Weekly Creepy News: Upcoming Foreign Horror, A Slender-Man Documentary & More!
This week's creepy post explores what's new in paranormal pop culture and more! Curated by hjalmartazar and yours truly!
BOOKS & COMICS
Author Victor LaValle discusses his most recent novel, The Changeling. Sci-fi author and translator Ken Liu has curated a new collection of Chinese science-fiction to be published with Tor Books next year. Lastly, 5 of the 25 best zombie books you should read!
. @victorlavalle wants readers of his horror-fairytale ‘The Changeling’ to turn a corner and not know what world they’re entering. (via @emmajfrancois ) https://t.co/wZrpnUsNE2 pic.twitter.com/hykAexbK78
- The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 12, 2018
* Victor LaValle discusses his New York-based horror fairytale, The Changeling, about a book collector who is father to a newborn.
* LaValley says that "fairytale and horror are the two genres best suited for wrestling with contemporary issues"; The Changeling deals with issues of "parenthood, postpartum depression, race and privacy."
* On those two genres, he says that they're "usually about something people are trying to face in the present, but it’s filtered through the fantastical so we might understand how to defeat the problem."
* He also discusses how being a New Dad influenced his writing.
"The most important criterion I used was simply this: I enjoyed the story and thought it memorable." @kyliu99 on BROKEN STARS, his latest anthology of Chinese SF in translation: https://t.co/jJtZgtENpB
- Tor.com (@tordotcom) July 10, 2018
* In 2016, author and translator Ken Liu edited the collection Invisible Planets, which featured thirteen short stories from Chinese science fiction authors.
* Liu says that ever since, there has been an increase of people asking to read more Chinese science fiction.
* The latest anthology Liu has curated is Broken Stars, featuring sixteen stories from fourteen authors, and "and almost every story was first published in Chinese in the 2010s."
* Authors include Xia Jia, Zhang Ran, Tang Fei, Han Song, Cheng Jingbo, Baoshu, Hao Jingfang, Fei Dao, Liu Cixin, Anna Wu, Ma Boyong, Gu Shi, Regina Kanyu Wang, and Chen Qiufan.
* He says Broken Stars isn't an attempt at curating "the best of" Chinese science fiction; rather, the most important criterion for deciding which stories to include was that he "enjoyed the story and thought it memorable".
* Broken Stars will be published February 2019 with Tor Books.
25 (5) of the best zombie books
Do you have a favorite zombie book? Here are 25 of the best: https://t.co/0h1rTSxGR8 pic.twitter.com/CDgPmHw9Dd
- Book Riot (@BookRiot) July 11, 2018
1. Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Something very peculiar is happening in Stockholm. There's a heatwave on and people cannot turn their lights out or switch their appliances off. Then the terrible news breaks. In the city morgue, the dead are waking up...
Goodreads link
2. Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2) by Zoraida Córdova
[A] a bus crash turns Lula's world upside down. Her classmates are all dead, including Maks. But Lula was born to heal, to fix. She can bring Maks back, even if it means seeking help from her sisters and defying Death herself. But magic that defies the laws of the deos is dangerous. Unpredictable. And when the dust settles, Maks isn't the only one who's been brought back..
Goodreads link
3. Devil's Wake (Devil's Wake #1) by Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
Trapped in the northwestern United States as winter begins to fall, Terry and Kendra have only one choice: they and their friends must cross a thousand miles of no-man’s-land in a rickety school bus, battling ravenous hordes, human raiders, and their own fears. In the midst of apocalypse, they find something no one could have anticipated . . . love.
Goodreads link
4. Warmth by Sumiko Saulson
"I hate the dead. They have no self-control" - Sera. She is ghula - one of the extremely long-lived though not immortal flesh eaters whose lives can end in only one way - in resurrection as a hungry, ambulatory corpse who will spend the short days of its unlife rotting, eating, and infecting as many as possible.
Goodreads link
5. Plague of the Dead (Morningstar Strain #1) by Z.A. Recht
When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic. In one fell swoop, the necessities of life become much more basic. Gone are petty everyday concerns. Gone are the amenities of civilized life. Yet a single law of nature remains: Live, or die. Kill, or be killed.
Goodreads link
SERIES & SHORTS
The trailer for the diverse sci-fi series Star Thieves is now available to watch online.
(NEW!) The fate of the world rests in the hands of mysterious aliens in the intriguing web series pilot 'STAR THIEVES' ( @star_thieves) https://t.co/tMn3PIYRdj #sciencefiction #inclusivesff pic.twitter.com/HVyfP08qIY
- The 7th Matrix (@The7thMatrix) July 9, 2018
* Actor Dennis Hill co-created and stars in the new pilot for the online science-fiction series, Star Thieves.
* The pilot was able to get made thanks to a successful Kickstarter.
* Hill plays a young Catholic priest named Isaiah, who is revealed to be an alien being named Kai, as part of a group of aliens who have been living on and judging Earth for the past millennium. "Needing the energy of stars to fuel their power and near-immortal lives, should [the aliens] deem humanity unworthy, the sun - and consequently all life on earth - is doomed."
* Star Thieves is praised for its inclusive representation, both on and off camera. Danette Wilson, JuneSoo Ham, Aris Juson, Danielle Henderson, Roshan Maloney, and Steve Maurice all star.
* Watch the pilot for Star Thieves at the official website, http://www.starthievesseries.com/.
. @History Declassifies First Look at Alien In "Project Blue Book" Series! https://t.co/uRHMMSXe0X
- Bloody Disgusting (@BDisgusting) July 15, 2018
* "Blue Book" is going to be a scripted UFO drama on History Channel starring "Game of Thrones" actor Aiden Gillen.
* The series chronicles the real-life top secret US Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena during the '50s and '60s, known as "Project Blue Book".
* Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, and Jackie Levine are executive producers.
FILM
News on upcoming “feminist” horror film, Run Sweetheart Run. Atlanta director Hiro Murai is in talks to direct the upcoming alien thriller Man Alive. Tik Tik Tik is the latest in Indian science fiction films, and we have an article to share which provides an overview of the “small but significant canon” of Indian sci-fi cinema. For horror fans, Netflix released the trailer for the upcoming Indian horror series Ghoul. In other foreign horror news we have the upcoming South African film The Tokoloshe and the Portuguese horror The Forest of Lost Souls. Finally, a unique archival documentary film about the Slenderman, A Self-Induced Hallucination, is available to watch online.
“Atlanta” Director Hiro Murai in Talks for Fox’s Sci-Fi Feature “Man Alive” https://t.co/G6jtPxtuvt pic.twitter.com/Qel8e7WYEk
- Dark Matters (@DarkMattersProj) July 9, 2018
* Hiro Murai has directed episodes of Atlanta, Barry, and FX's Legion; he also directed the music video for Childish Gambino's “This Is America”
* According to Deadline, Murai may be directing his first feature film with Fox's Man Alive.
* Man Alive, a sci-fi thriller, “covers the events following the invasion of earth by an alien species, when a man faced with isolation and loneliness in order to survive realizes he might not be alone after all.”
* David Robert Mitchell, who directed It Follows, rewrote the spec script for the film.
Shana Feste Sprints To Blumhouse & Automatik Feminist Horror Thriller ‘Run Sweetheart Run’ https://t.co/5ZWAKWnf6z pic.twitter.com/z0hRNuXwhI
- Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) June 29, 2018
* Filmmaker Shana Feste's latest film, Boundaries, recently premiered last March at SXSW.
* Feste's new project will be directing the feminist horror thriller, Run Sweetheart Run, from a script that she wrote.
* "In Run Sweetheart Run, a blind date turns violent and the woman has to get home on foot through Los Angeles as she’s pursued by her date."
* No casting news yet.
For the creepypasta fans: A new Slenderman documentary is now online!
A new Slender Man documentary - that you can watch for free right now - gets to the heart of the internet’s boogeyman https://t.co/Gda6E2ydpZ pic.twitter.com/NdY85ozodh
- Polygon (@Polygon) June 28, 2018
* A Self-Induced Hallucination is a documentary film by Dan Schoenbrun, made up of entirely of YouTube footage that was uploaded between 2009 - 2018. The film dissects the Slenderman mythos, and also “confronts” the infamous stabbing in which two 12 year old girls stabbed their friend to prove their loyalty to the Slender Man, who they were convinced was real.
* From the article: “Using clips culled from the depths of YouTube, Hallucination dissects a collective consciousness born from primitive internet use that warped - with the help of a modern horror icon - into something akin to religion.”
* A Self-Induced Hallucination is available on Vimeo; linked at the source.
* Schoenbrun also wrote a director’s statement for Filmmaker magazine about why he made the documentary
* From his statement: ”My Slenderman fixation only heightened after the 2016 election. ‘Donald Trump is a Tulpa,’ one blog surmised, referencing a popular theory that explains the Slenderman’s origin in Buddhist terms. ‘He exists because you thought of him. Now try and not think of him,’ one user wrote in the message board thread that originally birthed the Slenderman character.”
* Schoenbrun’s director’s statement is a good read; if you’re at all into documentary filmmaking, the Slenderman attempted murder, and/or creepypasta, check it out.
Science fiction in Indian cinema, while not as popular as rom-coms or musicals, has had a presence. #TikTikTikhttps://t.co/cbcYjYQJZz
- The Hindu (@the_hindu) July 10, 2018
* Tik Tik Tik is a newly released, Tamil-language popular science fiction film which is being called India’s first space film.
* Tik Tik Tik stars Jayam Ravi, Aaron Aziz, and Nivetha Pethuraj and is achieving box office success.
* The article gives an overview of Indian science fiction films, such as Time Machine, PK, and Koi... Mil Gaya, the latter which spawned two sequels.
* The author writes that, “Popular Indian cinema is all about escapism, so bleak dystopian futures have no place.” However, there is the film Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women, which “looked at a grim future as a result of female foeticide and infanticide.”
* There are some rom-coms set in space; the author highlights Baar Baar Dekho, which "stars Sidharth Malhotra as a maths professor who realises the value of relationships only by travelling through time."
* Upcoming science fiction films include Mangal Ho, Saaho, and Kee.
The darker the past. The darker the future. Ghoul premieres 24 August 2018. pic.twitter.com/em81Sycb4q
- Netflix India (@NetflixIndia) July 10, 2018
Netflix has released the trailer for its first Indian horror series, Ghoul, produced in part by Blumhouse and starring Radhika Apte.
Our first teaser is here. #HorrorFilms #Bifan #DIFF #DIFF2018 #NFVFSA #FrightFest @FrightFest @EvoFilmsUK @rossboyask @CatharinaWeinek @ pic.twitter.com/5XlKljQuk8
- The Tokoloshe Film (@TokolosheFilm) July 7, 2018
Opening night film at the The Durban International Film Festival, and released November/Halloween in SA and the UK. In the interim it will have its world premiere at the BIFAN South Korean horror film festival (tomorrow!) and also at other premiere horror festivals. https://t.co/z4WDpmoNdu
- Lebohang Mthunzi (@leigh_shadow) July 12, 2018
Actress Lebohang Mthunzi and star of the South African horror film The Tokoloshe shared the news that the film will be premiering around the world at various horror festivals, including August’s Fright Fest in London. The tokoloshe is an evil spirit in Zulu mythology.
Watch the teaser trailer here!
‘The Witch Who Came from the Sea’: GLOW’s Sam Sylvia is Based on a Real Director Who Made a Real Horror Movie https://t.co/n1F0wQ35bF
- Bloody Disgusting (@BDisgusting) July 11, 2018
The character Sam Sylvia in the Netflix series "GLOW" is loosely inspired by Italian-American filmmaker, Matt Cimber, who directed a horror movie in 1976 called The Witch Who Came From The Sea.
* The film was one of 72 genre-films that the UK's Department of Public Prosecutions dubbed a "Video Nasty".
* The poster art for the movie is highly deceptive, as there are no actual witches or scythes in the film. It's also hardly a gory flick so much as it is a psychological thriller.
* Read more about the movie here!
Excellent news: THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS, one of my personal favorite films we screened at @BrooklynHorror 2017, is getting a release in August. Can’t recommend this one enough. https://t.co/17yST4rdKw
- Matt Barone (@MBarone) June 22, 2018
* Independent distributor Wild Eye Releasing will be releasing The Forest of Lost Souls in the company's first theatrical release.
* The Forest of Lost Souls is written and directed by directed by José Pedro Lopes; the film "follows complete strangers Ricardo and Carolina, who meet seemingly by chance in the 'Forest of the Lost Souls', a place where many people go to commit suicide.
* The cast includes Daniela Love, Jorge Mota, Mafalda Banquart, Ligia Roque and Lilia Lopes.
* The Forest of Lost Souls will be released on August 3.
* Teaser trailer at the source!
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