Diabolique Magazine Indulge your passion for the macabre!

I was introduced to Greek mythology as the result of a Frankenstein Complex. As a kid, I would swap the heads and bodies of my paper dolls. These attempts to create the perfect cardboard woman resulted in beauty pageants, in ...

Something’s not right about the Canadian village of Saint-Ferdinand. It is the site of a series of killings that has been a part of the fabric of the town for almost two decades. While the locals aren’t complacent, they do ...

Universal Pictures had such success with its horror movies that the logical assumption was the more monsters, the merrier. Starting in 1943, with the release of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Universal embarked on a series of creature-crossovers, in which ...

In a bizarre confluence of recent acquisitions, my last two book reviews for Diabolique were novels that featured people from real life interacting with fictional characters. Given that things often seem to come in threes, it wasn’t too surprising to ...

Meta meets the metaphysical in The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge. This brilliant and dense novel is an intellectual mind game. Reality is ephemeral in a narrative that mixes facts and fantasy. While ostensibly focusing on theorizing about H.P. ...

In 1932, Universal Pictures released The Mummy. The studio was coming off a financial high from 1931, when Frankenstein and Dracula were substantial hits. Capitalizing on a heightened interest in ancient Egyptian antiquities, that was triggered by the 1922 discovery ...

Want some camp with your vamps?  Look no further than Vampyres of Hollywood by horror film favorite Adrienne Barbeau, and co-writer Michael Scott.  Barbeau “fronts” this novel, which makes the jacket blurb by her ex-spouse, director John Carpenter, ever so ...

1920. The Great War has ended, but another battle is waging for WWI veteran Tomás Cordero. Traumatized by his warfare actions, in which he wielded a flame projector that drenched the enemy in liquid fire, Cordero returns to Ybor City, ...

Novels that partially satisfy disappoint more deeply than books that are simply outright bad. The Lovecraft Squad: All Hallows Horror (2017) has commendable attributes. After a creaky opening, in which two boys rummaging around a construction site discover centuries-old human remains, ...

Poe’s Raven.  The Birds in Hitchcock’s film of du Maurier’s story.  Harry Potter’s Hedwig.  Isabeau from Ladyhawk.  Memorable birds from fiction and film that are now joined by a new flock of feathered friends.  Black Feathers—Dark Avian Tales is an ...