At Midnight We Possess the Damned
by Nick Cato and Andre Duza
Secretive Satanic
Covens? Check.
Snuff films? Check.
Curtis Silwa and the Guardian Angels? Check.
Nick Cato and Andre
Duza’s collaborative novella At MidnightWe Possess the Damned traffics in
some great mythical 80s legends. Big thanks to Dead Sky Publishing and
Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this wild ride of a book.
When I saw the cover and read the description, I knew that this was a book I
really wanted to read. I wasn’t disappointed, and I hope that more people will get
to read this At Midnight We
Possess the Damned. Cato and Duza are
able to use some of these urban legends to advance the story, but they also take
these legends to new places and the narrative takes some inventive and entertaining
strides to advance the plot. Ultimately, though, this is a book for horror
movie obsessives. The story focuses on Gary McKay, an aspiring genre director
who is looking for inspiration and financial backing for his new film after his
short film was recently rejected from a NY film festival. Where else can an
aspiring horror movie director find ideas but from the underground snuff film
circuit. Gary’s quest for inspiration leads him to meet up with a mysterious
man in a storage center in Brooklyn, notably where the scenery “melted from
shiny-happy to hold-onto-your-purse sketchy”. I really enjoyed Cato and Duza’s
descriptions of people, scenes, and the gore and violence. It wasn’t overly
descriptive, but oftentimes funny and rooted in a kind of realism and
relatability that appealed to me. In addition, I really liked Gary. He’s an
artist who loves horror movies and is inspired by some of the greats. That was
another appealing aspect of this book—the various horror movie references throughout
the book. Whether it was the frequent Fulci name drops or using an alias Lee
Revok as an homage to Cronenberg, this book has some excellent references for
horror fans. Although I’m not sure exactly what a snuff film collector would
ask for and how someone would initiate this process, Cato and Duza provide a
great set-up that seems both mysterious and cryptic. I wasn’t exactly sure how
Gary was able to afford to splurge on the viewing, but Cato and Duza create an
interesting story about how these films are made, and this particular story
about a priest was both shocking and intriguing. Gary’s interest leads him to
an opportunity to direct his own snuff film and work with the “talent” in these
films. There’s not much description of the films contents, but I loved the
titles- Burning Man, Eaten Alive (maybe a Hooper reference), Pin Cushion, and Skin Deep. Just the suggestions of these titles was
enough to make my imagination go off on a flight, and I loved how Gary added
these artistic touches to the films that lacked them in the beginning of the
book. While Gary is developing his directing credits, a global virus is quickly
moving across the Atlantic, beginning to infect Americans and shutting businesses
and other social events down. Cato and Duza played with our pandemic
experiences in an entertaining way, creating a new virus that will serve an
important purpose later in the book’s plot. I won’t give any other details
away, but I really liked what Cato and Duza did with this current event and how
they used it to advance the story. They not only took this more recent event,
but also took the legends like snuff films and Satanic cults to appeal to readers,
but also used these tropes in inventive ways that challenged my assumptions. While
some of the events are a little unbelievable, I really enjoyed this book and
couldn’t put it down. It was easy and fun to read, and the chapters left me in
suspense wanting to find out more about what was going to happen. I loved the
use of the snuff film and satanist plot lines—they created a kind of air of
mystery and familiarity, but these elements were also used to further the story
in a creative way. I can’t wait to check out other books by Cato and Duza; I
was especially excited to see the other books about films that Cato has written,
and if they are anything like this book, reading them should be a wild ride.
Highly recommended!
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