Fearsome Fiction

A Grab Bag of Horror News, 25 to 31 Jan 2026

A selection of things that caught our attention in the world of horror this week
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Table of Contents

Bite-Sized Horror News

Vale

  • Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actress Catherine O’Hara. O’Hara played Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Other horror credits include The Last of Us, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monster House, Frankenweenie, and Tales from the Crypt. RIP.
  • Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actress Yvonne Lime. Lime devoted her life to philanthropy and among her movie and TV credits was a co-starring role in 1957’s I Was a Teenage Werewolf. RIP.

Horror Book Bits

Horror Movie Morsels

Horror TV Treats

  • The Duffer Brothers’ Something Very Bad is Going to Happen premieres on Netflix on 26 Mar 2026. The series follows a bride and groom in the week before their wedding.
  • Netflix has added Spanish mini-series Lobo to its lineup. The series explores the real-life 19th century case of a serial killer who claimed to be a werewolf. No release date yet.
  • Congratulations to the horror TV shows on the Saturn Awards nomination list, including Dexter: Resurrection x 6, Stranger Things x 5, IT: Welcome to Derry x 5, Alien: Earth x 3, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon x 3, Wednesday x 2, Anne Rice’s Talamasca: The Secret Order x 2, The Institute x 2, and the other 10 horror TV shows receiving 1 each.

Horror Game Goodies

Horror Music Moments

“The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

― Richard Powers, The Overstory

Writing Horror

Some places accepting submissions

Vampire anthology (Flame Tree Fiction)
Pays: USD 8 cents per word
Theme: Vampires
Submissions close: 15 Feb 2026

The Best Noir Sci-Fi-Horror of 2026
Pays: USD 4 cents per word + one print copy
Looking for: Noir crime stories revolving around police and military life with science fiction, horror, and dark fantasy
Submissions close: 4 Apr 2026

Pulp Literature
Pays: USD 5 – 8 cents per word (to 5000 words), 3 – 6 cents per word (5000 to 10000 words), 2 – 4 cents per word (over 10000 words)
Looking for: Any genre or between-genre work of literature, or visual art (black and white for interiors, colour for covers) up to 50 pages in length.

“Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them.”

― Robin Hobb

Trailer Horror

A taste of things to come.

Horror TV Trailers

The Unknowable: Darkland. Supernatural horror. Beyond the gates of imagination lies a place of dreams and nightmares. Screambox, 3 Feb 2026

Horror Movie Trailers

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence. Comedy horror. The tomatoes have gone naval. Release date TBA

Bad Voodoo. Curse horror. Two escaped convicts break into a house and take a hostage, only to discover that the house contains a voodoo curse. DVD, 10 Feb 2026

Blood Covenant. Supernatural horror. A once-promising horror writer summons a demon that grants him the stories he can no longer write, but at a terrible cost. Release date TBA

Dolly. Monster horror. A young woman is abducted by a monster-like figure who wants to raise her as their child. Cinema, 6 Mar 2026

Emerald Cottage. Folk horror. An undertaker’s assistant in post-WWII England travels to a rural cottage to prepare a deceased girl’s body for a wake. Isolated with the corpse, she uncovers unsettling truths about the girl’s death. Release date TBA

Lenskeeper. Italian cosmic horror. A reclusive oculist becomes entangled with a satanic cult after discovering that the human eye can be used as a gateway to an ancient entity. Release date TBA

Mockbuster. Comedy horror. A struggling Australian filmmaker takes his final shot at redemption with Sharknado’s notorious studio, The Asylum. Release date TBA

Nuptials. Psychological horror. After arriving at a luxury resort, Stephen and Hannah begin to settle into the blissful patterns of their honeymoon, but Stephen begins to distance himself from her. VOD, 13 Feb 2026

Portraits of the Apocalypse. Argentinian apocalypse horror. When a mysterious infection spreads through Buenos Aires, the city collapses into chaos. VOD, 14 Jul 2026

Psychonauts. Sci-fi horror. A young woman dives inside the mind of her dying girlfriend to try to find the essential memory that could save her life, while being hunted by a man they presumed to be dead. Release date TBA

Horror Game Trailers

Cerebral. Psychological horror. Sophie goes head-to-head with an entity trying to corrupt her conscience. Save the mind or bend the knee. Available now

Fear the Timeloop. Psychological horror. As a dying sheriff trapped in a 15-minute loop, explore a decaying hospital, take out sinister enemies, and break the loop. Available now

Hellmart. Supermarket horror. Work around the clock to serve customers, hit sales goals, take note of strange clients, and defend your occupation. Available now

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando. Supernatural horror. Battle massive hordes of mutated monstrosities to eradicate a supernatural outbreak. Releases 12 Mar 2026

Silicon Gate. Survival horror. Traverse prehistoric lands hidden within an arcade machine, survive expeditions, expand the desert operations, and come face-to-face with creatures from an ancient past. Release date TBA

“To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!”

― Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Stories and Poems

A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week

18 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, space, dark fantasy, gothic, ghost, and eco horror

See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 25 to 31 Jan 2026

“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”

― David Sedaris

A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week

12 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, comedy, animal, slasher, sci-fi, and survival horror

See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 25 to 31 Jan 2026

“Say what you will about it, Hell is story friendly. If you want a compelling story, put your protagonist among the damned.”

― Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction

A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released this Week

1 horror TV show this week. Theme: Supernatural horror

See: A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released, 25 to 31 Jan 2026

“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”

― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

What We Were Thinking About this Week

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

The Stairwell by Casey Quinn (original fiction, FearSome Fiction)

Goblin by Josh Malerman (a novel in 6 novellas)

What I’m 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: Psychological horror

Nothing is Real by Kevin J. Kennedy
“The more I read, the more I felt that there was something in those words.”

Come Out & Play by Patrick Tumblety
“Step on that crack, you’ll break your mother’s back.”

Our Fathers’ Burden by William F. Gray
“The trip, Harry. It’s almost that time again.”

BookMail by Jason R. Davis
“Sometimes Book Mail is not the best mail…”

The Devil’s Tree by Axl Malton
“It whispered to him once more. And then he knew nothing.”

Frost Bite by J.J. Bradshaw
“It was supposed to be the kind of trip you tell your kids about one day.”

The Sound of Suffering by Mark Towse
“You can’t run from what’s in your head.”

“We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.”

― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Horror Fun

3-panel comic from Kristian Nygård (Optipess) on Instagram. 1: Before the Internet: In the alley, one man has a garbage bag with a foot sticking out and he tells another man, 'Hey man, you gotta help me hide this body.' 2: After the Internet, a man has a garbage bag with a foot sticking out and he's googling 'How to hide a body' 3: After AI: a man has a garbage bag with a foot sticking out and he's asking ChatGPT, 'Can you help me hide a body?' and ChatGPT says, 'What a great question. Good for you for cleaning up after yourself - kudos! Here are some suggestions: Make a snack out of it: Let me know if you want me to provide some healthy recipe ideas. Dump it in the ocean: Should I book a rental boat...'

Kristian Nygård (Optipess) on Instagram

Thanks for reading

Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.

Jayson

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Published: 31 January 2026

Horror Book of the Week

These Familiar Walls

Horror Movie of the Week

The Cure

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