Sardonic Tales: “Shadders”

A few years ago, I did a thing where I picked a movie that would make a good double-feature with one of the stories in my then-newest collection, Painted Monsters. This year, for the Countdown to Halloween, I thought it might be fun to do the same thing, but with my now-newest collection, Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales.

Originally written for a steampunk ghost story anthology that it (rightly) didn’t get into, “Shadders” is the first original story in Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales. It’s also another tough one to assign a movie to.

I didn’t really have films in mind when I was writing this story, which is essentially a retelling of “The White Wyrak” by Stefan Grabinski, though the titular “shadders” are inspired in part by the critters in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, especially the baby Otachi.

However, the story is more than its steampunk setting or its monsters. It is a story that is deeply suspicious of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism, similar to my story “Black Hill” from many years before. In that way, with its monsters that are formed from the misery caused by industrialism, it would probably make a good double-feature with the much-maligned Tobe Hooper/Stephen King killer laundry press movie, The Mangler, which I have always liked, no matter how goofy it may be.

(He says, as though “goofy” is not pretty much always a selling point for him.)