Grave Tone is a horror movie podcast and brand run by two people, Arthur and Meaghan. This page covers how we work, so you know what you are reading and why you can trust it.
What we cover and why
We cover horror movies, TV, books, and games through reviews, interviews, editorials, and deep dives. We pick what to cover based on what we actually want to talk about, not on what is trending or what somebody asked us to feature.
If a film is playing at a festival we are attending, we will probably cover it. If a book lands in our hands and it is good, we will talk about it.
How we watch and review
We rate movies out of 10 in Digs. Arthur and Meaghan score separately, then we average, and we do not talk each other into a number first. The full breakdown of how that works lives on our Digs rating system page.
We rate on a single viewing, because that is how you are going to watch it. When we have rewatched a franchise beforehand, we say so in the review.
Festival access, screeners, and review copies
We attend festivals with press access. Fantasia International Film Festival is the most recent one, and a lot of our coverage comes out of that.
We also receive screeners from distributors and publicists, and those sometimes carry embargo dates. We respect embargoes. What we do not do is let access buy a score.
Nobody gets to see a review before it goes up. Nobody gets to ask for a change after. If we sit in on a Q and A with a director, attend a festival premiere, or get sent a screener, that does not move the number, and we will tell you in the piece when it happened.
The same goes for books. We have received a review copy directly from an author, and when that happens, we say so in the review.
Compensations
We do not run affiliate links. We have not taken a sponsorship or a paid podcast placement.
If that ever changes, this page changes with it, and any sponsored content will be labelled as sponsored where you can see it.
Spoilers
We add a spoiler warning whenever a piece contains spoilers.
How careful we are depends on timing. If a movie just came off a festival run or is still months out, we keep it clean of major spoilers; you should get to see it the way we did. Once something is out, we loosen up, because at that point the conversation is more interesting than the surprise.
Ending explained posts are the exception. Those are spoilers by definition, and the title tells you that before you click.
Sourcing
When information comes from somewhere else, we link to it. Trade reporting, festival programmes, interviews other outlets did, box office numbers; if we did not get it ourselves, the source is right there in the text.
We do not report things we cannot source. If something is a rumour, we call it a rumour.
Corrections
We get things wrong sometimes. When we do, we fix it, and we say what we fixed.
Substantive errors (a wrong name, a wrong date, a misattributed quote, a fact that changes what the piece means) get a dated correction note on the post itself. We do not quietly edit and pretend it was always that way. Typos and broken links we just fix.
If we change our mind about a score after living with a movie for a while, that goes in a new post, not a silent edit to the old one.
Found something wrong? Tell us through the contact page. We would rather hear it from you than leave it up.