Welcome, folks, to Oculus Reviews.
Busy, busy, busy, but that doesn't mean I don't read! In the past few weeks I've gone through several good and some not-so-good books, from horror novels to literary fiction and even chick lit (look, I'm not immune to stories about little quaint village bakeries). I've read morality tales (blargh), kitschy beach reads (double blargh) and some absolute gems like The Haunting of Hill House (if you haven't read it yet, you owe it to yourself to correct that ASAP). If I had to choose a best book of the year, I'd be very hard-pressed. But as for most fun read so far? Oh, yeah, I know which one I'd pick.
The price sticker I didn't have the heart to take off this book informs me that someone, at some point, has owned it for precisely one dollar, and for the life of me I can't tell if they paid too much or not enough for it. It's that kind of book.
Chris Blaze is an undercover detective in Miami. He's also blond, blue-eyed, works out regularly, and he's so handsome that he's making the bad guys look even uglier, as the book kindly informs us in his very first scene. Where he's busting a cult trying to sacrifice a virgin on Walpurgis night, because of course. The cult, by the way, is led by a man named Batiste Legendre (I'm not kidding) and worships a god of hate named Hadifes, as we find out precisely in the first three paragraphs. To paraphrase a friend from my writing group, one page in I knew I had a goddamn treasure in my hand.
So, Chris busts the evil cult with a classic "Freeze, Legendre, or I'll blow your fucking head off!" line, letting us know that he's a Tuff Cop Man right off the bat. Alas, the bust goes awry, and while the cult is subdued, Legendre curses Chris with immortality, doomed to walk the night as a vampire; as Chris soon discovers when another undercover bust gets outed and he's pumped full of lead, gets back up, and proceeds to go through a roomful of bad guys like papier-mache. It's kind of awesome. However, Chris is soon forced into the night shift by his acute sunlight allergy, where he's paired up with a smart-talking black cop named Reggie who regularly hoses down the pages with quips and wisecracks, because of course. He also romances a cute night-shift doctor named Sue with a domineering fiance, who he falls in love with pretty much at first sight, because of course. And then he gets assigned to some mysterious killings happening at night, and the killer's identity is something I'd rather not spoi... Oh, fuck it, he's a vampire named Yosekaat Rakz (still not kidding, guys) and he inspired Dracula's legend, because of course. [EDIT: I just remembered that he's actually a descendant of the guy who was the inspiration for Dracula, but still. I also remembered that according to this book Bram Stoker was Van Helsing himself, only no one wanted to buy his memoir, so he released it as fiction under a pen name. Which... wow. I wonder if the biographers knew that. /s] And now it's up to Chris, his cute girlfriend and smart black sidekick to stop him, because of course.
Oh, man, I'm giddy just talking about this book - I swear, this puppy has to have been one of the most entertaining trashsploshions I've ever read. One-dimensional characters, Darwin Award-winning plot points, wooden dialogue, tired racism (the racists are actually pointed out to be racist, but I hope you can stomach the n-word) and tin-eared descriptions litter the pages, and yet the whole thing has so much going for it. There's this manic, deadly serious trashy energy to Vampire Beat which makes it a quick, compulsive read, miles above groaners we've seen here like The Terrified Heart. The book has a whole lot of gory killing, but also holy water, staking, giant rats, turning into bats (!) and even a zombie (!!!), plenty of fun nastiness for everyone who likes to dip into the less sophisticated side of horror every now and then. And while these heroes have to be some of the dumbest I've ever seen, there are a few mildly (mildly) clever bits like the aforementioned zombie episode, which I found myself smiling at, and the finale was honest-to-god exciting to read. Above all I abhor dullness in my horror literature, and while my keyboard would probably crack in two if I called this book good, I certainly can't call it dull. The bad guys are all entertainingly nasty, and the fact that they appear to have been written by a middle schooler (seriously, Yosekaat Rakz? With a name like that, he must be from the mystical region of Fictionalia) just ups the fun factor of the whole thing. And if you think the fact that the writing is bad means that the writing is bad, take a gander at magnificent quotes like...
Drago had a face only a mother could love, and even then she would have to be blind.
...and...
A snooty-looking bitch came out of the little girl's room with her nose up in the air. She looked good and knew it. Everyone she passed smiled at her. She could see them out of the corner of her eye. Too bad she couldn't also see the trail of toilet paper she was dragging behind her.
I'll let you be the judge. Thank you, Vincent Courtney, for blessing my Halloween season with one of the dumbest books I've ever read.
Writing: Trying to rate the writing style of this book is like trying to rate an exploding garbage can that's somehow also on fire. It stinks, but it makes for excellent entertainment. 3/5
Availability: While this book is pretty obscure as far as vintage horror literature goes, copies of it aren't that hard to find and go for relatively cheap. 3/5
Entertainment value: Through the roof, baby. 5/5
Do I recommend it?: Oh, man, I can't recommend this book enough - but at the same time, if you've gotten this far in this review, you probably already know if it's your kind of story or not. Vampire Beat is for serious trash enthusiasts and vampire fanatics only, those who like their horror fun, nasty, not too smart, and with enough ham and cheese to feed a small country. 3/5
