Splatterpunk

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Splatterpunk is a neologism coined to describe a subgenre of horror fiction distinguished by its graphic depiction of violence. Clive Barker is often cited as the best known writer of the style (particularly his six volumes of short story collections, Clive Barker's Books of Blood). The term was coined in the mid-1980s by author and pop-culture critic David J. Schow, referencing the concurrent science fiction sub-genre cyberpunk; Schow is considered an innovator and exemplary within the splatterpunk school of horror writing. Other prominent figures are the bestselling team of John Skipp and Craig Spector, whose modern vampire classic The Light At The End (1986) is considered a seminal work. Even earlier was John Shirley's Dracula in Love, In Darkness Waiting and Cellars, all proto-splatterpunk works. Also a punk rock singer, Shirley is also known for his cyberpunk science fiction writing.

Splatterpunk short stories and novels are almost always intense and intentionally disturbing, grotesque, and even disgusting, marked by a lack of adherence to what the writers saw as clichéd conventions of best-selling works by Stephen King, Dean Koontz and John Saul. Rather than the usual suburban setting of bestselling horror, splatterpunk is usually located in the grim, gaudy environs of New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago, or even rundown trailer parks. Antiheroes are more prevalent than crucifix-bearing Abraham Van Helsing of early horror fiction, or the "everyday folks" of King's works. Splatterpunk characters are often marginalized, alienated, drug-prone and generally anti-social.

The supernatural, so often prevalent in horror, is sometimes jettisoned altogether in favor of a more realistic, ambiguous, and prosaic (yet always vividly portrayed) evil, often in the form of serial killers or other sociopathic characters. And when traditional monsters do make an appearance, they are usually subverted or exaggerated for an extremely upsetting effect on the reader. Rock and roll culture also plays a large part in splatterpunk, usually from an insider's viewpoint.

The tone of splatterpunk is realistic, gritty, downbeat, sometimes nihilistic, graphic, and vicious, as well as gleefully shocking, a cry of "Épater le bourgeois" ("to shock the bourgeois") at the complacency and safety of bestselling horror fiction. They were influenced more by anti-establishment writers such as William S. Burroughs and Harlan Ellison, shock-rock meister Alice Cooper, punk rock group the Sex Pistols, and movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead than by Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, or Ann Radcliffe.

Important splatterpunk works include the novels The Kill Riff, by David Schow; The Nightrunners, by Joe R. Lansdale; Slob, by Rex Miller; The Cipher, by Kathe Koja; Off Season, by Jack Ketchum; The Scream, by Skipp and Spector; Cellars, by John Shirley; and the short story collection Splatterpunk: Extreme Horror, edited by Paul Sammon and published in 1990. Other authors sometimes considered exponents of the splatterpunk genre include Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy Collins, Robert Devereaux, Roberta Lannes, Richard Laymon, Edward Lee, Richard Christian Matheson, and Mark L. Mirabello [[1]]

In the short story genre, Edward Bryant's "A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned", which takes place in the world of George A. Romero's zombies, is often cited as a classic of the genre.

As a commercial force in horror fiction, splatterpunk never achieved more than a cult following, although its style has somewhat infiltrated contemporary literature, particularly in the work of Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho), Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club and Haunted) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting).

[edit] Critical bibliography

• "Inside the New Horror" — Philip Nutman, The Twilight Zone, October 1988
• "The Splatterpunks: The Young Turks at Horror's Cutting Edge" — Lawrence Person, Nova Express, Summer 1988
• Splatterpunks: Extreme Horror — Paul M. Sammon, St. Martins, 1990 ISBN 0-312-04581-6
• Splatterpunks II: Over the Edge — Paul M. Sammon, Tor Books, 1995 ISBN 0-312-85786-1