The Companion
7.0
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The other orphans say Margot is lucky. Lucky to survive the horrible accident that killed her...
suspense horror
A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die by The Flesh Eaters
Album
Digitally remastered edition of this 1981 Post-Punk classic. The Flesh Eaters is the name behind one...
Sorrowland
6.0
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A triumphant, genre-bending novel, following a young woman through a nightmarish yet recognisable...
The Camelot Caper
Book
For Jessica Tregarth, an unexpected invitation to visit her grandfather in England is a wonderful...
Heart of Glass
4.0
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Chicago 1980. Li-an Donohue’s luck changes the instant she meets a mysterious Italian businessman...
The Leviathan
9.0
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SHE IS AWAKE... Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas...
Historical fiction Gothic Witches Mythology
ClareR (6106 KP) rated The Whispering Muse in Books
Apr 15, 2024
Jenny is persuaded to work in the Mercury Theatre as a dresser to the leading lady - and to spy on her for the owners wife. Jenny has little choice but to do as she’s asked, and initially she just gets on with it. But soon she begins to actually like the woman she’s supposed to be spying on, which leaves her in a bit of a tricky predicament.
This was a really atmospheric, gloomy and unnerving read. If I’d been able to see the setting, I would have seen shadows in every corner. My skin was crawling just reading about it!
Laura Purcell has become an insta-buy author for me - historical fiction with a touch of threatening, unexplainable atmosphere would appear to be right up my street!
Ravenscourt
Book
He wanted to be gone from the dark enclosing room, with its mocking misery, to be gone from this...
Historical Fiction Gothic Romance
JT (287 KP) rated Ready or Not (2019) in Movies
Mar 3, 2020
After a long sweeping shot through a gothic house 30-years earlier which sets up the back story to what is going to unfold, Grace is tasked with drawing a card from a mysterious mechanical box.
The premise is simple, whatever game is on the card she has to play in order to be accepted into the family – a tradition which must be accepted.
Innocently believing that it is just a harmless game of Hide-and-Seek Grace sets off to hide. The family, however, arming themselves with a variety of antique weaponry, must kill poor Grace before sunrise or they will all perish.
The family is an eclectic mix of batshit crazed parents, eccentric grandparents, troublesome daughters and drunken sons. When merged they come across as a psychopath’s answer to the Keystone Cops, all flair but no clue whatsoever.
Ready or Not manages to balance horror and comedy nicely. It is gory when it needs to be with several grotesque and humorous scenes that will leave viewers squirming in their seats.
The remainder of the film is a tense game of cat and mouse with Grace now realising what the real motives of the family are. She must hold her nerve to see out the night and make it to morning.
The setting is perfect for this type of caper and the gothic mansion provides plenty of twists and turns; from secret doors and passages to outhouses filled with decaying corpses.
Grace turns from the bride in white to the bride in blood as she battles the family – the tension rarely lets up for a second. Ready or Not gets just about everything spot on and it never suffers from horror cliches or boredom.
Weaving gives a good account of herself as a modern-day scream queen turned badass, running around in a torn wedding dress and trainers dispelling the myth ‘till death do us part‘.
