by leerozelle | Mar 17, 2024 | cosmic horror, the gothic, the weird, weird fiction
H.P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model” turns dark arts into shock art in this story that inverts ideas found in Poe’s “The Oval Portrait” and Wilde’s DORIAN GRAY. An outcast painter creates monsters in his gallery that are...
by leerozelle | Feb 18, 2024 | horror short stories, the weird, weird fiction
In Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s “Hell Screen,” a sociopathic painter creates an all-too-real artwork for his psychopathic Lord. Takes Poe’s “The Oval Portrait,” Wilde’s DORIAN GRAY, and Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model” in diabolical new...
by leerozelle | Feb 11, 2024 | horror short stories, the weird, weird fiction
With deft and bitter genius, Shirley Jackson’s “The Summer People” teases layers of privilege from an unwitting wealthy couple. When the snobby Allisons stay at the lake house longer than expected, relations with the rural folk get...
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 | Jan 14, 2024 | ghost stories, horror short stories, the gothic, the weird
Robert Westall’s “The Ugly House” has the eerie quality of M.R. James but with working-class panache. A toady locks horns with a warlock over a historical eyesore in a story packed with creepy taxidermy, phantom dogs, rat grease, and ghosts. New edition available from...
by leerozelle | Jan 7, 2024 | ghost stories, horror short stories, the gothic, the weird
P. Djèlí Clark’s “Hide and Seek” is a masterwork that goes for the jugular with witch lore, a mazelike mansion, and scary pumpkins while also giving literary audiences a poignant rendering of addiction and childhood trauma. Fantastic...
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