Dismembered by Jonathan Janz

The Dismembered
by Jonathan Janz
2022, Cemetery Dance Publications

In 1912, a divorced American author travels to England and meets a woman seeking help for her younger sister, who has been seduced by a depraved older Count. After a great deal of talking and atmosphere things ramp up, with the Count and his minions taking prisoners and lopping off body parts.

Less of a short novel and more of a long short story, with only a handful of scenes. Interesting as a genre exercise. The cover evokes 60s gothic romance, he keeps the narration in character throughout, with references to Poe and Shelley, though the story is more shudder pulp than Daphne du Maurier, and the ending is more adventure than horror. Taken on it's own merits as just a story,  the long-winded narrative style went on long enough for me to forget what was happening in the scene, and the lengthy epilogue didn't help with the pace.

From Amazon

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protege by Tim Waggoner

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protege
by Tim Waggoner
2005, Black Flame

Years ago, Freddy kills a pregnant woman and implants part of himself in the unborn child, who survives. The child is protected from Freddy's influence by a dream catcher until he accidently breaks it, causing his dark side to take over.

Good characters and matches the feel of the original films better than most Black Flame books, but suffers from the same page bloat as the others and could have been cut in half.

From Amazon https://amzn.to/42ODy1H

Death ed Stuart David Schiff

Death
ed Stuart David Schiff
1982, Playboy Paperbacks

Two Bottles of Relish by Lord Dunsany (orig Time & Tide, Nov 12, 1932)

A variation on a locked door mystery - a body disposal without leaving the house mystery. This one stayed with me since childhood, though the premise wasn't as locked in as it could be.

Deathtracks by Dennis Etchison

A Nielson family survey taker visits a couple who look for hidden messages in TV laugh tracks to explain why their son died in Vietnam.

Always Together by Hugh B. Cave

One elderly twin murders the other and keeps up a ruse that she's still alive. A good setup for a twist in the tale which never happens.

Toilet Paper Run by Juleen Brantingham

Engaging story set in a girls' reform school, but the ending felt tacked on to fit the genre.

The Green Parrot by Joseph Payne Brennan (orig Weird Tales, July 1952)

Another boring entry in the "that person you thought was alive turns out was already dead" style of ghost story.

Fragment from a Charred Diary by Davis Grubb

Comedy piece about a man using a voodoo doll to commit the political assassinations of the 1960s, escalating from there.

The Scarf by Bernice Balfour

A disfigured woman concealing her face with a scarf and a curious newspaper delivery boy.

Sentences by Richard Christian Matheson

Comedy twist in the tale about a man getting his life rewritten.

Prickly by David A. Riley

A child corrupting Satanist with a monkey familiar kills himself in a British tenement building. Years later, strange creatures scuttle the halls, and children sing nursery rhymes about Prickly.

The Kennel by Maurice Level (orig Tales of Mystery and Horror, 1920)

A cuckold husband finds the body of his wife's lover and disposes of it.

Onawa by Alan Ryan

An adoptive native girl with a taste for blood

A Telephone Booth by Wade Kenny

A gambler can get tips from the future from a pay phone.

Straw Goat by Ken Wiseman

Folk horror with murderous farmers and a sacrificial straw goat.

Horrible Imaginings by Fritz Leiber

Long piece about a creep being obsessed with his neighbor, which I skipped.

The Blind Spot by Saki (orig Beasts and Super-Beasts, 1914)

Comedy piece about a killer servant.

The Dust by Al Sarrantonio

A simpleton shut-in is obsessed with dust.

It Grows on You by Stephen King

A vignette of small town misery which feels more like background to a fuller story. It's been re-written a few times, and later versions may be more tied in to the Castle Rock mythos and be more explicitly horrific. Something about a house getting a new wing built connected with people dying, but not much meat on the bones here.

The Copper Bowl by George Fielding Eliot (orig Weird Tales, December 1928)

Nasty proto-shudder pulp yellow peril story of a French Legionnaire's love being tortured by a Chinese despot.

From Amazon https://amzn.to/3vkEvlR

Web Terror Tales Vol 5 No 1, February 1965

Web Terror Tales
Vol 5 No 1, February 1965

Web Terror Tales came as part of a shudder pulp revival mini-wave. The plots don't really follow the traditional, Scooby Doo plotting of weird menace. A little sadism, usually in the form of whipping, but tamer than the original shudder pulps. They have the feel of the text stories shoehorned into horror comics, but even more mediocre.

The Pain Tree by Aurelia Mulhare

The daughter of a Caribbean governor is obsessed with a hougan.

The Angel of Hell by Bursell Bradshaw

A journalist uncovers what a mad reclusive painter has been working on.

Mr. Borealis by Clement Duffy

An experimental cruise ship is hijacked by a supervillain. No ending, so they cut to an "it was a dream...or was it" cop out, repeating over a page of text.

Footlight Vengeance by Ramon Aguilera

A playwright gets revenge on his critics.

Prey on Me by Henry Cranford

A rich explorer is tormented by his cultist servants' savage rites on a secluded island. The

My Love, My Prisoner by Charles Patterson

A corpulent rich man suspects he's being poisoned by his child bride.

The Curse of the Borgias by Christine Crewell

A haunted painting commissioned by the Borgias. Some good imagery in places.

Repent at Leisure by Rip Kelly

A rich sadist finds a better way than divorce to get rid of her husbands.

Come Kiss the Lash by Justin Lamont

Catherine the Great was into whipping.

Murder: Scene One by Denham Kelsey

Cromwell tortures a court musician accused of sleeping with royalty.

Satan's Spawn by Pete Brown

An Indian monk is ordered by a mad hermit to torture a captive devil woman.

Glutton for Punishment by Ernestine Durrell

Tarzan-type actor turned gold digger plots to kill his rich wife. Good old fashioned twist in the tale for this one.

Sow by Tim Curran

Sow 
by Tim Curran
2013 Dark Fuse

A man deals with his pregnant wife being possessed and threatening to give birth to something monstrous. Some good ideas and imagery, but the delivery was a little too up front for me, undercutting any atmosphere of menace.

Kindle ebook from Amazon

Night Hunter 1: The Stalking by Robert Faulcon

Night Hunter 1
The Stalking
by Robert Faulcon (Robert Holdstock)
1987 Diamond Books

Suburban England Evil Dead as if written by Nigel Kneale. Paranormal researcher Dan Brady is left for dead after his house is invaded, his wife violated with a golden scepter, and his family kidnapped. Once out of his coma he returns to the house and finds another researcher whose family met the same fate. The two build up the psychic defenses of the house against attacks by astral elementals.

Shades of Quatermass and Stone Tape with the combination of psychical research mixed with ancient folk horror, with the violence ramped up as bodies are ripped apart by unseen forces. Dan Brady is a bit harder edged than your average occult detective type, placing his path of vengeance ahead of uncovering the plot using supernatural forces.

Paperback from Amazon.

The Cat Creature (1973)

The Cat Creature (1973)

Tepid thriller about a stolen Egyptian amulet and a series of murders around a mystic cat or something.  A partial tribute to movies like the Cat People, notable only for its casting.  We've got Kent Smith, Peter Lorre Jr., John Carradine, and Keye Luke all in cameos.  Meredith Baxter does well, aside from being the love interest for twice as old Felix Leiter.  Written by Robert Bloch.

The Unseen (1980)

Some journalists stay at a creepy house and get pulled into heating vents.  Sydney Lassick is like a psychotic Joe Besser and the back story is creepy as hell, but not a ton going on here.  The first half is Barbara Bach breaking up with her boyfriend and the second is her crawling around in a basement.

DVD from Amazon

Trash Menace Video: Night of the Zombies

Night of the Zombies starring Jamie Gillis and directed by Joel M. Reed

Bad Influences: This Is Horror

This is Horror and related releases were a late 80s series of repackaged video press kits, showing movie clips, interviews, and behind the scenes footage.  John Simmons is the name that comes up the most as the responsible parties.

It started with Stephen King's World of Horror, a straight to VHS release.  Some sources have this as 1986; the copyright of this version is 1988.  Note that many uploads with this title are actually the later This is Horror.



This was expanded into the syndicated series This is Horror, which uses the King interviews as bookends.  I believe there were 13 episodes, copyright 1989, and they were all over cable TV.  I saw them on MTV.  This exact version isn't readily available on the internet - the closest thing is a two DVD set with Dutch subtitles.

These were re-edited further into a three VHS set title This is Horror.  I believe only the first was released in the US.  All three are currently available on YouTube.








There was another release under the title Encyclopedia of Horror - I don't know if these are exactly the same or another re-editing.

Finally, the same clips with the same narrator was repacked as Shadow Theater, with host clips by Robert Englund.

Zombie Wall by Joel M. Reed

Zombie Wall
by Joel M. Reed

Most of this short story is a noirish piece about someone fixing their sister up to marry a smelly autistic video game programmer who's due to inherit $150 billion dollars.  The sister goes mad because of rough smelly sex and kills him.  Then it turns out that the programmer was a literal zombie because a video game level made him a zombie, and he put a foot long rod of rebar in his urethra, as one does.  All implied and off page, you pervert, but then again that bit was the only reason to read this other than the fact that the author directed Bloodsucking Freaks.  Reed gets bored and can't think of an ending so he nukes silicon valley.  I read it for free on Kindle Unlimited and want my money back.

TM Gallery: Horror Paperbacks

The Searing by John Coyne

Kindle ebook from Amazon

Second Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories ed Christine Bernard

Paperback from AbeBooks

The Inner Circle by Jonathan Fast

Paperback from AbeBooks

Chainsaw by John Bender

My new year's resolution is to read more current indie horror.  I've had mixed results with modern self-published fiction, but I think I've run across a few current writers with the right vibe.  I tend to avoid reviewing them, as I'm both a nice guy and a coward, so I'll only be reviewing those I have something nice to say, or it's so bad I'm ok with taking a steaming dump all over it.

Chainsaw is the debut novella by John Bender, and is the story of two dumb rednecks who try to hold up a bank with the titular implement, which is stolen from a rancher who runs his hands with a cultlike intensity.

For me the vibe was more crime comedy than horror, more Raising Arizona than Evil Dead.  It also invokes early Joe Lansdale, one of Bender's influences.

It's cheap fun and quick enough not to wear out its welcome.  Give it a read, and follow Bender @TheRealJohnBend on twitter.  He's a solid dude, and I look forward to reading more from him.

Kindle ebook available from Amazon.

TM Gallery - Movie Posters

Spider Baby

On Amazon Video

Jaguar Lives

DVD from Amazon

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

On Amazon Video

TM Gallery: VHS Covers

Ghost Keeper

A group of three friends on a snowmobiling trip find themselves stranded at an abandoned lodge isolated in the mountains. They discover that an old woman resides in the hotel, along with an evil entity that she is keeping in the basement.

On Amazon Video  

Moon of the Wolf

After several locals are viciously murdered, a Louisiana sheriff starts to suspect he may be dealing with a werewolf. 

On Amazon Video

Satan’s Black Wedding

DVD from Amazon

TM Gallery: VHS Cover

I Drink Your Blood

After consuming rabies-infected meat pies, an LSD-addicted hippie cult goes on a vicious murdering rampage! 

DVD from Amazon

Slaughter Hotel

This Italian exploitation horror cult classic stars a terminally creepy doctor (Klaus Kinski) at an asylum for suicidal and disturbed women. There's a team of strange doctors, unprofessional nurses and even a hunky gardener at these ladies' service to help them recover. In classic Giallo form director Fernando Di Leo introduces a mad-raving murderer, typically dressed in black and using the institution's old-fashioned armory decoration as slashing tools. Margaret Lee and Rosalba Neri are among the frequently unclothed cast, and there are decapitations, crossbow bolts in the eye, and some fairly explicit sex. This gory slasher flick with more than its fair share of nudity is a Euro-grindhouse gem. 

DVD from Amazon

Scream Street

The Supernaturals (1986)

The Supernaturals (1986)

Soldiers wander around in the woods and get chased by confederate ghost zombies.  Has both Nichelle Nichols and LeVar Burton, but it doesn't help.

On Amazon Video.

TM Gallery: VHS Covers

Zombie

On Amazon Video

Project: Kill

On Amazon Video

The Devonsville Terror

Dr. Worley investigates a 300-year-old witch's curse in the New England town of Devonsville. Three liberated, assertive women move into town, which angers the bigoted, male-dominated town fathers. One of the women is a reincarnation of the witch, who proceeds to exact revenge on the town males. 

On Amazon Video

Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson

Darker Than You Think
by Jack Williamson
1948 (expanded from a 1940 shorter version)

Drunken reporter Will Barbee falls under the spell of witch reporter April Bell after an elderly explorer dies after announcing a mysterious box contains the means to fight an ancient evil.

Bell and Barbee have the genes of an ancient exterminated race of witches, and as such can kind of astrally project themselves in animal forms to cause fatal accidents by manipulating probabilities, exactly like the Scarlet Witch.  Yes, April is a redhead.

April is trying to get Barbee to kill those protecting the box, while Barbee spends way too many pages wondering if it's all a dream or an hallucination, which is especially ineffective given that there is no dream-like atmosphere at all, what with April talking (while in wolf form) about carbon atoms and Duke University studies.

Near the end things pick up a little, with some paranoia about how a race of half-witches may be secretly controlling the world's institutions, but that goodwill is immediately wasted by the rushed, goofy ending.

Not sure what the big deal is with the contents of the box, seeing how the half-witches can be killed by conventional means.  Barbee dies, and hangs around in astral form in a sequence that makes no sense, is now a vampire, the kind of vampires that are really ghost pterodactyls that don't drink blood, and he can grab the box and throw it into the sea.  Something a human thug could have done for like $20. 

Urania always has deceptively honest covers

I haven't read the original magazine version, but this felt padded out to novel length with incessant adjectives.  Other than the paranoia section this doesn't approach horror, and spends a scifi length of time explaining away the supernatural.

Kindle ebook from Amazon

Tie-Ins: Resident Evil

It all started with the 1989 film Sweet Home


which had a video game version, which was the basis for the video game Resident Evil, which was the basis of the film series, both of which had series of tie-in novels.

The first prose installment was the novella Biohazard: The Beginning by Hiroyuki Ariga, included in the preorder bonus The True Story of Biohazard.  A version of this was released in English titled Resident Evil: The Book, which doesn't seem to be available commercially.  There are additional Japanese novels that haven't been translated to English.  As of this writing, all of the below are available for Kindle.

S.D. Perry wrote a series of novelizations of the video game, with a couple of tie-ins between installments:

1998: The Umbrella Conspiracy - novelization of the original Resident Evil
1998: Caliban Cove - between 1 & 2
1999: City of the Dead - Resident Evil 2
1999: Underworld - set after 2
2000: Nemesis
2002: Code Veronica
2004: Zero Hour

There are novelizations from each movie except for Afterlife:

2004: Genesis by Keith DeCandido (novelization of Resident Evil)
2004: Apocalypse by Keith DeCandido
2007: Extinction by Keith DeCandido
2012: Retribution by John Shirley
2017: The Final Chapter by Tim Waggoner