extreme horror

Scanlines by Todd Keisling

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Three teenage boys wanted nothing more than to watch a downloaded video of a porn star, but what they received was a lifetime of torture and loss when the video they obtained was of a politician’s public suicide. An urban legend becomes manifest as these boys and other kids from school attempt to achieve some manner of understanding, some way to grasp what they’ve seen and what they’re continuing to see.
Scanlines is a desolate horror story, grim and dark in a way a lot of narratives only barely approach. There’s nostalgia embedded in the chilly tale, there’s a lot of heart in there as well, but–more than any of that–there’s a whole lot of pain and terror. This is not an easy book to read, but it is easily one of the best things I’ve read in a long time.
Imagine Traces of Death mingled with The Ring, and you’ll have a rough idea of what you’ll be getting yourself into when you dive into this all too real story. Is it a supernatural adversary operating behind the awful, horrifying events of Scanlines? Is this a story of shared or mass psychosis? Are we reading a book about a ghost haunting the fateful final moments of a desperate man caught on tape, or is this a commentary on suicide contagion? I guess that’s really up to you. I like to think it’s a little bit of everything, those possible driving factors not being mutually exclusive.
I’m a little bit older than the boys from Scanlines, but I can relate to them altogether too well. It was the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was around ten or 11 years old when I snagged the first three Faces of Death movies from a local video store during one of the weekends I spent with my father. That was part of our routine on Friday evenings after he picked me up. We would head almost immediately to the video store and I would select around five VHS tapes from the Horror section (or the Action or Sci-Fi/Fantasy sections…but Horror was my favorite), sometimes I’d go with personal favorites, but most of the time I was just picking things I hadn’t seen yet. My goal, if there was one, was to gradually make my way through every horror flick on those shelves.
I was a kid and I didn’t know any better–there wasn’t internet available for research or any of that–so I was naive enough to believe the things in Faces of Death were real. It wasn’t until a little bit later, when I rented Traces of Death, that I saw the difference.
I’m plenty familiar with the public suicide that inspired the basis behind Scanlines, it was included in the first Traces of Death VHS. It played on a screen behind Neurosis as they performed during one of the concerts I’d attended as a teenager. It was on all of the websites dedicated to the dark and macabre when I first started venturing into those spaces in the mid-to-late 90s. Reading Keisling’s novella and the introduction provided by the publisher, Max Booth III, I know I’ve found some kindred spirits in a sense. None of us appear to have been traumatized in the way Robby, Danny, Jordan, and the others were…but I suspect, in some sense, we’ve all been haunted by the things we insisted we had to see.
I can’t recommend this book for everyone, because it’s absolutely not a book everyone will be able to read and enjoy. If an unambiguous and unfiltered discussion of suicide is something that might be a trigger for you, you might want to stay away. If you think you can handle it, you have to read this book!
I applaud Todd Keisling for baring his soul and purging himself on the page the way he clearly did with this book. He deserves every bit of love and appreciation this book has garnered within the horror community.

Scanlines

You Will Be Consumed…by This Riveting Tale

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Ignore, if you can, the “For Rectal Use Only” sticker I’ve affixed to the cover of this proof copy of my novella, You Will Be Consumed.

I know it’s difficult.

Some of you might find yourselves asking whether that’s a reference to the contents being best suited for use as toilet paper. I can assure you the paper utilized in printing this book is definitely inferior to most toilet paper on the market. You may find yourself wondering if I’m implying that you should attempt to roll the book into a tube of sorts for rectal insertion. I don’t recommend that. You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” If those things are true, you’re probably somehow existing within the amazing song Once In a Lifetime by Talking Heads.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell this post is all about. You’re not alone. I think I might have forgotten that salient detail as well.

Of course, I’m joking.

I just wanted to remind you that it’s time to pick up your own copies of You Will Be Consumed…and the amazing publisher I worked with on this title, Madness Heart Press, has guaranteed that there are outlets available for anyone.

Amazon, of course, is available as an option:

You can also purchase the book in either physical or digital copy directly from the Madness Heart Press website at the link below:

You Will Be Consumed

However, if you’re interested in a digital copy of the novella, and you really don’t want to support Amazon…but you do want to show support for indie authors and small press publishers of horror titles…there’s another place you can go.

Drew Stepek, a fantastic author and an avid supporter of the indie horror literature scene, has assembled something amazing.

Check out Godless at the following link:

You Will Be Consumed by Nikolas P. Robinson

While you’re there…please spend some time perusing the available titles. This is a great distribution option for small presses, self-published horror authors, and fans to come together without Amazon lining their already bulging pockets in the process.

That’s all.

I wanted to peddle my new novella some more, and I really wanted to encourage everyone to visit Godless.

Full Brutal by Kristopher Triana, narrated by Dani George

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If you’ve ever asked yourself what American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman would be like if he were a teenage girl living in the current age as opposed to Wall Street of the 1980s, Full Brutal by Kristopher Triana is the book for you. I’m only joking a little bit with that introduction because–much like Ellis’s most popular character–Kim is pretty, popular, and superficially passing as being not only normal but successful and even a role model of sorts. This is, of course, a facade.
As the story unfolds, Kim goes from being a calculating, manipulative sociopath dwelling on suicide–as much out of boredom and a desire to shock/stun the people who believe they’re close to her as very real depression over the fact that nothing brings her any sort of pleasure in life–to a cold-blooded monster. The turning point seems to be that pivotal decision in many teenager’s lives, whether they should have sex and with whom.
Developing a fixation on serial killers as well as torture-porn movies (and actual pornography featuring torture) and finding a spark of pleasure in these things, it’s no real surprise that everything goes dark and brutal from there. She determines her first time should be with someone she has to break down and degrade to get there, and she sets her sights on her sex-ed teacher. When sex itself turns out to be less than the life-changing experience she was hoping for, instead of letting it depress her further, she finds entirely new ways to get herself off.
Destroying lives, creating turmoil that spreads everywhere around her, and always seeking an even greater thrill, Kim finally discovers that catharsis she was desperately searching for. As she decides to go “full brutal” everything continues getting worse for those surrounding her.
Dani George provides fantastic narration that captures the coldness and cruelty of Kim as well as breathing life into the vapid superficiality of her peers and friends–if one could consider these people to be either of those things.
I’m torn, because I appreciate the way this book turns the psychopathic killer trope on its head in a sense, transitioning the usual victim of these sorts of stories into the perpetrator. The skillful storytelling is the same as I’ve come to expect from Triana, along with the depravity and attention to gritty, unsettling details. Those things are fantastic elements.
On the other hand, I feel like Kim is sort of an exaggerated, almost sexist caricature of the sort of girls all rape-culture assholes like to pretend are all over the place. You surely know what I mean if you’ve bothered to torture yourself by reading incel screeds and the like. To a certain sort of guy, the world is populated by girls/women who will manipulate, dominate, and take what they want at any cost. For that sort of person, all girls are a stone’s throw from threatening to cry rape if they aren’t getting everything they want, or just because it’s funny to ruin someone’s life. To guys like that, most (if not all) girls are secretly very much like Kim…excepting the murderous streak. In that sense, I find the character and the story to be a bit problematic in the same way I would if the protagonist were a caricature of the mythical “welfare queen” from the Reagan era…as it sort of breathes life into an ignominious stereotype that should be allowed to die the off-screen death it deserves.
Taking the good with the bad, I still can’t help but recommend this book to anyone who enjoys extreme horror. The best sort of horror is the kind that makes you uncomfortable and forces you to examine things you’d rather ignore, and that’s precisely what you get with Full Brutal.

Bella’s Boys by Thomas R. Clark

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Thomas R. Clark has crafted an interesting tale with Bella’s Boys. It’s a little bit American Psycho, a larger bit of cosmic horror, and a lot of splatterpunk erotica.
The reason I mention the novel from Bret Easton Ellis isn’t only because of the fixation on music and the almost overwhelming attention to detail associated with said music throughout the novella–but that does have something to do with it–it’s because this novella captures something of the 1990s dive bar, metalhead scene in the same way American Psycho satirized the white-collar, predatory capitalist world of the 1980s. At the same time, Bella’s Boys certainly depicts graphic acts of sex and violence (often simultaneously) with the same unrelenting and unfiltered lack of concern so many readers enjoyed from Ellis’s novel.
The afterward, providing a glimpse into the author’s life and the real-life snowstorm that inspired the blizzard taking place within the novella, was a nice touch. It’s fun and entertaining to see just how much of the story was pulled from a piece of Clark’s own life. I would certainly hope none of the people trapped in the house they were trapped in during the real blizzard ended up being converted into conscious bits of fecal matter…but maybe the truth is stranger than fiction?
The short story, Prey for Change, attached to the end is a tantalizing glimpse of a world that melds Viking society, werewolf mythology, and something reminiscent of the army of the dead from Game of Thrones. I would read more of that story, for sure.
Since I listened to the audiobook edition of Bella’s Boys, a comment on the narration is in order. It’s almost unfortunate that the sole weakness with this edition of the book is the quality of Allyson Wentworth’s narration. This isn’t to say the narrator does a bad job of it, but there was a certain flatness to elements that seemed like they merited a bit more passion or at least spirited delivery. From what I can see, she has only narrated a couple of books thus far, and it could be due to this being the beginning of her career as an audiobook narrator. Please don’t let my personal opinion on the narration dissuade you from checking out the book in whatever format most appeals to you. I sincerely doubt even my favorite audiobook narrators were at the apex of their craft when they started.

True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik

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Samantha Kolesnik’s True Crime is a gritty deep dive into an abusive household and the horrible consequences of that abuse. It’s all the more awful for the plausibility of it.
Suzy’s only escape from the horrific emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from her mother–and boyfriend(s)–is reading True Crime magazines that she’s fixated on. Her only allies in the cruel childhood she’s experienced are her older brother, the emotionally detached Lim, and the unseen girl, Alice, held captive in the basement by Suzy’s mother, speaking to Suzy only through the heat registers. Little does she know that she and her older brother, Lim, are soon to create their own story befitting her favorite magazine…as she smashes an ashtray into her monstrous mother’s head…and that is only the beginning.
As Suzy evades justice and Lim winds up in prison for the murders no one imagines Suzy could have been involved with, we find ourselves wondering if she can be rehabilitated with a second chance and a clean slate.
The animal freakshow scene was deeply upsetting and made me want to attack the spectators as well, and the later scene where Suzy discovers the dogs made me sad too. Acts of cruelty and violence against animals do more to get under my skin than the same sort of violence perpetrated against people. It seems that Suzy and I have that in common.
Jennifer Pickens expertly narrates the audiobook edition of the story, capturing the equal measures of naivete and cruelty of Suzy’s first-person narrative.

I grew up in an abusive household in a rural region. This story hits close to home for anyone with that sort of background. While it was my father, rather than my mother, who levied the abuse, it doesn’t change much. That the abuse from my father was physical rather than sexual isn’t much of a difference. The sexual abuse, instead, came from a slightly older girl who lived next door and who saw a six or seven year old boy as a suitable way to learn about the differences between boys and girls. I wanted to include a little warning, in case anyone is triggered by these sorts of things.

Broken Nails by Susan Snyder

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The first thing I will say about Susan Snyder’s Broken Nails is that it is far too short. You’re reading–and often re-reading–the poems, getting drawn into the almost nightmarish world she’s assembling with her words…and then it’s the end.
It’s over.
You’re not ready for it to be over just yet.
As painful and raw as the experience was, you sort of want to continue exploring Susan’s interior. She’s ripped herself open for you and left herself exposed, but then it stops.
This poetry collection is separated into three sections, each with a certain overarching theme. The second section, Reflection, was my personal favorite. It was also the most horrific in a number of ways. It’s sincerely a little bit painful as you allow the poet to paint you a portrait of a life that’s included no small amount of suffering.
This is not poetry for those who are looking for flowery nonsense. This is poetry that examines topics like murder, sexual assault, suicide, and Satanism…and if you’re interested in that, dive right in.

Bloodsaints: Rawspense for a Cause

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A good number of months ago, a fellow author and friend of mine discussed with me the possibility of getting a handful of horror authors together for the purpose of assembling an anthology with the express purpose of raising money for COVID-19 relief.

We’ve all suffered during this pandemic in various ways, large and small…some far more than others. We wanted to do something that might help in some small way.

After a couple more months, this friend of mine settled on UNICEF as the charity we’d donate the proceeds to, as the most likely to provide a real, tangible benefit.

A couple of months later, he began working with Becky Narron of Terror Tract Publishing LLC for cover design and the actual publication of the anthology.

And here we are today, with the release hitting the Kindle store only a little over half a year after the first conversations began taking place.

Pick up a copy. Enjoy the stories. Find comfort in knowing that your purchase helps to support a worthy cause.