Horror Asylum Literature Reviews

Dead Summit

Choosing zombies as the bad guys for your first novel is a brave but risky choice. Unlike vampires for example, zombies (at least the mindless, flesh-eating variety) have struggled to make an impact through the printed word, mainly because it's difficult to invest them with any real sense of character. You've seen one zombie, you've seen them all and therefore the onus in most zombie tales is firmly on the human characters to grab the audience's attention and sustain their interest, as well as provide three dimensional portraits in whom they can emotionally invest. This is done most successfully in films such as 'Dawn of the Dead' and the TV series 'The Walking Dead', stories that use zombies as a context for their narrative but never as the dramatic focus. Combine all of that with a plot that journeys in interesting and unexpected directions, possibly with a dose of dark humour here and there, and you're probably onto a winner. With his debut novel, author Daniel Loubier doesn't always succeed in terms of characterisation or plot but he does demonstrate a wicked sense of humour in an uneven novel that nevertheless has its moments.

Mister B. Gone

Bound up in the intriguing notion of a demon imprisoned in the pages of a 14th century relic, 'Mister B. Gone' seems to promise all the dark brilliance for which Barker is famed. But despite a mind-bending angle that guarantees instantly compulsive reading, the story falls somewhat short of the excellence fans would doubtless expect from this modern-day master of horror.

When Zombies Attack: Issue 1 Don't Shoot the Messenger

Publisher/Editor Joe Venegas brings us this witty comic book, based on the award winning short film P.M.A.C. When Zombies Attack!! And its follow-up Waker Safety, which itself spawned a set of collectable Waker Safety puppets from Sota Toys. Now the story continues in comic book form.

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Anniversary Edition

With the latest Batman movie hitting our cinema screens to much applause, many people (young and old) will no doubt be hunting down some of his adventures in the medium that gave birth to Batman, ie - the comic book. Comic purists will argue that the cinema bares little comparison when considering the meat served up by comic writers and artists over the years. Writers like Frank Miller have revolutionised the Caped Crusader with his radical beginning and end strories, Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Whereas artists like Jim Lee or Lee Bermejo add a visual flavour which steals one's breath away with their work on Hush and Deathblow, respectively.

English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema

Put simply, this is the definitive work on British horror films. Lovingly written, gorgeously decorated with some vintage black and white photos and always interesting - Jonathan Rigby forces us to confront our great heritage, the horror film. A genre he argues is a uniquely British one; sure, America may have adopted it in the 1970s with their trailer park slashers and the Germans were at its conception with gems like Das Cabinet Des Dr.Caligari but for decades the British were producing horror films that took on a life of their own, that carved their mark on cinematic history and laid ownership on this genre, much in the same way, Rigby points out, America has with the Western.