My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Horrorstör is one of those horror stories that can be easily described in one sentence. Heck, just a phrase: a haunted Ikea knock-off. I found this book by perusing NPR’s Best Books of 2014 and couldn’t resist. I don’t know about you but I find the bewildering and deliberately maze-like design of Ikea stores scary even with the lights on.
Horrorstör leads the reader through a terrifying night where five employees of an Orsk store find themselves trapped in retail hell. Except this time it’s a little more literal. Riffing on the old ancient burial ground theme (this time a long ago prison), we find our plucky/weird/selfish heroes trying to survive a night of being locked in storage cases with names like Liripip by vengeful ghosts.
The story starts out light and funny, with Hendrix making witty observations on the retail experience. Somewhat predictably the funny stuff largely disappears once the horror starts cranking up. Apart from catalog illustrations of weirdly-named furniture that grace the start of each chapter, there is little humor to be found in the latter half of the book. This isn’t a bad thing per se, but it seems like a lot of authors who write comic horror tend to dispense with the funny once the gore starts flowing, making for an uneven tone.
Hendrix still does a nifty job in describing the horrors taking place within the cavernous confines of the Orsk store, though. You may never look at a sofa with an umlaut in its name the same way again. In fact, the liberal use of authentic-looking catalog pages and other related paraphernalia make me recommend reading this novel on a larger tablet (like the standard iPad), to better appreciate these illustrations. They’re neat and well-made additions.
If you want a short and (mostly) funny horror story, Horrorstör comes recommended.
