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Post by dem on Feb 17, 2009 21:51:46 GMT
Frank Lauria - Communion (Corgi, 1977) I am your lover. I am your death. Pray for me I Love You. I Don't Want To Kill. But I Can't Help Myself.
Based on an original story by Rose Mary Ritvo & Alfred Sole. A chilling novel of faith - and murderous rage. Maybe it's just me, but i've always found that cover really creepy and evil. Not to be confused with that other Communion, Whitney Strieber's alien abduction opus, Lauria's is a nasty tale of sibling rivalry and multiple murder which gets in some serious taboo-trashing from the off when Karen Spages is hacked to death and cremated - in a church - on the eve of her first Holy Communion. The killer escapes, but suspicion falls on her little sister, Alice, and soon any other person Alice has a problem with is gruesomely bumped off by a child in a yellow hooded raincoat (all the kids are wearing them). Alice protests that the culprit is Karen, back from the grave and lusting for vengeance .... It's been so long since I read this that I genuinely forget what happens at the end, so don't no-one go telling me as I've just made a fresh start on it! 
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Post by carolinec on Feb 18, 2009 10:17:35 GMT
Frank Lauria - Communion (Corgi, 1977) Maybe it's just me, but i've always found that cover really creepy and evil. It's not just you, Dem - I have the same reaction to it. It reminds me of that cover for .. er, is it Tales of Unease or More Tales of Unease? You know, the one with the little girl going up the stairs clutching her teddie - with the old hag's face. Both those covers are really unsettling. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 18, 2009 10:42:21 GMT
Scary Dem. posted a lengthy bit on this and lost it but it all boils down to scary.  |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Feb 18, 2009 11:44:41 GMT
Has anyone else seen the Alfred Sole-directed movie for which this is the tie-in? It was on the BBC a couple of times, then the Horror Channel, but now it's vanished. And I don't think there's a DVD release
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Post by dem on Feb 18, 2009 13:13:31 GMT
It's not just you, Dem - I have the same reaction to it. It reminds me of that cover for .. er, is it Tales of Unease or More Tales of Unease? You know, the one with the little girl going up the stairs clutching her teddie - with the old hag's face. Both those covers are really unsettling. Ha! Great minds, and all that, but it most put me in mind of that classic More Tales Of Unease cover as well! Further weirdness: the somewhat sinister facial expression? It's hinted in the book that the killer in the Communion dress is hiding her face behind a plastic Jackie Kennedy mask ....  Cranston had tested everything from Mafia chieftains to an ax-murderess who stored her husband's chopped remains in her refrigerator - but something about the little girl's expression spooked him.
The polygraph results in the next series of questions unnerved Cranston completely ....The action takes place in the staunchly Catholic community of Paterson, New Jersey and the diocese of St. Michael's, presided over by Father Tom Hale who, as his loyal rectory house-keeper Mrs. Tredoni will tell you, is the best thing to happen to the parish in decades. Thirty-somethings Catherine Spages and her husband Dominic are divorced, and their daughters, Alice, twelve and Karen, eleven, live with their mother. Karen is very much the golden girl of the pair, Alice, since the split, having become a handful both at home and at school, and the fact that her mother - and saintly Father Tom - fawn over Karen makes her sick! Now, with all this fuss over Mommy's girl leading the Communion procession, Alice's resentment knows no limitation. She hasn't even been allowed to take her First Holy Communion yet - and her a year older! When Karen is murdered in the most appalling circumstances (see above: it doesn't occur in the first chapter as wrongly stated, but it's as near to the beginning as makes little odds: a truely nasty moment as poor Sister Felicia discovers the source of the fire), suspicion falls squarely on Alice's tiny shoulders. Didn't they find Karen's veil in her pocket? Wasn't there some serious sibling rivalry going on between the pair? Should Karen's missing crucifix turn up among her possessions then it's not going to look good for her at all ... With Dominic back with his wife until such times as the killer is caught, Catherine's domineering sister, Annie, invites herself and sheepish husband Jim to remain behind at the Spages' place after the funeral, thereby increasing the tension and misery on the bereaved family. Annie makes no secret of her hatred of Dominic, and her feelings toward Alice are little better: she clearly believes the little girl to have killed her sister and intimates as much to the investigation team (the amiable scruff Detective Captain Beane and his ruthlessly ambitious young partner Mike Spina: as Dom correctly deduces from his first encounter with Spina "That rat bastard would suck his mother's blood for a promotion."). Then there's Alphonso, the fat slob of a landlord who has converted his apartment into a rotting rubbish tip - he doesn't like Alice any more than her Aunt on account of her always calling him 'Fatso' and a "filthy weirdo", and he's sworn to get even with her on a number of occasions. Perhaps, as he gloating torments before making an attempt at molesting her, he really does know what went down at the Church .... After the attempted murder by butcher's knife of Annie - suspect: masked, of diminutive build, wearing a child's yellow slicker - Alice is committed to the children's psychiatric hospital .... but the violent assaults and cold-blooded murders continue. As it transpires, there's so much faith, guilt, sin and sexual jealousy flying around between the major and not-so major players that at times it seems like any number of them could be the psycho. The second page-turner i've ripped through in as many days and while there's much to admire in Triad, I found this far more exciting. It's very short, clocking in at a mere 179 pages (and you can knock off a further twenty which are either given over to chapter headings or entirely blank: did Lauria think he was writing the Piranha tie-in?) and very, very recommended when you're up for some Angry Neurotic Catholic chills. Excellent. Has anyone else seen the Alfred Sole-directed movie for which this is the tie-in? It was on the BBC a couple of times, then the Horror Channel, but now it's vanished. And I don't think there's a DVD release How do they approach the story in the movie, John? Is the mood all solemn and portentous like The Omen or does the director treat it as a pitch black comedy? |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 18, 2009 14:14:46 GMT
I'll unleash my theory then (lost earlier) It's something to do with the unnatural juxtaposition of adult and child. It produces a kind of horror mixed with pity and revulsion - a cocktail which sends the shiver up the spine.
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Post by carolinec on Feb 18, 2009 16:27:13 GMT
It's not just you, Dem - I have the same reaction to it. It reminds me of that cover for .. er, is it Tales of Unease or More Tales of Unease? You know, the one with the little girl going up the stairs clutching her teddie - with the old hag's face. Both those covers are really unsettling. Ha! Great minds, and all that, but it most put me in mind of that classic More Tales Of Unease cover as well! Even more scary perhaps, Dem, is the thought that your mind works the same way as mine!  |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Feb 18, 2009 20:20:26 GMT
Long time since I've seen it Dem but I seem to remember it all felt pretty grim. A lot was made on the posters of it featuring Brooke Shields but she gets done in early on. There was one memorable scene of the mother (?) getting stabbed in the thigh and slowly bleeding to death outside in the rain.
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Post by dem on Feb 19, 2009 1:11:09 GMT
Found this by Franklin Marsh on Vault Mk 1.
"Just watched my pound shop DVD of Communion. Apparently transferred from a dodgy video of a crackly copy of the film. Jumps from full screen to a couple of seconds of wide screen every 20 minutes or so. Microphone visible in one shot. And it's still a gripping psycho thriller, suspenseful, blackly humorous, with some very bloody knifings. Can't help wondering how the book covered the ending as it's..erm...very cinematic. "
Well, a lead character cops a knife right through the throat at the altar rail during Holy Communion is the answer to that one, FM. What I'm wondering is if the film deviates much from the novel? I mean, there are certain very unlikely developments Lauria can just about get away with in the book that I'd say would be impossible to carry off in the cinema without the audience choking on their popcorn. Without giving too much away, I'm thinking about the unmasking of the psycho-killer here ....
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