Final Women

 Horror has been seen as man's domain, and I've never quite understood why. I'm the biggest horror fan I've ever met, and I have a lot of femme friends that like horror a lot too. There are also a ton of women out there working in the horror field, and Creepy Bitches collects some of those women's essays on the genre in one entertaining book. The essays range from analytical to personal to a cross between the two. I enjoyed almost all of them. There were some that I liked better than others and only two that didn't really work for me. My favorites include "Underground Horror: The New York City Subway Scene and its Effect on my Daily Commute" by Jean Wexler, "Taking the 'Ick' Out of Icthyology: Gender in the Creature from the Black Lagoon Trilogy" by Heather Hendershot, and Stacie Ponder's "Passing Into Myth: Candyman and the Final Woman." (Ponder is also the writer of the excellent Final Girl blog). I admit I almost skip...

I read Mike Thorn's Darkest Hours about a year ago and was seriously impressed by it. Peel Back and See might be even better. There are some truly great stories in this collection, and while not every story will work for every person (and you might not want to eat before reading some of these), I found myself enjoying most of them even more than I expected. My favorites include "Mini McDonagh Manor." In this story, after her mother's death, Julie builds a replica of her childhood home, before ultimately deciding to go home and visit the real thing for the first time in years. She believes something sinister lurks there and wants to find out once and for all what it is. This is the most legitimately creepy story in the whole collection and gave me actual chills. If you like this one, make sure you also don't miss out on "Dreams of Lake Drukka," which could easily be a companion piece to "Manor." Another standout is "Deprimer," which a...

Over 10 years ago, I bought and read this first volume of the slasher series Hack/Slash and loved it. I'm not sure why I never got around to reading any more of the series. However, I purchased Volume 2 recently and decided to revisit Volume 1 first. The series revolves around slasher killer Cassie and her hulking companion, Vlad. Cassie survived her undead mother's reign of terror as a teenager, leading her to set out on the road in search of other murderous monsters to kill. Hack/Slash is absolutely as good as I remembered it. I might even like it better this time around. I still completely love Vlad. Now that I'm older, however, I definitely view Cassie a little differently. I noticed her vulnerabilities more this time around. She may be a badass ass kicker, but she's also still very much a kid and still finding herself. I don't think I paid as much attention to that last time I read it, when I was still very much a kid myself. All three stories contained in this...

We want you to know how we lived. That we lived. That we were girls before we were game. That we were alive. Too often the voices of victims are silenced. In a world fascinated by evil, those that practice it become celebrities, and those who suffer from it, forgotten. In her collection, Many Restless Concerns , Gayle Brandeis speaks for the victims of Erzsebet Bathory in excruciatingly exquisite poetry. This is a haunting book. Take your time reading it; every line should be savored. Note: There is some debate whether Bathory was actually guilty of mass murder, or was framed by a government who couldn't abide a woman with the amount of power she wielded. That debate, and my opinions in it, did not affect how powerful I found Brandeis's book to be.

 Ravenous I know I've mentioned this on a previous list, but this was a recent rewatch for me, and I've got to say, I liked it even better the second time around. Based on the experiences of both the Donner party and Alfred Packer, Ravenous is a period piece with a lot of great snowy scenes. Guy Pearce leads the cast as a disgraced soldier sent to serve at a remote outpost, and Robert Carlyle steals scenes as the sinister stranger hiding some very gruesome secrets. Alien vs. Predator A team of scientists is assembled by an aging tycoon to investigate a mysterious structure found underground in Antarctica. Once inside, they find themself in the middle of a battle between the titular two franchise species. I did not expect a lot going into Alien vs. Predator; it had not exactly received rave reviews. However I ended up being pleasantly surprised. As usual, I dug the snowy atmosphere, and the film also gets bonus points for starring Lance Henriksen, who always classes up even the ...