Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness by Vince A. Liaguno
Raw Dog Screaming Press (February 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Vince A. Liaguno is an award-winning writer, anthologist, critic, and poet. He is the Bram Stoker Award®-winning editor of Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (co-edited with Chad Helder) and the acclaimed Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology (co-edited with Rena Mason), which was a finalist for both the prestigious Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards. His debut novel, 2006’s The Literary Six, was a tribute to the slasher films of the eighties and won an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY). His newest collection is Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness, a collection of narrative poetry.
Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness collects almost fifty poems from years of writing. Vince A. Liaguno has been writing and publishing poetry for over fifteen years, so he is very comfortable in his craft and composition, which comes through in the work. Liaguno is also a self-acknowledged pop culture junkie, so these poems are liberally seasoned with references to horror pop culture, so much so that there is a three-page afterword of acknowledgements. This is heady combination for horror poetry enthusiasts, and the resulting poems are as rewarding as one might expect.
The pinnacle of the collection must be the titular “Demo Reel,” which begins with the lines:
Ominous piano notes signal autumnal bloodshed as
the jagged grins of butchered jack-o-lanterns
scream in the gruesome night of Samhain.The actress is just nineteen and not first choice to babysit
but she’s available and ready to scream her pedigreed heart out
like her mother once did scrubbing away her sins in the shower
and continues through ten sections of this sort of madness. Fans of ’80s slasher films will enjoy the narrative direction this poem takes, and it serves as not only as an independent poem with its own plot and narrative, but also as a central piece, solidifying the themes of the collection as whole.
Vince A. Liaguno’s work is well known, oft anthologized, and speaks for itself. He is an award-winning author, and his newest collection, Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness is one more example of his talent and skill. Fans of horror, especially horror poetry, will want to consider this book for inclusion in their collection.
