Review: Dark Blessings Will Mess You Up
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 22, 2012
Dark Blessings features seven short stories. The common theme was the twisted side of people that lurks beneath the surface of deceptively normal people. This was a great horror anthology that terrified without resorting to gore and graphic violence.John Paul Allen included a brief history at the beginning of each piece, and I skipped all of them. I can't stand intros to every single story, and I was concerned that they might affect my perception of the stories. I did go back and read them after I finished the stories, and I recommend that other readers do the same. The intros were insightful, but some of them definitely would have skewed my impressions of the collection.Pit Stop at Hoo Hoo Hollow is about a young couple who swindle the elderly out of their money, until their deeds finally catches up to them. Allen's manipulation of the timeline to build suspense led to one hell of a shock ending.Runs Like Rabbit was an unusual tale about a family forced to give up their traditional way of life; it held my interest, but I was a little disappointed by the ending...it was a bit bewildering & I had to read it more than once to make sure I understood what had happened.Hello Neighbor was my favorite story in this collection. A man tries to make a new home for his daughter, after he divorces from his wife, but when he tries to enlarge the backyard by cutting down the tree, a mysterious neighbor starts threatening him with deadly consequences.Marquee was another favorite of mine. A man named Scott becomes reincarnated as boy named Morgan, in order to learn a lesson that he kept missing.Prader-Willie was an extremely disturbing tale with a horrific ending...Allen did an excellent job with this story about a boy and his friends that abuse his mentally challenged cousin one afternoon.Weeping Mary...how do I describe this one? One of the best in the collection...a tale of an adoption with ties to Lilith - yes, THAT Lilith.House Guest was a frightening stalker story that had me checking the closets and my attic.With a solid foundation in suspense and dread, I think that Dark Blessings will appeal to a wide variety of horror fans...and keep many awake for several nights afterwards.