Have You Seen Our Binge Boxes?

Posted by Staff

With summer upon us, we'd like to remind you about our binge boxes. These themed boxes each contain 6 DVDs and can be checked out for 3 weeks.  Right now we have 4 boxes that can be checked out by any IHLS library card holder but they must be returned inside of our building. The next time you're in the mood for a movie marathon, come and check one out. You'll find them near our Blu-ray DVDs in the adult library.

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Trick or Terror? The Best in Horror

Posted by David R.

For the coming Halloween season, scare up a few lesser known titles for your pumpkin party! 

The library now owns several entertaining titles on DVD that every true horror film fan should see. Witness Wes Craven’s 1981 thriller Deadly Blessing (featuring a chilling James Horner music score, and three beautiful leading ladies, Maren Jensen, Sharon Stone, and Susan Buckner, in a bizarre murder mystery tale involving an Amish-like religious sect in a backwoods community); Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 picture The Shining (while clearly more of a Kubrick film story than an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name, Jack Nicholson’s hilarious and horrifying performance raises the film up to the level of anally retentive paranoia that is chilling in spite of its maze-like interiors);  Ruben Fleischer’s amazing Zombieland (a “zomedy” unlike anything you have ever seen, star Woody Harrelson gets laughs and thrills out of his audience as a maniacal killer of zombies in this post-apocalyptic road movie parody); William Friedkin’s 1973 shocker The Exorcist (less intense now than it was in its year of release, the film is unique for treating demonic possession as a curable psychological disease, still involving because of fine performances from Jason Miller, Max von Sydow, and Ellen Burstyn); Neil Marshall’s 2005 British film The Descent (a spelunking trip goes wrong in a hurry when five female friends set out on a descent into the lowest reaches of fear itself—this thriller may be too intense for those who do not appreciate claustrophobic spaces, but for a thrilling descent into the maelstrom, it can’t be beat); Joe Dante’s 1981 chiller The Howling (a parody-oriented werewolf movie about a clinic in the middle of nowhere for recovering trauma patients, this John Sayles-doctored script is mostly lightweight fare for hardcore horror fans, but others may find it too racy and freaky—Dante is a fellow lover of film trailers, and his quick cutting and oddball casting choices (even Slim Pickens is in this one) remind one of the best of yesterday’s drive-in horror flick titles); and finally, two new Wes Craven titles on DVD—The Serpent and the Rainbow (a terrific thriller about Haitian voodoo and mind control) and The People Under the Stairs (a 1990 Craven classic that gets my vote for the most original mainstream horror movie of all time).

So pick up one of these spooky titles soon…and Happy Halloween! 

Get Your Blood Stirring With Some Horror Picks

Posted by Staff

Fed up with the weather?  Need something to stir the senses? How about a good, scary read!  Choose one of these superb, horror novels,considered the best of 2013 by Booklist , and you are sure to be entertained.

Apocalypse-Cow by Michael-Logan.  This startlingly funny novel imagines a contemporary Scotland in which animals are infested with an experimental virus that turns them into crazed killing machines—yes, zombie animals.

Ash by James Herbert. This is a big, thrilling, pull-out-all-the-stops novel featuring David Ash, the skeptical psychic investigator who was introduced in Haunted (1988) and made his second appearance in The Ghosts of Sleath (1994).

Babayaga by Toby Barlow. Barlow’s second book, after the novel-in-verse Sharp Teeth (2008), delivers a helluva good time, a delicious mash-up of Cold War spy thriller, horror novel, and love story.

Hitchers by Will McIntosh. In a charming novel about a terrorist bioweapon attack that wipes out a substantial portion of the population of Atlanta, the characters are well drawn and the plot is smartly constructed.
 
Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy. This is a confounding novel: irredeemable villains become admirable heroes; major characters are sacrificed in abrupt, shocking ways; and important players pop up late in the game. But it’s audacious!

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Hill is omnivorous in his appetite for story and character, and here he has created his best in both.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. In Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys(2005), he mines mythological typology—the threefold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build a graceful story.

Red Moon by Benjamin Percy. Doing for werewolves what Justin Cronin’s The Passage (2010) did for vampires, this literary horror novel, set in an alternate version of the present day, humanizes the werewolf.

Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. In the newest thrill fest from the prolific fiction factory that is James Patterson et al., something unnatural is causing normally placid animals to savagely attack humans.

Are we scared yet? Top Horror Fiction Picks of the Year

Edward Collier, A Vanitas Still Life, 1699

Posted by Staff

In a recent edition and just in time for the scary season, Booklist selected their top horror picks from the past year.  The selections run the gamut from the ever present vampire story (with a few modern riffs) to psychological terror.  If you're in the mood for a good chill, try out of one these recent books (all descriptions by Booklist):

American Vampire by Jennifer Armintrout.  On his way to a vampire party in New York, Graf McDonald takes a wrong turn and ends up in Penance, OH, which one can enter but not leave.....

Dust by Joan Frances Turner.  The author has taken the familiar zombie clichés and given them a good shake, creating a new zombie mythology that is smart, scary, and viscerally real.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King.  King begins his afterword by stating, "The stories in this book are harsh."  The man aint' whistlin' Dixie.  Rarely has he gone this dark, but to say there are no stars here is crazy.

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher.  Harry Dresden's back for another adventure battling forces far greater than himself - business as usual for Chicago's favorite wizard; except this time he has a bit of a handicap: He's dead, and he's been sent back to solve the mystery of his murder.

The Glass Demon by Helen Grant.  With its fascinating information on medieval folklore, unique setting, and increasingly claustrophobic sense of terror, this is an exhilarating page-turner that offers a cerebral blend of horror and mystery.

I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells.  Horror and fantasy fans of all ages, especially those who get a kick out of Jeff Lindsay's Dexter novels, should embrace this third and, perhaps, final novel about John Cleaver.

Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany.  Mullany rewrites history in more ways than one in this novel, which sets up Jane Austen as a vampire.  A fast-paced adventure for those who don't mind the vampire craze impinging upon historical events and beloved authors.

The White Devil by Justin Evans.  Readers of this thoroughly upsetting horror-mystery hybrid will find their nightmares imprinted with several unshakable images; smart, scary, sexy, and gorgeously written to boot.

The Zombie Autopsies by Steven C. Schlozman.  While medical professionals may get a few laughs from Schlozman's meticulous faux scientific research, the target audience - horror fans and zombie enthusiasts - will be pleased.