Table of contents for Issue 147 August 2014 in RUE MORGUE

My view of the world is ironic, bitter, acid…” Judging by that interview quote I found online, Brian De Palma has a permanent case of the Death Metal Mondays. That spite permeates every frame of Phantom of the Paradise – a product of downbeat ’70s cinema that drips with bile for the music industry. There’s no other film that so creatively skewers the soulless, shallow world of prefab bands, shady record labels and backstabbing businessmen. Irony in the arts – and the art of irony – used to be a defense against the crass, faux-sincerity of the mainstream (for example, ridiculing the interchangeable pop groups in Phantom), because nothing fends off plastic sentiment like jaded snark, right? De Palma was trying to keep it real in a world full of…

UK cake artist Tracey Rothwell has parlayed her love of ’80s horror into a thriving specialty baking service. The Lancashire-based baker has earned an enthusiastic following with her elaborate comestibles, many of which are inspired by such horror staples as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Evil Dead. “My first horror cake was for my older brother,” says the self-taught artist, whose pastries typically involve at least three days of labour. “When we were younger we would sit and watch Nightmare on Elm Street movies and he would draw Freddy gloves onto his bedroom wall, so that seemed a perfect choice for his 30th birthday cake. … Other people started realizing that, yes, maybe they could have a horror birthday cake instead of the standard chocolate cake with a candle…

1.SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II DRILLER KILLER GRINDS ON GUITAR 2.THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1989) ERIK SERVES HEAD SOUP 3.FROM DUSK TILL DAWN MARIACHI VAMPS SLAY ’EM AND PLAY ’EM 4.THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES PHIBES’ CORNUCOPIA OF CREATIVE KILLS 5.PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE SCABBY SWAN MEETS STABBY PHANTOM 6.ROCKTOBER BLOOD BILLY CUTS AND GUTS ONSTAGE TORTURED TAGLINES MOTHRA (1961) RAVISHING A UNIVERSE FOR LOVE! “ See more of Jay’s work at jayfosgitt.com…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE LAUGHS IN THE FACE OF LEGENDS BEAST OF BURDEN BLACK WATER CREEK: THE LEGEND OF SASQUATCH Reality Films Nearly every culture has tales of a legendary beast, such as the Jewish Golem, the Nepalese Yeti or the Scottish Loch Ness Monster. For us North Americans, it doesn’t get bigger than Bigfoot. Black Water Creek follows an alcoholic cop and his new partner as they try to get to the bottom of a rash of murders in a backwater ’burb where property values are falling as fast as the local population. Bodies have been turning up with their faces ripped off. Is it a bear, a serial killer or Sasquatch? I wish I could say, but between the over-the-top acting, repetitive dialogue, corny set pieces, atrocious death…

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS M.R. Carey Orbit The Girl With All the Gifts makes no secret of the fact that it was penned by a popular comics/horror writer (Mike Carey: The Unwritten) using a thinly veiled pseudonym. The big question is why release it like this, with that decidedly un-horror cover? Girl certainly doesn’t deserve to be dumped unceremoniously onto bookstore shelves. Rather, it should be screamed about from the rooftops, as it’s that rare zombie novel that even after a ten-year deluge of zombie novels feels inventive – and more than a little exciting. Unlike many undead yarns, Girl does not muck around in the early days of the outbreak (presented here as a parasitic infection that commandeers the brains and bodies of its victims). Instead, it…

THE WALKING DEAD SOUNDTRACK Original Soundtrack Vol. 1 SPACELAB9 The mainstream officially gets on the vinyl bandwagon with Spacelab9’s Walking Dead Original Soundtrack Vol. 1, released on CD just a month earlier. Fans expecting to hear series composer Bear McCreary’s anxiety-inducing score will be disappointed, however, as this first volume contains only a butchering, er, remix of the main title theme, then surrounds it with seven songs that appeared in the third season. Not exactly comprehensive! The album attempts to showcase the variety of original music that has appeared in the show while capturing its apocalyptic essence and to be fair, it mostly works. “The Parting Glass” by Lauren Cohan and Emily Kinney (who play sisters Maggie and Beth Greene) is positively haunting, while contributions by Jamie N. Commons and…

WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW ORDER PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One Bethesda Softworks The year is 1946 and even though Hitler is dead, the Allies are about to be overthrown thanks to the machinations of General Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse and his elite army of high-tech Nazi killing machines. As Captain William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, you’re the best line of defense until a piece of shrapnel gets lodged in your skull, putting you in a coma for over a decade. Waking up in the 1960s, the world has become a very different place: the Nazis have rampaged across the Earth and even the Moon! Your mission is to hook up with other freedom fighters and form a new resistance to defeat the evil juggernaut once and for all. This is a…

THANKS FOR THE excellent article on Curtains [RM#146], which brought back happy memories of my misspent VHS days whilst growing up in grey old Essex in the ’80s. What an issue! Second only to the fantastic piece on Rituals a couple of years back. You are a consistently great magazine! SIMON MARTIN – WOKINGHAM, UNITED KINGDOM THANK YOU @RUEMORGUE for bringing that old lady back into my head and my dreams! [Curtains, RM#146] I thought she had left for good! Shit. @JAMNLOKI, VIA TWITTER I GOT MY very first copy of Rue Morgue magazine in this month’s Horror Block, can’t wait to read it on my vacation. LIZ SCOTT, VIA FACEBOOK FIRST TIME READING@RueMorgue thanks to the team @HorrorBlock. I like what I see. @BLACKBIRD685, VIA TWITTER SECRETS OF the…

Indie collective Astron-6 – makers of the 2012 horror-comedy Father’s Day – has wrapped production on its giallo epic The Editor and brought on board some genre favourites to help do it. Lending their talents to the Winnipeg production are film actors Laurence Harvey (Human Centipede 2) and Paz de la Huerta (Nurse 3D, Enter the Void), Broadway star Samantha Hill (Phantom of the Opera), Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti, who is currently composing the film’s main theme, and famed artist Graham Humphreys, who designed several posters for the movies-within-the-movie (one for Tarantola is pictured below). They join Udo Kier (Flesh for Frankenstein, Suspiria, Blade) and Astron-6 members Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy and Conor Sweeney. “Working with the likes of Udo Kier was an amazing experience, and to bring that level of…

1 HAUNTED STAMPS $8.50 CAD Fear-loving philatelists should check out these scary stamps from the Great Fright North – each one features an image evoking a true tale of terror from Canada’s creepiest places, where dying brides, haunted hotels and genuine ghost trains abound. Lick your fears at canadapost.ca. 2 BATS THROW BLANKET $20 You can never have too many bats in your cave. And now when you’re ready to curl up on your couch for a Dracula marathon, you can keep your shivers to a minimum under this microfiber (with satin trim) throw blanket, festooned with the creepy critters. Bedding becomes a belfry at sininlinen.com. 3 GWAR THROBBLEHEAD $49.95 Create Ragnarok-eqsue chaos among your collectibles by adding this pair of “throbbleheads” to the lineup – GWAR’s Oderus Urungus and…

One of the most distinctive and most memorable aspects of The Crow is, of course, its groundbreaking soundtrack. It sold over four million copies and exposed many of the bands involved to an international audience on an unprecedented scale. Pantera, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, My Life With the Thrill Kill Cult, Rollins Band and The Cure (whose track “Burn” became the movie’s main theme) all appeared, amongst others, creating an aggressive, modern backdrop to a new era of the gothic revenge tale. Cherry-picking some of the finest alt rock acts of the day, the album’s combination of original songs and cover versions (including Rollins Band’s take on Suicide’s “Ghost Rider,” Pantera’s reworking of Poison Idea’s “The Badge” and Nine Inch Nails’ cover of Joy Divisions’s “Dead Souls”)…

IT’S BEEN SAID THAT A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER. WHETHER THAT JOY IS ENHANCED OR DIMINISHED BY GHOSTLY CO-OWNERSHIP, THOUGH, IS AN ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE MATTER. Paranormal investigator Stacey Graham tackles the subject of possessed possessions in her latest book, Haunted Stuff: Demonic Dolls, Screaming Skulls and Other Creepy Collectibles (out this month from Llewellyn Publications). Graham’s new tome is partly a collection of ghost stories and partly a how-to guide for dealing with that lovely but totally possessed tea service you picked up at a yard sale last month. Graham, who also authored 2012’s The Girls’ Ghost Hunting Guide and co-created the popular Zombie Tarot deck, says her interest in the subject stretches back nearly two decades. “I loved ghost stories, and when strange things happened to…

Meet the hero who literally takes a bite out of crime. Halloween Man (a.k.a. Solomon Hitch) is a flesh-eating, scarred, undead monster who lives in Solar City, Texas, a metropolis filled with ghosts, werewolves, zombies and other assorted ghouls. Created by Drew Edwards back in 1999, Halloween Man has haunted the internet as a cult-favourite web comic for over a decade. The title was recently relaunched through Monsterverse and online digital comics store comiXology; it’s still written by Edwards who is now joined by artist Sergio Calvet (The Dark of the Forest). The book has returned as both an ongoing title as well as a series of one-shots, making it easier than ever for readers to check out the character’s monstrous appeal. “I was extremely influenced by the Universal Monsters…

If you’re going to adopt the name of what is arguably Dario Argento’s most garish and popular film, you’d better have an eye for colour and no fear of blood. Suspiria, a Toronto-based painter, dollmaker and tattoo artist, has both. The Spanish artist attended art school in Barcelona with the intent of becoming a fashion designer, but wound up earning a degree in illustration and graphic design. Years later, she moved to Toronto, met her tattoo teacher (and later husband) at his shop, and has been turning heads with her colourful and macabre artwork ever since. “My style is pretty dark and bloody but I still try to keep it as elegant and soft as I can,” she explains. “I also specialize in female anatomy, so even at my…

Psycho Charger refuses to be confined to the crate of horror rock. For the uninitiated, this LA-based trio has been combining rockabilly, punk, surf, goth and even industrial for fifteen years now, to create a white trash, horror-steeped spectacle literally soaked in fake blood (when they hit the stage). Following Curse of the Psycho (2005) and Mark of the Psycho (2010), this year brings the Spawn of the Psycho, an album that promises to amp up the intensity of everything that came before it, starting with an album cover featuring a pregnant Courtney Cruz (founder of LA’s burlesque troupe Devil’s Playground) naked and covered in blood. Opening with the poem “Boldly Stand” by The High Priest of the Church of Satan, Magus Peter H. Gilmore, the disc lets loose an…

What was the last thing in the genre you watched/read/heard that blew your mind? Pontypool really reinvigorated my love for the genre. It actually creeped me out. JUSTIN CHARD When Rick shoots the little girl zombie in The Walking Dead. Up until then I didn't see many kids getting shot in the head in movies or TV. JUSTIN RISSMAN I'm still not right after seeing Martyrs. Four years ago. ANDIE GABOR Anything by Edward Lee. He literally blows my mind with how grotesque his work is. He's amazing. STACY DAVIS A Field In England… I'm still processing it… SABELLA HESS DZIABCZENKO John Ajvide Lindqvist's short story collection Let the Old Dreams Die. HANNAH JOY GAUTHIER House of the Devil. It actually made me say out loud, “Get the hell out…

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE IS THE GREAT DARK HORSE OF ’70S HORROR. WRITER/DIRECTOR BRIAN DE PALMA’S 1974 FILM IS A FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER OF A MOVIE MADE OF CINEMATIC, LITERARY AND ROCK MUSIC ALLUSIONS – A BLACKLY COMIC UPDATE OF THE PHANTOM THE OPERA, WITH MAJOR NODS TO GOETHE’S FAUST AND THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, AMONG OTHERS. It’s equal parts horror movie, rock musical, vicious satire, farce and romance, and somehow it all works. With its excellent performances, distinctive camera work and unforgettable Academy Award-nominated score, Phantom had all of the makings of a Rocky Horror-like cult hit. But its unconventionality initially proved to be its undoing. As its producer, Ed Pressman, recalls, “One of the problems with the film was that it was combining a lot of different genres.…

TOUCHING THE VOID TRUE DETECTIVE Starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Monaghan Directed by Cary Fukunaga Written by Nic Pizzolatto HBO Over the past fifteen years cable TV has come to dominate as a storytelling medium, with HBO leading the way. Among its Emmy-rich roster, Six Feet Under, Carnivàle, True Blood and Game of Thrones have appealed to genre fans, but none of those shows reach as far into the darkness of the human soul as True Detective. The eight-episode first season starts with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Rust Cohle and Martin Hart, two Louisiana cops investigating a serial killer who wraps his murders in ritual and symbolism (including nods to Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow – see Classic Cut). The narrative switches between 2012…

Never known for their commitment to realism, horror movies would have you believe that common objects such as mirrors, cars, buildings and children’s toys are just waiting to spring to life and take bloody revenge on us. It’s obviously true that strong emotions can affect your surroundings – we’ve all been in rooms that give off a bad vibe or felt uneasy around certain objects – but there have been few films that exploit this concept as well as John Hough’s 1973 classic The Legend of Hell House. Out this month on Blu-ray from Shout Factory!, the film involves its titular estate becoming a sentient extension of its previous owner’s sadistic and psychotic impulses. As the house terrorizes four intruders hoping to unlock its secrets, Hough gives it the illusion…

THE WORLD OF HORROR IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT WEIRDER WITH THE RELEASE OF THE INAUGURAL VOLUME OF THE ANTHOLOGY SERIES YEAR'S BEST WEIRD FICTION THIS MONTH. Published by Undertow Publications, each book will be edited by a different dignitary in the field; this year the honour went to Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Laird Barron (RM#132). It’s a testament to the renewed interest in weird fiction, spurred on by the likes of Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, John Langan, Thomas Ligotti, China Mieville, the publication of anthologies such as American Fantastic Tales and The Weird, and journals such as Shadows & Tall Trees and Weird Fiction Review. Authors selected for the first volume include some of those mentioned, as well as Richard Gavin, Livia Llewellyn, Scott Nicolay and Simon…

In terms of cinematic sleaze, the spate of Italian Nazisploitation films that came out in 1976 and 1977 remain largely unrivalled. If you’ve yet to delve into the sadiconazista genre, Severin Films, through its Intervision sublabel, recently released two of the more notorious entries in the cycle. But first some history. While the film considered to be the originator of this particular exploitation subgenre is American – Lee Frost’s Love Camp 7 (1969) – and the most imitated is Canadian – Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975) – the key influences on the Italian filmmakers were in fact three Italian art house films: Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter (1974) and Tinto Brass’ Salon Kitty (1976). The first of our Severin reissues, Rino Di Silvestro’s…