Editorials
[BEST & WORST ’12] Top 10 Horror Novels of the Year!
First off, I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable labeling the following novels “the best of 2012”. When compiling a list of top 10 horror films of the year, it’s easy to narrow the selection group down to 50 or so candidates. Not so with horror novels. In the wake of the e-reader, the number of horror fiction titles released each year has swelled into the thousands. And while most of those novels aren’t necessarily good, there are dozens that are. Considering the varying marketing and distribution methods, it’s literally impossible to catch up with all the greatness out there.
But in my defense, I am a voracious reader, and a longtime fan of horror fiction. If anything, let the following 10 entries serve as a list of humble recommendations from a man who has sampled the goods in 2012. I’m certain many of our readers have read more books than I have, and better books than I have. And I’d especially like to thank you guys, the readers who read and discuss the book and comic reviews. Drop your favorite fiction titles of the year in the comments if you get a chance. It’s gift card season and daddy needs a new pair of hardbounds.
Posters (Best/Worst) | Trailers (Best/Worst)
10. 14, by Peter Clines (May 7; Permuted Press)
Like a cross between The Burbs and an episode of Scooby Doo, Clines’ dialogue-driven tale follows the exploits of a handful of building residents investigating the mysterious happenings in their inner-city highrise. Flirty neighbors and mutant cockroaches abound in 14, resulting in a novel that’s more suspense than horror––at least until it’s Lovecraftian closing act. This is the book that Dean Koontz’s 77 Shadow Street wanted to be.
9. Zombie, by J.R. Angelella (June 5; Soho Press)
This coming of age tale doesn’t really qualify as horror, but the genre roots run so deep, it’s begging for a spot. Angelella’s story of a nerdy teenager using his love of zombie films to cope with an increasingly depressing reality manages to tap into the collective subconscious of horror geeks worldwide. An impressive debut.
8. Them or Us, by David Moody (November 8, 2011; Thomas Dunne Books)
I realize this was released in hardbound late last year, but what the hell, I‘m including it anyway. A genuine internet success story, Moody’s apocalyptic Hater series is addictively bleak, and while the trilogy as a whole may have its flaws, Them or Us wraps everything up in a satisfyingly gruesome bow.
7. Kill You Twice, by Chelsea Cain (August 7; Minotaur Books)
Cain is one of those authors who can really get your stomach churning, but the fourth entry in her Sheridan/Lowell series, The Night Season, was disappointingly tame. Fans will be pleased to know that she brings her gory “A” game back to Kill You Twice.
6. Penpal, by Dathan Auerbach (July 11; 1000Vultures)
When considering our place in this world, our memory is one of the greatest tools we have. But as Dathan Auerbach so eloquently reminds us in his riveting debut novel, memory is not to be trusted. In a series of six vignettes, an unreliable narrator reflects on the mysterious memories of his childhood, and with each passing page, a bigger, more harrowing picture is revealed. Auerbach manages to turn passive childhood memories–– like walkie-talkie friends and balloon penpals––into the stuff of godawful nightmares. This one sneaks up on you.
5. This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It!, by David Wong (October 2; Thomas Dunne Books)
I liked John Dies at the End. I really did. But This Book is Full of Spiders is such a vast improvement, it’s not even funny. Or rather, it’s very funny. Far funnier than John Dies at the End could ever hope to be. The continuing adventures of John and David––two hardcore slackers occasionally pressed to investigate inter-dimensional breaches in their unnamed hometown––hit action-packed heights as the duo fights a full-on zombie outbreak following an infestation of mutant spiders the size of beer-cans. It’s hard to explain. Just read the book.
4. Pines, by Blake Crouch (August 21; Thomas & Mercer)
This trippy, mind-bone of a novel reads like an episode of the Twilight Zone set in Twin Peaks, presumably directed by a wicker man. After a head-thumping car accident, a Secret Service agent wakes in Wayward Pines, Idaho, without a car, I.D., or a phone. And while Wayward Pines is quaint and inviting on the surface, something mysterious is lurking beneath the plastic smiles and dodged questions. Pines cruises with the breathless power of forward momentum, the story seams bulging with the agonizing futility of a bad dream. The final chapters are guaranteed to punch you in the throat.
3. The Twelve, by Justin Cronin (October 16; Ballantine Books)
While 2010’s insanely popular The Passage wasn’t loved by all, it’s impossible to deny Justin Cronin’s ability to tell a good story. Yes, this is a series about vampires, but not the bullshit glittery kind. Cronin’s vamps are feral, predatory monsters that have forced humanity to near extinction. The Twelve follows several surviving characters from The Passage as they attempt to fight back against the “infected”. More than anything else, Cronin is a spinner of yarns, a teller of tales, an author who isn’t afraid to back-burner his primary plot in order to fill in some character details. And even his minor tangents, like one involving a midday massacre at a picnic, are as enrapturing as any good campfire story. By deliberately doling out his narrative, expanding his already expansive chronology, and introducing a host of new characters, Cronin reminds us that he is crafting something truly epic here.
2. The Last Final Girl, by Stephen Graham Jones (September 16; Lazy Fascist Press)
Reading Jones’ post-modern take on the American slasher film is like watching a really clever horror movie. And I mean that as the best possible compliment. His novel, about the hometown return of a once-vanquished slasher villain, both milks and mocks the subgenre––while simultaneously bear-hugging it close. When Billie Jean––a mindless killer in a Michael Jackson mask––threatens to crash the Homecoming Dance with a host of murders, the catty nominees for homecoming queen are forced to step up and determine once and for all….who will be the last Final Girl? Jones has got an eye for even the most subtle of horror film cliches, and his clever winks at slasher tropes will leave genre fans cackling with knowing glee.
1. Little Star, by John Ajvide Lindqvist (October 2; Thomas Dunne Books)
While it’s true that I’m a sucker for any Carrie-esqe tale about empowered outcasts, there’s no denying the lasting impact of Little Star. Lindqvist’s story––about an abandoned infant raised to become a star on the Swedish version of American Idol––pulls off a mind-blowing twist at the end of the first act before mounting a slow-burn build to a magnificently violent crescendo. Shocking, ambiguous and haunting, this is the stuff that great horror fiction is made of. Each novel from Lindquist (Let Me In) has been better than the last. This is his best yet.
Best Anthology:
A Book of Horrors, ed. Stephen Jones (September 18; St. Martin’s Griffin)
Editor Stephen Jones takes a break from his occasionally stuffy Mammoth Book of New Horror series to helm this gloriously diverse anthology. Lacking an overall theme, each new tale comes as a somewhat startling surprise. Including heavy hitters like Stephen King, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Brian Hodge, and Michael Marshall Smith, this one is a veritable treasure trove of exceeded expectations.
Most Disappointing Follow Up:
Home, by Matthew Costello (October 30; Thomas Dunne Books)
Last year’s Vacation, the first entry in Costello’s not-quite-zombies apocalypse series, was a textbook example of pacing done right. That thing moved. His sequel is the complete opposite, a downright drag. Self-reflection dominates, while action and plotting are a mere afterthought. Good luck staying awake during this one.
Best Picture Book:
Prometheus: The Art of the Film (June 12; Titan Books)
There are movie tie-ins and then there are movie tie-ins, and this gloriously lavish coffee table book belongs in the latter category. Rich in photos and behind-the-scenes mythology, this is one well-conceived piece of work from “visual companion” specialist Mark Salisbury.
Scariest Non-Horror:
Stay Awake, by Dan Chaon (February 7; Ballantine Books)
Dan Chaon is not a horror writer, but a few of the stories in his anthology rank among the most haunting I’ve ever read. Horror fans need to check out “The Bees“, “I Wake Up“, and “Slowly We Open Our Eyes“. You can thank me later.
Worst cover:
Hexcommunicated, by Rafael Chandler (July 12, 2012; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
My apologies to Rafael Chandler, a solid writer and a hell of a role-playing game designer (Dread, Spite), but the cover of his vampire-action novel is silly as shit. I feel guilty picking on something self-published, but not since 50 Shades of Grey have Americans been so embarrassed to be seen reading a book on public transit.
Finally, I’d like to offer my abject apologies to the dozens of sweet-ass books I desperately wanted to read, but somehow missed. Here are a few:
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
The Haunted, Bentley Little
Nocturnal, Scott Sigler
Haunt, Laura Lee Bahr
The Devil in Silver, Victor LaValle
The Hollow City, Dan Wells
In a world where over-polished corporate products dominate the media landscape while the ever-growing threat of AI-generated “art” haunts the horizon, I can’t help but remember a story about how Wes Anderson insisted on using real fur on the stop-motion puppets of his animated opus, Fantastic Mr. Fox. When the animators complained that using fur would result in obvious thumbprints and erratic hair movement that would ruin the “illusion” of lifelike movement, the filmmaker explained that these imperfections were the point.
Why am I bringing this up on a horror website? Well, I’ve always been of the opinion that low production value is simply part of the appeal of independent cinema, and nowhere is this more evident than in the horror genre. Rubber monster suits and watery blood effects are a big part of what make even the cheapest scary movies so endearing, and horror fans are uniquely predisposed to look beyond technical limitations in order to appreciate a good story.
One of my favorite examples of this is a certain micro-budget duology that kicked off one of the scariest film series of all time despite some undeniably janky presentation. And as a lifelong fan of low-budget scares, I’d like to invite you to join me down a J-Horror rabbit hole as we explore the criminally underrated origins of the Ju-On/The Grudge franchise.
While most of you are likely already familiar with 2002’s Ju-On: The Grudge, the film that helped to kick off the J-Horror craze and established Takashi Shimizu as a master of the craft, a lot of folks don’t realize that this was actually the filmmaker’s third attempt at telling the Saeki family story. In fact, the very first appearance of Kayako and her ghostly son occurred in a couple of 1998 short films made by Shimizu while he was still in film school.
Part of a made-for-TV anthology showcasing the work of up-and-coming Japanese filmmakers (Gakkô no Kaidan G), the shorts attempted to update classic Japanese folk tales for a new generation by incorporating modern elements like helpless high-schoolers and cellphones into old-fashioned ghost stories.
The original Toshio!
Despite some cheap camerawork and drama class make-up effects, Shimizu’s Katasumi and 4444444444 (so titled because the Japanese pronunciation of the number 4 is similar to that of death) were the clear highlights of the spooky collection despite being much shorter than the other segments. That’s why it was only natural that the director’s next project would be a feature-length expansion of these ideas produced for the direct-to-video market.
Coming up with an extensive mythology surrounding his murderous ghosts and realizing that he had a potential hit on his hands, Shimizu ended up making the risky decision to split his original two-hour story into two smaller films shot back-to-back. And while the sequel would suffer from this decision, the focus on serialized storytelling is what would ultimately turn this indie experiment into a global phenomenon.
Released in 2000, the first entry in this duology, simply titled Ju-On: The Curse, weaves an interconnected web of paranormal incidents surrounding a cursed house and the ill-fated families that inhabit it. While the film would actually reference the events of Shimizu’s shorts, it’s here that audiences were first introduced to the iconic opening text explaining how a violent death may spawn an infectious curse that self-perpetuates by causing even more deaths in a never-ending cycle of violence.
At first glance, The Curse feels a lot like an anthology meant to repurpose Shimizu’s existing ideas for ghostly short films into a feature format, but narrative details eventually add up as worried teachers, unsuspecting teenagers and psychic realtors unravel bits and pieces of the Saeki family history in a tragic tapestry of death. Curiously, this attempt at crafting a complex narrative puzzle would become a staple of the franchise as future entries (and even the video game) used non-linear storytelling to breathe new life into familiar yarns.
Of course, it’s really the scares that put this franchise on the map, and that’s why you’ll find plenty of expertly orchestrated frights here. Sure, the pale makeup effects and stock sound design aren’t that much better than what we saw in Gakkô no Kaidan G, but the suspenseful execution of moments like Toshio’s slow undead reveal and Kayako’s first contortionist crawl down the stairs – not to mention the incredibly disturbing sequence with a baby inside of a trash bag – are the stuff of horror legend regardless of budget.
I’d even argue that the low production value actually adds to the experience by making everything feel that much more down to earth. The Saeki house isn’t a stylish haunted manor from the Vincent Price era, it’s just a regular Japanese home inhabited by regular people, making it easier to believe that this modern urban legend could also happen to you. Hell, I even think Toshio is scarier when he can pass as a living kid even if the screaming cat effects aren’t as good as the sequels.
Cheap can still be scary.
Unfortunately, quality scares can’t solve everything, and that’s where Ju-On: The Curse 2 comes in. Released the same year as its predecessor, this bizarre sequel only features about 45 minutes of new footage, with the rest being recycled segments from the first film meant to pad out the runtime. While this is a surprisingly dishonest move on Shimizu’s part, with the decision likely resulting in confused viewers thinking that there was something wrong with their rented videotapes, it’s still pretty hard to call this a bad movie.
That’s why I’ve come to respect the flick as a rare instance of a cinematic expansion pack, as the first film didn’t really need to be any longer, but the new segments still do a great job of adding to the existing mythology. This time around, we learn that you don’t even have to come into direct contact with the haunted house in order to be affected by the curse, with characters only tangentially connected to the Saeki tragedy still meeting terrible fates.
That final shot featuring multiple Kayakos is also one of the most incredibly chilling moments in the entire franchise, with the amount of care put into these scenes suggesting that this was probably all meant to have been included in the first film before Shimizu decided otherwise. Either way, I’d still recommend watching this one immediately after Part I in a condensed double-feature – so long as you skip the first thirty minutes.
Despite their humble origins, these low-budget scare-fests would go on to inspire a ghostly media empire, with Shimizu eventually being given the chance to bring his creations to the big screen with one of the best J-Horror flicks of all time. And while I won’t argue that these direct-to-video precursors are necessarily better than 2002’s Ju-On: The Grudge (or even the American duology which was also helmed by Shimizu), I still think that something special was lost each time the series was tasked with pleasing a wider audience, as the story slowly became glossier and less real.
That’s why I’d urge hardcore horror fans to seek out Shimizu’s early experiments, as his creative fingerprints are the duct-tape that keeps this janky collection of horrific vignettes together. It may not always be pretty, but I’ll take the grimy actors caked in cheap blood and white clown makeup over corporate-approved movie monsters any day of the week.
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