History Literature / ClassicSingaporeHorrorStories

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Sea Hag's necklace in ''Message in a Bottle'', the Statue of Prahma in ''Prahman the Horned God'', the painting of Beelzebub in ''The Artist Arcane Tao'', among others.

* AdultFear: Children aren't exactly safe in this series, and don't expect every child character to be spared from the horrors that awaits.

** ''Jailbird'': Robin Wong, a 24-year-old fresh graduate, agrees to be sentenced to prison for a few months in exchange for an exorbitant cash reward of 200,000 Singapore dollars. However, [[spoiler: a LoopholeAbuse quickly turns the prison sentence from a few months to over a year]], and while Robin is capable of coping with the first few months (encouraged by his benefactor cousin, Eddie claiming that part of the reward money has already been transferred to Robin's bank account), however [[spoiler: a near PrisonRape experience with a homosexual warden led to Robin committing an AccidentalMurder that have him sent to [[PunishmentBox solitary confinement]]. And although Robin was eventually cleared of all murder charges, his sentence ends up getting extended to ''nearly 4 years'']]. Worse of all, by the time Robin finished serving his sentence and was released, [[spoiler: he ends up discovering that cousin Eddie have fled Singapore altogether, delivering barely a quarter of the promised money]]. [[HumiliationConga To top it all off]], [[spoiler: Robin's girlfriend have left him during his absence]].
* AllJustADream: Inverted in the last few moments ''Message In A Bottle''. [[spoiler: Our VillainProtagonist Japanese Admiral thinks his encounter with the Sea Hag is just a dream and he's safely back home in Tokyo, ''then'' he wakes up]]...

** ''Parasite'': [[spoiler: Amanda's fate from a ritual gone wrong have her [[FreakyFridayFlip swapping bodies]] with the titular parasite - a ''penanggalan'', a type of Malaysian vampire whose body consist of a floating head with exposed intestines. Worse of all, she is InvisibleToNormals, and can only watch as the vampire completely take over her life]].

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Sea Hag's necklace in ''Message in a Bottle'', Statue of Prahma in ''Prahman the Horned God'', Painting of Beelzebub in ''The Artist Arcane Tao'', and a few others.

* AssholeVictims: Most of the worst characters in the entire anthology gets pretty much what they deserved by the end. See KarmicDeath and LaserGuidedKarma for examples.
* BadassBiker: The entire plot of ''Ghost Riders'' revolves around two motorcycle gangs which are against each other over territorial dispute.

** The titular hangman from ''The Hangman'', who wants to capture, starve, and flay a cat just [[DisproportionateRetribution because it scratched him]]. In self-defense because '''he''' is the one who attempt to attack the cat first.

* BittersweetEnding: A reoccurring theme for some of the less scary or depressing stories.

** ''In the Name of the Father'': [[spoiler: Sister Annabelle succumbs to cancer, but her death have inspired Father Dominic to rediscover the meaning of life]].
** ''Stepchild'' ends with [[spoiler: Katherine's attempted suicide, but when she recovered she have brought her estranged family closer to her than ever. And the titilar stepchild, an outcast of the family, have finally embraced his step-siblings as his own]].
** ''A Night at the Opera'': The opera business is saved, and the performance troupe is inspired to make their show even bigger than ever... [[spoiler: but then the Hsiao family which is the benefactor of the show are revealed to be ghosts, and as such can no longer remain in the mortal world]]...

* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: Katherine from ''Stepchild'' have a tendency to talk like this. Justified though, because she's a teenager.

** ''Black Romance'' have three of them which regularly picks on the main character. [[spoiler: All three of them ends up receiving various [[KarmicDeath Karmic Deaths]] by the end]].

* CriticalResearchFailure: An in-universe example. In ''Paint It Black''. Jessica, a con artist and GoldDigger, tricks old Indian millionaire Gopal into taking her as his third wife, and then [[spoiler: systematically arranged to have the first two wives killed, before crossing the MoralEventHorizon and killing Gopal personally while he is vulnerable]]. Unfortunately for Jessica, she forgot to check her facts; [[spoiler: Gopal's native Indian family still believes in the act of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice) Satti]], or ritualistic burning, where the wife is cremated ''with'' the deceased husband]]. Sweet dreams!

** In ''Hangman'', the titular hangman who regularly bullies his assistant warden and wants to kill a cat ForTheEvulz gets [[spoiler: hanged himself when the cat caused him to have a fatal accident, while the oft-abused assistant delightfully watches]].

** The soul of [[spoiler: Master Kong]] in ''Maid In Singapore''. [[CallItKarma Its his fault for trying to force an innocent maid to take over his sins and be taken to hell in his stead though]], so he [[AssholeVictim kinda deserves it]].

** It gets even worse in the ending, [[spoiler: when Prahma manage to physically manifest itself into ''our'' world. The sheer sight of Prahma in the flesh is enough to make anybody GoMadFromTheRevelation]].

** Rosie, the titular maid from ''Maid In Singapore'', a Philipino maid who was [[spoiler: conned into becoming a scapegoat for an unholy ritual]].

* GreenEyedMonster: Veronica from ''Little Devil'', who will do '''anything''' to win over the heart of her colleague. [[spoiler: Whom is already married and have a son]].

* ILoveTheDead: The main character of ''One Last Cold Kiss'' is a morgue worker who had trouble in his love life, who eventually decide to [[spoiler: steal the corpse of a supermodel and regularly have sex with it in his apartment]]. What rigor mortis?

** The younger sister from ''Suffer the Children'' [[spoiler: gets her skull cracked by her own aunt in an AccidentalMurder moment. Said aunt then tries to convince the surrounding neighbours that the child accidentally fell down a flight of stairs and died as a result]].

** ''Black Romance'' have the friendship between a troublemaker teen and the school janitor as its main plot.

** ''The Devil's Bargain'' have this between Veloo, a retired soccer coach, and Ace Darkstar, a rising soccer champion.

** Or the mentally troubled teenager from ''Moon in a Puddle'', who is implied to have suicidal tendencies, named Jacky '''Fun'''. (while this is an actual surname that exists in Singapore and Malaysia, it's actually rather obscure - a more common variation would be "Fung" or any variant).
* KarmicDeath: Oh god, where to start?

** The Administrator from ''Down on the Farm'' delights in torturing clones, and have sent multiple clones which he declared defective into the incinerator. [[spoiler: He ends up getting shoved into the incinerator himself by a horde of angry clones]].

* KillEmAll: Damien Sin really doesn't like leaving behind any survivors as he moves from one story to another. We have the [[spoiler: entire biker gang save for the main character]] in ''Ghost Riders'', the [[spoiler: crew of a Japanese submarine]] in ''Message In A Bottle'', [[spoiler: an entire city following the clone uprising]] in ''Down on the Farm'', among others.

** Ah Boy from ''Ghost Riders'' is a gangster obsessed with violence and sex, who physically and sexually abused a young nurse named Annie until she is [[spoiler: DrivenToSuicide]]. He ends up [[spoiler: hallucinating Annie's ghost coming for him, prompting him to jump six storeys down a hospital building, where he broke his legs, permanently lose the function of both his testicles and have to spend the rest of his life on a wheelchair]].
** Jimmy, the sex-obsessed main character in ''One Night In Bangkok'' who [[spoiler: thinks he's contracted AIDS, and subsequently tried to spread the disease all throughout Singapore, going as far as sexually assaulting his sister to pass her the disease, eventually discovered he ''didn't'' have AIDS after all... and have ruined his entire life because his actions made him a total outcast of society]]. [[spoiler: For good measure, he even [[KickTheSonOfABitch gets the snot beaten out of him]] by his taller and stronger brother-in-law]].

* NWordPrivileges: In ''Skin Deep'', Dr Quek's daughter Emma who is half-English from her deceased mother's side have [[spoiler: no qualms calling her father a "chink" after having sex with him]].

** Implied for the Japanese Admiral from ''Message In A Bottle'', his [[spoiler: final moments in life is a flashback dream to his old hometown in Tokyo. While he mentioned his mother and sisters, he didn't mention anything about having a brother]].
** Katherine from ''Stepchild'' is the only girl among her siblings, have to contend with two older brothers and the titular stepchild.

* OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: In ''Soldier of Fortune'', our main character (a Singaporean soldier on millitary duty in Taiwan) discovers the mountains of Taiwan to be populated by werefoxes, werevixens, wereboars, and the Great Monkey King which is pretty much a very powerful weremonkey.
* PantheraAwesome: Subverted then played straight in ''The White Tiger of Kalimantaro''. Two retired ex-cops travels to the Indonesian jungles to hunt a divine white tiger, only to realize the tiger to be old, mangy, lice-ridden and ready to die of age and disease. They kill it anyway. [[spoiler: Then the ''real'' white tiger shows up, and it turns out to be a god-like entity the size of an elephant, and have supernatural necromatic powers, given how it resurrects the old, slain tiger into a tiger zombie]]...

* PrisonRape: Dangerously close to happening in ''Jailbird''. No thanks to the homosexual warden.
** For context: Robin Wong is a first-day prisoner undergoing inspection, where the warden in charge asks if Robin needs a "plastic bag". The other prisoners around him shake their heads, hinting for Robin to refuse; it turns out later that the warden is gay and [[UnusualEuphemism "plastic bag" is a slang for condom]].
* SeriousBusiness: In ''Checkmate'', Professor Narul considers chess as more than "just a game", but a matter of life and death. To the extent of abandoning his wife and children, cutting off all social ties, and even resorting to [[spoiler: murdering a rival better at chess than him]].

* ThreeWishes: Prahma will grant three wishes to whomever restore its position into the world. Too bad he is a JerkassGod which screws over pretty much everybody who worshiped him.
* TimeStandsStill: In ''Black Romance'', this happens when the main character prays to Kali, the goddess of destruction, while being assaulted by several cops in a police station. Naturally he took this opportunity to gleefully [[GroinAttack whack each and every one of them in the nuts]].

* VorpalPillow: In ''Paint It Black'', implied to be how [[spoiler: Jessica dispose of the frail, disabled Gopal]].

** ''One Night At the Opera'' is basically ''Literature/TheElvesAndTheShoemaker'', but in modern-day Singapore, and with Opera performances instead of shoes.

* WouldHurtAChild: ''Suffer The Children'' revolves around a 30-odd single woman who's unfairly scorned by her more successful sister, and decides to commit a RevengeByProxy, by abusing her sister's children. [[spoiler: She gets a rather revolting and disturbing but still somewhat satisfying comeuppance]].

The first book is published in 1992, and each installment is released between regular intervals, with the fourth and last being published in 2003. Damien Sin cites lack of ideas and personal issues as reasons for the delays of a possible fifth book, but still reveals that he does have interest to continue writing the long-gestating fifth installment. Unfortunately, AuthorExistenceFailure pretty much ensures the series would stop at its fourth.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: There are no baboon populations in Indonesia, unlike those depicted in ''The White Tiger of Kalimantaro''.

* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: The titular hangman from ''The Hangman'', who wants to capture, starve, and flay a cat just [[DisproportionateRetribution because it scratched him]]. In self-defense because '''he''' is the one who attempt to attack the cat first.

** Jessica and Robert in ''Paint It Black'', respectively a GoldDigger and an [[EvilLawyerJoke inheritance lawyer]] who tried to take over an Indian millionaire's property in his native Nrw Delhi.

* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Well, not actually foreign on a technical term, since Singapore is a melting pot of various cultures and races, but the default language of the books are English, and every now and then there are Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, Tamil, Japanese, German and various other languages beimg used. Whenever these happens the non-English text will be ''Italicized'' for differentiation purposes.

** ''The Devil's Bargain'' have this betweem Veloo, a retired soccer coach, and Ace Darkstar, a rising soccer champion.

* ApocalypticLog: ''Message In A Bottle'' depicts the last recovered message from a Japanese submarine which mysteriously disappeared during World War II. [[spoiler: Turns out the entire crew had an unfortunate run-in with a vengeful Sea Hag, with no survivors]].

** Jacky in ''Moon in a Puddle'' does this after [[spouler: Mary's suicide]].

** ''Stepchild'' ends with [[spoiler: Katherine's attempted suicide, but when she recovered she have brought her estranged family closer to her than ever. Amd yhe titilar stepchild, an outcast of the family, have finally embraced his step-siblings as his own]].

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: In ''One Night At the Opera'', [[spoiler: the elderly Mr. Hsiao, his daughter Hsiao Jin-hua, and by extent his entire family, are revealed to be ghosts from some ancient Chinese dynasty]].

** The soul of [[spoiler: Master Kong]] in ''Maid In Singapore''.

* AssholeVictims: Most of the worst characters in the entire anthology gets pretty much what they deserved by the end.

** ''Jailbird'': Robin Wong, a 24-year-old fresh graduate, agrees to be sentenced to prison for a few months in exchange for an exorbitant cash reward of 200,000 Singapore dollars. However, [[spoiler: a LoopholeAbuse quickly turns the prison sentence from a few months to over a year]], and while Robin is capable of coping with the first few months (encouraged by his benefactor cousin, Eddie claiming that part of the reward money has already been transferred to Robin's bank account), however [[spoiler: a near PrisonRape experience with a homosexual warden led to Robin committing an AccidentalMurder that have him sent to [[BoxOfShame solitary confinement]]. And although Robin was eventually cleared of all murder charges, his sentence ends up getting extended to ''nearly 4 years'']]. Worse of all, by the time Robin finished serving his sentence and was released, [[spoiler: he ends up discovering that cousin Eddie have fled Singapore altogether, delivering only a quarter of the promised money]]. [[HumiliationConga To top it all off]], [[spoiler: Robin's girlfriend have left him during his absence]].

** For context: Robin Wong is a first-day prisoner undergoing inspection, where the warden in charge asks if Robin needs a "plastic bag". The other prisoners around him shake their heads, hinting for Robin to refuse; it turns out later that the warden is gay and "plastic bag" is a slang for condom.

** Jessica Kwan from ''Paint It Black'', which is described as a "Fortune Huntress" who solely married the nearly-Century-old Indian millionaire Gopal for his inheritance.
** Diamond Dave from ''Great Pig Mother'' wooed, and married an old widow to con her of her pig farm, and subsequently her inheritance.

** Jimmy, the sex-obsessed main character in ''One Night In Bangkok'' who [[spoiler: thinks he's contracted AIDS, and subsequently tried to spread the disease all throughout Singapore, going as far as sexually assaulting his sister to pass her the disease, eventually discovered he ''didn't'' have AIDS after all... and have ruined his entire life because his actions made him a total outcast of society]].