REVIEW: Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley
Let’s talk about movies for a second. I’m a slasher hound, and so it’s no surprise to learn that one of my favourite horror films is Scream, the game-changing slasher whodunnit, much copied, never bested. Slasher fans know that it’s not so much legendary director Wes Craven but the scriptwriter Kevin Williamson who we have to thank. Scream has been much aped since for its wink wink meta which changed the horror landscape, but Williamson knew that a great slasher mystery thrives on three things: characters you care for, kills you remember and a mystery plot with more red herrings than a bloody fishing lake. You know who else likes Scream? Brian McAuley, because Breathe In, Bleed Out, his fourth slasher, out from Poisoned Pen Press September 2, is a love letter to all the elements above that make the perfect stabby whodunnit while driving the genre forward in new ways. The master of slasher is back, and my god is he here to slay.
The setting for Breathe In, Bleed Out is a remote spiritual healing retreat in Joshua Tree, the wilderness of Southern California being, it turns out, a perfect location, up there with the more traditional cabin in the woods or campsites in terms of isolation and sense of unease. Attending this retreat, which is headed by the marvellously named potential bullshitter Guru Pax, is a group of young friends, the ostensible aim being to help our protagonist Hannah heal her trauma—her trauma being losing her fiancé on a mountain hike a year before. Seems a good plan—get in touch with your inner self—but when a killer starts taking that a little too literally, this place of healing becomes a fight for survival in the best slasher traditions, with everyone from retreat staff to friends to out-of-towners a suspect.
The first thing to note is that McAuley, for all the fun he’s having with the setting and taking the mighty piss out of the cynical mash-up of cultures (sound baths! Yoga! desert hallucinogens!) that can compose these spiritual retreats, cares for his characters—and wants you too, as well. Hannah’s tragedy and trauma is established immediately in the book’s opening chapter through a genuinely poignant (and classically tricksy) opening that roots you to her cause. Then McAuley pulls a neat trick. Her friends seem frankly awful; subtler Gen Z takes on the old slasher stereotypes—there’s the cynical boorish finance guy in place of the jock; the yoga-loving, condescending “just want to help everyone” type in place of the dumb blonde, etc. But McAuley uses the concept of a spiritual retreat—where people come to terms with their own dickishness—in a genius way to put you in their heads as they decide to be better and then, well, kill them. It’s a brutal way to make you feel for initially unlikable twenty-somethings, and a narrative masterstroke, as well as a witty commentary on the falsity of convenient self-realization.
But this is slasher, and we’re also here for the kills and the thrills. And boy, is there a better death-scribe than McAuley in horror at the moment? The kills in Breathe Out, Bleed In are art. In his afterword, he notes how he wanted to emulate Final Destination-style deaths (the Final Destination films being slashers of course, with death as Ghostface) and I think it’s safe to say he achieved this; these deaths are carefully constructed assault courses of fatality, step-by-step grim montages which are creative, deeply awful, and also entirely fitting for the characters getting killed. A kill involving a healing crystal is worth your money alone.
And then there’s the final Scream ingredient to make the perfect slasher whodunnit: the mystery itself. Almost everyone is a suspect, with plausible motives; there’s more misleading clues here then the devil’s escape room, and the reveal feels satisfying in that “should have known but also wtf” feel that defined those final twisty Scream moments. And like the best of the genre, the reveal isn’t just for kicks—it’s all part of the Final Girl’s catharsis; it’s thematically relevant, baby.
Overall, Breathe In, Bleed Out is another hit from an author who knows how to keep us horror freaks guessing, wincing, and feeling all at once. Take a deep breath then take a deep bow, because Brian McAuley wears the slasher crown.
Read Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuleyThe post REVIEW: Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.
