2008’s Martyrs is one of those movies whose reputation unquestionably precedes it, and though I always felt like it was something I needed to watch, every time I went to place it on the review schedule, I would chicken out and watch something less notorious. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched plenty of fucked-up movies, … More Movies: Martyrs (2008)
Elias Witherow’s The Black Farm, published by Thought Catalog in 2017, was recommended to me by a friend, and seemed to have had a bit of buzz surrounding it when it came out, judging by reviews and other people on GoodReads and Reddit recommending it, so I thought I’d give it a shot. As is … More Books: The Black Farm by Elias Witherow
Back in 2020, it seemed like Samantha Kolesnik’s debut novella True Crime was everywhere; it got a massive amount of buzz in the horror community, and even though I successfully avoided any synopses or reviews of it prior to reading it for myself, it was hard to miss seeing its (awesome) cover popping up in … More Books: True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik
Richard Laymon, who passed away in 2001, was a prolific writer of “splatterpunk” novels, a couple of which were put out by Leisure Books in the 1990s. Along with other contemporary writers like Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee, Laymon laced his stories with extreme violence and gore, as well as graphic sexual content that verged … More Books: Come Out Tonight by Richard Laymon
Thanks once again to my Kindle Unlimited subscription, I happened to randomly come across a fantastic novella by an author I was not previously familiar with, and goddammit, I just love when that happens. Canadian writer Duncan Ralston has penned several novels and novellas, and some short fiction anthologies like Gristle & Bone and Video … More Books: Woom by Duncan Ralston
The so-called “rape-revenge” subgenre reached its peak in the 1970s and early 1980s, and the two films I want to talk about are probably the most cited and controversial examples of this type of cinema. I have to say right out of the gate that rape is one of the most stomach-turning things for me … More Rape-Revenge Double Feature: I Spit On Your Grave (1978) and Ms .45 (1981)
My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (2016) Grady Hendrix has quickly become one of my favorite authors working today, not only because of the awesome graphic design elements of his books and the fact that he wrote an amazing non-fiction coffee table book all about the horror paperback boom of the 70s and 80s, … More Five of My Favorite Horror Novels of the 21st Century (So Far)
Japanese author Kanae Minato was a home economics teacher and housewife who wrote her first novel, Confessions, on weekends and in between household chores. The book came out in her home country in 2008 and was a nationwide sensation, at which point it was translated into numerous languages and eventually earned worldwide acclaim. It arrived … More Books: Confessions by Kanae Minato
Kealan Patrick Burke is an Irish author who won a Bram Stoker award for his novel The Turtle Boy, which came out in 2004; I’ve seen a few of his novellas—including Sour Candy and Blanky—being widely recommended as well. But the first book of his that I got around to reading was a 2011 novel … More Books: Kin by Kealan Patrick Burke
I had been hearing a lot of buzz about the Taiwanese film The Sadness since its international premiere back in autumn of 2021, and most of said buzz revolved around noting what an absolutely brutal bloodbath the film is. Well, now I’ve seen it, courtesy of Shudder, and I can confirm that The Sadness is … More Movies: The Sadness (2021)
The Scare Salon 