Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Book Reviews
Book Review: The Haunted Forest Tour
By Sandy Amazeen
Sep 25, 2007, 3:26 GMT

Earthling Publications continues their annual Halloween series with this twisted gore fest featuring the combined talents of James A. Moore author of Blood Red and Jeff Strand, Graverobbers Wanted. It begins innocently enough with a work-a-day Joe coming home from work to discover a 10-foot pine tree growing out of his front porch. What appears to be an elaborate hoax quickly escalates into mass hysteria when massive trees begin tearing up the quiet desert town of Cromay, New Mexico. Four years later, H.F. Enterprises put together a special Halloween tour through what became known as the Haunted Forest, a dense woodland populated by a host of bizarre, typically hostile creatures. The sold out tour, billed as perfectly safe with specially reinforced trams, takes off with high expectations of seeing real live monsters in climate controlled comfort. What they get is something quite different as a determined, bloodthirsty demon launches a full scale attack designed to bring two vastly different dimensions together with dire results. Soon, a group of strangers will have to ban together, use all their combined wits and a mere handful of munitions to save themselves and all humanity from a horrific fate.

Its fun to watch a delightful opening get warped into something so dark and sinister in just a few short chapters. The authors keep the pace and action relentless with vividly imagined creatures dredged up from a deep reservoir of horrors. Definitely plenty of blood and guts plus worse things as round after round of fangs, claws and tongues rip through the ever dwindling tour survivors. Actually, the never-ending supply of monsters is the only downside as by mid-book you begin wondering if there is anything else going on and does all the horror have a point but stick with it as the plot eventually develops into an exciting and satisfying climax.