The red satyrs stalk the subways like hounds from hell. I’ve been here three weeks and I kill more satyrs every night.

Raf descends the stairwell, entering the subway station. He patrols them from dusk until morning. Walking the stations, a permanent fixture in the stairwells and along the platforms as the trains come and go.

He rides the trains from station to station in search of the predatory fiends. Their red fucking satyr skin blazing like the flames of hell itself. To avoid receiving a slash from their claws he has opted for utilizing his devastator grade cruxpistol handgun opposed to his usual preference for a wakizashi short sword, or his katana.

The “Crux” was the original monster slayer firearm developed by the Peacoat Society for destroying monsters. Relying on mechanical alchemy, all you have to do is quickly eject the magazine then re-insert it, and a replicator round produces twelve bullets to use for further creeps killing.

Calling them “Devastators” didn’t start until more types were developed, such as the shotgun, and rifles. Cruxpistol handguns are still commonly referred to among creeps killers as “cruxes” or cruxpistols.

Raf keeps his crux tucked behind his back, in his waistband. Hidden from sight. He’d prefer to use his short barrel shotgun, but even surface dwellers that aren’t mythically aware can spot a strange warfare grade firearm. It looks exactly like a normal one. It’s pretty hard to hide that.

He could try concealing it under his leather jacket but that’s too inconvenient and then all his energy is gonna go to hiding the damn thing. The pistol honestly works better for the tight corridors of the subway trains and the station platforms. Hasn’t failed him yet.

The gumshoe journalist steps onto the train. His red floral print only partially visible under the cover of his leather jacket. He keeps his eyes darting back and forth as he searches for any sign of red skin, or a satyr in disguise. The bastards actually go as far as to put on trenchcoats and fedoras to hide themselves from the surface dwellers just to tear the disguises off before ripping into their screaming prey. Tearing them apart hungrily. Leaving behind bloodbaths.

Raf has cut down on the number of satyr attacks but not entirely, and he’s wondering why there hasn’t been more of a peacoat presence in Algernon as of lately. He hasn’t come face to face with a single coat since he’s been here. It seems this may be a city without creeps killers. Maybe that’s why the red satyrs have chosen to plague it. But all he knows is he has to keep killing these fuckers…

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Claw of the Satyr - Pt. 1

It is the aim of this work to connect the dots between human experience, the broader conversation concerning men’s mental health in the modern world and the awareness of mythical reality and the mythic perception of the lives we live on this planet we call earth. Such is the psychology of mythical awareness.

My immense goddess cannot materialize beside me, because I have divided her up into many small and separate images. I have made her many and by that I have made her none. My immense goddess, it is her that I desire to return to in body and mind and not merely in my heart and spirit. Where there, I cannot touch her or listen to her as she speaks. As we are divided by the flesh, it is my aim to seek for us to be unified between our souls, in one breath. I before her and her before I.

So, I shall slay the satyr that haunts the forest…

Raf slips on his crisp leather jacket over his red aloha shirt, adopting the armor of the mythos knight. Black leather over red floral print.

Paired with a pair of mojo-infused black denim jeans… he is well on his way to denim and leather godhood. He runs his hair through his gnarly mohawk as he enters one of the largest bookstores in America: PANTHEON BOOKS.

Place is three stories tall and has over a million books lining its many shelves. They have dominated the retail market for book distribution since the late 90s and have continued to do so well into the modern era of the post-2020s. The superstore of book retail.

Raf makes his way to the comics and manga section. Browsing through their selection as he searches for something he hasn’t already read that piques his interest. He’s more of an anime watcher than a manga reader but every now and again you see something you’d really like to read that ends up being a big hit once it gets an adaptation down the road. Then you get to gatekeep and claim you were a fan before the bandwagoners.

Read more

*sound of tattoo gun buzzing in that low continuous hum*

For far too long abuse has gone unchecked in the entertainment industry. From tv and film, to publishing and comics, and many other forms of media. Power players holding status in the industry have used their position to exploit and take advantage of aspiring creators, actors, writers, artists, etc.

This isn’t something new and it’s not something the general public is not aware of, yet somehow, it continues unchecked. And why is that? It’s because nobody is willing to withhold their dollars to prevent it, because they simply do not give a fuck about the people being victimized.

You included…

Today’s case file is a comic writer once hailed as “Internet Jesus” on early online forums and message boards: Warren Ellis, aka, Blue Beard the booty pirate.

I am twice disgusted by this development of events, because Ellis gained his fame in comics due to his commandeering the virtues of our Lord and savior in gonzo… the late great Hunter S. Thompson, via his Thompson stand-in character “Spider Jerusalem” in the series, Transmetropolitan.

I’m not gonna list his accolades because that would be promoting this Blue Bearded pirate, and I refuse to do such.

I direct you over to Exhibit A - somanyofus.com

There, you will find testimonies from a long line of women, and femme identifying accusers alleging the many acts of blue beard behavior by this comic creator. I am merely providing a spotlight on these allegations, by accusers, and I am not claiming Ellis has done anything criminal.

Exhibit B - a testimony attributed to “R.N. Fox” a history of events chronicling the “WEF” days of Ellis’ comic scene in the late 90s - early 2000s.

During that era, Ellis had a forum that fed directly into this real-world scene, formed by members of the forum’s online fan community. This was early internet days, but it mirrored future developments of social media in that the hedonistic and party fueled antics of these bar meetups fed directly back into the forum in the form of images of said events that were quickly posted online to chronicle these meetups.

A number of instances, like the three-way kiss R.N. Fox claims to have initiated at one of these parties, were illustrated directly into the Transmetropolitan comic book, as a tribute to the chaos of the meetups.

Google AI corroborates this common practice for such instances to be inserted into the book.

In this way, the hedonistic lifestyle of Hunter S. Thompson that he grew so famous for were basically engineered by way of the forum then used as fuel for the comic book series. Elements of the series’ seemingly authentic gonzo edge featured in the comic can be directly attributed to this.

Why am I picking on Blue Beard the pirate, Warren Ellis…? What did he do to me to warrant my wrath of SHock…?

Nothing. I have seen his name float around in my research of comic media lore, but I didn’t know who the fuck he was. I managed to catch wind of ‘Metropolitan by chance as a kid, and never even realized it was based after Thompson until quite recently in the past few weeks in fact.

Ellis is an example of a much larger trend… if the allegations about him, are true.

Actress Hayden Panettiere passed away this past Sunday. Just five days before her 37th birthday. A mere three years since the tragic death of her younger brother. Just three months ago she appeared on “On Purpose with Jay Shetty” discussing her new book This Is Me: A Reckoning. She detailed many of the harsh realities of her life in the movie biz. as a child star and industry darling.

It was a heartbreaking two hours. I grew up with Hayden. Bring It On, Heroes, I Love You Beth Cooper, Scream 4 and Scream 6. She feels like a girl I went to school with a lot more than just an actress I grew up seeing in the movies. I’m saddened by her passing.

In the podcast, she describes the horror of being taken to a small room and placed in bed beside an undressed man she described as “very famous” by someone she trusted in the industry; where she was expected to perform sex acts, at 18. She said the way in which the ambush was presented was like it was a surprise for her and the man simply had his arms crossed behind his head like it was just Tuesday for him.

I bring this up because this is the same repeating pattern of abuse we see again, and again in the entertainment world.

When women come forward and express claims of sexual abuse, assault, misconduct, harassment… they are condemned as liars, shamed, and their claims are denied or just overlooked and quickly forgotten.

One or two high profile perpetrators might see the inside of prison cell or face some kind of incarceration for their crimes, but more likely than not, they’ll get off scott free without so much as a slap on the wrist for the women they’ve hurt and brutalized in a vicious act of sexual violence.

I recently wrote about some of the abuse Tippi Hedren faced from Alfred Hitchock on the set of The Birds, and Marnie. It was written off as eccentric or tolerated because of his status and position of power like so many other producers and directors sitting in a glorified throne for predation.

A power player in the industry using his status to mislead young women into the jaws of the wolf is not considered a crime, under law.

That’s because the wolves are the ones that wrote the fucking laws…

If sixty women form a website against you claiming abuse, misconduct, and damages based on your actions, what’s the likelihood it was entirely made up. That’s not even a question. But I’m not saying Ellis is guilty of anything… i.e.

There was recently an online boycott organized against DC Comics by Black comic book influencers and YouTubers for the publisher’s lack of equal representation for the Black characters in their canon.

It was met by hate and backlash online claiming the boycott was harming LGBTQ+ comic books because it was Pride Month and that Black creators employed by DC would be affected, so boycotting was problematic and wrong.

DC has only had a handful of Black led ongoing comic series in the last 50 years and in light of that, I don’t think the boycott was at all, unreasonable, or wrong. But the organizers of the boycott folded after a few days of online backlash. The heat was too much for them.

Which is understandable, I don’t expect everyone to be made out of pure SHock like I am, so yeah. They ended the boycott.

Now… there’s a call to boycott Image Comics. The third largest comic publisher after DC and Marvel. Image was founded largely on the talent of Todd McFarlane, creator of the longest running independent comic book in history: Spawn.

Most of the graphic novels I read are Image, my first Substack article was about Spawn, and major comic book adaptions such as The Walking Dead and Invincible came from their publishing.

Captain Blue Beard, aka, Warren Ellis… was cancelled in 2020 for the rise in claims of abuse by fans and aspiring creators that alleged he used his status to mislead them for the purpose of nefarious sexual motivations.

Many comic book stan boys rallied for him and argued he was free of any guilt for his actions, but they’re just co-signing the abuse because they value comics more than any person affected by the alleged harmful actions of their creator. Many people today rather support immorality than lose out on media.

Ellis remains innocent of any wrongdoing in a legal sense… i.e.

Author Tomi Adeyemi recently spoke out against the film adaption of her bestselling fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone stating she doesn’t support it and had one of the most miserable experiences of her life in the making of the film. Every video I saw online posted by her fans essentially said she should be supporting it, and they have every intention to see it.

The feelings of the author of the work they claim to love means nothing to them in comparison to a massive budgeted million-dollar movie produced by an industry that systematically victimizes aspiring creators for the sake of their own… sodom.

I see the same thing occurring with the Image situation. A member of the So Many Of Us website, is an employee of Image Comics. I read an article quoting a post she made about the situation. In response to the backlash upon Image announcing his return.

You know what she had to say… despite Ellis never coming forward to actively work with the accusers of So Many Of Us, as they requested, she calls for people to support Image in their decision to employ him because boycotting them would affect her own livelihood.

I… am shocked by this. But again, I am not shocked. I saw a video today. A talk given by Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks. In it, he says we have been trained to love things, use people, and worship ourselves… he implores us to use things, love people and save our worship for God, i.e. the universal source on earth.

Me and dude are in agreement. But many people are not, to expect people to support a corrupt system for the sake of the few that system feeds is the exact seed of tyrannical oppression that drives a society into fascist apocalypse.

This is a far bigger conversation than should a guy that writes comics be getting paid when he has a website of accusers claiming he hurt them. This is about whether you should keep a system going that will victimize you, and anybody else if it serves the needs of their own purposes and motivations? I can say without question. I will not.

Fuck Image Comics, and fuck DC. I’m boycotting both. Let’s see if Marvel gives me a reason to add them to the list of corporations I openly oppose… thanks for reading I don’t need you to buy me coffee. You can tho, if you give a fuck to.

Stay SHocked! *throws up the SHocker on both hands properly*

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

By large, the video store has been extinct for a number of years. All the chains have gone out of business. A few novelty shops exist around the country, but God knows how the hell any of them stay in business. A number of small communities with a big demand for tapes kept some of them going for a while but eventually even those fell.

Warlock VHS is one of the last of the video stores left standing in the post 2020s. One of only a small quantity of such relic places. It’s a place where local hikikomoris and reclusives, occultists, researchers, archivists, and other exclusive tags of weirdos in the realm of misfits and outcasts gather.

Tape hunting for obscure anime OVAs, schlocky B-movie horror, old documentaries about conspiracies like UFOs, and whatever else can be uncovered among the titles of the tapes. It almost feels like walking into another dimension in there.

With all those old movie posters on the walls like hieroglyphics. It would hardly be out of the question to find an old mummy’s sarcophagus collecting dust, in the back.

Preston Price is a pop culture cinema freak. He lived at home until he was thirty but made a small fortune from publishing his long obsessed over weird fiction tome he’d started creating in high school, called: Portals from the Trippy Galaxy.

The story features bizarre creatures of alien origin that come through portals and wreak havoc on earth among humans. Drawing from the old tradition of cosmic horror stories authored by the 20th century pulp writers. He self-published and by some strange synchronicity it became a massive hit and sold over 200,000 copies in less than a year’s time.

He moved out of his parents’ basement after paying off their mortgage then bought a house in the same neighborhood his grandparents once lived in. A mere seven miles from his parents. When he finally moved out, they then sold the house and took their assess to Florida to drink and sweat on the beach.

Despite being an indie cult author, Preston hadn’t done much to embrace the fame of his online following. He refused the offers to do a book tour or republish at a larger publisher. Instead… he made a number of lucrative deals to write new novels for three different publishers and has been eating from the advances he got from them, but has not yet turned in even one of the three novels.

He didn’t tell the publishers Trippy Portals took fifteen years to write. He’s just about finished drafting the first and has a rough outline for one of the other two, but hasn’t any idea the concept or story for the third.

Which is why he was in Warlock VHS digging through the tapes trying to find some new inspiration. His fingers prodded through the dingy titles moving over them like a spider’s legs quickly scanning the titles. Moving past the ones he’d seen. Which was the vast majority of them.

He’d felt there couldn’t be any true classic movie he hadn’t seen, even among niche forgotten flicks nobody remembers. Then he suddenly struck gold…

TENTACLE MAGENTA.

The tape seemed to appear from out of the abyss itself. A purple cover showcasing a terribly menacing monster of sinister malice. A strange tentacled male Medusa figure of Cthulhuian appearance. Eyes glowing bright red, ominously. The tentacles on the cover seemed to writhe and stretch from the surface of the vhs tape reaching to grip your fingers as you held it.

Preston purchased the tape and hopped in his beat-up car then drove himself back to his house. He ran inside like he had stolen something… and immediately slammed the tape inside his vcr in the living room.

Preston awoke lying sprawled on the floor, somewhere in his house. He was inside the upstairs bathtub. A far cry from his living room. His head felt all hazy and his throat was dry and hoarse like he hadn’t drunken any water for three days. He tried to stand but didn’t have the necessary energy to accomplish the task. In the back of his mind a startling image presented itself.

That of… Tentacle Magenta… the Cthulhuian terror from the vhs tape…

He tried to recall the movie but found himself unable to remember anything from it, other than the haunting image of the creature.

“What… in the hell…” He questioned as he finally managed to climb free from out of his bathtub. The door was open a sliver, enough for him to jam his fingers into the wedge and pry it the rest of the way so he could escape from the confines of his tiny upstairs bathroom.

The most putrid smell of something rotten entered his nostrils upon extending his proximity beyond the bathroom’s interior. His entire house smelled like old sea food had exploded in a microwave then somehow mutated and crawled all over the place leaving a trail of rank slime covering the walls.

To his horror, trails of purplish slime oozed from the walls and ceiling. His carpet had the same trails of nasty sludge. A disgusting substance of unknown origin, it looked a lot like jelly. But thicker and clumpier in texture. It reeked as bad as horrible it was to see covering nearly every square inch of his entire house. Especially downstairs in the living room…

The tv was totally fried but the vcr appeared unharmed. The case to the tape was lying on the floor near the tv. The gross purple sludge was worst everywhere around the tv. And all over the couch and the ceiling in there. Preston dared not touch the substance using his hand. He retrieved a fork from the kitchen and began poking it.

Getting so close to the sludge, the stench got far too unbearable. He began to wretch then suddenly he vomited all over the floor. Preston backed away from the horrors of his house, then scrambled to his car, still having his shoes on, and keys in his pocket.

He drove away from the scene of his home… not knowing what had caused any of it… but the image of Tentacle Magenta remained in the back of his mind. Eyes glowing an ominous red, tentacles writhing like squids.

Preston was unable to return to his house. He returned only to gather some clothes from his closet, and his books and articles unaffected by the purple sludge. He had totally abandoned completing his books. He was now ignoring the many emails he was receiving from the publishers and no longer sleeping.

Tentacle Magenta had haunted his every moment. If he closed his eyes the terror’s image grew stronger. The longer he stayed awake the more tired he became, but the image of the monster continued to persist. He went back to Warlock VHS and asked about the tape, but they said no such tape had ever existed in their catalogue nor did he in fact purchase it from them. This brought an even more intense worry to him.

His mind grew further and further disturbed by the strange circumstances involving the tape, and the monster that had somehow spawned from it.

Preston peeked from behind the curtain of his motel room. Staring into the parking lot out of fear, and concern. Paranoid the creature should manifest, in living flesh. To further terrorize him or consume his body and flesh.

No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t remember anything about the story of the movie, on the tape. He’d contemplated returning home to try and watch it again. But feared an even worse outcome than that he’d already experienced. The lack of sleep had turned his mind to mush.

He was barely eating and hardly showering or brushing his teeth and frequently felt faint, and weak. The smell of the sludge lingered as did the image of the monster in the back of his mind.

His haunting was unrelenting in its pursuit. He crossed the small motel room to the desk in the corner. There, he had his collection of books and research documents and a printer plugged into the wall. His laptop sat there, open. Illuminating the dim room.

Sitting before the screen, he continued to search for any trace of the tape online, any mention of these weird events. He had found nothing. No weird fiction or film existed of Tentacle Magenta. Only the tape inside his vcr and the case on the floor displaying the terrible creature reflected its existence and nothing else.

Girthy tentacles extend upwards from the underside of a ravine… stretching across the land.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

When you meet a beautiful woman, it’s like stepping into the wrath of a hurricane. She is the single most wondrously marvelous event and at the same time threatening to the point she could wreck your entire life and leave you dying in the gutter if you let her.

A brave man is not a man that is not afraid. But a man that continues to be heroic even when he’s terrified out of wits. The hero without fear is the hero that never quits or gives up. Especially… when he feels immense fear.

I have often felt in my life that I am cursed to know only the pleasure of a woman that has already given her heart to another man, and to whom her sincere love belongs. I enter their rooms like Dracula. Sneaking in through the window or during the dreary midnight hours and feast on them in the dark. Like a blood sucking fiend. Relishing in the secret pleasure I am permitted to witness from my touch and the bite of my fangs in their necks.

It has been my dream to live a bohemian and possibly hedonistic life for as long as I have dreamed of the life I desire to live. Not that of my accustomed condition but of one that was long out of reach and only available in my astral adventures. I now claim it, in my daily reality each day. Writing it, into my existence. By means of mysticism and half-baked mental alchemies powered on studies in the occult and spirituality customs of arcane wisdom seekers and yogis. Particularly my devotion to the immense goddess Kali, under the veneration of Shiva Medusa. Queen to my resolve and will.

A wizard enters a dirty truck stop bathroom and kneels to the altar, then prays to the vomit and puke gods until he’s sobered enough to take more drugs and ingest another quart of liquor. His name is Merlin… I am not he, but I heed his teachings. If not in practice, then by means of study. Groovy.

“Doesn’t this feel, weird. To you?” Raf asks Akemi. He’s dressed in his uniform black denim jeans and red aloha shirt. Mohawk gnarly as ever.

Akemi glares at him playfully from across the limousine. She reaches for another bottle of champagne. “Weirder than our usual day to day weirder shit mysteries. I don’t think so. You should enjoy this. You’re getting your shine in the limelight you deserve. You’re a fucking legend in the mythic underground.”

Raf winces like it hurts to hear it. He recoils out of concern for the fact. Investigating weird shit and solving mysteries wasn’t supposed to be something that led to fame, it’s a job nobody wants. That most people don’t even know exists. The fact his writing for Mythical Monthly and association to the fabled Knights of Merlin has generated such an acclaim for himself, it is just now donning on him that maybe he should’ve remained unaffiliated, and anonymous to the world of creeps killers and weird hunters. Like he was before joining the sacred order of mythos knights.

“Merlin’s knights have been saving the world and defending the realm of mortals for literally centuries. We’re the first ones to be recognized for it. That’s fucking cool.”

Akemi’s excitement has not proven contagious. Raf frowns with a glum sense of being seen by far too many people.

“You really hate the spotlight that much?” Akemi giggles as she sips her champagne leisurely. “Can’t tell by how you dress or how your hair is.” She crosses one leg over the other and leans forward. Doing that thing where she stares right into his face like she can read his mind, and his soul.

Far as anybody knows telepathy isn’t a power she possesses but it would explain how she came to become the reigning “Queen of Games” over Shogi and Chess globally at the ages of nine, and twelve. It often seemed like she could read her opponent’s mind.

“They’re giving us the award for World’s Greatest Creeps Killers. How cool is that. I mean, this is the biggest award they give out. Sherlock Holmes was given it for slaying a chimera in 1901. The 2nd Van Helsing Afrika Cleopatra got it for stopping Count William’s rebellion and dismantling The Monster Society. They don’t even give it out very often. Only like once a generation, somebody manages to do something that earns the prestige of being world’s greatest creeps killers on the planet.” Akemi sips more of her champagne. Then refills her glass.

“Who’s all coming to this. Other than you and me?” Raf stares out the window as they approach the Prestige Theater, an old school stage play auditorium converted to more of an arena type convention center for big commercial event gatherings like this one being held tonight by the Peacoat Society.

Akemi smirks. “Well. You know Petra is. This is her shit. She’ll be fashionably late and arrive like a movie star.”

Raf can already imagine how extravagantly the queen of bloodsuckers will look as she steps onto the red carpet. He wonders what kind of dress she’ll wear. Her spooky one…? Or something else…

“Gomez won’t show.” Raf declares.

“Are you serious, the invisible man, fuck no. He didn’t even respond to my texts or emails. I think he is halfway across the world in Malaysia investigating an ancient curse on some dig site, last I heard from him.” Akemi scoffs and takes another drink. Draining her glass. *refills it*

“Tess wouldn’t come… I tried to get her to.” Raf actually laughs at the thought of her telling him, “Fuck off. Fuck you. Fuck no, I’m not going. Eat my ass.”

“I’m not surprised. I’m sure Merlin isn’t even conscious right now. So, it’ll just be us and Petra. And Dumas, of course. Will be with her.”

Raf nods as they reach the traffic surrounding the theater. There’s a caravan of cars backed up at the red carpet. Legendary creeps killers, Peacoats, and weird hunters of notable fame are stepping out of their rides to the Awards. Getting pictures snapped by the approved photographers.

“How can they even put something like this on?” Raf questions.

Akemi glances out the window then takes a quick sip from her champagne trying to drain it once more before they get out. “There’s a massive psychic block for like three or four miles around the theater so nobody that isn’t myth aware can even get near it. They have the city shut down streets, and block everything off. Surface dwellers don’t even know anything’s happening.”

“Peacoat Society seems more like a government, than a secret society. How much they control, and power they have.”

Akemi nods. Trying to brush off the harsh reality of Raf’s insight. Nobody cares to really admit how powerful the largest order of monster destroyers on earth actually is, or how much control the world has freely given over to them to protect the weak and keep us all safe from… creeps.

Akemi steps free from the limo as a theater attendant opens it for her. Her sleek black form fitting cocktail dress accentuates her every curve. The loveliness of her face and beauty is further amplified by her feminine grace and alluring sex appeal. She has long jet-black hair that spills down past her shoulders like a silk curtain and eyes that are sharp like daggers.

Raf follows behind her, exiting the limo reluctantly. Cameras are flashing from pics being snapped of them upon arrival. There’s a big buzz about the recipients of the world’s greatest creeps killers award being given out this year. Raf glances around searching for any signs of weird threats.

What he finds is swarms of photographers and fellow press from the myth media that have been permitted to attend this assembly of those who kill creeps. Peacoats are in a blockade formation around the building. You can spot men and women in peacoats as they stand in the shadows looming like mighty towers.

The original peacoats actually wore peacoats. These days it’s far less common to see but given the performative nature of this event and the spectacle of it, seems they’re pulling out all the stops and have the security in actual coats. It’s far more likely for coats to instead don Excalibur uniform jackets, with the “X” insignia patch on their arm sleeves.

Akemi grips Raf’s arm so he can’t run away and forces him to pose on the red carpet alongside her, as her date. She smiles as he growls at the cameras. His face a mask of contempt and dissatisfaction from the heightened sense of being perceived by such a large number of eyes consuming him like food.

The clamor around the two suddenly comes to an abrupt end, as the true star of the show arrives in a white limo… it’s Petra.

Before one of the attendants can open the door, it comes open on its own. Two long legs spring out. Followed by the wolfish face of Dumas. The massive man wolf is like seven feet tall and dressed in a fine tux. His fur is pure black all over his body and he has monstrously clawed hands and feet like a lycanthrope.

His pearly white fangs glisten as he smirks. His yellow eyes flickering in the glow of the camera flashes. He reaches towards the dark shadowy cave mouth of the limo to claim the outstretched hand of his love goddess.

Petra’s porcelain skin shines in the dazzling light under the flash of the cameras, as he helps her from the backseat. The vampiress has arrived to awe the crowd.

Interviews on the carpet stop as everyone turns to look, and then the carpet is cleared for her grand entrance. Including Raf and Akemi. Peacoats get to pushing them back and shoving them out of the way. Making Raf get immediately pissed off. Akemi holds him back from bum rushing the coats and starting a fist fight. She whispers in his ear, “Calm down. You have the bigger dick.”

Petra’s chalk white hue contrasts her raven black hair. She has it made up in a 1940s Hollywood starlet hairstyle. Her lipstick is bright red; her gown is coke white. Pearls dance about her neck as she smiles posing for the cameras.

A black minx coat is draped around her shoulders. Her and Dumas step forward like genuine royalty. Like classic film stars from the old time Hollywood. The cameras are fucking eating them up.

Time seems to slow down as they hit the carpet. Raf and Akemi watch from afar, as their fellow knights illuminate the scene with their spooky glamour macabre. The big bad man wolf and the queen of the blood suckers. A match made in the world of the monstrous. Denim and leather gods in movie star drag strutting like A-listers down the red carpet… what a sight.

Director Lucy Harker presented the award. She is a legendary creeps killer in her own right. Having received the award on behalf of the late great, Jet Blackstone. Five years later she received the award herself for her own efforts in creeps killing and was then appointed to head of the White Coat Division at Excalibur. Today she’s Director of the whole agency and sits high among the Coats.

Her hair has become a grayish white color, differing from the blonde of her youth that she is well known for. But the woman is still gorgeous. When she gave her speech she spoke of the true meaning of destroyerism. The art of monster destruction. And what it means to be a creeps killer of notable accomplishment, worthy of being awarded such a prestigious honor.

When she announced the Knights of Merlin as the winners she stated their names to the attendees: Tess Campbell, the 12-Gauge Babe. Petra Radblood, the Queen of the Blood Suckers. Dumas Howler, the Big Bad Wolf Man of the Wasteland. Akemi Fudo, the Queen of Games. Hector Gomez… the Invisible Man. Raf Mythos, the Hero Without Fear, and…

There was a loud thud. It echoed from the back of the theater. A door swinging open and hitting the wall as a man came through it.

Merlin stood there, barefoot. Dressed in dirty blue denim jeans torn in one knee, and a purple aloha shirt. His stringy white hair clung to his face in greasey clumps likely still smelling like vomit from his last prayer to the puke gods. He looked like fucking shit.

Like he’d crawled out of some skeevy alley where he’d been sucking crystal meth out of a glass dick. He reeked of alcohol and filth. The stench of a thousand benders and swimming in the sludge at the bottom of the garbage dump. The immortal wizard of legend. Merlin.

In his hand was a half drunken bottle of vodka gripped loosely like it could slip free from his fingers at any second. He mean-mugged the people seated in their seats as he shuffled down the walkway towards the stage.

“Fuck are you looking at?” He grumbled angrily as Lucy Harker scowled at him from the podium. She’d already taken a step back away from the microphone to hand off the award but now she was standing there watching him. The same as everybody else was.

Tess laughs and takes a swig from her can of beer, seated in the backroom of the bookstore in Camelot. She’s watching the Peacoat Awards on the mythical streaming service… Phantasm.

Merlin stumbles and nearly trips. An aisle attendant tries to help him but he shoves the kid and yells for him to fuck off.

Lucy steps back away from the podium after she reluctantly hands Merlin the shiny award. Raf, Akemi, Dumas and Petra look up at their mentor from the front row in admiration of his very presence.

The Ghost Brothers, Roach and Ziggy… start cheering from the crowd. Yelling out, “You’re a fucking legend!” Despite being nearly the same age as Lucy they haven’t aged beyond their mid to late 20s as a result of the Munchies Until You’re Dead curse. Which they still haven’t cured themselves of.

Merlin plops the award down on the podium, almost knocking it over. He drinks a big swig from his bottle. Then stares into the crowd. A plastered look of indignation over his eyes like a pair of sunglasses. “Do you think destroying monsters is something you should be awarding.” It’s not a question, but a statement.

“Vanquishing evil is not some fantasy, sport, or cheap fucking entertainment. It’s the courageous act of gallant knights. Mythical heroes of legend.” Merlin takes a new big swig to add to the one he took previously. “Gallantry and honor, chivalry and respect. Such… is the code of the gallant knight. To be daring and yet chivalrous… such… is the valor of the gallant knight.” He stumbles in place like he’s gonna topple over.

He raises the award in his fist. “This is a fucking joke.”

The theater is entirely silent. Save for the Ghost Brothers cheering from the crowd like they’re at a concert. “Fuck yeah! Tell these fuckers!” Roach shouts. Him and the wersyn Ziggy Psychward are grinning devilishly as they watch Merlin like they’re at a wrestling event. Roaring in applause for Merlin’s breach of formal etiquette, in open defiance of the Peacoats, and mockery of their spectacle.

Petra, Dumas, Raf and Akemi are stoic. Their faces are like statues. They sit quietly listening to the words of the wizard like children in a classroom before their teacher.

“You kill monsters and call them creeps. You praise yourselves for it and treat the act of bodily destruction as if it was a fucking achievement. Something to bestow awards and accolades for. You overlook the imps that get massacred in pursuit of creeps. The brutalization of those who live in darkness. In the shadows of Gilgamesh. Those living in benevolence. Mythics abiding by your… so-called… laws of monstrosity… but still get exterminated by your enforcers. Your coats.”

Merlin hocks a loogie on the stage in disgust…

“I did not form the sacred order of the knights to be given awards. I formed the order to defend the realm of Mankind from evil forces. The forces of which I see present, in this very room.”

It seems as though everybody’s eyes are facing forward. Refusing to look away or at one another, as if doing so might confess their acts of atrocity or expose them as the very villains the wizard is addressing.

“If being a mythos knight gets you famous, prestige, money and status in the world of creeps killers… you’re better off unknown. Fighting gallantly. A living myth.” He steps away from the podium. Leaving the award sitting there, as he shuffles back down the central aisle. The door slams open again. And the wizard leaves the theater, in silence.

He stumbles outside to the limo parked in front of the auditorium. It’s sitting there in waiting when he walks up to it. His driver opens the door, with gloved hands. Merlin tumbles forward into the backseat and his driver slams it closed behind him then goes to the driver seat and climbs in behind the wheel.

Gomez, the Invisible Man, is dressed like a classical chauffeur, in the uniform and cap yanked down low over his brow. A master of disguise…

He grips the steering wheel tightly before pulling away from the Prestige Theater and drives off.

Back inside, Lucy Harker takes the award down to the Knights seated in the front row and hands it over to Petra.

Petra graciously accepts it, smiling. She looks over at Raf and Akemi, holding it out to them, offering the symbol of their efforts in killing creeps. They both shake their head in decline. Petra nods and cradles the award to her chest like a stuffed animal as the man wolf Dumas puts his arm around her lovingly. The full attention of the room is on the four of them.

Lucy returns to her own seat. Allowing for the award show to continue…

Music begins to play as a human size chimpanzee saunters out. He’s dressed in a tux with a karate gi over it. He approaches the podium and uses the little step stool for shorter speakers to talk into the microphone, “Does anybody need a karate chimp for hire?” Everybody laughs.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

Authored by none other than the late “Great Detective” himself, Sir Sherlock Holmes. Who had gotten formally knighted in his later years by the Crown of England. Hence his title of, Sir.

The Society set the precedent for the curriculum adopted by the now prestigious and most highly respected education institution for sleuths in the nation. Master Detective Academy. Which was founded by Edgar Spring. The crime writer and mystery author responsible for unearthing Holmes’ sacred tome and mass producing it for the globe to read and be consumed by the hunger for solving mysteries.

In 1991, there aren’t many renegade sleuths active in the field so much these days. The Academy has a funnel system that springboards their top students over to their sister institution: The Noire Agency.

It’s there that aspiring sleuths, fact finders, case files, clue hunters and prodigies from the world of mystery busting crime solvers and private detectives become professional gumshoes. Respected even by law enforcement agencies around the world. Gone are the days of the sketchy PIs in the trenchcoats, with their hat brims low over their eyes as they tail some dame for clues. Leaving a trail of charred cigarette butts behind like breadcrumbs.

They’ve institutionalized one of the last American institutions left for those that simply reject professional status altogether…

But among the renegades, are a few notable gumshoes that still believe in the annual Gathering of Sleuths.

A tradition PIs and gumshoes once took great pride in attending. Before they became hired magnifying glasses on retainer. They’re no better than the blood sucking lawyers at this point… it’s really a damn shame… it is, indeed.

Jet Blackstone walks in the old lodge hall. Building seems ancient, in a weird way. You can almost see the ghosts walking around the place.

Blackstone is a young sleuth of considerable notoriety considering his age of only a mere twenty-two years. By nineteen he’d solved a number of significant mysteries and collected a serious rogues’ gallery of criminals, murderers, thieves, and villains. Which is the test of any legit gumshoe.

He’s dressed in blue jeans and sneakers, a t-shirt, and brightly colored leather jacket with a red stripe pattern. One of those sleek street bike style jackets. He has a helmet, gripped by his hand, as he arrives.

Just in the past few years of his service to the gumshoe tradition Jet has solidified his legacy as one of the great Black detectives. He peeps out the snack table but doesn’t take anything from it.

Some sad looking balloons are floating around the various rooms like they got taken hostage as party guests and have bombs strapped to their chests. Old timey jazz can be heard echoing from a stereo system, somewhere. Not too many folks around save for a few old dudes trading stories at the assortment of tables. There doesn’t look to be any proper host or keynote speaker.

Jet almost abandons hope and contemplates leaving when he spots the Ghost Brothers stuffing their faces at one of the far tables in the corner. He smirks and beelines it for them quickly.

Roach and Ziggy Ghost, aka, The Ghost Brothers… these guys are insane.

They’re not actually brothers just best friends, but they grew up together and they call themselves brothers, so everybody else does too.

Roach is a white boi. Ziggy’s half Black. They grew up in shitty apartments, trailer parks and slumming it anywhere they could until they were old enough to start selling weed. Solving mysteries became their second hustle but turned out they really loved it and had a passion for it.

They’re hardcore stoners and always reek of strong bud. Both of them are like tall and lanky. Roach looks like a cross between a hippie and head banger. Ziggy keeps his hair tightly woven into neat cornrows. They got cursed by some voodoo man and have this shit called “munchies until you’re dead” so no matter how much they eat they remain hungry. So, they just have to keep eating their fill.

Ziggy is the researcher and Roach is the psychotic one, they call him the “Reefer Madman” cause if he comes down from being blazed. He basically turns into fuckin’ Mad Hatter or some shit. They’re serious brawlers and have had to fade their way out of a number of bad situations, and dangerous cases. Like Jet, the Ghost Bros. are legit ass young legends.

They got their name because they specialize in ghost case mysteries…

“What the fuck is good wit’ da kid?!” Roach reaches out extend his hand to dap up Jet as he approaches them.

Jet shakes his hand pumping his arm excitedly. Ziggy gives him an elbow dap because he’s too busy stuffing his face full of mash potatoes, ham and some other shit.

“Man, this shit looks like a fuckin’ ghost town.” Jet takes another glance around at all the sad old gumshoes that haven’t solved a case in well over a decade, or more, many of them.

“Why do you think we’re here?!” Roach smirks. “At least they didn’t skimp out on the food.” He scars down a sandwich then starts piling food together to make another one just as big. These guys are like cartoon characters…

“You heard from anybody else, likely to show?” Jet asks, taking another glance around the dreary environment.

“Shit. We don’t hear much from anybody cept people wantin’ to buy weed or pay us pennies to solve a case.”

“Fuckin’ bullshit.” Ziggy mumbles with a mouth full of food. He gets up to go ransack the food buffet for more grub. Roach tells him to grab him some more shit too. Ziggy nods before running off to hound for more.

“This total babe called us up right. Her husband stole some precious artifact from her. She wanted the shit back. Dude had fuckin’ cronies. They shot at us, tried to kill us, I almost got stabbed. Plus, the shit was haunted as fuck… we had to exorcise the guy to get that old ass necklace off him.”

Jet is grinning as Roach gives him the rundown of their latest mystery. “We should’ve just pawned that shit. Probably would’ve gotten some bread for it.” Ziggy slams his paper plate down. Roach scoops more food from Ziggy’s plate onto his own then they both dig in hungrily like animals.

“You should grab some food.” Roach says with food spilling out of his mouth. Ziggy nods like… yeah bruh you better get at that shit, before we finish it.

“I’m good. I ate before I rolled through. Stopped on the waayy…” Jet catches the sight of the one person he’s been hoping would show herself. It’s Lucy Harker…

Lucy spots him too. Their eyes meet. He gets up and walks halfway across the room to meet her.

“Hey.” He says.

“Hey yourself.”

“I was hoping you’d roll through.”

“Almost didn’t make it, I was solving this case, got tangled up with a warlock and had to slay like a hundred ghouls.” Lucy blushes and looks away as he admires her from up close. Staring into her eyes like a puppy in love.

“Is that Roach and Ziggy?!” She calls out, then runs over to them. Roach actually stops eating to hug her and so does Ziggy. They briefly put a pause on their grubbing to talk with her.

Jet slips in beside her. They all start chatting and talking shit. Trading mystery cases and recent mishaps on their adventures.

The room suddenly grows cold. They sense it, before it happens, and the presence that has presented itself… demands their attention. Without declaring it aloud.

They all stop and stare, watching as one of the most legendary gumshoes in history crosses the room from the back and approaches the podium you can barely tell is even there. Positioned at the front of the dining room. Where the few guests are gathered at the tables.

He walks slightly more hunched over than in his youth. But Richard Lovecraft is still a tall man. Like Abe Lincoln tall. His eyes refuse glasses, remaining sharp as ever. His hair has peppered and grayed in old age.

The rather serious man is dressed in a plain black suit. Walks with a cane. He takes a look around the room. His eyes pause briefly on the table where Jet and the others are seated. Like he’s sorting through their faces.

He gives a brief nod, and begins to speak…

“Welcome to the 1991 Gathering of Sleuths.” His voice is loud and authoritative like a Civil Rights activist giving a speech. Not an old man at a shabby lodge hall. “I hope the food is suffice, and you are eating to fill your appetites.”

Ziggy rubs his stomach. But not cause he’s full. Because he’s already hungry as fuck. Roach is too but he ignores it, they are witnessing the wise words of a legend.

“In these days and times. There aren’t too many of us that do this thing we do the old way like it was done in the old days. But I can see some familiar faces from the past, and I have admiration for those of you that are young and carrying on the tradition of mystery solving like legit master detectives.”

The four young sleuths beam with pride as they exchange looks before directing their full focus back on Lovecraft.

“I don’t know if there will be another gathering such as this. I am quite old myself, as are some of you. I traveled a ways to get here, so we could hold this at the old hall. The same place where it has always been held.” He pauses.

Lovecraft coughs and covers his mouth. Jet gets up and rushes for a cup of water he brings to podium. Lovecraft accepts it from him with a gracious smile and takes but a tiny sip before putting it down on the podium. “Thank you… young man.” He says to him. Lucy squeezes his arm affectionately when he sits back down. They all nod in approval of his quick action.

“If this hall is still here, 12 months from now, and they welcome us back, and I am able myself. I will organize this again. But should this be the final gathering of sleuths from among those of you that are here in attendance. Let me say this, we do not solve mysteries for profit, or gain. We solve mysteries in search for the truth. In that truth, a mystery unravels… and in that unraveling… we are able to gleam a sense of ourselves that shines a greater more omnipresent and grand light onto the world around us. It is that precious, and transcendent light, that is so crucial. Because in its absence we will not be able to see through the shadows of doubt and would succumb to the darkness.”

Everybody is quiet. Listening to the silence, that follows his address. He nods in the direction of the many attendants, individually making eye contact with the occupants of each table. Lingering once more on the youths. Then walks off. Returning to some hidden chamber of the lodge in the back….

“Damn.” Ziggy says for the rest of them.

Jet leans over and asks Lucy if she’ll have a smoke outside, with him. They get up to go smoke as Roach and Ziggy return to the buffet tables for more food in earnest.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

But they’re not the only ones…

The House That Freddy Built, New Line Cinema, is now fast tracking their own reboot of the iconic slasher franchise to force Paramount out of the race.

Paramount and Warner Bros. were set to merge. Bunch of lawsuit legal court shit has resulted in the merger being put on hold. Both studios are required to compete as if there is no merger, until the merge is complete. Which is why they are now at war for the Elm Street reboot.

Warner Bros. owns New Line Cinema by the way in case you’re not aware of that, but this is quite the interesting battle for a number of reasons.

Paramount produced eight of the first nine Friday the 13th films before New Line took over the property. Leading to Jason X and Freddy vs Jason. The rights for these movies are all mixed up between these studios.

It’s a clusterfuck. But let me try to break it down best I can…

Sean S. Cunningham produced the original Friday the 13th movie independently, but it got distributed by Paramount and then Paramount produced the next eight films in the franchise up until Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Which ended with Freddy’s glove coming up to take his mask down to hell. Setting up the crossover movie for the next film.

Freddy vs Jason spent a decade in development hell, in spite of being under the control of New Line Cinema. Who famously built the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Freddy saved the studio from collapse. Allowing them to make future hits like Blade and Rush Hour. And then… The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Cementing them as power players in the movie industry.

Paramount Primal is Paramount’s newly developed genre focused horror label and they are the ones that cut the deal with the Craven Estate for the new Elm Street reboot.

As I understand it, Glumhouse has been trying to get their dirty little hands, on Jason and Freddy ever since their Halloween trilogy. I guess butchering Michael Myers was not enough for them, they want the whole three-piece combo just to shit on us some more.

I am rooting for New Line Cinema in this war, and I’ll tell you why. The guys running Paramount Primal are the producers of Barbarian and Weapons. I don’t like Barbarian, I think it was shit. I didn’t watch fucking Weapons. I can’t believe it got a mf Academy Award. Oh… how things have changed. Sinners, Frankenstein, and Weapons all won at the academy awards.

Horror is on top in a way it never was in the past. That’s why this war for the newest entry to the Elm Street franchise is such a big fucking deal.

Freddy is arguably the biggest icon… in horror. The personality of Robert Englund’s portrayal of him, stands in stark contrast to the silent brutality demonstrated by both Jason and Myers. Elevating him in a way that allows him to shine triumphantly.

But Jason kicked his ass though. Cause he’s the ultimate slasher… let that stand for the mf record. As I was saying…

The return of Freddy after a fifteen-year hiatus from terrorizing the dreams of teens on Elm Street… it’s prime real estate for the Springwood Slasher to make a comeback in precisely this era.

A24, has produced a Crystal Lake tv series adapting the universe of the Friday the 13th franchise. This is after the massive legal battle for the rights to Jason Voorhees ever since the 2009 reboot. Which was a sequel, and not a remake. Btw.

Thing is though. They can’t use adult Jason. *throws a vanity through a window and smashes everything in the cabin… up at Crystal Lake*

Miller is puppy guarding the big guy because he has so much to fuckin’ offer us with his “Sweet Revenge” short film, and the “Jason Universe” YouTube channel. Best we are getting from Jason in the mask is a fifteen-minute short film that doesn’t really make any narrative sense, and most people didn’t like it much.

But hot young Pam Voorhees tho! Woo! Hoo! *my idea from like five years ago I might add*

So, Jason is trapped in the Jason Universe. But Pam Voorhees is still killing at Crystal Lake. A rumored “Halloween 50 Years Later” H50 movie is in development for 2028.

And New Line Cinema is trying to make an Elm Street movie to stop Paramount from making theirs.

Like I said, the guys in charge of Paramount Primal are tools. The movies they have produced suck. I don’t like them. If they do a new Freddy movie it’s gonna be trash.

New Line Cinema have made many hits I love. They are also… The House That Freddy Built. If you ask me, they should be the ones to bring him back. Even if the reboot was terrible, I’d rather let them have another go than those other douchebags.

It’s also being reported they have already started the process of locking in Lee Cronin to make it. While I hear The Mummy was somewhat of a disappointment, the dude is a great director, and Evil Dead Rise revived the franchise and was a massive success. My faith is in him. Far more than the competition.

Paramount assumed the merger would go through and then they’d gain international rights from New Line by way of absorbing Warner Bros. but now that the merger is on hold, New Line Cinema has international rights and Paramount only has domestic. If they made their film, they could only distribute in US.

But New Line can distribute international. Which is a much broader market, and it stands that should they start shooting a movie, it will force Paramount to back down because no two studios will make a movie for the same franchise to compete at the same time. They have too much money at stake, to lose.

I’ll admit, it would be pretty fuckin’ dope to have two Elm Street movies out at once, and then everybody picks which is better, like a damn boxing match. The industry is not built for that. They won’t do it.

So, in that case… I’m rooting for New Line Cinema. I understand that Paramount has the greenlight from the Craven Estate. But they aren’t Craven himself. And I gotta root for the opposing team on this one… I suggest you go grab that crucifix and try not to fall asleep.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

In other ways, it’s a mere glimmer of its formal self. In that, I mean that anime as a whole, as a medium… feels far less original. It takes few risks and everything seems to be just like everything else.

Right now, there isn’t one anime I am actually excited to watch. Not a new series. I like Smoking Behind the Supermarket with you. Clearly… it’s the best series out. I don’t think it is much of a debate. Not for any real anime fans, or elder otaku. Such as myself. But an anime just about smoking cigarettes is so mundane and slice of life compared to the likes of Gantz and Claymore, back in the 2000s.

Anime used to feel basically illegal. Like… how the fuck did this get made. I shouldn’t be watching shit like this.

The medium was cutting edge. It was edgy. But not because it was trying to be. It simply was…

You see some shadow of this in newer anime that aim to please in this way like Solo Leveling. But now that SOLO proved such a major success in the States and it’s getting a major box office motion picture budget for a movie release I doubt it’ll hit as hard as the first two seasons.

In Japan, SOLO was basically considered mid. But in the US, it was a smash hit. SOLO reflected the old skool methodology of anime storytelling. Which was introduce some insane premise, have the fights start fast and hard. And combine gore with fan service.

Anime girls used to be hot because they were all so distinct. Now, any slice of slice or romance anime has the same girls as the rest. Silver haired girl, pink haired girl. Girl that wears glasses. Blonde girl but she’s cold. Sporty girl that’s fun.

Modern anime feels like a checklist, it just copies what any other successful series has ever done and caters to the trends of the times like so much other media. And that is a real shame, it truly is.

But that’s why I started rewatching one of my favorite series from back when I was still in high school… High School of the Dead.

HOTD is the perfect blend of classic American genre horror cinema tropes combined with the over-the-top stylized action of anime.

A play on Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead, this anime was actually ahead of its time in that it came out before Asia started ruling the zombie subgenre with films like Train to Busan.

Asian zombie flicks have become quite predictable now and play into the tropes but at one time the change in how zombies were depicted in the East, was quit refreshing to how overproduced modern zombie cinema had become in the states.

Zombies are a science, but not a complex one. We don’t need A-listers and MARVEL production budgets to make zombie flicks, a blockbuster like World War Z fails mostly because it’s too clean and too damn glossy.

There are some cool action beats but by the time it came out the fast runner zombies had become so status quo nothing about the film innovates on the genre. 28 Days Later and Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead had already done the running needed to make zombies that move fast scarier than the original slow shuffling flesh eating ghouls of the 1960s.

Night of the Living Dead gave us the modern zombie. Dawn of the Dead is arguably the most influential of all zombie movies, even more so than the original film, since it’s the most commonly recognized globally as what zombies are. Many influential flicks were directly inspired by Dawn. But it was thanks to the lack of copyrights on Living Dead that made zombies immediately public domain out of the gate that birthed a subgenre. The subgenre that has taken over the world, ever since.

For me, the highpoint of zombie movies is Return of the Living Dead. It was made in 1985, same year as Fright Night, a top contender for best blood sucker flick ever made.

1985 was pretty much the plateau for 80s horror. Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street… these horror franchises had all presented their earlier entries that hit a lot harder than many of their sequels, excluding the Evil Dead franchise… Return came out when horror still felt fresh and authentic.

It was a classic genre film. You also have to credit them for the first “runners” long before 28 Days Later. The popularity of Japanese video game series Resident Evil is what actually saved zombies from extinction. So… in that, I guess Asia had already staked its claim to the subgenre before they would dominate it later on in the 2010s. With Busan and others.

In the 2000s zombies became fast, and more predatory. Like human shaped animals, that hunt and kill brutally like vicious tigers. Gone were the slow-moving corpses of the dead. Zombieland solidified this for the mainstream, but The Walking Dead took direct inspiration from Living Dead and that shit is still going today.

HOTD followed in the slow shuffling footsteps of Living Dead…

What stands out most about this anime, is the first episode. If you have ever seen it, you know how fast paced the story moves and how quickly it aims to please. We do not waste a single minute of its twenty something minute runtime, it just gets right to the fucking carnage.

Opening with a foreshadow from after the infection spreads and the school has turned into a hellish setting of dead students… hording around as zombies.

The three students shown fighting their way through them to barricade themselves on the roof sets up the best love triangle in anime history.

Takashi loves Rei. Hisashi was Takashi’s best friend, but now him and Rei are dating and Taskashi has been left out in the cold of their trio. What better way is there to steal back your girl… than smashing your best friend’s head in with a fucking bat.

While moping on the stairwell, Takashi sees the first spread of infection as the PE teachers encounter a zombie then immediately start killing each other and turning into zombies themselves. He sees this all playout before the chaos and panic reach the rest of the school and the rest of the student body.

He runs to his homeroom and snatches Rei by her arm demanding she leave with him to the dismay of the teacher and Hisashi. When she questions him… Takashi straight up pimp slaps her.

Me and my best friend in high school used to laugh so hard at this because it is so out of pocket and shocking when you first see it, but it’s basically a common theme for the whole first episode. Takashi gains back Rei’s love and affection by mind breaking her and he uses what can only be called “pimp tactics” on her multiple times to do so. It’s hilarious!

Once he slaps her in front of the whole class the trio leaves together and Hisashi takes the lead. Barking orders about going through the management building. He breaks a broom stick with a spiked tip for Rei’s use as a spear. Takashi adopts his trademark aluminum baseball bat.

Hisashi says, “I have a black belt in karate.” Good luck fighting zombies with hand-to-hand combat douchebag. Your fate is fucking sealed.

Upon their first encounter Rei tries to fight off a zombie but Hisashi has to jump in trying to help her. While Takashi actually does nothing. I lowkey think he was just finna let her get eaten, and he does this a second time after this, I guess it was only once he realized he could get her back that she became more valuable alive than she was as zombie food.

Hisashi puts the zombie teacher in a chokehold boasting… he has this… until zombie teacher spins his head around backwards and chomps down on his arm.

You’re fucked buddy.

Takashi headshots the zombie with the bat, but they still have to fight their way to the top of the roof. Rei gets attacked again and Takashi stands aside as a zombie goes for her. Hisashi grabs the bat and saves her one last time. His last heroic effort before he dies a brutal fucking death.

Hisashi spews blood dying as Rei cries, and Takashi watches like… can this really be happening…?

What is so great about this, is it’s the perfect fantasy fulfillment. The girl you loved since childhood has chosen your best friend over you, and you’re pissed off and sad about it. Now, he’s a fucking zombie, you have a bat… it’s the end of the world, so it’s survival of the non-living dead over everything else.

Takashi does what you or I would do. He bashes that mf’s head and saves the girl.

There is not a more satisfying opener to any anime in history. Every moment of this first episode is driving you toward binging all 12 episodes in six hours, which I have done on a number of occasions.

The awesome opener song and closing credits song are bangers and combined with flashy visuals you just watch every minute of this anime. Each episode has an after credits scene, in this one. Rei chastises Takashi for killing Hisashi saying he must have hated him for dating her and attacks him out of her grief about Hisashi lying dead in front of her… what does Takashi do… the most pimp shit fucking imaginable.

He says you don’t want me here, fine, I’ll go smash ‘em then. She yells… what are you doing?!

Takashi goes to the barricade and starts taking it down to climb out and jump back into the hordes of zombies. Prompting Rei to rush to him begging him to stop and stay with her. She clings to his arm crying and saying she’s sorry telling him not to go as he looks down at her.

Then he pulls her close and holds her. Ending with saying the iconic line. “On the day everything came to an end. I killed my best friend, then I held the girl that I loved, for the first time in my life.” Which is just too fucking peak.

This is what anime once felt like, badass, outrageous, and fucking cool. I forget to mention the ecchi fan service in this series that it’s honestly probably more widely known for than how great it actually is. And yes, the up-close panty shots under the skirts that showed what other anime never did definitely made an impression. But it’s way more than the fan service, this shit is awesome.

High School of the Dead is fucking badass. It’s an example of what anime should feel like… which is fucking cool.

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Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

We’d all gotten the same letter. Former cops and homicide detectives, FBI, profilers, forensics experts and even some private investigators. It was like the gathering of the gumshoes. I half expected Sam Spade to stroll in and say… they called me too.

Sleuths are very particular batch of strange folk. Somebody that is not a criminal but obsesses, or desires to psychically channel the mind of a criminal, or murderer, as an act of crime solving. Sometimes it requires a genius level intellect akin to that of the Great Detective himself for such a task.

But other times… it may simply require someone deranged enough to want to pursue serial killers into the dead of night. Hunting down their murder dens and dungeons like some sick and twisted scavenger hunt of sorts. One you can get paid for, and at the same time save lives, or at the very least… bring a certain amount of closure to the loved ones of the victims.

I remember showing up. I was expecting more Quantico, I’d survived that once before. Becoming an FBI special agent. The physical endurance needed to prove you had the stamina to run, the accuracy to fire a gun. The investigative prowess to solve crimes in pursuit of a devilish mind. It wasn’t easy but I’d prepared hard for it.

This was different. Everyone had already had their version of that, some formal or less than formal training that led to this dreadful business of hunting and tracking killers. We were all psycho hunters, in our own right.

I sat down in the front row. You always learn more in any kind of class setting if you are in the front row. Studies have proven such. Not that this was per say a class, but it was something of the like. I wanted to gather as much information about the purpose behind this macabre gathering and my inner mystery solver was itching to gather up the clues and necessary connections to piece this all together.

That was when… he, walked in.

Chatter about field stats came to an immediate closure, as silence prevailed over the room. It was dark. There were lights but they seemed to make more shadows than cast much illumination around the space. It felt close, and claustrophobic despite being a room big enough to hold some odd forty of us. Forty-two in fact.

I counted.

Preston Price had short, but messily spiky hair. He was tall. Reasonably handsome in the face. Physique of a man that can run, jump and shoot. Likely a deliberate athlete of equal or greater ability than the majority of us. He had a confidence in his motion and posture. A man that is accustomed to commanding others.

A natural born leader. A field captain. A commander…

His eyes ran across us all. Absorbing faces like he was matching each one of us to some internal spreadsheet or database index. I found myself wondering what would be shown, on mine…

Age, 36. Former FBI special agent. Killed three serial killers. Captured five. Retired early too many bad dreams. Maybe for other reasons. Psych profile concludes he is not greatly affected by the stress of his profession or the acts of murder he committed in the line of duty. Under threat of his own life. On a number of occasions. Works better alone than he does with others. No wife, doesn’t spend enough time with family and has no pets. Prefers to drink red wine alone just before dark. In bed before nine. Runs at four in the morning.

Private investigation seemed best option for me. It wasn’t hard considering I used to track serial killers across the country then chase them through torture dungeons and either apprehend them or blow their brains out of their skulls.

But part of me. Felt… like a pussy. For abandoning the chase. For risk management. Desk work and snapping photos of spouses having sex. But not… with their spouses. The money wasn’t the problem. It was the fulfillment. I wasn’t bettering the world by getting paid for any of that. I was not making the world a safer place. I was just, in it.

Price stood in front of us, for a number of minutes, without speaking. Like Hitler at the forefront of his speeches to the Third Reich. When he spoke, his voice was as hard as expected. Masculine and authoritative but articulate in a thoughtful manner. It was clear the man had a keen intellect.

“Each of you received a letter, inviting you to this summit. It should be clear why, but I will reiterate the obvious. You have been summoned here because you possess skills that may be useful for a new division of the FBI.”

I studied the man’s face, as he spoke. Like the rest of us did. He had my attention. I was listening for any hidden details behind his words. A new division of the FBI was not something common. It was rather strange…

“We tell the public roughly twenty-five to fifty serial killers are active in the United States at any given time. The reality is the number is exceedingly far greater than that. It’s closer to a hundred or more.” Price declared.

You could hear gasps. Most of us had been in law enforcement, many of us had even faced killers. It isn’t a far stretch to assume the number could be higher than fifty but to think more than a hundred active serial killers are hunting in the wild as you read this book. I mean, that is quite baffling.

“It has become necessary to form a separate division of the bureau specifically for the pursuit of killers responsible… for serial murder. It will be called, the Bizarre Crimes Division.”

There was only silence, but the room had grown tense. People were giving each other sharp glances and fidgeting in their seats.

“In Bizarre Crimes, we will pursue devilish fiends too monstrous to call men. Killers of the worst kind and most brutal nature. Gruesome crime scenes, horrendous extents of serial murder. Crimes far too strange… for ordinary agents to investigate. Many of you have faced killers in the field. Many have not.”

It was quite straight to the point, the way he was presenting this development, and it was apparent, what our intended role in it, would be.

“If you have no interest in pursuing these monsters, thank you for your time. We will reimburse you on travel expenses, as was specified in the letter. You need only return home, and they will arrive in the mail.”

He paused. It became clear rather quickly he meant for anybody that had absolutely no intention of continuing in this initiative to leave now. More than half of the room got up and left quickly.

When the murmurs quieted from those that had scurred away like scared sheep. I was among those that stayed seated. Me, and twelve others.

The thirteen.

Price looked at each of us, a glint of admiration entered his expression. He nodded as if he was satisfied by the result.

“If any of you are not certain about this. Your best time to leave is now… beyond this point. The monsters are real. Expect the worst from them.”

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Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Aug. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

This movie is whacky and weird but has some strengths I found rather enjoyable. The story is nonsensical, however, it seems the film knows it is and instead of trying to be anything other than outrageously comedic it chooses to lean all the way in and take a bite out of your neck.

The story revolves around an aging Dracula, now an older man, that is extracting the blood of beautiful young woman to restore his bride. It’s not explained why he is old if he is immortal. Or why his bride is in a state of undead slumber and needs to in fact be restored to her immortality.

Dracula is using is Castle, as a tourist attraction. His minion and butler is dressing up as Dracula in his place for the purpose of securing them victims to drain their blood from. His gorgeous blonde assistant of sorts threatens to leave, only to be imprisoned in a confinement cell, and then bitten by Dracula. Turning her into a newly created blood sucking ghoul of the night.

The majority of this movie is lovely women getting bitten on the neck. In that respect I think it showed me what made vampire movies appealing in the first place, and how far we have drifted from the actual ethos of such stories. Being that it is British I can see why this is. In comparison to Hollywood’s Universal monster movies the Hammer films always seemed to have bustier, sexier dressed ladies in them. Which I find to be quite a delight, in these old skool ghoul flicks.

The central story of the movie involves a group of Playmates from Playboy magazine that Dracula invites to the castle for a press gathering of sorts, after getting a look at the 1973 July issue.

His guests consist of Marc Williams and publicist Angela, plus four playmates that he describes in his opening narration as, bitable.

It’s honestly not entirely clear about the roles of each character, but Angela is shown sitting beside him, holding a notepad. He describes her as “an ice-cold chaperone” in addition to the “mad publicity director” comically shown gathering their party onto the bus before having to chase after it to get on.

Marc, played by Nicky Henson… remarks, “If I’d known then what I know now, I never would never have written the story. But at the time it seemed, as they say, like a good idea.” I assume this implies he is a writer for Playboy, or some other form of writer and is accompanying the Playmates on their trip to the castle to report on it.

Upon their arrival, in Transylvania, the party is wined and dined by Dracula himself, in place of his minion that usually dresses up like him. So, Dracula is pretending to be a fake Dracula, dressed up as himself. *raises eyebrows with confusion*

The women are drugged to ensure they remain asleep as Dracula goes about taking blood samples from them, but one of the women awakens and has to be hypnotized to go back to sleep. I believe it may have been Angela.

When Dracula uses the blood samples to attempt the revival of his bride, Vampira, she is ultimately restored to her undead immortality, coming back to life… but she has a definitive change from how she once was previously. She’s now Black.

I’m not kidding. That’s the premise.

This movie reflects the time in which it was made in that “being Black” is presented as something amiss, or “wrong” with her restoration that Dracula must rectify and do all he can to change her back again. To restore her whiteness.

I wasn’t expecting this development whatsoever, despite seeing the Black woman in the trailer as the main female lead. I hadn’t pieced together this exact scenario being depicted in such a way.

Now, obviously by today’s standards this is terribly racist and even crude in its very premise… but I honestly had enough fun with the film that I’m not entirely mad about it, although it’s worth mentioning it is a stupid idea that comes off as crude, and quite racist overall. Even if it is intended to be funny more so than genuinely harmful.

Dracula is forced to travel to London to re-collect samples from the Playmates to find out which one of them the “special blood” came from that restored Vampira. Here is where the story becomes jumbled and confusing.

There were four Playmates. Three of which are blondes, and one of them is Black. Dracula recovers blood from the three blondes trying to figure out why Vampire came back Black, they mention that one of the girls was Black, and she returns in the dance sequence in the final climax of the movie, but never is it stated her blood is the reason Vampire became Black. Nor is it confirmed her blood was taken.

The storyline more so implicates that only the blood of the three blondes was taken, and it is in fact, one of them, whose blood is responsible for the change. I guess that is what it was. But I am not entirely certain.

There’s a scene on the plane where Dracula says he has flown many times “but never on a plane” then the plane goes dark as a brief bout of thunder and lightning occurs, during which Vampira feeds on the man sitting in their section. He is later found in the bathroom dead by the flight attendant.

Rest of this movie is basically Dracula using Marc as his minion to gather the blood samples from the three Playmates. This results in him inviting each of them over to his place to hookup before he uses fake fangs or other means to gather their blood for the Count.

There is this one random scene where Dracula is out walking around the city, and he stops a woman from being raped by a mugger. He jabs the mugger with a cane sword then gets a ride with the woman, only to be dropped off and fly back to the hotel in his bat form before the sun comes up.

The woman he helped never appears again in the film. It honestly has nothing to do with the rest of the story. I think the point was just to make Dracula look heroic and to almost show her bare chest when the mugger tears her shirt open nearly exposing her bare breasts. Again, I’m not entirely certain on that.

Another standout scene is one where Vampira goes to watch Jim Brown’s classic film Slaughter from the Black Cinema Golden Age of the 70s. Vampira returns from having watched the movie in the theater and is talking “jive” in Blaxploitation slang. Calling Dracula “a groovy old dude” or something of that nature.

Later in the movie she calls him a jive turkey to moderately hilarious effect, I wasn’t offended by these portions of the film, just slightly entertained by how ridiculous it is.

The final climax hinges largely on an extended dance sequence where the men are all dressed like Dracula. Dracula is there trying to get the last blood sample from one of the Playmates, but Marc has managed to free himself from the hypnotic mind control and is trying to stake him.

When that’s all said and done, Vampira bites Dracula, turning him Black too.

In the last moment of the movie, it is revealed that he too is now Black, but instead of a Black actor dubbed by David Niven, as I anticipated, it is David Niven himself with his face painted in “blackface” which was definitely the low point of the film. Leaving the worst impression on me as anything else I witnessed.

I think it was all supposed to be a bit of humor poking fun at some bad racial views in that era, but it comes across as pretty fuckin’ racist, and while it is an enjoyable watch it is unabashedly offensive. Particularly the choice to end on blackface. More so, than just the crude premise of Vampira’s detested Blackness thar Dracula makes it his sole mission to resolve.

The 70s was a wild time, a lot of crazy movies got made, this is one of them. It has some bite. But its fangs are dulled by its racial bigotry…

Two and a half wooden stakes is my rating - you can view this movie at the SHock Cineplex

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Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

Wishing I had some drugs to take, so I could get trippy and come up with some real gonzo ass shit, but I didn’t have any drugs on deck. *chugs more Arizona* I kept it at it like I was producing deep fakes of my favorite Hollywood actresses on the heads of random porn chicks getting plowed.

I wasn’t… btw. That’s fucking immoral…

Paused my writing to check my email. Got a couple of “fuck you” emails from every respectable horror critique magazine and pop culture journalism publication still in existence.

One said you need to go to college to learn how to write a professional fucking email you dipshit. Another one said this offended me so much I’m blocking you on twitter. I replied… it’s called “X” now.

My Evil Dead Burn review did like 10,000 hits across Google and Facebook from Substack and got picked up by a few YouTube reviewers doing commentary on the movie, and the backlash from it being considered “way too brutal” for an Evil Dead film. Which is a sentence that makes less sense than taking a shit in your bed and sleeping in the tub.

Rolling Stone once published Hunter S. Thompson. Their review of the movie said a version of “Please stop making these” and I find that not only disgusting but honestly deplorable. I sent them a hate email saying ass cheeks type better articles than that.

We’re in a really weird era. Horror used to be for the misfits, and outcasts. For those rejected by the mainstream and the masses. Now everyone says they’re horror fans but their favorite flicks were produced by Glumhouse and came out in the last six years.

I find this not only disgusting but honestly… deplorable.

Being one of the last honest gonzo journalists in 2026 is becoming a big responsibility and it’s keeping me sober. If I don’t keep my shit together, I can’t bang out these legit ass banger articles shitting down the throats of those yuppie MFA shit typers. I could smear shit on a notepad and it would have more journalistic integrity than any of the fuckfaces getting paid to call themselves journalists today.

If you haven’t bought one of my books yet, you might wanna start before the sales hit and I raise the prices to $80 a copy because people will pay it. I’m also producing my own horror host content on YouTube - total shock fiction - go subscribe and check out some of my shit. Stay shocked. fuckos.

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Moreau’s Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

John Carpenter’s 1978 film, Halloween… is credited for acting as a springboard for the many masked on-screen killers that would come to rule terrain of mainstream popular culture throughout the 80s.

While Michael Myers can definitely be argued as the granddaddy of them all, there is no argument that both Freddy and Jason have made great strides to eclipsing even his notoriety among slasher junkies and hardcore horror fans.

Every iconic slasher franchise starts one place… with the original.

It has become the standard practice for these film properties to be milked for as many sequels as possible before failing to produce the returns necessary to justify continued entries. Every franchise hits that point, where you’re sitting there wondering what the fuck were they even thinking when they made this…?

Anytime space gets involved, it’s usually a symptom of… we ran out of shit to fucking do here. But even the worst sequels serve to keep the machine going. And in that, the films that failed to yield the desired box office returns or fans receive poorly and hated or said were trash, are still quite valuable.

The only way a slasher really dies, is not getting a new reboot, or sequel.

The death curse of Crystal Lake began… when Jason Voorhees drowned. His mother claimed revenge, by killing countless teen camp counselors. That legacy continued as he returned to Camp Blood to keep killing, again, and again, and again, and again. He just kept coming back. On… Friday the 13th.

He took an axe to the head, a machete through the face, rose from the grave, was cast back into the lake, then rose yet gain, and still returned to Take Manhattan. Hell, itself. couldn’t keep his evil contained.

Freddy Krueger was a child murderer… he stalked to the streets of Springwood killing children. The parents of Springwood burned him alive. His vengeful spirit assumed the form of a phantom specter. Using the power of the dream world to claim the souls of teens. He became, the Nightmare on Elm Street.

In the final moments of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday… as Jason’s mask lie in the dust, partially covered by dirt… Freddy’s unmistakable glove rose from the ground and claimed the mask into the depths of the abyss.

It was the man famed for his menacing portrayal of the Jason character, Kane Hodder, whose hand was in that glove, but it was the sinister laughter of Freddy that hinted at the possibility of these two titans of slasher cinema finally clashing against each other sometime in the future.

With both Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, both under the control of New Line Cinema, it was only inevitable this teased showdown would eventually come to become a reality.

After about a decade in development hell, it finally did.

Freddy vs Jason premiered on August 15, 2003. In some ways, it was exactly what was promised to audiences. The big guy and the guy in the sweater duking it out for the title belt of slasher supremacy. It was that. In a lot of ways… I’d say it succeeded. But in a number of other ways, it miserably failed in spectacular fashion.

The worst thing about this movie is… it is not Kane Hodder’s Jason. Kane Hodder did what other actors behind slasher icons failed to do. He became more than just another stuntman in a mask.

Hodder’s portrayal of the character carries this intensity and physicality that is totally unique to his performance. Never replicated. His head moves first, moving with a fast jerk. Followed by the rest of his body echoing the trajectory of his head’s motion like a terrible weapon inhumanly locking onto its identified target for slaughter.

He portrayed Jason in Parts 8 - 10 in the Friday the 13th franchise. Including The New Blood, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell, and Jason X… aka, Jason Goes to Space, unofficially.

While these four films are not my favorite in the franchise, neither are they the ones I’d say are the best of the franchise, Hodder is without question the most iconic and resonant performance of the character over all others.

Freddy vs Jason stands in stark contrast to the rest of the films from both franchises in that cinematography and filmmaking overall had experienced great advancements for special effects. Freddy looks incredible in this movie, best out of any other film other than maybe the first movie, because of how sinisterly creepy he was in that original film. Jason on the other hand looks his worst over any other movie.

Kane Hodder was replaced by another actor, and it shows. The Freddy Vs Jason, Jason, feels like a dull zombie minion of his former self. Largely only Jason in name and in costume. But not in spirit, and essence.

We were teased the showdown between Kane Hodder’s Jason and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. While the producers knew that Englund couldn’t be replace for this crossover, for some reason they thought Hodder could be.

I am not sure what the thinking behind this was, behind the scenes, but I think that Ghostface might need to make a few phone calls to rectify this…

From what I’ve seen of the making of footage from this film, director Ronny Yu didn’t respect either property… it seemed like he just thought it was stupid and didn’t take it seriously in a sense. Brendan Fletcher remarked how upon asking for clear character motivation, Yu simply brushed him off like it didn’t really matter.

Ronny Yu may seem like a great choice given his background in Hong Kong action cinema, I will say the almost kung fu style fight sequences between Freddy and Jason feels very 2000s Chinese martial arts movie import, and it’s cool, in that regard, I feel a more veteran American horror director that was a fan of both properties would have made for a better final product.

Freddy vs Jason wasn’t just a campy slasher sequel akin to 1998’s Bride of Chucky that Yu directed. It was a major cultural event, and we deserved better.

Where this movie shines is, in delivering what was promised that they do manage to follow through with. Pitting Freddy against Jason. Freddy resurrects Jason from hell as a way of sparking a revival in his own legend to make the teens of Springwood fear him again.

Revealing that covering up his horrific history of murder, carnage, and hauntings on Elm Street, ultimately led to Springwood ridding their town of the specter that once stalked their streets. I think this was more than a sufficient premise to set up the fight that ensues for the killing of our cast of teenage victims.

Brendan Fletcher is great. Katherin Isabelle, aka, Ginger from Ginger Snaps… has some great screen time. Her shower scene does not give up the goods but seeing her almost naked is more than good enough for me.

Monica Keena is honestly one of the best standouts in this movie because she is just insanely hot. It’s a shame she wasn’t in more stuff I remember seeing after this. But that aspect of the film has only aged like fine wine. Some of the other stuff like super fake looking industrial steel factory set pieces from Freddy’s boiler room dreamscape have aged quite badly.

There was nearly a Michael Myers vs Pinhead crossover movie between the Hellraiser and Halloween franchises, but it didn’t happen.

A comic book miniseries titled Freddy vs Jason vs Ash takes this whole thing a step further and pits Ash Willians from Evil Dead against both Freddy and Jason, but when they approached the legend Bruce Campbell to do the movie, they didn’t want to let Ash defeat the two slasher icons, so he declined it.

We’ve never seen a slasher showdown like this on this scale of mainstream spectacle since 2003. With the announcement of a new Elm Street reboot and the Crystal Lake tv series relaunching Friday the 13th… it definitely begs the question, will we see Freddy and Jason clash yet again…?

And what about all those other slasher icons…? Freddy vs Jason brought in nearly five times its budget. Didn’t it prove the success of pitting two iconic properties of such popularity and longevity profitable…? I guess only time will tell.

Michael Myers walks into a toy store, stopping in front of a row of Good Guy dolls… *laughter from Chucky echoes*

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

Moreau's Island - the newest shock tape from Bad Times Video

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

The tradition of horror hosting dates back to 1954. Maila Nurmi started what would become a national sensation, and eventually… over the decades, a global phenomenon still embraced today. By way of the worldwide “cob” web. Muahahaha! *cheesy over the top villain laugh echoes resoundingly*

Nurmi started her rise to fame, as tv’s first “Queen of the Macabre” after cosplaying Morticia Adams. Which resulted in her being scouted for a position to host horror.

Mind you, cosplaying wasn’t a thing back then. There were niche communities and events for fan costuming and masquerading but adopting the persona from a widely known character so commonplace today was lightyears ahead of pop culture at the time she first donned Morticia’s spooky black gown.

The Addams Family sitcom that popularized the many ghoulish motifs most recently celebrated by the Wednesday tv series on streaming was still a good ten years off, but the property was a respected comic sensation even still.

Nurmi kept the black dress and overall spooky glamour of Morticia but added her own touch of macabre to make the character her own. The Vampira Show aired from 1954 until 1955. Much of the footage is lost today but some traces remain viewable over on YouTube, and her appearance in the notorious B-movie of all time Plan 9 from Outer Space serves as an enduring imagery of the character.

Vampira remains the template for all future horror hosts to follow in her fiendish but lovely, undead footsteps. Her signature mix of frightening macabre stock trope humor and perfectly horror tuned comedic timing served as example for how to host horror on tv. Every horror host since is essentially, copying her. She is a true trailblazer for every costume wearing freak that loves “old skoul” vintage schlock frights, and campy ass horror flicks with cheap monster suits.

Like me.

The Shock Package is a bit of horror hosting history quite dear to my shock filled heart of shocks. *winks*

This “package of shocks” was an assembly of classic Universal monster movies that were given out to the tv stations, encouraging them to recruit and broadcast them on air, hosted by their own original horror host characters.

These 52 pre-1948 films were packaged for syndicated broadcasts, including the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy and the Invisible Man. As well as some spy and mystery thrillers.

What was unique about this situation is pretty much every region of the country was airing the same movies, but each tv station had their own horror hosts. Depending on where you were seeing the broadcasts, your viewing of “shock theater” differed quite greatly in terms of delivery and presentation.

The October 7, 1957 premiere of shock theater, presenting Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein on WCAU-TV… was the first airing of the program.

Prior to the arrival of horror host legend and icon John Zacherle on Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV *Channel 10* the shock theater broadcast was hosted from offscreen by an ABC staff announcer named Scott Vincent and several other announcers that worked in an interchangeable rotation. Lacking the direct personality and character that John Zacherle would famously bring on camera.

He jokingly asked for three human hairs to make a pillow during the show and as many as 23,000 replies came in, in response. That’s the kind of popularity carried by shock theater under his hosting.

Zacherle went on to host a number of other programs including cartoons, and Chiller Theater on WPIX-TV.

He stands out as one of the most recognizable contributors to the tradition of horror hosting in direct relation to the shock theater era.

You’re likely familiar with Cassandra Peterson’s Elvira. Arguably the most famous and easily recognizable horror host in the history of this strange tradition, which we will get to in a minute, but only one of all those hosts has truly endured… and remains in syndicated broadcast… to this very day. His name is, Svengoolie.

Svengoolie was originally presented as a green haired hippie vampire in striped pants that came out of a coffin. His show premiered in 1970. Featuring Jerry G. Bishop in the role of the titular horror host, lasting from ‘70 until 1973. The program was later revived in 1979 under the banner of “Son of Svengoolie” featuring the man that has taken over the character ever since.

Rich Koz is America’s most iconic horror host in my eyes, simply because he has kept his show going for all these years. Not even for years but decades.

Koz made some changes to the character, adopting a top hat and mortician’s coat, in place of the OG hippie look. His show also has this family friendly charm that many believe to be the key ingredient for its lasting success.

Son of Svengoolie was canceled in 1986, but Koz then led a program called “The Koz Zone” on Saturday mornings for kids until eventually reviving Son of Svengoolie but dropping the Son of part, and simply becoming the true, Svengoolie.

He has received a number of Emmys for his achievements in television programming for Son of Svengoolie, The Koz Zone, and for his overall multi-generational contributions to Chicago tv programming as recently as 2004.

The currently ongoing incarnation of Svengoolie is “House of Svengoolie” and has been airing since 2011 on MeTV.

Sven has also added three new sidekicks to his longtime running program. Including Gwengoolie, the Imp and Nostalgiaferatoo. They are affectionately referred to by fans and the cast themselves as “The Sven Squad” following a national search competition. From which they were chosen.

Svengoolie’s program fully utilizes and optimizes the classic tropes of horror hosting with campy humor and self-aware comedy bits that poke fun at “how bad” the movies are while still celebrating them, every Saturday night. Just like the good ol’ days. Or… rather, the ghoul ol’ days.

I had no idea horror hosting was still a thing. I’ve since been diving deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole in search for a way into this world. Writing an overview of the history of the tradition, sketching out the timeline of major players in the genre, was my best idea. I’m also horror hosting my content on - total shock fiction.

*here, hold my rubber chicken*

Which brings us knocking at the door of Elvira. The Mistress of the Dark…

Elvira’s name is synonymous with this bizarre American institution. There’s always one person, specific notion, or monetized motif in practice, that commodifies a niche subculture into something that sweeps the pop culture zeitgeist and rewrites the way that “thing” or cultural element, is perceived by the masses.

That’s Cassand Peterson, as Elvira. She took the character to heights no horror host has ever achieved. The legacy of her program Movie Macabre which mirrors Vampira’s original show so much that Maila Nurmi herself took Peterson to court arguing she had been plagiarized.

It was ultimately ruled that adopting the influence of something that looks similar as the original, isn’t the same as copying it. In most cases like this, you have to actually copy the exact form and presentation of a thing to be in the realm of stealing it. You can easily change a few things from something else to make it your own even if it has many of the same motifs, and notions. Movie Macabre perfectly imitates The Vampira Show in many ways.

But the thing that makes it entirely original, standing on its own, is its host. Elivra herself.

Where the two shows differ most greatly is the woman in the spooky dress. Vampira is a ghoulish and sexy woman of the macabre. Elvira is too. But they are not entirely the same in premise.

Vampira is literally a vampire. Elvira is just spooky, and super sexy. She’s not actually a vampire, but many people make that mistake. Given the familiarity of the Vampira character that came before her.

And though Nurmi may have felt she was “ripped off” her legacy as the first horror host of the tradition endures. I think when people discuss spooky but sexy icons in the genre… they always mention her alongside Morticia Addams, and Elvira. The three of them are akin to The Three Ms.

Peterson has remarked in a number of interviews, that Elvira is essentially her teenage self that has managed to remain inside her and is embodied in this strangely spooky and sexy form.

When she portrays the character, she taps back into that freedom and carefree wit and humor of when you’re too young to care much about how people react to you or what happens as a result of things you say or do. Is how I see it.

Her movie Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and Elvira’s Haunted Hills did what the rest of the horror hosts didn’t. She walked across the threshold of Hollywood and became the on-screen counterpart to her host persona. She became one of the movies.

The Mistress of the Dark movie in particular is really fun. It has all her trademark wit and charisma she is known for but elevates her to a kind of heroic protagonist even if the movie is mostly goofy humor and sex comedy.

It’s a real shame her pilot for “The Elvira Show” wasn’t picked up. It was great. The head of the studio they created it for had promised syndication but got replaced right before it got officially greenlit. The new guy had a stuck up his ass and essentially decided she was showing too much cleavage to be broadcast.

That is a ridiculous notion considering how much sex sells on tv, the success of her Movie Macabre program, and how popular she had become. The literal exact plot from her pilot and even the talking cat puppet got retooled later by a different network and that show is called… Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

I loved Sabrina as a kid. I never shied away from shows, or cartoons with female main characters because I felt it was a girl show. I’ve always favored spooky stuff like Buffy and Sabrina. Where they make the supernatural part of ordinary life. I always wished the real world was more like that.

TV Land on channel 44 used to give me a much-appreciated peak into the realm of retro sexy magic ladies with I Dream of Jeannie reruns.

Horror hosting is a pretty strange gig. It’s a whacky and weird ass profession to be in, especially in 2026. But if even one horror host is out there getting paid for contuining the spookiest profession in America…

Count me in, and where do I sign up…?

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

This 1943 film directed by the “Master of Suspense” possesses enough of the qualities of a slasher movie, despite being unarguably film noir.

Before we dive in. I want to tell you how I discovered this truth of slasherology and lay it all out on the table like clues I’ve gathered from my investigation. *tokes from pipe like Sherlock Holmes*

It began, as I attempted to rewatch The Curse of Michael Myers…

Off rip. Why would Jamie call Michael Myers “Uncle Michael” when they never had a relationship and he tried to kill her repeatedly before supposedly impregnating her. I think that right away says they aren’t thinking this franchise through anymore at this point. It’s also a really weird angle with Jamie giving birth to Michael’s baby. Like deranged levels of really messed up. It’s a surprise this franchise is still around after a story development like that. *these are the first of my notes on the film*

Jamie gives birth violently in an industrial factory dungeon lit by candles and torches, by doctors wearing scrubs, led by a cloaked figure. Then the baby is taken by “The Man in Black” but albeit *not Johnny Cash* before Paul Rudd’s narration gives us a recap about what happened after Revenge of Michael Myers. Explaining the lore but he is doing this weird thing with his voice.

He says, “You can’t control evil… it just rests awhile… it’s out there… waiting… and maybe it closer than you think.” That’s the short version; it is actually dreadfully longer.

They had to recast Danielle Harris’ portrayal of Jamie Lloyd for this movie because the bastardization of the lore isn’t something they could have gotten away with. With her as Jamie. Harris’ performances in this franchise bring an authenticity to her roles. Which this movie would not have allowed for, and thus it would have had to have been an entirely different story and script. Entirely.

A few things that stood out to me, were the “Back in 20” sign. Which is pretty cool if taken as a foreshadow to the next film - Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. This couldn’t have been intentional. But after the fact, it is a cool coincidence that works a whole lot better than most of the actual mythology in these films.

I actually liked the hotline phone call angle, that’s going on, on the radio, as Jamie tries to flee from Michael, carrying her baby. Paul Rudd’s Tommy Doyle calls in. But another guy calls too. Saying this big conspiracy about how Myers didn’t die in the big explosion from Halloween 2 and he became a sleeper cell agent for the CIA. Ending his rant by saying he couldn’t be controlled, so the government sent him up into space. Which is oddly similar in concept as the story from Jason X in Friday the 13th - Part 10.

This radio thing also reminds me of the Stretch stuff in Texas Chainsaw Masaacre 2, if you wanna get really slasher fanatic about all this.

Which I am.

I am not sure if this is the first movie that uses the idea Haddonfield bans Halloween because of the Myers murders, but I like that concept as well.

Beyond those initial notes. I didn’t write any further, after that, and eventually turned the movie off about halfway through. Not really intending to finish it, but I might now after composing this. Just to see it all through again.

My biggest issue, with this movie, is the idea that Myers impregnated his niece to create some “seed of evil” child or something. I just don’t like the idea. It’s weird and icky. Especially after the previous two films starred a then still child actress Danielle Harris, it makes you wonder who was behind the pen, and why was this the direction they decided to go in. Of all things.

While Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is definitely a high point for this film franchise for me, especially after two installments that I see as not very good, in terms of the overall mythology… Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers just feels like an attempt at doing more of the same, but for some reason somebody came up with the idea that Harris couldn’t speak so the whole movie she’s running in terror and I don’t remember if her screams are audible, or if she is just screaming silently. Either way it is among my least favorite in the the franchise.

What each film in The Thorn Trilogy of movies, featuring Halloween 4-6, get right, is having Donald Pleasence as Dr. Samuel Loomis. He’s always a high point in any movie in this series, that he is in. His acting is far greater than a slasher flick even deserves, and if memory serves there was a really cool gas station sequence in H4 that he was part of.

The Thorn Trilogy attempts to interweave in lore behind Michael’s evil as “The Shape” and why he is the boogeyman, but they ultimately come to the conclusion that he is wanting to continue his bloodline through making an incest baby with his own niece. Sometime, between the fifth and sixth entries.

While slasher are psychopathic killers, the best of slasher movies identify lines that shouldn’t be crossed. In addition to the killing of children on screen, which is now a lot more common, I would say this development, falls in that same ballpark. It gives Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 remake levels of creepy. Not the good kind of EC Comics creepy either.

Myers chasing Jamie under the threat and peril of murder was fine in H4 and H5 since he doesn’t actually succeed. But this is just way too far.

I could drag Curse of Myers all day, but I think I’ve made my point…

Which takes us to the next movie I consumed before discovering Shadow of a Doubt, a little British noir classic starring the ravishing Diana Dors, called Tread Softly Stranger.

I knew off the title… alone, this was gonna be a banger. It didn’t disappoint in any of the departments.

Before yesterday, I didn’t know about Madam Dors. I fucking do now!

Diana Dors is considered the Marilyn Monroe of Britain, and she is not only strikingly gorgeous like Marilyn. She has a very specific type of attitude to her charm and allure.

Ms. Dors has led me down a rabbit hole, which has me researching “The History of Blonde Bombshells” in Hollywood. Here are some of my findings…

Did you know that Marilyn Monroe is part of The Three M’s alongside Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren…?

I also peeped the first episode of the 70s hit tv series The Bionic Woman starring one of tv’s greatest Blonde Bombshells Lindsay Wagner.

Now while my discovery of Ms. Wagner’s famous portrayal of the Bionic Woman and my subsequent exploration into Alfred Hitchcock’s own intimate obsession with them across so many of his films, and his career, was largely accidental, it now seems I was following a trail of breadcrumbs I didn’t even know I had stumbled onto until I was already well on my way.

Can you see how my days are spent… uncovering the lost history of blonde bombshells in the pop culture zeitgeist. That’s how I get my week started.

I was also binging The Rockford Files last week and Ms. Wagner was guest starring in the first two episodes of that show. Good ass fuckin’ show too btw.

In my investigation, I ended up uncovering Shadow of a Doubt and the troubling truth about Mr. Hitchcock.

Getting to the bottom of this required me to view a very well made and well-acted, and directed film, 2012’s The Girl.

The film tells the largely factual story of events surrounding Tippi Hedren’s time on the set of Hitchcock’s famed classic The Birds. The movie showcases an escalating arc of obsession, stalking and abuse she suffered at the hands of none other than Alfred Hitchock. The world renowned: Master of Suspense.

Tippi Hedren was spotted by Hitchcock modeling in a commercial. He told Universal, “Get the girl.” And the rest is now cinema history.

Hitchcock had this habit of becoming greatly obsessed with his female leads and, in his obsession, if that’s what it was, he would micromanage every aspect of their lives to the point of controlling what they wore, and how they behaved, and how they were seen, and perceived by the public, as starlets. In some of the most extreme cases. Like in the instance of Tippi Hedren and his stalking her. Which is exactly what it was you can’t tip toe your way around it.

Some actresses that portrayed his icy blonde leads were more accepting of some of his “strange behaviors” though from the accounts I have seen, they didn’t experience the same level of abuse as Hedren. Eventually he physically attacked her in his limo. Making what she described as a “ugly sexual advance” on her, that she totally refused immediately.

On the set of The Birds, it was initially told to her she’d be shooting the attic scene in which she is pummeled by swarming birds with fake birds later augmented by special effects. On the day of shooting, she was told they’d be real birds.

For four or five days, that scene was shot. Requiring her to cower in fear as the bird handlers hurled birds they intentionally aggravated directly at her. The blood you see on her face, in the scene, is her real blood from being pecked and clawed in the face by the birds.

However, in an interview she gave, she said the trouble with him started only towards the end of the shoot for that film. But before, it’d been a proper working relationship. This leads me to believe his obsession had grown in intensity towards the tail end of the film’s shoot, and that led to the future abuse she suffered on their next film they made together… Marnie.

In the final closing frame of The Girl, it says Marnie is considered his last masterpiece. That movie opens with a quote from Hitchcock that blondes make the best victims, in the context of his film leads, and suspense stories, I am assuming. But given how he terrorized Hedren. Maybe he didn’t simply mean in the movies, or maybe the line of his movies, and fantasies in his head, got blurred by his power in the movie business. Can’t say. Only speculate.

This lore goes deeper cause many of Hitchcock’s films featured icy blonde bombshells as leads. One most notably, Psycho. Which features Janet Leigh. Mother of Jamie Lee Curtis, who would later portray Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s original 1978 film Halloween. Launching slasher movies into the zeitgeist.

Leigh’s character Marion Crane is the woman that Norman Bates knifes in the iconic shower scene, revealing her as the red herring, while her younger sister Lila Crane, portrayed by Vera Miles, is the actual protagonist and albeit, final girl, of the movie who survives her encounter against Bates.

I didn’t realize the name “Sam Loomis” is a character in Psycho. Carpenter must have chosen the name as a nod to the film, I’m guessing. This is the kind of shit Billy and Stu were probably obsessing over as they planned the Woodsboro murders in Scream. Haha!

Why am I obsessing over blonde bombshells like I accidently drank an elixir marked “Essence of Hitchcock” you may be asking yourself. I’ll tell you.

Because it led me to the doorstep of America’s first true slasher movie… and it wasn’t the steps of the Bates motel.

Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 film Hitchcock praised as his favorite that he had the most enjoyable time shooting. It tells the story of a teenage girl named “Charlie” after her estranged uncle. Her mother’s younger brother.

The film opens to the macabre image of “Uncle Charlie” lying in a bed in his rented room. Like Nosferatu in his coffin. I immediately felt a sense of the uncanny. I knew this was not going to be an ordinary doomed thief noir tale about some grifter or atypical gangster. It felt more menacing than that.

Hitchock’s lead, Uncle Charlies niece, who shares his same name, is portrayed by Teresa Wright. She is amazing in this role and is the only actor in history to receive three academy award nominations for her first three films, one of which she did win, for Best Supporting Actress in Mrs. Miniver.

Charlie is bored of her boring average American life, in the small town of Santa Rosa, California. She decides that she wants to telegram her uncle, who it becomes obvious quickly that she idolizes, and shares a connection with because of their shared name, and goes to do so… only to find a telegram has already sent from him explaining he is already on his way to them.

What’s interesting here is Charlie questions the telegram lady about “telepathy” and the woman merely brushes her off. I think it’s notable how advanced the thinking was to be addressing the concept of human telepathy on screen in 1943.

Again, this signifies the weirder territory the movie is headed for, already, in this first act.

To avoid summarizing the whole movie unnecessarily, the truth unfolds that beloved Uncle Charlie is in fact a serial killer known as the “Merry Widow Murderer” and he has been strangling rich widows then taking their money. His insanity is attributed to a bike accident, and head injury, suffered as a kid, that made him insane, and hate the world through his warped perception of reality.

Which takes us back to The Curse of Michael Myers. There is no denying the apparent sexual undertones in this movie. Much of the first act feels like Uncle Charle is in fact courting his niece, rather than appropriately doting on her.

This is reflected most obviously through an emerald ring he bestows upon her finger in a very intimate scene, framed in the kitchen, which ends up being the smoking gun to revealing his true identity as the Merry Widow Murderer… because he stole it off the finger of one of the widows.

The second act of the movie is largely where the mystery unravels but once Charlie discovers the truth she stands at odds with her uncle, her image of him shattered, and he then makes great efforts to try to kill her.

His preferred method for murdering his victims is strangulation, but to make it look accidental, he sabotages a step on the back staircase of the house to try to get her to fall to her death. Then he locks her in the garage with all the fumes from the car going in there, but their neighbor thwarts the attempt.

There’s this funny bit, in the movie, where Charlie’s father and their neighbor always discuss methods for how to kill each other as fans of crime fiction, which adds humor to the film but is honestly pretty meta. Especially for 1943.

Spoilers, but the final conclusion of the movie results in Charlie being taken hostage on the train by her uncle. He holds his hand over her mouth as the train gains speed. She manages to fend him off and instead shoves him off the train into the path of an oncoming train. Killing him.

Uncle Charlie doesn’t wield a knife, like Norman Bates, but as a “strangler” and serial killer with a murder name, as the Merry Widow Murderer. This movie is so slasher in that sense. Charlie is literally a final girl. And this also mirrors much of the dynamic that was used in the Halloween “Curse of Michael Myers” film. With the killer uncle terrorizing his niece.

No such instances that would’ve produced an incestuous child, like in Curse of Myers, was present here, but the subtext was definitely leaning in that direction for much of this film. Specifically in the first act.

I can see how some may contest the nature of this movie, as a slasher film. He doesn’t slash anyone, in that sense. But, in almost every other way this feels a lot like a slasher movie way before slasher movies became a thing.

There was also no abuse, or terrorizing of Teresa Wright, by the Master of Suspense, on this film. Wikipedia says he said she was one of the most intelligent actors he worked with, and it seems he greatly enjoyed having her for a lead on the film.

I refuse to dismiss Hitchcock’s confirmed sexual advances made against Tippi Hedren and attacking her in his limo. He definitely put a big smudge on his legacy there, but I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to say he was simply a predator that used women for indulging his own sexual fantasies.

There aren’t any accounts of him committing actual sexual assaults, or similar attacks as what Hedren experienced, from anybody else. Not that I have found.

Currently, I believe Hitchcock was a troubled man and likely an internally tormented genius that led a great many advancements in film but also abused the power he held over the women that contributed immensely to his legacy by starring in his movies. It isn’t as black and white to say, he was entirely a dirtbag or throw away his greatness because he made some mistakes.

My position is I don’t care much for the man, himself. But Shadow of a Doubt is one hell of a fucking movie. There’s a long take of Charlie standing outside the house, shot from behind her, that follows her as she walks towards the house, with the voices of her uncle speaking to her mother audible. That scene stuck with me a lot. I think it is a very notable scene, that showcases how advanced Hitchcock’s direction was even as early as 1943. Long before his more famous films like Psycho and The Birds.

So, what did we learn from all this class…? Blondes make the best victims, and don’t trust your creepy fuckin’ uncle with the same name as you.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

I hate the way… modern… horror… feels. It’s not fun, thrilling or exciting. It’s anxiety inducing.

Horror can be brutal. But where slasher movies succeed and the so called “elevated horror” of today’s market fail, is in the aspect of excitement that made those movies fun, and not simply horrifying.

It’s easy to look at slasher flicks from the 80s now and not be scared by them. Some might call them goofy even. That is similar to the way Frankenstein and Dracula had terrified audiences, but now it’s like watching a cartoon.

Our standards for what horrifies us has changed. Night of the Living Dead changed the genre forever. Audiences were shocked. I’ve heard stories of people running outside to throw up in the streets. Not sure if that is actually true, or a myth. But Living Dead was the birthplace of 70s grindhouse horror.

Real world carnage, and footage, literally played on the news, from the Vietnam War, made a deep psychic scar in the psyche of the public. The trauma of those times gave rise to the gore filled slasher flicks, and grindhouse horror movies in the late 60s, 70s and 80s.

Today, in the 2020s I see that we have taken a far step from even the color muted and brutally realist “torture porn” remakes of the 2000s.

Yes. Texas Chainsaw Massacre ‘03 is a dark film and it feels real. But honestly, the first movie feels even realer. 70s grindhouse cinema had this strange sensation of feeling like you’re watching documentary footage, not a movie. I think that’s a combination of the low budgets, extreme themes, inexperienced filmmakers pushing boundaries, and how film itself looked back then.

It wasn’t all clean and glossy like today it was harsh and felt lived in.

Slasher movies are fun. There’s a thrill, in knowing it’s fake. The gore is outrageous because it’s over the top and in that you are able to safely explore your horrors safely.

Even Rob Zombie’s early movies have this “charm” to them. A quality of fun baked into the dark comedy. Those movies are sinister in their depictions of murder, death and the mayhem of the Firefly family. Menacing people for sport. Relishing in their fear and humiliation.

But I still don’t feel oppressed by those films. Admittedly, when I was younger, I did feel like, holy fuck this is intense. Over the years however I feel a lot more “at home” in those movies. Not at home like that’s my reality, but safe in the horrors on display as they unfold, and that does have to do with having seen them a number of times but there is a different atmosphere to the way horror movies are made now, that even the meanest spirited of 2000s horror was not.

In modern horror, I feel trapped by the reality being presented. Like I am secluded in a labyrinth. Unable to break free. I can feel my anxiety rising and while the modern filmmakers behind these films might think that’s what horror is about, it is not what the genre is for.

Horror should be liberating, even if it’s very violent, even if it’s challenging to your senses. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever was a very difficult movie to watch. It was revolting and shocking in terms of its violent depictions.

And while yes, aspects of it, felt similar to how today’s horror feels, it felt like I’d survived something that required my endurance. I do think that is exactly why the horror of today is not liberating.

Today’s horror seeks to create that oppressive atmosphere, but it’s so restrictive in my senses I don’t want to even prove I can endure it. It lacks the splatter gore humor of even Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever.

Most modern horror, that are non-slasher films, they are stripped of the schlocky bit of comedic camp that made previous eras’ movies quite fun and enjoyable for horror fans. At least, for myself, as a hardcore horror fun.

Without that campy aspect of outrageous schlock, I feel you are only left with this very “glum” oppression of your senses. It feels like being smothered quietly as you sit through it.

In the current climate of culture, audiences are primed for this. Doomscrolling your life away and “bed rotting” creates that same atmosphere. For somebody who has had their nervous system trained for those conditions, it likely doesn’t feel very different. For me, it definitely does.

I won’t watch modern horror if it isn’t a reboot of a legacy franchise. Anything that is not originating from classic slasher cinema, for me, isn’t even genuine horror. It just feels absolutely sinister, and not the good kind of sinister.

Evil Dead Burn is a perfect example. It’s a movie that jacks into your nervous system and exploits it. You feel tension and extreme shock. But I never felt oppressed by it. I felt liberated through that sensation.

Which is why modern audiences are rejecting that film. They want the bleak, glum af atmosphere of oppression, not to be liberated by the shock of escaping from it. Their default mode is being confined. Not running free. Horror uses fear to generate shock and in that shock, you are pushed beyond your comfort zone.

Modern horror doesn’t have this aim. It feels stifling and constrained. Lacking that momentum of true shock. It’s unsettling but in a way that makes the world heavier and harder to breathe in, and in that, modern horror fails, as true genre cinema. I don’t like it. I actually hate it.

You can read my official review for Evil Dead Burn or watch my YouTube review and I also have a slasher rap mixtape I just dropped too - NOTHING MORE SHOCKING…

I have a song called “Sam Raimi” just released… plus this “horror movie song” you can check out as well. If you like slasher raps and horror movie references.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

I find this hilarious because when Sam Raimi made The Evil Dead it was considered the most offensive, mean-spirited film out there. Raimi even faced some attempts at obscenity charges in the UK at one point, over the whole Video Nasties thing. It was one of the most extreme horror movies historically at the time. Standing alongside the likes of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Lef and The Hills Have Eyes. With a lot of the same horrifying elements.

Evil Dead ‘13 relished in brutality and so did Evil Dead Rise. Rise managed to gloss over its carnage, and violence, by making the story kids focused, and kids centered.

That being said. Rise was definitely pushing boundaries for many casual horror fans and it was not short on gore. I think a lot of the backlash is the French extremity take on the franchise, Vanicek is presenting and how US audiences aren’t seasoned in such extreme violence being delivered so much in their face.

Evil Dead Burn is not for wimps. I would like to mirror what I saw a YouTube reviewer say in his video… stating how people are saying Burn goes too far, but Terrifier receives no such condemnation, when it’s far more sadistic for the sake of just shocking people and not for the purpose of delivering a meaningful story.

I see people saying they didn’t like the characters and couldn’t relate to them, or they didn’t like them. I did not have that experience. I think these characters are not of the cookie cutter model for most characters in modern cinema today.

In that, people are having difficulty latching onto them. People want characters to cry and apologize for being broken, or for their trauma. The reality is most of us are a lot more fucked up than we care to admit. The Price Family reflects people that may have flaws, but I didn’t find that unlikeable I found it relatable.

Evil Dead Burn challenges the audience to face “real fear” and that’s why these “fans” of the genre, making such criticisms, are having trouble stomaching it. They’ve been trained by what they call “elevated horror” and now prefer safe but hollow jump scare horror to boundary pushing mayhem that makes you squirm.

I fell in love with the genre because it pushes envelopes and tackles dark themes that other mediums in film and entertainment avoid.

On the topic of Burn being “not Raimi enough” the choice to include more humor in Evil Dead 2 and then Army of Darkness was largely because they faced such backlash for the first movie being so cruel on its cast, who were majority women.

While now, it’s far more likely that people see Evil Dead as innovative for presenting a largely female led cast, in the 80s it was seen as “men brutalizing women” and caused a lot of controversy.

In spite of Evil Dead 2’s humor, it has a lot of gore, and carnage. I see people latching to the same “critiques” declaring lack of story, unlikeable characters, and not being a funny enough movie to justify the fact it was too in their face. Too relentless in pacing and just straight up… real horror.

Horror is mainstream now and while that’s amazing and incredible for real fans of the genre, it has conditioned many casuals into thinking they love horror, and this film is proving they don’t.

The reaction to the film says it all. A filmmaker created a brutal and grueling entry to this beloved franchise, known for its brutal and grueling entries, but Burn is said to be way too brutal.

Evil Dead 2013 opens with a father setting his daughter on fire then blowing her head off with a shotgun at point blank range. That wasn’t brutal?

Evil Dead Rise pits a mother against her children and then their aunt has to kill them once they become deadites. That’s not brutal either, right? How funny, that is… what I am hearing is that people didn’t like the film. And they need an excuse to hide the fact it was too intense for them.

They don’t want to admit they were too shocked by it. Art the Clown can present kids with candy in a severed head and it’s fine, but this is too much.

That’s because Art the Clown is a meme. His carnage doesn’t make you look inside of yourself and ask, is that me? Am I like her? Am I like him? Would I abandon her if my dad tried to kill her? No, I wouldn’t. Right…

I see this as the reason why so many people are divided on this film. My audience was very much the shocked, horrified audience of NPCs I’m describing among the casuals.

Staring at me in horror as I laughed gleefully at the final credits post scene. I had the same reaction through a lot of this movie. I squirmed, I was grossed out and twisted in my seat, but I enjoyed it because as a hardcore horror fan and a lover of Evil Dead, it was exactly what I wanted.

But a solid story was also being told. I liked the characters, and I related to them. I related to Susan having to be a martyr and caring for an elderly family member, and Joseph’s dreams to be a writer not being taken seriously. I related to Alice being in a situation where it felt like her agency was being challenged on all sides of her and it being a lot to grapple with.

I don’t think most audiences want to contend with these aspects of themselves, or of their own lives, and families. I think they don’t like this movie because it’s asking for them to look at themselves closer than preferred.

So, they claim it sucked. They say it was bad for the same reasons they say 2013 and Rise were good. Which really makes no sense, under scrutiny.

Ash vs Evil Dead had humor, but people were also being casually eviscerated like Uncle Joey throwing a punchline in an episode of Full House. Evil Dead Burn is far from a bad Evil Dead movie, and it didn’t suck. It just shocked you way too much and that’s okay.

It’s fuckin’ fire though… and it burns like hell.

You can read my official review for Evil Dead Burn or watch my YouTube review and I also have a slasher rap mixtape I just dropped too - NOTHING MORE SHOCKING…

I have a song called “Sam Raimi” just released… plus this “horror movie song” you can check out as well. If you like slasher raps and horror movie references.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

The 2000s cemented a specific flavor of horror remakes that gave modern color muted “torture porn” adaptions to nearly every existing 80s slasher movie, and cult hit horror flick.

In recent years, beginning in 2018, with the Glumhouse Halloween trilogy… a new era of slasher reboots began.

We saw the return of Old Man Myers & Old Man Leatherface, new Ghostface killers, and a Chucky tv show. Even the Cenobites came back… and now we’re seeing Doug Bradley return as Pinhead in the new “Hellraiser: Revival” game, which not only looks insane, but everybody that played the demo so far has said how intense and immersive it is. There were even some walks outs.

In my opinion. The new Halloween movies were terrible, but the first entry to those films, the 2018 “Halloween” has a slight charm in its brutality and cruelty, and I like the part of Nick Castle returning to the mask for that one scene specifically. Kills and Ends were dog shit.

Texas Chainsaw ‘22 looked great, wasn’t great. Love Fede though. Alien: Romulus was amazing I don’t understand all the hate it got for lack of originality. Especially seeing Evil Dead Burn is getting all types of hate for not sticking to the original nature of the earlier films closely enough.

What do people really want… that’s my question.

Scream successfully rebooted. Scream ‘22 was fun in theaters it’s not astounding after the fact. But it did something essential, in that it created a new cast of really likeable characters, and I’d argue Sam Carpenter almost immediately became iconic.

The decision to tank that direction and produce “Scream 7” the way they did killed that franchise. I don’t want to see anything from Ghostface anytime soon short of an entire overhaul on everything from scratch. Scream 6 is my third best in the franchise btw. Love you, Samanatha! *Melissa* whutz ur favorite scary movie…?

Not from Scary Movie, neither… sorry. Not sorry.

Coinciding with the opening weekend of Evil Dead Burn a number of new horror saga reboots have been announced and teased.

A24 produced Peacock original series “Crystal Lake” starring Linda Cardellini as Pam Voorhees, in a Friday the 13th origin story premise has released its first official teaser.

the teaser

Peacock originals aren’t great. I do prefer them as a streaming service over Shitflix so that’s alright. A24’s recent stuff has been lame.

But judging the teaser on its own merit, nothing about it makes me think it’s gonna be trash or suck. Cardellini’s a baddie and a solid actress. Her iconic status as “Velma” and some of her work in recent series like No Good Deed gives me confidence in at least her chops for the role.

We’ll have to wait and see how much momentum this series gives us towards pushing the bug guy back onto screens in theaters. It’s been about 17 years since the Platinum Dunes reboot. My first slasher movie I actually got to see on the silver screen.

There was a length dispute over the rights to the franchise, but enough of it has been hashed out for new properties to be released now.

On the heels of Pam and Jason… comes a familiar rival, and past nemesis… the Wes Craven estate has made a deal with Paramount. The Springwood Slasher is returning to Elm Street. A new production for Nightmare on Elm Street has been greenlit. Freddy Krueger is returning as well.

2010’s Elm Street remake was horrific, not because of the portrayal of Krueger, but how it was executed. The story and characters were weak. The focus on the abuse of Freddy overshadowed the subtler subtext of the original films that focused entirely on slasher horror. I didn’t love his design either, his face looked bad. But not good bad.

It’s my hope we will see an edgy and terrifying reboot, like the remake promised but failed to deliver. Despite having what I would call the worst actual entries to his film franchise Freddy Krueger remains an enduring symbol for the slasher genre, largely on the strength of Robert Englund’s performance in every one of those movies. Freddy vs Jason and the original being my favorite.

Which is also to the credit of the late great master of horror Wes Craven. I’m glad to hear Freddy’s on his way back to Springwood. I’m far more a Voorhees and Myers fan than Krueger, but I love the slasher genre all the same. I even tuned into the Chucky tv show for the first season.

I’m not big on any of the new King adaptions, but a Carrie tv show has been teased as well. It looks almost identical to the remake and in that I think it already shows some lack of originality. It seems like they might’ve just made another more depraved newer update for modern audiences but can’t say fersure. Not interested in it. I think the OG is a great horror film.

Reception to Evil Dead Burn has been very split between those that loved it, and those that think it goes too far, and also, a lot of complaints for weak story and having bad characters.

I’ve defended the film in a response video posted to my YouTube channel. I think the movie is merely too innovative in terms of French extremity and a broader spectrum of cultural motifs that US audiences simply can’t relate to and do not have appetites for in the same way as genuine Evil Dead fans that really love horror.

Many modern horror fans THINK they love horror movies, but they are casuals and newbies that like the modernized, sanded down “elevated horror” filled with cheaply interwoven jump scares, and bland stories that overemphasize trauma metaphors for the sake of audience handholding.

I’m not surprised the NPCs can’t relate to such a cool ass movie, with really awesome characters and great performances. They should just go give the mouse their money and keep watching digitally animated movies about toys, or live action adaptions that make kids classics way shittier. That’s about their speed for cinema.

I gotta say this is a really good climate for genre horror cinema that I honestly feel at home in, and it’s pretty great. It really looks like horror is replacing superheroes as the dominant force in the popular culture zeitgeist.

This next string of high-profile updates will be the deciding factor of whether we keep going forward into this renaissance or dissolve into slasher fatigue and failed reboots that leaves the genre dying in a pit, sent back to hell again, like in the 90s. We’ll see… see ya in your dreams. *waves with clawed glove hand beside sign that says: ELM STREET*

You can read my official review for Evil Dead Burn or watch my YouTube review and I also have a slasher rap mixtape I just dropped too - NOTHING MORE SHOCKING…

I have a song called “Sam Raimi” just released… plus this “horror movie song” you can check out as well. If you like slasher raps and horror movie references.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

Evil Dead Burn… burns like fucking hell. It’s incredible, and it’s fucking insane.

First of all, I need to explain something. I bleed Evil Dead. It’s my favorite franchise in existence in any genre. Not only in horror, it’s my favorite media period.

I’ve been waiting to watch EVIL DEAD BURN since Burn and Wrath got greenlit once RISE proved itself as the most successful entry to the franchise, in the box office. Like most Evil Dead fans, as soon as the newest movie is over you are already feening for a new one.

I walked out of Rise already thinking about the next sequel.

The first teaser for Burn came out, eight months ago. It was a fifteen second clip that hit Instagram, YouTube reels and probably over on Shit-Tok too. The clip was of some young dude screaming as he smashed what looked like a picture frame down into an unseen deadite in a state of enraged mayhem.

I’m not sure how much about the story was available that early on, I believe we knew it was gonna be about a family again. But that was all that came out all this time even though the movie had been slotted for release this summer for well over a year, and I had my concerns.

Warner Bros. had been purchased by Paramount… so I was wondering if it had in any way affected the release, but every time I checked online, there was no such claims of anything being changed about the film’s release.

Reports were saying it had gotten good test screenings if I’m not confusing it with the reports I had read on Rise. Then… two months ago the teaser dropped.

Out of the fuckin’ gates I knew what kind of movie that was going to be, and it didn’t disappoint.

Boasting a continuous action shot of the titular new champion deadite killer Alice in a mad scramble crawling across the floor, as deadites and unspecified relatives from the Family from hell… are brawling all over the place.

You could immediately feel how this movie was going to be all out fuckin’ mayhem and the most brutal form of utter carnage. Which was such a good sign. The trailer only further clarified this fact, and I’ve been watching my playlist of all the tv spots and trailers ever since to build the hype train.

With July 10th fast approaching I felt a hesitance to get my ass up and go see it, it was a weird mixture of fear that I honestly think was my own terror…

Would it be as good as it looks? Would it further embolden the legacy of the franchise or be the movie they say finally ruined the streak and killed it…? But beyond that, it is my belief that watching the trailers indicated something about the movie that only in my deepest subconscious, was I really able to register.

This movie is going to frighten you.

Now, I’m no wimp. I’ve seen the most fucked up movies out there, or I’ve dabbled in the waters to know what is out there, when it comes to shit so sick it is not even film anymore, but something far more nefarious.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of the gore, or the intensity. I relished in the destruction and chaos of this movie. To such a degree I am sure the whole theater thought I was a psycho. Laughing in the front row of the top section, as bodies were torn apart like I was on the best amusement park attraction on the planet.

The reality is Evil Dead Burn doesn’t give you a choice, my mind was more than ready for the next entry to my favorite franchise, but my body wasn’t prepared for how much Evil Dead Burn… burns like fucking hell.

Before I go into specifics, let me tell you. The thing that surprised me most about the movie is the sensation. Once it starts, like immediately as it starts, it puts its hooks in you and never legs go not even once the credits roll and it’s actually over.

It just follows you on your way home in the car.

At one point, after so much intensity I found myself involuntarily stomping my right leg to release some of the tension building inside my body. That’s how fuckin’ brutal it is. A hardened ghoul of the underworld like me, it wasn’t an option. The movie makes you squirm and go, “Fuuuuck.”

Yes, I was the guy making audible reactions. I didn’t really give a fuck cause it’s my favorite movie series. Far as I was concerned this was a personal screening just for me, and the reality was I was the only real Evil Dead Fan in there. At least, it felt like it. Because nobody else had the same visceral reactions met by laughter the way I was.

Honestly it felt like I was in a large room of NPCs horrified by what they were seeing while I laughed gleefully in delight. Kicking my feet and laughing.

I live for this like this, chances are most of those sorry saps maybe saw Evil Dead Rise, or maybe they just bought a ticket cause they saw the trailer and think ooooh a horror movie, I like those.

You think you do…

I’d imagine this was similar to how audiences first showed up for Night of the Living Dead but got the birth of 70s grindhouse horror on screen. Expecting Vincent Price, or Dracula in a cape, only to see a little girl murder her mother with a trowel before munching on her guts.

Once I’d secured my ticket for the 5pm showing at my local cineplex, I began to get ready. Throwing some fresh jeans into the washer and shaving my face before going out into the world. Something I only do for special occasions these days… I have that writer’s beard caveman thing going on most of the time.

After showing I slipped into my black denims, put on a Tupac shirt of him throwing up the middle finger, and my trusty red aloha shirt. I was keeping it totally gonzo for this one. My trademark uniform.

I hopped in my Uber. It was an older guy. Definitely not an Evil Dead fan, he made the mistake of asking me what I was seeing and got force fed a sixty second summary of the entire franchise’s history.

He said nothing.

Sitting at a red stoplight he was eagerly trying to get through to get me tf outta his car, a red jeep exactly like the one David drives in Evil Dead 2013 drove by, I knew this was about to be fucking epic as shit.

I was ready. I’d been waiting three years for this one and honestly longer than that for my beloved Evil Dead to be such a mainstream hit among the casuals that we can get two movies in less than four years.

They used to make these things every ten to twenty years. Those days are long behind us now and the world is a better place for it. I jump from the Uber and escape into my local theater on foot. Trampling over a screaming crowd of general audiences to rush the hallway and reach auditorium 13.

I grinned… at that… and fondly thought of Jason Voorhees.

The arcade was populated by screeching banshees playing air hockey while strange looking alien creatures slurped from sodas in the corner in a cluster. I didn’t pay them much mind as I ran past.

My theater was dark and they weren’t playing the Noovie ads yet, so I whipped my phone out and started doing an intro for my YouTube short I’d post after I got home. Maria Menounos popped up and cut me off abruptly.

I sat down and started to watch the trailers for every movie in the franchise on my phone, I reached Army of Darkness before the real ads and trailers began and I put it away in my pocket. It was fuckin’ go time.

The movie was staring…

**SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT**

Burn opens with a killer scene, but only after introducing the core mythology of this new entry to the franchise. I’ll get to that later.

Two brothas, and I mean two Black guys, which I appreciated. Because even though they got violently eviscerated and boiled to a heap of mooshy flesh in the mud there has been a serious lack of melanin in the franchise for the most part, and I liked the fact I could see myself on screen. Even if only briefly.

The light skinned dude is giving his friend shit about taking a call from his girlfriend while they’re out fishing in the woods on a guy’s trip. His pal heads off to talk to her and leaves him by himself.

Multiple hooked fishing lines end up flying out of the water… and tangle him up in them by his face like a fish in a net before dragging him in.

I knew right away, this mf was gonna jam!

The female deadite responsible climbs out of the water and heads into the woods. I want to applaud the Crystal Lake usage of a basic motorboat setup that mirrors Alice Hardy’s canoe scene from the first Friday the 13th movie. But also, how it mirrors the opening sequence from Evil Dead Rise, while at the same time staying on theme with how the deadite makes the water boil to burn the second dude alive.

I must also praise the directing now. Sebastien Vanicek is a madman and one HELL of a fuckin’ director. His choice of cuts, edits, and overall story direction are why the film is a great as it is, and dude deserves his flowers for it. Bravo you insane Frenchman!

Dude smash cuts from a speeding car crashing into the deadite women to a big booty shaking on screen, in a neon dripped nightclub.

The character introduction scene being set, in a nightclub, is so fuckin’ French in the best way. And how French this movie is, was another thing that repeatedly set it apart from the rest of the franchise, and even other cinema right now, and was so refreshing to see. It gives the movie a signature style American audiences haven’t seen.

Our cast of characters are immediately likeable with the exception of Will. It would’ve been a complete surprise had leaks not gotten out. I heard he was abusive towards our new deadite killing champion Alice, but had that not gotten leaked it would’ve been a total surprise because none of this portion of the movie was in the trailer.

I saw the new Spiderman trailer and they legit showed the whole movie, it’s like they have to do it, so you’ll go see it, because otherwise it doesn’t look good enough to be worth your time.

Burn is the opposite, so much of the movie was not ever shown in the trailer and even the stuff that did hit the trailer, it only stood out to me more, seeing them realized on screen. Will’s death sequence is a definite standout.

The movie doesn’t offer time to adjust before the next set piece carries you forward as soon as that fishing scene hits, you are snagged by the film’s relentless intensity, and it drags you along to the final credits.

I won’t give a full synopsis of every moment, but there are many standouts to cover nonetheless. Burn isn’t trying to prove it is a new Evil Dead movie like Rise had to, it trusts you to already know that, and it shows it, without trying.

Burn is burdened by being the first new age reboot after a decade like Rise was, in the same way Scream 2022 did the heavy lifting so Scream 6 could run on its own you are seeing the same thing here.

The story isn’t being bogged down by necessary homages, instead it relishes in slight ones that only real fans can even catch. I also like the fact of how many homages there are to Fede’s Evil Dead 2013 rather than the original.

Burn very much feels reminiscent of both the remake from 2013 and the original film, and not the more comedy focused entries. There are funny moments even amidst total carnage, which is honestly wonderous to me considering how damn tense it all feels, but mostly it’s leaning into that straight edged 2013 energy with echoes of the original in terms of the classic horror creepy factor.

Joseph waves a meat slicer at Thya, like the one Natalie used to butcher her arm, the dog Max, reflects David’s dog Grandpa that Mia killed with a hammer, a shard from a toilet is used as a weapon. That scene specifically echoes the bathroom scene in The Evil Dead ‘81, and the bathroom scene from 2013 that recreated it, while also being a nod to the bathtub scene from Evil Dead Rise.

It’s in that clever framing that you see how Vanicek did his homework. I don’t know if he was being that deliberate or if his instincts for the franchise are just that killer, but either way I fuckin’ appreciated it. Evil Dead 2013 is my favorite horror movie of all time, so seeing it celebrated by a newer entry in the franchise was such a treat for me, it really was. Like I said… I live for shit, like this.

Vanicek did a real 180 regarding the mythos of the lore. The family from hell is not a random family that happened to find the book. The grandfather was actually part of some very Lovecraftian secret society of occultists that knew about the book and in that way, they’re deeply connected to what is happening now with the rise of a new evil.

I appreciated the nods to Lovecraft and how his fiction actually presents the concept of the Necronomicon. Which wasn’t even as clear in the originals. There’s even what looked like an image of Cthulhu on the pages of the book. The Book of the Dead was also more of a field journal than the other version of the Necronomicon to where I’m not entirely sure it is a Necronomicon.

It looked more like an assembly of research and scattered pages capable of invoking evil through the incantations, without actually being the true book.

“You’re all going to die tonight” and “You will be dead by dawn” both showed up as iconic lines from the franchise, at different parts of the movie. But it didn’t feel like an obligation line in Rise. Burn does plenty of its own tricks unique to itself but has tons of easter eggs to reward longtime fans.

Vanicek changed the way the deadites actually operate. The transformation is slower rather than immediate. The father, Edgar, starts changing as early as the funeral but only fully transforms following the soon to be infamous dinner table scene. His wife, Susan is even more interesting in that she becomes a deadite but remains mostly not evil for a significant amount of time.

I have to talk about this because literally, Edgar changes her into a deadite by leaning in through the upstairs window and “French kissing” her with blood dripping. It was so French I couldn’t help but grin like an idiot the whole time. Relishing in it like the director was just splashing “France was here” graffiti all over the franchise. Which is honestly fuckin’ awesome.

My recent return to the material of Alexandre Dumas and the recent adaptions of The Three Musketeers, made in France, was rewarded because I was already in the register of French culture and how they tell stories.

The usage of music and score is very immersive in the film. There are a lot of tidbits I could cover but for the sake of length I’m gonna gloss over some of those.

Let’s talk about Daddy Deadite, Edgar. This guy is definitely gonna be a fan favorite and has immediately staked his claim as one of the most horrendously wonderful and brutalizing deadites in the series.

This dude knows how to carry a scene, how to stand out in a scene, and how to shove a car seat headrest through his son’s girlfriend’s face like he was born to do it. I mean, every time he shows up you can’t tear your eyes away from whatever he’s doing while also being terrified of what he will do next.

His killing of Max is the moment, when shit really just hits the fan, but it had already hit the fan already before that. That was just the point of no return. His relationship with the family dog represents the rupture from normalcy that echoes in the mayhem that ensues.

I like how once Max turns into a deadite, he still answers the same call and whistle in this way that makes him feel more like the loyal four-legged companion of the family, even in death, more than marauding zombie Cujo. He’s useful for jump scares but dies mostly off screen and acts more as a symbol of the love the family shared than all the disfunction that comes out, in them becoming deadites together.

Thya is my vote for sexiest deadite in the franchise. Luciane Buchanan may in fact be the perfect women. I am totally under her spell, and she too is going to be known as one of the best deadites that we have seen.

Thya is the first one to really terrorize the family and everything she does is totally brutal and mystifying. From drinking the hot wax, to crawling on the ceiling. She is a superstar on screen that is sure to only become more and more of a sensation in her coming films. I especially liked the line she tells Joseph, “I was your first, I’m gonna make sure to be your last.”

Joseph, poor guy. He’s a wimp that can’t seem to finish the novel he’s working on. He acts as our “Eric” in this movie. He does not summon evil since it’s already actively chasing this family to hell as soon as the movie starts. But he has the most knowledge of his grandfather’s research that his mother told him to throw away but he didn’t. In that, we see the Lovecraftian influence on the new lore.

His beloved girlfriend turned torturous but gorgeous deadite, ridicules him for being too afraid to shoot his father to save her life, but more than capable of killing her to save his own. He brutally and repeatedly smashes her head literally to nothing but a gaping hole using the door of the dishwasher. It’s the same shot that came out in that first little teaser, and it will sear the back of your mind forever.

Granny Deadite is both effective, and frightening. Her dementia is reversed in a way that made the whole audience in my theater of NPCs groan aloud. Me included. It is her performance, that generates the most comedy. Mother, Susan is her caretaker and it’s actually her dedication to caring for the family that prevents her full change into becoming a deadite.

It’s only after everybody in her family has been killed and reduced to deadites that she too finally succumbs and attacks Alice in the bathroom scene.

Alice…

Souheila Yacoub was a former champion gymnast before she became an actor, she’s also a scaredy cat that can’t watch horror movies. When they played the sound of bone breaking at a press event, in France, she was squirming and nearly fainted. That said, she is one of the most fucking badass women in horror.

Recent standouts, among scream queens, and final girls, include Lauren LaVera in the role of Sienna from that killer clown franchise I refuse to name, and Meilissa Barrera’s daughter of a serial killer, Sam Carpenter, in Scream five and six.

Souhelia’s Alice in Evil Dead Burn now stands along the likes of previous champions in the franchise: Ash Williams, Mia Allen, Beth Bixler. She not only stands her ground but defends her agency from the oppression of her tormentors, and that makes a big impact on the story being told.

Alice is a very complex character, she is not passive, she defends herself against Will in the opening sequence that prompts him to get in his car drunk and then crash and die. But she was in an abusive relationship.

The family expects her to be devastated by her husband’s death. Given the nature of their relationship. She isn’t. This creates automatic tension as she arrives in town to attend the funeral and stay with her in-laws.

Her action ready “sneakers” are one of two iconic footwears from this movie, the other being Thya’s mud caked Doc Martins. I want to see a future deadite killer sport those Doc Martins as a nod to Thya in a future movie, or maybe Thya come back as a human form deadite, slaying deadites.

Alice is stuck in a place of trying to play nice but pushing back against Susan’s open demands for her to take over Will’s restaurant business. The dunner table scene acts as a catalyst for the bursting of emotional tensions and actual physical violence when Edgar finally goes deadite on poor Max.

She has this very cool bravado that’s understated. She isn’t cool, cause she’s trying to be cool. She’s just super French and sassy in a way that makes her alluring and at the in the same breath, very courageous in a heroic sense.

I like how smoking cigarettes acts as a metaphor for the “burn” theme, and doubles as something very French. Her refusal to quit smoking was one of the hangups that her and Will had in their relationship. Which echoes the motif throughout the film and in its final moments, once she crawls out of the literal pits of hell.

Souheila said her and Vanicek wanted to make her grounded and like a real person, and not just another “scream queen” which I’d say they definitely accomplished. She also said she’s not even a good screamer, and she actually doesn’t scream in the movie but only in rage, when she’s killing deadites. Her and Buchanan joked she was good at scared breathing. Like in that one scene when she’s crawling on the floor, terrified by the horror unfolding around her.

I expected a lot from this movie, and it delivered in every aspect. I put as much as I could into this, to convey everything I wanted to praise about it, and while some of it has surely escaped me in these moments of writing it. That is what Evil Dead Burn did to me. It burns like fucking hell…

My only criticism would be that in the final act, it loses some steam, but only because after going so hard relentlessly for the whole runtime finally wrapping things up feels like smothering the blazing inferno.

I like the choice to divert the final climax from chainsaw to something else, but I’d say Mia’s chainsaw final slaughter is my favorite, and I actually really liked the Beth final slaughter in Rise too, but I think Vanicek really just couldn’t play that much into the hands of the audience to go with the chainsaw. lol. I can appreciate that. Haha. It still burns like fucking hell.

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

I forgot this tidbit, so I decided to include it, after the fact, as a post-credits bonus cut scene. There are two post-credits scenes on Evil Dead Burn. Mid-credits, and then a whole other one, actually at the very end. Like they did in the old days. The final one after the full credits roll… made history for the genre.

It shows the lady that runs the funeral home from earlier in the film, and her young daughter. The daughter asks her about urns, and she tells her the ones she is looking at are ones nobody picked up.

One says: Ellie Bixler, on it…

I immediately knew what was going to happen, and started cheesing like shit. Ellie appears in the mirror then is released from it. She kills the little girl and honestly, I am against kids being killed in horror movies, it’s a rule of law that even slashers like Jason and Michael never kills kids. Not in the classic movies.

But seeing it’s the Maggot Mommy I’m okay with it. Lmao. They show the scene, then it says: with Alyssa Sutherland. As the last credit, revealing that she is in the movie only after showing the post-credits sequence. Which was exhilarating. Perfect ending note for the movie.

I was laughing in sheer glee because this was the first on-screen crossover between entries in the franchise there’s ever been. There was a largely overlooked end credits glimpse of Ash after Evil Dead 2013, which ended up being a foreshadow to Ash Vs Evil Dead, a few years later.

This was different. It was an actual on screen crossover cameo. The next movie is “Evil Dead Wrath” a 70s prequel to the original “The Evil Dead” but now with all the lore dropped in Burn, there has to be a crossover movie. I’ve been waiting to see Mia return, Kelly and Pablo from the show. I even wrote my own treatment for a Justice League of the Evil Dead crossover movie myself.

I also have a 30-page screenplay for my own stand-alone Evil Dead movie, called Evil Dead Rot. For when I get a chance to pitch it to Raimi and Tapert.

When I stand up from my seat, a small cluster of the NPCs are still there staring at me not blinking in horror like I’m some sadistic freak. They thought I was relishing in the little girl getting brutally torn apart.

I knew then, I was the only real Evil Dead fan there…

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

total shock fiction

I would like to tell you about them… and share their claims… steps into my dingy shock factory and prepare to be shocked by what we find.

Damien Leone is the mind behind Art the Clown. A self-proclaimed horror fanatic and now renowned makeup effects artist. His rise to fame did not happen overnight, it nearly didn’t happen at all.

The release of his 2013 anthology film All Hollows Eve collected a number of Leone led short films he’d created, served as the launching point for the character now so widely recognized.

Art was originally portrayed by Mike Giannelli. A friend of Leone that did him a favor by portraying the demented killer clown, even though Giannelli didn’t have ambitions to be an actor, or in the movie biz.

This earlier presentation of Art has all the trademark characteristics, but as you can see, is a bit cruder, and less refined. The biggest noticeable difference is probably the lack of David Howard Thornton’s twisted charm.

Art was recast for the production of the 2016 film, Terrifier.

Terrifier follows two women, by the names of Tara Heyes, and Dawn. Tara is portrayed by Jenna Kanell and Dawn is played by Catherine Corcoran.

The women are menaced by Art on the street, and then in a pizza parlor before being brutally killed in his “hell house” of horrors.

Terrifier (2016) is essentially a throwback to classic exploitation grindhouse slasher horror and maniac films from the 70s. His silent stalking killer motif mirrors both Michael Myers and his fellow “silent man in a mask” Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th franchise. Which Leone says doing his own version of, is his dream project.

Art, as a killer clown, stands apart from other more famous clowns in that he looks very devilish. He has this classic pointy nose and terrifying face that invokes the devil as he was depicted way back in the day. In this, lies a bit of Leone’s creative genius.

The look of Art is largely what sells the whole concept. There’s plenty of killer clowns and more famous ones, already established in the horror genre, but this version that Art inhabits, is definitely a stark contrast, entirely unique unto himself. I will give the credit to Leone where it is due in this fact.

Thornton’s portrayal of the character is also the other ingredient. His masterful silent mime approach to Leone’s concept of Art, is how he ultimately comes to life to such a striking and engaging degree on screen. There are currently three installments of the franchise featuring him as the clown in question.

That being said, the low-budget grindhouse nature of the film and pure shock and gore storytelling can easily fall flat. Mere shock, for shock’s sake. Torture porn is a term I’d say could be offered to justifiable merit.

What sells the premise, and keeps you engaged as a reader, is Catherine’s performance on screen. I am going to use her first name, because I feel doing so illuminates her as the star of this story more than throwing around her surname, which could have you wondering who I’m talking about given how many I’ve already referenced thus far and I would like it to be clear that I am referring to her.

Catherine, in the role of Dawn, brings both personality and humor to the story and her witty charisma is what prevents this movie from falling into pure murder set piece setup. Her interactions with her friend “Tara” is what elevates Tara into the would be proto-final girl early in the film that you root for.

She does the same thing by interacting with Art, specifically in the pizza parlor scene, where she taunts him and sits on his lap to make him take a selfie with her.

In this way, she both establishes Tara’s stakes as our initial hero figure and stokes the fire of his cruelty and eventual acts of brutal carnage. Her performance is paramount to why this film “works” beyond merely being simulated snuff stuff.

For that, I would like to fully dismiss any attempt at stating her role didn’t matter or was a small part that didn’t have much impact on this franchise, because without her scenes even early in this first act, the film wouldn’t have had the narrative gravity to become much of anything.

Now this is where it starts getting murky.

The infamous hacksaw scene…

In the notoriously praised scene of gruesome torture, Dawn is suspended upside down topless and then hacked in half from her genitalia through her body to her head and face. Which is done largely practical. I’ve uncovered claims that there is some amount of augmentation used in the Terrifier films, but how much and whether or not any for this scene in particular, I cannot verify or declare.

The franchise boasts the use of practical effects for their disturbing kill scenes, and on that merit the franchise is now famous and highly respected in the horror community.

I’m going to cite the articles that have covered the case so I’m not simply spreading false or unverified rumors.

Catherine has sued the producers of Terrifier and Leone as the series director for what she alleges to be breach of contract, and the distribution of sexually explicit materials without consent, or contractual authorization to do so. This is a serious accusation. It should be noted these allegations have not been proven beyond reasonable doubt and have been dismissed on grounds of “leave to amend” requiring factual specificity.

Catherine’s suit alleges the hacksaw scene required her to be suspended upside down for ten hours, nearly fully naked, in below freezing temperatures.

Her agreements consisted of act in the low-budget film for an “extremely low up front per diem rate” as quoted by Variety. She asserts it was also agreed she’d receive 1% of profits from the film, future installments to the franchise, related merchandising and further licensing of the intellectual property.

Variety states that it is specified in the suit, Leone “agreed in writing to provide” her “with 1% of all net sales generated from Terrifier related merchandise.”

Catherine says that since the release of the film her payments, “became more and more sporadic and dwindled to amounts nowhere near commensurate.” Her payment up until July 2024, which is after the success of the 100 million-dollar plus earning Terrifier 2… was only $1,816.35. Then Nothing.

According to her, there was no explanation why her royalty payments stopped and no promise for further compensation. The supposed amount for merchandise profit has been declared merely $6,403.26 despite the massive merchandising of the franchise, Art the Clown, and the IP of the film series.

Variety didn’t specify whether that amount is what she is entitled to per the agreed terms of her involvement, in the franchise, or if that is what the film’s producers are claiming as overall profit. I find that quite implausible on both fronts.

Catherine says that she confronted Leone and his producing partner Phil Falcon but was “brushed off” by them. Supposedly, Leone told her Falcone handles accounting matters, but Falcone said he doesn’t keep records.

Which is more than questionable. So, the man responsible for accounting matters in their business of producing films and meeting the legal requirements of contracting actors for their movies, “Doesn’t keep records.” If that is what actually happened and what was said, that’s a red flag regarding their business practices.

The lawsuit claims that while she was required to appear nude her written consent was never obtained. Which the Screen Actors Guild requires. But somehow, the judge that ruled in the suit has determined they are not in fact guilty of breach of contract or other violations regarding such practices.

Catherine insisted she be permitted to wear underwear on the day of the shoot, but was REQUIRED to be topless, without written consent, and was only allowed to lie on a horizontal platform between actual shooting of the scene.

Variety provides the following quote from her stating that she “was wrapped in a blanket in between takes, but overtime the blanket became so saturated with fake blood that it ceased providing any warmth.”

She felt ill in days following the shoot and was diagnosed with cranial swelling and eardrum damage. The suit asserts the defendants have profited from merchandise depicting her naked body. I would argue that even if actual merchandise was not in fact created, or distributed showing her nude, the film itself has profited from that. And while she agreed to appear in the film. Agreeing to act and appear nude does not justify this treatment.

In a legal court of law, apparently it does, because the judge ruled against her claims. Citing lack of factual specificity. I’m not sure what more specificity there needs to be to prove otherwise. That is troubling to me.

Her agreeing to appear nude is also not consent for her to be photographed nude on set. Which the suit alleges that producer Phil Falcone, in fact, did.

That scene carries massive weight to the infamy of this franchise beyond even the full entirety of the first film. That one scene is what gained them the credibility as horror effects aficionados and effectively “sold” early audiences on Terrifier 2 before virality did the rest of the work by word of mouth.

Catherine’s case has been fully dismissed in court, by a joke, I mean, a judge. And it is being decided whether she is entitled to 1% of royalties from the first film or from the whole franchise.

I don’t know what did or didn’t happen. We have Catherine’s side of the story, the side of the producers and Leone, that claim no wrongdoing… the truth is a matter of what the two parties know what happened. But what can be factually “proven” with the so-called “factual specificity” required in a court of law has already proven to serve who profits most from exploitation than somebody proclaiming to have been exploited in pursuit of such profits.

Leone has never publicly apologized for any of the alleged claims. I find this to be as condemning as anything else. If Catherine were going for the bag and making false claims, or if her claims are totally factual, and accurate to what went down, the very least of what the man that got rich and famous from her suffering could do would be to apologize.

Paying her the money she deserves is definitely something that needs to happen and the fact that she is being fought tooth and nail and not even being apologized to for what she has described as harmful, treatment, bordering bad faith business practice in filmmaking. That says a lot more than anything else.

Steve Barton is a major staple in the distribution and taste making of horror cinema. He has contributed to the biggest platforms for horror media in the world. Including Fangoria, The Horror Channel, Dread Central and Bloody Disgusting over many years in the industry.

In an interview on the YouTube channel RueTV he has detailed his involvement in the massive success of Terrifier.

He claims that after producing the first Terrifier film and gaining no traction over a two-year period, Leone contacted him and it was through his direct action that the film ended up on Shitflix. Where it first gained its most notable audience and started to become known among horror fans.

The underground reputation of the film spread largely by word of mouth in small clusters of fans of the genre, and it was that small scale hype that expanded to the large-scale audience you see today.

In the podcast, Barton, who is known professionally as “Uncle Creepy” describes the pushback he got at Dread Central for presenting Terrifier to them for distribution and how he had to fight for it. These differences led to his leaving the website. Which he created.

Barton expresses that what appealed to him most about the property was, “This was the movie that when I was growing up hanging out with my friends in the fucking schoolyard, this was the exact movie we’d be talking about, the forbidden fruit.” Saying no horror films had made him feel that way for a long time. Citing Hatchet as close but far more comedic.

He describes Terrifier as, “Yes there was humor, but it was gritty and dirty and made you feel like you needed to take a shower.” Stating Leone made, “… the best 80s movie without trying to make an 80s movie.” His fight against Dread Central in defense of the property is the only reason the film ever saw the light of day.

Without Barton’s personal efforts, Terrifier never would’ve went anywhere based on this account of his involvement in pushing the film for distribution through the power of his position at Dread Central.

Art the Clown began to become recognized globally around the world, as a result. And became the bestselling title for Epic Pictures, up to that point.

Barton further describes agreeing to work with Leone on Terrifier 2 for free, just out of his love for the property.

“I’ll do it for free, let me just show you what could be possible. If we get lucky enough to make a part three, we’ll talk contracts then. But let’s just fucking do this.”

He clarified that he knew, “… the only way that this movie was gonna be successful was the only reason why the first one was successful, the fans.”

While Barton was not ever on set, for filming. He states that he was constantly on the phone with Leone, connecting him to talent, reading pages, giving opinions *blah blah blah* in his words.

He said he made it his mission to ensure that every fan knew Terrifier 2 was on the way, “I made it so that every fan out there, they weren’t just on the ride with us, they were in the fucking car… NEXT TO US… and that was the type of organic reach I was good at putting together.”

Barton cites having led the majority of all marketing campaigns and push for the film only to be totally pushed out of any further involvement, once the movie blew up and made over a hundred million dollars, when the third entry went into production. He was also the one that secured distribution to theaters for Terrifier 2. Just like he did for Terrifier, at Dread Central.

He prevented a falsified ad campaign Bloody Disgusting was gonna push that he felt would kill the momentum of the film’s push and states, “I did everything on that side for Terrifier 2, the only thing I didn’t do was film the fucking movie itself. And then three came around and I was no longer in the picture cause I wasn’t needed anymore.”

Barton adds,

“I am so glad to have taken that ride and to have played my part in turning that movie into a juggernaut.” I wanna note his obvious love for the property, and passion for the genre. “You can make the best movie in the world but if no one knows about it, you haven’t done jack shit. And luckily, I was in the position to make sure everyone knew about it and that’s what I did and if I had it all to do it again… I wouldn’t do a single thing different. I don’t care that they fucked me, Terrifier’s success is what’s best for the genre.”

He goes on later to say, “It would not have reached the avenues that it reached if I didn’t do every single thing that I did. I’m not mad at any of them. Yes, they really screwed me, they screwed a lot of people and that’s unfortunate.”

“It’s not exactly just money with them. There’s a little bit of a person on that team that is the cause of pretty much all of this shit…” Barton explains.

He said sometimes he feels like a failure seeing the merch everywhere knowing that he was the one to get them their first merchandise deals for the property only to be shut out entirely from any monetary reward for his efforts. “It’s like living with your ex and she doesn’t go away.”

Steve Barton has a memoir published by Encyclopocalypse Publications detailing his life and career - A Comedy of Tragedies

Barton was clear on another podcast he spoke out on, that he didn’t say anything for a longtime because he didn’t want the fans to feel differently about the films, but after hearing Catherine’s story, who he says is a friend, combined with the bitter knowing that his family should be in a way better position financially after having contributed so much to a franchise he literally sees displays for in the store on Halloween.

In this interview, it’s clear his distress over the situation. He says coming out about it, has been, “Validating and heartbreaking.” But he has reached the point he’s angry about it. Barton makes a direct plea to the creative team behind the franchise,

“Listen guys. You’ve won the brass ring. You’ve won. Stop hurting people. Just fucking stop. The only thing you have to do to maintain your continued success, is stop hurting people.” And with that, concluded the clip from the podcast…

I find this troubling. After hating the third movie and then discovering the claims of Catherine’s allegations, I’d already decided this franchise is a crock of shit and I don’t support it. I also think they are steering horror in a deranged direction that I as a fan of the genre don’t wanna see other films follow.

Again, these are allegations that have been dismissed in court, lacking the need for more “factual specificity” but I have heard all I really need to know. And even if these claims were false, the conduct of the creators reflects business practices I don’t want to support in any capacity. I may be a scumbag journalist, but I’m no dirtbag. And in my eyes, those guys are fucking dirtbags.

Fuck ‘em. And their clown…

Are you shocked… yet?! Get shocked.

CRACKED STONE OVER MISERABLE TIDES

this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.

All rights are reserved to the author of this work - Jul. 2026. This work may not be reproduced in any form by outside parties that are not the author and without the author’s permission.

En Pandit Cole, Cole McCarthy is the sole author of existing works published by total shock fiction - Ink Runs Red. He owns, runs, and controls the SHockverse broadcasting network. Please keep tuning in!!!!!

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