Bite-Sized Horror News
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actress Mariclare Costello. Costello’s horror movie credits included Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), Nightmares (1983), and Shadow of the Blair Witch (2000). RIP.
Horror Book Bits
- Saw: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book, releasing on 22 Sep 2026, includes 20 pop-up illustrations of the movie’s iconic traps, such as the Reverse Bear Trap, Angel Trap, and the bathroom set that started it all.
- Shusuke Shizukui’s Japanese serial killer thriller Hi No Ko (Sparks) is getting a Blumhouse TV series adaptation.
- YA zombie horror comedy webtoon ShootAround is getting a live-action movie adaptation.
Horror Movie Morsels
- All 4 Hatchet movies are being released in 4K. The 2 separate editions – Swamp Slaughter and Blood In the Bayou – include different goodies as well as the movies and can be pre-ordered now with a release date of 26 Aug 2026.
- Director Curry Barker says his new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie will not just be “about a guy chasing some people around with a chainsaw”. It will still be brutal, but it will have heart.
- While you’re waiting for the movie length version of The Littles, you can watch the original supernatural horror short on YouTube.
- Found footage serial killer horror movie Follow Mode will be shot entirely on drones.
- The original actors and directors from The Blair Witch Project will be involved in the Lionsgate reboot and it’s apparently “not a remake”.
- Japanese producer Taka Ichise, known for The Ring and The Grudge, is developing 4 new horror movies for the US market.
- French conspiracy movie Boîte Noire (Black Box) is getting an English remake.
- Hokum director Damian McCarthy says he’s working on a script for a “self-contained, almost like a classic haunted house movie”.
- Sleepaway Camp is on tour between 24 Jun and 9 Jul 2026. Each show includes a drag performance, an on-stage conversation, a costume contest, and a screening of the movie.
- Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil movie has a new website where you can watch the teaser trailer, read the synopsis, and sign up for updates.
- Dee Snider says he’s had a Strangeland sequel written since 1998 that he may release as a novel.
- Actor Mike Myers says he wants to do a horror movie since he’s never done one.
- In movie rating news, R ratings have been bestowed upon liminal horror Backrooms, slasher horror Violent Night 2, and post-apocalyptic horror The Dog Stars. PG-13 ratings have landed on shark horror Devil’s Mouth and sci-fi Disclosure Day.
Horror TV Treats
- Hazbin Hotel is getting a 5th season and it will be its last.
- Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 is getting a 2nd season.
- Disney+ won the bidding war for a Casper the Friendly Ghost live-action series.
- It: Welcome to Derry, season 2, will “explore the story of a subplot [Stephen] King planted in the original 1986 IT novel” about a gang of bank robbers in 1935.
- Tales from the Crypt is now streaming on Shudder. All 7 seasons will be uncut and uncensored. Season 1 is available now and additional seasons will be added every Friday.
- Indonesian zombie horror series Zona Merah is getting a movie adaptation called Zona Merah: Dead City.
Horror Game Goodies
- Sci-fi horror gameAlien: Isolation is getting a sequel.
- Post-apocalyptic horror game Atomfall is getting a TV series adaptation.
- The Resident Evil Requiem minigame is a single-player game and will only be playable if the main story is completed.
“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth … They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Writing Horror
Some places accepting submissions
Book Worms Horror Zine – Summer Edition
Pays: 8 cents per word for fiction or nonfiction, $25 for poems
Looking for: Summer camp / campfire horror stories
Submissions close: 15 Jun 2026
Passing Strange: Queer Weird Arthurian Tales anthology
Pays: 5 cents per word (max $500)
Looking for: Stories with at least one main character on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, plus a speculative fiction element (fantasy, horror, or science fiction, and/or an alternate history element), and is a retelling of the familiar Arthurian tales, or a reworking of recognisable Arthurian elements
Submissions close: 31 Aug 2026
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness
Pays: $220
Looking for: See example submissions for a non-exclusive list
Menace
Pays: $50
Looking for: Transgressive speculative fiction
Upcoming submission calls
The Green Sheaf
Pays: $50
Theme: Flash fiction and poetry featuring The Crone by female-identifying & gender fluid writers over 50 years old
Submissions open 21 Aug and close 18 Sep 2026
“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
Trailer Horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror Movie Trailers
Follow the Dark. Psychological horror. After the death of his teenage son, a grief-stricken detective discovers an ancient subterranean chamber capable of opening pathways to parallel universes. Desperate to reach a world where his son still lives, he enters a deadly labyrinth of shifting chambers guarded by a monstrous entity. Release date TBA
Homebody. Ghost horror. A young widow meets a woman who claims to communicate with the dead. Each woman struggles for dominance in their increasingly toxic relationship while the husband’s ghost watches silently, with plans of his own. Release date TBA
Pitfall. Psychological horror. A man separated from his friends in the woods falls into a 10-foot deep pit of spikes and he learns his fall was not an accident. Limited, 29 May 2026
A Possession in Lincoln County. Found footage horror. A man documents his wife’s cancer-until a terminal diagnosis leads him to an ancient ritual to summon the Devil and make a deal. Release date TBA
Poultrygeist 2: Dawn of the Chicken Dead. Comedy horror. As a poultry pandemic sweeps the nation, a wealthy computer tycoon relaunches a failed fast food chain to introduce his lab-created synthetic chicken to the world. Release date TBA
Resident Evil, teaser. Zombie horror. A courier delivering a package to a remote hospital finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak. Cinema, 18 Sep 2026
Smothered. Indonesian psychological horror. A micro-painting artist loses part of his memory, and an old woman appears claiming to be his mother. Shudder, 29 May 2026
Horror Game Trailers
Angels in Orbit. Sci-fi horror. Seek the truth behind a cosmic anomaly that rips through the AIO Space Station. Release date TBA
Animal Use Protocol. Survival horror. Play as a hyper-intelligent chimpanzee leading the desperate escape of lab animals from a nightmarish facility. Release date TBA
Netherwake. Cosmic horror. A thick, dark fog rolls into a small town, bringing with it ancient, cosmic beings. Demo available on Steam
No More Room in Hell 2. Zombie horror. Find your friends in the dark and survive in a dynamic, endlessly replayable zombie apocalypse. Early access available now
Wilderdark. Survival horror. Navigate a strange island inhabited by ectoparasitic dinosaurs and organisms. Release date TBA
“My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week
14 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, gothic, cosy summer camp, ghost, western, and folk horror
See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 26 Apr to 5 May 2026
“No matter how people mess with you or let you down, or how you let yourself down, a good book means that when you get in bed that night, you have a good hour.”
― Anne Lamott
A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week
10 horror movies this week. Themes: Psychological, witch, killer, shark, puppet, and zombie apocalypse horror
See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 26 Apr to 5 May 2026
“Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released this Week
1 horror TV show this week. Theme: Comedy horror
See: A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released, 26 Apr to 5 May 2026
“At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”
― Paulo Coelho
What We Were Thinking About this Week
What We’ve Been Reading This Week
Books of Blood, Vols 1 to 3, by Clive Barker (short story collection)
The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi (novel)
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: Eco horror
The Swarm by Frank Schatzing
“Juan Narciso Ucañan went to his fate that Wednesday, and no one even noticed.”
Black Bloom by Felix I.D. Dimaro
“It was a month into spring when the first black dandelion was sighted…”
Ring of Fire by David Agranoff
“The smell of disease was faint, and the end of the world was carried softly on the breeze.”
Haunted Ecologies by Corey Farrenkopf
“That monster will be the death of us, mark my words.”
The Hungry Earth by Nicholas Kaufmann
“Somehow, she could feel things beyond herself. She could feel everything.”
Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister
“Used to be a man. He died and the desert got inside him.”
Attack of the Trees by Juliet Rose & D.Z. Hollow
“…every time she came to check on the trees, she found new damage.”
“Being enough was going to have to be an inside job.”
― Anne Lamott
Horror Fun
Wrong Hands (John Atkinson) on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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