#stop having horror centered around sad white boys 2021

[drasnianfrank]

You ever read a book that was entirely focused on the most boring characters and finally, halfway through, switched to the characters I Actually Care About?

So, I read a book called The Toll by Cherie Priest. The synopsis describes newlyweds drove across a seventh bridge to some swamp land in Georgia. Husband wakes up the next morning and his wife is gone because there isn’t actually a seventh bridge. Good creepypasta stuff there (Aside: I love me some good creepypasta stuff, like I follow three youtube channels of creepypasta stuff, I read creepypastas for fun, I have creepypastas memorized, that’s how much I love me some good creepypasta shit). Because this is not, though, a short story on the internet that knows it’s audience has the attention span of five year old hyped up on Lucky Charms and Mountain Dew, actual plot and character “beats” happen. 

Now, I could describe, in excruciating detail, on why the novel fell flat, how turning something eerie and unsubstantial into a substantial, vaguely gator-shaped monster is unsatisfying. How unappealing the main characters were (the husband regularly gaslit his wife, the seventeen year old who is right on the edge of being a stalker of a bar waitress, and the bartender who is just, frankly, a complete schmuck). The side-eyeing I give when a place is set in Georgia and no one seems to be apparently black (Aside: when the author describes hair as blonde and doesn’t give a hint that anyone else is Not White, I’m going to assume everyone is White). (Aside of an aside: which by the way, if racism isn’t part of your Southern Gothic Horror, whether as a positive or negative, then you fucked up doing Southern Gothic Horror). But you know, what I want to talk about is the wasted potential of the two best characters. 

The actual interesting characters of the book are two women who raise seventeen creeper. They are described as cousins who have lived together their whole lives and also are witches. At the beginning of the book, they are old and mostly infirm and by the end, they have become kick-ass monster hunting ghosts. The book should’ve been about them right from the beginning. 

Actually, tomorrow I’m going to post what the story should’ve been, but, uh, it’s a bit long, so I’ll leave this for now.