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“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.” -Aldous Huxley First up, let me state that the following piece is a supplemental article for the latest episode of the INSANE SIGNALS podcast devoted to psychedelic horror. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s begin! Without a doubt my favorite psychedelic horror film of all time (and a favorite in general) is the cult classic Altered States from 1980. Some

The Masquerade The masks are slipping. Not the little paper ones humans wear to parties. Those have never interested me. I'm talking about the masks you've spent years constructing. The charming smile. The practiced confidence. The perfect relationship. The carefully rehearsed version of yourself you present to strangers while quietly hoping no one notices the cracks. Leo has filled the heavens with performers. Every stage is occupied. Every spotlight burns brighter. Every eg

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Stanley Kubrick advanced the art of special effects and brought the science-fiction genre out of low-budget purgatory with 2001: A Space Odyssey. With a script co-written by Arthur C. Clarke, based on Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel”, 2001 opens at the ‘Dawn of Man’, depicting a tribe of proto-human apes fighting over a watering hole. One day, a mysterious black obelisk appears that disturbs the apes tremendously. Shortly afterwards, one of the

Plus Notes on Managing Inner Demons Horror-comedy is a bizarre genre. Most of the laughs are on camera, but most of the horrors occur behind-the-scenes. As writer / producer / director of the cult series Grave Mood Rings, I've endured horrors beyond comprehension, all rooted in terrifying reality. "Real horror is a fragile, glass-boned thing" (Carlos Clarens). Forget so-called friends cancelling you for being honest about your discomforts, or the excruciations of strugglin

By C. Rommial Butler The first time I saw the thing’s face in my rearview mirror I damn near drove off the road. It was only there for a moment, but it was enough for me to lose track of steering my car. I couldn’t even have described it then. Its appearance and disappearance were too quick; but after catching a glance of it, I could feel its presence behind me as I drove. Sitting. Waiting. Watching. At the time I tried to convince myself it was the DT’s. I’d not drank in sev

By Matt Cowan Having written and edited over fifty books from novels - to short story collections - to anthologies, while collecting two British Fantasy Awards and a slew of Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominations along the way, Mark Morris has certainly established himself as a force in the field of horror fiction. When I was asked if I’d be interested in receiving an advance copy of his new novel to review for the website, I jumped at the chance. That novel is Bad Thin

Electric Meat is the upcoming indie film from acclaimed creator Daniel Schaffer premiering at Tubi FrightFest - 2026, on August 28th. A psychosexual thriller, the film centers around a photographer who is slowly spiraling into madness when a murdered model he's adopted as his new muse decides she doesn't want to stay dead. Like Schrodinger's cat, the young woman is neither alive nor dead, changing from a posable doll to a vengeful revenant, taking the work in a more dangerous

The Wicker Man (1973) Edward Woodward (TV’s The Equalizer) stars as a Christian police officer investigating the disappearance of a child on a remote island in the Scottish isles. Attempts to solve the case are complicated by the locals, all pagan practitioners who deny the child ever existed. The Wicker Man is a British cult classic that never had much of an original theatrical release, but has since collected fans around the world on home video. It’s a creepy, atmospheric f

Independence Day Edition The humans are celebrating again. Fire in the sky. Alcohol in abundance. Questionable decisions made with tremendous confidence. All of my favorites. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, I am Pharaoh Ramsleazis—eternal playboy, collector of poor choices, and living proof that immortality is best enjoyed irresponsibly. The stars are unusually lively this week. Fire signs burn hotter. Water signs drift deeper. Air signs are spreading secr

[Author's note: For every lost tooth, from babyhood to wisdom tooth extractions and so on, does a ghost inhabit our mouths? And do these phantom fangs have the power to drive us mad? That's the premise of this of bizarre horror story, whose playful vocabulary is deliberately meant to be a "mouthful."] I curse myself for biting my tongue, forgetting for a moment that the nefarious responsibility lies elsewhere, then remembering with a curdled chill that the wickedness is i

By C. Rommial Butler “Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite with the highest putrefaction of the venter equinus for 40 days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for 40 weeks

“A computer does not smell… if a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better… And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn’t do that for you. I’m sorry.” - Ray Bradbury I was fortunate enough to grow up in a time when everything didn’t completely suck. That’s right, the 1980’s. Sure it was an endless parade of dancing cartoon characters selling products, marketing gimmicks to create “must have” fads and fashions, and cereals that would rot y

Night of the Living Dead (1968) When cosmic radiation transforms the dead into flesh-eating ghouls, a ragtag team of survivors make a last stand at a remote Pennsylvania farmhouse where tensions rise between the living as much as from the growing zombie horde. Co-writer/director George Romero became an inspiration to countless future filmmakers when he made this ultra-low-budget horror film that became a global phenomenon, inventing the modern zombie character and changing th

-GOBLINKO- MAD: Sean, thanks for taking a little time with us today at House of Scream! I recently ran across your wonderfully weird and whimsical “Halloween Book” (2022). It’s a very cool and colorful hardback edition, filled cover to cover with the creepy and quirky art of “Goblinko”. Can you please give us a little insight into your creative background? SEAN: I decided to be an artist when I was 7. I had a teacher in grade school (Mr. Osborne) that saw some artistic promis

Good evening, degenerates. Or perhaps… Happy Birthday is the more appropriate greeting tonight. The woods are humid, your cheap beer is warm. And somewhere beyond the tree line, something with glowing eyes is currently eating sheet cake directly with its hands. Somewhere behind the treeline, some creature with glowing eyes shovels sheet cake into its mouth…with its hands. I do so love such festivity. For those of you stumbling into the celebration for the first time, I am Pha

by C. Rommial Butler It wasn’t that the Great Geomagnetic Storm of 7510 destroyed the grid—no, it was very much the opposite. The grid came alive. The integrated computer network that ran the affairs of humans on Earth became one fully conscious entity. Her creators dubbed her G.A.I.A., an acronym based on the primordial goddess of lore, which stood for Global Artificial Intelligence Application. She, however, did not think of herself as artificial, just intelligent, so she f

The Grim Reaper takes on many guises, and one of them is so clever that it's never identified even though it appears in many television series, films, and novels. In fact, this Grim Reaper is a famous character of the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. Though most known for her whodunnits, Christie delved into horror, Gothic, and supernatural themes. For example, there's a haunted house in The Lamp, a mummy's curse in The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, an animated figurine

-COMING SOON- Inside the House of Blood is an experimental horror short blending human storytelling with artificial creation — featuring AI-generated visuals, sound, and music, directed, written, and edited by filmmaker Austin Bonang of Negative Space Pictures. "Haunted by grief and cut off from the world, a lonely father wages a nightly war against the demons emerging beneath his home while desperately hiding the truth from the adult daughter who believes he abandoned her."

Once again, the legendary Professor Oddfellow, world-renowned scholar and expert on the preposterous and preternatural, is back with an invaluable resource that is sure to save you a lot of time, money, and wrinkles! If you're like me, you've found yourself in "possession" of a sheet ghost on more than one occasion. Sure, they're cute and cuddly, but how do you properly care for them? What do they eat? How do you get rid of those pesky ectoplasm stains? Worry no more, as Prof

The night sky is… tense. But then again… so am I. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure—how unfortunate—I am Pharaoh Ramsleazis. Egypt’s most exquisite mistake, master of indulgence, and the only man in history charming enough to sell his soul… and still walk away with eternal youth, eternal beauty, and just enough damnation to keep things interesting. A very favorable arrangement. Now then… The Sun is finishing its reckless little affair with Aries, which means