18 tales of terror… What are you afraid of? What are you haunted by? What waits for you in the dark? Face your fears and embark on a journey to the dark side of the human condition. Defy the demons that prey on you and the cruel twists of fate that destroy what you hold most dear. A sadistic baker, a psychopathic physics professor, wolves, werewolves, cannibals, Nazis, devils, serial killers, ghosts and other monsters will haunt you long after you finish reading FOR THOSE WHO DREAM MONSTERS by Anna Taborska
Dark bleatings, my monstrous tribe! I’m here with a collection today and before I go into the stories, I just have to say how absolutely beautiful the cover art is. The above picture simply does not do it justice. In real life, I couldn’t stop staring at it.
Anyway…
The title of this anthology is apt, but I guarantee that even if you do regularly dream monsters, your brain won’t have conjured up half of the nasty stuff in this collection! Overall, it is way more brutal than I anticipated. The author doesn’t shy away from…well, anything. If the story demands blood, or a child sacrifice, or some sort of horrible pain, or a vile person, then that’s what she writes.
There are 18 stories in total and I’ll admit a few of them weren’t for me, but my 3 favourites are:
A Tale of Two Sisters: Rusalka
A guy looking for his grandmother’s village gets distracted from that quest when he spots a girl across the river and is instantly obsessed with finding her instead. And then things go dark!
I loved the mystery of this one, though it was quite evident that things were not going to go well for this dude from the jump. Very creepy and I liked the folklore.
Cut!
An arrogant director called Eli casts an inexperienced, volatile actress to play a psychotic killer. He soon comes to regret that decision, for reasons I did not see coming.
A real world nightmare that made my blood run cold.
Little Pig
Absolutely brutal. This is a story within a story. A man is picking up his fiance’s grandmother at the airport, and then we go into a back story set in Poland, where a woman is fleeing wolves and soldiers. She’s on a horse and has her children in the carriage and things aren’t looking good for them. My jaw dropped when we reached the climax of this story.
This one is my favourite. The atmosphere and the tension were excellent.
Overall, this was a mixed bag for me, as many collections and anthologies are. I disliked a few, liked a few, and loved a few. I’d recommend it to horror fans who enjoy short stories, but I will warn you – do not expect nice things here MWAHAHAHAHAHA.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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