On Screen Archives - Tor Nightfire

Looking Into the Eyes of José Mojica Marins' Coffin Joe - 685

A retrospective of José Mojica Marins’ cult classic Coffin Joe films, widely considered to be an inspiration for Freddy Krueger. […]

December 22, 2022 On Screen

How King on Screen Chronicles Stephen King’s Cinematic Side

Posted on December 14, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Tobias Carroll

Daphné Baiwir’s documentary King on Screen offers fascinating new insights into our indelible connections with Stephen King’s works. […]

December 14, 2022 Books, On Screen

Body Horror, Pandemics, and Curdled Nostalgia: A Report from the 2022 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival

Posted on December 1, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Tobias Carroll

Standout screenings, nostalgia and other trends, and the long shadow of Covid-19 at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. […]

December 1, 2022 News, On Screen

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: The Midnight Club and Queer Personhood

Posted on November 15, 2022 (January 3, 2024) by Lindsay King-Miller

How Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club introduced one reader to queer agency and the grand tradition of queer horror stories. […]

November 15, 2022 Books, On Screen

Photo by Olivier Guillard on Unsplash

7 Creepy Cabins We Wouldn’t Spend The Night In

Posted on October 25, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Sam Reader

Every good horror fan knows not to go in the basement, but there’s a good argument for staying out of cabins, too. Here are seven of the creepiest. […]

October 25, 2022 Books, On Screen

Introducing The Shoemaker’s Magician, Cynthia Pelayo’s Follow-Up to Children of Chicago

Posted on September 22, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Emily Hughes

Cynthia Pelayo introduces the cover of The Shoemaker’s Magician, the second book in her Chicago Saga that started with Children of Chicago. […]

September 22, 2022 Books, On Screen

Photo by cottonbro

The Long History (and Bright Future) of the Found Footage Horror Novel

Posted on July 28, 2022 (January 3, 2024) by Nina Nesseth

The “found footage” horror story is a popular genre for filmmakers, but there’s more of it in the literary world than you’d think–Nightmare Fuel author Nina Nesseth explores this slippery subgenre. […]

July 28, 2022 Books, On Screen

Photo by Anna Tarazevich

Reclaiming the “F” Word: Why We Need Fat Positivity in Horror

Posted on June 23, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Nightfire

Nico Bell and Sonora Taylor, editors of Diet Riot: A Fatterpunk Anthology, lay out why we need better fat representation in horror, and how to do it right. […]

June 23, 2022 Books, On Screen

Opera (1987)

How The Phantom of the Opera Still Haunts Italian and Chinese Cinema

Posted on June 16, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Joe Bendel

Everyone knows Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage version, but Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel held a special fascination for Italian and Chinese filmmakers. […]

June 16, 2022 On Screen

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

5 Perfect Readalikes for Your Favorite Horror Movie Subgenres

Posted on June 15, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Nina Nesseth

Nightmare Fuel author Nina Nesseth suggests five novels to pair perfectly with five subgenres of horror movie, from The Bay to American Psycho. […]

June 15, 2022 Books, On Screen

Horror Punk’s Not Dead: The Adams Family Reinvents Horror Cinema on Their Own Terms

Posted on May 17, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Matthew Lyons

An ode to the punk genius of the Adams, the indie family filmmaking team behind Hellbender and The Deeper You Dig. […]

May 17, 2022 On Screen

Mel Welles in The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

The Cultural (and Horror) Significance of Roger Corman

Posted on May 5, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Joe Bendel

The prolific cult filmmaker Roger Corman has had an outsized impact on American film history–and especially horror. So why does he only have one film on the National Film Registry? […]

May 5, 2022 On Screen

Vincent Price in "The Deadly Dolls," Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 1967

With Special Guest Star Vincent Price: The Horror Icon on TV

Posted on April 21, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Joe Bendel

With Special Guest Star Vincent Price Vincent Price will always be a favorite of horror fans for his iconic star-turns in classic horror movies, like the Roger Corman Edgar Allan […]

April 21, 2022 On Screen

Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet (Kate Winslet) in the Fourth World (Heavenly Creatures, 1994)

Polychromatic Perversity: Hypercolor, Vice, and Violence in Horror

Posted on March 9, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Chelsea Davis

Continuing her series on color in horror, Chelsea Davis looks at the otherworldly uses of hypersaturation in Heavenly Creatures, Dorian Gray, and more. […]

March 9, 2022 Books, On Screen

Dina Shihabi in Archive 81 (2022)

Seven Filmed Stories About Freaky Films

Posted on February 23, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by Sam Reader

These movies and TV shows about dangerous fictional films need more than an MPAA rating–try a priest or a circle of salt instead. […]

February 23, 2022 On Screen

Where we're going, we don't need eyes to see. (Event Horizon, 1997)

Adrift & Alone: The Five Ghost Ships That Haunt Me

Posted on February 9, 2022 (January 9, 2024) by S.A. Barnes

Dead Silence author S.A. Barnes on the ghost ships (both fictional and all-too-real) that haunt her nightmares, from the Event Horizon to the Lyubov Orlova. […]

February 9, 2022 Books, On Screen

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

In Defense of Space Horror

Posted on January 12, 2022 (January 4, 2024) by S.A. Barnes

Dead Silence author S.A. Barnes explores how and why horror set in space works, contrary to what you may have heard on Twitter. […]

January 12, 2022 Books, On Screen

Photo by Albert Antony on Unsplash

Keep Watching The Skies: 7 Strange Movies About Alien Abduction

Posted on January 10, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Sam Reader

Seven standout movies from the alien abduction genre, featuring everything from gonzo body horror to contemplative takes on humanity’s flaws and foibles. […]

January 10, 2022 On Screen

Left: Judith O'Dea in Night of the Living Dead (1968); Right: Shelley Duvall in The Shining (1980) © Warner Bros.

In Defense of Wendy, Barbra, and the Traumatized Women of Horror Cinema

Posted on January 6, 2022 (January 5, 2024) by Gwendolyn Kiste

Why do we regard certain female characters in horror as weak just because they visibly suffer and grieve? Gwendolyn Kiste reexamines Wendy, Barbra, and representations of trauma. […]

January 6, 2022 On Screen

Remembering Bill Landis, the Late, Great Scholar of Sleaze

Posted on December 14, 2021 (January 4, 2024) by Preston Fassel

Biographer Preston Fassel reintroduces the man behind the myth, the grandfather of modern genre criticism, Mr. Sleazoid himself: Bill Landis. […]

December 14, 2021 Books, On Screen

Photo by Nina Mercado on Unsplash

The Gift of Fear: 2021’s Best Gifts for Horror Fans

Posted on December 6, 2021 (January 4, 2024) by Emily Hughes

If you need the perfect gift for the horror reader in your life, these 30+ 2021 horror books will guarantee you champion gift-giver status. […]

December 6, 2021 Books, On Screen

Good kitty. Nice kitty. Undead kitty.

Fearful Felines: The Ten Spookiest Cats of Horror Fiction and Film

Posted on October 28, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Gwendolyn Kiste

The horror genre has more than its fair share of spooky felines. In honor of Samhain, here are ten horror cats of film and page who deserve their eerie due. […]

October 28, 2021 Books, On Screen

No One Here Knows I’m a Vampire: A Spooky Matt Berry Reading List

Posted on October 14, 2021 (January 3, 2024) by Drew Broussard

In honor of the funniest man on television, the list you never knew you needed: what to read next based on your favorite Matt Berry project. […]

October 14, 2021 Books, On Screen

Incantamentum | Cloak and Dagger Games

8 Standout Horror Game Demos From This Fall’s Steam Next Fest

Posted on October 7, 2021 (January 3, 2024) by Sam Reader

From pixel art folk horror to backwoods deck-building, here are eight of the most promising horror game demos we played at the October 2021 Steam Next Fest. […]

October 7, 2021 On Screen

47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019), aka "The Descent, but wet"

The Sublime Silliness of Shark Horror Movies

Posted on September 2, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Austin Gilkeson

In a post-Jaws world, shark horror movies like 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and The Shallows are often pretty silly. Here’s why that’s great, actually. […]

September 2, 2021 On Screen

Ilana Glazer and Justin Theroux in False Positive (Photo by Anna Kooris/Hulu)

The Scariest Thing About False Positive is How Wrong It Gets Infertility

Posted on August 17, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Natalie Zutter

False Positive gets the horrors of infertility wrong at every turn and proves to be a disappointing heir to Rosemary’s Baby. […]

August 17, 2021 On Screen

Down The Road: A Look Back At The Second Season Of HBO’s The Hitchhiker

Posted on July 28, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Shawn M. Garrett

For our Small Screen Horror series, Shawn M. Garrett takes a close look at the second season of HBO’s 1980s horror anthology series The Hitchhiker. […]

July 28, 2021 On Screen

Cover detail, Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

On The Loneliness of the Young Horror Fan

Posted on July 26, 2021 (January 4, 2024) by Ally Russell

Growing up as a horror-loving kid isn’t always easy, especially for non-white children. But it’s getting better – Ally Russell on why kids should stay spooky. […]

July 26, 2021 Books, On Screen

Street Trash (1987)

7 Horror B-Movies For When You Want Something Trashier

Posted on June 28, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Sam Reader

Sometimes you just need a schlocky horror B-movie – here are seven movies not afraid to walk on the trashier side of cinema. […]

June 28, 2021 On Screen

Fried Barry is a Psychedelic Horror-Comedy Alien Sojourn Through Cape Town

Posted on June 16, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Sam Reader

Fried Barry is a bizarre, fun, weirdly optimistic tour of Cape Town’s underworld through the eyes of an interstellar visitor. […]

June 16, 2021 On Screen

Photo by Valeriia Miller from Pexels

Get Lost: Fictional and True Stories of Forest Horror

Posted on May 10, 2021 (January 9, 2024) by Ally Russell

Take a hike into horror with these documentaries, podcasts, movies, and books about getting lost in the woods–forever. […]

May 10, 2021 Books, On Screen

Dead by Daylight

RPG Nightmares: 5 Horror Games to Play with Your Friends

Posted on April 27, 2021 (January 4, 2024) by Aigner Loren Wilson

These five multiplayer horror RPGs are the perfect way to scare yourself and your friends, all from the comfort of your own homes. […]

April 27, 2021 On Screen

Weed zombies? Say no more. | Z Nation (Syfy)

Chronic Chills: In Praise of the Stoner Horror Movie

Posted on April 20, 2021 (January 3, 2024) by Aigner Loren Wilson

Cannabis and horror go together like slashers and masks – this 4/20, celebrate with these ten classic stoner horror movies. […]

April 20, 2021 On Screen

Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

A Single Point of Light: The Lost Mystery of Faces in the Window

Posted on April 14, 2021 (January 5, 2024) by Shawn M. Garrett

Pseudopod editor Shawn M. Garrett continues his ongoing series about the history of horror audio with an investigation into the lost TV show Faces in the Window. […]

April 14, 2021 Miscellaneous, On Screen

No Escape Room (2018)

There’s No I in Succubus: Why Men Fall for Sexy Monsters

Posted on April 12, 2021 (January 9, 2024) by Juliet Bennett Rylah

From No Escape Room to Dracula to Buffy, men in horror are remarkably vulnerable to death by horniness. We unpack the deadly appeal of the female monster. […]

April 12, 2021 On Screen