Genre: Horror
Publisher: Broken River Books
Publication Date: 31st Jan 2015
Pages: 77
MY REVIEW:
So earlier
in the year I read Mercy House by
Adam Cesare. You can read my review of it here. I think it was around that time
that The First One You Expect dropped
to 99p for a while. After reading, and loving, Mercy House, I thought I would risk a quid and pick this little one
up as well.
This is a short
story and you will have it read in about an hour and a half. Probably take me
longer to write my review. So was it worth the one Great British Pound I spent
on it?
Tony Anastos
hasn’t got a lot. He works part time at his local Stop and Shop and lives in
his parent’s basement. Apart from this, he makes ultra-low budget horror movies
with his friend, Burt. These normally involve hiring ultra-low budget, ageing
strippers to play the roles of the victims with Burt being the killer.
His new co-worker,
Anna seems to be very interested in his films. She is young and sexy and eager
to appear in his movies. She wants to be famous. Tony sees this as a way out of
having to hire the old girls and brings her on board.
When they
start a Kickstarter for the next movie, Anna’s methods for the introduction video
seem a bit extreme, but they work. From here on in, Tony is just a passenger as
everything kicks off around him with devastating effect.
I knew
nothing about this story before I picked it up. I only knew I had previously liked
Mr Cesare’s writing and it was going cheap so I grabbed it. It is so different
from Mercy House you wouldn’t think
it was written by the same person. Mercy
House was all out blood and guts and one hundred miles an hour. This was a
lot slower and concentrated much more on the intrigue than the out and out
horror.
Characters
wise we really only have Tony and Anna to concentrate on. Burt plays a little
part like he does in the movies in the story. He is a bit of a loner and this
is exactly what Tony and Anna played on. Tony is a bit of a mixture for me. He
is both likeable and loathsome at the same time. He wants to make it big in the
movie world and will basically do anything to get there, but I don’t think he
was expecting what Anna had in mind. Anna is a bit of an enigma. The Anna
everyone sees in work and in general life is quiet and seems to be the all-round
good girl. What Tony sees in her is a cold blooded killer who wants fame and
fortune and will stop at nothing to get there.
The plot is
a good one. You know what both Tony and Anna want in life. It seems pretty
simple for them to get if the Kickstarter goes well. What you don’t expect is
the twist the story takes as Anna’s persona starts to change and her dark side
comes to the fore. She is literally like two different people. You soon learn
that she couldn’t have a heart or one ounce of emotion in her body. Tony’s
being dragged into something he has no way of getting out of. This is plain to
see for the reader from the outset but you also keep thinking to yourself is it
possible they can get away with what they are doing?
This story
for me wasn’t just about horror or murder or someone seeking fame and fortune.
It was about control and how one person can lose it and another gain it without
the other realising it has happened. It’s about manipulation and how it can
affect two different people searching for the same thing. It is extremely
effective at getting this point across. Lives can change in the blink of an
eye. Sometimes when they do, there is simply no going back. Sometimes, even
though it isn’t, it just might be The
First One You Expect.
To
summarise: a short horror story about manipulation. It is full of intrigue and
tension and twists that you will never see coming. A very effective story that gets
its point across with no pomp and circumstance. Just good old plain
storytelling.
General rating:
★★★★★ how a short story should be.
Horror rating:
★★★★ a couple more scares needed for full marks.
If you would like to help support Confessions of a
Reviewer then please consider using the links below to buy The First One You Expect or any other books from Adam or indeed
anything at all from Amazon. This not only supports me but also lets me
know how many people actually like to buy books after reading my reviews.
Thanks.
Book Synopsis:
When he's not holding down a dead-end job or lurking in
his mother's basement, Tony Anastos spends his time shooting ultra-low-budget
horror flicks. After meeting his sexy fame-hungry co-worker Anna, he sees an
opportunity to launch his career into cult stardom. But when Tony's plan to
jolt their next film's Kickstarter into overdrive calls for real blood, he will
sacrifice the last bit of his humanity for a shot at recognition. But it makes
sense. Look at him. The stuff he makes, I mean, he's the first one you expect.
Adam Cesare is a New
Yorker who lives in Philadelphia. He studied English and Film at Boston
University.
His
stories have been featured in numerous publications, including Shroud Magazine,
while his nonfiction has appeared in Paracinema, Fangoria and other venues.
And
for more about Adam, visit his site or find him on social media:
Website - Facebook - Twitter - Goodreads - Amazon Page
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