Table of contents for Issue 137 September 2013 in RUE MORGUE

Canadian filmmaking collective Astron-6, best known for 2011’s micro-budget sci-fi comedy Manborg and the gory exploitation homage Father’s Day (see RM#120), has several new projects on the horizon, including a pair of features and a comic book miniseries. First up for the five-man indie co-op is Manborg: The Comic, which debuted last month at Toronto’s Fan Expo. Like most of Astron-6’s output, the book has a distinct retro slant, hearkening back to ’80s staples such as Marvel’s Star Wars and RoboCop series. The first story arc, which was conceived by Manborg director/co-writer Steven Kostanski, follows the movie’s titular cyborg hero and his cohorts as they duke it out with the film’s demonic villain, Count Draculon. “The Manborg comic is a super-fun idea, and I hope it’s something that continues,” says…

1. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) GIVE A DOG A CLONE 2. BODY SNATCHERS TUB DOUBLE TENDRIL TROUBLE 3. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) SUTHERLAND’S SLIMY SEED FETUS 4. STRANGE INVADERS DOPPELGANGER DOFFS HIS DERMIS 5. THE THING (1982) BETA-BENNINGS GETS BURNED 6. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) PITCHFORK MEETS POD PEOPLE TORTURED TAGLINES DON’T GO IN THE WOODS…ALONE! (1981) “EVERYONE HAS NIGHTMARES ABOUT THE UGLIEST WAY TO DIE.” See more of Jay’s work at jayfosgitt.com…

SINCE JACK FINNEY’S NOVEL THE BODY SNATCHERS WAS FIRST SERIALIZED IN COLLIERS MAGAZINE IN 1954 IT HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST ENDURING AND INFLUENTIAL MYTHS IN MODERN FANTASY. The book yielded no less than four film adaptations in the ensuing five decades; each one has resonated profoundly with successive generations and captured the political and social climate of its respective era – beginning with Don Siegel’s black and white paranoid chiller, Invasion of the body snatchers. Released in 1956 – just a year after Dell published an expanded edition of Finney’s book – the first adaptation was set in the fictional town of Santa Mira, California, and details the invasion of extraterrestrial seeds that replace sleeping people with exact physical duplicates shelled from plant-like pods. These allow the alien…

ACROSS THE RIVER-ITALY Lorenzo Bianchini Italian horror made a spectacular comeback this year at Fantasia. Dripping with juicy atmosphere and pulsing to an ethereal score, this largely dialogue-free tale sees a wildlife biologist stranded on the wrong side of a river in the mountains of Northern Italy. Waiting for the flood waters to abate, he endures harrowing nights in an abandoned village set deep in the woods. Being trapped in a dark forest is one thing, but throw in a tag team of nocturnal, carnivorous ghouls and you’ve got a recipe for a nerve-wracking, anxiety attack of a flick that’s unbearably tense. Not since The Blair Witch Project has this reviewer felt such unremitting, palpable dread. If there’s a single criticism it’s that Bianchini’s opus tends to wallow aimlessly in…

Israeli filmmakers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado turned plenty of heads in 2010 with their debut feature Rabies, an intelligent and brilliantly crafted slasher film. Now the pair is back with Big Bad Wolves, a violent psychological thriller that had its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia film festival. The movie introduces a series of horrific child murders, the sexually abused and mutilated bodies suggest the work of a local pedophile. The latest victim’s father (Tzahi Grad) is hungry for revenge and joins forces with a vigilante police officer (Lior Ashkenazi), believing that a religious studies teacher (Rotem Keinan) is the killer. Despite his repeated claims of innocence and a lack of hard evidence, the teacher is abducted and taken to the basement of a remote house. The grieving man…

WHEN DIRECTOR JAMES WAN AND WRITER/ACTOR LEIGH WHANNELL MADE INSIDIOUS, A HAUNTED HOUSE MOVIE THAT BROKE THE CONVENTIONS OF THE SUBGENRE BY TAKING THE HAUNTING OUT OF THE HOUSE AND THRUSTING THE CHARACTERS RIGHT INTO AN ASTRAL PLANE, THEY WERE LEFT WITH A DILEMMA: WHERE WOULD THEY GO NEXT? Following the blood-curdling reveal in the 2010 film’s final moments – that something malevolent had hitched a ride back from the ethereal void with the central characters – a sequel seemed inevitable, yet the filmmaking team (who also were behind Saw and Dead Silence) needed to figure just which narrative thread they were going to tug on. “When it came time for us to discuss what the story for the sequel would be, we had so many different options,” notes Whannell,…

WELCOME TO THE WONDERFULLY WARPED WORLD OF LARRY COHEN, WHERE UNNATURAL LAWS PREVAIL AND GODS AND MONSTERS THRIVE. A PLACE WHERE A FLYING MESO-AMERICAN DEITY PLUCKS BIKINI-CLAD BATHERS FROM SUN-DRENCHED ROOFTOPS. A PLACE FOR MADCAP MONSTER MOVIE Q – THE WINGED SERPENT. Just released on Blu-ray by Scream Factory, it remains one of the maverick filmmaker’s most beloved and celebrated offerings. The story of the film begins with an ending, back in the summer of 1982, when Cohen, who had previously made It’s Alive and God Told Me To, was toiling on an $11 million adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled mystery novel I, the Jury – but, after a disagreement with his producers, was fired just six days into shooting. “I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Cohen confesses…

Since its debut last year, Hoax Hunters has emerged as one of the most creative horror books on the market. It focuses on the adventures of a group of reality show stars ostensibly out to disprove myths and urban legends, but the team’s real agenda is to track down genuine cryptids – animals generally believed to be legendary – and protect them from the outside world, or vice versa. It’s a clever premise further bolstered by the cast of characters, which include Regan, a girl with mysterious powers; Ken Cadaver, the zombie; and Murder, an astronaut suit inhabited by crows(!). As the title enters its second year, fans can look forward to the beginning of a brand new story arc that sheds more light on the team’s secret origins, a…

THE DARK MAN Stephen King, with illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne Cemetery Dance Despite the prominence of Stephen King’s name on the cover, this is illustrator Glenn Chadbourne’s time to shine. The forty-year-old spooky King poem “The Dark Man,” which provided the inspiration for story-crossing character Randall Flagg, is brought to life here via more than 70 pages of highly detailed black-and-white sketches. Definitely a cool curio, but one for King completists and Chadbourne fans chiefly MONICA S. KUEBLER THE N-BODY PROBLEM Tony Burgess Chizine Publications Mad genius Tony Burgess (Pontypool Changes Everything) posits a post-zombie apocalypse world where harmless but unkillable writhing corpses are shot into orbit by big business and now cloud the atmosphere. Our drug-damaged hero must take out a psychotic company man who does unimaginable things…

Poster trends come in waves. For example, there’s currently a resurgence of illustrated film art. The time and passion the artists put into creating these pieces is something worth celebrating, but that doesn’t mean studios will stop using generic key art campaigns that possess little imagination. That’s still the standard. Consider the posters for the Saw series, for which a lone body part or a bloody weapon is composited against a grungy white background. It’s all very edgy, and I like negative space as much as the next guy, but it seemed like every horror movie that came out post-2004 copied it and, much like the plots of the Saw sequels, the look got old real quick. Well folks, there’s a new trend in town and it’s proliferating like gremlins…

I COULDN’T HELP but notice, in my new RM issue [#135], in the Expiring Minds column about scary ghost movie moments, my mention of Black Sabbath wasn’t included, but the film did get a full-page article in Late Nite Archive. Diggin’ the trade-up. JOSEPH DZENCELOWCZ, VIA FACEBOOK GOT MY JULY RM [#135] in the mail yesterday, not only was I excited to see it showcases The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, I also got an insert saying my subscription was up! Can’t wait to renew, glad you guys were keeping track:) MEGH WALLS, VIA FACEBOOK I WAS HAVING my headshots done for the Space Channel, when someone caught me taking a quick break to read an issue of Rue Morgue magazine. Can’t seem to keep my hands off…

1 FORREST J ACKERMAN STATUE $179.99 Dark Horse pays tribute to the legendary Forrest J Ackerman with this amazing 13-inch-tall statue of the man, relaxing with a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland, naturally. It’s limited edition – they’re only making a thousand – so don’t delay if you want to add one to your collection. Find Forry at darkhorse.com. 2 COLOUR ME GOOD ARRGGGHHHH!! $11.70 Remember when you were a kid, how the red marker was always the first to run out? Well, you might want to stockpile a few if you decide to work your way through this colouring book by British illustrator Mel Elliott: scenes from Psycho and Hellraiser will help you while away the gloomiest of rainy days. Keep it away from the kids, though. Shade…

This year, SGT programmer Mitch Davis served up a thought-provoking helping of eleven shorts. While the overall program was less interesting than in previous years, it nevertheless showcased some impressive films. The opening short by German cult director Jörg Buttgereit, A Moment of Silence at the Grave of Ed Gein, is exactly what the title describes: a static shot of Gein’s grave, which offers audiences a moment to reflect on how this famous serial killer has influenced his myriad cinematic incarnations, such as Norman Bates from Psycho (1960). Other noteworthy entries include Vienna Waits for You (directed by Austrian filmmaker Dominik Hartel), one of the most fascinating films of the programme. It depicts the trials and tribulations of a female student who moves into an old Viennese apartment that had…

The very first time I was there, things got out of hand; I was terrified out of my mind,” cult filmmaker Richard Stanley says of his experience with the village of Montségur (which literally means “the secure mountain”) in southwestern France. The area forms the basis of The Other World (a.k.a. L’autre monde), his documentary – making its world premiere at Fantasia this year – that explores a place known for confusing compasses, harbouring ghosts, and generating electromagnetic pulses that cause strange behaviour in livestock. EMPs can also affect brainwaves, which could explain why visitors and villagers alike report seeing UFOs and spirits, and experiencing time travel – to the point where they identify past lives complete with names, personalities and occupations. “Do the electromagnetic properties there cause hallucination, or…

VIC AND TWISTED HATCHET III Starring Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder and Zach Galligan Directed by BJ McDonnell Written by Adam Green Dark Sky Films Given that Rue Morgue named Hatchet II the worst movie of 2010, my expectations for the allegedly final film in the gore-soaked series were not high. But like a bloody steak cooked to order, Hatchet III will surely please fans who were looking forward to it – and turn the stomachs of everyone else. Director Adam Green wrote and executive-produced this third installment in the story of swamp-dwelling boogeyman Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) but handed off directing duties to BJ McDonnell, the cameraman behind both previous Hatchet films. McDonnell cleaves close to the established formula, emphasizing outrageous kills courtesy of Crowley while amping up the action…

In returning to the role of the world’s most famous vampire – so the story goes, anyways – Christopher Lee declined to speak any of the character’s lines in the script, deeming them too awful to repeat. Whether that’s true or not, this virtually silent performance gives Dracula, Prince of Darkness, Hammer’s 1966 sequel to Horror of Dracula (1958), a unique place in the esteemed studio’s output. Instead of updating the Universal classics for more sophisticated and bloodthirsty viewers, this version – now on Blu-ray from Millennium Entertainment – revels in long periods of hushed terror, reminiscent of silent cinema chillers. Starting with a flashback to recap Horror of Dracula (and apparently ignoring the Lee-less The Brides of Dracula from 1960), the film follows proper Brit couple Charles Kent (Francis…

FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN LIISA LADOUCEUR, THE ACT OF CONTRIBUTING YET ANOTHER ITEM OF VAMPIRE LORE TO THE POP CULTURE LANDSCAPE MIGHT SEEM UNENVIABLE – OR EVEN UNNECESSARY. SOME MIGHT ARGUE THAT WE HAVE COLLECTIVELY OD’ED ON BLOODSUCKER STORIES IN THE LAST DECADE. Of course, as readers of Rue Morgue know, Ladouceur is no dilettante when it comes to dark culture and its attendant pursuits. In addition to being a poet, author and journalist specializing in goth culture, music and horror (and a former RM radio host and columnist), Ladouceur, who still contributes to RM, has been a vampire freak for years. She was first lured into the mythology by the classic 1987 film The Lost Boys, which starred Kiefer Sutherland as the Billy Idol-esque leader of a gang of…

The digital home video landscape is littered with the carcasses of defunct boutique DVD labels – Barrel Entertainment, Fantoma, Subversive Cinema, to name a few – but Code Red DVD has managed to survive. That said, the economic downturn of the last several years has had a significant impact on their business; some releases are limited to 400 or 500 copies and distributed exclusively through their website. But it has always been the little label that could. The imprint has never had a tentpole title, such as The Evil Dead or Maniac, that sells consistently and can be reissued regularly, but has tended to mine more obscure offerings that, while not having the profile of the aforementioned films, are nevertheless of interest to cult film aficionados and gorehounds. These include…

GWAR’s 13th platter of splatter Battle Maximus delivers the next chapter in their gory history, the story of “Mr. Perfect,” who attempts to mutate the human race to match his own vision… until he runs into GWAR. I asked frontmonster Oderus Urungus to dissect the new album track by track, explaining how it also serves as a tribute to guitarist Flattus Maximus (Cory Smoot, who had filled the role since 2002 and died in 2011). Steel yourselves! 1. “Intro” – The lyrics introduce our new super-shithead cosmic foe, Mr. Perfect. But it also lets the fans know that the experience of losing Flattus will be a central theme. 2.“Madness at the Core of Time” – This is a carnage-filled thrash epic that exposes the listener to the full fury of…

The Viscera Film Festival has lowered the curtain on its 2013 event, revealing this year’s winners at an awards ceremony at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on July 13. On that date, the annual film festival, which seeks to support women filmmakers in horror, awarded Best Film to Canadian Karen Lam for The Meeting, about a serial killer support group. The film was picked by a panel of judges including filmmakers Jennifer Lynch and Drew Daywalt, and author John Skipp. Other winners this year included UK’s Jen Moss, who took home Best Director for her apocalypse-themed film My Brother’s Keeper; Maddison Lopez won the Fresh Blood award (a prize given to filmmakers under the age of eighteen) for Outbreak, about a toxic explosion that has strange effects on nearby…

Ranking alongside his classic soundtracks for Halloween and Escape from New York is John Carpenter’s score for The Fog. Four years after the movie hit theatres, record label Varèse Sarabande released a soundtrack album featuring only eight tracks (several musical cues from the film were absent from the LP). Despite this, the cover (featuring the Jamie Lee Curtis poster art) and informative production notes by Carpenter still make this among the most desirable of Fog collectibles. It regularly goes for $60 to $100 on eBay. MORE CRYPTIC COLLECTIBLES AT RUE-MORGUE.COM…

BACK IN 2004, THE GENRE WORLD WAS EXPOSED TO GAME-CHANGING HORROR COMEDY SHAUN OF THE DEAD, WHICH SEAMLESSLY MOULDED GENUINE ZOMBIE HORROR WITH CUTTING BRITISH WIT IN A WAY THAT’S RESPECTFUL TO BOTH GENRES. It was also the first in what’s been termed the “Cornetto Trilogy” (that’s a European brand of ice cream for those unfamiliar) because the treat appears not only in that movie, but in two subsequent horror comedies also directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, which all star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in buddy roles. (The trio’s collaboration goes back to British TV projects in the ’90s, notably the geek-friendly Spaced.) The second Cornetto film was 2007’s Hot Fuzz, a buddy-cop action-comedy in which the duo faces off against a town full of evil cultists. The…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE SCANDALIZES SCANDINAVIA NIGHT ERRORS MARA MVD Visual Scandinavia is a loose political entity made up of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and, more importantly, it’s where some of the best pornos of the 1970s came from. Fun fact (unrelated): according to Scandinavian mythology, there’s a fierce supernatural female entity who haunts you at night and gives you bad dreams. She’s called Mara – hence the word “nightmare.” Mara is also the title of this Swedish film in which a girl returns to her childhood home, where a horrendous murder occurred, and tries to cope with her inner demons while her friends start dropping like Swedish flies… get it? [Barely. – Ed.] Sadly, the copious nudity and camel toe close-ups couldn’t even keep me interested in this yawnfest. If…

THE GRIMSCRIBE’S PUPPETS Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., ed. Miskatonic River Press Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. has done it again! After A Season in Carcosa, last year’s excellent anthology inspired by the horror stories of Robert W. Chambers, he’s back with another tribute, this time to contemporary cult scribe Thomas Ligotti. This new release boasts another fine, arty cover by Daniele Serra, and once again the contents reveal a “who’s who” of the stars of horror’s small press scene, where the most vital fiction prospers. Fans of refined horror are certain to recognize most of the names (Livia Llewellyn, Daniel Mills, Michael Cisco, Joel Lane, Cody Goodfellow, Richard Gavin) whose visions blend here with Ligotti’s idiosyncratic world view and style. It’s all there: rapidly decaying small towns; puppets, mannequins and other…

SOUNDTRACK THE CONJURING Joseph Bishara WATERTOWER RECORDS Joseph Bishara’s composer’s resume includes a number of successful modern horror entries, such as Insidious and Dark Skies, yet there is little to recommend on his work for yet another high-profile entry, The Conjuring. His approach here is fairly humdrum, relying primarily upon jump scares and crashing percussion, rather than building up any real feeling of tension or dread. Indeed, the moments of silence on Bishara’s score seem to drag on and on, with very little payoff in terms of mood and atmosphere. The composer’s use of a psychotic-sounding string section is well done – see “Sleepwalker,” “Wall Searching” and “Look What She Made Me Do” – but played out. With The Conjuring, he ends up falling in line with many of his…

Since its revival in 2007, Hammer Films has shown itself adept at dealing in more than just movies, with a line of paperback novels, poster reissues, fine art reproductions, greeting cards and, now, a series of original audio dramas. Titled Hammer Chillers, the six-episode anthology series – produced in association with UK-based Bafflegab Productions – is a slickly made effort bolstered by lush music, sound effects and a cast of several characters for each story. According to British novelist and screenwriter Stephen Gallagher (Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour), who penned an installment of Hammer Chillers called “The Box,” the radio plays aren’t much of a stretch for the storied film studio. “‘Old-time radio’ shows were actually hugely cinematic,” Gallagher explains. “[They had] short, vivid scenes in a sequence of sensational…