Table of contents for Issue 111 May 2011 in RUE MORGUE

As I write this I’m suffering through a stomach flu that’s all but turned me inside out, and the timing could not be worse for re-watching John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. Among the stomach-churning sights: a turd in a box, a “singing” asshole, cannibalism, a sexual assault that results in real poultricide, furniture licking, graphic incest, genital mutilation and, of course, the topper: Divine, in full drag, eating dog shit. John Waters’ 1972 “exercise in bad taste” didn’t come by its reputation unfairly. In our cover story, Waters describes the late drag queen star as his “monster.” Of course, while the initial sight of Divine is pretty shocking, once placed into the campy world of a Waters movie, she’s not to be feared but rather celebrated for her deviance. The monster…

Back in 2002, Steve Niles practically single-handedly rejuvenated the horror comics scene with his Alaska-set vampire siege tale 30 Days of Night, launching a career which has seen him create new series for both Dark Horse (Criminal Macabre) and IDW (Edge Of Doom and The Mystery Society). Now, he’s returning to his DIY roots for his latest endeavour, Bloody Pulp Books. A tag-team enterprise with graphic artist Alex Lodermeier, the new art-house publishing company came to be for one simple reason. “When you go to a comic or horror convention, artists always have sketchbooks, new books or, you know, personal items that they can sell,” explains Niles. “I never had that. I gotta call Dark Horse or IDW to try to get books and go through this whole process. All…

English actor Michael Gough died March 11 at the age of 94 after battling an undisclosed illness. Though the mainstream media reported that he was best known for playing Alfred in the Batman movies of the ’80s and ’90s, Gough also enjoyed a healthy run in horror films, including Hammer’s Horror of Dracula (1958) and The Phantom of the Opera (1962), and Amicus’ Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) and The Skull (1965), and Trog (1970). Angel Sala, director of the Sitges Film Festival, was recently slapped with child pornography charges by Barcelona’s Office of the Public Prosecutor for screening A Serbian Film at the 2010 festival. Similarly, Melbourne Underground Film Festival founder Richard Wolstencroft was reportedly ordered to pay $750 to the Royal Children’s Hospital by Melbourne Magistrates’ Court,…

FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER MADE A FLAT-OUT “HORROR” FILM, JOHN WATERS IS ONE OF THE MOST BELOVED DIRECTORS IN THE HORROR COMMUNITY. MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE HIS MOST MEMORABLE CHARACTERS TEND TO BE MANIACS BIRTHED FROM THE DEPTHS OF SOME GENRE SIDESHOW, AND HE’S RARELY FOUND A LINE HE WASN’T WILLING TO CROSS. From the bizarre beginnings of his early shorts, including Eat Your Makeup (1968), in which a crazed nanny forces girls to “model themselves to death,” to his last, sorely underappreciated feature, A Dirty Shame (2004), about a gang of loony sex addicts, Waters has proven himself the master of cinematic revolution and revulsion. Theatrical cruelty, madness and general degenerate behaviour form the worlds that these characters live in. For example, 1970’s Multiple Maniacs, starring Divine (a big,…

THIS MONTH MARKS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF HORROR’S GREATEST ICON, VINCENT PRICE (MAY 27, 1911 – OCTOBER 25, 1993). A true renaissance man, his passion for acting was matched only by his undying love of cuisine (he even published a number of cookbooks with his wife, Mary) and visual arts. Not surprisingly, the beloved actor was an avid art collector and gained great pleasure from sharing his collection with others. From 1962 to 1971, he partnered with Sears Roebuck to curate the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art, for which he hand-picked affordable prints from such renowned painters as Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to be sold in stores across America, thus realizing his dream of bringing art to the masses. “My father was the…

NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE DR. BLACK, MR. HYDE (1976) DVD Starring Bernie Casey, Rosalind Cash and Marie O’Henry Directed by William Crain Written by Larry LeBron and Lawrence Woolner VCI Entertainment Everything in Dr. Henry Pride’s life is white: the walls of his apartment, his Rolls-Royce, his bed, his pyjamas, his lab coat. Everything, that is, except the colour of his skin. Although rich and successful, Pride (Bernie Casey) spends one day per week in a free clinic in the Watts section of Los Angeles, where, in the words of his paramour (Marie O’Henry) – who is both a patient and a prostitute – he clears his conscience for having left the ghetto behind. While self-experimenting with a formula intended to regenerate dying liver cells, an unexpected side-effect turns…

Massive upheaval continues in horror publishing. March saw authors and literary organizations alike call for a massive industry boycott of once major mass-market publisher Leisure/Dorchester for failure to pay its talent and other contract infractions (a potential class action lawsuit is also being threatened). As a result, established horror writers are now embracing the formerly taboo act of self-publishing in order to get their work into the hands of readers (and make some bucks). I recently spoke to Bryan Smith, author of Soultaker and House of Blood, about why he decided to leap into this largely uncharted territory. As a professional author, what inspired you to release Darkened as a self-published eBook? Primarily because I couldn’t help noticing the massive success [thriller author] J.A. Konrath was enjoying self-publishing an array…

I’D HEARD RUMOURS OF ITS EXISTENCE. A monstrous band that roams the fringes of musical mayhem, fusing together bone-crushing death metal with visions of bloodthirsty ape-men and legendary giants. But it wasn’t until recently that I was able to capture tangible proof. The band is Troglodyte and its third and newest release, Welcome to Boggy Creek (available mid-May), successfully combines a highly evolved form of metal with tales of Bigfoot, skunk apes and yetis. The band’s website defines the Missouri-based quartet as “neandercore,” although essentially it is of the species Metallicum mortem (i.e. death metal), fitting into the same genus as bands such as Carcass, Obituary and Cannibal Corpse. However, when it comes to the genre’s typical themes, Troglodyte treads where very few others, if any, have gone before. “Bigfoot…

Sign up at RUE-MORGUE.COM. Email HAUNTS@RUE-MORGUE.COM. UNITED STATES AMOK TIME 2949 Hempstead TPK Levittown, NY 516-520-0975 amoktime.com BERSAL’S CHOP OF HORRORS 1815 Trawood Space D El Paso, TX bersalschopofhorrors.com COLLECTORS CORNER 7911 Harford Rd. Baltimore, MD 410-668-3353 collectorscornermd.com CORNERSTONE COMICS 980 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Ste A Anaheim, CA 800-521-9975 DARK DELICACIES 4213 W. Burbank Blvd. Burbank, CA 818-556-6660 darkdel.com DIMENSION COLLECTIBLES 10 N. Main St. Ambler, PA dimensioncollectibles.net DREAMHAVEN BOOKS 2301 E. 38th St. Minneapolis, MN 612-823-6161 dreamhavenbooks.com HORRORBLES 6731 W. Roosevelt Rd. Berwyn, IL 708-484-7370 horrorbles.com THE HOUSE OF ODDITIES 421 Spring St. Jeffersonville, IN 812-285-1185 thehouseofoddities.com KEITH’S COMICS 5400 E Mockingbird Ln., Ste 120 Dallas, TX 214-827-3060 keithscomics.com MONSTERS INK TATTOOS & PIERCINGS 3924 S. 51 St. Milwaukee, WI 414-545-6385 monstersinktattoos.com OUT OF THE ORDINARY MUSIC AND GIFTS…

whatlurksbeyond.com What Lurks Beyond claims to be “the internet’s first anthology horror web series,” offering a new tale of terror with each five to ten minute installment. Boasting good production values, the first two episodes concern a murderous husband whose wife won’t stay dead, and a woman gifted with a creepy armoire that proves to be much more than a simple closet. fountainpop.com While his site is not solely devoted to horror, Fountain Pop founder Bill Howard regularly wades into our beloved, bloody waters. Come for his frequent DVD and Blu-ray reviews (complete with technical dissections), and stay for the bonus articles and celebrity photo gallery. horror-spot.com Horror cinephiles are an obsessive bunch and Horror-Spot.com seeks to channel all that feverish fan energy into a website for sick cinema aficionados.…

LAST YEAR’S FREE, DOWNLOADABLE COMPILATION ALBUM RUE MORGUE RADIO PRESENTS…HYMNS FROM THE HOUSE OF HORROR WAS SO MUCH FUN TO STITCH TOGETHER THAT WE DECIDED TO TRY OUR MONSTROUS HAND AT IT AGAIN! Over the past year, a number of bands have caught our attention, so we asked some of ’em to lend us a song that we could pass along in the hopes that their macabre melodies will incite the same kind of incurable madness in you as they have in us. We received exclusive tracks, previously unreleased oddities, sneak peeks and killer cuts that, once mashed together with some fake grindhouse trailers (courtesy of RM staff and friends), makes for one hell of a horror set. Read on for the lowdown on each band, then click over to…

GODSPEED Robert Saitzyk godspeedthefilm.com If there’s one thing Sarah Palin and The Learning Channel have taught us, it’s that Alaska is a breeding ground for crazy, and this movie only furthers the notion. Set in a small Alaskan town, Godspeed follows a preacher of sorts named Charlie, who claims he has the ability to heal people with the power of God. His followers are unaware he’s also a philandering alcoholic, however. His life comes crashing down when his wife and son are inexplicably murdered, shaking his faith beyond repair. Six months later, the killers remain at large and Charlie’s hit rock bottom. He’s called upon by a girl who needs his help to heal her father, but things go bad and Charlie soon finds himself in trouble with a…

IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO LABEL CHILEAN-BORN SURREALIST FILMMAKER ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY A GENIUS. That term is so liberally applied today that it no longer holds much currency. In truth, he belongs to an elite group of super-geniuses, filmmakers such as George Méliès, Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick and Jan Švankmajer, who radically shattered cinematic traditions in order to accommodate their unique visions. After establishing himself in Paris as a writer, mime artist and theatre director, Jodorowsky returned to Mexico to make his first feature film in 1967, the surrealist love story Fando y Lis. But he is perhaps best regarded for his 1970 acid western El Topo, which, with the support of influential celebrity admirers such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, launched the “midnight movie” phenomenon at New York…

It’s no secret that George A. Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead was partially a critique of American society and the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. In 2006, comics writer Mark Kidwell, penciller Nat Jones and colourist Jay Fotos were inspired by this while creating their very own zombie tale. The result was ’68, a one-issue comic set deep in the jungles of 1968 Vietnam that chronicles a small US platoon’s fatal encounter with the living dead. The comic was a surprise hit and now, almost five years later, the trio is finally resurrecting the undead with a new, four-issue ’68 series from Image Comics. “[A follow-up] has been at the back of our minds for years, since the first book’s release,” affirms Kidwell. “We all knew…

STRANGE MONSTERS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST Michael Newton Schiffer The Pacific Northwest is best known for Bigfoot. However, as this book shows, there’s a staggering variety of cryptozoo creatures said to be haunting the vast forests, caves and seashores of the region. Newton packs the pages full of well-researched information and strange stories organized by creature types and locations. From Batsquatch to the Wishpoosh, this book goes beyond the simplistic monster guides to new, unexplored territories. LYLE BLACKBURN FLESH EATERS Joe McKinney Pinnacle Police officer turned novelist Joe McKinney (Dead City, Apocalypse of the Dead) returns with Flesh Eaters, another high-tension romp. As Houston, Texas is pelted by a series of hurricanes, leaks from oil and other chemical containers mix with poorly stored corpses, creating the perfect breeding ground…

“Scream for me!”-BRUCE DICKINSON Don’t have sex. Don’t drink or do drugs. Don’t ever say, “I’ll be right back.” We know there are rules to survival in a horror film. And we knew this long before Wes Craven’s Scream made them explicit for the masses in 1996. But something that the Scream franchise has also reminded us is that there are rules to horror film soundtracks, too. With the arrival of Scream 4 last month came another “Official Motion Picture Soundtrack” compilation, filled with tracks taken from the film and some samples of the score. Sadly, it’s not very scary. You could easily imagine bopping to “Something to Die For” by Swedish new wavers The Sounds at a summer BBQ, while “Run for Your Life” by London’s 6 Day Riot…

There was a time when classic horror movies were television staples, but those days are long gone. Richard Gladman hopes to change that with the Classic Horror Campaign, a movement whose lofty goal is to persuade the BBC and other networks to once again broadcast vintage horror films. “It seems that the more channels we have, the less choice we have,” Gladman says. “As a horror movie fan I realized that the only movies of this genre being screened [on television] were pretty poor mainstream Hollywood hits of the last decade or so. Where were all the classics, the black and white Universal movies, the iconic British Hammer and Amicus films and the quirky cult hits of the ’70s?” Gladman and a handful of celebrity sponsors, including Hammer veteran Caroline…

Cenobite fans, rejoice! Clive Barker has returned to the world of Hellraiser (RM#110) and, for the first time since 1987, has made it interesting again. Bored with his role in hell, Pinhead makes a deal with hell’s higher power to become human, in the hope of attaining salvation. His part of the bargain is still unknown, but it’s sure to spell bad news for Kirsty Cotton, heroine of the first two films who continues to wage her own crusade against hell’s minions. Manco’s art is stunning and his visions of the underworld fit perfectly with the look established in the movies, effortlessly combining beauty with the grotesque. While Hellraiser #1 is bound to confuse anybody not familiar with the mythos, long-time fans will be thrilled to share in Barker’s vision…