Being a fan of creature features isn't easy because, more than any other genre, the catalog is littered with dreck. Scary movies are probably harder to pull off than any other genre, partly because the plots are inherently ridiculous and because the audience knows to watch for the trick. (Best-selling horror author Stephen King once wrote that at some point you have to reveal the monster and hope you've done your job so well that nobody notices the zipper running up the back of his rubber suit.)
Because of all this, to be a true horror fan is to search for all those hidden gems that make it worthwhile. It requires developing a certain appreciation for the tropes and traditions of all those bad movies. Otherwise, why bother?
The Body Cartel reads like the work of someone who has absorbed a lot of those bad movies and has developed his own appreciation for cheese as a survival instinct.The story follows a husband and wife who buy a resort in Arizona and come to find their basement borders on a cavern used to imprison people who've crossed the local drug cartel. It's not entirely clear, but the cavern is probably bigger than the Sprint Center and smaller than Idaho.
The cavern is stocked with now-subhuman monsters who either found out something damaging about the drug cartel or were employees who failed in some way. Why the cartel thinks it's better to create an underground labyrinth of monsters as opposed to just shooting people in the head and burying them in the desert is never explained (but this method of punishment is so creative that it makes one wonder what the cartel considers a good method of smuggling drugs). It's also unclear why the all-powerful cartel doesn't just buy the resort before the couple does.
Gaps of logic like these are standard in a good bad movie. They're less noticeable -- and therefore less irritating -- in a 90-minute horror show than in a novel. And at times, The Body Cartel seems desperately to want to be a film instead of a book (probably the kind that would be hosted by Joe Bob Briggs at 1 a.m. on basic cable, back when channels like TNT were small and unfocused enough to allow that sort of thing).
Characters shout promises of revenge and murder using language no real human ever would:
"That's it, you lying piece of shit." He forced open Quentin's left eye and shot a jet of pepper-spray into it. Quentin shouted, "Ah -- fuck me Dominican Christ!"
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Hernandez's face was mashed up against Quentin's. "Now, you're going to tell me where the entrance is, and you're not going to pull any shit. Right now, tell us where the entrance is, and quit bitching about your eye!"
Quentin blinked, tears running down his face. He shouted, "Fine, but I can't just tell you. It's by sight. Down Highway 51, and I'll tell you where it is. The stars are the real guide into the place, not the landmark. Now what about Holly? Did you do anything to her? Is she alive?"
"You have a thing for the slut?" He teased, smiling wide. "She's into some wild shit, I guess if they fuck you right, it doesn't matter if they have herpes or AIDS. A condom provides the excuse."
In a bad film, these sort of quotes would be funny.
Spencer also includes the requisite explosions, scenes of over-the-top gore, cannibalism, sodomy and lesbianism. In a VHS tape titled Zombie Hooker Massacre, they might be chuckle-worthy, best enjoyed with a six-pack. But in this format in this story, the effect sadly doesn't work. Take this scene where a character has just discovered the corpse-filled van of a business partner.
Amado stepped back from the van when a group of flies buzzed past him, the echo resonating, tinny. "Christ how can you stand the smell? Fuck, man!"
"I light incense," Buddy joked. "It can make it smell like pineapple if I want it to."
There was pride in Buddy's eyes, but there was also disappointment from Amado's unimpressed stance.
Booby-hatch smile brightening, determined despite his failure to entice Amado, Buddy stepped into the van, reaching out to cradle an older woman's body, which had been punctured with various tools. The wounds in her throat and the widening hole between her breasts were see-through.
"This bitch was the wildest one of them all. She offered me sex beyond my wildest dreams -- post-mortem!"
Spencer also has trouble with his characterizations, such as the husband's cop cousin and the career criminal with father issues. Though they're middle-aged or older, they talk like 16-year-olds fixing up a summer camp where all the counselors were massacred 20 years ago but is certainly, certainly, safe now.
"What the hell caused this?" Jericho demanded of no one. "It hasn't rained, and when it does, it leaks water, not ass!"
There are parts where the story takes off -- there's a scene with a cavern dweller wearing a cape of human skin that reaches a lovely crescendo of absurdity -- but they're rare.
The Body Cartel is among its first wave of e-books being sold online through Damnation Books, which appears to be a recent horror start-up. And because horror might be the hardest genre to pull off in books as well as films, Spencer deserves credit for getting his work out there. So, Alan, if you're reading this: Now go write the next one.Showing 1-3 of 3
I just started reading 'The Body Cartel'. I'm about 60 pages into it, and that's as far as I'm going. My time is too valuable. As stated above, the writing is bad, the dialogue is worse and the editing is, apparently, non-existant. As the writer claims to hold a degree in English I fear for the future of literature in this country. I bought the book to investigate the quality of the publisher's work as they offered me a contact a short time ago. I won't be accepting that offer as I don't wish to be associated with writing of this caliber. From that standpoint, it's twenty dollars well spent!
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