Tag: emily carroll

New Horror 2023 – Day 10

“For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in that place.”

“The Stolen Body” by H.G. Wells (1903)

There’s this whole spiritualism angle in stories from this time. Those Victorians just had to know what kinds of spooky stuff was out there, probably in defiance of (or in concert with) scientific rationale that was overtaking society.

💀💀💀

“It weeps a foggy fluid when pressed, even gently.”

“A Pretty Place” by Emily Carroll (2023)

Describing a fluid as “foggy” just conjures up some gnarly imagery, and of course it helps that it’s part of a comic with lots of gnarly imagery. Truly, Emily Carroll can do no wrong.

💀💀💀

“You know I know, don’t you, Bonnie?”

The Godsend dir. Gabrielle Beaumont (1980)

What in the sam hill. I bet this was in the wake of the mid-70s “kids are monsters” craze.

💀💀💀

“Watching you… cradle under the star…”

Clock Tower dev. Human Entertainment (1995)

The tension here is singular. No weapons, no fighting back, simply running and hiding in an environment rife with decay. This is an absolute gem of the era and it’s good to see it’s getting remastered soon.

New Horror 2022 – Day 16

image

“The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado (2014)
“You shouldn’t touch it, I say. You can’t touch it.”

Not long ago, while waiting at a bus stop, I found Her Body and Other Stories sitting on a concrete retaining wall. The area was dirty and littered with an empty bag from a bagel shop, a discarded pizza box, dried old crusts. I assumed someone had stopped there to read and then ate and left their trash along with the book they’d just finished. Part of me thought I should take the book, save it from decay. I saw that it was labeled with a library sticker from over in the next county. When my bus arrived, I thought best to leave it there for someone else to save, but made a note to get an ebook copy for myself. The next time I was at that bus stop, the book was gone. All of which is to say, fuck. 

===

image

“Some Other Animal’s Meat” by Emily Carroll (2016)
“What if inside, it’s somehow the wrong stuff?”

Some inside part is always going to feel like it’s different from yours.

===

image

Deadstream dir. Vanessa Winter & Joseph Winter (2022)
“I don’t want to be remembered as a douchebag.”

Sort of fun? But knowing how shitty some cult-of-personality streamers can be makes it less amusing to me. Then I wonder how much of what I see in past movies is amusing to me as someone who didn’t live through those times but is not funny in the least to someone who was there for it. Ultimately, this is another kinda horror movie that’s not for me.