THE HORTICULTURE OF HORROR

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Five to One—One to Five: Film Edition!
Nov. 10, 2024

Five to One—One to Five: Film Edition!

Hello, dear reader, and welcome to the Horror to Culture Five to One Film Roundtable! We’ll be going down our list of favorite horror films, from five to one, and because this is Horror, it’s just like Jim Morrisson said: no one here get…
Pater Noster - An Interview w/ Chris Bickel
Oct. 31, 2024

Pater Noster - An Interview w/ Chris Bickel

Christopher Bickel is an independent filmmaker, and record store owner, whose new indie horror film PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT is a wild ride that must be seen to be believed. I recently had the opportunity to ask Chris a few questions ab…
From Beyond and the Trope of the Disbelieved Delusion
Oct. 27, 2024

From Beyond and the Trope of the Disbelieved Delusion

I’d first like to highlight how much I’ve enjoyed the films of Stuart Gordon over the years. He coats an obvious love of Lovecraft with a lurid and viscous slime of 80s sleaze which is at once a parody, a paradox, and a delight. Especial…
I Got Them Posthuman Blues Again...
Oct. 21, 2024

I Got Them Posthuman Blues Again...

“I can’t divide or hide from meI don’t know who I’m meant to beI guess it’s just the person that I amOften I’ve dreamt that I don’t wakeEnjoy the gift of my mistakeBut yet again, I’m wrong an…
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and the Problem with Jeffrey Jones
Sept. 29, 2024

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and the Problem with Jeffrey Jones

Horror and comedy go together like chocolate and peanut butter, though sometimes this confection melts all over the dashboard of our car because we left it out in the summer sun with the windows up. This ooey-gooey analogy serves us well when examin…
Deliver Us from The Deliverance
Sept. 13, 2024

Deliver Us from The Deliverance

In the annals of demonic possession films, The Deliverance should surely go down as one of the worst, but, it has the redeeming quality of having made me burst out laughing every time I recall some stray scene, which is probably too often for my san…
The Crow - A Review
Sept. 13, 2024

The Crow - A Review

May 13th, 1994. A date I distinctly remember, and will never forget. I had just turned fifteen, sitting with some friends in a packed theater on opening night, to watch The Crow. For any fellow Hoosiers, it might be noted that it was the long defu…
Exploring the Territories
Aug. 31, 2024

Exploring the Territories

By Shel Rogers “My sole wish is to frustrate as utterly as possible the post-mortem exploiter.”-Henry JamesI’m not a big fan of modern culture, but when I first encountered Horror to Culture, I was intrigued. It seemed…
Head Spinning - An Interview W/ C. Rommial Butler
Aug. 10, 2024

Head Spinning - An Interview W/ C. Rommial Butler

MAD: Rommi, thanks for taking some time today to catch up! Please allow me to set the stage. We first met about 10 years ago, through a mutual friend, and aside from music I think we connected due to our love of horror. In particular, we are both in…
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
July 30, 2024

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

“In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.”-Terry Pratchett We’re going to diverge a bit on today’s essay, and explore some topics and ideas that are not horror related. This piece would probably be more…
Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch - Review
July 27, 2024

Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch - Review

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the newly released HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 3: FIREWATCH (2024 / Amazon Prime). On November 10th, 2014, amateur hiker Kenny Lee Veach was on a mission to re-discover a cave he’d pr…
The Vampyre and the God
July 20, 2024

The Vampyre and the God

The Vampyre thinks herself a god in her own right, and she isn’t wrong. She stalks the earth from the shadows, determining the fates of mortals, virtually undetected, a presence nevertheless felt, as a monotheistic god is often purported to do…
Trust the Séance
July 20, 2024

Trust the Séance

“These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into con…
Which One Is It?
July 16, 2024

Which One Is It?

I was always naturally attracted to the macabre. The dark side of human nature fascinates me. However, as I have said elsewhere at Horror to Culture, I seek not to live in or promote darkness, but to bring to light that which lurks in the shadows. …
A Quiet Kitty in New York City
July 7, 2024

A Quiet Kitty in New York City

A Review of A Quiet Place: Day OneI only recently watched the first two A Quiet Place films. The concept of alien predators that hunt solely by sound but somehow navigate the void of space (where, as we learned in Alien, no one can hear you scream…
Pursuing Art in the Age of Hawk Tuah
July 5, 2024

Pursuing Art in the Age of Hawk Tuah

“I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation.”-David Cronenberg Like many people, I have dozes of different ideas at any given period, the bulk of which are never accomplished due to time and/or financial constra…
Curses, Foiled Again!
June 29, 2024

Curses, Foiled Again!

There’s a subgenre of horror that deals with cursed films. My favorite is John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns, one of his contributions to the Masters of Horror anthology. In Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, I found something which did…
Inheritors of the Fire
June 26, 2024

Inheritors of the Fire

“The danger in bringing the light to a dark place, is that you might find out what lives in the darkness”.-OUT OF DARKNESS (2022) The nature of horror is ancient. It resides in the flickering shadows of our earliest ancestral …
Apocalypse Cow
June 23, 2024

Apocalypse Cow

Kyle, a young man of little means with a serious addiction, walked up to the food truck hiding a gun in his jacket pocket. He knew this dude made a lot of money because people lined up around the block to get a burger around lunch and in the evening…
Barker's Brilliance and the Future of Literature
June 1, 2024

Barker's Brilliance and the Future of Literature

By C. Rommial Butler ====== Stephen King helped catapult Clive Barker into worldwide fame with this line:“I have seen the future of horror… and his name is Clive Barker.”He was right.Where King helped make …
Doctor Gramma
May 11, 2024

Doctor Gramma

By C. Rommial Butler ====== When mirror regards mirror which is the reflection?This question popped into my mind when I stumbled onto the doctor’s experiment.But I cannot go into that without some background.I’ve …
Pulling at Threads...
April 24, 2024

Pulling at Threads...

“Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches, the other seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead, who’s stronger.”-Ca…
Ape-Mania: A Discussion W/ Hunter Goatley
April 23, 2024

Ape-Mania: A Discussion W/ Hunter Goatley

“YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP. DAMN YOU. GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”-Captain George Taylor ***** MAD: Hunter, it’s great to speak with you again today and thanks for agreeing to this short discussion! There’…
The Crow and the Winter Soldier
April 13, 2024

The Crow and the Winter Soldier

By C. Rommial Butler ====== Here’s a tough thing for us to admit:We are not responsible for every bad thing that happens to us. Here’s another tough thing for us to admit:We are responsible for the way we deal wit…