Very exciting announcement today! I just signed another three-book deal with the Orbit Division of Hachette Book Group. I couldn’t be happier working with one of the world’s largest English-language publishers. The new horror novels will come out in 2027, 2028, and 2029. Until then, for your reading pleasure: a duology this year! A new take on the classic slasher.
I hope you dig it! Thank you as always for reading my stuff and for making this dream come true.
Crime Reads recently published a Best Horror Fiction of 2025 list, with 25 incredible horror novels including MY EX, THE ANTICHRIST.
Check it out here!
In SOUTHBOUND, various travelers along a remote stretch of desert road are on a collision course with their sins. Somehow, this little 2016 indie horror gem got past me, but I was happy to finally catch it, as it turned out to be a ton of fun.
The movie is actually an anthology of stories, though it doesn’t feel like one, as each story seamlessly blends into the next. The result is a different take on the theme–a patch of ground that is something like a very real Hell on Earth–resulting in an intriguing mythology that develops over the course of the film.
In one story, two men on the run flee from what appear to be angels of death. In another, three members of a band break down on the road and are given a lift by a nice but strange couple. And more. I don’t want to say more as knowing little going into the film makes for some nice surprises.
Besides the variety in storytelling, the anthology approach also works well here in that there’s no lengthy act one–you’re thrown right into the story. While this sacrifices some getting to know and care about the characters, it keeps the pace brisk and the mood tense.
On the downside, it’s clearly an indie production. Overall, the production quality is pretty good, but some of the acting is a little uneven.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with SOUTHBOUND and recommend it.
Based on the novel by Adam Cesare and directed by Eli Craig (TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL), CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (2025) appears to offer the usual slasher but develops into something far less shallow and rote. It offers a lot of fun in a familiar package.
Quinn is a teenager moving to a small rural town in Missouri from Philadelphia with her dad, a doctor who is looking to escape after the death of his wife. The town is economically depressed after its single major factory–a corn syrup factory with a clown as a mascot–closed. Quinn gets in with a gang of teens who love horror movies, only for them all to find themselves fighting to survive a night of a very real horror.
What I liked: There are a few nice twists, a surprising monster, some great kills, and a theme of the old not understanding the young and trying to hold them back as they struggle to write their futures. The movie softens the gore with some nice touches of comedy that don’t feel grafted on. These and other variations freshen up the familiar story, but what made it work for me was it has just enough heart. The teens are charming, and their interactions feel pretty natural. When it all falls apart, I found myself rooting for them instead of anticipating a juicy kill of some unlikable jerk.
What I didn’t: The last act loses its edge in my view as we get an exposition dump on why this is all happening, and it then overreaches for setting up a sequel. As this is a campy teen slasher, my bar was set fairly low going into it, so these things didn’t bother me.
Overall, I thought CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD was fun and would recommend it to those looking for something new and inventive in the slasher.
In WEAPONS (2025), the children attending a single classroom at a local elementary school get out of bed at home and disappear into the night–all except one. The result is top-notch horror.
Created by Zach Cregger, whose BARBARIAN was a nicely surprising horror movie, WEAPONS elevates itself with some interesting elements. You’ve got the core mystery of what happened to the children–the kids disappearing into the night with their arms splayed is super creepy. You’ve got the very real fallout of this bizarre situation tearing the community apart, shown through the eyes of an ensemble cast of characters with interconnecting storylines. And you’ve got a powerful horror element slowly unveiled in creepy reveals.
What I liked: Almost everything. This is horror done right, focusing on character and teasing the horror with mystery that slowly unravels to a shocking finish. The PULP FICTION/MAGNOLIA-style rotation through the character points of view gives the film an almost literary sense of depth. The characters are flawed and real, the horror elements are surprising and shot with a matter-of-fact, almost cinema verite style, and the ending is terrific. It doesn’t lean too hard on jump scares, which I usually find more grating than scary.
What I didn’t: There is a narrated beginning that I would have loved to have been shown instead of told, and the rotation through the ensemble cast bordered on bird walking at times, diffusing the tension a bit too much here and there. But these are quibbles.
Overall, WEAPONS was a lot of fun. I loved this one and recommend it.
In MOUNTAINHEAD, four billionaires meet at a mountain lodge for a “tech bros weekend” while the world collapses due to the technologies they unleashed. This is brutal satire, slicing through the carefully created mirage of genius and altruism to show these people as what they are: psychopaths.
Tech billionaire “Venis,” as he calls himself (played as a cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk by Cory Michael Smith), has a massive platform called Traam, whose latest update allows AI deepfakes so real they’re being used by terrorists and political groups to sow chaos. Banks are folding, countries are imploding, and ethnic violence is running rampant around the globe. He attends a weekend getaway with his buddies at a mountain lodge called Mountainhead owned by “Supes,” who got rich on apps but is constantly being ragged on because he hasn’t cracked a billion in net worth yet, making him feel like a failure and worship his swaggering billionaire buddies. Randall is a venture capitalist who makes all this possible (played as a stilted and smug Peter Thiel by Steve Carell); he’s also dying and hopes technology will save him by allowing his consciousness to be uploaded to the cloud to live in a digital heaven. Finally, there’s Jeff (played as a version of Sam Altman by Ramy Youssef), something a voice of conscience in the group, whose net worth is skyrocketing because his AI moderation tool is mitigating some of the worst of what Traam is doing.
Over the weekend, it becomes clear that Venis needs Sam’s AI moderation tech, and when Sam refuses to sell, the others turn on him.
As a satire, the movie works beautifully for the most part. Basically, the movie takes the public personas of rich and powerful tech billionaires and puts them in a private context, which only makes them sound even more ridiculous. The world is literally collapsing due to these men, but all they care about is how to profit off it, citing maxims about creative destruction; the worse they make things, the more they rationalize they’re doing the right thing, seeing themselves as the man who invented the wheel. A self-righteousness that extends all the way to believing they should be justified in directly committing murder. The comedy of the satire, however, is more depressing than funny much of the time. There is a tense dirtiness to watching this movie; I felt like I needed a shower for my brain afterwards.
The film is getting a lot of bad reviews from movie watchers, much of it due to it being instantly politicized. Is this criticizing Musk? Oh no but he’s my hero, I gotta give it a 1-star review. It’s part of the horror of billionaires having so much money and power that there are many, many people who buy into the myth and tech utopia BS and wind up worshiping them–to the point they think billionaires should run the world. On the other hand, the backlash against the 1-star reviews is drowning legit criticism of the movie as being frustrating, which it can be, and that is the greatest trick of the satire, when it turns the knife on the viewer in the last act. Those expecting a big comeuppance will be disappointed. As in real life, there is no justice. Just billionaires laughing as their net worth climbs and the world burns.
Overall, I liked MOUNTAINHEAD but didn’t love it. It’s not as powerful as films like SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, and its single running comedic note, while sharp, gets monotonous. Instead of offering hope about justice, the movie rubs what you hate right in your face to the last minute.