A Life in the Cinema

Readers with a taste for clever horror and kinky sex will devour this debut collection of eight randy, gross-out tales and one screenplay by filmmaker Garris. The director of Stephen King's movie Sleepwalkers and small-screen adaptations of The Shining and The Stand, Garris makes good use of his movie-making experience in the title story. A disillusioned horror film director purchases a deformed infant from her mother, then features the ""monster"" in his new film. The narrative, which is alternately comical, surreal and graphic, sets the tone for the tales that follow. In ""Baby Shower,"" a man finds his septuagenarian parents center stage in a sexually overactive retirement colony, and ""Forever Gramma"" culminates in a retch-inducing act of necrophilia. ""Starfucker"" pokes fun at nostalgia for old Hollywood when its main character pays $100,000 for a sexual encounter with a resuscitated but crumbling Jean Harlow. ""Flesh and Fantasy"" is a kind of bonus; a screenplay based on one of the stories, ""Chocolate,"" in which a man's mysterious psychic connection with a female stranger leads him to stalk and kill her. Although readers with delicate constitutions might want to steer clear of Garris's work, fans of scary movies and sci-fi fiction will relish his stomach-turning plot twists. Garris does not have Stephen King's sophistication, but he does create and sustain a compelling, colloquial narrative voice, with a witty, informed skewering of the film industry. (Dec.) Forecast: A limited edition with an introduction by Stephen King, an afterword by Tobe Hooper (director of the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and illustrations (not seen by PW) by Clive Barker? This one will sell out fast.