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ethan robles

Posted on March 9, 2020

The Lodge and the Cyclical Nature of Trauma

Guest Post

Severin Fiala and Veronik Franz’s The Lodge (2019) has been praised as one of the best horror films of 2020. Somehow, it still feels like it fell through the cracks.

Given the spectacular failure of The Turning (2020), it’s no surprise that a horror film featuring a woman and two children in isolation would be passed over. However, The Lodge is a gripping, slow-burn horror that pays homage to The Shining (1980), The Thing (1982), and Hereditary (2018), while also artfully creating its own space within the genre. One of the most innovative aspects of the film is its focus on the importance of understanding and respecting traumatic experiences.

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Posted on December 19, 2019

Mick Garris: A Conversation with a Master of Horror

Guest Post

The first real horror film that I saw was Sleepwalkers (1992) by Mick Garris. I was 14 when I saw that film. When I met Mick in Copenhagen two and a half decades later – he was guest of honor at the Bloody Weekend film festival in the spring of 2019 – I told him that his film had messed me up none too gently. This, evidently, tickled his funny bone. I also told him that The Stand – also directed by Garris, and also, like Sleepwalkers, based on a Stephen King script – turned me on to the horror genre. I imagine I’m not the only horror film fan who has Garris to thank for their obsession.

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Paul Tremblay
Posted on September 29, 2019

A Conversation with Paul Tremblay: On Writing, Being a Guitar Hero, and Horror

Guest Post

Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2015. Nominated for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2017.  Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2019. Board Member for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Named Horror’s Newest Big Thing by GQ.  The laundry list of accomplishments makes it hard to forget that Paul Tremblay is human and not just an exemplar of the new horror scene, taking his place at the top of the food chain. In the best way possible, though, Paul Tremblay is nothing like what you expect him to be.

Paul Tremblay wants to connect. He is open and approachable. As a writer, Tremblay found consistent success in self-awareness and patience. From the moment that Joyce Carol Oates provoked his love of reading, through his deep dives into Stephen King and Clive Barker, and to his eventual leap into writing and publishing, Tremblay has maintained a steady pace upward. Most importantly, Tremblay is human. He worries about mortgages and college tuition payments, and he enjoys his teaching job. He’s a music nerd, a guitar player, a father, and a husband. Things get into his head and, sometimes, he feels overwhelmed. Regardless of all of it, Tremblay produces some of the most interesting and terrifying horror fiction ever written.

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Posted on May 24, 2019

Black Summer and Zombie Minimalism: Leaving the Horde Behind

Guest Post

Black Summer (2019) has polarized critics and undead fans. Some have called the show a rejuvenation of the zombie genre and others have balked at the story’s zombies and its ending. Wherever the critics and undead-lovers land on the series, there is no mistaking that Black Summer brings a new take on old lore. However, in a landscape of continually evolving interpretations of the walking flesh eater–Train to Busan (2016), Cargo (2017), The Dead Don’t Die (2019), etc.–Black Summer innovates by opposing the massive hordes and the deadeye heroes of current zombie films and television. In doing so, Black Summer masters a minimalistic horror that reignites the fear of the living dead. Read more

Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Posted on September 29, 2018

Top 10 Episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Guest Post

Obsessions always have a beginning.  If you rewind the clock 26 years, you would find hordes of kids crowding around the television at 9:30pm to catch Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon before being corralled and taken to bed.  The series became the subject of nightmares and terrors and created a new generation obsession with horror.  A combination of Tales from the Crypt and The Twilight Zone, mixed with kid-friendly subject matter, Are You Afraid of the Dark? was always destined to be a hit.  The success of the series helped green light Goosebumps and one episode even inspired M. Night Shymalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999), but unfortunately, the show now sits in relative and completely unwarranted obscurity.

Needless to say, this Canadian-American classic has a special place in my heart and, in honor of its 26th anniversary, what follows is a list of my top ten episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?  Now, I don’t claim to be a master of 90’s television and the list is very subjective, but know that I have ordered the episodes by least-to-most frightening.  Moreover, every episode is a gem in its own way and a list of only ten episodes could never do justice to this amazing television horror.

So. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this article, The Top Ten Episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

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