The First Purge (2018)

The New Founding Fathers have been approved to attempt an experiment on Staten Island. They, and the architect of the plan Dr. Updale, hypothesize that giving people 12 hours of consequence free crime will alleviate crime during the rest of the year. The residents of the island are questioned and paid for either staying for or participating in the experiment. Nya organizes a protest against the Purge and plans to stay in a church to help her community stay safe. Dmitri plans to do the same except with his own gang to protect their drug cache. Nya's little brother was attacked by a deranged drug addict known as Skeletor and plans to use the Purge to get revenge. Who will survive this experiment and how will others use their Purge Night?

The First Purge takes a different tactic than the others in the franchise. It takes more time with the setup and doesn't have the same sinister characters in the background. The first scene of the film has New Founding Fathers employees asking Skeletor questions about his rage, his need for violence, and his plans for the Purge. They interviewed many people and offer payment for their presence and participation. Many of the poor and disadvantaged people choose to at least stay for the money because they are desperate. Others want to kill, create mayhem, or just party. When the Purge starts, the NFFA is disappointed that most just want to party or steal. Their true aim is to have people killing each other and effectively getting rid of the people of color, the poor, and who they consider drains on society.

The two main characters are Nya and Dmitri who have chosen different paths in life. Nya is an outspoken activist and believes she can change things by this route. Dmitri is an extremely wealthy drug lord. They also used to date. Dmitri is eventually painted as the savior and hero of this film while Nya fails pretty much all across the board. I don't like this because he is shown to have no qualms over murder, recruits local teens as small time drug dealers, and sells drugs all over the island. He's hurting his own community and then turns around to save it when outsiders come in to kill (and prove the NFFA right). I guess the message is that he's better than the NFFA, an organization uncomfortably close to Trump and his current regime, but that doesn't mean he's good. The ending of the film turns into an action film where Dmitri, stripped of his crew in a horribly plotted way, goes floor by floor through the building where Nya lives, killing intruders.

The First Purge doesn't feel much like a horror film to me. It's more of a dark action movie with heavy political messages. The NFFA and their tactics are pretty accurate to what's happening today and it has put off a lot of people because it feels too real. I enjoyed the film, but, like all the Purge films, there are a lot of things were introduced and didn't really pay off (like the glowing contact lenses and the 3 Kings) and many performances were subpar. I found this to be the weakest of the Purge films except for the very first.

My rating: 2.5/5 fishmuffins

Nanoshock by K.C. Alexander

Riko is back and more vulgar than ever. Her cred is almost completely destroyed and she's working for a corporation. If anyone else knew, the saints would kill her for it. She still has months of missing memories and the blame for killing her girlfriend Nanji. Now, someone has a grudge against her sells her out, causing other gangs to view her as weak and ripe for killing her to collect more cred. It's all evil corporations, no help, and violence at every turn for Riko.

Nanoshock is the sequel to Necrotech and takes things even further. The very first scene has unconventional sex and blasphemy in one memorable and graphic package. Riko narrates the story and has the most inventive disgusting language I've read. Her outward emotion is to be constantly angry and wants violence to solve everything. She's frankly pretty immature and impulsive, but the story inside is different. Her separation from her core group hurts a lot. They still speak, but they aren't really friends anymore and it crushes Riko. Her situation makes her feel emotionally and physically vulnerable, which only makes her more angry. Her inner monologue betrays the depth of her emotions. Throughout the novel, Riko experiences betrayal after betrayal and keeps fighting. Her drive to keep going is something to admire even if sometimes she makes the wrong decisions and alienates almost everyone around her.

The background of this world is expanded a bit. It started with rollbacks of environmental regulations and a small ice age that had many disbelieving global warming until it was too late. The suns rays are so toxic that no one can live outside the shields even with nanos. We find out more about Riko's background. She was born into the Good Shepherds, a deranged religious group that takes Catholicisms and makes it even crazier. Transubstantiation now means that all the men in the group are Jesus (which means their sins of rape and pedophilia are forgiven) and the women are left as servants (as usual). Lucky saved her from that and she joined a crew (that almost killed her) before she joined Indigo. Her life makes a lot more sense and some of what she knew to be true turned out to be false.

There aren't as many zombie scenes as the first book, but one is particularly spectacular. Just like in the last book, corruption can set in due to overworked nanos that leads to nanoshock. This overwhelms the system and leads to possible corruption, which is when the nanos inadvertantly kill the person and power their corpse. Metacorp experiments with weaponizing corruption and rumors that it could spread to other vectors, maybe including bandwidth. Riko experiences nanoshock multiple times as she gets her ass kicked throughout the book, but gets saved from turning each time. she is forced to move on before she truly heals or gets her tech fixed, risking corruption each time. The end scene is a wonder of zombie violence with an explosive, crazy ending.

Nanoshock is just as fun to read as Necrotech. However, there are too many unanswered questions, compounded by the fact that this a sequel. No answers are given to the mysteries of the first book including why Nanji stayed sentient after turning necro, what happened during 4 months of Riko's life, why that blackout even happened, why she has a voice in head, and on and on. The novel ends with Chapter 1 and the first lines of the first book. What's with that? Is the series continuing? This book answered no questions and created a whole slew more. So much of the book went by without a whole lot happening and it felt like many wasted opportunities. If there is another book, I will read it. However, if it's just another book of no answers and more questions, I'm done with the series.

My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

Kacey is new to the small town of Broken Falls. She moved there with a family she barely knows after living with her mother and her endless stream of boyfriends, getting fed up with their explosive relationship, and running away. Now, she has two best friends in Bailey and Jade, but they want to do things like sneak out at night when she would rather enjoy being with her fairly even tempered, loving family. Then Bailey doesn't make it home after a party and no one seems to know what happened to her. Kacey dives head first into her own investigation to find out what really happened to Bailey.

Little Monsters is a teen mystery thriller centered a disappearance. Of course, rumors swirl around what happened due to the bloody discovery at a historic crime site linked to an urban legend and the sordid reputation Bailey had. Bailey was blamed for a football star Cliff drinking, driving, and losing his scholarship because she was in the car with him. Never mind that he drank and drove of his own volition and had a way more promiscuous reputation than Bailey. The whole school turned against her after that and it's completely ridiculous. It shows how if you're a football star and a guy, you can basically do no wrong in people's eyes and if you're a girl, making out with one guy means you're a degenerate slut. This difference of perception and Kacey are what set this book apart from a lot of the other teen thrillers I've been reading lately.

Kacey isn't perfect, but she tries to be. When she lived with her mom, she was prone to fits of rage, blackouts, and physical fights with her mom. Now, she has an overly goody goody facade to hide who she used to be and consistently lies to people about her past. She kept feeling that she was evil or something was wrong with her for being so violent and angry. This rang true because girls are expected to express anger in much different ways than boys and then she went to the other extreme end of the spectrum to counteract it. Even though her father is distant, she's gotten to know her stepsiblings and stepmom much better and is starting to feel like she belongs. Bailey's disappearance and her own investigation land her in trouble over and over, almost like history is repeating itself. Kacey can't just let it go when the police seem to ignore things right in front of their faces. I felt for Kacey and her need for a fresh start. I understood her feelings of self loathing and need to conform to perfection.

Little Monsters is kind of like Sharp Objects for a teen audience. The mystery is well constructed and at the end, it's shown that seemingly insignificant details were much more important. I didn't see the ending coming and it blew my mind a little when everything was revealed. The story did have some flaws. I would have liked Kacey's temper and blackouts to be established earlier. It seemed to be shoehorned in when Thomas wanted us to suspect her. I also wish she didn't lie to the police so much since it only served to muddy the investigation instead of helping in any way. Other than that, the story was enjoyable and surprisingly dark. It replicated that feeling when your gut feels like it's falling and suddenly everything you know is wrong.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Unsane (2018)

Sawyer Valentini was stalked by a man named David in her hometown. To escape, she uprooted her whole life and moved to a city where she doesn't know anyone. She excels at her job, but isolates herself and avoids her coworkers. Sawyer's release is therapy where she feels free to vent about her woes. She's honest about some past suicidal thoughts and signs a contract without reading it on her next appointment. The contract was actually her voluntarily committing to a 24 hour hold at Highland Creek Behavioral Center. Sawyer has no recourse to leave and is forced to stay as long as the people who run the center see fit. Then she sees David, but no one takes her seriously. Is David actually there or is it a hallucination due to the trauma she has experienced?

Unsane is a psychological thriller centered around a traumatized woman. We never experience what Sawyer did when she was being stalked, but we see how carefully she stays away from people and how she's still looking over her shoulder. Every so often, she'll see a similar looking man and panics, transported back to probably one of many traumatic events. When she goes to therapy, she expects a safe place to talk about all this and only finds exploitation and manipulation. This aspect of the film is a commentary on our health industry motivated by profits rather than actually helping or healing people. Sawyer tries to do what she can to move on and protect herself, but the trauma obviously affects her more than she admits to others.

While I like parts of the film, especially how the back and forth between if an attendant in the hospital is her stalker or not, Sawyer is a frustrating character that rarely acts in her own best interests. It's overwhelming to be imprisoned essentially against your will, but never sign something without reading it first. Right after that, she tries to call the police (which obviously doesn't work) and then becomes more and more violent, giving the authorities more fairly legitimate reasons to keep her even longer than the 24 hours required. This behavior continues for days afterwards and leaves her further and further from freedom. Sawyer also treated others like they were beneath her consistently through the film perhaps to keep that distance and protect herself, but the result was offputting.

This movie that was entirely filmed on an iPhone 7. For most of the film, I wouldn't even have noticed, but some of the shots later in the film didn't look grainy and out of focus. The shots inside the asylum weren't affected and the method contributed to the claustrophobic atmosphere. I think it's an innovative way to show other filmmakers that they don't need expensive equipment to make a film. On the other hand, the low budget approach led to some very bad acting on the part of the side characters. The main three actors stood out while the others paled in comparison. Stephen Soderbergh is not an indie director and the success of the film was more due to his name and the number of screens it played on.

Unsane is a bit frustrating to watch, but I still feel for Sawyer as she fights through. The ending goes places I didn't expect and shows that with this capitalistic, corrupt health system, people are expected to go on with their lives and act normally even if they are still living with trauma, PTSD, and/or anxiety. It's a well made film for the budget with a few good performances. It's worth your time, but nothing spectacular.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

The Passion of Cleopatra by Anne Rice

Ramses the Great, now known as Reginald Ramsey, has turned his beloved Julie Stratford and his best friend Elliot Savarell into immortals with his elixir. Ramses and Julie prepare to marry while Elliot goes on an extended vacation to make money and live how he's always wanted to live. In the meantime, Cleopatra still lives and plans revenge on Ramses and Julie. Bektaten, an ancient and enigmatic empress, fights against Saqnos, her equally ancient rival who seeks out the true elixir and his attention draws to Ramses to get it. Will Ramses and Julie get their happily ever after or will one of their foes succeed in destroying their happiness?

The Passion of Cleopatra is the long awaited sequel of The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, published in 1989. I loved this book and never dreamed there would be another. I read the first book years ago and didn't have time to reread it before starting this book. The narrative does a good job of filling in pertinent details of the first book and moving forward from there. The beginning is extremely slow and plodding, reminding about old characters and introducing all the new characters. It takes quite a while to establish everything before the story moves forward. It also has the problem that most vampire shows or films have. They are said to be so rare, but they also seem to be everywhere! This elixir has a specific composition that almost no one knows, but now there are two immortals in addition to the 3 Ramses has created and the dozens of corrupted immortals that follow Saqnos. There are 3 ancient grudges between them, 2 romances, and a lot of drama.

The elixir and its effects are interesting in addition to the newer magic. Immortals obviously live forever as young as they were when they took it. Their bodies beocme stronger and heal from any chronic problems or ailments they previously had. Their stamina is limitless and they never tire. After years, they don't require sleep anymore. The drawbacks are few. They always feel hunger, never being truly satisfied by any food. Drinks and drugs have little effect on them. And of course all the general drawbacks of immortality like outliving one's family and having to hide and change identities. We get to see people go from human to immortal. Julie and Elliot in particular no longer care about what society thinks of them. Julie is free to wear out of fashion clothes and be with Ramses. Elliot, on the other hand, lives the lifestyle he wants, taking men as lovers more freely and gambling his way to wealth across continents. He no longer has to pretend to be straight as Edwardian society expects.

Once I waded through the drama and got used to the many characters, subplots, and romances, I started to truly enjoy the story. I remembered why I liked the first book and grew to like a few of the new characters. Sibyl is the human caught up in this whole thing and with a connection to Cleopatra. It was a bit of relief to read about a normal human instead of a supernatural creature plus I liked her kind nature and confidence at the end.. Bektaten was the best character, set up to be sort of a villain and proves to be so much more. She thought more about the world as a whole and made decisions to preserve it instead of doing whatever selfish, arrogant thing she wants like Ramses. I expected the end to be a huge fight or battle, but because of Bektaten, it was much different and unexpected.

The Passion of Cleopatra isn't a perfect book, but I found it enjoyable after the awkward beginning. I did find it odd that Cleopatra was more of a peripheral character than anything despite the title. There are tropes galore and melodrama along with some surprising elements I didn't expect to find. It's a good follow up to the first story and it makes me want to reread the first book to compare the stories so many years apart. I recommend this if you liked the first one.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

During a police raid, a huge cache of videotapes is discovered, documenting a prolific serial killer and his methods. This includes everything from abductions, to torture over long periods of time, to post-mortem mutilations, and the murder itself. Some of the tapes are missing, showing that the killer meant for them to have the tapes and that he chose to keep some for himself. How many people has he killed? Will he ever be caught?

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a film that I have heard of over and over again over the years, but it never seemed to be available to buy legally. It was never released theatrically, briefly released on DirecTV on demand in 2014, and finally released on DVD and Bluray in 2017. It's been pirated, posted on Youtube, and made into GIFs (only the most disturbing scenes of course). It has been talked about for years and widely known as an infamous horror film even though few have gotten the chance to see it. The film lives up to all of this hype and more.

The story is told in a documentary style, similar to Unsolved Mysteries or America's Most Wanted or Forensic files with interviews from investigators, family members of victims, witnesses, and one survivor. Instead of cheesy re-enactments, the harrowing video footage is shown. The interviews and narration take up the majority of the film, telling their stories about the investigation, finding the bodies, and the fate of various victims. Many of the police officers and detectives spoke about the harrowing effect of watching the killer's videos, compounded by the fact that there is very little evidence to help find him. There is a subdued attitude to these interview subjects because of the horrific nature of these murders and the struggle to catch the killer. The killer manipulates them deftly and keeps them distracted. They also get caught up in an orchestrated red herring that devastates many. This part is just as interesting as the tapes themselves because we see the effects of these murders on the public and provide context.

The killer is never shown in the films unless he is in some sort of disguise, giving him a theatrical and creepy air. His favorite seems to be commedia dell'arte bird mask. He carries a camcorder with him to kidnap women, torture his victims, mutilate their dead bodies, and disposing of the bodies. These tapes can be incredibly creepy. He is shown kidnapping a little girl right in front of her house, chloroforming a couple when he asks them for a ride, hiding in a woman's house for hours before abducting her, various scenes of torture (mostly physical but mental and emotional as well). He started out as a disorganized killer, led by impulse, and then became measured and well planned as he went on. Then he purposefully targeted sex workers to keep the police from connecting his previous crimes. The most chilling scene was how he kidnapped a college student named Cheryl Dempsey and kept her for years, brainwashing her with abuse and torture until her mind essentially breaks. These tapes aren't extreme compared to many modern horror films, but they remain chilling, nightmarish, and memorable.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a hidden gem that not enough people have seen. It's an early found footage film melded with documentary-like interviews to piece together this prolific killer's journey and the effort to catch him. It seems like an homage to 90's crime TV that I grew up with. The only flaws of this film is one plot point being a little too unbelievable and the awful quality of the tape footage. It looks grainy and the tracking is off, which is expected. It's the wavy effect that is the most annoying and distorts too much of the picture. Other than that, I'm so happy that Scream Factory came out with the Bluray. I will be watching this film probably once a year or so from now on. 

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

A Map for Wrecked Girls by Jessica Taylor

Henri and Emma are sisters and have always been close, dreaming of a future by themselves in a beachside house with cats. Henri's behavior becomes more and more erratic with excessive drinking at parties. Emma is pretty straight edge, but becomes enraged when Henri seduces Emma's crush and strings him along, clearly planning to drop him soon. Emma acts rashly and simultaneously obliterates her relationship with Henri. Then, they get stranded on a deserted island with a boy named Alex. How long will they stay there? How will they survive? Will Henri let her anger win out over survival?

A Map for Wrecked Girls is a bit of a frustrating read overall. It sounds out fine with establishing Henri and Emma's relationship. Henri has always been the leader while Emma has always followed faithfully. Now that Henri seems to be spiralling out of control with risky behavior, Emma starts to be more assertive. She does something that is portrayed as unforgiveably horrible which really isn't. It's motivated by jealousy and anger, but it wasn't the wrong thing to do. The novel is told starting with the island and then going back in time to show what happened with all of this. It served to hold the audience in suspense as to what happened, but other aspects of the novel made this not work for me.

Henri and Emma are stranded on a desert island with a boy named Alex. From page 1, Henri holds on to her grudge like it's a flotation device. Even the death of Alex's cousin and the explosion of their boat didn't distract her from making Emma (and by extension Alex) as miserable as possible. I hated Henri for most of the novel because she kept valuable information that would lead to an easier life on the island and even sabotaged attempts to leave. It's incredibly and unforgiveably petty to keep up this act when their lives are in danger. Henri's personality and actions grew stale fast and she doesn't change all that much. Emma changes a little, but still lets Henri have so much power over her. The whole situation was frustrating to read and I wanted Henri to suffer from the consequences of her idiotic behavior.

I didn't enjoy A Map for Wrecked Girls. The toxic sister relationship had Henri being mean and dangerous all the time while Emma continually gave excuse after excuse to dismiss the behavior.  The only thing that kept me reading was Emma's huge faux pas and it didn't deserve the weight it was given. It took me over a week to read this even though it should have taken me a couple of days because I hated Henri that much. This was supposed to be an uplifting story of sisterly love, but it falls very short of that. I understand having a rough relationship with a sister, but there comes a time when you need to say enough of their bad behavior and abuse. Not recommended.

My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins