Kill Hill Carnage by Tim Meyer REVIEWED!

As the year closes out, I find myself in a "tough" predicament...as most Horror fiction blogs do, I am preparing an "end of year list".

While it's absolutely impossible to have read every new horror novel published in 2018, much less every book I have been sent for review, I am doing my best to cover the corners of the material that meshes at least somewhat closely with the things I enjoy reading, and therefore cover on my blog.

There were a few titles I was interested in covering by Sinister Grin Press, and when I outreached their publicist to obtain copies, she also suggested this one, Kill Hill Carnage by Tim Meyer. After checking a quick synopsis, I agreed.

Somehow, both this title and its author, have slipped under my radar. It's quite surprising to me, as this dude has quite a bit of interesting material out and is in cahoots with some of newer favorite authors. Not to mention, Sinister Grin has its own hallmark of quality that's been quite dependable.

Either way, a plot promising a "monster in the woods vs. White trash Hitman" paired with these accolades were enough to get me interested.

As fate has it, the stars perfectly aligned, as I had a great time with Kill Hill Carnage.

KHC is a light, off the wall read that screams "this is a lost novelisation of a movie Vestron was going to out before bankruptcy in 1989". If you're not a horror/b- movie nerd, that means you can expect goopy monsters, relentless action and hokey fun on vhs tape when grabbing one of their titles. That is what Kill Hill Carnage embodies perfectly.

At it's core, the plot is as simple and time-worn as they come- a handful of teenagers find themselves dead center of an urban legend massacre site, stalked by monsters and meeting grisly demises. A shady hitman, who may or may not have their best interest, is here to save the day...or make it worse...

A surefire recipe for safe horror story telling is always 'kids in the woods getting offed", but KHC slaps safety in the face, rears a middle finger, and blazes full throttle into a mile-a-minute thrill ride with an everything but the kitchen sink attitude.

You've got evil corporations, mad scientists, wicked priests operating corrupt Christian children summer camps, a total scumbag of an antihero, more slimy monsters and gory deaths than you can shake a stick at. It's all through the lens of Fred Olen Ray schlocky sci-fi tinged balls-out action-horror.

This book does not yield for anything, blazing by unapologetically, crashing to a halt only because its story has been told and the book is coming to an end.

It's a nearly three-hundred page book that reads in a few hours, with not a single drop-off in pace. Not once was I bored or waiting for the writer to get to the point (which is far too often something I deal with).

It may even be slightly too fast, as I closed it's cover just a few hours ago, and I'm struggling to recall the details. Kill Hill Carnage blazes by in such a gory, colorful zap that I'm hard pressed to remember much about the characters and dialogue or plot-twists. What I do recall is that those domains are quite predictable and trite, even the twists being done before.

However, I feel that this is done mindfully; Meyer appears knowing he's not writing a classic, simply waving and nodding to them, with the gore, goop and monster quotient multiplied to a thousand. He seems intent on writing a purely entertaining story, one that never gets boring or bogged down with flowery nonsense and endless subplots. In fact, I commend his unabashed approach, reading like the equivalent to classic thrash metal: non-stop, neck breaking and visceral.

It's literary fast food: short, sweet, dopamine-inducing pleasure that isn't going to stick with you for a long time but is easy, fast, familiar and tasty enough.

Even after discovering the joy of a 5-star steak and lobster dinner, I can still enjoy a   Quarter Pounder with cheese.

Ya feel me?

4/5.