REVIEW: Highway To Hell by: Armand Rosamilia

It isn’t often I’m left speechless. I usually have the capacity to respond to anything with either a caustic remark, or a snarky, back-handed comment. So, I found myself in unfamiliar territory after reading Armand Rosamilia’s HIGHWAY TO HELL. After reading the short, 51-page novella, I honestly wasn’t sure how to respond to what I just read.

I couldn’t help but think that a story about Zombies who killed their victims by sexual mutilation had to be some sort of joke, or at best some half-hearted attempt at parody. I love parodies. Spoofs and satires, when done correctly, are often more fun to read than their source material. The problem, however, was HIGHWAY TO HELL took itself seriously. Randy, a nerdy, virginal everyman teenager, is roaming the streets of an abandoned Baltimore, trying to avoid the newly dead who apparently can only kill you by mutilating your genital or anal area.

No, I am not making that up.

HIGHWAY TO HELL is a book for people who think that CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE are Disney movies. I got this book via email, and I’m surprised it didn’t come wrapped in a plain brown covering. This is a vulgar, pornographic and unnecessarily wretched tale. The kills lack context. No explanation is given as to why the zombies are essentially undead sexual perverts. I could have suspended my disbelief had I been given a good reason why a zombie would need to insert their hands into a body cavity. Character development was almost non-existent. Dialogue had the quality of a soft-core porn movie that you would see at 2 A.M. on Cinemax. There is a romantic subplot involving Randy and Becca, a teenage girl that saves his life that reads like the lonely ramblings of a hormonally challenged fourteen year old shut-in. Yet, I read on. I was hoping the writer would give some decent background into Becca, as she seemed to be the one character who had decent growth potential. Randy, the story’s protagonist was such a milquetoast that it was really hard to sympathize with his plight. When a reader wants the main character to die horribly, you know something is rotten in the state of Denmark. There wasn’t a decent character in the entire story. Plot points were contrived, lacking substance. The ending comes out of left field, turning Randy into some pissed off zombie-killing action hero. The book ultimately descends into an absurd revenge fantasy that really didn’t work on any level. There is also a short story at the end that has no bearing on the book before it, and really serves no purpose.

As I am a glass-half-full type, not everything was horrible. Rosamilia has a smooth writing style, and a decent eye for detail. It’s obvious he is a talented dude. I’d be interested to see him turn his pen towards a higher quality story, rather than what felt like a middle school nerd’s wet dream.

Available at Amazon