Interview: Phantasmag's Lana Thorn and Alex Secilmis on the Importance of Queer DIY Media

Welcome back to Scare Me! a weekly horror newsletter. Today, we’re speaking with Lana Thorn and Alex Secilmis, the brilliant minds behind Phantasmag.

I’m an indecisive shopper. I click, I fret, I reconsider. But when I saw Phantasmag on a TikTok by @bluegh0sts, I didn’t even finish watching the video before hitting “Pay Now.”

Afterward, I wondered if I had hallucinated the whole thing. An indie magazine about horror, written for and by queer fans? Mixed-media artwork? An interview with the artist who first styled the Cenobites and images of her original sketches?! When I made this purchase, I was crossing the Hood Canal on a pre-dawn airport shuttle, en route to a corporate gathering in Utah. Surely, it was too good to be true.

A week or so later, a padded envelope showed up at my door. Inside, the magazine seemed tailor-made for me: Thick, weighty paper; deep black ink and full color photographs; and best of all, stories that moved and intrigued me. For the first time in a very long time, I felt inspired to create media again—the result of which you’re reading right now.

Now, two issues in, I wanted to learn more about this eerie and enchanting magazine. I recently caught up with London-based editor-in-chief Lana Thorn and senior editor Alex Secilmis over email in the busy weeks as they jetted off to Cannes Film Festival and put the finishing touches on Issue 003—which is available for preorder this week.

This interview appears as written by Lana and Alex, with links added by your devoted editor.

Thanks for reading Scare Me! Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to receive a new edition every Thursday.

While Phantasmag is Lana's brainchild, I have the impression that it's truly a team effort. How did you both originally meet, and when did you realize that there was the potential for this creative partnership? Do you remember a particular moment when Phantasmag shifted from a concept to a reality with its own bloody, beating heart?

Lana: It’s definitely a team effort. Alex and I have known each other since we were teenagers and have been collaborating creatively for ages.

Alex: I actually couldn't watch horror films before we met—I was too much of a scaredy cat. After some truly nasty, peer-pressured exposure therapy, it's my favourite genre. Now it takes a LOT to scare me.

Lana: I created Phantasmag because I'm a huge fan of zines and indie magazines, and I felt that there was a real gap when it came to queer horror. As a lifelong horror fan, I basically made a magazine that I had always wanted to exist but had never found—one made by queer people for queer people. Especially when I was a teenager, it was impossible to find a horror magazine that wasn’t straight or male-centred.

Then it became a reality very suddenly. I knew I wanted to collaborate with Alex because I'm more of a big-picture editor, and he's more of a writer. We just loved working on Issue 001, and we knew that we wanted to keep going.

Alex: We also have a pretty unique way of working with each other. A lot of the articles are credited to both of us, and that's because we will literally sit down and write a piece together, line by line.

You've mentioned that Phantasmag draws inspiration from '70s and '80s horror zines. As a zine collector myself, this made me curious to know if there are any specific titles or creators who have shaped your sensibilities.

Are there any vintage zines you particularly treasure? Or would you say that you feel a more general fondness for that chapter of horror and DIY media history, given how ephemeral and not-always-well-archived zines can be?

Lana: In the 70s, there was The Monster Times, which I do really like. In the 80s, the ‘Chills’ zines were pretty awesome—they published short horror and science fiction, I believe that was by the British Fantasy Society. Then you have the classics like Gore Gazette and Sleazoid Express. Even Fangoria, when it started, was coming from that culture. But I also really love the handmade ones, which are almost impossible to find now. It’s just coming from a different kind of passion, and obviously, I am a big fan of the DIY quality. That’s a huge part of Phantamsag.

If you could interview any horror figure, dead or alive, who would you most want to speak with? Why did you choose this person?

Lana: I would love to interview Jane Schoenbrun. Their movies speak to me quite directly—I came out as non-binary after I Saw the TV Glow. Their new project, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, sounds fascinating. Not to mention Gillian Anderson is in it.

Alex: I do love Ryan Murphy’s work. While I acknowledge the (sometimes deserved) criticism, I think what he’s done for queer horror is undervalued. American Horror Story is such a dynamic, campy, boundary-pushing show. If I can raise the dead, I have to say Vincent Price. He would obviously be fascinating, but it would be enough just to hear that voice.

Reflecting on your first year as publishers of Phantasmag, what are you most proud of—and what has surprised you the most?

Lana: I’m most proud of the response we’ve gotten from the horror loving queers. We’ve had a lot of people reach out to tell us that they love the magazine. I really cherish that.

Alex: Me too. Even if many are halfway across the world, I feel connected to our readers, and it’s amazing to have that community.

Lana: It’s also very surreal becoming friends with so many people we interviewed. Like being invited to Jane Wildgoose's famous dinners and drinking wine in the same room she made the Cenobite costumes for Hellraiser.

Alex: On a practical level, I’m proud that we’ve managed to run a whole magazine as a two-person team for most of the time. Of course, when it comes to the issues, that becomes three people: our graphic designer, Jack Rogers, is a gift from Heaven.

Is there anything you're willing to preview or tease from Issue 003?

Lana: Well, it’s gigantic. It’s around 180 pages, about 1.5x as long as Issue 002. We were even thinking about splitting it up and calling it a “Double Feature”.

Alex: We’ve spoken to some very talented people. If you like The Substance, Nosferatu, The Gilda Stories, or Yellowjackets, you’ll want to check this one out. And there’s a lot of artwork.

Lana: We also have our first piece of creative writing in this issue! We hope it scares you.

Up Next: It Came From the Closet’s Joe Vallese

Last week, I had the absolute joy of speaking with Joe Vallese, the editor and writer behind It Came From the Closet. In a conversation that veered on and off the record, we discussed his vision for the book, the journey to publication, and how readers have responded in the three years since its release.

I’ll share that conversation—including a hint of what his next project may be—in next week’s newsletter.

Finally: Apologies to anyone who has been waiting for the next installment of our It read along! Candidly, I didn’t expect so many interviews to come through—a wonderful surprise—and I have several other requests floating around that I’m very excited about. I’ll wrap up our It series, likely with a double issue covering the last half of the book, before the month is out.

Scare Me! is a free weekly horror newsletter published every Thursday morning. It’s written by Michelle Delgado, featuring original illustrations by Sam Pugh. You can find the archive of past issues here. If you were sent this by a friend, subscribe to receive more spooky interviews, essays—and maybe even a ghost story or two.