Seven Slightly Sadistic Stories / Jeremiah Cress

Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Horror

Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Jeremiah dreamt of being an FBI profiler but after a few years of studying psychology switched to film. He now writes.

You can learn more about Jeremiah Cress on his website.

Description:

Seven particularly nasty stories the average person will not want to read.

Appraisal:

The Amazon description of Seven Slightly Sadistic Stories includes the words ‘dark humor’, ‘creepy’ and ‘bloody and disturbing’. It also says ‘entertaining.’ I looked up the definition of the word ‘slightly’ – it means ‘to a small degree, inconsiderably.’ This could not be further from the truth.

There is a purpose to the above, I had the impression these stories would be mild horror, amusing, a little off the track but hopefully entertaining. Well I couldn’t have been more mistaken. The only applicable word in the description is disturbing, for these are truly very unpleasant tales.

The first ‘story’ describes a girl trapped under a house whilst someone above searches for her. This unknown man has just entered her house, on her birthday, and killed everyone. Nice start…(look up the definition of the word ‘sarcasm’ here).

The second is written in the first person (so you get all the really unpleasant perspectives in your face) and in it the protagonist stalks a little girl, describing how he does it and what he does to his victims.

The third is about a highly deranged man who hears voices. He stabs another man to death, eats his tongue (yes, you did read that correctly), then goes to the man’s house and does the same to his pregnant wife. But it’s okay, the killer gets arrested. He decides he’s going to escape once he eats his own tongue then start over. Apparently this is the author’s favourite of the seven.

The fourth is about a kidnapped girl who is blindfolded in a cellar and the stress she is under.

I’ve no idea what the rest are about and I don’t want to know. I confess I stopped at 50% of the way through, that was more than enough for me, and deleted it off my Kindle. Now I have to say I am not a horror reader, the film Scream I just about managed. On the other hand I have young children and I did not find anything entertaining or darkly comic in the stories themselves. They were highly graphic and very disturbing. I cannot imagine that the vast majority of people would want to read anything like this. Freedom of speech aside I also struggle to understand why an author would want to commit them to paper either.

So to the definition of ‘slightly.’ As you’ve probably guessed (sorry, sarcasm again) it couldn’t be farther from the truth. ‘Severely’ would be more apt.

On a technical note, Mr. Cress seemed a capable writer, but I will not be reading any of his future output. If you want entertaining, humorous and mild horror I strongly suggest reading Gerard Brennan instead.

He won’t make you feel sick.

FYI:

Graphic description of violence, murder and torture. Swearing.

Format/Typo Issues:

None apparent.

Rating: * One Star