Category: Spooky Month

Black Horror on My October TBR

Black Horror on My October TBR
Posted October 5, 2024
Books, Spooky Month, TBR Lists

Hi friends 👋🏻 Happy Black History Month and happy October! This year, I wanted to do something different for Spooky Month, by tying it into Black History Month, so my TBR for this year is only Black authors and my watchlist will be as many movies by Black directors that I haven’t seen before. This is something that I decided I would do earlier in the year, and now that it’s here, I’m excited to be exploring Black Horror more than I have before. Just a little disclaimer for anyone who’s confused about why I’m talking about Black History Month: Black History Month takes place in October in the UK, not February. It’s celebrated in February in the USA because it coincides with the births of two figures who are important in Black American history: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In the UK, we chose October because that is traditionally when African chiefs and leaders would gather to settle their differences. It also started in 1987, which was the 150th anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the Caribbean. the reformatory by tananarive due This one is my current read! Tananarive Due is an author that I’ve known about for years thanks […]

READ MORE

Asian Horror on My TBR and Watchlist

Asian Horror on My TBR and Watchlist
Posted October 7, 2023
Books, Movies, Spooky Month, TBR Lists, Watchlists

Hi ghouls, long time so see! 👋🏻 I am always looking for ways to diversify my reading and watching habits, especially when it comes to horror. Different cultures have different things that they find scary and it’s always fascinating to learn about past and present social issues that influence stories as well as folklore and mythology. Originally, this post was just about Japanese horror but I decided to branch out and look for horror from all over Asia and from Asian diaspora people all over the world. Asia’s a big place with a huge amount of different cultures so it’s not fair to narrow what I’m looking for down to just one single country. An unfortunate thing I ran into when compiling this list was a big lack of South Asian horror and almost next to nothing from West Asia or the Middle East. A lot of people still forget that Asia is not just China, Korea and Japan so a lot of what I found is from East and Southeast Asia. (i did a class on orientalism in literature when i was in university and one classmate complained the whole time that we didn’t look at any chinese literature, […]

READ MORE

Things in Horror that I Don’t Want to See (and things that i’m glad are gone)

Things in Horror that I Don’t Want to See (and things that i’m glad are gone)
Posted October 27, 2022
Books, Discussions, Movies, Ramblings, Spooky Month

Hi friends! 👋🏻 Horror may be a wonderful genre that tells all sorts of different stories from different parts of the world, but it is not perfect or without its faults. We all have things that we don’t want to see in our favourite genres whether that’s tropes, cliches, character archetypes, or even technical things that don’t have much to do with storytelling. Sometimes we even look back on stories from our favourite genres and see how far they’ve come and we’re glad that some tropes have died out over time. These are some of the things that I’m tired of seeing in horror and some that I’m glad to have been phased out! As always, it’s important to remember that a trope is not an inherently bad thing, it’s just a storytelling tool. What I list here may be something that another person likes, so this is all completely subjective. disability = bad guy My usage of ‘disability’ here is very broad because so many different disabilities have been used as ways of ‘identifying’ the villain to audiences. It could be things like scars, congenital abnormalities, learning disabilities, mental illnesses, and so on. Sometimes it feels like horror writers […]

READ MORE

The Vampire is a Metaphor

The Vampire is a Metaphor
Posted October 20, 2022
Discussions, Ramblings, Spooky Month

Hi friends! 👋🏻 Vampires have been officially declared to be ‘back’ (as if they ever went away) and with that comes a lot of discussions and conversations about what vampires and horror as a genre ‘inherently’ is. I am not a fan of things being labelled as ‘inherently’ something or another, especially when it’s something as far-reaching, flexible, and historical as the horror genre and monsters. These things have been around for a very long time and have been interpreted in so many different ways that it’s difficult to count all of them. If you didn’t know (but you likely do), I have both a BA and an MA in English Literature and my biggest focus was on Gothic fiction and vampire literature. I have done a lot of research in my studies and I write my own vampire stories so I feel like I’m qualified enough to talk about this. I say as I unofficially and undemocratically declare myself the Vampire Queen of book bloggers… If you’re curious to do some digging yourself, here are some resources that helped me a lot in my dissertations many moons ago: Our Vampires, Ourselves by Nina Auerbach (1995) Children of the Night: Vampirism as Homosexuality, […]

READ MORE

Black Horror on my TBR and Watchlist

Black Horror on my TBR and Watchlist
Posted October 11, 2022
Books, Movies, Spooky Month, TBR Lists, Watchlists

Hi friends! 👋🏻 October is Black History Month in the UK (BHM and LGBT+ History Month are the other way around in the US) and today I wanted to highlight some books by Black authors and movies that are either directed by Black directors or have a predominantly Black cast. Unfortunately, a lot of the movies I found on my watchlist were made by white directors and I was hesitant to list them so I managed to narrow them down to 99% Black made. Also, it’s weird that I should feel the need to clarify this, but when I say ‘Black’ creators I mean people who are of African or Caribbean descent or are from Africa or the Caribbean. There are still a lot of people in the UK who use the term ‘Black’ as an umbrella term for anyone who isn’t white and UK Black History Month has been pushing back against that because British Asian people were being used in promotional materials. books House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson I’ve heard a lot of good things about Alexis Henderson but I haven’t read The Year of the Witching since witch books aren’t really my thing. This one is about vampires […]

READ MORE