The Ties That Bind

It's good to see that horror fiction is finally makes its way to the screen. I'm talking the midlist writers. To varying degrees of quality, writers like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Clive Barker have had their work adapted. Finally independent filmmakers are bring the work of genre writers like Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee and Ed Gorman have had their fiction filmed.

And after various rumors and hopes, Brian Keene has been filmed for the screen and it's a story from his Rising universe to boot.

The Ties That Bind is a short film, just fourteen minutes in length. It's based on a story that appears in his Unhappy Endings collection. It's a good story and the film made from it isn't bad either.

A common theme in Keene's fiction is the humanity of his characters amid the carnage of the plot. The people often suffer acute feelings of loss and despair when their loved ones are victims of the antagonists in the stories. Director Jeff Heimbuch captures the essence of this in The Ties That Bind.

It's obvious that Heimbuch knows how to frame a shot and his performers did nice work in the film. The entire thing is professional looking. So big props to Jeff Heinbuch for that.

If I had to voice a complaint it would be that I would have liked to have seen more gore in it. Hey, shoot me, I'm an old school gorehound and I like the splattery stuff. It would have been cool to see the zombie death in it on camera. I realize that Heinbuch was striving for a more emotional piece, but there's never anything wrong with a little blood and brains to accompany this sort of thing.

That minor quibble aside, I liked The Ties That Bind and I'll certainly keep an eye out for Jeff Heinbuch's name on future movie news.

But wait, there's more! The DVD is chock full of extras and if seeing Keene clown around is your thing, you'll want to own this one. It's all actually pretty entertaining.

So I do recommend that you buy a copy of The Ties That Bind. For one, because it's a nice piece of filmmaking. For another, the more successful these adaptations are, the more likely future filmmakers will be to do further projects from the writers we love. And finally, the DVD is signed and numbered and you know that Brian Keene limited editions always go up in value.