Dark Screams, Vol. 4

Freeman and Chizmar’s fourth horror anthology contains five tales, which range from the gut-wrenching to the otherworldly. In Ray Garton’s “Sammy Comes Home,” a family’s dog returns home with frightening physical changes. Extraterrestrials feature prominently in Ed Gorman’s “The Brasher Girl,” in which a young woman is controlled by something from another planet. Heather Graham’s eerie “Creature Feature” is a classic horror page-turner, while Clive Barker’s “The Departed” and Lisa Morton’s “The New War” are more cerebral. All the characters must come to grips with their own uncertainties, fears, and emotional complexities, highlighting the human element amid fantastic and strange encounters. While this focus on the humanity in horror stands out in a gore-splashed genre, the creatures and phenomena in each story seem underdeveloped, so the various climaxes lose a little of their impact. The balance between horrific and introspective shifts toward the latter, and this collection, contrary to the series title, ignites curiosity rather than going for outright scares. (Aug.)