Tag Archives: Blair Witch Project

Josef’s Little One-Day Video Diary Bares Unnerving EVIL! “Creep” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Creep” on a Limited Edition Second Sight Films Boxset!

Aaron, a videographer, travels to a lakeside cabin in Crestline, California after responding to an online ad for a single day’s worth of work.  There is where he meets Josef, a husband and soon-to-be father dying of terminal brain cancer who wants to film the entire day as a memoriam video for his unborn child.  As the camera rolls, Aaron captures Josef’s strange yet sad behavior in an outpour of unstable emotions that put Aaron in an uncomfortable spot.  When Aaron learns Josef might not be sane, he’s able to elude the creep’s attempts to hold Aaron captive, but the videographer hasn’t entirely escaped Josef’s obsession with video recordings and unusual gifts being sent to Aaron’s home address.  The call to the police proves pointless when Aaron can’t provide detail information about his former, one-day employer and he often feels not alone in his home, but Josef’s last recording shows a different, desperate side of Josef Aaron can’t ignore. 

What happens when two guys with a camera try to shoot a comedy about two strangers having an awkward encounter?  They end up making one hell of an awkwardly scary horror film.  That’s what happened to Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass on their 2014 found footage film “Creep.”   Brice directed the feature along with co-writing the unsettling dark human nature story with Mark Duplass that proved to be more than just another found footage folly as the original film spawned an expansive, 2017 sequel and this year’s Shudder series “The Creep Tapes” with both Brice and Duplass returning to fill their original, multi-capacitated roles in front and behind the camera.  When those close to Brice and Duplass had screened the originally intended comedy, the feedback was to pivot to an uneasy loner and a serial stalker and that’s where producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions came into play that secured additional shots and reshoots to recut and expand upon the creepy creeper.  “Creep” is also a production Duplass Brothers Productions with another “Creep” franchise regular, Christopher Donlon, serving as co-producer.

With a cast of two, the story must be engaging, interesting, scary, and above in order to continuously captivate or induce edge of your seat anxiety-riddled anticipation.  Brice and Duplass control the narrative by being on both ends of the camera that could only go in one of two directions – be a disastrous outcome of looping and stagnant underdevelopments really about nothing at all or could be evolve constantly, but slowly, to build upon, but not reveal to hastily, a slow burn of psychopathic tendencies toward one person.  Duplass as the dying Josef leaves a frightening, unsettling impression of a man glowing with mania and he’s ever effervescent in trying to playfully scare Aaron, played by Patrick Brice looking through the lens, anyway he can, such as running off into the wilderness to pop up and scream, put on a ferocious-looking wolf mask and do a song and dance act that pinches the nerves, and tell him secretive stories of his life that would disturb any listener.  Amid the craziness, we’re not sure why the character of Aaron would stay and film while being subjected to Josef’s impulses.  Yes, Josef pays him handsomely for a one-day gig but there’s no desperation in Aaron to warrant what seems to be frisky abuse at hands of a grown man on the verge of breakdown.  Audiences from the get-go will experience Aaron’s painful staidness of passivity while Josef just runs him like a high school track and while internally thinking how absent Aaron’s situational awareness is, this act of humoring another person can be totally plausible to a fatal flaw.

Found footage has been mostly overused, misused, and abused for the better part of 20-or-so plus years thanks to the global success of “Blair Witch Project,” but there are diamonds in the rough that stand out amongst the murky muddied subgenre and “Creep” is one of those sparkling few to emerge.  What’s fascinating about the design is it doesn’t try to do too much within the frame.  Simple jump scare gags, such as popping out behind doors, are heart-jarringly effective without all the razzle dazzle of visual effects or practical makeup effects.  Another star quality is the story’s music soundtrack, there is none.  Silence is golden.  One of my personal pet peeves with found footage is the use of a musical score that instantly eliminates the realism the subgenre naturally wants to perceive.  “Creep’s” longevity as a realistic scary situation within the unembellished optical camera nerve lasts because of the smaller things, such as having no soundtrack alongside the raw video recording that creates a deafening, shivering quietness and enhances those basic jump scares to a pee-your-pants level.  There’s no overcomplication of material, no unnecessary enhancing, just two guys with a camera trying to make a comedy and come out with a “Creep” of a film. 

“Creep,” the small film that could, receives a new limited-edition Blu-ray set from UK label, Second Sight Films.  The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50 is collaborative product with Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment and denotes a picture-perfect home video quality found footage always strives to reflect with a 24 FPS run and an image decoding that averages in the mid-30s.  A wide variety of healthy raw-for-realism shots from a Panasonic AG-DVX100 B version digital handheld that allowed to shoot in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Darkened shades, contrasting variables, and an ungraded finish is a part of the found footage game, but the way Brice handles the camera is less shaky than most of the subgenre, completed with steadier, tracking shots or left-in-place recordings.  Details are not always going to be defined but for this subgenre, a subtle interlacing effect is appropriate and welcoming.  The lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix is recorded from the DVX100’s onboard external microphone that captures the natural elements as well as a softer dialogue track for those in front of the camera compared to behind, creating an organic depth where needed, such as when Josef runs off into the woods we hear the fading crackling of brush under running footsteps.  There are some added elements into the sound design for long shots that need more than what the microphone can offer and those are meticulous placed to work with the images.  The softer dialogue does not give away to intelligible or obstructed dialogue as conversation, whether at a slower speech delivery or a heighted yell or scream, maintains prominence and, occasionally, does feedback slightly into the external microphone, adding to the realism of found footage.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Second Sight boxset are jammed packed full of succulent, exclusive content and “Creep” is not exception to the rule.  The set houses a new audio commentary with director Patrick Brice, editor Christopher Donlon, and actor Mark Duplass, an archival commentary with Brice and Duplass from the initial home video release, a new interview with Patrick Brice Peachfuzz, a new interview with Mark Duplass Into Darker Territory, a new interview with editor Christopher Donlon Expand the Universe, a live Q&A with cast and crew 10 Years of Creep, and deleted and alternate scenes and ending that hark back to the “Creep’s” original intention of an awkward and sad comedy.  The limited-edition contents include a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Luke Headland that plays into the fuchsia coloring motif we’ve seen lately with Second Sight front covers, 6 collectible art cards, and a 70-page colored book with additional Headland art and new essays from Kat Ellinger, David Kittredge, Amber T, Sarah Appleton, and Blu-ray acknowledgments and credits.  The release comes region free with an open licensing and so the 78-minute film, which is UK certified 15 film for strong violence, and references to sexual violence, can be enjoyed globally.

Last Rites: “Creep” will definitely creep you out. Second Sight’s highly anticipated and supplemental heavy set contends to be the last best physical release of this calendar year, closing 2024 by showcasing a troublesome and quirky sociopath and his unforgettable aberrant fixations.

“Creep” on a Limited Edition Second Sight Films Boxset!

Dump Buckets and Buckets of Water Back into this Dry EVIL Well. “Ring Shark” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Ring Shark” Now Curses the DVD Market! Own It Here!

For the subscribers of her Youtube show, vlogging social media influence Kanamasa and her co-host search for a stone well rumored to be in a haunted forest surrounded by unfriendly villagers who aggressively ward off unwelcomed visitors.  Upon discovering the well, a shark-like creature emerges suddenly and bites Kanamasa, scaring them off.  A few days later, another pair of Youtube investigators of the Psychic Investigations Big Summer learn of Khana’s disappearance after her last video surfaces of what looks to be a shark fin and then a ghastly body surfaces from within her bathtub, attacking her bikini-garbed body.  Seeking the truth and eager to find Khana, the investigators conduct interviews with “shark” experts and attempt to visit the same well only to be shooed off by the villagers until, finally, they’re able to reach the same spot and experience the same sharp-teethed horror lurking within it.  Unknowingly, that same supernatural terror of the well had follow them home. 

Sharksploitation has admittedly gotten out of hand.  The beloved horror subgenre that began with Steven Spielberg and Bruce the mechanical monstrous shark who terrorized the beaches of Amity Island have since drowned in its own watery subcategory of the ocean’s maneater predators with microbudget ineptitude that takes the shark from its natural ecosystem and rehomes it in a miscellany of nonsense locations, such as on land, in the weather, and even circling in toilets.  Well, today is the day we’ve come across a movie been assimilated into that same fatuous collective with “Ring Shark,” aka “Well Shark,” aka “Ido Shark.”  The Japanese, found-footage comedy-horror is the first of a trio of incongruous shark films released between 2023 and 2024 by Taichiro Natsume with “Love Shark” and “Last Shark” to follow, connected by the Big Summer team of Psychic Investigators.  Natsume also wrote and produced the feature.

Unfamiliar with the Psychic Investigator Big Summer series, which there’s uncertainty if Big Summer is a Japanese comedic troupe, equivalent to the Broken Lizard of America, what “Ring Shark, or “Ido Shark” begins is a series of various haunted case probes by the Big Summer team, which in this film in particular include actors using modifications of or using their actual names as characters in the story, such as director Taichiro Natsume being the single male lead in the group under character name Daiichiro Natsume.  Daiichiro Natsume can be a bumbling, yet persistent fool when it comes to the mysterious case of Kana-san with his steady motif of exclaiming his love for big boobs and determination to resolve the mystery.  He’s joined by colleagues on-and-off screen in Momoka Asahi and Chihiro Nishikawa, the latter not to be confused with Chihiro Nishikawa of JVA.  While Nishikawa and Natsume continue the running gag conversating about big breasts, Momoka Asahi enters the picture much later as the third investigating team member when Natsume goes down with a well shark bite infection that haunts him from the inside out and puts him in the hospital.  From there, Nishikawa and Momoka take the reigns on investigation by not only tending to Natsume’s dwindling health but also interviewing internet paranormal sleuths Hiroshima Freddy, a Japanese horror influence in real life, as well as Black Story Kuro, who I imagine is another influencer but couldn’t confirm it.  Typically, the Japanese language has a ton of fluid inflections and tones that dictates situations and mood, but “Ring Shark” avoids much of the vocal ups-and-downs with a consistently level tone of flat and dry humor peppered with fear, arbitrary bickering, and a pinch of kawaii to sustain a semi-serious documentary style investigation.  Maya Mineo, Issei Kunisawa, Yacch Chara, Daiki Mizuno, Honey Trap, Umeki, and the wrestler known as The Shark fills out the cast.

“Ring Shark” is “Blair Witch Project” meets “The Ring.”  The latter having the most prominent appearance as the at home media, that was once titled, or probably is likely titled in Japan, as “Ido Shark,” is marketed for U.S. consumption because every moviegoer is either well versed or knows of Hideo Nakata’s “The Ring” series and its heebie-jeebies Samara spirit.  Instead of a cursed tape that summons Samara out of the depths of her murdered resting spot, a well, to kill anyone after a week of viewing said tape, “Ring Shark” only real connective tissue to “The Ring” is that there is a well in the story and a murdered girl’s body was dumped inside.  That’s it.  From there, the structure is more to the tune of “Blair Witch Project” with a pseudo-found footage of one social media’s disappearance igniting the Psychic Investigator Big Summer team to check it out after the tape is brought to their attention form Kanasama’s co-host.  The docu-style incorporates dry wit of interviewing shark experts, creature academics, urban legend connoisseurs, and thorough analysts and researchers, as well as themselves as angry villagers and a supernatural hand puppet shark head subverts their stratospheric sublayer with soul-chumming results.  Yet, none of everything just said really clicks in a flimsy and slapdashedly put together microbudget story derived for effect for true and absurd exploitation of sharks gone wild. 

“Ring Shark” swims right into SRS Cinema’s well-house with a brand-new DVD from the microbudget cult film distributor.  Upscaled to 1080p, the MPEG2 encoded, single layer DVD5 presents the Big Summer production ion a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Though upscaled to 1080p, the cell phone footage renders stretched limitations under the light of low-budget constraints.  Night vision and poor lighting coupled with closeups-to-extreme closeups, and shaky camera work dematerializes story-important images.  Natural lit and stationary camera work provide cleaner visuals in what is mostly a deluge of exposition and regular camera angles without atmospheric makeup.  The Japanese language Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo provides lean composition with ample inherent surrounding ambience, picking up the natural wildlife chirping in the background, the vocal amplification of someone talking through a microphone, the hustle and bustle of a restaurant, etc. Dialogue isn’t impeded by the commercial phone camera recording that creates a rather good reproduction and diffusion of sound amongst the space.  Added audio effects, such as the shark’s growling or snarling, does feel unnaturally alienated from the rest of the audio but works to the film’s advantage despite the obvious hand puppetry.  English subtitles are burned in but do synch well and appear error free. There’s also what looks to be double English subtitles along with Japanese title cards or subtitles that are a part of the Youtube investigation and often coincide with the main English subtitles in a distracting, screen space absorbing real estate. The Japanese electro-rap graced static menu, which samples Lil Jon’s Yeeeah, contains no bonus feature selection; instead, the bonus content is right on the main menu with short film “Shark of the Dead” (8.26 minutes) and the “Ring Shark” trailer.  I love bad movie cover art and SRS Cinema’s “Ring Shark” is no exception with smokey-eyed, electrically charged, and monstrously toothy shark breaching from a little stone well underneath “The Ring”-font film title.  The disc is pressed with the same image and there are no inserts included.  The barely hour-long film, clocking in at 63-minutes, comes not rated and has a region free playback.

Last Rites: “Ring Shark” is a monumental prosaic mockumentary aimed to swell Sharksploitation into further ill-repute and disrepair with an unfunny and uninteresting undertaking of underwhelming pastiche.

“Ring Shark” Now Curses the DVD Market! Own It Here!

Spiraling Vloggers Seal Their Fate When Face-to-Face with the “Woods Witch” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Woods Witch” Available on DVD from SRS Cinema!

Vloggers Jonah and Jocelyn struggle to sustain a healthy dose of followers for their internet channel.  To spice things up and increase follow traffic, the two embark on a 48-hour challenge to stay in the nearby haunted woods of Allensville where a number of people have gone missing, even a fellow, more popular, vlogger named Garrett Gasper after he was self- recording and suddenly vanished when stumbling upon the blood tree, a tree that oozes a blood-like substance from the trunk.  Tagging along are vlogging, ambivalent friends Dacia and Eugene to help capture the spooky essence of what should be an easy, follower-increasing stunt for the impulsive influencers.  They’re also joined, reluctantly I might add, by a local cowboy, two bar patrons, and a father looking for his daughter who don’t know what they’re instore for as what ensues the unorganized, slapdash survey of the woods is far from being simple and safe when they stumble into the area of a seemingly hippie commune that’s actually a sex cult devoted to the woods witch Melora.

If you’re a diehard horror fan, or even just a physical media movie aficionado, you might have heard of the name Shawn C. Phillips.  The eccentric, high-energy, social media personality buys, watches, and reviews the latest and greatest on home video weekly on this Youtube channel under the handle Coolduder.  Aside from being also a movie actor with a range of roles in mostly low-budget, independent, B-to-Z grade horror films, such as “Girls Gone Dead,” “Blood Orgy at Beaver Lake,” and “WTF!,” Phillips’s social media presence further extends to an inspirational weight loss journey, shedding over 235 lbs.  Having been a longtime actor and producer, one of the Baltimore, Maryland native’s newest ventures is directing having shot mostly self-recorded videos to be inserted into other filmmakers’ movies.  Phillips’s latest is “Woods Witch,” a found footage comedy-horror that’s one-part “Blair Witch Project,” two-parts ADHD (Attention Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder).  He codirects the film with costar and “Amityville Karen” actress Lauren Francesca in her debut directorial and cowrites with Julie Anne Prescott, writer of many more recent “Amityville” inspired budget horrors like “Amityville Karen,” “Amityville Shark House,” and “Amityville Bigfoot.”  DRAX Films (“Bae Wolf,” “Acorn”) is the production company behind feature that provided most of the funding in conjunction with crowdfunded portion.

Obviously infatuated about being in front of the camera, taking a backseat to his own co-directed film wouldn’t be enough for the nearly 40-year-old personality who costars alongside Lauren Francesca as social media influencing boyfriend and girlfriend Jonah and Jocelyn.  Loud and opinionated, the couple struggle with maintaining viewership but, before that, they also they also struggle with the foulmouthed, death-threatening volley between Jonah and Jocelyn’s robbing-the-cradle by robbing-Jonah’s-cameraman mother, played by Sally Kirkland (“Fatal Games,” “Two Evil Eyes”).  And that sort of leads into a couple of themes “Woods Witch” harps on.  One theme is the constant bickering, shouting, and squabbling between anyone and everyone in a free-for-all of one-upping each other or to not take humility very well in front of others.  None of the characters side with one another, steadying a position of satellite attitudes and courses that lead the story into all different types of unhinged and unfocused directions.  The second theme connects with Sally Kirkland and the other in-and-outs of overripe star power for what crowdfunded money could afford and while there are some likeable and decent names in the cast, such as the late Tom Sizemore (“Relic,” “Saving Private Ryan”) in his last role before his death, James Duvall (“May,” “Donnie Darko”), Robert LaSardo (“Strangeland,” “Death Race”), and Lisa Wilcox (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 4:  The Dream Master”), they used to headline the attraction with only minutes to shine in their respective scenes.  The cast fills in with Kelly Lynn Reiter, David Perry, Carl Soloman, Bill Dawes, Lorelei Linklater, Nicole Butler, Ken Davitian, Bryant Smith, Eva Hamilton, G. Larry Butler, Mary Jones, Tom Harold Batchelder, Jake Pearlman, Brian Metcalf and Sadie Katz. 

“Woods Witch” uses multi-media found footage to tell the story where a bunch of egregiously entitled vloggers trek into infamously mysterious woods for hits, likes, subscribers, and e-revenue.  Not an original bone in its narrative body by any means, Antoine Le’s “Followed” comes to mind, but “Woods Witch” doesn’t hit where it should as a heavily improv comedy-horror that lampoons found footage horror in the woods and, instead, has undeniably become massively cacophonous of in all areas.  Going into the feature familiar with some of the cast and the distributing banner, expectations of a Shawn C. Phillips directed film were all fastened at the lower screwball level with horror elements tacked in here and there, aptly fitting the mold the social media influencer has established for himself with the eccentric personality of a physical media farceur who adores horror, but nothing can prepare audiences for how much confused noise is strewn about with the constant yelling, backbiting, and randomizing introduction of characters that turns what should have been an entertainingly crass and witchy film into just being a completely crass and witchy yawner.  Being completely flat and unfunny wouldn’t be a totally fair statement as “Woods Witch” does have its moments, such as the tree blood being rubbed all over Phillips’s naked torso and him, as Jonah, proclaiming naively Dascia’s kinkiness can be found humorous, but these funny bit moments are far and few in between and there’s just not enough new, fresh, or actor-driven comically-inclined wit and materially to feast on to support the lack of horror despite a few morsels of gore that are left in the dust, overshadowed by an immense pre-trip setup of interviews and infighting that ruins the rest of the reel. 

Enter the world wide web and wacky world of Shawn C. Phillips with his co-directed film with Lauren Francesca in “Woods Witch” on an SRS Cinema DVD. The MPEG2 encoded, 480i upscaled to 720p, DVD9 pulls the differing, clashing video qualities together, mostly earlier on and near the finale, for a coherent beginning, middle, and end narrative telling. If only I could say the same about the story, themes, and character roles. Anyway, not a lot of banding as there’s not a lot of dark scenes in what mostly is fill lighting that brightens up what’s in the scene. Details are okay enough when not implementing shaky cam’s in-and-out focusing found footage and lighting doesn’t completely washout the miniscule bits of texture. The coloring also has a naturally graded look as well as the objects’ organic color palette as budget doesn’t allow for too much fancy cinematography to also evoke a sense of realism. The English language PCM 2.0 stereo mix is consistent as it is coherent with the clarity and the dialogue. Even with pandemonium breaks out, which is often with the screaming and snappy conversations between each other, dialogue remains unscathed without audible squashing feedback or other interferences. English closed captioning is optionally available in the extras. Special features include a behind-the-scenes raw footage from fellow Youtuber Kenneth Ramone who has a small part in the film, a handful of cut scenes, theatrical trailer, funny trailer, an audio commentary by director/star Shawn C. Phillips going deep into the casting, locations, backstories, script and improv moments, etc., and there’s a Lisa Wilcox stinger in the post-credits as the mayor for an additional or extended scene with some improv. The SRS Cinema package comes in a standard DVD Amaray case with eye-catching illustrated artwork, disc pressed with the same artwork, and is an unrated, region free release with a 96-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Humor and horror underperform in the film “Woods Witch” that’s sole purpose is to be a comedy-horror. What the film does do is parody other found footage features and their filmmakers under a misguided sense that in-the-woods horror, from a camera lens point of view, is past its prime when in reality, the long-in-the-tooth subgenre is better than this parody by far.

“Woods Witch” Available on DVD from SRS Cinema!

There’s No Coming Down This Evil Mountain! “Dark Mountain” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

darkmountain

Three documentary filmmakers and gold hunters hitchhike to the remote Superstition Mountains of Arizona. The Lost Dutchman mine is their destination goal and all the long the way they film their experience until they disappeared and only the footage remained. The mountain have claimed many before them, will the mountain claim more unsuspecting treasure seekers?
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“Dark Mountain” claims to be a found footage experience that displays paranormal activities based on true events. Alien green lights, cave ghosts, and internal madness are all attributed to the Superstition Mountains. This is also the film’s downfall as too much is attributed to make Superstition Mountain a mystery all the way to the credits. The backstory about the Apache being the root cause of the disappearances would have been a more likely and just that more interesting because, really, when is the last time you’ve seen killer Apaches in modern times? Claustrophobia seems to be the new fad in the horror genre with films like “So Above, As Below,” “Day of the Mummy” (), and the upcoming Alexandre Aja produced film The Pyramid where a group of explorers become trapped, entombed and doomed by a supernatural force. These films are no cult hits like “The Descent” but the fear of the walls closing in and a force looming closer to you has taken charge and is on the rise of terror. “Dark Mountain” dabbles in that a little with the cave exploration sharing the terror that a night vision should ensue into the audience.
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First time director Tara Anaise’s style is purely audible and that’s not a bad thing. The film progresses through sounds: locusts, thrash metal, and the sounds of the desert. The three hitchhikers played by Sage Howard, Andrew Simpson, and Shelby Stehlin do a fairly convincible job being lost, confused, and afraid tourists. However, the characters carry unrealistic characteristics which could also be contributed to the film crew’s inexperience. For one, if weird shit happens around one in the first instance, you get the hell out of dodge. Secondly, nobody’s cell phone and handheld camera has a battery life of five days and that is what happens here. Lastly, and this one is more bittersweet than the rest, Sage Howard scopes the land in her booty jorts amongst deadly rattle snakes and prickly surrounding cacti.
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“Dark Mountain” from, uh, Dark Mountain Studios, Superstitious Films, and released by MVD can certainly be engaging and entertaining, but this story ends too abruptly leaving a sour taste. The accounts stay mysterious and the real knowledge of what malevolence goes untold. I’m sure that’s the film’s supposed charm, but even “Paranormal Activity” had a revelation, even “Blair Witch Project” had solid back story and so comes “Dark Mountain” whose heights has no limits.

Nudity Report

No nudity. Just Sage Howard in her jean shorts!

Book Review: D.A. Stern’s “Black Dawn”

Posted by Steven Lewis on

blackdawn

Discovering ancient gyms in the literature world is like finding $5 in your pocket that you didn’t know you had. The feeling is a rush, an enlightening feature that emits from your soul making you glow with enjoyment. That feeling is so powerful because that means there lies hope and there lies new prospects, in all walks of life, out there for all of us. Coming across D.A. Stern’s novel “Black Dawn” in a second hand book store was a great find amongst the vast rows of books because of the novel’s timeless nature, something we’re all in fear of coming one day, the apocalypse.

“Black Dawn” follows multiple story lines of people, some good of heart and some not so much, when two waves hit. The first wave knocks out all electrical devices much like an E.M.P. does. The second wave sends a rush of anger into the bowels that makes people want to rape, rob, and kill. The story lines eventually connect to a finale that involves awaking an ancient, world ending entity.

Released in October of 2001 (yes, now I feel old), “Black Dawn” could have been read today or thirty years ago and still have the same affect. Why? Part of the agelessness of this book due to the author’s writing style. D.A. Stern’s style is blunt, to the point, and without mercy. Some critics might consider it dry and bland. In hindsight, Stern’s articulation of the events, jumping back and forth from story to story, would have been mass confusion if done in a more colorful, descriptive manner. Just tell me a character was shot and that convey’s the character’s death or seemingly death; this type of writing is perfect for “Black Dawn’s” as it lays down a serious tone.

Also, Demons never seem to go out of style. Though Stern never labels the undead creatures as demons, the idea that a character is killed and then resurrects to doing the bidding of an evil, soon-to-be-awakened threat spells out Demon from afar. The apocalypse happens in stages and so does the outing of each villain and hero creating a grip on your eye balls so you can’t look away from the words that tell how the events unfold.

Certainly a good read and a fast read. Quick, easy, and to the point but still giving you the edge of insanity, fear, and horror which is always refreshing especially since this novel is 13 years old. D.A. Stern wrote a couple of Blair Witch sequel novelization: “Blair Witch:: Graveyard Shift” and “Blair Witch: The Secret Confession of Rustin Parr”