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The “Chilling” App Changes the Game on Lifestyle Horror
The spooky season is already upon us, which means time to start plotting out how to fit even more horror content into busy Halloween schedules. It also means it’s the perfect time of year to get immersive with that horror content. The brand new Chilling App aims to change the game on horror lifestyles, offering a new way to experience audio horror.
It all began with a YouTube channel called Being Scared, created by Dane Petrali, after a lifelong, insatiable appetite for scary stories eventually catapulted him down a YouTube rabbit hole. The channel curated spooky tales with narration and ambient, relaxing sounds. Since its inception, it’s amassed over 300,000 followers, but Dane realized that YouTube’s limitations meant users couldn’t fully customize their listening experiences. Dane enlisted fellow childhood scary story aficionado Christopher Graham for the ambitious project. Graham brought his tech expertise, and together they created a new platform, the Chilling app.
The app was designed to make it easier than ever to find the type of story that sends shivers down your spine, broken down into easily navigable categories. Whether you want to discover tales of cryptids or only prefer to hear about the paranormal, Chilling ensures a smoother way to find exactly what you’re looking for. An expanded roster of narrators and hundreds of new stories means a wholly unique experience with fresh content and zero ads.
While ease of access is nice, it’s the more immersive element that makes Chilling unique. It offers a one-of-a-kind ambient sound menu, allowing users to apply volume-controlled background sounds to any story of their choosing. In other words, hate camping but love tales of bigfoot? Curl up on the couch and select “crackling fire” to accompany your cryptid tale to evoke the atmosphere of a campfire without leaving the comfort of your home. Maybe soothing rain dampens the terror of a haunting ghost?
It’s an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) experience with the horror fan in mind. The app makes creating customized playlists effortless, a gamechanger for the scary story fan. Especially when the Halloween season gets overloaded with content, making it hard to keep up. Here, scary stories are available whenever the mood strikes you.
The ambition extends beyond the short story format; plans for adding video streaming content are underway, along with new short stories getting added every week. Audio versions of classic novels, like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, are available.
“We see Chilling becoming the ‘New Home for Scary Stories,'” commented Founder and CEO Dane Petrali in a press statement. “As we continue to build out the platform, the audiences will be able to interact directly with each other and with creators. Our users are a vital part of the creative process.”
“We are trying to build a unique community bringing together, borrowing concepts and best practices from technology and manufacturing to revolutionize the creative process,” said Co-Founder and COO, Christopher Graham.
Fans of fiction and non-fiction horror have even more ways to experience it and customize those experiences. Chilling gives ad-free, premium content for a $2.99 monthly subscription fee and is available for iPhone and Android. Want to test-drive the fear before you commit? Once you download, you can register and access the content with a 72-hour free trial. Reach for your phone and discover a new scare at your fingertips.
A luxury team-building trip descends into a bloody fight for survival against a vengeful retreat leader in Corporate Retreat, out today in theaters. It’s the latest entry in a cathartic subgenre of workplace horror that examines every harrowing aspect of job employment.
No job is safe from horror, either, from babysitting to even the most white-collar gigs. But if you work an overnight shift? All bets are off. Vengeful co-workers and bosses aside, the night shift is likely to come armed with witches, creatures, demons, and all manner of things that go bump in the night. Even deadly outbreaks.
Corporate Retreat, along with these five horror movies centered around some of the worst night shifts, will make you glad the weekend has finally arrived.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Passenger director André Øvredal goes full throttle for the scares in this quiet little chiller that sees a father and son coroner team stumped over the bizarre mysteries contained within the body of an unidentified young woman during an unexpected night shift. Well-executed scares, clever twists, and earnest performances by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch give this supernatural haunter serious heft. While the narrative bides its time unveiling the truth behind Jane Doe’s battered body, it’s heavily steeped in witchcraft. In other words, The Autopsy of Jane Doe presents a new take on the subgenre. More importantly, it’s seriously scary.
Cold Storage
COLD STORAGE, StudioCanal 2023
A lethal, mutated fungus breaks free from confinement deep within the bowels of a storage facility. At the frontlines of the madness are Teacake (Stranger Things’ Joe Keery) and Naomi (Barbarian‘s Georgina Campbell), two employees thrust into the middle of the chaos when they investigate an alarm beeping somewhere deep within the building. Director Jonny Campbell (Netflix’s Dracula), working from a script by David Koepp based on his novel, helms the goopy madness with workman efficiency. This lighthearted, goopy horror comedy romp makes the deadly night shift a bit more bearable.
Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift follows new hire Hall (David Andrews) tasked by his mean boss Warwick (Stephen Macht) to assist with the insane rat infestation beneath their mill. They find something much most monstrous as the cause. Though the film was panned, it’s a fun creature feature with an always welcome appearance by Brad Dourif as the intensely eccentric exterminator. The film also opts for a happier ending, whereas (spoiler), the story sees both Hall and Warwick getting devoured by the mutated rats, the crew in the upstairs mill none the wiser.
Last Shift
‘Last Shift’
Rookie Officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) has been assigned to watch over a closing precinct on its final night of operation…alone. With nearly everything already moved over to the new station, including rerouted 911 calls, it should be a pretty quiet night as she waits for a Hazmat team to arrive to remove biohazardous waste. Instead, it becomes a waking nightmare as she’s forced to deal with unsettling visitors. Last Shift, co-written by Scott Poiley and director Anthony DiBlasi, brings the scares.
Intruder
The overnight stock crew of a local grocery store finds themselves falling victim to an unseen killer in this highly infectious late ‘80s slasher. The deaths are delightfully gruesome and inventive; look for this killer to make excellent use of grocery store items as weapons. Frequent Raimi collaborator Scott Spiegel directed this bloody slasher, which means a lot of overlap with the Evil Dead II. That means putting Sam Raimi in front of the camera for a change, along with Ted Raimi and Evil Dead II’s Dan Hicks. Look for a cameo by Bruce Campbell as well!
Corporate Retreat releases in theaters today; get tickets now.
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