Love them or hate them, sequels are just a part of the horror genre’s blood at this point. I love watching them while at the same time questioning their purpose. So often they can just be a cash grab, and sometimes people put their whole being into it, making something that still feels fresh despite sipping on years-old blood. After My Heart Is A Chainsaw ripped open my chest cavity and seized my beating heart, I had to go for seconds. Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones delivers on a bloody sequel that manages to have all the markings of a slasher sequel and even more teeth on which to chew the gristle that is the slasher genre.
Warning: There will be spoilers discussed for My Heart is a Chainsaw
… Okay that should be enough room.
It’s been four years since the “Independence Day Massacre,” in which the spirit of a drowned girl rampaged across Indian Lake during a summer screening of Jaws. Jade Daniels, now going by Jennifer, returns to Proofrock the same day Dark Mill South, a convicted indigenous serial killer, breaks out of federal custody nearby. Letha Mondragon, now seen as the town’s benefactor, is married with a child; her jaw is plastic and wired shut. Proofrock hasn’t really recovered from the mass killings and the revelations of the day, but that doesn’t stop several teenagers from turning up dead. As Jennifer is getting her footing back, she and some of the other survivors of the Indian Lake Massacre have to stop Dark Mill South from completing his rampage.
Don’t Fear The Reaper is a sequel that comes charging out the gates and doesn’t let up. Sure, it has moments sprinkled through that allow the characters to take a breather and assess their situation, but even those moments feel pressured by the plot. This is emphasized through the increased number of perspectives as the story darts between its cast. This allows the story to be bigger, bloodier, and full of twists. It also give Jones room to become the apex predator of the slasher genre quagmire, leading the reader down many paths of conjecture before upending the theory in the next chapter.
Through Don’t Fear the Reaper, Letha and Jennifer engage in debates about the final girl and the nature of the killer moments before they are about to take him on. Group conversations about what to do are littered with the chaos of the day. A lot of these discussions have a messy feel to them, too, only adding to the suspense. At first, I found some frustration in these arguments because they were just a flurry of movie names, characters, and scenarios that were somewhat relevant. In Jennifer’s absence, several other survivors from My Heart have taken the research onto themselves to make sure they are ready for round two. This removes the singular voice, giving every character a bit more agency, a bit more information. I found these at first a little frustrating because of how messy they felt. They didn’t offer a lot of extra insight, and had the navel-gazing quality I was afraid might occur in the first one. But soon, it felt like the messiness was the point. These sections were the characters responding to the events in front of them, drawing on the few experiences they had. And what got them through last time? Jade’s intense knowledge of the subject combined with her tenacity. So everyone else beefs up their game so they can be of use this go around. It was a great way to highlight just how incredibly insane the events of book one were, along with a great commentary on how folks just talk about horror movies and use the past and cultural artifacts to try to flatten their current predicament.
The novel also plays with its own structure, while taking cues from My Heart. Instead of Jade/Jennifer providing the essay commentary on the situations, a new student has taken her place. The new high school history teacher is obsessed with the events of My Heart, and is an avid fanboy of horror movies and real-life serial killers. He has asked his students to fill him in using history papers as the medium. This is told through a different, more methodical voice in these sections, compared to Jade’s rambling stream of consciousness thoughts. It gives a “first as tragedy, then as farce,” vibe to the whole proceeding that pays off as the narrative unfolds.
This also leads to one of the core themes within the book, the strength of and exploitation of women. If you’ve never seen or read a slasher movie before, you may have at least heard of “the final girl.” The one who survives the ordeal either by defeating or escaping the killer to do it again in the sequel, or die trying. There have been numerous papers, books, and movies that explore the nature of the final girl and the rules she must follow. Hell, My Heart is a Chainsaw was about finding the final girl in the midst of a slasher come to life. Reaper dives headfirst into the conversation by focusing on its women characters throughout the story, digging into their contributions to the events about to take place, and standing up to the killer rampaging through town. It’s not that the men don’t want to work, but the women in Don’t Fear the Reaper just work harder. Men have been in charge, and this is where it’s led to, so the women step up, even when their lives are literally on the line.
Even the women who think that someone else needs to step into the role of “final girl,” don’t lay their mantle down easily. It’s not a competition so much as reducing the work of the next generation. It’s a group of women slowly coming to the realization that they need to enact a sort of community defense. And while I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily new, I did find it refreshing that it was paired with the flip side of that, the exploitation of women in horror. Not just in the usual sexual assault sense, but that the final girl must be born of trauma. So many of the conversations throughout the story were about locating who is the most plausible final girl. Comparing people’s trauma to scenarios within movies, and measuring them against the timeline of murders to see where the threads lead. Don’t Fear the Reaper doesn’t explicitly point this out, but does begin to question the “need” to have a final girl. What leads to someone being the one who makes it through it all? And the psychological pressures that are inflicted, not to mention the physical ones. The conversation is incomplete, but it certainly has me excited to close out the trilogy with The Angel of Indian Lake.
Don’t Fear the Reaper, by Stephan Graham Jones, is a successful sequel in several different ways. It follows some of the slasher guidelines that genre fans would expect, while expanding on them and twisting them to its own purposes. It’s an exciting horror story filled with twists, turns, gags, and brutal killings. It is a sweater with several threads to pull on, and each one reveals something different. If you like slasher movies, especially ones that feel aimed at the genre itself, continuing with Jones’ trilogy is a no-brainer.
-Rating: Don’t Fear the Reaper. Be like they are.
Alex
