A supernatural mystery tale that offers a new original take on the haunted house genre with some cosmic horror vibes.

• Scare factor: ★★★☆☆
• Mystery factor: ★★★★☆
• Originality factor: ★★★★★
• Cosmic horror factor: ★★★★☆
• Psychological factor: ★★★★★

The Staircase in the Woods is an original haunted house tale with a cosmic horror vibe, about friendship, finding yourself and childhood traumas, while getting lost in an impossible house that seems endless. It’s a perfect blend of mystery, horror, psychological themes and surreal cosmic horror that is well written and will certainly reel you in. 

It consists of 388 pages.

Plot

In 1989 teenagers Lauren (it’s Lore now), Owen, Nick, Matty and Hamish find a staircase in the middle of the woods. In a defiant act Matty climbs the staircase but disappears and never comes back. Now years later most of the remaining friends have lost contact until Nick sends them a email. He is dying and wants to hold a party in his honor while he’s still alive. They all reluctantly agree to come but to their surprise they have not only changed a lot, but he also brings them to a forest. 

In that forest he shows them another staircase. Now they feel forced to climb it themselves in the hope to find Matty and to redeem themselves. 

On top of the stairs they are transported to a hallway and that hallway leads to doors. The doors lead to rooms ad those rooms lead to other doors. Soon they are lost in a maze of rooms and they get separated and find themselves in a nightmare. Each room contains a nightmare of what terrible things happened there. While some still have hope to find Matty alive after all those years, others succumb to the terrors of the house when confronted with their own childhood traumas. 

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Short Review

When you dream about a house it is often said that the house represents you. If you get lost in a house, you have lost yourself. This idea is crudely the premise of the story. The horrors they find inside each room, reflect the horrors some of them withstood in childhood. None of them really recovered after what happened with Matty and on top of that they had their own problems growing up. That was exactly why they became friends in the first place. A bunch of losers who would help and protect each other. They called it The Covenant. But now the Covenant is falling apart, while we learn more about what happened back then and how their childhoods were, and how they are now dealing with the situation. They all have grown up and they have changed a lot, some for the better others for the worse, but is evident that none of them have have dealt with their childhood traumas or what happened to Matty and why. 

The story feels like a surreal video game, like a puzzle that has to be solved. They have to find a way out of the house and also have to forgive each other and themselves. Although the story mainly takes place inside the house it doesn’t get boring because of the interesting characters and the compelling writing style. The characters are really well fleshed-out and are a prominent element of the story. It is therefore not only a surreal horror but also a psychological horror, not just because of the traumas, but because of how they deal with the situation and react to each other. 

Still the rooms are scary and each one hides a cruel secret, nasty things and that starts to reflect on them. While they have not been friends for a long time, and they have grown apart, even finding themselves on opposite sides of their values and morals, they have to work together and find their way back to each other to find a way out. It’s not about resolving their differences but about understanding each other. 

The Staircase in the Woods is an intriguing story, with real characters and an original take on the haunted house genre, that dives deep into the house and into themselves.