Category: supernatural

Shock Waves

A Novella of Amusement Park Terror by Matt Kurtz

5/5 Star Review

The year is 1988 and Danny and his girlfriend, Stacy, work at The Lone Star Land Amusement Park. On a Saturday in September, Stacy reveals to Danny that she is pregnant on their break and Danny doesn’t take the news very well. Later that evening, he is feeling guilty about his reaction and wants nothing more than to head over to her ride and apologize. Near the end of his shift, there is an explosion at the construction site next to the park that knocks out the power. People are stuck on rides and general chaos ensues. No one is prepared when a creeping crawling horde of mutated creatures make their way out of the blast site and into the amusement park – slaughtering and devouring everyone in their path. Danny is determined to make his way to Stacy and joined by a small group of survivors, he leads the way across the park.

Shock Waves is a whole lot of fun and it the perfect summer read! It’s chock full action, monsters, blood, gore, and tension – all set against the backdrop of an amusement park. Kurtz’s decision to set this novella in the late 80s was a smart one – the lack of modern technology added to the helplessness of our main characters as they were cut off from reaching each other ride to ride.

While Shock Waves definitely pays homage to the monster movies of yesterday, Kurtz steps it up and manages to weave a tight plot, believable dialogue, and relatable characters all in roughtly 150 pages. You felt for this tight band of survivors and cheered for them every step of the way. This isn’t just a story about the monsters, it’s a story about humanity and the lengths we go to to save our loved ones.

If you’re looking for some thrills this summer – I highly recommend checking this one out!

Butchers

A Vampire Novella by Todd Sullivan

3/5 Star Review

After a botched raid in an attempt to apprehend Cheol Yu, high school student Sey-Mi is kidnapped and forced to join the Gwanlyo. The Gwanlyo Company acts as the governing body of vampires in South Korea. They create, monitor, discipline, and enforce all vampire activity in the country to maintain order and secrecy. Sey-Mi is Cheol Yu’s blood relative and will stop at nothing to get her back. He partners with Hyeri, a rogue agent, to track her down and free her. They end up finding an unexpected ally in Min Gun, a Gwanlyo agent, who develops feelings for Sey-Mi.

Butchers is a solid read and will scratch that itch if you’re looking for something a little fresh and a little different in a vampire story. Sullivan clearly draws from his experience living and teaching in Asia and paints a believable backdrop for the novella. While Butchers is touted as extreme horror, I would argue that it’s more straight horror with a few scenes of hyper violence and a sexual assault. If you’re not normally a reader of extreme horror, don’t let that description put you off because if you’re a horror reader, you can handle this. Then again, if SA is a trigger for you, you’ll want to avoid this read all together.

While I had a few nitpicks with this novella, I would recommend it to fans of the vampire genre who are looking for something a little more unique than your standard fare. Butchers ends on a bit of a cliff-hanger, but there is a follow-up novella available, The Gray Man of Smoke and Shadows.

I received a free copy of this novella in exchange for an honest review.

Halloween Horror with Ronald Kelly

Since we’re almost halfway to Halloween, I thought it would be the perfect time to review two collections by Ronald Kelly – Mister Glow-Bones and Other Halloween Tales and The Halloween Store and Other Tales of All Hallow’s Eve.

Each collection contains a handful of short stories centered around Halloween and two to three non-fiction essays from Kelly’s youth. Both collections really scratch that nostalgia itch for a good old-fashioned spooky story.

The titular tale in Mister Glow-Bones and Other Halloween Tales is my favorite in the collection. It’s the story of an articulated cardboard skeleton who kills on Halloween night. I also really enjoyed Pins & Needles, about a man who gets comuppance after poisoning and putting razors and pins into children’s treats; and Pelingrad’s Pit, about a mysterious pit in Old Man Pelingrad’s back yard.

Pretty Little Lanterns in The Halloween Store and Other Tales of All Hallow’s Eve was my favorite in this second collection. It’s a little tale of mystery about jack-o-latern’s made of human heads. Other notable tales are The Halloween Store, about kids turning into their Halloween costumes; and Mr. Mack is Back in Town, a follow-up to Mister Mack and the Monster Mobile from Mister Glow-Bones.

For those of us who cut our fangs on Goosebumps growing up, these collections will be especially appealing. The just have that feel, you know? Crisp, cool air; autumn leaves, reading under a blanket with a flashlight, sneaking candy. They remind you of the idealistic Halloween that everyone loves.

If you need something to help you make it through to October, I recommend picking up these short little collections. If you really want a treat, order them from Ronald Kelly’s webstore. Every book comes signed and he will draw a little doodle in them as well!

The Prettiest Girl in the Grave

A Novel of Pageantry Hell by Kristopher Triana

5/5 Star Review

“Some girls are fearful, others are brave. One girl’s a princess, the next one, a slave. But all girls are equal, when they’re down in this cave, until just one is left standing – The Prettiest Girl in the Grave.”

Kristopher Triana continues to prove himself as a voice to be reckoned with in the horror genre. His latest, The Prettiest Girl in the Grave, is a must-read for fans of Gone to See the River Man and The Long Shadows of October.

“What do you fear?”

In the small town of Greenwalk there is a forgotten cemetery in the woods. Every generation, a group of girls manages to find their way to it and become embroiled in a century old game – Who will become The Prettiest Girl in the Grave?

“Who do you love?”

Bella, Rose, Celeste, Aubrey, Savannah, and Marnie all sneak out at midnight to meet at the old cemetery. Aubrey has learned about a secret game that’s only played by local girls in this graveyard, at one specific crypt. As the girls begin to play, they open themselves up to a night which they may not survive.

“What happens when you die?”

When Bella’s mother, Holly, wakes up to find her daughter missing she has a horrible suspicion that she knows where her daughter and her friends are and what may be happening to them. Holly played the game when she was a teen and barely escaped with her life. Holly returns to the crypt and tries to save her daughter from the very fate she faced as a young girl.

Fans of Triana’s trangressive horror, rejoice! The Prettiest Girl in the Grave delivers a supernatural punch filled with all sorts of nasty little surprises. He has deftly crafted his own folklore and surrounding urban legend for the town of Greenwalk – think Bloody Mary, but amp it up to eleven. As the reader, more and more of the history is revealed to us as it is told through Bella’s point-of-view and in flashbacks from her mother, Holly. I couldn’t put this one down and blew through it in one day and I think you will too!

It’s worth a mention that if you’re a fan of Triana’s more extreme horror, you won’t find it here. While there is a good amount of violence and blood in this novel, it’s far more subtle compared to some of his other novels, like Body Art or Full Brutal. If you’re looking for a good place to start reading Triana, or to turn a new reader onto his work, The Prettiest Girl in the Grave is an excellent place to start.

The Prettiest Girl in the Grave releases on May 12, 2023 from Grindhouse Press. Pre-order the paperback or ebook now! OR Be one of the really cool kids and pre-order the limited edition hardcover bundle straight from Triana’s site here. It’s an absolute steal at only $45!

All Hallows

A nostalgic Halloween read by Christopher Golden

4/5 Star Review

It’s Halloween night, 1984, in the small town of Coventry, Massachsetts. In the neighborhood surrounding Parmenter Road, the Barbosas are setting up their annual Haunted Woods spook walk for charity; The Koenigs are setting up for their big Halloween party; Barbara Sweeney is out looking for her drunken, philandering husband; and all the kids are getting ready for trick-or-treat. During the evening, four children show up who do not belong and beg the neighbors and neighborhood children to help them – to hide them from The Cunning Man. Tension and fear escalate as the night wears on and the mysterious children become more frantic and long-held neighborhood secrets come to light.

“Nothing in these woods could be more dreadful, more terrifying, than the selfish cruelty of ordinary people.”

All Hallows is part supernatural thriller and part suburban drama. We have a cast of characters that the reader feels very strongly about and can easily relate to. Love them, or hate them, you care what happens to them. Almost to the detriment of caring much about the supernatural element. The human monsters are the real stars of the show in this one, folks.

This novel breathes Halloween. You can smell the autumn leaves and crisp, cool air; you can taste the apple cider and the candy bars. All Hallows pulls all of the heartstrings to bring you back to the Halloweens of your youth where you used to race each other to houses and it was safe to go out with your friends. That sick feeling of sadness in your gut when you know it’s going to be your last year of trick-or-treat – Golden excels at giving life to the emotions surrounding the holiday.

If you’re looking for a slow-burn horror novel, chock full of character development – this read is for you. If you’re looking for a fast-paced, gory, supernatural monster book – you may want to take a pass on this one.

Hill House Comics: A Look at Daphne Byrne and The Dollhouse Family

A few years ago, Joe Hill joined forces with DC Comics’ Black Label and cultivated his own line of horror comics. The series launched with Basketful of Heads, written by Hill himself. The line continued in the following months with The Dollhouse Family; The Low, Low Woods; Daphne Byrne; and Plunge. I decided to start my journey into Hill House with Daphne Bryne.

This would prove to be a poor decision.

Daphne Byrne, written by Laura Marks, follows fourteen year-old Daphne in the mourning period after her father’s untimely death. Set in New York in 1886, the setting is perfect for the spiritualist background of the story. Daphne’s mother is drawn in by a charlatan medium who claims to converse with her dead husband and will not believe her daughter’s attempts to disprove the woman. Daphne watches as her mother wastes their dwindling coin and wrestles with troubling dreams she is beginning to have, about a young man who claims to be her friend, but who also appears to her during the daytime as well.

On the surface, Daphne Byrne sounded great and I wanted to love this story. What I got instead was a mess of convoluted ideas, many of which never went anywhere and they did absolutely nothing to advance the story. At best this was derivative of Rosemary’s Baby and honestly, it was barely passable as a cohesive narrative. Unless you are a series completist, I can’t think of any reason to recommend this title.

The bar was set low for Hill House Comics.

The Dollhouse Family, written by M.R. Carey, was my next dive into this curated graphic novel line. This story follows Alice who inherits a beautiful 19th-century dollhouse from an estranged great aunt. Alice quickly falls in love with the house and the little antique dolls inside. It’s not long before she realizes that she can magically enter the house and interact with the dolls. What starts off as a joyous escape quickly becomes a nightmare as Alice discovers the Black Room and what it asks of her to do.

Aaaand we are back on track.

The Dollhouse Family was exactly what I wanted Hill House Comics to be – dark, haunting, mysterious, cohesive – you get the picture. Dollhouse delivered with demons, a mystery, and nods to Alice in Wonderland, while still maintaining its own identity. In Alice, we have a character who takes no guff and delivers as a solid protagonist. I genuinely liked this story and would recommend it for Sandman fans. There are parts of this story that made me think of the Gaiman classic quite a few times.

Thanks to The Dollhouse Family, my faith has not been completely lost in Hill House Comics. I will be continuing on next with Basketful of Heads.

Parachute

A novella of cosmic horror by Holly Rae Garcia

5/5 Star Review

If you were a child in the 80s or 90s, you will likely remember the parachutes from physical education class. Those were always fun days in school – the whole class gathered around in a giant circle with the parachute spread out in the center. Everyone would take a handful and lift at the same time and you would stare up into the rainbow colored dome as it circled above your head. Magical days, amiright?

For the characters in Holly Rae Garcia’s Parachute, this is not the case. Angela Rodriguez and her friends have just graduated high school and are hanging out together for one of the last times before they all go their separate ways. When they start to reminisce about the parachute from their grade school days, they decide to break into the abandoned elementary school and see if there is still an old parachute in the gym. They luck out and find one, but when they spread it out and lift it up they realize this parachute is nothing like the one from their childhoods. Every time they lift it up, they are exposed to a strange new world. They think they’ve figured out the rules for coming and going, but are about to be proved terribly wrong.

Parachute is a fun cosmic horror novella. What starts off as a nostalgic trip quickly unfolds into realms of unknowable terror. Each new world that the teenagers venture into is worse than the last. Garcia does a fantastic job of disorienting the reader, as the standard momentum of time is thrown out the window as the teens hop in and out of realities. It could be minutes, it could be days. In a lot of ways, Parachute reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. My only complaint is that I wish we could have spent more time in some the worlds – they were fascinating! Overall, I greatly enjoyed this little novella and I think you will to.

Ghost Eaters

A novel of addiction and grief by Clay McLeod Chapman

5/5 Star Review

“Do you want to get haunted?”

Erin Hill can’t let go of her charismatic ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he reaches out to her to bail him out of rehab again, she and their friends decide to hold an intervention for him. It goes about as well as you would expect and shortly thereafter he dies of an overdose. This is where the story really begins.

“Death is not the end, trust me!”

Their mutual friend, Tobias, approaches Erin after Silas’ death and promises her that she can see Silas again. All she has to do is try this new drug, Ghost. Tobias claims that everyone is haunted and the drug allows you to see the spirits of the dead. In her grief, Erin agrees and nothing is ever the same again.

“A name is a vessel. It holds certain syllables, certain cadences. If you say them in a certain order, in a certain rhythm, you’re able to invoke the very breath of God. And I want to say Silas’s name with life again. I want to say his name and have it sound the way I used to say it when he was alive. I want to say his name with all my heart. To endow every letter with love, everlasting love.“

Ghost Eaters is a haunting novel of grief, pain, and addiction interspersed with Chapman’s keen sense of humor. He asks the question, “What would you do if you could see your loved one again?” and answers it the way most of us probably would in the way that Erin behaves. The best horror, in my opinion, is grounded in reality and Erin’s spiral is utterly believable.

I love supernatural horror and really appreciated the fresh way that Chapman approached his hauntings. It’s one thing when you can walk away from a haunted house or haunted object, but it’s a wild new horror when you’re the one who is haunted and can’t escape your ghosts.

I don’t want to mislead anyone by saying this is a super serious dive into grief and addiction. While those elements are there – it isn’t all this book is about. In fact, the last quarter of this book is downright bonkers! I will never look at mushrooms the same way again.

Overall, I though Ghost Eaters was a pretty stellar read that ticked off a lot of boxes for me. I highly recommend checking it out!

Two Novellas to Check Out if You Like Cosmic Horror

The Ethereal Transit Society by Thomas Vaughn and Last Case at a Baggage Auction by Eric J. Guignard

If you are looking for a couple of great novellas in the vein of cosmic horror – I have two fantastic recommendations for you!

Let’s start with The Ethereal Transit Society, the debut novella from Thomas Vaughn. This story follows the last three members of a doomsday cult on their road trip to find the body of their former leader. Their adventure leads them deep into the heart of rural Arkansas, following what they call the Transit Frequency in order to be in the right place for the end of the world. The Frequency has left its mark on the town and the remaining members are greeted by strangeness when they arrive. I hesitate to say more as this is such a quick read, but if cults and/or cosmic horror is your jam, you do not want to miss this little book. 5/5 Stars.

The second novella is a little more cosmic horror adjacent, but it still scratches that itch. Last Case at a Baggage Auction by Eric J. Guignard follows the story of Charlie Stewart and Joey Third. It’s 1963 in Detroit and Charlie and Joey bid on unclaimed baggage. Sometimes they win treasures, sometimes they win trash. At one particular claim, Joey finds an antique gramophone and records that play a creepy chanting in a language that neither man understands. While Charlie works to find out what’s on the records, Joey falls into a routine of listening to them nonstop. He sees visions of a dark and frozen landscape and a strange bearded man. This is an intense little read and delves into mysticism, the supernatural, and a physical opening into the distant past. 5/5 Stars.

Cosmic horror seems to be a little harder to find in modern horror, but there is a strong subset of authors who are killing it if you look a little deeper. I am happy to say that these two little books fit right into that niche. Definitely check both of these out!

Junji Ito: Master of Horror Manga, Part III

Here we are again, revisiting my favorite horror manga creator, Junji Ito. Click here for Part I and Part II. This time around we’re taking a look at four volumes – Deserter, Remina, Sensor, and The Liminal Zone.

Let’s start first with my favorite of the bunch, The Liminal Zone. This volume is made up of four stories – Weeping Woman Way, Madonna, The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara, and Slumber. Weeping Woman Way is the story of a young couple who stop in a small country town and encounter a weeping woman, a hired woman who cries and mourns the dead at funerals. The young girl is so saddened that she is unable to stop crying, even after they leave the town. They decide to return and uncover the truth of these weeping women. Madonna tells the story of a corrupt priest who falls in love with beautiful, young women and convinces them that they are the blessed virgin herself. A plan that works for him until he can no longer keep his affairs a secret from his jealous wife and she goes on a rampage. The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara follows a young couple into the suicide forest. Norio has been stricken with a fatal disease and his girlfriend, Mika, decides to join him in death. Their first night, they see a faint glow and decide to follow it the next day. They discover the mystical spirit flow of the forest and Norio becomes obsessed with riding it every night. The final story, Slumber, is about a man who falls asleep at night and wakes up each morning convinced he’s killed the night before. This was a 5/5 Star read for me. Ito excels in short story form and these are some of his best.

Deserter was another 5/5 Star collection. This bind-up contains twelve short stories – standouts for me included: Deserter, about a WWII soldier who went AWOL and hid away at a friend’s farmhouse; Where the Sandman Lives, a story about a man who can’t fall asleep for fear of his dream self coming out and taking over his daytime body; A Father’s Love, a story about a father who can possess his entire family; and The Long Hair in the Attic, a cautionary tale about being a playboy.

Sensor is the story of Kyoko Byakuya who is drawn into the mysterious village of Kiyokami, a town covered in volcanic hair. The shining golden fibers form a protective shell around her when a nearby volcano erupts. When she emerges, all of her hair has been replaced by the beautiful golden hair. What follows is a strange tale of cults and cosmic horror. Another 5/5 Star read.

The final volume was my least favorite of the lot, but it’s still worth a read at 4/5 Stars. Remina tells the story of a scientist and his daughter. Dr. Oguro discovers a new planet that’s emerged from a wormhole. He names the planet Remina, after his only daughter. His discovery is met with great fanfare and his daughter rises to popularity because of it. Everything is going great until they discover the planet is approaching earth and devouring everything in its wake. The population begins to fear Dr. Oguro and his daughter and become obsessed with the idea that by destroying them, they can save their planet.

If you haven’t caught on by now, you should absolutely be reading Junji Ito if you like horror.