Slob and The Slob • Extreme and Splatterpunk horror books

Slob and The Slob are two extreme or splatterpunk horror books published at either end of the subgenre’s timeline.

The Slob by Aron Beauregard from 2021 https://amzn.to/3EZswtY
Slob by Rex Miller in 1986 https://amzn.to/3s8JuSU

Note that Slob is not easy to find. I was lucky to find one for under 10 dollars at Thrift Books.

Both have elements of extreme, dark, and gory horror fiction. Your content advisory of choice can guide you past brutal scenes, bodily violence, gender-based violence, morally questionable ideas, and elements often found in very dark horror.

The Slob was a 2021 nominee for the Splatterpunk Awards. And this is not how I heard of it first; it made the rounds among us splatter and extreme fans on booktube and offline and Twitter of course I hear a lot about extreme work on Twitter and I’ve tuned in to the Written in Red podcast. I’d heard quite a bit about The Slob going into it. It was likened to a lot of other extreme works, most notably Dead Inside, and I think this is because this has a sort of a link in that it does deal with pregnancy or the cessation thereof and really grotesque things related to that. While there’s no one actually pregnant in the book. 

Slob by Rex Miller, on the other hand, does have extreme moments yet is not necessarily an extreme novel, but it was very dark and very gory for its time. The first half of the book held a lot of what an extreme fan craves in their horror fiction, very visceral, very unforgiving and really pushed all of those boundaries that maybe mark it as taboo. 

Now the reason I review these one another is literally because Slob and The Slob are the titles, and one is so old and an award nominee as well, then one is so new and a great award nominee at that. I found that there were some similarities to be found.

The Slob came out in 1987 and was a Bram Stoker Award winner for ‘best debut novel’ and this writer Rex Miller was a radio personality and a lot of that moxie shows in this. At the dawn of splatterpunk, that sort of moxie was what got those writers ahead, aside from the visceral gore splattered across the page. It was their no holds barred attitude, too. 

Beyond a breezy, very casual language, street talk street jargon, there is a real mix of different demographics going on here as far as that street life goes, not all pimps and sex trade. There are many different people that live on the streets, including police and detectives. Detective Eichert is the cop that follows a serial killer named Chaingang. And the introduction to that serial killer is where we spend most of our time in the first half. And I love the killer’s point of view. Absolutely love it. And in Slob, the first half of the book does it very, very well. 

We don’t get a killer point of view in The Slob. But it does start out with a really cool introduction. Vera detests filth and she gets into exactly why she detests filth so much is sad yet very relatable. The line of work she gets into while raising money to support a family–a fresh family, she’s pregnant–is fantastic and I really love leading into our meeting The Slob, the titular slob, this man who she inadvertently meets and ends up being the captive of. Now we don’t get killer point of view, but we get a lot of the point of view around this killer and it is just as effective as a killer point of view in a way because of what he has around him in his domicile and what he orders the people around him to do and his sort of gruff, yet calm demeanour is so off-putting it fits really well within that killer vibe of very calm, calculated, sadistic, and cruel. 

Slob was written in 1987, a debut novel by a radio personality that sort of goes off the rails near the end, although what this does is set it up for a sequel, there is a Chaingang series of books by Rex Miller I’m not sure if I’m going to read the rest because I did kind of sneak peek it at Too Much Horror Fiction and it doesn’t sound like it’s for me. If you’re a fan of bizarro though, I think you may enjoy it. The first novel does get a little bizarre near the end. It’s endearing and interesting to see a heartfelt reaction though the killer’s point of view. The bizarre nature of the follow-ups has to do with these more touching moments that we spend with Chaingang. Chaingang does have a name, by the by, I just don’t want to spoil it. 

Now of course we flash forward to 2021 where we have so much work under our belts as horror writers and readers may not be prone to those same rookie mistakes and as a result, we have a very tight moving on the shorter novella-length story with The Slob that doesn’t get lost in the weeds. It is a little bizarre as to the nature of why Vera is trapped and the things she could have done or the decisions she could have made to perhaps escape. You can poke holes in any plot but the writing here is sound and I really enjoy Aaron Beauregard’s style. It is measured it’s not as bizarre in your face as some of the bizarro styles of writing extreme or very stark or visceral horror. 

So I really enjoyed that sort of measured approach to it. And I did really enjoy the almost clinical descriptions of the gore and that’s where my favourite splatterpunk lives. We are not just talking about blood matting the floor or the people and just always going to the same sort of red-painted walls idea where it’s all very samey using the same sort of phrases, Beauregard uses a virtual medical dictionary to describe all the different flavours and gore spattering these walls and floors. Rex Miller does the same, though mainly in the first half of the book. I keep going to the first half of the book because that’s where most of my enjoyment lay. 

The interpersonal relationship subplot between the detective and whoever else wasn’t very interesting to me because I’m not in it for the cat and mouse mystery. I’m in this for a serial killer and he is a deplorable bloke. Honestly, it is very gory and very disturbing and I can see why this hit with a bang much like Nicole Cushing did with Mister Suicide, a book that really hit the ground running. Hit readers hard and it didn’t let go. The Slob lets go though, somewhere near the middle, it becomes slower after spending time with the killer who at first was terrifying and grotesque. Everything he did was unexpected and a new level of depravity. By the middle, he starts to sort of chill out. In The Slob, to contrast, there is no middle to chill out. It really does grab you and keeps going and every level of depravity gets worse and worse. A lot of it takes place in the same area while tension mounts and moving to uncharted rooms or buildings holds a sense of terror and tension reaches a screeching peak. On the other hand, in Miller’s Slob when we move locations, the tension begins to wane. 

Slob and The Slob, two very different horror novels by two very different sorts of writers done in very different decades when it comes to horror one I would say fits into that beginning of extreme and splatterpunk. There really is an edge to this where it fits into splatterpunk very neatly, in that it has something to say about society. And it talks about all these different societal demographics. It talks about politics in this very much so and I think it fits into splatterpunk quite neatly.

Although it’s not quite as extreme. The Slob could be mistaken for a splatterpunk novel that does have spider punk elements to a certain degree. But by and large, it is an extreme novel because it doesn’t rely on those socio-political statements to move the plot forward. It relies so much more on that really extreme visceral gore. We do love some really extreme visceral core here do we don’t so if you’ve read slab or this slab I would love to hear from you.

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If there are #horror books out there that you think I ought to read, let me know. I talk scary books, extreme horror, classic, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my #booktube shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true-crime can be found here as I find that human beings the scariest thing of all ~