A Grab Bag of Horror News, 28 Jul to 3 Aug 2024
A selection of things that caught our attention in the world of horror this week
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Table of Contents
Bite-Sized Horror News
Vale
- Condolences to family, friends, and fans of actor Tony Pankhurst. Pankhurst was the omniscient narrator, The Curator, in The Dark Pictures Anthology games, as well as in the live-action movie of The House of Ashes. RIP.
Horror Book Bits
- The Horror Writers Association’s Halloween in July program brings unique panels and workshops to raise awareness of horror and horror scholarship.
- Cynthia Pelayo joins a stellar cast of 2024 StoryFest Authors. The seventh year of Connecticut’s annual literary festival takes place from 20 to 22 September 2024 and is dedicated to the memory of Sybil Steinberg.
- Severin Films and Encylopocalypse Publications have joined forces to “co-produce original novels, novelizations, and reprints of classic horror paperbacks”.
- Brennan LaFaro has signed a new four-book deal for his Buzzard’s Edge Saga. The first two books, Noose and The Demon of Devil’s Cavern, will be back in print soon, while the third, Where the Daybreak Ends: Stories from Buzzard’s Edge will be out in late 2024. The fourth book, Song Dogs, will be a direct sequel to the second book and will be out in late 2025.
Horror Movie Morsels
- Fangoria has teamed up with Through the Lens Entertainment to adapt three Junji Ito mangas into live-action features. They include Bloodsucking Darkness and The Mystery of the Haunted House Part 1 and Part 2.
- Little Red is in production. The low-budget horror movie is a contemporary story based on Little Red Riding Hood.
- In case you’re worried, the new I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t appear to be ignoring previous storylines.
- Neve Campbell says Scream 7 will focus on Sidney Prescott.
- Longlegs is Neon’s top grossing film of all time (to date), knocking Parasite off first place position.
- Shudder has announced a 6-movie-nightmareathon to celebrate the end of Joe Bob Briggs’ sixth season of The Last Drive-In. The special will air on 30 August 2024 on Shudder and AMC+ TV feeds, and will be available on demand from 1 September.
- Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman are the writing team adapting Wilderness Reform by Harrison Query and Matt Query for Paramount Pictures.
- Filming has finished on true-crime serial killer horror movie Ed Kemper. Director Chad Ferrin says he’ll round out his true-crime horror trilogy with Dorothea, based on serial killer Dorothea Puente.
- Austria has nominated The Devil’s Bath as a 2025 Oscars contender.
- Wesley Snipes turning up as Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine gained him two Guiness World Records. He knocked Hugh Jackman off the number one spot for the ‘longest career as a live action Marvel character’, and Alfred Molina’ for the ‘longest gap between character appearances in Marvel films’. If you didn’t know those categories existed, you do now.
Horror TV Treats
- Squid Game returns to Netflix for Season 2 on 26 December 2024. The reality game is based on the South Korean horror movie of the same name, except they don’t kill the contestants.
- Family Guy will have a Halloween special episode airing exclusively on Hulu.
Horror Podcast Pieces
- Ten-part audio series Paranormal Activity: True Tales of Possession is available on Audible. The hosts are Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat from the original Paranormal Activity
Horror Festival Fare
- We hope everyone in Philadelphia is enjoying Monster-Mania Con this weekend.
- The Jury Award winners are in for the 2024 Fantasia Festival. Winners include The Count of Monte-Cristo (Cheval Noir Best Film), Self Driver (Best First Feature), Me and My Victim (Quebec Critic’s Choice Association Best Film), Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain (Satoshi Kon Award Best Animated Feature), Empty Jars (International Short Best Film), and Eyes (My First Fantasia Award Best Film). Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
Writing Horror
- The Literary Reporter: A New Book Promo Site That’s Rather Less Than It Appears by Victoria Strauss (Writer Beware)
Some places accepting submissions
- Dark Matter Presents: Little Red Flags
Pays: 5 cents per word
Looking for: “fiction stories of fanaticism, fundamentalism, extremism, and control. The horrors hiding just beyond the edges of our better judgment.”
Submissions close: 16 August 2024 - Interstellar Flight Magazine
Pays: $30
Looking for: Essays and nonfiction on pop culture, movies, geekery, and scifi/fantasy related topics
Submissions always open
Upcoming submission calls
- Uncanny Magazine
Pays: 10 cents per word
Looking for: Original, unpublished speculative fiction stories between 750-10,000 words
Submissions open 5 August and close 2 September 2024
Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966“Beware
Those Who
Are ALWAYS
READING
BOOKS”
Trailer Horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV Trailers
- Sweetpea. Killer horror. The girl everyone overlooks might just be able to get away with murder. Premieres on STARZ in October 2024.
Horror Movie Trailers
- Bagman. Supernatural horror. For centuries and across cultures, parents have warned their children of the legendary Bagman, who snatches innocent children and stuffs them into his vile, rotting bag, never to be seen again. Patrick McKee narrowly escaped such an encounter as a boy, which left him with lasting scars throughout his adulthood. Now, Patrick’s childhood tormentor has returned, threatening the safety of his wife and son. Releases in cinemas on 20 September 2024.
- Blink Twice. Psychological horror. A tech billionaire invites cocktail waitress to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise and everyone’s having a great time. But as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. Releases in cinemas on 23 August 2024.
- Don’t Turn Out the Lights. Supernatural horror. A group of friends are on a road trip when their RV breaks down on an isolated road with no cell service. They soon realize there is something eerie and unworldly hiding in the woods. Releases on VOD on 6 September 2024.
- Hell Hole. Creature horror. An American-led fracking crew uncovers a living French soldier frozen in time from a Napoleonic campaign, whose body hosts a parasitic monster. Releases on Shudder on 23 August 2024.
- Hellboy: The Crooked Man. Supernatural horror. Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent are stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. They discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man. Release date TBA.
- The Mouse Trap. Killer horror. It’s Alex’s 21st birthday, but she’s stuck at the amusement arcade on a late shift so her friends decide to surprise her, but a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse decides to play a game of his own with them. Releases on VOD on 6 August 2024.
- My First Horror Film. Killer horror. An aspiring influencer chronicles her pursuit of landing a role in her debut horror film. However, her dreams turn into a nightmare when a real-life killer starts targeting her fellow castmates. Releases on VOD on 13 August 2024.
- Subservience. Robot horror. Alice is a lifelike artificially-intelligent android who can take care of any family and home. A struggling father purchases Alice after his wife becomes sick. Alice suddenly becomes self-aware and wants everything her new family has to offer, starting with the affection of her owner, and she’ll kill to get it. Releases on VOD on 13 September 2024.
- We are Zombies. Zombie horror. In a city that breeds non-cannibal zombies, who are considered ‘living-impaired’, three slackers looking to earn some easy money fight an evil mega-corporation to save their kidnapped grandmother. Releases on Screambox on 13 August 2024.
- The Weird Kidz. Animated creature feature horror. The friendship of three preteen boys is tested when a camping trip they thought would be all boobs and booze turns into an epic night of misdemeanors, monsters, and ritual sacrifice. Release date TBA.
- Welcome Week. Anthology horror. After his four siblings mysteriously die in their first weeks of college, a paranoid freshman must put his fears aside when a masked killer picks him as her next victim. Releases on digital on 30 August 2024.
Horror Game Trailers
- Blood Hunting. Survival horror. Chase Jones lost his family when he was young. Digging into the family secrets has resulted in Chase being targeted by those who want to halt the investigation and have Chase join his family. Your only help comes from an unknown stranger sending text messages to your phone. Releases on PlayStation 5 on 28 August 2024.
- Waffle Cone Willie. First-person survival horror. Run and hide from Waffle Cone Willie, a haunted ice cream truck that roams through the town of Sweetwater seeking his next victim. Find clues, survive, and uncover the mystery and nightmare of Sweetwater. Release date TBA.
John Dryden“Beware the fury of a patient man.”
A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week
18 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, ghosts, splatterpunk, vampire, bigfoot, apocalypse, killer, shark, and coming of age horror
See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 28 Jul to 3 Aug 2024
St. Thomas Aquinas“Beware the man of a single book.”
A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week
9 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, killer, werewolf, alligator, and shark horror
See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 28 Jul to 3 Aug 2024
Theodore Roosevelt“Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them.”
What We Were Thinking About this Week
- 13 Hotel/Motel Horror Book Recommendations
- Schrader’s Chord by Scott Leeds (novel)
- Empty by Kai Delmas (short story, Timber Ghost Press)
- Innocence Lost: Experts weigh impacts of repurposing beloved characters from childhood classics in campy horror films by Audrey Pridham
Erica Jong, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life“Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within.”
And Now For Something Completely Different
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Published: 3 August 2024
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