Splatterpunk

History

Michael Shea's short story "The Autopsy" (1980) has been described as a "proto-splatterpunk" story.

Splatterpunk provoked considerable controversy among horror writers. Robert Bloch criticized the movement, arguing "there is a distinction to be made between that which inspires terror and that which inspires nausea". William F. Nolan and Charles L. Grant also censured the movement. However, critics R. S. Hadji and Philip Nutman praised the movement, the latter describing splatterpunk as a "survivalist" literature that "reflects the moral chaos of our times".

Though the term gained some prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, and, as a movement, attracted a cult following, the term "splatterpunk" has since been replaced by other synonymous terms for the genre. The last major commercial endeavor aimed at the splatterpunk audience was 1995's Splatterpunks II: Over the Edge, an anthology of short stories which also included essays on horror cinema and an interview with Anton LaVey. By 1998, one commentator suggested interest in splatterpunk was declining, saying it "seemed to have reached a peak" in the mid-1990s. The term is still sometimes used for horror with a strong gruesome element, such as Philip Nutman's novel Cities of Night.

In 2018, the organizers of KillerCon established the Splatterpunk Awards (or "Bernies") to honor achievement in the fields of splatterpunk and extreme horror. An author who won a Splatterpunk Medal for his novel, Full Brutal, was Kristopher Triana.