Camp Slasher

by Dan Padavona

Lost in the dark woods. Stalked and butchered. Head severed and tossed into the bushes.She is the first to die. The body count will grow.Slasher horror in the vein of Friday the 13th, Halloween, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.A group of young counselors set out to rebuild Camp Black Bear. But a bloodthirsty killer stalks the woods. Now two counselors must survive the night in the forest. The killer is hunting them. He won't stop until they are dead. And the nearest town is ten miles away.Where is the sheriff who promised to keep them safe? Can the counselors evade the killer until help arrives?More victims are found murdered in the woods. The vehicles are destroyed and the radio disabled. No escape.Footsteps in the dark. The killer is 2019 Splatterpunk Horror Novel of the YearClassic slasher horror that will leave fans of Stephen King, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre breathless. Fans of true slasher horror should get to know Camp Slasher.

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery, Summer, Horror Thriller, Fiction

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2018

About the author

Author of the Wolf Lake and Darkwater Cove series.

Want a free thriller and mystery book? Please join my VIP thriller readers club at
www.danpadavona.com.

I'm a father, husband, dog lover, and an advocate for animals and the homeless.

My kryptonite is ice cream, and my super power is cranking heavy metal.

More than anything, I love a good story. Let me tell you one.

Reviews

[Luvtoread (Trying to catch up) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beware Squeamish Readers!

Camp Bear Lake wants to make a grand reopening but first the owner has to renovate the old camp and get the township to build a new road through the deeply wooded area that hasn't seen any human activity in many years. Several young people have been hired to work on the property unaware of the sad shape the old camp is in and the amount of manpower that is really needed to get Camp Bear Lake on it's feet again if even possible. Fresh air to breathe and smell, a beautiful lake to swim in and the musical chorus of birds and insects singing their happy notes everywhere and all the time in the wooded area until night falls. Nighttime is a different animal at the camp. The happy and light sounds change to leaves crunching, the wind whispering and occasionally whistling sounding almost human and the eerie shadows of the tree branches where the camp takes on a spooky and creepy feeling that they are being watched by someone or something and the campsite does not feel welcoming anymore as each hour continues to go by.

This was a real horror story and not for the timid reader because it doesn't leave anything to your imagination except visualizing even more horrifying scenes. Each character has their own personal issues to deal with and why they wanted to work at the camp for the summer and several were very unlikable which made the book even more interesting and scary for me. I really enjoyed the story as it started out slowly and kept building until a certain point and then non-stop tension, action, danger on every page where you cannot stop reading until you finally reach the jaw dropping finale.

Beware of chapter eight! This was where the book started to really give me that "Horror in the Woods" creepy and goosebumps
type of feeling that stays with you until the final page. (IMHO),

I highly recommend this frightening story and have given a rating of 4 Horrifying 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stars!!

[Michael Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Camp Slasher, Dan Padavona’s latest, is the type of book whose title lets you know exactly what you’re getting into.

Cut from the same cloth as horror slasher flicks like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp, Padavona unleashes merciless violence upon a group of people working to rebuild the defunct Camp Black Bear. While the group struggles with clearing out an infestation of wolf spiders and struggling with the dramatics of interpersonal conflicts, a deranged killer lurks in the woods nearby, watching and waiting for his perfect moment to strike.

It’s all pretty standard killer camp stuff, but it doesn’t disappoint, particularly if you’re a sucker for these types of stories. Padavona does find a unique entry point into the mayhem, though, by injecting a worthwhile subplot of police drama and investigation into the disappearance of a woman and a group of hikers.

I was a bit surprised by the focus on the police officers, actually, having expected Camp Slasher to focus entirely on Camp Black Bear. Padavona spends a fair amount of time on political intrigue – Sheriff Bracken McCain is up for reelection, and one his deputies, a slimeball appropriately named Craven, is running against him and working hard to undercut everything Bracken does along the way. There’s a goodly amount of conflict baked into their relationship and Craven is one of those love-to-hate characters.

In fact, there’s a number of loathsome men populating Camp Slasher that readers will be pining to see meet their gruesome ends. Padavona stocks Camp Black Bear with perhaps more than its fair share of dangerously entitled men that you just cannot wait to see maimed and butchered, and while it strains credulity just a bit it does lead to some wonderfully satisfying scenes of tension as things spiral out of control.

Credit where it’s due, Padavona knows how to write some grisly, violent scenes. This is evident right the book’s opening chapter, which, if it weren’t already clear from the title, lets you know this is a horror book that won’t be pulling any punches or shying away from the gory bits. Even tense scenes of potential violence are deftly executed. There’s an early scene involving a cabin full of spiders that had this arachnophobe squirming in his seat, all hairs standing on end, thanks to some colorful word choices and stage-setting on the author’s part that let me see and hear things a bit too well.

Deftly paced and loaded with plenty of drama that helps pave the way for a bit of the ol’ ultra-violence, Camp Slasher should help satisfy those cravings for some 80s-styled summer vacation pulp horror. If you’ve been missing Jason Voorhees, Padavona has a new maniacal woodsman to introduce you to.

[Note: I received an advance reading copy of this title from the author.]

[Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just excellent. Review to come.

[Sea Caummisar · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something about reading a slasher that makes me feel nostalgic for all the great movies set in the wilderness when I was growing up. You can't go wrong with a good ole fashioned slice and dice. This one was fun, but nothing new was added to the genre. Overall, I'd still recommend it because I did really like a couple of the characters.

[Alex | | findingmontauk1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Camp Slasher is an homage to 80s slasher horror - and Padavona does an excellent job putting the reader in a state of mind to fully engage with the story. From the first chapter the reader is given a glimpse of extreme violence and gore! As I continued reading the book, I could almost see it perfectly playing out on the big screen in my mind. Padavona did a great job with details and keeping the action going and the heart racing. For all my friends who love slashers, this book is for you! Lots of machetes and axes and blood in this one... :) 4 stars from me!

[Bracken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a a clear homage to Friday the 13th style horror, collecting a varied group of young people as its cast and then killing them marvelously. While film has an advantage when it comes to startles, this literary version of the kids at camp facing unstoppable killer story is definitely not lacking in good tension, and outshines almost all the films in this genre with what it offers in storytelling and character depth. Dan's done something here which isn't at all easy to accomplish, and has written a novel in the style of 1980s style slasher horror films that's readable, engaging, and most of all, fun.

[Deacon D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm gonna give this one 3 stars, mostly because I like Padavona's writing. Unfortunately, CAMP SLASHER isn't particularly memorable, otherwise.

I must admit, one detail of the story bothered me (probably more than it should have): a main character has a sexual encounter in the backseat of a Corvette. Maybe, I'm being overly nitpicky, but I've never known a Corvette to even have a backseat!

Anyway, some decent gore scenes, but otherwise I found this one to be just meh.

[Vicky Lelove · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay... I do love slasher reads and while this was written well it just didn't add anything new to the genre.

[Mickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Who do you figure he is - some murderous loon living out in the middle of nowhere, surviving off the forest and killing anyone who wanders by? Or maybe he's the old camp counsellor whose life was ruined by prankster kids. Just like in the movies, eh?"

Hoo boy.
So if you're like me and love the typical 80s style horrors, you'll love this book. Big Friday the 13th vibes and I'm living for it.
The first murder happens in the first chapter and then it's a little quiet for a while but those last few chapters really hit the spot. I would say that if you are squeamish, avoid this one as there isn't a lot left to the imagination.
A great book that brings all the nostalgia feels of the old school horrors.

[Erin Talamantes · Rating 5 out of 5]

* Camp Black Bear has been abandoned for years, but Kirby Watkins believes that with some time and effort, he can restore this camp and make it magical.
* He hires a bunch of college kids to help shape up the camp and hopefully be future camp counselors when the camp can be open and used.
* “A- train” or Anthony is your typical chauvinistic pig of a man. He thinks he’s better than everyone there and a big ole manly man.
* Brie is A-trains little fling for the time being. Don’t know much about her except she can’t keep her hands off of A Train.
* Sarah is seemingly the only normal one, she is very nice and very much the main character of the book. She’s also just found out that she’s pregnant.
* Preston, oh he is something all right. Very very strange and weird boy who has a huge thing for Sarah, but is also a psychopath in the making.
* Caleb is late to showing up and is clearly the “misunderstood” one of the group. He has a criminal record but is more than meets the eye.
* The group realizes that they are in for a lot of work because the camp is in really bad bad shape.
* There is also some tension in the sheriff’s office at the current moment.
* The current sheriff, Bracken, is having a hard time with his deputy, Craven, because he wants to take his job.
* Of course the least of everyone’s worries are a run down camp and a sheriff/deputy rivalry.
* There is someone in the woods, lurking and waiting to kill anyone that gets in his way.
* Okay this book fantastic. I love slasher horror and this really just hits me in that good spot.
* Very reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw and Friday the 13th. It really has that nostalgic slasher horror feel that I love so much.
* Very gruesome and detailed, squeamish people be warned if you don’t like very detailed horror.
* Everything about this book was soooo good to me. If you’re a fan of that gruesome old school slasher classic style, you’ll really enjoy this book.
* Extremely easy to read and get into it. It’s only 247 pages long.
* The ending is a pretty typical slasher ending it wasn’t too extreme or shocking in my opinion, but I like that for slasher horror.
* It really kept me on the edge of my seat. Like I said, nothing out of the usual or different from your typical slasher, but so fun and so good to read.
* I feel like people who love slasher horror are used to the same thing over and over again, but it’s what we enjoy so we don’t mind haha.
100% recommend!

[exorcismemily · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You're in the forest, people."

Camp Slasher is a blend of slasher and procedural set at a small town summer camp. I think it was an intriguing idea, and it stands out from other slashers in that way, but there was a too much focus on the procedural aspect for my taste. Camp Slasher was a slow burn, and I did enjoy it more once things got going. There was some good gore. I felt like there were a couple things that didn't fully make sense, or won't totally explained (I'm not going to go into this to avoid spoilers). I was really looking forward to this one, but I had trouble connecting to it overall.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really pleasantly surprised with this novel. I had very low expectations going in, as I do on simple principle whenever I crack open a vanity published book or self published tale or whatever it’s called, and I knew nothing beyond the fairly straightforward plot the title promises. But it didn’t take long for me to get totally swept up in the story here.

Padavona has a solid, and brutal, slasher story here. It checks all the boxes of the classic and beloved set up of old school slashers and the love and appreciation of that genre shines through on the pages. It’s a simple story, a straight forward set up, and it doesn’t take very long to get to business. And once it does the blood simply doesn’t stop spraying.

With that being said, it did reach a point towards the end where it seemed like the story got away from Padavona a little bit. Or, more aptly, that perhaps it should have been a little longer. There were a lot of different plot lines going towards the end and they were all kind of discarded to focus solely on the madmen in the woods angle, and that’s a little disappointing. There was a lot of buildup surrounding some of these different aspects of the story, Craven’s mob related entanglements being a pretty big one, but none of them really add up to anything by the end of the book. And what was done to Caleb’s character was just dirty. He was the best, and easily one of the most complex, characters in the novel and his storyline and character arc deserved a better wrap up.

We also know virtually nothing about the killer clan living in the woods. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, not by any stretch, but it would have been nice to get a little insight into their lineage or back story. How they survived so long and how they are so goddamn hard to kill. I didn’t need a whole sweeping saga explaining every detail about them and how they wound up there, but a little something to fill in some of the blanks about their plight would have been nice and added an extra layer of depth to the story.

Despite it getting away from itself and leaving a few, if not a lot, of threads hanging I was still really entranced by this book. It got a little rushed at the end, with kill after kill after kill coming so quickly that they really started to lose any kind of emotional or resonating impact, but I was still tearing right through it. This is a quick and brutal slasher novel that’s a movie-in-pages. I could easily see this playing out on the screen and being a solidly enjoyable entry in the slasher subgenre. As it stands, this is a fantastic example of self publication being an effective display of horror writing. Dan Padavona is someone I’d never heard of or read any of his stuff, but this book had me hook line and sinker. I would have liked a little more story depth here and there, and some of the characters to be more fully realized instead of getting killed off right as they were getting interesting, but I still really loved this.

I can easily see myself scooping this book back up for a re-read every once in a while. And in the time between revisits to Camp Slasher I can easily see myself starting to track down the rest of Padavona’s writings. He’s got a new fan in me.

[✨ Aaron Jeffery ✨ · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was such a mess
what I liked:
- it was a quick, reasonably fun book to fly through
- the suspense in the first quarter I believe was alright
What I didn’t like
- the pacing was so off
- cardboard, boring, flat characters
- the deaths were so blahhhh like boring be creative
- anything to do with the cops, each of them seemed the same so I just kept getting confused
- the writing
- the gross sexualisation of the women
- the fact that the author attempted to build up some of the characters and storyline’s before cheaply killing them off (yes that’s the point of a slasher but make the reader somewhat care)
- nothing was explained
- feel like there was no resolution but i am happy it’s over

[Mike Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow. This guy really hates fat people, huh?

Pretty poorly written with paper-thin characters and wince-inducing dialogue, but honestly that almost adds to the overall slasher vibe.

[Raymie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is giving me Wrong Turn meets Camp Crystal Lake vibes.

This is a good slasher. It’s a bit slow in the beginning and we are meeting so many people and getting different POVs. But when it picks up you feel like you’re right in the middle of a horror movie.

you love:
🔺Slasher / Camp vibes
🔺Final Girls

Genre: Slasher Horror
APK:Physical
Pages: 273
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Series or Standalone: Stand-alone

[David Veith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0 This could have been so much better. The title felt a bit generic to me but gets the point across. The story flowed rather well, but there was a lot sort of gone over almost too fast. The perverted counselor was really not needed as he had nothing to do with the main story and was killed off rather quickly. The camp couple also was killed rather quickly, in the span of a paragraph, could have been more detailed or unique. Also, the bad cop, deciding to try to kill his rescuers did not add up at all. Yes, the sheriff was going to be his opponent in the upcoming elections, but to kill him, while you are being rescued from dying yourself and being hunted at the moment seemed sort of dumb. And go figure the bad guy gets away without a trace. And who were the kids with him? They said a little about the boy, nothing about the girl, and where did the killer come from? Just seemed like there could have been more put into it. The writing was well done, and the story did flow well though. It did make you want to keep reading, but then you would question what you just read lol.

[Shawna Daugherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A group of young councillors head up to Black Bear Lake to rebuild it, unaware that a psycho killer is stalking them from the woods.

With bodies piling up and no help in sight and the nearest town being 10 miles away, the remaining councillors will have to survive the night and escape the killer in the woods.


My Thoughts: This book was like Friday the 13th meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There was just the right amount of gore without it being over the top.

It took me a bit to get through this but not because it was bad I had a bit of a reading slump, but once I got back into reading it I flew through the book.

I love a good slasher and this book did not disappoint. There was some idiot characters in this book but the characters that weren’t were likeable.

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technically slightly higher than 3 stars but not quite 4. Undecided on where in the fraction this one falls.

Not much to say except that
1: if you're faint of heart, turn away; this has got gore galore and some general nastiness to the point of gross-out factor
2: I want a sequel or at least a follow-up story regarding our Final Girl, at some point in the future
and 3: I will be incredibly shocked if the author wasn't in any way inspired by legends of the Sawney Bean family.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

If your looking for some good old 80's horror in book form, this one is for you. I absolutely loved this book. Reminded me of all the old slasher films I would watch, some with my grandma when I was a kid. Kind of creepy and gory and reading it over the Summer season was even better. Their is no way I'm going camping in the woods anytime soon.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. This reads like what could of been if the late great Richard Laymon wrote a Friday the 13th slasher with great characterisation. Even saw a nod to Halloween. Screams for a Part 2. Ki ki ki ma ma ma...

[WeronikaNatalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the best slasher I have read so far! I enjoyed literally EVERY part. It’s kind of like Friday the 13th meets Halloween in a way but also with different angles. If you like slashers, I highly recommend it!

[bubbabooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always loved watching classic slasher movies with tropes of Final Girls and a fun camp setting. This book delivered on that, but I do wish there had been more action perhaps. This book has a super action packed last third, but I feel like there could have been more scares in the first half. Either way this book was still super fun and I really enjoyed reading it.

[Jeremy Fowler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great and gory slasher! Exactly what was I wanting in a creepy summer camp sort of way!

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book def succeeded at giving you that 90s slasher movie vibe.
I loved it was very fun and tense to read.
Kind of wish we saw more of the killers tho but the not knowing a lot fits the vibe

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever I’m on holiday I get more in a slasher books reading mood. This one was fun to read, I sometimes had I bit of a hard time with the first 80 pages but after that is was hooked and could not put it down! Definitely a fun read.

[Niko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was an ok read, had a few too many subplots for my tastes

[C.C. Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a great read until about the last 10-12 pages. Overall, I enjoyed it, but I would have liked a better ending.

[SB Senpai Manga · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better slasher books I’ve read in awhile that gives you a nice feel of classic 80’s horror with a familiar setting of a killer picking off counselors at a camp. Even to the point of having very over the top deaths, but the main difference here is that the characters are likable and they make smart decisions despite how understandably they’re freaked out. As much as I love the deeper psychological horror, every now and then I like pure popcorn horror like this where you just turn off your brain for a minute and have fun with the insanity. Going to check out more of this writers stuff.

[Georgette Kaplan · Rating 2 out of 5]

When you're branding yourself as extreme horror, the worst thing you can be isn't offensive, but boring. That's kinda the case here. There's a workmanlike competence, but the author so closely follows the eighties slasher ethos (or whatever you want to call it) that there's nothing much to make this work stand out. It could easily be, you know, Prom Night or some other schlocky schlock that manages to score Charles Napier and not much else.

It's not that there's one big great gashing flaw here, but the death of a thousand (or five or six) cuts. Let's see if I can make a list.

1. Too much of a slowburn. We spend a lot of time with the various characters and their foibles and I know eighties slashers did this, but that's because they couldn't afford to have stuff happening all the time. Twenty Minutes With Jerks is a TV Trope because it's cheap to shoot actors pranking each other and bantering. In a book with an unlimited 'budget,' there's no reason to spend this much time on stuff this boring. Especially when, at several points, the actual action happens off-screen and is described after the fact. Buddy, write about that, not what everyone's having for lunch!

2. Too many psychos. I know all horror movies are entitled to a douche character that you want to see die, but this book really overdoes it. Not only are there multiple dicks, but they're all would-be murderers! It's ridiculous! Like the author was trying to do a Scream-style mystery with multiple suspects who could be the killer, but then decided to reveal from the get-go that the killer is just a crazy backwoods slasher and made everyone else slasher-adjacent anyway. So we just have four separate rapey psycho killers all in the same zip code for no reason. Come onnnnn... And it's not like anything really comes out of there being multiple murderers. They get diced the same as anyone without their murderousness affecting the narrative. So it just feels like a waste of time and a loss of verisimilitude for no reason.

3. That brings me to the actual killer. He's just an insane hillbilly person. He has some helpers and together, they're pretty much the cannibals from Jack Ketchum's Off Season (or, you know, a million other "evil redneck" stories). That's fine, it's not like anyone has a patent on the evil redneck, but if you're going to make a burger, make a BURGER, you know? Give him something to set him apart. Come up with a surprising, shocking origin for him or give him some engaging bit of characterization. Because author Padavona really gives us nothing like that. We don't even get some haunting description of how he looks. He has welts, I guess. That's it. He's essentially Jason Voorhees with sidekicks and although some characters speculate on where he came from, there's no explanation of why he exists or how it is he can tank being shot, hit by cars, beaten to a pulp, dropped off a cliff etc. Other than "he's in a slasher movie!" I get that nothing is scarier than the unknown, but sometimes nothing is lazier than the unknown.

4. There's not much extreme about this extreme horror. It's not like I want some Edward Lee thing where the writer is trying to gross you out with what sex act is happening to what inappropriate bit of anatomy--that's not horrifying, that's just nasty--but there really isn't much here that would be out of line for a slick 90s teen slasher. People get their throats slit. Ooooh! Someone got hacked up by a machete. Ahhhh! C'mon, you could get away with that in I Know What You Did Last Summer. When you're telling me there's going to be this gonzo slasher movie in book form with no studio exec or MPAA breathing down your neck to avoid an NC-17, I'm expecting people having their intestines dragged out. People being fed their own livers. The good Fede Álvarez, Evil Dead shit. What can I say, a lot of the time it's Supernatural on the CW, blood being splashed on a wall from off-camera stuff. Extreme horror for adults? There's no sex, no rape, and only a few decent kills. Your big play is cannibalism? You think I've never read about cannibalism before? I watched Hannibal! Mads Mikkelsen was baking people into galettes on network television! You need to up your game heah!

[Kathryn Walsh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was truly horrible. It is not often that I view any type of art whether it be paintings, music, or writing as a personal reflection of the values, desires, and personal traits of the author but this certainly has me questioning who this author is as a person. I am no stranger to horror and gore but this book was abhorrent.

Firstly, the writing and story itself was truly flat and boring. Every character remained that same throughout the entire book. There was not an ounce of depth or growth made by even a single character throughout 207 pages.

Along with the bad writing, one of the largest aspects of this story is that there are cannibals in the woods. There are maybe three scenes that have any depiction or description of cannibalistic acts.... which seems far too few when its a main plot point for the book.

The largest fault I found, and was frankly disturbed by, was the sexual violence detailed throughout the book and the significant differences between the deaths of the "good guys" and the "bad guys". To speak on the sexual violence... it was truly horrible. These portions of the book read like a confession or a diary entry. I have read plenty of books where sexual violence occurred in great detail BECAUSE IT SERVED A POINT. These graphic scenes did nothing to further the plot of the book, the development of the characters, or the reader's understanding of the characters. This is what makes me question the author as a person. I cannot imagine someone in good faith of their art writing in these horrid scenes for fun when they served no purpose for the prose. The last thing that makes me question this author is the manner in which the physical violence was handled. This book spends many chapters detailing the horrible thoughts and actions of the various villains in the book (again not furthering anything about them, these chapters were beating a dead horse) the reader never gets catharsis of a grizzly gruesome death of these horrible people. Instead the author writes a quick barely descript death for these people while the "good guys'" deaths spare no detail or mercy.

I very much wish that I had not read this book but in a way I am glad I did to know to avoid this author and hopefully warn others before they endure such an unnecessarily vile book.