Free Kindle Dark Fantasy Novella

Sinful Cinderella

Dark Fairy Tale Queen - Book 1

By Anita Valle

And you thought the stepsisters were wicked....

I'm not who they think I am. A docile girl who meekly obeys her stepmother and stepsisters. Some kind of sick angel who cheerfully bears their mistreatment. That's what I WANT them to think. Because then they won't suspect what I'm really up to.

The ball, the prince - it's all part of my plan to come out on top. Stepmother and her demented daughters will pay for every floor I have scoured, every sneer I have borne. They don't know about the white magic, how I use it to enhance myself. They can't see that my heart is black as midnight, rotten as a poisoned apple.

They're about to find out.

Book Details

Length: Approx. 150 pages

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Mood: Dark / Humorous

Content: Moderate violence. A few mild sexual references. No sex scenes or erotica.

Audience: Teens and Adults

Author's Note:

This book has all the elements of the classic Cinderella story: the wicked stepsisters, the fairy godmother, the glass slipper, the charming prince. But it's all told by an evil Cinderella who's determined to be the next queen. If you like fractured fairy tale retellings, this is a fast and entertaining read. Very popular with teens and young adults but also a good fairy tale for adults and anyone who likes dark fantasy. Sinful Cinderella is the first book in The Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series, followed by Sneaky Snow White and coming soon: Rotten Rapunzel! I hope you enjoy these "Grimm" fairy tales retold from a darker point of view.

Other books by Anita Valle

SNEAKY SNOW WHITE: Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series - Book 2

ROTTEN RAPUNZEL: Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series - Book 3 (Coming Soon!)

MAELYN: The Nine Princesses Book 1 (FREE)

CORALINA: The Nine Princesses Book 2

HEIDEL: The Nine Princesses Book 3

BRIETTE: The Nine Princesses Book 4

MONSTER MANOR (A novel for kids)

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Video Nasty - Possession

Possession

(1981)

Gaumont / Oliane Productions / Marianne Productions / Soma Film Produktion : Anchor Bay Entertainment / VTC Entertainment

4 / 10

Back in the days, directors like Andrzej Zulawski (who also wrote the story and screenplay) were still able to experiment and this movie is one of those experiments.  Unfortunately today it no longer holds it's power.  It just seems to be strange, awkward, annoying, and presumptuous.

Both of the main actors are strong in their characters and roles.  Sam Neill is Mark, who comes back to his wife after being away for months on work.  He returns to find things have changed.  His wife has been having an affair and now wants a divorce while seeming to be in the grip of a mental breakdown.  This sets Mark on his own course of mental illness and Neill does a good job of portraying anxiety and depression.

Isabelle Adjani as Marks wife Anna is, for the most part, brilliant at portraying her character's breakdown.  She rushes about agitated, unable to complete even one simple task.

Though the actors do exemplary jobs it's Zulawski that makes their illnesses a weakness to the film by overplaying them.  There is just too much of them "spazzing" (Sorry for not being PC but when you watch the film you may forgive me) out to create a relatable atmosphere.

Then with the unveiling of Anna's lover, the truly unbelievable self-righteous and pompous Heinrich, superbly over-acted by Heinz Bennent, that the film falls further into implausibility. 

The only realistic anchors in the film are the secondary characters, such as Heinrich's mother played with feeling by Johanna Hofer and Anna's friend Margit Carstensen portrayed by Margit Gluckmeister.

Having said that, Zulawski does an impressive job of creating an unease through all the insanity.  You get the feeling that there's something more, something darker, which is bothering Anna and Mark.  When this is finally revealed the revelation is startling and is the reason why this was originally banned.  It also shows why Carlo Rambaldi was one of the great special FX artists.

This is a long two hours and four minutes.  There are sequences that didn't need to be so long, and others that didn't even need to be in at all.  Had this been at least fifteen to thirty minutes shorter with tighter direction, it may have lasted the time and be relevant today as it was then.

I enjoyed parts of this film and loathed others.  Because I didn't love any part of the film I cannot recommend for people to view.  There are better wastes of time out there.

Had I Watched The Trailer I Probably Wouldn't Have Watched The Movie,,,

Movie Review - Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

(2011)

Columbia Pictures / Hyde Park Entertainment / Marvel Entertainment /Avi Arad Productions / Marvel Knights : Warner Bros / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

5.25 / 10

This is the apotheosis of a hit and miss movie.  There are as many things wrong with it as there are right.

The most disturbing factor in the movie is Nicholas Cage's acting.  He doesn't even appear to be playing himself (as is the case with most of his movies).  For the entire movie, you get the feeling he would rather be elsewhere as his performance appears lackadaisical.  There's no conveyance of any character and no chemistry between Cage / Johnny Blaze and any of the others involved.

Then there are the soul-taking sequences.  These are way too long.  By the time the Ghost Rider starts to pull out a soul and actually remove it from its body completely, the bad guys have enough time to, get in their vehicles and drive to the nearest army base... overthrow the soldiers... hack into the weapons room... decrypt the nuclear missile codes... and launch them at The Rider... as I said, way too long.  These scenes verge on the ridiculous and I nearly turned off at this point.

Which would have been a shame because I would've missed some of the good things about this movie.  The concept of whatever The Rider rides becomes his hell on wheels is inspired as this allows for the transformation of a van and a drilling machine.  These are pretty awesome scenes.  The last chase scene is pretty decent and packed with action.

It was also pretty nice to see Christopher Lambert as the mad monk Methodius.

Apart from Nicholas Cage, the rest of the cast were okay.  Not outstanding by any means.  Though the strongest actor was Idris Elba as Moreau, and even he wasn't at his best.  This could have been down to the direction of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who did a great job of all the action sequences but weren't too hot when handling the acting and there are too many sequences that feel "thrown in".

If you enjoyed the first Ghost Rider movie or enjoy the Comic Books then you may enjoy this but I would not recommend it to anybody who wasn't a fan of The Ghost Rider.

Movie Review - Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood

(2011)

Warner Bros / Appian Way / Random Films : Warner Home Video

8 / 10

This is a nice update on the "Little Red Riding Hood" fairie tale.  Instead of a wolf terrorising the local village we have a werewolf.  This adds the dimension of mystery to the tale for who could be the dreaded werewolf.  The writer David Leslie Johnson and director Catherine Hardwicke do a fantastic job of playing people off people and putting them into situations where you can never quite figure out who the killer is.  This makes for quite an enjoyable movie which the audience can have a stake in; there's not many of those around today.

I also liked the fact that the writer and director kept the story in the faerie tale spirit.  The setting of the Ye Olde Village is brilliant, it gives a close knitted community that, pretty much, lives in each other's pockets.  So when it's revealed by Solomon, played by Gary Oldman, that the beast could be one of them a personal fear and distrust of neighbours starts to spread.  There is something very haunting about the village and the surrounding forest as it stands upon a bed of snow, which constantly falls from the overcast sky.  All of this just adds layers upon layers to the film making it stronger.

On the whole, I loved this film, though there are a few drawbacks which made it drop a few points.  

I don't understand why Oldman tried to do a German / Bavarian accent as the rest of the cast didn't bother.  The worst of it was, his accent kept slipping and this became annoying.

Most of the cast were excellent in their parts giving believable performances.  Though there were times when both Max Irons, who played Henry, and Julie Christie, as Grandmother, came across as lacking in substance... sometimes Henry just looked doped up... and Grandmother was as wooden as her luxurious forest home.

Then there was the music at the celebration of the killing of the beast.  We heard modern rhythms and instruments (especially synthesisers) when the musicians were playing horns and drums.  Also, the dance we see between Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) and her friend Prudence (Kacey Rohl) wouldn't be out of place in today's nightclubs... but probably not for a religious community. 

Lastly, the main sections of the story that people know and love - "Oh Grandma, what big eyes you have" and the wolf in grandma's clothing.  These are taken as two separate scenes, which I can understand, though they appear to have been thrown into the story and film and this is a waste as they are pivotal to the original story and should have been used better to draw the audience further into the tale.  I hate waste and this was an extreme waste of a good idea.

This is a beautifully written, shot, and acted film that I would recommend to all as there are elements of mystery, thriller, horror, and fantasy, as well as a pretty decent love story.  Worth a watch at least once.

Movie Review - The Babadook

The Babadook (2014)

Screen Australia / The South Austrailian Film Corporation / Entertainment One :  IFC Midnight / ICON Film Distribution

3 / 10

This is one of those films where you shouldn't believe the hype.  After all I'd heard and read about this movie I was really looking forward to it.  However, while viewing I soon became aware this was not going to live up to its publicity... and it didn't... it fell woefully short.

Here you have a story of a single widowed mother and her peculiar son who are going through life in a stagnant haze.  Her son, Samuel (played by Noah Wiseman) is an intelligent child who has a knack for constructing weapons, for which he is reprimanded at school.  Samuel is a solitary child who finds it hard to make friends and keep them.  He also has a temper that makes him violent, both physically and vocally, when he's confronted.

Samuels mother, Amelia (played by Essie Davis) works at a care home and dealing with the close to death cronies has its effect on her.  She holds onto the memories of her seven-year dead husband, Oskar, in a proverbial death grip, even her own sister has given up on her.  Amelia won't let Samuel have his birthday on the date of his birth as Oskar died driving her to the hospital.

Even before the Babadook rears its head, the family is troubled and broken.  This should lead to well-rounded and deep characterisations.  Instead of this, we get depressed and moody bad parenting from Amelia and shouty stomping belligerence from Samuel.  This makes for two very unlikeable characters.  If the viewer cannot sympathise, empathise, or in some little way, relate to the main characters then the story and film will not hold their attention... it failed to hold mine... and to be bluntly truthful, I was only watching in the hopes that the Babadook had its evil way with them...  I was upset when it didn't.

These two characters are both worse than the snot filled blubbering idiot in The Blair Witch Project.

The there's the story, which in my eyes, tries to say and be too much.  It's not sure if it's horror, there are elements of horror in here, though too little for me to put it in the genre.  There's drama with all the elements of relationships in tribulation.  The film would've been a lot better if some of these elements had been trimmed back and some removed altogether, and the director chose a direction in which to take the film.

So that's what's wrong with the film in my opinion.

So what was right?

The acting from Essie Davis was pretty good especially, later in the film, when her temperament instantly changes.  This sent a chill up and down my spine.  Noah Wiseman was brilliant in the son's role.  I cannot fault the actors, the fault lies with story and direction, which falls on the head of Jennifer Kent who wrote and directed.

That said, apart from the direction of the characters and the story the film was well directed, and at times gave a few chills with prolonged shots of opened wardrobes and corners of rooms, where clothes were hung; the tension created was palpable.  So we know that she can direct.  Maybe she should've given the story synopsis, which was brilliant and well thought out, over to a writer!  I say this as the ending of this movie is why I've placed this into a Dark Fantasy, that and the reason of the Babadook ending up being wimpy (sorry for the spoiler) - this was the biggest let-down of all... a horror movie that tells you there's really nothing to be scared of.

I wouldn't recommend anybody watching this film; there's nothing to get out of it.  By the end, I was disheartened.

Movie Review - Gallow Walkers

Gallow Walkers (2012)

Boundless Pictures; Jack Bowyer Productions

6 / 10

*** Slight Spoilers ***

This is a Dark Fantasy Western and not a Horror as stated, as the writer and director decided to leave terror, fear, and tension to one side, though they keep in the gore.  Had they decided to go down the Horror route it may have made the film better.  Here you have a man whose love was brutalised, raped, and murdered.  When he finally catches up with the killers he takes his revenge out on them.  Unfortunately, the dead come back... each time he kills them.

The undead, the Gallow Walkers, are not your usual fodder.  They are not Zombies but rather revenants.  When they are revived their skin is rotting away or, in one case, flayed off the face by the Anti-hero Aman (portrayed by Wesley Snipes).  This means they need to skin people to restore their human features, though they don't last as the flesh keeps rotting.  This could have been played on a little more though there is a good bit about half way through the film.

I love the premise of The Gallow Walkers, as I was thinking of a story along similar lines.  I just think that it could have been filled out a little more.  Though the twist, played nice and subtly, was a good idea and cleared up some of the issues I had with his revenge plan.

The acting was good, especially Wesley Snipes (though he's not at his best), Kevin Howarth, and Hector Hugo.  The only average actor in the cast is Riley Smith, who just seemed two-dimensional, and grated on my nerves a couple of times.

The direction is pretty decent and there are some really nice close-up shots of holstered six-shooters, brim shadowed faces and panoramic desert shots; some of these are close to beautiful.  For the film to fit the one and a half hour running time the director, Andrew Goth, slow burns the movie.  This for some viewers would be enough to dislike the film.  I didn't mind it too much as it added a little more atmosphere,  There were a couple of times where it was done to create tension, though it fails both times and this lets the film down.  When there's going to be a shootout then you need a little tension.

I really liked the way the movie was filmed and wrote to be, in bright sunlight as the location is a North American desert.  This is another reason why a Horror film could've been a better choice, there are not too many Horror movies that take place in the full sunshine.  Directors like to use the fear of the dark and the shadows to hide some supernatural terror, it's much harder to scare someone in daylight.  It would've added to the originality of the film.

If you're a Wesley Snipes fan and there's not too much to do then you could give this a whirl.

I enjoyed it though I did think it could have been better in a few places.