4.5 Stars
When I was looking for something new to read, I was instantly drawn towards two 80s style covers: Video Night (which I will review next) and Zero Lives Remaining, both by Alex Cesare (of Clown in a Cornfield fame).
What is it with Horror and 80s nostalgia? I don’t think the decade appears anywhere near that often in other genres. In my personal opinion, the 80s was the best decade for Horror movies, perhaps I’m not alone with that thought and that’s why movies now try to recreate the feeling. And if the movies are doing it, why not the books as well?
Zero Lives Remaining is not actually set in the 80s, but it’s set in an arcade with a room full of old video game consoles haunted by a ghost from that era. We get a nice little teaser with the chapter on how our ghost died, the death is gruesome, but Cesare chooses his words wisely and leaves most of the finer details to our own imagination. For now.
When our ghost kills someone in the present day (or rather the present day of 2014), his victims anger and hate permeate into him and things quickly turn very gruesome indeed. Cesare no longer holds back with the gore and terror.
From the descriptions, I’d guess the entire present day plot takes place in just about an hour, and it won’t take much longer than that to read through the novella, but that’s not just because there are few pages. Things spiral out of control at a spectacular level, which makes it really tempting to read the entire thing in one sitting.
On a final note I would also like to mention the special care Cesare takes with his characters’ personalities. We get a really well thought out bully, who is written with so much more insight than this archetype usually gets, and most of the other side characters get a couple of lines to show us their inner thoughts and conflicts, making them feel just that little bit more real and fleshed out.
Buy or preorder on Bookshop.org UK or Bookshop.org US using my affiliate link.
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