SLAUGHTER BEACH BY BENEDICT JONES

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Slaughter Beach – where paradise becomes a blood-drenched hell.

What do you get when you take a down on his luck sea boat captain, and a bunch of pretty young ladies on their to a remote island for a photoshoot, chuck in some some stock characters a 1970's mentality and crazy inhabitant of the island?  

Sounds like a recipe for a really bad story doesn't it? And you would be forgiven for thinking that Slaughter Beach  was a horrible throwback to the pulp novels of 1980s, which in a way it is. 

However Benedict Jones has distilled the essence of these books and films into one thrilling and highly enjoyable read that basks in its love for the grindhouse films and books that are clearly an inspiration for this book. 

Slaughter Beach is in essence a novella filled with basic stock characters, we have the square jawed rugged hero, more pretty damsels in distress than you can shake a katana at, a good few sleaze bags, and a photographer who likes to get high more than he likes to take pictures of scantily clad girls.  These characters in terms of development and depth are barely more than ciphers, but that is not the point of this book.  They exist with one purpose in mind, to be hunted and killed in various over the top gruesome ways. 

You want decapitations, hands getting sliced off, emergency flares rammed into eyeballs, then you have got this and loads more, as Jones puts his cast of characters through page after page of glorious sweat drenched jungle hell.  

it is clear from reading this exhilarating novella  that Ben Jones has a great love for the source materials.  He has captured the essence of what made these films so great, but with a modern sentimentality, that removes as much of the sexism and obtuseness of the films, but he still manages to throw  in a few wry nods to the stupidity of them.  In particular there is a scene near the end of the book where one of the models decides to take a bath in a pool while still being chased by the killer. Too many who read this book it seems like a preposterous thing to do, when in reality it is so true to the genre tat it becomes marvelously meta   

And when you have an epilogue  that is pure horror movie heaven  you have what despite is rather thin plot and characterisation a novella that will thrill and entertain you for every page of its grimy grindhouse pages. 

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