Happy Halloween from This Place Scares Us!

Happy Halloween, kitty cats!  Here are a few things that scare us, some from past episodes, some from THE FUTURE (!), and some ... eh, they're freaky. 

Yick.  The poor dead girl from the opening of It Follows, the subject of our premiere episode (click here to listen!).  This is only one of many reasons you shouldn't wear high heels to the beach.

Ol' shaggy, the subject of Stephen King's Silver Bullet, who is definitely a werewolf and not some kind of angry hell bear.

Who is this fanged fiend and why isn't the blood of the innocent keeping him forever young?  Find out in Episode 7, forthcoming ...

What horrible thing lurks at the threshold of Theodora's bedroom?  Ask Shirley Jackson, the mistress of the macabre and the author of The Haunting of Hill House as well as "The Lottery", the subject of Episode 2. 

You'll like Mr. Barlow ... and he'll like you.  (We'll cover 'Salem's Lot, I promise.)

And a little hint about our forthcoming episode, debuting November 12th ...

Clinkies!

Episode 2: The Lottery Scares Us

Our second episode (click here to listen!) focused on the horrors of Shirley Jackson's classic short story "The Lottery", a world where your friends and neighbors will happily stone you to death (with real stones!) so long as they're not the ones on the receiving end of said stones. 

Jackson is known for creating a claustrophobic sense of dread within her stories, often focusing on women whose sense of identity disintegrates, sometimes right out there in the daylight, or in otherwise perfectly ordinary circumstances.

I'm a huge fan of Jackson, as, if you've been listening, you know by now, and part of the fun of being a Jackson fan is collecting the variety of editions of her work.  Here's a sampling of the different covers in Shirley Jackson's oeuvre:  

The Popular Library editions, which are among my favorites, because the covers are so expressive, or in the case of The Bird's Nest, just so damned weird.

One of my holy grails, the original cover art for The Haunting of Hill House, my favorite of Jackson's novels, and probably my favorite novel of all time.

Amazing cover art for the first paperback edition of Jackson's final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle.  I'd love a poster of this someday.

And finally, speaking of The Lottery, here is the beautiful edition I finally acquired last summer. 

Episode 5: Cycle of the Werewolf Scares Us

Here are a few of the Bernie Wrightson illustrations from Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, which Katya and I discuss in Episode 5.  Click on the link to listen!

Above is the illustration for January, the picture I define during the episode as the one that scared the hell out of me the most (they were all pretty freaky, to be honest).  Look at the teeth on that thing!  It's like it's smiling at you .. right before it decapitates your sorry ass!

April:  the chapter that freaked out Ms. Katya so much, and also the one that proves that werewolves are dicks.

August:  this is why the law is so ineffective in Tarker's Mills. Shoddy, shoddy work, Constable Neary.

And December:  werewolf bum.

Ah, heck.  Here's all the illustrations:  enjoy!

This Place Scares Us ... Inaugural Post!

We decided to create this blog to augment our podcast, This Place Scares Us, where my friend Katya and I (Dr. Laramie Dean) dissect the creepy scaries every other Sunday.  Currently I'm listening to the 5th episode for the first time, wherein we discuss Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, which is as frightening visually as it is textually, and I was inspired to create this blog for you to see the creepy scaries as well as hear about them.

Let's start with a photo my very talented husband took when we were last visiting my folks in Eastern Montana ... because Eastern Montana scares us!