I like survival horror, especially those stories
which emphasize the strange and surreal in a confined setting (shopping malls,
isolated islands, abandoned towns etc.) often featuring zombies, mutants, rampant
cannibals, and deranged serial killers. Whilst Island ticks two of those boxes,
Castaways (written by Brian Keene) or Night of the Living Dead (written by John Russo) this is not.
When a family is marooned on a deserted island
previously home to a gorilla sanctuary, their attention immediately turns to
food/shelter/and warmth. Giving little thought to the suspicious nature surrounding
the unexplained explosion of their boat which seemingly took to the life of the
sole member aboard at the time, the troupe steadily turn paradise into home…until
Gilligan’s island turns bloody.
The hack and slash serial killer theme runs rampant
here as the survivors are steadily and brutally murdered. I don’t mind this as
much as the next horror fan but there was something too mechanical and
systematic about this to truly enjoy it. Perhaps it was the narrator, one of
the male survivors who thinks more with his nether regions that his actual
brain, with the story unfolding through the words written in his journal; it
felt tedious and read like a young adult story written by someone full to the
brim with teenage angst and haywire hormones.
Richard Laymon rarely lets me down but this one was
a little underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun read, but there are
much better books out there.
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