Teresa’s Review of “Bone Saw” by Patrick Lacey
Welcome to our 2nd Annual Birthday Bash as Divination Hollow Reviews!
We’ll be celebrating all month long with a series of posts by our team and esteemed colleagues and this year’s theme is “Going to the Movies!” Join us as we share themed content with special “tickets” for each category inspired by cinema.
Celebrate with us!
Bone Saw
by Patrick Lacey
Liam Carpenter spends most of his time above his aunt’s garage, watching obscure horror movies and drinking cheap beer. But this week’s different. This week, things are getting weird. First, there’s his favorite director, Clive Sherman, showing up in town unannounced. Then there’s the string of murders that all seem like something out of Clive’s popular Pigfoot movie monster franchise. Throw in Liam’s mysterious new crush and the cough-syrup-addicted private investigator chasing her down and you might gain somewhat of a clue of what’s going on in Bass Falls lately.
And don’t even get him started on she-demons and blood sacrifices. Bone Saw studios is in town and they’re bringing you the bloodiest sequel featuring a pig-human hybrid killing machine you’ve ever seen.
I read Bone Saw by Patrick Lacey in anticipation for Divination Hollows Cinema Party Birthday Bash. It gave me a good reason to read it as it has been sitting on my shelf for a little while. I will start by admitting that I don’t particularly like slashers, not in movies, and not in books it would seem. I like the camp factor, and prefer when they are bit more tongue-in-cheek, and I will still watch them (or read them) but as a subgenre in horror, it is not the top of my list. Which is probably why I had put off reading this for so long. I don’t even know why I bought it in the first place, except maybe wanting something else from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing at the time and throwing this in to round out the shopping cart. Who knows? It is entirely possibly that I bought it just because I like the cover so much (great work by Lori Michelle, as always). Anyway, I had it, and now had the perfect reason to read it.
I was along for the ride for a lot of it. It was a bit campy, some despicable characters that I was happy to root against. And a fun premise. A bit of a movie geek, but only for the (apparently) extremely bad horror movies from Bone Saw Studios, Liam gets to meet his hero, the director Clive Sherman. But, you know, never meet your heroes, kids. Throw in a beautiful new woman in town, and Liam is primed to have the most confusing week he has ever had because his favorite movie franchise has come to his home town to film a new movie, and he is hot for the new girl. And then things get bloody.
Liam is a bit of a cliché character, but so is the plot of this book. And that is the slasher formula, right? So it works on that level. My interest started to wane in the middle, there were a few too many mysteries and a few too many new characters being thrown into the mix late in the game. I think that it probably would have worked well as a screen play, it does read a bit cinematic, which is what I think Lacey was going for. You do feel a bit like you are watching this on the big screen, surrounded by a bunch of other horror fans, ready to throw their popcorn at the screen when the monster shows up. But, as a book, it was a bit of a slog in the middle. And, since I don’t really like slashers, this might be true to the formula and I just have no idea. It was very meta in some parts, and I enjoy that.
As slasher books go, Bone Saw is a decently fun, quick read and it is definitely gory. If you like blood-soaked pages, then give it a try.
Review by Teresa B. Ardrey
Twitter @teresa_ardrey
