Books
Black Friday Chopping List: Other Goodies
Black Friday is more than just the day after Thanksgiving or an unofficial holiday begging for its own 80s style slasher. No, Black Friday is a huge boon for retailers. In fact, the day got its name (supposedly) for being when stores would go from profits “in the red” to “in the black”. Over the years, it’s also become a massive cluster-fuck of rabid shoppers and disgruntled teenage employees who’d rather be somewhere downing eggnog. More than a few drops of blood seem to get shed annually as well. See? SLASHER – MOVIE. Sometimes, there are amazing deals to be found on the day, but it’s hard to know where to look. Not every store releases their ad paper in advance. For Black Friday 2018, I’m going to try and ease some that stress for you, fiends. I’ve scoured the internet to try and find the best deals, specials, and must have gifts for any horror obsessive this Pagan holiday season (Google it).
Mondo
Mondo has been churning out collectible goodies for years now. Based out of Austin, the company whose origins began as a t-shirt shop tucked away in the unused ticket booth of the Alamo Drafthouse, quickly found their true calling with the creation of gig-style posters to help promote various screenings of classic flicks. Now a new Mondo poster is met with great fanfare and fervent purchasing from their fans. Of course, the brand has extended beyond shirts and posters to include enamel pins, vinyl soundtracks, and even a brand spankingly new and awesome looking board game.
The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31
If you missed out on the Mondo Exclusive Edition of this board game, fear not, a standard edition is already available through retailers (though the website lists the purchase as a “pre-order” currently). The gameplay sounds like a more horror leaning version of the classic Clue. Based on John Carpenter’s The Thing, players must navigate the alien-infested confines of Outpost 31 while attempting to decipher who among them has been taken over by the shapeshifting monstrosity. Retails for $60
The Art of Mondo
Mondo posters can be pricey, especially if you attempt to purchase from a third party seller after a specific print has sold out. That said, a majority of their pieces are works of art in every aspect of the word and deserve to be treated as such. If you happen to be missing a piece from your collection that’s long out of print, The Art of Mondo is your best bet. I was lucky enough to receive a copy, and I’ve got to say it’s genuinely a beauty to behold. Over 300 pages of large, glossy poster art collected chronologically is a delight to flip through. Follow along as the art of Mondo evolves from the simple designs to help promote a film and music festival to licensed and fully realized works that celebrate your favorite cinema classics. The book is currently on sale at Amazon for only $50.72, though a special Deluxe Edition will be released on Black Friday!
Last but not least, in conjunction with Death Waltz Records you can nab Box of Souls – A Nightmare on Elm Street 8XLP Box Set. The set contains the original soundtracks from each of the 8 films from the series. The packaging makes this a piece well worth display in your collection, resembling Freddy’s bare chest with the faces of fallen souls by the hand of the nightmare demon screaming to break free.
While Mondo typically holds a sale on archived prints for Black Friday, this year their aim instead will be releasing new items. Of note for BD readers will be a Paranorman enamel pin.
Apparel
Cavity Colors
All “Cyber Hell” will break loose this Thursday at 5 PM EST! That’s because the appropriately christened company Cavity Colors will be launching their massive annual event, Cyber Hell. Everything storewide will be on sale between 35% – 75% off. The sale will continue through to Monday at 11:59 PM, though, patrons can save a little by shopping during the first 24 hours. Shipping in the US will be free for the first day.
There will be a number of enamel pin restocks including several from the Evil Dead collection as well as leftover stock from certain limited releases, including our very own Bloody Disgusting tee…which I don’t even have one yet! To grab these you will likely need to act fast as stock and size options are low.
Fright Rags
Right now on the Fright Rags homepage, a banner at the top reveals a countdown with the the line “Our biggest sale of the year is coming!” From Creepshow, Trick ‘r Treat, and even Goosebumps, Fright Rags has something special for every horror fanatic on you Holiday shopping list. I’ve been informed that all socks, pins, and box sets will be sold 50% off come Black Friday. While it doesn’t seem like all the shirts sitewide will carry the steep discount, I was promised that a “ton” of them will be half off. You’ll even be able to nab a “Tee of Mystery” for only nine buckaroos.
Personally, my eyes are locked in on the “Vintage Halloween Collection” which features Samhain boogeymen heavy-hitters Sam and Michael in retro styled tees. There’s also the Monstervision shirts, because who wouldn’t want Joe Bob Briggs’s mug plastered across your chest?
Hopefully, I’ve given you a few good gift ideas, whether those special ones in your life are art lovers or simply never leave the house in anything other than jeans and a t-shirt. Still, if you’re left with a few more names on your list – maybe this group will point you in the right direction.
Horror Candles
Every year around this time I get into a craftsy, Martha Stewarty mood. It begins simple enough with cooking around Halloween as I tear through as many pumpkin recipes as I possibly can. By the time Christmas has come and gone my kitchen looks like a Hobby Lobby has imploded in on itself. I make candles for gifts. Mostly they’re for those I appreciate but don’t feel like spending any real money on. That’s not to take away from the gift itself as candles are a good deal of work and the process of crafting them can be somewhat therapeutic. I even concoct the aromas and names based off a number of horror films. “Norma” smells like fresh baked cookies, “Swamp Thing” like moss and patchouli, and “Pumkinhead” smells like the rotten sweetness of pumpkin pie with hints of dirt. All this to say, I have no Etsy shop…yet. But, I truly believe candles can make a perfect gift for a horror fan. Who doesn’t like their shit to smell nice? Even better if you can tie them into the receivers own interests. Below are a couple I was able to track down online.
Cavity Candles
Again, our friends at Cavity Colors come through! Their candles are all hand-poured, 100% soy wax (which means they won’t emit carbon soot like regular paraffin candles). Bonus, each jar candle comes with a colorful decorative label that perfectly matches with the Cavity Color brand. Catch them in “Mystery Scent”, “Re-agent” and more! Hopefully, these won’t be left out of the sale this year.
Horror Decor
The site, Horror Decor, offers a wide array of oddball homegoods for lovers of the macabre. You can easily marry your obsessions with design and decay by clicking through their offerings. On the flickering flame front, they have “An Offering to Krampus” scented candle and wax melt that promises a ” blend of mistletoe, frankincense, myrrh, and a subtle hint of pine.” The idea of a pleasant fragrance with the added benefit of warding off Christmas’s most evil demonic force is super, but even cooler are these VHS wax melts complete with “Be Kind, Rewind” smiley faces! The cassettes smell like soda while the smileys contain the buttery aroma of popcorn. Pop these in your wax warmer and throw in a Vinegar Syndrome blu and prepare to get whisked away to your childhood evenings spent at the video store.
At the end of the day, horror is big business and retailers have finally started to take notice. Even Wal-Mart carries a seasonal t-shirt with Freddy and Jason chilling by the Christmas Tree! So, no matter how you plan to spend your Black Friday, rest easy knowing your loved ones have plenty of options when it comes to scrambling to find a gift just right for you. And as our very own frequent commenter Creepshow has pointed out, if you don’t like it – there’s always those trusty gift receipts.
Books
Urban Legends, Serial Killers, and Space Epics: 10 Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read This June
We have entered summer reading season.
Schools are emptying, beaches are filling, and it’s a great time to pack a tote full of brand-new books and get some reading done in the shade. But even if the sun is bright, your fiction can still be dark, because June is absolutely packed with great new horror releases from rising stars and genre icons.
From a Psycho retelling to a dark twist on Peter Pan lore to a new book from a Pulitzer Prize winner, these are the horror titles we can’t wait to crack open this June.
The Children by Melissa Albert – June 2
A blend of dark fantasy, Gothic family saga, and horror novel that’s received rave reviews from Stephen King and more, The Children follows the adult children of a legendary fantasy author who died when a fire consumed their home. Now, living their own creative lives, Guinevere and Ennis must revisit the secrets from the night of the fire, the darkness surrounding Ennis’s new art installation, and the truth of their family legacy in both fact and fiction. It sounds like a wonderful twisted nest of secrets and magic, and I’m eager to dive in.
Marion by Leah Rowan – June 2
Just when you thought we’d run out of interesting ways to riff on Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leah Rowan comes along with Marion. As the title suggests, it’s the story of the Bates Motel’s most famous victim, but this time, she doesn’t die in the shower. She takes control of the knife and the narrative in this daring retelling of a proto-slasher classic. The story we know is just the beginning, and I can’t wait to find out the end.
Headlights by CJ Leede – June 9
Through her first two novels, Maeve Fly and American Rapture, CJ Leede emerged as one of the most exciting new horror voices of the 2020s, and she’s just getting warmed up. Leede’s third novel follows an FBI agent on the brink of retirement, running from his past and from the unsolved case that haunts him most, as he’s slowly pulled back into a gruesome serial killer narrative. Victims start turning up again, wearing someone else’s skin like a cape, with no memory of how they got that way, or how they got a lone strand of unidentified hair tied around their tongue. Both a riff on The Shining and a journey into the dark Colorado night, Headlights is one of the year’s most exciting horror lit events.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo – June 9
Cynthia Pelayo‘s novels have always felt like dark fairy tales, and with her latest, she’s taking things into the realm of one of the most famous children’s stories ever. It Came From Neverland follows a version of Wendy Darling who, while working as a schoolteacher and as an aid to rehabilitate World War I soldiers, finds old fears returning when a student goes missing. It seems that an entity Wendy knows only as “Peter Pan” is back on the prowl, and unlocking her memories might be the only way to stop it. That’s right, it’s a dark Peter Pan retelling as only Pelayo can do it, and you know you want a piece of that.
The Other by Annie Neugebauer – June 9
Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra ranks as one of the most clever and frightening horror novellas in recent memory, but that was only the beginning. This June, Neugebauer returns with the next book in what’s been dubbed “The Outsiders Sequence.” This time, Neugebauer’s strange world of doppelgangers and mimics turns to a couple on a hike who run into their exact duplicates, setting off a chain of events that will test their understanding of each other in terrifying ways. Neugebauer’s one of horror’s finest rising stars right now, so if you haven’t jumped on board The Outsiders Sequence yet, pick up The Extra and get ready for The Other.
Marla by Jonathan Janz – August 18 (Editor’s update: Release has now shifted from initial June 23 publication date)
Speaking of rising stars in the horror world, we’ve got Jonathan Janz, whose work has hit another level in recent years thanks to work like Children of the Dark and Veil. Now he’s back with Marla, the story of a local woman surrounded by urban legend, and her possible connection to a string of crimes in the community of King’s Branch. Is Marla a witch, a killer, a victim, a helpless child? We’ll have to read and find out in what feels like a perfect jumping-on point for new Janz readers.
The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus – June 23
Daniel Kraus has long been a favorite among genre readers, but thanks to his recent Pulitzer Prize win for his brilliant novel Angel Down, he’s more visible than ever, and all that visibility comes as he’s about to unleash a space epic with all the hallmarks of epic sci-fi and horror alike. The Sixth Nik promises everything from a sentient spaceship to a rogue planet full of plague to a nine-year-old “cultist” with an enhanced brain. This is Kraus playing in a brand-new sandbox, and genre readers everywhere won’t want to miss that.
Slasher Summer by E.L. Chen – June 23
E.L. Chen‘s latest novel is described as a love letter to ’80s slasher films, and anyone who’s taken a dive into the meta-horror of Scream or My Heart is a Chainsaw will want to sit up and take notice. The book follows a group of friends who grew up in a town famous as the location of a slasher movie, where they frequently played the characters during midnight shows. As adults, they return to their hometown, and to the location of the slasher movie, only to find that someone’s out to get them, someone wearing a very familiar mask. This sounds like a blast, and the latest in an ever-growing strand of slasher novels reinventing the genre on the page.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay – June 30
Modern horror master Paul Tremblay‘s latest novel sounds like his most ambitious yet, and that’s really saying something. Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep follows Julia, a former pro gamer who gets an offer she can’t refuse: For a hefty payday, she must pilot a man named “Bernie” across the country for her mother’s tech company. The catch? Bernie’s in a vegetative state, and his mobility comes from the AI chip in his head. As Julia moves Bernie’s body, Bernie’s mind moves through an unfathomable nightmare world, but where are they heading, and what’s Bernie really meant to find? Every new Paul Tremblay book is an event, and this one feels particularly special.
Red X by David Demchuk – June 30
This one’s technically a reprint, but David Demchuk’s Red X is so revered among the horror community, and particularly other horror authors, that it feels worth highlighting, especially during Pride Month. Complex and metatextual, Red X is about a series of disappearances and a demonic entity plaguing the gay community of Toronto, but it’s also an autobiographical sketch of an author navigating death, survival, queer culture, horror as a means of expression, and more. In short, it’s an essential, and this new edition, complete with fresh writing by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Anthony Oliveira, is a must-have.
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