I’m pretty sure I saw the 2000 supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath in theaters back when it came out, and I remembered liking it quite a bit. Just in the last few months, for whatever reason, I sort of got a hankering to watch it again, and though it moved around on various streaming services … More Movies: What Lies Beneath (2000)
I remember seeing the trailer for 2024’s Blink Twice ages ago while I was at the theater for another horror film. At the time, I thought it looked decent but didn’t feel any burning urge to watch it. I suppose this is mostly because, as far as horror movies go, I tend to like more … More Movies: Blink Twice (2024)
Writer and filmmaker James M. Watjen is based in Indiana, and cites as his influences the works of Stephen King, George Romero, and William Lustig. James actually reached out to me a while back and offered me an ebook of his 2024 novella The Vermin Sleep, published by Nightmare Press, so naturally I agreed to … More Books: The Vermin Sleep by James M. Watjen
Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent burst onto the horror landscape back in 2014 with her outstandingly creepy and well-received metaphorical horror film The Babadook (which I reviewed here), so when it came time for her sophomore effort to hit theaters, the community was abuzz, wondering what spooky delights she would come up with this time around. … More Movies: The Nightingale (2018)
Author Timothy King hails from near my neck of the woods (he’s from Tampa, Florida, which is about an hour and a half away from me and where I lived for a brief time back in the early 2000s), and as far as I can determine, 2024’s Seven Rabbits is his debut novel. The book … More Books: Seven Rabbits by Timothy King
British author Ross Jeffery’s harrowing novella Only the Stains Remain was published in 2021, and immediately caused something of a buzz in the reviewer community. It is an excellent book (though I have a couple of minor quibbles, which I’ll get into later), but it is most assuredly NOT for everyone, as it deals with … More Books: Only the Stains Remain by Ross Jeffery
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
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)
The late Jack Ketchum (whose real name was Dallas Mayr) is an author I’ve always been a big fan of; his work isn’t for everyone, as it’s usually quite graphic, and focuses on the worst aspects of humanity, delving deep into the depravity lurking in the hearts of men. The Girl Next Door, based on … More Books: Red by Jack Ketchum
Today’s topic of discussion is another book that I just chose randomly from the offerings suggested to me on Kindle Unlimited; my only stipulations for the book I wanted to read were that it be generally highly rated, and be set in the winter (since that’s the season in which I read it). I picked … More Books: Autumn Bleeds Into Winter by Jeff Strand
The Scare Salon 