Creepy dolls, brilliant storytelling, and wasp monsters exploding out of people’s brains-- Abby Howard’s new web comic, The Last Halloween has it all. I suggest you get caught up on the first couple dozen updates immediately, because this is something that everyone who reads the Midnight Society really ought to be following. One of the things I love about The Last Halloween is that Howard has thrown the usual webcomic pacing out the window, giving readers a whole page worth of panels in one weekly update. This pacing really works for the story, allowing her ti[...]
Tag
horror
2 I wanted to pose a question today: What is your favorite way to be afraid? However, I realized I was going to have to give you some examples to answer the question easily, which brought me back to the famous words of Stephen King (you've probably heard of him, he's kind of a thing). “The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's[...]
Hey there, boos and ghouls. I had a fantastic small town horror story I was planning on sharing with you today but here's the deal: it's not ready yet. My spidey senses haven't yet ferretted out all the details. These local hauntings can be tightly guarded, you know. So, until I can pry open some more tight lips, I thought I'd share a wonderful resource for finding new haunting reads... Goodreads.com! How many of you have bumped around on the Goodreads site? If you don't have an account, I urge you to get one NOW. It's supereasy. You can even sign up with your[...]
If there's one thing I love, it's a good scary story. And even more than that, I love it when a scary story is equal parts scary as it is creepy. And what I love even more than that, is when said scary and creepy story is real. The following story I read one night on Reddit, and it was creepy. I knew it was good because as I read it, goosebumps crawled up my arms. Then, later that night, after I read it and I was home alone, I wanted to read it again. And again. Because it had stuck with me. I found myself wondering what I would do in the same situation. Then[...]
I'm not afraid to tell you that I love watching TV. Some of what I watch is filler--you know, background noise while I'm working on dinner or other household things. But, every once and a while a new show comes along an totally hooks me. American Horror Story is one of those shows. What blows my mind about this show, is that each season actors and/or actresses play the roles of different characters. Take Jessica Lange from Season 1: Murder House. In this season, Lange plays nosey neighbor Constance Langdon. The neighbors, played by Dylan McDermott and[...]
It’s my birthday today! So, because I love you all very much, I sat down and watched the seriously terrible 1981 slasher film Happy Birthday To Me. It’s bad. Really bad. And not even in that “so bad it’s good way”. Nope, just bad. But the film did leave me thinking about what we can learn from bad writing. By studying the places the script for Happy Birthday to Me went so horribly off the rails, what lessons can we apply to our own stories, particularly within gory tales of suspense and murder? (This review/analysis is going to be full of spoilers, but[...]
There's just something about a tree. During the day, the tree brings us hope and beauty. They're perfect to lay beneath and snooze on a hot, sunny day. Even lovers take care to immortalize their love by carving into the bark of a tree. But then darkness comes. After dark, the noises made by the rustling of the leaves is enough to scare anyone out of their running shoes, let alone the way their shadows play in the moonlight. Just thinking about talking a midnight walk, leaves me scared to be alone. So many things can hide in and around trees. Plus, if you aren't[...]
If there's one thing most people can agree on about YA & NA literature, is that horror is not a largely represented category. So I wanted to make the first of many lists showing young adult and new adult horror. There are actually several awesome lists of YA horror on Goodreads, and you can find them here: Popular YA Horror, Scariest YA Book, and Young Adult Horror. Today I will focus on young adult horror literature and then next time, we'll look at some new adult horror. Behold the list in all it's horrific glory! Young Adult Horror Anna Dressed in Blood[...]
All those silent, watchful things that we grew up with from the time we were children — the stories shared around campfires, at sleepovers, secrets handed down from older siblings — we grew out of believing they were true, right? There’s nothing behind the cracked door of your closet, open two inches too far to show anything beyond the slat of pitch. There’s nothing under the bed that might reach for your ankles if you slipped from the covers to place your heels on cold floor. And certainly, there’s nothing waiting in your peripheral vision in a darke[...]
I watched my first horror movies in my parent's bedroom, when my mother was at work. It was a secret between my father and me. His father, my grandfather, had recently passed away and we were living in his house. On my breaks from school, we'd sometimes watch three movies in a row. We were living in this mini-mansion with an unfinished basement and a spiral staircase and all the makings of the perfect horror film. After one particular movie, I would never stick my hand anywhere near the garbage disposal again. My father didn't talk much those days. He was angry a[...]