The Dark Side of Hell

By: Patrick C. Harrison III

Narrated by: Shrader Thomas

After a not-so-entertaining evening at a "haunted house," the Gibsons go about their unconventional routines on Halloween day. Little do they realize, the free passes to another haunted house experience they received upon exiting THE DARK SIDE OF HELL are tickets to the most horrifying times of their lives.

©2023 Patrick C Harrison III (P)2023 Fright Night Audio

Stay for the narration.

This definitely missed the mark and that’s unusual for PC3.

A tererible family goes to a haunted house and then get mandatorily invited back. Bad things happen.

Pros: neat uses of extreme/splatterpunk book titles, the first 25% of the book.

Cons: pretty much everything else.

BUT! The narration was perfection so kudos to the narrator for keeping me listening to the end.

Narration on point

The narrator does a very good job bringing you into the story, his pacing is perfect and his different voices are believable. The story itself is very detailed and does flow well. I will admit I made it to the 1:38 mark. I like horror, I don't like misogyny, rape, torture porn or attempted suicide all within the first half of a book. If those are your things, enjoy!! If not, stay away.

Highly recommended

Love thatPC3 is never afraid to push the boundaries and his version of a Halloween tale is no exception
Fright night always does a stellar job matching the right narrator with the story
If you enjoy splatter punk and are constantly looking for the most extreme like myself this is a no-brainer 5stars

Started strong

I absolutely loved the way this book started. It was creepy and eerie, and I thought, hmm, maybe PCH is taking a break from extreme! Let’s see where this goes.

I was wrong lol. It’s extreme.

There’s a significant amount of gore just to be disgusting, so if that’s your jam you’ll love it. I enjoyed the actual story line, but the SA and unnecessary gore were not enjoyable (for me).

I loved the use of Indie author books as characters in this story. I haven’t read all of the books mentioned, but I recognized all of the names. Very cool Easter Egg. The narration was on point and voiced expertly.

Very Extreme

This one was very rough to get through. I used it as a test to see what I could stand. I had to skip 2 scenes. It cemented what I already suspected. Extreme is not for me

Anything from pch3 is gunnu be a banger

Gore and depravity at its finest! A great quick listen to fulfill your sick appetite. The shoutout to other extreme horrors was *chefs kiss* I’ve read about half of them but he’s given me a few to add to my tbr!

Extreme Horror

Dark and disgusting, just the way a book of this sub-genre should be. This book is definitely extreme horror, so please check your TW. The narrator was the perfect choice!

It’s soooo gross but i totally enjoyed it

I can’t really write a review because this book was utterly disgusting
I’m a bit embarrassed that i enjoyed it as much as I did ….
It was so repulsive it was really hard to put down 😂
DONT JUDGE!
That said If you are here reading this review it’s likely our names are on a list or NEED to be on a list somewhere 😂🤣
The narrator was very good and amazing job …. I would have stopped to say Yuck! At least once …. Oh but what fun !!!

Make sure you have a strong stomach

This is some extreme stuff: sexual assault, body horror, necrophagy. Don’t listen after you’ve eaten. You’ve been warned.

The story is gross but strangely compelling. The Gibson family is “invited” to attend a haunted house called The Dark Side of Hell on Halloween night where they are subjected to incredible horrors and depravity that makes their own deep family problems pale in comparison. As you listen you can’t help but wonder what horrible things are going to happen next, so you keep going.

The characters are interesting, though I would have appreciated a little more depth. No one deserves the horrors visited upon them in this story, but I don’t feel like the characters really came to any realization or learned anything about themselves in the process of enduring the dark side of hell, Horror allows for self-examination and reflection even amidst body counts and gore. This is horror for the sake of horror, which is fine if that’s what you’re looking for.

The narrator does a good job of evoking the emotions in each character and upping the tensions on each scene. I have to admit that some of the voices he does add a darkly amusing air to the story, which works well I think.

Overall, a decent story but you really have to have a strong stomach to listen.

dark is right

Patrick C. Harrison III, PC3 from here on, has been on my radar for a while. He is probably best known for his more popular titles, 100% Match and Grandpappy. Or maybe even his volume in the Splatter Western series, A Savage Breed. I own all of these, impulse bought due to rave reviews in the splatter community. I received an Audible ARC of The Dark Side of Hell from Fright Night Audio, so that’s where my PC3 journey began.

I will start by saying that this is splatterpunk. As such, you can expect it to be loaded with vivid and graphic descriptions of gratuitous violence and vile, disgusting, and otherwise objectionable characters and situations. Don’t listen to this while you’re having dinner because you just might lose your appetite. You’ll understand when you get to the dinner scene.

This story begins with a family trip to a crappy haunted house called The Dark Side of Hell. None of the family really wants to be there, but the patriarch (Jim) is determined to spend some quality time with his wife and kids. On their way out, the old man running the place gives them tickets to return on Halloween. Jim accepts the tickets with no intention of ever returning. Their experience is completely underwhelming and they are happy to put this place in the rear view. However, the family soon finds they have no choice in the matter. One by one, they are kidnapped and brought back to The Dark Side of Hell. Each kidnapping is preceded by bloodshed. Jim’s affair partner is murdered. The old neighbor lady bites the bullet on the way to Mona (the mother). And the mission to extract Julian and Mamie from their school looks like a high casualty school shooting. The family returns to the haunted house battered and bloodied, but their injuries and humiliation are nothing compared to what Jack’s family has in store for them.

Let’s talk about the narration for a moment. Shrader Thomas is a new voice to me. I really enjoyed his performance. I appreciate narrators who can bring these levels of depravity to life without overdoing it. My only super minor nitpick is the way he pronounced Unbortion (unabortion). Otherwise solid narration.

This was a good read. It’s brutal and disgusting. It’s not your usual haunted house story in that there are no ghosts and all the violence is committed by humans, but it isn’t a humans are the real monsters story either. There is a supernatural element that plays its part in the background. Sure, there are some parts I didn’t love (wtf was that ending?!), and you don’t find yourself rooting for any of the characters except for maybe the daughter (until that ending anyway), but overall I liked it. I especially enjoyed the nods to his author friends in the form of naming characters after their books. Made my tbr just a little longer. If you like splatter and don’t mind if the story isn’t super fleshed out, you’ll love The Dark Side of Hell. Add this to your Halloween reading list.