This article discusses extreme violence, including the depiction of children in life-threatening situations, graphic gore, and psychological trauma. Reader discretion is advised.
What is the worst thing you’ve ever seen?
Imagine you’re a parent–single or married, and you have children of your own. You’re able to support yourselves just enough to get through the day, but there’s one problem that has presented itself: you’re deathly low on cash. While at the park one evening with your children, you’re confronted by a seemingly normal looking man. He hands you a brochure and presents you with a proposition, one you just cannot ignore. There’s a new playground being built in the community by a state philanthropist named Geraldine Borden, and she’s offering the hefty sum of three-thousand dollars just for letting your children play on the prototype playground she’s constructed. Once the experiment is concluded, she plans to relocate the new playground to the public for low-income families. The situation is just too tempting to let down. I mean, seriously? Receiving thousands of dollars just for letting your children play on some playground for an hour seemed almost impossible to imagine.
But what awaits you inside Ms. Borden’s grand estate will change you and your children forever, and when the veil is lifted from your eyes…all you’re left with is absolute terror; it’s no ordinary playground, no. It’s a death trap. And to escape, the children are forced to push through a series of trials. Slides are embedded with razor blades and barbed wire, rooms shrink in size and threaten to crush them, and more. One of the sections the kids are forced to endure involves crossing a bridge that resembles a game of hop-scotch. Below the deadly bridge rests a chorus of meat grinders, and each child must make it to the other side without plummeting below…and, of course, one of them doesn’t.
Censorship in the media has come a long, long way. Compared to decades ago, the censoring of certain media has become more flexible and lenient. Social expectations and ethics have seemed to evolve over the years in regards to what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable. Titles such as Doctor Sleep (2019) and Halloween (2018) initially come to mind when I think of such. The death of a child is heart-aching, and no one wishes to see the death of a child on screen. I remember seeing both films on the opening nights they were out; I was absolutely appalled at the sight of Michael Myers killing a young boy on screen, and nothing will ever compare to Rose the Hat and her congregation of psychic vampires–quite literally–sucking the life out of a child. It’s a jarring visual, one that no one wishes to see. Children are the picture of purity, and witnessing a malevolent external force enact their wrath upon their innocence is absolutely terrifying—and perhaps that’s the point of its inclusion.
Aron Beauregarde published his infamous novel, Playground, in 2022, just shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic. I discovered this novel through social media, specifically through Tiktok. People left videos and reviews of their thoughts on the novel itself, and I found a common pattern amongst readers: they absolutely hated it. Many found the story incredibly disturbing, grotesque and downright disgusting. “Disgusting,” however, is an incredible understatement, really. It’s more than disgusting–it’s hideous.
“Splatterpunk,” or extreme horror, is a genre with a titular purpose: to gross you out. That’s mostly the main reason why the content within the story is so graphic. It’s intended to make your gut churn, your body ache. And to be frank, Aron Beauregarde is the first author to ever make me feel physically ill. The Slob, another story he worked on and published, made me writhe and audibly gasp out loud: a pregnant traveling saleswoman stumbles upon the wrong doorstep, and is abducted and held hostage within a filthy man’s home–and it does not end well for her.
“But why? What is the purpose of such content?” I’ve more or less heard the same thing said amongst most people. “Why would you read it?” is also something I, myself, have been asked before. Personally, I did so out of curiosity–mainly because of social media or other influencers posting videos or content talking about their latest read. I saw videos of people talking about “the infamous page 40” of the novel. And oh, my god, it is absolutely BATSHIT CRAZY. For the sake of your sanity, I will not be covering it. For context, I listened to the audiobook–mainly because I didn’t feel like driving to the store to pick up a copy (truthfully I was actually too embarrassed to even purchase it in person) and I have never wanted to rip the ears off from my head so badly before in my entire life. If you know, then you know. It’s just too disgusting and vile to even talk about in a university newspaper.
It’s so interesting, the reverse psychology in it all. Some creators on the internet were pleading with their viewers to not read, and of course, I didwhat they told me not to do, obviously. After hearing about it so many times on the internet, my phone was screaming at me to see what all the trouble was. Truthfully, I didn’t think it was going to be as disgusting as it was going to be. Growing up, I was a horror movie fanatic, and I still am today. Perhaps I watched too many horror movies when I was younger, but I would consider myself pretty desensitized to scares when it comes to them. But after listening to Beauregarde’s Playground, I realized it was a different type of story. The entire time I was wondering: how the actual fuck does this end? What happens to the main characters? That’s what mostly kept me reading; the desire to find out the fate of the characters. With the characters in the clutches of such despair, could you blame me?
Is it wrong to indulge in such content? Does that make me a creep for reading this book? Does producing such material make the author a bad person? Well, no, of course it does not make you a bad person or a creep just for reading a book. Like I said: I read mainly out of curiosity, for the sake of discussion and review. And there are people that may judge you, yes, but that doesn’t mean that they’re right. But at the end of the day it’s all about the reader’s intent, I suppose. As for the author, Aron Beauregarde is actually a really chill dude. From what I’ve researched about him, he really likes challenging the norm. He defies convention and doesn’t conform, which is something I can admire out of an author.
Banning books is something I personally don’t believe in. Books are inherently political and always will be, and banning books can completely stunt exposure to new and challenging ideas. However, I do STRONGLY believe that this novel should be protected from younger audiences, and that it should only fall into the hands of an 18+ audience. It’s also one of those stories where most really only read it once and never pick it up again. Still, that doesn’t make it any less weaker than it was. Playground is a character driven narrative that pushes the boundaries of ethics and morality, touching on various topics such as abuse, social class, and how corrupt affluence changes people. I purposefully did not include spoilers for this title, mainly for the sake of mystery and ambiguity; it’s just one of those stories you don’t want to be spoiled for. And will I ever read more of Aron Beauregarde? Maybe. I don’t know. Who knows? If another of his novels blows up on Tiktok, perhaps I’ll be inclined to review his work again.
