Neon Shocks
Nic Parker (https://www.facebook.com/nic.parker007)
Reviewed by Matt (@Cleric20) Adcock
This book is less a collection and more a grab-bag of nightmares, an eclectic run of horror shorts that refuse to sit neatly in one coffin, if you will.
This isn’t about one flavour of fear. Parker skips between supernatural chillers, grotesque body horror, strange little reality fractures and straight-up unsettling weirdness with the confidence of someone who knows the genre inside out. The result is unpredictable in the best way, you’re never quite sure what kind of darkness you’re about to step into next.
What holds it together is tone, Nic writes with heart and style. There’s a consistent undercurrent of unease, like the world itself is slightly out of joint. Some stories hit fast and hard, others linger, but there’s always that sense that something isn’t right, much like those classic Pan horror anthologies I grew up reading.
Parker is a twisted, sick bunny and some of her very personal likes and fears flow through the stories which bite with sharp, nasty, and often lingering imagery...
Short, strange, and enjoyably unhinged, Neon Shocks feels like flipping through a stack of cursed horror anthologies where every few pages something genuinely disturbing slips through and punches you in the face!
Out of a potential 5, you have to go with a Darkmatters:
(5 - Nobody Trusts Anybody Now, And We're All Very Tired.)
I got to ask Nic some questions - so read on if you want a bit of an insight into her dark mind…
Matt: Neon Shocks feels like a mixtape of nightmares, what kind of mental jukebox are you pulling from when you decide what goes in?
Nic: Hah, good question. Probably my lifetime of nightmares read and watched since childhood. I started with horror comics as a kid, watched movies like Bava's Black Sunday and Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another Planet, then moved on to hunt down the infamous video nasties of the 80s (which were still cut over here in Germany when you managed to track a fifth copy down) in my teens. Add a lot of Stephen King and Clive Barker and the fabulous horror films I managed to catch at genre festivals during the decades. So Neon Shocks is the amalgamation of the horror that dwells inside of me ;-)
Matt: If one story in the collection is secretly “the most you,” which one is it and should we be worried?
Nic: With me you should alway be worried - only thing that keeps me behaving: I'm too cute for jail! I can't actually pick one story I like most as they're all me - that's why I don't have a favourite sub genre in horror. Slasher, ghost story, sci-fi horror, psychological - I adore all aspects of the genre and that love spawns all the stories.
Matt: Your horror swings between the grotesque and the quietly unsettling which scares you more as a writer?
Nic: I don't scare easily at all. I think you can have an absolute ball with the grotesque and - like we say in German - really hit the shit. You can be insidious and let the fear fester inside the reader going the quieter way until the 'whack across the head' revelation.
Matt: There’s a real love of old-school horror DNA in here, what are your top 3 horror films?
Nic: Ever since I first saw it as a kid my favourite film is and will always be Carpenter's The Thing. And I will always love Re-Animator and Fulci's The Beyond.
Matt: You’re in a strange town and someone is out to kill you - who is it most likely to be?
Nic: Ha - whoever it is; I hope he brought the bazooka!
Matt: Be honest: have you ever had to stop writing one of these stories because it got under your own skin?
Nic: Not really. Whatever I can come up with - more terrible things are probably happening somewhere in the real world without anyone knowing.
Matt: Horror often says something sideways about the real world, are we doomed?
Nic: Seeing the incredible amount of creativity and originality in the genre during the last years and the new wave of passionate horror directors that emerged in the genre I'd say there's enough hope for all of us. And speaking of a new hope - as a Star Wars Fan I'd have never thought I'd be so excited about a Star Wars film again as I'm for The Mandalorian And Grogu, John Favreau put his fan heart and soul into this. Also, I firmly believe everything comes in waves. Having lived through the iron curtain age and the fear of nukes and the Chernobyl catastrophe I know things usually become better again after a while. I'm a horrible optimist.
Matt: If one of your stories escaped into the real world, which would cause the most chaos… and which would you secretly want to witness?
Nic: Most surely Careful What You Wish For, the Devil himself doing wages with people would be cool but also wreak a lot of havoc! And this story becoming real would mean Freddie Mercury being alive and back on stage again. So win win for all of us.
Matt: What’s the line you won’t cross or is that line basically a suggestion at this point?
Nic: Well, let me put it this way, I always loved graphic effects and violence in movies, nothing like a flying head and a good disembowelment. But I have a bit of a blockage when it comes to torture porn that's gone way beyond Hostel. Violence should always support the story and I'm not a fan of exaggerated rape/torture scenes just to serve certain tastes.
Matt: What would you like written on your grave?
Nic: It was one hell of a fun ride - and there were cats!
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