Joan of Arc (1999) – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Joan of Arc is receiving a new Blu-ray release from Studiocanal, bringing the often overlooked Luc Besson film to a whole new audience. Telling the story of real life war hero and saint, Joan of Arc. Like all films based on historical events, this one takes some liberties, but never feels like it’s making huge leaps or trying to bend events too far.

The film follows Joan (Milla Jovovich) from her childhood to her eventual death, though focuses on only certain aspects of her life. It begins with Joan as a child living in a small village with her family. She’s already clearly very religious, and cares deeply about God. She’s also already having visions of a young boy in white sitting on a throne, a being who speaks to her, telling her to be a good person and do kind things. Unfortunately, when the English attack her village she witnesses her older sister’s murder and rape (in that order), and develops a deep hatred for the English.

Jumping several years ahead, Joan is now a young woman who has already inspired many of the peasants across France, which grants her an audience with the Dauphin and future king, Charles VII (John Malkovich). After meeting with her and believing that Joan has been sent by God, Charles gives Joan an army to travel to Orleans, which is under siege by the English. From here, Joan leads a military campaign that pushes the English back and wins Charles his crown. However, when Joan is captured by the English she’s put on trial for heresy, and after being found guilty she’s burnt at the stake.

It’s a story that many will be familiar with, if not all the details, at least the broad strokes. And the film only really pays attention to the broad strokes of Joan’s life. It jumps from her childhood to several years later, and after a large portion being focused on the siege of Orleans it moves on to showing her as a general without a real war to fight. The film doesn’t get bogged down in the details, or spend time on every single event, because it’s not really a story about Joan’s life, but of the trauma that she goes through.

Luc Besson has said in the book The Films of Luc Bessson that he wanted to follow Joan emotionally, to show her doubts, and to show that people never really come home from war. And the film really manages to capture that. We see the highs of Joan taking Orleans, of her being a hero to the people, of securing the King’s crown, to being pushed aside, left without troops, without a real enemy to fight. It’s a stark shift, and we see how this has affected Joan and her mind. It’s a harsh shift, but only really the beginning of the end.

Before this, the film also has a pretty good depiction of the siege of Orleans, yet thanks to having been spoilt by huge battles in things like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings it does feel very small, and a little like a reenactment at times. I’m not sure how well these scenes would have played at the time, but watching the film now, they’re definitely the weakest part in comparison to the emotional journey of Joan.

The end of the film focuses on the trial that she faced at the hands of the English, and thanks to extensive records having survived, mirrors some of these events. We see the church try to back her into corners, to trip her up into saying the wrong thing. And she so nearly makes it through the trial; and even though we know her ultimate end it’s still heart breaking to see her do everything right, yet still be condemned.

It’s during these moments that the film does something really interesting too, and gives a physical embodiment to the voice in her head. Credited as The Conscience, this hooded figure begins to challenge her views of what she’s been through, making her question if she had ever heard God or if she was just making it all up. The Conscience is a great manifestation of her internal struggle, and is played masterfully by Dustin Hoffman, taking something that could have been a bit silly and over the top and grounding it.

The film ends on a very down note, with the last scene being Joan burning to death. Part of me thought that it could have done with something else at the end, possibly to try and take away from this sad end, but this isn’t really a story that could end any other way. It’s a young woman whose faith was hugely important to her, that helped her to achieve amazing things, helped her to secure a kingdom, but resulted in her horrific death at only nineteen. You can’t make that into something happy, but Luc Besson manages to make it into something impactful, and that will stick with you for a while after watching it.

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Special Actors – Fantasia International Film Festival

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Playing at Fantasia International Film Festival, Special Actors follows Kazuto (Kazuto Osawa), a young man who dreams of being an actor, but due to a nervous medical condition, faints whenever he’s put into high stress situations. Having recently failed an audition, losing his job, and being behind on his rent, all seems lost until he comes across his brother, Hiroki (Hiroki Kawano), who he’s not seen since their mother’s funeral several years before.

It turns out his brother has gotten into acting too, and might have the perfect place for Kazuto, an agency called Special Actors. This group gets hired to perform in the real world, posing as angry customers to test employees, pretending to be grieving friends at high profile funerals, and even helping people look tough to their dates by faking a drunken incident. Kazuto begins to find his feet with the group, but things start to become a challenge when they’re hired to help prevent a young woman giving away her family business to a cult.

This marks the third film from director Shinichiro Ueda, who shot to fame in 2017 when he made the zombie comedy film One Cut of the Dead. Made for just $25,000, the film would go on to gross more than $30.5 million worldwide, making film history by earning over a thousand times its budget. As such, there are a lot of expectations on Special Actors to do well, and to be another hit. Whilst it’s probably not going to reach the heights of Ueda’s first movie, it’s certainly still a good film.

Special Actors has a lot of charm, and the first few scenes of the film set up the tone tone nicely. It’s not a laugh a minute comedy by any means, but it never takes itself completely seriously. It likes to throw small gags into fairly straight scenes, like a cult leader with a ridiculous perm. It’s inoffensive, and wins you over quite quickly. It also feels a lot like a heist caper, with the team of actors plotting ways to take down the dastardly cult, coming up with intricate plans, and then having to deal with things on the fly as they inevitably go wrong.

There are a few twists and turns to the plot towards the end that will make you chuckle as you realise that even the audience hasn’t been let in on everything, and there’s even something that will alter your entire view of the whole movie, perhaps even prompting you to go back and watch it again with this new perspective.

Special Actors is, at its core, a film about bettering yourself, about a man fighting past his issues and his problems to try and achieve his dreams. It’s definitely a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Special Actors played at Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs 20th August – 2nd September 2020.

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Hunter’s Moon – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The trailer for Hunter’s Moon looked really promising. A big house in the middle of nowhere, a home invasion, werewolves. It looked like it might have been a lot of fun. Sadly, the end product was dull throughout and had a ‘twist’ ending that was obvious a mile away and not nearly as clever as the film thinks.

The film begins with Martin Ellsbury (Sean Patrick Flanery), a charming serial killer, who’s lured a young woman to his remote home in order to drug her and murder her, before burying her in his orchard. The intro ends with something coming out of the orchard killing him. Skipping to some time later we’re introduced to the Delaney family, who are moving into the home.

On their way to the new house Bernice (Amanda Wyss) and her daughters Juliet (Katrina Bowden), Lisa (India Ennenga), and Wendy (Emmalee Parker) hear from one of the locals that their new home belonged to a serial killer, which seems to cause some friction with father of the family Thomas (Jay Mohr). Despite this, the family settle into their new home and Thomas and Bernice set out on some business, leaving the girls home alone. Unfortunately for them, a trio of local criminals have decided to target them for home invasion.

One of the biggest issues that the film has is that there’s no real sense of tension, despite it trying to force some into the narrative. There’s a moment towards the start where it seems to be hinting that Thomas might be an abusive husband/father, but this never comes up again, and he’s generally a nice guy. And when the criminals enter the home you never really feel like the girls are in any real danger.

It also very quickly becomes obvious what’s really going on, which I can’t really talk about without spoiling the movie. But if you’re paying attention to the narrative I’m sure that you’ll pick up on it before it’s made expressly obvious. There’s also something with Thomas Jane’s cop character that is supposed to throw you, but is also quite obvious. That’s my biggest issue with the film really, that the plot is obvious, nothing happens that I wasn’t expecting, and the characters don’t feel developed much in any way.

The werewolves aren’t hugely impressive either, and when you actually get to see one properly it feels faintly ridiculous. The suits look like old gorilla costumes with big rubber wolf faces stuck on them. The face is static and looks ridiculously goofy to the point that it isn’t threatening at all.

I wish I could find something good to say about the film, but I’m really struggling. The acting feels dull, as if the actors didn’t didn’t really want to be there. The plot, as I’ve already said, is predictable. The monsters look goofy. I was waiting for the story to get good, and it just didn’t. The trailer made it look like this was going to be a group of people holed up in a house under siege by werewolves, but it really wasn’t. If that’s what you want then Dog Soldiers is what you should be watching instead. It’s amazing that a film that’s nearly 20 years old and had a lower budget made werewolves that looked a million times better than those in this film. It’s hard to see where the $2.5 million budget went on Hunter’s Moon.

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Crazy Samurai Musashi – Fantasia International Film Festival

Originally published on Set The Tape

Playing on demand at Fantasia International Film Festival, Crazy Samurai Musashi might be one of the most ambitious films I’ve ever seen. It’s not a major blockbuster by any means, it’s not going to wow with visual effects, or amaze with its writing, but it might be one of the best fight scenes in movie history.

There’s not much of a story for this film; it starts with members of the Yoshioka clan preparing to repel a master swordsman, Musashi (Tak Sakaguchi), who is coming to wipe them out. In order to prepare for his arrival, they’ve gathered a small army of warriors. Despite this, Musashi has managed to sneak through their forces and eliminate his target; however, to get away, he has to fight past this army. This begins a single take fight that lasts more than 70 minutes, in which the lone swordsman has to fight more than 400 people. Like I said, ambitious.

The fight is pretty amazing, and is incredibly gruelling to watch as it’s clear Sakaguchi is absolutely knackered by the end. There are quieter moments throughout this scene where he stops to grab a drink and rest for a moment, and you can see him panting for breath, and sweat dripping off him as he’s genuinely worn out from fighting for so long.

Whilst it’s impressive from a technical point of view, there are some moments where the action drags. When Musashi is surrounded by a dozen or more fighters and is fending off their attacks for several minutes before dispatching them it can get a bit repetitive. The film tries to combat this by shifting the setting, moving the action through an abandoned town, or by occasionally throwing in some characters for him to go up against, usually with a stand out weapon, or a brief bit of dialogue to go along with the fight. These moments prove to be the saving grace of the sequence, and stop it becoming boring.

After this giant single take there is a jump in the story, and we get to see the character a number of years later, in a more traditional fight, complete with edits and cuts. After seeing the previous fight this feels so much more dynamic, and has a speed and energy the other scene was lacking. If the rest of the film had been like this, the overall effect would have been a lot more entertaining

I honestly don’t know how I feel about this movie. Yes, it’s incredibly impressive, and probably shows a more realistic approach to a sword fight than any other film has done. However, this doesn’t necessarily make it completely entertaining, and does make an argument that editing is needed to make action sequences better.

For action fans, and anyone who likes Samurai movies, this is definitely worth a watch, and will be unlike any other film you’re likely to see.

Crazy Samurai Musashi is playing on demand at Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs 20th August – 2nd September 2020.

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Project Power – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Project Power is set in an specified near future New Orleans, where a new drug, Power, has been unleashed onto the streets. This new drug promises to unlock a person’s hidden superhuman abilities, but only in five minute bursts. This could be anything from the ability to blend into your surroundings like a chameleon, to become bulletproof, or even manipulate your temperature to such extremes to produce fire or ice.

Power is making policing the streets of the city more and more difficult, and has even resulted in entire police precincts being wiped out by super-powered criminals. One of the cops who’s trying to fight back against this new menace is Frank Shaver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who’s buying Power from teenage dealer Robin (Dominique Fishback), an aspiring rapper who’s having to sell it in order to raise the money for her mother’s surgeries.

In the midst of this chaos comes a new player, a mysterious figure known as The Major (Jamie Foxx), who is killing his way to the centre of this drug network in order to put a stop to this deadly new product, and rescue his missing daughter. When his path crosses with Shaver’s and Robin’s, the three of them come together to put an end to Power.

Project Power is being marketed as a superhero movie, and it’s obvious why, as the very inclusion of people who can burst into flame or punch through steel doors means this isn’t exactly a film that’s grounded in reality; however, it fits much more neatly into a police action movie style instead. You could replace the drug giving people powers with a fairly standard drug, and the story would still be very much the same. That being said, the film did at times remind me of some comics like District X, a superhero comic focusing on powered police, and the Power drug is similar to the Mutant Growth Hormone pills in Marvel Comics.

Project Power manages to weave together the fantastical and the mundane in really good ways though, and this feels like a story that could be at home both in the real world and something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is probably down to the fact that the characters and their stories come first, with all of the leads having very clear motivations that the audience can understand and relate to.

Robin is probably the best of the characters on offer here. She’s a young woman trapped in a system designed to grind her down. She’s trying to do whatever she can to help her mother to survive, but thanks to the horrific US healthcare system, systemic racism, and wealth inequality, the only way open to her is to sell drugs on the street. The film seems to make a point to show that she’s a sympathetic character, a person who we could all end up being in bad circumstances outside of our control. Sadly, the film fails to make anything of a point on this by not only having the people behind the drug being a big shady organisation only out for money, but by having a cop as one of the heroes.

Considering the film does so good by Robin it’s shocking that Gordon-Levitt’s Shaver is so one dimensional. He’s a cop who want to do good and protect the people of New Orleans, but is prepared to use any means to do so. Considering the mass levels of police corruption in the US, and the systemic racism in those organisations I’m a little shocked that the filmmakers chose to make his character in this fashion, especially with the civil unrest against police officers still happening (yes, there are still protests happening right now, even if the press won’t cover it). In this climate a hero white cop coming in to help save the two Black leads just doesn’t feel too good anymore.

Jamie Foxx’s character isn’t given a huge amount of development, but his motivation and mission is made pretty clear to the audience, and you quickly get on board with him, and he plays the role with so much charm that you quickly forget this man is willing to kill the bad guys and genuinely begin to like him. The relationship between him and Robin that develops is a particular highlight.

The film manages to pack in a good number of action sequences, and some great super power effects across the run time, and never feels dull because of this, moving with a good pace and keeping your attention throughout. Project Power takes what is becoming a fairly standard genre of superhero films and gives it something fresh and new; yes, it’s still a fairly standard cop action movie, but by marrying the two together it’s an enjoyable and entertaining movie all on its own.

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Awakened by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth - Book Review

 

'After years of waiting, New York's newest subway line is finally ready -- an express train that connects the city with the burgeoning communities across the Hudson River. The shining jewel of this state-of-the-art line is a breathtaking visitors’ pavilion beneath the river.  Major dignitaries, including New York City’s Mayor and the President of the United States, are in attendance for the inaugural run, as the first train slowly pulls in. 

'Under the station’s bright ceiling lights, the shiny silver cars gleam. But as the train comes closer into view, a far different scene becomes visible. All the train’s cars are empty. All the cars’ interiors are drenched in blood. As chaos descends, all those in the pavilion scramble to get out. But the horror is only beginning. High levels of deadly methane fill the tunnels. The structure begins to flood. For those who don’t drown, choke, or spark an explosion, another terrifying danger awaits — the thing that killed all those people on the train. There's something living beneath New York City, and it's not happy we've woken it up.'

Awakened tells the story of a new train-line in New York, one that will connect the city with the communities beyond the boundary of the Hudson River. One of the most ambitious projects in decades, it's taken years of building, and boasts new trains, and a brilliant central pavilion beneath the Hudson itself, full of shops and entertainment. The opening is an event that is set to be a shining moment in Mayor Cafferty's career, but when the first rain rolls into the pavilion ripped open and covered in blood something awful begins. Trapped beneath the Hudson, with deadly gas seeping in and the river threatening to flood them, the survivors discover that they've become prey for vicious creatures living beneath the surface of the planet, creatures that the new project has awakened.

James S. Murray is a name that might be familiar to some from his work on the hit US comedy series Impractical Jokers. Thanks to this, I kind of expected him to create something comedic with his first book, so was quite surprised to find that Awakened is, in fact, a horror.

Awakened reminded me a lot of the older, slightly pulpy horror books of the 80's. There's something about it the simplicty of monsters coming up from beneath the earth to kill people that I just really loved. Perhaps it's because it doesn't try to do anything too strange. It doesn't have you questioning what's happening, it doesn't try to tease out events, or make you wonder if what you're seeing is real. There's something really great about an obvious threat without a bigger mystery that you don't always get in books. 

Most horror novels like to build up tension, to have a mystery, and spread events out over a long period, but here the action hits early on and doesn't let up until the very end. The tension keeps ramping up and up like some awful kind of roller coaster that won't give you a break, and events unfold at breakneck speed. So much is packed into the pages here that's it shocking when you realise that everything that happens all takes place within a few hours. Because of how quickly events unfold, and the fast pace of the events it really feels like you're reading a film, and it's easy to see how the story could be translated to cinema without losing too much.

The only downside with the fast pace of the book, however, is that you sometimes don't feel like you get enough time with some of the characters. There are some great characters here, but I didn't spend enough time with them to really fall in love with any of them, and would have happily have read a longer version of the book that took some time to get into the character's heads and gave more of an insight into them.

The lead, Mayor Cafferty, has some great moments where he steps up to put his life on the line to protect the people around him, but it's not always clear what his motivations are. Is he doing this because he feels responsible for them as the Mayor, does he feel guilty for what's happening because this new train-line was his project, or is there something inside him that has a hero complex?

There are a handful of other characters that manage to shine too, and get some of the focus, and whilst not all of them make it out of the book alive, those that do seem poised to return in the second book alongside Cafferty. As such, I' hoping that Murray and Wearmouth will give readers a chance to get to know them a bit better going forward.

Ultimately, Awakened is an entertaining book that has a lot of fun leaning into both horror and adventure genres, but kind of feels like set up for what's to come next. It feels like an opening chapter to a much bigger story, and I'm excited to see what the authors do next, as this is an interesting world that could open up into some amazing new areas. Reading Awakened is like being on a high octane ride, only to realise that there's a whole theme park behind it waiting for you to explore. It's a taster, one that get's you pumped for more, and I'm definitely excited for more.

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The Ancestor by Lee Matthew Goldberg - Book Tour

'A man wakes up in present-day Alaskan wilderness with no idea who he is, nothing on him save an empty journal with the date 1898 and a mirror. He sees another man hunting nearby, astounded that they look exactly alike. After following this other man home, he witnesses a wife and child that brings forth a rush of memories of his own wife and child, except he's certain they do not exist in modern times-but from his life in the late 1800s. After recalling his name is Wyatt, he worms his way into his doppelganger Travis Barlow's life. 

'Memories become unearthed the more time he spends, making him believe that he'd been frozen after coming to Alaska during the Gold Rush and that Travis is his great-great grandson. Wyatt is certain gold still exists in the area and finding it with Travis will ingratiate himself to the family, especially with Travis's wife Callie, once Wyatt falls in love. This turns into a dangerous obsession affecting the Barlows and everyone in their small town, since Wyatt can't be tamed until he also discovers the meaning of why he was able to be preserved on ice for over a century.'

The Ancestor is a hard book to pin down, it has some elements that you could describe as science fiction, or perhaps even fantasy, yet has such a grounded and human story mixed in too. If you were to force me to pick one category to put it into it would have to be speculative fiction, even though that's such a broad term. It's a fantastical book for those who don't normally read that kind of thing, and literary fiction for people used to reading sci-fi. It mixes together so many genre's and styles that I really believe that everyone can pick up and enjoy this book.

The story follows Wyatt, a man frozen through time. Having come to Alaska in the 1890's, searching for gold, something awful happens to him and he becomes frozen in time. He wakes up in modern day, with much of his memories missing, and unsure how he got there. Lost in the wilderness he discovers a pair of hunters and follows them back to town when he sees that one of them looks just like him. He discovers that this man, Travis, shares his surname as well as his face; and Wyatt becomes convinced that he's Travis' ancestor.

Wyatt becomes drawn to Travis and his family, drawn to Travis' wife and son. Seeing his family helps to bring back memories of his own wife and child, and he quickly becomes obsessed with them. When he and Travis finally meet the both of them find something that draws them to the other, and the pair quickly form a friendship. 

I won't say much more about the plot and what happens with the two characters, because I don't want to spoil what happens or where the story will take the characters, but I will say that Lee Matthew Goldberg always keeps you on your toes, that he keeps the story shifting and changing right up to the tense conclusion. Even in the final pages I didn't know how the book would end, because he manages to make a narrative that could go more than one way, that doesn't feel predictable or locked on a certain course; which is the sign of an amazing writer.

He also manages to make the world of The Ancestor feel really real and lived in, and all of the characters are interesting. Travis and his immediate family get a big focus, but there are so many characters in the periphery and background that grab you too. Some of the supporting cast in this book are more realised and well written than some lead characters I've read. They have backstory, they have complex motivations, and they feel so real. I'd have been happy to read a book that was twice as long as this to have more time with these characters, or books centred around them that didn't even involve Wyatt and his travel through time. I'm normally aren't drawn to literary fiction as I like to have something a bit more fantastical in the books I read, but the characters here are so engaging I'd be happy to read stories about them just living their lives.

I honestly didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. When I realised that Wyatt's story of travelling through time wasn't going to be as front and centre as I thought, that it would be more about the lives of these people, I was worried that my interest would wane. But I was so wrong. I found everything about it fascinating. I kept reading long past the point I should put my book down and go to bed. This kept me awake way longer than it should have, which I always take as a sign of something special.

If the blurb for this book captures your interest in any way, do yourself a favour and pick it up. Give it a read, because you'll end up being sucked into this amazing story.

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Yes, God, Yes – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Yes, God, Yes stars Stranger Things favourite Natalia Dyer, who plays frustrated teen Alice. Alice lives in a small town with a very religious family. She goes to church every week, and attends an incredibly strict Catholic school that forces the students to attend confession once a week, and even teaches that sexual arousal is a sin unless it’s with your married partner. That last part might sound a bit out of nowhere, but it’s very important for this story.

Yes, God, Yes is described as a comedy-drama, and whilst I can clearly pick out the drama elements, it felt very light on the ground as far as comedy went, and I can’t recall even laughing once. It does, however, take a look at the role that religion can play in the development of a teenager, especially when it comes to things like sex and masturbation.

The thing about this film that really got to me was how well it captured the Catholic school mindset. I spent a few years attending a Catholic primary school after my family moved house, and attended it as someone who wasn’t religious, and the way they’d treat you if you didn’t join in or follow their religious rules was horribly frustrating. As someone who has experienced only a small part of what Alice goes through in this film, I really felt for her, and it helped to draw me into her story more.

She’s a young woman struggling to understand the world she’s in, and the feelings she has, but instead of getting any real, practical advice or help she’s made to feel nothing but guilt and shame. There were times that I wanted to scream at the screen because I hated how the adults around her were telling her that she would go to hell if she touches herself. It’s masturbation Karen, not killing a baby!

Part of me wanted Alice to break away from her religion during the film, and not just because I’m the kind of person that I’m pretty sure would burst into flames if I entered a church. Alice sees first hand that the thing’s she’s being told are lies. She sees the hypocrisy herself when her chaste camp counsellors are giving out blowjobs, or her pro-abstinence priest is watching hardcore porn on his office computer. I wanted to see her call out the people around her, to flip a table or two (it is what Jesus would do after all).

Instead, director Karen Maine gives us a less black and white story. Yes, God, Yes isn’t saying religion is bad, or that you need to reject organised religion, instead it’s a story about a young woman finding her place within her faith. Alice isn’t learning to let go of her faith, but she’s learning to see things a little differently, to accept that she can still believe in and love god, but still be herself. She can have more fun, she doesn’t have to be afraid that everything she does will send her to hell, and that she’s not evil if she decides to play with herself.

The film has a very subtle message that female masturbation is normal. It’s saying that it’s fine to have physical urges, to want to feel sexual gratification, and that doing so doesn’t make you a bad person. Whilst sex itself has become less taboo over the years, female masturbation is still something that is either made to sound awful and dirty, or even outright denied. This film does the opposite, and it sends a very empowering and positive message to teenage girls, religious or not.

I didn’t find much to laugh at in Yes, God, Yes but there’s a lot of good in this film. It angered me at times, but that just meant that it was telling its story well, with engaging characters that felt real. A little gem of a film that has some important things to say, headlined by an actress who does a superb job.

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Mara – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

I initially wanted to watch Mara because sleep paralysis is something that I know a little about. It’s a phenomenon that’s been around forever, and there are generations of stories of people waking up but being unable to move. What’s not so common, but by no means rare, is that in this state some people will see dark, scary figures in the room with them, sometimes climbing up on top of them.

Whilst I never had a creepy old woman climb onto my chest, I have experienced sleep paralysis, and seen a shadowy figure watching me when it’s happened. As such, I was really interested to see how the film would handle this. Luckily, Mara doesn’t rely on using sleep paralysis all the time, and manages to craft something of a mystery story into its horror narrative too, one that I found pretty entertaining.

The story follows Kate (Olga Kurylenko), a psychologist working with the police, who gets called in to help with a murder where a man has been found killed in his bed, with his wife being the main suspect. However, the wife is claiming that a sleep demon killed her husband, and Kate has to figure out if she’s faking, or legitimately crazy. This spurs into motion a series of events that lead to several more killings, and Kate beginning to experience disturbing bouts of sleep paralysis.

The story reminded me of films like The Ring or The Grudge, where there’s a spooky central antagonist, but the hero has to get to the bottom of a bigger mystery to figure out what this creature is, and to save themself. Kate gets some help in her investigation from Dougie (Craig Conway), a member of a sleep paralysis support group who puts a name to this strange creature: Mara. Together the two of them try to stop Mara before they become her latest victims.

The central mystery is pretty good, and the reason why Mara is there and targeting specific people is a neat little reveal, with the clues laid out over the run time. It means that if you’re trying to figure it out and pay enough attention you can have a good bit of fun trying to get the answer before Kate. The film also looks really nice, and has some great cinematography from Emil Topuzov. There’s nothing that really jumps out as special, but it gets progressively darker in visual tone as Kate loses more and more sleep, mirroring the increasing darkness descending on her as she struggles to stay awake.

Mara herself is also a really creepy creation, with veteran monster actor Javier Botet in the role. Botet is a great suit actor, having brought creatures to life in things such as IT, Game of Thrones, Slender Man, and Alien, and breathes so much life into Mara that when you actually see her fully, and the camera isn’t trying to hide her, she’s still hugely disturbing; something that’s really hard to do with the creature in full frame.

Director Clive Tongue does great job at bringing a difficult subject to film. It’s easy to make sleep paralysis scary for a scene or two, but Tongue manages make it creepy and disturbing time after time, and makes the central story engaging and interesting throughout. If you enjoy a supernatural mystery horror like The Ring, then Mara will definitely keep you entertained.

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You Again by Debra Jo Immergut - Book Review

'Abigail Willard first spots her from the back of a New York cab: the spitting image of Abby herself at age twenty-two—right down to the silver platforms and raspberry coat she wore as a young artist with a taste for wildness. But the real Abby is now forty-six and married, with a corporate job and two kids. As the girl vanishes into a rainy night, Abby is left shaken. Was this merely a hallucinatory side effect of working-mom stress? A message of sorts, sent to remind her of passions and dreams tossed aside? Or something more dangerous?

'As weeks go by, Abby continues to spot her double around her old New York haunts—and soon, despite her better instincts, Abby finds herself tailing her look-alike. She is dogged by a nagging suspicion that there is a deeper mystery to figure out, one rooted far in her past. All the while, Abby’s life starts to slip from her control: her marriage hits major turbulence, her teenage son drifts into a radical movement that portends a dark coming era. When her elusive double presents her with a dangerous proposition, Abby must decide how much she values the life she’s built, and how deeply she knows herself.'

You Again is a strange kind of narrative, and often times feels more like a stream of consciousness more than a regular prose novel, and really gets into the head of the protagonist, Abigail. In her mid-forties, Abigail is a former artist and party girl who's settled down down, married and had two children, and now spends her days designing packaging and advertisements for pharmaceuticals. Her life isn't empty by any means, but she definitely seems to be stuck in a rut.

This all changed one day when Abigail sees a young woman who looks like her, exactly like her twenty years ago. Whilst at first she thinks this is either just someone who looks very similar, or perhaps some kind of strange hallucination, she keeps running into this young woman, and becomes convinced that she's somehow peeking backwards through time at a version of her that can still change her life and find another outcome.

Amidst this, her teenage son Pete is changing, becoming more and more political, hanging out with new friends that Abigail isn't sure she likes, and joining the ANTIFA movement. When Pete ends up in trouble with the police, Abigail begins to find herself attracted to the lead police officer on his case. With her son starting down a darker path, the temptation of an affair, and these strange sightings of her younger self, Abigail finds her life careening out of control.

There are a lot of interesting plot threads in You Again, and many of these stories are definitely worthy of being told, but due to the story being structured in the form of diary entries, interspersed with doctor emails and psychiatrist notes, none of the plot elements really feel like they've been given enough room to breathe and stand on its own.

For example, the main plot of Abigail seeing her younger self is deeply fascinating, and it raises so many questions about what's going on. Are these incidents simple delusions? Is this another woman who just looks like her and is living a similar life, or is this a split in time? This should be leading the narrative, driving Abigail on to find out more and to get to the bottom of this mystery, but instead this is just something that happens every now and again. This past version of Abigail only appears a handful of times across the year long narrative, and when the two of them interact the present Abigail seems to react like it's a slight bother in her otherwise normal routine. Yes, we can see that this is bothering Abigail more than she lets on thanks to the very personal nature of the narrative and the deep dive we get into her mind and emotions, but I just got frustrated with her for not making it a priority in her life.

Outside of this plot Abigail goes through a number of issues, and finds herself questioning the kind of person she has become and who she wants to be going forward. She has something of an awakening, realising that she's put her dreams and ambitions on the back burner to raise her family; and seems to be sitting on a huge talent in her artwork too.

One of the bigger things that seems to get her to reevaluate her life is her son Pete's interactions with local activist, and their anti-fascist stance. These political leanings are painted as something troubling for Abigail for most of the book, and she finds herself fighting against her urges to get involved too, to find something worth fighting for, that could make a difference. Unfortunately, the book is full of authority figures, such as teachers and police, who try to make the ANTIFA movement seem like something awful, an evil, that for much of the book it seems like Debra Jo Immergut was trying to present anti-fascism as something bad, which I did find a little troubling. But, by the end of the book it's clear that both Abigail and Debra seem to be not just okay with the ANTIFA movement, but view it positively. I think if this was a bit clearer from earlier on my enjoyment would have been increased for sure.

There's a lot in this book to like, a lot of mystery and drama, but the narrative seems to split its focus too much for any of the plots here to really shine or satisfy completely. I really wanted to like this book, and whilst I enjoyed it I left feeling a little let down. Perhaps I went in wanting more of a focus in one particular area, but there's still a lot here to like, and I'm sure that many people will absolutely adore this book.

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Marvel Action: Avengers #11 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Captain America is still stuck in his fear-induced hallucination in the latest issue of Marvel Action: Avengers, but who else is hiding in the shadows pulling the strings, and can Cap find a way to break free?

I’m really glad that the Fear Eaters arc from previous issues has carried on for a bit, even if it’s not the full scale planetary invasion that we’ve already had. It felt a little convenient that these destructive aliens were done away with so quickly, so having some kind of consequence to those events is really good.

It’s also a good move to have Captain America figure out that he’s in a hallucination. It would have been easy to have Cap believe that AIM had taken over the world, that the events he’s living through were real, but it would also have felt like a bit of a cheat to have that going on, meaning nothing, whilst the heroes in the real world fought to save him. Having him know that the things around him are fake, and fighting against it on his side makes for a more dynamic and engaging story. It also shows that Cap isn’t just a guy who makes good speeches and hits things with his shield, but can also figure things out.

This issue moves events along quite nicely, both inside the nightmare and in the real world. In the nightmare the resistance HQ is attacked by the brainwashed heroes, resulting in a fight between the good guys and these strange, yellow versions of their former friends. Yellow Hulk is a particular stand out here, with Captain Marvel making a point of how they’ve had so many different coloured Hulks up to this point already, kind of poking fun at Marvel’s reinvention of Hulk every few years in the regular comics.

This fight ends up putting the heroes on the run, and having to come up with a whole new plan, one that also helps Cap to fight his way free of the dream. It’s kind of weird how quickly the other heroes accept that they might be fakes, but then you could also argue that they’re just humouring Cap at that point, saying whatever it takes to keep him in the fight against AIM.

There’s something else that happens this issue that makes the story more interesting: the revelation that there’s someone else in the hallucination with Cap, keeping an eye on him from the shadows. We get some brief glimpses of this figure, but even with that I’m not entirely sure who this new party is supposed to be. This added mystery certainly does more to keep me interested, and I actively want to find out who this person is.

As far as middle parts of a story go this one is actually one of the best that they’ve done in Marvel Action: Avengers. It builds on the first issue in new and exciting ways, and leaves readers with a clear idea where things are going to be headed in the final issue, but with mysteries still needing to be solved. Issue 12 is definitely one that I’m looking forward to.

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The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez - Book Review

'A mysterious child lands in the care of a solitary woman, changing both of their lives forever in this captivating debut of connection across space and time.

"This is when your life begins." Nia Imani is a woman out of place and outside of time. Decades of travel through the stars are condensed into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her; all she has left is work. Alone and adrift, she lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.

'A boy, broken by his past. The scarred child does not speak, his only form of communication the beautiful and haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and their strange, immediate connection, Nia decides to take the boy in. And over years of starlit travel, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. For him, a home, a place of love and safety. For her, an anchor to the world outside of herself.

'For both of them, a family. But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy. The past hungers for him, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.'

Okay, so one of the first things I thought once I'd finished reading The Vanished Birds was that I can't believe that this is a debut novel. The huge, sweeping scale of this story, the wonderfully strange and almost mystical ideas presented, and characters that span centuries all makes this book feel like something an author of decades would produce. The level of literary skill presented here is stunning for a first novel, and I'm certainly going to be watching Simon Jemenez's future work with great interest.

The story, if it can be summarised, follows the captain of a trading ship, Nia Imani. When the book begins Nia and her crew have been transporting produce from a distant world to one of the main human space stations. It's a job that isn't as easy as it sounds, mainly because in order to travel the vast distances between worlds ships have to travel through some kind of pocket space; whilst this allows the ships to travel huge distances in only a few months, time moves differently outside of the pocket, and the crew can lose years of their life.

The first main section of the book introduces this concept in a really clever way, by showing the effect it has on the people left behind. Kaeda is farmer on the world that Nia travels to and from, and when the story begins he's just a child, watching in awe as visitors from the stars visit his home. The ships come back every 15 years, and he watches as he and his world age and change, whilst these visitors hardly change. The effect of having a relationship with someone who stays relatively young whilst you grow old is somewhat shocking when presented this way. Most books would choose to focus on Nia in this moment, to show how hard it is on her to watch a friend grow from childhood to old age whilst they only experience a handful of years; but Jimenez makes the bolder choice of flipping this, and it works so well.

It's on this world that a young boy eventually arrives, crashing from the sky in a ball of fire. The strange child scares the farmers of Kaeda's community, who find the quite boy something to be wary of. Kaeda, however, takes him in and keeps him safe until Nia can arrive. He convinces the captain to take on the boy, and this is where the story shifts to follow Nia instead, revealing that Kaeda and his world were simply an introduction to this universe and the concepts, rather than the focus.

 

From here the story opens up in scale, showing the readers more and more of this universe, and the way that humanity has evolved since leaving Earth a thousand years before. But these ideas aren't just presented to readers as concepts, we get to see it first hand too, as we're introduced to another central character to the narrative, Fumiko Nakajima. Fumiko is a scientific genius who lived on Earth more than a thousand years before, and we get to follow her through her younger life, see her grow into a hugely respected scientist, we watch her fall in love. But we also see how she lost most of what she held dear whilst trying to secure a future for humanity.

Fumiko is one of the more interesting characters over the course of the book, as due to her using advance technology and cryogenic suspension she has managed to live for over a thousand years. Living for so long, existing outside of normal time, effects Fumiko in ways that you wouldn't expect, and over the course of the narrative we see just how fragile the human mind is, and how living so long can be a curse as much as a blessing.

Eventually Nia and the boy cross paths with Fumiko, and a much bigger story begins, one that I don't want to reveal too much about; but I will say that it becomes a story that spans decades or more, will see characters cross the galaxy, discover amazing, impossible abilities, and even commune with the spiritual. The story is so vast and sweeping, and handles so many heady subjects that I feel I have to call the book a Space Opera. There's just so much here that feels bigger than a lot of other books. Even once it's done, once you've read through hundreds of pages spanning thousands of years and most of the galaxy it still feels like you've barely scratched the surface of this amazing new universe.

There were so many ideas and concepts presented here, some explored deeply, others only briefly touched upon. The Vanished Birds is an entire universe, not just a single story. And it's a universe that I wanted to learn more and more about, that left me with so many questions. However, this never left me feeling unsatisfied, or disappointing. Yes, the book could have been twice as long and included more detail and answered more questions, but that doesn't mean that it would necessarily have been better. Jimenez gives you enough information that it feels real, and like the real world, you're never going to know everything.

The Vanished Birds was stunning to read throughout, it presented huge concepts incredibly well, and has a cast of characters that were wonderfully refreshing to read. There were queer women, women of colour, people of various genders and sexualities; it wasn't a future only inhabited by straight white men, and it was wonderful to read a future where everyone is seen as equal, no matter who they are or who they love. I can't wait to see what Jimenez does next.

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All The Stars And Teeth by Adalyn Grace - Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

'As princess of the island kingdom Visidia, Amora Montara has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer — the master of souls. The rest of the realm can choose their magic, but for Amora, it’s never been a choice. To secure her place as heir to the throne, she must prove her mastery of the monarchy’s dangerous soul magic.

'When her demonstration goes awry, Amora is forced to flee. She strikes a deal with Bastian, a mysterious pirate: he’ll help her prove she’s fit to rule, if she’ll help him reclaim his stolen magic. But sailing the kingdom holds more wonder — and more peril — than Amora anticipated. A destructive new magic is on the rise, and if Amora is to conquer it, she’ll need to face legendary monsters, cross paths with vengeful mermaids, and deal with a stow-away she never expected… or risk the fate of Visidia and lose the crown forever.'

Fantasy books are tricky things, especially when they're set in a completely new world. Having big fantastical elements like monsters and magic in a setting people know is hard enough, but creating a whole world for people to have to learn and believe in can be really difficult. Whenever a writer dos it well there are usually two outcomes, a world that feels old and lived in but kind of becomes a bit of the background, or a world so unique that you find yourself wanting to learn about it as much as you do the characters. The kingdom of Visidia is definitely in the latter category, and it kept me fascinated throughout. 

The story follows Amora, daughter of the current king, whose time has come to name his successor. Amora must prove her ability to wield the soul magic of her royal lineage in order to be worthy of becoming the future queen. However, when her powers go out of control she’s not only out of the running to become queen, but is imprisoned. When a daring swashbuckler offers to free her, she must set out on a quest to save her kingdom and prove that she can be queen.

The more I learnt about this bizarre world that Adalyn Grace had created the more it drew me in. I kept thinking I'd gotten a handle on how this place worked, and what to expect, and then she'd throw something new at me. Whether it was teleporting taverns, mermaids, giant sea monsters, or magic that could split a persons soul, each new thing felt so completely different, yet never broke the world she'd made. It would have been easy to go too over the top, to throw something too fantastical into the mix, but that never happened. There was a sense of escalation, but it never jumped the shark so to speak.

With a world so layered and interesting it would have been easy to create characters that failed to live up to this environment, but the lead characters of All The Stars And Teeth were great. The crew that formed around Amora all brought something new to the table in terms of both powers and personalities. Towards the start of the adventure I really didn't like Ferrick, the young man that Amora is set to marry. He seemed clingy, a bit stuffy, and frankly annoying; but come the end of the book he'd stepped up in some big ways, and had had some of the biggest moments of bravery in the narrative. He'd proven himself not just to the other heroes, but to me too, and because of that I really hope that he comes back in the second book.

Bastian in contrast starts of as the cool guy, the dashing pirate who knows all the dodgy people and has connections with people that will help Amora on her quest, but as the story progresses we learn more about him and find out that really a lot of this is a bit of a front, and that he's probably one of the most damaged characters in the book. What comes across as bravado at the start ended up being seen as a front by the end, he hides behind this persona to stop further pain, and it's only through his adventures with the others that he can begin to open up and become vulnerable again. Vataea is definitely one of the more interesting characters, thanks to her not even being human. Though we get to spend some time with her and get to know her and her powers a bit she's still the most unknown element in the crew by the end. Out of the heroes she's the one who I'm the most unsure bout returning in the next book, but really hope she does so that I can try to get to know her batter.

Amora is, obviously, the most important character, and as the main point of view the reader spends all their time with her. She's set up to be this powerful character, a young woman who's been raised to become the next ruler, and a master of her brand of magic. She begins the book thinking that she knows everything and is the best version of herself that she can be. Over the course of the story we see her realise that she's wrong on a number of occasions, and she has to do a lot of growing up. Thankfully, she never comes across as childish or petulant. She's always trying to do better and be better, and it makes her a very likeable protagonist.

All The Stars And Teeth is an interesting novel, that manages to weave a story that's more complex than it first appears, and keeps you interested throughout. The plot unfolds organically, and the characters grow and develop throughout, meaning that events never feel dull or stale. The story ends in a way that's satisfying, yet manages to leave so many elements open to be explored in further books. Whether you're reading this as a stand alone, or you're getting invested in the series, it's sure to leave you satisfied.

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The Apocalypse Strain by Jason Parent - Book Review

'A multi-national research team, led by a medical genomics expert suffering from MS, study an ancient pandoravirus at a remote Siberian research facility. Called "Molli" by the research team, the organic substance reveals some unique but troublesome characteristics, qualities that, in the wrong hands, could lead to human extinction. The researchers soon learn that even in the right hands, Molli is a force too dangerous to escape their compound. But the virus has a mind of its own, and it wants out.'

I guess it's thank to the current global pandemic that's happening that I was expecting a book that would be dealing with a more traditional disease, possibly an apocalyptic aftermath of an outbreak. But, that's not what The Apocalypse Strain offers, instead it's much closer to body horror movies like The Thing in tone and style.

The story is set in a remote research station in the Siberian wilderness, a facility shit away in one of the coldest and most inhospitable places on Earth. The facility has its own private security, researchers, and even a group of astronauts using the surrounding wilderness to train for their mission to Mars. It's this group of astronauts who discovered an ancient birds nest buried in the ice for 30,000 years, a nest that contains some never before seen viruses.

Whilst this initial setup, finding something ancient buried in the ice, feels very much like John Carpenter's horror classic The Thing the book goes out of its way to make itself feel different in the very first chapter, where we see the astronaut who makes this discovery being spurred on to the location by the ghostly voice of his dead daughter. It makes the book feel creepy from the outset, and shows that this is no normal virus or organism that we're dealing with, but something that's able to get inside people's heads, access their memories, and manipulate them.

After a while this sense of the unknown and more ghostly horror takes a backseat for some downright disturbing moments where the infection spreads through the facility. Mutating and destroying the hosts, this virus can reshape its victims in a variety of ways. Some become monstrous humans, whilst others transform into insect-like monsters, and some even become sentient ooze that chases the survivors through the maze-like halls of the facility. There's no constant to those infected, other than that a horrific fate awaits anyone who the virus touches.

The book gives us a few survivors to root for, and manages to make it so that most of them never feel completely safe, other than the main lead Clara. There are a number of characters who each get moments of heroics, that makes you think they're more likely to make it out alive, only to have them suffer horrible deaths a few chapters later. Jason Parent manages to craft a story where you're always guessing who the next victim might be, and usually not going for the obvious choices.

Clara is clearly the main character though, and thanks to something that happens to her fairly early on it means you never really feel like she's in danger of death. However, I wasn't sure what to make of her when she was first introduced. Clara is disabled and has MS, and the chapter she's introduced has some rather unpleasant descriptions of her condition. Passages like 'the multiple sclerosis had ravaged her body, gobbled up a lithe sprinter and swimmer, and shat out a contorted heap of wasted flesh' and Clara's hatred of her entire life come across as a little abelist. As a disabled person myself these kind of moments always broke me out of the book and made me feel uncomfortable. The author seemed to make the choice that Clara had to hate her existence due to her disability, even wishing herself dead at one point, because they couldn't see a disabled person not being like that. Yes, disability can change your life and take a toll, but it felt a little insulting to imply that you'd be better dead than disabled.

The story also gives Clara a miraculous cure for her condition, and uses this as her reason for suddenly wanting to live again, to no longer feel like her life s worthless because she can use her legs again and fights to stay alive. I don't think that any of this was done maliciously, or even consciously, but this kind of characterisation and narrative definitely contributes to abelism in society.

Overall the story was engaging, it had some interesting characters and had enough twists and turns in the narrative to always make you feel invested. You never get complacent because you never know who will be the next to die, and the book keeps you guessing who will make it out alive right until the end. Fans of horror are sure to find something they love in this book.

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