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Awix (3310 KP) rated Quatermass and the Pit (1967) in Movies

Feb 13, 2018

Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

1967 | Horror, Sci-Fi

7.7

(7 Ratings)

Movie Rating

The best of the Quatermass films keeps all the unsettling ideas of Nigel Kneale's original TV scripts and adds Hammer's talent for coming up with smart casting and polished production values. Weird projectile turns up buried under London; the authorities initially assume it's an unexploded bomb from the Second World War, but the presence of fossil ape skeletons in and around the object indicates otherwise, as does a history of hauntings in the area going back hundreds of years. Professor Quatermass begins to suspect that this is a relic of a highly unusual alien invasion that happened before man had even evolved...

Pretty much a perfect fusion of horror and science fiction, giving a convincing extraterrestrial rationale for various paranormal and demonic phenomena; thoughtful and disturbing rather than actually scary. Andrew Keir rocks the joint as Professor Q but is well-supported by everyone else. The sequence in which London is transformed in the final reel is also very well done. Sets the standard for intelligent British SF movies; rather influential in its own way, too.

Kudos

Sean Farrell (9 KP) rated Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania in Books

Mar 15, 2018

Erik Larson has done it again. One of our time's finest writers of non-fiction has once more taken a page from our history and turned it into a most compulsively readable book. This time telling the tale of the sinking of the luxury liner Lusitania by the Germans during World War I, the narrative follows everyone from the passengers and crew of the ill-fated ship, to the men on the U-boat that fired the torpedo, to the British and American officials monitoring the situation and making the decisions about how to respond. Mr. Larson provides a stunning amount of detail, enough to make one feel as if they had actually spent time aboard the opulent liner with its travelers, but at no point does it seem as though the details are bogging things down. To the contrary, events move along at a brisk pace as they head towards their tragic end. It is a sad but fascinating tale, handled here with aplomb, in what is sure to wind up on many year-end best lists.

Kudos

Lindsay (1717 KP) rated A Silken Thread in Books

Jul 1, 2019

A Silken Thread

Kim Vogel Sawyer | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, Romance

7.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I love the fact, that A Silken Thread is mostly a historical fiction book with a little bit of romance. The author does a really good job of telling a story though three main characters. The story is based around the Cotton Exposition of 1895. We learn a bit about what life a bit after the civil war and what life is like for southerners.

Their a story about African American and whites though out the story. Though we have a bit of story with a fourth character as well. Laurel is looking for someone to love her and find maybe find love along the way. She applies to be a weaver in the silk room.

Willie applies to the Cotton Exposition for he want to help pay for his fathers hospital bills and to help him get better. Willie friend Quincy has gotten a job their as well. We also have Langdon. What the author show though out the book is how world is viewed between each character. She does a well job of it.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Break of Dark in Books

Aug 2, 2019

Break of Dark

Robert Westall | 1982 | Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I must have been 12 or 13 when I first read this, and back then part of the fun came from the sense that these actually felt like adult stories, for all the book is advertised as being basically YA fiction: quite apart from the substantial quantities of profanity and sex, many the characters aren't typical YA identification figures: middle-aged seaside policemen, earnest young vicars, suburban couples, and so on. These are still hugely readable and satisfying stories even now many decades later.

But what are they about? Well, there are two stories of ghosts (a haunted Wellington bomber during the second world war, and a rather stranger tale of an unwitting medium), two of very atypical alien visitations (a cautionary tale of a young hitch-hiker, and a blackly comic one concerning a spate of peculiar crimes in a small resort town), and one of an inner-city vicar who stumbles onto something very creepy in the crypt of his church. All of them are engagingly and skilfully written, and immaculately paced. Good reads for all ages.