Table of contents for Issue 108 Jan/Feb 2011 in RUE MORGUE

SYMPTOMS APPEAR TWO TO FIVE DAYS AFTER EXPOSURE. It begins with chills, malaise, muscle pain, high fever and a severe headache. Next come the painful, swollen lymph nodes, known as buboes, which appear on the groin, neck and armpits, oozing pus and bleeding if ruptured. This is followed by some combination of blood vomiting, seizures, delirium and extreme pain caused by the skin’s premature decomposition. Some of the inflicted will fall into a coma. Death occurs within two to seven days. The suffering is immense. It’s horrifying to imagine, yet plagues have happened several times throughout history, most devastatingly in the mid-1300s. Though there are no accurate figures on the number of dead – the job of recording deaths often fell to plague doctors, costumed physicians in beak masks that…

CALL IT A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC – THE BEST STUFF IN THE GENRE LAST YEAR CAME FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. Spain’s [REC] 2 scared the hell out of us, had some gnarly special effects and turned the zombie infection story inside out. Australian filmmakers similarly reworked the ever-popular vampire mythos; Britain brought us an amazingly accomplished first feature; some upstart Serbs tested the limits of festival audiences; The Netherlands did the same by introducing us to the mad science of The Human Centipede; and a French director (making an american film) set the bar for cheesy creature feature T&A bloodbaths. Of course, there were plenty of thrills from American masters too. The resilient Roger Corman and his crew put “sharktopus” in the popular lexicon; American Vampire – helped along by…

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING VAGINAS SKYLINE Starring Eric Balfour, Donald Faison and Scottie Thompson Directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause Written by Joshua Cordes and Liam O’Donnell Universal In a recent Elle magazine interview, Jessica Alba implied that actors don’t follow scripts; they just say whatever they want, as long as it’s sort of in the ballpark. If this is true, it may explain what derailed Skyline. Maybe the script started out full of nuance and wonder, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or at least rife with visceral thrills, like Cloverfield, and maybe Eric Balfour (pictured above), still drunk with power from his starring turn in Dinoshark, said, “To hell with that,” and just made everything up as he went along. Okay, so that’s probably not what happened, but…

DESPERATELY SEEKING SCORPIO. I have a long-standing fixation with the grey areas where horror and mainstream culture overlap and sometimes influence each other. My editors have been generally supportive of this pursuit, whether in my own column (River’s Edge, RM#82), a Classic Cut (Straw Dogs, RM#91) or even Audio Drome (Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony, RM#58). Hence, Dave Alexander – whose epic man-love for Clint Eastwood movies defies quantifying – needed little convincing when I told him I planned on devoting a column to Scorpio (Andrew Robinson), the sadistic serial killer in the original Dirty Harry (1971). My thesis: During the 31 years that lapsed between Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins in Psycho, 1960) and Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, 1991), Scorpio was the most iconic – and…

PITT AND THE COMPENDIUM A BLEAKER, BLACKER KING SCREAMING FOR AN EDIT INGRID PITT, QUEEN OF HORROR: THE COMPLETE CAREER Robert Michael “Bobb” Cotter McFarland Ever since her portrayal as sexy bloodsucker Carmilla Karnstein in Hammer’s 1970 classic The Vampire Lovers, the recently deceased Ingrid Pitt had set male viewers’ hearts aflutter. Imbuing her vampire with both smouldering sensuality and soft vulnerability, she was a predator that many would gladly bare their throats for. Subsequent roles in other early ’70s chillers, such as Countess Dracula, The House that Dripped Blood and The Wicker Man, would cement her reputation as a horror goddess. But perhaps lesser known is Pitt’s non-genre film work, her appearances in numerous stage productions and the fact she was also an author with several books under her…

SOUNDTRACK ALIEN RESURRECTION John Frizzell LA-LA LAND The mixed reception that befell the fourth Alien film in 1997 also affected John Frizzell’s score, maligned at the time for being too abrasive, chaotic and extreme in the way it progressed from elegant lyrical title theme statements towards a central body of blendered orchestral racket. Perhaps the pioneering Frizzell, now one of the busiest horror and sci-fi composers, was ahead of his time, because the orchestral/digital marriage on this two-disc reissue (limited to 3500 copies) still sounds amazingly fresh. La-La Land’s exceptional mastering brings out many nuances and subtleties softened in the original CD (also included on this release), as well as favourite cues saturated with gorgeous brass writing, giving this already massive score tremendous orchestral scope. Frizzell was able to assert…

DEAD SPACE 2 Xbox 360, PS3, PC EA Dead Space first terrified gamers in 2008 with its survival horror adventure, set on a deep space mining vessel overrun by alien mutations known as Necromorphs. Now, Dead Space 2 (out January 25) puts players back in the role of systems engineer Isaac Clarke, who’s suffering from a deadly form of dementia after coming into contact with the creatures. All that’s left is to try to save yourself from impending insanity, while also getting to the bottom of the sinister goings-on at The Sprawl space station and, hopefully, stopping them. DS2 producer Rich Briggs issues a warning about what new abominations await us in orbit. How have you made this installment even scarier? The things that are happening to Isaac, whether it…

LIKE MILLIONS OF FANS, I am mourning the loss of British horror star and great human being, Ingrid Pitt. She died too suddenly and too young. To me, the loss was personal as she was my friend. We were collaborating on an animated short film called Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest and a full-length documentary was to follow. The short film focuses on her true experience in the Holocaust, escaping the Nazi terror. Ingrid’s story intrigues me because it demonstrates that if one sees real horror, one is able to channel that horror, purge it and bring it to the silver screen. That’s what Ingrid Pitt did so wonderfully and that’s what made her performances so genuine. Ingrid was more than just an amazing actress – she had a kind…

Oftentimes when a plague is about to break out in humans, it is preceded by rat falls (a.k.a. a large die-off in the infected rodent population). When Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” was first published in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine in May of 1842, it was titled “The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy” and earned him $12 US. The Plague of Justinian, which lasted from AD 541 to 544, is the first known outbreak of the bubonic plague in which the characteristic buboes (swollen glands) were present. It is believed to have killed one quarter of the population of Mediterranean Europe. The logo used on the poster and box cover for 2002’s 28 Days Later is the actual international symbol for blood-borne biohazard.…

THE SERIAL KILLER HAS BEEN A FIXTURE OF ASIAN FICTION FOR MUCH LONGER THAN ONE MIGHT EXPECT. TAKE THE JAPANESE NOVEL DAIBOSATSU TOGE, FOR INSTANCE. PENNED IN 1913 BY KAIZAN NAKAZATO, IT’S THE TALE OF A PSYCHOPATHIC SAMURAI WHO TRAVELS AROUND THE COUNTRY INDISCRIMINATELY MURDERING PEASANTS, PRIESTS AND FELLOW SWORDSMEN. FILMED COUNTLESS TIMES, THE BEST-KNOWN SCREEN VERSION REMAINS KIHACHI OKAMOTO’S TRUNCATED BUT INTENSE SWORD OF DOOM FROM 1966, STARRING TATSUYA NAKADAI. In 1931 Japan’s master of erotic grotesque, author Edogawa Rampo, wrote Moju: The Blind Beast, in which a sculptor kidnaps, murders and dismembers several pretty girls. The killer incorporates some of their body parts into a grotesque statue and discards the rest in various inventive and macabre ways. Filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura delivered an adaptation in 1969 that features dismemberment…

MARCH 5 HORROR REALM CONVENTION Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania horrorrealmcon.com MARCH 10 – 13 TRANSWORLD’S HALLOWEEN & ATTRACTIONS SHOW (Wholesalers’ convention, not open to general public) St. Louis, Missouri haashow.com MARCH 11 – 13 MONSTER-MANIA CON Cherry Hill, New Jersey monstermania.net MARCH 18 – 19 SATURDAY NIGHTMARES Jersey City, New Jersey saturdaynightmares.com MARCH 25 – 27 HORRORHOUND WEEKEND Indianapolis, Indiana horrorhoundweekend.com APRIL TBA CHILLER THEATRE – TOY, MODEL AND FILM EXPO Parsippany, New Jersey chillertheatre.com APRIL 1 – 3 CINEMA WASTELAND Strongsville, Ohio cinemawasteland.com APRIL 8 – 10 MONSTERPALOOZA Burbank, California rubberroom101.com/monsterpalooza2011 APRIL 15 – 17 MOTOR CITY NIGHTMARES Novi, Michigan motorcitynightmares.com APRIL 27 – MAY 2 HAUNTCON (Tradeshow for haunted attraction and Halloween industries) Louisville, Kentucky hauntcon.com APRIL 28 – MAY 1 WORLD HORROR CONVENTION Austin, Texas whc2011.org APRIL 29 –…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE ASSEMBLES A SCREAM TEAM FOOD ISSUES RED SCREAM VAMPYRES Medicine Show Cinema Set predominantly in an inexplicably abandoned train station, this narrative mess of a film is centred on Elenora and Theodora – two sexy lesbian vampires (are there any other kind?) who pick up young men to feast upon. Trouble ensues when Theodora falls in love with an intended victim (whoops, make that one bisexual vamp), sparking a love triangle with predictable results. Although it’s rife with cool kill scenes, lots of gore and spurting blood, it’s unfortunately also rife with an inappropriate death metal score and film school cinematography (repetitive scenes, coloured filters and slow-motion footage) that looks silly and out of place. It’s been called an homage to the Euro-sleaze of Jess Franco,…

MILLIONS OF WORDS HAVE BEEN EXPENDED SCRUTINIZING, ANALYZING AND CRITICIZING EVERY METICULOUSLY CRAFTED FRAME OF RIDLEY SCOTT’S ALIEN, BUT IT’S STILL BEST SUMMED UP IN THE EIGHT USED TO SELL IT TO AUDIENCES BACK IN 1979: “IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.” The folks at Fox were going to have to try mighty hard to top 2003’s Alien Quadrilogy DVD collection, a high-water mark in both form and content. And I’m pleased to say that, in moving the series to Blu-ray – now re-dubbed The Alien Anthology – they’ve surpassed even that. What began as an unambitious B-horror script titled Starbeast by Dark Star scribe Dan O’Bannon (in collaboration with Ronald Shusett) grew and evolved as rapidly as its titular toothsome terror, becoming a global cultural phenomenon that…

DRACULA IN VISUAL MEDIA: FILM, TELEVISION, COMIC BOOK AND ELECTRONIC GAME APPEARANCES, 1921-2010 John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan Picart McFarland Since it debuted in 1897, Bram Stoker’s classic has traversed all forms of entertainment, inspiring hundreds of stage plays, films (both mainstream and adult), animated programs, graphic novels and video games worldwide. This in-depth, nicely illustrated catalogue of all known visual Draculinian works is an interesting read that will have you nostalgically digging out your Hammer box sets and Tomb of Dracula comics collection. JAMES BURRELL THE CREATURE’S CURSE Paul Braus River East Press Paul Braus’ ambitious debut novel, while brandishing a great deal of literary potential, loses its momentum in a tangle of unruly plot lines. The book combines a domestic drama about mental illness with a…

People often reminisce about times past when our society wasn’t so… morbid. The truth is, our preoccupation with death has existed long before the introduction of violent cinema and graphic video games. We’ve always been fascinated by what happens when we leave this world. The 19th century’s post-mortem daguerreotypes and images of widows draped in heavy, black gowns dominate our knowledge of mourning customs. Though many of the mourning rituals we associate with the period started centuries earlier, in different parts of the world, they really evolved into an art form in England during Victorian times. And while today’s funeral industry often feels like big business – trading sorrowful expression for capitalist sentimentality – there are still those who try to bridge the gap between the past and present. Upon…

NOT LONG AGO, IT WAS BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE THE YOUNG WEREWOLVES WERE GOING TO HAVE TO EMBRACE A MORE HUMAN IDENTITY IN ORDER TO TRANSFORM THEIR COLLECTIVE FASCINATION WITH MONSTERS INTO A VIABLE CAREER. After eight years of performing under full moons, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania trio believed it was time to consider putting the beastlier elements on the backburner. “Almost every song we’ve ever written has been strictly about monsters and we wanted to take a step beyond that this time,” explains “Shewolf” Dana Kain (bass, vocals). “I mean, they’re still in there – they’re always going to be in there – but we wanted to see if we could do something a little more mainstream.” The Young Werewolves, whose name is a spin on Mel Brooks’ 1974 movie…

Zombies are welcome to kill Down Under, so long as they don’t do anything to those of the same sex down under. This seems to be the message after law enforcement raided the home of an Australian film festival director in November, hunting for a copy of L.A. Zombie, the latest feature from Bruce LaBruce, the Canadian director known for his art house gay pornography, and, more recently, the 2008 queer zombie movie Otto; or Up with Dead People (RM#88). Seeing as L.A. Zombie features gay porn star François Sagat as an alien zombie that goes around bringing the dead back to life by graphically getting it on with their corpses, a certain amount of controversy was to be expected. Yet Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) director Richard Wolstencroft never…

1 NOSFERATU STATUE $234.99 Each piece of this limited-edition statue of the legendary Max Schreck as Nosferatu is individually painted. The detail is a fitting tribute to a horror legend – and it’s guaranteed never to sparkle in the sunlight. Schreck yourself before you wreck yourself at sideshowtoy.com. 2 ZOMBIE INVASION HOODIE $40 The concept of a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested world is, to most people, terrifying. In New Jersey, though, it’s just another day in the Garden State, and the organizers of the NJ Zombie Walk want you to survive in style. This Zombies Invade New York hoodie will keep out the chill as civilization collapses around you. Survive the siege at njzombiewalk.com. 3 GRAB A SCAB $6.50 each Next time your little monsters tear through their clothing, slap one of…

THE CHASER Starring Yun-seok Kim, Jung-woo Ha and Yeong-hie Seo Directed by Hong-jin Na Written by Won-Chan Hong, Shinho Lee and Hong-jin Na E1 Having already enjoyed massive success in South Korea, Hong-jin Na’s directorial debut The Chaser – recently released on DVD in North America – is a serial killer movie in line with the same extreme cinematic movement that spawned I Saw the Devil, only with a lighter touch. When dirty cop-turned-pimp Joong-ho Eom (Yun-seek Kim) suffers losses to both his pocketbook and his harem of ladies (who have been disappearing without clearing their debts), he starts digging around and realizes he’s just sent his best girl to the same client where the trail of missing prostitutes goes cold. He arrives at the mysterious location just in time…

IMAGINE OPENING UP THE NEWSPAPER TO FIND A CLASSIFIED AD OFFERING THE NOCHARGE OPPORTUNITY TO BE BURIED ALIVE IN A COFFIN FOR I FIFTEEN MINUTES. Back in 2005, spooky Austrian art collective Monochrom and its founder Johannes Grenzfurthner took out ads in North American newspapers offering to do just that as part of an exhibit called “Experience the Experience of Being Buried Alive.” The group travelled to Los Angeles, Vancouver and San Francisco to stage the burials, attracting lineups so long, the events had to be organized by a raffle. But it wasn’t all just a big spectacle. The group offered lectures about the history and science of determining death, and the medical history of being buried alive in what they collectively referred to as an investigation of the scientific…

YOU’RE GETTING CREEPY THE HYPNOTIC EYE (1960) DVD Starring Jacques Bergerac, Joe Patridge and Marcia Henderson Directed by George Blair Written by Gitta Woodfield and William Read Woodfield Warner Archive You won’t be getting sleepy, very sleepy when you pop in Allied Artists’ The Hypnotic Eye (1960), one of the most lurid thrillers of its day. This B-movie treat from Warner Archive is one of the studio’s wildest releases, a gruesome tale that makes good on its promise with elaborate makeup effects and stark, cramped cinematography. Police detective Steve (Joe Patridge) is having a tough time cracking a strange case; almost a dozen women can’t explain why they gave themselves disfiguring injuries, from drinking lye to sticking one’s face in a whirring metal fan. To get his mind off this…

THE LIVING DEAD 2 John Joseph Adams, ed. Night shade Books MOST TERRIFYING: “Arlene Schabowski of the Undead” by Mark McLaughlin and Kyra M. Schon An adult narrator recounts the pros and cons of playing a child zombie in a landmark horror flick. But then, almost imperceptibly, she slides into gibbering madness. By the time we witness her uncanny meeting with her younger, flesh-eating self, we should be prepared for the role reversal – but we aren’t. GORIEST GUTMUNCHING: ”Zombie Gigolo” by S.G. Browne Boasting a “permanent erection,” the undead title character services his undead clientele, with hilarious, stomach-turning results. FRESHEST TALE: “The Skull-Faced City” by David Barr Kirtley The zombie is a genuinely tragic (action) hero here. A sharpshooter named Park opts for zombiehood to infiltrate a community of…

LAST YEAR WAS A TUMULTUOUS ONE FOR THE ARTISTIC COLLECTIVE FORMERLY KNOWN AS TOETAG PICTURES. Despondent after co-founder Cristie Whiles (a.k.a. Crusty) left to pursue fashion design full time, the remaining principals – Fred Vogel, Shelby Vogel and Jerami Cruise – almost gave up their dream. Bloodied but unbowed, they reformed as Toetag Inc. and made their most ambitious and accessible film to date, Sella Turcica. “Instead of wallowing in sorrow, we killed Toetag Pictures and started the new company,” says Don Moore, whose numerous credits on the film include writing the screenplay. “Everything Toetag had worked so hard on over the years had been destroyed and we were really feeling a major sense of loss. Through think-tank like meetings, the Vogels, Cruise and I came up with the concept…

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