The Blog – Page 112

DAMNATION (2017)

February 17, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In DAMNATION (Netflix), a TV series set during the Great Depression, a pastor rallies local farmers to go on strike until fair pricing is restored, so that they can afford to pay their bank loans and prevent a wave of foreclosures. The bank, backed by a rich and powerful family, sends a brutal agent to break the strike, a man who shares a dark past with the pastor.

This is a pretty amazing show with dark twists, larger-than-life antiheroes seeking redemption, and a detailed and overt political message and criticism of capitalism. The acting is brilliant, the dialogue solid and frequently over the top, the setting stark and monotone but visually rich. And there’s plenty of action, tons of it in fact, with a body count that would make Tarantino smile in his sleep. I liked it a lot for its story, but loved it for its brave exploration of class struggle during the Great Depression, ideas that just as relevant today.

The farmers’ strike is based on the Farmers’ Holiday Association, a movement of farmers who withheld products from the market and went so far as to threaten judges approving foreclosures and setting up roadblocks. In the show, they have the food, but the rich have the power. The farmers find themselves contending with townspeople who don’t understand their plight, a bank that wants to foreclose so a rich family can build a chemical plant, division sown in their ranks, a sheriff who won’t protect them, a food wholesaler who sets the prices rather than supply and demand, a local newspaper that won’t cover the strike as a story, vigilantes who see them as communists, and a vicious strikebreaker who physically threatens them.

Though painted as communists and infected with the pastor’s revolutionary ideas about class struggle and workers uniting, the farmers don’t want communism, they want a fair deal the system won’t give them. The moral lesson of the show is that capitalism doesn’t work unless there’s a fair playing field and people get a fair share of the wealth, an idea proven by the Great Depression and the growth of a strong middle class after the New Deal. It’s an idea we’ve forgotten and that is rarely allowed to be spoken allowed on TV, so it was no surprise to me the show got canceled after one season. I’m surprised it got made at all.

Overall, DAMNATION is a great series that tells a fun story of loyalty and redemption, while making you think about class and the excess of capitalism.

FEVER by Deon Meyer

February 14, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

fever Deon Meyer’s FEVER is a terrific post-apocalyptic novel reminiscent of THE STAND (the part where they rebuild in Boulder) and THE ROAD (the story focuses on the relationship between a son and a father who wants to protect his innocence). Set in South Africa, it is set shortly after a horrible pandemic has wiped out 95% of the human population, leaving isolated pockets of terrified survivors. Willem Storm travels with his teenage son Nico, and finds a town where he will rebuild civilization. In the ensuing years, the Republic of Amanzi is born, but it has enemies both inside and out. As Nico grows up to become a soldier, he will fight to protect his father as well as his father’s vision for a new world to be born on the bones of the old.

The story is extremely well researched, realistic, and compelling. The characters are similarly realistic, flawed and weak but trying as hard they can to do the right thing. Nico often finds himself torn between his father, a pacifist who believes in science and that people are essentially cooperative and good, and the charismatic Domingo, who believes people are animals and essentially competitive and bad. The resulting story is told in episodes over a period of years as Amanzi grows from just a few survivors into a city-state. It’s a little dense, meaning the pages don’t really fly by for much of it, but what it gives was very satisfying for this reader who puts a high value on believability. When an ongoing mystery is solved at the end (a murder and the very cause of the pandemic), it comes a bit out of left field, but that’s okay, it was an enjoyable ride getting there, and there’s a bit of room for a sequel, which I’d pick up if Meyer decides to do one.

Overall, I thought FEVER was a terrific read and I’m happy to recommend it to apocalyptic fiction fans.

RAVENOUS (2017)

February 12, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

RAVENOUS (2017) is a Canadian horror film (Canada Netflix, I hear coming to U.S. Netflix March 2018) about a zombie-like plague that has devastated a small town in rural Quebec. Essentially, it is basic survival horror, with a disparate group of people who band together to try to survive.

While observing many traditional conventions and effectively building tension throughout, the film stands out by focusing on the emotional connections between the characters, and there’s a real cinematic flair to it, an artistry that overcomes its relatively low budget. An old man who fled his infected wife and sons tells another survivor, “It’s crazy, but the whole time I was running, I wanted to turn around and tell them I loved them.” A “perfect wife” loses her family and becomes a killing machine. A misfit and a big city woman bond over keeping a little girl safe.

There are plenty of incredibly tense moments in the film, such as a desperate running battle in the woods at night, noise traps going off by the dozen as a horde of infected draw near, and more. The infected do creepy things reminiscent of CELL, such as building bizarre constructions of household objects and staring at them in a trance.

Now to my two criticisms. First, the characters do a lot of dumb things. Noise at night? Let’s walk into the woods alone to check it out. The zombies have a way of popping out of nowhere, George Romero style, to deliver a perfect bite. These elements threaten to make it just another indie zombie movie, but the overall effort and attention to character and cinematography elevate it anyway.

So overall, I don’t see it as one of my favorites, but I enjoyed it, and it got me, so I’d recommend it, though of course YMMV. Be sure to watch a small scene after the credits. I rarely watch until after the credits but did this time because I had a feeling we’d get to see two of the characters again.

THE RITUAL (2017)

February 10, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In THE RITUAL (2017), a Netflix movie based on the fine book of the same title by Adam Neville, a group of men who’d gone to school together decide to go hiking in Sweden as a vacation to honor a friend who’d passed away. Wet, cold, and unfit for this type of trip, they decide to take a shortcut through a forest and end up terrorized by a malevolent creature. The result is a very simple horror movie that got everything just right for me–story, pacing, direction, character, monster element, and the menacing desolate Scandinavian forest setting.

The characters are likeable, and their reactions are genuine; when they’re being hunted, they go from denial to terror to complete helplessness. Along the way, you see them all transform from men in civilization to exciting vacation to discomfort to crisis to hopelessness and confronting death. There’s a strong theme of how far you should go to put your life on the line for others and your own self worth. The last act of the movie deviates from the book, but in a streamlining way that makes sense of the medium and wraps up the theme nicely.

And wow, that monster. Very similar to what I pictured reading the book but even weirder and creepier. I found it incredible. Everything about that thing was terrific for me to watch.

Happy to recommend this one.

THE BEAUTY by Aliya Whiteley

February 4, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In THE BEAUTY by Aliya Whiteley, each night, Nate tells the men gathered around the campfire of their community, members of humanity’s final generation, about life before a fungal plague claimed all women on the planet. Strange mushrooms are growing in the graveyard where they buried their women, suggesting a presence that eventually manifests and offers comfort in exchange for love. Happy with this gift, Nate tells the men the human race can continue, but it must change, and so must they. Some, particularly the young, embrace the change, while the rest fight to the death.

What a strange little story this turned out to be, featuring elements such as golems made from the dead, violence, body horror, and inter-species sex. The style is ethereal, almost Biblical in the telling, though presenting a story as more a fable than grounded in reality had the effect of engaging this reader’s brain more than his gut. As the relationship between the men and their new companions develops, things just get weirder. I thought thematically the novel would had have something to say about gender, but while the story seems to suggest a philosophy, it never really becomes apparent, and if it did, it sailed over my head. The story is freaky and it just is, offered without explanation or apparent theme. Which is all fine, as it was a fun read.

My only real complaint was it ends abruptly. In the edition I purchased, the story simply ended, and I was presented with a “bonus story,” which takes up half the book. I ended up feeling a little robbed, though this isn’t a complaint against the story but the publisher, which could have simply said the book was a collection of two novellas/short stories.

THE END OF THE WORLD RUNNING CLUB by Adrian Walker

February 3, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In THE END OF THE WORLD RUNNING CLUB by Adrian Walker, meteors pound the earth, devastating the UK and leaving the entire country cratered. Edgar scrambles to get his wife Beth and two small children into the basement with some food and water while the sirens are wailing. After rescue, they end up an undermanned military base. While helping with a foraging mission, his family is taken by foreigners sent to evacuate any survivors. Stranded, Edgar and his comrades must travel across a scarred Britain to get to the evacuation point on the coast. Travel is near impossible in any other way except on foot, and the clock is ticking on the boats leaving, so one day he starts running …

Despite a meandering start, it’s a pretty solid post-apocalyptic novel, with many gripping scenes and plenty of insight into the practicalities and mentality framing survival. Thematically, the story is similar to TRAIN TO BUSAN, in which a neglectful father learns the importance of family when everything else is stripped away by the apocalypse. The characters are for the most part likeable, their actions and dialogue realistic, and the scarred vistas they cross horrible and dangerous. In between, we have a series of stock villains one encounters in apocalyptic literature, from bandits to warlords, in sprawling subplots. The result for this reader is the novel might have really roared if it had been about a third shorter, and if the main character, who acts as the narrator, was more likeable.

Overall, I think it’s a great book for people who don’t normally read apocalyptic literature, and for genre fans hungry for an interesting if well-traveled story.