​BOOK REVIEW - BRAIN DAMAGED BY DAVID OWAIN HUGHES

I quite enjoyed most of the stories within this collection. As always with short story collections, some you love and some you hate. Here, I loved most of them. Brain Damaged is as it says it is. It contains some very graphic, gory, pushing the limits (but never too far) gruesome horror tales.  

To pick my favourite three, well, it’s hard I must say. I will go with the following though, as these really stood out.

Scarab: This is a tale of crime and ancient gods. Jason is a man who has always lived within the grey. He has been in trouble with the law numerous times and served his time for armed robbery, costing him his family. He is a desperate man, and desperate men will do anything. Just one more job, one more job will set Jason and his crew up for life. Jason plans to kidnap his children and flee the country with the proceeds of this last job. He targets what appears to be a simple family jeweller, with lax security in place. They hold within their vaults priceless ancient artefacts, which cannot be removed from the vault under any circumstances. Jason doesn’t believe this; he has his sights set on an ancient Egyptian Scarab. Ignoring all the warnings, he kills the jewellery shop owner and takes it. The second he sets foot outside the shop, the world begins to end. The dead rise and begin their slaughter of the innocent.

As a fan of mythology as well as horror, ‘Scarab’ really stood out for me. I love all these stories mummies rising form the tombs, ancient curses, all that kind of thing. I find it so fascinating, as well as very believable. I for one would never tamper with an ancient artefact, because really, who knows? We have all seen those movies!

Brief Encounter: The first tale from the book. Brief Encounter is the story of a man trying his best to get to his kids on Halloween. After the end of a toxic relationship with his ex, Millie, he now lives a separate life from her and his children, Lilly and Mark. He is doing his best to get to them on Halloween; he has costumes for them, and is, as any father would be, excited to spend some time with them. He is unfortunately stuck in excessively heavy traffic, and is unsure what is happening after he witnesses some form of explosion behind from his rear view. He isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

 He meets a woman, in the next car over, first thinking that she is in costume, then the gruesome reality hits, she is dead, and so is he. The explosion was his death on the highway, and he is now in hell.

I really enjoyed this story. It felt like a great metaphor for the ‘hell’ that is the daily rat race of life. A man, working a job he resents, separated from his family, just trying to get by anyway he can.

Mink:  I loved this one. Tanya is a nasty piece of work, a woman who married her mob boss husband purely for his money, and then she had him killed by her lover, her husband’s right hand man.

One of her favourite possessions, well used to be, was a mink coat. Her husband had gifted it too her, and she loved wearing it. She loved wearing it that is, until she started to believe it was possessed by her dead husband.

This was a great read, a gold digging horror show of a woman getting her just deserts. Her scorned husband still managing to enact his bloody revenge from beyond the grave.
 
This is a great read, short stories are perfect too if you don’t have too much time to read. It’s bloody, gory, scary and fun.

4/5
Lesley-Ann (Housewife of Horror)

BRAIN DAMAGED BY DAVID OWAIN HUGHES