“Numbness and Arousal in the Post-Postmodern Apocalypse of Too Old to Die Young” (Vague Visages)

“Bound up in taboo fetishism and constantly oscillating commitments between the base and the transcendent, and between comedy and horror (much like Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return), Too Old to Die Young uses its genre-codified landscape of moral corruption as an allegorical mirror for America’s crumbling civilization, and as a space for a far-reaching aesthetic study of eroticism and violence in art. Putting itself in conversation with the cinematic genre signifiers most loudly established by Alfred Hitchcock’s oneiric, perverse California masterpiece Vertigo (1958), Too Old to Die Young constantly scrutinizes the wavering spaces where the tawdry mingles with the sublime, where sexual (re)productivity entangles with morbidity and destruction.”

Read the full essay in Vague Visages.

31 Days of Horror 2019: Mike Thorn’s ‘Dreams of Lake Drukka/Exhumation’

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“This is an excellent double shot of Thorn’s brand of creeping, slow burn horror, continuing from 2017’s short story collection Darkest Hours.

You might know Thorn through his film criticism in the MUBI Notebook or Vague Visages, among others. His fiction has appeared in Dark Moon Digest and Tales to Terrify. His style is somewhere between the weirder short works of Stephen King and the more down to earth works of Clive Barker. I found Darkest Hours to be a surprisingly fun read where I often didn’t know where I was going or why, but when I got there I felt fully satisfied with the journey.”

Read Tim Murr’s full review of Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation in Biff Bam Pop.

Attend Mike Thorn’s reading: Saturday, October 19 at the Airdrie Public Library from 11 am to 1 pm (Airdrie Echo)

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From the Airdrie Echo: “On Saturday at 11 a.m., we have another author reading, for adults this time, with Calgary horror author and film critic, Mike Thorn.

Thorn is the author of two short story collections, Darkest Hours and Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation, and his film critiques can be found in several publications.”

Read the full article.

Register to attend the reading.

Mike Thorn reading at the Airdrie Public Library: October 19, 11 am – 1 pm

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Join us Saturday October 19, 2019 at 11:00am for the APL Author Series with Mike Thorn. Come enjoy open discussion and reading with the author and refreshments.

Mike Thorn is the author of the short story collection Darkest Hours.

His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies and podcasts, including Dark Moon Digest, The NoSleep Podcast, DarkFuse, Unnerving Magazine, Turn to Ash, and Tales to Terrify. His film criticism has been published in MUBI Notebook, The Film Stage, The Seventh Row, Bright Lights Film Journal and Vague Visages.

He completed his M.A. with a major in English literature at the University of Calgary, where he wrote a thesis on epistemophobia in John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness.

Register to attend.

Book Review: Erin Emily Ann Vance’s Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers

Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers

“As with much of the author’s haunting poetry, this book reaches into the territory of fairy tales and the Gothic, but it simultaneously (and predominantly) grounds itself in contemporary realism. Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers demonstrates this kind of dual function in tonal terms, too: while it strays into morbid territory, it is punctuated throughout by surprising levity and humour.”

Fated, Faithful, Fatal: Ranking and Reviewing 25 Years of Marilyn Manson

“Twenty-five years ago, Marilyn Manson released his debut album Portrait of an American Family. Ten albums and multiple band changes later, his catalogue presents an extensive, medium-crossing statement on a culture he both reviles and embodies. Manson’s oeuvre presents a messy, self-contradicting statement, bound up in its creator’s narcissism and his uniquely Ouroboros-like relationship to the popular American landscape.”

Read the full article in Vague Visages.

 

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