Crypt Orchids

by David J. Schow

Crime. Psychos. Trashed relationships. Tainted love. Murder. Sinister plots. Evil connivances. Men in Suits with a Plan.

Bizarre flap copy.

Not to mention hustlers, losers, cutthroats, gun fetishists, homicidal hitchhikers, demented road-hogs, serial killer impersonators, government torturers, and a Ripper named Jack.

Vaudevillians (shudder).

Welcome to Crypt Orchids, where you'll also meet a cantankerous celebrity man-fish, a horror movie host who deals in the real thing, an innocent victim of a TV test screening, persnickety aliens with testicle-heads, a werewolf with a prosthetic paw, a Mikey who does, in fact, hate everything, a hit man named Mister Bart, and a temperamental geezer with a lot to say about the environment and skinning people alive.

Crypt Orchids, is a collection of short stories by award-winning multi media author David J. Schow, a gathering of foreboding fiction that grabs the cutting edge barehanded, damns the spray of blood, and stays right in your face “until you want to go down on your knees and mumble for mercy,” according to best-selling author John Farris.

As Robert Bloch once said … it takes balls to make Crypt Orchids.

Enter and be enthralled. The Management assumes no responsibility for parts of you left behind.



“Look Out He's Got a Knife” (Introduction) by Robert Bloch
“Action”
“Pick Me Up”
“Dusting the Flowers”
Hollywood Triptych
(a) “Gills”
(b) “Seeing Things”
(c) “(Melodrama)”
“Scoop Bites the Dust”
“Final Performance” (stage adaptation of “The Final Performance” by Robert Bloch)
“Jeff and Linda”
“A Punch in the Doughnut”
“Refrigerator Heaven”
“Penetration”
“The Incredible True Facts in the Case”
“Look Out He's Got a Knife … Again!” (Afterword)

Genres: Horror

235 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

David J. Schow is an American author of horror novels, short stories, and screenplays, associated with the "splatterpunk" movement of the late '80s and early '90s. Most recently he has moved into the crime genre.

Reviews

[Zachary Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume of short stories is David J. Schow's tribute to Robert Bloch, who penned an introduction to Crypt Orchids before he passed. As such, most of the content is centered around psychopaths and human follies, which is what the bulk of Bloch's bibliography was concerned with. There is also a stage adaptation of Robert Bloch's story "The Final Performance." Mr. Schow's prose is fine as ever, sharp and witty, lean and muscular, but showy where it pays to take risks. He even writes reminiscent of Bloch's style in several pieces, right down to the Psycho author's love of alliteration and wordplay.

Particular standouts include "Dusting the Flowers" which concerns a cutting-edge artist, a nightclub of wannabe vampires, and a tugboat dwelling serial killer who dumps his victims into a polluted river. There's also a humorous take on tired Hollywood execs and stilted television in "Seeing Things." Schow includes another entry in his Scoop-canon (a series of stories involving a down-on-his-luck criminal) with "Scoop Bites the Dust." Fans of the series Masters of Horror may be interested in "Pick Me Up" which was adapted for the show by Larry Cohen. My personal favorite story may have been "Refrigerator Heaven."

I've enjoyed every David J. Schow book I've read and plan to continue reading him for a long time.

[Kylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Gills, and Dusting the Flowers (though I don't agree with the characters' sentiments), but I have Dusting... in a different anthology and I wasn't too struck by the other stories as I'm more of a supernatural horror fan.

[Jeff McIntosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection...with aforeward written by, and later interview with, Robert Bloch,

Many of the stories would fall intoo the category of suspense/crime - my favoorites being "Scoop Bites the Dust", "Melodrama, an "The incredible True Facts"...

All in all, a solid collection.


Jeff McIntosh