Book Review: "Welcome to the Splatter Club Vol. II" edited by K. Trap Jones (2021)
“Welcome to the Splatter Club Vol. II” Book Review
Written by Stuart D. Monroe
Published by Blood Bound Books
Edited by K. Trap Jones
Stories by Arlo Gorevin, Zoltán Komor, Lucy Leitner, W.R. Macumber, S.C. Mendes, Lucas Milliron, Nikki Noir, Rachel Nussbaum, Daniel J. Volpe, Thomas K.S. Wake, Matthew Weber, Montague White, Jay Wilburn, and Patrick Winters
2022, 164 pages, Fiction
Released on December 31st, 2021
Review:
I read a metric fuckton of anthologies, generally speaking, but there are very few I’ve enjoyed as much as I did K. Trap Jones’ Welcome to the Splatter Club, a collection that gave me a pride-obliterating bitch slap of the truly gonzo and bizarre. The debut entry offered everything from sentient sperm who hate marijuana (blasphemy!) to people as pet store wares. It’s a heady beast, so naturally I was pretty damn stoked to review the next entry in a series that I hope stays this strong.
The mostly new lineup (only Nikki Noir and Patrick Winters return from Volume One) proves to be as diverse as the first. When your opening story has dick-magling Fleshlights, meth gators, and sexually repressed Jehovah’s Witnesses (“Meth Gator” by Lucas Milliron), you know you’ve arrived back in the Splatter Club. There are structures made entirely of human meat pulp, inhabited by crazy Eskimos (“Igloo Made of Flesh” by Zoltán Komor). If you’re looking for some tree porn, you’ll find it with Thomas K.S. Wake’s “The Long Winter Ahead”.
Many of the stories bear clear influences on their style and structure. “Protein” by Rachel Nussbaum calls to mind John Carpenter’s “The Thing"“ in the best way possible. “Hell Comes to the Burger Hut” by Matthew Weber is a 2022 homage to Oliver Stone’s masterpiece, Natural Born Killers. “War of the Wildflowers” is a surprisingly light-hearted tale that feels like an homage to Joe Hill’s wonderful short story, "Pop Art” (from 20th Century Ghosts). Much like its predecessor, all of the stories in Welcome to the Splatter Club Vol. II are easily visualized as an episode of shows like Tales From the Crypt or the much campier Monsters.
“Meth Gator” by Lucas Milliron: What starts with a trailer park princess sabotaging her meth head husband’s Fleshlight and bashing his brains in ends with a meth gator terrorizing the crew of a porno shoot during a hurricane. What, you think I can make something like that up?! It’s a strong lead off.
“The Road Crosses the Chicken” by Jay Wilburn: Amos has a two-legged dog with a caved-in skull named Chicken. It only gets weirder from there. It also has one incredible last sentences, and a good last line is the icing on the cake. Don’t you agree?
“Igloo Made of Flesh” by Zoltán Komor: A man finds that an Eskimo has appeared in his home and killed his family, turning them into meat pulp for one seriously grizzly igloo. The reason why will make you yell at this story. That’s a compliment.
“War of the Wildflowers” by Arlo Gorevin: Rex Kindred has a fishbowl for a head. The skill and voice that Gorevin tells this story in makes lines like “It was as clear as the water in his skull…” come across as natural and accepted. The suspense build is likewise smooth, and the story is just so damn crisp!
“A Pie- on the House” by Patrick Winters: Repeat contributor Patrick Winters (who gave us a seriously warped tale about snack food hatred with “The Big Bad Boy” the last time around) returns with the story of a shitty person named Stan who gets what he deserves. As a former pizza worker, I felt this one.
“The People Around You” by Lucy Leitner: Simply brilliant. It’s a lovely skewering of social media and the public obsession with it that we are all guilty of. If you’ve ever asked what would really happen if all the keyboard warriors actually had the balls to handle shit in real life, this story gives one very plausible answer for that. It’s the standout of the entire collection.
“The Sack Cutter” by Nikki Noir and S.C. Mendes: A neatly wrapped up revenge and torture tale with an ambiguously fucked ending. It’s another favorite in the collection; the combined powers of one newbie and one repeat contributor bring you a great, big dose of awful fun.
“Hell Comes to the Burger Hut” by Matthew Weber: If you remade Natural Born Killers, you’d get something a lot like Matthew Weber’s wicked satire. This is what all our connectivity gets us when faced with the truly ugly and evil. Then the camera pulls back, so to speak, and you get something much uglier. I read this one twice it was so hideous.
“The Long Winter Ahead” by Thomas K.S. Wake: What starts off with an indecent proposal too good to be true ends up with unbelievably graphic tree porn. How does that even work, you ask? You might not want the answer. But seriously, guys- if a woman (or women, in this case) are being that openly slutty and trying to get you back to their place, you should absolutely NOT go. I can’t stress this enough.
“Genital Gorgonzola” by Montague White: It’s extremely easy to see why this story won the Killercon 2021 Gross Out Award. Fuckin’ A. The story has to be inspired by phrase “dick cheese”, and now that it’s fresh in my head again I have to go puke. Excuse me.
“Jezebel” by W.R. Macumber: This is one of those stories that’s almost hard to read. An abused girl lives under the rule of “Mother”, whose sadistic exploits are intense. It’s a nasty and vicious read that tests your limits. Be warned.
“Protein” by Rachel Nussbaum: What’s this? Another pizza-centric story?! A dude finds a fingernail in his pizza and goes down to the pizza parlor to complain. What he finds will not be what you’re expecting. I have theories about this homage to The Thing; hit me up if you’re curious.
“Lost Girl, Found Dog” by Daniel J. Volpe: A cannibalistic pedophiliac is on the prowl. He assumes he is the only one on the prowl, but he’s dead wrong this time. Volpe crafts a story that goes to the darkest of places so that you can properly appreciate the payoff. It also makes one hell of a closer story.
Welcome to the Splatter Club Vol. II delivers on the promise of being a proving ground of sorts for up and coming splatterpunk authors. The range of just plain wrong on display is admirably wide and varied, and that is exactly what I came for. I love good literature and gifted prose as much as the next person, but sometimes I just want to read a short story that makes me say “What in the actual fuck?!” at least twice per story.
Mission accomplished.
Grade:
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
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