Halloween Movie Marathon 2/31: Hellraiser (1987) Picked up the 4K and figured it was time for a rewatch because it had been way too long. And man, Hellraiser is still such a weird, nasty, deeply gothic little movie. People tend to remember the hooks, the chains, the Cenobites, and Pinhead standing around looking like he has absolutely no patience for your bullshit. But underneath all of that, this is basically a story about obsession, forbidden desire, a rotten family, a house full of secrets, and somebody opening the wrong door because they desperately want something they probably should have left alone. Which, yeah. Very gothic. The other thing that always sticks with me is that the Cenobites aren’t really evil, at least not in the first movie. They’re horrifying, obviously, but they’re not running around hunting innocent people for fun. They show up because somebody solves the box (sorry Kirsty). They have rules. They have a philosophy. They think they’re offering transcendence. The problem is that their definition of transcendence is, uh, extremely specific. Frank is the real monster. Julia isn’t far behind. The Cenobites are almost more like forces of consequence than villains. And that’s probably the part that connects most directly to The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor. Bradbury Manor isn’t evil in a simple sense either. It has rules, memory, appetites, and its own warped idea of what it is preserving. Like the Cenobites, it becomes more interesting once the horror stops being “monster wants to kill you” and starts becoming “this thing has a logic of its own, and unfortunately you’re now inside it.” Sometimes the scariest thing in gothic horror isn’t malice, it’s purpose. 4.5/5 puzzle boxes. #HalloweenMovieMarathon #31DaysOfHalloween #HorrorMovies #GothicHorror

I’m doing a thing. On Tuesday, September 29 at 7:30 PM ET, I’ll be live on Instagram for the release of The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor. Maddie Block is hosting, which means I get to talk about the book instead of awkwardly interviewing myself for half an hour. We’ll have: 📖 a short reading 💬 live Q&A 🎟️ a giveaway 🏚️ probably too much discussion about haunted houses, doomed families, terrible fathers, and why Bradbury Manor is such a nightmare If you’ve been following the book, reading the ARC, tolerating my nonsense, or you’re just curious what the hell I’ve been working on, come hang out. Tuesday, September 29 7:30 PM ET Instagram Live @mikemizov Hosted by @maddie._block And yes, I will try very hard not to make the reading weird. #TheLastHeirOfBradburyManor #BookLaunch #InstagramLive #GothicHorror #GothicFiction #HorrorBooks #HistoricalHorror #HauntedHouse #Bookstagram #HorrorBookstagram #IndieAuthor #AuthorEvent #NewBookRelease #SpookyReads #DarkFiction

So every year I try to do 31 horror movies before Halloween, I tend to start earlier so I’m not in a last minute panic, so get ready for a lot of movie reviews. Halloween Movie Marathon 1/31: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) Starting the marathon with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which feels appropriate because apparently I enjoy stories about doomed families, inherited misery, terrible fathers, people making catastrophically bad decisions, and old houses where nobody is emotionally equipped to have a normal conversation. Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein is gloriously excessive. Everything is huge. The emotions are huge. The sets are huge. The music is huge. Branagh spends half the movie sweating through increasingly dramatic shirts while Robert De Niro wanders around being substantially more thoughtful than everyone who created him. And somehow, it works. What I like most about this version is that the Creature isn’t really the horror. Victor is. The monster is intelligent enough to understand exactly what has been done to him, and the tragedy comes from watching Victor repeatedly make the worst possible choice because accepting responsibility would require him to become a fundamentally different person. That part hit especially hard after writing The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor. Mine obviously isn’t a Frankenstein story, but there’s a similar gothic idea underneath both of them: the past doesn’t stay buried just because the people responsible would prefer not to discuss it. Eventually the thing you created, inherited, concealed, or refused to confront comes knocking at the door. Sometimes literally. Also: gothic horror is at its best when the supernatural element isn’t merely trying to kill everyone. It wants something. It remembers something. It has a grievance. Bradbury Manor would absolutely understand the Creature. 4/5 for me. 1 down. 30 increasingly questionable decisions to go. #GothicHorror #GothicFiction #ClassicHorror #MonsterMovies #HorrorCommunity

One girl. One crumbling legacy. One house with very strong opinions about who gets to leave. The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor comes home September 29th. If you like gothic horror, family secrets, doomed bloodlines, forbidden attraction, and old houses that should probably be condemned on both structural and supernatural grounds, you may want to visit. #TheLastHeirOfBradburyManor #GothicHorror #GothicFiction #HorrorBooks #HorrorBookstagram #HistoricalHorror #DarkFiction #Bookstagram #BookRecs #BookRecommendations #IndieAuthor #IndieBooks #HauntedHouse #GothicMystery #ComingSoon

Seeing people actually read this thing is still surreal. A few new reviews have come in for The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor, and I love seeing which parts stick with different readers. The theories especially make me happy, because this was always meant to be the kind of story where you keep second-guessing what the house is doing and why. It’s out September 29th. #TheLastHeirOfBradburyManor #GothicHorror #GothicFiction #HorrorBooks #HorrorBookstagram #Bookstagram #BookRecs #BookRecommendations #HistoricalHorror #HistoricalFiction #IndieAuthor #IndieBooks #Goodreads #BookReviews #ComingSoon

Barnes and Noble is having a preorder sale and I have a book able to be preordered? I couldn’t help myself. #bookpreorder #gothic #gothichorror #horrorbooks #indieauthor