#we hired an exorcist to play d&d | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

richincolor · 1 year

Photo

Celebrating Women of Horror

To celebrate Women's History Month I thought I'd highlight some authors who specialize in creeping us out, scaring us, and writing amazing thrillers that have us biting our fingernails as we quickly turn page after page to find out "who done it". Let's raise a glass to the YA Authors of Horror!

First off, in my humble opinion, is the queen Tiffany D. Jackson. She is known for plot twists that absolutely break our hearts while giving us all sorts of literary thrills. I always say I'm going to take my time with one of her books, but we all know that's a lie. I'm way to into the story to put the book down and usually end up reading well past my bedtime. Her latest, The Weight of Blood is an excellent homage to Stephen King's Carrie in the only way a Jackson novel can.

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation... Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington. After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High's racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school's first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it's possible to have a normal life. But some of her classmates aren't done with her just yet. And what they don't know is that Maddy still has another secret... one that will cost them all their lives.

Next is Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood which I absolutely loved. Who would have thought turning a romance novel into a YA horror novel would work so well? Blackwood's novel is creepy and gothic and full of steamy romantic moments that make it a wonderful thriller that you can't put down.

Within These Wicked Walls" by Lauren Blackwood

What the heart desires, the house destroys...

Andromeda is a debtera—an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. When a handsome young heir named Magnus Rochester reaches out to hire her, Andromeda quickly realizes this is a job like no other, with horrifying manifestations at every turn, and that Magnus is hiding far more than she has been trained for. Death is the most likely outcome if she stays, but leaving Magnus to live out his curse alone isn’t an option. Evil may roam the castle’s halls, but so does a burning desire.

The next few books are on my TBR list and I can't wait to be scared by these awesome authors.

Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado

Mysterious disappearances. An urban legend rumored to be responsible. And one group of teens determined to save their city at any cost. For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize's cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention—especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances. Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York's past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart—or die trying.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

A house with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic. When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised. But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don’t eat. Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house—the home her family has always wanted—will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.

Read Audrey's Review

Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers

Tsalagi should never have to live on human blood, but sometimes things just happen to sixteen-year-old girls.

Making her YA debut, Cherokee writer Andrea L. Rogers takes her place as one of the most striking voices of the horror renaissance that has swept the last decade.

Horror fans will get their thrills in this collection – from werewolves to vampires to zombies – all the time-worn horror baddies are there. But so are predators of a distinctly American variety – the horrors of empire, of intimate partner violence, of dispossession. And so too the monsters of Rogers’ imagination, that draw upon long-told Cherokee stories – of Deer Woman, fantastical sea creatures, and more.

Following one extended Cherokee family across the centuries, from the tribe’s homelands in Georgia in the 1830s to World War I, the Vietnam War, our own present, and well into the future, each story delivers a slice of a particular time period that will leave readers longing for more.

Man Made Monsters is a masterful, heartfelt, haunting collection ripe for crossover appeal – just don’t blame us if you start hearing things that go bump in the night.

#womens history month #weneeddiversebooks #horror

17 notes · View notes

hello-im-not-a-possum · 4 years

Text

Joey makes a grave mistake (Haunted Prompt)

“Now kid, don’t yous eva let me catch ya anywhere near dat church ova dere, it’s a lotta things, but it sure ain’t no house of God no more...”

“Okay! Bye Mr. Polk!”

“An’ be back before sundown! yer folks worry a lot about yous!”

“Will do!”

Ignoring Henry’s neighbor’s warnings, Joey Drew threw his sketchbook, a handful of pencils, an eraser, a flashlight, and his father’s book of the occult into his bag, took his best friend’s hand in his own and immediately skipped off to the old church. (As soon as he was sure that they were out of ol’ Polk’s sight, that is.)

“Isn’t this exciting Henry?! A haunted church, just a half-mile away from here! Think about it; somewhere in the churchyard of this old backwater town is an honest-to-god monster! With large sharp teeth and huge claws! You gotta be at least a little bit curious...”

“But didn’t Mr. Polk warn us not to go there?”

“Pssshh. Mr. Polk’s just a superstitious weirdo.”

“It’s not just him, All the adults say it’s a bad idea to go over there! My dad says he hears hell hounds braying at the moon some nights...”

“Then all the adults here wouldn’t know what fun is if it bit them in the butt!”

“I still think we should go do something else.”

The boy gave his friend a devilish smirk.

“Why? are you chicken?”

“I’m not a chicken!”

“Yes you are!”

“No I’m not!”

“Henry’s a chiiick-eeen!” Joey teased “Bawk Bawk Bawk!”

“Joey!” Henry grabbed his friend’s shoulders, forcing him to look at him. “I think that the place isn’t haunted, but it’s probably falling apart and full of dust, mold, spiders and bats. The adults just don’t want us to get hurt or sick!”

“...What kind of bats do you think are in there?”

“Joey, that’s not the point. The point is we can’t go into that church!”

“And we’re not! we’re just gonna check out the graveyard near the church. Even if we don’t go into the haunted church that we’ll probably never see again in our lifetimes-”

“I live here. If I wanted to go there, I’d see it any time I wanted. Why do you want to see the old graveyard, anyway?”

“Because maybe we can find cool bugs to gross out Nathan with somewhere in there.”

Henry tapped his foot and raised an eyebrow at his friend, obviously not believing him.

“Okay, maybe just a little peek won’t hurt?”

“Joey...” He crossed his arms and tapped his foot louder. “If you so much as peek your head in there, I WILL tell your mom where we went.”

“Fine... we won’t go to church.” The boy huffed and pouted, he hated it when Henry played the ‘I’ll tell your mom’ card. “But let’s compromise: we stay in the graveyard until the sun goes down, then I’ll take you back home and I’ll go back to the motel.”

“Thank you.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surprisingly true to Joey’s word, when the boys arrived at their destination, They stayed in the graveyard. Although, that could’ve been because Henry would’ve told Joey’s mom otherwise. Joey Sylvester Drew didn’t fear the unknown horrors of the earthly realm, the wrath of God or even the hottest Hellfire the Devil himself could light up, but he feared his mother’s wooden spoon like no tomorrow.

The two explored the graveyard, wrote down names they thought were either funny or interesting, looked for bugs (but didn’t have any luck, not only were there no bugs to be found, but the spider Joey wanted to catch skittered away too quickly), and when it got a bit late, ate sandwiches (which Henry packed) on the bench under the rotting oak tree and they sketched the eerie landscape, as well as adding skeletons and ghosts coming out of their graves to dance and sing.

“Hey Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a haunted house?”

“Hmm.” Henry paused to take a bite of his fifth sandwich before answering “I don’t think I would be comfortable staying in a place I know that people died in. Especially if they died horribly.”

“Well I’d think it would be cool.” Joey drew a top hat on one of the skeletons. “If I was a ghost, would you let me haunt your house?”

“If you were a ghost and you tried to haunt my house I’d call an exorcist. Why don’t you haunt your own house?”

“Henry!” Joey playfully shoved his friend while laughing. “You’re so mean!”

An hour later, the sky turned to a deep orange, signaling it was time to go home. The boys packed up their things and Joey flicked on his flashlight and led the way back.

However, the thing about autumn is that the sun leaves a lot sooner than it does during the summer, which was practically yesterday for Joey. Soon the stars and silvery sheen of the full moon shone through the pitch black night, the darkness making the shorter boy’s flashlight all the more important.

“Ma’s gonna kill me.” Joey groaned. “I didn’t think the sunset would be so short!”

“Should we tell her we got lost? Maybe she’ll go easier on us then?”

“Don’t do that! She might never let us see each other again if-”

The boys froze in place as they heard leaves rustling behind them.

“Joey?”

“Y-yeah..?”

“Do you hear that too?”

“Mm hmm” Joey gulped. “D-do you think Mr. Polk followed us to make make sure we stayed out of the church?”

“I hope so, but I think he’d call out for us if he did...”

Henry flinched as the rustling grew louder and Joey shined his flashlight towards the source of the noise.

Both boys’ hearts pounded in their ears as they saw the giant snarling wolf.

They screamed and fled but the wolf was far faster than the two boys, catching up on them in mere seconds, but Joey was faster than Henry.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!”

Henry screamed out in fear and pain as the wolf pounced on him and sank his teeth deeply into his back.

Fueled by adrenaline and the fear of losing his best friend in the world to some monster, Joey grabbed a large branch and threw it at the creature. As it recoiled, the frightened boy grabbed Henry and pulled him away from the beast, running as fast as he could.

Joey was too scared of the beast behind him to notice that Henry seemed to be getting lighter, he also didn’t notice the fur quickly growing on his best friend’s back, or that his teeth were falling out to make room for fangs. But Henry did notice the fur growing on his arms that his fingernails had fallen out to make room for sharp wolf’s claws.

“Joey... You gotta leave me behind!”

“NO!” Joey clutched Henry tighter, tears were streaming down his face. “I’M NOT LETTING THAT MONSTER TAKE YOU!”

“JOEY! PLEASE!” Henry begged, showing his developing paws to Joey. “I DON’T WANNA HURT YOU!”

“YOU WONT!” Joey screamed out of desperation “I KNOW YOU WONT!”

If Joey was going to be too stubborn to save himself, then Henry would save him. The new werewolf wrenched himself out of the still human boy’s grip with ease and fled into the woods.

But Joey followed him, he followed him and-

SNAP

Joey found his leg stuck between the teeth of a bear trap.

Henry could smell the fresh blood coming out of Joey’s leg, and he could hear Joey cry and struggle to pry the bear trap open, and hear him flinch in pain as he failed. While he still feared what would happen to Joey when he became a full wolf, he also feared that the other wolf would eat him alive while he was stuck in that trap.

Before his humanity faded away completely, Henry ran back to his friend and broke the trap in half, freeing his very, very, very stupid friend.

His voice left him, making him unable to argue with Joey any longer (Unless you counted growling, barking, and howling as arguing.) He pawed and whined at his friend in a desperate plea to get him to leave him, looking much more like a wolf pup in a kid’s clothing than a human being.

While surprised but undeterred by this, Joey scooped up the squirming puppy form of his friend and clutched him to his chest as he limped towards the nearest house with its porch lights on.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Knock* *knock* *knock*

Joey could hear inaudible grumbling and heavy footsteps from inside the house.

*Knock* *knock* *knock*

The front door swing wide open, revealing Henry’s neighbor in his pajamas.

“Don’t yous know what time it is?! You’ll wake the whole town up with all dat rack-”

Norman’s anger quickly turned into shock and concern as he saw the bloody child shaking like a leaf in the wind, the boy had tears and snot still running down his face and was holding a live wolf pup who was still wearing his neighbor’s son’s torn-up sweater.

“Jesus Christ, kid...”

“M-Mr. Polk...” Joey sniffled “...What do I do..?”

Norman let the pair into his home and dressed the boys’ wounds up in bandages that Joey imagined army people carried with them. As he calmed down a little bit and tried his best to explain the situation, Henry’s neighbor didn’t yell or scream at him even once during the ordeal. (Although in his mind, he deserved to be screamed at.) Even after he admitted that he and Henry went to the graveyard by the church that he had just told them not to go to. He just listened patiently and said that he’d do what he could to help.

The rest of the night was a wild blur to Joey, so he assumed that Mr. Polk just called their parents, gave them dinner (Joey fed Henry his food when Norman wasn’t looking as he was too queasy from the experience to eat.) and let them crash on his couch.

The rest of the month, no, the rest of that year was also a blur to Joey. He knew his mom screamed at him for being so stupid, he knew the doctor told him his leg would have to be amputated, and he knew that Henry was horrified about his newfound lycanthropy and even if he’d never admit it, probably resented Joey for condemning him to that.

So he did everything he could to make it up to him. The supernatural forces weren’t as whimsical to him as they used to be but now they were so much more important. There was no cure for lycanthropy, but that didn’t mean that Joey wouldn’t do everything he could to make sure that Henry was at the very least as comfortable as he could be with his condition.

Whether that meant “unknowingly” hiring supernatural beings so that Henry would be less out of place in the office, spending countless hours weaving special charms to make the transformation itself hurt less, hunting down a shape-shifting raven monster and dragging him kicking and screaming into human civilization in spite of the fact his supernatural nature still was not fully understood by Joey, (But he knew that wolves and corvids were often friends, so the bird beast would make an excellent companion for Henry during full moons.) or simply filling up a fridge with bacon. If he knew of it and it would help, then no force on earth would stop him from doing it.

But even decades later when he was growing old and he and his lifelong best friend ran a successful animation studio together. The night where the two of them visited the graveyard still haunted him to this day.

#hauntober #haunted #bendy and the ink machine #joey drew #Henry Stein #norman polk #batim monster au #would you look at that #an au where Joey is a good person #fanfic

13 notes · View notes

bereft-of-frogs · 5 years

Note

If you are ever so inclined - I'd be very interested in your horror recommendations.

This got…probably more involved than you intended. :D It was a good procrastination tool/distraction from A Thing I didn’t want to do though, and I had fun revisiting some of these old trailers.

This ended up really long. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this.

“The New Golden Age”

[These are what I’m talking about when I talk about us entering in a new golden age - really genre bending, specifically out to subvert tropes, make social statements, and empower people who have been shut out by horror in the past.]

Jordan Peele - Get Out (2017) and Us (2019)

Ah, Jordan Peele. The master of the comedy to horror turn. Get Out was the most fun I’ve had watching a horror movie in a long time. I love how it really fits itself to classic tropes but subverts them by flipping the genre and race dynamics. (Daniel Kaluuya’s character embodies the ‘Final Girl’ trope.)

Us fucked me up. Like, woke up at 3am thinking about it, couldn’t really look at Lupita Nyong’o for a while. The remix of the song that plays over the trailer literally gives me goosebumps. It freaked me out, so much. That one is a genre bender - you think you’re watching one thing (a classic home-invasion type trope with some weird mystery to it) and then the final scene basically upends everything you thought you were watching. Fucked. Me. Up.

Ari Aster - Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019)

I’ve been talking a bunch about how much I loved Midsommar. It’s gorgeous visually, Ari Aster is so great at just letting things hang and letting tension build and build - and it was the first horror movie I think I’ve ever felt weirdly empowered by. Like, similar to when I saw Captain Marvel, I walked out of the theater like “is this how men feel all the time?” Hereditary is probably a better movie overall, not counting the fact that it was practically made for me. At its core it’s a grief drama, a phenomenal portrait of mourning…and it’s also really fucking scary. Those slow-tension building scenes are really used effectively in Hereditary.

I also think it’s interesting because Ari Aster is keeping pace with Jordan Peele, but did it in the opposite order. Hereditary is the genre-bender - you kind of think it’s a family drama/psychological horror for most of it, and then it takes a hard turn and makes you question everything you were watching. Midsommar is more on-genre norms - it’s essentially the classic ‘bunch of terrible people getting picked off one by one’ trope (I don’t know if there’s a better name for that), but by applying folk horror and really centering female characters as both pro- and an- tagonist, it does a lot of unexpected things.

Robin Aubert - Les Affamés (”The Ravenous”) (2017)

It’s a zombie movie, but it’s more than that. This movie is so layered. I saw it at a festival when it first came out and then we watched it again this year on St. Jean-Baptiste (Québec national holiday) because we wanted to be #OnTheme. (And to celebrate St. Jean-Baptiste without having to interact with crowds) and it kind of clicked what it was doing. It’s really about the absorbing of difference into the dominant, hegemonic culture and the struggle for marginalized individuals to survive. Robin Aubert has a couple others I haven’t seen yet, but have heard good things about and are on my list. I saw a critic call his main brand ‘pastoral terror’ (terreur pastorale) which I absolutely love as a concept.

Alex Garland - Annihilation (2018)

Some people might argue with me if this is horror or not, if it’s sci-fi, but I think it’s body horror. And it’s beautiful body horror! See this is what I’m here for. Body horror is not just gore - there’s not a lot of blood in this movie. Body horror is about distortion and the grotesque. There’s this one scene that still gives me chills when I think about it and Tessa Thompson’s final scene is beautiful body horror at its finest. (There was also a really similar scene in Midsommar, so I clearly know what I like.) The soundtrack is also phenomenal.

[I had a whole rant about the book series, which I hated, here, but it was getting long and derailing so I cut it out. the tldr is I hated the book.]

“Classics I actually Enjoy”

[I don’t always love what appears at the top of the like ‘essential horror’ lists, but these are the ones I think are worth it.]

Dario Argento - Deep Red (1975)

I really, really wanted to like Suspiria more, because the concept and Goblin’s score for Suspiria both appeal to me a lot more. But I had a lot more fun watching Deep Red. So far it’s my favorite of the giallos.

Richard Donner - The Omen (1976)

Classic. It’s so good. “It’s all for you, Damian!” Plus, I love any movie that comes with rumors of a curse.

Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho (1960)

I would classify most of Hitchcock as ‘thriller’ rather than horror, but Psycho is firmly psychological horror, and The Classic.

Stuart Gordon - Re-animator (1985)

I couldn’t really decide if I wanted to put this one. Especially because on a long drive my friend and we basically covered how this was really ripe for a remake because it’s flaws…did not age particularly well, especially re: gender and race. (But it could be so, so good. It could be an amazing commentary about consent and the use of marginalized bodies…but the original …is…not.) But I’m putting this on here because of body horror. They clearly hired dancers or choreographers to do the reanimated movements because they really lean into it and it’s great. It gets…heavily derailed at the end by an absolutely ridiculous gore climax and missing the opportunity to actually have a coherent storyline or a message of any kind…but they got the grotesque movements down.

Honorable Mentions: The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, *sigh* Cannibal Holocaust (like…I don’t actually recommend anyone watch it. I’m glad I did, because it’s really important for how the ‘found footage’ genre developed, so it’s a piece of film history but like. Don’t actually watch it.), The House on Haunted Hill

“Random Others In Between”

Adrian Lyne - Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

You might recognize Jacob’s Ladder as the movie that more heavily inspired the first chapter of ‘dark underground//violent sky’ more than I had originally thought. I had originally been basing a lot of the tone and style on current trends in horror TV, but then I happened to watch Jacob’s Ladder while I was in the middle of writing the second half and was like…oh. Like, I knew I had been heavily influenced by Jacob’s Ladder and the ending, but I had forgotten about how the film differentiates between ‘reality’ and ‘dream’ - in that it doesn’t! And that was an effect I was specifically striving for when I was writing ‘dark underground’. It’s also just a really weird, trippy late-80s/early-90s movie set in New York when New York was still really dirty and that’s fun.

Hideo Nakata - Dark Water (2002)

This is my favorite Japanese horror film. I think it gets a little bit looked over in favor of some others (Ringu, Ju-on, Audition), but it’s my favorite. (Has a terrible American remake, so be sure to avoid that one. It comes up first when you google. -_-)

James Wan - The Conjuring (2013)

I did really like this first entry - the sequels are kind of aggressively meh.

Scott Derrickson - Sinister (2012)

THE DANGER IS IN THE VIEWING!

Honorable Mentions: Session 9, Se7en, The Ritual, It Follows, The Descent, The Hills Have Eyes (I just really like bright horror movies), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (for fun bonus pretension, you can also watch Requiem, and then when people ask you if you’ve seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose, you get to be like “Yeah, have you seen the German original?” though, technically, it’s that they’re both based off of the same true-story. it’s still fun to say), Hard Candy, Ils (Them), THE VVITCH (should only ever be pronounced ‘The Va-Vitch’ lol)

“The Parody Films”

[What is there to say? They’re great, so much fun.]

Joss Whedon - Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Remember back in 2012 when Avengers 1 came out, and then Cabin in the Woods came out, like, immediately afterwards, and we all loved Joss Whedon? We were so innocent back then.

Eli Craig - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

This movie is so pure. I love how they both play into and subvert the rural hillbilly tropes with the two main characters. They just want a vacation home! These kids keep killing themselves on their property!

Honorable Mentions: Shaun of the Dead, I was googling to confirm the year of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and I saw What We Do In The Shadows listed as horror paraody, but I would count that more as a Gothic mockumentary, but I listed it here because I love it so much.

“Documentaries”

Xavier Burgin - Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019)

This movie was so interesting! Highly recommend. I think Shudder is planning on producing more of these documentaries, about marginalized groups in horror, and I am Here For It.

Honorable Mentions: Cropsey/Killer Legends, Best Worst Movie

I think I’ll stop here and maybe someday do a separate one for books. And maybe TV series, but I’m having a hard time teasing out the line between mystery and horror because of how popular and kind of unique Nordic Noir is right now. It’s just hard to draw the line for TV.

But I’ll end by summarizing reading thoughts (in a more disorganized manner):

-I have two separate ‘complete tales and poems’ editions of Edgar Allen Poe - one to look pretty and one to annotate.

-If you come for my girl Mary Shelley I will come @ you. Once a kind of asshole-y friend once was like ‘Frankenstein is terrible because it was written by a teenage girl’ and, I swear to God, I almost fought him right there in the bar. The Last Man is also great.

-I also almost forgot how much I loved Dracula. The Harkers especially. (I once tried to read League of Extraordinary Gentleman and gave up with a rage-headache 15 pages in because of what they did to Mina.) (Ah yes, let’s make her a “Strong Female Character ™” by having her divorce Jonathan and almost be raped in the first 15 pages.) (Couldn’t deal with it.) (I’m sure I would in general like that series but I just had too much attachment to Mina Harker to get over it.)

-I physically cannot get through Lovecraft. I can’t do it. I’ve tried so many times, I know how important it is but I just. Can’t. Don’t want to. Won’t. Sorry.

-A lot of adapted books I tend to prefer the books they were based on. Some are kind of obvious, like I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, which is a way, way better book than the movie. (They changed the ending which undercut the actual message.) But others are still decent movies, I just tend to prefer the book. Like, everyone always puts Let the Right One In on ‘essential horror’ lists, but I actually liked the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist a lot better.

-Similarly, you may have noticed I put no Stephen King movies on this list - there are a few I really like, but I think they work better as complements to the novels. Misery and the original Pet Sematary (haven’t seen the new one yet) are my two favorite movies-based-on-king. The Shining is visually stunning by character-wise, wildly disappointing, so point to the novel for this one. (King also hated the adaptation for what Kubrick did to Wendy.) My general King recommendations are: Carrie, Misery, The Shining, The Mist, Insomnia

I’m having a bit of an issue with how male-dominated this list is. It’s partially my problem that I’m working on correcting (I’m at the point where I’m actively trying not to read horror books by white men anymore) and partially a general problem in the industry. It’s hard to get into an industry that for a long time unquestioningly based itself on violence against women and other marginalized peoples’ bodies. -_- But yeah, I have a list of contemporary horror novels by women that I’m working my way through, and I’m trying to catch up on some older staples like Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, and Octavia Butler.

UPDATE: After I finished compiling this list, I googled ‘Horror movies directed by women’ and there are a couple that I would recommend, I think they’re just not as visible. (Did not realize they’d been directed by women until this Google.):

Mary Lambert - Pet Sematary (1989)

Karen Kusama - Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Mary Harron - American Psycho (2000)

Lynne Ramsay - We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) (though I liked the book better)

This list was probably incomplete and I’ve probably forgotten a bunch of things I really like! It’s also only made up of things I’ve already seen/read (though it’s not comprehensive). If something’s not on here and you think it should be, lmk! It may be that I haven’t seen it yet and I’ll add it to my to-watch list. Always taking suggestions, especially for more horror (films or books) from underrepresented groups.

#veliseraptor #horror movies #fright night #this took a long time i need to go eat lunch now #ha i meant to break this off at a normal point but #alas

11 notes · View notes