News

Horror Pride Month: Up and Coming Filmmaker Megan Frazier

Published

5 years ago

June 30, 2021

One of the best parts of doing our annual Pride Month series here at iHorror is meeting fresh talent who are in the process of making their mark on the genre. This year, we’ve had several and it’s especially good to be finishing out the month with one such individual. Megan Frazier is a writer and a directing hopeful with a lot to say.

Megan Frazier has been a horror fan for as long as she can remember. Her sister who is seven years older than her started young Megan on the path, reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark to her when she was still a toddler. It wasn’t until the last year or two, however, that Frazier really found her passion in film while taking a course at her university.

“I took a class about a year and a half ago, now called Sex, Race and Politics in the American Horror Film and my professor was so badass,” Frazier explained. “She was this incredible human. The final project was to rewrite a scene from one of the movies we watched in class and explain why you rewrote it the way you did. So, I chose the ending of Candyman and she loved what I did with it. She loved how it flowed and why I did what I did. I just thought, if this person loves and admires what I’ve done so much, then there must be something to this. ”

To say that the experience set off a chain of events would be an understatement. Frazier had always been a writer interested in theater, but now her attentions turned toward film, and she currently has three scripts in the works including a slasher, a zombie film that pairs a non-binary protagonist with a MAGA supporter, and a psychological thriller.

She jumps from idea to idea and genre to genre, she says, after being inspired by Justin Simien’s film Bad Hair which turned horror tropes on their head and planted the seeds for a few new ones in the process.

“This is also why I feel so strongly about creating horror, now,” she said. “I never saw me in these stories. Even when there was a lesbian in horror films, there was always like a disconnect. Then, in high school I started watching The L Word and I got more into queer culture, I guess. I got so tired of not seeing myself in these movies. I always knew that I wasn’t straight. I used to ask my mom when I was going to become a boy because I’m the only gay member of my family. So I thought you had to be a boy to like a girl, and I thought I’ll just magically become one someday. I finally learned it didn’t have to be that way, and I’ve kind of just been Megan ever since.”

Being Megan seems like quite a lot when you consider the objectives she’s laid out for herself. The budding filmmaker points out that even now in genre filmmaking so few LGBTQ+ characters exist and those who do, are little more than shells of people serving only to check off boxes in diversity discussions.

“It feels like they’re trying to include us so no one complains but at the same time they don’t give that character anything to stand for,” Frazier pointed out. “I try to give each character a story without hitting your over the head with it. I talk to my friends who non-binary and trans before I write a new character. I ask questions about what people want to see and I have people around me who are open to that conversation. I feel lucky to have those people around me.”

From where I’m sitting, it also appears we’re lucky to have Megan Frazier on our side. We’ll certainly be watching her career as it develops.

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‘Behind the Mask 2’ Slays Kickstarter

Published

9 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Piper St. James

If you are hardwired into the horror community there is no doubt you heard the gasp around the internet earlier this month when Behind the Mask II: The Return of Le s lie Vernon was announced. The announcement of the long anticipated sequel came at a screening of the original at American Cinematheque in Los Angeles.

That same evening we also learned that Behind the Mask’s director Scott Glosserman as well as writer David J. Stieve will be returning to the film. Furthermore, cast members Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, and Robert Englund will be reprising their roles from the original.

*Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon*

A Kick into Overdrive

While the sequel is happening one way or another, a Kickstarter campaign was established. The money pledged would allow the filmmakers to create a movie that goes above and beyond their original budget.

As the campaign’s page states;

“The film is happening, that’s no-take-backs. If we hit these goals, it makes it possible to do it bigger, bloodier, and bolder.”

The campaign goes on, saying;

“This is not a “save the movie” campaign. The movie is happening. Kickstarter is how we make it our way. “

Roughly two weeks after the sequel’s announcement, the campaign launched with a modest day one goal of $20,000. To say that fans crushed this number is an understatement. In 9 minutes they reached their goal. In less than 24 hours the amount of backers climbed to over 300, and the pledges donated totaled more than $100,000!

Get to the Good Stuff!

For pledging, the moviemakers have included incentives that are truly in line with what the horror community wants.

The rewards begin at $25 with a digital streaming link of Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon. Tiers continue on as the pledge amounts increase. T-shirts, posters, Blu Rays and scripts are just some of the middle tier goodies. The larger donation amounts are rewarded with on screen “Special Thank You”s and various producer credits.

Nathan Baesel as Leslie Vernon in *Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.*

It is the ‘Exclusive Add Ons’ where things get really interesting. Once a backer has already pledged, they can add on additional perks. These additions include

“accessories, autographs, props, and truly unique, fan forward in-person experiences… all intended to complement your chosen reward tier!”

One of the unique add on perks includes VHS tapes of the original Behind the Mask or the sequel, your choice! Given the fact the first movie was created right on the heels of when VHS was truly dead, older horror fans will especially find this perk an exciting addition to their vintage collection.

The reward add-ons also have the horror prop collectors in mind. You can purchase Leslie Vernon’s weapon of choice, a scythe, as well as his mask. Both of these are signed by actor Nathan Baesel.

For more personal experiences, you can add on a visit to the Behind the Mask II set during filming! You can also choose a cast and crew screening in LA or New York, complete with an after party. Finally, for the crème de la crème; you can be killed onscreen by Leslie Vernon himself!

Powered by the Fans

Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon is the little slasher movie that could!

For two decades the creators tried to find ways to make Leslie’s legacy continue. A failed first Kickstarter, rumors, teases, and false starts all led to the delay of a dream.

For twenty years the movie’s cult gathering slowly formed, cultivated, and grew louder and louder. Too loud to be ignored.

From the set of *Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.*

As soon as the campaign went live, horror fans donated their hard earned money. And let’s face it; we are currently living in a time where the dollar doesn’t stretch as far. The fact that the long awaited sequel gained so much traction and backing, so quickly, really demonstrates the community’s love, support, and anticipation for Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon.

It looks like Leslie Vernon will finally be returning!

News

The Best Possible Person Is Directing A24’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Published

15 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Luna Gray

A24 went into a competitive auction, beat out Blumhouse, acquired one of the most difficult pieces of IP in the genre, and then gave the job to a director with one feature film to his name. That is a wild risk to take on such a young talent. But also, it’s Curry Barker, so we get it.

Curry Barker is writing and directing a reimagining of the 1974 original created by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel. As we have talked about before, A24 announced the acquisition back in February with no director attached. At least we have that figured out.

Who Curry Barker Is

Barker got here through Obsession, a film he made for under a million dollars that played TIFF Midnight Madness and sold to Focus Features for north of $14 million. He built the career that got him into that room starting on YouTube, which is the kind of origin story that should not end with A24 handing you a legacy franchise before your first wide release even opens. And yet, here we are.

The Franchise and the People Behind It

The 1974 original has since produced eight sequels and remakes. Some are far better than others. The franchise has been a problem for a long time and everyone who has touched it since the original has found a different way to confirm that.

A24 formally announced the acquisition earlier this year after winning the rights in a competitive bid. The producers are Roy Lee, Steven Schneider of Spooky Pictures, and Kim Henkel through Exurbia Films. Henkel co-created the original with Tobe Hooper.

One More Thing

There is also a separate Texas Chainsaw Massacre TV series in development at A24 from JT Mollner. Different project. The film and the series are happening at the same studio simultaneously, which means A24 now has more Leatherface in development than anyone has since the franchise was actually relevant. Barker’s film has no release date yet. Obsession opens May 15.

News

ITCH Is the Outbreak Film That Actually Gets Under Your Skin

Published

19 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Luna Gray

No one would blame you for looking at ITCH and filing it under zombie film. Because it is. The outbreak spreads person to person. People stop being people. The world ends a little bit. You know how it goes.

What Bari Kang actually made is something with a different mechanism at its center. The contagion does not spread through biting. It spreads through scratching. You scratch yourself. This makes you sick while it is happening. You scratch because someone near you scratched and something in your brain said that looks right.

I talked to Kang about it. Turns out it was not a deliberate subversion. “It was never meant to be a zombie film,” he told me. “That happened along the way.” The idea came during COVID. He watched someone scratching in a store and could not stop thinking about it. “What if that’s how something spreads?” He started writing from there and somewhere in the process the zombies arrived. “All of a sudden I had these zombies running around.” He went that route without going that route.

Why the Scratch Works

We all get how zombies work. They bite, someone hides their bite, sometime later everyone is dead. Kang’s instinct was that the scratch would do something different. “It’s really visceral and contagious,” he said. “I figured if I could lean into that, that might work well.” He was right.

There is something about watching someone scratch that is harder to look away from than watching someone get bitten. You feel it on your own skin. The sympathy itch is real and ITCH knows it and uses it without being cute about it. That is craft. For a film Kang wrote, directed, produced, and starred in himself, that is not a small thing.

Who Is Bari Kang

The short version: he decided he wanted to be an actor, spent a year auditioning and booking nothing, and then casting director Judy Henderson, who was in the middle of casting Homeland at the time, told him to go write his own stuff. “I was like, oh, you can do that,” he told me.

He said: “Nobody’s coming to give you a hand. There’s no handouts. It seems like we need permission or something to do it, but you just gotta get out there.” Yeah. That.

The Rule About Lore

There were versions of ITCH that explained what the itch was, where it came from, who started it. Kang cut all of it. The less he showed, the more the film asked audiences to do the work themselves. And audiences who do the work are more scared than audiences who are shown everything.

ITCH does not explain itself and it does not need to. A film about a contagion that spreads through something you cannot stop yourself from doing, made in the aftermath of a pandemic everyone lived through, does not require a mythology breakdown. It requires you to sit with what it is suggesting. Which is worse.

ITCH is available now.