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Horror Fiction: Recommendations & Favorites

An article about the difference between the book and film of Bones and All. Are cannibals more marketable than ghouls? I haven't read the book but it sounds as if the changes are crucial to the film becoming THE Cannibal movie imho.

The first person Maren eats is her babysitter. She’s a baby when she does it, older than six months because she has teeth, but not old enough to swallow the bones just yet. That will come later—the devouring whole—when she’s matured enough to separate her actions from her ethics.

So begins Camille DeAngelis’s novel, Bones and All, about a young girl named Maren who is cursed with the volatile compulsion to eat anyone who desires her. As she grows, those she consumes are typically boys, then men. Always, they seal their own fates: it is their wanting that brings about their deaths. For Maren’s part, she can’t help it. She was simply born this way, drawn to eat those who crave her, chomping them up, bones and all, until their bodies become a part of her own. This thing Maren does is unacceptable, and yet, for her at least, it is always inescapable.

When her mother abandons her, Maren is forced to try and navigate the world alone, until she meets a young man named Lee who also happens to share her same cravings, and the two embark on a road trip across America as they attempt to understand their place in the world. DeAngelis’s book has recently been adapted for the screen by Luca Guadagnino, the director of the Academy Award winning film Call Me by Your Name (2017) and the recent horror remake of Dario Argento’s giallo masterpiece, Suspiria (2018). The film version of Bones and All has some marked differences from DeAngelis’s novel, but the heart of the story remains intact. However, the specifics of Maren and Lee’s condition have been altered considerably: while DeAngelis considered her characters “ghouls,” the film has been heavily marketed as “a cannibal love story.”

Screenwriter and producer David Kajganich admits that part of the reasoning for describing the film’s main characters as cannibals is simply due to marketing: “If you described them in a marketing campaign as ghouls, people would have a very different understanding of what the film was likely to be about,” he explains. “They needed to pick a word that would brace you for the fact that yes, you’re going to see people biting into and chewing on other people.” Still, this specific word has dominated headlines for months leading up to the film’s release, and while it certainly prepares the viewer for what they are going to experience, one can’t help but wonder if it’s a doubly clever marketing move, given that Timothée Chalamet—who plays Lee in the film—starred in Call Me by Your Name alongside Armie Hammer, who made headlines in 2021 over allegations of sexual abuse and speculation that he has a cannibal fetish. ...

https://lithub.com/cannibals-or-ghouls-the-elusiveness-of-language-in-bones-and-all/
 
Somebody mentioned John Farris's Son Of The Endless Night. By the same author, and even better in my opinion, is All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By.

I see that someone has already mentioned Elizabeth Engstrom's pair of near-masterpieces too, so I can only second the recommendation.

The Amulet by Michael McDowell is terrifying and bloody and has a strong streak of cruel humor running through it. McDowell also wrote Cold Moon Over Babylon, a Southern-fried horror tale reminiscent of EC Comics. And much more besides, but I'll limit myself to these two for now.

Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg --the book that Angel Heart was based on. Very good in its own right.

Demons by John Shirley is his best horror (his short stories in that realm are excellent as well).

I really liked University by Bentley Little; the rest of his novels--eh, not so much. He's like Stephen King in that he comes up with gripping premises that he has some trouble bringing to a proper ending. He's done some pretty good short stories though.

Anything by Jack Ketchum or Joe R. Lansdale is well worth looking at too, if you like horror. I'm also a fan of David Schow, Richard C. Matheson, and the crime/horror-hybrid novels of Michael Slade.
 
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. Amerindian horror by an Amerindian author, A sort of Wereelk or Dybbuk elk comes back to avenge herself on the hunters who killed her when she was carrying a calf. Deals a lot with Amerindian culture, life on the reservation and basketball, plenty about basketball. Indeed one of the characters faces a basketball one on one with the Elk spirit. Gruesome, horrific killings, not just by the Wereelk; like Japanese Angry Ghosts she is able to arouse paranoia and fear in her victims, causing them to harm themselves and others. Pretty good horror novel. I give it 9/10.

Here is an indepth review/analysis of The Only Good Indians and of Stephen Graham Jones's work. it contains a few Spoilers

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article...-stephen-graham-joness-the-only-good-indians/
 
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. Amerindian horror by an Amerindian author, A sort of Wereelk or Dybbuk elk comes back to avenge herself on the hunters who killed her when she was carrying a calf. Deals a lot with Amerindian culture, life on the reservation and basketball, plenty about basketball. Indeed one of the characters faces a basketball one on one with the Elk spirit. Gruesome, horrific killings, not just by the Wereelk; like Japanese Angry Ghosts she is able to arouse paranoia and fear in her victims, causing them to harm themselves and others. Pretty good horror novel. I give it 9/10.

Here is an indepth review/analysis of The Only Good Indians and of Stephen Graham Jones's work. it contains a few Spoilers

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article...-stephen-graham-joness-the-only-good-indians/
Another book I'll have to put on my reading list. I have read some of his short stories in different anthologies. I didn't know he has written novels. Canada seems to be very limited in what can easily be accessed.
 
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. Amerindian horror by an Amerindian author, A sort of Wereelk or Dybbuk elk comes back to avenge herself on the hunters who killed her when she was carrying a calf. Deals a lot with Amerindian culture, life on the reservation and basketball, plenty about basketball. Indeed one of the characters faces a basketball one on one with the Elk spirit. Gruesome, horrific killings, not just by the Wereelk; like Japanese Angry Ghosts she is able to arouse paranoia and fear in her victims, causing them to harm themselves and others. Pretty good horror novel. I give it 9/10.

Here is an indepth review/analysis of The Only Good Indians and of Stephen Graham Jones's work. it contains a few Spoilers

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article...-stephen-graham-joness-the-only-good-indians/
I listened to this on Audible and really enjoyed it.
 
I must check out her books.

Known to her fans as the "Queen of African Horror", British-Nigerian author Nuzo Onoh says her prestigious literary prize is a signal that African folk horror has finally become an internationally recognised genre.

"When I started writing, if you googled 'African horror', what you would get was Aids, war, famine. But now you'll get books, films. They are part of the literary genre pool," she tells the BBC's Focus on Africa.

Onoh formally received the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association (HWA) in June. It described her as "a pioneer of the African horror literary genre [whose] writing showcases both the beauty and the horrific in the African culture".

Previous winners of the award include household names in horror fiction like Stephen King, Anne Rice and British actor Christopher Lee, famous for playing Dracula in numerous films.

Born in Enugu in south-eastern Nigeria, Onoh comes from the Igbo community. Her most recent book, A Dance for the Dead, draws heavily from Igbo culture and traditions.

It follows the journey to redemption of character Diké, first son of the fictional king of Ukari and heir to the throne. Diké is tragically cast as an "Osu" - an outcast - after he is found in mysterious circumstances within the sacred shrine of the village god.

In Igbo tradition, Osus were people who ran into the shrines of deities to seek protection from threats from other community members. Anyone who ran into such a shrine would no longer be troubled, but at the cost of becoming an Osu - someone who'd dedicate their whole life to worshipping the deity while at the same time being an outcast in their community. Their new condition would prevent them and their offspring taking chieftaincy titles or marrying a freeborn. ...

Now in her early 60s, Onoh has developed an idiosyncratic relationship with the horror genre.

"I am terrified of ghosts and darkness. I still sleep with a bright light on. I can't sleep without [it]," she says. "As I grow older, I found that I struggle to watch horror films or read horror books," Onoh says, while admitting that "it's my natural thing to write horror. I don't know why."

She believes it's a way to process the real-life horrors she witnessed growing up during the Biafran war between 1967 and 1970. Conflict broke out after an Igbo general declared the breakaway state of Biafra. The military crushed the secessionist movement, with about a million people dying from famine, disease and fighting.

Onoh was a child refugee in various towns and villages until the war ended. Then as a teenager she moved to the UK to study in a Quaker boarding school for girls.

"When I write it's like a form of exorcism," she says. "We grew up during the Biafran war, surrounded by a lot of death. You sort of have this morbid fascination with everything horror," she says.

Onoh's forthcoming book, The Ghosts in the Moon, is an intergenerational tale looking at how traditional magic is passed down through women of the same family. It is due to be published next year.

She holds a Masters degree in Writing from the UK's Warwick University, but says she doesn't use much of the skills learnt on the course, favouring a non-structured and spontaneous approach.

"I don't do plots. I don't do structure. The characters come into my head and they start dictating, and I'm just writing," Onoh says.

You can listen to the full interview with Nuzo Onoh on the BBC Focus on Africa podcast from 14:00 GMT

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66707505
 
Known to her fans as the "Queen of African Horror", British-Nigerian author Nuzo Onoh says her prestigious literary prize is a signal that African folk horror has finally become an internationally recognised genre.

oooooooooooooh! excellent! I love a new author to look out for and a genre to get into.

I hope they are done as audiobooks :confused:
 
oooooooooooooh! excellent! I love a new author to look out for and a genre to get into.

I hope they are done as audiobooks :confused:
I'm hoping that her books are available here. Here, we seem to be limited to American and a few Canadian horror authors. Sometimes, the only way I might read someone from anywhere else in the world is through anthologies. And those are difficult to find because unless you know of a regularly curated anthology series, you can't find them.

:cheer:jumping for joy. I just searched and her "A Dance For The Dead" is available at Chapters Indigo website.
 
:cheer:jumping for joy. I just searched and her "A Dance For The Dead" is available at Chapters Indigo website.

woot! She doesn't seem to be on Audible :( Now looking for a Suggest An Author button.
 
I think this fits here.

Five Stories About Exploring Abandoned Places Where Sh*t Went Very Wrong

I absolutely love books and films where people come across an abandoned place—be it a building, a spaceship, or an entire city—where shit clearly went wrong in the past. Take, for instance, the scenes in Alien (1979) where the crew of the Nostromo explore a derelict spaceship and find a long-dead alien creature (that seems to have exploded from the inside out, no less!) and thousands of suspicious-looking eggs. It’s dark, it’s eerie, and it forces the characters and audience alike to ask the terrifying question—just what the hell happened?!

Explorations of mysterious abandoned places are often a small part of a larger story—as is the case in Alien—but sometimes I want stories built around that particular type of suspense, as the search for answers becomes the driving force of the narrative. Here are five novels and short stories that offer just that.

From Below (2022) by Darcy Coates ...


Dead Silence (2022) by S.A. Barnes ...


Jerusalem’s Lot” (1978) by Stephen King ...


Last Days (2012) by Adam Nevill ...

The Last Words of an Explorer” (2016) by Max Lobdell ...


https://www.tor.com/2023/12/11/five...g-abandoned-places-where-sht-went-very-wrong/
 
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)

I am a latecomer to this one and I know that, for example Stephen King waxes lyrical about it and it has become commonplace to describe it in terms of being `the best ghost story ever wtritten` and so on (a label I'd reserve for Henry James's The Turn of the Screw).

I myself wasn't blown away by it, but it is a fitting seasonal read (even if the action in it takes place one summer).

The premise seems rather familiar - it has been much copied since and probably wasn't that original even in the late fifties: a small group of middle-class misfits desend on Hill House, an eighty year old wonkliy constructed mansion in the middle of the American sticks (no doubt the location is mentioned somewhere but this would have meant little to me,as a British reader). They are all assembled at the invite of a Doctor John Montague. He is actually an anthropologist by background, but seems to be dabbling in psychic research in his later life and intends to write a paper on the property which is already notorious for it's tragic histry and corresponding occult associations.

The guestts have been chosen for having had previous paranormasl experiences in their lives - poltergeist activity and clairvoyance - and in the case of Luke because he is the heir of the property. Theodore ( a woman) is a chatty empath and Eleanor is a young woman who had, until recently been caring for her elderly mother who, having passed, has left her disorientated with nothing to do in life.

Their task is simply to stay there and observe what happens, while Montague writes it all up. Eventually, we are treated to some paranormal displays such banging on doors, cold spots, inexplicable messages scrawled on walls and so on. Rather than individual appartitions and spooks though, it is the house itself which seems to be the antagonist. In particular, it seems to have singled out Eleanor for special attention.

Ther tale is ultimately a sad, rather than chilling, one and there are many unanswered questions left hanging there. The pace is slow - it is well into about halfway through the novel that the spooky stuff begins. Instead there is lots of psychology and buiding up of ambience. This is the opposite of pulp fiction - I suppose nowadays we might even call it `elevated horror`.

The characters first seem a bit like cliches - the Benevolent Professor, for example, and the Cold and Gruff housemaid. But the former is deflated when his Lady Bracknell -ish wife turns up, and we learn that the latter is human after all.

There is a lot to be getting on with here: a bit of social satire, some history, a would-be lesbian romance, and, behind it all, a feeling of cosy domesticity which, if we are to be honest, provides the unspoken appeal of many a ghost story. The characters do grate a bit though. There is much in the way of `cultured` and `vivacious` dialogue which sounds very dated and forced now. Elaanor acts as the focus of the narrative and she is somewhat neurotic. In fact, I'd lost patience with her long before the novel's end.

One final poiint. This novel struck me as very British. Usually when I read an American novel I find myself having to put what I imagine to be an `American accent` into the mouth's of the characters. With The Haunting of Hill House, however they all spoke in plummy Brit accents. It was ponly the vastness of the landscape they were in that reminded me that the story was taking place in the U.S of A. -

I have not seem the celebrated first film based on this - The Haunting from 1963 -but I understand that this toys with a psychological expolanantion of everything - which Jackson ap;parently denied was her intent, although it does seem to be there in the story.
 
I've always seen HILL HOUSE as a bit of a love story. Two forces - the house and Theodora -fighting over the soul of poor Eleanor, one of the most sympathetic/pathetic underdogs I've ever read in fiction. Such a repressed character! It's only natural the ghosts would single her out. I've
always felt the urge to jump into the book and hug her pain away.

Might I recommend WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Ms. Jackson? Even stranger main character.
 
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The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)

I am a latecomer to this one and I know that, for example Stephen King waxes lyrical about it and it has become commonplace to describe it in terms of being `the best ghost story ever wtritten` and so on (a label I'd reserve for Henry James's The Turn of the Screw).

I myself wasn't blown away by it, but it is a fitting seasonal read (even if the action in it takes place one summer).

The premise seems rather familiar - it has been much copied since and probably wasn't that original even in the late fifties: a small group of middle-class misfits desend on Hill House, an eighty year old wonkliy constructed mansion in the middle of the American sticks (no doubt the location is mentioned somewhere but this would have meant little to me,as a British reader). They are all assembled at the invite of a Doctor John Montague. He is actually an anthropologist by background, but seems to be dabbling in psychic research in his later life and intends to write a paper on the property which is already notorious for it's tragic histry and corresponding occult associations.

The guestts have been chosen for having had previous paranormasl experiences in their lives - poltergeist activity and clairvoyance - and in the case of Luke because he is the heir of the property. Theodore ( a woman) is a chatty empath and Eleanor is a young woman who had, until recently been caring for her elderly mother who, having passed, has left her disorientated with nothing to do in life.

Their task is simply to stay there and observe what happens, while Montague writes it all up. Eventually, we are treated to some paranormal displays such banging on doors, cold spots, inexplicable messages scrawled on walls and so on. Rather than individual appartitions and spooks though, it is the house itself which seems to be the antagonist. In particular, it seems to have singled out Eleanor for special attention.

Ther tale is ultimately a sad, rather than chilling, one and there are many unanswered questions left hanging there. The pace is slow - it is well into about halfway through the novel that the spooky stuff begins. Instead there is lots of psychology and buiding up of ambience. This is the opposite of pulp fiction - I suppose nowadays we might even call it `elevated horror`.

The characters first seem a bit like cliches - the Benevolent Professor, for example, and the Cold and Gruff housemaid. But the former is deflated when his Lady Bracknell -ish wife turns up, and we learn that the latter is human after all.

There is a lot to be getting on with here: a bit of social satire, some history, a would-be lesbian romance, and, behind it all, a feeling of cosy domesticity which, if we are to be honest, provides the unspoken appeal of many a ghost story. The characters do grate a bit though. There is much in the way of `cultured` and `vivacious` dialogue which sounds very dated and forced now. Elaanor acts as the focus of the narrative and she is somewhat neurotic. In fact, I'd lost patience with her long before the novel's end.

One final poiint. This novel struck me as very British. Usually when I read an American novel I find myself having to put what I imagine to be an `American accent` into the mouth's of the characters. With The Haunting of Hill House, however they all spoke in plummy Brit accents. It was ponly the vastness of the landscape they were in that reminded me that the story was taking place in the U.S of A. -

I have not seem the celebrated first film based on this - The Haunting from 1963 -but I understand that this toys with a psychological expolanantion of everything - which Jackson ap;parently denied was her intent, although it does seem to be there in the story.

I think it's just of its time. Perhaps Shirley's timeless talent reveals itself best in the acclaimed, poetic and atmospheric opening paragraph. Plus, of course, every writer is aware that they're more-or-less obliged to provide readers with what they want and/or expect - particularly in regard to ghost stories - and so a kind of 'templated casting' as a set-up shouldn't surprise us.

I was moaning, the other day, about how dated Citizen Kane seemed to me, especially some of the dialogue; but the themes and style are above all my pettifogging.
 
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