The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Book Review - MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite

11/24/2019

Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer is a fun book about a young woman, the dependable Korede and her younger sister, Ayoola, who murders people. This novel has both good and bad in it.

The novel starts off when Korede is cleaning up another murder her sister has done. The young man who was murdered, Ayoola, claims to have killed in self-defense. Throughout this novel this goes back and forth, with Korede continually cleaning up after her sister, and everyone else stating how beautiful and perfect Ayoola is, even Korede.

I liked this book, but I wanted to like it more than I did. There were moments when the story was stagnant and the pacing was slow. For a book about a homicidal maniac, there was not enough murder. Korede is a young woman who has taken on the life of her sister. She keeps the guilt for herself, feeling guilty and continually seeing and stalking the young man killed at the beginning of the book. She is the one worried about getting caught, while Ayoola continues to do as she does, going out with whoever she chooses, doing as she pleases, thinking that nothing is wrong. Their mother even thinks that all of the issues are with Korede, not Ayoola. In fact everyone seems to think that all of the problems are Korede's not her murderous sister.

This is where I didn't like the book. I think that Ayoola was given too much credit, and I didn't enjoy reading Korede be so down on herself and her looks all of the time. She, in her own right, was beautiful, even as described by the author. I eventually got a little bored by her covering and discussions of Ayoola's beauty and flaws. I wanted more. I wanted more death, and really a reason to care for the characters, which is something that was missing. Even that main love interest, Tade, became a dud.

I was not happy with the ending, but I will say it was fitting for the tone and plot of the book, it also was not a surprise. The most interesting aspects of this novel was the setting, as it was not set in a familiar place. Not only that it was not set in a country that a lot of novels have been set in, being in Nigeria. I enjoyed the setting, the things I had to look up because I had no idea what they were, and the culture that came about. So for that reason I gave this book three stars.

I can't say either way if you should or should not read this novel, but I can say it will likely be like nothing you have read before. It might also be something that someone else might get more out of than me.

Book Review - DOLLHOUSE by Tim Miller

2/11/2019

I was torn between recommending and not recommending Dollhouse by Tim Miller. I will be honest, my problem wasn't with the writing, mostly. The story revolves around Jodi, a woman who has a bad attitude at times, and a needy, or strong attitude at other. Ernie Lester is a man on a mission, to build a dollhouse full of his new family. He loves his family, and he believes that his family loves him, even though they can't respond to his questions or advances. Ernie meets Jodi one day and can't get her out of his mind, so he decides to make Jodi one more addition to his dollhouse.

This is registered as extreme horror, and I expected a little more graphic violence throughout. I wondered if it was extreme because of how many "fucks" were said throughout, but even the rape scenes seemed a little toned down, especially if you have read authors like Edward Lee and Richard Laymon. I honestly would have like a little more direct and explicit violence, and I would have liked a little more brutality. In the book there were three main characters, Jodi, Ernie, and Bob. Bob adds an element of brutality, but he doesn't quite go there enough. I also would have liked a little more backstory to the characters. Parts of the story were just a little confusing as Ernie states that all of his issues started when there was a death in his family, but another minor character states that it was a different death that changed who he was, and so we never really know what started him collecting his dolls. We never really know why he chooses Bob to be his buddy after a time either.

That being said, my big issues with this were the bad grammar and wording throughout. I hate the continuous use of the word "just" as it often doesn't need to be there, or can be replaced with "only." There were several misspelled words. or the use of the wrong word. The characters all spoke the same, so the dialogue started to run together and it didn't differentiate the characters enough from one another. In fact, I wished that one or the other would use a word besides "fuck." Ernie kept saying that he had been doing this for a long time, but the reader is never given any insight as to how long. However, even with all of this, I could have read the book and not had issue with it. My main issue with this book is that the spacing was double or triple per page, and the end of each chapter was like three to five lines in the middle of a separate page, which made this a fast and frustrating read. I feel like, for this version, it was a waste of money as a book that claims to be 206, if formatted properly, would have been under 100 pages. This type of formatting doesn't make indie authors look good, and it causes people not to by a book written by an indie author.

Now I know Tim Miller has done well for himself, and this is in no way meant to cut him down. He has been successful, and continues to be successful, making sure he continues to write a new book as often as he can, and going to as many conventions to help stay known and relevant. I admire him for that. And, this book was not a bad read, although I could have used a little more depth, and less of a predictable ending.

I really wasn't a fan of the formatting, and I personally found the errors and the formatting very distracting. I can't say I do or don't recommend book by Tim Miller, as several of them sound interesting. I, personally, might let this book percolate before picking up another.

Movie Review - Creep 2

12/17/2018

Of course, this review will have spoilers because this is the second in a series. I can’t really talk too much about the movie without mentioning what happened in the previous movie.

The movie, Creep 2, was released in 2017, and I am not sure if people watched it as much as they should have. The plot definition from IMDb is: A video artist looking for work drives to a remote house in the forest to meet a man claiming to be a serial killer. But after agreeing to spend the day with him, she soon realizes that she made a deadly mistake.

Everyone who has seen the first movie knows that Aaron, played by Mark Duplass, is a serial killer. He killed his videographer from the first movie at the end of the movie. In this movie, he starts with a murder, but has hired a videographer, Sara, to document his death. As the film continues on he talks about how he has lost his mojo, and how killing has become boring. With Sara he finds new life and finds that he still has an urge for something. Sara, for her part, shows that he doesn’t scare her, even though he actually does. Then again Sara doesn’t believe Aaron is a serial killer.

I thought this movie was fun, and I have to say I also enjoyed the first movie, Creep. I think part of this was due to Mark Duplass. I have to admit I really enjoy his acting style, as he is often weird characters, but also subtle and engaging. In this movie he takes his serial killer to a new level, and he makes the audience believe what he says. His serial killer was also written well and it was such an honest portrayal, I could honestly say that he made me think about what an actual serial killer might think. He did, in fact, make me think of the real serial killer, Edmund Kemper.

Edmund Kemper is honest about what he has done and why. He is intelligent, and Aaron is also intelligent, which made him seem realistic and wonderful.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and if you haven’t seen it you should absolutely watch it. First, watch the first movie. After you watch both of these you should watch anything else you can with Mark as an actor.

Movie Review - HATCHET

11/12/2018

A group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare when their boat is stranded and they must find a way back to civilization, all in the movie Hatchet, from 2006.

As a horror movie this doesn’t really stand out, using the same tropes often used in a horror movie about a monster human. It does give backstory to the villain/monster, Victor Crowley, but not really enough to state why he goes about killing everyone. I understand revenge doesn’t always have a sensible reason, but there wasn’t much for this movie and it seemed like a stretch.

Now, I also know that this movie is becoming, or already is a cult classic, but that could be because it is so badly acted, and it has a ton of boobs. I know when a movie has a lot of nudity sometimes it becomes a cult classic just for that. The acting was dry, mostly from Joel David Moore, who often plays dry, monotone characters. This movie also has a cameo by Robert Englund and Kane Hodder (as Victor Crowley), so there are some horror icons in it, which should bring credence to the movie. The “young” women in the movie are provoked into showing their boobs in almost every scene, and Misty the blond, played by Mercedes McNab, is a stereotype blond bimbo who cries and screams and gets stuck in every scene, causing people to die.

The ending of the movie was obviously made to lead to a sequel, and reminded me of the ending of the original Friday the 13th. It could have been a little more original, and the deaths could have been better lit so the audience gets to see the broken, torn-up bodies of the victims.

Overall, this was just another horror movie in a long list of horror movies. I don’t think it was great, but it wasn’t terrible either. I would have like the ending to be a little more original, and I would have liked to see a little more lead up in suspense to the final moments.

Movie Review - ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE

10/25/2018

Amber Heard, plays Mandy Lane in this film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. She is a beautiful girl who all of the boys lust after, and even some of the girls. After she is invited to a high school gathering among a few of her new friends, she goes with the hope that people will be having fun, and no she herself can have fun. In the end, the party goers drop one by one as a mysterious killer takes them out.

This movie, at first, seems like a normal movie about high schoolers who party and end up being killed one by one, and at first there is nothing to suggest that this isn’t what the movie is about. However, at the end of the movie the audience sees more than they thought they would.

Every high school student can appreciate, and well every person in general, the things these students go through, and the insecurities that they all show. All of the boys have a plan to be the one to score with Mandy Lane. The beginning of the movie starts with a student injuring himself after proclaiming his desire for Mandy Lane. So, obviously every male student has some desire for Mandy Lane, and this causes the movie to feel like something bad is going to happen to Mandy Lane.

I can’t say this was a great movie, but I don’t think it was a horrible movie. It didn’t go into very much detail as to what had happened to Mandy’s parents, as she is now living with her Aunt and cousin. There is no exposition and no definitions to Mandy’s life before the movie, so the audience doesn’t get to know much about her, which is annoying. The movie is a little bit of a problem in itself, because it wants the audience to feel bad for and fright for Mandy Lane, but it doesn’t give us much to go on.

The movie is very slow at times, and the ending doesn’t really make sense, although it is the most interesting part of the film. But if a movie is going to involve killing characters, it needs to make the audience care that the characters are being killed, otherwise it is only one more minute in a movie. And if I am going to be honest, I can’t say that any of the homicides were very interesting, so the only thing that could have made the movie interesting was the ending.

Do I recommend watching it? Only on streaming, and only if you have an hour and a half to kill.

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 - I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER by Dan Wells

8/24/2018

I Am Not A Serial Killer is a thrilling idea from the point of view of a fifteen year old sociopath. John Wayne Cleaver is a young man trying hard not to become a serial killer, and for the most part he seems to be doing a good job. He lives with his mother, who owns and works in a mortuary with her twin sister, Margaret. This may not seem like the place for a young man who is trying not to kill, but for John it seems to work.

John also has a sister, Lauren, who we don't see much of, but get a short scene towards the end of the book that makes us wonder what she may or may not know about John, and their absent father.

Throughout the book a serial killer is stalking the citizens of Clayton. John is trying to figure out who the killer is and why they are killing. In the end John finds out more than he expected to find.

I liked the idea of this book more than I liked the book. When the author shows the audience who the killer is I was frustrated and annoyed. It didn't fit with what I wanted to see and to be honest nothing about this book told me that it was going to be as odd as it was. This isn't the first time that I have been disappointed in a book not really delivering what it promises.

I enjoyed the view of the main character, John. He constantly questioned how he could save himself from being a serial killer, and he obviously doesn't really want to become one. This was an interesting idea, and it was fascinating to listen to John as he debated what he should and shouldn't be doing, but it also wasn't realistic and I wondered how much the author actually knew about serial killers.

Not all serial killers escalate, and not all serial killers kill to dominate or show their power. But I digress.

So while I thought the idea behind this book was promising, I don't think the inclusion of this particular serial killer was the best choice for this book, nor did I think the ending of the book was what I had been led to anticipate.

Book Review - THE KILL JAR by J. Reuben Appelman

8/14/2018

I won The Kill Jar by J. Reuben Appelman on goodreads, and I really, really wanted to like this book, but I just could not. The topic was interesting, but I am not sure if, besides police corruption, it gave any new information about the case at hand. I looked up the case on google as I read, and the information in the book about the case was all the same information I could find on google. The hard part of this book was that the chapters didn't transition well. One chapter could be about the case and the next about a pedophile ring that may have had something about the case then the next would be about the authors relationship with his father and then there was a lot about girlfriends, his family, and self-harm. This book was very disjointed, although I understand how the families of the victims might have found some relief in this book as someone was once again talking about their deceased loved ones.

I didn't think the author wrote as well as he could have either. From one chapter to another there were so many open ended ideas and questions, and in the end nothing was resolved. For example, the author met up with an old girlfriend, Ellie, and at the end of the book, in his last meeting with her he sees that she looks tired and different, but he doesn't question her about her appearance, so why did he bring it up? He talks a lot about his infidelities and self harm, but it all seems to be about him, not the story he is telling about the victims of the killer. He leads the reader into a circular thought pattern, and nothing is resolved, or changed by his telling of this story.

I wish this had been more cohesive, and contained more information about the victims, as it seemed to focus on the pedophilia of the suspects and others who might have been involved in the coverup of the pedophile ring.

This was not a great, or even a good book, it was too hard to read and left the author with nothing to look into or wonder about as it is a case which will most likely never be solved. So what was the purpose of writing this book?

Movie Review - HATCHETMAN (2003)

5/16/2018

This was an interesting movie. It has a short synopsis on IMDb. All it says is, "A serial killer stalks a college student and her friends." This synopsis isn't exactly true as only one of the women is a college student. No, in fact this is a movie about a bunch of strippers, who are being picked off one by one by a serial killer. The killer is obsessed with one stripper in particular, Molly, and kills as many others as he can because strippers are bad, bad girls.

The main character, Claudia is the only one attending school, and as the movie progresses we see her struggle with her relationship to a homicide detective and her dreams of getting into law school. The most annoying stripper is Star, a woman who seems to be scared at some points, but who continues to do things which put her in danger.

Star is the only character in the movie who I continually hoped would die. I disliked her so much, and really didn't see what the point of her character was, unless it was to annoy the audience.

This was not a perfect horror film by any means. It was poorly acted by some and well acted by others. Both Claudia and Molly were well rounded characters, although I would have liked a little more backstory to both of them since they seemed to have some similar life situations. Too much time was given to the bad behavior of Star, and the bumbling of the homicide detective.

As the movie ended I was interested in who the killer was, and while it did become quite obvious in the later scenes, the reasoning was interesting. The one huge problem I had with this movie was that is seemed as if it were to have a sequel. The killer disappears, and the audience is left waiting for a sequel, which I would have watched to see more development in both Claudia and Molly's characters. I also would have liked to know if Claudia went to law school, and what Molly did after, since I am sure she didn't go back to stripping after her experience.

This wasn't a bad movie, but some of the characters could have been cast better, or written better. The most interesting characters weren't developed as much as they could have been, and the sequel that should have been made never was, which is a shame. If a sequel had been made, more people might have seen it, and it could have become a cult classic like THE TOXIC AVENGER or other horrific slasher movies.

Movie Review - FINAL GIRL

2/11/2018

Apparently not a lot of people liked this one as it only has 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. The plot is written as this: Every night, four boys trick a young, blonde girl into meeting them in the forest for a date with the intention to hunt and kill her for sport. One night, Veronica is selected and little do they know she is a trained assassin with her own set of tricks for these boys. When the hunt begins, the boys soon realize that they messed with the wrong girl when she turns the tables on them (Rotten Tomatoes).

There are several people out there who think that Abigail Breslin hasn't lived up to her LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE fame, or talent, but I disagree. Both MAGGIE and FINAL GIRL show a different side of Breslin and her talents. While MAGGIE is a quiet zombie flick, that few enjoyed because of the slow space and the talent, or lack of talent, that Arnold Schwarzenegger had in the film. While MAGGIE was a slow burn FINAL GIRL was a slow, but steady burn. The audience knew what was going on from almost the beginning of the movie.

This was an interesting movie, about four young men who liked to hunt and murder young women. This was interesting because the pack mentality was fascinating among the boys, as was the character development. The four young men each have different features, and one even has a long-term girlfriend. The other fun thing for me was the actors were all young men who I recognized from other features when they were younger, so it was interesting.

The idea behind this could have been developed a little more. I would have like there to be a little more direction in the beginning, what facility did Breslin and Wes Bentley (her trainer) work for? How did Bentley get her to go with him as a young child? Where were her parents? Also why did her memory matter as much as it seemed to in the beginning, but not so much later in the film? These were some of the things that bothered me about the movie.

I like the originality of the film, even if it was somewhat unbelievable. Serial killers are one thing, but the fact that these young men have such a small pool to choose from, and no one has found out who they are, was a little unbelievable. Of course I did like the idea, I wish it had been executed better. However, that being said I wanted to give Miss Breslin props for continuing to develop as an actress. I would like to see her try different things not in the horror genre, but better than the horrible movie that was the DIRTY DANCING remake.

If you have a chance, and one and a half hours to kill, watch FINAL GIRL, it isn't bad.