The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares: The Haunted City

Film producer Blum (the Normal Heart and Paranormal Activity franchises) marshals an impressive company of screenwriters and novelists for a horror anthology as varied, unnerving, and uneven as the works for which the contributors are known. Simple human derangement is captured in “The Golden Hour,” by Jeremy Slater (The Lazarus Effect), in which the grungy veneer of Hollywood Boulevard is imbued with surprising creature-feature bravura. A nasty case of writer’s block is spun into a dizzyingly intricate tale of artistic compromise, publishing hubris, and fame in “Novel Fifteen,” by Steve Faber (Wedding Crashers). Spectral themes are emphasized with empathetic characterization in “The Leap,” by Dana Stevens (What About Brian), a haunted house tale rife with horrific imagery but anchored in compassionate humanity. Loneliness and dislocation inform both “Geist,” by Les Bohem (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5), and “Gentholme,” by Simon Kurt Unsworth (The Devil’s Detective), with differing takes on ghosts reaching out for connections to the lives they once lived. A few contributions are haphazard and even a bit silly, but most are strong and solid. The star power of the contributors, combined with significant promotional effort organized by Blum’s film production house, will draw fans of both horror fiction and horror films to this ambitious anthology. (July)