The Troop by Nick Cutter

⭐ 5/5 Book Review: The Troop by Nick Cutter — The Grossest, Scariest, Most Perfect Horror Novel

👉 Grab your copy of The Troop here: Amazon Affiliate Link

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⚠️ Trigger Warnings

This book is not for the faint of heart. Expect:

• Extreme body horror 🪱

• Graphic violence and gore 🔪

• Animal cruelty 🐢 (the turtle scene lives rent-free in my brain)

• Child death 👦

• Psychological horror and torture 🧠

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📖 Overview

Published in 2014, The Troop by Nick Cutter is one of those rare horror novels that made me go: “Oh wow, THIS is why people love horror.”

Five Boy Scouts + one Scoutmaster + a deserted island + a human science experiment gone very, very wrong = the most disgusting and terrifying story I’ve ever devoured.

It’s bloody, it’s disturbing, it’s brilliantly written — and I gave it ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ without hesitation.

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🚨 Spoiler Warning

If you haven’t read this yet and want to keep your lunch down, maybe stop here. Because I’m diving into all the details, worms and all.

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🪱 Full Spoiler-Filled Plot Summary of The Troop

Dr. Tim Riggs, a mild-mannered Scoutmaster, takes five boys — Max (the heart), Kent (the leader), Newt (the brain), Ephraim (the anger), and Shelley (…the sociopath) — to Falstaff Island, off Prince Edward Island, for a wholesome camping trip.

Wholesome lasts about 20 minutes.

A starving, skeletal man named Padgett arrives by boat, begging for food. Riggs, being a doctor, tries to help him. Huge mistake. Turns out Padgett was a human lab rat infected with genetically engineered tapeworms created under the guise of a “diet pill.” In reality? It’s also a potential military bioweapon.

Riggs becomes infected almost immediately, and from there, everything spirals.

• Tim and Padgett both die gruesome wormy deaths 🪱.

• Kent, the “golden boy,” drinks contaminated whiskey, gets infected, and slowly deteriorates.

• Shelley (the true horror of this novel) starts plotting to kill everyone just for fun. He delights in torture, manipulation, and bloodshed. Honestly? The worms are bad, but Shelley is worse.

• Ephraim, convinced he’s infected, literally starts cutting himself open. Later, Shelley convinces him to set himself on fire. 💀

• Newt, sweet logical Newt, contracts the worms too.

By the end, it’s Max vs. Shelley. Max survives, but only barely, and Shelley dies in one of the most grotesque scenes imaginable — his belly bursting open, worms pouring everywhere.

Max and Newt try to escape by fixing Padgett’s stolen boat, but when they reach the mainland, Newt is immediately shot (because he admits he’s hungry — and everyone knows what that means).

Max is taken to a lab and studied like a freak show. He survives, but he’s shunned by society, bullied, and completely isolated. In the end, the loneliest “survivor” returns to the very island he fought so hard to escape.

Gut punch. 💔

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🎭 My Thoughts

This book is horrifying in the best way. Cutter doesn’t pull punches — the gore is relentless, but it’s never silly. Every character adds something unique, every death hurts, and the interludes (fake news reports, government memos, lab notes) make it all feel chillingly real.

Shelley deserves a place in the “most disturbing characters in horror” hall of fame. Forget the worms. That boy was always planning to kill them all anyway.

And the ending? Brutal. Max “won,” but did he really? His loneliness is scarier than the monsters.

Honestly, The Troop would make the perfect horror movie. Someone call A24 already. 🎬

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🌟 Final Verdict

If you can stomach the gore, The Troop is a must-read. It’s disgusting, terrifying, and — dare I say — kind of profound.

⭐ 5 out of 5 stars.

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📚 If You Liked The Troop, Try These

• The Deep by Nick Cutter — claustrophobic horror set in the ocean.

• Bird Box by Josh Malerman — survival horror with a psychological edge.

• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski — weird, experimental, unsettling.