THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME:

Psycho. Another obvious choice, but, again, it happens to be true. The ephemeral beauty and bird-like fragility of Anthony Perkins disguises one of horror cinema’s most ambiguous monsters. The character of Norman Bates is at once appalling and sympathetic, a man abandoned to his own trauma at a very young age. The image of Bates in Mother’s dress and wig wielding a carving knife has become as embedded in our consciousness as one of the horror genre’s most iconographic visuals, no less powerful or disturbing than Jason’s mask or Freddie’s glove . . .

THE BEST HORROR BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME:

A hundred different candidates for this one. I adore many of the ’80s pulp covers, but have a real soft spot for James Herbert’s UK hardback edition of Domain. Glossy black backdrop; silver by-line and gold title filling the top half of the cover; the bottom half displaying two menacing red rat eyes peering from the darkness. This was also the very first hardback I ever bought. The simplicity of it and the striking combination of colours—silver, gold, red—are incredibly eye-catching. A stroke of genius in terms of marketing. And creepy as hell . . .
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THE BEST HORROR FILM POSTER OF ALL TIME:

The Exorcist is pretty hard to beat. You can all picture it, I’m sure: monochrome image of a silhouetted man in a trilby holding a valise, standing at the entrance of a large house, and gazing up at a window from which pours a flood of illumination. The beauty of the poster lies in the interplay of light and shadow, delivering an iconic image that evokes a real sense of unease in the viewer. The man seems reluctant to enter the house; he, along with the viewer, knows instantly that what awaits inside cannot be good. The poster brilliantly invites us to join him on his journey into the darkness that inhabits the light . . .

THE WORST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN:

Revealing that would be a little like cutting my own throat: messy and utterly unproductive! My debut novel The Midway back in 2007 could have been better, though . . .

THE MOST UNDERRATED HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME:

John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness. A smart distillation of Lovecraftian horror that shows just what can be achieved with a tight script and a strong, directorial vision. The sense of reality slipping during the course of the film is deeply unnerving. Scenes linger, like the cop beating up a tramp in an alley. Insanity spreads. The forces of cosmic horror reach out to us in every single frame of the film . . .


THE MOST UNDERRATED HORROR NOVEL OF ALL TIME:

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. An epic ’80s horror novel that doesn’t often get a mention when we consider the complex evolution of genre fiction. Simmons has a blast telling a story about psychic vampires, drawing on his knowledge of Hollywood, Nazi Germany and American history to create a narrative that leaves a lasting impression on the reader. If you haven’t read it yet, consider yourself a failed horror aficionado and go out and correct the error immediately.



THE MOST UNDERRATED HORROR AUTHOR OF ALL TIME:

Let me throw a name at you from left-field: Jack Ketchum. Deceased now, God bless him, but Ketchum was a writer who had been ploughing a dark furrow in the field of genre fiction for years, often without getting the credit he was due. The guy knew horror, no doubt about it, but more importantly, he knew people, understood the dark forces that moved them, took great delight in the psychology of fear. His writing is visceral, the language throbbing with violent potential, and his sense of style is almost intuitive. His characters operate within a strong moral framework, the boundaries of which are often breached, resulting in profound trauma and bloodshed. Ketchum was—and still is—a force of nature in the horror field. Read The Girl Next Door; I defy you to look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong . . .



THE BOOK I AM WORKING ON NEXT:


I’m about 160 pages into the first draft of my own epic ’80s-style horror novel, provisionally entitled The Chase. I don’t anticipate finishing it any time soon. I’ve also written half a dozen or more original stories for a new collection I’m developing that I’m thinking of calling Glass Shatters Fist. There’s also a very special project I’ve completed that I’m currently waiting to hear back on. That one could be a real humdinger. I’m praying to the moonlit horror gods that it gets picked up . . .

Original Stories Inspired by Dark Fiction’s Contemporary Trailblazers:

Clive Barker, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Joe Lansdale, Daphne du Maurier, Robert McCammon & Peter Straub.

James Cooper, one of Britain’s finest exponents of contemporary dark fiction, invites you to reflect upon the work of some of the world’s most distinguished authors.

In this masterful new collection, you will discover a range of extraordinary stories,  each of which will hack into your heart and make you bleed, leaving its mark—a scar, if you will—a smooth reminder of how deeply we are all drawn to horror’s edge . . . Prefaced with insightful introductory essays, this fascinating new collection resonates with familiar narratives, blurring the lines and triggering an exquisite synthesis of the imagination.
​
So immerse yourself in the art of superior storytelling with a book that shines a light on the mechanics of genre fiction, exploring in the process how the very best in the business produce tales that are memorable, always inventive and utterly original.

Tell us a bit about your new anthology.

INTO THE FOREST is a collection of new and exclusive tales inspired by the Baba Yaga—a character of Slavic folklore—written by some of the biggest names of women-in-horror, including quite a few Bram Stoker Award®-winning and nominated writers, as well as New York Times bestselling authors, and “freshly hatched” voices form women around the globe. We’re also very excited to feature a special poem by Bram Stoker Award®-winning poet, Stephanie M. Wytovich, and a foreword by the phenomenal leading lady of dark fantasy, Christina Henry.


What made you decide to put together a collection of tales inspired by the Baba Yaga?

We’ve always had a special love for anthologies at Black Spot Books—from our award-winning in-house collections, to broad and ambitious anthologies like CLASSIC MONSTERS UNLEASHED (edited by James Aquilone and coming July 2022), to our women-in-horror poetry showcase series (the first, UNDER HER SKIN, dropped April 2022 with the second installment coming in 2023). When we started this project, we knew we wanted to do a women-in-horror anthology, but it took a little bit to land on the perfect theme. There have been several amazing anthologies of late, many focused thematically on women-in-horror or written by women-in-horror, and we wanted to add to that growing list with a collection that captured the essence of female horror writers—wild and fierce and feminine. Baba Yaga is all those, and so much more.


Why are you excited for readers to meet the Baba Yaga?

Many might have grown up with folktales about Baba Yaga, though she will likely be a new figure to others. But whether you’re meeting her for the first time, or this is a familiar trip to her chicken-legged hut, a revisit to her skull-lined fence and her mortar and pestle, we invite all readers to meet the witch who waits deep in the forest. The interpretations in this collection range from origin stories to reinterpretations of familiar fairy tales and even contributions for the perspective of Baba Yaga’s home itself, as well as her children, those she helps, and her victims. There are horrifying tales, tales of empowerment and survival, and even love stories.


What do you think is the most challenging aspect of editing an anthology?
​
Putting together an anthology is always a little like assembling your own Frankenstein monster—you seek out the right parts, find the perfect fits, and then stitch everything together until it takes on a life of its own. One of the most challenging aspects of editing INTO THE FOREST was simply culling down the submissions to pluck out the right stories. We invited a few featured contributors and then opened up submissions. When it was all said and done, we had several hundred submissions for a collection that numbers twenty-two stories deep. There were so many phenomenal submissions, by so many phenomenal writers, that by far the hardest part was turning so many stories down. This proved two things—not only is there incredible talent from women-in-horror, but women with voices demanding to be heard. We can’t wait to get to work on our next anthology.

​A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by the Baba Yaga. Featuring Gwendolyn Kiste, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Monique Snyman, Donna Lynch, Lisa Quigley, and R. J. Joseph, with a foreword by Christina Henry.

Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds' legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the baba yaga. A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes. Those who come across the baba yaga may find help, or hinderance, or horror. She is wild, she is woman, she is witch--and these are her tales.
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Edited by Lindy Ryan, this collection brings together some of today's leading voices of women-in-horror as they pay tribute to the baba yaga, and go Into the Forest.

1. Exploring The Labyrinth

In this series, I will be reading every Brian Keene fiction book that has been published (and is still available in print), and then producing an essay on it. With the exception of Girl On The Glider, these essays will be based upon a first read of the books concerned. The article will assume you’ve read the book, and you should expect MASSIVE spoilers.


I hope you enjoy my voyage of discovery.


17: Castaways


We’re back in the land of splatterpunk/extreme horror here, as Brian Keene’s 17th outing takes aim and fires at ‘reality TV’ competition show Survivor, hitting the shipwrecked cast with the double whammy of a vicious tropical storm, and an even more vicious tribe of literal Neanderthals. What follows includes scenes of extreme violence, including sexual violence, and I’ll be discussing those themes as part of the essay, so please do bear that in mind.


And you know what, let’s start with what damn genre this even is, as we’ve brought it up. Keene’s defined the difference between Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror (I paraphrase, and he knows where to find me if I fucked this up too badly) as Splatterpunk having a politically/socially conscious angle to boundary-pushing graphic content, with extreme horror having a tight focus on boundary-pushing for its own sake. Keene’s also clear that he has worked in both genres (and many others), and that both are artistically valid, providing they have heart.


Now, the central plot of Castaways, concerning a dying tribe of inbred Neandertals attacking a group of gameshow contestants who have been stranded on the island in a Survivor-style ‘reality TV’ program certainly has its roots in pure pulp, and given the story portrays unflinching, graphic scenes of violent dismemberment, cannibalism, and rape, we’re absolutely ticking the ‘extreme horror’ boxes. And given both genres contain heart, the question becomes whether or not there’s sufficient political/social commentary here for this to tip over into Splatterpunk.


I think there are two main components that represent evidence of a Splatterpunk sensibility. The first is the choice of a Survivor-type gameshow as being what brings the victims to the island in the first place. In a pure pulp setup, a boat or plane wreck would be the easiest way to set things up; sure, there’d be people looking in such a case, but with the island being hit by a tropical storm just as the tribe begins its assault, I think the core narrative would still work. Now, sure, Survivor was a hot TV property in 2009, so it did provide a plausible alternative to a wreck, which may have gone through trope and into cliche at this point; it’s also not going to hurt on the marketing side, having a novel riffing on something so much a part of the immediate pop culture. But the way Keene plays with the format of the TV show is interesting. For starters, it allows him to set up animosities and rival groups within the protagonists that feels not just plausible but inevitable, which makes a nice change; a pet peeve of mine is how, in disaster movie type situations, the survivor group immediately falls to infighting and rivalries, despite all available evidence showing that, in reality, humans exhibit an enormous capacity for cooperation when dealing with life-threatening situations. It’s not merely a (very) tired trope, in other words, but it cuts against any attempt at psychological realism; at which point, as a reader, I’m left honestly kind of non-plussed. Like, if you don’t have enough understanding of human nature to get something as basic as this right, how can I deeply invest in whatever else your story is trying to sell?


Here, though, by setting up the characters as part of a gameshow process that’s been rolling for a while, in a highly unusual and artificial, hypercompetitive atmosphere, Keene pre-loads us to accept that there are built-up layers of mistrust and animosity which are likely to be exacerbated by the extreme circumstances. To add to the fun, the initial attacks go undetected because of the tropical storm, which has driven most of the film crew away and is playing havoc with communications. Convenient? Sure, but, you know, it’s a horror novel; readers will by and large swallow fairly large coincidences, providing the coincidences complicate/endanger the heroes. When it comes to fiction, good luck is verboten; but Murphy's Law can be piled on all day.


But back to the gameshow setup; it feels to me like there is some social commentary happening here. Because, check it; we’ve got a bunch of people in a survival situation, being persuaded to act in competition rather than cooperation because of a cash prize that awaits at the end of the process; as a consequence of this, when the survival stakes get cranked from ‘losing the game’ to ‘getting killed’, they’re not well prepared to shift to what we know is the natural psychological state for such situations, i.e. enlightened cooperation.


I mean to say, money motivates people to work against their own self-interests, acting in competition rather than cooperation, shortly before the environment straight-up tries to kill them.


You can feel me looking over the top of my glasses, right?


We’re back in Don’t Look Up territory, no? Feels like it to me. Now, sure, that may not have been the intent of the author, but that doesn’t mean the work doesn’t contain the metaphor, or that it doesn’t support this reading.


And then we have the small matter of Matthew.


Now, sure, The Sons of the Constitution’s political position circles a few half-truths alongside a few fairly outrageous lies without ever landing on anything approximating a coherent philosophy. But that’s equally true of both the major political parties in Keene’s country and my own at this point, so I can’t really fault them for that. They may not be coherent, but they’re plausible as fuck; indeed, I’d argue the QAnon crowd would kill for an approach this well thought out. As we’ve discussed before, aspects of Keenes' work that might have seemed satirical turned out to be lowballing what reality would dish up, and that gives me no pleasure to report, but here we all are.


The point is, here we are in a situation where not only are there a bunch of survivors that have been programmed by the pursuit of wealth to act in competition in a survival situation, but one of them has been radicalised to the extent that he’s prepared to kill his fellow contestants before the real carnage has even been unleashed.


At this point, I’m peering so hard over the top of my glasses they’re about to fall off the end of my nose.


Now, look, sure, the novel doesn’t develop these themes, that’s true. Once the storm hits and the Neandertals attack, we’re firmly in pulp horror/grindhouse mode, with shades of Canabal Holocaust/The Hills Have Eyes. Fundamentally, the concern of the novel, once the fur starts flying is… well, in the words of the infamous movie poster, Who Will Survive, And What Will Be Left Of Them? And Keene doesn’t shrink from depictions of violence, gore and terror, as the contestants are subjected to terrifying, relentless attack. There’s also a superb second half where survivors of the initial beating decide on the lunatic plan to go down into the lair of their attackers, in a bid to rescue those who were taken.


The reason this last was so effective for me was, as someone seventeen books into the Keene canon, there was no guarantee any of them would make it out. From The Rising on, Keene’s demonstrated an admirable commitment to let the story fall where it will, and if that means no one gets out alive, so be it. We’ll return to this sense of threat when we discuss the following novel, Urban Gothic, but for now let’s just acknowledge that having the metatextual knowledge that the author is willing to Go There changes the reading experience; or at least, it does for me; there’s an extra level of horror in knowing it really could all be for nothing. This is the opposite of a complaint, to be clear; one of the things this project is making me think about is just how ‘safe’ even some of my favourite, big names in the genre are, comparatively speaking, the pull of some kind of ‘happy ending’ (or at least survival, for a select few) seemingly irresistible.


Not with Keene. And so it was with some trepidation that I followed the would-be heroes into the neanderthal burrows/caves, the odds feeling very much stacked against any kind of positive outcomes, and I got a well-earned endorphin rush when at least a small number of the gang, some of whom I’d grown to enjoy a great deal, actually made it to the damn chopper.


In the afterword of the author's preferred text edition, Keene discusses the story's origin as part of a Richard Laymon tribute, and how the initial short story was retooled and reconstituted to slot into the Keene multiverse. There’s also an interesting… apologia isn’t quite right, but exploration/explanation about the portrayals of sexual violence in the novel.  As a writer who has both on occasion produced work with similar scenes, and who has similar instinctive misgivings about doing so as Keene expresses here, I appreciated the conversation.


Overall, the common Keene elements are here; a large ensemble cast that is nevertheless very well realised, with no character feeling vague or shortchanged, even though most of them end up as meat; I wasn’t trying to predict who’d make it and who wouldn’t, but, again, the feeling that nobody was safe was certainly enforced repeatedly to good effect. And Keene can write action-horror sequences with a level of skill and visceral feel that is enviable. Because such scenes are a staple of pulp horror, and rarely appear in more “literary” works, I feel like the ability to write scenes like this effectively don’t get the respect and attention they deserve. I’ve read enough mediocre examples to appreciate it done well, and Keene does it as well as anyone, and better than most.


There is one other thing I want to get into before I close because it’s nagging at me. I mentioned Cannibal Holocaust earlier, and one of the other tales I was reminded of as I read this was the legend of remote Japanese islands where soldiers, unaware that WWII was over, lurked, ready to attack any ‘invaders’ that landed there. Just behind these stories is Victorian pulp ‘adventure’ fiction, featuring plucky white European explorers in jungles or remote islands, encountering… well, let’s avoid the language those texts would employ, and say instead unfriendly locals.


Now, to note that Victorian pulp fiction, written during the nation's imperial phase, contains racism is surely not merely uncontroversial but almost goes-without-saying obvious. Similarly, Hollywood pictures depicting remote communities in the 30’s and 40’s… I mean, I love King Kong with a ferocity, but it took movie makers until Skull Island to find a way to depict the indigenous population of Kong’s home that didn’t lean to some degree or another on some pretty troubling/awful racial stereotypes.


In that context, I can’t deny that there were moments when these descriptions of a tribe of bestial humanoids attacking a bunch of westerners felt… uncomfortable.


And I want to be super clear about what I am saying and not saying, here. Keene is absolutely alive to this. In addition to being a prolific author, he’s a rabid fan of the genre, and its history. He’s aware of, and skillfully avoids, most of the potential pitfalls of the situation by being explicit about the attackers; they are Neandertals, a subspecies of human that were, in evolutionary terms, succeeded by people-as-we-know-them/us - homosapiens - though there was a period of history where the two species coexisted (and, recent DNA evidence suggests, were capable of making babies together). By positing that a small number of these… well, here’s where language starts to get difficult, right? Creatures? Subhumans? Oh, no, I don’t like that. And yet…


Well, there it is, I guess, the root of my discomfort. Neandertals were real. By having a tribe of them be the antagonists of the story, Keene undoubtedly bypasses the many awful stereotypes such ‘westerners-on-an-island-attacked-by-brutal-locals’ narratives are loaded with. But I can’t help but feel the ghost of those stories, and the stereotypes they evoke, under the surface of this tale. And I just don’t dig that feeling.


I want to be crystal clear; I don’t think this is a racist work, and I don’t think Keene is a racist author. And it’s absolutely not that authors shouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to write stories set in such environments that explore such themes. ‘Racist against Neandertals’ is not a thing, IMO.


It’s just that since I read Castaways, on and off, I’ve been worrying at this aspect of it, and trying to figure out how one might find a way to tell a version of this story that employs these tropes but avoids the pitfalls/resonances entirely. And I’m finding, to my dismay, that, so far, my imagination simply isn’t equal to the challenge. It seems to me that any story that is a ‘clash of tribes’ type survival horror story is forced to ‘other’ the attackers. The brutality is a core component of where the horror comes from; the fear of being in a situation where you’re surrounded by ‘people’ who are interested only in your destruction and/or suffering. There’s something elemental about that kind of story, I think. It’ll always have a pull. But the problem is, when you have this setting, and the identification characters/heroes are westerners, and the locals aren’t…


Look, this is one middle-aged white guy from the UK, going through the work of a middle-aged white guy from the US. I do not have answers for any of this. And, fucking hell, horror’s not meant to make you feel comfortable, is it? It’s meant to get under your skull, send out nagging mindworms that keep you turning ideas over after you’ve finished writing, right? And, if so, mission spectacularly accomplished.


Also, I’m not going to pretend; I run this project one book ahead - at the time of writing this essay, I’ve read Urban Gothic, and some of these themes will be picked up and developed there. And, mildest of spoilers, I think the way that novel handles those themes and navigates these issues is superior in basically every way. So, okay, let’s call this part 1, to be continued, for now, and let’s just acknowledge that this one bothered me on levels beyond the immediate visceral horror of the subject matter.


Which, I reiterate, is not necessarily a bad thing.


Next up: Urban Gothic. Which I’m sure will be easier going… :/


KP
12/3/22

​They came to the deserted island to compete on a popular reality television show. Each one hoped to be the last to leave. Now they're just hoping to stay alive, because the island isn't deserted after all. Contestants are disappearing, but they aren't being eliminated by the game. They're being taken by the monstrous, half-human creatures that live deep in the jungle.

The men will be slaughtered. The women will be kept alive as captives. Night is falling, the creatures are coming, and rescue is so far away...

Deadite Press is proud to present Brian Keene's tribute to the late, great Richard Laymon!

"Bloody, vile, violent and nasty. Castaways is a can't put down page turner." -House of Horrors

"Much like Laymon, Keene provides all kinds of thrills here... But Brian Keene has his own voice, too, one just as good a the late great master, Richard Laymon." -SFRevu

 
In the follow-up to his acclaimed England’s Screaming, Sean Hogan acts as your guide through the liminal spaces of North American horror, down Nightmare Alleys and across High Plains, following the Lost Highway all the way to the Bates Motel. At once fiction and criticism, Twilight’s Last Screaming masterfully examines how our experience of cinema takes on an imaginative life of its own. It deconstructs and reassembles genre film into unfamiliar but recognisable shapes, mapping the history of the American horror movie and, ultimately, the dark heart of America itself.

​Praise for ENGLAND’S SCREAMING


“…written with skill and a zealous intensity”
—Financial Times (named one of the five best genre novels of the year)
“England’s Screaming is a British horror film connect-the-dots portrait of frightening times in our recent history… and says a lot about the horrible things happening just now.  Massively recommended.”
—Kim Newman

“…a brilliant brilliant book…I can’t wait to see where a follow-up novel will go…”
—Kendall Reviews

“A very special and unique tribute to British horror. Clever and mesmerising.”
—Stephen Volk

“…a beautiful experiment full of surprises and nerdy strokes of genius wonder”
—Diabolique Magazine

“…creates an alternative fantastical history of post-war Britain that is both thrilling in its audacity and ingenuity and chillingly plausible”
—Ghosts & Scholars
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Sean Hogan is an award-nominated writer and filmmaker based in the UK. He has published several books of cinema metafiction, including England's Screaming, Three Mothers, One Father, a monograph on Gary Sherman's Death Line, and the forthcoming That Fatal Shore. 


His feature film credits include the critically-acclaimed The Devil’s Business, The Borderlands, and the documentary Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD. In addition, he has written several other produced screenplays, and also co-created the anthology plays The Hallowe’en Sessions and its follow-up, The Ghost Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, directing both their London runs. He is currently developing a number of new film and television projects.


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Twilight’s Last Screaming will be released 28/05/22 For more details, and to pre-order, visit www.blackshuckbooks.co.uk/TLS

Exploring familial relationships in new horror analysis pocketbook
Mums + Sons in The Babadook, Hereditary and Psycho ​​

Advance praise for Mums + Sons:

“Mums and Sons explores the idea that motherhood doesn't always smell of roses through the medium of three well-known horror films. It is an interesting and fresh look at a topic that is not spoken about enough - what if the bond between mother and son is broken, or fails to exist at all? Combining an academic approach with knowledge of these classic horror narratives, McCallum offers an insight into the phenomenon that not all women were born with maternal instincts.”

Janine Pipe - author of Sausages - The Making of Dog Soldiers

"If you think you know all there is to know about The Babadook, Hereditary, and Psycho, think again. In Mums and Sons, Rebecca McCallum examines the relationships between mothers and their sons, taking readers on a journey through three stages of complex emotional development: childhood, teenhood, and adulthood. Crafted with the voice of someone who is deeply reverent to horror's psychological intricacies, and with gorgeous illustrations by Ken Wynne, McCallum proves herself an essential voice in the realm of horror scholarship."

Mae Murray, Freelance writer and Editor of The Book of Queer Saints Horror Anthology

“Insightful, inquisitive and forensic - Rebecca McCallum is an important emerging voice in horror criticism, and Mothers and Sons represents some of her best work to date.”

Tim Coleman, Editor Moving Pictures Film Club

'Mums and Sons is a stunningly cohesive analysis of three of horror’s most devastating and disturbing takes on the terrifying institution of family. Rebecca's passion for genre cinema is palpable in every word of this well- crafted and thoughtful piece. Rebecca has woven relevant thematic strands from all three films into a poignant tapestry that tackles the difficult topics of parental grief and oft-fraught relationships between mothers and sons with sensitivity and detailed understanding.'

Amber T -Ghouls Magazine
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