Have a Yabba Dabba Doo Death

Stephen King may be the mainstream go-to for horror literature, but when it comes to fiction that digs into your soul and chips away at your sense of what’s right in the world, pick up a Jack Ketchum book. From vividly gruesome novels riddled with torn limbs to stories that break your heart in less than ten pages without a drop of spilled blood, his work never fails to make me reach for reliable reassurance with a hug from my cat or cuddle with the old Pound Puppy. 

In theory, much of his work comes ready-made for film adaptations. Early novels like Off Season leap off the page with visceral violence screaming for some handy makeup effects, while The Lost could easily be a good actor’s dream role along the lines of De Niro’s Travis Bickle. 2009‘s Offspring marks the fourth attempt to bring Ketchum’s words to the screen, and like The Girl Next Door and The Lost (I can’t speak for Red as it’s still making its way up my queue), it works on some levels while failing to capture the true horror of its source material. 

Quick Plot: The ominously named Dead River, Maine, is about to be revisited by a clan of savage cave cannibals who made their mark eleven years earlier (for reference, read Off Season, Ketchum’s 1980 debut novel which for rights reasons, couldn’t be filmed) by snatching a few babies and devouring a lot of adults. After a gooey prologue introduces the hungry clan, we meet The Brood’s Art Hindle as a weathered policeman coming out of retirement to lend a hand to the helpless police force. Meanwhile, our civilian protagonists are introduced as genuine nice people. The omnivores include Amy and David Halbard, a nerdily sweet young couple with a cute newborn, their visiting friend Claire Carey, and her resourceful son Luke. The latter two are in the midst of dealing with financial woes caused by Stephen Carey, an alcoholic, abusive, and tax-evading father who abandoned them months earlier but is now en route to do even more damage. 

What makes Offspring work--both on page and screen--is the attention given to developing its characters. In most cannibals-hunting-normal-people films, humans exist as mere meat just waiting to be served. Here, the Halbards, Careys, and, to a lesser extent, Hindle’s George Peters are actual people well-deserving of our sympathies. This makes the first attack incredibly effective. Watching feral children gut innocent suburbanites is always going to stir up some emotions in its audience, but when we actually like said victims, it’s truly horrifying. 

One of the most disturbing elements of Offspring, however, is its civilized villain, Stephen. Actor Erick Kastel gives this yuppie sadist a nice sense of misogyny that toes a line between forced evil and true psychopathy. Like in the novel, one of the strongest scenes has nothing to do with hunting knives or hatchets. Stephen picks up a perky hitchhiker, only to quickly unnerve her with nastiness. It’s a nice early twist that further infuses Offspring with a sense of wrongness, much in the way The Girl Next Door features a creepy ant war that works to unsettle the audience before digging into the main action. 

The sense of savagery inside Offspring is at times aided by its low budget and lack of studio rating. Children are shot, babies are tossed, and many a stomach is torn apart in a manner that would most likely have had the MPAA seething. The biggest complaint a lot of viewers will mostly likely have is the low quality camera work that feels nearly homemade. Occasionally, this works for artistic reasons (such as Stephen’s first meeting with the demolition-happy cannibals as he storms away in his Porsche) but unfortunately, some of the actual editing stunts the action by lingering in all the wrong spots. Director Andrew van den Houten doesn’t seem to have any real eye for shooting scenes or building suspense. It’s possible to defend some of the visuals and lack of build-up as modern exploitation, but as you watch Offspring, it feels much more along the lines of sloppy filmmaking.

But as far as the horror goes, Offspring works at grounding itself in one awful night of slaughter. Ketchum himself penned the script and it’s obvious he retained most of his own character work in shaping the victims. The clan, on the other hand, is a mixed bag of effectiveness: evil and athletic children are sufficiently rotten, and  schoolteacher Ed Nelson’s performance as Cow (the crazed and imprisoned sex toy of the group) is quite creepy. Pollyanna McIntosh comes off best as the leading matriarch, but the entire look of these horrific man-eaters feels...well...costume store sponsored. I was more impressed by the fact that Second Stolen’s metal rock wig stayed on when she tossed her hair than I was by her self flagellation. I understand that a limited budget wouldn’t quite capture the nipple belt so well described on the page, but it’s a shame to see these potentially nightmare-inducing creations end up looking like a family dressing up like the Flintstones for Halloween, but forgetting to take their costumes off come Thanksgiving.

High Points

All the gore--and there is a lot--is quite well done, always grossing you out and never inspiring you to pass the ketchup

You can’t underestimate the importance in fleshing out (no pun intended; I need to stop this Crypt Keeper business before I corn myself to death) the characters. With a few gaps here and there, the lead performances are all very solid in creating actual people, thus making their brutal attacks as sad as they are frightening

Low Points

So much about the technical filmmaking misses the mark. For one, the coloring never seems to make up its mind. The hellish cave is too orange, creating a campfire feel rather than a disgustingly bone-filled home base of killer cannibals

Even though I read Offspring less than a year ago, the motivations of the clan were hazy at best. I only remembered the fact that the older children were named “First Stolen” and “Second Stolen” because of the IMDB listing. Knowing that these horrid creatures were once kidnapped babies is a huge part of the novel that adds weight to the newly kidnapped children, but in the film, none of this disturbing backstory comes across. 

Lessons Learned

If you need to escape from an entire town’s police force, simply trot into the woods while they watch you waving their fists

Everybody in New England carries a full flask

Kicking a corpse will not bring it back to life

Don’t expect the 16 year old babysitter to successfully defend your newborn against a feral clan of baby-eating cannibals

Knives are very noisy when pulled out of stomachs

Rent/Bury/Buy

Word of mouth has been pretty turgid for Offspring, but I found it to be an entertaining little slice of 90 minutes. In no way does it fully capture the horrific nature of the novel, but it does offer more than a few moments to unsettle jaded DVD renters. I can see many a cynical horror fan picking more bones with the look and general feel of this film, but I guess those who want to like it will find more than enough to enjoy in a sitting. Whereas The Girl Next Door remains a chilling and troubling film with each subsequent viewing, Offspring’s power lays more in its action, making it most likely a one-watch for the majority of horror fans. The loaded DVD includes a detailed behind-the-scenes featurette, commentary, and a few more little goodies worth checking out. I’m partial to the making-of documentary, where we get to watch the final kid-on-kid battle in a split screen with the child actors’ parents looking on with pride, horror, and gum snaps.  

Hot Child In the Cinema

Sure, we know that Angela Baker and Jason Voorhees are eternally guarding the sleepaway camp gates, but what about all the other joys of summer? Here’s a roundup of other treats to be enjoyed between June and September, which the Farmer’s Almanac constantly rates as the peak time of year to slaughter young people in cinematic ways. 

Tanning

I’m the kind of pasty white woman who spends an extra $1.50 to raise my SPF to 50, so the very idea of laying encased in an electrified tomb simply to get a little brown is horrifying in itself. Hence, I'll always appreciate the most ingenious death scene of Final Destination 3, in which two sweetly bubblegum airheads meet their end via a poorly designed tanning salon. Plus, it incorporates another staple of July, Slurpee-ish drinks! Double death, double points. 

Carnivals

There’s something incredibly joyful about riding a temporary feris wheel operated by a toothless nomad trying desperately to flirt with underage locals.  Of course, it’s even more fun when such an evening involves homicide. Tobe Hooper’s 1981 The Funhouse is an excellent little slasher that utilizes its carnival setting to kill a few disrespectful teens. That’s right kids: no matter how tempting it may be, spending a night inside a temporary amusement park will run you the risk of being hanged, raped, or mocked by an animatronic fat lady. 

Lazy Days

In between camp and softball practice, my childhood summer was generally spent in a pool, in front of a VCR, or on a bike pretending to sniff out an exciting adventure that often involved Ewoks. Maybe that’s because I grew up in a kinder, simpler time where kids could be kids...as opposed to the sadistic era of poodle skirts, jukeboxes, and Jack Ketchum’s novel turned film, The Girl Next Door. Instead of playing stickball or hiking across town to view a corpse like normal kids, these young Americans of prefer kinky tag, drinking cheap beer with mom, and sexually violating the new girl in town. Sure, they occasionally celebrate hot weather with an ice pop or betting on red vs. black ant wars, but this is one neighborhood that needs to hall its delinquents to the teenage wasteland of  Sleepaway Camp III.

School’s Out

As Tiny Tim once said, the true meaning of summer is not having to go to school. Sadly this thrill wears away when you join the typical workforce, but thankfully, we’ll always have horror films that cast well-past-graduation aged actors as horny teenagers without a care in the world come June. The soon-to-finally-be-released-and-seen-by-every-American-horror-fan-complaining-about-the-lack-of-good-original-movies All the Boys Love Mandy Lane captures this hedonistic innocence by driving a group of pretty high school juniors to a sprawling ranch for a start-of-summer party. Once there, the boys plot to woo the titular beauty while the girls judge each others’ appearances and ...well, I’ll say no more for fear of spoilage. But lots of stuff happens, none of which involves friendship circles or marshmallows.

Ring Ring

What’s that sound? A mobile merry-go-round? A really loud music box? \nGoodness no! It’s the Good Humor Man! Or the creepy, inexplicably living creature with a head that somehow stays solid under the summer sun, Mr. Softee! Or--wait. This guy looks different. A little short. A tad ratty. Familiar in a character actor sort of way. \n\nBecause, of course, it’s none other than Clint Howard playing the world’s most evil purveyor of dairy delights. Sure, Masters of Horror’s We All Scream For Ice Cream gave this summer staple a nice follow up, but it’s the lesser Howard Brother’s star turn that truly made ice cream trucks vehicles to fear. Or find mildly revolting and extremely hilarious. Either way, this is the film that clinched Howard’s MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, so you know it has to be brilliant. And it is.

I’m skipping the beach because a) I burn easily and b) I simply refuse to mention the most mentioned summer horror classic in this column. Oh fine: Jaws IV: The Revenge is by far the best film to ever unit sand, sharks, and Mario Von Peebles. Happy now?

NERD ALERT: The Girl Next Door

“I’m not going to tell you about this.
I refuse to.
There are things you know you’ll die before telling, things you know you should have died before ever having seen.
I watched and saw.”


Jack Ketchum is a dark guy. Of course, coming from a horror blog that's a highly sincere compliment.


The Girl Next Door is a 1989 novel that slowly crept its way into the public conscious, eventually becoming an author-baptized film in 2007. One part Stand By Me and some parts The Incredible Torture Show, both book and film take one of those ripped-from-the-headlines horrors that even Dick Wolf's Law and Order staff wouldn't touch with a ten foot gavel.

In 1965 Indiana, a teenager named Sylvia Likens was sent to live with a single mother named Gertrude Baniszewski. Three months later, Baniszewski was convicted of first-degree murder while her children and several young neighbors were revealed to have tortured, beaten, and mutilated Likens under her encouraging watch.


Ketchum’s novel does not try to recreate the Likens tragedy (for a fairly accurate portrayal, see the Showtime original film An American Crime, starring the always fine Catherine Keener and a pre-Juno, reversed role Hard Candy Ellen Page). Instead, he takes the essence of this crime--adult sanctioned evil and how easily it can spread in anytown, USA--and moves it to the falsely idyllic 1950s suburbia.

Our narrator is David, a man who begins in the present day by telling us that real pain is something most people have never experienced. He's not kidding.


As a boy, David plays with the usual assortment of neighborhood kids, often under the lax supervision of Ruth Chandler, an embittered divorcee raising three alpha males. David's 13th summer begins with the arrival of Ruth's orphaned nieces Susan and Meg, the latter being beautiful, independent, two years older, and the obvious target of a street-wide crush and puppy love. In the real world, she could grow into the prom queen. In a V.C. Andrews' novel, Meg would overcome a series of gothic dramas to become a strong-willed heroine little girls could idolize. In The Girl Next Door, Meg has no such luck.

Ketchum's construction of Ruth is fascinating, if sketchy. As the girls slowly ease into their new family, Ruth begins to grow cruel towards the elder Meg, openly chiding her for her weight and burgeoning sexuality. What starts as a few minor punishments quickly escalates into full-blown torture, with Meg becoming a basement prisoner to be beaten, scarred, and raped under Ruth's supervision, David's confused observation, and our horror.


The Girl Next Door is as disturbing as you've heard, and depending on your stomach, more so than you can imagine. It's also incredibly absorbing and a fascinating delve into the terrible possibilities of child urges. The kids in Ketchum's world are cruel and sadistic, but like J.M. Barrie said, all kids are born heartless. Common assumption is that the adults--particularly mothers--will help children to tame their wildness and train their sympathies. What happens, asks Ketchum in his afterward, if an adult relinquishes that power? Worse, what happens (or, sadly enough, DID happen), when that figure of power gives into his or her own sick fantasies?

Meg is a vehicle for sexual and violent frustration, from Ruth's weird hatred of femininity to the boys' dangerously ranging hormones unleashed. Ketchum's real power comes from David's voice: like the film, he is mostly an observer, a powerless pre-teen who knows that what's happening is wrong, but is too scared, confused, and, for a time, fascinated to take any kind of physical or moral stand against it. David is, as Ruth says, "a nice boy and all," but he’s also a 13 year-old boy. The most disturbing passages of The Girl Next Door--of which there are many--come from the quick asides and observations of our flawed hero; here and there, David lets himself fantasize. He’s not a villain, but Ketchum’s willingness to smudge our hero’s intentions takes the novel to a much more complicated and scary place.


I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a dark, challenging, and skin crawling read. Ignore the original paperback cover, with a skeletal cheerleader straight off the poster for Return to Horror High. While I think the film did a decent job of capturing the dirty creepiness of the novel, Ketchum's original is a much more disturbing trip into believable hell.

See what I mean?