Matt Kurtz’s ‘The Rotting Within’ Is A Clinic Of Horror And Storytelling
Characters Author Matt Kurtz has a way of making his characters seem like real people. Their reactions to being scared, uncomfortable, stressed traumatized and healing are all so realistic and well done that there is genuine empathy and sympathy for the characters in his story. I really felt more attached to Kurtz’s characters than I expected. Usually I am sympathetic to people in stories, but I am also keenly aware that they are fictional characters…this was not the case in The Rotting Within. The characters in this story feel as through they went through actual trauma, not just clichés of reactions to trauma. Kurtz has explored realistic and heavy emotion that fades the suspension of disbelief. Plot As heavy and atmospherically terrifying this book is, it is a fast-paced, deep story. Kurtz takes some common tropes (“don’t go into that room”…and then they go into the room) but makes them work within the realism of what’s happening. Each event makes
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