As with all anthologies, this was a mixed bag. There were two stories I truly loved, several good ones, a couple of mid-level tales, some disappointments, and a couple I disliked so much I didn't even finish them -- I mean, there are THIRTY FRICKIN' STORIES in here (or rather, 29; more on that later), so my let's-skip-this threshold was pretty low. There were also a number of illustrations, but to be honest, I didn't really see the point in these; IMO they ranged from tacky to kitschy to not all that great, and I felt that the book could have done without them, but then I feel more or less this way about all illustration that's not done by Edward Gorey, so this might simply be a case of pearls before swine.

It's probably no surprise that with a themed anthology, some of the stories cover the same ground; nevertheless, I thought there was way too much Frankenstein going around (I counted five Frankies). Also lots and lots of Dracula (six), but I felt that the authors did a bit more with that old chestnut than they did with The Monster. Okay, we got a Girl Monster, or rather plenty of Girl Monsters, and there was quite a lot of Commentary with a capital C (although in all fairness, this was by no means limited to the big reanimated one; Maurice Broaddus's "The Invisible Man" was one of the stories I felt life was too short for, with all its heavy-handed earnestness), but to me the whole Frankenstein angle got very old very quickly. (Also, no-one thought of having Frankenstein and the Count meet? I'm sad.) Thankfully, most of the other authors were a bit more imaginative in their choices, so you're not completely stuck with the usual suspects.
I think I'll start with the good stuff; the one story I liked best was hands-down "Hacking the Horseman's Code", by Lisa Morton. This was well-written and highly original as well as genuinely spooky, although I thought the ending would have been better with a bit more carnage (think Terminator or the original Westworld movie) than touchy-feeliness, and I'm not exactly a lover of carnage. I just thought the ending was a little mild.
I also loved Ramsey Campbell's "Someone to Blame" -- how could I not! Although of course *strictly* speaking we're not really in Classic Monster territory here, as (I think) that *other* count has not crossed into collective pop culture memory yet and doubtlessly never will. (As a huge James fan, I also felt quite clever when my early hunch panned out.)

Other high points to me were "Mummy Calls" by Simon Bestwick, because it was funny as well as nasty as hell, and Lucy Snyder's turn-it-on-its-head POTO reinterpretation "The Viscount and the Phantom". Here were two writers who obviously were having fun with their stories, and it shows.
"Rapt" by Rena Mason was a great story hindered by sub-par writing and structure; do we really need the same scene from two different angles? Right on top of one another? Time and time again? But the *idea* was very cool, scary and highly original. A bit of ruthless editing, and this would have really sung.
"Blood Hunt" by Owl Goingback was nice, but suffered from a pretty milquetoast ending; I felt that a lot more could have been done with this story. I mean we're already bringing vampires into the Wild West, so why not go all alternate history and really play with the facts? We have Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill mourning the loss of the old ways, feeling like relics from a time gone by, so why in the world not turn them into vampires as well and set them loose on American Progress and its horrors?

"God of the Razor" would have made my list as well, even though I'm not into the nasty kind of horror, but there were some lapses in logic (why would you check out a long abandoned building after dark when you're looking for antiques to salvage? I mean, you have the key, everything's above-board, so why not go there during the day when you can actually SEE something?) and I'm also not a huge fan of Lansdale's style of writing; stuff like the weirdly specific "It was as if someone with ice-cold water in their kidneys had taken a piss down the back of his coat collar" takes me right out of the story, because first I have to laugh at the over-the-top dumbness of the simile and then I have to work out why/how someone would have ice-cold fluids in their kidneys, and whether that was even technically possible or if that person would die on the spot, and how in the world that would even feel like -- would that pee still be icy, having passed through tubes and ducts down to the bladder and then, presumably, down THE BACK OF HIS COAT COLLAR (so not the shirt? So it would be, like, between the coat fabric and the shirt fabric? Why wouldn't it trickle down his neck instead, soaking his shirt or sweater rather than the coat worn over it? Wouldn't you need some fantastically good aim to hit that exact back-of-the-coat-collar spot?), or would said pee be lukewarm by then? Maybe even of body temperature? So yeah, that one was a tad distracting. And just when you get back on track story-wise, here it comes again, a couple of pages later: "Richards had that sensation like ice-cold piss down his collar again". So now my brain goes, Down his collar? So now that piss, having bypassed the kidneys altogether and staying gloriously cold, is actually soaking his back? So no kidneys, and no coat either?
I found this needlessly (and endlessly) distracting, and when it wasn't distracting, "God of the Razor" liked to play icky, but if Lansdale had played up the atmosphere while dialing down the ick, this would have been a fantastic story. Of course, then it wouldn't have been a Lansdale story anymore, but oh well.

A handful of stories lived in that no-man's-land of okayness; not bad by any means, but also not all that memorable. And then there were the ones that actively ticked me off.
First off, I would like to say that IMO it's not the very best idea to start off a horror anthology with a poem, especially if it's such a limp little "experimental"/"clever" thing like Alessandro Manzetti's "Inferno". Skim-read that one. Still pretty bad. ("A thousand thin devils belched from their black hole/like geysers of madness, screaming cold." Oh yeah?) I don't know what that was, some attempt at originality? A favor to the author? No idea.
Next off, we get some Dr. Moreau from Jonathan Maberry, who had to irk me with one of my pet peeves, Dumb Nazi German. I really don't get this; if you absolutely HAVE TO include non-English dialogue, would it be so hard to find a native speaker to look it over? Here, amongst lots of "oberleutnants" (which have to be capitalized) and Herr this and Baronin that, we get that deathless line "Gott in Himmel", which first of all is grammatically incorrect (it has to read "im"; dative, people, dative!), and 2. in all my years on this earthly plane, I've never heard this phrase uttered by anyone who did not live inside a histrionic WWII movie. The story itself is okay, but nothing to write home about, neither plot-wise nor stylistically.

A couple of stories on, I run into another pet peeve, the Badly Written Woman By Male Author; in this case it's F. Paul Wilson, who thankfully (and needlessly) lets us in on what he thinks being a lady with lady bits feels like: "Such a relief to be [...] back in my own body -- young, lithe, smaller, smoother, with slim legs, dainty fingers , and firm, compact breasts." Ah yes, always the breasts... it must be hard to imagine that owning a pair of those is no different to having a nose, or feet -- they're simply THERE, no need to reference them.
That whole story is quite breast-centric, actually, as another character is getting some other girl's bare boobies shoved at him for no particular reason. I'm inclined to think of Mr Wilson as a breast guy, which is, you know, totally fine and all, but if you're writing from a female perspective... well. Also, I don't know if this is Mr Wilson's attempt at wokeness or the actual way he sees men and women and that whole power imbalance business, but this is what he thinks women think of living in a men's world: "I never realized until this instant how fear has influenced my day-to-day dealings with men. [...] Somewhere in the depths of my mind [...] has been the realization that almost any man could physically overpower me at will. Although I never before recognized its existence, I see now how it has colored my waking life."
So is this Mr Wilson's view of women ("Hey little lady, I could overpower you at will if I felt like it, because I'm a Man")? Or does he seriously believe that women (all women) feel helpless all of the time (all the time) because walking amongst men (even the runty ones!) is like entering a circus ring of bored, underfed lions? I mean, I realize this is just a stupid little story, but the way this is phrased and the way it's inserted into this really quite underwhelming Woman's Revenge narrative gave me thought. I don't like the idea of the Helpless Little Every-Woman being dependant on the decency and mood of the Big Bad Male. I think it's sexist (for both sexes), and also it isn't true.
All that, combined with some seriously clunky prose fresh from You Too Can Write -- Teen Edition ("I'll just lie back and rest my eyes for a moment... Oh, no! The dream again!") made this one of my less loved entries.

Same goes for "Make the Blood Go Where it Wants", another offering by Mr. Manzetti (he of the Bad Poetry fame), which handles infatuation between two young women in a way that felt less than feminine, as when Mercy looks at the "shapely body" of the girl on the beach thinking, "I can't be Whitby's only lesbian, can I?"
The weird convoluted prose and the fact that this story felt absolutely interminable without being entertaining in the least or even just making a lot of sense (those ever-changig POVs!) meant that to me, this was one of the least impressive stories in this book. A chore, and one of my DNFs.
Maybe it's only fitting that the editor chose to follow this up with the most WTF?-ish tale of the bunch, Linda Addison's "Da Noise, Da Funk, Da Blob", whose title pretty much sums the whole thing up quite nicely in a WYSIWYG way. Another DNF.

Terrible, terrible writing made me skim through "Mai Doon Izahn" by Gary Braunbeck (really, how did this make the cut? I dare anyone to expose themselves to this prose and live); "The Invisible Man: The Fire This Time" by Maurice Broaddus (who gets the award for Most Pretentious Story Title) was too didactic for me; more awful prose from Michael Knost in "The Nightbird", another DNF; ditto interminable Found Document style epos "Enter, The Dragon" by Butts & Stoker.

All in all, though, this was a fun read. I would have liked a bit more range, maybe (less Frankenstein, less Dracula), and some of the stories could have done with a little tweaking. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of readers out there who would appreciate multiple reinterpretations of their favorite monster(s) in the same volume, so this collection should definitely appeal to them.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Black Spot Books for the opportunity to read an advance copy of "Classic Monsters Unleashed" in exchange for an unbiased review.

Monstrous collection of stories inspired by classic monsters--fresh takes from new and established voices, paired with illustrations from top horror artists. A phenomenal collection from cover to cover.

Your enjoyment of this collection will hinge quite a bit on how much you know and appreciate classic monster stories, especially as they have been portrayed on the big screen. With most of the entries you need at least a passing knowledge of the original (or classic screen-adapted) version for the “unleashed” story to really make sense.

There is good variety in the monsters/creatures featured across the collection. I think that Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and werewolves are the only ones to make multiple appearances with 2-3 apiece (pretty impressive in a collection of 29 stories).

That being said, most of the plots fell into just a handful of categories used in various combinations:

1. Classic monster returns to cause more mayhem.
2. Try to guess which monster this is about before the big reveal…
3. Recast monster as misunderstood victim and/or hero as the villain.
4. Gender swap characters.
5. Engage in social commentary on gender or race.

I preferred the stories that built on the already-established characters rather than completely re-imagining them, but that’s just my personal taste.

Stylistically, this was a mixed bag. Some stories felt stilted, as if the author was just phoning it in and checking off the boxes needed to make a creature feature. Others demonstrated creativity and variety in language usage (including annoying but clever use of textspeak in Dacre Stoker’s offering). I would say that the well-written outnumber the “meh.”

Overall, this is worth a read if you are into classic monster horror. However, as with many bulky themed anthologies, you might want to take some time between stories so that they don’t start to sound repetitive.

I had backed the kickstarter as I loved the concept and wanted to support the book in review form. Each story was what I wanted from these classic movie monsters. The stories in this collection were so well done and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I love a good retelling, homage, or easter egg, and as such, this anthology seemed up my alley and I immediately requested a copy. The collection of short stories is strong overall and sprinkled through with original artwork – and it was all inspired by a classic story or character in horror writing.

First things first, I loved the wide range of authors included. Seeing Seanan McGuire (“’Can’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Should’”) and Owl Goingback (“Blood Hunt”) on the list immediately piqued my interest, and I discovered a number of new-to-me horror authors that I am excited to keep on my radar, such as Monique Snyman (“Modern Monsters”), Lisa Morton (“Hacking the Horseman’s Code”), Linda D. Addison (“Da Noise, Da Funk, Da Blob”), and Rena Mason (“Rapt”) – and I’d read a longer story set in any of those worlds, thankyouverymuch! In fact, I found the collection to be of high quality overall. Stories do not require the reader to have a knowledge of the “lore” surrounding previous incarnations of the characters they mention or use, but I think readers benefit from knowing a baseline. I, for one, really enjoyed hunting out easter eggs and mentions. It felt like most stories riffed off of Frankenstein or Dracula, but there’re some standout references to fortune tellers, mummies, and werewolves as well as some more obscure monsters. Perhaps a more thorough introduction for all these inspirations could have been warranted, either in the actual introduction of the volume or prior to each story?

Recommended for horror afficionados and those readers dipping their toe in uncharted waters alike! These are bite-size stories and most still manage to have an agreeable amount of heft to them and sit in the mind well after reading. Several are funny (or at least tongue-in-cheek), and some are quite creepy; a few have that good old-fashioned gore going for them.

My thanks to NetGalley, Black Spot Books, and the editor James Aquilone for providing an e-arc for review.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A mixed bag of monster stories. There were some great standout 5-star short stories like They Call Me Mother by Geneve Flynn and Blood Hunt by Owl Goingback. Some good stories I enjoyed like The Viscount and the Phantom by Lucy A. Snyder and Beautiful Monster by J.G. Faherty (and a handful more) but most were not that memorable. Of 30 pieces of writing there is really only a small amount that stood out as quality, interesting monster stories but overall I was fairly underwhelmed.

This interesting compilation of horror stories starts off with a poem that sets the tone for the tales that follow.
Each short story is a variation on iconic monsters and themes. Some set in the appropriate historical eras and others in more modern times. Saving Dr. Moreau's creations, sirens who lure modern day vacationers, the care and feeding of a family member, a woman who dreams of being a monster, a knife that belongs to the god of death and so many more thought provoking stories.
Thank you NetGalley and James Aquilone, editor, for this e-galley of "Classic Monsters Unleashed".

This collection is a mixed bag of short stories taking on classic monsters from literature or movies--The Blob, Dracula, and others. Most are clever and fun to read, but there are a few that are slogs that could have been better. The organization of the stories is such that most of the really strong ones come first, leaving a weaker middle and end. The final story, but Joe Lansdale, is perhaps the most viscerally horrifying. The illustrations are superfluous and not particularly well-executed or interesting.

Classic Monsters Unleashed sounded like a great anthology but sadly I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe it is one that I will revisit at a later date.

A thrilling anthology that makes me very excited to see what more will be released in this series. I was surprised by the breadth of monsters available in the stories and it completely snatched my attention from the world around me!

This was a very solid collection of short stories, and most of these were novella size, so it was a nice change from a couple pages short stories.

I did enjoy more the ones that were about monsters that I knew beforehand, or better that had something to do with monsters that I did know, for instance, one of the stories were about a kind of Frankenstein monster, but the doctor name was Victoria, instead of victor haha ^__^ but anyway I really believe if you do like monsters, and if you can empathize with them you’ll enjoy this quite a lot, there’s also very cool looking art of some well know monsters, like I said, a bit for everyone.

What let me a bit down was the lack of introduction of each story, for the ones that I don’t know the original story.

I got a free copy of this ARC, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book has 30 stories that takes classic monster characters and brings them to new and old fans alike. The authors in this collection did a great job connecting me with the characters in each story and if you love classic monsters or anthologies...you are going to enjoy this. The illustrations are nice as well. Definitely going to be on my purchase list.

The stories are eerie and spooky, and it's a good anthology. Compared to other anthologies I read, I found that I enjoyed more stories in this and only disliked quite a few. I picked this up because the synopsis looked promising, and glad to say that I wasn't

Ever since I heard about this book via an announcement from Crystal Lake Publishing I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. I love the classic monsters so getting to read new stories about them was a no-brainer. As for the 30 stories included in the anthology I have to say I liked almost half of them, didn't like a few and was indifferent about the rest. I enjoyed stories by Jonathan Maberry, Owl Goingback, Joe R. Lansdale. I hated that there were about 6 or 7 Dracula stories when those spots could have been made available for other monsters and stories.
2.5 out of 5.

This collection features some of the best modern horror authors trying their hands at classic literature and movie monster myths. Often the stories tackle political and social issues, with several authors doing variations on female empowerment. Multiple Dracula and Frankenstein entries are balanced with fun explorations of movie monsters not created by Universal Studios. The editor brings a sense of humor to the introduction and the collection itself that is reflected in some of the content, but there is very little consistency. A strong start gives way to a weak finish as this anthology is front-loaded with pleasant surprises from talented writers but then peters out with unremarkable contributions. Overall, Classic Monsters Unleashed is still a standout for horror anthologies and essential reading for fans of monster movies.

Thank you to Black Spot Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Classic Monsters Unleashed features one of the best ideas ever for an anthology: all stories based on or inspired by the classic movie monsters that helped shape horror as we know it today. I enjoyed the majority of the tales, with the few I didn't like as much mostly being relegated towards the end of the book. There is a variety of types of stories in the collection; while many are directly based on or sequels to the classic tales, there are several re-imagined versions as well as some loosely inspired by stories. While I do think too many authors took the easy way out basing their stories on Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman, there were a number of more adventurous takes on less popular/obvious fare like the Mummy, Jack the Ripper, the Phantom of the Opera and even the Wizard of Oz. My two favorites were among the more audacious of the group: Höllenlegion by Jonathan Maberry is a sequel to H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau, my favorite story by Wells, and this sequel was so excellent I would gladly have read a full novella of the story; and Hacking the Horseman's Code by Lisa Morton which brought the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, another classic favorite of mine, into the digital age in "Black Mirror" fashion. This anthology is a treasure for all true horror fans. 4.5/5*

CLASSIC MONSTERS UNLEASHED – Kim Newman, Ed. James Aquilone with stories featuring various authors (Including Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry, Geneve Flynn, Tim Waggoner & more)

I knew I was going to love this anthology from the start; a slew of authors telling new stories about our favourite classic creatures & monsters? Please sir, I want some more.

I was not a fan of the first poem of the book but it did its job to set the stage for the stories that followed, reminding us (in case we read neither the editor’s blurb nor the introduction) to erase any preconceptions we might have of the related classic tales.

“They Call Me Mother” by Geneve Flynn was atmospheric, their writing bringing Willa’s environment alive with scent, taste and touch. “Old Monsters Never Die” by Tim Waggoner is an immensely satisfying subversion of Werewolf tropes (and leaves me wanting a mini-series, at the very least). Oh, honestly, as I read I feel like every next story is as good as the last.

I don’t want to spoil anyone with too many details. If you’re a fan (or fanatic!) of classic horror monsters, you’ll eat up this book. It reinvents and reimagines all our old loves without dishonouring the canon. Turn down the lights, pour yourself something rich, light a few candles and curl up in a cozy corner to enjoy this collection.

(I received a free copy of this through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Really enjoying this book, but pacing myself a bit not wanting to get to the end yet. You will have heard of most of the monsters (although a couple were new to me ). Well written. Best read during the day ,not while lying in bed trying to get to sleep.

Great anthologies for any horror lover’s collection! I enjoyed these very much. The cover is perfect as well!

Thanks to Kim Newman, the publisher, and Netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion!

Ok, this anthology is perfect for every horror fan out there! The lineup is also great. I was listening to HIM in the background a really set up a whole ambience while I was reading Dreams by Paul Wilson. I’d recommend!