There are good horror books out there, there are bad horror books out there, then there are books that I read that will stick with me for some time. We Need to Do Something by Max Booth III is one of those books.
In short, the book is about a family that is going through some serious marital trouble right at the same time that a tornado warning is issued and they have to hole up in a tiny bathroom together. Just the setup alone is tense! Throw in some odd weirdness, and this book doesn’t just crawl under your skin, it rips it off and wears it like a formal tuxedo.

While not similar in story, this novella gave me the same feeling and emotion as Penpal by Dathan Auerbach, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, and The Merciless by Danielle Vega. We Need to Do Something evokes a sense of dread much like those other books. Plus, while not spoiling it in the least, the ending was somewhat ambiguous, leaving it up to you, the reader, to figure what you think really happened. I love those endings. 

The novella is short, so Booth wastes no time jumping right in. I was also very impressed that he was able to get us connected and invested with the characters so quickly.

Do yourself a favor, read this book! Do it now. And remember, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. 

 

Warning, spoilers abound! 

I want to talk about the ending of this book. On the outside, we have a family trapped in their bathroom because a tree fell through the house and is blocking the door due to a tornado. No implausible in the slightest. Even the fact that they are trapped in there for days is not outside the realm of possibilities if the tornado was big enough. 

However, there is a sub-plot dealing with the POV character and her friend/love-interest, Amy. The two conducted a ritual that could have caused the craziness. One could dismiss it as nonsense and coincidence, or you could choose to believe that the two girls did, in fact, cause the apocalyptic destruction. These are the kind of endings that I love. The kind that make you think and wonder, and ultimately leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide what's going on. 

Near the end, the POV character is seeing all sorts of horrifying images. However, she's drugged and can't be trusted. So did she really see her friend appear with all the black tentacles controlling her body? Or was it part of her drug-fueled stupor? Her mother escaped the bathroom and came back frightened and rattled, but who knows what she saw, not to mention the mother is under A LOT of stress and isn't in her right mind either. 

Hands down, the most brutal aspect of this book is when the little brother dies from the rattlesnake bite. When the book started, I had an inkling that he was going to die. When the snake shows up, it only cements what is to come. However, it didn't make it any easier to read or experience. My hat's off to Max Booth III, he executed that scene perfectly. 

​Anyway, read this book. Seriously. 

​I recently watched, You Should Have Left, starring, Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried. Here’s the short synopsis according to IMDB: A former banker, his actress wife, and their spirited daughter book a vacation at an isolated modern home in the Welsh countryside where nothing is quite as it seems. In a nutshell, yes. However, the story itself is a little more complex. The synopsis fails to mention that the banker (Bacon) was acquitted of murder charges back in the day for the death of his previous wife and that the actress (Seyfried) is very busy with movie shoots and always has her nose buried in her cellphone. She has film shoots scheduled for London, so the entire family decides to go together so they can spend more time with one another and end up renting a large house in the Welsh countryside. 

It’s a simple setup and we don’t really need much more than that. Early on we see Bacon’s character struggling with anger issues and confidence issues that stem from the age difference between Bacon and Seyfried. Even during the trailer, my wife was making comments on the age gap (it’s almost double, Seyfried being 34 and Bacon being 61). However, they address the gap in the movie and it is a source of contention. The other source, of course, being Bacon’s past with his wife. Even though he was acquitted of the charges and found innocent, everyone seems to believe he killed his wife (she drowned in the bathtub after overdosing on too many pills).

The other major player in this movie, is the daughter, played by Avery Tillu Essex, and I have to say, she was probably the best actor in this whole production. She’s nine years old, but in the movie, she plays a six-year-old. She nailed it! Wonderfully done!
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Once they get to the house in Wales is when the creepiness gets cranked up. Not to spoil anything, but the crew did an outstanding job with some subtle horror using the background in this film. Ever since watching the movie, Insidious, I have always kept an eye on the background of horror movies. This one didn’t disappoint.
The movie doesn’t waste any time ramping up the horror and creepiness and Bacon begins to descend further and further into his own paranoia, madness, and rage. While there wasn’t anything super original with this movie, I still found it enjoyable and would recommend it to fans of haunted houses or weird horror. Overall, I give the film a 4/5.
 
Now, on to the spoilery section of goodness. 

Still here?

Good.
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So where this movie excels is in the details. The house itself plays an important role. We find out later that supposedly the devil built it to collect souls, and that over years it has taken on different forms. The devil builds it, God destroys it, and the devil builds it over. The house itself is bigger on the inside than the outside, and it can shift its layout at will. This becomes quite disconcerting for the characters when the house decides to trap one or more of them.

We also find out that the house reached out to Bacon’s character. In a nutshell, it emailed itself to them as available for rent and Bacon assumed that his wife wanted it and vice versa. Once it got him, he couldn’t leave.
At one point, Bacon finds out that his wife has been having an affair and has a second phone. He gets angry and kicks her out of the house. That’s when the spectral shit hits the fan. Things get crazy, it takes his daughter and tries to trick him. He eventually gets her back and they take off on foot for the nearby town four miles down the road. However, the road leads them right back to the house (as haunted roads and houses do). Fast-forward a bit, and we find out that Bacon killed his wife and the devil has him and tells him he’s not getting out, but he can let his daughter go if he wants, or she can stay with him for eternity.

The next morning the wife comes back and he loads the daughter up and confesses. After that, he returns to the house to face his punishment.

The movie plays on the shifting floorplan quite well, and also plays with time-shifts. I loved how they portrayed the first time shift as it’s the first night in the house. Bacon leaves his wife upstairs to go turn off all the lights and we get a shot of the camera. He walks all through the house and is kind of amazed at how the doors keep leading to other spots and how big the place is. He ends up finding the laundry room with a creepy polaroid pic on the wall of a shadowy figure. By the time he gets back upstairs, for him it only felt like 10 minutes, but the next shot of the clock shows it was five hours.

Anyway, watch the movie, let me know what you thought. As I mentioned above, the concept isn’t new or original, but I think they did a great job with this one.