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Tales from the Gutter by Harvey Bastard and Candle Phillips
Art can be found in depravity, a quality that renders trash indistinguishable from art and vice versa. That’s why Harvey Bastard & Candle Phillips believe in the old adage One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Having sifted through the gutters of their minds, this literary duo has produced a collection of dark, delightfully unwholesome, and occasionally humorous tales. They encourage you, dear reader, to get weird and have fun. After all, art is also about entertainment, and these authors certainly aim to entertain. Welcome to the gutter. And may the filth never wash off.
“Bastard and Phillips have written some gloriously violent and depraved stuff in Tales from the Gutter. Bastard’s “The Final Meeting of the Exquisite Flesh Society” brings to mind some of Barker’s more visceral body horror, and Phillips’ “Penance” is a revenge tale that would make Laymon blush. These are definitely two up-and-comers to take note of in the splatterpunk world.” –Duncan Ralston, author of Woom and Ghostland
United StatesPrepare With Your Own Safe Word
A Horror Bookworm Recommendation Tales From The Gutter by Harvey Bastard & Candle Phillips https://horrorbookwormreviews.com/ - Using his unusual tools of the trade, a man works on his artistic project entitled “The Garden of the Forgotten.” This special piece of art represents the unloved, unworthy and unwanted. When his creation is finally unveiled to the public, viscera, bone and stomach matter is the reality of his morbid masterpiece. - Seized by the late stages of a demonic possession, a teenage girl is bound to her bed and awaits an exorcism from the unparalleled Sister Mary Maelstrom. The dark and vile entity causing lesions, deep scratches and raspy voices is about to come face to face with a ghastly opponent of spiritual weapons. - A man’s perfect life takes a rather imperfect turn. With an intense lust for the puckered hole, this man’s repulsive form of reproduction culminates into many bizarre births. Literally. Harvey Bastard and Candle Phillips once again go off-road into some seriously fucked up territory. From the kinky members of the Exquisite Flesh Society to the monthly meetings of the twisted Karen’s Anonymous group, these stories demand the reader to come up with their own safe word. Seriously, who would have thought a “crimson pickle” or a “Memphis pork rind” would have such an enjoyable disgusting impact on group participation. Welcome to Tales From The Gutter, where all kinds of extreme stories await the reader. Having experienced some Bastard & Candle previously, I was excited to see yet another freakish collection surface from the gutter where values and principles don’t exist. These bizarre bedtime stories of pain and pleasure come with a warning label of “dark deeds done dirt cheap.” The natural and the unnatural, the living and the dead, this vile collaboration are the evils that these two authors do. Tales From The Gutter is full of twists and turns that lead to highly offensive and shameful acts of inhumanity. This disturbing experience is more fun than a truck stop bathroom glory hole on a Saturday night. A five star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Horror Bookworm Recommendation.
Twisted, Graphic, and Hardcore
Tales from the Gutter is a twisted collection of Extreme Horror from Harvey Bastard and Candle Phillips. The subject matter is extreme, the content is graphic, and the stories are hardcore. First is Harvey Bastard’s “The Final Meeting of the Exquisite Flesh Society,” a graphically sex-fueled story where an author visits a kinky sex club meeting for research purposes and learns more about the power of sex than she expected. This riveting tale is amusing, erotic, and shocking by turns, very powerfully written. Next is “Bog Worms” by Candle Phillips, a story of depravity, partying, and creepy old folktale-cum-urban legend. This is a dark and brutal read with subtext regarding prejudice, bullying, and karma. “Maelstrom” is a horrifying and moving story about a possessed young woman and the enigmatic but compassionate nun sent to tend to her. The story flows deceptively smoothly for one with so much horror, bodily fluids, and graphic content. The unique take on the subject is a clever and disturbing surprise and is expertly executed. “Penance” follows Lola as she enters a church convent in pursuit of an evil priest, but there is more to this than you think. I felt the tension in my whole body, and my face hurt from the involuntary expressions I made at the words. This is an impactful and grisly page-turner with an intense ending. “Scrape” by Harvey Bastard is a riveting little tale. This graphic and engrossing bizarro tale funhouse-mirrors the weird stuff that one seems to encounter out of nowhere when one is just trying to get something done. It’s humorous and relatable in that sense and has a twist at the end that made me say “what the hell” out loud. I love this story. “The Garden of the Forgotten” by Candle Phillips is not the morgue worker story you expect. The liberties of bizarro couple with the no-holds-barred scope of extreme horror in this blasphemous and gruesome tale of sociopathic determination, and the result is a violating assault on one’s senses and sensibilities. “Pucker Up” by Harvey Bastard is brilliant. The concept, the writing, the characters, the story! I loved it. The dialogue between Phillip and Sam is clever, funny, and annoyingly punny in places, but most importantly, it is ridiculously realistic. The story itself is riveting, fast-paced, twistedly entertaining, and there’s a serious gross factor in places, but it all fits together and flows into this crazy, brilliant story you simply gotta read! Tales from the Gutter is an eclectic assemblage of wild Extreme Horror stories that also subtly speak to deeper, darker aspects of humanity and society but do so with no filter. Extreme Horror fans will enjoy the diversity of themes, brazen subject matter, and gruesomely vivid storytelling. But Extreme Horror fans only, please. These are, after all, Tales from the Gutter, and it gets messy.