New Arrival: Our Lady of the Inferno

Some of you who are reading this may remember the ‘80s, or at least saw a few movies that visited this decade, one known particularly for excess. The clothes had shoulder pads, the hair stretched to the heavens thanks to innovations like Aqua Net, and, in the words of Wall Street’s Donald Trump template Gordon Gecko, greed was good. People were wanting what the decade promised. Many also wanted something different from their horror. This was reflected in the horror subgenre splatterpunk. Splatterpunk, and its writers, was also never afraid to go big. Creaking doors, buttoned-down spirits, and quietly disturbing scares, said splatterpunk writers, weren’t going to cut it in this decade. These stories didn’t shy away from the violence or the viscera. Stories were a loud as a heavy metal guitar riff and as gory as a slaughterhouse floor before the cleanup crew.  Critics of the genre say that splatterpunk was loud but also dumb, sacrificing character for cruelty. Luckily, Preston Fassel, in his ‘80s nostalgia trip of a novel Our Lady of the Inferno, creates a love letter to the 80’s, of its culture and its horror, while telling a solid character-driven story.

The plot of this book is enough for make Joe Lansdale, he of mummy-fighting retirement home residents, do a double take. Ginny Kurva is the archetypal hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, but also one who can kick your teeth in. What she can’t take down with her karate skills are her various demons, including her growing dependence on alcohol. Ginny attempting to overcome these demons, even as she plays a parental figure to her sister and the fellow working girls she protects, is just one narrative thread in this book. The other belongs to Nicolette Aster, a waste plant supervisor whose power suits and reserved, efficient demeanor has made her a well-trusted employee but hides a madness she sates by capturing victims on the street then hunt them down in the landfill she supervises, her own personal labyrinth. Fassel makes clear who the hero and villain are in this novel. Ginny has a lot of great asides where she comes off as both capable and compassionate, from tender moments with her paraplegic sister, to trying to teach her working girls German and getting them to enjoy book club. Nicolette begins the book as a well-respected employee who is straining to contain her homicidal impulses to the point until her succumbing to it is pretty much a given. It takes a bit to finally get these two women together and have their fight to the death, but the reader does get a chance to know both very well before their paths finally intersect. Not shying away from blood in many of the book’s scenes, Fassel really shows off his affinity for epic brutality in the final battle, enough so that the final scene pays homage to splatterpunk’s blood-soaked roots.

One final character in both these women’s tales is the setting, not only the city of New York they both inhabit but the decade. Fassel shows a real flair for including details about the decade, from Flashdance to the space launch of Sally Ride, even incorporating it into a tender moment in the book. The Times Square of the ‘80s was known more for its seedy underbelly rather than its shimmering lights. The dirty, dangerous, and exciting city Fassel depicts is one that both characters belong in. Both Ginny and Nicolette grow tougher in the jungle of Times Square in the ‘80s, but only one will be able to walk away from it.

Screen to Scream: The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House is a novel that writers like Stephen King cite for inspiration whenever they decide to make up a building, fill it with ghosts, and then have people haunted by the ghosts inside the house as well as the ones inside their minds. Hollywood has gone back to this haunted house many times, with a movie made in 1963 and a special effects extravaganza in 1994 that featured Liam Neeson before he revealed his particular set of skills and Owen “Wow” Wilson. The newest adaptation in the form of a TV series from Netflix is more than just a pale imitation or cash grab. It also showcases the psychological underpinnings that are frequent with Jackson's novel.

One reason that Shirley Jackson’s novel is so well-respected and gets recycled again and again is that it’s not just a ghost story. Indeed, there is no ghost actually seen in the novel despite the readers being told time and again by Dr. Montague the evil reputation of this place. For those of you that don’t know the original, Dr. Montague brings in three strangers to help him explore whether Hill House’s reputation as a haunted house is warranted. In the book, he serves as both mentor and expository device explaining the house’s history, but it is Eleanor that is the book’s main protagonist. It is through her eyes that readers watch what is happening in Hill House. Eleanor is a woman who has experienced little in life save for caring for her sick mother. What begins as a grand adventure for Eleanor becomes a series of erratic behaviors and ultimately madness. Hill House doesn’t claim Eleanor in a supernatural sense but it has captivated and imprisoned her mind within its walls. In a cinematic landscape full of jittery CGI spirits, Jackson deftly only requires pounding on the wall and strange messages to show what Hill House is doing to Eleanor’s mind, and readers don’t need to see a ghost to know that Eleanor is being tormented.

The new series from Netflix is fan-service for those who enjoy the novel, but it is also much more. Eagle-eyed viewers can try to spot the many ghosts that showrunner Michael Flanagan left for readers to find even as they notice characters and scenes that are callbacks to the original novel. Even if the series didn’t have the Hill House name attached, even if it didn’t borrow their characters’ names, this story is a unique ensemble drama on the effects of trauma, the narrative jumping back and forth between the past and present to show what has marked the Crain children and what continues to define them well into adulthood. All the children have their own ways of coping with what went on in that house, from Shirley completely repressing and refusing to discuss it to Luke turning to drugs. Older brother Stephen is writing about their experiences but in a fictionalized way that doesn’t really give him closure. The children are not confronting their experiences in Hill House largely thanks to the dad who has kept secrets about their mother and about the house from them. Much like how Jackson lets “her” Eleanor be the readers’ eyes, the viewers are given a chance to see what has broken each of the Crain children both in the house and outside of it. Eleanor was doomed because she was alone, even with three other people with her. The Crain children are each trying to process their trauma alone, but it is when they come together that the possibility of healing finally emerges. The old argument of book vs. movie is one that will continue as long as books are made into them, but both series and film should be enjoyed as their own entity without the pressure of having to choose.