Table of contents for Issue 78 May 2008 in RUE MORGUE

Fresh off the completion of his third short film, The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow, Rue Morgue president Rodrigo Gudiño has announced plans to take on his first full-length feature project, a remake of the 1972 Spanish horror period piece Cut Throats Nine. “Cut Throats Nine is, at heart, a very gripping story that is full of possibilities in terms of its characters and situations,” Gudiño explains. “The basic story is there and it’s a very good one, and that is the cornerstone to a good movie.” Infamously touted as “possibly the most violent Eurowestern ever made” by Psychotronic Video Guide, Cut Throats Nine (a.k.a. Condenados a vivir) has long enjoyed a cult reputation as an underrated grindhouse staple, serving up a bleak yet gleefully mean-spirited take on…

It’s one of the most squeamish moments in Stephen King’s canon. In an isolated farmhouse, Annie Wilkes, self-proclaimed “Number One Fan” of captive author Paul Sheldon, takes a freshly sharpened axe and chops off the novelist’s foot before cauterizing the stump with a blowtorch. The scene was softened to a bit of nasty business with a sledgehammer in Rob Reiner’s 1990 movie adaptation, but the gushing amputation will be restored in a new production of Simon Moore’s stage adaptation of Misery at Toronto’s Bluma Appel Theatre this month. The play’s director, David Storch, says that if the amputation ends up half as scary on stage as it plays in his imagination, the audience will be in for a shock. “You’ll see Annie rolling in the cart full of supplies,” he…

She’s the last one standing at the end of a horror film because she’s pretty yet not sexual, she doesn’t drink or do drugs, is unusually resourceful at the right moments and generally represents a certain moral ideal. Film theorist Carol Clover famously dubbed this average female protagonist in a horror movie the “Final Girl” – but it’s an archetype that’s got little in common with the gore-caked women of recent French horror films. The leading lady in Alexandre Aja’s High Tension is a lesbian whose savagery is one and same with that of the slasher killer she can’t escape; Xavier Gens’ Frontier(s) brutalizes a young pregnant woman who’s in a gang of violent political radicals and thieves; and Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s Inside features a very pregnant widow…

Malefique Starring Philippe Laudenbach, Clovis Cornillac and Dmitri Rataud Directed by Eric Valette Written by Alexandre Charlot, François Cognard and Franck Magnier BCI Eclipse Eric Valette’s Malefique was an early entry in the French horror boom that prefigured bloodier titles such as In My Skin and High Tension, and it’s shocking that it took this great little film six years to see a North American release of any kind. After a brief, gory flashback, the story begins in a prison receiving room. Carrére is a man who had it all – a successful business, a doting wife, young son and an embezzlement plan for early retirement. Something went wrong, though, and he finds himself behind bars – temporarily, so he insists. But we know better; in a horror film, when…

Pop Skull popskullthemovie.com Pop Skull is an interesting case study; it’s a weird mixture of the truly incredible infused with the utterly unwatchable. The man responsible is Alabamabased auteur and wunderkind, Adam Wingard. He was only 22 when he directed his first feature, 2004’s Home Sick (starring Bill Moseley and Tiffany Shepis), but it’s his 2007 sophomoric effort which will assure him a place in the pantheon of camcorder Coppolas. With Pop Skull – shot on DV with a volunteer cast and crew on a $3000 budget – Wingard demolishes the wall of apologies and technical excuses that no-budget neophytes typically hide behind. He confidently wields carefully composed images, hallucinatory editing techniques and a densely textured sound design to plunge us deep into the dismal world of Daniel (co-writer Lane…

BAD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES CURSE OF THE DOLL PEOPLE (1961) Starring Ramón Gay, Elvira Quintana and Roberto G. Rivera Directed by Benito Alazraki Written by Alfredo Salazar BCI Eclipse Mexican horror films of the 1960s are frequently a Frankenstein’s monster of genre tropes, stitching elements of high-flying wrestling action, heart-tugging melodrama, mad science and occult fantasy onto a traditional gothic framework. A refreshingly straightforward chiller from Mexican schlock purveyors Cinematográfica Calderón S.A., Muñecos infernales (or Curse of the Doll People as it was later retitled for American audiences) proves you should always sweat the small stuff – especially if it’s preparing to jam a foot-long needle into your neck One of the studio’s best films of the decade, Curse of the Doll People is an unapologetic, cheap knock-off…

Thousands of beer-soaked video nights ago, I stumbled onto the German underground shot-on-video splatter scene through a rental of Olaf Ittenbach’s The Burning Moon. Or was it Andreas Schnaas’ Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence? Okay, so I’m a little foggy here. Regardless, I was immediately smitten by the copious cheapjack gore these awful amateur atrocities delivered. I tracked down what I could on VHS, but North American distribution of these gooey curios has always been spotty. On DVD, Shock-O-Rama’s releases of Ittenbach’s Premutos and Schnaas’ Zombie Doom, a.k.a. Violent Shit 3 (which includes Zombie 90 as a supplement) are about it, making Unearthed’s new discs a most welcome addition to this artistically dubious subgenre. DAS KOMABRUTALE DUELL (1999) Starring Heiko Fipper, Mike Hoffman and Stefan Hoft Written and directed by Heiko…

You cannot escape the horror of Inside (Á l’interieur) just by closing your eyes. The film’s music is its own kind of psychological trauma, an unnerving pulse of eerie electronics and symphonic strings that makes viewers feel trapped right inside the characters’ sanitystrapped heads. The man to blame is François-Eudes Chanfrault, who has become the composer du jour for France’s new crop of masters of horror. It was his work with Alexandre Aja on High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes remake which attracted co-directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury. “They asked me to do what I usually do,” Chanfrault recently told Rue Morgue Radio. “When I saw the movie I decided not to do what you would expect. Not to write tense music, but to do something more melancholic…

CRY-LARIOUS FUNNY GAMES Starring Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Michael Pitt Written and directed by Michael Haneke Warner Independent Pictures When the Toronto International Film Festival showed the original Funny Games back in 1997, director Michael Haneke introduced the film but begged off the post-screening Q&A because he had a plane to catch. That was probably a good thing, because the audience that endured his bleak tale of a family besieged by home invaders was left bludgeoned, confused and frustrated. It’s doubtful whether the Austrian filmmaker would have survived. For those who have seen the original, there’s little reason to catch the director’s shot-forshot English-language remake, unless you’re allergic to subtitles. Yes, Tim Roth and Naomi Watts acquit themselves well as the bourgeois parents who unwisely welcome Peter (Brady Corbet)…

SEXY, STYLISH, SLEAZY CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1972) Starring Edwige Fenech, George Hilton and Paola Quattrini Directed by Anthony Ascott Written by Ernesto Gastaldi Blue Underground You have to hand it to the Italians. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, they definitely knew how to put out effectively sexy yet brutally bloody little films, of which Case of the Bloody Iris (a.k.a. Erotic Blue, What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer’s Body?) is among the best. Director Giuliano Carnimeo (here under the pseudonym Anthony Ascott) takes a break from spaghetti westerns to plunge into giallo territory with this deliciously kinky and stylishly lensed tale. Euro-fave Edwige Fenech stars as a beautiful model named Jennifer, who moves into a posh high-rise apartment that was the scene of…

Necronomicon: Book Five Andy Black, ed. Noir Publishing Six years after the last entry in this series, writer/editor Andy Black finally weighs in with another collection of essays on horror cinema and television. The eleven efforts within – from seven different writers – range from the masterful to the pedantic, which is okay if you’re used to taking the good with the bad, as one often must with such compilations. Far and away, the first entry (“The First Horror Soap” by Adrian Horrocks) is the best, presenting a smart critique of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s roots in both daytime and prime-time serial dramas. Of course, many hardcore Buffy fans (and even casual ones such as myself) have already read scores of critical essays about the hit show, written from numerous…

HAUNTING VILLISCA David James Nielsen MOVIESCORE MEDIA Sometimes the most effective way to tell a horror tale involving axe murders is through subtle contrasts, as newcomer David James Nielsen does in this gorgeously performed orchestral score. Recorded in Prague, Nielsen’s initial cues nevertheless evoke the serene Iowa locale where the true-life killings occurred, and cuts such as “The Pretty Place” convey the idyllic farmland through use of harp and woodwinds, locked to a slow, breezy tempo. Opting for a very restrained scoring style (Richard Einhorn’s melodic Sister Sister comes to mind), Nielsen is sparing in his use of symphonic might, emphasizing colour, melody and gentle shifts in mood to illustrate encounters with murderous elements without slamming the listener with a full orchestra. Elegantly constructed with a mere handful of shock…

GRAPHICS: PLAYABILITY: SHIVERS: CONDEMNED 2: BLOODSHOT PS3, Xbox 360 Monolith Productions When society is falling apart and everyone around you is turning into a gibbering, homicidal maniac, you can either fight back or hide inside a whiskey bottle – or, in the case of Condemned 2’s forensic investigator/supercop Ethan Thomas, do both. Picking up shortly after the end of the original title (RM#56), the game once again has players lead Ethan into the decayed slums of the city to battle vicious vagrants and horrific hobos in a completely interactive environment. Here anything can become a weapon, and believe me, there’s no greater feeling than picking up a bowling ball and smashing in some dirt-bag drifter’s head or gashing his gonads with a golf club. Players move…

Thank God the French exist!”Woody Allen facetiously uttered in his 2002 comedy Hollywood Ending, but as self-respecting, hard-core horror fans, we can scream it from the rooftops of the world without a shred of irony. Not only did they give us the Theatre du Grand-Guignol and the first horror film ever made (Georges Méliès’ 1896 Le manoir du diable) but as the American film industry continues to wallow in creatively bankrupt remakes and sequels, it is the French who have emerged as saviours of our beloved genre with uncompromising slices of recent mayhem such as Irreversible, High Tension (a.k.a. Haute tension), Them (a.k.a. Ils), Sheitan, Calvaire and Frontier(s) that have collectively infused familiar horror film trappings with saucy French art house riffs. With a delicious nihilism and willingness to plunder…

More than 30 years before dropping a couple of gruesome Masters of Horror episodes, Dario Argento was dabbling in hour-long TV terror films with Door into Darkness. The four episodes from the 1973 show’s limited run have long been considered lost holy treasures by Argento fans outside of Italy, who could only procure the grainy, 16mm-shot movies as bootlegs or on a very limited run German DVD set. NoShame Films changes that with its new release of a Region 1 version. The show was a simple concept whereby Argento could exploit his persona as Italy’s own Hitchcock via the small screen. He introduces each installment from a location sort-of related to the episode (sometimes comingling with characters), employing a measure of mordant wit. Minus the usual blood striations, awesome nudity…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE DUNKS HIS TRUNKS DEBBIE DOES ROSEBUD BIKINI BLOODBATH Brightly Entertainment The only reason this DVD isn’t propping up the short leg on my desk is because of two little words emblazoned on the cover: “Debbie Rochon!” My all-time favourite Canadian scream queen (next to the late Fay Wray, of course) stars as a pervy high school gym teacher in this off-beat parody that features a killer – who looks like The Muppet Show’s Swedish Chef on steroids – carving up sexy airheads at their high school graduation hot tub party. Although it clocks in at just over an hour, has a lousy soundtrack and seems to be shot with spooge on the camera lens, Bikini Bloodbath is campy fun. And it features Rochon in a Citizen Kane-inspired,…

THE BLOODSTAINED SHADOW (1978) Starring Lino Capolicchio, Stefania Casini and Craig Hill Directed by Antonio Bido Written by Marisa Andalo, Antonio Bido and Domenico Malan Blue Underground When Antonio Bido’s second giallo film, The Bloodstained Shadow (a.k.a. Solamente Nero), was released in 1978, the golden age of gialli was near an end. Masters of the genre had begun to move on; with Suspiria, Dario Argento turned to supernatural terror; Lucio Fulci was about to explore extreme gore with Zombie; and Mario Bava, having not made a giallo since 1970, was simply a decade ahead of everybody. So the fact that The Bloodstained Shadow isn’t the most original film of its ilk is not surprising. But what is surprising is the mastery with which Bido uses his influences to resample the…

Despite its deceptively sedate title, Josh Simmons’ previous graphic novel, House (RM #70), was Rue Morgue’s horror comic of 2007. It followed three youths breaking into an abandoned estate, discovering a secret passageway and meeting terrible fates. Dark, relentless and brilliantly claustrophobic, the book was a page-turner of the highest calibre. Simmons’ new work, Jessica Farm, which overlapped with the creation of House, is its sister story. Like House, this gripping story intentionally embraces the nightmare logic of a building that one cannot escape, but to which one must surrender. But while the engine driving this one is yet another spatial anomaly, Jessica Farm is peopled with bizarre creatures around every corner. Notable are a Klaus Kinski look-alike presiding over a kingdom of infant carcasses under a stairwell and, monstrous…

UNKLE PIGORS’ CRYPTIC ART Eric Pigors Baby Tattoo Books Rue Morgue’s favourite twisted Unkle has returned with a creepy new retrospective art book absolutely dripping with blood-red ink and lime-green ooze. Unkle Pigors’ Cryptic Art showcases hundreds of haunting illustrations, including his terrifying Toxic Toons, fantastically fearsome tattoo flash and absolutely abhorrent artwork for bands such as Metallica, Psycho Charger and the Murderdolls. A great gift for the groovie ghoulie in your life. Last Chance Lance H.P. LOVECRAFT IN BRITAIN Stephen Jones Smith & Jones Editor Stephen Jones’ monograph catalogues in detail the publication history of H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction in Britain, based on materials (letters to August Derleth, contracts and other correspondences) discovered in two aging folders found at the Gollanzc publishing offices, many of which are reprinted here.…

If there is a Ground Zero for the ghostly denizens of Niagara, it is Fort George. Long before this tourist attraction was a historical site, it was home to enlisted men, officers and their families, many of whom were killed here when the Fort became a pivotal battleground during the bloody War of 1812. Life in that period was often brutal and short. The Fort was shattered by American artillery fire and captured during the Battle of Fort George in May 1813, and American forces used it as a base to invade the rest of Upper Canada. They were eventually repelled at York (now Toronto) and forced back across the border. However, before retreating, the occupiers put the entire town of Niagara to the torch. Whole families were wiped out…

The album title references an obscure 1959 low-budget film about beatniks, while the music – metallic garage augmented by spooky analogue organs – speaks of lycanthropy, Stanley Kubrick (“Hatchet Fight in a Mannequin Factory,” à la his film The Killer’s Kiss), Vincent Price and the troubles of a smalltown, adolescent cyclops. For Calgary, Alberta’s Forbidden Dimension, it’s horror business as usual on their latest full-length epic, A Cool Sound Outta Hell. If this particular realm of the musical outer limits has escaped your attention, you’re forgiven. This band (celebrating its 20th anniversary this year) hasn’t exactly made it easy on audiences to tune in. They’ve only toured once – just eight dates across Canada some fifteen years ago – and the bulk of their best work, three albums on Montreal’s…

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