Table of contents for Issue 177 July/August 2017 in RUE MORGUE

Back in March, an article by The Guardian popped up on my news feed about a millionaire meth addict who started production on an unconventional horror movie in 2002, only to succumb to his addiction in 2015. He died with his passion project unfinished, but the cast and crew believed in his film, and managed to pull it together enough for a clandestine, straight-to-video release earlier this year. The article focused on the movie’s storied production, but it also rightfully pointed out the film’s several shortcomings – the narrative, involving a mentally challenged person committing murder at the behest of his own reflection in an antique mirror, is problematic to say the very least, and gaffes in continuity abound amid a wealth of bizarro tangents and plot holes. Based on…

Frankenstein’s Monster has received countless makeovers through the last two centuries, but a new project is taking unprecedented liberties with the Monster’s famous visage – for a good cause. The Monster Charity Project, currently in full swing, asked 27 artists to customize a bust of Mary Shelley’s iconic creation. When the finished statues are auctioned off later this year, all proceeds will benefit Make-A-Wish UK, a charity that grants wishes to children fighting life-threatening illnesses. “Projects of this nature have been in the US for a while and started with a Darth Vader helmet art project in 2007,” says project coordinator Simon Graham. “It just appeared out of nowhere and sparked many others since.” The projects have been popular with deep-pocketed fans, and since everyone involved donates their time, talents…

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT A FILM COMPLETELY SHATTERS YOUR PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS – THAT REMAKE YOU’RE PREPARED TO DESPISE THAT TURNS OUT TO BE JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING, or that sequel which, on paper, seems completely silly and unnecessary but turns out to be The Exorcist III. Such a movie is The Evil Within, although for markedly different reasons than the titles mentioned above. It wasn’t the movie’s cast that sent up red flags (in fact, it features a handful of well-respected actors), nor was it the subject matter (a lonely, mentally handicapped young man falling under the spell of an evil entity hiding in his reflection in an antique mirror). Neither could one be prejudiced by the filmmaker’s previous output, because quite simply, he didn’t have any. Still, some viewers…

Certain films resonate with each of us for deeply personal reasons; you have your list and I have mine. The Evil Within, however, hits me hard for reasons that have as much to do with the story behind the film as the one on the screen. Here’s the short version: I always drank a lot. From my late twenties onward I drank a lot more, and by middle age, a lot more than that. How much more? By mid-2014 I had not spent a single day sober in about eight years, putting away a bare minimum of a 26-ounce bottle – often considerably more – every day. I never went anywhere without booze stashed in a jacket, briefcase or laptop bag. I drank straight liquor exclusively, mainly vodka or Jack…

IF THERE’S ONE CERTAINTY LEFT IN THIS CRAZY WORLD, IT’S THAT DISNEY’S HAUNTED MANSION WILL OUTLIVE US ALL. The first incarnation of the infamous attraction, The New Orleans Square Haunted Mansion, opened in 1969 in the Anaheim, California, Disneyland park and has since spawned additional versions in Florida’s Magic Kingdom and the Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo parks. Anyone who’s been lucky enough to experience a Haunted Mansion knows it’s a marvel of storytelling, construction and atmosphere – the mother of all dark rides, often imitated but never duplicated. What horror kid hasn’t exulted in the memory of the rooms with the stretching walls and ghoulish portraits, the Doom Buggies clattering past dangling spectres and the Hall of Mirrors, revealing what appears to be an actual ghost sitting right beside…

MESS WITH THE BEST, DIE LIKE THE REST ALIEN: COVENANT Starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston and Danny McBride Directed by Ridley Scott Written by John Logan and Dante Harper 20th Century Fox Some say the Alien sequels (beyond 1986’s Aliens, anyway) are a case of diminishing returns, although each installment has its passionate defenders. The 2012 franchise prequel Prometheus was arguably the most divisive, largely because the xenomorphs were new. Heaven forbid that filmmakers mess with a franchise, right? The latest installment, Alien: Covenant, seems to be the result of director Ridley Scott trying to have his facehugger cake and eat it too. It is a sequel to Prometheus set ten years later and, as such, keeps tinkering with the franchise’s root DNA. But it also brings back the original…

HOW TO CATCH A KILLER THE ZODIAC KILLER (1971) Blu-ray Starring Hal Reed, Bob Jones and Ray Lynch Written and directed by Tom Hanson AGFA/Something Weird/MVD Hats off to the American Genre Film Archive for launching a series of Blu-rays showcasing titles from the Something Weird library of horror/exploitation obscurities. This debut release is more notable for its history than its quality, but its back story is fascinating: as AGFA’s Joe Ziemba notes on the commentary track, it was the first horror film ever made to catch an at-large serial killer. When The Zodiac Killer opened in San Francisco, where the eponymous fiend committed one of his crimes, writer/director Tom Hanson had cops staked out in and around the theatre, figuring the maniac would want to check out his own…

Hammer films continue to be revered among fright fans and, though they’ve been influencing horror comics for decades, there has never been a comics series based on the studio’s classic output – until now. UK’s Titan Comics shocked fans last year when they announced the launch of a new imprint, Hammer Comics, that would tell new tales based on legendary Hammer films. The first release, The Mummy: Palimpsest, hit stands in late 2016 with the next series, Captain Kronos, due out in fall 2017. “It started, as all good relationships do, with a conversation,” explains David Leach, editor of the Hammer line. “Titan approached Hammer to see if we could license their incredible catalogue of iconic properties. Hammer had been talking about trying to get a line of Hammer horror…

MAPPING THE INTERIOR Stephen Graham Jones TOR Supernatural horror stories with strong native themes are rare; rarer still are ones that combine deft spectral imagery and a lingering spirituality that haunts you long after reading. Stephen Graham Jones’ Mapping the Interior is a ghost story told from a Native American perspective, replete with a spirit dressed in full Fancy Dancer regalia, reservation-like mongrel dogs and traditional superstitions, such as numbed feet allowing one to cross into other worlds. Post-reservation life in Mapping the Interior is seen in vivid detail through the eyes of fifteen-year-old Junior as the supernatural begins to encroach on the edges of the ordinary and the everyday. Junior believes he’s seen his dead father during one of his sleepwalking episodes. At first, all he wants is proof…

I hate to admit it but, for the better part of my teens, superhero comics weren’t really my thing; zombies, villains and misunderstood monsters were more appealing to me. My superheroes were more along the lines of King Zombie from the Deadworld series, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Crypt Keeper. That all changed when I found DC’s collected graphic novel Kingdom Come, illustrated and co-written by the incredible Alex Ross. The artwork blew me away. Using gauche and watercolours, his panels brought a whole new level of humanity to the art form; I couldn’t believe a comic book could look that good. I’ve followed Ross’ work ever since, but he’s never really dipped his brush into the horror genre until now. When I stumbled onto his new paintings of the Universal…

SALEM’S LOT WARNER BROTHERS TELEVISION USA 1979 In RM#160’s Classic Cut, Jess Peacock aptly described the legacy of Stephen King’s 1975 novel Salem’s Lot – in which vampires infest a quaint Maine town – as a work “casting a long and ominous silhouette over all other vampire narratives.” For markedly different reasons, Tobe Hooper’s 1979 adaptation of the novel is now regarded as a milestone in that oft-maligned medium: the network TV movie-of-the-week. Just five years earlier, Hooper had exploded onto the scene with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; the punishing, nihilistic masterpiece that would define his career and redefine contemporary horror cinema to a degree surpassed only by The Exorcist. His 1976 follow-up, Eaten Alive, was admittedly less memorable but had a similarly raw, nasty feel. The Salem’s Lot miniseries,…

I’M A LONG-TIME FAN and reader and I just wanted to let y’all know how much I loved this latest issue. The American Gods and Anton LaVey features were awesome. It was a pleasure to meet Dave and Rodrigo a couple of years ago at Texas Frightmare Weekend. Keep up the good work. DAVID WHITEMAN – HURST, TEXAS IT’S HERE! Super excited about the first @Rue-Morgue issue of the @necromandrea era!!! Hail to the Queen, Baby. @HUGHRZEZNIK, VIA TWITTER JUST GOT DONE reading your first Note From Underground and all I have to say is: I like you. I don’t know you but I like that you’re a thinker. Look forward to the future of Rue Morgue. With that said, Dave Alexander’s words will be missed. Many times he helped…

CASE NO.177 According to the Official Loch Ness Sightings Register, 2016 had the highest number of monster sightings since 2000. Queen Sunanda Kumariratana of Siam (now Thailand) drowned in 1880 in full view of many of her subjects – they were forbidden to touch her, so they couldn’t rescue her. Martyrs director Pascal Laugier stated he was inspired by Hostel (2005), only he wanted to make a movie about pain instead of suffering. In 2016, fisherman Robert Mwaijega of Kyela in Tanzania died after a live fish he caught jumped into his mouth and squeezed itself down his throat, killing him. Cropsey’s distorted POV shots in The Burning were created when director of photography Harvey Harrison rubbed Vaseline on the outside edges of the camera lens. Famed occultist Aleister Crowley…

T’S NO STRETCH TO DESCRIBE THE LINEAGE OF FILMMAKER ANDREW GETTY AS NOTORIOUS. THOUGH THE FAMILY NAME RARELY TURNS UP IN THE NEWS THESE DAYS, for many decades it was associated with power, unimaginable wealth and scandal beyond Jackie Collins’ wildest dreams. Minneapolis-born J. Paul Getty was already a highly successful oil baron in the early 1950s when a huge strike in the Middle East rocketed him into the top echelon of the American industry; by the end of the decade, Fortune magazine proclaimed him the wealthiest man in the country. His penchant for womanizing (five failed marriages interspersed with untold dozens of mistresses, flings and one-nighters) was surpassed only by his passion for art and antiquities, culminating in the establishment of the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1976 (divided…

THERE HAVE BEEN MANY LOST FILMS OVER THE YEARS, MOVIES THAT – FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER – HAVE VANISHED FROM THE CINEMATIC LANDSCAPE OR NEVER EVEN SAW THE LIGHT OF DAY IN THE FIRST PLACE. Death Line, made by Chicago-based Gary Sherman in 1972, is one such film. It’s been hiding in plain sight for the past 45 years, re-edited and retitled by its US distributor, with the result being that North Americans never got to see the director’s original vision… until now. The debut feature from Sherman (Dead & Buried, Vice Squad, Poltergeist III), Death Line tells the gruesome tale of the last surviving descendants of railway workers buried alive during the construction of the London Underground in the late 1800s. Two characters, referred to simply as the…

THE INTERNET, GOD BLESS IT, IS A REPOSITORY OF MUCH MIRTH AND MADNESS AND, IN ITS RELATIVELY BRIEF EXISTENCE, HAS BECOME (AMONG OTHER THINGS) THE TECHNOLOGICAL FIRESIDE BY WHICH THE WORLD TRADES STORIES. Given the human penchant for things that go bump in the night, many of those tales veer towards the creepy and unsettling, but there are some that insist on going slightly further than that. You may have heard of one in particular; it starts by questioning our collective memory of the movies we know and love, and ends by questioning reality. Remember the famous line from The Silence of the Lambs when Hannibal Lecter intones “Hello, Clarice” to a nervous Agent Starling? Sure you do, we all do. Unfortunately, it never happened (feel free to check the…

MADSEN GOES TO CAMPY LUMBERJACK MAN Anchor Bay Entertainment It’s been a while since I’ve written about serial killers, so I thought I’d reach into the depths of my delete bin and dredge up a few gory goodies. This first offering features a bunch of young, pretty counsellors preparing a church campground for the oncoming influx of Christian kiddies who’ll be spending their summer making dreamcatchers and learning about God. Little do they know there’s a demon logger on the loose, who’s hunting them down so he can use their blood as syrup for his pancakes – I shit you not! Starring Michael (Reservoir Dogs) Madsen, Lumberjack Man boasts lots of gore, gratuitous nudity and could’ve actually been a great movie if it wasn’t so, pardon the pun, campy.…

Horror fans often call it the “Scooby-Doo ending” – that all-too-familiar third-act twist where it’s revealed that there was no ghost or monster terrorizing the protagonists, just a costumed villain creating spooky stunts to ward off intruders. Though a staple of Old Dark House films – including Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Ghost Breakers (1940) and even House on Haunted Hill (1959) – as well as classic 1930s and ’40s detective movies, at least one film cleverly subverted the formula in which belief in the paranormal is logically debunked. The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, an occasionally notable 1959 cheapie, turns the trope on its head in its portrayal of unexplainable events that baffle a scientific-minded police investigator. The film, which made its first appearance on Blu-ray in June,…

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A FEW TV SHOWS AND COMIC S, FINAL GIRLS HAVE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY BEEN A CINEMATIC PHENOMENON. That’s about to change with Riley Sager’s Final Girls, a novel that recasts slasher-movie tropes in the mould of a Gone Girl-style psychological thriller: the plot is twisty, the narrator unreliable, and there’s a pervasive sense that the characters’ true selves are at odds with the versions they project to the world. Sager’s book (out July 11 from Dutton) centres on Quincy Carpenter, the only survivor of the gruesome Pine Cottage Massacre. Along with Lisa Milner, whose sorority sisters were butchered by a knife-wielding psychopath, and Samantha Boyd, who nearly died at the hands of a masked killer known as the Sack Man, Quincy has achieved unwanted fame as a…

When I compiled my 50 Essential Gore Films list for RM#83, I had to include Nick Millard’s unsung red-paint splatter classic Criminally Insane (1975). The tag line for the belated sequel, Crazy Fat Ethel 2 (1987), sums up both films succinctly: “Never come between Ethel and a well-stocked refrigerator!!” Priscilla Alden is Ethel Janowski, a large woman with anger management issues and a propensity for binge eating. After a stay in a mental institution, Ethel is released into the care of her long-suffering Granny. When Ethel’s breakfasts of a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, and an entire loaf of toast threaten to put them both out on the street, Granny installs locks on the fridge and cupboards. Enraged, Ethel stabs her to death, stashes her body in a bedroom,…

We’re midway through 2017, and it’s safe to say that horror soundtracks reissued on vinyl is no longer a trend – it’s a format that’s here to stay. As companies continue to mine retro nostalgia, an offshoot market has emerged: video game soundtracks on vinyl! As with the horror soundtrack revival, Mondo is leading the way with a series of scores for such classic horror game titles as Castlevania I-III and Silent Hill. Video game music on vinyl isn’t exactly new, so it was just a matter of time before someone started targeting the horror set. In 2014, Invada Records released the Far Cry 3 soundtrack by the appropriately named Australian synthwave duo Power Glove (known for contributing music to Hobo With a Shotgun and ABCs of Death) while Disasterpeace…

HORROR CHANNELS TAKE THE BRUNT OF YOUTUBE’S NEW “AD-FRIENDLY” ALGORITHM YouTube’s updated ad policies are having unfortunate consequences, and horror channels are feeling the pinch. It all started in February after The Times of London and other outlets reported on ads for luxury brands that were appearing on racist, pro-Daesh (a.k.a. ISIS), and anti-LGBTQ2 videos. Once the word got out, hundreds of companies including AT&T, Nestle and Starbucks joined a boycott against YouTube, demanding it keep their ads off content deemed to be “extremist.” At a projected $750 million loss, Google and YouTube addressed advertiser complaints head on by promising better brand safety controls and taking a “hard look” at what content can and cannot be monetized with ads. “We know advertisers don’t want their ads next to content that…

1 PAZUZU NECKLACE $23.95 Pazuzu wants you… to drape his demon-2 ic figure across your breast! This intricate little devil spans approximately 2.25 X 1.75 inches across the wings and is cast in the finest lead-free pewter. Captain Howdy approved! I LOVE YOU TO DEATH! ENAMEL PIN 2 $20 MyPetSkeleton’s Vincent Marcone is one of our long-standing artist crushes, which is why we are especially proud to showcase his intricately designed crimson red pin featuring a flock of bats just barely contained with-in its heart-shaped border. Extremely limited quantities available! 3 HALLOWEEN RECORD CLOCK $40 There isn’t much in the way of lost mer-chandising opportunities for the Halloween franchise, except maybe this nifty wall clock 4 made from Carpenter’s classic record. Be the 3 first on your block to count…

A FERAL MAN (HUGH ARMSTRONG: BEAST MASTER) KIDNAPS PEOPLE FROM A TUBE STATION IN ENGLAND, DRAGGING THEM TO AN UNDERGROUND LAIR TO FEED HIS AILING MATE, ONLY REFERRED TO AS THE WOMAN (JUNE TURNER). The two are descendants of railway workers left to die after a cave-in nearly a century ago, both subsisting on others who are trapped with them. Meanwhile, a bumbling Scotland Yard Detective, Inspector Calhoun (Donald Pleasence, Prince of Darkness), does his best to delay working on the case in order to focus on his afternoon tea time. Welcome to the bleak and brutal world of Death Line (1972), director Gary (Dead and Buried, Vice Squad) Sherman’s twisted sociopolitical vision of underground dwelling cannibals, now available in North America for the first time. And you can blame…

WHEN ALFRED HITCHCOCK FIRST ASKED JANET LEIGH TO TAKE A SHOWER NEARLY 60 YEARS AGO, neither of them – nor even the first audiences terrified by Psycho – could have imagined the longevity and impact that scene would have. Perhaps the most famous murder ever presented on the big screen, the slaying of Leigh’s Marion Crane by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), scored with the seminal shrieking strings of Bernard Herrmann, has been celebrated and examined by countless film scholars and fans. Now, it has an entire documentary devoted to it: Alexandre O. Philippe’s 78/52, which has been playing festivals since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, and is currently set for theatrical release in October from IFC Films. Philippe, who titled his movie after the number of camera set-ups…

Operation Desert shitstorm First, the bad news. Although the poster art would indicate otherwise, at no point in 1979’s The Visitor is there an airborne, disembodied eyeball with claws and a garrotting wire. But why dwell on the negatives when this overcooked mess has so much to give? There’s an intergalactic chase, a kids’ birthday party gone horribly wrong, John Huston as a downmarket ObiWan Kenobi, Sam Peckinpah delivering the few lines of dialogue he can remember, a youngish Lance Henriksen as an NBA team owner with a terrible secret (has there ever been one without one?), a foul-mouthed little girl (Paige Conner) who’s actually an incarnation of an evil space lord or some shit, a snowstorm on a desert plain, a bunch of people stepping out from behind white…

GWENDY’S BUTTON BOX Stephen King and Richard Chizmar Cemetery Dance Long-time Stephen King readers will be familiar with the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, location of some of King’s most notable works, including novels The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Dark Half and Needful Things, as well as the short story “The Body.” It is also a haven for the unexplainable, which makes it the perfect setting for this new novella from King and co-writer Richard Chizmar. Set in the early 1970s, Gwendy’s Button Box is the story of Gwendy, who we meet at the tender age of twelve when she is given a strange button box by an even stranger character, the older and enigmatic Richard Farris. With minimal explanation, Farris tasks Gwendy with keeping the box, lined with…

VAMPYR SOUNDTRACK Death and Vanilla Fire Originally released as a hyper-limited cassette tape by the Moon Glyph imprint and then on slightly-less-limited 2014 vinyl by Kalligrammofon, Death and Vanilla’s live score to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic 1932 horror flick Vampyr finally has a chance to reach a much-deserved wider audience. While the enigmatic act has always demonstrated love of all things cinema, this evocative and partially improvised recording – performed and recorded live as part of Sweden’s Fantastisk Film Festival – showcases a far wider range of exploratory influences that include everything from vintage pop and psychedelic rock to mysterious krautrock experimentalism. Utilising a bewildering array of vintage equipment and audio arcana, the band’s woozily mercurial atmospherica drifts far beyond the vibes that many lesser acts might conjure – a…

THE FACE OF HORROR PUNK WILL ALWAYS BE THE CRIMSON GHOST. BUT THE HERO OF HORROR PUNK? WELL, THAT MIGHT JUST BE ARGYLE GOOLSBY. Consider this: “horror punk” as a recognized term didn’t emerge until the early 2000s, when all manner of devil-locked rockers picked up on the Misfits’ monster-loving, muscle-bound sound. Goolsby was chief among them, helping to form Blitzkid, one of the first modern horror punk bands to tour the world and gain a massive European following, until they disbanded in 2012. During that time, he also collaborated with a sordid batch of horror punk’s most celebrated icons, including Bobby Steele’s The Undead, Wednesday 13, and Doyle’s Gorgeous Frankenstein. He even filled in for Jerry Only in a Misfits near-reunion act that opened for Danzig himself and featured…

LITTLE NIGHTMARES Xbox One, PS4, PC Bandai Namco The word “nightmare” is thrown around pretty colloquially these days with anything marginally horrific dubbed as such. In this respect, Little Nightmares – the latest from Swedish indie game developer Tarsier Studios, who brought us the decidedly bubblier LittleBigPlanet on PS3 – lives up to its name in more ways than one. Gamers take on the role of a little girl named Six as she awakens in a dank cellar (she “awakens” with every resumed save, in fact), clad in a bright yellow raincoat and hat. Armed with a lighter and the ability to run, crouch, jump and grab, Six must make her way through a gauntlet of sinister environments and villains, including the aforementioned basement lair overseen by a blind,…