Extremely Weird Splatter Presented by L. Andrew Cooper

4.5 stars

You know, I’ve never thought of combining weird/bizarro with splatter before, and Andrew is a certified genius for doing it! These two sub-genres work together so well and reading the stories was an adventure of ‘Wtf did I just read’ and staring in horrified awe at the stories.

Let’s talk some favourites by category, though there’s certainly not one single bad story in the lot!

First section is Extremely Weird Sex and boy howdy was it a doozy! The obvious choice here for favourite is The Fishhook Prophecy by JG Faherty (who doesn’t love Hellraiser vibes), but the dark horse sneaking in for the win is My Love, Like Moss, Envelops You by Maxim Volk. Volk’s use of botanical analogy was gorgeously done and Johnny’s final act was so poetic

Next is Extremely Weird Splatter Magic, where the unexplainable is so in! What They Deseve by Christine Morgan started us off and it’s so relatable and wild. After all, who doesn’t have an ex they’d love to see fed to an animal? Shoutout to Symmetry by Monica J. O’Rourke for making me physically turn green….I’ll be seeing those scenes in my nightmares, thank you.

Third is Extremely Weird Self-Splatter and every story here made me more nauseous than any story has a right to 😂  The Weight of the Dark by Suvajeet Duttagupta was particularly poignant and concerning considering we all have a shadow we can’t get away from…..

Fourth is Weird Splatter Production and Scenarios by JB Corso knocked it out of the park. We’ve seen alien abduction, but not like this. Not ehen every day feels like a lifetime as you watch your loved ones die over and over and over

And finally, Extremely Weird Trips! Portal by Jason Nickey is a gem, plain and simple. Andrew picked the absolute vest story he could have to be the anchor and I loved the final gut punch to close out the book

I may or may not be mildly obsessed with this combination of horror and will forever be chasing my next read to try and knock Extremely Weird Splatter off it’s throne!