Tag Archives: Horror

August 29, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Reason for Everything: A Review of Tin Foil Hat

Book cover for Tin Foil Hat by Lisa Shea. Image on cover shows a closeup photo of some slightly rumpled tin foil. Title: Tin Foil Hat

Author: Lisa Shea

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 3, 2019

Genres: Horror, Contemporary

Length: 18 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

It’s another lonely night in a crowded bar, and even Marissa’s margarita is stale. Everyone at Ralph’s is staring at their smartphones like brain-dead zombies.

But when she learns the about insidious damage that all those cell phone signals, stacked up on each other, can do to a human brain, she knows she has to take action. Because the headaches, memory loss, and insomnia were only the beginning.

* * *

Tin Foil Hat is a psychological horror suspense short story. My horror stories explore the frailty of the human psyche – how tenuous our grasp on reality can be. They delve into how alone each of us really is, as we navigate the short, brief flicker of life we are granted. My stories focus on the psychological aspects of fear and do not contain overt gore. They are suitable for teens and up.

This short story is part of my series: Lisa’s Dark Gripping Short Tales. You can read the short stories one at a time if you wish – each is available as a standalone ebook. If you prefer, you can get each set of nine short stories compiled together in ebook or paperback format. The title of that compilation is, naturally enough, Lisa’s Dark Gripping Short Tales (1, 2, etc.) I offer full discussions of each storyline on YouTube, for those who wish to delve deeper into the plot and meaning behind the scenes.

Content Warning: Paranoia and memories of past sexual abuse. I will discuss these topics briefly in my review.

Review:

Nothing is more important than feeling safe, right?

One of the most memorable portions of this short story had to do with the facets of Marissa’s personality that were slowly revealed over time. My first impression of it her was soon replaced by a deeper and more thorough understanding of her strengths and weaknesses, from her dedication to her work to how susceptible she was to information that she did not bother to verify. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover more about her, but I thought she was well written and an interesting collection of both positive and negative character traits just like the rest of us!

The twist at the end that explained why Marissa avoided other people so regularly involved a very sensitive topic that I think is heavily overused in fiction, especially when it comes to the challenges women and girls face in life. This isn’t to say that it is an unimportant subject in any way, only that it’s something I’ve read about so often that my interest immediately wanes when it pops up yet again. I was set to give this a four or five star rating before that scene happened, and I did think the rest of it was thought provoking. By all means give this a chance if you don’t have the same aversions I do. Reviews are subjective, after all, and what I strongly dislike might be exactly what another reader was hoping to find.

With that being said, I did appreciate the way the author explored the importance of developing and retaining sharp critical thinking skills, the dark side of conspiracy theories, and how much damage urban legends  can cause to one’s mental and physical health. The Internet is not always a bastion of truth and scientific accuracy, after all, and there are people I know personally who have fallen for all sorts of dangerous misinformation about a wide variety of topics. No, there was not a hidden political slant to this tale. The warning it provides applies to people from any point on the political spectrum who have ever been tempted to believe something without evidence.  Honestly, that could be just about any of us at one point or another!

Tin Foil Hat was my first introduction to Ms. Shea’s work, and I am looking forward to seeing what else she has written.

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July 4, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod

Book cover for The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod by Bill Russo. Image on cover shows a few dead trees in a flooded area that could be a swamp or the overflow area for a river. The sky above the trees is blue with a few puffy white clouds in them, and you can see a forest of healthy trees in the distance. The water looks like it has been recently disturbed as it is not perfectly still.Title: The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod

Author: Bill Russo

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 9, 2017

Genres: Horror, Contemporary

Length: 26 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

This is not a Halloween story though you might find monsters in it, depending on what your definition of a monster is. Rather, it is the tale of two young men in search of an eerie pond they read about in a book – a strange lake said to be filled with man-eating catfish. Against the counsel of a wily old Cape Codder who claims there’s no truth to the story, they venture into the wild, uninhabited area in hopes of collecting specimens to sell to a museum in Maine. You could go to that Museum (It really does exist) and see if there are any collections of Killer Catfish on display – or if you find it more convenient, you may read the story!

Content Warning: Murders. I will not discuss it in my review.

Review:

If you know better, will you do better?

There wasn’t a lot of time for character development in such a short piece, but Mr. Russo definitely made the best of what he had. I especially enjoyed getting to know Anse, a slightly crusty old man who worked at a tackle shop and often gave tourists advice on the best fishing spots in the area. He was a little gruff at first glance, but he had excellent reasons for coming across this way that I’ll leave up to other readers to decipher for themselves. Honestly, I probably would have behaved the same way if I were in this character’s shoes. He didn’t exactly live in the safest part of the world, after all, and dealing with constant streams of visitors who weren’t always keen to listen to reason only made things worse.

I liked Anse’s explanation for why Rico and Angelo, the visitors, decided to brush aside his warning and go fishing at Kaycee Pond despite its scary reputation. Not everyone in the world has common sense or is willing to consider other points of view. Sometimes this only leads to minor inconveniences, but occasionally it can be wildly dangerous to ignore the advice of people who have many years of experience on a specific subject like, say, catfish that are much larger and smarter than they should be.

The ending was perfectly frighting. While I can’t go into much detail about what happened in it without giving away spoilers, I can say that it added new layers of meaning not only to everything Anse already knew about that area but also to why nobody lived near that pond anymore and why everyone else in the area was also terrified of getting too close to the water. This was one of those cases when basic details about what happened were more than enough to tickle my imagination and make me feel very glad that fishing isn’t one of my hobbies.

The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod made me shudder.

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December 14, 2023 · 1:00 am

Looking for Monsters: A Review of Forest of Bones

Book cover for Forest of Bones: A Short Winter Horror Story by Jessie Thomas. Image on cover is a close-up photo of someone wearing a black dress and holding the skull of an animal that has two long, mostly straight antlers protruding from its head. Title: Forest of Bones – A Short Winter Horror Story

Author: Jessie Thomas

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: December 17, 2019

Genres: Horror, Holiday, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 53 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

Armed with her well-worn Field Guide to Cryptids of North America and a macabre sense of enthusiasm, Ana’s mission to visit and capture evidence of every known cryptid in the United States puts her on the trail of the elusive Covey Devil. Not many people are willing to spend their winter break looking for monsters, but Ana’s trio of friends seem up for whatever the adventure entails.

Review:

Content Warning: Blood and death.

Cold, dark forests are nothing to fool around with.

I loved the fact that the author chose Christmas time as a setting for this tale. The cold weather and long nights of that time of year in certain climates definitely sets the mood for scary things to lurk in the shadows. No matter how you personally feel about this holiday, there’s something to be said for acknowledging that it isn’t a shiny, happy season for everyone for a wide variety of reasons. I also appreciate the juxtaposition between the audience’s expectations for a Christmas story versus what was actually waiting for the characters in the Forest of Bones.

It was difficult for me to understand why four teenagers who had  only limited camping experience and no self-defence or first aid training so far as I could tell would head into a forest with such a frightening reputation in the middle of the night in December. While the storyline did eventually explain why this happened, I would have appreciated far more details about how this was supposed to look and how all four young women, one of whom was extremely nervous about the trip, were convinced to take such serious risks with their health and safety when they could have just as easily gone on a warm June afternoon with a much larger group of explorers instead.

Speaking of the ending, it was exactly what I thought it might be. It was nice that the author trusted the audience so much to connect the few clues about what was going on. Not everything always needs to be spelled out directly, and in this case it was much more fun to be a little confused at first than to have everything explained before it strictly needed to be.

Forest of Bones – A Short Winter Horror Story made me shudder.

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November 30, 2023 · 1:00 am

A Review of A Winter’s Night

Book cover for A Winter’s Night by Theodore Brun. Image on cover is of an old-fashioned mansion that has a blizzard forming around it on a cold winter’s evening. Title: A Winter’s Night

Author: Theodore Brun

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: November 1, 2018

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 51 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Enter if you dare…
A man driving through a remote part of Denmark is forced to take shelter from a snowstorm in a lonely castle. Inside, he encounters the Count who lives there, a strange old man who begins to talk. And as the Count does, the visitor learns of an ancient legend, of the noble family’s mysterious secret, and of the curse that overshadows them…

Review:

Content Warning: Childbirth and curses.

Old houses remember everything.

As someone who doesn’t know much about Danish folklore, I was intrigued by the descriptions of trolls and how the people of Denmark related to them in this tale. The author did a good job of making some of those old legends come alive in my imagination as he described why those who remembered those stories were so  afraid of the past. They had good reasons to worry about bringing attention to themselves, and I was curious to find out more about how their beliefs were holding strong in the early twenty-first century.

I struggled to understand the ending because of how it seemed to contradict earlier plot and character development. There were certain details about the lives of the Count’s ancestors that were shared about halfway through the storyline in order to show how much this family line had remained the same over the centuries. It was confusing, then, to reach the end and have all of this information turned on its head. I know I’m being vague here, but it’s difficult to share constructive criticism of how things turned out without giving away spoilers. What I can say is that I wish the last few scenes had been developed more thoroughly so that I could understand why everything the audience had learned earlier was suddenly being tossed aside.

With that being said, the setting was a great one for the topic of generational curses. There is something about looking at antiques in a house that many generations of people have lived and died in that makes all of the dark tidbits of information about the past a little scarier than they might have been. I also liked the fact that the author acknowledged how eerie the world is during a snowstorm. While snow is beautiful to look, it also makes travelling treacherous during the winter and can trap people in places they probably wouldn’t have otherwise stayed overnight.

A Winter’s Night is a good pick for a cold, stormy evening.

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November 23, 2023 · 1:00 am

Making Good Choices: A Review of Snow

Book cover for Snow by Howard Odentz. Image on cover shows a blue-washed photo of an old man with a white beard who is standing in a snowstorm. There is a hood covering part of his face and not much else can be seen. Title: Snow

Author: Howard Odentz

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: December 12, 2016

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Holiday, LGBTQ, Contemporary

Length: 34 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Words to live by: Never steal from a drunk in the woods.

An epic and sudden blizzard is blanketing Mount Tom Regional High School . . . in October. A dangerous man is stalking the hallways, and three teens harbor a secret that may get everyone killed if they don’t figure out how to stop the snow and the rampage.

Review:

Content Warning: Drug and alcohol use, inebriation, bullying, violence, a little blood.

Nothing remains a secret forever.

This is one of those tales where it’s best to avoid all spoilers in advance. Yes, some readers might figure out the twist ahead of time, but I’d hope that everyone else would allow themselves to be surprised if possible. There is something to be said for that in my opinion, especially when reading an author who has taken as many creative liberties with his subject matter as Mr. Odentz has. He did an excellent job of providing a few clues early on without totally giving it all away, and I enjoyed the process of seeing if my first impressions of what I was about to read were correct.

I was disappointed by the way the ending fizzled out. The beginning and middle were so strong that I went into the final scene expecting the same sort of pacing and plot twists. There was so much more the author could have done with those pages, and I would have happily gone with a much higher rating if he’d taken his premise to its logical conclusion.

All of the main characters were bored teenagers who regularly used various substances and refused to obey authority figures. I struggled to relate to them due to how wild they were and how often they tested the boundaries of everyone around them, but I also thought they were accurate depictions of the sort of teens who make these types of life choices. Not every character is going to be lovably and cuddly, after all, and it was interesting to see how they reacted once the dangerous man arrived at their school.

Snow was a fun autumnal read.

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November 15, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Criticize Your Favourite Book, Show, or Movie

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Poster for the tv show The Last of Us. Poster shows the two main character, Ellie and My favourite pieces of media can shift a lot over time, but I will follow the rules and only give one answer this week. 😉

One of the shows at the top of my list is The Last of Us. You’ve all probably heard of it already, but if not it was a science fiction zombie show based on a video game that came out last winter.

The first zombies in this universe were created when they ate food made from (or were otherwise exposed to) flour that was contaminated with the cordyceps fungus (This was strongly hinted at in the first episode, so it’s only a mild spoiler).  In the real world, certain types of this fungus really do infect ants which still scares me a little.

Here are my criticisms of this show:

1) Normal human body temperature is too high for cordyceps to survive in. Some people literally eat this fungus as a dietary supplement or food, and it has no ill effect on them.

2) It’s rare and difficult for an organism like a fungus to learn to jump species, especially ones that are as wildly different as humans and ants. They would have probably had to learn how to infect many other species between us before people were ever in danger, so the characters should have had many generations to notice this was happening and stop it.

3) Given that the vast majority of people do not eat raw flour or raw dough, how did the cordyceps surviving the scorching heat of baking process and manage to infect so many folks nearly simultaneously?

4) The mycologist in one of the first episodes of this show say there are no treatments for fungal infections, but that’s false. Yes, some fungal infections can be difficult to treat, but this isn’t a completely new and unknown pathogen by any means. We currently have many different anti-fungal medicines, after all.

Basically, I wanted the scientific explanation of the origins of this disease to be more accurate. Apparently, I can believe that cordyceps could take control of the human mind and turn folks into mindless zombies in this universe, but I can’t suspend disbelief when to comes to the idea of anything surviving being baked in an oven for an hour. Ha!

 

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October 5, 2023 · 1:00 am

A Review of Only the Living Feel Remorse

Book cover for Only the Living Feel Remorse by Ash Deza. Image on cover is a grainy photograph of someone wearing a grey hoodie and walking down an incredibly foggy and dark path. You can see a few possibly leafy tree branches at the top of the cover, but everything else is well obscured by fog.Title: Only the Living Feel Remorse – A Ghost Story

Author: Ash Deza

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 1, 2023

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 136 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

Some mistakes will haunt you to the end.

Imagine being haunted by a ghost. In life, he was your best friend. Now he wants you dead.

Who would you turn to for help? How far would you go to escape? How much would you be willing to sacrifice?

This is the gripping story of a flawed man who finds himself in a deep well of misery, haunted by his past, desperate for a way out. Will he be able to save himself? Or will the price prove to be too high?

“Only the Living Feel Remorse” is a suspenseful yet fast-paced horror novella. It tells the story of a friendship gone bad, a vengeful ghost and neo-pagan blood rituals which end up costing you much more than you bargained for.

Review:

Content Warning:Violence, death, (attempted) rape, classism, sexism, suicide attempts, blood, self-harm, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, trauma, and toxic masculinity. I will not discuss any of these topics in my review.

Life isn’t fair…and neither is death.

The main character was a violent, dangerous, and deeply flawed man who I nonetheless still found fascinating due to his creativity and resourcefulness. While many people are able to rise above difficult childhoods, he’d never had the time, money, or social support as an adult to seek the professional help he needed to do the same. This is in no way an excuse of his actions, but it did help to explain why he had such a short temper and often assumed the worst of others. It’s definitely not easy to strike a balance between writing an unlikeable character and giving the audience something about that individual that makes us want to get to know them better , so I tip my cap to Mr. Deza for pulling it off so nicely.

It would have been helpful to develop the supernatural elements of the storyline more thoroughly. I’m specifically thinking here of Father Perry’s reaction when the protagonist went to him for an exorcism and what the priest had to say about his church’s modern approach to the subjects of hauntings and demonic possessions. There was a room there for expansion, and I would have gone for a full five-star rating if all of that had been explained more clearly.

This novella had excellent world building that did not show up immediately. Most stories begin working on it from the opening scene, so it was a pleasant surprise to be about halfway through the plot and suddenly realize just how much I had left to learn about this world. I admire authors who take risks like these, especially when they work so well with what has already unfolded in the storyline. Would I have loved to dive even more deeply into how neo-pagan blood rituals work in this universe? Absolutely, but there was more than enough information provided here for me to understand what was going on and why the main character was tasked with such bloody objectives. Leaving a reader yearning for more is a good thing!

Only the Living Feel Remorse is a great choice for horror fans who are looking for something sobering and well written.

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September 21, 2023 · 1:00 am

A Review of Ravine of Death

Book cover for Ravine of Death by Hiago Furtado. Image on cover shows an abstract drawing of thick, curvy black lines against a white and grey background. I can’t tell if they’re supposed to be tentacles, veins from the body of a person or animal, or lines in boulders that show where various types of minerals were deposited millions of years ago, or something else entirely. It’s quite vague and open to interpretation, so I’m sorry this alt text can’t be more helpful there. Title: Ravine of Death

Author: Hiago Furtado

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 4, 2023

Genres: Young Adult,  Horror, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 9 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A thief steals a crown of sapphires and is pursued by knights, so to escape, he decides to enter an abandoned forest. Cornered, he must decide whether to jump or not into a gorge called “The Ravine of Death,” where it is said that those who fall are devoured by demons. What does he decide? To jump, of course!

Review:

Content Warning: Murder and theft.

A little horror goes a long way.

The pacing was strong and exciting. I appreciated the fact that the author decided to drop his audience directly into the middle of a tense chase scene while only explaining the basics about what was going on. That was a good choice for the storyline, and it kept me guessing what might happen next until the very end.

Plot holes prevented me from giving this a higher rating. While I certainly wouldn’t expect a short story to have as much character or plot development as a full-length novel, there were many things I struggled to understand about the thief and why he ended up in this predicament. For example, why did he choose to run into the forest? Why didn’t he pick a direction other than the one that lead to something called the Ravine of Death that any sensible person would avoid? While I don’t have a problem reading about characters who have terrible judgment, I do like to know why they lack the common sense that keeps most of us out of trouble most of the time.  There was a lot of promise here, but I thought it needed more development in order to fully realize its potential.

Then again, it was interesting to see the protagonist enter the forbidden gorge and see what all the fuss was about. I knew he wasn’t going to have a pleasant time with it, but I couldn’t have guessed what he was about to experience there. The horror elements of the plot really shone here, so keep reading if the first page or so doesn’t immediately grab your attention and you love that genre. It was inventive and it made me wish for a sequel.

Ravine of Death was full of frights.

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September 14, 2023 · 1:00 am

Alcohol-Fuelled Bad Decisions: A Review of Autumn Moon

Book cover for Autumn Moon by J.T. McCallum. Image on cover shows a wolf howling outside in the middle of the night. A profile of the wolf’s head and neck can be seen against the dim light of a huge full moon. Title: Autumn Moon

Author: J.T. McCallum

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 9, 2020

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

An attack from a supernatural assailant forces a group of drunken bar patrons to fend for their lives as they try to survive the night.

Review:

Content Warning: Alcohol, characters getting drunk, and some brief scenes of blood, murder, and violence in a bar brawl.

Not everyone knows what to do in an emergency.

The identity of the supernatural assailant becomes evident almost immediately in this story. I’ll refrain from naming it this review for those of you who want to avoid even the mildest of spoilers, but knowing the answer ahead of time will in no way ruin the storyline for anyone who figures it out from context clues or reads other reviews that do give it away. I liked the way the author explored a terrifying interpretation of the relationship between humans and something so different from us, especially since many other contemporary stories about this topics tend to romanticize an incredibly dangerous and unpredictable creature.

Honestly, twelve pages isn’t a lot of space to include character development, but Mr. McCallum took advantage of every inch of them to demonstrate how the unnamed protagonist’s curiosity, cowardice, studiousness, and clumsiness swirled together to try to keep him alive. I can’t say he was someone I’d necessarily want to hang out with due to how little we had in common, but I was intrigued by this character’s journey and wanted to see if he’d make it out of the bar okay after everything fell apart in an instant.  

The final sentence was what convinced me to give this a perfect rating. Yes, the earlier scenes were predictable for anyone who has read much Halloween-adjacent horror or fantasy at all, but this wasn’t the sort of tale that demanded a clever plot twist. What kept me reading was wondering how he was going to react once he realized what the audience figured out much earlier, and this was where the writing excelled. I grinned when I finished the last word and wished there were thousands more of them. If that’s not worthy of a five-star rating, what is?

Autumn Moon was exactly the sort of scary read I needed to kick off the Halloween season. 

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September 7, 2023 · 1:00 am

The Past Remembers: A Review of A Ghostly Assignment

Book cover for A Ghostly Assignment by Rosalind Minnet. Image on cover shows an old-fashioned, small stone cottage near a large, still lake on a foggy autumn day. The trees are bare and you can’t see the sun because of how thick the fog and clouds are. Title: A Ghostly Assignment

Author: Rosalind Minett

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: December 31, 2014

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Paranormal, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 35 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

When journalism students, Jake and Sara, investigate reports of a ghost, they’re cynical. They assume a village myth and fanciful gossip. In the dark of night near the local lake they begin their watch. They are standing together yet their weird experiences are separate, even in time. Shocked to the core, they return to normal life only to discover the lasting effect of their first assignment, one no-one could have predicted.

Review:

Content Warning: A witch trial, murder, and children being orphaned.

Future generations may mostly forget an atrocity, but the land remembers every detail.

Don’t worry if horror isn’t a genre you generally like. This was quite scary, but it wasn’t gory or gross in any way. It’s one of those transcendent horror stories that I’d recommend to anyone who loves history, mysteries, folklore, ghosts, or justice. I smiled and nodded along as I took note of the ways the current residents of this rural area dealt with a shameful and terrible chapter of their history. That’s a problem that many communities have, after all, and it can be great fodder for fiction. I enjoyed the way the author revealed what happened while still grounding the first section in scenes that felt true to life. It was important to establish that realism before jumping into the frightening paranormal events that were soon to follow.

This tale either involved some possible time travel or the main character’s mind being so overwhelmed with someone else’s memories that she thought she was the person performing those actions.  I loved both of these possibilities, but I wished the author had been more clear about which interpretation we were supposed to think was probably the right one. While I generally don’t mind ambiguity in what I read, this was one of those cases when the audience really needs to know how trustworthy a character’s memory is of a specific incident because of how important it is to everything that comes before and after it. If this had been made more clear, I would have happily gone with a full five-star rating.

It was interesting to see how Ms. Minett connected the actions of superstitious villagers from a few hundred years ago to the lives of people living in this universe today. I can’t go into much detail about that without giving away spoilers, but I appreciated what she was doing there and thought there was something to be said for showing how much someone can be affected by the past even if they don’t know anything about it.

A Ghostly Assignment made me shudder.

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