What some call her “Oh my God” is Brandon’s “monster shit!”. There is wonder in it, but also fear. Whenever the unbelievable happens, it bursts out of him. Recently, young people have had the opportunity to do so quite often.
Brandon is a horror fan. He runs the Creepy Chronicles blog, where he informs his followers about mysterious events where monsters and demons are up to mischief. He has a thriving imagination and is therefore teased by his sister as “Nerdon” – Brandon the nerd – because he wears glasses, spends a lot of time in front of the computer, is smart as a cinch. But he would never have dared to believe that one day he would be standing in the “cave of the hanging witches” in the flesh and surpass himself in a life-or-death struggle. How could he have guessed that his nightmares would be triggered by an anxiety feeder that feeds on human worries. fear killer? This is real “monster shit”. Just like eye hoarders, graveyard shufflers or skin collectors. Brandon learns from 14-year-old Padraig that all these creatures of the night really exist.
One day, this long-haired lanky shows up with Hannah, a lovely girl with small horns and clairvoyant abilities, and reveals herself to be a tough monster hunter. A crucial encounter. As different as the three are, they need to come together. Only together do they have a chance of finding Padraig’s missing father. But first you have to solve the mystery of a derelict orphanage in the woods.
A wild mix of gothic romance and horror classics like “Alien”
“Don’t lose your head!” is the prelude to the horror fantasy detective series “Creepy Chronicles”, in the course of which four keys to the shadow world must be found. Padraig’s father, a monster hunter like his son, is said to have disappeared in it. The Swiss author Sergio Dudli came up with the saga, which was published as a book by Dtv Junior and was read in parallel for Audio Verlag by Marius Clarén and Dirk Petrick with audible fun. The speakers give the protagonists youthful freshness, the many beasts let them snort, croak, whisper.
“Creepy Chronicles” is a wild mix of gothic romance, horror classics like “Alien” and a portion of “Harry Potter”. Told from Padraig’s and Brandon’s perspective alternately, the story propels its readers and listeners forward through cliffhangers. The somewhat overloaded plot can use that: The unabridged audio book has a running time of almost ten hours.
Sergio Dudli: Creepy Chronicles – Part 1: Don’t lose your head! Unabridged reading with Marius Clarén and Dirk Petrick. Audio Verlag, Berlin 2022. 9 hours 54 minutes, 16 euros. From 12 years.
(Photo: DAV)
The setting is the Scottish Highlands. Dudli creates a lot of atmosphere and hardly does without a cliché from the howling wind to gnarled oaks and creaking floorboards to the yellowed old encyclopedia. That’s okay in the horror genre. Nevertheless, the author could have dispensed with commonplaces such as “My blood froze in my veins” or “The fear is cold on his neck”.
The “Chronicles” are drastic in passages. Heads roll, mucus and blood squirt, there’s “human sushi”. But the latter is also evidence that Dudli repeatedly defused events with wit and humor in a way that is appropriate for young people. The book is perhaps not only for spider phobics: the little animals play a major role and sometimes spill over the protagonists like a “bubbling stream of viscous, black lava”. ugh!