In Keith Tyler Hopkins’ bloody novella “Red Betty and the Murder Farm,” the title character has mixed feelings about the family business. On one hand, she wants more insider knowledge about what goes on in the barn — beyond just yanking the mislaid teeth from between boards after all the action. On the other hand, she’s not sure she can deliver the final thump with a sledgehammer if one of the bodies she’s tasked with burying has some last licks of life in him.
Her moral crisis comes to a head with the very literally named Bloody Boy, who may be leaking fluids, but he’s still kicking. The two forge an unlikely friendship built on a shared knowledge of bad guys, a heroic figure with a great logo, and paybacks they’re both looking to divvy.
Hopkins’ cheeky, quick-hit story started as a screenplay — one that he says in the afterword that he believes would be expensive to reproduce, and big expense requires big names.
“In short,” he writes, “I wouldn’t be filming it any time soon.”
“Red Betty and the Murder Farm” has gobs of gore, a cast of descriptively nicknamed misfits, and clever turns of phrase. It’s great fun.
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Hopkins is the filmmaker behind “Gravedigger Dave’s Halfway House,” and before this wrote “The Horror Anthology Handbook.” “Red Betty and the Murder Farm” has fared well on Amazon’s best sellers in horror, where it reached No. 2. It’s also available at Zenith Bookstore.
