3.75 Stars
Flesh eating burgers, a witch, dog’s POV chapters, spooky ballpit balls, lots and lots of corporate memos, dubious promotions and in the middle of it all is young Gary, grieving the death or disappearance of his best friend and trying to find out what All Night Burgers had to do with it.
I do enjoy watching weird and nonsensical horror movies of the Killer Something-that-doesn’t-usually-kill-things variety, so a book about killer burgers grabbed my interest. The fact that the author is being the relaunch of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 means he should know about all the best bad movie tropes as well.
While it was fun, it did eventually overstay its welcome for me. This one works better as a parody of the bad movie genre than a genuine effort. Pruett leans heavy into the fast-food theme, but unfortunately, no matter how you twist or turn it, ballpit balls and climbing frames just aren’t really creepy. Gary, Linda, and Rachel’s investigation starts off interesting enough, but eventually there are just too many “We know it makes no sense, but it just is like that” and then things are possible or happen purely because the story needs them to happen.
I am still mostly glad that I read Nightmare Burger, but in the end I think it should have been either funnier or scarier.
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