Splasher by Billie Host review: 'If Point Horror did Final Destination'

We join Spencer Ward, new assistant coach for the swim team at Richardson University, battling his own skeletons while being bombarded by a whole host of new ones. People keep dying in bizarre accidents and shadows loom in the bleachers as Spencer and his students try to figure out what is going on before the bodies pile up too high.

The novel opens with a movie-style double death extravaganza as two students break into the college pool at the start of term. After this fast-paced beginning, however, the narrative unfortunately stalls somewhat in the first few chapters.

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Indeed, the story takes a bit of time to find its feet in a slightly unstructured first half. Spencer’s traumatic backstory is teased just a little too much and for too long, with only shreds of detail given, and yet when we do finally find out the whole story it’s not really shocking enough to be worth the wait.

The Final Destination-style accidents lead to too many near misses for my bloodthirsty taste, too, leading to a general feeling of dissatisfaction.

There was also the potential for a whodunnit twist, but this gets lost in the mix, with the students’ investigation into why on earth so many people are being injured or dying taking a back seat to more mundane plot lines. It is certainly a matter of personal taste, but I prefer my pop horror to be bloody, cartoonish and unafraid to lean as far as possible into the absurdity of it all. There’s something about Splasher that feels a little too restrained.

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That being said, there’s a lot to enjoy about this book. It’s light and bright and compelling enough, with some joyful nostalgic nods to the era. It’s not a scary book by any means, but then it’s not attempting to be a Susan Hill, despite the looming ghost of The Woman in Black woven through it. It’s a playful Point Horror-style story, for those who like a little bloodshed and trauma while sunning themselves on a holiday beach. The characters are lively and interesting and you care about them, which feels like it should be a cardinal sin in this sort of mega-death drama, but it really works.

The crux of any horror novel, and particularly pop horror, is that there simply has to be suspension of disbelief, and so a balance must be found between the extreme world of the story and the stability of the familiar world we all live in. The reader should be immersed enough in the fictional world not to be asking inconvenient plot questions, such as - in this case - why the police aren’t more involved. This is a tough balance to find, but this book does find it, managing to keep those inevitable nuisance questions at bay. It’s clear that the authors could see this story very vividly in front of them, and although there are moments when it feels a bit clunky, or the structure feels off, the vision is an impressive and enjoyable one.

Splasher, by Billie Host, Penguin, £9.99

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