Synopsis
Spring Break, 1997. A group of college friends sets out for an unforgettable trip to Mexico, but their adventure takes a horrific turn when they are abducted by a satanic cult in the Tucson desert. Their captor? Zeena Graves—a strikingly beautiful yet merciless cult leader who commands her followers from the darkness of an abandoned church.
As midnight strikes on Easter night, she prepares to enact a ritual drenched in blood and terror that can only be completed After the Pink Moon. Bound by fear, surrounded by zealots, and with time slipping away, the captives must find a way to escape before they become unwilling participants in a nightmare beyond comprehension.
A relentless and unsettling descent into the horrors of the Satanic Panic era, After the Pink Moon is a gripping tale of faith corrupted, innocence shattered, and the terrifying price of belief.
Review
I’m pretty much on auto-buy here, so naturally had to get a physical copy of this new one. As I did cover reveals for some things that didn’t end up happening in 2024, I’m glad for a new story any which way…
This is a short satanic panic novel. It takes place kind on the tail-end/after the end of it in the nineties, but it has all the goodies you’d want. As always, Reyes really knows his horror, and that often bleeds and creeps into everything he gives us. In classic summer slasher style, a group of teens are planning a getaway to Mexico. Looking for nothing more than relaxation and alcohol in a hot place, is that so much to ask for? But when Zeena Graves’ perfect plan goes sideways, she needs to quickly switch lanes. Oh, and she just so happens to be the figurehead of a satanic cult, known for ritualistic murders all around Tuscan under the moniker of the Catalina Satanists. The accompanying news reports the author shared really made it feel not only real, but very on brand for Devil Terror.
The house the cultists lived in felt very much so like the book’s references of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Which was fitting, but I was a little confused by the squalor, when Zeena had some high class donors. Maybe she was just using those donations elsewhere? (The author has since posted, stating that she was trying to be smart, hiding in plain sight! I think that makes sense.) The scenes of captivity felt real and weighted, and the violence was brutal and heavy handed. Zeena’s sycophants ran the whole gamut from following blindly to the naively deceived. The mixture of which, as well as some of the finale’s plot points, reminded me of the show Evil, but with less religion and much more murder.
A release that stands well next to Reyes’ others.
Justice for Mary, who suffered her third-act final girl moment 100 pages too soon.
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