protean depravity

In a couple of months the Horror Writers Association will be giving the Bram Stoker Awards for the year 2025, so it's well time to take a look at the nominees and add the titles that sound good to our painfully never-ending TBR-lists (and also give some commentary and my own bias given that I have already chosen the PD best of's 2025). So, we all know, the trophy isn't very pretty and as far as I know they don't give a prize money, but the prestige that comes with a BS-Award is big and provides for readers for years to come. In many cases deservedly, sometimes not that much, but in any case these awards make for a good benchmark if you want to build up an English horror library for whatever purpose, library, bookshop, or personal shelves. Here are the Bram Stoker 2025 nominees in categories of interest to PD.

Welcome to the short story lover's guide to Stephen King! In this penultimate post about Stephen King's second short story collection Skeleton Crew we'll take a look at one science fiction horror, two inanimate horror and one rat horror pieces of writing as well as one poem he wrote for his son, author Owen King. It would be good if you read along, or at least know or be familiar with the stories because I will spoil everything! Let's go! 

Here are some short reviews from the past month. Writing this post I realized that I've been reading A LOT OF short stories and I'm in a proper short story fever! If that speaks to you, I hope you find something to your taste, enjoy!

Barely rested from the last film festival, here I am planing for the next one, the wonderful Fantasy Filmfest Nights  (April 16-19) which impresses with a truly fantastic selection that makes me wish I could see all of the films featured. But the budget is tight, and time isn't endless, so I have to make choices. Although I made my choices generously, I probably still won't be able to see all of the pictures below, especially as I still have to go to work, notably on Saturday. The day is for working but we have nights to watch films and I'll try to fill them with screenings.

Laura Casabé's latest film "The Virgin of the Quarry Lake" was one of the feature films competing for the first place at this year's Final Girls Berlin Film Festival,  and was among my absolute favorites. Thus, I wanted to unpack this work and see how it was stitched together from two short stories by grand-master of horror Mariana Enriquez, Our Lady of the Quarry and The Cart both from her 2009 collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed . Let's first take a look at the short stories, and then the film. There are possible spoilers, so maybe read the stories, watch the film, as usual.

The Final Girls Film Festival Edition 11 is over...  The post-festival blues still lingering, here I am with a massive back pain the one week of sitting in City Kino Wedding bestowed me, thinking back of the awesome time I had. Being in the jury and contributing to determine the winner amongst the feature movies, all the great people I met, chatted, watched movies with, discussed those movies and connected... It would be no exaggeration to say I had the time of my life, and even though I didn't cry, I certainly understand fellow jury members who were hit hard by the melancholy. On the picture you see is all that's left from the good days: a lot of stickers and business cards, flyers for the Leiden B-Movie Festival in August, the festival program in which we're all featured, a tote bag, my name tag, and one piece of print art I bought from Henna Räsänen who was sitting at the table next to us, the Otherland table, during vendor day on Sunday. Let us first start with the shor...