best new fiction horror

The Best Horror Books of 2023 Will Scare You Sh*tless

Our favorite hell-raising reads of the year are pushing the genre in outrageous new directions.

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Horror truly is enjoying a renaissance. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic, as authors have had more time than ever to sit and mull over their darkest fantasies. Or maybe a whole generation raised on Stephen King has finally come of age and taken the reins. Whatever the reason, the genre is now more expansive, more inclusive, and more innovative than at any point in its history. That upward trajectory looks to reach new heights throughout the year, with horror creeping in to dominate the literary landscape from several directions at once. There are major titles from huge names, nasty little gems from literary darlings, and, as ever, the small presses continue to push the genre in new, outrageous directions.

Plus, horror is a broad church. Anyone can attend. Whether you’re looking for a story that will chill your blood, darken your soul, or turn your stomach, this year’s macabre offerings will provide. It’s scary out there alone though, so let us be your guide.

They Lurk, by Ronald Malfi

Ronald Malfi is an under-the-radar master of disruption. Like most of the great American horror writers, he paints authentic scenes of the everyday, then applies a blowtorch to the canvas. The five novellas in They Lurk are the perfect entry point to his patented collision of the routine and the fantastic. Each hinges on a compelling, yet oh-so simple conceit: the backwoods cryptid noir of “Skullbelly,” a frigid twist on spiritual possession in “The Separation,” or the hideous act of self-obliteration in “The Stranger.” What elevates these stories above just a cool idea, though, is the effort that Malfi invests in his characters. He has no right to make us give a damn about characters fleshed out in so few pages. Yet somehow he does. And we do.

Black River Orchard, by Chuck Wendig

Did you know that they’re lying to you about apples? Don’t believe me? Read Black River Orchard . It exposes the lie at the rotten core of Big Fruit: there are hundreds, thousands of apple flavors that they’re keeping from you. If that isn’t enough of a shock, Chuck Wendig also bakes small town mayhem, elaborate lore, and even a hint of demonology into this epic autumnal pie. Black River Orchard harkens back to the blockbuster tomes of the ‘80s, following an extended cast of characters situated in a living, breathing town that’s coming undone under the malign influence of a cursed apple tree. Think the fabricated faux-history of John Langan’s The Fisherman , mixed with the paranoia of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, all finished off with a hint of The Tommyknockers’ mad self-improvement fixation. It’s a big, bombastic novel that reminds me how truly fun this genre can be.

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, edited by Jordan Peele

After leading a cinematic renaissance for Black horror, Jordan Peele has turned his attention, however briefly, to the literary. In Out There Screaming , he curates a roster of established names and breakthrough talent to showcase the abundant variety of macabre Black storytelling. It’s clearly conceived as a landmark collection, and it fulfills the brief. N.K. Jemisin opens proceedings with the standout “Reckless Eyeballing,” spinning police brutality into surrealist body horror. Tananarive Due’s tale of a demonic reckoning aboard a Montgomery-bound freedom ride feels passed-down rather than written. But focus is not centered on historical trauma. Many of these nineteen stories offer an exhilarating sense of Black horror’s rush to explore new futures and alternative presents. Nnedi Okorafor’s “Dark Home” employs a supernatural besiegement to examine the clash between tradition and modernity. L.D. Lewis’ “Flicker” offers a refreshingly unpolitical apocalypse, while Lesley Nneka Arimah’s “Invasion of the Baby Snatchers” builds a whole paranoid world of horror sci-fi in less than two dozen pages. And these are just a few of the highlights. We can only hope that Peele will put some of these stories up on the big screen.

Black Sheep, by Rachel Harrison

Rachel Harrison is one of very few writers who I read by default. No one is better at balancing wry millennial observation with genuine paranormal nastiness. When Vesper makes a brief return to the bosom of her fundamentalist family, she’s forced to reconsider the power of their belief, face the secrets of her own parentage, and confront the very real threat of Armageddon. Early in the book, there’s a reveal that had me physically punching the air in admiration at the author’s sleight of hand. From that point onward, Black Sheep is a sprint across a high wire strung between satirical self-awareness and authentic scares, but Harrison has perfect control over her novel’s excesses. Never too knowing or naïve, Black Sheep is Harrison’s best book since her debut, The Return , and Vesper is the queen of her hard-to-like-but-impossible-not-to-love protagonists.

Boys in the Valley, by Philip Fracassi

Boys in the Valley is the most frightening novel of the year. There, I said it! The story takes place in an isolated Pennsylvania orphanage in 1905, where the boys’ lives of drudgery, clerical surveillance, and casual cruelty are bad enough, but the arrival of policemen and their demonically possessed prisoner kicks things up a notch or two on the “oh shit” scale. When hell breaks out (very quickly), it falls to Peter, the most senior of the boys, to differentiate evil from innocence and keep his peers alive. What follows is a blueprint for the creation of steady, unsettling dread, with enough explosions of outright horror to release the pressure, like pus from a wound. It’s easy to overfocus on how horrific a book is, but there are other things at play here than fear alone. Emotion, characterization, pacing: each is critical in making us care enough to be frightened. But Boys in the Valley is as committed to hurting the heart as it is to shocking the system. Between this and last year’s A Child Alone with Strangers , Fracassi looks to be at the very vanguard of the next great charge in horror.

Nestlings, by Nat Cassidy

Nat Cassidy describes his second novel as ‘Salem’s Lot meets Rosemary’s Baby . It’s a fair claim. It is a novel about an unassuming couple who move into a prestigious New York apartment complex where, rather than falling prey to elderly satanists, they come up against something a touch more vampiric. There are babies involved, and a duplicitous husband who plays upon his wife’s vulnerabilities, and yet you can know all of this and still delight in Nestlings as entirely its own horror story. It’s a novel of New York, of antisemitism, of a marriage in disarray. Each of these elements is written with an enthusiasm that bounds off the page. Much of Nestlings ’ individuality results from the care with which Cassidy traces the contours of Ana and Reid’s marriage, both the love and the falling apart, but there are also things waiting in the bowels of The Deptford for which no amount of horror reading could prepare you.

The Paleontologist, by Luke Dumas

Ghost dinosaurs! Has any pairing of words ever sounded more loaded with possibility, or more worryingly like a gimmick? Have no fear—Luke Dumas’ sophomore novel is not the literary Sharknado that the words “ghost dinosaurs” would have you believe. Quite the opposite; it’s a moving, sorrowful story of secrecy, institutional rot, and the everlasting power of love and loss that even geological eons cannot diminish. When Simon takes up the role of head paleontologist in his hometown museum, he becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of his sister’s abduction from that very institution decades before. In the process, he unearths plenty of skeletons, both literal and figurative, some of which belong to the prehistoric entity roaming the exhibit halls. The Paleontologist is a mixture of sober Gothic and B-movie flamboyance. It’s a family drama, a crime procedural, and a social critique, but did I mention the GHOST DINOSAURS?!

The Reformatory, by Tananarive Due

Perhaps the most shocking thing about The Reformatory is that it’s based in truth. Due’s depiction of a brutal juvenile reform facility is based on the heinous history of the Dozier School for Boys, where her great uncle, Robert Stephens, died in 1937. The horrors inflicted on the boys in Due’s novel are drawn from very real accounts of beatings, torture, rape, and murder. Due does not flinch from this reality. What she does do is introduce ghosts, or haints, which plague and aid the fictionalized Robert Stephens during his internment. Meanwhile, beyond the prison, Robert’s sister Gloria navigates the wider (but no less oppressive) corridors of institutional racism in 1950s Florida. The novel bounces between Gloria’s legal efforts to free Robert and his desperate attempts to survive and escape—twin strands that coil around each other in a tightening narrative helix. The Reformatory belongs in the god-tier of modern ghost stories, sitting comfortably alongside Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House , Stephen King’s The Shining , and Peter Straub’s Ghost Story . It’s exactly that good.

Where the Dead Wait, by Ally Wilkes

Ally Wilkes has a thing for dropping men in the older, colder reaches of the world, and subjecting them to a lot more than ice, hunger, and polar bears. Her first novel, All the White Spaces , follows Edwardian explorers to cosmic annihilation in Antarctica; by contrast, Where the Dead Wait heads to the great northern wastes for a reckoning with more personal demons. In the 1860s, Captain William Day and his crew resort to cannibalism to survive the wilderness of the polar winter. Twenty years later, Day must return to the scene of his ordeal (and shame) to rescue both his own reputation and the man who has “haunted his life.” Wilkes may be covering similar frozen ground as her debut, but this is a richer story than even that first, startlingly good effort. The author has a knack for balancing ephemeral terror with gritty, grounded human suffering. Where the Dead Wait is a book that conveys its horrors both in the words that are printed and in the subtle, slanted inferences of things neither spoken nor written.

Graveyard of Lost Children, by Katrina Monroe

There has been a recent glut of horror novels centered on motherhood, but Katrina Monroe has written the best of them. As the title suggests, Graveyard of Lost Children offers plenty of authentic Gothic scares. There are black-haired specters and corpse-haunted wells, but the most fraught details are reserved for the toil of new motherhood. Following the birth of her daughter, Olivia must reckon with a family legacy of postpartum delusion (or is it?) about changelings and deals with the dead. As Olivia submits to paranoias both valid and imaginary, Graveyard of Lost Children takes the baton extended by Rosemary’s Baby . However, in our less-prudish world, Monroe is able to better examine a mother’s physical suffering. She finds brutal body horror in episiotomies, chafed skin, and Olivia’s reduction to “a liquid bag with holes poked in it, full of blood and piss and milk.” It’s unflinching, necessary, and it will make you more aware of your nipples than ever before.

The Others Of Edenwell, by Verity M. Holloway

The Others of Edenwell is a subtle book. Though it’s set in the shadow of the First World War, there is little bombast and few moments of overt nastiness. Instead, the story takes place on the fringes of the cataclysm, in the grounds of the titular Edenwell, a hydropathic resort where soldiers come to recover from their injuries and where the naive Freddie and the troubled Eustace grow close. The war is ever-present but somehow distant, while closer to home, a more personal evil wanders the woods. Holloway has managed a feat of literary mimicry, capturing the strange balance of innocence and cruel experience inherent to fiction of the period. Into this idyll, she then introduces a demonic figure, able to do hideous things with its own spine. Imagine if E.M. Forster wrote a cryptid horror novel and you’re somewhere on the way to understanding the delightful oddness of this book.

Maeve Fly, by CJ Leede

Maeve Fly is great fun, if you like that sort of thing. And by “that sort of thing,” I mean gruesome violence, void-black humor, and inappropriate behavior at Disney World. In this ode to excess, young, disaffected Maeve weaves her way through LA, peering out from behind the mask that hides her psychopathy. As the few struts that bind her to society begin to buckle, the meanness of the modern city comes face to face with a woman who has run out of fucks to give. For a long time, Leede holds the arterial spray in reserve, but when the dam does finally break, Maeve Fly crosses into absolute carnage. Bodies are flayed and power tools are put to uses that would definitely void the warranty. Leede is clearly inspired by Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho , but where that novel’s maniac is an abyss in human form, Maeve retains just enough humanity to make her the year’s most compelling anti-anti-ANTI hero.

All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby

Stephen King and Barack Obama have both gone out to bat for S.A. Cosby, and with good reason. He writes about the dividing line between rich and poor, Black and white, and the powerful and the weak with a scholar’s scrutiny and the insight of someone who knows this small-town southern stage intimately. When a school shooting leads to the unearthing of child murder in southeast Virginia, the town’s first Black sheriff must navigate local politics, racial prejudice, and entrenched secrecy in order to seek justice. Thus described, All the Sinners Bleed sounds like a typical police procedural, albeit with Gothic overtones. In truth, it’s so much more. Cosby has wrenched the formula into a new shape, fit to accommodate American problems that are hot-button issues, yet still as old as the nation. The book’s evils are grounded in all-too-human devilry, but an apocalyptic frequency thrums through Cosby’s writing.

Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle

I can think of few more appropriate settings for a horror novel than a gay conversion facility. The one at the center of Camp Damascus has a 100% success rate, largely due to its very unorthodox techniques, which owe more to Clive Barker’s sadistic theology than any evangelical hand-wringing. When Rose starts vomiting flies and seeing monstrous figures around town, she is forced from her god-fearing home and onto a collision course with her own demons, both literal and figurative. There is imagery in this book you will not soon forget––Chuck Tingle has a real gift for the ornately horrific––but Camp Damascus is as joyous as it is upsetting. It’s a Queer horror novel that neither shies away from the pain of prejudice nor downplays the victory of self-acceptance. The author’s motto is “love is real.” Though the book suggests that hate is real, too, in the end, Camp Damascus suggests that our better angels can win.

Looking Glass Sound, by Catriona Ward

There is no way to convey the brilliance or intricacy of Catriona Ward’s latest novel in this short thumbnail sketch. This is the kind of book that doctoral theses will tussle with and still not fully pin down. On one hand, it’s a metafictional experiment, in which the account of a haunting summer in coastal Maine is written and rewritten until the safety of truth is lost. On the other hand, it’s an entertaining piece of American Gothic, featuring a small-town adolescence and the serial killings that stain it. Ward has captured the frigidity of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History , combining it with a Stephen King locale and Shirley Jackson’s psychological nuance. If there is any justice in this world, Looking Glass Sound will enter the canon of the classic American macabre. It should be read and studied for decades.

Wild Spaces, by S.L. Coney

A boy lives with his family by the sea. It’s an idyllic life, filled with natural wonder and humble adventure. Then grandfather arrives and something within the boy begins to stir, to change. It makes his parents worried. It makes his dog, Teach, bark and howl. But it makes grandfather smile. Those are the bare bones of S.L. Coney’s little Lovecraftian gem. The writing is as slippery as the inevitable tentacles, and the truth of the story is something to be circled rather than nailed down. However, if you read my recent article about dogs in fiction , you’ll know that I’m a sucker for a good boy, and Teach is a very good boy indeed. He’s one of the great canine companions in recent horror and the reason that such a slim story is able to bruise your heart so deeply.

Spin a Black Yarn, by Josh Malerman

Spin a Black Yarn contains five tales that showcase Josh Malerman’s uniquely canted imagination. In “Argyle,” a family man’s deathbed confession alerts his loved ones to the darkness behind a father’s smile. In “Doug and Judy Buy the Housewasher™,” an obnoxious couple are confronted by the horrid truth of their affluence, at the hands of a state-of-the-art household appliance. “Egorov” is a tale of faux-haunting and weird revenge that Poe would be proud of. Each story has its horrors, but the majority are leavened with a wry humor. This can’t be said for “Half the House is Haunted,” though. This eerie twist on the uncanny home is like nothing Malerman has written before. It’s closer to the indeterminate terrors of Shirley Jackson or Paul Tremblay, and when compared with the breeziness elsewhere in the collection, it shows just how versatile a writer Malerman can be. Full of fun and sudden turns, Spin a Black Yarn is a perfect entry point to one of the defining imaginations of twenty-first century horror.

What Kind of Mother, by Clay McLeod Chapman

Clay McLeod Chapman made our best horror list in 2022 with Ghost Eaters , and now he’s back again with an even more insane premise than that book’s haunted mushrooms. In What Kind of Mother , Chapman revisits the Chesapeake inlets of his youth for a story that marries esoteric haunting with down-home Southern Gothic. The world of crab fisherman and parking lot palm readers may be ever-so Americana, but when a grieving father returns to town in a desperate search for his vanished son, the Bruce Springsteen song dissolves into screaming psychedelia. I’m making a point of not spoiling anything to do with the plot here, because that would be a crime, but I will say two things: What Kind of Mothe r contains the single most upsetting paragraph I’ve read this year, and I will never look at a crab the same way again. Am I being opaque? Sure. You’ll thank me.

How to Sell a Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix

Grady Hendrix made his name as the horror trickster par excellence. His novels melt down pop culture references, movie tropes, and horror motifs, then mold them into new shapes as darkly camp as they are creepy. Hendrix follows the same recipe in How to Sell a Haunted House , but whips up the emotional stakes and adds in some genuinely unsettling scenes of supernatural weirdness and familial psychodrama. When Louise returns to her childhood home following the sudden death of her parents, she’s forced to contend with both her brother’s resentment and the malign presence that won’t relinquish the house. Do you think puppets are scary? You will.

Tell Me I'm Worthless, by Alison Rumfitt

Tell Me I’m Worthless is a state-of-the-nation howl hidden inside a horror story. Rumfitt’s short, scathing novel represents modern Britain as a haunted and hateful house. Following a hideous night in said Albion House, Alice and Ila’s friendship is in ruins. Alice, a trans woman, finds some meager refuge online, while Ila falls into the clutches of militant gender-critical feminists. As in all good haunted house stories, they must eventually return to the scene of trauma in pursuit of closure, but there are plenty of demons to fight along the way. Rumfitt’s very personal approach to haunting intentionally evokes Shirley Jackson ’s American classic The Haunting of Hill House , but this is a book baked in the bleak hostility of British life. The phrase “novel for our time” is overused, but in this case, it’s entirely valid.

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The Best Horror Novels of 2022

For horror fans, this year was a feast after many years of famine..

To be a horror fan in 2022 is to find yourself at a feast after many years of famine. You’re not just limited to writers named King , Straub, or Koontz anymore — horror fiction has come back with a vengeance over the past decade after a long fallow period (at least in mainstream publishing). With well over 250 new horror books published this year , there’s something for everyone, whether you’re looking for a gently creepy gothic tale or the most transgressive splatterpunk imaginable. Here are the best on shelves.

10. The Hacienda , Isabel Cañas

There’s just something irresistible about the gothic. You can hardly walk through a bookstore without tripping over any number of gothic variations, innovations, and pale imitations. What makes The Hacienda a refreshing change of pace is how straightforward it is: It’s a classic historical gothic novel, impeccably executed. Cañas isn’t reinventing the wheel here; she’s just making a really, really good wheel.

The standard gothic elements are all here: a remote estate crumbling into decay, a woman searching for stability in an unstable world, a husband with dark secrets, and, of course, a haunting. But rather than the damp English moors, we find ourselves joining Beatriz at her new husband’s estate, Hacienda San Isidro, in the baking Mexican countryside shortly after the Mexican War of Independence. San Isidro doesn’t want Beatriz there, and the longer she stays, the darker and more violent her dreams and visions become. Enter Padre Andrés, a young troubled priest hiding brujo powers. Together, they must try to uncover the hatred at the heart of San Isidro or risk becoming its next victims. The Hacienda is romantic, frightening, claustrophobic, and entirely satisfying.

9. All the White Spaces , Ally Wilkes

Wilkes’s debut novel is a compelling feat of historical horror storytelling about an early-20th-century polar expedition beset by a series of disasters. After their ship sinks, the members of the Randall expedition must try to survive the winter on the frozen plains of Antarctica and hope for rescue the following year. But something is stalking them on the ice — something impossible, something that takes the shapes of their lost friends and loved ones. As the explorers fall one by one, young Jonathan Morgan must try his best to stay alive even as the spirits of his dead brothers call to him through the snow. Some of the best survival horror we’ve read in years with a uniquely menacing adversary at its heart.

8. White Horse , Erika T. Wurth

Two days after Kari was born, her mother walked out, never to return. Years into her dysfunctional adulthood, Kari rediscovers her mother’s bracelet, and her world starts to unravel: Suddenly, she sees things no one else can see, up to and including the horrific specter of a woman who just might be her mother and the Lofa, a malevolent creature from Chickasaw folklore. Driven to discover the truth behind these visions, Kari encounters unexpected revelations about several other tragedies in her past, all tilting toward a frightening conclusion. It’s a propulsive read with a lived-in neo-noir feel — Kari slouches through Denver’s dive bars and no-name used bookstores, given beautiful life on the page — and Wurth has a real gift for evoking nostalgia without letting it overtake the story she’s telling. It’s also a perfect entry point for any reader who likes mysteries or thrillers but isn’t sure about horror just yet.

7. No Gods for Drowning , Hailey Piper

Piper, who recently won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel for last year’s delightfully fucked-up and tremendously imaginative vagina dentata mutant story Queen of Teeth , is an undeniable rising star in horror, and she shows no signs of slowing down with multiple books publishing this year and next. No Gods for Drowning is an audacious novel, a mind-bending blend of noir, mythology, urban fantasy, apocalypse story, and murder mystery. In a city abandoned by the gods and beset by chronic flooding and monsters, a serial killer stalks the streets, leaving victims strewn in her wake — but she’s just trying to help. Really. When the gods start to return, however, an even greater mystery unfolds, one of cosmic significance. Fans of the unclassifiable and the weird should not skip this one.

6. The Devil Takes You Home , Gabino Iglesias

Desperate for funds to pay his young daughter’s medical expenses, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a killer for hire — but his daughter doesn’t survive, and neither does his marriage, and it turns out it’s not so easy to quit such a profession. When he is offered a life-changing amount of money for one last job stealing money from the cartel, Mario accepts against his own better judgment. What follows is a brutal journey across America’s southern border and back again through an underworld in which unearthly powers are used for unsavory purposes (there’s a scene involving bolt cutters that haunts our dreams). It’s a devastating book about cyclical violence, poverty, and love, one that posits that the true test of life in America may ultimately be deciding which devil you sell your soul to.

5. A Black and Endless Sky , Matthew Lyons

Equal parts cosmic horror, road-trip adventure, and adrenaline-fueled thriller, Lyons’s sophomore novel swings for the fences. On a trip through the mountains and deserts of the American West, semi-estranged siblings Nell and Jonah find themselves pursued by a violent biker gang bent on revenge, an itinerant stranger who sees more than most, and the Thing inside Nell that has decided to hitch a ride. Lyons is an engaging writer who doesn’t shy away from his characters’ worst traits — both protagonists are, to put it gently, a mess — but you can’t help but root for them anyway. The pace is breakneck, the villains deliciously detestable, and the action top-notch — plus you’re in for some of the most viscerally memorable scenes of body horror we’ve read in a long time.

4. Just Like Home , Sarah Gailey

Gailey is one of those rare writers who jumps from genre to genre with virtuosic ease, and their first foray into horror is remarkably accomplished. Vera has come home to take care of her dying mother’s affairs, which means returning to the house where her infamous father killed his victims. All is not well in the house, of course — a menacing artist is hell-bent on using the family’s tragic history as fodder, Vera keeps finding notes in her father’s handwriting, and there’s the matter of the thing under the bed that won’t let her sleep through the night. Just Like Home deploys familiar haunted-house and true-crime tropes so adeptly that even the most seasoned horror reader may miss the narrative sleight of hand at work here until it’s too late and the story has turned into something else entirely. The last act of this novel is like nothing we’ve ever read before.

3. Jackal , Erin E. Adams

Adams’s debut novel follows Liz, a Black woman, back to her majority-white Pennsylvania hometown for her best friend’s wedding. But when her goddaughter, Caroline, goes missing during the reception, Liz finds herself desperately trying to unravel a decades-long string of disappearances — all Black girls, all eventually found dead with their hearts removed, all connected somehow to the woods outside of town. Adams shows a real talent for writing flawed, nuanced, real characters (Liz’s complicated relationship with her mother is particularly resonant) and does incredible work illustrating just how isolating and destabilizing it is to be the only Black girl in a white town. That alone would be enough, but she also reaches deep into the real-life history of race and class stratification in Johnstown to bring a new level of resonance to the story. The payoff, when it comes, is well worth the ride.

2. Ghost Eaters , Clay McLeod Chapman

A legitimately terrifying ghost story and also a thoughtful and smart (if grim) exploration of how addiction destroys lives, Ghost Eaters should make Chapman a star, if there’s any justice in the world. After her ex, Silas, dies by overdose, Erin is offered a chance to speak to him one last time using a drug that allows for communication with the dead. There’s a catch, of course (isn’t there always?), which is that you don’t necessarily choose which ghosts you see — or how long they hang around. And once they realize you can see them, they’re not inclined to let you go. It’s an intense, thrilling tale of grief and addiction and will leave you all too aware of how crowded America is with ghosts.

1. Manhunt , Gretchen Felker-Martin

In an era of cultural remakes, remixes, knockoffs, and infinite bland variations on corporate IP, it’s all too rare to encounter a book like Manhunt — a true original that not only eviscerates an existing subgenre (gender-based apocalypse stories like Y: The Last Man , in this case) but also plants a flag in its steaming corpse and says, This is the future of queer horror.

Anger simmers underneath every word of Felker-Martin’s prose as she tells a story of trans women and men fighting for survival after a plague transforms anyone with a certain amount of testosterone into a feral monstrosity. In the world of Manhunt , the already life-or-death nature of transition is taken to new heights: Protagonists Beth and Fran have to scavenge enough estrogen to keep from succumbing to the virus while Robbie tries to forge a life in a state of persistent dysphoria since taking testosterone is a death sentence. Their odyssey across a postapocalyptic New England showcases an array of threats, from feral men to militant TERFs, self-loathing chasers to rich-idiot survivalists. The book is timely, visceral, grotesque, unflinching, and unexpectedly fun, full of sex and gore and messy, beautiful humanity; think of it as The Road with a sense of humor and 110 percent more queer sex.

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Best horror books 😱

Curated by our reviewers this week

SATURDAY 6th APRIL, 2024

Misadventures of a cryptid hunter.

Michael Kelso

A disinterested park ranger encounters a bigfoot during a routine patrol. The situation opens up a world of money and dire cons...

Reviewed by Chewable Orb

With A Blighted Touch

J. Todd Kingrea

Highly recommend. Once you start you won't want to put it down - a well written and thought out novel

Reviewed by Georgia Joy

Down the Well

Joe Blackhurst

Thirty-three canvases. One massacre. Will Blackhurst be able to get to the bottom of this tragedy, or is there something unhuma...

Reviewed by Kelsey Cashman

Suburban Monsters

Christopher Hawkins

A captivating collection of thirteen dark suburban stories with exceptional writing and unique storytelling

Reviewed by Charisma Enigma

Matt Micheli

"The White" would be scary no matter the weather, but it was a million times more frightening since my state has been hit with ...

Reviewed by Kameron Brook

Walking Into Madness

Shauntaye Waters

A horrifyingly gory and unexpected take on a classic tale that's sure to leave you wanting more.

Reviewed by Nisha Ward

Savage Indulgence

Shayla Raquel

"Savage Indulgence" would make a very chilling movie for horror fans—a blockbuster.

Footsteps in the Dark: Short Horror & Sci-Fi Stories Volume II

Joshua G. J. Insole

A nice collection of short, spooky stories, great for reading late at night!

Reviewed by Adam Wright

THE ECHO OF A LOST DREAM

Mai L. Herrero

An unnerving gothic novel about an exceptional sculptor who falls under the influence of an immoral patron in seventeenth-centu...

Reviewed by Michelle Hogmire

Mike Dineen

An intensely dark and frightening look at the familial ties that bind us and the darkness that can attach itself to our very so...

Reviewed by C.H. Folan

The Guardians, Vol. 1: Baltimore, 1862

Kevin Williams

This is an enjoyable, fast-paced read, and even if this period of history is not to your usual tastes, you’ll still find plenty...

Reviewed by Night Terror Novels

A Song For The Void

Andrew Piazza

Danger, death, and horror abound on the high seas. This is cosmic horror at its absolute finest.

Bloody Puzzle

Andrea Merchak

Bloody Puzzle is a unique tale of horror that sucks you in and refuses to let you go.

Reviewed by Ashley Nestler

The Girl in the Mirror: A Sarah Greene Supernatural Mystery

Steven Ramirez

Dark and interesting, and a good story for those who are curious about the paranormal horror genre. Definitely worth a read!

Reviewed by Christina de Vries

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Michelle Hogmire

Michelle Hogmire is a West Virginian writer with an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. She writes about Horror at Master Hogmire's Scream Along Blog. Her work has been featured in Rampant Magazine, BOMB, KGB Bar Lit Mag, and Columbia Journal. She's currently finishing her first book in Chicago

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Three new horror novels to sink your teeth into

The books range from a found-footage haunted house story to a terrifying evening in ‘80s suburbia.

As polar vortexes descend and temperatures drop, three new, vastly different horror novels bring the chills inside your home. The standouts include a found-footage haunted house story that might leave you thrilled to live in a new building and a tale of grief steeped in Indigenous lore.

‘All Hallows’ by Christopher Golden

Set on Halloween night in 1984, and told primarily from the perspectives of the residents of Parameter Road, this horror tale about a sinister presence stalking children overflows with juicy suburban gossip. Families on the street are combusting as secrets, from infidelity to young sapphic love, are exposed on front lawns and crowded events. The story balances the drama that fills the neighborhood with the terror and mystery that haunts it. As once peaceful lives unravel, a gaggle of lost children in outdated costumes descends upon the chaos seeking protection from someone they call the Cunning Man. Some residents assume the lost children are just confused, but as the night goes on it’s clear the young people of Parameter Road are up against something far more sinister, and organized, than they could have ever imagined. Golden, a Bram Stoker Award winner, spins a tale that will leave you turning away next year’s trick-or-treaters while triple-checking that your windows are locked.

‘Bad Cree’ by Jessica Johns

Loss is a horror in itself, but “Bad Cree” turns grief into a macabre odyssey. Mackenzie, a young Cree woman, fled her home and family after the death of her grandmother. Shortly after she strikes out on her own in Vancouver, her sister dies. Unable to face the grief that awaits her in her rural Alberta hometown, Mackenzie stays away — not even returning for her sister’s funeral — until her nightmares begin to follow her into the real world. After waking up clutching a dead crow’s head and being haunted in sleep by her dead sister, Mackenzie turns to her family and Cree community, whose knowledge of dreams might help her make sense of her strange new afflictions. Author Johns, a member of the Sucker Creek First Nation in Northern Alberta, ties Cree beliefs about dreams and deep-rooted indigenous lore to how women in a family rally around one another to battle grief. Told entirely from Mackenzie’s perspective, the horror novel focuses on how loss crawls inside a body and makes a home there, driving out love and joy in the process. This would make a great self-help book for finding a new perspective on life — if it wasn’t for the ominous crows and looming danger.

‘Episode Thirteen’ by Craig DiLouie

Here’s a novel for fans of “Ghost Hunters” who actually want to experience the paranormal, not just watch folks fret over barely audible noises. “Episode Thirteen” follows the colorful cast and crew of the not-so-successful fictional ghost-hunting reality show “Fade to Black.” To keep the paychecks coming for its 13th episode, the gang (married lead investigators, a budding actress and mom, a grouchy ex-cop tech manager and a cameraman with childhood trauma) heads to the Paranormal Research Foundation, an abandoned mansion that was the site of mysterious experiments and disappearances in the 1970s. The crew must face the power that lurks within the house while dealing with their inner demons, which are scratching closer to the surface. In an innovative twist, the book consists of diary entries, emails, audio transcripts, text messages and other interpretations. The experience is reminiscent of found footage films, such as “The Blair Witch Project” — less like reading a book than following the breadcrumbs left in the wake of a terrifying discovery.

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9 Must-Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books Releasing in April 2024

Add these to your wish-list for spring..

If you’re looking for something new to read this spring, these brand-new and upcoming sci-fi and fantasy books offer many amazing worlds to delve into. While many prominent authors have novels being published this month—like Ann Leckie, Leigh Bardugo, and Edward Ashton—several new novelists are also debuting with some excellent SFF books to consider.

For sci-fi fans, we've found novels exploring dystopian worlds, rogue AI, generation ships, and imaginative parallel universes. And, for anyone looking for that next fantasy adventure, we've tracked down novels that traverse unknown ocean depths, Chinese mythology, and 16th-century Spain. In summary, we've tried to include something for every reader in this month's sci-fi and fantasy book roundup. Which ones are you looking forward to reading? Here are the best sci-fi fantasy books to consider in April 2024.

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

Much like Ashton’s first novel— Mickey7 , which has a film adaptation releasing in 2025 — Mal Goes to War is a dark sci-fi comedy that places a sardonic narrator in a dangerous future setting. While similar in tone, the two have very different settings. Mal is an independent AI living in infospace watching serial dramas while a war rages between the augmented Federals and the ‘pure’ Humanists. Mal fully intends to ignore the war and the humans scurrying outside infospace.

Unfortunately, the war finds him. When the Humanists cut off infospace, Mal is left adrift. He finds a new host in a deceased augmented human. For some reason, the young child he discovers beside the dead human seems somewhat disturbed by his animation of the corpse’s body. On his journey to find a new home, he befriends several humans, making him realize that he does care about what happens in the war. If you enjoyed Mickey7 and The Murderbot Diaries , you will likely enjoy Ashton’s latest. It’s brilliantly narrated on audio if you’re an audiobook listener.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Bardugo is a queen of engrossing page-turners regardless of length. Her newest novel is no exception. This dark and steamy standalone historical fantasy is set in 16th-century Spain during the height of the Inquisition. Luzia is a Jewish scullion who can do small acts of magic by singing Ladino refrains. She keeps both her magic and her heritage a secret, knowing that if anyone discovered either, she would be turned over to the Inquisition.

When her mistress catches her doing a small act of magic, she forces Luzia to perform magic tricks at dinner parties. Secretly, Luzia enjoys the attention and craves more. A wealthy and ambitious nobleman soon discovers her and wants her to compete to be the king’s magical champion. In his employ is the mysterious and sinister Guillén Santangel, a cursed immortal who makes Luzia feel like she’s flying. Bardugo’s latest is a lovely and magical ode to marginalized and diaspora cultures during the Spanish Inquisition.

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

Barnes’ debut novel, Dead Silence , was a nail-biting space horror, and her second space horror, Ghost Station , is, dare I say, even better than her first. Dr. Ophelia Bray is a psychologist better known for her ridiculously wealthy family than her work. She has tried to separate herself as much as possible from her problematic family, but their legacy seems to follow her wherever she goes.

She specializes in treating people with ERS—a space-based mental health condition that often leads to violence, both self-inflicted and towards other crew members. After a crew member dies, she joins a deep-space mission to explore an abandoned planet. The crew immediately begins harassing Ophelia, but she’s determined to do her job well. On the planet, however, everything goes wrong. This nuanced, character-driven space horror with intense plotting is a fantastic addition to the genre, and could be perfect for fans of Dead Space, Alien, or Event Horizon.

Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction by Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie is well-known to SFF readers for her award-winning Imperial Radch series. This is her first short story collection, though many of these stories have been previously published in short story markets. It’s divided into three sections.

The first section occurs in primarily unspecified worlds, the second in the Imperial Radch universe, and the third in the same world as her standalone fantasy novel, The Raven Tower . It’s an imaginative and often experimentative collection with coming-of-age stories for a lonely spawn, dinosaurs fleeing meteors by escaping into space, espionage and extreme religious piety in Radch, schemes between gods, and so much more. Often, science fiction authors excel at short stories, and Leckie is no exception.

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Samatar taps into her experience as a professor in this thought-provoking dystopian novella deeply entrenched in university academic politics and carceral control. Set on a mining spaceship that’s part of a fleet of generation ships, it rotates between two characters.

The boy is one of the Chained who lives as a captive deep below the ship. He’s haunted by dreams of drowned people and makes art depicting his inner thoughts and dreams. A prophet speaks to him of the practice, a sort of philosophical meditation, and the boy tries to follow it by devoting himself to his art.

While the other is a woman, a professor of older knowledge working on a paper about play among children who wear blue bracelets around their ankles, like her, that can be controlled by the elite. She initiates a scholarship to allow one of the Chained to attend the university, and the boy is chosen as its recipient. This is a unique and sometimes opaque read, at turns disturbing and profound. Samatar deftly manages to pack a lot into only a slim page count.

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

Cathrall’s debut is a lovely epistolary cozy fantasy for fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Legends & Lattes . In a world mostly covered by water, people live on small islands where scholars study the sea. E., who has OCD, lives in the only underwater house—the Deep Houseëwhich her eccentric (and deceased) scholar mother designed.

After a strange marine animal appears outside the house, she writes to Scholar Henerey, a renowned marine naturalist, in hopes he can shed light on the nature of the animal. The two start a delightful exchange of letters, eventually leading to deeper feelings. Soon, E. becomes riveted by a new mystery, a strange structure that suddenly appears outside her home. The frame story happens one year after these events. E.’s younger sister, Scholar Sophy, is mourning E.’s presumed death and begins a correspondence with Henerey’s brother, Navigator Vyerin. They begin a project of exchanging letters, diaries, and other written materials to explain the year E. and Henerey spent in correspondence. It’s a delicious slow-burn fantasy and the first book in a series.

Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin

YA fantasy readers will adore this beautifully written standalone based on Chinese mythology. After being accused of treason, Xue’s family was put to death, and their name was eradicated. An orphan, her uncle raised her before turning her over to the House of Flowing Water, where she’s learned to entertain and perfected her musical skill at the qin.

She’s an unparalleled musician, and after her first public performance, a stranger asks for a private audience with her. He offers to become her patron, and she accepts, hoping to earn her freedom. He turns out to be the Duke of Dreams, and his derelict mansion hides secrets that could put Xue’s life at risk.

Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho

This entertaining found-family sci-fi is like K-drama meets The Expanse . Korea’s military space force, the Alliance, dominates the galaxy. Ocean Yoon is a down-on-her-luck pilot aboard the Ohneulis. She and the crew are currently attending a gala in Seoul, but Ocean skips the gala to instead go shopping with Teo, the son of a wealthy Korean family.

Meanwhile, Haven replaces a crew member aboard the Ohneulis and becomes their medic, though the crew distrusts him for being part of a religious community called the Death’s Hand. Cho rotates between these three perspectives as the ragtag crew navigates adventures, politics, and romance. It ends on a cliffhanger, so hopefully, book two will be released soon!

In Universes by Emet North

North’s debut novel is an inventive, mind-bending literary science fiction that delves into mental health, queerness, Judaism, love, and more as it explores parallel universes. Raffi is an assistant in a NASA lab studying dark matter and feels wildly out of their depth.

They struggle to make meaningful connections as they grapple with depression, but the one bright spot in their life is Britt, a sculptor who grew up in the same town as Raffi. Each chapter imagines a different universe with Raffi and Britt, each universe growing more and more chaotic and surreal as the novel progresses. Despite the wildness of each chapter, this slim novel is a wonderfully immersive and vivid read.

Margaret Kingsbury is a freelance writer, editor, and all-around book nerd based in Nashville, TN. Her pieces on books and reading have appeared in Book Riot, BuzzFeed News, School Library Journal, StarTrek.com, Parents, and more. Follow her on Instagram @BabyLibrarians and Twitter and Bluesky @AReaderlyMom.

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The best new science fiction books of April 2024

There’s an abundance of exciting new science fiction out in April, by writers including The Three-Body Problem author Cixin Liu, Douglas Preston and Lionel Shriver

By Alison Flood

1 April 2024

The last remaining free city of the Forever Desert has been besieged for centuries in The Truth of the Aleke

Shutterstock / Liu zishan

There are some huge names with new works out this month: Cixin Liu and Ann Leckie both have collections of shorter writing to peruse, plus there’s a dystopic future from the award-winning Téa Obreht and a world where woolly mammoths have been brought back from the bestselling Douglas Preston. I also love the sound of Scott Alexander Howard’s debut The Other Valley , set in a town where its past and future versions exist in the next valleys over, and of Sofia Samatar’s space adventure The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain . So much to read, so little time…

A View from the Stars by Cixin Liu

This is a collection of short works from Liu, the sci-fi author of the moment thanks to Netflix’s new adaptation of The Three-Body Problem , ranging from essays and interviews to short fiction. I love this snippet from an essay about sci-fi fans, in which he calls us “mysterious aliens in the crowd”, who “jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core”. Aren’t we lucky to have such worlds available to us on our shelves?

3 Body Problem review: Cixin Liu's masterpiece arrives on Netflix

Cixin Liu's novel The Three-Body Problem has been turned into an eight-part series for Netflix by the Game of Thrones team. There is much to admire so far, but will the adaptation stay on track, wonders Bethan Ackerley

Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie

Leckie is a must-read writer for me, and this is the first complete collection of her short fiction, ranging across science fiction and fantasy. On the sci-fi side, we will be able to dip back into the Imperial Radch universe, and we are also promised that we’ll “learn the secrets of the mysterious Lake of Souls” in a brand-new novelette.

The Morningside by Téa Obreht

In a catastrophic version of the future, an 11-year-old girl arrives with her mother at The Morningside, once a luxury high-rise, now another crumbling part of Island City, which is half-underwater. Obreht won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 for her debut, The Tiger’s Wife .

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Samatar won all sorts of prizes for her first novel, A Stranger in Olondria . Her latest sounds really intriguing, following the story of a boy who has grown up condemned to work in the bowels of a mining ship among the stars, whose life changes when he is given the chance to be educated at the ship’s university.

A boy grows up working in a mining ship among the stars in The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain

D-Keine/Getty Images

Extinction by Douglas Preston

This is set in a valley in the Rockies, where guests at a luxury resort can see woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths and Irish elk brought back from extinction by genetic manipulation. But then a string of killings kicks off, and a pair of investigators must find out what’s really going on. This looks Jurassic Park -esque and seems like lots of fun. And if you want more mammoth-related reading, try my colleague Michael Le Page’s excellent explainer about why they won’t be back any time soon.

Mania by Lionel Shriver

The award-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin brings her thoughts about so-called “culture wars” to bear on her fiction, imagining a world where a “Mental Parity Movement” is in the ascendent, and “the worst thing you can call someone is ‘stupid’”.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

This speculative novel is set in a town where, to the east, lies the same town but 20 years ahead in time and, to the west, the same town but 20 years behind, repeating endlessly across the wilderness. The only border crossings allowed are for “mourning tours”, in which the dead can be seen in towns where they are still alive. Odile, who is 16, is set for a seat on the Conseil, where she will be able to decree who gets to travel across borders. I love the sound of this.

The best new science fiction books of March 2024

With a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mars-set romance from Natasha Pulley and a high-concept thriller from Stuart Turton due to hit shelves, there is plenty of great new science fiction to be reading in March

What If… Loki was Worthy? by Madeleine Roux

Many will question whether the Marvel superhero stories are really science fiction, but I’m leaning into the multiversal aspect here to include this, as it sounds like it could be a bit of fun. It’s the first in a new series that reimagines the origins of some of the biggest heroes: here, Thor died protecting Earth from one of Loki’s pranks and, exiled on our planet, the Norse trickster god is now dealing with the consequences.

The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi

The second book in the Forever Desert series is set 500 years after The Lies of the Ajungo , following a junior peacekeeper in the last remaining free city of the Forever Desert, which has been besieged for centuries. It was actually out in March, but I missed it then, so I’m bringing it to you now as it was tipped as a title to watch this year by our science fiction contributor Sally Adee.

Anomaly by Andrej Nikolaidis, translated by Will Firth

It is New Year’s Eve on the last day of the last year of human existence and various stories are unfolding, from a high-ranking minister with blood on his hands to a nurse keeping a secret. Later, in a cabin in the Alps, a musicologist and her daughter – the last people left on Earth – are trying to understand the catastrophe. According to The Independent , Nikolaidis “makes Samuel Beckett look positively cheery”, but I’m definitely in the mood for that kind of story now and then.

Martin MacInnes: 'Science fiction can be many different things'

The author of In Ascension, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, on why he wrote his novel, cultivating a sense of wonder and the role of fiction in the world today

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

In this techno-thriller, Mal is a free AI who is uninterested in the conflict going on between the humans, until he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary and becomes responsible for the safety of the girl she died protecting.

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2020’s ‘The Invisible Man’ Shows How All Horror Remakes Should Be Approached

Luckily for us, an upcoming slasher took this cue.

The Big Picture

• Leigh Whannell shifted focus to a fresh perspective, telling The Invisible Man through the eyes of Elisabeth Moss's character.
• Whannell's approach to horror remakes, focusing on different viewpoints, sets a standard for future adaptations.
• The upcoming slasher movie, In A Violent Nature , looks to also take a familiar formula and shift the focus to a new character.

Over the last two decades, Leigh Whannell has established himself as one of horror's greatest minds. We first got to know him after writing and starring in Saw , directed by James Wan , but he also wrote the first two Saw sequels , then reconnected with Wan to team up on Dead Silence , Insidious , and Insidious: Chapter 2 . He's a brilliant writer in the genre, but with that firmly established, it was time for Whannell to show that he could make a film himself. He directed Insidious: Chapter 3 and the highly underrated Upgrade , but in 2020 came his best film, The Invisible Man .

Making a reboot of such a classic film could've doomed Whannell, for James Whale 's 1933 version is one of horror's most important efforts, and Claude Rains created an iconic character. The reason why Whannell's vision ended up working so well is that he wasn't trying to recreate what Whale and Rains did. Sure, we have a villainous Invisible Man, played by The Haunting of Hill House 's Oliver Jackson-Cohen , but it's not his movie this time around. The 2020 Invisible Man finds its focus by telling the story of someone affected by the titular villain, his girlfriend , played perfectly by Elisabeth Moss . Whannell found a way to honor the original and bring a fresh take by telling a familiar story through a different pair of eyes. It's an approach all horror remakes and reboots should learn from going forward.

The Invisible Man (2020)

When Cecilia's abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.

James Whale's 'The Invisible Man' Was All About the Villain

Horror in the 1930s was all about the Universal monsters , such as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, and the Invisible Man. 1931's Dracula , starring Bela Lugosi , came first, followed by Boris Karloff playing the monster in Frankenstein , which released the same year. Both of these films changed the history of horror immediately, so with that pressure put on him, Frankenstein 's director, James Whale, then set his sights on The Invisible Man . This film is based on the 1897 H.G. Wells novel of the same name. Whale's movie is a mostly faithful adaptation of the book, following Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Griffin , who is made invisible through an experiment. While he tries to hide his invisibility by wearing sunglasses and wrapping his body in bandages, Griffin also takes advantage of his new power by stripping down and causing chaos . He becomes a murderous madman, only regretting his actions on his deathbed. It was a film whose themes focused on the price of power, all while wrapped up in some of the most awe-inspiring practical effects of the time.

Leigh Whannell's 'The Invisible Man' Shifts Focus to Elisabeth Moss' Character

The 2000s became the era of the horror remakes. Some worked, some didn't, but most didn't add much to the genre. Though the reboot fad was over, Universal attempted to bring back their monsters again and set up a movie universe in the 2010s with 2017's The Mummy . Even though it starred Tom Cruise , The Mummy was panned by critics, with just 15% approval on Rotten Tomatoes , and despite being a success internationally, it made only $80 million in the United States on a $125 million budget . With the idea of a Universal Monsters universe a bust from the get-go, the standalone reboot of The Invisible Man could have been a colossal dud if not for the fact that it was put in the hands of Leigh Whannell .

Whannell didn't go for the usual remake approach: telling the same story in the exact same way, changing only the setting and maybe a few characters here and there. What would be the point of that, except to cash in? Instead, Whannell stripped the story down to its bare bones, keeping the basic idea of a man who turns himself invisible going insane, but then redressing it as a new story made fresh by being told through the perspective of a different character. Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays the titular Invisible Man here, this time named Adrian Griffin, but the movie isn't about him . In fact, Jackson-Cohen is barely in it, and not just because most of the time his character is unable to be seen.

The Universal Horror Classic 'Abigail' Is Based On Was Ruined by the Hays Code

Whannell's The Invisible Man revolves around Cecilia "Cee" Kass (Moss), Griffin's girlfriend . Cee is stuck in an abusive relationship with Griffin, and desperate to get out of it, she drugs him one night and makes a run for it. Griffin is able to make himself invisible, however, not through a potion, but a special suit he wears. The rest of the film has him stalking Cee , watching her sleep, hiding in plain sight in her home, all while driving her slowly crazy. No one believes Cee when she tells them that an invisible ex-boyfriend is stalking her, one who isn't wildly chaotic like Rains' character was, but who internalizes his power, staying quiet and undetected until he attacks. By being told through a different point of view, it becomes a film about abuse, the Me Too movement, women not being believed, and a woman taking her power back from the man who stole it. That was quite different from just another simple monster movie that's been done a hundred times.

The 2020 Version of 'The Invisible Man' Showed How To Approach Horror Remakes

The 2020 The Invisible Man shows what horror remakes need to do to be effective. The fad failed and ended so quickly simply because there was no reason for most of them to exist While a film like Gus Van Sant 's remake of Psycho was a shot-for-shot remake purposely done that way , many reboots were nearly the same, not for the sake of experiment, but from sheer laziness and the desire to only want to make money off an existing IP . Some horror remakes at least tried, like 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , which switches things up a bit by adding R. Lee Ermey 's Sheriff character , someone so terrifying that you'd rather run into Leatherface. Still, it followed the same structure as the original, following a final girl as she is chased by a masked killer.

What if other horror movie remakes tried Whannell's approach? The 2010 version of A Nightmare on Elm Street is despised for many reasons , including that it's just a cheap clone of what came before. What if we didn't just follow Nancy all over again, though, but rather the movie had been told through, say, the eyes of her father, a man who doesn't believe his child but has to come to grips with reality and find a way to save her while also confronting the actions of his past? That would have taken a story we knew inside and out and turned it into an original vision. What if reboots of The Amityville Horror , The Omen , and so many more like them let the plot flow through another perspective? Would we remember them now instead of forgetting them after the opening weekend?

One new horror film has figured this out. This year's In a Violent Nature , written and directed by Chris Nash , while not a reboot of Friday the 13th , is about a hulking masked killer in the woods killing people. That's been done so many times that, unless you're a slasher junkie, there is no reason to care. In a Violent Nature knows this, which is why Nash decided to tell the story through the killer's point-of-view . Imagine watching a slasher that didn't focus on some cookie-cutter final girl or dumb jock, but followed Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees for the entire runtime. Nash's vision is so creative and fresh that critics have eaten it up. In a Violent Nature , a simple slasher movie, currently sits at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes , with critics taken in by the outside-the-box thinking. Hopefully, this approach is seen more in not only horror reboots, but those familiar stories whose outcomes we can easily predict before the opening credits roll. It's ironically Whannell himself again who can continue to show the way, as in 2025 he is set to have a new movie released, some little thing called Wolf Man .

The Invisible Man (2020) is available to stream for free in the U.S. on Amazon Freevee.

WATCH ON FREEVEE

In the Mood for April Fears: New Horror Books!

Emily Martin

Emily has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, MS, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from GCSU in Milledgeville, GA, home of Flannery O’Connor. She spends her free time reading, watching horror movies and musicals, cuddling cats, Instagramming pictures of cats, and blogging/podcasting about books with the ladies over at #BookSquadGoals (www.booksquadgoals.com). She can be reached at [email protected].

View All posts by Emily Martin

This month’s books include dark haunted forests, authoritarian trees, ancient vampires with violent vendettas, and abandoned planets where sinister secrets hide behind every corner. What’s more, we’re also getting heroines who face monsters and ghosts head-on, cruel games that get out of hand, vampire colonies reawakened, and searches into the self that dig up secrets best kept hidden. April also promises mysterious murders, supernatural happenings that shed light on real-life horrors, new events that bring up old traumas, and plenty of generational trauma. (It is horror, after all…that’s kind of how we roll in this genre.)

The horror hits, they just keep coming, and here are nine horror reads you’re not going to want to miss out on this month. If fear is what you came for, these books will keep you shaking underneath your sheets all month long. Happy reading, horror fiends!

The Black Girl Survives in This One , edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell (Flatiron Books, April 2)

It’s no secret that Black characters are often vulnerable in traditional horror stories. But not this time. In this collection of YA horror stories, Black girls battle horrors both real and supernatural, and, yes, they survive to tell the tale. This collection includes stories from Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maika & Maritza Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado. We also get a foreword by Tananarive Due.

This Skin Was Once Mine: And Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca (Titan Books, April 2)

Eric LaRocca has quickly become a must-read for any horror fan who loves quick and dirty horror that isn’t afraid to get weird and wild and, yeah, also a little disgusting. This new collection includes four new horror stories from the Splatterpunk Award-winning author. That includes the title story “This Skin Was Once Mine,” in which a woman comes to terms with the dark secrets that will change everything she thought she knew about her late father.

The Gathering by C. J. Tudor (Ballantine Books, April 9)

The weather might start warming up in April, but this latest novel from C. J. Tudor, author of The Chalk Man , is sure to make you shiver. You know, because it’s set in Alaska. But also, it’s scary. When a young boy is found dead and all the blood drained from his body, the citizens of the small Alaskan town Deadhart know what happened to him. And who was responsible. A death like this hasn’t occurred in the past 25 years, but everyone knows about the Colony, a community of vampyrs living deep in the woods.

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes (Tor Nightfire, April 9)

April is also bringing horror fans a new one from S.A. Barnes, the author of Dead Silence . This new horror sci-fi mash-up is set on an abandoned planet. Here, psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray will establish residency with a small exploration crew. Ophelia hopes to help the crew recover from the recent loss of their colleague, who died under tragic circumstances. But not long after the group arrives on the planet, it becomes clear to Ophelia that the crew is hiding something. They seem uninterested in opening up to Ophelia about what happened, instead spending their days exploring this strange and mysterious planet. Then, their pilot is violently murdered, and despite the lack of trust amongst the group, they must now all work together to figure out what happened.

Myrrh by Polly Hall (Titan Books, April 9)

If you enjoy Eric LaRocca’s disturbing brand of horror and the mind-bending works of Catriona Ward, pick up Myrrh on April 9. This is a story of two women; Myrrh is desperately searching for her birth parents in the seaside towns of South England. But Myrrh’s search is frustratingly difficult, and with every new roadblock, the goblin growing inside her threatens to explode. Meanwhile, Cayenne is stuck in a loveless marriage and longs for a child. As she sees her husband grow closer with his own daughter — her stepdaughter — desperations cause her to make a decision that will change their lives forever.

Immortal Pleasures by V. Castro (Del Rey, April 16)

From V. Castro, the author of  The Haunting of Alejandra , comes a horrifying new tale of an ancient Aztec vampire who travels the modern world avenging conquered peoples, reclaiming their stolen artifacts and returning them to their homelands. Malinalli’s travels take her to Dublin, where she searches for stolen Aztec skulls that are connected to her own past. But in this city, she finds something unexpected — two mortal men who speak to Malinalli’s other desires in different ways.

Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina (Berkley, April 16)

If I could describe Indian Burial Ground in one would, it would be “eerie.” Want more words? Here’s what’s happening. Noemi Broussard longs to leave the reservation she grew up on behind, but her plans are dashed when her boyfriend, Roddy, dies under mysterious circumstances. Everyone assumes it was a suicide, but to Noemi, the story just isn’t adding up. Something strange is happening on the reservation, and Noemi is determined to get to the bottom of it, no matter how terrifying the truth may be.

Weird Black Girls by Elwin Cotman (Scribner, April 16)

From Philip K. Dick Award finalist Elwin Cotman comes a thought-provoking short story collection that explores the horrors of living in the world as a Black person. These seven literary horror stories call upon the fantastical and the supernatural to explore the very real fears and anxieties of being Black in our contemporary world. From a town controlled by a violent tree that punishes children to a day of LARPing that takes a surprising turn, these inventive stories will definitely surprise you.

All Thing Seen and Unseen by RJ McDaniel (ECW Press, April 23)

Last but certainly not least, rounding out April is a debut queer horror novel from RJ McDaniel. The story follows Alex Nguyen, a chronically ill college student whose life is quickly unraveling. Following a recent suicide attempt and a long hospitalization, Alex finds herself without a job, without a romantic relationship, without money to pay for school, and without a place to live. Then she’s offered a lifeline in the form of a job housesitting for the summer at a mansion on a gulf island. But the mansion — surrounded by a mysterious (and possibly magic) forest and an unsettling, insular community — brings back traumatic memories Alex has long repressed.

As always, you can find a full list of new releases in the magical New Release Index , carefully curated by your favorite Book Riot editors, organized by genre and release date.

Want even more horror to keep you scared all year round? Be sure to subscribe to T he Fright Stuff for weekly scares. Let’s stay creepy!

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The New York Times

Books | a gruesome parade of new horror fiction, a gruesome parade of new horror fiction.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES MAY 23, 2019

In these novels and stories, the Donner party gets a ghastly reimagining, infant twins are possessed by evil and vermin mutate at a garbage dump.

• The Hunger by Alma Katsu
• Little Darlings by Melanie Golding
• Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson
• The Nest by Gregory A. Douglas
• When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom
• The Laws of the Skies by Grégoire Courtois
• Inspection by Josh Malerman
• Flight or Fright edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent

By DANIELLE TRUSSONI MAY 23, 2019

There’s nothing quite like summer to make me long for horror fiction. I can’t say why, but on hot and bright afternoons, when the sky is cerulean and the air thick with the scent of cut grass, my imagination bends toward shadowy spaces. So it’s no surprise that, when I’m piling up books for summer reading, my choices veer to the dark side.

Related Articles

Spine-Chilling and Flesh-Crawling: The Latest Horror Fiction

By Danielle Trussoni

The Book That Terrified Neil Gaiman. And Carmen Maria Machado. And Dan Simmons.

• Browse by categories:

Historical Fiction

The great outdoors, seven twisty summer new thrillers.

Ranging through the latest suspense novels are teen killers, abducted children, obsessive friends and even a man with who owns a “liquid cremation machine.”

• Cari Mora by Thomas Harris
• Beyond All Reasonable Doubt by Malin Persson Giolito
• A Nearly Normal Family by M.T. Edvardsson
• All the Lost Things by Michelle Sacks
• Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik
• The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora
• Temper by Layne Fargo

By VANESSA FRIEDMAN MAY 23, 2019

It is perhaps not a major publishing plot twist that, almost two years after the #MeToo movement burst into public consciousness and began to change the conversation around gender, power and who gets a seat at what table; a year and a half after women in pop culture, sports and Hollywood began speaking up about equal opportunity; and at a time when there are more women in Congress than ever before, proving they can be just as belligerent and forceful as their male colleagues, the traditionally male-dominated world of the thriller has been ceding ground to a different kind of hero(ine).

For so long, after all, the most chart-busting thriller novels were the province of the robotic but moral special ops guy, the dissolute unshaven detective, the beefy brawler with a soul. For so long the ads in the subways and in newspapers touted boldface names like Jack Reacher, Gabriel Allon and Harry Bosch. Even J.K. Rowling adopted a male pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, to write her post-Potter adult thriller series, which centers on a disabled male private eye called Cormoran Strike.

A Cannibal, a Dead Viscount and a Case of Stolen Sand

By Marilyn Stasio

The Cracking of a Cold, Cold Case

By Robert Kolker

New Travel Books Take Journeys on Foot, by Boat and Train, Even Dogsled

Our roundup bounces from Alaska to Hawaii, all of Russia and some of the lost land of Lotharingia, and celebrates two favorite destinations, Italy and France.

• Seven at Sea by Erik Orton and Emily Orton
• The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
• This Much Country by Kristin Knight Pace
• In Putin's Footsteps by Nina Khruscheva and Jeffrey Tayler
• Lotharingia by Simon Winder
• Ottoman Odyssey by Alev Scott
• Volcanoes, Palm Trees and Privilege by Liz Prato
• Pagan Light by Jamie James
• See You in the Piazza by Frances Mayes
• Off the Rails by Beppe Severgnini
• Monsieur Mediocre by John von Sothen
• A Year in Paris by John Baxter

By LIESL SCHILLINGER MAY 23, 2019

What do you need to know about the places you’re going? A dozen new books answer this question in strikingly idiosyncratic ways, wreathing their authors’ wanderings in vivid back story — sometimes emotional, sometimes empirical, sometimes imperial — enveloping the reader in a kind of legible Sensurround. These books ought to come with 3-D glasses and a soundtrack.

Five years ago, the Manhattanites Erik and Emily Orton, beleaguered but buoyant parents of five children between the ages of 6 and 16, hadn’t even plotted an itinerary when they bought a 38-foot catamaran (sight unseen), flew to a Caribbean harbor and set sail on a Swiss-Family-Robinson-style adventure. “Based on our best budgeting,” Erik calculated, “we’d saved enough money to sail for a year. After that we’d be broke.” Like her husband, Emily wanted to “pursue a dream so big there was room for my whole family” before their eldest left for college. Their time on the boat would be that dream. Where would they go? They didn’t know, but their shipboard byword became, “It will emerge.” In SEVEN AT SEA: Why a New York City Family Cast Off Convention for a Life-Changing Year on a Sailboat (Shadow Mountain, $27.99), husband and wife take turns narrating the story of their voyage, chronicling the crests and troughs of their seaborne experience. Five months in, anchored in Virgin Gorda Sound, they woke to “the blue and green water rolling past, the sun coming up in the east, the trade-wind breeze cooling the morning, the flag flapping.” Where would they go next? Anegada? Tortola? Puerto Rico? It would emerge.

Where to Have Your Existential Crisis: Ann Arbor or Rome?

By Erica Wagner

Two Thai Novelists Explore Bangkok’s Swirl of Remembering and Forgetting

By Hannah Beech

Sports Books on Everything From Architecture to Bicycles

A selection of six of this season’s books about sports covers a surprisingly wide range of topics.

• Ballpark by Paul Goldberger
• When the Crowd Didn't Roar by Kevin Cowherd
• The World's Fastest Man by Michael Kranish
• The Cost of These Dreams by Wright Thompson
• The Great American Sports Page edited by John Schulian
• Sprawlball by Kirk Goldsberry

By JOHN SWANSBURG MAY 23, 2019

The baseball park is a peculiar space. As Paul Goldberger allows in BALLPARK: Baseball in the American City (Knopf, $35) , “most of the best ballparks have not, in fact, been particularly memorable pieces of architecture by any formal standard.” In 1911, when the 37-year-old James McLaughlin was commissioned to design one, he had never worked on such a structure before, and never would again. “If he knew of Frank Lloyd Wright and other modernist architects who were beginning to challenge traditional ways of designing buildings,” Goldberger writes, “he probably did not agree with them.” The project this unadventurous soul undertook would be known as Fenway Park.

Martin F. Nolan, a reporter at The Boston Globe, later described the home of the Red Sox as “a crazy-quilt violation of city planning principles” and “an irregular pile of architecture.” These were meant as compliments. What McLaughlin’s design lacked in formal grandeur, it made up for in what Goldberger describes as its “benign quirkiness”: the ad hoc arrangement of its grandstands, its famously shallow left field.

A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches

By Ada Calhoun

A Dark Fairy Tale of American Oddballs and Candlepin Bowling

By Cathleen Schine

A New Crop of True-Crime Stories to Read Under the Sun

Marilyn Stasio rounds up the season’s new real-life thrillers, featuring Jack the Ripper, a beheaded lord, a bad girl from Brooklyn and Mexican murders.

• Murder by the Book by Claire Harman
• Where Monsters Hide by M. William Phelps
• City of Omens by Dan Werb
• The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
• The Belle of Bedford Avenue by Virginia A. McConnell
• Norco '80 by Peter Houlahan

By MARILYN STASIO MAY 23, 2019

Don’t let anyone tell you that a preoccupation with real-life murders and murderers is morbid. Morbid is dashing off to Paris every other week to gape at the corpses on public display at the city morgue, which is what Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins did for fun. Morbid is expecting an entire nation to wear black because you are personally in deepest mourning, which is what Queen Victoria did when her beloved Prince Albert died. Morbid is collecting 19th-century deathbed portraits — although I doubt those half-dozen vintage photos on my desk constitute a “collection.”

Speaking of Queen Victoria, she was scandalized by the violent death of Lord William Russell, as recounted by Claire Harman in MURDER BY THE BOOK: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London (Knopf, $26.95). “This is really too horrid!” the young monarch reportedly wrote in her diary about the events of May 6, 1840. “It is almost an unparalleled thing for a person of Ld William’s rank, to be killed like that,” she remarked, referring to the manner of his death. As Harman reports it: “His throat cut so deeply that the windpipe was sliced right through and the head almost severed.”

The True-Crime Story That Harper Lee Tried and Failed to Write

By Michael Lewis

‘Say Nothing’ — Part History, Part True Crime — Illuminates the Bitter Conflict in Northern Ireland

By Roddy Doyle

From L.A. Punk to Staten Island Hip-Hop: The Season’s Best Music Books

James Parker also reviews two books about CSNY, an account of William Burroughs’s enduring importance to musicians and a much needed oral history of Joy Division.

• William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'N' Roll by Casey Rae
• This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else by Jon Savage
• More Fun in the New World by John Doe with Tom DeSavia
• CSNY by Peter Doggett
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young by David Browne
• Chamber Music by Will Ashon

By JAMES PARKER MAY 23, 2019

Kurt Cobain revered him, as did David Bowie. To Patti Smith he was “up there with the pope.” Bob Dylan, gushing about him to his friend Allen Ginsberg, said, “Tell him I’ve been reading him and that I believe every word he says.” Iggy Pop put him in a Stooges song. And Jello Biafra, of the Dead Kennedys, used his methods to help him write lyrics.

Yes, across the rock ’n’ roll generations, they all loved William Burroughs. For the pre-punks and the punks and the post-punks, he was the literary man of choice. And Burroughs, after his fashion, loved them back. Creakingly he conferred his presence upon them — his mind like a rustling of locusts, his antique courtesies and his psychotic-futuristic worldview. When the Sex Pistols got into hot water over their single “God Save the Queen,” he wrote them an encouraging letter.

By the Book: Ani DiFranco

Run-DMC, Aerosmith and the Song That Changed Everything

By Baz Dreisinger

Wartime Secrets and Intrigue, From the Hotel Ritz to the London Blitz

Life at the Parisian hotel during the Nazi occupation, a missing woman during the Blitz and the sad career of Stalin’s only daughter are among the subjects of these new historical novels.

• The Daughter's Tale by Lucas Correa
• Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin
• The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan
• A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum
• The Red Daughter by John Burhham Schwartz
• American Princess by Stephanie Marie Thornton
• Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland

By SUSAN ELLINGWOOD MAY 23, 2019

Novels set during World War II can seem dismayingly similar: Families are separated, dangerous missions are undertaken, friends disappear. The books may be engrossing but the formulaic plots sometimes leave a reader wanting an unexpected twist.

Armando Lucas Correa’s THE DAUGHTER’S TALE (Atria, $27) inventively satisfies that want. What’s more, it’s better written and more tightly edited than most books in this genre, and the story line is breathtakingly threaded together from start to finish with the sound of a beating heart. Or more to the point, the silence between the heartbeats.

G. Willow Wilson Reimagines the Last Days of Moorish Spain

By Emily Barton

Cynthia Ozick Reviews Julie Orringer’s ‘The Flight Portfolio’

By Cynthia Ozick

New Cookbooks to Discover, and Two Classics to Celebrate

This spring’s offerings go global, from Vietnam to Palestine, Mexico City to Istanbul, then circle back to the beloved work of Maida Heatter and Edna Lewis.

• Zaitoun by Yasmin Khan
• Black Sea by Caroline Eden
• My Mexico City Kitchen by Gabriela Cámara
• Indian(-ish) by Priya Krishna
• Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen
• The Modern Cook's Year by Anna Jones
• Love & Lemons Every Day by Jeanine Donofrio
• Franklin Steak by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay
• Simple Cake by Odette Williams
• Dappled by Nicole Rucker
• Happiness is Baking by Maida Heatter
• In Pursuit of Flavor by Edna Lewis with Mary Goodbody

By CHRISTINE MUHLKE MAY 23, 2019

Spring and summer cookbooks are different from their fall and winter siblings, the big-name ones who get all the airtime. The authors’ names might be new, but their voices are strong and independent. They remind me of how the legendary cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey , speaking at the recent women’s food conference Cherry Bombe Jubilee , described her childhood: Because she was a girl, and since her sister was prettier, her parents let her run wild to satisfy her creative curiosity, thereby allowing her to become the significant person she is today. And so, as I read and cooked through this season’s assortment of outliers, I was thrilled to get to know so many bright minds and brilliant palates, to be introduced to cultures and techniques that hadn’t been front-burnered in my kitchen.

Israeli food has been celebrated since Yotam Ottolenghi came on the scene over a decade ago. The culinary traditions of Palestine? Not so much. While working on a human rights campaign in Israel’s West Bank in 2009, Yasmin Khan found that the difficulty of the days spent in refugee camps relented at night when she was welcomed to local tables to sample bowls of thick hummus and smoky eggplant spiked with peppery olive oil, vibrant herb salads and fresh, sharply flavorful dishes — so flavorful that they lured Khan from her home in London back to Israel and the West Bank to learn more about the recipes and realities of life for the millions of Palestinians living there, not to mention the millions who make up the world’s largest refugee population. ZAITOUN: Recipes From the Palestinian Kitchen (Norton, $29.95 ) is valuable not just for the dishes Khan learned from local women and translated from restaurant meals — be they a warm salad of maftoul (a plump kind of couscous) with za’atar chicken, Gazan lentils with Swiss chard and tahini, or turnovers made from a very forgiving yogurt-enriched dough and stuffed with spinach, feta, pine nuts and sumac — but for the heartfelt portrait she so deftly paints of this shattered but resilient region.

To Nosh or Not to Nosh: An Immigrant’s Dilemma

By Max Watman

Ruth Reichl Dishes on the Last Days of Gourmet Magazine

By Kate Betts

In and Out of the Garden: Books That Celebrate the Great Outdoors

Dominique Browning surveys guides to trees, butterflies and a bounty of blooms, aiming to persuade us to become, as one author puts it, “good creatures.”

• A Way to Garden by Margaret Roach
• The Kitchen Garden by Alan Buckingham
• Pruning Simplified by Steven Bradley
• Beginner Gardening Step by Step
• Wings in the Light by David Lee Myers
• The Tree Book by Michael A. Dirr and Keith S. Warren
• The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
• The Secret Wisdom of Nature by Peter Wohlleben
• Sprout Lands by William Bryant Logan
• How to be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery

By DOMINIQUE BROWNING MAY 23, 2019

I was recently honored with an introduction to a beguiling new baby; her name is Selah, a mysterious Hebrew word that appears mostly in the Psalms. “Selah” is considered untranslatable. Perhaps it’s a musical notation, calling for a break in the singing of those gorgeous sacred songs, or it could be an invitation for instruments to join in; it might also relay an emphatic amen, a “forever,” or be an exclamation of praise. Whatever its meaning, it seems to invite a pause — to open up a space for the contemplation of what lingers in the air.

The word “selah” was on my mind as I pored over the season’s gardening books, each one of which, in its own way, exhorts the reader to stop and reflect on what happens when we put ourselves back into the natural world. Margaret Roach describes such moments of joy, refreshment and wonder in the indispensable A WAY TO GARDEN: A Hands-On Primer for Every Season (Timber, $30), a rewritten edition of a book she first published 21 years ago about her garden in the Hudson Valley. Roach’s approach is a combination, as she puts it, of “know-how and woo-woo”; she lives surrounded by “life buzzing to the maximum and also the deepest stillness.”

Barry Lopez Travels to the Ends of the Earth, Seeking Glimmers of Hope

By Hillary Rosner

Two New Books Dramatically Capture the Climate Change Crisis

By John Lanchester

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram , sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .

Illustrations by Nishant Choksi. Art direction by Matthew Dorfman. Designed and produced by Aliza Aufrichtig.

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Winners Announced for Critics Choice Super Awards, Honoring Best in Superhero, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, & Action!

The winners have been announced for the 2024 Critics Choice Super Awards !

The Critics Choice Association honors the best in Superhero, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Horror, and Action movies and television.

The Last of Us leads the television winners, sweeping all seven categories for which it was nominated. In the film categories, Godzilla Minus One , Mission: Impossible – Dead Recknoning , Poor Things , and Talk to Me all received two wins each.

There was some controversy when nominations were announced as the drama film All Of Us Strangers was nominated in horror categories, which many fans didn’t think was correct.

Head inside to check out the full winners list…

Keep reading to see the full list of winners…

FILM NOMINATIONS FOR THE 4TH ANNUAL CRITICS CHOICE SUPER AWARDS

BEST ACTION MOVIE

Extraction 2

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

John Wick: Chapter 4 – WINNER

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE

Tom Cruise – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – WINNER

Chris Hemsworth – Extraction 2

Keanu Reeves – John Wick: Chapter 4

Denzel Washington – The Equalizer 3

Donnie Yen – John Wick: Chapter 4

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE

Hayley Atwell – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

Rebecca Ferguson – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – WINNER

Priya Kansara – Polite Society

Pom Klementieff – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

Rina Sawayama – John Wick: Chapter 4

BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE*

Blue Beetle

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – WINNER

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPERHERO MOVIE*

Bradley Cooper – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Taron Egerton – Tetris

Michael Fassbender – The Killer – WINNER

Xolo Maridueña – Blue Beetle

Shameik Moore – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPERHERO MOVIE*

Ayo Edebiri – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Chloë Grace Moretz – Nimona

Zoe Saldaña – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Hailee Steinfeld – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Iman Vellani – The Marvels – WINNER

BEST HORROR MOVIE

Evil Dead Rise

Talk to Me – WINNER

When Evil Lurks

BEST ACTOR IN A HORROR MOVIE

Dave Bautista – Knock at the Cabin

Tobin Bell – Saw X

Nicolas Cage – Dream Scenario – WINNER

Joaquin Phoenix – Beau Is Afraid

Andrew Scott – All of Us Strangers

BEST ACTRESS IN A HORROR MOVIE

Amie Donald and Jenna Davis – M3GAN

Mia Goth – Infinity Pool

Jenna Ortega – Scream VI

Alyssa Sutherland – Evil Dead Rise

Sophie Wilde – Talk to Me – WINNER

BEST SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY MOVIE

Asteroid City

The Boy and the Heron

The Creator

Godzilla Minus One – WINNER

Poor Things

BEST ACTOR IN A SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY MOVIE

Timothée Chalamet – Wonka

Willem Dafoe – Poor Things

Ryunosuke Kamiki – Godzilla Minus One

Chris Pine – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things – WINNER

BEST ACTRESS IN A SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY MOVIE

Olivia Colman – Wonka

Kaitlyn Dever – No One Will Save You

Minami Hamabe – Godzilla Minus One

Emma Stone – Poor Things – WINNER

Madeleine Yuna Voyles – The Creator

BEST VILLAIN IN A MOVIE

Godzilla – Godzilla Minus One – WINNER

Chukwudi Iwuji – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

M3GAN – M3GAN

Jason Momoa – Fast X

* Superhero categories also include Comic Book and Video Game Inspired movies

TELEVISION NOMINATIONS FOR THE 4TH ANNUAL CRITICS CHOICE SUPER AWARDS

BEST ACTION SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Fire Country

The Night Agent

Obliterated

Reacher – WINNER

Special Ops: Lioness

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Gabriel Basso – The Night Agent

Idris Elba – Hijack – WINNER

Andrew Koji – Warrior

John Krasinski – Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan

Rob Lowe – 9-1-1: Lone Star

Alan Ritchson – Reacher

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Angela Bassett – 9-1-1

Luciane Buchanan – The Night Agent

Priyanka Chopra Jonas – Citadel

Queen Latifah – The Equalizer

Zoe Saldaña – Special Ops: Lioness – WINNER

Maria Sten – Reacher

BEST SUPERHERO SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE*

American Born Chinese

The Last of Us – WINNER

Superman & Lois

The Walking Dead: Dead City

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPERHERO SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE*

Matt Bomer – Doom Patrol

Tom Hiddleston – Loki

Jeffrey Dean Morgan – The Walking Dead: Dead City

Pedro Pascal – The Last of Us – WINNER

Ke Huy Quan – Loki

Ben Wang – American Born Chinese

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPERHERO SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE*

Lizze Broadway – Gen V

Rosario Dawson – Ahsoka

Sophia Di Martino – Loki

Bella Ramsey – The Last of Us – WINNER

Jaz Sinclair – Gen V

Michelle Yeoh – American Born Chinese

BEST HORROR SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

The Fall of the House of Usher

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

What We Do in the Shadows

Yellowjackets

BEST ACTOR IN A HORROR SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Zach Gilford – The Fall of the House of Usher

Bruce Greenwood – The Fall of the House of Usher

Brandon Scott Jones – Ghosts

Norman Reedus – The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

BEST ACTRESS IN A HORROR SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Dominique Fishback – Swarm

Carla Gugino – The Fall of the House of Usher

Melanie Lynskey – Yellowjackets

Justina Machado – The Horror of Dolores Roach

Rose McIver – Ghosts

BEST SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful – WINNER

Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials

For All Mankind

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

BEST ACTOR IN A SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Ncuti Gatwa – Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials

Jharrel Jerome – I’m a Virgo – WINNER (TIE)

Anson Mount – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Kurt Russell – Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – WINNER (TIE)

Todd Stashwick – Star Trek: Picard

Patrick Stewart – Star Trek: Picard

BEST ACTRESS IN A SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Betty Gilpin – Mrs. Davis

Celia Rose Gooding – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Annie Murphy – Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful – WINNER

Jeri Ryan – Star Trek: Picard

BEST VILLAIN IN A SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

Neil Patrick Harris – Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials

Melanie Lynskey – The Last of Us – WINNER

Mary McDonnell – The Fall of the House of Usher

Lars Mikkelsen – Ahsoka

Amanda Plummer – Star Trek: Picard

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