According to reports from gullible parents' organizations, police departments, and media outlets, Kids on the Internet are spreading memes featuring an image of "Momo" (actually a sculpture called "Mother Bird" created by Keisuke Aisawa for the Japanese SFX studio Link Factory) that includes explicit self-harm and suicide instructions (the "challenge" in "Momo challenge" is allegedly to get kids to hurt or kill themselves). Read the rest “Satanic Panic 2.0: The Momo Challenge hoax [TW: Self-harm/suicide]”

From the scary movie documentarians "You're So Cool Brewster: The Story of Fright Night" and "Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary" comes "Pennywise: The Story of It."

Read the rest “The making of It, Stephen King's 1990 miniseries”

Fourth Seal Studios has everything you could possibly want from high-end prop eyeballs, including $40 "camera-ready" eyes ("Gray cores darken the the 'white' of the eye and can add a more realistic sense to the overall piece the eyes are being featured in"); $22-40 sculptural eyeballs in a variety of scales; "Undead and Creature" eyes (including Red Lich, Hemorrhage, Goat Eyes, etc); kits for making your own eyes and irises; painting and display stands, and custom eyeballs to order. Check back frequently for discounts on seconds and imperfections. (via JWZ) Read the rest “Make: high-end eyeball props, from humans to monsters to gore”

Resident Evil 2 is a just-released remake of the Capcom classic, updated with ultra-realistic performance-captured animation. DPO23 hacked the game's configuration to exaggerate characters' facial movements 500%. It's an unsettling illustration of what lies beneath cutting-edge graphics tech—and far scarier than the zombies. (See DP023's YouTube channel for more)

Read the rest “Resident Evil 2 with the facial animation exaggerated 500%”

Jeff Lemire can do weird-spooky (see, e.g., his Twilight Zonish graphic novel Underwater Welder) and he can do gripping (see his amazing, post-apocalyptic Sweet Tooth), but in his newest graphic novel from Image Comics, Gideon Falls, he shows that he can do spooky-verging-on-terrifying, with a tale of supernatural mystery that combines avant-garde graphic treatments with outstanding writing to create a genuine tale of terror. Read the rest “Jeff "Sweet Tooth" Lemire's new horror comic Gideon Falls is spooky af”

Burbank's amazing quarter-century institution Dark Delicacies is a horror book-, memoribilia- and clothing-store that is a community hub for genre creators, hosting a wonderful stream of events, signings, and even an annual chance to get your photo took with Krampus at a Christmas open-house. Read the rest “Fundraising to save Burbank's horror bookstore Dark Delicacies”

Neil Gaiman says Edgar Allan Poe should be read aloud, and he's right: he recorded this video of him reading "The Raven" in 2016 as part of Pat Rothfuss's Worldbuilders charity drive. It's Poe's birthday today, and I can think of no better way to celebrate it than to listen to it again. Read the rest “Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe!”

The Drone, currently in post-production, is a real movie about a killer drone. From the trailer description:

A serial killer transfers his consciousness into a consumer drone right before he is killed, then flies off to terrorize newlyweds Rachel (ALEX ESSOE) and Chris (JOHN BROTHERTON). The couple must fight to stop the insidious device before it destroys them both.

Director Jordan Rubin is a comedian, his prior film was Zombeavers, and The Drone is obviously a tongue-in-cheek tale. But I kinda wish it was straight-up splatterpunk sci-fi.

Read the rest “Trailer for "The Drone," a horror film about a sentient flying drone”

On this 1966 LP, British actor Roddy McDowall -- later known for playing Dr. Cornelius and Caesar in the original Planet of the Apes films -- delivers a wonderful reading of HP Lovecraft's classic short story "The Outsider." First published in Weird Tales in 1926, this nightmarish gothic-inspired tale is arguably one of Lovecraft's finest pieces of psychological horror.

The B-side is a reading of Lovecraft's "The Hound" (1922) featuring the very first mention of the infamous Necronomicon:

(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest “Listen: HP Lovecraft's "The Outsider" and "The Hound" read by Roddy McDowall”

Do you like the idea of listening to Trump "struggling to breathe"? Splinter's Jon Eiseman has the video for you.

Not the normal, everyday breathing that you and I would do. His breathing was labored but also panicked, as if he knew that he desperately needed to get air into his system but just didn’t quite know how.

It's the 20th anniversary of Anchorhead, Michael Gentry's seminal horror text adventure; to commemorate the occasion, Ryan Veeder and Jenni Polodna worked with 84 developers to create Cragne Manor, a tribute, whose puzzles are ingenious, frustrating and amazing. Read the rest “Cragne Manor, an 84-room horror "exquisite corpse" text adventure that's a tribute to the classic game Anchorhead”

This morning, an official video was released of Melania Trump walking through the White House, silently admiring its new Christmas decorations.

Holding leather gloves in one hand, the FLOTUS first makes her way through a forest of blood-red trees (bring on the metaphors!). We are then shown a glass ornament of the White House and then some laser-cut art of U.S. cities. Tasteful enough, I suppose. But as the minute-long video goes on, it strays back into the strange. Some decorations featuring the First Lady's initiative of "Be Best" are revealed including an ornament and a wreath made of pencils that has to be seen to be believed.

simonoftheplaya:

Previously: Just Be Best: Randy Rainbow sings about Melania

(Mashable) Read the rest “Melania's 2018 White House holiday decor includes blood-red trees and a 'Be Best' pencil wreath”

Immortal Masks make a lot of masks, prosthetics and horrific creatures we see in films that later end up haunting our dreams. This video shows exactly how they do it. Read the rest “Behind the scenes with Hollywood's creature making wizards”

Bram Stoker's working notes for Dracula were discovered in 1913 (but not published until 2008); now researchers at the London Library have pulled the titles Stoker referenced and shown that these were the very books that Stoker used -- they can tell because he defaced the library books, circling the phrases he later made notes on. Read the rest “Bram Stoker's reference materials for Dracula discovered at the London Library”

In 1969, Capitol Records released this incredible double LP set (and double 8-track tape) from Vincent Price titled "Witchcraft-Magic: An Adventure in Demonology." Hear the whole thing above. The nearly two hours of spoken word includes sections on the history and culture of "witchcraft" and helpful guides such as "How To Invoke Spirits, Demons, Unseen Forces" and "How To Make A Pact With The Devil." I certainly wouldn't vouch for the factual accuracy or research rigor of the material, but hearing horror icon Price's silky narration about such topics as necromancy and the "Witches Sabbat" is a joy.

Read the rest “Listen to Vincent Price's delightful 1969 lecture on witchcraft, magick, and demonology”

This Decorative Gourd Season, you can soothe your anxiety with a perpetual streaming video wallpaper in the form of a "Ghoul Log" (like a yule log, gettit?) from the good people at Shudder. Read the rest “A streaming Jack-O-Lantern is your Halloween "Ghoul Log"”

Edgar Allan Poe scholar Scott Peeples explains the black magic of Poe's work nearly 170 years after he died. From TED-Ed:

The prisoner strapped under a descending pendulum blade. A raven who refuses to leave the narrator’s chamber. A beating heart buried under the floorboards. Poe’s macabre and innovative stories of gothic horror have left a timeless mark on literature. But just what is it that makes Edgar Allan Poe one of the greatest American authors? Scott Peeples investigates.