by leerozelle | Jan 28, 2024 | horror short stories, southern fiction, southern gothic, the gothic, the weird
THE STORY: “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” Ever read Lovecraft’s “The Hound”? The story “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” by Poppy Z. Brite is homage and perfection of this weird tale about a pair of foppish ghouls who dig up a strange fetish and pay...
by leerozelle | Dec 24, 2023 | horror short stories, southern fiction
In K. Trap Jones’ “One Dirt Road,” rural folklore becomes splatterpunk endgame in a tale about childhood fear and human meat grinders. A lawyer revisits a scary backroad to find gruesome terrors. No two ways about it, this is DOUBLE BARREL...
by leerozelle | Nov 27, 2023 | ghost stories, southern fiction, southern gothic
Charles W. Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine” sets the Uncle Remus stereotype on its ear with tales of plantation transmogrification, haunting, and body horror. Uncle Julius tells of Henry, a slave, who transforms into a plant-human hybrid. Grotesque and...
by leerozelle | Nov 5, 2023 | southern fiction, southern gothic
Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” stretches disability and backwoods malevolence to the breaking point with dark humor and offhand pity. A one-armed man exploits a mentally disabled girl to get an old car. Bitter, brilliant Southern...
by leerozelle | Sep 17, 2023 | ghost stories, horror short stories, southern fiction, the weird, weird fiction
Robert E. Howard’s weird tale “Pigeons From Hell” is an inventive, schlocky, and racially provocative Southern Gothic about two dudes terrorized by a voodoo-mind-control-monster lady killing machine called a ZUVEMBIE. Adapted for a twisted and bizarre episode of Boris...
by leerozelle | Aug 12, 2023 | horror short stories, southern fiction
THE STORY: Robert McCammon’s “Nightcrawlers” uses gothic conventions like materialization to examine the Vietnam experience. The customers at Big Bob’s Diner will never truly understand Price because they only experience war as media...
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