VAMPIRE LOVERS is, for the most part, just what it appears to be: another quickie attempt to cash in on the trendy bloodsuckers of TWILIGHT, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and TRUE BLOOD. The book (available from the UK’s Plexus Press) is stuffed with publicity stills of coiffed and pouting vamp actors, alongside story recaps and interview quotes purloined from other sources. So why is this book being given the time of day by FANGORIA? Read on.

Peter Crowther’s BY WIZARD OAK (Earthling Publications) is a well-crafted supernatural tale about dark magic. The children are laughing as they run off trick-or-treating, never realizing witches are stalking them. This melancholy novel takes a twisted look at terrifying enchantresses and a town in distress.

There likely isn’t a single individual alive who enjoys going grocery shopping. You plan to go in for the mere bare essentials and along the way back from the rear corner of the store where they keep the milk, you find yourself with one item too many to qualify for the express checkout. As you wait to make your final purchases six persons back, the costumer at the register holding up the line as she insists her arthritis supplement was on sale for 12 cents cheaper, you do what everyone else in line does to pass the time, you thumb through a tabloid. Do you grab that copy of THE ENQUIRER and ponder whether or not that shopped image of Angelina’s stomach reveals a “baby bump”? Do you approximate your sexual prowess in the latest COSMO quiz? No. Your attention is caught by that thin print periodical whose cover feature aliens, Bigfoot and, of course, the ever-popular Bat Boy.

Quick, name a good horror/Western. It’s a tough ask; from BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA to SUNDOWN: THE VAMPIRE IN RETREAT to this year’s JONAH HEX debacle—too many blanks and too few bullets. As such, few would argue that author Joe R. Lansdale’s straightforward 1986 novella DEAD IN THE WEST has retained this particular mashup’s championship belt for a 25-year reign, although it must be conceded that the quality of the intervening challengers has been wobblier than a three-legged horse.

Edward Cullen once told Bella Swan that she was his own personal brand of heroin. Well, there are no heroin-brand Bellas, let alone any sparkly vegetarian vampires, in KNUCKLE SUPPER (Alphar Publishing) by Drew Stepek (pictured). Instead, the reader gets real-heroin-addicted Los Angeles vampire gang members in the middle of a drug war and a young hooker down on her luck.

An anthology of 15 short stories, EYE WITNESS ZOMBIE offers a surprisingly strong variety of first-hand accounts of the zombie apocalypse. This is May December Publications’ first undead omnibus, edited by TW Brown (pictured); after devouring it, readers will be hungry for more.

Author David Grove (MAKING FRIDAY THE 13TH, FANTASTIC 4: THE MAKING OF THE MOVIE) is head-over-Oxfords in love with Jamie Lee Curtis, and his new biography JAMIE LEE CURTIS: SCREAM QUEEN is littered with evidence of this crush. Of course, many of us who grew up watching Curtis in slasher classics like HALLOWEEN, TERROR TRAIN and PROM NIGHT feel the same way.