Tor Nightfire / September 2025
Reviewed by: Vince A. Liaguno

The slasher will never die. It’s an unkillable genre that has deflected critical disdain and even defied audience apathy in its interminable cycles of popularity gained and lost. Like the unstoppable villains behind the masks, the slasher has become a cultural mainstay—its predictable formula the comfort food of horror appetites across (now) generations.

It’s no surprise then that the cinematic slasher has stepped off the big screens and into comics, television, and literature in a natural expansion of its pop culture footprint. While the late greats Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon had long ago incorporated key elements of the slasher genre into their literary offerings, it wasn’t until the turn of the century that slasher fiction came into its own. Contemporary writers like Riley Sager, Grady Hendrix, Josh Malerman, Adam Cesare, Brian McAuley, and Josh Winning have all gone down the slasher rabbit hole—hell, yours truly was one of those first out of the gates in 2006 with The Literary Six—but it’s been Stephen Graham Jones who’s mastered the literary slasher and crafted something of a cottage industry out of the durable horror subgenre. With works like The Last Final Girl, Night of the Mannequins, The Only Good Indians, and the three novels that comprise his Angel Lake Trilogy, Jones has become the master of meta when it comes to the literary slasher, and he’s effectively deconstructed and reconstructed the genre in countless and engaging ways that have captivated scholars and will likely keep them writing for decades.

So, what keeps the literary slasher so compulsively readable? Adherence to the formula is a given but, unlike its cinematic brethren, the slasher novel must offer something wholly unique to capture eyes. While slasher fans may be willing to mindlessly watch a 90-minute film, few horror fiction aficionados will read beyond a few pages if the work doesn’t grab them with the premise or from page one. With The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre, Philip Fracassi opts for the former, with his ingenious choice to combine the tried-and-true slasher formula with the burgeoning geri-horror subgenre—and the results are spectacular.

Rose DuBois is the spunky almost-octogenarian at the heart of the novel—and its final girl. She lives, complacently, at the titular senior living residence where she spends her days rooted in post-retirement routine—book clubs and bingo down at the community center; meals in the dining hall with her best friend, Miller; strolls around the wooded campus; and the occasional visit from her only daughter and grandson. Most of all, she relishes her lack of ties—no pets, no plants, and no romantic entanglements (not that Miller doesn’t occasionally give it his all). She can choose to attend the latest screening of an Igmar Bergman film with friends or stay in her cozy one-bedroom apartment with a good book and a hot cup of tea. It’s more than enough for the retired high school English teacher.

When a friend and fellow resident suffers a fatal fall in her bathroom, no one seems particularly alarmed at first—except Rose whose skepticism over the circumstances and extent of the victim’s injuries sets off what Miller refers to as her sixth sense, citing how she’s always able to identify the killer in the crime movies they’re both fond of. Rose initially dismisses him with one of the best lines in the book: “That’s me. A black Angela Lansbury.”

But when a second resident dies under mysterious circumstances, and then a third, it’s clear to Rose and the reader that there’s a slasher lurking about the Autumn Springs Retirement Home campus. With deft pacing, the body count multiplies considerably while Fracassi mines the fertile material his (primarily) geriatric cast of characters provides. He ably layers in fresh observations on aging and old age, from dementia and the body’s betrayal of itself to the resilience it takes in later life to finish out one’s third act with some autonomy and dignity. There’s a refreshing heart at the core of this otherwise competent slasher that sets it apart from the pack.

With The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre, Fracassi brilliantly crafts both a serviceable slasher and poignant rumination on aging. Skillfully blending slasher and geri-horror elements, he creates what feels like an entirely new and fresh horror subgenre. Impressively, his characters are fully realized older adults—adults who’ve lived full lives and whose life experiences logically factor into their reactions to the slasher mayhem playing out around them. Fracassi doesn’t pander to geriatric stereotypes either and authentically portrays his characters on the page as resourceful, playful, sexual, contemplative, and flawed. This refreshing lack of patronization is also evident in Fracassi’s choice to get bold and bloody with his kills—the fact that his victims are someone’s cute little grandparents spares them none of the gruesome slasher violence.

Long after the discarded tissue or two you’ll need after the last few exquisite pages of Fracassi’s novel, Rose and Miller and Tatum Bird and Gopi and the Baxter sisters will still be on your mind. That alone is the mark of a great writer—and make no mistake, with the wickedly enjoyable The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre, Fracassi has adeptly established himself as one of the greats. Brilliant, bold, and bloody, look for this one to top multiple “year’s best” lists, as well as garner nods for prestigious horror literary honors like the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson awards—all deserving outcomes for what is easily this year’s best horror novel.

Purchase The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi.