Month: March 2018

Review of Evil Dead 2 – Dead By Dawn – 4th Post in my Haunted Cabin Series

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

evil-dead_-2Let’s begin with a spoiler!

(Spoiler Police: ”How Dare you!”)

Remember that guy Ash, played by Bruce Campbell, the buddy of director Sam Raimi? I mentioned him a bit in my last review of The Evil Dead . He’s the main character and sole survivor of the first film. Or..is he a survivor ?

(Spoiler Police: “Hold on, big boy! You just stop right there. Leave it as the mystery that it is!”)

When viewers last saw Ash, it looked as if he was about to get swallowed by a demon. Check this out:

(Spoiler Police: “You’re going too far – posting that scene. No more now, ya hear me?)

Well guess what? Ash lives! He lives I tell you! He lives to be the central character of The Evil Dead 2 – Dead By Dawn (Henceforth referred to simply as Evil Dead 2)

(Spoiler Police: You..you..you’ve gone too far! I’m gonna get you for this! I’ll…..)

Excuse me readers, there’s come kind of bug in my ear and as crazy as it sounds, I think it’s talking to me or something. Let me get a Q-tip and swirl it around in the ol’canal….Ah! Much better! As I was saying, Ash lives and I is a spoiler! (Hmm..the ghost of that bug is trying to tell me something. I’ll ignore it).But I’m going to redeem myself by clearing up some confusion that is associated with The Evil Dead 2. I shall bring in someone who will answer this troublesome question, “Is Evil Dead 2 a sequel or a remake?”

Let me being with a little story that gets to the heart of this confusion. It’s a story about Andy, Joe, Al and Dan (That Dan is me!) One day in 1990 something, Andy and I were watching both of the Evil Dead movies. We did it in reverse; we began with part 2 then went on to part 1. Along comes Joe midway through the first Evil Dead movie. He boldly avers, “Evil Dead 2 picks up right where this movie leaves off.” Now Andy and I just sat through Evil Dead 2, Joe did not. Andy and I said to Joe, “No, you are wrong!” Toward the end on the movie, along comes Al, walking in just as the final scene is playing; the scene I posted above. He too declares, “Evil Dead 2 picks up right after this.” Joe jumps in, “That’s what I said, but these guys say ‘no’.” Al goes on, “Yup, in Evil Dead 2, they show Ash getting picked up by the demon and thrown into a tree.” Once again Andy and I said, “No you are wrong!”

Who was right? In a way, all of us were correct.

At DenofGeek.com  Bruce Campbell answers the question, “Is Evil Dead 2 a sequel or a remake?” He says:

It’s a “Requel”!

Told you I’d bring in someone to answer the question!

Sam Raimi’s original intent was to pick up right where The Evil Dead left off – after showing several minutes of footage from the original movie in order to recap the story. Oh but alas, they did not own the rights to their own film! So they couldn’t replay scenes from the original movie. So instead they started fresh. Ash (played by Bruce Campbell) takes his girlfriend to the cabin in the woods for a romantic getaway. While there, he stumbles upon the book of the dead and the tape recorder. He plays the tape, which features the professor’s voice reading the incantation that awakens the demons. The demons arrive and possess his girlfriend and eventually grab a hold of Ash and spin him around like he’s a windmill, and then smash him against a tree. He falls down the trunk into a large puddle of mud. This is how Joe and Al remembered the beginning of The Evil Dead 2. They had forgotten about the new setup up with the girlfriend.

See, Sam Raimi and the boys had to shop for new financers and distributors for the sequel (The former distributors retained the rights for The Evil Dead.) In between the two Evil Dead movies, Raimi worked on other projects with limited success. So they thought, “Why not go back to the movie that made us successful?” Once again American distributors turned them down. It was the Italian company Dino De Laurentiis Entertainment Group that would finance the film. This time they received three and a half to four million dollars. Whooopie! What could they do with all that money? They were able to hire professional actors for on thing. They were also able to shoot scenes in other geographical areas besides the cabin in the woods. This time around, there are scenes of the professor and his wife finding the book of the dead in a cave. There are scenes at a small airport. There’s a short intro at the beginning of the movie that explains the content of the book of the dead. There are even scenes with an army of knights on horses! Oh boy!

But don’t worry, most of the scenes still take place at the cabin. Money did not spoil the making of this film. It doesn’t lose the simple “charm” of the original. In fact, some say this “requel” is an improvement. I say it’s definitely funnier and campier. The effects are deliciously cheesy and the movie as a whole is pretty damn creepy. And it gets to the action quicker than the first film. And when its time for some serious acting and the going gets tough, the tough emerge – from the clique of professional actors? No! From the film crew of buddies. I refer to Ted Raimi, Sam’s brother. Playing the “Deadite” Henrietta, he had to be in a heavy bodysuit for three days! That’s dedication.

As for me, I go back and forth on which film I prefer. For years I thought The Evil Dead 2 was the champion of the two. But when I made my Top 50 Horror Films  The Evil Dead 1 came in ahead of The Evil Dead 2. How can that be? Right now I’m back to thinking the second is superior. Oh what a fickle guy I am!

In my review of The Evil Dead , I bring forth the issue of whether or not the movie can be considered a haunted house film. If The Evil Dead isn’t a haunted house (and I say it is), The Evil Dead 2 surely qualifies. It has self-playing pianos, a rocking chair that rocks on its own accord. Inanimate objects come to life. And there is a creepy zombie witch in the cellar. Oh boy is this place haunted!

The Evil Dead 2 succeeds in flair as well as fright; subtle creepiness with flamboyant funnies – often back to back! It’s quite the piece that can succeed on all these fronts.  There is the soft haunting melody on the piano (no one is at the keys!) to which an animated dead girl dances to, all while losing her head multiple times!  There is a creepy, squealing hand that scurries about the cabin like a giant spider! This scene is followed by a slow creaking rocking chair moving all by itself. The dead zombie girl can be likened to an animated doll; a doll similar to something that might appear in an opening sequence on American Horror Story. And the hand – that’s Ash’s hand! He loses it while fighting the evil. The audience hears a crunching sound when the hand is tortured.  Viewers hear Ash shout in pain and his howl sounds much like Moe from The Three Stooges.  The influence of The Three Stooges can be seen here – very much so.

While watching Bruce Campbell act his way through these scenes, I can only think, “If Evil Dead 2only Jim Carey could be as good!” As a man of physical comedy, I believe that Campbell can do a better Jim Carey than Jim himself! And how strange, while I compare him to Jim Carey or Moe Howard, he’s also been compared to Rambo, believe it or not. My brother-in-law once said, “What that guy in The Evil Dead 2 goes through makes Rambo’s experiences seem like nothing.” I don’t know that I’d go that far, but he sure goes through a lot of shit. He loses his girlfriend, loses his hand, gets tossed around like a tackle dummy. And that’s only the beginning of his torture!

Let us now refer back to my article Beyond the House – An Examination of Hauntings Within Alternate Structures – Part 1 – Cabins  

where I describe four themes that are often prevalent in haunted cabin stories. The fourth theme I describe as “Solitary Confinement.” By this I mean:

The cabin sometimes becomes the mirror-for-the-disturbed-mind for the sole cabin dweller. Quite often, this solitary character, when confined to a cabin and cut off from civilization, will develop a psychosis that is caused by a lack of human contact

For quite some time in this film, Ash is all alone. His sanity is tested. Whereas the book Maynard’s House is the best example of this theme playing out, it works here as well. At one point Ash looks into a mirror and tries to console himself. He’s checking on his sanity. What happens is both frightening and funny!

The first theme I bring up I call “Outposts at the Edge of the Unknown.” Cabins are the outposts and it’s actually the woods that are the greater threat. But sooner or later, the danger, the savagery of the woods – its makes its way to the cabin. In both movies, the haunt begins outside the cabin in woods. Evil arises in the woods and then comes to cabin. At one point in the film, Ash is describing what is happening to some newcomers that stumble into the cabin. “It lives in the woods,” he says. Later when a woman flees the cabin and her boyfriend wants to go after her, Ash says, “If she ran out in those woods you can forget it!” In other words, the woods are worse than cabin. At the very end – savagery comes to cabin. The trees attack! They move across the ground and surround the cabin.

 

This will wrap up my reviews of the Evil Dead movies. As previously mentioned, I will not be reviewing The Army of Darkness, Evil Dead 2013 or Ash Vs The Evil Dead. I do, however, have more haunted cabin stories in the pipeline And these stories, one film and one book, might not conform to the themes I have laid out.

How dare they go against me! How dare they!

 

Images courtesy of waxworksrecords.com, Thatwasabitmental.com and skullsproject.wordpress.com

 

The Evil Dead – Third Posting in My Haunted Cabin Series

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

For a long time, I’ve wanted to write an article on The Evil Dead movies. After all, they’ve been favorites of mine since high school. I’ve seen them several times over the years, including those days in October of 2016 that preceded the construction of my Top 50 horror film list.  Both The Evil Dead 1 and 2 made the top 10. Then I watched the movies again a few weeks ago in preparation for this article.

Whenever I had thought about penning this piece, the timing never seemed right. I always felt ill prepared, that even though I had seen these films several times, I was missing something. I needed to take the time to research the films and learn the story of their making. In addition, there was that nagging hesitancy brought on by the opinion that these films are “not truly haunted house films.” First of all, there is no “house”. Only a cabin. Second, there are no ghosts or other mysterious entities from the past that linger. Only some nasty, ageless demons. Thirdly, as a colleague of mine pointed out, “It’s not the house (cabin) that conjures the evil, it’s a book that does that.”

For those that don’t know, The Evil Dead is a low budget film about five teenagers that shack up in a cabin in the woods. On the premises they discover “the book of the dead”. “Bound in human flesh and inked in human blood,” the book of the dead is an ancient manuscript describing Sumerian burial practices and funerary incantations. A tape recorder accompanies this book. On a tape, the voice of a professor explains that he and his wife had taken refuge in the cabin to study their precious historical find! The professor recites passages that will summons demons. The teens play the tape, the foreboding incantation speaks to both the world and underworld, and the demons come. Not all at once mind you! They sneak up on the cabin dwelling teens and attack them one by one, possessing their bodies and claiming their souls! The demons tease their prey in Evil Deada similar way that a cat plays with his mouse before going in for the kill. This “play” contributes to an uncanny, chilling atmosphere that also is part camp and comedy. But don’t worry, eventually “all hell will break loose!” (See what I did there?)

To address my initial hesitancies about writing this piece, I took my time planning out this article, researching when necessary. I discovered that learning about the making of this film enhances the viewing experience. I will share with you my findings. In regards to the dilemma about whether or not The Evil Dead is appropriate for my blog, being that it may or may not be a haunted house film, I argue that this film is very much at home here. Your honor, I bring forth my testimony!

While I love the concept of a house acting as “the-haunter-in-chief”, possessing some kind of supernatural power that conjures up ghosts, not all haunted houses have to be this way. In my article Applying Social Theory to Themes in Haunted House Stories, I argue that sometimes a house is merely a backdrop upon which ghosts perform their ethereal shenanigans. It is hauntingly neutral until the ghosts show up. The cabin in The Evil Dead surely qualifies as such a backdrop. True, the cabin does not harbor ghosts or serve as a magnet for entities from the past. Or does it? At the beginning of the movie, before any demonic incantations take place, a two-seat porch swing bangs against the cabin on its own accord. The trap door that leads to the cellar opens all by itself. This leads me to believe that the cabin is indeed haunted, not by ghosts of the past, but by traces of the last demonic episode that occurred on the premises before the events in the film, possibly with the professor and his wife. Their spiritual presence has remained in the cabin, but these demons need that incantation in order to make a more startling appearance.

Finally, Your Honor, even though it is a cabin that is central to this story and my Blog deals with haunted houses, I am currently running a special series about haunted cabins. You can read all the details at my article: Beyond the House: An Examination of Hauntings Within Alternate Structures. Part 1 – Cabins.

For this series, The Evil Dead series is not only welcome, but its omission would be blasphemy!

I rest my case, your Honor.

With all that out of the way, let’s proceed further into the inner workings of this great film.

When I was between the ages of 18-22, college age, I had friends that dreamed of being rock stars – making it “big” with the music of their own creation. I would have joined them in this dream, except for the fact I was a mediocre keyboard player at best with a poor sense of musical timing. But I had friends that were good guitar and bass players, drummers, etc. They would get together now and then with their instruments and see what they could accomplish. What I’m describing is nothing new. College age kids forming bands – I think it’s been done before.

EvilDeadBruceSamDoneThe creative team behind The Evil Dead were just a bunch of kids; friends who had cameras and costumes – friends that made films on the weekends in pursuit of a hobby. According to the documentary of The Evil Dead director Sam Raimi on The Incredibly Strange Film Show, – Raimi and starring actor Bruce Campbell were high school buddies from Michigan. Co-star Ellen Sandweiss was a friend of theirs from high school as well. Producers and assistants Rob Tabert, Josh Becker and David Goodman were part of this clique as well. Like the college age kids that join a band to rock, these guys banded together to make short films.

According to Evil Dead: The Untold Saga, Sam Raimi, using a student discount, would rent an auditorium at his college and charge students to watch the films. he made in high school. Eventually this gang of friends took a big step forward. They would drop out of school and devote all their time to making a feature length film. This film would be The Evil Dead.

Sam Raimi was not an aficionado of horror films. Comedy was more of his style. But according to consequenceofsound.net , they wanted to make a film to market to the audiences of drive-in theaters. Horror was a popular genre at the drive-ins of the 1970s and early 80s. Many times a drive-in would feature a triple feature of horror. Raimi noticed that many of these films were quite awful. He thought, “I can at least make a film that’s better than these!”

One of his complaints had to do with the uneven pace of these films. They began slowly, slowly and then something exciting would happen. Then it was back to the slow..slow and finally more good stuff He thought, “Why not eliminate make a film that has no slow parts.” And that’s what he did, effectively so. More on this later.

So, was it time to make Evil Dead? Close but not quite. First these kids needed some money. So they put together a short film that they would show to prospective investors. This short thirty-minute film, Within the Woods, was just a sample of something that would be much better, if only they had the proper financing. But it would give the potential investors a sense of the their style and story. This intro film has the same camera style as The Evil Dead (a great style it is!) and features a similar cabin in the woods/demons storyline.

Here is a copy of the film. It is poor in quality, but it provides an interesting glimpse into the evolution of the film’s story:

 

In the end they received three hundred thousand or more from local businessman. It was time to make a movie!

The film crew of college buddies, along with hired actors/actresses from local theater groups went out to a cabin in the woods of Tennessee to make the film. Amateurs with a low budget. Unprepared for nature’s harsh temperatures.

From ign.com:

“Yes, I was very young. There was no running water, and it was in the 20s and 30s — we didn’t have any winter wear. It was freezing. When you’re in that cold for 16 hours, you start to — I started to die. There was no food, and everything was covered in Karo syrup in that temperature. So I’d be running the camera, but my hands were covered in Karo syrup. You’d lean against something and get it all over your hands. The only water we had was in a hot water heater so you could make instant coffee. Boiling water over your hands from the tap; that’s how you’d wash them, to load the film into the camera” – Sam Raimi.

(By the way, the Karo syrup was used to imitate blood.)

The film ran weeks over schedule. The actors, having already committed their time, went home. It was up to these film buddies to finish the film. And so they did, using what Raimi termed as Fake Shemps.

According to wikipedia, a ‘Fake Shemp’ “ is someone who appears in a film as a replacement for another actor or person. Their appearance is disguised using methods such as heavy make-up”

Raimi based the term “Fake Shemp” on a Three Stooges dilemma. Shemp, one of the Stooges, passed away before four shorts were to be completed. So the editors spliced in images of Shemp, and had actors stand in for him at certain parts.

For The Evil Dead, it was up to the clique of buddies to fill in as Fake Shemps. There was Fake Shemp Bruce Campbell, Fake Shemp Rob Tabert, Fake Shemp Josh Beckert, Fake Shemp David Goodman (cue in that Romper Room lady – “I see Fake Shemp Billy and Fake Shemp Trudy…)

When the film was finally completed, United States distributors wanted nothing to do with it. According to the The Incredibly Strange Film Show documentary on Sam Raimi, they took the film to Europe where it was screened at the Cannes Film festival in France. After this, they found a British distributor – Palace Pictures. They distributed the film across Europe to frightened and amused audiences. Then with a recommendation from horror great Stephen King, the film found success in the United States and went on to become the gem that it is today.

I hope you enjoyed my summary of the making of The Evil Dead. I feel its inclusion  was necessary in order to fully understand and appreciate the overall style of the film –  even if you have not yet seen it!  It is amateurishly entertaining in the best way possible. It’s a simple story embellished with low budget effects backed up by the kind of energy that only young adults have – impassioned with a hobby, inspired by a dream, ready to take chances and make mistakes, unfettered by rules, all for the love of the project with nothing much to lose in the long run.

Some films just aren’t destined to have great characters and compelling dialogue. Whereas “Ash” played by Bruce Campbell would go down in horror film history as an iconic figure, in this original film, the exchanges between the characters, when they are not possessed by demons, are noticeably staged and forced. But these exchanges are kept to a minimum, which is smart and shows a keen display of foresight. Earlier in this review, I mention that Raimi wanted to minimize the slow scenes. He is true to his conviction.  This film doesn’t try to fake depth. It doesn’t needlessly create all kinds of non-horror drama for its characters. It’s filmed in its entirety in and around the cabin in the woods.

The Evil Dead is known for its signature point-of-view camera style. Audiences “see” with the eyes of the encroaching demons as the elevated camera zooms forward at bizarre angles, often accompanied by a growling kind of noise.

The clip below is worth a thousand words:

Often the camera is a voyeur, looking in the windows of the cabin from the outside and seeing one of the characters across the room. The camera also hides in some interesting places, like behind the clapper of the clock. I for one appreciate the time the camera devotes to capturing certain props such as the clock clapper, especially at the beginning of the film, letting the viewers know that what they see will be important later. This is true for a mirror, for certain weapons – for the book of the dead!

In my article An Examination of Hauntings Within Alternate Structures. Part 1 – Cabins I write about four themes that are often prevalent in stories about haunted cabins. Two of them play out in The Evil Dead. I write about isolation. Cabin dwellers are cut off from civilization. Technology breaks down. While there were no cell phones or Internet in the days of this movie (1981), Ash’s car fails to start at one point. Even after he gets it started, it really doesn’t matter because they soon discover that the bridge they drove in on has fallen apart. They are teens that are shit out of luck, trapped in a forest infested with demons. This brings me to my second point – a second theme. Cabins serve as outposts on dangerous terrain. They are the last refuge of “civilization” for miles and miles. Sooner or later, the savagery that exists in the woods will get to them.

Almost always, the demons in this film manifest out in the woods. Via the camera style as shown in the clip above, they encroach upon the cabin. Or they possess one of the Evil Dead Again characters that just so happens to be out in the woods. Unbeknownst to her, she takes the demon back to cabin as it hides inside her. One by one, the kids give into the savagery. One by one, their bodies “zombify” as they become hosts to the demons.

As for the special effects as they pertain to these “deadites” (humans that become zombified), whether it is the transformation process or the gory slicing and dicing of these creatures, they are quite, well, rudimentary. There is no modern day CGI and the film is better because of it. Somehow these “horror show” creatures that emerge are all the scarier in their primitive garb. At the end of the film there is an interesting scene involving claymation. Old in style but, I dunno, cool to me.

The Evil Dead is somewhat controversial, partially on account of the gore but mostly due to a scene where a tree rapes a woman. Raimi admits that, looking back, the scene was gratuitous. In The Evil Dead 2, there is a scene involving a woman and an animated tree, but the scene is less graphic and licentious.

Speaking of The Evil Dead 2, that will be the next review. At this time, I have no plans to write about the third film of the series – Army of Darkness, or the 2013 remake or the series Ash VS, The Evil Dead. These films I have only seen once and I have no opinion of their contents. In regards to Ash Vs. The Evil Dead, at the time of press, I have not yet seen a single episode. I know, I know – Bad me. But stay tuned for The Evil Dead 2. Same Cabin Time – Same Cabin channel – Thebooksofdaniel.com

Revisiting Maynard’s House – Second Posting in My Haunted Cabin Series

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

mhOnce. Twice. Three times is the charm. This is the third time I am posting about the book Maynard’s House by Herman Raucher. The first was for an article I wrote called From Summer to Autumn: The Spirit Remains the Same (The Darker Sides of Ray Bradbury and Herman Raucher.) In the article I compare the season in which the stories take place to the central themes of the books. I compare an earlier work of Raucher (Summer of 42) to Maynard’s House:

The first book is about the building of a man. This man is constructed on a warm sandy beach in the wake of a wartime tragedy. The second book is about taking apart a man. He is deconstructed in the cold winter snow

Maynard’s House is the story that takes place in the snowy mountains, the story that deconstructs a man – inside a cabin! (Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Cabin time!)

The second time I wrote A Review or Maynard’s House , a fitting review since I write about haunted houses and the house that is central to this story, out there on a snowy terrain, is most certainly haunted. But it’s not really a house per se, it’s more of a – haunted cabin! (Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Cabin time!)

It should be obvious where I’m headed. This third time I am posting about Maynard’s House in order to place it in the context of this month’s theme – haunted cabins. If you haven’t already done so, please read my article Beyond the House: An Examination of Hauntings Within Alternate Structures. Part 1 – Cabins In one section, I write about cabins from a “solitary confinement” perspective. What the heck is that? To be honest, I had this book – Maynard’s House – in mind when I wrote that bit. Oh hell, I’ll just copy/paste that section into this article. It’s only two paragraphs:

The cabin sometimes becomes the mirror-for-the-disturbed-mind for the sole cabin dweller. Quite often, this solitary character, when confined to a cabin and cut off from civilization, will develop a psychosis that is caused by a lack of human contact. In this scenario, the character is an unreliable narrator and readers often discover that the things that haunt the cabin manifest from his/her own broken mind. But that doesn’t make these things less scary, or even less real.

Trapped spirits are a major staple in a haunted house story. The walls and roof confine them. An old large house has the time and space to trap many spirits from different eras. In a similar manner, the thoughts and temperament of the sole cabin dweller, the “vibes” if I may, have nowhere to go. They coagulate in the corners and add a disturbing stuffiness to an already cramped space. Eventually they boomerang upon the solitary dweller that has conjured them. They morph into ghosts and demons.

The main character of Maynard’s House is all alone in a cabin in the wintry mountains of Maine.  What does he do there? He reflects. Reflect reflect reflect. On his life. On his experiences serving in the Vietnam War. Does he create the spirits he sees or do they exist independently of his mind? Are the children that visit him real?

This lone man, in a cabin that acts like a mirror for his disturbed mind – does this scenario occur in other works? To a smaller extent it occurs in the film I am going to review next (I’m not telling!). But how about to a larger extent in other books or folk tales? It seems as if it does, or that it “should”.  But I tell ya’, this theme is very much at home in Maynard’s House.  If it exists out there in the “wilds of literary motifs”, then Raucher has found it ,harnessed it, and clothed it well with the pages of his book. Raucher develops the theme so well  that the events that occur in his book seem as though they have been prewritten inside our collective unconscious. What happens has always happened. (This time paradox also occurs in the book.) Dog gone it, Raucher, you just had to brand things in my brain before I had even met your work!

It should be obvious that I really, really, really enjoy this novel. With that, nuff said! For more details read the other two articles I have written. Or better yet, read the book!

(Stay tuned – Films about haunted cabins are coming next!)

Review of Rough Draft – First of the Haunted Cabin Series

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Rough DraftSometimes Facebook ads really do work. Every once in a while (sometimes its more like twice or thrice in a while),  a post will appear in the Facebook newsfeeds; not a friend’s post, not a post from a liked paged or a group to which one belongs, but from a seemingly foreign source.  In small letters under the post’s heading, the word “sponsored” appears.  This is how I discovered Michael Robertson Jr.’s 2014 novel Rough Draft. Had it not been for the cool looking picture of a log cabin against a gray sky and murky background, I might have passed it on by. The picture caught my attention because, see, I already had this month’s theme in mind – haunted cabins – when this ad appeared in my newsfeeds. So I clicked on the post, and I believe it led me to it’s Amazon page, where I discovered….Yes! This IS a book about a haunted cabin, just what the doctor ordered! (Does anyone still you that expression? Well I did just now, and I am someone!)

Thankfully, this was not some “rough draft” that an author was furtively trying sell as a finished work. (In these days of Amazon scams, you just never know). I confess I don’t like the title. But it does make sense in the context of the story. I do, however, like the taglines that describe the skin of the story:

Three strangers. An abandoned cabin in the woods. And a chilling one hundred year-old mystery that doesn’t want to be solved.

A mysterious blackmailer forces three authors to meet at cabin and write a “rough draft” for a prospective horror novel about the cabin, the surrounding woods and a nearby town. They HAVE to complete this assignment – in one weekend – or face the consequences.

And so, the authors travel across the country and arrive at…gee, I forgot the state, Colorado perhaps? Anyway, two meet at the airport and ride together, where they then have to journey across dangerous terrain to find this isolated cabin in the snowy mountains. They pass over a flimsy bridge, hoping the car can make the crossing. Once they arrive at the cabin they find the third author waiting for them. Now they are three – Robert, a good-looking, smart-alecky kind of guy, Vic, a woman who fools her fans into thinking she is a male, and Finn, a geeky Zombie apocalypse story writer. What happens next? Lots of stuff. Some good stuff. Some disappointing stuff.

The overall atmosphere of the story is delightfully chilling. The build-up to the mystery is done very well. Some scary shit goes down. As it turns out, the authors don’t need to develop a fictitious account of a haunting; the place is already haunted. During the night, their cars are stolen or damaged. They are truly abandoned. But who could have done such a thing, there is absolutely no one around…not another living soul for miles and miles . Things begin to go bump in the night. Hell, the whole cabin shakes at one point. Could this have anything to do with the strange story that they had heard before making their way into the mountains? (One hundred years ago, all the residents of the nearby and former coalmining town. At one point Robert leaves the cabin to go exploring, only to discover mysterious figures weaving in and out of a trail of trees. He then makes a startling discovery in a nearby cave!

 

Kudos to atmosphere and tension-building drama, the laying out of the mystery, the casual influx of ghostly happenings. But alas, the mystery doesn’t go to a place worthy of the compelling setup. In sum, it falls into a “good guys vs. bad guys” trapping that, IMHO, is a quite lame. Also, there is this other flaw; or maybe its “three flaws”. At least two. Two very noticeable and damning flaws. I refer to the characters, especially Robert and Vic.  Robert is shallow and somewhat smug and yet he is presented as this likable hero. Likewise, “Vic” is an annoying “damsel-in-distress.” At one point, Robert and Finn are very careful not to accuse her of being over-emotional so as not to come off as sexist. The way I read this, it’s really the author, Michael Robertson Jr, that fears that he has written his character much too stereotypically (and he has,) so he adds this part only as if to say, “See, I am wary of stereotypes. I don’t do them.” Oh but he has.

So, what happens to these three characters? Do they become friends? Lovers? Enemies? Dead? That is for you the prospective reader to learn. I cringed at the outcome but who knows, maybe you will find the resolution quite enjoyable.

In sum, good start, great tension-building, atmospherically frightening. But it digresses into the land of the banal, dragging along some very weak  characters.

 

** Haunted Cabin Analysis Time ! Woo hoo! Haunted Cabin Analysis Time ! Woo Hoo!**

 

In the article Beyond the House – An Examination of Hauntings within Alternate Structures, I discuss various themes that may or may not occur in haunted cabin stories.

I name the first theme “Outposts on the Edge of the Unknown.” By this I mean that the haunted cabins of stories are surrounded by all kinds of spookiness. Sooner or later, that spookiness will find its way to the cabin. This theme certainly plays out in Rough Draft. Quite often the haunting begins outside. Arrows are found pierced into the front door, as if a phantom archer was taking aim at the cabin.  There are spirits in the surrounding environment and at one point in the story….ah nevermind, I don’t want to give anything away

The second theme I call “Isolation”. Simply stated, cabin horror stories frequently feature dwellers that are trapped in their location with little to no communication with the civilized world. In Rough Draft, their cars are damaged or stolen. Their generator often fails to work. They have laptops that are connected to a private network – the network that is set up by the mastermind of their unfortunate situation. They do not have general Internet access. The third theme, “Micro-Haunting,” states that the haunting is symbolically simple and that haunted cabin stories usually only feature a few characters. This is certainly true in Rough Draft. The fourth and final theme, “Solitary Confinement”, does not apply since this theme pertains to the solitary cabin dweller.

Stay tuned for the next haunted cabin feature. I know which films and books I will be reviewing but I haven’t decided on the order yet, so sorry, I can’t say that the next post will be a review of Blah Blah Blah. But the educated horror fan should be able to guess at the movies I have coming down the pike. Either way, you won’t be disappointed!