Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

REMINA by Junjo Ito

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I love Japanese manga creator Junjo Ito, particularly his longer graphic novel work like UZUMAKI, and I was thrilled to receive a surprise gift from my partner Chris Marrs this Christmas: REMINA, hot off the press. Like his other work, it’s wonderfully weird, dark, bleak, Lovecraftian, and beautiful.

The story focuses on Remina, whose father detected a mysterious planet that has emerged from a wormhole he discovered. He names the planet Remina after his beautiful daughter, who becomes a pop star in the tide of fame.

Alarmingly, however, the planet appears to be sucking everything around it into itself, and it’s now coming toward Earth.

I won’t say more about the plot, as you should check it out for yourself, but I really enjoyed this manga. There isn’t a lot of depth in terms of character, with the story being driven by its fantastical plot elements rendered in Ito’s distinctive creepy artistic style. What Ito delivers is pure spectacle, a great creep factor, and a bleak feeling that leads you to conclude character change and development kind of don’t matter when people are confronted with horrors too vast for human influence or meaning.

Overall, I loved it, and it proved horror does indeed make a great gift!

KADAVER (2020)

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The Norwegian post-apocalyptic film KADAVER (2020, streaming on Netflix) is visually artistic and powerful, but its story is marred by Hollywood tropes, predictable twists, and the lack of a discernible character arc for the protagonist.

A nuclear disaster has left the world in smoggy ruins, with the survivors in one Norwegian city slowly starving. One day, a herald arrives on the street to announce a play will be staged at a nearby grand hotel. When a family–Jacob, Leonora, and their young daughter–accepts, they find themselves trapped in a horrific game. The guests must don golden masks and are then invited to walk the hotel, seeing vignettes played out for their amusement, which are of course traps. Separated from her family, Leonora must find them–and survive.

It’s a great premise, but its execution turns up a mixed bag. Visually, the film is very strong, almost beautiful in its apocalyptic atmosphere. The acting is solid. Story wise, there’s little else carrying it forward, as the big reveal as to what the ultimate point of the game is is fairly broadcast from the get-go, the game itself doesn’t last long, the film leans heavily on predictable Hollywood survival horror twists and tropes, and Leonora survives more by luck than anything else and doesn’t change or learn anything in the process, resulting in an ending that sort of just ends.

So overall I have a hard time recommending this one, but I certainly appreciate the love that went into putting it together, and for post-apoc fans, there’s much to appreciate.

UTOPIA

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Adapted by Gillian Flynn for American audiences from a 2013 British series, UTOPIA (Amazon Prime) is a compelling and surprisingly dark story about a group of comic book nerds who get up in a conspiracy to change the world. I liked it, though I found it uneven.

The story begins with comic book nerds finding out that UTOPIA, the sequel to their favorite graphic novel, DYSTOPIA, has been discovered and is for sale. They aren’t just fans of the comic but conspiracy theorists who believe hidden messages in it predicted every major disease outbreak, raising the question as to whether these diseases were natural or bio-engineered. Unfortunately, mysterious forces are in play that want to prevent anybody from seeing the comic and will do anything to stop it while finding its real-life star, Jessica Hyde.

It’s just my kind of thing, and I went into it expecting it to be the next STRANGER THINGS, but the story quickly takes a very dark righthand turn into torture and frequent murder and stays there. In the American version, for example, a character is created only to be killed for shock value and to show how ruthless another character is, a creative decision by Flynn that comes across ham-handed and disrupts the chemistry. (A cute meta reference to herself comes across the same way.) People are regularly tortured in this show for revenge or information, and even while they’re giving it, the torture keeps coming. That aspect just didn’t quite work for me and makes the resulting story uneven, plus it makes a key character who often does it (and constantly casually threatens it) unlikeable when we’re supposed to be rooting for her.

When you find out what the conspiracy is, it’s actually nothing we haven’t seen before, but it’s done extremely well. When the villain reveals the entire plan, many viewers will be like, oh, um, that’s not exactly a bad idea. The bad guys are like a cult designed to produce a certain change in the world, but by the end they’re not necessarily the bad guys, they’re simply the antagonist with an opposing goal, the mark of a good story.

The ending sets up a season 2, though I’m not sure the story needs it. I’m curious how the British version ended and will try to find it. On a final note, John Cusak and Rainn Wilson are in the show, and they’re fantastic in their roles.

Booklist Reviews THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK

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“An emotionally devastating, ultimately hopeful horror story about trauma, the power of love, and the unexplainable forces that surround us,” writes Booklist, the publication of the American Library Association, in its review of The Children of Red Peak, coming from Redhook (Hachette) in November 2020.

Stoker-nominated DiLouie (One of Us, 2018) returns with a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life. In 2005, members of a religious cult committed suicide on top of Red Peak. Five children survived, but when the authorities rescued them, there were no bodies anywhere. Now, as the 15th anniversary approaches, one survivor commits suicide, forcing the others—and their psychological wounds—back together. Told from the alternating perspectives of three survivors, both in the present and in flashbacks to their time with “The Family,” the book illustrates the same events from different angles without sacrificing a compelling pace that builds relentlessly until each narrator is forced to confront their trauma in a beautiful and terrifying climax. Utilizing true crime tropes and the supernatural intrigue that surrounds the mountain itself, DiLouie creates more than a typical cult thriller. This is an emotionally devastating, ultimately hopeful horror story about trauma, the power of love, and the unexplainable forces that surround us. A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay’s Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu’s The Hunger (2018).

THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK Coming Soon

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COMING NOVEMBER 2020

“With this chilling story of cult abuse, DiLouie (Our War) proves his mastery of the slow slide from psychological drama into supernatural horror… An impressive twist…feels both shocking and inevitable. Horror readers will be hooked.” —Publisher’s Weekly

“I finished The Children of Red Peak several days ago and I’m still thinking about it—especially those terrific final 50 pages. Gripping, thought-provoking, and suspenseful, Craig DiLouie’s latest is a master study of darkness and light and the meaning of life.” —Richard Chizmar, New York Times bestselling author

“Absolutely riveting… A tapestry of past and present come together in this chilling tale of family, faith, and redemption. Craig DiLouie has a new fan.” —J.D. Barker, international bestselling author of She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

“The Children of Red Peak is ice-in-your-heart, nerve-racking fantastic—Heaven’s Gate by way of Stephen King’s IT. Almost every page made my skin crawl.” —Peter Clines, New York Times bestselling author of Paradox Bound and Terminus

“The Children of Red Peak is both a subtle character study and a chilling tale of horror. It goes deep into the heart of people caught up in terrifying events. Highly recommended.” —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Ink and V-Wars

“DiLouie really knows how to simultaneously shatter nerves and break hearts. The Children of Red Peak is a genuinely unsettling psychological horror novel, a story where faith and fear combine to destroy innocence and devastate lives. Intense, compulsive, thought-provoking, and highly recommended.” —David Moody, author of the Hater and Autumn series

“One of the most powerful voices in dark fiction does it again! Craig DiLouie’s The Children of Red Peak delivers a suspenseful and unpredictable psychological exploration of family, belief, and horror as chilling as it is thought-provoking. One of the best books of the year!” —James Chambers, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of On the Night Border