Mrs. Winter cries while Mrs. Danvers watches from the film Rebecca (1940)

The Villain Does Not Appear: The Invisible Power of Rebecca

Welcome to the first Everything But Bone of 2019. It’s been a hectic year so far for me, so I hope it’s been treating you better than I. For this week’s article, I thought...
A naked man looms over a bound woman from film Chaser (2008)

The Police Incompetence and Widespread Societal Misogyny of The Chaser (2008)

Apart from the loss of lives, one of the saddest parts of any serial killer investigation is often realizing many of the victims were those in society most at risk, whether they were women,...

Using Decay to Develop Your Characters and Worlds

A bullet might be the fastest way to develop character (or end it). Similarly, dropping a bomb on a city is the most surefire way to change the landscape of a fictional world. But...

Just Hanging Around in Urban Legend (1998)

I have a confession: I didn’t always get horror. You see, the horror genre and I have a long, sordid relationship. Sure, everything is all wine and roses now, but, like most great romances, it...

Fact Versus Fiction: Trusting a Killer in Happy Face Killer (2014)

In 1990, Keith Hunter Jesperson would turn thirty-five years old. He had recently received two major blows to an already dangerously fragile ego. The first disappointment was getting rejected by the Royal Canadian Mounted...

Hellraiser: The Parable of a Sexual Woman by Vincent Bec

Hellraiser (1987, covered by Scriptophobic columnist Paul Ferrell here) is an ode to the disgusting. It is a film about the beauty of bodily ooze, and one woman’s, apparently unwavering, attraction to it. The...

Zombie VS Shark, What Else Needs to be Said?

I’m not ashamed to admit that as a budding horror fan, my first obsession— my first love— was zombie flicks. George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) ignited a passion within me for...

In Defence of Outlines

In his book On Writing, Stephen King discusses his method for discovering the story as he writes it and why he is not a fan of outlining his books. King suggests that he can...

Rewriting History: Karla (2006) and the Morality of Adaptation

It was July 6th of 1993 when Karla Homolka was convicted on two counts of manslaughter for her involvement in Paul Bernardo’s spree of abduction, rape, torture, and, eventually, three murders. Bernardo himself landed...

Hungry, Hungry Crites: The Chaos of Critters 2 (1988)

Fandom, that is, one’s dedication to a particular topic, study or artistic exploit, is driven and often defined by discovery. Exploration. Finding something new… and taking it with you as your appreciation and understanding...

6 Things I Learned Writing In the Shadow of Extinction

You can learn a lot writing a book. Learn something about yourself, your understanding of genre, and maybe hopefully how to be a better writer on the next book. I like to think I...

An Interview With Sequence Break’s Writer/Director Graham Skipper

I grew up on the tale end of the arcade boom, only encountering them in my travels a few times as a youth (aboard a cruise ship or in an out of the way...

A Pain in the Butt: The Tiny Ashs of Army of Darkness (1984)

The day the Hollywood Video finally opened its doors was a notable one in the small town where I grew up. Over the months leading up to its grand opening, my friends and I had...

Reality, the BTK Killer, and the Conservative Community in The Clovehitch Killer (2018)

SCRIPTOPHOBIC NOTE: We don't normally do spoiler warnings, however The Clovehitch Killer is a recent release, so be warned! The Clovehitch Killer (2018) is a great film. It’s also a frustrating one for those who have...

Don’t Get Them Wet: Birthing Adorable Monstrosities in Gremlins (1984)

It was late and it was snowing. I was wrapped in a blanket that smelled sort of funny, you know, a musty sort of smell that led me to believe it had been balled...

5 Dos and Don’ts You Want From a Writing Support Group

I spoke before about how writing fiction can be a lonely task – how sometimes it is necessarily lonely in order to protect the idea you are shaping into a story. But that’s not...

After a 100 Years, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Still Scares

Horror movies are in the middle of a renaissance. Sure, us fans know they have always been valued forms of entertainment, now horror is being taken a little more seriously. But let’s...

Clowning Around in Krampus (2015)

“He left me, as a reminder of what happens when hope is lost, when belief is forgotten, and the Christmas spirit dies.” Now, I know what you’re thinking: it’s Christmas and, conceptually speaking, a dead...

The Limitations of Law in Memories of Murder (2003)

During the mid-1980s, serial killers were already a staple of American media— everybody knew the names Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez and others, while murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer, the as of then...

Protecting the “Magic”: The Sanctity of the Idea

Writing is a private ordeal. We sit at the computer and will a world into existence with words. It’s a Herculean task. The loneliness which comes with writing isn’t often fun. But some of...

Blood, Laughs and Yard Work in Tucker and Dale VS. Evil (2010)

I had been hearing about Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) for over a year when it finally hit Netflix in late 2011. I was deeply entrenched in the horror genre then— scouring...

An Interview with Video Palace’s Ben Rock and Bob DeRosa

Gathering around the campfire and telling ghost stories is such a powerful image of how we share our mythologies that John Carpenter used it to open The Fog (1980). Often we forget that there...

Try Walking That Off …a Written in Blood Look at Misery (1990)

Creating something, regardless of your canvas of choice, is a frustrating, tumultuous process. The act requires sacrifice, both of self and ideology, resulting in something that goes out into the world and, in turn,...

The Untreated Psychopathy of I, Olga Hepnarová (2016)

We’re unsettled by anyone who kills another human being. The idea of taking a person’s life, to the vast majority of us, is morally revolting. Serial killers scare us worse because of the repetitive...

Connecting with Technology

“We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're going to live on the internet!” – The Social Network (2010)   Something I like thinking about is how many classic film plots might’ve...