Dread Central Review

Below is the Dread Central review for “Snuff.” As soon as it’s up on their site I’ll link to it in the “Reviews” section of this page.

-Adam

* * *

The gun went off and Wendy’s mouth went slack as she fell backward onto a dirty aquarium with sickly tropical fish inside. Glass and saltwater went everywhere. Her baby never took a breath outside the womb.

“So much for a woman’s right to choose,” Mikey dropped a wallet, his face blank under the mask-

This is a line from “Snuff,” the beginning to one of the most terrifying novels I have ever read, and probably the most incredible story I’ve ever read. Those who complain about movies such as Hostel and American Psycho for the torture, porn and raunchiness need to stop reading this review now. You will not like this book at all. Those of you who absorb this sort of thing, be prepared, I have yet to read something this macabre in true literary form.

When an out-of-work actor with a penchant for ultra-violent sex teams up with an amateur pornographer, the result is a lucrative business filled with unimaginable horrors.

Only when things take an incestuous turn, does Jack Sanders learn the dangers of the snuff film business. The mutilated bodies turning up across California are nothing compared to the revenge-driven imagination of a victim’s father.

Bodily fluids splatter the pages of “Snuff” as glimpses of Jack’s abusive childhood and shattered dreams build up to an unforgettable climax.

Brace yourself for an unapologetic experiment in brutality

And yes folks. This book is brutal. This book is disgusting. This book is definitely controversial to say the least. Those who complain about it being vulgar, vile, or horrific… that’s part of the story, and not to embrace it means you miss out on something extraordinary.

Ever since then, I’ve tried to live in freedom, but it’s been a lie up until now. We all have to pay taxes, fulfill corporate-created needs and answer to our instilled conscience. We read the papers, feign outrage and fuck on our anniversaries.

If everyone in the world committed suicide, where would all the politicians go and what would be left to own?

“Snuff” is a different book as well, because the countless horror novels being churned out are usually always the same. The subject matter in the book could really happen, and that is to me, the makings of a perfect story in the overly saturated vampire, zombie filled genre. Even if their premise seems different in most of these books, they are nothing more than a complex shroud of misery for the reader, overly clichéd (this has been done before drivel). Vampires for example are just humdrum anymore. And it’s hard to scare the reader today in this welcoming society of our not so polite future.

“Snuff” scared me.

The book is not meant to be scary, and that’s the thing that makes it so enchanting. Underneath the visceral alpha male sexuality, and extreme gore, there is a pure innocence of two men troubled. Jack Sanders is an out of work actor who becomes a vicious rapist killer, or maybe really always has been, under the severity of his incestuous past. In the book, you read about his attempts at becoming something greater. And one can only hope to be something miniscule after being savagely molested by his mother. His partner, Mikey, becomes enthralled by Jack’s endeavors. They begin killing a lot of girls for money. But what works in this book, that didn’t do it so well in Hostel, is that there is an actual story to be told. As sinister as Jack is, you can’t help but feel sorry for him. The characters are completely immersive and none are the all-too-well-known clichés. Only once you think you know where things are going are you embarrassed by how wrong you’ve become. The hunters soon become the hunted, which is another wonderful weaving of plots in Snuff. It’s done delicate and well and fast paced counter balancing the extreme and brutal gore. One girl gets raped with dry ice. Another has cleaning chemicals dumped into her exposed brain and still she is raped. Even the father of one victim becomes more disturbing then the two lead killers in the book, which is something I’m finding less and less in novels of today. Too many books follow the same scope of structure in their defined genre. Snuff, surprisingly doesn’t. What I thought was to be another torture porn rip off turned out to be the best read in months.

The book makes some pretty wild twists and turns and some of the rape scenes make you nauseated. I won’t spoil it for the readers, but there are new and ingenious ways that people are killed in this book. I can’t imagine any woman being able to finish it, and I can’t imagine anyone who meets Mr. Enck or Mr. Huber in person would be able to shake their hands after writing this novel.

Except me. I would be honored to shake their hands. They have actually written something scary. That’s a hard thing to do anymore.

Dread Central-

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