***
I was expecting a bit of a joker, based on some later titles, but in this debut at least he doesn't stray far outside the comfort zones of hauntings, theatre and academia, occasionally overcompensating by going hi-tech. His strength is in lingering on paintings, old photographs and other images so their subjects are burned into your imagination. I'll read more.
Fave: 'In Arcadia'
2014 / Audiobook/ebook / 96 pages / Japan/USA
***
Relatably nightmarish in its labyrinthine setting and academic slavery, it's a shame it's so short (originally a short story) and a shame it was the version with unimaginative '90s album booklet "art direction."
Jack Stevenson, Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of Häxan, the World's Strangest Film, and the Man Who Made It2015 / Ebook / 130 pages / USA
**
The obscene blasphemy's all in good fun, but learning about the harsh and egotistical production has taken the shine off the oddball classic. Most of the book covers the director's other, less interesting films, seemingly out of obligatory fairness.
Rebecca Lloyd, Seven Strange Stories2014-17 (collected 2017) / Ebook / 245 pages / New Zealand
***
Another author content to keep the gothic tradition alive for unambitious subscribers without doing anything interesting with it. To expect readers to consider these tales of rural hauntings and fleshier apparitions 'strange' would be optimistic even a century ago. Nothing personal, just hitting the inevitable ennui of brand loyalty.
Fave: 'Jack Werrett, the Flood Man'
2020 / Ebook / 276 pages / Australia/USA
*
I'm not obsessed enough a fan for this intimate exhibition of notebooks, photos, miscellanous junk and hoarded women's hair to be meaningful. Meanwhile, some random guy sits on the porch and rambles about Cave, Faulkner and Elvis.
