Book Review: "The Hollows" by Mark Edwards

When it comes to folk horror, there are always a number of components you need for telling the story. These include: urban legends, folktales, pagan/satanic symbolism, cultish behaviour, animals and the supposed supernatural. These are the things that you need in order to make your folk horror novel engrossing. Naturally, books such as “Water Shall Refuse Them” by Lucie McKnight Hardy and “Salt Slow” by Julia Armfield are two great examples of this. In my essay “Women Writing Horror” there is a whole section how women are becoming bigger and more apparent in the folk horror genre. Apart from that though, we have films of folk horror that are making a comeback, almost like someone thought that “The Wicker Man” was a good film - someone apart from me. Ari Aster’s folk horror feasts “Hereditary” and “Midsummer” are intensely electrifying and disturbing films, alongside Jordan Peele’s inclusion of animals as folk symbols alongside the theories surrounding mass cultish behaviour in his films blend folk horror with the contemporary. And that I think, is the key to new the folk horror - blending it with the new and contemporary in our own age so that we, as readers, can relate better to it. Mark Edwards does just this in his book “The Hollows” which is a great experience to have if you read it.

Frankie and her father go on a trip to a lovely woodland resort. It is beautiful with its greenery and endless trees. But they realise quickly that some people are there for a different reason - because they are fans of a podcast made by some people who are vacationing on the resort. Frankie and her dad meet these people and slowly become friends with them - their names are Connie and David with a child called Ryan. Connie and David tell all about the murders that happened at the resort some twenty years’ ago and now, given that its such a special anniversary, ‘dark tourists’ have flocked to the now open vacationing space. As the holidays get underway though, it is very clear that something is not right, and they may just pay the ultimate price for it.

Written with horrific detail, urban legends and atmosphere litter this novel with fright that is dark and very real. Sense of panic about having no phone signal stand alongside a person in an animal mask. Dead animals found outside cabins are written into a book containing Generation Z teenagers who cannot go without their iPhone. It is a brilliant blend between what we know we should believe when we are told, but we also know that it would be silly to believe in the first place: legends. From the creepy urban legend when Connie and David sit down to tell the tale to the long winding path that it leads some characters on, this is an ending that you may guess but you will never see coming. The urban legend is much, much closer than you think it is the entire time.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading this. From start to finish, it is an engrossing and captivating book that I simply could not put down and so, yes, I read the entire thing in one sitting. There is heavy atmosphere, things that go bump in the night and even things that go bump in the daytime. I am pretty sure that if you read this book at night that it will keep you up the entire time and have you looking over your shoulder. Some of the images created in this book are absolutely terrifying though and I really did love the amount of effort that was put in to frighten me.