Bite-sized horror news
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actor/producer Jim Krut. Krut was the Helicopter Zombie in classic zombie movie Dawn of the Dead (1978). Other horror credits include Deadlands 2: Trapped (2008), Z-ero (2023), Full Moon Fever (2023), Blood and Breakfast (2024), The Only Ones (2024), Coffintooth (2024), and The Slasher Nurse (2025). RIP.
Horror book bits
- Congratulations to all nominees for the 2nd Annual Sacred Crypt Awards. Step on over and vote for your faves before 3 Sep 2026.
- Stephen King’s Desperation is getting a Sam Raimi movie adaptation.
- Jeff VanderMeer’s 5th and final Southern Reach novel, Abdication, is looking at an Oct 2027 release date.
- The Complete Tales from the Crypt Archive, releasing on 10 Nov 2026, will be 1,032 pages of graphic novel hardcover and will include every Tales from the Crypt story from 7 decades.
Horror movie morsels
- Godzilla Minus Zero will premiere at New York Film Festival on 26 Sep 2026.
- The Jurassic World Rebirth sequel is looking for a new director as Gareth Edwards will not return due to ‘creative differences’.
- Blumhouse might be considering a reboot of Puppet Master as a movie and a series.
- Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives is definitely happening.
- Head of the Family 2: Sirens of Seduction is definitely happening.
- A new Leprechaun movie is in the works.
- A new 4K restoration of the original director’s cut of 1971 witch horror The Devils will be released into cinemas on 16 Oct 2026.
- The next chapter in the V/H/S anthology series is V/H/S/Mixtape releasing on Shudder on 9 Oct 2026 with a theme of music, rhythm, and audio to haunt, possess, and destroy.
- 1996’s The Frighteners is coming out in a 4K 3-disc set on 26 Oct 2026.
- 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell says the rumor about the cancellation of the Alien: Romulus sequel is wrong.
- Both Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros might be doing new Nightmare on Elm Street movies.
Horror TV treats
- Season 4 of Netflix’s killer anthology series Monster is about Lizzy Borden and premieres on 17 Sep 2026.
- The final 3 episodes of Widow’s Bay, Season 1, will screen for free at selected AMC Theatres on 12 Aug 2026.
- Ryan Murphy says he’s already working on Season 14 of American Horror Story.
- Season 2 of It: Welcome to Derry takes place in 1935, is about the Bradley Gang Massacre, and it won’t skip “the social, cultural, horrible things that were happening in that era”.
- It looks like David Fincher’s English-language Squid Games spin-off series won’t be going ahead.
Horror festival fare
- A new Jason: Blood Reign haunted maze will be part of three Six Flags parks (Ohio, New Jersey, North/South Carolina) this Halloween.
“Listen, and you will realize that we are made not from cells or from atoms. We are made from stories.”
― Mia Couto
Writing horror
Some places accepting submissions
Manuscrypt magazine – Cult Publishing
Pays: USD $50
Theme: Aliens & Cryptids
Submissions close: 14 Aug 2026
Books of Rot and Bloom: Book One: Spellbound – Worldsmyths
Pays: CAD $50
Looking for: Choose one piece from Inna Vjuzhanina’s The Coven collection on the call for submission page. The witch from the painting must be essential to the story.
Submissions close: 1 Dec 2026
Upcoming submission calls
Food Systems anthology – Cursed Morsels
Pays: USD 5 cents per word + 1 digital copy + 1 print copy
Looking for: Gripping prose, unplaceable feelings of strangeness, moral messiness, fiction written for adults, nuance, ambiguity.
Submissions open 1 Sep and close 14 Sep 2026
Three-Lobed Burning Eye
Pays: USD 8 cents per word + 1 print copy
Looking for: Original, unpublished speculative fiction, including horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction.
Submissions open 1 Sep and close 15 Sep 2026
Superheroes, Super Problems – Wordfire Press
Pays: 8 cents per word
Looking for: Original fiction and poetry in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense, humor, and romance, appropriate for up to a “PG-13” audience. Superheroes or super powers must be central to the story.
Submissions open 1 Sep and close 15 Oct 2026
“Whatever story you’re telling, it will be more interesting if, at the end you add, ‘and then everything burst into flames’.”
― Brian P. Cleary, You Oughta Know By Now
Trailer horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror movie trailers
Appofeniacs. Technology. The use of AI technology reaches its most violent and bloody conclusion after a series of deepfake videos are unleashed into the world. Limited release, 2 Oct 2026
Confinement. Psychological. Pregnant and recently widowed, Stella is taken in by her late husband’s estranged family, but beneath their generosity lies something deeply unsettling. VOD, 1 Sep 2026
Hate Thyself. Serial killer. Two detectives are assigned to track down a sadistic murderer preying on young men. VOD, 1 Sep 2026
Insidious: Out of the Further, final trailer. Supernatural. A young mother discovers she can travel into The Further and can bring what lives there back to the real world. Cinema, 21 Aug 2026
A Man in the Woods with an Axe. Slasher comedy. A group of young people venture into the woods on a wilderness cleanup mission, only to fall victim to a mysterious man with an axe. Release date TBA
Parasomnia. Psychological. A young woman tormented by night terrors and a past of unresolved tragedy begins to suspect the demonic figure lurking in her sleep has crossed over into the real world. Shudder, 4 Sep 2026
Spider Island. Animal. Influencers head to a secluded tropical island to party at a luxurious new hotel but are soon fighting for their lives. Limited, 28 Aug 2026
Violent Night 2. Slasher comedy. Not-so-jolly Saint Nick suits up again to take on a ruthless gangster terrorizing the merchants of the Silver Bell Mall. Cinema, 4 Dec 2026
The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn. Monster. Director’s cut: Years after walking away from the FBI, Mulder and Scully are pulled back from the shadows when a federal agent vanishes. Disney+, Hulu, 14 Aug 2026
Horror game trailers
House of Tides. Psychological. Explore a sunken theater with an ever-shifting labyrinth to brave damaged memories, uneasy projections, and lost identities. Release date TBA
HR: Human Remains. Supernatural. As an ordinary office clerk, complete tasks, solve puzzles, and explore a society under demonic regime. Releases 22 Sep 2026
Pine Creek. Survival. On a weekend trip, your wife is abducted by lights from the heavens. Solve puzzles, search for resources, and survive the night. Release date TBA
Spinning Scarecrow. Scarecrow. Take control of a scarecrow cursed to spin endlessly, navigating increasingly dangerous environments where every movement matters and every mistake has consequences. Release date TBA
Welcome to Elderfield. Cozy horror. The abnormal is normal, the townsfolk are odd, the eldritch beings watch over you, and the local news reports seem stranger by the day. Releases 10 Sep 2026
“Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.”
― Plato, The Republic
A selection of horror books released this week
11 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, monster, dark fantasy, creature, gothic, slasher, and extreme horror
See: A selection of horror books released, 1 to 8 Aug 2026
“There are as many stories to be told as there are people to tell them about; only the mean-spirited would consider there to be a competition at all.”
― Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot
A selection of horror movies released this week
16 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, ghosts, technology, found footage, comedy, sci-fi, killer, survival, splatter, creature horror
See: A selection of horror movies released, 1 to 8 Aug 2026
“The world is shaped by two things — stories told and the memories they leave behind.”
― Vera Nazarian, Dreams of the Compass Rose
A selection of horror TV shows released this week
1 horror TV show this week. Theme: Serial killer horror
See: A selection of horror TV shows released, 1 to 8 Aug 2026
“An awful lot of storytelling isn’t really about making people understand — it’s about making people care.”
― Steven Moffat
What we were thinking about this week
What we’ve been reading this week
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (novel)
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (novel)
Night and Day by John Connelly (collection)
What we’ve been recommending this week
Did you know I recommend one horror book every day of the year on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook, and Twitter?
This week’s horror book recommendations
Theme: No theme, just good books
Withered Hill by David Barnett – Folk horror
“Everyone leaves eventually.”
Monumental by Adam Nevill – Supernatural horror
“And the trees resumed their silence.”
The Burial Tide by Neil Sharpson – Psychological horror
“She had the only thing she needed to be happy. Air.”
The Butcher’s Daughter by David Demchuk & Corinne Leigh Clark – Historical horror
“The hitherto untold story of Mrs. Lovett”
The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan – Historical horror
“Her ghost sat opposite me on a crude tombstone, watching me work.”
Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley – Folk horror
“It is likely that Barrowbeck’s original settlers were drawn there by the river and the seclusion of the valley.”
The Restless Ones by Abe Moss – Supernatural horror
“There’s no rest for the wicked… or the dead they’ve left behind.”
“Things worth telling – take time”
― Nicholas Denmon
Horror fun
Sarah Andersen comics on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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