If These Walls Could Speak - A Review of The Family Plot

The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I enjoy a good ghost story. I don’t consider myself very superstitious, but there is just something about ghost stories that send that little tingle of fear up and down my spine. It does not matter how logical I believe myself to be, nor does it matter that I am generally aware of most of the scientific explanations behind common ghost-related phenomena (most of which seem to boil down to: it’s all in the mind); ghost stories can and will creep me out.

That creep factor is also what allows me to enjoy a good haunted house story. It also helps that almost every residential area in my country has at least one or two homes that are deemed “haunted”, and there is a tradition in local cinema that focuses on haunted houses and the grisly, terrifying things that happen in them. I have, therefore, developed something of a taste for haunted house stories: the creepier, the better, though I do draw the line at excessive gore. Reading my mother’s gory thrillers while still a grade-schooler has pretty much burned out any fear factor gore and guts may induce to me, and any horror story that leans too heavily on that trope will not so much scare me as make me roll my eyes and set it aside. (This is also why many slasher films don’t really do much for me except to cause me to jump in my seat from time to time. Startle me? Yes. Actually scare me? Very much no.)

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