Table of contents for Issue 152 Jan/Feb 2015 in RUE MORGUE

Psychosexual horror arms race” – sometimes you come across a phrase that just begs to kick off an editorial. This gem of a descriptor, by an unknown journalist, was mentioned in an Entertainment Weekly article about the TV show Penny Dreadful as a way to sum up the current climate of genre television. Horror is, of course, booming on the small screen right now with shows such as The Walking Dead, Hannibal, American Horror Story, The Strain, Hemlock Grove, Supernatural, Haven, Grimm, and so on. The overall effect is indeed a psychosexual arms race, as networks fire volleys of violence, gore, sex, death, nudity, monsters and general atrocity at voracious viewers. As we were preparing our best/worst of 2014 list, I was trying to recall what genre content really caught…

SWAMP THING ACTION FIGURES(Kenner, 1990-31) In addition to two live-action films and a television show, DC Comics’ Swamp Thing was also adapted as an animated series (1990-91), which spawned numerous collectibles, including an action figure line from Kenner. Several variations were produced of the half-man/half-plant character, including a glow-inthe-dark offering, a colour-changing “camouflage” version, and another with a “log bazooka.” Other figures consisted of allies Bayou Jack and Tomahawk, and the gang of Evil Un-Men, led by scientist Anton Arcane. Loose figures can be found on eBay for about $5 apiece; while carded ones can go for $10-$25 each, depending on condition. MORE CRYPTIC COLLECTIBLES AT RUE-MORGUE.COM…

SOME OF THE GREATEST MOVIE MAGIC EVER CONJURED UP IS THE PROCESS OF CREATING MONSTERS AND BRINGING THEM TO LIFE – TEETH GNASHING, CLAWS SLASHING AND TAILS SMASHING. It all started in the earliest years of cinema, when moviemakers began experimenting with visual tricks that would fool and thrill audiences. In France, a magician named Georges Méliès stumbled on the technique of stopping the camera, replacing the staged action, and then starting it again in shorts such as 1902’s A Trip to the Moon. The effect was astounding for the time. The next year, Edwin S. Porter, working for Thomas Edison, determined that he could matte out sections of film, then print newly-shot action in that black area. He utilized this groundbreaking technique in The Great Train Robbery, and in…

HORROR CONVENTIONS: FEBRUARY 6 – 8 DAYS OF THE DEAD Atlanta, Georgia daysofthedead.net FEBRUARY 6 – 10 HAUNTCON Baton Rouge, Louisiana hauntcon.com FEBRUARY 13 – 15 SHOCK POP COMIC CON Ft. Lauderdale, Florida shockpopcc.com FEBRUARY 27 – MARCH 1 CULTURE SHOCK CON Indianapolis, Indiana cultureshockcon.com MARCH 6 – 8 HORROR REALM SPRING BREAK MASSACRE Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania horrorrealmcon.com MARCH 13 – 15 MONSTER-MANIA CON Cherry Hill, New Jersey monstermania.net MARCH 19 – 22 TRANSWORLD’S HALLOWEEN & ATTRACTIONS SHOW (Not open to general public) St. Louis, Missouri haashow.com MARCH 20 – 22 HORRORHOUND WEEKEND Cincinnati, Ohio horrorhoundweekend.com MARCH 27 – 29 MONSTERPALOOZA Burbank, California monsterpalooza.com APRIL 3 – 5 Vancouver, British Columbia fanexpovancouver.com APRIL 3 – 5 WONDERCON Anaheim, California comic-con.org/wca APRIL 10 – 12 CINEMA WASTELAND Strongsville, Ohio cinemawasteland.com APRIL 16…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE SLIPS INTO A TROMA SEMINOLE FLUID BIKINI SWAMP GIRL MASSACRE Troma Entertainment Troma films polarize most horror fans. Yes, they’re typically low budget affairs with heaps of gratuitous nudity, buckets of gore and actors that should probably think twice about their career choices, but whereas some people find those things repellent in a horror movie, there are those of us who absolutely revel in them. Take Bikini Swamp Girl Massacre, for example; if the name alone doesn’t grab you by the scrotum, the fact that it’s actually filled with bikiniclad girls in a swamp who get massacred by a Seminole Indian warrior should. Though it appears to have been edited by a schizophrenic and has terrible CGI effects, the boobs, blood and the WTF?!? ending that will…

Mesozoic Mess Ask any monster movie obsessive where they first caught the bug and it almost always comes back to a childhood fascination with dinosaurs. But until Jurassic Park upped the ante on bringing lumbering lizard-beasts to the big screen in 1993, times were tough for dinosaur devotees, who have watched the subgenre largely devolve ever since stop-motion pioneer Willis O’Brien cracked open his first package of clay. The potential for awe and terror was frequently torpedoed by ludicrous FX, thanks to films such as At the Earth’s Core (1976), a creaky British cheesefest about telepathic pterodactyls that makes its Bluray debut this month (courtesy of Kino Lorber). At the Earth’s Core sees UK horror anthology specialists Amicus turning to slightly lighter fare. Doug McClure plays David, an engineer who…

REVIEWS BY PEDRO CABEZUELO Dark Horse opens its doors for a second Grindhouse miniseries, as it continues to mine exploitation movie fare for inspiration. First up in Drive In, Bleed Out is “Slay Ride,” which recalls killer Santa films such as Silent Night, Deadly Night, though with a supernatural twist. It’s Christmas Eve, and all through the house, a young girl is out for revenge after her estranged family is murdered by a trio of killers: the Clown, the Overseer and the Man Who Walks – bizarre manifestations of man’s indulgences of greed, compulsion and addiction. For example, the Clown and the Overseer are clearly based on Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. It’s a clever touch and R.M. Guéra’s striking art helps to make the familiar imagery incredibly creepy and…

LIKE THE IDEA OF ENEMIES YOU CAN’T RUN “IAWAY FROM,” SAYS CRAIG DAVIDSON. “If you meet an axe-wielding maniac, you can get in the car and drive as far away as you can. But if you have something that’s inside your body somehow, or inside your mind, then the escape becomes a lot more difficult. Those familiar with Davidson’s work might find it weird that he’s talking axe murderers and body horror. The Toronto-based author is best known for acclaimed works of literary fiction, including Cataract City, which was shortlisted in 2013 for a major Canadian literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize. However, there’s another side to Davidson; under the pseudonym Nick Cutter, he writes intense, visceral horror fiction. The first Cutter novel, The Troop, published last January, is a…

TENDERIZE AND SKIN BEFORE SERVING Last year was a banner one for independent and underground film, attributable to an explosion of fan culture on social media, particularly Facebook. Currently, there are myriad public and private groups devoted to underground films and the filmmakers are part of them, marketing directly to their fans. The smart ones make fans part of their productions through crowdfunding, pre-selling signed DVDs and screen credits for $10-$15 a pop – manna to those who feel part of a “scene.” My columns last year were littered with examples of this new way of doing business, and I’ll start this year by spotlighting a couple of worthy films released too late for our December issues. Ryan Nicholson is Canada’s king of underground filmmaking. Outside of a career in…

I HAVE BEEN a huge horror fan for most of my life. In 2001, I got in an accident and lost my lower leg. I started going to horror conventions way back in 1991 and I have been to conventions in Toronto, Baltimore, New York, Alabama and, my favorite, Days of the Dead in Indianapolis, Indiana. When I first started getting my prosthetic limbs I didn't like the way they looked and I didn't like the way people stared, so the guy who makes my prosthetic limbs, RJ Clements, suggested that I try putting cool designs on it and the rest is history. Rue Morgue is the coolest horror movie magazine out there, so why not have the coolest magazine out there on my leg? Props to you! JAMES “TRASH”…

Reality TV just won’t stay dead. A new incarnation, set to debut in January 2015, will feature nine YouTube personalities facing challenges and avoiding elimination throughout a 24-hour simulated zombie attack. The new program is called Fight of the Living Dead and includes contestants Justine Ezarik (iJustine on YouTube), Iman Crosson (Alphacat), Meghan Camarena (Strawburry17), Jesse and Jeana (from Prank Vs Prank), Russian comedian Olga Kay and former Amazing Race contestant Joey Graceffa. Filmed in Los Angeles last spring, the show divides players into two groups, who are then blindfolded and transported (in body bags) to a prison environment where they have to defend “blood packs” strapped to their bodies from hordes of actors in zombie make-up. “It was really terrifying,” Graceffa told Rue Morgue. “Especially at first, because we…

CASE NO, 152 In 2012, when after complaining to her family members that she was fed up with waiting for the Grim Reaper, Anastasia Khoreva, 105, decided to go meet him and hanged herself in her bedroom in Darsun, Russia after her relatives had gone out. Stephen King based the protagonist of his debut novel, Carrie, on two girls he knew while at school. Both were social outcasts from deeply religious families and died while still in their twenties. In 2008, David Phyall, 50 – the last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, England – decapitated himself with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out. Best selling romance novelist Kate Coscarelli, who passed away in 1999, was the mother…

THE LAST DECADE IN HORROR CINEMA HAS TAUGHT US THAT, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, BEING A BLOODSUCKER SURE AIN’T EASY. Films such as Thirst, Let the Right One In (and its American remake Let Me In), Byzantium, Kiss of the Damned, Only Lovers Left Alive and even the new Dracula: Untold focus on the ennui and tragedy of eternal blood sucking. And, after suffering through five Twilight movies full of sparkly, oddly chaste, eternally brooding vampires, we’re ready to laugh at them again. And we will, thanks to a couple of horror fans from New Zealand, who have created what many are calling the best vampire comedy ever made. The perpetrators of this glorious pisstake are writers/directors/stars Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (pictured right). Their names aren’t yet known amongst…

BOBBY YEAH Robert Morgan (24 min, UK) After making disturbing shorts for years, Robert Morgan (who made the cover of RM#51 with The Cat With Hands) has recently gained notoriety due to his segment in ABCs of Death 2 (“D is for Deloused”). Here, Bobby is a petty thug who steals from some dangerous individuals and finds himself in terrible trouble. Beyond the sheer insanity on screen, the fleshy appearance of Morgan’s puppets make his films unique. They look real, yet somehow… wrong. You don’t just watch Bobby Yeah, you experience it. I haven’t been this impressed by an animator since Jan Svankmajer. robertmorganfilms.com JUNK HEAD 1 Takahide Hori (30 min, Japan) One of the most fascinating things about stopmotion animation is how intimate it can be. Junk…

Relevance can make or break a horror film. Unless there’s something intrinsic to the plot that taps into a shared fear, the movie will have failed to achieve its most basic goal: scaring the audience. Nacho Vigalondo’s Open Windows may not be a horror film through-and-through, but it is perhaps the most relevant and disturbing release of 2014. Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) arrives in Austin to collect his prize for winning an online contest: dinner with B-movie starlet Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey). Waiting in his hotel room for her to arrive, Chambers is contacted via his laptop by “Chord” (Neil Maskell), a hacker who informs Chambers that Goddard has cancelled the contest out of a generalized disgust for her fans. Before Chambers is entirely aware of what’s going on, he’s…

I’d been meaning to write a column on The Sleeping Car (1990) for several years now, but it wasn’t until I tore open a big-ass bag of sour cream’n’ simulated bacon flavour chips and sat down for a re-watch that I began to wonder why. After all, this modest ghost story has a buttload of strikes against it. The premise is vague and arbitrary, and the dialogue isn’t just lame, it’s lame because it’s trying way too hard to be clever. The opening sequence has one of the most jaw-dropping continuity flails in B-movie history, and while I won’t spring spoilers on you by detailing the ending, let’s just say it manages to be both completely nonsensical and as maudlin as a Hallmark greeting card. So, why indeed? Well, maybe…

BODY GOTHIC: CORPOREAL TRANSGRESSION IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND HORROR FILM Xavier Aidana Reyes University of Wales Press This scholarly yet reader-friendly study begins with the premise that “gothic is inherently somatic and corporeal” but also that “effective viscerality is more complicated to achieve artistically than has thus far been conceded.” And then it goes on to analyze the varieties of effective, artistic ways in which horror, in literature and film, reminds us of our embodiment. Those varieties are explored through chapters devoted to six different subgenres. It opens with Splatterpunk and Richard Laymon’s sado-realistic slasher tortures and continues with Clive Barker’s paradigm-changing Books of Blood, in which “flesh becomes heaven and hell simultaneously,” thus providing new ways of not only bodybutchering but also body-transcendence. In the chapter on Body Horror,…

CHOPPING MALL DTRACK Chuck Cirino WAXWORK RECORDS Given our current retro-obsessed fan culture, Jim Wynorski’s impossibly cheesy, decidedly low-tech Chopping Mall (a.k.a. Killbots) is the kind of movie that would probably be more popular today than it was during its original 1986 release. To match the hilariously low-brow concept of killer mall security robots dispatching teenagers in bloody fashion, composer Chuck Cirino provided an appropriately ’80s keyboard score driven by a Yamaha DX7 and sounding like a TV commercial for the Commodore 64. It’s the kind of sound that’s forever stuck in one decade, too corny to age like John Carpenter’s music and – quite frankly – too repetitive to be considered an actual creative endeavour. Regardless, for the kind of cornball movie for which it was written, Cirino’s…

NOW PLAYING >SYRINSCAPE, PATHFINDER MONSTER CODEX SYRINSCAPE PC, Mac, Android and iPad Syrinscape The Orc army and its zombie cohorts have broken through your defenses! Suddenly, the air is filled with the sounds of battleaxes cleaving through armour and the horrifying screams of dying men and beasts all around you. You clench your sword and shield tighter as they approach your position and harden yourself against the terrifying snarls and monstrous roars they make as they tear and hack your comrades to pieces. Your RPG character might be toast, but you’ll be just fine because you’re sitting in the basement playing a game of Pathfinder, and the battle sounds are from the latest Syrinscape download playing on your Dungeon Master’s PC or iPad. Downloadable and completely customizable, the program…

One-half of the main creative force behind the horror classics Halloween and The Fog, and the producer of The Dead Zone, is the subject of an upcoming documentary. The Debra Hill Documentary – which will be the first project to detail the life and career of the producer/writer, who died in 2005 at age 54 – is being written, directed and produced by filmmaking duo Marcy Boyle and Rachel Holzman, who work under the moniker DPYX. Principal photography is set to begin in January, with the project’s completion date projected for fall of 2015. From the late 1970s to the early ’80s, Hill and John Carpenter were the “dream team” of genre filmmaking. In addition to co-writing and producing Halloween and The Fog, Hill also served as a producer on…

1 BIGFOOT/YETI MUGS $15.95 Who doesn’t want to get sozzled with a sasquatch? This 5-3/4”-tall ceramic Bigfoot tiki mug is pretty much the last beverage container any hip cryptozoologist is going to need. There’s a yeti version available too, in case you like your beverages Himalayan-cold. Beer with Bigfoot at mcphee.com. 2 VILLAINESS PERFUME OILS $16 Now you can drench yourself in Blood without heading out on a killing spree, courtesy of this intriguing line of perfume oils from Villainess. With options ranging from Asphyxiate and Killer Beez to Ginger Snapped, you’ll have no trouble finding one that fits your inner bad gal. Get the scent of blood at villainess.net. 3 SLENDER MAN LEGGINGS £19.99 Horror’s internet sensation, The Slender Man, has snuck onto ANTIbrand’s “Black Gothic Horror Forest” leggings,…

GERARD JOHNSTONE IS NOT CONVINCED THAT NEW ZEALAND MAKES BETTER HORROR COMEDIES THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY. That idea has been proposed to the Aucklandbased filmmaker multiple times since both his ghost comedy Housebound and the vampire mockumentary What We Do In the Shadows, which is set in the suburbs of Wellington, were released around the same time last year in their home country to critical and financial success. “I think maybe it’s a bit of a stretch,” Johnstone says of that conclusion. “We make just as many shit movies as everyone else.” Fortunately, Housebound is far from shit. Since debuting at SXSX in Austin, Texas last March, it has earned much acclaim, including the Best Comedy and Best Horror awards at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and the audience…

IT WAS A GREAT YEAR FOR GLOBAL REINVENTION. Australian film The Babadook told us a terrifying childhood boogeyman tale from an entirely fresh, female perspective while employing a unique pop-up book aesthetic. The genre-savvy Canucks of Astron-6 skewered the giallo while New Zealand’s What We Do in the Shadows slayed festival audiences by taking us into the world of long-suffering vampire roomies. American indie director Kevin Smith showed us the most absurd creature to slop across the screen in a long time, and a particularly gnarly-looking Chinese vampire hopped into our nightmares. Similarly, TV reminded us that few things are scarier than a classic clown with an upside-down frown, comics proved that even Archie can come back from the cultural grave, plus both vinyl and retro action figures and reached…

ROTTING REAL ESTATE THE WOMAN IN BLACK: ANGEL OF DEATH Starring Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irvine and Phoebe Fox Directed by Tom Harper Written by Jim Croker Alliance Just as Karloff’s Monster famously demanded a mate in The Bride of Frankenstein and got one, albeit briefly, a hit film is always in wont of a sequel. As there are laws of physics, there are laws of cinema and economics. Set 40 years after events in James Watkins’ J-horror-infused 1989 adaptation of Susan Hill’s eerie 1983 novella The Woman in Black, Hammer’s follow-up, titled The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, takes place during the Second World War, with the cursed Eel Marsh House now a derelict ruin used as a makeshift boarding school for child evacuees escaping the Blitz. Things begin…

LATE ITALIAN DIRECTOR BRUNO MATTEI COULD CHARITABLY BE CHARACTERIZED AS A HACK – BUT WITH A DIFFERENCE. In an interview included on the Anchor Bay release of his best-known film, the Dawn of the Dead rip-off Hell of the Living Dead (1983), he said of his filmmaking process; “I go about making movies the same way a cartoonist would” because “movies are supposed to be entertaining and should be made with that same kind of spirit.” That spirit – the palpable sense of fun that pervades his films – is the key difference. No matter how derivative – be it S.S. Girls (1977), The Other Hell (1981), Violence in a Women’s Prison (1983) or Rats: Nights of Terror (1984) – Mattei’s films are a riot! In 2003, the filmmaker…

CREATURE COPS: SPECIAL VARMINT UNIT Rob Anderson and Fernando Melek GRINDHOUSE: DRIVE IN, BLEED OUT #1 Alex De Campi and R. M. Guéra MEMETIC #1 James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack THE HOUSE OF MONTRESOR #1 Enrica Jang and Jason Strutz THE GHOST FLEET #1 Donny Cates and Daniel Warren Johnson For as long as science has influenced humans, there have been cautionary tales warning of its potential consequences. Whether it’s Frankenstein, Food of the Gods or 28 Days Later, whenever man uses science to meddle with nature’s design, fiction showing the disastrous – and usually horrific – results are inevitably just around the corner. In that tradition is Creature Cops: Special Varmint Unit, a new man vs. nature-by-way-ofscience comic mini-series…

WAKENING THE CROW Stephen Gregory Solaris When Oliver Gooch is given a tooth supposedly belonging to Edgar Allan Poe, he makes it the centerpiece of his new bookshop. But then strange events start to happen – and a crow that seems to stalk the Gooch family eventually goes on the attack. Sadly, for all its foreboding, Wakening the Crow can’t seem to muster up anything resembling a shiver. BRETT MCNEILL EXPONENTIAL Adam Cesare Samhain Publishing Starting off innocently enough with a mouse being rescued from a lab, Exponential disproves the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished as the rodent absorbs and destroys everything it touches. Shades of The Blob become apparent once the creature starts to take another shape, and author Adam Cesare’s mix of grim…

THIS MONTH: DECK’S DEATHLY DOLLS Meet Hamilton-based illustrator and sculptor Sara Deck, who has been turning heads with her custom crafted Victorian dolls. She’s put her unique stamp on versions of Regan from The Exorcist, Drusilla and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plus a truly dark vision of Poe’s Lenore, as well as custom commissions that result in her creating dead/monstrous avatars of people that she knows – she recently turned one friend into the Bride of Frankenstein, for example. Deck grew up with a love for dolls – Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Pony, She-Ra and Barbie, all had a place in her youth. But it was the horror films that her older brother introduced her to, combined with a particular doll house, that inspired her imagination to…

The new faux-soundtrack trend taking place via artists such as Videogram and Slasher Dave, which channels the sound and atmosphere of horror scores to their own original spooky music is a very good thing. Along with the horror soundtrack revival, it’s spawning fresh material while bringing newfound respect for the composers so instrumental in creating those celluloid horrors that we lust over. That said, the one thing that hasn’t happened is more creativity in newer soundtracks. Charlie Clouser’s “Hello Zepp” music in the Saw series is probably the closest we’ve come to a memorable horror theme in the vein of John Carpenter’s Halloween. Other than that, most modern horror soundtracks tend to employ either grander orchestral schemes lacking bite, or just rely on a series of loud noises and stingers…

“DON’T FEAR THE REAPER” BLUE OYSTER CULT 1976 It was an unlikely hit single, even in a decade rife with unlikely hit singles – a macabre love story about a grieving woman whose lover’s ghost beckons her to join him in the afterlife. It was built around a haunting, hypnotic riff that every kid with a guitar in the late 1970s simply had to learn and practice incessantly. Long after its lengthy stay on the charts was over, it would continue to pop up on numerous genre film soundtracks. More than two decades after its release it would serve as fodder for one of the all-time great Saturday Night Live sketches. It’s been covered by acts as diverse as Wilco, H.I.M., Big Country, the Goo Goo Dolls, the Red Hot…