J.R. Blanes talks Southern Gothic horror, his devotion to Clive Barker, and the underrated gems that shaped his writing. From Portraits of Decay to Acascreamia, this is essential reading for horror fans.
Horror Features
Horror features, essays and retrospectives from Ginger Nuts of Horror. We dig into genre history, pay tribute to the people who shaped horror, reveal new book covers and ask why certain stories still get under our skin.
The Clown: A Tribute to Tim Curry
Should Authors Respond to Reviews? A Field Guide for the Fragile
A four part survival guide to authors responding to reviews, from the negative one you must never answer to the glowing one that earns the reviewer a lawn mowing. Written for any horror author currently refreshing Goodreads and reaching for the Reply button. The correct response is almost always silence, and occasionally chocolate.
They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara! E.F. Schraeder is Reflecting on Childhood Fears
E.F. Schraeder looks back at a 1980s Midwestern girlhood where the ordinary was the frightening part and the undead were a relief. The essay traces childhood fears through slasher films, the satanic panic and goth subculture, and explains exactly what job folk horror had to do. From the author of The Case for Cryptids.
The Horror of My Life: Yuvashri Harish on Kill Your Darlings and YA Horror
Yuvashri Harish takes the Ginger Nuts of Horror questionnaire ahead of her YA horror novel Kill Your Darlings. She talks Goosebumps, Carrie, and the one viewing of The Exorcist she has never managed to repeat. She also names the classic horror monsters behind her Halloween novel, and explains why her next book is cannibalism soulmate horror.
Meat and Concrete: Soma, Body Horror and Urban Decay
The rotten city and the unreliable body are the same complaint, and very few novels admit it. Ahead of Lee Glenwright’s SOMA, a feature mapping British estate horror from Ramsey Campbell and Joel Lane to Gary McMahon and Alison Rumfitt, the body horror line from Clive Barker to Agustina Bazterrica, and the overlap almost nobody works.
Re-run of the Repressed (or why every franchise monster you’ve ever loved ends up as a dog on a leash …) by Philip A. Suggars
Philip A. Suggars charts the four phase decline of horror franchise monsters, from the pure terror of Alien: Earth and Michael Myers to the merch shelf and the leash. Drawing on Freud, Robin Wood, and Mark Fisher, he asks why The Thing and It Follows stay frightening while everything else gets a Funko Pop. The domestication of horror monsters, it turns out, is exactly what the culture industry does best.
Ambiguous Horror: Why A.J. Vane Refuses to Explain the Ending
A.J. Vane argues that ambiguous horror is not a cop-out but the hardest thing the genre can do. Drawing on Robert Aickman, Shirley Jackson and Picnic at Hanging Rock, this guest essay defends the unexplained ending and the fear that keeps working long after the book is shut. From the author of The Night Fair.