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Book Review: Mike Thorn Mines the Depths of Anxiety and Doubt in “Darkest Hours”

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I’m not sure what it was about Mike Thorn and the announcement of his debut collection of short horror stories that caught my eye.  I was looking through a list of Google alerts like I do every day, searching for news and various topics that might be of interest for iHorror.  The announcement was short and to the point.  Mike Thorn from Canada had a new short story collection releasing in November called Darkest Hours.  I nearly passed it by, but something just kept pulling my eyes back to the announcement.

Not one to ignore those instincts, I reached out to Thorn and within the hour I had a digital copy of Darkest Hours and was settling in to  read the first story simply titled “Hair”.  I knew two things when I finished that story:

  1. I was completely repulsed and disturbed by what I’d just read.
  2. I would have missed the chance of a lifetime if I’d skipped this announcement because Mike Thorn is brilliant.

Over the course of the next 200 pages, Thorn walks the reader through a multitude of strange and unexpected landscapes in a collection that would not be out of place sitting on a shelf next to the work of Aaron Dries, Stephen King, and Clive Barker.

The stories range from dark, tongue-in-cheek humor to the truly disturbing and macabre.  Take “Hair” for instance, which centers on a young man who has trichophilia.  In other words, he derives sexual gratification from hair.  Touching it, tasting it, sitting in a warm bath full of it…you understand why I was disturbed now.  It’s only when he gives over completely to this fetish, however, that he fully understands the implications of what he’s done.

Then there’s “The Auteur” in which a horror enthusiast meets his match in the guise of pretty co-worker.  She makes her own horror films and he soon discovers that what he’s watched before has not come close to preparing him for what goes on in front of her camera.

In “Economy These Days”, Thorn hones in on the lengths that people will go to find a job in the current economic environment, and let me tell you, it’s violent and bloody.

These are only three of the sixteen tales included in Darkest Hours.  Thorn presents a collection of horror stories that are not only scary, but also intelligent, thoughtful, and carefully planned confronting the anxieties of modern life.  It’s a collection made for the 21st century, and one that should not be missed by fans of well written horror.

Darkest Hours is available November 21, 2017 from a host of online retailers in both paperback and digital formats.  To keep up with the latest updates, be sure to follow Mike Thorn on Twitter @MikeThornWrites!

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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