Table of contents for Issue 226 Sep/Oct Halloween 2025 in RUE MORGUE

  Rue Morgue · 001 Rue Morgue #226 - Intro A Halloween special double issue on lost films, you say? How much could there be to say about films that no longer exist? Well, plenty, and I’ll let our cover story writers take it from there, but there’s so much more to the subject of lost films than the films themselves. We’re all familiar with that delightful anticipation that occurs in the moment before you sit down to watch a movie you’ve been dying to see. Having beheld the poster, the trailer, or the cardboard VHS cover, there’s a special sense of promise that goes above and beyond the experience of looking forward to your daily evening cigarette (I’m working on it, okay?). There’s that all-important possibility that…

WE’RE UNLIKELY TO EVER LAY EYES ON THE ORIGINAL SILENT FILM A BLIND BARGAIN, AS THE MOVIE NOW ONLY EXISTS IN THE imaginations of classic horror fans. It premiered in December of 1922 at the Capitol Theatre in New York City, meeting with a standing ovation and glowing reviews of Lon Chaney delivering what might have been a career-defining performance in his dual role as a mad scientist and one of his own experiments, a hybrid hunchbacked “ape man.” But fear not, fright fans, for filmmaker Paul Bunnell delivers what’s probably the next best thing in his modern reimagining of the tale, currently playing festivals. “I collect 16mm film and 35mm film prints, and I’ve always been a fan of the old Universal horror films,” Bunnell explains, adding that he…

CONEY ISLAND CIRCUS SIDESHOW Brooklyn, New York New York City holds much in store for the discerning horror fan, and we’re not just talking about the Ghostbusters firehouse, or the freaky Elmos in Times Square. If you’re feeling brave enough to venture past Broadway, you can take the D, Q, N, or F trains to Coney Island, where the crowds and noise will max out your senses. But keep your eyes peeled for 1208 Surf Avenue, home of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, the last permanently housed sideshow of its kind in the States. With vintage placards outside advertising “weird women,” “snakeology,” and “creep show at the freak show,” the frontage of the building alone is worth a photo op. Thankfully, this modern iteration of the classic sideshow is less…

IT WAS HARDLY A FIRST. AFTER ALL, BIG-NAME AUTHORS HAD BEEN WRITING UNDER PSEUDONYMS FOR A HOST OF STYLISTIC, FINANCIAL, AND LEGAL reasons since the dawn of publishing. In some cases, their use of pen names had been such open secrets that they scarcely counted as secrets at all, whereas others didn’t become widely known until well after the writers in question were deceased. But when Richard Bachman, credited at the time with a handful of moderately successful dark action thrillers and dystopian science fiction paperbacks, was exposed as Stephen King’s literary alter ego in the late 1980s, the news didn’t just shock King’s gigantic fan base – it actually made headlines. Stylistic considerations aside, pseudonyms have often been a simple matter of necessity for publishing house bean counters rather…

HARDLY A (TOXIC) WASTE THE TOXIC AVENGER Starring Peter Dinklage, Taylour Page and Kevin Bacon Directed by Macon Blair Written by Macon Blair, Lloyd Kaufman and Joe Ritter Legendary All the slime, almost all the gore, significantly fewer boobies (but still several), and all the pitch-dark humour with the same generous dollop of optimism and human decency at its core – that’s the short answer to what most longtime Troma fans are asking about the long-rumoured remake of the famously, fiercely, fuck-you independent movie studio’s flagship franchise. It’s unrealistic to expect any remake of such a beloved and iconic cult sensation to please all of the original’s rabid fans, and a few will doubtless come away disgruntled. But the good news (for most of us, anyway) is that writer/director Macon…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE CATCHES A KIWI IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING https://youtu.be/dWrv9Tw5cFE?feature=shared WOLVES Black Mandala My knowledge of New Zealand begins and ends with Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, which is why I was quite pleased to come across a Kiwi-based horror production house called Black Mandala which is behind the three films I am featuring this issue. The first offering is a bit of a slow-burn about a down-on-his-luck loner who decides to look into a rash of brutal animal killings in his snowy Canadian (?) neighbourhood. His investigation leads him to believe that the deaths could be the result of ritualistic sacrifices or an occult group gone mad, but what he discovers is so much worse (or less sexy, at least), that it leaves his fragile mind teetering on the brink…

I’VE STARTED TO FEEL LINK I’M LIVING IN A FUCKED-UP EPISODE OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE - SCROLLING THROUGH INSTAGRAM AND TIKTOK only to encounter the same visage replicated across thousands of different accounts. The faces that the algorithm feeds me are all starting to look alike, perhaps because I am a woman of a certain age, hag-dom imminent, cooter full of cobwebs (or at least that’s what I imagine marketing teams think of me). The same impossibly smooth skin stretched over identical cheekbones, those pillowy lips forever parted in practiced surprise, those eyes unnaturally elongated into feline points. Even on red carpets, actresses I’ve followed for years have slowly surrendered what made them distinctive. Crooked smiles? Straightened. Charming freckles? Erased. Healthy bodies whittled to skeletal walking corpses. It’s like watching…

Much of being books editor comes down to making choices, as we receive far more titles than we could ever cover. Further, because I read up to five books per issue, there’s not much time for personal reading. As such, my to-be-read pile is a perpetual teetering tower of potential death. That’s why I originally pitched this column: to be able to talk about older stuff, stuff I’m digesting late. Case in point: Valancourt Books’ 2019 reissue of Elizabeth Engstrom’s When Darkness Loves Us (1985). From the moment I finished the book’s titular novella, I jettisoned my original plan for this issue’s column, knowing I would write about this instead. The second novella cemented that feeling. Then after reading Grady Hendrix’s introduction, I wondered how I’d contain my thoughts to…

https://www.youtube.com/c/GeorgeStreicherMusic/videos GEORGE STREICHER ELECTRONIC Music For Halloween Night ENJOY THE RIDE RECORDS Is your Halloween playlist feeling a little too atonal or Carpenteresque? Need something both melodic and mischievous? We got you covered. George Streicher’s Music for Halloween Night is essentially an album-length valentine to October 31, a kid-friendly, fully orchestral romp via the kinds of beats that Danny Elfman made memorable in The Nightmare Before Christmas. You can feel that essence from the opening monologue and follow-up track, “Eye of Newt,” which mashes up the best of both Elfman and John Williams à la Harry Potter – which makes sense, given that Streicher also scored the Harry Potter video game Magic Awakened. Though it wears these influences on its wizard sleeves, that’s no criticism. Streicher aims to capture the…

WHEN I PULLED RM#225 out and saw a cover story on my all-time favourite rocker, I shrieked in delight. I saw the original band on the Billion Dollar Babies Tour in Baltimore, Maryland. Your feature had great art and Aaron von Lupton’s interview was top-notch. All praise! Love the maple leaf on the cover now, too. Not all of us in America are drinking the Kool-Aid. JONNY ANGEL, FROM THE HALLOWEEN HOUSE ENJOYED YOUR FEATURE “The Revenge of Alice Cooper.” Dear God, Alice Cooper, I believe, is 77 years old and still going strong. Alice is truly a legend and will always carry the title of being the Godfather of Shock Rock! I remember when I was in school and hearing kids say that Alice Cooper was Eddie Haskell. That was…

(Varèse Sarabande Records, Inc., 1981) After the tremendous success of John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween, it was only a matter of time until a sequel would be produced. Hitting cinemas in October 1981, Halloween II brought back many of the key players from the first movie: stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence, producer/co-writer Debra Hill, and Carpenter (who would co-produce and co-write the film with Hill but would pass directorial duties onto newcomer Rick Rosenthal). Composer Alan Howarth was approached by Carpenter to collaborate on the sequel’s score, with the resultant tracks being moodier reworkings of the original film’s musical cues. The iconic theme song, for instance, was now infused with a grandiose, synthesizer organ sound. A soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande Records in 1981, with the…

Rue Morgue · 002 Rue Morgue #226 - Made for TV Horror FOR MANY READERS OF THIS MAGAZINE, A TELEVISION IS A SCREEN LIKELY MOUNTED ON your wall that gives you access to streaming services galore, videosharing platforms, games, and more. Our more seasoned readers, however, may remember that time before the internet, VOD, or even video games, when a television set was a one-size-fits-all device that projected a wide array of entertainment from the corner of your living room. Programs that were birthed on and for TV abound, and in the genre space one need to look no further than The Twilight Zone, Tales From the Crypt or Canada’s own Hilarious House of Frightenstein. Beyond these, however, was the “made-for-TV movie,” a film specific to the television set,…

THE IDEA THAT MOVING IMAGES ARE SOMEHOW CONNECTED TO EVIL IS AN OLD ONE AND PREDATES CINEMA BY MANY CENTURIES. THE GNOSTICS HAD THEIR “FLICK-BOOKS,” whose rapidly turned pages created the illusion of movement within. Those were distant ancestors to the zoetrope, which eventually led to the Lumière Brothers’ projector. And although their name translates to “light,” some believed that something darker was behind the mechanism – that moving images could themselves be possessed by malignant forces with the power to corrupt their beholder. Enter horror movies: sometimes the genre itself was considered “a portal to something demonic” (to quote a certain Full House star), while for others the subject matter was deemed evil, e.g. William Friedkin’s realistically depicted Devil in The Exorcist (1973). In either case, the idea is…

ON THE SLAB: THEY COME AT NIGHT STRANGE CREATURES 6:26 mins/Vimeo via BullMoose Pictures Channel In the dead of night, Nell (Quinn Jackson) pulls up to an isolated cabin after driving all night and ignoring calls from her worried girlfriend. Her goal: to find the lonely payphone she traced after a mysterious call… from her dead brother. This is the delicious premise for NYC-based filmmaker Nicholas Payne Santos, who had originally conceived it as a feature but decided not to sit around waiting for funding. Though his previous works lie more in a comedy horror vein, Strange Creatures proves that he can also slay on the other side of the horror spectrum. Pulling from his personal experience of loss, Santos creates significant dread almost immediately and carries it right through…

For us horror fans of a certain age, it’s a sobering thought that Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. The circumstances surrounding the making of his 1990 remake couldn’t be more different than those of the Romero original; the latter was an expression of unfettered, boundary-pushing, independent cinematic freedom, while Savini saw his vision compromised by producer meddling and studio-mandated edits to achieve an R-rating. The result was a movie that garnered largely negative reviews and weak box-office returns. Fans know that the motivations behind remaking Night were at least partially mercenary. Romero (who scripted the new take) and his Image Ten partners John Russo and Russell Streiner (who produced) were seeking to reclaim ownership of (and yes, maybe make a little…

Grief and loss can be very powerful narrative tools, acting as a springboard to darker and more sinister events. They are very much at the centre of the Halloween Girl series, from its beginnings as a 2015 short film, to the follow-up web series, and now three graphic novels. The catalyst for the saga is the tragic death of teenage Charlotte one Halloween night. Now an angsty ghost, Charlotte and phantom goth pal Poe do battle with a secret society named The Hollow that’s determined to destroy the world. Book Three: Gods & Monsters may be the darkest Halloween Girl yet, as the ghost gals investigate a series of strange murders surrounding a young boy named Kevin. Bullied at school and regularly beaten at home by his dad, his model…

https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Dead-Star-Caitlin-Kiernan-ebook/dp/B0FBX2MJLQ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZMXOCTPNORDO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.r1C3-0YBatDHyzvZ7ga3c0UpEy-4UmbMahkmu3fL55PUKrpklUtQ0AZ7Gkz9wY5pp0S4P4k1vVynoh2t8i-K9_-z41UhjVFzbL0kFvuFg2ZMbj5ZnLB4_P44c0fhIw-si1CrasvBQLHVfyKV387C0aMbr90rK1BPoLmNPCXF4wLH6qhTqaqHtaIPGCq29Yq-gF_F506RtxcTrzCxyJECSyTeJT_WIeGpJLN-CvelWrw.iMiTEH8hUHTMk7QXKWWO2eVe4bXt7OJnxPad9aIArzg&dib_tag=se&keywords=BRIGHT+DEAD+STAR&qid=1754503917&sprefix=bright+dead+star,aps,170&sr=8-1 BRIGHT DEAD STAR Caitlín R. Kiernan Subterranean Press Caitlín R. Kiernan’s latest collection is so rich in dream material that the title of “A Travelogue for Oneironautics” could’ve served for the entire book. Many stories concern messages from deep sleep affecting the characters, with plot structures seemingly based upon dream logic – oh, and “A Buyer’s Guide to Commonplace Bizarreness” literally takes place in Lovecraft’s Dreamlands. The tales are thus part Lynchian and part Lovecraftian, but in their personal resonances entirely Kiernanian. Don’t look for the Necronomicon here; what you’ll get, instead, are powerful invocations of the aeons long before mammals. After all, our author is an expert in paleontology, geology, and comparative zoology, so when they are dealing with prehistoric finds or the ocean, you can’t be in…

https://www.amazon.com/Bring-Me-Axe-Horror-Podcast/dp/B0BVK6BQVD/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1TJM7AHLAR6WQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YgsZJc3PNXSLZz29BiTj4unBhB-nGLxvcoxJ_9SBEw-w1eA0KmEfcWHxexp9HWFls8pdPg4YF9DM6J8WyLFRRhxGUVEdHzOE5DV_O00QXSdpv-W5SAr1Dt61IWVvdoCHa1PVOwY3yIjq9qCVLb6Vq98AqhvmV2WH3weB3QVAw4gsTSFxBDlcvior1AFIQWWAWpG_S1noSSeQ8y3EisAetvYRehNKMO7n3juA9aeygbI.Oyh-gaKwww6WDsrZHf6tCG8bMTms_JJolohScDcVmso&dib_tag=se&keywords=Bring+Me+the+Axe%21&qid=1754500918&sprefix=bring+me+the+axe+%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-2 Bring Me the Axe! THEME: ’70s and ’80s Horror FORMAT: Discussion FREQUENCY: Biweekly Now that we’re more than a decade into the podcasting craze, coming up with unique show ideas while trying to stay within a genre framework is becoming a bona fide challenge for new content creators. However, sometimes it’s best to keep things simple, and forego gimmicks in favour of sticking with what you know and love. That’s exactly what brothers Bryan and David White did with Bring Me the Axe!, a tribute to the time when video rental stores ruled the night. The show focuses on the horror films that the brothers loved while they were growing up in the 1970s and ’80s (victims of the aforementioned podcast saturation problem, earlier episodes were recorded as The…

1 DEXTER EYESHADOW PALETTE $59 USD Inspired by TV’s favourite serial killer who keeps slides of his victims’ blood in a wooden case, this eleven-pan eyeshadow palette is to die for! With dried-blood mattes and knife-gleam metallics named after key Dexter characters, this limited-edition collector’s box will become the sharpest tool in your makeup kit. Lethalcosmetics.com 2 SPINDERELLA PLATFORM SANDALS $188 USD Mommy longlegs! Reach new heights (six inches, to be exact) with these spiderweb-spangled platform sandals, designed by Charla Tedrick for the wickedest of black widows. With a web mesh upper and platform wedge covered in vegan suede, they’re as cruelty-free as they are cute as heck. Shopcharlatedrick.com 3 HERESY WOODCUT BEDDING $98 USD Wouldst thou like to sleep deliciously? Ensure your dreams are as dark as your soul…

ON THE EVENING OF AUGUST 10, 1965, JUST BEFORE TEN, A WORKER ON THE MGM STUDIO LOT IN CULVER CITY HEARD A LOUD SOUND. IT TURNED OUT TO BE THE EXPLOSION OF film vault number seven, where just moments before, a spark from an electrical short ignited a reel of nitrate film. The resulting heat was so intense that the six-inch concrete roof collapsed on top of the hundreds of film reels stored there, mostly silents and early talkies. The blaze burned into the night and none of the films survived. Among them was the only known copy of a film called London After Midnight. Fans of classic horror are still reeling from the blow. After all, London starred the great Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces himself,…

THE HISTORY OF CINEMA IN THE PHILIPPINES IS ALMOST AS LONG AS THAT OF CINEMA ITSELF, BEGINNING WHEN ANTONIO RAMOS INTRODUCED MANILA TO THE CINEMATOGRAPH IN 1897. AND YET, OF THE approximately 350 films produced in the Philippines pre-WWII, all but four have been lost or destroyed during the myriad horrific wars and colonial occupations that have rocked the nation over the decades. In the Philippines, film history is haunted: no silent films remain. With his debut feature, Posthouse, Nikolas Red is inviting audiences to a seance to stir those voices. The youngest in a family of influential filmmakers (his father, Raymond, and brother, Mikhail, have both left their mark on the nation’s cinema), Nikolas wrapped production last spring and is eager to fill in these gaps in his country’s…

Rue Morgue · 004 Rue Morgue #226 - The Backrooms ASK ANY REAL FAN WORTH THEIR SALT – ONE OF THE CREEPIEST MOMENTS IN HALLOWEEN (1978) COMES AFTER THE MAYHEM CAUSED BY MICHAEL MYERS. Just before the credits roll, as John Carpenter’s iconic theme song plays, we see the spaces where The Shape had raged just moments before – a living room, the top of a shadowy staircase… now dark and empty. Today, scholars of online aesthetics might term this unique unease at vacant settings to be caused by ‘liminal spaces’ – abandoned places where the emptiness and calm engenders a sense of surreal dread. And while examples of its use abound in the horror genre, the most prominent modern example of creepy liminal space emerged from the internet…

Rue Morgue · 005 Rue Morgue #226 - Deathstalker THEY SAY IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP, BUT ASK FILMMAKER STEVEN KOSTANSKI, THE DIRECTOR BEHIND SUCH MOVIES AS PSYCHO Goreman and Frankie Freako, and he’ll say the opposite is true. Whether he’s collaborating with the other members of the Astron-6 film collective (including Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, and Conor Sweeney) or surrounding himself with little rubber monsters of his own creation, there’s always someone nearby, ready to lend a hand (or tentacle) to his latest effort, and he’s happy to bring others into the fold. “I like putting my friends in my movies,” he tells Rue Morgue from his home office, crowded by monster costumes and puppets from his films. “It’s fun to just kinda loop them into…

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1315320/The_Necromancers_Tale/ THE NECROMANCER’S TALE PC, MacOS PsychicSoftware, Spiderwinkle Games Do you enjoy practicing black magic in graveyards in the dead of night? How about raising skeletal armies and investigating suspicious deaths? If that sounds like a dream job, then The Necromancer’s Tale, a new turn-based RPG that’s absolutely steeped in the dark stuff, has you covered. After choosing the level of difficulty (story mode, balanced, or strategy mode) and playing through the interactive prologue, which introduces the game’s lore and helps determine the character’s skills and traits, players are unleashed on the 18th-century town of Marns. Arriving just days after your father’s untimely passing, you must explore, get a job, uncover the community’s shady secrets, and learn the dark arts, all while keeping your activities secret from the locals because…