You Better Watch Out By James S Murray

You Better Watch Out by James S Murray and Darren Wearmouth: A Christmas Horror Book Review

For me, it’s never too early to buy a festive read. Christmas is when it’s bleak outside and warm inside. The darkness is counterbalanced with the sparkling lights of the Christmas tree. And your cozy feelings are just waiting to be shattered by a good slice of festive horror.

So when I was contacted in September and asked if I wanted to have a copy of You’d Better Watch Out, I instantly accepted and then waited patiently until the nights got darker before opening it up and diving in.

From the title, you’d be excused if you expected a kind of violent Santa story. But there’s nothing supernatural in You Better Watch Out by James S Murray. This is a straightforward thriller-chiller in the vein of Saw and its ilk. 

Six strangers find themselves in a deserted town.

All of them have been kidnapped in one form or another and now they’re at the mercy of the elements, each other, and a demented killer for whom this place is akin to a theme park. Can any of them make it out alive? It seems unlikely when bear traps and concealed explosives are around every corner. But they’re gonna try like hell to escape.

The book isn’t very long, and that means it’s really well-paced. There’s no padding in the middle where the characters sit around soul-searching or embarking on doomed romances. However, it also means there isn’t much time for character development. The characters do change, but it is on a superficial level. But when you’re pretty sure most of them are going to end up dead anyway, why worry?

The deaths are gory and unpleasant yet they feel more subdued than, for example, Saw.

There is drama, yes, but also human suffering, and I didn’t feel like the authors were making the killings overly sensational (except in one instance, but you can see why they went in that direction). I was particularly impressed with the twist in chapter 27 that threw something unexpected in the obvious cat and mouse trope.

I really liked how the opening chapters of You Better Watch Out by James S Murray showed that everyone had been kidnapped by different types of people. This morsel of information intrigued me, as it opened up so many possibilities as to why the victims had been brought there. It kept me guessing as to the motives of the kidnappers nearly all the way through.

The characters worked well together, and the two main viewpoint characters were certainly  relatable. I particularly liked Eddie and how he found the experience to be one of possible redemption as well as survival. While there was one character that irritated me intensely, I was pleasantly surprised to find they died a few pages later! That really was a nice twist that avoided an unpleasant character causing an imbalance in the group by their aggressive and confrontational stance.

That said, I really didn’t enjoy reading about the perverted thoughts of the individual stalking the group.

You Better Watch Out by James S Murray isn’t like American Psycho where you have time to appreciate other things about the killer, or Red Dragon where you come to understand his backstory, or Hannibal where brutality is covered by a veneer of acceptability and balanced by high intelligence. This character was just plain unpleasant, and the insights were distasteful especially the hints of sexual violence. But I appreciate that such an opinion is very subjective, and plenty of people will probably enjoy the juxtaposition of the unpleasantness against the decent people who are the victims. 

If I had one problem with this novel it’s the synopsis on the cover. “Jessica Kane wakes up with blurred vision and ringing ears, and in excruciating pain… It doesn’t take Jessica long to realize she’s trapped in an unknown, deserted town with five other strangers… Unsure why and how they go there, Jessica knows one thing for certain: she has to find a way out.” Reading that, I thought the majority of the story would be from the point of view of Jessica.

As it turned out, it really wasn’t. Jessica is one of two point of view characters, but the narrative is skewed very much in favour of Eddie. I did a brief tally of the opening chapters, and by chapter eight, we’d had seven sections from Eddie’s point of view and only two from Jess’ point of view.

That’s not to say that I found Eddie a disappointing viewpoint character.

In fact, I liked him just as much if not a little bit more than Jessica. However, I didn’t like opening the book thinking I was going to read some kind of final girl narrative to discover that actually it mostly focusses on a man. That’s just not good marketing, although that’s on the publisher rather than the authors. Still, in a review, it’s important to warn readers that what the dustjacket says is not necessarily what you’re getting!

This is a short, sharp, slick read. It’s engaging but doesn’t require much in the way of brainpower, and you can just get swept along by it in the same way you would an action movie. There’s nothing here that we haven’t seen before, but what is there is well-written. It would be a perfect book to take if you’re obliged to go stay with the family as you can read it, enjoy it, and still have one ear on the conversation going on around you.

You Better Watch Out by James S Murray and Darren Wearmouth

From international bestselling authors James S. Murray (better known as “Murr” on the hit TV show Impractical Jokers) and Darren Wearmouth, comes You Better Watch Out, a suspenseful, serial killer thriller that leaves you wondering, is Christmas really the best time of the year?

Forty-eight hours until Christmas, Jessica Kane wakes up with blurred vision, ears ringing, and in excruciating pain. A gash in her head and blood running down her face, the last thing she remembers is going for a run and something or someone hitting her in the head.

She quickly realizes she is trapped in an unknown, deserted town. Five other strangers are with her. They share similar stories of being attacked and stranded there. Unsure why and how they got there, she knows one thing for certain, she has to find a way out.

That becomes nearly impossible when someone is meticulously orchestrating their deaths, one by one. Jessica can only watch as the life leaves their eyes.

The fenced-in town is the killer’s very own playground and there’s nowhere left to hide… she better watch out because she could be next.

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