Bite-sized horror news
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actor Gerrit Graham. Graham’s horror credits include Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Chopping Mall (1986), TerrorVision (1986), Child’s Play 2 (1990), Cove Road (2012), and more. RIP.
Horror book bits
- Graphic novel Trick ‘r Treat: Witching Hours, releasing on 13 Oct 2026, is an anthology of four never-before-published stories.
- Preorders are open for House of Anomalies – Floor 1 by Super Eyepatch Wolf. Each section of the book starts with a door, and turning the pages reveals disturbing creatures illustrated by fantastic horror artists. The book releases end Nov 2026.
- Two new comics set in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser world are coming early next year.
Horror movie morsels
- Mike Flanagan confirmed that he’s writing a new adaption of Stephen King’s The Mist. He also says The Dark Tower is still on the table but that the way he wants to do it “requires an enormous commitment from a studio”.
- The World War Z sequel is a go with Brad Pitt returning for it.
- Happy Death Day 3 is waiting for funding from Universal and Blumhouse.
- Blumhouse’s Spawn movie is waiting for creator Todd McFarlane to get the script “right”.
- The writer of I Am Legend 2 says he has “run up against a series of obstacles…” but reassures us that no dogs will die in it.
- Thirty-five US cities are getting Ghostbusters in Concert from 18 Sep to 31 Oct 2026, where Ghostbusters plays on a large HD cinema screen while a live orchestra on stage performs the score.
- Writer/director Brad Anderson says he has written a prequel to 2001 psychological horror movie Session 9. The movie is called Session 1 but it doesn’t yet appear to have any takers.
- “Welcome to Horrorwood” is a month-long AMC Thrills & Chills series of horror classics coming back to the big screen at AMC Theatres across the US in October.
- In movie ratings news, Clayface is rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity and brief drug use.
- Would you be up for a Friday the 13th horror anthology, including a story where Jay & Silent Bob meet Jason?
Horror TV treats
- Season 7 of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula premieres on Shudder and AMC+ on 27 Oct 2026.
- Have a look at the 8 episode titles for the upcoming Carrie series.
- Widow’s Bay won another 6 Emmys at the telecast, including Best Comedy Series, bringing its 2026 Emmy total to 14.
Horror podcast pieces
- On 21 Sep 2026, BBC is launching The Haunted Library, a new podcast series of narrated classic horror stories. Two episodes will release each week, the first one being The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Horror game goodies
- Diablo is getting a Netflix animated TV series adaptation and Diablo V might be in development.
- ’99 Nights in the Forest is getting a live action movie adaptation to be directed by Sam Raimi.
- Lollipop Chainsaw 2 Back2Back will release for PS5 in 2027.
- Halloween: The Game developers say their efforts to continue improving the game aren’t slowing down and they “have exciting plans to celebrate Michael’s big month with all of you”.
Horror music moments
- The Aliens soundtrack will be available on a 40th anniversary vinyl from 13 Nov 2026.
Horror festival fare
- Submissions are open until 1 Oct 2026 for Ripcord’s Halloween Film Festival. The festival will screen 50 short films from 19 Oct and has a $200,000 prize pool.
- The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, 15 to 22 Oct 2026, unveiled this year’s lineup, with vampire comedy I Love Paris opening the festival.
“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”
― Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
Writing horror
Are Writers’ Organizations Obsolete? by Tim Waggoner
Some places accepting submissions
The Phantom Pulse
Pays: 5 cents per word for original fiction, 1 cent per word for reprints
Looking for: Traditional horror, sci-fi horror, dark fantasy, and the weird
Submissions close: 30 Sep 2026
Apex Magazine
Pays: 8 cents per word, minimum $50, plus extra 1 cent per word if podcasted
Looking for: Science fiction, fantasy, horror
Submissions close 30 Sep 2026
The Submission Pit
Pays: Monthly winner receives $100 + 50% of paid subscribers
Looking for: Speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror)
Submissions close: end of each month
The 300 Project: Issue #3: Rebirth from the Hearth – Hollowpoint Press
1st place: $50 + print copy. 2nd place: $25 + print copy. 3rd place: print copy. Selected Honorable Mentions: anthology publication
Looking for: Brutal holiday horror flash fiction up to 2500 words that combine holiday elements with a dark or grotesque interpretation of rebirth and the hearth
Submissions close: 24 Oct 2026
Upcoming submission calls
Novels and novellas – Quill & Crow
Pays: Royalties
Looking for: Horror, Dark Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, YA Horror
Submissions open 1 Oct 2026
“The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.”
― Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Trailer horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV trailers
Coven Academy. Witch. Teenage witches and warlocks face deadly secrets, dangerous power and forbidden love while ancient forces threaten their city. Freeform, Disney+, Hulu, 2 Oct 2026
Crystal Lake. Friday the 13th prequel. When two strangers arrive at Pam Voorhees’s door digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events is set into motion. Peacock, 15 Oct 2026
Haunted Hotel, Season 2 trailer. Animated ghost. New ghosts. New employees. New undefined evils that we haven’t even discovered yet. Netflix, 9 Oct 2026
Helluva Boss, Season 3. Animated supernatural. Love is Hell, but it’s worth it. Prime Video, 14 Oct 2026
I Would Rather Die. Zombie. After being bitten by a zombie, a high school loser, his goth-girl best friend and his platonic crush try to stop an evil plot that could unleash the apocalypse to the unremarkable provincial Mexican town where they live. Prime Video, 2 Oct 2026
My Sad Dead. Argentinian supernatural. Emma can see the dead. When her niece arrives, thousands of lives are shaken. Netflix, 24 Sep 2026
Yaga, sneak peek. Supernatural. Welcome to Whittock, Charlie Rapp. AMC+, 23 Oct 2026
Horror movie trailers
Black Sheeps. Creature. A dangerous pathogen leads a young scientist back to a rural New Zealand town where terrifying creatures lie in wait. Release date TBA
Christmas at the Kringles. Comedy. The Seversons’ next-door neighbors, the Kringles, celebrate Christmas year-round, but what begins as charming quickly turns unsettling. Cinema, 30 Oct 2026
Creature Fear. Psychological. A poverty-stricken felon contracts Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and his violent unraveling threatens a Chicago musician and a singer. VOD, 23 Oct 2026
Death of a Yellow Bird. Psychological. A terminally ill man returns to his childhood home, discovers a video tape of home movies and, as he watches, something disturbing begins bleeding through the static. Release date TBA
Ghost Light. Psychological. An actress is mired in a lawsuit over the rights to her playhouse, but strange occurrences begin to take place. VOD, 29 Sep 2026
Halloween Candy 2. Halloween. A year after surviving a Halloween massacre, Candee faces a new nightmare when a masked killer traps her and her friends inside a house where every secret is deadly. VOD, 16 Oct 2026
Head Like a Hole. Psychological. A man answers a help-wanted ad promising high pay with no experience required. The job involves living in a suburban bungalow and recording hourly measurements of a small hole in the basement wall. VOD, 20 Oct 2026
The Influencer Project. Found footage. An influencer travels to Copenhagen with a documentary crew promising an unfiltered look behind the glamorous business of online fame. But as the cameras and her devoted fans follow her every move, someone else is watching too. Limited, 2 Oct 2026
I Have Proof. Psychological. Alex has proof. He needs you to see it. Release date TBA
The Lost Ones. Psychological. In the countryside, a family’s fresh start begins to fracture as their daughter’s visions become harder to explain. VOD, 27 Oct 2026
Mag Mag. Japanese supernatural. Sanae is hellbent on vengeance after her beloved falls prey to the ghostly Mag Mag, but revenge is never simple. US release date TBA
The Nice Ones. Psychological. At a remote countryside retreat, strange lights begin appearing in the sky and the group’s dynamic starts to shift. One by one, they become eerily calm, agreeable and almost unnaturally kind. VOD, 29 Sep 2026
Other Mommy, trailer 2. Supernatural. All you have to do is say yes. Cinema, 9 Oct 2026
She Did It. Psychological. Following a suicide attempt, a woman awakens to her boyfriend insisting her corpse is lying in their bathtub. VOD, 2 Oct 2026
Stream of Terror. Slasher. A masked killer begins livestreaming gruesome murders across a college campus, and a social media star finds herself at the center of the horror. 16 Oct 2026
UVF: Underground Horror Films. Found footage anthology. Presented as a forbidden television broadcast, this anthology resurrects a collection of unsettling short films from around the world. Found TV, 9 Oct 2026
Wildwood, final trailer. Animated fantasy. After her baby brother is abducted, headstrong teenager Prue McKeel launches a rescue mission into an enchanted forest. Cinema, 23 Oct 2026
Horror game trailers
Glow Tail. Survival. Either seek out pesky mice with glowing tails or embody the Hunter tasked with seeking them out. Release date TBA
The Suspense. Psychological. Traverse an alternative future to brave the hardships of an unforgiving world. Overcome challenges, endure the torture, and survive. Release date TBA
Time to Wake Up. Psychological. Descend into Alan Malone’s mind. Wander through hallways made up of dozens of bedrooms with cobwebs of quotes and never-ending classrooms. Releases 12 Oct 2026
“The supernatural world has always been more real to me than the real world.”
― Anne Rice
A selection of horror books released this week
20 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, historical, killer, creature, cosmic, Halloween, grief, and urban legend horror
See: A selection of horror books released, 13 to 19 Sep 2026
“We ask only to be reassured / About the noises in the cellar / And the window that should not have been open”
― T.S. Eliot, The Family Reunion
A selection of horror movies released this week
12 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, serial killer, animal, fantasy, found footage, slasher, and zombie horror
See: A selection of horror movies released, 13 to 19 Sep 2026
“People had the mistaken idea that Poe wrote fantastic stories about the supernatural, when in fact he wrote realistic stories about abnormal psychology.”
― Stephen King, The Outsider
A selection of horror TV shows released this week
6 horror TV shows this week. Themes: Supernatural, comedy, serial killer, vampire, and killer horror
See: A selection of horror TV shows released, 13 to 19 Sep 2026
“No, the menace of the supernatural is that it attacks where modern minds are weakest, where we have abandoned our protective armor of superstition and have no substitute defense.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
What we were thinking about this week
What we’ve been reading this week
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones (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: Amusement park horror
Joyland by Stephen King
“A ride on the Spin means you’re in.”
FantasticLand by Mike Bockhoven
“In the simplest terms I can use, this is what happened.”
Shock Waves by Matt Kurtz
“As the storm crept closer, it was business as usual at The Lone Star Land Amusement Park.”
Ghostland by Duncan Ralston
“People are dying to get in… The ghosts will kill to get out.”
The Terror at Turtleshell Mountain by Sean McDonough
“Your happiness is waiting right here for you to come and collect it.”
Inferno Park by J.L. Bryan
“The day of the horror was beautiful…”
Dark Ride by Iain Rob Wright
“Woden’s Frenzy: Escape the fury of the elder god.”
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature
Horror fun
Jacob “Cob” Luther (townytowncomics) on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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