We all have to start somewhere.
Three films about deadly pop songs, some recent and upcoming reading recommendations, a cool free story, a live-streamed murder, and some travel dates to look out for. These are the Sunday Scaries!
To die——to really be dead——that must be glorious.
~ Dracula (1931)
Hello and welcome to what I hope will be a gentle way of easing you into the thrashing screeching nightmares of the upcoming week. It’s Sunday Scaries! You probably know who I am but in case you’ve wandered in from somewhere unimaginable, I’m award-winning queer horror writer David Demchuk and I’m the author of a number of unpleasant short stories and three novels: The Bone Mother (2017), RED X (2021), and — with co-author Corinne Leigh Clark — The Butcher’s Daughter (2025).
Killer Sounds
This past week, on recommendation from Trevor Henderson on Bluesky, I watched a pioneering (1988!) Japanese example of found footage/mockumentary horror titled Psychic Vision: Jaganrei about a haunted J-Pop Idol and her cursed hit single that a nosy TV crew discovers was written by an unhappy dead woman. This put me in mind of the more recent K-Pop horror tunefest White: Melody of Death, about a girl group whose catchy career-launching chart-topper was — guess what — penned by an unhappy dead woman. The first film leans more towards documenting a disturbing possession where the second is a lively ghost slasher, but both offer cogent critiques of an exploitative industry. A great double bill, even better if followed by some scary-oke! (If you want to go all the way, add on a showing of Sion Sono’s classic shocker Suicide Club, about a nation-wide contagion of unaliving among young people seemingly triggered by a chirpy ear worm called Mail Me, sung by some eerily cloying pre-teens with an ever-mutating band name. The Momoi Haruko video version starts with the sound of a subway train which is just — so — unnecessary.)
Of course, this would naturally lead to a paragraph or two on K-Pop Demon Hunters except I unsubscribed from Netflix over a year ago and have not watched it. I will not weaken! Okay, I probably will. Let’s see if I can hold out until the first snowfall.
Travel Terrors
I have just returned from Seattle Worldcon, Vancouver and Toronto. It was lovely to see old friends and meet new ones, but travel is increasingly frustrating and stressful (and expensive), especially across long distances over long periods. And yet I just can’t stop: I will be in Halifax for back-to-back events on October 5 and 6 (Sunday and Monday), and then in Ottawa from October 17 through 19 for Can*Con and possibly Toronto or Montreal if I can swing it.
Currently reading: Persona by Aoife Josie Clements, coming Winter 2026 from LittlePuss Press. Visceral, disquieting, devastating.
Recent recommendations: The Villa, Once Beloved by Victor Manibo; The Hunger We Pass Down by Jen Sookfong Lee.
Currently watching: International roller-coaster POV videos on Instagram. Strangely soothing.
Cool Story, Dude: This week’s spooky free story is one of mine, The Start of Something from Weird Horror 11, from our friends at Undertow Publications.
This Week in Horror: Police investigate death of French online star who died during livestream after ‘10 days of torture’ “Local police had been looking into alleged ‘deliberate violent acts’ against ‘vulnerable people’ published on the internet over the past eight months, which began after a report by French outlet Mediapart into such videos.” Fuck this world.
We Get Letters
Dear friend and faithful reader Phil Nelson of RetroStrange fame writes: “BleaaaAAARRRGGGgghhhh…” Absolutely right, Phil, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Until next time, happy writing, reading, watching, listening and bleaaaAAARRRGGGgghhhh. Mail me!
Help me. Help me be human.
~ The Fly (1986)