If you’ve ever read any horror-related content here at GeekDad, chances are you’ve seen my work. Now, I’m certainly not the only fan in our midst—GeekDad Paul, for example, has a fine eye for Halloween decoration tech and GeekDad Rob adores movies of all stripes, the creepy stuff included—but if our little community has a resident horror hound, it’s surely me.
As such, this time of year holds a special place in my heart because, as the weather begins to cool and we creep ever closer to All Hallows’, the annual barrage of Halloween/horror content begins in earnest.
This year has already yielded a bumper crop of new television properties (Netflix’s Haunted Hotel is a delightful blend of Gravity Falls and Bob’s Burgers), films (V/H/S Halloween is the franchise’s most consistently enjoyable entry in years), and even novelty foodstuffs (Burger King’s Monster Menu is loaded with absolute bangers). Still, the one area that has shone the brightest has easily been the recent spate of seasonal horror literature.
Here are three spectacular new releases to add to your Halloween reading list.
The October Film Haunt by Michael Wehunt
Of the 20 or so horror novels I’ve consumed so far in calendar year 2025, The October Film Haunt stands out for several reasons.
Chiefly, for me, it was an amazing first taste of Michael Wehunt’s dynamic prose. Plus, while not the only fiction I’ve read this year centering around the classic “cursed film” trope, the bones of the narrative actually predate Paul Tremelbey’s equally wonderful Horror Movie: A Novel by nearly seven years. (The October Film Haunt has its roots in the short story of the same name from Wehunt’s 2017 release, Greener Pastures.)
Perhaps most importantly, The October Film Haunt takes on the 21st-century post-truth world itself with wild aplomb.
The setup starts off with just the right blend of old-school horror reverence and modern verisimilitude. A decade ago, Jorie Stroud (control your snarky eyeroll if you must) and her two best friends helmed horror blog the October Film Haunt. This all came to a crashing halt when a bit of creative fiction concerning artsy cult film Proof of Demons went viral, which ultimately resulted in the death of a young fan.
Flash forward, and Jorie is now a struggling single mother just trying to get on with her life. Until a suspicious VHS tape arrives in the mail and begins dragging her back into the regretful decisions of her past.
Add in the appearance of enigmatic director Hélène Enriquez, her rabid followers (dubbed “the Rickies”), and the return of a long-lost friend, and The October Film Haunt takes off in earnest, blending psychological, supernatural, and conspiracy horror into an engaging, unsettling trip through fandom and its adjacent obsession.
In doing so, Michael Wehunt manages to ask some probing questions about the entitlement of contemporary enthusiast culture and the dangers of an overly democratized internet.
What are our responsibilities as content creators (and constant consumers) when it comes to combating misinformation? When all perspectives have a near-equal chance of drawing the most eyeballs, does the more embellished tale trump mundane reality? Most chillingly, what happens when a lie itself becomes the de facto truth?
If you’re in the mood for something as suspenseful as it is thought-provoking, The October Film Haunt is definitely the way to go.
Night & Day edited by Ellen Datlow
First off, Night & Day from Saga Press is just a cool concept. Start by reading Night—Dreadful Dark: Tales of Nighttime Horror, then flip the book over to begin Day—Merciless Sun: Tales of Daylight.
It’s two, two, two excellently themed horror anthologies in one!
Packed with authors I already love, like Stephen Graham Jones and Josh Malerman, it also turned me on to some new names in modern horror. Clay McLeod Chapman, whose “Trash Night” kicks off the nocturnal portion of our eerie entertainment, puts a working-class spin on psychological horror, while Australian Kaaron Warren takes misogyny and domestic violence head-on in the daytime standout “Bitter Skin.”
While its Tales of Daylight obviously subverts a lot of horror tropes by introducing innumerable things that go bump in the day, that doesn’t take away from the pure enjoyment of its polar opposite, Tales of Nighttime Horror. Herein, Jones explores poisonous family dynamics and grim magical realism (“The Door of Sleep”) with just as much grisly vigor as Sophie White plumbs the depths of the Irish changeling myth with an even more disturbing true crime twist (“Cold Iron”).
Night & Day is everything a horror anthology should be; though thematically united, the short stories represent the glorious breadth of the genre, with each author’s voice as unique and engrossing as the last.
Equal praise must also go to editor Ellen Datlow, whose expert hand on the proverbial tiller really helps drive home the undeniable fact that, like its equally evil twin, the anthology film, the horror anthology book remains as important and as amusing as ever.
Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford
When I opened this collection of essays to find an introduction written by Mother Horror herself, Sadie Hartmann, I figured I was in for a treat. Then I leafed back through the table of contents to see names like Tananarive Due (The Reformatory), Josh Mallerman (Bird Box), Hailey Piper (The Worm and His Kings), Grady Hendrix (My Best Friend’s Exorcism), and Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart Is a Chainsaw), and I was sure of it!
Why I Love Horror asks the single enduring question posed to any and all fans of the genre, and the myriad answers provided by a veritable who’s who of contemporary horror visionaries attest to its undeniable importance.
Becky Siegel Spratford—a self-described professional book recommender—kicks things off by examining the question, why she asked it, and how surprised she was by the willingness to answer. I mean, we’re talking about 18 of the hottest horror writers going right now, so it’s not like they didn’t have other irons in the fire.
From there, Brian Keene waxes poetic on the seminal importance of Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 (the exact same 1975 title that I have been consistently laughing about for the bulk of my 50 years) while Piper name-drops Godzilla and Are You Afraid of the Dark? But rather than simply championing the importance of the local spinner rack or basic cable, both authors get down to the meat of the matter, that being the inherent safety of horror media and its willingness to give voice to uncommon perspectives and experiences, respectively.
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Alma Katsu loves horror for the valuable lessons it imparts, and Due touts horror’s ability to transform the reader. Cynthia Pelayo relates it to the nine principles of Stoicism, and SGJ answers the question thirteen times over with responses like “Because horror lays dark eggs in the audience’s head that don’t hatch until two in the morning.”
Then there are Mallerman and Hendrix, who weave their unique answers into (hopefully) fictional expressions of their own, and Trembley, who strings together a series of vignettes with accompanying illustrations by his daughter.
In the end, the throughline seems to be that horror as a genre is simply… functional. It trains us, often from an early age, to process fear and grief and trauma in a controlled environment.
On a personal note, this book helped me to put my own lifelong love affair with horror into perspective. As a child, I surely lacked the appropriate emotional and psychological maturity to confront poverty or an unstable home environment. These elements, so far beyond my control, were things I was unable to prepare for. But I could damn sure prepare for vampires and zombies.
If you love horror too, you’ll love Why I Love Horror.
Uncorrected proofs of these books were provided by St. Martin’s Press and Saga Press for review. This post contains affiliate links. Happy haunting!
Fonte: GeekDad - Leia mais