Hey Bookdragons! If you've known me a while you know that I love all things horror and lately I've been in a read-all-the-horror mood. This week a really awesome horror novel released so tonight I'm spotlighting it and a crazy-a$$ed horror movie I watched about a week ago...
The Haunted by Danielle Vega
From Danielle Vega, YA’s answer to Stephen King, comes a new paranormal novel about dark family secrets, deep-seated vengeance, and the horrifying truth that evil often lurks in the unlikeliest of places.
Hendricks Becker-O’Malley is new in town, and she’s bringing baggage with her. With a dark and wild past, Hendricks doesn’t think the small town her parents moved her to has much to offer her in terms of excitement. She plans on laying low, but when she’s suddenly welcomed into the popular crowd at school, things don’t go as expected.
Hendricks learns from her new friends that the fixer-upper her parents are so excited about is notorious in town. Local legend says it’s haunted. Hendricks doesn’t believe it. Until she’s forced to. Blood-curdling screams erupt from the basement, her little brother wakes up covered in scratches, and something, or someone pushes her dad down the stairs. With help from the mysterious boy next door, Hendricks makes it her mission to take down the ghosts . . . if they don’t take her first.
What I loved about The Haunted:
I've heard a lot about Danielle Vega from bookstagram and blogger friends but this book was my first by her. It drew me in because the premise is right up my alley. I love haunted house books with twisted pasts and this one reminded me of a short story I wrote several years back, Night of Terror. Which of course means I was bound to love The Haunted from start to finish.
We have a teenage girl with a mysterious, tragic past whose parents move her to a small town in the middle of nowhere for a "clean slate," and they just happen to move into the most infamous house in town.
We have the basic "cool" kids who immediately claim her as one of their own because of their morbid fascination with the girl's new house, an "aw-shucks" type of love interest that makes you want to roll your eyes, and the dark, brooding boy-next-door whose own tragic past is tied to "the house."
And the best part? Freaky s**t starts to happen in the house. Scary, don't stay home alone, turn all the lights on, become paranoid that you're going insane kind of stuff. Stuff that makes our main character's parents think she had PTSD from her past issues. But what do they know, they're like never home.
I devoured this book in one sitting. It has been ages since that happened but I had to keep reading to see what was going to happen next. It reads like Hollywood's next blockbuster horror movie. This author definitely nails the chill factor and I can't wait to go back and read more of her work.
Okay, let me start at the beginning. I read about this movie months ago in a magazine and knowing absolutely nothing about it other than it was a horror movie I added it to my Netflix Queue. It finally made it to the top of my queue and I put it in on a crappy Saturday... or was it Sunday... afternoon. I still did not know much about the plot besides what the Netflix envelope said...
"After American ballet student Susie Bannion travels to Germany to attend a prestigious dance academy, she soon discovers that the school has a sinister history -- and is still harboring deadly secrets."
Apparently it's a remake of an Italian made movie of the same name from 1977. I have not seen that version so I cannot comment on similarities/differences.
The movie begins with a somewhat flighty girl visiting her therapist unexpectedly. She's erratic and inconsolable - rambling incoherently in both English and German. She keeps insisting "they are after her". they're "witches". "demons." She leaves the therapist's office never to be seen again.
Enter Dakota Johnson's character, Susie. She's a talented dancer (and former Amish girl) who caught the attention of the head of a prestigious ballet company in Berlin (during the Berlin Wall's era). She auditions for the company and the three witches... erm, I mean teachers... don't think she has what it takes but her performance somehow mystically calls out to the head of the company and she's in.
Soon Susie is the star of the company, but when she dances bad things happen to others. To those that get in the way of the women that run the ballet company. Is the power in the prima ballerina's movement? Or is something more sinister connecting with her? Are the women in charge of the ballet company witches? demons? And what do they want from their star pupil?
I'll be frank with you: this movie is weird and long, and it lags a little in places and it's partially in German and its grotesque in places and did I mention that it's weird? I kind of didn't understand the movie as a whole until the end yet I was almost in a trance, unable to turn it off. My grandmother hated it, but she slept through most of it so I won't hold it against her.
If you like strange, artistic indie horror flicks made in Europe then you need to check this movie out!
