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Horror

Friday Reads: Halloween Reads

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If you’re looking forward to candy or creepiness we’ve got stories for you. We’ve got Halloween books for all ages, from Clifford to Stephan King we’ve got you covered.

Clifford’s Halloween / story and pictures by Norman Bridwell.

Clifford was a very scary ghost last Halloween and Emily wonders what he should be this year.

Trick or treat in Illinois : a Halloween adventure through the Land of Lincoln / written by Eric James ; illustrated by Karl West.

The full moon’s out on Halloween. The sky is starry bright. Above the state of Illinois appears an eerie light. An unexpected visitor arrives in town! But who is he? What is he? And where did he come from? Read on, if you dare!

Ghost squad / Claribel A. Ortega.

Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd’s witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely’s firefly spirits before it’s too late.

Hocus pocus & the all-new sequel / written by A. W. Jantha ; illustrations by Matt Griffin.

Shortly after moving from California to Salem, Massachusetts, Max Dennison finds himself in hot water when he accidentally releases a coven of witches, the Sanderson sisters, from the afterlife. Max, his sister, and his new friends must find a way to stop the witches from carrying out their evil plan and remaining on earth to torment Salem for all eternity. Twenty-five years later, Max and Allison’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Poppy, finds herself face-to-face with the Sanderson sisters in all their sinister glory. When Halloween celebrations don’t quite go as planned, it’s a race against time as Poppy and her friends fight to save her family and all of Salem from the witches’ latest death-defying scheme.

A season with the witch : the magic and mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts / J.W. Ocker.

For the fall of 2015, Ocker moved his family to Salem, Massachusetts. There he visited all of Salem’s witch-related historical sites and attractions and interviewed its leaders, citizens, entrepreneaurs and visitors, its street performers and Wiccans, and its psychics and critics. From these exchanges, he creates a picture of this unique place and the peole who revel in, or mearly weather, its witchiness.

If it bleeds : new fiction / Stephen King.

A collection of horror stories using the weird and uncanny to riff on mortality, the price of creativity, and the unpredictable consequences of material attachments.

Friday Reads: Horror Books

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It’s Spooky Season! Get into the mood with these tales of of the creepy and macabre. 

Lovesickness / story and art by Junji Ito

Ryusuke returns to the town he once lived in because rumors are swirling about girls killing themselves after encountering a bewitchingly handsome young man. Harboring his own secret from time spent in this town, Ryusuke attempts to capture the beautiful boy and close the case, but … Starting with the strikingly bloody “Lovesickness,” this volume collects ten stories showcasing horror master Junji Ito in peak form, including “The Strange Hikizuri Siblings” and “The Rib Woman.”

Sorrowland / Rivers Solomon.

Vern escapes the religious compound where she was raised and gives birth to twins in the forest, raising them away from the influence of the outside world. Her community won’t let her go that easily, however, and as they pursue, she breaks the boundaries of humanity, changing her body in uncanny ways in order to protect her family.

The final girl support group / Grady Hendrix.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized — someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again. But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and they will never, ever give up.

My heart is a chainsaw / Stephen Graham Jones.

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Eat your heart out / Kelly deVos.

Vivian Ellenshaw is none too happy to find herself forced into a weight-loss camp’s van with her ex-best friend, Allie, a meathead jock who can barely drive, and the camp owner’s snobby son. When they arrive at Camp Featherlite at the start of the worst blizzard in the history of Flagstaff, Arizona, it’s clear that something isn’t right. A camper goes missing down by the lake, and something not human is spotted out in the snow. When Camp Featherlite’s bungalows are overrun with zombies, what starts out as a mission to unravel the camp’s secrets turns into a desperate fight for survival and not all of the Featherlite campers will make it out alive.

Movie Review: Beetlejuice (1988) – 3 Stars

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dvd cover: Beetlejuice“Beetle Juice…” “Beetle Juice”….(don’t say his name three times!)

This movie follows the lives/deaths/lives of a young couple, Adam and Barbara Maitland, who have died in an accident. Their beloved home has been sold to a couple, and their young daughter, who are escaping New York City life for the idyllic country life.

Conflict begins when the New York wife and her assistant wishes to make drastic changes to the ghosts’ beloved home. They try and scare the family away with no success…in fact the eccentric adults in the movie wish to profit on the fact the house is “haunted.

Meanwhile, the dead family begin to have a friendship with the live couple’s daughter who is often ignored by her parents. Winona Ryder plays the daughter who can see the dead couple and tries to help resolve conflict between the live and dead couples in order to stay in her new home and keep her new found friends.

(Michael Keaton) Beetle Juice is an OBNOXIOUS poltergeist who claims he is trying to help the dead couple rid the home of the living, has an agenda. After repeated warnings as to NOT have him help, the dead couple reluctantly consider his help. Although they immediately wish they hadn’t! Throughout the movie, the dead couple are trying to put the “cat back in the bag.”

Critique:

The movie is a cute Halloween classic! Michael Keaton is EXCELLENT in his portrayal of the main antagonist! His antics are hilarious and I can’t imagine anyone else playing him. The movie is not particularly scary, maybe for younger kids. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are good at playing the frustrated dead couple. Winona Ryder plays the perfect “goth” pre-teen who befriends the Maitlands.

Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Michael Keaton, Wynona Ryder

Review by Julie C.

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Book Review: The Faceless Ones by Derek Landy

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book cover; Faceless Ones by Derek LandyI’m going with a theme this week, it seems. Hahaha

I read this nearly two years after reading the previous entry in the Skulduggery Pleasant series. Unlike in many series, this book did little to refresh my memory of characters and situations; it fully expected me to remember from one book to the next with little prompting. This is not necessarily a fault with the book (obviously, I was at fault for waiting so long to read the third installment) but merely a case of Landy having high expectations of his readers.

As with the previous books, the snappy remarks are quite prevalent. Skulduggery remains very smooth and cool, though other characters have been suggesting to Valkyrie that he may not be as heroic and admirable as she believes. Other secrets and past misdeeds are hinted at, but not revealed, making one eager to read the next installment to learn just how so-and-so may have betrayed such-and-such in years gone by.

There is a scene near the end of this book which reminded me a scene from another young adult fantasy series. There was a difference here though: I was not as moved by the events here as I was in the other book. I realized this is because this is very much an action-and-dialogue-driven book, rather than character-driven. We see very little of the characters’ lives outside of the investigation and the crisis at hand. This is focused on in the fact that Valkyrie does not experience her “normal” life at all. She has a mirror image (literally) who goes to school for her and at the end of the day Valkyrie downloads the mirror’s memories. Thus, Valkyrie had her first kiss but only remembers that it happened; she does not remember the feel or the flush of heat to her face or anything else associated with first kisses. She missed out on that, which is a great loss indeed.

Although I enjoyed the book, I do not believe it was the best or strongest in the series. Thankfully, there are more books left in the series that I can sink my teeth into.

Review by Jessica A.

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Book Review: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

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book cover: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey CranorThe third Welcome to Night Vale novel focuses on a fan favorite character: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Yes, YOUR home. Everyone’s home. Don’t worry about this; she’s only likely to put spiders in your shoes once or twice a year. If you’ve ever wondered how an old woman can have no face and also live in everyone’s home simultaneously, then this book will answer those questions for you. It will also give you the biography of the Faceless Old Woman, from the time she was a Young Girl with a Face living in contentment with her father, to when she was a Young Woman with a Face who took to a life of crime and piracy and revenge.

Even more so than the previous Night Vale novels, this one works very well as a standalone. Are you interested in piracy as well as weird creepy stuff? This is a great book for you. Part horror, part adventure, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home feels like a modern Edgar Allen Poe story.

Review by Jessica A.

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Book Review: Demon, Volume 1 by Jason Shiga

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book cover: Demon v 1 by Jason ShigaThe graphic novel starts with a series of suicides. Jason Yee ends his life in a hotel room only to wake up and try again. It takes him several tries before he realizes that he is not waking up in the same body, but in another body in another identical hotel room. Whenever Jason Yee dies, he moves into the body of whomever is nearest him. Clearly, he is a demon. When a shadowy government organization finds out about Yee’s ability, they try to capture Yee in order to use his ability for their own purposes.

This graphic novel is bloody and morbid. I wouldn’t call it gory though, because the artwork is very stylized and simplified that the only colors in use are black, white, and red. This book is so weird and I intend to continue with the next three volumes to complete the story and find out what happens to Yee.

Review by Jessica A.

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