Bookwise, I'd start with A Congregation of Jackals, then continue with Wraiths of the Broken Land. They're both set in the American Old West, so good place to start if you appreciated Bone Tomahawk.
Be aware though: they both pack one hell of a mean gut punch... very much like BT and Zahler's other films, they take time developing the characters so you get attached to them before they're thrown into the meat grinder.... and because they are books and the reader brings a lot of his own imagination to the table, you feel even closer to the characters and more deeply impacted by their misfortunes.
Then his last novel, The Slanted Gutter, taking place in our days is great as well (but also has awful things happening to good people, in a world were nobody is spared and everythings is possible....).
Overall, his novels feel very much like his films, and very obviously come from the same mind, so they're a very good fix while waiting for The Bookie & The Bruiser.
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Nanook (1985)
5 months ago
Thank you for the detailed reply!
Yeah, going back to my comments on BT, it's not often my favorite aspects of a genre film, especially horror, are the characters and their dialogue, so I knew the man could write. I've said before, I think Richard Jenkins was robbed of a best supporting actor nom, at least, for his Chicory.
I used to be a voracious reader, but going back to school in my mid-twenties replaced textbooks for reading for pleasure, and got me out of the habit, so I'm really looking forward to anything from this guy's mind.
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MichaelJPollock (781)
5 months ago
Yes, Jenkins is excellent in this. We're not used to seeing films that both feature that level of acting/characterization AND absolutely gruesome horror.
One thing I like about all of Zahler's films (which is also true of most of John Carpenter's) is that the guy obviously believes in pure, almost metaphysical, unadulterated evil that cannot be explained (sociologically or otherwise...) or reasonned with.
I'm not religious and understand the world is a complex place where even what seems like simple "cause and effect" relationships are in fact more complicated than meets the eye, but Zahler's and Carpenter's approach of confronting normal people to absolute evil as a test of their humanity is very interesting (and very much not in style these days, where even the evil of Michael Myers is explained away by a difficult childhood in Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween -which I like nonetheless !)
Let us know what you think if you get round tomreading some of Zahler's stuff...
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