Van Helsing

Artist David Paul Harris Sketches for this issue.  Click to enlarge Model for sketch unused Caroline Munroe

by Mara Delaney In shadowed realms where death’s cold fingers creep,   A mournful tale, my heart cannot unweave,   Where in the midnight’s dim and sullen sweep,   A haunting love does twist, deceive, and grieve. Her visage shines, a moonlit darkly fair,   With beauty that no mortal gaze can meet,   Yet ‘tis a curse to see and not to share,   To love in silence, cold, incomplete. Upon the grave’s edge, where death's chill breath does chill,   My soul is trapped in spectral, mournful sway;   Her grace is moonlight on a winter’s hill,   An endless lure, yet ever out of day. Her eyes, twin stars in desolate expanse,   Reflect a light I know I cannot know;   Her lips, though silent, hold a cursed chance,   To wound with love where shadows deeply grow. Yet death, relentless, shadows every dream,   And though my heart would burst in ardent plea,   She rema...

by Harrison Black As the chilling winds of December prepare to sweep across the cinematic landscape, horror enthusiasts are eagerly anticipating a major revival of one of the genre’s most iconic legends. Robert Eggers, the visionary director behind acclaimed films such as *The Witch* and *The Lighthouse*, is set to release his highly anticipated version of “Nosferatu” on December 25, 2024. This new adaptation promises to be a haunting reimagining of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film, a cornerstone of horror cinema. Eggers’ “Nosferatu” has been shrouded in an air of mystique and intrigue since its announcement. Known for his meticulous attention to period detail and atmospheric storytelling, Eggers is expected to infuse the film with a unique blend of historical accuracy and psychological horror. His previous works have established him as a master of unsettling narratives, making his foray into this classic tale both an exciting and daunting endeavor. The Original: A Silent Classic The ori...

  by Fiona Vale As the first week of October settles in and we prepare ourselves for the haunting season, Max's new series adaptation of Stephen King's seminal horror novel “Salem's Lot” arrives, promising a fresh take on the 1970s classic. Premiering on October 3, 2024, this version of Salem's Lot offers a contemporary spin on King's tale of vampiric terror and small-town dread, yet it retains the core elements that made the original miniseries a defining piece of television horror. The 1979 adaptation, directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Warner Bros., remains a landmark in horror television. Its blend of gothic atmosphere, brooding tension, and the inescapable feeling of dread marked it as an unforgettable piece of the genre. With its slow-burn narrative and minimalist effects, the original Salem's Lot relied heavily on psychological horror and the strength of its performances. David Soul’s portrayal of the conflicted writer Ben Mears and James Mason's...

by Benedict Ward In the annals of cinematic history, few portrayals of iconic literary characters have left as enduring a mark as Peter Cushing’s interpretation of Professor Abraham Van Helsing for Hammer Studios. Renowned for its atmospheric horror and gothic flair, Hammer Films’ take on classic monsters was brought to life by a cast of extraordinary actors, but none more definitive than Cushing as Van Helsing. Cushing’s association with Van Helsing began in 1958 with the release of "Horror of Dracula," a film that not only revitalized the vampire genre but also cemented Cushing’s place in horror lore. Directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster, this adaptation redefined the character of Van Helsing, who had previously been portrayed in various films with varying degrees of success. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing was more than just a heroic foil to Christopher Lee’s Dracula. Cushing’s interpretation presented Van Helsing as a figure of unshakeable resolve, intelle...

 by Rowan Sinclair  In the shadowed valleys of Gothic Europe, where the fog wove through ancient forests like a weeping veil, there lay a town known as Cinderfell. It was a settlement ensnared in an endless twilight, with stone cottages that leaned in whispering conspiracies and a church whose steeple seemed to touch the sky’s melancholy. Father Alaric, a Catholic priest of indeterminate age and unknown origins, arrived in Cinderfell one mist-shrouded evening. He was an enigmatic figure, with a robe as dark as the forest surrounding the town and eyes like hollow wells that seemed to hold secrets of the cosmos. The townsfolk spoke of him in hushed tones, not out of fear but reverence, as if he were an ancient relic from times long forgotten. Cinderfell had always been a place of strange omens. The villagers were superstitious, their lives dictated by the waxing and waning of the moon, and their prayers often spoke of shadows and portents. The current predicament, however, was o...

  by Delia Hartman Jesse Monroe awoke to darkness. His body was stiff, as if he’d been sleeping in a coffin. He tried to move, but his limbs refused to respond. Panic gripped him. He’d been shot in the head, at point-blank range, in the middle of that alley. He remembered the cold metal pressing against his temple, the sudden, blinding pain, and then…nothing. The darkness pressed in on him, thick and suffocating. He tried to scream, but the sound was trapped inside his head. He could see faint flickers of light through his closed eyelids, but there was no real vision, only a crushing void. He wanted to scream, to move, to wake up, but nothing happened. Then a sensation like icy fingers brushed against his skin. His heart, or at least the remnants of it, thudded in his chest. A figure appeared in the dim light. It was clad in a long, tattered cloak, its edges frayed and shifting like a living shadow. The figure moved closer, and Jesse could feel a presence, a powerful force that mad...

  by Eleanor Graves The warehouse loomed in the dim twilight of a November evening, a monolithic edifice of decaying brick and iron. It had once been the pride of the New England shipping industry, a hub of activity and commerce, but now it stood as a spectral monument to forgotten prosperity. Its presence was oppressive, suffused with a foreboding silence that seemed to reverberate through the cold air, a silence that weighed heavily upon the shoulders of Arthur Hawthorne as he approached its grim facade. Arthur, a young and ambitious clerk for the neglected Weyland & Sons Import Company, had been tasked with retrieving a set of important ledgers from the warehouse’s vast interior. The request had come from Mr. Weyland himself, a man of few words and even fewer smiles, who had stressed the urgency of the matter with a grim expression that suggested more than simple bureaucracy. It was a task that seemed innocuous enough, yet the palpable sense of unease that accompanied it hin...

  by Jonathan Morrow The air in the asylum was thick and dank, a miasma of damp stone and old blood. Through the darkened corridors of the asylum Nurse Ellen Hargrave moved with a solemn, deliberate step. The halls were unlit save for the dim flicker of gas lamps, casting wavering shadows on the walls. Ellen's routine had long been the same, a monotonous round of patient checks and administering medication. But tonight the oppressive silence felt different, tinged with an inexplicable unease that gnawed at her. It was a bitter cold night and the wind howled like a banshee through the cracks of the asylum's ancient masonry. Ellen’s footsteps echoed as she approached the isolation wing, a section of the asylum where only the most troubled souls were confined. The wing was notorious for its gloom and unspoken horrors. It was here that the asylum’s most secretive and dangerous patients were kept behind heavy iron doors that groaned under the strain of their own weight. Ellen reache...

  by Cordelia Finch Based on a concept by David Paul Harris & the drabble by Peter Blakey-Novis  After the apocalypse Eli Harper’s spirit drifted through the wasteland of his former life. It was a barren expanse, a purgatory of twisted steel and crumbling concrete, where the only color was the grim, sepia-toned palette of a world gone to hell. His specter wandered aimlessly, an ethereal witness to the nightmare that had unfolded. Eli’s death had been abrupt. A heart attack in the early hours of a day that would come to signify the end of civilization. When he awoke to his living-death the sky was already scorched and red. Humanity was finally on the brink of annihilation. The Dead had risen. Eli’s own corpse was among the reanimated, a mindless predator among the ruins. Now Eli observed his rotting shell stumble through the rubble of what had once been his home. He watched his  zombie-self lurch through the desolate streets, ever hungered. The twisted irony of his fat...

From ‘Horror of Dracula’, considered one of the best gothic-horror films of all time, the hyper-realistic action figures of Count Dracula, Christopher Lee, and the Vampire Hunter, Peter Cushing, are reinterpreted, in 1/6 scale, by Infinite and Kaustic’s artistic team, with impeccable life-like details and fabric clothes inspired by the scenes of the film. Many accessories are also included. This Exclusive Pack includes The luxury Dracula White Coffin 1/6 scale. ORDER HERE Review on YouTube 

  by Vivian Crowley  The Mitchell estate loomed against the gray autumn sky like a ghostly sentinel. Once, it was the pride of the town, a sprawling Gothic house with turrets and gables that stabbed at the clouds, an elegant testament to a bygone era of wealth and sophistication. Now it stood as a rotting monument to decay, with ivy creeping up its walls like grasping fingers, and windows that stared out like hollow eyes. Jonah Harper drove up the winding, gravel-filled lane, his truck’s tires crunching the stones like brittle bones. His father’s voice echoed in his memory, a ghostly reminder of what had brought him here. “You can’t just leave it to rot, Jonah. It’s your heritage.” Jonah had tried to ignore it but he couldn’t. The estate was his now, inherited from a distant, eccentric great uncle whose death had been as shrouded in mystery as the house itself. And so, despite his better judgment, he had come to confront the specter of his inheritance. As he parked the truck a...

  by Lucinda Reed In the sleepy hamlet of Graymoor, where the houses sat like forgotten relics under the indifferent sky, there lived the Goodwin family. They were the sort of people who went about their lives with a quiet reverence for routine, appreciating the predictable ebb and flow of days that were as steady and placid as the gentle tides of an unremarkable river. The Goodwins were comfortable and well-worn, like the well-thumbed pages of a cherished book. Mr. Goodwin, a man of few words and fewer dreams, worked as a librarian at the town’s modest library. Mrs. Goodwin was a homemaker, her days filled with the rhythmic clink of dishes and the fragrant promise of freshly baked bread. Their daughter, Emily, was a girl of sixteen, on the cusp of womanhood, who spent her afternoons wandering through the whispering woods on the edge of town, where she felt the thrill of something unseen lurking just beyond the veil of reality. On a September evening, as the sun dipped below the ho...

We are open for submissions all year long.  Writers, please read what we publish first before making your submission. We want supernatural fiction, yes. But we do not want adult content. Please understand the genre of supernatural horror before submitting, which includes the afterlife, the Devil, demonic possession, and related themes. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches, and other creatures are acceptable, as they are a long-held tradition of the genre. If your manuscript is rejected please try again.  Artists, we want to see your best works of the supernatural and anything with a retro horror vibe. Do not submit images of adult content.   There is no pay for your submissions. We are a fanzine and publish our content out of love for the genre. Creators submitting to us should do so out of that same love.  Please send submissions to the editor: davidpaul1970@gmail.com  

by Edgar Darkwood In the tangled woods of New England, where autumn leaves whispered secrets and shadows lengthened with the day’s decay, there stood a forgotten church. Its spire, once a proud sentinel, now lay broken and withered, a skeletal finger pointing accusingly at the heavens. Centuries of neglect had woven vines and ivy into its walls, turning the structure into a grotesque monument to time’s indifference. On a crisp October evening, as the sunset painted the sky with crimson and gold, five disparate souls converged upon this forsaken edifice. Their stories were as varied as the fallen leaves beneath their feet, and fate had drawn them together with threads woven in the loom of cosmic malignance. The first to arrive was Eliza Hart, a historian from Boston with a taste for the macabre. Her eyes, keen and inquisitive, were darkened by sleepless nights spent poring over dusty manuscripts. She had come seeking the origins of a legend, a tale of a church that had vanished from...