Horror Joy is a podcast by two university professors who take a deep dive into horror in hopes of finding joy lurking in the shadows.

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Brian and Jeff continue their camp horror series with Charlie Polinger’s 2025 film The Plague, set at a 2003 summer water polo camp where the central terror is not a slasher but toxic masculinity, bullying, and an ambiguous “plague” used to create in-groups and out-groups. They discuss how the plague functions as scapegoating and surveillance, how Ben (a new kid with a speech impediment) and eccentric Eli become targets, and how Jake’s bully leadership reflects power dynamics and absent/ineffective adults, including counselor “Daddy Wags” (Joel Edgerton). Finally, Brian and Jeff discuss the film’s dread-filled underwater cinematography, minimalist score, and ending centered on Ben’s blood-soaked, frenetic dance in addition to some discussions of broader plague narratives. And of course, they discuss joy.

The Plague (2025) - Summer Camp (Slasher) 3

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Brian and Jeff interview Glasgow-based award-winning writer, editor, and musician Neil Williamson about the relationship between horror and joy..Neil frames horror as the fun of “relishing the darkness” through traditions like Halloween and campy horror. Williamson recounts his path into writing via lyric-writing in a teenage band and into horror through the UK’s Carry On Screaming, Universal monster films, and authors like Stephen King, James Herbert, and Ramsey Campbell. They discuss Neil&#39;s BSFA-winning anthology Blood and the Bricks, and how he has reworked folk-horror tropes by relocating isolation, insular communities, and mythology into urban settings. This move was influenced by his novella Charlie Says and UK public information films, Cold War fears, and post-Brexit political shifts. The conversation also touches on contemporary surveillance anxieties, highlights stories such as “Dance Macabre” and “Hagstone,” and ends with Williamson’s recent horror-joy recommendations.

Neil Williamson on Meet Your Maker

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Brian Onishi and Jeff Stoyanoff continue their summer camp slasher theme with 1983’s Sleepaway CampThey are joined by guests Jo Vallese (editor of It Came From the Closet) and T (Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies), and frame the film through queer horror, trans horror, and the queer concept of camp. They discuss the film’s shift from idyllic opening to tragedy, its child and teen cruelty, predatory cook, and boundary violations, and how its notorious ending positions Angela as both killer and “final girl,” raising questions about identity, consent, and whether Angela’s gender is self-determined or imposed by Aunt Martha. The panel explores reclamation and rehabilitation, audience reactions (including a NYU screening with trans and nonbinary students), the Reagan-era backdrop, a gay male gaze reading via Viet Dien’s Sontag-inspired essay, and how the film differs from Friday the 13th through accidental camp, queer rage debates, failures of adult authority, and unusual violence against children. Dont&#39; worry, they find joy too.

Sleepaway Camp - Summer Camp Slasher 2 (with Joe Vallese and S. Trimble)

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Horror Joy: Meet Your Maker with Kailee Pedersen Brian interviews horror writer and opera singer Kailee Pedersen on Meet Your Maker about the relationship between horror and joy, which Pedersen links to the genre’s transgressive freedom, including psychological unsettlement and marginalized protagonists. Pedersen discusses her writing origins (starting seriously at 13, early Neopets fan fiction, and supportive teachers), her path from poetry and creative nonfiction to novels, and how horror “found” her through an interest in uncomfortable, suppressed aspects of human psychology. They talk about her books Pastorale, Sacrificial Animals, and The Minimalist, including how The Minimalist draws heavily from real experiences in classical music: pressure, failure, mental health, suicide, racialization, antisemitism, and homophobia. They explore trauma-based “haunting,” genre as marketing, first-person narration, prepared piano references, and Pedersen’s current horror joy in playing Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPGs.Pre-order Kailee&#39;s book, The Minimalist, which is out August 18th on St. Martin&#39;s Press.<a href="https://kaileepedersen.com/the-minimalist/" rel="nofollow">https://kaileepedersen.com/the-minimalist/</a>

Kailee Pedersen on Meet Your Maker

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Brian and Jeff return from a July hiatus for a Horror Joy series on summer camp slashers, beginning with Friday the 13th (1980).Their discussion focuses on sexuality, gender roles, and moral judgment, the absence of adult authority and supervision, and how the camp functions as a microcosm for late-1970s/early-1980s anxiety around Reagan-era politics and youth economic prospects, drawing on Kara M. Kvaran’s socioeconomic analysis and related scholarship.They end by sharing joys of slasher nostalgia, pre-cellphone disconnection, practical effects, and invite listeners to email about a possible Discord.

Friday the 13th - Summer Camp Slasher

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Brian and Jeff are joined for a special episode of Meet Your Maker by Spider One and Krsy Fox to discuss their upcoming film Big Baby (VOD August 7) and the relationship between joy and horror. Spider and Krsy trace their creative paths from small-town upbringings through music, acting, and songwriting into filmmaking, emphasizing that making your own work overcomes industry gatekeeping. They explain how Big Baby’s writer protagonist reflects frustrations with disposable modern criticism and explores storytelling’s power and responsibility, including a meta take on the author/filmmaker as a kind of slasher. They detail designing the original Big Baby mask with Little Shop of Gore, balancing gore with psychological thriller elements, and maintaining safety and a supportive “family” set culture. They tease possible Big Baby 2 and cite revisiting the Evil Dead series with their horror-loving daughter as current joy.

Spider One and Krsy Fox on Meet Your Maker

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On Horror Joy, Jeff is joined by author Michael Boulerice about his novella Inhalation (released June 16). Boulerice shares his origin story—writing nonfiction essays online before shifting to horror 4–5 years ago with help from developmental editor Alex Woodrow—leading to short-story sales and publishing with Dead Sky (including Feeding the Wheel). Michael and Jeff discuss why haunted house stories endure as fears of a corrupted safe space, then talk spoiler-light about Inhalation’s decaying home, Catholic family dynamics, weaponized belief, and Alice in Wonderland’s Caterpillar as cosmic-horror inspiration tied to Boulerice’s late father-in-law, whom the book tributes. ﻿Boulerice previews a themed collection, Ether’s Wood Elementary Primer (summer 2027), plus novels in progress, and cites recent joys like Widow’s Bay, Beyond the Walls, The Backrooms, and the film Human Lanterns.

Michael Boulerice on Meet Your Maker

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Jeff hosts a solo episode of Horror Joy: Meet Your Maker with author Amy Jane Stewart, who grew up in Edinburgh, lives in the Scottish Borders, and whose debut novel Hex House (Titan Books) is a feminist horror fairy tale released spring 2026. She is also completing a University of Sheffield PhD on winged women and received Creative Scotland funding in 2023. Stewart describes horror’s connection to joy through nostalgia for boundary-pushing media, the welcoming horror community, and horror as a safe space to explore big feelings and loss of control. She recounts deciding at 26 to pursue publication, facing rejections, finding her voice in creepy short fiction during an MA at York St John, and ultimately signing with an agent and a 2024 book deal, with Hex House blending fantasy and gothic horror. They discuss genre boundaries, haunted houses as subversions of home and trauma, Hex House’s dual perspectives (Ellie and Siobhan), and Stewart’s next dark-academia horror novel, plus recommendations including The Lamb, The Brides, and The Memory Tree.

Amy Jane Stewart on Meet Your Maker

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Jeff interviews horror author Josh Hanson (King’s Hill, The Woodcutters, Fortress, Marshbank, Minotaur Stories) about the relationship between horror and joy, which Hanson links to story-driven pleasure, safe transgression, and chasing the intensity of childhood fear. Hanson recounts discovering writing in college, burning out after an MFA at the University of Montana amid anti-genre attitudes and market-focused training, then returning to fiction around age 50 and establishing a daily routine that led to his debut. They discuss why haunted houses resonate as violations of domestic safety, and Hanson’s upcoming novel Calliope Street (out July 29), a triptych about Jack and Avery, a fixer-upper with a basement collage “altar” that functions as a portal, identity misrecognition and threat, and suspicion after Avery’s disappearance. Hanson cites Dario Argento’s vibe-first approach as inspiration and discusses recent horror that is bringing him joy. <a href="https://joshhansonbooks.com/" rel="nofollow">Josh Hanson</a>

Josh Hanson on Meet Your Maker

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Brian and Jeff welcome Shane Hawk, a Cheyenne and Arapaho horror writer and editor, creator of the Native Horror Index, and contributing editor at Counterpoint Press acquiring and editing Indigenous North American writers. Hawk explains how horror can produce joy through safe distance, catharsis, and the chance to rewrite grim histories by letting Native characters survive and resist stereotypes. He recounts early influences (Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark, a childhood Halloween scare), returning to intense reading in adulthood, and self-publishing Anoka in 2020 before COVID led him to spearhead Never Whistle at Night with co-editor Ted Van Alst, evolving from a Discord/Twitter idea to a Vintage deal and major sales. He discusses horror community support, the anthology’s themes of revenge and community, his comfort centering Native perspectives, co-writing the stage audio-drama The Land Has Spoken, launching the directory-style Native Horror Index.The sequel to Never Whistle at Night, titled Back for Blood, is set for August 18, 2026.<a href="https://shanehawk.com/" rel="nofollow">ShaneHawk.com</a><a href="https://nativehorrorindex.com/" rel="nofollow">Native Horror Index</a>

Shane Hawk on Meet Your Maker

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Jeff welcomes Damir Debanic, owner of InterHuman Games, to discuss his upcoming board game Jure Grando, a Croatia-based, vampire-adjacent folklore horror title on GameFound.Debanic describes horror’s cathartic link to joy, his path from organizing events in 1990s Croatia to 15 years at sea, and why board games are “programming with paper” and a vehicle for story. He explains that horror board games mainly appeal to board gamers drawn in by theme, then outlines Croatian vampire/štrigoi lore, krsnik monster-fighters, and how Slavic mythology informed Dracula’s supernatural elements.Jure Grando emphasizes simple folk protections, no dice, minimal combat, and a two-phase race against encroaching darkness, a demonic cat, and the endgame arrival of Jure Grando, with multiple scenarios and endings.Debanic also summarizes prior games (Within Walls, Propuh, and Fear of the Dark) and previews future folklore projects and a possible Jure Grando sequel.<a href="https://interhumangames.com/" rel="nofollow">InterHuman Games</a>

Damir Debanic (Creator of Jure Grando)

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On Horror Joy’s Meet Your Maker, Brian is joined by Undertone writer-director Ian Tuason. They discuss the relationship between joy and horror, distinguishing joy as a sustainable state from fleeting happiness and describing horror as a creative outlet that can offer safe thrills and catharsis, especially for people shaped by trauma. Tuason recounts his path from writing poetry, stories, and short films to making a low-budget feature designed around sound, which he chose out of necessity and because audiences’ imaginations make the unseen scarier than visuals. They discuss Undertone’s reliance on silence, noise-canceling headphones, and off-screen space, as well as its religious imagery rooted in Tuason’s Catholic upbringing, where guilt functions like an antagonist and Mary and Abzu represent opposing sides of a maternal archetype. Tuason shares that he is rebooting Paranormal Activity, drawing on the first three films’ unseen terror while exploring the male gaze as a nemesis.

Ian Tuason (dir. Undertone) on Meet Your Maker

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In this episode of Horror Joy, Brian and Jeff make an unplanned stop on their “haunted house tour” by traveling from U.S.-centered hauntings (slavery, Jim Crow, Reagan-era policies, conquest) to Japan, discussing Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 cult film Hausu and Junji Ito’s Fragments of Horror story “Wooden Spirit.” They compare how both texts present “haunting houses” animated by spirits and brought out through women, linking them to gender roles, eroticism, and the fetishization of culture and material heritage. They analyze Hausu’s deliberately camp, self-aware style, the named archetypes of its seven schoolgirl protagonists, its comedic-horrific deaths, and themes of girlhood’s end, queerness, postwar trauma, and consumption. They read Wooden Spirit as eco-horror and cultural fetish, emphasizing wood’s “eyes,” seduction, and men’s uselessness, and close by finding joy in horror’s weirdness, comedy, and formal experimentation.<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/article/749156/pdf" rel="nofollow">Breaking the Mirror: Hausu and Bad Love Objects by Erin Nunoda</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=9s&v=Q13oNZlTr_o" rel="nofollow">Hausu of the Rising Sun: Death of the Girl</a> by Georgia Thomas-Parr<a href="http://10.1080/21504857.2024.2402522" rel="nofollow">Beyond the Panel: Cinematism and Affective Responses in Itō Junji&#39;s Tomie</a> by Ivan Darío Jaramillo Chávez

Haunted House 7 - Hausu (1977) and Wooden Spirit (Junji Ito)

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Brian and Jeff welcome director/writer/producer BT Meza to discuss his new film Affection, released in theaters May 8 and on video on demand June 5. Meza connects horror and joy through his love of watching horror, recounts early influences like reading Pet Sematary and Jaws and watching The Exorcist, and explains how he began making work by constantly photographing and filming, including music videos. He describes getting Affection made through supporter collaboration, producer Austin Walk’s advocacy, and persistence through pandemic delays. The conversation highlights filmmaking’s collaborative demands, Affection’s blend of sci‑fi and horror rooted in plausible technology, and its commitment to practical effects created by Slither effects artist Dan Rebert with no CGI. Meza discusses the three-character cast (Ellie, Bruce, Alice), themes of memory, identity, grief, and a tension driven by Bruce’s need for certainty. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm15693126/" rel="nofollow">Affection</a>

BT Meza (Affection) on Meet Your Maker

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On this episode of Horror Joy, we discuss Mark Z. Danielewski’s 2000 novel House of Leaves on Horror Joy, framing it as a dense, meta haunted-house text built from layered narratives: Johnny Truant, an unreliable LA tattoo artist, edits the manuscript of the blind academic Zampanò about the possibly nonexistent documentary The Navidson Record, whose house contains impossible, expanding interior spaces. We explore the book’s paradoxes, footnotes, shifting typography, and the Minotaur motif (including red strikethroughs like track changes), arguing it satirizes academic monographs and demands active “detective work” from readers. We connect the novel to internet-era hyperlink logic (blue “house”), liminality and Backrooms, and themes of trauma, memory, remediation, and community, while noting student reactions and ending with joys found in the Navidson explorations, playfulness, and characters like Tom.The book is an almost impossible labyrinth of references and self-references. But we manage to find some joy.

Haunted House 6 - House of Leaves

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Brian and Jeff are joined by award winning author Keith Rosson to talk about his most recent book, Coffin Moon.They explore the role the Vietnam plays in the novel, how the nature of the vampire changes the requirements for the story, and how it acts as a model for bad parenting.Keith also talks through his understanding of genre, including his own reading habits and how he came to write horror.Keith offers his take on the role of joy in horror and recommends reading the short fiction of Gordon B. White.You can find Keith&#39;s work and more information here: <a href="http://www.KeithRosson.com" rel="nofollow">KeithRosson.com</a>

Keith Rosson on Meet Your Maker

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This is a special, Fresh Cuts version of Horror Joy. Brian and Jeff are joined by long time friend, Jamie to offer immediate thoughts about the recent A24 film, Backrooms.This recording occurred just minutes after the movie ended outside of a rural movie theater. Please excuse the buzzing and the audio.We talk about the jump from internet shorts to full length movie, the possible downfalls of trying to collapse the collective imagination into a single entity, the liminal horror, and the incredible sound design.This is a spoiler free conversation, so listen even if you haven&#39;t watched the movie.Like and subscribe for all our episodes.

***Horror Joy Fresh Cuts*** - Backrooms

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Brian Onishi and Jeff Stoyanoff discuss Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Beloved as a haunted house and ghost story that forces readers to reckon with the historical traumas of chattel slavery, racism, and the “smooth operation” of a world that treats people like property.They outline the novel’s core cast—Sethe, Baby Suggs, Denver, Paul D, and the embodied apparition Beloved—alongside figures like Schoolteacher, noting the book’s basis in the real story of Margaret Garner and its depiction of lynching, abuse, and infanticide.Drawing on scholarship and concepts such as rememory, spectrality, and Gothic tradition, they argue Morrison rejects easy “Scooby-Doo” reveals or exorcism in favor of communal acknowledgement and reintegration, supporting their broader claim that America itself is haunted while asking how, and whether, joy can be found in such horror.

Haunted House 5 - Beloved (Toni Morrison)

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Jeff is joined by Scottish writer Jane Flett, whose debut novel Freakslaw is out from Doubleday (UK) and Zando (US), with a forthcoming novel Welcome to the Chaoskampf (May 14). Flett describes how horror and joy connect through different ways people enjoy fear—adrenaline junkies, “white knucklers,” and “dark copers”—placing herself in the first group. They discuss haunted houses as horror rooted in inescapable, corrupted “safe” spaces, including hotels and the idea of buildings persisting on longer timescales. Turning to Freakslaw, set in a late-1990s Scottish mining town disrupted by a traveling funfair, Flett explores small-town conservatism, class, suffering, and joy as disruption, including queer community and Derek’s coming-of-age. She previews Welcome to the Chaos Camp as a New Orleans story involving climate weirdness, filmmakers, arson, and cult-like non-hierarchical organizing, and recommends Feast While You Can, Carrion Crow, and the film Saint Maud.<a href="https://janeflett.com/" rel="nofollow">https://janeflett.com/</a>

Jane Flett on Meet Your Maker

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On this episode of Meet Your Maker, Brian is joined by Aimee Pokwatka to talk about her novel Accumulation and the link between horror and joy. Pokwatka distinguishes pleasure from deeper joy and argues horror places us in “communion with terror,” reminding us of death, grief, and shared human vulnerability in ways that can be sustaining. She connects this to parenting and domestic life, recalling living in Newtown during the school shooting while nursing her infant. Pokwatka explains Accumulation’s haunted-house frame as a flexible metaphor for women’s labor, repetition, doubt, and entrapment—including financial constraints—while noting her real house, a found doll, and a sighting of a ghost informed the novel.<a href="http://www.aimeepokwatka.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.aimeepokwatka.com/</a>

Aimee Pokwatka on Meet Your Maker

Horror Joy is a podcast by two university professors who take a deep dive into horror in hopes of finding joy lurking in the shadows.