The Cut: It’s a “Stinker”

Let’s rip the Band-Aid off: The Cut is like swaggering into a Michelin-star joint, drooling for a juicy cheeseburger, and getting served a soggy saltine with a ketchup skid mark and a whiff of meat that might’ve waved hello from the kitchen. It’s got a badass cover that screams “fuck yeah,” a premise that could slay, and all the trappings of a creature-feature horror banger—except it lands somewhere between a melodramatic soap opera and a limp-dick episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? that even Nickelodeon would’ve flushed.

C.J. Dotson’s a fresh face in the horror pit, and props to her—she’s clearly got a raging boner for the genre. You can practically smell the love for The Shining and The Mist oozing off the pages like the mystery slime dripping from her haunted hotel’s crusty pipes. But this debut? It’s less a story and more a mushy valentine to every horror trope in the book. There’s raw talent here, sure, but it’s drowning under dialogue so clunky it could sink a ship and characters so shallow they’d lose a staring contest with a puddle.

Meet Sadie Miles, our preggo protagonist, hauling ass from her shitbag ex-fiancé with her toddler, Izzy (aka “Stinker”—a nickname hammered so hard you’d think it’s tattooed on the kid’s forehead). They wash up at the L’Arpin Hotel on Lake Erie’s grimy shores—a crumbling dump that’s basically a neon sign blinking “TRAP” in blood-red letters. Naturally, Sadie snags a job and a free room, because horror novel. Cue the weird wall noises, vanishing coworkers, and staff who act like they’ve had their souls sucked out through a straw. Oh, and there’s something slimy in the pipes that’s itching to tentacle its way into your dreams—or maybe your womb. Classic haunted-shithole vibes.

The real horror’s split between the squelching, fishy abominations (think B-movie rejects with a greenish flubber fetish) and Sadie’s own baggage, which the book smartly frames as the root of her paranoia and grit. Too bad it’s bogged down by repetition and character arcs flatter than a steamrolled pancake—otherwise, we might’ve actually given a shit about her. The Cut wants to be a deep-dive buffet of trauma, gaslighting, isolation, and abuse—both the domestic kind and the cosmic, tentacle-waving variety. It flirts with eco-horror (Lake Erie’s basically a cesspool with attitude), maternal dread, and a sprinkle of body-horror grossness. The hotel’s a solid stand-in for abuse cycles: a leaky shelter that screws you over, staffed by assholes who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. Sadie’s pregnancy and the water freaks tie into some nasty invasion metaphors. It’s got ideas, alright—they’re just half-baked, underseasoned, and left on the counter to rot.

Dotson’s prose swings from “damn, that’s creepy” to “oh, fuck me, really?” The L’Arpin Hotel’s slime-slick dread sticks to you like wet dog hair, but then someone talks, and it’s like a sledgehammer of awkward dialogue and the 47th “opay” (Izzy’s toddler gibberish for “okay”) smacks you awake. If that kid were real, I’d yeet her into speech class. In a book? Edit that shit down, for the love of God. Sadie’s inner monologues loop like a broken record—apparently, Dotson thinks we’ll forget she’s desperate to GTFO if she doesn’t scream it every five minutes. The character chit-chat feels like it was scraped from a Lifetime movie’s cutting-room floor. Real people don’t spew vague trauma metaphors at strangers like it’s open mic night—someone tell Dotson.

Strengths
Credit where it’s due: the setting’s creepy as balls. The L’Arpin Hotel sweats decay like a hungover frat boy, and the water motif—drippy walls, sketchy puddles, pipe-lurking tentacle fuckers—hits that sweet spot of “what’s under the bed?” unease. The creatures have a Lovecraftian slither that could’ve been pants-shittingly scary with better timing and punch. Too bad they stumble in late and fizzle like a wet firecracker.

Critiques

Pacing? More Like Pacing Yourself to Death
The first half crawls slower than a sloth on Xanax, slogging through Sadie’s brain vomit and Izzy’s babble. The back half? It’s a plot-twist pileup that derails faster than a drunk Uber driver. You don’t build tension by boring us to tears and then yeeting the kitchen sink at us— that’s just narrative whiplash, baby.

Characters Flatter Than a Pancake’s Ass
Sadie’s 100% trauma, 0% personality. Everyone else is either Shady McShadeface or a walking “fuck you” button. Gertie, the old babysitter, is the only one with a heartbeat—and she’s still just Creepy Granny Plot Device. Mr. Drye, the manager? He’s got the charisma of a soggy tax form.

Dialogue That’ll Make You Gouge Your Ears Out
If I hear “Mama loves you” one more time, I’m billing Dotson for my therapy. The repetition’s so bad it’s like the characters are stuck in a glitchy NPC loop.

Logic Takes a Vacation
Water monsters? Fine. Creepy staff? Sure. But Sadie poking around security footage instead of hauling ass with her kid and bun-in-the-oven? That’s when the story’s brain checks out and leaves us holding the bag.

The Cut could’ve been The Shining meets The Mist with a feminist kick in the nuts. Instead, it’s Scooby-Doo on sedatives, swinging a rubber mallet of subtlety and sporting the emotional depth of a used Kleenex. It’s got something to say about trauma and survival but gags on its own metaphors. The monsters are wet and nasty; the pacing’s dry as a desert fart. The characters? About as likable as stepping in cold puke. The ending’s a trainwreck I won’t spoil—let’s just say it’s a damp squib. Some diehard creature-feature freaks might dig the gooey, slow-burn weirdness, but for most horror junkies, The Cut is less a razor-sharp stab and more a limp poke with a soggy breadstick.