Welcome to Issue #150 of Nightmare Magazine!
It takes time to assemble a magazine issue, which means that while you’re reading this editorial in March, I’m writing it in January. Where you sit, David Lynch has been dead for a month and a half. For me, it’s a recent occurrence.
There are few creators who have had a bigger impact on my thoughts about creativity or about the power and importance of horror like David Lynch. Some of the most terrifying moments in film have sprung from his mind—and most of them are constructed from the absolutely banal. There’s no reason why an image of a swiftly turning ceiling fan should be frightening, and yet in Lynch’s hands, it’s nightmare fuel. The scene in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me where Laura Palmer lays in bed looking from a painting of an open doorway to her own open bedroom door and back again made me so tense I thought I’d crack a tooth. He made me understand that inside each of us there is a locked door holding back what frightens us, and that a skilled and sensitive creator has the power to unlock it by simply tapping into the right cultural resonances.
David Lynch did not come up with the line “The owls are not what they seem.” It was co-creator Mark Frost who wrote the teleplay for that episode of Twin Peaks. But seemings and doublings are a primary occupation of Lynch’s work. That’s why when I sat down to write about this month’s issue, I immediately thought of him—and the owls. These stories and this poem are also not what they seem.
We’re starting off the month with an original short piece from Lincoln Michel: “The Tugwort.” It is the story of a couple who take a vacation at an island resort. They’re a happy couple, and it’s a delightful place for a vacation . . . or at least, that’s how it all seems. To find out what’s happening beneath the surface (and the secret of the stray cat outside the hotel room), you’ll have to check it out. Ana Hurtado’s short story “Pezcara” is also about people on vacation, but this time we’re following a pair of kids shopping for a New Year’s celebration. It’s wholesome family bonding, or so it seems. For flash, Samir Sirk Morató has written the doppelganger of a haunted house story: “sharp house.” And Josh Pearce writes about music—maybe—in “Touch This Cancer, It Probably Won’t Bite.”
Over at The H Word, Zoe Kerr writes about a new trend in horror: films about the rich and famous who we love to hate. We also have author spotlights with our authors, and guest film reviewer J.B. Kish shines a spotlight on an exciting French horror film you might have missed: MadS.
We’re proud to bring you another great issue packed with the weird, the frightening, and the horrific. There’s never been a better time to celebrate creativity and the writers out there catching the big fish of the imagination.
