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Home Intruder 2: Born This Way
Twenty years ago, the serial killer Jason Jacks terrorised and slaughtered innocent, loved-up couples. One woman survived the ordeal and lived to bear the killer's child. That child is Edward, named after her beloved, late husband.
Now Edward is all grown-up, a geeky undergraduate and budding film-maker. When he finds out the truth about his dad, he will come of age in the most violent fashion. The truth shall set him free. Free to replicate his father's sins.
Hazel Briggs is enjoying a quiet night in with her boyfriend Ryan and best-friend Megan. That is until Edward knocks on the door.... Armed with nothing more than some gardening tools and a smartphone, Edward is planning on making a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary. This is Edward's story, and he is going to make damn sure that everybody listens.
An extreme horror novel from Sam west.
(An extract of 'Splatterpunks' is included at the end of the novel.)
Now Edward is all grown-up, a geeky undergraduate and budding film-maker. When he finds out the truth about his dad, he will come of age in the most violent fashion. The truth shall set him free. Free to replicate his father's sins.
Hazel Briggs is enjoying a quiet night in with her boyfriend Ryan and best-friend Megan. That is until Edward knocks on the door.... Armed with nothing more than some gardening tools and a smartphone, Edward is planning on making a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary. This is Edward's story, and he is going to make damn sure that everybody listens.
An extreme horror novel from Sam west.
(An extract of 'Splatterpunks' is included at the end of the novel.)
- GenresHorror
106 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 15, 2015
49 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Sam West
62 books233 followersSam West is a British, extreme horror author with more than forty books to her name. If you like your fiction dark, gritty, gory, perverse and truly terrifying, then you're in the right place.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 25, 2020
First thing you should know going in: while Home Intruder 2 is billed as "An extreme horror novel" on the cover, in truth it's barely even a novella. It's initial page count looks promising at just over eighty, but it struggles to break seventy, with the remaining ten or so pages belonging to an excerpt of another of West's books (I read the Kindle edition, converted to epub format for my Nook, so the page count doesn't match Goodreads'). I don't mind when authors or publishers do this in full-length fiction -- hell, it's becoming a trend in the publishing world nowadays to have two different stories teased in the back pages -- but doing it at the end of what is basically a short story strikes me as a dick move.
I always feel bad writing negative reviews, but honestly, there's so little to recommend West's novella that I'm unable to do otherwise. His characters, what few there are in this short story, are so flat and two-dimensional they may as well be window clings, and the 'psychopath with delusions of grandeur' West presents in antagonist Edward Sullivan could have been culled from any number of sub-par films you can catch on late-night television. As a writer one should strive for memorable villains, but Edward's only memorable for how forgettable and generic West made him: a sociopathic pretty boy, the by-product of the rape of his mother by a serial killer two decades ago, brought up without the love he craved, living the life of a tortured artist who wants to tell the world his story but fears the never-ending anal tragedy of his prison term should he be captured.
Gee, where could I possibly have read about a character like this before?
This is the problem with billing yourself as an extreme horror author and your works as extreme horror novels. It's true, West has a grotesque imagination, exposing his cardboard stand-up characters to a plethora of stomach-churning fates, but there's no life behind the eyes, as it were. Dialog is plodding, with characters splaying on for pages at a time when far less would do, but then if there were much less to this book, you couldn't even call it a novella proper.
That leaves us with a couple of scenarios, but two or three interconnected scenarios do not a story make. The ending, which I'm sure West intended to shock, is absolute schlock, with one character behaving in exactly the way Edward predicted she would, even though he's not there to prevent her from acting in a contrary way and shattering his carefully-laid plans for the future. In the hands of another writer, one who understands how to stretch the reader's imagination, this could be a powerful ending. But West never gives the reader the chance to really put himself or herself in the shoes of Hazel, his primary victim. I can sympathize with her suffering and the agony she endured, but I can't empathize with the decision she makes at the end, and therein lies the rub. I get she was traumatized, I understand Edward brutalized her, but ultimately no one roots for a heroine who is so easily broken in a horror story. I don't mind a depressing ending, but Hazel (and the rest of Edward's victims for that matter) spend so much of the story giving up when they should be fighting back. Even when it becomes clear they're going to die after Edward's through with them, no one displays that 'fight or flight' instinct, instead allowing themselves to be put through one humiliating scenario after another until Edward's filmed enough.
This smacks of characters behaving the way the writer needs them to behave, instead of the way they should behave, and that's a huge no-no when it comes to horror. Horror protagonists, to survive, need to be willing to fight tooth and nail for every victory. Hazel's not willing to do that, and she not only survives but continues to carry out Edward's long-term plan after he can't possibly stop her from deviating and screwing everything up. That's not only weak, that's downright insulting to both the audience and to women in general.
I don't throw the term 'misogyny' around lightly when it comes to horror--it's easy to claim horror's misogynistic with the way it routinely treats women at the hands of the common dominant male antagonist, but bad things directed at women by a writer are not evidence of misogyny by default. That has to come from something deeper, an in-built lack of respect for the autonomy and personhood of female characters by their author. A woman subjected to bad things alone isn't sufficient to warrant this label. The way West treats women in this story, however, is. Stripped of their agency, bereft of common sense, presented as little more than pigs being led to their deaths after which West will use their blood as ink to write the story, it just feels wrong here. I don't think West loathes women (rather a shame if she does, since West is apparently female), but she certainly has no idea how to use them as proper characters, at least not in this story.
Finally, the author's just too in love with her antagonist. Edward has every gift a man could ask for: beautiful blue eyes, perfect hair, tight body, quiet brooding intensity that makes all the girls drench their panties at the thought of being its focus, cunning intellect, devious mind, an artist's flare, and charisma coming out his ears. It's not described, but I presume he's also packing a twelve-inch cock and an encyclopedic knowledge of the Kama Sutra guaranteed to bring every woman he's with to mind-shattering orgasm in seconds, because at this point, why the hell not?
Home Intruder 2: Born This Way is barely-competent horror, 'extreme' in none but the most ironic 1990's application of the word. It serves its purpose, but that purpose is either a stepping stone on the way to finding better examples of the genre, or proving the ability to string words together in a grammatically-correct format over the course of seventy pages doesn't mean you've said anything of merit.
Two bloody secateurs out of five, and it earns the second only by virtue of the fact I finished it as I don't consider it fair to review books I don't complete. I spent longer writing this review than I spent reading the story just to keep everyone else from wasting their time. Don't make my sacrifice in vain.
I always feel bad writing negative reviews, but honestly, there's so little to recommend West's novella that I'm unable to do otherwise. His characters, what few there are in this short story, are so flat and two-dimensional they may as well be window clings, and the 'psychopath with delusions of grandeur' West presents in antagonist Edward Sullivan could have been culled from any number of sub-par films you can catch on late-night television. As a writer one should strive for memorable villains, but Edward's only memorable for how forgettable and generic West made him: a sociopathic pretty boy, the by-product of the rape of his mother by a serial killer two decades ago, brought up without the love he craved, living the life of a tortured artist who wants to tell the world his story but fears the never-ending anal tragedy of his prison term should he be captured.
Gee, where could I possibly have read about a character like this before?
This is the problem with billing yourself as an extreme horror author and your works as extreme horror novels. It's true, West has a grotesque imagination, exposing his cardboard stand-up characters to a plethora of stomach-churning fates, but there's no life behind the eyes, as it were. Dialog is plodding, with characters splaying on for pages at a time when far less would do, but then if there were much less to this book, you couldn't even call it a novella proper.
That leaves us with a couple of scenarios, but two or three interconnected scenarios do not a story make. The ending, which I'm sure West intended to shock, is absolute schlock, with one character behaving in exactly the way Edward predicted she would, even though he's not there to prevent her from acting in a contrary way and shattering his carefully-laid plans for the future. In the hands of another writer, one who understands how to stretch the reader's imagination, this could be a powerful ending. But West never gives the reader the chance to really put himself or herself in the shoes of Hazel, his primary victim. I can sympathize with her suffering and the agony she endured, but I can't empathize with the decision she makes at the end, and therein lies the rub. I get she was traumatized, I understand Edward brutalized her, but ultimately no one roots for a heroine who is so easily broken in a horror story. I don't mind a depressing ending, but Hazel (and the rest of Edward's victims for that matter) spend so much of the story giving up when they should be fighting back. Even when it becomes clear they're going to die after Edward's through with them, no one displays that 'fight or flight' instinct, instead allowing themselves to be put through one humiliating scenario after another until Edward's filmed enough.
This smacks of characters behaving the way the writer needs them to behave, instead of the way they should behave, and that's a huge no-no when it comes to horror. Horror protagonists, to survive, need to be willing to fight tooth and nail for every victory. Hazel's not willing to do that, and she not only survives but continues to carry out Edward's long-term plan after he can't possibly stop her from deviating and screwing everything up. That's not only weak, that's downright insulting to both the audience and to women in general.
I don't throw the term 'misogyny' around lightly when it comes to horror--it's easy to claim horror's misogynistic with the way it routinely treats women at the hands of the common dominant male antagonist, but bad things directed at women by a writer are not evidence of misogyny by default. That has to come from something deeper, an in-built lack of respect for the autonomy and personhood of female characters by their author. A woman subjected to bad things alone isn't sufficient to warrant this label. The way West treats women in this story, however, is. Stripped of their agency, bereft of common sense, presented as little more than pigs being led to their deaths after which West will use their blood as ink to write the story, it just feels wrong here. I don't think West loathes women (rather a shame if she does, since West is apparently female), but she certainly has no idea how to use them as proper characters, at least not in this story.
Finally, the author's just too in love with her antagonist. Edward has every gift a man could ask for: beautiful blue eyes, perfect hair, tight body, quiet brooding intensity that makes all the girls drench their panties at the thought of being its focus, cunning intellect, devious mind, an artist's flare, and charisma coming out his ears. It's not described, but I presume he's also packing a twelve-inch cock and an encyclopedic knowledge of the Kama Sutra guaranteed to bring every woman he's with to mind-shattering orgasm in seconds, because at this point, why the hell not?
Home Intruder 2: Born This Way is barely-competent horror, 'extreme' in none but the most ironic 1990's application of the word. It serves its purpose, but that purpose is either a stepping stone on the way to finding better examples of the genre, or proving the ability to string words together in a grammatically-correct format over the course of seventy pages doesn't mean you've said anything of merit.
Two bloody secateurs out of five, and it earns the second only by virtue of the fact I finished it as I don't consider it fair to review books I don't complete. I spent longer writing this review than I spent reading the story just to keep everyone else from wasting their time. Don't make my sacrifice in vain.
November 8, 2025
Rating: 1.80
Honestly, I didn't see why this one was necessary. West essentially told the same story as the first book and it was just as bad. I imagine she may have been toying with adding a third book to the series.
I understand fiction doesn't have to make any sort of realistic sense - but the fact that the main character in this one didn't abort the rape baby is damn stupid, and Edward acting like the mutilation of her body would mean no one would ever touch her again was supposed to persuade her not to abort the baby? If you wanted a kid so bad, you'd adopt.
I really can't stand the fact that both books are exactly the same plotline.
Honestly, I didn't see why this one was necessary. West essentially told the same story as the first book and it was just as bad. I imagine she may have been toying with adding a third book to the series.
I understand fiction doesn't have to make any sort of realistic sense - but the fact that the main character in this one didn't abort the rape baby is damn stupid, and Edward acting like the mutilation of her body would mean no one would ever touch her again was supposed to persuade her not to abort the baby? If you wanted a kid so bad, you'd adopt.
I really can't stand the fact that both books are exactly the same plotline.
November 10, 2024
Home Intruder 2 picks up years later from Sam West’s original Home Intruder and weaves together another brutal story of hellbent revenge.
It’s hard to say too much without giving away spoilers, so I’ll just say that West’s ability to get the reader into the viscious brutality from both the killer and the victims had me tuning out the real world as I devoured each word.
It’s hard to know if there’s a Part 3 in the works, but it’s possible.
It’s hard to say too much without giving away spoilers, so I’ll just say that West’s ability to get the reader into the viscious brutality from both the killer and the victims had me tuning out the real world as I devoured each word.
It’s hard to know if there’s a Part 3 in the works, but it’s possible.
May 9, 2021
I really loved this story. But not as much as the first. Here's something I don't get.
January 11, 2021
Good
Good follow up to book one. Had a lot to live up to. Decent effort and well written as usual.
Good follow up to book one. Had a lot to live up to. Decent effort and well written as usual.
October 23, 2022
This is the ongoing of the first book. Her son, the serial killer grown up and became a psychopath like his dad. And then, and then. Little short stories to read.
November 28, 2015
Ugh. As a reluctant fan of the first Home Intruder (I can't be the only one who finds the title awkward, right?), I was not much of a fan at all of this follow-up. Horror can be a pretty misogynistic genre to begin with but this work probably takes the cake as the most diabolical assault on women I've ever read. Hacked by Tim Miller was similar in some ways but didn't reach the point of making me angry while reading it like this did. Women are victims yes but it is more than that. They are portrayed as nitwits who more than once let the psychopath continue his torture because of their failure to act when they have the chance. I refuse to believe that anyone in reality would make the decisions made in by the victims in this novella. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for anyone and then to top it off, a character makes a decision and repeats a mistake she knows someone else died for making. Please, I hope there isn't yet another sequel because as it is, this book is a lot of the author repeating himself from the first installment.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2024
The sequel that is just as enjoyable as the first!
The killer this time has a dark past, and all he wants is to follow in his father's footsteps. I was in for the whole ride and loved it!
4/5
The killer this time has a dark past, and all he wants is to follow in his father's footsteps. I was in for the whole ride and loved it!
4/5
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews