BECAUSE HORROR is a collection of 13 essays (incl. one poem) that mixes critical writing and memoir to explore horror movies and how they haunt memory. Bringing the glee of fandom into cinema scholarship, BECAUSE HORROR promiscuously sways through titles like MESSIAH OF EVIL, PULSE, MANDY, DANTE’S COVE and SCRE4M, with prose that spreads sticky like louche gore over the history of a genre and its mutating sites of broadcast.

Written between August 1 and September 14, 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown, the chapbook was an exercise in immediacy and a breakneck volley of ideas between Huston and Nordeen who live in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively. Huston’s chapters span THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE, TOURIST TRAP, Curtis Harrington’s THE KILLING KIND, MANDY, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s KAIRO (PULSE) and its TIFF premiere on September 10 of 2001, and a survey of films that lead with the directive, Don’t… Nordeen’s essays broach DEATHDREAM, BLOOD DINER, PLAY IT AS IT LAYS vs. MESSIAH OF EVIL, horror movie posters in the video rental market of the 1990s, what SCRE4M looks like on ketamine and an original poem inspired by the gay supernatural soap opera DANTE’S COVE. The chapbook features original artwork by Hedi El Kholti, who also penned an afterward, concerning hotel horror. - Dirty Looks