horror corner

recommended sites | movies | books | games

welcome fellow creeps! i've been obsessed with horror media from a pretty young age, so this is where i'll be talking about my opinions and recommendations on all things scary. if you have any recommendations for me, on the other hand, please leave a comment in the "creep chat" to the left! i'm always looking for new things to watch, read, etc. i love most subgenres in one way or another but i especially enjoy horror that has some type of sociocultural message and/or very interesting imagery.

neocities

the stillman's light

across the web

 

 

 

 

does the dog die? (crowdsourced trigger warnings for movies, not horror specifically)

bloody disgusting (hub for news about all things horror)

kindertrauma (site about the horror media that freaked us out as children)

fangoria (horror and cult film magazine)

lair of horror (lovely site for fans of the horror movie classics)

effedupmovies.com (just like it sounds, get your fix on disturbing movies)

the cannibal cafe forum (an archive of the infamous site, read at your own discretion)

exit mundi (explains various end-of-world scenarios)

erowid experience vaults (read about people's experiences on every type of psychoactive drug)

the shadowlands (the oldest paranormal website)

mattisdovier on giphy (artist who makes creepy black + white gifs. warning: flashing images)

terminal 00 (very creepy/trippy; warning: site autoplays loud music)

last meals project (in case you're curious what people ate before their execution)

136 creepy wikipedia articles (just what it sounds like)

bongcheon dong ghost (scary interactive web comic; warning: jumpscares)

ok-su station ghost (another webcomic by the same artist, but no jumpscares)

scp foundation (archive of fictional creatures and anomalies)

sentimental corporation (???)

dr. rinaldi's horror cabinet (wordpress blog with loads of interesting writings/reflections)

your ghost stories (paranormal stories and info, you can even submit your own experience)

internet pathology lab (images/info on human internal anatomy.. gross!)

black friday death count (exactly like it sounds)

darwin awards (old site giving "awards" to people whose stupid decisions turned fatal)

this man (creepy/weird and interesting)

housecreep (find out if you live near a murder house)

plane crash info (photos, statistics, recordings + transcripts of last words, etc. from airplane accidents)

ride accidents (info. on carnival and amusement park accidents)

the oklahoma girl scout murders (site dedicated to an unsettling unsolved murder case)

ted's caving page (site where a man writes about bizarre experiences he's had)

aisekai hospital (archive of the hospital's old site, which is visually very odd)

the conet project (a collection of recordings from shortwave numbers stations)

urban exploration resource (find spooky abandoned spots to explore)

shintaro kago's website (a guro mangaka/artist i like)

bob heffner's dinosaurs attack! homepage (a site dedicated to digitally cataloging all of the dinosaurs attack! collector's cards, which are very goofy and gory)

free reads:

 A Modest Proposal by Johnathan Swift
 Edgar Allen Poe Complete Collection
 H.P. Lovecraft Complete Collection
 Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
 The Monkey's Paw by W. W. Jacobs
 The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
 The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
 The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
 The Landlady by Roald Dahl
 I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell
 Coraline by Neil Gaiman
 Cannibal  by Chuck Palaniuk

personal reviews:

i didn't really start to read books in the horror genre until 2022, but i've really been enjoying getting back into reading and experiencing horror through lit, so i decided to share my thoughts! the books are listed in the order i read them, with the most recent one i've read listed last. the cover images used were on the hardback sleeves/paperbacks i read.

Loop  by Koji Suzuki

this is the third book in the Ring series which i have been reading. i was very excited to read it because it felt like the story finally hit a crescendo and was getting really good.

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: humanity is being slowly wiped out by a new virus with no cure. an exceptionally intelligent college student whose loved ones are infected with the virus goes to new mexico to find the strange, abandoned 'loop' project in hopes of coming up with a cure.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

i was really hoping that this book would finally shed some light on Sadako's intentions and how she was able to set off this chain of events, but it did not. for the first third of the book, i was struggling to figure out how this book would even connect to the ring story. once it did, it still felt like nothing was entirely clear aside from explaining some small things that most readers would have assumed were due to something paranormal, or meant to emphasize the underlying theme of the butterfly effect. instead, the writer turned the entire story on it's head and everything the reader thought they knew about the story... well, this book just changes your view of things. that's all i can say without getting into spoilers. i think some people will really like the trajectory that this book took, but i wasn't a huge fan. i was hoping it would lean more into horror, but this book feels more like an existential science fiction. i don't think it was a bad book, it's just not what i was expecting so i was inevitably a bit disappointed.

Hide  by Kiersten White

i bought this book on a weekend beach trip with my boyfriend and was drawn to the cover because of the ferris wheel on the cover. i had recently read Fantasticland, so i was really looking forward to reading another horror novel that takes place in an amusement park.

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: 14 people are lured to an abandoned amusement park by the promise of a cash prize for being the winner of a week-long game of hide-and-seek. as people in the competition are "found", it becomes clear to the remaining competitors that there is a lot they don't know about the supposed game they're playing.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

on the inner flap of the book sleeve, it is described as a supernatural thriller. well, i read that once right before i bought the book and didn't read it again when i started the book because i took the book sleeve off while i read it. my point is that i totally forgot there was going to be a supernatural element to the book, so i was very surprised when it became a main plot point about halfway through the book. i personally think it's a pretty unique premise and all of the characters were interesting, but i felt like parts of it were lacking in detail/depth and i was left with a lot of questions at the end of the book. it's possible that the author is more used to writing shorter books because before this, she primarily wrote YA novels. despite this, i still enjoyed the read and plan to read the author's upcoming novel, Mister Magic.

The Troop  by Nick Cutter, a.k.a. Craig Davidson

randie lent me this book after they finished reading it and they really hyped it up, so i stopped in the middle of the book i was already reading to pick this one up instead. i was very careful not to read anything about the book beforehand because the description on the back of the book is kind of vague and i wanted to be suprised by what would happen, which i would recommend as well if you plan to read it.

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: 5 boyscouts and their troop leader, who are on a camping excursion on a local island, encounter a man who is very obviously ill and insatiably hungry. unfortunately, what the stranger is carrying leads to a horrifying struggle for survival and sanity in the wilderness.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

holy shit this book was good!! i rarely feel like things live up to the hype but this book certainly did. i'd never read something by this author before but i will probably be buying another one of his books in the near future. his writing style is just so vivid that at times i had to put the book down because i was so mortified by what was happening to a character. toward the end i actually cried, which is kinda rare for me when i'm reading.

the best way i can describe the book without getting into spoiler territory is that it's like a much more gruesome sci-fi version of The Lord of the Flies (which i would also highly recommend if you have not read it). the chapters were intersperced with different files, newspaper clippings, etc. from before and after the events of the book, which helps a lot with pacing and gives the reader insight into things that the characters are not aware of. the author said he was inspired by Carrie, which King wrote in a similar manner.

The Lost World  by Michael Crichton

since i read Jurassic Park at the end of 2022 and really enjoyed it, i decided to read this sequel shortly after to see if it lived up to the first one.

click the cover for a full synopsis. i'm actually not going to write a tldr because it's already short & sweet.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

i did enjoy this book, but after reading the first, this one felt somehwat formulaic. i don't want to spoil the plot but if you read them both, you'll probably get what I'm saying. the first half of the book doesn't really feel like it fits into the horror genre, but it speeds up and gets bloodier toward the end.

on the upside, i liked that there was more focus on the adult female character Sarah Harding, as i felt like Ellie Sattler didn't get enough pages in the first book. if you've watched the second Jurassic Park movie, you might have come away with the idea that her character was a bit impulsive and a motherly firgure. well, in the book, she is a lot more badass and is integral to the plot. since there aren't any other books in the series and i've decided i like Crichton's writing style, I'll probably end up reading another one of his books in the future, possibly Congo.

Birthday  by Koji Suzuki

after taking a decent little break from the series, i decided to pick up the 4th installment. after this, i believe there are two more but unfortunately only one is translated to english.

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: 3 short stories told from the perspective of 3 different people from the Ring series whose lives were changed forever by Sadako Yamamura.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

man, these stories were sad. i'm still happy that i read them though, because Suzuki did unveil some important plot that was missing from the previous books (particularly in the stories Lemon Heart and Happy Birthday. my heart truly ached for the characters. the end of the book seemed to be hopeful, yet it's not the end of the series. i guess hope is for suckers?

Manhunt  by Gretchen Felker-Martin

in honor of pride month i decided to read another book with a queer narrative and happened to stumble across this book on reddit or goodreads or something and was really interested. i went to a book store on a whim and there was one single paperback copy on their shelves, so i picked it up and started reading it.

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: a trio of trans adults navigate post-apocalyptic new england ravaged by sickly feral men while also dealing with murderous TERFs and what's left of the egocentric 1%.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

i have a lot of mixed feelings about this book, but i'll start out with what i liked about it. i found all of the characters to be very well fleshed-out, which made me more emotionally invested in the outcome of the book. it was incredibly descriptive and the author did not pull any punches with the gore. i also do think that this book has a lot of thought-provoking themes surrounding the gender binary and bigotted rhetoric. at some points it made me so mad i literally started to clench my jaw, which i don't recall ever happening before while reading, and by the end it made me cry as well.

now, for the things i didn't like so much. i honestly don't mind reading smut as long as it's not entirely depraved, but i did not realize how much sex would be in the book when i first started to read it because it wasn't really advertised as being smutty. i felt like when the characters were having very valid arguments or fallouts that deserved thoughtful follow-up talks, instead the characters would impulsively have sex and magically make up with a simple "sorry" without further discussion. i suppose i could just take that as the characters being flawed (which everyone is honestly) but i just felt like maybe that's a weakness of the author's. sex can't solve every problem in real life, sadly.

if you don't want to read about my opinion on queer discourse, feel free to skip to the rating. anyway, while about halfway through the book and researching the author, i found out that the author had shared some problematic views herself (at least in my opinion). you can read this twitter thread about it, but to sum up, she has expressed some very biphobic beliefs and has also insinuated that asexuals can't be gay/part of the LGBTQ+ community because "gay sex is a very important part of being gay". she also resorted to replying to an incest survivor on twitter with gifs of the incestuous siblings from Game of Thrones when she couldn't think of an intelligent refutation, which is just shitty in my opinion. i feel like some of her more problematic views on the queer community seeped into the book, which is disappointing because for the most part i did enjoy it (which is why i gave it 4 stars).

Terminal Park  by Gary J. Shipley

i don't remember where i saw this book recommended to me, but it seemed interesting and the cover image hooked me. aside from that, i went into the book fairly blind and was not sure what to expect.

there's no actual synopsis on goodreads, so i wrote my own: "a man isolated in a skyscaper apartment considers the meaning and cause of the apocalypse as society disentigrates outside due to an outbreak of uncontrollable human asexual multipication."

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

this book took me an unreasonable amount of time to read for a number of reasons. the synopsis i wrote makes it sound pretty good but it was honestly so pretentious that i couldn't enjoy it. i don't mind some philosophy in books, but this book was almost entirely some type of philosophical/artistic debate with lofty vocabulary that i would venture to say most people would not know. (i.e. alacrity, defenestration, eschewal, jouissance, diluvial, ameliorative, metonymy, etc.) if you know what all of those words mean, feel free to call me dumb in the comment box below. i also hated the never-ending comparison of the apocalypse to Hitchcock's Psycho, which took up at least half of the book if not more.

despite this, there were some good quotes that kept me reading rather than setting the book down and never picking it up again. "There were no small stories that weren't just the big story, just the monster writhing and farting and shitting all over itself in the service of growth, in the name of being alive."  i was also just very determined to finish it because it was only 197 pages and i did sort of want to know what happened to the main character in the end.

Lullaby  by Chuck Palahniuk

this book was sitting on my bookshelf for a really long time and finally picked it up because i wanted a change of pace from the last book i read. i remember really enjoying Chuck's writing back when i was in high school since i read Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, and the beginning of Haunted. my "high school sweetheart" ex (who i'm still friends with today) has read almost all of his books. anyway, i was very glad i picked it up and finished in in just about a week (which is pretty quick for me).

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: a reporter investigating SIDS notices that each child was read the same poem, which turns out to be an ancient euthanasia "culling" spell. when he and another woman who is familiar with the spell decide to track down every copy of the poem that exists so that they can keep other parents from making the same mistake, and a morbidly comedic adventure ensures.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

i know a lot of people weren't big fans of this book, but i really loved it! the gross, whimsical tone of it was like a perfect palette cleanser before taking on a bigger, more serious book. i found the imagery to be very vivid and i could definitely see it as a movie with the saturation of the colors turned up. it was sad and silly at the same time, but i suppose that's what dark comedies are meant to be. i went into it expecting the horror to be more subtle, but it was not.. at points it was absolutely absurd, but still didn't break my suspense of disbelief. my only problem with it was that the "final showdown" at the end felt a bit rushed, which is why i didn't give it a full 5 stabs. i know i'm not really talking about the plot, but that's because i don't want to spoil anything. seriously, just go read it. it's a lot of fun!

Ararat  by Christopher Golden

i found out about this book on Goodreads and because i get carsick if i try to read in the car, i decided to listen to the audiobook while my boyfriend and i drove several hours to the beach. i know i've said i don't like audiobooks, but i figured i would sign up for an Audible free trial and give audiobooks another chance starting with this one.

click the cover for a full synopsis. tldr: an avalanche on Mount Ararat reveals what look to be the remains of Noah's Ark. when a team of experts and a group making a documentary climb the mountain to figure out the truth behind the biblical story, they awaken an ancient evil they were not prepared for.

my *spoiler-free* thoughts.   .   .   .

firstly, i'll mention that i hated the narrator of this book on Audible. he was very bad at female voices and was actually offensive when he attempted a Korean accent. it bugged the shit out of me, but i tried to ignore it because it would not be an issue if i was reading a physical copy. aside from that, i also felt like the pacing was really off and it was kind of unclear who was supposed to be the protagonist/main character.

July - October Reading...

since i have not updated in several months and  i started listening to audiobooks, which has significantly increased the amount of books i've been reading, i don't see myself writing full reviews for each. so for now at least, i'm going to list the books i've read or listened to from july to late october with very short reviews and ratings. if you need to check trigger warnings for the books, i suggest starting here. also, i decided to try completing an A-Z horror reading challenge, so i read some things i normally wouldn't be rushing to.

The Haunted Forest Tour by Jeff Strand and James A. Moore
    ⊳ review:     kinda silly, but in a fun way. not a dull moment! (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       3.5/5 stabs

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
    ⊳ review:     also kinda silly, but less fun. kinda meh (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2.5/5 stabs

Catchers by Ben Rock and Bob DeRossa
    ⊳ review:     short, stupid, super loud (format: "graphic audio" audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2.5/5 stabs

Clowns VS. Spiders by Jeff Strand
    ⊳ review:     very fun mashup of phobias! (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

What Lurks Beneath by Ryan Lockwood
    ⊳ review:     good watery, tentacle-y fun (format: "graphic audio" audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       3.5/5 stabs

Killing It by Mike Bockoven
    ⊳ review:     too much whining about the "me too" movement (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2/5 stabs

Jaws by Peter Benchley
    ⊳ review:     too much extramarital angst, not enough shark (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2.5/5 stabs

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
    ⊳ review:     lesbian longing at it's finest, but not very scary (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House by Ben Farthing
    ⊳ review:     Killer Klowns from Outer Space  meets NOPE  (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

666 by Michael P. Whateley
    ⊳ review:     just really not good (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       1/5 stabs

The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates
    ⊳ review:     sad, haunting, and memorable (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
    ⊳ review:     struggled with the pacing but good story overall (format: paperback)
    ⊳ rating?       3/5 stabs

Extinction Peak by Lucas Magnum
    ⊳ review:     surprisingly good despite weird sibling subplot? (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       3/5 stabs

Quitters, Inc. by Stephen King
    ⊳ review:     insufferable protagonist, kinda dumb story (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       1.5/5 stabs

No One Rides For Free by Judith Sonnet
    ⊳ review:     disgusting and disturbing, but not in the fun way.. (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2/5 stabs

Roe V. Wade by Matt Shaw
    ⊳ review:     timely but just really, really bleak (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2.5/5 stabs

Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman
    ⊳ review:     not scary, more for YA than expected (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2.5/5 stabs

X's for Eyes by Laird Barron
    ⊳ review:     very weird, felt like a psychadelic trip (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       3/5 stabs

Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix
    ⊳ review:     this gave me a new hyperfixation lol (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       5/5 stabs

Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
    ⊳ review:     annoying protagonist, but really scary at points (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       3.5/5 stabs

Books of Blood Vol. 1 by Clive Barker
    ⊳ review:     an excellent selection of chilling short stories (format: paperback)
    ⊳ rating?       5/5 stabs

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
    ⊳ review:     extremely timely and tragic, made me cry (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

The Vessel by Adam Nevill
    ⊳ review:     meh, kinda disappointing (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       2.5/5 stabs

Off Season (Unexpurgated Edition) by Jack Ketchum
    ⊳ review:     wonderfully fucked-up cannibalistic fun! (format: paperback)
    ⊳ rating?       5/5 stabs

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    ⊳ review:     i prefer my female hysteria to be bloodier (format: PDF/ebook)
    ⊳ rating?       3.5/5 stabs

Fluids by May Leitz
    ⊳ review:     bloody and fucked-up and queer!! (format: signed paperback)
    ⊳ rating?       5/5 stabs

Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana
    ⊳ review:     weird, upredictable, and disturbing (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

Seed by Ania Ahlborn
    ⊳ review:     only got intense at the very end, meh (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       3/5 stabs

Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison
    ⊳ review:     super fucked-up but kinda romantic? wtf? (format: audiobook)
    ⊳ rating?       4/5 stabs

personal favorites:

artists/creators:

Ito, Junji

Kon, Satoshi

Kago, Shintaro

Miura, Kentaro

Oshimi, Shuuzo

Maruo, Suehiro

Satou, Kentaro

anime:

Perfect Blue

Berserk: The Golden Age Arc

Higurashi: When They Cry

Parasyte: The Maxim

School Live!

Alien 9

Akira

Terra Formars

free videogames:

Serial Experiments Lain - fan-made version that can be played in-browser, offered in several languages

LSD: Revamped - a fan remake of LSD: Dream Emulator

Ib - game about a girl trapped in a creepy art museum

notpron - unsettling puzzle game

Murder Games - text-based multiplayer battle royale RPG

Kitty Horrorshow - itch.io creator with several surreal/unsettling games available to play

VHS 1986 - creepy point-and-click puzzle game

C.H.A.I.N. - 20 games by 20 developers tied together by one narrative

Next Door - Junji Ito-inspired pixel horror

Nothing Special - short visual novel about being kidnapped by a stalker

Project Kat - short mystery/horror RPG

Purgatorium - short newgrounds game (warning: gore, jumpscare)

Fancy Island - cutely deceptive

Candypink - nothing could possibly go wrong working at a candy shop!

Doki Doki Literature Club - visual novel about a book club, nothing suspicious here

A Slasher Dating Simulator - you can currently play the free demo, as the game is not finised yet

Dirty Murder Games - 2 free VN's, Boyfriend to Death 1 & 2

board game recommendations:

Betrayal at House on the Hill

published/released in 2004

priced around $60 USD

3 to 6 players needed

approx. 1 to 2 hour gameplay

light/medium difficulty

i first played this back when i was a junior or senior in high school and it's really what got me into board games beyond monopoly, candy land, etc. once i got a hang of how it was played (you can read the game rules here), i was instantly hooked and ended up playing it over and over again for hours with my friends. it's so re-playable that years later, i still get excited to play it!

the basic premise is that a group of people are exploring a spooky, mysterious mansion until something causes one of them to turn on the rest of the group. players start off by choosing from several unique characters with different stats. the board initially starts out as a hallway, basement entrance, and upper floor entrance. players draw room tiles each turn to expand on and explore the house, meaning the house is constructed differently each game. the first portion of the game consists of players exploring the house and collecting items that may be useful later. some rooms trigger an omen, each of which moves the players closer to the second portion of the game: the haunt.

depending on where/how the haunt started, one player is deemed the traitor and a specific haunt scenario is provided. from here on, the traitor is working against the rest of the group and players can be killed. there are a ton of haunt scenarios, which adds another layer of uniqueness to each game and gives it such great re-playability. i really love this game and would definitely recommend it, especially if you're newer to this type of board game. if you have a group of 5 to 6 people to play with, this game can be a lot of fun.

i also just recently got the chance to play the 3rd edition of the game, which comes with all new characters as well as more detailed art and game pieces are more varied in shape and size to make it easier to tell the difference between them. the rules are also changed slightly, but not so much that it feels like a different game. i would definitely recommend this version of the game as well, especially if you've played the original and want some more variation. there's also a few expansion packs as well as a version called Betrayal at Baldur's Gate based on the video game, which is assume is more dark fantasy/cosmic horror, that i really want to get my hands on.

Dead of Winter

published/released in 2014

priced around $60 USD

2 to 5 players needed

approx. 1 to 2 hour gameplay

medium difficulty

my friends introduced me to this game in 2022 and at first i was worried it would be too difficult or overwhelming when i saw all the game pieces, but it really wasn't (although in my friend group we kind of deem one person being in charge of figuring out rules, handing out cards and tokens, etc. and it's typically not me, so i'm not the best judge of difficulty). i definitely enjoy competition, but i also really like cooperative games like this that encourage a lot of communication, trading resources, and working toward a common goal. the premise of the game is that a colony of people are trying to protect their shelter and survive through the zombie apocalypse.

each player controls multiple characters with unique abilities and has their own personal goal as well as the main objective that the group is trying to accomplish. there is also an option to have one player secretly betray everyone by working towards a personal goal that sets the group back. each round there is a player phase in which each person has their character do things like search for other survivors or essential items, kill zombies, heal themselves, put up barriers, etc. next is the colony phase where more zombies show up, survivors must be fed, and any other conditions that need to be met are fulfilled. this continues until the group objective has been achieved or everyone dies!

i've also played the stand-alone expansion called The Long Night, which has all new characters, new gameplay elements such as bandits from other colonies, and a mysterious new location called Raxxon Pharmaceuticals to explore (doing so is high risk, high reward). there's also the possibility that you can run into some nasty new types of zombies. i personally think it's cool that you can play this by itself or combine it with the original game, but it could potentially be a lot for newer players. no matter what, i think Dead of Winter is worth checking out and is perfect for a snowy day indoors with your friends.

The Last Friday

published/released in 2016

priced around $50-$60 USD

2 to 6 players needed

approx. 1 to 2 hour gameplay

light/medium difficulty

when my friends and i initially pulled this game out to play, it seemed pretty overwhelming and because it took us time to figure out, we didn't end up playing a full game. it was our collective first time playing a hidden movement board game so we didn't really know what we were getting into. recently we decided to pick it back up and try it again, dedicating the day to playing it since we anticipated it would take that long. surprisingly, it went a lot quicker than we thought it would.

the premise of the game is that one player is the killer (obviously based on Jason from Friday the 13th) and the rest of the players are the campers trying to survive. the game is played in 4 chapters, but can end early depending on how succesful the killer is. the rules change slightly from chapter to chapter, but the killer's main goal is to pick off campers one by one and to stay hidden so the campers don't gang up and kill him instead. the campers' locations are visible at all times, but the killer's is only revealed once every 3 turns, which adds a level of suspense.

the killer and each camper start out with specific tokens that let them use abilities. throughout the chapter, each time the killer reveals himself, he leaves behind a clue token that campers can grab and is then revealed to be either a dead body, and ability token, or a shovel to properly bury dead bodies to remove them from the board (and decrease the killer's "score" at the end of the round). the killer can earn more ability tokens based on his score at the end of each chapter, which is determined by difference between the number of dead bodies and the living campers on the board. if there are more campers than dead bodies, the campers earn more clue tokens which are put on the board. between each chapter, players whose campers were killed can replace them with new playable campers.

when my friends and i last played, we only made it to the third chapter. after the second chapter, one of the campers is deemed "the Predestined" and becomes the killer's main target. if the Predestined camper (who was one of the campers i controlled) is succesfully killed, the game ends (which is what happened). it felt kinda anticlimactic at the end, but i'm sure it doesn't feel that way if you're playing as the killer, which i would like to try out next time. i really enjoyed the game over all and am definitely interested in playing more hidden movement games such as Whitehall Mystery and Fury of Dracula.

card game recommendations:

Gloom

published/released in 2005

priced around $30 USD

2 to 5 players needed

approx. 1 hour gameplay

light difficulty

i only recently played this game with my friends but i had been eyeing it up on their shelves for a while now. the art that's used for the cards in this game emulates the work of Edward Gorey, who i have liked since i was pretty little. my grandma was a librarian, so she had a lot of books around and i always drifted toward the pop-up books, one of which was Gorey's The Dwindling Party. his work is subtly creepy and whimsical all at once, sort of similar to Tim Burton's style. anyway, seeing this definitely piqued my interest in the game. it turns out that it not only emulates Gorey's art style, but is actually an homage to him.

each player picks a family of gloomy misfits and the goal of the game is to inflict as much misfortune as possible on the members of your family until they meet an untimely death. players can use modifier cards (which can add positive, negative, or zero points to 3 different stats and can be used on yourself or other players' family members), event cards, and death cards. you basically want to try to get the biggest negative stats on all of your family members and to try to kill them all before the end of the game (which is triggered when the first player kills every member of their family). the person with the highest number of neg. stats for their dead family members combined wins!

i really enjoyed this card game and even ended up winning my first time playing it (although i think my friends went a little easy on me). as a clown enthusiast, i was also excited to see that one of the families you can choose from are circus workers, one of which is a skeletal clown named Mister Giggles.

there are also a few expansions (all in the art style of Gorey) for Gloom that incorporate new game mechanics as well as several stand-alone sequels, such as Cthulu Gloom, which my friends and I have also played. in this sequel, there are new families, modifiers, events, and deaths as well as a new type of card; a "story" that gives you the opportunity to get an even higher negative score for your deceased Lovecraftian family. i probably would have liked it better if i was more familiar with H. P. Lovecraft's writing, but i enjoyed it nonetheless and thought the addition of story cards was fun!

Monster Fluxx

published/released in 2013

priced around $20 USD

2 to 6 players needed

approx. 5 to 20 min. gameplay

my friends and i love playing the different Fluxx games, but this one is my personal favorite of the ones we have played. if you're a fan of movie monsters and card games, this is definitely one for you to check out. there are a three other horror-adjacent games from this Looney Labs series: Zombie Fluxx, Martian Fluxx, and Cthulu Fluxx.

the basic rules of Fluxx are to draw 1 card, then play 1 card. there are 4 different types of cards in this version: new rules, goals, actions, and keepers. goal cards show a combination of keeper cards that are required for a player to win and can be changed at any time. new rule cards outline a specific rule that will be implemented, such as changing the draw or play number, the hand limit, the keeper limit, or the number of goals. actions let you do things that shake up the game or help you to win. lastly, keepers are cards with images or characters and are needed to win the game. some keepers also give the player special abilities.

if you think it sounds chaotic, it definitely is (but in the best way)! things are constantly changing in the game, so it requires significant attention if you want to win. it's a fun mix of chance and strategy and can be over quickly or drawn out depending on what hand you're dealt. it's also family-friendly, so there's no worries of offending someone if you want to bring it to a family function or something.