BURN THE NEGATIVE by Josh Winning – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Burn the Negative by Josh Winning
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on July 11 2023
Genres: Adult, Horror
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: The “cursed movie” trope is alive and well in Josh Winning’s latest, a creepy, madcap adventure that, while a lot of fun, falters when it comes to the characters and their actions.

It pains me to give Burn the Negative anything less than five stars, since I really expected to love this. Josh Winning’s last book, The Shadow Glass, made my top five reads of 2022, so you can imagine I had very high expectations for this one. And while I loved the idea and the setting, I struggled to connect with any of the characters, which turned out to be a big stumbling block. Still, I did have fun with a lot of the elements, and Winning knows how to create a creepy atmosphere, so overall I’ll have to call this a mixed bag.

The story revolves around Laura Warren, a UK based journalist who has just been sent to Los Angeles on assignment. All Laura knows is that she’ll be covering the launch of a horror mini series called It Feeds. It isn’t until her plane lands in L.A. that she opens the press release to learn more about the project, and to her utter shock and horror, she discovers that It Feeds is a reboot of the infamous 1993 horror movie The Guesthouse—the very same movie Laura starred in as a child. Back then, Laura was Polly Tremaine, a seven-year old who had just been given the part of Tammy Manners, a little girl who can predict how someone will die. The movie became legend, not because of its merits as a movie, but because many of the cast and crew died in mysterious ways during and after filming. Even creepier, the deaths mirrored the fictional deaths of the characters in the movie. Polly was so traumatized by this that her parents decided to leave America for England, and later Polly changed her name to Laura and dyed her hair in order to avoid any media attention.

Up until now, only her parents and her sister Amy know Laura’s true identity, but Laura suspects that her boss Mike, the man who insisted she cover the release of It Feeds, has found out and perhaps sent her here with an ulterior motive in mind. Nevertheless, Laura begins to interview the cast and crew, but when a late night fire results in the death of the show’s director Todd Terror, Laura is convinced her past has come back to haunt her.

Winning sets up an intriguing idea with his “cursed movie” premise, and although it’s been done before, I loved the retro feel of the traumatized child actor who grows up trying to escape her past. I thought the mystery worked really well. I had no idea what was going on, especially because all of the characters were unreliable and suspect, at least to me. We have Laura, who is still struggling with a particular event that took place on the set of The Guesthouse (we don’t learn what it is until almost the end). As soon as Laura enters the set for It Feeds, she starts to hear and see things that may or may not be real, so right away her mental state is questionable. Then we have the unexpected appearance of Mike and Amy, two people Laura is not very happy to see, and they only complicate matters because they clearly have their own agenda that involves Laura’s old identity, Polly Tremaine. This is one of those stories where it’s hard to tell whether the supernatural events are real or not—until the end, of course, when everything is more or less explained.

The chapters are interspersed with an interesting mix of social media screenshots, journal entries, movie script excerpts and more, all of which add to the mystique of The Guesthouse and the terrifying events surrounding the movie. I thought these bits of mixed media were very effective and nicely done.

Winning also tackles some heavy themes, like childhood trauma and the child actor/stage mother relationship, which added a nice depth to the story. Polly’s mother forced her daughter into acting, even though she didn’t want to do it, and some of the methods she used to get Polly to behave were pretty horrific. We also learn that Amy wanted to act more than anything, but as a child she wasn’t good enough to break into the business. This caused a lot of tension between the sisters, tension that never really went away. In the present day, Laura’s mother has Alzheimer’s and Laura is torn between hatred for the way her mother abused her as a child, and compassion for her current condition. I thought it was a nice, emotional touch that added a lot to Laura’s character.

As for what didn’t work for me, there are two main elements I struggled with. First, I didn’t like any of the characters, not even Laura. Laura makes terrible choices throughout the entire story, never once thinking about her safety or the fact that she might be doing something illegal. Things start to spiral out of control on the set of It Feeds, and Laura finds herself in big trouble, but it never occurs to her to talk to the police. No, she has to conduct her own investigation into the reasons behind the mysterious deaths, which leads to a ridiculous plot later in the book.

Then we have Mike, who I hated from the moment he wandered onto the page. Mike and Laura were an item at one time, but she broke up with him when they started working together. He’s trying to get her back, and even though he’s going behind her back and acting shifty, Laura seems to have a hard time telling him “no.” Amy is a whiny girl who never got her moment in the spotlight, despite all her efforts, and you can tell she still resents Laura, even after so many years. Honestly, I couldn’t stand her. There’s a psychic named Beverly who I thought was the most interesting of all the characters, but she wasn’t as fully fleshed out as I would have liked.

The story veers off into the absurd at about the halfway point, and that’s the other major issue I had with Burn the Negative. After a series of very unlikely events, the characters set off on a convoluted road trip of sorts—Laura is still trying solve the murders and won’t rest until she does—which ends in a bunch of over-the-top action that made it hard to immerse myself in the story. For me, the tone just felt “off,” as if the author couldn’t figure out what kind of a story he wanted this to be. On one hand, it’s a pulpy movie-centric horror/slasher with plenty of scares and some deeper emotional themes, but then it morphs into a ridiculous comedy caper, sort of a Thelma and Louise gone wrong, that just felt too silly for what came before it.

But. I have to admit I really liked the ending. Winning tacks on a epilogue that takes place a year later, and I thought it was brilliant. Despite my complaints, though, I’m glad I read Burn the Negative, and you should try it if any of this sounds good to you.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.