The older I get, the more I come to realize that the best of my childhood fears offer markers for what I consider entertainment. I'm a monster girl at heart. Fangs, fur, claws, tentacles. I treasure the thing that lives in my closet. The thing that lives under my bed. They have special places in my heart, and often, they need to be fed to be kept happy. When the trailer for The Babadook's Sundance debut began circulating a few months ago, I clamped both hands to my desk, cranked the volume up, and tittered my way through the pounding in my ears. Maybe it's just m[...]
Monthly Archives
August 2014
4 I love quality scary movies. I love the psychological horrors that make you think for days after. (Snowpiercer is latest one that comes to mind.) Terrors that are layered and stylized and beautiful: always enjoyable. They are like the meat and veggies of my horror diet. But sometimes we just want junk food, guys. Sometimes we don't want a carrot, we want a Snickers. We want empty calories that make us smile and sigh... calories that are almost always followed by an unladylike belch and a tad of self-loathing. And that's where the SyFy Channel comes in. I love[...]
Hi all! Today's real life creepy place is in Jamaica, and trust me, it's creepy as hell. The place I'm talking about, Rose Hall House, is considered one of the most haunted places in the Western Hemisphere and the sinister figure at its center, the eponymous White Witch, makes Elizabeth Bathory look like a little girl ripping heads off her Barbies. Rose Hall House is located near Montego Bay, and its legendary owner was a British-born woman named Annie Palmer. The house was built in the 1770s and restored in the sixties. The story of Annie Palmer, much like Ba[...]
Not too long ago, while on Facebook (the place where I find an absurd amount of creepy things) my eyes caught on a story someone shared. The headline gave me chill bumps. It read: Man Receives Facebook Messages From Dead Girlfriend. Have you guys read this story? I feel like you might have. Well, I knew it was fake, right. But that didn't stop me from clicking the link... and reading the insanely long story full of screen caps and semi-convincing pictures. I have to say, by the end of that story, my heart was pounding like a jackhammer on steroids. Just the mere[...]
You've probably heard of The Graveyard Book, even if you haven't read it. This very popular work from Neil Gaiman tells the story of a boy being raised in a graveyard, and now you can catch this story in graphic novel format! It's been split into two volumes. The last one came out last Wednesday, and the conclusion will be available October first. Adapted by P. Craig Russell, there are illustrations here by a mix of artists, which I love because it adds an unpredictability to the turn of the page. The fancy book description, for those unfamiliar with the story, i[...]
I've made it no secret that clowns use to scare the living heck outta me. My teenage son got me over this fear by having clowns chase me at our local amusement park. Poltergeist is yet another movie I watched that build up a huge fear of clowns, but I never talk about my fear of dolls. DOLLS, a horror movie from 1984, definitely has a lot to do with my childhood fear of dolls. This is yet another movie I watched at my next door neighbor's house (also saw POLTERGEIST here in 3rd grade). In the '80s, you could get illegal cable using what we called a "black box."[...]
The Midnight Society is proud to announce this exciting news. After an open call for new members and a ton of fabulous applicants, the ghosts of The Midnight Society Mansion have spoken... Please welcome the fantastic, haunting, and lovely Jennifer Brinkmeyer! Obituary Here lies Jennifer Brinkmeyer, all dressed up with no place to go. She died when a wind came out of the night, chilling and killing her, as she walked the bluffs at Iowa's Lake MacBride with her lover. Copies of her undergraduate manuscripts have been looted from the Iowa Writers’ Worksh[...]
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society is a creepy short trailer called Hominid. Created from photo composites by Brian Andrews, we see human skeleton frogs, bugs, and spiders battle it out in the natural world. From Brian Andrew's artist statement: Frequently, images of animals lurk within my artwork. These animals live in an ontological quagmire. When we look at them we can see both the unknown of the wild and the potential for humanity. In the current discourses of art, the animal is seen as a representation - a symbol of our cultural projectio[...]
When I started writing seriously a couple of years ago, a few things had to change to support my habit. When you work a demanding day job, and you often stumble out of the office craving a little more than what the nine to five offers, you need to establish certain routines that support the extra shamble home. The people who tell you to exercise and eat right? They've got the right idea. The better shape your body is in, the better likelihood you've got to plant yourself in front of a keyboard for a few extra hours every night and churn some words that don't suck.[...]