Terror takes flight: “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson
Of all the genre master’s classic novels and stories, none comes close to the sheer paranoid terror of this ruthless chiller.
“The actual worth of the things you make”: “Wolverton Station” by Joe Hill
Hill’s Gothic tale is an exuberant mashup of Warren Zevon, Little Red Riding Hood, and “An American Werewolf in London.”
“I am a singularity”: “Event Horizon” by Sunny Moraine
The house in the story – a living thing that demands to be fed – is a metaphor for difference and the other.
Nick Cutter, aka Craig Davidson, on the allure of Asian horror
Manga creator Junji Ito’s work is a terrifying combination of enclosed spaces, group mania, and obsessive desire, writes Cutter.
Critic Darryl Jones on the history and appeal of a disreputable genre
The Irish critic writes that horror, like all avant-garde art, operates at the extremes and tests its recipients’ tolerance levels.
Stephen Graham Jones’s self-aware metafictional slasher The Last Final Girl
The American novelist’s violent, cheeky 2012 book displays a true fan’s knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the cinematic subgenre.
The mystery behind the death of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849 under conspicuously mysterious circumstances. A Buzzfeed mini-documentary speculates on what might have happened to him.
“What did he have to report?”: “Paranoia” by Shirley Jackson
Jackson’s story of the commute from hell is one of her most nerve-shattering, Kafkaesque tales.
“I was thinking about my neighbours”: Shirley Jackson on her literary inspiration
Shirley Jackson on the inspiration for her classic 1948 chiller, “The Lottery.”
The automaton cometh: “The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann; Ritchie Robertson, trans.
The Prussian author’s 1816 tale is an early 19th century progenitor of the modern horror story.