Urban Gothic by Brian Keene, a Gory Slasher Horror Masterpiece

Six teenagers get stuck with their car in a raunchy district of the inner city. When the residents (members of local gangs) approach them, obviously with no good intentions, they flee, and hide in a dilapidated house – which is, unfortunately for them, already inhabited.



The local kids, feeling responsible for the teens’ fate, call the police – however, even policemen are familiar with the reputation of the said house and never come. So they follow the teens inside the lair… They do not exactly know the nature of the thing inside, but they suspect it is frightening. The intruders, both the teens and the members of the clique, find out that the dwellers are mutants, malignant ones who feed human flesh. Some of the kids meet a gory death in the basement and underground caves where the mutants live. Lots of torments are also in play, and characters walk in blood up to their knees: Urban Gothic is a slasher gemstone.

Brian Keene is a master of slasher horror novels and scary atmosphere, Urban Gothic, along with A Gathering of Crows, is one of his best books. The incestuous mutant creatures in Urban Gothic reminds me of similar beings from H. P. Lovecraft’s story The Lurking Fear – whilst the trapdoors and labyrinths are like Jasper Dunn’s Haunted Castle in Funland, written by Richard Laymon.