R.R. Newman's Blog

It’s cowardice, isn’t it? That instinct that draws horror fans to old movies; camp, arch, silly films; and contemporary films set in the comforting warmth of the hand-knitted past.

The word ‘cosy’ has become an irritating background note in conversations around horror fiction.

It’s usually spoken about as a specific subset of work in the genre that offers “that happy ending, or low stakes”, as explained by Agatha Andrews on the podcast Books in the Freezer on 30 May 2023. It’s perhaps abou...

I’ve been reading about the end of the world, walking from Kings Cross to Wapping, and making zines.

This blog is what I do instead of starting yet another Substack newsletter.

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This particular post is the second in what might be an ongoing series inspired by a post in which someone said: “...

Hotels are fundamentally weird places and the sense of unease they prompt is powerful fuel for weird stories.

Even before we consider aspects of the uncanny, and the hotel in weird fiction, the very concept of the hotel is troubling. 

You’re telling me I’m going to a strange town to sleep in a strange room, in a strange house, where someone I don’t know has a master key to my room?

It’s no wonder I barely get a wink of sleep whenever I’m away from home.

I have stayed in some objectiv...

I’ve found the Blu-ray box set Shadows in the Fog to be a great introduction to the West German Krimi genre despite, on paper, being a collection of also-rans.

‘Krimi’ is a description applied to a run of films made in Germany between the 1950s and the 1970s, based on or inspired by the works of British crime writer Edgar Wallace.

The six films in this set were made by CCC Filmkunst as an attempt to cash in on the better-known Rialto Film series.

Rialto’s films were adapted directly fr...

What happens when angry young men are more than angry? These three roughly contemporary books give us portraits of youths struggling with their own murderous instincts.

I came to The Furnished Room, Big Man and The Dead Beat one at a time after finding tatty old paperbacks in charity shops or roadside book swap boxes.

All three were written during a period of anxiety about juvenile delinquency and a simultaneous growth in popular discussion of psychopathy.

The term ‘psychopath’ was popu...

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is a fascinating story. If nothing else it was published in 1872, long before Dracula, and was clearly a huge influence on Bram Stoker.

When the team at the Vampire Videos podcast invited me to join them as their guest on an episode my first challenge was to think of a vampire movie they hadn’t already covered.

Fortunately, I’ve developed a taste for the kinds of films you can only find in the depths of YouTube, which is where I found a 1989 episode of the US an...

You stop calling the police after a while, d’yer know worrimean? What’s the point? Either they don’t come at all, or by the time they turn up, the bloody thing’s gone to ground.

They think we’re daft enough up here as it is, up at Longwood. Normal for Longwood – NFL. That’s what the doctors write on your clipboard at the hospital. It means they think you’re either mental, or thick.

So, yeah, you don’t call the police. You just learn to live with it. Well, you have to, don’t you, know worri...

Penny does not expect to hear the roar of an invisible dragon on the path on the edge of a potato field. It takes a moment for her to think to look up.

The hot air balloon passing above her head is too low and too large. Its white sphere stands out sharply against dense black clouds.

Should it even be in the air on a day like this, with a gale blowing up and rain beginning to spot the cracked soil? Penny misjudged the weather for her walk but is dressed for it in waterproof trousers and ho...

They – that is, the bastards that would grind you down – cannot stop you making music.

They can stop you from making a living from it, though.

Think of all those bands who somehow never seemed to get paid despite multiple hit records. Steve Marriott of The Small Faces ended up collecting 7-Up bottles for the deposit, and stealing to feed his family.

Thirty years ago, the standard fee for a gig in a pub was around £200. In 2025, it continues to be around £200.

Spotify has automated an...

Watching the film Hundreds of Beavers and a product of Shakespeare’s Henry V in the same week was something of a crash course in the suspension of disbelief.

Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik, 2022) is a slapstick comedy about a fur trapper (Ryland Tews) using ever more elaborate methods to catch beavers.

Except the beavers are people in cheap beaver costumes and much of the action was conjured up using deliberately unconvincing digital effects.

Even if we allow the excuse that it’s sup...