MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Ways to celebrate the season when it's nigh-90 degrees

Halloween is all about dead leaves and crisp air, the smell of apples baking in the oven. Fall has an unrelinquishable hold over the holiday, and it's difficult to get into the spirit without those tendrils of chill creeping down your neck. Unfortunately, May is just about as opposite as you can get from October - the trees are blossoming with new leaves, the flowers are opening up, the weather is getting blistering, and people are running around in short shorts instead of flannels. About the only thing that's the same is that allergies are rearing their ugly heads.

There aren't any jack-o-lanterns to carve, either, but there are alternatives. There are alway alternatives. Here are a few ways you can enjoy Halloween, even in the balmy May weather.

String a bunch of your Halloween lights up!

I almost always have lights up all year round, but if you really want to get in the spirit, pull out the orange and purple ones you have left over from last year's supply and put them up around the house. Pull the shades and let the spooky glow turn your house into a creepy haunted mansion.

Paint your cat, your dog, your kid, or your house black and orange.

This is my favorite blend of colors - I love seeing black and orange together. I have a black cat, and an orange cat, but I really want a black-and-orange calico cat. With my one cat's orange fur with white spots, it makes it easy for me to turn him into the perfect Halloween kitty - just take some black spray paint and you can turn a plain old cat into a Mayoween puss!

Schedule trick-or-treat in the newspaper for your house only.

Notice that May also has 31 days? Put an ad in the paper, not for a garage sale or an open house, but for one night only of trick-or-treating at the only house in town participating. You're bound to get a lot of kids, and probably a few aggrieved parents. Make sure you've got plenty of candy to feed the masses, or you might find a riot on your hands, Walking Dead style.

Deck your car out with Halloween gear.

I've always wanted to do this with my own car, but I've never had any extra money to spend on it. But since it's not technically Halloween, there should be enough funds lying around to look for window clings and Halloween lights that plug into the charging station in your car. Throw up some cobweb around the windows (obviously being careful to avoid creating blind spots, we wouldn't want any Mayoween accidents), and you have yourself your very own hearse.

Build a haunted house... at work.

If you work in at an office job, chances are you're a little bored sitting around typing at your computer. Take me for example; I'm doing all of this from the comfort of my own desk. It's time you rearranged the office a little bit for Mayoween. Make your cubicle into your very own haunted desk, and then invite your coworkers in for some witch's brew punch and some grape eyeballs. They might think you're a little weird, but make sure you get dirt on them - Gregory picks his nose at lunch, and Stacy steals sodas from the break room fridge.

If all else fails, keep tuning in to The Moon is a Dead World!

I'll be here all month long, giving you more Mayoween stuff to gnash your teeth at.

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! The Stench of Defeat: Zombies of Black Ops II

You're standing on the second floor of a burnt-out building in town, looking into the abyss through a crack in the wall. From here, standing above the smoke and the fog rolling in, it seems as though civilization has crumbled into oblivion. The town is on fire, there are cracks of lava roiling down the city block, and hungry, decaying things are climbing over farmhouse fences to get after you. But for the moment, it's enough to just catch your breath and admire how beautiful destruction can sometimes be.

This is the scenery of Black Ops II's Zombies missions, an expanse of wasteland laid out in small level designs as the gamer fights to stay alive. The Call of Duty series is no stranger to the walking dead; they've been pumping out the adrenaline rush of fighting off undead hordes since World At War, and though the original idea of survival is still preserved, Black Ops II has aimed to advance the minigame even more.

Black Ops II comes loaded with three levels of zombie fun, all situated in the town of Green Run. Players can choose between fighting off hordes in the town, the farm, or at the bus depot, each with their own brand of devilish challenges. All levels have two modes - you can just try to survive for as long as possible, or you can play a game. The town and the farm feature a mode called Grief, where two teams try to survive for as long as possible. If one team dies, the other team wins.

The other mode for the bus depot is Tranzit, quite possibly one of the best of the bunch. This game is similar to survival, except there is a sort of endgame; players hop on a bus, heading throughout the locations until they get to a laboratory safe house, where they continue to get bombarded with hordes. But there's a couple of other options to this game, too; along with the regular items like speed colas, special weapons, and perks dropped by zombies, there are special things to find in the fog as the bus travels through locations. New weapons, perks, and even monsters await inside; you're risking your life, but the rewards might be worth it.

The other modes are more of the same from Zombies; players fight to survive against wave after wave of zombies with no end. There will never be an end, just the pleasure of knowing you made it as far as possible against the dead. Still, Tranzit is so much more fun because it feels like there is a common goal to be accomplished, and your teammates help you get there by building devices or getting perks.

Survival becomes somewhat stale after a while, and if you get paired with partners who aren't too interested in helping you stay alive, the game deteriorates into a all-for-one approach. And sometimes partners can drop out of your game, leaving you to fend for yourself as a horde approaches. That gets pretty annoying, especially if you're doing well and getting through rounds fast.

The game has added a lot of nice atmosphere, however, with fog and buses and lava. There are many different doors to open around town, and that means there are many places to hold down against the zombies. It also means you can get trapped, either stuck on multiple fast-moving walkers or bogged down by your own teammates. Surviving requires good teammates who work together; if you split up, you'll probably die, and if you don't coordinate, you'll get swamped.

The levels have some annoying features, though. The lava and fire damage players incur get frustrating, especially when running from zombies that explode when they die. It's near impossible to avoid some of the tendrils of flame, and many times players will find themselves downed more from environmental factors than zombies. The fog has creatures that latch onto the face, and the only way to kill them is to knife them off of you five times. It's nice to have different creatures to fight, but they also hamper exploration a bit too much, where it feels like a hassle to go out into the fog to find the easter eggs.

Zombies creates a lot of tension, and it often has a different dynamic compared to Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising. It's best played in small bursts, but it holds a lot of fun for those who can conquer the zombies with headshots or power-ups. The new modes are also a welcome addition; they don't add too much of a different play style, but they at least give an advanced objective.

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Movie Review - The Devil's Carnival

Musicals and horror films have been mixing since The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but not often. Director Darren Lynn Bousman has now tackled two with Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Devil's Carnival, both written by Terrence Zdunich. The former became an unlikely cult success with Bousman's fans; the latter hit high notes as well, and it appears a Devil's Carnival 2 is in the works.

The idea of the film sounds pretty awesome, even with its musical stylings. Three people are brought to the devil's carnival during some intense situations happening in their lives; they meet up at the carnival, experience some of the tricks and fables of the bigtop, and then must choose between a life of Hell or a life of Heaven, although none of them really know all of this is going on. The carnival itself is an elaborate stage full of goth performers and strange bedecked troupes, and the film doesn't try to hide that it's the devil himself who has commissioned this event.

Bousman's direction is very reminiscent of his Saw days; since the film is only an hour long, we get to meet the three people in the thick of their life-changing event, and then they're thrown into the devil's carnival to slowly reveal what they did in their past life to cause them this ordeal. John (Sean Patrick Flanery) is in the middle of cutting his wrists when he's transported - he's recently lost his son and has sunk into his own grief. Ms. Merrywood (Briana Evigan) is a thief, and at the time of her capture she's being surrounded by the police and ready to get into a violent shootout. And Tamara (Jessica Lowndes) is a girlfriend who's too trusting with her violent boyfriends, and she's about to be shot in her car during an aggressive fight.

It's quickly apparent when we get to the carnival that the film's a psychedelic musical. Wick (Alexa Vega) hits the music with an intro of sorts, proclaiming we're at the devil's carnival - over and over, mind you. The sinners wander throughout the place, but there's a game afoot thanks to the devil, and each character has their own tormentor. Merrywood gets the Twin, a man who can reflect anyone's face to show them who they really are. Tamara gets a greaser who throws knives, which helps to play up the pun about men and "pricks" in the next musical number. And John gets the devil himself after he pushes into his lair, hoping to find his son hidden away in there.

There's a lot of interesting things going on in The Devil's Carnival, but a lot of it is fairly apparent from the beginning. The surprise twists aren't that surprising, since these stories are more like fables with obvious endings. The devil gives the characters their choices, and the morals of each story are inherent from the beginning. But the tricks thrown at them are the interesting parts of the story - each carnival freak has their own weird way, and from the looks of the troupe, there are more tricks up their sleeve.

The musical numbers, however, quickly become tiresome. The writing is fairly weak in a lot of the songs, and the best one was actually cut from the theatrical part of the film - it appears in the credits as an add-on, but it's the most well-written of the lot. Zdunich has a tendency to repeat himself in song; most of the have one phrase that's sung over and over and over again until the score has worn its welcome. Some of the songs occurring after a trick simply repeat the story of that trick in fable form, like a moral - they become unnecessary narrative pieces that feel incorporated simply to get a song in.

This makes for a wildly erratic experience. It's easy to get sucked into the idea of the carnival, and the set pieces are fantastically elaborate. But the story itself is predictable, and the singing seems misplaced in parts. If one enjoys musicals, there are better written ones out there; but when it comes to horror musicals, The Devil's Carnival at least captures a strange and off-kilter tone with its band of memorable carnies. It just depends on whether musicals carry a tune for you, and this one's hellish.

The Devil's Carnival on Rotten Tomatoes

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Movie Review - Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood

Bordello of Blood might be my teenage dream, because I remember watching this movie quite a few times when it was on cable TV. Though when it aired on television, it was super-edited and none of the boobs from the bordello were on display, so there was always a tease of maybe seeing something even though you knew you wouldn't. The movie itself hasn't held up as well to scrutiny after watching it later in life; I thought I remember it being more substantial and better-paced, but that's just the error of nostalgia getting in the way of things again.

Dennis Miller stars as Rafe, a down-and-out private dick looking for work in a police station, no less. He stumbles upon a young woman named Katherine (Erika Eleniak) who is trying to find her missing brother after he went out for a night of drinking and never came back. He decides to help this woman, probably more because of the shape of her legs than any vested interest he has in it, so he heads to the last place the kids were seen - a funeral home that apparently doubles as a bordello. Inside, he finds a couple of stiffs and lots of bodacious babes, and he even notices that most of these dudes are probably going to be killed off in some way and then sent to the cemetery to be buried with a dead person who has a service at the funeral home. No wonder those caskets are so heavy.

It turns out that a woman named Lilith (Angie Everhart), who Bordello of Blood tries to make into the same Lilith of the Bible, has come back from the dead thanks to the same key from Demon Knight. With her heart stitched back together, she lives again to eat other people's hearts and to turn them into vampires that prep horny little boys before she eats them.

If you're a fan of Miller, you'll love all of the sarcastic jibes that he throws out in Bordello of Blood. He's got some witty one-liners, and he's the main reason why the film is so much fun. But that's also due to a couple of the secondary characters as well, namely Jenkins (Kim Kondrashoff), who advises everyone who hangs out at the bar that he knows where they can get the best "gayaw damn pussy." Chris Sarandon and Corey Feldman, expert vampire celebrities, also show up in some memorable scenes - Sarandon plays the over-anxious reverend Current, preaching the gospel and enunciating the vowel sounds of all of his words, and Feldman is simply himself in a Lost Boys phase.

But Everheart is quite terrible as Lilith - she couldn't act her way out of a casket, and it's often painful to hear her go at one-liners like there's a frog in her throat, attempting to nail a sultry monotone and totally failing. She's just not very good at the part, and it's sort of strange that the filmmakers wanted to cast her in a starring role rather than one of the other girls.

The plot is also pretty bare bones. One minute the characters are trying to piece together how a funeral home and murders mix, then they're suddenly in on the vampire charade and head to the rescue sporting water guns filled with holy water. How did they know this would work, and what made them think it was a good idea? The whole plot tends to linger in its first hour, unsure of whether to focus on the religious overtones or if the film should just get on with the story, and it leaves Bordello of Blood in a somewhat tedious stalemate of trying to do both at the same time.

Still, there's a lot to appreciate here, like the subtle jabs of humor that Miller throws out and the ridiculous amount of explosions and gore on display in the last few minutes of the film. That, and, you know, lots and lots of boobs thanks to nearly every female extra going topless. This is a B-movie, after all, and Tales from the Crypt never misses an opportunity to show some mammaries.

Bordello of Blood hasn't held up as well over time, and it's a film that's often full of bad acting and a terribly cliched plot. Despite the hang-ups, though, a solid performance from Dennis Miller means anyone looking for some snarky humor will fall in love with his character. That right there is the reason I continue to come back to the film again and again. Angie Everhart, though, sends shivers down my spine because of her terrible acting. It's at least a one-time watch, but it doesn't have enough heart to suck in many fans.

Tales from the Crypt: Bordell of Blood on Rotten Tomatoes

Television Review - The Following: "The Siege"/"The Fall"/"Let Me Go"

The race is on to find Joey, the son of serial killer Joe Carroll and his ex-wife Claire. He's been stolen by a motley threesome of strange characters who follow Carroll's every whim, but they're having some troubles of their own - Jacob and Paul had a gay relationship going on, but Jacob loves Emma, and Emma loves to boss both of them around, and Jacob has never killed anyway - so it's obvious that things aren't going exactly as Carroll had planned.

Or aren't they? In "The Siege", things go awry for the group when Ryan stumbles upon the farmhouse where they're keeping Joey, and in "The Fall" Ryan is taken hostage by the three. That's got to be worth something, even if Ryan does escape; he lets Emma and Joey slip away after an elaborate ruse concocted and carried out by Carroll from prison brings help to Emma's rescue.

And Carroll has been using his lawyer Olivia Warren (Renee Goldsberry) to leak information to his followers. He's got everything in place, and the contingency plan is actually pretty awesome in its scope. There are literally hundreds of followers out there waiting to help Carroll out in any way possible, and they're primed at the drop of a couple of phrases from a Poe poem. One of them is Charlie (Tom Lipinski), who is meant to kidnap Claire and bring her to Joey as part of a rendezvous; later on it becomes clear that the entire family was supposed to be reunited.

Throughout these three episodes of The Following, I found myself surprised at how brutal the whole thing really is. Not elegantly so, mind you, but rough around the edges in a way that makes it even more sinister. Olivia reveals through the slight act of writing a note that she has lost a couple of her fingers to one of Carroll's games, and even though she probably doesn't want to work for Carroll as his lawyer, she must or risk her life or a couple more appendages at the very least.

The same goes for the torture sequences of The Following, when Paul keeps a girl locked up in the farmhouse basement. They're toying with her, making her wonder when she will die, and that's probably not an intentional fear that the show is creating but it's there all the same. Nothing is very tactful in The Following, though - everything is super visceral, right out for the viewer to see, that sometimes it's hard to imagine that Ryan and company are really falling for these tricks.

But it makes sense, because the characters make a lot of dumb mistakes. Claire, even though she knows it's ridiculous and stupid and even quite hopeless, decides to meet with Carroll's follower, only to be abducted and held as sort of collateral for Joey. And Ryan, always the hero, decides to go into the farmhouse on his own, where he is beaten up, held hostage, and nearly causes the death of an innocent girl.

Oh yeah, and Joey is pretty much a non-existant human being. So what if the kid's only 8 years old? I don't think that he would overhear a conversation about killing people, then decide that they're pretty okay people. The Following makes Joey into an inept character, which makes it really hard to feel for his capture, and this is especially true if the show wants us to be appalled that they're turning him into a serial killer.

At the end of "Let Me Go," we see a whole network of followers pouring out of a hideaway as Joe Carroll makes his triumphant return home after a break from prison. The show has often tried to explain this - apparently there's an Internet website or something - but there's no possible way that Carroll has had this effect on everyone simply by his legacy. The show has given us a few examples of why certain people are so attached to Carroll - he helped them kill their mother, he helped them through their depression, he understands them - but all of these other people seem like shrouds of characters. Who are they, and how could this network possibly work?

These episodes do focus on some of the minor characters, however. We get a flashback into Parker's (Annie Parisse) home life before she became a detective, and there's a surprise attack on Mike (Shawn Ashmore) that's abrupt and strangely affecting. But The Following is already resorting to using the same tricks. Another cop is a plant. It worked the first time, but not this time.

The Following is sort of a free-for-all; it's not really well-written or full of pathos, but it's pretty fun in a nonsensical way that circumvents all of that boring stuff about drama and tension and gets right to the action. That means that it's quite lacking in some departments, but as long as it continues its gruesome tone, along with the ridiculous plot lines that stide the line between ridiculously stupid and humorously fascinating, it's a show that's a guilty pleasure.

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Movie Review - Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight

Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight is a film you might have caught on SyFy back in the day (well, then it was probably Sci-Fi) - they used to show it all the time, along with Bordello of Blood. Demon Knight has all of the signs of being simply an extended cut of a Crypt episode, even opening and ending with the theme song music and journey through the Cryptkeeper's house. And even though Crypt was nearly at its end in 1995 when this film released, it still manages to capture the essence of the tale.

William Sadler stars as Brayker, a man on the lam who is being chased down by the mysterious man known only as The Collector (Billy Zane). Sadler also starred in the first episode of Tales from the Crypt, "The Man Who Was Death", and his appearance here is a welcome one because his acting is so quirky and characterized by odd facial expressions. So too is Zane; he actually gets to be the more humorous character in Demon Knight, even though he is the ultimate bad guy. Brayker stumbles upon a small town and a run-down hotel in the middle of nowhere after being rundown by the Collector; he crashes at the place with a few other misfits until the cops come hunting him down because of a car accident he was involved in.

The Collector's hot on the heels, and he really wants his precious key back. It's an antique, he says, though it's carved and gilted and holds some of the blood of Christ. Soon, the Collector reveals himself for what he really is - a demon who wants the key because it'll cause some sort of terrible consequence for humanity, ushering in an earthly hell. Brayker is the man who must stop him from getting his hands on the key, but he's also got a lot of hostages to deal with along with some nasty demon baddies with glowing green eyes.

Director Ernest R. Dickerson gets what makes a Tales From the Crypt episode so entertaining: B-movie acting, boobs, goopy blood, and lots of ridiculous humor. He throws it at us in spades in Demon Knight, and the whole first sequence of the film is just an elaborate ruse to give us some double-D boobs before prompting the Cryptkeeper to show up. A lot of the film is in excess, but that's what the show revels in. The whole atmosphere is farcically moody, a traditional dark and stormy night setting that never lets up.

Demon Knight also features some of the craziest ways to defeat demons ever, too. You must shoot them in their green eyes. Miss, and you're probably going to get your heart eaten out by the demon's snakelike tongue, although that only seems to happen some of the time. Or you might get your head punched in. There aren't many rules to the film, and that means the viewer is going to have a lot of fun with the storyline even if it doesn't always jive. 

The whole thing is just a mess of gross, pulpy violence and humor. Zane has a ball here, pouring on a southern drawl, then shaking it off again as a casual businessman looking to make a good deal with anyone who wants to hand over the key. Short vignettes highlight each character's paradise; Zane gets to ham it up, and Dickerson gets to include several well-endowed naked ladies. Everyone wins.

Demon Knight is a film that is really hard to gripe about. Sure, it's often stretching its bounds as a full-length feature, and it doesn't do a very good job establishing realism within its plot. It doesn't even do a good job explaining what the demons are or why one person has to stop them. But Tales from the Crypt's best episodes haven't needed to establish a solid realistic plot. Instead, they throw up some gory fun for the horror fan, and that's just what you'll find in Demon Knight. Except this time, the tale's a bit longer and armed with a little more money.

Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight on Rotten Tomatoes

You finally get to show off your muscles, ladies and gents: enter the "Are You As Tough As Seagal" contest for DEADLY CROSSING

The new Steven Seagal movie Deadly Crossing just released last Tuesday. It's about a dude who beats people up, and said dude is Steven Seagal, who leads a bunch of undercover cops in a fight against an undercover drug operation. It sounds like a familiar premise, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth checking out on Redbox - and you can head over to your local machine to pick up the film today for a meager $1.30.

But before you go watch the film (or maybe after if your adrenaline is pumping), make sure you snap a picture of yourself looking tougher than Seagal. Maybe you want to wear that T-shirt that makes your muscles look like camel lumps. Maybe you've got a toy gun (that you won't use to shoot down innocent people in a public place, mind you) that you could pose with.

Whatever you do, send it over to the Deadly Crossing Facebook page and share it around to get votes. First place gets an Aikido Gi (if you know what that is, then you deserve to win!), second gets a wooden bokken, and third gets a set of MMA gloves. Kick-ass!

Entries end June 10.

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Melissa of Melissa's Imaginarium throws up a werewolf double feature!

I love giving people free rein to cover what they want. Melissa over at Melissa's Imaginarium didn't just cover one horror film - she took it upon herself to focus on two short reviews! The Howling and The Wolfman (the remake, not the original) are two very different films; here, she delves into both side by side.

The Howling (1981)

Directed by Joe Dante and based on the novel by Gary Brandner, The Howling tells the story of reporter Karen White, who is stalked by serial killer Eddie Quist. When she attempts to lure him into a trap, Eddie is shot by police and Karen is subsequently traumatized. As part of her recovery, Karen's therapist sends her to The Colony, a remote resort where he sends his more troubling patients to recover. She soon discovers that the residents are in fact a pack of werewolves, of which Eddie had been a member.

Full of bizarre characters, insider werewolf jokes and really cool transformation fx, this is a movie that remains my favorite werewolf movie of them all. Robert Picardo delivers a menacing performance as Eddie Quist while Dee Wallace shines as the tragic Karen. I adored the supporting cast which includes several staple monster movie character actors like Patrick Macnee, Slim Pickens, John Carradine and Christopher Stone as well as Dante muse, Belinda Balaski. Thirty years on and it is still quite entertaining.

The Wolfman (2010)

Actor Lawrence Talbot returns to his family estate to solve the disappearance of his brother and discovers a terrifying beast is killing the locals, When he is attacked and nearly killed, he finds that he has become the monster.

I get a lot of grief for this one and I don't care. This is bar none, one of the best werewolf movies I've seen. Being a huge fan of Curt Siodmak's original 1944 script, I feel this film is the perfect creepy, brooding successor to that film, going places where they could not back then. Benecio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving are outstanding. Art Malik is of particular note, though, as Sir John's manservant, who is caught up in the horror, trying desperately to keep the evil at bay, all the while knowing it is slipping its leash. The cinematography is wonderfully stylish and menacing, with lots of excellent shadow and darkness scenes. The fx, while a bit off in places, are cool. I especially love the transformation in the mental hospital.

The unrated version of this film is the best way to see it. it includes many scenes that were cut from the film, like a hellish scene in Hyde Park where the werewolf attacks at a  conservatory.

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Book Review - Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

Despite the title, Revenge isn't a collection of stories about an explicit act against someone else. Yoko Ogawa doesn't write like that, and it would be a surprise if her stories were so aggressively to-the-point. Ogawa's prose is elegant and mysterious, often heavy on the metaphors and veiled subtext. Revenge's characters are as fragile as the symbolism that Ogawa uses in her stories; the eleven dark tales told in this collection of short stories are not stand-alone shorts but interconnected memoirs of people who have broken from their realities. The stories have dream-like qualities to them, often surreal in scope, and they all weave together like a bloodstained tapestry.

The connection between the tales is often as simple as a passing mention of a character from the previous story, or it could incorporate elements important to both. Unlike many short story compilations, readers of Revenge should not pick and choose what to read first. It's important to open Revenge as though it is a full-length novel, because the stories work best the way they are sequenced by Ogawa. Otherwise, readers might be a little discouraged by the way each ends, nearly incomplete.

Ogawa's prose is solid and brisk, almost always written in first-person perspective. The characters' voices are similar but never the same - it creates a bridge between each person without making them feel like the same person throughout each story. Revenge is a quick and easy read on the surface, but the difficulty of the stories lies in their subtext; what is written on the page is not always the explicit meaning of Ogawa's sentences, and there's a mystery lying within every word she writes.

These stories are often character-driven, and they hinge on the choices of those characters. Ogawa only gives a short time to develop them, but the suspense is drawn from not really knowing them at all. The only thing we know are their impulsive actions, like deciding to murder a doctor or cutting out the heart of a woman who decided not to have a bag made for it. Ogawa drapes the tales in reality, but they're often always nearly venturing into fantasy as well. In this regard, there's never really a sense of what is true and what is fictional.

As I said before, the stories on their own aren't nearly as effective as when they're paired together, and Revenge is probably best read all at once. It's not asking for a lot of time - the book is less than 200 pages, and they fly by. The only problem might be getting yourself to sit down for the task - the book is often grim and disturbing, depressing in its frailty. The allusions to fruit throughout only enhance that sense of fragility; there's a feeling that at any time, the whole thing could unravel in an unkempt pile of string, leaving all of the characters grasping at air.

But the book's not for everyone; some might find it hard to connect with the piecemeal stories, and it's somewhat jarring at first to see how Ogawa leaves some of the stories. But as the book progresses, it becomes clear that we are glimpsing surreal moments in the lives of otherwise normal people, trapped in a world where vengeance or guilt has driven them into someplace less stable. That's probably why there's such a tremor of collapse running throughout the stories, a fault line threatening to rock the earth below us at any time.

MAYBE IT'S MAYOWEEN! Catch my review of DEEPSTAR SIX over on Horrornews.net

For those new to the blog, I also occasionally contribute reviews to Horrornews.net. This week kind of happened coincidentally - for May Monster Madness I was able to watch DeepStar Six! It's a good film, and it really focuses on the underwater aspect of its plot. Check out my review over there!

Also, I'm looking to contribute to more websites if you'd like to have me. Let me know through comment or email at rynepbarber@gmail.com.