There's a new streaming service on the market. Free to view, it has all of the most popular television shows and films. Some of the content is so new that it still plays in theatres and yet - here, on this site - it streams with crystal clarity. But, when the subscribers reach 666, the channel glitches out. Random images flash to the brains of those sat glued to their screens and - in a heart beat - their thoughts are changed and souls sucked back into the sets. Stripped of their souls, the thing left behind is human only in shape. The shapes sitting there have but one thing on their mind; bloody, violent murder...
MATT SHAW was born, quite by accident (his mother tripped, he shot out) September 30th 1980 in Winchester hospital where he was immediately placed on the baby ward and EBay. Some twelve years later (wandering the corridors of the hospital and playing with road kill when he was on day release), the listing closed and he remained unsold, he was booted out of the hospital to start his life as a writer and hobbit – beginning with writing screenplays and short stories for his own amusement before finally getting published when he was twenty-seven years and forty-five seconds old.
Once Published weekly in a lad's magazine with his photography work, Matt Shaw is also a published author and cartoonist. Has to be said, can be a bit of a flirt and definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, somewhat of a klutz.
Favourite books "Roald Dahl's Collection of Short Stories" Tim Burton's Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy Anything, really, written by himself. Because he is that good.
3.5 stars. I zipped through this awfully quick. And I think that Tubi may have this same effect on me. It's free, has the best selection of movies I've seen on a streaming service, and I've been advertising it to everyone I know. "Urge to kill rising." So I had fun here and loved the original premise, leaving plenty to the imagination. That worked to the story's advantage a bit, but also to a disadvantage. I feel like if Shaw didn't hop back and forth to so many people, who were all glorified victims, the actual power of this channel could have been explored a little more. Still keeping some mystique, but also giving the reader some further insight as to what is actually happening with it. And also due to all the jumping around, the story focuses on Rudy and Steve, but we don't get enough time to know either of them much. This also could have been remedied with some minor retooling of the content. So everything just felt a little disjointed, but it was still an enjoyable experience. As I've said many time, Matt Shaw takes risks with his horror stories, and I give him a lot of credit for that.
#️⃣2️⃣2️⃣2️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 🐠 🍭 Date 🌬️: Saturday, May 10, 2025 ☄️ Word Count📃: 23k Words, short
╔⏤⏤⏤╝❀🌸💮🌸❀╚⏤⏤⏤╗ ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡ My 30th read in summertime read-a-thon "since idk wtf to do with my life for one thousand — two hundred — twenty four hours straight" (^-^ )
2️⃣🌟, sorry but what's the point? —————————————————————— ➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗
This is one of the most CONFUSING extreme horror novels that ive ever read because i refuse to nelive that this isn't just a short story collection. Why would you even try to connect all of these meaningless death scenes of unethical use of hammers, unethical use of shattered window glass panels, unethical use of an axe, unethical use of your own ankle, unethical use of a recipt and THE UNETHICAL USE OF A TELEVISION SCREEN.
Krystal was dead. Robin was dead. Everyone who tried to get in the way were also dead.
Yepp just..... everyone's dead, the entire cast is dead, the whole world is dead yep, great story. All of it just because Rudy kinda opened and shared an "illegal" streaming service. Well that's one way to influence people to stop pirating media, but that surely won't stop anyone irl at all.
Matt’s books are phenomenal!! This one was intense, twisted, crazy…he really has a way of putting together some really strange things 🤣 A free streaming service with a scary twist, you down?
My review is for the ebook. The eBook is (92 pages) so it's a quick read, depending on fast you read books or eBooks. This book is fictional, but some of themes/scenes in the book made me feel uncomfortable to read specifically: the victim shaming of the domestic violence victim/the victimization and murder of the domestic violence victim as well, it was hard to read that. It made me feel sick to read about the sexual abuse and the trauma that it caused to the children that were sexually abused by their dad, so it was understandable that one of the children committed suicide in such as horrific way.
The beginning of this book is bleak, depressing and disturbing that the two boys that are siblings are being sexually abused by their father. I'm not sure if the son of the man that died is one of the abused children, or if he is the father that is sexually abusing his two sons but he is watching the Channel X streaming service obsessively. It reminds me of the film Videodrome that was made by David Cronenberg, there is a particular scene that shows a woman being tortured. Over time the main character becomes obsessed with extreme content that has no boundaries, limits, it is uncensored, raw and disturbing, graphically violent and sexual in context. People become desensitized to various types of violence overtime until violence is normalized or it seems ordinary. I wasn't expecting what Steve Chappo did to his boss Samuel but i'm sure a lot of people have thought of doing something similar to their boss, especially if they are a merciless, unforgiving, tyrant. I'm not saying what Steve Chappo did to his boss Samuel Chastain was the right thing to do, but it was justified due to what Samuel said about Steve and his drunken, abusive, incestuous behaviour but he did for himself & on behalf of all his coworkers, for his son & as a act of defiance and revenge. It's not surprising the boy killed himself, due to being sexually abused, there is only so much abuse a person can stand until it drives them insane, and they either self-harm, numb their pain with drugs, alcohol or sex, kill themselves or go on a murderous rampage and start by killing their abuser(s) Sadly it's understandable and relatable. The Channel X streaming service seems like it's illegal, it reminds me of the Red Rooms on the Deep Web, where the torturer/host is paid to torture, maim, murder people on camera, while it is live-streamed and the audience pays to view it. Live-streamed Snuff. They gleefully want to watch a man or woman being tortured, mutilated, maimed, an murdered for their sick pleasure, they also choose which implements of torture that will be used and how the victims should be tortured/murdered. I don't know if the Red Rooms truly exist but if they do, it's a terrifying concept, there is no limit to human depravity, cruelty, sadism or sexual deviancy and perversion. There is a darkness that dwells deep within all of us, no matter how hard you try to resist, to suppress/repress it, it's always there, lingering within your soul. I like there are multiple characters in the eBook, it makes it interesting to have multiple storylines happening simultaneously. Channel X has a subliminal influence on the people streaming any film or tv series on the free service, whenever there is static on the screen. It affects them emotionally, they inexplicable feel & express pent up anger/rage and either harm themselves by committing suicide or they commit gruesome, sadistic murders. It's affecting everyone that signed up for the free service and is watching any film or tv series on the free streaming service, everyone except Rudy, because he keeps forgetting to register to use the free streaming service. Everyone except Rudy will be subliminally influenced by Channel X. I'm curious who created the free streaming service and if they are observing people that are streaming content on the free streaming service whenever there is static on everyone's screen. I like the part of the eBook about Rudy and Jason, it would be fun to read a novella about people killing each other just so they could kill their competition so they would be next in line for a promotion. I'm fine with reading gory, fucked up Extreme Horror or Splatterpunk books, but I don't want to read about domestic abuse or sexual abuse of children. I like this book, but it would still be a good book/eBook without the sexual abuse of the two children, victim shaming of a victim of domestic violence then being subjected to more violence towards the domestic violence victim. Wtf? Why? It's not necessary and doesn't add anything important to the story, it just reminds me of the corrupt, abusive sexist, misogynists, rapists & murderers that some Police officers are in England. It's disgusting. The overall plot of this book is unique and I like it, I liked how unhinged the characters were, they acted out their fantasies and supressed rage/anger. Everyone is capable of cruelty, sadistic violence, sadism, murder, weather they like it or not or admit that.
Channel X follows Rudy and others who have been exposed to a mysterious streaming channel called Channel X. Channel X boasts having all the newest movies for absolutely free, but, in reality, it has a lot more than that.
I really loved the concept of Channel X. A streaming series that preys upon people need for free and constant entertainment, it's pretty iconic, actually. My biggest issue with this story is that it jumps around to different people showing how they are affected , which I appreciate, but it made the overall flow of the story really choppy. Once again, like my last Matt Shaw, this would have benefited from being an entire novel versus a novella. Being just under 100 pages really is detrimental for me. I do recommend this story for any extreme horror lover, and I will continue to work through Matt Shaw books.
This book completes the Goodreads reading challenge that I had set for myself! Yay! 🙈
Channel X is about this new streaming service that caters never-before-seen movies that are yet to air on theaters and it's for free!
The cover and synopsis piqued my attention + Matt Shaw has become one of my go-to authors when I want to read extreme horror novellas. But this book turned out just okay for me. The synopsis was promising, but reading this was kind of confusing because it kept hopping back and forth to so many characters and showing how they are affected by this mysterious new service. For me, it would have been nice if it focused more on the channel's power.
Anyway, I still enjoyed this nonetheless and I would still recommend this to exteme horror readers.
The writing was horrible- the synopsis was more intriguing than the actual book. It wasn’t scary or grotesque and had things included for “shock value” that didn’t add to the story at all and weren’t really shocking as much as just uncomfortable. The only reason I didn’t DNF it was because it was less than 100 pages but I 100% regret wasting my time on it. The writing was so plain and boring with reactions from characters that didn’t make any sense or seem believable. I feel like this could have benefited from less POVs and more development on the characters.
"He pushed himself up from the carpeted floor and started to headbutt the television screen. Each time his skull connected, the screen flickered and popped with the sound of static" I loved this scene and it gave me very high hopes for the rest of the novel. It fell a little short for me, personally but I still enjoyed reading this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I really enjoyed this novella, from what I’ve read of Matt Shaw definitely one of his best! Unique and interesting, graphic but not overly done and if you are new to the genre pick this one up for sure! People are getting possessed by their tv’s due to a link to a good to be true free streaming service. I’ll leave it at that!
I went into this book blind and expected something different. That's my bad. I expected some sort of show of people being tortured or whatnot. That's not what this story is about, but it was still pretty fun. Im not much of a TV watcher, but found humor in what TV can do to people 😂
Not as gruesome as I had hoped. Second Matt Shaw Book I read, and honestly.. not worth the hype either. It's kond of confusing. And definately NOT as Splatter punk as advertised on booktok or splatter punk groups.
Very good, a few spelling errors but not many Wasn't try hard or overly edgy like a lot of extreme horror books. Good story and well described the areas and the over all vibe of the scenes.
2.75 There was a lot of people losing their minds and unaliving people because of a streaming service but that’s about it. There wasn’t anything special or revealing. It could have been funny in a satire way because but then that potential was killed as well... some editing errors as well
I love Matt Shaw's work; however, this one was hard to read. I often found myself putting it down, which resulted in me forgetting about it. I don't know what it is, as the writing style and storytelling are on point and flow flawlessly.
Just a very gory short story. Nothing spectacular or thought provoking. I didn't hate this but there's honestly no redeeming qualities other than it not taking up too much time out of my day.
" When I see a Matt Shaw book recommended on Kindle, it usually goes straight onto my TBR, or even straight to me reading it. Channel X grabbed my attention and I thought “perhaps some sort of porn channel, with dire consequences?” I, of course, was wrong…as usual..." Full review over on: https://www.deafsparrow.com/2023/06/0...