Tag: horror

Dave, Tell Us About Israel?

I probably can’t tell you anything much, but I can show you the work of sculptor Ronit Baranja, which I love.

Flashback Friday: Halloween Edition 🎃🦇🔪

A seasonally appropriate list of creepyscarry links:

Teddy Has an Operation (short film)
A Researcher’s Descent into Madness (short film)
Actual pages from an actual children’s book from the American “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s (absolutely factual historical info; not fictional in any way, except for in that thoroughly un-fun mass-hysteria-and-the-delusions-of-crowds way)
“The Slender Men” audiobook (fun horror fiction dedicated to all those adjunct professors out there)
“Whatever Comes After Calcutta” audiobook (this one wigs me out a little because when I wrote it I was exaggerating about “red” America, and now it sorta reads as almost documentary)

"Don't Make Me Go Back, Mommy: A Child's Book about Satanic Ritual Abuse" ritual — I’m not making this book up, and it wasn’t a joke. I cannot stress this enough. It was a real children’s book real people bought without irony, intending to use it to help them teach their children about the realities of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

HALLOWEEN TREAT 🎃👻🦑💀: “Mitochondrial Assimilation” by Khalifaziz @NightlightPod

This story resonates with me tremendously as a Jew. It captures the ambivalent, ecstatic trauma of becoming part of the thing that is America in a way that perfectly matches my lived experience.

NIGHTLIGHT (A Black Horror Fiction Podcast) # 422: “Mitochondrial Assimilation” by Khalifaziz

They also have an interview with the author, Khalifaziz, that’s well worth your time.

… but just a reminder to my American readers: We already live in this reality. This country isn’t just full of guns; it’s full of ammunition. If you have access to even a single bullet, you are $10 and a trip to the hardware store from making a wonderfully lethal weapon: unserialized, untraceable, highly concealable, nearly foolproof. You won’t be doing any civil massacres with a hardware-store slam gun, but you can mostly definitely kill the guy standing in front of you with little effort.

The reason no one will shoot you today is because no one feels like shooting you today.

Go Watch Tim Egan’s Short Horror Film CURVE! (UPDATED: fixed embed/link)

Why I bring this to your attention today:

Unlike a lot of very short horror films, this one actually constitutes a complete horror story worthy your time, not a set-up for a jump-scare or splatter
As is often the case with the horror that really catches my eye (“like a fishhook in an open eye“), this is a female-led meditation on how one processes trauma
I like any film where the real villain is the coefficient of friction

One Upside to the Pandemic Bankruptcy of Chuck E. Cheese…

… was that we all got to learn about “concept unification”:

A fantastic corporate euphemism that yielded the following corporate training videos, which are simply astounding found-footage horror flicks waiting to happen. If this isn’t the origin of the Five Nights at Freddy’s video game series, then nothing makes sense anymore.

(whoever added the Erik Satie score to this second video is a goddamned genius, by-the-by)

The Far-from-Obligatory Annual Award Eligibility Post

It’s that time of year again. If you’re the kinda person that nominates stories for the Hugo, Nebula, etc. Awards, I’ve got exactly one qualifying story for you to consider this year:

“All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal” (F&SF, July/Aug 2020)

(review, review, review)

If you are a person who might nominate stuff and need a copy, I can send you a PDF. Contact me.

Incidentally, I loved that art so much that I contact the artist (Alan M Clark) and bought the original charcoal-on-paper drawing that was the source. It’s amaaaaaazing! The original is 16″x20″. A 5″x8″ magazine cover cannot do it justice. Such a treat to have on my wall.

Teddy Has an Operation

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