What Sleeps Beneath is an online magazine that explores the horror genre as one of the most important cultural vehicles of our time. It is a home for all horror-loving nerds, and a space to investigate what the genre tells us about ourselves. We write book and movie reviews, conduct interviews, and write original academic research.
Browse the full archive, or search for a specific article. Not sure where to start? Use the drop-down to browse by topic, format, or subgenre.
Archive
- B-Movies & Cult Classics
- Body Horror
- Books & Literature
- Classic Horror Films
- Cosmic Horror
- Cults & Religious Horror
- Essays
- Events
- Folk Horror
- Found Footage & Mockumentary
- Gendered & Queer Horror
- Ghosts & Hauntings
- Holiday Horror
- Independent Films
- International Horror
- Interviews
- Lists
- Possession & Exorcism
- Recipes
- Sci-Fi Horror
- Slashers
- Survival & Environmental Horror
- TV
- Thrillers
- True Crime
- Vampires
- Werewolves & Transformations
- Women in Horror
- Zombies
What Sleeps Beneath's Halloween Horror Recommendations
Looking for ways to keep the Halloween spirit alive? Looking for horror recommendations? We put together a list of our favorite movies, as well as tricks and treats, to get you in the marathoning holiday spirit.
Pittsburgh's ScareHouse: Safely Keeping Halloween Alive
Though the pandemic made us rethink how we celebrate Halloween, Pittsburgh’s very own ScareHouse, known as one of America’s scariest haunted houses, made some changes to keep the nightmares rolling.
TV Review: The Haunting of Bly Manor
In succeeding Mike Flanagan’s Haunting of Hill House Netflix original series, The Haunting of Bly Manor draws horror back to its roots in Gothic Romance, leaving us haunted in its loose retelling of The Turn of the Screw.
Book Review: Women's Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891-1937
Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891-1937, published by Handheld Press, is a joy of a read that expands on women’s role in horror and the Weird.
Movie Review: Relic (2020)
In our latest horror review of Natalie Erika James’ Relic, Destiny Johnson dives into what works and what doesn’t for the narrative, and how the mind is truly a haunted house.
Movie Review: Haunt (2019)
An incredibly fun Halloween horror watch, Haunt captures the thrills and chills of the season and the extremes we’ll push ourselves to for the sake of October. but also reveals some genre sore spots.
Supernatural Studies: The Babadook and the Monstrousness of Motherhood
In the second installment of our collaboration with Supernatural Studies, Laura Kemmerer spoke with Bowling Green State University adjunct instructor and author Olivia Taylor Zolciak about her research into the monstrousness of motherhood in the context of The Babadook.
Interview with Beckie-Ann Galentine: Vintage Curator & Picture Witch
TikTok star and embalming apprentice Beckie-Ann Galentine @mybloodygalentine shares her inspirations for Halloween and cemetery history.
A Year & A Week of What Sleeps Beneath
Just over a year ago, we started What Sleeps Beneath because we were a group of nerds who wanted to talk and write about horror movies.
We Don’t Go Back: An Interview with Howard David Ingham
With a global recession and nationalism on the rise, folk horror is taking center stage. Recently, Laura interviewed author Howard David Ingham about the resurgence of folk horror and its core themes.
Looking Back: 25 Years After ‘The Prophecy’
Twenty-five years after release, The Prophecy both remains a cult fixture in the film landscape and a compelling take on religious horror.
Supernatural Studies: Tennessee Wraith Chasers and Classism in Paranormal Reality TV
In an interview with author Antares Leask, we explore some of the unexpected elements of paranormal reality TV.
Cabin in the Woods: The Love/Hate Relationship with Horror Cliches
In fact, Cabin is just as much of a comedy or takes on elements of science fiction, as much as it is a “loving hate letter” to horror.
The Exorcist III’s 30th Anniversary
Blatty’s success with The Exorcist III (1990) comes not from his directorial skills—his inexperience can be fairly obvious at times—but rather from his talent as a writer.
‘I Saw the Devil’ 10th Anniversary Review
Though you never stop rooting for Soo-hyeon, there are several times when you have to ask yourself, “Is he going too far? Should I be feeling the way I feel?”
Defiance: Seeing Red - Mark Rothko & Suspiria
There is a perpetual and cyclical bleeding out of color and emotion in the Rothko paintings, such that the viewer is easily overwhelmed. In Suspiria, it is unabashedly intentional. This is the first of a 3-part series on the colors of the original Suspiria.
Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Nobuo Nakagawa’s ‘Jigoku’ (1960)
What it may lack, for some viewers, in pacing, it more than makes up for in creativity.
The Haunted Spaces of Suburbia: An Interview with Robert McLaughlin
Hauntings are not restricted to the dead: economic, social, cultural factors, and the very past itself can come to bear on the present. In this interview with Robert McLaughlin, author and lecturer, we discuss hauntology and suburban life.
Movie Review: “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1959)
While protestors fight tooth and nail for a better future where Black lives are protected, cherished and uplifted, we sit squarely at a cultural crossroads where the U.S. has the chance to reckon with the atomic graveyard of its past.
How Guilt and Pain Drive ‘The Ritual’ (2017)
From the tragic evening, into the unknown and unwavering forest, the viewer is met with horror-version visuals of what it might be like to live through a devastating experience.