Review: Alfred Hitchcock would have loved this story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 14, 2012
In my opinion, Jeff Menapace is one of the rising stars of the horror thriller genre. With stories like his instant classic "Sugar Daddy - A Dark Thriller," he's shown he can scare the daylights out of a reader with the best of them. With "Princess," he's taken a slightly different tack, using psychological horror instead of the supernatural. In its own way, it's even more frightening, since this story could be real.Middle-aged John Kearns has tolerated the abnormal behavior of his wife Tammy for years because he's afraid that she'll leave him if he doesn't indulge her. Fearing being alone more than anything, he's become her enabler and unwilling partner in her increasingly bizarre and deadly schemes involving their daughter Samantha.All of which explains why John Kearns is sitting in a mall looking for a suitable young man to take Samantha to the high school prom. Little does the unsuspecting teenager know what's in store for him.The late Alfred Hitchcock would have loved this story. It's a bit reminiscent of Hitchcock's film "Psycho," if you can imagine Norman Bates with an assistant. It's a creepy story, one that builds inexorably to the climax, but just when you think you've figured out the ending, there's an unexpected twist that gave the story a perfect finish.Definitely a 5/5 on the creep-o-meter.