horror – subhumanzoids

the best books (i read) of 2024

April 8, 2025by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple months, and now’s as good a time as any because it’s already April! Last year I read nearly 40 books, which might not sound like much to real-deal bookworms, but it was definitely a high for me. I tried to bounce around genres a bit but ended up sinking most of my time into horror novels. Some of them I truly did not care for, while others continue to stick with me well into 2025.

Thankfully, there were more of the latter than the former last year. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a quick list of some of my favorites, which, for the purposes of this being my blog, I shall call the Best Books of 2024.

The Bog Wife
by Kay Chronister

Appalachian folk horror that’ll make you feel like you know how to tend to a bog and raise a bog wife of your very own. I came to find out what exactly Chronister was going to do with the premise, but stayed for the vivid characterizations of the Haddesley siblings.

Devils Kill Devils
by Johnny Compton

This shouldn’t work for me, but I loved it. If I had known it was a vampire book I might not have picked it up, but Compton took notes from some interesting places—specifically getting vampire inspiration from anime like Blood: The Last Vampire—and went full-bore on the scope.

The Eyes Are the Best Part
by Monika Kim

Fittingly, this book is a boiler, and one of a few I read in one or two days. Great debut with a gnarly premise and biting commentary.

Play Nice
by Jason Schreier

I love stories about creative people collaborating and making their dreams come true, and loved this book despite not particularly caring about Blizzard’s games. It ends up being a fantastic look into how quickly some people can develop fantasy-poisoned CEO brains after pulling in a few million dollars.

Incidents Around the House
by Josh Malerman

I really enjoyed Daphne, so I was eager to find out what Malerman had cooked up for his latest book. This is one of a few last year that played some unique, if questionable, games with formatting and narrative, but the monster in it is so effective it doesn’t matter. Real creepy haunter that has some moments that’ll cut into you.

Crypt of the Moon Spider
by Nathan Ballingrud

I need to read more novellas like this. Balingrud’s first entry in what will eventually be a series takes us to the moon, where the threads of an ancient spider are used to treat mental maladies.

We Used to Live Here
by Marcus Kliewer

I kind of want to live in the searing discomfort of this book’s opening pages. Kliewer sets up an awkward situation that’s nearly impossible to satisfying conclude, but I dig where it ends up going. Increasingly unwelcome guests, impossible architecture and an unreliable narrator made this one stand out among a crowded year.

Mouth
by Joshua Hull

Hey, look, another novella, and this one is really fun! It’s a super quick story about a guy that ends up taking over a property with one stipulation: He has to care for a massive sentient mouth embedded in the ground. Knowing more than that isn’t going to help you.

Small Town Horror
by Ronald Malfi

Consider me a Malfi-head now, because this was one of the most smooth and satisfying reads of the year. Malfi excels at characterization, breathing sharp and bitter honesty into a former group of friends whose lives collide once again thanks to ghosts of the past that were never going to stay buried in the first place. He’s got another one out this very month, and I have a couple on the backburner I’m looking to dive into soon. Highly recommended to both horror fans and anyone who digs a story about flawed people who find nothing but doom in the mistakes of their youth.

The Queen
by Nick Cutter

Hot damn, this one was wild as hell. I know he’s had acclaim in the past for novels like The Troop, but is the first Nick Cutter I’ve read. It definitely won’t be the last. Totally unafraid to go to some bizarre and starkly realized places, this is the antidote to any stories you’ve ever condemned for not peeling the curtain back far enough. It’s the counterpoint to all the monster movies that spent most of the runtime obscuring their marquee antagonists in shadows. It’s about big, genetically-mutated human-wasp hybrids and it does not mess around.

Honorable Mentions: You Like It Darker by Stephen King, I’ll Be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

Subhorrorzoids

deadly decade: zombieland: double tap

October 31, 2019by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

Zombieland: Double Tap is an upcoming American horror zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer and written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and David Callaham.

This photograph is supplied for editorial use only and is the copyright of the film company

How’s THIS for a new horror movie? I checked Zombieland: Double Tap out in the theater with a few friends the other night, fitting it nicely in the #30 slot for the month. It’s been a decade or so since the first Zombieland movie hit theaters, which means it’s been about a decade since I saw it on DVD and thought it was okay. Thus, I remember almost nothing about it, and that doesn’t matter a lick if you plan on watching this sequel.

Double Tap is, per my hazy recollection, more of the same. It moves at a brisk pace, has enough jokes to keep it going, and coasts pretty comfortably off the talent of Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, and, to a lesser extent, Jesse Eisenberg. If you had told me 10 years ago that Eisenberg was not, in fact, the K-Mart Michael Cera and would even go on to replace him in the spotlight completely, why… why I woulda shrieked!

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For my money, the brief time spent with Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch completely steals the show in this one. The rest is enjoyable enough, but if you’re not itching to get out to your local theater you can probably wait until this one hits the ‘Box. That’s REDBOX, baby!

Much like the zombies in this film, at this point I can practically feel the trick-or-treaters lumbering my way, so I really need to move on to… our FINAL FILM!

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Halloween 2019 Movies:

1. Sequence Break
2. Deadtime Stories
3. Hell House LLC
4. Body Bags
5. Pumpkinhead
6. Friday the 13th Part III
7. Child’s Play 2019
8. Ghoulies II
9. Satanic Panic
10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
11. Demons
12. You’re Next
13. Frankenstein
14. The Ranger
15. The Fly
16. Train to Busan
17. Halloween III: Season of the Witch
18. Army of Darkness
19. Lake Mungo
20. Popcorn
21. Beyond the Gates
22. Invaders from Mars
23. Body Melt
24. Gargoyles
25. Basket Case
26. Scream
27. Scream 2
28. Scream 3
29. The Howling

Subhorrorzoids

wolfen wackos: the howling

October 31, 2019by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

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It’s Halloween! That means it’s finally time to wrap up this month of movies with the last batch. No, sadly, not The New Batch, but close enough, because the 29th movie of the month is Joe Dante’s The Howling!

This particular cycle of the werewolf happened to be released during my own dang birth year, 1981, which means I definitely didn’t see it in theaters. Ever since I did eventually see it, though, I’ve held it up as one of the staples of werewolf cinema, with a classic transformation, incredibly animalistic werewolves, and a story that puts these creatures in a more modern and believable context.

Throw in a bit of Dante’s comedic bite and you have a movie that holds up to this day, especially when it comes to that roarer of an ending. If you want to see it in all its glory, pick up the Blu-ray from Scream Factory ASAP.

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As much as I’d love to ruminate on this one more, we gotta get through to the end. Like I said, it’s Halloween!

Halloween 2019 Movies:

Subhorrorzoids

slick slashers: scream 1-3

October 30, 2019May 12, 2020by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

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This entry is a three-for-one, but not in the way Body Bags was way back in the beginning of the month. For movies 26-28, my wife and I watched the first three Scream movies back to back. It takes a lot for my wife to want to watch a horror movie, and it helps that we both find the Scream movies entertaining. Guess what? They’re mostly still good!

This should come as no surprise given the fact that the late, great Wes Craven directed them all. You end up with diminishing returns along the way—especially when the time comes to reveal the big whodunnit twist—but each has an incredible opening scene, and the first is a total classic of the genre.

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Beyond the frozen-in-time casting, it’s amazing to go back to these and see what Craven kicked off with the series as a whole. So many teen slashers rose from the ashes of Scream, which revitalized the horror genre for the late ’90s and early ’00s, regardless of what the old heads at the time had to say about it. Even if you don’t like some of the movies that followed—from your I Know What You Did Last Summers to your Urban Legends—you gotta hand it to Scream.

Scream 3 is the weakest of the initial trilogy, but in this case it might not have helped that I watched them all one after the other. As for which has the best opening, while the first with Drew Barrymore is an all-time great, I really love the movie theater rowdiness of Scream 2‘s kickoff.

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If, like me, it’s been ages since you bothered with the Scream movies, fire ’em up sometime soon. We plan on bringing the saga to an end with Scream 4 tonight, but I’m already past my 31 movie plan so you won’t be reading about it here.

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Halloween 2019 Movies:

Subhorrorzoids

terrible twins: basket case

October 30, 2019by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

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Ah, Basket Case. If there’s anything that can cleanse my palate after a dud from 1972, it’s the glory of a New York grime time classic from 1982. Frank Henenlotter is one of my favorite genre directors, and the sheer ridiculousness of movies like Brain Damage and Basket Case are among the key reasons why.

Duane Bradley just arrived in New York City from upstate, and despite a suspiciously large wad of cash, all he really has to his name is a rectangular wicker basket with a firm lock on it. Naturally, everyone would love to know what the hell’s in that basket, but there aren’t many that survive after they find out.

Because, baby, Belial is in the basket!

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I’ll save the specifics for any of you who have, for some reason, never seen Basket Case before. It’s a real low-renter with effects that are just okay, but it has a lot of piss and vinegar that make it a blast to watch. It’s also one of those great NYC time capsule movies that offers a ground-floor glimpse at what the city was like before it became the safe-but-still-urine-soaked city we know it as today.

Arrow Video put out a great Blu-ray of this one, returning it to its original 1:33:1 aspect ratio. It looks better than ever, even when Belial is bumbling around in stop-motion or clinging to a wall for dear life. A stinky staple of the season!

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