A Grab Bag of Horror News, 5 to 11 May 2024

Horror Book Bits

• Congratulations to all the finalists in the 2024 Locus Awards. Winners will be announced on 22 June 2024 at the Locus Awards Ceremony in Oakland, California. The top ten horror finalists are:
  • Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Cañas
  • The Reformatory, Tananarive Due
  • A Haunting on the Hill, Elizabeth Hand
  • Starling House, Alix E. Harrow
  • How to Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix
  • Don’t Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones
  • A House with Good Bones, T. Kingfisher
  • Lone Women, Victor LaValle
  • Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • Black River Orchard, Chuck Wendig
• HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray’s new middle grade horror series. Tales from Cabin 23 launches on 14 May 2024 with The Boo Hag Flex by Justina Ireland, followed by Night of the Living Head by Hanna Alkaf on 27 August. Each book in the series will include a throughline of a camp setting and will be written by a different BIPOC writer.
• Dark Horse Comics is releasing a new horror mystery series in September 2024. Summer Shadows tells the story of an LGBTQIA+ romance that turns deadly. The first issue is available now for pre-order.
• Don’t miss Amazon’s 6-day Book Sale for US readers happening between 15 and 20 May 2024. There will be deals on thousands of books, including up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off on Kindle books. There are also some early deals available now if you can’t wait.

Horror Movie Morsels

• Ukranian production company UA has announced they are developing a bunch of horror movies which will be set in a new cinematic universe. The movies will be loaded with local folklore, rituals, and mysticism and set against the backdrop of current events.
• Showrunner Bryan Fuller has been fired from Peacock’s Friday the 13th prequel series for “creative differences”.
• Dangerous Animals, a horror movie about a shark-obsessed serial killer, has begun production in Australia.
• Legendary has bought the rights to a live-action movie of the Poppy Playtime video game.
• Horror movie The Breed is getting a remake. The 2006 movie was produced by Wes Craven and directed by Nicholas Mastandrea. The remake will be “an unconventional reimagining” of the original movie.
• How about a story of Jesus’s childhood told with a horror spin? The Carpenter’s Son will star Nicolas Cage as the Carpenter, the boy’s guardian.
• Bloody Disgusting reports that three masked slashers from The Strangers: Chapter 1 have been caught on home security cameras and in weird places across the US. The movie releases in cinemas on 17 May 2024.
• The 6th Godzilla/Kong Monsterverse movie will be written by Dave Callaham.
• Live-action monster movie Grendel will star Jeff Bridges as Grendel, Dave Bautista as Beowulf, and Bryan Cranston as King Hrothgar.
• Pinocchio: Carved from Darkness is looking for a buyer at the Cannes Film Festival.

Horror TV Treats

• The Last of Us and Dead Ringers both received Peabody Awards in the Entertainment category.
• Three regulars from Wednesday, Season 1, are not making the trip to Season 2. Sheriff Donovan Galpin (Jamie McShane) will appear, but only briefly, as a guest star, while Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White) and Yoko Tanaka (Naomi J Ogawa) will not be returning.

Horror Festival Fare

• The 28th Fantasia International Film Festival is happening from 18 July to 4 August 2024 in Montreal. They’ve just announced the first wave of movies, which includes Witchboard, Shelby Oaks, Confession, Infinite Summer, This Man, Rita, Mash Ville, Dark Match, Electrophilia, Hell Hole, and Dead Dead Full Dead. The full line-up will be announced on 3 July 2024.

Horror Podcast Pieces

• Season 2 of small town horror podcast Mayfair Watchers Society premieres on the Cineverse Podcast Network on 30 May 2024. Two new shows are also on the way: Nightmare Soup, premiering in June, and Shelterwood, premiering in August.
• Dead Space: Deep Cover is the latest podcast story set in the Dead Space universe and is about a journalist who joins the Unitologist church looking for her sister.

Horror Game Goodies

• A free demo of Horror Tales: The Beggar Events is now available. Control space-time to fight an evil monster in this terror and science fiction journey set in a shattered but beautiful world. The demo features parts of the first 3 areas of the game. The full game releases on 17 June 2024 with a 40% discount.
• Microsoft has closed down the Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games developers. This means The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo franchises are up in the air despite rumors of sequels.