Previous years’ lists: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.
These are all the books I read in 2024. If the title and author of the book are bold and in italics, that means I recommend the book. If not, either I didn’t like the book or I don’t feel it is accessible enough to recommend to everyone.
Check out previous years’ lists if you’re interested in other books I read, like 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. These are all the books I read in 2023. If the title and author of the book are bold and in italics, that means I recommend the book. If not, either I didn’t like the book or I don’t feel it is accessible enough to recommend to everyone.
Shoutout to my friend Marina for getting me to finally post this even if 2024 is almost over. Sheesh.
Mr. Grimoire kept the kiddies in a room scarcely big enough for the twelve of them, in beds pressed up nearly upon one another, two rows of six old half-sunken beds with thin, icy sheets. The smell of sweat and damp mold graced the air—and it was a grace, when it came right down to it. This was something Topher knew, that even this musty, frigid broom closet he called a home was a kindness. The youngest and smallest of these twelve orphans—these street urchins, these vagabond children—Topher knew that without what little scraps Mr. Grimoire afforded them, he’d be out on the streets again. Prey to the complex politics of the city’s grimy underworld.
Or rather, that’s what Topher tried to tell himself he knew. Tried to remember. On nights like this—frigid sheets pulled up to his chin in a vain effort to stave off the wind that navigated tiny gaps in the walls’ warped wood—it was difficult to remember that he preferred this life. Out there, maybe he’d be dead, sure. But then again, dead boys don’t feel the cold. So it was a toss-up. A coin flip, as to which was better. Like one of Olney’s sadistic gambles.
As if bidden, Topher heard the snores of Olney spin out along the room’s still air. There was another grace, if Topher was reminding himself of his blessings: his spot was here, pressed between the Creole and the wall, far away from Olney and his snores and his gambles. Down here with only the Creole near him, gentle and kind and the only sort of friend Topher had ever known—much more vibrant than the rest of these ashen-faced malnourished ragamuffins with whom Topher lived. The Creole wrapped himself in the mystery that only young children can cultivate, preferring everyone call him by his strange nickname rather than his given name of Cortez. The rest of the boys were either Olney’s Four or else slick-eyed cowards who much preferred Olney to beat up on Topher than to turn his fierce attentions on them. Boys living for the next day, no imagination in them. Perhaps, thought Topher, the imagination had been squeezed out of them.
Outside, a shrill rain began to drip onto the orphanage’s tin roof, pocking it with metallic notes that Topher found quite saddening. Like angels’ tears. That was something from his childhood, something his mother had told him as a toddler that always stuck with him on nights like this. The drizzly drops of angels’ tears. That’s how she used to talk about rain.
But Topher’s mother was dead, long gone. His father, too. Gone in the same instant while toddler Topher ran away, knowing somehow not to scream, not to cry out in that crucial moment, instead winding his way out of the house and into the back alleys of his old neighborhood, down past the ruined cinema and the Muckeaters’ Market. He had known somehow to slither away like a snake, running on tiny toddler legs barefoot through the mud-drenched streets, managing barely to avoid the pools of sludgy bacteria that must surely have been down there, wriggling between his toes, trying desperately to take down this one remaining member of his house, of his family. And that is where he had stayed: first finding shelter under a crumbling bridge still on the Muckeaters’ side of town where the guards’ patrols were short and the guards themselves uninterested in their duties; then stealing a tattered pair of shoes out of a shop window to cover sore feet that would surely have gone gangrenous without them; and finally rummaging for food among the trash heaps and gathering the occasional handout from a shopkeeper in a good mood.
And then, for the last few months, his life had been here at Mr. Grimoire’s Home for Boys. Grimoire was a cold man, a hard man. Thin as a reed, his face as hawkish and stern as one of the weathered busts outside the ruined cinema in the Muckeaters’ District, Mr. Grimoire had but one significant quality that forced these homeless boys into line: he was old. Older than anyone Topher had ever seen before—perhaps sixty, maybe even seventy years old! And the man was strong. Thin he might be, but Mr. Grimoire was not someone Topher wanted to cross, if he could help it. Sometimes Mr. Grimoire would take a boy out for the night, leaving the empty bed as a testament to the boy having misbehaved. Topher didn’t know what went on—he’d never been singled out for these punishments, never toed the line with Mr. Grimoire’s rules—but from the stony faces of the boys who returned in the morning and the awkward, knowing glances shared with others who’d crossed the line some time before, well… Topher imagined some dark dungeon or pit Mr. Grimoire would throw the boys down for the night. He imagined terrors pressing in, darkness all around, maybe water at the bottom of the pit. Standing all night without any sleep can make a boy look like that, Topher knew. He’d seen those eyes back in his days on the streets. Five-plus years on the street by yourself, you get to know the look of those who haven’t slept in a while. Darkness, chains in a dungeon, perhaps a pit to stand in all night with water up to the knees. Something dreadful it must have been, as even Olney—who, it must be said, broke the rules the most and therefore took the brunt of Grimoire’s punishment—even cruel Olney came back with that hollow fire in his eyes.
Topher was scaring himself. He began to see encroaching demons in every shadow cast by the flickers of the room’s single candle, began to imagine that the tinkling of the rain on the orphanage roof was the clicking of demon claws—hellspawn come to scoop him down to the depths of the earth where he’d never escape, down to the darkest and wettest of dungeon pits. He shut his eyes and muttered to himself:
“No need to fear. It’s only angels’ tears. Tears of joy. Angels’ tears.”
The Creole harrumphed in his sleep and turned over, disrupting the room’s gentle snores with the protestations of mattress springs. Some of the boys’ breathing changed, almost on the verge of waking.
Only angels’ tears, my love. My little Topher. Just angels’ tears of joy.
This time he said it in his head, so the demons and other boys couldn’t hear. So the room couldn’t disturb itself against the pitter-patter on the roof.
Just angels’ tears, my love.
Day arrived without warning—an intruding brightness upon Topher’s eyes. Orange-yellow-white, when just a moment ago it was all blackness and candle-flickers. Wasn’t he just thinking about the angels’ tears falling on the tin roof? How, then, could it be morning already? And yet no longer could Topher hear the pinpoint drops dancing out their melody. When night had left, so had the rain.
Groans of bodies and bedsprings announced that the others were also waking. Topher eased his sticky eyes open and tried to flick the crust from their corners. The Creole was already up, standing at the end of Topher’s bed already dressed out of the old pillowcase he used as nightclothes and into the gray shorts and blue shirt that constituted the boys’ uniform.
“Up an’ awakey, Toph the Goph.” The Creole’s face split into a wide grin that Topher couldn’t help but return—regardless of the stupid nickname. The Creole had tanned skin, darker than Topher’s own ghostly pallor. His hair was curly and matted in the back from where he’d slept on his pillow in the same position for too long.
“Ain’t even how the sayin’ goes, Creole. It’s ‘up an’ at ‘em.’ And the name’s Topher.” It was like this every morning with the nickname and the routine. And even though Topher knew that this was all part of the plan they’d cooked up—the plan to take back the name Olney had been using to hurt him—a part of him really did get offended at the words.
“No time for talk, Mr. Topher, sir.” The Creole held out Topher’s light blue shirt and gray shorts—a slightly smaller version of the outfit the Creole wore, though still marked by stains and little patches that spoke of a storied history—and a pair of scuffed black leather shoes. “Wouldn’t want to miss the Speech.”
“Well if it ain’t Topher the Gopher!” Topher’s heart seized as Olney plodded across the room. The floor didn’t actually boom with the bully’s footsteps, but Topher decided that maybe this was simply because the floorboards themselves were scared of Olney. “Dint’cha hear, Creole? Gopher don’t need to listen to the Speech anymore. We already know he’s goin’ out to run errands. Topher, Topher, go fer this, go fer that. Sucking up to the old man like a newborn to ‘is mama.”
Topher didn’t say anything. He tried not to look at the hulking mass of muscle before him. Okay, Olney wasn’t that big. But when Olney was at your head, calling you names, trying to get his fingers down deep inside your soul, he seemed like he took up more room than he really did. The other boys coincidentally became very interested in pulling their clothes from the small trunks beneath their beds. Suddenly all Topher could see around him was a bunch of unruly hairstyles peeking up from behind the bedframes.
“Just gettin’ dressed, Olney.” Even to Topher, his voice sounded weak. Maybe even squeaked a little. Like a mouse. Like a damned mouse. But this was the plan he and the Creole had agreed upon. Don’t rile Olney. Let him be. Let him have his fun. Carnival day was coming, and that’s when they could get him. So he took the clothes from the Creole’s still-outstretched hand and began to don them.
“Just gettin’ dressed, Olney. Just gettin’ dressed.” The imitation was not kind. Shrill and scared-sounding. Like a damned mouse, indeed. “Cry for mommy some more, you little runt.” Across the room, Olney’s Four snickered their approval at the insult.
“I don’t cry for my mother.” Topher’s hands were clenched now. He didn’t know when that had happened. “You’re…” He meant to call Olney a liar, but the Creole’s head was shaking. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, a subtle jerk of black curls that told Topher to hold off. Get your revenge later, the curls seemed to say. Get your revenge at Carnival Day.
“I’m what,” said Olney, his oily face turning down slightly, little dog eyes staring at Topher’s fists. “What am I, Gopher-runt? Tell me.”
“Olney. You’re Olney.” Topher unclenched his hands and picked up his clothes, keeping his eyes on his feet, head bowed in obeisance. “I meant nothing.”
“You meant ‘nothing,’ eh?” There was a ferocity in Olney’s voice. A fire. Topher didn’t understand, but he kept his eyes down. Follow the plan. Later. Later. “You meant ‘nothing,’ did you? I’m nothing now?”
“Olney, come—” But the Creole’s injunction was cut off by a louder tirade from the bully.
“I’m nothing now, eh? Me? That’s right. Look at your shoes, you sniveling runt. I’m not the one crying out for mommy and the angels, am I? I’m not the one waking up with dried tears all over my face, am I? Nothing to you, eh? Maybe I’ll show you what nothing is.”
Topher chanced a look, bringing his eyes up to meet Olney’s stare blazing cold down at him like blue fire, and the Creole next to him, gaze fixed firmly on Olney’s cheek with an unreadable look.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant that I didn’t mean nothing by saying things.”
The Creole’s face was starting to screw up in rage. Topher had only ever seen that look on his face once before. Just once, at Mr. Grimoire’s back.
“Toph’s only nine, Olney. And he survived out there for five of those years.” The Creole’s finger pointed out through the room’s wooden walls, but his eyes were fixed on Olney. “How long did you last out there on the street before coming here, to this… softer life?”
Olney swiveled slowly, eyes seeming to drift along the plane between Topher and the Creole, unfocused and crazy. Remember the plan, Topher tried to say to the Creole. But his hair was not curly and his vigorous headshakes went unnoticed.
“What did you say to me?”
“I’m just saying—”
“Softer life in here, eh!” Strangely, Olney’s voice had grown quieter, smaller. But nonetheless Topher was more scared now than he had been before. “I’m the bringer of pain, baby. I’m the ruler of the underworld in here.” He gestured to the small room. “I’m the one who breaks the rules. I’m the one who tests the bounds. No one talks to me like this.”
“Yeah, you break the rules, big man. You forget that some of us know what you get for it.” As soon as the words were out of the Creole’s mouth, Topher could tell he regretted saying them. He knew, and Topher knew, that the plan was over now.
A beat of silence.
And then Topher became convinced that a demon really had broken into the room. Such was Olney’s fury.
Topher could do nothing. He stood, helpless, as Olney’s left hand closed around the Creole’s throat. Before the Creole could react, Olney’s right fist was pummeling into his face. Once, twice, maybe five times the fist connected with the Creole’s nose.
Topher could do nothing. Olney released the bleeding Creole and began kicking him. He was shouting something, but Topher’s brain was unable to parse out the words. Kick after kick, stamp after stamp, Olney’s massive foot connected with the Creole’s ribcage, with his knee, with his head.
Topher could do nothing. He watched Olney beat his friend nearly senseless, the horror of it building in his spirit. Out there, on the street, fights broke out all the time. Some of them gruesome and terrible, some of them just shiv-and-run robberies. Topher had seen some bad fights in his day. Nothing compared to this, the sheer brutality of Olney’s blows. He seemed not to tire, Olney. His rage seemed to build instead of subsiding with each hit.
When it was over, the Creole lay on the floor in a growing puddle of his own blood. Most of it seemed to come from his nose, which was still leaking red fluid through the fingers of his right hand. Cuts zig-zagged across his olive face, and his left arm was bent unnaturally. He cradled it against himself like a wounded dog, breathing heavily but saying nothing. His one unswollen eye stared calmly at something behind Olney. Topher wanted to know what was commanding the Creole’s attention, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the friend he had been utterly unable to help.
And then:
“What. Is. Going. On. Here?” The old man’s voice was jagged and cold, like gravel in the snow. He didn’t yell, choosing instead to speak slowly and carefully in a way that carried foreshadowed menace as he trundled into the room. Today, as ever, he wore a long black cloak over a pristine white shirt, his belt a run of chain clasped together with a gold snake that was in the process of eating itself. “Someone. Explain.”
Topher could do nothing. In his mind, he revealed everything—that Olney had antagonized him, the Creole had come to his aid, and then Olney had inexplicably exploded into a flurry of punches and kicks. Instead, his mouth dried up and his tongue stopped working.
“This bastard called me names. Sullied my reputation.” Olney’s thick finger stretched out toward the Creole. “Came over here to see if the little one was alright. ‘E’d been crying in his sleep all night. Calling for mommy. And then this bastard stepped in for no reason. I think they’re lovers, personally.”
Olney tried to smile, but cowered under Grimoire’s gaze. Not even Olney’s Four laughed.
“Intriguing as your theory may be, I fail to understand the chain of events.” Mr. Grimoire looked from Olney to Topher, and when Topher once more failed to be able to speak, from Topher to the Creole. “Cortez, do you have anything to add that might alleviate my confusion?”
The Creole’s one good eye stared, calmly, at Olney. A bubble of spit and blood emerged from his lips and dribbled down his chin onto his blue shirt.
“Boys, anything to add?” The old man’s gaze swept the room and found no one willing. “Well, then. In the absence of any second opinion I guess I’ll have to take Olney’s word for it.”
“Like I said, sir, he sullied my reputation.” For a brief moment, the savage bully looked proud. Topher almost thought he was about to smile.
“And so you resorted to this,” said Mr. Grimoire. He pulled at the Creole’s shirt with one hand, at Olney’s own shirt with the other. Both were stained with blood. “You sullied my uniforms. Not to mention the floor. It’ll take hours to get the stain off the wood, I imagine. Hours. And who do you think will be doing the cleaning, Olney?”
“Me, sir?”
“You. It will take much longer to fix what are obviously a broken nose and a broken arm, Olney. Much longer. And the King’s Inspectors are due within a fortnight. Do you know what would happen if the King’s Own decided that my orphanage was a danger to children, hmm?”
“No, sir.”
“No. You do not. Let us simply say, it would sully my reputation, Olney.” Mr. Grimoire pulled the Creole to a standing position, ignoring how the Creole slumped and threatened to swoon back to the floor. “You will come with me, Olney. I have much to discuss with you two about… your punishments.”
Topher saw Olney gulp—actually gulp—at Mr. Grimoire’s words. And then the three of them were leaving, Olney trailing behind the Creole, who limped along in Mr. Grimoire’s clutch making no sound.
As he crossed the threshold of the boys’ room, Mr. Grimoire stopped and turned to face his charges. Was there a flicker of distaste as his gaze swept across the mystically mute Topher?
“I will meet you boys downstairs in five minutes for the morning Speech, at which time tasks will be given you for the day. I expect to see you all there promptly and ready for the day’s work, despite this unfortunate… delay.”
Topher finished dressing in silence as the other boys walked out. A minute later, the room empty, he slowly strode to the door. Before he left the room, he turned back—just as Mr. Grimoire had done. “Olney started it, sir,” he whispered to the shade of Mr. Grimoire’s presence, to the demons that inhabited the shadows. “Olney was harassing me. Cortez came to my aid, tried to stop Olney from being mean and from hurting me when he looked so angry. And for that, Olney beat him. It’s not his fault, sir. It’s not his fault.”
But no one was there to hear him now, and so his story did not matter. The gavel had swung down. Yet it was some small consolation, if bitter, to know that his voice still worked. If only it had worked when it mattered, coward that I am.
“When it mattered,” he whispered, “I couldn’t help my friend. I could do nothing. Not when it mattered.”
The demons in the shadows neglected to reply.
Check out previous years’ lists if you’re interested in other books I read, like last year, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. These are all the books I read in 2022. If the title and author of the book are bold and in italics, that means I recommend the book. If not, either I didn’t like the book or I don’t feel it is accessible enough to recommend to everyone.
Check out previous years’ lists if you’re interested in other books I read, like last years’, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. These are all the books I read in 2021. If the title and author of the book are bold and in italics, that means I recommend the book. If not, either I didn’t like the book or I don’t feel it is accessible enough to recommend to everyone.
I have started reviewing books by independent authors on Reedsy. You can find my profile, with all my reviews, here. You can click the titles below to go to my full review of each book.
Check out previous years’ lists if you’re interested in other books I read, like last year’s, 2018, 2017, and 2016. These are all the books I read in 2020. If the title and author of the book are bold and in italics, that means I recommend the book. If not, either I didn’t like the book or I don’t feel it is accessible enough to recommend to everyone.
nonfiction
fiction
poetry
graphic novels/comics
On Picture Made By My Hand with the Assistance of Light, by Walead Beshty
[[[link to the artwork that inspired this poem: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/31255]]]
i. ice and its qualities // regeneration
the way ice breaks apart between stubborn teeth,
its shatters milk-white, bleeding into
translucence.
much worse the groaning slush of iceberg
against iceberg,
mother nature’s own bad habit,
the habitats of polar bears and elephant seals
caught in the liminal space,
the voids,
the cavities.
the animals live between gnashing molars,
bicuspids of resplendent bifrost,
and we forget, in the end, that we
are animals too.
ii. deterioration // sanctification
stretch the plastic trash bag to its limit,
feeling the tension in this artificial skin
black to disguise its contents,
black to hide what light can’t see.
the way rays of light break apart on its
vantablack,
bounce back, radiate heat.
the way rays/streams, maybe
even eddies of light
become dots, fragments, shatter
across the membrane as if
across water.
given enough time, the sun
will burn even plastic into dust,
motes of floating shale
bleached white in the heat of a
red giant
shaking off the last
of its struggling photons,
readying itself for
sleep.
iii. interiority // glorification
what’s weird with
light is its properties,
both a wave and a particle
at once.
what’s weird
is the fact that
electromagnetism extends
across a spectrum,
demarcated only by
the rapidity of
its vibrations.
on one end, sound waves
are just light
at a slower pace.
stick your toe in the deeper end
and touch the X-rays
as they touch beyond the blackbody
radiation that pours from your own
meaty
self, touch
the hidden parts
bones organs tumors
and lift the roof of your frame,
expose the underpinnings,
reveal the harsh truth:
there is no self,
only light in all its forms.
THIS WORKS THE SAME as it did last year, in 2017, and in 2016. The list includes all the books I read in 2019 and each entry has a brief synopsis to give you an inkling for how I feel about it. If the title and author of the book are bold and in italics, that means I recommend the book. If not, either I didn’t like the book or I don’t feel it is accessible enough to recommend to everyone. The synopsis should clarify this.
Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash
I. Hole-Puncher
if I were to write a suicide note,
I would want to talk about gravity
—about how when we fall the Earth inches
imperceptibly toward us, coming up
to meet us mid-air. Our own planet is
an aggressor against us! (I once saw
a young girl pierced by the root of a tree…)
Is it possible to live in a world
that by its nature punches holes in you?
II. Abaddon
there is a caterpillar named Doubt
who, with his razor teeth,
gnaws and shreds his slow way
across the foliage
of Truth and Salvation,
eating through their membranes,
dissolving their cell walls
like a cancer. This worm
(or is it Wyrm?) is not
an unnatural thread
in our world’s great pattern.
For it is the nature
of all leafy green things—
of all things beautiful,
good, and worthy of praise—
to fall prey to Eaters,
to drought and entropy.
This is the way of it.
It’s inevitable.
And the last leafy thing
that Doubt will perforate
is his own opposite—
a tree-root that spouts up
from the ground of All-Things,
an emanating lightbeam called Hope.
The latest short film from indie horror outfit 4 Leagues Media, PSYCHO PATH is a fantastic addition to their repertoire. I first heard of 4 Leagues Media through my friend and local writing group member Kayla Stuhr, who is part of the company and has produced, directed, acted, and written in these films. Like many of their short films, PSYCHO PATH is designed for the circuit, where the crew recently won numerous awards for their horror short Tethered. I was lucky enough to get a special code to watch PSYCHO PATH online, so I’m going to give you my honest opinion here. Nevermind that I know Ms. Stuhr. She told me not to be too nice.
But enough of that. Let’s get into the details of this film. I’ll try not to post anything too spoilery. The film is only 12 minutes, so I don’t want to give away too much.
Some have said that the found footage genre is dead. For a while, I thought so too. It seemed like Cloverfield was the culmination of found footage and nothing could really build upon it. Then I saw the horror flick Creep. If you’ve read my brief film reviews, you know that I loved Mark Duplass’ film. The trick was Creep’s ability to justify the found footage mechanism. It was upfront about the fact that the characters were specifically attempting to create a home video, so all of the cinematography made sense within the context of the story.
PSYCHO PATH is much like Creep in that regard. Much of the 12 minutes of the film is captured by the personal camera of our main character, Laurel Rhodes. A vlogger who has a social media channel called Off Roads, Laurel takes her camera with her on backpacking adventures to find interesting trails, waterfalls, scenic locations, and probably anything else that captures her eye in the deep woods. This time around, she’s seeking a specific forest tunnel of some kind, but gets sidetracked by a storm and stumbles upon a lone, empty cabin.
Inside, inevitably, Laurel finds strange runic markings. More importantly for her situation, she finds a dry loft where she can rest her head as the storm passes.
Then, all hell breaks loose. I won’t say anymore here. You can’t make me.
As with most short films, the plot is simple enough. It’s the execution of the story that sets a horror short apart from the milieu. In haphazard fashion, as is my wont, I will now tell you how I think PSYCHO PATH measures up.
Abigail Wilson nails her role as Laurel. It can be difficult to carry the momentum of a story when you’re the only face on screen for the majority of the time, but she manages to seem real, nuanced, human, and exactly like I would expect a backpacking vlogger to be.
Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is not as good as she is. In fact, I’d say this film’s one downside is the awkwardness and somewhat stilted nature of the scenes with characters other than Laurel. This is not enough of a criticism to take away from the overall effect of the film, but it should be noted.
Aside from Wilson’s stellar performance, PSYCHO PATH is carried by its aesthetic and ability to capitalize on excellent moments of terror. Let’s talk aesthetic first. The lighting is great, the interior of the cabin is magnificently styled, and the clips of previous episodes of Off Roads are a really nice touch that sets the mood and establishes Laurel’s character brilliantly. Of course, no horror film is complete without music that colors the scenes. Composer Matt Vucic delivers a haunting score that genuinely impressed me.
Okay, now for the moments of terror. Let me explain what I’m talking about. HEY, HERE’S A SPOILER: when a man enters the cabin in the middle of the night, Laurel starts to climb down from the loft to announce her presence. Then, while she is poised halfway up a ladder in the background, the man begins to drag a body into the quiet room. We sit there, paused and tense with Laurel, as we pray for the man not to see her or hear her creaks as she slowly tries to hide herself again. OKAY, SPOILER OVER.
That kind of moment is pure. It shows what Tethered began to tell the world: 4 Leagues Media understands horror. They understand what makes us afraid, and how to exploit those moments in creative and sense-heightening ways.
The filmmakers are also well-versed in that old adage: show, don’t tell. They let us, the viewers, make of this film what we will. They let us tell ourselves the tale. They are careful to give us only the details we need to conjure the demons in our own imagination. If anything, the film left me wanting just a few more answers, just a little more information. It’s a delicate balance between revealing so little that your audience doesn’t understand the film and revealing so much that your audience is bored with what is inevitably not as scary as they made it out to be in their minds. Fortunately for us all, 4 Leagues Media seems at home on that tightrope.
Plus, the runic symbols are freaking cool. It’s difficult to create a thing that is objectively cool these days, with so much of our art shrouded in irony and cross-references.
PSYCHO PATH is really good. It’s not a perfect film, but it is great at showcasing the skill on offer at 4 Leagues Media. I’ve now seen two of their shorts, and I can say that their range is broad as well. Don’t let the simplicity of the story fool you: there is nuance here. This isn’t just a cookie-cutter film crew. I expect to hear a lot of great things about them in the future, and honestly I can’t wait until I’m able to watch another of their movies.
Overall, I give PSYCHO PATH 8/10. But remember kids: numerical scores are usually dumb. What I really mean to say is: see the film if you are lucky enough to have the chance.
Prose, poetry, and ponderings of ML Candelario 