Post by Dreadlocksmile on Jul 23, 2009 19:45:01 GMT
Dreadlocksmile review:
First published back in 1985 Guy N Smith's novel `The Wood' was yet another pulp horror novel that cam from the prolific writing career of this pulp horror master.
Set in the quiet village of Droy, the novel begins with a WWII nazi bomber crashing into Droy Wood, located on the outskirts of the village. There were no survivors from the crash landing.
The tale leaps forward to the present day where Carol Embleton on the way home late at night after dancing the night away at the local disco is forced to hide amongst the dark undergrowth of the woods to escape a sex crazed attacker who is after her.
The next day and there's still no sign of Carol, so her boyfriend Andy Dark, a wildlife expert with the glorious title of `Chief Conservation Officer', goes in search of her within Droy woods. The police soon get involved and by now they are looking for all three individuals, Carol, Andy and the crazed sex-killer James Foster.
The local girl Thelma Brown was the last to see Carol Embleton and so is asked by a police officer to accompany him to the woods to help locate the missing girl. When they arrive at the woods, Thelma realises that the officer isn't who he says he is and darts off into Droy woods to hide.
A thick layer of fog masks the landscape of the woods, and as it does, so the dark secrets that have been lying within its expanse come out. The woods hold more dark and deadly secrets than just the remains of a crashed WWII German bomber. And the secrets it holds are not just dead, they're awake and out for the blood of the living.
Atmospherically the novel works well creating an eerie setting for this tale of ghostly hauntings. Smith's descriptive nature towards the dark and foreboding woods is superb, setting down an underlying creepy feeling throughout the tale. Alas, this does not save the novel from the loosely knit and altogether weak storyline that barely supports itself from start to finish.
The elaborate array of hauntings are intriguing and imaginative, but are never developed enough to bring out anything truly haunting. Smith's controversial passion for including an undead Nazi is once again present in `The Wood' with the WWII bomber whose spirit still roams the woods.
Smith also manages to cram in his usual necessity for a graphic sexual attack or two. This nasty premise adds a further unnerving element to the storyline, keeping the readers heart rate thumping away at a mile a second.
However, the one sin a pulp horror novel of this nature should never fall foul of, is to be boring. Pulp horror needs to be crammed with over-the-top violence, unashamed sexual scenes, corny and clichéd characters and above all an action packed and exciting storyline that doesn't once let up. Alas, Smith's `The Wood' drags from one dramatic event to the next, with the intersections too slow moving, making the story as a whole cumbersome and jerky to the reader.
The plot is too loose, with far too little direction to keep the reader entertained by the overall premise of the story. Hardly any development to the plot is apparent throughout, as the reader stumbles through a suggestive yet unsubstantiated tale of a haunted woods.
That said, Smith manages to throw in brief moments of inspired originality that claw the reader back into the tale. Characterization is mediocre throughout, with barely memorable characters meeting their demise then almost instantly forgotten by the reader.
You usually know what you're going to be getting with a Guy N Smith novel. Smith is a master of the intense and wildly over-the-top tales of elaborate horror. His unashamed use of excessive violence and depravity are what makes his tales so damn right entertaining. `The Wood' does still have brief moments of these base passions of Smith's, but without a strong storyline holding these together, the tale unfortunately fails to hold the readers attention.
The novel runs for a total of 170 pages, which is a little more than average compared with the majority of Smith's novels.
www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2C53AG7V14GQS/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm