Thaneros Online Magazine

Zombie Honeymoon [2004]
Director: David Gebroe
Producer: David Gebroe
Studios: Hooligan Pictures, Sky Whispers Production LLC, Glass Eye Pix
Rating: 5/5 Brilliant!

In the good old days, it took a whole 24 hours for your husband to become a zombie. Recent films milk quick transformations for extra drama and hurk factor. Zombie Honeymoon goes in the opposite direction, dragging out Danny's change over one brutal week. Add to that the devotion of his new wife, Denise, and you can forget about Shaun of the Dead.

A low budget hampers most of its special effects, but that hardly matters. This isn't your typical horror movie in the conventional sense. This is a zombie romance.

Zombie Honeymoon is the best B grade movie in a long time. It deserves every one of its five stars.



Perfume: Story of A Murderer [2006]
Director: Tom Tykwer
Producer: Bernd Eichinger
Studio: Constantin Film Produktion
Rating: 5/5 - Brilliant!

Ben Whishaw stars as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan peasant with the world's greatest sense of smell. After a brutal childhood, he is sold to a tannery.
During a trip to the local market place, Grenouille develops a strange obsession. When a failed romantic encounter leads to the strangulation of a young woman, he dedicates his life to the arts of perfuming and distilling in the hopes of recapturing her scent. His quest for the final, perfect ingredient plucks more than the flowers of Grasse, the perfume capital of the world. It plucks girls from streets and parlors alike.
Perfume combines gritty realism with magical sequences into a fascinating narrative. The director sets the mood so vividly that the scents portrayed seem real. This movie is truly a feast for all your senses.

Nikolai by Angelia Sparrow
Publisher: Circle Dark Publishing
Reviewed By: Val Kovalin

Nikolai by Angelia Sparrow concerns the re-education of a young criminal named Nick. It's told in third-person viewpoint. In the year 2093, Nick commits a crime and gets recruited into a secret group working to undermine the fundamentalist Christian theocracy now controlling much of the former United States.

His new master, Mr. Ligatos, likes to collect talented criminals and exploit their potential. He offers Nick a high standard of living beyond that of other white males, the only ones to enjoy full citizenship within the Confederated States of America. The downside is that Nick must indulge Mr. Ligatos's taste for frequent sadomasochistic sex. Not that Nick minds too much. He finds his sex toy duties to be an excitingly subversive role to play within the realm of the CSA where homosexual acts are punished by public stoning.

The gripping plot turns upon Mr. Ligatos' plan to manipulate an upcoming election that will decide whether or not the contested state of Kentucky is allowed to secede from the CSA. Another civil war could result.

What's to dislike about Nikolai? Well, the characters are psychopaths. It's to the author's credit that one comes to care – reluctantly – about Nick. What's to like? The author has a true gift for both dark satire and complex world-building. The fine writing should please fans of science fiction and erotica. Nikolai is available as a 195-page ebook from Circle Dark Publishing.

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Val Kovalin reviews gay fiction at ObsidianBookshelf.