A Grab Bag of Horror News, 21 to 27 Apr 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
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of horror author Ray Garton. Garton wrote over 60 horror and suspense books, including novels, novellas, short stories, movie novelizations and TV tie-ins. He also wrote young adult books under the pen name Joseph Locke. Another all-round good guy gone too soon. RIP.
Horror Book Bits
- Suzanne Young’s YA horror novel In Nightfall has been optioned for a TV adaptation.
- John Logan is adapting Cormac McCarthy’s 1985 novel Blood Meridian into a movie.
- Congratulations to Tananarive Due whose novel The Reformatory won the Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction category of the 2024 LA Times Annual Book Prize.
Horror Movie Morsels
- Paramount has renewed its ‘first-look’ deal for a new Sleepy Hollow movie, originally announced two years ago.
- A fan has started a petition to get a Terrifier 3 Exclusive Popcorn Bucket available in cinemas.
- The original three Blair Witch Project actors have asked Lionsgate for retroactive residuals and ‘meaningful consultation’ on future Blair Witch projects. Lionsgate and Blumhouse are reviving the franchise with a ‘new vision’.
- Apartment 7A, a Rosemary’s Baby prequel, will stream exclusively on Paramount+ to kick off the Halloween season this fall.
- Francis Galluppi is writing and will also direct a new Evil Dead movie. That makes two new Evil Dead movies in the works. The other one is being co-written and directed by Sébastien Vaniček.
Horror TV Treats
- Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken have been hired to adapt webtoon I’m the Grim Reaper. Sam Raimi, Zainab Azizi, and the creator, Grave Weaver, will executive produce the series. The story is about a woman who wakes up in the ninth circle of Hell and agrees to be a reaper so she can return to Earth.
- The Spiderwick Chronicles, which premiered last week, became most-watched title ever to debut on The Roku Channel.
Horror Game Goodies
- New tabletop horror game Get the Hell Out of the House will be on Kickstarter soon.
Clay McLeod Chapman, @claymcleod on X“there's a story you're dying to tell and that story doesn't exist in the world just yet – but then you carve out a place for it, on the shelves, on the internet, in the imagination of your reader, and that's a space that never existed before the world made room for it however small”
Writing Horror
Some places accepting submissions.
- Skull and Laurel
Pays: 3 cents a word or $25 for reprints
Looking for: Weird Horror, Dark Fantasy, Dark Science Fiction. Short Fiction, Narrative Poetry. We also encourage trying us with things like comic strips, mixed media, found footage, puzzles, games, experiments, and other weird forms, as long as they tell a story.
Submissions close: 31 May 2024 - Little Guts: A Gory Anthology (Little Ghosts Books)
Pays: 12 cents a word
Looking for: Pitches that evoke fun and disgust
Submissions close: 31 May 2024 - The Stygian Zine
Pays: $20 CAD + PDF copy
Theme: The Witching Hour
Submissions close: 31 May 2024 (for the July edition) - Leviathan: An Anthology of Industrial Horror (Sentinel Creatives)
Pays: $125 – $200
Looking for: Original weird tales set in the Victorian period that explore the human (and inhuman) experience through the lens of horror
Submissions close: 30 September 2024
Kurt Fawver, Introduction to the Horror Story, Day 1“If you’re afraid of dying, “You died,” is really the ultimate horror story. It’s what every horror story you’ve ever read boils down to.”
Trailer Horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror Movie Trailers
- New Life (new trailer). Psychological horror. The stories of a mysterious woman on the run, and the resourceful fixer assigned to bring her in inextricably link, as the stakes of the pursuit rise to apocalyptic proportions. Releases on VOD on 3 May 2024.
- Mind Body Spirit. Supernatural horror. An aspiring yoga influencer embarks on a ritual practice left behind by her estranged grandmother. As she becomes obsessed with the mysterious power of the practice, she unwittingly unleashes an otherworldly entity that begins to take control of her life, and her videos. Releases on VOD on 7 May 2024.
- Faceless After Dark. Survival horror. Following her breakout success as the star of a killer clown horror flick, Bowie struggles to capitalize on its success. When she is held hostage by an unhinged fan posing as that same killer clown, she fights to escape before he completes his sinister plan to recreate the film’s fatal plot. Releases on VOD on 17 May 2024.
- The Exorcism. Supernatural horror. A troubled actor begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play. Releases in cinemas on 7 June 2024.
- Trim Season. Supernatural horror. A group of young people from Los Angeles drive up the coast to make quick cash trimming marijuana on a secluded farm in Northern California. Cut off from the rest of the world, they soon realize that the seemingly amiable owner of the estate harbors darker secrets than any of them could imagine. Releases on VOD on 7 June 2024.
- The Watchers (new trailer). Supernatural horror. An artist gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When she finds shelter, she becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures every night. Releases in cinemas on 7 June 2024.
- Blink Twice. Psychological horror. A tech billionaire invites cocktail waitress to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise and everyone’s having a great time. But as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. Expected to release in cinemas on 23 August 2024.
- The Little Mermaid. Mermaid horror. An archaeologist falls in love with a beautiful woman, but his friend discovers her true identity and the hidden evil inside the dig site. Release date TBA.
Horror Game Trailers
- Dead Island 2. Zombie horror. A deadly virus has transformed the city’s inhabitants into flesh-craving monsters. You’re immune to the infection. Embark on a quest to uncover the truth behind the outbreak, while defining your identity in this post-apocalyptic realm. Available now on Steam.
- Gori: Cuddly Carnage. Toy cat horror. The cat is out of the bag! Master explosive weaponry and devastating combos in an epic battle to prevent the Adorable Army from conquering the galaxy, and rescue Professor Y, their missing creator, the only human who showed Gori and his friends love. Releases on PlayStation on 29 August 2024.
George R.R. Martin, Dreamsongs, Volume 1“Bad horror stories concern themselves with six ways to kill a vampire, and graphic accounts of how the rats ate Billy's genitalia. Good horror stories are about larger things…Good horror stories make us look at our reflections in dark distorting mirrors, where we glimpse things that disturb us, things that we did not really want to look at.”
A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week
10 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, historical, vampire, post-apocalypse, and travel horror
See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 21 to 27 Apr 2024
George R.R. Martin, Dreamsongs, Volume 1“The best horror stories are stories first and horror second, and however much they scare us, they do more than that as well…The best horror stories tell us truths.”
A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week
8 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, killer, dystopian, revenge, and spider horror
See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 21 to 27 Apr 2024
John R. Lindensmith“No one will ever write a horror novel as scary as reading about my symptoms on WebMD.”
A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released this Week
3 horror TV shows this week. Themes: Supernatural, ghosts, animated horror
See: A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released, 21 to 27 Apr 2024
Jordan Peele“Part of what horror is, is taking risks and going somewhere that people think you’re not supposed to be able to go, in the name of expressing real-life fears.”
What We Were Thinking About this Week
- Big List of Western Horror Books
- Introduction to the Horror Story, Day 1 by Kurt Fawver (short story, Nightmare magazine)
- Pink Smoke by Jessica Peter (short story, Cosmic Horror Monthly)
- Kill Creek by Scott Thomas (novel)
Jonathan Dunne, Drive“In the dark, he was somebody. In the light, he was nobody.”
And Now For Something Completely Different
Horror-Themed Shopping
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Published: 27 April 2024
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