‘Devour: The Official Movie Novelization’ – J.R. Curtis

 


Page Count: 295 Pages

I will always have an unashamed soft spot for movie novelizations, mostly because of my old copy of ‘Return of the Jedi’ and how it helped me bridge the gap between seeing the movie, at the cinema, and finally watching it on the telly one Christmas. That and my (slightly older, I think) copy of ‘Ladyhawke’. As a kid, movie novelizations were the best way for me to experience movies that I was far too young to see, and it really felt like they were all written by Alan Dean Foster ;o)

Anyway…

These days, I’m still reading movie novelizations before I see the actual movie; something that happened last night with ‘Devour’. The trailer looks absolutely awesome but my googling has completely let me down, I can’t find a single mention of when the movie is definitely coming out or where I can watch it. Oh well… I saw the novelization, on Amazon, and figured it would keep me going in the meantime. And…

The Virginia Bitches: an all-female, all-vampire metal band, shrouded in mystery and beloved in the underground music scene. While on tour through the small-town dive bars of rural America, the band unexpectedly finds themselves taken captive by the brainwashed members of a bloodthirsty cult, a cult in the midst of summoning an ancient evil from its eternal slumber. Forced to navigate the endless, mazelike compound of the cult, the band will cross paths with demons, monsters, and anything else that may lurk in the dark.

So… Do I still want to watch ‘Devour’, having read the book? That’s a big old yes, the book ended up being very much my thing so I’ve got a very good feeling about the movie now. If you asked me about this book in a weeks time, would I remember any of the detail? Probably not and that’s not just down to the chemotherapy tablets messing with my head. That’s not to say ‘Devour’ is a bad read though, far from it, let me try and explain…

The bottom line is that there’s no real plot to ‘Devour’ and that’s fine. Sometimes, you’re just dropped into a situation and have to fight your way out with little knowledge of why (which is just life, when you think about it). That’s exactly what happens to the Virginia Bitches and to be fair, Curtis does a great job of conveying that to the reader. The violent encounters never stop and are punctuated with the kind of bloody outcomes that this gorehound never fails to enjoy. And if there’s something demonic, or depraved, that Curtis can throw at our vampire heroines, that’s exactly what he does. As a result, ‘Devoured’ was a book that I found extremely readable, there’s always something going on and it will propel you straight into the next ‘minotaur fight’ or ‘drowning in human offal’ moment. You can’t ask for a lot more than that, I couldn’t ;o)

The only problem with this approach is that it works a lot better on the screen than it does in a book. What we get here is a blur of fights, vampire attacks and gore and that’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but like I said, ask me in a week what my favourite bit was and I’m not sure I’d be able to tell you. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Devour’, while I was reading it, though and that’s the main thing really, isn’t it? Now I’m going to sit myself down and wait for the movie to appear ;o)

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