New Horror Movies

Halloween is just around the corner and I thought it would be nice to look at some of our newest horror movie titles.

First up is The Belko Experiment starring Tony Goldwyn (TV's Scandal, Ghost) and John Gallagher, Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane, Hush). Belko Industries is an American run company in Bogota, Colombia. It is normally a calm place to work, but when 80 American employees are locked into their office building, it becomes a death trap. A mysterious voice comes over the intercom and orders the workers to participate in an insidious game of kill or be killed.

Next is The Bye Bye Man starring Douglas Smith (Ouija) and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Trilogy). Three friends accidentally happen upon the origins of The Bye Bye Man legend and discover there is but one way to avoid the curse: don't think it, don't say it. Once the Bye Bye Man gets in your head, he takes control and makes you say and do horrible things to those around you. They must try to find a way to resist the possession by this malevolent entity before its too late.

Rings starring Johnny Galecki (TV's The Big Bang Theory) continues the horror franchise begun with The Ring (2002). A radical college professor finds the mysterious video rumored to kill all who view it seven days later. He enlists the help of his students to uncover the secrets behind the Samara legend. Julia, the girlfriend of one of the students, becomes worried about her boyfriend's involvement in the experiment. When she sacrifices herself to save him, she finds out that there is a "movie within a movie" that no one has ever seen before.

Finally, we have Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh starring Tony Todd (TV's The Flash) and Kelly Rowan (TV's The O.C.). When Annie Tarrant's father is brutally murdered, the young schoolteacher struggles to solve the murder herself. The New Orleans locals say it was the Candyman who murdered him, but Annie is not convinced until she summons the dreaded spectre herself. As she learns more about the monster and uncovers the secret to his power, she must race against time to stop him before he kills again.


Spooked Yet?!

How About Some Chills & Thrills?

Disappearance at Devil's Rock is a novel by Paul Tremblay. Elizabeth Sanderson receives a call late one summer's night that changes everything. Her thirteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished from the woods of a nearby state park and the searchers aren't finding any clues. Elizabeth and her eleven-year-old daughter, Kate are feeling helpless, alone and more than a little frustrated. The two friends that Tommy was hanging with, Josh and Luis, may not be telling the whole truth about the night they were at a landmark named Devil's Rock in Borderland State Park. Elizabeth also thinks that a wraith-like apparition of Tommy has appeared in her bedroom while Kate and other locals claim they have seen a shadowy figure peering through their windows in the dead of night. When random pages begin disappearing from Tommy's journal, Elizabeth learns that her son was obsessed with the supernatural. Tommy believed that the loss of his father to a drunk driving accident, a folktale involving a demon in the woods of Borderland, and the coming zombie "pocketclips" are all connected by one horrible incident. Is Tommy simply lost or did something more sinister happen that night at Devil's Rock?

My Best Friend's Exorcism is a novel by Grady Hendrix. It's 1988 in Charleston, South Carolina and Abby and Gretchen are high school sophomores. They have been best friends since the fourth grade, but after an evening of skinny-dipping goes horribly wrong, Abby has her doubts about the strength of their friendship. Gretchen begins acting strangely—she's moody, irritable, and just not herself. There is also the fact that bizarre incidents keep happening when Gretchen is around. Abby decides she has better get to the bottom of these strange events, but the conclusion she comes to terrifies her beyond belief. She is left asking herself one important question: Is her friendship with Gretchen strong enough to beat the devil?

Zero K is a novel by Don DeLillo. Ross Lockhart is a billionaire in his sixties married to a younger wife, Artis, whose health is failing. His son, Jeffrey, has joined them at a remote and secret compound where death is controlled and the body is preserved until biomedical advances and new technologies can restore them. Jeffrey finds the mission of this compound indefensible. He firmly believes that experiencing the here and now is the most important part of living life. Ross, however, feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. Artis sums up the conflict between father and son when she muses, "We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn't it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?"

     With all the blockbuster movies coming out this summer the one I have been waiting for (somewhat impatiently) is “R.I.P.D.”  It stars Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds and concerns a recently deceased cop who is recruited to work for the Rest in Peace Department that try and keep law and order with the evil dead.  I ran across a new book that has some similar qualities.  The title is Reviver: Death Won’t Silence Them by Seth Patrick.  Revivers are able to wake the recently dead, and let them bear witness to their own demise.  Twelve years after the first reviver came to light, they have become accepted by an uneasy public.  The testimony of the dead is permitted in courtrooms across the world. Forensic revival is a routine part of police investigation. 
      In the United States, that responsibility falls to the Forensic Revival Service.  Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of their best.  But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence.  Something is watching and waiting.  His superiors tell him it was only in his mind, a product of stress.  Jonah isn’t so certain.  Then Daniel Harker, the first journalist to bring revival to public attention, is murdered, and Jonah finds himself dragged into the hunt for answers.  Working with Harker’s daughter, Annabel, he becomes determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice.  Soon they uncover long-hidden truths that call into doubt everything Jonah stands fork and reveal a threat that, if not stopped in time, will put all of humanity in danger.