Shutter

Shutter 
by Courtney Alameda
New York: Feiwel and Friends
2015
372 pages

I picked up this book a few months ago and finally got to it. The premise of the story was really appealing to me. We have ghost hunters, vampires, allusions to old stories, all in a rather dystopian plot.

For those of you have not read Dracula by Bram Stoker, you may not remember the main characters of that story and will not understand the references in this book. The characters are:

• Dracula, a vampire
• Jonathan Harker, a young London solicitor
• Miss Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker's fiancée
• Miss Lucy Westenra, Mina's BFF
• Dr. John Seward, the head of a lunatic asylum
• Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, expert in medicine, folklore, and the occult
• R. M. Renfield, a mad patient of Dr. Seward

Van Helsing confronting Dracula in the 1957 Film, The Horror of Dracula

The families of Helsing, Harker, Stoker, and others are important to our present story. Descending from Abraham Van Helsing, the present heroine of our story, Micheline Helsing, is a member of a proud and active ghost hunting family. They have become the leaders in capturing ghosts, necros (paranecrotic creatures who emerged from the plague graves of the fifteenth century, with a mutated strain of the Black Death), and other monstrous creatures.

Most ghost hunters catch their prey's energy with charged silver panes or mirrors, later dipped in insulating glass to keep the ghost from escaping back into the living world. Micheline, however, has more unusual methods. She uses cameras mainly, not digital cameras but old-fashioned analog cameras and film. She shoots the ghost several times on one frame of film which captures the light and the modified quartz lenses conduct a ghost's electricity. Then the ghost's energy is whittled away by each shot until they are finally sealed into the film's silver halide trap.

Micheline has a reputation for never having failed in a hunt.

Our story begins with a cry for help at Saint Mary's Hospital. People are dying in terrible ways. A ghostly presence has taken over one of the floors and has mutilated some of the patients, nurses, and doctors. There is chaos and commotion everywhere. Micheline arrives first, before her helpers, and makes a split second decision to go in alone and do what she can. She rushes inside without looking back.

Any of us can tell that this was a very bad idea. And sure enough, disaster befalls Micheline and her helpers--Ryder, Luke, and Oliver--who finally show up to help with the capture. But this is no ordinary spirit. This ghost seems intent on revenge against the Helsings, "Hand for hand, and tooth for tooth..."

In the end, the ghost vanishes and Micheline, Ryder, Luke, and Oliver are rushed to the hospital. The ghost has infected them all with something diabolical . Paranecrotic innoculations are begun but to no avail. They are not suffering from necrosis but something even worse--soulchains that tie them to the creature who infected them. Unless they find this creature and destroy it before the end of the week, they themselves will be destroyed.

Micheline and the boys end up on the run, having to deal with their problem. They escape to the Helsing's former compound, abandoned after the disastrous death of Micheline's mother. There, they troupe of ghost hunters makes their center of operations. The evil ghost leads them on a destructive rampage through the city, bringing mutilations and death in order to set a trap Micheline.

Who is this diabolical ghost with a grudge against Micheline and the Helsings? That revelation almost stops Micheline in her tracks. But this is not the end of the story; there is an even bigger surprise in store for the Helsings that could lead to the end of that family completely.

This book is by a fellow graduate from my alma mater, Brigham Young University. Courtney Alameda graduated with a degree in English Literature with an emphasis in Creative Writing. The back cover blurb also tells me that she is also a librarian!

I  think, because of the technical language and the descriptions of gore and violence, this would be a more suitable story for older teens, 15 years and up.

The Babadook

The Babadook

Starring Essie  Davis and Noah Wiseman

Directed by Jennifer Kent

Produced by Causeway Films

2014

Unrated

Most of you might not know this about me, but I taught a Children's Literature class at Saint Mary's College this past Spring Semester. I love children's books, especially fantasy. It is no wonder then that when I read the blurb on this movie that I had to see it. It centers around a children's picture book! How great is that?!

Also, not many horror movies get 5 star ratings from viewers or 98% ratings from Rotten Tomatoes. That alone told me that this directorial debut movie from Jennifer Kent, who also wrote the story, was going to be something worth watching.

Amelia is a widow, having lost her husband in a horribly tragic accident on the way to giving birth to their son, Sam. She has had to take care of Sam alone for about six years now, and she has never really recovered from her husband's death. Add to this the fact that Sam is a handful! He is a child who has tantrums, mainly caused by fear, I think. Every night, he wakes in terror of monsters under the bed or in the closet, and his mother has to check and examine every nook and cranny. In the end, he usually ends up in bed with her, and Amelia is never able to get enough rest.

As part of his fear, Sam constructs various weapons to fight the monsters and protect his mother from them. Early in the film, he gets into trouble because he brings one of his rather scary and potentially dangerous weapons to school. Amelia, in desperation and exhaustion, decides to remove her unusual son from the school rather than figure out how to help him fit in better. It is all too overwhelming to her.

As part of their routine in the evening, Sam is allowed to select books for his bedtime story. One evening, he selects a picture pop-up book called Mr. Babadook. 

Amelia doesn't recognize this one. Where did it come from? She begins to read.

This is creepy and sounds much to familiar. Could this be why Sam is having nightmares?

The pictures get worse and worse, showing strangely familiar figures committing horrifying acts. Amelia cannot finish and hides the book so that Sam won't choose it again.

But this is a horror movie, so you can guess what happens! The book returns to the book shelf and more pictures appear. Amelia goes so far as to tear up the book and throw it away in the trash.

Now the story gets much too realistic and scary for some people. Amelia starts to see shadows that move and hears noises that shouldn't be there. The call of "Baba Dook-Dook-Dook"  can be heard in the house. Sam has a seizure, from seeing the Babadook, and Amelia is feeling helpless to understand or help.

Is the Babadook real or only in Sam's imagination? We think it might be all in Sam's imagination until we then see the book, reassembled, on the front porch. 

I don't want to give away too much of this story because it is one any fan of horror will want to see. It is a great story of mother-child relationships and love, possession, childhood fear, and madness. The Babadook, so like the Boogeyman most of us have imagined at one time or other, is depicted as a large black man/monster with a top hat and large teeth. He can walk, climb, fly, and pass through walls, so nowhere is really safe from him. Every child's nightmare, right?

The Babadook depicts every mother's nightmare, too: the slow descent into madness caused by isolation, lack of sufficient rest, constant problem-solving, and inability to help your child when there is a problem. Kids can drive you crazy, usually not literally, but having to deal with them all the time by yourself is very daunting to even a strong mother. Amelia is already fragile from the loss of her husband, so she is an easy victim of the monster that wants in.

Jennifer Kent, the director, made her debut with this movie and it premiered at the January 2014 Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah--a festival I have attended myself and where many great new films by independent filmmakers are shown. It was released in November 2014 in the States, and came out on DVD in April 2015. It was described as a fresh new style of horror with no gore and jump scares, but real psychological horror. Kent relied more in her writing and filming on the horror classics, analyzing what made them scary to audiences. It is possible to see elements of  Nosferatu, The Shining, Halloween, Let the Right One In, and others in this story. 

Really there are only two main actors in this film, Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman. They are both excellent and realistic in their parts. I am excited to find out what other roles Essie Davis has done. Her portrayal of a tired, desperate mother is perfectly executed here. The young boy, Noah, is also convincing in his role. He is a cute little boy who makes you want to either give him big hugs because he is so scared all the time or lock him in a room and run away because he is so strange.

I heartily recommend this movie to anyone who likes horror movies. It is not rated, but I probably would not allow somebody under 13 to watch it without reservations. It probably should get an R for the horror factor. It is pretty intense at times. I did not watch this one alone!

Here is the official trailer for you to watch.

I am really excited now to see what Jennifer Kent does next. I hope it is another horror film!

Fevre Dream

Fevre Dream
by George R. R. Martin
New York: Bantam Books
1982
336 pages



Now that Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin's magna opera, has become a best-selling series and television phenomenon, some people are going back to read his earlier works. This book is one of those.

I must tell you that I first read this historical fiction novel in about 1990, so well before Game of Thrones was even any sort of thing in popular culture. I read it because I love vampire stories, and the more classic the better. This book fits my requirements very nicely.

This is the story of Captain Abner Marsh, an almost has-been steamship captain who has lost most of his fleet of ships that move up and down the Fevre River and Upper Mississippi. He meets a very strange man one evening for dinner, by the name of  Joshua York, who has a proposition to make to him. Joshua wants to buy Captain Marsh's business and increase it by building the biggest, finest ship on the Mississippi. In exchange, Marsh will work for him and take him to the lower Mississippi, all the way to New Orleans, and not ask questions. He will have some associates also on board and there may be some mysterious comings and goings, but as long as Captain Marsh asks no questions or gets curious about it, he will be able to run the new fine sternwheeler as he sees fit.

Needless to say, this sounds like a dream come true to Captain Marsh, who thought his business was going under water fast, literally and figuratively. But he wonders about this strange new partner? What is he really after?

The Fevre Dream is born--the most elegant, most deluxe, the fastest sternwheeler on the mighty Mississippi. Wouldn't it be grand if the Fevre Dream could out outrace the famous sternwheeler, the Eclipse? That would be something, all right.

A Steamboat Race on the Mississippi by George F. Fuller, 1858

Abner Marsh is well pleased with himself.

That is, until Joshua York starts acting oddly. Why does he always come out of his cabin at night? Why is he always reading newspaper stories about mysterious deaths along the river? Where does he go on shore, sometimes for days, only meeting up with the ship later downriver. What is going on with Joshua? But Captain Marsh made a promise not to meddle.

Now, all of you readers of this blog post know that Captain Marsh is going to meddle. And he does. He learns something rather chilling about his partner, and yet it is okay. Joshua is not the bad character of this story, but there is someone else who is. That "man" is the reason for Joshua York's nightly excursions.

This book is very well-written. It has a tight story and the characters and setting are fully described. I like the descriptions of the river and river life. I won't go into detail about vampires, although you probably have guessed that Joshua York is one, but he obeys all of the typical rules: no sunlight, burning skin, drinks blood (or does he?), mesmerizes humans, etc. Joshua does some other more unusual things, such as eats food occasionally, is more social than other vampires that we have met in traditional stories; doesn't see humans only as dinner; and is not afraid of mirrors, holy water, or crucifixes. Other vampires in the story enlarge and change the meaning of what it is to be a vampire in Martin's world.

For those of you who are interested, this book has been turned into a graphic novel. It is not in print any longer, but used copies can be found. I have not read it yet, but I have seen some of the pictures online. I guess I prefer to form my own pictures of the story in my own imagination.

Joshua York in the graphic novel version

So, for a good historical vampire story, I heartily recommend Fevre Dream for readers who like George R. R. Martin books, good vampire stories, or quirky historical fiction.

Recommended for ages 16 and older, for violence and gory descriptions.