Movies
Book Review: Drew Stepek’s ‘Knuckle Supper’
In Drew Stepek’s “Knuckle Supper,” Los Angeles’ drugs are run by the undead. When the LA heroin-addicted vampire and gang leader named RJ reluctantly takes in a twelve year-old prostitute called Bait, humanity is introduced to his otherwise lifeless existence. An unforgiving, vicious and realistic horror story, Knuckle Supper explores chemical dependency, inner-city brutality, religion, molestation, abortion and the very nature of evil itself. Inside you’ll find Ryan Daley’s review of the indie book, which he recommends you check out.
I rarely bother to review independent horror fiction for B-D, only because most of it sucks. Don`t get me wrong, I do read a fair amount of indie horror each month–more than the average horror fan, I think. I regularly receive novels in the mail from ambitious authors, and I make an effort to purchase indie horror online several times a year. But it’s hard to get past the abundant typos, grammatical errors, and ages-old clichés that come with independently published horror. Frankly, the vast majority of indie horror seriously licks balls.
And yet there was something about Drew Stepek’s Knuckle Supper that really stuck with me. It’s a vampire novel, and yeah, I know, we’re all sick of fucking vampires. Who isn’t? But somehow Stepek’s novel–a splatterpunk foray into a Los Angeles packed with feuding vampire gangs–managed to stand apart from the rest. It’s a drug-fueled, modern-day vampire saga that reads like a bloodsucking sequel to 1979`s The Warriors written by James Ellroy. And fans of hardcore horror fiction take blissful note: Stepek’s wicked prose can cut awfully deep.
R.J. is the ultimate anti-hero, a drug-loving member of The Knucklers, a vampire gang of self-described “junkies and gangster motherfuckers” who are constantly feuding with other vampire gangs in L.A. Like the Blue Blooded Perrys, for instance, a gang of douchey, coked-up rich kids. Or the Battlesnakes, a stoner vampire gang “not known for their intelligence” who remain “brutal bad-ass fucks”, presumably through the power of weed. And even the Batwangers, a gang of tranny hooker vampires who feed by biting off their john’s weiners.
When R.J. stumbles across a bag of heroin and a 12-year-old prostie named Bait, he takes them both under his wing. But when Bait gets pregnant after getting raped by some defiant vampires, R.J. is forced to confront forces of evil even greater than himself. It’s a novel packed with very skeezy characters doing very skeezy things, and while a few gory set pieces really amp up the action, the dialogue has a tendency to drag things down at times. Not that Stepek’s dialogue is bad–it’s solidly-written and frequently very funny–but there sure is a hell of a lot of it. At times you find yourself wishing there was more action. And then Steepak finally starts describing a kill scene that’s so gruesome, you find yourself changing your mind. If Knuckle Supper were a movie, you would frequently find yourself clapping your hands over your eyes.
Although the book is packed with drug addiction, sadistic violence, and heavy-duty sex abuse, it’s only fiction, a point proven by Stepek’s commitment to donate up to 10% of the revenue of Knuckle Supper to Children of the Night , a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting childen between the ages of 11-17 who have been forced to prostitute. A pretty cool move on Stepek’s part. (Although I have to admit, I’m not sure what “up to” 10% really means….like, doesn’t “zero” qualify as “up to 10%”?)
Knuckle Supper is available for purchase November 16. The author also sent me a couple of signed copies (and t-shirts), so if you’re interested in receiving one, contact me through the website (member search “Ripvanryan” on the Community page) and I’ll pick a couple of lucky readers at random.
3.5/5 Skulls
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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