Book Review - Out There Screaming by Various Authors

Title: Out There Screaming
Author: Various Authors (edited by Jordan Peele)
Genre: Horror/ Short stories
Published: 2024
 
Description: The visionary writer and director of “Get Out”, “Us” and “Nope”, and founder of Monkeypaw productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the  terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustive that haunts our nation.

Review: In the forword of “Out There Screaming”, Jordan Peele explains how the book came to be. How ‘The Sunken Place’ from his horror film “Get Out” is the starting point of each story. The sunken place is different for everyone and with that idea, 19 authors came up with varying stories.
 
I will not be getting into all induvial stories, I’m going to highlight the ones that stood out to me.
 
“The Other One”, written by Violet Allen” is about Angela, who gets mysterious text messages from another woman, who seems to be dating her ex. Things become sinister pretty quickly. I found this original and amazing, yet very disturbing. This is what I want for a short story in the horror genre. The ending was very worrying.
 
“Lasiren”, by author Erin E. Adams, was e strong, fantastical horror story, about three sisters. One is been taking into the ocean by a mysterious creature. The sister bond was what made this book special.
 
L.D. Lewis’ story “Flicker” followed Kamara and her friends, who ar trying to survive in a world turned upside down by unexplained ‘blinks’ of darkness that last seconds, then minutes, and so on. The premise was good, I could read a full length novel based on it.
 
“The Strongest Obeah Woman of the World”, written by Nalo Hopkinson, is a body horror story, so people will respond mixed to this one. Yenderil swims to the bottom of the blue hole to kill the beast that’s been haunting her village. But the beast latches on to her. This story was so original and kind of gross. But loved it.
 
There are also a few stories with realistic elements, of U.S. history, that are horrific because of it. My favorite of those was “The Norwood Trouble” by Maurice Broaddus follows a young girl that experiences a lynch mob in the years before civil rights was initiated in the U.S.
 
The best story in the entire anthology was without a doubt “Happy Place” by Terence Taylor. We meet Martin, whose job is to transport prisoners. He learns of ‘The Process’, which is a way to transfer knowledge to prisoners so they can leave as productive members of society. This was such a good story, loved the premise and that twist was a shock.
 
When I started this book, I felt a bit sad, because the first couple of stories didn’t really do much for me. But the best stories are still coming. Ranking each individual story, adding those and dividing this by 19, gives us an average rating of 3,5 stars. A really solid horror anthology, with some new-to-me authors that I will for sure keep my eye on.
 
Rating: 3,5/ 5