Katherine asked Jonathan L. Howard:

Do you have any non-lovecraft horror stories (literary, film, etc.) that you would recommend for getting into the halloween spirit?

Jonathan L. Howard Alas I've only got around to answering these last questions after the event. My apologies for the tardiness. For literary horror, I always support the classics. M.R.James, Arthur Machen, William Hope Hodgson, Edith Wharton, and E.F.Benson, even if the lattermost has this odd horror of good-looking middle-aged women. They are invariably evil in his stories. Given he also wrote the Mapp & Lucia novels, one can only assume his mother was startled by a good-looking middle-aged woman while he was in the womb.

For film, my goodness, that's a long list. Again, I tend to prefer older stuff. From ancient to modern, I'd suggest "The Bride of Frankenstein," "The Dead of Night," "Night of the Demon," "The Innocents," "The Haunting," my favourite four Hammers ("The Plague of the Zombies," "The Devil Rides Out," "Quatermass and the Pit," and "Captain Kronos -- Vampire Hunter), "The Company of Wolves," "Re-Animator" (Yes, that's Lovecraftian, but tremendous fun), Svankmajer's "Alice" (not actually a horror film per se, but nightmarish in places and a film I think anyone with a scrap of imagination should see) and then bang up to date with "Crimson Peak," which is the epitome of gothic. Loads and loads more than that, really, but that's enough to be getting on with.

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