Stacy Kingsley - The blog of author Stacy Kingsley

Movie Review - DIG TWO GRAVES

10/15/2018

Taken from Rotten Tomatoes, Dig Two Graves centers on Jacqueline, a 14-year-old girl nicknamed "Jake" by her older brother Sean. After Sean mysteriously disappears at a rock quarry, Jake is visited by three Moonshiners who offer to bring her dead brother back to life in exchange for taking another life. As Jake wrestles with this morally uncertain proposition, the dark history of her family is unearthed and the mystery surrounding the Moonshiners is illuminated.

From the little research that I have done, this was a movie that people were split on. Several people liked it, and several people did not like it. I thought it was a little convoluted. There were several story lines, from Jake’s grandfather and Jake.

The things the grandfather did when he was younger were horrifying, and the things he did were often done because he was the deputy of a sheriff who was the one doing even deeper horrible things. The problems with these scenes were that the reasoning behind them were never explained. The sheriff was a really bad guy, but the audience is never told why he was the way he was, or why he had custody of his grandson. So, there wasn’t enough backstory to make the sheriff a relevant being, besides being a rock to be a hard place for others to cross.

Now for the Jake parts of the story, I often don’t understand why movies often seem to make children so stupid. Jake, after her brother’s disappearance, is desperate to get her brother back, so when promises are made for a sacrifice, she tries to follow through. This only causes problems for her family, and the family of a friend who she is trying to protect.

Parts of the story are interesting, but the heart of it is in the character of Willie. He is a young boy who is being bullied by some classmates, and is living with his over-protective grandfather. The audience doesn’t know why he is living with his grandfather, but can only assume that something happened to his parents.

Dig Two Graves wasn’t a bad movie, but the different scenes from different timelines can be confusing because they aren’t quite in chronological order, and they were oddly filmed. The end of the movie was a little surprising, and unexpected, but it fit movie and what things the characters had done. I felt that part of it was fitting, and the revenge subplot was well done.

Book review - GIRL OF NIGHTMARES by Kendare Blake

10/12/2018

I didn't realize that I had this book on my TBR shelf. I received it for free, exchanging it for another book I had. I wouldn't have exchanged it if I had read Anna Dressed in Blood first. I didn't like Anna Dressed in Blood, and I didn't like Girl of Nightmares.

Now am I saying that Kendare Blake is a bad writer, no, I am not. I am only saying that these books weren't good. I thought the main character was conceited and annoying. He had friends and yet he continually states, "You don't have to do (blah) with me." He, Cas, knows full well that his friends are going to join him no matter what. Another problem with this book is that the setting in some parts just don't make sense. At one point they are walking through the Suicide Forest, and everyone knows that the Suicide Forest is in Japan, yet the characters are not in Japan. It didn't make sense, and I wonder if the author knew what she was doing at that point.

Another thing that annoyed me, these kids are under the age of 18, yet no one seems to care when they jet off to England, or that they skip school, or that they continually put themselves in danger and get hurt.

I also disliked the characters because none of them were really developed, again, and I didn't care that they were looking for Anna. I didn't care about Cas and his nightmares or desires because he is NOT a nice person. There is nothing about him that I like. Zero. The only character I think has any redeeming qualities is Thomas, and he is constantly put on the back burner, forgotten and left to whither.

I am not a fan, and after reading that this was the last book in the series (of two books) I am also frustrated. I feel as if Blake has so much more that she could say, and more to develop so that readers will care for these characters, yet she leaves things hanging and says there won't be a third book.

Meh. Not for me.

Book Review - FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager

10/10/2018

For the book Final Girls bu Riley Sager, I was torn about reading it. On the cover I have it has a quote by Stephen King, "If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this." I almost didn't buy this book, only because of that quote. See, I hated Gone Girl, hated it with a passion. I hated it because there was only one character to like and he wasn't int he book enough. Otherwise, it was overrated and not at all interesting. Plus, I don't mind a twist, but I don't want to read an entire book of lies (which almost half of Gone Girl was). However, this isn't about Gone Girl, this is about Final Girls.

This book revolves around Quincy, a young woman who ten years earlier survived one of the most horrific experiences of her life. A night that was supposed to be fun turned into a night of betrayal and tragedy. In that night, Quincy and five of her friends, including her best friend, Janelle, were staying at a cabin. At the end of the night, only Quincy survived. Now, years later Quincy is pert of a group of three girls called the "Final Girls" all surviving a night of horrific tragedy, where several others were killed and they were the ones to survive. Suddenly, the original "Final Girl" is found dead of a supposed suicide, and Quincy's life is dramatically changed when the other "Final Girl" Sam shows up wanting to talk. What does Sam want to talk about? Not the death of Lisa, no, she wants to help Quincy remember what happened that night at Pine Cottage.

This book started out strong, and for a while kept me going, wanting to find out what happened to all of the girls and why Lisa, the strongest of the three, would kill herself after all of this time had passed since her tragedy. All three girls, Lisa, Sam, and Quincy, had been in a situation where they had become a "Final Girl," and in fact Lisa is the one who came up with the name. I didn't start getting frustrated with this book until Sam starts pushing Quincy, and her maybe Fiance, Jeff, keeps telling her that she is fine. How could anyone thing she was fine, and how could he have been so blind to what was happening to her? Sam, on the other hand, was too pushy and her personality was so abrasive that it started to wear on me.

I, throughout the book, also found Quincy to be too much of a pushover. I don't know how I would react if I had survived what she had gone through, but for me, I didn't think she was realistically written at certain points in the book. I found the younger Quincy, the one in the flashbacks, to be almost the same as the older Quincy, as if the tragic events of ten years earlier didn't affect her, but there was no telling how she was dealing, or how she did deal, other than she was put on Xanax. This to me, seemed unrealistic. I doubt that she would just find Xanax to be the cure, and that she would show other destructive behaviors. However, I did the book and the final twist at the end.

One other thing that bothered me about this book, was the time it took to develop anything. There was so much in between the first and last scene that I felt a lot of it was filler. It was almost as if Quincy was standing in a room, just spinning around, and that was what the reader was seeing. I would have liked a little more involvement from the outside characters, a little more to make me feel something deeper, some sense of urgency or, well, anything. As with other books I have read recently, the only character that stood out was Sam, she was well described, and I could see her each time she appeared, often disheveled and awkward. None of the other characters stood out to me, and I didn't even get one bit at the end because I couldn't remember it being described much in the beginning.

Of course, this doesn't mean I disliked the book. I was thrown off by the ending, and not expecting it at all, and it really made the book much more interesting. It was something that I didn't see coming at all, and was happy to have the surprise, especially when most of the book I've read recently were obvious where they were headed.

I do recommend this. I would love to be able to give it a strong recommendation, but can't because of the the slow parts and the fact that none of the characters were really developed (Jeff was super flat).

Book Review- SCARY MARY by S.A. Hunter

10/7/2018

Scary Mary by S.A. Hunter is a pretty good novel. Mary is a young woman stuck as an outcast in high school. She is called a freak by almost everyone, until she meets Cy, a new kid who doesn't seem to care what anyone has to say about her. Mary's best friend, Rachel, is away on vacation when Mary is invited to Cy's house. Mary isn't sure what to do, as Rachel has been her only friend for several years. Once at Cy's house things don't go as planned, and Mary finds herself once again the outcast. See, Mary can't see them, but she hears ghosts, and there is a nasty one in Cy's house.

This was a fun, fast book to read. The book is only 14 chapters, although I felt it could have been a little more to it. We don't get a lot of backstory on Mary, or Rachel, so I didn't really care about the characters as deeply as I could have. Another character who could have used more development was Mary's grandmother, or Gran. Gran is a fortune teller and the reader doesn't quite have a clear picture of what she looks like, or even how the house they live in is set up.

I would have liked a little more descriptions of several things, since after reading it (and I only finished about 3 hours ago) I can't remember what any of the characters look like. None of them really stuck with me, and I would have liked a little more from the teens who were terrible to Mary. There were more than a few, but the only name I remember is Vicki, and again, I can't quite picture what she looked like.

Now, just because I didn't care for the lack of description, and character development, does not mean that I didn't like this book. I thought the idea behind it was interesting, and found it delightful that Mary had a characteristic that I hadn't seen in a lot of other books, being able to hear but not see the dead. In the end, I thought the most delightful character was Chowder, a ghost dog who comes and goes into Mary's life. And to be honest I can remember more about him than any of the other characters (seriously, what color hair did Rachel have? I want to say red... Maybe).

I may or may not read the next book in this series. I have to think about it, and maybe get through a few more novels on my TBR shelf before buying anything new.

Book Review - Whispers by Lynn Yvonne Moon

10/6/2018

Whispers by Lynne Yvonne Moon was an okay book. It is about a young girl, Musetta, who has been repeatedly raped by her father. Once her father dies she thinks she is safe, but instead she finds that he continues to taunt and rape her.

Musetta is a twelve year old girl who struggles with a secret. The book begins at her fathers funeral, where she acts out and shows how much she hated him for what he as done. As life moves forward and she continues to be tormented by what she thinks is her father's ghost, life becomes more difficult. Finding that her life has been covered by dark secrets and that no one really knows the truth about what is and isn't real, Musetta relies of her group of friends to help her uncover the truth and stop the attacks on her body.

I thought this book started off well, but after a time I found it unbelievable, and even with the understanding that it was written for middle grade children, I felt that even for them it would be unbelievable and at times annoying. Musetta, after people learn of the abuse, doesn't seem to get the help from any of the adults in her life that she should. And the fact that no one seems to believe her is a serious issue. I also found it annoying that these four kids kept doing dangerous things an no one seemed to notice or care. Now, I get that kids get away with a lot, and that is life, but this seemed to take things a little too far.

After a time, I also felt that the book dragged on as the same things kept happening over and over, and maybe this didn't need to be 208 pages. The ending disappointed me a little as Musetta found out everything after a near death experience, instead of through all of the things she had been doing or researching, which to me is just like finding everything out in a dream or flashback. Also, the fact that no one knew anything at the end was a little off putting as well, as she had been going through all of this stuff and no adult seemed to really care.

I didn't hate this book and it was a fast read for me, and it did tackle a serious issue, but to be honest, even that seemed out of place as the rape was never explained except as a "control issue" which is not always why people rape, and it could have had a deeper purpose in this book. It could have been given the attention deserved.

Book Review - #MURDERTRENDING by Gretchen McNeil

10/6/2018

#Murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil had a very interesting premise - killers get sentenced to death on a prison island where other killers hunt them. It is a modern day Running Man, without the technology and futuristic homicidal tools. The main character, Dee, was convicted of her sister's murder. She claims she is innocent, but isn't everyone on Alcatraz 2.0 innocent? Dee knows she is going to die, that is what happens to people who land on Alcatraz 2.0. In fact the longest survivor was a martial artist who lasted five months before she was killed. And the worst part of all of this, people can watch the deaths on an app and the more likes a suspected murderer gets the more horrific their death will become. In fact, there are fan clubs for the paid killers, and bets on how long the new criminals will last.

SPOILERS -
I had high hopes for this book, and thought it was very interesting. When Dee wakes up on the island she has been dressed as if she were Cinderella and she feels she will be forced to die at the hands of a hired killer who will torture, hunt, and kill her. Dee knows she is going to die, but she looks around for a weapon to use to save herself anyway. Once the Prince arrives she accidentally kills him, saving herself. She is then greeted by the island's welcoming agent, Nyles, a young Brit who has immunity as his case goes to appeals.

Throughout her four days on the island, the people she has met are all killed except her and three others, one who is the real killer. What keeps coming back to haunt her is the time she was kidnapped when she was younger. She was held captive by a sadistic young girl, Kimmie, who was the same age as her, and Kimmie's father. In the end, it is her past that is trying to kill her, and her past is the only thing that can save her.

I found this book to be interesting until I was 3/4 through it. At this point I wasn't happy with how it ended. It seemed a little far-fetched to have an island created for one reason, and that reason really being Dee. The ending was also a little convoluted and I was a little disappointed that it left things a little open. For example, as all of the paid killers are being executed, a group of new paid killers are headed to the island to revamp the audience. This is where the book ends, with Dee and the survivors waiting to be rescued, while a new set of killers are on their way.

This ending felt like a cop out to me, as what I really wanted was a bloody gorefest of criminals, or suspected criminals, fighting hunters paid to kill them to the death. Instead I got a book that seemed to two different parts of two books. The first 3/4ths was one part, and the last 1/4 was another.

Now, I didn't hate this book, in fact until the end I did really enjoy it. I only wish that it had stuck to what I was reading in the beginning, with both the people watching on the app and people on the island coming together in a purge like focus, killing the hunters, the Postman (the guy who created the island), and the government who sanctioned the use of the island. Especially since it becomes obvious that the island is cheating people and sending innocent people to die.

Book Review - A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS by Paul Tremblay

10/3/2018

I just finished A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, so I decided to review it, since I had a moment.

The book follows the Barrett family as they struggle to find out what is wrong with their fourteen year old daughter, Marjorie. At first they take her to a psychologist to get her help, thinking her issues might be mental health related, and then, due to the father, they pull in a priest. The father doesn't seem to have much pull with the family until one night in particular, and in the end they decide that Marjorie must be possessed and needs an exorcism.

For me there were moments in the book that really bothered me. The blog written throughout by Karen Brissette seemed very unnecessary. It was in each part telling the author why the television show based on the Barrett's life was unrealistic and fake. The reader doesn't need this information, as they should be able to read the book and decide for themselves if the possession of Marjorie was in fact a thing that happened, or something that a struggling family made up to make money. The blog didn't add to the story, and it was distracting.

The novel began with a strong look at the characters, and in the house where things had happened, but it didn't explore this setting as much as it should have. Merry, Marjorie's little sister, is the one who is really telling the story, and if she is back in the setting where everything happened, I would have liked to see more of the house and Merry's reactions. This was especially true as I looked back at the beginning after finishing the book. I wanted there to be more, and I wanted there to be something to bring this book in a circle, but it is abstract and there are things that don't seem to connect.

There are also characters that seem important, but in the end the fade into the book and don't have any presence when they should. The ending was a little bit of a surprise, something I wasn't expecting, but it is the only part of the book that stood out to me. The ending stood out because it made me question what was going on in the house, was Marjorie possessed, mentally ill, or an average teenage girl? Was there something wrong with her father that caused him to need the church and believe that nothing but the church could save his daughter? Was the mother absent in their lives because she didn't want to be married, or did she not see what was going with her family? Was Merry the antagonist of the story?

Most of the time the characters fell flat, and having an eight year old Merry be narrator, to me, made her an unreliable narrator, especially since the reader has no idea what she actually saw, or what she really knew or remembered.

The last thing I'd like to say is that this book did not scare me. I don't know what most people who were scared found frightening in this book, because honestly this seemed like an amalgamation of a bunch of other stories and novels. It is almost as if Tremblay did decide to read all of the books and watch all of the movies mentioned in the book and take pieces of each one to put in this novel. I wanted to be scared, but what was I supposed to be afraid of? An abusive family? A family in chaos? A little girl who ends up doing something terrible and never getting caught? So much is left unsaid, and nothing is really developed.

The only thing that did stay with me was the ending, like I mention earlier, because it wasn't quite what I expected. I expected Marjorie to die a horrible death during the entirety of a book, and I expected something bad to happen to the family, but I did not expect what actually happened.

I am happy I read this, but it wasn't as great as I had been led to believe, and I'm not sure I will read any more of Tremblay's books, only because his writing style didn't quite work with me.

Movie Review - THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX

10/1/2018

There are a lot of people who didn’t like The Cloverfield Paradox, and I am not one of them.

This movie is an interesting science fiction film, but it was a little all over the place as well. From IMDb the plot summary is: Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.

On its own it isn’t a movie that really fits into the Cloverfield series as it doesn’t really have much to do with Clover until the very end of the movie.

Instead, as a science fiction movie, it isn’t that bad. There are parts that don’t fit. There are scenes from the space station and scenes from earth, and the two don’t go together and they don’t fit as much as they could. The scenes from earth seem to be attempts to keep the movie relevant in the Cloverfield series, but they don’t really work with the rest of the film.

The scenes in the space station are interesting, and the scenes on the space station should be a movie all on their own. There are moments where the acting and the conversations aren’t very believable. For example there is an oriental woman, Tam, and only one other person speaks the same language as her. It seems unrealistic for me to believe that no one can communicate with this one character but one other character. I feel that they should at least have had a better way of understanding each other.

There is one character, Mundy, who was great. He had all of the humorous scenes, and at one point something happens to him and then a moment later something else happens and it all adds up to a fun little moment that I enjoyed.

As a movie that is supposed to be part of a series this was not a good film to follow the last one. The only part of the movie that examines the monster is one scene at the end where the audience is given a glimpse of the monster.

Was this a good movie, not by any means, but it wasn’t awful either. It should have been edited so that there weren’t any scenes on earth, and it shouldn’t have been made as part of the Cloverfield series, because then it would have made more sense and would have been much better.

Book Review - Hell's Belles by Jackie Kessler

9/29/2018

I wanted to like this Hell's Belles by Jackie Kessler because the back made it sound appealing to me. Jezebel has run away from hell, and she is trying to live in the real world, hiding from those who wish to take her back. Now she has to survive in the world of humans, as a human, and how does she do this? The succubus works as a stripper, and she has to be careful not to use her powers otherwise hell will find her.

The problem with this book, and there were several, but I only had one big one, which has also been mentioned by several other people who have reviewed this book. The problem I had was with Jesse (Jezebel). It seemed like very other word from her mouth was either sweetie or yummy, and I really would thing a centuries old succubus would have a variety of linguistic skills. Instead she is crass and uses only basic words from the English language. Her character, being the main character in the story, did not interest me, and I had a hard time finishing this book.

Of course, as I said this wasn't my only problem. The ending of the book was predictable, again, other people have said this in their reviews as well. So, sorry, I did not enjoy this book, and honestly I felt that the back of the book lied a little, and made this more interesting than it was.

I would not recommend this book, unless you like basic erotica, because that is really what this was.

Movie Review - CABIN FEVER (2016)

9/24/2018

The 2016 remake of the movie Cabin Fever was almost a step-by-step remake of the original movie by Eli Roth. There are some differences between the two, and if you have seen the original you might think that it isn’t worth it to see the remake. I am here to tell you, that while it isn’t the best movie, it was worth the time.

Cabin fever is about a group of five friends who rent a cabin near a small town. They find that the people of and around the town aren’t the most welcoming, and they learn that sometimes, you need to trust your instincts and get out of there.

One by one, after a meeting with an infected camper they are each infected with a flesh eating disease, and from there bad things ensue. Each one of the friends find themselves infected, in almost the same way as they do in the original. There are several small differences in the movie, which were appreciated and humorous, but the biggest differences were in the kid at the front of the store and the deputy that warns and checks on the kids.

The kid in the front of the store still says, “pancakes,” which is still weird. However the kid does not do all of the weird karate kicks and things along those lines. He wasn’t as well acted as the original child was, and there was a little bit of a lackluster performance from him. So while this was a major difference, it wasn’t a good one.

The second major difference was in the character of the deputy, Deputy Winston. The character was a female, and she was fabulous. She was funny, interesting, and willing to party. The acting was well done, and she was just as skeevy as she would have been if she as a man. She was probably the best acted character and I enjoyed her.

The movie ends almost the same as well. The main character tries to kill his crush when she begs for death, but after hitting her once with a shovel he realizes he can’t do it, so instead he sets her on fire, which I think is a horrible way to die. The other girl still gets eaten by a dog, but they try to make it more horrifying as she runs out of the cabin, naked, with blood and open wounds all over her body. Two get shot, one by the townsfolk, and the other by the deputy. And the last still dies off in the woods, all by himself.

This was fun to watch since the original was an interesting and new idea. It was a better remake than the remake of Psycho, so I think if you have a moment and aren’t sure what to watch, watch this, if for nothing else than Deputy Winston. And trust me, there isn't any other reason to watch this because the acting is not on par, or even close, to the original.