31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 13: “Dread” by Clive Barker
Barker’s psychologically tense story examines the price we pay for confronting our darkest fears.
Vampires, mad scientists, and American psychos: David J. Skal examines some cultural underpinnings of the horror genre
In its examination of the roots of American horror cinema, this single-volume survey is valuable, though it lacks follow-through in its second half.
Home is where the hellfire is: Chuck Wendig and Adam L.G. Nevill provide two stories of new homes that prove anything but homey
Neither of the houses in these two books is haunted in the traditional sense; the evil comes from the people and environs that surround them.
A.C. Wise channels unease and melancholy in her story collection The Ghost Sequences
In this suite of sixteen uncanny tales, memory and loss are manifest in the spectres that haunt various characters.
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark returns in a new book that also recalls an earlier contender for dark queen of late-night horror
A volume of cultural criticism about Vampira and a new memoir by the creator of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark show how much, and how little, the two have in common.
Adam Pottle on how the CanLit establishment’s preference for literary realism downplays the value of horror writing
Horror doesn’t gel with those who’ve propped up CanLit respectability – that is, chiefly cishet, nondisabled white people, Pottle writes.
Conan Tobias on a quarter-century quest to watch every episode of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows
The pop culture phenomenon resulted in board games and a central character’s appearance alongside Bozo the Clown.
Carvell Wallace on America’s history of exploiting Black pain for cheap scares
Nia DaCosta’s re-imagining of the 1992 film Candyman proves more effective because it does not traffic in white voyeurism in its examination of Black trauma.
James Han Mattson’s Reprieve is set in a full-contact haunted house
What could possibly go wrong?
On resilience, the pandemic, and the surprising benefits of consuming horror fiction
“By scaring you in your seat without actually posing a threat, you have the opportunity to practice your emotion regulation skills, particularly with regard to fear.”