Table of contents for Issue 140 December 2013 in RUE MORGUE

If you say “Pazuzu” and the guy next to you says “Gesundheit,” he’s no horror fan. Not even casually. It’s safe to say that he probably goes out of his way to avoid the genre altogether if he’s not hip to the name of the demon in the biggest horror movie of all time, The Exorcist. And the 40-year-old film is the biggest, given that it won two Oscars and was nominated for seven others, it continues to make Warner Brothers a shit-ton of money on multiple reissues, and it still tops Greatest Horror Movie lists. Earlier this year it was numero uno on the Time Out London 100 Best Horror Films list, which was compiled with help from the likes of Clive Barker, Guillermo del Toro, Coffin Joe, Ben…

1.PENGUIN HORROR $23 each These beautiful collector’s editions of classics old and new, curated by Guillermo del Toro (who provides introductions), sport a spot-varnished, embossed hard cover and are edged in black¨ like your soul. Titles include Frankenstein, The Raven: Tales and Poems, The Haunting of Hill House and more. Neon nightmares at penguin.ca. 2.BONES STACK GAME $20 Add some morbidity to games night with this bone-stacking puzzler, reminiscent of the Hasbro classic Jenga. Pull the bones out from the bottom of the stack and watch the tension mount and the grudges grow as the pile grows higher and more precarious. Start a tibia tower at sourpussclothing.com. 3.WOMEN IN HORROR CALENDAR $24.54 This 2014 calendar, described by its creator, British filmmaker Melanie Light, as “a showcase of talent – in…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE COMMITS ZOMBICIDE Zzzzzzzombies¨ ZOMBIE UNDEAD MVD Visual Zombies have been riding an undying wave of popularity for some time now; in fact, the pile of unwatched zombie videos on my desk keeps threatening to swarm my entire office. So, this month I’ve opted to clear some space and appease the rotter gods with three MVD titles. First up is this British offering about a group of people trapped in a hospital after a terrorist bomb has turned most of the population into shambling skinjobs. Set almost entirely in the clinic’s cramped corridors, it had the potential to capitalize on the survivors’ sense of suffocating fear, as the undead shuffled around looking to munch on them, but instead, it’s just kind of boring. And the worst thing you…

Viewed from the relatively safe and sane world of Hollywood films, Jerry Warren and other so-bad-they’regood filmmakers aren’t just figures of derision, but also provocateurs of sorts. While Warren didn’t infuse his work with enough personality to earn the kind of attention now bestowed upon trash icons such as Ed Wood or Andy Milligan, this pioneering schlock director took us everywhere from The Incredible Petrified World to Frankenstein Island and gave John Carradine more opportunities to work than Freddy Krueger in a coma ward. More importantly, his films – including his debut, Man Beast (1956) – still retain that transgressive unpredictability that makes mind-bogglingly shoddy drive-in horror such an appealing alternative to familiar studio fare. Nobody will ever confuse Man Beast with a good film, but it’s a far less…

If you’re going to make a sequel to the remake of 2010’s I Spit on Your Grave, how do you approach it? Make a film about Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) getting gang-raped and exacting violent revenge on her attackers… again? That’s not going to go over well with any audience. So you’ll need to create a new main character. One who will have to be brutalized too, and who will also revisit her tormentors with extreme prejudice. In other words, you’re left with little choice but to make the same film again, only the main attraction – the rape and revenge aspects – will have to be expanded upon if you hope to offer the audience a cinematic experience with modicum of difference. Director Steven R. Monroe understood this. His…

THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF DEATH METAL BANDS THAT GROWL ABOUT MURDER AND TORTURE, BUT WHILE THE VAST MAJORITY do it to shock and profane, Chicago’s Broken Hope has always positioned itself as a legitimate horror band, each song functioning as a slice of mini fright fiction penned by founding guitarist Jeremy Wagner (pictured above, far left). For years however, it seemed that Broken Hope’s name would also be its destiny. The death metal band had five gore-soaked albums and a steadily growing fan base when things officially crumbled due to creative differences in 2002. Attempts by Wagner and vocalist Joe Ptacek to reform were unsuccessful, and when Ptacek committed suicide in 2010, Broken Hope’s future was on life support. But like any gore flick fan knows, the story never really…

MAURICE SENDAK USA-1963 Having sold nearly 20 million copies worldwide – not to mention nabbing a Caldecott medal along the way – Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are remains the ultimate monster picture book, 50 years on. Today, monsters for the very young are common, but in 1963, parents were more accustomed to Goodnight Moon or a fistful of nursery rhymes before bed. This is the book that broke the rules. We’ve got a kid who threatens to eat his mother, after she sends him to his room without dinner. With his temper still boiling, protagonist Max dreams up a world and populates it with monsters that seem to spring from his own subconscious. In its near-wordless middle section, he encounters beastly manifestations of his own rage, with “terrible…

MY FRIENDS at @Netflix_CA and @RueMorgue throw one hell of a Halloween party. @BROCKMCLAUGHLIN, VIA TWITTER THE COSTUMES at the @Netflix_CA and @Rue-Morgue party are best I have ever seen! Crazy, scary, creative! @CASIESTEWART, VIA TWITTER [See photos from our Halloween party on p.36 – Ed.] I FINALLY GOT the Halloween issue of Rue Morgue with me on the cover. What an honour to be in such great company. Rue Morgue was the first magazine to let the world know about me and my films and I am very thankful. FRED VOGEL, VIA FACEBOOK EPIC HALLOWEEN! Thanks @RueMorgue for that fantastic 35mm presentation of The ChangelingLook forward to it next year! @LOUDMOUTHJULIA, VIA TWITTER GREAT JOB WITH RM#138, as usual, but I have to say I was struck by the…

Two filmmakers from Massachusetts are giving fans of the paranormal a haunting new lesson in geographical geometry. Writer, editor and director Aaron Cadieux and co-director Manny Famolare are currently screening their full-length documentary The Bridgewater Triangle, which focusses on an area in southern Massachusetts where a multitude of unexplained incidents and horrific crimes have occurred. Most people are familiar with the infamous Bermuda Triangle – a region of the Atlantic Ocean near the southeastern tip of the United States where strange phenomena are said to take place – but it seems to have nothing on the lesserknown Bridgewater Triangle, an area that encompasses nearly 200 square miles and whose boundaries contain the Hockomock Swamp and the Freetown/Fall River State Forest. In addition to the unexplained disappearances and UFO sightings typically…

Before DVD featurettes, movie fans could learn all about the creation of such blockbusters as Jaws and King Kong by reading paperback “making-of” books. Exorcist II: The Heretic received such treatment in 1977. In it, author Barbara Pallenberg provides a candid, revealing look – including sixteen pages of behind-the-scenes B&W photos – at the problem-plagued production of John Boorman’s visually fascinating but critically maligned follow-up to the 1973 masterpiece. Copies of the book go for between $15 and $32 online. MORE CRYPTIC COLLECTIBLES AT RUE-MORGUE.COM…

A ficionados of both Italian horror films and movies about moviemaking Awill find a lot to love in Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio. Set in the mid-’70s, it stars funny-faced British character actor Toby Jones (The Hunger Games) in the role of Gilderoy, a middleaged, mild-mannered sound mixer who likes to work on placid nature documentaries in his native England. He travels to Rome expecting to mix a nice little film about riding horses but, much to his shock and awe, Equestrian Vortex turns out to be an ultra-bloody, uber-misogynistic gothic horror about the persecution and torture of witches. Not understanding a word of Italian and never having worked on a horror film before, the nebbish Gilderoy is quickly swallowed up by a storm comprised of macho producers, screeching…

IN THE FLESH Starring Luke Newberry, Emily Bevan and Ricky Tomlinson Directed by Jonny Campbell Written by Dominic Mitchell Considering the enormous success of AMC’s The Walking Dead, it’s no surprise the BBC wanted to bite off a piece for themselves. Their answer to the undead epidemic is a three-episode miniseries set in dreary, rain-drenched Lancashire that offers a desperately needed, intelligent perspective on the zombie apocalypse. As usual with such uprisings, the recently departed have clawed out of their graves to get on with the business of chomping flesh, eating brains and generally ruining everyone’s day. But this time, there’s a cure! With the proper medications, zombies can be restored more or less to the same people they were prior to death – except for the small matter of…

Man Bites Apple That time of year again, eh? Pick up Krampus outfit from dry cleaners, decorate long-dead Christmas tree with silver head-drilling spheres, gift wrap multiple lumps of coal for family and friends, and ponder, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore (i.e., this year’s Bowen’s Basement columns). I really couldn’t blame you for thinking I’ve narrowed my field to rubber-suit monsters and nature-run-amok, lightly seasoned with true crime and the occasional yeti nipple. I’d be lying if I said these weren’t a few of my favourite things, and yet I’m going to finish out 2013 with something completely different, not to mention (gasp!) current. You just gotta see it, that’s all. There’s this serial killer, and he’s got a camera crew…

REANIMATORS Pete Rawlik Night Shade Books The Lovecraft mythos has certainly seen its fair share of reinterpretation, having been adapted and reworked by countless weird fiction authors since even before its creator’s death. Now Pete Rawlik has decided to give eldritch horror his best shot with his debut novel Reanimators. As the name implies, the story is loosely connected to events that took place in Lovecraft’s original tale “Herbert West – Reanimator.” Here, Dr. Stuart Hartwell is a student of the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, Massachusetts, along with his colleague Herbert West. After Hartwell’s parents are killed by one of West’s failed experiments, he vows revenge and begins to uncover the mysteries of West’s work in reanimation. Soon Hartwell begins his own experiments in reviving the dead, all…

SOUNDTRACK INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 Joseph Bishara VOID RECORDINGS Joseph Bishara’s been the main goto soundtrack man for makers of slow-burning thrillers requiring an atmospheric mélange of sonic design, orchestral sound mobiles and shock-specific musical stabs. He’s extremely good at sandwiching his material into curvy, pliable sounds, but after Insidious, Dark Skies and The Conjuring, the music – like the films – displays a certain sameness. Insidious 2 is notable for having a (comparatively) greater degree of melodic material; the use of chamber strings and occasional piano in “New Home” is lovely, but those moments remain fleeting due to the current convention in which filmmakers seem to abhor themes and mandate creepy soundscapes instead. Shrill, insect-like strings and snarling bass drones effectively destabilize one’s nerves, but within the score’s rare moments…

Filmmaker Bruce McDonald has been trying to move ahead with a sequel to his 2008 zombie film Pontypool for several years, but in the meantime, the director of rock’n’ roll road movies Roadkill, Highway 61 and Hardcore Logo has returned to the genre with Hellions. Scripted by Pascal Trottier (The Colony) and due out next fall, Hellions features Chloe Rose as Dora, an “unexpectedly pregnant” teen terrorized on Halloween night by three malevolent trick-or-treaters. Calling from the film’s Waterford, Ontario, set, Mc-Donald, a fan of Ray Bradbury’s 1955 short story collection The October Country, says he was attracted to Trottier’s script because of its evocation of the late author. “I was like, wow, this guy may not be channelling Ray, but it hit a direct chord with me in terms…

MANY HORROR FILMS STRUGGLE TO PRESERVE THEIR POWER TO SHOCK AND UNNERVE INCREASINGLY DESENSITIZED AUDIENCES. Only the bona fide classics prove invulnerable to advances in special effects and performance technique, or resist being rendered quaint by the relaxation of censorship laws, evolving tastes and the inevitable duplicates that success and notoriety generate. Of course, The Exorcist appears to be exempt from this problem. Perhaps the scariest horror film ever made, it remains almost certainly the most infamous. Indeed, upon its release on December 26, 1973, it was deemed responsible for inducing in its traumatized audience everything from fainting spells and vomiting to heart attacks and miscarriages, and sent multitudes fleeing from darkened theatres to seek salvation in churches. Based on William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel (which sold nearly 13 million…

COMMIT YOURSELF AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM Starring Zachary Quinto, Joseph Fiennes and Jessica Lange Directed by Bradley Buecker, Michael Uppendahl, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, et al. Written by Tim Minear, James Wong, Jennifer Salt, et al. FX After a demented inaugural run, the second season of American Horror Story transposes the frenetic lunacy to a more fitting locale: an institution for the criminally insane! Jacking up the sex and violence to more lurid levels than its predecessor, American Horror Story: Asylum dramatically switches gears by serving up an entirely new narrative with only a handful of the original cast members returning to play completely different characters. Set in 1964 Massachusetts (practically the dark ages as far as psychiatry is concerned), it features a returning Jessica Lange as Sister Jude, a repressed nun…

The end of the year may be swarming with holiday activities, but it’s also a time filled with preparation for the upcoming awards season. While comic book awards don’t get as much exposure as their music or movie counterparts, they’re crucial in getting the word out on a variety of titles in an industry that continues to be dominated by Marvel and DC. While there are a large number of high-profile industry awards around the world, such as the Eisners, the Eagles and the Tezukas, when it comes to celebrating accomplishments exclusively in horror comics, there’s precious few available. It was a situation that writer and horror fan Decapitated Dan wanted to rectify, which eventually led to the creation of the Ghastly Awards in 2011. Dan was writing for comicmonsters.com…

There’s something warm and inviting about Drazen Kozjan’s illustrated web series, The Happy Undertaker Mysteries. Spawned from a one-page panel comic (pictured) about what he describes as a “cheerful, whistling, morbid, romantic supernatural being,” the first installment was posted on Kozjan’s Hypnotik Eye blog (hypnotikeye.blogspot.ca) in 2007. Based just outside of Toronto, Kozjan is a full-time illustrator, creating children’s books and storyboarding animation for shows such as The Neverending Story and George Shrinks. The artist says The Happy Undertaker Mysteries is a reaction to, more than a dark extension of, his day job work. “Both mediums have a certain amount of collaboration, as well as clear, understandable storytelling. I’m more attracted to mystery, ambiguousness and weird juxtapositions, and it’s not the kind of thing you can do in a Saturday…

Retro horror fans tend to obsess over a few different things: poster art, VHS boxes and, of course, music because none of those things really exist today the way they did in the ’70s and ’80s. There is no equal to the sounds of John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi, which is why I love the current trend of artists making original music inspired by them, including Oscillotron (RM#133) and Espectrostatic (RM#138). But for my money no one quite gets the old school horror music vibe like Detroit’s Slasher Dave, who released his debut, Spookhouse, on Bellyache Records, right before Halloween. Spookhouse takes listeners into a world of VHS horror with thirteen tracks of pulsating synth songs that recall Carpenter’s Halloween and Prince of Darkness. It’s a departure sonically, though not…

THE WOLF AMONG US PS3, Xbox 360, PC Telltale Games Hot off the success of 2012’s Walking Dead game, Telltale brings us another licensed property, this one based on Vertigo Comics’ Fables. Set twenty years before the events in the graphic novels, the story takes place in Fabletown, the hidden New York borough that’s home to various exiled characters and creatures of folklore and legend. Keeping a low profile and blending in with the “mundanes” (us humans) through spells and “glamours” is of great importance to the Fables. When one of their own is murdered, that secrecy is threatened and it’s up to Bigby Wolf (as in Big Bad) to find the killer before it all falls apart. Fables’ mature urban fantasy/film noir tone – rife with violence, course language…