Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

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RENFIELD (2023)

September 3, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

RENFIELD (2023) is a terrific movie trapped inside a bad movie. I don’t know how else to put it.

In this film, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has been serving Dracula (Nicholas Cage) for over a century. Exhausted by constantly finding victims and fleeing vampire hunters, he brings his master to America and starts to question their relationship after a chance walk-in with a support group for emotionally dependent personalities. He gains the seed of independence and self worth and hopes to act on it, but rejecting the evil, narcissistic, and vengeful prince of darkness will be no easy thing.

What an amazing setup for a movie, truly killer high concept and fertile ground for an excellent, deep, and dark comedy. Unfortunately, it’s not explored to its full potential. Instead, we get a major plot line involving an organized crime family and a cop seeking justice for her murdered father. This rote storyline helps catalyze Renfield’s journey but dominates the film, hoping to please fans with a lot of CGI action and Monty Python levels of gore but ultimately just eating up the run time. The result is a movie with two personalities, and the dominant one is the paint-by-numbers crowd pleaser.

Nicholas Hoult and Nicholas Cage are terrific actors and always great to look at. Cage in particular transcends even his usual Cageyness to bring something zany and new but also familiar to a role that has been played many times before. Their characters’ conflict is the real gem even if it’s largely obscured by the mob/cop plot, ironically showing us a different kind of codependent relationship between telling a good story and satisfying expectations, a case study for Hollywood’s tendency to avoid complexity to please the most amount of people.

All that said, RENFIELD ain’t a bad movie. Just the opposite, I quite liked it for its better qualities. I just wished it had been lovable, as it so easily could have achieved with its terrific premise.

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies, Movies & TV, The Blog

THE HANDYMAN METHOD by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan

August 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In THE HANDYMAN METHOD by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan, a man moves into a new home with his family, only to become obsessed with fixing its many deficiencies and by extension, his own manhood. I picked this one up after reading Sullivan’s THE MARIGOLD, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and after noting it was co-authored by Nick Cutter. I liked this one a lot.

In this story, Trent moves into a new house in an unfinished development with his successful wife Rita and son Milo. Soon after moving in, he notices a crack and turns to Handyman Hank, a YouTube DIY expert and all-around manly guy ready to offer home improvement advice along with his own aw-shucks wisdom about being a real man. As more things go wrong with the house, Trent finds himself immersing in Hank’s increasingly monstrous worldview, producing a horror story reminiscent of THE SHINING, if Jack Torrance were seduced by the toxic form of masculinity in order to solve his insecurities. He discovers he is a pawn, both in an ancient pact and of the house itself.

Some readers wanted more clarity in the narrative and a tidier landing, and I’m not sure I can argue with that, but I didn’t mind. I found the book a perfect blend of the authors’ strengths–Cutter’s fine skill at writing the horror set piece and Sullivan’s deep and provocative ideas that included his take on one of my favorite elements, the idea of a house within a house. Overall, I had a great time with this story. As with THE MARIGOLD, I appreciated Sullivan showing me something I hadn’t seen before along with his writing that again showed solid skill.

Check it out if you’re looking for something new from a haunted house story.

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Reviews of Other Books, The Blog

THE MARIGOLD by Andrew F. Sullivan

August 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In THE MARIGOLD, Andrew Sullivan delivers a weird and bold if sprawling story about a dystopian future Toronto, where rich developers satiate the earth with blood before building and a sentient fungus appears intent on making the city and possibly all of humanity its own. I loved it.

The novel has an ensemble cast doomed to play their parts in multiple, sometimes intersecting storylines. Decadent developers engaging in an ancient blood rite to fuel their real estate empires, public health workers investigating the monstrous fungus, teens probing the underworld to find a lost friend, and more. Through their perspectives, we see a Toronto built on blood, haunted by its victims, and possibly careening toward destruction. The book is sprawling in its scope and struck some readers as slow and a bit bloated, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I loved it for its bold and original ideas, general weirdness, provocative writing, and overall integrity. Sullivan gave me something I hadn’t seen before, and for that alone, he won my respect.

Check it out if you’re into eco-horror and looking for something new and different.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Reviews of Other Books, The Blog

Cover Reveal for Q.R.F.

August 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Cover reveal for Q.R.F., my new military fiction novel coming out in late 2023! I love the simple look and how it captures the mood of the story.

A quick synopsis: When an old comrade doing humanitarian work is captured by the Islamic State during the Iraqi civil war in 2016, four war veterans leave their civilian lives to attempt a daring rescue in the most dangerous place on Earth.

The novel is about war, duty, and the pure love experienced between soldiers willing to die for each other.

The cover was done by the wonderful author Jackie Druga, who constantly surprises me with her multiple talents and generosity. She also did my cover for DJINN, which I absolutely loved as well.

Stay tuned! This one is going up for pre-order on Amazon soon!

Filed Under: Books, CRAIG'S WORK, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Q.R.F., The Blog

PETERLOO (2018)

August 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Directed by Mike Leigh, PETERLOO (2018) is a British historical drama about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in Manchester, England, currently streaming on Amazon Prime. At nearly 2.5 hours in runtime, the film is powerful if bloated and challenging, particularly with its dense political speeches. Still, the history warranted this approach in my view. From the beautiful cinematography and detailed sets to the historical accuracy and importance of the subject matter, this was a terrific watch for me.

The film’s story plays out in two layers. The first is an average family of British laborers living in Manchester in England’s industrial north, struggling to get by in the economic slump following the Napoleonic Wars. The second is the machinations of radicals hoping to achieve parliamentary reform to give Manchester and the working class greater representation in government, and the utterly corrupt government officials fearing the kind of revolutionary fervor that overthrew the monarchy in France. These storylines come together in a mass rally where the famed radical orator Henry Hunt would give a speech to a crowd of 60,000 people, and the government’s horrific reaction.

The storylines work well together. The leaders of the radical movement clearly spell out the horrible conditions of the working class, greed of the capitalist factory owners, utter corruption of the government, and Britain’s democracy entirely tilted toward government by and for land owners. The family shows us what all this means on a daily basis. Meanwhile, we see the heavy-handedness of the government reaction behind the scenes, with brutal police tactics against dissent that are used to this day, and their willingness to use force to preserve the status quo.

The politics are important but laid on thick, as we see multiple speeches by various radical leaders and a whole lot of interactions between the radical leaders and government officials. Still, I imagine to many viewers this will start to feel like a slog after a while. Personally, I enjoyed the depth and open sentiments, clearly spelling out what was at stake for the average laborer. For our modern times, it provides a nice reminder that while social justice is important, a just economy is just as vital.

Check it out if you’re interested in a deep, fiery historical drama about a little known but very important event in British history, supported by a terrific cast including Rory Kinnear and Karl Johnson.

Filed Under: HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

THEY CLONED TYRONE (2023)

August 7, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

THEY CLONED TYRONE (2023) is a surprising movie. It plays like a 70s Blaxploitation film with a clever sci-fi element reminiscent of THE CABIN IN THE WOODS. I didn’t love this one, but I liked it a lot, and damn, like I said, it’s surprising in how it mashes so many elements together to create something I’d never seen it before. For that alone, it got my respect.

The movie starts with Fontaine (John Boyega), a drug dealer in a depressed Black community haunted by the death of his younger brother. He gets mixed up with pimp Slick Charles (Jaimie Foxx) and sex worker Yo-Yo (the stellar Teyonah Parris) when a strange and impossible event sets them on a course to uncover a bizarre conspiracy. To save their community, they’ll need to figure out the system opposing them and use brains and muscle to defeat it.

Otherwise, I don’t want to say too much, as this is one of those movies that’s best discovered knowing as little as possible. At first, we’re given what seems to be a Blaxploitation film, shot to look as 70s and gritty as possible, with Black stereotypes that are frankly uncomfortable and also uncomfortably familiar from historical depiction in film. As the sci-fi element becomes exposed, the movie veers off into some weird territory.

The allusions to the forces that keep poverty-stricken people in poverty are obvious, treading into satire territory and leading to comparisons with films like SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (a movie about capitalism that I love, love, love). Still, though the payoff didn’t quite hold together for me–the explanation exactly why all the bad stuff in the story was happening. Nonetheless, with its distinct style by director Juel Teng, terrific performances, mashup of numerous Blaxploitation and sci-fi media, and overall punch, THEY CLONED TYRONE is a nice, provocative surprise, and definitely something to check out if you’re sick of the usual fare.

Filed Under: MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies & TV, The Blog

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