Best New Horror: Volume 25

A child shares a horrific new monster story with his babysitter. Deaths follow a strange Instant Message online. A trip into the Parisian catacombs haunts a little boy. The visits of weird Aunt Harriet torment a household. The staircase of a bed and breakfast sometimes has an extra step.

Best New Horror: Volume 25 continues a long and glorious tradition of sharing the best and most terrifying horror stories the genre has to offer. Volume 25 is mostly slow-burn, traditional horror in the style I’ve come to associate with Canadian and British horror authors, anchored in the chills of a normal life made abnormal by the unexpected. And some of these stories are dreadfully effective. (I’m purposely ignoring one torture porn story that turned my stomach.)

Honestly, though, I nearly gave the collection 5 stars purely for introducing me to “Whitstable,” a wonderful, melancholy story starring the late Peter Cushing that spanned the last hundred pages of the collection and absolutely blew me away.

While Best New Horror: Volume 25 is a bit of a mixed bag, the soaring high points more than make up for a few unremarkable and unpleasant interludes.