By MAX RESTAINO (Amphetamine Sulphate; 2024)

The first entry in the AS Horror Line, courtesy of the indie publisher Amphetamine Sulphate (whose authors include Dennis Cooper, Philip Best and Isabelle Nicou).  The AS Horror tag line is “Are you ready to have your skull scraped?,” and this 69-page novella handily achieves that effect.  COYOTE may be an extended hallucination or an eccentric first-person crime saga; either way, it’s a deeply chilly and upsetting work.

The author was Max Restaino, who I’m guessing is the FANGORIA contributor (and not the Donny Osmond affiliated singer-songwriter) bearing that name.  He’s crafted a spare and poetic depiction of unrestrained psychosis that fits in well with the Amphetamine Sulphate aesthetic, which (as evidenced by the authors mentioned above) tends toward the twisted.

The narrative involves a young boy finding his reality upended by a nondescript entity known as the Intruder, which somehow merges with his consciousness.  Under the Intruder’s influence the boy finds himself becoming obsessed with slasher movies, in particular a video called THE COYOTE HOUSE that includes a depiction of “an explosion of bright red goop…his body slumped forward as the hammer yanked free, spilling the cranial bowl’s remaining contents into her screaming mouth and throat.”

Things only get nastier from there, with the boy indulging in ecstatic self-mutilation and gruesome fantasies about massacring his friends and family members.  Inevitably fantasy becomes reality, with the boy senselessly beating a friend to death.  This, of course, isn’t the only murder the boy will commit, and nor will he (or the Intruder) emerge from this twisted odyssey, marked by worms, blood and slime, unscathed.

The boy’s exploits are juxtaposed with italicized text describing another boy (or perhaps the same one?) who likewise becomes obsessed with slasher videos and has morbid urges involving murder and mutilation, and can’t seem to avoid slugs and leeches.  Completing the effect are photographic illustrations by Steven Purtill depicting death, decomposition, slimy insects and indistinct black and white happenings that appear perverse and disturbing.