Night Shoot by David Sodergren

Night Shoot - David Sodergren

 

Night Shoot is a wild slasher flick in novel form and it is a ton of fun with plenty of dreadful characters who couldn’t die fast enough!

Elspeth is our main character. In order to receive her degree in film & photography she has to complete a project with a group of mostly idiot jerk-offs. The lead jerk in charge decides his family’s ancient and crumbling ancestral home called “Crawford Manor”, surrounded by woods and sea, would be the perfect setting to film their horror flick. And he’s not wrong. I think I might like to move in there after reading the description. But there’s a catch. The whole thing must be done in a day and they MUST be gone by nightfall. Absolutely no exceptions or excuses. If not, well, they’ll see.

Naturally, as these are slasher movie characters and the people aren’t that bright, things go awry and the group decides to come back and film at night and that’s when the fun filled bloodfest begins!

I love horror films, good or bad it does not matter, almost as much as I love books and reading this novel was the very best of both worlds. The story sets up its dark and ominous atmosphere very well, creates a cast of killable characters and tosses in a huge handful of madness. It was a really fun book that moved fast and was relentless and creative and disgusting when the killing began. The characters make dumb horror mistakes and you’ll want to scream at all of them and that’s why I love things like this. They make me feel smart and smug and superior. As if I wouldn’t do the same thing in their shoes, lol.

The end is either going to work for you or not, I think. It made me cringe so hard in revulsion at one particular reveal and really got under my skin. It leaves you hanging a bit so be prepared for that. Despite not KNOWING EVERYTHING (and I’m one of those annoying people who needs to know everything), I still enjoyed this book so very much. It’s wacky and a little pervy, totally gruesome and definitely worth reading if you like this type of thing. If they ever film this madness, I will be the first in line. 4 1/2 stars

Bonus recommendation: I think a viewing of the film Castle Freak starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton would go nicely with this book! Treat yourself to both of them.

4 1/2 Stars