SYNOPSIS REACH OUT After a small coastal town is devastated by a hurricane, the survivors gravitate toward a long out-of-service payphone in hopes of talking out their grief and saying goodbye to loved ones, only for it to begin ringing on its own. AND TOUCH SOMEONE As more townspeople answer the call, friends and family […]
Psychological
Review: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
Synopsis: Summer, 1993 – a group of young guerrilla filmmakers spend four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror film. Steeped in mystery and tragedy, the film has taken on a mythic, cult renown, despite only three of the original scenes ever being released to the public. Decades later, a big budget reboot is in the […]
Review: Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Synopsis: Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty […]
Review: The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry
Synopsis: Single mom Harry Adams has always loved horror movies, so when she’s offered a job cleaning for revered horror director Javier Castillo, she leaps at the chance. His forbidding Chicago mansion, Bright Horses, is filled from top to bottom with terrifying props and costumes, as well as glittering awards from his decades-long career making […]
Review: In Excess of Dark by Red Lagoe
Synopsis: What if every terrible thing imagined came true? Every fleeting, nightmarish thought a reality? For grief-stricken Karina, her newfound ability to turn her worst daydreams into palpable truths has sent her into a downward spiral of depression and guilt. Coupled with the appearance of an enigmatic shadow figure and visions of her dead family, […]
Review: A Dark Corner by Celia Dale
Synopsis: Young Errol Winston arrives in London in search of a job and a better life, but he finds himself homeless when the city’s racist landlords refuse to rent to him. At last he seems to have a stroke of good luck when he accidentally winds up at the front door of Mr and Mrs […]
Review: The Tickle Monster by David Washburn
Synopsis There is comfort in the wholesomeness of family. Pure joy to be cherished in the innocence of a child. …But what happens when a looming sense of dread has a death-grip on a child’s mind? Teddy is ‘only a boy’ but there is a rebellious fire in his belly that urges him to forge […]
Review: Father of Lies by Steve Stred
Synopsis: Beginning in October, 2019, Steve Stred released three of the darkest, most depraved novellas – Ritual, COMMUNION, and Sacrament (**Nominated for a 2022 Splatterpunk Award for Best Novella!**). These three novellas completed the ‘Father of Lies’ trilogy, telling the story of a disturbed man trying to open the cosmic gates and enter the Black Heavens to […]
Review: The Naughty Corner: Horror Novella Collection by Mark Towse
Synopsis Are you ready to get put into the Naughty Corner? Three uniquely fresh novellas in one collection, including Towse’s wildest old-people horror yet, ‘The Generation Games.’Also includes, ‘The Naughty Corner’ and ‘My Name is Brian.’ The Generation Games. The population crisis is out of control. Earth’s resources are close to depletion. A mandate has been […]
Review: Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
Synopsis: Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he’s pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale―”for the algorithm”―Misha discovers that it’s not that simple. As he is haunted by his […]
Review: The Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier
At its core, Redemption is a book about the true horror that is the loss of bodily autonomy and mental health. Something that women have faced (and, depressingly, continue to), in societies that have arbitrarily decided any deviation from certain gendered templates is grounds for taking over their free will and guilt-tripping them into oblivion
Review: A Spectre Is Haunting Greentree by Carson Winter
Synopsis: REAP WHAT YOU SOW In the wake of a series of panic attacks, isolated and introverted Carina takes a friend up on an offer: go to Greentree, Oregon, escape her abusive ex, and start a new life. But upon arrival, the town is stranger than Carina could have ever imagined. For one, they still […]