The premise of The Haunted Forest Tour is relatively
simple--a forest crops quite literally under the town within a matter of hours,
the trees coming up with such force that residents are impaled on the sudden
growths. Not explanation is given (you'll have to read the book to learn why).
The forest is inhabited by a variety of monsters. A developer buys the land, and
it isn't long before The Haunted Forest Tours are born. So far, there have been
no incidents at the park, which is too good to be true, so you know something is
bound to happen on the special Halloween Tours, and sure enough, two trams full
of tourists break down inside the park. A blood bath follows, with only a
handful of survivors escaping the massacre and trying to work their way out of
the park.
This was probably another case of going in with high expectations that
weren't met. As I mentioned earlier, James A. Moore is known for delivering
quality horror time after time, and Jeff Strand is supposedly known for his
comedic horror, so I expected some top-notch horror comedy. And while the horror
was there, the comedy was nowhere to be seen. Then again, maybe it was and I
just wasn't feeling it. I've often been told that I have a strange sense of
humor, never finding the funny in what most folks think is funny. I can sit
through a comedy totally straight-faced, not finding anything funny about, yet
everybody around me is practically pissing their pants with laughter. You have a
semi-large cast of characters, none of whom are fully developed, so you really
don't get attached to them, and as a result, you don't care who lives and who
dies. In a case such as this, you usually give up on the human characters and
start rooting for the monsters, but sadly, the monsters weren't even all that
interesting, so you didn't want to root for them either. I kept hoping the
forest floor would open and swallow them all just so I could be done with it,
but alas, that didn't happen either. The only real horror to be found here is
the book itself as you slog through it, praying for the end. This is not one I
would recommend.
