Horror fans, Immortalis offers a fresh, imaginative brand of horror tales, incorporating old and original narratives and structures. The brand, an idea from the minds of Valkyrie Kerry and Brett Dyer, spans all forms of platforms, publishing and media, whilst maintaining core horror values and tropes to entertain all horror addicts.
You may know Kerry and Brett as Jason @JasonVoorheesIM and Ash Williams @Ashy_slashee on Twitter, or you may know them from TigerShark, Grotesque, ShortFictionBreak, Entropy, ParagraphPlanet, PeekingCat or SoftCartel. Perhaps you know them from their best-selling books; Voorhees, The Rays in the Storm or Ultimate Horrotica, or their newly released book, The Thorn and His Rose. Their names may be familiar to you in the academic world, or perhaps you have seen their reviews on Horror Nation, their returning contributions to The Poetry Marathon, their horror art and photography, or their contributions and marketing on behalf of new and independent horror movies. Wherever you know them from, Immortalis is a tour de force in the horror world.
Their Halloween fandom, The Rocky Horror Twitter Show and Halloween Tales certainly caused a stir in the horror world, and just as their Friday the 13th tale Jason Star Galactica led to a publishing deal, their efforts this Halloween were equally recognised, but they are currently very hush-hush about current and future projects. What is known is that they are working on the creation of a book series based on their multimedia fan practices, short stories, and original characters; The Immortalis.
I was fortunate enough to catch up with Kerry and Brett and ask them a few questions for my blog during their hectic schedule.
Can you tell our readers a little bit about Immortalis?
Kerry: Immortalis are essentially immortals, supernatural beings that feed on humans. They are partially demonic, and have an air of vampirism, although they are neither vampires nor are they shape-shifters. The Immortalis encompasses much more, and a broader mythological concept with a history forming at the dawn of time.
Brett: They are all antagonists, that does not make them unrelatable it simply means that each of the higher Immortalis, and there is a hierarchy entrenched in time and space, and relevant to the overall narrative, are all out for themselves with varying degrees of inhumanity. We draw on original ideas, and on existing cultures within the horror world. First and foremost, we are horror fans, and want that to shine through in our work.
Please tell us about the key players?
Kerry: Allyra is primarily my character. I drafted the idea of her when I was 13, and of how she is dragged into this shadowy world, but there is an aspect of destiny to it. She was born a Nephilim, partly Immortalis, and partly Pauci Electi, the faction opposing the Immortalis. It is her fate to seduce the Immortalis, or to mislead them, and in doing so feed from them and gain insights. Her nemesis is her lover, The Aten’s, mother Hek’Set, and her goal is to overpower Hek’Set for reasons I cannot disclose. The partaking causes her to change spiritually, and personally, as does her feelings for The Aten. I do need to clarify that these stories are adult stories, and we create adult content in terms of extreme horror and eroticism.
Brett: As Kerry said, the content is extremely graphic. My favourite character is Nicholas, one which Kerry originally planned as a narrative tool, but I adopted and gave a new lease of life. He has adopted many guises over time, and is somewhat set apart from reality, whilst being cold and cruel to those around him. He is first introduced talking to a disembodied head, with no awareness as to context. He purchases an old asylum and deliberately places himself as a patient, but there is more to the gothic walls than meets the eye. His only fear is of his rejected ‘son’ the loathsome Tanis, but I don’t want to give too much away.
How have you got the characters into the public domain prior to the book series?
Brett: The characters initially appeared in Ultimate Horrotica and across various ezines and journals through short stories and verse. We have had a horror fandom on Twitter for over two years and decided that this would also be a great way to introduce original characters. Just as our accounts parody Jason and Ash, we figured they could equally parody our own characters. Initially we only made Allyra and The Aten (aka Roberto Cavidini), they took off well, so we added Nicholas, Primus and Tanis. Rob The Aten is an absolute powerhouse account, which was unexpected for an original character, and good for our brand of horror. We include them in crossovers with traditional horror characters and always try to keep the humour alive, sending ourselves up. At Halloween we inserted the Statler and Waldorf muppets and added some amusing self-deprecation, we like to keep it light-hearted and fun.
Recently The Thorn and His Rose: An Immortalis Chapbook was published. What is that about?
Kerry: It is essentially a story about destructive love, and paranoia. We did not want to use traditional prose; we wanted the structure of the book to reflect its artistic content. As such it sits on the intersection of a tragic opera, and a tour of a horror waxworks, or extreme art gallery. Two serial killers fall in love and make a wager based on artistic one-upmanship. Each death must be diverse and related to one art form or another, and the vocabulary also reflects that. They venture into the world of music, dance, wine and more, until the paranoia crescendos. There is a reflective interlude, and thereafter the dynamics change until a horrifying climax reaches new and visceral heights. It is fast-moving, extreme horror, and pays homage to all horror tropes and sub-genres.
What can we expect to see in the future?
Brett: Our research will be published in the summer of 2024, and the first of the Immortalis novels should be out by then. We have other projects already in the pipeline and in development, an others planned. Essentially what you have seen so far is the prologue, or foreword, to an epic trilogy, in both the literal and the metaphorical sense. I refer not only to the books, but to our fandom practices, and short stories and media on other platforms. You will have to watch our spaces.
