Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Lovely, Dark, and Deep {2023)

A park ranger hangs a handwritten sign over the wooden one that marks his post. “I owe this land a body,” reads the note, stained with coffee cup rings (a nice touch). Then he walks off into the forest.

Some time later, Lennon (Georgina Campbell, star of the excellent Barbarian), the man’s replacement, drives in to her new assignment: Along with a larger group, she’ll be covering a section of the vast backcountry grounds of Arvores National Park. Take nothing, leave nothing, kill nothing is the mantra drilled into the rangers’ heads during their orientation by Zhang, the head ranger, and a refrain repeated throughout the movie. And so headlong we go with Lennon into the forest, where we get glimpses and hints of why she’s actually there.

For a story that’s meant to slowly unravel a mystery, a lot is told directly to the audience via thuddingly straightforward expository info dumps, such as the radio program (which sounds like a podcast) Lennon is tuned to on the drive, in which the hosts discuss the disappearances that have long plagued the park—confusingly, the same radio program is still going the following afternoon, the hosts continuing the discussion where it had left off the night before (here, the careful listener will be clued in to part of the solution of the mystery).

To drive home the point, our eyes are directed to the Missing Person posters that pepper the walls of the base camp, one of which is a picture the ranger we saw walk off at the start of the movie.

Before the plot is set into motion, there are some curious scenes with Lennon’s fellow camper Jackson, who is there, it seems, merely to try to tease out Lennon’s background, which he fails to do, and to provide fresh batteries for her radio, which nonetheless seems to squawk and sputter and say mysterious things even when its batteries aren’t in.

A camper goes missing. Lennon, disobeying orders to remain at camp, locates and rescues the missing camper, bloody and confused. “Are you real?” she asks. For Lennon’s transgression, she is dismissed for the season, despite having located the missing person…or is it because she did?

Rather than wait around to be airlifted out, she heads off into the wilderness. There are strange transmissions in her battery-dead radio, a leap in either time or space, and then a confusing headlong rush into a hallucinatory dream-logic world where she runs into a pair of hikers who can’t see or hear her, then discovers a building that is a labyrinth of memories and hallucinations. There she encounters her younger self, and her father as he was when she was young, and here we get a little more—but maybe not quite enough—insight into the trauma that motivated her to work at the campsite.

In the end, Zhang appears to provide a lengthy expository explanation/information-dump, and the two characters part ways to their separate fates.

Somehow the woods never seem to fulfill the promise of the title—they’re sort of sparse, reasonably lit, and less than lovely. And, similarly to You’ll Never Find Me, also reviewed on this site, there’s not so much a plot as a puzzle to be resolved. This movie sustains itself by its mystery, and it’s a compelling mystery with which they tease us, but despite the remote location and the air of conspiracy, we find ourselves wishing they gave their main character someone else to talk to besides Jackson, and that it let us a little more into Lennon’s world—something more than snippets of flashbacks—that may have given the story the weight that it needed.

 

Four More Gothic Poems

Rhys Hughes

Introduction

My mission to create a suite of exactly 77 Gothic poems continues, although it has slowed down recently. One way I can boost this project is to set off on a three-day hike around the Gower Peninsula, a geographical feature of great beauty near where I am currently staying, with special attention paid to the supposedly haunted parts of that landmass. I intend to bivouac among the ruins of cursed castles, in woods festooned with ghostly legends, among the oddly enigmatic dunes of the coast. My imagination will be expanded in a spectral direction during this jaunt, and I feel certain that poems directly or indirectly inspired by my experiences will result. In the meantime, here are four more poems, romantic in the old sense of the word, creepy, blasted and dramatic…

Lost Underground

The river seemed calm

when they began

to pole themselves downstream

on the rotting raft.

From fallen trees, cankerous,

unglamorous,

the improvised vessel

had been crafted.

And languorous the waters

they would navigate

to escape destruction

on the unwise trail: they had failed

to cross the peaks.

This expedition

of countless weeks

to the imagined treasures

that gleam in wait

beyond the sheer sentinels of stone

must be curtailed:

they ought to return home.

Four exhausted explorers

who once abhorred

the mundane comforts of an easy life,

but now abhor even more

the unjustified strife of heroic ordeals.

One by one

in a land with no sun

they are slowly consumed by fever,

and one by one,

as the days race on,

the incline of the river grows steeper

and steeper and steeper,

as the opaque tears

of malign mirth on the terrible face

of the evil god

responsible for your next rebirth

as worm or spider,

accelerate, propelled by demonic hate.

One explorer remains:

his brain is burning but he is alive.

The raft knocks

against the sides of the ravine.

His fever-dreams

consume themselves: he is strong.

And the

greatest wrong

is that he will never belong to his

own destruction.

Ahead, a monumental construction:

a portal into the cliff,

the vestibule of the underworld,

Pluto’s dwelling place,

and the crumbling raft rushes inside

as if to vainly hide

from the dying glimmers of hope

outside: he is doomed.

Deep under the earth,

among the tectonic shiftings,

swirled in a darkness

occasionally pierced by shafts

of light: phosphorescent snakes

snipped from Medusa’s head

by the blades of fate,

he may continue his explorations.

There are nations underground.

Lost, he will be found

by creatures beyond understanding

when he huddles

on the ultimate floating plank

of the rotting raft

that has almost entirely sunk.

There is sufficient space:

there are uncountable rooms.

There is a mutated grace:

an insignificance that looms.

_____________________

Arabella

Arabella,

come to me,

from the castle balcony.

On this balmy moonlit night

the rocks below

seem softer.

Buttered with beams,

cushioned by dreams,

the fall will

not hurt you at all.

No need for any apology.

Arabella,

come to me:

I am the river that leads

to the sea.

My bed of stones

should rest me alone

no longer.

Join me in my geology

and prosper

without life

a thousand times longer

than otherwise.

_____________________

The Bell

When the bell was damaged

in a thunderstorm

the inhabitants of the town

knew what to do

to repair it well: they knew

what to do to make

a new hell

for the outsider

with all his dangerous ideas.

He came to live among them

the previous year

and they tolerated his ways

for an eternity

that was in fact three months:

and for the next six

they grew sick

with cold tensions

and loathsome apprehensions.

In order to cancel his intrusion,

they chose a day

to fix the bell: dragged him

from his bed,

bound his limbs, strung him up:

a substitute clapper,

not quite dead,

inverted he swings,

sounding the hours with his head.

_____________________

In the Mist

In the mist

I am kissed by forces unseen.

In your dreams

I am demeaned

by intangible beings unclean.

And I wonder

how a vaporous ghost

can be so grimy.

Slimy the mist,

wistfully blessed by curses,

slicks the wheels

of passing hearses

like the blood of rotting eels.

And I ask myself

why the dead in health

are so untimely.

Hungry the mist,

a billowing foam roaming

our empty streets,

washing our feet

in evaporated poison

and moistening our thin lips.

And I ask myself

what happens when ghosts

are torn limb

from ectoplasmic limb.

Do their entrails

become synonyms for mist?

Tendrils of cold steam

rid themselves

of any need to redeem us.

We accept the facts:

this city, always uncrowded,

shall forever

be shrouded

by the churned

and clotted screams

of our own overflowed souls.

_____________________

 

Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

You’ll Never Find Me

I’m a sucker for movies adapted from plays, or movies that could be a play. You’ll Never Find Me, directed by Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen, and written by Bell, falls squarely in the latter category. It has a single-location setting (a trailer, or a caravan, whatever they have in Australia), only two characters (Patrick, the morose, secretive inhabitant of the trailer, played by Brendan Rock, and a mysterious unnamed woman, played by Jordan Cowan), and relies mainly on dialogue and performance to carry the story.

The setup is simple. On a stormy night, a young woman pounds on the door of a middle-aged man who lives alone in a trailer. What follows is a psychological cat-and-mouse game in which it’s clear that a lot of information is withheld from the audience, leaving us in the distracted position of trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Each character seems to be lying, while at the same time trying to determine whether the other character is lying. Is the man a threat to the woman, or is the woman a threat to the man? Is it both? The woman’s story rings false—where did she actually come from? Is she trapped in the trailer park by a locked gate, as she claims? If so, how did she get in in the first place? Is it true, as Patrick asserts, that his car doesn’t work and he’s without a phone? Why does he have women’s clothing and jewelry scattered about? In the title, who is the “you” and who is the “me” they’ll never find?

The man encourages the woman to remove an item of clothing in order to dry it. He encourages her to shower. Sketchy! But she doesn’t seem to see the threat that the audience sees. Blood appears in shower drains, in soup, on a hammer, on the flesh of one of the characters. Heightening the central conceit of the movie in a laughably obvious way, Patrick and the young woman engage in a game of Bullshit—the card game in which bluffing is the main thrust of the game.

When the power goes out in Patrick’s caravan, we’re forced to consider the fact that the movie is now literally leaving us in the dark.

Eventually the young woman tries to escape, even as we’re still unsure she’s being kept there against her will. But very quickly, the movie reveals exactly what it’s been withholding the whole time—except for one key element for which we must wait.

You’ll Never Find me is basically a cat-and-mouse guessing game in the guise of a plot, and when the first big reveal finally hits, it plays out like one of several possible conclusions to one of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books.

But the performers pull off what must have been a very challenging balancing act—Patrick manages to seem creepy while still evoking our cautious sympathy, and the young women is cheerfully enigmatic. The actors, the suspense, and the claustrophobic atmosphere (heightened by very effective sound design) keep the movie from being a complete slog, and the final shock and the dénouement are masterful. So, ultimately, this is a mixed bag, but I’d recommend it if you’re looking for something different.

 

Beneath a Pale Sky

by Philip Fracassi

Reviewed by Anthony Servante

 

Purchase Here

The Review

There are three authors in the Nouveau Horror movement that have been recommended to me by the Horror Community: Brian Evenson, John Langan, and Philip Fracassi. Mr. Fracassi will be the first I will write about. Let's set a few ground rules first. What is Horror Fiction? In my interview with Sara Karloff, she explained,  "My father [Boris Karloff]  didn't like the word 'horror' [to describe his films]; he preferred the word 'terror'. To involve the audience's participation and intelligence was far more important to revolting them. And that's why he preferred the word 'terror' (https://servanteofdarkness.blogspot.com/2014/02/sara-karoff-interview-with-anthony.htmlI). I think that definition of "terror" describes the book of short stories "Beneath a Pale Sky" by Philip Fracassi best.  

Let me explain.

Point of View plays an important role when reading horror fiction. It provides the reader with a mental and emotional vehicle to experience the story unfolding in the narrative, as opposed to directly experiencing the story. If my protagonist is fighting off a monster from hell, my reader is safely tucked away behind the book. He is never in danger. He may sympathize with our protagonist but that further buffers the safety for the reader. This is just a book in his hands. However,  a well-written account slowly and deliberately shreds the reader's safety when the reader becomes invested in the dilemma of the character. The reader moves from sympathy (distant emotion) to empathy (direct experience through emotion). Remember that scene from the movie "Alien" when the creature puts its face right next to Ripley's? We felt its breath on our face as much as Ripley did. We moved from fearing for Ripley to fearing for ourselves. Good POV can do that for the movie viewer, or, in our case, the reader of horror fiction. POV also provides the reader with direct experience if the horrific narrative is relatable. He sympathizes with a character who drowns if he is afraid of drowning; he empathizes with the fear of drowning if he feels the fear as his own. He doesn't need to have a fear of drowning. The narrator needs simply to give him the experience of drowning via the narrative. This requires what I call the "subjective correlative" of Horror, when we experience fear rather than sympathize with a character in a story who is experiencing fear. That's our "participation and intelligence" in experiencing the "terror", to paraphrase Mr. Karloff.

And this brings us to Philip Fracassi. He writes stories that put the reader into a fearful experience. In "Harvest", the opening story in Beneath a Pale Sky, the reader experiences the natural terror of being caught in the onslaught of a tornado while dealing with the emotional ambivalence of a first love with a friend who has a supernatural power. "Wheel" pits our protagonist against a series of tragic events that land her dead center in a horrific accident. "Soda Jerk" is the most straightforward traditional telling of a horror tale, which one might find in a Fifties horror anthology. "Symphony" enters the terrors of a young girl caught between coming of age and child abuse, as fantastical elements both protect and threaten her. "Ateuchus" is  Science Fiction terror with body horror transformations that will have you squirming. ID can best be described as psychological horror mixed with the fear of losing one's mind, uncontrolled mental illness and warped reality. "Fragile Dreams" gives the reader the POV of an earthquake victim; not a comfortable read for those with claustrophobia. "Death, My Old Friend" is fable-like, poignant in its approach to our last days of life. 

But enough of my high-falootin'. What did I think of Beneath a Pale Sky? Fracassi's "horror" is relatable to horror and non-horror readers thanks to its "terror" elements. I loved the stories. They were scary on many levels. They used some of the best prose that I've read in years. And I was taken deeper into these characters' POV than I have gone in most Horror narratives that I've read over the past few years. As such, these were well-crafted tales of terror, and if you'd like to travel into the minds of characters caught in horrific circumstances and experience their fears, Beneath a Pale Sky is a good place to enter. Just remember that you're leaving your safety at the door. 

 

A Look Back at the Yesteryear's Poetry

featuring Lorraine McLeod, Faith Dincolo, C. G. Howard, W. Casey Carr, Mason Meadows, and A. E. Reese. 

*****

To My Mum.

 There will be a day, or night

When I see you again, hear your voice, feel your presence.

There will be a night, or day,

When the pain of losing you will be lost forever

And love will fill that space for eternity.

 

There will be a day, or night,

When time will be no more, and our bond stretched between two worlds will be one,

There will be a night, or day,

When you will call me to you,

And I will run so fast to your open arms.

 

Until that day, or night

I live, and love, in gratitude,

Until that night or day,

I treasure our memories

And wait for your light to guide me home

 

Lorraine McLeod 2022

***

The Hidden Meadow

A stag leapt across our path
While we rode our mountain bikes with knobby tires
A tucked away dirt trail ours alone

A stag leapt across our path
We peddled over the twig rabbled road
Mechanized man vanished in the almost wilderness

The very air vibrated in our mouths as we watched
The sixteen point stag
four feet off the ground

25 hands maybe more
Calcified antlers battle earned
the beast startled erect on the tree lined glade.

There we shared a glass of deep still Zin
Red plastic cups, our eyes torched with altitude
we waited, was the he here again?

Wine stained my breast with his lips
Alone in the forest
A stag leapt across our path.

Faith Dincolo 2022

***

The Multiversal Me

I am not Bizarro

Except I have cracked white skin

I write absurd yet poignant narratives

that resemble the Mirror Man

that I've become

since travelling to the other side

of grief and death and zombies

Do we have wakes for our undead friends?

Not while they chew on our faces

Or do we? in another version of me

in a place not unlike home-base

where we are boarded in

like black-n-white copies

of classic horror tropes

The pitchfork mob lift their torches

the lighthouse burns

Bizarro Me escapes

I, too, escape...into the mirror

of my own life. 

Bizarro C. G. Howard (2022)

***

Broken Bough

I gather the almost ripe apples

from the broken bough

split by lightning last night

by the withered cow. 

Mother makes a pie 

before the fruit goes bad

the children smile eager

for dessert and glad.

Father cuts the branch

for fire to bake the pie

and warmth tonight

as a new storm fills the sky.

Baby cries with dread

as mother kneads the dough

as father lights the timber

with sister and I aglow.

We gather all at the table

and thank the Lord for our fare

Father scowls as thunder rolls

scaring a whinny from the mare.

Mother drags the knife through the pie

and places a slice on each plate

We attack the crusty portion

blind to our pending fate.  

copyright W. Casey Carr

***

Building Shadows

First must we gather the wandering tools

Where girders await the search-worthy fools.

We mix the concrete of blood sweat and tears

To lay upon the foundation of fears.

Second the architects calm the wild sky

While blueprints measure the knife in its eye. 

We reach beyond the length of our strife

To cage the wonder of death after life. 

Third the malls arise to fill empty halls

Plastic plants line the toxic waterfalls.

Glass windows doors and floors abound

For lone children we have the lost and found.

Last we cut the ribbon with our shears

The light of hell warms the crowd's modest cheers. 

Mason Meadows 2022 copyrighted

***

Lilith

Lilith dear Lilith loves children to death:
She tucks the plump tots into their warm bed.
She tells them sad tales and smells their sweet breath.
By dawn she's long gone when they are found dead.

By daylight she sleeps like corpses at rest.
A crypt in cold darkness makes up her home.
By night she seeks folk that welcome a guest.
She lives out a curse to forever roam.

Behind a veil she hides ruby red lips,
Pale grey skin, eyes of blue, sharp yellow teeth.
She wears a marriage gown over silk slips.
No man alive hath seen her underneath.

They say her flesh is gone or turned to bone.
Yet with your kids she's often left alone.


A. E. Reese 20022

*************************

Thank you to our poets today and especially to our readers for visiting this month.
We hope to bring you more verse next month. We'll see you then.
Anthony Servante

 

Dommin: Timeless Rock and Roll Revisited

An Interview with Kristofer Dommin

Dommin

Kristofer Dommin and the Oztones

Anthony Servante here. I first introduced my readers to Dommin (The Best Band You've Never Heard) in the blog's March 2017 issue. Here's a link. I think it's time to catch up with the members of Dommin, and so I spoke with Kristofer Dommin, singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the band. It seems like fans of the band can look forward to more music from not only Dommin but also Kristofer and the Oztones, his new band, as well. 

Here's the interview:

Anthony Servante: What has the band been up to during the hiatus? 

Kristofer Dommin: In the absence of actively touring and making albums for Dommin, everyone in the band just got busy focusing on their personal lives. Billy & Konstantine both started businesses. Cameron moved back to Northern California, married and has been expanding his horizons with everything from school to standup comedy. I moved to Australia, married and focused on my new family. 

Cameron Morris (Drums)

Konstantine X (Keyboards)

Billy James (Bass)

I released about 5 new Dommin singles from 2018 to 2020 as a preview of the next album. In 2021, I put out an album of some Americana-style rock songs I had been holding onto for some years and worked with some amazing local Aussie musicians to help me realize that vision. I was performing quite a bit locally in the Brisbane area. The project is called Kristofer Dommin & The Oztones if anyone wishes to check that out. 

Kristofer Dommin (Singer, songwriter, guitarist)

Listen or purchase here. (Also available on Spotify)

Kristofer Dommin and the Oztones in Brisbane

Anthony Servante: What are you currently working on?

Kristofer Dommin: Currently, I’m back in the US for an undetermined amount of time. But while I’m here I’m tackling a few things. I’m finishing the writing, recording of the 4th Dommin album. I’m writing another batch of songs for the 2nd album with my Australian project. I also have the intention to put out a series of solo EPs, so I am writing and demoing ideas for that as well. Finally, after being so active in Australia, I’m looking to put together a live act here in the US, so I’m looking for musicians to help make that happen. This could be to fill out replacement roles in Dommin or to just perform solo, which would include playing some Dommin songs. 

Dommin Love is Gone (2010)

Dommin Love is Gone Special Edition

Anthony Servante: What musical styles do you favor? 

Kristofer Dommin: It can vary from day to day. As I get older, I appreciate a much wider array of music. I think there is quality to be found in every genre. In the past few years, I feel like I’ve been leaning more toward classic rock from the 60’s and 70’s than maybe anything else. But I still find new gems as well. 

New

My Heart, Your Hands

Love is Gone

Tonight

Kristofer Dommin: It’s hard when you love so many different things to channel it effectively into something identifiable for people to listen to so I think that’s what I’m trying to do with so many projects. I let my love of Type O Negative, Danzig and Rammstein shine through in Dommin, while I let my love of Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Chris Isaak and Lana Del Rey among others shine more in my solo efforts. Sometimes I think all those influences are in all the music projects I do, and the real difference is one of production. Sometimes I like big heavy guitars and a wall of sound. Other times, I like to be more minimal and have one guitar or an acoustic guitar. Maybe I’ll evolve to have everything living within one project at some point. And I think that may be the attempt I am making with my future solo EPs. Each one may be devoted to a collection of songs a bit different than the previous. And if it evolves to that, I can see the fourth Dommin album being the final one under that name. The music may go on, but it may just be absorbed into a more solo effort. I am hoping that with a new Dommin album, there are still some live performance and maybe even touring opportunities for the fans to enjoy. It will all depend on the success and reaction. I am always pleasantly surprised when we make a new fan from a Spotify playlist or something like that. It means there is still a great opportunity for the band to grow and succeed if enough people are behind it and share it.

***************

As the Dommin sound continues to evolve, thanks to the talents of Kristofer Dommin, fans can look forward to more music from Dommin as well as from Kristofer Dommin and the Oztones. I thank Kristofer for spending time with our readers and sharing a glimpse of the past and the future of his timeless music.