Review of “Victim”
I randomly stumbled upon Victim, directed by Matt Escandari and Michael A. Pierce, while sifting through the near endless movie offerings on Netflix. The consensus of a few user reviews was that this movie was very disturbing and unique. Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give this a shot.
***Before we go any further, I do want to say that while I tried to keep this spoiler-free, some of you might figure out one of the crucial parts anyway, and I apologize in advance if I spoiled it.
Victim is about a young man who is kidnapped, tortured, and psychologically abused by a crazy surgeon and his silent assistant. With no clue as to where he is or why this is happening to him, the man’s only distraction comes in the form of a little girl’s diary that he finds in his prison cell.
It starts well enough with some grainy home video footage of a very attractive girl walking in to what seems like an amateur porn audition. The voice behind the camera is distorted and asks her to have a seat and to close her eyes while he goes to the bathroom to get a “surprise” for her. Then, predictably, we are treated to fast cuts and close-ups of the girl being raped and murdered. I thought this scene was pretty well done and the grittiness made it feel like a snuff film. I expected the rest of the movie to have the same effect, but it doesn’t quite work that way.
After the girl is murdered, the main story begins with a handsome young man (whose name we never learn, so I’ll name him Slick) hanging out at a trendy bar, ordering drinks and working his charm on a cute waitress. On the other end of the bar we have an ominous person in a black hood, whose face is completely hidden. The scene lasts all of about 5 minutes before Slick walks out to his car, confronts Hoodie Man, and promptly gets attacked from behind and dragged away. When he wakes up, he’s in a dirty prison cell in someone’s basement and you know things will not go well for the poor bastard.
As to his captors, you have the run-of-the-mill creepy old surgeon who explains that the pain Slick will need to endure is necessary and that in due time he will understand why this is happening. Then you have Mr. George, a tall and sturdy man whom you’d feel comfortable having as a bodyguard and who is either mute or just doesn’t believe in talking. Mr. George delivers the beatings, and Doc Crazy (not his real name) performs the memory-erasing shock therapy and surgeries. Read more »
StrengthsFinder 2.0: Test Your Might?
During my travels I ended up staying in California at an aunt’s house for a few days. Much to my surprise, one of my cousins, M, happened to be staying there as well. During one of our conversations, she brought up a book called StrengthsFinder 2.0.
I had never heard of this book. Truthfully, I never would have even bothered with it had it not been for M. She’s a natural charmer, highly energetic and spoke about the book with such fervent passion that I was pretty much helpless. As the cliché goes, I fell hook, line, and sinker. Curiosity eventually got the better of me and I decided to check this book out. M, if you read this, I gotta say, you’d make one hell of a saleswoman!
StrengthsFinder 2.0 was published back in 2007 and written by Tom Rath. Essentially, the book says that society spends an unhealthy amount of time trying to fix our deficiencies instead of fine-tuning and exploiting our natural abilities or strengths. It stresses that the “you can be good at anything if you work hard enough” mentality is highly flawed and that we should instead embrace a “you cannot be anything you want to be, but you can be a lot more of who you already are” attitude. Rath does bring up quite a few good points throughout the short read, but most of the first part of the book is spent explaining the 40+ years research process and how the assessment works, with the second half describing the 34 common strengths that humanity shares and how to best utilize them. Read more »
Pariah: A Different Approach to Zombie Horror
Pariah, by Bob Fingerman, is an engrossing tale about a group of NYC residents who are trapped within the safety of an apartment complex on the Upper East Side after a zombie outbreak ravages humanity on a global scale. Months have gone by since the initial outbreak and their food and water supply is rapidly dwindling. When it appears that hope is truly lost, the survivors spot a lone teenage girl walking amongst the undead, completely unharmed and seemingly able to repulse them.
Normally when people think of zombies, they think of George Romero, Resident Evil (or at least I do), and the trademark brainsss, blood, guts, and gruesome deaths associated with the genre. Over the years we’ve seen the zombie evolve from a shambling, festering corpse to a fast, almost cunning horror. Keep in mind that whether we see the resilient flesh-eaters or the rabid, murderous “zombie” found in 28 Days Later or The Crazies, one consistency has always been that 9 out of 10 times zombie outbreaks occur from either a toxic chemical or airborne virus that’s part of a very vague top secret military and/or pharmaceutical experiment. The other constant is that the characters in these stories usually serve as nothing more than zombie chow, so it’s very refreshing to read an intelligent, thoughtful narrative where human psychology takes a step forward while typical zombie fare gracefully bows down.
The world of Pariah is truly gripping and the characters themselves are what makes the story so great. It’s very rare to find a book where you feel like you are a part of that world. This book was so engrossing that it took me a mere day to read all 365 pages. I shared in their loss, their apprehension towards each other, and in their futility as they stared out their windows for hours at a time, throwing bricks, papers, or even spitting at the undead below to kill time. For those of you who are worried that the story is pure psych and not enough violence, don’t worry: there is definitely a fair amount of blood and gore. It wouldn’t be zombie lit if a few people didn’t get mauled. Now would it? Read more »
Resident Evil 5: Lost in Nightmares DLC
“Lost in Nightmares” is the newly released DLC (downloadable content) for Resident Evil 5. As most who have played RE5 will know, this episode is about a memory that Chris Redfield has. He remembers the night that he and his partner, Jill Valentine, encountered their long-time nemesis and former leader, Albert Wesker.
In the main game, we are treated to a flashback where Chris and Jill find Wesker standing over the corpse of Ozwell E. Spencer, one of the founders of Umbrella, the company responsible for the zombie outbreaks in Raccoon City. The duo gets the crap kicked out of them matrix-style, compliments of Wesker’s superhuman abilities. He tosses the two of them around like a couple of stuffed pillows, and after a few minutes, Wesker effortlessly grabs Chris by the throat and is moments away from ripping out his heart when Jill makes the ultimate sacrifice by latching onto Wesker and flinging herself out a window, where the two of them presumably fall to their deaths. Read more »
Audrey’s Door: Worth Opening?
Audrey’s Door, by Sarah Langan, is a very intriguing book. While it doesn’t shatter the horror/suspense genre, it sticks to conventions that work, provides us with incredibly believable characters, and deliverers a story that does not disappoint.
The story revolves around up-and-coming architect Audrey Lucas, a young woman who is plagued by a compulsive disorder and chaotic past. Having lived a nomadic existence with her mother Betsy, Audrey eventually decided to make it on her own by moving to New York City, applying herself in college, and landing a job at a prestigious firm. After having relationship issues with her fiancé, the gentle-but-lazy Saraub, she decides to find a place of her own and stumbles across the Breviary, which offers a surprisingly affordable apartment located on the Upper West side. However, the Breviary houses terrible evil, and it has been waiting for someone like Audrey to show up. Read more »
Interview with Marcus Pelegrimas, author of Blood Blade
If you have not yet read it, I suggest you read my review of Blood Blade, the first book in the Skinners trilogy. We were fortunate enough to get an interview with the author, Marcus Pelegrimas. For those not familiar with him, Mr. Pelegrimas has written a good number of westerns and short stories in various other genres, primarily under the pseudonym of Marcus Galloway. This his first entry into dark fantasy/horror genre of the romantic persuasion. If you want to learn more about him, you can look him up on his website at www.marcuspelegrimas.com.
And now, without further ado, here are the words of Mr. Pelegrimas himself regarding his latest novel.
You’ve written works in a variety of genres. Which do you enjoy the most?
I really enjoy writing westerns, but horror and fantasy has always been my first love. The labels may change (horror / dark fantasy / urban fantasy / high fantasy / whatever), but anything with monsters has always had a special place in my heart. The very first stories I used to write when I was a little kid were about monsters and now that I get to write in this genre on a professional level, I’m truly excited! Read more »
How a Man Does It: Review of Blood Blade
Blood Blade is one of three books in the Skinners saga, a dark fantasy written by Marcus Pelegrimas. In it you’ll find vampires that make more sense than traditional ones, a little romance, and a plentitude of blood and gore.
As the sole survivor of a werewolf attack, Cole Warnecki, video game designer, finds himself entangled with a group of enforcers known as Skinners. They open his eyes to the multitude of monsters that populate our world.
The Skinners keep werewolves, as well as vampires, in check, preventing them from overthrowing humanity. The problem is that Skinners are very few in number and are having difficulty keeping the crucial balance between the predators and the prey. Things don’t get any better when a crazed vampire named Misonyk gains control of an unidentifiable monstrosity known only as Henry. Read more »
Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary
If you’re anything like me, you probably love a good scare. You’ve most likely gone to at least one haunted house or hayride in your life, and it was either okay or it simply sucked. I myself have been to a few, but of the ones I’ve visited, Terror Behind the Walls is undoubtedly the best.
The event boasts six different attractions that take place within the dilapidated confines of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which has been featured on shows like MTV’s “Fear” and “Ghost Hunters” as an actual haunted place. Cited by various sources as one of the greatest haunted house attractions in the country, my cousin Double K and I decided to test the claim. After our early arrival to the City of Brotherly Love, we spent a little time perusing the streets before finally heading over to the event parking lot, located about twelve blocks from the Eastern State Penitentiary.
“The Devil’s Bones”- A Forgettable Forensic Thriller
“The Devil’s Bones” is a novel written by team Jefferson Bass, which consists of Dr. Bill Bass, founder of The Body Farm, and journalist Jon Jefferson. This fictional piece follows the life of forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton, a sort of Sherlock Holmes of the forensic world, as he copes with a painful past while trying to keep his mind occupied with his job.
The problem with this book is that it focuses on too many things at once, and not enough on the crucial bits. Brockton starts off by conducting a dangerous experiment in which he burns two cadavers, each inside a vehicle, in order to obtain data on the remains for use in an actual case where a woman was found burned in her vehicle. Because foul play was suspected in the case, his data on the two cadavers could prove useful in determining if the potential murder victim had truly perished in the flames, or if her body had been placed in the vehicle for incineration after she had died.
Shortly after his experiment, Brockton finds out that Garland Hamilton, a rival of his who murdered Brockton’s girlfriend and nearly succeeded in framing him for it, has escaped from prison. Not long after that, the lawyer who successfully defended Brockton in the case approaches him with a personal request: to examine the cremated remains of his deceased aunt on the basis that the remains do not appear normal.
The writing shines when Brockton is narrating, describing his surroundings, his emotional reflections of the past, and the forensic evidence in the cases at hand. He gets into great detail, and you can visualize what he’s talking about, or empathize with some of his feelings. It does help if you have a little knowledge in anatomy and bone structure, but luckily the back of the book contains three bone charts. However, when it comes to dialogue, I couldn’t help but feel like I was reading a poorly scripted sitcom. Read more »
Is He Dead? : A Theatrical Comedy
“Is He Dead?” is a theatrical production currently playing at the Lyceum Theater on 45th, between 6th and 7th avenue. The brilliant Norbert Leo Butz headlines the show as Jean-François Millet, a struggling painter, in this comical play written by Mark Twain in 1898.
As the curtain draws, the audience is introduced to the jubilant singing and skipping of Millet’s two closest friends, Chicago and Dutchy, as they enter Millet’s humble abode/studio. Next enters papa Leroux, with his two daughters, and you quickly learn that Leroux owes a heavy debt to the nefarious and greedy Bastien André, a wealthy loan shark of sorts. Shortly thereafter, Millet makes his defeated entrance, as he could not sell a single painting. Having an outstanding debt with Bastien himself, Millet and Papa Leroux both wonder how to work out their debt, when Bastien confronts them and demands his pay by 6 P.M the next day. Read more »
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