Blending the fast-paced gore, casting, and structure of ’80s slasher and final girl films with the dread-inducing mystery of more gothic haunted house tales, this horror tale keeps you guessing, laughing, and peeking through your fingers when it gets gory. The first victim is a homeless man living in a haunted crypt. I guess you could say that that is his own fault. The next guy is the Mexican gardener, Ben, the only character in cinema history to be given an extended laziness montage. Honestly, a full sequence showing him sleeping on the job, fishing, eating and just generally doing no work, before being seduced by the bored rich housewife and killed. The characters were well developed, especially given the length of the novel. I particularly appreciated the inclusion of some queer representation with a lesbian relationship prominently displayed at the beginning of the novel. David can write characters of any age and in any situation and manages to bring us different types of horror with every single one of his novels. Muriel McAuley has lived in the Scottish fishing village of Witchaven all her life. She was born there, and she intends to die there.

Now, I haven’t forgotten about that ‘gore-soaked’ aspect either. Expect the brutality and bloodbath that David is known for. Think ‘Maggie’s Grave’ and you’ll have an idea, and while this one doesn’t have as much as most of his books, it works perfectly to highlight the horrors and events Muriel is living through. Me neither. Something about demonic possession, my least favourite horror sub-genre. They even go for that most uncinematic and boring possession movie trope – the hypnotism scene.

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His employees buy or force people to give up their property. Most of them do exactly this. But not Muriel McAuley. Her counteroffer is simple and elegant. “Double the offer and then shove it up your arse.” Anyone who knows me could easily point out that when I find something I thoroughly enjoy be it books, movies, podcasts, songs, food, you name it, I become hyperfixated on it. This usually results in me eating poke bowls for three months straight and then not being able to look at fish and rice for a whole five months after, just to name a very topical example. A similar, but also kind of not similar, thing happened when I discovered horror author David Sodergren. In a collaboration article titled Spooky Book Recommendations for Halloween, I stated that David Sodergren is a horror fanatic’s author, and that will never not be true. When I found The Forgotten Island it opened my eyes to what horror fiction novels could be, and because of David, I went from owning four books to a collection that is now at least 200 horror novels strong. When I read The Forgotten Island I became hyperfixated with horror novels, and, unlike poke bowls, I did not tire of them for one second. He realised how trivial onscreen deaths were. They never got it right, couldn’t replicate the true gut-churning horror of real life.” The best damn horror book I’ve read in a while! I devoured it in 24 hours and even stayed up until 2am cos I just. couldn’t. stop. And I never do that!!

Watching these Video Nasties has forced me to develop my own mantra, which I repeat over and over under my breath for the first 10 minutes of every film. It goes, The story itself follows Muriel as she struggles to comprehend how this place she loves with all of her heart is being ripped away from her. She doesn’t have many years left and just wants to enjoy them in the home she’s lived in for decades. To some it brings redemption… to others, it brings only madness and death. What macabre secrets lie within… Do I think David’s work is grossly overlooked? Absolutely. Look at his body of work thus far; ‘The Forgotten Island,’‘Night Shoot,’‘Dead Girl Blues,’ Maggie’s Grave,’ The Perfect Victim,’ and ‘Satan’s Burnouts Must Die!’ I would call all of these Indie Horror Masterpieces. Sodergren fully embraces the DIY Self-Publishing model and the level/caliber of books he’s given us are second to none. And I’m not going to include our co-written novel ‘The Navajo Nightmare’ as I think that would be too biased, but I will say, his opening salvo that makes up the story is simply one of the best Splatter-Western stories released in that genre over the last few years. This plethora of Sodergren’s work made me believe that I was prepared for The Haar. After all, surely I understand what to expect from the man now?Sodergren’s many hours watching movies continues to pay off and he framed the scenes fantastic and injected a bit of humour at a few key spots, which upped the emotional attachments to the various characters. A group of film students manage to find the perfect, out of the way mansion to film their final movie together. There are only two conditions: They only have one day and they must be out of the house by 8PM. From there Sodergren flexes his writing chops and begins offing his characters in the best ways possible.