It Came From Neverland, Pelayo’s latest novel, takes that search and applies it to one of the most famous children’s stories ever conceived, J.M. Barrie’s beloved and oft-adapted tale of the Boy Who Never Grew Up. But this is not just a Peter Pan retelling, or a Peter Pan meta-sequel. Through gorgeous prose, finely drawn characters, and an iron grip on the themes that drive the story, Pelayo crafts It Came From Neverland into one of the year’s must-read genre novels, both a horrifying spin on Peter Pan and a luminous dark fantasy about the search for salvation in a cold, brutal world.

In Pelayo’s version of events, Wendy Darling and her brothers John and Michael really did travel to Neverland when they were children, drawn there by a charismatic and irresistible figure called Peter Pan. But this Neverland is far from the Disney version, and after fighting to survive in that ageless place, the children made their way home and shut Peter Pan out of their lives, refusing to so much as utter his name, lest he find them again. 

Flash forward to 1914, where Wendy’s working as a schoolteacher at Marigold House, a London orphanage growing increasingly crowded amid the outbreak of World War I. By day, she teaches and volunteers at a local hospital, reading to the war wounded, and by night, she remembers to check every window latch and keep an eye on every shadow. But lately those shadows seem to behave strangely again. Crows caw all around her. And worst of all, children are disappearing again. Peter Pan is back, and faced with memories of how no one believed her the first time, Wendy prepares to face him one more time. 

This is a remarkably well-suited atmosphere for moments of classic, chill-inducing terror, and Pelayo wastes no time weaving a world in which every bird call, every stray thought from the mouth of a child, could be evidence that this monstrous Peter Pan is near. Wendy lives a haunted existence, and as the chaos of war grips London, old fears grip her while new ones fight for position. If you come to this novel looking for something like Stephen King’s IT by way of J.M. Barrie, you’re going to get it, through flashbacks and dark lore and wonderfully well-timed scares, but Pelayo’s not done. 

This version of Wendy Darling, through whom we see most of the narrative, cares for children in adulthood because she did not receive the care she needed herself as a child in the aftermath of a traumatic experience. She considers it her duty to listen to them, to protect them, to understand them in a world that still views them not as human beings, but as potential locked up in tiny bodies.

Setting the book in 1914, when young men across Europe were signing up to go and die in a war they didn’t quite understand, underscores this beautifully. Children are grist for the mill in the world of It Came From Neverland, their eager spirits waiting to be crushed by a machine of war and empire and capitalism that will not relent even if an armistice eventually arrives. It’s a wider, more existential layer of horror than the storybook monster, which gets us to open the book in the first place, but the real brilliance at work here is how Pelayo ties it all together. 

At the core of all of this, the beating, icy heart of It Came From Neverland‘s horror and its search for meaning amid the narratives of war, children’s fiction, collective memory, and more, Pelayo is most interested in what it really means to never grow up. It means retaining a sense of play, yes, but it also means a refusal to move on, to embrace not just the responsibilities of aging, but the moral burdens of it.

Peter Pan is a monster not because he likes to play, but because he does not consider consequences, mortality, or even the needs and desires of others. The same is true of the leaders of Europe sending young men off to die in a war, and the same is true of leaders now, playing dice with human lives amid the rise and fall of the stock market. To never grow up is to lose something essential about being human, and Pelayo depicts that loss as both existentially terrifying and heartbreaking. That terror and heartbreak drive the novel, but Wendy’s efforts to escape that terror and to mend her broken heart make it fly. 

It Came From Neverland is available June 9 wherever books are sold.

The post ‘It Came From Neverland’ Review – A Stunning, Devastating Take on Peter Pan appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

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.

The post Urban Legends, Serial Killers, and Space Epics: 10 Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read This June appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Unnur’s life revolves largely around two things: Work, where she’s hopefully due for a big promotion, and attachment to an emotionally unavailable man. Her life is small but, she insists, satisfying, free of complications but also prickling with moments of loneliness. When a black cat shows up at her door, she sees a problem to be quickly solved, and soon tracks down its owner: Asta, another local woman with her own issues. When the cat, named Io, turns out to be pregnant, Unnur and Asta are drawn into an unconventional petsitting arrangement to maximize the animal’s comfort, and what started as a small act of neighborly kindness soon becomes an unlikely friendship. 

But Unnur’s not the only one dealing with a man she has to make excuses for, and soon her bond with Asta is given the ultimate test, a bloody trial that’ll either bond them forever or ruin their lives. 

From the outside looking in, Dead Weight seems to fit most comfortably into the realm of revenge horror, the story of two women who decide they’ve finally had enough and act, however reluctantly, on that emotion. But Knútsdóttir doesn’t take the most direct route to getting us there, even if she’s always consciously playing with the expectations of the subgenre and the noir-tinged elements of her saga. Her prose is at once contemporary and hard-boiled, and the very nature of her approach casts Unnur, who narrates the whole novella, as a kind of detective out to solve not just Asta’s issues, but the puzzle of her own existence. 

This is where things get tricky, because even by the standards of a novella, it takes Knútsdóttir a little while to get to the horror goods here. There’s a lot of wind-up in Dead Weight, so much that sometimes it feels like the tension starts to slack just slightly. I suspect a re-read would solve this particular issue for me, but at first glance, it feels, momentarily, like the story might be treading water. 

When what Knútsdóttir’s really after kicks in, though, those concerns are quickly forgotten, and the beauty of Dead Weight is in its ability to deliver an emotional dagger at unexpected, often staggering moments, sometimes without an ounce of violence. Unnur sets out to solve Asta’s problems, but of course, her own issues – her relationship, her focus on work, her insistence that she’s figured everything out in contrast to her new friend’s messy life – are an even more compelling case to be solved.

The best narrative trick Knútsdóttir pulls in the book is setting the stage for a revenge story and spending most of the word count delivering a gripping psychological drama punctuated by the folklore-laden specter of a black cat crossing Unnur’s path. We get to see Unnur not only deal with her issues, but also come to realize they are issues before our eyes, all within the span of 100 pages. 

This, combined with Asta’s lingering troubles, creates a thread of tension that tightens throughout the first two acts of this narrative, and it’s so effective that you almost forget the brutality promised by the book’s premise and its opening pages. When that brutality finally circles back around, it smacks you in the face with remarkable, icy intensity, delivering one of the year’s best horror finales.

Dead Weight is available May 26 wherever books are sold. 

The post ‘Dead Weight’ Book Review – Brutal Icelandic Horror Noir appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Kerry Washington (Django Unchained, Wake Up Dead Man) is set to star and executive produce.

Chris Luccy (“A Million Little Things”) is penning the adaptation, with McG (Terminator Salvation, The Babysitter) on board to direct.

In the series, “After taking the life of a disturbed man in the line of duty, Detective Elise Sutton (Washington) – a devoted wife, loving mother, and cold case specialist — reels from the guilt of her actions.

“To convince herself that she did the right thing, she makes contact with a mysterious man that she saved that day, only to discover that he’s not at all what he seems. She’s soon caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, following the clues he leaves for her and realizing that the only person who can stop him… is her.”

20th Television and Kapital Entertainment are behind the show, with Walker producing. Executive producers include Luccy; Washington & Pilar Sivone for Simpson Street; McG, Mary Viola & Corey Marsh for Wonderland Sound and Vision; and Aaron Kaplan for Kapital Entertainment.

Released in 2023 by Blackstone Publishing, What Remains is described as a “dark, twisty, and highly addictive psychological thriller” in the vein of The Woman in the Window and The Silent Patient.

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Now available from Harker Press, new book Monsters Unborn: The Lost Universal Monster Remakes shines the spotlight on FIFTEEN Universal Monsters movies that never were!

Harker Press previews, “Drawing on unproduced scripts and decades of behind-the-scenes history, author Bruce Kilkowski Jr. uncovers a treasure trove of “lost” stories from haunting gothic reimaginings to bold futuristic reinventions that never made it to the screen.

“Packed with new research, this book brings to life abandoned visions of legendary monsters like the Bride of Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, revealing just how close they came to rising again. Equal parts film history and thrilling “what might have been,” Monsters Unborn is an essential, fun, and eye-opening journey for horror fans and cinephiles alike.”

“Fans of our past titles like Taking Shape II: The Lost Halloween Sequels and Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs Jason are really going to enjoy this one,” Harker Press owner Dustin McNeill tells Bloody Disgusting. “Bruce Kilkowski has prepared exhaustive coverage of fifteen abandoned Universal Monster remakes, many of which have seldom been discussed or explored before. It’s fascinating to consider how these proposed remakes might’ve changed the franchise landscape heading into Universal’s ill-fated Dark Universe effort.”

Monsters Unborn covers lost remakes written by:

• John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape From New York)
• George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies)
• Mick Garris (The Stand, The Shining, Psycho IV)
• Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned)
• David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight and Blade trilogies)
• Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, 8MM, Sleepy Hollow)
• Nigel Kneale (Quatermass and the Pit, Halloween III)
• And many more!

Grab your copy of Monsters Unborn from Amazon for $22.99 today!

The post ‘Monsters Unborn: The Lost Universal Monster Remakes’ – New Book Spotlights 15 Unmade Remakes! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Deadline reports that Sanderson will write the pilot script with “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” co-creators Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen.

In the novel, “Humanity is trapped on a harsh planet and constantly under attack by mysterious alien forces. The story follows Spensa Nightshade, a determined pilot who dreams of joining the fighter corps to defend humanity and redeem her disgraced father’s legacy.

“Blending high-stakes aerial combat, advanced technology, and themes of courage, identity, and discovery, the series explores both the secrets of the galaxy and Spensa’s growth from an outsider into a key figure in humanity’s fight for survival.”

“Brandon has created a thrilling universe where courage, curiosity, and determination to challenge what we think can change the fate of entire worlds,” said Tomorrow Studios’ CEO Marty Adelstein and President Becky Clements. “The vision that he, Jed, and Maurissa have for a television adaptation is ‘defiant to the end.’”

“I’ve been working on the Skyward series for nearly a decade, and to have a partner like Tomorrow Studios to help bring this story to television is a dream come true,” added Sanderson.

A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Sanderson published Skyward in 2018 via Delacorte Press. He followed it with three sequels: 2019’s Starsight, 2021’s Cytonic, and 2023’s Defiant.

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Dan Aykroyd’s Soulhider will be published October 27, 2026 from HarperCollins.

The publisher previews, “The legendary Dan Aykroyd makes his literary debut with this mind-bending, page-turning speculative adventure about a regular guy caught up in a battle between warring aliens, told with equal doses of humor, suspense, and cosmic intrigue.”

Here’s the plot rundown for Dan Aykroyd’s debut novel Soulhider:

Doug Beeston is an ordinary insurance adjustor in his mid-thirties, living an unremarkable life with his wife and kids in central New York State. Until one day, out of the clear blue sky, Doug is tapped by alien lifeforms to take on an extraordinary mission. The assignment? Hide the human souls they’ve harvested for mysterious reasons of their own in various locations across Earth—using his prowess as a risk assessor to assure their precious commodities will not go missing.

Doug embraces his responsibility with pride, believing he’s playing a crucial role in something far bigger than himself and enjoying the lucrative side of his new vocation. But as he soon discovers, he’s not just a courier—he’s a pawn. Multiple alien species are locked in a silent interdimensional rivalry, using Doug as an unwitting middleman in their cosmic chess game. The more he understands his role, the more Doug realizes that the fate of Earth itself may hang in the balance.

HarperCollins previews, “Channeling Dan Aykroyd’s signature hilarious wit and deep fascination with the supernatural, Soulhider is a high-stakes, hilarious ride that only he could write, exploring the unseen forces shaping our world—both terrestrial and otherwise.”

“My writing of this novel was motivated by two factors. As an experiencer, a close-up witness of two vivid separate UFOs/UAPs, my curiosity was stimulated by who might be operating these hyper-advanced airborne platforms and what an average person would do if contacted by these beings,”  Dan Aykroyd told PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

You can pre-order copies – both signed(!) and unsigned – from Barnes & Noble now.

Dan Aykroyd of course co-wrote the original Ghostbusters and its sequel alongside Harold Ramis, along with the films The Blues Brothers, Nothing But Trouble, and Coneheads.

Aykroyd will next be producing a new Ghostbusters animated series for Netflix.

The post ‘Soulhider’ – Dan Aykroyd’s Debut Novel Finds Alien Life This October appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

“The Walking Dead” veteran Channing Powell will serve as showrunner and writer, in addition to executive producing with Stallone and D. Matt Geller (Kiss of the Spider Woman).

The series will draw from Barker’s original 4MK trilogy — 2017’s The Fourth Monkey, 2018’s The Fifth to Die, and 2019’s The Sixth Wicked Child — as well as the recently announced prequel trilogy, which kicks off with The First Scarlet Door on September 22.

Set in Chicago, Barker’s novels follow Detective Sam Porter as he hunts the elusive Four Monkey Killer, a murderer who has terrorized the city for years with a chilling and highly personal code of judgment.

Guided by the maxim “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” the killer removes the ears, eyes, and tongues of his victims, turning every crime scene into a ritualized message. But the true horror lies in the unspoken fourth commandment, “do no evil,” which reveals the killer’s deeper agenda: exposing hidden corruption by punishing the guilty through the people they love most.

“J.D. Barker has created a world with enormous scale, real danger, a ruthless narrative engine, and the kind of mythology that is tailor-made for premium television,” said Stallone. “Channing Powell is not only a powerhouse writer and producer, but a true creator with a rare command of dark, character-driven storytelling, and she is exactly the right force to bring 4MK to the screen. This is the kind of property that audiences don’t just watch, but get pulled into, and it has all the makings of a series that can hit hard, travel globally, and leave a real mark.”

“What drew me to 4MK immediately was its intensity, its intelligence, and the way it keeps tightening the screws until you can barely breathe,” added Powell. “Beneath the suspense is a story about guilt, justice, corruption, and the emotional wreckage people leave behind. J.D. Barker has created a world that is bold, dangerous, and deeply addictive, and Sylvester Stallone and the Balboa team provide the invaluable support needed to bring my adaptation to the screen, driving this series toward real scale.”

“From the start, 4MK was designed to be a relentless, psychologically charged ride, one where every revelation cuts deeper, every secret carries a cost, and every character is forced to confront the darkest parts of themselves,” notes Barker. “Sylvester Stallone and the team at Balboa immediately saw the power, danger, and franchise potential in that world, and Channing brings exactly the kind of instinct for character, tension, and longform storytelling that can make it land with real force on screen. With this creative force, 4MK won’t just be gripping television, it will be the kind of series that gets under people’s skin and stays there. I couldn’t be more excited to see it come to life.”

Powell worked as a writer and consulting producer on “The Walking Dead” and “Fear the Walking Dead” before co-creating and showrunning “Tales of the Walking Dead.”  She currently serves as co-executive producer on “From.”

The post Sylvester Stallone & ‘The Walking Dead’ Vet Developing ‘4MK’ Series Based on Serial Killer Novels appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The novel was originally published in 2015 in eBook form only, and Cesare tell us that this new edition of Mercy House is a revised and overhauled version of the previous release.

Cesare previews, “I really took the book down to the studs and improved things for this new edition.” The new print and audiobook release of Mercy House arrives on October 20, 2026.

“Welcome to Mercy House, a state-of-the-art retirement home that appears perfectly clean and orderly . . . but something is turning the residents into monsters.

‘In this thrilling novel from the author of Clown in a Cornfield, you will find little mercy—only a shocking eruption of unfathomable horror.”

Here’s the full official synopsis for Mercy House…

Harriet Laurel notices the odor the moment she steps inside Mercy House, brought to the retirement home against her will by her son and his wife. In the early stages of dementia, Harriet has grown to resent her daughter-in-law for not providing grandchildren. Yet as she crosses the threshold, she notices her mind begins to sharpen. Then her hate begins to grow…

Arnold Piper, an eighty-five-year-old ex-Marine, has always prided himself on self-reliance. But betrayed by his own body, he’s learning that surviving war-torn Korea was easier than facing the daily indignities of old age. And his worst trials are still to come.

Sarah Campbell, an idealistic nurse, is already stretched thin at the chronically understaffed Mercy House. Now her duties are about to take a terrifying turn.

Can she survive the night. . . and her patients?

Author Nick Cutter (The Troop) calls the novel “100% distilled nightmare juice.”

You can pre-order your copy of Mercy House on Amazon today.

The post ‘Mercy House’ Exclusive Cover Reveal – Adam Cesare’s Horror Novel Returns This Halloween appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Olivier Award-winning playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm (Netflix’s “Obsession“) is attached to write the series.

Published in 1980, Puffball was previously adapted into the 2007 film of the same name by Nicolas Roeg.

The novel follows “a young London couple, Liffey and Richard, who move to the country with the expectation of having children. Their neighbors are Mabs and Tucker, a farming family with five children of their own.

“Mabs, jealous of the newcomers’ easy life, sends Tucker to sleep with Liffey while Richard is away, priming her with an herbal aphrodisiac, but she becomes angry when Liffey becomes pregnant and finds that she herself is suddenly unable to conceive.”

The new take on Puffball is not yet attached to a network, but Firebird is backed by BBC Studios.

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It’s available in the June issue of The Atlantic and can be read online with a subscription or a 30-day free trial.

The 6,000-word short story sees King trading in his signature New England setting for coastal Florida to explore a family’s dark secret.

King will next publish Other Worlds Than These on October 6 — but if Dinah’s Hat is any indication, a new short story collection could follow.

Other Worlds Than These is the final entry in the horror fantasy trilogy that King created with Peter Straub, following 1984’s The Talisman and 2001’s Black House.

King penned the 624-page novel based on a concept by Straub, who passed away in 2022. The book also wraps up the fate of the worlds from King’s Dark Tower series.

It follows Jack Sawyer, who must stop a rampaging gang of infected teenagers from America-side, and the forces of the mysterious Gullet at the edge of Mid-World, before it destroys our world and all worlds.

Illustrations by Hokyoung Kimen kin

The post Stephen King Publishes New Short Story ‘Dinah’s Hat’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Lawrence is eying to direct and produce under his first-look deal with Lionsgate, who has locked down the rights to the book.

Lawrence’s partner Cameron Maconomy will also produce, as will Scott Glassgold for 12:01 Films. Golden and Pete Donaldson will executive produce.

Publishing July 21 via St. Martin’s Press, Carry Me to My Grave is described as a high concept horror novel about a man trying to protect his dead mother’s body from the evil that is hunting them.

The full synopsis reads: “Maggie Wise will take your eyes.

“When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law Violet to hold a vigil at her bedside.

“But they’re not as alone as they think they are. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield.

“Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm, her youngest child―when she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace in Shediak, Maine.

“From the moment she takes her last breath, before her remains are even loaded aboard the baggage car of the Imperial Limited, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise. Violence erupts on the train, evil preys on its passengers, and once the sun goes down, those long-buried things are coming to make Maggie Wise pay for her past. God help anyone who stands in their way.”

Golden, who co-wrote Hellboy: The Crooked Man, has two other high-profile adaptations in the works: Road of Bones from Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, and The House of Last Resort for Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society.

Up next from Lawrence is The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, out November 20.

The post ‘I Am Legend’s Francis Lawrence to Adapt Christopher Golden Horror Novel ‘Carry Me to My Grave’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Thankfully, the semi-anonymous writer and SCP contributor QNTM has finally found a way to escape the SCP bubble with their mind-bending novel, There Is No Antimemetics Division. A metatextual masterpiece that toys with readers as it explores memory and the terrifying power of narrative, this literary puzzle was originally self-published as an SCP spin-off before QNTM revised the story into something more original and, in my humble opinion, even more entertaining!

The new version of the book accompanies Director Marie Quinn (originally Marion Wheeler) throughout her career at the “Organization”: a secretive foundation that secures, contains, and protects paranormal anomalies ranging from cursed objects to Kaiju-sized creatures that cannot be perceived by human senses. Specifically, Marie works for the titular Antimemetics Division, an obscure department within the Organization that deals with Unknowns capable of disrupting human perception and sometimes even the idea of storytelling itself.

Via encounters with memory-eating parasites and clues left by past incarnations of the Division, Marie eventually realizes that there’s an apocalyptic conspiracy afoot involving a forgotten war against a godlike being from beyond the limits of human comprehension – and it doesn’t look like our side is winning.

On the surface, this is pretty much the same story as was first published online for free back in 2020, but the more you read, the more you realize that QNTM has completely reworked the text into a fully revamped novel, fixing nearly every gripe I had with the original work. While it’s a shame that character names had to be changed and overt references to the SCP Foundation were discarded in favor of legally distinct analogues, this was all done in the service of telling a tighter and more emotionally impactful story with an ending that hits a hell of a lot harder.

Just the mere fact that the book no longer assumes that you’re already familiar with the SCP Foundation is enough to make it much more accessible to the average reader. This also allows the novel to better explore concepts that were taken for granted in the original text. From the inner workings of the Unknown database itself to the bizarre nature of some of the lifeforms contained by the Organization, it’s fun to see so many outlandish events treated like just another day at the office as characters describe elder gods through language usually reserved for paperwork.

In fact, that signature SCP style of depicting high-concept paranormal activity as more of a daily inconvenience than anything else is present on nearly every page here. While the overall mythology behind the Unknown ecosystem contains some of the most fascinating sci-fi concepts I’ve read about in years (with some individual ideas being more than enough to sustain an entire horror novel by themselves), the best part of There Is No Antimemetics Division is the way that QNTM weaves these fantastical elements together so naturally that you can’t help but take them in stride.

That’s why creatures like Marie’s memory-eating “pet” can be elevated to supporting character status without even batting an eye, and the division’s battles against self-censoring “ideas” are so normalized that workers are used to being forgotten by the rest of the Organization (hence the book’s tongue-in-cheek title).

Of course, Marie’s relationship with Adam is the real heart of the story, with this raw emotional throughline grounding all of the Organization’s supernatural shenanigans in an all-too relatable personal tragedy. I’d even argue that you can read a lot of symbolism into the novel when you realize that, if you remove the world-ending anomalies from the mix, the story is ultimately about a woman with a high-stress job that keeps her from living a fulfilling life – but at the same time, she can’t escape the situation because she knows that her sacrifice is the only thing keeping the world from falling into chaos since most people are incapable of perceiving the true nature of reality.

While I was a fan of the over-the-top Noosphere portion of the original book (where it was revealed that the SCP Foundation’s struggles continued even in the afterlife), I have to admit that the new third act is a huge improvement. Not only does the story focus more on Marie and Adam’s connection, but the stakes also feel higher when you know that our protagonists can’t rely on a higher power to save them.

Despite the novel having been streamlined for a broader audience, I’ll admit that some of the surviving plot points are likely to hit harder if you’re already familiar with certain “online” subject matter like the infamous Mandela Effect. However, I’d argue that QNTM’s prose is effective enough that most readers will have no problem with allowing their minds to be repeatedly blown by unexpected reveals. Hell, even rereading the book made my brain leak out of my ears due to the author’s ruminations on the fickle nature of memory, and I mean that as a compliment!

Regardless of whether you’re an existing fan of the previous version of the story or a complete newcomer to the Organization, I can guarantee that QNTM’s definitive version of There Is No Antimemetics Division is a genre treat unlike any other. Ironically enough, given the subject matter, there are moments and characters here that will likely haunt your thoughts long after you’ve finished reading.

So, if you like cosmic horror that makes you question the very nature of reality, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.

There Is No Antimemetics Division is available now on all major platforms, with a special audiobook edition also available with intentionally corrupted audio files and creepy special effects.

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Isa Mazzei (Faces of Death, Cam) will pen the script, with FirstGen (The Testament of Ann Lee, Splitsville) producing.

The Third Hotel follows “Clare, a recent widow who travels to Latin America weeks after her husband Richard’s mysterious death, driven by the need to understand her role in his early passing. Lost in a new, unfamiliar city, she spots a man in the street, and it’s not just someone who looks like Richard, it’s him in the flesh.

“What begins as a skeptical pursuit of Richard’s double quickly devolves into an all-consuming obsession, unraveling Clare’s grip on reality and pulling her into a liminal nightmare where she is suspended between the living and the dead.”

“I’m so thrilled to work on an adaptation of such an eerie and brilliant novel alongside Isa Mazzei, whose work I’m a real fan of, and FirstGen, who have made films I love,” said Cervera. “I’m honored to be part of it.”

“The book is wonderfully surreal and deeply unsettling in a way that lingered with me,” Mazzei added. “I’m excited to be able to translate that feeling into a cinematic experience, and I feel lucky to be collaborating with such a thoughtful and talented team.”

“This is a wonderful creative team adapting a haunting and beautiful book,” commented Michael D’Alto of FirstGen. “We are honored to work with them to actualize their vision, and can’t wait for everyone to see this film.”

Published in 2018 by Picador, The Third Hotel was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.

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Deadline reports that Coin Operated, the production company of IT and Annabelle screenwriter Gary Dauberman, has secured the rights with an eye toward developing a feature adaptation.

The story follows a young musician who finds himself locked inside a gas station bathroom in the middle of the night by an unseen assailant, caught between the horrors on the other side of the door and the horrors rapidly skittering down the walls inside.

Cassidy will adapt the screenplay, with Dauberman & Mia Maniscalco producing through Coin Operated.

“I like to describe this novella as Green Room meets Gerald’s Game,” Cassidy told Deadline. “It’s the closest thing I’ve yet written to ‘extreme’ horror — though, I wouldn’t say it goes nearly as hard or gets nearly as bleak as the most extreme ‘extreme’ horror stories I’ve read. Regardless, I’m hoping it makes your next visit to a gas station bathroom even scarier than it would otherwise be.”

“Like the junk food aisle at any sketchy gas station on the side of the road, Rest Stop has a little bit of everything (that may or may not kill you),” Dauberman added. “Its relentless pace, psychological torment, heartfelt character moments, and many squirm-inducing sequences make it the rare horror story that has all the ingredients for a perfectly terrifying experience on the big screen.”

Rest Stop appears in Cassidy’s I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours, released May 5 by Shortwave Publishing. The collection features an introduction by Stephen King, who praises it as “fucking awesome.”

Up next from Coin Operated is Passenger, in theaters May 22, followed by The Revenge of La Llorona, due out on April 9, 2027.

The company’s development slate includes the Urban Legend reboot, video game adaptation The Medium, an adaptation of Joe Hill’s short story Ushers, and He Never Dies from Brightburn filmmaker David Yarovesky.

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Celia, a lonely woman whose fertility issues and miscarriages have left her wracked with grief, is hopeful about her visit to Kindred Cove. She hopes the island, famous for its healing salt on grocery store shelves and its annual “Salt Festival” retreat for a few lucky visitors, will grant her the healing she needs. Maybe she’ll even run into an old friend who told her about the Festival in the first place. 

But when she arrives at Kindred Cove, surrounded by the salty Lake Vetiver and its vibrant, biologically fascinating reef, Celia finds something a bit more unconventional than she expected. Her phone is confiscated, residents and visitors alike seem to vanish from activities without explanation, and her assigned companion for the week, Cove native Easy, isn’t helping matters with her cryptic reasoning for everything. But Celia wants to be better, wants it more than anything, and soon she dives headlong into what Kindred Cove has to offer her, particularly the community’s promise that “nothing is ever lost.” 

If you’re familiar with even a few of the narratives in the cult horror subgenre, stuff like Midsommar or even The Wicker Man, you immediately feel at home in the world Gailey’s building here, but that’s just what gets you in the door. As Celia journeys deeper into Kindred Cove’s secrets, the book also journeys back in time, charting the course of the people who run the island now, how they got here, what they’ve done, and how it all becomes part of Celia’s own journey. The book becomes an epic, growing far beyond Celia, to the point that it almost feels overstuffed with material. But the epic qualities grow beyond the plot, and that’s the real trick to Make Me Better‘s success.

There are few genre authors working today who can craft sentences like Gailey. Their work is lyrical, precise, and often stealthily profound. They build layers of dread in their characters and in their worlds, and center it all on the interiority of those characters, until by the end it’s as much about someone’s mental state as it is about the state of the world around them. In Make Me Better, we come to know Celia intimately, and yet in the pressure cooker that is Kindred Cove, we feel like we get to know her all over again with each passing chapter, because Celia is determined, at all costs, to grow through her experience.

In one of the most honest and unflinching depictions of a cult I’ve ever read in fiction, Gailey offers in Celia the sense that we are being immersed in the culture of Kindred Cove, not just as observers but as participants. They ask us to be honest with ourselves about what we would take from such an experience, and never tip their hand as to what Celia might do next. It’s an emotional epic as much as it’s a narrative one, and Gailey never gives in to easy answers for their protagonist.  

The result is a work of stunning verisimilitude, and since it’s a horror novel, that means we don’t just witness the dread, but embody it. If you’re looking for loads of jump scares and gore, you won’t find them here, but you will find a truly unsettling reading experience that’ll keep you up late into the night.

It’s rare to feel so immersed in such a patient, slow-burn of a novel, but with Make Me Better, Gailey crafts images and moments so vivid you’ll swear you can taste the salt on your tongue. 

Make Me Better is now available wherever you get your books.

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Per Variety, Studiocanal emerged victorious from the competitive auction in the wake of The Housemaid‘s nearly $400 million worldwide gross.

Studiocanal and Working Title will produce the feature, with Ron Halpern and Joe Naftalin overseeing development and production for Studiocanal.

Publishing May 26 via Poisoned Pen Press, The Divorce centers on Naomi, who was living the quintessential love story until her husband abruptly kicks her out, hires the best divorce attorneys, drains their bank accounts and takes up with a 20-something.

Instead of accepting defeat and moving on, Naomi becomes fixated on his new girlfriend. Her cynical curiosity soon twists into obsession — and then into something far darker. As Naomi uncovers secrets she never imagined, she realizes her own life may be in danger.

“I’m delighted to be working with the teams at Studiocanal and Working Title to bring The Divorce to the big screen,” McFadden said. “From the start, they have come forward with an unparalleled enthusiasm and a strong vision for how to get this project off the ground. I can’t wait to see what unfolds!”

“We are thrilled to be working with Freida McFadden on our adaptation of The Divorce,” added Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh. “From the very first page, it was utterly compelling. Freida has a rare ability to draw readers – and viewers – into an unsettling sense of comfort, before brilliantly pulling the rug from under them. The Divorce is ambitious, aspirational and irresistibly addictive storytelling at its best.”

Studiocanal will release The Divorce theatrically across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Benelux, Australia, and New Zealand, in addition to handling global distribution.

The Housemaid’s Secret, a sequel to The Housemaid based on McFadden’s novel of the same name, is due in theaters on December 17, 2027. The author also has adaptations of The Teacher and The Surrogate Mother in the works at Apple and Sony, respectively.

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The 366-page book is written by Armando Muñoz, author of the Silent Night, Deadly Night novelization along with Black Christmas and My Bloody Valentine.

Here’s the full synopsis:

“On Christmas morning, Billy Chapman – the Santa Claus Killer – was killed before he could claim his final victim: Mother Superior, the cruel architect of the orphanage where Billy endured years of abuse. His younger brother Ricky survived the massacre, but not unscarred.

“20 years later, Ricky lives quietly in the nearby town of Bartlesville, hiding from his past. But on the anniversary of the killings, the past claws its way back. A blizzard descends on the region, cutting off power, roads, and escape. Sister Margaret, freshly released from a mental institution, reappears with a disturbing fixation on Ricky.

“And as Christmas Eve falls, a new Santa stalks the frozen streets… armed with a red sack and a gleaming fire axe identical to Billy’s. He knows Ricky’s name. He knows his sins. And he has a naughty list to settle.”

Silent Night, Deadly Night launched a film franchise that includes 1987’s Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, 1989’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out, 1990’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and 1991’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker, along with two remakes: 2012’s Silent Night and 2025’s Silent Night, Deadly Night.

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Notty indoctrinates herself into this opulent family, while dark, disturbing impulses fill her head and threaten to spill out into the world. Victorian Psycho is Jane Austen by way of Brett Easton Ellis. It begins with its twisted tendencies suppressed and internalized until they culminate in an explosive rampage. It’s a strong – albeit flawed – sophomore novel from Feito that shows her progress as a growing voice in psychological thriller and horror literature.

It’s very apt that Victorian Psycho begins with a beautiful preface on death’s ingrained nature in society, both subtly and overtly, and how it’s the true currency that spins the world round. Feito routinely contrasts ornate pomp and circumstance against gothic death and decay. Death is culture, as far as Victorian Psycho is concerned. There’s an especially evocative spectacle that’s described where Londoners fight over mummy corpses like it’s a Black Friday sale, unconcerned if they happen to maim the bodies or tear off limbs in the process. Death’s commodification is reduced to a status symbol and fashionable centerpiece.

This is the perfect context for Winnifred Notty, someone who is filled with darkness and evil that, as much as she tries, seeps out of her like viscous sludge. Notty sees death everywhere, and it acts as her grounding North Star. Victorian Psycho features an adage about cuckoos and how their chicks “kill as soon as they are born.” This essentially becomes Notty’s mission statement through this infiltrative exercise.

It’s clear from the jump that Notty’s torturous past has more than a little to do with her placement at Ensor House. Victorian Psycho never folds into a full-on mystery. However, Feito gets a lot of mileage out of what’s not said about Notty as the audience attempts to fill in the blanks. She’s a powder keg of pent-up revenge that’s ready to blow, and the reader is just waiting to see how big the blast radius will be. There’s a grim, foreboding nature to Notty’s narration as she teases the death and tragedy to come, like she’s a messenger of darkness who is fulfilling her poisonous destiny.

Feito’s novel leans into tongue-in-cheek satire that pokes fun at how well Notty passes as high society, only for it to be more of a commentary on her attempts to pass as a caring human and not a murderous sociopath. As Victorian Psycho’s title suggests, there’s a very Patrick Bateman-esque arrogance and disdain for humanity in everything that Notty does. Also, much like American Psycho before it, Notty is a fascinating unreliable narrator who is constantly taken over by flights of fatalistic fancy as both she and the reader are left to parse out where the truth lies. 

Victorian Psycho keeps the audience guessing over how truly lost Notty may be or if she’s just looking for excuses to disguise viciousness as mercy. This cascades into an unnerving performance that highlights the increasingly ill-fitting human suit that she uses to masquerade as normalcy. One of the more successful aspects of Feito’s text is how it subtly normalizes such ridiculous, brutal ideas so that you don’t even flinch when Notty reveals another horrendous omission.

Feito’s prose has such a knack for making things – and more importantly, people – come across as extremely gross. At times, they feel like the exaggerated caricatures you’d find in a Roald Dahl story. This spills over into such disdain for nearly everyone in the Pounds household. Victorian Psycho has a lot of fun with the many housekeepers, staff, and insular hierarchy that exists within the Ensor house. It plays with these expectations and finds ways to push them to new places. Class and privilege are deeply baked into Victorian Psycho’s storytelling.

It builds to a really wild, cathartic Christmastime conclusion that brings everything together in a frenetic, debaucherous fever pitch. That being said, it does feel like the whole novel is just a setup for this wild final spectacle and biding its time, to some extent, before it reaches this raw release. At just over 200 pages, Victorian Psycho makes for a brisk read. It still gets a little monotonous and repetitive as Notty cycles through many of the same motions. The final act also feels rather rushed, and it’s an instance of a novel that could stand to be a little longer. 

Victorian Psycho already has a cinematic adaptation on the way starring Maika Monroe, and this feels like a story that is actually better suited as a movie that can streamline the madness into a tighter, more visually chaotic package. The novel is a dark, disgusting satire of life, death, status, and everything in between. It’s not necessarily one that necessitates a re-read, but it’s still full of powerful passages that will stick with the audience.

There’s a lot of meat on Victorian Psycho’s bones, even if some of it is rotten. It’s no American Psycho, but it’s an encouraging evolution of Virginia Feito’s storytelling.

The paperback edition of Victorian Psycho publishes on May 5, 2026.

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The 10 books below cover everything from vampires to mysterious islands to retellings of classic stories and everything in between, so get ready to update your TBR pile.

These are the horror books we’re most looking forward to this May. 

I Know A Place by Nat Cassidy (May 5)

Nat Cassidy has spent the last half-decade carving out a reputation as one of horror’s most reliable frightening authors, delivering novels like Mary, Nestlings, and the haunting When The Wolf Comes Home. Now, readers will get the chance to savor Cassidy’s shorter works in one thrilling collection endorsed by no less a horror luminary than Stephen King. That’s right, Stephen King took time out of his writing life to deliver the introduction for this one. That should tell you all you need to know about this collection. 

Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey (May 12)

A woman named Celia, desperate for the life she’s always wanted, receives an invitation to a strange, exclusive island where the world is simply different, where suffering isn’t a part of daily existence. Kindred Cove could change everything, but Celia must be ready to make sacrifices. It’s a wonderful setup, the publisher draws comparisons to Ari Aster and Shirley Jackson from its pages, and best of all, Make Me Better comes courtesy of Sarah Gailey. Through books like The Echo Wife, Just Like Home, and Spread Me, Gailey has proven to be one of the best horror stylists working today, crafting stories that burrow under your skin. Make Me Better promises to be no different.

Muntu by Eugen Bacon (May 12)

Eugen Bacon is one of the most exciting and acclaimed voices in speculative fiction of the past five years, bringing a diverse range of influences and interests to razor-sharp stories. Muntu, her latest, is the story of a Sydney police officer who investigates a string of seemingly unrelated murders, and finds a dark creature – the title spirit of legend – waiting behind the crime scenes. Horror driven by legendary creatures is always a favorite of mine. Plus, this one comes from indie publisher Bad Hand Books, a press I’ve come to trust for can’t-miss horror.

Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou (May 12)

What if Lady Macbeth’s story didn’t end with her final scenes in Shakespeare’s Scottish play? What if, instead of drowning in her own guilt and madness, she sought the help of the same three witches who doomed her husband in the first place, and found her way to another realm entirely? That’s the initial hook of this horror/fantasy/gothic/queer romance hybrid from Danai Chrisopoulou, and that makes this debut novel a must-read for me. 

Trad Wife by Sarah Langan (May 14)

Jenny, a disgraced journalist, arrives at the farm of tradwife influencer Mia, intending to expose her carefully curated lifestyle brand for the sham that it truly is. But Black Swan Farm is more than just recipe videos and staged family photos meant to project the ideal of traditional family values. Soon, Jenny starts hearing strange nursery rhymes and barreling toward a dark secret she can’t escape. This is one of those premises that was bound to be explored with this kind of depth eventually in the 2020s, and I’m thrilled that three-time Bram Stoker-winner Sarah Langan is the one tackling it, because with her fiction, I know the premise is only the beginning.

The Dorians by Nick Cutter (May 19)

What if Nick Cutter, the viral horror mastermind who gave us the skin-crawling terror of The Troop, basically did his take on Cocoon? That’s a juicy premise, but even that is underselling what’s going on in The Dorians, Cutter’s latest major novel. I was lucky enough to read this one quite early, and I’m still thinking about the aging and terminal patients who wind up volunteering for a project that could reverse their aging, and end up exposed to an ancient lifeform with a mind of its own. Don’t miss this one.

Filth Eaters by Ito Romo (May 19)

Another debut I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this month. Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters, first hit my radar because Stephen Graham Jones recommended it, and I always take his recommendations seriously. When I looked closer, I found a history-spanning epic waiting for me, following an Andalusian vampire who decamps to the New World to find an ancient version of his kind, a vampire child, and a story that covers centuries and crosses oceans. I can’t wait to dive into this blood-soaked debut.

Salome by Leslie Baird (May 19)

The Biblical story of Salome has seen many updates over the centuries, but it’s never been viewed through a lens quite like what Leslie Baird is promising with this compelling debut. Set in modern France, the novel follows a Francophile young American journalist who meets the title character on a plane and accepts an invitation to stay at her family’s country home. What she finds there is a house full of surveillance cameras and secrets with implications that could change the world. I’m eager to see where this one goes. 

Bone of My Bone by Johanna Van Veen (May 26)

The author of My Darling Dreadful Thing and Blood on Her Tongue returns with a sapphic folk-horror novel set in 17th-century Europe. Frankly, that’s all you need to say to get me on board, but Bone of My Bone is also the story of a nun and a peasant who, while fleeing war-torn Bavaria, happen upon the skull of a saint. What happens next? I can’t wait to find out. This is very much in my wheelhouse, and if you like stuff like Hagazussa or The Witch or the historical horror novels of Christopher Buehlman, it sounds like it’ll be for you, too. 

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir (May 26)

Hildur Knútsdóttir’s English-language debut, The Night Guest, quickly established her as a voice to watch in the world of dark fiction on this side of the Atlantic. Now the Icelandic phenom is back with a new novella, once again translated by speculative fiction legend Mary Robinette Kowal. The setup is simple: Two women, unexpectedly brought together by a lost black cat, begin a friendship that will soon be tested as one of them brings secrets to light. Violence seems to follow these women like that black cat, and just like that black cat, things are about to get very dark. If you missed The Night Guest and you want something fast-paced and brutal to introduce you to Knútsdóttir, this is a great place to start.

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Written by Britt Hayes, illustrated by Vance Kelly, and engineered by David Hawcock, the 12-page novelty book features more than 20 pop-ups that bring the Saw franchise’s most unforgettable moments to life.

Readers can turn wheels, pull tabs, move levers, and relive the Reverse Bear Trap, Angel Trap, and the bathroom set that started it all in the richly detailed and outrageously interactive book.

Saw: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book will be published on September 22 via Rizzoli Universe, in collaboration with Lionsgate.

Blumhouse is currently developing a new Saw movie with creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell back in the fold. Meanwhile, all 10 films in the series are currently on Netflix.

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Krystal Houghton Ziv (“The Purge,” “CSI: Miami”) has been tapped to write and executive produce the pilot.

Additional executive producers include Mark Amin, Cami Winikoff, & Dave Devries for Sobini Films (Dead Man’s Wire) and Motoko Kimura.

Published by Gentosha, the book follows Takeuchi Shingo, a serial murder suspect whom retired judge Kajima Isao acquitted two years ago, who moves in next door to the home where Kajima and his family live.

Takeuchi grew up starving for the affection of his parents and does everything he can for the people he likes. He has a charming smile, gives tasteful gifts, and cares for the elderly. However, he gets violent when people avoid him.

Takeuchi wins the hearts of the Kajimas with effusive goodwill, but a series of inexplicable incidents starts to occur in the area. Yukimi, Isao’s daughter-in-law, realizes Takeuchi’s true nature and tries to expose him despite being isolated from the family.

Shizukui’s novel has sold over 770,000 copies and was previously adapted into a Japanese limited series in 2016.

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These particular creatures look as if they’ve come from another world. Nevertheless, the incredible squid is here, has been since prehistoric times, and they come in all shapes and sizes. In that last regard, they can range from tiny to massive, with the larger specimens becoming the stuff of legends. Ever heard of the Kraken? Well, this is one case where the myth turned out to be real.

Although it’s more elusive than fictional, giant squids still remain as something of a mystery these days. Born out of that mystique is the inclination to make them scary. The giant squid, or Architeuthis dux if you’re nerdy, doesn’t need a lot of help in that one area. On top of their sheer enormity, they have ten “arms” that include two long tentacles, plus a tongue coated in teeth. It’s the stuff of nightmares. Nevertheless, Peter Benchley tried to do for these animals what he did for the great white; he plucked one rather ornery specimen from the depths and made it mankind’s problem.

When writing 1991’s Beast, author Peter Benchley returned to the subject that made him famous. That, of course, was the vast sea. Benchley also didn’t stray far from the formula of nearly all aquatic monster horror made since Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was first unleashed. An aggressive, or misplaced, sea animal lays waste to anyone foolish enough to take a dip. Yet prior to getting back on the shark boat, as he did in 1994’s White Shark—later retitled Creature for the TV tie-in—Benchley delivered this squid tale that, to this day, may be the only one of its kind. That is, a story where the man-eating squid is the star, as opposed to the guest star.

Peter Benchley’s Beast. Cover art by Jerry LoFaro.

Unlike Jaws, Benchley wasn’t involved in the screenplay for Beast. Or The Beast, as it became known. The script was courtesy of one fairly new writer on the block, J.B. White, whose sole credit up to that point was a sinister grandpa TV-movie starring Andy Griffith. So, yes, The Beast was a big deal for White, along with director Jeff Bleckner. Additionally, NBC was banking on this sweeps stunt to pull in the numbers during late April (and ahead of “Monster May“). According to the Nielsens, this two-night event did quite well. Swimmingly, you might even say.

Growing up with SYFY made it seem like monster TV movies weren’t all that unusual. However, for one to show up on 1990s American primetime and on one of the major three networks was a bit of an anomaly. NBC neither hid the fact that they were airing a creature feature, nor did they hold back on the marketing; the rollout included a huge building spread in Los Angeles, plus a website devoted to the TV event. Through the latter, you learned the process to make the monstrous main attraction, courtesy of Mixon & Ellis FX, as well as trivia about real giant squids.

The rights to Benchley’s Beast were optioned some years before it was made and aired. Nevertheless, Jurassic Park must have had a say in the squid production’s go-ahead. The Beast splashed its way onto television in the spring of ‘96, shortly before monsters started trampling all over the big screen. Keep in mind, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Relic, Anaconda, Deep Rising, and the first Godzilla remake all came out after The Beast. Before then, you were more likely to see this type of movie being sent straight to video, even in the wake of Spielberg’s successful dino epic.

NBC’s old website for The Beast. Screenshot courtesy of Dinosaur Dracula.

Taking the TV route for a monster movie would seem like a total downgrade, especially in the production department. In many cases, this is often true. Yet with a reported $12 million to spend—how much of that number was just for the squid is unclear—the namesake of The Beast looks decent. Good, if we’re being generous. Once you remember the timestamp, the overgrown mollusk is, on occasion, a little impressive. It’s not the stuff of blockbusters, but one can definitely spot where the money went (and didn’t go).

On the surface, the novel and miniseries (or movie) aren’t radically different from one another. In either version, a coastal area is targeted by the tentacled threat, and then desperate measures are taken to expel it. That leap from Bermuda to Washington, specifically an unsubtly named resort community called Graves Point, has no major bearing on the overall story. Either fictional setting is overfished, full of struggling residents, and a factor in the squid’s new diet. What largely changed from the book, apart from the creature being upsized and its having a partner-in-crime/offspring, was really the characters. Oh, and there is also the novel’s use of deus ex machina—at the last second, the squid is defeated by a sperm whale, not the humans.

Changes made to the cast run from small to significant, but for the most part, they are inoffensive. A few are even beneficial. The protagonist going from married to widowed allows for him, Whip Dalton (played on screen by William Petersen), to be freed up for a budding romance with Lieutenant Kathryn Marcus (Karen Sillas). Who, by the way, is an amalgam of two characters from the book. While it was reduced in the condensed version of the miniseries, Kathryn’s personal battle against sexism in the navy is one example of how the TV adaptation improved on the source material. By comparison, the women were neglected, or simply forgotten, by the book’s end. Whip’s daughter Dana, for instance, passed through without making as much as a ripple in the novel’s story, whereas Missy Crider’s Dana has an entire character arc.

It could just be the nostalgia talking here, but The Beast actually holds up as a pretty entertaining dose of sea horror. Does it look and feel like a ‘90s TV movie? Yes, and that’s because it is one. Yet for a killer squid story hailing from the small screen, this one turned out better than anticipated. Now, if someone out there wants to remake Peter Benchley’s novel, with more money and bigger names involved, then I am certainly not opposed. There’s even a bigger squid lurking out there in the briny deep—the colossal squid—that would make for a great villain.

The Beast is still available on DVD.

William Petersen, Karen Sillas and Larry Drake in The Beast (1996).

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We now have an exclusive first look at the poster for the indie film, which is said to blend historical horrors with contemporary dread in the vein of The Ninth Gate and The Da Vinci Code, coupled with The Omen-style folklore.

In the movie, when an ancient mask is unearthed during excavations on a construction site it triggers a terrifying series of deaths by spontaneous combustion.

An insurance investigator and a psychic medium must uncover the terrifying truth of an evil prophecy dating back hundreds of years and prevent the spirit of Guy Fawkes from opening a gateway to Hell and ripping apart the fabric of time itself.

Benjamin David directs from a script by Dominic Philpott. Jonathan Sothcott produces for Shogun Films.

Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, Charlie Woodward, Jonathan Oliver, Tony Sands, Pierse Stevens, and Paul Preston star, with Paul Terry as Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes: Blood & Fire is gearing up for an early November UK release in celebration of Guy Fawkes Night via Trinity Content.

Philpott has also penned a novelization that expands on his screenplay, which will be published in November via Caffeine Nights Books.

“We’re excited to bring Guy Fawkes back to life with a supernatural twist via a fully loaded transmedia entertainment landscape,” said Sothcott. “Dom’s story has more to it than we could squeeze into a film. He’s a great writer, and this story has so many layers and great characters it will be a guaranteed page turner.”

“Dominc’s novelization was a joy to publish: his writing is so sharp and fully realized that he left me remarkably little to do,” added Caffeine Nights publisher Darren Law. “The film promises to be a thrilling ride and, I believe, another foundation stone in Shogun’s growing empire of modern British classics.”

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But even with that in mind, there’s never been a discussion of King quite like Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King. Part in-depth analysis of King’s creative process, part memoir, part ode to the synchronicities and magic of stories, Caroline Bicks’ nonfiction dive into several of King’s most important works is an essential piece of horror nonfiction, and a thrilling odyssey into one of America’s most productive imaginations. 

The book began a few years after Bicks was named the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair of Literature at King’s alma mater, the University of Maine. The position was simply named for King; he did not create or fund it, but thanks to childhood experiences reading his work, Bicks felt a certain distant kinship with the author, a kinship furthered when King reached out and asked to meet her. A short while later, Bicks became the first major academic granted access to King’s private archive of his papers, including manuscripts going back six decades or more. The result is this book. 

Bicks’ scholarly experience tends more toward Shakespeare than Stephen King, yet from the beginning she applies the same rigor and emotional investment to the King of Horror as she would to the Bard. She also wisely limits her explorations to five key books – Pet Sematary, The Shining, Night Shift, ‘Salem’s Lot, and Carrie – rather than attempting to grapple with King’s entire catalogue. This allows her the space to really dig into the minutiae of King’s compositional habits while also reflecting in each chapter on her own relationship to the work. 

Even diehard King fans will learn something from the depth to which Bicks dives. Her research, including thousands of hours with King’s first drafts, revision notes, and correspondence with editors, uncovers everything from The Shining‘s much darker original ending to the shifts in characterization that make Pet Sematary even more frightening to the surprisingly personal roots of ‘Salem’s Lot. Bicks, through engaging and personal prose, conducts her excavation with care, humor, and constant curiosity, reaching out to King himself to ask what Shakespearean tragedy he might have been thinking of throughout the writing of The Shining, or why he discarded a supporting character at the last moment in Pet Sematary.

She even digs into King’s column in UMaine’s student newspaper back in the 1960s, and explores how his emerging political convictions and anger of the state of America shaped the stories in Night Shift. It’s a mesmerizing view of King’s early work, rich in details that’ll have you going back to the novels themselves to see the secret scaffolding lurking behind the scares. 

But perhaps more importantly than her academic rigor and enthusiasm, Bicks seems to grasp from the beginning that it’s King’s humanity which sets him apart, which helped catapult him into the upper echelons of the bestseller lists and remain there for decades. Rather than focusing entirely on King’s thematic concerns and emotional leaps through the work alone, she carefully intertwines her analysis with King’s personal history, his evolving views on the world, and the instinctual decisions which shape key moments in his defining work.

Then she goes further still, infusing pieces of herself into the narrative both as a fan and as a person attempting to undergo a form of creative mesmerism through immersion in King’s world. Along the way, everything from the daily word games she plays to the drives she takes through Maine to and from King’s Bangor home seem to take on a preternatural aura. 

The result is not just a portrait of a young artist writing the work which would shape his professional life, but a portrait of a scholar in search not just of answers, but of the magic behind the basic facts and strokes of blue pencil in the margins of a manuscript. Monsters in the Archives is not just a wonderful companion to King’s work. It’s a journey in and of itself, revealing the spell King’s work continues to cast, and the hard work which made that magic possible.

Monsters in the Archives is now available wherever books are sold.

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Described as “a mesmerizing mashup of speculative fiction, horror, and conspiracy,” the 608-page novel is about a mysterious realm on the other side of our screens, a dark force that draws victims into its static, and the unlikely hero called to save them and herself from this electric hell.

The official synopsis reads: “Find the receiver. Make it real.

“At 5:35pm on September 3rd, 1988, Dallas weatherman Ray ‘Can You Say Sunshine’ Davino makes passing reference to Public Access Afterworld during a rambling monologue, right before he puts a gun to his head on live television and pulls the trigger.

“On June 12th, 2009, David Sawyer and Erin Morrison, two lonely, TV-obsessed suburban teens who might be falling in love, gather in Erin’s basement to watch TV’s analog-to-digital transition. But in the static that follows, Erin witnesses surreal broadcasts from a pirate TV network called Public Access Afterworld and their lives are changed forever.

“17 years later, Bethany Peters toils through the night shift at megacorp GlobalVill’s bleak Austin campus. A trans content moderator, she spends her evenings reviewing an endless stream of horrific videos. But then a young streamer begins to crop up in her feed calling out to Public Access Afterworld.

“But what is Public Access Afterworld?

“Spanning decades and realities, with an unforgettable ensemble of outcasts and nerds, especially the messy but wholly relatable Bethany who must overcome paranoia and self-doubt to transform into a hero of our times, Public Access Afterworld will have you reading through the night and rooting for its characters to survive.”

Schoenbrun’s next film, the queer meta slasher Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, opens in theaters August 7 via Mubi.

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Kylie Lee Baker, fresh off the success of her phenomenal novel Bat-Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, is concerned with precisely these kinds of things in Japanese Gothic, a time-hopping, vivid saga steeped in both Japanese history and modern true crime. The book earns its title within moments, and quickly sets out to weave a tale both unpredictable and inescapable, so rich with meaning and texture that you’ll get lost in it. 

In present-day Japan, college student Lee Turner has fled his NYU campus life, running away from a crime he can’t quite explain or remember to hide out in the centuries-old home where his father has opted to spend his golden years. Rural, quiet, and hidden by sword ferns, the house seems like the perfect escape from the wider world, but Lee cannot so easily escape himself. Ever since the disappearance of his mother nearly a decade earlier, he’s been troubled by the depth and breadth of his own perception, so flooded with sensation that he drowns his senses out with near-constant sedation. But here in this old country house, something calls to him that he cannot ignore. Reality seems to strain here, not just flickering but sometimes opening up pathways to the past. 

In 1877, Sen is a young woman living in the same house with her destitute family, training under her father to be among the last samurai Japan has to offer. Their way of life has been banned by the Imperial government, but Sen is determined to make her father and her ancestral traditions proud by carrying on the samurai way of life, fighting for it to the death if she has to. At least until the space behind her closet crackles with strange life, revealing a doorway to the future where a strange foreign spirit waits to converse with her, and reveal some truths she might wish she’d never heard.

Yes, this is a novel about a rogue samurai in 19th-century Japan and a present-day runaway college student connecting across time through a single haunted country home, and while that’s a phenomenal hook, it’s only the beginning of the ambitious, sprawling yet intimate narrative Baker seeks to weave here. In the first section of the novel, comprising roughly 80 pages, she is unhurried in her pursuit of the emotional truths behind this compelling scenario, patiently laying out the emotional landscapes through which both Lee and Sen move, and the darkness to which they’re privy.

Lee fixates not just on what he’s done that made him flee America, but on the eventual fate of his mother, which remains a mystery even after she’s been declared legally dead. Meanwhile, Sen lives in mortal peril of her own, remembering the losses her family has suffered amid the fall of the samurai and looking ahead, through her father’s own brutalist view of the world, at the death she must still face if she is to retain her honor. 

What, then, does it mean when these two death-obsessed souls encounter one another? What happens to your own psyche when, to the person staring at you across time, you are nothing but a ghost, or worse, an evil spirit? These are the questions that consume Sen and Lee’s early relationship, but just as she did with Bat-Eater, Baker quickly proves that she’s just getting started.

To give away the directions in which this novel pushes its characters would be to spoil the achingly beautiful, emotionally devastating magic trick Baker’s able to pull off in these pages, but I will tell you that this feels like a book I could have read forever. I was lost in the magic, in the chemistry between these two souls looking for a way to reclaim their own stories even as they’re enrobed in the darkness of their own pasts. Kylie Lee Baker is, quite simply, one of the most important voices in modern horror, and with Japanese Gothic, she has reaffirmed her place as an essential storyteller in the genre. This is one of the best horror books of 2026, and should not be missed.

Japanese Gothic is now available wherever books are sold.

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Simon & Schuster will release the audiobook the same day the novel is published: October 6.

King penned the 624-page horror fantasy tale based on a concept by Straub, who passed away from complications of a broken hip in 2022.

In addition to following Jack Sawyer from 1984’s The Talisman and 2001’s Black House, the story wraps up the fate of the worlds in King’s beloved Dark Tower series.

“I’ve been a Stephen King fan since I was 10,” said Oswalt. “His books were a huge part of how I fell in love with storytelling in the first place, so having the opportunity to narrate Other Worlds Than These feels a little unreal. Being able to step into the Dark Tower universe and bring the final chapter of the Talisman trilogy to life is an absolute honor.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” added King. “I love Mr. Oswalt. Spoiler alert: In Other Worlds, there’s a character named Payton Orville, who’s a stand-up comedian!”

Other Worlds Than These follows Jack Sawyer, whom readers first met when he was 12, crossing America and “the territories” to save his mother’s life, and met again as an adult facing a child killer and the Crimson King, among other evils.

In the new adventure, Jack must stop a rampaging gang of infected teenagers from America-side, and the forces of the mysterious Gullet at the edge of Mid-World, before it destroys our world and all worlds. Jack is older now; his Ka-tet is fraying; and his task, nearly impossible.

Other Worlds Than These features 30 black-and-white illustrations by Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key).

Mutual fans of one another’s work, Oswalt and King were both subjects of the recent Texas Chain Saw Massacre documentary Chain Reactions.

The post Patton Oswalt to Narrate Stephen King & Peter Straub’s ‘Other Worlds Than These’ Audiobook appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Legacy of Kain: Scourge of the Sarafan takes place in an earlier era of Nosgoth, where players embody the warrior-priests of the Sarafan Brotherhood, an order of vampire hunters who fight tirelessly in a great crusade to keep the human population of Nosgoth safe from the growing vampire scourge. Players will be able to choose from six playable character classes, Sarafan weapons and spells, and face off against a bevy of nocturnal horrors.

As they grow in strength, the players will also grow in wisdom, uncovering more of Nosgoth’s history. The game supports narratives that expand beyond the hunt, encompassing time travel, life after death, and incursions from the spectral realm.

Aside from the Standard Edition of Legacy of Kain: Scourge of the Sarafan, which includes a hardcover and digital eBook version of the game, you can also spring for the Deluxe Edition, which includes the following:

• ×1 Scourge of the Sarafan hardback book and eBook version

• ×1 GM screen

• ×1 Set of 7 dice

• ×1 Character sheets

• ×1 TTRPG box

Scourge of the Sarafan is expected to ship Q3-Q4 2026.

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Sarafina, the new historical horror novel from genre mainstay Philip Fracassi, is an example of this latter joy. It begins somewhere familiar, even predictable, and nestles the reader happily into a sense of cozy familiarity. Then, just when you think you’ve arrived at the place you always expected, the story takes flight, and you’re left breathlessly turning pages to see where it goes next. 

Set in 1862 in the midst of heavy fighting during the American Civil War, the book follows three brothers – Ethan, Mason, and Archie – as they desert the Confederate Army right in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh. Determined to survive rather than die fighting someone else’s war, the men flee through the wilderness, starving, wounded, and filthy, until they miraculously happen upon a house on the other side of an idyllic creek. There, a kind woman named Sarafina offers to care for them, even shield them from the Confederate Home Guard, which hopes to arrest them. But this house, with its massive guard dogs and stream that seems to run in all directions at once, is more than a simple refuge, and Sarafina’s hiding secrets threaten the brothers’ hopes of ever seeing their family again. 

There are a lot of narrative risks cleverly nestled in this propulsive narrative. Much of the early pages are devoted to the trio of brothers simply fighting to survive through confrontations, starvation, and the elements, putting us as readers in the position of empathizing with men on the losing side of a treasonous war. Fracassi deals with this by, quite smartly, placing us in Ethan’s head, framing the narrative as an extended letter home to his twin sister, Ellie. Ellie also makes appearances along the way, writing letters of her own to her lost brother, waiting for word of survival or death. Their struggle becomes universal, particularly as Ethan reckons with the possibility that he and his brothers may not actually be good people, and may in fact be on the path to something worse.

When Sarafina enters the picture, you get the sense that Fracassi is playing in some kind of demented, historical fiction Hansel & Gretel territory, and he is, but not in the way you think. The formula is there, but through careful plotting and evocative first-person prose, Sarafina evades easy classification the deeper you get into the narrative. Yes, this is the story of a group of lost people taking refuge in a mysterious, almost otherworldly house in the middle of the woods, but it’s not going to go the way you think.

The longer the brothers stay, the more Ethan sees his siblings changing, and the more Sarafina and her mysterious surrogate son Titus start to trust him with their own secrets. Soon, it’s no longer a simple matter of survival horror. It’s about more than just remaining intact. It’s about what happens when the world you know starts to change, and the makeup of your own soul changes along with it. It would be easy for the Civil War narrative, particularly the Confederate perspective, to serve as mere window dressing, a layer of intrigue to get readers in the door, but Fracassi refuses to stop there. What begins as an act of desertion from a lost cause soon evolves into a meditation on good, evil, and our place in a world that’s packed with secrets we cannot fully understand without risking our own sanity. 

With Sarafina, Philip Fracassi has joined the ranks of fellow authors like Daniel Kraus, Isabel Canas, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia as a first-rate practitioner of historical horror, blending in dark fairy tales and even religious mythology along the way. This is a transportive, vivid book that’s very hard to put down, and reaffirms Fracassi’s place as one of horror’s essential modern storytellers.

Sarafina is available now from CLASH Books.

The post ‘Sarafina’ Review – Philip Fracassi’s Latest is Immersive Historical Horror appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

So, what’s on the shelves this month? We’ve got some intriguing debuts, story collections from the genre’s, new books by horror mainstays, and much more. So, from the latest Clay McLeod Chapman novella to follow-up books by Kylie Lee Baker and Monika Kim, here are your best bets for new horror books in April 2026.

The Boatman by Alex Grecian – April 7

Sometimes all a book needs to hook me is a single indelible image, and the latest from Alex Grecian (Red Rabbit) does exactly that. It begins with a cruise ship dubbed the Maria Calypso heading out for yet another voyage, but this time the ship has more than just vacationers to deal with. Passengers soon discover that they’re being pursued by a lone man, clad in white, rowing in a small boat that’s somehow keeping up with them. As they realize they can’t shake this mysterious rower, the passengers also discover that very strange things are happening onboard. I cannot wait to find out where a premise like that takes me.

Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman – April 7

One of the most prolific and exciting voices in modern horror returns this spring with an intriguing novella about an outsider artist and the ghosts who seek their revenge for his work. No doubt inspired by the story of janitor and artist Henry Darger, Clay McLeod Chapman‘s latest promises supernatural revenge, strange visions of obsessive creation, and more. Any new Chapman book is worth checking out, but this one feels like a particular treat for those obsessed with how artists create.

Sarafina by Philip Fracassi – April 7

One of the most consistently entertaining and versatile horror authors working right now, Philip Fracassi just might have outdone himself with this propulsive dark historical fantasy. Set during the American Civil War, the book follows three brothers who desert the army during the Battle of Shiloh and, after weeks on the run, find themselves in the home of a beautiful and mysterious woman who seems to have everything they need. She feeds them, heals their wounds, and even protects them from discovery, but Sarafina’s home is not what it seems, and in this ferocious riff on Hansel & Gretel, the strange house in the woods is only the beginning.

The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own by Gwendolyn Kiste – April 14

Gwendolyn Kiste is a powerhouse of dark fiction. Her work is lyrical, thrilling, relentless, and possessed of often jaw-dropping depth. Now, the author of Reluctant Immortals and The Haunting of Velkwood is back with a new collection of short fiction, bringing together some of her most memorable tales for new readers and longtime fans alike. Every Gwendolyn Kiste story is an elegant blade honed down to a fine, glimmering point, and if you’ve never had one plunged into your heart, you’ll want to get this book.

The Hive by Ronald Malfi – April 14

From the author of Come With Me, Senseless, and Small Town Horror comes a vision of suburban terror with a very intriguing setup. Set in the community of Mariner’s Cove, The Hive picks up in the aftermath of a storm, when the residents find a collection of random objects scattered across the neighborhood, objects that seem to call to individuals with a siren song that immediately stirs obsession. As each person finds their uncanny object, Mariner’s Cove changes as the residents develop a kind of hive mind. But what’s really going on, and what does one local kid developing weird new powers have to do with it? I’m very excited to find out.

Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill – April 14

It’s always great to find a horror debut with a premise as promising as Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill, and I can’t wait to dig into this. It’s set in an isolated community where married women sprout mushroom growths out of their skin, and follows a young woman who’s never known anything of the outside world as she enters into a loveless, distant marriage and begins growing mushrooms of her own. Nicole’s life is a mystery, but the arrival of another wife who’s ready to break free of a life of secrets and shelter just might change everything. Mycological horror is always fascinating, and I’m excited to see what Cranehilling does with this very unsettling setup.

Crossroads by Laurel Hightower – April 21

The latest release from indie horror icon Laurel Hightower is technically a reprint, but I’m including it here because Crossroads represents the perfect opportunity for new readers to discover Hightower’s work and get in touch with her particular brand of grief horror. The novella follows Chris, a grieving mother who lost her son in a car crash. While she’s understandably having trouble navigating the loss, something strange happens: Chris accidentally spills a lone drop of blood on her son’s memorial at the site of the accident. Soon, she starts to see her son’s ghost, but is what she’s seeing real, or something darker playing tricks on her? Read and find out in this handsome new edition from Shortwave Publishing.

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker – April 21

Kylie Lee Baker‘s electrifying novel Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is one of the best horror novels of 2025, and one of the best of the 21st century so far. Now, Baker’s back with another can’t-miss journey into darkness, this one punctuated by a rift in time itself and notes of Japanese myth and legend. Set in both the present day and in the late 19th century, the book follows two people – a college student on the run and an exiled samurai – who both retreat to a single house surrounded by sword ferns in an effort to escape the world. What they find instead is an unlikely link between their two worlds, and a darkness that transcends time and history. I absolutely can’t wait to read this one.

Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Caroline Bicks – April 21

There is no shortage of books about the life and work of Stephen King out in the world, but Caroline Bicks has still managed to do something no writer or scholar has ever achieved before. As the University of Maine’s first-ever Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, Bicks also became the first academic to get unprecedented access to King’s private archives, featuring unpublished drafts, notes, manuscripts, and much more. A hybrid of biography, memoir, and critical study, Monsters in the Archives looks at King’s early years and creative process through the lens of his earliest masterpieces, and how he made them. This is an essential for King fans and should not be missed.

Molka by Monika Kim – April 28

Fresh off her Bram Stoker Award-winning debut, the brilliant The Eyes Are The Best Part, Monika Kim is back with another unforgettable horror novel steeped in Korean culture and unrelenting dread. Named for a slang term for a hidden camera, the novel follows an IT technician with his own vast, voyeuristic network of cameras throughout his building, and the woman with whom he becomes obsessed. It starts from an instantly creepy place, and just keeps building from there, and if you’ve read Kim’s previous horror work, you know that she can ratchet up tension with the best of ’em. Don’t miss the latest from one of horror’s rising stars. 

The post Revenge, Haunted Houses, and Mushrooms: 10 Must-Read Horror Books in April 2026 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The beautiful Hardcover 50th Anniversary Edition features a jacket with foil and embossing, sprayed edges, designed endpapers, a new foreword from Leigh Bardugo, an afterword by Christopher Rice, and never-before-seen bonus pages from the original manuscript.

Knopf previews, “Here are the confessions of a vampire: a hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual story of Louis de Pointe du Lac’s first two hundred years as one of the living dead. We begin on the night when Louis, disaffected and reluctant heir to a Louisiana plantation, is turned into a vampire by Lestat. Radiant, petulant, and powerful, Lestat becomes Louis’ companion and urges him to embrace the hungers and feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the “superior” sensual pleasures. As Louis struggles to retain the last residue of human feeling within him, he discovers must commit the ultimate act: to break away from his creator and discover the new world to which he belongs—whatever the cost.

“This is a story of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, of gaining humanity and losing it, and of the extraordinary power of the senses.”

It was back in 1976 that Anne Rice’s classic vampire novel Interview With the Vampire first came onto the scene, introducing the world to Lestat de Lioncourt and launching Rice’s long-running series of The Vampire Chronicles novels. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise starred in the 1994 movie adaptation, while AMC’s television series brought Lestat back to life beginning in 2022.

Pre-order Interview with the Vampire: 50th Anniversary Edition on Amazon now!

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In Slasher Summer, seven friends reunite for a weekend of fun in their sleepy hometown, Cedar Lake, best known as the shooting location of the ’80s horror flick Slasher – only to be hunted down by a cold-blooded killer. In high school, preppy Patrick, jock Jason, cheerleader Tiffany, stoner Freddy, goth Jennifer, and nerdy Mikey had played the cast of Slasher during midnight showings, with virginal Carrie as the Final Girl, of course.

Years later, they gather at the remote cabin where Slasher was filmed, but when night falls, and the eponymous masked killer is spotted, the reunion takes a deadly turn. The friends discover their tires deflated and the phone line disconnected, and soon they’re being stalked by a mysterious assailant.

Before the night is over, they each will have to take on the role they thought they’d left behind, discovering that the real horror is not being able to escape who you were in high school.

What’s the twist? Author E.L. Chen set out to “interrogate the stereotypes and identity issues embedded in classic slasher films, radically rewriting its rules in a campy love letter to the slasher films of the 1980s that still honors the genre’s blood-soaked legacy.”

“The story begins as an affectionate homage to ‘80s slashers,” the press release continues, “but as the bodies begin to fall, Slasher Summer subverts one of horror’s oldest tropes and this time, queer and marginalized characters are among those who endure, adapt, and survive.

“Slasher Summer is a retro slasher movie in book form,” raves Sadie Hartmann, author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered. “It has all the summer camp vibes, brutal kill scenes, and a wicked twist on Final Girl mythology. It’s bloody, clever, and just psychologically nasty enough to keep you side-eyeing everyone on the page.”

“Slasher Summer is a bloody Valentine love letter to slasher films and asks the question: What if the cast of The Breakfast Club ended up in the world of Scream? It’s a terrifying and exhilarating deconstruction of the subgenre that’s chock-full of the devilishly clever easter eggs horror fans love,” says Ian Rogers, author of Every House Is Haunted.

Slasher Summer will be released on June 23, 2026.

E. L. Chen is also the author of Sweetside Motel and One of Us Is Already Dead.

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We can only hope that the upcoming TV series — now in early development at Disney+ — will have the same effect on today’s youth.

Variety reports that Bayan Wolcott (“Class of ’09”) is attached to write and executive produce the adaptation, with Sinners filmmaker Ryan Coogler executive producing alongside Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian for Proximity Media.

The show will follow a group of teenagers who uncover a hidden threat lurking beneath their everyday lives, all while juggling relationships, curfews, and the chaos of high school.

Iole Lucchese and Caitlin Friedman will executive produce via Scholastic, who published the YA science fantasy series. Proximity Media’s Simone Harris and Dezi Gallegos will also oversee the project.

Created by authors Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant, 54 Animorphs novels were released between 1996 and 2001. A TV series ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon from 1998 to 2000.

Each book was told the first-person perspective of one of the main characters — teenagers Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias — who discover that the Earth is being secretly taken over by a parasitic alien race known as Yeerks.

Variety explains, “The group meets a dying alien of the Andalite race, which has been fighting the Yeerks and their expansion across the galaxy. The Andalite gives them the ability to morph into any animal they touch by absorbing the animal’s DNA. They use this power to launch a secret resistance against the Yeerks and to save the world. They are later joined by Ax, a young Andalite stranded on Earth.”

An Animorphs feature film was in development back in 2020, but it never moved forward.

Proximity Media is currently under a TV overall deal with Disney, which has also spawned Coogler’s “The X-Files” reboot.

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In the upcoming novel, releasing just in time for Halloween on October 6, 2026, Robert P. Ottone “brings the terror of Amityville back to life with chilling precision.”

Of particular note, Amityville Awakens features painted cover artwork by Trevor Henderson, the creator of Siren Head and Bloody Disgusting’s podcast Mayfair Watchers Society.

Trevor Henderson announced on Instagram, “Was so excited to paint a cover for the upcoming horror novel Amityville Awakens. It sounds great and I can’t wait to read it!”

In upcoming horror novel Amityville Awakens…

The Amityville Horror House is demolished, unleashing terror upon the unsuspecting suburban community of North Amityville and its neighboring Village. With the fabled house gone, the two towns begin experiencing an onslaught of unsettling phenomena.

People go missing. A putrid, almost fungal spore-like mold begins festering across lawns. Shadows move and orbs glitter in the night. An unlikely band of characters comes together to battle a supernatural nightmare that threatens to tear all of Long Island apart.

Ottone’s inspired, fresh take on the most famous haunted house in the world is a sprawling supernatural tale of evil as it often comes: where you live, where you sleep.

Pre-order your copy of the Amityville Horror novel now, releasing October 6.

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A search for a writer to adapt the bestselling book is currently underway.

The story follows Emily, who falls in love with the perfect man, Adam, and believes she has finally found the life she’s always wanted — until she meets his mother, Pammie. To the outside world, Pammie is warm, polished, and unwaveringly supportive. But behind closed doors, her behavior toward Emily grows increasingly calculated and destabilizing.

What begins as emotional manipulation slowly reveals itself to be something far more complicated — and far more dangerous — than anyone realizes.

Billings Productions’ Leanna Billings and Ceylin Kocagöz will execute produce, with Noelia Murphy-Devaney, Neal Flaherty, and Jones serving as producers.

“This novel is an absolute favorite of ours, and to have the opportunity to bring it to screen is surreal,” said Billings and Kocagöz. “At face value, the story appears to be a classic retelling of mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law, but Sandie’s razor-sharp plotting, psychological precision, and jaw-dropping twists keep the reader devouring the book from start to finish. The emotional complexity and shifting perspective create an incredible canvas for adaptation.”

“I’m so excited for Billings’ passion for bringing ‘The Other Woman’ to the screen,” added Jones. “Leanna has long been a fan of the book, and we share the same vision for its adaptation. I cannot wait to see Pammie in all her glory!”

Published in 2018 by Minotaur Books, The Other Woman is a New York Times bestseller and a Reese’s Book Club pick.

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The Vermis series of books by Plastiboo captures this feeling in the form of gorgeous narrative art books, telling dark fantasy tales that capture the mood of FromSoft classics. Available now, my copy of Vermis III: Old Curses & Buried Horrors has made its way to me, and it’s another great entry in the unique series.

What makes the Vermis series so novel is the way they choose to tell their story. The books present themselves in the form of strategy guides for video games that don’t exist, laying out things like character classes, enemies, and narrative beats as a way to present their fictional world. As a collector of old school strategy guides, it’s a nostalgic format that feels like a truly innovative way of telling its tale, even if it bends the format a bit to tell some of its story content. It’s a clever hybrid that gives the book a narrative immersiveness, making you think about it in game terms even if what’s being presented wouldn’t exactly translate to a video game.

After a quick opening narration that sets up the book’s themes, you’re presented with a list of character classes, each with its own starting equipment and stats. The real secret sauce of Vermis III is the evocative prose that makes everything feel like it has a long, lived-in history. I could spend this entire review just posting large chunks of text from the book and saying “look how great this is,” but the one that exemplifies it most for me is the Wax Warlock. Described as “a bottomless well of knowledge, dexterous in many sorceries, such as enchantments, invocations, and pyromantics,” they are occultist who are so knowledgeable because their heads are covered in wax rendered from the fat of the Fallen Giant, which prevents memories from escaping their head.

I feel like I would read an entire book series about a Wax Warlock based on that brief description alone, and that’s only one of the classes. Others, like the Wood Witch or the Choirman, have ties to locations and events found later in the book, making it feel like a rich, interconnected tapestry.

Following the introduction of the classes, the book falls into a pattern of alternating between descriptions of narrative beats, introductions of new locations, and pages outlining the various creatures you run into. This isn’t a formal structure, and these all bleed into each other a bit, but it’s a nice rhythm that keeps new ideas coming in at a relatively steady pace. With as much as I’ve talked about how the writing brings so much personality to the book, the art does just as much work to bring all these sections to life. It’s moody and mostly monochromatic, creating extremely memorable imagery on every single page.

The events laid out in Vermis III are all wonderfully enigmatic, feeling like the strange encounters with Dark Souls NPCs that speak mysteriously of the world around them. All the writing of these sections is in second person, using “you” for the main character to give you the illusion that this could be a game that you’re interacting with. There will be parts where the outcome of an encounter is described as going different ways based on whatever choice “you” make, giving the impression that the “game” is alive and reactive. While the narrative elements of these are great, these are the parts that break the official game guide illusion most for me, as they are written with the effusive prose of a dark fantasy novel, not the more workman-like and easy-to-follow text of a walkthrough.

There are also references made to things that couldn’t necessarily be conveyed in a video game, like when the Shadow of Doubt shrivels your heart in dread, or when the transition between locations is a journey that takes “at least a week.” To be clear, I wouldn’t change this, as I think the writing of Vermis III is top-notch, but it’s the part that does make me wish it were a little more dedicated to the gimmick stylistically.

Vermis III, more than other books in the series, feels a bit more like a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive overarching story, but it doesn’t feel worse for it. This book has some highs for the series as far as short stories go, including the tale of the Eyeless Champion who holds the eyes of the King of Ashes, and your stay with the mapmaker who is trying to chart a labyrinth as he descends into cannibalism. It’s pitch-perfect dark fantasy that traffics heavily in various types of horror, even if the narrative throughline isn’t as strong as in previous entries.

The places you visit in Vermis III are all wonderful twists on standard fantasy tropes, brought to life in just the right amount of detail through the words and images. While it’s strong throughout, the final two locations, the Singing Palace and the House of Red, really stood out to me. The Singing Palace is a location hidden by a garden maze, presented with a full map detailing the way through, and features a side view breaking down its various floors and the horrors that dwell there. Travelling through the plague-ridden gardens, descending down the well into the palace below, before finally finding the Daughter of Locust, is a fantastic stretch of the book, building both a strong story and a sense of place.

The House of Red grabbed my attention by being a bleak prison haunted by mad prisoners and even madder jailers, making for a harsh landscape that feels like a true climax to the story. I wish there were a little more connective tissue between the areas, but each place feels like a great piece of the puzzle that makes up the overall world of Vermis.

To me, the part of the book that makes it feel most like an old strategy guide is the enemy sections. Anytime I turned the page to see a grid of messed-up little creatures staring back at me, I was immediately excited to see what it would bring. Just a picture and a name are enough to get the mind racing about what fighting these monsters would be like, but some of them have full-page descriptions of their encounters. While it’s great to have them explained, sometimes my favorites were ones that didn’t have details, allowing your mind to fill in the horrors in ways no writing can. A hunched-over skeleton called “Lunatic Bones” or a deer with a human face named “Distant Observer” are so perfect in their brevity, finding ways to efficiently do a lot of storytelling in such a small space.

Back when I worked in an office, I used to bring in the previous Vermis books and read passages out loud to my coworkers without giving them any context, and they would often reply with enthusiastic confusion, wondering what FromSoft wiki page I was reading from. While I don’t think you need to read them all to enjoy Vermis III, I definitely think that it’s worth checking out the previous books, not only because they are just as high quality, but also because there are a few references you can catch that tie them together. Plastiboo also created an unrelated book called Godhusk: Rebirth that uses the same fake guide format to present a strange sci-fi world that feels like a demented take on Metroid, and this one is just as worth checking out as any Vermis book.

It’s such a unique experiment in storytelling, and Vermis III proves that Plastiboo’s formula is one that has legs. You can enjoy it as an art book, a dark fantasy narrative, or even a setting to play in your favorite tabletop RPG (feels like it would be a perfect fit for the Mork Borg system). The book represents a perfect combination of concept, art, and prose, making for a haunting journey that I’ll frequently return to for years to come.

Vermis III: Old Curses & Buried Horrors is available now via Hollow Press.

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Now he’s back with another collection of stories, and they prove that cliched phrase is still true: No one is doing it like Attila Veres.

In This’ll Make Things a Little Easier, which the author translated himself from his native Hungarian, Veres brings together half a dozen stories that run the gamut from fantasy to science fiction to all-out terror, each of them a dazzling blend of genres and sensibilities, each of them singular. In the opening story, “a pit full of teeth,” Veres follows an author not unlike himself whose work is translated into an unreadable language, with terrifying results. In “Transistor,” a woman looks back on her life’s work as a conduit for forces that slowly devour her, and in the follow-up tale, “The Designated Contact Individual,” we learn what she was working toward. Then there’s the title story, in which the government installs strange new trees meant to solve money problems for citizens, but there’s a terrible price to be paid. 

In each of these tales, and the others which make up the collection, Veres plays with a particular set of ingredients, chronicling what happens when a system meant to uphold certain norms is upended, either robbing characters of their grip on reality or remaking it altogether. Whether they’re forced by their employers to shovel a mysterious substance known as “Mud” into their mouths all day or gifted money trees that exact a heavy toll, each of the characters in these stories is pulled, often in many directions at once, by forces greater than themselves, both cosmic and mundane.

Every story in This’ll Make Things a Little Easier hums with Veres’ singular style, a mixture of the esoteric, the comic, and the deeply unsettling. They are stories capable of horrifying and delighting in equal measure on each page, sometimes within each paragraph, and nowhere is that more apparent than the story which, for me, stands as the collection’s centerpiece.

In “Damage d10+7,” a group of friends playing a homebrewed RPG decide to push the accuracy of their characters into a truly dark place, setting off the unraveling of a fictional world carefully maintained by the game’s master. It’s a wonderful concept for a story, and it’s also a stellar example of Veres’ gift for pacing out a story. The concept draws you in, the catalyst for the narrative shocks you, and then the story pushes further, out into unknown territory, as the characters reckon with the shockwaves of what’s happened and question everything they think they know. 

The unpredictability of Veres’ stories makes them thrilling to read, but his storytelling style is about so much more than swerving on readers who think they see a horror formula developing in a predictable way. In all six of these stories, we are treated to a creative mind that refuses to stop at the water’s edge, or even in the knee-deep cool of an oncoming tide. In every tale, Veres wants to go deeper, to pull us under in the darkness beneath the rippling surface. These aren’t just stories but excavations, and their combination of sly grace and endlessly unnerving imagery makes them irresistible, no matter how deep Veres dares to go.

If you still haven’t discovered the wonder of Attila Veres’ writing, this is a great place to start. It’s a wonderful follow-up to The Black Maybe, which proves Veres still has much, much more to show us, and an essential horror fiction collection for 2026.

This’ll Make Things a Little Easier is in bookstores now.

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Whatever the number of copies of the Goosebumps book series that my elementary school library actually housed was decidedly not enough to meet the demand of its ravenous patrons. Checking the return bin for those spooky covers with their strikingly colored, pimply raised fonts was a daily affair, and one that was often met with disappointment. You’d think that with the fervor and speed that kids in my school seemed to be devouring R.L. Stine’s tales of terror that there’d be nothing but Goosebumps books sitting available atop the library’s countless rows of shelves but, to my pained chagrin, the tomes remained as elusive as many of the mysteries which burned within the pages of the books I so desperately sought.

But, despite the heartbreak of countless empty handed exits from the library’s front double doors, it was those times where the playfully macabre cover art stared back up at me from the dark recesses of the book return that my breath would catch in my throat, that my heart would skip a beat and when my imagination would reel. From my first ever find of The Ghost Next Door to subsequent discoveries like Night of the Living Dummy, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and Let’s Get Invisible, that unassuming school library became my entry point into the strange and bizarre world of horror. But of all the covers to first meet my gaze in that misleadingly wholesome place, none held so strong an impact as the aptly titled, Say Cheese and Die!

A polaroid of a family barbecue, a perfect summer’s day shared with laughter, food and fun, all soured by the absence of tissue and flesh. The family in question, the father in his chef’s hat and apron flipping burgers, the mother beside him, her mouth agape in a frozen chuckle and their kids in the background, lounging at the picnic table, wore only their clothes atop their exposed bones. Devoid of dressing, their smiles seemed sinister, their presence an omen, a promise of death where you might least expect it.

Goosebumps was a diabolical concoction, every element key to its witches’ brew bent on intoxicating the young mind. The same held true when the show leapt to the screen some years later, its presentation carrying over those mysterious elemental components that made the books so resonant. As his name hung over each title in plain font, R.L. Stine would appear at the top of each episode as the credits began, shrouded in black and spilling his briefcase into the wind, releasing his horrors on an otherwise mundane and unsuspecting world. And with each new episode, a memory was sparked, the first time I laid eyes on the cover art swam through my mind, and I was frightened and excited all over again.

Arriving toward the end of the first season, Say Cheese and Die! was one of the earliest and most iconic books to be adapted. Moody and atmospheric, the episode transposes and simplifies the events of the book in striking ways, crafting a different experience that nails the tone and feeling that the original material conjures so well. Having been a personal favorite since the moment I first spied those eerily grinning skeletons in the library at Willow Elementary, I could not wait to see what horrors the episode had in store and, alterations and all, the end result did not disappoint.

What is Goosebumps: Say Cheese and Die! about?

Greg and his friends are bored. There’s nothing to do in Pitts Landing— that’s why everyone calls it “the pits.”

Still, are they bored enough to sneak into the abandoned Coffman House? The old, dilapidated manor that every kid has heard stories about? Greg doesn’t think so, but his friends Shari, Doug (nicknamed Bird due to his avian-like features) and Michael have the last word. All too soon, they find themselves in the creaky basement, noticing that someone has made a home for themselves there, perhaps the lanky homeless man dressed in black that the town’s kids have nicknamed Spidey on account of his spindly legs and unnerving mannerisms.

It’s there Greg stumbles upon a hidden compartment and an old, heavy camera. Always having been interested in photography, Greg snaps a photo of Michael at the top of the stairs. It’s when the photo prints out that he notices something’s wrong: Michael is falling in the photograph, despite being perfectly stable when the picture was taken. There’s little time to dwell on the mystery, however, as a moment later, the railing breaks and Michael plummets.

Spidey returns to the old house and the kids must flee. They escape with the camera and a slew of questions that will only get more complicated as Greg comes to realize this particular camera doesn’t take pictures of what’s happening… it captures what’s going to. More than that, it twists things and turns them. It makes them bad. A new car becomes a wrecked one. A baseball player ends up unconscious on the ground. His best friend disappears.

How can Greg stop the evil camera? How can he save his friends when no one will believe him? When the only one who could possibly understand his problem is a deranged vagrant who will stop at nothing to retrieve the cursed camera that cannot be destroyed?

Say Cheese and Die! was one of the earliest Goosebumps books released, serving as a foundational effort that would solidify those elements that would go on to become tried and true in the series. Constructed around a core group of relatable kids, the horror is the kind of immediate fantasy that feels chillingly grounded. The book not only serves as a shining example of R.L. Stine’s penchant for crafting instantly classic, kid-friendly horror fare but the raw power of Tim Jacobus’ artwork and how, together, new nightmares are so expertly born.

The Say Cheese and Die! TV episode… starring Ryan Gosling!

Both the book and the episode open with the core group of kids engaged in conversation, but in different places and with slightly different motivations. In the book, Greg, Shari, Bird and Michael are in Greg’s driveway, waxing endlessly about how bored they are. Their conversation is meandering but relatable as they discuss baseball, comic books— namely The X-Force— and what they’d do if they had superpowers. Finally they take a walk across the neighborhood and find themselves staring at the old Coffman house. Hidden in the shadows of some old oak trees, the place reeks of wealth, but its broken windows, cracked shingles and hanging shutters tell a story of neglect and abandonment.

The show excises Michael entirely, focusing on Greg, Shari and Bird as they stand before the gate of a large, imposing industrial building. Gone is the feel of haunted suburbia, replaced with the blunt coldness of the city. Rather than talk of boredom, the kids seem to be swapping stories of the supposed madman who dwells inside the building they’re so keen to spy on.

“I hear he sleeps in there!”

“I hear he eats rats!”

Spidey makes an appearance here, something he doesn’t do until several chapters later on the page, a wild looking man with long, scraggly gray hair and strange black goggles, providing him the insect-like appearance that his elongated, slender lankiness does in the book. In the book, Michael suggests that they check out the house in an effort to cure their boredom. Spidey is mentioned here, along with the rumors that he frequents the house. In the show, it seems that the reason the kids want to check out the soon to be demolished building is specifically because Spidey lives there, which is why the three so eagerly enter once Spidey runs off.

Both the book and the episode make sure to highlight Greg’s protests, his friends pushing him forward regardless. The book provides a bit more atmospheric nuance to the three story manor it concerns, the pale circles of light dotting the creaking floorboards, a mysterious dark, oval stain on the carpet and a low hanging chandelier so covered with dust that its glass frame is indiscernible just a few of the details filling out the spooky space. On the other hand, in the show the kids enter directly into Spidey’s laboratory.

The lab on the screen is fairly sparse, containing a television and a tool bench, marked with odd, nondescript inventions. In the book the basement of the house is brighter, made up with an old table and mattress as though someone had been living there. They even find an old Hungry Man frozen dinner, which the kids make a point to note that Spidey most likely eats frozen “like pop-sickles” given that he has no microwave, casting the unsettling feeling that they are no longer exploring an abandoned place but invading someone’s personal living space. They also notice an area with rusty tools, a worktable and a metal vice. Thoughtless curiosity leads to Greg turning the vice and exposing a hidden door on the bench. Inside is a large, old camera.

The show accomplishes all of this in seconds, as Greg bumps into the tool bench and opens a shelf immediately upon entry. He too discovers a camera, although onscreen it looks more like an alien weapon than a traditional piece of photography equipment. Large and black with small fins protruding and several blinking red lights, the camera’s whir and otherworldly green flash makes for a strikingly strange device. While it may be more visually interesting in some ways, it also seems less likely Greg would recognize it as a camera.

The book dwells on Greg’s indecision of whether or not to take the object, feeling that it was hidden for a reason, before finally giving into the budding desire to snatch the surprisingly heavy object. Exposition of Greg’s interest in photography, how he had been saving his allowances for a nice camera with a plethora of lenses and how he daydreamed of traveling the world with it are excised. Instead, the moment he finds the camera in the show, he snaps a picture of Bird (instead of Michael), who promptly falls from the top of the stairs whilst attempting to juggle. It’s then that Spidey shows up and shouts, “What are you doing here?” and the three kids quickly flee in a series of canted angle shots that provides the brief opening with an even more chaotic feel.

The book follows a similar trajectory, Michael falls but, unlike Bird who claims to be fine in the show, complains about his ankle. Instead of Spidey showing himself, footsteps resound on the floor above. As the kids panic and attempt to find a way out, the footsteps grow louder and a man’s voice calls out, “Who’s down there?” Their exit slowed by Michael’s injured ankle, there’s a bit more tension and build up on the page, culminating with the kids bursting through locked wooden double doors leading to the overgrown backyard as Spidey, only referenced as a dark figure, watches through a window of the house.

The book and the show match up closely here, as Greg discovers that the picture depicts Bird/Michael falling, despite the event occurring after the photograph was taken. In both versions Greg pockets the photo and pushes the thought out of his mind, assuming the camera must have gone off later than he thought. In the book, Greg arrives back home to find his father’s new navy blue Station Wagon in the driveway. He snaps a photo of the car to remember it as it was when it was brand new, before running up to his bedroom to hide the camera so that he would not have to explain its origins to his parents. It’s there that he looks at the snapshot in surprise.

In the show, Greg also finds the new car, here surrounded by leaves and presenting the comfortable feeling of fall that the book doesn’t feature. His brother Terry is also there, someone only mentioned in the book up until this point. Terry approaches Greg with the greeting, “Hey troll!” Terry is a completely different character here, presented as something of a mindless older brother bully-type as opposed to the genuinely supportive and, at worst, aloof sibling that he is on the page. Terry is more excited about the car than Greg and goads him into taking a photo in the show. Greg complies, while Spidey watches from behind a nearby tree, something the book doesn’t mention.

Greg reacts to the photo alone in his room in both versions, the car on the small rectangular photograph no longer new, but completely wrecked. In the show, Terry is leaning against the car in the photo, an odd choice as he has his own photograph subplot in the book that is excised in the show and nothing is done with him here in its place. Still, the following scene, where Greg’s family eats dinner and decides to take a ride in the new car, plays out on screen fairly closely to how it does on the page. The one exception here is that in the book Greg attempts to get out of the leisurely drive to no avail with excuses of homework and not feeling well whereas, in the show, he never speaks up.

In the book, Greg’s father is a little over excited, pushing the car above 70 miles per hour despite Greg’s mother’s consistent concerns. In the show, Greg’s father is far more conservative, responding to the request that he slow down with the fact that he’s only going 35. Greg also attempts to show his mother the picture in the episode while driving, a picture which goes flying out of the open window as a result. That’s when the truck horn blares and the car spins out, narrowly missing a collision. On the page, Greg wishes his dad would slow down but doesn’t verbalize it. Distracted by his new, unfamiliar dashboard, Greg’s father doesn’t see the truck barreling toward them. The horn blares and they swerve out of the way. More time is spent with the family here as Greg’s mother comforts her children and scolds her husband.

The book also features an additional excised scene in which Greg stares once more at the picture of the damaged car in his bedroom, before deciding to test the camera out on himself. Thinking that the flash would distort the image if he used a mirror, he enlists his brother Terry instead. When he takes Terry’s picture, however, Terry is not smiling awkwardly in his bedroom, he is outside and frightened looking. This provides a further string to the burgeoning mystery of the camera as well as what might soon transpire that the runtime of the show apparently couldn’t afford.

The show moves directly from the near miss incident with the car to the scene which conjures the instantly recognizable key art into the real world, as the family is seen grilling together. Greg sets up the camera and they all say “Cheese!” Strange carnival music plays as the photo prints out, depicting them all as skeletons. Greg wakes up a moment later, terrified. While this scene is referenced briefly in the book, outside of the cover art, it’s not for several more chapters.

This transposition marks a breaking point in the episode and the book, the show removing large swaths of exposition and set pieces in an effort to arrive at the climax. In the next scene, Bird and Greg discuss the camera, whether it can predict the future and how there seems to be no place to put in additional film (a conversation that’s had between Greg and Shari in the book). They then encounter Joey and Mickey, two bullies from school, who attempt to steal the camera, resulting in a chase that lands Greg and Bird in Shari’s backyard. It’s there that she demands Greg take her picture only to be miffed when she doesn’t appear in it, the empty backyard where she had been standing the only thing to show up on the square image. Then suddenly, Terry bursts into the backyard, breathlessly informing his brother that their father’s been in an accident.

The book skips ahead a few days to Bird’s first little league game, something mentioned in the first chapter on the page but abandoned on the screen. Greg and Shari talk extensively about the camera and accidentally snap a photo of Bird in the process, an image which depicts him sprawled out on the ground with his neck and limbs at odd angles. The following chapters serve to flesh out Greg and Shari’s best friendship, making her the central sounding board for Greg regarding the camera as opposed to Bird on the screen. It culminates with Bird taking a line drive to the head and passing out, fulfilling the picture’s prophecy just as Terry turns up looking frightened, fulfilling the promise of his own photograph, informing that their father, and his new car, had been in an accident. All the while, a dark figure watches from behind the bleachers.

For a moment, the show and the book align once more, as Greg visits his father in the hospital. The book comments on the indistinct colors and shapes of the hospital as Greg takes the long walk to his father’s room, unsure of the state in which he’ll find him. The aroma of “rubbing alcohol, stale food and disinfectant” greet him as he sees his crying mother and father whose head is wrapped like a mummy, his arm in a cast while attached to a tube dripping dark liquid. From the perspective of a child, there is a sense of weighted trauma invading his senses that suggests not only the danger his family is in at the moment but the potential for far worse outcomes should the camera not be decommissioned.

The show doesn’t quite capture the horrors of the hospital in the same way, offering a quick glimpse at Greg’s father whose leg is elevated in a cast and whose sense of embarrassment at the trouble and worry his accident might have caused outweighs any fear he might’ve had for his life. Unlike the book, the show spends very little time at the hospital, finding Greg back at home and face to face with several police officers with questions about Shari. She’s been missing since that afternoon and given that Greg was one of the last people to see her, he’s on the hot seat. The cops express a great deal of attitude and a forceful sense of intimidation, as Greg debates about whether to tell them the truth. All the while, Spidey watches.

The book jumps from the hospital to the following weekend, Shari’s birthday party. While the show somewhat sidelined Shari prior to the events of the car accident, on the page she is still a major presence, demanding that Greg bring the camera to her party to take a picture of her. He argues, but as it’s her birthday he ultimately relents. It’s here that he mentions the dream shown earlier in the episode and the one featured so prominently on the cover of the book. The mention is fleeting and barely a blip on the story’s radar, clearly revealing its true origins as something R.L. Stine added after the book was written in an effort to include Tim Jacobus’ wonderful art into the story itself.

The party is a big one with a large group of kids. It’s there that Greg takes the photo of Shari that doesn’t have her in it, no matter how many times he snaps the shutter in her direction. The kids head out to the woods to play truth or dare, something Greg is not excited about due to the potential for “kissing and awkward stunts”, before being called back for Shari’s candle lit pink and white birthday cake. It’s there that everyone realizes Shari is missing.

Rather than disappearing offscreen, the book depicts Shari’s disappearance as it’s happening. Uniformed police search the woods around Shari’s house as the birthday cake sits untouched, its candles melted down to puddles atop the pristine pink and white icing. There’s a disturbing sadness that pervades the event as Greg, their next door neighbor, sits against a tree and watches the search along with Shari’s grieving parents— knowing what happened while, at the same time, at a loss to provide any reasonable explanation as to how or why it did.

The book dives deeper into Greg’s psyche than the show is able to, depicting his conversation with a police officer there under the tree as opposed to later at his home. Instead of an accusatory line of questioning, the officer approaches with concern in his voice. After reassuring Greg that they’d find her, Greg finally admits that he knows the camera is why Shari is missing, explaining the object’s powers to the authority figure. Again, instead of mistrust, the officer pats him on the shoulder and acknowledges how difficult this must be for him. The lesson for Greg is clear: no one will believe that he is in possession of an evil camera. If something is to be done, he will have to do it himself.

While the show depicts Bird and Greg arguing about what to do before Greg finally decides to take the camera back to Spidey’s workshop on his own after tearing up Shari’s blank photograph in anger, the book follows Greg home from Shari’s to find his room in complete disarray. Multiple chapters pass as Greg gathers Michael and Bird together to form a plan to dispose of the camera, save Shari and finally shake Spidey off of their backs.

Here is where Greg and his friends encounter the bullies and the scene which transpired much earlier on screen plays out on the page, this time resulting in an accidental photograph being taken. While it would have helped for a more cohesive narrative to introduce the bullies earlier in the story, their presence feels natural in the unique brand of kid jungle that Stine tends to craft for his young characters to live in. The inadvertent photo shows Greg, frightened but not alone. Shari is there too, someone who apparently may not be missing for much longer.

Days pass in the book, with the authorities developing the working theory that Shari had been kidnapped. A heavy sense of fear and grief pervades Greg’s household, despite his dad’s return home from the hospital, in part because of their close relationship with Shari and their family and also because of the implications a kidnapping in their quaint suburban town might represent. Without this element, Shari’s disappearance on screen holds less weight and, again, relegates her to a far less reaching supporting role than she plays on the page.

In the show, Greg heads out to the old building with the camera in hand when he’s surprised by a figure in the darkness— Shari. Without an idea of where she had disappeared to, she seems to have reappeared after Greg tore up the photograph. Having found out from Bird what Greg was up to, she decided to join and support him in putting the camera to rest.

The book resolves Shari’s disappearance in much the same way, albeit with more breathing room. Greg destroys the photograph before falling asleep, waking up several hours later to a phone call from Shari. As in the show, she had turned up at approximately the same time that Greg tore up the photograph with no memory or knowledge of where she’d been or what had happened to her. They meet up and finally bring the most recent photograph’s image to fruition as both Shari and Greg stop dead, terrified, in the face of a tall, gangly man.

Likening him to a “black tarantula”, they run before being stopped by one of their neighbors who frightens Spidey off with a warning of calling the police. Shari and Greg then decide that the camera has to be returned if they’re ever going to rid themselves of Spidey. They decide on the following afternoon at 3pm, not under the cover of darkness as in the show, but in the bright light of day, when their neighborhood will feel safe rather than sinister.

Here, once more, the book and the show connect. As before, the book offers additional set dressing as the two venture through the house, describing cobwebbed ducts spiraling out like old tree limbs and a sudden lightning storm flashing periodically much like the signature of a certain cursed camera. The show instead once more finds the kids descending straight down into the green and blue haze of Spidey’s lab.

In the book, Greg deposits the camera back in its secret compartment before being confronted by Spidey, but in the episode, Spidey appears almost immediately. This is the first good look at the man the book provides, describing him as old, with small eyes resembling dark marbles. He speaks softly, explaining that they should not have taken the camera, that it is not broken but evil. He explains that his real name is Dr. Fritz Fredericks and that he stole the camera from his partner who would have made a fortune from it. He explains that his partner dabbled in the dark arts and had cursed the camera, ensuring that if he could not profit from it, then no one could.

In the show, Fredericks is far more intense and wild. His tone is crazed and raised, heightened in a way that feels understandably theatrical. This version of the doctor explains that while some primitive tribes believe cameras to be soul stealers, this one is far worse than that. Insinuating that he invented it rather than stole it, he laments that it should’ve made him his fortune but that it ultimately not only predicted the future, it made it worse.

Both versions explain that the camera can not be destroyed and so therefore must be hidden as well as land on Dr. Fredericks telling Greg and Shari that they know too much and can never leave. Completely aligned, both versions depict a struggle, culminating with Shari snapping a photo of Dr. Fredericks, effectively positioning Shari as the hero of the day. That’s where the versions diverge once more.

In the book, Fredericks howls like a “wounded animal”, flailing on the floor before lying still, his eyes bulging in a frozen stare of utter terror, exactly what the photo depicted. Frightened to death, Greg and Shari decide, despite the paramedic’s eventual conclusion that it was heart failure. On screen, Fredericks disappears in a flash of green light, only to be shown visibly inside of the camera shouting, “Release me! Someone! Anyone! Release me!!” Not dead, but trapped. Perhaps not as macabre as the page and easily more palatable for younger viewers, the show still offered a fascinating fate for the evil camera’s keeper.

Still, both versions leave its viewers and readers with the same scene: consummate bullies Joey and Mickey sneaking into Spidey’s lab, laughing at the idea that Greg could hide the camera they were so intent on stealing from them. They take a picture and say “Cheese!”, excitedly huddled around the photo to watch as it develops. Of course, while the book ends there, in keeping with the earlier alteration, in the show Spidey stands up behind them, grinning widely.

It seems, regardless of the version, the camera’s curse is far from over.

Say Cheese and Die! – The Book vs. The TV Episode

Unlike so many unsatisfactory trips to the library, Say Cheese and Die! delivered just the sort of Goosebumps experience my young mind had craved. Like many of the episodes before it, and so many that would come in its wake, it managed to capture much of the feel of reading a Goosebumps book while providing something different than what the page had to offer. Friday nights continued to reign supreme, as though infused with a drug made potent by watching my favorite series’ entries come to life in new and exciting ways.

Brought to life by prolific Goosebumps director Ron Oliver, helmer of Welcome to Camp Nightmare and Night of the Living Dummy II, the episode comes imbued with an autumnal atmosphere and a sharp juxtaposition between Spidey’s lair and the pleasant suburbia nearby. Those two locations craft a stark contrast mirroring the dark, potential futures which may or may not lie ahead depending on how the protagonists choose to proceed. There’s an energy to the episode in how the camera moves and in the way the story flows that maintains momentum right up until the last frame. Not to mention, the whole affair is headlined by a young Ryan Gosling in the role of Greg.

The book remains more emotionally complex and narratively cohesive, providing a better sense of what’s at stake. Shari in particular works much better on the page and is a far more interesting companion to Greg than Bird, making the decision to diminish her role in the episode all the more disappointing. Still, the core elements remain in place, making the episode an essential companion piece to the book that only further serves to solidify its place as one of the best Goosebumps properties in Stine’s extensive stable of scary.

Say Cheese and Die! does what Goosebumps does best, placing relatable, average kids in remarkable situations. Providing an avenue in which to face fear, rejection, grief and anxiety through the lens of everyday life so that they might be able to suss it all out, and have a bit of fun while doing it. Sure, it’s a book about an evil camera, but it’s also about a parent in a car accident. For every spider-like mad inventor lurking in the shadows, there’s a missing friend or an injured companion, the fear that something bad might happen and there will be nothing you can do to stop it.

It was always disappointing peering down into a return bin devoid of Stine, but when I think back to those endless days after school, scouring the library for the odd copy of anything brightly colored and dripping with the familiar Goosebumps moniker, I don’t remember disappointment. I don’t even recall the fear the books might have caused. No, it’s the curiosity. The budding wonder of what might be in store. There would be danger, certainly, but danger could be navigated, explored— conquered too.

Kids like me did it all the time, after all, just pick up a Goosebumps book and see for yourself, the library should have plenty of copies. Still, if they’re not on the shelf, check the return bin; you never know, you might get lucky.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on March 30, 2022.

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In Wretch, LaRocca’s latest novel, the heart and the soul are just as vital to the dread-laced puzzle as the body, and even seasoned LaRocca readers might be taken aback by just how tightly the author keeps hold of the extreme horror reins this time around. Patient, restrained, and woven throughout with notes of bleak beauty that whisper like dark silk, this is a new kind of Eric LaRocca novel, and it works quite well. 

Simeon is a widower struggling to cope with the death of his husband, Jonathan. It’s eaten into his professional life, his relationship with his son and his ex, and consumed most of his waking thoughts. The grief is all-consuming, so when someone comes along with a promise to help, he’s naturally interested. 

It’s through his grief that Simeon first learns about two things. One is a support group known as the Wretches, who are devoted to, among other things, finding the faces of their dead loved ones in everyday objects. The other is a mysterious person named Porcelain Khaw, a figure whispered about in the dark corners of the web, who’s able to reunite people with their dead loved ones, for a price. 

If you follow grief horror as a subgenre, you recognize a lot of these ingredients right away, and that’s part of the book’s success. LaRocca doesn’t shy away from the conventional setup of this narrative, from the grieving loner mining the depths of his own soul to the dark bargain struck with a Mephistophelian figure who promises the world. These pieces lock into place perfectly because they’re designed to, but it’s what LaRocca does next that sets Wretch apart.

For longtime LaRocca readers, the book has many things you’ll enjoy, from strange posts on internet forums embedded right in the center of the book to moments of skin-crawling physical sensation that’ll jerk you right up out of your chair. But despite some of his more well-worn tropes, his familiar, somewhat formal prose, and his emphasis on transgression, this is also a different side of Eric LaRocca. 

The deeper Simeon digs into potential avenues for salvation from his grief, the deeper LaRocca goes right along with him, digging deeper into one of the author’s most prominent themes: The fear of being unworthy. Simeon does not just miss his husband. He misses the certainty that came with a warm body next to his own, the blanket, however flimsy, which told him he was wanted, desired, loved. The more he excavates, the more he wonders, out loud on the page for all of us to read, if he was ever truly worthy of love. That makes his descent a dark one, but it also makes Porcelain’s gifts a bigger threat to the state of Simeon’s soul, adding a deep vein of suspense alongside the dread-packed poetry of the prose. 

The result is a book that doesn’t quite go for the visceral throat with the same fury of LaRocca’s other novels, but replaces that fury with a certain horrific wisdom. In many ways, LaRocca has been exploring the same themes over and over since Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, his breakthrough novella. The dramatis personae changes, and the horror goes to different places, but LaRocca’s oeuvre retains a laser focus on questions of monstrousness, love, and how the two intertwine.

Wretch is perhaps his most mature treatment of the subject yet, and while some of the more jaw-dropping shocks have fallen away this time around, we’re rewarded instead with a dark jewel of elegant, atmospheric prose and deliciously restrained terror. This is a culmination of LaRocca’s work so far, and deserves to be savored.

Wretch is in bookstores everywhere on March 24.

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Wil Wheaton has returned to the story that helped launch his career by narrating the new audiobook of Stephen King‘s The Body.

Wheaton — who, of course, starred alongside River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell in Rob Reiner’s 1986 adaptation Stand By Me — kicks off the story in our exclusive excerpt below.

The first standalone audiobook edition of King’s seminal coming-of-age novella releases on March 24 via Simon & Schuster.

Set in 1960, The Body takes place in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. When a boy from a nearby town disappears, 12-year-old Gordie Lachance and his three friends set out on a quest to find his body along the railroad tracks.

During the course of their journey, Gordie, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio come to terms with death and the harsh truths of growing up in a small factory town that doesn’t offer much in the way of a future.

“Narrating The Body by Stephen King, the story that became Stand By Me, has been an extraordinary and deeply meaningful experience for me,” said Wheaton. “This story has stayed with me my entire life, and revisiting it in this way is something I’ve hoped to do for a long time. It’s truly a full-circle moment for me and a dream come true.”

The Body was originally published in King’s 1982 short story collection Different Seasons.

Stand By Me returns to theaters for a one-week engagement in celebration of its 40th anniversary beginning March 27.

Copyright © 1982 by Stephen King. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from the audiobook The Body, read by Wil Wheaton, published by Simon & Schuster Audio, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Cordova and his crew at the Gauntlet have been spending the past three years fine-tuning the game, adding content, and tweaking the rules, leading up to the recently launched Kickstarter campaign for a definitive physical edition of the game. I sat down with Cordova to hear more about the design that went into the game and the changes to expect in the new version.

According to Cordova, Public Access casts the players as a very specific group of people in a very specific time and place.

“Public Access is about a group of 20-somethings in the summer of 2004. They’re all on this forum called the Deep Lake Odyssey, and the purpose of the forum is to discuss this old public access TV station that people on the forum remember, but that no one else does. They decide they are going to go to the town that this TV station was supposed to have been in, and they’re going to investigate what happened to this TV station called TV Odyssey.”

Public Access Takes a Different Approach to Mystery

After a tape containing footage from the lost station appears on their doorstep, they find that TV Odyssey isn’t the only strange mystery going on in Deep Lake. These mysteries are solved using the system that Cordova created in Brindlewood Bay. The key ingredient to the system is something that seems counterintuitive for a mystery game – the game master, called the Keeper, doesn’t have a definitive answer.

“Unlike a lot of mystery role-playing games like Call of Cthulhu, where the Keeper has the solutions to the mystery and knows what happened, in Carved from Brindlewood games, the Keeper does not know the solution. The characters are gonna find clues, the keeper has a list of clues to distribute as the characters search around, but the players are going to, at some point, have a conversation and engage in some deduction about what they think happened…

In Public Access, you might be investigating why this family disappeared from their home ten years ago without a trace. So now, it’s actually really exciting that there’s not a set answer to the mystery. We’re going to explore, and we’re gonna tell our version of that story. So any time someone plays that particular mystery, they’re gonna have a totally different experience than someone else. There’s a lot of flexibility in that collaborative mystery solving system of Carved from Brindlewood that really works well for this strange cosmic weirdness.”

How Memory and Nostalgia Shapes Public Access

Some of the core themes of the game are nostalgia and memory, and the ways they shape us, even if we aren’t remembering things correctly. The seed of this idea comes from an experience Cordova recalls from when he was five years old. His family was travelling from Oklahoma to California with his aunt and uncle following in the car behind them. It was late at night, somewhere in a deserted stretch of the Southwest, when they drive by a man standing on the side of the road. As they get close, they realize he’s wearing a cowl and robe, looking to Cordova like a cultist. His mom slows down to get a good look at him before continuing to drive. At the next gas station, they pull over, and his mom and aunt get out of their cars, terrified by what they just saw.

“Every day of my life since, I have wondered who that guy was, what was he doing? Was he a part of something? Is there a cult out in the desert? My mind always wants to race and wander about what would have happened if my mom would have slowed down and asked him if he was okay. It’s a total horror movie setup.

In my later years, I’ve thought about why that memory is so powerful to me. I’ve thought a lot about memory in general as a concept, nostalgia as a concept, how childhood memory can betray you, how nostalgia can betray you. It’s almost equally horrifying to me that I’m probably remembering the story wrong. My mom barely remembers this; she kinda just let it go, but to me, it’s really stuck with me. So this is a theme of the game, and of me personally, and I’ve always wanted to find a way to put it into roleplaying game form.”

Over the course of playing Public Access, nostalgia acts as both a source of comfort for the players and also as something that can be subverted into the very terrors they find themselves up against.

“In my game, the exploration of nostalgia is fun; the pop culture part of it is fun. Each of the characters has the ability to reminisce about something that takes them back, like Artax and the Swamp of Sadness, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Waco, Texas, and, in having those conversations with other Latchkeys, they can clear conditions and have downtime. But where the idea of nostalgia becomes a problem in the game is when it’s more about what if your childhood memories were true? What if the things we were scared of were true? It’s represented by a lot of strange cosmic horror weirdness that happens in the game. There’s one mystery, for example, where there are these teenagers in the 80s who were playing the D&D analog in this world called Serpents and Sepulchres, and they all go missing, and there’s this idea that it was an actual satanic panic cult around the game that caused them to go missing. In the world of Public Access, there actually was a satanic panic cult.”

Designing the World and Characters

Tabletop role-playing games are often seen as something where the possibility space encompasses nearly anything you can think of, but at the Gauntlet, they have a different idea when it comes to designing their worlds.

“My philosophy of role-playing game design is I prefer depth over width. There is this idea that we’ve been told about roleplaying games for many decades now that the sky’s the limit. You can do whatever you want, play any character you want, play in whatever world you want. Maybe some games do that, maybe some games deliver on that premise, but I find that personally to be mostly unsatisfying. I like focus. I like a structure that is hyper-specific, very, very focused. When you have that hyper-focused structure, it actually creates a permission structure for the players to go really deep with it. You know what the boundaries are – you are a 20-something in the summer of 2004 in this little town doing this. I find that structure, rather than being limited in prescriptive, actually creates a huge space for going really, really deep with backstory, with character interaction, with emotional bonding… In the market as it exists today, there are so many options, it’s okay if some of those options are really finely tuned to tell one story.”

Characters all share a common character sheet, rather than having specific classes, but they are differentiated by specific aesthetic choices and special moves. As you complete certain roleplaying triggers, you’ll be granted experience points that allow your character to grow and change as the campaign goes on, but that’s not the only way your character is fleshed out. When you fail a dice roll, you’ll often get a condition. Sometimes, you’ll just be horrifically killed. In order to avoid that, you can make use of a specific part of your character sheet called the Keys.

“Say you get a bad die roll and your character is killed as a result, some horror attacks them and kills them. Instead, what you can do is, like a “Choose Your Own Adventure“ book, you can take your thumb out of the page and go back and do something different. You mark one of these boxes on your sheet called Keys. There’s the Key of the Child and Key of Desolation; there are multiple boxes to mark under each of them, and whenever you mark one, particularly the Key of the Child, you are prompted to do a flashback. You tell us a specific story about your character’s past. Maybe it’s the first time they saw TV Odyssey. Maybe it’s the first time they realized that their parents were not perfect people. Maybe it’s the first time they experienced childhood trauma. In exchange for sharing something about their past, they get a do-over on the thing that just killed them. In that sense, the game has hit points because you can do this so many times before your character is ultimately truly dead. There’s another aspect called the Key of Desolation, which I don’t want to spoil here, but generally speaking, it starts to unravel reality around the Latchkeys. The more of those boxes you mark, things get strange.”

Characters aren’t meant to last forever in Public Access, as campaigns are meant to run about fifteen to twenty sessions. One of the big things that moves the campaign along is the Odyssey Tapes, which will give players clues to the overall mystery surrounding TV Odyssey. To make these tapes feel impactful, there’s a minigame you play anytime the Latchkeys sit down to watch one.

“Odyssey Tapes are probably most people’s favorite part of the game. In fiction, the Latchkeys are finding these tapes, and each of these tapes contains an episode of one of the programs that aired on TV Odyssey. In game terms, the episode is broken up into four narrative prompts, so every player, in turn, is assigned a prompt and has to narrate that part of the episode. So you go around the table, and essentially you’re telling each other a creepy campfire story of this weird episode of TV, and they’re very strange things. It’s a puppet show in a guy’s basement, and there’s a kid down there that’s clearly under duress. Or it’s a cooking show, and the host of the cooking show has pretty obviously just murdered someone offscreen…It’s very creepypasta, it’s very analog horror, it’s very found footage horror.”

One of the satisfying things about the game for both the players and the Keeper is incorporating details from the tape into their mysteries, creating a collaborative nature to the overall story.

“I am a big believer in distributing narrative authority around the table. In a traditional role-playing game, a GM is responsible for delivering all the world details, all the lore, and the players just kind of say what their character does. There’s nothing wrong with that; we’ve been playing role-playing games that way for years. I actually like a structure where the players are also invited to create world details and to say things that are true about the world, and it’s the Keeper’s job to take that stuff and reincorporate it into the fiction. The outcome is that the players are so much more invested in what we’re all doing here. Whenever the Latchkeys enter a new space, there’s usually a question that the Keeper poses to everybody at the table called a Paint the Scene question. By answering that question, the players are telling you what that space looks like, what that space sounds like, and, importantly, they explore an idea connected to that place. In the first mystery, the House on Escondido Street, you might go into the basement of the house, and the Paint the Scene question is “what do you see that tells you that the kids were scared to come down in the basement?” That’s a really powerful question because it causes the players’ minds to start racing. The point is the players get to say the truth of that, and then, as the Keeper, you get to work that into your narration, and it becomes true in the world. When you invite the players to create details like that, they get invested, but also it makes everything feel honest and like their contributions are being respected.”

Between the Paint the Scene questions, the Odyssey Tapes, and the mystery system, Public Access creates a living, breathing world that everyone has a say in, making for something wholly unique to your play group, even if you are using prewritten mysteries included with the game. To make the world feel even more alive, the Latchkeys will be dealing with multiple mysteries at the same time.

“I like the idea of there being multiple active mysteries, up to three, because it gives the whole campaign a better sense of place. These aren’t just mysteries happening in isolation; they’re mysteries happening in this strange town and county where lots of weird things are happening. It gives you a lot of space as a Keeper to make connections between them and have side characters from one mystery wander into another or make reference to things going on. It also increases pressure on the player characters. They suddenly have all these plates to keep spinning in the air. If they want to split up and go do other things, they can. If they want to have their own little story, they can, but they also can come back together when they need to. It makes everything feel interconnected, like a living, breathing place.”

What’s New in the Complete Version of Public Access

Years of playtesting since the initial release have helped shape the new, complete version of Public Access that’s currently crowdfunding. Not only has Cordova revamped the campaign structure, making the TV Odyssey mystery more central to the experience, but he’s also added a new type of mystery to add variety to the campaign.

“In the Kickstarter version, we’re introducing a brand new type of mystery called a Lost Transmission, and Lost Transmissions are like side mysteries that can be used to tell the story of the setting in a prologue story in the past. They don’t have a direct connection to the TV Odyssey campaign, but it’s a way to expand the campaign a bit. You can take a break, do a lost transmission, learn a little more about the world, and then go back to the main campaign. The Lost Transmissions are all triggered by something in the world. Maybe in order to trigger this Lost Transmission, you have to have a conversation with a certain character, or you have to find a certain object. It’s kind of this weird, dimensional, timey-wimey, cosmic weirdness thing where we get to go into the past of the setting. Your characters still solve the mystery, but it’s an alternate timeline, an alternate dimension version of your characters, so you also get to see your characters in a different context. It’s just another way of expanding the setting and creating more space to do more mysteries that are not a great fit tonally for the core TV Odyssey campaign.”

For the Kickstarter campaign, the Gauntlet will be producing two books for Public Access. The first is the core rulebook, which features the main rules, the campaign structure, and eight mysteries. This should be all you need to run a successful campaign of the game, but if you want more material, there’s the second book. “Signals from the Other Side“ features additional mysteries, including the aforementioned Lost Transmission mysteries, along with more information on an enigmatic element of the setting known as the Chromatic Desert.

To help smooth out the process of the Odyssey Tapes, they’re also creating a deck of cards that contains all the narrative prompts, housed in a sleek VHS-styled box. Stretch goals for the campaign include additional mysteries, a digital companion app, an original synthwave soundtrack, and a new section of “Signals from the Other Side“ called the Degoya County White Pages, which features more characters and locations for you to draw from.

The crowdfunding campaign is live, but if you want to check out other recent games from the Gauntlet, they launched a line of smaller titles using the Carved from Brindlewood system that are more focused experiences, intended for two to three sessions of play. By Endurance We Conquer is inspired by The Terror, telling a tale of survival on a frozen wasteland. Beach Blanket Body Bag is a murder mystery inspired by teen beach party movies and surf rock.

Finally, the recently released Dead-Pilled is about right-wing Manosphere influencers getting picked off one by one in a tongue-in-cheek slasher story. You can also follow the development of their upcoming Elden Ring-inspired dark fantasy game, The Lands Remaining, on their podcast feed.

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Hanover Square Press calls The Brides “an utterly gripping, gothic horror of the three women who became Dracula’s brides… and the fourth, who didn’t. It’s at once a brand new story and a brilliant, feminist re-centering on a classic tale.”

“Readers journey between the time before the events of Dracula, and ten years later at a public asylum. The Brides features familiar characters but is told in these dual timelines. At its core are the four women. At its heart is the devastating, doomed romance between two of them.”

What is Charlotte Cross’ novel The Brides about?

1884. When Mafalda journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, her secret love, Lucy, hurries from London to comfort her, with chaperone and lady’s maid in tow.

But lady’s maid Alice, blessed and cursed with the Sight, is tormented by terrifying visions. When chaperone Eliza falls prey to a disturbing wasting illness, the women hope to seek the healing waters of Transylvania. At a nobleman’s invitation, they set out for Castle Dracula.

In the depths of the forest, miles from civilization, their host reveals his true intentions; a monstrous ambition which will tear the women apart. And not all of them will survive.

When does Dracula novel The Brides release?

The horror novel releases July 7. Pre-order your copy on Amazon now.

Who is author Charlotte Cross?

Charlotte Cross writes historical speculative fiction, having been fascinated by stories of the past since she was a child. She grew up in southern England in a small town with a rich history, and spent many happy hours at the local museum where her grandmother was a volunteer. Charlotte now lives in central Scotland with her partner and their opinionated ginger cat. When not writing, she enjoys yoga, reading Victorian novels, and exploring her adopted country.

The post ‘The Brides’ – This New Gothic Horror Novel Serves as Prequel & Sequel to ‘Dracula’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Onoh’s next novel, The Turning of Sally-Mae, feels like a prime example of exactly the kind of mythic, spellbinding horror fiction that made her such a vital presence in the genre.

Today, Bloody Disgusting can exclusively reveal a first look at the cover of this new novel, which hits bookstores this October, featuring a haunting snake motif that plays a key role in this transoceanic horror. 

The Turning of Sally-Mae arrives just in time for Halloween, landing in bookstores on October 20, 2026. 

Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of Titan Books:

“A historical African-Wild West horror story of supernatural vengeance and terrifying occult magic from the winner of the Bram Stoker Award® for Lifetime Achievement. Two fearsome deities battle each other for the souls of white twins destined to either bring vengeful devastation or salvation to their community in Texas, USA, for a great injustice done to their mother.

“When Sally-Mae Jenkins is violated and impregnated by the twin scions of a wealthy rancher, she’s sent to join the African missionary ship as a widow. Pregnant and terrified, Sally-Mae vows vengeance on all those who abused her and her family.

“Amara is a young woman with the body and face of an old hag. The village outcast, Amara, can ‘eat’ the diseases ravaging the villagers and cure the most deadly ailments. But her powers drain her youth and her strength and the only help she has is the fearsome entity that claimed her soul, the spirit known as Aja-Mmọ, the death-giver and physician of the dead.

“When Sally-Mae arrives in Amara’s village, her unborn twins become the focus of both the Python-Goddess, Asata, who wants the twins dead, and Aja-Mmọ, who wants the twins alive in her service, just like Amara. And suddenly, Sally-Mae finds the boys, with their unearthly and fearsome powers, have become the weapons of her vengeance against the unsuspecting citizens of her home town back in Texas….

“A gripping tale of supernatural horror, bitter revenge and battling deities, suffused with Onoh’s trademark thrilling storytelling, wit and dark humor.”

Look for the release on shelves this Halloween season.

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The Fox and the Devil is Kiersten White‘s second go ’round with a Dracula riff (her novel Lucy Undying was the first), and while she’s clearly thought quite thoroughly and carefully about where the story could go next, this book is anything but a straightforward sequel to Stoker’s narrative. Instead, White looks closely at all those grains of sand in that vast, folkloric sandbox, picks out the shiniest one she can find, and weaves a story of her very own, a tale of the Van Helsing family that reaches far beyond Dracula and into a dark detective story with serious bite.

In the closing years of the 19th century, Abraham Van Helsing’s daughter Anneke finds a clue that could finally solve her father’s brutal death, a sign of the mysterious and beautiful woman she saw the night the elder Van Helsing died. By day, Anneke works as a consulting detective in Amsterdam, and by night she both cares for her agoraphobic mother and stews over her quest for vengeance. So when the mysterious woman resurfaces, she sets off on a journey across the European continent, eager to finally get closure for her entire family. What she finds instead is a dark web of secrets so thick that even Abraham Van Helsing might not have fully grasped it.

The winning twist here is that, despite knowing the strange circumstances of her father’s death, Anneke does not believe in the supernatural. Like her father was as a younger man, she is a scientist, a seeker of truth that she can observe and note and study. In her eyes, her father didn’t discover vampires in his later years, but spiralled into madness, keeping journals full of mythical creatures that do not, and never did, exist. Anneke’s journey, then, parallels her father’s own discovery that the world is darker, stranger, and more frightening than he could have imagined.

That might be enough for an interesting, if smaller, version of this story, but White does not stop there. The Fox and the Devil is an epic in every sense, an expansive historical mystery that’s also a twisted supernatural romance. Several times, the narrative reaches a place that might feel like a natural conclusion point for any other story, and White pushes further, giving Anneke new wrinkles to the mystery, new feelings with which to contend. It’s a novel that never lets go of its constantly expanding ambition, and while that does produce the occasional exposition-filled passage that threatens the pace a bit, White never loses her grip on the story.

White also never loses her grip on Anneke Van Helsing, a remarkable and engaging character who could easily carry several more paranormal mysteries on the strength of her voice, her wit, and her sense of adventure. Anneke’s relationship with her family, and her famous/infamous father, is complex and often surprising, but it’s her relationship with the phantom woman tied to Abraham’s death that drives the story. Their shared game is one of pursuit, but not entirely in service of violence or vengeance. There’s a romance budding somewhere in the depths of this story, and White’s ability to delicately dance through the conflicting emotions this brings out in her protagonist is one of the book’s great strengths.

What starts with a compelling first-person voice soon becomes a peek into a fully formed, often deeply conflicted yet endlessly brave new character. If Anneke returns in a future book, I will be thrilled. For now, though, if you love historical horror or you want a book that reinvents and expands the Van Helsing legacy like never before, The Fox and the Devil is a must read.

The Fox and the Devil is available now wherever you get your books.

The post ‘The Fox and the Devil’ Review – Kiersten White Reinvents the Van Helsing Legacy with Page-Turner appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Funnily enough, despite these puzzle-like narratives already sharing quite a few similarities with gaming, few storytellers have opted to fully lean into the interactive elements of ergodic literature. One recent exception happens to be Backwards Tabletop’s viral sensation SPINE – also known as Siderius Plug’s Immortality in Ninety-Nine Endnotes.

A challenging experience that blends the solo thrills of a role-playing gamebook with the multi-layered narrative of novels like Danielewski’s aforementioned opus, SPINE has been slowly spreading across the internet like a haunted chain-letter– and with good reason.

In this unique gamebook, you play/read as a version of yourself with severe grandma issues as you find yourself inheriting a rare book from her collection. Unfortunately, this unexpected “gift” features a dangerous side effect, with the strange tome appearing to trap its readers’ lifeforce in a cursed portrait the further they dive into the story and the stories within the story. As you follow along the main text and the accompanying interactive endnotes (which will force you to manipulate the book itself and even add your own hastily scribbled notes in the margins), you’ll slowly unearth a traumatic family history that threatens your very soul.

While this insanely creative premise would already make SPINE worth reading purely because of the novelty of the setup, what really caught me off guard is “Siderius Plug’s” genuinely heartfelt exploration of intergenerational trauma, from the backstory implying minor abuse by Grandma to the idea that grooming you for a sinister destiny, the book more or less gaslights you into believing that you truly had this terrible and confusing relationship with a mysterious (yet entirely believable) old lady with a supernatural secret.

The interactive portions also boast a ritualistic element that makes them feel like more than mere gimmicks. The endnotes often require permanent alterations to the pages in ways that will have you pondering the very meaning of art, as well as the story’s proposal that immortality can be achieved through writing. Of course, this also means that handling a hard copy of the book is an essential part of the experience, which is why even the official e-book encourages you to print the file out as an ink-friendly booklet (though I’d recommend simply purchasing the print copy and saving yourself the trouble if you’re within mailing distance).

Unlike most interactive storybooks, the “activities” here are so interesting and diverse that your second time around might actually be a more fulfilling experience than the first, especially since you’re encouraged to only look up the endnotes that really speak to you during that initial read-through. I also really appreciate the suggestion to give the book away once you’re done with it, as encountering a pre-read/played edition of SPINE out in the wild sounds like the ideal way to experience such a cryptic yet thought-provoking story where marginalia is part of the appeal.

Unfortunately, the format has its limitations when it comes to proper narrative build-up. The inherent idea of letting readers pick and choose what elements to focus on means that you’ll likely miss essential information during your first read-through, with the author’s attempts to make up for this resulting in some redundant sections meant to help those who skipped previous mentions of certain important story beats.

There’s also the issue of reader immersion, as some of the endnote instructions are so “out there” and inconvenient that they can’t help but remind you that this is more of a game than a real collection of pre-owned literary mysteries. However, I’d argue that putting yourself in the right headspace for this kind of simulated reality solves most of these diegetic problems, especially if you’re already a fan of found footage films and epistolary horror.

This is also why the horror elements of SPINE will haunt some readers for a very long time, while others might find the suggestion that the book is trapping your soul to be silly and uninteresting. It all depends on how you’re willing to approach the material. In my case, I was more than willing to play along with Siderius’ proposed kayfabe, so I found myself thoroughly thrilled by the experience and wanting more.

While some of the more sensitive subject matter concerning grief and abusive family dynamics brought up in the text meant that I had to tackle it a couple of endnotes at a time, really taking my time and absorbing the meaning of each little note and ritual, I feel that SPINE would be just as engaging if I had simply sped through the whole thing throughout the course of a single inspired afternoon.

In the end, what SPINE really gamifies isn’t the detective work involved in deconstructing a multi-layered mystery, but the indescribable joy of willingly jumping into a rabbit hole when you become so engaged with a story that you can no longer separate it from yourself. So if that sounds like the kind of experience you might want to have on a dark and lonely night, I’d highly recommend picking this one up.

Just be careful not to lose yourself among the pages.

SPINE is available now on Mixam as a physical book and on Itch.io as a PDF.

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Not only were tie-in products a way of declaring your love for a certain movie or franchise, but they could also serve as standalone experiences, reminding you about what made you fall in love with that particular story in the first place.

That’s exactly why I love film novelizations – especially of the horror variety. There’s nothing quite like experiencing an alternate take on your favorite scary stories, especially when they come furnished with internal monologues and more in-depth characters (as well as uncensored deaths). In honor of the novelization industry making a comeback now that titles like Terrifier 3 and even Return to Silent Hill are getting their own literary adaptations, we’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating six of the best horror movie novelizations!

As usual, this list is purely based on personal opinion, but don’t hesitate to comment below with your own favorite films-turned-books if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.

With that out of the way, onto the list!

6. Godzilla by Stephen Molstad

I know it sounds insane to put the novelization of TriStar’s Godzilla on this list when the western world finally received a properly translated release of Shigeru Kayama’s original novelizations of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, but believe me when I say that Molstad’s underrated little tie-in is a lot more fun than the movie it’s based on.

For starters, this is an epistolary novel presented as an in-universe non-fiction book written by our main character, Dr. Nick Tatopoulos, with the character’s scientific descriptions and unique point of view transforming a mediocre kaiju movie into an incredibly intense piece of radioactive sci-fi!

5. Halloween by Curtis Richards

So much of what makes Halloween tick as a phenomenal horror film involves John Carpenter’s mastery of music and visuals, so it really came as a surprise when I finally read Curtis Richards’ annoyingly hard-to-find novelization of the story and found myself having a blast.

The book may follow the same overall narrative (albeit with some added details filling in events that were skipped over in the film), but Richards’ interest in the supernatural elements of this seasonal yarn makes it feel like a completely different beast altogether – especially where Michael is concerned. Not only that, but the kills feel a lot more gruesome as well, which is why I’d recommend this one to any fan of the original film.

4. The Funhouse by Dean Koontz

It’s not every day that an established author takes a stab at novelizing your film, but that’s precisely why Dean Koontz’s literary adaptation of Larry Block’s script is such a special little book. Though I’m a huge fan of the original film due to its grimy photography and overall sleazy atmosphere, Koontz managed to elevate the material while staying true to its B-movie origins.

In all honesty, I actually prefer Koontz’s more psychological take on this classic slasher. It may diverge from the source material at times, and certain sections feel like a completely different story altogether, but it’s still one hell of a spooky standalone experience that I’d recommend to any fan of 80s schlock.

3. The Lords of Salem by Rob Zombie & B.K. Evenson

Movie novelizations usually aren’t treated like the main course when it comes to horror franchises, but I’ll be damned if Zombie and Evenson’s The Lords of Salem adaptation isn’t the definitive version of this nightmarish story.

Not only does it reach further into the main character’s psyche and add horrific context to things that seemed innocuous in the movie, but this moody little read ends up fixing most of the narrative jank in Zombie’s homage to the demonic thrillers of yesteryear. That’s why I think this book is so much more than a mere companion piece, and I’d even recommend it to folks who dislike the original movie.

2. Event Horizon by Steven McDonald

I know it’s almost certainly impossible at this point, but I’m still holding out hope that someone out there can recover the lost footage from the original cut of Event Horizon. However, while we wait for this unholy miracle to take place, Steven McDonald’s original novelization is still one hell of a consolation prize.

Based on earlier drafts of the script, this novel takes the classic route of fleshing out characters and backstories in order to fill up the page count. However, it also includes most of the mind-bending terror that was removed from the theatrical cut of the film prior to release, which is why it makes it onto this list.

1. Alien by Alan Dean Foster

An established writer of original speculative fiction in his own right, Alan Dean Foster is also known for being the master of tie-in novelizations, especially where sci-fi is concerned. From Star Trek to Transformers and even The Chronicles of Riddick, Foster has a clear passion for transforming cinematic space operas into literary adventures that you often forget are based on a pre-existing story.

Foster’s adaptation of Alien is a prime example of this, with this incredibly intense horror story feeling like it was conceived as a book first. I especially appreciate how the novel explores certain aspects of the crew’s mission and backstory (not to mention the alien craft) in ways that the theatrical cut simply didn’t have enough time to show, all the while providing us with a slightly different take on the xenomorph.

The post 6 of the Best Horror Movie Novelizations You Should Read appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Let’s take a look at nine horror books you won’t want to miss this March.

No Gods for Drowning by Hailey Piper – March 3

We’re starting with a reprint this month, but it’s a book that too many people missed the first time around, and now that Hailey Piper’s star has risen further into the horror sky, it’s a good time to revisit. Set in an alternate world where the gods have abandoned humanity to be devoured by wretched monsters, No Gods for Drowning combines a serial killer narrative with a dark fantasy epic, in a world that feels simultaneously familiar and entirely new. If you only know Hailey Piper from contemporary horror, you’ll want to see what fantasy inventions she has up her sleeve, because this is a whole other side of one of our finest genre writers.​

Strange Buildings by Uketsu – March 3

No one else is doing fiction like Uketsu right now. The mysterious author and YouTuber has built a devoted following on the page, and with Strange Buildings, he once again returns to the mixed media style that made Strange Houses and Strange Pictures international hits. This time around, Uktesu tells the story – complete with his signature diagrams and visual aids mixed in with the prose – of eleven mysterious buildings united by one secret. What secret? That’s up to an occult-obsessed writer, and of course, the reader, to find out.

The Midnight Muse by Jo Kaplan – March 10

There are a lot of reasons to check out The Midnight Muse. Jo Kaplan is a celebrated genre writer; it’s got a great premise, and more, but I’ll be honest: I was immediately sucked in just by the phrase “mycelium-metal” in the jacket copy. Set in the woods of Oregon, where mushrooms grow in damp abundance, The Midnight Muse follows the surviving members of the metal band Queen Carrion as they go to the cabin where their former lead singer disappeared one year earlier. Amid discussions of how to carry on without their frontwoman, the band makes a shocking discovery: Their lead singer was out here chasing a muse, trying to finish her most important creative work. But what’s really in the trees, and what does the forest know about it? If you’re fascinated with the growing subgenre of Mushroom Horror, you won’t want to miss this.

Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus – March 10

Daniel Kraus is one of the most respected writers of horror fiction in the game right now, but this year, Kraus turns his knack for crafting works of supreme ambition and packing them with emotion into a nonfiction work. Partially Devoured is Kraus’s loving dissection of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, his favorite movie. He does this by excavating not just details about the making of the film (some of them never before published) or what’s on screen in each frame, but his own life and how the film, and Romero as a creator, helped shape his imagination. I am obsessed with horror origin stories (I do a whole podcast about it.), and this is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Horror cinephiles, this one’s an essential.

The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White – March 10

The author of Lucy Undying returns with another juicy riff on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this one. The Fox and the Devil follows Abraham Van Helsing’s daughter Anneke as she sets out first for answers, then for revenge, after her famous and famously eccentric father turns up dead. Anneke always thought the elder Van Helsing’s stories of immortal blood drinkers were a madman’s fantasy, but the deeper she gets into the search for her father’s killer, the more she finds he might have been all too right. I can’t resist a Dracula riff in the first place, but White is one of our most engrossing, page-turning writers in horror right now, so I’ll definitely be digging into this one, and you should too.

You Have to Let Them Bleed by Annie Neugebauer – March 17

Annie Neubebauer has built a devoted fanbase writing shorter works like novellas and many, many short stories, and now she gets to reintroduce herself with her first-ever collection of stories and poems. From haunting descriptions of living shadows to terrifying shapeshifters and riffs on Edgar Allan Poe, the stories in this book run the gamut from the strange to the disturbing to up-all-night, all-out terror. This volume should cement Neugebauer as one of the most exciting voices in modern horror and win her plenty of new fans with its bloody, witty, unforgettable tales.

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher – March 24

T. Kingfisher is one of the most versatile genre authors in the game right now, capable of weaving secondary world fantasy, classic horror riffs, and contemporary scares with equal fervor and grace. This March, Kingfisher goes the Southern Gothic route with Wolf Worm. Set at the end of the 19th century in North Carolina, the book follows talented scientific illustrator Sonia as she moves into the home of a reclusive scientist to illustrate his vast insect collection. But something’s not right here, and the deeper Sonia goes into the woods, the more she discovers about this particular scientist’s dark path. Combine Gothic horror with dark science and academia, and I’m always there with bells on.

Wretch by Eric LaRocca – March 24

Eric LaRocca’s novels weave immense tapestries of dread by exploring with unflinching wonder the darkest parts of us all, and with Wretch, LaRocca seems poised to deliver grief horror as you’ve never read before. The story of Simeon, a grieving widower in search of any kind of relief, the book follows what happens when this man, at his lowest, joins a secretive support group known as “The Wretches.” There, he hopes to make a deal with a mysterious man named Porcelain Khaw that will grant him a moment of closure, for a price. It’s the latest in a growing strand of delicate, empathetic descents into depravity from LaRocca, so fans of truly dark horror take note.

This’ll Make Things a Little Easier by Attila Verse – March 24

Attila Veres established himself as one of the most inventive, audacious horror authors of the 2020s with his first collection, The Black Maybe. Now, with his second, he’s set to expand his fan base with another group of scary stories that’ll take you from the cosmic to the just-plain-strange. Covering everything from a traveling salesman getting a peek into an alternate dimension to an author who finds their book mangled and transformed by a dark translation, the stories in This’ll Make Things a Little Easier will linger long after you’ve turned off the lights.

The post Dark Gods, Zombies, Van Helsing and More: 9 Must-Read Horror Books in March 2026 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Due out in April, all three books are written by Echo On editor-in-chief Christian Francis, who has authored such novelizations as In the Mouth of Madness, Wishmaster, and Tremors.

Based on the screenplay for the 2003 film by Alan B. McElroy, Wrong Turn follows Thomas Avon, who collides with a group of stranded friends whose car was mysteriously sabotaged. Stranded with no cell service and miles from civilization, they set out in search of help, only to discover that something far worse than isolation waits among the trees.

Hunted by a clan of deformed, inbred killers who know every inch of the forest, Thomas and his companions must fight to survive a nightmare of rusted traps, blood-soaked cabins, and a hunger that never dies.

Based on the screenplay for the 2008 film by Pascal Laugier, Martyrs is a harrowing journey that begins with two young women hell-bent on avenging the brutal kidnapping-torture inflicted on one of them when she was a young girl.

What they encounter is a nightmare so terrifying — and a mystery so powerful — it will make you question the world as you know it.

Based on the story by Fred Dekker and screenplay by Ethan Wiley for the 1985 film, House centers on Roger Cobb, a once-successful horror novelist whose world has fallen apart. Haunted by the disappearance of his young son, Jimmy, and reeling from a painful divorce, Roger retreats to his late aunt’s creaky old manor — the house where his son first vanished and where his aunt mysteriously took her own life.

What begins as a quiet refuge to write a memoir of his Vietnam War experiences turns quickly into a psychic nightmare. As Roger struggles with writer’s block and recurring war flashbacks, the house starts to reveal itself as a malevolent force. Walls whisper, garden tools levitate with murderous intent, and grotesque reflections of characters from his memories — or his nightmares — begin to slip into his waking world.

Other upcoming novelizations in the works from Echo On include The Monster Squad, Waxwork, and Tourist Trap.

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The suspense novel will be published on October 20, 2026, Peachtree Teen, an imprint of Peachtree Publishing, and is available for preorder now through Bookshop.

In You’re No Better, “Morgan Slaughter, a seventeen-year-old trans boy with autism, put his serial killer father in prison years ago. Despite that, everyone thinks Morgan will grow up to be just like his dad: including his volatile mother, the documentary crew following their family, and maybe himself.

“Desperately, Morgan latches onto his father’s final victim—the only one who was never identified—hoping that if he unravels the mystery, he’ll finally prove he’s better than the man who hurt him. But this puts Morgan in the crosshairs of classmate Felicity Keating, who knows the truth about Morgan’s childhood—that he wasn’t just a witness to his father’s brutality, he was an accomplice. And if he doesn’t let them help with his investigation? They’ll tell everyone.

“Forced to confront his past, Morgan’s ugly but carefully controlled world unravels. The film crew is manipulative. His mother’s temper spirals into malice, then violence. And Morgan and Felicity may be more tightly intertwined than either of them can stomach . . .”

White shared his inspiration for his latest: “I feel like I’ve been carrying the inspiration for You’re No Better for a long time. I spent my younger years with a morbid fixation on the children and spouses of serial killers, so in a way, this book is a return to form; in the same vein, I wanted to explore what happens after the serial killer is caught and the case is closed. Putting the monster behind bars doesn’t instantly equal a happy ending, you know?”

As for his new protagonist, raised by a serial killer, the author adds, “Morgan, the main character, is my messiest teen protagonist to date. He is angry, manipulative, sometimes toxic, and often hard for others to be around – but at the same time, he is a terrified child who is in constant emotional pain. My hope is that readers see these difficult feelings treated with understanding and respect, especially in the context of a queer, trans, and disabled protagonist.”

The first printing of You’re No Better will be a Deluxe Limited Edition (available everywhere while supplies last) that features metallic edges, illustrated endpapers, a special case stamp, and foil jacket effects.

” I was blown away. The Peachtree Teen design team and illustrator Evangeline Gallagher consistently create some of the most amazing covers, and every little detail – the shattered glass, the photographs, the bloody hands – proves to me how much care went into this work of art. (Plus, isn’t the black/pink/blue-grey color scheme just jaw-dropping? I can’t get over it.)” White said.

Get a peek below at the collectible edition featuring jacket illustration by Evangeline Gallagher, courtesy of Peachtree. Then keep reading for an excerpt.

Courtesy of Peachtree Publishing Inc. Jacket illustration copyright © 2026 by Evangeline Gallagher.

Excerpt below from You’re No Better: A Novel by Andrew Joseph White. Text copyright © 2026 by Andrew Joseph White. Reproduced with permission from Peachtree Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

You’re No Better: A Novel

Excerpt from Chapter 1

From the ages of nineteen to forty, my father, Graham Nathaniel Slaughter, kidnapped, tortured, and killed fifty-one women and girls across Virginia and the greater Washington, DC, area. In the early days, it was nothing fancy. Run-of-the-mill brutalizations in his college apartment. But by the time I was born, he’d fashioned a prison out of a waterfront penthouse, where he would trap girls and keep them for weeks at a time. He’d take them apart, piece by piece, until they were rotting with sepsis

and he put them out of their misery.

When I was ten, I watched his fifty-first victim die, and I brought the police right to her body.

Even with a still-warm corpse on the floor, the trial—Did he murder this woman or not—was a nightmare. This is what happens when the accused is a well-respected Capitol Hill lawyer. Between filing errors, thrown-out evidence, and general bullshit delays, it stalled for months; three judges in a row backed out due to “previous professional involvements” with the accused. Dad’s defense litigator, a buddy of his from law school, claimed it was manslaughter, that Dad was simply a man with unusual tastes and it was all a consensual game that got out of hand. A mistake. And we don’t punish men like Dad for mistakes, do we?

He would’ve gotten away with it, too. Because it’s true. We don’t punish men like Dad. For mistakes, or for anything at all.

The only problem was me. The little girl on the witness stand, saying I don’t think she was the only one.

I had no proof of this, of course. My childhood autism diagnosis, combined with the worrying results of my psychiatric evaluation, forced the jury to consider whether the only real witness was misinterpreting a string of sadomasochistic extramarital affairs, or making it up for attention. Besides, who would believe a cold, unsmiling child over a handsome Capitol Hill attorney? And why did details change every time I told the story? Did I see other women or not? Were they hurt or not? Dad’s side of the courtroom pulled my psych eval and called me a manipulative liar. Mom joined in. I’d spent my whole life lying, so why would this be any different.

Then they found the hard drive of photos and, well. I almost preferred it when people thought I was a liar. Being a victim is worse.

On the other side of the Box, Dad gestures for me to put the phone to my ear. My reflection in the glass vaguely overlaps his and, sure, I don’t look like him, but we have the same empty eyes. When we smile, neither of us does it correctly. Behind me, Mom is whispering to the producer again.

I do as Dad asks.

“I don’t know anything about the documentary,” I start.

Dad wrinkles his nose playfully. “Isn’t a father allowed to say hello to his daughter?”

I don’t reply to that. I made the mistake of coming out to Mom as trans last month—I thought she might support me for the Instagram clout, like she does with the whole “autism mom” thing—and got a screaming fit for my trouble. Figures she wouldn’t tell him, but it’s weird to have it confirmed.

Faced with my silence, Dad changes course. “It’s been a while, Bug. Your mother told me you’d gotten yourself on the warden’s shit list. Got yourself banned for a few months. What’d you do?”

I shrug. “Dress code.”

“And?”

I wore a too-short skirt and, when called out on it, took a page from Mom’s book. Threw a fit. Really caused a scene. “I told the CO to go fuck himself.”

“That’s my girl,” he says, even though I got myself banned on purpose.

I was doing better, too. I think. Away from him.

“What do you want?” I ask.

He looks at me like I’m being incredibly rude, rushing through the conversation like this. “Are you on board with the documentary?”

“If I want the money, I have to be.”

“Oh, come on. It won’t be that bad.”

Mom slips into my peripheral vision. She’s got her phone out, camera pointed at us, and when my eyes turn to her, she waves me away. Don’t look, she’s not saying, you’re ruining the shot. It’s supposed to be candid.

I glare. Who gave her permission to bring a phone past security?

Mom just flicks my attention away again. My teeth grind but I raise my chin, tilt my head, give my best angle on instinct.

“I thought you’d be happier about it,” Dad admits. “You’re getting the cash a full seven years early. That’s a deal if I’ve ever heard one.”

I guess. Mom made it clear: As long as I cooperate with the documentary, I get my trust at eighteen instead of twenty-five. Half a million dollars. Enough to get out of here. Start testosterone, buy a tiny condo in Chicago or Seattle, invest the rest. But actually getting that money means pretending to be a girl for a year. And playing nice with the documentary crew. And not losing my shit in the process.

I’m not sure I can do that.

“Terms could be better,” I mutter as Mom adjusts the phone to get a better shot.

Andrew Joseph White is the bestselling author of Hell Followed with Us, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, Compound Fracture, and more. Born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley, he received his MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, and lives in Virginia with his wife and their cranky cat. Learn more at AndrewJosephWhite.com.

Photo by Arielle Lewis Studios

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