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The Farm #1
The Farm
THROUGH THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH, A NIGHTMARE EVIL CREPT TO ENGULF HOBB'S FARM...
The lethal, body-pulping pile-up on the winding Welsh mountain road was sickening enough. But the spillage of chemicals from the wrecked lorry, leaking through the hidden channels of the earth to contaminate the pond at Hobb's Farm, miles away, produced an unimaginably more horrific effect. As the farm animals drank the tainted water, something strange and sinister began to happen. Soon, previously docile beasts were moving in on their increasingly panic-stricken human 'masters'. Moving in – for the kill...
The Farm (1984), written by Laurence James (1942-2000) under the pseudonym 'Richard Haigh', is one of the most terrifying novels of Nature gone berserk ever written. One of the scarcest horror titles from the Paperbacks from Hell era, it returns to print at last with a new introduction by Will Errickson and the original cover art by Les Edwards.
The lethal, body-pulping pile-up on the winding Welsh mountain road was sickening enough. But the spillage of chemicals from the wrecked lorry, leaking through the hidden channels of the earth to contaminate the pond at Hobb's Farm, miles away, produced an unimaginably more horrific effect. As the farm animals drank the tainted water, something strange and sinister began to happen. Soon, previously docile beasts were moving in on their increasingly panic-stricken human 'masters'. Moving in – for the kill...
The Farm (1984), written by Laurence James (1942-2000) under the pseudonym 'Richard Haigh', is one of the most terrifying novels of Nature gone berserk ever written. One of the scarcest horror titles from the Paperbacks from Hell era, it returns to print at last with a new introduction by Will Errickson and the original cover art by Les Edwards.
193 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 31, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 28, 2017
“The pigs. Look, they’re coming out,” she shrieked. “Oh, sweet Christ. The pigs!!”
Not to mention that they're on drugs. And collaborating with the geese. And the collies. And the sheep. Even the cows.
Not to mention that they're on drugs. And collaborating with the geese. And the collies. And the sheep. Even the cows.
January 16, 2026
I can't believe Grady Hendrix only gave this two stars -- it was a total banger! Now Valancourt needs to reissue the sequel, copies currently go for $395 on Amazon.
February 6, 2024
Review to come.
March 16, 2026
Character List and Interrelations
The novel focuses on the Thompson family and their guests, trapped on the isolated Hobb’s Farm in North Wales during a scorching drought.
* The Thompson Family:
* Edwin Thompson: The elderly, arthritic patriarch of Hobb’s Farm.
* Alice Thompson: Edwin’s wife, who maintains the household despite the growing tension.
* Paul Thompson: Edwin and Alice’s son. A heavy drinker (often consuming vodka) who struggles with the farm's failing economy.
* Helene Thompson: Paul’s wife, who is increasingly anxious about the strange animal behavior and her husband’s drinking.
* The Guests/Others:
* Marcus: The young son of the Thompsons (Paul and Helene), who becomes an early victim of the farm animals' aggression.
* Sister Audrey, Sister Mary, and Sister Agnes: Nuns traveling through the area who encounter the aggressive driving and environmental decay of the region.
* Bryn and Gor: The farm’s sheepdogs, who eventually turn on Marcus.
Chapter Summaries (1–19)
* Chapter 1: Introduces the oppressive heat wave and economic desperation in North Wales. A man meticulously sharpens a hunting knife.
* Chapter 2: Nuns traveling in an old Morris are nearly run off the road by a speeding Porsche, establishing a sense of modern intrusion and chaos.
* Chapter 3: Establishes the sexual tension and frustration among characters on the farm, specifically involving Paul and Helene.
* Chapter 4: Helene notices the first signs of "madness" in the animals. She considers the possibility of rabies as Paul drinks heavily.
* Chapter 5: Marcus attempts to play with his kite, but the atmosphere is heavy and threatening.
* Chapter 6: The revolt begins in earnest. Marcus is cornered and attacked by the family sheepdogs, Bryn and Gor, leaving him terrified and bleeding.
* Chapter 7–19: The situation at Hobb's Farm rapidly deteriorates. The animal attacks escalate from domestic pets to livestock. The Thompson family becomes besieged within the farmhouse as the animals exhibit a coordinated, predatory intelligence. The "chemical pollution" mentioned in the prologue is hinted at as a catalyst for this sudden biological shift, turning the once-docile farm into a slaughterhouse.
Book Review: Issues and Contexts
1980s UK Context
Published in 1984, the novel reflects the "Winter of Discontent" aftermath and the Thatcher-era economic crises. The agricultural setting highlights the vulnerability of rural Britain to both economic ruin and environmental contamination. The drought serves as a physical manifestation of a country parched of resources and social cohesion.
Horror Fiction Contexts: The Terror vs. The Farm
Arthur Machen’s The Terror (1917) provides a direct literary ancestor to Haigh’s work.
* The Philosophical Shift: In Machen’s work, animals revolt because man has abdicated his spiritual "dominion" through the carnage of WWI. In The Farm, the revolt is more "modern"—a result of chemical pollution and ecological neglect.
* The Siege: The siege of Treff Loyne Farm in The Terror is a template for the siege of Hobb’s Farm. Both involve a descent from domestic safety into a primitive struggle for survival where the "natural order" is inverted.
Comparison with James Herbert’s Rats
While Machen is atmospheric and mysterious, Haigh leans closer to the "Splatterpunk" style of James Herbert’s The Rats (1974).
* Gore: Like Herbert, Haigh uses visceral descriptions of animal attacks—squishing blood in shoes and sharp bites—to shock the reader.
* Urban vs. Rural: Where Herbert brought the horror to the London slums, Haigh explores the "rural Gothic," suggesting that the countryside is not a refuge but a trap.
Conclusion: Is it a "Cozy Catastrophe"?
Absolutely not. While it features the "isolated group" trope common in cozy catastrophes (like John Wyndham's works), the graphic violence and explicit sexual content strip away any sense of comfort or middle-class safety. It is a bleak, "un-cozy" look at family collapse under the pressure of a world turned feral.
The novel focuses on the Thompson family and their guests, trapped on the isolated Hobb’s Farm in North Wales during a scorching drought.
* The Thompson Family:
* Edwin Thompson: The elderly, arthritic patriarch of Hobb’s Farm.
* Alice Thompson: Edwin’s wife, who maintains the household despite the growing tension.
* Paul Thompson: Edwin and Alice’s son. A heavy drinker (often consuming vodka) who struggles with the farm's failing economy.
* Helene Thompson: Paul’s wife, who is increasingly anxious about the strange animal behavior and her husband’s drinking.
* The Guests/Others:
* Marcus: The young son of the Thompsons (Paul and Helene), who becomes an early victim of the farm animals' aggression.
* Sister Audrey, Sister Mary, and Sister Agnes: Nuns traveling through the area who encounter the aggressive driving and environmental decay of the region.
* Bryn and Gor: The farm’s sheepdogs, who eventually turn on Marcus.
Chapter Summaries (1–19)
* Chapter 1: Introduces the oppressive heat wave and economic desperation in North Wales. A man meticulously sharpens a hunting knife.
* Chapter 2: Nuns traveling in an old Morris are nearly run off the road by a speeding Porsche, establishing a sense of modern intrusion and chaos.
* Chapter 3: Establishes the sexual tension and frustration among characters on the farm, specifically involving Paul and Helene.
* Chapter 4: Helene notices the first signs of "madness" in the animals. She considers the possibility of rabies as Paul drinks heavily.
* Chapter 5: Marcus attempts to play with his kite, but the atmosphere is heavy and threatening.
* Chapter 6: The revolt begins in earnest. Marcus is cornered and attacked by the family sheepdogs, Bryn and Gor, leaving him terrified and bleeding.
* Chapter 7–19: The situation at Hobb's Farm rapidly deteriorates. The animal attacks escalate from domestic pets to livestock. The Thompson family becomes besieged within the farmhouse as the animals exhibit a coordinated, predatory intelligence. The "chemical pollution" mentioned in the prologue is hinted at as a catalyst for this sudden biological shift, turning the once-docile farm into a slaughterhouse.
Book Review: Issues and Contexts
1980s UK Context
Published in 1984, the novel reflects the "Winter of Discontent" aftermath and the Thatcher-era economic crises. The agricultural setting highlights the vulnerability of rural Britain to both economic ruin and environmental contamination. The drought serves as a physical manifestation of a country parched of resources and social cohesion.
Horror Fiction Contexts: The Terror vs. The Farm
Arthur Machen’s The Terror (1917) provides a direct literary ancestor to Haigh’s work.
* The Philosophical Shift: In Machen’s work, animals revolt because man has abdicated his spiritual "dominion" through the carnage of WWI. In The Farm, the revolt is more "modern"—a result of chemical pollution and ecological neglect.
* The Siege: The siege of Treff Loyne Farm in The Terror is a template for the siege of Hobb’s Farm. Both involve a descent from domestic safety into a primitive struggle for survival where the "natural order" is inverted.
Comparison with James Herbert’s Rats
While Machen is atmospheric and mysterious, Haigh leans closer to the "Splatterpunk" style of James Herbert’s The Rats (1974).
* Gore: Like Herbert, Haigh uses visceral descriptions of animal attacks—squishing blood in shoes and sharp bites—to shock the reader.
* Urban vs. Rural: Where Herbert brought the horror to the London slums, Haigh explores the "rural Gothic," suggesting that the countryside is not a refuge but a trap.
Conclusion: Is it a "Cozy Catastrophe"?
Absolutely not. While it features the "isolated group" trope common in cozy catastrophes (like John Wyndham's works), the graphic violence and explicit sexual content strip away any sense of comfort or middle-class safety. It is a bleak, "un-cozy" look at family collapse under the pressure of a world turned feral.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2026
Classic man vs nature hepped up on a ketomine cocktail is a really quick and disturbing read. A combo of Herberts characterisation and world building combined Hutsons level of queezy anatomically heavy descriptions of violence and sex, it is a rather well written yarn and the story easy to follow. Super 80s featuring Madness on the radio, Morris Minors and a reference to the yet completed London Orbital.
The characters aren't as cardboard as you'd expect they all seemed quite unique and rounded. Some heavy incestuous themes was hard to read but were pretty fitting with the overall grim nature to the book as a whole. The ending is satisfyingly bleak even for a Paperback of this ilk.
There's a particular scene involving the destruction a certain part of the male anatomy that really made me faint. Not quite as bad as Guts in Palahniuks Haunted but certainly left a lasting memory.
I oreded the Paperback from Hell Valencourt release as soon as I found out that it was republished, with a great introduction from Will Erricksson, thoroughly recommend if you're a fan of the aforementioned masters of British hardcore horror or Guy N. Smith, John Halkin and the likes.
I actually bought the super rare sequel "The City" in British Heart Foundation charity shop in Paisley about 10 years ago, glad I can finally get round to reading it now.
The characters aren't as cardboard as you'd expect they all seemed quite unique and rounded. Some heavy incestuous themes was hard to read but were pretty fitting with the overall grim nature to the book as a whole. The ending is satisfyingly bleak even for a Paperback of this ilk.
There's a particular scene involving the destruction a certain part of the male anatomy that really made me faint. Not quite as bad as Guts in Palahniuks Haunted but certainly left a lasting memory.
I oreded the Paperback from Hell Valencourt release as soon as I found out that it was republished, with a great introduction from Will Erricksson, thoroughly recommend if you're a fan of the aforementioned masters of British hardcore horror or Guy N. Smith, John Halkin and the likes.
I actually bought the super rare sequel "The City" in British Heart Foundation charity shop in Paisley about 10 years ago, glad I can finally get round to reading it now.
May 24, 2026
Laurence James is an author who I'm probably guilty of overlooking. Partly because he was best known for hippie era SF, which isn't really my thing, and partly because he used so many pen names. It's easy to forget that 'Mick Norman' who wrote all those Hells Angels novels, is also 'James Darke' of the Witchfinder General inspired 'The Witches' series, as well as 'Jonathan May' of the rival Confessions book series. Whatever name he was using that week and whatever genre he was working in though, you're always in entertaining hands with Laurence James.
Here James steps into the guise of 'Richard Haigh' and gives the likes of Guy N. Smith and James Herbert a run for their money with this prime piece of 1980s paperback horror in which an isolated farmhouse in Wales comes under attack from carnage loving pigs. Not willing to put all his eggs in the one basket, James expands this from being a mere killer pigs vehicle. Since The Farm also trots out lethal dogs, cannibalistic rabbits, malicious goats, cows seeking martyrdom and suicidal geese. All putting aside their differences to gang up against the human race and seek revenge after their water supply was contaminated by dangerous chemicals.
Speaking of Guy N. Smith, I suspect this book was doing a little bit more than encroaching on his literary territory. In fact there seems to be a fascinating, hidden layer of Guy N. Smith references in this book. The main protagonist Paul is a city boy who makes the dramatic lifestyle change of decamping to a farm in rural Wales- as Guy N. Smith had done in real life. Paul's brother Richard works in a bank- an occupation Smith had held prior to becoming a full time writer. Richard's wife is called Jean- which is the name of Guy N. Smith's wife. Jean and Richard have two children, a boy and a girl who are in their early teens- and did the Smiths (technically they actually had a boy and two girls). Paul is also harbouring the secret that he used to write erotic fiction for top shelf magazines- as did Guy N. Smith back in the 1970s. It's way too much to have been a mere coincidence. Smith did lend a front cover quote to James's horror novel Paradise Lost "mind blowing terror from a talented new horror writer". So i assume those two were mates, and these clandestine GNS references should be interpreted as a good natured poke in the ribs.
Although it has never really attained the iconic status of The Rats, Night of the Crabs or Slugs, in many ways The Farm is the absolute embodiment of the 1980s British horror paperback. It's simplistic, relatively short on page count, delivers crowd pleasing scenes of people falling foul of bloodthirsty animals and is shameless in its perversity. If you think Guy N. Smith was often guilty of inserting troubling sexual elements into his horror books, then Laurence James wants you to hold his beer. Come for the killer pigs, stick around to be disturbed by the behaviour of an underage Welsh nympho called Gwyneth, who's anyone's for a top up to her pocket money. I dare say that after meeting a girl like Gwyneth, a Welshman need never look longingly at a sheep again. For some reason James chooses the scene in which Gwyneth and another character break the sexual taboo of incest, to go overboard not only in terms of sexual descriptions but also in terms of product placement. I doubt The Mirror newspaper, Robertson's Marmalade or Toyah Willcox were grateful for having their wares plugged in that context.
It could be argued that back in the morally bankrupt 1980s, books like this were being passed around the playgrounds by boys who would have been roughly the same age as Gwyneth, to whom she'd no doubt have been something of a fantasy figure. Still the Gwyneth aspects to the book are pretty sordid even for that era and don't exactly show James's character in the greatest light, for a while there it really does feel like he's writing jerk off material for Jimmy Savile. In another example of this book timestamping itself to the era, it is such a quintessentially British and 1980s thing for the unnatural relationship in this book to get discovered thanks to a trade union dispute (you'll have to read the book yourself to discover how, it's priceless). Perhaps that was another of James's Guy N. Smith in-jokes, trade union activity being one of Smith's bete noires.
Laurence James always comes across as being a little bit more hip and in touch with popular culture than your average paperback writer back then. I seem to recall his Hells Angels books including Michael Moorcock references, name checking Roger Corman and general having a satirical, underground sensibility to them. As we venture into the 1980s, The Farm proves that James still had his finger on the pulse when it came to what the kids were into. James needle drops songs by Madness, Fun Boy Three and Ian Dury into these pages. I especially liked that when it came to Dury, James didn't go for the obvious 'Reasons to be Cheerful' or 'Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick' and instead has a character listening to 'Spasticus Autisticus' on the radio. Which might be another example of Laurence James pulling our leg, since the BBC ban on that song probably meant that Spasticus Autisticus didn't actually receive much radio airplay back then.
We also get a Famous Five reference, which initially seems quite old fashioned in that company, but I suspect James was actually eluding there to the Comic Strip's 'Five Go Mad in Dorset' parody. Especially as he quotes the famous "lashings of ginger beer" line. Which was echoed throughout playgrounds after Five Go Mad in Dorset went out, along with the heavies' blah-blah-blah speeches. I suppose a blah-blah-blah version of The Farm's plot would go ... blah-blah-blah chemical spillage... blah-blah-blah government cover-up... blah-blah-blah Welsh jailbait... blah-blah-blah killer pigs.
James's approach to horror can at times be as unconventional as his choice of Ian Dury songs. He has an eccentric habit of ending chapters on a cliffhanger then jumping forward at the start of the next chapter and only eventually revealing important plot details anecdotally. Something which takes a bit of getting used to. After a literally explosive opening that sees James gleefully reduce schoolchildren, nuns and a chickenhawk photographer to bloody pulp, the book then teases us with a few false starts, slips into darkness with it's jailbait fixation before pulling it's mind out of the gutter and unleashing the swine. Once it gets going through, the book comes out with all guns blazing and The Farm lives up to it's reputation as a better than average example of the paperback equivalent of the Video Nasties. It's the type of book that thrived during the late 70s and early 80s, only for public to grow tired of this sort of horror novel when an influx of below average books flooded the market at the end of the eighties. My suspicion is that had the Video Nasties been left alone they'd have met with a similar fate and the public would eventually have just gotten bored and jaded with an overkill of cheap horror movies on video. However, because the Video Nasties were taken away from us they've achieved legendary status and enjoyed a healthy cult afterlife. Whereas their book equivalents, lacking the allure of forbidden fruit, have tended to fade into obscurity.
Saying that, The Farm was recently republished by Valancourt's Paperbacks from Hell imprint, followed by the news that James's follow up The City (1986) is being republished by a new company called Cardboard Coffin Press. News that is something to squeal about, since buying original copies of those books at the moment seems impossible without remortgaging your house or taking up bank robbing. I can't help but be amused though that in a recent interview one of the Paperbacks from Hell people ruled out republishing Pierce Nace's Eat Them Alive on account that it "veers on the side of bad, bad taste" and is "super duper rapey" (note: that book contains no rape whatsoever) yet they're perfectly happy to republish Welsh incest porn. Kudos to them for putting The Farm back in circulation, but there's some peculiar double standards going on there.
Here James steps into the guise of 'Richard Haigh' and gives the likes of Guy N. Smith and James Herbert a run for their money with this prime piece of 1980s paperback horror in which an isolated farmhouse in Wales comes under attack from carnage loving pigs. Not willing to put all his eggs in the one basket, James expands this from being a mere killer pigs vehicle. Since The Farm also trots out lethal dogs, cannibalistic rabbits, malicious goats, cows seeking martyrdom and suicidal geese. All putting aside their differences to gang up against the human race and seek revenge after their water supply was contaminated by dangerous chemicals.
Speaking of Guy N. Smith, I suspect this book was doing a little bit more than encroaching on his literary territory. In fact there seems to be a fascinating, hidden layer of Guy N. Smith references in this book. The main protagonist Paul is a city boy who makes the dramatic lifestyle change of decamping to a farm in rural Wales- as Guy N. Smith had done in real life. Paul's brother Richard works in a bank- an occupation Smith had held prior to becoming a full time writer. Richard's wife is called Jean- which is the name of Guy N. Smith's wife. Jean and Richard have two children, a boy and a girl who are in their early teens- and did the Smiths (technically they actually had a boy and two girls). Paul is also harbouring the secret that he used to write erotic fiction for top shelf magazines- as did Guy N. Smith back in the 1970s. It's way too much to have been a mere coincidence. Smith did lend a front cover quote to James's horror novel Paradise Lost "mind blowing terror from a talented new horror writer". So i assume those two were mates, and these clandestine GNS references should be interpreted as a good natured poke in the ribs.
Although it has never really attained the iconic status of The Rats, Night of the Crabs or Slugs, in many ways The Farm is the absolute embodiment of the 1980s British horror paperback. It's simplistic, relatively short on page count, delivers crowd pleasing scenes of people falling foul of bloodthirsty animals and is shameless in its perversity. If you think Guy N. Smith was often guilty of inserting troubling sexual elements into his horror books, then Laurence James wants you to hold his beer. Come for the killer pigs, stick around to be disturbed by the behaviour of an underage Welsh nympho called Gwyneth, who's anyone's for a top up to her pocket money. I dare say that after meeting a girl like Gwyneth, a Welshman need never look longingly at a sheep again. For some reason James chooses the scene in which Gwyneth and another character break the sexual taboo of incest, to go overboard not only in terms of sexual descriptions but also in terms of product placement. I doubt The Mirror newspaper, Robertson's Marmalade or Toyah Willcox were grateful for having their wares plugged in that context.
It could be argued that back in the morally bankrupt 1980s, books like this were being passed around the playgrounds by boys who would have been roughly the same age as Gwyneth, to whom she'd no doubt have been something of a fantasy figure. Still the Gwyneth aspects to the book are pretty sordid even for that era and don't exactly show James's character in the greatest light, for a while there it really does feel like he's writing jerk off material for Jimmy Savile. In another example of this book timestamping itself to the era, it is such a quintessentially British and 1980s thing for the unnatural relationship in this book to get discovered thanks to a trade union dispute (you'll have to read the book yourself to discover how, it's priceless). Perhaps that was another of James's Guy N. Smith in-jokes, trade union activity being one of Smith's bete noires.
Laurence James always comes across as being a little bit more hip and in touch with popular culture than your average paperback writer back then. I seem to recall his Hells Angels books including Michael Moorcock references, name checking Roger Corman and general having a satirical, underground sensibility to them. As we venture into the 1980s, The Farm proves that James still had his finger on the pulse when it came to what the kids were into. James needle drops songs by Madness, Fun Boy Three and Ian Dury into these pages. I especially liked that when it came to Dury, James didn't go for the obvious 'Reasons to be Cheerful' or 'Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick' and instead has a character listening to 'Spasticus Autisticus' on the radio. Which might be another example of Laurence James pulling our leg, since the BBC ban on that song probably meant that Spasticus Autisticus didn't actually receive much radio airplay back then.
We also get a Famous Five reference, which initially seems quite old fashioned in that company, but I suspect James was actually eluding there to the Comic Strip's 'Five Go Mad in Dorset' parody. Especially as he quotes the famous "lashings of ginger beer" line. Which was echoed throughout playgrounds after Five Go Mad in Dorset went out, along with the heavies' blah-blah-blah speeches. I suppose a blah-blah-blah version of The Farm's plot would go ... blah-blah-blah chemical spillage... blah-blah-blah government cover-up... blah-blah-blah Welsh jailbait... blah-blah-blah killer pigs.
James's approach to horror can at times be as unconventional as his choice of Ian Dury songs. He has an eccentric habit of ending chapters on a cliffhanger then jumping forward at the start of the next chapter and only eventually revealing important plot details anecdotally. Something which takes a bit of getting used to. After a literally explosive opening that sees James gleefully reduce schoolchildren, nuns and a chickenhawk photographer to bloody pulp, the book then teases us with a few false starts, slips into darkness with it's jailbait fixation before pulling it's mind out of the gutter and unleashing the swine. Once it gets going through, the book comes out with all guns blazing and The Farm lives up to it's reputation as a better than average example of the paperback equivalent of the Video Nasties. It's the type of book that thrived during the late 70s and early 80s, only for public to grow tired of this sort of horror novel when an influx of below average books flooded the market at the end of the eighties. My suspicion is that had the Video Nasties been left alone they'd have met with a similar fate and the public would eventually have just gotten bored and jaded with an overkill of cheap horror movies on video. However, because the Video Nasties were taken away from us they've achieved legendary status and enjoyed a healthy cult afterlife. Whereas their book equivalents, lacking the allure of forbidden fruit, have tended to fade into obscurity.
Saying that, The Farm was recently republished by Valancourt's Paperbacks from Hell imprint, followed by the news that James's follow up The City (1986) is being republished by a new company called Cardboard Coffin Press. News that is something to squeal about, since buying original copies of those books at the moment seems impossible without remortgaging your house or taking up bank robbing. I can't help but be amused though that in a recent interview one of the Paperbacks from Hell people ruled out republishing Pierce Nace's Eat Them Alive on account that it "veers on the side of bad, bad taste" and is "super duper rapey" (note: that book contains no rape whatsoever) yet they're perfectly happy to republish Welsh incest porn. Kudos to them for putting The Farm back in circulation, but there's some peculiar double standards going on there.
January 6, 2020
All the livestock on a British farm goes insanely people-hungry when strange chemicals end up in the water.
Old-fashioned 80's horror fun. The sex was ridiculous to the point of disgusting (incest, seriously?) so the trick is to skip three or four pages ahead anytime it enters the story. Outside of that, you have several people getting killed horrifically by everything from dogs to cows to -of course - the PIGS!
Old-fashioned 80's horror fun. The sex was ridiculous to the point of disgusting (incest, seriously?) so the trick is to skip three or four pages ahead anytime it enters the story. Outside of that, you have several people getting killed horrifically by everything from dogs to cows to -of course - the PIGS!
April 8, 2026
This is a really tough book to review. Because the first half of this book, has some real real real skeevy gross things in it. The way the teenager is written is straight up gross. That combined with a real pointless array of false starts to the carnage makes it difficult.
THEN YOU GET TO THE SECOND HALF.....which HOLY SHIT IS AMAAZING. The animal carnage is absolutely spectacularly unhinged. Some of the deaths in this book are so mean spirited and hilarious that I was quite frankly delighted.
I will probably read this again but ONLY the second half. Hope the sequel gets re-released too because the pigs wrecking shop in a city sound amazing.
THEN YOU GET TO THE SECOND HALF.....which HOLY SHIT IS AMAAZING. The animal carnage is absolutely spectacularly unhinged. Some of the deaths in this book are so mean spirited and hilarious that I was quite frankly delighted.
I will probably read this again but ONLY the second half. Hope the sequel gets re-released too because the pigs wrecking shop in a city sound amazing.
July 14, 2019
Gory nonsense but at the same time a lot of fun!
July 2, 2026
Ordered direct from Valancourt.
An icky read, for reasons both intentional, and, well, intentional, but yucky. We have a chain car crash on a small Welsh road that reminds me of the one in Final Destination 2, though more English--a lorry, a small car, a car full of nuns, little country roads. Haigh especially enjoys squishing English clergy whenever he has the chance, since the novel ends, with the setup for a sequel featuring an even bigger outbreak in London after another crash near a reservoir, which includes a clergyman on a bicycle, "a confirmed Jansenist in his views." There's some highfalutin' stuff here to let you know he could do better--quotations from Stevie Smith's poems, an overt foreshadowing in the opening pages, characters who respond intelligently to their plight, the occasional other allusion or poetic turn of phrase--but also some really committed, I guess is the word, down-in-the-muck gore, as well as an icky subplot and truly gross treatment of the kind of teenage girl who exists only in male writers' fantasies. Thumbs down for that.
The plot is your basic Troma spin--ketamine and some other chemicals spill into a stream that feeds the farm (ketamine strikes me as very forward-looking for 1984), creating a toxic mix that turns all the animals mad and also seems to give them a certain cunning planning ability that goes unexplained. Not Animal Farm, which the characters reference, but pigs' happily indiscriminate consumption does serve as the disturbing fulcrum. There's also a complete indifference to sentiment--cute kids get it, bad kids get it, grumpy rural stereotypes get it (offscreen, though later we encounter the results), sweet older people get it. A fine, exploitative instance of the animal-attack genre that I would have preferred not be so socially gross.
An icky read, for reasons both intentional, and, well, intentional, but yucky. We have a chain car crash on a small Welsh road that reminds me of the one in Final Destination 2, though more English--a lorry, a small car, a car full of nuns, little country roads. Haigh especially enjoys squishing English clergy whenever he has the chance, since the novel ends, with the setup for a sequel featuring an even bigger outbreak in London after another crash near a reservoir, which includes a clergyman on a bicycle, "a confirmed Jansenist in his views." There's some highfalutin' stuff here to let you know he could do better--quotations from Stevie Smith's poems, an overt foreshadowing in the opening pages, characters who respond intelligently to their plight, the occasional other allusion or poetic turn of phrase--but also some really committed, I guess is the word, down-in-the-muck gore, as well as an icky subplot and truly gross treatment of the kind of teenage girl who exists only in male writers' fantasies. Thumbs down for that.
The plot is your basic Troma spin--ketamine and some other chemicals spill into a stream that feeds the farm (ketamine strikes me as very forward-looking for 1984), creating a toxic mix that turns all the animals mad and also seems to give them a certain cunning planning ability that goes unexplained. Not Animal Farm, which the characters reference, but pigs' happily indiscriminate consumption does serve as the disturbing fulcrum. There's also a complete indifference to sentiment--cute kids get it, bad kids get it, grumpy rural stereotypes get it (offscreen, though later we encounter the results), sweet older people get it. A fine, exploitative instance of the animal-attack genre that I would have preferred not be so socially gross.
March 25, 2026
When a pile up on a Welsh road leads to a mix of chemicals being released into a lonely farms water table, the ten people staying there soon find themselves trapped and fighting for their lives against crazed livestock
A good animal attack novel and one that’s is incredibly hard to get an original copy of.
A good animal attack novel and one that’s is incredibly hard to get an original copy of.
April 21, 2026
I had high hopes for this one. It’s a notorious and rare book until the new reprint, so at least I didn’t buy the older printings.
Terrible pacing, and it seems like the writer’s style. Nothing happens for half the book, and when something starts happening, it still feels sluggish.
Its sequel “The City” is getting a reprint soon, and this makes me not want to spend the $20 on that one.
Terrible pacing, and it seems like the writer’s style. Nothing happens for half the book, and when something starts happening, it still feels sluggish.
Its sequel “The City” is getting a reprint soon, and this makes me not want to spend the $20 on that one.
February 21, 2024
It was great, other than the incest.
March 24, 2026
unlikeable lot
wind up getting gnawed on by
angry, dosed beasties
wind up getting gnawed on by
angry, dosed beasties
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews