Vivisepulture: the Art of Being Buried Alive
There are three reasons people are typically buried alive. The first is a tragic accident: a person who seems to be dead but is not gets buried and awakens in the claustrophobic horror of a casket.
I Got That Dog In Me: Pet Cemeteries
It’s beautiful tribute to the friends who define much of one’s life. Unlike human remains, animal remains can legally be buried on one’s private property.
Bring Out Your Dead: Exhumation and Reburial
The last English monarch to be killed in battle was Richard III, end of the Plantagenets, killed in 1485 at the battle of Bosworth Field. In 2012, his remains were…
Give It Away Now: Organ Donation
My dear friend Charlie died by suicide when he was just 18 years old. He was not the first person I knew who died young, or the first person to…
Dead Men Tell Some Tales: Stories with Deceased Narrators
Every writer lives with the same terrible knowledge: that we’d better get these stories out while we can, because death is coming. Looking back on the heritage of other spooky…
Death Is a Foreigner: Nosferatu (2024)
“I am an appetite, nothing more.” —Count Orlok Much ink (and other various fluid) has been spilled over the meaning of Dave Eggers’ retread on F.W. Murnau’s retread of Bram…
The Unloved Dead
In the oldest human stories, the question always arises: who will bury my body? Who will lay me to rest? Heroes are tormented by their unburied soldiers; villains leave their…
Six Sexy Specters of Cinema
Ghosts on screen are meant to make us moan with terror or mourn in torment, but sometimes it’s a little bit of both. Occasionally, ghosts are played by an actor…
5 Great Eulogies in Film
The only way to give a good eulogy is to really have known the dead. There’s not a set rhythm to them; it isn’t like a wedding where there are…
Everything We Know About Constantine 2
You ever wake to see an internet rumor that you hope beyond hope will be true? That’s how I felt, seeing people on BlueSky talking about a sequel to 2005’s…