The 31 Horror Book Challenge: Week Two

I’ve been keeping a good pace so far. Let’s get right into the next books.

8. Let’s Go Play at the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson
Jesus, this book. Let’s Go Play at the Adams’ is pretty infamous for being disturbing, and that reputation is not at all overblown. The story is pretty simple. A babysitter is watching two kids while the parents are in Europe. The two kids and three of their friends knock her out and tie her up as part of a game. The game quickly gets out of hand. This isn’t a book that’s disturbing due to its violence, sexuality, or even the premise, though those are a big part of it. This is one of the most painful psychological horror stories I’ve ever read – I don’t think even Thomas Ligotti has written anything this nihilistic. It’s a great book and it’s a shame it’s been out of print so long. I don’t think I’ll read it again, though.

9. Jasmine and Garlic by Monica J. O’Rourke
This is an extreme horror Kindle single by the author of Suffer the Flesh. While I didn’t like that novel overall, there was enough potential in it for me to try her again. This short story is a much better use of her ability to create disgusting and disturbing imagery; there’s not much to talk about here plot-wise. It’s about a homeless pregnant woman who visits her obstetrician, only to find out he’s a psychopath. It’s not particularly deep or groundbreaking, but it is pretty damn nasty. If you want a quick jab of gross horror, Jasmine and Garlic is worth getting.

10. The Troublesome Amputee by John Edward Lawson
You know a poetry book with that title is not going to be a conventional one. The poems here are dark, often grotesque, sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing. The humorous poems were my favorite, they were some of the funniest I’ve read. Lawson creates some very strange and gross imagery in his poems and has a knack for wordplay. I highly recommend The Troublesome Amputee.

11. Hell Baby by Hideshi Hino
Some horror film fans may recognize Hino as the writer and director of two of the Guinea Pig films. However, he’s also the writer and artist of several horror manga. Many of his stories are strange and often very gross. Panorama of Hell, for example, is a straight up surreal nightmare. In comparison with his other stories, Hell Baby is pretty conventional. The story is about a baby born as a twin who is abandoned by her father due to her extreme deformities in a dump. However, the baby survives due to some strange supernatural force and grows up to take revenge on the world that rejected her. If you like horror comics, this is worth tracking down.

12. Gyo by Junji Ito
Junji Ito has been one of my favorite comic writers and artists for a while now, so I was looking forward to reading this. It’s just as strange and gross as his other work. The plot is about fish carcasses seeming to grow legs and walking onto land. Everywhere the fish go, they bring a strong scent of death with them. A scent stronger than what dead fish usually have. The build-up in this comic is great. I didn’t want to put it down despite the strange and revolting places the story went. While Uzumaki is still my favorite from Ito, I still loved Gyo and encourage any horror fan to read it.

13. Wall of Kiss by Gina Ranalli
The story in Wall of Kiss is very simple: An unnamed woman falls in love with a wall in her house. The story does an excellent job of pulling you into her romance with the wall, it makes you believe the wall actually loves her back. It makes every indication that the wall is just a wall all the more disturbing, knowing you’ve been pulled into the woman’s delusion. Most bizarro horror I’ve read is like the literary equivalent of a Troma film. This one is more akin to something like Repulsion. An excellent psychological horror story.

14. The Cannibals of Candyland by Carlton Mellick III
Franklin has been obsessed with hunting the cannibalistic candy people ever since they killed his siblings right in front of him as a child. When he finally tracks down where they live, he finds himself captured by the same candy woman who killed his brothers and sisters. Franklin struggles to survive while plotting his revenge. Like Mellick’s other work, he creates an odd world, both colorful and disturbing. While I saw parallels in The Cannibals of Candyland with probably his most infamous book, The Haunted Vagina, it’s still a unique work. This odd mixture of horror, comedy, and S&M erotica is a must-read for anyone at all interested in the bizarro genre.

15. Habeas Corpse by Nikki Hopeman
What if CSI had a psychic zombie? In the world of Habeas Corpse, radiation from the sun has caused people to come back to life as zombies while retaining their memories and intelligence. Theo is one of these zombies, but he also a gift of being able to experience dead people’s last moments when he eats part of their brain. He uses this gift while working as a forensics technician to hunt down a serial killer. This was an entertaining horror/mystery and brought an interesting twist to the zombie genre. It does get too “cute” at times, like Theo’s last name being Walker and his hobby being playing zombie killing video games. Despite that, I recommend this if you want a fun zombie book.

16. Thirteen Girls by Mikita Brottman
The genre of “true crime” is one that is often thought of lurid and glorifying serial killers. Here’s a book that brings the ugliest truths of the genre to the forefront. This is a collection of 13 fictional short stories, each one based on a different victim of a different serial killer. Thirteen Girls includes an appendix which gives the facts regarding each case. The stories are told from the perspectives of people who knew the victims such as friends, family, co-workers, and casual acquaintances. This is a heavy and depressing book, focusing on the sense of loss in the aftermath of acts of violence. Even more depressing are the stories where a casual acquaintance brushes off the victim’s death, as indifferent to their end as the world is. This is a must-read, just know that it may leave you frustrated with the lack of closure in the stories. As Brottman notes in the afterword, in real life there is no payoff, no closure.