Genre Character of the Week: The Crimson Bolt

I had heard about the movie Super a few years ago and as I’ve enjoyed the films of James Gunn whenever I’ve caught them (Slither is my current favourite, but Lollilove had a nice mockumentary-feel throughout) so the idea of a super-hero film starring Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) sounded like something right up my alley.

A number of obstacles soon started to form however; it didn’t play in any of my local theatres, and review after review of the film left me feeling less enthusiastic about the film. The movie came out on DVD earlier this year, and it sat on the shelves at my local department store for $25 – which is a little steep for me to purchase a movie without watching it first. Even my online DVD-rental place didn’t have it. Then, while grocery shopping with my BFF Mike last week, I found it in my local Safeway for $5, so I snapped it up. Which leads to this week’s genre character, Frank D’Arbo, aka The Crimson Bolt.

Frank (played by Rainn Wilson) is a short-order cook, married and a pretty simple guy; he loves his wife and one of his favourite memories is of helping the police. One day his wife leaves him for a jerk named Jacques played by Kevin Bacon and Frank breaks down.

Finding inspiration in a Christian-themed super hero show called The Holy Avenger (played by Nathan Fillion) who saves children from a devil with the power of Christ, Frank decides to become a superhero, after all, in the words of the Holy Avenger

"All it takes to become a superhero is the choice to fight evil"

So Frank sets out to stop crime, and the movie follows him as he stumbles and bumbles his way through his new life. Personally, I enjoy the fact that the violence in the film is very realistic and does a good job of showing just how vicious Frank can be with criminals. I found that the similarly-themed film Kick-Ass sort of glorified the violence that the main character caused, and I felt this film did a better job of dealing with the themes of religion, self-worth and redemption better than the other.

Frank comes across as a simple guy pushed too far. He is not unlike Michael Douglas in Falling Down (one of my favourite non-genre films) in that he wants to live in a world where right and wrong obvious and separate. Although the film won’t be for everyone, I actually ended up liking it and yes, it will stay in my DVD collection.

Book Review: A Stir of Echoes

Like most people, I’ve seen a lot of movies based on books well before I ever got around to the novel, if at all. Often the film ruins any exciting plot twists you might have found in the book so there is even less of a reason to pick up the original work. But sometimes…

A few years back while in Germany I read Robert Bloch’s Psycho, a book that has become one of the most famous films ever made. Yes there is a secret ending, yes it is incredible, no I will not spoil it for the six or seven people out there who don’t know (it is that cool), so you would think that the original novel would have little to offer a reader who is “in the know.” To my surprise, that book was fantastic, scaring me almost all the way through, and surprising me in story elements that would not have translated well into the medium of film.

Two years ago I read Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby, and the same thing occurred; even though I had seen the Polanski film at least five times, the book brought a wicked sense of humour to the material that I was not expecting and totally enjoyed.

This brings me to my current book, A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson. Like most people, I saw the 1999 Kevin Bacon film first (and yes I’ve won more than a few games of six degree of Kevin Bacon using this film or Tremors as a link; interesting note, Serious SDoKB players consider it a cheat to connect through star-studded films like JFK or Apollo 13). It’s kind of funny actually, as at the time the film came out there was a sort of backlash against it, saying it was basically a rip-off of The Sixth Sense, which is funny, because the book is based off of a novel published forty years earlier in 1958.

The book is actually a lot of fun, definitely helped by the fact that I saw the movie more than a dozen years ago so the story seems a little fresher. Add to that the fact that the victim and the killer are different in the novel than in the movie, and you end up with a story even someone who just saw the movie could still enjoy today.

This is the six Richard Matheson novel I’ve read in the last half year (the others were Someone is Bleeding, Fury on Sunday, Woman, I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man) and I love reading any authors work in order of publication because I get to see them grow as an artist. The book is quite good, and makes me want to go back and check out the movie again.