Table of contents for Issue 215 Nov/Dec Xmas 2023 in RUE MORGUE

Rue Morgue · 001 Rue Morgue #215 Intro .  cries my email inbox, “Norman Bates was inspired by Ed Gein! Henry ( ) was based on Henry Lee Lucas!” Examples abound of horror movies inspired by serial killers (and indeed, sadly, serial killers inspired by horror movies) but   doesn’t deal in that. Horror is fiction, the work of imagination and artistry, an exercise of our grimmest fears and anxieties, and true crime is a historical account of awful things happening to real people. They’re alike in many ways, but this difference is important. “But-but-but,” cries my inbox, “they’re still confronting the reality of violence and trauma in the world! Plus, true crime is often even more fucked-up than fiction! What’s wrong with enjoying that sort of thing?” Well guys, there’s nothing…

If a movie is shot in Montreal but doesn’t acknowledge that fact, is it still a French Canadian film? And what if its characters – sacre bleu! – speak English instead of French? These are the sort of very Canadian questions that come up when discussing two new horror comedies filmed in and around Quebec’s largest city. Opening in theatres on October 13, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (original title: Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant) is a coming-of-age film about Sasha (Sara Montpetit), a young vampire (she’s only 68) whose empathy for humans prevents her from making her own kills. This debut feature from writer/director Ariane Louis-Seize had its world premiere this past September at the Toronto International Film Festival. The other, We Are Zombies, is the latest from…

Rue Morgue · 003 Rue Morgue #215 Amicus Productions While the shadow of England’s Hammer Film Productions justifiably looms large over the landscape of classic British horror cinema, it was by no means the only game in town. From 1965 to 1977, UK-based Amicus Productions gave Hammer a run for its money by creating a slew of low-budget yet memorable screen shockers and fantasy opuses, with an emphasis on the portmanteau film – often giving audiences four or five compact little chillers for the price of one. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), Torture Garden (1967), Asylum (1972), and From Beyond the Grave (1974) were some of the classic anthology titles to come out of Britain’s other fright film factory. And while Hammer’s gothic horrors tended to be set in…

A CHRISTMAS GIALLO THE SACRIFICE GAME Starring Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch and Georgia Acken Directed by Jenn Wexler Written by Jenn Wexler and Sean Redlitz Shudder The opening scene of The Sacrifice Game reveals yet another reason why Christmastime lends itself to horror: it provides a natural motivation for red and green giallo-style lighting. The influence of Halloween and the Manson murders is also felt in this prologue, though the film that follows brings some original twists to the holiday table. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20114976/ Director Jenn Wexler’s follow-up to The Ranger is set in 1971 at the isolated Blackvale School for Girls, where students Samantha (Madison Baines) and Clara (Georgia Acken) have to remain behind for different reasons while their classmates return home for the Yuletide break. Rose (The Ranger’s Chloë…

Armed and Dangerous “WHILE THE UNKNOWN WASN’T THE FIRST HORROR FILM TO SUBVERT AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS ABOUT NOBLE PROTAGONISTS, IT DOES PREFIGURE THE WAY THAT LATER HORROR FILMS HAVE MORE BOLDLY BLURRED THE LINE BETWEEN HERO AND VILLAIN.” Despite cinema’s long history of anti-heroes, tragic figures, and problematic faves, it seems like some fans have been surprised by a recent run of films with main characters who behave in less-than-inspiring ways. This past year, there have been several criticisms of movies such as Napoleon and Oppenheimer based on the assumption that a film’s protagonist – even a controversial historical figure – must always be portrayed as a valiant hero. Anyone who subscribes to this rigid view should probably spend more time with the horror genre, which has – almost since the…

MODERN OCCULTISM Mitch Horowitz G&D Media Taking on the entire history, theory, and practice of modern occultism is no small feat, and Modern Occultism is no small book. Coming in at 413 pages (omitting the index), this hefty text is not concerned with merely touching on the history of tarot or modern witchiness. It does touch on such things, but it also takes those topics and folds them into intelligent and accessible histories. https://www.amazon.ca/Modern-Occultism-History-Theory-Practice/dp/1722506261 Endlessly well-versed author Mitch Horowitz goes back to the early Greek, Roman, and Egyptian times to add flavour and context to the discussion that takes the reader all the way up to present day. This may seem like an unnecessary throwback for a book that promises a focus on modern occultism, but the early chapters serve…

It was a whole different world when I began writing for Rue Morgue in 2002. Social media was in its infancy (MySpace wouldn’t launch until a year later) and YouTube was still three years away. Review copies came in paper form, so I’d have to travel to the office to pick up my assignments. I can’t say whether those days before the internet and digital-everything were better, but there is something to be said about holding a physical book in your hands. Being able to flip it over and peruse the cover, front and back; feel the thickness and quality of the pages; sample a sentence or paragraph from some random point in the middle – this tactile experience just isn’t something that can be replicated by a PDF or…

https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Squad-OST-Bruce-Broughton/dp/B016Y5CD5Y THE MONSTER SQUAD SOUNDTRACK Bruce Broughton TERROR VISION The good people at Terror Vision have unearthed a new “definitive edition” of The Monster Squad score on three LPs, following earlier Mondo and Intrada releases. Given that Fred Dekker’s 1987 cult classic was a throwback to the Universal creatures of the ’30s and ’40s, composer Bruce Broughton takes influence from older tropes of Hollywood scoring. At the time, Broughton was riding a wave of genre scores, including projects like Harry and the Hendersons, which made him an adept choice to harness old school menace yet still keep things light enough for young audiences. For the most part, Broughton plays it straight, heightening the drama and keeping the focus aimed at scares, and letting the comedy play over it. As such,…

CHUCK PALAHNIUK’S HAUNTED needs to be adapted. Read a lot of Palahniuk’s work and that one in particular is my favourite piece of his. @DOUGLASSAEWEN, VIA INSTAGRAM I’VE BEEN A BIG FAN OF CHUCK PALAHNIUK since I was in my teens so it was a real treat to see him in my favourite magazine. I always thought some of his books were pretty dark but the new one sounds really twisted. I just got my hands on a copy, thanks Rue Morgue! P.S. Did you ever feature Clive Barker? I’m assuming yes but I’m a newbie, don’t hate me! PATRICK DOEGER, VIA EMAIL Thanks Patrick, you will find plenty of Clive Barker throughout our back issue library but especially in RM#194, #179 and #41 – Ed. HAVE Y’ALL DONE AN…

(L.I.L., 1979) While puffy stickers are most closely identified with the 1980s, the padded (usually with a thin sheet of foam) vinyl-covered decals emerged in the 1970s and were often called “Three Dimensional Stickers.” Along with stickers of Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy, kids in the late ’70s could also collect brightly coloured monster-themed puffy stickers of characters like Dracula, King Kong, the Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, and more from a company with the rather underwhelming name of L.I.L. Very popular at the time, these glow-in-the-dark (touted on packaging as “luminous”) stickers were sold in multipacks at convenience stores and were also available individually in gumball dispensing machines. They were reissued several times over the years, including as Halloween-themed party favours by party supply manufacturer Unique in the late ’80s.…

There was once a time, not so very long ago, where the beauty-conscious horror fan was largely limited to the spooky seasonal cosmetics products that appeared on drugstore shelves every October. Cheap and gimmicky (in price, presentation, and quality), these press-on nails cracked and the black lipsticks bled, so those of us attempting to achieve the posthumous prettiness of the recently deceased were relegated to using products intended for other purposes – red lipstick as eyeshadow, since red eye makeup was then unheard of, or using Sharpies to paint one’s fingernails black. But from the ashes of these frustrations, a generation of entrepreneurs was inspired to fill that gaping maw in the beauty industry, so ghouls of today need never know what it was like before indie horror cosmetics were…

THIS ISSUE: A CHAIN LETTER FROM LANCE! A CHAIN ACROSS THE FACE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ28yORr5XU CHAIN LETTER Image Entertainment Seeing as climate change is setting the world on fire, I thought I’d cool things off. Remember when you were young and believed in stupid things like Santa Claus, unicorns, democracy, and chain letters? Those of you too young to know what the latter is – it’s an actual piece of parchment with handwritten words that would be mailed to your home, telling you to pass it on to five or more people or something bad would happen. That’s the gist of this thick flick featuring a bunch of campy college students who ignore a chain letter email and end up getting dispatched by a serial killer who offs them with… wait for…

LOVERS OF THE TERROR UNITE ON NEW BLU-RAY The Little Shop of Horrors has long gotten plenty of attention as a two-day Roger Corman production featuring an early Jack Nicholson performance, but a forthcoming Blu-ray from Film Masters may raise the profile of The Terror, made a couple of years later under vaguely similar circumstances and also co-starring Nicholson. Where Little Shop actually lensed its interiors in two days and one night, followed by two weekends of exteriors, The Terror was built around footage shot on leftover sets for Corman’s Poe movie The Raven, featuring its star Boris Karloff, over the weekend before they were torn down. It then took nearly a year to complete, as a lineup of directors including Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Jakob, Monte Hellman, and Jack…

With all due respect to entomologists, bugs are icky. Don’t take my word for it: clearly the horror genre agrees with me as there has been no shortage of creepy crawlies on film, page, or video game console. An insect’s ability to fascinate, repulse, terrify, and even amuse is unique in the animal kingdom due in no small part to their unpredictability, limitless variety, and downright alienness. All these elements can be found in Skeeters, a new comic miniseries in the tradition of B(ug)-movies like Arachnophobia and Slither. In it, giant mosquito-like creatures invade a sleepy rural seaside community, and before you can say, “I’m not cancelling the annual Kankakee Seafood Festival!” the populace is suffering from a bad case of bug bites – the kind that leave your insides…

THE SECRET LIFE OF INSECTS AND OTHER STORIES Bernardo Esquinca Valancourt Books Mexican author Bernardo Esquinca had his big international break in The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories [RM#197]: his tale “Señor Ligotti” ended up a finalist for the prestigious Shirley Jackson Award. The present volume offers, for the first time in English, a “best of” selection from his collections published in Spanish between 2008 and 2020. Two qualities immediately stand out: first, the masterful use of the short story form, and second, a wide variety of themes and attitudes. Most of these gems are around ten pages long, but what they achieve in such condensed space is nothing short of amazing. Take the titular tale: its five pages suggest a wealth of terror and implications about an entomologist’s…

1 COSMIC HORROR CRITTERS WRAPPING PAPER $25 USD Do you dare unwrap a gift bound in such unknowable, incomprehensible cosmic horror? Designed by dark cabaret icon Aurelio Voltaire and sold in packs of five 20 X 29 inch smooth matte sheets, this is wrapping paper fit for an Eldritch god. Society6.com 2 YOUR YOUTH MOULDED CANDLE $14.99 USD Why celebrate another year of aging when you can mourn your youth instead? Make your next birthday wish count with this 3.5-inch tombstone-shaped moulded candle – a perfect substitute for when your age makes the whole blowing-out-the-candles tradition a legit fire hazard. Safety first, you old coot! Killstar.com 3 KRAMPUS SWEATER $89 USD Ugly Christmas sweaters are so last year – there’s new obnoxiously colourful knitwear in town, ready to dig its…

Rue Morgue · 002 Rue Morgue #215 Red Rooms If horror fiction and true crime share one thing, it’s the sense of experiencing danger from a safe distance. But Pascal Plante’s Quebecois crime thriller Red Rooms (Les chambres rouges) questions the very existence of that safe distance by toying with the negative space between spectacle and reality. It’s the sort of enigmatic horror movie where the horror doesn’t quite happen onscreen: what we see is a story of a woman coming undone by a morbid fascination, but what we feel is a self-aware sense of ick that comes from the recognition that we’re sharing in similar dark dealings simply by watching the film. The cardinal rule of filmmaking might be “show, don’t tell,” but Plante employs a deft hand at…

RITUEL DE FILLE Ritueldefille.com Something wicked this way comes! Founded by three sisters (one from marriage), L.A.-based company Rituel de Fille first caught our attention with its unconventional products in unusual formats – aubergine contour in a compact (Inner Glow Crème Pigment in “Eclipse”), semi-matte eyeliner in little plastic spheres (The Black Orb Enigmatic Kohl Eyeliner), and the best-selling Ash and Ember Eye Soots, little pots of shimmering, multi-use pigments with a texture somewhere between powder and cream. With its emphasis on all-natural ingredients, Rituel de Fille’s approach to beauty encourages its customer base (dubbed “rituelists”) to experiment with pigments and products the way a witch might toss ingredients into a cauldron. Among its more unique products is the rose-scented Thorn Milk Hydrating Skin Mist, which promises instant moisture and…

On the Slab: Into the Woods LOST 9:15 mins/YouTube via the Tananarive Due channel Author Tananarive Due directs and stars in this short about a woman en route to a nature-filled team building retreat with her co-workers at a privately owned prison corporation. Upon arrival, she follows the trail to the appointed meeting spot, but her co-workers are nowhere to be found. What’s worse, she continually finds herself turned around in the woods, always arriving back at the site where she started. As her unease builds, a deeper inner turmoil emerges about the guilt she carries over working for a system that profits off the misery of others, revealing a very personal connection to the way it can destroy lives. Due excels at building a deep sense of dread in…

You know those nights where you’re like “Fuck it?” Yeah, okay, I guess that’s most nights. But you know those nights where you’re like “Fuck it, Imma just go on (popular streaming service that shall remain unspecified here), randomly pick some horror movie I’ve never heard of and just watch the bejeezus out of it and hope that it’s worthwhile?” And you know how that rarely ever seems to work out in your favour? But once in a while it does. Like the night I said, “Fuck it, etc.” and watched Under the Bed, a tense (but poorly marketed) little creepfest that came and went back in 2012 without eliciting so much as a quiet queef from the masses. From Poe to King and far beyond, family conflict has surely…

THERE IS VERY LITTLE IN THIS WORKADAY WORLD OF OURS that fills me with as much slack-jawed, heart-eyed delight as the pitter-patter of tiny little feet. I’m referring, of course, to the pitter-patter of tiny little killer doll feet echoing through the halls as they scamper around the household tormenting their victims. I’m sure I’m not alone amongst bad doll aficionados when I say that my love of them stems from seeing Trilogy of Terror at a formative age. Watching the legendary Zuni fetish doll bare all 300 of its wooden teeth whilst menacing the equally legendary Karen Black can really set one on a path in life, let me tell you. While I’m not sure exactly where that path will lead, I can say that there is a small…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHoTK_Wgao EL PASO, ELSEWHERE PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X Strange Scaffold Breakups are a bitch, and doubly so when your ex-girlfriend is Draculae, Lord of the Vampires, and she’s going to destroy the world unless you stop her. And by “stop her,” we mean shoot and stake your way through floor after floor of vampires, werewolves, evil puppets, demented angelic beings, and even harder things to kill. Players take on the role of folklore researcher James Savage as he navigates through an El Paso motel where reality is bending and fraying at the hands of his ex. As Savage descends deeper into the building – moving through floors with chapter titles such as Graveyard Shift, Ouroburos, Break Shit, and Burning Desire – more is revealed about the pair’s…