Synopsis:
Hannah has been running from her demons ever since she emerged from a harrowing wilderness trip without her fiancé. No one knows exactly what happened the day Ben died, and Hannah would like to keep it that way… even if his ghost still haunts her with vivid waking nightmares that are ruining her life.
So when her friend group gets an exclusive invitation to a restorative spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree, Hannah reluctantly agrees in search of a fresh start.
Despite her scepticism of the strange Guru Pax and his belief in the supernatural world, Hannah soon finds healing through all the yoga, sound baths, and hot springs offered at the tech-free haven.
But this peaceful journey of self-discovery quickly descends into a violent fight for self-preservation when a mysterious killer starts picking off retreat attendees in increasingly gruesome ways. As the body count rises and Hannah’s sanity frays, she’ll have to confront her dark past and uncover the true nature of a ruthless monster hellbent on killing her vibe for good.
Review:
A slasher set at a wellness retreat, from an author who we all know beyond reasonable doubt and with spiritual certainty, knows slasher ball, “Breathe in, Bleed Out,” by Brian McAuley is, to the surprise of perhaps nobody, nothing short of a blast. A guided meditation, a real awakening, the reader does indeed take a big old breath in at the start, before finally being able to let it out again, long and shuddering, once the killer is unmasked and all is… as well as it can be… so it’s also a breathwork exercise. High in antioxidants and fatalities, Wes Craven meets LA in this bloody mess of a book, with kills so violent and creative that they will engage your core and realign your chakras. Easy to consume (organic too) and well worth reading, I see no reason why you can’t grab yourself a green tea or a turmeric latte or some other unholy swamp water beverage, probably with chia seeds, and settle down with it immediately- it goes down smooth.
We follow Hannah, who has retreated into herself since the brutal death of her fiance Ben. Low power mode. She works her shifts at the hospital, she sees her therapist, she doses, and she rinses, represses and repeats. When she takes an ill-advised hit of maltodextrin on the job though, and makes a career-threatening mistake, she is put on leave, and has a whole lot of empty time to fill. So, when one of her long pushed-away friends contacts her, inviting her to an exclusive spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree. It’s divine, tranquil, tech-free serene, perhaps exactly what Hannah needed to pry open the lid, face her grief and confront her trauma head on… until…
I love a slasher. I love a slasher for all of the little bits we’ve come to expect, the killer quips, the increasingly ridiculously violent murders, the nail-biting self-actualising showdown between killer and final girl. Yeah, we get all of that, and we get it all done well. With the rise of Stephen Graham Jones and Angela Sylvaine and indeed Brian McAuley though, mere competence doesn’t cut it anymore. The new wave of the slasher demands some deviation from the formula- a little added pizzazz, commentary, something more substantial beneath the gore of it all- and that is why “Breathe in, Bleed Out,” earns its place on the top shelf.
“Breathe In, Bleed Out,” is a timely critique upon wellness culture and just how ironically toxic the pursuit of purity and peace can be. If you tossed “Apple Cider Vinegar,” (which is, in my humble opinion, one of the best watches on Netflix, and will inevitably send you down a 2 AM digital rabbit hole) a fistful of kale and then blended it together with “Scream,” into a bloody, green smoothie, you would end up with something like “Breathe In, Bleed Out.” The wellness industry is all too easy to ridicule and condemn, I’ve been doing it from the very start of this review, but McAuley pushes beyond the obvious satire and is concerned particularly with the manipulative optimism and harmful rhetoric used within it. Perhaps most interestingly though, the all too massive overlap with cultural appropriation (something, a world-away from LA, and Joshua Tree specifically, I had never before considered) which McAuley confronts head-on through the character of Kimi and the dark legend of Waylon Barlow.
The most distressing sound-bath you’ll ever encounter, admittedly “Breathe In, Bleed Out,” is not one that will help you relax, unclench your jaw or quiet your mind. It is though, literally, a killer time. McAuley’s latest aims for the solar plexus and will ruin saunas for you forever, in one scene that really did remind me quite a lot of “Final Destination.” I digress. “Curse of The Reaper,” must remain my favourite of McAuley’s, but “Breathe In, Bleed Out,” stands next to it, sweaty and terrified. Now, let me leave you with this utterly horrifying little nursery rhyme.
“In the dark of Dead Man’s Due, Waylon Barlow waits for you. He’ll hack you up without a trace, pick your bones and steal your face.”
Namaste.
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