The (Queer) Comfort Horror Genre10/18/2022 I have previously talked about the comfort horror genre in my review of Dead End: Paranormal Park however, a few paragraphs are not nearly enough to cover this emerging way in which to tell stories.
The comfort horror genre is a subsection of horror in which the story does not look for the reader to be scared, but rather to see the terrifying happenings of life in a new light and to recognize the beauty in them. It is a way of looking at horror through a unique queer lense; there are a lot of essays and articles detailing the relationship between ostracized communities (in this case LGBT+) and the monstrous. Vampires are gay not only because the fear of sexuality society projected into themselves but also because as gay people we saw ourselves in the same position as them.
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Book Review: They Were Here Before Us10/7/2022 CW: This novella contains themes of horror, graphic descriptions of gore, corpses, and animal death. Reader's discretion is advised.
Everyone who is even remotely interested in horror literature has heard of (or at least should have heard of) Eric LaRocca by now. Their nail biting, suspenseful and brilliantly written novellas have shaken the horror community ever since the viral sensation Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke was released in June of 2021. Since then, LaRocca has continued gracing the world with his talent and serving beautifully grotesque queer stories that keep readers satisfied, but hungry for more. This is the part two to my previous article: The Definitive Vampire Media Ranking List Part One. In that article I introduce all the tiers and everything, make sure to read it before reading this article. There may be some pieces of media where that I have missed, and it is simply because I haven’t watched/read it, and I would like to be entirely educated on my rankings.
A new show has come to rescue the fans of western animation. After the end of Amphibia and with The Owl House in hiatus, Dead End: Paranormal Park arrives to the silver-screen to take away our hearts, maybe literally.
Created by Hamish Steele. It is an adaptation from a graphic novel that was an adaptation from a Tapas comic which was an adaptation from a YouTube short that he had worked on. After pitching it to several networks, Netflix accepted the idea to then leave Hamish and his team at Blink Industries (a development and production studio based in London) all on their own. With a writers room of all walks of life and experience they created a story about teenagers working at a haunted Disney Land. One thing about me is that I have always loved vampires. Since I found a copy of Twilight in my Nana’s basement at the ripe old age of eleven, I have been absolutely obsessed.
In honor of this, I have decided to combine my two favorite things: Vampires and lists. So, I will be ranking different vampire media according to a very specific tier list of my own creation. Before I get into explaining the tiers, I would just like give a quick disclaimer: I am objectively correct and right all the time. The ocean is an excellent setting for horror novels, though it can sometimes be overlooked by modern authors who are searching for a setting for their next story. Sure, there are many iconic ocean-themed horror movies (like Jaws), but I find horror like that barely scratches the surface of all the terror that the ocean can hold.
First of all, let’s forget about sharks. For the love of God, nobody wants to see anymore shark movies. Sharks are more afraid of you than you are of them, and movies that tell you otherwise are just anti-shark propaganda. Anyways, shark rant aside, I still think that the ocean is one of the best horror settings available, and here’s why. TW: Allusions to violence and SA (graphic depictions of SA in the novella) Three Days in the Pink Tower is not for the light-hearted. It pulls no punches, it doesn’t hold back, it is intense and at times uncomfortable to read. It follows the story of a girl who is kidnapped and confined in the titular Pink Tower, based on the author EV Knight’s true experiences.
Besides the brilliant cover design which originally captured my attention when it came to reading this book, Knight’s writing is sincere and to the point. No words are wasted as she brings you along the harrowing story of trauma and tragedy that far too many innocent people have to face. Josey’s story is one of survival, and how she used the power within her and the help of tarot cards to guide her through her darkest times and lead her to sanctuary. Readers familiar with horror surely recognize the ghost story as a pillar of the genre. Dating back to Biblical times (ever heard of the Holy Ghost?), the idea of ghosts continues to capture our curiosity. Whether they exist or not remains up for debate, adding to their mystery and stimulating our imaginations. Horror writers tap into this to craft different versions of ghosts, be it literal specters or metaphorical apparitions.
This month’s theme for JUVEN has been history. Aside from being a long-standing horror tradition, ghosts represent history in a more metaphorical sense, too. They’re manifestations of a tragic past and trauma. A ghost in literature often embodies either trauma of a character or a collective trauma within a certain location. Minor spoiler warning for The Haunting of Bly Manor Although it’s not something that is talked about very often, reactions often play a huge part in the way horror affects people. When a character unwittingly wanders into the home of a chainsaw wielding maniac, they run away, as we expect them too. Naturally, upon seeing any kind of threat, we will feel fear, and this is no different in thriller and horror stories. Our hearts beat faster as we helplessly watch characters go to investigate that noise (which was totally just the wind by the way) and hug our pillows and grab our sheets in anticipation for the monster to finally appear. But what happens when there are no screams and no fear in the face of these monsters?
Let's take this same situation again: your character is walking into the house of the chainsaw killer, but instead of screaming, or freezing or fainting or any of the natural responses we’ve come to associate with fear, they just continue walking on. This could tell us a myriad of things: the character is familiar with the killer, the killer is not a threat nor are they worthy of attention, maybe the killer is not a killer at all, but someone in a cheap halloween costume. But the most important thing we learn about this reaction is that the killer is not something to be feared, and so the audience won’t be scared either (for the most part). Review of Forget Me Not by Anca Antoci12/17/2021 Surprisingly, for a lover of horror, it’s not often that you’ll find me reading a book about vampires. This may be in part due to the saturation of them in the media, or my preference of werewolves (#teamjacob) but this only makes it more intriguing for me to find well written pieces of vampire fiction. That’s why I was lucky to come across the Forget Me Not book tour and engross myself in its first chapter.
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