The Final Girl Support Group

Hello, hello, hi! Happy Tuesday, hope your three-day weekend was as chill and relaxing as mine, but if it wasn’t, that’s cool too, there is no right or wrong way of doing things in this horror life of ours, only legal and illegal tho lol. Anywhoozle, have you read the 2021 novel by Grady Hendrix called The Final Girl Support Group? Please, please, please, if you haven’t already, get your copy and read it asap. Don’t be like me: I had mine for a couple of years, literally collecting dust on my bookshelf, and just recently, for no specific reason at all, decided to give it a go and, goodness me, I could not put it down, it was really that good! Sure, I bought my copy by happenstance when visiting our local B&N thanks to its pretty cover and badass title, but had zero idea the story was a true love letter (ew, sorry, there’s no better way of putting it) to the Horror movie genre, our Horror movie genre; needless to say, had I known that vital piece of information sooner, I would not have let the years go by without me enjoying it. 

So, this is me, Marath, asking you to read the book (sooner than later) and take pleasure in the incredibly rich world of horror it holds for us.

Okay, now that you and I are on the same page and are good to go, let’s talk about my top-5 things (all spoiler-free) that made The Final Girl Support Group such a fun reading experience:

05. The present-day story (there were 80’s and 90’s flashbacks) taking place in 2010 here in California (and in other States as well), but in particular in the city of Burbank, aka my neighborhood; I know it is silly, but details like these add something extra to the mood, especially when a fictional character navigates the places of your very own non-fictional life.

04. Getting to know the main character, Lynette, and realizing little by little she was mentally and emotionally unwell, and then immediately proceeding to feel bad for her and wonder how a 38-year-old massacre survivor can still live in such debilitating fear and paranoia after all those years, even after her first attacker had been dead since 1988, and the second had been incarcerated since the 1990’s. Wait, if I did not mention it before, the book talks about seven middle-age women, all of whom survived traumatic events in their teenage years. Final Girls are what society, the press, and movie producers have called them for the past few decades, and it is also what they call themselves now. Every month, they meet at their secret Support Group which is guided by their therapist, Dr. Carol Elliot. The women are very different and at distinct stages of their lives, some are ready to close that chapter and move on and others, or shall we say other, not so much. Life was already though, but suddenly, and without any provocation at all, a myriad of unfortunate coincidences started happening, bringing their horrific past to the forefront. At first, it was thought to be really bad luck, but if there is something you and I, horror fans, know about Final Girls, is that they cannot afford the luxury of simple bad luck, they deal with revivals, sequels, and spin-offs :(

03. Meta-everything.

02. Chrissy’s misunderstood character; she was the anti-Final Girl on ethical and moral grounds, the one exiled from the secret and über exclusive Support Group, the traitor, the one in a relationship with a Monster, the one profiting from black market murderabilia, the one morbidly preserving the past via her art installation rooms, the chaotic and dirty one, the one with the dangerous philosophies about Final Girls & Monsters, the isolated one, the one survivor willing to die already, the one far too gone for help, but the one needing it the most. Duuuude, her character was so freaking interesting, I cannot convey in words how unique her whole vibe was. Honestly, I could read an entire trilogy based on her story.

01. All, and I mean all the references, from the big and obvious to the minute and obscure, of the cult-classic slasher Horror films and their relation to the seven Final Girls and their backstories/franchises:

I - Marilyn Torres, Panhandle Meat Hook; based on Sally from THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974); Sally was played by actress Marilyn Burns

II - Dani Shipman, The Babysitter Murders; based on Laurie from HALLOWEEN (1978); actress Danielle Harris played Jamie, Laurie Strode's daughter, in Halloween 4-5

III - Adrienne Butler, Summer Slaughter; based on Alice from FRIDAY THE 13th (1980); Alice was played by actress Adrienne King

IV - Heather DeLuca, Deadly Dreams; based on Nancy from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984); Nancy was played by actress Heather Langenkamp

V - Lynette Tarkington, Slay Bells; based on Denise from SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984); Denise was played by actress Linnea Quigley

VI - Julia Campbell, Stab; based on Sidney from SCREAM (1996); Sidney was played by actress Neve Campbell

VII - Christine “Chrissy” Mercer, Gnomecoming; not based on any known Final Girl, but it is loosely speculated her backstory was inspired by Canadian film PROM NIGHT (1980)

So yeah, The Final Girl Support Group was an exceedingly entertaining novel, and it not only left me feeling happy and proud for being part of the horror community, but it also gave me hope thanks to its basic message: that traumatized girls, even horror-level traumatized girls, can grow up to be normal women, especially when they have each other for unconditional support. The End.

In Love and Fear,

—Marath

© 2016-2024

My Free Mexican Vacation — THE RUINS by Scott Smith

**BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD**

Something happened. Something spectacular. For four days, I was transported into the  Riviera Maya, on top of a pyramid in the jungle, observing—sometimes comfortably at a distance, sometimes not—the unlucky, unbelievable, terrifying, and, ultimately, tragic faith of four friends, Amy, Jeff, Stacy, and Eric, and their two international fellow travelers, Mathias and Pablo a.k.a. the German and the Greek. Yes. They might have been the ones written down on the pages of the 2006 horror novel The Ruins by Scott Smith, brought to life by the magic of prose, given exquisite, yet, short fictional lives, only to be tortured—physically and psychologically—by both supernatural hungry vines and a group of isolated indifferent Mayans. But me? Yes. I might have been the one reading those pages, taken the role of the real person with a pulse and a heartbeat, unassumingly doing more than just clenching the book with both hands, devouring their story, vanishing into their grim world, shockingly crossing an imaginary threshold and joining them… there. Joining them there.

Spectacular. Simply spectacular.

I must confess, it is difficult not to indulge in hyperbole when trying to express the magnitude of my newly found love for this book. The last time a novel made me feel ~this~ much was five years ago or so thanks to The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. But, unlike five years ago or so, this time I did not cry (actual, real tears) because of the sad ending. No. This time I was engulfed by a profound sense of dread. Of anger. Of injustice.

Before I move forward I would like to clarify that even though the novel left me feeling horribly when everything was said and done, I  was in constant awe of the author’s mastery in building such a believable group of people, of tangible life and death situations, all inside a tropical Mexican paradise paired with two unlikely monsters, the Mayans and the vines — the former for being cruelly detached and for not offering a helping hand, and the latter for its murderous appetite. (Bravo, Mr. Smith, bravo.)

Now, instead of regurgitating a boring synopsis of the book, and in case you haven’t gotten the gist of the story yet, all I’ll say is this: The Ruins is about tourists being stranded at a secluded archeological site, while sadistically getting tormented by carnivorous plants as well as being held hostage by the land’s natives whose weapon of choice were arrows (and a pistol).

All I want to mention about the main characters, all four American friends plus the German and the Greek, is that Amy reminded me a bit too much about myself and damn, I think I need to change a thing or two about my Type A personality because girl, take a Xanax, please! Stacy was the last one standing but chose to commit suicide (what? I warned you at the very beginning of this post about spoilers, did I not?) because she was so freaking scared of spending the night alone I mean giiiiiirl, what the actual f*ck!? Eric, Mathias, and Pablo were super cool and have nothing much to say about them, well, except that the way Eric sliced his entire skin off like a banana was, ahem, bananas! Bad for Eric, great for us, body horror enthusiasts. And yeah, I left the best for last, Jeff.

Jeff was my favorite character in the book and in the movie (that’s correct, they made a movie  in less than two years after the book’s release, if that doesn’t tell you that the book was amazing I don’t know what will), and was also the only one whose character stayed pretty much the same in both the book and the movie (everyone else was a mix-and-match if I tell you the truth). Jeff was the rock, the leader, always thinking about the present and the immediate future, always executing and delegating tasks to help the entire group, the group was his number one priority; shelter, water, food, repeat.

[Here is where I briefly take a pause and tell you that the last few dozen pages of The Ruins hurt me and I loved it (oh, to be human); I was astonished that I could feel so much for a fictional character, for someone who represented hope and strength. Let’s continue.]

On the third day, his last, at the very moment when his depleted body took over his thoughts and made him choose survival over logic, Jeff knew he was done. Self-doubt was his real enemy, not the vine, not the Mayans. Arrows to the neck and to the chest might have taken him down, vines might have dragged him back into the pyramid and eaten his face and body, but his fear of failing the group, of not taking the miraculous chance at running for help while  the sudden, heavy fog sheltered him from the Mayan’s view, of not taking the risk and later on regretting it? No, he would not allow himself that… 1, 2, 3, run… [pain, darkness, silence.]

“You really think that’s still her? You really think that has the slightest thing to do with Amy anymore? That’s an object now, Stacy. An it. Something without movement, without life.” —Jeff

In Love and Fear,

—Marath

P.S. Thoughts about The Ruins (2008)? It was a good film and still holds its own in 2023 but, in my personal opinion, the book is the one transporting you into the story, taking you into Mexico, into the Riviera Maya, and the movie is just what you watch during your flight there.

© 2016-2023

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: Why You Do Me This Way?

WHY!? Why you do me this way, Behind Closed Doors? What did I do to deserve such aggravation? 10 out of 10 triggered.

Hahaha, in all seriousness, I loved (L-O-V-E-D) this book so much and I am so happy to be here to tell you all about it. So, girlfriend, go make yourself comfortable and get ready to be gaslit (gaslighted?) second-handedly thanks to B. A. Paris and her exquisite, yet malevolent, main character—whom I did not (did not!) grow to adore—Mr. Jack Angel.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Few are the fiction authors whose writing style is so captivating I cannot put down their books and each paragraph, each chapter, feeds a sort of hunger that can only be satiated by more words, more prose. In the case of this thriller and suspense masterpiece, B. A. Paris kept nourishing me non-stop by way of psychological fiction, even if each bite hurt and made me feel sick, I could not stop asking for more, no, demanding for more as it was simply too delicious.

From the very start we were made aware that Grace Angel, Jack’s wife, was hiding something sinister and none of her acquaintances had a clue of it (well, Esther kind of did) and it was heartbreaking learning little by little how despicable Jack, the perfect husband and perfect lawyer, really was. Behind Closed Doors was Grace’s story told by her while jumping from The Past to The Present in each chapter and, in a brilliantly told way, she gave us morsels of information in one chapter to only jump to the next to lead us to believe that whatever we thought happened might had happened (the narrative played with time), to then—bam!—confirm in the next one, and in gut-wrenching graphic detail, that indeed it did. The best way I can describe this literary back and forth dance would be to compare it to sex; the rhythm from one chapter only got amplified on the next to only explode in the following one.

Now, having said that, did I like to learn that Jack allegedly killed his mom when he was a teenager and worshiped his violent dad to only blame him for his crime? No, I did not. Did I like to learn that Jack gave Grace a dog to only starve it to death? No, I didn’t! Did I enjoy learning of Jack’s plan to use Grace to get to Millie, Grace’s younger sister with Down syndrome, so he could torture her? NO! OF COURSE NOT! But did I appreciate how he did all those things? Mmmh, I mean, I was not mad about it…

Please, hear me out, don’t judge me too hard, okay? I feel like you can tell where I am coming from, given that we are both horror fans with a soft spot for troubled, good looking, bad boys… what was that? How do I know he was good looking? Oh, damn, I actually don’t know but all I can say is that the whole time I was picturing him like this:

[I can thank The Invisible Man (2020) for the male image cue due the movie’s subject on domestic abuse… *eye roll*]

So, as I was saying, Jack was problematic but in a non-repulsive kind of way and, truth be told, on the chapter where Grace escapes from her room and tries to hide downstairs in the pitch-black sitting area while doing her best not to make a sound so Jack wouldn’t find her, he, all of the sudden, breathes on her right cheek and says “Boo!”—AAAH!—I lost it here. I loved that my brain was being extra generous with me in that specific moment and let me enjoy that scene to the maximum by ‘feeling’ Jack’s breath on my own right cheek and by ‘hearing’ that Boo on my right ear and by giving me goose bumps so hard that I had to put the book down and stand up to shake it off. (Yes, I looked like a crazy person when this happened but I mean who cares.)

I am not going to talk about the ending but I will say this, I wish Grace had been there with Jack when “it” happened so that we could have heard all the gory juicy details, alas, just by knowing that “it” happened and that Esther had Grace’s back (God bless her female instinct) and that she and Millie were now free and safe, girl, that was all we could have really asked for.

If I didn’t make myself clear, this book was such a hard hitter that at times it made me feel gross and triggered and offended and, at other times (most of the times?), the total opposite (don’t judge me). I would highly recommend Behind Closed Doors if you are in the mood for mind games and some good old fashioned gaslighting all while being entertained by a handsome psychopath. #sorryNOTsorry

In Love and Fear,

-Marath

© 2016-2021