C.M. Rosens's Blog, page 3

#AScareADay 2025 – Day 1 – The Hag by Robert Herrick

Romancing the Gothic is back with the #AScareADay challenge, where each day we read the selected poem or story listed in the RtG challenge list, and post our thoughts on it.

This year, I thought I’d do a blog series of inspired pieces on this challenge, and then collate them, edit them, and put them out to Ko-Fi members as a free eBook (also available to buy for non-members, but as a Ko-Fi shop exclusive).

October 1st – Robert Herrick – ‘The Hag’ (1648) – Read it .
Listen here.
Whole Challenge list is here.

This is a descriptive writing exercise in response to the poem. I love word games and I haven’t written much purple prose lately, so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to stretch myself a bit.

Here’s a piece inspired by the Hag of the Night or Matilda of the Night, known as Mallt y Nos in Cymraeg.

Mallt y Nos rides. She rides in blue with silver trim, a grey cloak splaying out from her shoulders. Her face is caught by a shaft of moonlight, striking downwards through the clouds and landing on her pale cheek harsh as a slap, stripping her of the youthful bloom she can only conjure in the dark. In shadow, her face seems fair, the flush of the chase blossoming red over sun-hidden skin and brightening the stars of her eyes. The moon, breaking the full-bellied clouds and aggrieved at this obfuscation, lays bare the dangers pitted in her flesh, the smouldering crevices of a darker nature burning in her dark stare.

Mallt y Nos rides. She rides on a horse as black as the threatening cumulus, whose hide steams and froths like the blackest, richest, boiling sea, like the churning steeds skimming the surface of the Menai strait, smashing their fragile bodies against the immovable shore. From his nostrils, spumes of hot mist stream into the storm, and every stride rolls upon the thunder. His sharp hooves rend the heavy air with quick, bright flashes, and blinding is the silver of his bit and bridle.

Mallt y Nos rides, but she does not ride alone. Her companion leads, the giant shadow, the huntsman in grey, the veiled king with horn and bow. He is the night, and the clouds are his cloak, and he rides with the rain. No light patter, this, nothing to lighten the heart with soft rhythms and petrichor. This is no drizzle to be scorned as a nuisance, not a downpour to be danced in, no mizzling misery, nothing to be so disrespected. This rain is driving rage, sweeping out prey in its relentless beating, sending out souls before it and riding them down to their doom.

Mallt y Nos rides. She rides with thorns in her heels, with cruelty upon her lips. She rides behind the rain, until her prey is flushed out of its meagre, useless cover, and runs for its life. She rides with her master, she rides with the red-eared corpse-dogs, she rides with her quiver full and bow ready, a blade at her belt. She rides, ready to sever soul from body, head from neck, heart from chest, and all the while, she smiles. She rides, for the Hunt is all she loves, and the only thing that makes her feel alive. She smiles until her cheeks crack and craze, until rigor grips her smile in its frozen vice, until it hurts and burns and stabs with acute agonies, but she cannot stop smiling, and her teeth erode to craggy nubs in the jagged air.

Mallt y Nos rides. She smiles. She weeps. And she is riding still.

Author Spotlight: Morella Moon

Morella Moon (she/her) was born in the shadows, emerging from a cauldron of blood and bile after an ancient ritual was performed. From her crypt, she weaves tales of love and darkness, crafting each story like a delicate spell. Occasionally, she emerges to devour a book or two, feeding her insatiable hunger for magical tales. Beware—her stories may just enchant you long after the final page is turned.

Author Links:

Website: morellamoonwriting.wixsite.com
Newsletter: morellamoon.substack.com

Instagram: @morellamoonauthor
Threads: @MorellaMoonAuthor

Amazon Author Page: Morella Moon
GoodReads Page: Morella_Moon
Etsy Shop: MorellaMoon

What drew you to horrormance as a genre, and made you think, “I need to write one”?

I was actually strictly a horror fan for pretty much my whole life until around 2023 when I started looking into romance. That was around when I started getting serious about writing journey, and I knew my writing didn’t traditionally fit with standard horror as I was always writing about relationships and had spicy events but I never really considered romance. But I discovered it, and my world opened up. It was only natural for me to combine my love of the romantic and horrific, as those have always been some very prominent themes in all of my writing. It’s kinda funny because if you were to tell 20 year old Morella that my first novel was a romance novel, I would’ve told you that you were crazy. It’s funny how things change like that.

Which occult rock and sludge metal artists/bands inspired you while writing Fatally Yours, and what was it about them that inspired you?

Oh, I love this question! Music inspires around 60-70% of my writing. So, I took a lot of inspiration from Pentagram, Bedemon, Coven, Sabbath Assembly, Astaroth (even though they only have two songs, they are both really good and fit my story well), and more.

I also used a lot of Type O Negative influences, along with some goth songs.

As far as sludge metal goes, it’s no secret I’m a huge Acid Bath fan, and they are my favorite band. I also love all their derivatives, so I used their morbid but poetic/almost romantic themes to influence my story. Their music isn’t traditionally romantic, and I’m sure I’m going to make some people not happy saying I get romance vibes from them, but that’s what I take away from their songs since I find a lot of darker things romantic/poetic.

What drew you to the 1980s as a setting for Fatally Yours, and did you ever consider setting it in another decade? Why did the 80s win out?

I was dead set (no pun intended) on doing a story set during the Satanic Panic. This story started off as a satanic cult, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to make adults practice satanism and not make it seem cheesy. I love a good cheesy occult story, I just didn’t know how to make it work with my skills. I am very pleased with the end result though, so I have no regrets changing that. It also stemmed a lot from being goth.

I’m a tad disappointed I was not around to see the height of goth culture, so I feel like I’m almost nostalgic for a time I did not get to experience. I also wanted to pay homage to older horror movies and get that vibe, and also I think modern day technology is quite prominent in romance, and I wanted to do something different. I also really love counterculture in general, so I wanted to do something with that. Most of my characters are goth/alt/outcasts/etc because that’s what I relate to the most. I never even considered another time period. I just knew I wanted that older horror vibe with my little group of outcasts.

Introduce us to your MCs and tell us why readers will love/have a complex relationship with them!

I am a sucker for musicians so of course I had to have August sing. He’s feisty, flirty, and would do anything for Natasha, including killing people. He’s a bit hot-tempered but not without reason. But he has a charming, mischievous side too. Honestly he’s my favorite MMC that I have written if I’m allowed to have favorites. He’s the typical rebel. Natasha is much more reserved and shy, but was charmed by him when they were in high school. There’s something about the shy/more open dynamic that I really love, so I have that in some of my stories. She keeps him grounded, and he helps her be more open. They are the perfect match, and they grow together, even after death.

What themes and vibes can readers expect going into Fatally Yours?

I really went wild with the grief and dedication themes in this story. I also wanted to do something with a ‘be careful what you wish for’ idea, or like a monkey’s paw. Your boyfriend comes back from the dead, but instead of everything going back to normal, death twisted him into someone who craves revenge. I also, of course, wanted to capture that old horror vibe, along with the occult and sludge vibes and the Satanic Panic thing as well. One of my favorite lines from the story encapsulates exactly what I was going for: love was passionate, love was vicious, and sometimes, it could be violent.

Can you share some of your favourite reader comments and reviews with us?

I am still getting so many lovely messages and compliments, but one I got was along the lines of ‘what is this depravity I am reading and why am I loving it?’ and that’s the exact reaction I want from almost all of my novels. I also got a wonderful comment saying that I inspired someone to write, which is just the compliment to end all compliments, honestly.

I also had my book put beside Lights Out in a ‘if you like this, you’ll like that’ and that is a huge honor!

I’m sure as people continue to read, I will get many more since I just sent out ARCs a few days ago.

My fans are so wonderful, and I am so grateful for all the support I have received as when I started this, I had very low confidence and didn’t think I would find people who liked my work. I am so beyond grateful, and I make sure to thank them frequently since I would never have been able to do this without them. Here’s another thanks to all my fans. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Get it now: https://www.amazon.com/Fatally-Yours-Morella-Moon-ebook/dp/B0F4PP34RF?ref_=ast_author_mpb

#100HorrorMoviesIn92Days – Films 61-70

Here are my next 10 films for the horror movie challenge 2025… I only watched 69 and 70 tonight, so this was very close to the wire. I’ve got 30 to go, and 33 days to do it in!

(61) Bleed With Me (2020) dir. Amelia Moses. I really enjoyed this one, it’s my second film by Amelia Moses and I enjoyed the messed up psychological horror angle. I also enjoy how sapphic her work is.

(62) Schlitter / Schlitter: Evil in the Woods (2023) dir. Pierre Mouchet. So many plot holes in this one but that’s ok. It was a really decent horror-thriller, with some great moments and one pretty good kill.

(63) Lèvres de sang / Lips of Blood (1975) dir. Jean Rollin. I’m running out of new-to-me Rollin films for this challenge but this year it’s the usual twins appearing in Lips of Blood, and this one is… yeah. Teenage vampire dream and mother’s boy artist. A lot going on, culminating in a coffin for two on the beach.

(64) Mantra Surugana (2023) dir. Dyan Sunu Prastowo. This would be a good double-bill with Lilim, or Sister Death. I think this is quite fun. TW for suicide, but I found some of the scenes really moved me, and I also really liked the main character.

(65) Guna Guna Istri Muda (2024) dir. Razka Robby Ertanto. This was such a lot of fun. I really want to see the original 1970s film now. I enjoyed how messed up the dark magic was, and the bonkers showdown at the end! Very satisfying.

(66) பூமிகா / Boomika (2021) dir. R. Rathindran Prasad. Ok, I had a lot of thoughts on this. I’m not sure about the rep, but also I really connected with the idea of the earth itself being an autistic woman. I think I need more eco-horror where the nature spirits are explicitly autistic women who are over everyone’s shit.

(67) Santet Segoro Pitu / Curse of the Seven Seas (2024) dir. Tommy Dewo. This was a really good adventure-horror, but not one to watch if you have issues with children being killed horribly. (One child, by a curse). There is a quest element to it too, and a lot of mythology and battling shamans. I also really liked that it was set in the 1980s, and the idea that the bazaar is full of dark magic and people using magic for their own ends, mainly to make money, and stop their rival shopkeepers making money. That feels like the universal 1980s zeitgeist to be honest.

(68) Hermana Muerte / Sister Death (2023) dir. Paco Plaza. This does some interesting (to me) things with visions and faith, and the question of what visions are, and how to hold on to a child-like faith as you grow into adulthood with all the questions that brings. There is such a lot going on in this film, with many layers to it, especially around sight (physical, spiritual). It’s the prequel to Véronica, so it would be good to watch as a double bill with that film.

(69) La noche de Walpurgis / Werewolf’s Shadow / The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (1970) dir. León Klimovsky. This film apparently kicked off the Spanish horror boom in the 1970s. I can see why – it’s campy, but so much fun. You have the allure of the sapphic vampires, the hot (yes he is, shut up) werewolf guy who fights them and has his own castle. I liked when he stabbed that undead monk with a cross. Also, love triangle between final girl, werewolf castle owner, and policeman.

(70) El cadáver insepulto / The Unburied (2020) dir. Alejandro Cohen Arazi. I’ve wanted to see this one for a while, and saved it for the challenge. I’m glad I did. I’m always fascinated by takes on family dynamics and structures, especially with how people relate to death within those structures, as individuals and collectively, and how their reactions impact those dynamics. Also, the revisiting of childhood memories and the haunted by the past trope – that is my jam, and this had it in spades.

Countries A-Z – Films 61-70

Argentina
Belgium
Canada
France
India
Indonesia
Spain

Author Spotlight: Odessa Silver

Odessa Silver is a fantasy author from the UK who is inspired by her love of Japan, the natural world, and the human mind. Always a dreamer, Odessa pulls ideas from the many thoughts which dominate her awake or sleeping mind. She has been writing since she was a young child, needing to get down the stories crafted in hours of daydreaming and has always written under the fantasy genre, finding it most freeing and able to explore each idea to its fullest. Odessa lives with her Bengal cat Phoebe, who tries her hardest to steal her attention from writing when possible.

Author Links:

Website: odessasilver.com

Book Links: books2read.com/talesofyamato

Facebook: @OdessaSilverAuthor
Instagram: @odessa_silver
Bluesky: @odessasilver.bsky.social

We’re here to chat about Tales of Yamato, your anthology. What drew you to writing Historical Fantasy based on Japanese mythology and folklore?

I love Japanese media, I watch their tv shows (including anime), stageplays, play games, and read Japanese translated books too. This inspiration led to my first historical fantasy short story which I tied in with mythology because I was writing about the moon. From there, the tie just grew greater and greater, and I got to mix my writing with my love for mythology in general.

What are the main themes in Tales of Yamato and did these evolve organically through the writing process, or were they deliberate choices?

The themes in Tales of Yamato mostly grew organically, partially due to Japanese culture where we see themes such as duty and also to a degree, faith as well. I’m a discovery writer so I just let my subconscious do the rest and as each story built up, I just made sure to incorporate themes that had already come up, if it fit well. Such as the theme of love. I don’t just explore romantic love, but also familial love and also friendship love too. Each character makes deep connections and it’s all about how each of them fit in the wider world, no matter if they are human, god, or yokai.

What attracts you to the short story form, and why choose to write in this format, rather than a longer prose format?

I’ve never been able to write long form (I say this, and yet a long form novel struck me out of nowhere for the first time ever…). Short stories have always been my go to as I love seeing these snippets in time of a characters life. For Tales of Yamato, it has worked well because one of my influences was reading books on mythology as a kid. And in them are a bunch of short stories. Another reason why short stories worked well is that I can freely hop between multiple characters and we can get an overview of the whole land of Yamato, rather than sticking with one or two main characters. I can dip in and out of different gods’ and then yokai (especially as they are all so different) then back to familiar human minds.

How did you choose the order of the 14 tales in the anthology, and do the tales weave into a larger narrative (if so, what?) as well as standalone?

In the 14 tales there are 3 arcs. We have the god Susanoo’s (which has 3 stories), Hotaka’s (which is over 4 stories) and Hirotoshi (who has two stories). The story Broken Waves felt like a good introduction to me, so I placed his arc first, then added in some standalone stories, one which was lighthearted, and one which is heavy.

Then I added in Hirotoshi’s two stories, went back to a lighthearted story, then heavy. Finally, I placed the last arc and ended with a standalone which has a really fun (for me!) ending which I knew HAD to end it. I was really torn as the words from the story before make a pretty perfect ending, but the next story just was that bit more delicious for me as an author.

I tried my hardest to get a good balance in theme so the reader isn’t weighed down by heavy story after heavy story, and can have a break with standalone stories, and those I consider an arc. However, all of them do weave into a larger narrative, as each character is one piece of this working world. You’ll also see how things like duty strike true to deities as well as humans. Or love. And even the yokai can’t escape that too. In the end, although the type of characters are different, at their core, they’re all the same.

Are there any recurring characters in the stories, or do all the stories feature different characters? If characters do recur, introduce us to them!

Yes! Despite there being 14 different stories, I couldn’t help but write more than one on a few characters.

The good Susanoo needed more than one story (and some time passing) to really tell his tale (and meanwhile I wanted to show how he effected the world around him over time too). I always planned for him to have more than one, so it was no shock to me, however…

My two favourite characters have more than one story as well. Some of it is pure selfishness, some of it is needing to know more about them.

For one, Hirotoshi, a young boy spotted by a goddess, I finished his first story and I couldn’t stop wondering what happened afterwards. And so eventually I caved and wrote more about him. I’m possibly not even done with him (teehee).

Hotaka, on the other hand, I gave him a sequel right at the beginning, even before Tales of Yamato became a full idea. I had an itch and needed to keep writing about his world, and so I kept on his journey to see where he’d go. Problem was, even after I decided to write other stories and label them under Tales of Yamato, I still had an itch. I needed to know what happened both next, and right at the beginning of his journey.

And so I ended up writing a prequel to my original story (Beneath Tsukuyomi), and a sequel to end his arc. Writing that was tough, as it was right near the end of all the stories I planned for Tales of Yamato, so I ended up saying goodbye to Hotaka and Yamato in one swoop.

Will you be revisiting any of these stories, themes or characters in later works? 

I have some ideas for a second book, similar to Tales of Yamato. In those plans I do have ideas to revisit a few familiar human and yokai faces. Definitely the gods though, as I have only chosen a handful to write about, as to not overwhelm readers with both difficult deity names, but also all their baggage. As for themes, I haven’t picked out any intentionally yet, I’ll discover those as I go along.

Like This? Try These:

#100HorrorMoviesIn92Days – Films 51-60

We’re getting close! I think I might do this! Here we go with the next 10 films of the challenge. If you want to see the complete list, it’s here.

I am really enjoying most of my picks, and this time I’ve seen a lot of good ones, but I don’t think I’ve found a new comfort film yet (that’s ok, maybe I won’t this time!). I haven’t got many I would rewatch, either, even if I thought they were excellent – the really good ones I found very emotionally heavy, so I wouldn’t choose to revisit them often, unless I was in the right frame of mind.

Here we go with the next 10:

51) 富江 / Tomie (1998) dir. Ataru Oikawa. This is a fun weird 90s film, and I really like Junji Ito’s work. I enjoyed this adaptation. I haven’t read the manga, and I feel like if I did, I wouldn’t have liked the adaptation so much. I always try to watch the films first before I read the original stories, because then I appreciate the films as films and can enjoy both versions on their own merits. This definitely made me want to read more Ito in general, honestly.

52) 切小金家的旅館 / Secrets in the Hot Spring (2018) dir. Kuan-Hui Lin. A really daft horror-comedy – manages to queerbait so hard it became genderqueer and give GNC teens some softboi/butch rep, congrats..? I don’t know. I have been super stressed with work and this was so daft, and I just needed a laugh, and the trailer bit I saw made me laugh out loud for some reason, so I watched the whole thing. And I’m not sorry.

53) Isolated (2025) dir. Benedict Mique. I really liked this as a chill background horror-thriller I stuck on one lunchtime. It is very predictable in the sense that once a character is introduced as ex-US navy, you know he’ll be a wrong ‘un. It was a fun journey, though.

54) 여곡성 / The Wrath (2018) dir. Yoo Young-seon. Set in 14thC Korea, so I really liked the feudal society depiction, the family politics, and the supernatural threat. I really liked the way it played out. The exorcist was cool. Apparently the FMC is a K-pop star? I didn’t know any K-pop stars except Taemin, but now I know this one, I guess! She was great.

55) Ilargi guztiak / All the Moons (2020) dir. Igor Legarreta. Basque vampire film, slow, Gothic, and beautifully shot. This would be a great double-bill with You Won’t Be Alone, as there are very similar themes of immortality, pseudo-mother-daughter relationships and how they go wrong, and forging a path through life on your own terms, when it wasn’t the life you were meant to be living.

56) Breeder (2020) dir. Jens Dahl. Danish medical/forced pregnancy horror/thriller. Pretty cathartic by the end. They don’t do anything especially different with the whole premise of women being locked up and experimented on, but it kept me interested and I liked the messiness of the main characters.

57) 미드나이트 / Midnight (2021) dir. Kwon Oh-seung. This was a good horror-thriller with some great moments of tension and I really liked the main characters. Bad choices were made throughout and I respect that. I also loved the way she drove with the killer in the backseat (always wear your seatbelts, folks). And I really liked how it ended.

58) Através da Sombra / Through the Shadow (2015) dir. Walter Lima Jr.. This is genuinely one of the best adaptations of Turn of the Screw I’ve seen, as this one gave Laura more of a personality and made something of her sexual repression in ways I appreciated, while also making the kids interesting characters in their own right as well. There was a lot you had to fill in for yourself by knowing the original story, and the end fell a bit flat for me, but I can’t talk, I write abrupt endings myself sometimes… and also it was a complete ending, and extremely uncomfortable. Also, I loved the background of a dying coffee plantation with burning coffee, and the way the evil ghost was on the roof in a cape. Amazing.

59) Vampyros Lesbos (1971) dir. Jesús Franco. Erotic/soft porn German sapphic horror from the 1970s, in which Dracula’s lesbian man-hating Hungarian bride inherits all his stuff and buggers off to a Turkish island to seduce women and drive them insane, but falls for a plucky, sexually repressed lawyer lady who becomes her undoing. Also, she does arty strip-teases by night at a nightclub. It’s a German film by a Spanish director, set in Türkiye. There’s not much more I can say about that, really, except that I don’t think we needed any more Dracula-inspired films after this one. We already peaked.

60) Nattevagten / Nightwatch (1994) dir. Ole Bornedal. I watched the sequel to this not knowing it was the sequel, and it really stuck in my mind. It worked well as its own film, so I honestly had no idea it was the second one, but I loved that they got Nikolaj Coster-Waldau to reprise his original role and kept the same director. Now I’ve finally watched the first one! I fully hated both male leads (congrats, lads, great work) and had to fast forward a bit in the middle (the dinner scene, absolutely not). I really enjoyed how much it was about the messy, awful characters and their dynamics, and not just a cat-and-mouse flick.

Countries A-Z Films 51-60

Brazil
Denmark
Germany
Japan
Philippines
South Korea
Spain
Taiwan

Author Spotlight: Morgan Dante

Morgan Dante (they/them) is an author of romance, fantasy, and horror. They especially enjoy Gothic literature and vampires.

Their best known works are the cosmic horror romance Providence Girls and the Judas Iscariot/The Devil romance The Saint of Heartbreak.

Author Links

Author website: morgandante.com

TikTok: @morgandante
Instagram: @mdantesinferno
Bluesky: morgandante.bsky.social
Twitter: @morgansinferno
Tumblr: ghostpoetics

We’re here to spotlight your work, which falls under the dark Gothic queer romance umbrella. What is your relationship with Gothic Romance, and how did you come to write it?

I love Gothic romance, whether it’s contemporary Gothic romance or the more nineteenth-century use of the word, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. When it comes to writing it, for the longest time, I have always preferred reading, watching, and writing horror. It is the number one genre to me.

I have always been interested in the macabre, especially when it intermingles with sexuality and desire. I find the themes of grief, trauma, repression, and obsession all intriguing to explore in the context of the Gothic. I studied a lot of Gothic literature when I was getting my BA in English, and I enjoy everything I mentioned as well as the complicated depiction of dark subjects and the grotesque.

What queer rep can readers expect to find in your work, and how do queerness and Gothic romance fit together in it?

This is an excellent question, albeit a complicated one. Most of my characters, though not all, are bisexual. I am bisexual, and I tend to just default to that. As someone who, for a long time, has identified from genderqueer to trans masc, I tend to write characters who, even if they are technically cis, are gender non-conforming.

They have discomfort with their gender, and I tend to believe even cishet people can experience these feelings and should be given space to explore these experiences, too; but sometimes with a fictional character, depending on what part of their character journey you’re writing about, they may not be entirely cognizant of how to process their feelings.

This is especially true in historical pieces in societies where concepts like homosexuality were more tied to physical actions rather than seen as complex identities and communities until a certain point in time. And of course, while trans people have existed for a long time, there is no singular idea of what being trans means. Many cultures do not use the same framing for identities and communities that people in the U.S. do, as America is a melting pot but only one part of the world.

Azzie from Providence Girls deals with complicated feelings about her gender; overall, she does have body dysmorphia, but there is also some dysphoria, too. As per “The Thing on the Doorstep,” she is wary of her more masculine traits because her father switched her soul with his and lived in her body. Her more masculine traits are not bad or a sign of wrongness, though she wonders if these aspects of her are a “residue” of the magical spell he inflicted on her, but she was wearing pants and smoking cigars as a kid before he did that. She struggles with feeling disconnected from her body.

Just when she tries to become comfortable in her body, she begins transforming. She’s half-Deep One, and in The Shadow Over Innsmouth, it is established that human men were forced to have Deep One wives; the Deep Ones from the sea are said to be female, but I am not necessarily sure whether these fish-people from an ancient underwater city would necessarily have the same binary.

I am interested in how we perform gender as impressed upon us by society.

Léon in A Flame in the Night and Witch Soul is genderqueer; he was a soldier, but living in 1920s Paris, he is generally rather feminine and okay with that. He is okay with being called a man, but he does also occasionally refer to himself with she/her, although it might not be immediately evident because he does it when he refers to himself in French. He likes to knit and also likes to wear dresses.

Same with Lucifer in The Saint of Heartbreak. While I do occasionally label The Saint of Heartbreak as “technically” M/M, Lucifer is not a man, even if he uses he/him; I view fallen angels as not being born with gender and viewing a lot of labels and roles as arbitrary. He does not mind what people call him, and when I wrote about him and Lilith, I mention that both of them were pregnant with children, and there are times he has different genitalia and other times where I don’t explicitly mention what genitalia he has because I find it superfluous to getting the point across, and it has no bearing on what gender he considers himself. It just isn’t something he thinks about, and being reminded of it by a mortal tends to momentarily bemuse or frustrate him.

As for Gothic romance, I find that a lot of Gothic literature, in exploring themes like emotional reactions to trauma and desire, have often conflicting but intriguing depictions of gender. We have Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, which we can view as very much a “lesbian preys on an innocent girl” negative stereotype, but also, there are few things as darkly romantic as lines like “to die as lovers may, to die together so that they may live together.”

Bram Stoker’s Dracula has plenty of conflicting discourse about its depiction of women. Jonathan Harker essentially takes on the role of the Gothic heroine who is trapped in a castle with the monster, who cooks and cleans for him. Dracula tells his brides that Jonathan belongs to him and carries him to bed after Jonathan passes out. Jonathan, horribly traumatized from the abuse and his escape, begins to fixate on his kukri knife, a phallic object; after being a relatively mild-mannered man traumatized by Dracula, he seems to lean into violence as a way to reclaim himself. However, his most grounding trait is his love and devotion for Mina.

The text creates a clear dichotomy between the good woman (Mina) and the bad woman who becomes more seductive as a vampire (the brides, Lucy). Mina, a woman who works, lives while her upperclass sensitive and innocent friend dies twice. Mina herself is critical of the New Woman, a woman who challenges social roles, while she herself challenges them.

Van Helsing says that Mina is a good woman because she has the heart of a woman and the brain of a man, which reinforces the sexist idea of women=emotion and men=logical. However, without Mina copying their notes and using her psychic connection to Dracula after his nightly assault, they would not have defeated Dracula.

Her mix of competence and compassion are engaging. It’s actually the men’s efforts to exclude her, even if out of a chauvinistic idea of protecting her because they care for her, that lead to negative consequences; even while she’s afflicted, they defeat Dracula with Mina.

The lines that are seemingly stark aren’t; it’s a novel of contradictions written by an Anglo-Irish Protestant man who was fascinated by scientific progress but not especially revolutionary. A man who was close friends with Oscar Wilde (Bram Stoker’s wife, actress Florence Balcombe, was with Oscar Wilde until she married Stoker and broke Wilde’s heart), visiting Oscar Wilde after his imprisonment, but then becoming vehemently homophobic in old age.

It is important to view the book in its own time; yes, there are many things by contemporary stands that are regressive, and even aspects from the 1890s, but there is also transgression and places to find queer subtext.

To me, Gothic romance and Gothic horror are great places to explore liminal and uncertain spaces, and queerness is all about questioning and expanding these ideas.

What is the interplay between monstrosity and attraction in your work, and why do you find yourself returning to these themes?

I consider Providence Girls to be a monster romance, and vampires are my favorite monsters.

Ocean Vuong once said, “To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.” I am interested in monstrosity as a way to show acceptance, a very “come as you are” idea.

Vin cares about Azzie turning into a monster because it’s a very painful transformation, but she isn’t deterred or unattracted to her because of that; she would be perfectly happy having a Deep One as her eternal companion, and indeed she is when they reunite. I am also compelled by the dual nature of monsters as both “shelter and warning.”

Yes, a vampire is dangerous. They are monsters who need blood to live, but also, they have the power to keep those they love safe–or to keep themselves safe.

For Noémie in Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves, vampirism means freedom, but it has a price; it isn’t a wholly good thing. Erzsébet at the ending is still grieving after all she has endured.

Vampirism in particular for me is interesting because I do consider it as a possible vehicle for transgression and freedom because one has the strength and powers to do things that were previously off-limits, but if the vampirism wasn’t asked for, there is an element of violation that leads to some messy and complicated feelings that could be intriguing to explore if done right; I am always bothered at analysis of Dracula that sees Dracula’s assaults on Lucy and Mina as him bestowing them with positive transgressiveness, a gift he has given the women, as the ways they are interesting women exist before he forces them to feed from his breast–which, very interesting portrayal!

I am obsessed with the maternal imagery Stoker decided to employ by having Mina feed by drinking from Dracula’s chest. But I don’t like him getting the credit for making the women interesting and transgressive…by traumatizing them. All that said, I return to monsters to explore themes of love and loneliness from the perspective of outsiders.

In PROVIDENCE GIRLS: A sapphic horror romance set in Great Depression New England, one of the women is changing into a Deep One (Lovecraftian mythos, from HP Lovecraft’s story THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH. What was the inspiration behind this story, and what did you most enjoy about writing and developing it?

Providence Girls has three primary inspirations, all written by H.P. Lovecraft: “The Thing on the Doorstep” (Asenath Waite); “The Dunwich Horror” (Lavinia Whateley); and The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Azzie and Vin are of course from the first two stories, and “The Thing on the Doorstep” mentions that Asenath is from Innsmouth and has oddly large eyes that hint at her being a Deep One hybrid.

If the events of the short story were different, she likely would have begun transforming sometime, which was part of the inspiration.

Back in 2018, I became ill from a stomach ulcer and spent a good amount of time wiped out. During this time, I read a used collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories cover to cover. Reading these stories chronologically was great because you see the change in writing and the way many of the stories connect and old characters return.

Lovecraft was a flawed and deeply bigoted man.

It is fascinating, however, how creators from Victor LaValle to Ruthanna Emrys to Guillermo del Toro engage with his stories, many of them giving voices to characters (and real life people) he maligned.

LaValle gives a perspective to one of the Black men in Red Hook who are vilified “The Horror at Red Hook.”

Emrys explores the perspective of a Deep One character interned by the government and then released.

Del Toro explores how disabled and queer characters empathize with the fish monster.

These artists humanize the Lovecraftian “villains” and show another side, monsters as mirrors and figures of empathy. Lovecraft, also a writer of contradiction, reviled outsiders and depicted many of them horribly, but he also excelled at writing outsiders.

He even wrote a short story called “The Outsider” where the lonely main character proclaims, “I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.”

Though there is no excuse for him racism, and he became slightly more open to others (but never fully conceding all his repugnant views) as he aged, Lovecraft died poor and struggled with emotional abuse from his mother and suicidal ideation. He was a deeply reactionary and afraid man. It is interesting to see the change in his narratives once we get to The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

In earlier works like “Dagon,” the work typically follows the premise of the narrator recounting a horror he experienced in the past and, succumbing to madness, possibly planning his suicide.

Characters who are traumatized or different experience monstrosity and want to die.

When we get to The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the narrator discovers after his ordeal escaping the hamlet that he is also a Deep One hybrid. This makes him suicidal, but then he accepts who he is and plans to help the other Deep Ones, apprehended by the government, escape the camps they’ve been placed in.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth is complicated because there are not especially subtle allusions to Lovecraft’s anxieties about miscegenation, but there are also aspects that made me read it as a coming out story near the end–that process of devastation and grief over being something you are told you should hate, a self-loathing that sometimes leads to thoughts of self-harm, and then finding self-acceptance.

Of course, my interpretation of the story is that the narrator is being depicted as “turning bad” and still succumbing to madness by accepting who he is. The Deep Ones are not depicted as sympathetic, after all. Mind, Lovecraft is portraying them as dangerous monsters who are rightfully placed into camps. But there are interpretations that see this less despairing ending as strangely hopeful; it’s a change in Lovecraft’s usual story progression to have the protagonist not die in this moment of embracing the horror, but to instead have some sort of ecstasy.

I was interested in the exploration of the narrator’s conflicted feelings about his inevitable change. After reading “The Thing on the Doorstep” and “The Dunwich Horror,” I was struck by the parallels between the women in these stories who would then become Azzie and Vin.

They are both women used by their occultist fathers and ultimately doomed. Lovecraft didn’t have many female characters. He was no feminist, no shock there, but while he thought that women’s minds didn’t cover the same ground as men (because of what he considered to be social conditioning rather than biology), he thought that if women had less of a capacity to be logical, the difference was negligible enough not to matter and was accepting of growing women’s independence.

His short-lived marriage, after all, was with an older woman who traveled to work, though that relationship with Sonia Greene had issues such as his outspoken antisemitism and xenophobia…while married to a Ukrainian (or what is now Ukraine) Jewish woman.

Still, however, Lovecraft viewed men and women as different in a way that made him uncomfortable writing about women. His female characters are sparse and, as we see, the most notable ones follow similar archetypes. I just thought it would be interesting if Asenath Waite and Lavinia Whateley ever met and were in a room together. What would they talk about? How would they react to their traumas? Admittedly, when the idea came, I didn’t immediately have a grasp on balancing internal and external conflicts, but I very soon realized the external conflict and ticking clock aspect to the relationship would be Azzie’s progressing transformation.

I also wanted to capture different ways of handling grief and trauma. Vin cannot let go of the past, even when she tries. She cannot let go of her sons. Azzie, on the other hand, represses and tries to think about only the present. Both of these responses are understandable and come with their own complications.

The entire story is a play between the past and present.

Despite Providence Girls being, in retrospect, one of the books I struggled to write the most, there is a lot that I enjoyed about writing it. I liked playing with the very different voices, the dreamy and languid voice of Vin compared to Azzie’s more stoic and straightforward nature. I loved looking at old photographs of East Providence and bringing the world to life. I liked playing with the generally dark and bleak cosmic horror of Outer Gods who either don’t care about humanity (Yog-Sothoth) or are outwardly hostile (Nyarlathotep), and then turning it on its head. Overall, it’s one of my proudest works.

Two of your books play with more human “monsters” or “villains” – Judas Iscariot, and Elizabeth Bathory. What research did you do for these figures, and how did you take the existing legends around them to craft them into these stories –  UNHOLY WITH EYES LIKE WOLVES and THE SAINT OF HEARTBREAK?

For research about Elizabeth Bathory, my main sources come from her private letters published by Kim L. Craft and Tony Thorne’s Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of Elisabeth Bathory, the Blood Countess.

I was always dissatisfied trying to write about her because much about Bathory focuses on the lurid, graphic depictions of murders and not her place in the world she lived in; I could never really get a sense of late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century Hungary. It wasn’t until I read Craft’s collection of letters and Thorne’s book, although the latter I was admittedly skeptical of because of the title, that I got what I wanted: books that explored Hungarian culture and politics at the time, as well as showing what it was like to be in control of so much land as a woman whose husband was often away.

I could actually envision her world. I was always fascinated by her, even the most dramatic and wild portrayals, such as in Cradle of Filth’s album Cruelty and the Beast.

That said, I feel like a lot of portrayals of Bathory are steeped in misogyny; she is often portrayed in a way that reminds me of the “incontinent” (sexually uncontrolled, in this context) she-wolf Dante mentions at the start of Inferno: a bloodthirsty and lascivious woman who is evil most of all in her inability to control her urges.

I also feel like when mostly American and British people engage with historical figures like Bathory or Vlad the Impaler, they are focused on the most grotesque details and inevitably engage in xenophobia against Eastern Europeans.

While there was brutality because nearly all of Europe in the medieval period and early modern era had cruelty the lords inflicted on peasants or horrible war crimes, I’m always bothered by the idea of these periods being uniquely full of ignorance and bloodshed. I’m especially bothered by the depiction of Eastern Europeans as uniquely “barbaric,” bloodthirsty, and sexually deviant compared to their Western European counterparts.

This is usually tied into antisemitic tropes and a stew of negative depictions of Romanians, Hungarians, the Romani, and the Ottomans.

Besides the portrayal of the Romani as agents of the evil Count, Bram Stoker uses physiognomy–the study of facial features to determine character, which employs racist pseudo-science–to tell us that Count Dracula in his Transylvanian castle is decadent and morally corrupt.

I want to be clear: Bathory ruled over land in a time where there was a brutal suppression of peasant revolts. None of this is to say that the aforementioned historical figures did not commit violence ever. I don’t think Bathory was a perfect woman who never did anything wrong in her life. She was very likely harsh and, given that she performed the role of the feudal lord with her husband at war for much of her life, she was probably ruthless. If she were to punish someone who angered her, there is nothing to say that she didn’t engage in torture; sadly, this was no outlier. She raised taxes on the serfs without worry of recourse; that was all simply the dynamic between a feudal landowner and serfs. I don’t think she was just a kind woman, even if she did do good things as part of her duties.

However, do I believe that she murdered hundreds of women and girls and was a blood-bathing Satanist? No.

From what I have read, I am convinced that certain people imprisoned or executed for accusations of Satanic murder were victims of political plotting, an escalated personal grievance that took advantage of the devil worship/heresy hysteria, or an effort to seize land.

For Bathory, I think the Habsburg Crown was retaliating against a prominent Protestant (Calvinist) woman who insisted that they pay their debts to her.

Why the blood-bathing Satanist lesbian murderer accusation? Well, such accusations are quite literally life-ending.

Immediately after those rumors spread, and she was immured in her bedroom, she lost all her long allies because that is such a confluence of horrible things that no one wanted to defend her. Who wants to go against the Holy Roman Emperor and defend a woman accused of such horrors? After all, during Bathory’s lifetime, there had already been much tension between the Habsburg Crown, Transylvania, and the Hungarian nobles.

Incensed by the Habsburgs, István Bocskay, a Hungarian nobleman who was previously a liberator of Wallachia until the Ottomans took over again, led an attempted insurrection in Hungary and Transylvania against the Habsburgs. Once peace talks happened, his rebellion went well for him and the Hungarian nobles who sided with him, but he mysteriously fell ill and died. There was great tension between people who wanted an independent Hungary and those loyal to the Habsburgs, who were the Holy Roman Emperors.

There, too, was the tension of being a Calvinist woman, since Calvinism itself was new and controversial at this time, ruled by Catholics.

Bathory herself was careful to never state whether she supported the rebellion or an independent Hungary, even though her older brother supported it. It was a very tumultuous time of alliances and betrayals, and you could lose everything with one wrong action. Bathory tried to be careful in balancing her loyalties while remaining assertive, but in the end, she lost everything and likely died by starving herself to death.

With Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves, I wanted to depict her as not necessarily always a good woman, not always fair or kind, but complicated and navigating a tumultuous time.

Despite including bloody aspects, I tried to integrate more of the history and courtly matters.

With Judas Iscariot, I have been fascinated with him for about ten years. There are so many different ways you can interpret his character.

I am not a fan of “evil Judas” because it doesn’t gel much with the fact that he felt regret and tried to return the silver he received. Besides that, I find depictions that emphasize Jesus Christ’s death as being less the Romans’ doing and more on the “traitorous Jews who are responsible for Christ’s death” to be grossly antisemitic.

Judas in a lot of art is depicted in ways that exaggerate his “Jewishness” with a dramatically hooked nose and red hair whereas Jesus, also a Jew, is depicted as a very bland white guy.

Judas is someone often maligned and used as shorthand for a traitor, but as Oscar Wilde put it, “each man kills the thing he loves.”

Judas is singularly seen as irredeemable, except for another figure: the Devil, who is often seen as beyond God’s all-encompassing forgiveness.

I like exploring the tragedy of Judas’ character, someone who made understandable mistakes and was fearful of how others would be hurt during the rebellion against the Roman Empire.

The rebellion against the enslaving, imperial Romans was of course just, but it isn’t a stretch for Judas to be scared of what Jesus’ actions would mean for the Jewish population subjugated by Rome.

Multiple times, including after Jesus’ death, Rome brutally quelled Jewish riots and enslaved and killed many people. And Judas, portrayed here as a former slave, knows the horrors of Roman power well. He was mistaken to trust Pontius Pilate, but Judas only hoped that Jesus would reconsider what was drawing the most Roman scrutiny; he was horrified and devastated to learn what his actions really meant.

I’m also compelled by narrative parallels. Dante places Satan, Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in the worst part of Hell, the final section of the ninth circle, because they are regarded as the worst traitors.

The Devil betrayed God, and Judas betrayed Jesus, and they are therefore the most loathed and lonely souls in Hell.

In The Saint of Heartbreak, after all the grief and pain, the Devil has closed himself off from feeling love, while Judas is deep down a very compassionate and sensitive man, but they don’t understand one another.

Judas’ depiction is very much an exploration of grief and the circular nature of depression and self-loathing; taken from Dante, Hell is designed as a circle that perpetuates collective pain.

I don’t take a good and evil approach to biblical figures; neither Heaven nor Hell are wholly bad or good. I try to view all characters through the lens of their lived experiences and how that informs their flaws and ways of seeing the world. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t be bad, but I seek to make all characters compelling and human in some way.

Both  UNHOLY WITH EYES LIKE WOLVES and SACRAMENT are vampire stories – one sapphic, one achillean. Can you tell us more about the vampire lore incorporated into your stories, and how this blends with the romantic and erotic elements?

I don’t have a strict Morgan Dante vampire lore, so these two books are in some ways very different, but they are both very Gothic, bisexual polycules.

With vampires, I love exploring autonomy, hunger, and desire. Both Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves and Sacrament explore the idea of freedom, although in very different ways; vampirism is more liberating in Unholy Eyes than it is in Sacrament, which has a messier kind of power system involved that makes immortality at times more of a prison.

Both stories, in terms of eroticism, explore themes of power, transgression, and tenderness.

Noémie learns what she wants and what she can do outside of her assigned social role, and Sebestyen begins to change once the main character, Maël, is gentle with him when Maël has every reason to resent him and, in Sebestyen’s mind, continue the cycle of abuse.

With vampirism, it is hard not to acknowledge how power and violence coincide with sex and how characters contend with that and try to find tenderness regardless.

Sex is very important in both of these books in terms of character development and vulnerability. In one way or another, characters who are repressed socially or emotionally (or both) learn about themselves through intimacy.

What can readers look forward to from you in the future?

I have been cycling through different projects, all Gothic and having to do with demons or vampires.

My most pressing project at the moment is an MMF romance that I can best describe as Gaston x Belle x Beast for Beauty and the Beast fans who enjoy a complicated polycule and just really want the Beast to stay a beast.

As a lifelong fan of the animated film, I’m very excited to share this story, although the time period and many elements are darker and very different.

I am also running a Kickstarter for a special edition hardcover of Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves.

Overall, I have many projects I’m excited to share!

Like This? Try These:

#100HorrorMoviesIn92Days – Films 41-50

IT’S THE HALFWAY POINT! I wonder if I can do some bonus watches this year like last time? But here we go with films 41-50, with their countries A-Z, and then at the end of this post I’ll do a round-up of my personal Top 10 of the first 50, and a complete list of countries so far.

Here is the full list: 100-horror-movies-in-92-days-2025

41) 仮面学園 / Persona (2000) dir. Takashi Komatsu. I was really enjoying this, and the thoughts around masks and shifting identities, but then they got weird about gender and we got stuck with a shitty horror trope at the end. (Spoiler for the reveal below).

Click to reveal spoiler

The killer turned out to be a trans woman, killing anyone who knew her deadname/previous identity. The ‘missing’ student was thought to be male, but it turned out she had transitioned then come back to school? This made the whole thing of (male) students in masks claiming that deadname in “I am Spartacus” style as teachers tried to figure out where this missing student was and who it was behind “his” mask stop working in the way it had throughout the film, but I guess it was supposed to retrospectively create a dead space of an empty identity that anyone could then take up and embody, now that she wasn’t using it or claiming it? I don’t know. I think it was a good film up to that point and then it was reduced to the ‘killer trans woman’ trope.

42) 弟切草 / St. John’s Wort (2001) dir. Ten Shimoyama. Another J-Horror – this one tried to do it like an over-saturated early 00s horror game, but it just didn’t quite work for me in style. Then the reveal happened and it was another weird gender reveal on the bounce, as I watched this and Persona back-to-back. I have regrets.

Click to reveal spoiler

So in this one, it’s her missing twin, who she thought was a twin sister, but was actually her twin brother, who seems to have been force-femmed to pose for their father’s paintings, and there are dead kids in the house, one of whom might be her childhood friend, but the others are all little boys who… got murdered by… the twin? I got really confused by this bit, the subtitles weren’t amazing and I honestly lost concentration as it played out like a video game where you pick up clues in different rooms. As the antagonist character self-identified to Nami, our main character, as her twin brother, but dressed and presented as a woman, I wasn’t sure with the subtitles I had on this version what was going on here. This character is really like a giallo character if you know what I mean by that, it really did feel like it had taken off in a giallo direction at the end.

43) สุสานคนเป็น / Tomb Watcher (2025) dir. Vathanyu Ingkawiwat. I liked this one. I really enjoy the soap opera drama of people cheating on each other and betrayals and vengeance and mess, so the actual human melodrama of the love triangle worked for me as its own thing. There’s ghost possessions and all sorts of supernatural stuff as well, which was fine. It had a grim ending, and I liked that too.

44) Eerie (2018) dir. Mikhail Red. Same director as Lilim, so I’m here for this brand of Filipino Catholic Institution Horror, it would seem. This film has some super darkly-shot scenes, so I found it hard to see what was happening. I cried at the end, though. TW: suicide, abusive “disciplinary” practices.

45) 血を吸う粘土 / Vampire Clay (2017) dir. Sôichi Umezawa. I really liked this. Demonic clay, breaking down the barriers between people and dirt, art and artist, malleable clay-flesh, revenge, and a few students getting fucked up by their moulding material. I enjoyed the stopmotion and the practical effects, and I really liked how fun this was. It’s the movie David Cronenberg wished he could have made, I reckon.

46) Boys From County Hell (2020) dir. Chris Baugh. This is the kind of film I really love. Vampires – but folklore. Irish. Deadpan dark humour. Has me laughing for ages then rips out my heart. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, this is one of the best and funniest vampire horror-comedies going. I saved this one for the challenge, and it was a good call. Really cheered me up.

47) The Damned (2024) dir. Thordur Palsson. 19thC Arctic Circle folk horror – I mean, that’s the horror all by itself, really. Throw in the superstition of draugrs and some drowned Basque sailors, and some simmering tension between the widow who owns the fishing station and the helmsman, and you’ve got a pretty good film. Lots of good folklore.

48) My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To (2020) dir. Jonathan Cuartas. Harrowing family vampiric drama, with the shut-in claustrophobia of lockdown for added effect… I honestly nearly cried at the dinner scene where Thomas is begging to be allowed to have some friends. It really got me. And the victims who just wanted to escape – so much going on in this film, with a lot of emotional intensity.

49) Oculus (2013) dir. Mike Flanagan. I really liked Flanagan’s series, particularly his take on Hill House and the House of Usher, with Bly Manor and Midnight Mass coming in after those two (for me). This film was a tightly packed warm-up for his longer-form stories, I felt, and it worked for me pretty well. It definitely played into his brand of bleak psychological horror and intimate family drama. I think this is certainly one of the most successful takes on a haunted item I’ve seen in a while, so I’m very glad I watched it. It gave me Philip Fracassi’s Gothic vibes. I also really liked the reflection of the flashbacks in the current narrative, and the mirroring that happened through the film.

50) 乱歩地獄 / Rampo Noir (2005) dirs. Atsushi Kaneko, Akio Jissoji, Hisayasu Satô, Suguru Takeuchi. Anthology horror based on the horror stories of Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川 乱歩). This has definitely made me interested in Ranpo’s work, and I really liked the microwave mirror story especially. Another mirror tale! This is really arty as well, I liked the directors’ different styles and shots. The mirror motifs in this one pulled through a few segments. (If needed, TW for disability body horror in the Caterpillar segment.) I really liked the way the segments connected via one actor who played different parts in each of them.

Countries A-Z Films 41-50

Ireland
Japan
Philippines
Thailand
USA

Top 10 of 50/100

My top 10 films so far… this is a tough one. In no particular order because that’s way too hard for me, my top 10 this year so far is probably as follows:

In My Mother’s SkinThe MoogaiVampire ClayYou Won’t Be AloneBoys From County HellMaaIt Lives InsideUgly StepsisterLa LloronaHome for Rent

Honorable Mentions:

My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It ToRitaPaper BrideMs. KanyinLilimThe Wrath of BeckyThe SurrenderBulbbulBlaculaSennentuntschiStrange DarlingAuditionBridge Curse: Ritual

If I made this list in a different mood, some of these may swap places. I’ve really enjoyed most of the films I’ve seen this year.

Country Round-Up Films 1-50:

I have marked the countries with the highest number of films each with a bar chart emoji:

Japan and USA are level at 8 films each.
Canada and the Philippines are next, with 3 films each.

New-to-me countries have a “ ” symbol next to them.

Argentina – x1 – The 100 Candles Game
Australia – x2 – The Moogai, You Won’t Be Alone
Belgium – x2 – Malpertuis, The Hunted
Cambodia – x1 – The Ritual: Black Nun
Canada – x3 – The Monkey, , Discopath
China – x1 – Paper Bride
Guatemala – x2 – Rita, La Llorona
India – x2 – Maa, Bulbbul
Indonesia – x2 – The Haunted Hotel, Jurnal Risa by Risa Saraswati
Ireland – x2 – Boys From County Hell, The Damned
Italy – x2 – An Angel for Satan, Two Evil Eyes
Japan – x8 – Shikoku, Audition, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch, Persona, St John’s Wort, Best Wishes To All, Vampire Clay, Rampo Noir
Nigeria – x1 – Ms. Kanyin
Norway – x1 – The Ugly Stepsister
Philippines – x3 – Lilim, In My Mother’s Skin, Eerie
Switzerland – x2 – Tyfelstei, Sennentuntschi
Taiwan – x2 – The Bridge Curse, The Bridge Curse: Ritual
Thailand – x2 – Home for Rent, Tomb Watcher
Turkey – x1 – Siccin 4
United Kingdom – x2 – The Stone Tape, The Beast Must Die
United States of America – x8 – It Lives Inside, The Wrath of Becky, Strange Darling, Incubus, Blacula, The Surrender, My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, Oculus

Author Spotlight: Ezra Arndt

Ezra Arndt (they/them/theirs) is a dark fiction creator who writes mostly dark Adult fantasy fiction with themes of overcoming various types of trauma, bodily transformation through a disabled, queer, and neurodivergent lens, and embracing your darkest side… whether that’s a good idea or not.

Author Links:

Website: arndtezra.wordpress.com

Itch.io Shop: arndtezra.itch.io

Newsletter: ezraarndt.substack.com

Instagram: @ezraarndtwrites
Bluesky: @arndtezra.bsky.social

What draws you to queer horror-fantasy and dark SFF?

Short answer: I’m goth and/or have gothic inclinations.

Long answer: I’ve always been drawn to the dark and twisted and have found more often than not the anti-heroes, anti-villains, and villains themselves more relatable than the hero-archetype characters. It took me many years to realize this, but for me, it’s definitely because the heroes are almost always “too good” which makes the nasty characters more relatable and human to me and the “bad guys” are, in popular culture, a lot of the times queer, disabled, and neurodivergent-coded if not outright.

Dark fiction with horror-fantasy under and overtones also tend to have those goth(ic), grungy, and funky vibes that I crave in literature. And the exploration of taboo desires and the inclusion of various types of vampires… I’m a big fan. Nosferatu (2024), Harley Laroux (author of Her Soul to Take), and Pom Poison (creator of the Little Death comic), I’m looking at you!

What are the main themes in Awakened Darkness and did these evolve organically through the writing process, or were they deliberate choices?

As the Lost Gods series has been with me for over a decade and is my comfort project, I tend to be more than a bit heavy-handed with themes of religious, familial, and societal trauma.

More themes that I delve into for the series as a whole are the “undesirables” in a society being physically monsters and how some if not a lot of the “human” characters are monstrous by their actions, choosing or not choosing to continue to live in cycles of abuse, and how exhausting almost always paying the price for doing your best to be “good” (within the confines of North American [Evangelical] Christianity culture… especially in the Bible Belt) can be.

In the first book, Awakened Darkness, several tropes like toxic power dynamics within intimate relationships, figures of authority behaving badly, and, you guessed it, casual and ritualistic cannibalism and vampirism (and both combined) and pregnancy horror, take the forefront. As I’ve been working on this series for so long, I can’t recall a time when these specific tropes haven’t been vitally important to the story as a whole.

What queer rep can be found in your work, and how do you approach the combination of queerness and monstrosity?

I try to include a diverse range of queer representation in my work, so most characters are some flavor of queer. As a queer person it comes fairly naturally unless some character is fighting every step of the way to be cisgender and heterosexual.

When it comes to the combination of queerness and monstrosity, I tend to veer on the side of approaching the transformation of characters into the physically “monstrous” with heavy undertones of dysphoria, dysmorphia, disability, and a desire to be “more” (whether that be more themselves, physically stronger, “better,” etc;).

A lot of the characters discover at some point in their story, whether that be right off the bat or later on in the timelines, that they are some flavor of transgender… if they’re not aware of it already. And since in many societies, transness is looked down upon if not persecuted, it can be viewed as a so-called monstrous thing.

Even though I haven’t written any stories about *being* under the trans-umbrella, I try to dig into how “othering” it can be for the characters and create conflict in their lives when they just want to exist and live in peace like everyone else.

What is your favourite part of the worldbuilding in the Lost Gods universe and why?

I think my favorite bit about the world-building in the Lost Gods universe is the deliberate chaos of it all.

There are reincarnated/resurrected monsters and other beings that are fae and fae-related/influenced, bits from Greek mythology that I’ve taken, unraveled, and done my own spin on while attempting to do right by the source material, and mages who offer sacrifices of their own blood and bodies to feed the earth and the “higher immortals” in exchange for power.

I’ve got a character with celestial-based magic that was woven into her DNA from birth and activated by beginning her mensuration cycle and the hormonal change thereof.

The time-hopping and portal-fantasy aspect of it are some of my favorite elements in the series as a whole… although I don’t get to go into that until a few books in. I’m a sucker for the tole which comes with time-travel that slowly destroys the psyche and warps the body.

What is/are your favourite reader response(s) so far? (Use this space to quote some of the best reviews and blurbs)

“Ezra Arndt’s Awakened Darkness is a fast-paced, action-packed punch to the gut. Dark, erotic, and taboo, this story sweeps you up into a dystopian world where our unlikable heroine must fight for survival. Reminiscent of early 2000’s media, Awakened Darkness is perfect for anyone looking for gritty, queer nostalgia coated in blood.” – HS Wolfe, author of Rotgut.

“With its bold heroine, gruesome cult storyline, and lurid eroticism, Awakened Darkness by Ezra Arndt is a visceral feast. Perfect for fans of the darker side of early 2010s contemporary fantasy.” – Morgan Dante, author of Providence Girls.

“This [God & the Conquered] is a story that speaks directly to all the kids who wish they could tell God to go f*ck Himself for the things done in His name. Angry, sexy, and feral in the way the best queer art is.” – Ladz, author of The Fealty of Monsters.

“Dripping with raw eroticism and evocative language. God & the Conquered is a visceral scream against a God that demands too much and gives too little.” – Luna Fiore, author of Where Willows Weep.

Do you have any future publication plans, anything we can look out for? 

I almost always have something I’m working on that I want out relatively soon—like the next book in the Lost Gods series or any one of my many standalones of various subgenres—but as of right now, the main and most set-in-stone project is Minthe, a dark retelling of the abduction of Persephone with a queer polyamorous twist.

Inspired by A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson and Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power 2021 album, Minthe features themes of pregnancy horror, intimate partner violence, and the futility of loving a someone who will never treat you as an equal or with any sort of positive affection. the script is done and a call for voice actors are out for the three main roles (the villainous Hades, Sapphic Persephone, and the title character, Minthe).

I’m currently preparing to launch the Kickstarter sometime in the summer of 2025, and, if it gets fully funded, the mini-series podcast will be a-go.

More information on the audition details, content notice, and more here: minthepodcast.carrd.co.

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#100HorrorMoviesIn92Days – Films 31-40

Here we go with the next 10 films! Films 31-40 of the 100 Horror Movies challenge. Some good ones in here – some not so good. It’s always a mixed bag as I usually go in stone cold to all of them (I often don’t even know which are low budget, micro budget, indie, etc. before watching). I found something to like about all the films I’ve seen so far.

When I get to 50 films, I think I will do a highlight of my favourites!

I got to add new countries to my Padlet map too! New-to-me countries are marked with a (even if I have seen films from there before, but this is the first horror).

31) The Surrender (2025) dir. Julia Max. Family grief horror. Coming to terms with parental death, and the lengths people will go to during the stages of grief, particularly the denial stage, and how they handle guilt and other complex feelings. Mother-daughter relationship as central, as they both navigate the death of the father, and the shift in their identities without him there. I enjoyed this one a lot.

32) Tyfelstei (2014) dir. Chris Bucher. Alpine Horror, very low budget. It’s a fun little story, nice concept, and for 20,000CHF (about £18.5K), executed pretty well. The scenery does a lot of the heavy lifting. I do enjoy this kind of indie film, and Alpine Horror is a subgenre I haven’t seen much of.

33) Sennentuntschi / Sennentuntschi: Curse of the Alps (2010) dir. Michael Steiner. I’ve added this to my ‘It’s a bit shit to be a woman : bleak folk horror edition” list. I liked this – it didn’t go where I was expecting, and the confusion of the out-of-order scenes helped to draw out the tension as I started working it out. Really bleak. If you need TWs, please expand the box below.

 

TW: rape, child abuse, toxic masculinity, misogyny, graphic violence (burns, stabbing, gore), and late-stage miscarriage

34) The 100 Candles Game (2020) dirs. Nicolás Onetti, Nicholas Peterson, Daniel Rübesam, Victor Català, Brian Deane, Oliver Lee Garland, Christopher West, Guillermo Lockhart. Fun anthology horror with a strong framed narrative. I enjoyed the segments and the overall story!

35) កំណើតអរូប / Ritual The Black Nun (2023) dir. Semsak Visal. No idea what the English title has to do with the film. There is no nun. I think it was trying for Western Catholic horror (or generic Western religious horror) but that didn’t work. I’ve dropped it into my Emigration Horror list as well. It had a decent idea behind it, and some fun moments. I liked it overall, and want to support Khmer films! Plus: this is the first one on my Padlet for Cambodia.

36) The Hunted (2024) dir. Louis Lagayette. Another one for the Emigration Horror list. European production (Belgium/France/Greece/UK). Why are white people. If you liked The Hunt (2020), this is similar, from a European/British angle, but much less comedy and more gritty drama. The main FMC is a former child soldier and mercenary from South Sudan, carrying trauma.

37) みなに幸あれ / Best Wishes To All (2023) dir. Yuta Shimotsu. Creepy family-focused J-Horror, with dark family secrets coming to light. This one is so grim. I really loved the whole concept. I especially like it when only the protagonist and the audience realise there is something very wrong with the whole situation.

38) You Won’t Be Alone (2022) dir. Goran Stolevski. Australian-Macedonian film from Universal Studios, in Macedonian, going straight on my “It’s a bit shit to be a woman : bleak folk horror edition” list. But it’s not all shit – this has a note of hope and resilience to it, and the hint of cycle-breaking. There’s a LOT going on in this one, and I really liked it.

39) Blacula (1972) dir. William Crain. This one was leaving UK Prime in 5.5 hrs when I found it so I had to watch it now or never! I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. I wasn’t expecting it to have an openly gay Black character in it either (I literally knew nothing about this film except it was a Blacksploitation 70s Dracula). I really enjoyed this.

40) In My Mother’s Skin (2023) dir. Kenneth Dagatan. Deeply dark Filipino fairy tale, in which a flesh-eating diwata tricks a desperate girl into destroying her family. It takes place in 1945, against the backdrop of Japanese and American invasion, and the end of WW2, with collaboration, corruption and betrayal in the adult world mirroring the betrayal of the fairy in the supernatural world, and the girl’s inability to tell who she can trust.

Countries A-Z Films 31-40

Argentina
Australia/USA
Belgium/France/Greece/UK
Cambodia
Japan
Philippines
Switzerland
USA

Author Spotlight: Ian Haramaki

Ian Haramaki (he/him) is an author of queer fiction and illustrator of twinks and creatures.

When not writing, he is peddling his wares at fan conventions across the country.

His debut novel is titled MERCY, and he has been included in Devout: An Anthology of Angels edited by Quinton Li, as well as A Queer and Cozy Winter by Rainbow Crate.

Author Links:

Website: cometkins.com

Mercy: books2read.com/MercyNovel

Bluesky: @cometkins.bsky.social
Instagram: @cometkins
TikTok: @cometkinsart
Tumblr: @cometkins

Get Mercy: books2read.com/MercyNovel

What drew you to writing queer, dark, romantasy for your debut, and can you share some of your writing influences?

I was drawn to this genre in specific because of the origin on these characters. They were originally player characters in a Magic the Gathering based Dungeons and Dragons game.

Ilya was part of the Orzhov guild, while Danya began life as an ex-Boros-turned-Izzet tinkerer. They were very different in that game, but the dark, gothic vibes of the Orzhov guild became the biggest influence for the book.

I’ve always enjoyed the dark and gothic anyway, but that was the main draw of inspiration. My biggest writing influences, on the other hand, are my friends. They’re all so incredible and skilled, and I keep pushing myself to match their caliber of work. I’ve found enjoying their stories and examining how they string words together has done wonders for me.

What are the main themes in Mercy and did these evolve organically through the writing process, or were they deliberate choices?

I think the biggest takeaway from Mercy that I hope other people have, is that there’s always hope for a better future. Sometimes it takes the right person or circumstances to force you forward, but there will be something good on the other side.

I never set out with particular themes in mind when I wrote Mercy, truly the only thought was spite initially, but as the world and characters evolved, I think this became evident. I try to not be too blatant with these things, since it can sometimes feel annoying when the message is too hand-hold-y personally, but I hope that much is clear.

What queer rep can be found in your work, and how do you approach the combination of queerness, Gothic lit, and religious themes?

Mercy specifically contains Gay and Bisexual rep, and my short story for Rainbow Crate, Sir Gawain and His Green Knights, contains a trans masculine character.

I think queerness and the gothic have always gone hand in hand, being that it often deals with the taboo.

While I don’t find queerness itself taboo (as I hope is evident), exploring the feelings that come with being considered taboo, something to be shoved down and aside, is important to me.

A conversation with Oyuna in the book is almost word for word one I had with my own grandmother when it came to her grappling with my transness.

The religious aspect of Mercy has also been fun to explore, speaking as somebody who is actually an atheist.

My own conclusions that I’ve come to over the years are that religion can be a powerful tool for good and evil both. I try to condemn only those that abuse their faith, not those that hold it at all. I also find that there’s divinity in queerness, in self discovery. Love is the most divine thing in the world, and being able to love when the world at large doesn’t want you to is the greatest expression of it.

What did you draw upon in terms of influences, research etc., for the worldbuilding and the angel’s character?

The aforementioned Magic the Gathering is still my greatest influence pull for sure; the biggest thing to know is that the city of Ravnica, where that original DnD campaign took place, is based primarily on eastern Europe.

I took my research to these locations and scoured articles for what I thought would best fit the story.

On top of that, I took acquired knowledge from documentaries and my own antiquing for the late 20s setting.

Danya can be quite anachronistic (on purpose, because I think it’s funny the divine being is so odd and modern), but I swear, everything else is period accurate! They had phones and showers and electric stoves in the 20s! Post industrial revolution tech moved shockingly quick, and I didn’t watch old men repairing radios on youtube for nothing, lol.

What romance tropes can readers expect to find in this book, and what are your favourite tropes to write/read?

The main tropes are probably hurt/comfort (love me some whump), forced proximity, “touch him and die”, and what I like to cheekily call “slow burn for impatient people”.

It’s not actually slow burn, but the way people yell at me about Ilya and Danya’s immediate chemistry, you’d think I’d been edging everybody for 300 pages before they kissed!

I’m personally fond of anything that involves protector/protected as well, and things like friends to lovers. I enjoy when people have a bond together before they get involved.

What are your favourite reader responses to the novel?

Any time somebody tells me they’ve cried because of the book, honestly. It’s always a shock!

One of the first influencers I sent the book to told me she cried twice! I’m a bit emotionally stunted, and it takes a lot to get strong emotion out of me like that, so it’s fascinating to hear.

It’s also really moving to have something you’ve written stir such a powerful response in somebody.

My writing may not be for everybody, but for those it appeals to, it REALLY appeals. It’s completely irreplaceable, and I hope every writer can find at least one reader who responds to their work so strongly.

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