So, I mean, firstly, holy fucking shit.


Urban Gothic is a staggering novel. I mean that literally. Several times, as I was reading, I felt a sinking dread; a sense of escalation that led me to ask, not infrequently, why I was putting myself through reading it. Not, to be clear, because it’s in any way badly written - quite the reverse - but because, like the experiences of the unfortunate protagonists of the story, the novel frequently felt like an endurance test; the horrors unfolding remorselessly, descending ever deeper into hellish environments populated with increasingly deranged monsters.


This fucker is dark.


The setup is, as the title suggests, both classic and contemporary. A small gang of white teenagers, friends since elementary school, now paired off (Kerri and Tyler, Stephanie and Brett, Javier and Heather), returning from a Hip-Hop concert that sounds pretty fucking great, take a detour on the way home to score some drugs. After a road closure throws the driver off his route to Camden, NJ, their car breaks down ‘in the middle of the hood’. They are approached by a group of black youths (Markus, Leo, Chris and Jamal), and, after a tense standoff, one of the white kids (Brett) drops the N-bomb. At which point, the white kids abandon their car and flee into The Last House On The Left The House At The End Of The Street.


So, okay, there’s clearly an essay worth of stuff to unpack there, and I do want to spend some time on the carnage (because hoo, boy, is there some carnage), so let’s get into it.


The first chapter does feel… difficult. Keene is showing us the black teens through the white teens' eyes, and the white teens are scared, and the fear comes from at least partly a place of prejudice. The way Keene builds to the moment, describing the increasing deterioration of the neighbourhood as the car gets more and more lost, has already built up an almost dreamlike sense of menace. We see versions of this across horror fiction, hell, genre fiction in general; I was powerfully reminded of Kings ‘You Know They Got One Hell Of A Band’, where the bickering married couple get hopelessly lost, before discovering the small town with the greatest live show of all time, but I suspect only because that’s where I saw it done first; and while, with Keene, the environment is a city, rather than an increasingly narrow country road, the message is the same; the teens are Crossing Over, and where they end up, the rules aren’t going to work the same.


And the problem with that is, or seems to be in chapter one, that the ‘new territory’ is not a fantasy realm, but one that actually exists. ‘The hood’ is not something made up by movie and TV execs to sell adverts and soundtrack albums; most US cities of any great size have areas of severe deprivation, often, because of historical and ongoing racial injustices, disproportionately populated by people of colour.


So I’ll admit to a feeling of escalating tension at how the first half of chapter one was playing out that had little to do with the narrative per se. The tension I was feeling was, essentially, trying to figure out how the hell this scene was going to play out without, at best, falling into some pretty troubling stereotypes.


And the characters themselves are wise to this, which in and of itself should have given me the hint that Keene had a handle on what he was doing. When they’re approached by the teens, Javier actually says, in so many words, ‘you guys automatically assume that just because they’re black, they’re gonna mug us?’ - and his sense of outrage at Brett’s racist outburst is palpable. Nonetheless, Keene is canny enough to let the reader sit with the situation, and examine their own discomfort. And it is, finally, the prejudices within the white teen group that leads to them all fleeing into the apparently abandoned house at the end of the street. One of the black teens even tries to warn them off, but of course, by then, it’s too late.


By the end of the first chapter, we’re left under no illusions that the fleeing teens are about to pay a very, very heavy price for their idiocy.


I was about to type that what happens to them in the house isn’t a suprise, but I think that’s not entirely fair; or rather, like saying the sea is wet, is at least inadequate. It’s a horror novel, and it’s the House At The End Of The Dead End Street, so of course, I was expecting Bad Things, and I was very much not disappointed. At the same time, the scale and depth of the violence and horror were of a level of invention and depravity I found tough to stomach, even eighteen books into a Keene read. The execution of Tyler that closes out the first chapter is sudden, brutal, and shocking on its own terms; but as a signifier for what’s to come, it’s really A Lot; Keene is not fucking around, here.


A far more welcome surprise comes at the start of Chapter Two, where we unexpectedly-for-me rejoin the black teens outside the house, opening the novel out into the duel narrative that persists for the rest of the story. It’s a smart choice by Keene for several reasons; firstly, by opening up a new perspective, we can see for sure what was hinted at in chapter one - not only were Leo and his friends no threat, they were just about to offer to repair the car and put the teens back on their way, when Brett’s outburst triggered the White Flight. It’s smart, too, having Leo replay the scene in his head, wondering if there was anything he could have done that would have led to things playing out differently; not because he was at fault, but just because he’s a thinking human being trying to find a way through.


  Another big advantage the duel narrative gives us is that we’re provided a deeper insight into the landscape painted with such garish colours in the opening chapter; the history of the neighbourhood, and in particular how abject neglect in terms of basic infrastructure and support (slim chance of getting an ambulance to turn up after dark, let alone a tow truck) creates a vicious cycle for the residents. We also, as the chapters unfold, get some of the history of the house at the end of the street, though here, Keene keeps his cards closer to his chest, letting rumour and inference paint a murky picture. Of course, there’s a way in which the house is a metaphor, a personification of the neighbourhood it’s hidden in - a death trap, or suicide rap, if you will - but there’s also the fact that such a house can only exist in a place that the wider world has abandoned. In that sense, then, it personifies the evil that creates such neighbourhoods, making the moment at the end when the residents decide to take the power into their own hands and burn it to the ground all the more poignant.


A third reason I found myself profoundly grateful for this duel narrative is that it provided occasional respites from seeing what was going on inside the house.


Because, and I really can’t emphasise this enough, fucking hell.


The kids trapped in the house undergo a descent into hell that I can’t immediately think of parallels for. Part of that will be because I don’t have a huge amount of experience of either Splatterpunk or extreme horror, despite having co-edited two award-winning anthologies of the former… but I don’t think it’s all that. Like, the only Rob Zombie film I’ve seen is House Of 1000 Corpses, and that’s the only real point of reference I have. I am aware opinions differ, but, for me, that movie did an excellent job of creating a sense of escalating, nightmarish dread, and I had a similar sinking feeling throughout Urban Gothic. The opening murder is brutal, of course, but far more disturbing to me was the fact of the exits being sealed by metal doors, and an increasing sense that the layout of the house itself was irrational and shifting. The discovery of crawl spaces and the discussion of a possible escape route via the basement added to the feeling that our plucky teens had wandered into an environment almost precision-engineered for escalating terror and torment.


And yet Keene sells it well; at no point did I feel like the environment veered from irrational to outright impossible, for example. Part of that is the vivid description, and part comes from the pacing, I think. There are many scenes of visceral, brutal horror as the novel progresses, but Keene does a great job of pacing these out, and as much tension comes from the breaths taken between the explosions of violence, as the survivors' situation and mentality deteriorate, and the environments they move through become ever more hostile. Part of the attraction of horror fiction, for me, is examining what characters will do in situations where there are no good options, and Urban Gothic is in some ways an exemplar of the form.


Except that’s not quite right, is it? We know the teens are trapped inside of a Brian Keene horror novel death trap. They only know that they want to survive. Really, the best option would just be to find a relatively painless suicide method, but you’d have to know what you were in for, wouldn’t you? And, of course, they don’t. So, I realise, this is where a lot of that sick sense of dread comes from; the knowledge that these kids are almost certainly not going to make it, and that all the house has to offer them is a terminal downward spiral; the harder they struggle, the deeper they sink. The house/narrative weaponises their own survival instinct against them… and as readers, we see what they cannot, and that’s where a lot of the dread comes from.


And, with one more content note for discussion of sexual violence, that brings us neatly to why they’re so doomed, and who/what is trying to kill, fuck, and eat them (and, like the gag goes in Firefly, with no real fuss about in what order). Back in my Castaways essay, I talked a little about the problematic history of the horror trope of the Hostile Tribe, but also the inherent attraction of it, especially when it comes to survival horror and splatterpunk. Well, here, for my money, Keene’s execution (pun, I guess, intended) of that trope is pretty much flawless. The Tribe/Family/Creatures that inhabit the house of Urban Gothic are absolutely fucking terrifying and grotesque; humanoid in some aspects, but also clearly Others both in appearance and behaviour. They reminded me of some of Barker’s more nightmarish creations, in some ways, but whereas Barker's creations in such circumstances tend towards the bestial, here there are often human levels of both intelligence and sadism. The fact that the victims are, amongst other things, eaten, means the entire house exists as a kind of venus fly trap for humans (though there are hints that some of the denizens also use the terrifyingly expansive underground tunnel system to hunt throughout the city), and that did trigger some initial questions for me about the sustainability of the houses ecosystem. But the duel narrative fills this in neatly, letting us know how the house serves as a shelter of last resort from those unaware of the legends, or too desperate to care.


In this sense, then, the house and its denizens represent… what? Suicide? Drug addiction? Chronic depression? For sure, a pit of suffering, typified by sadism, suffering, and an absence of any hope of salvation. If you end up there, your only remaining worth is measured in your entertainment value, and the calories carried in your meat and bones. And the fact that the tribe is a Family, complete with a patriarch, siblings, and an absolutely stomach-churning nursery feels suggestive, too; the nuclear family is often portrayed in American culture as the standard unit and idea of society, after all. Here? This lot make the Manson Family look like the Partridge Family. And, recall, located in the heart of the city's most deprived neighbourhood, the only place such an obscenity could plausibly survive; because the wider social structures, the alleged ‘civil’ society propaganda would have you believe is benevolent and all-encompassing, are either absent or antagonistic to the neighbourhood, and all who live there.


And in a story chock full of horrific imagery, incident, and circumstance, this may have been, for me, the darkest point of all. Because the tribe of Urban Gothic are evil monsters, if that phrase has any meaning; delighting in violence, rape, and murder, treating such things as recreation, delighting too in consuming the flesh of their victims… and yet, also, they are recognisable as a family. There can be no coexistence with these creatures. The house must be burned to the ground, and if it were at the end of my street, I’d salt the earth into the bargain. But.


But.


They’re a family. I have no idea if, somewhere down the line, I’m going to get more information about where they came from. They’re clearly not ‘human’... but they’re also clearly sentient. It’s like they’ve been… poisoned, somehow. A poison that acts on the mind (and, if such a thing exists, the soul) as well as their bodies. Is there something a little bit squicky here about equating deformity and evil? Oh, sure, I guess, but/and this, here, is why. Are they human? Clearly not. Not… exactly.


But they’re not exactly not, either.


This is a novel that by the end of the first chapter leaves the reader neck-deep in grime, and by the end, I felt, honestly, in over my head. It is, absolutely, one of the darkest and most profoundly unpleasant narratives I have ever read. I would not recommend it to anything like everyone; strong stomachs and stronger nerves will be needed. But I think, I think, this is also a truly great Splatterpunk novel. Certainly, with the best part of a month's distance, the contents of this book, and the movie it projected into my mind, feel uncomfortably close.


And that’s Urban Gothic.


Next up: An Occurrence In Crazy Bear Valley.


KP
28/4/22

Orphans of Bliss, the follow up to the Shirley Jackson Award nominated, Lullabies for Suffering, is now out of the womb and breathing on its own. This is the third and final ‘addiction horror’ themed anthology, and as the editor and a contributing writer to all three, it’s been an exhausting, amazing, and cathartic experience. Here are Five Things I’ve learned about Horror, Editing, Writing, Addiction and Recovery:


Horror Can Be the Best Vehicle to Take You Where You Need to Go

The best way to tell the truth is through a story, and dark truths require a dark work of fiction. The horror in these anthologies are true, even if they didn’t even happen. During the time it takes to read the works, hundreds will die from overdoses, while hundreds more had their first taste of a drug they will soon become addicted to. They will crave the substance as much as a drowning man craves to breathe, and as much as a vampire craves blood.

And their parents will stand by feeling as helpless as Regan’s mother in the Exorcist watching their daughter become possessed.

Writers in the three addiction-themed anthologies show the range and reach of horror to capture these terrifying states. Horror understands our fragile nature with extreme empathy, and even compassion, and that is what I set out to create in the trio of anthologies. There are stories of Lovecraftian creatures who feed off discarded bodies of addicts, and then become addicted themselves. Tales of addicts who go to extreme lengths to find their fix, and those who fight the affliction same as a family might fight off a poltergeist, trying to excise the demons. Settings range from dystopian landscapes, to deep space, to rural woods, to virtual reality treatment centers, but they also take place squarely in the reality of human existence.

Speculative fiction—whether it be sci-fi, horror, or fantasy—tells a larger truth versus a big fat lie.


Editing is Far From Just Prose

How utterly intimidating to edit other writers with such refined skills and fabulous, unique voices. The prose of the likes of Cassandra Khaw or Kealan Patrick Burke or the voice of SA Cosby. But my life experience within the subculture of addiction gave me something of value. I’ve done every substance that I’ve even seen (and I’ve seen most) and picked up a command of the language; the vernacular, the rituals. I know the things we love, like the ding of the liquor store door as we walk inside to get our pint of vodka for breakfast, or the feeling of drainage down our throat after we snort white lines off a mirror, or the comfort of patting the front pocket of our jeans to make sure the next pack of dope is still safely inside. What I offered as editor was to make the addiction component speak with verity and power.

This is not to say the other writers didn’t, because each of their unique tales offered a different perspective and voice, but by combining the skills of writers with my experience to  tweak the addiction component, the result was some magical pieces of fiction.

And since my aim was not to stigmatize addiction, but rather shine a light into its darkness, I wanted to make certain the stories were infused with empathy and even compassion for those afflicted. What I learned is this empathy comes natural to horror writers. This was not some sort of gleeful sadism or addiction torture porn, but a finger on the pulse of what true horrors we face.


“Write from the Scar, not from the Wound”

While I dipped into my own demons to help guide these stories, I would not have been able to write or edit on this subject without the passing of time and therapeutic work of 25 years of sobriety to offer perspective. “Write from the scar, not from the wound” is how I heard it on a Glennon Doyle podcast. As she put it, you need to work through things and develop insight before simply pouring things out into an emotional puddle for others to bear witness. If the wound is still bleeding out, or if you’re still inflicting the trauma on yourself, there is no wisdom within the writing, only confusion and suffering.

It’s not difficult for me to summon cravings for drinking and drugging. They bubble in my gut on command, and editing and writing works in this state is both harrowing and cathartic. It’s digging in the marrow and then donating plasma to readers, but had there not been the growth to learn to deal with these cravings, the results could have been disastrous. While it’s cathartic to write it out, the writing itself can’t be the meat of the healing, but perhaps just a sign that you’ve learned something and are in a better spiritual state.


Everyone has been touched by substance abuse and addiction

If there is someone out there who feels they have not been impacted by addiction, I suspect they just don’t realize it’s been right under their nose. The bike that was stolen from their garage was the work of a desperate addict who needed money to buy their next bag of dope. The uncle who seems to have aged and decayed and often is a no-show is sitting at home drinking himself to death.

And the stories in these anthologies demonstrate that. There are first person accounts of addiction, as well as loved one’s point of view, and even addiction towards things other than substances itself, such as the obsession for material consumption or the cathartic but devastating rush of self-harm.

Whether we are personally in recovery from addiction, or have witnessed a family member struggle with it, it affects us all. Since I started publishing these anthologies, I’ve received countless private messages from those who’ve been impacted, who have lost a loved one to an overdose, or lost them by degrees over years of addiction. Each time that happened, I share the truth that the human spirit can learn to face addiction and find recovery, but the tragedy is so few do. The body count is real, and the body count is high, and it’s everywhere you look.


Writers want to write what matters

Sure, horror writers want to have fun speculating about bizarre premises, but give us works that address universal truths of the terrifying world we live in, both micro and macro, and showcase real horrors the readers must face. Creative, speculative fiction is most memorable when it entertains but also speaks to some universal conflict, the way Hunger Games address poverty and power structures, the way Bird-Box address motherhood. Memorable, speculative settings, and conflicts that resonate, creating stories where tragic events happen. Where “Monsters are real, they live inside us, and sometimes they win” (Stephen King). When we guide readers to live through a fictional trauma, and after we’ve done so, after we’ve lived through the trauma together, we all actually feel less alone, more understood.
That is what I learned, and as each story showed up in my inbox, I was so excited and eager to read what the talented mind come up with to address this issue that has been part of my life. It was such a pleasure, and I learned how horror writers can understand our traumas, not through a statistic, but a character who experiences these real-life horrors. I learned about the power of creative fiction to tell us a lie that speaks a larger truth, and in the end, storytelling itself has created a new high, one of understanding, insight, and compassion.

 Back in its earliest days, the now-iconic grim-dark, science-fiction dystopia of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40 000 universe was a veritable grab-bag of idea and influences. Whatever the then-fledgling setting could assimilate, subtly reimagine and make its own, it did, its inspirations ranging from comic books (most notably the likes of 2000 AD) to cinema, from horror and science fiction literature (Lovecraft, Moorcock, Azimov, Le Guin, Dick are but a few of the notables whose influence can be felt throughout the universe, its various species, cultures and wider metaphysics) to cinema. 


Aesthetically, one of the most pervasive and influential artists of the era was the creator of eponymous xenomorph from the Alien franchise, the zeitgeist-defining H.R. Giger. Already massively influential in cinema and video games (one of the most revolutionary franchises of the era, Nintendo's Metroid, was a direct result of efforts to bring Giger's peculiar aesthetic to a video game format), it was only a matter of time before his work became cannibalised and reinvented as a source of alien horror within the 41st millennium. 


The first and most notable manifestation of this phenomena came in the universe's own incarnation of the “xenomorph” itself: The “Ymgarl Genestealers.” Originally an attempt to craft a similarly gribbly, parasitic alien horror for the game setting, they were notably removed from both the race that would eventually become The Tyranids and also from their later incarnations. A number of tertiary boardgame systems (the mass-produced Space Crusade and tense, horror-action game Space Hulk) massively reinvented the Genestealers, making them aesthetically much closer to their Giger-conceived inspiration but also tying them closer to the Tyranid race that, up until that point, were little more than a scattershot entry in a number of rule and background books, with little to note or distinguish them. In the sub-system Tyranid Attack, a full background was detailed for the Tyranid species for the first time, as well as their more defined aesthetics and recognisable iconography established: 


A pan-galactic biological horror, the Tyranids drew inspiration from not only Giger's “xenormorph,” but a number of science-fiction horror sources, including John Carpenter's The Thing, Predator, the body-horror works of David Cronenberg and more Lovecraftian horror than can be comfortably catalogued. 


A mysterious, animalistic species from beyond the fringes of the known galaxy, the Tyranids were described as the ultimate end of all things: a swarming, locust-like mass of monsters that spread from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, stripping worlds bare of their biological matter (even down to stripping minerals from rocks and microbial matter from the atmosphere) before moving on to the next apocalypse. The biological matter they consumed was used in the wombs and bellies of their titanic, living vessels (whale-like leviathans capable of traversing the void of space in the manner that titanic ocean life swims the seas of Earth) to produce more and more varied organisms, which gestate until the “Hive Fleets” enter orbit around a likely world. The process repeats and repeats and repeats endlessly, without any apparent wider goal other than mindless, animal consumption and the extinction of all non-Tyranid life. With every world consumed, every species devoured, the Tyranids exhibit new strains of hyper-evolution, developing new sub-species and strains of creature based on requirement or evolutionary experiment. 


And thus, the Tyranids evolved to become what they are today: An established species within the many and varied menageries of the 40K universe, and one that manifests a particular kind of cosmic horror: ​

For as long as I can remember, I have tried to control the world around me.
Not in a Lex Luthor, conquer the world sort of way, but in a way where maybe things wouldn’t hurt so much and that the world would start making sense.

I have tried pacing and I have tried humming.

I have scraped my heels against the ground.

Cracked my knuckles.

Clicked my teeth.

Blinked.

Overeaten.

Knocked wood.

And chirped.

Always in even numbers, never odd.

None of it helped, unfortunately, try as I might. It didn’t stop me from getting bullied as a child or as a teenager, or even as an adult at work. In fact, it only made things worse.

My rituals, all of my little obsessions, have never prevented me from sinking into depression, quelled my nightmares or stopped me from breaking down crying at my desk. And to me, this is where all of horror truly begins. With the mundane little unpleasantries we’ve all been trained to regard as normal.

I think all of us, at one time or another, have found ourselves trapped in a ‘team meeting’ with people we don’t trust, and been forced to listen to coworkers argue because one can never let anything go and the other can never be wrong.

During one such meeting, my supervisor, in an attempt to stave off an argument that could have gone on forever, turned to me and asked what I thought would solve the problem. Now, I cannot for the life of me remember what they’d been arguing about. but I do remember the effort it took to not only speak, but to keep from saying what I was really thinking. Which was that anything, even killing myself, would have been preferable to their company.

In the years since that meeting, which was not all that long ago, I have learned a lot. I’ve learned to talk about my deep, black thoughts and to write everything down no matter how ugly it got. I have learned to manage and to not push myself when I can feel those black thoughts starting to return.

But the bit which frightens me and still keeps me up at night, is the realization that what really helped wasn’t love or perseverance or even understanding. What really helped me was luck, pure and simple.

Being lucky enough to find a therapist who took my insurance. Having the sort of good fortune where medication actually did something, the way it doesn’t for some. Possessing family and friends who were willing to support me and give me the space I needed to crawl out of the black.

Now, I don’t want to say that I am better now, because better implies that I’m cured and there is no cure for who I am. I am still obsessive and depressed. I still check my locks ten times and blow the exact same number of kisses to my daughter while she sleeps, and while objectively I know that none of this really helps, a part of me has grown to find comfort in a world that makes little sense.

I might not see any concrete results from my efforts, but that has never stopped me breathing a little easier, all the same. My rituals are a part of me and though my depression is prone to strike at a moment’s notice, I am at least better armed against it. I know what to do to keep myself going.
​
But the part of me that accepts this, is also the exact same part which never fails to remind me of how close I once came...and how close I could still come, if I’m not careful. For absolutely no reason at all.

“Mike’s arse gushes blood” - the filming of Matt Shaw’s new horror, GPK:


I write horror for a living. Over 300 publications, in fact. My imagination is a dark place. Just when I think I can’t have any thoughts blacker than the last, something else comes into my life and I realise - things can always be worse. The weekend just gone also showed me that, sometimes, other people and their actions can trouble my mind.

Justin Park and I (Matt Shaw) make up Purgatory Pictures LTD. Whilst killing time ahead of our feature film next year, Justin said we should do a found footage film because it will be “quick” and “easy”. On paper he is right but in reality, he was very wrong. Unfortunately this was only realised once we started shooting but - that’s another, far less interesting story.

Last Saturday we had a number of people descend to my house. I had covered a room in plastic sheets (much like a kill-room from Dexter) and we were ready to film a few gore scenes for the found footage film Justin and I set our minds to: GPK. 

To give quick insight, GPK is a feature film found footage film which follows a successful applicant to the GPK show. (GPK = Go Pro Killers). The company itself offers applicants the opportunity to come to one of the company’s Kill-Rooms so as to kill a person of their choosing. All the show “asks” is that applicants wear a Go-Pro camera whilst they perform their kill and, a camera is also put on the victim. A third camera hangs from the ceiling and a free-moving cameraman comes in the room too - so all angles of the kill are covered. The company then streams the films to the paying viewers, watching from the Dark Web. There is a lot more to the story than that but - that is it in a nutshell. Think Hostel, crossed with Maniac, mixed with Starship Troopers and you’re close… Kind of.

Anyway - Saturday.

During the film, various adverts come up asking who YOU would kill. These adverts are made up of my readers, and people who’ve pledged to appear in the film via the Kickstarter campaign. In one such advert, a lady describes how she would like to kill her ex with a “big, fuck off strap-on. Covered in razors.” It is this scene that we’re here to film. Kitty Kay is our model and Mike Butler is the poor ex. Both are fine with nudity and both are fine with the content so - we’re all soon in position having done a quick “dry run” with them both fully clothed. All good and the clothes are stripped off and Mike is bent over the horse, spread for the world to see. My eyes are already burning through. Kitty is behind him - poor girl - and has the strap-on in position. The toy itself wrapped in barb-wire. She moves into position and nudges the tip against a surprisingly clenched Mike. We pause the action so as to cover his arse in blood, along with the toy. But it’s still missing something. I call out to Louis and tell him we need the mince meat from my fridge. The idea being that the mince itself looks like tatters of flesh. Some are put on the toy and…. And this is where my life changed forever… Some more is put…. Well, Mike grabbed a handful and he’s feeding it up his arse so that it looks like his arsehole is hanging in tatters. I can’t say it looked good but it did look effective at least…

Kitty put the Go-Pro on her head and filmed looking down to the toy so, in the shot we have her breasts, the toy and Mike’s arse. A Killer POV shot, which is the idea behind the film; we’re putting the audience in the position of being both killer and victim. With the shot done, we geared up for the second one… I wanted to see blood gushing out of Mike’s arse. So… We got the syringe with the long tube… Mike fed the tube through and… Action. Kitty pulls away and “wanks” her toy off to get rid of the meat and blood while, at the top of the shot, Mike’s arse gushes blood.

For the rest of the weekend, whenever I shut my eye’s, all I saw was Mike’s arse. The scary thing was, this was the first shot of the day. We still had to “snap” his erect penis off and have the stump ejaculate 500ml of blood straight into Kitty’s face. It was going to be a long day… But… For the sake of the film, it was entirely worth it! The scary thing is; this is the opening of the film. We have naked people, butt’s exploding claret, cocks being snapped off, tongues ripped off, labia ripped away, teeth pulled and a whole host of other disgusting scenes and - worryingly - we keep adding to them!!!

You can learn more about GPK here, along with various ways to appear in the film too:
​
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegpk/gpk-a-feature-length-horror-film
​