Bizarre. Bonkers. Brilliant.

I don’t engage with much horror. This includes movies, books, or any form of media where the overt intention is to shock and titillate, especially by visceral and physical means. [Insert tired joke about the 24-hour cable news cycle here.] It’s not that I’m easily scared, but more that getting scared isn’t high on my list of experiences I enjoy on a regular basis. I greatly prefer psychological horror, but even then, such properties feel like they’re more interested in getting under your skin than doing something interesting once they’ve arrived.

Which makes me an unlikely fan of Strange Houses. Written by Uketsu, the anonymous Japanese YouTube sensation, it’s the story of an unnamed narrator and his attempts to unravel a murder mystery. What starts out as a curious dalliance into why a recent murder victim appeared in a sleepy suburban town without a left hand slowly devolves into an examination of generational trauma and cult-like behavior. The twist? The author provides layouts of the homes under investigation, which adds a layer of creepy detail I did not expect. Then again, anything involving both children and the absence of agency across decades should probably send waves of shivers down your spine.

Translated by Jim Rion for HarperVia, the book gives off heavy Lynch and Fincher vibes, complete with the realization that, not only is nothing as it seems, but you might be unsatisfied with the ambiguity of the conclusion. The writing is clear-eyed and conversational, laid out like the transcription of an interview, which provides an eerily clinical and detached quality to the narration. Ultimately, the story succeeds for me because I kept looking over my shoulder when reading, anticipating a jump scare that never arrived, while remaining perpetually unnerved. I plan to read the author’s second book, Strange Pictures, before the end of 2026, and I will immediately buy the third book, Strange Buildings, as soon as it hits the shelves at my favorite indie bookstore.