The Movies

The things I’m missing the most during social/physical distancing are weirdly nuanced. Most things can be adapted by taking them outdoors or wearing a mask, but there are two things for which there are no close substitutes:

1. Overpriced cups of “drip” coffee that I can sip at my leisure in a semi-public over-air-conditioned space while eavesdropping to inane and unequivocally boring conversations while pretending to write, hunched over my dusty-ass laptop.

2. Going to the movies by myself, sitting in the exact center of the theater and watching some obscure horror movie in the middle of the day.

The closest we can come to substituting those experiences at a time like this is reading books about horror films. The only way to do that (that emulates the things I miss) is while sitting on our own patios or porches in the afternoon, pouring your morning’s leftover coffee over ice. Or in parks with a makeshift fence staked with your kids’ tent spikes and wrapped with crime scene tape (don’t pretend like you don’t have a roll or two from Halloween still stashed above your fridge in those cabinets that there is no point to because NO ONE CAN REACH THEM. They are literally behind an appliance and taller than any human can go-go-gadget their arms. Who decided?) while your sun-deprived skin absorbs all the vitamin D it can get.

By the way, you’re in the Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly horror newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this realm of hell, THE MOVIES.

Earworm: “Prototype” by Andre 3000.” “Do something out of the ordinary, like catch a matinee… / / Let’s go… let’s go / to the movies.”

Fresh Hells (FKA new releases):

Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles edited by Ellen Datlow

This new anthology centers around the mythology we’ve created by looking at screens. The horrors that lie just offscreen or on the cutting room floor, or even hide in plain sight are all fair game for this collection of horror authors such as Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Laird Barron, and Nathan Ballingrud, among others.

 

Interior Chinatown: A Novel by Charles Yu

Though this novel itself is a satire of noir tropes, particularly those of Asian men in Chinatown, more than a horror book itself, the tropes that it satirizes have a horrific sting. The book is described as “a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.” (And if you’re interested in the film Chinatown, check out the biography of the film itself, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson.)

 

Hitchcock Blonde: A Cinematic Memoir by Sharon Dolin

This “cinematic memoir” releases in one week (on July 7), but I, of course, had to put it on this list. The book is described as a “heady cocktail of sex and trauma,” but told through the lenses of the famous horror films by director, Alfred Hitchcock. Go ahead on and pre-order this one. You’re welcome.

 

Cryptkeepers (FKA horror from the backlist): 

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

If you’re a horror fan (and I know you are), you are also unquestionably familiar with the trope of the Final Girl. This horror book is THE horror book for horror movie fans. It’s not quite a screenplay and not quite a novel, but it’s chock full of film references. The premise itself is an homage to the most famous final girls (Jamie, Ripley, etc.), and a competition among them. And if you’re a big SGJ fan (which you will be, if you’re as yet unfamiliar with his work) his book The Only Good Indians is finally releasing (after being postponed for COVID) on July 14. And Night of the Mannequins is hot on its heels (it releases in September)!

Harbingers (FKA news):

Here’s how the “Shoot the Book adaption market — a staple at the Marché du Film since 2014 and a rising player on the global film scene — continues to evolve.”

Congratulations to horror author Grady Hendrix, who will be releasing his next two novels with Berkely Publishing. Can’t wait to get my hands on The Final Girl Support Group, due to release in June of 2021. Till then, y’all can enjoy The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. 

Here’s how The Twilight Zone season two premiere softly skewers male presumption.

Want to read about award-winning Tayari Jones (author of Leaving Atlanta) and her search for writing success? Of course you do.

Read 8 horror novels that are set in Maine (and not by Stephen King).

Check out this horrifying list of queer true crime, too. 

Speaking of true crime and film adaptations, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, “HBO’s new docuseries about late crime writer Michelle McNamara and her obsession with finding the predator she dubbed the Golden State Killer, is a complex story that embodies both of these points and more.”

Rest in peace, Joel Schumacher, director of horror cult classics like The Lost Boys, thrillers like A Time to Kill, The Number 23, and Phone Booth, among many other writing and directing credits.

Boots Riley (director of the wild film Sorry to Bother You) announced his new TV series I’m A Virgo, which will “be dark, absurd, hilarious, and important.”

Want to know how lockdown has changed the publishing industry? Here you go.

Enter to win $250 to spend and Barnes and Noble.

Enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible.

Tell us more about yourself and potentially win an ereader! We’re doing a Reader Survey, it’ll only take a few minutes, and you can see the questions and giveaway details at bookriot.com/2020survey.

Until next week, follow me @mkmcbrayer for minute-to-minute horrors or DM me there to let me know of other books I should include. I’m also on IG @marykaymcbrayer. Talk to you soon!

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay McBrayer
Co-host of Book Riot’s literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing