Brian McAuleyRezensionen

This is a smart, compulsive read, and as a fan of slasher franchises (my favorite being Nightmare on Elm Street), I fell in love with it almost immediately. The pacing is spot-on for most of the book, the characters believable, and the story crafted with care to even the smallest nuances. I do admit that the book's beginning and middle held me more enthralled than the last third, where everything rushed forward with the speed of a film slasher and I lost some of the character time and nuance which had made me fall into the book so deeply to begin with. I wish the book had been just a little bit longer to give us more time to live in the ending and this world the author created--if it had, I think the book would have left a larger impact on me personally vs. landing in the territory of memorable entertainment. Nevertheless, I look forward to reading more of the author's work, and I'd absolutely recommend it to horror lovers!

Anyone who remembers those classic straight to video horrors and classic slasher movies will be right at home here in what could be one of the most fun throwbacks and homages I have read in ages.

Taking the old school ‘70’s and’80’s formula and giving it a slight makeover for a modern, progressive society—this has every classic trope you want in your slasher film squeezed in with deliberate care;

Dysfunctional family? Check!
Old house with previous occupants mysteriously killed at Christmas? Check!
Small town diner? Check!
Mad preacher, big moustachioed sheriff? Check!
Sectrets, twist and turns? Check!
Blood, gore and over the top violence? Triple check!

A fast flowing, decently written story supported by plenty of dark humour and snappy dialogue and once it hits its stride, a chain of hilarious and inventive blood soaked deaths. When you compare one murder to a human tube of toothpaste being compressed by a car… well you get the idea!

The author is clearly having a lot of fun reliving many classic horror films and consequently it’s easy to get swept away in their enthusiastic pursuit of slasher mayhem and enjoy a grisly story that hits every slay bell to the perfect note.

With some chapters hilariously (to me—I don’t care) ending on a Christmas one liner pun, you better watch out and you better not cry, because the best holiday horror has just slid into town.

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Not quite what I was expecting, but enjoyable none the less!

More of a commentary on addiction (of various kinds) using horror movie tropes and gets nicely meta as well. There were plenty of easter eggs for horror movie fans and you could tell that the author has a love for the genre, yet I think it's good enough on the surface for people who aren't super into horror to have fun with it as well.

A wonderful book that goes in to a familiar slasher movie universe but twists it into a psychological horror tale that deals with addiction, grief, depression and alzheimer's disease. I thought this was fantastic, written beautifully and had plenty of turns in the road to keep things flowing in an entertaining, macabre and intense manner. Definitely one of the best horror novels to have been released in 2022.

I thought this would be like New Nightmare, and it was only boring as hell. Just watch New Nightmare.