Finally, some good fucking sausage — This was originally posted to Twitter on April 23, 2019. Initial release: 2013 Platform: PC Developer: thechineseroom Given the overwrought arthouse orgasm that is Dear Esther, it’s fair to assume thechineseroom’s followup to Frictional’s inexplicably popular stealth horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent would be polar to what everyone liked about the first game. Oddly enough, that’s…

Not as good as Session 9, if we’re comparing Brad Anderson films — This review was originally posted to Twitter on April 22, 2019. Initial release: 2014 Director: Brad Anderson One would think that adapting one of Edgar Allan Poe’s lesser known works to film, with an A-list cast, would elevate that work in the public consciousness and make it more accessible to modern audiences. One would think. While…

A hidden gem of late 90s Playstation horror — This review was originally posted to Twitter April 12, 2019. Initial release: 2000 Developer: Sacnoth/SNK Platform: Sony Playstation Up until the last decade or so, horror games have long been something of a niche genre. Most horror games in the late 1990s followed the Resident Evil model of clunky controls, an uncooperative camera and a gameplay that demanded…

Ghosts, or just paranoia? Either way, it’s a classic gothic horror — This review was originally posted to Twitter on April 3, 2019. Initial release: 1961 Director: Jack Clayton Ghost stories are a dime a dozen. Most follow the same basic plot, the same twists. And then there’s this film. Based on Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, this film, much like its source material…

A smart gothic chiller that pushed the Hays Code to its limit — Initial release: July 15, 1935 Director: Roy William Neill When the Hays Code, a studio-enforced self-censorship regime in Hollywood to satisfy the moral guardians, was implemented in 1930, it resulted in a particularly strange period of envelope-pushing. Films up to that point had sometimes been quite daring, and had offended the sensitivities of those who saw film — and…

Gothic horror don’t get much more classic than this — This review was posted to Twitter on April 2, 2019 Initial release: 1897 Author: Bram Stoker Here it is: the gothic novel, about the vampire. I don’t know that there’s a book that more exemplifies gothic fiction. It’s all here: lengthy, atmospheric description, lengthy, wordy dialogue, a sinister fuckboy lurking about in the background. The first…

The King in Yellow gets meta — This review was originally posted to Twitter on March 27, 2019. Initial release: 1̵8̵9̵3̵ 2015 Author: ̵T̵h̵o̵m̵a̵s̵ ̵D̵e̵ ̵C̵a̵s̵t̵i̵g̵n̵e̵ Simon Bucher-Jones When Robert W. Chambers wrote those early stories of the so-called Hastur Cycle he couldn’t have guessed at how the intrigue of this mystery play that he included snippets of in his fiction would outlast the cultural impact of…

A horror western with potential, but hamstrung by stereotypes — This review was originally posted to Twitter on March 26, 2019. Initial release: 2015 Director: S. Craig Zahler Do you think David Arquette, when he first started acting, ever could have predicted that he’d have not one, but two small roles in two separate westerns with themes of cannibalism, about 15 years apart? …

A cosmic horror classic — with all the problems that implies — This review was originally posted to Twitter on March 25, 2019. Initial release: 1895 Author: Robert W. Chambers Twenty years before a weird xenophobe inflamed imaginations with terrifying tales of dead gods from beyond the stars and, um, miscegenation, came a collection of short stories that set the tone for what would come later: Robert W. Chambers’…