After showing readers the seedy and sinister side of Times Square in the 1980s with his first Fangoria Presents book, Our Lady of the Inferno, author Preston Fassel is taking us back even further in time for Beasts of 42nd Street, the second book in his "Inferno-verse."
Announced on Birth.Movies.Death., Beasts of 42nd Street takes place in 1970s New York City, where a projectionist at the Colossus Theater harbors a hellish secret: a rare movie with a horrifying power on par with the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser.
Slated for a 2020 fall release from Fangoria, here's the official synopsis for Beasts of 42nd Street (Birth.Movies.Death.):
"In the kingdom of the damned that is 42nd Street, there’s no lowlier subject than Andy Lewinski. An unrepentant junkie, voyeur, and degenerate, he’s only tolerated by the more dangerous men around him because he keeps the projectors at the Colossus Theater running on time, entertaining them with the most extreme horror cinema money can buy. There’s something unique about Andy, though. He owns a movie. It’s the only one of its kind. No one knows who made it. Only he knows where it came from. The woman it stars is beautiful beyond imagination – and the images it depicts are more nightmarish than the darkest depths of Hell. The beasts of 42nd Street will do anything to possess it, but there’s something they don’t understand. Andy loves the woman in the movie, and he’ll go to any lengths to protect her.
At once a brutal homage to 1970s exploitation cinema and a ruthless evisceration of toxic fan culture, BEASTS of 42nd STREET is a journey into the mind of a psychopath – one that will have readers recoiling even as they keep coming back for more. Hell is real. Just ask Andy Lewinski. He’s seen one of their movies."
On Birth.Movies.Death., Fassel discussed the new book's connection to Our Lady of the Inferno and its Taxi Driver tone:
“BEASTS is sort of the evil older brother to OUR LADY. OUR LADY is this very hopeful tale set against the optimism of the 1980s, and it tells the story of the end of 42nd Street vice culture and the end of that way of life. With BEASTS, I wanted to look at it at the height of its decadence and depravity. This is Times Square in the MIDNIGHT COWBOY and TAXI DRIVER days. I also wanted this to be a more overtly horrific story than OUR LADY. There are some supernatural elements at play here. My jumping off point was, What if Travis Bickle found the box from HELLRAISER?”
An exact release date and cover art for Beasts of 42nd Street will be revealed in the future, and we'll keep Daily Dead readers updated as more information is announced.
In case you missed it, Fangoria is developing a movie adaptation of Our Lady of the Inferno, and an audiobook version is also in the works.
In addition to new works of fiction, Fangoria will also kick off their non-fiction Lifecast book series in 2020 with a Stuart Gordon memoir followed by a book on horror genre special effects artists by Daily Dead Managing Editor Heather Wixson! Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more updates on all of Fangoria's upcoming books, including Beasts of 42nd Street.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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