Main Topic: Gateway Horror

Every horror fan started out somewhere. The works that draw us into the genre are often gentler ones, created to appeal to those put off by terror or gore. These are often aimed at children or teens, although there are plenty of entry points for adults as well.

What are some of our favourite examples of gateway horror? What makes them more accessible to someone who isn’t already a horror fan? And how can we use this approach in our games?

We’ve touched on similar topics in Everything is Horror, with Baz Stephens, and Horror For the Nervous, with Josephine McAdam.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to welcome Sasha Sienna to The Good Friends Jackson Elias! Sasha is an award-winning writer, voice actor, and tabletop game designer with a love of genre fiction, unexpected worldbuilding, and horrible monsters in spaceships. They’re best known for their work on The Magnus Archives, Doctor Who: Redacted and Re: Dracula’s Carmilla. Along with Jonathan Sims, they make smart TTRPGs for cool weirdos as MacGuffin & Co.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• DIE RPG
• Contrapoints Saw video
• Saw franchise
• Ghost stories
• Gothic horror
• Hellraiser (1987)
• Image of the Beast by Philip José Farmer
• Scooby-Doo
• It miniseries
• The Pitt
• Goosebumps books
• Point Horror
• Goosebumps TV programme
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

• Threads (1984)
• Comedy and horror
• James Acaster’s Ricky Gervais routine
• The Appeal of Vampires
• Zombies
• The Joy of Gore
• The Babadook
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• The Twits by Roald Dahl
• Alien (1979)
• The Thing (1982)
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu
• Universal monster movies

• BBFC H certificate
• Dracula (1931)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• The Books of Blood by Clive Barker
• The Exorcist (1973)
• Flesh For Frankenstein/ Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973)
• Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
• Special X series by Michael Slade
• Psycho by Robert Bloch
• Mindhunter
• Zodiac (2007)
• Albert Fish
• HH Holmes

• Halloween (1978)
• Pedro López – The Monster of the Andes
• The Casual Criminalist episode about López
• Analogue horror
• Creepypasta
• Backrooms (2026)
• American Horror Stories
• Backrooms short films
• Five Nights at Freddy’s
• Resident Evil
• Silent Hill
• The Drifter
• Junji Ito
• House of Secrets
• House of Mystery

• Comics Code Authority
• Y’golonac
• Creepy
• Eerie
• Heart: The City Beneath
• Tales From the Loop
• Things From the Flood
• Stranger Things
• Bite Marks
• X-card
• Little Fears
• Dead of Night
• The Glass Cannon Network
• D&D
• Ravenloft

• Traveller
• World of Darkness
• Urban fantasy
• The Twilight Zone
• “Deaths-Head Revisited”
• “Still Valley”
• “The Valley Was Still” by Manley Wade Wellman
• Ghostbusters (1984)
• Gremlins (1984)
• Beetlejuice (1988)
• Tremors (1990)
• The Monster Squad (1987)
• The Goonies (1985)
• Jumanji (1995)
• Re: Carmilla

News

A Weekend With Good Friends returns!

A Weekend With Good Friends is approaching fast! This, of course, is the online gaming convention organised by our lovely listeners, hosted on The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord server. The convention will take place between the 12th-14th of June this year, but GM signups will begin soon.

We shall also be recording live episodes of the Good Friends during the convention, with Ross Bryant on the 12th and Zach Reeves on the 13th. More details shortly!

Key dates for the convention are:

• GM signups: 29th April – 13th May 2026 — GM signups
• Player signups: 21st May – 4th June 2026
• A Weekend With Good Friends: Friday 12th June – Sunday 14th June 2026

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More