Book Review: THAT NIGHT IN THE WOODS

Title: That Night in the Woods

Author: Kristopher Triana

Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications

Pages: 336

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐

 

Of all the different kinds of horror stories, the slash-and-gore fest is the one I dislike the most. There seems to be no point to the violence, which intensifies, until it seems to head towards a deadly collision. It’s all a bit too overwhelming for my taste.

 

More than 25 years after high school, Scott Dwyer invites his old high school friends, Jenny, Tracy, Corey and Mark to his house in their old hometown to honour the memory of their old friend Steven who has died recently.

 

Something truly scary happened the last time they were all together in the woods behind Scott’s house, back in 1995 during Halloween. These woods were infamously called Suicide Woods, because a number of teenagers went into the woods and killed themselves.

 

Severely traumatized, the friends all fled town after high school, never returning until now. In all these years, they have had no contact with one another, never seen or spoken with another one of their friends, until now.

 

But this reunion is anything but innocent. The horror that terrorized them still awaits them. And this time it’s not about to let go.

 

 

The author brings us up to speed on the lives of Jenny, Tracy, Corey and Mark, in their early forties, as they face stagnation in their lives. It is clear that the thought of returning to their hometown scares them all for some reason, and yet their curiosity trumps their sense of reason.

 

Unfortunately, this update about each of these four characters comes over four long chapters, delaying the point at which the story actually starts. Also, what was the point in giving us all those details about the character’s personal lives, if it wasn’t going to matter at all except to let us know that they were all unhappy with their lives.

 

Even once they meet, the real point of the story takes a while to show up. The friends are too busy fantasizing about each other, and basically reverting to their teenage selves, forgetting that they should have evolved.

 

What the author says about places being haunted by the emotional impact of the deaths of the victims and of the feelings of the killers and those who survive the victims made sense.

 

The book needed to be proofread. There were lots of spelling and grammatical errors that could have been avoided. In describing Traci, the author uses the phrase, ‘extenuating those long legs,’ when he should have used the word, accentuating.

 

But some lines in the book were well written and stood out. Here’s a sample:

 

Blaming scary movies, heavy metal, video games, and gangster rap was just a pathetic effort to explain and understand human atrocity. If someone had murder in them, their influences were irrelevant. They would have gone on to kill, no matter what. Lust, greed, and politics were the true instigators.

 

Sometimes the mind forgets because it must do so to stay sane.

 

People say the beasts come out at night. But it’s not the night; it’s the darkness. Whether the darkness of the woods or the darkness of a movie theater—it’s all one. In darkness the evil things know they won’t be seen. In the shadows, they can do whatever they want to a little girl.

 

I plodded through this book, wishing it would end already, but only because I generally make it a point not to give up on a book. That Night in the Woods is the sort of book that might appeal to others. It just wasn’t for me. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)