Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe, and welcome to my first monthly wrap up here on Happy Goat Horror. I thought I’d try something new for 2026. There’ll be a quick summary of what I read and reviewed at the end, but first, here’s a bunch of other horror-media things I enjoyed.

YouTube

I now watch more on YouTube than I do on TV, and if I were to list everything, this post would be a thousand years long, but here are the highlights:

Girl on Film is an excellent channel that I highly recommend. Rachel provides us with video essays that cover feminism and fashion, among other things, in horror, and her topics are always so interesting and thought-provoking. Her video ‘Men Writing Women: The Saw Franchise’ gave me an entirely new and hitherto totally unconsidered perspective on this franchise, and is one of my favourite videos on her channel. I also thoroughly enjoyed ‘Why Women Love Labyrinth Movies’, which explores the connection between adolescence and this particular theme.

My YouTube bestie, Erik Smith: Horror Aficionado always puts out book review bangers, and my favourites of the last month or so are ‘Top 10 Books That I Read in 2025’ (self-explanatory, I love these lists!) and ‘Get Thee Behind Me: Satanism: The Seduction of America’s Youth By Bob Larson Book Review’. This is a book review of said book which, frankly, sounds hilarious, and it’s made even funnier by Erik’s thoughts on it. It has made me want to read it.

LiteraryLove123 released ‘Top Reads of 2025′ and I love it when she makes these because we have slightly different horror tastes and she broadens my mind. Also, if you’ve never seen Jen, she is possibly the very sweetest person on YouTube and I just love her in general.

Reads with Rachel is a new channel discovery and I love her because her videos are long, insightful, and funny, and perfect for when I need to be entertained on a walk, while doing chores, cooking, and all that jazz. I verily enjoyed her video, ‘FALLING into this book’s PLOT HOLES’, in which she humorously reviews a romantasy book (I don’t read romantasy but love watching reviews of it!).

And finally for the YouTube section, I highly recommend Our Lives in Horror and in particular, ‘Our Lives in Horror: Paula D. Ashe‘, which is a beautiful, interesting conversation between our host George, and author Paula D. Ashe. They discuss her harrowing collection, We Are Here to Hurt Each Other, amongst other things. It’s fabulous.

Film and TV

I meant to watch some new films but I keep hating everything new, so instead I rewatched Barbarian (three times, actually), Get Out, Run, and Bird Box. I enjoyed Get Out the first time around but loved it this time, and apparently I now find Barbarian phenomenal. With the exception of the something that happens in the final scene, that is a practically perfect horror film for me. If you haven’t seen Run, that’s a thriller that I think is very underrated and would recommend.

I, of course, watched the final season of Stranger Things, which I felt was a bit disjointed and definitely had some…er…convenient plot holes, but I mostly enjoyed it. And finally, I rewatched the whole 3 seasons of Mr Mercedes (which is now on Netflix, UK), based on the series by Stephen King. I think it’s an excellent adaptation.

Miscellaneous…

I had horror jigsaws from my lovely husband for Christmas and I lost my mind and did them all in a frenzy. I didn’t take pictures of my completed efforts because, well, I didn’t imagine at the time that I’d be insisting on mentioning them in any sort of writing. But here we are – welcome to the things I find really exciting as I push the tender age of 40.

And Obviously I Read Some Books…

As you have no doubt already seen if you follow my reviews, I read some books this month. I read 11 books in total, most of them were horror, and I planned to proudly present my favourite book of the month in this section. But, DAMN, it’s a tough call! It’s between Adam Nevill’s Monumental and Michelle Von Eschen and Jonathan Butcher’s Motel Styx. These books could not be more different to each other, which is probably why I find it hard to compare them in terms of which I enjoyed more. I recommend both!

What are your favourite horror happenings of the month? Recommend anything you think I’ll like under the horror banner, if you please!

Bleeeeat!