Discussion about this post

User's avatar
John A. Brown's avatar

I KNEW this was a Succubus story as soon as the too-good-to-be-true "real ghost" woman with the '40s silver screen goddess looks showed up! The name "Lorelei" only backed it up--the tragic, beautiful suicide who dove off a cliff into the Rhine, condemned for eternity to be a Siren, luring men to their deaths. This was a fun little piece, and I liked the sly "Ruins" references you worked in--the hike through the bushes (though there were no sentient, evil, cannibalistic, toxic vines served by a tribe of Mayans), the totally moronic twentysomethings, with their obsession about posting something online (and yes, those two dopey guys deserved to be dragged to hell, where I'm sure their dance card will be filled by all manner of diverse entities). Glad we got two "final girls" out of this one.

Good, relaxing, tongue-in-cheek break after the deep, dark themes explored in "Painted Stripes." Seriously, I love the whole Gothic horror thing, going back to Ann Radcliffe and Matthew "Monk" Lewis, and Poe and Hawthorne on this side of the pond. The creepy castles, abandoned churches, dungeons, damsels, corrupt clerics engaged in midnight devil worship, aristocrats doing all kinds of twisted, bloody deeds behind medieval stone walls--great atmosphere pieces all. Same applies to anything with an "ancient horror" theme, though that usually didn't appear until the age of cinema (and those were usually gothic stories tinkered with and finessed a bit to fit with Egyptian or Pre-Colombian themes of some sort). "The Ruins" was a dreadful literary foray into this realm, and, as I wrote in my review, was so terrible on all fronts that you wanted every one of the principals dead--the evil, sentient, cannibalistic vines were the true heroes of the whole thing--there weren't even any "Ruins" to speak of, despite the title, and the setting in a Yucatan jungle!

Good one, here, Simone! Perhaps we'll see the return of your Sensual, Satanic Succubi of Sinful Seduction making a return in the near future, perhaps teamed up with Lecherous Luciferian Incubi...

Expand full comment
4 more comments...

No posts