Sarah Stubbs | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd
Spring is upon us (or in my case early summer)! We thought it would be fun to mark the incoming season with an issue all about botanical horror! Candi has book recs for days, Bee and Sarah are back with a brand new Double Trouble, and the team has a couple of Letterboxd lists full of recommendations perfect for celebrating the spring equinox! You'll think twice before tip-toeing through the tulips after this week's issue!
IN THE NEWS
Brett Petersel | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd & Sarah Stubbs | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd
This year, James Gunn's Slither celebrates its 20th anniversary with not only a return to theaters (on April 10th), but a Blu-ray and 4K release (along with limited edition steelbooks, slated for a May 18th release date) via Visions Home Video. The release will feature interviews, collectible posters, and more.
Have you ever dreamed about owning a video store? Blood Pact Studios' Retro Rewind - Video Store Simulator allows its players to do just that! You're in charge of your own video store set in the 90s. You have to market your store with flyers, order vhs tapes, run your shop, and more. It's a fun low impact game and for a limited time, it's on sale over on Steam!
The Chattanooga Film Festival has announced its second wave! Highlights include Gregg Araki's buzzy I Want Your Sex as the Opening Night selection, Jacob Perrett’s brilliant nerve-shredder Photo Negative as their Centerpiece selection, Kurtis M. Spieler’s campy Night of the Vamp-Friars as their Closing Night selection, and more! Tickets are still available!
Horror came to represent at the 98th Academy Awards. Both Sinners (Michael B. Jordan) and Weapons (Amy Madigan) walked away with Oscars, as did Frankenstein and KPop Demon Hunters, while The Ugly Stepsister went home alone.
Last week, we got our first glimpse at a few images of the upcoming Crystal Lake series, the Friday the 13th prequel series heading to Peacock this year. While the images don't give away too much, we do get a glimpse of Pamela Voorhees' (Linda Cardellini) bloody hand holding a knife!
FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT:
COLUM EASTWOOD (THE MORRIGAN)
Bee Delores | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd
Director Colum Eastwood Discusses His New Film, The Morrigan
The Morrigan is easily one of the year's biggest surprises. Writer/director Colum Eastwood pulls on lore surrounding The Morrigan, a figure in Irish mythology, most often associated with war and fate. He found himself drawn to her power and "how multifaceted she is," he tells us. "She’s not a simple 'good' or 'evil' figure. She’s contradictory, powerful, unsettling, and difficult to pin down, which makes her feel much more alive to me than a lot of mythological characters. She’s a war goddess, but also a sovereignty figure, and those different aspects give her a real moral and symbolic complexity. She can be protective, even allied to certain people, but also utterly devastating. I found that ambiguity really compelling."
Colum Eastwood spoke to B-Sides & Badlands about filming in Northern Ireland, riffing on The Exorcist, and cultivating his shot list. Read it here.
RIYL: THE RUINS (2008)
Carter Smith's The Ruins is one of those films that grows on you (or in you). If this film got under your skin, we have a number of other favorites you should check out. Go see our list on Letterboxd.
GORE-MET PAIRINGS
Sarah Stubbs | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd
Movie: Creepshow (1982)- "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"
Movie Synopsis: The segment, "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" is based on Stephen King’s short story “Weeds”. “Jordy Verrill (played by King himself), a dimwitted backwoods yokel, thinks that a newly discovered meteorite will provide enough money from the local college to pay off his $200 bank loan. As the meteorite is too hot to touch, he douses it with water, causing it to crack open and spew a glowing blue substance that comes into contact with his skin. He then finds himself being overcome by a rapidly spreading plant-like organism that begins growing on his body. Not only that, but the weeds start to grow on the house and everything Jordy has touched.”
Why I Chose this Film: I chose this segment from Creepshow because it is one of my earliest recollections of Botanical Horror. The use of color in this segment is especially striking and King's performance delivers some great one-liners still enjoyed by horror fans today. It's easily my favorite segment in the film.
Pairing Idea: So true story, we actually did a recipe inspired by "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"! We created a fun cookie recipe that uses visual queues from the segment! They are fun and honestly, I think at some point I'd love to go back and do a recipe inspired by each part of the film and make an entire meal out of it.
FAVORITE BOTANICAL HORROR
When someone says, "Keep off the grass!", you best listen to them. For this list, the Horrorverse team came together to share our favorite botanical horror film, covering killer plants and hungry venus fly traps to killer marijuana (hey, it's grown from the ground) and tomatoes. If you haven't seen any of the films on our list, we suggest you start from "the ground up." (We apologize for that terrible joke). Check out our list on Letterboxd.
RECOMMENDED READING
Candi Norwood | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd | StoryGraph | Website
At one point last year, I realized I was reading my third botanical horror novel in as many weeks, and even though it’s nothing new, it’s definitely having a moment, so go read some! Vegetables are good for you.
The Ruins by Scott Smith- The movie is a lot of fun, but the novel really gets under your skin (and, yes, pun intended). Vacationers in Mexico awaken some dormant, man-eating vines which lure them in by mimicking their friends.
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher- Yes, you have seen this one before when I mentioned it with Edgar Allan Poe adaptations in our silent movie issue. So why haven’t you read it yet? It’s a retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher, plus sentient fungi! And two sequels!
Moonflow by Bitter Karella- Moonflow follows Sarah, who is in search of the rare King's Breakfast mushroom, and her forest guide, sweet baby angel Andy, into the deep, dark Pamogo Forest where they encounter a violent matriarchal cult led by Mother Moonflow who worships an entity they call the Green Lady, and a bunch of crazy stuff goes down. Read my full review here: https://candikathorror.com/reads/moonflow
Overgrowth by Mira Grant- If The Thing and Swamp Thing had a baby, kind of. Throw in some CIA sleeper cell mythology and changeling lore. Children are swapped out for identical sentient plant aliens and things happen when they grow up that impact all humankind. Mira Grant is always an unputdownable read, and this is no exception.
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Griffin- Dual narration between a woman who’s had to move back home and take a minimum wage job and a psychopathic, hungry greenhouse plant. It’s horrific, depressing, and funny. Note: The audiobook was particularly well done.
MACABRE DAILY: WEEKLY UPDATES
💀 Beyond Fest Descends Upon The Windy City This April With Beyond Chicago! (READ)
💀 "TOUCH ME" (2026) Gives Us The Trauma And Tentacle Sex Movie We've Been Waiting For (REVIEW)
💀 Actor Javier Botet And Director Marc Klasfeld Discuss The Dangers Of Ubran Spelunking In "DO NOT ENTER" (INTERVIEW)
💀 Deserts And Diners: The Road As A Queer Space In “THE HITCHER” And “THE PASSENGER” (READ)
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DOUBLE TROUBLE
Bee Delores | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd & Sarah Stubbs | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd
Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors (1986) is a perfect example of a remake being far superior to the 1960 original. It also helps that the story has been turned into a musical. "From Skid Row (Downtown)" to "Somewhere That's Green" and "Suddenly Seymour," the soundtrack is packed with bangers. The setup is pretty simple: a flower shop clerk named Seymour (Rick Moranis) finds himself living a ho-hum life when he stumbles upon a strange and interesting plant. He can't seem to find the Venus fly-trap-looking plant in any of his nature books, so he names it Audrey II, a reference to his crush and fellow flower clerk Audrey (Ellen Greene). What unravels over the next 90 minutes is a gloriously fun and surprisingly powerful story about working up the ladder to the life you want. As Maxine says in X: "I will not accept a life I do not deserve." Little Shop of Horrors is a slice of cinematic escape we can all use right now. [written by Bee]
Instead of going with the obvious choice of pairing Little Shop of Horrors (1986) with it's original counterpart, I've got a film for y'all that's pretty wild. Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet is a horror adjacent Czech film. As I mentioned in my Letterboxd review, it feels like a Sherlock Holmes and Poirot caper by way of The Little Shop of Horrors with a dash of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Inspector Gadget thrown in for good measure. Comparisons to Pink Panther wouldn't be far off either. Where it warrants inclusion here, is in that its villain, The Garderner, has a large carnivorous plant that’s used to exact revenge. The film overall is really over the top and silly. While light on the horror, it's heavy on the laughs and that makes it perfect to pair with Little Shop of Horrors (1986). [written by Sarah]
WHAT TO WATCH
Found footage is like a box of (expired) chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get (maggots, probably). Writer-director Jeremy Schuetze gives you everything you could possibly want in a found footage film, unapologetically leaning into genre traps and conventions, with Anacoreta. He celebrates the craft, relishing in the shaky camera, the blurry images caught in darkness, and the tight runtime. Along with co-writer Matt Visser, Schuetze opts for expectation—until the very last moment, when he yanks the rug from under your feet. You won’t see it coming." [Read Bee's Review]
'Sit down, little boys, the grown-ups are talking,' swears author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas at the beginning of the brand new documentary, 1000 Women in Horror, based on her 2020 book. Documenting the years 1895-2018, the presentation brings together a diverse panel of women filmmakers, including Mattie Do (The Long Walk), Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny), and Cerise Howard (Program Director of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival), to dissect the roles women have played in horror. In fact, you could argue that Mary Shelley, who conceived the idea for Frankenstein when she was 18, birthed the genre. Throughout history, women have played an integral part in horror films, both in front of and behind the camera. This documentary serves as a timely reminder that women have commanded the conversation and frequently been squashed by cis straight white men. The doc also disproves the long-held belief that women don’t like horror." [Read Bee's Review]
