by Alex Mcdermott:
As horror writers search for that “new” monster to grab readers, they dig deeper and deeper into the depths of their imaginations. Authors give us mutants, chemical monsters, sparkling vampires, and an odd assortment of other creature double features. Fernando E. Sobenes Buitron’s The Evil Visitor dips into the oldest monster in the book. Satan, demonic babies, and the Iraq War fill this confusing tale.
The first thing I noticed about this novel was the awkward formatting. Originally published in Venezuela, perhaps this is a lost in translation issue. The dialogue is stilted and breaks the flow of the narrative. It’s extremely difficult to follow conversations and the dialogue actually hinders the story. There were many times when I had to re-read portions in order to keep track of the characters.
As with many Satanic/demonic stories, this tale rests on Christian motifs. It’s the classic religious battle between good and evil. It opens with Biblical quotes and the characters look to a Christian God for safety, mercy, and strength throughout. There’s Catholic imagery of saints, icons, and priests fighting the growing evil. The novel’s climax hints at angels, heavenly beings, and an all-powerful God in the afterlife. FromThe Exorcist to Rosemary’s Baby, this is all material we’ve seen before.
In the search for the perfect monster, Satan is not it. The religion is too heavy-handed. It’s preachy at its worst and repetitious at its best. The Evil Visitor falls into all the Satan traps — the evils of war raising demons, possessed babies spitting black bile, and the cover up in the end. We need monsters for the twenty-first century, not the 1300’s.
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