New Arrival: The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters

The coming of age novel is a timeless trope because it is a guaranteed universal experience. Everyone has had that experience where they realize that the adult world is far different and far more complicated than that of a child. This transition often includes a loss of innocence, but in a horror coming of age tale, that loss of innocence is practically guaranteed, once the protagonist realizes that there are many things out there in the adult world with very sharp teeth. Heather, the protagonist in Damien Angelica Walter’s The Dead Girls Club, must deal with a loss of innocence that haunts her well into adulthood.

The story has two narratives. The first has Heather at 12, who enjoys hanging out with her friends, especially her best friend Becca, about serial killers and the Red Lady, a ghost story that develops an unlife of its own. The other has Heather as a child psychologist who receives a heart-shaped pendant in the mail that once belonged to Becca before she died. What follows is a descent into paranoia for Heather as she realizes someone knows of her involvement in Becca’s death and a mystery as to whether or not she is being haunted by the Red Lady. By looking at Heather’s past and her friendship with the members of the Dead Girls Club, readers are pulled along as the book teases us with what happened to Becca, along with a breakneck conclusion that tantalizingly leaves the reality of the Red Lady. Is she still fiction or is she much more?

This ambiguity of supernatural forces, a prime example of this being Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts, may confuse some readers but it ultimately adds to the story’s power. A cold spot in a house can be explained away by drafts and the creaking in an old house could just be the structure settling, but when the protagonist hears a house groan in almost human tones or feels a chill where there are no windows, their mind starts to race as they search for an explanation. When none is satisfactory, the only options left are for the protagonist to feed the ghost by giving it a reality in his or her head or to accept the ambiguity. Tremblay and Walters understand that supernatural malevolence, whether in a house or a spooky story, is given power by the people who experience it and retell it.

Screen to Scream: Wounds

Information is readily available at our fingertips anytime we want. With my trusty phone, I can find out everything from what Stephen King’s mother’s name (which is Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. Thanks, Wikipedia) is to how to change a fuse in a car (thanks, Youtube). That unparalleled access to knowledge was bound to run into the notion of forbidden knowledge that has rendered many Lovecraft protagonists mad. In universes where forbidden texts or spoken spells can open portals and summon demons, there was bound to be someone in that universe who would upload this information on their blog.  How long can secret, forbidden knowledge stay secret when any and all information is just a link away? Nathan Ballingrud’s short story “The Visible Filth” has explored this idea, and the movie based on the story, Wounds, remains surprisingly faithful to the story’s moral about how curiosity not only kills but can drive you insane.

Will is a good guy, a bartender coasting through life. His bartending job and his girlfriend Carrie’s university schedule make sure he has plenty of free time to drink with his friend Alicia, who he harmlessly flirts with (one can debate whether flirting can ever be done harmlessly, particularly after reading this story). All seems well until he discovers a cell phone left by some very young-looking bar patrons. On that phone are images that not only disturb Will but fundamentally alter how he views the universe and his place in it. Much like someone finding a sore in their mouth and who constantly pokes at it with their tongue, the people in this story who come across this phone are constantly drawn back to it and its promise of a peek behind the veil of reality. Will doesn’t do the smart thing: give the phone to the Police, chuck it in the garbage, or set the phone and the room it’s in on fire. He lets the secrets the phone contains slowly erode his relationship and his relatively carefree existence until he not only discovers his life to be empty but goes to some otherworldly measures to fill that void.

The movie surprisingly follows the general plot of the story, something that doesn’t happen often in movie adaptations. It was fairly refreshing to see this faithful an adaption, almost like watching an audiobook coming to life. Armie Hammer portrays Will as older but not necessarily wiser, someone who’s at an age where many other have figured out their place in life. Dakota Johnson displays more range than she typically does in the Fifty Shades movies, going from loving to exasperated to suspicious to disturbed. The director also takes advantage of the visual medium by showcasing snippets of terrifying images as well as the use of cockroaches, which in this narrative, signals the presence of the supernatural as well as the steady decay of the character’s relative safety and security in the real world. The movie serves, all in all, as a great companion piece to the story, meaning that the book can serve as a gateway for Wounds: Six Stories from the Borders of Hell, not only for “The Visible Filth,” but also the many great stories in the collection.

Have You Read This? Full Throttle by Joe Hill

It is a story trope that the son must, if not outdo the parent, at least find their voice and identity outside of the parent’s influence. This is possibly because, like many tropes, it’s something both parents and children experience is subtle and not-so-subtle ways every day. Children can rebel to escape the parent’s shadow or simply accept that parental influences are forever stamped on their consciousness and attitudes. Some manage to do both, like Joe Hillstrom King, who writes under the pseudonym Joe Hill and is the son of horror icon Stephen King. Hill’s newest collection Full Throttle features some stories that demonstrate his dad’s influence while also reveling in Hill’s own unique voice.

The collection features many stories that are found in other anthologies, as well as two collaborations with Stephen King. The first is “Throttle,” an homage to Richard Matheson’s novella “Duel” that has a biker gang tangle with a truck driver who uses his massive vehicle both to pursue and to destroy. The second is “In the Tall Grass,” already a movie from Netflix, this is a deliciously disturbing tale of two young people isolated and hunted within a seemingly benign field of grass. However, there are also tales that show Hill as a distinct writer that has exceeded his father in his detailing the fantastic clashing with the familiar. “Mums” showcases a militia family that holds some dark family secrets, secrets which cannot stay buried. “All I Care about Is You” is a heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of friendship in a bleak future where friendship only costs a few tokens. “By the Silver Waters of Lake Champlain” showcases childhood friendship, and the fragility of life, as two kids discover a dead dinosaur in their lake. Hill has expanded beyond King’s own talent for down-to-earth characterization in this new era of smartphones and not-quite-nuclear families while also showing a genuine love of the past, including his father’s work, ultimately creating his own unique voice that finds horror not just in nuclear war or wolf men but by how we as human beings foster connections that can go from solid to tenuous in the space of seconds.

Stephen King got me interested in horror, but Joe Hill is one writer that always keeps me coming back. The lessons from both father and son are that horror doesn’t have to be soaked in blood or steeped in anger. The ultimate lesson of horror, as taught by King and Hill, is that there is joy in life that can be stolen away, so enjoy the good things, and that for me includes books by Joe Hill. This means I will be disposed to give many Joe Hill books, and his much fresher voice, good reviews, so be warned.