Kaelyn Moore returns to talk scared, straight from the helm of Heart Starts Pounding – her mega podcast of mysteries, murder and the macabre.

She watches a lot of dark documentaries for research. I asked her to come talk about a few that recently inspired her (or disturbed her). We cover serial killers, cursed objects and a relationship that will give you serious ICK!

But of course, this being Talking Scared, we also spin off into a conversation about ethics, belief and the justice system.

** I apologise to you as well as Kaelyn for my terrible suggestion of a documentary to watch. Hopefully my anger and self-loathing is funny.

Enjoy

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This week is full of muck and murk and mushrooms. We flit amongst the trees, we bed on moss, we howl at the moon.

Daisy Pearce is entering her bog witch era!

The author takes us to her native Cornwall, for a story of haunting and imprisonment, small town baggage and creepy houses in the woods. We talk about the oppressive landscape and the mythical texture of the place. We ask whether anyone in a small town can ever really leave high school behind… and we really look at the fine art of trepanation AKA – having a hole drilled in your head (and what it would feel like!)

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Something in the Walls (2025), by Daisy Pearce
• Water Shall Refuse Them (2019), by Lucy McKnight Hardy
• A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), by Paul Tremblay
• Itch (2025), by Gemma Amor
• The Man From the Train : The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery (2017), by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
• A Simple Plan (1993), by Scott Smith
• From Hell (1999), by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

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This week we host one of the most exciting horror filmmakers of the decade – Damian McCarthy, the twisted mind behind Caveat, Oddity and now, Hokum.

It’s the biggest film in Damian’s career so far, with his biggest star, Adam Scott playing Ohm, a deeply flawed American writer who travels to Ireland, to spread his parent’s ashes. Whilst staying in a creaky old hotel, he stumbled across dark human conspiracy and witchy haunting.

Damian is so much nicer than Ohm, and this is a cheery conversation about the cheeriest scary film I’ve seen in a while!

Enjoy

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Cognitohazards abound this week, as Marcus Kliewer joins me for a conversation about the reality-shredding We Used to Live Here and his new novel of obsessional rules, The Caretaker.

In both books, there are things that should not be known, and certainly not questioned. Yet questioning is my job – so we get into the expansive and weird universe Marcus is building, and the process of playing games and leaving clues for the reader. We talk about how his own terrors and neurodivergence informs his fiction, and I pass on a lecture from my wife that these books should come with an OCD trigger warning.

Plus – you get not one but TWO recommendations for true existential horror reads.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• We Used to Live Here (2025), by Marcus Kliewer
• House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Denial of Death (1973), by Ernest Becker
• A Short Stay in Hell (2009), by Steven L. Peck
• The Divine Farce (2009), by Michael Graziano
• Japanese Gothic (2026), by Kylie Lee Baker

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A conversation about codes of honour and the rules of haunting in this week’s episode – as I’m joined by Kylie Lee Baker, author of 2025’s incredible Bat Eater, and the brand-new Japanese Gothic.

It’s the story of a very particular haunted house, a brutal samurai family, and a murderer who can’t remember his crime. It’s exhilaratingly weird and Kylie leads me through its many strange rooms.

We talk about her own dual heritage, it’s role in the story, and links to the very real historical Samurai. We discuss the meanings of Gothic in her work, the art of writing puzzling fiction, and Timothy Chalamet's role in inspiring the novel.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Bat Eater (2025), by Kylie Anne Baker
• Mexican Gothic (2020), by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• So Thirsty (2024), by Rachel Harrison
• Rekt (2025), by Alex Rodriguez
• Man of Wind and Moss (2026), by Alex Rodriguez

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When Stephen King tells you to have a guest on your podcast – you listen!

That’s how I came to meet Caroline Bicks, the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair at the University of Maine, and author of the Monsters in the Archive – the first full-length study of the King literary collection.

It’s part memoir, part literary biography, part granular exploration of King’s editorial process – but ALL fun. I’m a nerd on this subject, and I found out plenty that I didn’t know.

As well as discussing our own relationship with King’s early work, we also talk about the stuff that never made it to print. The exploding vampire babies, the Kaiju-sized Carrie and the original ending of The Shining that is so much darker than you could bear.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Carrie (1974), by Stephen King
• ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
• The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
• Night Shift (1978), by Stephen King
• Pet Semetary (1983), by Stephen King
• On Writing (2000), by Stephen King
• North Woods (2023), by Daniel Mason
• Ulverton (1992), by Adam Thorpe

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Listen at your own peril this week.

I spoke with Ian Tuason and Nina Kiri, the director and star of Undertone – billed as “the scariest movie you’ll ever hear!”

It’s the story of an isolated podcaster, who makes the terrible mistake of listening to some very unnerving audio files…which then start to bleed into her own life. You can imagine the number it did on me!

Ian and Nina talk about the movie’s roots in Ian’s own experience of late-life care for his parents, and the responsibility of portraying that on screen. We discuss how the film weaponises sound, how the internet is a scary, fascinating place, and even a little exclusive heads up about more to come in this universe.

Enjoy

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Corporate culture is a nightmare, but getting out of the office brings its own problems in Carter Keane’s debut novella – Morsel.

It’s a story about monsters and eldritch beings, about killer cults and evil law-enforcement, about wellbeing scams and a boss from hell – but it’s also a springboard for a whole conversation about the cons (many) and pros (debatable) of capitalism. Carter indulges my devil’s advocacy, before we get back to the matter of strange forest disappearances and horrible shit that happens with bears.

It’s a whole range of ways to feel scared of the world.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• The Ritual (2011), by Adam Nevill
• Last Days (2012), by Adam Nevill
• All the Fiends of Hell (2024), by Adam Nevill
• The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (2017), by Margaret Killjoy
• Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1989), by Frederic Jameson       
• Debt: The First 500 Years (2011), by David Graeber
• Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (2017), by Kate Raworth
• The Cold Vanish: Seeking the Missing in North America’s Wildlands (2020), by Jon Billman
• Rust Belt Femme (2020), by Rachael Anne Jolie
• Night of the Grizzlies (1969), by Jack Olsen

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Nat and I stick around in the shadowed recesses of Black House for another half hour, to discuss all the things that Chris got right and wrong – and to make some entirely unfounded claims of our own.

It’s overflowing with spoilers for the whole Dark Tower series, so don’t listen if you’re a newbie. We start to ask who is the Crimson King? Would Roland and Jack have gotten along? And we get very grumpy about certain wolves in a certain town further down the road.

Enjoy.

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Time to whet our appetites for the Dark Tower again – this time with an extra serving of ass cheek!

After three months away, we’re picking up with travellin’ Jack Sawyer after we left him in The Talisman. We find him in a sleepy Wisconsin town, where the dimension-hopping, child-eating Fisherman is plying his awful trade.

Yep… it’s time for Black House. The book in which King’s universes collide.

Nat, Chris and I argue – about where we see the spirit of King and Peter Straub in this story, about the believability of characters and the RIGHT amount to mourn a fallen hero. But we also agree about the beauty of theprose, the sublime depiction of the deepest horrors, and the sheer joy of one of the Dark Tower’s nastiest villains.

It’s as much fun as you can have with a book about so many dead kids.

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After seeing an early screener of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen I immediately thought it was going to be huge!

So I leapt ahead of the curve and invited writer and showrunner, Haley Z Boston to come talk scared about weddings, soulmates, David Lynch and Danish horror, and what it’s like to work with the Duffer Brothers.

This show has been my whole personality for two weeks. Ihope you watch, listen to this interview, and love it all.

Enjoy

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