Table of contents for Issue 112 June 2011 in RUE MORGUE

Heather Langenkamp is no stranger to being in front of the camera but most horror fans don’t realize that she’s very comfortable behind one, as well. The Nightmare on Elm Street star and her husband, Oscar-winning special FX artist David Leroy Anderson, own and operate AFX Studio, a California-based FX house whose long list of credits includes the Joss Whedon creature feature Cabin in the Woods (awaiting release) and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake. Recently, Langenkamp added “documentarian” to her resumé with I Am Nancy, a 71-minute film that examines her role as Nancy Thompson in the ever-popular NoES franchise. The idea for the project was born in 2009, during the NoES 25th anniversary frenzy that also inspired the documentary Never Sleep Again. When Langenkamp agreed to serve…

JAPAN HAS A WELL-KNOWN LEGACY OF FILMS THAT CELEBRATE ULTRA-VIOLENCE AND GORE, DEALT OUT BY A VARIED GROUP OF QUIRKY KILLERS WHO GENEROUSLY PEDDLE PAIN. Vengeful ghosts, mutant monsters, brutal gangsters and unexpectedly savage schoolgirls are but a few of the memorable sadists to paint the screen red. These also happen to be some of the stock characters of Sushi Typhoon, a new Japanese studio that was established in 2010 in order to produce and distribute the inventive depravity of the directors of such films as Ichi the Killer, Tokyo Gore Police and Suicide Club – works that are also at the forefront of the decade’s most diverse and imaginative splattercore. Sushi Typhoon is the latest experimental offspring of Nikkatsu Studios, the oldest production house in Japan, whose track…

RUBBER Starring Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick and Roxane Mesquida Directed and Written by Quentin Dupieux Magnolia To label Rubber as merely an unconventional horror film would be an unfortunate understatement. Even in a genre populated with RoboGeisha, Sharktopus and a Killer Condom, Quentin Dupieux’s (a.k.a. French electronic musician Mr. Oizo) absurdist horror-comedy Rubber follows a very strange anti-hero: a killer tire. But this clever film is also a commentary on the different ways audiences interact with movies and the many expectations we have as horror fans. As Lieutenant Chad (Stephen Spinella: Ravenous) explains in the opening monologue, Rubber is meant as an homage to “no reason.” (“Why is E.T. brown? Why did the characters in Love Story fall in love? No reason.”) This starts to make more sense as two…

WHO GOES THERE? THE NOVELLA THAT FORMED THE BASIS FOR THE THING John W. Campbell Rocket Ride John W. Campbell’s pivotal and claustrophobic 1938 novella Who Goes There? – about aliens who hide within us – is back in print, with the addition of a compelling introduction by author/screenwriter William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run), who also provides his never-before-published original screen treatment for inclusion. Now you can get a glimpse at what The Thing (1982) might have looked like with a quirkier, sci-fi edge. JESSA SOBCZUK THE GATHERING Kelley Armstrong Doubleday Canada Best-selling author Kelley Armstrong kicks off her second young adult trilogy with The Gathering, which sees teenage Maya attempting to unravel the mysteries of the medical research town she lives in – among them, what dragged her…

I turn the corner of New York City’s Madison Avenue and 36th Street, and there it is: the hearse, in all its gleaming retro beauty, parked on a quiet side street just south of the famed Morgan Library. I wonder vaguely if mysterious industrialist J.P. Morgan will figure into the “living history of New York’s deceased” that I’m about to experience. As it turns out, this is just a handy place to park because you can then hook around the block, head west, and you’re at the Empire State Building, which Drew Raphael, owner and guide of Dead Apple Tours, describes as our “jumping-off point.” It’s that kind of presentation, with Raphael assuming a persona that’s part ironically schmaltzy emcee, part genuine aficionado of the macabre and part Crypt…

“Ain’t no grave can hold my body down.”TRADITIONAL Road trips are the best time for listening to music. I like to synch my soundtrack to the journey, too, so on a recent trip from Toronto to Tennessee I switched over to country radio. Classic outlaw songs by the likes of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard reminded me of how bloody and nasty that genre can be, even if most of the horror is in real-life cheating and beating rather than monsters There are bands that take olde-tyme twang and set it to scary stories, though. Our Texan friends Ghoultown rule at this, as does Southern Goth duo Those Poor Bastards. You can add to that list The Pine Box Boys. Calling themselves “Genuine Arkansas Horrorbilly,” these four gents –…

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 OUT OF THE ORDINARY MUSIC AND GIFTS 733 Monongahela Dr. Glassport, PA 412-672-2323 TATE'S COMICS + TOYS + VIDEOS +…

I AM A LONG-TIME fan of horror and of the work done at Rue Morgue – the well-written articles and information I have received over the years have been nothing less than amazing. Rue Morgue often discusses films or topics of which I am most interested, including organic effects such as those done in ’80s (or older) horror features. When I purchased RM#111, featuring a well-done piece of art (a portrait of John Waters), it wasn’t the cover that stood out but what I found a few pages in: a small cartoon of famous horror movie monster Freddy Krueger standing over two possible victims with a somewhat ashamed look on his face. Justly titled Necronomicomic, it nearly made me burst out laughing and I am intrigued to know whether or…

A New Zealand man struggling with depression recently cut off his own finger, fried it up with some vegetables and then ate it. This act of “self-cannibalism” is so rare that there are only eight cases on record worldwide. A trio of disgruntled ex-M. Night Shyamalan fans have launched a website called M. Night School (mnightschool.org) where people can donate funds to send the writer/director of The Sixth Sense and Signs back to film school so that he may hone his craft. An elderly couple from Texas was killed by an agitated swarm of bees in April after they attempted to remove a nest from the fireplace in their home. One of the victims was stung more than 300 times. On February 21, 2005, the body of celebrated dark artist…

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE WRITER/DIRECTOR CHARLES KAUFMAN WASN’T MUCH OF A HORROR FAN WHEN HE SHOT 1980’S MOTHER’S DAY. Given that the splattery satire is the most notable entry in his short filmography, not to mention he’s brother to Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, one would expect horror cinema was simply part of plying the family trade. “[Mother’s Day] was really motivated by the amount of money that I could raise,” admits Charles. “At the time, there were only three types of films that you could make for that. One would be a brilliantly written and directed independent film, which…I’m not that good. The second was a porn film, which I didn’t want to do. And the third was a horror film, of which there hadn’t been one in quite…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE GETS CHEMICAL BURNS ROT ’N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL MELVIN Chemical Burn Entertainment Remember high school? If you’re like me [Nobody’s like you, Lance – Ed.], you’re probably trying to forget it. If you’re still there, don’t worry – it’ll be over soon enough. But if you’re a glutton for punishment and still yearn for bullyfilled hallways and claustrophobic classrooms, put Melvin on the list of assignments you might actually enjoy. When a schoolyard prank goes horribly wrong, the titular nerd gets killed, only to rise from the grave three years later to enlist the aid of another dweeb named Norton to exact his revenge. Though it could’ve degenerated into a loathsome ghost revenge story, Melvin is a surprisingly clever movie-within-a-movie featuring Tromaville’s one and only Lloyd…

WAKING NIGHTMARES THE BLACK SLEEP (1956) DVD Starring Basil Rathbone, Herbert Rudley and Lon Chaney Jr. Directed by Reginald Le Borg Written by Gerald Drayson Adams and John C. Higgins MGM While it’s often necessary to place a classic horror film in an appropriate historical context to fully understand its impact and importance, sometimes this perspective can actually diminish appreciation. The Black Sleep, for example, boasts an all-star cast of Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine in an engaging mad scientist tale bursting with Gothic settings and dark secrets. But while audiences of the 1950s likely considered the whole exercise a little old-fashioned, The Black Sleep works much better for modern viewers, who are less likely to unfairly condemn it for being made a decade later…

Sometimes owning the best home video version of a film isn’t enough: sometimes you need to own a piece of the history around it. Collecting vintage memorabilia is an exciting hobby with all of the thrills and chills of the films that inspire it. Or, more accurately, what the promotional material displayed in theatres promises, which is what I like to collect. The likelihood I’ll ever get my hands on something like the prop gun Richard Johnson used to blow the brains out of the corpse rising off the examination table at the beginning of Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1979) is pretty slim. An actual 35mm print would be more realistic, but hardly practical. However, as the wonderfully aged one-sheet once used in a theatre in El Salvador to advertise…

FOR THOSE RAISED IN THE 1980S METAL SCENE, THE UNDERGROUND CULTURE OF LETTER WRITING, TAPE TRADING AND ZINE EDITING MIGHT JUST BE A BLISSFUL MEMORY. For Norway’s Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen, however, it was a way of life for 25 years. Having edited Slayer Mag (named after the rare 1982 horror flick The Slayer) from February 1985 to December 2010, Kristiansen has embodied the true spirit of the D.I.Y. mentality, while becoming known as the godfather of the Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal scenes. Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries (available June 6 from Bazillion Points Publishing) is a massive, first-hand account of the editor’s turbulent life, and his dedication to the cut-and-paste zine craft. The 744-page hardcover tome revisits Slayer Mag’s semi-annual, twenty-issue history in great detail, including articles,…

Three years ago this month, visual effects/makeup artist Stan Winston lost his long battle with a form of cancer called multiple myeloma. Now, a new school bearing the name of the man celebrated for his work on the likes of Aliens, Monster Squad, the Predator and Terminator series and Pumpkinhead (which he also directed) is set to open its virtual doors later this year to those who want to follow in his footsteps. In July 2010, the Winston family, collaborating with many of his former proteges, announced the creation of the Stan Winston School of Character Arts. “After about a year and a half of grieving him, we all decided we had to do something positive to turn all that sadness into a celebration of Stan,” says his son,…

1 BATHROOM SKULLDUGGERY TOILET BOWL BRUSH $29.95 If the thought of cleaning the bathroom fills you with total revulsion and dread, this skull-shaped toilet brush set may not make the task any less grim, but it’ll brighten your day as well as your precious porcelain. Stoke a bowl at designtoscano.com 2 ANDRÉ LASSEN CUTLERY £900 GBP You might have to forego takeout for a while to save up for it, but this stunning cutlery set from Dutch sculptor Andre Lassen – adorned with long-tailed skeletal figures – will give any ol’ dish a gothic banquet vibe. Available in stainless steel or bronze. Feast your eyes at www.raven-armoury.co.uk/lassenset.htm 3 SILVER BONE JEWELLERY $95 – $1200 Celina Saubidet believes that bones look better on the outside of your body, which is why…

IF YOU’RE A FAN OF THE PARANORMAL, AND YOU HAVE AN AVERSION TO OPERA, YOU MAY WANT TO RETHINK THINGS. Séance on a Wet Afternoon, a “psychological thriller in two acts” based on a 1964 British film of the same name (which in turn was adapted from Mark McShane’s 1961 Edgar Award-winning novel), is anything but boring. Given the lineage, one might expect a dated stage production, but director Scott Schwartz makes it clear that his nearly three-hour opera – which debuted in Santa Barbara, California, in September 2009, and recently completed a successful run at New York City Opera – has been retro-fitted to suit modern audiences. “It is imperative in opera, or any art form, to speak to the time in which it is being performed,” says Schwartz…

GHOSTFACES FROM THE PAST SCREAM 4 Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette Directed by Wes Craven Written by Kevin Williamson Dimension Part of me balks at the idea of damning Scream 4 with faint praise, but since Wes Craven himself has already damned it with faint disdain, I guess I’ll go ahead. After Ehren Kruger (Scream 3) was brought in to rewrite original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson’s script, Craven tactfully – yet bluntly – stated that Scream 4 felt like a case of applying his personal touch to someone else’s work. The good news is, this long-awaited installment (which doesn’t seem to credit Kruger after all) is a damn sight better than the bad omens would suggest. Sidney (Neve Campbell) is back in Woodsboro, the last stop on…

ONE NEED ONLY LOOK AS FAR AS THE PAGES OF RUE MORGUE TO SEE HOW CONTEMPORARY MOVIES SUCH AS A SERBIAN FILM, ENTER THE VOID, A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE AND EVEN THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE ARE EVOLVING THE GENRE THROUGH TALES THAT PUSH THE ENVELOPE IN DEPICTING APPALLING, OFTEN BIZARRE HORRORS COMMITTED BY HUMAN MONSTERS. British writer/director Simon Rumley is one purveyor of such strange, affecting cinema, and his fifth feature, Red, White & Blue (which hit DVD on May 17 from IFC Films), is a raw, hopeless shard of Americana that will not go down easy. Though Rumley is reticent to call his latest revenge flick an outright “horror” film, he does concede that it all depends on your definition of the term. “It’s an investigation into the depths…

Being the unrepentant genre bibliophile that I am, I know with a sick certainty that there are shockingly original, boundar y-pushing works of literary horror out there that I’ll only get to experience if someone someday sees fit to translate them. One such mind-boggling, how-did-I-not-know-about-this book recently landed on my desk. The first page had me hooked. It was, and I’m not aggrandizing here, unlike anything I had ever read. Le Nécrophile (a.k.a. The Necrophiliac) is a French-language novella penned in 1972 by Gabrielle Wittkop (1920 – 2002), a writer who was born in France but spent much of her adult life in Germany. By most accounts, Wittkop was an unapologetic eccentric with an anti-social streak who chose to live life on her own terms. She also had a long-held…

SOUNDTRACK AUDREY ROSE Michael Small KRITZERLAND One of the leading film scoring talents in America during the ’70s, Michael Small (The Stepford Wives) excelled at creepy, sparse scores with fluid, sudden mood shifts. After Audrey Rose’s “Main Title,” Small’s genteel theme is stripped down to its bare harmonic elements, with a decelerating tonal rapping on cimbalom (a type of dulcimer) providing an ongoing motif, and chords that stop short of coming to any formal rest. An eleven-note pattern also forms the anchor point for two contrasting concepts: what a vulnerable character is feeling, and whatever spiritual force lies just a few scenes away (characterized by a deranged glass harp and weird dripping effects). Sonically balanced, despite being culled from two reels of isolated mono mix stems, Audrey Rose is among…

CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS ESCALATION DLC Xbox 360, PS3, PC Activision/Treyarch When Call of Duty: World at War introduced the first Nazi Zombies map, Verrückt (German for “crazy”), gamers and horror fans alike found something to celebrate. The premise was simple: survive. There was no set-up and no cumbersome explanation to interfere with the sheer enjoyment of taking down wave after wave of Nazi zombies. Unfortunately, the gameplay in the series’ subsequent undead add-ons became repetitive: board the windows, shoot the zombies, board the windows up again, shoot some more and so on. Last month brought another downloadable expansion pack, Escalation, which has five new maps, and, yes, it includes another zombie map, Call of the Dead. However, this time the developers have cooked up something special, as…