Vihorror! Cocktales of Sex and Death by Will Viharo

(pb; 2020: story anthology)

From the back cover

“. . . These titillating tales of erotic, existential terror are cinematic fever dreams in literary form, individually and collectively conveying the delirious desire that overwhelms our senses and the deep dread that undermines our spirits when confronted with the seemingly contradictory but essentially complementary twin fates of mating and mortality. There is only one entrance and one exit in this brief, beautiful horrific cycle of precious, ephemeral Flesh.

“Welcome to the uniquely stylized, conceptually uncompromising world of Vihorror.”

Overall review

Vihorror! continues to mine the dark, pulpy and neurotic vein of sex-media-horror-love-death that informs much of Viharo’s oeuvre. Not only does Vihorror! maintain that thematic consistency, it─in especially bleak, sometimes funny fashion─hyperfocuses on it in a way that Vihorror! could almost be stripped of the label entertainment. I say “almost” because the author has not abandoned his frakk-it-all, cinematic, sometimes hallucinatory blender approach, he’s just scaled it back a bit, compared to some of his recent works (e.g., his Mental Case Files trilogy). All of the stories, some better than others (but never uninteresting), ably flesh out the inherent, aforementioned values, images and action, and Vihorror!’s intuitive, loosely linked stories flow in an intriguing and anthology-true setup. 

This may be one of my favorite Viharo works because it shows Viharo creating in mature, dealing-with-troubling-events mode, one that is not for prudes or the easily offended, but for those willing to enter a sometimes uncomfortable, pulptastic and R-sometimes-X-rated surreality. 

Stories

“Dismember Me”: A half-naked, panicked woman runs around a dangerous city, trying to remember who she is and what happened to her. An entertaining, fast-moving, adrenalized and nasty sex-and-violence work, it reads like a Fifties noir/Twilight Zone crossover episode, given how cinematic, brief and effective as it is.

“The Lost Sock”: Mood-effective desperation, dread and eroticism and surrealism highlight this pop-culture savvy and lust-crusty work about a down-on-his-luck man trying to locate a missing sock. Excellent, Twilight Zone-esque work, this.

This story was previously published in the Winter 2014 issue of Dark Corners magazine and Viharo's anthology, Chumpy Walnut and Other Stories.

“Nightmare Cloud”: A lonely man has wet, disturbing dreams about a nameless woman whose ultimate nature is redemptive and damning. Atmospheric piece that effectively shows the protagonist’s increasing desperation.

“Dead Nudes”: A stripper heads into work, only to find that the club─with music still playing─is empty, aside from one mysterious customer sitting at a table. Good character-centered read, with an equal, tone-true mix of sleaze, dread and realization. Not only that, it makes mention of a certain ex-P.I.-turned-dog-walker!

“Mood Massacre”: This one put me in the mindset of a sped-up Jess-Franco-meets-other-Seventies-sleaze-merchants film. A woman goes on a rampage of sucking off men before shooting them to death. Initially, I was not into this one, but second-half backstory explanations and a great stuff-to-follow ending made it work.

“Slaughter of the Senses”: An unnamed, bored female man-killer, who may or may not have dreamed the events of “Mood Massacre,” has a threesome with a waitress and a stranger, whose affiliations may complicate the man-killer’s existence. This is an entertaining story that not only─possibly─links to the previous tale, but maintains the X-rated, violent and over-the-top tone of most of the stories in this anthology.

“Fleshpot Orgy”: A demon, linked to the antiheroines of “Mood Massacre”/ “Slaughter of the Senses” and “Nightmare Cloud,” wallows in the increasingly cold comfort of 24/7 possession and nasty sex.

“Like, Dig”: A sociopathic killer with acromegaly (physical disfiguration), attacked by a strange dog, crosses paths with a certain ex-private-investigator-turned-dog-walker. This has all the usual Viharo touches: vivid lust, fetishism; gratuitous-for-some violence and love of movies, music and books; world-weary and wandering characters; onomatopoeic swirls of emotions and actions. But, like many of the tales in this anthology, it ties them together in sometimes surprising, natural story arcs that do not feel writerly.

One of my favorite entries in this story collection.

“The Fleeting Feeling of Forever”: A woman, stumbling under the weight of her ennui and failing relationships, accidentally finds animalistic release. Fans of Paul Schrader’s 1982 film Cat People are a good audience for this story, loosely linked to “Like, Dig” and “Slaughter of the Senses.”

“Claw Marks on the Hourglass”: An ex-porn actress/stripper falls victim to the resulting violence of her declining lifestyle. Another evocative mood-piece work, this, linked to “The Fleeting Feeling of Forever.”

“Wet Dreams of a Mermaid”: The clever, bloody, tone-shifting and oddly fulfilling porn film mentioned in “Claw Marks on the Hourglass” is described, reel by reel. This is an especially fun piece, and standout entry in this anthology. If filmed, this quick, constant reality-shifting work would be amazing and distinctive.

“Big Bust at the Cha Cha Lounge”: An older, life-battered Vic Valentine ruminates on all that he has seen and experienced, a summing-up of the underlying themes of this series of stories.

“Hunt, Kill, Feed, F**k, Repeat”: Five human survivors from different crawls of life hole up in their post-humanity-wipeout resort, engaging in the titular activities. Excellent, bleakly funny and final work in this intense burst of tales. One of my favorite works as well.