Friday, April 27, 2012

Let Sleeping Ghosts Lie: The Innkeepers (2011)

Greetings again from me, Marie! What you are quickly learning about me is that I am a sucker for a ghost story. In fact, they are my favorite kind of story!

I’ve been lucky enough to find two deliciously chilling stories of specters from the very same year! 2011 has been kind enough to give us The Awakening (the film I reviewed in my last post), and The Innkeepers.

The latter comes to us from fledgling horror director Ti West, who is best known for his 2009 picture House of the Devil. If you have not seen House of the Devil, you simply must! But that is a topic that would stem an article of its own (go watch it, it’s on Netflix!).

Now we all know that hotels are creepy as hell, we can thank Stephen King for that (thanks, Steve), and the Yankee Pedlar Inn is no exception. And nothing is creepier than an empty hotel, and this particular one is pretty near hollow—most of the rooms stripped of all furniture—for it is the hotel’s final weekend open.

As the film starts out, the building is occupied by only a few souls. There are the two young staff members—the adorable and quirky Claire (played by Sara Paxton, who has acted in such cinematic achievements as Shark Night and the Last House on the Left remake), and the snarky and dorky Luke (Pat Healy). And there are the three occupants—a mother and her child (who Luke affectionately refers to as “that bitch and her kid”) and an aging actress past her prime in town for a convention (Kelly McGillis).

Luke just so happens to run a website on the Yankee Pedlar, which provides a history of the building and accounts of encounters with its alleged ghostly occupants. Even though Luke is the only person who has had actual experiences, Claire is eager to have one of her own and thinks that since the hotel is nearly empty, they have a good chance of making “contact”.

The ghost in question is that of Madeline O’Malley, who was once a guest at the inn and believed to have hung herself there, her body then stowed in the basement by the original owners to avoid bad press.

As night descends Claire is left alone after Luke goes to seek some shut-eye in one of the empty rooms.
Out of boredom and curiosity Claire picks up the EVP recorder (for those of you who aren’t ghost nerds like me, that stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena) that Luke has left for his ghost hunting and makes her way from room to room, trying to pick up the disembodied voice of Madeline O’Malley. The darkness and the silence of the hotel causes Claire to become tense and alert to every small sound, but little actually happens except for some mysterious knocks and rattles and the gentle tinkering of a piano.

As she becomes overwhelmed by her experiences, she receives some unexpected help from Lee Rease-Jones, the retired actress who is residing in the hotel. Lee reveals that the convention she is in town for is a gathering of psychics and healers, and that she herself is a medium. She says that she can help Claire come in contact with Madeline O’Malley through means of her pendulum, her psychic tool of choice.
She does indeed get the ghost on the line, and manages to provide Claire with one important piece of advice—don’t go in the basement.

The next morning, a final guest checks in; a strange old man who insists that he have room 353, even if he has to sleep in it without any furniture, for that room has already been stripped in preparation for the hotel’s closing.

Later on the staff prepares for another long night of boredom by cracking open some beers and going on another EVP hunt. Silly drunk Claire suggests that they investigate the basement (you know, the place where she isn’t supposed to go), and as things get downright spooky, Luke becomes overcome with fear and flees the hotel, leaving Claire alone with the two remaining guests, and whatever ghosts are present as well.

Here’s what I can tell you: Luke isn’t the paranormal expert he claims to be, Lee knows something that she isn’t telling anyone, the man in room 353 has picked his room for a very specific purpose, and Claire is in some serious trouble.

Now, I will admit the first hour of the movie is pretty slow-paced—okay, very slow-paced—and I can’t guarantee it will be able to hold you (I almost gave up on it myself), but I certainly hope it does because the ending is well worth it. The final moments are packed with some serious creepy action and I am just crazy about the ending.

I must say, though, I am really into this Ti West guy. House of the Devil was crazy amazing and that movie and this one show how stylish and clever of a director he is. He loves to start off with a steady-paced story and then—BOOM! Lay the scares on you all at once. It does have a good effect—that is, if you’re into having heart attacks—and I think his ideas are very original.

The characters in The Innkeepers all have a very natural feel to them, particularly Claire and Luke. Their close friendship and sarcastic sense of humor make them very realistic and believable, and they generally seem like fun people to pass the hours with. Okay, maybe not Luke, he’s kind of a prick. But I would definitely be down to hang out with the creepy old man in room 353 or Madeline O’Malley.

I’m ceasing to make sense now, but you should give this film a chance, it may not have enough action to keep your interest sparked, but one thing I must ask is that you keep an eye out for Ti West. He seems to be a very promising young horror director with good ideas and great style, and hopefully he will keep pumping out films that are worthy of the genre. It seems we should see more of him around Halloween this year—I believe he is contributing to a horror anthology film called V/H/S. Sounds interesting enough.

Anyway, here is the moral of the story: let restless ghosts haunt.
~MR

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Top Ten (Horror Film) Kids I'd Adopt

 I'm not a big fan of children.  I've often commented that there should be one state in the USA that doesn't allow children.  Adults only. My husband and I would SO move there. (It'd be my luck if that would actually happen, the designated state would turn out to be Kansas or Oklahoma and we would be swept off the face of the earth within the first week of residency by some massive F5 twister or something.)
Honestly, I've wished many a time that I was telekinetic like Carrie White so I could just glare at a bratty kid who's riding through my grass and make him fall off his bicycle and break his femur. I've even tried. (No, it didn't work, don't worry.)

But I'm not completely heartless.  I have relatives that are tiny humans and I actually like the heck out of them. My best friend has a daughter who's hopelessly adorable.  And I've watched many a child grow up to be regular adults who no longer scream and run around in quiet bookstores.  And above all, my year-old niece is simply put, the cutest kid on the planet.  See what I mean?

 

So there are some kids that I can certainly tolerate and even love!  That said, I've come up with a list of ten kids I would adopt. And because this is a horror blog - you get kids from within the horror genre.
See how that works?


1) Danny Torrance (The Shining):  Poor Danny. Alcoholic, easily influenced, nut-job father. Appallingly unattractive waif of a mother. Danny, despite talking in a strange voice while playing finger puppets without the puppet, does win the prize for best dressed here in our countdown.  Look at the Mickey sweater above!



 And wow.  An Apollo 11 sweater?  All on a teacher's salary?  He looks pretty bad ass here! Gonna whup some butt!
But Danny has a gift I'm not sure I could handle.  Not exactly special needs, but definitely out of my comfort zone.  Soon, Danny starts hanging out with Dad too much and he seems to be following in his footsteps.
Observe:


and soon after.....


 And finally:  he still wears the cool-kids sweaters, but has evolved into a knife-toting, red-rum chanting devil-child.


Poor Danny needs to get out from under his wacky parents' influence.  I could take him under my wing and give him all the damn chocolate ice cream he wants, and Tony?  He can go get bent.


 2) Jamie Lloyd (Halloween series):  Aww, look how gosh-darned cute she is!  (Well, except for those hopelessly awful bangs!). Now this little girl needs some TLC.  When your uncle is a psychopath, it's hard to make friends!

 
 I can still hear them chanting: "Jamie's an orphan! Jamie's an orphan!" 
Let's remedy that, shall we?  I'd consider signing the adoption papers if I didn't think it was going to end up another kid with a butcher knife.


Dammit.  I knew it.



3) Carlos (The Devil's Backbone) - Young Carlos thought he was just going to stay at the 'boys school' for a spell, when really daddy was dropping him off for all of time.  Yikes.
So I think I'd like to snatch him up (that sounded bad - shouldn't say snatch and kids in the same sentence if you don't want to be arrested!) What I meant was, I'd give Carlos a good home.  One where he wouldn't be seeing long-dead ghosts and having to deal with the harsh reality of the Spanish Civil war.


There also wouldn't be any defused bombs in my backyard.
Carlos would be in good hands. And I could pass him off as my love child with Antonio Banderas.


4) Nicholas Stewart (The Others) - Aww, Nicholas - you little scamp, you. 
Another child with 'special needs', lil' Nicky can't be out in the sun.  Hates light, in general.  Not sure how well that would go over at my house - though I certainly am a night person.  But this kid is even paler than I am, and I didn't think that was possible.


 He certainly wouldn't be able to come on vacation with us to the beach, that's for sure!
And though Nicholas would be more than welcome in my home, his bratty sister Anne is forbidden to cross my threshold.



5) Gage (Pet Sematary):  Probably the cutest kid in horror, hands down.  Little Gage suffers from 'dumb-ass-parents-syndrome'.  Anyone who would let their child run, unattended, near a major goddamned highway deserves to join the bad parents club immediately.
Worse yet, his dad digs up his body and steals it from the cemetery only to re-plant it in some ancient Indian burial ground. 
And what do we get from that brilliant idea?


Another kid with a sharp implement.  I'm sensing a pattern here.
But if I had my hands on that kid, THIS is what you'd get:


Now that's a kid after my own heart.  And he reads too? Awesome.


6) Job and Sarah (Children of the Corn): Two for the price of one! If pressed, I'd most certainly choose Sarah, she's just cute as a button, and loves Del Shannon - how can you go wrong?


  Job, on the other hand, is probably forever messed up and in desperate need of psychotherapy after witnessing his dad's murder while out for an ice cream sundae.



 As melancholy as he looks, he's still a pretty smart kid, helping his sister and two adults escape the wrath of "He who walks behind the rows".  I think this duo is fairly salvageable.  More so than anyone else so far...
First order of business for them?  A trip to American Eagle for some new duds.  Or at least Old Navy.
Those old-fashioned threads are so last season.


7) Billy Drayton (The Mist): Let me just say this first and foremost. I hate bugs. So Billy would have no issues with giant, creepy-ass bugs with me around. 


Billy was a bit of a mama's boy though.  Not that humongous spiders and flying grasshoppers wouldn't scare the piss of me and make me a bit of a sissy as well.   No knives or scalpels for Billy.  But to his benefit, he did have Thomas Jane AND Laurie Holden.  Always a plus. 
So if I were to adopt him, could I get Thomas Jane too??


8) Billy Harley (Pumpkinhead): Can I just say how much I love this little guy?  When he makes that necklace for his dad and tells him he doesn't have to wear if all the time, just "when it strikes ya", I just have to grin.
And then those assholes run him over with their dirt bikes! Ahhh!  No!
That pissed me off more than when the semi hit Gage.

 Just. Breaks. My. Heart.




9) Sean Brody (Jaws): Michael is the precocious one. Sean is the one who sings Muffin Man and plays copy-cat with his Dad. Neither of the kids listen very well, but Sean would be my pick to bring home. Far away from the danger of the deep blue sea, he could thrive and still play in the sand.....box.


Admittedly, the creepy face Sean makes here is a little bit...shall we say, kooky?  But when you picture him and his dad, I can't help but to think he looks more than adorable. 
I could straighten this kid out and have him in line before his accent becomes too New Yawk.



10) Carol Anne Freehling (Poltergeist):  It's an obvious fact that no list of this nature would forget dear, sweet Carol Anne.  Trapped in the tv, so to speak. Out there...somewhere.




 Normally, I don't like blondes.  Nor do I like people that are conduits to evil demons and ghosts. But little Carol Anne can't help it, she didn't ask for the spirits of the dead to invade her happy home.
She'd probably feel at home here at my house, as I'm pretty sure there is a ghost living in our attic.  But the minute she utters those famous two words, she's outta here.
No matter how impossibly cute she is.



Thursday, April 19, 2012

2011's The Awakening (And A Formal Shout Out To My New Compadre, Marie)

Hello, fellow horror fans! I am thrilled to introduce myself, my name is Marie and I shall be reviewing the 2011 British film, The Awakening, directed by Nick Murphy, whose only previous endeavors were several television shows.

First of all, I love the poster. For some unknown reason Rotten Tomatoes is using an extremely boring all-black poster, when this one is perfectly marvelous! It captures the creepy atmosphere that is carried throughout the whole film, and I daresay you might have to watch this one twice to wrap your head around it!

The setting is England in 1921, just after the end of Word War I. The city is foggy and dark, cloaked in the anguish the war has left behind. Our opening scene unfolds onto a séance, where a group of people are seated around a long table lighted with tall candles, each with an object placed in front of them—a lock of hair, a photograph, a string of pearls, etc.

The group begins a chant, asking the spirits to come forward; a woman’s candle extinguishes before her, and from the other side of the table, a pale-faced, long-haired figure starts to approach. The woman becomes hysterical, believing it to be her deceased daughter making an appearance from the afterlife, when suddenly a young woman stands up from the table, storms over to the apparition and rips off its dark tresses, revealing the specter to be nothing but a little boy in a dress with his face painted white. This young woman—who is our protagonist, Florence Cathcart, played by the lovely Rebecca Hall (seen in Vicky Christina Barcelona and several stage performances)—rips open the curtains and exposes the audience to what this scene really is, a hoax.

Florence Cathcart is the author of an acclaimed book entitled, “Seeing Spirits” which denounces the existence of ghosts. She is known around England for debunking hauntings and exposing hoaxes. After the séance, Florence declares that she is no longer taking any more cases (but not before she gets bitch-slapped by one of the séance attendees). She is overcome with grief of a lover lost in the war; she carries his initial-engraved cigarette case with her everywhere.

Of course, it isn’t that easy getting out of the ghost-hunting business—if that was the case the movie would be a mere ten minutes long. A handsome man (Dominic West) appears at her doorstep, begging for her help.

This man goes by the name of Robert Malory, and he teaches at a school in Cambria where a boy was allegedly murdered some years ago, before the building had become a school and was still a private home. However, three weeks prior to Mr. Malory’s visit to Florence, a student claimed to see the dead child.
 
So off she goes through the sweeping landscape of the English countryside! After pulling up to a massive and foreboding gray-bricked mansion, Florence and Robert are greeted by Maud, (Imelda Staunton, most widely known as the biggest bitch in Hogwarts, Professor Umbridge) a woman who works at the school and Florence’s biggest fan. She informs Florence that she keeps her book right next to the Bible, and she has no patience for all the talk and fear of ghosts going around.

Florence receives a formal tour of the school, making sure to meet all of the other creepy staff members, and then proceeds to set up her various equipment she uses to catch “ghosts”. One of her devices is a newspaper covered in flour, which she claims is used to trace footprints. “Ghosts have footprints?” Robert asks. To which Florence aptly replies, “No, people pretending to be ghosts do.”

Things take a turn when Florence begins getting instant results; her traps are being set off by a child she can only catch a glimpse of as he darts around corners. She believes the culprit to be a sad, quiet boy named Tom—the last person to see the recently murdered child alive.

As her usual methods begin to fail and she continues to experience inexplicable events that her usual methods can’t resolve, her sanity starts to wane and no one is as they seem in the boarding school.

The story unravels at a steady and satisfying pace, and the events that happen along the way are exciting, original and unpredictable. Halfway through you might get the idea that you can guess the ending (I had a few ideas myself) but I guarantee that you cannot.

This movie reminded me a lot of The Others (don’t think that means I’m giving away the ending!) and Henry James’s novel the Turn of the Screw, two other English ghost stories that I thoroughly enjoy. It is a spooky, atmospheric film with limited special effects and beautiful shadowy cinematography.

Personally, I loved the character of Florence Cathcart. She’s not necessarily a likable character, she can be kind of a jerk, but hey, that is because she has a very dark and troubled past. People in the film are constantly commenting on how she is an “educated woman”, which is totally condescending but makes her a bad ass of her time. She is a tough chick who manages to kick some ass, come to terms with some terrible things about her past, and have some steamy romance, too (two guesses as to who she pairs up with).
Rebecca Hall has put on a wonderful performance as Florence, capturing her emotions and personality beautifully.

I’m a sucker for understated ghost stories, but I really enjoyed this film. It was released in Canada, Ireland, the U.K, and Italy in 2011, and will be out in the United States August 10th of this year.
If anyone else has seen it please tell me what you think!

 *Marie Robinson is an aspiring folklore expert, fledgling writer, and obvious old soul from St. Louis, MO.  She considers Roman Polanski one of her favorite directors, The Sentinel among the scariest of films she's seen, and has read both Algernon Blackwood and M.R. James. All this makes her a class act already, and she's not yet 21.
In her spare time, she does what any true genre fan does - she works at the local movie theater, slinging popcorn and Twizzlers to your sorry asses.

Show her some love, people.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Celebrating And Keeping It Real

Last month was an anniversary month here at Fascination with Fear. For four long years I have toiled and plugged away on this blog, sometimes putting it ahead of things I should have been doing. But it is a labor of love. I've never expected to get anywhere with it, and I've always done it strictly out of my inherent need to write and my love of all things horror. 
I've met some exceptionally wonderful people in the course of the last several years - some of which I have formed life-long friendships with, any many of which I talk to more than my family and care for just as much as. I've had great opportunities (joining the Fangoria family for one, writing an article for the exemplary magazine, Paracinema, and being on staff at The Bloodsprayer).
I've also had a few bad times (the horror community can be a feisty bunch) but mostly it has been fantastic, four of the best years of my life.  I have no intention of going anywhere anytime soon, just in case you think I'm leading up to the big blog finish.  Not so.  


But in the course of those years, I've went through some rough times "outside the blogosphere" - upsetting changes at my job, my husband lost his job of 20 years due to outsourcing and had to start from scratch, my mother got brain cancer, I had a cancer scare of my own last summer... well, you see what I mean.  A lot of outside factors were stressing me and still, I kept up with the blog. Because it helped me through everything. (Well, that and a terrific marriage.)


Through thick and thin, horror has been there with me - to comfort me and to make me forget about things for awhile. I enjoy writing, even if only a handful of people ever read it. 

But I've been a bit dejected lately because I don't seem to have as much time to blog because of all these outside stressors. I'd become somewhat complacent, figuring not updating and writing on the blog is just the way it is and I'd have to deal with it, life would go on.  But then I felt like I was letting myself (and my ten readers) down.
So it is mostly with excitement - and a tiny bit of trepidation - that I announce I have decided to get some help. 
NO, not psychological help - I see where your mind went there...  Help for the blog.  I've decided to take on another writer.  If it works out, I won't be looking for any additional help.  And I've already got that person lined up and ready to go. 

My blog is my baby, my calm in the storm. So I'm determined to keep it up and running even if it means I had to admit I needed some assistance to stay in the loop.  I will of course, still be the primary writer, and everything has to come through and be approved by me, so it's not like I'm just letting random people post willy-nilly.  


That said,  it is my great pleasure to introduce Marie Robinson.  She contacted me through my blog and just seems to be a good fit.  Only 20 years old, she is what I would have to call an old soul, claiming Roman Polanski as one of her favorite directors and she is well-versed in such authors as M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood (If you're looking up who they are then I think you need a slight slap).  She's still a babe in the woods but already knows her horror!  I mean, this is a girl that proclaims The Sentinel as being one of her favorite films. Sounds pretty promising!

I hesitate to call anyone my protége, as I detest the word, but suffice it to say I am happy to allow her the space to profess her love of the genre.
By all means, let me know what you think.

And before I go, I just want to say thanks to anyone and everyone who has read my blog, and special thanks to those who have left comments (the catnip of the blogging world!) I'd also like to do a shout out to  people who have befriended me, others who have given me a chance within the genre to do bigger and better things, and others still that just make my day on a regular basis.  If you don't see your name then it's not because I don't love you.  It's because it's midnight and I'm tired! 
Here goes:

Andre ~ BJ-C ~ Kristy ~ Pax ~ James G. ~ Lance ~ Mike F. ~ Brian S. ~ Zach K. ~ Wes ~ James C. ~ Zach S ~ Christine M. ~ Rebekah M ~  James H. ~ William M. ~ Will E. ~ Matt H. ~ John C. ~ Emily I. ~ John S. ~ Sarah J. ~ Steve J.


Stay tuned for Marie's first contribution, a review of the 2011 British film, The Awakening!



Progress is what happens when impossibility yields to necessity. ~ Arnold H. Glasgow 



Sunday, April 15, 2012

Dirty Little Reading Secrets

It's no secret I'm a big fan of lists. I've done countless (ironic, eh?) different ones, mostly about films. So when I saw the list "7 Of My Dirty Reading Secrets" by Casey Crisswell on the blog, Cinema Fromage, I had to chime in with my own.  This is not a strictly "horror-based" post, in fact, most of it is just off the cuff. But I love reading insights into others' choices and reasons for who they have become, so here are some of mine.

1) When I was a kid, I discovered two Hemingway novels - For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea - on our bookshelf.  Even back then I held them in my hands with such reverence, even though I had no clue whatsoever what they were about or who the hell Hemingway was.  Somehow I just knew they were important. However, now that I look back, I have no idea how they came to be on that bookshelf, as the only thing my mother ever read were those old gothic romance novels or Mary Higgins Clark.  And my dad? Well, let's just say he's had a subscription to Sports Illustrated since the year Seattle Slew won the Triple Crown (that's 1977, folks.) So I have to assume the Hemingway magically appeared on the shelf, delivered by the sacred book gods for me to discover and soon realize there are actually other authors besides Stephen King, and they have equally as important things to say.

2) My favorite book as a young child? The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams.  It is this book (soon followed by Charlotte's Web by E.B. White and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell) that forged my life-long love of animals.  The story of a battered stuffed rabbit who yearns to be real still has the ability to tug at my heartstrings (yes, people! I do have them!)  It is the first book that I can remember making me FEEL something.  The thought that the boy loved the bunny so much but then forgot him so quickly made my heart break.  That said, it has a stellar magical ending, so all hope is not lost.  But books like the three above really got me - and still to this day, if an animal dies in a book (or in a movie, on tv, in real-life - whenever!), it just makes me feel ill - and ALWAYS brings a tear to my eye.

3) I bought a Kindle around 9 months ago.  Yes, I use it. And yes, I like it.  It is convenient, more than anything. BUT IT DOESN'T SMELL LIKE A NEW BOOK.  I have an overwhelming love of printed papers glued together with binding, so sue me. There's this little book store in a nearby town that I have to go to at least a few times a month. Even more than the Borders (that recently closed, fuck you very much) I used to frequent, this store smells like BOOKS.  That musty, inky, papery (is that a word?) smell I love so much. Nothing is more exciting to me than walking through the doors of a bookstore - any bookstore, truth be told. I can spend hours in a book store.
That being said, a Kindle is an terrific piece of electronics to have when you want to be inconspicuous while reading Little Birds by Anaïs Nin.  So when the guy at the eye doctors sits down beside you, a couple of clicks and you're back to reading Jane Eyre.

4) Speaking of Jane Eyre. Much as I love it and countless other classics, I'm not a pretentious book snob.  I can't be. I read waaaay too much fluff, random fiction, and paranormal/fantasy novels.  Although, there is a lot of really well written fiction out there that doesn't have the name Dickens or Austen on the cover. And much as I may want to revolt against saying it, I love a good vampire love story.  There it is, I've said it.  And no, I DON'T MEAN TWILIGHT.  This admission also doesn't mean I don't like a horrific vampire novel where the bloodsuckers are beasts from the depths of hell, because I do. (For instance, I'm currently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic by reading "Carpathia", by Matt Forbeck, which is essentially Titanic mashed up with 30 Days of Night...)  But I also love a good supernatural romance. I don't think this is going to make me hand over my hard-core horror card anytime soon, but it took a lot for me to admit that fact.

5) In college, I read a book (required for my English Lit class) called The Pine Barrens. My apologies to the people of New Jersey that this book references, but this book was more boring than watching stocks scroll across the television all day long. I still have yet to understand why we were reading about the flora and fauna of New Jersey, compared to something like Crime and Punishment or The Catcher in the Rye.  It's not that I don't enjoy books about nature, because I certainly do.  I have a ton of non-fiction on various subjects from songbirds to Yellowstone to weather disasters to field guides on trees...but I seriously think The Pine Barrens is the single-most tedious and prosaic book I've ever had the opportunity to want to gouge my eyes out over.  Sorry.

6) Sometimes I read portions of a book before I read the whole thing cover to cover.  It's a weird habit, one I can't stop - at least not yet.  I've been reading a lot of series as of late, and on occasion, I will sift through the book to see if I can find some juicy bits or life-altering moments in the latest novel.  I'm not proud of myself, but there is is.  I do end up reading the whole thing eventually, but it's kind of a warped "if I die I want to know what happens" thing.  Generally, I won't be a total ass and read the ending though....I haven't descended that far into oblivion yet.

7) I've read everything Stephen King has written.  Except his Dark Tower series.  I own them, they are on my bookshelf, but I haven't read even one page. I know it is supposed to be amazing and fabulous and some of the best he's written, even according to the author himself. But I can't bring myself to do it.  It sounds like something I would like, no doubt. Something like King's version of LOTR (don't worry, I'm not comparing them, I read the LOTR series and I'm aware it cannot be weighed evenly against anything else. I'm not stupid you know.)  But as previously stated, I just can't seem to want to read them. Maybe someday....

So there you have it, seven of my deepest, darkest reading secrets. Nothing too earth shattering. Just a little glimpse into my warped mind.