The Troop

What a nightmare read that was. I got physicality sick during three different parts. I quit it many times but had to know the ending. Uggg, it was so awful, so realistically frightening, I wish I never picked it up. I feel sick now just trying thinking of some of the horrors between the pages. It was a great horror book, it was pure horror and left me ill at heart. Stephen King said it was a story of nightmares and he was so right. It took me 9 days to read this black souled book. I feel like I'll never be the same as I was before, damaged and scarred. One word review-SICK
I gave it 4 stars, as horrible as it was it was exactly as it should have been, no fluff from this author .It starts out slow, even a bit dull, then it slowly builds show more from slight horror to absolute nightmare during the last 20 % show less

This is such boy-horror. And I don't mean it's overly masculine (although all the characters are men and I'm sure it doesn't pass the Bechtdel test, even in the many many many flashbacks) -- I mean that it's a like story that little boys tell each other in the age of credulity, that phase of life that Stephen King admires so much, when they really believe that a train will be derailed by a dime on the tracks, and the worst thing possible is to be a nerd, but also you're going to be Friends Forever with the kid who lives two doors down ...

yeah.

King can write that convincingly. He believes it, so I believe it.

Cutter doesn't believe it. He writes about childhood from the distance of adulthood, and it shows, it's painful, all over. He show more doesn't ever get emotionally invested in his gross-out horror story scheme of preteen boys abandoned by their scoutmaster on a lonely island while they're attacked by a blah blah blah, who needs to read this story, you've read it before, done by people who actually know how to write, who don't regurgitate better writers in an attempt to replicate that magic.

... Cutter mentions his baby son like a dozen times, including that his pen-name is his son's name, and I just KNOW that if he caught me in the line at the grocery store he would keep me there for fifteen minutes while he showed me three million pictures of the world's cutest kid (his kid), because that is basically what he did here. You can tell that he never once thought about children in trouble until it applied to him personally.

Ugh, dude. show less

Alright, folks, gather ’round the campfire ’cause I’m about to spin you a yarn that’ll curl your toes and frost your spine. “The Troop” by Nick Cutter, the alter-ego of our Canuck buddy Craig Davidson, dives into the blackest pits of psychological and body horror like it’s a fun day at the beach. Imagine a blend of a Boy Scouts trip with a dash of existential dread, and you’ve pretty much got the setting.

Our dear Scoutmaster Tim Riggs, an unwitting ferryman, guides his flock of five – Kent, Ephraim, Max, Shelley, and Newton – straight into the jaws of horror on the secluded haven of Falstaff Island. It’s supposed to be a typical, boys-will-be-boys adventure until – BAM – in walks Gollum’s Canadian cousin, show more starving, sick, and setting the stage for an all-you-can-eat horror buffet.

Cutter doesn’t just flirt with horror; he marries it, showcasing a parade of nasty fun that’ll make your skin crawl in the best way possible. Ah, but Cutter is a sly one, turning a gore-fest into a poignant, blood-spattered coming-of-age story. It’s like puberty but with more existential horror and less acne. As the boys face the abyss, they learn that the real monsters are, surprise, the disillusionments of growing up (amongst other… things). Cutter slices deep into the meat of what scares us, poking around in our societal and personal anxieties like they’re a lab experiment gone horrifyingly awry.

His writing dances on the line between a gruesome crime scene and a philosophy lecture, pulling you into the awe of nature while reminding you that nature can be downright horrifying. It’s a story of lost innocence with a side of internal organs – a metaphorical journey, if you will, just with more tangible gore.

The novel does romp through some familiar horror playgrounds, portended by one of the opening quotes. William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” is its twisted sibling in literary horror, showcasing the chilling degradation of youth stranded from civilization’s comforting lies. Cutter’s island, much like Golding’s, serves as a petri dish for the breakdown of social order and the eerie unveiling of human nature’s dark underbelly. Both authors masterfully dissect the concept of lost innocence, with Cutter adding a layer of visceral horror that echoes the psychological torment found in Golding’s narrative. Leadership, authority, and the descent into savagery are scrutinized under the lens of isolation, revealing that the real horror stems from within. By juxtaposing the two, we unearth a grim reflection on adolescence: a journey not just through external terrors but an introspective voyage into the heart of human darkness, proving that the line between civilized restraint and primal savagery is disturbingly thin, and perilously easy to cross. Nonetheless, “The Troop” cuts a distinctive path with its deep dives into the characters’ psyches and its philosophical musings scattered among the screams.

In wrapping up, “The Troop” is an elegantly disturbing trip down memory lane if your memories involve insatiable, inhuman hunger and questioning your existence. From my perspective, I think this is a near masterpiece in horror. To those who I see complaining that the novel “goes too far” I inquire, “why are your reading horror?!” Ultimately, I agree this book made me feel absolutely terrible in an unrelenting way, but I’m totally here for it. Cutter invites us to ponder whether the true horror is within us all along, or do we just need a healthy dose of albendazole. show less

Received as an ARC from Simon & Schuster for an unbiased review via NetGalley 08/06/2013.

The Troop is not made for the faint of heart. Cutter skilfully develops a plot which not only creates emotional connections with Max, Ephraim, Shelley, Kent and Newton, but also describes with disturbing realism the gore, bloodletting and violence each boy experiences. I would not suggest this in any way to younger readers, and most certainly not to anyone who dislikes books centered around genetically modified parasites developed to be both aggressive and massive.

The story begins by introducing you to Tim, the scoutmaster and the boys’ reason for visiting Flagstaff Island, PEI. Scout Troop 52 is your typical fun loving, boyishly aggressive group show more that’s perhaps on their last summer outing before the summers on Flagstaff Island are memories far in the past. Tim is a forty-something single man, who the locals think is gay but a proficient doctor. It is he who arranges the yearly trips like clockwork, and teaches the boys about wilderness survival. Each year is very much the same, until this year when a man stumbles into their camp, and hell breaks loose (literally?).

Although fantastically written, well researched and extremely scary, it’s unsettling how candid the author can be about subjects that are perhaps socially unaccepted homicidal tendencies. I had a hard time putting this one down, but also had to leave the lights on when I went to bed. Unlike most books we see today in any theme, Cutter lives up to his name by cutting out all the unnecessary details and developing a story that is both frightening, heart breaking and revolting. The story had some very touchy subjects, as well as shockingly well described animal abuse, homicidal behaviours and unsavoury decision making on the part of both a major character and some minor characters. show less

Oh my god this book is brutal. Absolutely not for the faint hearted or easily grossed out because this book is a nightmare cloth bound.
Scoutmaster Tim and his 5 scouts head off to a hiking weekend trip to Falstaff Island. The boys are all teenagers and no one knows the nightmare that is about to plague them.
A lone man comes ashore on the first night. He is unusually skinny and so very hungry. He is infected with a lethal disease transmitted by worms living inside him. This contagion is so easily spread and so horrific like you have no idea.
The whole narration keeps you on a knife’s edge. It is terrifying, cruel, gross and disgusting. But it’s like a car crash. You can’t stop looking, and in this case, you just can’t stop show more reading. I almost did toss it in the places where there is animal torture (be warned!), but am glad I pushed through because it is a phenomenally terrifying book. Like how horror used to be written before.
Read it, if you dare… show less

I devoured the book in a couple days. ( no pun intended ) It was gruesome, intriguing, shocking, and at times made me feel like leaving the lights on for the night. Other times, it brought tears to my eyes. One scene in particular was very heart-wrenching. Without spoiling it, let me just say that as the story progresses the boys will have to go to unbelievable lengths to try and obtain food. Try is the keyword here, since their attempts will fail miserably, and as a result an innocent creature dies in unimaginable pain. Other scenes were so full of gruesome details, I had to skim through the paragraphs, in order to keep my stomach from revolting. The experiments conducted by the scientists on the gorilla stand out to me as being the show more most disturbing, probably due to the fact they were documented in such a cold, unmoved voice.

Overall, I thought the story line and characters were well developed, and I'm hoping the book will be made into a movie some day. Quick warning though : Do not read this book when you're out camping. show less

A boy scout troop sets up camp on an island off the coast of Prince Edward Island. A planned retreat away from everyday life, the boys and their scout leader envision a quiet weekend where they can gain valuable survival experience while earning merit badges. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there’s nothing in the boy scouts handbook in regards to surviving a scenario seemingly plucked from a classic Stephen King novel.

I received a free copy through Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

A few years ago, my friends and I would get together once or twice a week and hit up the local Blockbuster Video. We’d head straight to the new release wall and try and find the most horrific looking horror movies on the shelf, grab some snacks show more and head to my place for an evening of entertainment. We never took the movies seriously, in fact, we often spent the entire evening making fun of them, trying to spot errors in production or ridicule the terrible acting. It was a blast and I honestly miss those nights more than I could ever tell you.

While most of them were of the “b-movie quality”, we did manage to grab a few of the major releases. Many of them often succumbed to the same tropes of the horror genre but had access to a bigger budget. Rather than using those resources to craft a better story, they’d often just use better post-production CGI or on set special effects. However, on two occasions, we managed to get two films that really bothered me – 28 Days Later and Cabin Fever.

I’ve never really been all that OK with horror movies that feature a kind of infection or disease as their central element. As a plot, it’s fine – it’s just that there’s something about that kind of story that chills me to the bones. While Cabin Fever certainly had its elements of comedy, the story revolved around a highly contagious flesh eating disease. The same goes for 28 Days Later with a blood borne infection that turned its victims into sort of zombies (but still not zombies). It’s that losing control aspect that disturbed me, that you just had to sit and wait for the infection to take its course and turn you into something you’re not.

Nick Cutter’s The Troop managed more of a reaction out of me than both of those movies – and that’s saying something.

The Troop takes all the over-the-top gore you’d see in any of those flicks and injects it into a well written, thrilling novel. While there are certainly moments that turned my stomach (i.e. the initial discovery of the source of the sickness) as well as a scene in particular that caused me to put the book down and walk away for a few minutes (a flashback involving one of the boys and a kitten), it’s both the writing and the pace employed by Cutter that kept me coming back.

The doomed boy scouts that Cutter crafted made the horror elements that much more effective. Sure, you could write a novel where it’s nothing but a slaughter-fest from beginning to end but you’re probably not going to make a lasting impression on the reader, the true talent lies in creating characters that enhance those brutal elements to a sometimes unbearable level. Each boy scout had his own personality which meant everyone reacted differently in the face of this unknown threat. What made the novel work so well was watching the way each boy dealt with what he was facing while attempting to ensure his survival. Cutter did a great job featuring flashbacks to flesh out the characters and give the reader a reason to care about them, root for them or cheer for their demise.

It’s weird recommending a book that I had such a challenging time getting through but the journey is worth it. Nick Cutter is a pseudonym but I have no idea why you wouldn’t want your real name on a book of this caliber.

Check out my interview with Nick. show less