A Grab Bag of Horror News, 17 to 23 Mar 2024
A selection of things that caught our attention in the world of horror this week
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Table of Contents
Bite-Sized Horror News
Horror Book Bits
- Dark Horse Comics and Gerard Way, best known for the band My Chemical Romance and the comic The Umbrella Academy, are releasing a new horror comic, Paranoid Gardens, in July 2024.
- Lindy Ryan’s upcoming vampire horror novel, Bless Your Heart, will be packaged up for a television series. The novel releases on 9 April 2024.
- Hogarth has bought the worldwide rights to Caroline Bicks’s Monsters in the Archive: My Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks is the first scholar to be granted full access to Stephen King’s archives.
- After several authors withdrew their stories from the New Demons anthology, Joe Lansdale has confirmed the anthology will now not be going ahead. Mary San Giovanni also had some wise words that everyone should read.
- Scares That Care AuthorCon 3 will include a reunion of the original panellists from the Horrorfind 2004 Black Horror panel.
Horror Movie Morsels
- The Frights! Camera! Action! horror screenplay contest is in its 9th year. Submissions for short screenplays and feature length screenplays are open until 19 May 2024, with winners to be announced on 31 May 2024.
- Bikers vs Werewolves has completed production and they’re now running a 10-day Indiegogo campaign to raise post-production completion funds. Donate and choose your perk.
- Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios announced The Twisted Childhood Universe, which will include standalone movies featuring characters from childhood tales, such as Sleeping Beauty, Tinkerbell, and The Mad Hatter, to name just a few. Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble will be a huge crossover film starring many of the characters that we’ve all grown up with.
- Late Night with the Devil directors, Cameron and Colin Cairnes, released a statement after some horror fans called them out on Twitter for using AI-generated art in the movie.
- If you want to meet Clive Barker at one of his last horror movie convention stops, you might like to get to Monster-Mania Convention 59, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, between 2 and 4 August 2024. As previously reported, Barker is winding down his convention appearances so he can concentrate on his writing.
- From 29 March to 4 April 2024, the IFC Center in New York is playing 6 independent 2014 horror movies directed by women.
Horror Podcast Pieces
- Table Read podcast has Mark Hamill and Rosario Dawson joining Tom Holland, Chris Sarandon, and the original Fright Night cast for a live reading on 20 April 2024 in Burbank, California.
Horror Festival Fare
- Don’t forget the Overlook Film Festival – a four-day celebration of all things horror – is happening from 4 to 7 April 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
James M. Cain“If your writing doesn't keep you up at night, it won't keep anyone else up either.”
Writing Horror
Some places accepting submissions.
- Vault of Shadows: Issue 1 (Hungry Shadow Press)
Pays: $35 per page of adapted script up to 12 pages + print copy
Looking for: Short horror, weird, dark fiction that can be adapted into a comic book script of 12 pages or less.
Submissions open 1 April and close 15 April 2024
- Book Worms Horror Zine Issue #5
Pays: 8 cents a word
Theme: Rock ‘n Roll. “From hair-raising riffs to head-banging oblivion, horror and rock n roll are a match made in Hell!”
Submissions close 30 April 2024 - Don’t Ask, Ghosts Tell anthology (Tundra Swan Press)
Pays: 3 cents a word
Theme: Strong, character-driven LGBTQ+ horror stories where your main characters struggle in some way with their ghosts, or the ghosts of others, against truths being either suppressed or exposed
Submissions close: 30 April 2024
- khōréō
Pays: 10 cents a word
Theme: unusual, unexpected, and uncanny takes on ‘Point of View’
Submissions open 15 April and close 15 May 2024 - Children of the Blind Owl anthology (Sentinel Creatives)
Pays: $150 – $200
Theme: Original weird tales and essays set in the Middle East that explore the human (and inhuman) experience through the lens of weird fiction and horror.
Submissions close: 31 August 2024
Ernest Hemingway“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
Trailer Horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV Trailers
- American Horror Story, second half of Season 12. Supernatural horror. Nothing will stand in her way. Premieres on FX and Hulu on 3 April 2024.
- Parasyte: The Grey, Season 1. South Korean creature horror. When unidentified parasites violently take over human hosts and gain power, humanity must rise to combat the growing threat. Premieres on Netflix on 5 April 2024.
- Chucky, second half of Season 3. Toy horror. Premieres on USA/Syfy on 10 April 2024.
- Interview with the Vampire, Season 2. Vampire horror. Picking up from the bloody events in New Orleans in 1940 when Louis and Claudia conspired to kill Lestat, Louis tells of his adventures in Europe, a quest to discover Old World Vampires, and the Theatre Des Vampires in Paris. Premieres on AMC and AMC+ on 12 May 2024.
Horror Movie Trailers
- Mister Sleep. Supernatural serial killer horror. A serial killer survives prison execution and is reborn as a terrifying and unstoppable force of nature who unleashes savage and bloody revenge on a group of insomnia patients participating in a new drug trial, a group he believes has stolen his memories. Releases on VOD on 2 April 2024.
- The Jack in the Box Rises. Supernatural toy horror. When a Jack-in-the-Box is discovered and opened on the grounds of an exclusive girls’ school, six brave students soon enter a fight to the finish against the unleashed demon. Releases on DVD on 9 April 2024.
- All You Need is Death. Supernatural horror. A young couple, who are a part of a secret organization, travel at night with the desire to discover forbidden knowledge. They believe that living, modern alchemy is contained in old, forgotten songs. When they find an elderly woman who sings songs that have never been heard before, they open the door to an ancient evil and madness. Releases in cinemas on 11 April 2024.
- Damaged. Serial killer horror. A Chicago detective travels to Scotland to work with a Scottish detective when a serial killer, whose crimes match an unsolved Chicago case, surfaces. Releases in cinemas on 11 April 2024.
- Humane. Dystopian horror. After a global ecological collapse, world leaders take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population. In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman invites his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children. Releases on 26 April 2024 in limited cinemas.
- In a Violent Nature. Supernatural horror. A group of friends stumble across a locket buried within the rubble of a crumbled fire tower. When they release it from the ground, they also release a malevolent spirit, who perished alongside the locket 60 years ago, that rises from his grave and hunts down those who disturbed his peace. Releases in limited cinemas on 31 May 2024.
- Alien: Romulus. Sci-fi horror. While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. Releases in cinemas on 16 August 2024.
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Ghost comedy horror. Three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. Releases in cinema on 6 September 2024.
- Bikers vs Werewolves. Werewolf horror. Bikers roll into a forgotten town and a night of respite takes a sinister turn when a rival gang transforms into werewolves, unleashing chaos and terror on the unsuspecting townsfolk. Release date TBA.
Horror Game Trailers
- Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Sci-fi horror. Can you survive a Killer Klowns invasion? Releases on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation on 4 June 2024.
- Still Wakes the Deep. Cosmic horror. It’s December 1975 and disaster strikes an oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Navigate the collapsing rig to save your crew from an otherworldly horror on the edge of all logic and reality. Releases on PC and consoles on 18 June 2024.
- Puppet House. Supernatural horror. Enter the Puppet House, where the secrets of a deceased ventriloquist are hidden and demonic power reigns around. Release date TBA.
Franz Kafka, Letter to Max Brod, July 5, 1922“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity."
A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week
9 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, Frankenstein, revenge, curse, and wilderness horror
See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 17 to 23 Mar 2024
Nathaniel Hawthorne“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week
8 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, ghost, vampire, survival, and Lovecraftian cosmic horror
See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 17 to 23 Mar 2024
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim“If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”
What We Were Thinking About this Week
- Big List of Space Horror Books
- In One Ear and Out the Other by Kristiana Willsey (short story, Weird Horror Magazine)
- Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill (novel)
- Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror (anthology)
- I made a bet that has come back to HAUNT me! (audio short story, Maniac on the Loose YouTube channel)
Terry Southern“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock – shock is a worn-out word – but astonish.”
And Now For Something Completely Different
Horror-Themed Shopping
See the FearSome Fiction shop for horror designs available on a wide variety of T-shirts, tanks, sweatshirts, and hoodies, as well as bags, notebooks, phone cases, pillows, duvets, blankets, bath mats, and more.
Published: 23 March 2024
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