This anthology of baking-related horror stories is better than most within the extreme horror genre. While the stories are a bit heavy on the revenge angle, most of them are original and entertaining. Some are light and uproarious; others are more serious and consequential.
Most selections lean toward negative themes like envy, opportunism, and deceit, but Candace Nola’s “County Contest” offers a rare departure in which an outcast is treated with kindness. Unsurprisingly, several tales are reminiscent of Sweeney Todd, and common horror figures (e.g. golem, witch, aliens, the Grim Reaper) make appearances. There are, however, a few fresh faces, such as a creepy baking girl with some visionary desserts (“Just a Local Thing” by Kenzie Jennings) and a man who steals his wife’s cupcakes and goes fishing (“My Lil’ Cupcake” by Lee Franklin).
Problematic entries suffer from a variety of ailments: sloppy points of view, predictable outcomes, slow pacing, unfulfilling payoffs, and overindulgent technical explanations. In one story, I felt like I was in a classroom with a pontificating professor. In another, the author seemed to sprinkle in a baking reference just to fit the anthology’s theme. Fortunately, though, the best stories are so good that they compensate for the few that are average or subpar.
Many extreme horror anthologies contain at least one semen-related story – Carver Pike’s “Blueberry Hill” does the job here. After a heavyset girl with an unpopular YouTube baking show gets violated by several boys, she enlists the help of a witch to take vengeance on her assailants. The witch agrees, provided that the girl collects something from everyone she targets. The story, which climaxes in a disgusting, genital-heavy death fest, manages to be funny, gross and sad.
In the fairy tale-like “Piebird”, author Ruthann Jagge creates a partnership with the reader by immediately showing that young protagonist Flora Corolla is in trouble, then slowly revealing how she got there. Flora, the only daughter of a couple known for their incredible baking abilities, is concerned that she will never find a husband because of the scar on her face… a scar stemming from a childhood accident that she blames on her parents. We call that resentment. But Flora has a plan to win the heart of a man at the next village pie-tasting competition. A black cat comes to her family’s shop and offers to help Flora bake the perfect pie, but there’s a steep cost. The story explores the depths to which people are willing to sink to get what they want. Its jaw-dropping conclusion, particularly its strong use of sound, is clearly inspired by a classic Poe tale.
Plotting rules the day in Chris Miller’s “Apple Pies & Diamond Eyes”, which builds to a catastrophic event by flipping between a trio planning to rob a jewellery store and an enraged, entitled woman named Karen – ha ha – with a carful of teenage cheerleaders. The woman, embittered by a divorce and something happening at her PTA, looks forward to taking out some of her frustrations on a baker (who did nothing wrong). The story has issues with perspective and backstory, but overall, it’s a highly entertaining and at times humorous work that shows that time waits for no one.
“Pretzels of Gods” by Christine Morgan steps back in time – the elevated language makes sense in this context – to illustrate the destructive power of envy. Resentful of fellow monk Brother Jehan for his ability to create superior pretzels every Sunday morning, the first-person narrator endeavours to find out something bad about Jehan. Initially, this seems to have little to do with horror, but once a confrontation occurs, that changes dramatically. The pretzels become a symbol for the narrator’s fixation – he is tied up in knots – and a couple of twists within the story reinforce the pretzels’ symbolic significance.
As expected, “Next Best Baker” by Jeff Strand, the Mozart of contemporary comedy horror, is brilliant from start to finish. It slathers a thick layer of violence and hilarity over the typical competitive baking show. The first challenge, for instance, is to include four ingredients, one of which is dog excrement, in the baking of a cake. What makes the story so funny is the way participants and judges take the outrageous contests so seriously. The contests cause the participants a significant amount of emotional turmoil, while the judges feel nothing. Scandalous, shocking, inventive, and hysterical.
A lot of these stories leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, and that is just what the horror reader craves. Douglas J. Ogurek ****
No comments:
Post a Comment