A Grab Bag of Horror News, 15 to 21 Dec 2024

A selection of things that caught our attention in the world of horror this week

Oh, hey … We’ll be taking a break next week since we’ll be trapped in the liminal space that is the void between Christmas and New Year. If we make it out, we’ll be back on 4 January 2025.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Run fast. And we hope your 2025 is filled to overflowing with horror fiction in all its forms and glory.

Bite-Sized Horror News

Horror Book Bits

Reactor Magazine is giving away some short fiction. Download the May/June 2024 bundle and/or the July/August 2024 bundle and/or the 2024 edition of Some of the Best from Reactor.
Dark Horse Comics is working on a new comic series in which vampires have taken over the world and a small group of survivors is holed up in inside Vatican City. Vatican City #1 releases in comic shops on 9 April 2025.

Horror Movie Morsels

Lee Cronin is writing and directing The Mummy for Atomic Monster and Blumhouse.
Gale Weathers will be back for Scream 7.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Invaders from Mars (1953) are in the list of 25 movies selected for the Library of Congress’s 2024 National Film Registry, recognizing them as movies of cultural, historic or aesthetic importance.
The second movie in the revamped 28 Days trilogy will be called 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and will come out on 16 January 2026. Not to be confused with the first movie, 28 Years Later, which arrives on 20 June 2025.
Last week’s trailer for 28 Days Later was the most watched horror trailer in 2024 with 60.2M global views in 24 hours. This puts it in second place of all-time horror trailers, just behind It Chapter Two.
Jack Black and Paul Rudd are touting the new The Anaconda movie, which has an expected release date of 25 December 2025.
An animated Ghostbusters movie is in development. This is in addition to the animated TV series which is also in development.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Nosferatu, The Substance, Alien: Romulus, and Blink Twice all made the 2025 Oscars shortlist. This doesn’t mean they’ve been nominated, just that they might receive a nomination following the voting period which runs from 8 to 12 January 2025.
Violent Night 2 looks to be getting closer.

Horror TV Treats

Sarah Michelle Geller has changed her mind and would now get behind a Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival.
Apple TV+ has renewed Silo for Season 3 and Season 4, noting that Season 4 will be the final chapter.
Anime sci-fi horror Dan Da Dan is getting a Season 2.

Horror Podcast Pieces

The Kingcast podcast will not end this year as previously thought. Eric Vespe will keep the series going with new co-host Anthony Breznican.

Horror Game Goodies

Netflix is interested in a live action TV adaptation of T.A.L.K.E.R.

“The one thing I remember about Christmas was that my father used to take me out in a boat about ten miles offshore on Christmas Day, and I used to have to swim back. Extraordinary. It was a ritual. Mind you, that wasn't the hard part. The difficult bit was getting out of the sack.”
John Cleese

Writing Horror

You can read the screenplays for I Saw the TV Glow and Heretic on Deadline’s Read the Screenplay
Grab a free copy of Gordon B. White’s Profitable, Pleasant, Honest. The ebook has seven craft essays on writing that will make you think.

Upcoming submission calls

Apex Magazine Drabble Contest
Pays: 8 cents per word
Theme: End of Days
Submissions open 1 January and close 25 January 2025

The Joining: Scenes of Wedding Terror (edited by Jacob Steven Mohr)
Pays: 2 cents per word
Looking for: 2,500 to 5,000 words concerning the rite of matrimony
Submissions open on 1 January 2025 and close on 1 March 2025

This World of Vile Wonder: Horror Tales of the Scientific Revolution (Scythian Wolf)
Pays: $75
Looking for: Horror stories set between 1500 and 1700 CE, scientifically accurate, and include speculative elements
Submissions open 1 January and close 28 February 2025

“There has been only one Christmas – the rest are anniversaries.”
W. J. Cameron

Trailer Horror

A taste of things to come.

Horror Movie Trailers

The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession. Supernatural horror. A group of friends sit in a circle of one hundred candles, each taking one and telling a horror story. Strange events begin to occur as the stories unfold and the candles are blown out. Releases Jan 2025

Bystanders. Survival horror. A frat party turns into a nightmare when the women are drugged and hunted for sport. One woman escapes and joins a mysterious couple to turn the tables on the predators. VOD, 21 Jan 2025

Death of a Unicorn. Comedy horror. A father and daughter accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat. Release date TBA

Gazer. Psychological horror. Afflicted with a rare and fatal condition that affects her ability to perceive time and causes sudden blackouts, a single mother relies on self-recorded cassette tapes to help her navigate the world. Desperate to make ends meet while she fights for custody of her young daughter, she accepts a risky but high-paying job, which draws her into a world of paranoid conspiracies. Cinema, 21 Feb 2025

Grafted. Body horror. A bright but socially awkward exchange student takes her craving for popularity to horrifying new heights. Shudder, 24 Jan 2025

The Night Time World. Vampire horror anthology. A late-night podcaster reveals his own tales of horror as he is pulled into the unspeakable world of an ominous caller who claims to be a vampire. VOD, 28 Jan 2025

Horror Game Trailers

Alien: Rogue Incursion. Sci-fi horror. Zula Hendricks receives an SOS from a former colleague and heads to a remote mining colony with her AI sentient combat synthetic. Available now on PS VR2 and PCVR

Dream Cage. Psychological horror. A 50-year-old insomniac struggling with sleep paralysis grapples with his fears over five terrifying nights. Releases Q1 2025

“Full marks to the anaesthetist wearing a badge that says, 'He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake'.”
Adam Kay, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas

A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week

7 horror books this week. Themes: Revenge, bizarro, dystopian, and dark fantasy horror

See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 15 to 21 Dec 2024

“[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want to encourage her. I couldn't touch my father's cigarettes, couldn't look at the Pall Mall cartons in the pantry. I was the sort of child who couldn't even watch commercials for horror movies - the ad for Magic, the movie where marionette kills people. sent me into a six-month nightmare frenzy. So I couldn't look at her books, would turn them over so their covers wouldn't show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood - especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue.”
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week

6 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, mermaid, zombie, and Christmas slasher horror

See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 15 to 21 Dec 2024

“Because words are a magic too, and they can contain everything.”
Matt Haig, The Girl Who Saved Christmas

What We Were Thinking About this Week

Swan Song by Robert McCammon (novel)
Their Wings as Powdery as Bones by Avra Margariti (short story, Apex Magazine)

“It's supposed to be jolly, with mistletoe and holly... and other things ending in olly.”
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

And Now For Something Completely Different

Mr Lovenstein on Instagram

Horror-Themed Shopping

See the FearSome Fiction shop for horror designs available on a wide variety of T-shirts, tanks, sweatshirts, and hoodies, as well as bags, notebooks, phone cases, pillows, duvets, blankets, bath mats, and more.