This past June, iHorror went on a horrific adventure with Author Barbie Wilde as she pulled us into the world of Michael Friday, an art historian that turned serial killer in her novel, The Venus Complex. Now Wilde is back with a collection of eleven short stories, Voices of the Damned. Three of the stories included in the book (Sister Cilice, The Cilciul Pandoric, & The Cilicium Rebellion) make up the Cilicium Trilogy, which is part of the Hellraiser Cenobitical Universe. Very appropriately the book was completed with an afterword from The Twisted Twins themselves, The Soska Sisters!

Out of the 11 short stories, I found it tough to choose one to focus on or to call “my favorite.” All were superb!  Of course, I really did enjoy The Cilicium Trilogy; any Hellraiser fan would! Putting all of that aside; I was very partial to the short Botophobia. The story focuses on Lorraine who is very much down on her luck, and she has little to no choice to return to her childhood home to deal with the realities of what her life has now become. Immediately I felt terrible for this character, and Barbie’s descriptive words put me in her place, and I felt like I had been to the house before. I had no idea what to expect with this story, and I was very eager, latching on to every word. This story had a twist that I did not see coming.

Delivering gore, erotica and crazy dark themes that prick your psyche, Voices of the Damned will evoke many emotions, some you will experience for the first time. This is not your typical anthology, it is outright crazy and will make your stomach churn, but you’ll love every second of it.

Synopsis:

“Damaged people, ultraviolence, murder and explicit sex—what’s not to love about her work?”
—“Bad Barbie” Featurette, Fangoria (America’s #1 Horror Magazine)

Enter into the mind of Barbie Wilde, whose disturbing interior world teems with the voices of rebellious female demons, devilish witches, semen-hungry neo-vampires, raging gods and home invaders, the fiends of sleep paralysis, pint-sized store-front preachers with a whiff of sulfur, body horrors of the most grotesque kind, clandestine aliens and Zulu zombies.

These truly are the Voices of the Damned: eleven short horror stories from Barbie Wilde, actress (Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Death Wish 3) and dark crime-horror novelist (The Venus Complex). Fangoria has called Wilde “one of the finest purveyors of erotically charged horror fiction around.”

Each story is accompanied by seductive, haunting, full color artworks and illustrations created by some of the most imaginative artists in the genre: Clive Barker, Nick Percival, Steve McGinnis, Daniele Serra, Eric Gross, Tara Bush, Vincent Sammy, & Ben Baldwin.

Praise for Voices of the Damned:

 

“Violence, pitch-black humor and yes, sex can be found in equal measure in her work, drawing complimentary comparisons to Clive Barker’s early works in his seminal Books of Blood collections.”
—Ron McKenzie, writer: Thoughts & Scribbles, Rue Morgue and artist: ronniemick at deviantart

“this collection of eleven short stories confirms Wilde as a foremost author of erotic horror fiction…”
—Jon Towlson, Starburst magazine and author of Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present

“…her work is so uncanny and fearless, it is a must have for any horror aficionado.”
—filmmakers The Soska Sisters

“Wilde is never one to shy away from verbose analysis of carnal pleasure, and in Voices of the Damned she certainly sets the bar high with regards to steamy, gory terror.”
—Colin McCracken, Zombie Hamster

“Raised from the dead, this phantasmagoria of tales offers well-written mini-nightmares that will traumatize, titillate, and stick in your mind long after you’ve closed the book.”
—Filmmaker Izzy Lee, Fangoria Online

“Reading Barbie Wilde has given me pervature of the spine. My eyes weep jizz, and I can’t take a wizz without melting someone’s face off. Now THAT’S entertainment!”
—John Skipp, New York Times best-selling author

“When I read ‘The Venus Complex’ by Barbie Wilde, I was enthralled. It was magnificent in every way, and I knew then that the literary and horror fiction world in general, truly had someone special on their hands. So you can probably imagine my glee when I was offered the chance to review Barbie Wilde’s new work, the brilliant short story collection ‘Voices of the Damned’. The opening story is erotically charged and bristling with descriptions of violence, that those who’ve read Barbie’s previous work will have come to expect.”
—reelgingermoviefan.com

iHorror Interview With Author Barbie Wilde

Voices of the Damned –Interview

iHorror: How did Voices of the Damned come about? What were your inspirations?

Barbie Wilde: I’d been writing short horror stories since 2009. My first one, “Sister Cilice”, was featured in the Hellbound Hearts anthology (edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan). All the stories in Hellbound Hearts were based on Clive’s novella, The Hellbound Heart, which was the basis for the mythology used in the subsequent Hellraiser films. To be honest, I nearly turned down the invitation, because I was more interested in writing crime novels than horror, but thanks to Paul’s encouragement, I stuck with it and wrote an “origin” story about a Female Cenobite.

Over the years, I contributed additional stories to different anthologies and I eventually accrued enough for a collection. However, I wanted to do something different and because I was in touch with a lot of artists in the genre, I thought that it would be cool to have each story accompanied by an artwork from a different artist in the field.

Then Paul Fry of SST Publications contacted me after reading my serial killer novel, The Venus Complex. He said that if I was planning to do a novel or collection in the future, to please think of his publishing company. (I’d reviewed a couple of Daniele Serra’s art books published by SST for Fangoria, etc.) I pitched the idea to him and Paul loved it. Since one of the things that SST specialized in was graphic novels and art books, I thought that it would be a good fit.

We decided to put together an illustrated collection of nine of my previously published short horror stories, plus two new ones. It would feature three stories about my Female Cenobite character, Sister Cilice, which we subsequently called “The Cilicium Trilogy”.

iH: I absolutely adore the illustrations used in Voices of the Damned, it brings everything together seamlessly, what were the steps in accomplishing this?

BW: Daniele Serra was on board immediately for “Valeska” and “Writer’s Block”. (Dani had created the cover artwork for my serial killer novel, The Venus Complex.) Then I contacted Mark Miller of  Clive Barker’s Seraphim Films, because I loved the idea of having some of Clive’s artwork in the book. Clive contributed the cover artwork (“She Waits”), “Kiss Me” for the story “Sister Cilice” and “Princess Breath for “Gaia”.

Nick Percival was next on board for “Zulu Zombies” in his inimitable amazing style. Eric Gross had already created the fabulous illustration for “The Cilicium Pandoric” (Part II of “The Cilicium Trilogy”), which had been published in Fangoria’s Gorezone. Eric also did the illustration for the third story in the Trilogy, “The Cilicum Rebellion”.

Ben Baldwin (“The Alpdruck”), Tara Bush (“Botophobia”) and Vincent Sammy (“American Mutant”) came through Paul’s contacts. I viewed their work online and fell in love with what I saw. I met Steve McGinnis (“Polyp”) at Horror-Rama, a convention in Toronto that I attended in 2014. Steve did the amazing John Carpenter cover for Fangoria.

All the artists featured in Voices of the Damned have such brilliant individual styles and they’ve contributed a unique dimension to the book with their own artistic interpretations of my stories, making Voices of the Damned an extraordinary cocktail of art and carnal horror.

iH: Which story from Voices of the Damned did you enjoy creating the most?

BW: That’s such a difficult question to answer! I loved writing all of them. I suppose that “Sister Cilice” will always hold a special place in my heart, because it was my first horror story and I wrote it in a few days. (Something I’ve never been able to do since!) “Zulu Zombies” was an insane rollercoaster of gore and horror and tremendous fun to write, as was “Writer’s Block”. “Gaia” is also one of my favorites, because it was a story that tapped into one of my real life phobias about home invasion. Finally, “Botophobia” was a very personal story for me, as I was scared to death as a kid by watching the so-called “Creature Features” on TV and I do have a morbid fear of basements, which is what Botophobia is.

iH: Have you thought of expanding any of your stories into a novel?

BW: I believe that my “vampires with a difference tale”, “Valeska”, is ripe for development into a novel. As a matter of fact, it started out as one and I shaped it into a short story for the collection.

iH:  Have you been approached to turn any of your works into a feature film?

BW: A filmmaker friend of mine loves “Gaia” and wants to turn it into a feature film. I’ve also just finished a new story that we’re hoping to turn into a short horror movie. And finally, I’m working on the screenplay for Zulu Zombies.

iH: Was there anything in particular that made you want to start writing specifically in the horror genre?

BW: It seemed a very natural progression when Paul Kane asked me to contribute a story to Hellbound Hearts. He suggested that I expand on a female cenobite character. The stories couldn’t be based on the Hellraiser films for legal reasons, so I took my inspiration from the fact that the Lead Cenobite in the novella was female, a character trait that was changed for the Hellraiser movie franchise.

I’m interested in writing about humans and their motivations. Horror is part and parcel of being human, as we seem to be such a blood-thirsty species, Colin Wilson documents so brilliantly in one of my favorite non-fiction books, A Criminal History of Mankind. Although I occasionally dip into the supernatural, to me, humans are the scariest monsters of them all.

iH: Do you have any advice for aspiring horror writers?

BW: Just keep writing, keep creating, keep expanding your mind and researching your topics. It took many years for me to find a publisher that finally understood me and my first novel, The Venus Complex, but eventually I did get published. One of my favorite sci-fi comedies is GalaxyQuest and I love the rallying cry from the film: “Never give up. Never surrender.”

iH: From The Venus Complex to Voices of the Damned, how was the transition from a full length novel to short stories?

BW: I love writing short stories, because it’s a wonderful discipline to have to get your message across in just a few thousand words. Novels are a big investment in time and brain power. Also, it was useful for me to have the short stories reviewed in the run-up to the publication of the novel. To use a music biz analogy, it’s like releasing singles to create a buzz before the album comes out.

iH: Do you have anything coming up in the near future? Films? Books? Appearances?

BW: I’m guesting at Days of the Dead in Louisville, Kentucky on the first weekend of September. Next year will be the 30^th Anniversary of Hellraiser, so I hope to attend a few conventions to celebrate.

Barbie’s Media Sites:

Official Website    Facebook – Barbie Wilde       Facebook – Barbie Wilde / Author / Actress        Twitter