I’ve always loved horror movies. Even when some of the gruesome, full-colour covers in the 1980s video store were too terrifying for me to dare hire and bring home. My first clear memory of visceral, bone-deep terror comes from watching Foods of the Gods (1976) at far too young an age, possibly eight or nine. It’s laughably bad in retrospect but at the time it had me too scared to go to my bedroom, fully convinced there was a giant killer rat waiting to devour me.

Even after all these years, which included sitting through some equally terrible offerings, horror remains my favourite film genre and I’ll pretty much pop along to see most new releases at the cinema. (Side note: Hasn’t 2025 has been a bumper year for horror, though? Sinners. Bring her Back. Weapons. Yikes.) So when I was invited to write an essay for Ruadán Books, I knew I wanted to talk about horror on the big and small screen and, more specifically, about an emerging subgenre of which I’ve taken careful and most delighted note:

When ‘EAT THE RICH’ Is Not Enough: Horror Meets Late-Stage Capitalism

Infuriatingly, it feels more and more relevant with each passing week.