Fine Music and Modern Horror [Book Reviews]

Image from Penguin

This remarkable book, like the hand from beyond the grave depicted on its schlocky cover art, caught us by surprise. In a good way. Penned by seasoned critic Jason Zinoman, who, among other things, covers theater for the New York Times, Shock Value traces the history of what the author refers to as New Horror - a gory, ambiguous, and terrifying brand of the genre that owes less to the over-the-top theatrics of Dracula than to the chilling short stories of H.P. Lovecraft and a remarkable lineage of fine art.

The subjects in Shock Value are a cadre of directors, writers and producers who became a part of the horror canon through diverse circumstances. John Carpenter is introduced as having a “laconic, quiet presence,” and his first forays into film had nothing to do with scares - before he made his name with Halloween, he won an Oscar in 1970 for his work on The Resurrection of Broncho Billy, a romantic short film for which Carpenter penned the music, co-wrote the story, and acted as film editor. Our least-known subject, Daniel O'Bannon, was the co-creator of Alien and worked with Carpenter on 1974's Dark Star. Unlike the mellow Carpenter, O'Bannon was “wound-up and intense,” and “delivered a steady stream of bile, provocations, and paranoid theories.” Their collaboration would turn cold, but not before launching two very important careers in the world of New Horror. Also carefully profiled is Wes Craven. Born in a devout home, Craven was primarily interested in literature - he “loved Kafka” - and was an assistant professor of literature before indulging his bohemian - and later - his darker streak.

Other notables in the book include Roman Polanski, Brian De Palma, George Romero, Tobe Hooper, and many more, but if you're at all interested in the inspirations and motivations of these figures, you're just going to have to read the book yourself. In this review we're going to have to skip ahead, and concentrate solely on Zinoman's writing style and thesis. The former is worth mentioning in that the author - like his subject - finds graceful footing between the worlds of campy grindhouse gross-outs and fine art, and his writing will be neither too dense nor too casual for lovers of horror. Instead, his writing is careful, detailed, but he makes the subject material so fascinating that you'll likely find yourself reading fifty pages at a single sitting. Who would've thought the hippyish, subdued men behind scream queens and masked killers would prove to be as interesting (if not more) than their creations?

As for Zinoman's big ideas, here's the crux: when New Horror inhabited the mantle from Old Horror (think rubber suits, Vincent Price, etc.) it did so by exploring a type of terror that had more to do with the unknown. New Horror directors played on fear by revealing less and, instead of wrapping things up at the end, leaving gaps in both continuity and morality. Also fascinating is the progression of horror from adolescent indulgence to respected art form. Oddly enough, when the directors profiled in this book debuted, they came into their work with a very specific, almost classical focus - for example, Wes Craven's The Last House On The Left was based on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, a reference early horror junkies probably missed. Zinoman takes us from a time when these bookish auteurs were making classically-influenced gorefests as respected as soft core pornography, to the present day, when the genre is getting a belated second look. Consider Shock Value required reading on that front.

Jason Zinoman: [twitter]

Image from Raw Art Press

Cassie Sneider's Fine Fine Music is a wry set of coming-of-age stories set through the focused lens of a sleep-deprived music obsessive with a strange sense of humor. Most of the material in this book of short non-fiction comes courtesy of Sneider's recollections of her childhood and “extended adolescence” in her hometown of Ronkonkoma, New York. Furthermore most of Sneider's stories revolve around kind of...well, it might get a better picture through her description. Here's Sneider's mother, explaining the theft of their car's AM/FM antenna:

“'I came out and some sonofabitch took it,' she said, sparking a Basic Ultra Light while we all stood dumbfounded around the car, like the cast of CSI: White Trash.”

So yeah - we have a lot of stories about the more sordid, poor parts of culture, a place where McDonalds Happy Meal prizes, cigarette-choked hotel karaoke bars, the Park and Ride (you know, for picking up strangers), all night diners, and the bathroom at the record store all get equal footing. In some cases Sneider seems to be looking for trouble, but mostly it just finds her. We're introduced to smack-talking pre-teens hawking candy, self-important artiste-types, and, perhaps most importantly, to Sneider's sister Carly, who is present in many of the stories here and is a frequent collaborator/victim. Tales of misfit teenage misadventures aren't new, but Sneider has a keen eye, a warmth to her writing, a strong sense of humor, and a humility about her that means the occasional evocative or sad passages are made more effective by their soft entrance. A promising collection from a new writer.

Cassie Sneider: [bio at raw art]