Filmmaker Val Lewton was hired by RKO to make movies to rival the Universal monster movies that had made that studio tons of money. Lewton took a different approach to the scary movie. With a smaller budget than Universal, Lewton managed to create a slate of psychological, atmospheric films that hold up today.
Short Stories and Poems for Halloween [31 Days of Halloween: October 29]
Sometimes a long book to get lost in is exactly what is needed. And sometimes a short story or a hair-raising poem is all you need to get in to the Halloween mood.
A Question of Reality [31 Days of Halloween – October 28]
What do you do when reality isn’t real? When your perceptions are manipulated? What if it was an evil spirit or a haunted house that was doing it? Some of the most unnerving books are ones where the line is blurred and narrators are unreliable.
A Creature of Our Own Making [31 Days of Halloween – October 26]
The novel Frankenstein is many things – the birth of science fiction, a study in Romantic philosophy, a Gothic horror story – but it is also a reminder that the things that terrorize us most are often a reflection of our own obsessions.
Favorite Haunted House Books [31 Days of Halloween: October 25]
I’m sure it is no surprise that I love haunted house stories. I think I like the mystery. I want to figure out the puzzle of why the house is haunted. These are some of my favorite books with a haunted house at the center.