Talk:The Abalone Thief/@comment-5699173-20150306063056

While reading over this, I couldn't help thinking of the theme of Stuart Gordon's Dagon. Really good, overall. At the same time, I admit, I found some of it was incredibly predictable at times. As soon as Suzy was introduced, I expected she was gonna end up dead by the end of the story, and I had a hunch the sherrif was in on it (is law enforcement ever cult-proof? Haha).

I'm not suggesting that you omit those parts from the story, though, because the former was necessary to give Ted the idea that something was definitely wrong with the cult, and while I suppose somebody like Cathy COULD have been the sacrifice, I feel that 1. it wouldn't have the same sort of impact on Ted (or the reader, for that matter) than the murder of a child would have and 2. I'd have to assume that Cathy was probably one of the cultists, anyway. As for my latter gripe, it actually works rather well somehow, I just feel that the whole "the-cops-are-in-on-it" trope has really been overused.

As for what I DID like, I really liked the California setting versus the run-of-the-mill New England setting so common in Lovecraft's work and many works derived from it. It was nice for a change, and actually quite effective. While not a Lovecraft-based film in any sense, the final act of Spellbinder with Kelly Preston came to mind while reading this. Much like this story, the scene that comes to mind involved a cult in black robes performing a ritual on a beach. I also quite enjoyed the factual elements of the story. While I may not be likely to have all that jotted down in my memory, it was actually quite interesting getting to learn about red abalones. The overall imagery was rather  beautiful (and eerie) as well. I particularly liked reading about the rituals and dreams.

So, yeah, keep up the great work!

PS

About Troll 2? YouAreNotYou was likely trolling (ba-dum-tss!). Aside from an evil sherrif, this had nothing in common with Troll 2, which, by the way, I recommend anyway, if you're a fan of movies so horribly bad they're hilarious.