RetView #84 – Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972)

Title: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

Year of Release: 1972

Director: Bob Clark

Length: 87 mins

Starring: Alan Ormsby, Anya Ormsby, Valerie Mamches, Jeff Gillen, Paul Cronin, Jane Daly, Bruce Solomon

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (also known as Revenge of the Living Dead, Things from the Dead, Cemetery of the Dead, The Siege of the Living Dead, and Zreaks) is an iconic piece of work co-written and directed by Bob Clark, who would go on to direct Deathdream (1974) and the classic frat comedy Porky’s. Riffing off Night of the Living Dead (1968), the script was written in 10 days and the movie shot in 14 on a budget of just $50,000, with most of the people working on it being college friends making it a true labour of love. Most of the cast were not even trained actors, with only a select few going to to have modest careers in TV or cinema. Also, this must be one of the very few zombie movies starring a married couple, Alan and Anya Ormsby who’s characters, hilariously, are also named Alan and Anya. Nod, nod, wink, wink. The quips and one-liners come thick and fast (“What a bunch of stiffs!”). At least, they do until the shit hits the fan.

The story follows a theatre troupe (“I do have talent when I have a good part!”) who travel by boat to an island off the coast of Miami that is mainly used as a cemetery for criminals, for a night of campy fun. When they arrive, their director Alan (Ormsby), a twisted, sadistic individual, tells the motley crew of actors, whom he refers as his ‘children’, stories about the island’s grisly history in a concerted effort to unsettle them. He also digs up the corpse of a man named Orville, which is certain to make any party go with a bang. The names written on the styrofoam tombstones, by the way, are the names of various crew members.

“They’re having trouble all over the world with graverobbbers, ghouls, and people breaking into cemeteries.”

“But we’re the graverobbers. Who’s going to bother us?”

“Nobody but demons.”

And zombies, as we are soon to discover.

Eventually, Alan leads the group to a cottage where they are supposed to spend the night, and then proceeds to get robed up and prepare the group for an ancient ritual to summon the dead. Probably not the smartest move when you’re on an island off the coast of Miami that is mainly used as a cemetery for criminals, but okay then. When some of the group aren’t so keen (understandably) he threatens them with the sack, which I am pretty sure would be a breach of some ethical code or other these days, but this was the seventies. Alan’s bullying and cheap jokes soon stop when the gang realise the ritual they performed had worked, and the entire island is now swarming with freshly reanimated zombies. It kind of makes you wonder what they expected to happen. Even for a low-budget seventies horror comedy film, “They seem pretty slow. Why don’t we make a run for it?” has to be one of the dumbest lines ever uttered.

In a desperate attempt to get themselves out of the mess they had created, the group attempts to perform another ritual to return the zombies to their graves. And it works! For a bit. However, they neglect to return Orville to his grave, prompting the zombies to re-emerge and ambush the group as they leave the house. Alan and Anya retreat back inside, and in a last ditch effort to save himself, despicable Alan throws Anya to the zombies and locks himself in the bedroom where he left Orville’s corpse, not realising Orville is now a zombie, too.

In these #RetView posts I try to keep spoilers to a minimum and not to discuss plot holes or endings. I’m not here to be a killjoy, and my hope is that readers will seek these films out themselves. On this occasion, though, I feel I have to mention it. The zombies get on the boat, see. The boat the group had taken to the island. As the zombies board it, you can see the inviting lights of Miami twinkling in the background, the implication being that the zombies will soon enter the mainstream, so to speak. But… who is going to sail the boat? Sailing a boat is a tricky business, or so I imagine. These zombies are shambling husks that can barely walk. I doubt very much any of them retain enough brain function, let alone dexterity, to captain a boat across a choppy section of water. I know I’m probably pedantic but as the credits rolled all I could think was, “Shit! The zombies got on the boat!” which was, I suppose, the desired effect. But this was quickly followed by, “Oh, it’s okay. they won’t get far. We’re good.”

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is currently rocking a 42% rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes and in reviewing the later DVD release, Bloody Disgusting said: “[This] is well worth your time if you haven’t gotten around to it yet [and] really should be held among the top zombie movies of all time.” Meanwhile, the website 100 Misspent Hours was less generous, saying, “The biggest problem with Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is that it’s an 85-minute zombie movie in which the zombies don’t turn up until minute 64.”

Bob Clark was said to have been considering a remake, but plans were curtailed when his Infiniti I30 was hit by a drunk driver in April 2007. Unless, of course, Alan Ormsby decides to raise him from the dead. Since then, other rumours of a remake have circulated, but none have so far come to fruition. It is available as a free download from the Internet Archive.

Trivia Corner

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, a track on Finnish heavy/doom metal band Wolfshead’s 2017 album Leaden, is based on the movie.

2024 in Review

January 2024 saw the publication of my short story The Cunning Linguist in the long-delayed anthology Welcome to the Splatterclub, vol III on Blood Bound Books. You can probably guess what that one’s about. I have a long associated with BBB, and they’ve always been great to work with. That was followed by short fiction in Flash in a Flash, the Black Beacon Book of Ghosts edited by Cameron Trost, and Big Smoke Pulp, Vol I, which by my count became my 97^th published short story (not including reprints). A second edition of Handmade Horror Stories, which includes my story Misshapes & Rejects, also came out.

On 27 March I released X6, my sixth volume of short fiction. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that X6 includes some of the darkest things I have ever written, including Holiday of a Lifetime, which I think has drawn the most reader complaints so far. My bad. Here’s the ToC. And here’s another look at the awesome cover by Greg Chapman.

I have been so involved in fiction over the past couple of years, I drifted out of journalism, apart from the day job. I enjoy writing about writing, and I have a lot of experience to mine, so I pitched a few articles to an American magazine called Writer’s Digest. WD is a bit of an institution, and definitely one to cross off the bucket list. I hadn’t been that excited since I wrote for Loaded. By the end of the year WD had published features about making the switch from writing for consumer magazines to the trade press, horror fiction markets, healthy habits for cultivating success, and finding your writing niche. There are also a few more in the pipeline.

Another writing magazine I have built up a good relationship with is Authors Publish. A couple of years ago they ran a piece I wrote about how I got my first book published, then late last year they contacted me out of the blue and asked if they could reprint the piece in a long-form book. Would I like to be paid twice for the same thing with no extra work on my part? Go on, then.

With the revised version of the second Ben Shivers mystery, The Butcher (working title), safely off to the publisher, at the beginning of the year I started shopping Silent Mine around, a horror western novella about a disillusioned cowboy on the trail of a missing husband. The last anyone heard, the husband went seeking his fortune at a place called Silent Mine, and he didn’t come back. Silent Mine is the first of a series featuring a character called Dylan Decker who does his level best to put the ‘wild’ in the West. A new publisher called Undertaker Books soon picked it up and did an amazing job with every aspect of it, from the editing to the promotion and cover art. They also asked for a first option on any more Dylan Decker books, which was music to my ears because I had another one under my belt. Meeting at Blood Lake (provisional title) will be out some time in 2025.

To bridge the gap, and to round out the year, I wrote a Christmas-themed short story, A Christmas Cannibal, again featuring Dylan Decker, which you can grab for free from THIS LINK. If you are a fan of horror fiction, you might want to sign up for the Undertaker Books newsletter.

Meanwhile, here on my faithful blog, judging by the site stats the most popular posts of 2024 were my eyewitness account of Bruce Springsteen’s Cardiff gig and, bizarrely, my review of Ryan Adam’s Nebraska cover album. My RetView series, which examines classic horror movies through a contemporary lens, is also still going strong. Recent entries include the ‘most controversial film ever made’ Cannibal Holocaust, the sublime Incredible Shrinking Man, and the simply superb King of Zombies. However, by far the most popular was The Mutations, another surprise.

If you want a summary of 2023, you can find that here. I have lots already planned for 2025, so watch this space and stay happy.

Remember, the harder you work, the more you achieve.

RetView #76 – Night of the Creeps (1986)

Title: Night of the Creeps

Year of Release: 1986

Director: Fred Dekker

Length: 88 mins

Starring: Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, Tom Atkins, Wally Taylor, Richard Miller

As regular readers of this series will know, I can’t resist some eighties schlock. And they don’t come much more eighties and schlocky than this. On the surface it’s a zombie flick, the splatter/comedy tone eerily reminiscent of Re-Animator (1985), right down to the zombiefied cat. But at it’s core, Night of the Creeps is a homage to the fifties B-Movies like The Blob (1958) and The Giant Claw (1957) we all love so much. It even opens with a cut scene which manages to encapsulate an alien invasion and an escaped lunatic before fast-forwarding 27 years to a university Pledge Week setting where Chris Romero (Lively) and his best friend JC (Marshall) are pining over lost loves (“I don’t like being depressed. It’s depressing”). In the crowd they pick out Cynthia Cronenberg (Whitlow) and join a fraternity in a misguided attempt to gain her affection. Unfortunately, Cynthia’s boyfriend is the head honcho and tasks the hapless duo with stealing a cadaver from the university medical center and depositing it on the steps of a rival frat house. In the process, they inadvertently thaw out a frozen corpse (“a corpsicle!”) who turns out to be the boy from the opening scene, who then goes to pick up his date at her sorority house 27 years late. And dead. Not only that, but he’s infected with an alien parasite which looks like a slug and likes to jump into people’s orifices. Before you know it, it’s carnage.

Released by TriStar Pictures the film is widely regarded as a box office flop, earning a meagre $591,366 domestically. But it was only released in 70 theatres so that isn’t too surprising, and apparently it was quite big in the Philippines where it was released on March 5, 1987, with free “protector” stickers handed out to moviegoers. I love a good bit of PR.

Director Fred Dekker, who was also involved with House (1986), Monster Squad (1987) and several episodes of the legendary series Tales From the Crypt, originally wanted to shoot the film in black and white. He included every B-movie cliche he could think of and insisted on directing the script himself. Most of the main characters (Romero, Carpenter, Raimi, Hooper, Cronenberg) are named after famous horror movie makers and ‘Corman University’ itself is a reference to Roger Corman. The script was allegedly written in a week and the truth is, it shows. Some of the jokes are weak and predictable, and the whole thing treads the line between being a homage and simply being derivative. Part of the charm is the slapped-together punk-tastic approach, but you can’t help but wonder how much better it could have been had it been a bit more polished. In their review, the New York times acknowledged as much but went on to say it also demonstrates, “A fair ability to create suspense, build tension and achieve respectable performances.” Writing for Fangoria, Michael Gingold called it, “One of the year’s most surprisingly entertaining fright features, one that homaged practically every subgenre imaginable yet kept a sure hand on its tone and never descended into spoofery.” Dread Central were even more complimentary, generously calling it, “A classic in every sense of the word.”

Strangely, in Cincinnati and a few other cities, the movie was re-named Homecoming Night and two different endings were made. The most common version shows Chris and Cynthia standing in front of the burning sorority house, with the camera moving to the street as police cars race towards the burning building past a ‘zombified’ Cameron, who stops and falls to the ground. His head then bursts open and the alien parasite slugs that incubated there scamper out and slither towards a nearby cemetery. The other, far less elaborate ending, has a dog in it. A later completely unrelated film called Zombie Town was marketed to some audiences as an ‘unofficial sequel.’ The original has been reissued in a number of formats, most recently on Blu-ray in 2019.

Trivia Corner

According to Dekker the prominent “Stryper Rules” graffiti visible in the bathroom scene appeared due to makeup artist Kyle Sweet’s relationship with future husband Michael Sweet, frontman of Christian metal band Stryper, who’d she’d met whilst working on their video. Kyle Sweet also worked on Teen Wolf (1985) and The Terminator (1984) and passed away from cancer in 2009. Stryper live on, releasing their most recent album The Final Battle in 2022.

The RetView series is taking a short break and will be back soon, giving you the perfect opportunity to catch up on some previous installments.

Finders Keepers in Biters

Finders Keepers, my collab with Michael McCarty, is included in his latest collection…

Biters.

They thrive in the shadows, hungry for blood, hungry for human flesh. BITERS, from 5-time Bram Stoker Finalist Michael McCarty, is a thrilling collection of 4 zombie stories and 4 vampire tales by a veteran author of over fifty books and numerous stories and works of nonfiction since the 1980s. Within these pages you will find excitingly original and macabre tales of biters of all sorts to make you shiver and even question your own sanity, featuring incredible special guest co-authors! Dare, if you will to enter the world of….BITERS!

Biters is available now on Black Bedsheet Books

RetView #65 – Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead (2011)

Title: Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead

Year of Release: 2011

Director: Noboru Iguchi

Length: 85 mins

Starring: Arisa Nakamura, Asana Mamoru, Mayu Sugano, Asami Sugiura, Kentaro Kishi

Seven minutes into this movie I needed something stronger than bottled Stella and WTF because bottled Stella and WTF just wasn’t cutting it any more. Even in the bizarre realms of Japanese horror, I don’t think I’ve seen anything this wacky before.

The plot evolves around karate student Megumi (Nakamura) who, consumed with guilt and grief over the suicide of her bullied sister, accompanies a group of older friends on a camping trip into the woods. Things get weird when they go fishing in a river known for carrying ‘parasites that keep super models thin.’ The voluptuous Maki (who wants to be an idol) takes this on board and before anyone can stop her, swallows a massive tapeworm they find inside a fish they catch. Before you can say, “WTF? Where’s my Stella?” a zombie appears from nowhere and chews someone’s finger off, prompting Megumi to deliver a spinning kick to the head that snaps his neck.

“Megumi! That was too strong!”

“It was just a normal kick.”

Thoroughly freaked out, the group then leg it to a deserted village where poor Maki suffers a sudden diarrhoea attack and relieves herself in an outhouse, only to be molested by more zombies. The rest of the group, meanwhile, are rescued by an old villager who also has tapeworms. In a fit of despair he blows his head off with a shotgun and one of his eyeballs flies out, straight down the throat of the nerdy one of the group. And then, without so much as pausing for breath, its on to fight more pervert zombies. It’s okay, though, Megumi finds a double-barrelled shotgun and takes out a whole room full of them without reloading once, but let’s not be pedantic. Another of the unfortunate zombies is offed when someone sits on his head and crushes it (“I killed him with my butt!”), a scene which is replayed multiple times in case you missed it the first time. You get the feeling the makers were doing it to somehow stir the viewer’s loins, but my loins stayed firmly in place.

After a bit, a mad doctor turns up, kills a rogue tapeworm with a nail gun, and then they all have dinner together. The doctor reveals that the zombified villages are all riddled with tapeworms and the reason they bite is to lay eggs. Not good news for that bloke who had his finger chomped off. Let’s just say he has a very bad reaction. Phew.

Just so you know, by this point the movie is barely half way through. There’s another 45-minutes or so of this utter madness. Director Noboru Iguchi, who also wrote the screenplay, certainly knows how to keep up the pace. He started his career in JAV (Japanese Adult Video) movies, where he ‘explored’ several genres including bondage and incest, common themes in Japanese porn. Or so I am led to believe. Iguchi is best known for a film called Final Pussy which, as a result of a military experiment going wrong, has a lead character with guns bursting out of her boobs whenever she gets aroused. What a passion killer that must be. After crossing into the mainstream, Iguchi won plaudits for his work on various horror/comedy/gore films such as The Machine Girl (2008), Mutant Girls Squad (2010) and Dead Sushi (2012).

Incredibly, this cult offering has amassed almost 2,000 ratings on IMDB with an average rating of 4.7/10. Starburst magazine enthused “Silly, sure. But, when you have a theatre full of grown adults laughing and having a good time you know it’s going to be an instant cult classic.” Meanwhile, in their review, Variety said, “The title alone will help it worm its way into fantasy fests and Asian cult ancillary, to be seen by viewers who will need to be drunk or otherwise zombified to enjoy it.”

To be fair, they aren’t wrong. I’m tempted to say it got a bit outlandish towards the end, but that in itself would be a stupid thing to say. It was outlandish from the start. Even the poster is outlandish. But if you have a thing for farts, vomit, martial arts, giant parasites, exploding heads, shit-covered pervert zombies, or any combination of the above, this one is for you.

Trivia Corner

In the credits, an actor called Demo Tanaka is credited as ‘the shit zombie,’ presumably because he crawls out of a toilet all covered in shit, and then proceeds to sling it at people. Incidentally, the actress Asana (no, really) Mamoru had to control her bowels in the outhouse scene that made the shit zombie famous so she didn’t actually shit on him. Some of the farts heard are real, apparently, which must be a valued addition to anyone’s showreel.

Dead of Night (Extract)

Greetings!

Just in time for Halloween, below is an extract from Dead of Night (Revised edition).

At some point, Nick dropped something, Maggie heard it hit the floor with a soft, hollow thud. She didn’t know what it could be, but guessed it must be pretty important because the moment it fell, Nick stopped in his tracks. They didn’t have time for this shit, they had to find cover. Now. It wasn’t safe outdoors, and Nick was fading fast. If he collapsed out here in the open, she would never be able to move him. They would be sitting targets for whatever prowled these fucking woods after dark.

She instinctively reached down to pick up the object Nick had dropped, then immediately put her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. It was Nick’s severed hand. Pale now, almost translucent in the moonlight. It felt clammy to the touch. He’d carried it with him all the way from the camp.

It was still warm.

Dear God.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Pick it up and get going again. It’s just flesh and bone, just flesh and bone…               

Grimacing, she tucked the bloodied appendage into the waistband of her sweatpants, took Nick by the remaining arm and resumed the journey.

Bizarrely, cruelly, in her fractured state, Maggie found that she couldn’t stop wondering how the hell they were going to carry the tent and all the rest of their stuff back to the car if Nick only had one hand. It would definitely be a struggle. They might have to make two trips, or even leave some stuff behind. She started mentally listing all the things they had taken with them, and then the things they could afford to leave behind. Anything to keep her mind working, keep it sharp and focused. If she stopped to think about the nightmare they were in, she would go to pieces.

Under normal circumstances it would only have taken a couple of minutes to get to the cabin, but in the dark and with Nick the way he was, it would probably take three times that long. At any moment she expected to see movement in the trees, or feel an arm reach out of the undergrowth and claw at her feet.

Things were going too well.

It was almost too easy.

But if she remembered correctly, Nick had put a tent peg straight into that thing’s eye. And didn’t it only have one eye to begin with? In that case it was probably still walking around in circles a mile or so away.

Maggie could feel exhaustion setting in. The muscles in her back and arms were screaming in protest from shouldering Nick’s extra weight and her second wind had come and gone. Probably her third and fourth winds too, if such things existed.

With grim determination, she pushed on. No time to stop, not here, not even for a second.

Finally, they arrived back at the cabin.

Dead of Night is available now on paperback and ebook.

Dead of Night is available now on ebook and paperback. If you’re interested in the book’s background and publishing history, check out this post I wrote about it.

Dead of Night – Reviews

When it was first released back in 2010, my splatterpunk novella Dead of Night picked up some pretty awesome reviews. I’ve gone back through my files and dug up some highlights. Loved the bitch slap at the end of the last review.

“In his zombie-infested novella Dead of Night, C. M. Saunders draws a picture of horror and desperation for his readers as he unleashes a band of undead Confederate bushwackers on an unsuspecting and innocent couple. As I read, I found myself pulled into the action, rooting for the young hero and heroine to make it through the night.”

“This story is not just hacking and slashing and eating brains; there is a fair share of suspense in Dead of Night that I found to be quite effective. Mr. Saunders gives his readers a chance to get to know the hero and heroine before plunging them into mortal danger, and this makes us care about their fate. Dead of Night contains a sense of urgency that will definitely get the blood pumping. Mr. Saunders brings us into the minds of his two protagonists; we share their terror, their pain, their despair, and their hope for survival.”

• Book Wenches

“Dead of Night is an obvious product of a great many horror films. The departure from realism, the horrendous injuries inflicted on the hero, the coincidences and lucky breaks – all lead directly from the late night horror screen. Evil Dead in particular seems to be a strong influence, especially with the besieged-in-a-cabin sequence.”

• Dark Fire (UK)

“Although it has lots of gore, it isn’t all about the blood and guts. Instead it is suspenseful and atmospheric. The scene where Nick wakes up in the middle of the night and first spots a zombie is tense. And being in the middle of nowhere, disconnected from the rest of the world with no one to turn to for help, added to the creepiness.”

“At the beginning, C.M. Saunders takes time to establish the characters, and although some may find that part slow, I found their relationship and discussion of Michael Jackson interesting. Since Nick and Maggie were well-developed I cared about them and found the story more interesting.”

• Little Miss Zombie

“If you are craving a zombie novel that deviates away from the typical “movie-style” theme – this will satiate your hunger. There are the normal horror elements: new love, remote setting, fight for survival, mass burial. However, C.M. Saunders’ Civil War zombies are intelligent; able to work as a team; possess fine motor skills; and cannot easily be killed. In fact, these “bushwhackers” peaked my curiosity. Would the psychological, mental, and physical aspects of fighting in a war end upon death? It is possible that these zombies are unaware that it is no longer 1861 – 1865. If this is the case, it would mean that they are denied the peace and solace they so richly deserve. The plot was very creatively written and flowed efficiently. I did not experience a single dull moment as I read the novel. Many of you will agree, a vast majority of horror novels have at least one character lacking a bit of common-sense. As others so eloquently state, “too stupid to live”. I feel that C.M. Saunders tried to weed the “stupidity factor” out, and he did a great job of it. The zombies were even spared this humility.”

• Buyzombie.com

“I have this horrible OCD quirk. It’s doesn’t matter how boring a story is, I have to finish it. Fortunately, that didn’t kick in with Saunder’s Dead of Night. This is a fun, short read that carries on with the latest trend of zombie soldiers. While Saunders doesn’t really bring any new to the table, it’s a cool chapter in the great big scheme of zombie stories. This is a great story. It’s a quick read with great cover art, and I do have to say, it’s MUCH better than Saunders’ first novella from Damnation Books.”

• Swamp Dweller

Dead of Night (Revised edition) is available now on paperback and ebook.

The Plague Pit

So… my latest book Back from the Dead: A Collection of Zombie Fiction recently dropped. It contains two complete novellas (Dead of Night and Human Waste) alongside several short stories that were previously published in Morpheus Tales, Crimson Streets and the anthology Digital Horror Fiction Volume 1. You can read a review by Ginger Nuts of Horror HERE.

The centre piece of Back from the Dead, is a new novelette called The Plague Pit. When I wrote it a couple of years ago, the original intention had been to sell it to a magazine or anthology as I do most of my stuff, but at around 8000 words it was just a bit too long for most markets. Then, I planned to publish it myself as a stand-alone, but wouldn’t you know it, at around 8000 words it was just a bit too short for that. Rather than ask readers to pay for what amounted to little more than a short story, I decided to package it with some other similarly-themed stories.

During the Black Death which swept through Europe 14^th Century, people were dying at such a rate that they were often disposed of in mass burial sites. These burial sites, which were usually located away from town centres for obvious reasons, were colloquially called plague pits. Local legend maintains that there’s one such plague pit situated near an abandoned chapel somewhere in the hills overlooking main character Owen’s home town and one summer’s afternoon, he sets out on a hike to try to prove or disprove the myth. What he discovers is far, far beyond his imagination.

Incidentally, the town in the story is Wood Forge, a fictitional place loosely based on my own home town of New Tredegar which I’ve used as the setting for several of my stories over the years including What Happened to Huw Silverthorne, What Happened Next and Never Go Back. Some of these stories are interconnected, while others just reference each other or some past work, the ultimate goal being to compile all the Wood Forge stories together into one book some day. I guess you could say Wood Forge is my version of Castle Rock, kudos to you if you get the reference.

Back from the Dead: A Collection of Zombie Fiction is available now on paperback and ebook.

Back from the Dead – The First Review

And it’s a cracker! The only problem is, the review appeared on the Spanish version of Amazon which most people might not see. Unless you happen to be in Spain. Assuming that isn’t the case because we aren’t all that lucky, I’ve reproduced the review for you here.

Highly original take on the zombie trope

5*

“As I said above, these are some of the most original zombie stories I have ever read which is hard to say nowadays considering how many there are already written. In these six stories you will find everything from sword-wielding zombies, a return to the Bubonic plague and all its consequences, possible alien zombies, an elderly couple starving to death with eyes set on each other, a different take on roadkill, and a private detective with an unusual request.

The whole collection thoroughly well edited making each story flow seamlessly, I read through this collection in just two days, and was left wanting more, much more. I hope the author returns to this trope and writes some more short stories because I enjoyed them all that much.

For zombie fans, definitely worth grabbing a copy-you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

– Justin Boote, Amazon Espana

Link to original review HERE

Back from the Dead: A Collection of Zombie Horror is available now on paperback and ebook.

Cover Reveal – Back from the Dead

My latest release, a collection of Zombie fiction called Back from the Dead, is coming soon. More details, including a full table of contents, to follow shortly. In the meantime, I just wanted to share the awesome cover with you, as designed by Greg Chapman.

And here it is!

Back from the Dead officially drops on July 23rd and is available for pre-order now.