SFF

The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen

by Ellen Datlow
Tachyon. Oct. 2014. 384p. ed. by . ISBN 9781616961671. pap. $16.95; ebk. ISBN 9781616961688. HORROR
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This anthology's subtitle is apt, as the 21 stories and two poems collected here all look at the dark side of movies. From the gruesome legends of snuff films depicting real-life on-screen deaths to sad tales of Hollywood strivers looking for their big break, most of the selections skirt the borders of dark fantasy and horror. Among the best tales are F. Paul Wilson's "Cuts," a creepy account of a vengeful screenwriter's inventive torture of the director who mangled his script; "Final Girl Theory" by A.C. Wise, about an obsessive fan's encounter with the star of a cult film; and Genevieve Valentine's "She Drives the Men to Crimes of Passion" involving a director and the actress he discovers.
VERDICT World-class editor and anthologist Datlow (Snow White, Blood Red; The Best Horror of the Year) has picked a marvelous theme for this volume. While not every story is a hit, many of the pieces make it worth the price of admission.
Reviewed by Megan M. McArdle , Oct 15, 2014
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