You hold in your hands stories of horror, mayhem, and the macabre. Springer Mountain Press presents the Summer Slasher Horror Anthology, which offers sixteen frightening stories from some of the freshest voices in horror writing. You'll find unspeakable evil lurking deep within a mineshaft, a television broadcasting your worst nightmares, a knife-wielding killer stalking a summer camp, and many more terrifying tales. Read at your own risk, for what you'll find on these pages is sure to haunt you long after summertime is over.
For fans of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, American Horror Story and The Walking Dead comes a powerhouse anthology featuring some of the best thriller and horror writers in YA Stefan Bachmann, Leigh Bardugo, Kendare Blake, A. G. Howard, Jay Kristoff, Marie Lu, Jonathan Maberry, Danielle Paige, Carrie Ryan, Megan Shepherd, Nova Ren Suma, McCormick Templeman, April Genevieve Tucholke, Cat Winters A host of the sharpest young adult authors come together in this collection of terrifying tales and psychological thrillers. Each author draws from a mix of literature, film, television, and music to create something new and fresh and unsettling. Clever readers will love teasing out the references and can satisfy their curiosity at the end of each tale, where the inspiration is revealed. There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From blood horror, to the supernatural, to unsettling, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for anyone looking for an absolute thrill.
John Carpenter's Halloween, released on October 25, 1978, marked the beginning of the horror film's most colorful, controversial, and successful offshoot--the slasher film. Loved by fans and reviled by critics for its iconic psychopaths, gory special effects, brainless teenagers in peril, and more than a bit of soft-core sex, the slasher film secured its legacy as a cultural phenomenon and continues to be popular today. This work traces the evolution of the slasher film from 1978 when it was a fledgling genre, through the early 1980s when it was one of the most profitable and prolific genres in Hollywood, on to its decline in popularity around 1986. An introduction provides a brief history of the Grand Guignol, the pre-cinema forerunner of the slasher film, films such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and cinematic trends that gave rise to the slasher film. Also explained are the slasher film's characteristics, conventions, and cinematic devices, such as the "final girl," the omnipotent killer, the relationship between sex and death, the significant date or setting, and the point-of-view of the killer. The chapters that follow are devoted to the years 1978 through 1986 and analyze significant films from each year. The Toolbox Murders, When a Stranger Calls, the Friday the 13th movies, My Bloody Valentine, The Slumber Party Massacre, Psycho II, and April Fool's Day are among those analyzed. The late 90s resurrection of slasher films, as seen in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, is also explored, as well as the future direction of slasher films.
The cult thriller novel is back in this all new edition which features the original text as it was meant to be published! Dubbed one of "The Most Intense Horror Novels" ever written by many horror review sites, The Summer I Died is the first book in the Roger Huntington saga and soon to be a major motion picture. When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they're going to have a good time. A summer full of beer, comic books, movies, laughs, and maybe even girls. The sun is high and the sky is clear as Roger and Tooth set out to shoot beer cans at Bobcat Mountain. Just two friends catching up on lost time, two friends thinking about their futures . . . two friends suddenly thrust into the middle of a nightmare. Forced to fight for their lives against a sadistic killer with an arsenal of razor sharp blades and a hungry dog by his side. If they are to survive, they must decide: are heroes born, or are they made? Or is something more powerful happening to them? And more importantly, how do you survive when all roads lead to death? "A tense, bloody ride!" - Brian Keene, author of The Rising "If you want to freak yourself out on your next camping trip, you can't really do any better than The Summer I Died." - BloodyDisgusting.com
An engrossing A-Z of over 60 gory years of slasher and splatter movies, from Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later to Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters. Here you will find the low-down on over 250 movies with entries from 23 different countries. The index, which includes every movie mentioned in the A-Z and accompanying notes, runs to 540 movies. The book includes the list of video nasties which the UK government attempted to ban.
From Natalie D. Richards, the New York Times bestselling author of teen suspense books, comes a pulse-pounding thriller about a group of teenagers being hunted through the woods, perfect for fans of Natasha Preston and Karen McManus. While on a mandatory hike in the woods, a flash flood cuts off Sera and three classmates from their group with no way to call for help. But they're not as alone as they thought... Someone is stalking them through the woods—drugging them, stealing their supplies, and inking words onto their skin. Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Are they labels? A warning? As their hunter grows bolder, Sera must find the truth before the killer finds them. The perfect pick for buyers looking for: Mystery books for teens Scary books for teens Edge-of-your-seat reads Praise for Natalie D. Richards: "As addictive as it is unpredictable. Natalie will keep you second guessing until the nail-biting end."—NATASHA PRESTON, New York Times bestselling author of The Cabin on My Secret to Tell "Brimming with suspense and intrigue."—MEGAN MIRANDA, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls on My Secret to Tell Also by Natalie D. Richards: Five Total Strangers Six Months Later Gone Too Far One Was Lost We All Fall Down What You Hide
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest chilling novel that “will give you nightmares. The good kind, of course” (BuzzFeed) from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones. “Some girls just don’t know how to die…” Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange. Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life. Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold. Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
Who better to repel a body-snatching alien invasion than a group of teenage horror nerds? Billy and Tom are best friends, but each knows that at the end of the school year they'll be moving in different directions. But why not go out with a bang and throw one last video night? They can invite some girls over, order a pizza, then maybe try and fight the alien infection that's taken hold over their suburban town. It's The Breakfast Club meets The Night of the Creeps in this slime-drenched '80s horror romp. "Hit that first chapter. It'll hook you, and the next time you look up, you'll have swallowed the book. It'll be nesting inside you like a seed, like an egg, like an invasion." -Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels "The momentum keeps building. The stakes keep escalating. The monsters just keep getting worse and worse, the catastrophic mayhem more juicy and hopeless. Best of all, the writing moves like a greased torpedo, compulsively readable as it rockets through your brain." -Fangoria "If you put together the gore, action, monsters, and sense of excitement that made '80s horror movies so great, you'll only have about half of what makes Video Night a must-read tome for horror fans." -Horrortalk
A novel by the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE TURTLE BOY. On a scorching hot summer day in Elkwood, Alabama, Claire Lambert staggers naked, wounded, and half-blind away from the scene of an atrocity. She is the sole survivor of a nightmare that claimed her friends, and even as she prays for rescue, the killers -- a family of cannibalistic lunatics -- are closing in. A soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder returns from Iraq to the news that his brother is among the murdered in Elkwood. In snowbound Detroit, a waitress trapped in an abusive relationship gets an unexpected visit that will lead to bloodshed and send her back on the road to a past she has spent years trying to outrun. And Claire, the only survivor of the Elkwood Massacre, haunted by her dead friends, dreams of vengeance... a dream which will be realized as grief and rage turn good people into cold-blooded murderers and force alliances among strangers. It's time to return to Elkwood. In the spirit of such iconic horror classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance, Kin begins at the end and studies the possible aftermath for the survivors of such traumas upon their return to the real world -- the guilt, the grief, the thirst for revenge -- and sets them on an unthinkable journey... back into the heart of darkness.
