Table of contents for Issue 86 Jan/Feb 2009 in RUE MORGUE

mscorley.blogspot.com Though not limited to genre works, M.S. Corley’s art blog showcases some of the illustrator’s great ongoing macabre pieces, including “Horror’s [sic] of Literature,” which features his renditions of some of fiction’s creepiest monsters and madman. Behold: The Horla, The Deep Ones and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! www.fearnet.com/blogs/jt_petty/index.html If you enjoyed our recent CineMacabre screening of The Burrowers, why not check out director J.T. Petty’s blog? Here you can find details on upcoming screenings of his movies, film fest reports, viewing recommendations and just how his keyboard got all bloody. searchmytrash.com Covering horror and various points beyond, there’s plenty here to satiate fans of weird, trashy cinema and television. Search My Trash houses a searchable database of info, but even better is its in-depth “articles and interview” section,…

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM STATUE $149.99 Out of the second Roger Corman adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s tale of the inquisition comes this twelve-inch statue of Vincent Price as Don Nicholas Medina, brandishing a red-hot poker. The cauldron coals light up too, for maximum menace. Get touched by a torturer at amoktime.com. BLOODY STUMP WRIST RESTS $17.90 Exorcise the spectre of repetitive strain injury by stretching out your gnarled limbs on these amputated hand- and foot-shaped rests. They’ll relieve traumatized tendons and probably stop co-workers from nicking your Post-Its as well. Get er-gore-nomic at brando.com. COCKTAIL DEMONS $9.95 (box of 50) “O thou invisible spirit of wine,” wrote Shakespeare (presumably with a hangover), “if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!” In case…

The pickaxes fly again this month as one of the most fondly remembered slashers of the ’80s joins the horror remake craze – in 3-D. My Bloody Valentine 3D ventures back into the dank, dreary mines first staked out in George Mihalka’s 1981 two-dimensional original. “At its core, the original My Bloody Valentine had incredibly strong concepts. It’s a chilling and unique horror film,” observes director Patrick Lussier, a long-time editor for Wes Craven, who also has a handful of genre films under his directorial belt, including Dracula 2000. “It has such a great look – grey and bleak, with a gritty industrial setting. I think that’s a large part of why it resonates with so many. That, and the film’s incredibly iconic killer.” Fans of the original will be…

IN THE FALL OF 2005, A VIDEO GAME HIT STORES THAT promised to take players away from the fog-shrouded streets of Silent Hill and the inside-out dog attacks of Resident Evil, and into a whole new landscape of horror. Originally only available for PC users, F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) is an award-winning first-person shooter that combines frenetic military action with a creepy paranormal storyline. Its astounding photo-realistic environments and the visceral visuals of exploding heads and disembowelled corpses set the bar for the kind of movie-quality combat that has since become standard in most games. It also featured an advanced A.I. (artificial intelligence) system, resulting in enemies clever enough to communicate with each other, making for very fierce combat. But what really set this title apart from other shooters…

ONCE A YEAR, WHILE GATHERED AROUND THE Rue Morgue boardroom table, arguments blaze, chests are puffed, eyes are rolled, teeth are gnashed and blood is nearly spilled over our list of the genre’s best and worst offerings – and this year was no exception. Though we unanimously agreed on Sweden’s Let the Right One In as Best Feature, it was still a tough call, as France’s Inside (A L’intérieur) was a strong contender; it boasts a level of terror and violence (against a pregnant woman, no less) that’s hard to dismiss when tallying up a film’s horror points. It certainly brings home the gore groceries, but, in the end, we couldn’t ignore the fact that Let the Right One In is a graceful, sophisticated and nearly perfect vampire movie unlike…

TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREAKY MASSACRE Brain Damage Films The dictionary defines a massacre as the vicious killing of large numbers of people or animals, which is odd, as so many movies with low body counts have “massacre” in their titles. Heck, even the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre only has four deaths! Massacre (a.k.a. Bikini Party Massacre) follows a bunch of friends on a camping trip as they’re hunted down and killed. Standard stuff – but wait! When the blood starts to fly and the killer is revealed, you’ll realize this is actually a pretty tight, very cool little film that thankfully ducks slasher stereotypes. And special thanks to Canadian director Joseph Clark for filming a fantastic scene where a hobo gets sliced up with a chainsaw as Beethoven’s 9th…

As the saying goes: dying is easy, comedy is hard. Combining the two successfully? Almost impossible. Yet despite their apparent antithesis, humour and terror are deeply intertwined; both instant, involuntary responses, common across eras, cultures and creeds. And both can lead to complete loss of bladder control. Which brings us to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. They were two of the funniest humans to draw breath, a ’30s burlesque double act whose signature verbal repartee remains unmatched to this day. Their stage success led to radio, and soon a contract with Universal ushered them onto the big screen. Abbott and Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection assembles all 35 pictures the duo made between 1940 and 1955 into one handsomely packaged box set. A comic relief turn in the romantic…

Halloween H20, the seventh film in the franchise, reintroduced us to Jamie Lee Curtis’ long-suffering Laurie Strode, the heroine of the first two movies. It was a bittersweet reunion, however, as fans soon found out that Laurie was a clinically depressed alcoholic still reeling from brother Michael Myer’s attack twenty years earlier. Adding insult to injury, poor Laurie plunged to her death in the opening minutes of the next film, Halloween Resurrection, leaving most fans in a state of clinical depression of their own. “I thought it was really poorly handled and the character deserved so much better,” says comic book writer Stefan Hutchinson. “Laurie was now building incredible contraptions on the roof of her asylum like MacGyver or the A-Team; the Shape was strolling around in plain sight, performing…

BLOODBUSTER Milan, Italy If you could equate a city to a subgenre, in terms of feel or milieu, Milan would definitely be a giallo. Sexy, super-stylish and cultured, the city is located in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy, and is home to lots of beautiful architecture (Milan’s Duomo, an imposing six-century-old gothic cathedral is a must-see), spacious piazzas and plenty of fashion-conscious locals. And for the necessary blood and gore, all one needs to do is take a trip to Bloodbuster. Situated on Via Panfilo Castaldi – a small side street characterized by its cosmopolitan mixture of ethnically diverse restaurants, modish clothing stores and the traditional Italian pizzeria or two – Bloodbuster is a paradise for aficionados of horror, cult, sci-fi and B-movie fare. The only shop of its…

It has become cinema lore that the 1896 screening of August and Louis Lumiere’s 52-second short film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat so frightened its Parisian spectators with the image of an approaching locomotive that it sent them running in fear of being hit by the illusion on the screen. It’s arguable, then, that the brothers’ 3-D remake of it 37 years later can be considered the first “horror” film to be made in three dimensions. Terror has always worked well with the effect. This year, almost 40 3-D features are scheduled for release or are in production, and a quarter of them fall within the horror genre, including My Bloody Valentine 3D, Final Destination 4, the dark children’s film Coraline, the Angela Bettis movie Scar and a…

FEBRUARY 6-8 New York Comic Con New York City, New York nycomiccon.com MARCH TBA Horrorfind Weekend Adelphi, Maryland horrorfindweekend.com MARCH 6-8 Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors Chicago, Illinois fangocon.com MARCH 13-15 Monster-Mania Con 12 Cherry Hill, New Jersey monstermania.net MARCH 27-29 TransWorld’s National Haunt & Attractions Show Wholesaler’s Convention (not open to general public) St. Louis, Missouri hauntshow.com MARCH 27-29 Horrorhound Weekend Indianapolis, Indiana horrorhoundweekend.com APRIL 3-5 Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia Expo Strongsville, Ohio cinemawasteland.com APRIL 17-19 Chiller Theatre (Toy, Model and Film Expo) Parsippany, New Jersey chillertheatre.com APRIL 17-19 Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors Los Angeles, California fangocon.com APRIL 30-MAY 3 World Horror Convention (Horror Lit Expo) Winnipeg, Manitoba whc2009.org APRIL 30-MAY 4 HauntConNational (Convention and tradeshow for haunted attraction and Halloween industries.) Milwaukee, Wisconsin hauntcon.com MAY 1-3 Texas Frightmare…

THE YOUNG AND THE FANGLESS TWILIGHT Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet Directed by Catherine Hardwicke Written by Melissa Rosenberg Summit If you don’t understand the hype about Twilight, watching the film isn’t going to deliver any revelations. That isn’t because it’s not faithful to the novel, but rather that the collective parts never form a cohesive genre experience. The premise is simple enough: a human girl (Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan) and vampire boy (Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen) find themselves enamoured with one other, despite the inherent risks this budding romance entails. And since not all vampires are “vegetarians” (meaning they only eat animals) like the Cullen family, it doesn’t take long for this to create problems, especially when one member of a pack of nomadic…

DANTE’S INFERNO Starring Dermot Mulroney, James Cromwell and Scott Adsit Directed by Sean Meredith Written by Paul Zaloom, Sandow Birk and Sean Meredith Ricochet Releasing You would think a film that follows a desperate man’s descent through the nine circles of hell would make for a ride of gore-soaked terror, unfolding one sadistic torture after another. Instead, in Dante’s Inferno we are treated to a modern yet faithful retelling of “Inferno,” the first of three canticas in Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy. The twist? Dante’s tale is performed through the medium of toy theatre, a bizarre blend of pop-up book and paper puppets (a fact misrepresented on the DVD case, which claims the film is an animated adventure). The combination makes for an original, although sometimes heady, movie.…

THE SHUTTERED ROOM (1967) Starring Gig Young, Carol Lynley and Oliver Reed Directed David Greene Written by D.B. Ledrov and Nat Tanchuck Warner Bros. Warner has made many a British horror enthusiast very happy by finally releasing The Shuttered Room on DVD. A beloved title among fright fans who grew up with it on late-night television, the film was originally slated to be directed by Ken Russell. Russell reportedly abandoned the project and left it in the hands of TV director David Greene, who helmed this quiet shocker (his first feature) with an appropriate eye for atmosphere and underlying dread. Based on a short story by August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft, The Shuttered Room is the tale of a young American woman named Susannah Kelton (Carol Lynley) who returns to…

IF THE ROAD TO HELL TRULY IS PAVED with good intentions, then it’s a safe bet that the road to redemption – at least for Gerard Houarner’s best-known character – is littered with eviscerated bodies. Max is a killer-for-hire who first debuted in a short story (“The Beast That Was Max”) in Houarner’s 1996 collection Painfreak. He’s also a major part of the author’s latest offering, Blood of Killers (out March 2 from Necro Publications), which collects 25 short stories, of which roughly half pertain to Max and the entity which resides inside of him, known simply as The Beast. Houarner first developed the character fourteen years ago, while working full-time as an addiction rehabilitation counsellor in some of New York City’s toughest neighbourhoods. “I met a lot of guys…

Last year was a dream from which this horror junkie is loathe to wake. Over the course of the year, I had dinner with author Jack Ketchum, phoned Dario Argento at his home in Italy, hung out with William Lustig, Ruggero Deodato and Tobe Hooper, and toplined the most ambitious piece of my career for the Halloween issue. Nearly lost in the excitement were two films with appeal to you, loyal reader. Indulge me as I run a broom around Casa del Gore-met. URBAN FLESH Starring Martin Dubreuil, Mireille Leveque and K.M. Lavigne Directed by Alexandre Michaud Written by Jef Grenier and Alexandre Michaud SRS Cinema In 1999, indie filmmaker Alexandre Michaud made a splash in the video underground with Urban Flesh: Mutilation, a rare example of a Canadian no-budget…

Whether it’s the biological contagion of Splinter, the religious horror of Stigmata, a clan of cannibal hillbillies in Wrong Turn, or the endless waking nightmare of The Deaths of Ian Stone, Elia Cmiral has made a name for himself scoring the physical and emotional trauma of ordinary characters sucked into extraordinary circumstances. “I always try to start from the characters,” explains the composer, who got his big break in 1989 with the psychological thriller Apartment Zero. “I want the score to enhance what we already see. [The music should be] emotional on a subconscious layer, and connect with the main character.” That’s readily apparent in last year’s The Deaths of Ian Stone, a cruel tale of a man doomed to die every day for all eternity. Cmiral’s tender theme encapsulates…

Like an exclusive film festival put on for audiences who are mostly too busy to actually watch films, the industry-only American Film Market once again dominated Santa Monica, California, from November 5 to November 12 of last year. Now in its 29th year, AFM has become the premiere global marketplace for production and distribution deals. As such, filmmakers, distributors, studio scouts, sales agents and festival programmers (7903 of them, according to the AFM) descended for advance looks at new works that most of the world is not yet aware of. This year’s AFM showcased 513 films, including 102 world premieres. Here’s a look at some of the roughly 70 horror highlights that screened at the event. BOOK OF BLOOD John Harrison/UK Coming on the heels of Ryûhei Kitamura’s Midnight Meat…

+ The titan arum (or Amorphophallus titanum) plant is also known by the name “corpse flower,” as the scent of its bloom is reminiscent of a decomposing animal. + Donnie Dunagan, child star of Son of Frankenstein, went on to become, among other things, a counterintelligence agent, mathematician, physicist and Mensa member. + Forty-eight-year-old Hang Mioku became so addicted to cosmetic surgery that when Korean doctors refused to operate further, she began injecting cooking oil into her face, in place of silicone – a practice that left her grossly disfigured. + From July 1984 to September 1985 Ralston Foods manufactured “Gremlins Cereal” as a tie-in to the Gremlins movie. + Brazilian widow Marciana Barcelos was riding in the front passenger seat of a hearse en route to her husband’s funeral…

When My Bloody Valentine was released in 1981, demands by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent many a horror film back to editors for snipping. Faced with the possibility of getting the dreaded X rating (and therefore dramatically reduced revenue, as many cinemas wouldn’t screen an X film), studios were left with little choice but to agree to MPAA cuts to get the required R. “The MPAA was very upset that a major studio like Paramount was getting into horror,” says MBV’s co-producer, John Dunning. “It was okay for the independents to make horror films, but they were against the major ones doing it. The head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, was dealing with us personally. First, we were trimming very slightly… then they kept refusing one cut…

I knew Dan Curtis for 36 years. In all, Dan and I worked on sixteen projects together, some of which were never produced. Of those that came to fruition, the most memorable (for me anyway) are The Norliss Tapes, Trilogy of Terror (with Richard Matheson), Burnt Offerings and The Turn of the Screw (based on the classic Henry James tale). Beyond his films and his creative activities on the hugely popular television series Dark Shadows, very little of the man behind the iconic show has ever been revealed. He hated interviews and disliked talking to the press; Dan made sure that his private life remained private. During one of our last meetings before his death in 2006, he put an arm around my shoulder, saying (to an associate): “Bill and…

SATANIC SLUTS II: THE BLACK MASSES Starring Belladonna, Voluptua and Poisoned Venus Directed by Nigel Wingrove Salvation Films “One god. Eleven nights. One club.” Such was the pledge by Nigel Wingrove, founder of Redemption Films – the Euro cult, horror, giallo and sex video company largely responsible for introducing the work of Jean Rollin and Jess Franco to mainstream horror audiences. The result? A series of highly controversial dark cabarets presented by a troupe of curvaceous, devil-loving Brits – fittingly named Black Mass. Essentially a loose documentary chronicling the efforts of Wingrove and an all-girl internet collective similar to the Suicide Girls, called the Satanic Sluts, The Black Masses is a salacious midway of footage from the eleven installments of performance art, which took place from mid-2004 to 2005. The…

OUTSIDE THE BOX HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II (1988) Starring Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins and Kenneth Cranham Directed by Tony Randel Written by Clive Barker and Peter Atkins Anchor Bay When Clive Barker’s Hellraiser hit theatres in 1987 it introduced genre fans to a wholly original and completely terrifying new mythology. It was such a success that movie executives were eager to get a sequel produced as soon as possible, and not surprisingly, one was cranked out the following year. What is surprising is that it’s very good, for something so rushed. With most of the original cast reprising their roles, Hellbound picks up hours after the events of the original and focuses once again on Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), who has been placed under the care of Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), a…

BEELZEBUB DOES BROOKLYN Satan is an undeniably iconic presence in the horror pantheon, but I can’t help wondering if Old Scratch isn’t feeling a bit more like Rodney Dangerfield these days (Or maybe Pauly Shore.) I mean, think about it: the satanic cinema craze of roughly 1968 to 1976 actually lasted as long or longer than the slasher era, which kicked off with Halloween in ’78 and died a slow, painful and undignified death in the ’80s. And yet there’s no denying that Michael Myers and his scores of bastard children have exerted tremendous influence in the genre while Satan’s legacy is pretty much confined to two undisputed masterpieces (Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist) and one enduringly popular, if overblown and silly, schlocker (The Omen). Regardless of quality, latter-day efforts…

The Pocket Essential George A. Romero Tom Fallows and Curtis Owen Pocket Essentials For hardcore Romero fans, there aren’t any major revelations lurking within this new mini-tome, but it’s nothing if not comprehensive – and well-written to boot! British film journalists Tom Fallows and Curtis Owen have delivered a spot-on critique of the zombie king’s films, both individually and as a body of work, deftly cross-referencing the strengths and weaknesses of each title with analysis of Romero’s ever-present (and ever-shifting) socio-political commentary. They pull no punches in recounting his misadventures in Hollywood, which saw him almost completely sidelined throughout the 1990s, but instead of depicting him as some selfstyled maverick, they simply paint a picture of a reasonable man trying – and failing – to work within a completely unreasonable…

Soundtrack THE STRANGERS Tomandandy LAKESHORE For The Strangers, the duo of Tom Hajdu and Andy Milburn (credited as “Tomandandy”) have created a very sly and dangerous score that plays out as slowly and deliberately as the film. They’ve even recruited the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra to contribute some sonic weight to the pulsing rhythms, eerie melodies and stealthy shades of electronic musical mystery that unfold over the course of the soundtrack. “3AM Knock” delicately sets up the suffering that is to come, softening the listener up for “Alone,” a truly potent upbeat change that almost signals the aural violence to follow. From there, the score alternates between swelling blasts of tortured synthesizers and the more traditionally scary elements that only an orchestra can provide. The two styles are seamlessly melded into…

HIGHEST RATING IS THREE. DEAD SPACE PS3, Xbox 360, PC EA We all know that in space no one can hear you scream, but you better believe that your roommate will hear you shriek like a schoolgirl if you decide to play this pants-shitting new game by yourself in the dark. In Dead Space players assume the role of Isaac Clarke, a space engineer on a rescue mission to find out what happened to a missing intergalactic mining ship. Once on board the ship, your teammates are all brutally killed off and you find yourself alone and forced to traverse blood-stained corridors fending off abhorrent creatures that look like they wandered in off the set of John Carpenter’s The Thing. The critters also use the ship’s air vents to…