Talking Scared – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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Anna Bogutskaya is one of the UK’s most prominent film critics, with a penchant for horror. She knows her scary onions. And in her new book, Feeding the Monster, she asks an important question (well, important to the likes of you and me) – Why does horror have a hold on us?

In concise but free-ranging essays, she looks at the prominent themes that sets the horror oft the last decade apart, peeling back the skin of the genre to see how it’s muscle flex and grip, and also give you tons of films to watch in the process.

We have a similarly freewheeling conversation in this episode, talking about everything from our primal horror movie experiences, to the meme-ification of monsters and why Mike Flanagan is both outlier and heart of the genre.

Also… Anna introduces me to the concept of Vecnussy, which may ruin Stranger Things for you, like it has for me.

Enjoy

Other books mentioned:

• Death of a Bookseller (2023), by Alice Slater
• Penance (2023), by Eliza Clark
• Danse Macabre (1981), by Stephen King
• Red Dragon (1981), by Thomas Harris
• Coup de Grace (2024), by Sofia Ajram

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Send in the clowns. Tell them not to forget their crossbows and chainsaws.

This week our guest is Adam Cesare, who’s Clown in a Cornfield trilogy reaches a climax (I won’t say end) in Book 3: The Church of Frendo. I read all three books in one mad rush and they confounded all of my horror-savvy, slasher-weary expectations. These books are a State of the Nation story for the ages – think George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but with fascist clowns rather than Bolshevik swine.

Adam and I have one of those very Talking Scared conversations. We get into the political and the personal, touching on his time as a teacher, the challenge of empathy, the role of guns in fiction and the rural/urban divide in America. 

But also… clowns! Horrible face-painted bastards that they are.

Enjoy.

• The Indian Lake Trilogy (2021-2024), by Stephen Graham Jones
• “The Lottery” (1948), by Shirley Jackson
• Influencer (2024), by Adam Cesare
• Rest Stop (2024), by Nat Cassidy

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200 episodes! Madness. Who knew there could be so much to say about horror? 

I knew. You knew. And here we are.

It turns out that the real cursed treasure was the friends we made along the way – and how better to celebrate the bicentennial, than by inviting some of the Talking Scared nearest and dearest, to tell us their scariest story?

I called, they answered – with tales of voyeuristic ghosts, horrifying roadside encounters, disappearing witches, whispering demons, damaged eyeballs, lost children and ….Richard Simmons!!

Enjoy this. You deserve it. Thank you so very much for your ear, your attention and your support over these last four years.

Onward. 

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The best and spookiest season starts in earnest, this year on Talking Scared. 

Our guest is Jamie Flanagan, actor, screenwriter, and part of the team who delivered such televisual delights as The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and now, The Midnight Club.

With The Midnight Club due to land on Netflix worldwide this Friday – I rejigged the schedule to sneak in a chat with Jamie about his work on the show, his relationship with horror-maestro director, Mike Flanagan, and some of the magic that bubbled to the surface in Midnight Mass. 

Jamie pulls back the veil on the mythical ‘writers room’. He talks about the difficulty of getting anything to screen. And we talk, of course, about the influence of Stephen King.

It’s a pleasant detour this week, away from books, without leaving the literary entirely behind.

Enjoy!

The Midnight Club is released worldwide on Netflix, October 7th.  

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Midnight Club (1994), by Christopher Pike 
• The Mist (1980), by Stephen King
• House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski

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It’s not only vampires that drink blood. That’s what we find out on this week’s episode. 

Our guest is Alexis Henderson – author of The Year of the Witching and now, her sophomore novel, House of Hunger. It’s a luscious, lurid tale of dark fantasy, blood and sex. Y’know … all the good stuff.

Oh, and it’s one of my favourite books of the year.

Alexis and I discuss the collision of horror and fantasy, the erotics and politics of blood, and the double standards when it comes to female perversion. We also talk a little about a certain Bloody Countess, who plays a big part in the background of House of Hunger. 

Enjoy!

House of Hunger is released September 27th by Ace Books   

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• A Dowry of Blood  (2022), by S.T. Gibson 
• The Year of the Witching (2021), by Alexis Henderson

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Wanna get haunted?

That’s the delightful proposition offered by Clay McLeod Chapman’s Ghost Eaters – a novel of ghosts, grief and ghastly narcotics. Just take one pill and you can sell all the phantoms that surround you. What a premise! 

It’s Clay’s second time on Talking Scared and he’s always welcome. There are few more honest, open, and thoughtful writers out there. This time around we go deep, into the real emotional core of Ghost Eaters, talking about lost friends and long-ago dreams. We discuss 90s indie art, postmodernism’s pains-in-the-ass, and our drug experiences (turns out we’re lame).

Oh, and there are Machine Elves. What are Machine Elves, you ask? Listen to find out. 

Enjoy!

Ghost Eaters is released September 20th by Quirk Books  

Other books mentioned in this episode include: 

• Between Two Fires (2012), by Christopher Buehlman 
• Whisper Down the Lane (2021), by Clay McLeod Chapman – (episode 32)
• The Secret History (1992), by Donna Tartt
• Infinite Jest (19960, by David Foster Wallace

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The time has finally come to go to the scariest place imaginable – the inside of the human mind. 

Thankfully, we have a friend to accompany us on this most hideous of trips. I’m joined this week by Gemma Amor, author of the brand-new techno-horror FULL IMMERSION. It’s a book that deals with trauma, psychosis and experimental treatment, and it’s the perfect springboard for an epic conversation about mental health in horror.

Gemma and I cover the autobiographical elements of her novel and how it helped her recovery. I lay bare my own neurosis and explain why this genre is not necessarily a safe space. And Gemma explains the dangerous reality of being a woman in the horror game. 

If that all sounds a tad sombre, don’t worry – there is also chat about the Uncanny Valley, Men in Black, Creepypasta and Black Mirror. As well as the pros and cons of pushing over racist statues.

It’s a long episode this one. You won’t get this level of self-indulgence every week. But it was just too good a conversation to cut short.

Let’s head into my head, it’s scary there!!

Enjoy!

Full Immersion is released September 13th by Angry Robot 

Read Gemma’s essay - The Female Experience of Fear

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Finally, she’s here!

After months of waiting for schedules and book releases to align, Hailey Piper is on the show. She’s here to talk about both of her 2022 releases – each is a kidnapping experience. 

The novella Your Mind is a Terrible Thing takes us up into the void and into creepy inner space. Her forthcoming novel No Gods for Drowning transports us somewhere else entirely. 

Hailey lets me blather on about social commentary and metaphor before reminding me gently that sometimes it’s ok to enjoy the story. We talk about concise world-building (how!!), zombie capitalism, police brutality, anxiety and body autonomy, and why Queer characters don’t need an agenda to be worthy of inclusion.

By the time this goes live Hailey has probably written another two books!! But for now, I’m just delighted to have her on the show to discuss these two.

Enjoy!

Your Mind is a Terrible Thing was released May 2022 by Off Limits Press; No Gods for Drowning is published September 7th, 2022 by Polis Books.

Other books mentioned in the episode include: 

• Crime Scene (forthcoming 2022), by Cynthia Pelayo
• The Possession of Natalie Glagow (2018), by Hailey Piper
• Benny Rose the Cannibal King (2020), by Hailey Piper 

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Time to get weird and wiggy and wondrous.

Our guest this week is Zin E. Rocklyn, author of many short fictions, and her (very) recently award-winning novella Flowers for the Sea.

It’s an afro-speculative blend of science fiction, horror, fantasy, myth, dystopia, pre-history and apocalypse – all confined to a single boat in a big, bad ocean, and all told within 100 pages.

Phew – it’s dense!

Zin and I cover a lot this week. We barrel through her the twin crises of reproductive rights and climate change – and look at how inequality is a huge component of both. We talk about writing the body, evoking smell and how pain has many uses.

That sounds dark. It is. But there is also light, including an unexpected reference to an old British sitcom, the juxtaposition of Zin and Hyacinth Bouquet made me laugh!!

Enjoy this one.

Flowers for the Sea was released October 2021, by Tor 

Other books mentioned in the episode include:

• We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (2022), by Paula D. Ashe
• Spectral Hue (2019), by Craig L. Gidney
• No Gods for Drowning (2022), by Hailey Piper
• “My Genre Makes a Monster of Me”, by Zin E. Rocklyn (2018) in Uncanny Magazine, 24 

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Get your bell bottoms, your peace sign, your tie dye and your … crucifix!

This week’s guest is Gwendolyn Kiste and her new novel, Reluctant Immortals, transports us to San Francisco in 1968, the summer after the Summer of Love, when the sun is setting on the hippie movement. Into this chaos comes a quarter of iconic Gothic characters, ready to fight it out all over again.

Like the book, the surface of this conversation belies its inner darkness. Yes we talk hippies. Yes we talk Haunted Hollywood. Yes we talk cheesy movies. But we also get into the horrific implications of vampires for sexual consent, the true hideous power of the patriarchy, and how women are weaponised against women.

There is substantial conversation about domestic and sexual abuse in the second half of the conversation. Just a warning in case this is a problem for you. 

It’s a tough conversation, but a good one.

Enjoy!

Reluctant Immortals is released in North America on August 23rd by and in the UK on November 22nd by Titan.

Other books discussed in this episode include:

• Something Borrowed, Something Blood-soaked (2018), by Christa Carmen
• To Be Devoured (2019), by Sarah Tantlinger
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• The Rust Maidens (2018), by Gwendolyn Kiste
• “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)”, by Gwendolyn Kiste, Nightmare Magazine, issue 86, (2019)
• “The Woman Out of the Attic, by Gwendolyn Kiste, in Haunted House Short Stories (2019)
• Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (1998), by Peter Biskind

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