In author and bookseller Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel, four hikers discover horror in the Kentucky wilderness January 21, 2025 For those looking for a solid throwback to the great pulp horror novels of the ’80s, this one is a good bet.
“The children of the night. What music they make!” First published in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula continues to exert an outsized influence on popular culture November 1, 2024 Vampires, it would seem, are everywhere in our culture.
In Bog Myrtle, author and illustrator Sid Sharp delivers a sharp rebuke to capitalism with a side order of comic folk horror October 29, 2024 Sharp shares with Jon Klassen an affection for macabre conclusions in which the story’s villain gets an exaggerated, though not unwarranted, comeuppance.
Forever young: In youthjuice, E.K. Sathue skewers the beauty and wellness industry with a twisted satire October 28, 2024 Sathue’s novel is the fist release from the Soho Press horror imprint Hell’s Hundred.
Hunger, anxiety, and pain are among the human drives horror addresses, according to Anna Bogutskaya in Feeding the Monster October 24, 2024 At its best, horror has always skirted an anarchic or illicit sensibility.
Welcome to the rat race: Fifty years on, James Herbert’s first novel retains its pulpy ability to shock and offend October 21, 2024 The one area that literary craft does get elevated a bit beyond a pulp sensibility is in the East London setting.
Ray Russell’s The Case Against Satan bridges the gap between pulp horror and the paperback explosion of the ’70s October 18, 2024 Russell was an executive editor at Playboy, where he published such canonical writers as Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson.
In Maeve Fly, CJ Leede rewrites American Psycho with an L.A. setting and a female narrator October 10, 2024 Leede’s great sleight of hand is in her ability to make us feel something for Maeve.
Latin American shivers: Mariana Enriquez’s latest collection locates the uncanny in the lives of women and marginalized Argentinians October 7, 2024 The twelve stories in A Sunny Place for Shady People, ably translated by veteran collaborator Megan McDowell, hold their social subtexts more or less on their metaphorical sleeve.
Horror 101: Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary offers a cursory overview of more than 300 years worth of scares October 3, 2024 As a primer for the uninitiated, American Scary has a certain value.
Literary nightmares: Nineteen writers contribute to an anthology about the spooky side of literature September 13, 2024 The books in these stories are dangerous not just for the ideas they contain, but the wounds that they inflict.
The horror! The horror! Why do so many people who write about the genre seem not to understand – or even much like – it? August 26, 2024 It would be salutary if writers addressing the genre would cease treating it as though it has been relevant for only the past ten or twenty years.
Three new novels apply a postmodern lens to horror cinema and its practitioners July 17, 2024 The subtextual question in each of these stories – Where, exactly, does the true horror reside? – is a provocative and pressing one.
Brief encounters: “Growing Things” by Paul Tremblay July 4, 2024 Tremblay’s entire fiction is built on contingency and ambiguity.
A story that began life on Reddit becomes one of the most original, nerve-shattering horror novels in memory June 14, 2024 The plot, which unfolds at a frantic pace, comes to resemble an M.C. Escher sketch.
Short story month 2024: Returning characters and recycled themes mark an intermittently interesting new collection from Stephen King May 22, 2024 The biggest disappointment in this book is its relative lack of creepiness.
Fifty years on, Stephen King’s debut novel still retains its power to shock and disturb April 10, 2024 Appearing in 1974, Carrie benefited from the groundswell of interest in literary horror that began with Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby.
Canadian authors David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark among the first slate of writers in Soho Press’s new horror line, Hell’s Hundred February 6, 2024 Horror as a literary genre has seen a renaissance in recent years.
Golems, ghosts, and the horrific Schnabelperchten haunt the pages of this seasonal anthology of horror tales December 5, 2023 As with any anthology of this kind, not all entries work equally well.
The Spooky Season: William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist remains one of the most striking, misunderstood 20th century horror novels October 31, 2023 Those who view The Exorcist as a frightening and transgressive story about the supernatural may appreciate it on one level, but essentially miss Blatty’s point.
The Spooky Season: In two novellas and a short story, Eric LaRocca peels away the layers of poisoned relationships October 26, 2023 The three pieces represent a triptych of horror tales that examine the various ways lack of personal connection can eat away at a person.
The Spooky Season: Joyce Carol Oates offers up fifteen tales of body horror by women October 25, 2023 Body horror is by nature a visceral mode, and many of the writers here take full advantage of the gooier elements in their tales.
The Spooky Season: Alison Rumfitt’s second novel examines repression and abjection through the lens of extreme body horror October 18, 2023 Brainwyrms is all about the horrors of transphobia
The Spooky Season: The past weighs heavily in a supernaturally inflected first novel from Adriana Chartrand October 10, 2023 The more obviously generic elements of the story are less unsettling than the very real horrors of racism and family strife.
The Spooky Season: Kathe Koja’s 1991 debut, The Cipher, remains a classic of the horror genre October 4, 2023 Reading Koja’s novel in 1991 was a revelation, as well as a reminder that horror is able to deal with large themes and philosophically weighty subject matter.
The Spooky Season: Imaginative horror’s place in a disordered world October 3, 2023 Weirdly, horror fiction is one of those places capable of provoking a sense of calm.
Craig DiLouie re-imagines the haunted house story for the reality TV era August 31, 2023 DiLouie is clearly a fan of both haunted house stories and found footage movies.
High rise havoc and haunted houses: Andrew F. Sullivan and Nick Cutter deliver the horror August 25, 2023 The Marigold is a quintessential urban horror tale; The Handyman Method relocates the terror to the suburbs.
The best stories in the horror anthology Found are those that interpret the book’s mandate broadly August 11, 2023 It’s hard to fault the contributors to the volume, or the ambition of the editors.
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s novel The Centre serves up a feminist horror story about language and storytelling July 10, 2023 The novel parcels out its secrets judiciously, saving the final reveal for the very last sentence.
Toronto horror bookstore Little Ghosts expands its purview with a spring pop-up tour and new publishing imprint April 11, 2023 “I’m not a professional person,” says Chris Krawczyk, proprietor of the horror-themed Toronto independent Little Ghosts Bookstore and Café. The…
Read more: Toronto horror bookstore Little Ghosts expands its purview with a spring pop-up tour and new publishing imprint
Queer fear: an anthology of fiction and poetry reimagines horror tropes from LGBTQ+ perspectives February 23, 2023 “These stories ask the question What is a monster? and complicate the definition of ‘monster’ along the way.”
Robin R. Means Coleman updates her essential text on Black horror cinema with a new volume and a new co-author February 15, 2023 The Black Guy Dies First reads like little more than Horror Noire for the attention-deficit crowd.
The debut novel by Jessica Johns reclaims Indigenous horror tropes in a story about pervasive familial grief January 17, 2023 What is apparent throughout Bad Cree is Johns’s facility for dealing with the rocky and tumultuous terrain of familial memory.
With “The Heart of a Pig,” novelist and book columnist James Grainger resurrects the serial format January 13, 2023 Grainger’s horror Substack, The Veil, is parcelling out the longish story in several instalments.
Undertow Publications launches fundraising campaign to keep the journal Weird Horror alive January 11, 2023 The goal is to raise $4,800, which will be used to defray production costs and to pay contributors.
Greek mythology, feminism, and body horror collide in Martine Desjardins’s intriguing Gothic fantasia November 29, 2022 By melding elements of Greek mythology, nature, and body horror, Desjardins has created something unique and enticing.
In It Came from the Closet, queer writers reflect on the horror movies that have influenced, enticed, or repelled them October 31, 2022 Together, these essays provide a justification and rationale for queer readings of what may in fact turn out to be one of the queerest genres around.
The chain saw and the shark: Cultural critic W. Scott Poole examines the twin poles of American horror in Dark Carnivals October 26, 2022 Poole’s extended argument about the dominance of American empire and the ways horror filmmakers (and, to a lesser extent, novelists) have responded to it is potent and challenging.
Montreal-based writer Cassandra Khaw combines lyricism and brevity in short works of horror and dark fantasy October 13, 2022 When Khaw is at their best, their writing has teeth – blackened, razor sharp, and ready to rend flesh.
Feral men and murderous TERFs: the post-apocalyptic world of Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt October 11, 2022 This gruesome, often darkly funny novel manages to put a new spin on its central metaphor.
In Nightmare Fuel, Canadian author Nina Nesseth investigates the neuroscience underpinning why people love being scared at the movies October 4, 2022 As a primer to the ways cinematic horror works on audiences’ psyches and the specific neurological responses these techniques can elicit, Nightmare Fuel is a breezy and fluent read.
The Great War provides the backdrop for a story about death and resurrection on an industrial scale August 31, 2022 The Talosite exists at the confluence of sci-fi and body horror, with the actual horrors of the First World War a constant shadow in the background.
Claire Kohda and Rachel Yoder mix genre tropes with feminism in a pair of horror-adjacent debut novels July 5, 2022 Vampires and werewolves are the genre touchstones that get renovated in these two works of fabulism.
Trauma and revenge on the grindhouse circuit: Kealan Patrick Burke and Joe R. Lansdale provide tales of bloody retribution July 4, 2022 Two novels – one from the 1980s and one from the 2010s – showcase the grindhouse-driven mentality of horror’s golden age.
What the body remembers: Naben Ruthnum examines corporeality and identity in his novella Helpmeet June 17, 2022 Ruthnum’s brief work of fin-de-siècle body horror reads like a mash-up of David Cronenberg and Henry James.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 13: “Dread” by Clive Barker May 13, 2022 Barker’s psychologically tense story examines the price we pay for confronting our darkest fears.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 7: “Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy’s Curse” by Louisa May Alcott May 7, 2022 The author of Little Women was also an aficionado of “blood and thunder,” a mode represented in this story about grave robbing and its attendant consequences.
Sympathy for the devils: John Darnielle’s latest novel examines the ethical quagmire of true crime in the context of a taut thriller April 12, 2022 Focusing on a writer investigating a double murder with Satanic overtones, the novel asks uncomfortable questions about how and why we consume such gruesome material.
Vampires, mad scientists, and American psychos: David J. Skal examines some cultural underpinnings of the horror genre February 2, 2022 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 January 4, 2022 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.
Nic Brewer’s debut novel uses body horror as a means of interrogating the artistic process November 12, 2021 The book uses Grand Guignol techniques to literalize the process of tearing oneself open in the act of artistic creation.
A.C. Wise channels unease and melancholy in her story collection The Ghost Sequences November 3, 2021 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 October 29, 2021 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 October 27, 2021 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 October 25, 2021 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 October 22, 2021 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 October 21, 2021 What could possibly go wrong?
On resilience, the pandemic, and the surprising benefits of consuming horror fiction October 19, 2021 “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.”
Stephen Graham Jones returns to his slasher-film inspiration with the nostalgia saturated novel My Heart Is a Chainsaw October 18, 2021 The author returns to the slasher film saturated ground he has trod before to provide a loving homage that leans a bit too heavily on insider knowledge of the genre.
Horror is as horror does: Susie Moloney on the genre’s ability to ease real-life pain October 15, 2021 “Horror movies really, really distracted me from the most painful time of my life. Alone in the theatre for a couple of hours, being manipulated into screaming, swearing, and tossing my popcorn, I was transported.”
“I was always a morbid kid”: James Grainger on respectability, experimenting on pig hearts, and the movie that got him interested in horror October 14, 2021 “If you just look at your own nightmares, you know that there are no rules.”
Why so serious? Punch, Pennywise, and the evolution of the bad clown in popular culture October 13, 2021 “It’s difficult to assign a specific cultural meaning to the bad clown, because it is such a malleable archetype,” Radford writes.
David Demchuk on queerness, supernatural horror, and the intersection of fictional and real-life monsters October 9, 2021 “A lot of it reminds me of just how much I have come through. And how much the people I know have come through. And what it was like to lose people.”
“It encourages madness of a certain kind”: David Cronenberg on the horror genre October 6, 2021 “The very things that nurture you in the horror genre are also the things that can suppress an understanding of what you’re trying to do.”
Labyrinthine nightmares: “Treading the Maze” by Lisa Tuttle October 5, 2021 Tuttle’s brand of quiet horror is at once a rejoinder to a genre that leans heavily on masculine aggression and a means to achieve effects more unsettling than an explicit presentation could ever be.
Stalking the self: “Consequences” by Willa Cather October 4, 2021 Cather’s use of a close third-person narration lends her story an uncanny element of unease and creepiness.
“They are our collective nightmares”: Robin Wood on the 20th century American horror film October 3, 2021 We can thank Wood for taking the horror film seriously, and for giving us a framework to understand many of our current cultural impasses.
The most wild, homely narrative: “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe October 2, 2021 Poe’s 1843 tale is not only one of the greatest horror stories ever written; it is also a pristine example of internal integrity in the short form.
All horror is body horror: An introduction to a month of fear October 1, 2021 The genre “specifically devoted to the arousal of bodily sensation” traffics in transgression and finds pleasure in the disreputable.
A book of blood: David Demchuk’s queer horror novel addresses real-life terrors September 9, 2021 The Toronto author’s story provides a metaphorical response to a very real history of trauma and violence.
Scary stories: a single-volume anthology from the British Library provides a cogent and concise history of the literary horror genre August 3, 2021 From 17th century Gothic novels to the modern-day zombie story, the horror novel continues to fascinate readers and evolve in the literary consciousness.
Not what they seem: P.J. Vernon and Carrie Jenkins deliver queer thrillers with very different tones and approaches July 12, 2021 A breezy, plot-driven book and an abstruse, philosophically dense ontological mystery provide different pleasures for readers.
Tales of Transgression: Joris-Karl Huysmans’s demonic inferno, Là-Bas June 14, 2021 Huysmans shared his protagonist’s disgust with humanity and longed to create a new kind of literature.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 18: “Jerry’s Kids Meet Wormboy” by David J. Schow May 18, 2021 The term “splatterpunk” refers to a highly disreputable, extreme subgenre of graphic horror, but its best practitioners do much more with the form.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 9: “The Cloak” by Robert Bloch May 9, 2021 Not a retread or homage, Bloch’s vampire story displays a momentum and technique typical of the author’s best work.
Good faces off against evil in James Herbert’s The Dark October 31, 2020 Herbert’s novel combines elements of a haunted house story, a zombie tale, and a meditation on the nature of evil.
Why it’s so difficult to adapt Stephen King’s books for film October 30, 2020 Being able to see King’s horrors is a significant drawback in terms of their emotional and affective impact – with one exception.
Michael McDowell combines Southern Gothic and a haunted house tale in The Elementals October 28, 2020 McDowell’s mashup of Southern Gothic and a traditional haunted house story provides a slow burn as opposed to the anarchic energy of his earlier novel.
Tananarive Due and the rise of Black horror October 27, 2020 Black creators have made their mark in horror film and literature, though they have had to work to get noticed. There are signs that this is changing.
Josh and Benny Safdie on what scares them October 26, 2020 “You can imagine that character – Max Renn – you can imagine him having a Twitter account after going through and seeing the true colours of society.”
Michael Kelly branches out with a throwback to the pulp periodicals of yore October 25, 2020 Weird Horror, an offshoot of the publisher’s book imprint, Undertow Publications, is a nostalgic magazine in the EC Comics, Weird Tales vein.
Psychology of the uncanny: “The Scar” by Ramsey Campbell October 24, 2020 This story of a man and his malevolent doppelgänger recalls Poe and includes a critique of apparent social respectability.
“You don’t really believe what you read”: Stephen King on the attraction of horror fiction October 23, 2020 Horror fiction provides a buffer against the ongoing stresses and upheavals of the real world.
The history of horror: What are the best books in the genre? October 22, 2020 There are certain core texts that must appear on any list of the “best” horror novels ever written. Then what?
Sue Carter on sleepovers, un-ironic humour, and why she’ll never watch The Human Centipede October 21, 2020 “I have always been drawn to adrenaline-cranking moments that straddle that delicate space between hysterical fright and laughter.”
The law of unintended consequences: “The Fly” by George Langelaan October 20, 2020 The story, which originally appeared in 1957, includes a framing structure that distances the reader from the main action.
Tony Burgess on the most terrifying reading experience of his life October 19, 2020 “I thought there were things this book could do to me that were dangerous.”
Joyce Carol Oates on “the psyche’s deepest and most profound revelations” October 18, 2020 In a brief survey of some core Western texts, Oates asks the key question, why do we want to experience fear in an aesthetic context?
Terror takes flight: “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson October 17, 2020 Of all the genre master’s classic novels and stories, none comes close to the sheer paranoid terror of this ruthless chiller.
Christopher Sharrett on neoconservatism in the 1980s and ’90s horror film October 16, 2020 Upending the radical vision of much 1960s and ’70s American horror cinema, the following decades saw a reactionary retrenchment, argues the academic and critic.
“The actual worth of the things you make”: “Wolverton Station” by Joe Hill October 15, 2020 Hill’s Gothic tale is an exuberant mashup of Warren Zevon, Little Red Riding Hood, and “An American Werewolf in London.”
Nathan Ripley on the intimidation of writing in “the best genre” October 14, 2020 The author of psychological thrillers says his respect for the horror genre may explain why he has had difficulty writing in the genre.
“I am a singularity”: “Event Horizon” by Sunny Moraine October 13, 2020 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 October 12, 2020 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 October 11, 2020 The Irish critic writes that horror, like all avant-garde art, operates at the extremes and tests its recipients’ tolerance levels.
Gary Sherman’s Death Line is a downbeat film that sympathizes with its monster October 10, 2020 The 1972 British film, about survivors of a cave-in relegated to life as cannibals in the tunnels under London, is a grim critique of how capitalism treats its workers.
Stephen Graham Jones’s self-aware metafictional slasher The Last Final Girl October 9, 2020 The American novelist’s violent, cheeky 2012 book displays a true fan’s knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the cinematic subgenre.
Andrew Pyper on why he writes horror fiction October 8, 2020 The number one reason? It’s fun.
The mystery behind the death of Edgar Allan Poe October 7, 2020 Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849 under conspicuously mysterious circumstances. A Buzzfeed mini-documentary speculates on what might have happened to him.