The success of The Ring inspired Japan’s nearest neighbors to tell their own ghost stories, and South Korea certainly didn’t waste the opportunity in the mid-2000s. During this heyday of “K-Horror,” there was a burst of spectral yarns centered around cursed objects, haunted technology, and most of all, revenge. Homemade folklore often played a role […]
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With copies of Fear Street flying off shelves, it only made sense for other publishers to put out their own young-adult horror series in the 1990s. And Berkley Books’ venture was Terror Academy, a fifteen-volume collection of high-school horror and thrills. C. A. Stokes, writing under the pen name of Nicholas Pine, kicked things off […]
The post ‘Lights Out’ Channels ‘The Stepfather’ in First Book from the ‘Terror Academy’ Series [Buried in a Book] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
While the teen slasher is primarily an American invention, that small fact has never stopped other cultures from trying the popular horror subgenre on for size. And like the rest of the world at the time, Germany saw an obvious opportunity after Scream renewed interest in the hottest horror trend of yesteryear. Hiding among the […]
The post German Slasher ‘Flashback’ Delivered Fun Teen Horror in the Wake of ‘Scream’ [Horrors Elsewhere] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The namesake of Wait Till Helen Comes is no friendly ghost. She may act protective, yet Helen is the furthest thing from a guardian angel. The fact is, the deceptive spirit of Mary Downing Hahn’s 1986 book habitually sets her sights on children, preys on their insecurities and twists the truth to her advantage. Indeed, […]
The post Mary Downing Hahn’s ‘Wait Till Helen Comes’ Is a Benchmark in Children’s Ghost Stories [Buried in a Book] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Real-world journalism comes with some occupational hazards, but usually death isn’t one of them. In the horror genre, on the other hand, members of the press find themselves in danger every time they get a hot lead on something weird and unexplained. Their tenacity never does them any good; one minute they’ve found the story […]
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Scandinavian countries are statistically some of the safest places to live in the world, but their TV shows say the opposite. This European subregion’s penchant for dark and dreary crime stories first began in books before moving off the page, and since then, television has become the biggest source of what’s now referred to as […]
The post Swedish Horror ‘Månguden’ Is a Smörgåsbord of Slasher, Giallo and Found Footage Elements [Horrors Elsewhere] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Trains as a mode of travel seems old-fashioned nowadays, but in storytelling, they remain a persuasive setting for tales of unease and suspense. The endless railroad does wonders for Diane Hoh’s 1992 young-adult book aptly titled The Train. By placing her characters on a cross-country tour with no handy means of escape, the author underlines […]
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After terrorizing the Dutch with a living elevator, a canal-dwelling slasher, and an evil Sinterklaas, rebellious filmmaker Dick Maas returned with a more natural kind of killer. The people of Amsterdam are not under attack by a mere animal; a displaced predator is on the prowl. The blood trail of Prooi (Prey) starts outside the […]
The post A Beast in the Streets: Dutch Movie ‘Prey’ Unleashes a Killer Lion on Amsterdam [Horrors Elsewhere] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Trapping characters in a single location makes for a compelling story. And having everyone be strangers certainly helps rack up conflict and drama as well. Sure, it’s an overworked formula at this point, but the results are undeniable. Eric Weiner, a ghostwriter for Fear Street Sagas, gave the recipe a whirl in his 1994 book […]
The post Eric Weiner’s ‘Deadly Detention’ Turns ‘The Breakfast Club’ into a Bloody Slasher [Buried in a Book] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The small but effective subgenre of “adoption horror” has a certain formula it follows. The newly adopted gradually dismantles the family unit, whether that means manipulating the systems around them or simply taking matters into their own little hands. Then, once someone gets wise to the evildoing, they either stop the young threat or they […]
The post How ‘Orphan’ Brought Something New and Exciting to Horror’s Killer Kid Table [Young Blood] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Dashed hopes lead to a kind of desperation without equal in Pang Ho-cheung’s movie Dream Home. This unmatched story satirizes Hong Kong’s housing bubble as well as imagines the undue sacrifices of one potential homebuyer. Not only does this character reject the red tape and systems standing in the way of her goal, she does […]
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According to the horror genre, summer camps are teeming with killers and other unusual dangers. These seasonal getaways designed for adventure and fun quickly turn into fights for survival. And it’s not just in the movies where a young camper’s sleeping bag doubles as their body bag; books also present camps as hotbeds of death, […]
The post Carol Ellis Delivers Summer Camp Horror in 1993’s ‘Camp Fear’ [Buried in a Book] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
In spite of its title, Road to Nowhere has a conclusive ending. And a powerful one, at that. Christopher Pike’s 1993 novel puts its troubled protagonist behind the wheel and shadows her every move and thought as she drives along the California coast one fateful night. The path ahead of her is unclear, but one […]
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New Zealand does not make a lot of horror movies when compared to other parts of the world, however this shortage stems from sheer infrequency rather than inability. The island country’s sparse contributions to the genre, from Braindead to What We Do in the Shadows, have largely proven to be as great as they are […]
The post New Zealand Gothic Horror ‘Jack Be Nimble’ Spins a Dark Fairytale [Horrors Elsewhere] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Cows are considered to be the perfect livestock. Not only do they provide food like milk and beef, their byproducts yield everyday goods, including leather, ointments, soap, and toilet paper. Yet as much as cows do for humans, there is always someone who thinks they can do more. Synthetic hormones and gene-editing are common practices […]
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