Crimson Orgy
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Summary [ edit ] This image goes with the article entitled: Crimson Orgy Crimson Orgy book cover image. In Williams' world, it's the early sixties, and Lewis' first gore film, Blood Feast, has just been a sensation in drive-in theaters around the country.
Eager to cash in, Hoffman tasks Meyer with the creation of a Lewis-like flick. Meyer has other ideas, though; he wants to take the template with which Lewis had such success and turn out the deep, meaningful art film he's been wanting to make ever since he got into the game. So there's tension behind the scenes, and what's going on in front, well, that's not going to well, either. Meyer, out of an odd sense of prudishness, is feeding the leading lady the script a scene at a time, keeping her in the dark about the nature of the movie.
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The male lead is a drunk who's already on the wrong side of the hick lawman who runs the obscure Florida seaside town where they're filming. And the key grip is convinced the production is cursed. When one of the film's extras dies in a weird accident, the rest of the cast and crew start wondering if he isn't right For me, much of the pleasure of reading this book came from Williams' integration of the quick-and-dirty shooting schedule, and the techniques of shooting exploitation film, into the narrative.
For others, that may not be the case, but Williams balances the movie-geek stuff and the actual story here quite nicely; non-movie-geeks will still have a strong narrative to work with, though what kind of narrative it is is up for debate. The book effortlessly switches gears from high drama to comedy to suspense novel. Impressive, but it does leave me wondering what impression we were supposed to come away form the book with.
Still, that's not a gripe as much as it is a moment of confusion, and didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book in any way. This is very good stuff, and I recommend it without hesitation. Read this the next time you've got a few spare hours; once you start, you won't want to stop until it's done. Dec 13, Kurt Reichenbaugh rated it really liked it Shelves: I think a book like this would appeal especially to fans of Hershell Gordon Lewis era gore films.
The story follows the events of a movie crew in a hickwater town in Florida in , attempting to cash on on the drive-in movie gore fad. What happens on the set leads to the death of more than one person. Not a horror novel, but a novel about the making of a cheap exploitation grindhouse movie, that eventually goes snuff. Feb 02, Victoria rated it it was amazing Shelves: I feel as though I just came careening around a sharp corner in an unmarked white van and went SPLAT against a brick wall.
This wasn't good, this was better than good can be. This felt as though a hurricane rained hell down upon you and turned everything in your normal world upside down. I never include a summary of a book within my review, and I tend not to read too much summary before I dive into a book. I love the element of surprise. I don't want any precautions, unless there is some sort of a trigger alert. I refuse to say anything else and spoil the fun for anyone. This makes me want to either direct a film, or be the leading actress of a gritty film.
Aug 27, Doug rated it liked it. Let's start off with a couple of things. A really vastly important thing that I personally feel you need to know: See that blurb that says something about "maybe the first true 'snuff film' ever made" near the bit about opening "up a ultra-violent slice of American pop culture"? Because this is not a horror novel.
This is a novel about the making of a [fictional] horror movie, one that became infamous due to an on-site accident, the Let's start off with a couple of things. This is a novel about the making of a [fictional] horror movie, one that became infamous due to an on-site accident, the erratic actions of its director afterward, and dark rumors surrounding it. You, like me, maybe assumed these dark rumors were foreshadowing of a moment where a movie crew goes mad with gore and bloodlust and slaughters buxom starlets while a depraved director cackles and screams "CUT! You, like me, would have the wrong end of the stick.
You find this out kind of early one when a prologue starts describing the scope of the horror-to-come and it seems at odds with phrases like "ultra-violent". He is backed up by Gene Hoffman, a gregarious and charismatic man larger than life who sees the potential to make money off the budding scene.
Crimson Orgy
This is the s and horror drive-ins are about to be huge and all they have to do is get butts in the seats and do so by promising bigger and badder thrills than have been seen before. Meyer, though, sees this as something more. He is done with cheap smut. This movie will be his redemption. It will sum up a lot of his personal tragedy in a way designed to conquer it while thrilling people at the same time. Sure, Meyer is a hack actual clips of dialogue help to confirm this fact and Hoffman is just after box office returns, but at least they have a mutually obtainable goal.
Then things start to go wrong, and go wrong again. You have a drunk pretty boy for a leading man Vance. The leading lady Barbara has a hot body but has been kept in the dark about the film as a whole and can barely act. The guy playing the villain considers himself a method actor and yes, you can guess what this entails.
One of the crew starts falling for Barbara. They are staying in a dump and only have one week to shoot the whole thing.
A week involving a hurricane. The local deputy has some deep insecurities that begin to interfere. People brought on to obey the director regularly balk at his orders and force him to rewrite scenes or to become mildly violent and very petulant to get their attention. Hoffman can ease many wounds but as money runs out, film cans go missing, and sets are destroyed due to natural causes and extended shoots tensions rise. CRIMSON ORGY is not a horror novel and many of the 1-star reviews bashing it for not being one are ludicrous insomuch as they are attacking the novel for something missing rather than looking at what is there.
However, marketing surrounding this book definitely leads one to that assumption. What's worse, Williams himself drives up so many red [or is that crimson?
Any reader who fails to pick up on the red herring nature of some of these and some are pretty obvious caricatures of popular caricatures of people involved with horror films is bound to hit the end of the book with a deeply frustrated and maybe even angry mood. Which might be the point. We are talking about a book that is all about misunderstandings and dedicated to a genre that regularly promises "deep explorations of the blackest humor of man with buckets of red gore and horrible thrills" but gives us men in rubber suits mildly accosting a sea-side resort.
In a somewhat ironic mode, I grew to appreciate some of the "so sly you might blink and miss them" jabs, but would not be surprised if someone reading it tossed it into a wall. Now that I have said this, let me go ahead and assure you there is some gore and more violence and some weird and odd moments [and again, you should read this more for the many fandom shoutouts than any of those things]. Maybe in an alternate universe, Williams wrote a slightly more reigned in novella that took a few of its suggestions more head on and eschewed a few of the others, but in this universe we get this novel: I enjoyed it, but some of its tricks need to go.
Or maybe, go even further.
Primarily recommended to people who know horror movie history and like seeing behind the scenes style discussions and maybe to those who don't get horror and are wondering why someone would make a movie about busty women getting chopped up. I'm not saying either group will be fully satisfied, but they at least will find things to appreciate. Before I return you to your regularly scheduled show, already in progress, four quick things that I think will make you like this novel more: While some of the crew are obvious parodies of horror-haters, some of her observations like getting pleasure out of pain and the way the crew kills off several pretty women but then skips over the killing of a man as unnecessary are a lot more reasonable.
While Williams mostly fails to make you feel the Time as well as he does the Place, the time is essential to keep in mind. It is wrong to assume that people did not get it back then, but what would have been ignored now would have at least had a bigger impact then. See the blood and how the effects, while sufficient, were not quite so realistic that you could not see them as effects?
That they required a bit of disbelief suspension to really get them? Picture those as people talk about having panic attacks about seeing the effects up close without even the grainy film quality to lessen their clarity. I think some of that was meant for something like comic relief.