Spring 2024
Notes from Camp Uncanny, or Maybe Weird Movies Made Me Queer
by Isaac Essex
About the weird films that make them feel weird, Isaac Essex writes, “I do not feel the need to discipline myself into categorizing my feelings into legible terms and this, to me, is a queer feeling.” Today we are proud to present “Notes from Camp Uncanny.”
Published March 13, 2024
What Is Horror Poetics? Part IV: Metaphor & the Monster by J †Johnson
Today we launch Cycle IV with a little sympathy for the monster in the next installment of J †Johnson’s “What Is Horror Poetics?”
Published February 28, 2024
Fall 2023
The Horror Device: Artifact & Artifice
by J †Johnson
SUV, scimitar, cell phone: J †Johnson tracks the horror device in Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Published December 4, 2023
A Hell of Our Own: Day of the Dead (1985) by J †Johnson
We go to hell with George A. Romero & an army of the undead as J †Johnson explores the many chambers of the underworld in Day of the Dead.
Published November 6, 2023
On Dorothea Lasky’s The Shining
by Heather Bowlan
Each makes their own way through the architectonic maze. In the numb quiet of the aftermath, Heather Bowlan revisits the Overlook Hotel in its latest form, Dorothea Lasky’s house of poems, The Shining.
Published October 30, 2023
The Art of Terror
by Paul Dellevigne
Art the Clown plays up monstrosity for the audience, and Paul Dellevigne wonders how we came to root for the slasher in “The Art of Terror.”
Published October 23, 2023
What Is Horror Poetics? Part III: It Has to Hurt by J †Johnson
Look who’s back! CDSOB returns with What Is Horror Poetics III: It Has to Hurt. Embrace your inner monster and join us, won’t you? Here, have a balloon!
Published September 25, 2023
Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
When the Saw is a Family: A Texan Perspective on Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 by Steve Roberts
Texan bbq feels like home, even when the Sawyer family makes it their way (with extra extras). Steve Roberts writes about his favorite comfort sequel, both touching cannibal family drama & John Hughes teen romance parody.
Published April 19, 2023
What Is Horror Poetics? Part II: Further Out, Further In
by J †Johnson
“Our monsters represent our fears. We call them from the deep, from the woods, from our psyches. All those dark places where fear hides out…”
Published February 6, 2023
from The Passage / The Things
by J †Johnson
“From the killer’s perspective, the door closes on the world. As he picks up the phone, fingers shaky over the dial, he can hardly wait for an answer.”
Published December 14, 2022
The Monster in the Closet
by J †Johnson
”The ultimate queer horror move is to be the monster even though the movie wants you dead, if it can’t make you disappear. Not because you want to die, but because the monster can’t be killed, and wasn’t made to disappear. “
Published November 23, 2022
Salem in October
by Matt Dineen
“October in Salem was merely an idea until this past week. It is now day after surreal day of spooky tourism; an autumnal Disneyland for goths of all ages.”
Published October 24, 2022
What Is Horror Poetics?
by J †Johnson
“Poetics in its contemporary usage describes not only prosody and elements of technical craft, but practical, embodied matters of writing. We write with our bodies and live with our writing…”
Published September 12, 2022