Purge (2025) by Bryan Cassiday - Zombie Horror Novel Review

                              

Purge is the eighth book in the long running Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson series, and the third that I have read. Confusingly, I started with book seven; Cutthroat Express, before heading backwards to the sixth; Horde. Despite that, I have read enough of this series to recognise how thrilling it is. Purge may well be more of the same, but what glorious same it is! Unavoidable spoilers for previous entries to follow.

After his mission to find a cure for the zombie plague ends in failure, legendary CIA agent; Chad Halverson, returns, alongside Marta Costello, to the government bunker at Mount Weather, where President Mims is situated in order to report back to him. However, the previous book ended with them discovering the President had been assassinated in his office. This one starts with Secretary of State; Dean Uriah coming to the hasty conclusion that Halverson and Costello must have been the ones responsible for his assassination, due to them having failed their mission. Proclaiming himself the new President of the United States, Uriah has the two imprisoned. Halverson suspects that Uriah may have been the one behind the assassination, and with this knowledge, he soon escapes the bunker with Costello in tow. Halverson's plan is to head to the government bunker at Raven Rock and inform the speaker of the house about what has happened, as constitutionally he is next in the line of succession. Costello meanwhile tags along on the provision that on the way to Raven Rock they head into Washington D.C to check on the status of her beloved brother. Their journey is made that much harder not only by a squadron of SEALS who have been dispatched by Uriah to kill the two 'assassins', but also by the High Rolerz USA; a brutal biker gang whose leader Michael K has it in for Halverson after he killed his brother Bobby K.

Purge takes the form of a long road trip, one I wasn't prepared for. I imagined the trip to Raven Rock would be the first part of the novel, instead it is the core plot of this. On paper it doesn't really seem like much happens in this book, but I loved how simple this all was. The subplot of the presidents bunker makes another wonderful return, with the action every now and again heading back to see what the state of the stifling place is. With Mims and the previous President both being crazy in their own ways, it is no surprise that Uriah is equally crackers. Continuing the trend of the lack of air in the bunker, the subplot here mainly revolves around Uriah's solutions to the lack of oxygen. There are also subplots in the form of the SEAL team that has been dispatched, as well as one following the sole survivor of a group of self-flagellators who had been massacred by the High Rolerz who has become obsessed with hunting down Michael K and demanding an apology from him.
What I really liked about the road trip subplots was how the different characters keep going over the same route at different times to each other. It was interesting reading the different accounts of what happened, and how earlier events have affected the route for characters who later on travel down the same roads. As I have came to expect now, Purge ends on yet another ridiculous thrilling cliff-hanger that I was fully on board for.

The book is very easy to digest, this is the book version of any number of brain dead, yet very entertaining zombie films. It features lots of action, gun fights, battles with the undead, and characters restating their aims lest you forget. The zombies here are as gross as ever, I liked the inclusion of details around the various bugs and creatures that infest the undead. On more than one occasion a ghoul is described as having a moustache, before the character seeing it realises it is instead a bunch of maggots! At least one inclusion of a rat crawling out of a still walking undead's mouth. These are traditional slow walking zombies, balanced against a world where all the survivors in their own ways are at least a little bit crazy. Most humans hostile and angry to the hapless protagonists of each of the subplots. Life is cheap in this world, but it is also exciting. 

I knew before reading a single word of Purge that it would be another fantastic entry in the Chad Halverson series. I don't think I would ever get bored of reading these. It might not be Shakespeare, and the story beats can be occasionally predictable (outside of the wild cliff-hangers) but these easy to read, very entertaining, and action packed pulpy novels really scratch that zombie itch. I eagerly await the next in this lovely gory and violent series.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for July 2025

As I write this I'm on day seven of my self imposed exile from the world, I haven't so much as put one foot outside, and have only seen a friend on two of those days. Coming up to the weekend, so I have three and bit days left before I have to leave this paradise and return to the real world (I so miss that time alone, next time off work isn't until late November). Onwards to the news.

A teaser trailer for Magnificent Motion Picture's Until There Is One has been released. Sounding a bit like an indie Squid Game, this sees a viral billionaire influencer who launches an online event in which hundreds of contestants are locked within a large warehouse, with the last person standing winning a large cash prize.
In a side hustle, the film is hoping to break the Guinness Book of World Records for most on-screen kills in a slasher film. To aid with this, there is currently an Indiegogo campaign running where there is an opportunity to become a victim and join the cast. The cast currently includes Matty Cardarople (Stranger Things), Douglas Tait (Halloween Kills), Douglas Vermeeren (Black Creek), Lauren Marie Taylor (Friday the 13th Part 2), Ron Sloan (Friday the 13th Part V), and Brett Wagner (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). For more details head to the Indiegogo page here.

I've never heard of it, but 2009 award winning comedy horror Dogtooth is set to return theatrically across the UK and Ireland via a 4K restoration that has been overseen by the movie's original director - Yorgos Lanthimos. Coming from Vertigo Releasing, Dogtooth tells the story of a couple that had decided to raise their three children on the outskirts of a large city, within a fenced off property, free from any outside influence. Their peace is threatened with the arrival of an outsider who begins to cause their fragile reality to crack. Dogtooth's new 4K restoration releases from 29th August.

Jared Master's entertaining indie comedy horror film Feral Female is now out On Demand, VHS, and DVD. The film, which concerns an Australian big game hunter who has been hired to capture a feral beast in LA's Griffith Park, received an 8/10 from me, with me saying 'A picturesque location..., fun characters, lots of silly dialogue and a lack of tepid humour...meant that I was drawn into this film world...'

Joe Boi's Code Blue novel is now available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. The story features PTSD survivor; former army medic Ariel Arcardo. She now works at a hospital where she is unfortunate enough to witness an invasion of a legion of demonic creatures within the hospital walls. Her only escape lies beyond nine floors, each of which is ruled by a different terror.

Mentioned back in my March round-up, the eigth horror feature from Acrostar Productions - Perfect Soul, is now in production, with a new Indiegogo campaign going to raise funds to complete filming. For more details about this horror that stars a woman who is guided by mysterious witches purporting to be her family, check out the Indiegogo page here.

Swine and Dine is a short horror film that comes from Black Ave Films and had its premiere at Smodcastle Cinemas on July 27th. Described as a '...dark, suspenseful short film that delves into the chilling world of industrial farming'.

Heading to festivals soon is Michael Moutsatsos' Camp Slasher Lake, described in the press release as a '...retro grindhouse nightmare...'. This stars Andrew Pierson as Splatter Jack, and the film has been shot as a short-form grindhouse experience. A feature length version of this is in pre-production. Pierson says of the movie "We shot this thing like it was ripped off a dusty VHS and left to rot in a gas station horror bin."!

Dangerous Animals is a shark based horror film that released on digital and physical across the UK and Ireland starting 25th July. The film follows rebellious surfer, Zephyr who ends up captured on a shark obsessed serial killer's boat! Following a world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, and a theatrical release on 6th June, Dangerous Animals came to digital on 25th July, with physical editions releasing on 8th September.

Finally for today, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds releases on digital platforms from 11th August. This stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh, a businessman who in the wake of his wife's death invented technology that allows the living to monitor their lost loved ones in their 'shrouds'. After a series of graves are desecrated, including his wife's, Karsh sets out to deliver revenge.

Outbreak: The Mutation (2020) by Scott Shoyer - Zombie Horror Book Review

                                

After my review of the excellent animal based zombie horror novel Outbreak: The Hunger, I realised with some joy that I actually also had a copy of the sequel waiting to be reviewed. Outbreak: The Mutation is the book version of a blockbuster sequel to an indie darling, everything made bigger and more far reaching in scope. I would have been happy with more of the same, but this drastically changes things up. Obviously, spoilers for book one to follow.

It is two years since an outbreak of rabid undead animals spread across (assumedly) the globe. Initially confined to animals, this strange virus made the leap to humans. The survivors have been doing the best they can, able to best the low intelligence zombies, but recently that has began to change, with the undead seeming to be getting smarter, and seemingly able to communicate with each other over long distances. Walt; the manager of a drug rehabilitation centre, is forced to leave his compound with his group after increasing zombie attacks, deciding to head to a remote spring where there will be a continual source of natural water. Elsewhere, soldiers Wilder and Butsko are leading a mission to get to a secret underground laboratory where it is hoped a weapon with the power to defeat the zombies once and for all can be located. Unknown to the humans, the undead have began to evolve, these new more intelligent and more self-healing yellow eyed creatures find themselves drawn to a particular spot in America, following an urge. Little do these three groups realise that they are all heading to the exact same location...

I was well up for some more undead animal mayhem, so the time skip of two years was a little jarring. Zombie animals are still here, but they have been superseded by the more traditional human walking dead. Racking my brain, I really don't recall there being a reason given for the genesis of the outbreak; what actually caused it, in the first novel. Here, it is almost common knowledge that it was all down to malfunctioning nanobots, not some biological virus. These nanobots are able to heal their carriers, and also account for how they are able to transmit data across the country. Seemingly when one zombie learns something key, this spreads across the network. My fears that the uniqueness of the first novel would be diluted or lost were for nought, this might be a different beast, but it carries the supreme inventiveness of what came before. Nanobot infected humans made for something different, and I was not expecting the late stage audacious reveal of the origins of the nanobots.

The world of Outbreak is one of the lesser zombie apocalypses I would like to experience. It feels almost pointless trying to survive with the undead a constant and very dangerous threat from beginning to end. Everywhere they go, no matter how safe it appears, the survivors are in constant danger. Both groups lose a huge amount of the cast of characters, made all the more horrific by the very quick transition from victim to aggressor. The first novel was almost cruel in its violence, and here things carry on in a similar fashion. While not quite as mean spirited and gruesome, there is still room for moments such as characters stumbling across a neonatal intensive care unit full of zombie babies. A lot of the real body horror comes from the new yellow eyed undead who get joy out of torturing the normal zombies. Of course, this paled in comparison to the animal attacks of the first novel.

It was fun to see some returning characters. Fi, the almost survivor of book one is back as one of the first evolved undead. We get to see this side of the story from her perspective. Wilder and Butsko were side characters last time around, this time they are duel protagonists with Walt and his group. I really enjoyed these characters, very fun to be following legitimate bad-asses around. Walt was fun for a civilian, especially with his memorable nail studded bat which gets put to lots and lots of good use. Both sets of characters get into plenty of desperate last stands.

Outbreak: The Mutation might not have surprised me as much as The Hunger but it was still a damn exciting book. I would give my left leg to be able to craft such a darn entertaining zombie novel. This is full of horror and rotting corpses from start to finish, and I enjoyed how the disparate storylines ended up linking together. Well worth a read, a fine series of novels.

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Millionaires Day (2024) by Kit Power - Thriller Novella Review

My quest to make more of an effort to get through my vast backlog of book requests was helped by the next book I chose; Kit Power's Millionaires Day being a novella. The story here is based in Milton Keynes, UK, a surreal choice for me as that is pretty much the next town (while it has recently been made a city, it will always be a town to me) over from my own!

One day in 2019 (according to the synopsis), everyone in the UK woke up with a million pounds in cash under wherever they happen to have been sleeping. This novella charts the effects this has on the population by following a random selection of people from Milton Keynes. There is a neglected girl (Emma) with an imaginary friend who believes the money was a gift from Santa. A homeless man (Henry) with the desperate hope of re-starting his life somewhere else, a policeman struggling to deal with the unfolding chaos, and Pete; a lowlife criminal whose gang leader - Mental Mickey, enacts a plan to steal as much money as his gang are able to.

I always try and avoid reading the synopsis for anything I am going to read/watch on this blog. For me, I didn't expect things here to go as south quickly as they do. From the novella, it was never obvious that this weird event had occurred countrywide, it didn't even really feel like it had happened to many of the people in MK. With the almost supernaturally thick fog coating the town, this created a feeling of this particular set of characters having inadvertently stumbled into The Twilight Zone. I couldn't shake my thoughts of this, but it added to my enjoyment. The book is split into (if my memory serves me correct) three distinct parts, each part taking place over a different hour. Each part is then split into chapters, with the chapters being titled with the specific timeframe they are happening in. While the many protagonists don't know each other, there are some wonderfully timed moments in the story where by pure chance, the paths of all the protagonists cross. I loved seeing the same event play out from different perspectives, each viewpoint having a narrow reaction, based only on the information the particular character would have had.

I have been to Milton Keynes many many times. Reading this made me realise that I had never really travelled anywhere in that (to my eyes) clean but soulless city, as I was never reminded of my experiences of that place. This version of the city is grimy and crooked, decrepit apartment blocks and dirty back alleys, of characters either corrupted or prey, and there isn't a lot of happy outcomes for many of these characters who appear. Of the three main plots going on, the homeless man story was almost a prologue, serving to introduce the character of a policeman whose journey would have him heading all over the city. The little girl's storyline is probably the most bleak, with her falling prey to a perverted security guard, and the one based around the gang was the most detailed, likely due to featuring the most characters. This gave the book a bit of a crime caper feel, I liked how it is shown to the reader the various subplots going on within the book. There are some very dark moments here, but this is balanced with the light in what became one of my favourite sections of the novella. There are lengthy paragraphs introduced later on that are first person perspectives of the story told from the viewpoint of a dog! Initially really confusing to read, I eventually settled into a decent pattern. These dog viewpoint sections really did create a fun feel for a simple character whose main drive is to be called a 'good dog'!

I loved this novella, especially with the story taking place so close to my doorstep. I enjoyed the more potentially supernatural elements here, and the wide variety of characters and events taking place. The stories occurred in an intelligent way that allowed things to ever move forward without becoming dull, though this isn't a feel good story at its heart, as it delves into the darker side of human greed, and just what lengths some people are prepared to go to, to achieve their desires. Millionaires Day is out now via French Press.

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Halloween Girl - Book Three: Gods & Monsters (2025) - Horror Graphic Novel Review

Richard T. Wilson's Halloween Girl series was a comic that I initially had low expectations for, but was something that quickly grew on me the more I read it. Halloween Girl - Book One: Promises to Keep brought together the first seven issues and was a great introduction. Halloween Girl - Book Two: Dead Reckoning was another great entry, especially when it came to the artwork. Due to the second book serving as a prequel though, Halloween Girl - Book Three: Gods & Monsters is a sequel to the story told in book one, and was another darn good read. Unavoidable spoilers for the other book to follow.

Halloween Girl is a series about a ghost called Charlotte and her supernaturally powerful friend Poe. With The Hollow no longer operating (a demonic group who were able to infiltrate the dreams of their victims), things have settled down a bit. Unknown to the pair though, some of The Hollow have found a new leader, bizarrely in the form of a young child named Kevin. Inhabiting the forms of toy figurines in the boy's playset, these beings not only worship Kevin, but are very prepared to go to lethal lengths to make sure his life is a good one. Realising that the boy is not to blame for this, Charlotte and Poe seek a way to convince him that these creatures are not good people, part of this help being to find a way to stop Kevin's abusive father from hurting him anymore.

Spread over four lengthy chapters, this tells a great story, better than I had expected. Despite being a bit murky on the details of book one, I pieced together what had happened there, something that continues to have an effect on Poe. The highlight of the whole graphic novel was again the art of Shahed R. The black and white illustrations are so wonderfully drawn and full of life, very expressive faces on characters which never look over the top, and some amazing shading going on.

I loved the story, and genuinely found the idea of toy figurines possessed by demons to be fantastic. I loved that these toys worshipped Kevin, and there are some strong moments of horror. This story again has a lot of heart to it, being sentimental without being overly so. It deals with death and grief in a mature way, making sure to always have a balance between the darkness and the light.

A great story coupled with great art and shading left me more than happy at what I had read here. It might not satisfy those wanting something more darker and mean spirited, but I always think there is something really uplifting about the stories told in Halloween Girl. Halloween Girl - Book Three: Gods & Monsters released June 3rd from Mad Shelley Comics.

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Outbreak: The Hunger (2015) by Scott Shoyer - Zombie Horror Novel Review

Scott Shoyer's Outbreak: The Hunger is yet another book I have had for review for a ridiculously long time, having first received a copy back in 2015. At that time, a girlfriend had agreed to help me get through my backlog and read some books on my behalf. She did actually read this novel but soon after we split up, so I never found out her thoughts on it, unrelated I'm sure! Now, I have finally gotten around to reading this, and boy, I wish I had read this one sooner.

John and his young daughter Fi have gone on their monthly visit to the local zoo near where they live in Texas. This trip feels different than usual, with a weird atmosphere at the place. Many of the zoo exhibits appear to be empty, with the animals that are still there behaving very aggressively. John almost decides to cut the trip short when a nervous young man is witnessed being roughly detained by a group of soldiers, but his daughters love for the train that runs around the zoo has John agreeing to ride it with her before they leave. This turns out to be a terrible mistake as staff and passengers alike come under attack from vicious animals. In the unfolding carnage the train derails, John, Fi, and a small group of other families survive, and decide to follow the track back to the zoo. They soon discover that they are being stalked from the shadows by the animals, who are not done with the group yet.
Elsewhere, the survivor of a violent animal attack at an animal rescue shelter is taken to a secure facility by the army, with it revealed that animals had escaped from a government lab, caused a localised outbreak, and that this survivor is patient zero - the first human to be infected by whatever disease or virus has affected the animals so dangerously.

This is a sick book, and for those who aren't on board for a whole lot of animals attacking both adults and children in violent and sickening detail, you might want to get off the train now! There is a cruelness here, with the book often seeming to go into unneeded excessive descriptions of the violence being inflicted. That is not to say I didn't like The Hunger, instead, I thought this was a great novel that really did do something different than the traditional zombie story. Firstly, I thought it was a neat idea to have the whole novel just tell the story of the initial outbreak, before the infection had even spread to humans. There are a few human-like infected here, but mainly just in the more traditional patient zero based subplot rolling on in the background. The zombie animals act very different, even to other zombie animals that have appeared in other books. These ones are as a unit extremely deadly and also extremely fast. The initial attacks are so swift that characters aren't even sure of what is happening, and the animals have some odd behaviour, such as occasionally being found all passed out rather than moving around. These animals also exhibit an intelligence that is frightening to see. Far from acting like dumb creatures, these infected appear to be able to work together and make plans, such as automatically going after any human who appears to be trying to use their phone to contact the outside world.

The infected animals are the ghastly stars of the show, and being set in and around a zoo there are excuses for why there are a large assortment of these creatures. Everything from tigers, lions, and bears to goats, meercats and wolves. They attack in explicit detail with victim's body parts being ripped off and chewed up, again, especially distressing when it is happening to young children!
John, generic name aside, made for an engaging protagonist. The backstory of him surviving a dog attack as a child explains why he is able to lead the group, while his worsening vision, due to forgetting the eye drops needed after a recent operation on his eye, gives a sense of bigger danger. His determination to protect his daughter is well realised, and really there wasn't much bad about this part of the novel. The subplot was less interesting only due to secret army bases and experiments on infected being so part and parcel of the zombie genre. Occasionally the novel gets a bit carried away, with a few chapters, especially near the end, which seemed to just be there to pad out the length of the book rather than add anything new. Some of these mini-stories of characters meeting their end were worth reading. I loved the really cruel chapter that saw a man trying to find his children, unaware that not only were they already dead, but that unknown to him he had sustained a fatal wound himself. This just exemplified the jet black humour that would sometimes pop up.

I loved Outbreak: The Hunger, it genuinely hooked me, but at the same time, I sometimes had to take breaks due to the misery and horror of the story. This sets itself apart from other zombie novels by taking a wild deviation to the tried and tested expectations, but towards the end especially it had some twists that I would hardly say I didn't see coming from a mile away. This was the first in a planned trilogy, with a quick Google search revealing the other books in the series are now written and out, I may have to check those out on day (turns out I also have the second book awaiting review on my heap of shame).

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The Living Dead (2020) by George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus - Horror Book Review

I only really read books nowadays while on my lunch break at work, and so it has taken me around two years to make my way through the six hundred and fifty page zombie epic The Living Dead. The author for this book is Daniel Kraus (co-writer of The Shape of Water), and it was based upon notes and ideas that legendary film director George A. Romero (Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead) had made, himself having intended to write an epic story of the undead that would unite his many films together into one whole. Initially I was disappointed with this, for some reason I had came to believe this novel was literally all of Romero's films stitched together into a single novel, and so I was underwhelmed to see this is a completely stand alone story that takes place within the fictional universe. Some unavoidable spoilers for the change in direction that occurs at around the midpoint to follow.

This novel retcons the zombie outbreak to modern times, something that previous films in the Dead series have also done. It's first half becomes almost an anthology, having a whole bunch of stories that are taking place at the same time, but featuring characters who are separated by distance and so aren't aware of each others existence. Truthfully, this was my favourite part of the book, featuring plenty of classic zombie scenarios. With Charlene and Luis you have the two morticians who likely encounter patient zero, and then their attempt to survive in a rapidly changing world. Greer is a poor black lady living at a run-down trailer park who sees the unfolding chaos as a reason to head out and try to find her kid brother at his school. Meanwhile, out on an aircraft carrier, Nishimura starts to lose control of his subordinates after a zombie worshipping cult rapidly forms when the dead start to return to un-life. While all this is happening, the last broadcasting news station struggles to keep on air, with anchor 'The Face' determined to deliver the unfolding news as long as humanly possible. This is all wrapped up with an overarching story of an autistic lady who is chronicling the tales of the apocalypse at her secure government records building.

This first part was the most exciting, especially when it wasn't clear who would live and who would die. Some of these stories end in unexpected ways, and some work better than others. I thought the whole story set on the aircraft carrier was fantastic, it had great human antagonists, and worked best as a unique story. The TV station story was also a highlight, mainly due to the fact that characters from the other stories all seem to catch the broadcast at one point or another. One of the most memorable parts of Dawn of the Dead were the news station scenes, it was fun to imagine that the studio in the book was one and the same as the one in the film. Weakest of these was the storyline involving the two morticians, it told a generic story that had little surprises in it. For much of the story the Greer one was also a bit lacking, but it really comes into its own towards the end when Greer stumbles across a pacifist musician.
Zombies are very violent, and there are plenty of descriptive scenes of both their punishment, and the effects they have on their victims. This was of course all lovely stuff, but it is quite front loaded, with the second half of the novel being more calm, relatively speaking.

I was surprised to then see a huge time jump of eleven years. This is displayed in the novel by a short 'Part Two' that basically sums up what has been going on in the world over the decade that is skipped, and takes the form of the observations of the records building officer. This time period is zoomed over, but had some fun tiny easter eggs relating to the films. It also casually introduces the notion of zombie animals, rather than invented by the author, this was actually a genuine idea that Romero had had. The final part of the book is then based in the apocalyptic future where all the various characters of part one had randomly met up, and have to face a more traditional enemy. My most hated part of the entire series was in Land of the Dead when the characters decide to leave the zombies alone, stating they just wanted somewhere to live. This kind of runs with that idea, having the future sections have humans trying to live peacefully alongside the rapidly deteriorating walking dead. I might not agree with this, sharing some sympathies with the human antagonist character, but it was well explored here, with reasoning given by the likeable lead characters. This last part of the book had to do a lot of heavy lifting to bring readers up to speed on the what the characters had been up to, but it does a great job, with backstories taking place as a form of interviews with the protagonists of part one.
Romero's films always used zombies as a form of social commentary, and here is no different. There are scenes towards the books end that replaces a zombie horde with human rioters, the descriptions making the humans seem like undead as they batter down barricades and slaughter innocents.

The Living Dead was a decent novel, and I felt adding in a time skip was a brave idea. I admit that I thought the first half was a lot more exciting, but it was interesting to show both the beginning and the end of the zombie outbreak while giving a more non-judgmental view of the walking dead. As interesting as this was for me (and I did love the minor references to the films included!), the second half of the novel didn't have the same zip and excitement to me. Humans might make the more formidable foe, but zombie fighting action never fails to get old, and so I wished the second half featured more of this.

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Razortooth (2024) by Stephen Kozeniewski and Steve Kopas - Post Apocalyptic Book Review

My slow march through my daunting backlog of books to read for review continues with the review of the Stephen Kozeniewski (The Thing Under Your Bed) and Steve Kopas co-written post-apocalyptic novel Razortooth. This is actually a prequel to Slashvivor, I have that on my reading pile, but figured I would read the prequel first. I am assuming that Slashvivor is similar to Sean E. Britten's Kill Switch series, seeming to sound like a futuristic game show where contestants are forced to battle deranged killers. 

The story follows the trails and tribulations of a girl nicknamed 'Razortooth', who at a young age experiences and survives a nuclear war between Russia and the USA only to subsequently be captured by a post-apocalyptic warlord named Marisol and made into a sex slave. With skill at murdering her clients, it is decided to instead change her role to that of a hitwoman for the powerful warlord.

I really liked the set-up for this world, with it explained that purely by complete chance during the nuclear exchange with Russia all the American nukes missed their targets, while all the Russian nukes hit theirs. This has resulted in an irradiated America that saw the collapse of government. The tale bounces around in time and at a hundred and sixty seven pages wasn't much larger than a novella. It was a cool idea also to have the whole story being a fabricated one, an embellished version of a true (within the book's universe) story of how one of the Slashvivor killer's came to be there. This set up was added to with little throwaway chapters that act like 'commercial breaks' from the core story being told. From Razortooth's innocent beginning pre-nukes, to the early stages of the new country order, and the events that led to her being made into a slave. It moves along at a rapid pace and does a good job of fleshing out the world.

The world here is a dark one, and there are some disturbing topics alluded to, and some graphic scenes, at least a couple featuring severed testicles! The story never really stays in one place for too long, with a bunch of characters introduced along the way. My favourite aspect of the world were the 'Georges', with only one 'George' being around at any one time, their punitive punishments for perceived failure resulting in their replacement taking them out.
Having not read Slashvivor yet, I can't really comment on how successful as a prequel this is. I'm guessing Razortooth is an integral character of that novel, with this being an origin story relating to both her sad past, and how she came to have body modifications to fit the name she has. 

A short well written novel that was as easy to get through as a hot knife through butter. The world of Razortooth might be depressing and bleak, but it is brought to wild life with a selection of madcap larger than life characters who create a Tank Girl type vibe, especially with the likeable titular lead.

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Necromancer (2009) by Scott Harper

The shame, the absolute shame. Back in the beginning years of my blog I was all too eager to accept book after book for review despite having a terrible track record for the length of time it takes me to read such things. Back in 2012, author Scott Harper sent me some of his novels for review. It took me until 2019 to read Predators or Prey? Now, some six years later I have gotten around to reading the sequel to that book; Necromancer. 

Two years ago, former con-artist Wendy Markland discovered to her horror that vampires were actually real. That knowledge dramatically changed her, and now she scours the web looking for similar reports, having decided to dedicate her life to hunting the undead. Having recently found strange reports of the dead coming back to life in the small remote town of Pinewick, New Jersey, Wendy heads there, expecting to possibly once again encounter vampires. She is shocked to discover that this time around it is zombies causing chaos, another mythical monster she had not believed to be real. Despite not being what she expected, she is determined to find the source of the outbreak and stop it, but that source turns out to be something even more horrific than the walking dead.

I gave Predators or Prey? a respectable seven rotted zombie heads out of ten back when I reviewed it. This was despite my misgivings with aspects of the story. I had no idea that Necromancer would instead deal with zombies rather than vampires, I think if I had realised that I may have gotten to this one sooner. I disliked the protagonists of that prior book, but it was at least good to see Wendy wasn't quite so insufferable this time around, and I also appreciated that her former partner and love interest Jacob was out the picture. The book did a good job of bringing readers up to speed on what had previously happened, while it would be useful to have read that first novel, I don't think it is essential reading. Her determination and desire that no one else should suffer like she did made her more likeable and less selfish feeling, though she wasn't without her issues. I don't know if she is intended to be a narcissist, or if it is the author's desire to make her seem like the most beautiful woman who ever lived, but she is back once again shamelessly admiring her naked body in mirrors whenever she gets a chance, an off putting aspect of her character. This comes to a head with a few awkward sex scenes that went into a little too much detail for my liking, I even skimmed past the second one as it was not what I wanted from a horror novel.

Thankfully, the horror part of the book was solid. Having expected a book about vampires, I unintentionally ended up reading two books at the same time that were about the walking dead, but they were so different in tone that this didn't cause me any confusion. The undead were wonderfully described here, and the zombie virus even spread to animals, giving some exciting moments. My very favourite part of the novel had Wendy and a few others battling a zombie bear out in the pouring rain. Was such a thrilling chapter! There is a definite antagonist creature for this novel, and he was written to appear fearful. My two complaints with him were firstly that he was supposed to have a mystery helper, but this characters identity was never really made much of a secret, meaning their eventual reveal wasn't shocking or that interesting. Secondly, with the book fast approaching the end and the story unresolved I thought maybe things would end on a cliff-hanger. Instead, the story is neatly tied up, but in a way that felt a little bit rushed with the climatic battle occurring within a brief chapter.

I don't particularly have fond memories of the first novel, so this knocked my socks off a bit with how enjoyable I found Necromancer. Sure, I could do without the sex scenes and Wendy's bizarre obsession with her perfect body, but the horror here was cool, the small town characters that Wendy befriends enjoyable, and the writing did a fantastic job of making the events come to life in my minds eye.

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The Perfectly Fine Neighbourhood (2023) by various - Horror Anthology Book Review

Book reviews are always the most shameful part of my site as I am notoriously slow at getting around to reading them. The Perfectly Fine Neighbourhood is a horror anthology featuring stories written by fifteen different authors. I was sent a copy last December, so it has taken me an entire year to get around to reading it. As I always say, every good anthology needs a good theme, and the theme for this one is more involved than most. The goal with this anthology was to have a collection of horror stories based in a world where ghosts are common place. I admit that I thought this was a bit of a lame idea, but egg on my face as I really enjoyed the stories contained within this, and was impressed how they share common ideas despite being written by a variety of people.

It begins with 'The First Ghost' by Stephen Kozeniewski (The Thing Under Your Bed) which sets out the idea of a ghost filled world. Here, a couple have rented out a remote cottage, with it promising to be entirely ghost free, but it turns out that something maybe even worse than a ghost is residing there. In this ghost filled world death is not seen as much of a burden as it normally is. Most people who die return as ghosts and so couples are no longer separated by death and death looses some of its finality. This leads to situations such as with Jeff Strand's 'A Most Unpleasant Task' and Ryan Breadinc's 'The Perfectly Fine Family', both comedic stories in which the dead are trying to speed up the process of their loved ones lives ending. Then there is the interesting 'Incorporeal Tax' by Annie Knox, about a partner being trapped with his abusive boyfriend even after that boyfriend has passed. On the flip side, there are some stories here played super seriously with Candace Nola's 'Click' being the most morose and straight one, in which her protagonist character attempts to let her newly deceased brother come to terms with his suicide.

There was a good variety of stories from more grounded tales to action pieces that were a thrill to read. My personal favourite was 'Auld Lang Syne' from Wile E. Young that sees the perpetrator of an office massacre returning to the scene of his crime in order to destroy the ghosts of the people he originally murdered. Another similar one handled different was Shane Burnham's 'Addicted to Slaughter' that sees a serial killer forced to live with the ghosts of the people he killed. Killers feature in a bunch of these, I thought 'Playthings' by Lay Hanifen was memorable (a ghost trying to save a woman from a serial killer), while D.C Hill's 'The Perfectly Fine Storm' with echoes of The Purge to it, and 'Fiduciary Duty' by Zachary Rosenberg both had satisfying stories about ghosts getting their deserved revenge on the living.

There was a good feeling of unity with elements appearing in different stories that made them mostly feel like they were taking place in the same world. There are some contrasts, Brian Keene's (The Lost Level) 'Where the Heart Is' sets out the idea that ghosts are doomed to haunt the areas they died, while most other stories allows ghosts seemingly to travel wherever they like such as with Gavin Dillinger's 'Lay, Lie, Lie'. I liked all the ideas presented here though, such as how ghosts are able to be witnesses to their own deaths. The anthology ends with Kayleigh Dobbs (The End) 'The Last Word' that takes the form of a letter a convicted murderer has written about the life-long rivalry with her twin sister which led to her eventual imprisonment.

I was weirdly ambivalent to the concept for this anthology, but the book proved me wrong. There are some stories here that felt a bit similar, or a bit basic in their execution, but the quality was strong throughout. Everything from comedic to tragic and action packed, I liked how the stories mostly felt like they were taking place all within the same world. The Perfectly Fine Neighbourhood was a good one, not a bad story to be found, and all of them were well written.

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Worst Laid Plans (2022) - Horror Anthology Film Review

It was only last week that I mentioned the horror anthology film Worst Laid Plans during my monthly news post. This vacation themed horror brought together three short films that came from the bestselling book from Grindhouse Press. I always have a real soft spot for anthologies and this one felt like a good 'un.

There are three stories contained here and for a change there wasn't a wraparound story to unite this together. I assume this was due to being an adaptation of a book and so with the book not having connective tissue, neither did the film. It begins with 'Deep In The Heart' which was written, directed and produced by John Hale (The Conduit short film) and was based on the short story by Waylon Jordan. In this one, a young man (Michael played by Christopher Trindade) visits a popular cave system at a tourist trap while on holiday with his mom (Jennifer Trudrung - Halloween Kills, We Are the Missing) and his moody dad (Greg Harpold - Mothman). A lot of the film is based around Michael, a closet gay whose father suspects and treats him and his wife badly as a result. It is while they are deep underground that they discover something truly monstrous.
The location here was fantastic as it was set an actual real-life cave system. There was a very unique creature here, while it didn't always look the most realistic it was definitely unexpected. The biggest problem for this one was the epilogue that went on for around ten minutes after the core threat was over with. Regardless, this was a good opening for the trilogy of tales.

Next up was 'You've Been Saved' which was directed and co-written/co-produced by Christopher G. Moore (Zombie World 2), based on the short story by S.E Howard. Two friends with very different personalities - studious Chris (Brian Ashton Smith) and deviant Ethan (Malcolm Mills) have met up after a long time apart to go on a road trip to reconnect. While at a diner, Chris notices a scared acting teenager (Emi Curia) with a creepy man (Nick Karner - Zombie World 2). His suspicions are confirmed when the girl secretly leaves him a note as she leaves requesting his help. While Ethan is happy to ignore this and continue their trip, this event plays on the much more noble Chris, with him eventually deciding he needs to do something to save the girl from what seemed like a dangerous situation.
I enjoyed this one also, I did guess where it was heading in a way, though the eventual reveal was a lot crazier than I expected. Some great special effects here for the most part, though were not all perfect, ending in a way that reminded me of a bit from an episode of dark British sitcom The League of Gentlemen.

Finally was 'Taylor Family Vacation '93' which was directed by Jeremy Herbert (The Thing with the Glowing Green Eyes, The Thing About Beecher's Gate) based on the story he himself wrote. Herbert is always known for his great short films, and it was lovely to see Morgan McLeod in the lead role here, having enjoyed his performances in previous films of the directors. This was a lovely mix of traditional film and super creepy camcorder footage.
Here, Dan (McLeod) is on vacation with his wife Amy (Marissa Gatsios) and their son Josh (Keegan Badillo), staying at a motel. Dan is startled to see that someone appears to be breaking into their motel room at night and using Dan's camera to covertly film them. The man strongly suspects it is their creepy neighbour (Jay T. Becker), and becomes determined to capture the man's guilt. This had a great vibe to it that drew slight comparisons with the almighty Sinister, especially with the home video footage combined with a really unsettling and discordant soundtrack. I did like this one even if I did guess the biggest twist almost immediately. There was a much more sad tone than I anticipated, with it devolving into something more different than I imagined it would be.

All three of the short films contained with Worst Laid Plans were a lot of fun to watch, it helped that all three were very different to each other also, despite sharing a similar theme of vacations. This is well worth a watch in my humble opinion, but I do always love a decent anthology. Worst Laid Plans is now available on Collector's Edition Blu-ray and VHS from Scream Team Releasing.

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Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge (2024) - Horror Film Review

Around five minutes into the Craig Rees (Whispers) directed and co-written Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge I was thinking it wasn't bad at all. Sadly that feeling didn't stay with me for long as this indie version of The Strangers was all bark and barely any bite.

A group of friends have travelled to a remote house in the middle of some woods for a getaway trip to celebrate the birthday of Kelly (Abigail Huxley). Unable to locate the key for the house they call the host only to discover that they had accidentally been given the wrong address. With it near to night time, the group decide to bizarrely break into the property. Their plan is to spend the night and then leave to travel to their actual intended location in the morning. Unknown to them, their actions have angered the actual inhabitants of the house - four psychos, three dressed as bears and one dressed up like Goldilocks (Olga Solo) who decide to teach the group a brutal lesson.

I thought the set-up of the killers dressed up as characters from a fairy tale was a cool one, and from the prologue sequence that showed the crazies I thought this would be a decent The Strangers type knock off. Unfortunately that wasn't the case at all. The first thing I noticed was how bad a lot of the acting was. It was so distracting with the stilted artificial way some of the characters spoke that I came to think that maybe all the dialogue had been dubbed in over the original dialogue. I don't think this was the case though, I think there were just a few dodgy actors mixed within the cast. The script is groan worthy at times, especially when the protagonists see fit to bring in dialogue from the namesake fairy tale and try and pass it off as coincidental. Examples include Kelly laying in bed saying the bed felt 'just right', and a breakfast scene where the characters are eating porridge, one complaining theirs was too hot and another saying theirs was too cold. It was at least brought into present day with Simon (Rees) mentioning the terrible war in Ukraine, and I thought both comedic character George (Jimmy Roberts) and Jas (Flex Singh) were the most interesting.
The film moved at a slow meandering pace, with it taking forever until anything really happens. It is thirty minutes before the horror begins, but it is around fifty minutes until the antagonists really make their appearance. The protagonists were super annoying, and I found it silly that they kept complaining about the lack of food and plates and bowls in the house, seeing as they had broken into a random persons home! With the group apparently having a fondness for practical jokes I began to assume that it would all turn out to be one large prank, but no, that sadly wasn't the case. There is weird pacing and strange character motivations. The film keeps switching from night to day and back again without any of the cast really doing anything to warrant that amount of time having passed, and characters keep vanishing for various reasons that never really made any sense.

The villains were a mixed bag, with Goldilocks and Daddy Bear (Robson Medler) at least looking the part. The former was the only bad guy who spoke, though she was very irritating. Daddy Bear had a cool design to him, and was the only one who felt like a genuine threat. All Baby Bear (Grace Darling Smith) and Mama Bear (Jack Berry) did was dance around, and their more cute and cuddly bear masks compared to Daddy's more horror based one did not look as good.  I really don't know why they even bothered being in the movie. There were a few kills, some happening off camera and some on. Unfortunately, despite some nice ideas, the kills were let down by some awful looking special effects, such as a truly terrible looking CG explosion. There was one kill towards the later half that was admittedly a great one, helped with a practical special effect. That was the absolute highlight of the movie for me.

Throughout Goldilocks and The Three Bears there was a real sense of some bad directing. The pacing felt very off and there was a weird lack of peril even when the protagonists were being hunted and killed. The action picks up for the final twenty minutes, but by that point I was fighting falling asleep and just wishing for it all to be over.

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Life After: Shorts Anthology Volume 1 (2023) by Bryan Way - Horror Anthology Book Review

It was back in 2022 when I first heard of horror author Bryan Way's Life After series of zombie stories. Life After: The Arising featured an unlikeable lead and told a relatively (for a zombie apocalypse) mundane story but something about it just worked. This was followed up by a sequel - Life After: The Void that was even better and showed the first novel wasn't just a fluke. So far that has been it in the main line series, but the author has also put out six short stories over the years set within the world of Life After and written in a more traditional third person form rather than the first person perspective of the novels. As the title hints at, Life After: Shorts Anthology Volume 1 brings together those first six short stories into one volume. Even more exciting is that there is an exclusive seventh short story set several months after the events of the second main novel.
I used my own photo of my battered and coffee stained copy of the book for the cover image as a mark of respect. It has been taken to my work to read on my lunch break countless times, and even travelled with me earlier this year when I went to Normandy with my father. I feel a sign of having enjoyed a book is how used it naturally comes to appear.

Reading the novels and the shorts I had in my mind a certain image of what the characters looked like, I admit that some of them didn't have the most flattering image in my mind, especially when it came to the main books protagonist character of Jeff Grey. This anthology introduces portraits of each of the main characters drawn by artist Seth Lang. If it had just been images based on what Way himself and Lang had imagined the characters had looked like I would have probably still defaulted to the images in my mind, but in a genius move Way cements these pictures by stating that that they were actually drawn by one of the characters in the books, meaning I have no excuses to discount them as not complete canon.
I won't go into too much detail for the first six short stories as I have previously given them their own review. I wasn't too sure if going back to them would be as exciting second time around. In another cool move though, Way has put the stories in the order they take place within the Life After universe, not in the order they were originally written. This makes them much more interesting as you are able to follow the flow of the unfolding apocalypse a lot better. 

Each story and each chapter within that story begins with a date, making it easy to see how far along things have progressed. One of my few complaints is that I wish that each individual page had these dates as I found myself constantly flicking back to see how much time had passed between the individual stories. Anyway, it starts off with The Cemetery Plot that occurs even before the start of the first novel. Telling a story about a greedy man taking extreme measures to get his deceased relative's inheritance. I enjoyed this one about as much as the first time reading it. The same was true for the next few, The Phoenix (guy meeting his ex-girlfriend at her place of work gets caught up in the unfolding zombie crisis) and the excellent The Line of Duty (the perspective of the apocalypse from an embattled police station, this one I still think would be excellent as a short film). While Zugzwang was still a little bit confusing due to the amount of characters introduced, I thought this side story that takes place during the events of Life After: The Void had improved a bit, and becomes one of the more important stories in the anthology as many of the same characters reappear in the new seventh story.

The Maze was a purposely disorientating story first read around as it starts in the middle of a action packed situation. On a second read I picked up on so much more that I hadn't noticed the first time around due to the eventual revelations the story provides. Of the original shorts that just leaves The Basement which is certainly Way's most depraved story. Perhaps it was knowing what was to come, but I found this had improved massively on a second read through, plus since reading it the author has confirmed that the belief of certain characters as to what caused the dead returning to life was actually incorrect. I do dislike it when there is a neat and tidy explanation given in zombie stories, always takes away some of the mystique.
New and final short The Siege really was a case of saving the best till last. This features a story featuring the main novel characters, but used in an interesting way. I thought the cleverest idea was to not feature protagonist Grey in the story. Instead he is often referenced by other characters, and even glimpsed in the background at one point. The story here was exciting, without too many spoilers it is about the influx of new survivors to the school the rest are hiding out at, set to the backdrop of a siege from the walking dead who are all too aware that there are living in the school. It was a bonus that my favourite character - former national guard soldier Anderson features a lot in it.

Going into this anthology I was a bit worried that I had a biased opinion of the stories having enjoyed speaking to the author over emails. That worry was dispelled with The Siege, it really was a great story, and has made me really want a third main line entry, something I believe Way is currently working on. As always, you will get a lot more out of this anthology if you have read The Arising and The Void, but even without having done that, there is plenty to enjoy here.

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The Thing Under Your Bed (2023) by Stephen Kozeniewski - Horror Novella Review

                                 

I have been in a very lazy mood taking the whole day to get one film watched for review. Luckily, I knew I was near the end of Stephen Kozeniewski's horror novella The Thing Under Your Bed, and so was at least able to finish reading that for a review. This one really brought to mind the short film Keith I had watched back in April, but where that one took a gentle comedic route, this one told a similar story, but one with a much darker outcome. The story may feature a child protagonist in a starring role, but this twisted tale doesn't allow this fact to reduce the horror inflicted.

It takes place one night in the bedroom of a little girl who discovers there is an actual monster living under her bed. The monster soon makes its intentions clear; that it wants to eat the girl and her family. She doesn't want to believe this to be true, but after her pet dog Freckle is effortlessly devoured by the creature she realises that if she leaves the apparent safety of her bed she will also be consumed. With just her stuffed rabbit Captain Bundrick for company (which has somehow became sentient), the girl must find a way to either defeat the monster, survive till morning, or escape her bedroom.

I didn't realise this was a novella when I began reading the story, but at around a hundred pages that is what this story was. It was a perfect length really for the story, seeing as the entire thing takes place not only in a small bedroom, but that it takes place entirely from a bed. I assumed the girl would have some type of plot armour that would prevent anything bad happening to her, so I was surprised to find out that she wasn't protected in that way, with her no only witnessing violent horror, but also able to be quite badly injured by the creature living under her bed. A minor early spoiler already mentioned is her dog getting killed. Kozeniewski doesn't shy away from describing in detail what happens to that poor creature, making for something that was nasty to read!

The novella is written in a third person perspective, with the protagonist character remaining unnamed throughout. From the situation described it is clear the girl comes from a troubled home, with an alcoholic mum who drinks herself unconscious every day. There are indications the girl has mental health issues, shown with her recalling how she would sneak out her room and listen to her parents argue about her strange behaviour. This created a fun notion that everything happening to her might not be as clear cut as the novella makes it out to be. Captain Bundrick is one fun example, even the creature under the bed thinks that the girl holding conversations with a stuffed toy seems a bit crazy, unable to hear it itself.
The creature was a great antagonist, one that is given reason why it is unable to leave its hiding spot. The creature is given great description by not being described really at all. At one point it is stated that there is something about it that means even when you are looking straight at it you are not able to see it, your eyes naturally looking around it. The creature was nasty and duplicitous, constantly trying to trick the girl to leave the safety of her bed so that it could grab her with its many tentacles. There was some neat explanation for the creature and its origins which was really interesting. My only real complaint I guess would be the somewhat abrupt ending.

This was straight horror, but there was room for dark humour throughout, mainly with the interactions between the girl and the creature. As well as flashback memories the girl has, she also has a few bizarre dream sequences that the creature is able to infiltrate, featuring a posh British voiced duck called Quackers, I loved those parts.
With it never entirely clear if what was happening was real or part of the girl's madness, I found The Thing Under Your Bed a great read, I loved how deliciously dark this got, while I really rooted for the young protagonist to come out on top. With a clear ramping up of horror from beginning to end, this single location story managed to surprise with the imagination on display.

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The End (2023) by Kayleigh Dobbs - Horror Anthology Book Review

After finishing Brennan LaFaro's horror anthology Illusions of Isolation, I went straight into Kayleigh Dobbs book The End. This turned out to be another horror anthology, something I was happy to discover. This is the thirty fifth book in the Black Shuck Shadows series, which a Google search reveals to be a series of pocket-sized books. At around one hundred and twenty four pages I swiftly read through this in about a week and enjoyed nearly my whole time with it.

A good anthology always needs a good theme, and the theme with this collection (as the title may imply) is the apocalypse. The six stories here are all stand-alone ones, yet there are a few cheeky references throughout to events of earlier stories, while they are all separate tales, they follow a natural path from pre-apocalypse to the end of all things. It begins with 'The Claim They Stake' that has what can only be described as a blistering start, as a man flees from the house of an elderly man for reasons initially unknown. This uses a real world tin-foil hat conspiracy as the basis for the horror, with it kept a bit vague for the most part whether the protagonist is suffering from mental health issues or if he has actually stumbled onto a hidden truth.
'Just Like Baking' wasn't my favourite of the shorts contained here but it was amusing with how it all played out. A group of teenage acting witches (despite them being hundreds of years old) are planning a relatively safe spell, but their plans go wrong due to the arrival of a younger witch whose mother has insisted be included in the group. I thought this had a great ending to it.
Finishing up the first half of The End is 'Catch Fire'. A loving husband and wife go to the home of the wife's awful sister where they stumble into the plans of a twisted cult leader. This was a bit of a cruel one, mainly because I liked the protagonists and so wanted things to work out well, it did have a darkly humorous last line of dialogue.

'Dead' is the most comedic story of the lot, and an idea I hadn't seen (read I guess) before in zombie fiction. It begins with the protagonist being killed by a zombie she accidentally frees from the basement of her new house. Her ghost is then stuck following around her now resurrected undead body as it leaves the house and begins a zombie apocalypse, with the ghost getting increasingly exasperated at the ridiculous unfolding situation as well as the stupidity of all the people the zombie encounters. This could have been a traumatic story written in the right way, but the humour here made that not the case, and was all the better for it.

I thought The End had reached its highpoint with the previous story, but penultimate one 'Omega' was somehow even better. It manages to blend jet black comedy with legitimate horror. In this one, it appears that the end of the world is coming. A dedicated woman and her church group have been promised by their beloved pastor that they will be saved by God and will ascend to Heaven, but things aren't exactly as they seem. I have a real fear of heights, so I think that played a part in why picturing this in my head was almost making me sweat!
'The End' closes out the anthology and acts more like an epilogue to the anthology as a whole rather than a proper story. At just a few pages long this is written from the viewpoint of something not from the world of humans. The way it is written and set-out made this feel almost like a poem.

I thought this was a great little collection of stories, and I really liked the way Dobbs injected these with humour in a way that didn't distract. Some of these were a little predictable with where they headed, but for the most part I loved this, especially 'Dead' and 'Omega' which both delighted and surprised me. It may be short, but The End was also sweet, with a lot of enjoyment coming from reading it.

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