Driveshaft

by Michael Butler, S.A. Harrison (Illustrator)

We’ve all been you leave the cinema, you’re buzzing, you were there…in that film with those characters. But what if you see those characters, relive those scenes, not in your head, but in reality? When a mysterious cult horror movie from the 1970s pops up on YouTube, Ben simply has to see it. He has to see it, partly because it’s a horror film but mostly, because it stars Margot Kidder. Ben asks his girlfriend, Lena, to watch it with him. She does. Driveshaft, however, is no ordinary film and before they know it, Ben and Lena are trapped within its murky and disturbing world. Luckily, they meet fellow Driveshaft victims, Frank and Katherine. The foursome decide that the only way to rid themselves of the Driveshaft curse is through exorcism. Part film-script, part novel, Driveshaft is a wry tribute to the wackier side of 70s cinema. It’s a bumpy ride where the real, and the not so real, collide. So, if you like the 70s, horror movies, cars with a mind of their own, and Margot Kidder then jump in by all means, but make sure you don’t belt up.

Genres: Horror

157 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2019

Reviews

[Alibabble · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book is absolutely jam packed: great characters who you care about, a great plot twisting through a variety of genres and an epic ending.
For a debut novel, it really is extremely accomplished and sure to become a cult classic.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

After seeing this book recommended on a list of books about cursed/forbidden movies I borrowed it from my library. The whole cursed/forbidden movie deal, like The Ring, The Hills Run Red, Night Film, Horror Movie, is totally my bag. Driveshaft is about a guy who's obsessed with actress Margot Kidder for some reason, and discovers an unknown, long lost horror film she made in the 70s on YouTube. But after watching it and then showing it to his girlfriend, strange shit starts happening similar to things that occur in the movie - she gets nosebleeds, he starts seeing and hearing things like in the film, and even thinks he sees characters from the movie in real life. This leads him to connect with a few other people who experienced Driveshaft over the years and suffered the same strange phenomena. It's at about that point, roughly midway through the book, that I couldn't take it anymore and skim read to the end, still not entirely sure what happened. It wasn't terrible, but it started getting very repetitive and felt like this 150-ish page novella should have been maybe half that length. The main protagonist wasn't someone I could particularly connect with, and the detailed description of the film within the story made it sound like it was absolutely terrible and utterly unrealistic that such a film like it would ever have been made in that time period. This story just lacked any real interesting depth and lost me by mid-point. 2.5* for it was OK but nothing special.

[Natalie Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

This page-turner is set to be a cult South London classic. Four very different individuals become bound together after viewing an unfinished 70s horror. The resulting crew- crew as in comic book team, but more realistic- are thrown together in an enviable friendship/creative project by their shared passion for cinema. Surely unique in its spanning Brixton, Dungeness and a wasteland outside LA, but unique across the board. Well written characters could be any one of my ex-colleagues at the actual Ritzy cinema! Nothing naff here - this is well written and literary, but with a cool cult narrative voice.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cinematic virus? a celluloid bug? a filmic hallucinogen? Infection, possession, curse, or haunting? Regardless of what the cause is, a group of four cinephiles band together on a frantic mission to solve the mystery of an x-rated 70s horror film that disappears at will and causes nose-bleeds and abstract supernatural nightmares. I cheered for Ben, Lena, Katharine and Frank as I laughed at their Britishisms and applauded their ingenuity. Such a unique mixture of movie and book, California and south London, horror and humor; a combination so sublime I inhaled it. And keep mulling bits of it over days later. I would love to read a prequel or sequel based around Annie's Café.