4 - Rosemary's Baby with Libba Bray

On episode 18 of Our First Fears, NY Times and USA Today bestselling author, Daniel Kraus joins me in a conversation about Fangoria Magazine – the tentpole horror movie publication that debuted in the late 1970s and quickly became a shocking staple on magazine stands and in bookshops due to the gory horror makeup effects and grody titles displayed on its covers.

Daniel Kraus is the co-creator of The Shape of Water with Guillermo Del Toro, the co-author of The Living Dead with George A. Romero, and the author of the Bram Stoker Award winner They Stole Our Hearts, part two of his eery middle-grade Teddies Saga trilogy. 

Daniel’s recent book, Whalefall, has been making big waves. Thrilling, grotesque, and heart-punching, it’s a science-based story about a young scuba diver who is swallowed by a whale, and what he must do if he hopes to escape. You’re gonna wanna read this one. Trust me.  

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: language, talk about gory magazine covers, and intense make-up effect images)

On episode 17, WE ARE BACK . . . this time, chatting with writer and horror podcast-rock-star, Neil McRobert about a movie that made him cry when he was just a wee lad -  James Cameron’s 1984 science-fiction classic, The Terminator. Our conversation runs from ideas of cyborg body horror, to the trope of the unkillable thing that chases you, relentlessly. We poke around in notions of how time-travel stories work (or don't), fiction writers as prophets, and the existential terror I feel when I think too hard about the philosophy behind simulation theory. 

But we have fun too! I promise!

You can listen to Neil as he interviews horror-lit luminaries every week on his podcast, “Talking Scared,” where he’s spoken to everyone from Tananarive Due and Margaret Atwood, to Stephen King and Stephen Graham Jones. His writings about horror can also be found in Esquire, The Guardian, Elle, and Slate. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: body horror, existential dread, the end of the world, war, adult language) 

On episode 16 of Our First Fears, NY Times bestseller, Tracey Baptiste reveals the map of her childhood village where her friends and family banded together to protect themselves from jumbies, the creepy creatures that haunt the Caribbean nation, Trinidad and Tobago, in the dark of night. We discuss the secret things that hide inside the stories we write, how tales of monsters help keep people in line and also reveal our biases, and how we writers’ trickster-like powers allow us to dare audiences to fill-in blanks and answer their own questions. 

Tracey’s work encompasses many novels and non-fiction books for both young and adult readers. Her titles include The Jumbies, Rise of the Jumbies, and The Jumbie God’s Revenge, as well as the NY Times Bestseller, Minecraft: The Crash. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: I literally have nothing to warn you about this time around. Enjoy!)

On today’s episode, author Sara Farizan chats with me about the 1982 cult film  Halloween III: Season of the Witch. 

We also tie the film’s themes pretty tightly to her recent YA horror novel, Dead Flip, which is set in the late 80s and early 90s and revolves around a possibly haunted pinball machine. 

We get into the pop-culture of cursed objects and cursed capitalism, how nostalgia can be used for both good and evil, why certain story-tellers of the past might have gotten burned out, and finally, how we, as working writers, try to stop that from happening with our own creative practices. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: haunted masks, fear of snakes and insects, fantasy violence, and harm to children.)

On episode 14 of Our First Fears, author and illustrator, Derrick Chow joins me in appreciation of the genius and creativity of beloved actress Shelley Duvall’s possibly-accidentally-terrifying television show from the 1980s, Faerie Tale Theatre. Together, we explore the connection between slasher-film final girls and faerie tale heroines, what makes a great faerie tale villain, and whether or not these old stories might have been a prototype for modern psychological analysis and therapy.

Derrick’s debut middle-grade novel, Ravenous Things, is a twisted modern retelling of the Pied Piper legend and poem, set in the underground of Toronto, Canada, and it is available now at your local bookshops and libraries. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: grief, loss of parents, and faerie tale adults behaving immaturely)

We’ve reached lucky episode 13 of Our First Fears, and today, I get to talk with author Russell Ginns, or R. U. Ginns, about the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Together, we dig into how artists use elements of unease to create a sense of paranoia for their audiences. We talk zombies versus pod-people, cults of the 1970s, how much we love actress Veronica Cartwright, and finally, we discuss what many consider to be one of the most chilling endings of any horror film EVER and how it earns that distinction. 

R. U. Ginns’s latest collection of scary and funny tales is called 1-2-3 Scream!, and it is available now at your local bookshops and libraries. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: mention of suicide, cults, violence, and a little chatting about the film's brief nudity)

Episode 12 of Our First Fears is a conversation with Bram Stoker Award finalist Ally Malinenko about Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and several other classic terrors. We talk about unreliable narrators, teaching horror to kids in classrooms, childhood perception of time, and what truly lies behind Poe’s “pale blue eye,” as well as his Raven’s refrain of “nevermore.” We get personal here with our own experiences of writing through stress, anxiety, and physical illness, and how scary story-telling can be a kind of balm, not only for us, but also for our audiences.  

Ally Malinenko is the author of the middle grade novels, Ghost Girl and This Appearing House. Both are available now at your favorite local bookshops and libraries. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: murder, mental illness, anxiety, depression, cancer, and questions of mortality)

On episode 11 of Our First Fears, Pushcart Award nominee, Joe Vallese shows me the path beyond Stephen King's Pet Sematary and up into the haunted hills where the buried-dead have a tendency to rise and wreak havoc on the living. Together, we explore how certain aspects of stories that frightened our childhood-selves can end up being quite different from what gets to us as grown-ups. We talk unreliable narrators and characters, whether or not too much research might be a bad thing for writers, and how, and at what age, we humans begin to process our own mortality.

Joe’s anthology, It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, is chock-full of interesting ideas about scary movies and queer themes, and it is available now at your local bookshops and libraries. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content warning: death, mortality, illness, violence, harm to animals and children) 

On episode 10 of Our First Fears, debut novelist and creator of monsters, Trevor Henderson and I head to the rear section of the video rental stores of our youths to paw through some of our favorite, and freakiest, VHS horror movie cover art. Specifically, Street Trash, Zombie, The Stuff, The Gate, Suspiria, Alligator, and Fright Night. 

We talk about what these poster images have in common, about the artists who made them, and what about them scared us so badly. We get into the “melt-movie” subgenre, how modern fears spread in a post video-store world, and how fun it was to discover gateway horror titles at our school book fairs. 

Trevor’s first novel, Scarewaves, is filled with his trademark, nightmare-inducing monsters. It’s being published by Scholastic. Arriving on shelves, October 3rd, 2023. Ask your favorite bookshop to reserve you a copy!

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

(Content Warnings: We talk about some R-rated exploitation & B-grade horror films from the 70s and 80s. There’s mention of violence, harm to kids, melting bodies, death and other totally grody stuff. Use discretion.)

On episode 9 of Our First Fears, Bram Stoker Award Finalist, Lora Senf and I explore childhood memories of our early love for John Bellairs’s classic novel, The House With a Clock in its Walls, how this book inspired us to tell our own kinds of stories, why Bellairs’s work has sparked a modern cult following, and how writing horror - for kids in particular - is a powerful kind of magic. 

Lora’s first book, The Clackity, is a must for kids and adults, both, who like their scares with heaps of heart and hope. That first one is available now in paperback, and its sequel, The Nighthouse Keeper, comes out on October 17th, 2023. You won't want to miss it! I promise. 

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears.

And feel free to reach out at ourfirstfears@gmail.com. 

Also, check out my own socials:

@danpoblox on Instagram 

@danpoblocki on Twitter/X.