Dark Angel Christmas - An All New Christmas Holiday Single from Sidney Williams Writing as Michael August

Okay, long story shortened - I was in a writer's group and a workshop challenge was posed, compose a Christmas horror story.

Years ago, as I sat at an intersection stop light, a car with three young ladies in Santa hats passed in front of me. I recalled that and started wondering what might happen if one of them had been left behind and had to walk. 

As I started writing, I realized I was working in the voice of Michael August, my pseudonym for young adult novels, and that the tale was going to go a little longer than the 4,000-word cap for the group. 

So, Dark Angel Christmas was born, a slightly darker Michael August tale. 

Official Synopsis

It’s a 10-minute walk to the town square for a Christmas concert, until a mysterious white truck turns up.

In seconds, following a detour to shake her stalker, Amity Nichols is in a test of endurance and a game of survival that are one and the same. Does the mysterious driver know about the dark secret she’s harboring? Or does he want something worse for her than silence?

As darkness falls, Amity will have to face a challenge of stealth and patience until decisions on life or death can’t wait any longer. 

Warning: Contains mature themes and intense situations. Dark Angel Christmas is Sidney Williams, author of The Gift and New Year's Evil, writing in a slightly darker vein as Michael August.

Final Girl - Interesting Take on the Maze and the Minotaur Trope

In the intro to Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, Lee Child observes that we, humans,  have a way of re-telling tales in veiled new forms, harnessing tropes from stories that have come before but redressing them in more contemporary fashion.

Theseus and the Minotaur becomes James Bond and Dr. No: Bad actor in isolated location perpetrates evil deeds until a nobleman from afar shows up to intervene.

I watched an interesting variation on that trope that gets there by way of the slasher genre and Carol J. Clover's final girl. It's called  appropriately Final Girl, and it's an intriguing and perhaps a bit eccentric thriller with Abigale Breslin and Wes Bentley.

Bentley's Williams, a man who's lost his family to killers. Breslin's the teen version of a character who faced similar horrors as a child and agreed to be reared as a trained warrior to take out other killers. Guess there's a little Hitgirl in there too.

In a town that seems to consist of woods and a diner, a group of young men perpetrate Most Dangerous Game-style mayhem. Dressed in tuxedos, they lure unsuspecting girls to the woods and pursue them in deadly hunts. The body count's pretty high, and one missing girl's the subject of local "unsolved mystery" fascination it seems.

It's a situation in dire need of Veronica's (Breslin) talents, which are considerable thanks to training from William. We get just a taste of that early on.

Placing herself in the role of victim, she sets off to do battle in a prom dress.

There's a bit of timelessness--helped by the fashions--to the setting that vaguely suggests a time few years back in the vein of Stoker. Or perhaps it's just an alternate universe. Either way it evokes an effective atmosphere, and things are engaging as the story builds.

Tension rises not with excessive brutality but with subtle touches like a game of truth or dare that winds the trap for battle.

The killers are a twisted and colorful band headed by Alexander Ludwig, who trained for the role by playing Cato in The Hunger Games. Cameron Bright is the most subdued of the bunch with leanings toward normalcy, while Logan Huffman's dark, giggling and wild eyed. His dance with his axe, Anna Belle, offers a standout moment.

It's definitely a striking refurbishing of its sources, directed by Tyler Shields and conceived by a number of credited writing contributors. A harsher judge might ask for more compelling traps, tricks or twists, but I liked it and found it a nice "something a little different."

In the VOD universe, it's a nice and dark little trail to wander down.

(I watched by Hoopla, but it's available on platforms including iTunes.)

What's Up with The Final Girl?

The tables turn in slasher films. Bad guys may ultimately rise after defeat to leave sequel potential open, but usually there's a culmination in which someone, almost always the "final girl," stops the killing.

Carol J. Clover named the archetype in 1992 in Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, not terribly long before Kevin Williamson delivered the self-aware Scream which turned the plot tradition into a plot twist.

You know the story, the virginal, studious teenager in the character mix rises to the occasion. See: Laurie Strode in Halloween etc.

I could be wrong, but I think now the final girl may be moving in a new direction, given a shove in that direction by slasher's evolutionary cousin torture horror.

Jeremy Morris--in an essay in Thomas Fahy's The Philosophy of Horror, "The Justification of Torture- Horror: "Retribution and Sadism in Saw, Hostel, and The Devil's Rejects"--observes a "transformation of torturers and victims" as far back as Last House on the Left (1972, remade 2009) .

In that one, the parents of a  murdered young girl exact revenge in brutal fashion on her killers. In Virgin Spring, which inspired the tale, Max Von Sydow takes up a sword after exfoliating, but it's not quite as gritty as a microwave death or the biting off of  genitals of the Last House films.

The trend of victims becoming torturers, Morris notes, continues in the films mentioned in the essay's title.

A trend evolves?
The final girl type seems to be changing along similar lines. Some of the DNA from torture horror seems to have dropped into the archetype gene pool.

In a number of recent neo-slasher films the final girl's a force to be reckoned with. It's perhaps most obvious in the "Tuesday the 17th" segment of the anthology film V/H/S, directed by Glen McQuaid.

Wendy (Norma C. Quinones) leads new friends on a camping trip, gradually revealing she is the final girl from a previous outing in which campers fell prey to a slasher who can't be captured on video. That makes inspired use of the film's handheld point of view.

Wendy's now out to kill the entity. Spoiler warning: She succeeds, only to become possessed by the spirit at the open-ended tale's conclusion.

Mary Mason in American Mary from Jen and Sylvia Soska isn't a slasher victim but is the survivor of a roofied date-rape. The experience transforms her from a medical student to underground body modification surgeon who ultimately kills. The arc is tragedy, but the Soskas know horror and slasher territory well.

Mary the victim becomes the antagonist as the tale marches forward.

I haven't seen it yet, but that appears to be the direction things are headed in Anna: Scream Queen Killer. 

It's interesting to watch the edges of the box cave in and to see things take on new freshness. There's always a new twist, and it's good to be reminded. Don't mess with the final girl. 

Interesting Addendum

If this project, The Final Girls, comes about for ABC Family, it looks like final girls will be working for good by channeling their experiences into fighting evil under the guidance of Laurie Strode herself, Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Anna: Scream Queen Killer

Since we were just talking about slasher pics, I have news of a new horror thriller, Anna: Scream Queen Killer that's streaming on Amazon. It's from Chemical Burn, and it might be extreme.

The producers are calling it a "sexy horror exploitation film with a twist." It sounds like it might be in the vein of American Mary.

Here's the official synopsis and trailer. From here it's really up to you. (Trailer contains some nudity.)

The ultimate in actress exploitation, Scream Queen Killer takes you on a journey into the world of indie grindhouse film auditions with a mind bending twist. Anna is a young actress desperate to make it in the movies. She is invited to a series of filmed auditions, playing out various scenarios on camera. The problem is, the director is a perverted psychopath with only one thing on his mind. As Anna progresses through an ever more bizarre series of roles she slowly realizes that something is horribly wrong with this audition. Forced to strip and perform carnal acts in the name of the art, she eventually flips and takes matters into her own hands. A scenario many actresses may recognize in the industry, Scream Queen Killer is brutally realistic and superbly acted by Melanie Denholme (Lady of the Dark). How far is too far? And how far would you go to get the role?

Anna: Scream Queen Killer: She's Had Enough from Reality Films on Vimeo.