Review: Revenants by Daniel Mills

Daniel Mills is a writer who is fast becoming a favorite here at The Arkham Digest. In previous reviews of A Season In Carcosa and Fungi, I found both of his stories (MS Found Dead in A Hotel Room and Dust From a Dark Flower) to be among the finest in either anthology. Also recently I picked up a copy of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23, and seeing that Mills had a story published in there I read it straight away. The Photographer's Tale was everything I had come to expect from the author; another unsettling period piece with wonderful prose. In the last couple years Mills has hit the scene running, and has been putting out stories that read like they've been written by a weird literature veteran.


As much as I've been enjoying his short fiction, imagine my delight when the opportunity arose to review Revenants, his first novel. As Mr. Mills pointed out to me in correspondence, Revenants was published last year by Chomu Press, and while pulling in some good literary reviews, it seemed to lack some exposure within the genre community. That's a shame too, because Revenants deserves to be read by any fan of weird, historical fiction.


Revenants is a story about Cold Marsh, a colonial town in 1689 New England. Typical of most towns of the time, it is strictly Puritan. The novel follows a few characters and their experiences when a third young lady, Ruth, mysteriously goes missing from the isolated town. The story mostly follows a few characters: Ruth's father James, her betrothed Edwin, Edwin's father William, Ruth's mother Constance, and the reverend Isaiah Bellringer. Each character is flawed, and has his/her own secrets. Many of them are filled with regret, and what they perceive as their past sins (some rightly so) haunts them.


The plot follows the men as they split into groups and strike out into the dark wilderness in search of Ruth. Their individual past deeds haunt them as a mysterious force in the woods grants each of them separate visions, causing all of them to have a crisis of a faith. The plot takes a bit to get started, taking it's time to establish the characters and their relationships between each other. When everything finally comes together in the end, and certain revelations are made, the novel ends exactly the way it should.


The character's themselves are difficult, and Mills is accomplished at making each of them interesting, if only a few of them likeable. William Brewer is perhaps the most likeable throughout the book, and the only one who seems to truly seek redemption for his past sins. James has made some wrong choices, but his downfall is mostly the way he handles dealing with them. Edwin is perhaps the character who elicits the biggest change as we see him make some of the same mistakes some of the elders have in their past.


The weird elements of the book tend to be more subtle, and while there aren't many scenes of hair-raising horror, the mood and tone of the book remain eerie and melancholy throughout. I found the biggest horrors of the book to be the people themselves, and the Puritan way of thinking as opposed to the weird elements. The attitude of the townsfolk and how easily some of them are led is quite scary, and Mills drives the point home throughout the novel.Their stifling, rigid attitude about sex especially, which is so completely different from today's view that modern readers such as myself find it downright disturbing. The ease in which the people of the time would do terrible things at the behest of their firebrand religious leaders is an aspect that I find especially terrifying.


Revenants has a good, if simple plot, and interesting characters, but where it truly shines is the language Mills uses. The back cover describes the book as "a poetic meditation on the colonial landscape of New England, the hills and wilds of a vanished country." This description is accurate, and Mills is quite at home taking his time describing the landscape. He paints a beautiful, eerie portrait of a town in isolation, surrounded by deep, dark woods and stagnant, rotting bogs. In reading it I could picture it perfectly, could even smell the forests, and I enjoyed his evocation of place just as much as seeing the plot come together.


Although the book tends to move at a somewhat slow pace, and seems to take awhile for the plot to kick into gear, I enjoyed every page. Some might find it a bit too slow for their liking, maybe a bit longer than it should be, and skimpy on the weird supernatural elements, but I found that these few small criticisms are just that - small nitpickings and nothing more. This novel didn't need to be as overtly weird as his short stories, because the important things are the characters themselves, how they dealt with regret, and how they got along through a dark time in history. Never have I seen the harsh coldness of colonial times depicted so strongly.


Revenants is a moody novel, and is all fog and melancholy. Anyone looking for a strange, literate, gloomy and atmospheric book will find a lot to like. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interested in colonial period pieces. There is just enough weird and horror there to satisfy genre readers, and not too much there to scare off non-genre readers. With this novel Daniel Mills further cements himself as a great new voice in the world of the weird. I for one can't wait to see what he does next. 

Review: Never Bet The Devil & Other Warnings by Orrin Grey

The first thing apparent while reading any story from this book is how much fun Orrin had writing them. His interests are apparent, without even having to read the About Author page. His love of old horror film, the occult, comic books, Lovecraft, and Mike Mignola's works is readily apparent.

Some of his stories have a comic-book or B-movie feel to them, making for easy, fun reads. And fun is the key word here, because although these stories are horror, and deal with horror elements, they lean toward the fun end of the spectrum as opposed to the terrifying (see: Hellboy, Beetlejuice).

Another wonderful thing about this book that warrants mention is the inclusion of author notes. At the end of each story are notes from the author which explain the inspirations and ideas behind the stories. I've always loved when short story collections or anthologies included something of this sort. Sometimes it offers clarification on some story concepts, but often I just find it interesting to see what the authors thought process was when creating a certain story.

Never Bet The Devil & Other Warnings is Orrin Grey's first collection, and contains ten stories. The shortest one is one page, while the longest one is novella length.

The title story, Never Bet The Devil, is a short description of a twist on a common carnival contraption. It was written for a contest to get into an anthology of fictional bizarre items, and serves as a nice way to set the stage for the collection. If anything it makes me wish to see the item in a story!

Count Brass, the second story of the collection, toys with the trope of the musician selling his soul to the devil. A woman keeps encountering the name Count Brass in reference to her musician grandfather, and starts to figure out that maybe he didn't come across his musical success in a legitimate manner. My favorite part of this story was Count Brass himself, as Orrin took a common figure and really made him physically unique.

One of the best stories of the collection, and one I encountered previously in The Book of Cthulhu II, is Black Hill. Black Hill tells the story of an oil field atop something that is much more complex than simple oil.  Orrin took the idea of oil being made up of organic matter, and really ran with it, adding a liberal dose of cosmic horror into the mix.

The Devil In The Box is another entertaining story. A man obsessed with a cult painter acquires most of his art collection, his old house, and a mysterious box said to be the artist's inspiration. The story is told from the point of view of his partner watching their relationship disintegrate.

Another stand-out story for me was Nature vs. Nurture. The story takes place in a world where ghouls are a reality, and they are hunted as animals. When a young one is found, the narrator shows mercy and takes it in, attempting to raise and train the creature. It's a great story.

The Barghest was my least favorite story of the collection. I think the narrative style used in the story weakened it, although the plot and story ideas were pretty solid. I always struggle with a story narrated by someone talking to someone else and explaining things that the listener already knows, while constantly pointing that fact out ("But you already knew that, didn't you"). I thought the concept of being able to be "infected" with lycanthropy from the skeleton of such a monster was really cool, and I wonder why it hasn't been explored more often.

One of my other favorites of the collection is The Seventh Picture. As a film love myself, I always love a story that mixes horror/the weird with film, and Orrin does it so well here. The story itself is told in the found-footage format, and follows a documentary film crew as they explore the abandoned mansion of an old horror film director in search of knowledge on his incomplete, missing final film. Orrin's film buffness is on display here, and where I found the narrative style in the previous story lacking, I found it to be completely on point with this one. Also this story was the closest one to pure horror in the collection. The story should be of special note to fans of Chambers' King in Yellow stories.

On the heels of the creepy The Seventh Picture follows the light-hearted The Reading Room, another great story. The age old concept of using a book to summon something from beyond is turned on it's head here, as the protagonist must keep reading books in order to keep the same something imprisoned. As clever as this twist is, the love story that is the backbone of this story makes for a nice counterpart to the dark Seventh Picture. Would be a great story to kick off an anthology of weird romantic comedy.

Nearly Human is another top-notch story built around another clever idea. The story serves as a nod to old haunted house stories, and comes together quite satisfactory in the end.

As good as all the other stories are, it's the powerhouse novella at the end that stands above all the rest. The Mysterious Flame is an impressive homage to Mignola, and an immensely entertaining read. The story itself is rather pulpy, and would seem completely in place in a comic book (for the record, I'd love to see a comic version done, so someone please call Mignola in to illustrate it). Orrin weaves a tale of a golem searching for more and the obsessed lich who's out to capture him. The story is the most complex in the book, shifting viewpoints between Barnabus the golem and Joy, a young girl who somehow got stuck as the lich's human "servant". The story features plenty of action, humor, and some genuinely creepy moments. Definitely the highlight of this fine anthology.

Orrin Grey should be very proud of his first collection. The stories cover a nice variety of weird territory, and do so in a very light, pulpy, and fun manner. This reviewer plans to keep an eye on this author, because if this collection is anything indicative of things to come, then we readers are in store for some spectacular things.

As a side note, Orrin Grey has not only begun to establish himself as a writer, but also as an editor. He co-edited Fungi with Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which I dubbed "my choice for original anthology of the year".

Review: Fungi edited by Orrin Grey and Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 I’ve said before that original anthologies are usually a mixed bag, and for the most part that remains the case. Therefore, it’s a special thing when one comes out that manages to be great throughout. Innsmouth Free Press, a Canadian “micro-publisher”, has already produced some quality anthologies. Historical Lovecraft and Future Lovecraft both have a spot on my bookshelf, and were quite satisfying. Fungi, their latest anthology, stands as their best work yet.

The brilliant cover by artist Oliver Wetter blends strangeness and beauty, and gives an idea of what’s to be found within the pages. Fungi itself is such an interesting species, and days could easily be spent reading about different types that are strange enough on their own without having to be fictionalized. Editors Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Orrin Grey wisely saw the potential of such a theme, and have compiled together a variety of tales. The stories themselves range from horror to fantasy. Some are dark, some are silly, some are chilling and some are just plain fun. The paperback edition contains twenty-two stories and a poem, while the deluxe hardcover edition includes three extra stories and ten black and white illustrations by Bernie Gonzalez.

Some (there are many) stories that I particularly enjoyed:

Hyphae, by John Langan, opens the anthology. It’s a good, solid horror story like I’ve come to expect from this author.

Lavie Tidhar is an author who writes beautiful short fiction. The White Hands reads like an excerpt from a weird encyclopedia detailing a mushroom world. Although not a typical, narrative story, it’s quite captivating.

Camille Alexander is an author that I’m not familiar with, but His Sweet Truffle of a Girl showcases her talent. The story is about a man on a “fungal submarine”, on a mission to win over his heart’s desire. It’s a weird, sad tale.

The next story, Last Bloom on The Sage by Andrew Penn Romine, is a fast-paced weird western. This could be one of the weirdest westerns I’ve read, as it seems to add steampunk, magic, and Lovecraftian creatures into the mix. Romine writes a rip-roaring train heist filled with action and strangeness, yet hinting at a much larger world. This is one of my favorite stories, and I’d love to see more stories set in the world Romine has created.

Another favorite is The Pilgrims of Parthen by Kristopher Reisz. It’s a beautiful, chilling tale of a special type of mushroom that causes shared hallucinations. Reisz manages to write a tale that could also work as a metaphor for real life drug addiction, and shows just how obsessed and dependent people can become. Parallels can be seen to Lovecraft’s A Shadow Out of Time and tales by Clark Ashton Smith. All in all, one of the best stories in the anthology.

W.H. Pugmire’s Midnight Mushrumps (my second favorite story title) is typical of Pugmire’s work. The prose is dreamy and decadent and the story is quite haunting. Any fan of weird fiction or eerily beautiful prose should mark Pugmire as a must-read.

No weird, fungal anthology would be complete without a story by Jeff Vandermeer. The author/editor is, without a doubt, the King of Fungi. Corpse Mouth and Spore Nose revisits his fictional city of Ambergris (which is explored in his previous brilliant works: The City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch). This short story involves a detective coming to the city of Ambergris on a job, but finding more than he bargained for. The story is weird at its best with some disturbing visuals and elements of body horror.

Goatsbride, by Richard Gavin, is another beautifully written story. Although I found the fungus element to play quite a small role, I loved this story. It explores primal lust in a village reminiscent of a religious, conservative settler town. Gavin is highly talented, and balances fluid prose and brilliant imagery to weave a tale that is not easily forgotten.

Molly Tanzer and Jesse Bullington show what’s possible when two impishly warped minds come together. Tubby McMungus, Fat From Fungus (favorite story title – obviously) is easily the weirdest, funniest, most memorable tale (tail?) in the anthology. Anthropomorphic animals, scheming nobles, fungus, and merkins come together in a story that will not soon be forgotten. Fungal fun for the furry in all of us.

Where Dead Men Go To Dream by A.C. Wise is a dark tale of anguish and loss. There is some beautiful imagery to be found in a tale of mushrooms and dreams.

Daniel Mills recently caught my attention with a brilliant story in A Season in Carcosa. With Dust From a Dark Flower, Mills uses fungus in a more traditional weird horror style. Mills is quickly becoming a new favorite of mine.

Nick Namatas brings us a tale of an urban housing project’s garden, and the hope it brings to the neighborhood before taking a darker turn in The Shaft Through the Middle of It All. Namatas paints a very convincing urban picture in a stand out tale.

Go Home Again showcases Simon Strantzas many talents. The melancholy story is full of beautiful, dark imagery, coming together for a hopeful ending.

And ending the anthology (for the paperback readers) is a powerful tale by Laird Barron. Gamma is a disturbing, spine-chilling tale. It works as an example of how literary, powerful, and brutal Barron’s stories can be, adding another example of how he is the Cormac McCarthy of the weird. A perfect closing story.

There are several other fun stories as well, Julio Toro San Martin spins a steampunk yarn, Lisa M. Bradley writes an intriguing environmental tale where not everything is as it seems, Polenth Blake pens a hilarious little ditty, Ian Rogers brings back his recurring paranormal investigator Felix Renn in a supernatural noir, and Chadwick Ginther brings fungus into the realm of Sword and Sorcery.

Also of note are the three additional stories available in the hardcover edition. Catherine Tobler writes a poetic, gloomy tale of a ruined earth, while J.T. Glover and Claude Lalumière bring light-hearted, funny tales to the table. The three stories together are totally worth the extra money.

Fungi is definitely an anthology any fan of the weird should get ahold of. There is just so much offered in terms of content that it is entertaining throughout. Also, the hardcover is worth dishing out the extra dollars for. Not only would I dub this anthology “highly recommended”, I would even go so far as to say it’s my pick for best original anthology of the year. 

The book can be bought straight from the publisher HERE.

Film Review: Forbidden Zone (1982)

When it comes to midnight movies, the cult classics that are best seen at a late night screening with friends, Forbidden Zone would be a contender for the top prize. This film was directed by Richard Elfman (brother of famous film composer Danny Elfman) and also acts as a project of their band, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.

First, I should get this out of the way before continuing: Forbidden Zone is trash. It is by no means what anyone with taste would ever call a “good movie”. Also this is where I should state that I loved it. I had an absolute blast watching this film. There were times I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

Watching Forbidden Zone is like watching bizarro fiction on the screen. Coming out a few years after the most famous of midnight movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Forbidden Zone is another attempt at a zany musical film. Rocky Horror was a studio film, with great music, and a much tighter plot, and completely deserves the popularity it still has today. Forbidden Zone is a much more independent effort, with only one actor actually receiving pay for his work. It’s absurdity is at such a level as to make Rocky Horror look tame and normal.

Everything about this movie is zany, over the top, ridiculous and campy. The plot is basic and nothing special: in the basement of the Hercules household is a portal to the Sixth Dimension. Frenchie Hercules decides to explore and is kidnapped by the royal family. Her brother and grandfather attempt to rescue her, with help from the school dork Squeezit Henderson.

 The Sixth Dimension itself is never really built upon, and from what is seen is simply a world of caves populated by the royal family and chained up slaves. There seems to be a recurring dice motif, but they don’t play any role besides decoration. Slaves are everywhere, chained to the walls, in cells, and even in a torture chamber. Not much else of the Sixth Dimension is really seen, and it doesn’t come off as a highly populated place at all.

The characters are what really make the movie, and there really isn’t a single one approaching “normal”. Frenchie studied abroad in France and now speaks in a French accent, her brother Flash is a middle-aged man in a Boy Scout uniform and propeller hat who likes to hump every woman he comes across, Squeezit Henderson is a wimpy and pathetic chicken-boy, Rene Henderson is a masochistic tranny prisoner, King Fausto is a 3 ½ foot King who is obsessed with Frenchie, the Queen is a jealous amazon, the Princess runs around topless and whipping everything she can, Bust Rod is a frog-headed butler who constantly capers around, Satan is a sharply dressed Danny Elfman, and if the cast of characters doesn’t sound bizarre enough wait until you see the school classroom. Susan Tyrrell (playing the Queen) and Hervé Villechaize (King Fausto) seem to be the just about the only professional actors in the film (although Joe Spinell makes a cameo), but Tyrrell has the best performance, although it is way over-the-top (which is completely intended).

There are a few fun musical numbers in the film, the standouts being a song or two by the Queen and Satan singing an old Cab Calloway tune. The music doesn’t play as big as a role as I expected, and is a slight disappointment compared to the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s outstanding soundtrack. It’s still enjoyable in its own, more avant-garde way, but most of the music doesn’t stick with the view like Rocky Horror’s more normalized tunes. The biggest disappointment for me is that Elfman only appears as Satan in one scene. It’s an awesome scene, maybe the best in the movie, but afterwards he’s not seen again, with only a throwaway reference to him. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that in his scene it is made out that he will have an important role in things to come.

Besides the goofy characters, and the few weird musical numbers, what makes this film really catchy is the cartoonish feel of the entire movie. Most of the sets are painted on the walls, the slapstick is punctuated with cartoon sounds, and some scenes are actually cut-out animations reminiscent of Monty Python. Overall the effect is that of real actors living out a cartoon, albeit a twisted one that is definitely not for the kids.

So why did I enjoy this movie, even though it was trash? It was the laughs, and the sheer weirdness. In one scene a bigger, goofy-looking man in a Mickey Mouse hat (the slaves/prisoners seem to have to wear them) stands and sings, although the mouth doing the singing obviously belongs to someone else and has been superimposed onto his face, which is completely blank. What really happened was that the kid playing the part forgot his lines and just froze during shooting, and the director decided to superimpose another actor’s lips on his face, inadvertently creating a hilarious effect. In one scene Flash spins his propeller hat and soars into the air. Squeezit, who walks around like a chicken most of the movie, is decapitated only for his head to grow chicken wings and fly around for the rest of the film. You don’t often get weirdness like this that also manages to be so laughably entertaining.  

 

Overall, from a critical standpoint, it could be very hard to find many positive aspects of this movie. But if you are looking for a fun, completely insane movie to watch with your friends, Forbidden Zone just might be the perfect movie. Tons of laughs will be guaranteed, and it’s safe to say that finding a movie that approaches it in weirdness would be no easy feat.

 Arrow Films has an amazing blu-ray edition, which includes the original black and white version of the film, along with the 2008 colorized version. Definitely a nice edition if it’s a film you’re looking to own.

Have you ever been to the Sixth Dimension? What were your thoughts on this film? Comment below.