Disturbing not only because of the weird and larger forces that many of the characters couldn’t possibly hope to go against, but also because they are pretty much all grounded in something most readers will find believable - connecting the horror to us directly. Simple human fears, from uncomfortable sweaters to being dissected alive, mix together with natural human urges, most often the erotic, to create a sequence of horror stories that feel raw and true. At one point a lady makes love to a house.īizarre, horrible, and yet often quite beautiful. From the second story, “Wooden Spirit”, it also becomes clear that Ito’s horror is often entwined with the erotic. As someone whose neck feels irritated with some shirt collars, “Tomio – Red Turtleneck” was pretty terrifying. Ito takes a seemingly ordinary aspect of life and twists it into something that feels off, wrong, and disturbing.Ī common thread with most of the stories of Fragments of Horror is the way Ito takes a seemingly ordinary aspect of life and twists it into something that feels off, wrong, and disturbing. It’s short enough, though, to provide a quick refresher for both Ito and the reader, and it sets the tone for what’s to follow, all of which pretty much surpasses the first story. Perhaps due to its short length, the ideas feel just a bit underdeveloped. It’s good, but does lack a certain spark that Ito’s work usually has. While the story is pretty good, it’s not exactly a classic. It’s about a guy who refuses to leave his futon because he’s scared of the outside world. In the “Afterword”, Ito expresses some reservations over the first story in the collection, “Futon” – his first story after his eight year gap from horror. Some are more just creepy than fantastical and grotesque, and one is almost kind of sweet and touching in a haunting way (“Gentle Goodbye”). Fragment of Horror collects together eight short stories, many of which feature Ito’s distinctive grotesque imagery, body horror, and Lovecraftian inspired weird horror.
0 kommentar(er)
