February 13, 2013 – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

Okay…just one more addendum to German Horror

I saw another really cool post on the photos of the German Horror Writers Circle that I just had to share. The book cover above is of the novel “Meeting with Skinner” by Harald A. Weissen posted on Facebook on May 7, 2010. The accompanying summary reads:

“Imagine, that everything great that has occurred in the world since the beginning of time has been steered from a control room – discoveries, wars, political reversals, poverty, and prosperity.

Imagine that a single person has been sitting in this control room for several decades and the fortunes of the human collective has been influenced at his own discretion.

Imagine that the next person in this room is crazy.

The search for the control room draws together a traumatised young woman by the name of Laika, Elendes Biest, and Skinner , the last illusionist.”

I just think it’s an awesome post and a fascinating concept. The artwork is great too.

Thoughts? Comments?

Addendum to Post on German Horror

I have been exploring German horror on the web since my last post, particularly the photos of the German Horror Writers Circle on Facebook, where I found this really beautiful, really cool cover that I just had to share. The post is by Nina Horvath and says “Cover zu ‘Die Schattenuhr’, erstellt von Mark Freier nach einem Werk von Zdzisław Beksiński” (Cover to ‘The Clock of Shadows’, published by Mark Freier after a work by Zdzisław Beksiński). At the very top of the page, “Die Bizarre Welt des Edgar Allen Poe” translates to “The Bizarre World of Edgar Allen Poe”. One thing I have already learned about horror in Germany is that American horror is very popular over there–in particular Lovecraft and Poe.

German Horror (Deutsche Horrorfilme und Horrorliteratur)

I was checking my blog stats today and found out that two recent views came from Germany. I was a German major in college and therefore I begin to be curious about what is happening today in the horror genre for both German movies and literature, since I unfortunately know little about either.

I did a quick search on Google for “German horror” and found this interesting article on IMDb. I did another search for “German horror fiction” and “German horror literature” and found almost nothing of interest. I searched for “German horror writers” and found the German Horror Writers Circle on Facebook, which I might use as a starting point for further investigations. Later, I may search in German, but today I confined my inquiries to what is available in English due to a lack of time inflicted by other pressing matters.

I have to admit I have read very little modern German literature compared to German lit of the 19th century, that I am woefully unfamiliar with most modern German writers, and that I am completely unfamiliar with modern German horror writers. I know that in the distant past, Germany and other German-speaking lands have produced excellent writers of horror such as E.T.A. Hoffmann (see my post about Hoffmann) and Jeremias Gotthelf (“The Black Spider”, 1842). Given the dearth of information readily available on modern German horror (at least on Google), I think the IMDb article mentioned above may have a point that because of German history since 1933, Germany may have (understandably) lost its taste for horror. I find that unfortunate, because now that my curiosity about German horror has been aroused, I would love to read some first-rate German horror or at least see one or two first-rate German horror films from the last decade or two.

Therefore, my question for you in this blog is: if you are familiar with German horror, what films or books do you recommend as introductions to the world of German horror?