protean depravity

Grayson Hale is the main actor of a murder case that shook Scotland in 2017; the 25 year old American student at the University of Edinburgh confessed to have killed Liam Stewart, one of his classmates, but refused any gullibility as he claimed the Devil, disguised as the man Donald Blackburn, or DB, made him do it. He also refused to plead not guilty due to insanity, because he does not accept he has a mental problem and his story is what it is.

In its purest form, done right, watching an experimental film is the closest you can come to dreaming another person's dreams. Which is why to watch one is, essentially, to invite another person into your head, hoping you emerge haunted. Lois Cairns, former film critic and film history teacher, lives with her husband Simon and her son Clark in Toronto – a life marked by the search for a vocation, marked by depression, insomnia, intense self-doubts and lack of faith in her abilities as a mother to her autistic child. Catching the glimpse of a woman figure in an experimental movie made by her nemesis Wrob Barney leads her to the first female filmmaker of Canada, Iris Whitcomb – a lead she gladly follows. She actualy receives a funding to research Whitcomb's dubious history in Ontario and Europe, her fanatically religious father who destroyed their family and her connection to a certain Wendish deity called Lady Midday. She can even re-hire her former assistant Safie...

Death can't be like life. Then it wouldn't be death, would it? As one of the few horror publishing houses that can look beyond their own local backyards, Valancourt did the worldwide horror community a great service by issuing Hungarian author and screenwriter Attila Veres' English debut short story collection, The Black Maybe: Liminal Stories . So, I want to give them a huge thank you to begin with. Where to start with this one? Maybe at the end, the very end. The moment I read the last page and closed the book. I was overwhelmed, appalled, fascinated and stirred inside, all in a good way, by the ten stories I had just read from an author who has the powerful talent to suck and tie in his readers immediately, no time lost. I'm saying this as a person who usually needs some time to warm up to new stories. I get attached to characters and when I go through an intense experience with them, as it is the case in a short story, I feel like it is hard to just quickly set tha...

The weather is warming up and what better story is there to read in these early days of spring than Hex , the story of a witch being awakened from her centuries long hibernation? Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt's breakthrough novel has been quite the talk of town ever since it was first published in 2013, mainly because of its USA version for which the author decided to re-locate the story to the USA instead of originally Netherlands and to re-write the ending for the American audience. Whether you think it is the ultimate witch novel and Katherine van Wyler one of the scariest monsters of modern times or you think a re-write was unnecessary and turn up your nose on the US version - I guess the whole back story is a little sensation itself that probably did good advertising for this eerie slice of small town horror and enhanced its fame as the horror novel that was too scary for Americans (just kidding!).

Spring and summer time are also awards time and it is exciting to watch the ballots of all major horror and SFF awards slowly trickling in. A couple of weeks ago the first Bram Stoker preliminary ballots and later the final lineup were announced and that lineup is, together with the Shirley Jackson lineup as well as recommendations from my network of fellow horror fans and friends, one of the major sources from which I make my tbr-list. So naturally I wanted to take a closer look at the nominees and the books who got "so close": the books that will be competing for the titles of superior achievement in bold and below them the other shortlisted books that haven't made it into the top five. In my experience these titles are almost always just as good and if you ever wonder what to read next you can without hesitation grab one of them. There are quite a few titles I have already read and reviewed here, so I'll just link those to the corresponding Protean Depravity review...

It's time for my latest reads again, yay! I felt a little weary of horror in the abiding February darkness and have been reading lots of world literature, books on nature and even one self-help book instead. I was feeling a little guilty that I neglected horror in this time but while writing these reviews I just realized that's not the case at all - luckily I have enough material for my wrap-up. That being said, here they are, I hope you enjoy the short reviews!

It is always a very strange and a very specific pleasure to read Brian Evenson's short stories - a very own blend of latent dread, existential fears, perturbed presentation of everyday life and a good portion of chuckle humor is sure to grab and not let go until you have finished reading the last page. So, I’m more than happy to have had that pleasure again when this summer his new short story collection The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell was published. Apart from the exceptional high quality of each story, the sequencing also plays an important part in making it easy to step into the dreadful world of Glassy, which starts with a striking piece of writing that instantaneously enthralls: “Leg”. This admittedly short but remarkably absurd and intriguing piece about a sentient shapeshifter leg turning into a serial killer on a spaceship, is only the gateway to a universe of uncanny encounters, environmental urgency, body horror, folk horror but also noticeably often dystopic and eve...

Until recently, I hadn’t managed to finish Laird Hunt’s dark fairy tale In the House in the Dark of the Woods , although I always meant to and always kept on recommending it. Now that I have finally crossed that title from my TBR list and although I’m left with lots and lots of question marks in my mind, I feel really satisfied finally having accomplished it.

Having finally seen The Green Knight that I longed for so much, I completed viewing pretty much all the movies in my schedule for the spring-summer season and it’s time to pick a winner… which really wasn’t easy because there were so many good ones this time!!! Just to give a little reminder, check here to see my complete lineup. There are a couple of movies that I didn’t get to watch this past season, but I’m sure I’ll catch up. Also, I watched a few movies outside of my pretend-festival and I ended up loving and here they are: In the Earth ; The Empty Man and Come True . From my initial lineup, an unholy s-trilogy stood out and made the top 3: Spiral , Son and Sator . And the indisputable winner of my Stay-At-Home Film Festival Spring-Summer is, the super original folk horror/psychological horror SATOR!!!

Time for new reads, enjoy! Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo Children of Chicago borrows from the Grimm tale "Pied Piper" or "Der Rattenfänger von Hameln" to twist and bend into the horrific teenager killings taking place i n Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood , signed with the graffiti "Pay the Piper". Detective Lauren Medina who is in charge of the case has many demons of her own and one of them just might have to do with what happened at Humboldt Park. Following her through the investigations, slowly unfolding the mysteries of that unfortunate night, doubts will unfold if she really is the right person to treat this case. Pelayo's crime/mystery/horror mash-up should be a real treat for especially German horror readers because it doesn't only borrow its main storyline from Pied Piper, there are also tons and tons of talk about fairy tales in general, and the Grimm brothers in special, and how terrifying they actually are! Incidentally, th...

To read my full review of Chains please click here (or just take a look at previous post...) Inci: Hello M.! Let me start by congratulating to what I understand is your debut novel, I really enjoyed reading it! Are there any other writing projects you have been involved in and where can we find them? M. Todd: First of all, thank you so much your review of my first and only novel Chains . Your review is dead-on with my own feelings. I am glad you enjoyed the story and found the characters – especially the Kludde/Kledde – engaging. This is my only published project, although I am a lifelong reader, and have enjoyed writing, mostly poetry, my entire life.

Chains is by far one of the most interesting books I have read this year: its structure, its pacing and above all, its strangely compelling antagonist are just a breath of fresh air in often formulaic horror fiction. To be honest I initially had my doubts I would like it, mainly because I've really had it with books who move between two timelines present and past. Having now finished the book, I realize it was very necessary for Chains to do so and in hindsight I'm glad it did, because I ended up enjoying the "past" parts more than the storyline and the characters in present. And to be fair, M. Todd does not follow the trend of alternating the two timelines, but brings in the past in due places as an explanation. But, first things first, let's start from the beginning with the plot. It doesn't matter what you believe. Hell believes in you. Chains is a folk horror book that borrows folkloric elements from Dutch mythology; we follow a Canadian family with Dut...