"Great Horror"

Three hundred years ago, avarice led to a woman being burned at the stake as a witch. Before dying she cursed the town of Serenity Falls. Over the years, greed has led to adverse happenings to the residents. However, Serenity Falls seems in the midst of a financial renaissance with the reopening of the quarry.

As usual with the three-century old Curse, sinister things accompany the good happenings but once again prove much worse than the positive tidings.. The Curse seems reaching the end game as the locals behave weirdly, but if that is not enough to frighten anyone who sees beyond the typical rapacity, two dangerous outsiders have entered the mix. An evil demon-like creature and Jonathan Crowley have arrived with agendas of their own to include killing their visiting rival, but the Curse has other needs for these dueling strangers with the locals caught in the middle of a triangle of terror.

On the surface SERENITY FALLS sounds like Stephen King's Salem's Lot, but there is much Moore to the novel than just the rewriting a classic. The story line is loaded with, and an intensifying terror that is difficult to classify as the audience wonders between the Curse and the newcomers as to who is the focus of this peril. Surprisingly for such a large ensemble the residents ensure the audience believes the small hamlet exists and bring life to the threat. Jonathan is an interesting protagonist who seems heroic yet anti-hero as the audience speculates whether he is a savior or the Grim Reaper. His malevolent antagonist adds suspense to a tremendous horror story worthy of the masters.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 12, 2003

Summary

Welcome to Serenity Falls; make yourself at home. The people here are friendly enough and certainly glad to make your acquaintance...so long as you don't ask too many questions about their pasts or about the town. They've got secrets, you see, like most small towns do. And they have their share of troubles as well... Oh, the town is doing better since the quarry reopened, bringing rebirth to Serenity and prosperity to people who'd almost given up hope; and the new folk coming around, drawn by the promise of financial success, seem pleasant enough for the most part. But there's that poor man who got himself torn apart by a pack of feral hunting dogs, and the girl who says her boyfriend is the one who took her out into the woods and did his best to kill her. There are all the children who've disappeared, and others who've begun acting very strangely. And there's the problem at the cemetery, where somebody has been tearing up the peaceful surroundings and dragging the dead from what was supposed to be there final resting places. Those sorts of incidents leave the locals a little worried, as you can well imagine. And not all of the visitors are here seeking prosperity. There's that stranger, Jonathan Crowley, who keeps poking around, asking all the wrong questions and causing no end of grief. And the parapsychologists who've come to talk to the boy whose friends say he's possessed. It's hard to keep your secrets buried when there are so many people who seem determined to dig them up. Or maybe there's something more to it. Maybe some secrets aren't meant to be kept. Maybe some towns aren't meant to survive. The truth will be known. The past will be revealed. Vengeance will be had. Every Soul Will Scream.