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THE HAMMER WILL FALL
by Tim Ritter
PublishAmerica.com
$19.95What makes a great writer?
Is it word choice? Storytelling ability? Uniqueness of vision?
All the above?
Any combination of the above?
I'm sure there will be people that who won't like Tim Ritter's THE HAMMER WILL FALL. Like Tim's previous excursions into the realm of horror filmmaking with titles including TRUTH OR DARE, KILLING SPREE, and CREEP, THE HAMMER WILL FALL is flawed in the sense that it's rough around the edges and could use some polishing. The artist hasn't reached his peak and fine-tuned his craft.
Personally, I like my art raw. Whether it be books, film, or sculpture, I can find a stronger sense of passion in earlier, more free-form works. It's that passion that drove the artist to create in the first place; they had something to say.
Stephen Kind and Clive Barker be damned, Tim Ritter is here and he's staking his claim on the literary landscape of horror. Like a bulldog moving from tree to tree, encroaching on the neighbor's lawn, Ritter challenges the bigdogs with angry abandon.
All because he has something to say.
That's the reason I find his movies so fascinating. They are about something. Tim has a vision that finds the flaws in our nation's institutions and exploits them to play upon our fears. Grounded in reality, his vision is a world we all know because it was created in the wake of the evening news.
But Tim isn't "safe" like the evening news where ageing men as threatening as mute amputees deliver the day's events in sensationalist doses designed to both stimulate and placate viewer's sugar-like addiction to capsulized information.
No, Tim Ritter would kick Tom Browkow's ass and tell things like they are. "Six pre-teens were shot and killed in class over a vile of crack and a pair of Air Jordans. Middle School officials sat stunned as they can't figure out who to shuck the blame on: pushers, parents, or peers."
It's the world of public schooling where Ritter sets his sights with THE HAMMER WILL FALL. That's a pretty ballsy thing to do in this post Columbine era in which we dwell. Even speaking of school yard violence can get an artist blackballed by the government. Just ask Bill Hellfire and Joey Smack about their movie DUCK! THE CARBINE HIGH MASSACRE where the two were arrested and put on trial before the nation.
Ritter knows it isn't the kids that are the problem, it's the institutions and the environments they create. THE HAMMER WILL FALL takes place in a Florida high school overrun by juvenile delinquency. A group known as The Hands of Death traffic drugs and prostitution while murdering students and teachers alike.
Al Hammer, or Hammerhead as he's often called, is a former police officer shot in the line of duty. His devotion to his wife drives him to leave the force and fall back on his college education - teaching.
Hammer sees things through Ritter's eyes, and Ritter lives his fantasy of correction through Hammer. The kids of today are products of the environments we've given them. Environments bending to students freewill rather than their best interests regarding education. Environments where consequences don't hold a candle to the carnal benefits.
Can detention really keep someone from making a thousand dollars in quick cash and grabbing a quick piece of ass?
Those "high powers" who would believe so need to read THE HAMMER WILL FALL. It's a terrifying wake-up call to the reality challenged in same vain as Larry Clark's intense film KIDS. The book is dark, and it's uniquely Tim, and that's why it's great fun to read...if not great.
Yes, Tim Ritter's prose isn't as clean as writers found on the bestseller's list, but most of them lost their voice years ago. Tim Ritter steps up to the plate with heavy metal tunes trumpeting his arrival and THE HAMMER WILL FALL is his bat knocking sociological curveballs out of the park. Score one for Ritter.
Critical Raves for Mike Purfield's "Dirty Boots."
"If you're looking for a good read, something you've never experienced before, then this is the book for you." Paul Kane of Terror Tales.
Rated 3 out of 4 by Unhinged Magazine.
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