Table of contents for Issue 64 January/February 2007 in RUE MORGUE

+ Bulldogs were bred into existence for the sole purpose of bullbaiting, a popular form of public entertainment in olden-times England, where audiences watched the dogs rip apart live bulls. + No less than ten characters in Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf flick The Howling are named after werewolf movie directors including George Waggner, Roy William Neill, Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, Erle C. Kenton, Sam New field, Charles Barton, Jerry Warren, Lew Landers and Jacinto Molina. + In 1960s Tennessee, attacking someone with a lethal weapon while wearing a disguise was a crime punishable by death. + Lon Chaney Jr.’s given name was Creighton, but according to many Hollywood historians he was railroaded by studio executives into adopting his famous father’s name. + An entomophagist is someone who deliberately eats bugs.…

When did horror movies begin? Maybe with the first movie ever shown. In 1895, the Lumière brothers demonstrated their new invention, the cinematograph, in the back of a café in Paris. Legend has it that the film, of a train arriving at a station, caused the audience to flee the theatre in terror, thinking that a train was going to hit them. Obviously, this isn't a horror movie, but it illustrates just how hard it can be to decide what is or isn't one. And more importantly – who gets to decide this? If we leave it up to many film historians, horror movies began in Hollywood in 1931, when Universal released Dracula and Frankenstein. “Before Frankenstein, in the silent era, there were no horror movies as the public thinks…

EYES OF SAMIR USA – 22 mins myspace.com/eyesofsamirmovie Years from now, film scholars will look back at this decade’s horror films in the context of the war in Iraq and the indelible image of hostages in jumpsuits beheaded on camera. Some would argue that commentary is already occurring with the Saw and Hostel franchises. But standing in stark contrast to the torture-porn aesthetic of the aforementioned series, Kevin Shulman’s Eyes of Samir is a deadly serious account of an imprisoned journalist awaiting her death by beheading, and of her terrorist captor’s crisis of faith. The mainstream media, represented by the ubiquitous Tony Todd’s reporter character (Todd also starred in Shulman’s previous short I.O.U.), sombrely condemns the kidnapping with the usual slick sentiment (cue the sobbing family members), while at the…

It’s been more than 40 years since a hilariously morbid show featuring an ensemble of eccentric misanthropes first made its TV debut. The Addams Family, based on the cartoons of the late Charles Addams, introduced the world to Lurch, Thing and Cousin Itt – not to mention the word “ookey.” And though it only ran for two seasons, its legacy creeps on in DVD format with MGM’s The Addams Family: Volume One – the first 22-episode chunk of its 64-episode run. Conceived as a “scary” sitcom, the show relied heavily on the nonconformist Old World charm of a Gothic family stuck in middle-class American suburbia. John Astin took on the role of Gomez, playing an oddball raconteur lawyer with gusto reminiscent of Groucho Marx. Hollywood heartthrob Carolyn Jones assumed…

Every time I pass a sewer grate, I sweat. When I step on a manhole, I shiver. Subway tunnels make me sick to my stomach. It’s the underground I fear, the secret world beneath my feet – basements and sub-basements, parts of the dark where even the most badass rat dare not tread. For down there, deep in the greasy bowels of my fair city, lies a horror worse than death itself, something so hideous and blood-chilling that I dare not write its name. But if I don’t write its name, then this here column will end before it begins. So let it be known that the subterranean evil I fear is full of flesh-eating fury. Let it be known that the name of true blue terror starts with a…

The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad, eds. Open Court Publishing The not-so-hidden social commentary lurking in Romero’s zombie films has been discussed to undeath by fans and critics alike, but few have thought to ask what Aristotle would make of our modern fixation with brain-eating, bloodsucking freaks. Presumably, anyone who does ponder such questions has contributed to this collection of essays, the latest in a series of books combining popular culture and philosophy (other volumes dissect The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars). In the book, a lively assortment of professors tackle whether or not it truly sucks to be undead. Each has a deep understanding of the horror genre and, while dropping references to both high and lowbrow…

Soundtrack THE GRUDGE 2 Christopher Young VARESE SARABANDE Having scored the first two Hellraiser films, Christopher Young knows how to expand upon prior musical concepts for a sequel without risking overt repetition. While he quotes his chiming Grudge theme in the opening track, Young largely focuses on the relationship between instruments in a large, expansive surrounding. A sense of isolation is created through processed reverb, and bass rumbling that almost swallows the intimate performances. Like in the first film, Young also plays with surging textures enhanced with chilling vocals that morph into metallic soundscapes. His taunting Grudge theme is alternately coloured by some Japanese woodwind and percussion techniques, and later given a warm, melancholic rendition at the album’s end. Young’s an expert on timbre, texture and aggressive dynamics, so if…

JUST PICKED UP RM#62 and was completely blown away by it, specifically the articles on Uwe Boll, the insightful interview and even more specifically by Chris Alexander’s hilarious and insightful diary of his fight with the director. Mr. Alexander’s “Schizoid Cinephile” column has always been a favourite of mine, but with this incredible boxing match (even though he lost, oh well!) and his account of it, he has truly elevated himself to a cult hero in my eyes. The rest of the mag was amazing too, of course – lots of ghoulish fun from cover to cover. Rue Morgue rules and it’s creative, passionate writers like Alexander, the Gore-Met, John W. Bowen, Stuart Andrews, Last Chance Lance, etc. that make it such a unique read. Sam Weintraub – New York…

uer.ca/locations/show.asp?locid=21151 Gunkanjima is a tiny island off the coast of Japan that housed thousands of people between 1810 and 1974. Now it stands empty, a ghostly skeletal metropolis. The Urban Exploration Resource takes web surfers inside for a brief history and mind-blowing pictorial tour. jasondaquino.com You might need a magnifying glass to view Jason D’Aquino’s work, which is sometimes rendered on matchbooks, but it’s well worth inspecting. His pieces – which include Albert Fish drawn on children’s flash cards! – are born of childhood fairy tale imagery, and are as grim as it gets. hauntrepreneurs.com/for%20sale.htm Ever wanted to own a haunted attraction but were too lazy to build one? Hauntrepreneurs can help! Visit this simplistic but otherwise handy site to find out which attractions are currently up for sale and…

SOTA DAGON FIGURE $19.99 “Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares…” wrote H.P. Lovecraft of the titular malevolent god in his story “Dagon.” SOTA Toys’ new figure is a hideously gorgeous terror from the deep. Their Nightmares of Lovecraft line also features Cthulhu (available in two different colours) and Ghoul from “Pickman’s Model.” Summon the Great Old Ones at your local comic shop or at Spencer Gifts stores. INTRAMURAL ZOMBIE HUNTER TEE $18 Show off your team spirit in the war against the walking dead with a blood-splattered Intramural Zombie Hunter shirt by David Murray. Created in the style of an athletic jersey, IZH tees come in varying levels of gore (from “None” to “Heavy”), with your choice of custom name and number. Don’t be…

JANUARY 26-28 FX Orlando, Florida www.fxshow.com JANUARY 26-28 CHILLER THEATRE Toy, Model and Film Expo Secaucus, New Jersey www.chillertheatre.com FEBRUARY 15-18 HAUNT X WEEKEND Los Angeles, California www.hauntx.com FEBRUARY 16-18 MONSTER-MANIA CON 7 Cherry Hill, New Jersey www.monstermania.net FEBRUARY 23-25 NEW YORK COMIC CON New York City, New York www.nycomiccon.com FEBRUARY 23-26 TRANSWORLD’S NATIONAL HAUNT & ATTRACTIONS SHOW Wholesaler’s Convention (not open to general public) Rosemont, Illinois www.hauntshow.com MARCH 2-4 HORRORFIND WEEKEND Baltimore, Maryland www.horrorfindweekend.com MARCH 29-APRIL 1 WORLD HORROR CONVENTION Horror Lit Expo Toronto, Ontario www.whc2007.org MARCH 30-APRIL 1 CINEMA WASTELAND Drive-In Era Movies and Memorabilia Strongsville, Ohio www.cinemawasteland.com APRIL 27-29* CHILLER THEATRE Toy, Model and Film Expo Secaucus, New Jersey www.chillertheatre.com MAY 4-6 HAUNTCON National convention and tradeshow for haunted attraction and Halloween industries. Dearborn, Michigan www.hauntcon.com MAY…

PSEUDO-SLASHUMENTARY BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON Starring Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals and Robert Englund Directed by Scott Glosserman Written by Scott Glosserman and David J. Stieve Glen Echo Entertainment/Code Entertainment In the early 1980s, slasher films sliced and diced their way to the top of the horror heap, but more than two decades later, the countless sequels, copycats and remakes have started to resemble their superstar executioners: lumbering, mechanical and unrelenting. That doesn’t mean innovation is dead, however, as Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a fresh and frequently hilarious deconstruction of everything we love about slasher cinema. Taking the postmodern reflections of Scream and the mockumentary mayhem of Man Bites Dog one step further, Behind the Mask gleefully eviscerates the well-worn archetypes of…

SKANKENSTEIN FRANKENHOOKER (1990) Starring James Lorinz, Patty Mullen and Joseph Gonzalez Directed by Frank Henenlotter Written by Robert Martin and Frank Henenlotter Unearthed Films The original Frankenhooker VHS release had the coolest gimmick ever. It was a “talking box” – you pushed a button on the cover and star Patty Mullen would utter her catchphrase: “Wanna date?” If only Unearthed Films had duplicated that packaging for this otherwise righteous, longawaited release. Following Frank Henenlotter’s cult classics Basket Case, Brain Damage and Basket Case 2, Frankenhooker was part of a run of grimy, irreverent and politically incorrect (chiefly) 1980s New York splatter films that included The Toxic Avenger, Street Trash and Slime City. James Lorinz stars as Jeffery Franken, a scatterbrained inventor who loses his chubby fiancée Elizabeth (Patty Mullen)…

Sex is like being plunged into a strange wonderland with its own laws, full of strange creatures alternately wonderful and scary,” offers comic legend Alan Moore, who then proceeds to do what he does best: effect the unimaginable. In this case, he finds a way to discuss his newest book, Lost Girls, entirely within the confines of horror, despite it not technically belonging to the genre. Released in the US last September and available north of the border since December (following protracted negotiations with Canada Customs), Lost Girls is first and foremost a contentious work of pornography. Rightly so; in fact, Moore insists on applying the shady term – hopefully redeeming it in the process. “The idea,” he says, “was to create a work of pornography with all of the…

CREEPERS David Morrell CDS Books Best known as the Canadian who created Rambo, thrillmeister David Morrell imagines a situation most would never want to find themselves in, then plays it out to the (very) graphic end in teeth-gritting real time. With plot elements that include urban exploration in a derelict New Jersey hotel, misdirection and mutants, this page-turner is well worth your hardback bucks. Gemma Files THE CHANGING VAMPIRE OF FILM AND TELEVISION Tim Kane McFarland & Company Horror film buff Tim Kane examines the syntax and semantics of onscreen vamps through their evolution from malignant to erotic to sympathetic. But he should have looked at their style: his matter-of-fact undergraduate prose offers no delight or insight, except perhaps how to get a book deal out of your thesis…

Director Stanley Kubrick was nearly 30 years into a film career that spanned almost five decades when he made his first horror film, 1980’s iconic The Shining. But as recently uncovered manuscripts indicate, his first foray into the genre might have come much earlier, if only his filing system had been a little tidier. Seven years following his death, three new manuscripts that Kubrick had either worked on or commissioned have been discovered by his family, and will soon be committed to celluloid – more than 50 years after they were stuffed into steamer trunks and lost during his move from London to Hollywood in 1961. Written in the 1950s, the works were recently discovered by Kubrick’s son-in-law Philip Hobbs, who worked with the director for twelve years (including co-producing…

WITCH BOARD Starring Gyu-ri Kim, Se-eun Lee and Yu-ri Lee Written and directed by Byeong-ki Ahn Media Blasters Having previously directed the über-scary Phone, director Byeong-ki Ahn takes what could easily have been dismissed as yet another long-haired-ghost-girl story and ups the ante by having not just one, but two angry ghosts who dispatch their quarry with everything from fiery explosions and speeding trucks to a pair of scissors. Witch Board (Bunshinsaba) follows a group of tormented high school girls who call upon the spirit of a former student to place a curse upon their oppressors in the hopes of ending their harassment forever. The death scenes are plentiful and disturbing, as one by one the bullies commit suicide by placing plastic bags over their heads, dousing themselves with lighter…

FEBRUARY 23-MARCH 3 FANTASPORTO Porto, Portugal www.fantasporto.online.pt APRIL 5-17 BRUSSELS FESTIVAL OF FANTASY FILM Brussels, Belgium www.bifff.org APRIL 26-29 DEAD BY DAWN Edinburgh, Scotland www.deadbydawn.co.uk JULY 5-23 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL Montreal, Quebec www.fantasiafestival.com AUGUST 24-27 FRIGHTFEST London, England www.frightfest.co.uk SEPTEMBER 6-15 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: MIDNIGHT MADNESS Toronto, Ontario www.e.bell.ca/filmfest September 28-Oct 7 SHRIEKFEST Hollywood, California www.shriekfest.com OCTOBER 5-7 THE H.P. LOVECRAFT FILM FESTIVAL Portland, Oregon www.hplfilmfestival.com OCTOBER 6-7* SHOCKERFEST Modesto, California www.shockerfest.com OCTOBER 10-14 EERIE HORROR FILM FESTIVAL Erie, Pennsylvania www.eeriehorrorfest.com OCTOBER 12-21 SCREAMFEST Hollywood, California www.screamfestla.com OCTOBER 17-22 THE HOLLYWOOD HORROR SCI-FI AND FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL Hollywood, California www.hollywoodawards.com/horror.html OCTOBER 18-24 TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL Toronto, Canada torontoafterdark.com OCTOBER 25-28 RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL HORROR FILM FESTIVAL Providence, Rhode Island www.film-festival.org OCTOBER 24-28 NEW YORK CITY HORROR FILM…

Literary vampire tales nearly were bled dry in the 1990s by the sheer abundance of releases from big name scribes such as Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite. But even though zombies have now taken over as the genre’s undead poster children, the bloodthirsty still walk, hunt and make for compelling horror fiction. Just ask Jemiah Jefferson, who has carved out her own vampire niche with grisly character-driven novels. Like Rice, whose work Jefferson’s is most often compared to, the Portland, Oregon-based author – who has a BA in English and wrote her first novel-length story at age twelve – tells her tales in serial format, each novel is set in the same universe, but focuses on a different character’s conversion or destruction, allowing Jefferson to delve deeper into their…

I’m often asked just how I became “The Gore-met,” so to mark my 50th column, it’s time to pull apart the entrails of my nearly lifelong obsession with the macabre. For starters, I do not have a formal background in journalism or film; I’m far more qualified than that. My education began sometime in 1970, when everyday after school I would go down the hall to watch Ultraman at my friend Pickles’ apartment. He had a colour TV and a recent innovation – cable! Soon my house had cable too; Scooby Doo, Where are You?, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein and Star Trek filled my Saturday mornings. As I got older, my afternoons were dominated by the creature feature and monster mash marathons broadcast out of Buffalo, featuring films such…

In the wormy world of horror-themed music, writing songs about monster movies is as common as corpse rot, which is why California’s Creature Feature decided to go several steps further. Shortly after meeting at a Halloween party in 2005, Curtis Rx (vocals, guitar) and Erik X (synth, samplers) started down a maniacal path to a style that embraces horror wholeheartedly yet doesn’t sound anything like horror punk, refuses to rely on the shocking imagery of gorecore and goes beyond grim soundtrack atmospherics, yet uses elements of all these styles to tell stories. “From the very beginning, when we said that we were horror music, we really meant it,” explains Curtis. “We made a specific goal that everything we write would sound like a mini audio horror film and give the…

HIGHEST RATING IS THREE. VAMPIRE: DARK INFLUENCES Card Game White Wolf Game Studios The Prince of the Vampires has decided he’s gonna sleep for a couple hundred years and needs a worthy successor to rule the night while he takes his dirt nap. Dark Influences is the chance you’ve been waiting for to prove to all of those namby-pamby Nosferatu that you’ve got the fangs to fill the position. Interestingly, the game is all about politics; players must try to win favours, make allegiances, break promises and stab everyone else in the back as they ascend the vampire clans in a bid to reign supreme. Each player begins the game as a vampire with his or her own unique powers; for example, the conniving Ventrue has the ability to dominate…