‘Chicken Soup’ – Kit Reed (From 'New Terrors 1' - Edited by Ramsey Campbell)

 

Page Count: 10 Pages

Just a quick post today as I had a late night/early morning with my new ‘friend’ insomnia. I say ‘friend’, probably more accurately described as that one guest who won’t take the hint and just leave… Oh well, fingers crossed for a better night tonight ;o)

In the meantime, I did get a little reading under my belt today; mostly while I was in the waiting room for a hospital appointment (which went ok, thanks). I am still plodding my way through ‘The End and the Death Part 2’ and decided to take a little time out for some horror, what with it being Halloween Week and all.

I found Kit Reed’s ‘Chicken Soup’ nestled in the Ramsey Campbell edited ‘New Terrors 1’ collection; just where I remember it being all those years ago when I picked it up in the school library. If you can’t find a copy of ‘New Terrors 1’, your best shot at reading ‘Chicken Soup’ will be to track down a copy of Reeds collections, ‘Revenge of the Senior Citizens’ or ‘Weird Women, Wired Women’. There doesn’t seem to be any way of finding a downloadable version online, at least none that I’d be happy to point you at.

Anyway…

Harry loves life with his widowed mother, he has her all to himself and will do anything to keep it that way; including the kind of emotional manipulation that only a child would do. Harry’s mother is heartbroken and resolves to be a better parent; setting off a chain of events that will lead Harry down a dark path…

‘Chicken Soup’ is one of those stories that teach me a lesson in ‘just because something scared you years ago…’ It has been practically a lifetime since I last read ‘Chicken Soup’, so I was pretty much coming to it fresh, but a lot of what scared me last time… Well, I could see it coming and while I’ve got nothing against ‘classic tropes’, they were signposted a little too heavily to work this time round. That’s not necessarily the fault of ‘Chicken Soup’ though, more the inevitable peril of reading decades worth of horror between a read and a re-read. In fairness, if I was picking up ‘Chicken Soup’ as a first horror read, I reckon it would do a job. And it’s only ten pages long… If you’re operating under those constraints, you’d got to make you come across well (even if it’s a little heavy handed)

Having said that though, ‘Chicken Soup’ was also a story that has something new to offer at the same time. There’s a lot of ‘quiet horror’ that Reed brings out superbly here; things like the dysfunctional family (especially when you can’t tell what your kids are thinking) but particularly the bewildering horror of having to grow older but still be caught in the grasp of people who still see you as a child to be protected. You may not like Harry (I didn’t, he totally got what was coming to him and deserved it all) but you can’t help but feel for him at the same time. Who wouldn’t find the thought of being spied on, by your Mum, horrifying? Especially when you’re...

‘Chicken Soup’ isn’t the tale I read, almost forty years ago, but ended up being worth the re-read anyway, just not for the reasons I initially thought. I’ll take it though :o)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

'Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone’ – Zub, Scharf, Canola (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

Image
It’s starting to look like this could be the week where I make a half decent dent in my ‘Comics TBR Pile’, lets see how we do... I’ve really been struggling with the ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ collection just recently (more than one reason but I want to finish the collection first before I talk about it) and I thought that I’d have to take a little step back from ‘Conan’ comics and come back when I was in a better mood for it. Until I realized that there was another ‘Conan’ comic lurking in the TBR pile and maybe I could give that a go instead. So that’s what I did. I’ve caught little glimpses of the ‘Black Stone’ storyline, in other ‘Conan’ comics, but I can’t help but feel that the event has kind of passed me by a little. That’s on me though to be fair, I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish right now and there are so many books that I just haven’t been able to focus on; I suspect a couple of them talk about a Black Stone… Oh well, I’m here now. Where better a place to catch up on ‘B...
Read more

‘The Pan Book of Horror Stories’ – Herbert Van Thal (Pan Macmillan)

Image
I was going to say that original posting will resume tomorrow but the way things are right now, probably safer not to promise anything ;o) In the meantime... I found this old review last night (originally posted Here ) and it feels like it fits in with what this blog is all about right now so, I thought I'd give it another shot here. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be the case today but when I was a child at primary school, the shelves were covered with books that I’m sure a teacher today wouldn’t let an eight or nine year old anywhere near. Maybe it was just my school, I don’t know, but I’m not complaining though; I had a lot of fun trawling my way through some great reads. This time round, I’m talking specifically about the ‘Pan’ and ‘Fontana’ horror series; books with the most lurid covers and stories to match inside. I only had myself to blame but at least three quarters of the nightmares that I had as a child came from reading these books and staring at covers festooned with rot...
Read more