Contemporary Horror Stories to Read in October

Only a week and a half until the big day! That means we’ve got to start stocking up on our Halloween-themed films and literature. The dark days are just around the corner… don’t be caught without your proper collection of spooks.

As a follow-up to Smucky’s post at the beginning of the month, I’ve dug up some other stories that fit the October bill – this time, ones that have been published in the last few decades. For some fresher terror, look no further than our list of CONTEMPORARY STORIES TO READ IN OCTOBER.

1. JERUSALEM’S LOT by STEPHEN KING

Mr. King is the obvious choice, but that’s because he has such a wealth of horror tales, ranging from more experimental to classic, atmospheric chillers. This one, a prequel to the amazing “’Salem’s Lot,” captures a Lovecraftian tone with degenerate themes and a terrifying secret lurking beneath an abandoned town. It’s got everything – a creaky old mansion, ghouls in the walls, a Puritan settlement that went to the devil, and a decaying church that harbors a horrific evil. And even better, it explains in part what makes ‘Salem’s Lot such a magnet for evil. Though published recently, this story is classic, in the best way.

2. THE LADY OF THE HOUSE OF LOVE by ANGELA CARTER

Artwork by Lee McConville

Part of the monumental collection “The Bloody Chamber,” this is the only story not adapted from a specific fairy tale. Instead, it inverts the vampire myth, spinning a melancholic and beautiful portrait of a young undead woman who despises herself for drinking blood. The imagery – a shambling Gothic castle, a blood-stained wedding dress, and a corpse-like woman feasting on virile young men – is stunning. There’s quite a statement made about archaic spooks and real-life horrors, too. A must read for a rainy afternoon.

3. THE DAEMON LOVER by SHIRLEY JACKSON

You can’t have a best of list without mentioning Ms. Jackson. Though “The Lottery” is her most accomplished story, I find this one equally haunting, in an even more subtle way. It follows a woman who is supposed to be married, but she can’t find her groom – and no one else seems to think he exists, either. Like some of the best horror, it’s unsettling and disturbing because nothing happens, but the implications are awful. Perfect for its spectral plot and dark images of phantasmal New York in the rain.

4. THE FUNERAL by RICHARD MATHESON

From the ‘Night Gallery’ episodic adaptation

A bit of tongue-in-cheek macabre to lighten the mood this month. Richard Matheson is the master of the uncanny mundane, and this is a great example – a funeral director gets the strangest offer of his life when a man asks to host his own funeral. And the guests? They’re all monsters – from a witch to a werewolf, and some vampires thrown in between. This is a delightful mash-up of our favorite monsters, and Matheson’s genre genius elevates it to hilarity. Not scary in the least, but certainly a huge amount of monstrous fun.

5. ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD AGAIN by NEIL GAIMAN

Like “The Funeral,” this story is a melting pot of classic horror tropes – best of all, it’s set in Lovecraft’s fishy town Innsmouth, and narrated by one werewolf Lawrence Talbot – but it has a dreadful weight of its own. Gaiman has a ridiculously brilliant imagination, and here it wanders through dreary, fog-filled streets where hideous rites are being performed. With sea monsters, a creepy fortune teller, and a character from the Universal vault, it’s hard to go wrong.

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I’m sure I’ve missed some, so send in suggestions at your leisure! And happy reading, freaks.

A Love Letter to Italian Horror

Following the release of “Crimson Peak,” which pays beautiful homage to Bava, I think it’s appropriate to discuss the classic art of Italian horror cinema. The bold, Technicolor style of these films is so rarely seen anymore, which is a terrible shame. Some of the best horror films of all time have come out of the Italian tradition. It’s time we, like Guillermo del Toro, pay respect to those masters.

Most horror fans will have heard of, if not seen, films like “Suspiria,” “Deep Red,” “Black Sunday” and “Zombi.” These are the most well-known, but only a small offering, of the giallo/horror tradition in Italian cinema. None of those films sport very original plots – witches, killers, and zombies are oft seen in horror – but what they do have is an incredibly striking style. Italian filmmakers are masters of sumptuous visuals – everyone from Fellini and Visconti to Argento and Bava craft their works with exquisite production design, color and texture. It becomes so that the style is their substance, and even if the plot is distracted or the characters are thin, the style is so strong that it carries the film.

In fact, that’s one of my favorite aspects of Italian horror. There is no attention to plot, or dialogue (the films are all dubbed anyway), or traditional storytelling – instead, the films play to the senses, utilizing colorful visuals and soundtrack to evoke emotions. Because of this, the films become like a dream (or nightmare).

“Suspiria” is a collection of primary hues and jarring sounds, strung together in a hallucinatory tale of witches. “Lisa and the Devil” – my personal favorite Bava – is surreal and spectral, not because of its plot, but because of its disjointed images. Lucio Fulci’s films have some of the worst ADR of all time, and their scenes never match, but who can resist the draw of a film like “The Beyond,” where people get eaten by spiders and decaying zombies float out of a portal to Hell? Watching these films is akin to submerging oneself in water and listening to someone speak above you. It’s otherworldly. Which, for me, is what horror should be.

There are different schools of giallo. Mario Bava handles the occult and the ghostly, with tales of the undead and fulfilled curses; Dario Argento rolls out grandiose, bloody mysteries; and Lucio Fulci brings the gore, whether it be zombies or people who are ripping out guts. These three directors all have different ticks, but their ethereal scores and moods create a common thread. They have cemented a style of filmmaking that is so hard to find now, because audiences seem to demand a coherent story, rather than submitting themselves to the senses.

Screenwriting teachers and logical-minded people would certainly disagree, but for a horror fan who enjoys living in a dream, if only for 90 minutes, Italian horror is perfect for me. The cerebral dread and sensory terror that they create is unparalleled. It is hard to think of a better set of directors to choose for Halloween, when the air is filled with a sense of the uncanny, and to live in a nightmare is a dream.

Films That Haunt Me (Halloween edition): THE SENTINEL

This hasn’t come up too often on this site yet, but I have a particular obsession with occult thrillers from the 60’s and 70’s. Due to the success of films like “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” along with a real-world paranoia of cult figures (Manson and clan), this subgenre was booming. While most offerings are not worth remembering, I was struck by a lesser-known thriller from the later 70’s, eerily titled THE SENTINEL.

The plot is, by now, pretty familiar: a young woman moves into a spooky, low-priced apartment building that has a sinister secret. Plagued by bizarre visions and neighbors who seem more than a bit off, the woman hurries to get to the bottom of the forces surrounding her – but she doesn’t know that she has already been chosen to fulfill a destiny that determines the fate of the world.

It’s clear to see how much this film influenced others of its time. The depiction of Hell and its inhabitants is shocking, even by today’s standards, and has been copied more times than we realize. Unique, surreal visuals and sequences permeate the film and give it an artistic quality that elevate the fear from run-of-the-mill Devil-chills to a more psychological dread. And the twists, in my opinion, are brilliantly done. The supernatural events lead up to a reveal that is, if not surprising, intensely disturbing.

What really draws me to “The Sentinel” is its distinct 70’s atmosphere. I swear, there was something about the celluloid that makes the aura so different from any other era in film. The camera itself presents the quality of looking into a dream, which lends itself to the horrific aspect of the story and heightens it. Films like this one, along with “The Omen” and “Halloween” (amongst dozens of others), carry something incomparable in the very fact that they used this type of celluloid. This, in part, is what makes me fall in love with these types of films. And this one has everything – Catholic guilt, midnight rites, and an entrance to Hell.

For atmosphere, visuals and a good ol’ Satanic ghost story, it’s hard to find a better offering than “The Sentinel.” It’s a celebration of all that was great about 1970s horror.

Forbidden Tomes (Halloween edition): GHOST STORIES of M.R. JAMES

One of the most ancient, and perhaps overdone, horror subgenres is the ghost story. No matter how oversaturated the market becomes, we always look for truly spine-tingling and chilling tales of the supernatural. For the best offerings of this tradition, I argue that it’s best to go back to the roots – those creepy Victorians, and most wonderful of all are the GHOST STORIES OF M.R. JAMES.

With his first two collections in particular, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories, James explores what happens when innocent explorers stumble on something from the other side. Usually the consequences are a fainting spell and a good shock, but sometimes the ghosts are more dangerous. Set in crumbling cathedrals, dreary manor homes and drafty seaside inns, his stories are full of the best sort of atmosphere. Their protagonists are hardly unique or memorable, but what happens to them in these spooky locales is always hard to forget, especially late at night.

James is one of those authors who, if you haven’t actually read a story of his, you’ve seen them referenced or redone. If he’s not the inventor, he’s the popularizer of the white-sheeted, object-cursing, revenge-seeking spirit in popular culture. His stories are simple and often tongue-in-cheek, but there’s something about their subtlety and lack of grotesque flair that makes them far too easy to believe. James is blunt about his supernatural occurrences, which makes them all the more frightening.

By today’s standards his images are basic and silly – but he handles them in a way that makes the horror visceral and undeniable. It’s worth noting as well that James introduced some of our standard ghost tropes, too – evil dolls, man-hungry spiders, and child demons, amongst others. His almost sardonic treatment of these images is strikingly modern. He has a great sense of sadistic humour, torturing his audience with gossipy grotesqueries and blurted horrors. One can imagine him watching the reader from afar, smirking in delight as the goosebumps rise.

His best stories – such as “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” and “A Warning to the Curious” – have sustained amazingly, still frightening after all these decades. Their wind-swept climes and shadowy twists are best navigated in the dark of an October night – they were traditionally read by James in pitch-black rooms as an after-dinner form of entertainment. And somehow, across the crawl of time, his autumnal voice still echoes.

A Photographic Trip through Sleepy Hollow

I took a little trip up to Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown yesterday, to honor the season and the legend that evokes its name. For any Hallow’s Eve fanatic, this town is a dream – its entire tourist income is based around this month, of course.

Despite the clearly marked tourist draws and the commercialist air, I still found that Sleepy Hollow carried the aura that Washington Irving immortalized in his legend:
“A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the entire atmosphere.”
Time seemed to flitter away without measure, and the longer I stayed, the stronger sense I had of an uncanny peace coming over me. There is some sort of spectral quality to that area.

Here are a few photographs of the highlights, from the town center and the surrounding neighborhood.

Resident scarecrow.

Music hall on Main St.

Antique store.

One of the many impressive decorated houses.

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Best TV Shows to Binge Watch in October

We’re in full swing this month, gathering costumes and setting out the queue for dreadful movie nights to celebrate the spirit. With an influx of horror on TV now, there’s much more content to explore this season – but how to do pick out the true terror from the trend-following bile?

From classic chills to modern grotesqueries, here are a few spine-tingling shows to immerse yourself in as the autumn winds rise.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT

HBO, beloved still for Game of Thrones and True Detective, still made a killing in the 90s with this nasty, grimy, and hilarious anthology. Introduced by our favorite pun-loving corpse, the Crypt Keeper, each episode told a different story of bad people meeting worse ends – and always with a crazy twist. The celebrity cameos from actors soon to be famous (think Steve Buscemi) are also gloriously fun. This show set the tone for gory comedic horror, and its black humor still resonates just as disturbingly now.

PENNY DREADFUL

This one might be a little controversial – but it’s undeniably perfect for October. Full of grand Gothic castles, baroque camerawork and a legion of legendary creatures, not to mention literal buckets of gore, “Penny Dreadful” holds its own. It’s a lot of fun for its faithful adaptations of classic Victorian horror (I’ve rarely seen a more authentic, brooding Frankenstein’s monster), but it’s also intelligent, and packs an emotional punch with its characters. For a bit of high-brow horror that doesn’t skimp on gore, this show is perfect.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

I know, I know. Many self-respecting horror fans despise this show for its soap opera tendencies and complete lack of plot. But it’s hard to deny that this is a veritable funhouse of different horrors. Watching a season is like walking through a sprawling haunted house attraction – there’s aliens, ghosts, devils, mutants, zombies, witches, everything under the moon. On top of that, the camerawork is stunning, and the acting… it’s hard to find a better ensemble on television. Don’t expect pure horror, but on many other levels, this show delivers.

COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG

We all got nightmares from this one as kids. And now that it’s on Netflix, we can have nightmares again. This show is amazing for its bold animated vision, and its willingness to show its young audience something far darker than most shows dare to try. It’s truly disturbing, but in such a wacky way that you can laugh… or can you? Childhood traumas aside, this show proves that you don’t need to be R-rated to be scary.

THE X-FILES

Not all of the episodes are suitable for Halloween, but this show goes down in history as one of the most consistently frightening on television. There are several episodes that made me afraid of the dark. Whether you want alien conspiracies or just a good monster of the week, Mulder and Scully always stumble upon something chilling, and often the horror goes unresolved – as any fans of Lovecraft know, that is the surest way to keep your audience scared. With the revival coming next year, it’s a must to watch this one. The truth is still out there.

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There are a few honorable mentions – The Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks, American Gothic, and Gravity Falls – that don’t quite say ‘Halloween’ to me, or that I haven’t seen yet, but are worth bringing up as genius genre television. If I missed any others, let me know. And happy horror viewing, ghouls.

Films That Haunt Me (Halloween edition): HORROR HOTEL

The second time Christopher Lee has made it into a Film That Haunts Me, and certainly not the last. In the days when Hammer was dominating the market, there were still smaller horror films being produced, and this is one of the most striking examples. Once again delving into the world of witches, today we check into the HORROR HOTEL.

(Not the most accurate title, but its alternative is a big spoiler.) This low-budget chiller follows a young college student as she travels to a mysterious colonial village to research witchcraft. She picked the right place – the witches who were burned at the stake centuries ago have decided it’s high time to get revenge. When the student goes missing, it’s up to her boyfriend and her brother to find her, but the witches are more powerful than they realize.

While lesser known than similar films of the time, this one is notable for two reasons. (SPOILERS!) One, it pulled a “Psycho” – surprise-killing of your protagonist – halfway into the film. Two, its atmosphere is so overwhelmingly unnatural that the events, while familiar, become more disturbing than they should be. Disembodied chants, smothering fog, suspicious townspeople who stare too long – it’s all there, working to suffocate the audience in unnamed dread. It won’t catch everyone, but it certainly got me. Sure, it’s cheesy 60’s horror, but there are a few scenes that are so sudden and brutal that I was legitimately shocked.

There is a lot to appreciate here, namely the classic plot and the ever-terrific presence of Christopher Lee – but the craft of the film is also remarkable. The soundtrack is full of weird chants and shrieks, the lighting is surreal, and the set design is brilliant – the fog-filled streets and creeping secret corridors are both beautiful and very, very eerie. For such a low budget and an unceremonious release, “Horror Hotel” presents a delicately-crafted piece of cinema, detailed and measured. That is why it stands above the other double-billed B movies of the time.

As an example of low-budget genius, and a generally entertaining occult thriller, “Horror Hotel” (or “City of the Dead”) is equal to its contemporaries like “Carnival of Souls” and even “Night of the Living Dead.” It’s a creeping, dreadful, dark film that chills just beyond the surface. And hopefully you won’t hear the Candlemass chants as they come for you.

Forbidden Tomes (Halloween Edition): UNCLE MONTAGUE’S TALES OF TERROR

Children’s genre literature is often dismissed, and for good reason – most publishers don’t seem to recognise that kids can handle scary stuff. But, there are some serious exceptions to this rule. Some children’s horror is even scarier than what they give adults. My favorite example of this is Chris Priestley’s UNCLE MONTAGUE’S TALES OF TERROR.

The book is structured terrifically – a young boy listens to his spooky old uncle telling ghost stories, each of which increase in macabre nature. But as the house fills with noises and the uncle becomes distressed, the boy begins to wonder, what is Uncle Montague hiding?

From the very start, Priestley’s word is full of the Gothic and the uncanny – a mist-shrouded path of gnarled trees, a dark house full of whispers, and a collection of tales all focused on children who meet horrific fates for their transgressions. He knows his horror, as evidenced simply by the uncle’s name, a reference to ghost story master M.R. James. It’s a deeply atmospheric book, liminal and chilly with a hefty dose of melancholy on top. This makes the overarching story just as compelling as the vignettes in between.

Speaking of which, I was shocked the first time I read it by how dark they were willing to go. All of them center on child protagonists, who – usually because of mischief or disobedience – encounter the supernatural and suffer the consequences. From a demon bench-end that spouts murderous thoughts into the owner’s head, to an old woman who turns trespassers to trees, even a child-luring demon-cat, the tales are full of horrific protagonists. There is something gleefully classic about the stories, each set in the Victorian era and featuring a wicked twist. It’s a skilful throwback to the old masters like James and Poe. The illustrations, resembling the best of Edward Gorey, only make this homage more wonderful.

As a young person’s introduction to horror, or just a seasoned fan’s autumn read, “Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror” impress and chill. It’s utterly perfect for reading aloud by the fire, to keep the shadows away.

Films That Haunt Me (Halloween edition): THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Hammer Horror films are mostly known for their lush Technicolor remakes of the classic Universal monster movies in the 50s and early 60s. They existed for some time after those fell out of fashion, though – they knew how to follow the trends of their day, and when the horror scene turned to the occult in the late 60s, Hammer followed. The most well-known of this turnout is the Dennis Wheatley adaptation, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT.

Now, I’m a sucker for anything that was made in the 60s or 70s and involves the devil. There’s something about the atmosphere and storylines of those films that satisfies like no other. So, this film is a dream come true for me. Featuring Christopher Lee (as a good guy!!) and famed Rocky Horror criminologist Charles Gray, the story follows two aristocrats as they hurry to stop their young friend from pledging his soul to devil worshippers. But when they disrupt an important ritual, their group is hunted by a series of demonic spirits who will do anything to get their members back.

Directed by Hammer maestro Terence Fisher, this film is shameless in its Satanic themes. There is no trope left out – we have Bacchanal robed worshippers, yellow-eyed demons, candlelit chants, and even a goat-like appearance of the Devil himself. Yet, the film manages to cohere into a simple but strongly-paced plot, and at times I found it to be pretty unsettling (in particular a scene involving a giant spider and a young girl). The whole thing harkens back to the best stories of M.R. James, in which smart people come up against an ancient, occult evil, and use their wits to escape with their lives.

For atmosphere, no one can top Hammer. The opulent production design and mist-filled set pieces, populated by all manner of ghoulish beings, is glorious to watch. Matched with the fabulousness of Christopher Lee (and a surprisingly solid cast of supporting actors), these elements are an absolute Godsend – or a gift from the Devil – for a horror fan. It’s a blast, pure and simple.

“The Devil Rides Out” belongs to a series of Devil flicks exported by Hammer in the wake of “Rosemary’s Baby” – others being “To the Devil a Daughter,” and “The Witches.” What is remarkable about this trend, and all the others that Hammer portrays, is the ease with which we can track the changing horror market through this company alone. What began as a series of science fiction films (“Quartermass,” etc.) turned, alongside the Gothic monster movies, into a collection of low-budget psychological thrillers in the vein of “Psycho,” eventually becoming the occult films and sexual Euro-trash flicks as the industry adopted the rating system. It’s fascinating to watch how much the horror genre changes, always spurned on by a specific film that becomes the blueprint for all others.

But, business tactics aside, Hammer produced some of the purest, most entertaining horror films of the 60s and 70s. “The Devil Rides Out” represents the best of them. It’s perfect for the approaching Halloween season, when the demons are watching just over our shoulders.

The Lost Art of Halloween Jazz

October is upon us – paper skeletons haunt doorways, dying leaves whisper across the air, and horror fans everywhere get into the spirit of the best month of the year. I have spent much of my conscious life collecting things that achieve the spirit of Halloween, hiding them away until the 1^st creeps up once more. And one of the most obscure aspects of this task is that of gathering seasonal music.

We all know about Christmas songs, and there are even some suitable themes for Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July. But what about Halloween music? Sure, there’s horror movie scores and the Monster Mash, but those only go so far. For years, this was my dilemma – finding October music that hasn’t been played to death. And then I hit on the gold mine, buried under years of obscurity: the volumes of jazz songs dedicated to Hallow’s Eve.

Apparently this was a thing in the early decades of the 20^th century. Countless artists, from lesser-known brass bands to music legends like Louis Armstrong, Rosemary Clooney and Cab Calloway, have performed eerie songs in honor of this spectacular month. Upon discovering these for the first time, my whole world was changed. But why isn’t this better-known? Maybe jazz has fallen out of favor, or the songs themselves aren’t quite up to snuff to be considered classics. I argue, however, that they are a dream come true for anyone who loves Halloween as much as I do.

These songs do a wonderful job of capturing what I believe is the spirit of Halloween – dark, smoky, groovy and Bacchanal. I’m an admitted fan of jazzy moods and Speakeasy atmosphere, so they appeal to a few things in my nature, but it’s that allegiance to the holiday that really gets me.

Some of my personal favorites: “The Ghost of Smokey Joe” by Cab Calloway, “Nightmare” by Artie Shaw (featured in “American Horror Story”), “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There” by Glenn Miller, and “The Headless Horseman” by Kay Starr. Like I said, not particularly ingenious songs in their own right – but they do something for me, and capture what I like best about this month.

And how can you find these yourself? Spotify, say what you will about that service, has a great collection of albums that feature the best offerings of this lost genre (just search 30s and 40s Halloween). As an accompaniment to more worn-out holiday music, they are worth looking into – and perhaps you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.

As the forces gather in the eaves and the shadows creep forth at the edge of the bonfires, I will continue to curate Halloween-themed secrets. We must pay tribute to our favorite holiday and relish in the darkness that, during this month, is at its strongest.