Escape from Happydale: The Last Final Girl by Jack Quaid review

    THE LAST FINAL GIRL: ESCAPE FROM HAPPYDALE is a homage to 80s slasher movies that I very much enjoyed. It is a quick, solid, and entertaining read that has an interesting (albeit unnecessary) gimmick that makes me want to read the rest of the series. It is also a story that I am going to read the sequels too and probably pick up the omnibus collection for because it is a work that deserves the attention. This is one of those self-published indie treats that I think would do well with a medium tier publisher and deserves to be brought to a larger audience.

    The framing device is that it's supposedly a lost script of Jack Quad, a fictional writer from the 70s and 80s who wrote dozens of cheesy novels that are all lost now. Before he disappeared, though, Jack Quaid submitted a script for a slasher movie starring Mia Sara from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Except, it wasn't a script but a full-fledged novel because that was just how Jack rolled. Luke Preston (the actual author) discovered this novel and presents it to the reader. I found it a cute narrative conceit but the story really stands on its own and didn't actually need it despite the entertaining opening where he visits a low budget, now-failing movie studio office.

    The actual premise is presented as "Stephen King meets Quentin Tarantino" but I think Luke should revise that since I think a much better description is, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream meet R-rated gorefest." It has some superficial similarities to the popular Hack/Slash comic book series by Tim Seely and that is enough that I recommend it since I love those comics. In a larger context, it is story about a survivor of a typical horror movie experience who then proceeds to dedicate her life to hunting down serial killing undead called slashers.

    Parker Aimes, the character played by Mia Sara in this fictional universe, is the Final Girl of the Coffin Bay Massacre that claimed her entire family. Adopted by a hard-nosed monster hunter, Parker learns the tricks to murdering creatures of the night and goes on several hunts before coming to the haunetd town of Happydale in order to go after the slasher that killed her family a decade ago. Chasing Parker is her former psychologist, a Doctor Loomis figure, who is convinced she's a murderer. There's also a cast of reasonably developed dead men and women walking that exist solely to show Hurricane Williams is a bonafide monster.

    There's some flaws in the book like the fact at one point there's "missing pages" from Jack Quaid's script that, unfortunately, remove some of the story's pivotal character development. It's a cheap gag that, unfortunately, comes at the expense of what is a fairly solid story. I also note the book is a bit darker and edgier than it needs to be in its finale. I would have appreciated a couple of more survivors even though 80s movies rarely ended with anyone but the Final Girl. The problem with developing the "dead men walking" is that you actually care when they die.

    Overall, this is a very enjoyable horror/urban fantasy novel. The use of slashers to replace traditional monsters like vampires and werewolves is something I've seen before but given my love of 80s horror, it is still very welcome. Parker is a great protagonist and I love all the subtle as well as not so subtle homages to the classics of the genre. This is definitely a book worth investing to buy rather than just picking it up on Kindle Unlimited (or you can do that too).

8.5/10

Available here