Movies

[Book Review] Teen Serial Killer Clones Run Amok in ‘Cain’s Blood’

Published

11 years ago

September 18, 2013

Early in Geoffrey Girard’s debut novel, Cain’s Blood (September 3; Touchstone), a handful of teen boys manage to escape from a government facility. But Al, Henry, David, Dennis, and Ted are not normal boys. They are clones of the most notorious serial killers of our time. Part of an frighteningly elaborate plan to develop the clones as a military bioweapon, the teenagers have been hatched from the DNA of historical psychopaths Albert Fish, Henry Lee Lucas, David Berkowitz, Dennis Rader, and Ted Bundy. And now this pack of monsters has been set loose on the world.

Dispatched to stop the boys’ murderous rampage is Shawn Castillo, a psychologically damaged ex-soldier, obedient to a fault. With a teenage Jeffrey Dahmer clone as his unlikely companion, Castillo combs the countryside in search of the deviants. Repeatedly stumbling across gruesome torture/murder sites, he finds himself a few steps behind at each and every turn. And as addiitional details of the disturbing Cain project are eventually revealed, Castillo finds his loyalties severely tested.

Cain’s Blood is a page-turner in the best sense, its thought-provoking themes of nature vs. nurture buried in the furious action of a good beach read. If anything, Girard’s novel moves a little too fast. Writing in a third-person perspective that bounces madly around New England, Girard tears through his plot points like a speed racer, leaving several unexplored tangents on the cutting room floor. While the lack of fluff is refreshing, he’s easily got enough for two or three books here. (And indeed, a YA companion novel, Project Cain, was released simultaneously.)

The press materials for Cain’s Blood are littered with Michael Crichton comparisons, and while it’s true that both authors share a similarly grounded approach to biotechnology, Girard’s penchant for harrowing violence is a far cry from Crichton’s relatively bloodless novels. While it may wear the sheep’s clothing of a techno-thriller, Cain’s Blood has a heart that pumps pure horror.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Skulls

Ryan Daley

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Movies

‘The Invisible Man 2’ – Elisabeth Moss Says the Sequel Is Closer Than Ever to Happening

Published

2 hours ago

April 25, 2024

John Squires

Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.

First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.

Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.

Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.

Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.

“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”

She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”

At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.

Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.