I have done my best to write a spoiler-free piece about Midnight Mass. Light spoilers are unavoidable, but I promise I have preserved the most major of twists and turns. Horror centered on faith and religion has percolated through the genre since its earliest days, stories sprouting from the festering fears of demons, witches, and […]
Werewolves Within (2021, dir. Josh Ruben), a comedy-horror whodunnit about a snowed-in small town community under attack by a werewolf, succeeded in making me laugh and in keeping me invested in the mystery throughout. In addition to fine comic performances, it engages with multiple contemporary political issues, including sexual harassment, gentrification, and the ethics of building […]
Justin Howard Query Summertime is the time for water games in the backyard, day-long visits to the amusement park, and chilly rocket pops from your neighborhood ice cream man. But summertime is also the time to ready oneself for the chilling spooky season that is just around the corner, and one of Image Comics’ horror […]
Synopsis: Centered on a woman who lives alone in the woods and is inexplicably terrorized, Hush distills everything to a single effect—terror. Released on April 8, 2016, Hush is directed by Mike Flanagan and written by Flanagan and Kate Siegel. Siegel also stars in the film, playing the heroine, Maddie, alongside villain John Gallagher, Jr. […]
I started absorbing Stephen King before I was born. When she was pregnant with me, my mom distracted herself with two equally consuming tasks: stitching future-me a small quilt (despite very little knowledge or skill related to sewing) and reading the serial installments of The Green Mile, published between March and August of 1996. She […]
Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons Author: Steve A. Wiggins Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2021 Popular culture continues to provide evidence of its fascination with the demonic and possession. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the number of horror films that have been produced over the years on the topic. […]
Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Archenemy (2020) is the minding-bending, genre-breaking superhero film we need right now. That is to say, it’s not much of superhero film at all. There are no monsters to fight, no true villains. It’s not even clear if there is a heroic protagonist. Instead, Mortimer uses his gritty story to talk about […]
Last year, I reviewed Beneath Us (2019) for Horror Homeroom–a film that positioned immigrants to the US in literal and figurative subterranean spaces beneath American society. Tellingly, that film took far longer to get a release in the land of its origin than it did in Europe. His House (2020) landed on Netflix recently, a […]
Adam Cesare’s first YA horror novel Clown in a Cornfield delivers exactly what it promises from the title. High school senior Quinn Maybrook, a city girl from Philadelphia, moves with her father to the rural town of Kettle Springs, Missouri, after a family tragedy. They’re looking to move on from this trauma, and so it’s […]