BRYAN W. ALASPA

Horror is a genre of the senses. We see blood. We hear screams. We feel the cold breath on the back of our necks. But one sense rarely gets its due: taste . And yet, when horror does reach for it, the results are some of the most unforgettable, stomach-churning experiences in film and fiction. The horror of taste taps into the primal disgust at what enters our mouths and bodies, what we consume, and what consumes us. Whether it’s cannibalism, decadence, or body horror served

With the release of my sea-faring horror tale, The Witch of November (out now), I thought I'd explore some maritime horror. The ocean is older than fear itself. It predates civilization, myth, and even memory. It is vast, alien, and merciless, an endless expanse of shifting darkness that hides things we were never meant to see. For horror storytellers, the sea has always been more than a setting; it’s a sentient force, a graveyard, and sometimes, a god. From ghost ships and

A city without people feels wrong. The architecture still stands. The traffic lights still change. The wind still moves through the streets. But when the crowds vanish and the hum of life goes silent, something inside us recoils. Empty cities, deserted malls, and forgotten highways don’t just evoke sadness, they radiate horror. In fiction and film, abandoned city horror  has become a subgenre of its own. From Silent Hill  to The Last of Us , from 28 Days Later  to urban explo

Horror movies are more than just unsettling visuals and jump scares. They have a unique ability to touch on our most profound fears and anxieties, allowing us to experience a thrilling rush of emotions. But what makes these films so effective at evoking such strong reactions? In this post, we will take a closer look at the psychology of fear and how horror movies skillfully manipulate our emotions to create lasting memories. Understanding how fear works on a psychological lev

For as long as humans have looked to the skies, we’ve filled the void with gods. Some were benevolent, some were wrathful, and some demanded sacrifice just to keep the sun rising. But what happens when those gods are abandoned when the temples fall, the prayers stop, and their names fade into myth? Horror has long suggested that forgotten gods don’t simply vanish. They linger, festering, angry at being ignored. Forgotten gods horror is one of the most unsettling corners of th

Horror has always been obsessed with family. Not just the comforting warmth of kinship, but the shadows that stretch across generations. From Gothic castles to modern suburban homes, horror stories remind us that sometimes the greatest monsters are the ones we inherit. Family curses, doomed bloodlines, and inherited sins haunt the genre, showing us a terrifying truth: some destinies can’t be escaped. Gothic Roots: The Fall of the House The Gothic tradition laid the foundation

For most of us, sleep is supposed to be the safest time of the day. The lights go out, the doors are locked, and we surrender ourselves to rest. But horror knows better. In countless stories, sleep isn’t peace ... it’s peril. The hours we spend unconscious are fertile ground for nightmares, sleep paralysis demons, and shadowy intruders who prey on our vulnerability. Sleep horror works because it weaponizes something unavoidable. You can run from monsters. You can stay out of

Few horror tropes cut as deeply as the doppelgänger, the uncanny double, the mirror-self that shouldn’t exist. Unlike vampires or ghosts, the doppelgänger isn’t some external monster. It’s you.  Or at least, a version of you that shouldn’t be standing there in the hallway, smiling with your face but not your soul. From Gothic literature to modern cinema, doppelgängers have haunted stories for centuries. They’re symbols of duality, fractured identity, and the terrifying possib

So, as you can tell from the number of blog posts I did and have done about pulp heroes, I am in my pulp phase. I have often said I felt like I was born in the wrong time. There was a time when writers were paid by the word to crank out novel length stories for magazines like The Shadow and The Spider (my two favorites). And, thankfully, a lot of those stories still exist and you can still read them and I highly recommend it. So, of course, I had to create my own. Yes, this i

We expect reality to behave itself. Doors should lead somewhere. Hallways should get you closer to a destination, not farther away. Angles should add up. When space refuses to cooperate, the human brain panics; and horror pounces. This is spatial horror : stories that weaponize architecture, geometry, and orientation to make you feel lost in places that should  be familiar. From H.P. Lovecraft’s “non-Euclidean” cities to modern labyrinths that rearrange themselves when you bl

In the golden age of pulp magazines, heroes were larger than life. The Shadow was cunning, The Spider was ruthless, and The Avenger was eerie. But one figure towered over them all— Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr.  Billed as “The Man of Bronze,” he wasn’t just a pulp hero. He was pulp’s answer to the superhero long before comic books took over. With his genius mind, immense physical prowess, and fortress-like headquarters, Doc Savage became one of the most influential characters in po

If Frankenstein  (1931) is about the thrill and terror of creation, The Bride of Frankenstein  is about what comes after: responsibility, loneliness, and the cost of being alive. Director James Whale  returns four years later with a sequel that’s funnier, stranger, and far more humane. The result isn’t just the better of the two Karloff/Whale films; it’s one of the best movies of the 1930s...full stop. A Sequel That Outgrows Its Parent Most sequels double down on spectacle. W

When we think of classic pulp heroes, names like The Shadow  and Doc Savage  immediately come to mind. But tucked within the golden age of the 1930s and 40s was another creation who burned brightly, if only for a short time. The Avenger , with his pale, corpse-like face and relentless pursuit of justice, embodied the fusion of crime-fighting pulp action and eerie, horror-tinged atmosphere. His exploits, though brief in pulp magazines, carried him into radio and eventually com

When you wake up from a nightmare, your heart pounding, the images often don’t make sense. The hallway in your dream was both your childhood home and a place you’ve never been. A faceless figure chased you, but somehow you also knew it was someone you loved. This is the strange, shifting logic of dreams, and horror has been mining it for decades. Nightmares are effective in horror fiction because they unsettle us in ways ordinary scares cannot. Unlike a masked killer or a hau

For as long as horror has existed, monsters have lived in dark forests, haunted houses, and cursed cemeteries. But some of the most unsettling horror doesn’t come from the supernatural at all, it comes from within the walls of our own homes. Domestic horror, or “the horror of the ordinary,” turns the familiar into something dreadful. It transforms kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms into battlegrounds of grief, guilt, and madness. And perhaps the most frightening part? It al

For most of horror’s history, the genre has looked backward. We’ve been haunted by ghosts, curses, ancient evils, and the sins of the past. But lately, something’s changed. A new kind of horror is emerging, one where the monsters aren’t rising from the grave, but from the server. The ghosts aren’t lingering in Victorian mansions; they’re embedded in the code. Welcome to speculative tech horror: where the future itself is the thing to fear. When Progress Turns Malevolent From

Now let's talk about my absolute favorite pulp here. At least when it comes to reading the original pulp novels. A guy meant to be a...

Few decades gave birth to as many nightmares as the 1950s. It was a time of postwar optimism, families buying new cars, kids watching TV...

Man, I have been a fan of The Shadow for so long. I first became a fan after reading some of his appearances in DC comics, then...

The Origins of Horror in Ink and Panels Before Freddy Krueger, before The Exorcist , before Stephen King ruled the nightmares of readers,...