A small town, a dark past. Jenna Willcot is a spunky, disabled, horror fanatic who visits rural Montana for a stay at a horror-themed rental cabin. Jenna has struggled with severe anxiety for years, hardly ever leaving the house. This vacation will test her limits, and, she hopes, open her back up to the world. But she is about to find out her dream vacation is built on a nightmare.
25 years earlier, the Bitter Butcher massacred 11 people in the small town of Marion, on the land where Jenna’s vacation cabin now sits. Her arrival coincides with the beginning of a new massacre as a body is discovered outside town. It quickly becomes clear that this is no isolated incident, as further killings occur, each with their own connection to the original massacre.
Jenna starts seeing slashers around every corner and must team up with locals Erica and Jamie. Together, they will struggle to survive this killing spree while unearthing secrets connecting the town’s shameful history to slashers past and present.
"'You did not just say that! Never say 'I'll be right back'. You live in a fucking murder town and it's like none of you have ever seen a slasher.'"
They say you can't judge a book by it's cover, but sometimes, a book is exactly what's on the cover - Small Town Slasher delivers exactly what it promises - an homage to slasher flicks with a gritty, b-roll vibe, plenty of dark secrets and of course; a rising body count.
From the start it invokes the horror movie feeling of rolling fog, being watched by something creeping in the dark, playing out scenes of unimaginable brutality before slipping back into reality to meet our main narrator on her vacation. Even with a third-person style, Jenna's voice was spectacular - so conversational, thoughtful and easy to read. Did she sometimes espouse complete cliches and make exceptionally questionable decisions? Yes, and I loved her anyway, as she took some of the well-loved tropes of the genre to show it some love.
I felt a kinship with Jenna right away, not only because of her endearingly chaotic humour, but because of how she represented the way that disabled people often have to latch onto our method of escapism like our lives depend on it, and how we can drawn into the darker side of humanity as a way of controlling and understanding the horrors of the world, while also flipping the script with a searing indictment of horror tourism when it moves from human curiosity to exploitation and sensationalism.
"Horror provides me comfort in a world that can be uncertain and harsh. I'd rather provide the discomfort, the fright and terror to myself in a controlled environment; that way, I'm holding the remote control and have the final say on when the scares stop."
The story moves with a brilliant pace, keeping things moving but lingering just long enough for us to soak in the surroundings before we move on. The small-town atmosphere was immaculate, with Jenna making friends with the locals, finding the gossip and getting up to a lot of madness in her short trip to the cabin the woods while we see the murders first-hand from an unknown perspective, waiting for the danger to get too close and it all descends into a frantic, desperate fight to survive the night.
This is how to pay respect to classic horror - it was fun, suspenseful, mysterious - and made me want to double check my doors were locked … just in case.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Small Town Slasher is available from April 8th with Death by TBR Books. I received a reviewers copy of this title.
- This review is based on an advanced reviewers copy and the book has since been updated.
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