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Growing up, I was a shy, tenderhearted kid. School was not a good place for me, and I remember being astonished by my classmates’ naked viciousness. When a girl’s skirt rode up from the friction of her backpack, people pointed, nudged their friends, grinned at her without saying anything. Someone was sent home once for lice, and that would come to define her for years, a stain that she and every one of her sisters had to carry.
Be sure to check out the editorial for a rundown of this month’s content—and to get all our news and updates.
I sometimes start typing without any clue where I’m going. This results in a lot of abandoned fragments, but also a lot of stories that surprise me with their destinations. This was one. Honestly, I had the not-unusual premise of a man imprisoned in a dollhouse, and considered it for all of thirty seconds reflecting not only that it was old, but also that it was damned similar to one just published in Lightspeed Magazine, “Sand Castles.” And then I thought, hey, maybe he’s a full-sized man trapped in that dollhouse, which to him will be a confining cage.
This month, Adam-Troy Castro reviews the film adaptation of the classic children’s horror anthology: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Does he think it’s fit fair for adult horror fans? You’ll have to read the column to find out!
This is a retelling of a story told by a friend’s grandfather in Oaxaca, though numerous versions of it exist in Spanish-speaking America. The one I was told had two men stumbling across an abandoned baby in the night and carrying it as it grew heavier and heavier. I added a few details—the brothers’ business, the missing eyes, the gasoline—but I can take no credit for the spine-tingling moment when the baby addresses them through a mouthful of teeth (ya tengo dientes).
When John Carpenter and Debra Hill began to sketch out their ideas for Halloween, they dreamed up a list of scares. The creepiest images, the most unsettling scenes they could imagine. A clown with a knife. A gravestone in a bedroom. A pale face emerging slowly from the shadows. A person pinned to a wall by a blade. Or—how about this one?—a woman gets into a car and finds the windshield fogged up. The wipers kick on with no effect.
Tropes are kinda my jam, especially when it comes to slasher movies. In this case, I had an inkling of an idea about a Final Girl whose virginity was wholly practical, not some indicator of virtue or moral standing, but something she could use to her advantage to survive. Then I thought, “What if she’s asexual, too, either sex-repulsed or just indifferent, and giving up sex to hunt monsters totally isn’t a big deal for her?” Once I had that and the first line, I just kept writing until I found the shape of the story.
Be sure to check out the editorial for a run-down of this month’s shiver-worthy content and to keep up with all our exploits.
Terence Taylor visits some lonely places when he reviews the novels Hellish Beasts, by Brian Carmody, and Tinfoil Butterfly, by Rachel Eve Moulton.
I’ve always had a fascination with the fictional rules of possession: what laws govern this? What are the loopholes? Why is there so much vomit? There is usually (if a victim) no consent for the entity to possess a host, which is part of the horror. More broadly, I’m fascinated by the rules that constrain the monsters or people in horror. So like, choosing to watch a video you have been warned is haunted suggests consent. Forcing someone to watch that same video so they will be cursed entails no consent, and is violence.
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