#horor

Rachel Harrison

Rating: 2/10

Horror Score:🫀/5

Horror type: satanism

Review: Boring and cliche with obnoxious narration.

Maybe it's my fault for not getting along with this book. After all, I read the blurb (protaganist leaves her staunchly religous community at eighteen, returns home for her cousin's wedding, exhumes a terrifying secret and has to confront her own crisis of faith) and assumed I was in for an interesting horror-based critique of religous trauma set in a Christian community. Instead, I got a predictable slog with the main fear-factor being satanism and satan just kind of being there (blah, don't care).

This book had the honestly astounding ability to make me more bored with each new obvious reveal or plot twist. There was no point in the book where I was genuinely surprised, just the slow, inexorable reveal that my high hopes were in vain and what I was reading was a bland amalgamation of milennial cringe and boomer satanic panic.

The main character, Vesper, feels bland, has no clear motive and commits the grave sin of being annoying. She's generally resentful at the world in a way that feels forced. For a few scenes, it seems like her anger and resentment are going to become a big thing, though this anger is never signalled by anything more than the words 'I'm pretty pissed off right now'. Instead, the effects of her rage are mere serendipity on the world around her instead of being a genuinely held or compelling emotion. It's dropped in two chapters anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

(more complaining and spoilers below)

For the past several months, I've had the immense pleasure of working as a creature and character designer, as well as an illustrator, on the upcoming tabletop survival horror game Pilgrim: The Haunted Frontier.

Created by Buer Games (1490 Doom and Carnivore), the game is set in the early 17th century and follows a group of stranded pilgrims whose only chance of survival lies deep inside the haunted forests of a strange new world.

This is just a small sample of the illustrations I've created for the game, with much more to be revealed as we get closer to release.

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The man standing outside

He hid you away, safe, before getting the rest of the team. But when medical came you were gone..

No signs of struggle, no drag path, no blood.

No signs you existed. 

They searched with dogs, choppers, men on the ground. But nothing was ever recovered. 

No dog tags to give your family.

No body to bury.

No uniform to hang.

So weighted with guilt simon wonders everyday what happened to you.

Where to dragged off by enemy soldiers? 

But no blood splatter...

No shreds from animals getting to you...no flesh torn.

So then what..? 

He tried to move on but he couldn't, seeing visions of you in the dark, waking up in cold sweats..

He never should have left you behind..

One night when he sat on the couch, beer in hand, gear tossed to the side he wanted to watch some tv before calling it a day, but he couldn't turn the tv on for whatever reason. 

He sat, slightly confused staring at the black screen before he heard his Radio crackle.

He checked it, maybe he was drunk...

But it was switched off, but static was still coming out, coming through on an old unused channel, with the right encryption files he could understand it now.

''I'm right where you left me...'' 

It was your voice! 

He threw his radio clean across the room, it thudding against the wall heavily before falling to the floor. 

He backed away from the radio, breathing heavily, years of mounted and suppressed emotions and trauma coming back crashing over him.

A scary thought came across his mind, Maybe he should answer..?

 The radio breathed, then followed by a small sob.

He tried to answer but he was too choked up, trying to keep it together.

When Gaz came to check what the loud thud was, he found simon sitting on the floor, head in his hands, shaking violently. 

Simon looked up as Gaz walked in, eyes bloodshot.