Author | Critic
“As I did with Shelter for the Damned, I have created here a list of titles that provide a kind of cinematic “mood board” for Darkest Hours. I included the films I reviewed in the expanded edition’s Criticism section, as well as the films that had overt or indirect impact on the stories.”
Mike Thorn joins the hosts of Necronomi.com to talk social commentary in Tod Browning’s 1932 masterpiece, Freaks. They discuss physical difference, exploitation vs. empowerment, and more.
I now have digital ARCs of Darkest Hours: Expanded Edition (coming June 11 from Journalstone). This version includes all 16 original stories, plus 17 essays on horror cinema.
Contact me here if you’re interested in reviewing and/or interviewing.
American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper, the first comprehensive, academic, peer-reviewed study of Tobe Hooper’s oeuvre, includes Mike Thorn’s essay, “Lizard Brain Ouroboros: Human Antiexceptionalism in Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive and Crocodile.”
Pre-order here and use the discount code WOOAME to get 20% off.
Like everything else I’ve written, my debut novel Shelter for the Damned draws inspiration from a wide array of sources. It was influenced by books, short stories, essays, personal memories and relationships, music, dreams, and cinema. I have always been interested in films focused on adolescent experience and suburban milieus (especially, but not exclusively, within the horror genre).
Hot Box the Cinema welcomes a very special guest, critic and horror author Mike Thorn, for a tribute to the late filmmaker Stacy Title, the potentially vulgar auteur behind films like The Bye Bye Man, Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror, and The Last Supper.
Mike Thorn joins the hosts of Necronomi.com to talk social commentary in Color Out of Space. They discuss isolation, environmentalism, family, tomatoes, alpaca milk, H. P. Lovecraft’s undying racism, and more.
Mike Thorn appeared on the Extended Clip podcast to talk about Shelter for the Damned and two of the films that inspired it: Gene Fowler Jr.’s I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and Larry Clark’s Ken Park (2002).
“Was there a pivotal moment when you decided to be a writer?
I can’t remember a time before I started writing. For better or worse, it has been a lifelong impulse. I was always drawn to reading, which is probably where my interest in writing originated. As a kid, I was excited by fantasy and horror (J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and R. L. Stine when I was quite young, and then Stephen King when I got a little older).”
Seventh Row podcast hosts Alex Heeney and Orla Smith discuss the best films of 2020 (so far).
feat. special guests Brett Pardy, Ben Flanagan, Lena Wilson, Fatima Sheriff, Mike Thorn, & Valeria Villegas Lindval.
Mike Thorn 