Horror
A Country Road, in the Dead of Night: On The Historical Hauntings of Irish Folklore
.
First published in 1936, On Another Man’s Wound was written by Earnán Ó Máille and recounts his time as a guerrilla fighter during the Irish War of Independence in the nineteen twenties. It is generally considered to be the one bona-fide piece of literature to arise from that conflict. No dry military memoir, Ó Máille…
6 Creepy Novels Featuring Murder Houses
.
There’s something beautiful about ugliness. We all have it simmering under the surface. But we make damn sure not to show it. Why? In my debut, The Stranger Upstairs, Sarah Slade is a popular influencer who struggles with a dark side. Her marriage is falling apart and her career is on a knife’s edge. She…
A Reading List of Badass Covens
.
I’ve always been enamored with witches. Be it Roald Dahl’s child-hating witches, the Wicked Witch of the West, or Bony Legs with her iron teeth, the ferocity and power of witches always captured my attention. To witness a woman who was magical and powerful and not only knew it but unapologetically embraced it felt revolutionary….
The Off-Broadway Play Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors Is Cute, Not-So-Bloody Fun
.
Gordan Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s new play Dracula: a Comedy of Terrors, now open at New World Stages, is production is replete with playful contradictions. Despite the presence of the word “terrors” in the title, there’s nothing too grisly to worry about. After all, the fanged teeth featured in the logo for the show are…
Jason Voorhees: Neurodivergent Icon?
.
I was working the day that it happened, preparing meals. Jason should’ve been watched every minute! He was … he wasn’t a very good swimmer. —Pamela Voorhees, Friday the 13th What would he be like today? An out-of-control psychopath? A frightened retard? A child trapped in a man’s body? —Friday the 13th Part 2 He…
Celebrating the Iconic Suspense of Lois Duncan
.
I still own three of Lois Duncan’s books. Growing up, I read so many, but these are the three I have left: Daughters of Eve, Stranger with My Face, and Summer of Fear. The covers are creased and falling apart, and the pages are so fragile that they tear when I try to turn them,…
Joyce Carol Oates on Women and the Roots of Body Horror
.
Of mythological figures of antiquity, none are more monstrous than harpies, furies, gorgons—Scylla and Charybdis, Lamia, Chimera, Sphinx—nightmare creatures representing, to the affronted male gaze, the perversion of “femininity”: the female who in her physical being repulses sexual desire, rather than arousing it; the female who has repudiated the traditional role of submission, subordination, maternal…
From Punchline to Protagonist: Black Horror and the Monsters Who Hunt
.
There’s something fascinating about horror. The darkness that hides darker monsters. The creaks and gore and jump scares. The jokes. The unearthing of fears. Whenever I’m in the mood for a campy, scary movie, I’ll go for a man-eating shark or a haunted house, or any of the Scream movies. For the longest time, it…
It’s All Relative: Horror’s Worst Families
.
Have you ever seen those Progressive Insurance commercials about becoming your parents? Would you be surprised if I told you they inspired a horror novel? Specifically, my new novel BLACK SHEEP. It wasn’t so much the commercials themselves that got me thinking, but the message behind them. Are we destined to become our parents? Can…