Bite-sized horror news
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actress Hayden Panettiere. In amongst an impressive number of roles in movies, TV shows, and video games, Panettiere played Kirby Reed in Scream 4 and Scream VI. RIP.
Horror book bits
- Can-Con 2026 (Ottawa’s Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Literature Convention) is happening from 16 to 18 Oct 2026. Registration is open for the Master Classes which take place on the Friday and cost $20 to participate. You can also sign up now for Pitch Sessions, Ask An Expert, Kaffeeklatsches, Blue Pencil Café, and the BIPOC Lunch.
- At the time of writing this dot point, Clive Barker’s Kickstarter for his 3 new Library of the Dead anthologies has pledges of over $750,000 for an initial $25,000 goal. There’s still plenty of time to get in on the action with a couple of weeks left on the campaign.
- Halloween: The Game Comic is a new comic series inspired by the upcoming Halloween: The Game and #1 releases on 4 Nov 2026. The series “expands upon the world and characters of the new HALLOWEEN video game while delivering a standalone horror story inspired by the mythology and atmosphere that made the original 1978 film a landmark of the genre”.
- Christian Kang Bachini’s sci-fi supernatural apocalypse horror novel Haunting Skies is getting a movie adaptation.
- If you’ve seen rumblings and grumblings about the Horror Writers Association (HWA) this week, Brian Keene’s 8/20/26 blog post sums it up if you’d rather not trawl through the myriad of social media posts and comments.
Horror movie morsels
- It looks like the 4 Jaws movies will be back on Netflix from 1 Sep 2026.
- 6 Resident Evil movies (3 x live-action, 3 x animated) will be streamable on Netflix from 1 Sep 2026, ahead of the new movie release on 18 Sep.
Horror TV treats
- Season 2 of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 premieres on Netflix on 17 Sep 2026.
- Season 4 (the final season) of Yellowjackets premieres on Paramount+ on 20 Nov 2026.
- Steven Yeun from The Walking Dead will executive-produce and star in a new Netflix supernatural drama called Pagans.
- IT: Welcome to Derry has officially been renewed for a second season.
- Jeff Hillier will return as a series regular in Widow’s Bay, Season 2.
- The first episode of Crystal Lake will screen at New York Comic Con on 8 Oct before the series starts on Peacock on 15 Oct 2026.
Horror podcast pieces
- In Episode 59 (Three Raps on the Buoy) of Tales from Beyond the Pale, Ron Perlman is one of two swimmers who “meet at a buoy, where hopes and secrets rise to the surface”.
Horror game goodies
Horror festival fare
- Tickets are available for this year’s Nightmare in the Ozarks Film Festival which returns to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, from 21 to 24 Oct 2026.
- Fantastic Fest, 17 to 24 Sep 2026, has released its full lineup, with Beware Boiúna opening the festival.
- Two new Jason Universe immersive experiences will be available at selected 13FEG locations across the US during Halloween. Jason Universe: Survive the Night is a walkthrough with guests being stalked all the way by Jason. Jason Universe: Director’s Cut lets guests become the directors of their own Jason sequence.
“I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
Writing horror
Some places accepting submissions
The Unopened Door anthology – Owl Hollow Press
Pays: $50 + contributor copy
Looking for: Any genre, any topic. Stories that revolve around a door, hatch, cave entrance, or hidden room that should have remained sealed
Submissions close: 31 Aug 2026
Pandora anthology – Flame Tree Publishing
Pays: 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints
Looking for: Stories that give voice to the character of Pandora, explore wider events, motives and consequences, or imagine alternative settings and modern equivalents
Submissions close: 4 Oct 2026
Radiant Dawn: A Queer Hopepunk Anthology
Pays: 5 cents per word
Looking for: Stories of optimism, community, and kindness overcoming the odds
Submissions close: 15 Oct 2026
Upcoming submission calls
Nightmare Magazine
Pays: 8 cents per word
Looking for: Original horror and dark fantasy stories
Submissions open 24 Aug and close 31 Aug 2026
Uncanny Magazine
Pays: 10 cents per word
Looking for: Passionate, diverse SF/F fiction and poetry from writers from every conceivable background.
Submissions open 24 Aug and close 7 Sep 2026
“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”
― G.K. Chesterton
Trailer horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV trailers
Bass X Machina, teaser. Animated steampunk. In a lawless Steampunk West, a father serves as judge, jury, and executioner to protect his family. Netflix, 3 Nov 2026
Golden Axe. Animated fantasy. Three legendary warriors reunite to save Yuria from the evil giant Death Adder, who just won’t seem to stay dead. Paramount+, 16 Sep 2026
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, trailer. Killer. Hell hath no fury like Lizzie. Netflix, 17 Sep 2026
Horror movie trailers
Bloodletting. Supernatural. Three frontiersmen seek aid at a desolate Army fort, the youngest is critically injured, and a dark primal creature begins to hunt them. Release date TBA
Cat Cam. Supernatural. Two cat owners put up cameras in their new home while they’re away on a trip and discover why their cat has been acting so strange. VOD, 25 Aug 2026
Crawlers. Spiders. An infestation of deadly spiders sends an apartment building into lockdown. Cinema, 16 Oct 2026
Deathwoods. Slasher. A weekend of camping turns into a weekend of bloodshed, as people are picked off one by one by the urban legend that haunts the woods surrounding the small town of Old Hickory, Tennessee. Screambox, 1 Sep 2026
The Depths. Found footage. After a brother and sister achieve astral projection, the footage they capture reveals the malicious effects of their family trauma. VOD, 18 Sep 2026
Family. Psychological. A 10-year-old girl believes her parents are trying to kill her and she spirals into a haunting fantasy world that mirrors her deepest fears. VOD, 25 Sep 2026
Never After Dark. Japanese ghosts. A wandering medium, summoned to an isolated country house, comes face to face with a grotesque apparition with powers that defy her experience. For the first time, her greatest adversary is not the supernatural, but the living. Cinema, 25 Sep 2026
The Other People. Psychological. A young girl befriends a mysterious entity in her home and triggers a series of terrifying events. VOD, 15 Sep 2026
The Room Below. Creature. After losing her son to cancer, a grieving mother living with a mysterious creature in her home kidnaps a young boy to replace him. VOD, 1 Sep 2026
There’s a Man Over There. Found footage. A group of friends head out to Joshua Tree for a bachelor party not knowing they are being stalked. VOD, 8 Sep 2026
Whalefall. Psychological. The odds of being swallowed alive by a whale are not zero. Cinema, 16 Oct 2026
Wildwood. 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
Buddy: The Game. Survival. Based on the movie. In the magical world of It’s Buddy, childhood fun and games turn into a fight for survival. Releases Q4 2026
Burn With Me. Supernatural. Burn your own cards for power, uncover haunting personal stories, and descend into stylish, surreal dread. Releases 12 Oct 2026
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. Survival. Embark on a battle for survival against Hell’s armies with a terrifying new story in the Hellraiser universe. Releases 8 Oct 2026
Dead Stop: The Tenant. 2nd episode of horror anthology. A new apartment. One tenant who thought his luck had finally changed. Release date TBA
God Save Birmingham. Medieval zombies. In 14th-century Birmingham, England, you’re the lone survivor in a city overrun by the dead. Release date TBA
“Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.”
― Philip Roth
A selection of horror books released this week
13 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, ghosts, gothic, haunted house, clown slasher, and vampire horror
See: A selection of horror books released, 16 to 22 Aug 2026
“Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.”
― David Foster Wallace
A selection of horror movies released this week
9 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural and psychological horror
See: A selection of horror movies released, 16 to 22 Aug 2026
“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.”
― John Cheever
What we were thinking about this week
What we’ve been reading this week
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (novel)
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (novel)
Nine Tips for a (Relatively) Safe Summer Road Trip by Michael Haynes (flash fiction, Timber Ghost Press)
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: Scandinavian horror
Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist
“A grave. A little grave.”
Stallo by Stefan Spjut
“Here be monsters?”
A Battle Against Demons by Kjell-Vidar Åhman Teig
“If I stand completely still, maybe he won’t see me?”
Blood Cruise by Mats Strandberg
“Almost an hour to go before the ship departs. She can still change her mind.”
The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup
“As the leaves fall he’s coming for you.”
Cadaver by Nick Clausen
“Hey, Jakob? I think there’s a dead guy in there…”
Lake of the Dead by André Bjerke
“There’s a good, old rule that says you should begin at the beginning.”
“Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Horror fun
Steve Lewis (skullpizza) on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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