There’s a Lana Del Rey song which goes by the lyrics of ‘…must be the season of the witch.’ As September fades and October rises, the cryptids and creepy-crawlies come out to play. Ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, oh my! That is, of course, if you believe in that sort of thing.
Some of us prefer our horror on the page where our imagination is free to quell any nightmare that gets out of bounds and will prevent a good night’s sleep. All this talk of horror has us wondering… where are the women?
So much of horror revolves around men and the women are reduced to plot devices or spectral sightings. This spooky season, Masala turns the volume up on female voices in horror.
In the vein of Henry James’ classic short story The Turn of the Screw, Virginia Feito crafts a world of governesses, bratty Victorian children, and a gloomy English estate.
As Victorian Psycho runs its course, our final girl Winifred Notty battles not just the stiff upper lip of the house she serves but haunting visions and nightmarish compulsions which all come to a head on Christmas Day. Ho, Ho, Ho, indeed.
Occasionally lauded as the queen of the classic English ghost story, perhaps the most famous of Susan Hill’s works is The Woman in Black, which has been adapted for both stage and screen (including an adaptation with Daniel Radcliffe in 2012).
The story is relatively simple, following a small English town which is haunted by a mysterious spectre. We cannot give away any more details. You’ll just have to crack open the pages for yourself and see.
If you’re a fan of haunted houses or the terror of a first love that refuses to stay in the past, flip through this gothic mystery.
When our main character Shalini is summoned to the crumbling ancestral mansion of her former love, Akshar, she finds him broken, hermitting away, and surrounded by secrets. As time passes, she begins to notice something darker seems to be stirring within the home.
Atmospheric and wonderfully eerie, this is one for anyone who likes their love stories, chilling not stirred.
Real or fa-ke? This protagonist would sure love to know. Head into the woods of 1901, where nothing is quite as innocent as it first appears.
Follow Ada Byrd as she arrives in a small farming town hoping for a fresh start, only to encounter a series of disturbing signs like dying crickets, mutilated animals, and a strange creature she names the “grey dog”.
As the woods begin to capture her attention, so too does the question of what is real and what might be a product of her own past.