A young man’s elders attempt to transform him into a tree(!) in this German-originated nightmare in ink. Quintessentially European in tone and conception, it’s been compared with THE METAMORPHOSIS, yet A FAMILY FAILURE occupies a category of its own.
An account of telepathy and bodily possession that reads like a Harold Robbins or Sidney Sheldon potboiler with a horrific edge.
A novel that’s intriguing and absorbing, set in a minutely detailed future world with a scope that borders on epic.
Contrary to what you might have heard, this recently interred pulp relic is not a very good book, much less the “neglected classic” some have proclaimed it, but it is engagingly nutty. A fast moving and often (intentionally?) funny account of medical madness in a creepy California mansion, DELIVER ME FROM EVA reads like a transcription of a Stuart Gordon movie set within a 1940s-era pulp fiction framework.
A bizarre refashioning of PROM NIGHT as an allegory of post-9/11 America, this novel is either terminally loopy or some kind of satiric tour de force.
A strange, rather morbid mystery that in recent years has received attention doubtless due to the many bizarre and grotesque elements author Alexander Laing includes.
A good example of the type of freakishness that occasionally emerges from the pen of an otherwise mild-mannered author. The author in question is the prolific fantasy and children’s book scribe Nancy Springer, who here spins an unexpectedly bleak and disquieting account of freaks, mutilation and madness that occupies the same territory as FREAKS and GEEK LOVE.
ANOMALIES AND CURIOSITIES OF MEDICINE by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle is easily the most famous and widely read medical text of all time, and with good reason.
Adults-only anime madness that’s profoundly stylish, outrageous and disturbing. In addition, it’s undoubtedly the ultimate movie (after FREAKS) about a traveling freak show.
A strange, anarchic masterpiece from German filmmaker Werner Herzog, who was mining a vein similar to the films of David Lynch and Harmony Korine years before those guys came into vogue