence. "Have hope?"

"Don't laugh at our one chance," she said, wiping away the tears she could no longer control. "My father and Governor Aquell have been busy these past years. Blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, and more men tearing up the forest, dragging the river, hammering and clanging into the night, every night. They are building. What? I do not know. The Forces of The East, my warriors, know not what machines are being readied. But we will soon know, when they are ready."

"What machines can stop a dragon?"

"Please, let's escape to the mountains." Abora pressed her face and cheek into Theo's chest. "Let them destroy themselves. We'll start anew." 

"Where's your hope, now, my love? We cannot abandon our duties, or our fathers. What life could we start together without their blessings?" Theo's words sounded hollow. Even he did not believe them. As much as his heart yearned to run off to the mountains with Abora, he knew he wouldn't nor would she. "I once abandoned my duties for love when I was younger, but that was but fancy. Ours is true, and there's our hope. That we may survive to rekindle what this war would take from us." 

"To a short war, then, Theo, my prince," Abora said. 

Abora hooded her head to hide her identity as Theo escorted her out of the castle. But it wasn't hope or love that filled his thoughts. It was Abora's concern. The machines.

Coming soon

The Guardsmen Grumble

6

Coming soon

The King and The Prince

7

 

The House at Black Tooth Pond

Reviewed by Anthony Servante

The Author

Stephen Mark Rainey is the author of numerous novels, including BALAK, THE LEBO COVEN, DARK SHADOWS: DREAMS OF THE DARK (with Elizabeth Massie), BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND, and others, including several in Elizabeth Massie's Ameri-Scares Series for Young Readers. In addition, Mark's work includes six short story collections; over 200 published works of short fiction; and the scripts for several DARK SHADOWS audio productions, which feature members of the original ABC-TV series cast. For ten years, he edited the multi-award-winning DEATHREALM magazine and, most recently, the best-selling anthology, DEATHREALM: SPIRITS (Shortwave Publishing). He has also edited anthologies for Delirium Press, Chaosium, and Arkham House. Mark lives in Martinsville, VA, with his wife, Kimberly, and a passel of precocious house cats. He is a regular panelist on the weekly Lovecraft eZine Podcast and an active member of the Horror Writers Association.

A Summary

AIKEN MILL, VIRGINIA… A legend-haunted town in Sylvan County, located in a remote, mountainous corner of the state. With its long history of countless deaths and disappearances, Aiken Mill has become known to law enforcement as “The Cold Case Capital of the World.”

Now, an unidentified, mutilated body has turned up in the town. During his investigation, Sheriff Bryce Parrott discovers frightening clues that lead him to believe some ghostly force—or entity—may be responsible for the killing.

While exploring the darkest corners of Sylvan County, psychology professor Martin Pritchett and his brother, Phillip, happen upon a crumbling, century-old house beside a body of water called Black Tooth Pond. A strange compulsion leads both men back to the house time and time again, but neither can remember any of the events that occur there.

As both Sheriff Parrott and the Pritchett brothers attempt to solve their respective mysteries, their paths begin to converge—paths that lead inexorably to the ancient, foreboding house at Black Tooth Pond.

The Critique

Stephen Mark Rainey writes literary horror like it's nonfiction. Don't get me wrong. His work is fiction, but the story structure, the characters, and the believable supernatural aspects just seem real. It's this realism that elevates Rainey's stories to a literary level.  

Rainey employs a classic three act story structure that is tight and well developed, with each act driving the story to the next act with seamless transition. And not just seamless but suspenseful and damn entertaining as well. Most horror novels tend to save the third act for the major frights, but Rainey makes three acts seem like one, building tension and suspense in equal measure from the first page to the last. 

And by the time you get to the end, you are invested in the lives of each of the story's characters and how they intertwine with each other, as well as the supernatural element. You care just as much about their personal problems as you do with their connections to the horror aspects. You cheer them on to succeed personally and narratively. You care who will live and who will die. You watch lives unfold amidst a growing mystery. In other words, these characters are real to the reader.

Not only do you meet real people, you travel to real places, scary houses, foggy lakes, as well as bachelor pads that feel like what a bachelor would live in. That's how well-written this horror narrative is. It is real, verisimilitude real. When the monster finally appears, we're there too. 

I see other reviews calling this Lovecraftian. I think we're past calling Mark Stephen Rainey's work "Lovecraftian". It's time to use the more applicable moniker: Raineyan, for Real Horror.

Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Honey Bunch

Writer/Director: Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli


At the beginning of Honey Bunch, Homer (Ben Petrie) takes his wife Diana (Grace Glowicki) from her wheelchair and carries her into the ocean. He tells her he loves her, then lowers her into the roiling waters.

Cut to earlier days. The pair are driving through woods on a sunny day. Grace looks healthier than in the opening scene, but evinces memory loss issues and confusion—we learn that the couple was in a car accident. They arrive at an experimental trauma center. Then the fun begins.

Honey Bunch is a throwback in the best way. It’s shot like the cinema that of earlier decades that it frequently (and overtly) references. There are touches of The Stepford Wives, Rebecca, even Don’t Look Now. Paranoia reigns as Diana catches Homer in secretive conversations with the head of therapy, sees an enigmatic blonde figure staring at her, and the fleeing into the woods. All of this is deepened and made more real by flashbacks of the characters arguing and being silly with one another.

The plot thickens as new arrival Josephina (India Brown), accompanied by her father Joseph (Jason Isaacs), meet the couple and begin her therapy, with her father’s vocal and enthusiastic and hopeful encouragement. Homer and Joseph confer in secret—they know something we, the audience, do not.

And here we enter spoiler territory. Diana discovers that the mysterious blonde woman she’s been spotting is, in fact, a clone. She then discovers other patients sitting in groups with multiple doppelgangers of themselves. The facility is, in fact, attempting to replace deceased people with clones. Most of the doppelgangers are the failed versions. At one point, she sees Homer caring for the clones, showing deep love for each of them, and he is redeemed in her eyes—mostly, anyway.

Meanwhile, when Joseph’s daughter fails to respond to the treatment, his enthusiasm and devotion turns to disappointment, and then rage, and the desire for revenge. Diana, who seems whole again, escapes with Homer in the confusion of the conflagration after trying and failing to save her clones. The denouement mirrors the opening of the movie in an unexpected and satisfying way.

So, in the end, Homer is revealed to be less of a creep than we might have expected, the couple more solidly in love than we might have originally thought. There are countless horror movies that explore people trying to bring back from the grave people they loved. This is one of the more effective ones. Dripping with atmosphere and intrigue and soundtracked by ethereal dreamlike music and curious old songs, Honey Bunch looks and feels like a classic.

And the pun in the title is the cherry on top of the sundae.