About me

\'m Joe Toft, founder of Strangeway Studios and a horror creative working across narrative design, transmedia storytelling, and creature concept development. My work lives at the intersection of beauty and dread. I believe the two are the same coin.

My influences run deep: H.R. Giger's biomechanical nightmares, the practical dread of Alien and Predator, Lovecraft's cosmic horror, and the raw physicality of classic monster cinema from Karloff to Oldman's Dracula. I'm drawn to horror that feels tactile and human, even when it's reaching for something ancient and unknowable.

Currently completing a Bachelor's in Creative Writing at Full Sail University (transmedia storytelling and film/TV writing, expected December 2026), I split my creative practice across several tracks:

Narrative & Game Design — original IP development, branching dialogue systems, spec scripts, and worldbuilding for horror games and interactive fiction

Transmedia & ARG Production — building live, cross-platform horror experiences that blur the line between fiction and audience participation

Creature Design — biomechanical and Lovecraftian creature hierarchies, bloodline mechanics, and monster taxonomy rooted in practical craft

Editorial — horror film and culture writing, with bylines including Wicked Horror

Before horror became my full time focus, I spent 10+ years as a visual artist and 7+ years as a working musician. Both still shape the rhythm, texture, and visual instinct behind everything I make.

Strangeway Studios is where all of this converges: original visual art, short films, and transmedia storyworlds built for audiences who want their horror to mean something.

Stay Strange.