Every year people travel to the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to celebrate the first appearance of Mothman back in 1966. They visit the Mothman Museum, buy trinkets and memorabilia, eat some pancakes and get a selfie with the Mothman statue. The festival’s website says it’s “fun for the kids.”

But when Rian, a TikTok content creator, comes face-to-face with the legendary insect man, he questions the festival’s family friendly reputation. Nothing about what he sees would make a good plush toy or Funko Pop figure. This is a thing that should be hidden in a basement, he thinks. “This isn’t the ideal mascot for pancakes at a festival in September. Everybody’s wrong. This thing is real and not totes adorbs.”

Fittingly, the giant mutant grabs Rian and impales him on the Mothman statue on Fourth Street. Pinned on the stone effigy like a Christmas ornament, the grisly death goes viral with the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” playing in the background. 

All ensuing Mothman attacks are underscored by a creepy soundtrack of “Rudolph” and “Frosty the Snowman.” Combined, the two songs become an ominous leitmotif similar to the famous Godzilla theme by composer Akira Ifukube. 

Mothman’s ongoing connection to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is an important plot point in Red Ice, the latest monster novel from Damien Casey. The holiday song was originally used to comfort the cryptid in 1952 when it was birthed in a government-funded laboratory. 

“Rudolph” was more than a sonic pacifier, however. The bug baby instinctively related to the red-nosed reindeer’s outcast status. Like poor Rudolph, the young man-made creature longed for companionship and friendship. The song’s enduring sadness would inform Mothman’s motives for the rest of its life.

Unlike Rudolph, Olive and all the other reindeer, Mothman couldn’t be reimagined as a cuddly stuffed toy. It was a horrible-looking thing specifically created to be a weapon against America’s adversaries—a blasphemous blend of man, moth and bat. It could easily pinpoint and hunt down a single fly in a wide-open space as big as 15 miles with the same efficiency as a great white shark smelling blood. “It was the perfect killer,” writes Casey. 

Over the years, Mothman became a twisted mess of contradictions and eventually succumbed to its prime directive. It couldn’t escape its DNA code that provoked the thrill of the hunt and the love of bloodshed. Genetic scientists had done their job well: Mothman was the world’s deadliest soldier. 

As good as it is, readers may feel slightly adrift during Red Ice. There’s no protagonist and no dominant point of view to anchor the narrative. Readers will also notice that author Casey has an “interesting” relationship with grammar. And finally, Red Ice never realizes its true potential—it’s a short piece of work that could easily expand to over 90,000 words. 

Fortunately, the novel is packed with plenty of quirky humor and moments of excellent craft. The prologue, for example, which chronicles Mothman’s infancy, is terrific and exists as an effective short story on its own. 

Near the end of the book, a nine-foot-tall Mothman hovers over its final prey. The creature hesitates for a few seconds, processing how it wants to kill its intended victim. How long should it take? How much pain should it inflict? For Mothman, It was all just a game—a reindeer game. 

[ Red Ice / By Damien Casey / First Printing: November 2023 / ISBN: 9798868357374 ]