I’ve recently found that these older horror novels are hard to come by, and after market prices are offensive.
So when I stumbled across this, I knew it would make for a hell of a Halloween review…despite it taking place in May… <.< >.>
A as much as I love horror, I don’t have many good experiences with horror books/stories, they generally come off feeling too forced and, frankly, a little lame to me.
So now I’m left to wonder how well will this one represent the franchise and genre?
This is your stabby stabby, but still official ***SPOILER ALERT***
A few days before Mother’s Day, Carly is feeling pressure from her friend Boone to go away on a camping trip, she relents when she finds out local beefcake, Paul Sexton, is also going on the trip.
The next day, Carly meets Boone, a horny Hippie couple, Paul, a stuck up French girl named Monique, and your stereotypical chubby loser odd man out Albert, and they head to Camp Crystal Lake.
During the journey, the first details of the Jason Voorhees story out and freak everybody out, particularly Monique and Albert.
Despite that, the kids get settled in at the camp and drunken fun ensues.
Saturday, the bodies start dropping.
First and foremost, it must be said that this is a YA novel, but that is no excuse for the lack of blood in the first, oh I don’t know, HALF of the book?
I understand a shit ton of these movies, though this franchise in particular, tend to have a kill at the top, then 30 minutes of nonsense that makes you hope the killer wipes out the horny rabbit teens, but holy hell, let’s go already!
I was afraid this was gonna be a wholly toothless affair, thankfully that was not the case…eventually…
One of the major flaws of this book for me, and I honestly can’t even shit on this book for it as it’s one of the major problems with this series after Part 4, and Halloween unfortunately inherited it in recent years as well.
The transference of Jason’s spirit/control by Pamela angle just bores me.
I would much rather have Jason himself slashing his way through these shithead kids.
I understand going supernatural and bringing these characters back from the dead, but I have never understood, and probably never will understand, why they went the possession route.
I guess it’s kind of cool how Eric Morse (aka William Pattison) laid the track for it to happen, but it’s just not interesting to me.
I really wonder what he’d do if he wasn’t saddled with that particular baggage.
Now, with all of that out of the way, and to start wrapping up, once the bodies get to droppin’, buisness starts to pick up.
Morse handles things well.
The kills are pretty gruesome, with quite a few severed heads playing into things in a big way.
There’s dream sequence with a pretty good swerve.
And he generally captures the essence of dumbass, horny kids pretty well, even if he does lean on the sad doofy fat boy trope a little hard.
Look, gang, this is YA horror, so if you come into this expecting gore om th3 level of the movies, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
But if you’re looking for something that goes a bit further than Goosebumps but won’t scare a kid, I think this is a damn good bet.
I think I’ll definitely be reading more of these.
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Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
