First published back in May of 2018, the downright deviant novella ‘Cold Cocked’ was co-authored by British author David Owain Hughes and US author Peter Oliver Wonder.
DLS Synopsis:
Despite being in her early thirties, Betty hadn’t ever experienced anything close to an intimate relationship. The closest Betty had come to anything like that was with Troy. And that hadn’t really gone anywhere. He’d taken one look at her naked chest, seen all those self-inflicted scars remnant of her troubled past, and vomited. That night had been one of the worst experiences of Betty’s life.
After that Betty decided she’d have to make it through life without knowing the touch of a man again. A living man anyway.
Thankfully, she had a plan. Through her experiments as a scientist specialising in fertility, she’d developed a unique procedure for extracting sperm from the recently deceased. A way of awakening and arousing the sexual organs of the dead. A procedure she’d dubbed Necrotic Semen Rejuvenation or “NSR” for short.
If successful, the procedure would be a world first. A true advancement for science and indeed mankind as a whole. However, for Betty, it would enable here to have a child. Following the infamous Troy incident, she had no desire to mate with someone who would only wind up hurting her. She’d convinced herself there was no one out there for her. That she would never find true love.
So, Betty committed her life to her work instead. And once her trials had proven successful, she’d find the perfect father for her child. The perfect corpse to sire her son.
But before that could happen, Betty needed to perfect her serum. And the only way to do that, was to experiment with the dead…
If you’re not already familiar with the work of Welsh Horror Author – David Owain Hughes – then you may be in for a bit of a shock. This here’s a classic example of Hughes’ work. Riddled with filth and sexual deviancy to the point of absolute depravity. And all that libido-charged perversion is flung into a bubbling cocktail of tongue-in-cheek grisly horror. And this one’s no different. It’s akin to Seymore Butts directing an erotic reimagining of ‘Re-Animator’ (1985).
To say this is over-the-top sex-fuelled horror would be an understatement. There’s no subtle artistic finesse to the tale. No pretence at literary snobbishness. It’s a sexed-up Troma-style horror which delivers the smirks and the laughs page after page.
Some stuff in the novella is just plain silly. Honestly, you just can’t ponder on any aspect too long or you’ll see the massive holes in the tale. Corpses that are dug up after they’ve been buried six-feet-under for well over three years, yet are found to still have rats and bugs feasting on their rotten bits! Or indeed the fact that this young Betty lass, by herself and armed only with a shovel, can quite easily dig up two, maybe three coffins from their respective graves in just one night.
Silliness aside, the novella is everything you’d hope it to be. Wildly over-the-top, ludicrously perverted, and drenched in comic-book gore. If the maniacal horror doesn’t have you roaring with laughter, then the clumsy smut that almost feels like it’s been penned by a teenaged-boy should at least crack a smile across your face. And I don’t mean to be derogatory in any way about how this has been written, or about the authors’ abilities. This is the angle they were clearly punching for. A wacky, wild, hilariously depraved pervy horror.
The first two-thirds or so of the novella has that whole perverted ‘Re-Animator’ (1985) vibe going for it. However, as the tale begins to head towards its finale, the two authors ramp-up the sex and violence to insane levels, until it’s singing a similar tune to that of Bantry and Essig’s ‘Insatiable’ (2019) or indeed Garth Ennis’ ‘Crossed’ series.
There’s a whole heap of fun to be had within this short novella. As long as you take absolutely nothing seriously – such as Betty’s tendency to cum in seconds from the merest of touches – and you just take the tale for what it is – basically, a laugh-a-minute perverted-horror-romp – then you’ll probably enjoy this novella every but as much as I did.
It’s just so sordid. So over-the-top. So god damn silly and deviant.
The novella runs for a total of 83 pages.
© DLS Reviews
