Customer Reviews

Crimson Orgy

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sheldon Meyer a Underground Horror movie director has a vision for the ultimate Grindhouse Flick. It is called Crimson Orgy and if Sheldons vision is realized it will become the most notorious cult movie ever made and quite possibly the worlds first true Snuff Film. He will encounter some major obstacles in the making of his masterpiece. To start he only has a week to finish the film and with a reluctant starlet, an alcoholic lead man, local redneck cops, a hurricane, and a disloyal crew the deadline is going to be almost impossible to meet. He pulls it off but when the week of shooting is over he will never be the same. His desire to make the worlds most hardcore underground flick will end up costing him more than he could ever imagine.

I have always been a fan of the underground horror and exploitation films. I own just about all of them from Cannibal Holocaust to I Spit on Your Grave so when I started Crimson Orgy I knew that I was going to be in for a real treat, and Mr. Williams delivered the goods. Crimson Orgy is a brilliant homage to the classic Grindhouse films of the 60s and 70s. I devoured this story in one long, enjoyable night and even though I missed out on an entire nights sleep I couldn't have been more satisfied. I could not tear myself away from the dark, twisted world Mr. Williams created. Something else I didn't expect when I started Crimson Orgy was how twistedly funny it was going to be. I found myself laughing out loud on more than a few occasions. Mr Williams writes with a style and wit all his own. He also has a dark and twisted sense of humor that even the most jaded fans will enjoy. He is destined to become a major force in the genre if he continues to write stories as stylish and original as Crimson Orgy.

To sum up I recommend Crimson Orgy to all Thriller and Horror fans. I can promise that if you give Mr.Williams story a chance you wont be disappointed.

The year is 1965, and Stupendous Pictures is in the boonies of Florida, filming a straight to the grindhouse/drive in film: Crimson Orgy. This production will see no end of troubles for its cast of behind the screen characters.

Students of z-grade, grindhouse cinema, fans of human based horror stories, and folks in search of a good, plausible yarn behind the troubled production of a movie that never actually existed (but should) will all find something to enjoy in Williams' novel. It gets a thumbs up from this Horror Reader.

Best thriller of 2009 my a$$. "Crimson Orgy" is one of the most amateurish and underwhelming novels that I have read in a long time. I bought this book under the mistaken belief that it was a thriller/horror novel about the making of a low-budget horror movie that effectively turns into "the first snuff film ever made". From that description, I imagined that there would be someone on the set of this movie killing the cast and crew, possibly in front of the camera. I was wrong. In fact, only two people die during the course of the story proper, both are accidents, one of which occurs away from the set and the other of which occurs 12 pages before the ending. This isn't a thriller, it is a book about the making of a movie.

Even then, this still could have been a good book if it were written by a good author. However, Austin Williams is not such an author. It is clear that this is his first book, and I actually found myself wondering if it was self-published, the quality was so poor. For the first 100 or so pages, there is very little dialogue and most of the story is told in a passive voice (rather than showing the characters actually living the events of the novel, Williams has them sitting around, alone, thinking about events that had happened earlier). This improves slightly, as the novel progresses, but Williams still has no concept of how to make his story exciting. Even though he is writing a book that includes death, a hurricane and a horror movie, a goldmine for most authors, Williams manages to downplay all of these events to the point of boredom.

This is the second book supposedly about snuff movies that has disappointed me this year (the other being "Snuff" by Chuck Palahniuk). In future, I intend to avoid them.

Dubbed as a thriller, and quite often described as a horror novel, Crimson Orgy follows the filming of a fictional exploitation film of the same name during the 1960s. The intro to the book sets the story up as potentially true (although we know it's a work of fiction), explaining that the final print never saw the light of day, and it only really exists in the black market of cinema - due to the fact that it is actually the first snuff film ever created.

With Crimson Orgy, Williams brings an interesting premise, but unfortunately a boring execution. The novel follows the creation of Crimson Orgy as it is filmed in a middle-of-nowhere coastal town in Florida, including the obligatory hurricane ravaging the set which are so convenient for the region. For a thriller, and especially for a horror novel, nothing much really happens for the entire book, other than a build of suspense as you, the reader, wait for something to happen. With the promise of murder as early as the book's preface, the reader is definitely on the edge of their seat, waiting for the murder to happen. After much teasing, however, it becomes obvious that no such event is likely to happen anytime soon - and I was left longing for the book to finally end.

The areas in which Williams does excel in Crimson Orgy are character development and understanding of the subject matter. Each of the characters is extraordinarily believable, lending the book to read well as a (fake) documentary. The inclusion of references to other films of the era, as well as the transition of exploitation cinema from "nature" films to gore, also enforces the story's credibility.

Still, in the end, Crimson Orgy failed to engage me. Perhaps this was due to incorrect expectations from the novel, but it certainly did not include horror, and it very rarely thrilled me. Williams has knowledge in the area, and knows how to write credible characters, but he ultimately fails in making the reader give a damn.

Addendum: The Kindle version of this book seems to have quite a few layout issues. Nothing that makes it unreadable, but there are some noticeable problems.

As a reader who relishes an intense thriller but is not particularly fond of outright horror, I approached this one with some mild reservations based upon what I'd heard about it. After reading the brief prologue, I knew I'd finish the whole book in short order. It turned out to be one of the most rollicking, unpredictable novels I've come across recently. The narrative moves forward with the unstoppable intensity of a ticking time bomb, filled with eccentric characters colliding within a truly menacing atmosphere. Perhaps most surprising were the well-earned laughs that bubbled up at the least expected intervals. The subject of "underground cinema" is entirely alien to me and yet I found myself captivated by its depiction within these pages. This is the type of offbeat book one can enjoy recommending to others in anticipation of the fun they will have reading it.

Being a horror fan of every book or movie, I had to get this book when I first heard about it. I was not dissappointed. I was able to see what goes on in a movie shoot, how the actors interact with each other, what the job entails, and the attitudes of everyone involved. I knew this book was building up to a big ending and that it wouldn't be pretty, but I wasn't expecting the absolute horror of it all. It was like watching an
impending train wreck, knowing it was going to happen, unable to stop it, knowing it would be horrific, but unable to look away when it happened.

Crimson Orgy is not my usual read, so I started it with some trepidation based on how much I liked William's first novel, Straight Whiskey. What I found was a novel of subtlety, delicious black humor and building suspense hidden within a fast-paced narrative.

The setting behind this grisly homage to the first horror movies is brilliantly drawn and leaves little doubt that something rather unique is happening within the context of this low budget gore film. Gene Hoffman and Shel Meyer represent the ultimate Odd Couple in their quest to cash in on the budding interest of horror movies throughout the country. It seems from Day 1 that this film is doomed, but the increasingly unraveled Meyer and force of nature Hoffman fight through redneck cops, hurricanes and a host of disturbingly likeable characters to try and finish the film.

The crescendo that builds throughout the novel is well done and the ending is delightfully chilling in every way. Most of the time you are not sure whether to laugh or cringe, but Williams somehow makes it acceptable to do both at the same time.

This novel is worth your time in every way.

The thin line separating fact from fiction gets deliberately blurred in this fiercely entertaining novel that manages to be a subversive dark comedy, suspenseful nail-biter, pop culture history lesson, and blood-soaked horror yarn all rolled into one.

The scene is South Florida in 1965. Movie audiences across America have just recently been introduced to graphic violence on the big screen, thanks to Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast and other grindhouse classics of that ilk. Enter two low-budget Miami filmmakers, Shel Meyer and Gene Hoffman, looking to slice out their own piece of the gore movie pie with a twisted opus called Crimson Orgy. The end result of their ambition becomes the stuff of cinematic legend.

Are we witnesses to the making of a snuff film? Is the actor playing the killer as unhinged as he seems? How come the producer carries around part of a corpse in his suitcase? These and other disturbing questions keep the reader on edge all the way to the intense, cathartic climax.

Even after the last page has been turned, we have to wonder how much of what we've just read might be true. In the same way that The Blair Witch Project invited audiences to immerse themselves in the possibilities of a "real" urban myth, Crimson Orgy leaves the door of speculation open just wide enough to make us a little uncomfortable. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy a good thriller.

Readers who gravitate toward the edgier side of fiction, such as myself, are anticipating the release of "Snuff" by Chuck Palahniuk with great relish. I'd strongly recommend all Palahniuk fans pick up a copy of "Crimson Orgy" by Austin Williams at their first opportunity.

Seamlessly blending pitch-black humor with suspenseful and horrific elements, this tale of insanity, murder and mayhem offers a distinctly unnerving literary experience. Like Palahniuk's new book, "Crimson Orgy" immerses readers into the urban mythology of snuff movies, but the scope here is much broader than you might initially suspect. Beyond weaving a taut narrative of cinematic malfeasance, Williams masterfully sketches out a vivid portrait of exploitation filmmaking as it was practiced in decades past.

Dripping with swampy atmosphere, punctuated by quoatable dialogue and loaded with a shattering sense of inevitability, "Crimson Orgy" will make you laugh and cringe with equal measure. It easily tops my list of recent favorites.

Austin Williams, Crimson Orgy (Borderlands Press, 2008)

Crimson Orgy is not, most likely, a book that's going to resonate with everyone. You have to be a fan of a certain stripe of exploitation film to really get everything out of it that was intended, I believe. (I could be wrong. I'd certainly like to be, because this book deserves the widest audience possible.) But whether you completely grok Williams' love affair with exploitation films may be beside the point; Crimson Orgy is a good read nonetheless.

Director Sheldon Meyer and producer Gene Hoffman are in the business of exploitation--which until the late fifties basically meant nudie-cutie pictures (as they were known at the time, I kid you not). Then came Herschell Gordon Lewis, the Wizard of Gore. 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. 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. *** ½