Stay Out of the Tub!! (OMG It’s a HAUNTED TUB Splatterpunk Horror)
This will be a strange review. It will sound conflicting and possibly like I have no idea why I’m talking about it. Bear with me. I want to start out by saying, I didn’t actually like this book. And I couldn’t explain or articulate why. I just didn’t vibe with it much. So now you’re wondering “why the hell have you scored it so highly?” I’ll explain! Stay Out of the Tub!! is about a normal family who finally move into their dream home. Parents Grant and Kelly Laskin pick the best finishing touch for their beautiful new bathroom – an antique, claw footed tub, that fits in so perfectly it’s almost as if it was made for them. But the tub is far from perfect, and a million miles away from being a good fit for the parents and their two children Freddy and Molly.
“Grant saw the inside of her throat as she bellowed. He slurped down the chunk of Patty’s hand and decided he wanted Vicky’s flesh even more. He didn’t know what he would do with it yet, but he wanted it. Vicky rotated back toward her office, and Grant swung the opener. It plunged into Patty’s eye, deep into her skull, and she stopped screaming. He yanked it free, pulling a stream of eyeball juice and blood with it. He licked it clean as he stood and headed toward Vicky’s office. “Go away!” Vicky knew he was coming. She hadn’t seen him come. Her last vision of her coworker was him hovering over Patty but as soon as Patty stopped screaming, she knew. He would be after her next. What had she done to deserve this?”
This tale is highly sexed. Both parents are cheating with people they work with, and at first I was worried that the explicit scenes were going to be page filler. Whilst they felt like they were somewhat at the beginning, the wider picture of the sexual encounters are embedded into the story and make sense when it comes to the otherworldly demon being haunting the bathtub. The plot is fun, dark and different. I’ve read some wacky stories. But never a gory story about a demonic haunted bathtub! This is partially the reason I wanted to give it a try. Within horror, there’s so many over used storylines and it gets boring at times. There’s only so many haunted asylums and demonic children you can read about before things are predictable. I do have to admit I’m not quite sure what it was about as a whole, I didn’t really “get” it. But I think that’s what adds to its mysteriousness and wackiness. So much is going on , and towards the end the possession and activities that happen are so erratic, it makes sense, to not quite make sense. Almost like falling down the rabbit hole head first and falling super quick. Whilst this wasn’t for me, I can 100% tell you, it’s for most extreme horror readers. I really can admire and appreciate the story, the work that went into it, and just how crazy it is. We can’t always win with books, but I can definitely appreciate when a book is super fucking good.
Written by Arianne, Sovereign Deity of the Damned
Stay Out of the Tub!! (2023)
D. W. Hitz
Fedowar Press, LLC
Cover Art: Maisie Stokely
4 / 5
