Some monsters are born and some are made. And some, like Mouth, are simply bizarre glitches of nature. 

Mouth was certainly weird, but it wasn’t evil, predatory or ambulatory. It was just a hole in the ground with teeth like a leatherback turtle. When Wayne Rogers discovered the phenomenon in his seven-acre backyard, it felt a bit magical, like something out of a fairy tale. 

Rogers quickly turned his woodland fairy tale into a bloody nightmare. As a former horror movie director, he recognized an opportunity when he saw one. He immediately began abducting hitchhikers, runaways and criminals to throw into Mouth’s gaping maw. By the end of his “career,” Rogers produced a staggering 30 years worth of snuff films. The townspeople silently called him the Dillsboro Death Dealer.

Rogers was gone now, but Mouth was still in the forest and chewing up scenery. Its current caretakers were a pair of lonely and damaged misfits: 50-year-old Rusty and 19-year-old Abigail. There was no romance between them (thank god!) but the couple was united in their commitment to the hungry hole in the ground.

Even though Mouth looked like an old-school monster movie monster, Rusty didn’t consider it a monster at all. It was a living organism just like him. And besides, he didn’t consider the term “monster” to be negative. He saw beauty in the diversity of nature and that beauty was manifest in Mouth. “I think it may be my best friend,” said Rusty.

At this point, Joshua Hull’s debut novel makes a big pivot. Instead of being a full-on horror monster novel, Mouth morphs into a story of redemption and rebirth. Rusty, Abigail and their man-eating hole unite to form a strong family bond that’s surprisingly sweet. “Life had a funny way of fucking everything up,” said Hull, “but it also had a funny way of bringing misfits together.”

In addition to its life-affirming message, there’s a lot of jibber-jabber about movies and moviemaking in this short novel. In fact, the novel itself is sort of like a cross between two iconic films: Tremors and The Blair Witch Project. 

Even beyond that, it’s a love letter to the power of cinema. Rusty and Abigail found solace in the monster movies they watched as kids—most notably Jaws and The Blob—and movies gave them the hope to find light in the darkness. 

Said Abigail: “Movies are the best. They’re the greatest gift we’ve been given. Can you imagine where humanity would be without them? We would be lost, man. LOST. Movies make people feel alive. Without them we’d all be fucking miserable.” 

[ Mouth / By Joshua Hull / First Printing: March 2024 / ISBN: 9781959790020 ]