WOOFER'S LAIR

Welcome to Woofer's Lair. Curious as to what you will see here? Well, for the most part, you will find book reviews, maybe the occasional movie review, and if you are lucky, you might stumble across one of my own works in progress. If you like what you see or what read, and even if you don't, please feel free to leave your comments. As I am somewhat new to blogging, all of your constructive feedback is appreciated. Have fun and thanks for stopping by.

Wicked Seasons

Wicked Seasons
My short story, HUNGRY FOR MORE, is included

CURRENTLY READING

CURRENTLY READING
Ghostland by Duncan Ralston

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Camp Was Never Like This

Sometimes a cover just speaks to you, and other times it friggin' screams. The cover of Eric David Roman's Long Night at Lake Never was definitely a screamer.

Based on the description on Amazon, you know right away you're going to be spending the next few hours at camp. But this ain't no regular camp full of canoe races, archery ranges, and all the fun times that go with it. The campers at Camp Horizons don't want to be there. Well... most of them. You see, there are two requirements to attend this camp. One, you have to be either a gay or lesbian youth, and two, your parents must think there's something wrong with you and want you fixed. I mean, why else would they relinquish all parental rights for the next two weeks, or however long the "Journey" might take. That's right. Camp Horizons is a conversion camp, where the counselors attempt to pray the gay away. As if the idea of a religious conversion camp isn't scary enough, add to it a dark secret from the camp's past, one no one wants to talk about, and a Friday the 13th-type killer roaming the woods.

The stars of Long Night at Lake Never are Tyler Wills, an attractive young man who likes and accepts his sexuality and has an attitude against those who think there's something wrong with him just because he's gay and has every intention of either leaving the camp or getting himself thrown out; Jamal, a fierce queen who also appears to be self-accepting; Myer, a nerdy youth who wants to be cured; and Chris, a jock type who's not exactly sure of his sexuality. You also have Bob, who runs the camp, and a cast of young men and women in the role of counselors (who I call cannon fodder). With the exception of one young woman, all of the staff are former campers who have been "cured."

Once the stage has been set, Roman wastes no time spilling blood, as two camp counselors are brutally dispatched. We also learn at this point that these two are not the first victims of the killer, whose motive behind his killing spree will be revealed later in the book, as we catch glimpses of his earlier kills. Roman has also created a likable cast of characters (for the most part), and you can't wait until the villain(s) (Bob and his cronies) are sent to meet their maker.

I honestly didn't know what to expect from this book, as I wasn't familiar with the author, but that cover screamed "Read me!" so loudly that I couldn't ignore it. I was going in totally blind and with zero expectations. What I got was a throwback to my youth, when I would sit on the edge of my seat in front of the TV with a worn VHS tape in the VCR and a teen slasher unfolding on the screen. The only difference being that while I was rooting for the killer, I was also rooting for the campers, who already had their hands full battling the baddies running the camp. Long Night at Lake Never gets 5 stars from me, and if you're a slasher fan, I would highly recommend picking up a copy and spending the next few hours at camp.

 

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Beware the Boogeyman

During any discussion on extreme horror, the name Edward Lee is bound to surface. For years, a few of his titles sat on my shelves, unread. But such is the case with an avid reader and an ever-growing TBR pile. I would eventually get around to reading him, but I had never intended it to take this long to get around to him.

Back in the day, when I first bought the books (1990s), Lee was considered one of the Splatterpunk authors, along with Clive Barker, John Skipp and Craig Spector, and David J. Schow (to name a few), which meant just about anything goes. Now, I've read some Splatterpunk that I would consider mainstream fiction and some that pushed the boundaries of decency. Lee's The Bighead would definitely fall under the latter. 

The Bighead consists of several separate storylines that all converge eventually into one shocking ending. There's Charity Wells, who is returning home for the first time since the state removed her from her aunt's home decades ago, and Jerrica Perry, a small-time reporter assigned to cover life in the sticks. Two women with relationship issues whose paths cross when Jerrica responds to Charity's ad for a ride home. Then there's Dicky Caudill and Tritt Connor, a couple of low-life rednecks who rape and kill just for the fun of it. Father Tom Alexander, a former Army Ranger turned priest, who seems to be having a crisis of faith, who is sent to prepare the abbey for reopening. And the star of the show, The Bighead, a deformed mutant whose tastes mirror those of Caudill and Connor, although he shows he's able to muster some restraint. 

As the book progresses, the reader is exposed to any number of grisly murders and acts of fornication, each more shocking and brutal than the last, some of which are so extreme and over the top that you can't help but chuckle and roll your eyes, but in a good way. Also, as the book progresses, you realize there's more going on than just a string of brutalities strung together by a flimsy narrative. There's an actual story here, with twists and turns, long-buried secrets brought out into the open, and mysteries to be solved. Lee certainly keeps you on your toes. 

Folks often complain when reviewers reveal too much of the plot, and I find many of my reviews do follow that format, so I'm going to leave it here, with a recommendation that you give The Bighead a chance--provided you aren't easily offended and don't have any triggers, as this book is guaranteed to set them off. Initially, I was going to give this book 4 stars, but the ending pushed it over the top for me and I have to give it 5 stars. This is the first book I've read by Edward Lee, but it definitely won't be the last, as I do have a few others waiting on the shelf.



 

Friday, November 17, 2023

Rock-a-Bye Baby

 

I haven't read much Joe Hill, but what I have read has been pretty much hit or miss with me, but I needed a couple of short, quick reads to put me a little further along toward my Goodreads goal for the year, and since Amazon had launched this new collection of Creature Feature novellas, I thought they'd be perfect. I mean, creature features? Count me in.

When I started The Pram, I felt I was going to be in for a disappointing read, as it started out with a young married couple wallowing in sorrow over the miscarriage of their child and seeking a fresh start, hoping a change of environment would be just what the doctor ordered. I perked up a bit with the couple happened to be from Brooklyn, NY, and I happened to be a native Brooklynite. So the couple moves from Brooklyn to the Middle of Nowhere, Maine. Talk about culture shock. But I figured I was going to be in for a Burnt Offerings, Bethany's Sin type story, and I figure to be closer to Bethany's Sin, at least what I can remember of it.

I can't really say much about this without giving too much away, but suffice it to say this has all the trappings of a folk horror piece. A creepy old couple, ancient woods, old-time religion, and based on the title alone, a creepy baby.


For a such a short read, I would have expected more of a hook at the beginning to catch the reader's attention, but The Pram starts off slow and moves at a snail's pace for just about three-quarters of the novella. I mean, it dragged, and I was tempted a time or two to chalk it up to a DNF (did not finish), but I hate letting a book get the better of me, so I persevered, and I'm glad I did, as it didn't go in the direction I thought it was heading.


Besides the pacing, I didn't really care for the characters, as they're kind of flat. I couldn't decide if I felt sorry for them or wanted something bad to happen to them. Their backstory is focused on the miscarriage, so other than that sad aspect of their lives, which I guess is supposed to make them sympathetic, you really don't learn that much about them to care one way or the other. So you just accept them and let them carry you along for the ride.


For a story that dragged for a major part of the narrative, the ending made it all worth while, fast paced, suspenseful, and gory. Gore is always a good thing. Had the pacing for the majority of the piece been a bit faster and the characters given a bit more depth, this could easily have been a four-star read, but I need to take a star for those issues. With that said, if you don't mind a slow burn and you have an hour or two to spare, this is one that's worth checking out.

Friday, November 10, 2023

The Rats Take Manhattan


Several years ago, Hunter Shea, one of my favorite creature/cryptid authors, released a Must Read titled Rattus New Yorkus. As you may know, I love me some creature/eco-horror, and I also, as a Native New Yorker, love when NYC is under siege by vermin, creepy crawlies, supernatural terror, or whatever. If the Big Apple is doomed, I'm reading it. So when I saw that Shea was releasing a sequel, it automatically jumped to the top of my TBR pile.

Manrattan picks up several years after the events in Rattus New Yorkus. The rats have been defeated, but for Chris and Benny Jackson, the thrill of living in New York died, and when it came time for the residents of the city to return, the Jackson had opted to relocate to Westchester -- and rats were something they no longer handled as part of their pest control/extermination company.

When a close friend who is also in the pest extermination business calls and asks for their help, both Chris and Benny say no, 1. because it's NYC, and 2. they no longer deal with rats. But their former associate is adamant that they come. It's not a rat, he swears, but an escaped capybara, that's how big it is. So, against their better judgment, they venture into the city to lend a hand. Only, it's not a capybara.

It's a rat.

The size of a small German Shepherd.
As soon as the situation is handled, they hightail it back to Westchester, only to be summoned back to New York by the military as consultants on this new menace threatening New York. It seems the fool-proof rodenticide that turned rats into horny incubators for multiple rat litters that eventually overran NY has had some unforeseeable long-term side effects. The rats are no longer hyperbreeding machines; they've just grown to mammoth proportions, and there's a helluva lot more than at first thought. Now, Chris and Benny's in-and-out consultation has turned into a life-threatening escape from New York.

I've yet to read a Hunter Shea novel that failed to deliver the thrills and chills, and Manrattan is no exception. The tension runs high and is broken up by the humorous back-and-forth dialogue between our two favorite exterminators. Each encounter with the Ratzillas is more over-the-top than the previous one, so there are quite a few eye-roll moments that are very much intentional, and you find yourself looking forward to their next run-in to see how the author is going to top the last one. The only problem I had with Manrattan was the ending, which just didn't work for me. It leaves things open to a sequel, which I don't mind, but it's one of those open-ended cliffhangers that I hate. And while most of the cliffhangers I've read seem to be plotted into the story, this one seems unintentional, like the author didn't know where else to take it, so rather than fumble for an ending, he just decided to end it, and in doing so, leaves the reader hanging, frustrated in that we have to wait until the sequel (if there is a sequel in the works) is released to find out what happens.
If cliffhanger endings don't bother you, this is definitely one to check out. But make sure you read Rattus New Yorkus first.

Radioactive Creepy Crawlies

 

Ever since I was a kid, I had a thing for bug books and movies. Giant ones, hordes of little ones, and everything in between. So when I stumbled upon Neil Hunter's Scorpion, I just had to read it.

Scorpion takes place in England, a place you don't really think of when you think of these little critters, in the small town of Long Point.

When the book opens, a reporter (Les Mason) is covering the protest outside the Long Point Nuclear Plant, so right away you know where this is going. Les also happens to be the first victim of the titular creatures, and it's in Les that we see how potent and quick-acting the scorpions' venom is. The doctors treating Les are at a loss. They acknowledge the fact that Les is suffering an extreme reaction to some sort of bite, but they are unable to identify just what it is that bit him. Enter Dr. Allan Brady, a young research assistant assigned to run a toxicology report on Les's blood, the results of which are inconclusive. But even though he's hit a brick wall, he's determined to uncover what is responsible for the growing number of bodies turning up around Long Point.

Reading Scorpion, I was taken back to the days of my youth, when movies like Kingdom of the Spider, The Swarm (1987), It Happened at Lakewood Manor, The Deadly Bees, etc., were popular. There's a large cast of characters, many of whom are introduced and killed off in the same chapter, but Hunter breathes enough life into the cannon-fodder characters that you're on the edge of your seat wondering if they're going to live or die. The problem, though, with giving us a backstory on every character, even the minor ones, is that sometimes the pacing suffers. When you want to turn the page to find out what happens next, and instead of a face-off with the deadly creatures, we get bogged down with two pages of details about the character that's going to die on the next page, but once we get past that and into the meat of the matter, so to speak, the story moves along at a faster clip. There are, as in any book (or movie) of this type, some unanswered questions. There are also questions that are answered in a manner that makes you go, "Huh?", but that's par for the course with this eco-horror. But these are easily overlooked as you get caught up in the events of the book, and it isn't until you're finished that you begin to wonder about those questions.

I'm not gonna say Scorpion is a great book, because it isn't, but it definitely is a fun read, and if you, like me, enjoyed all those B eco-movies as a kid (or even as an adult), it's definitely worth it. And I enjoyed it enough to pick up the sequel, Scorpion: Second Generation.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

All Buzz, No Bite

Being a fan of eco-horror, when I saw this on Amazon, I just had to get it, and as soon as it came in, I dove right in. Sadly, it was all buzz, no bite.

I was hoping this would be more 1950s giant bug movies and less The Asylum SyFy feature films, but SyFy is what I got from the very beginning. It starts off with a cargo truck crashing and unleashing its cargo, which turns out to be... You guessed it from the title... Killer Flies. But even the worst SyFy movie is more believable than this.

Next to the driver, the first victim of the deadly insects is a little girl, left home alone while her mother goes cavorting into town with her beau. So right off, Sherry, a nobody widowed rancher, isn't going to be nominated for Mother of the Year, yet the author made the weird decision to make her the heroine. Kathy Littlebird (with a name like that, she should have been Native American, but like with so many bad choices the author has made, she isn't), the local reporter, would be a more likely lead character, but after a brief appearance, she's relegated to the background until the third act. Rounding out the cast is the hired hand/love interest, the bully cop who treats everything like it needs to be covered up, the local politician with big Washington dreams, and a very unscientific government scientist.

So back to the story... Sherry is so distraught (not really, but the author says she is, so let's go with it), she vows revenge on whoever or whatever killed her daughter. With the way the sheriff treats her, you'd think he already has some idea as to what's going on, but he's just as clueless as everybody else. The reporter is given the first clue as to what's going on when she investigates a crashed eighteen-wheeler, the driver of which is a runaway teen who, before she dies, mumbles, "Rosebud." Not really, she mumbles the word flies, along with the cryptic message that they killed everybody. Who's everybody? Well, it's the diner full of people that never seem to be discovered because they're never mentioned again. In fact, even though the flies are leaving a trail of bodies, it doesn't seem like any of them are being discovered until the 2,000 people are killed while attending an outdoor opera performance. The reporter is conveniently "dating" the doctor who oversaw the truck driver's body arriving at the hospital, who conveniently knows a government scientist who happens to might be doing work related to the fly attacks. But rather than the reporter and the doctor investigating, it's like they'd rather be fooling around instead of getting to the bottom of things, and Littlebird calls her BFF Sherry and lets her know what she's found out. So Sherry and her hired ranch hand/lover (unbelievably) waltz into the government lab, threaten to make a scene unless they can see the unscientific scientist, and then they're conveniently escorted to see said scientist, who doesn't seem to have a problem spilling his guts. It just gets more far-fetched from there, from the unnecessary sex scenes (because everybody has time to fool around when faced with hordes of man-eating flies, and Sherry, who already has a lover, yet falls in love and sleeps with the scientist [in a matter of days]) that only serve to slow the progression of the story to the unlikely discovery by--You guessed it--Sherry on how to kill the flies (but the author even gets this wrong). I think the funniest thing, though, is Hutch, Sherry's stud, who knows what they're dealing with, running around with a shotgun as if that's the ideal weapon to battle flies.

The book is one misstep after another. It's like the author saw movies like this when he (she, I found out the author is actually a woman) was a kid and only had a vague memory of what actually happened. There was no attempt to verify the "scientific facts" presented in the book, which just makes it all the more laughable. So if you're looking for thrilling eco-horror, keep looking, because this ain't it, which is unfortunate. Sigh. Such high hopes dashed upon the rocks. Oh well... Better luck next time.



 

Sunday, May 7, 2023

Failed the Audition


Every so often I'll see Murakami's Audition mentioned online, and the parties involved are often talking about the movie adaptation, and others frequently mention the book. I'd heard enough about it that ended up on my TBR list. I knew I'd eventually read the book before sitting down to watch the movie. Well, I recently got around to reading the book, and I have to wonder if everything I'd heard was about another book, because this one? Snore.

Well, I can't really say that. The ending of the book was fantastic. My problem is that the journey to get there was long and uneventful.

The premise of the book is simple. A middle-aged widower, whose wife has been dead these past seven years, is encouraged by his teenage son to marry again. Having been out of circulation for so long, Aoyama feels like he's out of touch with the singles scene, and doesn't know where to start. When he confides in a friend, they decide to set up a faux movie project for which they will hold auditions. This way, Aoyama will be able to field a number of potential brides at one time to filter out the candidates that don't fit what he's looking for. During the course of the audition process, our widower becomes infatuated with one woman in particular, Yamasaki Asami, to the point that he's no longer interested in any of the other candidates. Despite the warnings of his friend, who constantly reminds Aoyama that they know NOTHING about this woman, begins his pursuit.
What follows is a series of dates interspersed with what I can only describe as teen angst, where he starts to question his motivations amidst rising insecurities in himself, all of which fade away the instant he hears Asami's voice. You might think this has all the trappings of a YA romance, with the exception of the ending, which will wipe that line of thinking from your head.

My problem with Auditon is that, which the exception of one scene early on in the story, there's really nothing that raises any alarm bells, nothing to prepare you for the extreme, unbalanced violence at the end. Even when Asami is caught in lies, of which there are many, none of them are so terrible as to make you wonder what the hell is wrong with this woman. Not even that fact that she seems too perfect; that's probably the only alarm bell that's triggered --- this woman is too perfect to be true.

Overall, the story isn't a bad one. My problem with it is, for what it is, it's too long. Had there been more going on to generate a sense of danger or imperilment, we would have an ideal length for the story, but so much of it is mundane day-to-day stuff that the reader often grows anxious and/bored and wishes the author would hurry up and move the story along. Tighten up the story, generate more suspense, and you'd have an excellent short novella. So, is it worth reading? Given that it appears on so many Must Read lists, I'd say give it a shot, but otherwise I'd say pass. Now to watch the movie and hope that this is one of those rare instances where the movie is better than the book.