Horror Joy

***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD***

Brian and Jeff cut deep into the 2016 film The Autopsy of Jane Doe as part of their witch-themed Horror Joy series.

Set almost entirely in a Virginia morgue, the film follows father-son coroners Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin Tilden (Emile Hirsch) as an unidentified, externally pristine corpse becomes a mystery that unravels through forensic clues, escalating eerie events, and a reversal of the “mad scientist” trope as rational method fails.

The hosts read the film through themes of women’s bodies as objects, inside/outside violence, sexual abuse and persecution, the male gaze, and revenge, suggesting Jane Doe becomes what society projected onto her through torture.

They examine the morgue as a gothic, possessed space, question why Emma dies, and analyze the film’s turn to Leviticus 20:27 and problematic Bible translation/authority.

They end by praising the minimalist “mystery box” structure, performances (including Olwen Kelly), and rewatch value.

Come for the horror, stay for the joy!

Brian reunites with author Brianna N. Cox to discuss her March release, Indigent, after earlier conversations about Sinners and Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory.

Cox frames horror as a genre of empathy and connection that makes taboo fears communal and cathartic, and she compares horror and romance as “go big or go home” forms driven by intense emotion and physicality.

She explains Indigent as a “worm vampire” novel that invokes vampire tropes without explicit vampirism, using cannibalistic, vampire-adjacent monsters to explore consumption, addiction, and late-stage capitalism among impoverished characters.

The title references “medically indigent” patients and foregrounds U.S. healthcare trauma and distrust across a diverse ensemble cast.

Cox argues horror is inherently political, shaped by social anxieties, and discusses double standards around AI controversies.

She highlights BIPOC Vampire Day charity work and notes Indigent’s dual-narrated audiobook release in October via Simon & Schuster.

Briana N. Cox

Briana on Threads

Jeff returns with a “Horror Joy Stale Slice” to discuss Resident Evil after missing opening night due to post-BlizzCon illness.

He teases future Horror Joy topics from Blizzard news (a Diablo announcement, a long-horizon StarCraft title, and World of Warcraft’s upcoming roguelite “Talebound” set in Drustvar or Revendreth).

He largely agrees with Brian’s take, emphasizing the film’s distinctly video game-like cinematography (first-person flashlight/gun shots, claustrophobic “cinematic closet”) and wondering whether hyperreal gaming blurs fantasy and reality, contributing to cultural numbness and “main character syndrome.”

Jeff argues the film’s jump scares are efficient rather than cheap, and that Cregger balances darker horror with humor, reading themes that can include class, modern healthcare, and genetic meddling.

He highlights Austin Abrams’ performance, cameos by Paul Walter Hauser and Zach Cherry, recurring gun-ineptitude humor, local business shout-outs, and ways to follow/contact the show.

Brian and Jeff Horror Joy begin a spooky-season series on witches by discussing Robert Eggers’ 2015 film The Witch, outlining its colonial New England setup in which an exiled Puritan family suffers escalating losses and turns toward suspicions of witchcraft and the devil, culminating in Black Phillip’s invitation to “live deliciously.”

They trace Western and Christian obsessions with witches to the Middle Ages, emphasizing Malleus Maleficarum’s patriarchal fixation on female sexuality, and connect witch labeling to control, scapegoating, and contemporary Christian nationalism.

The conversation links the film to Milton’s Paradise Lost via a “temptation narrative” reading, highlights dualisms (inside/outside, conceal/reveal, body/soul, girl/woman), and considers how Eggers’ period accuracy creates “prosthetic memory” while the horror largely arises from isolation, religious literalism, and family projection rather than constant supernatural spectacle.

Brian shares spoiler-free thoughts after seeing Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil.

He argues Cregger’s work (from Barbarian to Weapons to this film) carries a sense of fun, and praises Resident Evil for evoking video-game mechanics through camera perspective, rule-bound worldbuilding, and a self-aware celebration of playing games.

He highlights effective, earned jump scares, strong movement through spaces, and accessible storytelling even without game knowledge.

The film also raises themes of parenthood and the anxiety of creating life amid wars, rising costs, social backlash, AI, and climate change, alongside class critique through a courier protagonist trapped in gig-economy precarity.

Brian ultimately recommends the movie for its music, snowy setting, Austin Abrams’ performance, sharp humor, and “dangerous look” cinematography that withholds information to sustain tension.

Jeff interviews British author Craig Wallwork about the connection between horror and joy, his early exposure during Britain’s “video nasty” era, and how his father desensitized him by explaining gore effects, creating a rare bond through film.

Wallwork describes becoming a writer via transgressive and neo-noir influences before turning to horror 17 years ago after his daughter’s birth, using horror to process fear and anxiety through a story about a sleep pandemic and a father chasing the sun to keep his child awake.

Discussing The Instruction Manual to Being a Vampire (2026, Trueborn Press), he explains rejecting vampire tropes and grounding vampirism in a blood-transfusion condition, with the vampire targeting “bad people,” and choosing a priest mentor figure for trust and access to confessions.

He also previews a possession novel, There’s Something in the Fucking Basement, and shares recent horror joys, including mainstream recognition, women creators, and watching horror with his son.

Brian and Jeff continue their camp horror series with Charlie Polinger’s 2025 film The Plague, set at a 2003 summer water polo camp where the central terror is not a slasher but toxic masculinity, bullying, and an ambiguous “plague” used to create in-groups and out-groups.

They discuss how the plague functions as scapegoating and surveillance, how Ben (a new kid with a speech impediment) and eccentric Eli become targets, and how Jake’s bully leadership reflects power dynamics and absent/ineffective adults, including counselor “Daddy Wags” (Joel Edgerton).

Finally, Brian and Jeff discuss the film’s dread-filled underwater cinematography, minimalist score, and ending centered on Ben’s blood-soaked, frenetic dance in addition to some discussions of broader plague narratives. And of course, they discuss joy.

Brian and Jeff interview Glasgow-based award-winning writer, editor, and musician Neil Williamson about the relationship between horror and joy..

Neil frames horror as the fun of “relishing the darkness” through traditions like Halloween and campy horror. Williamson recounts his path into writing via lyric-writing in a teenage band and into horror through the UK’s Carry On Screaming, Universal monster films, and authors like Stephen King, James Herbert, and Ramsey Campbell.

They discuss Neil's BSFA-winning anthology Blood and the Bricks, and how he has reworked folk-horror tropes by relocating isolation, insular communities, and mythology into urban settings. This move was influenced by his novella Charlie Says and UK public information films, Cold War fears, and post-Brexit political shifts.

The conversation also touches on contemporary surveillance anxieties, highlights stories such as “Dance Macabre” and “Hagstone,” and ends with Williamson’s recent horror-joy recommendations.

Brian Onishi and Jeff Stoyanoff continue their summer camp slasher theme with 1983’s Sleepaway Camp

They are joined by guests Jo Vallese (editor of It Came From the Closet) and T (Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies), and frame the film through queer horror, trans horror, and the queer concept of camp.

They discuss the film’s shift from idyllic opening to tragedy, its child and teen cruelty, predatory cook, and boundary violations, and how its notorious ending positions Angela as both killer and “final girl,” raising questions about identity, consent, and whether Angela’s gender is self-determined or imposed by Aunt Martha.

The panel explores reclamation and rehabilitation, audience reactions (including a NYU screening with trans and nonbinary students), the Reagan-era backdrop, a gay male gaze reading via Viet Dien’s Sontag-inspired essay, and how the film differs from Friday the 13th through accidental camp, queer rage debates, failures of adult authority, and unusual violence against children.

Dont' worry, they find joy too.

Horror Joy: Meet Your Maker with Kailee Pedersen

Brian interviews horror writer and opera singer Kailee Pedersen on Meet Your Maker about the relationship between horror and joy, which Pedersen links to the genre’s transgressive freedom, including psychological unsettlement and marginalized protagonists.

Pedersen discusses her writing origins (starting seriously at 13, early Neopets fan fiction, and supportive teachers), her path from poetry and creative nonfiction to novels, and how horror “found” her through an interest in uncomfortable, suppressed aspects of human psychology.

They talk about her books Pastorale, Sacrificial Animals, and The Minimalist, including how The Minimalist draws heavily from real experiences in classical music: pressure, failure, mental health, suicide, racialization, antisemitism, and homophobia.

They explore trauma-based “haunting,” genre as marketing, first-person narration, prepared piano references, and Pedersen’s current horror joy in playing Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPGs.

Pre-order Kailee's book, The Minimalist, which is out August 18th on St. Martin's Press.

https://kaileepedersen.com/the-minimalist/