Books
‘The Angel of Indian Lake’ Book Review – Stephen Graham Jones Wraps Horror Lit’s Greatest Slasher Trilogy
With The Angel of Indian Lake, author Stephen Graham Jones tackles one of the most daunting tasks in horror: bringing a trilogy to a satisfying close. Making it even more challenging is that the final entry in Jones’ slasher trilogy endcaps two perfect entries in horror lit, with 2021’s My Heart is a Chainsaw recontextualizing the slasher formula and last year’s Don’t Fear the Reaper appropriately escalating the lore and carnage in a way that only an uber-slasher fan like Jones could.
It’s been four years since Jade Daniels stepped foot in Proofrock, Idaho. After saving the town once again and thwarting another deranged killer, Jade took the fall for her best friend and final girl, Letha. She already has a track record, after all, and Letha’s a family woman. Through Letha, Jade winds up in a place she least expected: teaching high school under the judging eyes of Proofrockers, who still blame Jade for not one but two waves of catastrophic slaughter. It doesn’t help that Jade’s return to town heralds a new reign of terror that threatens to destroy Proofrock for good. Between long-running grudges, serial killer cultists, mysterious disappearances, another wave of bizarre deaths, and that pesky Lake Witch, Jade’s return to Proofrock becomes a final stand for the town’s soul.
When the trilogy began, Jade was a troubled, lonely teen who clung to slashers like a life raft. She wore her encyclopedic knowledge of them like armor. But surviving two slashers herself, followed by two separate stints in prison and the stigma that followed, Jade returns to town a woman still navigating past traumas while trying to outgrow her adolescent defense mechanisms. But this is Proofrock, and that horror knowledge quickly proves to be necessary when one of her students goes missing, and the bodies start piling up from there. It helps that Jade’s best friend Letha won’t let her forget her horror roots or that she’s given Jade something to live for, especially where Letha’s daughter and final-girl-in-the-making Adie is concerned. While Jones’ extensive love of horror infuses every page, his heroine takes a bit to reacclimate, especially thanks to the horror she’s missed while serving time.
The previous two novels have packed in quite a bit of supernatural and reality-based slasher terror and presented a robust suspect list from the outset. Moreover, two novels deep into Proofrock’s history and present means a lot of loose ends to tie up when it comes to its characters. Jones finds ways to deepen character arcs and flesh out Proofrock’s denizens further through nonstop horror action. Here, the red herrings can be as deadly and unhinged as the actual killer. Rampaging bears, forest fires, and supernatural happenings intercut the slasher carnage, and Jones finds creative ways to carve up an even bigger body count than before, complete with narrative twists and breezy, dialectical prose. It’s nonstop horror. Fans of the previous entries will know that’s saying a lot. Taboos get broken straightaway, and Jones continues his streak of killing his darlings; many of the deaths in this novel are devastating.
It’s impressive how Jones wields the horror as connective tissue, juggling so much Proofrock history and horror at once. But it pales in comparison to his final girl, Jade. Letha remains a force of nature, even more so considering her personal stakes here, but it’s Jade’s story. Now three novels deep, Jade has always struggled to see herself as a final girl. It’s a title she’s eager to bestow on women she deems worthy or more fitting of the archetypical role. As savvy and resilient as she is, Proofrock always had a way of blinding Jade to her own potential. The selfless way she’s saved the town over and over while taking all of the bodily damage and blowback with none of the credit is of course inherent to the final girls Jade loves so much.
The Angel of Indian Lake’s greatest triumph isn’t its satisfying slasher mayhem but the way it proves that Jade was right all along. She’s a scrappy survivor, which by definition puts her in that coveted category of final girls. But she’s so much more than that. Jones closes the loop on so many facets of Proofrock and its characters, evolving Jade’s penchant to crown those she deems worthy of final girl status, reshaping the concept of a final girl in the process. Jade is more than just a final girl. She’s a symbolic mother of final girls, putting her life and body on the line to support others, arming them with the strength and knowledge to unleash their inner final girls. Proofrock has seen a copious amount of bloodshed over three novels, but thanks to Jade, an unprecedented number of final girls have risen to fight back in various ways. The way that The Angel of Indian Lake closes that loop is masterful, solidifying Jade Daniels’ poignant, profound legacy in the slasher realm.
Through Jade, Stephen Graham Jones delivers horror lit’s greatest slasher trilogy of all time.
The Angel of Indian Lake publishes on March 26, 2024.
Books
‘Halloween: Illustrated’ Review: Original Novelization of John Carpenter’s Classic Gets an Upgrade
Film novelizations have existed for over 100 years, dating back to the silent era, but they peaked in popularity in the ’70s and ’80s, following the advent of the modern blockbuster but prior to the rise of home video. Despite many beloved properties receiving novelizations upon release, a perceived lack of interest have left a majority of them out of print for decades, with desirable titles attracting three figures on the secondary market.
Once such highly sought-after novelization is that of Halloween by Richard Curtis (under the pen name Curtis Richards), based on the screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Originally published in 1979 by Bantam Books, the mass market paperback was reissued in the early ’80s but has been out of print for over 40 years.
But even in book form, you can’t kill the boogeyman. While a simple reprint would have satisfied the fanbase, boutique publisher Printed in Blood has gone above and beyond by turning the Halloween novelization into a coffee table book. Curtis’ unabridged original text is accompanied by nearly 100 new pieces of artwork by Orlando Arocena to create Halloween: Illustrated.
One of the reasons that The Shape is so scary is because he is, as Dr. Loomis eloquently puts it, “purely and simply evil.” Like the film sequels that would follow, the novelization attempts to give reason to the malevolence. More ambiguous than his sister or a cult, Curtis’ prologue ties Michael’s preternatural abilities to an ancient Celtic curse.
Jumping to 1963, the first few chapters delve into Michael’s childhood. Curtis hints at a familial history of evil by introducing a dogmatic grandmother, a concerned mother, and a 6-year-old boy plagued by violent nightmares and voices. The author also provides glimpses at Michael’s trial and his time at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, which not only strengthens Loomis’ motivation for keeping him institutionalized but also provides a more concrete theory on how Michael learned to drive.
Aside from a handful of minor discrepancies, including Laurie stabbing Michael in his manhood, the rest of the book essentially follows the film’s depiction of that fateful Halloween night in 1978 beat for beat. Some of the writing is dated — like a smutty fixation on every female character’s breasts and a casual use of the R-word — but it otherwise possesses a timelessness similar to its film counterpart. The written version benefits from expanded detail and enriched characters.
The addition of Arocena’s stunning illustrations, some of which are integrated into the text, creates a unique reading experience. The artwork has a painterly quality to it but is made digitally using vectors. He faithfully reproduces many of Halloween‘s most memorable moments, down to actor likeness, but his more expressionistic pieces are particularly striking.
The 224-page hardcover tome also includes an introduction by Curtis — who details the challenges of translating a script into a novel and explains the reasoning behind his decisions to occasionally subvert the source material — and a brief afterword from Arocena.
Novelizations allow readers to revisit worlds they love from a different perspective. It’s impossible to divorce Halloween from the film’s iconography — Carpenter’s atmospheric direction and score, Dean Cundey’s anamorphic cinematography, Michael’s expressionless mask, Jamie Lee Curtis’ star-making performance — but Halloween: Illustrated paints a vivid picture in the mind’s eye through Curtis’ writing and Arocena’s artwork.
Halloween: Illustrated is available now.
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