Advertisement
As I write from within the sidelined shadows where the horror genre lurks, I am reminded of the four hours I spent in that busted-ass, stinking shack. The people, the music. The communion. I think about the exploration we do as writers of horror.
Remember the first time you ever saw the Xenomorph’s mouth? Those silver, almost human-shaped teeth? The pooling saliva as the maw slowly opened, revealing not a tongue, but a projectile mouth-within-a-mouth? What kind of monster is so hungry it needs a mouth inside its mouth?
It was absolutely intentional to not just critique the “traditional” three-act structure but to expose its inherent violence through the story’s very bones. For women like Mirlande, who is undocumented, Black, and Haitian, that very structure gaslights on a narrative level.
Four thousand two hundred years ago, an ancient Egyptian scribe named Ipuwer lived through the end of the world. Old Kingdom Egypt, one of the world’s first states and a paragon of balance and order, was collapsing into chaos and violence.
I read and watch a lot of horror. I’m really interested in the genre and how it provides a vehicle for grappling with experiences that can be difficult to name and contend with otherwise, including experiences of physical porousness, boundarylessness, and vulnerability.
We hear of people dying in the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, reaching a twenty-year high in 2025 alone, and this is unsettling. But what particularly chills me to the bone is the February 2026 report on the decapitation of four Haitian women deported from Puerto Rico.
During my tenure as a Portland metro-area resident, I’ve had memberships at my neighborhood video stores, including Hollywood Video (RIP), Blockbuster Video (RIP), Clinton Street Video (RIP), and most recently, Great American Video & Espresso.
Community is important—essential, even—but community is built on patience, tolerance, adaptability, generosity, understanding. Conformity shatters too easily. Don’t build community on conformity.
Dan Coxon has won a World Fantasy Award (Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology), a Saboteur Award (Being Dad) and two British Fantasy Awards (Writing the Uncanny and Writing the Future, both co-edited with Richard V. Hirst). He has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards a total of eight times, and was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards.
The big thing is that fish are gross. They are slimy and weird and I hate their creepy eyeballs. They scare me and I think they should scare you, too.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement