BOOK REVIEW: The Mexican Masked Wrestler and Monster Filmography by Robert Michael "Bobb" Carter (2005 McFarland & Company)

Review by Scott Lefebvre

     My interest in Mexican Masked Wrestlers was first inspired by an independent film called "Enter Zombie King" in which the actors do their entire performance in Mexican style wrestling masks.   When I was a kid, I had a passing interest in "professional" wrestling and I knew a bit about it for a while, but my enthusiasm was never so intense that I ever went to see a live show or bought merchandise.
     Josh Gravel purchased a few books from a horror convention we attended and since he is not nearly as avid a reader, he let me borrow a few of his new acquisitions for reading and review.
     Beginning this book, I was not completely unfamiliar with the concept of Mexican Masked Wrestlers but I soon realized that I had not seen any of the films mentioned in the truly comprehensive overview of the genre.   I was in for quite the adventure.
     Upon first opening the book, perhaps one notices the Table of Contents whose list of chapters are almost as colorful as the titles of the films they discuss.   Chapters include: "The Bat Flies South: Early Mexican Fantasy and Horror", "Who Was That Masked Man?: The Spirit of the Serials", "Universal Con Carne: New Lives for the Old Undead", "Santo and Son: The Legend of the Silver-Masked Man", "Devil with a Blue Mask On: The Life and Films of Blue Demon", "Man of a Thousand Masks: The Life and Films of Mil Mascaras", "Glorious Luchadoras of Wrestling: The Lives and Films of the Wrestling Women", "The Undercard: Second-Banana Masked Men", "Vampires Not Named Dracula, and Other Assorted Creatures: The Wide, Wide World of Mexican Monsters", and "Men Can Die but Legends Live Forever: The Legacy of the Silver-Masked Man".
     The usually brief, and mostly entertaining synopses style reviews reflect the author's genuine enthusiasm for and knowledge of his subject.   The brevity of the reviews make this book a pleasure to read providing convenient stopping points on every page.   Perhaps this is why it took so long for me to finish this book.   Not for lack of pleasure, but because it was so easy to pick up this book and read a few reviews between the events that occur during one's everyday life.
     The reviews respectfully present the varying degrees of excitement and comprehensibility of the stories and characters portrayed in the films, and even indulge in humor when the psychotronical surreality of the films become too much for even the most enthusiastic enthusiast of this unique film genre.   The world of Mexican Masked Wrestlers and Monsters is indeed a weird one.   On the back cover the synopses of the book includes this paragraph: "Add a few half-naked vampire women, Aztec mummies, mad scientists, evil midgets from space, and a goateed Frankenstein monster, and you have just some of the elements of Mexican masked wrestler and monster movies, certainly among the most bizarre, surreal and imaginative films ever produced.".   Indeed.   I can not easily put it any better.
     This book is perhaps unique that with the exception of very rare spelling and grammatical errors I can't think of a single negative thing to say.   The length is comfortable and not unsatisfying or overburdening, and the writing is clear and enjoyable to read.
     The only letdown I experienced was not a result of the book, but a result of the films themselves.   After reading a few chapters, I became so enamored of the idea of Masked Wrestlers fighting Universal Monsters that I made it a point to obtain some of them for my own viewing pleasure.   I got about halfway through the first one, and it completely lost my attention, and I didn't end up watching any others before returning them to the friend from whom I borrowed them.
     This is one of the rare occasions when reading about a genre of films was actually more fun than watching them.   The production values of these films, though better than the films of Edward D. Wood Jr., fall short of the production values of most of the Italian giallo films.   Sure it was hilarious to watch Santo pick up and throw a fucking Jaguar, but that doesn't make up for two hours of shoddy sets and locations, static shots and wooden acting.
     So although I would be hard-pressed to recommend the films that this excellent and truly comprehensive genre film guide contains, the book is great fun for any enthusiasts of cult or camp films and a must own for those with even a passing fancy for Mexican Masked Wrestlers or the many films they helped to make infamous during their brief yet impressive reign.

Online:
Mcfarland & Company Inc., Publishers: http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/
The Book: http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-2022-3

BOOK REVIEW: Raw Dog Screaming Press: Last Burn in Hell: Director’s Cut (2006) by John Edward Lawson & Vacation (2007) by Jeremy C. Shipp.

     Horrorfind 7 in August of 2007.

     I managed to get a gig selling t-shirts for Fearwerx.   I spent most of the weekend behind the table selling shirts hand over fist.   I brought two of my best friends along to help work the table in exchange for a little bit of money and a free trip to the convention.   My friends offered to relieve me any time I wanted to walk around the con and see the sights, but since this was my first gig for Fearwerx and I’d been to about a dozen conventions I felt a commitment to giving my best effort for Fearwerx who paid for my presence at the show.

     The man behind Fearwerx asked that I take a walk around the vendor room and take some pictures.   Pictures of the Fearwerx booth so he could see how we set the booth up with the s.u.v. full of components he sent us out with.   Pictures of the other t-shirt booths to see how our booth looked in comparison and to get an idea of the designs that everyone else was selling.   And pictures of the traffic in the vendor room, so he could determine whether or not to pay for the privilege of attending the next Horrorfind.   The profit to cost ratio is a useful indicator which influences the decision of whether or not to return to a convention, but it doesn’t give a real sense of what attending and working the convention is like.

     While I was doing my walk through, the Raw Dog Screaming Press table caught my eye.   The books were set up in a rack, displaying the cover designs of the books the table was offering.   The covers were well-designed, and since they stopped me in my tracks for a moment, the man behind the table did his duty as a vendor and struck up a conversation with me.   The man behind the table was John Edward Lawson, an author and editor and Editor-in-chief of Raw Dog Screaming Press.

     At most of the conventions I had attended I made it a point to stop by any tables manned by authors or publishers.   I review books for a few media sources and stopping by a booth is a great way to get new books for review.   The positive side of this is that it makes authors and publishers aware of the magazines and websites that publish my reviews, and when the reviews are published, it provides free advertisement for, and raises public awareness of, the authors and publishers that provide their books for review.  The negative side is that since I get so many complimentary books for review I’m unlikely to pay for a book unless it’s something that I already know and love, so a conversation with me results in an immediate loss to the authors or publishers in exchange for advertisement which will hopefully lead to a long-term gain.

     Allow me to state that my intention in conversing with John Edward Lawson was not to acquire books for review.   I had come to the convention to sell shirts and have a good time and I had turned the book reviewer switch off.   But old habits die hard.

     The conversation started innocuously enough.   I told John that I was impressed with the cover design of the Raw Dog Screaming Press books.   From my side of the conversation I mentioned that I review books for a few media sources.   This led us into a conversation about horror genre books and authors and publishing.   I said that I wasn’t very impressed with your average black-bound horror paperback which populates the horror section of most of the major bookstores.   They read like horror-themed Harlequin novels.   The horror genre equivalent of bodice-rippers.   So few of them are really scary or horrifying or manage to raise the small hairs on the back of my neck.

     The conversation of course diverged into the requisite name-dropping.   Stephen King and Clive Barker.   Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft.   Then with the big names out of the way, I expressed my enthusiasm for Richard Matheson and how I thought that Jack Ketchum was a promising author who rises above the expectations for the black-bound paperback publishers.   Finally I was closing by saying that I thought that the two best horror novels I had read were by authors who were primarily non-horror authors.   Chuck Plahniuk’s ‘Haunted’ and Bret Easton Ellis’s ‘Lunar Park’.   I wasn’t trying to solicit books for review, but the mention of the last two authors kindled a gleam in John’s eyes.   He said he had two books that he wanted me to have.   ‘Vacation’ by Jeremy C. Shipp and ‘Last Burn in Hell: Director’s Cut’ by John Edward Lawson, which he opened up and signed for me.

     This is the end of the story of how I sometimes accidentally get books for review.

     Now let’s roll on to the reviews.

     I read ‘Vacation’ first because it was the smaller of the two, but I’m going to review ‘Last Burn In Hell’ first, because although I enjoyed both books for different reasons, I found ‘Last Burn in Hell’ the more enjoyable of the two.]

     ‘Last Burn in Hell’ is an exceptional creature as far as books go.   The format seems to have been crafted in the style of a novelization of a film.   This device seemed a bit superfluous and did little to add to or detract from the impact of the book.   The book’s protagonist is a prison guard.   But he’s not a prison guard.   He’s more of a whore.   He “services” women that are on death row, as a special consideration.   Kind of like a last lay to follow-up their last meal.   But he’s just doing a service.   Except when the execution of a particular woman keeps getting postponed.   He gets personally involved and decides to devise a plan so that she can avoid execution and they can live happily ever after.   As interesting as the book was setting up the initial scenario, things get a lot more interesting while they’re on the run.   Identity and sexuality blur and the inter-group alliances and dynamics become unhinged.   Mexican gangs and federal agencies and a Latin Madonna play pivotal roles in this story.   One thing that is certain, his mother is not quite right, and the protagonist is one of a pair of triplets who may or may not be the result of an alien abduction.   I’d like to say “you get the idea”, but I’m fairly certain you don’t, and reading is believing, so you should.   Both of the books I was given mention William Burroughs in the back-cover blurbs.   I don’t think Burroughs is quite the right comparison.   Rather, I think that Burroughs serves as a common cultural touchstone which serves to give potential readers a sense of the tone of the book within.   Lawson reads more like Palahniuk.   Some times comparing one author to another is for classification not for accolades.   If I read another blurb touting an author as “the next Stephen King” I just don’t know what I’m going to do.   Wait.  I know what I’m not going to do.   I’m not going to read their book.   Because all of King’s potential heirs fall short of the high water mark set by the King.   Lawson is an exception to the business of comparison in that his voice is a worthwhile addition to the chorus of authors following the trend most prominently presented in Palahniuk’s body of work.   An earnest, but wry honesty in writing, exploring the paradoxes of our contemporary American society.   In ten years, these books may seem dated, with their pop-cultural references and their reaction to the disillusioned sardonicism of our generation, but I’d rather read something contemporary than another book which safely stays within the prescribed boundaries of the black-bound horror-genre novel.

     The other book I was given from Raw Dog Screaming Press was ‘Vacation’ by Jeremy C. Shipp.   The plot for vacation is difficult to discuss.   It begins as a post-modern tale of a privileged member of the higher echelon of academic society.   Inside, he feels that he does not deserve his rank and privilege, and his discontent inspires him to take a ‘Vacation’.   This is not a vacation in the traditional sense.   In this post-modern world, ‘Vacation’ is a governmentally regulated program that grants every citizen a one-year trip around the world to exotic locales for exciting adventures.   This would have been an interesting premise to explore, but the author takes the tale in a surreal direction.   This is where the Burroughsian comparison is apt.   The protagonist finds himself abducted and entangled in a factional dispute, the guidelines of which are unclear and ever-changing.   The setting for this dispute is the tropical area outside of the area prescribed and protected for the ‘vacationers’.   The relationships between the characters become a bit to Jungian archetypal for my liking, with the formation and disruption of pseudo-familial relationships.   The premise through its many permutations stays fresh and disorienting, crossing back and forth between the permeable boundaries between the conscious and the unconscious thus becomes another discourse on phenomenology.   This flexibility and changeability accompanied by the tropical setting may be what conjured the comparisons to the work of William S. Burroughs, but Burroughs might still be the cultural touchstone that reviewers select when reviewing books that explore post-modernity in this style.   Perhaps a closer comparison would be to Paul Auster in his book ‘City of Glass’ which is another book that explores the themes of uncertainty and alienation, which are also fundamental concepts for existentialism and existentialists, whose work ‘Vacation’ is a welcome addition to.   Readers looking for light horror genre reading may be disappointed at the effort and attention required to explore this brief, yet dense book, but those who accept the challenge will be rewarded with an engrossing ‘vacation’ into the world of post-modern, phenomenological, existential, but nonetheless truly enjoyable fiction.

More Online:

www.rawdogscreaming.com

www.johnlawson.org
Jeremy Shipp on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jeremycshipp

BOOK REVIEW: Off Season by Jack Ketchum (2006 Leisure Books)

A Review by Scott Lefebvre

     Early on in writing for Scars Magazine, one of my first informally suggested assignments was to write a review of the collected works of Jack Ketchum and prepare for the possibility of performing an interview with the author.   I went to the library to begin my preparatory work, but the works of Jack Ketchum are sadly under-represented in Rhode Island’s state-wide library catalogue.   So the project went on the back burner.

     That is until Ray Dowaliby lent me his signed paperback of “The Author’s Uncut Uncensored Version!” of Off Season accompanied by the necessary warnings that any damage that fell upon the book would be visited upon me threefold.

     This is my first exposure to the horror fiction of Jack Ketchum, but I’m no stranger to the author’s impact on the genre.   I’ve seen Ketchum’s work adapted into an excellent little film titled ‘The Lost’ (2005) directed by Chris Sivertson, which was screened at the 2006 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival.   I’ve also been in the same room as the author, a guest at the 2006 Rock ‘n’ Shock convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, who prefaced the screening of Sivertson’s ‘The Lost’ at that convention with a preparatory introduction.

     The cover art for the book, a stew kettle hanging from a tripod of bones, the ground surrounding it also strewn by bones, against a backdrop of the mouth of a cave looking out upon an ocean scene, lit by the darkening sunset gives the reader an idea of what they’re getting themselves into before the first page is turned.   It may seem like a spoiler, but allow me to assure you that it’s not a spoiler to divulge that the book is a contemporary retelling of the Sawney Beane legend, set in the wilds of upstate Maine.

     The legend of Sawney Beane, a wild Scottish clan that lived in a cave by the seashore, preying upon travelers until they were forcibly eradicated by a regiment of armed men, is no stranger to adaptation.   Many films such as Wes Craven’s ‘Hills Have Eyes’ series have taken the theme of feral inbred families preying upon unsuspecting travelers.   Other films which adopt the theme are ‘Raw Meat’ (1972); ‘C.H.U.D.’ (1984); ‘Wrong Turn’ (2003) and ‘The Descent’ (2005) to name a few.

     Revealing that the novel is a contemporary retelling of the Sawney Beane legend does little to strip the novel of its ability to hold readers’ attentions.   A small group of couples arrive at a cabin to enjoy a pastoral weekend together, and of course they become fodder for the feral family exemplary of the theme in film and literature often discussed as “the rise of the repressed”, but in this version the poor actually eat the rich.   A victim who survives the predations of the family from the first pages of the novel inspires the investigatory interest of the colorful members of the local law enforcement.     The shallow interactions of the beautiful vacationers from the big city do little to add to the appeal of the characters.   It depends on what the author’s intention was.   If it is meant as character development to enhance the reader’s sympathy for the author’s intended victims, then it is unsuccessful.   If it was intended to reveal the superficiality and sexual-preoccupation of the victims, then it was very successful.   Either way, the self-involved musings of the unsuspecting vacationers are well worth suffering through to reach the final third of the book when the family descends upon the cabin and does what they were born (the product of generations of incestuous interbreeding) to do.

     The final pages of Off Season present the reader with all three threads meeting, and the events that unfold are described with a detail that will satisfy the depraved desires of even the more jaded variety of readers of horror fiction whose collective palette have been numbed by bland black-bound cookie-cutter novels.

     The cover art prepared me for a thin and uninspired representation of the Sawney Beane legend.   Instead Jack Ketchum breathes new life into the old legend and presents readers with an enjoyable exploration of the theme.   Although the character development in the first two-thirds of the book is a bit clichéd and predictable, the last third of the book confounds the expectations of presumptuous readers and had me reading the last third in one sitting, eager to discover what further examples of man’s inhumanity to man, would be exposed detail by lurid, blood-spattered, detail.

     Off Season is definitely not for children, or recommended as an introduction to horror fiction for the faint of heart.   This book is for blood-thirsty fans of the genre desensitized by the bland banality of horror fiction looking for a new and engrossing spin on an old theme.

BOOK REVIEW: Monster Island Three edited by Billy Mavreas (2007 Conundrum Press)

Review by Scott Lefebvre

     One of the wonderful things about attending the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is the hospitality of the Canadians.   Possibly the most well-intentioned, polite, and friendly people I've ever met.
     While smoking a cigarette on the back deck of The Irish Embassy, I found myself in a conversation with Rupert Bottenberg.   Rupert invited me to join him and his friends at their tale and I spent the better part of the night in the company of my new friends.
     Rupert Bottenberg works for the Fantasia Film Festival in some capacity that I must admit I forgot the particular details of, but it's got something to do with writing the content for, or designing the program, and something to do with hospitality, as far as I can surmise.
     When he asked why I was at the Fantasia Film Festival and I gave him the shortest possible synopsis of all of the ventures I was involved in, I mentioned that I review books.  At this point, Rupert produced a book that he had been a contributor to.  Monster Island Three.
     Flipping through the book at first, I didn't know what to make of it.   There was text and pictures, and the style changed every three pages, like flipping channels while flipping through a book.
     What I was experiencing was a Canadian anthology of art and writing with a very loosely defined "Monster" theme.
     When I was a teenager, my mother sent a letter into Marvel Age stating that I was a raging comic book fan and asking if there was anything cool out there she could get me into.   Two awesome things resulted from that letter.
     One was a Marvel Universe poster that was the coolest thing ever, but sadly succumbed to nicotine yellowing when I started smoking in college, and the wear and tear of my perpetual change of residence.
     The other was that I was invited to join an Amateur Press Association or an A.P.A.
     The zine went out under the banner 'Nuff Said and I'll always remember the wonder that I experienced as a member.
     There were 25 or so members from all over the world.   Each member would produce an 8 X 10 format zine, and mail 25 copies to the Central Mailer, who would collate the disparate zines, bind them with plastic ring-binding and mail a copy of the assembled incredibleness out to the members.
     This may seem insane in these days of internet fan groups and MySpace, but remember that this was when the internet was primarily a text only phenomenon, and sites like Timothy Leary's attempt to immortalize himself on the worldwide web were amazing.
     Reading Monster Island Three reminded me of the joy I experienced while thumbing through each issue of 'Nuff Said.
     The shining star of the anthology, in my opinion, is the essay on Jack Kirby's "Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers" by Andy Brown.   This essay is representative of the type of fan journalism that I aspire to.   Fastidiously researched and complete, yet pleasurably readable.
     Another essay, "Trans-Atlantic Pulps of the 20s and 30s: Monstrous Images of Africa?" by Patrick R. Burger, was just as well researched, but the presentation of the material was difficult to follow which decreased the enthusiasm I had when approaching the article.
     In conclusion, I am very happy to have Monster Island Three.   It's an excellent book to leaf through on a lazy sunday and makes a great short-attention span distraction for the living room coffee table or the back of the toilet bathroom book.   At $15, the price is not prohibitive, considering the incredible assortment of art and excellent writing contained within.

Online at: www.conundrumpress.com