Bite-Sized Horror News
Horror Book Bits
- Livestreamed charity event Living the Scream starts at 7pm EST on Sat, 13 Dec 2025. The event will benefit the ACLU and is hosted by Brian Keene, S.H. Cooper, and Laurel Hightower. There’ll also be a bunch of other awesome authors involved.
- The autobiography of Dread Central’s co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief, Steve Barton, A Comedy of Tragedies: An American Memoir for the Completely Dysfunctional is now available as an audiobook. The audiobook version also includes two original songs.
- A 2024 Rolling Stone article connecting Sammy Davis Jr to the Church of Satan is being adapted into a horror movie.
- Chuck Palahniuk’s 1999 satirical novel Survivor is getting a movie adaptation.
- H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep is getting a 5-issue comic book adaptation. Issue 1 comes out on 11 Feb 2026. You can also preorder a collection of all 5 which releases on 4 Aug 2026.
- Creepshow: 13 Tales of Terror is a horror short story anthology of new stories inspired by the Creepshow TV series. The book releases on 19 May 2026.
- Congratulations to Grady Hendrix for Witchcraft for Wayward Girls winning the Horror category of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards, claiming 59,603 votes out of the total 352,392 votes cast in the category.
- Cast your vote in the Reactor Magazine Best of the Year Readers’ Poll. Voting closes at 11:59pm on Sun, 7 Dec 2025.
- Actor/director/producer Giancarlo Esposito says he’s “close to finalising a deal” to make a movie adaptation of Stephen King’s novella The Dreamers. The story was part of King’s collection You Like It Darker.
- Congratulations to authors whose books made the Library Journal Best Books 2025 list. This makes a great TBR shopping list or a Christmas present list.
- Josh Malerman’s short story A Ben Evans Film is getting a movie adaptation. The story is about a man who casts his recently deceased parents as the stars of a movie.
Horror Movie Morsels
- 1975 Canadian body horror movie, Shivers, is screening in 35mm for free in Toronto, Canada, on Sunday, 7 Dec 2025, in celebration of the movie’s 50th anniversary.
- The New York Film Critics Circle awarded actress Amy Madigan Best Supporting Actress for her role as Aunt Gladys in Weapons. Sinners won the Best Cinematography and KPop Demon Hunters won Best Animated Film.
- An 8th Paranormal Activity movie is coming. Blum, Oren Peli, and James Wan are all involved.
- A revamped American Psycho musical begins in London on 22 Jan and runs through to 14 Mar 2026.
- Universal Pictures has bought spec Portrait of God from moviemaker Dylan Clark. The feature expands on the world of Clark’s short movie of the same name and producers will include Sam Raimi and Jordan Peele.
- Supernatural stop-motion horror short The Littles from American Horror Stories producer and author Andrew Duplessie is being adapted into a feature length.
- Four A24 movies will screen in Los Angeles with live scores in 2026. Each one will only screen once: Under the Skin (20 Feb), Pearl (12 Jun), Hereditary (23 Oct), and Eighth Grade (11 Dec).
- Interactive slasher movie Slay Day debuts in cinemas in Fall 2026. Audiences will vote on each critical decision using their smartphone, so, in all likelihood, no two screenings will be the same. There are over 20 unique endings.
- Over the Thanksgiving weekend, marketing for Silent Night, Deadly Night saw bloodied Santa suits with ‘NAUGHTY’ written across them left in public locations across the country.
- Former WWE wrestler Sonya Deville (real name Daria Berenato) will star in gay zombie comedy horror movie Zombois.
- Sinners has received 17 nominations in the 2026 Critics Choice Awards. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein received 11, Bugonia 3, KPop Demon Hunters 1.
- KPop Demon Hunters has 5 Grammy nominations.
- There’s an auction of cool movie stuff happening on 9 to 12 Dec 2025. Lots include signed items, classic props, costumes, and even scripts and storyboards.
- YouTube creator Markiplier is aiming to get his debut horror movie Iron Lung released into 50-100 cinemas on the opening weekend of 30 Jan – 2 Feb 2026.
Horror TV Treats
- Samsung TV Plus is streaming Season 1 of Fallout for free through to 25 Dec. Season 2 premieres on Prime Video on 17 Dec 2025.
- The Stranger Things finale will screen live in over 500 cinemasacross the US and Canada. Cinemas will sell ‘concession vouchers’ that guarantee a seat rather than ‘tickets’ and cinema owners will keep the revenue.
- Lego is releasing a 2,593-piece Stranger Things: The Creel House on 1 Jan 2026. If you purchase between 1 and 7 Jan, the ‘gift with purchase’ is a 234-piece WSQK Radio Station that includes Joyce Byers and Sherriff Hopper minifigures.
- Alien: Earth, The Last of Us, Ghosts, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Squid Game, and Marvel Zombies all have nominations in the 2026 Critics Choice Awards.
Horror Game Goodies
- The Haddonfield Heights in-game map for Halloween: The Video Game has been revealed. The game releases on 8 Sep 2026.
- About 24 hours before this week’s launch, horror game Horses received another ban, this time from the Epic Games Store. It was already banned from Steam.
- Rumor is that there’s a new Dead Rising game is in development and it will not be a remake or a remaster.
Horror Festival Fare
- Southern California’s Creep I.E. Con V, taking place from 30 Jan to 1 Feb 2026, will include Robert Englund, Bruce Campbell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Cassandra Peterson amongst a bunch of other cool horror people.
“Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Writing Horror
- Hey! Women are Talking! by Mary SanGiovanni
- Register now for Successful Strategies for Submitting Your Manuscript to Agents and Editors – a mini online course with editor Harold Underdown, 27 and 29 Jan 2026. Recordings for participants will be available until 28 Feb 2026
- There’s a new author extortion scam going around where someone demands money in exchange for not taking your work, translating it, and releasing it across multiple markets.
- Don’t get caught out by the fake Writers Guild of America (WGA) membership scam.
Some places accepting submissions
SNAFU: Level Up (Cohesion Press)
Pays: AUS 5 cents per word
Looking for: LitRPG-style story, where characters gain skills and level up their abilities during the combat with horrendous beasts (horror, fantasy, or tech litRPG)
Submissions close: 31 Mar 2026
Upcoming submission calls
Night Shades Magazine
Pays: $65
Looking for: Max 500 words with a recognizable speculative element (sci-fi, horror, and fantasy that’s light on magic)
Submissions open 26 Dec 2025
Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazinePays: US 8 cents per word
Looking for: Tales that value imagination in character, narrative, and plot
Submissions open 1 Jan and close 16 Jan 2026
Mysterion
Pays: US 8 cents per word for original stories, 4 cents per word for reprints
Looking for: Speculative stories – science fiction, fantasy, horror – with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology
Submissions open 1 Jan 2026
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Trailer Horror
A taste of things to come.
Horror TV Trailers
The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Holiday of Horrors. Anthology horror. 4 original shorts. Shudder, AMC+, 16 Dec 2025
Horror Movie Trailers
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, trailer 2. Zombie apocalypse horror. The infected are no longer the greatest threat to survival – the inhumanity of the survivors can be stranger and more terrifying. Cinema, 16 Jan 2026
The Confession. Supernatural horror. A musician returns to her childhood home and finds her late father’s recorded murder confession, made to ward off an evil force. As her son’s behavior grows disturbing, she fights to end the darkness. Release date TBA
Forbidden Fruits, teaser trailer. Witch horror. At a mall store, Apple leads a secret witch cult with coworkers Cherry and Fig. New hire Pumpkin questions their sisterhood, forcing them to confront inner darkness. Release date TBA
Obsession. Psychological horror. After breaking the mysterious ‘One Wish Willow’ to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but some desires come at a dark, sinister price. Cinema, 15 May 2026
The Plantation. Supernatural horror. An interracial couple takes a backpacking trip deep into the remote Louisiana swamps where they encounter sinister forces at an old plantation. VOD, 19 Dec 2025
Poultrygeist 2: Dawn of the Chicken Dead, teaser trailer. Comedy horror. Plot TBA. Release date TBA
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. Psychological horror. Moments after surviving an all-out attack from the Le Domas family, Grace discovers she’s reached the next level of the nightmarish game, this time with her estranged sister Faith at her side. Cinema, 10 Apr 2026
Silent Night, Deadly Night, retro trailer. Slasher horror. After witnessing his parents’ brutal murder on Christmas Eve, Billy transforms into a Killer Santa, delivering a yearly spree of calculated, chilling violence. Cinema, 12 Dec 2025
Sleepwalker. Psychological horror. A grieving mother is haunted by the tragic loss of her daughter in a car accident that left her abusive husband in a coma. Plagued by haunting visions, she grapples with the blurred lines between reality and nightmare. VOD, 9 Jan 2026
A Town Called Purgatory. Western horror. In the ashes of the Civil War, two battered gunslingers – one Union, one Confederate – chase a gang into a ghost town with a blood-soaked past. VOD, 9 Dec 2025
Horror Game Trailers
Abyss of Doom. Psychological horror. Explore the medieval depths of the ruins of ancient Rome to fight nightmares around every corner. Release date TBA
Quarantine Zombie. Zombie horror. You’ve got 30 days until the army arrives. Hold out, fix your car, and fight your way through Chicago to the main checkpoint to save your little brother. Release date TBA
Routine. Sci-fi horror. Explore the lunar base in search of answers as to why the base has gone quiet. Available now
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
A Selection of Horror Books Released this Week
12 horror books this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, western, slasher, cult, and Christmas horror
See: A Selection of Horror Books Released, 30 Nov to 6 Dec 2025
“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
― Madeleine L’Engle
A Selection of Horror Movies Released this Week
12 horror movies this week. Themes: Supernatural, psychological, creature, animal, animatronic, and found footage horror
See: A Selection of Horror Movies Released, 30 Nov to 6 Dec 2025
“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released this Week
2 horror TV shows this week. Themes: Psychological and anthology horror
See: A Selection of Horror TV Shows Released, 30 Nov to 6 Dec 2025
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
What We Were Thinking About this Week
25 Christmas Horror Book Recommendations for 2025
King Sorrow by Joe Hill (novel)
This week’s horror book recommendations
Theme: Christmas horror (except for the first one)
The Sorrowstones by Felix Blackwell
“The thing I remember most about seventh grade was watching my best friend die.”
25 Gifts of Terror by Boris Bacic
“There was apparently a job opening in Santa Park.”
25 Candles by Iris Baxter
“Welcome to Greenridge – where Christmas lives all year.”
Advent by Daniel Pyle
“Long live Christmas,” he whispered and latched the stable door.
12 Dark Days: One Hell of a Christmas edited by Dean M. Drinkel
“That was the core of his personality; nothing for free in this world, gotta pay.”
Advent of Evil by Scott Donnelly
“…did you have any sort of, like, early Christmas gift shipped here?”
The Season of Secrets by DE McCluskey
“He thought if he left them alone, then they might leave him alone. He’d been wrong about that.”
“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.”
― Franz Kafka
Horror Fun
J.L. Westover (mrlovenstein) on Instagram
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading. Catch you on the other side.
Jayson
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