Creatures of the Night: Vicious Vampire Tales

 Immerse yourself in a world of terror and darkness with three vampire horror novellas.

“Return of the Blood-Feeders” by Simon Clark

Viking vampires, and their latest vicious recruits, swarm through tunnels beneath the present-day town of Leppington. The Norse gods have created a Vampyrrhic army to wreak vengeance on people that turned their backs on Odin. Just two fragile humans stand in their way—a down-at-heel drifter who is struggling to recover from a severe head injury, and a dreamer with a drink problem. Together, they must become extraordinary. Together, they must defeat something that is much, much worse than vampires.

‘Return of the Blood-Feeders’ is set in the world of Simon’s Vampyrrhic series of novels.

“Perspective” by Kevin J. Kennedy-

This is a story of my re-awakening, and vampires. A couple's lives are thrown into turmoil when a body is dumped at their door. The vampires are catapulted into a blood-drenched journey to the gates of hell. Fortunately, they have some werewolf friends who want to come along for the ride.

“Beneath Still Waters” by Gord Rollo On May 16, 2020, disaster struck the small Canadian mining town of Beckley, Nova Scotia. An explosion deep in Shaft 3 unleashed a massive torrent of water from an underground stream, quickly flooding the lower levels and dooming the workers below. Sixty-five people lost their lives that night, the tragedy one of the worst mining disasters in the province’s history. The Red Spruce Gypsum Mine would never reopen.

The town tried to turn the heartbreak into something positive, converting the flooded quarry into a natural swimming hole for people to cool off in during the hot summer months. But something has awakened from within the abandoned mine shafts and staked its territory in the deepest part of the lake. Something ancient. Something savage. Something hungry…

If you're a fan of extreme horror books, gothic suspense, and supernatural terror, this collection is your gateway to fear. Dive into these suspenseful gothic horror novellas and discover why this horror anthology is a must-read for lovers of vampire fiction.

Creatures of the Night contains three bloodthirsty novellas sure to satisfy the cravings of any fan of vampires who do not glitter and are most definitely not looking for love.

In Return of the Blood-Feeders a man who has suffered a traumatic brain injury when vampires stole the woman he loves, will risk his life to save her. Traveling deep underground through claustrophobic tunnels won't be the scariest part of this mission. This was a pulse-pounding story with lots of gory action.

Perspective- When a vampire couple befriends a werewolf couple, demons are no match for them. 

Last but not least, my favorite novella was Beneath Still Waters.

At first I had no idea what this deadly creature even was. Who ever heard of a vampire that lives in a lake? How terrifying! This is a story of Indigenous folklore. This man like creature is more horrifying than a vampire. It's not just drinking the blood of its victims, it's eating their souls. 

These novellas are perfect for anyone looking for unique vampire tales.

My thanks to Crystal Lake Publishing.

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The Dead Thing - Movie Review

Yellow Veil Pictures is excited to return to the Fantasia International Film Festival for the world premiere of Elric Kane's debut solo feature, the obsessive and lust-driven thriller The Dead Thing. The Dead Thing will premiere July 26th as part of the 2024 edition of Fantasia with an encore on July 28.

The Dead Thing is directed by Elric Kane (host of the Pure Cinema podcast and Fangoria's Colors of the Dark podcast) from a script he co-wrote with Webb Wilcoxen. The film is produced by Matt Mercer (Contracted, Bliss) and Monte Yazzie, with Colors of the Dark co-host Rebekah McKendry (Glorious) serving as executive producer. Yellow Veil Pictures is handling worldwide sales.

The Dead Thing stars Blu Hunt ("Sherlock & Daughter", The New Mutants), Ben Smith-Petersen (Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), John Karna ("Scream" the television series, Lady Bird) and Katherine Hughes (Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, "Tell Me Lies").

Of his debut solo feature, Kane shared, "The Dead Thing is a dark exploration of modern love and the technology used to find it. Through one woman's plunge into modern dating, we are able to tell both a scary ghost story, an intimate love story, and examine the issues we face when tethered to our phones." 

Loneliness, desperation, and the dangers of technology are themes featured heavily in The Dead Thing. While I sometimes grew bored with scenes of Alex sitting around the sunlamp doing nothing, the ending made it worth the wait. 

Blu Hunt gives a believable performance as Alex, a woman who is disengaged from life and looking for meaningful connections on her phone instead of in the world around her.

She spends her time working at her boring job, scrolling through men on a dating app, and hooking up with a constant parade of one night stands, never finding anyone worth a second date.

That is until she meets Kyle. The pair hit it off and she looks forward to seeing him again. Except he ghosts her, Pun intended. Unwilling to just forget him, her obsession leads to dark consequences. Once she finds him, will he ever let her go?

"Tell me that you need me!"

This was a supernatural love story with shades of The Invisible Man and reminiscent of Fatal Attraction, in that Kyle will not be ignored! 

If you're in the mood for something crazy, sexy, suspenseful and twisty this is one to watch.

I gave this 7 out of 10 stars on IMDB

My thanks to Yellow Veil Pictures.

 

The Etiquette of Booby Traps by John Boden

 A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm, or surprise a human or other animal, triggered by the presence or actions of the victim.

Here they are stories; small, sturdy and surprising in their levels of camouflage and damage.

-A grieving man grapples with a double whammy of loss by fishing and finds that sometimes you catch more than you expect, if you use the right bait.

-The world splinters in many different ways and scenes in a kaleidoscopic series of prose snapshots

-The young product of a lifetime of abuse grows to find her true course and embrace the trail of smoke it leaves.

-A small coastal village finds something unusual washed upon their shore.

-An abandoned amusement park has strange truths to share with a trio of teenagers.

-A woman mentally spars with the creature that haunts her property.

-Loneliness leads to wanting--and wanting has a voracious appetite, so discovers an introverted fellow in a far from typical morning at the office.

The stories are short and scattered in theme and setting but mind where you step, for they have sharp edges and hair triggers and a few of them bite hard.

The raw emotions and wretched circumstances in these stories did not make for a restful sleep. 

My favorites, or more accurately the ones that hurt the most and kept me awake, were at the beginning and end of the book. The first story, Come Tomorrow and the last story, Tinsel are both heavy with grief. In the former, a man mourns the death of a life cut too short. In the latter, the pain is not negated by having had more time. Another favorite, if that is the right word to use in this case, was Halfway Wrong Don't Make it Alright, which was a story full of abuse, neglect, revenge, and retribution.

Slightly less painful, but no less powerful stories that I can't shake off involve a monstrous tax collector, fish swimming through the air, and a simple glass of water.

The introduction warns that this book is unsafe, but I plowed full steam ahead and devoured it before bedtime. I have to agree. This is a book that will stick with you, and stick to you.

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications.

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Schlock! Horror!

 

AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR INSPIRED BY 1980'S SCHLOCK!

An anthology of short stories based upon/inspired by and in loving homage to all of those great gorefest movies and books of the 1980's (not necessarily based in that era, although some do ride that wave of nostalgia!), the golden age when horror well and truly came kicking, screaming and spraying blood, gore & body parts out from the shadows...

It was the decade that brought us everything in the cinema and on VHS from the Italian 'nasties' to Elm Street, The Lost Boys, Hellraiser, The Thing, Day of the Dead, Reanimator, Return of the Living Dead, My Bloody Valentine, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Cannibal Holocaust….and superlative directors such as David Cronenburg, John Waters, Roger Corman and - of course - Clive Barker.

All of this was, naturally, reflected in the books we devoured - Guy N Smith, Clive Barker's Books of Blood, James Herbert, Jack Ketchum, Gary Brandner and Richard Laymon, to name but a mere handfiul.

This exemplrary 80's themed/inspired tales of terror has been adjudicated and compiled by one Mr Bret McCormick, himself a writer, producer and director of many a schlock classic, including Bio-Tech Warrior, Time Tracers, The Abomination, Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants and the inimitable Repligator.

So, you get the picture - within this weighty tome, we have the darkest splatter, most horrific gruesomeness and stomach-churning detail, all wrapped up in a gripping stories, played out by the strongest of characters - all of which will keep even the hardiest of souls wide awake and trembling in the wee hours.

Sometimes cheesy, always gory, 80s horror holds a special place in my dark little heart. The stories in this anthology pay homage to the books and movies of those glorious days.

There is a bit of Sci-Fi thrown in the mix when a nerd gets a chance to live out his dreams in a computer-generated world, but of course, it soon turns nightmarish.

There is a classic horror feel in a story about a student who attends a free movie screening in exchange for providing feedback, in a creepy theater that he never should have entered.

Witches, ghosts, curses, mutants and even a chainsaw massacre provide hours of shock, disgust, and chills.

If you like your horror on the campy, humorous, and graphic side this is for you.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to HellBound Books

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Featuring stories from:

Todd Sullivan, Timothy C Hobbs, Mark Thomas, Andrew Post, James B. Pepe, Thomas Vaughn, Edward Karpp, Jaap Boekestein, Lisa Alfano, L.C.Holt, John Adam Gosham, Brandon Cracraft, M. Earl Smith, Sarah Cannavo, James Gardner, Bret McCormick, and James H Longmore.

Still, Dark Places by Christina Graves

 

The Seven Sisters of Still Water. Missing but not forgotten. Memorialized in graveyard stone...

Nora Gray, true crime podcast host, is being called back to her hometown over a decade later by a desperate mother. Another daughter, gone. And Nora knows more than anyone realizes, more than even she remembers.

They call it Skull House, this home back in the woods, rundown, abandoned. And for as long as Nora can recall, the local kids have dared each other to climb the stairs to the top, to brave the ghost of Helaena Barker, who they say waits in the attic behind the door...

But Skull House hides more than tales of ghosts, and it clings tightly to its secrets. Nora is convinced it also holds the missing clues to the Seven Sisters' disappearances and why Nora herself woke up in a field near the house, covered in blood, all those years ago.

While Nora investigates the missing girls, will she be able to trust anyone around her? Will she even be able to trust herself?

Years ago, Nora was found wandering dazed and covered in blood. Her sister was never seen again. Whatever she witnessed was so horrific, her traumatized mind has blocked it from her memory.

Now as a grown woman, she has distanced herself from her past, using a different name and hosting a true crime podcast. During the call-in portion of her show, she is shocked to hear a woman call her by her real name. A woman from her hometown has tracked her down to tell her that her daughter has gone missing just like Nora's sister and the other girls from long ago. 

Reluctantly, Nora agrees to meet with this woman and try to uncover what the police couldn't or wouldn't. Returning to her hometown to solve this mystery may be the key to solving her own.

Told on two timelines from multiple points of view this twisty, emotional, psychological horror was loaded with suspense and surprises. The present-day investigation part moved a little slow for my taste. I found the storyline of the past more compelling than the current day. The ultimate connection between past and present was cleverly written. 

My thanks to Horrorsmith Publishing.

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Down Into The Sea by Dan Franklin

 Fourteen-year-old Eric Ross is struggling. His father is in prison for murder. His mother has slipped into addiction. Even if he can survive the bullying and the sudden run of disappearances, he has little hope for a future outside of the sleepy Massachusetts fishing town he calls home.

But there is something far more important on his mind.

He found her down beneath the local entertainment pier, and she seems just about perfect. Except for the teeth. But she doesn’t want to simply be a part of his world. She wants more…

From the author of These Things Linger and The Eater of Gods, Down Into the Sea is a vicious twist on coming-of-age horror, on the unyielding, transformative power of desire, and the dangers of standing in its path.

The sins of the father are visited upon Fourteen-year-old Eric Ross. He has had his life upended by events beyond his control. There was a time that he had a happy home life. There was a time when he had friends, and hopes, and dreams. Now he knows only hunger and neglect, with his father in prison and his mother unable to cope, drowning her depression in pills and alcohol. 

He spends most of his energy avoiding bullies, missing his father, and hanging out at the pier. That is where he sees her, a strange looking woman that at first appears to be a corpse in the water. This unusual pair become ill-fated friends.

In between the missing people and occasional carnage, I forgot this was a horror story because fear is only one of many emotions this powerful novella evokes. I could feel Eric's loneliness and his love for his parents. I could feel his mother's shame at being unable to take better care of him. Then there was my own apprehension over his unlikely friendship with this woman under the pier. 

If you're looking for a read that will leave you alternately terrified and heartbroken this is it. I have an emotional hangover from my splash Down Into The Sea.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to the author and Cemetery Dance Publications.

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BLOODY HELL: An Anthology of UK Indie Horror Edited by Sarah Jules

 

The United Kingdom is known for its breath-taking beauty, but even the most idyllic of places can harbour dark secrets. Experience twenty-seven brand new horror stories from British indie authors, each set in a unique location throughout the British Isles. Grab a cup of tea, a scone, and remember… they’re only stories.

This fully illustrated anthology is brought to you by indie horror author Sarah Jules, and illustrator Rachael Rose, and features veteran, and debut, British indie horror authors,

"Twenty-seven stories from some of the best the UK has to offer. In this anthology, you’ll find a little something of creepy ghosts, mythical monsters, and deadly killers, all guaranteed to send a shiver up your spine. Grab yourself a cuppa, make yourself comfortable, and check your doors are locked… You might regret it otherwise.” - Justin Boote, author of Soul Searchers.

Vengeful ghosts, Folk horror, strange creatures, and psycho killers leaped from the pages and pulled me into the tales. I was a willing victim, happily spellbound from start to finish. 

Just a few of my favorites were Hungry Is The Bodach by Stuart Knott in which a woman has an ulterior motive for getting her lunkheaded husband up to the family cabin.

The Syn-Eater of Lancaster by MJ Mars is about a sin eater who has finally found a way to turn a good-sized profit for his work but at a terrible cost.

To Be A Man Of Man by J C Michael A new love is not all it's cracked up to be in this twisty surprising tale.

The God Botherers by Ashley Little follows two men on their way to do the Lord's work or at least their interpretation of it.

In Wrong Lane by Stephen Barnard a driver sets out to teach others the consequences of aggressive driving but ends up learning their own lesson.

Pergyl by C S Jones A family arrives at a cabin in the midst of a terrible storm, but there is more to fear than the weather.

Sand by David Watkins is a story worth remembering any time you're on the beach. Especially a lovely secluded beach that you seem to have all to yourself.

The Joke by Tom Carter left me stunned! I don't even know what to say about this one without giving anything away. I'm just going to say it was brilliant.

Brompton Road by Elizabeth Brown is where a content creator sets out to film one of those creepy abandoned place videos but it doesn't go as planned.

I could go on but at this point, I'd be listing the whole table of contents if I named every story that I enjoyed.

This is a huge collection of 27 stories that were much darker than expected and left me saying Bloody Hell that was a good book!

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Authors include:

Stephen Barnard

Marie Sinadjan

Mark MJ Green

Benjamin Langley

Brad Thomas

Elijah Frost

Lee Allen

William Long

Bethany Russo

David K Slater

Dr Stuart Knott

Elizabeth J Brown

Jessica Huntley

MJ Mars

M.L. Rayner

Ashley Lister

Jim Ody

Alexandra Nisneru

EC Samuels

Philip Alexander Baker

Tom Carter

CS Jones

JC Michael

Tim Stephens

David Watkins

And, a bonus Irish story from Leigh Kenny.

The Taste of Tiny Bones by Vincent Heselwood

 

No one knows where he came from...He's what lingers in the shadows behind you when you turn off the lights and race up the stairs...The darkness beneath the bed that keeps your feet tucked tightly under the covers...The Bogeyman...

But Evie "Creepy" Morenson has unknowingly found a way to make him something more than what he was, something much more vicious, something much more hungry...

A simple blog post causes new nightmares to start, new fears that give him new life, and now, something is very, very wrong.

She's lost control of the monster she created, and children are starting to die.

Will she and Detective Ezra Dean find a way to stop him before he goes viral?

You thought you were afraid of the Boogeyman before...Just wait...

Alfie Turner is the first but he will not be the last that the Tat O' Rag Man visits in the dark of night. An insidious presence made of fear and belief that devours its victims as they shriek in terror has come to life.

"What do you want?" he whispered. "To eat you," came the reply.

It spreads like a virus. To see it is to believe in it and to become its target. It's up to one woman, who has lived in fear most of her life to find the strength to stop it. I loved Evie "Creepy" Morenson and her love for books and the written word in general. She reminded me a bit of Stephen King's Holly in her mannerisms and her hyper focused ability to work on a problem.

If you were ever afraid of the dark as a child, if you ever had an unkind babysitter who told you the boogeyman would get you, or a sibling who teased you that something was in the closet, be prepared for those forgotten childhood fears to come roaring back.

The author succeeds in turning the unbelievable into the possible.

My thanks to Horrorsmith Publishing.

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Behind by Bentley Little

 When he was a little boy, there was a house behind Alex Lowry's house. Except he was the only one who could see it. Only he could hear the woman singing from within.

Decades later, after the pandemic costs Alex his corporate job, he picks up work delivering specialty items to homebound clientele and, against all odds, he realizes he enjoys his new life. His world is simpler. Quieter. Until he once more hears the tuneless, wordless song of the woman from the house behind. Until the cracks in the façade of his simple, quiet life begin to yawn, and a past he thought he had outrun begins to gain on him.

Until he finds himself slipping into the world behind.

Alex is a happily married man who tries not to think much about the past. He has never told anyone what he saw as a child, not even his wife Jennifer. He has given her the impression that he had a normal childhood. He may even have convinced himself that it's true. He never talks about the church, and only says that his parents passed away when he was young.

When Alex loses his job due to the pandemic, Jennifer thinks her father or his connections could be of some help. He's never gotten along well with his Father-in-law but complies with Jennifer's request to visit her parents. It is on this visit that the past catches up to him. There it stands. A house behind his in-laws' house. A house that should not be there in their suddenly too-big backyard. A house that's just a little bit wrong, with doors in the wrong place and not enough windows. The house where "she awaits." 

I don't want to say anything else about the plot and spoil it for you. I will just say that if you have read Bentley Little before you know that his book titles that begin with "The" as in The Store, The Mailman, The Resort, etc tend to follow his usual formula. While those without, such as Dispatch, His Father's Son, Gloria, etc. tend to stray from that usual formula. Behind was not just my most anticipated read of the year, it is now among my favorites of all his books. I savored it slowly over the course of a week because I didn't want it to end.

Behind is delightfully dark and disturbing. The pervasive atmosphere of "wrongness" grew heavier with every page I turned. It takes a lot to scare me but this succeeded in appearing my nightmares. 

My thanks to Dan Franklin and Cemetery Dance Publications.

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