Snag Your Copy The Blumhouse Book Of Nightmares: The Haunted City Conceived By Jason Blum Issued As Manuscript

is the trickiest genre to find something you like in Horror, What is the biggest gamble you can take on a shiny bookstore purchase A short story anthology.


Who rolled the dice on both counts and lost THIS GUY!

Blumhouse, in case the name doesn't ring a bell, is a horror film producer and they've made movies over the last decade or so that you've at least heard of and probably seen: Paranormal Activity, Get Out, the new Halloween.
Also, weirdly, the excellent HBO production of The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer's play about the AIDS epidemic in New York City in the early's, which you could obviously say is a horror story of a different, tragic sort.


So, Blumhouse knows horror, And Jason Blum has a lot of connections with writers and actors who write, so this anthology is mostly filled with people of that sort rather than the usual writer suspects.
I will say the first story, "Hellhole", by Christopher Denham, is EXCELLENT, It's about a hipster couple who buy the fixerupper they can afford in Brooklyn only to find it comes with a creepy doll.
And maybe a portal to Hell, And the next story by Eli Roth, "Valdivia", is really wellwritten because I stayed immersed in the story when nothing much happened until the last two pages.


But with each story, the quality slipped a little bit more, "Novel Fifteen" by Steve Faber was long and tedious and not really a horror storyI get that there are different types of horror, but if I have to read a wordsplosion like that I expect to get at least a jump scare in return and not some meandering tale about an entitled asshole with writer's block.
"The Darkish Man" by Nissar Modi, about a serial killer who weaponizes his victim's fear of looking racist, had a somewhat original hook but it was vile.
I've read enough first person killer POV's to last me a lifetime, Bring something truly original or thoughtprovoking to make the icky experience worthwhile or don't bother,

The biggest name contributor to this book besides Roth is Ethan Hawke, who contributed the short tale "".
It was . decent.

I made it about halfway through, got to the point where I'd read too many disappointing things in a row, and my hands just sort of refused to open the book again.
I really can't make myself keep going to the point where I don't even see the use in keeping this around to retackle later.
It's going, unfinished, into the donation pile, DAMN IT! These weren't scary stories, Some were weird most were just a disgusting jumble of nonsense that made absolutely no sense Have I really had this since the summer Man, I'm so behind on Netgalley/Edelweiss titles.


Read so far:

"Hellhole" by Christopher Denham,.stars.

"Valdivia" by Eli Roth,stars.

"Golden Hour" by Jeremy Slater,stars,

"A Clean White Room" by Scott Derrickson and C, Robert Cargill.stars. This was the first one I thought was strong all the way through to the end,

"The Leap" by Dana Stevens,stars. This is my favorite one so far, Loved it. Excellently ominous ending. But who is Dana Stevens

At this point, I went and got the hardcover from the library.
I've found I dislike reading short stories on the Kindle, I want to know how many pages each story

is before I start it, and I want to skip around.


"The Darkish Man" by Nissar Modi, Competently written, not doing anything interesting though,stars.

"" by Ethan Hawke, What the hell was thisstar,

"Donations" by William Joselyn,stars.

"The Old Jail" by Sarah Langan, Sarah Langan's writing always creeps me out and this is no exception, Very Lovecraftian.stars.

"Meat Maker" by Mark Neveldine, Pointless and poorly written.star.

"Novel Fifteen" by Steve Faber, A chilling, kind of sad, disorienting look at failing your potential,stars.

"Geist" by Les Bohem, Middling ghost story: not bad, but doesn't stand out,stars.

"Gentholme" by Simon Kurt Unsworth, I think I missed something at the end, and the strange town could have had more development with the creepy vibe.
stars.
This anthology combines two of my favorite things cities, and horror, There were some excellent stories here, and several others that were good, but unfortunately there were a couple of additions that dragged the entire book down for me hence the three star rating.


Standouts were "Hellhole" Brooklyn hipsters buy a cursed house, "A Clean White Room" a glimpse into a type of purgatory, "The Leap" a psychic is hired to provide entertainment at a birthday party, "Gentholme" a couple are some of the first residents in a new housing development/community, and "The Old Jail" a journalist gets more than he bargained for when investigating a story.
Honestly, I didnt finish it, The first story was awful, predictable, unoriginal, and just plain ridiculously unrealistic and written, The second story which was by Eli Roth was just like his films, An idea he thinks is original, but one with potential still, and then just way underexplained and pretentious.
The third story begins with a stolen idea, and then drifts into other ideas that seem way too familiar.
and then just goes all over the place as if its a novel and not a short story.


At this point, I had to put the book down, I can't believe I scored this at the dollar store, because this book is fantastic! If you are a horror fan or a fan of CREEPY STUFF this is the book for you.
I love short story anthologies anyway, but this is a supremely good one, Each story is unique and well written, Probably not the best to read before bed but I enjoy playing with fire, This one is an appallingly bad anthology, Except one, all stories are about mennarrated by men, centered around them, Women serve as cliched props in the storiesyou know, to be sexualized, raped and murdered, which they are in almost every other story.


Out ofstories in the collection onlyare written by women,

Out of, I only recommendstories, which were actually great: “The Leap” by Dana Stevens and “Geist” by Les Bohem.
The rest were atrociously boring, except the first one which started great but turned into a ridiculous eyeroll.
I skipped through most of these, for the now obvious reasons, .