In 2013 an apparently simple, back-to-basics scary movie transformed horror cinema for the rest of the decade. Based on the allegedly true story of the Perron family haunting and subsequent investigation by ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring has to-date spawned six sequels and prequels, making up a Conjuring ‘universe’ that has taken over a billion dollars around the world. The New York Times called The Conjuring ‘a fantastically effective haunted-house movie’ which, following his earlier film Insidious, established director James Wan as a force in horror cinema. In this Devil’s Advocates, horror scholar Kevin Wetmore examines what elements in the film are truly terrifying, how the filmmakers’ claims of being based on a true story hold up against the actual history of the haunting and the Warrens, and the relationship between The Conjuring and the many films in its universe. Along the way this book also considers how games, toys and dolls play an important role in the series, offers a critique of gender roles in the films, and asks the question, what is actually ‘conjured’ in The Conjuring? The delightful result is an in-depth, close reading of a film that uses standard horror tropes masterfully to create a truly scary film.

Spanning myth, history, and contemporary culture, a terrifying and illuminating excavation of the meaning of cannibalism. Every culture has monsters that eat us, and every culture repels in horror when we eat ourselves. From Grendel to medieval Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean, and from the Ghuls of ancient Persia to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, tales of being consumed are both universal and universally terrifying. In this book, Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. explores the full range of monsters that eat the dead: ghouls, cannibals, wendigos, and other beings that feast on human flesh. Moving from myth through history to contemporary popular culture, Wetmore considers everything from ancient Greek myths of feeding humans to the gods, through sky burial in Tibet and Zoroastrianism, to actual cases of cannibalism in modern societies. By examining these seemingly inhuman acts, Eaters of the Dead reveals that those who consume corpses can teach us a great deal about human nature—and our deepest human fears.

Seemingly normal people leading seemingly normal lives until that moment that causes disturbance. Nine stories quickening heartbeats. Recoil by Shawn Jones Artillery & Apparitions by DJ Tyrer The Night Clock by Kevin Wetmore Feeding the Machine by Matt Kolbet 372 by Keith Keffer All That Lies by IE Castellano When Voices Call by Thomas Beck Whitehall Down by DJ Tyrer Curtains by Fred Adams, Jr.

As you sit warm and cozy in your chair by the fire, comforted by the pretty lights and decorations of your holy nights, a chill runs up your spine. Part of you knows that the things that creep in the night and stalk your souls take no holiday. Indeed, as members of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Horror Writer's Association are here to remind you with twenty dark tales and four eerie poems, at this time of the year, many terrors lie just beneath the tinsel. They bring a special kind of fear that can only be found in The Winter Horror Days. The Christmas Spirit ~ Lisa Morton In the Dead of Winter ~ K. A. Opperman Mother Night ~ Elise Forier Edie The Eve Sirens ~ Lauren Candia about Christmas '78 ~ David Ghilardi Crying Wolf ~ Kate Maruyama Choking Hazard ~ Michael Paul Gonzalez Cursed by Saint Basil ~ Kate Jonez Witch Sisters ~ Sean Patrick Traver A Ghost Hunter's Guide to Christmas Yet to Come ~ Kevin Wetmore Black Coal ~ David Blake Lucarelli Pâtisserie du Diable ~ Eric J. Guignard Dread of Winter Dreams of Summer ~ Janet Joyce Holden The Sun ~ Robin Morris Krampus Comes to Town ~ Robert Payne Cabeen Showdown in Beverly Hills ~ Hal Bodner The Quiet Christmas Tree ~ Tracy L. Carbone Shamash ~ Xach Fromson An Ugly Resurrection ~ The Behrg The Scary Neighbor ~ Ian Welke Santa Christ and the Xmas Miracle ~ Terry M. West & Regina West Winter Witch ~ Ashley Dioses The Fifty-Eighth Item ~ Kathryn McGee ...And Eight Rabid Pigs ~ David Gerrold

A collection of ten stories of horror and speculative fiction to chill, intrigue, and inspire. In Raven McAllister's The Language of the World, a young woman returns home to see her ailing father... and to discover the truth behind the ghostly voices he claims to hear, while Jack Box by Aryan Bollinger delves into the complex relationships and unfinished business one man holds onto from beyond the grave. In Uncle Eddie by Robert Crow, dark secrets in one girl's family present both terrible turmoil and salvation, and Gordon Grice's Sugar tells the tale of a man confronted with an impossible threat to his loved ones. Mophead by Simon Lee-Price is the unsettling story of a man left alone with a monster while, in Michael Leonberger's Princess Petrify (Queen of Dead Things), the monsters are those that come from a young girl's mind. The Reveal by Joshua Rex shows just how heavily the past can hang on an unquiet mind although, in Lost Things by Michael "Bats" Weiss, it's the world around one woman that is fighting to drive her crazy. Going Nowhere by Kevin Wetmore sees a young man struggling to shake off the stultifying grip of his small town - whatever the cost - and, in Andrew Wilmot's Grudge Match, a woman grieving the loss of a life she loved begins to embrace a darker path toward her future.

13 original horror short stories and poems from talented authors of the ghoulish, the gruesome and the macabre. Published monthly.In this issue:Robert E. PetrasG. O. ClarkSamuel RabelaisBrian H. SeitzmanLizz-Ayn ShaarawiK. I. BorrowmanA.P. SesslerKevin WetmoreCharles RobertsonT. Fox DunhamJeffrey ToddBen HowelsAlarick Vaughan

URBAN TEMPLES OF CTHULHU - MODERN MYTHOS ANTHOLOGY Published by the First United Church of Cthulhu In the dark recesses of the world's cities lie the hidden altars and secret cathedrals dedicated to the blasphemous beings from out of space and time. And they want in! Features the work of prominent horror authors, many already with published Cthulhu Mythos material. "Little Gods" by James Pratt "Sects and the Single Girl" by Steven A. Roman "The Kings in Rebel Yellow" by Khurt Khave "The Face of God Within" by Brian H. Seitzman "The Black Metal of Derek Zann" by Aaron Besson "Cosmic Cavity; or, the Mouth of Man" by Carl R. Jennings "Along the Shore of Old Ridge" by Stuart Conover "Sleep Talking" by Jeff C. Stevenson "Matriarch of Skid Row" by M. C. Bluhm "Uncle Lovecraft: The Complete Oral History" by David Acord "Strange Communion" by Allen Griffin "Death in the Sunset" by Guy Riessen "The Abomination of St. Jude" by David F. Gray "Flesh-Bound Shadow Sun" by M. S. Swift "Doorstepping" by Kelda Crich "Saturday Night at the Esoteric Order of Dagon" by Jill Hand "City of our Lady, Queen of the Angels, Virgin Mother of a Thousand Young" by Kevin Wetmore "Warm Red Sea" by Jaap Boekestein The First United Church of Cthulhu is the only real and legally recognized nonprofit religious organization whose faith is based on the Cthulhu Mythos and the visions of our mad prophet H. P. Lovecraft. Find the church at FUCC.IT