Liam's Halloween Spook-tacular

Our newest Bookstore Hero, Liam, is a self-diagnosed horror fanatic, with a love for both books and films. An avid reader, he’s also set himself the challenge of watching a film every night, reviewing each one on Letterboxd. Who better, then, to pair some brilliant horror reads with their big-screen counterparts? Enjoy Liam’s picks!

It’s that time of year again folks! The nights are starting to get a bit colder, and the dark a bit more spooky, so to assist you in this horrifying October season, I've developed a readers (and watchers) manual for the everyman. Stay safe out there, and remember - treat, don't trick!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark / Are you afraid of the Dark?

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”, is an incredibly underrated children's horror anthology based upon American mythos. Think “Goosebumps” but a bit more evolved and tapped into its horror themes. For the halloween season, and outside of it, I feel it's the perfect jumping point for kids above seven into horror and the spooky season. 

One of its biggest selling points in my opinion is the grotesquely iconic drawings utilised as the prefaces for each chapter. Stephen Gammells illustrations acted as the soundtrack for my nightmares the majority of my childhood, especially his work for “The Thing”, terrifying stuff.

As a match-pair, I decided it would be more intuitive to break my usual rule, and connect it to a show as opposed to a movie, due to its anthology format. Therefore, I came up with… “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” - mind you absolutely no relation to the book, just a weirdly coincidental subject matter and name. “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” was a canadian produced kids show, aimed to take “Goosebumps” metaphorical crown with its more grisly subject matters, and canadian charm. In all honesty they aren't really much different - I'd just consider “Are You Afraid of the Dark”, less goofy, more spooky. If I had any jumping-point recommendations, It’d probably be “The Tale of the Dream Girl”, and “The Tale of the Midnight Madness”. No spoilers, just be wary, very creepy stuff.

All together I’d say this was a pretty formative novel in my love for all things creepy, and therefore my recommendation comes as natural, but I’d also like to specify that with this kind of subject matter, it really does come down to the specific kid. At the end of the day, what's scary for some is tame for others, and what's tame for some is traumatising for few, so tread carefully folks! You know your kids best!

The Haar / The FLy

Not a usual choice for me, and I was pretty reluctant to start it since romance is usually a subgenre I tend to avoid (nothing against it! just not my cup of tea!) but the body horror aspect really drew me in - as i was really interested to see how an author executes that successfully on page, without the visual element. 

David Sodergern did so exceptionally. The story comes across as quite grounded and visceral, and pulls on the reader's heart strings pretty instinctively. Sodergern impressed me most within this novel through his show of restraint with the brutality. It never really felt indulgent and / or unearnt, yet still managed to maintain some pretty gruesome moments. And his ability to build almost caricature like characters - that still felt both loveable and believable within the rules of their reality. Mr Grant especially felt cartoonishly rich and slimy, but still maintained the illusion of believability.

As its match pair, I picked out Cronenberg's “The Fly” - a body horror staple. Cronenberg made a name for himself within Hollywood for his intensely grotesque, lynchian filmmaking techniques, and “The Fly” was probably his most successful of his collection, with its focus on grief and gradual loss, utilising physical metamorphosis as a metaphor for disease.

The Haar is (in my mind) the perfect gateway novel for horror. It’s digestible, new, scary (but not excessive), and has its foot in a few other doors genre wise. It isn’t anything life changing and doesn’t send me any accompanying chills to that bump in the night, but I think about the novel more than I ever expected I would.

Tomie / Obsession

A bit of a curveball considering the focus on westernised novels so far, Junji Ito is probably the seminal writer for graphic, and altogether horror imagery at this very moment. He utilises almost juvenile techniques with his storytelling, to develop this cultural fluency that few authors are able to successfully achieve. His stories feel almost primal in nature, and he restrains himself to these simpler story beats, to ensure recognisable, relatable horror.

The art is distinctly beautiful, and very aggressively stylised, allowing him both recognisability, and space to stand out in the publishing industry (which as a non-western author is an admittedly already difficult place to get any sort of traction). Tomie is an anthology-esque collection of tales, which our titular character / antagonist (Tomie) pops in and out of. The stories are very reminiscent of the older Greek myths, with this kind of mystical quality permeating the horror, and they likewise maintain a moral quandary within each. The book as whole is a really fun introduction to both anthologies, and non-western horror, as Tomie feels a lot like Junji Ito taking time to experiment with style, and concept, allowing you to grow into his ideas with him.

As its match pair, I thought connecting it to something a little more mainstream would make the cultural and conceptual transition a lot smoother. Curry Barker’s “Obsession” was probably the most culturally significant horror film released in recent years, and the themes of obsession (ha ha ha, get it?), horror in the mundane, and desire as a weapon ring pretty true in regard to Junji’s work, and with Tomie’s subject matter “Obsession” could very well easily act as an extension of Tomie’s story. I won’t delve too hard into explaining the premise, because realistically if you’ve managed to read my little corner of the internet, you’ve probably already heard of the internet's new horror poster baby. Essentially our lead hypnotises a woman into loving him, (presumably) the devil takes advantage, and a whole lot of really viscerally uncomfortable circumstances follow.

Tomie is a really deceptively intricate work, and a perfect entry into the foreign / graphic novel horror scene. Junji himself is also quite addictive, and it’s absurdly easy to let yourself fall into a rabbit hole with his works.

Pet Sematary / Hereditary

If you’ve heard of horror, you’ve heard of King, and if you’ve heard of King, you’ve heard of probably his most influential work, “Pet Sematary”. The first time I read Stephen King, was a copy of “The Shining” I borrowed from our schools library, which I initially despised and found terribly boring (eventually I came to love it though, I guess my taste matured.), But my girlfriend at the time kept hounding me to read “Pet Sematary”, since we were both a bit of horror fanatics, and always looking for our next fix of frights.

Eventually I caved and started the novel (I’ve never had the strongest of wills when it came to this kind of thing), and devoured the novel in a night. At his best, King has this exceptional ability to develop these absorbable, “comfort food” esque novels; kind of the literary equivalent of chinese takeaway, or a cold, creature comfort beer after work. Still, to this day “Pet Sematary” remains the only novel to genuinely cause me to lose sleep. I won't delve too deeply into where and how, but Zelda’s nightmare sequence terrified me to no avail. I still imagine her all crumpled up in bed when I’m coming home late at night, in between opening up my bedroom door and turning on the lights. It’s quite an influential story now, having four (and counting) adaptations, and a pretty immovable place within Kings lineup of horror.

For its match-pair I’ve gone with Ari Aster's “Hereditary”, another relatively modern horror classic. “Hereditary” was, I’d say, the turning point of modern horror away from it’s unserious (or at least unsuccessful) nature and towards the sub-niche of “elevated horror” that's been cropping up with films like Jordan Peele’s “Get Out”, and Robert Eggers’ “The Witch”. This paints a really interesting parallel between King's “Pet Sematary” and Aster’s “Hereditary”, as both keep the same general premise and themes, but execute them in very, very different ways. Even then this is probably my favorite match of the list. Comfort / fine dining is such an interesting juxtaposition for genre, especially when both are considered exceptional within the genre.

“Pet Sematary” represents probably the best aspects of the horror genre, and even despite some of King’s dodgier elements within his writing choices, It’s ultimately one of horror fiction's most largely beloved works.

Turn of the Screw / Lake Mungo

Henry James “Turn of the Screw” is one of the most effective, and timeless ghost stories put to text. James takes the traditional ghost story and adapts it to the Victorian aesthetic, twisting the basis of paranoia within the genre untowards a more primal fear of the corruption of innocence.

The story holds up to an absurdly high standard, and is one of the few novels I'm able to confidently give high praise to. James does such an excellent job at developing tension within the novel, pretty much the entire novel leaves you completely tense, waiting for that last cathartic release. “Turn of the Screw”’s greatest achievement in my eyes is its unusually timeless quality. The novel still maintains itself as exceptional, even despite its publishing date being 128 years past, which is an undoubtedly impressive achievement.

For its match pair, Joel Anderson’s “Lake Mungo” seemed pretty relevant in my eyes. A relatively niche Australian mockumentary,”Lake Mungo” focuses on the tragic death of Alice Palmer, and small towns obsession with discovering the events that transpired beforehand, and the “haunting” of the Palmer family. “Lake Mungo” is supernatural horror done right. You can feel the influence of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” strewn within the film, but it comes across as much more grounded rather than surreal, and focuses much more heavily on the emotional impacts grief can have on a town, comparatively linking supernatural “hauntings” and mental ghosts. This film, in my opinion, is the absolute most underrated ghost film of all time, and ultimately deserved more critical acclaim than it received. 

“Turn of the Screw” is an incredibly formative novel for a developing horror reader, and provides so much context for later films and novels revolving around the genre, that it's almost an essential read. James’ novel still holds so much influence upon modern works, that I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into the scene.