F.U.B.B. by Daniel Volpe, Candace Nola, and Jasper Bark (Dark Tide Horror Novellas Book 14)

Crystal Lake Publishing, 2024

ISBN: 9781957133928

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

If you’re going to title a book F*cked Up Beyond Belief, you had better back it up.  And man, do they ever in this one.  These three hardcore novellas are exactly that: blood-drenched gorefests, with excellent stories and writing to boot.  These are like Eli Roth films, the main difference being these actually have good plots and are addicting to read.  Let’s look at the basics, shall we?

“Church of the Splatter Spray Saints” is a crazed take on modern tent-pole revivals, although the basic theme fits with some real-life ones, like ‘screwing the people for fun and profit (mainly profit).’  In this case, the revival is run by organized crime, and they have a sentient virus to contend with that may bring the whole house down.  For a horror novella, it has a fairly intricate plot, and all the pieces fit perfectly.  Body parts fly and pain abounds as people pay to witness voluntary suicides, all in the name of worshipping the Blood.  Totally screwed up, and totally fun.

“Double Feature” is my personal favorite.  Combine a typical Friday night at a hick town drive-in with a group of redneck nuts somewhat resembling the lunatics from the movie Wrong Turn, and you have a story, and a  very well written one it is.  A good setup and absolutely breakneck pace keep this one firing till the end.  It’s frightening to think of any people actually being like the antagonists in this one: they have absolutely no remorse for the warped things they do.  And, their motive?  Money.  The best part is that author Candace Nola excels in misdirection.  Every time you expect the story to zig, it zags instead, right to the hilariously ironic ending.

“The Chatter of the Night Bugs”: is an agonizing story of “white trash”, snuff films, and black magic.  Fair warning: this one is the most difficult to read of the three. The torture sequences are brutal, made all the worse by the fact that you care about the victim in this one.  However, payback is a wonderful thing, and old mountain magic provides the means for punishing the evildoers a hundred times over, in the form of bugs, and… something else.  This was a creative take on old Appalachian legends.  Revenge has never been sweeter than in this story.

The ol’ bottom line? This book should win some sort of award for best horror story collection this year.  For horror fans in general, and gorehounds in particular, this is a can’t miss.  Highly recommended (to those with a strong stomach, that is).

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson