👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑
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michaeljriser.com
👻Michael J. Riser𖤐❌👑
@michaeljriser.com
2.5K followers 640 following 6.7K 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)

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michaeljriser.com
Like I doubt anyone thought they were making a masterpiece, but that scene feels like it came from a different movie. In that spirit, I have to share this review. Can you all grasp the very deep concepts of self-mastery and the nature of enlightenment foundational to Galaxy of Terror? #horrorwatch
A screenshot of a Shudder review of Galaxy of Terror: "literally one of the greatest lesser known (and misunderstood) horror films ever. It's on my short list of favorite films, and I watch it ever couple of years. One of the most amazing things about it is how thematically deep it really is. Most people don't understand what it's about. It is actually a very philosophically deep sci-fi psychological thriller with horror elements. But it's not really about scaring the viewer. It is a film about self-mastery, the nature of enlightenment .and the mental and emotional fortitude required to become a transcendent being. These are very deep concepts that, even decades after its release, still go over most people's heads. And unlike modern films, it doesn't spook-feed you the premise. You are either deep enough to understand it, or you aren't. Good stuff."
November 16, 2025 at 2:54 AM
michaeljriser.com
The young Zalman King will never not look like Todd Howard to me. #horrorwatch
Todd Howard, bigshot developer at Bethesda, famous for the Elder Scrolls games, amongst others. He's a white dude with a defined jawline and a little whipped dome of brown hair. Zalman King, with floppy brown hair and a suit in a black and white photo.
November 16, 2025 at 2:25 AM
michaeljriser.com
Okay, so KEEPER had some unfortunate use of CG here and there, but that's about my only complaint. A movie where the theater really adds to the experience in a meaningful way. Both remarkably unsubtle and also quite reserved/measured, somehow? Probably my favorite Osgood Perkins film on the whole.
The title card for KEEPER, a horror film by Osgood Perkins, in a darkened theater with a bag of popcorn in front of it. An image from the opening scene of KEEPER with a woman smiling while holding a drink in a crowded room.
November 14, 2025 at 9:13 PM
michaeljriser.com
A respectable third place in this evening's spooky movie trivia night for my wife and I--and she contributed at least a third if not a full three quarters of our points. Not bad for a team of two, as we were only bested by a team of 5 and a team of 6! Long live the Audrey II Horticultural Club!
Michael J. Riser, horror author of note, dressed as a demon priest with a red scarf, black robe with white collar, and a golden cross around his neck, while wearing a red demon mask with giant horns and carrying a cane with a goat skull on top. Horror author Michael J. Riser in his demon mask, and his mysterious ghost partner with a witch hat, holding up their score sheet from trivia night.
October 31, 2025 at 4:14 AM
michaeljriser.com
if you see this, post 4 female characters you love

honorable mention to Andie MacDowell as Rita in Groundhog Day who really should be on this list, and also every role Julianne Moore has ever played
Minnie Driver as Mabel in An Ideal Husband. She wears a dashing black coat with a white scarf, long earrings, and a tidy black hat. Adrienne Barbeque as Stevie Wayne in John Carpenter's The Fog. This black and white image is clipped from a magazine, showering her smiling as she sits next to a microphone with records in the background. She has striking features, dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair, and wears a light sweater. Text at the bottom of the photo talks briefly about her role in the film and the other cast members. Yuki Amami as Miki in Inugami, a 2001 Japanese horror film. She looks at the camera in her traditional paper workshop, with rice paper screen windows letting in soft yellow light behind her. She wears a rough grey canvas shirt, and someone watches her with crossed arms in the background. Kali Reis as Evangeline Navarro in True Detective's fourth season, Night Country. She wears a tank top and is leaning over on her elbows, an intense expression on her face. She has one piercing in each cheek, dark hair pulled back, and prominent tattoos along her right arm. Two people sit in the background, obscured by the camera focus, looking as though they might be tied up.
October 30, 2025 at 4:48 AM
michaeljriser.com
"Okay, headed home."
Text says "Caption this with the 2nd to last text you sent." Image is the corner of a room that looks like a murder scene with blood on the walls and a chest with a lamp and a small TV which has, on its screen, an image that looks very much like a naked butt.)
October 26, 2025 at 4:59 PM
michaeljriser.com
#folkhorrorfriday
Sticker reading "bad vibes only" on a white background with a skull and candle in the O.
October 25, 2025 at 1:04 AM
michaeljriser.com
Good paper with a good pen is something for which there's no substitute. Sometimes it's a tablet remotely connected to my PC at home with a Bluetooth keyboard, usually in Scrivener, because I'm often at coffee. And of course there's coffee, the most essential tool.

#horrorwriterschat
Michael J. Riser's journal (three journals in a maroon leather cover), open to a page with a lot of tiny serial-killer writing, an Ilmily pilot ballpoint in Nuance Back Blue sitting on top. A bamboo desk sits beneath. A keyboard above can be partially seen, with a bumper sticker on it that reads "proud parent of infinite darkness".
October 22, 2025 at 6:43 PM
michaeljriser.com
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.
October 15, 2025 at 4:37 AM
michaeljriser.com
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.
October 15, 2025 at 3:19 AM
michaeljriser.com
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".
October 15, 2025 at 12:51 AM
michaeljriser.com
Today's writing music.
A screenshot from Deezer showing Carnifex's album Necromanteum. Its cover art displays what looks like an elaborate gateway to a cemetery, with large flaming braziers atop a stone arch. It's painted in largely purple hues, with a green mist seeming to float from the gate beneath, and the band's logo and the album title are also drawn in green. The stats show 10 tracks at 42 minutes long, that it was released on 10/06/2023, that it has 830 fans, and that it has the "explicit" tag.
October 13, 2025 at 9:22 PM
michaeljriser.com
I see you, America.
A screenshot from the Merriam-Webster website, with its "top lookups" on 2025.10.13. These are represented by a bar graph showing the top seven, which rank in this order: 1. fasciscm, 2. volcano, 3. faze, 4. indigenous, 5. maligned, 6. capitulation, 7. dimity
October 13, 2025 at 9:15 PM
michaeljriser.com
This remains my favorite @sgj.bsky.social book (though I do so love the original cover).
The original cover for Stephen Graham Jones's The Least of My Scars, showing a chaotic green background with various handwritten script, the title in large block letters above, and a featureless dark green head in the lower center, with two crosses-in-circles where the eyes should be.
October 3, 2025 at 2:15 AM
michaeljriser.com
Post a female character you love 💖
Kali Reis from True Detective: Night Country. She wears a dark police uniform jacket with a black baseball cap, shows off both a cheek and nose piercing, and tattoos on her neck show just above the collar of her jacket. She looks off to the left side, her eyes looking to the right. Jodie Foster sits behind her, blurred from depth of field. An unfinished wall and a glaring fluorescent light sit behind them.
September 18, 2025 at 5:18 AM
michaeljriser.com
If #horrorwriterschat folks have not read Gus Moreno's This Thing Between Us (featuring a possessed home assistant), please rectify that immediately.
The cover of Gus Moreno's This Thing Between Us, showing a dog walking through a tunnel of black and white lines forming an eerie arch. An orange line sits at the center. The author's name and title sit at the bottom, below the picture.
September 17, 2025 at 7:08 PM
michaeljriser.com
Hello. I am still MJR, unless I have finally been superceded by the brain parasite that wormed into the back of my skull. I write screeds of nihilism and cosmic dread, mostly about God, religious belief, and death. No, they're a really good time, I swear!

#horrorwriterschat
September 17, 2025 at 6:24 PM
michaeljriser.com
If you see this quote with the energy you bring to Bluesky.
Saturn Devouring His Son (a famous painting by Francisco de Goya showing a large, wild-eyed humanoid creature holding a headless, bloody man between its hands and chewing off an arm) hanging on a wall in a white room with a simple grey floor. Next to the painting sits a fancy wooden chair with lacy brown and white upholstery and a standing lamp next to that with a similar aesthetic.
September 16, 2025 at 3:33 AM
michaeljriser.com
Can do, my friend. 🫡
A lil grey pittie with a pink collar lying peacefully on her bed getting scritches.
September 15, 2025 at 11:58 PM
michaeljriser.com
Today's very soothing writing music.
A screenshot of Deezer, showing Aborted's ManiaCult album. The cover art is of a bunch of cadaverous skulls in varying states of preservation floating in a blue-hued bog. Several red tentacles with weird ribbing and eyeballs inserted along their length poke around. The band's logo and appears at the bottom in big, splattery, neon-yellow lettering, with the album title in smaller red print scrawled below it. The player shows that it's currently playing the title track, ManiaCult.
September 8, 2025 at 5:16 PM
michaeljriser.com
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't grunge.
The cover of 1997's Deftones album Around the Fur. It shows a dark scene of a woman in her underwear sitting poolside, shown up close, from above, at an unflattering angle. The name of the band and the album appear at the top in stylized, cursive-esque text.
September 8, 2025 at 5:25 AM
michaeljriser.com
Today's writing music.
A picture taken of a monitor with Deezer open, showing the album art for WHARFLURCH's "Psychedelic Realms ov Hell". The art shows a skeletal being in pinkish hues with hands raised to its face, strange rays popping from an eye in its forehead. All around it is a green and pink mass of strange-looking swirls of marshy decay. The band's name is enmeshed in this, barely discernible, with the name of the album in white at the bottom. The song playing is "Celestial Mycelium".
September 6, 2025 at 6:06 PM
michaeljriser.com
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.
September 5, 2025 at 7:21 PM
michaeljriser.com
September 1st. Halloween has begun.
Halloween at Michael J. Riser's house starts every Sept 1. This image shows a fireplace with a big stone facade. It's sort under by skull-themed statues and decor, and inside is a big plastic cauldron with smoking green vapor floating out from it. Purple lights span the space where the wall meets the ceiling and drape down at intervals.
September 2, 2025 at 2:03 AM
michaeljriser.com
Post a random picture or else everything will go wrong in September
A meme image showing a Sega Saturn with its disc drive open and a Dreamcast stuck inside it. The text reads "Saturn devouring his son."
September 1, 2025 at 5:36 AM