Excerpts Horror Read an Excerpt From Abyss by Nicholas Binge Severance meets Lovecraft in this surreal tale of corporate horror and existential dread. By Nicholas Binge | Published on May 7, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Abyss by Nicholas Binge, a new horror novella publishing with Nightfire on May 12th. Joe always had potential, but he doesn’t expect much, and he hopes that his new job as an admin assistant won’t expect much of him. But when he enters the offices of Ponos—a company he’s never heard of and knows nothing about—he discovers that potential is exactly what they want from him. Joe pulls his phone out of his pocket, and opens WhatsApp, reading the message that’s been waiting for him. Good luck today! He takes a deep breath, and types out a reply. Thanks, Mum. I miss you. It would be nice if I could come round on the weekend and tell you about it? Maybe we could make— His fingers pause. Pressing the Back key, he deletes the message and writes it again. Thanks, Mum It’s 8:58. Straightening up, he takes out his earphones and puts his phone in his pocket, then he walks up to the front doors. They don’t open. He pushes, and then pulls a little, glancing around to make sure no one thinks he’s an idiot. To his left, he sees the bulbous glass dome of a security camera pointing down at him. To his right, there’s a pad for a keycard. Idiot. Pulling the keycard from his pocket, he swipes it against the pad, which makes a positive beeping sound. The door clicks and Joe pushes it open. Inside, a corporate lobby stretches from one end of the building to another. There are minimalist tables and chairs dotted around, presumably for impromptu meetings and discussions. In between, potted ferns and palm-tree-like plants fill the space, the bright green a welcome contrast to the overwhelmingly pastel colour scheme. There’s a couple of offices labelled things like it support and operational management and, in front, a long welcome desk with several computers. The whole space is completely empty. The lights are on. The general hum of the building suggests that most of the electronics and technology are running away in the background. But there isn’t a person in sight anywhere. Joe takes two steps forward and stands in the centre of the lobby, baffled. “H-Hello?” he tries. Nothing. Approaching the desk, he glances over to see the computers—on, but not logged in—and half hopes he might find another human being crouching down picking up some papers or something, but no. Outside of the hum, the completeness of the silence is only punctuated by the rustle of Joe’s bag and clothes as he moves around the room. Buy the Book Abyss Nicholas Binge Buy Book Abyss Nicholas Binge Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget He wants to tiptoe, feeling like each time his foot touches the floor or clothes rustle against his bag he’s defiling some kind of perfect sanctuary of quiet. He wants someone to show up. Getting out his phone, he scrolls back through his induction emails. At the bottom, there is a name and a phone number. Virgil Stanforth. 020 3853 8523 He calls it, and it rings three times before someone picks up. “Yes?” “Hello, Mr. Stanforth?” A pause. “Yes?” “My— My name is Joseph Rice. I was hired at Ponos as an administrative support worker and this is my first day.” Another pause, this one longer. “Yes?” “Well, I . . . I’m in the lobby, and there’s no one here.” “What?” “Yes. I was told to come in at nine a.m. on my first day.” “You’re in the lobby?” Joe looks around him again, trying to work out if he’s somehow got it wrong, but he can’t understand how. “Yes.” “Jesus Christ.” A beep indicates the call’s been terminated, and Joe just stares at his phone for a minute, blinking at the screen. For a second, he considers leaving. If he goes home, he can order some food from that Mexican place and maybe put on a film. He’s not watched a film in months—every time he starts he keeps getting sucked into YouTube shorts and ends up turning it off. Maybe he could watch something new? Like a— His phone buzzes in his hand so loudly he almost drops it. The sound echoes round the painfully empty space, invading and infecting it so utterly that Joe scrambles to accept the call as fast as he can, his panicked fingers fumbling. “Hello?” “Welcome to Ponos, Mr. Rice.” It’s not Virgil Stanforth, but a woman’s voice—soft and comforting. “Our deepest apologies but everyone is extremely busy this morning. If you could please head to your right and take the lift up to the fourth floor, you’ll find your office space in Room 412. Your keycard should give you access and your login was provided with your induction packet.” “Oh,” he says. “Thank you. I appreciate that, I just wonder if—” “We value all our staff,” the woman cuts through, as if Joe hadn’t spoken. “At Ponos, we are family.” Once again, the call ends as suddenly as it began. Excerpted from Abyss, copyright © 2026 by Nicholas Binge. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Abyss</i> by Nicholas Binge appeared first on Reactor.

News send help You Can Now Stream Sam Raimi’s Send Help It’s hard to find a good boss these days By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on May 7, 2026 Screenshot: 20th Century Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: 20th Century Studios The horror comedy Send Help gave us an answer to what would happen if an underappreciated woman was stranded on a desert island with her major a-hole of a boss. The idea, written by the dudes Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, was one that intrigued Sam Raimi enough to direct it, and saw Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien come on board to star. “What I really love about this story is that it’s an underdog tale at its core. Not only is it about survival on a deserted island, but it’s also a story of female empowerment and transformation,” Raimi told Entertainment Weekly when promoting the film, which came out in January. “Watching a once-powerful boss find himself dependent on someone he underestimated is satisfying. Our story is universal! We need to encourage our society to treat people with respect and kindness, regardless of status. It’s especially rewarding to see our heroine, Linda, comes into her own in such an unexpected environment.” I won’t spoil who comes out on top at the end (though the trailer suggests that things don’t go well for the boss for at least a good chunk of the film), but the good news is you can now stream the movie yourself. Send Help started streaming on Hulu on May 7, 2026, so get yourself a plate of bacon (this reference makes sense if you’ve watched the trailer) and watch McAdams and O’Brien duke it out on a deserted island. [end-mark] The post You Can Now Stream Sam Raimi’s <i>Send Help</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV The Terror: Devil in Silver The Terror: Devil in Silver Nails Its Premiere The adaptation of Victor LaValle’s book starts strong right out of the gate. By Alex Brown | Published on May 7, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share AMC’s horror anthology The Terror has returned, this time adapting Victor LaValle’s hospital horror book The Devil in Silver. All you need to know going in is that a guy finds himself imprisoned in a mental hospital that may or may not be haunted by a monster.  I’ll be covering each weekly episode, with some spoilers. Before watching the first episode, I read the book. I wanted to make sure I had a firm grasp on the themes and what to expect in the show. However, I will try not to turn these reviews into diatribes comparing and contrasting the source material with the adaptation. Alright, enough background. Let’s check in on the poor patients at New York City’s worst mental hospital. We begin not with our main character but a dead man. The sun has set on New Hyde Hospital, a brick building that looks more like a derelict factory than a facility housing a vulnerable population. Mr. Bromden is dead in his bed, long enough for rigor mortis to set in and twist his body to look like he died of terror. Nurses Josephine (Maureen Sebastian), Miss Chris (CCH Pounder), and Scotch Tape (Hampton Fluker) discover him, a pool of blood staining the blanket over his face. The latter two move the body, but only after breaking Mr. Bromden’s limbs. Respect for the human body isn’t something the staff at New Hyde are particularly concerned with. Did Mr. Bromden kill himself? Or did someone kill him?  In an interview with Reactor, LaValle talked about how this opening scene does a lot of heavy lifting for the show. Not only does it set the tone, but it also functions as the first of many indictments against a system working exactly as designed. “I remember reading a story after Hurricane Katrina about this old folks’ home in Far Rockaway, where a lot of the elderly patients were just essentially left there to die. And there was one body that had died in rigor mortis in a way that they couldn’t get it out of the room. And then I was like, ‘Huh, let’s take that…’ I just thought you couldn’t think of a better way to say something is wrong—not with these people, but with this whole system.” If the Big Bad is a monster in the walls, that’s scary. If the Big Bad is a system that has beaten everyone, patients and staff, down so much that they can rip open their own throat or break the legs of a dead person without complaint, that’s worse. Finally we get to the main event. Dan Stevens plays Pepper with a real joie de dirtbag quality that is both impossible to dislike and also frustrating in big doses. (I used to work in cheap restaurants, and he reminds me a lot of the cooks, grungy dudes who will cook a server a free meal while also threatening to kill a customer.) He’s charming if rough around the edges, and has a chip on his shoulder that is constantly on the verge of tipping him out of control. He’s the kind of guy who is fun to have around but not someone you build a future with; he’s reckless enough to sabotage his happiness and oblivious enough to not realize when he’s doing it. Girlfriend Marisol (Juani Feliz) has more patience than I do, or lower standards (probably both), but there are cracks in this romance. After a tense conversation over Pepper’s inability to respect her financial boundaries, he dives in like a superhero vigilante to save her from her abusive ex. Here come the cops, violating procedure like it’s in their job description, and off Pepper goes to New Hyde. After a stressful intake and some unsettling backstory from Dorry (Judith Light!!!), the local “tour guide,” Pepper ends up in poor Mr. Bromden’s old room. Something I noted in both the book and the show is that most of the patients are women or people of color. The only white staff we’ve seen so far have been two of the three doctors; the nursing team is all BIPOC, as is the head doctor. Pepper is one of the only white men in the hospital, and he replaces a white man. When he’s sitting in the cop car, he even tries to play good ol’ white boys with the cops, but it doesn’t work. Being white offers privileges the rest of us don’t get, but in some situations, like being disabled or a cop deciding they want to take time out of their day to personally fuck up your life, those privileges are few and far between. This is probably the first time in Pepper’s life where being white hasn’t benefited him as much as it usually would (on the other hand, he only got arrested, not shot). He’s a victim of the system just like everyone else, but he still has it better than many BIPOC patients. The only other person besides Pepper who believes he doesn’t belong there is an unnamed cop known only by the nickname Pepper gives him, “Louie” (Philip Ettinger). When he gets lost in the bowels of the hospital, he encounters one of those hallucinations/ghosts, and it goes as well for him as it did Mr. Bromden. Pepper’s 72 hour hold whizzes by under a haze of antipsychotics, and he retaliates by assaulting Anand, landing him with more drugs and another extension on his unofficial sentence. Pepper isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Image: Emily V. Aragones/AMC At first everyone seems to acknowledge that Pepper isn’t mentally ill and is only there because a trio of cops were lazy. Dr. Anand (Aasif Mandvi) plays the game, but it’s a recitation of procedure, nothing more. He drugs him up not for any reason other than he can, it’s easy, and what is Pepper gonna do about it? When Pepper has several hallucinations, again instead of anyone asking themselves “could this be because we drugged a guy who doesn’t need drugs” (or because the hospital is haunted), Anand and the cops talk themselves into thinking maybe Pepper really is mentally ill. He has to be, right? We’re helping people, drugs help people, he is breaking the rules, ergo he deserves to be there.  Louie is the only good apple in the spoiled barrel. He tries to be a good cop, but not that hard. He probably got into the job because he wanted to help people and then realized corruption and violence is the system. He tries to crack the system from the outside by leaking information to journalists, but of course nothing changes. You can’t fix something that isn’t broken. He is in the same leaky boat as the staff at the hospital, a regular guy trying to get by and not cause too much harm in the world but unwilling to stand up to the powers that be if it means risking his livelihood, telling himself he’s doing what’s right but it’s mostly what’s right for him. Louie says “This can’t be the job,” but it is, buddy. It is exactly what you signed up for.  Take the constant refrain “follow the doctor’s orders.” Sounds simple enough, right? The system works based on rules. But the people working in the system immediately use those rules against Pepper. They give him haldol, an antipsychotic used mostly to treat schizophrenia symptoms and Tourette’s. Of course that’s going to knock him out; he’s never taken anything like it and doesn’t have any of the symptoms the medication is supposed to ease. Which means he’s out of it long enough to miss his other meds, and the nurses, who are too overworked to care, just mark him as noncompliant instead of taking time they don’t have to check on him. Being NC means he’s stuck there longer than he should be.  None of this is technically a problem. The nurses followed the rules, Pepper did not. Doesn’t matter that if the nurses were better staffed and resourced, they wouldn’t have given Pepper haldol in the first place or at least could have monitored him for compliance over the weekend. Doesn’t matter that Pepper didn’t intentionally choose noncompliance. The system is working exactly as designed, because the system was designed to exploit the vulnerable… and both the patients and staff count as vulnerable. “Oh, you think it’s bad in here? Because they have no chance on the streets.” As if those are the only two options. Or, I guess, in the current system, those are. But instead of trying to do anything about it, the staff cash their paychecks and over-medicate their patients. Everyone says they’re helping people, and Louie even believes it. But no one is being helped by the system. That’s not why it exists. It exists to incarcerate. There’s a reason 19th century insane asylums used the term “inmates” for patients. The system is designed to “profit off our bodies,” as Coffee (Chinaza Uche), Pepper’s roommate, says. There isn’t much profit to be made, but the board is going to squeeze every last dime out of people like Pepper and Coffee.  Image: Emily V. Aragones/AMC Writers and co-showrunners Christopher Cantwell and Victor LaValle nail this adaptation. As far as the first episode goes, they succeed in setting up the season with teases of horror. It’s tricky to tell a story like this where the audience doesn’t know what’s real and what’s a fabric of our protagonist’s imagination. It’s clear something wicked this way comes, but what, how, and why are unknowns. The first episode is visually and aurally evocative. The music wobbles like a warped record, the camera (with stunning cinematography by Julie Kirkwood and direction from Karyn Kusama) cuts harsh angles and perspectives, and the hue is tinted a sickly yellow. The production design is spot on, too. Nothing in the Northwest looks like it was made this century. The building is rundown, falling apart, out of date.  Also! Getting the inimitable CCH Pounder is such a score. There are many tremendous actors in this stacked cast, and this woman is one of the best. She is an actor actor. She has been around for ages and never misses. She plays Miss Chris somewhat differently from in the book. In the book I felt like she enjoyed being cruel to the patients. Here, she enjoys having power over others—see that little smile at “the new girl” crying—but she brings a level of competence and exhaustion to it. She is no nonsense because she’s seen it all and she’s never been paid enough for it. She can instruct Scotch Tape to break bones while at the same time gently covering Mr. Bromden’s face out of respect. As a side note, I’m watching ER for the first time as a way to tide me over between seasons of The Pitt, and one of my big thrills has been Pounder as Dr. Angela Hicks. I was late to the Victor LaValle bandwagon. The first book of his I read was the 2016 novella The Ballad of Black Tom. Loved it immediately and haven’t stopped recommending it. But it was his 2023 historical horror novel Lone Woman that turned me into a fanatic. That same year I got the opportunity to both read the book The Changeling and review the first season (and likely only season) of the adaptation. I’m also a huge fan of The Terror. I recently rewatched the first season and had forgotten how good it is. What a joy it is to be able to combine two of my horror interests with my critic brain. Can’t wait for the rest of this season! Quotes “You get rid of everything, it’s like throwing away a whole person. You don’t want to do that.” Paging Scotch Tape and Josephine. “It is meant to help,” said in the least convincing way possible. Pepper: “What is that?” he says pointing to the silver door. Dorry: “You’ll find out soon enough.” Well, that’s not ominous. “You were summoned. But who summoned you?” “Do bad things happen in a place because the place is evil, or were so many bad things done there, it invited evil in? I don’t know the answer. I only know what it’s like now.” Final Thoughts The way the ceiling tile constantly changes positions is disconcerting. What (or who) is up there??? Dan Stevens is so good at playing barely restrained men. He plays Pepper as a man about to snap, but also unsettled and skittish.  The note Pepper reads says: “Hello, you might not even remember who I am, which is fine, but I thought you should know. My mother, Antoinette, is dead. If you want to talk with me, that would be great. You can reach me at (917) 183-9833” The changes they’ve made to Pepper’s relationship with Marisol—and the introduction of the mysterious letter writer—pose some interesting challenges to his plot. In the book, he’s much more adrift in terms of interpersonal relations. I wonder how the show is going to play this. Pro-tip: ladies, don’t merge your finances with your man. Or if you must, at least keep a separate bank account he can’t access. That way if your man wants to splurge your savings on, say, a drum kit, he won’t ruin your trip to Orlando. When Pepper was beating the shit outta Manny, it felt like Stevens was playing it like Pepper had some unresolved childhood trauma. I wonder how much the show will get into it. Do the others not hear the scrabbling in the ceiling tiles or are they choosing to ignore it? Seems telling that only Pepper and Louie react. Dr. Walter, huh? Interesting… Stevens plays the descent into unconsciousness so well.  If the guy who is extremely hostile and breaks the bones of dead men is the guy who “fixes things,” that doesn’t bode well for anyone at New Hyde. The ringtone and the song playing at the end is Iron Maiden’s “Run To The Hills” If you’re a nerd like me and want to read more research on systemic racism in inpatient mental hospitals: this and this.[end-mark] The post <i>The Terror: Devil in Silver</i> Nails Its Premiere appeared first on Reactor.

News The Girl Who Was Plugged In Babadook Director Jennifer Kent’s Next Film is a James Tiptree Jr. Adaptation What if influencers, but terrifying By Molly Templeton | Published on May 7, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Jennifer Kent has found her next story with which to super freak you out. The writer-director of The Babadook and The Nightingale will return to the big screen with an adaptation of James Tiptree Jr.’s Hugo Award-winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In. Sophie Thatcher (Companion, pictured above) is already set to star. Kent has already written the screenplay, according to Deadline, which summarized the story thusly: “Thatcher plays disfigured, suicidal young protagonist P. Burke who is hired by a mega tech corporation to virtually operate a beautiful but brainless ‘flesh body’ called Delphi, grown in a lab with the sole purpose of influencing the masses and selling products. As Delphi’s star rises, P Burke becomes enthralled by her and descends into a tech psychosis with disastrous consequences.” Well, that doesn’t sound timely at all. In a statement, Kent said, “I have never felt a more urgent need to make a film as much as I have with The Girl Who Was Plugged In. Even though the original story was published over 50 years ago, its themes are now landing with a searing relevance, as if it was just written.” James Tiptree Jr. was the pen name of Alice B. Sheldon, who won three Nebula Awards and two Hugo Awards under her pseudonym. Tiptree is the subject of a biography, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips, and of an upcoming film, Tip/Alli, by director Jed Samer. The Girl Who Was Plugged In has previously been adapted as part of a Sci-Fi channel series called Welcome to Paradox, and as the first act of a stage musical with music by Alan Menken (yes, the hero of Disney soundtracks). One assumes Kent’s version will be quite different.[end-mark] The post <i>Babadook</i> Director Jennifer Kent’s Next Film is a James Tiptree Jr. Adaptation appeared first on Reactor.

Books Found in Translation Found in Translation: Ana Paula Maia’s Of Cattle and Men A gruesome dystopia — but not without hope By Hache Pueyo | Published on May 7, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Found in Translation is a new bimonthly column reviewing books translated to English in a variety of speculative shapes. Some traditional, some experimental, some told through cultural narratives that might seem peculiar if you’re not used to them, but all have the same unifying factor: there is always more out there. Somebody’s got to do the dirty work. Other people’s dirty work. Nobody wants to do that sort of thing. That’s why God put guys like you and me on this earth. In the most forgotten depths of Brazil, the blood of cattle and men flows down a river cluttered with human and animal remains. Rio das Moscas—River of Flies—is surrounded by slaughterhouses, and seems incapable of harboring any life, spitting out contaminated fish in a progressively more desolate landscape. Edgar Wilson, a stun operator at one of those facilities, feels no joy killing cows, but it’s what he does, and his preternatural understanding of the animals is as strong as his detachment. Stoic, hardened and efficient, Edgar Wilson is a man of few words, completing his job day after day and praying for the cows he stuns with a single blow. He doesn’t want them to suffer, nor does he question the need for slaughter: if others eat meat, then someone has to kill animals. And if he has to kill men too, so be it—he’s not seeking to be redeemed. One day, however, some of the cattle stop facing north, and begin facing west. Edgar Wilson is unsettled by the change, but no one else pays him any mind. Then, the cattle, usually peaceful, start acting erratically, which raises suspicions of possible predators sneaking into the field until twenty-two cows throw themselves off a cliff. Of Cattle and Men paints a gruesome dystopia. A poisoned river, fish whose eyes keep glowing after they die, cows that only give birth to stillborns. People, too, seem to have been abandoned in this dying world, reacting to violence with more violence. They are also not as hopeless as they believe themselves to be: Edgar Wilson feels empathy for the animals he faces every day, Burunga constantly risks drowning to pay for his daughter’s reading glasses, the cattlemen at Milo’s slaughterhouse feel defensive toward each other, and even Bronco Gil, the foreman believed to be much more brutal than he really is, can’t look away as women and children beg for a scrap of meat every day in front of the facility’s gates. Originally published in 2013, Of Cattle and Men is part of a larger body of work involving the same cast of characters, particularly Edgar Wilson, crafted by author Ana Paula Maia. There are two standalones, Of Cattle and Men and On Earth as it is Beneath (both published in English by Charco Press), and two separate trilogies, Saga of Brutes (published in a single volume by Dalkey Archive Press) and Trilogia do Fim (roughly Trilogy of the End, with the first book, Bury Your Dead, upcoming by Charco Press in 2026). The latter comprises the more recent books as the plot evolves into an apocalyptic scenario, and has been adapted to the screens as Bury Your Dead, starring Selton Mello (whom international viewers may know from Oscar-winning film I’m Still Here and the most recent Anaconda reboot) as Edgar Wilson. The reader doesn’t need to follow the chronology of the books, and at least half of them can be read independently, including Of Cattle and Men. Since Brazilian Portuguese is one of my first languages, I have to mention that there are some downsides to the translation. Most of it is competent, but there are some puzzling choices like keeping one of the names as Senhor Milo instead of Mr. Milo, or São Roque instead of Saint Roch. What is an overall effective translation becomes, then, part of a broader issue with the translation of Latin American works into English, which is keeping perfectly translatable words in their original languages like they have some sort of cultural significance when they don’t. If a writer says lua, the translation is moon; if a writer says vermelho, the translation is red; if the writer says senhor (or the Spanish equivalent señor), the translation is mister. Some words can be hard to translate, sure, some depend on context, and others remain the same no matter the language, like tempura or déjà vu. Senhor is not one of them. It’s jarring, and it adds an exotifying lens to almost all the books that come from Latin America. It’s exciting to know that more books by Maia will be available in English soon, but here is hoping that the next trilogy won’t suffer from the same issue.[end-mark] De Gados e Homens by Ana Paula Maia was originally published in 2013 in Brazil, and translated in 2023 by Zoë Perry (Charco Press) Buy the Book Of Cattle and Men Ana Paula Maia Translated by Zoë Perry Buy Book Of Cattle and Men Ana Paula Maia Translated by Zoë Perry Translated by Zoë Perry Buy this book from: The post Found in Translation: Ana Paula Maia’s <i>Of Cattle and Men</i> appeared first on Reactor.