Horror & Sci-Fi Chronicles
Vol 1 Issue No. 20: July 2025
Quick Hits
New Book Releases:
“Dropshipped” by Stephanie Sanders‑Jacob
Sci‑fi meets gig‑economy horror: what if your drone delivery is the next existential threat?“The Bewitching” by Silvia Moreno‑Garcia
A richly atmospheric horror steeped in folklore—highly anticipated by multi-genre fans.“The Unkillable Frank Lightning” by Josh Rountree - A grieving doctor resurrects her Sioux–killed husband—who returns soulless and murderous. Dark, gothic resurrection horror steeped in grief and occult lore.
New Movie Releases:
Four Nights in Fear Forest - A retro‑style indie horror about four campers tormented in a cursed woodland.
I Know What You Did Last Summer - A modern reboot of the cult ’90s slasher.
Brick - A mind‑bending mystery/sci‑fi/horror where residents are trapped in an apartment with a mysterious barrier.
New TV Show Releases:
Dexter: Resurrection - Michael C. Hall returns as Dexter in NYC, now hunting his son and facing new adversaries.
Top 10 List:
Experimental Sci-Fi Horror Films
In-depth exploration of a specific theme, trope, or topic:
The Evolution of Body Horror
What Is Body Horror?
Body horror is the subgenre that turns the human body into a battleground—mutated, invaded, deformed, or devoured. It explores the loss of bodily autonomy, the fear of transformation, and our deepest anxieties about identity, mortality, and disease.
It’s not just about gore—it's about existential terror. The horror isn’t the blood. It’s what the blood means.
Origins: Gothic Roots & the Birth of the Abnormal Body
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818): The OG body horror tale. Stitching corpses together to create life = man’s fear of scientific overreach and the grotesque consequences of playing God.
Edgar Allan Poe & Nathaniel Hawthorne: Their stories dealt with decaying bodies, plague, and internal rot—long before film made it visual.
Golden Age Cinema: Mutation & Paranoia
1950s-60s Cold War Horror: Films like The Fly (1958) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) literalized postwar anxieties—radiation, loss of identity, communism. Bodies weren’t yours anymore.
Japanese kaiju films, particularly Godzilla (1954), transformed mutated bodies into national trauma metaphors after Hiroshima.
The Cronenberg Revolution
David Cronenberg, the father of modern body horror (Videodrome, The Brood, shifted the genre from monsters to metamorphosis.
His take: “The body is the first fact of human existence.”
Modern Body Horror: Viral, Gendered, & Transhuman
Viral Horror Boom: Think 28 Days Later, The Last of Us, or Contracted. The infected body is a symbol of contamination, modern plague, and social collapse.
Feminist Body Horror: Films like Raw, Teeth, and Titane reclaim transformation through female pain and rage. Men are afraid of what the female body can do—and that’s the point.
Transhuman Dread: Upgrade, Possessor, Annihilation, and Black Mirror episodes explore augmentation, AI, and the horror of becoming more (or less) than human.
Why It Endures
The body is universal—no matter your beliefs, culture, or age, you live in a body that will decay, betray, or transform.
In an era of biotech, pandemics, and identity politics, body horror is more relevant than ever.
Body horror doesn’t just ask “What if I lose control?”
It screams: “What if I was never in control to begin with?”
Industry Analysis & Insights on New Trends:
Indie Surge & Demographic Inclusion
Small presses, indie authors, and self-published voices are flourishing—especially in horror—thanks to low-entry barriers and direct digital distribution.
The industry also increasingly supports diversity in voices and cultural perspectives within these genres (TechRadar+5AutomateED+5Atmosphere Press+5).
Sci‑Fi: Tech-Driven Storytelling & Accessibility
AI-powered “vubbing” (visual dubbing) is making global sci‑fi more accessible. Watch the Skies (originally UFO Sweden) used this tech to dub in English while syncing actors’ lip movements via AI (Roger Ebert+9The Guardian+9Reddit+9).
Critics view this as a potential game-changer in breaking subtitle resistance—though ethical concerns around AI use and “uncanny valley” discomfort remain.
Paste Magazine describes the visual dubbing as “nearly seamless to the average viewer,” but warns of implications for artistic authenticity (Paste Magazine).
There's a split in audience reception—some find the dubbing distracting, while others appreciate the increased accessibility.
Weekly Quiz:
What Type of Spaceship Are You?
Choose the best answer for each question.
1. Your ideal mission involves:
A) Long-term exploration beyond known space
B) Smuggling cargo across dangerous systems
C) Serving as a mobile science lab or AI hub
D) Providing tactical support in intergalactic warfare
2. What's your relationship with your crew?
A) They’re family. We’re in it together, for the long haul.
B) I don’t ask questions, and they don’t ask where the credits came from.
C) I do most of the thinking; they mostly get in the way.
D) They’re soldiers. I protect them. And sometimes... avenge them.
3. Your exterior design is best described as:
A) Sleek and modular, with adaptive solar sails
B) Rusty, patched together, but damn reliable
C) Uncanny—smooth, mirror-like, borderline alien
D) Heavily armored with visible weapons and scars
4. How do you handle conflict?
A) Negotiate first, defend if necessary
B) Evade, outsmart, and disappear into hyperspace
C) Overload their neural systems before they blink
D) Lock target. Fire everything.
5. If you were damaged mid-flight, what would you rely on?
A) Self-repair nanobots and time-tested engineering
B) A roll of duct tape and a miracle
C) Experimental tech you barely understand
D) Battle-forged reinforcements and backup weapon cores
6. What kind of space do you thrive in?
A) Deep space. The farther from civilization, the better.
B) Shadowy backwaters with lots of asteroids to hide behind
C) Quantum-folded microgalaxies with strange anomalies
D) War zones. Clear objectives. No distractions.
Tally Your Answers:
Mostly As: Deep-Space Explorer
You're curious, resilient, and built for discovery. You thrive on long-term missions, navigating the unknown with grace and a sturdy hull. Think Enterprise, not X-Wing.Mostly Bs: Scrappy Smuggler Freighter
You’re gritty, cunning, and never follow the rules. You’ve been shot at more times than you can count, but you always come back. Think Millennium Falcon meets Firefly.Mostly Cs: Sentient Research Vessel
You’re sleek, calculating, and maybe just a little too intelligent. Some would call you cold; others, post-human. Think 2001’s Discovery One or Mass Effect’s Normandy with a God complex.Mostly Ds: Galactic War Cruiser
You were born for battle. Tactical, intimidating, and fiercely loyal to your crew. Your silhouette alone makes pirates rethink their life choices. Think Battlestar Galactica or a Star Destroyer.
Historical Tidbit:
The Film That Was Actually Banned Around the World
When Braindead first splattered onto screens in 1992 (titled Dead Alive in North America), it wasn’t just outrageous gore—it was controversial:
The film was banned in several countries—South Korea, Singapore, Finland, and Germany—due to its extreme bloodshed and body horror (Internet Archive+7Wikipedia+7SlashFilm+7).
Germany, in fact, held an unusual classification: it was illegal to publicly exhibit the film under its stringent laws.
In Singapore and Korea, it couldn’t be shown at all, effectively censored for its content.
This widespread banning highlights how Jackson’s early work wasn’t just pushing gore—it was testing the limits of international censorship, making Braindead a landmark in global horror regulation.
Fun Bonus: It’s Unapologetically Splatter-Comedy
Peter Jackson himself emphasized that this was no grim horror film—it was meant as a cartoonish splatter-comedy, blending gargantuan blood effects with slapstick laughs, not to traumatize but to entertain (IMDb+4YouTube+4Wikipedia+4SlashFilm).
Thank you for reading. If you are an independent publisher, author, or film maker and have a new release please feel free to send your information to pd@pdalleva.com so that we can include you in our newsletter.
Thanks for sharing this list — I’m always looking for new sci-fi reads!