Abby's Blog for Literature of Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi

King Rat , a “New Weird” fantasy-horror novel by China Mieville, is quite the tale. The story is centered around a man who is half human, half rat that gets accused of killing his father. When King Rat comes to break the man - Saul - out of jail, Saul is introduced to a secret version of London, including monarch-based animal societies, a relentless pied piper, and a unique view of the city itself. With his superhuman abilities, or rather super- rat abilities, Saul usurps the throne from King Rat and helps the birds, rats, and spiders of London take down the malicious Piper. The story is simultaneously familiar and original. There’s the typical coming-of-age plot used when introducing Saul to the world of the rats mixed with a detective mystery from the point of view of Mr. Crowley. Old folktales and fables are recycled into new renditions of themselves, such as Anansi the Spider and the Pied Piper. However, mixing the worlds of fantastical animal societies with urban, Jungle music

What do you like in a horror movie? Zombies? Ancient rituals? Blood and gore? A comedic, Scooby-Doo style? Government dystopia? Ghosts? Mermaids? If you checked any of those off as a “yes,” then Cabin in the Woods is the movie for you. I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect when I first started this film, but it immediately grabbed me with its humor and kept my attention through its ridiculousness. Now, don’t get the wrong idea that this movie is all just goofy gimmicks. Cabin in the Woods definitely has its moments of terrifying thrills and chills. The film manages, however, to seamlessly blend the two genres - comedy and horror - by orchestrating the most over-the-top horror movie I’ve ever seen. The movie follows a group of five young adults vacationing at an old, isolated cabin in the woods. Great idea, right? Well, this particular cabin is controlled by an underground government organization that uses its library of horrible monsters to kill its guests as a sacrifice to appeas

When people think of horror, it usually drums up the same images: a mindless monster, a woman screaming, jumpscares, blood and gore, terror- you know the clichés. It makes sense that these ideas are constantly correlated with horror, seeing as how they can be found in every horror movie these days. Correction: every American horror movie these days. Japanese Horror, Jhorror for short, relies on different tactics when attempting to instill fear in the hearts of the audience. Urban settings, suspense, dread, and sympathetic villains usually set the mood for the story.   This past week, I read Haruki Murakami’s novel A Wild Sheep Chase and watched Dark Water (dir. by Hideo Nakata) as well as parts of Kwaidan (dir. by Masaki Kobayashi) and Pulse (dir. by Kioshi Kurosawa). While all of these stories vary widely in content, they all share a few key characteristics that I’ve come to associate with the Jhorror genre. The first thing that immediately stood out to me was how much e