I'm gonna begin by telling you some of the movies ,books and TV shows that were mentioned in this book :
The Exorcist
Night of the Living Dead
Last House on the Left
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies
The Possession
season two of American Horror Story
The Last Exorcism
Ringu
The Haunting
The Haunting of Hill House
The mention of Lovecraft ("Chthulu for all my friends!" I don't know what that means I just quoted it from the book)
Despair
The Blair Witch Project
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
The Devil Inside Me
The Conjuring
Dark Tide
Constantine
The Rite
REC 2
The Amityville Horror
Paranormal Activity
Session 9
The Legend of Hell House
Burnt Offerings
The Shining
Come Closer
Pandemonium
Rosemary's Baby
Law and Order
The Castle of Otranto
Wuthering Heights
House of Leaves
The Yellow Wallpaper - **which will be spoiled if you have not already read it!
Star Trek
John Carpenter's The Thing - I loved the reference because the scene she talks about is one of my favorites and scary as shit. The blood-test scene!
BUT, maybe the scariest reference in the story was
Richard Scarry's CARS and TRUCKS and THINGS THAT GO
why?
Because I actually have this book sitting here next to my desk.
I've had it for years. I had taken it out for my youngest son. He fell in love with it and, I'm embarrassed to say this...I never brought it back to the library. Instead and went to the library and fibbed that I lost the book and just paid for it. My son REALLY loved this book. (and I loved finding gold bug too!)
So now that I've made a small list for you I guess I can talk about the story itself.
hmm... This isn't one of those really creepy not gonna sleep after you read it books. It may have started like that. The whole eating spaghetti and it vomiting back out of her mouth on to the plate
"It just poured out of her as though her mouth was an opened faucet. The vomit was as green as spring grass, and the masticated pasta looked weirdly dry, with a consistency of mashed-up dog food."
and then her scurrying up the stairs on all 4 was the best part. After that the story gets caught up in something else.
in between chapters where Merry talks you read a blog posts by "Karen Brissette"
She's talking about the show "The possession" breaking it down frame by frame and giving her insights on what was really going on.
At time she's too sarcastic and I started hating these parts, but then I looked forward to seeing if she was going to reference and more movies that I loved.
it all comes together at the end.
Was I happy about the end? I'm not sure. I'd love to know if the author was implying
that Merry was the one possessed. or maybe when everyone died she became possessed. was it really possession, was it mental illness?
(show spoiler)
Other stuff mentioned in the book :
The 1919 molasses flood in Boston
"Gloomy Sunday"also known as the Hungarian Suicide Song-by Rezső Seress
I'd love to hear which of the movies & books mentioned above was your favorite