The death of a loved one is a difficult time, so it’s no surprise that many people choose to process their loss by orchestrating elaborate murders.

If your girlfriend died while competing in the 100-meter dash, of course you’re going to knock off every single member of her track team with sporting goods (Graduation Day). If your little sister got bullied until she fell out a window, most therapists would agree that the best way to deal with your grief would be to show up at her prom six years later and decapitate as many people as possible (Prom Night).

The day Shudder released The Amusement Park was very emotional for me. I think of George all the time, of course, but that day I felt a rush of memories flooding my thoughts.

Fantastic Fest recently soft announced their plans to have an in-person festival this year and, in a lot of ways, just the announcement itself felt like it had more weight than usual. The normal sharing of the event on social media and reading the reactions gave me a light at the end of a tunnel. There was going to be a Fantastic Fest this year. So many people were going to see friends and colleagues they had not seen in years. And we were not just going to see them: we were going to celebrate the best in genre cinema together. Watch them together. Sing karaoke together. Eat great Austin food together. Just be together.

When I was in kindergarten, I got a girl sent to Catholic school because we kissed under the slide during recess. After our teacher notified our guardians, the girl’s parents stormed into the school, gripped their hands around her arm, and pulled her away from me. Their gasps pierced with hate and their tongues spat venom with every word. My parents tried to assure me that I had done nothing wrong. However, I kept thinking something must have been wrong with me because her parents weren’t just angry, they were scared. These people were terrified of the power they believed I possessed because she had wanted to kiss me, and there’s “no way” their daughter would ever dream of doing such a thing.

Six o’clock finally rolls around and I close my laptop as I breathe a sigh of relief that the work day is finally over. I brew a fresh cup of coffee, change into comfier clothes, pull my hair up, and sit down at my craft table. I spend the next five minutes swiping through horror movies and settle on a couple of old favorites that I plan on crafting along to. Coffee brewed and movie queued, I can feel the excitement set in as I settle in to work on the new hobby I picked up during the pandemic: making miniatures and book nooks.

‘80s montages, talking brains, a battle to enslave the universe, buckets filled with severed heads, and a sword made entirely of discarded organs. Flying limbs. Eternal torture. Bleeding television sets. A girl and her pet demon. This is Psycho Goreman, and it is already one of the best horror movies of the year.