The Silence – Film Review

I did recently finish reading The Silence by Tim Lebbon and couple of days later got to watching the Netflix adaptation. I have been reading a few of his books lately and I consider Lebbon to be one of the most interesting and rewarding modern British horror/fantasy authors. The book of The Silence was set here in the UK, and while elements of news reports and drama of the vesp creatures movements come from around Europe and the globe, the focus is mainly from the point of view of  the young daughter Ally who is deaf and uses sign language to communicate with her family, and a lot of the second half of the book follows her father Hugh as he explores alone for food and shelter for the family. The tale is not really a horror story but more a survival tale, similar to John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The War of the Worlds with the blend of mass social paranoia, fear and anxiety over the population.

The book does as you may expect have richer detail of the character point of view, their thoughts and reactions to the building terror of the outbreak of the mysterious vesp creatures which decimate towns and cities and begin to travel across land and eventually overseas in a matter of days. You do get to know Ally and her father and family well over the four hundred or so pages as you follow them through trauma and sadness and read how this changes and challenges their family dynamic.

I was interested to see what changes had been made (as there usually always are changes, especially for Hollywood adaptations of books) for cinematic reasons. The book focuses on main characters who live in the UK and travel up toward Scotland. In the film, they are based in America and they simply travel across the country to look for a safe place. With the film being only one hour and a half it did skip forward after just ten or so minutes, moving quickly over some long sections of the book. Some parts are condensed, some changed slightly to build up the sense of drama on screen-I assume. Generally though, it does remain mostly the same to the book storyline, the acting from Stanley Tucci, Kiernan Shipka (lead of the new kooky and creepy Sabrina the teenage witch Netflix series) and others is all good and there are some strong memorable scenes, some new to the film. The family communicating with sign language was acted really well I thought. The main dramatic final sequence in the cottage with the vesp attack did work which I was almost doubtful about prior. The ending is slightly different to the book, possibly setting up a sequel. Though some were not impressed I would suggest that you watch it if you like suspense thrillers, Hitchcock movies, monster movies.

James Parsons is author of two science fiction/SF books – Orbital Kin- a scifi mystery thriller and Minerva Century- a far future cyborg space opera epic. Also his first horror novel Northern Souls set in and around the North East of England. All three are available as paperback & ebook now from Amazon, Waterstones and your friendly dependable independent bookshops.

CELL(2016) -Movie Review

This film adaptation of the Stephen King novel has been out for a couple of years now but I recorded it from television around Halloween and watched it this weekend. I read the book a few years ago and did enjoy it. I found it interesting at the time as it was the first book from King after his serious accident which really caught my attention. By this time most people had small palm-sized cell phones, and so the concept of this story was something which could pull you in easily.

I had forgotten a lot of the main story and only really remembered the troubled production issues the film experienced and then later the mixed or negative responses once the film was released. Having watched it, I actually did not think it was too bad. I noticed that King co-wrote the screenplay and so must have wanted to be sure that it would transfer to the big screen in a way that he wanted to see when writing the book possibly.

So CELL is one of very many recent post-apocalyptic movies, and in a way sort of a zombie movie. The people who are changed by the sudden strange phone signal are not ever called zombies in the movie, but the occurrence is viewed as a kind of mass epidemic. When the book was published the film 28 Days Later had already started the ball rolling in pop culture bringing zombies back to the fore of horror. Since then and through the 00’s we’ve had so many riffs on the zombie/post-apocalyptic concept-extreme horror versions, parodies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, huge Hollywood budget takes such as I Am Legend and World War Z and even the Godfather of Zombie movies Romero returned with Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead with varied results.

It is probably I Am Legend which CELL most closely resembles and possibly even works better than in some ways. While many people also dissed that Will Smith blockbuster movie of the classic and hugely influential genre novel, these movies both share a similar cinematic atmosphere of dread and modern unease. There is a fear of loneliness and technological paranoia through both movies, as well as a hint of post-911 terror anxiety.

I actually was big fan of I Am Legend, certainly the first half of the movie which is for the most part almost dialogue free and simply followed Will Smith through his lonely daily routine and we observe his isolated experience and the effects on his character.

With the movie CELL, within minutes the main character played by John Cusack joins with Samuel L Jackson and they move across the country to find his wife and son. They join with a small number of other desperate and surviving individuals on their journey. This tale being based on a King novel, is no simple zombie splatter flick-though the gore and visual effects are really up there along with some of the most realistic from Tom Savini-it sees the masses of people affected by the phone signal ‘evolving’ together acting almost like insects or animals.

I actually could have sat through a longer version of this film and that may have been due to the casting Cusack or Jackson but also the different take on zombie concept. I thought it possibly could have done a lot more. We are at a time when one of the most popular shows on the planet is The Walking Dead, which is all about a small group of distinctive survivors working together against the zombie masses on a daily basis. I am not really a fan of the show (I know, sorry people!) but still do like zombie and post-apocalyptic or dystopian films and novels which have something different to offer.

There were some moments where I did want to yell at the screen ‘Don’t touch that phone!’ or ask why are they going in that building, and some characters and scenes which seemed a little lazy or predictable. It does features some elements which are quite familiar to other King books or films such as The Stand but I still continued watching until the end. Not a perfect movie, but not really as bad as you may have heard either.

James Parsons is a UK author of horror novel Northern Souls- available now as paperback/ebook from all good bookshops and online. He has previously published two science fiction novels as James E. Parsons, Orbital Kin and Minerva Century also available as paperback,hardback, ebook from bookshops and online now.

High Rise-Film Review

It is around a year since it was released, this adaptation of the classic J.G.Ballard novel from 1975 it was shown on television last week and I watched it this weekend. I am a big fan of the books and fiction of Ballard and Ben Wheatley, the director of this film has been making increasingly good and very original films for the last few years in the UK.

News of this adaptation made me very curious at the time and Wheatley even managed to pull in top Hollywood star Tom Hiddleston (Loki in the Marvel Avengers and Thor movies) and others such as Jeremy Irons, Luke Evans and others familiar faces.

Alright, so I had not read the book of High Rise but was familiar with the story concept and it seemed similar to a few other Ballard books he had written after that one which I had enjoyed. Over the years there had been a number of occasions where his books were almost put on the big screen or can be seen to have obviously influence a good number of science fiction and thriller films. The one clear adaptation which stands out was the David Cronenberg directed Crash-a version of probably the most famous and notorious Ballard book. Like that story and some others from Ballard, High Rise explores the psychologically dark and uncomfortable interests and desires of mankind in modern or near future times.

So from the slick poster artwork and trailers and knowledge of Ballard fiction I might have been expecting something extremely brutal, disturbing and challenging. Is this what I got?

To a degree yes but I may have been let down in some ways. It did not have to be just like the cold and perverse tale of Crash, and this film was actually even surprisingly humorous and retained a more restrained kind of satire I felt.

Like a number of Ballard stories it looks at how society could go over the brink and breakdown starting from what we see as the perfect example of civilized and decent western post-industrial living. With this tale, in what is built as a state-of-the-art high rise building we see the divides of class and society stacked over each other. It only takes a short of amount of time before the rich and poor begin to antagonise each other to the most absurd and extreme ways.

I was expecting Tom Hiddleston to lead the story in a more engaging way but he seemed possibly distant-but then Ballard lead characters can often seem like that. The actor Luke Evans actually puts in a very good lively performance as the rage fueled and frustrated tv actor, along with one of the better performances from Jeremy Irons in a long time.

It was fairly obvious to see clear influences of the director in the style of visuals and editing-hints of Stanley Kubrick, Nic Roeg. The music often bringing to mind A Clockwork Orange.

I think one main problem for me was that the director decided to set the film in the 1970’s when the actual book was written. if the book like other Ballard novels was intended to be set in simply a near future then this may have confused things for me. Was it that the director wanted to say things about that period of time or did he just want to really make a period film, paying homage to some of his favourite films and directors of that time?

This film then is not set in a near future for us, but a kind of alternative 1970’s where things spiral horribly out of control. I believe that I did read the director saying that the political climate of that time had interesting parallels with today and so did feel like an interesting place to put the film.

Would I personally like to see a version of High Rise set in our modern times or a contemporary new near future? The story or book may now be dated to some extent and has influenced a few films over the years already. Will our civilized  capitalist society still yet unravel and tear itself to pieces? Any future may yet be possible…

James E. Parsons is the author of Orbital Kin and Minerva Century both available from Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, WHSmith and other good bookshops internationally now. His first horror novel is due in 2017.

 

 

HIGH RISE:Retro Urban Dystopia cinema

Adults or Children first? – Labels for readers…

Just a quick thought about the term in fiction and the book industry we call ‘Young Adult’. Now, I may not really-if ever at all-read these kind of books, but I do of course know people who do, a few of which are grown adults, and some who are teenage. I am very aware of the big sellers, some of which have been adapted to the big screen such as Twilight, The Maze Runner, Divergent, The Hunger Games series.

While I may not really write this kind of fiction, I do respect some of it, and how it can get many people into reading and reflecting upon society.

My main thought here though is the term ‘Young Adult’. What age are we thinking of here and why? Is it just simply a marketing idea, a suggested age for suitable readers the books are aimed or is the label very wrong, insulting or negative?

Why not instead ‘Mature teen’ or ‘Old teen’ fiction?

I could say something slightly mocking about adults who may read books like The Hunger Games or Twilight, but many people who do not read very regularly do simply want some not very demanding escapist fiction, or get pulled in by seeing the films based on the books or by the word-of-mouth or cultural zeitgeist.

Terms and labels can be restrictive for any kinds of art-music, books, actual artwork-and are often mostly used in order to sell and market the items more easily to consumers and audiences.

We can also sometimes find more easily what we are looking for when things are put into categories like ‘science fiction’, ‘steam punk’, ‘young adult’, ‘dystopian urban fantasy’ but what if these labels begin to make the writers or creators feel restricted as they produce the tales and stories?

Also my other main thought here was, where is the line? What kind of fiction crosses beyond what may be considered ‘Young Adult’ into real fantasy, science fiction, horror or other ‘adult’ level reading? What would make a story suitable for just adults- detailed sex scenes, politics, death, drugs or other things included in the book? Why could teenagers or ‘young adults’ not handle these, or why should they not be allowed to?

There are thankfully a number of very intelligent YA books which do involved and consider many relevant themes of race, class politics, crime, government, corruption, poverty, gender and more and this is a really good thing.

Thankfully some of the so-called ‘Young Adult’ books go beyond and around the label and offer many interesting ideas and stories for readers of many ages.