Film Review – The Evil in Us

A police unit is called to a house party to find a bunch of dumb horny teenagers have literally torn each other to pieces. When the lone survivor is giving a police statement from her hospital bed, she pukes up someone’s finger. So far so good, right?

The police eventually work out that the party-goers had ingested some very, very sketchy coke, and through the magic of police work manage to trace the supplier who happens to be a very nasty individual indeed. What’s more, they find out he’s heading off to a secluded cabin by a lake with a pocketful of said sketchy coke and another group of dumb horny teenagers in tow. Just what would horror movies do if it wasn’t for dumb horny teenagers? Anyway, as you can probably imagine, things degenerate pretty quickly. As the genius dual-meaning tagline says: Worst. Trip. Ever.

This film reminded me a lot of Eli Roth’s classic Cabin Fever. It has the same claustrophobic feel, and is shot-through with the same kind of smutty humour and devil-may-care attitude. It’s actually three story arcs in one: the police investigation, the bunch of dumb, horny teenagers at the cabin, and the obligatory origin thread about where this batch of coke came from. It gets pretty gruesome in places and if you can overlook some cringey dialogue and general predictability, there are certainly some shocks on offer. Considering what we essentially have here is a first-time director working with an unknown cast on a limited budget, the results are extremely impressive and could herald the start of at least one very promising career. Remember, don’t take drugs, kids.

Get the original version of this review, as well as many others, in the FREE Morpheus Tales supplement.

Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut)

My latest book, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (uncut) is out now on ebook and paperback. As the title suggests, it’s a partially re-written and expanded version of an earlier release. The original Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story came out on Damnation Books back in in 2009. I was never truly happy with that version.

By the time Damnation Books was absorbed by another publishing house and consequently vanished off the face of the earth a few years later, the contract we had decreed that all rights regarding the book had reverted back to me. That meant, it was free for me to do with what I wanted, and I felt a remix was in order.

When Jerry leaves his old life in London behind and travels to Beijing to take up a teaching position, at first he is enchanted by the brave new world he finds waiting for him. However, things soon take a turn for the worse. Upon his arrival he learns of the mysterious disappearance of his predecessor, and after he moves into his new apartment he is plagued by strange dreams in which he shares the dwelling, and his bed, with a ghostly entity. Then things start going bump in the night, and Jerry soon finds himself embroiled in the kind of supernatural drama that had previously been unthinkable to him.

An encounter with a fortune teller with a difference proves the catalyst for a new wave of terror and eventually, he is forced into the accepting the realization that something else was waiting for him on the other side of the world, and perhaps even in the next world. What’s more, his time is quickly running out.

Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut)  is out now.

Bonus content:

Inside Apartment 14F (essay)

Little Dead Girl (short story)

No Man’s Land Review

Mallory Heart kindly reviewed my recent novella No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches in The Haunted Reading Room.

Review copied below.

Review: NO MAN’S LAND: HORROR IN THE TRENCHES by C. M. Saunders

Told as a series of continuing vignettes, NO MAN’S LAND relates the experience of Harry Doyle, a young Welsh soldier in the First World War. As terrifying as are the usual horrors of any war, Harry and his cohorts face additional horrors of an implacable nature. Harry is a wonderful protagonist, because he’s not a one-dimensional fearless hero, but rather he is a true human, fearing, loyal, emotional, introspective. NO MAN’S LAND is a literate and vivid narrative of an ugly war, a war which for Harry Doyle and his fellow soldiers extends beyond the boundaries of consensus reality.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cover Reveal – Apartment 14F (Uncut)

Later this month, I am re-issuing a new version of my 2009 book, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story. I’ll tell you more about why I re-wrote it and some of the back story another time, but for now I wanted to share the new artwork with you.

When the book was first released it did pretty well, and was nominated for several industry awards. This was mostly thanks to the great cover, which was designed by a very talented lady called Annie Melton.

This is the original:

As successful as it was, I was never truly happy with Apartment 14F. Long story short (pun intended), I had to make a lot of editorial compromises. So when the rights reverted back to me from the publisher last year, I couldn’t wait to release it the way it was intended.

I contacted Annie and asked if I could use the original artwork. She graciously agreed, but there was some uncertainty about who actually owned the rights and neither of us wanted to get caught in a legal minefield. After a bit of push and shove with the rather unhelpful publisher, I decided the best thing to do was to commission another cover. Annie has now moved on from doing commercial covers, so I called on my old friend and collaborator Greg Chapman, who I’ve worked with several times in the past, most recently on X SAMPLE and No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches.

I was interested to see what Greg would come up with. It’s always fascinating to see how other people process and interpret various things. He hasn’t let me down yet, so I gave him a blurb and let him loose. The result is very different from the original cover art, but equally as impressive.

What do you think?

Released on April 14th, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut) is available for pre-order now.

UK LINK

US LINK