A supernatural splatterpunk slasher with extreme violence that mixes brutal kills with cosmic horror and girl power.

• Violence factor: ★★★★★
• Gruesome factor: ★★★★★
• Slasher factor: ★★★★★
• Splatterpunk factor: ★★★★★
• Cosmic horror factor: ★★★★☆

Cabin Possessions is a slasher that quickly turns into a splatterpunk and at the end mixes it with a cosmic epic final battle. With likable characters, lots of gore, brutal kills and graphic kills, this offers extreme violence and girl power. 

It consists of 161 pages.

If you want to read more horror books set during Halloween you can take a look at my List of Halloween Horror Books. Here you can find a wide variety of genres from slashers to comedy for adults to teens.

Plot

Couples Cordelia and Tom, and Jilly and Adam are friends. They are a nice group of teenagers in their last year of high school. Tessa is a friend of Jilly and Adam and clings to them, being a sort of an underling to them. And there’s Fulton, a strange boy that clings to their group and Cordelia has taken it upon herself to act like a mother to him. Fulton has a crush on Tessa, but Tessa doesn’t like him at all. Still the group works. 

At Halloween Fulton wants to impress his friends and especially Tessa and offers to spend Halloween at his father’s cabin in the woods. What he doesn’t know is that years ago his father had found something and the way he came by it is somewhat horrible. He buried that something near the cabin. Sometime before Halloween Fulton stumbled upon it and unknowingly set it free. It, being a demon called Jazazel. However Jazazel needs a body to walk around in to be able to kill. And he desperately wants to kill.

Unaware of what roams the woods, they all think it’s a great idea and they bring food and booze to the cabin. Jazazel however has other ideas and likes to kill just for the fun of it, meanwhile possessing them and others. With the six teenagers as easy prey they soon have to run and fight for their lives. 

Meanwhile the church has organized a Halloween cookout, where lots of people are gathered and lots of people to be killed…

But there is something that can turn the kid’s fate around, but it has a cost.

Continue reading below this announcement.

Short Review

The story starts with Lewi, Fulton’s father finding the demon. It’s a gross and gory start that immediately sets the tone for the rest of the book. The six kids are not bad people. Actually they are very likable and realistic characters. Except for Fulton who is a bit strange and intrusive. That makes their ordeal not a pleasant read. They don’t just run or fight, but help each other survive and even sacrificing themselves for the others. Normally the characters of a slasher are bland, easy to forget and disposable, but this group is a group of friends you’ll root for and hope they will all make it. Of course not everybody does. 

A slasher is known for the final girl, who is often a virgin and a good girl that because of her virtues escapes death. This time the focus is more on girl power. The girls aren’t just final girls, but take action. They refuse to be victims or helpless and instead arm themselves to go to battle. And they get help from another girl, a supernatural one, an angelic/demonic one, Llarigill, who is introduced to the girls in a very fun way. The story takes a surprising twist, turning a straightforward slasher with a supernatural occult touch into a cosmic horror that empowers the girls even more. 

But not before we had some bloody, brutal carnage. Jazazel starts off with the friends, but there are a lot more people to kill and to possess. Jazazel doesn’t differentiate between living or dead bodies to walk in, so oftentimes he walks in heavily maimed corpses, which is very gory. As is the way he killed them. The descriptions of the kills are very graphic and brutal and fall within the splatterpunk genre. The ending however is a big massacre full of graphic brutal gory and bloody kills and nobody is spared, not even children. 

While the end has the most violent scenes, it’s also where slasher/splatterpunk meets cosmic horror. This mix blends very well and creates an original twist that feels empowering and turns a mere slasher into something more. The final cosmic battle is the surprise of the story and the aftermath is satisfying. This story isn’t just about the graphic violence only, it also about friendship and love and revenge.

Cabin Possession might be a splatterpunk full of extreme violence, it’s well written and has a good story that matters with likable characters and is not just focused on causing violence.