The Beast of Meteorite Acres: Splatter-Saurus (2023 Novella)

Splatter-Saurus

Author: Judith Sonnet

Publication Year: 2023

Chapters: 14

Rating: ***

A dinosaur-centered Youtube channel once covered this book and described it as 'dinosaur splatterpunk'. Seeing this is written by Judith Sonnet, whose stories often dip into Extreme horror, I'm not too surprised. What did tickle my curiosity, however, was upon further looking into it, some people also consider this a 'backwoods slasher'. And that, ladies and gents, is how I ended up owning this rather gruesome, exploitative novella about a random dinosaur on a feeding frenzy deep in some woods. 

The story does resemble a typical backwoods slasher plot of young adults visiting a cabin at Meteorite Acres for some rest and relaxation; drinks were drank, drugs were suggested, some hanky-panky time was considered despite some characters wondering how their partners would react if they finally decided to come out of the closet, but what these lads and ladies didn't come to account for is the orange-scaled dinosaur that's rampaging all over the nearby forest and pond! Devouring already the small family who owned the cabins and a few very horrible rednecks, this bipedal monster is now dead set on gorily sinking its teeth down on some nubile college kids...

In the afterword of the book, Sonnet wrote that Splatter-Saurus is a homage to cheesy dinosaur flicks one would typically catch on channels like SyFy or streaming sites like Tubi and, frankly, she is mostly on point; the book reads like the most hardcore creature feature exploitation piece involving a prehistoric theropod, one that the likes of the Carnosaur movies would have been if they delivered a bit more bad taste into their plots, such as overly-detailed traumatic deaths and a pinch of hicksploitation grindcore with a pair of redneck brothers who are into very disturbing and upsetting ideas of fun, examples of which apparently involve torturing lady hitchhikers and swiping babies away from mothers. 

This being a short horror piece, the story is straight-to-the-point and a quick read, barely diving away from the shallow plotting of a dinosaur brutally hunting and eating side dish cannon fodders before moving in to the main course chilling inside a cabin. Wordplay is descriptive enough to really really paint the gross gruesomeness of these attacks, as well as attempt a bit of layer and humor during the story's few lulling moments, making this a promisingly intense and intriguing B-grade horror read. The only qualm for me here is that the last twist and the resulting ending feels like it pushed the silliness a tad too far, making the conclusion overly random for the sake of cheese and shock, maybe a bit rushed as well. In all sincerity, it could work as the author did say she wanted this book to be stupid yet fun, but I personally think it could have been articulated and written better so it wouldn't be so janky.

Still, Splatter-Saurus done enough tooth-and-nail bodycounting to make it a good read, given that is you got the iron stomach for some extreme horror literature because it can get real nasty! This novelette is ridiculously wrong and splattery, but if you love a bad dinosaur creature feature, even more so a slasher with a generous offering of blood and body parts, then give this backwoods slaughter-fest with a prehistoric twist a go!

Bodycount: 13

Notable Kills: "...The bulky brute's body lifted Angus up and sent him spinning like an organic frisbee. Angus's scream warbled comedically before his body struck a nearby tree.

Paul watched in shock as his brother wrapped around the sturdy shaft of the tree."

A Heart of Tainted Candy: Dark Harvest (2023)

Dark Harvest (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Casey Likes, Emyri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer

Based on a 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel of the same name penned by author Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest (2023) could have been your classic creature feature with small town misfits joining forces to become unlikely heroes fighting against a powerful threat and, in a way, it does walk that path, but not without its bittersweet twists and grim turns.

Set in the1960s, at the rural town of Bradbury, a curse plagues the community every Halloween as a creature known as Sawtooth Jack makes its presence to wreck havoc and take lives, promising even greater devastation once it reaches the church by midnight. To fend off this entity, the folks of Bradbury initiate a ritualistic competition dubbed The Run, wherein the male teens of the town are starved for three days before being unleashed on Halloween night with masks and weapons, with the goal of hunting down Sawtooth Jack before it steps even one foot to the town church. (Given, that is, they don't end up either killing one another or raid butcher shops for food after brutally murdering the owners) The boy who successfully kills Sawtooth Jack will be heftily rewarded with a prize money, a decent housing and brand new Corvettes for a chance to get out of town to see the rest of the world.

This year, Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) is anxious yet adamant to join The Run, hoping to prove to himself as well as the rest of the town's doubters and bullies that he is just as good as his older brother Jim (Britain Dalton), who won last year's Run and is currently travelling across the states. All Hallows Eve night would eventually come and the town's boys, riled-up with a bloodlust for violence and the need to eat, are sent off to hunt down Sawtooth Jack once again. As Richie joins in the macabre competition with his small gang of friends, including the town's newest African-American resident Kelly (Emyri Crutchfield), they will unfortunately learn that there's more to the annual The Run than most expected, a deadly secret that puts them not only in danger of Sawtooth Jack and the murderous gang of teens, but also of those working in between.

Directed by David Slade of 30 Days of Night (2007), Dark Harvest (2023) looks and breathes small town horror story with its population of archetypical caricatures of meathead bullies, untrustworthy police forces and parents hiding dark secrets hounding over the main casts stirring up trouble and drama, all in the backdrop of an old rural American town that holds its traditions seriously, strictly and, dare I say, dangerously under the rule of a powerful group who may know more than they're letting on but choose to keep quiet about it for the sake of the peace. There's practically an allegory running throughout the plot, of class conflict and the repetitive nature of violence disguised as tradition, and for some parts it is handled quite nicely as it adds a little more weight and depth to an otherwise standard creature feature affair of teen victims getting slaughtered by a rampaging monster. But the further the story goes, the more questions it leaves open as it tells us how things work in Bradbury, though never bothering to dive deeper into the rabbit hole they introduced thus leaving some vital plot points hanging in the air unsatisfyingly. 

Fortunately, what Dark Harvest (2023) lacks in substance, it makes up with style; whenever the movie decides to focus on The Run, it guarantees at least one or two satisfying murders with a generous amount of gore, a crisp Halloween atmosphere and a very novel-looking creature design for our dear Sawtooth Jack. Makeup effects designer Francois Dagenais (of many Saw sequels) and visual effects supervisor James McQuaide manages the onscreen violence and it is impressive how well both practical and CG effects blend in with one another here, showcasing kills from both the monster and the deranged young men that's as entertainingly gruesome as they are absurdly inspired. Cinematography strikingly evokes a genuine Autumn spirit and captures perfectly the wide destruction both Sawtooth Jack and The Run cause. Talent-wise, Likes and Crutchfield more or less sold themselves as the empathetic duo since majority of the character development and focus fall on them, following their characters bond over their outcast status as they find warmth and trust from each other in this dangerous night, which does make the movie's conclusion effectively bittersweet to swallow.

Dark Harvest (2023) may not work all the way with its narrative, but it does a fair service of providing us a fair amount of thrills and kills, an interesting lore behind its creature and a couple of good leads with a heart. It's crafted to look cozy good and, I say, it succeeds at that, making this film a fulfilling enough watch for the spooky season, preferably with a bucket of sweets and nice cold bottle of pop!

Bodycount:

1 boy killed, later seen set on fire

1 boy torn in half

1 boy had his head sliced in half

1 boy had his head pried apart by the mouth

12+ boys slaughtered, blood splash seen

1 boy shot on the gut with a shotgun

1 male beaten to death

1 boy had his head sliced down with a machete

1 female knifed in the neck

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot dead

1 boy buried alive

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

Total: 24+

Criminal Carnage And Gory Guffaws: The Cottage (2008)

The Cottage (United Kingdom, 2008)

Rating: ****

Starring: Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, Jennifer Ellison

Grab the girl. Hold her for ransom. Escape with the cash. This is the plan a thug named David (Andy Serkis of the Lord of The Ring trilogy) have in mind when he decided to kidnap the teenage daughter of one Arnie (Steven Berkoff), a mobster boss. His boss. And it would have been a fairly passable plan given, that is, he didn't tagged along his brother Peter (Shaun of The Dead (2004)'s Reece Shearsmith) and the kidnapped girl's own stepbrother Andrew (Steve O'Donell) as accomplices.

Now, see, Peter is someone you would call a tool; meek yet obnoxious, suffering from a phobia of moths and is pretty much ruled under the fat thumb of his own whale of a wife. He doesn't really want to be a part of David's little scheme, but knowing this is an opportunity to please his overbearing spouse as his brother agreed to give him his half of an inherited house should everything goes according to plan, Peter tags along which much reluctance. On the other hand, Andrew is, for the lack of a better term, an oaf. The type who buys the wrong kind of ski mask to cover his identity and may or may not have slipped sometime somewhere about this little gig which leads to a very pissed crime boss sending out a couple of hired hitmen to end whoever needs to be ended.

The night gradually goes from bad to terrible when the kidnapped girl, Tracey (Jennifer Ellison), proves to be more than these guys could handle as her foul mouth, short temper and psychopathic tendencies coincide with her resourcefulness and surprising intelligence. So it kinda comes to no surprise that she soon escapes after the fellas dropped their guard one too many times. And even worse, she takes Peter hostage at knife point as they go deep into the woods to look for a way back to the city. 

And this. All of this is just the first act of the movie.

For more than half of its run time, The Cottage (2008) is a crime comedy wherein its black humor is centered within one of the worst kidnapping schemes in movie history and the engagingly hilarious characters involved, with failure upon failure stacking up against our hapless hooligans to the point that you actually want to root for these luckless suckers to at least get one thing right and somehow still win in the end even if, y'know, they messed up many many things along the way. In spite of some pacing concerns, it's honestly a smart direction to take as we do get to know more about these wannabe criminal chumps and their terrifyingly aggressive victim, giving them memorable distinctive traits and a good score of funny moments as their idiotic plan goes up in flames, as well as a decent level of character development, especially between David and Peter as even though they don't see eye to eye, they do still have their brother's back and sincerely cares for one another.

This little slice of depth do come in handy for cathartic reasons once the film drew out the creepy villagers (one of them being Hellraiser's Doug Bradley!) ominously warning not to go out at night and the plot shifts gear to slasher horror territories; as David and Andrew go after Tracey and Peter, the four soon ended up stumbling into private lands with a not-so-cozy farmhouse filled with clutter, strange noises from down the cellar and severed hands in the freezer. Oh, and a large, heavily-deformed, bellowing farmer with a killing streak. Kinda hard to miss him considering, apart from being a towering blood-thirsty maniac out chopping people up with shovels and billhooks, he often have his own goofy moments that are completely in tone with the kind of silliness this film runs on, mainly his confused and frustrated reactions when things don't go the way it normally does in a night of bloody massacring. (Like, how often do you get one of the victims aggressively coax the killer to murder another victim? Weird.) 

As any good slasher would, the kills here are gruesomely gory, some parts satisfying, other parts shocking and devastating. Heck, even the offscreen slayings have some decent splatter and guts to be seen from the resulting corpses through some fair-looking make-up and gore effects. The cat-and-mouse antics are mostly played for laughs and cheeky shocks, occasionally accompanied by classical music and a running gags of sorts with Peter being the butt of painful and/or humiliating torment not limited to the monster farmer's own brand of brutalizing. Interestingly, there's actually a story behind the killer's madness and the way the movie decided to acknowledge this is to hint it all over his abode through photos, diaries and even the corpses laying around. It's real gnarly stuff from what I can tell and I do like the fact that it's mostly kept in the shadows for an effective creep factor, though I cannot deny that I wished they explored this a tad further as it would have made the killer much more interesting.

Still, The Cottage (2008) wears its madcap crime comedy and cartoonish splatter with devilish glee and whimsy and I absolutely love it for that. Delivering acting of pure quality, comedic writing that's darkly witty, and the splatter horror that's entertainingly gruesome, if you adore a damn good slasher comedy with a British tang then go on and add this one to your collection!

Bodycount:

1 male found eviscerated

1 male found dead with his neck cut open

1 female decapitated by the mouth with a shovel

1 male killed, jacket seen

1 male gets a billhook to the groin

1 male hacked on the chest with a pickaxe

1 male devoured alive

Total: 7

Yankee Doodled: 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)

Rating: *

Starring: Bill Moseley, Lin Shaye, Christa Campbell

Ah, god, how did I even survive this shit?

Look, I love 2001 Maniacs (2005), Eli Roth's teen slasher remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis Southern-fried splatter classic Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964). And I also love Bill Moseley, a beloved character actor who don the roles of many horror faves such as Chop Top from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) and Otis B. Driftwood from Rob Zombie's Firefly Clan movies. Seeing Moseley leading in a follow-up to one of my fave early 2000s gorefest should be a match made in heaven for me, but not if the resulting movie is like watching a ten year old trying to paint a replica of Van Gogh's The Starry Night while drunk and high at the same time: simply horrifying and concerning.

For those who are not in the know, the story of Maniacs follows the ghoulish undead denizens of a small Southern community called Pleasant Valley and their macabre celebrations involving the luring, torturing, mutilating and then devouring of unsuspecting motorists as revenge against the Northerners. 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010) follows on the events of Eli Roth's re-telling as we see the folks of Pleasant Valley preparing for another round of their annual "Guts N' Glory Jubilee" celebration, only to learn that the local sheriff is putting a stop to the Jubilee since the feds are starting to catch on to the disappearances around their neck of the woods over the years. Town leader Mayor Buckman (Bill Moseley) doesn't take kindly to this news so, after killing off the sheriff by rolling him down a hill inside a barrel driven with nails, he devised a plan to take their macabre celebration on the road, turning the jamboree into a traveling circus of sorts.

In comes our group of stereotypes that happen to be the cast and crew of a brain-rotting reality TV show Road Rascals (practically The Simple Life), driving around in their tour bus when they came upon the maniacs' lil' cavalcade of crazies and sees an opportunity to film an impromptu episode for their show once they're invited to join Mayor Buckman's traveling party of Southern hospitality, games and barbecue! And as you would expect, the folks from Pleasant Valley are just delighted to have these suckers around for their fiendish and cannibalistic fun, picking them off one by one...

Almost everything about 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010) is terrible. Flimsy. Embarrassing. Excruciating, even. I say almost since there's a good deal of messy gore effects done for some of the kills which pleases my inner gorehound, as well as Moseley being a definite treat in this movie, playing the gruesome yet infectively charming and hilarious mayor of Pleasant Valley with much wry Southern humor and tongue-in-cheek hamminess. Past that, too many of the jokes missed than hit as the writing often devolved into cheaply throwing shots at horribly dated pop culture and politics, the victims are devoid of any real character apart from being tired offensive clichés played by barely talented folks and the production definitely took a nose dive down the cheap shithole. Seriously, throughout the movie, you'll see uninteresting camera work, audio quality dropping randomly and hack job editing. It's bad enough we have to sit through rotten cheese, terrible jokes and yawn-worthy shock gags, but to have it executed half-assed simply shows how much this movie just dragged itself into failure from the moment it started.

No, good gentlemen and fair ladies, I am not impressed by 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)! It's hard to praise a film that can make the idea of a black comedy about evil, murderous and cannibalistic confederate towns this boring and I would rather chuck myself down a nailed barrel rolling down a hill than to subject myself to another viewing of this garbage. Dump it!

Bodycount: 

1 male rolled inside a nailed barrel, impaled on wooden planks

1 female sliced through the groin with a buzzsaw

1 male electrocuted in an electric chair

1 male had his back broken, heart torn out

1 male had his head decimated with a stick of dynamite

1 female hoisted and hanged on a noose

1 female had her face torn off with a clawed chastity belt

1 male shredded against a bus engine

2 female ran over with a truck

Total: 10 

Return to Kettle Springs: Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives (2022)

Clown In A Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives
Author: Adam Cesare
Publication Year: 2022
Chapters: 30 (Epilogue included)
Rating: ***

Quinn Maybrook, Cole Hill and Rust Vance. The Baypen Three. It's been some time after they survived the Kettle Spring Massacre, the orchestrated attack at a small Missouri town committed by its radicalized adults who made it their mission to cleanse their community of its "blighted youths", and all our survivors wanted to do now is move on from that nightmare, figuratively and literally. But as word of the massacre spreads all over media and the truth becomes lost the further it goes, it made way not only to unexpected (and for some, unwanted) fame for Quinn, Cole and Rust, but also to internet conspiracy theorists attempting to twist the narrative to their own version of events wherein the three are painted as the masterminds behind the massacre.

Now heroes to some and villains to others, the Baypen Three see themselves getting praises and disgust from wherever they go and whoever they meet, but things are about to become deadly as they and their loved ones are suddenly targeted by what looks like coordinated attacks by goons wearing familiar looking clown masks. Knowing that the threat is far from over, Quinn, Cole and Rust must go back to Kettle Springs, Missouri, where there awaits something far more sinister than what they could've ever imagined.

In true horror sequel fashion, Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives aims to outdo its predecessor and it does so by shaking the very foundation it itself built in order to widen its world and explore it further. Much like the first book, this sequel novel took its time establishing the lives of our main casts after surviving such a horrendous event. It is here we see notable angles being approached such as PTSD, the pros and cons of media attention and criticisms on violent extremism and mob mentality through out the internet and social media, a whole baggage of heavy ideas that's ripe exploited in a slasher plot, though done here in a much more creative swing. 

In fact, Frendo Lives is more of a up and up slasher hybrid rather than a straight-up slasher story; while we do get a couple of slasher flick style stalkings, attacks and murders, these mostly taking place within the first half of the novel and with great effect, they would eventually play second bananas to what will gradually become something of a melting pot of chases and sieges ala Purge sequel as the town of Kettle Springs devolves into a warzone invaded by radical types with a warped sense of "justice". It's mostly braindead fun, graphic descriptions of violence and murders coinciding with a lot of the wit and snark young adult horrors tend to have, though at times it paints a serious picture showing how media, especially social media, often trivialized true crime and many people would suck it dry for clout or blindly follow radicalized ideas surrounding it if it meant comfort or self-righteousness rather than face the facts. 

It's a tough dose of satire, one that holds a lot of weight in this day and age of vlogs, internet forums and online communities, but writer Adam Cesare thankfully knew how to balance it out with horror fiction filled with clown masked maniacs, unsettling imagery of shootouts and descriptive splatter, topped with flawed yet likeable characters, both old and new, brewing up good ole drama in the midst of it all. My only qualm here is that the conclusion felt lacking; without spoiling a lot, the whole town being sieged thing simply just ended once the tide started to turn against them. With all the damage they dealt, I expected something equally as grandeur, but we're instead given an epilogue where one of the survivors tell us what happened afterwards before concluding with a very cliched sequel bait. An underwhelming finish in my mind, but it could have been worse.

While the first Clown in a Cornfield is an easily favorable slasher fiction that one can enjoy as a standalone novel, Frendo Lives serves as a welcome follow-up should you ever see yourself wanting more of the Baypen Three's as horror survivors. Fast paced and savagely thrilling, another fantastic read for literary horror fans!

Bodycount: 11(?*) 

Notable Kill: A very graphic razor wire murder. Like, the book didn't stint on the excruciating detail of flesh and bone being sawed away. Had me wincing the way I did during that scene from Audition (1999). 

(*Have to leave out a few survivable attacks, like that one guy who got a baseball bat to the face. The book never specified if any of these victims were straight-out killed, so I'm not counting them.)

Down, Dirty, Dead: X (2022)

X (2022)

Rating: ****

Starring: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega and Brittany Snow

After his effectively depressing and intense religious cult, found footage horror The Sacrament (2013), it has been a while since we saw director Ti West step foot into horror again, ain't it? Well, boys and girls, the man has returned with something a little spicy, creepy and all around messy. A certified rated X.

Set in 1979, a small film crew plans to secretly shoot a shoestring budget adult movie at a rented farmhouse all the way down at countryside Texas, hoping to cash in to the rising popularity of home video markets. When the gang arrives, the farm's married elderly owners are more or less capricious towards the group, either hating and envying their unruly youthfulness or low-key stalking them out of creepy leering interest. As problems arise between the film crew regarding the mediocre content of their film and some of them willing to shed their modesty to join in the smut fun on-camera, little do they know that by nightfall, these will be the least of their worries when someone's sexual repression and mental stability breaks into a murderous madness and they're making sure no one from that farmhouse will get out alive.

Raunchy, gory and occasionally uncomfortable, X (2022) presents itself as an exploitative and gritty throwback to vintage grindhouse cinema, blending the simplistic carnage of bodycount horror (mainly of Tobe Hooper's works ala Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)) with the sentimentally haunting creepiness of hagsploitation films and the fearless, rebellious raciness of 70s porn flicks. 

Though the plot is pretty straightforward (as in its the typical group-goes-to-place-only-to-be-hacked-down-to-pieces-by-killer jig), its slowburn stroll towards the premise's characters and underlying themes of coveted youthfulness patiently covered enough depth behind the smut and savagery that the resulting murders and the handful of nightmare imagery earn their striking shock value; we get to see sides from both the protagonists and their antagonistic counterparts that aren't typically explored from a paint-by-number slasher film, in which X (2022) both breaks and plays the norms around horror character tropes and gives us a slightly inventive reworking of what we normally expect from these types of casts in turn. 

For one, the clichéd "sex means death" story element reeks high among our casts of smut enthusiasts as their pornographic debauchery fuels our antagonists with murderous rage, seeing the exploits as a mockery to their religious lifestyle, yet the writing in the story's slower moments fleshed out a little more from our doomed film makers, hinting lives they wanted to escape and opportunities they're intrigued by despite their couth nature and skepticisms which paints sex on a more positive outlook, rather than condemning it. The same can be said to our killers who we could've easily classify under the typical "fire and brimstone" psychos blaring 24/7 religious TV propaganda; they degrade their guests as whores and degenerates on one end, however the film made it clear that their hate stems from the fact that they miss their own opportunities to be carefree and hedonistic, their own carnal desires now out of reach due to their age and a strict Christian upbringing. It's a warped concept of oppressive religious ideology that isn't exactly new, though welcomed here for how it's applied.   

For a relatively small casts, every member pretty much nailed their roles and kept everything their characters do in tone to the movie's flow and atmosphere, especially Mia Goth who showed a range of talent by donning two contrasting lead roles: as the headstrong yet vulnerable aspiring actress Maxine Minx who appears to be drowning her past with sex, drugs and a dream in showbiz, and as Pearl, a sexually frustrated hagsploitation biddy, wielding a knife or a pitchfork on one hand and a caressing, yearning touch on the other. In regards to the slasher goods, a serviceable deal of the kills are gruesomely gory and those that aren't make up for it with imagery and tension, one of which even standing out as a nod-and-wink tribute to Hooper's Eaten Alive (1976). Cinematographer Eliot Rockett films amplifies the deaths and creepiness with stylized angles and lighting, elevating simple scares and murders with a bit more flair, and the make-up and effects done by Netherlands-based MimicFX Studio among many others just add that extra horridly squeamish touch that keeps a slasher flick exciting! The score done is also hauntingly fitting, managing to turn orgasmic moans and angelic hums into a foreboding suite of dangers to come.

X (2022) is certainly more on the patient side given its pace on plotting, but one cannot argue with the resulting carnage and grue once shit really hits the fan, as well as the intriguing themes and character dynamics we get along the way. At that, I can honestly say this is one of Ti West's stronger movies and one of the best slashers to come out in modern horror! And with its prequel Pearl to be released soon, you can bet your sweet Johnson I'll be keeping an eye out for it!

Bodycount: 

1 male knifed in the neck, stabbed to death

1 male stabbed in the eyes with a pitchfork

1 male body found rotting in a basement

1 male shot on the chest with a shotgun

1 female eaten by an alligator

1 female shot on the face with a shotgun

1 male suffers a heart seizure

1 female had her head ran over with a van

Total: 8

A Texas Ghost Town Encounter: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher and Mark Burnham

It's been a while since we got another timeline for our favorite powertool-wielding, face-wearing Texan, isn't it?

Picking up decades after the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we follow young entrepreneurs Melody and Dante as they travel to Harlow, a supposedly abandoned Texas town, to auction off its properties to visiting buyers eager to turn the area into a trendy, gentrified haven. Tagged along with them is Dante's girlfriend Ruth and Melody's sister Lila, and things go off on a rather rocky start when, while inspecting an old orphanage, the group discovers it is still occupied by an elderly woman named Virginia who claims she still owns the building. An argument breaks out and ends with cops being called, Virginia's heart acting out from the stress and the last of her ward, a towering silent man, accompanying her as she's taken to a hospital. 

It all goes downhill from here when, while the teens busy themselves with the arriving real estate party, Virginia passes away in her ward's arms, triggering a murderous psychosis in him as it's revealed he's none other than Leatherface, the maniac responsible for the 1973 murders, hiding in plain sight all these years. Now making his way back to Harlow, leaving a trail of bodies behind, Leatherface sets his eyes on slaughtering anyone that comes across his path, this including our doomed little business group and a busload of gentrifying influencers.  

While "legacy sequels" like Halloween (2017) and Candyman (2021) busy themselves expanding the lore of the franchise while trying to do its own thing, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) does little of the world building and more on running a bonafide straightforward B-flick slasher that's only in it for blood, guts and chainsaw carnage.

The plot is fairly simplistic, practically a hack 'n slash horror flick in its bare bones as it centers more on putting Leatherface on a solo villain act, with the rest of the Sawyer clan nowhere to be seen or are even mentioned. Its quick pacing meant the bodycount starts ramping up as soon as our killer Texan could grab hold of something sharp and pointy, and it doesn't stinge on the gore as practical and CG effects meld well here to deliver the gruesome goods, this including a bleak and nihilistic bus scene that will go down as one of slasher history's messiest climax, earning this movie's infamous title. 

These being the case, however, it does mean that writing isn't this film's best forte: with a story that focuses more on a killer and his kills, the rest of the characters hardly have any other personality apart from what they present outward, thus are thin on being interesting and/or likable. Plot holes are ever present, like how exactly Leatherface ended up living with Virginia in her orphanage after the events of the original film or the fact that our maniac is looking pretty sturdy and seemingly bulletproof for someone who's supposedly in their 70s to 80s. (I mean, it's been five decades, man! How is he not shriveled? Or riding a motorized scooter?!) There's also the matter that the film wasted potential elements that could have made this film a bit more engaging by mishandling and/or barely exploring ideas such as the real estate property sale, one of our main character's little history as a school shooting survivor, or having Sally Hardesty, the one who got away from Leatherface's massacre of '73, come back as a ranger grabbing the opportunity to end the monster haunting her all of these years. These little snippets could have been more but, no, they're there for five minutes and nothing else.

A clumsy execution, true, but if you're looking to entertain yourself with a back to basics slasher, these are nothing but small expected misfires. If anything, I'm just glad this film didn't try to reinvent itself much, staying true to the isolated Southern fried tone of the original with gorgeous scenery, worthwhile cinematography and a dash of dark humor to go along its carnal atrocities. (Yeah, let's see how well those social media likes can protect you from a gas powered cutting tool) The onscreen talents are alright despite the simple script and the take on Leatherface here is among the best I've seen for a good long while, an intimidating hulk of muscle and rage under his freshly skinned face mask, though somewhat still sympathetic as you kinda feel for his loss. Shocks and scares also has a genuine attempt here as the direction did play with our expectations a bit, especially around the beginning wherein who to trust and not gets juggled around to a good extent.

To put it short, I really enjoyed this. It's a bodycounter poking holes here and there, but makes up for it with tons of horrific fun meant to satisfy gore hounds and slasher purists. A blood soaked butchery in its sincerest form, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) is a definite keeper!  

Bodycount:

1 elderly female suffers through a heart attack

1 male had his hand broken, stabbed in the neck with a bone

7 victims seen dead from a school shooting (flashback)

1 male shot on the neck, brained with an air tank

1 female gutted with a metal shard

1 male hacked and mutilated with a meat cleaver, bled to death

1 male had his neck stabbed unto a window shard, head pulped with a sledgehammer

1 male decapitated with a chainsaw

1 male gutted with a chainsaw

1 male eviscerated with a chainsaw

1 male ran through with a chainsaw

1 male slashed with a chainsaw

1 male sliced down with a chainsaw, leg cut off

1 victim ran down with a chainsaw (mostly offcamera, screams heard)

1 victim slashed with a chainsaw (mostly offcamera, screams heard)

1 male gutted with a chainsaw

1 male ran down with a chainsaw (mostly offcamera, screams heard)

1 male seen with a missing arm, killed

1 male ran through with a chainsaw

1 female ran through with a chainsaw

6 victims seen slaughtered with a chainsaw

1 female sliced in half with a chainsaw

2 females and 1 male presumably killed offcamera with a chainsaw

1 female ran through with a chainsaw

1 female decapitated with a chainsaw

Total: 38

The Deadly Secrets of Osborne, Nebraska: There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)

There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)

Rating: ***

Starring: Sydney Park, Théodore Pellerin and Asjha Cooper

It all started with the murder of a small town football star; Jackson Pace was home alone and sleeping when he's awakened by an egg-timer going off next to him. He finds out that someone have been or still is in his house as photos of him beating a gay teammate bloody is posted all over the place. He eventually makes his way into a closet where a hooded figure just happens to be waiting for him, donning a mask resembling Jackson’s face and swiftly cutting the sport star's heels before knifing him dead. The murder is broadcasted all over town and talks of who's responsible spread the following morning.

Among pondering about the identity of the killer are Hawaii-born student Makani Young and her small group of friends, with some of them jokingly suggesting one of the dumb jocks while a few sincerely believes that a brooding loner named Ollie Larsson is responsible. Unbeknownst to them, Makani has a little history with Ollie, both being romantic with one another a Summer ago and she's thinking of continuing her sweet affairs with him, all the while keeping the relationship a secret along with her own troubled past. 

It isn't long before another one of the town's highschoolers bite the big one, this time class president Katie Koons, who recorded and anonymously posted a racist podcast. It comes to the attention of Makani's clique then that the killer is seemingly targeting people with dirty little secrets and, after a "Secret Party" gets held, where the attending youngsters literally have to share secrets with one another to make them "safe" from the prowling psycho (Glad to see Cherry Falls (2000) is still getting some recognition...), the motive is unfortunately proven true when Rodrigo, one of Makani's friends, gets the sharp blade after he fails to reveal his secret drug problems.

Already distraught from the loss, Makani is further torn when her friends begin to accuse Ollie as the killer since he did disappear during the Secret Party and his brother being the town's deputy also meant he can easily search private information about anybody in town. Makani couldn't believe it at first, but when Ollie reveals he did look her up, thus learning about the charges made against her back at Hawaii, and the killer just happens to target her next, she may have to face the chance that her boyfriend might be demented enough to start a spree killing...

Although the movie is based on the 2017 Young Adult slasher novel of the same name by Stephanie Perkins, There's Someone Inside Your House (2021) honestly feels more like a companion piece than a straight adaptation for how much it changed the narrative around, pretty much bearing its own plot with scenes and characters seemingly inspired by the book, rather. 

That said, I do like the straightforward and character-focused direction here as it gave us a workable and likable casts that we can definitely feel for. The film does lack a bit of edge when it comes to its horror and thriller elements despite the generous gore and creepy set-pieces, this is possibly due to the fact the approach taken here factors more on psychological and emotional horror through the film's theme of "weaponizing" secrets rather than excessive violence. This is seen and felt mostly from Makani's daily fear and paranoia of her past coming back to ruin her new life, often leading to her weighing the devastating losses she'd suffer from should anything she's hiding becomes public. Actress Sydney Park's invested performance as Makani undoubtedly played a big part on making this mostly work, though, story-wise, the direction could've been done even better should the rest of the victims were given the same poignant plight rather than making most of them deserving douches, soiling option for more effective cathartic moments.

Adding in the underwhelming reveal of the killer's identity which comes paired with a rather disjointed, too on-the-nose motive behind the killings, There's Someone Inside Your House (2021) certainly missed a lot of opportunities for improvement. Still, looking past the coming-of-age dramatics and the flawed thrills and horrors, the film has the saving graces of at least looking sleek, being occasionally funny and meeting its brutal quota whenever it needs to be met. It's workable enough in its excels to be more than another typical slasher through characterization and depth, so the film is far from terrible but unquestionably average for a dead teenager horror piece still. The book is better.  

Bodycount:

1 male had his heels cut, knifed on the chest

1 female gutted, pushed face-first to a knife

1 male had his throat slashed with a knife 

1 male found gutted

1 male found slashed across the chest

1 male gets a sword skewered through his head

1 male knifed to death

Total: 7

Lives And Deaths In Osborne, Nebraska: There's Someone Inside Your House (2017)

There's Someone Inside Your House
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publication Year: 2017
Chapters: 29
Rating: ****

Welcome to Osborne, Nebraska. Population of twenty-six hundred. 

Or, at least it was.

It's been almost a year since Hawaiian-born Makani Young moved to this small town and all she wanted is to live a life of normalcy accompanied by new close friends and a loving grandmother, as well as finishing her high school senior year without her dark past coming back to haunt her. But when news broke out that one of her classmates was found with her throat slaughtered and her eyes slashed into grotesque "dead cartoon eyes" one morning, Makani finds herself in the middle of the dilemma when she decided to rekindle her relationship with Oliver "Ollie" Larsson, her lonesome pink-haired Summertime fling and possible suspect.

With Ollie having a bit of a reputation, one that involves ghastly rumors about his parents' demise, it isn't much of a surprise that Makani's friends are uneasy with him just looming around her. But do they know him as well as she does? Or has Makani's budding romance towards the boy blinded her from the possibility that he could be a vile murderer? As more bodies pile up, it's only a matter of time before Makani learns the truth behind these killings and that she might be the only one to stop it.

With a tone screaming pure 90s slasher nostalgia, There's Someone Inside Your House is author Stephanie Perkins' first stroll in penning an impressively violent teen horror after her line young adult romance novels, merging coming-of-age teenage drama with bodycounting nightmares in an attempt to flesh out its characters and build up the intrigue surrounding the murders. It's a direction that comes with a double edge as after the tension-building first murder, the story halter itself into a bit of a slump as we focus greatly around Makani's relationship issues with (one of) the town misfits; a bit of romance adds layers to the plot and it gives our leading characters their likable charm and depth, yes, but a long while of this nearly made the plot looking a tad like another romantic shindig only with a side of slasher horror.

Fortunately, once the murders start rearing up again, the plot picks up in a speedy and entertaining pace as a couple of chapters are dedicated to the morbidity and creepiness of the killer's attacks, written with a flair of brutal dismemberments and visceral slayings, accompanied with effectively distressing mind games done to toy and unnerve its unfortunate victims. It's around these parts we also get to know more about Makani's hidden past and how it intertwines with her present state as a potential target to a killer who's doing well enough to evade capture. As much as it adds a bit of mystery and edge to the situation, I better enjoyed the fact that the developments within these parts got rocky and tested, yet ending with Makani and her friends and lover bonding stronger to form a firm little group racing against time to stop a killer from claiming more lives.

Curiously, the last third of the book is where the whodunit ploy gets swapped out with a more manic stalk-and-prowl act wherein the killer is revealed not just to us, but also to the main casts, and yet our psycho continues their rampage, slaying as many as possible while the whole town searches for them. It's one of the best turns the story could've made and the resulting carnage is as exciting as it is gruesome, plus the thrill of knowing the killer yet unsure where they'll strike next is a whole ballpark of satisfactory horror reading! 

For what it is, There's Someone Inside Your House is an interesting addition to horror literature and a fun, quick read for slasher fans who hopefully wouldn't mind a lot of make-out sessions before and after a bloody good kill. While it may not necessarily add anything new, it's a good story that you can't put down, especially once that hunting knife gets wielded and the town of Osborne gets to know the face of true madness!

Bodycount: 6

Notable Kill: In context, this is a simple kill with some laughable imagery, but an entire chapter was built around the murder of a football player contemplating whether he is suffering from CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) or not. The details written about his panic, confusion and distress just made the entire thing a lot more cathartic. I feel for the dude...

Headless Hackers: Sleepy Hollow high (2000), The Hollow (2004) and Headless Horseman (2007) Triple Bill Review

It may no longer be Halloween as of writing this, but it is still Fall season and nothing spells Autumn ghost stories than The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a 1820s Gothic tale by author Washington Irving which tells the story of one headmaster, Ichabod Crane, and his encounter with a headless Hessian one ill-fated night in the titular town of Sleepy Hollow. Adaptations of this story are plenty, ranging from animated Disney shorts to Jeff Goldblum-starring TV flicks spots, and you can bet your cheeks we have slasher varieties from time to time, one of the more known ones being directed by Tim Burton with a supernatural slasher-fantasy feel, 1999's Sleepy Hollow. 

But if you're looking for trashier, sillier and cheesier rounds of headless horsemen hacking the hapless helpless, then head no further! Here are three slashers titles taking their own twist on the Sleepy Hollow story and, my god, aren't they something~

~~~

Sleepy Hollow High (2000)

Rating: **

Starring: Meagan Lopez, Ruben Brown, Antonio Benedict

After getting caught pranking a snitch one night, five delinquents from Sleepy Hollow Highschool (who curiously look like people in their 20s) are punished to do community service by cleaning up a nearby park ground or else they'll get expelled. A counselor aptly named "Mr. E" (*muffled screams*) accompanies the gang to the clean-up so he can keep an eye on them but, in the midst of yardwork, money-funded teen drama writing and supposedly captivating red herring-filled thrills, the group will soon find out someone is taking their local legend way too seriously as a pumpkin masked killer shows up to collect some heads.

But who could it be? The snitch who is subtlety (as in, totally on our faces) seen giving them the stink eye while packing away a headless horseman costume at the trunk of his car? "Mr. E" (*even louder muffled screaming*) succumbing to his collar-grabbing short-fused temper? Or perhaps it's the headless horseman himself? Twirling his sword around and looking like a dork in a medieval fair, itching to punish some terrible people?

Strongly resembling a student film project that somehow got home video distribution rights, Sleepy Hollow High (2000) tries its hardest to be comprehensibly entertaining and, through small hoops and loops of unintentional hilarity, this micro-budget Breakfast Club (1985)-meets-supernatural slasher hybrid succeeds. By a molecular thread. 

As a slasher, it inevitably fails to impress; the janky mess that is this movie's editing made all of the pumpkin killer's slayings and brief chases barely watchable. Its use of shaky cam, near-absence of lighting and early 2000s CG bits somehow cheapening every sword swing and flying Halloween décor body parts even more than it should be possible. The worse to come, however, is this movie's own conclusion in which it pulls a Slaughter High (1986) twist on us that doubles down with a rather pointless implication before the credits roll, which ultimately adds very little to the already generic backwoods slasher plot. These peeves trip and bog the movie down drastically and I would have trashed it as dumpster fire if it wasn't for some of the laughs I got out of it.

Granted the movie also suffers from characters being detestably annoying and unengaging in their bad boy/girl melodrama, and the movie's poorly composed production rivaling your annoying uncle's home grown vacation videos, Sleepy Hollow High (2000) still has the ludicrous saving grace of being as interesting as a lumbering flaming wheel rolling down heavy traffic; tragedy bound's to happen but you just can't look away, much like how this film's misplaced attempts of seriousness clash so horribly with its inept quality that it's comical. It's so bad it's forgivingly good in a way (?), but I cannot deny that's a statement true to only a few people and plenty would likely just skip this one over. And I wouldn't blame them. 

As much as I like some slasher titles with dangerously high levels of cheese such as ThanksKilling (2008), Nail Gun Massacre (1985) and Truth or Date: A Critical Madness (1986), I still have to draw the line somewhere and Sleepy Hollow High (2000) almost got past that line if only it didn't fell apart stupidly in the end. Better luck next time, movie!

Bodycount:

1 female killed with a sword

1 female decapitated with a sword

1 female decapitated with a sword

1 male had his hand lopped off with a sword, hacked

1 male pulled through a sword, impaled

1 male sliced down in half with a sword

Total: 6

~~~

The Hollow (2004)

Rating: ***

Starring: Kevin Zegers, Kaley Cuoco, Nick Carter

This movie is just, for a lack of better term, cute!

In this made-for-TV cheapie chiller with a surprisingly large count of familiar faces, it's nearing All Hallows Eve in Sleepy Hollow and new-in-town high schooler Ian Cranston was just enjoying the festivities when he sees himself followed and pestered by the local graveyard's groundskeeper Claus Van Ripper, who calls Ian "teacher" (more often than one could stand, if you ask me) and believes he and his family are the latest descendants of one Ichabod Crane, thus the only ones who can stop the Headless Horseman upon his return.

Ian, of course, dismisses the ramblings, and the same goes for the rest of the town as everybody disregards the groundskeeper's fear of the Horseman's wrath and his consistent demands to call off the festivities. But as you would've guessed, the dark rider of the legends does arrive from the other side to hunt down horny teenagers and a few unfortunate bystanders around Sleepy Hollow, leading Ian to brave the night, heed Van Ripper's guidance and accept the role as the town's only hope for surviving that night. 

Despite the lack of gratuitous and exploitative elements likely to be found from its gorier slasher kin, I'm honestly surprised at how fun The Hollow (2004) got with its back-to-basics approach on awkward teen subplots and supernatural spookiness, both hardly that complex but appreciatively enjoyable nonetheless. Yes, it still has its cliched runs like Ian having a coach dad who's disappointed at his son for not embracing football, or how there's a love triangle between our hero, a pre-Big bang Theory Kaley Cuoco-lead cheerleader and her soon-to-be Ex played by a bullying Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys fame, but the main story of the Headless Horseman's hellish return and Ian's discovery of being the great great grandson of Ichabod Crane has the strong points of being a strange mix of seasonal coziness and late night popcorn movie silliness that knows it exists just to simply entertain.

Its lack of a high kill count, splashy murders and a more inventive look for the headless Hessian (Like, for real. Another literal pumpkin head?) may stray away slasher fans looking for a full-on hack-a-thon with chunky gore, as the Hessian doesn't really appear on screen until the last third of the movie and even by then, there’s not that much bloodshed committed and whatever grue we got is relatively tame. Overall, though, this doesn't detract how much I enjoyed this forgettable yet competently modest Halloween slasher and I think it deserves a few more genuine views from curious horror fans out there looking for a light fright flick.

Flawed but fun, The Hollow (2004) is far from a terrible pick; a mindless time-waster guaranteed to keep the Autumn spirits up and do a fair job bringing in the small thrills.

Bodycount:

1 male killed, body seen dragged away

1 female attacked with a flaming Jack-o-Lantern, killed

1 male beheaded with a sword

1 male beheaded with a sword

1 female beheaded with a sword

Total: 5

~~~

Headless Horseman (2007)

Rating: ***

Starring: Billy Aaron Brown, Rebecca Mozo, Richard Moll

Everything you know about the story of Sleepy Hollow? Throw it out of the window because, according to this movie, it's all whitewashed! 

Seven teenagers driving to a party in Kansas make the unfortunate mistake of taking a shortcut down into the woods, which trail just so happens to be rigged with bear traps. As their car hobbles down with a snared tire, a young tow truck driver named Candy just happens to be around and agrees to take them to the small and nearly isolated town of Wormwood Ridge to have their ride repaired.

In there, the teens learn through Candy that the town's preparing for the Headless Horseman Celebration, which is held every Halloween since 1806, the year a serial killing Satanist horseman named Calvin Montgomery preyed on the town's children for his rituals until the residents caught and hanged him, body left to rot and his head torn away. But unbeknownst to our gang, Montgomery, now a headless specter called, well, Headless, cursed the town with misfortune and will continue to haunt and prey upon it unless the townsfolk help him collect seven heads for a pact he made with his dark master. 

Now trapped in a hexed town desperate to end the horseman's nightmare, the teens will find out the measures these townies will go to keep them from escaping, as well as the decapitating, supernatural threat that is Headless.

Basically Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and Wrong Turn (2003) with one headless killer with fleshy tentacles growing out of his neck stump, I find Headless Horseman (2007) completely bonkers in the right way; the characters are your typical B-grade horror fodder devoid of depth and acted clunkily (a few more annoying than the others), and the plot makes very little sense and even feels a tad too convenient at times, but the sheer amount of cheese, insanity and blood warped around its run and the admittedly creative take on a lore inspired by the Sleepy Hollow tale make this film a shred more tolerable to sit through than it should be.

It's nothing we wouldn't expect from a predictable and sleazy made-for-television SyFy shlock (back when it was decently called "SciFi"), bad early day CG, banal writing and all, but the movie doesn't shy away from embracing the outrageousness of its story. That said, expect a lot of genuinely fun and cheeky moments thrown in, like how Headless is one part eldritch abomination slowly growing its head back the more he decapitates his intended victims, or how he badassed his way out an exploding garage by riding a motorcycle!

WHY IS THIS NOT A THING MORE OFTEN?!

The horror elements just work in the simplest sense; though the deaths mostly lead to decapitations, the kills have variety and the gore is surprisingly done with well enough practical effects. Headless also himself proves to be an efficient villain to dish out these murders and put up a good fight, and, again, the brazen Satanist-cum-Lovecraftian angle they went with his origin does warrant good points for how off-the-wall it is. The pacing does plod off whenever the film feels the need to dump some expositions, but it fortunately rewards our patience with a good climax trailing straight down to a nifty three-against-one final brawl.

As dumb this movie can get, Headless Horseman (2007) still has enough fun content to make up for its drag and slop. It's not gonna be everyone's humble horror pie, no doubt about that, but as a harmless slasher effort? I say track this down and give it a try! Could be worth some laughs!

Bodycount:

1 male found headless

1 male decapitated with a thrown blade

1 male decapitated with a car's trunk

1 girl decapitated with a sword (flashback)

1 male attacked with a sword, hanged and pulled until decapitated (implied in book)

1 male shot a car's gas tank, immolated

1 female bashed with a flail, decapitated on a bear trap

1 male beheaded with an axe

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 male decapitated with a sickle

1 male shot

1 female decapitated

1 female shot

1 male shot

1 male shot to death

1 male ran over with a truck

120 individuals disintegrated into dust

Total: 136

Never Leave A Frendo Behind: Clown In A Cornfield (2020)

Clown In A Cornfield
Author: Adam Cesare

Publication Year: 2020
Chapters: 31 (Epilogue included)
Rating: ****

With hopes of starting fresh after the recent death of her mother, high school senior Quinn Maybrook finds herself moving out of the big city Philadelphia life to settle in Kettle Springs, Missouri with her father after he accepted a job there as the resident doctor. She is quickly taken in by a gang of misfits led by one Cole Hill after their science teacher suddenly goes mental on them on her first day at the town's high school, learning about the growing animosity between the town's youths and elders from this outburst, as well as from a brief incident at a local diner.

When a Founder's Day celebration goes disastrous after a prank gone wrong, however, it seems someone in town thought enough is enough, that these kids are out of control and they need to be taught a lesson they'll never ever forget; dressed as a certain porkpie hat-wearing town mascot Frendo the Clown, the killer stabs, slices and shoots their way through the town's youthful residents and all those who get in the way, which spells nothing but bloodshed and a possible end for Quinn as she'll soon see herself caught in this maniac's madness.

A gutsy take on a young adult horror novel, Clown In A Cornfield holds nothing back in regards to its bodycount horror and social commentary with its talks of small town poverty and generation conflict, before landing itself in an array of vile murders and an admittedly dark twist. The book basically sectioned itself in two halves to achieve this, doing a solid job taking its time to build around the situation of Kettle Springs as a place and community first, with vivid descriptions of crumbling facilities, rural politics and old folks spouting about the good old days when their home is still flourishing. This often trails into the mischievous yet well-intentioned and very informative banters between Quinn's new acquaintances as they bring up a bit of the town's history and hint past troubles that may or may not lead to the carnage later. 

It does take a while to get things going, in turn. Varying portions of certain chapters give way into developing the character or characters involved, mostly delving into Quinn's thoughts on her situation as the new girl around town and her attempts to get past her mother's passing. The writing done for these segments shed a good amount of sympathetic light to whoever the chapter's focusing on (some more than the others) but, in typical slasher fashion, once the town's secretive Founder's Day party gets held, the book mostly drops this in-depth look into rural life and teen conflict to eventually shift its gears to a more adrenaline-rushed pace, chaotically running down as much death and mutilation as possible in written format.

Without giving away much, the killings in this second half are linked to a conspirator who wants to weed out what they see as blighted youths to make Kettle Springs "great again". It starts out with your classic masked slasher stalkings and standard set of murders, but it soon breaks down into something more of a survivalist horror thriller as the kill count doubles in digits and teens start dying left and right in what looks like an active shooter scenario perpetrated by a creepy clown, undoubtedly the book's most unforgettable scene. This escalates even further to an unexpected turn that warrants a lot of shotgun-totting and even more bodies piling up, a reveal that, while not overly original (I can name two to three movies that this twist reminds me of), still deserves some merits for how well it was pulled off, putting great care into detailing the attacks and tying these set-pieces into the town's problems, both real and surmised, wonderfully. It all leads to finale that has us reading what I can best describe as a back-to-back villain monologue, a "boss fight" with guns and an epilogue that teases a possible new wave of slashing, a couple of moves that definitely echo the hammier side of slasher horror but still channeling a decent amount of grimness for just how insane and dark it is.  

From cover to cover, Clown In A Cornfield is a guaranteed page-turner of a slasher novel that delivers what it promises and more. It has the sensibilities of a 90s horror flick and the carnal homage to bloody 80s bodycounters, topped with new age teen theatrics and a bleak look into small town Americana. Again, for a young adult horror fiction, this is unrelentingly fun in a violent, old school horror way and I couldn't want it in any other way. If you have the chance to grab a copy of this at your local bookstores (or, have it in your eBook collection like moi!), don't you dare hesitate! 

Or feel the wrath of a chainsaw-wielding Frendo!

Bodycount: 20+

Notable Kill: A shocking crossbow massacre with multiple victims. The sheer chaos of this spree spreads throughout multiple chapters and the vivid details of the kills elevate the brutality of it all.