Title: Mr. Nasty

Author: Leo Darke

Genre: Horror, Gore, Supernatural Horror

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 3 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Cut!Film and TV extras are turning up butchered on set, the only clues being VHS cassettes of infamous, banned “Video Nasties” on the site of each horrific murder. Is a copycat killer at large, inspired by the vile acts depicted in the notorious tapes? Or could the monstrous characters from the nasties themselves be escaping their VHS clamshells to stalk the land?When supporting actor Tommy Wallace finds both his past and the nasties catchingup with him, surely it’s time to press Eject for the last time. Or is this one obsolete format that just refuses to die? Something is thriving on the violence inspired by the tapes, feeding on a diet of Nazi death camp atrocities, axings and mutilation. And the banned play on…

 In Mr. Nasty, we meet with Tommy Wallace, a movie extra who had the nasty habit of watching “Video Nasties”, banned VHS cassettes back in his teen years. When a fellow extra is brutally murdered, Tommy happens to be on site, and he recognizes the “Video Nasty” VHS tape left behind at the crime scene. The detective who investigates the case, Slade, is instantly wary of Tommy and plans to keep a sharp eye on him.

Tommy tries to get rid of his own collection of “Video Nasties”, a task which grows more pressing as he’s once again an extra on set when another murder happens. And when the unthinkable happens and those “Video Nasties” turn out all too real, Slade and Tommy must combine forces to stop them, or die trying, which sounds more and more likely with every passing page.

The book has a great premise. 39 videos got banned in the UK in the 1980s and a killer reenacting murders from those videos and then leaving tapes behind, that’s just plain genius. The writing is solid for the most part, except that it drags a little. The character exposition, which takes up about half of the book, takes entirely too long, especially considering neither of the main characters turns out to be very sympathetic. Slade is arrogant and a jerk, and Tommy is obsessed with woman, falls in love with every woman who risks to give him the time of day, and ultimately I just couldn’t connect with either of them.

The second part is filled with good, old-fashioned gore, and despite being gruesome, it’s also easily the most enjoyable of both parts. Just not for the faint of heart, though.

So all in all, definitely not a bad read, but the characters are hard to sympathize with.

Title: Darkness Rising

Author: Brian Moreland

Genre: Horror, Supernatural Horror

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

It’s all fun and games until…

Marty Weaver, an emotionally scarred poet, has been bullied his entire life. When he drives out to the lake to tell an old friend that he’s fallen in love with a girl named Jennifer, Marty encounters three sadistic killers who have some twisted games in store for him. But Marty has dark secrets of his own buried deep inside him. And tonight, when all the pain from the past is triggered, when those secrets are revealed, blood will flow and hell will rise.

In Darkness Rising, Marty Weaver has been bullied his entire life, and not just by his peers, but by ust about everyone. His past was filled with tragedy, and the only source of light in his life is his love for Jennifer, the first girl who ever seemed interested in him, and who might even love him back. Second to that is his love for poetry – he’s been writing poems as a way to get rid of the pain he feels over his past and over being bullied. But when he drives to a nearby lake and runs into three sadistic killers who want to kill him, shoot it on camera, and have some sadistic fun while doing so, something dark erupts from within Marty, and the demons of his past have come back with a vengeance. One may ask themselves te question who is more twisted that night at the lake: the killers, or Marty.

For a novella, this book packs a whole lot, and brings an awful lot of depth to its main character, Marty.  He is so realistic one could almost picture him as a real person. In comparison, the killers are too thin, too easily falling back into stereotypes. We’re given little reason as to why they’re doing the killing (well, we are giving a reason, but not what would bring them to do such a thing) and they seem just too evil just for the purpose of being evil, not for any deeper reason.

The plot is original though, I have to credit that, and I didn’t know what to expect half the time. The prose is haunting in a good way, and as a whole, the novella is definitely impressive. If you’re a fan of horror that doesn’t shy away from some gore, then give this book a shot.

Title: A Debt to be Paid

Author: Patrick Lacey

Genre: Horror, Psychological Thriller

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Nowhere to run!

Gillian Foster is desperate. She received a very strange letter in the mail not long ago. Since then, she’s been seeing shadowy figures everywhere. Coming for her. Frantic to find a safe place, she leaves home with her daughter Meg, only to find there is no way to outrun her pursuers.

Twenty years later, Gillian has been admitted to Hawthorne Psychiatric Facility. Meg receives a similar letter and is hunted by an unseen force. Is Meg also mentally ill, or are these creatures real? And if so, was her mother right all those years ago? Is there no place to hide?

In A Debt to be Paid, Gillian Foster has been seeing shadowy figures ever since receiving a strange letter in the mail. In an effort to save her daughter Meg and herself from what these figures have in store for them, she kidnaps her daughter and travels halfway across the country, only to find out shadows are not that easily outrun.

Twenty years later, Gillian is in a psychiatric facility and hasn’t spoken in ages. Meanwhile, Meg is struggling to make a life for herself working in a bank. But when the same shadows turn up after all these years, intent on hurting her, she starts to wonder if her mother was suffering from psychosis all those years ago, or if the shadows were real all along.

Although the story doesn’t sound that original – a woman seeing shadows, everyone thinks it’s mental illness but the shadows turn out to be real – it didn’t bother me that much, since the writing was great and managed to pull me into the story. The character dynamic worked well too, although I didn’t care much for the love interest. It read too much like insta-love and ultimately he didn’t add much to the story. It would’ve been better had the focus stayed on Meg and her relationship with her mother.

The plot is fast-paced and the novella never slows down. It was over before I realized it. A solid read, not the most original story, but the writing and characters make it worthwhile.

Title: The Doorway

Author: Alan Spencer

Genre: Horror, Supernatural Horror

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 1 star

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The dead work in mysterious ways.

Morty Saggs is desperate when his wife, Glenda, turns up missing. But all evidence points to Glenda never having left the house. Soon, odd smells permeate the property, and sometimes the doorway to his bedroom burns a hideous red. Is Morty going crazy, or did the house do something with Glenda? Is there some connection to the house’s previous owner, a vicious murderer named Ted Lindsey? All of Morty’s questions will be answered on the night the burning doorway opens—the night when the trap is sprung.

I struggled to finish The Doorway. It has nothing to do with the premise, which is rather intriguing, but everything to do with the dull dialogue, the unbelievable plot, the telling instead of showing and the head-hopping from one character to another. The writing needs a lot of work, and I doubt that if it hadn’t been the only book I had available at the time, I would’ve made it to the end.

First, the plot. Morty Saggs is desperate when his wife Glenda goes missing. All evidence points to Glenda never having left the house, and the police soon suspect Morty, but his family and friends are convinced he’s innocent. Strange smells permeate the house, and the doorway to Morty’s bedroom burns an eerie red color. He starts to suspect the doorway may have something to do with Glenda’s disappearance, and that it’s somehow connected to the house’s previous owner, a murderer named Ted Lindsey.

The way the doorway worked was the best part of the book, but unfortunately it was just about the only part that was good. The dialogue is stiff and unnatural, with the characters using each other’s names way too often. None of the characters, including Morty, felt real. It was impossible to connect to any of them. The author also had a habit of telling everything that happened rather than showing us, often even jumping into another character’s mind. This even occured in the same paragraph a few times, where the author starts in Morty’s POV but then switches to Morty’s daughter’s POV halfway through.

Also, how many people can disappear thorugh this doorway before someone alerting, I don’t know, the FBI? The killings are way over the top and would’ve been way more effective had only a few people gone through and gotten hurt, rather than at least a dozen.

Despite having an interesting premise, it’s just not worth struggling to page after page of bad writing.