Table of contents for RM#197 in RUE MORGUE

Weirdos, I can’t think of a year I’ve ever been happier to bring to a close. That’s not to say things are looking all rosy for 2021 – I imagine the healing we require will hurt twice as badly as the wounds we’ve suffered – but if ever there was a need for a checkpoint, be it literal or figurative, it’s now. I assume most of you know that Rue Morgue is a Canadian magazine – you can’t hear us pronounce the word “about” but you’ve likely noticed our spelling of words like “colour,” or the patriotic presence of the Canadian government logo on the bottom right of this page. Short of that stuff though, Canadian culture is largely indistinguishable from that of our American neighbours (there’s that Canuck spelling…

What should be inscribed on 2020’s tombstone? “Don’t worry; there’s still six feet between us.” @NICJPROCTOR, VIA TWITTER “Gone, and best forgotten.” @THERESETAYLOR12, VIA TWITTER “Never Shall We Speak of It Again.” MATTHEW BESSON, VIA FACEBOOK “Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?” @70SHORRORMOVIES, VIA INSTAGRAM “A Walt Disney Production.” @JEREMIAH_KNOX, VIA INSTAGRAM “Do not resuscitate.” @TERRIBLEPEOPLETERRIBLETHINGS, VIA INSTAGRAM “Here lies common sense, once plentiful, now rendered asunder.” JOHN BOWLES, VIA FACEBOOK FINAL WORDS AS CAPTIONED BY YOU ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA “I FELL FOR HER FRANKENHOOK, LINE AND SINKER!” THIS MONTH’S CAPTION CONTEST WINNER IS @EGGOKC, VIA INSTAGRAM Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for a chance to have your Final Words!…

1 BAT WALL DECOR WITH HOOKS $25 USD A creature of the night that’s just as handy as it is cute! Measuring 10” across its wings and perfect for storing keys, jewellery, and whatever else you might need to grab quickly, this bat hangs upright to keep your goods dangling. Makes a ghoul gift! Darkothica.com 2 BLACK CRAFT CULT MOONLIGHT JOGGERS $56 USD Tis the season to be cozy, fa-la-la-la-la la-Black Craft Cult! Slim-fitting and retro spooky, with unisex sizing from XS to 3XL, there’s a pair for every member of your cult. Blackcraftcult.com 3 KREEPSVILLE 666 HAND SANITIZER HOLDERS $9.95 USD It’s better to be safe than sorry, and these soft, silicone hand sanitizer holders will protect your purse and backpack from pesky leaks while their contents protect you…

ADVANCES IN MODERN TECHNOLOGY HAVE THROWN OUR WORLD INTO AN UNPRECEDENTED ERA OF CHANGE – THIS WAS TRUE EVEN BEFORE COVID-19 STRUCK, forcing us into a new normal that’s ever-shifting and increasingly frightening. Emerging Canadian virtuoso Brandon Cronenberg couldn’t have foreseen our sudden, forced dependence on our gadgetry, but his sophomore film maintains relevance in a year whose many hardships couldn’t have been predicted. Set in an alternate reality where assassins are able to inhabit another body to carry out their deadly deeds, Possessor premiered to a packed house at Sundance last January and was released theatrically on home video in the fall – straddling not only a tumultuous summer, but a changed context with regard to the tech toys we take for granted. “I was really thinking of it…

IT’S A TROPE SO WELL-ESTABLISHED IN HORROR THAT MARTY, THE ARCHETYPAL STONER from Drew Goddard’s meta horror comedy, understands that reading Latin is dangerous without knowing exactly how or why. And he’s right, at least in the world of 2011’s Cabin in the Woods. His friend, the non-virgin proto-final girl Dana, ignores him and reads the Latin aloud anyway, reanimating the long-dead corpses who attack and kill much of the group. So, what is it about Latin that makes it so dangerous? The language itself has an inauspicious past: its heyday was two millennia ago during the Roman Empire, when it became a dominant language of the Ancient Mediterranean primarily through conquest, colonization, and enslavement. Through force, the small city state of Rome conquered and subjugated peoples from modern Great…

ON THE ROCKS IT CUTS DEEP Starring Charles Gould, Quinn Jackson and John Anderson Written and directed by Nicholas Santos Dark Sky Films A horny youth gets slashed through the jugular in the first scene of It Cuts Deep, which incorporates the amusing use of a Christmas prop to signal that the prevailing tone will be jocular. Following the grisly opener, a good deal of the film’s first half is an acerbic relationship comedy in which the violence is primarily emotional. Stand-up comedian Charles Gould plays schlubby thirtysomething Sam, who tries too hard and too crudely to be funny with his girlfriend Ashley (Quinn Jackson). His humour is at least partially a shield to deflect Ashley’s entreaties about getting hitched and having kids, and the impasse becomes pronounced when the…

A DISCUSSION HAS BEEN TAKING PLACE IN THE HORROR FICTION WORLD FOR YEARS NOW ABOUT HOW SCARY STORIES HAVE BEEN PREDOMINANTLY A WHITE MAN’S GAME FOR FAR TOO LONG. Various attempts have been made to change this, from the publishing of women-only and international anthologies (see p.20) to call outs of projects where the Table of Contents are too homogeneous. One of the more interesting of these grassroots efforts is Ladies of Horror Fiction; initially birthed as a website, in the two-plus years since launch it’s expanded into podcasting and read-alongs, and even presents its own annual awards and grants. “Our true goal is really to uplift the voices of the marginalized horror authors – cis-women, women of colour, women in translation, and LGBTQIA+ women authors,” says Toni Miller, one…

Many folks think horror fans would be perfectly content in a dark and dreary world, but even if that were true, 2020 has ushered in a kind of darkness that would depress even the most extreme disaster movie enthusiast. In truth, horror fans are a fun-loving lot – we like parties, monsters, ’80s horror movies, and upbeat tunes as much as the dark and gloomy stuff – and so, a new album from Rezurex landed in my inbox just in time. This LA-based act has long embraced a lighter, brighter, and at times, even romantic side to psychobilly, while still being rooted in gothic horror music. The band first made its mark in these pages back in 2008 with Psycho Radio on Fiendforce Records, and now it returns with Skeletons,…

PLEASE SEND YASMINA a hearty hello. Love when she pops up on Rue Morgue TV. Engaging, funny, insightful, and a pleasure to watch and learn from. Seems like a gal after my heart. In all my horror-loving years, I somehow never knew there were Xtro sequels. This is being remedied as I type. Xtro 2 is all queued up and ready, and part 3 will be right behind. As always, top-notch work/reporting from the Rue Crew. Thank you all for being you. CHRIS – ADDRESS WITHHELD COLD, DARK, RAINY Saturday; perfect comfy sweater weather and perfect atmosphere to read @RueMorgue’s Halloween issue that came in the mail on Friday. @FANCHONDEE, VIA INSTAGRAM AS A DEAF COLLEGE professor who teaches a class on Deaf Representations in the Media, and as a…

GIANTVHSTAPE BY EXHUMED VHS For those of us who came of age in the 1980s, our horror fandom is inexorably linked to the video store, where countless hours were spent wandering the aisles of VHS tapes, ogling their lurid cover art. Streaming is convenient, but nothing beats the anticipation and excitement of a video store find – which is what Exhumed VHS is seeking to recreate with these oversized VHS tape collectibles. “Being a teenager in the ’90s, I discovered ’80s horror by renting VHS tapes from video stores. I wasn’t old enough to see these movies when they came out in the theatres in the '80s,” explains Alberta-based artist Susan Voorhees. “So, like many horror fans, I watched my favourite horror movies for the first time on VHS, so…

MAKING A LIVING AS AN ACTOR IS CHALLENGING FOR ANYONE – HITTING IT BIG AS A KID AND THEN MAINTAINING THAT MOMENTUM INTO ADULTHOOD IS EVEN HARDER. But for British Columbia-born Devon Sawa, who cut his teeth starring in such late-’90s teen genre fare as the stoner comedy Idle Hands and the fate-tempting Final Destination, horror was buttering his bread before he was 21 years old. With two new genre movies out this December, Hunter Hunter (see p.16) and Death Rider in the House of Vampires, Sawa is back in the game and ready to bloody his hands once again. “When I was a young fella in the ’80s, I had a ABC Video card in Canada, so ABC Video would let me and my friends rent whatever we wanted…

CONSIDERING ITS ROLE IN THE EXORCIST, IT SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE THAT LATIN IS ALSO AN INTEGRAL ELEMENT OF THE FILM’S SOUNDTRACK. The creepy Gregorian doomsday chant “Dies Irae” (“Day of Wrath”) lurks in the melody of the iconic “Tubular Bells” (as well as the title sequence of The Shining and Poltergeist’s “Escape From Suburbia”). Yet, undoubtedly the most famous Latin song in horror is “Ave Satani” from 1976’s The Omen; a score that won Jerry Goldsmith his only Academy Award. Goldsmith deliberately crafted the language of “Ave Satani” as a fusion and perversion of Christian prayer and ritual: “Ave Maria,” “Hail Mary,” and the sacrament of communion. The refrain is sanguis bibimus, corpus edimus (“we drink the blood, we consume the body”), which is a cannibalistic literalization of…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE REAPS WHAT HE SOWS TRIM THE FAMILY TREE DARK FIELDS E-One Entertainment I’ve developed a deep respect for farmers over the years; they feed all of us, carnivores and vegetarians alike. But I’ve also developed a deep dread of them because they scare the shit out of me. Horror movies featuring farmers haven’t helped much as they’re always depicted as inbred, racist rednecks! Set in a small town, Dark Fields concerns farm folks who made a deal with an Indian shaman to save their crops as long as they sacrifice three of their children every generation. Starring the late David Carradine (Kill Bill, Death Race 2000) and Richard Lynch (Vampire, Scanner Cop), this is a pretty cool film with decent effects and a tight storyline that’ll have…

The Truth Hurts “THOUGH LARGELY PORTRAYED AS A PITIABLE FIGURE, DUMOND INHABITS A SIMILAR, INDISTINCT WORLD SOMEWHERE BETWEEN REALITY AND PRETENSE.” It’s been said that we currently live in a “post-truth” world, but we probably always have – only it’s never been so insidious. As we suffer a daily barrage of online chatter and speculation – often rife with contradictory information – some of us have taken to elaborate conspiracies to reconcile a disheartening reality with our most firmly held beliefs. While the internet has become a modern high-speed incubator for self-deluding groups such as pandemic deniers, QAnon, and even Flat Earthers, people have always eagerly accepted a healthy dose of nonsense to twist reality toward their own benefit or comfort. How to Make a Monster (1958), which hits Blu-ray…

HA-HA! HORROR COLLECTOR’S EDITION MonsterMatt Patterson Mystery and Horror, LLC The man of a thousand bad monster jokes is back with his latest installment of cringers, stunners and shunners. Running the full gamut of horror icons from Dracula to the Creature From the Black Lagoon, and such films as Basket Case and Slime City, and everything in between, no monster or movie is immune to Patterson’s zany riddles; all manner of horror fare is fed through the demented dad-joke grinder of his strange subconscious and spit out onto the pages for your displeasure. You’ll grimace, you’ll chortle, you’ll cry. Heck, you’ll probably end up blowing milk out of your nose and hugging your knees pondering what you’ve gotten yourself into, and that’s just the first chapter. Will you make it…

Years tend to fly by in these parts, but 2020 has shambled and stumbled along like so much rotten zombie flesh. Before we give it the boot and slam the door on its depressing ass, hoping for a less infectious and socially distanced 2021, there’s the business of the holidays and the requisite gifts. This issue I peek inside a pair of recent titles for younger readers, both involving some very unusual playthings. For the littlest ones comes The Girl Who Builds Monsters, a colourful 40-page picture book written by Brian James Freeman and illustrated by Vincent Chong (out now from Cemetery Dance). It’s the story of Emma, a dollmaker’s granddaughter, who is shunned by other kids because of the birthmark on her face. One day, Emma finds a room…

SOUNDTRACK THE LODGER Graham Reynolds FIRE RECORDS Part of the same series of reimagined scores that saw ethereal avant-pop act Death and Vanilla rework The Tenant and Vampyr, this latest installment has Graham Reynolds tackling 1927’s silent suspense thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog – a film dubbed “the first true Hitchcock movie” by its director. While it’s a bit of a leap to imagine Reynolds’ skittering electronic beats alongside the film’s London bobbies as they hunt a serial killer named The Avenger through the city’s foggy streets, there’s no denying the thrill and tension he wrings from his score. From jarring discords, looming dread, and disintegrating abstractions through to jaunty, galloping strings, there’s a grand, pulse-quickening sense of purpose at play that sweeps you along effortlessly.…

XIA LOCATION: Victoria, Australia INSTAGRAM: @xia_tattoo Australia is known for its spooky wildlife, and Victoria-based tattoo artist Xia draws inspiration from the bats, flying foxes, and other misunderstood critters for her high-contrast, neo-traditional artwork. With a focus on techniques that promote long-term healing, her tattoos depict the beauty and darkness that dwell in our subconscious. “During the pandemic lockdowns, I have been having some scary nightmares that somehow made great sources of inspiration and became really fun art pieces,” she explains. “Some of my customers have told me about nightmares and unexplainable experiences – I love to draw them too!”…

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO READ SCARY STORIES IN ENGLISH COMES THE VALANCOURT BOOK OF WORLD HORROR, WITH EXCELLENT TRANSLATIONS OF 21 STORIES FROM NINETEEN COUNTRIES ON FIVE CONTINENTS, originally written in twelve different languages. Here’s a helpful intro to each story, which offer plenty of quirky, original approaches to the frights we thought we knew. Want to feel the scares again? Try “Uironda” by Luigi Musolino, where an Italian truck driver investigates an urban legend about a parallel dimension that sucks in those who have been on the road for too long. His personal demons will rush him down this particular lost highway; you won’t even notice the intersection between the convincingly real and the nightmarish surreal. Or, you can take a trip to rural Transylvania…

THE ECO-HORROR SUBGENRE CONTINUES TO THRIVE AS OUR FEARS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ILLS WE HAVE WROUGHT ON OUR PLANET GROW WITH EACH SUCCESSIVE NATURAL DISASTER AND SUPERSTORM. The latest genre film to tackle this existential threat is Unearth, a slice of rural horror that screened at this year's Fantasia Digital 2020 Festival and captures the very real ruins of the American Dream before turning it into pure nightmare. “To me, horror is motivated by something that hits close to home,” says co-director/co-writer John C. Lyons, who shares an intimate connection with the material, having grown up in farm country. “Something that hits close to home is the most terrifying and visceral of horrors; it’s something that you maybe don’t have to work so hard to imagine. Looking around…

Scott Snyder took a sizeable bite out of the horror comics world in 2010 with the launch of Vertigo’s American Vampire and never looked back. In addition to the Severed and Wytches series, Snyder spent the last decade as one of the principal writers for DC Comics, working on such properties as Swamp Thing, and as a key architect on the Batman titles. So, how do you follow up ten years of success? For Snyder, you launch your own press label. “I’ve been thinking about launching Best Jackett for years,” he admits. “But this year in particular felt like the right moment. We had a new baby, I’ve been working in superheroes for ten years this fall… and above all, I’ve been able to start a bunch of books I’m…

DARKNESS AND NIHILISM ARE NATURAL SENTIMENTS TO THE BLACK METAL GENRE, BUT HOW DO THESE BANDS REACT WHEN ACTUALLY FACED WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF GLOBAL DESTRUCTION? For Brooklyn’s Tombs, it meant taking the spectre of the macabre that has long lurked in the periphery of its music and diving full-on into folklore, the occult, and – for the first time – the horror genre. Out November 20 through Season of Mist, Under Sullen Skies represents Tombs’ take on the fear and anxiety that the band experienced in 2020 (along with everyone else). “The lockdown was intense,” confesses Tombs frontman Mike Hill. “At the time, I was still living in Brooklyn; NYC was ground zero [for the pandemic] in the US. The anxiety, the resulting monotony, all took a heavy toll…

DREAD X COLLECTION 2 Dread XP PC After delivering one of the best and quirkiest bundles of indie horror games earlier this year with the first Dread X Collection, publisher Dread XP is back for another round of spookery. This time it offers twelve short tales connected by one common theme: Lovecraftian horror. With a more developed overarching gameplay experience across titles, the Dread X Collection 2 is a polished sequel that rises like a ghastly spectre above the bones of its predecessor. Given just ten days to execute their twisted visions this time around, the new and returning developers deliver an even greater variety of scares with games that run the gamut from first-person shooters to an old-school point-and-click adventure and even a dating sim. Set in a mysterious…