Horror Joy

In this Horror Joy “Meet Your Maker” episode, Brian interviews author and playwright S.A. Sizemore about finding joy in horror through survival, nostalgia, and communal experiences like haunted mazes. Sizemore discusses her writing origins, dark comedic influences, and how her debut novel The Whispers of the Pale Witch launches the Beckett Coven series, which she frames as “ancestral horror” exploring how historical patterns of scapegoating repeat through modern othering, especially of queer people, the homeless, and the mentally ill. Drawing on genealogy linking her family to Salem accusers, she reflects on Salem’s evolution into a queer-friendly “Witch City,” the shifting meaning of “witch,” and moral codes within witchcraft via characters like the Wiccan Finley. She pitches the novel’s plot around Kylie Beckett’s return to Salem and teases book two, Lies of the Bishop Stone (2027), as darker and more historically grounded.Find more information about the Becket Coven Series Here: https://www.beckettcoven.com/sasizemore

Jeff and Brian are back to discuss Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Joel Coen’s 2021 black-and-white film adaptation, focusing on how the Weird Sisters function less as scapegoats than as a “permission structure” that tempts Macbeth toward power and moral collapse. They connect the witches’ prophecy, dramatic irony, and Macbeth’s ambition to the film’s stark, claustrophobic Gothic/brutalist architecture and intimate cinematography, including the choice to cast one actress, Kathryn Hunter, as all three witches. They consider whether the film frames fate as cosmic determinism or human choice, note changes such as Ross’s ambiguous alignment, and explore how the outside world (birds, leaves, Birnam Wood) intrudes on Macbeth’s castle. The conversation also links prophecy to contemporary politics and AI as modern “oracles,” and ends with joys about the film’s visuals, performances, and supporting cast.

Brian and Jeff welcome returning guest Gwendolyn Kiste, four-time Bram Stoker winner, to discuss her new novel In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, a ghost-story extension of The Great Gatsby.Kiste shares current horror joys (new releases, Ray Bradbury’s The October Country, and Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow) and explains her long fascination with Gatsby’s gothic elements, murder, longing, and the mansion’s haunted-house feel, especially once the novel entered public domain.Set in 1955 Manhattan, her book follows Daisy and Tom’s daughter Pamela “Mel,” now blue-collar after her parents lose their wealth, and explores class, wealth inequality, and a fraught mother-daughter dynamic.The conversation also addresses queer subtext in Gatsby and her sequel, shifting LGBTQ+ rights, her strong anti-AI views, nostalgia versus futurity, and enthusiasm for modern retellings, ending with debate about Robert Redford’s Gatsby.

In a special Friday edition of Meet Your Maker, Brian is joined by Jessica Savitti and E.B. Cogan, co-creators of the graphic novel series Shock-Headed Peter (two volumes out, a third nearing completion and currently funding via Kickstarter). They discuss how joy in horror can come from cathartic fear, adrenaline, and exploring monster humanity and moral complexity beyond strict good/evil binaries, citing influences like Guillermo del Toro and Miyazaki, with a tone they describe as Labyrinth meets A Nightmare on Elm Street with Tim Burton vibes. They explain the series as a reimagining of a German cautionary children’s book into a horror-fantasy about consequences, centered on Ruby, a bullied teen with a literal broken heart navigating a vigilante’s retributive violence. They discuss metaphorical readings (including disability), themes of fear used to seize power, their grassroots partnership with Rome-based artist Giuseppe Sabella Di Stefano, and other projects including the film In Our Blood and upcoming YouTube releases of prior work.Find their Kickstarter here: Shockheaded Peter

In this episode of Horror Joy Jeff and Brian discuss Damien McCarthy’s 2026 film Hokum, following mystery writer Ohm Baumann (Adam Scott) to Ireland’s Bilberry Inn over Halloween after an apparition leads him to his parents’ ashes. As Baumann investigates bartender Fiona’s disappearance by breaking into the locked honeymoon suite with local outsider Gerry, he’s drawn into witch lore, dreams, and a dumbwaiter that links the suite to a sinister basement. The hosts argue the “witch” functions more as atmosphere and a distraction from human evils, focusing on gun violence shaping Ohm’s despair and on spiked drinks, sexual violence, cover-ups, and control of women. We also highlight the movie’s whodunit structure, quirky characters, and moments of silliness as sources of joy.For a good cup of coffee in Blair County, check out Boro Coffee.Check out our other episodes in our witch series:The WitchAppleSpotifyThe Autopsy of Jane DoeApple Spotify

From a parking lot outside an AMC in Central Pennsylvania, Brian reflects on seeing Brian Duffield’s film adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s Whalefall and traces how a lifelong fascination with deep-water horror, rooted in thalassophobia and shaped by Lovecraft, weird fiction, and eco-weird environmental philosophy, helped inspire the Horror Joy podcast. Whalefall is a survival and ocean horror fused with family drama with a son, who is grieving a tense relationship with his deceased father, dives for his remains and is swallowed by a whale, forcing a largely silent, claustrophobic struggle for oxygen and escape amid flashbacks and emotional reckoning. Highlights: Austin Abrams’s performance, the feat of shooting a compelling film that takes place inside of a whale, and a clear ecological perspective.

Brian and Jeff interview USA Today bestselling author Luke Dumas about horror’s link to joy, his path into the genre, and his novel Nothing Tastes as Good. Dumas describes early horror influences with his father, writing seriously since high school, and how Edinburgh inspired his first horror novel. In discussing Nothing Tastes as Good, he cites Stephen King’s Thinner, his experience growing up fat, and the fatphobic cultural discourse around GLP-1 drugs as key inspirations, aiming to depict the systemic horror of living in a fatphobic society. He addresses weaponized “health” language, gym shame, social media’s superficial acceptance, and autobiographical family dynamics. Dumas critiques unfaithful casting in new Carrie adaptations, previews his 2027 zoo-set thriller We Don’t Call Them Cages, and recommends the film Obsession for its emotional, tragic horror.Find more from Luke here: https://www.lukedumas.com/Check out our previous Meet Your Maker episode with Briana N. Cox, author of IndigentSpotifyApple PodcastAnd Check out our ongoing Series on WitchesThe Witch (Eggers 2015)SpotifyApple PodcastsThe Autopsy of Jane Doe (Ovredal, 2016)SpotifyApple Podcasts

From an AMC parking lot in Central Pennsylvania, Brian offers an immediate take on Other Mommy (a James Wan-produced Blumhouse/Atomic Monster film, retitled from Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House) with mixed expectations due to the cast (Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, and child actor Arabella Clarke) and skepticism toward Blumhouse style.Brian praises the acting—especially Clarke’s balance of innocence and fear and Chastain’s multiple character work—but argues that the film becomes a jump-scare mechanism that breaks suspension of disbelief, particularly in act two, as parents repeatedly leave a threatened child alone.While the first act’s setup and monster intrigue work, the mythology feels mishandled, the characters’ “conversion” to the supernatural happens too early, and by the third act the monster and logic feel silly; they also note an “icky” use of Dichen Lachman and faint anti-abortion undertones, though a ball-pit sequence effectively taps parental anxiety.Check out our other Fresh Cut Episodes wherever you get podcastsResident Evil Resident Evil (Stale Slice Edition) Backrooms

***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD***Brian and Jeff cut deep into the 2016 film The Autopsy of Jane Doe as part of their witch-themed Horror Joy series. Set almost entirely in a Virginia morgue, the film follows father-son coroners Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin Tilden (Emile Hirsch) as an unidentified, externally pristine corpse becomes a mystery that unravels through forensic clues, escalating eerie events, and a reversal of the “mad scientist” trope as rational method fails. The hosts read the film through themes of women’s bodies as objects, inside/outside violence, sexual abuse and persecution, the male gaze, and revenge, suggesting Jane Doe becomes what society projected onto her through torture. They examine the morgue as a gothic, possessed space, question why Emma dies, and analyze the film’s turn to Leviticus 20:27 and problematic Bible translation/authority. They end by praising the minimalist “mystery box” structure, performances (including Olwen Kelly), and rewatch value.Come for the horror, stay for the joy!

Brian reunites with author Brianna N. Cox to discuss her March release, Indigent, after earlier conversations about Sinners and Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory. Cox frames horror as a genre of empathy and connection that makes taboo fears communal and cathartic, and she compares horror and romance as “go big or go home” forms driven by intense emotion and physicality. She explains Indigent as a “worm vampire” novel that invokes vampire tropes without explicit vampirism, using cannibalistic, vampire-adjacent monsters to explore consumption, addiction, and late-stage capitalism among impoverished characters. The title references “medically indigent” patients and foregrounds U.S. healthcare trauma and distrust across a diverse ensemble cast. Cox argues horror is inherently political, shaped by social anxieties, and discusses double standards around AI controversies. She highlights BIPOC Vampire Day charity work and notes Indigent’s dual-narrated audiobook release in October via Simon & Schuster.Briana N. CoxBriana on Threads