Halloween Horrors: New Tales of Dark Fantasy and Terror [Hardcover]

Alan Ryan (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ryan has put together an entertaining and timely collection of horror tales by a diverse group of writers, ranging from the venerable Frank Belknap Long (who was first published in 1924) to modern master Ramsey Campbell and relative newcomer Craig Shaw Gardner. Among the best stories are Robert McCammon's "He'll Come Knocking At Your Door," which builds to a high level of tension as it tells of a family whose good fortune is provided by an entity who exacts repayment on Halloween; Whitley Strieber's "The Nixon Mask," a macabre and hilarious envisioning of the former president at his most paranoid and incoherent; "Trickster" by Steve Rasnic Tem, set amid the confusion and revels of a Mardi-Gras-like Halloween night in San Francisco, where a man catches sight of his long-dead joke-playing brother; and Robert Bloch's "Pranks," in which an old couple demonstrate they have some original ideas about how to handle trick-or-treating children.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 178 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (September 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385195583
• ISBN-13: 978-0385195584
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,123,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Halloween Anthology, November 12, 2005

By 

Alexander Scott (Birmingham, AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Halloween Horrors: New Tales of Dark Fantasy and Terror (Hardcover)

I don't remember what age I was when my Dad first borrowed HALLOWEEN HORRORS from the library - maybe 7? The cover image of a jack o'lantern weeping blood was pretty scary, so I picked it up to read. Some of the stories went over my head (the Nixon one, for instance), but on the whole they were very creepy. It seems easier to suspend disbelief on Halloween, and about Halloween, because we want to believe that the veil is thin at least once a year, and that there is something to see behind the veil. Anyway, my Dad borrowed it every Halloween for many years before the library dropped its copy. I just this year got mine from a library sale, but it's sad to think that someone out there might now be missing his Halloween ritual.

Well, on to the reviews:

This book has (lucky!) 13 stories by such big names as Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, and Frank Belknap Long. A surprising number of these stories make Stefan Dziemianowicz's list of all-time Halloween tales in the OCTOBER DREAMS anthology. One, "Eyes" by Charles grant, is even reprinted therein. I think that given the big names in HALLOWEEN HORRORS and the influence that it has made on other writers and anthologies, it has been a pretty seminal work.

These 13 stories run the gamut from Satan to faeries to witchcraft, ghosts, and even politics. The story by FBL isn't even scary, more poignant even. On the other hand, the editor's contribution has a group of teens stuck in a house turning into a pumpkin. The anthology has many different perspectives for different ages on what is scary about Halloween. I believe that is what made HALLOWEEN HORRORS intriguing to me at 7 and at twenty-something. I certainly wouldn't pass up a chance to read it if you can.