Title: Mischief Night Massacre: Ten Tales of Halloween

Author: Jason Parent

Release date: September 24th, 2024

*Huge thanks to Jason Parent for sending me a digital ARC of this one!*

Ah, Halloween.

That wonderful time where spooks, ghosts and goblins get to dance around the neighborhood’s, get candy and pretend to be a regular kid doing regular kid things. And guess what? It’s only six weeks away! Well, at least it is, at the time of writing this!

And that also means two things will be happening in the horror literature world – a lot of exciting releases and many, exciting collections focused on the theme of Halloween. Jason Parent is one such author, but he smartly decided to get the book out in advance of Halloween, which frankly is prudent, as you don’t want to get lost in the deluge of releases.

I’m a huge fan of Jason’s work, whether it be short stories, novella’s or full-length releases, so when I saw this one was launching and he was looking for reviewers, I messaged ASAP.

What I liked: As mentioned, within this collection are ten short stories that deal specifically with Halloween. Parent does a wonderful job of mixing things up between kids, teens and adults and because of this, the stories don’t feel repetitive, nor recycled. I read this on a recent flight, while reading Garrett Boatman’s newest collection, so it was great to bounce back and forth between those two, as they were very differently themed.

Highlight for me were;

‘Easy Pickings’ – massive bully, Trevor, and his forced sidekick, Rascal, are on the prowl on Halloween night, stealing candy from the little kids. They’re having a blast until they run into Jack and his imaginary friend, Jacob. This story was fast-paced and had me on the edge of my seat. I knew something was going to be revealed, but when it was, wow! Parent went totally off the rails with this story.

‘Rain’ – crazy, heavy rain falls on Halloween, disappointing two young brothers who want to go Trick or Treating. To ease their sadness, their dad tells them a scary story, but nothing prepares them for a knock on the door and the ‘costumed’ folks standing on their porch. This felt like an X-Files episode that never aired. Amazing.

‘Black’ – an emotionally weighted story, this one followed a husband who recently had some heart issues, and his wife, while they go to a haunted theme park. He’s been cheating on her, but realizes he’s been an asshole and decides to make things right. Unbeknownst to him, his wife knows and she’s dealing out revenge in secret. The layers within this one were spot on and the anxiety that Jason created as our main character begins to fight for his life was unnerving.

‘Last Halloween’ – what starts as your standard story – two female friends want to Trick or Treat one last time before considering themselves too old – takes a turn when they run into two male friends and they decide to go to the woods and get drunk. Some odd noises begin and not long after, the darkness collects. Again, another highly unnerving story that had me absolutely captivated.

From start to finish, Parent gives us such solid characters to root for, characters we want to see survive, even when we know the story they’re in is unsurvivable.

What I didn’t like: A few stories felt a tad long, but that might be more that I was bouncing around between two different collections. Saying that, I noticed a dip in pacing a few times.

As well, though needed to showcase the deplorability of some of the characters, I did find a few specific words to be a bit off putting and wished a different word had been used.

Why you should buy this: Parent writes like a bat out of hell on the best of days, but when focused solely on the horror that can be conjured around Halloween, this collection rampaged within my Kindle in the best way possible. Every story had me glued to the screen/page and every story had me emotionally invested, which is always a highlight when dealing with a collection.

Another home run by an author that should be on everyone’s ‘must-read’ list!

5/5