First published back in March of 2023, British author Graeme Reynolds’ novel ‘Dark And Lonely Water’ offered up a tale of deeply sinister pulpy folk horror.
Samantha Ashlyn has spent the last nine years as a single mother, balancing her commitment to her children with the need for a career. As a journalist for 24/7 News, Sam was regularly called away from home, needing to be onsite to report on the next newsworthy incident.
Now a string of incidents involving drownings and horrifically disfigured remains, scattered across the Nort-West coast of England, sees Sam travelling to the one place she hoped to never return – her hometown.
Sam had not seen her uncle in years. Now in his seventies, Uncle Marcus still lived at the same old farmhouse where Sam had been brought up. The place where her mother had died when Sam was just a young girl. Drowned in the dark depths of the farm pond.
Now Sam was back at the Miller Farm. Together with her twin children, a lack of other options had forced them to stay with Uncle Marcus. The memories of her mother’s death, brought back to the surface, not only because of their immediate setting, but also because of something with the recent string of deaths Sam was there to report upon.
Only a few weeks ago a police diver named Chris Buchanan had almost lost his life in a nearby river. At the time the highly experienced diver had been searching the riverbed for a missing person, presumed drowned, when something had gone wrong. After being pulled from the river, the diver muttered something about being grabbed in the depths of the dark water. Being pulled deeper and deeper by a horrific creature. A nightmarish hag which had tried to swallow him whole, only for the diver to be yanked from the water just in time.
Of course, Buchanan’s words were taken as the rantings of a man whose imagination had gotten the better of him whilst in the gloomy, impenetrable depths of the water. Alcohol lingering in his system from the night before, coupled with the risks of searching a dark riverbed, had produced haunting images in his head. Or so the disgraced police diver had been led to believe during his immediate suspension.
But Chris Buchanan knew there was something more to it than that. Something which Sam Ashlyn had also picked up on. An ancient evil that harked back centuries, leaving a trail of bodies across the Northwest of England in its wake.
A malevolence that lurks within the dark and lonely water, waiting to reach up from the gloom to pull in its next victim. A nightmarish hag that will chew on your flesh and bones, before swallowing you whole…
Oh yeah, this one is as good as that synopsis sounds. Pulpy folk horror with one hell of a bite to it. The sort of creepy, but gloriously fast-paced horror that flooded the paperback horror market back in the 70’s and 80’s. Unpretentious, zero fucks given, blood-drippingly good pulp horror that’s penned purely to creep under your skin whilst thrilling you with slice after slice of dark horror entertainment.
The setting of the piece is paramount to its success. For this Reynolds has given his tale a textbook rural backdrop, leaning towards a rustic Guy N Smith style of vibe that fits the tale like a maniac’s glove.
As with all good pulp horror novels of this kin, the characters and their respective plight within the horror, is what really makes the tale. An almost constant stream of unfortunate troubles and never-ending oppression seems to befall our principal characters and everyone within the nearby vicinity.
Furthermore, Reynolds has the folk horror angle embed itself into the narrative from early on, evolving over the course of the story into something that has a more tangible presence to it than the early whisperings. Keep away from the water, ‘cause Ginny Greenteeth will reach out from the duckweed with her long, spindly fingers and swallow you whole. Man, does it have that creepy-as-fuck chill factor to it.
However, that’s not all of it. Reynolds isn’t the sort of author who’ll be content to stick with a simple, singular idea and just let it play out. Nah, he’s got a shit load of weird nightmares to feed you. The result is a tale that seems to step closer and closer to the edge of a precipice, before finally shoving you off the edge, to tumble head over heels into the horrific depths of an endless and terrifying abyss of horror.
The tale is about as gloomy and down beaten as they come. The slightest glimmer of joy which might rise from the shadows of the plot every now and again, is swiftly crushed underfoot by the constant onslaught of troubles that seem to pour out of every inch of the book. What you get from this is a novel which purposefully, and quite expertly, puts you on edge throughout its length. Uneasy. Never settled.
The twists and turns Reynolds takes us through in the latter chapters of the book are also quite unexpected and executed with a sharp eye for capitalising on their sudden delivery. The effect of this throws you, the reader, into a further sense of near-disorientation, as the rug is suddenly swept out from under your feet amongst all the escalating carnage.
For a folk horror tale that doesn’t want to play nice, this is one fucker of a read. Whilst on the one hand it goes for a creeping, unnerving, utterly submersive and sinister horror. On the other hand, it also goes straight for the jugular with a full-frontal attack of ferocious horror, with razor-sharp teeth ripping through flesh and bone and all that nasty good stuff.
Yes, my horror lovin’ friends, this is folkish pulp horror done expertly well. Gloomy as a hell, wrapped up in creepy horror, and nasty in all the right places.
The novel runs for a total of 154 pages.
© DLS Reviews
