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80smovies · 1 year

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#It Takes Two 1988 #George Newbern #Leslie Hope #Kimberly Foster #David Beaird #Richard Christian Matheson #Tom Szollosi #It Takes Two #CBS FOX #80s

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trashmenace · 4 months

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Death ed Stuart David Schiff

Death ed Stuart David Schiff 1982, Playboy Paperbacks

Two Bottles of Relish by Lord Dunsany (orig Time & Tide, Nov 12, 1932)

A variation on a locked door mystery - a body disposal without leaving the house mystery. This one stayed with me since childhood, though the premise wasn't as locked in as it could be.

Deathtracks by Dennis Etchison

A Nielson family survey taker visits a couple who look for hidden messages in TV laugh tracks to explain why their son died in Vietnam.

Always Together by Hugh B. Cave

One elderly twin murders the other and keeps up a ruse that she's still alive. A good setup for a twist in the tale which never happens.

Toilet Paper Run by Juleen Brantingham

Engaging story set in a girls' reform school, but the ending felt tacked on to fit the genre.

The Green Parrot by Joseph Payne Brennan (orig Weird Tales, July 1952)

Another boring entry in the "that person you thought was alive turns out was already dead" style of ghost story.

Fragment from a Charred Diary by Davis Grubb

Comedy piece about a man using a voodoo doll to commit the political assassinations of the 1960s, escalating from there.

The Scarf by Bernice Balfour

A disfigured woman concealing her face with a scarf and a curious newspaper delivery boy.

Sentences by Richard Christian Matheson

Comedy twist in the tale about a man getting his life rewritten.

Prickly by David A. Riley

A child corrupting Satanist with a monkey familiar kills himself in a British tenement building. Years later, strange creatures scuttle the halls, and children sing nursery rhymes about Prickly.

The Kennel by Maurice Level (orig Tales of Mystery and Horror, 1920)

A cuckold husband finds the body of his wife's lover and disposes of it.

Onawa by Alan Ryan

An adoptive native girl with a taste for blood

A Telephone Booth by Wade Kenny

A gambler can get tips from the future from a pay phone.

Straw Goat by Ken Wiseman

Folk horror with murderous farmers and a sacrificial straw goat.

Horrible Imaginings by Fritz Leiber

Long piece about a creep being obsessed with his neighbor, which I skipped.

The Blind Spot by Saki (orig Beasts and Super-Beasts, 1914)

Comedy piece about a killer servant.

The Dust by Al Sarrantonio

A simpleton shut-in is obsessed with dust.

It Grows on You by Stephen King

A vignette of small town misery which feels more like background to a fuller story. It's been re-written a few times, and later versions may be more tied in to the Castle Rock mythos and be more explicitly horrific. Something about a house getting a new wing built connected with people dying, but not much meat on the bones here.

The Copper Bowl by George Fielding Eliot (orig Weird Tales, December 1928)

Nasty proto-shudder pulp yellow peril story of a French Legionnaire's love being tortured by a Chinese despot.

From Amazon https://amzn.to/3vkEvlR

#book review #horror #paperbacks from hell

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lizardsfromspace · 11 months

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A while back I read a book by Richard Christian Matheson called Scars (and forgot I hadn't posted about it already). If you're wondering if I mean Richard Matheson, original Twilight Zone writer & pioneer in horror and sci-fi, no, this is his son, who was a popular horror writer in the 80s, though Richard Senior co-writes one story. He also wrote for TV, and if you look him up now you'll find credits on Masters of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, but back then it was all network action shows like The A-Team

His style is VERY to-the-point and spare (as far as I can tell his succinctness - most stories are just a couple pages - was why he stood out in the bloated world of late 80s horror). So to-the-point that at least one of his stories consists of one word sentences

You'd assume from that and the title SCARS (the hardcover edition has a blown up, black and white photo of, well, scars on the front, and similar interior photos) that he would be the most splattery of splatterpunks. In some stories, you'd be right; like the one above, or a vignette about a father picking up chunks of his daughter's body off the road after an accident.

But the weird part is, a lot of the stories are basically 50s/60s style sci-fi with twist endings, like something from a middling Twilight Zone episode? Here's an example: one story is about a society where robots rule over man. But the story can't explore what that means at all since it's just a twist, the story spends all its time obfuscating what's going on and then drops "and the robots...were humans!" and. It's over. The obfuscation doesn't work either, since the time where you could tell a story where you conspicuously don't describe the characters and not have everyone guess "oh, they're the robots" was over by then, and reading it now...that was the twist of every fourth Goosebumps book. I saw a review that said that the stories all feel like they end when the story's beginning, since they're all about the twist alone.

Also the longest story in the book is wall-to-wall showbiz speak

There's like seven pages of this, and if I recall right the twist is some zombies show up in the final few paragraphs?

#books #horror #long post

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thedepartmentofdiscoveries · 1 year

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Jiang-Shi from the 1985 Hong Kong Action Comedy "Mr. Vampire" directed by Ricky Lau.

"If you meet a vampire, don't breathe." This is the sage advice that Master Kau, the Taoist priest played by Lam Ching-ying, gives to his bumbling apprentices, Man-choi (Ricky Hui) and Chau-sang (Chin Siu-ho), in the 1985 Hong Kong action comedy "Mr. Vampire."

Forget everything you know about bloodsuckers; the undead specimens in "Mr. Vampire" are breath-suckers. They have a very deliberate way of hopping with their arms stretched out in front of them, legs also stiff and straight from rigor mortis. In Chinese, these zombie-like revenants are known as the jiangshi; in Japanese, it's kyonshi, while in English, they're sometimes referred to as "Chinese hopping vampires."

Stirred up by the disinterment of a parent who was buried with bad feng shui, the jiangshi of "Mr. Vampire" are a comedic answer to the unsettled ghosts of subsequent Asian horror films like "Ringu" and "The Eye." They're the reanimated corpses of people who died "with grievances or stress," suffocating to death yet holding one last breath in their throat, which enables them to come back and prolong their existence by sinking their sharp blue nails into humans and sucking the breath out of them.

At a certain point, the tropes of Western vampire films lose their power and become cliches we've all seen done to death on celluloid. If you enjoyed the Asian zom-com flavor of "One Cut of the Dead" and are looking for something a little more off the beaten film path, "Mr. Vampire" draws from Chinese folklore to offer a fresh, hilarious take on vampires, one that jumpstarted a whole franchise and jiangshi genre, complete with four sequels and an 8-bit Nintendo video game ("Reigen Doushi," which became "Phantom Fighter" in the U.S.)

Directed by Ricky Lau, "Mr. Vampire" found a way to uproot the undead from European folklore and Eurocentric cinema and make them work within the context of Eastern religions and Asian cultures. How do you make bloodsuckers scary and/or funny for audiences with a background in reincarnation traditions, ancestor worship, and hungry ghosts? For a Buddhist or Taoist, death and rebirth (or "undeath") would be part of a natural cycle, and for a Shintoist, a vampire might elicit sympathy as a tragic figure, trapped between worlds like the spirit of a family member who couldn't find their way back down the lantern river to heaven.

This goes back to Richard Matheson's idea of vampires not fearing crosses if they weren't Christian in life. Drawing from legends known and recognized by other names across East Asia, "Mr. Vampire" and its jiangshi enjoyed further regional popularity outside Hong Kong. Taiwan quickly followed suit with its own kid-friendly hopping vampire film "Hello Dracula," and Japan embraced both movies, making "Mr. Vampire" board games and televising "Hello Dracula" as a popular miniseries, "Yugen Doshi Kyonshizu."

In his essay, "Enter the Dracula: The Silent Screams and Cultural Crossroads of Japanese and Hong Kong Cinema" (collected in the book "Dracula, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms," edited by Caroline Joan Picart and John Edgar Browning), Wayne Stein wrote of how kids in Asia "found themselves with a new likeness to imitate by copying the hopping movements of these zany vampires," the jiangshi. I can confirm that my own spouse and her classmates were among those kids. To them, the hopping vampires of the 1980s were as much fun to emulate as the dancing zombies of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video.

To appreciate the full significance of "Mr. Vampire" and its unprecedented local popularity as a homegrown Asian vampire movie, it's helpful to understand that it was not the first eastward voyage of the Demeter, so to speak. An early attempt at combining vampires with martial arts came in 1974 with "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires," which marked Peter Cushing's final outing as a vampire hunter (and now, guest lecturer in China) Van Helsing in Hammer Horror's Dracula series. The film was an international co-production between Hammer and Hong Kong's biggest production company, Shaw Brothers Studio, which was ready to capitalize on the kung fu success of the late Bruce Lee, whose posthumous hit, "Enter the Dragon," had overtaken theaters the year before.

"The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" proved to be a financial failure, perhaps in part because — beneath the foreign-market masquerade — its inner workings were still Western and imperialist. At the time, Hong Kong was a crown colony, and the film's opening scene sees Kah (Chan Shen), the Chinese "High Priest of the 7 Golden Vampires," kneel before the very British Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson), asking for his help back home. Dracula tells his "minion" that he doesn't roll like that; he then proceeds to spell out in no uncertain terms how he plans to appropriate Kah's culture. "I need your vile image," he says. "I will take on your mantle, your appearance."

Before the title card comes up, Dracula turns Chinese, using Kah as his host body, cackling at how "beneath the image, the immortal power of Count Dracula" still lurks. "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" wore the cape of a Hong Kong vampire film, but "Mr. Vampire" tossed the cape in favor of authentic Chinese burial clothes.

"Mr. Vampire" imparts useful skills for what to do when you're beset by hopping vampires. Forget holy water; you need sticky rice to deal with these things. Just make sure local merchants aren't cheating you by mixing in long-grain rice with the sticky rice. That will render it less effective in preventing the "vampirification" of friends who are wounded and poisoned in the acrobatic scuffle with hopping vampires.

One surefire method of stopping a hopping vampire is to pin a Taoist talisman to its forehead. They can even be controlled and sicced on other vampires this way. Be careful not to sneeze, as this could blow the talisman off, and then you'll be s*** out of luck, as the French say.

If you yourself begin turning into a stiff-legged hopping vampire, keep active! Dance it out the way you would if you suspected you had restless leg syndrome but had never been officially diagnosed.

Mirrors, as we see in "Mr. Vampire," do repel the jiangshi, more forcefully than their Western counterparts even, so you've got that going for you, at least, if you've been weaned on the rules of Western vampire films. It is possible to plug up the nostrils of hopping vampires so they lose the scent of your breathing.

A separate peril of places in the countryside overrun by hopping vampires is the possibility of ghosts with the face of "Pauline" Wong Siu-fung enchanting you and leaving you with "love bites." As vampire attacks mount, the last resort is to try warding them off with raw poultry, saying, "Big brother, eat the chicken!" Good luck, and remember the most important rule of vampire hunting: just have fun with it.

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/976576/year-of-the-vampire-hold-your-breath-for-the-hopping-undead-in-mr-vampire/

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hunterintheotherworld · 1 year

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SH1 - Roots of Old Silent Hill's street names

Finney St: Jack Finney (Author of The Body Snatchers)

Matheson St: Richard Christian Matheson (Where There's a Will, Mr. Right)

Bloch St: Robert Bloch (Psycho)

Bradbury St: Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)

Midwich St: Name of the town in Village of the Damned, adaptation of the novel "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham.

Levin St: Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby)

Bachman Road: Richard Bachman (Stephen King's pen name)

Ellroy St: James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential)

#silent hill

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shadowworldwanderers · 2 years

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Masterlist

Stories on AO3

Old Intros

Introductory Pages:

Morvant-Adjacent Babies:

Sunny ‘Rose’ Sonnshine

Lilah Reed Nyx Bloom Chuck Dourif Helena Reese Matheson-Adjacent Babies: Emilie Mayson Adelaide Dean Deanna Louis Ellie Sutton Marisol Swinton Delilah Symonds

Merrilees Marston Candice Castor Samantha Marston Calleigh Dean Amanda Matthews Judith Ellison Desmond/Desdemona Mercury Matilda Westwood Alexia Mill Hannah Hardstone Willow Walker Barbara Dean

Jessike ‘Sike’ Logan Elvie Ellory Cassidy Cole Elen Ellis Carlie/Carl Connor Essie Ellory Jenni Oriel Jessamyn ‘Jess’ Oriel Jessika ‘Sika’ Oriel Josie Oriel Jodie Oriel Jazz Oriel Jemima ‘Jem’ Oriel Jemma Oriel Jade Oriel Jasmine ‘Mina’ Oriel Jo Oriel Janine Oriel Juliet Oriel Coralee ‘Cora’ Matthews Millie Meadows Joey Jackson Josh Jackson Gia Wolfe Darla Wolfe Arlene Wolfe Brigitta Wolfe Donna Amato Gina Amato Jeanne Amato Aria Amato Willow Amato Carla Amato Fiona Amato Fiamma Amato Isla Amato Inga Amato Anton Allegro Vincenzo Lombardi Solina Ramirez Lolita Sanchez Marisol Espinoza Jodeyne Morrison Ellory Masterson

Mallory McMichaels

Raffaela Romero Malina Ramirez Lina Markov Candida Crowe Adelaide Marconi Emilie Porter Dervla O’Brady Ava Viva DiLorenzo Jessica Dallas Melissa Madison Katrina Archibald Abigail Novak May Southerlyn April Meadows Julie-Anne Callas Pippa Galston Thea Tallis Kate Isles Lily McQueen Jewel Estella Richardson Alexia-Mae Cathstone Eliza-Beth Leigh Izzy ‘Six’ Sexton-Richards Alice Anais Andrews Britta Roslin Julie Dark Alexandra Jane Castle Jodie Noelle Richards Tallie Marx Michaela Philippa Kingsman Love Aniston Jessie Cole Tali Rice Hollie Mann Madison Mitchell-Mann Roslyn Hall Cariad Hall Joe-Lee Parton Bobby Parton Jim Parton Sonny Parton Lupa Wolfe Anne Rose

Belle Rose Jade Orton Jennifer Orton Jessica Orton Mirabelle Orton Judith Amato Angel Croft Brittany Walker Julietta Day Shadow World Babies: Angelike Kirk Eliana Olivier Marisol ‘Sunshine’ Corazon Annabella Sciorra Gianna Fioretti Rhiannon Ellis Cara Sutton Kat Trellis Kimber Bell Marisol Lees Ria Leigh Delilah Daae Hanna Weiss Mindie Swallows Kismet Christian Juliette Loomis Vanessa Myers Arielle Sea Ellie Dewey Lace Belle Esme Innocent Katie Rollins Cherie ‘Cherry’ Garcia Jessie Wolfe Erin Willows Suzannah Davies Emilia Loss Melanie Jeffries Meredith Greylek Kelly Greylek (No relation to Meredith) Cassidy Rubirosa Candice Banks Kendra Copper Ariadne Todd Desdemona Hex Raven Rose Candace ‘Candy’ Caine Angelina Haven Mina Schiff Callie Dennis Esme Ross Susanna Johnson Consuela ‘Connie’ Sanders Raffaela ‘Raffi’ Angeles Ariel Warton Syren Sirena Hela Helios Anne Dread Rose Rayes Hope Evans Faith Hopkins Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ Eames-Olivet Alexandria ‘Alex’ Eames-Olivet April Dawson June May May Engel Augusta Haim Billy Wolfe Savannah Stanley Stanley Cyprus Kellie Cyrano Bella Wolfe Mina Marston Nadiya Corazon Annalise Sciorra Samantha Southhall Amelia Borstein Elena Greenwood Elizabeth Preston Suella Randall Marienne Rubirosa Lilith Morningstar Saralee Rayes Destiny Dracula Martha Curatola Solina Dracula

Valentine Dracula Queenie Annabeth Queen Lily Sharpe Isobel Rubirosa Rose Wolfe Lily Marigold Savannah Rider Marigold Rose Baby Baker Mami Morrison Sugar ‘Sweet’ Sunshine Melody Eros Allie Gayson-Enders Pippa Gayson-Enders Michaela Orville-Hampton Janet Orville-Hampton Mariposa Shadows Lolita Mayhew Tamberlyn Alexara Sukila Arielle Denver Suzanne Denver Thalin Chelsea Heart Jessica Brisbin Henna Jenkins Dora Jessop Kathleen Shore Samantha Carson Sarah Carson Karen Nielsen Belinda Andrews Amelie Ellis Sister Tatjana Nichols Madison ‘Sugar’ Fuller Daniel Rabebe Angelika Rabebe-Cortez

Lady Liandrin MacBeth Juliet MacIntosh John-Ross Croft Annchi ‘Angie’ Croft Morgana Addams Angeline ‘Angel’ Verna Lane Eulalie Tamerlane Poe

#opening masterlist #shadow world #original creations #morvant verse #rhiannon's angels #matheson-verse #diner crew #oriel wolves

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raybizzle · 7 months

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"Full Eclipse" (1993) is a sci-fi horror film originally aired on HBO. Directed by Anthony Hickox and written by Richard Christian Matheson and Michael Reaves, this movie takes an interesting approach to using werewolves to fight crime. The lead cop in the film is Mario Van Peebles, who was very busy acting around this time. One thing about Mario is that he has a versatile resume. A solid cast, including Patsy Kensit, Bruce Payne, Tony Denison, Willie C. Carpenter, and Victoria Rowell, support him. Since this movie wasn't released theatrically, it has fallen under the radar. However, it is a noteworthy horror film with great action and deserves recognition.

Director: Anthony Hickox Writers: Richard Christian Matheson, Michael Reaves

Starring Mario Van Peebles, Patsy Kensit, Bruce Payne, Tony Denison, Willie C. Carpenter, Victoria Rowell, Jason Beghe, Paula Marshall, John Verea, Dean Norris, Scott Paulin, Mel Winkler

Storyline In Los Angeles, criminals are one step away from taking over the city. Drugs and guns are all over the streets. It'll take a special kind of cop to end it all. Max Dire (Mario Van Peebles) is a special kind of cop, so he's invited to join an elite squad - a secret police unit - authorized to do whatever it takes to end crime. Their leader, Adam Garou (Bruce Payne), has a unique method for dealing with crooks: a serum he injected into his gang of rogue cops that gives them extraordinary strength and speed. A drug that gives them the power of wolves and a deadly appetite for crime.

Max is suspicious of Garou's renegade police force but is soon seduced into joining them by their most beautiful member, Casey Spencer (Patsy Kensit). But, as Max soon discovers, there's a dark side to Garou's detective work, and he must decide if he will run with the pack or stand against them. Either way, the streets will run with blood by the full eclipse.

Available on DVD and streaming

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mirandamckenni1 · 7 months

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youtube

Can You Decode This Alien Message? The first 500 people to use my link will get access to one of Skillshare’s best offers: 30 days free AND 40% off your first year of Skillshare membership! https://ift.tt/1xBh4Fj Recommended course: The Science of Effective Learning by Santiago Acosta Hi! I'm Jade. If you'd like to consider supporting Up and Atom, head over to my Patreon page :) https://ift.tt/jgW9h40 Visit the Up and Atom store https://ift.tt/12xhJ7S Subscribe to Up and Atom for physics, math and computer science videos https://www.youtube.com/c/upandatom For a one time donation, head over to my PayPal :) https://ift.tt/mj647oU *A big thank you to my AMAZING PATRONS!* Jonathan Koppelman, Michael Seydel, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Thorsten Auth, Chris Flynn, Tim Barnard, Izzy Ca, Tate Lyles, Richard O McEwen Jr, Scott Ready, John H. Austin, Jr., Brian Wilkins, Thomas V Lohmeier, David Johnston, Thomas Krause, Lynn Shackelford, Ave Eva Thornton, Andrew Pann, Anne Tan, Francisco, Marc-Antoine, Chris Davis, Thomas Urech, chuck zegar, David Tuman, Richard Rensman, Ben Mitchell, Steve Archer, Luna, Tyler Simms, Michael Geer, James Mahoney, Jim Felich, Fabio Manzini, Jeremy, Sam Richardson, Robin High, KiYun Roe, DONALD McLeod, Ron Hochsprung, Aria Bend, James Matheson, Kevin Anderson, Alexander230, Tim Ludwig, Alexander Del Toro Barba, Justin Smith, A. Duncan, Mark Littlehale, Tony T Flores, Dagmawi Elehu, Jeffrey Smith, Alex Hackman, bpatb, Joel Becane, Paul Barclay, 12tone, Sergey Ten, John Lakeman, Jana Christine Saout, Jeff Schwarz, Yana Chernobilsky, Louis Mashado, Michael Dean, Chris Amaris, Matt G, Dag-Erling Smørgrav, John Shioli, Todd Loreman, Susan Jones, Motty Porat, Michael Tardibuono, Yaw Mintah, Carlos Escolar, Vijay Prasad, Anthony Docimo, robert lalonde, Julian Nagel, Cassandra Durnord, Antony Birch, Paul Bunbury, David Shlapak, Kent Arimura, Phillip Rhodes, Michael Nugent, James N Smith, Roland Gibson, Joe McTee, Dean Fantastic, Oleg Dats, John Spalding, Simon J. Dodd, Tang Chun, Michelle, William Toffey, Michel Speiser, Rigid Designator, James Horsley, Brian Williams, Craig Tumblison, Cameron Tacklind, 之元丁, Kevin Chi, Lance Ahmu, Tim Cheseborough, Markus Lindström, Steve Watson, Midnight Skeptic, Potch, Indrajeet Sagar, Markus Herrmann (trekkie22), Gil Chesterton, Alipasha Sadri, Pablo de Caffe, Taylor Hornby, Mark Fisher, Emily, Colin Byrne, Nick H, Jesper de Jong, Loren Hart, Sofia Fredriksson, Phat Hoang, Spuddy, Sascha Bohemia, tesseract, Stephen Britt, KG, Hansjuerg Widmer, John Sigwald, O C, Carlos Gonzalez, Thomas Kägi, James Palermo, Chris Teubert, Fran, Wolfgang Ripken, Jeremy Bowkett, Vincent Karpinski, Nicolas Frias, Louis M, kadhonn, Moose Thompson, Rick DeWitt, Pedro Paulo Vezza Campos, S, Garrett Chomka, Rebecca Lashua, Pat Gunn, George Fletcher, RobF, Vincent Seguin, Shawn, Israel Shirk, Jesse Clark, Steven Wheeler, Philip Freeman, Jareth Arnold, Simon Barker, Lou, amcnea and Simon Dargaville. Chapters 0:00 - 0:53 Receiving the alien message 0:53 - 3:15 Interpreting the radio signal 3:15 - 5:00 Mysterious white squares 5:00 - 5:43 Mysterious purple blob 5:43 - 7:27 Mysterious green clusters 7:27 - 7:36 Mysterious blue twirlies 7:36 - 8:05 Mysterious red figure 8:05 - 9:34 More mysterious white squares 9:34 - 10:28 Mysterious yellow dots 10:28 - 11:12 Mysterious purple thing 11:12 - 13:08 Even MORE mysterious white squares 13:08 - Fun fact about the Arecibo message 13:48 Thank you Skillshare! Creator - Jade Tan-Holmes Script - Joshua Daniel Editing - Christian Pearson and Jade Tan-Holmes Music - epidemicsound.com via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm1tBF4h8nQ

#IFTTT #YouTube #Youtube

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saturdaynightmatinee · 11 months

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CALIFICACIÓN PERSONAL: 5 / 10

Título Original: Loose Cannons

Año: 1990

Duración: 90 min

País: Estados Unidos

Dirección: Bob Clark

Guion: Bob Clark, Richard Christian Matheson

Música: Paul Zaza

Fotografía: Reginald H. Morris

Reparto: Gene Hackman, Dan Aykroyd, Dom DeLuise, Ronny Cox, Nancy Travis, Robert Prosky, Paul Koslo

Productora: TriStar Pictures

Género: Action; Crime; Comedy

TRAILER:

youtube

#Youtube

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darkmarkets · 10 years

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DM's Field Guide to Dark Fiction - Supernatural Horror

genus: supersticiae ad infinitum orders: Tales of Terror, Horror, Gross-out

Common traits – Supernatural Horror most often involves a protagonist battling against some force that is above or greater than nature, and that force can be anything from spiritual to occultic, religious to mythological. This force must inspire revulsion and fear in the protagonist (because prancing around happily with a sexy supernatural centaur does not Supernatural horror make). For the right horrifying effect, ghosts and demons are popular, sometimes joined by vampires, ghouls, succubi, poltergeists, werewolves,

While the supernatural elements in the story can combine to aid the hero or heroine in their war with forces beyond their understanding (such as helpful gypsies with spells to close the gates of hell or priests who know how to shut that malignant ghost up), for the most part the protagonist is at odds with the supernatural, wishing to kill/escape/stop it. The supernatural can almost always be killed, escaped from, or stopped because the spirit world is just as regulated as the boring old mundane one, and that is what sets Supernatural Horror apart from the Weird Tale or Psychological Horror: the threat is a faith, myth, or superstition-based menace that can be defeated by the rules set forth by whatever occult know-it-all happens to be hanging around.

Historical sightings – The supernatural has been used in fiction since the first storytellers crawled out of the primordial sea; it's been used even more heavily in life throughout history. There have been decades of life on this earth where people actually believed that an improperly-blessed sneeze could let demons in, so the use of such ghastly ghost mongering in stories is hardly something that can be tracked.

However, the use of the supernatural in order to terrify is a relatively recent phenomenon. In Western publishing, Supernatural Horror has its roots in the Gothic traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries, with notable occurrences like Henry James' story "The Turn of the Screw" and W. W. Jacob's "The Monkey's Paw", not to mention the stories of occult-obsessed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Bram Stoker's immortal classic Dracula also hails from this camp, as the well-informed Professor Von Helsing battles against the shape-shifting ancient evil bent on draining the blood out of ol' Harker's honey boo.

The tactic of using the supernatural to give readers the willies has been taken up by tons of writers throughout the 20th century: Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, Ramsay Campbell, Anne Rice, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker and a slew of others. It was during this horror-happy decade that The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty and Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin emerged as stunning classics of occult fiction (the former actually leading to a spike in exorcisms requested by the general public).

While the frenzied bloodthirst for Horror fiction has tapered off in the beginnings of the 21rst century, many horror writers still put in hard time in the grand Supernatural tradition. Writers like Caitlyn R. Keirnan and Laird Barron are serving up serious literary fare with a supernatural taste, and more mainstream writers like Bentley Little and Edward Lee dip their pens in the inkwell of the occult. And of course, many other cultures around the globe have fantastic traditions of terrifying with the supernatural, on every continent from Latin America to Africa to Asia, each following their own completely different sets of rules and gory regulations, but to survey them all would take a lifetime of arcane study.

Modern habitats – The old tropes of supernatural horror—possession by Judeo-Christian-style demons, wrathful souls of the dead speaking through Ouija boards, anything with gypsy curses—are not taken well in modern Western Horror publishing. (In Western Horror films, of course, they live mercilessly unchallenged, and anyone who says the Paranormal Activity series isn't wet-your-pants scary is probably not wearing pants. But Paranormal Horror is a different species.) Still, that doesn't mean the supernatural itself is shunned. Big Guns like Clarksworld Magazine still is happy to look at an offical Supernatural Horror story, and Reputable Guns like Psuedopod and Three Lobed Burning Eye won't shake a mojo stick at them either. But, if a writer is interested in a market that doesn't specifically say supernatural accepted here, then it's a simple trick to rely more on another subgenre like Psychological or Weird, and then dole out a helping of supernatural on the side.

Related: Ghost Story, Creature Horror, Werewolf, Vampire, Demon, Dark Fantasy