Table of contents for Issue 120 March 2012 in RUE MORGUE

I recently walked into a specialty magazine store that I hadn’t visited in quite a while; it’s been open for more than 100 years, yet what was once a bustling place crammed with long shelves of magazines from all over the world has now been reduced to something akin to one of those emptied retail outlets you see in an apocalypse movie – the remaining titles spread out to hide the inventory shortage. It’s a sign of the times for the publishing industry. Those magazines that haven’t gone under have shrunk considerably in the past few years. Remember Rolling Stone in the ’90s, when it was approximately four times the size it is now? The entire publishing world is in the midst of a sea change and the waters are…

LET’S GET SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY RIGHT OFF THE HOP: THERE IS NO COMEDIC VALUE IN THE ACT OF RAPE. Sexual intercourse with an unwilling participant under the threat of violence is, outside of outright murdering someone in cold blood, arguably the greatest violation one human being can inflict upon another. And yet, in the hands of prolific filmmaking collective Astron-6 – which taps the taboo subject, not to mention the asses of many a poor dad, for their ludicrous debut feature Father’s Day – the normally subversive topic is spun into gory, grindhouse comedy gold. But before you write off the film as the tasteless dreck that it certainly could’ve been, and at face value appears to be, you should know that the multi-talented members of Astron-6 –…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE COURTS SOME KOOKY KILLERS BLOOD RELATIONS MY STEPDAD’S A FREAKIN’ VAMPIRE! Level 33 Entertainment As far as demented killers go, stepfathers are pretty lame unless you’re talking about Terry O’Quinn’s turn as Jerry Blake in The Stepfather (1987). That’s probably why the makers of this film had to step up their game by making the stepdad a vampire – and no ordinary vampire either: he’s king of the vampires! When a high school student discovers that his new stepdad’s a bloodsucker who’s raising an army to rule the world, he recruits his guidance counsellor and a couple of friends to stop them dead in their undead tracks. Awkward title and odd premise aside, it actually has some decent special effects and overall production value. And without…

EVERYONE LOVES A GOOD TRAIN WRECK: WHY WE CAN’T LOOK AWAY Eric G. Wilson Farrar, Straus and Girour How can you like that stuff? It’s a question many horror fans have heard from well-meaning parents, friends, spouses and others who turn away from the gore, the gloom and other dreadful things. In his new book Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away, Eric G. Wilson, a professor of English at Wake Forest University, frames his conflict over his morbid fascination as an internal struggle between “Look” and “Don’t look.” “Don’t look,” say the well-meaning scolds, but also some of the scholars that Wilson surveys in this slim, compelling book. An interest in the darker side of life leads to a lack of compassion, they argue. Wilson…

NO ONE APPRECIATES THE SHORT STORY MEDIUM MORE THAN HORROR FANS. It can be argued that short fiction has shaped the genre like no other form of storytelling, with some of horror’s most beloved figures – Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James – remembered almost entirely for the short stories they left behind. You might not think of Karl Edward Wagner in the same esteemed company (if you think of him at all), but a new, two-volume collection could change that. The Best Horror Stories of Karl Edward Wagner, out this month from Centipede Press, collects the author’s most noteworthy horror and dark fantasy tales, many of which have been out of print and nearly impossible to find in the seventeen years since Wagner’s death at age 49. “Writers…

SOUNDTRACK INSIDIOUS Joseph Bishara VOID RECORDINGS If you’ve seen Insidious, you already know that two of the scariest elements of the film are the music and the “Lipstick-Face Demon.” But could you guess that composer Joseph Bishara was responsible for both? Yep, as if laying the foundation for the haunted-house chiller with these 26 pieces of squealing tension and paralyzing unease wasn’t enough, Bishara also donned that terrifying offspring-of-Darth-Maul makeup. And listening to his full score proves no less taxing. Whether it’s the growling of some low-lying ugliness in wait (“Gas Mask Vision”), the high-pitched skittering we typically associate with tiny creatures scuttling across the floor (“Slithers into Fog”), or what feels like death by a thousand cuts from a flurried string section (“He’s Looking at Us”), Bishara essentially incites…

Love him or hate him, King Diamond sure can tell a story. There is also no denying the corpse-painted one’s iconic status within the heavy metal pantheon, despite diverging opinions regarding his patented, wailing falsetto. Whether he was laying down the black metal prototype with his band of satanic maniacs Mercyful Fate, or regaling fans with ghoulish, macabre concept albums under his eponymous band moniker, King Diamond’s image, voice and persona have resonated with devotees of heavy metal for more than 30 years. When it comes to his solo career, however, one album in particular has captured fans’ collective imagination and obsession – a record that still serves as a career apex for the Danish dynamo born Kim Bendix Petersen. Originally released in 1987 (one year after his solo debut…

I’M WRITING in regards to a filthy little father-raping Canadian film I saw late last year at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival [where it premiered]. Father’s Day is independent filmmaking at its finest, and a creative landmark in Canadian genre filmmaking. My point in contacting you is for one purpose: this film needs a cover story. You know it, I know it, and however many attendees of the fest who voted it best feature-length know it. If Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun deserves a cover story, then this one certainly does. Astron-6 will surely escalate to greater things, and Rue Morgue should be the first to tackle this talented troupe. Thanks! MIKE NOSANCHUK – CALGARY, ALBERTA [It’s your lucky day, Mike. Enjoy. – Ed.] SOMEHOW ENDED up in…

1 T-SHIRT BORDELLO TEES $14.99 We genre fans have a profound, even quasi-spiritual, relationship with our T-shirts, and the selection at T-Shirt Bordello is sure to stir the yearnings of your twisted soul. Their “Walken Dead” shirt, for example, is pretty much unfuckwithable. Flaunt your fandom at tshirtbordello.com. 2 ZOMBIE HEAD DECANTER $19.95 What better way to become the postapocalyptic Hugh Hefner than with an 800ml glass decanter in the shape of a zombie noggin? It’ll add a serious touch of class to any bunker bar. Give new meaning to the phrase “headshot” at amazon.com. 3 FRILLS AND MORBIDITY CHARM BRACELETS $20 These beautiful horror-themed charm bracelets designed by Toronto artist Paige Reynolds are hand-crafted from either silver or white-gold chain and a selection of creepy charms. Whether you’re feeling…

Anne Rice is the author of 31 books. Books about vampires, witches, mummies and ghosts. Books that have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, making her not only one of the most commercially successful genre authors ever but one of the most popular living writers – period. Since the publication of Interview with the Vampire in 1976 (a book that the Horror Writers Association has just nominated, alongside Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, for Best Vampire Novel of the 20th Century) Rice has, not unlike King, reshaped the world of mainstream fiction to include a great many things that go bump in the night. She excels at updating our favourite mythological creatures with original characteristics in order to tell epic tales of good…

GO BIG OR GO HOME GODZILLA (1954) Blu-ray/DVD Starring Akira Takarada, Momoko Kôchi and Takashi Shimura Directed by Ishirô Honda Written by Ishirô Honda, Shigeru Kayama and Takeo Murata Criterion Dragging his colossal lumpy tail out of the sea, flattening buildings under stomping foot, crushing train cars between his incisors like so many sausage links, the King of the Monsters is back to wreak his merciless wrath upon peaceable postwar Japan in Criterion’s release of Ishirô Honda’s mighty Godzilla (or Gojira, if you prefer the phonetic). It’s still hard to believe how bold, even audacious, a project Godzilla was back in 1954, the year of its original release, less than a decade after the US’ atomic decimation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the aftermath of which Honda beheld firsthand when he…

It’s been a little over a year since the publication of Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, which saw the notorious author portrayed as a six-year-old boy on adventures with his tentacled pet, Spot (a.k.a. Cthulhu). Writer Bruce Brown’s aim was to craft a story that could be loved by hardcore Lovecraft fans while simultaneously introducing a new generation to the writer. Mission accomplished. Frozen Kingdom proved to be a surprise hit and managed to attract exactly the kind of audience Brown was hoping for. “I have heard from countless parents who loved the fact that they finally had a book they could share with their children and introduce them to the world of H.P. Lovecraft,” says Brown. “Many went on to say that it is a book they wish…

WELCOME TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE FRIGHT GALLERY. There’s so much incredible horror-related artwork lurking about these days, we figured it was high time we devoted a column to it. First up: a look at the world of alternative horror movie posters, which has exploded in recent years, with artists and cinephiles taking back the medium to produce imaginative imagery for some of our favourite genre movies. The work has gone far beyond “fan art,” as film studios are now beginning to embrace these collectibles as alternates to the overly Photoshopped floating-head posters that we’re used to seeing for mainstream releases. “Honestly, I hate the term ‘fan art,’” says Roger Erik Tinch, of online poster archive reelizer.com. “That’s why on Reelizer, the pieces that would be considered fan…

Ah, the artistic gamble that is the concept album. For every genius stroke of long-form musical storytelling such as Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare, Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral or King Diamond’s Abigail (see p.62), there seems to be an equal number of failed experiments, reviled by fans and critics alike for being overly ambitious (Judas Priest’s Nostradamus), scary for all the wrong reasons (Lou Reed and Metallica’s collaborative career suicide attempt Lulu), or just plain embarrassing (KISS’ Music from The Elder). But what really perks up my pointed ears is when a band not necessarily tied to the horror genre is drawn to the dark side by a tale that requires a whole album to tell (for example, The Mars Volta’s De-Loused in the Comatorium). Indiana noisecore…

A long-lost 22-minute TV pilot titled “Final Curtain,” directed in 1957 by B-movie icon Ed Wood, was recently discovered in the archive of a private collector. The episode for a proposed anthology series, to be called Portraits of Terror, is said by some – Wood fanatics, of course – to rival Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. The filmmaker had intended Bela Lugosi to star in the production, but the 73-year-old actor passed away while reading the script… or so Wood claimed. After a two-year search, the damaged print was located by Jason Insalaco, the nephew of Wood’s friend and stock company member Paul Marco, who died in 2006 before he could find the missing film. (Marco appeared in many of Wood’s films as a policeman named Kelton.) “I realized Uncle…

MOMMY MEANEST THE WOMAN IN BLACK Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer Directed by James Watkins Written by Jane Goldman Alliance The Woman in Black is a joyless film. That’s not to say it isn’t captivating and creepy, because it absolutely is, it’s just bleak as all hell, and it wouldn’t have the same resonance if it wasn’t. It opens with three young girls leaping to their deaths from an attic bedroom after laying eyes on something offscreen. Following that, we meet Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a widower still very much in mourning after his wife died during childbirth. Things are not going well for him at work either, and his boss gives him one final chance to shape up: he must travel to the rural community of…

CRITERION MAY BE FÊTING GODZILLA on his 58th birthday with a new hi-def version of Gojira, the film that started it all, but the big green guy will undoubtedly take it in gargantuan stride. After all, he knows he’s king of the monsters, and he’s proven it almost 30 times over the last five decades. The atomic breath-spewing prehistoric terror is not only one of Japan’s best known cultural exports, but he’s appeared in more films than Jason Voorhees, Dr. Zaius and Harry Potter combined. Godzilla’s longevity is attributable both to the never-ending novelty of watching giant creatures crush miniature cities, but also to audiences’ constant re-evaluation of the character and Toho’s films. While Japanese viewers have thrilled to the decades-long evolution of Godzilla, Western fans now have access to…

Question: What’s 1574 pages, more than 700,000 words long, covers an entire century and has taken thirteen years to birth? Answer: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, an exhaustive two-volume look at the best stories published between 1901 and 2000. Editor John Pelan explains how this monster tome came together. “[Cemeter y Dance’s] Richard Chizmar approached me at the second Horrorfind [convention], in ’99. He said, ‘You’re probably the only person who could do this, but would it be at all possible to put a book together picking the best story each year going back to 1900?’” Once Pelan confirmed that the only restraints would be time and money, Chizmar gave him carte blanche to assemble the anthology. It was a dream project that took three years to complete, and almost…

The term “guilty pleasure” implies shame in enjoying something for its technical and artistic shortcomings. I much prefer the classification “so bad it’s good,” which definitely applies to legendary 1988 slasher 555. This relic of the home video era is the lone directorial credit for the late Wally Koz, who reportedly looked at the shot-on-video junk clogging rental store shelves and felt he could make a movie too. His wife Linda agreed, serving as associate producer and second unit director, and his brother Roy penned the script. The film opens like Blood Feast (1963) and Maniac (1980) – a couple getting carnal on the beach at night is slaughtered by a mysterious assailant. The two detectives assigned to the case, cranky Sgt. Connor (Greg Kerouac) and Det. Haller (B.K. Smith),…

AMY Playstation Network VectorCell With the limited selection of downloadable horror games available on the Playstation Network, PS3 gamers were chomping at the bit for something fleshier to maw on. Amy, VectorCell’s horror survival-strategy game, not only promised to be immersive and challenging, it also boasted that it’d deliver a truly terrifying gaming experience. And boy, did we ever have to wait to see what that would look like. Despite having its release date bumped from June 2011 to January 2012, nothing much seems to have been done to improve its sorry-ass state. The senseless plot follows Lana and child-companion Amy as they navigate through a generic zombie apocalypse scenario. No effort goes into explaining the relationship between Lana and the child, why she has to protect her or the…