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Reviews tagging 'Torture'
Blood on Satan's Claw: Or, the Devil's Skin by Robert Wynne-Simmons
1 review
barry_x's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This is okay I guess. A fun quick read, but not something I was particularly 'wowed' with.
This book is a novelisation of the classic folk-horror film, 'The Blood on Satan's Claw' written fifty years later by the original screen play writer. If you've seen the film then you're probably the target audience for this and it's fun reading along waiting for all the bits you remember from the film to crop up and the novel does expand on the film in quite a few ways to give the reader a little more context.
The downside, is that I don't think this is a particularly well edited novel. The individual scenes can be quite creepy and scary and the book pushes the right buttons, it's just that as a novel, it expects the reader to fill in a lot of the gaps. That's okay with a movie, but with a book you need to engage a little deeper. The book suffers a little with logical holes in 'time and place' and characters appearing several miles away from what seems possible. Likewise, a lot of important action and activities occurs 'off-screen', which again works in a film to an extent but in the book there are huge leaps where things are obviously happening in between. I'm not sure, but the mystery and uncertainty sometimes feels a little jarring rather than pulling you deeper in. Sometimes I think books are too long, but this is one where I think another fifty or so pages would have made it a great novel.
My other complaint is that paragraphs quickly change focus or seem to be describing totally different events and don't flow together well. For instance the first paragraph may be a character looking in a barn, and the next one describes a meeting in a city between two other characters. Even the word, 'meanwhile' would do a lot of lifting here!
Onto the positives - yes, this book does describe a late 17th century rural village really well. We have the unknown but ever present threat of superstition and pagan practices and good old devil worship. We have witchfinder authority figures, who never really come across as the good guys either. There are quite a few scenes which are creepy without being gratuitous.
(there is a certain infamous scene in the film which is depicted quite differently in the book - violence, and sexual violence particularly is largely implied or depicted as happening off screen)
The depiction of Angel Blake is superb! Anyone familiar with the film will be aware of Linda Hayden's performance in this film. It's quite shocking how she portrayed both virginal innocence and malevolent devil worshipping hate and seduction so well, when she was 17 when this was filmed. Maybe it is the power of Linda Hayden fifty years later but Angel says little, but she is depicted as the sweet little 15 year old model student to evil witch running a village's Satanic rites with ease. It's a testament to the author to hook into this so well.
The hardback is presented brilliantly and the illustrations in the book are beautiful - worth adding a star on for them. They perfectly capture the mood of the book.
The ending felt a little flat to be honest, almost as though there was no easy way out. I wouldn't say I was disappointed but I think giving it five stars would be because I like the film more than the book.
This book is a novelisation of the classic folk-horror film, 'The Blood on Satan's Claw' written fifty years later by the original screen play writer. If you've seen the film then you're probably the target audience for this and it's fun reading along waiting for all the bits you remember from the film to crop up and the novel does expand on the film in quite a few ways to give the reader a little more context.
The downside, is that I don't think this is a particularly well edited novel. The individual scenes can be quite creepy and scary and the book pushes the right buttons, it's just that as a novel, it expects the reader to fill in a lot of the gaps. That's okay with a movie, but with a book you need to engage a little deeper. The book suffers a little with logical holes in 'time and place' and characters appearing several miles away from what seems possible. Likewise, a lot of important action and activities occurs 'off-screen', which again works in a film to an extent but in the book there are huge leaps where things are obviously happening in between. I'm not sure, but the mystery and uncertainty sometimes feels a little jarring rather than pulling you deeper in. Sometimes I think books are too long, but this is one where I think another fifty or so pages would have made it a great novel.
My other complaint is that paragraphs quickly change focus or seem to be describing totally different events and don't flow together well. For instance the first paragraph may be a character looking in a barn, and the next one describes a meeting in a city between two other characters. Even the word, 'meanwhile' would do a lot of lifting here!
Onto the positives - yes, this book does describe a late 17th century rural village really well. We have the unknown but ever present threat of superstition and pagan practices and good old devil worship. We have witchfinder authority figures, who never really come across as the good guys either. There are quite a few scenes which are creepy without being gratuitous.
(there is a certain infamous scene in the film which is depicted quite differently in the book - violence, and sexual violence particularly is largely implied or depicted as happening off screen)
The depiction of Angel Blake is superb! Anyone familiar with the film will be aware of Linda Hayden's performance in this film. It's quite shocking how she portrayed both virginal innocence and malevolent devil worshipping hate and seduction so well, when she was 17 when this was filmed. Maybe it is the power of Linda Hayden fifty years later but Angel says little, but she is depicted as the sweet little 15 year old model student to evil witch running a village's Satanic rites with ease. It's a testament to the author to hook into this so well.
The hardback is presented brilliantly and the illustrations in the book are beautiful - worth adding a star on for them. They perfectly capture the mood of the book.
The ending felt a little flat to be honest, almost as though there was no easy way out. I wouldn't say I was disappointed but I think giving it five stars would be because I like the film more than the book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, Rape, Violence, and Murder
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