Fanfic Reviews.

Hey guys. I've only completed seven reviews. Will hopefully get the remaining three up soon. I've chosen to review some of my favourite films/books fanfics. The genres vary, though will hopefully tie in with my own fanfic in the end.

‘Less than Zero’ – Bret Easton Ellis

This fanfic adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’ novel of the same title follows Clay, the antagonist, through the high-life of Los Angeles privileged though desensitized, and disaffected youth. The writer has used the same monotonous and mostly short dialogue that Ellis has used in the novel, to convey a sense of emptiness and listlessness the characters feel. I like how the writer has used the investigatory and simple style of dialogue and narrative that Ellis uses which contradicts the underlying emotions of the characters. Personally I would have veered away from writing about drugs and prostitution, and perhaps would have reduced the dialogue and instead written a narrative or a ‘stream of consciousness’ from Clay’s point of view, still maintaining the satire and non-linear style which is the base of Ellis’ writing.

‘Disney Royale’

A cross-over between Disney and Battle Royale (Japanese horror comic/movie/novel), again touches on the downward spiral of youth. I think the idea of creating children’s stories into gory, R rated stories is great. They are two extreme opposites, and in a way so inappropriate. This is what attracts me, because it is so senselessly graphic, it makes you feel uncomfortable as you read it. It is the kind of storyline that makes you re-think the movies you watched as a child, it divides and teaches you rites of passage; how disaffected and desensitized you become as you grow. The story flows very well, however I would have written it in a different setting with more supernaturalism and fantasy elements involved.


‘After The Ball’ – The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe

A great fanfic, I felt like I was reading the actual writings of Poe. This fanfic concludes the Masque of the Red Death in a way which captures the exact moral of the original short story written by Poe. I am impressed that the writer used the same, delicate and old English language that Poe used in the 1800’s when this was written. Also impressive is the twist of this adaptation, where it introduces religious and spiritual beings, reading that God was not playing the role of protector of humanity and enemy of Death, but combining them as one. I could say there would be nothing I would change about this story.


‘I waited’ – The Shining, Stephen King

‘I Waited’ is a poem based on the infamous woman in the bathtub from Stephen King’s ‘The Shining’. She is known to have committed suicide in room 217 of the Overlook Hotel, where The Shining is set. This poem is from her perspective. It traces with words the feel she gives you when reading the book. It grasps the eerie silence of a bathroom and what could be a hallucination or real figure of a decomposing woman in a bathtub. The poem is her thoughts after death, because she never really died, she lived on in that bathroom in that hotel, where she was soon to seduce a guest and drive him mad. I admire how the poem is so beautifully and romantically written and constructed, though the content is in-fact a gruesome description of her symptoms of death and yearning, yearning perhaps after what she died for; love and loneliness. It is hauntingly written, it plants itself perfectly in your mind.


‘Requiem for Innocence’ – Requiem for a Dream

This chapter is based on the film version of Requiem for a Dream, which follows the lives of drug addicts and the inevitable, yet frighteningly realistic, downward spiral that their addiction takes them on. After losing an arm from infected veins from injecting drugs, amputee Harry Goldfarb thinks everything should be fine; that his life would now hold promise. He finds out that while he was being treated for drug addiction, his mother was put into a mental institute, and his girlfriend, Marion, had only climbed even more downwards and had become what he had; a slave to the substance. I thought the dialogue between Marion and Harry was a little dramatised. Personally I would have pictured Marion to be more indifferent, nonchalant and careless after such abuse, and Harry wouldn’t have been so delusional in the fact that ‘it’s all nice in the end’. Also, I would have enjoyed this much more if the author had continued to use the signature Hubert Selby Jr. Brooklyn street slang, as used in the original, which I find defines the story.


‘In Those Midnight Dreams, Do You Dream of Me?’ – Constantine

This story was bang-on in terms of John Constantine’s traits. His wit, his dark sense of humour, and his pessimism are all expressed perfectly. I like how the writer has intertwined Constantine’s thoughts with the narration. It’s the first time I have read writing where the first and second persons are chopped up and switched so rapidly and I thought it was a very good effect. I wish it was longer. Constantine is my comic favourite and I would have loved to have kept reading. I also chose this particular fanfic because of the stream-of-consciousness narration, which is something I prefer to read over dialogue, it’s a lot more insightful.

‘Butterfly Dreams’ – Dracula

It is beautifully written, though it drags on too long, making the writing seem repetitive. It is an interesting concept, one which binds the story of Dracula together; it kind of allows you to get to know Jonathon deeper whilst he is locked away in Transylvania, which I think the movie/book doesn’t cover much of. The structure of this fanfic is strange but it works well with what the author is trying to do (get inside Jonathon’s eroding mind). Good use of rhetoric.