👻Michael J. Riser𖤐🧊❌👑

@michaeljriser.com

2719 Followers 724 Following

Editor, author of horror & religious trauma. Former editorial Screen Rant, Goomba Stomp, managing editor AOG. Secretary of Sacramento HWA. 怖い話の作者。（日本語OK)(he/him) pfp: smiling man with beard and mustache banner: devil statue in a garden

A movie poster for Baskin, showing a large face in the dark, the outline of the head obscured by darkness, its eyes slightly agloe or lit by unseen light. In the center of its forehead is a red-orange keyhole with a screaming man seen inside, pulling at the edges as though trying to escape.
A poster for Antibirth, starting Natasha Lyonne, Chloe Sevigny, and Meg Tilly. It's printed in neon pinks and purples, with a stylized face in the center with several hands surrounding it forming a moon-like circle. A small fetus hangs below. The title sits in the low center in large block letters.
A brain in a jar with a holographic face above it screaming in pain, in a black and white still from The Whisperer in Darkness. A band can be seen on part of the brain machine turning a lever nearby.
Governor Woodchuck from Bojack Horseman with his surgically implanted gorilla hands.
A still from Gazer taken via photo. It shows the main characters eyes in closeup, slightly unfocused, under harsh lights they have smooth, tan skin, and slight circles under their eyes. They seem feminine but indeterminate.
A crowded workshop table with a gaming PC on it, colored LED fans whirling in blue and purple, next to a mouse, a keyboard with similar colors, and an old, dirty monitor with dirt, tape, smudges, and a bunch of Linux install logs on the screen. It sits below a bright overhead workshop light and a warmer bar light. Books and band posters can be seen to the side and back.
A picture of a weird statue of a thing with an odd spine and bulbous head with pits and veins sitting between two pots by a stone wall. From the video game Bloodborne.
A can of Voodoo Ranger Juice Force IPA with a skeleton that's got a fighter pilot's helmet on. The can is bright orange.
A picture of a living room. A tablet in the foreground shows Diablo IV war plans, while the out-of-focus background shows a TV with a series of pictures on it (it's an old RKG Halloween stream).
An info sheet for Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum showing a date of 2018, a runtime of 91 minutes, directed by Jung Bum-shik and produced by Won-guk Kim,.with a list of actors.
Promo image for Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred, showing Mephisto, a long and lanky demon of bone.and fleshy red muscles, with two gigantic horns and several smaller ones, and a sort of inverse halo behind his head.
The sun setting behind hills and a plateau.
A screenshot of Diablo IV's Lord of Hatred expansion, showing an isometric view above a wooded landscape. A wirey female necromancer, a large golem of flesh and bone, and two NPCs stand in a clearing. Brown to yellow and fiery orange leaves, green grass and moss, grey stone paths, and low, ruined walls make up their surroundings. A quest indicator at the side says "The Path of Riddles, Search the forest," and a prompt by the player reads "Fragrant Clearing". A game UI with hotkey controller shortcuts and other elements sits below.
A screenshot of Bloodborne showing a player standing before the ornate golden throne of Queen Annalise, the Queen of the Vilebloods now ground to a living pulp by Alfred, a man standing next to the player. He wears a white cloak stained with blood, a triangular metal helmet of bronze, and he holds his arms out to his sides. He leans back triumphantly, and the subtitles read, "All mangled and twisted, with every inside on the outside, for all the world to see!"
A close-up of a can of Sapporo Premium Non-Alcoholic beer. It's held by the top by a hand, and in the background is a bowl of curry with cubed tofu and a blurry portion of a room.
A still from Shikoku showing a large temple with vertical banners at its front. It's surrounded by red and green trees. There are booths off to the right side, and a crowd of people to the left. In front of the temple hall are numerous dancers and musicians clothed in red costumes, the dancers wearing what look almost like moth wings.
A poster for Shikoku, showing a girl imwith long black hair in a kimono standing in the water among colorful flowers. The scene is dark and there's a light shining behind her, over her shoulder. To the right in vertical Japanese writing is the title of the film, written as 死国.
A still from Chakushin Ari Final (One Missed Call 3), showing 12 students standing in a hallway. Offscreen there's an open elevator they're all staring into, and most of them are screaming with a few looking shocked.
A poster for 着信あり Final (Chakushin Ari Final, One Missed Call 3). It shows two Japanese girls, each on a flip phone. The one on the left looks intense and apprehensive, while the one on the right looks as if she's smouldering with anger. Male and female classmates appear at the bottom in a strip of red with black ink for the images. Above is a class photo superimposed over a green, dark hallway where an adult and child figure walk away from the camera. Text in the middle of the screen reads 「終り。」 (the end).
A screenshot from Illbleed showing main character Eriko, polygonal woman in a purple shirt and white skirt, attacking a mannequin in a warehouse. The mannequin springs huge gouts of blood everywhere.
A still from Chakushi Ari 2 (One Missed Call 2) showing a Taiwanese landscape. Trees and hills toll as far as the eye can see, with blue sky in the background, and numerous ruins of a mining operation and town are scattered about. Everything is beautifully overgrown, a sea of various shades of bushy green.
A poster for 着信アリ2 (One Missed Call 2), showing a Japanese girl in the center holding a flip phone and staring at it with a terrified look on her face. To the right is another Japanese woman with a wary look, and to the left is a man with an incredulous expression. Behind them looms a huge, blank face with black eyes. In its yellow-tinted flesh an image of a cityscape is superimposed. Over the bridge of the nose is 「遊ぼ。」 in Japanese, or "Let's play."
A still from The Blood of Wolves. Two detectives at left and center with a beautiful woman on the right. The woman and central detective look down at someone in front of them, toward the camera, while the other detective gives a contemptuous look at the central detective. The subtitles read, "What exactly did Uesawa do?"
A still from The Blood of Wolves with a mid-sized back room with two couches, a low coffee table, all framed by goons in black suits while two men sit and talk. Another sits in the middle at the far side of the table, bandages around his head.
A police detective and a beautiful woman sit inside an interrogation room in a still from movie The Blood of Wolves. Each has a bright pink cup of flavored ice in front of them, and the detective reaches across to stir the woman's. The subtitles read, "sorry it's so hot in here."
A shot from Baskin, showing a balding man with a silver ring and a black leather jacket. He's smiling and holding a hand up to his face, sitting at a table. Behind him hang beige or white curtains that look brown in the dim orange light of a restaurant. The subtitles read, "But I have plenty friends who fucked chicken. - You and your friends, man!"
The logo for Baskin, in all red capital letters, as though painted in blood or red paint. The A has a keyhole shape in the center. Itnsits on an all-black background.
A still from Spiral, showing a doctor in green surgical scrubs and mask staring wide-eyed at the bloody corpse of a man sitting up in front of him. Another doctor looks down at a clipboard, unaware. In the background.
A shot from Ring, showing Yoichi, a young boy, and Ryuji, a middle-aged man. They each hold an umbrella in the middle of the rain along a city street and stare at one another.
A skewed still from Body Cam showing a cop standing at the door of an old house, rats spilling out of the doorway across the porch. It's presented as body cam footage, with name and date in the corner. The subtitles read, "Christ!"
A still from The Mortuary Assistant (film), showing a man in a blue coat and khaki pants standing next to and looking over a body on a steel table. On the other side is a woman in bright green gloves and a white coat dealing with a small table full of instruments. The room has blue-toned walls with bricks on the bottom and plaster on the top, with a black and white checkered floor. It's cluttered with cabinets and embalming fluid and other assorted Mortuary detritus.
The cover of the first issue of Crossroads: Folk Horror in the United States. It shows a figure playing a banjo in orange print over a stark blue natural backdrop. The title appears in white at the top with an orange X logo beneath. On the left, by the spine, is an orange bar with white text that reads "Issue 1: The Long Decade".
A picture of Ralph the diner guy from Groundhog Day. He wears a flannel jacket and green baseball cap. He has a short reddish-brown beard. The subtitles at the bottom of the image read: "That about sums it up for me."
Black and white poster for CARNIVAL OF SOULS. Closeup of a woman who looks distressed and maybe a bit delusional. Behind her looms a shadowy pavilion at night.
A screenshot of an order for the first issue of Crossroads: Folk Horror in the United States. It shows a thumbnail image of the cover, with an orange person's face over a blue background, a summary showing "Crossroads Issue 1: The Long Decade", and a thank-you message and the date: March 18th, 2026. The magazine's logo sits along a dark bar at the top.
An image from Bloodborne showing a street jutting off of a courtyard in Yharnam, a gothic-victorian nightmare of a city. In the foreground, the player character stands with her back to the camera. She wears a black cloak, slathered in blood (not hers) and holds a saw with a wooden handle and gnarly looking teeth in the blade in her right hand, plus a blunderbuss in her left hand. Next to her is a tall man in a wide-brimmed hat, a long white scarf, and a long black coat. He also holds a pair of weapons. Above him floats the name and title "Old Hunter Father Gascoigne". The two characters look at a large man in the distance pounding on a door. To the right is an abandoned carriage. To the left is a coffin wrapped in chains and locked.
A still from Honey Bunch. It shows the main character, a white woman with blond hair (Grace Glowicki), in a bathtub. She has a slightly confused and bewildered expression, mouth open slightly, tears forming in her eyes. Green plants sit in the background.
A lil grey pittie snoozin on the lap of Michael J. Riser, a man wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt.
Still from The Void, showing a weird, quasi-skinless man standing in front of a bloody girl kneeling on the floor. Behind him is a grey stone wall in which a triangular slab shines with light at its edges. To the right and left are two figures in white robes, with long cloth masks in which are set small black triangles.
A mockup of the Twin Peaks title screen, with the town welcome sign next to the road in. On top of this in a brownish-red font with bright green outlines is written "NORMALLY A MORE REASONABLE NUMBER OF ANNUAL HOMICIDES"
A screenshot of the last 4 of my Letterboxd watches. The Empty Man at 4 & 1/2 stars, Scanners at 3 & 1/2, The Well at 3, and Disturbia at 3.
A poster for the film The Empty Man (2020) directed by David Prior. It shows a skeletal, mummified corpse of a strange humanoid creature. It sits in a squatting position with hands folded together in front of it, and looks roughly human except for having 9 or 10 fingers on each hand, all of them far too long, and has two large bone protuberances coming out of its chest and shoulder areas. It sits atop a pile of bones.
A comb jelly, a somewhat amorphous sea creature with eight lengths of tines that run along a translucent body refracting the light in a rainbow of colors.
A still from The Brood. It shows a man in a brown Adidas athletic outfit with a towel wrapped closely around his neck. He has an odd combover and is red in the face. The subtitles read, "I mean, Raglan encouraged my body to revolt against me."
A poster for David Cronenberg's The Brood, advertised as "the ultimate experience of inner terror". A white backdrop shows a dark blue and black photograph in the center with a bunch of children standing in a darkened hallway. One stands closer to the camera, off center to the left. The film's title appears below in large red block letters.
A fluffy tuxedo cat and a black void cat chilling on a window sill as snow falls behind them in a yard.
A tile porch with random plant containers and furniture overlooking a yard with a gazebo and trees. Snow is falling and lightly covers most of the scene.
The cover of Vildhjarta's Måsstaden under vatten. It shows illustrations of various anthropomorphic animals in sepia tones. A horned face, rather like the sun, rises half from behind a bank of dark clouds on the left, and below, a pig dressed in white robes, adorned with wings, clutches a book and struggles against two smaller animal figures attempting to climb onto its golden platform. The platform is attached to several chains which go up to a tree branch overhead, stark white with a few golden leaves. A snake-like creature in a green robe sits with several other creatures in the water at the bottom of the image. Above it are several shadowy cat-like figures with golden eyes. A birdcage hangs from the boughs of a smaller tree nearby and a small golden set of scales for weighing. Above looms a large cat-like face with wide eyes and menacing teeth, and a huge paw with sharp claws holds three white feathers. Blood drips from it onto the rest of the scene below.
A screenshot of Cultist Simulator (2018) showing numerous card and action items spread across a virtual tabletop of blue velvet. Several windows are open on top of this with text and images showing a "weary detective" and describing various in-game occurrences.
The cover of Grace Given by Geoff "SmoughTown" Truscott, with many stylized faces of Elden Ring's important historical figures in ornate line illustrations around a central painted, colorful image of a Tarnished warrior and their steed, Torrent, beneath the golden boughs of the Erdtree.
Elden Ring (2022): a Tarnished warrior stands stop a high plateau looking out over Liurnia, a waterlogged valley framed by two massive rocky stretches on either side. Trees dot the landscape, clustered more closely below in the water, clinging to the mist. Ruins sit atop a high precipice in the distance to the left, and a high divine tower with a bridge to the right. Strait ahead, in the far distance, rests the academy of Raya Lucaria, a castle-like complex with many high towers. Two golden minor erdtrees sit to either side under a purple sky of cloud.
A screenshot of a landscape from Morrowind (2002) showing a wood bridge crossing a span of rocky, grassy hills over a stream. Giant mushrooms and trees loom over the scene beneath a cloudy sky, and a hazy view upstream shows craggy rocks and rugged landscape.
A screenshot from DOOM 2018 from the Doom Slayer's perspective. The gauss cannon is at the ready, and he stands in a pool of blood in a hellish dungeon, with a round, fleshy cacodemon floating nearby and a horde of imps and a cyberdemon looming in the background.
A screenshot of the world map of Super Mario World (1990) showing both the very start of the game on the left and the secret ghost house in the forest on the left.
A screenshot from Zeliard's 1987 PC-88 release showing the hero, a small man with a sword and shield, standing on a platform next to a door in a 2D playing field. Zombies and floating eyes wander nearby in what looks like a natural cavern. Various stats and items sit on a UI at the bottom of the screen with two stone statues framing the action as a screen border.
A couple of shopkeepers as 2D sprites in Daggerfall (1994, though the shot is undoubtedly from Daggerfall Unity, a modern update). Blue walls and a yellow floor with a diamond pattern sit below a grey stone ceiling, supported by stone columns. A woman in the foreground stands with arms crossed. She has shoulder-length blond hair and wears a blue dress with an orange top. Alchemy equipment sits on a table next to her. Behind is an older man with a beard in a brown robe standing next to a display of bottles with all manner of colorful liquids inside.
A screenshot from One Must Fall 2097 showing two robots in a big cage of blue cabling. Giant metal power structures sit in the background under a blue night sky. Rob Elam pilots the "shreader" that is currently held and being doused with a flamethrower at point-blank range by Bruce in the Pyros. Their portraits at the top of the screen show a man in a dark jacket and sunglasses and a vaguely Asian man with short black hair.
A screenshot from Silent Hill 3 (2003). Heather Mason, a girl with short, dirty blond hair and a white, short-sleeved coat, fires a gun at a strange creature in front of her. The thing is fleshy-looking and appears to wear clothing of a similarly fleshy color. Its head is an odd stump, almost like the end of an amputated leg, with a flat, featureless "face" that looks like two halves of something sewn together. It has two massive wads of meat for arms that look nearly as big as punching bags.