The Woods

Attending a sleepaway camp is a traditional pastime for children during the summer holiday season. Summer camps are a nostalgic place of youth, exploration, and independence; it’s a familiar setting wherein authors can explore the intense emotions of adolescence. Summer camps are a popular setting for horror and thriller stories because the supposed innocence of the setting makes gruesome crimes all the more terrifying. As Paul explains, “[T]he wall between life and death, […] between the most innocent setting and a frightening bloodbath, is flimsy” (5). By setting a tale of murder at a summer camp, authors like Harlan Coben interrogate how tragedies at a young, impressionable age can have lasting impacts on their characters’ psyches. Other novels, like Riley Sager’s The Last Time I Lied and Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, similarly follow teen disappearances at summer camps and explore the emotional fallout of these crimes.

The Woods examines the duality of the summer camp setting, particularly through the character of Ira. A free-loving hippie, Ira bought the camp’s land with the original purpose of establishing a commune.