Charnel House Reviews

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by LaryCrews via Flickr"] [/caption] If I were to choose the scariest movie that I have ever seen, then I would choose "INSIDIOUS". " INSIDIOUS " successfully avoided so many common pitfalls in the horror movie industry.  The haunting started almost immediately, and very quickly grew in horrifying intensity.  At first, objects were moved around the house (sheet music box in the attic, books moved off a shelf onto a floor, etc.) and quickly became  more frightening and threatening (bloody footprints, loud voices, visions, etc.)  All of this was done without the use of excessive blood and gore. The next pitfall that "INSIDIOUS" avoided is more my own personal pet peeve than anything.  I don't like to mix sex scenes and horror movies.  I have found more often than not that when a horror movie is lacking in scare power, it makes up for it with a skin show.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="186" caption="Cover of Dead in the West"] [/caption] For a few years now I have been searching for the book " Dead in the West " by Joe R. Lansdale .  The first edition was published in 1986 - my birth year - and, to my knowledge, it is the first zombie western. For Easter this year my boyfriend and I exchanged gifts, and I told him that first and foremost on my list of books was "Dead in the West".  He found me a mint condition 2005 edition that is SIGNED by Lansdale.  I almost died when it arrived.  (Incidentally, he builds computers - so I bought him some parts he wanted). No lie, I read that book in three days.  Cover to awesome cover. The story revolves around a Reverend named Jebidiah Mercer, who has lost his faith in God due to some shenanigans from his younger days.  He feels that he is unworthy of being the Lord's servant, and has resorted to holding prayer services specifi

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Cthulhu - tentacles and all.  Image via Wikipedia "] [/caption] What a fabulous book!  "Beneath the Surface" was an amazing book!  Judging by the Cthulhu looking beauty on the cover, I thought these stories would be all about the ocean.  I was really off-base with that assumption, and all the better for it! Almost every story in this book was a blast.  "Thorguson" by Scott Christian Carr started the anthology.  It details a submarine captain in his ship at the bottom of the ocean.  His whole crew is dead, but they're walking around and banging on the sides of the ship.  We never find out why they died, but we do find out what they're up to, and it's not too pretty.  The story is written from the point of view of the captain as he faces his horrible end.  Great story! Next up is "Raw Materials" by Derek M. Fox.  After reading this story, I will never

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Crop Circle - Image via Wikipedia"] [/caption] I finished "The Middle of Nowhere: Horror in Rural America" a few months ago and have been staunchly refusing to review it since then.  It took me forever to finish the book because I couldn't get into reading it.  Some of the stories were uninspired, some were predictable, and some were just downright boring.  I think my greatest pet peeve, however, was the editing (or severe lack thereof).  In one story alone, I stopped counting the errors when I reached 15.  Errors like words running together, misspellings, names that weren't even in the story, all of that should have been fixed because I bought the Anniversary Edition.  (My theory being that when you re-release something you make it better.) Ok - so I've bashed the book sufficiently to give you my opinion of it as a whole.  Now I'd like to take a few moments to singl