The Night Projectionist: pre release review
This week the good folk at Studio 407 sent us an advance copy of their upcoming book “The Night Projectionist”. Our beloved leader thought it may be a good idea for me to review it, as it has a slight horror edge to it.
So here’s the skinny, at 134 pages for the price of $12.99 this book is very good. The story is written by Robert Heske, with artwork provided by Diego Yapur. The story centres around a small town cinema that is due to be closed down in the spirit of progress. However, this cinema has a very unusual tenant, who is going to put on a final show.
The book is split into a number of different chapters, the first being titled “The Last Night”. This chapter is our scene setter, we get a history of events that took place in Hungary over 300 years ago, involving a small town being tormented by a local vampire, and a strange description of how the Vampire goes about his business. We get our hero of the time Dragos, hunting down the vampire Burak who has recently killed his wife (and Burak’s own daughter). We then flashforward to present day Crosston Falls, Massachusetts, a seemingly small town, and are introduced to a number of the locals, most of whom, through various plot developments, make their way to the soon to be closed cinema for a “Draculathon”. Along the way there are other plot developments, but as this is an advance preview I’m not going to include too much of the plot.
The Second chapter, “Cruel Beginnings”, starts with another trip back in time to 18th century Hungary, where the story that began in chapter one continues, with Dragos and the villagers catching up with the Vampire known as Burak. In true horror film/book fashion, not everyone makes it out alive. Once more we jump to present day, where we find the cinema-goers in peril. Now this is where things get weird as the Vampire that has locked all the cinema-goers in, is actually fighting off other vampires to keep them all safe. We get some information regarding the reason all of this is going on, as well as the identity of the vampire who is in charge of the assault. Meanwhile the local police deal with more strange murders.
After Chapter two everything gets way too detailed for me to even hint at what goes on without giving away the story. Despite that, I have to say there are plot points that become very obvious, as the story skips once more between the past and the present, and ultimately the future. the book ends brilliantly, with the promise of much more to come. Frankly I would read anything that continued this story as I found it engaging from the beginning.
Artwork in the book is high quality, and has a darkness to it that brings the story to life, the characters are easily recognisable, which is a nice change, as recently have read quite a few independent books, where I couldn’t work out which character was which.
This book is available as of today (July 5th), it will be available from most local comic book stores, as well as being available from Comixology, pick it up, it’s certainly worth the money. Studio 407 can be contacted in a whole host of ways including:
Twitter: @Studio407
Facebook: www.facebook.com/theStudio407
Finally at their own website: www.studio-407.com , where you can find more information about the Night Projectionist, as well as details of other books published by the company, such as Hybrid, and Smuggling Spirits, as well as upcoming books, such as The Spark, and the soon to be released Havoc Brigade.
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Thanks for the nice review, Mike. And thanks for not giving too much away. Well done, very much appreciated.
Regards,
Bob Heske
Not a problem, was a thoroughly enjoyable read