Table of contents for Issue 110 April 2011 in RUE MORGUE

If I were to organize the types of things that scare me by intensity, I could visualize them in the form of a pyramid. At the bottom would be Fiction: all those horror movies, books and other forms of art that I know can’t actually harm me and that I seek out for thrills. On top of that would be Reality: my everyday existence in which the occasional thing genuinely frightens me, such as walking down a dark alley, nearly getting into a car accident or perhaps reading a news story about a deadly new disease. Above that would be Nightmares: my nocturnal subconscious occasionally assaulting me with all manner of horrors drawn from both reality and fiction. I’ve had nightmares about drowning, monster attacks, family members returning from the…

The curtain’s rising on a tribute to the epic bloodletting of Grand Guignol theatre in the form of a new omnibus film called The Theatre Bizarre. Anthology films are a time-honoured horror tradition, but it was the non-macabre art house curio Aria (1987) that initially inspired co-director/co-producer David Gregory to develop The Theatre Bizarre for Metaluna Productions and Severin Films. In Aria, several directors (including Nicolas Roeg: Don’t Look Now) created short films with an interconnecting theme, similar budgets and complete creative freedom. While editing a featurette about that production, Gregory concluded that horror suited the concept better and, some years later, he decided to pursue the project with his film school buddy Daryl Tucker. “I’d like to think The Theatre Bizarre is a horror movie that lets its filmmakers’…

OVER THE COURSE OF EIGHT FILMS, CLIVE BARKER’S HELLRAISER FRANCHISE HAS brought a gothic aura to a series of morality plays entrenched in body horror and the occult powers of that familiar puzzle box, the Lament Configuration. Serving as our guide to the other side are the demonic Cenobites, in particular their bald, blue-skinned, nail-faced leader, Pinhead. The impartial judge for a cast of human monsters, Pinhead makes sure the sinners get schooled in the consequences for indulging their darkest desires. If one thing is certain in the ever-changing Hellraiser universe, it’s that the pleasures of the flesh eventually get balanced with a destiny of pain. Lots and lots of pain. HELLRAISER (1987) The only film in the series to be written and directed by Barker himself, Hellraiser begins in…

IT DOESN’T TAKE A BEER SNOB TO SEE THAT THERE ARE MORE CHOICES AVAILABLE FOR BEER DRINKERS THAN MOLSON, MILLER AND BUDWEISER THESE DAYS. In the years following World War II, brewers throughout the United States and Canada sought to manufacture standardized beers that could be mass-produced and delivered over wide geographic areas, sounding the death knell for the regional breweries that had reigned throughout the 1800s up until Prohibition. During the 1950s and 1960s, mega-breweries such as Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz became household brands in the US. But in the late 1970s, a beer backlash began as San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company helped popularize the art of “craft brewing,” a process that enabled exotic beer production on a smaller scale, and featured more nuanced flavours for discerning drinkers. Craft brewing…

FRYING THE COOP’ SCARLET FRY’S JUNKFOOD HORRORFEST Brain Damage Films Short films are like quickies: fast, sweet and satisfying, but only if done with care. Unfortunately, these six shorts hosted by Scarlet Fry – a rotting hillbilly with a penchant for tying wayward women to trees – don’t make the cut. While each of the cautionary tales boasts an array of colourful characters, including overweight cannibals, murderous nurses, pissed-off Satanists, pregnant girlfriends and even skateboarding stoners, and they’re full of (low-budget) gore effects, the films are disjointed, muddled, often nonsensical and set to a soundtrack that may have been created by someone beating on a Casio keyboard with a severed limb. A cameo by Alice Cooper’s sexy daughter Calico as a strung-out junkie is a highlight, but even the…

Sometimes, Long-Suffering Reader, I write about movies I first saw during my childhood or teens. Other times, things I’ve never seen before just fall into my lap, variously recommended by co-workers or Rue Morgue readers. But sometimes I’m forced to dig very deep. Delete bins, flea markets, dodgy mail-order dealers or even the dumpster out behind Last Chance Lance’s place. These spelunkings have occasionally yielded some truly unsung classics, but also some gobsmackingly craptastic, er, crap that reaches an altogether different level of greatness. This month, I welcome you to Column B. Horrors of Spider Island is a 1962 German/Yugoslavian welfare affair in which an all-girl dance troupe and its manager get marooned on a tropical island. You may ask yourself, “How do they get there?” Well, our dancers –…

THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD Christian Sellers and Gary Smart Plexus Publishing The title doesn’t lie, this is indeed a complete history of The Return of the Living Dead films, although a more accurate moniker might have been The Unnecessarily Long History of The Return of the Living Dead. At 288 pages, it’s got more padding than the Tarman has slime. As a devout fan of the series (to the point of penning the RotLD cover story for RM#71), I’m confident in saying that the nearly 50 pages dedicated to the loathsome in-name-only sequels Necropolis and Rave to the Grave are pointless. No need to have the people involved confirm and re-confirm and then re-reconfirm that parts five and six were artless cash grabs. Similarly,…

As stated in this issue’s book feature, Canada doesn’t have much of a history publishing homegrown genre titles, often forcing our authors to sell their fright fiction (and make their careers) in the US market. For a time, it almost seemed as if there was an organized effort to ensure that literary horror did not have a home in our native land, especially considering how challenging it was to get arts grants for genre projects. Yet Canadians Kelley Armstrong, Michael Slade (pseudonym of Jay Clarke and his daughter Rebecca), Gord Rollo, Nancy Kilpatrick, John R. Little, Edo van Belkom, Douglas E. Wright, Tanya Huff, Sephera Giron and many others have all made contributions to the genre – some in the form of international bestsellers, others by scooping up Bram Stoker…

SEASON OF THE WITCH SOUNDTRACK Atli Örvarsson RELATIVITY MUSIC GROUP Despite the supernatural elements, crazy performance by Nicolas Cage, and Dominic Sena’s smash-boom style of direction, Atli Örvarsson still chooses to draw musically from former mentor Hans Zimmer instead of crafting a distinct work that exploits his own knack for percussion and electronic textures, and instrumental contrasts. Season of the Witch is epic alright – the orchestra is huge, and the mixed chorus provides grace and grandeur when paired with brass – but the whole endeavour feels like a best-of pastiche. The bombastic orchestral cuts belong in a pirate movie, the moody choral motif (“Crusades”) brings the solo authorship of Zimmer’s Angels & Demons into question and the main theme’s rich harmonics (“Road to Severac”) are very close to Steve…

HENRY FUSELI 1781-ENGLAND As her dreaming mind tempts her closer to her subconscious desires, a woman in virginal white lies stretched across a bed like a sacrificial lamb. Her long, flaccid limbs and naked throat expose her vulnerable frame, upon which a vile incubus perches menacingly. The creature’s shadow falls upon bloodred curtains, showing that his ears are more like horns. Behind them, a horse thrusts its head through the darkness, eyes rolled back in wild abandon. It’s an uneasy meeting of (not quite) human and animal, where the tremble of anticipation runs wild. Intimations of sexual terror, murder, voyeurism, insanity, body horror and the supernatural in Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting The Nightmare craft a depraved and decadent mise-enscène – drawing clear parallels to literature, folklore, art history and the…

I DIDN’T SEE THE ORIGINAL I Spit on Your Grave until 2001, when I fell in love with it. Eight years earlier, I had woken up to a knife to my neck and a serial rapist on top of me. He had broken into my apartment while I slept. He raped me. I think he wanted to kill me but not in my apartment. Luckily, I was able to convince him to take my money, work cheque and jewellery and leave. The bullshit I went through after the rape – going to three different hospitals to get a rape exam, the cops telling me that I didn’t lock my door and asking what I had been wearing (but not taking the clothes as evidence), them never catching the guy –…

A 69-year-old Russian woman accidently set her home on fire after attempting to resurrect her sister – who’d died the year previous – by jump-starting the woman’s corpse with electrical wires she’d connected to its hand and neck. In The Return of the Living Dead the flopping body parts effects were created by placing battery-powered sex toys inside the foam limbs. When a Lincoln Heights, Ohio, woman was recently arrested on charges of arson, she claimed that the fire had been set during a ritual in which she was trying to remove the Devil’s presence from various items in the house. Actor Brian Cox, who played killer Dr. Hannibal Lecktor [sic] in 1986’s Manhunter, drew inspiration for his portrayal of the character from real-life Scottish serial killer/sexual predator Peter Manuel,…

To many, veteran Dutch actor Rutger Hauer is best known as an ’80s action movie icon, with a nearly equal number of hero and villain roles on his resumé. Now in his seventh decade, he’s set to star as vampire hunter Van Helsing in Dario Argento’s upcoming Dracula 3D, but it’s another new project that has him particulary excited: his role as a homeless (and fearless) vigilante in the hotly anticipated Canadian indie film Hobo with a Shotgun. While he’s already garnering an enthusiastic reception from film festival audiences for his turn in the exploitation throwback, Hauer says he isn’t interested in being part of the ongoing grindhouse nostalgia craze. “I don’t really think in genres,” he says, in a surprisingly heavy accent. “I just think in terms of what’s…

VCAR TROUBLE DRIVE ANGRY 3D Starring Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard and William Fichtner Directed by Patrick Lussier Written by Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer Millennium Films Has anyone ever taken Nicolas Cage seriously as an action hero? Someone must have at some point, but I’m hard-pressed to imagine how it started. He excelled as the loveable, hapless doofuses in Moonstruck and Raising Arizona, a loveable, hapless doofus-cum-tough guy in Wild at Heart and an emotionally devastated writer committing a slow suicide in Leaving Las Vegas. Granted, plum roles don’t come along every year, and into each career a little dreck must fall, but you’d think Cage’s ass would be sore enough from falling on it so many times in action thrillers that he’d have backed off by now. Of course,…

In the world of giant monsters, Godzilla reigns supreme. In the almost 60 years since he first roared onto screens, the giant lizard has survived encounters with overgrown moths, men in rubber suits, space aliens, Jet Jaguar, a horrendous Hollywood remake, two Saturday morning cartoon shows, the Fantastic Four, King Kong and Raymond Burr. Now, with talks that another big-budget screen remake is in the works, IDW unleashes Godzilla: Monster World, a new comic series co-written by The Goon creator Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh, with art by Phil Hester. “I’d been talking to Toho [producers of the Godzilla film series] for about a year prior to us announcing the project,” reveals IDW’s Chief Creative Officer, Chris Ryall. “It basically started with us wanting to use a lot of the…

SHIPWRECKS, MONSTERS AND MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES Ed Butts Tundra Over 6000 shipwrecks have occurred in the unruly waters of the Great Lakes. These often mysterious tragedies are the focus of Ed Butts’ book of maritime legends and supernatural encounters, a Bard’s compendium that also boasts the odd sea monster yarn and oft-told ghostly pirate tale. With a pulpy Ripley’s Believe It or Not! feel, and lots of actual historic intrigue, this collection of waterlogged terrors may make you think twice about setting sail. JESSA SOBCZUK STAGES: THE ART AND PROCESS OF JASON EDMISTON Jason Edmiston Self-Published Illustrator and RM contributor Jason Edmiston’s 32-page book gives viewers an insightful look at his traditional painting style and technique. Edmiston’s pop-art sensibilities, similar to those of Ron English and…

What would you do if two-thirds of the people in your town were killed in a gun powder explosion? It was a question to which I had never given much thought, but it was on my mind as I drove through the Portuguese countryside toward the village of Campo Maior. It was there, on September 16, 1732, that the fireworks went off. During a storm, a beam fell on a castle tower after being struck by lightning, igniting 6000 barrels of powder and 5000 rounds of ammunition; 836 houses were burned and 1076 people killed in the explosion. Many of the deceased were mutilated beyond recognition. Unable to differentiate the remains, most were put into a mass grave. They were gone but not forgotten. In 1766, the bones of 800…

“Scream bloody gore”DEATH Napalm Death. Exhumed. Carcass. Gorguts. The band names are the stuff of nightmares. The song titles (“Vomited Anal Tract,” “Fucked with a Knife”) are even worse. But the truth is, death metal makes me laugh. It’s just so overblown – the complexity of the playing so absurdly fast, the vocals distorted beyond all recognition – that despite the gruesomeness of the lyrical themes and album art, I find it hard to consider it all that terrifying. Still, three decades in, death metal remains the go-to genre for fans of both sonic terror and blood and guts, and so each time a new record comes across my desk with a title like Death at the Gates of Delirium (from British band Contaigeon) or Opus Mortis VIII (out this…

Time may be running short for Edgar Allan Poe devotees wanting to worship at the Baltimore shrine of the author of “The Raven” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” While Baltimore’s Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum has been a place of pilgrimage for fans such as Stephen King and Vincent Price, the museum’s fate seems grave indeed. The city’s debt-wracked Department of Planning has run the museum since 1977. But Baltimore has been plagued by crime and poverty for years, so keeping open an admittedly cultish tourist attraction in a dodgy part of town has made it a target in the municipal budget. Jeffrey A. Savoye, secretary treasurer and webmaster of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, says that rumours about the closure had been swirling for…

1 POIZIN WINE $80 The English poet John Milton observed that it was Bacchus, ancient god of unholy piss-ups, that first “crushed the sweet poison of misused wine” out of a handy bunch of grapes. But for whatever sweet purpose you’re misusing Poizin, this full-flavoured Californian Zinfandel will hit the spot. Down something deadly at armida.com. 2 TEMPORARY ZOMBIE TATTOOS $10.95 Your love for the shambling dead may be eternal, but if you’re not quite ready to sacrifice your skin to ’em, slap on one of these temporary tattoos instead, which give classic themes a brain-muncher twist. Get flesh-eater flash at fredflare.com. 3 BURIED ALIVE NECKLACE $125 This beautiful sterling silver pendant is partially inspired by a 19th-century folk song about a young woman who went to a winter party…

MUCH HAS CHANGED SINCE CLIVE BARKER’S GRISLY 1986 NOVELLA THE HELLBOUND HEART FIRST LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR THE HELLRAISER FRANCHISE. Barker’s story, along with the film adaptation he wrote and directed in 1987, helped spin the horror genre in a wicked new direction. But that was the last time he touched the series, which has gone on to have many sequels (see p.26 for a rundown). With his long-awaited opus The Scarlet Gospels (which Barker has previously stated will mark the end of inter-dimensional soul harvester Pinhead) still without a release date, a new monthly comic book miniseries from BOOM! Studios finds the author returning to the Hellraiser world for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. The premiere 40-page issue (out now, and featuring variant covers…

PLANET CORMAN NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957) DVD Starring Beverly Garland, Paul Birch and Morgan Jones Directed by Roger Corman Written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna Shout! Factory Many of director Roger Corman’s earliest films are overshadowed by their elaborate but slapdash monster creations – sea monsters with pingpong-ball eyes, rubber serpents and lumpy insect masks. But with Not of This Earth, the King of the B’s engaging sci-fi twist on vampire mythology, the thrifty director proves that his big screen monsters can benefit from simplicity in design and purpose. One of an astounding nine Corman films released in 1957, Not of This Earth incorporates a briefly glimpsed jellyfish creature and the disturbing image of alien eyes without pupils into a tightly scripted tale of interplanetary intrigue. The…

IT WASN’T ALL THAT LONG AGO THAT CANADA HAD VIRTUALLY NO GENRE PUBLISHING SCENE. There were occasional, well-intentioned upstarts, but not many stuck and, as a result, most of our homegrown terror talent had to look south for lucrative publishing opportunities. This has begun to change, and one of the companies behind the shift is Toronto’s own ChiZine Publications. But as Sandra Kasturi, who co-founded the press with her husband Brett Alexander Savory in 2008, explains, success isn’t always about having a big plan. Kasturi likes to joke that it all came down to “a complete lack of foresight and judgement.” But in actuality Kasturi and Savory – both published author/editors in their own right – had been running Chiaroscuro/ChiZine.com as a pro-rate online zine for over a decade and…

THE SCREENERS HAVE BEEN PILING UP at Casa del Gore-met lately, so let’s dissect a few… With all the movie sites and horror forums there are few surprises to be had anymore, so I can’t begin to describe my glee at discovering Brutal Relax, a completely over-the-top, fifteenminute Spanish splatterfest by directors Adrián Cardona, Rafa Dengrá and David Muñoz. Jose M. Angorrilla shines as Mr. Olivares, a high-strung man discharged from a sanitarium who is urged by his doctor to take a relaxing vacation. Olivares heads to an idyllic and popular beach, plopping himself down and enjoying some reggae on his Walkman. Not even a horde of green pus-spewing zombies rising out of the surf to rip apart beachgoers can break his reverie – until his Walkman batteries die. Enraged,…

LITERARY TYPES ARE PROBABLY FAMILIAR WITH THE DARKER SIDE OF NURSERY RHYMES AND FAIRY TALES. For the uninitiated, seemingly innocent children’s fare often served as a warning against everything from talking to strangers (Little Red Riding Hood) to the bubonic plague (“Ring Around the Rosie” – though admittedly this has been disputed). Some will also argue that they functioned as historical documents, such as “Three Blind Mice” supposedly referencing Queen “Bloody Mary” I’s burning of three noblemen at the stake. Chicago death metal institution Macabre has been following this folkloric tradition for the past 25 years, writing nursery rhymes about serial killers and historic mass murderers as the foundation for its extreme musical vision – most recently on the appropriately titled Grim Scary Tales (out now on Willowtip Records). “Throughout…

RIFT PC Trion Worlds Fans of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games) tired of traipsing across the mystical realms of World of Warcraft’s Azeroth can now strap on their pretty little elf booties and hike over to the newest high-quality, subscription-based (pay-to-play) title. Set on the fantasy world of Telara, players must battle a brood of bickering gods trying to destroy the planet. These destructive deities are tearing through the elemental planes that surround the realm by creating cracks and rifts that spew out hideous armies of skeleton warriors, colossal tentacled beasties and hulking dragons with razor-toothed maws eager to separate your arms from your armour. But before you can bash the baddies, you must create a character. First, choose from one of the many races that inhabit the planet…