[Editorial] Editor’s Note: Welcome to Ghouls Magazine

So you’ve found yourself on the Ghouls Magazine website and you might be wondering what it’s all about. So let me tell you a little about what this venture was designed for. 

I’ve been a horror fan since I first saw The Evil Dead at age 13. My parents used to host these amazing Halloween parties with literally a mutiny of people crammed into a 3 bedroom house on a council estate. There was nothing particularly fancy about the parties, but they were always a highlight of my youthful years, and become a nostalgic memory. My mum and dad would change all the lightbulbs in the house to red ones, we had a doormat that screamed with witch cackles when you stepped in the front door and there was apple bobbing happening - something I doubt we’ll see for many years after going through pandemic when bodily fluids are the devil’s juice. They would also deck out the under the stairs cupboard as a version of 7 minutes in Heaven (don’t worry, no one was getting finger blasted in there) but in Hell and you’d have creepy as fuck noises playing whilst you had to identify weird shit in bowls. One year they even filled a paddling pool in the garden with goop and fake bugs. Safe to say they were fucking awesome. But one year my pal Sam and I begged our parents to let us watch a DVD that has always interested us on the shelf; a squishy rubber case with a demonic face on it, turns out it was a special edition of the Necronomicon and the film was The Evil Dead. Clear as day I remember watching Ash face off against the deadites in the cabin, with plasticine gore taking centrefold place. Safe to say I was absolutely terrified by what I had watched, but also found myself drawn with intrigue to the horror that unfolded on screen, and from there I wanted more horror. 

Then at University I started an article about the history of found footage films and what constituted as the first ever found footage film. This was when I first stumbled upon Cannibal Holocaust, and my god, was my mind blown away. This visceral and disturbing piece of cinema was unlike anything I had seen before and although I was repulsed by what I had just witnessed, it led me onto a path of trying to find horror films that pushed my personal boundaries. That’s when my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I knew that my life was about to change forever. After she died I turned to extreme horror as a form of catharsis, and found myself exploring my own personal demons and dealings with grief through these depictions of pain and suffering. It might not be everyone’s way of dealing with difficult emotions, but for me it worked. That was when I set up my first blog, called The Film Fetishist, which at the time seemed cool but now just seems a bit weird in all honesty. Social media was starting to boom and I moved from MySpace and Tumblr over to Facebook and Twitter. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I soon discovered that there was a community of horror fans just like me, and these were the people I spent my spare time talking to. It was like uncovering an underground world of people that weren’t afraid to admit they loved seeing people sliced and diced in a movie. But what I noticed was that the industry of horror was heavily saturated with men… to me it didn’t come as a surprise. I remember in University picking the brains of a film journalist from Heat magazine who said that the industry needed more women writers, and especially when it came to the horror genre. So I already expected that it would be dominated by male writers, and in all honesty it didn’t bother me too much, because I liked hearing the opinions of men as well. However, over the last 10 years I started to want to read more perspectives on horror written by women and other marginalised voices, I wanted to understand how others perceived horror and how it applied to their personal plights. Again, social media has been a wonderful tool in finding those voices, but even in today’s society it feels like the voices of these communities in horror are often undermined and not loud enough within the community, which can be disheartening. 

We have begun to see more and more communities emerging in the scene, and not just when it comes to critics. There is a bigger push for all people in horror from all aspects now: directors, producers, FX artists, models, artists, content creators, actors, composers, the list goes on. As a woman in horror, it has always been something very close to my heart and something I have wanted to continue championing and pushing because when you think about it, horror wouldn’t be what it is today without the incredible women involved in the genre. But it’s not just the voices of women; it’s the LGBTQIA+ community, it’s the BIPOC community, it’s any under-represented community in this world that needs a space to have their voice raised above others. Which is why I decided to create Ghouls Magazine, as an online platform (and potentially one day offline… think big) to make those voices in this industry heard and to provide different perspectives on horror. For instance, male reviewers slammed I Spit On Your Grave 1978 as exploitative trash that only aimed to give the male gaze a horrifying rape portrayal that descends into bloody carnage. So many men hated the film and forced their opinions on why it degraded women, but when you actually speak to women about their experience with the film, it’s a completely different story. So many find a form of catharsis through watching heroine Jennifer Hills exact her revenge on these atrocious men, and seeing a full-on castration of someone who happily commits rape, is something that gets many of us cheering at the screen. Ghouls Magazine focuses on ‘horror, through the female perspective’ which is represented by our team of women and non-binary writers, some of whom are also within the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities. It is a place to showcase these voices and make them heard loud and proud, because I still think they need to be championed and that we shouldn’t stop doing that anytime soon.

I hope that through Ghouls Magazine I can help to bring together these voices and allow others to hear and understand the perspectives of others when it comes to horror. This is a brand new, and very ambitious project on my hands but one that I feel fully confident in, especially with such an incredible team of contributors beside me. They are the people that make Ghouls Magazine what it is and I would love for you to read, listen or watch what they have to say on the horror genre, because they truly have some insightful, intelligent and intriguing thoughts and opinions on this blood slathered corner of cinema. 

And Ghouls Magazine is open to be enjoyed by everyone! The goal isn’t to alienate anyone from the conversation, in fact it’s quite the opposite. With that in mind, I hope that when going through the site you will find something that interests you, and learn a different point of view. 

For now I’m going to go and find something involving some torture, gore and pure nastiness to fill my next hours because that’s just my kind of thing. Thanks for coming on this journey and supporting everyone involved in this project. 

Love and guts,
Z x

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