Dark Screams, Volume 5

August 24, 2015
Freeman and Chizmar’s fifth horror anthology runs the gamut from throwback horror to lyrical and heartbreaking tales, with a few duds. The crown jewel is Kealan Patrick Burke’s luminous “The Land of Sunshine,” about a husband guilty of infidelity who gives the ultimate gift to win his wife’s forgiveness. Another standout is Mick Garris’s gonzo “Everything You’ve Always Wanted,” a gory, darkly funny tale about a has-been movie director who meets the woman of his dreams at a horror convention, with disastrous results. Less successful are J. Kenner’s New Orleans ghost story, “The One and Only,” in which a man’s broken heart leads him into darkness; Del James’s “Mechanical Gratitude,” about a classic Camaro and the man who loves the vehicle to death; and “The Playhouse” by Bentley Little, about a woman who enters a child’s playhouse, finding it preferable to the real world and her cold husband. Loosely tied together with themes of broken hearts and wayward love, this collection will satisfy most horror fans.