Table of contents for Issue 136 August 2013 in RUE MORGUE

“The call is coming from inside the house” – it’s one of the most famous lines in horror cinema. Taken from the 1979 movie When a Stranger Calls, it’s such a goddamn terrifying declaration because of the sudden realization that the one place you should feel safe is not only threatened, it’s already been compromised. The old adage goes that your home is your castle, but behind those walls you’re vulnerable. Let’s go back… Home invasion horror, as a subgenre, began with the Cold War. Those North American – particularly American – feelings of being geographically untouchable were shaken with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and then crushed with the threat of a nuclear war with Russia. The “second Red Scare” lasted from 1947 to 1957 and was based around…

1 ZOMBIE WINE BOTTLE HOLDER $26 The walking dead are known more for their passion for their signature dish than for their oenophilia, but this rotter doesn’t seem fussed. He may have drunk himself into an early grave, but he’ll still cling to your wine bottle like his un-life depended on it. Living dead libations at amazon.com. 2 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS WINES $32 Looking for a nice Chianti to pair with some fava beans and organ meats? Check out The Cannibal, a cheeky Hannibal Lecter-inspired red. There’s also a companion Pinot Grigio called Suit Yourself, if you feel like downing a skinful. Have an old friend for dinner – and drinks – at silenceofthelambswines.com. 3 ELVIRA COFFIN PURSE $42 Next time you’re out prowling the night, cram your assets…

OVER THE LAST DECADE, IRELAND HAS BEEN IN THE THROES OF A MINI HORROR BOOM. SHROOMS, DEAD MEAT AND WAKE WOOD HAVE ALL SPRUNG FROM THE LAND OF SHAMROCKS AND JAMESON WHISKEY. The country’s latest export is Grabbers, which sees police officer Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley: Primeval) arrive for a temporary placement in a sleepy fishing village on an island off the coast of Ireland, where she and hard-drinking local cop Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle: Outpost: Black Sun) are faced with a giant sea-monster invasion of the tentacled, bloodsucking kind. With the help of marine biologist Dr. Adam Smith (Russell Tovey: UK TV’s Being Human) and some of the locals, they realize that the only way to survive until help arrives is to stay drunk, as the creatures are allergic…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE GETS TROMATIZED AS THE WORM TURNS ATTACK OF THE TROMAGGOT Troma Entertainment Not content with plundering the depths of the independent American film market, Troma also invaded Germany to mine its cinematic filth. The result is two of the three films in this month’s column. We may have fought the Germans in a couple of wars, but they’ve been pretty friendly ever since, and they make great cars and even better beer. But they don’t always make great C movies – not even great bad ones. This mess is a heavily dubbed travesty about a monster maggot stalking the sewers of some backwater burg policed by transvestite cops and terrorist cells. The storyline is near impossible to follow, because it was filmed over a long period of…

FERVID FILMMAKING: 66 CULT PICTURES OF VISION, VERVE AND NO SELF-RESTRAINT Mike Watt McFarland With so many genre film companions available it can be hard to find one actually worthy of a read. Luckily, Fervid Filmmaking doesn’t disappoint. When it comes to “kitchen sink” films – movies that contain all kinds of seemingly unrelated set pieces and characters, and sometimes even bridge multiple genres – people are often dismissive. The very idea of throwing “everything but the kitchen sink” into a film gives the impression that the story hasn’t been well thought out and, as such, these films are often overlooked by the mainstream, as well as extremely misunderstood by a lot of moviegoers. Some of their writers and directors have even been known to snub their own projects and…

SOUNDTRACK DARK SKIES Joseph Bishara VOID RECORDS Joseph Bishara’s ongoing association with the makers of the Saw franchise (Insidious, 11-11-11) continues with this part score/part sound design effort that’s a blend of unsettling drones, discrete feedback and a recurring arching frequency (“Missing Time”) reminiscent of Louis and Bebe Barron’s Forbidden Planet (1956). With the exception of overt sounds from cello, viola and bassoon in “Night Visit,” the album features highly subdued sonic clouds that occasionally crest after low-frequency pulses or within breathy passages of warped wind chimes and distant strings (“Not in Control”). Occasional stabs of dissonance break up the score’s rather misty mood, but the brevity and fragmented nature of the cues, not to mention a lack of a resolving finale makes this CD suite feel incomplete. Pity Bishara…

THE RECENT ARRIVAL OF WORLD WAR Z NOT ONLY GIVES ZOMBIE FANS ANOTHER POKE AT THE UNSTOPPABLE SUBGENRE, BUT IT REUNITES THEM WITH THE MUSIC OF COMPOSER MARCO BELTRAMI. His previous cinematic work includes the industrial-strength electronic score for Resident Evil – created with Marilyn Manson – and the scaled-down flesh-muncher music for Warm Bodies, with co-composer Buck Sanders, but this composition presents yet another angle on the undead subgenre. “When I first saw the movie,” explains Beltrami, who was brought on back in late 2011, when the film was still slated for a winter 2012 release, “the thing that struck me about it is that the opening takes place in Philadelphia and these zombies take over and it cuts to this Emergency Broadcast System beacon, and so it seemed…

MIKE OLDFIELD UK - 1973 For decades, the music of horror cinema was largely dominated by one sound. Whether it was Franz Waxman’s work on Bride of Frankenstein, James Bernard’s Hammer scores or even the TV soundtracks of Bob Cobert (Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker) horror was typically scored with orchestral bombast. That would change following the release of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and its use of Mike Oldfield’s iconic “Tubular Bells, Part One.” In many ways, The Exorcist was more raw and powerful than any horror film preceding it. Friedkin wanted the music to reflect the film, which was breaking new ground with its balance of realism and supernatural scares. The film’s score needed to be just as fresh and unpredictable. Friedkin got exactly that from Lalo Schifrin, whose…

LOOKING FORWARD TO being part of the non-fiction writing panel at @RueMorgue’s 10th annual Festival of Fear this August. @UNDEADTV, VIA TWITTER (A.K.A. BRAD MIDDLETON) JOHN BOWEN HAS DONE a great service by mentioning one of my favourite rubber monster movies… Octaman [RM#135]. I’ve rewatched my bootleg copy a hundred times and when it finally got a DVD release I grabbed a copy fast. While it may be obscure, it deserves to be recognized as one of the great entries in the genre. It easily rivals many of its black and white drive-in theatre predecessors. Seek it out if rubber suits are your monster fetish! ROB LANSLEY, VIA FACEBOOK AFTER READING the RM#135 cover story I can’t wait to see @RueMorgue’s The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh again.…

After spending nearly 30 years as a special effects artist on films such as The Monster Squad, Tremors and Starship Troopers, Tom Woodruff, Jr. is heading to the director’s chair for his first feature. Woodruff, who won an Academy Award for his work on the 1992 film Death Becomes Her, will helm the independently produced, FX-heavy Fire City: The Interpreter of Signs. Shooting is expected to begin in January 2014. The film, scripted by producers Brian Lubocki and Michael Hayes, will combine elements of horror, dark fantasy and even film noir for its tale of demons living among humans. While Woodruff, co-founder of prolific FX studio Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. (ADI), was initially approached to create a demon for the movie’s promotional reel, it soon became apparent that he had…

One of several playsets produced by now-defunct Montreal-based company Toyco Recreational Products Inc., this 60-plus piece Tower of Terror set included a 24” x 36” (2’ x 3’) plastic terrain sheet illustrated with skeletons, bats and torches; a spooky cardboard castle; and a collection of 2”-tall plastic demons, ogres, wizards, plus a dragon. Seemingly moulded from a line of previously released toys from Dimensions for Children (DFC), the set is difficult to find and can fetch $60 to upward of $100. MORE CRYPTIC COLLECTIBLES AT RUE-MORGUE.COM…

“The worst horror movies,” Richard Raaphorst maintains, “are war movies,” and it’s clear that he doesn’t mean “worst” as in “least good” but rather “most disturbing,” “most demoralizing” and “most intensely nihilistic.” Well, on the basis of the Dutch filmmaker’s first feature, Frankenstein’s Army, it would seem that he has just helped prove his own point. Indeed, Dark Sky Films’ release of the film (out now) ended an extraordinarily long period of anticipation among those who’d been intrigued by this proposed mash-up of classic monsters and World War II. The result is what one imagines a collaboration between Hieronymus Bosch, Clive Barker and Shinya Tsukamoto might look like if they decided to update Mary Shelley… minus the empathy we tend to feel for her famous monster or its tormented creator.…

DEAD PITT WORLD WAR Z Starring Brad Pitt, Daniella Kertesz and Mireille Enos Directed by Marc Forster Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof Paramount You could make a movie about the making of World War Z. The project began with a 2007 bidding war over the rights to Max Brooks’ book, with Brad Pitt’s production company landing it over Leonardo DiCaprio’s company. Then, J. Michael Straczynski – creator of Babylon 5 and writer on the Thor movie – was hired to script it but then left as it went through various other screenwriters, including Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard. There were budget concerns, production delays and trouble with police in Hungary, who seized a shipment of the movie’s prop guns, which turned out to…

ONE OF THE STRANGEST FILMS TO DROP AT THE END OF THE ’70S, DAVID SCHMOELLER’S TOURIST TRAP IS ALSO A TOTAL CREEP-OUT FOR ANYONE WITH A FEAR OF MANNEQUINS. It stars former Hollywood leading man Chuck Conners (TV western The Riflemen) as Slausen, the proprietor of a dilapidated roadside attraction. When a group of young people seek help with a flat tire, they discover the place is actually a chamber of horrors as they’re hunted, attacked and tortured by both Slausen and some telekinetically controlled mannequins; some are even turned into grotesque living dolls. The deliriously unnerving film was just re-released by Full Moon Pictures, so we asked Schmoeller (who also directed Crawlspace and the first Puppetmaster movie) for a walkthrough of his 1979 Tourist Trap. The late ’70s were…

Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel The Man Who Laughs may not be as well known as the author’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, but its contributions to the horror genre are just as notable. The story of Gwynplaine, a man viciously mutilated as a young boy, his face forever distorted into a horrific grin, has left its mark on characters such as William Castle’s Mr. Sardonicus and, most famously, Batman’s archenemy, the Joker. Yet despite its influence, few people are familiar with Hugo’s original work or its many adaptations, including the classic 1928 film starring Conrad Veidt (the acknowledged visual inspiration for the Joker). Now, a new graphic novel adaptation written by David Hine and drawn by Mark Stafford, is hoping to give Hugo’s tale the exposure it deserves. “I was enthralled…

THIS MONTH: HIS NAME IS JASON, PART II Last issue (RM#135), Jason Edmiston gave us an exclusive step-by-step look at the process he used to create his new Blacula painting. The exploitation icon, played by William Marshall, is one of many boogeymen, demons and cyborgs that will inhabit Edmiston’s upcoming solo exhibit, A Rogues Gallery, which runs from August 23 to September 12 at Mondo Gallery in Austin, Texas. While brainstorming to whom, or what, he wanted to pay tribute, Edmiston recognized it was high time someone created a classic, Hammer-inspired portrait of actor Marshall. “I was deciding what monsters and villains to include in my show, and I wanted to include a few that were a little off the radar of most genre fans,” he explains. “Blaxploitation films of…

BRINGS ITS HOME INVASION HORROR TO THEATRES ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS WE LEARN TO FEAR ARE THE ANIMALS IN THE WOODS THAT WANT TO KNOCK DOWN OUR DOORS AND GOBBLE US UP. The fairy tales “Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood” teach us that wolves will stop at nothing to get inside, while “Hansel and Gretel” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” warn us that witches and bears might also eat us if we go through the wrong door. Similarly, classic vampire stories assure us that we’re safe in our homes as long as we don’t invite the ghouls inside. Home is where the heart is, but be warned: if you aren’t careful, you just might get yours ripped out. In a world where the words “home…

IT’S BEEN 21 YEARS SINCE GUILLERMO DEL TORO REPLENISHED THE WELL-DRAINED VAMPIRE MYTH WITH CRONOS, HIS ASSURED AMALGAMATION OF CLASSIC HORROR AND MAGIC REALISM. Since that astonishing debut, the Mexican-born director has continued to amaze and unnerve audiences with his work, which often exhibits a rare sensitivity and profound awareness of genre history. After breathing new life into the ghost story with The Devil’s Backbone, re-energizing the superhero genre with Blade II and the Hellboy films, and deftly fusing political allegory and the fairy tale with Pan’s Labyrinth, he now delivers his most ambitious movie to date – the muscular mash-up of giant robots versus giant monsters that is Pacific Rim. When this pre-apocalyptic blockbuster – out now – was first announced by Legendary Pictures more than two years ago,…

IF YOU THINK OF CHILDHOOD AS A CAREFREE TIME OF SECURITY AND CONTENTMENT, YOU’RE PROBABLY REMEMBERING IT WRONG. We spend the better part of two decades entirely at the mercy of others, trying to figure out what our place in the world might be – or, for that matter, if we even have one. It’s that sense of isolation and insecurity that feeds The Fury, the new novel from UK-based writer Alexander Gordon Smith. Well, that and zombies. “Zombies are my absolute favourite horror creatures,” says Smith, who has already built an enthusiastic fan base among teen readers with his five-book Escape from Furnace series, set in a horrific underground prison for children. “I love the question of what happens to you when you become a zombie, what happens to…

On the convention circuit, he’s recognized by fans as “that guy from Mordum,” or more astutely “Maggot,” the character he played in an underground film made a decade ago that still ranks high on lists of the most disturbing movies ever made. Michael Todd Schneider is not bothered by that, particularly when those same fans start handing him beers. “You can be an artist your whole life and yearn to have done something that created some sort of ripple,” he opines. “On the other hand, you do and you’re forever haunted by it.” Mordum, alternately known as August Underground’s Mordum, the second in a trilogy of brutal gore films shot as the video diaries of a group of serial killers, began as a long-form music video in 2003 by Pittsburgh-based…

Last issue we talked about John Carpenter and Goblin as some of the biggest horror soundtrack composers. The biggest name in soundtracks for horror movies that don’t exist however, is Ohio’s Midnight Syndicate. Edward Douglas is the main composer and creative force behind over a dozen Midnight Syndicate albums, each one based around a particular spooky story or theme. For example, Born of the Night (1998) is a musical journey through a haunted castle, Gates of Delirium (2001) is set in a haunted insane asylum and Carnival Arcane (2011) was inspired by old-time carnivals and Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Though the music, a blend of instrumental and sound effects, has found a fanbase amongst goth and ambient music lovers, Midnight Syndicate essentially functions as mood music for…

NOW PLAYING THE LAST OF US, STATE OF DECAY THE LAST OF US PS3 Naughty Dog Studios Survival horror games have been hit-and-miss lately, with major franchises such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil turning out sequels with diminishing returns. With Telltale’s The Walking Dead from last year, we witnessed the first inklings of an upswing, and now Naughty Dog (creators of Uncharted) take things to the next level with the PS3 exclusive The Last of Us. With nods to 28 Days Later and The Road, The Last of Us takes place in a dystopian United States, twenty years after an airborne fungal outbreak turns its victims into vicious flesh-eating mutants. Joel, a man haunted by the loss of his daughter, is entrusted with the care of Ellie, a young…