Bite-sized horror news
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of screenwriter Victor Miller. Miller wrote the original Friday the 13th script. In 2018, a court granted Miller the copyright to the original story, and he also won again on appeal in 2021. RIP.
Horror book bits
- The 1st annual Fright Writers Festival will take place on Sat, 17 Oct 2026, in Pennsylvania.
Horror movie morsels
- The viral supernatural horror short Ignore It is getting a movie adaptation.
- Japanese 2001 techno-horror movie Pulse is getting a reimagining.
- French 2023 psychological horror movie Vincent Must Die is getting a remake.
- Paramount+ released the list of movies in its Peak Screaming horror collection running from 1 Sep to 29 Oct 2026.
- Freeform released the list of movies in its 31 Nights of Halloween programming, running from 1 to 31 Oct 2026.
Horror TV treats
- A gothic vampire horror live-action Netflix TV series based on Ravenloft from Dungeons and Dragons is in development.
- FX released the titles of the 13 episodes of American Horror Story, Season 13 and the plot synopses for the first 6 episodes.
- Alien: Earth, Season 2, is in production.
- Tubi’s new short form horror anthology series Bite Size Terror will have 10 episodes and will stream in Fall.
- Disney has scrapped its plans for a live-action Gargoyles series.
- Neil Druckmann says that “even though [Season 3] might be the end of this adaptation, we’re not done with The Last of Us”.
- Shudder is hosting a free advance screening of The Creep Tapes, Season 3, in LA on 8 Sep 2026. Tickets are first-come, first-served, and non-transferable.
Horror game goodies
- Halloween: The Game will not release on PlayStation 5 in Japan because the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization won’t give it a rating because of the “visceral violence and nudity”. It will still be available on Xbox and PC.
Horror festival fare
- M. Night Shyamalan will attend 4 blocks of programming (12 movies) in-person at BeyondFest, 23 Sep to 10 Oct 2026, to share his “insights into his deeply personal filmmaking, exploring the ideas, influences, and creative decisions behind many of modern genre cinema’s most unforgettable worlds”.
“I’m of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.”
― Barbara Kingsolver
Writing horror
Anthropic Copyright Settlement: Publishers Are Making Incorrect Claims on Authors’ Payouts by Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware
Some places accepting submissions
Are You Everything Alright anthology – Air and Nothingness Press
Pays: 8 cents per word
Looking for: Stories about apocalypse issues, but where people on the side of decency come out on top and those opposed have a very bad day
Submissions close: 30 Sep 2026
Synthesized Sunsets
Pays: $100
Looking for: Speculative fiction up to 12,500 words with the theme of “excess”
Upcoming submission calls
Plott Hound MagazinePays: USD 8 cents per word short fiction, $50 poems, $100 nonfiction essay
Looking for: Stories with anthropomorphized animals as viewpoint characters and protagonists (fantasy, science fiction, horror)
Submissions open 1 Oct and close 15 Oct 2026
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Trailer horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV trailers
Silo, Season 4, teaser. Dystopian. The future is waiting. Apple TV+, 9 Jul 2027
Horror movie trailers
The Delivery Girl. Psychological. An insurance adjuster’s mundane life spirals into a nightmare when a food delivery worker develops a deadly obsession with him. Tubi, 11 Sep 2026
Nickels. Psychological. Years after Tom’s brother died in a motorcycle accident, a neighbor’s son is in a bike crash and Tom thinks his brother’s spirit has returned. VOD, 2 Oct 2026
Portal to Hell. Supernatural. When a portal to hell opens inside a neighborhood laundromat, a debt collector takes a deal to save his elderly neighbor by delivering three souls in exchange for the man’s release. VOD, 8 Sep 2026
Resident Evil, final trailer. Zombie. A medical courier finds himself in a non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos. Cinema, 18 Sep 2026
The Restoration at Grayson Manor. Psychological. When an accident leaves Boyd handless, his mother rebuilds him with prosthetics wired to his subconscious, hands that act on his most violent urges. Release date TBA
Smokee. Comedy. At a remote marriage-counseling retreat, rituals and old grudges accidentally summon a knife-wielding demon bear. Release date TBA
The Three Little Pigs. Slasher. A blood pact unleashes killer pigs upon a farmhouse, leading to a dark confrontation when the “three piggies” return home. Limited, 25 Sep, then VOD, 23 Oct 2026
Wuthering Heights: The House of the Damned. Supernatural. At the remote and storm battered Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s vengeful ghost walks its halls and Heathcliff feeds her blood lust with human sacrifice. Release date TBA
Horror game trailers
Beautiful Light. Survival. Traverse eerie locations as a member of Quick Reaction Force, deployed to dispatch strange anomalies while taking on other teams. Release date TBA
Hey, Don’t Look at Me. Psychological. Move into your deceased grandmother’s apartment, observe supernatural entities, make use of objects, and seek the truth behind a nosy neighbor. Release date TBA
Hunter’s Moon. Historical. Over the course of one night, eavesdrop and escape a rural village in an immersive 17th century early modern England. Releases 26 Oct 2026
Maneater 2. Shark. Hunt, eat, and grow as you swim through a seaside theme park. Releases 2027
Until Dawn 2. Supernatural. Follow a signal in search of a missing friend or risk a detour that could uncover vital clues. Make the sacrifice you’re told to make or choose another way. Every decision can change the story. Releases 28 Jan 2027
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
A selection of horror books released this week
24 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, zombie, gothic, ghost, dark fantasy, vampire, and cosmic horror
See: A selection of horror books released, 30 Aug to 5 Sep 2026
“If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”
― Maya Angelou
A selection of horror movies released this week
15 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, slasher, serial killer, creature, monster, survival, zombie, and found footage horror
See: A selection of horror movies released, 30 Aug to 5 Sep 2026
“It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
What we were thinking about this week
What we’ve been reading this week
Lone Women by Victor LaValle (novel)
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (novel)
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: Small town horror
The Town the World Forgot by Boris Bacic
“The winds grew quiet. It was coming.”
Devil’s Bluff by Mark Towse
“…Tommy knew as well as anyone the town could snatch hope away in a blink…”
The Denizens by Brennan LaFaro
“Somewhere in Maylene’s Hollow there was power…”
The Narrows by Ronald Malfi
“But whatever it had been faded back into the darkness.”
The Influence by Bentley Little
“There were no signs indicating that any town lay ahead…”
Crossroads, Inc by Andrew Adams
“Crossroads, Inc … the life insurance company that pays customers before they die.”
American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
“Some places are too good to be true.”
“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.”
― Franz Kafka
Horror fun
J.L. Westover (mrlovenstein) on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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