The CinemaChords Podcast

Howard Gorman
  • 0.0 (0)
  • TV & Film

Bringing you up close and personal with the voices shaping film, music, and storytelling today. Each episode dives into candid chats with filmmakers, actors, musicians, and authors — from rising talent to industry icons — as they share the stories behind their work, the challenges they’ve faced, and the sparks that keep their creativity alive.

  1. 3d ago

    #61: Saratoga Schaefer Interview: Reworking Bluebeard as a Sapphic Gothic Horror Tale in ‘A Thousand Monstrous Forms’

    USA Today bestselling author Saratoga Schaefer turns the Bluebeard fairy tale into a contemporary gothic horror story with their latest novel, A Thousand Monstrous Forms. The novel centers on Poppy Reed, a young ceramic artist who moves into the isolated manor of her new wife, only to find herself surrounded by strange noises, faceless statues, bodiless whispers and a locked basement she has been strictly forbidden to enter. When a snowstorm leaves Poppy alone in the manor, the noises, whispers and forbidden basement become harder to dismiss, and her suspicions about her wife – and her own sanity – begin to take hold. Schaefer is the USA Today bestselling and Indie Press bestselling author of horror and thriller novels including Trad Wife, The Last Time We Drowned and Serial Killer Support Group. Their work has been featured in Variety, People, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Glamour, while their writing has also appeared in Writer’s Digest, CrimeReads and other publications.To celebrate today’s release of A Thousand Monstrous Forms, CinemaChords spoke to Schaefer about reworking Bluebeard as a sapphic gothic romance, creating the sinister world of Busirane, and exploring marriage, trust, isolation and desire through a contemporary horror lens, where the things we most depend upon can end up spiraling into sources of eerie ambiguity.Buy your copy of A Thousand Monstrous Forms here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/826826/a-thousand-monstrous-forms-by-saratoga-schaefer/

    #61: Saratoga Schaefer Interview: Reworking Bluebeard as a Sapphic Gothic Horror Tale in ‘A Thousand Monstrous Forms’

  2. 5d ago

    #60: What Makes a Movie Truly Haunted? Hailey Piper on This Movie Doesn't End the Way We Want

    Bram Stoker Award-winning author Hailey Piper sits down with CinemaChords to discuss her forthcoming novel This Movie Doesn't End the Way We Want, a haunting cosmic horror story about cinema, memory, grief and human connection.Piper is the author of Queen of Teeth, A Game in Yellow, A Light Most Hateful and The Worm and His Kings series, as well as more than 120 short stories published in Weird Tales, Pseudopod, Dark Moon Digest and other publications.Set across 30 years, the novel connects a tragic 1994 cinema disappearance with its grim 2024 anniversary, following Valerie and Roxie as they become drawn into a mystery involving lost media, changing technology and lingering grief.In our exclusive CinemaChords interview, Piper reveals how she went about creating believable characters and settings to ground the book's “haunted movie” premise, and the challenge of bringing retro haunted-movie trappings into a world of smartphones, video cameras and the internet without turning the story into a straightforward AI allegory.She also discusses cinema, nostalgia, lost media and why certain films can leave an enduring mark on us long after the technology that created them has changed.Order your copy of the book here: https://haileypiper.com/this-movie-doesnt-end-the-way-we-want/

    #60: What Makes a Movie Truly Haunted? Hailey Piper on This Movie Doesn't End the Way We Want

  3. 5d ago

    #59: Your Phone Knows Way Too Much: Michael David Wilson Talks the Tech Terrors of The Girl in the Video

    Michael David Wilson, founder of the UK horror website, podcast and small press This Is Horror, sits down with CinemaChords to discuss the re-release of his acclaimed novella The Girl in the Video, which returns with new material in the form of a brand-new short story.A professional writer, editor and podcaster, Wilson has worked with 2000 AD, Terrorizer and Broken River Books, while his writing has appeared in The NoSleep Podcast, Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, Hawk & Cleaver's The Other Stories and Scream. He is also the author of They're Watching, written with Bob Pastorella, and a professional ESL teacher and graduate of the University of Warwick's English Literature and Creative Writing Programme.Originally published by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing in April 2020, The Girl in the Video follows a teacher whose life begins to unravel after he receives a strange and disturbingly arousing video. More videos soon follow, each containing information that no stranger could possibly know. As paranoia and obsession take hold, he is forced to confront one terrifying question: who is sending the videos, and what do they want?Described as The Ring meets Fatal Attraction for the iPhone generation, The Girl in the Video explores paranoia, obsession, technology and the terrifying consequences of someone gaining access to the most private corners of your life.In our exclusive CinemaChords interview, Wilson discusses the origins of The Girl in the Video, returning to the story for its re-release, the decision to include a brand-new short story, and the terrors of technology used to expose what we would rather keep well hidden.Buy your copy of the book here: https://www.michaeldavidwilson.co.uk/books/the-girl-in-the-video/

    #59: Your Phone Knows Way Too Much: Michael David Wilson Talks the Tech Terrors of The Girl in the Video

  4. Sep 8

    #58: Kayla Ancrum Talks Giving Frankenstein a Tenderly Bruising Resurrection in New Novel ‘Adam, Mine’

    Kayla Ancrum’s fiction has a way of bringing the fantastical back to something recognisably human, exploring love, identity and belonging through characters whose lives are shaped, for better or worse, by the people around them. A National Book Award longlist author for The Corruption of Hollis Brown and Lambda Literary Award winner for Icarus, Ancrum now turns her attention to one of literature’s most enduring stories of creation and consequence. With Adam, Mine, releasing today, September 8, Ancrum delivers a queer romantic horror thriller that serves as a love letter to Frankenstein, while giving Mary Shelley’s familiar creation myth a brand-new perspective. Victor Frankenstein is a young and brilliant prodigy determined to prove himself through the reanimation of the sick and dying. But after a drunken bet leads him to experiment on Elias Hilfiker, a teenage boy from a neighbouring village, Victor’s ambition leaves both of their lives irrevocably changed. Elias awakens without his voice, his body stitched, scarred and marked with strange symbols, while Victor sets out across distant lands in search of a way to undo what he has done. Bound together by the consequences of Victor’s actions, the two find themselves sharing each other’s pain, joy and regret as they grapple with vengeance, mercy and the possibility of forgiveness. To celebrate the book’s release, CinemaChords sat down with Ancrum to discuss the genesis of and themes at the core of Adam, Mine, from its relationship with Frankenstein to its exploration of family, responsibility and the consequences of the choices we make.

    #58: Kayla Ancrum Talks Giving Frankenstein a Tenderly Bruising Resurrection in New Novel ‘Adam, Mine’

  5. Sep 8

    #57: Eric LaRocca Talks ‘We Turn Gruesome At Night’ and the Fine Line Between Purging Darkness and Feeding It

    Anyone who’s read Eric LaRocca is well aware of their unique gift for conjuring visceral nightmares with the elegance of a poet. A Bram Stoker Award® finalist, Shirley Jackson Award nominee, and Splatterpunk Award winner, they have carved a distinct place for themselves in the world of horror, building a body of work that navigates effortlessly between the grotesque and the deeply human. With their latest release, We Turn Gruesome At Night, the second installment in the Burnt Sparrow trilogy, LaRocca returns to the scarred New England town ten years after the devastating Christmas morning massacre that forever changed it. While the community continues to struggle beneath the weight of its past, Rupert Cromwell and Gladys Esherwood remain trapped within the suffocating confines of End House, their existence defined by an unbearable and seemingly endless monotony. But when a town courier named Pierce arrives with news of a secret organisation known as The Perdido Society, Rupert soon finds himself drawn into an intricate and increasingly sinister web of secrets, transgressions and temptation—one that threatens to expose just how much darkness has continued to fester beneath Burnt Sparrow’s surface. We Turn Gruesome At Night is a surreal, unsettling meditation on why people write, and whether putting our darkest thoughts on the page can really purge them—or simply give them somewhere to grow. LaRocca deftly navigates the forbidden pleasures of reading and writing, while its curious collision of contemporary times and Victorian gothic atmosphere makes for a deliciously disorienting descent into darkness, desire and the importance of resisting the urge to judge what we don’t understand. To celebrate the book’s release today (September 8th), CinemaChords once again sat down with LaRocca to discuss the next chapter in the Burnt Sparrow saga, how writing serves as a means of confronting anxiety and dark thoughts, the provocative notion of liberation through destruction, the elusive possibility of absolution, and the importance of resisting the instinct to judge those whose thoughts, desires or identities might make others uncomfortable.

    #57: Eric LaRocca Talks ‘We Turn Gruesome At Night’ and the Fine Line Between Purging Darkness and Feeding It

  6. Sep 8

    #56: Josh Malerman on New Novel ‘Pictures of You’: When Admiration Curdles Into Obsession

    Being admired by someone is typically flattering, unless you discover that your admirer has no intention of letting you leave. That’s precisely the setup in Josh Malerman’s latest novel. Best known for Bird Box and the more recent Incidents Around the House, Malerman takes the conventionally comforting intimacy of a bedroom and gives it a sinister new function: gallery, prison and stage for a very particular kind of obsession. Said new novel is called Pictures of You and it sees Malerman return to horror fiction following his recent, deeply personal, and wholly fascinating exploration of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead in Watching Evil Dead: Unearthing the Radiant Artist Within. The book centers on Emily, who wakes up after a magical night with her fiancé Jack to find herself trapped in a strange, surreal bedroom, where a looming silhouette appears to regard her as a living work of art. Held hostage by an unseen voice, Emily soon realizes that both her life and Jack’s depend on her staying exactly where she is. If she tries to escape the bed and break the frame of this unusual masterwork, neither of them will survive. Malerman turns the bedroom into a gallery and the book’s protagonist into an unwilling exhibit, building a curious setting in which stillness becomes survival and admiration curdles into possession. The author wrings a suprising amount of claustrophobic tension from the setup and the novel’s warped take on desire and artistic obsession gives the story real staying power. To celebrate today’s publication of the book, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman caught up with Malerman to discuss the ideas behind Pictures of You, from its unusual premise and exploration of art to the challenge of creating tension around a seemingly simple physical constraint. We also talk about Watching Evil Dead and a similarly themed documentary that has been turning heads on the festival circuit and which we hope will get an official release date some time soon.

    #56: Josh Malerman on New Novel ‘Pictures of You’: When Admiration Curdles Into Obsession

  7. Sep 1

    #55: Trapped in a Murderous Time Loop: Author Rachel Harrison on the Twisted, Terrifying Fun of Kiss, Slay, Replay

    Rachel Harrison returns with Kiss, Slay, Replay, her latest horror novel which arrives today, September 1, further cementing her reputation as one of contemporary horror’s most distinctive voices. In a genre where history has a habit of repeating itself (pun intended), it takes plenty of guts to lean into familiar conventions — but Harrison does so with a fresh, incisive sensibility. Rather than shy away from the clichés, she exploits them to the full, turning a familiar wedding-from-hell setup into a bloody, darkly playful meditation on survival, déjà vu, and the nightmare of being trapped in the same story on repeat. In Kiss, Slay, Replay, Willa Sullivan’s best friends are getting married, but the dream wedding quickly becomes a nightmare when a masked killer tears through the reception. Then Willa wakes up to find herself back at the start of the wedding day. As the same events begin to unfold again, she realises she is trapped in a murderous time loop – condemned to relive the wedding, and its bloody aftermath, until she can find a way out. To celebrate the release of the book, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman sat down with Harrison, who reflected on the challenge of putting a fresh spin on the time-loop horror premise, the comparisons the novel inevitably invites with films such as Happy Death Day, Final Destination, Until Dawn and Palm Springs, and her decision to centre the story around characters in their late 30s rather than the younger protagonists more commonly associated with the genre. Harrison also discussed the creation of the novel’s uniquely unsettling killer and the way Willa’s anxiety and OCD give her scepticism about the déjà vu she is experiencing a convincing psychological grounding, keeping readers fully locked into the unfolding time loop. Order your copy of Kiss, Slay, Replay here: https://titanbooks.com/73284-kiss-slay-replay/

    #55: Trapped in a Murderous Time Loop: Author Rachel Harrison on the Twisted, Terrifying Fun of Kiss, Slay, Replay

  8. Aug 25

    #54: Author Jo Salazar on IF WE SURVIVE THE NIGHT: Putting Psychology at the Heart of the Zombie Apocalypse

    What happens to the human psyche when the world as we know it comes to an end? For Jo Salazar, the apocalypse isn’t so much about the undead as it is about what their arrival triggers in the living: the instincts, fears and compromises that manifest when survival becomes the only rule. Combining the survival horror of “The Last of Us” with the interpersonal tension of “Yellowjackets,” If We Survive the Night, the first book in a new trilogy, centers on sixteen-year-old Quinn who witnesses the beginning of the apocalypse from the roof of the residential treatment centre where she is undergoing therapy. As those dubbed “carriers” start infiltrating the facility, Quinn and her best friend Keisha attempt to escape – but their fight for survival quickly becomes just as much about trust, fear and sacrifice as it is about outrunning the infected. What sets Salazar’s novel apart in such a crowded sub-genre is its fascination with the psychology of collapse. The zombies may provide the immediate threat, but If We Survive the Night is ultimately less interested in the mechanics of the apocalypse than in what happens when the structures that have shaped our lives fall away – and whether the qualities that mark someone as an outsider in the old world might prove to be precisely what helps them survive the new one. Quinn has spent much of her life being told that something about her isn’t quite right. But, as society starts falling apart around her, she begins to realize that she might actually be uniquely equipped for the “new” world. However, survival comes with its own moral compromises – and the novel questions how much of ourselves we are willing to sacrifice to stay alive. To mark the book’s publication, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman sat down with Salazar to discuss turning the familiar zombie apocalypse into something altogether more psychological – a story less concerned with the mechanics of the undead than with friendship, trauma and the complexities of trying to remain as human as possible when everything else has fallen apart.

    #54: Author Jo Salazar on IF WE SURVIVE THE NIGHT: Putting Psychology at the Heart of the Zombie Apocalypse
See All (61)

About

Bringing you up close and personal with the voices shaping film, music, and storytelling today. Each episode dives into candid chats with filmmakers, actors, musicians, and authors — from rising talent to industry icons — as they share the stories behind their work, the challenges they’ve faced, and the sparks that keep their creativity alive.

Information

  • Creator
    Howard Gorman
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    61
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Howard Gorman
  • Show Website
    The CinemaChords Podcast