Horror enthusiast Ashleigh Millman answers our burning questions –

Hi, who are you and what do you do?

Hi, I’m Ash, and I think the easiest way to group what I do is to say that I’m a presenter and content creator focused on horror entertainment. If it’s creepy, I’m there. Just make a nice dark corner for me to settle into and I’ll be fine.

What’s it like?

In terms of work, I’m a newly hatched freelancer after hosting YouTube channels for six years. I started at WhatCulture and eventually launched WhatCulture Horror before joining the PlayStation Access team, which I left earlier this year to pursue a life focused entirely on the miserable and macabre. I stream horror games, make my own videos about horror releases, do voiceovers for horror podcasts, and I host or write or guest on fun projects that come my way. The rest of my time is spent watching hopeless reality dating TV. It’s all about balance.

Right now, though, I’m basking in the glow of finally getting the Platinum trophy on Inscryption after sacrificing nearly 100 hours of little forest creatures. It is one of the best games in the world and everyone should play it. I might do it again after this to be honest. What’s another 100 hours when you’re freelancing, right!

Can you give me an overview of a day in the life of Ash?

Honestly, right now it’s pretty random, which I really like. There’s usually some form of boring administration, like emails or updating my glorious tax spreadsheet (really, it’s a beautiful thing) mixed in with filming, writing or streaming. There are many days spent traveling up and down the country, because everything fun is somehow held within a 100-mile radius of Wolverhampton. It also involves a lot of petting my cats and opening the refrigerator.

From modeling to writing to producing to hosting – how has your experience juggling all these gigs at WhatCulture and PlayStation Access shaped you into the creepy host and content creator you are today?

Man, it was just amazing to be able to experience so many different parts of similar industries and see how they all overlap. It means I basically made my own pick ‘n’ mix job out of all my favorite parts – whether that’s in front of the camera, endlessly bitching about games and movies or making really good spreadsheets. Seriously. Did I mention taxes?

But honestly, the most important takeaway, and the most important thing that has shaped me into the person I am today, is the brilliant people I’ve met along the way. I have been super blessed to make many friends among colleagues and have been trained by people I truly admire, both personally and professionally. Working as a team to make videos means really exploring your strengths and weaknesses in a super supportive environment – I would never have been able to build my confidence and experiment with my creativity the way I can now without those amazing friends who encourage me as I flit through the industry. And I encourage them all, too!

It’s clear that the love of horror is a big part of your personality – how did that come about? Why don’t you love Wolverhampton Wanderers more?

Look well, I love Wolverhampton Wanderers when they are winning.

However, there are a couple of different things that come together when I talk about what brought me to the horror genre. First, the love of horror is just always…. Been there, really. I was a really sheltered kid and a scaredy cat growing up, and I think that made me morbidly curious about anything that was a little bit creepy. It scared me, but that made me want to know more. I remember my best friend in elementary school watching movies with 15+ ratings and describing the plots to me in detail. I knew I couldn’t watch it because I would have nightmares (thanks for teaching me that lesson the hard way, sigh), but I loved hearing her talk in detail about a man’s head rattling around a washing machine in Identity. I feel like that interaction is, in a way, what my role on the Internet is now; collect all the interesting horror tidbits and talk about them in a way that invites people to explore it further.

Of course, both my parents are also horror fans – and that influenced me tremendously, because it was just always in the house. Reading Stephen King books given to me by my mother, watching horror movies late at night with my father, and always being fascinated by dark necromancers and reanimated skeletons in fantasy games – which my father and I played exclusively as board game heads for years – all made it a full-blown passion.

Finally, horror as a genre always invents its own lore and stories, you’re always researching what it represents or is inspired by. I just love how closely connected it is to human nature and psychology, that it has its heart in campfire stories and oral storytelling traditions. Horror taps into that primal instinct that connects us all. It’s cool as hell.

In the same vein – a little birdie told me you prefer to enjoy the 2004 gothic masterpiece Van Helsing. Tell it.

In this essay, I will…

Haha! I love Van Helsing. It’s one of the movies I watched and re-watched growing up because it perfectly stretched across fantasy, epic and sinister influences that fascinated me so much. I’m a big monster girl, and the fact that Van Helsing is so full of beasts from all over literature is cool as hell. And I mean, I’m also mesmerized by Dracula’s brides. I’m still not sure if I want to be them or be with them.

Since Van Helsing is criminally underrated and should be talked about at least twenty-three percent more in all daily conversations – are there any other “hidden gems” you would like to include in the water cooler conversation?

Speaking of underrated, I’m also the number one champion of Evolve and will die on the hill that it really is a brilliant kaiju hunting game. Without that, we wouldn’t have Dead by Daylight!!! Don’t quote me on that!!!

For recommendations that are a little more off the beaten path, Anything for Jackson is a horror film that I recently rewatched and have to recommend as a really good haunted house movie that defies all the tropes of style you would expect from that type of film. For the found footage film heads like me, Frogman came out this year and is also absolutely rules. It’s as silly as the title suggests, with some great, weird, awful scenes to match.

Oh, oh, I also want to scream One Cut of the Dead because I am legitimately the most laughed at I have ever laughed at watching a horror comedy. The Cornetto trilogy, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and One Cut of the Dead are like the ultimate weekend lineup.

What is your favorite horror game of all time, and why?

You know, if you were to ask me what is the BEST horror game of all time, I would say Resident Evil 2 remake. I don’t think I have a favorite, because I came to horror games much later than horror movies and books! I’m still catching up on the wealth of older titles I didn’t play growing up – like I just finished streaming the first and second Silent Hill games and had an absolute blast. Please don’t ask me to choose between the two, I’m still trying to figure that out for myself.

MADiSON, I really have a big soft spot for because it combines so many different game styles into one in the three acts, and the monster from the final Blue Knees has become a bit of a mascot for horror monsters in my house that Ash built. It’s also one I’ve talked about a lot on PlayStation Access, so I’m definitely sentimental about it. As sentimental as you can be about a game with a demonic entity that encourages you to fish eyeballs out of phonographs, at least.

Dredge, of course. Puppet Combo ‘s wealth of retro games, but Stay Out of the House specifically. Dead Space. Control. Alan Wake II. Until Dawn. Resi 7. Then creepy vibe games instead of outright horror, like Hollow Knight (which is probably my favorite game of all time) and Return of the Obra Dinn.

Oh wait, I just remembered that The Last of Us is a horror game, so I’ll have to say the sequel, The Last of Us: Part II. From that first absolutely iconic story about desperately clinging to a glimmer of hope in post-apocalyptic darkness, only to have it extinguished and wallow in violence and hate in that sequel, just knocks me off my socks to even think about it. It’s one thing to see Ellie’s pain play out in an unstoppable revenge mission, but being forced to orchestrate it as a player is just so powerful. Plus, the clickers are cool.

What is your favorite horror movie of all time, and why?

The Descent. It’s the best.

What is the best monster out of all of fiction?

Godzilla really has a lot going for him right now, but we have to give a little applause to the Jotunn in The Ritual because he got really weird with an original monster design. I always think of it again when I think of things like this. You could also add literally any boss from Soulsborne games here, but I’m going to pick Rykard Lord of Blasphemy for vibes. TOGETHAA.

For mobs, they are skeletons brought back to life by a dark and powerful magic that the realm does not understand. Zombies and draugr are okay, but they are messy. It must be those pure bone guys for me.

A curveball – you just woke up. It was all a dream. Describe your perfect day as a used car salesman at Ashes to Ash’s Used Cars Dealership (no, I’m not doing this simply because I like the pun. Well, maybe).

Oh man. I really don’t know anything about cars. How did I get here? Do you want to buy a car? Please send me back to a PlayStation as soon as possible. Or to Xzibit from Pimp My Ride so he can put one in the trunk for me if I really need to stay.

Normally I’d ask something shocking at the end, but since I have the Host of Spooks himself here, that seems rather redundant, so this time I’ll just ask: which Pokémon do you think is absolutely the cutest?

I absolutely adore Espeon. She’s a little pink cat! I know I talk a lot about being scary, but I’m a little cat-loving, pink-haired cutie pie with a soft caramel center, really.

Okay. Yup. Now I MUST do it. So, how would you eat the poor Espeon? Preparation, spices and selection of drink to wash it all down, please.

I can’t believe you’re such a sick puppy either.

Ah, glad you asked. Roasted on the spit with a honey glaze because I feel they would be quite sweet in taste. Combination of Chianti and broad beans – for craic of course. I would keep the gem in her head as a little sweet treat for dessert. Just crack it as if I were in the local crystal store.

Yikes. That’s all for now, folks! Muchas gracias, Ash!