Customer Reviews

Depraved

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bryan Smith's latest novel, DEPRAVED, takes place in the backwoods town known as Hopkins Bend. Anyone passing through tends to not make it back out and most don't even survive. The town is full of inbred cannibalistic rednecks who tend to rape, torture, and/or eat their victims... not necessarily in that order. Those "lucky" enough to survive and not get killed are put to work in a special strip club that is also within the town of Hopkins Bend. And what is it with the Kincher family? They appear to not be quite human. It looks like they are half-man/half-monster. Have they been undergone some kind of mutation? Will any of the outsiders to Hopkins Bend be able to escape or find a way to stop the townsfolk or will these vicious acts continue to go on forever?

DEPRAVED is graphic, foul, smutty, trashy, and probably everything your mama told you never to read as a kid, but that's what makes it so great! Backwoods towns have always been depicted as creepy and if you add in rednecks, well... that just makes them even scarier! Just Kidding! Well, unless they're cannibalistic as Smith portrays them! That's the key. Smith adds in the twist of cannibalism and mutations to make these inbred rednecks be extremely scary, not to mention that they are so depraved. There is also one particular chapter in the book where Smith touches on the "bizarro". I won't spoil anything for you, but it's probably one of the most intense sex scenes I've ever read in a horror book. It's horrifically foul, but I loved every minute of it despite the voices in my head screaming "Oh my god! That did not just happen!!!". As far as I'm concerned, Smith has out done himself with DEPRAVED and I hope that he continues along this line of writing in the future. This is a must for fans of extreme horror. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Contains: Adult Language, Adult Situations, Violence, Torture, Gore, Rape, Graphic Sex, Cannibalism

Review also posted at MonsterLibrarian Dot Com

Depraved is a perfect title for Bryan Smith's latest novel. It also could have been called Survivor. While there are plenty of depraved acts from the backwoods denizens of this book, it is the attempts to survive made by the victems of those denizens, that propel the plot. Everything takes place (I believe) within 24 hours, and those hours are packed with more violence, gore and depravity than you can shake a blood covered stick at. Smith also gives us a supernatural element that makes Depraved more than just a common cannibal redneck story. Demons, sex slaves, mutant freaks, flesh-eating backwoods clans and ordinary people doing ANYTHING to survive. What else can you ask for? How about one of the most over-the-top sex scenes ever put to paper?
Come on, you know you want to read it.

I was surprised by some of the low reviews for this book. If you like Gore, vicious, gross, depraved, sick stories than this is for you. If you like J. F. Gonzales, Wrath James White, Jack Ketchum-You'll like Bryan Smith. Great, fast moving story of people getting stuck in a small town and their struggle to escape. Sometimes you do not know which characters you should feel sorry for. Definitely worth the read.

Depraved is my second Bryan Smith book after the not-so-good The Freakshow and giving up twice on House Of Blood. I've decided that I'll likely never be a Bryan Smith fan. But since I'm part of the Leisure Horror club, I have all of his books and Depraved sounded exactly like my kind of horror novel. I'm such a sucker for stories of "city folks who go into the woods."

Well, Depraved is much better than those other two books. But still I had issues with the book. I went in expecting something like Jack Ketchum's Off Season. A book that is grisly and packs an emotional wallop. But that is not what Depraved is going for. Instead, Bryan Smith just packed in as many gross-out and hardcore sex scenes as he could. Once I decided that Depraved is basically pornography, I started liking it more. I was able to adjust my expectations.

Bryan Smith does write some extremely gory horror. Depraved is a lot more explicit than most other horror I've read. Not just the sex, but the violence as well. Bryan Smith seems to revel in the details of people's viscera. The sheer excessiveness of the gore is actually a positive for this book. It reaches a point of overload, which is actually one of the strong points of the book. It made the title appropriate anyway. But unlike (the best) Edward Lee], he doesn't manage to make you care about the characters. If you are reading about disposable, cardboard cutouts, extreme gore loses it's visceral punch and just becomes splatter.

What really bugged me is the sex. Now, I don't mind explicit sex. I'm not a prude and hey, who doesn't like reading graphic sex scenes? But here it is repeatedly used as a lazy way to get characters to act against their better judgment at the most unbelievable times. I was reading Depraved at lunch. Twice in one lunch break, a character was on their way out of trouble when they suddenly decide 'I think I'll have sex now!' and both times what do you know? Something bad happened. I could have rolled my eyes at one occurrence, but twice in such a short gap? That isn't pushing the envelope. It is sloppy plot construction.

Speaking of sloppy plot construction, out of the blue, a supernatural angle is introduced. Can't a clan of mutated, cannibal hillbillies be enough? Does this sort of story really require a supernatural angle? To make matters worse, it never really goes anywhere. I couldn't figure out what, if anything, it added to the plot.

I don't know what it says that even with these complaints, Depraved is the best Bryan Smith book I've yet attempted. It could be that I'm being too critical of a book that doesn't aspire to be more than trashy entertainment. I could see Depraved being a whole lot of fun if you are in the right mindset. I didn't out-and-out hate the book. I was more annoyed than anything. His writing isn't a problem, but his storytelling is bad.

I think I'm just too critical a reader to let Bryan Smith's plot holes slide. The problems I had with Depraved are the same or very similar to the ones I had with The Freakshow. He needs to tighten up his internal logic and work on streamlining his plot (and giving the audience a sympathetic character somewhere in the book wouldn't hurt either). The thing is, I could see the book being just the ticket for some readers.

The word "depraved" is the perfect adjective to describe what you'll find within the pages of Bryan Smith's 2009 breakthrough novel. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart, but for fans of extreme-horror, you're not going to find much out there that's better, or as disturbing.

Taking place in the backwoods town of Hopkins Bend, 'Depraved' is Bryan Smith's take on the "cannibal rednecks in the woods" theme. As good as similarly themed books like Laymon's 'The Woods are Dark,' Ketchum's 'Off Season,' and Lee's 'The Bighead' are, they pretty much pale in comparison to this author's utterly brutal vision of the depths of human depravity. It tells the story, from different perspectives, of one night in the lives of several young people unfortunate enough to have traveled through this twisted town.

This is a dark, unforgiving novel where nobody is safe, including the reader. I was so disturbed and on edge while reading that I had to put it down periodically and gather myself, lest I'd wind up traumatized and in therapy. The characters are all very well-developed, drawing the reader's sympathy, which makes the novel all the more terrifying. Sometimes the characters in Laymon's books are so stupid that by the end I'm almost rooting for them to die horrible deaths. Not so here. I was constantly hesitant to turn the page, fearing for them, as NO ONE is safe in Smith's novels.

Bryan Smith seems to just get better and better with each novel published, and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us in the future. As good as 'Depraved' is, he may have topped it with his next novel, 'The Killing Kind.' It's a close one, so you may as well check out both.

"Depraved" is a jet-fueled tale that begins fast and mean and never lets up. Smith blends multiple plot-lines together seamlessly, pulling readers into his characters' sprints for survival. This isn't just a recipe for horror "shock and awe"; however, as Smith crafts characters that provoke empathy, pity, even disgust...but are three-dimensional regardless, which pulls readers even deeper down this dark and twisted hole.

Jessica Sloan has stepped into a nightmare. A damaged woman trying to remake her life, she's fallen victim to a sadistic rapist who assaulted her when she tried to buy a used car from him. Now she's driving out to the middle of nowhere, the used car salesman locked in the trunk, screaming. He raped her. Beat her. Daddy taught his little girl to be nobody's victim, so now she's going to take something back from her assailant... something he can't ever replace.

The only problem? Jessica has picked a spot for revenge that lies near the isolated rural town of Hopkins Bend, where something much worse than a simple rapist lies in wait. For generations, a family has borne the blight of a curse that has turned its descendants into twisted, mutated mockeries of humanity, depraved in every way imaginable.

That, and this darkness blights Hopkins Bend and the rest of its townspeople in nonphysical ways undetectable by the eye alone. The people of Hopkins Bend hunger. For many, many things, and the taste of human flesh is only one of their depraved appetites. To survive, Jessica and others caught in this whirling cesspool must go to nightmarish lengths, and that begs the question: is survival worth what they may become?

It would be a mistake to dismiss this novel as a simple "boobs, blood, gore and more" offering. Smith utilizes these grotesqueries to do what horror should do: reveal the inner fire that pushes some humans to survive, as well as expose the darkness lying within everyone; a darkness that often needs only one turn of an awful key to bloom in full.

Also, there is a higher wit at work here. In the midst of the novel's mad rush, Smith displays a circular irony, sporting a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, too. Finally, though it may sound odd, Smith shows admirable restraint in the depiction of the atrocities he inflicts upon his characters. For sure, "Depraved" is explicit, shocking, and bloody. Often, however, Smith leaves a characters' fate up to the reader's imagination, which can be more effective than gratuitous violence alone.

.....for for some backwoods horror. Fast paced, chilling and downright sick! Bryan Smith once again serves up a feast of blood, guts and gore; a buffet of raunchy sex and a tasty mouth watering story that you just can't get enough of.

Bryan Smith has one sick mind...and I love it!! I read this book in less than two days and was anxious to share it with my friends and family that like good horror, gore and suspense. I am anxious to see what his next book will be like. Mr. Smith please hurry up and write it!! I have to put Bryan Smith on the same level with Brian Keene and that is quiet a compliment.
Will not go into particulars of the book because other reviewers have done so, just wanted to say you will not be disappointed if you like mutant cannibal stories with lots of blood and gore!!

a fast paced, tongue in cheek joy ride of a novel full of violence and sadism, fast kills and cheap thrills, and enough blood to paint your house with... I loved it!

...Bryan Smith evolves this trash into something better: a higher level of trash (lol)... energetic and laugh-out-loud hilarious at times. No, this is not "the best horror novel in years" as the previous reviewer tauts, but it takes its deranged sensibilities into territory that Brian Keene didn't have the nerve (or verve) to with a similar concept in "Urban Gothic." I will say I've read more shocking smut by Edward Lee, etc., but "Depraved" contains the only scene I've ever read in a novel that had me squirming, jaw-dropping and giggling all at once. Lots of fun!