ORDER OF THE ARROW

Horror schlock, lurid and dumb beyond belief, by the author of the equally lurid and dumb Lilac Night, Fields of Eden and others. The flaming device is from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, wherein we follow a mad plot only to discover that the storyteller himself is mad. Historian Anne Davis, 26, who can't finish her dissertation on the dark side of medieval chivalry, has been in the bin for 13 months following a slasher attack in which her father, mother and fiancÉ were stabbed to death and she herself chased into a lake. But the dasher (wearing a risen black condom) couldn't follow her in, since he was born with no hands and has only metal protheses, which make him a poor swimmer. Out of the hospital, Anne visits old friend Darla, who now runs a marriage agency for the very rich, and Darla sets up Anne with multimillionaire Chandler Kane. Chandler is just wonderful, but has a few problems, such as a fondness for S-M. He owns and is lord of an island off the New England coast, which still lives by medieval practices, including jousting, and his gentry swear by the Order of the Arrow. Meanwhile, the metal-handed James D. Lugosh murders his mother with acid, knifes girls with his Soldier of Fortune knife, hears about Anne on the island, and sets out to finish her off. Anne on the island is visited by increasing psychic events, witnesses violent deaths, and has outta-sight orgasms with Chandler (he's a pincher, she's a biter). And what about Chandler's dead wife Veronica, whose corpse floats in a glass coffin in an olympic-size swimming pool in the basement and whose soul can be seen flapping blackly about in the box? Is it possible that Chandler wants Anne's body for Veronica's soul? And what will happen when James D. Lugosh arrives with his knife and faces Chandler and Anne? Wanna know more? Farcically lame. Not a pleasurable read.