Last Days by Adam Nevill

 

Last Days

By Adam Nevill

Horror, Mystery

                        If you are looking for Last Days by Brian Evenson, this is the wrong page. 

An indie filmmaker and his cameraman, in desperate need for funds, are hired by the head of a wealthy company to create a documentary regarding a cult called the Temple of the Last Days by visiting the cult's previous hangouts and interviewing former members and victims. As the filmmaker travels around Britain and France to investigate the Temple of the Last Days, and its founder, he becomes embroiled in supernatural circumstances and becomes witness to horrifying dreams and hauntings.

The Last Days is a found-footage styled book about ghosts, a cult, and the mystery surrounding their influence in the modern day. It delves into the fabled Temple of the Last Days, a cult run by a charlatan named Katherine who promoted an austere and ascetic lifestyle to her followers while she squanders her followers money on luxurious pleasantries. Later, Katherine and her followers move to a farm where she and her closest confidants murder the remainder of her compound in a mass ritual, with only a few survivors and cult deserters remaining alive today. As the filmmaker travels around Europe to interview these survivors, he and his crew gradually uncover what happened to the last filmcrew as he suffers from a flood of dream sequences and flashbacks. 

I found that Last Days was written quite well; the sentences and narrative was structured together in a fluid way, with inventive prose and phenomenal descriptions. However, the book - is - long- and - slow- to - read. Scenes spend a long time discussing their surroundings, the characters thoughts, what is happening, and as a result at times it felt more like I was reading a screenplay or narrative script then a book. For the plot twists, and revelations of the story, and the mystery, I was able to solve it early on. I'm not sure if that is the same for everyone's experience with the book as I do tend to predict some plot points beforehand (especially in some murder mystery novels), but the main twist, who the antagonists were and their identities, and their motives, were all realized before the first half of the book was over. 

One positive I have to say with the story is that any scene with the supernatural, or dreams, were excellent. The writing evokes vivid imagery, is sharp and jagged as dreams are (or as I imagine dreams are), and offers good foreshadowing at the larger plot in play. Tense scenes with action and horror were also directed well; the supernatural portions were strained and tense, and set the reader in alongside the protagonist in the harsh tone of the scenes.

Overall, I did not intensely enjoy or infatuate myself with Last Days. I enjoyed it, it was a good book, but it just wasn't my cup of tea and its hard to say why. The writings good - great, even - I liked the portions of the supernatural and dream sequences, even if the actual filming and regular sections leading up to these scenes are slow-paced. While I predicted major plot points long before the reader and protagonist actually receive the major clues to figure it out, primarily through meta knowledge of mystery books, the book was still constructed well and retained my engagement. It could be that I don't like ghost stories, and the problem lies with me. Or maybe I went into the book with different expectations compared to the actual content. Either way, pick up this book if you like writing about ghosts, found footage based horror, dreams, or documentary settings; this would be right up your alley.