A Halloween Author Update
Halloween discounts, book announcement, project updates, and short scary film reviews
Hey, everyone! Happy Halloween! Here are some updates:
Halloween E-book Sale
Providence Girls (sapphic, cosmic horror romance based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth) Sacrament (M/M/M Gothic horror vampire romance), and Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves (F/F/F Gothic horror vampire romance) are on sale through Halloween! Be sure to check the warnings on my author site.
Providence Girls Rainbow Crate Special Edition Giveaway
On my Instagram (@mdantesinferno), I am hosting a giveaway. The details and rules are all in the post. This will be a free, signed copy for a randomly selected winner.
I received extra copies from Rainbow Crate, and it’s my hope to offer signed copies in my Etsy shop later this year. There aren’t that many extras, but I figured readers would be interested in them!
Writing
My next book, Runaway Prince, an MMF dark fantasy fairy romance, will be out early 2026!
I also completed a short story about Lancelot and Galehaut from Arthurian legend; this will be in the Tales from the Tongue anthology.
I currently have a few works-in-progress, and I’m excited to share more about them once they’re finished.
Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves Special Edition
The Unholy With Eyes Like Wolves Kickstarter work is still ongoing, and I’m super excited for when the second dust jacket cover art by SweetChimera is finalized, especially because he’s doing handwritten typography on the front cover! The finished art is going to be brilliant. Once the art is complete, I can order a proof and production can start. Couldn’t have gotten the incredible art from M.E. Morgan and SweetChimera without the support, so thank you to all the backers!
I don’t want to go into personal details, but one of the people behind the project has been dealing with intermittent illness, and I underestimated a lot of what would go into the special edition when conceiving of the original proposed timeline. That’s on me, so I apologize for the delay. I also didn’t predict certain circumstances like an injured wrist or my mother’s health condition.
However, it is still happening with one of the brilliant art pieces already completed; I just need all the art files to go forward and upload the templates to the printer, Bookvault, and I’m excited to make it happen!
October 2025 Horror Film Watches
Admittedly, I haven’t watched as many films as I usually do this year; however, during October, I usually try to watch more, mostly horror movies. I’ve had a pretty eventful month of experiencing a lot of new films, so I’d like to talk about some and make recommendations.
Jennifer’s Body (2009), dir. Karyn Kusama
This is a rewatch; I’ve seen this one a few times. I also recently heard there’s going to be a sequel! I first watched this movie in 2010, and by watched, I mean that I rented it from Blockbuster, but unfortunately, the DVD stopped working whenever it got to the makeout scene! Very sad.
What I like most about this movie, besides the very late 2000s of it all, is the connection between Needy and Jennifer. I like how they are close even when, in some aspects, it’s toxic and based around Needy struggling to define herself outside of Jennifer. Yet, I like how they establish that Needy still has a boyfriend and has sex because it removes the virgin vs. sexualized succubus woman dynamic that could’ve come from that.
Obviously, there is the strong sapphic element that I think is important; these women love one another, but being a teenage girl is a violent thing when it shouldn’t be, and Jennifer is cruelly victimized in a way that isn’t sexual violence but is strongly paralleled with it, so I’m glad their dynamic is complicated and Jennifer is sympathetic. I also like that Needy is, in the end, the only person who ever “gets” Jennifer as a person and not, well, a body. This is epitomized when at the end when Jennifer says Needy staking her chest is her staking her “tit,” but Needy says that it’s her heart. Here, Needy sees Jennifer as a person with a heart and isn’t objectifying her like so many others do.
Cure (1997), dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
One of the best films I watched this month. I’m torn over whether it or Bring Her Back is the best. I’ve seen other Kurosawa films. I watched Creepy a few years ago, and it was solid. I watched Pulse after I saw Cure, and while that one is good, Cure is my favorite movie of his by a mile. Frankly, it’s a masterpiece. I see comparisons to Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder, which is excellent, and Bong Joon-ho has mentioned that Cure was an influence of his.
Cure is very much one of the horror-thrillers where things are always not quite right. It’s bleak, unrelenting, and compelling. I love how the scenes are blocked, even with just one or two people moving around, which is often the case, and the use of long takes is well done. The mood and theme of someone becoming a vessel remind me of The Empty Man. There’s the idea of how everything we do when we participate in society is a performance, a play at looking happy and fulfilled, and what a person’s “true” self is and if they can find freedom, even if this means letting go of their morals.
This might be a bit out there, but the connection between Takabe and Mamiya reminds me, a little, of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. Cure is not a romantic film, but I enjoy the dynamic of the mastermind villain and the man who is the only one who can understand him but doesn’t want to because it compromises what he sees as his steadfast morals. Takabe grows obsessed with Mamiya and begins to unravel.
Bring Her Back (2025), dirs. Danny and Michael Philippou
This is the best movie I’ve seen this year, either this or Cure. Sally Hawkins is absolutely incredible in this film. I haven’t seen the directors’ previous film (Talk to Me), but finishing this movie felt like getting punched in the stomach. It’s difficult to talk about this movie without giving away too much, but it’s such a visceral, haunting, and heartbreaking depiction of grief, the lengths we’ll go to in order to stop grief, and, at times, the futility of these attempts to reverse the inevitable.
The Final Destination Films
Speaking of futile attempts to reverse the inevitable, for the first time, I watched all the Final Destination sequels. Here’s my ranking:
Final Destination: Bloodlines: Given my bad luck watching the Wrong Turn series in high school, I was surprised a film with the word “bloodlines” could be this good. For me, what makes the Final Destination movies interesting isn’t only the creative kills, though that’s what they’re known for. Mostly, they are about how we deal with the inevitability of death, the ways we try to cheat it, and how we react to things out of our control—through fixation, fear, and attempts to regain control. I think Bloodlines encapsulates this theme the best, followed by the third movie. Also, yeah, that one death scene was wild.
Final Destination 3: Again, we have a film that asks, “What if your mortifying fear of not having control, and a fear of injury, sickness, or death, and the compulsions that you have to try to regain control, are all valid? What if your fear is a real, tangible presence that is following you?” The main character is described as a “control freak,” and she’s helpless when she and her friend try to save others who don’t believe her because she’s “crazy.” You try to get around the rules or do certain daily rituals (don’t go in certain rooms; don’t go certain places; don’t eat certain things), or try to lock yourself away (the characters in 2 and Bloodlines), but at times, the attempts to completely evade death and the isolation that ensues are almost as bad as dying because you’re unable to live. This was the movie that really cemented this theme for me, and it’s overall a good watch.
Final Destination 2: I liked the explosions.
Final Destination 5: My opinion on this one and putting it above the original may have to do with how much I hated 4.
Final Destination: This is a solid movie. It’s far more restrained; of course, horror sequels tend to want to outdo the original. The original Halloween 2 has that car explosion, and then Final Destination 2 has multiple car explosions. I think, after watching the others and going back to this one, it just feels sort of simple and quaint. Not bad, but it took me a while to feel compelled to watch the sequels.
The Final Destination (4): Bad.
Other Films I Enjoyed
New Watches: Godzilla (1954), Detention (2019), Lo (2009), The Killing Kind (1973), Pulse (2001), VIY (1967), Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Rewatches: Black Christmas (1974), When A Stranger Calls (1979), Halloween (1978), Candyman (1992), Trick ’r Treat (2007), House of Wax (2005), Psycho (1960), Hocus Pocus (1993), The Sixth Sense (1999), Nosferatu (2024), The Company of Wolves (1984), Suspiria (2018), The Craft (1996)
I’m Morgan. I’m the author of romances that blend Gothicism, horror, and dark fantasy. You can read more about my books here.