horror

Tales of Halloween: B+ This review is maybe a bit of a placeholder; I did not take notes during the movie and I’d like to come back to it when I can find some better data on who directed what. For now, I will note that this was a totally fun horror anthology with ten segments. They’re very loosely linked insofar as they all take place in one town during Halloween. Unsurprisingly, it’s not a place you’d want to live. Neil Marshall’s closing segment ties together some of the other bits, but otherwise they’re just related by theme and locale. ...

Jeruzalem: D. This was a lot of wasted potential. You’ve got a promising if somewhat goofy presence – American backpackers trapped in Jerusalem during the apocalypse. The found footage twist is pretty good: everything’s being filmed on Google Glass by Sarah, our viewpoint character. It’s a nice way to explain why she doesn’t just drop the camera and run away, plus the Paz brothers added some really clever moments around facial recognition and other wearable features. ...

I just read the debut novel from Harry Connolly, Child of Fire. It’s urban fantasy/horror with a crime fiction feel: if you’ve ever read a book where a couple of investigators roll into a small town and clean up some corruption for their own reasons, you know the approach. There’s an excerpt available. I’ll give it a solid B. The plot gets a bit complex in the middle; I think I counted at least four distinct factions in the town, which is sort of a lot. The writing’s good, the protagonists are reasonably interesting, and the world’s good. You can tell it’s designed as a series, with lots of back references to origin stories. There are rules about how magic works. ...