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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑

@michaeljriser.com

2.4K followers 620 following 6.4K posts

Editor, horror/dark fiction author of religious trauma. Former editorial Screen Rant, Goomba Stomp, managing editor AOG. 怖い話の作者。（日本語ＯＫ）Read stuff: https://michaeljriser.com (he/him) pfp: smiling man with beard and mustache banner: devil statue in a garden

michaeljriser.com

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · Sep 5

I have a brand-new* website! Also a #horror newsletter! Yes, now for the first time you too can read words on the internet! Deep-fried in religious trauma, topped with whipped blasphemy, served on the corpse of a dead god—just for you. 🖤👻

michaeljriser.com/bookruptcys-...

An icon for horror author Michael J. Riser's website, showing a black and white pile of skulls. Over the central one appears his name in red letters with a white outline.

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Reposted by 👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 17h

Newsletter drop! @bryanpedersen.bsky.social's been telling me to get this done for ages. It still took a month. Herein we've got Hollow Knight, Silksong, Dark Souls, Yahweh, and America mashed up together in an unholy bundle of post-imperial #horror fantasy, plus a few choice words for fascists.

Hollow Knight, Dark Souls, and the Catharsis of Post-Empire Fantasy

Because when you inhabit a crumbling empire, I guess all you want to do is stomp around one that's already crumbled.

buttondown.com

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 2h

You are not alone. It is exhausting. Trying to remember that people have lived through this shit before, and to carry on with less of a sense of doom.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 3h

Five year-olds are far more creative than this shit, tbh.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 3h

I do hope you will at some point. There aren't many people whose faces I'd want hanging in my house, but his is one, especially now he's gone (though I do respect your choice here).

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 3h

As Steve said, communication is key. Personally I don't want to wait longer than a year for a short story to come out, because that stuff can get difficult to keep track of. And if one is pushing stuff that far out, it begs the question why open to submissions in the first place?

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 3h

A reminder to call and yell at your senators about, really, literally everything, all the time.

NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 4h

This is unbelievably bad.

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 11h

Okay, this redeemed itself. Not a bad film, just rather different from what I expected, with some significant pacing issues in the middle. The ending didn't quite get there in the final moments, but the last quarter of the film was solid. I feel educated!

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 11h

If you see this, qtp with a movie from the year you were born 🎥

Here's two. It was a good year.

Kurt Russell in The Thing, with an icy beard, heavy jacket, and some explosives in his hand.

The girl from Poltergeist, in her PJs, reaching toward a staticky television set.

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 11h

Yes, that does seem to be absolutely correct. Like I wouldn't say it's a bad film by any means, but very weirdly incongruous.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 11h

Believe me when I say lucky you (not sarcastic).

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 11h

Some interesting stuff here interspersed with seemingly a fair bit of nothing. The scene with Curt and the mirror is really intense.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 12h

What the fuck even is this movie? And why in the world did they give it the most misleading title imaginable?

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 12h

Hard pass.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 12h

Holy shit, there really is a sequel? I thought you were kidding! This looks bonkers

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 12h

Okay well this went places I wasn't expecting in a hurry.

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 12h

Any chance you're selling that absolutely gorgeous David Lynch as a print? Lovely work

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 12h

Probably no way I get through this tonight, but I've somehow never seen it. Time to rectify that.

Poster for When A Stranger Calls. It shows the main character holding an old rotary phone receiver to her ear, looking worried. She wears a red shirt and is surrounded by a blue-grey background. The title appears below her in stark white lettering.

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 13h

I hate these movies so much. I'm so tired of horror carrying water for religious shitbags. It's all the more galling that the first one is a pretty good movie.

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 13h

what other reason is there, honestly
(also these look really great)

Reposted by 👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑

The Deadlands @thedeadlands.com · 13h

did you know that right now, we're only a partial skeleton? we're not fully funded, and so we're missing some critical bones.

this is truth

and sadly not sustainable

help us be a full skeleton?

patreon 🖤 www.patreon.com/c/the_deadla...

our coin fundraiser 💀 psychopomp.com/the-deadland...

An old looking skull lays on a cement path covered lightly in brown leaves.

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 13h

The advantage of not going to proper school was, I guess, only reading classic literature for pleasure. Which I did, but like ... not anything that didn't appeal to me. Hemingway always seemed so dull. I read stuff like Moby-Dick or Great Expectations. The weirder shit.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 13h

One of my big confessions is I've never even read any Hemingway. I sort of just don't give a shit?

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 13h

This was surprisingly good! Some really solid performances and while I had my suspicions about the ending prior to it happening, it still came to a pretty satisfying close. Not really horror, but tinged with it, and enjoyable all around.

👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 15h

Watching a new-to-me film, The Limehouse Golem (2016). Thus far (maybe a half-hour in), quite atmospheric with some compelling characters. Never heard of this one but it popped up on Shudder, and I do love a good detective story--especially if it's horror!

A poster for The Limehouse Golem, showing a trio of actors in Victorian garb. Olivia Cook is dressed in a long red dress, while Douglas Booth and Bill Night wear stately suits. They stand in an alleyway with graffiti on one wall. The title is superimposed over them, with the tagline above, "before the ripper, fear had another name".

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👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑 @michaeljriser.com · 15h

@idolminds.bsky.social, I know you've played around with these some. Any ideas?