Dejan Ognjanović (author)

Dejan Ognjanović was program director of “Slaughter: The Art Horror Film Festival” which took place in Doljevac, Serbia, July 1-3. 2022. It was an attempt to separate horror films of confrontation from horror films of escapism and show the former to an audience which would not otherwise be aware of them. The festival took place on the site of a defunct slaughterhouse, now renovated and turned into a place for all kinds of cultural and artistic activities.

In 2022. Dejan Ognjanović was The Bram Stoker Award © finalist in the category Short non-fiction, for his essay “The Three Paradigms of Horror” (Vastarien, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2021).

Prokletije (The Damned Mountains, 2021) is Ognjanović's third novel, a semi-sequel to Naživo, whose protagonist has a significant role in a plot which enlarges the neo-mythology of the first novel. The end of the 1990s in the territory of the former Yugoslavia: one battlefield is dying down in Bosnia, while another, in the South of Serbia (i.e. Kosovo), is slowly starting to smolder...A group of veterans is on a special mission leading them into the heart of the nearly impassable Prokletije mountain range, where the Human, the Subhuman and the Superhuman intertwine... Ognjanović's short stories and novellas have been published in many Serbian magazines, journals and book anthologies. So far, none of Ognjanović's fiction has been published in English.

Ognjanović also wrote afterwords for Serbian editions of Alberto Breccia’s albums Myths of Cthulhu and Mort Cinder (Darkwood, Belgrade, 2018).

Ognjanović's two artworks were used as illustrations in the first issue of the US magazine Vastarien (2018).

His first book in English is The Weird World of H.P. Lovecraft (Rue Morgue, 2017).

For his articles on Lovecraft and Frankenstein from Rue Morgue magazine he was nominated for the "Rondo Award", twice (2016 and 2017). Both times, Ognjanović has got an "honourable mention" (top five).

Ognjanović's essay Welcome to the Reality Studio: Serbian Hand-Held Horrors is in Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage (Xavier Aldana Reyes, Linnie Blake, eds.) (IB Tauris, 2015).

Ognjanović has also been a top contender (among top three) for the prestigious Nikola Milošević award, for non-fiction book in Serbian, for his Poetics of Horror in 2015.

Ognjanović's second novel, Zavodnik (The Seducer, 2014) brings a change of pace: it is an atmospheric folk-horror Serbian rendition of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, about a young teacher brought into a mostly deserted and dead village in the mountains to teach a couple of orphans under the care of their grandma. However, it seems that their much-maligned father is not quite dead...

Ognjanović's interviews with the genre greats (i.e. Christopher Lee, Stuart Gordon, Jaume Balaguero, Sergio Stivaletti) were published in Horror Movie Heroes (Rue Morgue Library, Vol 2; 2014).

He is editing a series of books called Poetics of Horror for a Serbian publisher, Orfelin publishing. It aims to represent the very best in horror fiction which hasn't yet been translated into Serbian. Between 2014 and 2022 he has selected, annotated, partially translated and wrote afterwords for:

Ognjanović has also translated Richard Corben’s albums Haunt of Horror: E. A. Poe and Haunt of Horror: H. P. Lovecraft (Darkwood, Belgrade, 2014).

In 2012, Ognjanović earned a Ph.D. in Anglo-American Literature at the Faculty of Philology, Belgrade, Serbia with a Ph.D. thesis titled Historical Poetics of Horror Genre in Anglo-American Literature.

His paper Why Is the Tension So High? The Monstrous Feminine in (Post)Modern Slasher Films is in Speaking Of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology (Caroline Joan S. Picart and John Edgar Browning, eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012.

Excerpts from his book devoted to Serbian horror cinema, In the Hills, the Horrors, were translated to Czech and published in the magazine for theory, history and aesthetics of cinema, Iluminace (3/2011) in November 2011.

After Subversive Serbia at the Fantasia International Film Festival, he also presented Serbian horrors at the SLASH FILM FESTIVAL in Vienna (September 2011), where he introduced the screening of Variola vera and participated in a round table about subversion in cinema.

Ognjanović writes book and film reviews and articles for Rue Morgue magazine since 2010.

He was a co-programmer (with Mitch Davis) of the program Subversive Serbia at the Fantasia Film Festival (Montreal, Canada, 08–28. July 2010). He made a selection of seven Serbian genre films, four recent and three older, which he personally introduced, did the Q&A's with their authors and gave a lecture on Serbian horror films (with film clips). He also wrote about those films for the festival's program.

He was a staunch defender of the controversial A Serbian Film (2010); he did the English subtitles for the film and wrote its first ever review in English, for The Quiet Earth website.

Ognjanović has also had a blog in English - The Temple of Ghoul (2010-2014), with a similar profile and slight bent towards Asian horror cinema. His most popular and widespread article was his (highly critical) review of Guillermo del Toro's script for At the Mountains of Madness.

After problems that Ognjanović had with his professor and mentor, he had to leave his job at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš in 2009.

He also gave lectures at the KRATKOFIL film festival in Banjaluka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia in June 2009, and at FANTASTIC ZAGREB (6-10. July 2011 and 3. July 2012, Zagreb, Croatia) and at Refesticon (Bijelo Polje, Montenegro, June 2018).

Ognjanović writes on his Serbian blog The Cult of Ghoul (2009 – present) This blog mostly covers horror films, old and new, but also books, comics, events, etc. It has about 1000 daily visits, and had over 5,5 million visits since its inception in 2009.

Ognjanović's essay Genre Films in Recent Serbian Cinema was published in a bilingual collection Uvođenje mladosti / Youth Rising (Filmski Centar Srbije, Beograd, 2008); it is also available in the special edition of the web magazine KinoKultura br. 8 (in English).

He also published a collection of essays Studija strave / A Study in Terror (Pančevo: Mali Nemo, 2008), and a book-length interview-study devoted to Serbian film director and horror-film pioneer, Đorđe Kadijević, Više od istine: Kadijević o Kadijeviću / More Than Truth: Kadijević on Kadijević (Novi Sad: Orfelin, 2017).

In Serbia, Ognjanović has edited H. P. Lovecraft's best stories in Serbian, titled Nekronomikon, Beograd: Everest Media, 2008; 2nd expanded edition 2012; the ultimate edition Orfelin, Novi Sad, 2018. He translated many of the tales and accompanied them with his introductions, a lengthy afterword, annotated bibliography, Lovecraft's biography, etc.

Ognjanović had also co-edited (with Ivan Velisavljević) Novi kadrovi: skrajnute vrednosti srpskog filma / New Frames: Hidden Gems of Serbian Cinema (Beograd: Clio, 2008), offering fresh insights into neglected authors, tendencies and (sub)genres of Serbian cinema.

Ognjanović's essays in English were published in the books edited by Steven Schneider:100 European Horror Films (British Film Institute, London, 2007), on Déjà vu, 1987); 501 Movie Directors (Quintessence / Barron's, London / New York City, 2007), on Alejandro Jodorowsky, Goran Marković, James Whale, Jan Svankmajer, Kaneto Shindo, Kim Ki Duk and Sogo Ishii; 101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die (Quintessence / ABC Books, London/Sydney, 2009) on Mask of the Demon, Suspiria, The Abominable Dr Phibes, The Beyond, The Devil Rides Out, The Exorcist, The Masque of the Red Death and The Wicker Man; 101 SF Movies You Must See Before You Die (Quintessence / ABC Books, London/Sydney, 2009) on Blade Runner, Stalker, The Terminator and RoboCop; 101 Gangster Movies You Must See Before You Die (Quintessence / ABC Books, London/Sydney, 2009) on Dillinger, and 101 War Movies You Must See Before You Die (Quintessence / ABC Books, 2009) on Tora! Tora! Tora! and Ballad of a Soldier.

He is a regular participant at the Grossmann Film and Wine Festival (Ljutomer, Slovenia) since 2007. Among many lectures and presentations, he also had master classes with such names as Brian Yuzna, Richard Stanley, Simon Boswell, Harry Kumel, Sergio Stivaletti and others.

In Serbia, Ognjanović has been awarded several awards. He received an award for best literary criticism by the literary magazine Gradina (Niš) in 2004; an award for best literary essay by the literary magazine Ulaznica (Zrenjanin), 2005 and 2006, for best book-length theoretical work ('Svetozar Marković', Zaječar) in 2006.

Ognjanović is an alumnus of the Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP) through American Councils for International Education. Thanks to their grant, he spent two semesters (Fall 2003 – Spring 2004) as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, California, USA, at the courses relevant for American studies.

Naživo (In Vivo, 2003) is a brutal and dark tale about the resonances of the war violence from Bosnia and Kosovo in a „peaceful“ environment of sanctions-bound and depraved Interzone called Serbia. Politics, war, snuff, occult, underground cinema and pornography are merged in a gruesome tale of a young man's search for meaning in the middle of chaos.

Dejan Ognjanović did the artwork for the short comic (16 pages) Transcendence, adapted by Edward Lee and John Pelan from their own same-titled story. Published by Necro Publications in 2003, this edition also contains the original story and a gallery of four horror artworks by Ognjanović unrelated to the comic. It was published in 52 hardcover signed copies and 1000 soft cover copies.

Dejan Ognjanović worked at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, as a teaching assistant, at the Department of English studies, on the subject of American literature. He worked there for ten years, from 1999 to 2009.

He got his B.A. in English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy, Niš, Serbia in 1996. At the same place he got his M.A. in American Literature by defending his M.A. Thesis Gothic Motifs in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe in 2009.

In Serbia, Ognjanović has published over a hundred film reviews, essays and interviews since 1996, in numerous daily papers, magazines and cinema journals.

Dejan Ognjanović (born January 30, 1973) is a contemporary Serbian horror author, literary critic, film critic, editor and a translator. He was the first in Serbia, and the Balkans, to write a doctoral dissertation on poetics of the horror genre. He was The Bram Stoker Award finalist in the category Short non-fiction (2022). He is a regular contributor to Rue Morgue magazine since 2010.

Dejan Ognjanović was born in Niš, on January 30, 1973, in Serbia, at the time a part of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.