Giallo Fantastique anthology - A review
Despite being released back in 2015, the anthology ‘Giallo Fantastique’ still has little competition in the marketplace, and so it was a straightforward decision to pick it up. Not to mention the lurid genre-perfect cover perfectly encapsulating what the genre is all about.
Edited by Ross E. Lockheart, a veteran of small-presses and genre publishing, the first thing I noticed about the anthology was that all the writers were horror and not crime. A minor concern but not a big deal as I like both and cinematically there is a lot of crossover in terms of audience.
Reading Lockheart’s intro through did little to allay my fears though, as I wouldn’t state that giallo was a “weird crime genre”, and I’d argue that it didn’t really take off until the seventies, despite a couple of earlier efforts. Minor pedantic and nitpicking aside, Lockhart sets the scene well about what the anthology is about and the abundance of horror writers becomes clear… but not necessarily what I wanted.
But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Like all anthologies, I knew I wouldn’t like everything (and others might not like the ones I liked) but it surprised me at how few stories had genuine giallo elements and how many stories were just weird or fantastique horror. Because of this, the release has proved hard to judge, as many of the elements of a story that I enjoy were missing and too many tales meandered on pointlessly or were just horror (and not what I wanted from this release).
Of note, ‘Minerva’ by Michael Kazepis had a nice setup but went nowhere, which was a shame. Adam Ceseare’s ‘In the flat light’, incorporated and played with genre knowledge but lacked that killer ending, while ‘Sensoria’ by Anya Martin stood out as both engaging and gripping. The highlight of the release, and building on that momentum ‘The Red Church’ by Orrin Grey, was a brilliant and haunting tale of madness.
Minus the use of footnotes as an exposition device, ‘We Can Only Become Monsters’ by Ennis Drake was a well-planned story with a brave presentation style as it talks about murder, abuse of power and justice, while ‘The Communion Of Saints’ by John Langan had a wonderful concept, and really had potential to be expanded but it seemed like the author ran out of ideas by the end.
Overall, ‘Giallo Fantastique’ was very light on the actual giallo aspect and for that reason, I can’t recommend it.
I don’t know what the call out brief included, but I struggle to see how ‘Balch Creek’ by Cameron Pierce met it. Incidentally, that story was a decent horror read, but suffered from another rushed ending and no real giallo influence.
If speculative horror is your thing, then you will probably love this release, but if you want black-gloved killers, betrayal and red herrings, this isn’t worth your time.
