Woo hoo! Time for a horror novel 🙂 And I’ll be reviewing Christopher Golden’s “The House Of Last Resort” (2024) today. If I remember rightly, I was looking for horror novels online when I stumbled across one of Golden’s other books.
And, although that novel didn’t interest me, Natasha MacKenzie’s gnarly “undead rat” UK cover art for this novel grabbed my attention. Looking online, the cover art for the US version is much more boring and generic – so, it’s a rare case of Britain getting the cooler thing 🙂 And, to my delight, there were also vaguely sensibly-priced second-hand copies online too (I think that mine was about £4-5).
So, let’s take a look at “The House Of Last Resort”. This review may contain SPOILERS.
This is the 2024 Titan Books (UK) paperback edition of “The House Of Last Resort” that I read.
The novel follows a wealthy American couple called Tommy and Kate who have travelled to the Sicilian town of Becchina in order to move into their new house and spend more time with Tommy’s grandparents.
Faced with a declining population, the mayor of Becchina has started selling off the town’s abandoned houses for one euro each, on the condition that the buyers renovate them. And the local estate agent, Franca, has found Tommy and Kate a spectacular old mansion to move into. “Old mansion”? “Suspiciously cheap housing”? Oh, yes, this is classic horror story stuff…
One of the first things that I will say about this novel is that it is a fairly compelling paranormal horror story, with an atmospheric setting, a slightly cynical sense of humour and an interesting twist. Yes, it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel but, if you’re looking for a fun, readable and interestingly-paced medium-strength horror story, then this one is definitely worth checking out.
Although it isn’t that gory, it still seemed like a modern version of a cheesy 1970s-80s pulp horror novel in the best possible way 🙂 And, whilst I usually read in silence, I imagine that this novel would go really well with a song by the rock/metal band Ghost – like “Rats” or “Satanized” – playing in the background. Seriously, if this novel is ever adapted to film, at least one of these two songs has to be on the soundtrack!
There’s a surprisingly good mixture of different types of horror here. Although it initially seems like more of a traditional ghost story – and there are certainly ghosts – it also catches you off-guard with some old-fashioned “demonic possession” horror, as well as some psychological horror, a bit of dystopian church-based horror, some general tragic horror, some paranormal body horror, a few injuries, some menacing moments, lots of macabre catacombs and occasional creepy giant rats.
Yes, the rats are more like psychological horror monsters than the ravenous creatures in James Herbert’s famous 1974 novel, but they still add something extra – namely a couple of vaguely zombie genre-adjacent moments. This is an enjoyably medium-strength horror story – although I imagine that it’ll probably frighten religious readers more…. Well, unless you’re someone who follows this religion.
There’s also a satirical element to the characters too. With the over-enthusiastic rich American protagonists wanting to “save” a dying town by setting up a tourism council, pestering their friends back in the US about moving to Italy, barely speaking any Italian and – most amusingly of all – wanting to turn the feared local catacombs into a tasteless tourist attraction. And, being a horror novel, of course this goes hilariously wrong 🙂
Whilst the two main characters – Tommy and Kate – can be just as annoying and/or obnoxious as you’d expect (which, to be fair, adds a bit of cathartic “poetic justice” to some of the scary moments LOL!) they seem at least vaguely likeable some of the time. The cast of background characters are a bit stylised, but they at least seem like vaguely realistic people. Rohaan, Patrick and Marcello are probably the most likeable characters in the story.
As for the writing, this is a novel for people – like me – who grew up on pulpy horror and thriller novels. Golden writes in fairly “standard” matter-of-fact third-person person narration which is very readable, moves along at a decent pace and does the job. Personally, I like this style of narration, but it might not be to everyone’s tastes. It isn’t “literary fiction”, but it doesn’t need to be.
The novel’s pacing is also interesting too. The story initially seems like a slightly slower and more subtle ghost story before eventually turning into a faster-paced horror-thriller type thing. This pacing works surprisingly well, with the first half to three-quarters of the novel building enough atmosphere to make the later parts even more gripping and thrilling.
The Sicilian setting is really atmospheric, with some evocative descriptions and the occasional well-placed line of Italian-language dialogue. I’ve never been to Sicily or mainland Italy, so I have no clue how realistic it is – and some other reviews I’ve seen on the internet claim that it isn’t portrayed realistically – but it’s an interesting setting nonetheless.
And, even though this is very much an American horror novel, there’s just something to horror media that has at least some vague connection to Italy. Seriously, many of the best horror movies of the 1970s-80s were made by Italian directors (like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci) and one of the scariest horror games I’ve played is Italian too. Plus, the old mansion is not only an atmospheric setting but the dark history of it certainly adds a bit of extra creepiness to the story as well. And the ending certainly gave me a bit of a dark laugh as well.
Most of all, though, this is just an updated version of the sort of goofy 1980s-style horror story that is always fun to read. At a fairly efficient 314 pages in length, it also feels like an older horror novel in a good way as well. If you’re in the mood for a creepy old-school horror story, one that is frightening enough to be fun but – unless you’re religious or totally new to the horror genre – probably won’t haunt you for weeks afterwards, then you’ll enjoy this one. Ditto if you’re even just a casual fan – like me – of the band Ghost as well.
In a good way, this is just a fairly standard and solid horror story. The sort of thing which used to be published a lot more often three or four decades ago, but updated to the present day. It’s a classic story of ghosts, demons, rats and crypts. It’s a bit goofy, but in an amusing way. If you’re looking for something creepy to read for Halloween, then you can do a lot worse than this one.
If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a solid four.
