Nightmare Soup Volume I

Read Time:6 Minute, 3 Second

Nightmare Soup Volume I (2024) by Jake Tri ⭐⭐⭐

I read the second edition in PDF format. Nightmare Soup was inspired by the wildly famous Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series by Alvin Schwarz.

As a lover of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark franchise, I was excited about the Nightmare Soup collection. Similar to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, it’s a trilogy of short stories, and has some awesome artwork which was drawn by Andy Sciazko. On Nightmare Soup’s website, this volume is described as “a collection of short horror stories meant to terrify all ages”.

I wanted to absolutely fall in love with this book. The artwork is great, but the stories are written too childishly for me to fall in love with them. Some were good, but if you were to read a bunch of these stories in sessions as I did, you’d get bored. They mostly all have a one liner ending. You can almost hear the “dun dun dunnnnnn” at the end of each two page story. And there really were too many that I said “stupid” under my breath afterward. My opinions on each story are as follows:

The first story, called I Hate Clowns takes places at a Chuckles and Cheese. Yes, that’s right, it is a carbon copy of Chuck E. Cheese, right down to the games and bad pizza, except Chuck E. is not a lovable mouse, it is a clown named Chuckles. I couldn’t get over the embarrassment of the name of the place.
Noodles is a good enough cautionary tale about eating unknown things in unfamiliar places.
I liked the story Full Moon Guests, but it was executed badly.
The Hunt was OK, but predictable.
Imaginary Friend was mostly good, but I didn’t love the ending.
Strange Lights is a good idea, but it didn’t have enough pay-off.
I didn’t know exactly why we should beware of The Woman in the Window.
Bloody Mary Forever was a good one; I think it could be committed to screen decently.
Teeth was gross, and was as good as any body horror story can get.
The Shortcut was much too cliché and lack-luster.
No Swimming was just OK.
Pretty Pumpkins was predictable, but the perfect Halloween story to tell to your friends.
Hungry Cats was just… bad.
The Seed got its inspiration from a 2010 case of a Massachusetts man who complained of chest pains and discovered a small pea plant growing in his lung. Still, it is not something that is going to worry me.
Mr. Smiley reminded me of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark entry called The Thing, which I blogged about here. This one would have been better if both girls had seen him.
The Fly is a story about Logan, who is terrified by botflies after learning about them in science class. Bad ending for a gross bug story.
The Creeper may be my favorite story out of this collection. This is the only one that had real pay-off for me, and I’d like to see this one committed to screen.
Feeding Time, I am sorry to say is just stupid. What’s the point of the girl going on dates at all?
I liked I Told You So. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
This next one is a poem, called The Sloth. Let me tell you, I hated every poem in this book. They are terribly and unthoughtfully written. Either the author is a terrible poet, or he thinks the children that he geared these stories towards can’t handle good poetry. I think it’s both.
Zoo was lackluster. Stupid.
Mr. Wilson is silly, because my first thought was “Yeah, right, lady.” She’s making a joke just to scare the kids.
The Farm is about pigs that are amazingly lightning-quick eaters. Stupid.
Another poem, Monsters Aren’t Real, is bad.
I liked The Lonely Troll.
Was it magic or does she have a disorder that makes her not feel pain? — Me asking questions after reading The Tooth Fairy. Gore for gore’s sake.
Tongue is another bug-filled adventure, interestingly enough, using a previous character (Logan) from a few stories back (The Fly).This one was fine for what it was.
Frozen —- Just stupid.
The Pyre was a fine, creature-based story in the style of a creepypasta.
The End is another poem, badly written, but with a good moral. I think they missed an opportunity to make this the last story in the bunch.
Drip, Drip is another nonsensical one which raises questions.
When They Come is a sci-fi story that ends too quickly. That’s the biggest problem with a lot of these stories. They end in a rush so that you almost don’t know what happened.
I liked The Rabbit.
Free Pizza was (probably unintentionally) kind of funny. It reminded me of the joke stories that were in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
The Taste was cliché and boring.
Blard’s Burgers is another cliché and boring tale.
The Ventriloquist was different, very weird. I liked this one.
Soon is another poem. Bad.
The Sandman ended up being ok, but still not great.
Hot Dogs was just dumb, reminiscent of a famous Monty Python Sketch from The Meaning of Life.

The biggest problem I had with this first volume of Nightmare Soup is that there was a lot of gore, but not enough spooky. Gore does not always equal scary, just as scary things do not always need gore. Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to the gore. I’m a big fan of the Terrifier series. I just think there should have been more suspense building in some of the stories. So many end the same, with those rushed one-two punch endings.

I think what some people don’t understand is that the allure of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, aside from the artwork (which definitely is done well in the Nightmare Soup series) is the spooky factor, and there’s just not enough of it in this collection of stories. There’s horror, very much of the blood and gore type, but not spooky, like ghost stories and such. The other special thing about the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark collection of stories is that it all comes from heavily researched folklore, something that Nightmare Soup doesn’t even try to consider when comparing themselves with the franchise.

When selecting this book to read, it’s important to remember that it is not a carbon copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It is a collection of original short stories written solely by one person. The stories range from cannibalism to body horror to creature tale to body snatcher, and it is geared toward 8 to 12 year olds, but doesn’t have the same charm as the series with which it compares itself.

Nightmare Soup is fine for the occasional horror story session, but I’d reach for something less childish if you want to create a real memorable experience with friends or loved ones.