Table of contents for Issue 93 September 2009 in RUE MORGUE

Ferocious, lustful and extremely unreasonable, werewolves are among my favourite movie monsters. I was just six-years-old when An American Werewolf in London was released, so I didn’t get to see it until it was broadcast on television. I immediately developed a paradoxical crush on the creature and suffered strange nightmares for weeks. I’d seen films about werewolves before – The Wolf Man, The Werewolf of London, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, etc. – but I’d never seen anything quite like An American Werewolf in London. I suppose no one had. Besides the fact that it blends comedy, horror and romance quite effortlessly, American Werewolf’s most distinguishing feature, of course, is its illustrious complete werewolf transformation sequence. It goes without saying that Rob Bottin’s Eddie Quist…

CASE NO. 93 ☠ This past July, a three-month-old Louisiana girl died from blood loss after being attacked by rats while she slept in her crib. ☠ While filming a 1984 episode of the British crime series Cover Up, co-star Jon-Erik Hexum was goofing around with a prop gun when he put it against his head and fired, causing the padding from the blanks in the weapon to penetrate his skull. He subsequently died from his injuries. ☠ While Mercury is now known to be highly toxic to humans, it was once used as a medicine to treat stoke victims, toothaches, tuberculosis and even constipation. ☠ Rob Zombie once worked as a production assistant on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. ☠ In April of 2003, 45-year-old Deborah Alker and 40-year-old Daryl Porter decided…

IT’S AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT RICK BAKER HAD HIS WORK CUT OUT FOR HIM ON AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. At that time, he was at the beginning of his career; the six Oscars he now owns were still a while away. By that point, he’d created some stunning old age makeups for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), the loveable mutant baby puppet for Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive (1974), got some bigger budget gigs with King Kong (1976) and Star Wars (1977), did an awesome head explosion in Brian De Palma’s The Fury (1978), and had even apprenticed under the great Dick Smith on The Exorcist. But all of that couldn’t prepare him for the progressively rotting zombies, Nazi demons, and full lupine transformation sequence he was…

“FEAR OF THE ARCHAIC MOTHER TURNS OUT TO BE ESSENTIALLY FEAR OF HER GENERATIVE power,” wrote Julia Kristeva in her seminal 1982 book Powers of Horror. Not only have horror movies featured monstrous mothers (and demon spawn) virtually since the genre’s inception, but, as Barbara Creed notes in her book The Monstrous-Feminine, “From classical to Renaissance times, the uterus was frequently drawn with horns to demonstrate its supposed association with the devil.” Movies such as Cronenberg’s The Brood, Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive (see sidebar, p.28) turned sacralized notions of maternity on their collective heads, depicting mothers whose bodies spat out grotesque and rancorous progeny, or who cared for their demonic offspring no matter what the consequences, blind to the evil to which they had given life.…

WHAT A DRAG RACE DEATH RACERS The Asylum Regular readers know that I’ve championed plenty of films from Brain Damage and Full Moon, as well as my fave production company as of late, The Asylum. But even I have my limits! Known for its ability to slap together a rip-off for rental shelves that coincides with the theatrical release of its big screen counterpart, The Asylum has churned out numerous “mockbusters.” Death Racers is its version of Death Race, the recent remake of 1975’s Death Race 2000. The film features a bunch of lame characters driving lame cars through a lame post-apocalyptic world, trying to win a contest by killing each other (minimal gore ensues), and by stopping a villain who wants to release sarin gas. Also, the Insane Clown…

BLU CORN CHILDREN OF THE CORN: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (1984) Blu-Ray Starring Linda Hamilton, Peter Horton and John Franklin Directed by Fritz Kiersch Written by George Goldsmith and Stephen King Anchor Bay If you were alive and kicking back in 1984 you might remember hearing The Thompson Twins on the radio, getting a Rubik’s Cube for Christmas and – if the lineup for Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was too long – seeing Children of the Corn. Set in the small Nebraska town of Gatlin, it features a roadtripping couple that stumbles upon a group of children that has killed off their parents and worship a mysterious entity known as He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Based on a Stephen King short story by the same name, it became…

SHATNER IS MY CO-PILOT What do Stephen King, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Gene Simmons, Wayne Gretzky and my horrible self have in common, besides staggering talent and gazillions of adoring fans? We’re all white-knuckled, shrivel-dicked, poopy-panted terrified of flying, that’s what. I’ve flown a grand total of twenty times in my life, each trip a distinct trauma all its own; my last two flights – to England and back – were made possible only through a remarkably efficacious (if near-lethal) administration of valium and vodka. And then there are those pesky Druids. According to Spinal Tap, “No one knows who they were/Or what they were doing…,” but hey, do you really want to find out somewhere over the freakin’ Atlantic? Case in point: The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973), in…

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE: A JAWS COMPANION Patrick Jankiewicz Bear Manor Media By all accounts it was a hellish experience: the novice director feared he had sunk his career, the studio placed its smart money on the lavish adaptation of another disaster (The Hindenburg), and the cast scurried to line up other work before this turd bobbed to the surface. Then it hit screens and became the phenomenon that was Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Nearly 35 years after its premiere, the influence of this “granddaddy to the summer blockbuster” still ripples through the multiplexes. Journalist Patrick Jankiewicz’s Just When You Thought It Was Safe takes an in-depth look at this unexpected franchise. The book is largely comprised of reflections from the cast and crew, including Joe Alves (Jaws…

WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT THAT ONE OF THE BEST INDEPENDENT HAUNTED ATTRACTIONS IN NORTH AMERICA WOULD BE LOCATED IN THE BASEment of a giant sports complex in Portland, Oregon, of all places? Strange, but true. FrightTown is amassive, three-house haunted attraction situated beneath the Portland Memorial Coliseum that boasts: “Three tons of horror in a one pound bag,” “The longest running haunted house in the whole state!” and “The number #1 scariest haunted attraction in Portland for three years running.” Turns out it really is all of those things, but getting there is a little tricky. Once you head down to the Rose Quarter and find parking, follow the signs to the front courtyard of the complex. When you’re facing the building, take the stairway to your right, down to the…

“PICK THE FIRST SPLATTER MOVIE THAT REALLY BLEW YOUR FUCKIN’ MIND – TOOK SHIT TO ANOTHER LEVEL THAT AFFECTED YOU PHYSICALLY, EMOTIONALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY. THAT’S WHAT WE’VE ALWAYS TRIED TO DO,” enthuses Tommy Niemeyer, guitarist for The Accüsed. The original “splatter rock” band has been punishing eardrums since 1981 (albeit with a hiatus from ’93 to ’03) with a sound the group describes as “a musical mash of bloody, carnage-laden horror, marinated in a broth of metal and hardcore punk, simmering in a stew of unthinkable brutality and eye-popping gore.” The original lineup formed in Oak Harbor, Washington in 1981 and single-handedly created the splatter rock scene via legendary albums such as 1987’s More Fun Than an Open Casket Funeral, 1988’s Martha Splatterhead’s Maddest Stories Ever Told and 2003’s Oh…

I’VE BEEN COLLECTING Rue Morgue for a number of years, since RM#36, and I’ve always felt your covers were fantastic. But the cover of RM#92 is simply amazing. Justin Erickson truly outdid himself with this one. Would there be any way to get a poster-sized print of it? I’m sure your other readers would be interested as well. Anyway, thanks for a great magazine. I read every word, ads included, and always get a kick out of seeing horror luminaries letters printed alongside fans. Thanks again. CORBY KENNARD – SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA JUST READ your interview with Del Toro and Hogan, re: The Strain. I am looking forward to reading this series as I enjoy a good vampire novel now and again. But I am wondering how it will match…

youtube.com (search: “treevenge red band”) Rue Morgue voted Jason Eisener and Rob Cotterill’s Treevenge Best Short Film of 2008, and now you can view this hysterically gory Christmas-trees-take-much-deserved-revenge flick online for free. We guarantee you’ll never be able to walk by another evergreen without looking over your shoulder again. twitter.com/hellobigfoot Stop the presses, Bigfoot’s stepped into the 21st century and got himself a Twitter account. Subscribe to his feed to read about his encounters with other wildlife (“Wasps… stop making nest that look like roasted turkey”), pushy photographers and torch-bearing humans, as well as his “clever” series pitches to Animal Planet. Two hairy thumbs up! hplfilmfestival.com/schedule Founded in 1995 by Andrew Migliore, The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival celebrates The Dark Prince of Providence by screening new cinematic adaptations of his…

1 THE EX VOODOO KNIFE SET $69.99 Revenge, popular wisdom tells us, is a dish best served cold – but that’s no reason you shouldn’t mince your ingredients with premeditated precision. Keep your blades at hand and your heart dark and bitter with this human-shaped knife block set. Voodoo curses not included. Vengeance cuts deep at perpetualkid.com. 2 CRAWLING ZOMBIE TORSO GELATIN MOULD $14.99 Every domestic demoness deserves to serve a quivering mass of undead flesh to guests. Live that dream with one of these dinner-plate sized Jell-O moulds shaped like the torso of a partially destroyed zombie. Better than a box of putrefied Pudding Pops! Form something fetid at thinkgeek.com. 4 3 BIGFOOT GARDEN SCULPTURE $98.95 If you can’t be bothered with mowing the lawn, add a touch of…

TINY, FRAGILE AND INNOCENT, BABIES DEPEND ON adults for care and protection from the evils of the world. But in Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive, the grown-ups best beware of the little bundle of terror with a penchant for violence. Pioneering a subgenre of mutant monster-children films – which also includes titles such as David Lynch’s Eraserhead, David Cronenberg’s The Brood, Alain Robak’s Baby Blood and, most recently, Paul Solet’s Grace – the 1974 movie tapped into the anxiety that comes with parenthood. In the production, thirtysomething couple Frank and Lenore Davis (John Ryan and Sharon Farrell) are anxiously looking forward to the birth of their second child. Already the parents of a healthy eleven-year-old son, their world is turned into a living nightmare when Lenore gives birth to a monstrous…

VON TRAUMA ANTICHRIST Starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg Written and directed by Lars Von Trier IFC We at Rue Morgue take a lot of bullets for the team; subjecting ourselves to the worst of cinema so you don’t have to, and Antichrist left me feeling like William Holden at the end of The Wild Bunch. If you are at all tuned into the business of film, you’ll know its debut at the 2009 Cannes festival was infamous; It was roundly booed with only a spattering of applause. With its infamous reputation, one’s expectations of what lies within Lars Von Trier’s loopy world cannot help but be piqued. In essence, Antichrist is a meditation on grief, in this case a married couple – identified only as “He” and “She” –…

THE DAY YOU TURN 50 IS A HARD DAY. You look in the mirror and realize that your life is probably more than half over. Even if you do live another 50 years, they won’t be as exciting as the ones you’ve already had – and death is in the foreseeable future. What you really need is a good friend to throw you a zombie-themed birthday party in a cemetery and then take you riding on ATVs all night. Teller, world famous skeptic, trickster, author and the silent half of Penn & Teller, did just that for a friend’s birthday, because he understands that when you see death coming, you have to laugh in its face. What Teller didn’t see coming was the filmmaking partnership that would come out of…

MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AFTER ITS THEATRICAL RELEASE, Phantasm II – in which our hero Mike Pearson (James LeGros) emerges after seven years in a mental hospital, still bound and determined, and aided by sidekick Reggie (Reggie Bannister), to lock horns with his time-travelling, dimension-jumping nemesis the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) – is getting a DVD reissue, albeit a shockingly bare-bones affair. Still, even though creator Don Coscarelli is sitting on a stack of goodies (including his own X-rated cut of the film), he’s relieved to finally see it released in North America. “I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth,” he says. “The number one question on www.phantasm.com for the past ten years has been, ‘Where is Phantasm II on DVD?’ Suffice to say, I am…

BLACK DEVIL DOLL Starring Heather Murphy, Natasha Talonz and Martin Boone Directed by Jonathon Lewis Written by Shawn Lewis and Mitch Mayes Lowest Common Denominator Political correctness is a phony whitewash I don’t have much truck with. Fat Albert and Fred Sanford taught me the difference between racial humour and racist humour back in the ’70s, which is why I don’t have a stick up my ass about the spectacularly offensive exploitation parody that is Black Devil Doll. The plot is pretty basic. In a righteous opening reminiscent of the execution scene in Faces of Death, Mubia Abu Jabal, a black militant convicted of raping and murdering fifteen white women, does the funky chicken in an electric chair at the same moment a bored and buxom young lady (Heather Murphy)…

HIGHEST RATING IS THREE GRAPHICS PLAYABILITY SHIVERS KONXARI CARDS Card Game IRM Foundation The ancient Egyptians had it all, man! Giant pyramids, scary-ass mummies, gods with the heads of jackals – even a card game that helped them speak with the dead. Pronounced konzar-ee, this 88-card deck is based on an ancient Egyptian game that was purportedly designed by the god Thoth to enable the user to bridge the gap between our world and the spirit world. The cards are shuffled and game play commences when they’re laid out in a precise pattern and then turned over so that their specific meanings can be derived. Each card features a beautiful, haunting image: a small child standing in the corner of a room, a broken doll, a body…

“Why waste time with a general site like Match or eHarmony when you can find someone to share a Fulci movie marathon with?” That is Andy Coscarelli’s rationale behind launching HorrorCrush.com, an online dating site and social network aimed specifically at horror fans. Currently in Beta testing, Horror Crush allows its members to browse profiles by interests, which include directors (such as Hitchcock and Romero), writers (such as Lovecraft and Poe), movies (such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Phantasm) and monsters (such as zombies and vampires). The site also contains exclusive interviews (Gremlins director Joe Dante is the first) and movie reviews, with more editorial content to come. Like MySpace, Horror Crush allows its members to choose the type of relationships they are looking for, from “friends” to…

IN 1980, JOHN LANDIS HAD HOLLYWOOD BY THE BALLS. In the space of three years, he had directed three blockbuster hits and reinvented movie comedy for a new generation. The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House and The Blues Brothers brought the sardonic, cynical humour of National Lampoon and golden-age Saturday Night Live to young audiences and racked up incredible numbers at the box office. (Animal House alone was made on a shoe-string budget of $3 million and eventually brought in $142 million for Universal). With all of this success under his belt, and having only just turned 30, Landis thought it was the perfect time to finally make his passion project: An American Werewolf in London, a strange mixture of horror and comedy that he’d scripted when he was just…

BOOK OF BLOOD John Harrison - UK Romero collaborator John Harrison composes Clive Barker’s haunting short stories “The Book of Blood” and “On Jerusalem Street” (the tales that bookend the six-volume collection) into a single narrative about a paranormal specialist bent on unlocking the mysteries of a notorious murder site, and the clairvoyant student assisting her who has a horrifying means of communicating with the dead. The film has potential – but falls flat on its face in the last act. The historical Edinburgh setting is foreboding and creepy, and there are some decent scares throughout, but by the third time someone says, “The dead have highways…” you’ll be finished. Repeated ad nauseum, this chilling passage from the book was rendered comical. The denouement, a giant spectral set piece that…

CADAVRES Starring Patrick Huard, Julie LeBreton and Christian Bégin Directed by Érik Canuel Written by Benoît Guichard and Francois Barcelo Paradox You gotta love the way the French can class up a word. For instance, take “cadavres,” which is just so much sexier than “corpses.” If you want your dead body to have style, just add that joie de vivre! Well, joie de mort, more accurately… Quebecois director Érik Canuel seems to take plenty of joie in his spirited efforts to repulse, disgust and cause all kinds of squeamishness with Cadavres. Based on a novel by Francois Barcelo, it stars Patrick Huard as Raymond, a slovenly misanthrope living in a decaying house in the country. (The production design in the film is remarkable and the place looks like the country…

IN SEARCH OF LOVECRAFT insearchoflovecraft.com Filmmakers have taken great liberties with Lovecraft’s threadbare plotlines. Now this totally homemade conspiracy flick by writer/director David J. Hohl goes to the heart of The Master’s work with a story that follows Rebecca, an unwitting and largely witless TV reporter, as she stumbles upon the diabolical schemes of a secret cult straight from the pages of the author’s oeuvre – literally. It turns out that Lovecraft was writing about real tentacled creatures and their followers when he “invented” the Old Ones. Rebecca smells a career-making story, and with the help of her hunky cameraman, an occult expert and a white-magic witch (played by ex-Playboy bunny Rachael Robbins) she sets off to infiltrate the cult. It’s hard to tell if the filmmakers and cast are…

BORIS AT HIS BEST THE WALKING DEAD (1936) Starring Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez and Edmund Gwenn Directed by Michael Curtiz Written by Robert Adams and Ewert Adamson Warner Bros. Warner Brothers films of the 1930s were known for their stark realism and for glamorizing the anti-hero and the downtrodden. The studio dominated the gangster genre, and even its musicals, while still full of glitz and glamour, featured Depression-era chorus girls waiting for their big break. Throughout that decade Warner also released a number of horror films. Michael Curtiz, one of the company’s most prolific directors (who made The Mystery of the Wax Museum and Dr. X), brought together two of Warner’s favourite genres in 1936 when he merged gangsters with the supernatural in The Walking Dead. Out on DVD October…

MARS ATTACKS! SOUNDTRACK Danny Elfman LA-LA LAND For Mars Attacks! Danny Elfman indulged in his familiar use of trilling chorals, staggered brass patterns and skittish rhythms, but he also plunged himself into a goofy world of primordial electronica to create one of the most epic B-movie scores ever written. The new material in this expanded CD offers even more dramatic diversity. In some of the cuts, particularly “First Fire Fight” and “Boy Scout Jamboree,” Elfman dynamically updates the heavy brass and dissonant sounds from cherished ’50s sci-fi creature features, as well as Bernard Herrmann’s sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. The shorter cues offer more goofy electronic and Bulgarian-styled vocals, which help soften the transition between the score’s heavy action and loopy lounge cues. The limited edition CD…

Sign up at RUE-MORGUE.COM. Email HAUNTS@RUE-MORGUE.COM AMOK TIME 2949 Hempstead TPK Levittown, NY 516-520-0975 amoktime.com BURNING MOON VIDEO 1505-11th Ave. SW Calgary, AB 403-228-2899 burningmoonvideo.com LE CABINET DES CURIOSITIES 97 Enmore Rd. Enmore, Sydney, Australia THE CINEMA STORE Unit 4B, Orion House Upper St. Martins Ln. London, UK 0207-379-7838 thecinemastore.co.uk COLLECTORS CORNER 8108A Harford Rd. Baltimore, MD 800-979-3353 collectorscornermd.com COMIC EXPLOSION 86 Centre St. Nutley, NJ 973-235-1336 THE COMIC HUNTER 177 Lutz St. Moncton, NB 506-855-4950 comichunter.net CORNERSTONE COMICS 980 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Ste A Anaheim, CA 92801 DARK DELICACIES 4213 W. Burbank Blvd. Burbank, CA 818-556-6660 darkdel.com DIMENSION COLLECTIBLES 10 N. Main St. Ambler, PA dimensioncollectibles.net DREAMHAVEN BOOKS 2301 E. 38th St. Minneapolis, MN 612-823-6161 dreamhavenbooks.com THE DREAMING COMICS & GAMES 5226 University Way NE Seattle, WA 206-525-9394 thedreamingcomics.com…

MORE BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE. SEE RUE-MORGUE.COM FOR A COMPLETE LIST.…