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Jonathan Siefer

Jonathan is an Oregon coast-based journalist who specializes in horror media. He began his career as a contributor for 1428 Elm, a former horror news site that belonged to FanSided.

He has conducted interviews with different figures in the genre, including Bram Stoker Award-nominated authors. He also routinely reviews films and written works. 

He holds a B.A. in English Studies from Western Oregon University. 
 

The Horror Lounge •

The Waiting Man adds a veiled original legend to the found footage genre (spoiler-free review)

The Waiting Man is a found footage project from Swedish photographer and filmmaker Carl Sundström. Previous films from him include Documenting the Witch Path and Reportage November. His film work generally features folklore, and in this film, he explores his own original legend through the camcorder lens (as well as those belonging to surveillance and web cameras). The film opens with a 911 call from a frantic little girl crying “he’s here” and wants to hurt them. There is a blood curdling screa...
The Horror Lounge •

Book Review: Clay McLeod Chapman serves unique courses in Acquired Taste

Last September, we were treated to a unique blend of flavors with the release of Acquired Taste, Clay McLeod Chapman’s macabre collection of short stories. This month, we’re being given a second helping of this collection with an official paperback release nine months after its original publication. The collection consists of almost a decade’s worth of 25 short stories that, as Clay pointed out in our recent interview with him, largely features flavor and appetite. The Shirley Jackson and Bram S...
The Horror Lounge •

Interview: Clay McLeod Chapman talks "Acquired Taste" and mixing humor with horror

Last September saw the release of Clay McLeod Chapman's Acquired Taste, a collection of horror fiction that is currently nominated for the 2025 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. On June 9th, the paperback version will be released by Titan Books, who was also behind April's release of Ronald Malfi's The Hive.Clay: You know… I’ll come clean: The title first came about after reading a few too many one-star reviews for my work online. I wanted to ask myself why cert...
The Horror Lounge •

Mattel's Shorty doll, inspired by Killer Klowns from Outer Space, introduces a cult classic to the new generation

As of right now, Mattel is currently sold out of this product (incredibly within one minute of listing it), but confirmed restocks are on the way!Mattel, the company behind the Barbie, just released their latest addition to their Monster High line, and it’s introducing the next generation to one of the most popular cult classic horrors of the 1980s. Killer Klowns from Outer Space was released in 1988 and centered on an invasion of extraterrestrial clowns in the small college town of Crescent Cov...
The Horror Lounge •

Video game elements teased in the first trailer for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil

The first teaser trailer for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil film is here, and the vision teased from one of the genre’s breakthrough directors is one that makes us want to dust off the PlayStation 1 and find an old TV to play the first two games on.Described by Cregger himself as a love letter to the game series, the film does not adapt a storyline from the games but introduces a new story meant to exist “concurrently” with the characters and events of Resident Evil 2. Despite being longer than mo...
The Horror Lounge •

The Yogurt Shop Murders returns to HBO Max with a revealing conclusion

The Yogurt Shop Murders was released on HBO Max in August 2025, detailing the tragic quadruple homicide that occurred at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas in 1991. Despite a lengthy—and controversial—investigation, the case remained unsolved at the time the series premiered.Now, aligning with a great documentary trend for 2026, HBO Max will debut a fifth episode of the series as a conclusion, detailing the revelation and its ramifications on family, friends, and investigator...
The Horror Lounge •

Good Boy writer and director Ben Leonberg will be helming Sony's Ankle Snatcher

The 2025 experimental horror hit Good Boy came out in October, placing short-film writer and director Ben Leonberg in the feature-length horror spotlight. Now he’s stepping back into it with news that he will be directing Sony’s Ankle Snatcher, an adaptation of the Grady Hendrix short story of the same name. The original story was released by Amazon Original Stories in 2023 as part of their Creature Feature selection of horror stories, which also featured original works from authors such as Joe...
The Horror Lounge •

Review: Ronald Malfi's The Hive slithers into our heads and won't stop buzzing

Released this week from Titan Books, the sprawling 768-page epic is a labyrinth in nearly every sense of the word. Each chapter is a small piece of a large cosmic puzzle that had me turning pages and racking up notes like coat hangers (you’ll have to read it).Mariner’s Cove is a lovely bayside community in Maryland. Following a violent summer thunderstorm, the residents of the cove find random inanimate objects scattered throughout (a shopping cart wheel, a colander, the rim of a basketball hoop...
The Horror Lounge •

Dexter: Resurrection gains original Hannibal Lecter actor Brian Cox for season 2

Dexter: Resurrection premiered July 2025 on Paramount +, ushering a return of the serial-killing forensic analyst Dexter Morgan, who was last seen in New Blood, the sequel series set ten years after the original series finale. Resurrection returns for a second season this October, and it’s been confirmed that veteran actor Brian Cox will join the cast as the New York Ripper.His character is described as a serial killer who once terrorized New York years ago but is no longer active. He continues...
The Horror Lounge •

South of Midnight weaves into PlayStation and Switch consoles this week

2026 is shaping into an excellent year for horror video games. February has already displayed that, with Reanimal signifying Tarsier’s epic comeback, and Resident Evil: Requiem bringing Leon S. Kennedy back to Raccoon City. March will be closing out with a special release of South of Midnight for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. South of Midnight, a fantasy action game from Compulsion Games, was released on April 8, 2025 for Xbox Series X/S and PC. The game received particular praise towards...
The Horror Lounge •

From Season 4: Everything we know so far before its release

After a long wait, but less than a wait for other series, we have the trailer for the highly anticipated Season 4. The series focuses on the trapped residents of an inescapable supernatural town (labeled “Fromville” by fans), led primarily by Boyd Stevens (Harold Perrineau), a retired military intelligence officer whom the town accepts as their sheriff. Season 3 ended with Tabitha Matthews (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and Jade Herrera (David Alpay) realizing they are reincarnates of their past live...
The Horror Lounge •

Interview: Ronald Malfi discusses his upcoming horror book The Hive

In the aftermath of a violent storm, a collective obsession is rapidly developing among the people of this quaint suburban neighborhood. Random, everyday items left scattered upon the lawns, the streets, and the shoreline all seem to call out to them. There is an item for almost everyone, and each item has a certain hold over the person who finds it—a hold that soon turns into unwavering infatuation. They hide their items from each other, obsess over them, and they will do anything—anything—to p...
The Horror Lounge •

Interview: Nick Apostolides describes working on 'cinematic' Resident Evil Requiem

Horror videogames have been enjoying a resurgence. Some recent testaments include Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Return to Silent Hill, and Zach Cregger's upcoming Resident Evil adaptation, slated for release on September 18, 2026. But before we head to the theaters to see Cregger's original cinematic take on the game, it's rather fitting we can play the "cinematic" ninth installment of the original game series. We recently had a chance to speak Nick Apostolides, the voice and motion capture actor f...
The Horror Lounge •

In Cold Light takes us on different rides

In Cold Light opens with local drug lord Ava, played by horror familiar Maika Monroe, lying down in the desert with drug paraphernalia in her hand. She wakes up and drives to a suburban drug house to buy some pills. Shortly after the transaction begins, amidst the sounds of muscle playing videogames and ping pong, the house is raided by the police and Ava is arrested after a brief chase. Two years later, Ava is released from prison and forced to work at a rodeo belonging to her deaf, retired bul...
The Horror Lounge •

The historic and expanding role of dogs in the horror genre

The horror genre has more than its fair share of tropes that have garnered popularity and notoriety for the genre. From evil children to final girls, we’ve become quite familiarized. It’s for this reason we continue to see a steady stream of Scream sequels. But one trope still tugs at our heart strings despite a prolonged history in the genre—dogs. In Halloween, Lindsey Wallace’s German Shephard Lester is strangled to death by Michael Myers after continuously barking at him. In American Psycho,...
The Horror Lounge •

Remembering Tom Noonan's roles in horror

Tom Noonan, a prolific actor with over 28 years of experience in film and television, passed away on February 14th. His cause of death is not yet public, but it was confirmed that he passed on peacefully. Standing at 6 ft 5 in, Noonan was known for playing villainous roles: The Ripper in Last Action Hero, Cain in Robocop 2. This made him a natural fit for horror that extended to both film and television. In The X-Files episode “Paper Hearts,” he portrayed serial killer John Lee Roche to critical...
The Horror Lounge •

The best horror movies to watch this Valentine's Day

With a marketable holiday centralized around love, we may not expect the holiday has some rather interesting origins that don’t quite align with stuffed teddy bears and chocolate. For example, the earliest celebration that took place during the Ides of February was Lupercalia in Ancient Rome. It was a Mediterranean festival in which priests would sacrifice goats and dogs to fertility gods before two of them would fashion the hides of the sacrificed animals into whips. They would then run down th...
The Horror Lounge •

The Strangers: Chapter 3 will deliver the trilogy's final kill

It’s been less than five months since The Strangers: Chapter 2 was released, and we won't have to wait any longer for the release of the third and final installment in Renny Harlin’s standalone trilogy in the iconic franchise. Madelaine Petsch, returning as Maya, is the Final Girl trapped in the Strangers’ unceasing cycle of violence, pushed toward an inevitable face-off with the masked killers—a terrifying nightmare where the only way out is in.The Strangers: Chapter 3 was simultaneously filmed...
The Horror Lounge •

Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard scripting a remake of 90s classic Idle hands

Finn Wolfhard, who just concluded his nine-year tenure as Mike Wheeler, has already branched out his talents with 2025’s Hell of a Summer, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Billy Byrk. He also has his hands in a remake of the 90s cult horror-comedy from director Rodman Flender called, fittingly, Idle Hands. Idle Hands, released in 1999, is about lazy teen stoner Anton Tobias (played by the iconic Devon Sawa) whose hand becomes possessed by the devil and goes on a killing spree, dragging Ant...
The Horror Lounge •

Reanimal is the perfect horror co-op for couples this Valentine's Day

In this co-op horror adventure game, you play as a brother & sister who go through hell to rescue their missing friends. Exploring by boat and on land, you must use your wits to survive, work together to escape the hellish island, and the dark secret that haunts you.The game had been in development since the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when the future was uncertain and the world felt like something of a shell of its pre-2020 self. Dave Mervik, a senior Narrative Designer for Tarsier Studios, expre...
The Horror Lounge •

It: Welcome to Derry reminds us of the short-lived Hulu series Castle Rock

It: Welcome to Derry—HBO’s prequel series to Andy Muschietti’s It film series—has been doing quite well with audiences and critics alike. The series explores both new and established lore from the Stephen King universe, with more affordances as a series rather than a constricted two-and-a-half hour film. But It: Welcome to Derry is not the first series to take place in an expansive Stephen King universe, nor is it the first to feature Bill Skarsgård. Castle Rock, a two-season series, premiered o...
1428 Elm •

31 Days of Horror: The Mortuary Collection resurrects old school anthology

From Creepshow to V/H/S, anthologies have been a well-used storytelling structure in the horror genre. They provide a diverse group of uniquely terrifying segments, usually with an underlying plot. If the film is done well, the stories remain consistent. That is the case for The Mortuary Collection, a 2019 anthology written and directed by Ryan Spindell.The Mortuary Collection premiered at the 2019 Fantastic Fest before coming to the streaming service Shudder in October 2020. The film stars vete...
1428 Elm •

Small Town Monsters' Siege of Ape Canyon uncovers truth from the myth

An issue that plagues documentaries about Bigfoot, or the hunt for it, is the inevitable ending in which the creature isn’t found. This is not the case with Siege of Ape Canyon, the latest documentary from director Eli Watson. The film is not about the search for Bigfoot, but the pursuit of a local legend embroiled in the Bigfoot legend itself. The documentary, filmed in Washington and Oregon, comes to us from Small Town Monsters, who produce documentaries centered on monster folklore in rural...
1428 Elm •

Interview: Horror author Nuzo Onoh talks about her latest novel Futility

Halloween is less than two weeks away and we're celebrating everything that comes with it; vampires, jack-o-lanterns, werewolves, movie marathons, and vengeful spirits. But no spirit will match the vengeance of Chia and Claire; the main characters in Nuzo Onoh's upcoming novel Futility.Betrayed by the men in their lives, two women seethe with rage and bitterness. When a trickster spirit offers them the gift of revenge, they cannot resist. Chia runs one of the best restaurants in Abuja, Nigeria,...
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