Welcoming Freddie Bonfanti

Flame Tree welcomes filmmaker Freddie Bonfanti to the blog to talk about his short story “Poppet”, which appears alongside a stellar line-up in the groundbreaking anthology This Way Lies Madness, releasing in September in our celebrated Beyond & Within series. In the introduction to the work, the book’s co-editors, Dave Jeffery and Lee Murray, say the anthology “defies convention by bringing together authentic, sensitive portrayals of mental illness in a genre that has notoriously lacked such tenets.” Comprising 23 stories and poems, the book also includes accompanying vignettes offering insight into the authors’ motivation for their work.

Today, Freddie Bonfanti shares an excerpt from his story along with a short glimpse into his inspiration.

Excerpt:

     You work quickly, efficiently. When the initial rush of blood slows, you glance at the door, ears straining for any sound of approaching footsteps. Nothing. Just the steady pump of the embalming machine and the soft splash of liquid.

     With practised movements, you retrieve a one-litre flask from your hidden stash. You’ve done this before, many times. Always just a little, never enough to raise suspicion. You slide the flask under the drain, just above the collection container. The dark liquid flows into it, beginning its journey to the brim. You watch the flask closely, carefully gauging the amount and then pull it away, replacing it with the standard collection container.

     Once the blood drainage is complete, you prepare for cavity embalming. You pick up the trocar, ready to aspirate the remaining fluids from the body cavities.

Bonfanti writes:

"When I was seven, my family moved to a small village, where I was bullied for my accent, background, and the way I looked. I carried undiagnosed mental health challenges that had no name at the time. In those days, children who might now be recognised as neurodivergent were expected to keep up with everyone else, to fit in without complaint. I knew I was different, but there was no framework to help me understand why. Instead, I was compelled to perform ‘normality’ as though following a script I could never quite memorise, all the while feeling like I’d landed on an alien planet where I didn’t speak the local language."

As well as Bonfanti’s story, Murray and Jeffery invite readers of This Way Lies Madness to discover “tales of trauma, dissociation, body dysmorphia, psychosis, depression, anxiety, and more, captured in all forms of horror from the extreme to the nuanced. There is jaw-dropping violence, skin-crawling body horror, and quirky dark humour, alongside the quiet, heartbreaking introspections of people spiralling into madness. Yet all the stories and poems in this volume are framed so that the insensitive, stereotypical presentations of mental illness commonly found in horror are resoundingly and appropriately absent.”

"A mesmerizing and remarkably ambitious mosaic of delicate minds possessed, of spoiled and haunted hearts, of gaping wounds both seen and unseen. This Way Lies Madness weaves a beguiling and profoundly revealing tapestry of psychological terror with such nuance and depth in each collected story." – Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Freddie Bonfanti is a London-based filmmaker and writer with an unyielding curiosity for stories that challenge, unsettle, and provoke. His work often dwells in the borderlands of dark and weird, where familiar worlds twist into disquieting shapes and the human experience is thrust into unsettling new contexts. Whether navigating futures warped by technological dread, or diving deep into the psyches of those bracing against extraordinary pressures, Freddie’s writing is driven by a commitment to honest, prose-forward storytelling. As a filmmaker, Freddie brings the same raw, unfiltered spirit to the screen, translating his literary instincts into vivid visual narratives. In all his work, he strives to remind audiences that even the darkest corners of existence can yield moments of connection, empathy, and hard-won understanding.

This Way Lies Madness is out September 9th 2025: Pre-Order Now