Cang's Ramblings

Chapter 1505 Review of "Hell Cinema"

Today I'm going to talk to you about a very old supernatural novel.

"Hell Cinema" by Blackfire.

The reasons for recommending it are as follows:

Today, my friend Huozhong suddenly told me that he's going to revise this novel. He plans to change the title to "The Abyss Screening Room" and drastically change the story. He calls it "taking the essence and discarding the dross."

Here's what happened. He first asked me if I had seen "Cinema in Hell." I thought he was asking about a real movie, so I said I hadn't. Later, I remembered it was one of his novels. It was written about 13 years ago and is one of his more celebrated representative works.

Before reading this book, I specifically checked the book review section and almost turned away. There were so many negative reviews, almost all of them were negative, with the author even personally posting to criticize people. After reading those comments, I had a feeling that I shouldn't have clicked on this book, and shouldn't have recommended it to anyone.

But being a timid person by nature, I've always been particularly interested in supernatural novels. I even used to write "The Pen Falls to the Underworld" while lying by the window, trembling with fear. And in recent years, the supernatural genre has indeed lost its appeal, so I gritted my teeth and read this book anyway.

Let's talk about the shortcomings first. Because this book was written a long time ago, many things are out of touch with the present, although the author was also very young at the time.

There are several reasons for the disconnect: First, its writing style consists of long descriptive passages, with each chapter containing three to four thousand words, but relatively few paragraphs, giving it a strong feel of older physical books. This is because a physical book might only have two or three paragraphs per page. This is slightly different from current reading habits and takes some getting used to.

Another point is that it's an infinite flow novel, and specifically an ensemble piece. There are a huge number of characters at the beginning, making it difficult to remember them all. I had to be patient and finish the first story arc. "Terror Bus" only has 26 chapters, which was also quite challenging. I almost gave up halfway through because I couldn't remember so many characters, and I was also limited by the paragraph descriptions.

In this instance, the protagonist Ye Xiang and the other actors are pulled into the instance because they found a movie poster in reality. Their names then appear in the cast list of a horror movie, forcing them to join the filming.

Here are a few rules. Seeing this, I realized that Huozhong truly has a penchant for rule-based suspense novels; no wonder he praised Foxtail's new book, *The Strange Tales of the Old Realm*, so highly during our previous conversation. In this book's setting, an actor must deliver lines and perform actions according to the script. Violation of this rule results in the deduction of points from their "Redemption Tickets." These tickets can be understood as acting fees; once depleted, the character dies. Therefore, they must ensure the story's plot is completed before running out of points, while simultaneously protecting themselves—a truly difficult task.

In this scenario, the protagonist initially appears as a minor character, surviving only until the second act. He only begins to take on a more significant role after the male and female leads die. The story primarily revolves around a tour group whose bus breaks down deep in the mountains. They must find a way to either descend the mountain or find accommodation.

Ye wanted to descend the mountain, but encountered some dangers and difficulties along the way, so he decided to return to the car. Upon returning, he discovered the car was empty; the tour guide, driver, and other passengers had all vanished. He then realized that everyone else on the bus besides the six of them were dead ghosts. Remembering the spot where the car had broken down, he noticed a tombstone nearby. Finding the tombstone, they discovered it had been covered with talismans. There was another element to the plot: to survive in the movie, one must either kill the evil spirits or cleanse oneself of "impurities." These "impurities" were the talismans.

After they tore off the talismans and survived until the movie ended, they arrived at a magical movie theater—the Hell Cinema. It has 20 rooms and currently houses 15 actors. Upon arriving, the protagonist begins to interact with veteran actors, learning about the theater's operations and discovering that new films are released periodically, requiring participation in new roles. However, they also face a greater problem: only by accumulating 10,000 Redemption Tickets can they leave the theater and return to the real world. This is the general design.

From the current perspective, the novel's premise is quite interesting and novel, even showing some inspiration from Buddha's *Mysterious Resurgence*. This demonstrates the high reputation and popularity of *Fire Seed* in its early stages. The book also involves over a dozen different scenarios, with a strong sense of suspense and logical reasoning, satisfying readers' imaginations to a large extent. For someone like me who only wants lighthearted, enjoyable reads, there was an initial adjustment period, but once I got into it, I found some of its settings, imaginative ideas, and designs to be truly excellent.

Of course, some of the dialogue and background explanations are a bit dry, giving off a sense of historical heaviness. It's clearly an online novel from just over a decade ago, but it feels so distant now. However, this was also a major highlight of suspense novels from that era, and many people enjoyed it immensely.

Finally, I'd like to emphasize one point regarding the numerous complaints and negative comments in the book review section. I'm quite glad I haven't seen those parts of the story yet. When I do see them, I might have the same strong opinions about the "Fire Seed" as they do, but for now, I'm still willing to continue reading.

【to sum up】

Writing is not easy, so cherish every moment.

I’m Cang Yiwei, and I’m here to promote “Cang’s Ramblings”.

Welcome to the paradise of book reviews.