When I was first offered the chance to review Reel Horror,
I didn’t know what to make of it. It was by far the longest ebook I
had ever attempted to read, although at 180 pages and not exactly a
dense word count per page, it wasn’t exactly a feature length novel
either. Following an unlikable character through this cheesy,
implausible story did not sound very appealing to me, yet once the story
started, I found myself drawn in, standing beside these characters and
having a stake in the outcome as what I’d come to expect from the medium
was challenged.
Those
who have read the story are hopefully seeing what I’ve done there and
laughing their ass off, which is good, because that means the
dramatization of above events were worth it. I truly didn’t know what
the hell to do with this book when I found out it was an ebook, though.
It’s just never been a genre that appealed to me, and the short length
of the novella was probably as important a part in my going forward with
it as my upgrading to an Android phone.
Reel Horror
is a horror B-movie in ebook form, in more ways than one. It reads
like a screenplay, which means that instead of getting deep thoughts and
frightening descriptions, we get matter-of-fact descriptions of often
impossible things. Of course, this also comes with overly emphasized
actions that bring the story farther across the line between movie in
prose form and screenplay. Of course, the writing follows most of the
rules of prose fiction, but it has just enough screenplay elements to
translate in your mind as a movie.
I
wasn't lying when I said that I found Rich to be unlikable. It's not
that I found him to be unbearable- most readers have a friend like him-
it's that he has just enough traits I don't like in a person and just
few enough things in common with me that we wouldn't have any reason to
be interested in one another, save through his girlfriend, Sandra, who I
wish had more screen time. Page time. In any case, I hope she gets
both, should there be a sequel.
The
third character is probably the least "horror movie" of the novella.
That is because Shane, despite being an obnoxious character with an
interest in adult entertainment (not in that way, you pervs), is not
killed. This isn't much of a spoiler, considering that Shane’s not
exactly put in what you would call “danger” during the story.
Even
with Shane, though, you get a bit more depth than a story that fits
what I’ve described might be expected to portray. This is a story with
love. It could be called self-congratulatory (This genre we like is so
clever and we’re so smart for getting it!) but I don’t really see it as being any more so than the posts that many fandoms would do on Facebook: This is why we like this awesome thing.
In
the end, the simplest way to describe this is also the simplest way to
recommend it. This is a horror B-movie (PG-13, yes) written in novella
form, with traces of screenplay. It’s clearly an independent work (some
of the inconsistencies in formatting bug me, and a bit more of a budget
would have been quick to get rid of such things), but that doesn’t hurt
the story much at all, especially at this length and in this style.
I’d like to see it as part of some larger horror anthology, the
formatting tidied up a bit and placed alongside a few stories by the
likes of Stephen King and Mira Grant. That’s not to say that Reel Horror
is in the same league (or even tries to be) as those other authors, but
still, a good horror anthology with a theme that drew such different
styles together would be worth my money.
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