The Black Phone

In the first story, a character says of the genre, “In horror, it’s often what you leave out that gives a story its power.” This phrase does a lot of heavy lifting for some of the stories contained in this collection. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the horror in the book is super unsettling and leaves the reader wanting more.

Just one more thing I’d like to add before I jump into the individual stories: I don’t know what it is with Joe Hill or his dad but my goodness, each story of the first half of the collection has a jab at a disgusting fat person. What is the obsession?

Best New Horror - A story about a story. Both scary and unsettling. Good opening.

20th Century Ghost - A story about the love of cinema and nostalgia as much as it is a ghost story. Excellent.

Pop Art - Super unique tale of an inflatable best friend. Great from start to finish.

You Will Hear the Locust Sing - Like a Rated R Goosebumps story

Abraham’s Boys - The next Van Helsing generation. Not a great story, but good take and twist at the end.

Better Than Home - Fatherly love and baseball. No horror or suspense.

The Black Phone - It blows my mind that a 20 page story can get expanded into two films. Mediocre compared to some of the others, but probably the most adaptable, I guess.

In the Rundown - Feels incomplete but the ending was pretty crazy.

The Cape - Probably my least favorite of the bunch. Kid has a homemade cape that helps him fly, doesn’t understand.

Last Breath - One of the shortest stories but one of the best. It didn’t need to carry on for 100 pages. Self-aware with a crazy ending.

Dead-Wood - short poem about tree ghosts

The Widow’s Breakfast - Not really sure what to think about this one. Kinda rambled on.

Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead - A man and woman are nostalgic for one another on the set of Dawn of the Dead

My Father’s Mask - One of the craziest things I’ve ever read. This story creeped me the hell out. Would love to get a short sequel or full story expansion.

Voluntary Committal - Very good concept and well done. Didn’t love the beginning or ending but the middle was very good.

Scheherazade’s Typewriter - very short story jammed into the acknowledgements. Very similar to something his dad would have written.