Bite-Sized Horror News
Horror Book Bits
- Spend an evening with Chuck Wendig and Eric LaRocca to celebrate the launch of LaRocca’s book, Wretch, or the Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw, in Philadelphia, PA, on Thu, 26 Mar 2026. Tickets are available now.
- Celebrate the release of 2 anthologies at ECO24: A Speculative Fiction Salon, 28 Feb, in person in Rochester, NY, or via live stream, including a discussion with authors David DeGraff, Jennifer Hudak, Cassandra Scherr, and Kristina Ten.
- Congratulations to author Stephen Graham Jones for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter making the finalist list for the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2 categories: Fiction and Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction.
Horror Movie Morsels
- Can you hide from Ghostface in 60 seconds and stay hidden until the police arrive? Give Hide & Scream a go.
- Jennifer Tilly, who played Tiffany Valentine in a bunch of Chucky movies and the TV series, says she knows “for a fact there is more Chucky and Tiffany in the works”.
- The runtime for Project Hail Mary is 156 minutes.
- David Leslie Johnston-McGoldrick (known for The Conjuring) and Alexandre Aja (known for The Hills Have Eyes, Crawl) are jointly writing the script for the Dead By Daylight movie adaptation. Aja will not be directing the movie.
- The sequel to Stream will be called Stream 2: Sudden Death.
- The first trailer for Scary Movie 6 will show in cinemas alongside Scream 7.
- Giant snake horror movie Titan, due for release later this year, is now called Boiúna: Legend of the Amazon.
- Viral religious horror short It Visits Me is becoming a full-length movie.
- Rumor says that “Sony is in no rush” to make the 3rd chapter of 28 Years Later.
- It Needs Eyes – a movie about a troubled teen fixating on a missing woman’s videos on the Internet – is being taken “directly to audiences” on a theatrical tour of cinemas across the US.
- Zach Cregger’s upcoming Resident Evil movie is “a complete new set up” of the franchise and is “far away from everything that is connected to Resident Evil”.
- There’s an animated Venom movie in the works.
Horror TV Treats
- It looks like Mike Flanagan’s Carrie TV series will premiere on Amazon Prime in October 2026.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 includes a not-so-titan creature called a scarab that crawls through small spaces.
- As well as the Dead By Daylight movie, there may also be an animated Dead By Daylight series.
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre TV series may be a Leatherface prequel/origin story work.
- The untitled Monarch: Legacy of Monsters spin-off series focusing on young Lee Shaw is a “punk rock cold war spy thriller” and actor Wyatt Russell says, “I think people are going to expect one thing and be like, ‘Holy shit, this is not what I expected.’”
Horror Music Moments
- What are your thoughts on Part 1 and Part 2 of Ice Nine Kills’ Twisting the Knife song and official music video from Scream 7?
- How about the Scream 7 Sueco song and music video Rearranging Scars?
Horror Festival Fare
- Steven Spielberg is the keynote speaker for this year’s SXSW.
“Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.”
― William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Writing Horror
Crystal Lake Academy’s Author’s Journey Workshop is back for its 6th year. Develop, structure, and complete your novel or novella over three months with personal coaching, expert insight, guest speakers, and final evaluation and feedback.
Some places accepting submissions
Third Flatiron Anthologies
Pays: USD 8 cents per word
Theme: SciFi To Go: Food For Thought – SF, Fantasy, Horror, Humor, Solarpunk
Submissions close: 28 Feb 2026
The First Line
Pays: $25 – $50 for fiction
First line must be: The summer between [his/her/their] junior and senior years, Alex worked as a server at Wharf Mountain.
Submissions close: 1 May 2026
Story Unlikely
Pays: USD 8 cents per word for original stories ($350 cap non-members / $700 cap members), 1 cent per word for reprints (2 cents for members)
Looking for: Cross genres, experiment, and push the boundaries of literature while maintaining the utmost quality in literary technique and storytelling.
Submissions close: 14 Oct 2026
Novellas (Reckoning)
Pays: Negotiable cash advance on future royalties, starting at USD 2 cents per word
Looking for: Creative writing about environmental justice
“A literary prize can turn the spotlight on a particular work, but it can’t breathe life into it. It’s that simple.”
― Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation
Trailer Horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV Trailers
Mr. Reset and the Society of Turnbuckle & Bone. Wrestling horror. Fuses psychological drama, visual chaos, and dark comedy that peels back professional wrestling’s mask to reveal the price of fame and the power of myth. Release date TBA
Horror Movie Trailers
Amityverse. Amityville horror anthology. 10 Amityville shorts. Blu-ray, 7 Apr 2026
Amityverse: Infinity. Amityville horror anthology. 10 more Amityville shorts. Release date TBA
Anacoreta. Cabin in the woods horror. A group of friends travels to an isolated cabin in the woods to shoot an experimental horror movie. As the film begins to unravel, the true monster appears. VOD, 24 Feb 2026
Bodycam. Supernatural horror. When two police officers show up to investigate a domestic dispute, a startling escalation leads to a tragic accident. The officers attempt to cover it up, only to discover their body cameras aren’t the only things watching them. Shudder, 13 Mar 2026
The Deep Dark. French creature horror. In 1950’s France, a team of miners escorts a professor underground, but when a landslide prevents them from going back up, they wake a bloodthirsty creature. VOD, 24 Mar 2026
Do Not Enter. Supernatural horror. A group of explorers investigate an abandoned hotel, and encounter a strange supernatural being and a competing group searching for a legendary hidden treasure. VOD, 20 Mar 2026
The Gates. Survival horror. Three friends’ road trip turns terrifying when they witness a murder in a gated community. Trapped inside, hunted by residents who blame them, their bond fractures as a charismatic yet sinister patriarch closes in. Cinema, 13 Mar 2026
I Am Frankelda. Spanish stop-motion monster horror. In 19th-century Mexico, Frankelda is a gifted writer forced to suppress her voice. She refuses to give up, but when she is thrust into her subconscious, the very monsters she created come to life. Release date TBA
Jitters. Clown horror. Detective Collymore digs into a mysterious case involving the death of a young woman and discovers the horrors of Jitters. VOD, 17 Mar 2026
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. Supernatural horror. The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert. Eight years later, she returns. Cinema, 17 Apr 2026
NFT: Cursed Images. Survival horror. Seven friends invest in a cursed NFT collection, but when the digital monsters escape into reality, their get-rich-quick scheme becomes a deadly fight for survival. VOD, 6 Mar 2026
Popeye Returns. Slasher horror. Captured by a ruthless military task force, Popeye is injected with a super-soldier serum. Enhanced beyond imagination, he breaks free, stronger, smarter, furious, and storms a nearby summer camp. Release date TBA
Primal Darkness. Found footage horror. The host of a popular outdoor series sets out to track down the predator responsible for a series of cattle attacks in rural Nevada. But he uncovers footage depicting the final moments of two missing university employees. Found TV, 7 Apr 2026
Sharks vs. Mermaids. Creature horror. A shark attack survivor transforms into a shark-human hybrid each full moon and battles flesh-eating mermaids for beach territory. Release date TBA
Slanted. Body horror. An insecure Chinese-American teenager undergoes experimental surgery hoping to secure the prom queen title and peer acceptance. Cinema, 13 Mar 2026
Squatch. Creature horror. A man inherits his father’s remote cabin, and he and a coworker come face-to-face with a myth. VOD, 10 Mar 2026
The Yeti. Creature horror. An ancient threat stalks an expedition searching for missing two people in Alaska. VOD, 10 Apr 2026
Horror Game Trailers
Butcherman. Psychological horror. Kidnapped by a serial killer, driven to escape, explore everything around you, use your wits, uncover secrets. Release date TBA
Drowned Lake. Fishing survival horror. Three strangers are drawn to the Drowned Lake to find an amateur documentarian who vanished. As the lake’s dark past comes to light, so do the secrets buried deep within them. Release date TBA
Gnosis. Zombie horror. Lost, alone, vulnerable, a voluntary candidate of a twisted treasure hunt attempts to survive inside someone’s sadistic nightmare. Release date TBA
Inner Voice. Psychological horror. A mysterious narrator guides your choices through a dreamlike world of grief, symbols and secrets. Released date TBA
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week
16 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, gothic, witch, serial killer, creature, folk, sci-fi, movie documentary, witch, and middle-grade horror
See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 15 to 21 Feb 2026
“Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.”
― E.B. White, The Elements of Style
A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week
11 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, serial killer, zombie, slasher, and Frankenstein horror
See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 15 to 21 Feb 2026
“But reading is about understanding the world and ourselves, not finishing as many books as possible. We aren’t reading to become faster, but to feel and understand more.”
― Hwang Bo-Reum, Every Day I Read
What We Were Thinking About this Week
What We’ve Been Reading This Week
The Queen by Nick Cutter (novel)
King Sorrow by Joe Hill (novel)
The Voice Inside the Machines by Jonathan Ferro (original short story, FearSome Fiction)
What We’re 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: Military/action horror
One Last Gasp by Andrew C. Piazza
“Remembering those days at Dom Caern is a curse.”
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
“and the afterlife, for the brief time he knew it, had been delectable…”
The Milita House by John Milas
“It’s suddenly more than just an abandoned building now.”
Contact! by Chris McInally (editor)
“Older than civilisation, this stretch of jungle…”
Headhunter by Tim Curran
“You find him and he find you, yes?”
Zombie Squadron by Thomas Volz
“He heard it long before he spotted it. The thrum of a distant helicopter…”
Burning Sky by Weston Ochse
“Trained to kill. Haunted by the past. Fighting for their souls.”
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book…”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Horror Fun
Jacob Luther (townytowncomics) on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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