Evil in Technicolor

by Joe M. McDermott (Editor)

The world was more mysterious in Technicolor. The flicker of the camera reel sputtered to life, the scene was set, and the players wandered into the uncanny and unknown, where artificial light cast dark shadows. The stylish and sleek medium of film has inspired generations of writers, readers, and fans of all things that go bump in the night.




In homage to classic horror films that inspired generations, join ten award-winning and visionary master storytellers as they journey through ruined castles, haunted houses, and encounter the darkness of the human soul that will inspire new generations to fall in love with the macabre.




Lock your doors and turn on all your lights.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies

372 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2020

Reviews

[Baal Of · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology does a fine job of invoking the feeling of those old Hammer films where everything is dreamy, blurry at the edges and saturated. The opening story by Stina Leicht starts things off on a strong note with a richly emotional story around that idea that sometimes there are not haunted places, rather there are haunted people. This story felt more personal to me since it is set in Austin, and was full of place settings that I know, and her characters felt like real people from this city I have lived in for my entire adult life. The next story by E. Catherine Tobler was also excellent and imaginative taking advantage of the inherent otherworldliness of deep sea diving mixing in a nice dose of old-god mythology and eldritch horror. A. C. Wise gets bonus points for including both Kate Bush and Meg Myers as part of the plot point, and anyone who hasn't heard Meg Myers cover of "Running Up That Hill" should go listen to it now. I have an affinity for stories that include imaginary books or films, especially those lost or esoteric, so I was all in with "The Somnambulist" a 1967 production from Hammer Films (that as far as I can tell is completely made up) which provides a backdrop for this hallucinatory novella that perfectly fulfills the premise of the anthology. Rhiannon Rasmussen offers another great tale that mixes film with prose in a wonderfully creative way, in this case the boundaries of film and reality become increasingly blurred and then cross straight over into gory deaths happening right on film. I pretty much enjoyed every story in this book, except for the last one which I though was a self-indulgent slog.

[Alex Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

The time after 11pm held a reverence in the pre-internet era, even in the ancient pre-cable epochs. Black and white movies on the TV, hosted by a campy oddball who seemed to be having more fun than I ever would. Earnest, quiet, creepy horror films to comfort you in the dark.

This collection of horror novelettes dances through styles and subjects guided by its theme: those Hammer Horror movies of old and the way they made us feel on those late nights. Vampires, gods, ghosts, Kate Bush — plenty of creepies to be found here, and
never once trite or labored.

Recommended for horror fans looking for well-written takes on the classics and for horror-adjacent people who want a good spooky read that’s not going to keep them awake in abject terror for a week. (That’s me. I couldn’t sleep for days the last time I watched a contemporary horror movie.)

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jason occasionally visits the old Maufrais house’s private cemetery when he is upset but one night he meets a resident of the house who introduces him to the family - all who seem to be wearing very old-fashioned garb. The strange denizens tie in with Jason’s own unfortunate family history in Stina Leicht’s spooky “Forgiveness Is Warm Like A Tear On The Cheek”. Helen is on an archaeological dive in Egypt when they discover an underwater palace containing colonnades of female gods which leads to a hidden isle and an even more spectacular temple…but beware if you take any souvenirs! “Blue Hole, Red Sea” is a chilling and entertaining tale from E. Catherine Tobler. After an abortive fling in Paris Donovan returns home to a new video project where a cover of a Kate Bush song features. His gradual paranoia that somebody is watching him evolves into messages he can’t remember sending and a realisation of a terrible occurrence. A. C. Wise’s “A Thousand Faces Minus One” will have you never watching Bush’s Hammer Horror the same way again! Rhiannon Rasmussen provides delicious horror with her tale of a B-movie troupe travelling to Eastern Europe to shoot in a genuine mansion but when things start to go tragically wrong suspicion falls on the residents. “The Maidens Of Midnight” is worth a movie itself! Adam Gallardo shows us “The Ultimate Secret Of Magic” when a teenage girl’s father is possessed by a demon, and Haralambi Markov takes us to a bespoke haunting where the client may just be recreating an actual event in “The Midnight Feast” - ghoulish and gory. Craig Laurance Gidney has Emily Bronte meet an ancient witch, Black Agnes, in “Myth And Moor”, while Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam has the famous monster hunter Professor Lee Vansing and his son and daughter track down two different Count Draculas, a female vampire Roxanne, a Gorgon Medusa and the merged entity Dr. Hyde in the horror romp “Hammerville”. More a meta-story than malevolent, Molly Tanzer’s “Summer Camp Would Have Been A Lot Cheaper” - the story of a 15yo girl who writes a novel for her father - is quite entertaining and Nick Mamatas closes things with the tale of George, an aging thespian, portraying Mary Shelley’s most famous creation, but tormented by a mad colleague and an inability to find the perfect line for the monster. The high quality of the stories across the board makes it tough to pick a favourite…but the Wise and the Rasmussen tales have left an impression on me. I read the book straight through but it’s probably more accessible as a chocolate box for dipping into periodically. Enjoy! RECOMMENDED.

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

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4.5 stars

Evil in Technicolor was inspired by a new kind of horror, an invincible and an on-going one, the COVID pandemic. During springtime and in less than two months, ten talented authors and fans of the horror genre united and each one created their own tale of horror and fright. Their stories are completely different, although they all share the same chilling atmosphere. It's the same atmosphere that Hammer Horror Productions, the company that brought Frankenstein and Dracula to the big screen, has created and maintained for more that six decades.

A musician with a troubled past finds peace while visiting a haunted house with a graveyard on its grounds. He has had a rough life so far but the occupants of the house can help him even though they've been deceased for decades. A diver discovers something truly precious and deadly. She's willing to sacrifice everything to bring it to the surface despite the warnings she receives. An artist finds himself somewhere between sanity and madness while trying to film a video based on his own life. A horror movie in production becomes a horror in real life when a scare goes terribly wrong and it reveals someone's chilling secrets. Magic should be used and passed on wisely but one can never know someone's true intentions. One of my favorite stories was the one where we get to read a fresh take on the monster created by Frankenstein.

Evil in Technicolor is an anthology of dark tales, a tribute to horror itself. From the classic tale of Dracula to ghosts, witches, mythological creatures, and paranormal entities, and from haunted houses to psychological scares, the ten uniquely written and adjusted to the present day stories show us what it's like to be truly defenseless. The book will be published on October 1st, at the very start of the most frightening month of the year. The month when movies, TV series, books, and comics celebrate the terror, the gore, the mystery, the paranormal, the unexplained. The stories will give you the chills, make you laugh, and leave you feeling nostalgic.

So, get hold of a copy of Evil in Technicolor, wait until the night falls, turn off the lights, light a few candles, and embrace the dark...

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves to be read while listening to the Terrortron soundtracks on endless loop. I rather enjoy this concept of an anthology of dark novelettes inspired by lurid gothic horror films like what Hammer produced. I also love how the novelette format really allows these stories to create deep characters and rich settings. The only thing I was missing from this was an Orrin Grey story, whose work is ideally suited for a book with this concept.

“Forgiveness Is Warm like a Tear on the Cheek” by Stina Leicht is a comfortably sentimental story about coming to terms with loss while populated with a spooky house that’s one part Uncle Einar and one part Beetlejuice. “The Ultimate Secret of Magic” by Adam Gallardo is a fun bit of urban fantasy in the tradition of Constantine, although not exceptionally Technicolor. “Myth and Moor” by Craig Laurance Gidney is a wonderfully fae story that has some of the best descriptions of ghosts. “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” by Nick Mamatas did some really nice work as a gothic homage (Shelley’s Frankenstein in particular), and I really appreciated the use of the --------- blank in place of the Creature’s name, as he has none.

I’m not entirely sure how to process “The Midnight Feast” by Haralambi Markov. This is a funhouse mirror that reflects a chunk of our horror classics and feeds them back to us. We’ve got the dinner scene of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with dishes like House of 1000 Corpses, Annabelle, and The Haunting (1999).

While I enjoyed this entire book, several felt like they hit the anthology theme stronger than the others, and the stories really sunk their hooks into me. “Blue Hole, Red Sea” by E. Catherine Tobler is an excellently crafted dark fantasy about liminal spaces created by the ocean depths. “A Thousand Faces Minus One” by A. C. Wise has an unreliable narrator falling apart while being stalked after a broken heart. “The Maidens of Midnight” by Rhiannon Rasmussen is a lush and blood-soaked vampire film production in eastern europe that is beset with tragedies that make it ultimately impossible to piece the film together.

[Corrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evil in Technicolor, edited by Joe M. McDermott is a horror anthology that pays homage to the classic horror films. I came for A.C. Wise, Molly Tanzer and Bonnie Jo Stuffelbeam, but the rest of the authors proved to write high quality as well.

A really enjoyable read!

Available on Scribd.

5 Stars

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 rounded down.
An extremely solid collection of novelletes based on classic horror. The stories chosen for the most part got the vibe down perfectly. The longer length was also a plus as the authors really got to dive into the stories and build up a narrative.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's more like a 3.5 as the stories improved the deeper into the book you read.

[Angela]

Very odd. I liked some of the stories; not sure I understood the last one.

Perhaps these would mean more to me if I was a fan of old classic horror films.