Dead Funny: Encore: More Horror Stories by Comedians

Dead Funny #2

by Robin Ince (editor), James Acaster (Contributor), Clare Ferguson Walker (Contributor)

What happens when mirth turns to murder? When the screams are not from joy, but flesh-ripping pain? Dead Funny: Encore is the second helping of monstrous tales from the brightest lights in UK comedy. Award winners Robin Ince and Johnny Mains team up for this second exploration of the relationship between comedy and horror, the dark follow up to 2014’s smash hit debut, Dead Funny.

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Short Stories, Comedy, Humor, Supernatural, Fiction

251 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2016

About the author

Robin Ince is an English comedian, actor and writer. He is best known for presenting the BBC radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage with physicist Brian Cox.

In 2005, Ince began running the Book Club night at The Albany, London, where acts are encouraged to perform turns of new and experimental material. The club gets its name from Ince's attempts to read aloud from, and humorously criticise, various second-hand books which the audience brought in for the occasion. The Book Club proved to be so successful that Ince took it on a full UK tour in 2006. In 2010, Ince published a book entitled Robin Ince's Bad Book Club about his favourite books that he has used for his shows.

~Wikipedia

Reviews

[Matt Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

5* for James Acaster.
3* for everything else.

[Alex Sarll]

Another anthology of horror stories by comedians, though it felt like this one leaned a little more towards contes cruels than horror per se, even if that is probably a) the memory cheating and b) a pernickety distinction even by my standards. As will likely be the case for most readers, the stories I liked most were those by the comics I like most: co-editor Robin Ince, with a bastard of a shaggy dog story; Stewart Lee, unearthing Lovecraftian horror in his fascination with rare vinyl; Alan Moore, here on a technicality and giving us an unusually sympathetic portrayal of a fake medium - albeit one whose fate is clear to us much sooner than it is to him, for all his supposed knack at cold reading. Rufus Hound packs a surprising amount of vampire mythology into a very short space; Alice Lowe closes the collection with maybe the nastiest story of the lot. And then there's Andrew O'Neill, a comedian where I suspect I'm the only person who finds him frustrating because he needs to commit more to being niche and weird - but here he does just that, and it's excellent, merging Lovecraft and James seamlessly with the life and trials of a touring vegan stand-up. Still, for all that other pieces may not have made the same impression, I don't recall an outright stinker in the lot, which is pretty good going.

[Cate Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased Dead Funny Encore (along with the original volume, which I read a couple of years ago) at an Edge Lit or Sledge Lit in Derby when Johnny Mains was a guest. My brain and my Google-fu is struggling with the year. Edited by Robin Ince and Johnny Mains it contains horror stories written by well-known comedians.

The anthology opens with Date Night by Rufus Hound. The timeline confused/lost me several times, leading me to think I didn't quite understand the story. Starring role goes to a little broken chair. Actually, I'm mentioning the story because of the chair.

Carnival by Alice Lowe (who I think is an utter genius* - watch Sightseers and Prevenge) was by far my favourite story. The fat purple-haired shopkeeper was reading Bella really slowly and clutching a Lucozade, unmoving. Like a melting Madame Tussaud's. A gripping and rich story about a small-town girl who wants to be nothing more than the Carnival Queen in Squalid-town.

Other stories I enjoyed included, the disturbing Under my Skin by Isy Suttie, a story of domestic violence. The haunting A Ghost Story by Josie Long, in which your ghost is brought back by your music being played. I'd hate to be Frank Sinatra in this scenario. The dark and twisted Harry by John Robertson, my 2nd favourite story in the anthology. A son is born, only he many not be altogether human. Twisted, funny and very wrong. Finally I really enjoyed The Basement Conversion by Natalie Haynes, a tale of a love-less marriage and of revenge.

This anthology is well worth your time.

*Despite loving Alice Lowe's stuff, I didn't read the final story in the anthology, also by her, called Paedo. I just couldn't take myself there. My bad.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really love this book, it was very funny and very scary at times. Some of my favorites were date night by Rufus Hound it had the feel of an old story made new by a modern writer, especially love the ending it was very funny. I also enjoyed Jessica's friend by Jason Manford it was really good and really funny how they managed to solve the problem that they had. The basement conversion by Natalie Haynes that was very poesque in how it dealt with the topic. Lastly it was possibly the most disturbing of all the stories but paedo by Alice Lowe and this whole story blew my mind in the end in a definitely didn't see coming.

[Debra B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the short stories in this book even more than I liked the first volume of Dead Funny.

[Colin Murtagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This follows on from the original Dead Funny anthology, and continuing the theme, this is all horror shorts written by comedians. This does depend of course on you allowing Alan Moore in as a stand up based on one gig.
I read this straight after finishing the original book, and I'm not sure if I'm horrored out, but it just didn't grab me the way the first book did. It's more of a mixed bag, with a lot of decent stories, a couple not so good, but there's no real knock out stories as in the first anthology.
It's a worthy experiment, but to me it just didn't work this time

[Brian Stabler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, doesn't compare favourably to the first Dead Funny anthology. More than a few of the stories contained seem to be lacking an ending... or punchline! It also doesn't help that there are several of typos scattered throughout, one more proof read really wouldn't have gone amiss.