Horror Joy

Jeff welcomes Damir Debanic, owner of InterHuman Games, to discuss his upcoming board game Jure Grando, a Croatia-based, vampire-adjacent folklore horror title on GameFound. Debanic describes horror’s cathartic link to joy, his path from organizing events in 1990s Croatia to 15 years at sea, and why board games are “programming with paper” and a vehicle for story. He explains that horror board gam...

On Horror Joy’s Meet Your Maker, Brian is joined by Undertone writer-director Ian Tuason. They discuss the relationship between joy and horror, distinguishing joy as a sustainable state from fleeting happiness and describing horror as a creative outlet that can offer safe thrills and catharsis, especially for people shaped by trauma. Tuason recounts his path from writing poetry, stories, and short...

In this episode of Horror Joy, Brian and Jeff make an unplanned stop on their “haunted house tour” by traveling from U.S.-centered hauntings (slavery, Jim Crow, Reagan-era policies, conquest) to Japan, discussing Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 cult film Hausu and Junji Ito’s Fragments of Horror story “Wooden Spirit.” They compare how both texts present “haunting houses” animated by spirits and brought o...

Brian and Jeff welcome director/writer/producer BT Meza to discuss his new film Affection, released in theaters May 8 and on video on demand June 5. Meza connects horror and joy through his love of watching horror, recounts early influences like reading Pet Sematary and Jaws and watching The Exorcist, and explains how he began making work by constantly photographing and filming, including music vi...

On this episode of Horror Joy, we discuss Mark Z. Danielewski’s 2000 novel House of Leaves on Horror Joy, framing it as a dense, meta haunted-house text built from layered narratives: Johnny Truant, an unreliable LA tattoo artist, edits the manuscript of the blind academic Zampanò about the possibly nonexistent documentary The Navidson Record, whose house contains impossible, expanding interior sp...

Brian and Jeff are joined by award winning author Keith Rosson to talk about his most recent book, Coffin Moon. They explore the role the Vietnam plays in the novel, how the nature of the vampire changes the requirements for the story, and how it acts as a model for bad parenting. Keith also talks through his understanding of genre, including his own reading habits and how he came to write horror....

This is a special, Fresh Cuts version of Horror Joy. Brian and Jeff are joined by long time friend, Jamie to offer immediate thoughts about the recent A24 film, Backrooms. This recording occurred just minutes after the movie ended outside of a rural movie theater. Please excuse the buzzing and the audio. We talk about the jump from internet shorts to full length movie, the possible downfalls of tr...

Brian Onishi and Jeff Stoyanoff discuss Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Beloved as a haunted house and ghost story that forces readers to reckon with the historical traumas of chattel slavery, racism, and the “smooth operation” of a world that treats people like property. They outline the novel’s core cast—Sethe, Baby Suggs, Denver, Paul D, and the embodied apparition Beloved—alongside figu...

Jeff is joined by Scottish writer Jane Flett, whose debut novel Freakslaw is out from Doubleday (UK) and Zando (US), with a forthcoming novel Welcome to the Chaoskampf (May 14). Flett describes how horror and joy connect through different ways people enjoy fear—adrenaline junkies, “white knucklers,” and “dark copers”—placing herself in the first group. They discuss haunted houses as horror rooted...

On this episode of Meet Your Maker, Brian is joined by Aimee Pokwatka to talk about her novel Accumulation and the link between horror and joy. Pokwatka distinguishes pleasure from deeper joy and argues horror places us in “communion with terror,” reminding us of death, grief, and shared human vulnerability in ways that can be sustaining. She connects this to parenting and domestic life, recalling...

Brian and Jeff continue their haunted house series on Horror Joy with guest Ally Malinenko, discussing her middle grade novel This Appearing House alongside R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps debut Welcome to Dead House. Malinenko describes the joy of horror—especially for kids—as teaching readers how to face monsters, offering catharsis, and providing language to process fear and trauma. She explains how Th...

In this episode Jeff and Brian welcome award-winning writer and editor Dan Coxon to discuss his new book, Come Sing for the Harrowing (Clash Books, April 2026), and how it interrogates and reshapes folk horror’s rigid archetypes through humor, modernity, class, and hybridity. They also talk through the connections between horror and joy, emphasizing the genre’s supportive community and his prefere...

In this episode of Horror Joy, Brian and Jeff examine Zach Cregger’s 2022 film Barbarian as a haunted house story without the supernatural, arguing the “haunting” comes from misogyny, capitalism, and systemic failure embedded in an Airbnb in decayed Detroit. They outline the film’s triptych structure—Tess’s uneasy stay with Keith, AJ’s arrival as the absentee landlord facing rape allegations, and...

Brian and Jeff interview horror author Rachel Harrison (The Return, Such Sharp Teeth, So Thirsty, Black Sheep) about the relationship between horror and joy, her writing origin story, and her novel Play Nice. Harrison describes horror’s joy as catharsis and a safe space for fear, anxiety, and “big feelings,” offering empowerment through survival and, as a writer, control. She recounts studying scr...

Jeff and Brian continue their Horror Joy exploration of haunted houses by discussing the 1982 classic Poltergeist. They ask whether the film functions as a conservative celebration of the nuclear family's resilience or a quasi-Marxist critique of capitalism, unbridled consumerism, and television's pernicious influence on youth. They discuss the housing development's erasure of history...

In this episode of Horror Joy, Jeff talks with author Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold, about the relationship between horror and joy Sullivan links the joy of horror to subverted expectations, catharsis, and the generative possibilities of horror, especially in books, where meaning is co-created with readers and not all answers need be provided. Sullivan discusses how his Irish Catholic...

Jeff and Brian begin a Horror Joy mini-series on haunted and haunting houses by discussing Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining and the Overlook Hotel as a possibly sentient space. They ask whether the hotel merely contains ghosts or actively amplifies violence, racism, sexism, and repetition. They critique the “Indian burial ground” trope, discuss Grady’s claims that Ja...

Brian and Jeff are joined by author A.C. Wise to talk about joy in horror, her books The Ghost Sequences (2021) and Out of the Drowning Deep (2024), and her new novel Ballad of the Bone Road (Jan. 26, 2026). Wise describes horror’s joy as an adrenaline-driven extreme emotional response akin to excitement, and traces her horror roots to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, darker fairy tales, and lif...

In this Horror Joy episode, Jeff and Brian discuss the 1992 film Candyman as the final entry in an “academic horror” course, focusing on how the movie links urban legend, the university, and racialized violence. They follow graduate student Helen Lyle’s dissertation research into the Candyman myth at Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, highlighting how academic distance and the “white gaze” turn Black suffer...

Jeff and Brian are joined by director Rod Blackhurst about his forthcoming independent horror film Dolly, releasing in theaters only on March 6, 2026. Blackhurst explains how horror can produce joy by confronting internal dread—identity loss, isolation, and moral extremity—through a cinematic language that bypasses reason and provokes visceral response. He describes Dolly as an extreme, unrelentin...

This episode of Horror Joy turns to academic horror through Mariama Diallo’s 2022 film Master, set at the fictional elite Ancaster University. Our discussion treats the film’s central claim that what haunts is not the past but the present and future: racism, microaggressions, elitism, and the suffocating atmosphere of tradition. We welcome returning guest T (S. Trimble Associate Professor of Women...

In this episode of Horror Joy, we dive into the intertwining relationship between horror and joy with guest Daisy Pierce, author of 'Something in the Walls,' 'The Missing,' and 'The Silence.' Daisy shares her thoughts on how horror provides a safe outlet for experiencing fear and anxiety, and discusses her origins and influences as a writer. We explore the different cultura...

In this episode of 'Horror Joy,' Jeff and Brian delve into Robert Rodriguez's 1998 film 'The Faculty.' The episode explores the film's portrayal of high school alienation, the nineties cultural backdrop, and the use of alien parasites as a metaphor for societal issues. We discuss the film’s all-star cast, its nostalgic nineties aesthetic, and its underlying themes related t...

In this episode of Horror Joy's 'Meet Your Maker', we delve into a conversation with Stoker award-winning author Emily C. Hughes. We discuss her book 'Horror for Weenies', designed to help the faint-hearted navigate through significant horror films. Emily talks about the relationship between horror and joy, citing examples of modern twists on classic horror tropes. She shares h...

This episode of 'Horror Joy' delves into Luca Guadagnino's 2018 reimagining of 'Suspiria.' Brian and Jeff explore the themes of academic horror, feminism, and political violence within the film's setting of post-war Berlin. We compare Guadagnino's version to Dario Argento's original 1977 film, discussing the significant differences, including the portrayal of witchc...