Danse Macabre: The 2025 Halloween Horror Thread

[lovecraft68]

Marve's very good and rarely discussed horror mag Tales of the Zombie

 

[lovecraft68]

Witchcraft #1 1952 Pre-Code Horror Classic.

 

[lovecraft68]

Before he created Spider-Man Steve Ditko made a name for himself in the horror genre, debuting on "The Thing" #12 1954

 

[Erozetta]

Today is Clive Barker's birthday

On a side note. I read an article a while back on the Horror Syndicate (Which might be defunct now? I'm not sure but the site doesn't seem to be working.) that went into the idea of Julia Cotton being the actual villain of the movie, and I absolutely agreed. In my humble opinion, she is one of the best horror movie villains, too.

 

[lovecraft68]

Today is Clive Barker's birthday

On a side note. I read an article a while back on the Horror Syndicate (Which might be defunct now? I'm not sure but the site doesn't seem to be working.) that went into the idea of Julia Cotton being the actual villain of the movie, and I absolutely agreed. In my humble opinion, she is one of the best horror movie villains, too.

She was killing people for Frank and the one that came back in part 2, so I think she was meant to be seen in that light even though Frank started it all and was pushing her to kill.

The first two were great, anything after that is ass

Always pisses me off Nightbreed was wide the fuck open for a sequel and nothing, but decades of awful Hellraiser sequels.

 

[Erozetta]

She was killing people for Frank and the one that came back in part 2, so I think she was meant to be seen in that light even though Frank started it all and was pushing her to kill.

The first two were great, anything after that is ass

Always pisses me off Nightbreed was wide the fuck open for a sequel and nothing, but decades of awful Hellraiser sequels.

Agreed, but a lot of people saw her as sympathetic and being manipulated by Frank. She was ultimately the driving force behind it all and went fully into selfish mode once she realized Frank was back. Most horror fans agree that she was a major villain in the story, but people outside of the horror realm often see her as a victim to some degree.

And agree on the first two. But three holds a special place for me because it's the movie I fought to get to watch using logic and my mother had to admit she had no legitimate reason to not let me watch the movie. So, the movie is ass, but I fucking love it because of a petty childhood triumph, lol.

I would love to see more Barker stories told. He had a real gift and was a huge influence on the horror side of my writing. And the erotica side, come to think of it.

 

[lovecraft68]

Agreed, but a lot of people saw her as sympathetic and being manipulated by Frank. She was ultimately the driving force behind it all and went fully into selfish mode once she realized Frank was back. Most horror fans agree that she was a major villain in the story, but people outside of the horror realm often see her as a victim to some degree.

And agree on the first two. But three holds a special place for me because it's the movie I fought to get to watch using logic and my mother had to admit she had no legitimate reason to not let me watch the movie. So, the movie is ass, but I fucking love it because of a petty childhood triumph, lol.

I would love to see more Barker stories told. He had a real gift and was a huge influence on the horror side of my writing. And the erotica side, come to think of it.

I'd like to see more adaptations as well. Lord of Illusions is insanely under rated.

Would like to see McCammon get any of his books into a movie

Instead we get every freaking dribble that ever drooled onto King's keyboard.

 

[Erozetta]

I'd like to see more adaptations as well. Lord of Illusions is insanely under rated.

Would like to see McCammon get any of his books into a movie

Instead we get every freaking dribble that ever drooled onto King's keyboard.

Yeah. I like a lot of King's stories, but some were just complete ass that didn't need a big or small screen adaptation, lol.

There are so many novelists out there to choose from within the horror genre.

But as for Barker, the entire Harry D'Amour series would be amazing to see adapted into a long-form mini-series. Lord of Illusions was an exceptional adaptation, but that character had so much more to him than was portrayed there. (And I'm due for a rewatch on Lord of Illusions. I just need to find my fucking movies...)

 

[lovecraft68]

Yeah. I like a lot of King's stories, but some were just complete ass that didn't need a big or small screen adaptation, lol.

There are so many novelists out there to choose from within the horror genre.

But as for Barker, the entire Harry D'Amour series would be amazing to see adapted into a long-form mini-series. Lord of Illusions was an exceptional adaptation, but that character had so much more to him than was portrayed there. (And I'm due for a rewatch on Lord of Illusions. I just need to find my fucking movies...)

I always wonder is D-Amour and Moore's Constantine were some type of influences on each other, lot of similarities

 

[Erozetta]

I always wonder is D-Amour and Moore's Constantine were some type of influences on each other, lot of similarities

I could see that for sure.

 

[lovecraft68]

Black Sabbath debuts with their self titled album in 1970. Most people consider this the first heavy metal album. But for the thread, the tone, 'doom' style sound and lyrics gave it a solid horror vibe.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not as shocking these days, but in 1987 Hellraiser was a series "WTF did I watch" effort

 

[lovecraft68]

1922 is a ghost story but slow building and more a story of the karma that comes with murder. Depressing as fuck, but very good. Thomas Jane is great in this

 

[MelissaBaby]

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

1922 is a ghost story ...

But not 'Ghost Story' with Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman.

Overly graphic visuals are not required to set a 'spooky' atmosphere and spooky flicks don't need to promote random, gratuitous mass murder.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm not sure if I'll include my new Rube Goldberg story in the Halloween Contest here or not.

I've taken a break from editing my publisher’s 84,000-word story (latest count) to edit a 25,000- to 27,000-word novella of my own. The tale consists of 6 or 7 chapters, depending on how I break them, as it was originally chapter-less when I finished it.

It's sci-fi for a Rube Goldberg Contraption contest and is for another site's Halloween Contest. The rules state that it must feature either an overly complicated series of steps or an actual Contraption that is excessively complicated for its intended purpose.

So, this features an unnecessarily complicated invasion by Aliens, using an overly and unnecessarily complicated mechanism to capture and impregnate women to facilitate their slow invasion. Therefore, it hits both of the either-ors.

Just for fun, I've been running my work (pre-edit) through ChaptGPT to assign it a percentage of how much AI it thinks is in the story. While also running it through an actual AI checker. The checker, designed to distinguish between human writing and AI, scores my work between 99% to 100% human writing.

However, the most interesting take is ChatGPT's. It says, "Estimate: 75–85% likelihood of AI assistance (point estimate ≈ 80%, confidence: medium)."

Why? Grammar, pace, and adherence to both point of view and tense are too well written to be produced by a human. Its suggestion was to insert intentional mistakes.

Who’d of thunk of such a thing?

 

[lovecraft68]

But not 'Ghost Story' with Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman.

Overly graphic visuals are not required to set a 'spooky' atmosphere and spooky flicks don't need to promote random, gratuitous mass murder.

The Ghost story movie was good, novel better, but that's usually the case.

I was a real gorehound in the 80's big on Giallo and splatter but as I got older I got tired of shock value torture and blood for the sake of it.

Haunting of Hillhouse on Netflix a few years back was one of the best things I've seen in a long time.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Hitchcock and Serling made a pretty good go of spooking folks with little if any blood.

There are only a few TZ episodes that used weapons in any violence, but most of them scared plenty of folks in one way or another.

 

[lovecraft68]

You know a movie is iconic when they do an extended version of the making of documentary.

The Fear of God, the making of the Exorcist, the greatest horror movie of all time.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

'Greatest' is a weird word.


The Blair Spew Effect definitely doesn't even come close on any of my lists.

 

[lovecraft68]

'Greatest' is a weird word.


The Blair Spew Effect definitely doesn't even come close on any of my lists.

Greatest, best, #1 pick your word of choice.

The thing is the movie is more than pea soup and head spinning, it's the story that drives it, but it involves thinking which is beyond a modern audience that needs it all spelled out for them.

This movie created actual hysteria, and that will never happen again.

Let's see your list.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Consider if you will, 'The Passersby' (Twilight Zone, 1961)

A seemingly endless parade of battered and tattered Civil War dead meandering down a road, from where? ... to where?

Observed by a Confederate Sergeant and a Southern Belle later joined by a Union Lieutenant and later a President, only one of the four who is alive.

 

[Duleigh]

THE HORROR!



Lit author reading the comments on his latest LW story.