Pulp Fiction: Messenger By Edward Lee

I'm a voracious reader, and Horror has been one of my favorite genres of fiction since I was old enough to read. I'm kind of sick of writing about movies for minute, so as a change of pace, I'll be throwing in reviews of the juicier, pulpier stuff I've been polluting my brain with lately.



Disclaimer: the review I am giving this book is not on the same rating scale as all literature. This is so out there, you couldn't review it with the same rating system as say, Moby Dick. That would be like stacking up The Toxic Avenger against The Hurt Locker . The only thing these works have in common is their medium, so I've decided to rate this book on its merits as a work of Pulp Horror alone. And in that arena, this book kicks serious slimy demon butt.

Ed Lee has a reputation in the literary horror world as being the most intense, most grossest, most disgustingest writer there is. Apparently his mass market novels published under the Leisure Books imprint are somewhat toned down when compared to his small press, hard to find work. If this is Ed Lee toned down, I can't even fathom what his 'hardcore' stuff is like. I mean, how much more intense and nasty could fiction possibly be? Are his small press books printed on poisonous paper that burns your fingers when you turn the page? Is the copy printed in a font that eventually makes your eyes bleed? Does the book explode when you close it? The only way any book could be harder and nastier than this book is if it did those things.

Back in 2006, when my discovery of the works of Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon stoked my post Stephen King interest in horror fiction, I picked up Ed Lee's newest novel, The Backwoods . I figured 'hey, if all these authors I love love this guy, he must be awesome.' The book sucked. Really hard. In fact I couldn't even get more than about 80 pages into it. It was embarrassingly bad. Since then I've never picked up another book by Lee, until the other day when I was doing laundry. I forgot the book I was reading at that time at home, so on the way to the laundromat I stopped into the local library. I picked up this book, read the summary and the first page and decided to give old Mr. Lee a whirl. I read the first 70 pages in the laundromat. I wonder if the little Mexican kids there thought I was weird, this big bearded dude reading some creepy looking book with his eyes bugging out of his head, turning the pages as fast as he could.

The premise is pretty silly sounding: The Messenger, a mysterious demonic figure possesses postal workers in a small Florida town and uses them to carry out his heinous acts. Lee takes this idea, and basically pumps it full of steroids, LSD, crack and demon blood and lets it loose. This is one king-hell, rip-snortin' beast of a horror novel. Its also very well plotted and actually has a soft tender side that doesn't beat itself over your head, but is there enough so that you actually care about the main characters.
I think that's the book's greatest feat. Combining mayhem, gore and violence that goes as completely over the top as it definitely does here with characters you actually care about is not an easy feat, and Lee pulls it off seemingly without effort.

The Messenger is an amazing villain, as well. I don't want to go into too much detail into what he does and how he does it, as I don't want to give away too much and ruin this book for someone brave enough to read it. Lets just say that he's one of the most nefarious bad guys I've come across in a horror novel, and I read tons of horror fiction. The level of nastiness is cranked up to 11 here, and all because of this one bastard.

Also there are some deliciously clever twists towards the end that will seriously take you by surprise.

Basically, if you like pulpy horror, you have an iron stomach and are brave enough, give this book a try. You won't be disappointed. (But it may make you question your own sanity for reading these kinds of things.)

Esham Puts Out Awesome Horror Album

Esham, the rap kingpin of Detroit, isn't for everyone. The only other person as bizarre as he is in hip hop is probably Kool Keith, and Keith is probably even more bizarre, but they are very different. (Keith and Esham collaborated on Keith's classic album 'Spankmaster'.) Esham is pretty straightforward, a straight gangsta rapper, but his natural eccentricity comes through on all his projects. The beats are on some other, other, other isht and Esham raps alot about demons, ghosts, evil spirits and so on. I haven't peeped too much of his stuff in recent years, mainly because he aligned himself with the ICP crew... though he recently made an album dissing ICP and distributed it at the Gathering of the Juggalos, which is pretty awesome and ballsy. ICP would be the first to admit that they wouldn't exist without Esham. I know to most people that probably makes Esham sound somewhat terrible by association. Esham's first album "Boomin Words From Hell" came out in 1990, when Esham was like 13 years old. I have it on cassette. You can't really blame him if some lame people were influenced by him. I mean, Eminem was influenced by him. So, he was one of the very first 'Horrorcore' rappers, he's from Detroit, one of the scariest places, period, and he has just released a horror concept album. Each track is about a different horror icon/theme and this has to be the only rap album to ever sample "Ichi The Killer". Its pretty obvious that I love it. Its pretty amazing. Who else besides Esham would make a rap song called "Attack Of the Blob", where he rhymes about being not only the blob, but a crime kingpin. Yeah, he's got the whole city covered, so he's the "Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah blob!"?!
Then there's a song called "Evil Dead", where one of Esham's boys with a wicked cool accent raps about being Ash and he takes it right from 'Evil Dead' through 'Army of Darkness'.
Then there's "Freddie Krueger" where someone named Dr. Hustle rhymes "I'm Freddie Krueger with a brand new Ruger/leave that ass stinkin like a pile of manure". Horror nerds would argue that Freddie would never just shoot someone, but I think that's a pretty good rhyme.
Then there's "The Invisible Man", which is, of course, about what the Invisible Man would do in a strip club. Seems like a wacky premise, but remember, Esham is from Detroit. This is a family oriented blog, so I won't go into some of the racier details, but a guy at the bar says "Yo, who just drank my drink?!" and Esham says "The Invisible Man!" Awesome.
This is a very entertaining horror-rap album. It kind of tries to be serious at the same time as being 'creepy', which might turn some people off, but for me it just kind of made it more fun. My favorite horror-rap album of all time is Kool Keith's turn as Dr. Dooom: "First Come, First Served". Keith's brand of horror-rap is more like a totally over the top Troma movie, so out of control that it is impressive but doesn't actually scare you (although some of the tracks reach such a level of dementedness that they actually are pretty disturbing.) This is more like a gangsta guy that loves horror movies paying homage to the genre. Might not be for everyone, but I like it. If you like hardcore rap and horror movies, you'll probably like it too.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer + Ten High + Bubba Cola= A Good Afternoon

I recently moved to the scenic, tree lined streets of Roslindale, a Boston neighborhood that borders Roxbury, JP, Mattapan and Hyde Park. You can look it up on wikipedia if you need to know more about it. I haven't found a job yet, so I decided to hit Save-A-Lot in Roxbury and buy, among other things, a 2 liter bottle of Bubba cola. How much, you ask? 79 cents. Yep. A bottle of Ten High bourbon, left over from my boy Jayck Deez' visit last week and some star and heart shaped ice cubes from my dollar store ice tray, served in a TWA Germany glass (one of a complete 'Cities of the World' glass set that my girlfriend's mom so graciously donated to our apartment) kept the cold wetness of the afternoon at bay. To watch, a straight to dvd horror flick entitled "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer".

This movie is the rare modern horror film that gets the horror/humor thing just right. The humor is light, and not too cheesy, which all too often takes away from the horrific aspects of films that attempt to blend laughs with screams. The horror is gory, and very well done. Its basically about a plumber named Jack Brooks, who is messed up in the head because his family was killed in front of his eyes by a monster when he was a kid. He goes to community college, where his professor is Robert Englund. The professor turns out to be evil and insane and has Jack over to do some plumbing work, where the mayhem begins. There is very little CGI, which made me very excited. A good rubber suit looks better than CGI any day of the week, and this film proves it. The story moves fast and is surprisingly intelligent. The direction is good, the film looks great, the acting is good, there is basically nothing wrong with this movie. The DVD cover art is wack, with an obviously fake 6-pack plastered on the hero's torso. Why the hell didn't they use the cool-ass art that I included at the top of this bloggin? Don't worry, there is no homo-erotic chest baring going on in the movie. No homo-erotic male nudity, no CGI, this movie is just about the polar opposite of "300", and that's a good thing in my book!

This is basically a great movie to kick back with some cheap cola and cheaper whiskey and have a great unemployed afternoon with. The ending leaves the opportunity for a sequel wide open, and I hope they make one! This is a fun horror movie, under-hyped and under-seen, and I couldn't recommend it more! I really look forward to anything new from the creative team of Jon Knautz and John Ainslie. This movie kicks major tookus.