yup, also gives off vibe of trying too hard to be edgy. Like when metal bands try to sound extreme with names like Disembowler or Virgin Sacrifice or some shit like that lol
It's a very particular kind of humor that was really big in the 80s. Dead babies, homesick abortions and abandoned dumpster babies was an entire catalogue of jokes in those days. I have never read this book, but I'm 99% sure it's not supposed to be serious. How you feel about this isn't up to me, I'm just letting you know as a 50 year old man, this was a thing in the 80s. Jokes about Africans in famine, AIDS, and the shuttle explosion #1 (Challenger) also ran for their spot on the street.
The most disturbing book I read was during highschool called “The Compound.” It’s not even a horror book but it was rather its twist that I found horrifying. It’s an about a family that has been stuck living in a bunker for a decade after the end of the world when their food situation turns dire. It’s probably super tame in comparison to these books, and it’s been several years since I read it, but that twist still forever haunts me. I don’t want to give it away but here it is for people that might now want to read it: The story is from the perspective of the son watching how his parents and older sister are dealing with bunker life. Later on he realizes that the world never actually ended and it was all an elaborate hoax made by his dad and the food situation was solved by the dad continuously impregnating the wife and using the those children as meat. I think it was implied the dad would also impregnate the sister. It didn’t go into intense detail, but the thought is still horrifying nonetheless.
Man this reminds me of a book I also read as a kid that was about a bunker. “The bunker diaries” by Kevin brooks. Not super disturbing but as a child, harrowing to read.
Children of the Matrix and The Biggest Secret fucked me up real bad and are among the most disturbing books you could possibly imagine. Now imagine what it would be like if dinosaurs like Dilophosaurus ACTUALLY existed, and they ACTUALLY managed to find a way to survive large scale extinction events, and they ACTUALLY figured out how to hide from the smartest mammals and hunted a number of them into extinction, and then they ACTUALLY invented all the religions, they ACTUALLY invented politics and the smallest dinosaurs somehow figured out how to lose a tail or two and become fully upright, Carl Sagan version. He wrote extensively about a dinosaur species he thought could do it and there were models which were made and these models were based on them and they were so realistic, he approved of them. This is why The Children of the Matrix is so terrifying. Yes it sounds like ridiculous conspiracy theory nonsense but just read between the lines here. Now imagine for a moment if Richard Branson actually wrote it as an act of humour to show people how little they know and he has knowledge about intelligent species people have no idea have ever walked the Earth which do not have anybody´s best interests at heart. Not even the hearts of their own members. That would be beyond terrifying. It would be so scary, it´d be scarier than The Three Body Problem. I´m glad that for dinosaurs, provided they actually did exist, things would not go this way.
Doesn't sound like a very efficient plan. I mean, even if the father impregnated the wife and sister (just... ew) continuously, you'd still only have a fresh "meat supply" every nine months (possibly every five if the wife and sister spaced it out), and that's not even counting all the extra food the wife and sister would need to consume just to carry a healthy baby to term. And even then you'd still end up with an amount of meat barely equivalent to what you'd get from a large rotisserie chicken, and how long would that possibly last a family of four? A couple days, tops? Unless the dad is planning to fatten the babies up first, but then you just run into the same problem of those babies ultimately consuming far more food/resources than they would be able to produce. Unless ol' dad is just shatbit insane, and I guess he'd have to be to set his family up like that, but I'm surprised not one other person thought to wonder whether the logic of "incubate and nourish a child for nine whole months, eat for a day or two, repeat" might not be just a teensy bit flawed. And I understand desperation makes people do crazy things, but no one even raised the concern *at any point* that making offspring just to eat them is remarkably inefficient and only making their situation worse? Does the book ever go into any of this or give an explanation? I think I *may* just have to read it now or forever have these questions rattling around in my brain, lol
I've never seen anyone talk about The Compound before but it is absolutely one of my favorite books of all time for that reason! I remember reading it as a kid in maybe 5th grade and not fully realizing what was going on in the story but I reread it recently as a 20 something year old and yeah...needless to say I was shocked! Definitely a book I recommend to people who like that sort of twisted almost dystopian feel
I feel like the problem with extreme horror is there's curiosity about 'hoboy how far does the edgy hole of edge go' then there's just straight-up fetish content masquerading as horror if that makes sense.
Dude literally 😭 like who the hell casually sees baby in a blender and thinks “hell yeah I wanna read that!” Playground I can understand because theres’s a plot to it, I actually enjoyed certain parts of it because there’s more to it then just gore, fetish, and shock value. Still not for everyone but it’s not the worst thing.
@@Matties_edits anyone into true crime can tell you; there are some sick fucks in the world. honestly, if we understood what was going through the minds of these people, that'd be a problem. we're probably better off not understanding.
Lol, dude, first off it came to life as a 'grosser than gross' joke and a 'would you rather...' with the one of the options being the aforementione 'razor blades on a slide" into a pool of iodine (sometimes changed to rubbing alcohol) Other than that, it's a total urban legend. First off, where would you put a metal slide that is big enough in an area where people won't scream, be heard screaming or have the option to run away as it would be needed for the victim to move freely in order to even climb the steps and slide down. I'm not even going to get into the logistics of being able to weld thin razor blades to a metal slide. Plastic ones weren't really on the rise in the 80s during the popularity of this unless it where the tiny backyard ones and that's not enough length and height to produce the speed needed, tho it was "tried" as a sick prank YEARS later by moron kids. Now, moron kids who decided to "imitate art" tried it by actually using said razors to cut into the plastic slide but they only used one or two and where stuck so far out and make them dull they where able to spot it and stop it. But to actually build a setup described in the "thought experiment" known as 'Would you rather...?' has never actually took place and in the event of a kid getting hurt, that's mostly kids imitating art with shotty implementations TL;DR: mostly an Urban Legend tho isolated incidents involving one or two blades YEARS after it's popularity caused little to no damage.
The thing that puts me off extreme horror is that it often relies on two things: absurd gore and fucked up sexual stuff. That, and bad writing. It’s hard enough to find quality writing. It just doesn’t take talent to think “what is really fucked up?” you know? There is no nuance, nothing cerebral, the story is trite or wasted on gore. I have so many pet peeves with writing and have chucked many book across my room. 😂
precisely how i feel about the majority of the genre. the way i think about it is like this: so many extreme horror stories feel as if all the disturbing parts were brainstormed in a 3rd grade classroom, with each student trying to imagine the most disgusting and disturbing thing they possibly can, then getting the student with the most writing talent to make it into a book. push boundaries all you want but it's not gonna make your childish shock novel anything other than gross , and in many cases, downright distasteful
While you can include gore, I’m talking about limiting it. I don’t think “gore=terrifying”, especially within the horror genre. I feel that a lot of splatter punk books are lacking in real talent, as they arose originally as a movement in response to the banning of much less graphic books. So, as a movement it fulfilled it’s purpose but as far as refined, truly GOOD storytelling, I find it to be - and this is just my personal opinion - lazy, gratuitous in it’s violence (especially SA), edge lord shock factor slop, with the occasional misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, etc. dragged in either intentionally or unintentionally. I think stories with extreme themes have the possibility to be told well, but we see this distinct line come down between the horror genre and splatter punk where it deviates. I know someone is going to roll their eyes at this example, but you only get an opinion if you read the BOOK! Lol. The movie is not a representation of the book: Bird Box. While it’s not “extreme horror”, it is an incredibly cerebral, terrifying book. We are with the people the whole time. We are only given the information that they receive. The sounds they hear, how they have to find their way. There’s this part with a dog that has stuck with me forever. At one point they’re outside trying to figure out what something is only by touch and it’s the large thing and it’s so eerie. It’s such a palpable sense of dread. And there is no shortage of visceral violence in that novel. Honestly, if you haven’t read it, I really recommend it! Also, this is by no means me saying you shouldn’t read extreme horror if that’s the type of book you like. This is simply my opinion and my frustration with the sub-genre’s sort of getting mixed up with more traditional horror, because, like damn! If you think you picked up a regular creepy book and all of a sudden every bodily fluid is everywhere and great granny is necrophiliac, you just didn’t sign up for that, you know? Lol Also, if you’re a writer, maybe you’ll invent “cerebral gore”! We’d love to read it!
Yeah I read playground bc it got good reviews but I stopped about half way through because I realized it wasn’t going anywhere. IMO it was just terrible writing. It was like he threw in all of the most shocking shit he could, even if it didn’t fit.
I read a comment on Tiktok that said splatterpunk, like Playground, etc, is like that episode of South Park about ScrotyMcBoogerBalls. Just as many gross things you can toss in a sentence as you possibly can.
I just watched a plot synopsis of Playground on UA-cam. The best way I can describe it is “SquidGame” but if the different props and set pieces were made by the Jigsaw Killer and if the game weren’t made to prove a point, just to kill for pleasure.
Looked at a plot summary for baby in a blender and I think reading dipper goes to Taco Bell would have the same effect! Writing extreme gore with no other substance doesn’t make you cool, it makes you look like a fcking weirdo.
Just reminds me of the South Park episode The Tale of Scroty McBooger Balls. Where the boys write the grossest book ever because they think it’s funny.
The worst part is, from the little I know from what has been said in this video, there are people who would be turned on by it. I know this to be true because I once stumbled onto a picture drawn by a furry involving otters, unborn children, and what amounted to a handle with blander blades attached to the end. I will not go into no further detail, but thats one of the things that convinced me that the furry community is fucked up, probably more then they realize.
I don't think it's children being abused in this one. It's a kid abusing people (from what I can remember). It's still absolutely vile but in a different way.
@87SINFUL, Pretend you're a detective, and you're are searching for the mindset of someone who abuses children to see if you and the evil have any commonalities. You're doing this to seek justice for the abused children. If you just "scratch-it-off" then you're personal fundaments become less valuable, and you have not the capacity to save! To be a savior is to be to suffer! You're not supposed to enjoy it!
Honestly, a lot of these books just feel like someone's weird fetish🧍I might sound pretentious, but I prefer my horror to have a point, something it's trying to say.
I also feel that way, but I felt that Playground honestly did have a message about childhood trauma and toxic masculinity (other than pages 40 - 50/chapter 6). I thought it was beautifully written with the parents, the children, and Rock (Geraldine's adopted son).
Absolutely! That was why the Baby in the Blender book bothered me so much. I just wasn't sure how much detail I could go into without getting this video demonetized.
Maybe it is because of traditional violence being accepted and normalised is something common , but sexuality is something more personal and intimate and we can feel that irruption into something very private like our bodies or intimacy, and we reflect that into the characters. We don't care about a guy being decapitated in a movie, but rape or fetish scenes ... I mean ... the majority can't handle that.
"It has animal violence..." Me: Nope, I'm out. "...but I should clarify that it is violence by animals, not to animals, if that makes a difference, sicko." Me: Yes, that makes all the difference, I'll stay.
Im glad im not the weird one when I say I am much more okay with human violence than animal violence. Not like, you know, baby in a blender level; just that I'd be much less upset seeing a human getting kicked compared to a dog.
Definitely goes to show that you don't have to be extreme or shocking to be scary. That's why I love psychological horror because it relies on unknown and messes with your expectations. The problem with extreme horror is that it takes everything to such a high degree that it's ludicrous or absurd and it's harder to take seriously. Also I think grossing you out isn't same as bring scary but there's sub genre of gross out horror which I don't see any merit in, but to each their own. I just think anything in excess is probably not good in long run but that's my take.
tl;dr - Horror can only be truly scary because of implications and build-up. Death, blood, and guts mean NOTHING if there is no impact to what makes something terrifying. Paraphrased but I am reminded of a Lovecraft quote here: "True horror is something more than bloody bones." Horror is visceral, real horror reaches deep and elicits a dread and a response of not wanting whatever is causing it SO viscerally it makes you shrink into your seat. You can't just slap guts and blood in horror and expect it to be scary. The reason horror is scary is because of the build up to that awful conclusion of a payoff. You have to have build-up. Dracula isn't scary because he is a vampire that sucks your blood and it kills you, Dracula is scary because he's a metaphor for fears we have that unfortunately still ring true to this day, fears about how safe women are alone, about people we don't know, about (sigh) foreigners we don't understand and even about the rich "feeding" off of the poor quite literally. It's also scary for keeping a legend grounded in some truth (note how scientifically some of the characters take it while others are more supernaturally inclined). We're scared of something like Dracula because it's speaking to some sort of dark truth about ourselves - that we fear what we don't understand and we are scared of people who live lives so radically different from us that it's basically the root of all division in humanity as a whole. Our monsters reflect what scares us on a societal level, and even what scares us during the time period of their creation. Scream's intro isn't frightening because Ghostface kills Casey Becker by gutting her, it's scary because this is a situation that literally could happen in real life to anyone for any random reason, we put ourselves in that thought process. It's also scary because Ghostface TOYS with Casey first, heightening her fear (and thus the audience's) until she can't think straight, giving him the ability to abuse that by manipulating her into making poor choices further and thus getting her killed. The fear that you're not safe in somewhere as safe as your home. The dread that just because you answered the wrong message, phone or internet or otherwise, you will not survive the night. The fear we might be a target and not know it, being hunted by someone out for vengeance and blood, all because we made the mistake of existing. And that is something that can and does happen in reality, which makes it even scarier. Cthulhu isn't scary because it's a giant octopus monster, Cthulhu is scary because it represents the fear we're insignificant - that all of our endeavors and efforts to be the amazing creatures we are is just another example of Icarus flying too close to the sun and melting his wings. It's also scary because Cthulhu is a reminder of the inevitability of our species collapsing, we know that we're a species fated to be forgotten to history just like any other species, and that unless some other species of advanced alien finds us and cares enough to study us, the human story - all the wars, all the good we did, all the horrors we committed and all the triumphs our kind have reached, all the advances and truths and fascinating stuff we've done on this planet - is over. Gone in an instant, forgotten, left to nothing but a few books on a shelf at best: The myth of human exceptionalism. If you really wanna scare someone, you can't just jump out and yell "Boo" or throw blood all over the place. Horror is all about eliciting that feeling of dread in the person engaging it. Horror is not about death and blood and monsters. Horror is about us, and how we engage things that make us want to run and hide.
@@ThePhantomSafetyPin well said! Lovecraft, Hitchcock, King are but a few examples but what I like about them is there's always a deeper level fear beyond the surface of what is scary as you've mentioned. A question I try to ask myself when I have an idea for a story is what makes this scary on a deeper level. "Tell Me I'm Pretty" is a story I wrote about a girl who gets so obsessed over looks that goes to an extreme measure to achieve what she thinks is the perfect idea of beauty...grafting porcelain to her skin to make herself into a living porcelain doll. Its a fantastic visual, creepy as hell, but also a testament to pitfalls of poor self image, how focused our culture (US) is on our looks, and how far we'll go to make ourselves feel good about ourself no matter how horrifying or unnatural it is. I got the idea when I saw how rampant plastic surgery for cosmetics has become in the US and read an article about a girl who made herself look like a Barbie doll, very very unsettling. It was this combined with always disliking porcelain dolls that gave way for this idea. It was my 1st story and I've written about 70 stories total so far and I think I'll actually go through every story and specifically ask myself what deeper level fear or anxiety goes with story and if I don't have one, time to do some rewrites lol.
tbf i think these kinds of things don't really go for any kind of deep, well built dread-type horror, I honestly see it something to squirm at and that's part of the fun :)
playground could honestly be a huge hit if geraldine’s backstory/sexual stuff wasnt as in your face as it is. the actual playground storyline is so good and creative, i understand wanting to push boundaries and make it disturbing but i feel like it still wouldve been if geraldine’s storyline was more toned down.
I browsed some reviews on Goodreads and did see criticism of the book saying the author writes female characters in a misogynistic way and that he just projected how a woman ejaculates based off his own dick. As well as some reviews calling this book child porn
Man this. Like it made me cringe and I guess that was the intention but like??? Less is more in some circumstances. I'm almost done with the book and I'm trying to rush through it because I want to see if anything comes of all this shit but man.
@@XstickbuddyX i get that and i do understand the intention, i just feel like there were so many other possibilities and opportunities to be over the top and disturbing that would’ve made for a way more interesting story. i do actually think its a good backstory/sideplot its just so oddly thrown in and written that it doesnt really make the book “disturbing” in my opinion
I've dabbled in a few extreme horror books, and I've come to the realization that, without a good story, explicit over-the-top horror just for the sake of shock value becomes boring and cartoonish. I'm just gonna stick with "regular" horror and splatterpunk!
@@AleTitan anything not labeled "extreme horror"? If it's extreme they love promoting that aspect so "regular" splatterpunk would be the stuff between extreme and let's say, King, Koontz, or Barker, etc.
This was funny. As a writer myself, I can honestly say sometimes I find it difficult to describe a particularly gruesome scene when I am also trying to convey something about the weight of the unfolding events, while still trying to keep it slashy, cutty, bleedy, but still slightly classy. Namean?
As long as you don’t go so absurdly edgy, to the point of insulting both you, and the reader’s intelligence, you’ll be fine. Also, it has to be more for plot progression than just a challenge for the reader to see how much they can get through without putting down the book. The books she read in the video were laughably bad in quality, and had no depth at all. There’s nothing interesting or conversing about them at all besides the shock value. It’s like one of those action movies you turn your brain off for, like Transformers.
THIS EXACTLY. i’ve struggled with writing gruesome scenes (particularly fight scenes) and it’s a nightmare trying to portray the vile, disgusting, bloody situations in a way that fits my writing style
@@drowningin i’m sorry but if i was reading something and i saw the word blorgagore i would cackle and then be absolutely horrified because whatever a blorgagore is, i want nothing to do with it
Mai-Chan’s daily life was my first thought too. It’s just a mental image associated with that story. I can’t imagine there are many baby blender stories though.
IT'S AWWWWRIGHT Jokes aside, Uziga Waita's art and writing just feels like edge for the sake of being edgy. Shintaro Kago and Hideshi Hino do guro in a much more interesting manner. It still isn't something that I would actively seek but Mai-Chan is on the bottom of the barrel of this sort of content.
so context for anyone that might want to check it out/doomscroll: its p*rn, they don't 'just' kill the baby, it was infamous for the ITS AWWWRIGHT meme decades ago because of the csa scene. If you have to kill curiosity there's knowyourmeme or urban dictionary pages for these sort of things. Depending on your region (eg UK) it's just not legal to look at that in the first place.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' has some similarities to TGND but is lesser known as it was out of print for 40 years. It's back now. I think LGPATA is more disturbing than TGND, but that's me. I read both, but LGPATA haunts me more.
Even more sad when you realize it's based on the real-life events of the life of Sylvia Likens. Also, watch the movie of the same title (movie from the book) and An American Crime (movie from the actual reports). Both are haunting.
Honestly, with books like that Baby in a whatever book, I'm not sure it's even fair to horror to consider that remotely a contendor. It's just straight filth. Horror should work different notes other than just being gross
The main problem I have with extreme horror is that they’re just really badly written. They can be descriptive about extreme situations but none of these authors are good writers
I love extreme horror. A couple really good suggestions: “Woom” by Duncan Ralston (a really good, but pretty gory choice with a great plot twist), “Amygdalatropolis” or really anything by B.R. Yeager (his books focus more on the depravity around teens, with “Amygdalatropolis” delving into the dark web and “Negative Space” dealing with illicit drug use and hallucinogens. Both of these examples are also really heavy on philosophy though), “The Wasp Factory” by Iain Banks (not necessarily “extreme horror” but it certainly should be. A good book, but I definitely found it hard to read quite often).
sorry this is kind of trauma dumping but i read the wasp factory because my mom recommended it to me. at the age of 9. i thought forsuch a long time she meant a different book of the same name and that she'd mixed it up by mistake because there was no way she'd tell me to read it when its a book like that. and ive never said a word to her about it because i felt like it was my own fault i read it and got disturbed but i felt so fucking alone. i never told anyone. ive gotten out of reading now i used to be like a voracious reader as a kid which is why i think i read the whole thing even though there was a black hole pit in my stomach the further i got along. it was like watching something gruesome and awful happen in real time and i couldnt look away because i had this morbid curiosity. i think the perception of me as a reader didnt help. because i wasnt on the internet or anything, i felt people had this idea of me reading being always a good positive thing even if kind of fucked me up. the wasp factory is difficult to get through for adults. i was 9. i didnt even understand the unreliable narrator trope, that kind of media depth is not something me as a 9 year old could understand. every book i read before had a good narrator. then i read this book that my mom of all people recommended to me about a serial killing insect torturing sexist tormenting alchoholic psychopath who was in a role i thought was supposed to be for the good characters, exacerbated by the fact its first person and goes only implicitly challenged and i could not infer that he was supposed to be bad at the age of 9. i think by the end id just become completely desensitised to it all that even when the big reveal about the birth sex happens at the end it didnt even make me realise anything despite the fact i was trans. (though i wasnt aware being trans was something someone could be at that stage) the first character i ever knew who had a complicated gender identity was this despicable person who i just hated when i read it. that didnt even occur to me at that point because id read through all these descriptions of blood and piss and insects and maggots. anyway. i dont know. i think im going to take a break from watching youtube and go do something to make myself feel better. i dont know. even if no one else reads all this i think it was just nice to get it out of me because ive only ever told my best friend who knows basically every fucked up thing about me anyway.
@@judebutdiavolokinny8727 I've never read this book but by the description, it sounds pretty deeply messed up for anyone to recommend it to a young child. I hope you're doing better these days.
'Playground' sounds very much like 'Funland' by RIchard Laymon...where the group of teens 'walk the Funhouse' that contains a slide with daggers halfway down and other deadly version of playhouse equipment.
Jfc, I love Laymons books!! I’ve read them all at least twice, and every summer I like to jumpstart with Funland or The Traveling Vampire Show! Chefs kiss 💋
This is my first video of yours and I'm absolutely loving your energy and dedication! I'm a small author (definitely not horror though) and it's so cool to see so much love for smaller authors, even if it's not my typical genre
It's wild how many talented writers are out there that most people (including myself) have never heard of. I'm so glad things are changing and smaller authors are being talked about more.
I got curious and read baby in a blender, it was barely 20 pages of the plot and I had to take a few breaks just on the first page. I don't think I can recover from what I read. Next time I'm going to stay curious.
I don't know if it was the same book, but there was definitely a "Baby in a Blender" book in the form of a janky pdf that made the rounds among my little edgelord friend group back in 2002 or so. I don't remember anything about it, aside from the fact I read one line and noped out of it, and then when anyone asked me why I blamed the formatting 😆
First extreme horror book I’ve ever read was Gone To See the River Man by Kristopher Triana. Incest, murder, blood, gore, the whole nines. Absolutely ruined my week and I felt disgusting after reading. But if you’re looking for an introduction to Extreme horror I’d definitely recommend, it starts off mildly tame and then ramps up half way through all the way to the end.
I started reading this book and stopped because I hated the character your perspective is through. I do want to finish it because the writing was good and I've never read a book that gave me a visceral reaction like one scene did in this before I stopped reading.
I liked GTSTRM its not the craziest extreme horror but its well written. I love how it it the protaganist development goes. Not in terms of content but i liked how at first you were nuetral to her then slowly you hate her more and more until youre just repulsed by her. You dont get that often in books
@@thrash208 You are so right! I started not fond of the main character and grew to hate her more and more. This makes me want to go back and finish the book because you're right, the writing was great at that.
@@meowmeowfuzzyface3698 Yes at first i was honestly a bit sympathetic to the protagonist having to take care of her handicapped sis but then more and more bit by bit you become utterly repulsed by her.
I like extreme horror sometimes, with context. But there's a big difference between "this story is shocking" vs "OOOOh look at how gross my story is!!! Sooo ScaRy!!" The genre is ripe with the trope of shock value instead of just relying on itself. There's a key difference between stuff like Story of the eye and a book called "baby in a blender"(which yes I realize is not a serious book). Edit: Shock value for shock value is okay sometimes(Think August Underground) but most of the time it's just gross and weird.
I feel like doing literally anything with vomit is the cheapest/easiest way to shock that I can imagine. "Duh, put it in your ear, put it in your butt, mail it in a box of tampons." Really?
I've read Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door in high school, and damn, same. It ruined my whole week. It is masterfully written, though (and based off of a true story, sadly), but exactly because of this, it hits REALLY HARD. Also, Peter Sotos, if you want to traumatize yourself for life.
Godless is a great resource for horror novels. The site’s owner, Drew Stepek, is actually the author of one of my absolute favorite extreme horror novels, Knuckle Supper along with its sequel, Knuckle Balled. I recommend checking them out. They’re about a specific brand of crustpunk vampire gangs living in Los Angeles who need not only blood, but drugs to survive. The titular gang, the Knucklers, prefer to drain their victims by shooting them up with heroine, snapping their arm off at the shoulder, then at the knuckle of the middle finger, and drinking the damned thing like a beer bong. Grisly as it is, it also has themes of addiction (obviously), child sexual exploitation, religious abuse, poverty, and loads of other incredibly challenging topics. It treats each of these topics, however, with a great deal of empathy and respect, never shying away from showing incredibly upsetting details, but rarely coming across as exploitative either. In fact, a portion of the proceeds of Knuckle Supper and Knuckle Balled go to Children of the Night, a charity dedicated to supporting victims of child sex trafficking. Very fitting, seeing as the series’ entire mission statement was to be an Anti-Twilight, as Stepek despised the idea of the most popular contemporary depiction of a vampire grooming a teenager.
That's very interesting actually, for a lot of reasons. When you describe it that way, it really does sound like writing that comes from a place of maturity and empathy and not just juvenile edginess. The kind of understanding that these are real things that have happened to real people and aren't just shocking tropes to be sprung on readers without tact. It's kind of poetic that someone who could craft such a dark story could be motivated to do so by a genuine desire for justice. I might be overthinking it but maybe it requires a truly kind heart to know evil on that level and to reflect it in such a way.
A psychological horror book, which some have stated as being the most disturbing book they've read, and is similar in some ways to The Girl Next Door is Let's Go Play at the Adams by Mendal Johnson. This book was published in the 1970s but do to the death of the author it went out of print for 40 years. It is now back in print, but rather unknown. Some have claimed that writing this book drove the author to drinking himself to death. A super short description it's about a 2 week long babysitting job (the parents are away in Europe) gone horribly wrong. I read this last year and it still haunts me more than any other book I've read. It's well written. Maybe even too well. But if TGND bothered you, maybe avoid LGPATA.
I read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull as a kid in a week and it scared the crap out of me. One of the scariest books I ever read. For those who have not read this novel it is highly recommended as a study of how terrible societies treat individuals. Imagine being a seagull, having some intelligence and not having any voice to describe what you think and feel so that other seagulls can understand you, but you still understand them and everybody thinks you are an idiot. And then, a few months later, I read Slaughterhouse Five. That was read in a few weeks. Lovely video. Excellent commentary and information. Proud to be like no. 849. Kind regards from Ásgeir in Iceland.
I've never heard of the first book but it sounds interesting. Slaughterhouse Five is still one of my favorite books of all time. I adore Kurt Vonnegut. Thanks for the suggestion!
I read Johnathan Livingston Seagull and it came off more as a religious epic? Like there's reincarnation and enlightenment and other planets and stuff. It's a really great book either way.
Blood Bound Books is one of my fav indie horror publishers. They have everything from mild to extreme horror in plenty of subgenres. The founder of Godless has published with BBBooks in the past.
yeah. i personally feel like psychological horror is more terrifying to me. ultimate horror has its grotesque moments but it’s more shock content (which isn’t a bad thing in itself). psychological horror leaves a deeper imprint in me that i’ll think about for days
Playground was wild. I enjoyed Wedding Day Massacre by him, also (Beauregard). Insane Bastards by Wade H. Garrett is probably the most hardcore book I've ever read. Pure splatterpunk/extreme horror. It deserves a warning to reader... Jon Athan is good too. More true crime based fiction stuff.
I haven't had the chance to read them myself, but 'Fluids' and 'Girl Flesh' by May Leitz (you may know her from her youtube channel Nyx Fears) have gotten good reviews so far. Girl Flesh is apparently more structured and novel-like, while Fluids is her first work and very raw in that way.
The closest to extreme horror I've read is probably Guts by Chuck Palahniuk. It's... more disgusting than scary, but it's given me a new fear of pool drains. :)
Some recommendations: -Fluids by May Leitz. Written by UA-camr NyxFears, who’s whole channel is about extreme horror film. -Cormac McCarthy Books, particularly Blood Meridian, Child of God, and Outer Dark.
I've read one extreme horror book and that was Psychic Teenage Bloodbath. It wasn't bad - the kills were the extreme part and they actually forwarded the story. Now, stuff like Cows and Playground would bug me as it seems the grossness is more gratuitous? Anyways, overall, this is not a genre for me. I laughed at your reactions though!
I love horror, it's literally my favorite genre, but shit like that is where I draw the line. There are some things that were never meant to be read/watch/heard
Nobody mentioned "The Resurrectionist" by Wrath James White, in the comments? They made a movie version of it called "Come Back to Me". Both are good, in their own right. Definitely recommend. And anything by Matt Shaw is definitely twisted and icky, but he tends to be tongue in cheek with them. He's an indie, too.
So far I don’t really feel like I’ve heard anything worse than what is featured in the Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys etc) comic series Crossed. It’s basically 28 Days Later only instead of simple rage, the infected are compelled to do and enjoy literally the worst stuff they can think of. The baby as wishbone thing reminded me because something very similar happens in iirc the first issue while the parents are being SA’d and disemboweled simultaneously. Some of the spin off series’ are even more intense by quite a lot. And Alan Moore’s Crossed +100 is a weirdly high brow version of it as he tries to navigate little things like what would humanity being forced to whisper for ~100 years do to language. Highly recommend, if you can handle it that is.
Baby In a Blender sounds like a literary version of The Aristocrats. If it hadn't been banned during the peak era of Two Girls 1 Cup and other shock sites, it would have done really well.
"Room" by Emma Donohue is easily one of the most disturbing (yet emotional) books I've ever read, but not for the typical reasons. I highly recommend it.
I'm in the middle of playground now and I think I made a good decision for my first splatterpunk book lol the long bit of normal dialogue after Geraldine's escapades was very much needed
i know it’s been covered but im currently reading House of Leaves which i know has been covered a lot on youtube but honestly its truly unique and fascinating for a horror/thriller read i would definitley reccomend 👌
SPOILERS Playground was too over-the-top in my opinion. From the infamous page 40 scene (iykyk) to the Saw-esque traps to part of it being perpetuated by an ex-Nazi scientist, it just kind of felt shocking for the sake of being shocking, instead of being anything of substance.
The most extreme thing I've read recently was a short story called Eric the Pie. My god, it was absolutely disgusting. How the author managed to pack so much disturbing imagery into just ten pages is beyond me. It's been weeks and I can't get it out of my head. I wish I could because it was vile af. Very well written though.
@@fondantswirl2019 The author is Graham Masterson and he’s posted it online for free, just Google Eric the Pie and it’ll pop right up. But be warned - it’s well-written but horribly disgusting!
I still find it wild how some people can think to themselves, "Yup, this is my masterpiece!" but they write something called "Ass Goblins of Auschwitz'
If you’d like to read “extreme horror” (not quite as over the top as these) that’s genuinely good I have a few recommendations! Body Shocks is a body horror anthology book featuring short stories by awesome horror writers! I just read it recently. The Troop and The Deep by Nick Cutter are two of my favorite horror books that have some extreme aspects to them. Clive Barker has written some books that I think count as extreme horror, and his work is generally very good.
Clive Barker is such a wordy writer. I feel his books would be half the length, and faster paced if he would just get to the point. I just don’t like his writing style, at all.
@@twoofakindOGDC I can see how you’d feel that way. I think for some people that’s part of the appeal. I personally don’t mind wordy writing if the story itself is engaging but I def get where you’re coming from
I read a lot of erotica, and I feel it is similar to horror in the sense that they can both become absurd if pushed too far. In erotica, you can write a sex scene that is full of steamy kink, while also using that scene to build upon the plot and themes related to the overall narrative. I feel the same has to be true in horror...
I turned 49 this summer. As a rep for Gen X, the real 80s kids, I just have to jump in and inform: Gruesome humor was HUGE in the 80s. American Psycho wasn't an accident. We grew up with serial killers, crack epidemic, AIDS epidemic, and the bomb. So ...dead baby jokes, especially in the blender , had a bajillion variations....and they usually went along with homesick abortions jokes. Sonething like this in print form is mostly for shock value in those days. American Psycho is very different. That's a clever, biting satire. I probably read that at least 4 times....but....The Girl Next Door... I actually really like that book, it's very powerful, but even i could only read it once. I honestly have no idea why we thought that humor was so good back then, but yeah, we did that.
I agree 💯 We were some sick mfs🤣 Most of our “monsters” were real, flesh and blood people!! The 80s was a time when kidnapping was at an all time high, “stranger danger” was beginning, but no one ever locked their doors, and walking into strangers homes wasn’t a “big deal”. It was a wild time to be a kid, and we survived it!! We also has some kick ass music, but that’s a different story all together 💯
To be honest when it comes to Extreme Horror/Guro (Putting them in the same boat for a bit) I think lotsa gore and violence is fascinating! However I feel like sometimes, especially if it involves children, women or! Especially young women, it can border on some sort of fetish-y shit. Like there IS a point were it goes from Shocking and Edgy to actually kinda gross and fetishy. That is why I'm usually cautious around anything that people are holding up as "Extreme". Like Playground and Metamorphosis. Alot of it, at least to ME, comes off as borderline fetish porn. (Metamorphosis MORESO. Playground seems like just extreme horror with gross sections)
After looking at the titles on the bookshelf behind you, I had to check my own bookshelf to make sure you hadn't snuck in and made off with half my library. Vonnegut FTW!
insta-subscribe thank you for this - i was so close to picking up playground and i'm so glad i saw your video first! petition to let youtube monetize videos where the creator says "crusty holes" for educational purposes
a book i found interesting is "the big meat", i haven't finished it but the premise is that a monster attacked a city and the military killed it, and it shows you what happens with the body after
I like "baby in a blender" because it tells me everything I need to know. Soothes the autisms. Just like my two favorite movies, snakes on a plane, and hot tub time machine. Never seem 'em. *I don't have to*.
@@hotdogwater9580i mean, i think it depends of how is elaborated. If it is just based on literally gore (for example, Terrifier) it just feels sickening and annoying. But if a horror book, movie, or series has a lot of gore (or even just centered on it)but stills have a coherent and interesting story, it could be worth it
I thought I was a strong person til I read “The Summer I Died”, by Ryan Thomas. I had to literally put the book down and take breaks in order to finish. My favorite author is Richard Laymon, so I thought that surely this book couldn’t be THAT BAD. I was wrong. I was so wrong 😑
The fact you went BACK to reading Playground as a “break” from Baby In A Blender says a lot about that story… also wtf was wrong with that author? I’d read Playground tho
I just read Maeve Fly and it was everything I had wished American Psycho would be. It’s extreme horror, sorta at the edge of splatterpunk (which is a genre I love/hate) and was extremely gross, messed up, and also very funny and the satire HIT. The premise is woman who plays Popular Ice Princess at the Happiest Place on Earth, loves her job is also a serial killer. There’s a lot of grossness, torture, extreme sexual content inspired by The Story of the Eye, an egg fetish, and murder. It was incredible. So funny and also so gross at the same time.
@@AndaKent definitely give it a read! It’s extreme, but sounds less extreme than the Playground and the other books you read. I hated American Psycho because even though I knew it was satire, I still found the murder and torture of marginalized women offputting. This book is also clearly satire, takes obvious inspo and pays homage to American Psycho, but it just hit better for me. Plus the idea of Popular Ice Princess by day, deviant and serial killer by night is so funny to me (and it was funny in the book) there were parts where I was screaming WHAT THE FUCK but also laughing at the same time.
Just stumbled upon your channel and I can't wait to dig in. I've really enjoyed Edward Lee. He's written over 40 extreme horror books, though I'd recommend 'Succubi', 'Portrait of the psychopath as a young woman', and 'Flesh Gothic'.
I hate how diffucult it is to find horror that is disturbing without being pure filth. I guess maybe i like psychological thrillers and “horror” is the wrong word because this stuff listed here is not entertainment its depraved degerate filth
I agree. I can handle anything horror related but when it comes to gore and filth, I physically can’t get past it. Not even disturbed, just disgusted!! 😂
I know that maybe the extreme horror books helped the views but i feel like the format here is so much fun. Reading the books along and stopping to give some comments kept me enganged throughout the video. The recap at the end was well done. I hope you make another video like this in the future. Im sure it takes a lot of time to do so though.
I'm surprised Ryu Murakami wasn't in the list. I feel like Piercing is a must read for extreme horror (while also actually being well written). I have a strong feeling Baby in a Blender is not going to be a well written book. Maybe I'll be surprised as the video continues. 🤣
In the Miso Soup is his best book. Not just incredibly disturbing, but also filled with a lot of meaningful philosophy. As a horror author he is unmatched.
@@vicktaru I like how once Frank starts killing, the pace becomes relentless. No chapter breaks, no scene breaks, not even a double line break, so the reader is a captive to Frank’s rampage as much as Kenji is. By the time the next chapter finally comes, the whole slaughter feels like a a fever dream that you can only wish didn’t actually happen. But you know deep down that it did, even if everything seems normal now. I really need to reread it because it’s a masterpiece, but I’ll have to mentally prepare myself first. 😅 Amazing piece of literature, but it made me feel physically unwell.
The ''Playground'' book reminds me of an animation on UA-cam with the same name. The 3 kids a trapped in clown styled playground filled with monsters, I haven't read the book, but it wouldn't surprise me if the animation was inspired by it.
When i first found ur channel last year, i didnt even know there was such a thing as "extreme horror books" but when i found ur channel this was the 1st video i clicked on and ever since i have been wanting to read extreme horror. I just got playground ordered from my local library yesterday and so far im enjoying it. Thank u so much for introducing me to this new horror book genre❤
Your reactions to Baby in A Blender has me so damn intrigued. I need to know. But at the same time I'm not willing to shill out the dollar. Guess i will just have to live with not knowing
There's a huge difference between good horror and just thinking of the grossest things you can and slapping them on a page. I haven't gone into extreme horror, but I remember reading 'It' and not being scared, just disgusted. I think that if a story revolves around people, especially children, being s@xually assaulted... its not horror, its just disgusting. Gore is a huge part of horror ofc but there is a point where its also just disgusting and unnecessary. I also think that anything involving babies getting k!lled or s@xually assaulted is totally too far to be considered horror, but I'm a mother and my child is a toddler so I think those stories just hit too close to home.
I'm sometimes a horror fan for fun. What amazes me is I wrote for a living and to write blood sweat and tears into something and get rejected by publishing. How did this get published? OMG!
I write splatterpunk so thanks for your opinions. Yes, splatterpunk IS gross and disturbing and taboo-breaking, those are vital elements for this subgenre and I highly recommend the real fine stuff - Suffer the Flesh by Monica J. O'Rourke. Godless is a very extreme bookstore, for the very devout readers of splatterpunk.
Good god. I struggle to read "regular" horror books, I wouldn't dream of picking up an extreme horror. Glad this popped up in my recommendations, though. I hope you regain the sanity you sacrificed for this 🫡
I want to get into disturbing books so I bought Tender Is The Flesh to start with. Finished it in 2-3 days but I had to take a break walkway through where the story first starts uhhh. Going more. Loved it tbh it made me think coherently and I love the cannibalism aspects ^_^
I started that one and got a few sentences in and got distracted by something and haven't picked it up since. But you've reminded me that it's on my kindle just waiting to be devoured by me. Pun intended. Thanks!
Meh, after reading American Psycho I’m pretty much numb to just about everything, lol. But I might read some of these, I sometimes appreciate the more gritty, dark, and violent horror stories.
Nah, this is not for me I think, I'll just leave a like and chicken out. But I'll love to see similar vlogs on different subgenres! For example, you could do one on "haunted house" books, one on "possession/demons/satanism" type books, and so on. 👻
I've only read two extreme horror books and I quite liked both, although I read one last year and one this year. It's not something I think I can read often but when the time calls for it, it's entertaining. Full Brutal by Kristopher Triana is a masterpiece, hope you read it at some point. It's much more psychological horror, not so much gore for the sake of gore, and is so funny throughout.
About the most extreme thing I dipped my toe into was Nick Cutter's The Troop and I noped out pretty quick. Can't say I envy you here on your literary adventure here. XD Thanks for the entertaining video though!
Really I'm not much of a horror book reader but I thought it was OK??? Kinda boring not scary per-say Try The Deep also by Nick Cutter I thought it was better, for whatever it's worth.
I went and read "Baby in a Blender" as soon as you mentioned it. To anyone wondering, it's exactly what you think it is, a few paragraphs ejaculated onto a page out of such desperation to be shocking that it had me laughing out loud more than once! Worth a read, for people who know they can handle anything, just for hilarities' sake!
some of the lines in Playground are so funny to me even if they’re supposed to be serious 😭😭 theres the line thats like “he had become like his favorite snack…a gusher” or something like that 💀 there’s also a part before (spoilers) gertrud or whatever the fuck her name is is killed by her own son (his name is rock idk i think thats kinda funny) , where she said “BUT IM YOUR MOTHER!!” and he responds “AND IM A MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!” THE WAY I LAUGHED.
The moment you title a book "baby in a blender" you automatically forfeit the right to be taken seriously
😂
Don’t read haunted vag1na then. Yes it’s a real book
Especially since it's a punchline to an old joke.
yup, also gives off vibe of trying too hard to be edgy. Like when metal bands try to sound extreme with names like Disembowler or Virgin Sacrifice or some shit like that lol
It's a very particular kind of humor that was really big in the 80s. Dead babies, homesick abortions and abandoned dumpster babies was an entire catalogue of jokes in those days. I have never read this book, but I'm 99% sure it's not supposed to be serious.
How you feel about this isn't up to me, I'm just letting you know as a 50 year old man, this was a thing in the 80s. Jokes about Africans in famine, AIDS, and the shuttle explosion #1 (Challenger) also ran for their spot on the street.
No page numbers?! What kind of sick monster publishes a vile abomination like that?! Clearly the most disturbing entry of the bunch!
The most disturbing book I read was during highschool called “The Compound.”
It’s not even a horror book but it was rather its twist that I found horrifying.
It’s an about a family that has been stuck living in a bunker for a decade after the end of the world when their food situation turns dire.
It’s probably super tame in comparison to these books, and it’s been several years since I read it, but that twist still forever haunts me.
I don’t want to give it away but here it is for people that might now want to read it:
The story is from the perspective of the son watching how his parents and older sister are dealing with bunker life.
Later on he realizes that the world never actually ended and it was all an elaborate hoax made by his dad and the food situation was solved by the dad continuously impregnating the wife and using the those children as meat.
I think it was implied the dad would also impregnate the sister.
It didn’t go into intense detail, but the thought is still horrifying nonetheless.
Man this reminds me of a book I also read as a kid that was about a bunker. “The bunker diaries” by Kevin brooks. Not super disturbing but as a child, harrowing to read.
Being a YA book, it shirked the actual horror and let them escape. I wanted the inevitable conclusion of the starvation!
Children of the Matrix and The Biggest Secret fucked me up real bad and are among the most disturbing books you could possibly imagine. Now imagine what it would be like if dinosaurs like Dilophosaurus ACTUALLY existed, and they ACTUALLY managed to find a way to survive large scale extinction events, and they ACTUALLY figured out how to hide from the smartest mammals and hunted a number of them into extinction, and then they ACTUALLY invented all the religions, they ACTUALLY invented politics and the smallest dinosaurs somehow figured out how to lose a tail or two and become fully upright, Carl Sagan version. He wrote extensively about a dinosaur species he thought could do it and there were models which were made and these models were based on them and they were so realistic, he approved of them. This is why The Children of the Matrix is so terrifying. Yes it sounds like ridiculous conspiracy theory nonsense but just read between the lines here. Now imagine for a moment if Richard Branson actually wrote it as an act of humour to show people how little they know and he has knowledge about intelligent species people have no idea have ever walked the Earth which do not have anybody´s best interests at heart. Not even the hearts of their own members. That would be beyond terrifying. It would be so scary, it´d be scarier than The Three Body Problem. I´m glad that for dinosaurs, provided they actually did exist, things would not go this way.
Doesn't sound like a very efficient plan. I mean, even if the father impregnated the wife and sister (just... ew) continuously, you'd still only have a fresh "meat supply" every nine months (possibly every five if the wife and sister spaced it out), and that's not even counting all the extra food the wife and sister would need to consume just to carry a healthy baby to term. And even then you'd still end up with an amount of meat barely equivalent to what you'd get from a large rotisserie chicken, and how long would that possibly last a family of four? A couple days, tops? Unless the dad is planning to fatten the babies up first, but then you just run into the same problem of those babies ultimately consuming far more food/resources than they would be able to produce.
Unless ol' dad is just shatbit insane, and I guess he'd have to be to set his family up like that, but I'm surprised not one other person thought to wonder whether the logic of "incubate and nourish a child for nine whole months, eat for a day or two, repeat" might not be just a teensy bit flawed. And I understand desperation makes people do crazy things, but no one even raised the concern *at any point* that making offspring just to eat them is remarkably inefficient and only making their situation worse? Does the book ever go into any of this or give an explanation? I think I *may* just have to read it now or forever have these questions rattling around in my brain, lol
I've never seen anyone talk about The Compound before but it is absolutely one of my favorite books of all time for that reason! I remember reading it as a kid in maybe 5th grade and not fully realizing what was going on in the story but I reread it recently as a 20 something year old and yeah...needless to say I was shocked! Definitely a book I recommend to people who like that sort of twisted almost dystopian feel
I feel like the problem with extreme horror is there's curiosity about 'hoboy how far does the edgy hole of edge go' then there's just straight-up fetish content masquerading as horror if that makes sense.
Anything by Brian Keene...
Exactly! It feels more like a masturbatory fantasy than an actual story
Yup, it really does just feel like it's meant to be creepy fucked-up fetish materiel doesn't it?
I've wrote A LOT of Horror stories but I find it hard to publish them. Lol
Feels illegal or something like I'd be watched afterwards. 😂
@@isaacvanderbilt4505You already are so what's the difference?
I feel like just by purchasing some of these books you're on a list.
😂😂😂
Having a cell phone has already put you on a list. They know everything about you already.
Dude literally 😭 like who the hell casually sees baby in a blender and thinks “hell yeah I wanna read that!”
Playground I can understand because theres’s a plot to it, I actually enjoyed certain parts of it because there’s more to it then just gore, fetish, and shock value. Still not for everyone but it’s not the worst thing.
Im probably on several lists lol I wouldn't have it any other way 😂@@Thatstonedbunny24
Yeah the naughty list 🎅
The razor blade on slides is actually a legit thing people have done. I remember seeing it covered on a news segment a couple years back.😬
That's absolutely terrifying!
@@AndaKentI'm pretty sure it was this one ua-cam.com/video/PIpWiJWZX4E/v-deo.html
@@m1chell3-x1omg I watched that wtf that’s so messed up how can people do that to little kids 😢
@@Matties_edits anyone into true crime can tell you; there are some sick fucks in the world. honestly, if we understood what was going through the minds of these people, that'd be a problem. we're probably better off not understanding.
Lol, dude, first off it came to life as a 'grosser than gross' joke and a 'would you rather...' with the one of the options being the aforementione 'razor blades on a slide" into a pool of iodine (sometimes changed to rubbing alcohol)
Other than that, it's a total urban legend. First off, where would you put a metal slide that is big enough in an area where people won't scream, be heard screaming or have the option to run away as it would be needed for the victim to move freely in order to even climb the steps and slide down.
I'm not even going to get into the logistics of being able to weld thin razor blades to a metal slide.
Plastic ones weren't really on the rise in the 80s during the popularity of this unless it where the tiny backyard ones and that's not enough length and height to produce the speed needed, tho it was "tried" as a sick prank YEARS later by moron kids.
Now, moron kids who decided to "imitate art" tried it by actually using said razors to cut into the plastic slide but they only used one or two and where stuck so far out and make them dull they where able to spot it and stop it. But to actually build a setup described in the "thought experiment" known as 'Would you rather...?' has never actually took place and in the event of a kid getting hurt, that's mostly kids imitating art with shotty implementations
TL;DR: mostly an Urban Legend tho isolated incidents involving one or two blades YEARS after it's popularity caused little to no damage.
The thing that puts me off extreme horror is that it often relies on two things: absurd gore and fucked up sexual stuff. That, and bad writing. It’s hard enough to find quality writing.
It just doesn’t take talent to think “what is really fucked up?” you know? There is no nuance, nothing cerebral, the story is trite or wasted on gore.
I have so many pet peeves with writing and have chucked many book across my room. 😂
precisely how i feel about the majority of the genre. the way i think about it is like this: so many extreme horror stories feel as if all the disturbing parts were brainstormed in a 3rd grade classroom, with each student trying to imagine the most disgusting and disturbing thing they possibly can, then getting the student with the most writing talent to make it into a book. push boundaries all you want but it's not gonna make your childish shock novel anything other than gross , and in many cases, downright distasteful
@@yung2thirdsAnd I would even add that it often can come off as goofy, silly, or downright funny because it's so bad.
People keep saying this but nobody even explains wtf “cerebral gore” would be
While you can include gore, I’m talking about limiting it. I don’t think “gore=terrifying”, especially within the horror genre.
I feel that a lot of splatter punk books are lacking in real talent, as they arose originally as a movement in response to the banning of much less graphic books. So, as a movement it fulfilled it’s purpose but as far as refined, truly GOOD storytelling, I find it to be - and this is just my personal opinion - lazy, gratuitous in it’s violence (especially SA), edge lord shock factor slop, with the occasional misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, etc. dragged in either intentionally or unintentionally.
I think stories with extreme themes have the possibility to be told well, but we see this distinct line come down between the horror genre and splatter punk where it deviates.
I know someone is going to roll their eyes at this example, but you only get an opinion if you read the BOOK! Lol. The movie is not a representation of the book: Bird Box.
While it’s not “extreme horror”, it is an incredibly cerebral, terrifying book. We are with the people the whole time. We are only given the information that they receive. The sounds they hear, how they have to find their way. There’s this part with a dog that has stuck with me forever. At one point they’re outside trying to figure out what something is only by touch and it’s the large thing and it’s so eerie. It’s such a palpable sense of dread. And there is no shortage of visceral violence in that novel. Honestly, if you haven’t read it, I really recommend it!
Also, this is by no means me saying you shouldn’t read extreme horror if that’s the type of book you like. This is simply my opinion and my frustration with the sub-genre’s sort of getting mixed up with more traditional horror, because, like damn! If you think you picked up a regular creepy book and all of a sudden every bodily fluid is everywhere and great granny is necrophiliac, you just didn’t sign up for that, you know? Lol
Also, if you’re a writer, maybe you’ll invent “cerebral gore”! We’d love to read it!
Edgy 14 year olds with no friends: it's show time baby
I feel like good horror to me makes you squirm but also has a purpose and not mindless trauma dumping
Yeah I read playground bc it got good reviews but I stopped about half way through because I realized it wasn’t going anywhere. IMO it was just terrible writing. It was like he threw in all of the most shocking shit he could, even if it didn’t fit.
I read a comment on Tiktok that said splatterpunk, like Playground, etc, is like that episode of South Park about ScrotyMcBoogerBalls. Just as many gross things you can toss in a sentence as you possibly can.
I just watched a plot synopsis of Playground on UA-cam. The best way I can describe it is “SquidGame” but if the different props and set pieces were made by the Jigsaw Killer and if the game weren’t made to prove a point, just to kill for pleasure.
Looked at a plot summary for baby in a blender and I think reading dipper goes to Taco Bell would have the same effect! Writing extreme gore with no other substance doesn’t make you cool, it makes you look like a fcking weirdo.
READ IT. My eyes are watery I’m heaving and I wanna throw up
It's incredibly easy. Everyone can do it. Writing a story that gets people invested is a lot harder than grossing someone out.
Cough Cough Urbanspook Cough Cough
Just reminds me of the South Park episode The Tale of Scroty McBooger Balls. Where the boys write the grossest book ever because they think it’s funny.
The worst part is, from the little I know from what has been said in this video, there are people who would be turned on by it.
I know this to be true because I once stumbled onto a picture drawn by a furry involving otters, unborn children, and what amounted to a handle with blander blades attached to the end.
I will not go into no further detail, but thats one of the things that convinced me that the furry community is fucked up, probably more then they realize.
I can't stand anything that involves children being sexually abused. So I am glad I saw this that way I can scratch "playground" off my list.
I don't think it's children being abused in this one. It's a kid abusing people (from what I can remember). It's still absolutely vile but in a different way.
Never read Jack Ketchum's Stranglehold.
If you're still reading these comments, Playground doesn't have any sexual abuse towards children
playground doesn’t have any csa. but it does involve a flashback scene with a child fantasizing about her mother
@87SINFUL, Pretend you're a detective, and you're are searching for the mindset of someone who abuses children to see if you and the evil have any commonalities. You're doing this to seek justice for the abused children. If you just "scratch-it-off" then you're personal fundaments become less valuable, and you have not the capacity to save! To be a savior is to be to suffer! You're not supposed to enjoy it!
Might as well have called this video "Dead Dove: DO NOT READ"
And the comments would STILL complain there’s a dead dove XD
Honestly, a lot of these books just feel like someone's weird fetish🧍I might sound pretentious, but I prefer my horror to have a point, something it's trying to say.
I also feel that way, but I felt that Playground honestly did have a message about childhood trauma and toxic masculinity (other than pages 40 - 50/chapter 6). I thought it was beautifully written with the parents, the children, and Rock (Geraldine's adopted son).
agh yeah it really does. also is your username a reference to the album "walking with strangers" by the birthday massacre?
@@hauntedarchivess Yes it is! I change my username frequently to reference my favorite music, prior to this It was a TOOL reference lmao.
@@shadows-sweet-embrace aaah thats so cool! i literally never encounter another birthday massacre fan in the wild 😭 awesome music taste :D
@@hauntedarchivessI love Birthday Massacre. I got introduced to them in High School and I've been a fan ever since lol
I like the gore in extreme horror but it's the sexual crimes described in there that I don't enjoy. Like it's not scary its just disgusting imo.
Absolutely! That was why the Baby in the Blender book bothered me so much. I just wasn't sure how much detail I could go into without getting this video demonetized.
At some point it stops "making a statement" and just becomes gratuitous shock bait which no survivor could ever actually relate to.
@@error-try-again-laterYeah you get desensitized, and it becomes a slog.
@@AndaKentThere are a few channels that can get pretty graphic, but we're also on UA-cam, so who knows what's accepted?
Maybe it is because of traditional violence being accepted and normalised is something common , but sexuality is something more personal and intimate and we can feel that irruption into something very private like our bodies or intimacy, and we reflect that into the characters.
We don't care about a guy being decapitated in a movie, but rape or fetish scenes ... I mean ... the majority can't handle that.
"It has animal violence..."
Me: Nope, I'm out.
"...but I should clarify that it is violence by animals, not to animals, if that makes a difference, sicko."
Me: Yes, that makes all the difference, I'll stay.
Of course it makes ALL the difference!
Factual
Yup big difference
Indeed.
Im glad im not the weird one when I say I am much more okay with human violence than animal violence. Not like, you know, baby in a blender level; just that I'd be much less upset seeing a human getting kicked compared to a dog.
Definitely goes to show that you don't have to be extreme or shocking to be scary. That's why I love psychological horror because it relies on unknown and messes with your expectations.
The problem with extreme horror is that it takes everything to such a high degree that it's ludicrous or absurd and it's harder to take seriously. Also I think grossing you out isn't same as bring scary but there's sub genre of gross out horror which I don't see any merit in, but to each their own. I just think anything in excess is probably not good in long run but that's my take.
tl;dr - Horror can only be truly scary because of implications and build-up. Death, blood, and guts mean NOTHING if there is no impact to what makes something terrifying.
Paraphrased but I am reminded of a Lovecraft quote here: "True horror is something more than bloody bones." Horror is visceral, real horror reaches deep and elicits a dread and a response of not wanting whatever is causing it SO viscerally it makes you shrink into your seat. You can't just slap guts and blood in horror and expect it to be scary. The reason horror is scary is because of the build up to that awful conclusion of a payoff. You have to have build-up.
Dracula isn't scary because he is a vampire that sucks your blood and it kills you, Dracula is scary because he's a metaphor for fears we have that unfortunately still ring true to this day, fears about how safe women are alone, about people we don't know, about (sigh) foreigners we don't understand and even about the rich "feeding" off of the poor quite literally. It's also scary for keeping a legend grounded in some truth (note how scientifically some of the characters take it while others are more supernaturally inclined). We're scared of something like Dracula because it's speaking to some sort of dark truth about ourselves - that we fear what we don't understand and we are scared of people who live lives so radically different from us that it's basically the root of all division in humanity as a whole. Our monsters reflect what scares us on a societal level, and even what scares us during the time period of their creation.
Scream's intro isn't frightening because Ghostface kills Casey Becker by gutting her, it's scary because this is a situation that literally could happen in real life to anyone for any random reason, we put ourselves in that thought process. It's also scary because Ghostface TOYS with Casey first, heightening her fear (and thus the audience's) until she can't think straight, giving him the ability to abuse that by manipulating her into making poor choices further and thus getting her killed. The fear that you're not safe in somewhere as safe as your home. The dread that just because you answered the wrong message, phone or internet or otherwise, you will not survive the night. The fear we might be a target and not know it, being hunted by someone out for vengeance and blood, all because we made the mistake of existing. And that is something that can and does happen in reality, which makes it even scarier.
Cthulhu isn't scary because it's a giant octopus monster, Cthulhu is scary because it represents the fear we're insignificant - that all of our endeavors and efforts to be the amazing creatures we are is just another example of Icarus flying too close to the sun and melting his wings. It's also scary because Cthulhu is a reminder of the inevitability of our species collapsing, we know that we're a species fated to be forgotten to history just like any other species, and that unless some other species of advanced alien finds us and cares enough to study us, the human story - all the wars, all the good we did, all the horrors we committed and all the triumphs our kind have reached, all the advances and truths and fascinating stuff we've done on this planet - is over. Gone in an instant, forgotten, left to nothing but a few books on a shelf at best: The myth of human exceptionalism.
If you really wanna scare someone, you can't just jump out and yell "Boo" or throw blood all over the place. Horror is all about eliciting that feeling of dread in the person engaging it. Horror is not about death and blood and monsters. Horror is about us, and how we engage things that make us want to run and hide.
@@ThePhantomSafetyPin well said! Lovecraft, Hitchcock, King are but a few examples but what I like about them is there's always a deeper level fear beyond the surface of what is scary as you've mentioned.
A question I try to ask myself when I have an idea for a story is what makes this scary on a deeper level. "Tell Me I'm Pretty" is a story I wrote about a girl who gets so obsessed over looks that goes to an extreme measure to achieve what she thinks is the perfect idea of beauty...grafting porcelain to her skin to make herself into a living porcelain doll. Its a fantastic visual, creepy as hell, but also a testament to pitfalls of poor self image, how focused our culture (US) is on our looks, and how far we'll go to make ourselves feel good about ourself no matter how horrifying or unnatural it is. I got the idea when I saw how rampant plastic surgery for cosmetics has become in the US and read an article about a girl who made herself look like a Barbie doll, very very unsettling. It was this combined with always disliking porcelain dolls that gave way for this idea. It was my 1st story and I've written about 70 stories total so far and I think I'll actually go through every story and specifically ask myself what deeper level fear or anxiety goes with story and if I don't have one, time to do some rewrites lol.
@@squidwardtentacles2736is your book available to read? 👀 The concept sounds intriguing and horrific.
@@meowmeowfuzzyface3698 any feedback would be much appreciated! I'm always looking for constructive criticism
tbf i think these kinds of things don't really go for any kind of deep, well built dread-type horror, I honestly see it something to squirm at and that's part of the fun :)
playground could honestly be a huge hit if geraldine’s backstory/sexual stuff wasnt as in your face as it is. the actual playground storyline is so good and creative, i understand wanting to push boundaries and make it disturbing but i feel like it still wouldve been if geraldine’s storyline was more toned down.
I browsed some reviews on Goodreads and did see criticism of the book saying the author writes female characters in a misogynistic way and that he just projected how a woman ejaculates based off his own dick. As well as some reviews calling this book child porn
Seem like the writers just going for shock value than trying to stick to a hood story
I don't disagree but if her stuff was not as in your face then nothing "extreme" would happen for about 100 pages into this extreme horror book
Man this. Like it made me cringe and I guess that was the intention but like??? Less is more in some circumstances. I'm almost done with the book and I'm trying to rush through it because I want to see if anything comes of all this shit but man.
@@XstickbuddyX i get that and i do understand the intention, i just feel like there were so many other possibilities and opportunities to be over the top and disturbing that would’ve made for a way more interesting story. i do actually think its a good backstory/sideplot its just so oddly thrown in and written that it doesnt really make the book “disturbing” in my opinion
I've dabbled in a few extreme horror books, and I've come to the realization that, without a good story, explicit over-the-top horror just for the sake of shock value becomes boring and cartoonish. I'm just gonna stick with "regular" horror and splatterpunk!
I think I actually have Hemlock Grove but haven't read it yet! I'll have to get around to it. Thanks for the suggestion.
Is there any "regular" splatterpunk?
@@AleTitan anything not labeled "extreme horror"? If it's extreme they love promoting that aspect so "regular" splatterpunk would be the stuff between extreme and let's say, King, Koontz, or Barker, etc.
@@mikepratt6481well Barker can definitely get a bit splatterpunk at times
This was funny. As a writer myself, I can honestly say sometimes I find it difficult to describe a particularly gruesome scene when I am also trying to convey something about the weight of the unfolding events, while still trying to keep it slashy, cutty, bleedy, but still slightly classy. Namean?
As long as you don’t go so absurdly edgy, to the point of insulting both you, and the reader’s intelligence, you’ll be fine. Also, it has to be more for plot progression than just a challenge for the reader to see how much they can get through without putting down the book. The books she read in the video were laughably bad in quality, and had no depth at all. There’s nothing interesting or conversing about them at all besides the shock value. It’s like one of those action movies you turn your brain off for, like Transformers.
THIS EXACTLY. i’ve struggled with writing gruesome scenes (particularly fight scenes) and it’s a nightmare trying to portray the vile, disgusting, bloody situations in a way that fits my writing style
Invent words, like Blorgagore
@@drowningin i’m sorry but if i was reading something and i saw the word blorgagore i would cackle and then be absolutely horrified because whatever a blorgagore is, i want nothing to do with it
I mean. Might as well go full balls to the wall in that case brother. 🤷♂️
The only Baby in a Blender genre I recall reading was Mai-chan's daily life.....dear lord
Mai-Chan’s daily life was my first thought too. It’s just a mental image associated with that story.
I can’t imagine there are many baby blender stories though.
I have no interest in reading Mai-chan but I know about that scene and it was the first thing I thought of too. Manga brain I guess.
IT'S AWWWWRIGHT
Jokes aside, Uziga Waita's art and writing just feels like edge for the sake of being edgy. Shintaro Kago and Hideshi Hino do guro in a much more interesting manner. It still isn't something that I would actively seek but Mai-Chan is on the bottom of the barrel of this sort of content.
so context for anyone that might want to check it out/doomscroll: its p*rn, they don't 'just' kill the baby, it was infamous for the ITS AWWWRIGHT meme decades ago because of the csa scene. If you have to kill curiosity there's knowyourmeme or urban dictionary pages for these sort of things. Depending on your region (eg UK) it's just not legal to look at that in the first place.
_IT'S AWWWWRIGHT_
I read The Girl Next Door in a day and a half last week and it's still haunting me. First extreme horror book I ever read, and phew! What a trip.
Wasn't it great?!!
I occasionally wonder if somebody wrote a horror novel titled ´Impregilo vs. the Girl Next Door´. Now that would be seriously scary!
Let's Go Play at the Adams' has some similarities to TGND but is lesser known as it was out of print for 40 years. It's back now. I think LGPATA is more disturbing than TGND, but that's me. I read both, but LGPATA haunts me more.
@@henrytjernlund I agree the Adams is the better book
Even more sad when you realize it's based on the real-life events of the life of Sylvia Likens. Also, watch the movie of the same title (movie from the book) and An American Crime (movie from the actual reports). Both are haunting.
It’s always interesting to see other people reading these graphic books bc my stomach is too weak for that
Honestly, with books like that Baby in a whatever book, I'm not sure it's even fair to horror to consider that remotely a contendor. It's just straight filth. Horror should work different notes other than just being gross
right
Like, add as much grossness as you want, it just needs to have something other than that
The main problem I have with extreme horror is that they’re just really badly written. They can be descriptive about extreme situations but none of these authors are good writers
I love extreme horror. A couple really good suggestions: “Woom” by Duncan Ralston (a really good, but pretty gory choice with a great plot twist), “Amygdalatropolis” or really anything by B.R. Yeager (his books focus more on the depravity around teens, with “Amygdalatropolis” delving into the dark web and “Negative Space” dealing with illicit drug use and hallucinogens. Both of these examples are also really heavy on philosophy though), “The Wasp Factory” by Iain Banks (not necessarily “extreme horror” but it certainly should be. A good book, but I definitely found it hard to read quite often).
Woom is a rough one
I had to read wasp factory for a british literature class and i wish i skipped it and just gotten the fail for the assignments
@@ollieshark by chapter 7, I just needed to finish it. I couldn’t DNF it over halfway through.
sorry this is kind of trauma dumping but i read the wasp factory because my mom recommended it to me.
at the age of 9.
i thought forsuch a long time she meant a different book of the same name and that she'd mixed it up by mistake because there was no way she'd tell me to read it when its a book like that. and ive never said a word to her about it because i felt like it was my own fault i read it and got disturbed but i felt so fucking alone. i never told anyone. ive gotten out of reading now i used to be like a voracious reader as a kid which is why i think i read the whole thing even though there was a black hole pit in my stomach the further i got along. it was like watching something gruesome and awful happen in real time and i couldnt look away because i had this morbid curiosity.
i think the perception of me as a reader didnt help. because i wasnt on the internet or anything, i felt people had this idea of me reading being always a good positive thing even if kind of fucked me up. the wasp factory is difficult to get through for adults. i was 9. i didnt even understand the unreliable narrator trope, that kind of media depth is not something me as a 9 year old could understand. every book i read before had a good narrator. then i read this book that my mom of all people recommended to me about a serial killing insect torturing sexist tormenting alchoholic psychopath who was in a role i thought was supposed to be for the good characters, exacerbated by the fact its first person and goes only implicitly challenged and i could not infer that he was supposed to be bad at the age of 9.
i think by the end id just become completely desensitised to it all that even when the big reveal about the birth sex happens at the end it didnt even make me realise anything despite the fact i was trans. (though i wasnt aware being trans was something someone could be at that stage) the first character i ever knew who had a complicated gender identity was this despicable person who i just hated when i read it. that didnt even occur to me at that point because id read through all these descriptions of blood and piss and insects and maggots.
anyway. i dont know. i think im going to take a break from watching youtube and go do something to make myself feel better. i dont know. even if no one else reads all this i think it was just nice to get it out of me because ive only ever told my best friend who knows basically every fucked up thing about me anyway.
@@judebutdiavolokinny8727 I've never read this book but by the description, it sounds pretty deeply messed up for anyone to recommend it to a young child. I hope you're doing better these days.
'Playground' sounds very much like 'Funland' by RIchard Laymon...where the group of teens 'walk the Funhouse' that contains a slide with daggers halfway down and other deadly version of playhouse equipment.
Jfc, I love Laymons books!! I’ve read them all at least twice, and every summer I like to jumpstart with Funland or The Traveling Vampire Show! Chefs kiss 💋
Does Funland have any explicit sexual content? Because if not, then it sounds kind of interesting
@@procity9284 ERm,,,,yes,,,some VERY explicit sexual content...and self harm, in a bizarre way!
The author of "the playground" and "the slob" block me because I called him out on his Homophobia and the hatred of women in his books
These aren't even "extreme horror" these are just suff films in book form
This is my first video of yours and I'm absolutely loving your energy and dedication! I'm a small author (definitely not horror though) and it's so cool to see so much love for smaller authors, even if it's not my typical genre
It's wild how many talented writers are out there that most people (including myself) have never heard of. I'm so glad things are changing and smaller authors are being talked about more.
I think we can all agree that the most horrifying books are in the library of Jurgen Leitner
Amazing…. 10/10
An individual of culture I see
AVATAR OF THE WHORE…
Underrated comment !
i had to D I G for this comment
I got curious and read baby in a blender, it was barely 20 pages of the plot and I had to take a few breaks just on the first page. I don't think I can recover from what I read. Next time I'm going to stay curious.
I don't know if it was the same book, but there was definitely a "Baby in a Blender" book in the form of a janky pdf that made the rounds among my little edgelord friend group back in 2002 or so. I don't remember anything about it, aside from the fact I read one line and noped out of it, and then when anyone asked me why I blamed the formatting 😆
It probably is, I also found it as a pdf file
the most disturbing part of this video was the lack of page numbers in "carnie".
😂😂😂😂 I couldn't agree more.
First extreme horror book I’ve ever read was Gone To See the River Man by Kristopher Triana. Incest, murder, blood, gore, the whole nines. Absolutely ruined my week and I felt disgusting after reading. But if you’re looking for an introduction to Extreme horror I’d definitely recommend, it starts off mildly tame and then ramps up half way through all the way to the end.
I started reading this book and stopped because I hated the character your perspective is through. I do want to finish it because the writing was good and I've never read a book that gave me a visceral reaction like one scene did in this before I stopped reading.
That one was mid af 😂
I liked GTSTRM its not the craziest extreme horror but its well written. I love how it it the protaganist development goes. Not in terms of content but i liked how at first you were nuetral to her then slowly you hate her more and more until youre just repulsed by her. You dont get that often in books
@@thrash208 You are so right! I started not fond of the main character and grew to hate her more and more. This makes me want to go back and finish the book because you're right, the writing was great at that.
@@meowmeowfuzzyface3698 Yes at first i was honestly a bit sympathetic to the protagonist having to take care of her handicapped sis but then more and more bit by bit you become utterly repulsed by her.
I like extreme horror sometimes, with context. But there's a big difference between "this story is shocking" vs "OOOOh look at how gross my story is!!! Sooo ScaRy!!" The genre is ripe with the trope of shock value instead of just relying on itself. There's a key difference between stuff like Story of the eye and a book called "baby in a blender"(which yes I realize is not a serious book). Edit: Shock value for shock value is okay sometimes(Think August Underground) but most of the time it's just gross and weird.
This is exactly how I feel.
I feel like doing literally anything with vomit is the cheapest/easiest way to shock that I can imagine.
"Duh, put it in your ear, put it in your butt, mail it in a box of tampons." Really?
I've read Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door in high school, and damn, same. It ruined my whole week. It is masterfully written, though (and based off of a true story, sadly), but exactly because of this, it hits REALLY HARD. Also, Peter Sotos, if you want to traumatize yourself for life.
Godless is a great resource for horror novels.
The site’s owner, Drew Stepek, is actually the author of one of my absolute favorite extreme horror novels, Knuckle Supper along with its sequel, Knuckle Balled.
I recommend checking them out. They’re about a specific brand of crustpunk vampire gangs living in Los Angeles who need not only blood, but drugs to survive.
The titular gang, the Knucklers, prefer to drain their victims by shooting them up with heroine, snapping their arm off at the shoulder, then at the knuckle of the middle finger, and drinking the damned thing like a beer bong.
Grisly as it is, it also has themes of addiction (obviously), child sexual exploitation, religious abuse, poverty, and loads of other incredibly challenging topics.
It treats each of these topics, however, with a great deal of empathy and respect, never shying away from showing incredibly upsetting details, but rarely coming across as exploitative either.
In fact, a portion of the proceeds of Knuckle Supper and Knuckle Balled go to Children of the Night, a charity dedicated to supporting victims of child sex trafficking.
Very fitting, seeing as the series’ entire mission statement was to be an Anti-Twilight, as Stepek despised the idea of the most popular contemporary depiction of a vampire grooming a teenager.
That's very interesting actually, for a lot of reasons. When you describe it that way, it really does sound like writing that comes from a place of maturity and empathy and not just juvenile edginess. The kind of understanding that these are real things that have happened to real people and aren't just shocking tropes to be sprung on readers without tact. It's kind of poetic that someone who could craft such a dark story could be motivated to do so by a genuine desire for justice. I might be overthinking it but maybe it requires a truly kind heart to know evil on that level and to reflect it in such a way.
@@dyrr836 I agree 100%.
A psychological horror book, which some have stated as being the most disturbing book they've read, and is similar in some ways to The Girl Next Door is Let's Go Play at the Adams by Mendal Johnson. This book was published in the 1970s but do to the death of the author it went out of print for 40 years. It is now back in print, but rather unknown. Some have claimed that writing this book drove the author to drinking himself to death. A super short description it's about a 2 week long babysitting job (the parents are away in Europe) gone horribly wrong. I read this last year and it still haunts me more than any other book I've read. It's well written. Maybe even too well. But if TGND bothered you, maybe avoid LGPATA.
Mannnnnn. I'm really intrigued and I have a feeling this book is going to ruin my week 😂. Thanks for the suggestion!
One of the few things I've read where I desperately wanted the parents to beat their kids.
I read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull as a kid in a week and it scared the crap out of me. One of the scariest books I ever read. For those who have not read this novel it is highly recommended as a study of how terrible societies treat individuals. Imagine being a seagull, having some intelligence and not having any voice to describe what you think and feel so that other seagulls can understand you, but you still understand them and everybody thinks you are an idiot. And then, a few months later, I read Slaughterhouse Five. That was read in a few weeks. Lovely video. Excellent commentary and information. Proud to be like no. 849. Kind regards from Ásgeir in Iceland.
I've never heard of the first book but it sounds interesting. Slaughterhouse Five is still one of my favorite books of all time. I adore Kurt Vonnegut. Thanks for the suggestion!
I read Johnathan Livingston Seagull and it came off more as a religious epic? Like there's reincarnation and enlightenment and other planets and stuff. It's a really great book either way.
@@grimdarkmalarkey5402 I agree about religion and enlightenment. Right now we are in a new era called the Re - Enlightenment.
Blood Bound Books is one of my fav indie horror publishers. They have everything from mild to extreme horror in plenty of subgenres. The founder of Godless has published with BBBooks in the past.
Thanks so much for letting me know! I'll definitely have to check them out.
Psych horror will always be the ultimate horror genre for me. This stuff is gross for the sake of being gross.
yeah. i personally feel like psychological horror is more terrifying to me. ultimate horror has its grotesque moments but it’s more shock content (which isn’t a bad thing in itself). psychological horror leaves a deeper imprint in me that i’ll think about for days
I LOVE psychological horror. The scariest thing was philosophy all along...
@@crypticcorvidDare to say Psychological Horror IS TRUE HORROR
Yeah different horror genres are different
Playground was wild. I enjoyed Wedding Day Massacre by him, also (Beauregard). Insane Bastards by Wade H. Garrett is probably the most hardcore book I've ever read. Pure splatterpunk/extreme horror. It deserves a warning to reader... Jon Athan is good too. More true crime based fiction stuff.
I haven't had the chance to read them myself, but 'Fluids' and 'Girl Flesh' by May Leitz (you may know her from her youtube channel Nyx Fears) have gotten good reviews so far.
Girl Flesh is apparently more structured and novel-like, while Fluids is her first work and very raw in that way.
YES!
May Leitz deserves ALL the book sales!
Yessss. I just made the same comment. May deserves so much ❤
I have her books! She is a qween
The closest to extreme horror I've read is probably Guts by Chuck Palahniuk. It's... more disgusting than scary, but it's given me a new fear of pool drains. :)
ooo boy. guts. ive only heard a summary but even that has scarred me for life
That blew me away......
I was at a reading for that back when it was first published; I lost count of how many people walked out.
SAME GUY WHO WROTE FIGHT CLUB
Some recommendations:
-Fluids by May Leitz. Written by UA-camr NyxFears, who’s whole channel is about extreme horror film.
-Cormac McCarthy Books, particularly Blood Meridian, Child of God, and Outer Dark.
Thank for you the recommendations!
I've read one extreme horror book and that was Psychic Teenage Bloodbath. It wasn't bad - the kills were the extreme part and they actually forwarded the story. Now, stuff like Cows and Playground would bug me as it seems the grossness is more gratuitous? Anyways, overall, this is not a genre for me. I laughed at your reactions though!
Cows is a little more profound than people like to admit, it's absurdly goofy, but as a vegan text it's quite thoughtful.
I love horror, it's literally my favorite genre, but shit like that is where I draw the line. There are some things that were never meant to be read/watch/heard
Nobody mentioned "The Resurrectionist" by Wrath James White, in the comments? They made a movie version of it called "Come Back to Me". Both are good, in their own right. Definitely recommend.
And anything by Matt Shaw is definitely twisted and icky, but he tends to be tongue in cheek with them. He's an indie, too.
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely have to check it out.
The guys name is Wrath?? 💀
@@raskullsshako Probably a pen name, but yep.
So far I don’t really feel like I’ve heard anything worse than what is featured in the Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys etc) comic series Crossed. It’s basically 28 Days Later only instead of simple rage, the infected are compelled to do and enjoy literally the worst stuff they can think of. The baby as wishbone thing reminded me because something very similar happens in iirc the first issue while the parents are being SA’d and disemboweled simultaneously. Some of the spin off series’ are even more intense by quite a lot. And Alan Moore’s Crossed +100 is a weirdly high brow version of it as he tries to navigate little things like what would humanity being forced to whisper for ~100 years do to language. Highly recommend, if you can handle it that is.
I love Crossed. Psychopath is so twisted
Baby In a Blender sounds like a literary version of The Aristocrats.
If it hadn't been banned during the peak era of Two Girls 1 Cup and other shock sites, it would have done really well.
Great video! Your reactions to those books are really funny. Perhaps you can make a video about current trends in horror and supernatural horror?
"Room" by Emma Donohue is easily one of the most disturbing (yet emotional) books I've ever read, but not for the typical reasons. I highly recommend it.
I'm in the middle of playground now and I think I made a good decision for my first splatterpunk book lol the long bit of normal dialogue after Geraldine's escapades was very much needed
Thank you for suffering through these. I will definitely avoid baby in a blender but am super curious about Playground. I feel I will regret it though
i know it’s been covered but im currently reading House of Leaves which i know has been covered a lot on youtube but honestly its truly unique and fascinating for a horror/thriller read i would definitley reccomend 👌
SPOILERS
Playground was too over-the-top in my opinion. From the infamous page 40 scene (iykyk) to the Saw-esque traps to part of it being perpetuated by an ex-Nazi scientist, it just kind of felt shocking for the sake of being shocking, instead of being anything of substance.
Isn’t that extreme horror though? It’s meant to be over the top
The ex nazi scientist reveal just made me laugh lmao
@@tony_starch There's a difference between a story that's shocking and over the top and a story thats only substance is that it's over the top.
The most extreme thing I've read recently was a short story called Eric the Pie. My god, it was absolutely disgusting. How the author managed to pack so much disturbing imagery into just ten pages is beyond me. It's been weeks and I can't get it out of my head. I wish I could because it was vile af. Very well written though.
That poor goddamn calf.
Where to read? 😅
Also who’s the author?
@@fondantswirl2019 The author is Graham Masterson and he’s posted it online for free, just Google Eric the Pie and it’ll pop right up. But be warned - it’s well-written but horribly disgusting!
@@error-try-again-later I hated that part most of all 😢
I still find it wild how some people can think to themselves, "Yup, this is my masterpiece!" but they write something called "Ass Goblins of Auschwitz'
Thank you for taking the hit so we don’t have to!
If you’d like to read “extreme horror” (not quite as over the top as these) that’s genuinely good I have a few recommendations!
Body Shocks is a body horror anthology book featuring short stories by awesome horror writers! I just read it recently.
The Troop and The Deep by Nick Cutter are two of my favorite horror books that have some extreme aspects to them.
Clive Barker has written some books that I think count as extreme horror, and his work is generally very good.
Yes! These are amazingly well written and so gory and visceral. Gorgeous choices!
Clive Barker is such a wordy writer. I feel his books would be half the length, and faster paced if he would just get to the point. I just don’t like his writing style, at all.
@@twoofakindOGDC I can see how you’d feel that way. I think for some people that’s part of the appeal. I personally don’t mind wordy writing if the story itself is engaging but I def get where you’re coming from
I've only read the Deep but I loved it so much. It's especially effective if you have thalassophobia lol
I read a lot of erotica, and I feel it is similar to horror in the sense that they can both become absurd if pushed too far. In erotica, you can write a sex scene that is full of steamy kink, while also using that scene to build upon the plot and themes related to the overall narrative. I feel the same has to be true in horror...
Yes! My exact thoughts. There’s a line where it just becomes like trying too hard to be shocking or explicit and not enough of story writing
@@julz31 Exactly! It honestly can become boring at a certain point! 🤣
I turned 49 this summer. As a rep for Gen X, the real 80s kids, I just have to jump in and inform:
Gruesome humor was HUGE in the 80s. American Psycho wasn't an accident. We grew up with serial killers, crack epidemic, AIDS epidemic, and the bomb.
So ...dead baby jokes, especially in the blender , had a bajillion variations....and they usually went along with homesick abortions jokes. Sonething like this in print form is mostly for shock value in those days.
American Psycho is very different. That's a clever, biting satire. I probably read that at least 4 times....but....The Girl Next Door... I actually really like that book, it's very powerful, but even i could only read it once.
I honestly have no idea why we thought that humor was so good back then, but yeah, we did that.
I’m 42 - I miss the 80s all the time but not the gross humor that was so popular. I couldn’t even handle Garbage Pail Kids.
Truth!
@@suzybearheart530 hahahahaha. I loved those. I even have a few still
I agree 💯 We were some sick mfs🤣 Most of our “monsters” were real, flesh and blood people!! The 80s was a time when kidnapping was at an all time high, “stranger danger” was beginning, but no one ever locked their doors, and walking into strangers homes wasn’t a “big deal”. It was a wild time to be a kid, and we survived it!! We also has some kick ass music, but that’s a different story all together 💯
@@suzybearheart530 similar age and garbage pail kids were scary to me. No wonder I barely survived the 80's with my weak mental constitution.
as a reader and writer of extreme horror i loved how you went into this with an open mind and i appreciate that you still stuck through it all!
It honestly made me more curious about extreme horror. I may have to read another batch of books to see what else is out there.
To be honest when it comes to Extreme Horror/Guro (Putting them in the same boat for a bit) I think lotsa gore and violence is fascinating!
However I feel like sometimes, especially if it involves children, women or! Especially young women, it can border on some sort of fetish-y shit. Like there IS a point were it goes from Shocking and Edgy to actually kinda gross and fetishy.
That is why I'm usually cautious around anything that people are holding up as "Extreme". Like Playground and Metamorphosis. Alot of it, at least to ME, comes off as borderline fetish porn. (Metamorphosis MORESO. Playground seems like just extreme horror with gross sections)
Metamorphosis as in by Franz Kalfa? or a different one?
I believe they're referring to the manga "Metamorphosis" by Shindo L
After looking at the titles on the bookshelf behind you, I had to check my own bookshelf to make sure you hadn't snuck in and made off with half my library. Vonnegut FTW!
😂 He's the absolute best.
insta-subscribe
thank you for this - i was so close to picking up playground and i'm so glad i saw your video first!
petition to let youtube monetize videos where the creator says "crusty holes" for educational purposes
😂😂😂
I feel like the author of baby in a blender took everything you said about it as high praise
a book i found interesting is "the big meat", i haven't finished it but the premise is that a monster attacked a city and the military killed it, and it shows you what happens with the body after
I like "baby in a blender" because it tells me everything I need to know. Soothes the autisms. Just like my two favorite movies, snakes on a plane, and hot tub time machine. Never seem 'em. *I don't have to*.
I know horror tends to involve gore, but if it’s just gore it’s not horror.
I’d say it was more of a subgenre of horror instead of a separate category
@@hotdogwater9580i mean, i think it depends of how is elaborated. If it is just based on literally gore (for example, Terrifier) it just feels sickening and annoying. But if a horror book, movie, or series has a lot of gore (or even just centered on it)but stills have a coherent and interesting story, it could be worth it
worst 50 cents ive ever spent in my life. the curiosity wasnt worth it. i was better off never knowing.
In what regard? Still debating spending the change on it lol
“Definitely worse than like a typical book”
Absolutely brutal
I thought I was a strong person til I read “The Summer I Died”, by Ryan Thomas. I had to literally put the book down and take breaks in order to finish. My favorite author is Richard Laymon, so I thought that surely this book couldn’t be THAT BAD. I was wrong. I was so wrong 😑
The fact you went BACK to reading Playground as a “break” from Baby In A Blender says a lot about that story… also wtf was wrong with that author? I’d read Playground tho
I just read Maeve Fly and it was everything I had wished American Psycho would be. It’s extreme horror, sorta at the edge of splatterpunk (which is a genre I love/hate) and was extremely gross, messed up, and also very funny and the satire HIT. The premise is woman who plays Popular Ice Princess at the Happiest Place on Earth, loves her job is also a serial killer.
There’s a lot of grossness, torture, extreme sexual content inspired by The Story of the Eye, an egg fetish, and murder. It was incredible. So funny and also so gross at the same time.
I've wanted to read this since I first saw the cover. Absolutely buying it immediately. Thanks for the suggestion!
@@AndaKent definitely give it a read! It’s extreme, but sounds less extreme than the Playground and the other books you read. I hated American Psycho because even though I knew it was satire, I still found the murder and torture of marginalized women offputting. This book is also clearly satire, takes obvious inspo and pays homage to American Psycho, but it just hit better for me. Plus the idea of Popular Ice Princess by day, deviant and serial killer by night is so funny to me (and it was funny in the book) there were parts where I was screaming WHAT THE FUCK but also laughing at the same time.
Just stumbled upon your channel and I can't wait to dig in. I've really enjoyed Edward Lee. He's written over 40 extreme horror books, though I'd recommend 'Succubi', 'Portrait of the psychopath as a young woman', and 'Flesh Gothic'.
I hate how diffucult it is to find horror that is disturbing without being pure filth. I guess maybe i like psychological thrillers and “horror” is the wrong word because this stuff listed here is not entertainment its depraved degerate filth
I agree. I can handle anything horror related but when it comes to gore and filth, I physically can’t get past it. Not even disturbed, just disgusted!! 😂
I know that maybe the extreme horror books helped the views but i feel like the format here is so much fun. Reading the books along and stopping to give some comments kept me enganged throughout the video. The recap at the end was well done. I hope you make another video like this in the future. Im sure it takes a lot of time to do so though.
I'm surprised Ryu Murakami wasn't in the list. I feel like Piercing is a must read for extreme horror (while also actually being well written). I have a strong feeling Baby in a Blender is not going to be a well written book. Maybe I'll be surprised as the video continues. 🤣
In the Miso Soup is his best book. Not just incredibly disturbing, but also filled with a lot of meaningful philosophy. As a horror author he is unmatched.
@@scorpioassmodeusgtx1811 I loved In the Miso Soup. So eerie.
@@vicktaru I like how once Frank starts killing, the pace becomes relentless. No chapter breaks, no scene breaks, not even a double line break, so the reader is a captive to Frank’s rampage as much as Kenji is. By the time the next chapter finally comes, the whole slaughter feels like a a fever dream that you can only wish didn’t actually happen. But you know deep down that it did, even if everything seems normal now.
I really need to reread it because it’s a masterpiece, but I’ll have to mentally prepare myself first. 😅 Amazing piece of literature, but it made me feel physically unwell.
The ''Playground'' book reminds me of an animation on UA-cam with the same name. The 3 kids a trapped in clown styled playground filled with monsters, I haven't read the book, but it wouldn't surprise me if the animation was inspired by it.
This was highly entertaining, was laughing so much at your reactions 😂😂
When i first found ur channel last year, i didnt even know there was such a thing as "extreme horror books" but when i found ur channel this was the 1st video i clicked on and ever since i have been wanting to read extreme horror. I just got playground ordered from my local library yesterday and so far im enjoying it. Thank u so much for introducing me to this new horror book genre❤
Your reactions to Baby in A Blender has me so damn intrigued. I need to know. But at the same time I'm not willing to shill out the dollar. Guess i will just have to live with not knowing
UGH SAME HERE
Can't wait for the baby in the blender film adaptation.
Great video! Your reactions to Baby In A Blender were very funny. I really like this format too.
Thank you! I did not realize how awful it was going to be 😂
There's a huge difference between good horror and just thinking of the grossest things you can and slapping them on a page. I haven't gone into extreme horror, but I remember reading 'It' and not being scared, just disgusted. I think that if a story revolves around people, especially children, being s@xually assaulted... its not horror, its just disgusting. Gore is a huge part of horror ofc but there is a point where its also just disgusting and unnecessary.
I also think that anything involving babies getting k!lled or s@xually assaulted is totally too far to be considered horror, but I'm a mother and my child is a toddler so I think those stories just hit too close to home.
I'm sometimes a horror fan for fun. What amazes me is I wrote for a living and to write blood sweat and tears into something and get rejected by publishing. How did this get published? OMG!
There’s quite a few indie publishing companies that produce niche books
I write splatterpunk so thanks for your opinions. Yes, splatterpunk IS gross and disturbing and taboo-breaking, those are vital elements for this subgenre and I highly recommend the real fine stuff - Suffer the Flesh by Monica J. O'Rourke. Godless is a very extreme bookstore, for the very devout readers of splatterpunk.
Thank you for checking out The Clown Hunt!
(And yes, Aron's books always have pictures and they are always nasty!)
I definitely want to read some others when I summon up enough courage! I see them everywhere.
Good god. I struggle to read "regular" horror books, I wouldn't dream of picking up an extreme horror. Glad this popped up in my recommendations, though. I hope you regain the sanity you sacrificed for this 🫡
I want to get into disturbing books so I bought Tender Is The Flesh to start with. Finished it in 2-3 days but I had to take a break walkway through where the story first starts uhhh. Going more. Loved it tbh it made me think coherently and I love the cannibalism aspects ^_^
I started that one and got a few sentences in and got distracted by something and haven't picked it up since. But you've reminded me that it's on my kindle just waiting to be devoured by me. Pun intended. Thanks!
What upset me the most about that book was how the ending was so bad, not like story evil bad but just that the writer put no care into it :(
Baby in a blender just pissed me off.
Meh, after reading American Psycho I’m pretty much numb to just about everything, lol. But I might read some of these, I sometimes appreciate the more gritty, dark, and violent horror stories.
Is your phone background from The Stuff?? I love it!
Nah, this is not for me I think, I'll just leave a like and chicken out. But I'll love to see similar vlogs on different subgenres! For example, you could do one on "haunted house" books, one on "possession/demons/satanism" type books, and so on. 👻
The pain of accidentally dropping your book and losing your spot is like stubbing your toe, it is just so mildly annoying that it is insanely annoying
I've only read two extreme horror books and I quite liked both, although I read one last year and one this year. It's not something I think I can read often but when the time calls for it, it's entertaining. Full Brutal by Kristopher Triana is a masterpiece, hope you read it at some point. It's much more psychological horror, not so much gore for the sake of gore, and is so funny throughout.
I'll definitely add it to my list. Thanks for the recommendation!
About the most extreme thing I dipped my toe into was Nick Cutter's The Troop and I noped out pretty quick. Can't say I envy you here on your literary adventure here. XD Thanks for the entertaining video though!
Really I'm not much of a horror book reader but I thought it was OK??? Kinda boring not scary per-say
Try The Deep also by Nick Cutter
I thought it was better, for whatever it's worth.
I went and read "Baby in a Blender" as soon as you mentioned it. To anyone wondering, it's exactly what you think it is, a few paragraphs ejaculated onto a page out of such desperation to be shocking that it had me laughing out loud more than once! Worth a read, for people who know they can handle anything, just for hilarities' sake!
some of the lines in Playground are so funny to me even if they’re supposed to be serious 😭😭 theres the line thats like “he had become like his favorite snack…a gusher” or something like that 💀 there’s also a part before (spoilers) gertrud or whatever the fuck her name is is killed by her own son (his name is rock idk i think thats kinda funny) , where she said “BUT IM YOUR MOTHER!!” and he responds “AND IM A MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!” THE WAY I LAUGHED.
Also the fact that I’m pretty sure geraldine got killed by a d!1do ☠️☠️☠️
I’m surprised that American psycho is genred as extreme horror, I had a totally different idea of what extreme horror would be