Armadillocon 2022 takes place this year from August 5 to August 7 at the Austin Southpark Hotel.  I’m scheduled for five events, two of which I’m moderating. (Cthulhu help us.)

​I’m including my schedule below (and if you don't see me at these, check the bar), and you can find the full schedule here.

Hope to see you there.

Modern Horror Fiction: From the Bigs to the Indies
Southpark A, 10pm - 10:45pm
A discussion of contemporary horror fiction--what's hot, what trends we see, and what to look for--from major and independent publishers.
Panelists: Derek Austin Johnson (moderator); John Hornor Jacobs; Tonia Ransom; Josh Rountree

Texas Weird: What Is It, and Why You Should Seek It Out
Ballroom E, 1pm - 1:45pm
Texas is its own place, and its SFF literature has its own unique flavor. We bring together a few experts and novices to talk about what it is and what you should be reading.
Panelists: Jayme Lynn Blaschke (moderator); Derek Austin Johnson; Mark Finn; Rick Klaw; Tex Thompson; Joe R. Lansdale

Movies: What You Should Have Watched 2022
Southpark A, 3pm - 3:45pm
Panelists discuss the movies, television shows, and other visual media released since the last Armadillocon.
Panelists: Cassandra Rose Clarke (moderator); Derek Austin Johnson; Rosemary Clement-Moore; A. T. Campbell

Reading - Derek Austin Johnson
Conference Center, 8:30pm - 9pm
Story to be announced.

The World of Analog Horror
Southpark A, 1pm - 1:45pm
Local 58, The Mandela Catalog, Gemini Home Entertainment. Explore the world of this unique subgenere of horror, and why it can be so effective.
Panelists: Derek Austin Johnson (moderator); Holly Lyn Walrath; E. A. Williams; John Hornor Jacobs; Eva L. Elasigue

Last night on social media I provided a list of introductory horror movies. It included the following:

• Psycho (1960, d. Alfred Hitchcock)
• The Haunting (1963, d. Robert Wise)
• Night of the Living Dead (1968, d. George Romero)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968, d. Roman Polanski)
• The Exorcist (1973, d. William Friedkin)
• Alien (1979, d. Ridley Scott)
• Ringu (1998, d. Video Nakata)
• Pan's Labyrinth (2006, d. Guillermo Del Toro)
• Hereditary (2018, d. Ari Aster)

I usually find these lists a challenge—not because of how difficult they are to put together, but how easy. Seriously, if you want to provide an introductory viewing list, you find yourself recommending a lot of pretty standard titles. As a CineFix host opined on their Top Five Horror Movies of All Time video, horror has a strong center; there’s something about this particular genre that makes the classics more classic than most. Take a look at the above list. You can ask why, say, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre didn’t make the cut, or why David Cronenberg is absent, but by and large the selections I included are pretty much unarguable.

Because of this, I began wondering what my list would look like if I didn’t include any of my previous selections. I love the ten previously listed, but I keep wondering what gems are hidden from somebody who sees Hereditary or Us and wonders what else might be available. So here’s a list of ten additional introductory horror movies. I’d like to say this is more idiosyncratic, but many still probably meet the criteria of “classic.” The only limitations I included were (1) they could not have appeared on the previous list, (2) only one movie per director (which is why you don’t see Curse of the Demon here), and (3) no director in the previous list can appear here.

• Cat People (1942, d. Jacques Tourneur). Subtle and atmospheric, this creepy picture remains incredibly effective due to its rich shadows and understated performances. It may be too subdued for some, but those open to its rich imagery will find it getting under their skin.
• Gojira (1954, d. Ishiro Honda). Yes, we know Godzilla from the myriad sequels, but few know the original, to say nothing of how terrifying it is. Honda makes effective use of black-and-white, and manages to play on the fears of the after-effects of Hiroshima. Look for the original without added scenes featuring Raymond Burr.
• Profondo Rosso (1975, d. Dario Argento). Suspiria is seen as the landmark, but I prefer Argento's mid-1970s giallo, with its insane storyline (when Argento still bothered with narrative, however begrudgingly), garish color (the Technicolor palette is almost blinding), and of course the eye-opening, lavishly absurd kills.  I haven't even begun to talk about Goblins's soundtrack or chiaroscuro set design. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, you're in for a ride.
• Phantasm (1979, d. Don Coscareli). I first saw this when I was twelve, and wasn't prepared for its bizarre mix of science fiction, nightmare, and hallucinatory surrealism.  I began searching for regularly for work sharing its dreamlike quality after watching the edited version on one of Houston's UHF channels in the summer of 1980.
• The Fog (1980, d. John Carpenter). Look, Halloween is the O.G. of the slasher movie, and The Thing remains one of the most terrifying horror movies ever made. But in between those milestones, John Carpenter made this moody, at times overstated ghost story involving a revenant-haunted clipper ship seeking revenge against a small town. I'll agree that it isn't up to the same level of its bookends (or Prince of Darkness), but it's still a fun ride.
• Jennifer’s Body (2009, d. Karyn Kusama). I wasn't quite sure I liked Jennifer's Body when I first saw it, but subsequent viewing made me realize how subversive its messaging is. Kusama makes us question how we view women, especially in the fetishization of star Megan Fox, and the insidiousness of friendship and love. (Kusama's 2015 feature The Invitation also is worth your time).
• Hell House LLC (2015, d. Stephen Cognetti). Found footage movies receive a lot of criticism, often with cause. but when done effectively, as here, it turns a tired and lazy format into something more sinister and sublime. The sequels also are good, but if you only watch one, make it this.
• Revenge (2017, d. Coralie Fargeat). Seriously, what else can you call a revenge tale? This fantastic feature has the hyper-saturated color of a giallo with some of Jennifer's Body's commentary, but always remains its own story.
• The Lodge (2019, ds. Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz). Loss, grief, and resentment are the themes here.  It opens with a matter-of-fact suicide, and ends with...no, no spoilers. But it's chilling, and not because of its snowy landscapes.
• X (2022, d. Ti West). There are horror fans who don't like the movies coming out of A24, but they tend to produce work that matches my own interior landscape. Ti West's newest balances on the razor's edge of art and schlock, with a strong script and tight direction.

Yeah, 2020 was a crap year, and if 2021 is even marginally better we will consider it a miracle.  I don't need to repeat the litany of events; most of us probably developed PTSD from our collective daily doom scrolling.  May the entire year  lay near the bottom of history's dustbin.

As bad as 2020 was, it turned out great horror.  I kept up with what I could for a change, and seldom found myself disappointed by the books and movies released.  Below are my favorite horror books published during 2020, all of which I recommend.

• The Wise Friend by Ramsey Campbell.  One of the greatest horror writers returns with a moody, atmospheric novel about the nephew of a deceased occult artist whose work begins to seep into his daily life, threatening his family.  A rich, haunting novel.
• Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare.  Don't let the young adult label fool you.  Adam Cesare's first Big-Five release pays homage to the great slasher films with its story of a young girl who has moved to the small town of Kettle Springs, where tradition and progress meet by attempting to cull its population of its most troublesome kids.  It's a treat, especially for those who lived during the slasher genre's heyday.
• Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby.  Getaway driver Beauregard "Bug" Montage takes part in a diamond heist after a series of financial crises made worse by the bigotry of the small town where he lives.  But things go south quickly, putting him and his family in danger.  Ostensibly a crime novel, Shawn Cosby's incredible debut is an uncompromising look at the heart of darkness that beats within all of us.
• The Boatman's Daughter by Andy Davidson.  A mad preacher makes a demand of a woman who ferries contraband, forcing her to consider what sacrifices she can make for the witch and a young child she must keep safe.  Davidson's second novel evokes the spirit of Michael McDowell, full of dark imagery and richly drawn characters.
• The Only Good Indians and Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones.  The always fantastic Stephen Graham Jones published two incredible novels this year.  In The Only Good Indians, four men fight for survival after a disturbing incident when hunting.  Night of the Mannequins concerns a teen prank gone horribly wrong.  I give the edge to The Only Good Indians, but both show Jones at the top of his game.
• Eden by Tim Lebbon.  A master of terror, Lebbon's grisly new novel channels Jeff VanderMeer and Michael Crichton, but it's all Lebbon.  Humanity creates the Virgin Zones to curb the changes brought on by climate catastrophe.  A group of explorers ventures to one, Eden, to discover what happened to a previous expedition, but are unprepared for the changes nature has wrought.  An engaging read.
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.  Debutante Noemi Taboada travels to High Place, a house in the Mexican countryside, after receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin.  There she encounters mystery and terror as she uncovers the house's mysteries.  Moreno-Garcia's richly textured novel is reminiscent of Daphne Du Maurier with the Weird cranked up to 11.  
• Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay.  Tremblay's latest novel, all too relevant for 2020, takes place in a Massachusetts overrun by a rabies-like virus spread by saliva.  A pregnant woman must make her way through this dangerous landscape after her husband is killed and she has been bitten.  Taking place over several hours, Tremblay propels the reader forward to a harrowing conclusion.  
• Writing in the Dark by Tim Waggoner.  Horror master Tim Waggoner, author of dozens of novels and stories, talks about the nuts-and-bolts of horror writing, offering useful writing exercises at the end of each chapter as well as insights from writers and editors, including Ellen Datlow, John Langan, Jeani Rector, and Joe Lansdale, among many others.  There are many how-to-write books out there, but Waggoner's is one of the most useful, and one of the most engaging.  

Movies didn't have as groundbreaking a year as in previous years, for obvious reasons, but that doesn't mean worthwhile efforts weren't released on streaming services such as Shudder.  There were a lot of great movies available if you knew where to look.  Of the movies released in 2020, I'd recommend the following.

• Anything for Jackson (d. Justin G. Dyck).  A couple kidnaps a young woman about to give birth in an attempt to bring back their son using a ritual.  A paranoid and chilling tale with echoes of Richard Matheson as well as Polanski's Rosemary's Baby.
• The Color Out of Space (d. Richard Stanley).  A meteorite crashes on the Gardner family's farm and begins to radically transform the flora, fauna, and eventually the people.  Stanley's adaptation of the classic Lovecraft story provides plenty of scares, with Nicolas Cage by turns underplaying and overplaying his role as the family patriarch succumbing to the meteorite's powers.
• Gretel and Hansel (d. Osgood Perkins).  Stunningly photographed and genuinely creepy, Osgood Perkins puts a feminist spin on the classic Brothers Grimm tale, with Sophie Lillis demonstrating why she will be a major screen presence in the coming years.
• His House (d. Remi Weekes).  A refugee couple travels across the Mediterranean to England, where they seek asylum.  Strange events occur in the house they are provided, and they learn their home is inhabited by an apeth, or "night witch."  An understated but terrifying gem.
• Host (d. Rob Savage).  A group of friends meet during a Zoom call to conduct a seance.  They are visited by a presence when one refuses to take the gathering seriously.  Short (it's not even an hour long) and creepy, this novel take on the found-footage picture was one of the best movies to be released in the age of covid.
• The Invisible Man (d. Leigh Whannell).  Loosely adapted from H. G. Wells's classic scientific romance, Leigh Whannell's  follow-up to his fantastic science fiction thriller upgrade concerns a man who has developed a technology to render one utterly invisible, and uses the technology to torment his girlfriend after she leaves him.  Elizabeth Moss is great, and Whannell keeps his pace relentless, though the screenplay has a few bothersome loose ends.
• The Lodge (ds. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala).  Here's a claustrophobic, nightmarish tale about a man who leaves his children in their winter home with a woman whom they blame for their mother's death.  The woman is the survivor of a cult mass suicide whose sanity begins to unravel as a snowstorm makes leaving the lodge impossible.  I had to get past what seemed to be a contrived setup, but once I did the movie delivered incredible tension.
• Underwater (d. William Eubank).  The integrity of a drilling and research facility in the Marianas Trench is breached after a strong earthquake, and its inhabitants attempt to escape both the crushing depths and humanoid creatures hunting them.  It's a fun if imperfect b-movie in the tradition of Alien.

Found in the huge anthology Midnight in the Pentagram edited by Kenneth W. Cain, James Newman's story concerns the aftermath of an exorcism, and the effect it has on the protagonist, at that time fifteen years old.  Far from the happy ending implied by most possession tales, Newman suggests what would follow is a mélange of post-traumatic stress, isolation, and, to some extent, longing, all told in elegant prose with mounting unease.  It's a story I wish I had written.

It's the last Friday the 13th of 2020. What could go wrong?

You would think, as a child of the 1980s, I would have been a slasher fan. It was a golden age for such franchises: Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and of course Friday the 13th hunted down scores of teens who refused to heed messages like Just Say No, Abstinence Only, or for that matter "Where's the Beef?" But I wasn't interested in these sorts of tales at all. I preferred the landscapes and monsters proffered by Universal and Hammer, in part because the fantasy elements offered escape from my mundane adolescence. It wasn't until I read Carol J. Clover's Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film in college that I grew to appreciate and love the slasher story. By then, however, the form had played out; Freddy was dead, Jason lumbered like a zombie, and Michael Myers's gigantic knife couldn't cut through his series' overgrown mythology. It took Wes Craven's Scream to revive the form, and to cement the rules into popular culture.

For all of its seeming limitations, the slasher story remains incredibly robust. From David Gordon Green's Halloween to the metafictional Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, the form offers more interest and social insight than my pretentious teenage self could imagine.

This includes novels and stories. For modern examples, see Sadie Hartmann's slasher selections. It leaves out a few of my own favorites, such as Stephen Graham Jones's The Last Final Girl, but it offers both a good starting point for the novice and solid recommendations for the seasoned horror reader.

Jeani Rector's The Horror Zine’s Book of Ghost Stories is available on Kindle from Hellbound Books. My story "Proof of Afterlife" appears within.

For those who prefer their stories inked onto the skins of dead trees, a paperback edition is available.