At the end of September, Amazon released the Creature Feature Collection on its Kindle and Audible platforms. This assemblage of horror novellas features spine-chilling stories from six acclaimed best-selling authors, and they’re all free for Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime members. With their eye-catching covers and appealing price tag, of course I got my hands on them pretty much immediately. In this article, these six mini-books get six mini-reviews.

“It Waits in the Woods” by Josh Malerman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I’m a sucker for a story about a girl alone in a forest, so this was the first of the Creature Feature Collection that I went for.

When Brenda hears a local legend about a faceless man inhabiting the national forest where her sister went missing, she thinks there may be more truth to the tale than the police believe. Could these rumors of a mournful hermit who won’t stop killing until he finds a new face really be based in reality? And more importantly, could they lead Brenda to her sister? With no one to trust but herself, Brenda ventures out into the forest alone to find out.

This story was my vibe through and through. Creepy shit in the woods is my jam, and I loved the urban legend and filmmaker aspects to this story as well. If you liked The Blair Witch Project, or Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, then chances are you’d be into this. I highly recommended the audiobook, Lauren Ezzo does an incredible job narrating. I would listen to this around a campfire.

“Ankle Snatcher” by Grady Hendrix

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Pretty much his whole life, Marcus has never gotten out of bed at night without turning on the lights. He knows it’s silly. Completely silly. But ever since his father claimed that Marcus’s mother was killed by a monster he called “the ankle snatcher,” Marcus can’t get the idea out of his head that something could reach out from the darkness beneath his bed and pull him under. Deep down he knows how ridiculous that superstition is. There’s no way the Ankle Snatcher can be real. Right?

Though “what if men who were convicted of murdering women were actually framed by the boogeyman” isn’t my favorite concept for a horror story, I can’t argue with the execution. This was well-paced and genuinely creepy. I enjoyed reading it even though it wasn’t my favorite of this collection.

“Best of Luck” by Jason Mott

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

When Barry’s best friend Will shows up brandishing a shotgun, Barry isn’t quite sure what to do. He knows Will has had a rough few years, and perhaps it’s natural for Will to want to lash out at his friend whose life has been so good in comparison. But when Will starts talking about the voice in his head whispering that all his misfortune is Barry’s fault, Barry knows he’ll need to be very lucky indeed to get out of this situation.

For a story that’s basically just 30 pages of two dudes talking, “Best of Luck” was riveting. Mott does an incredible job keeping that string of tension pulled taut throughout the scene, so it’s impossible to look away. And I didn’t see the ending coming at all. To be honest, though, I didn’t find it very scary—it mostly just made me sad.

“Big Bad” by Chandler Baker

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

As Rachel and Sam Strauss do their best to raise their two daughters in rural Oregon, tensions build between them. Rachel, a career academic, has been the main breadwinner for years and is always traveling to conferences, while Sam has put his career on the back burner to prioritize caring for their kids. Neither spouse is the person the other one fell in love with. When a stranger shows up at their front door one evening looking for a place to stay, Sam does his best to turn him away. He’s so sick of always having to be the bad guy.

I really, really liked “Big Bad.” The story is fairly short, but it packs in a lot of plot. Shifting viewpoints keep the reader guessing as to what secrets the characters could be hiding, and the twists and turns subvert any expectations that may develop in the first few pages. Each member of the family has their own unique perspective and voice, yet the story keeps a consistent tone and level of suspense throughout. This is the first thing I’ve read by Chandler Baker, and I’m really excited now to check out more of her work.

“In Bloom” by Paul Tremblay

⭐️⭐️/5

When Heidi travels to Cape Cod to do research for a story about the noxious algae blooms taking over local waterways in the face of record-high summer temps, she’s not prepared for the story that her interview subject, Jimmy Lang, tells her. He was just a kid the last time something like this happened, but he was there, and he remembers. Heidi knows that these blooms can cause serious side effects like skin rashes and hallucinations, so that must have effected what Jimmy thinks he saw. After all, at the end of the day it’s just algae.

There were many good things about “In Bloom.” I liked the big Jaws vibes of a New England tourist town on the brink of a summertime disaster. I liked the flashback sequence of Jimmy’s story and his account of the years-ago disaster, of which no one else seems to have the same memory. I liked the idea of a climate change horror. However, the story ends just when it seems that all this setup is about to go somewhere. “In Bloom” is like a trip to an amusement park where you just drive around the block looking at the rides, think about parking and going in, then drive home instead and try to convince yourself you had a fun time.

“The Pram” by Joe Hill

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

Following the miscarriage that derailed their happy-family plans, Willy and Marianne leave their Brooklyn apartment for a charming old home in rural Maine. They hope the change of scenery and lifestyle will help them heal. The surrounding land is so lovely, and the nearby general store so quaint. When Willy borrows an old pram to wheel his groceries home, he imagines what it would feel like to be a father out for a walk with his child. In fact he can almost hear the baby cooing. But there’s no way he can just wish a baby into existence. That’s impossible…isn’t it?

“The Pram” has this slow creep of unease that is deliciously haunting. The aesthetic of the house in the forest and the quaint town with its weird technophobic blood cult is perfect, and made me wish that this was a full-length novel. The grief that Marianne and Willy deal with over the loss of their baby felt very genuine, and it’s easy to root for them to succeed in their new home (even though this is a horror story and you know they’re doomed).

The one thing that took me out of this story, though, was near the end. The main character is having his inner monologue of terror, and blatantly spells out the supernatural thing that is implied by the text and the plot like it’s a completely normal conclusion to jump to. Subtlety isn’t required for me to enjoy a story, but in my opinion the lack of it here takes away from what is otherwise a good resolution to this stunning novella. That’s a pretty minor gripe, though. At the end of the day, I did enjoy “The Pram” very much and see myself revisiting this story when I need a quick, devastatingly spooky read.

What are your thoughts on these Creature Feature Collection novellas? Did you experience them in e-book or audiobook format? Get to the comments and tell me about your experience.