Table of contents for RM#192 in RUE MORGUE

Holding a graduate degree in sociology, I’ve done my share of quoting old white men as they gripe, moan and impotently shake their proverbial fists at the sky. Granted, the old coots I studied were concerned with things like industrialization rather than pop culture fads, but thus was my attitude when Twitter exploded with a name I hadn’t heard in some time: Martin Scorsese. In an interview with Empire magazine, ol’ Marty likened the current spate of Marvel movies to “theme parks” and even went so far as to declare that they’re “not cinema” in that they fail to “convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” Now I’m not about to discount Scorsese’s importance to the world of movies – he’s a great talent and a big deal. Having…

1 THE SHINING HEDGE MAZE ACTION FIGURE $19.99 USD Leave it to the mad minds at Hands of Doom to commemorate the hedge maze from The Shining with a blister pack collectible. Come play forever and ever… and bring yer own trim! HandsOfDoom.bigcartel.com 2 SUSPIRIA WRISTWATCH $59.99 USD You’ll never again be late for Madame Blanc’s class with this limited edition Suspiria wristwatch! A collab between Atom Age Industries and Vannen’s line of pop culture timepieces, it comes packaged in a custom sleeve as timeless as Argento’s film. AtomAgeIndustries.myshopify.com 3 EDGAR ALLAN POE BANDAGES $5.95 USD Paper cuts are a common occupational hazard for the spooky scribe, but infection? Nevermore! Archie McPhee’s Edgar Allan Poe bandages come in packs of fifteen, stored in a collectible metal tin, with a bonus…

WANT TO START A LIVELY DEBATE? INTRODUCE THE FOLLOWING: H.P. Lovecraft is unfilmable. Discuss. Of course, there have been dozens of Lovecraft movies made since Roger Corman adapted The Case of Charles Dexter Ward into The Haunted Palace in 1963. But most are only tangentially related to the work of the Providence-spawned writer, taking a character name here or a weird idea there. These days, “Lovecraftian” is an adjective commonly applied to any scary film with a tentacled monster, but few truly delve into the sense of something awful and unknowable lurking just beyond the edges of our understanding. That is the true essence of Lovecraft’s work. By that standard, his 1927 story “The Colour Out of Space” is arguably his least filmable, as it deals with, literally, a colourful…

THE 1990S WERE BANNER YEARS FOR PARANORMAL TELEVISION; from The X-Files to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed and The Outer Limits to Tales From the Crypt, the decade was an embarrassment of riches to those drawn to the strange and unusual. For those of us not quite old enough for these more mature pleasures, there was no shortage of series offering supernatural thrills in a more kid-friendly package. PBS had Ghostwriter, about a group of friends tackling mysteries with the assistance of a spirit who (you guessed it) can only communicate through written text. Fox Kids brought young audiences Goosebumps, an adaptation of the popular book series by R.L. Stine, and Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark – perhaps the most beloved of ’90s kiddie spook shows – chilled…

ANOTHER DECADE COMES TO A CLOSE, AND A LOOK BACK ON 2019 REVEALS ANOTHER GREAT YEAR FOR HORROR. Ari Aster, Jordan Peele and Robert Eggers provided long-awaited follow-ups to their cinematic debuts, while critical documentaries such as Horror Noire and Scream, Queen! proved that horror was always elevated, if you cared to pay enough attention. Meanwhile, streaming services like Netflix and Shudder continue their winning streak, with hit titles Marianne and the Creepshow series adding bite to your binge sessions. They say hindsight is 20/20, but we’ll be looking forward to what next year has in store. Here’s a recap and the Rue Morgue word on what you should not have missed. GORIEST FILM Ready or Not Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gille 20th Century Fox GORIEST SCENE Harga Cliff Ritual…

THE NEW GRUDGE FILM THAT RINGS IN THE YEAR 2020 IS THE FOURTH ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ITERATION OF THE MYTHOLOGY CREATED BY TAKASHI SHIMIZU in his Ju-On series, and the first of the theatrical Grudges to land an R rating. (The 2009 direct-to-video The Grudge 3 also won the more restrictive tag.) The switch from spectral suggestion to more hardcore horror was, according to writer/director Nicolas Pesce, just part and parcel of the tale he wanted to tell. “I didn’t start writing with any awareness of rating,” he says. “I wrote the story I wanted to write, and it ended up being too dark for a PG-13. But also, before I was even a part of this, it began as, ‘Let’s try to make an R-rated Grudge. What does that look like?’…

The Balance of Power “AS WITH MANY UNIVERSAL HORROR FILMS OF THE ERA, MANMADE MONSTER CRACKLES WITH A MIXTURE OF MAD SCIENCE AND HEARTFELT PATHOS.” Having a fistful of money and an abundance of power shouldn’t insulate you from facing the consequences of your actions, and yet it seems to happen all too often these days. Despite the constant glare of the spotlight, it seems like our society’s most powerful figures aren’t always subject to the same laws and rules that keep the rest of us in line, sparking feelings of frustration and helplessness every time we open our social media apps. Not surprisingly, this kind of class anxiety has long been explored by the horror genre, from the organized rebellion of the creatures in The Island of Dr. Moreau…

FEAR: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DARIO ARGENTO Adapted, edited, and annotated by Alan Jones FAB Press “Argento shies away from nothing and tells you everything you ever wanted to know,” writes editor Alan Jones in the book’s introduction. “Reclusive Italian auteur tells all!” says the lurid title you envision in your head upon reading this. Well, not quite all. Argento’s Fear is equal parts rewarding and frustrating: if you’re well-versed in the director’s oeuvre, it’s only reasonable that you’ll want to find out as much as possible about his life, thought processes, various creative decisions, and everything else. To this end, he reveals quite a bit, both personal (suicidal thoughts, drug use, relationship problems, family issues, Asia’s nude scenes…) and creative, though the latter details are mostly anecdotal and well known…

SOUNDTRACK DRACULA/THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN James Bernard TADLOW MUSIC It’s hard to imagine the early Hammer films without the musical contributions of James Bernard, celebrated in Tadlow’s premier recording of his complete scores for both Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein, performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Though Bernard’s music has been presented with modern fidelity before by the same orchestra, the focus on presenting the complete scores reveals a wider musical depth to these Hammer films than simply a collection of spooky themes and stings. There’s a gentle, Baroque-style piece for the strings early in Bernard’s Frankenstein score that stands in direct counterpoint to his brooding main title. Conductor Nic Raine ably elicits spooky nuance from the orchestra, and Tadlow’s CD comes with an informative track-by-track analysis…

I AM A DOCTORAL student at Boston College. I am earning my PhD in Theological Ethics. I am deeply religious. I attend mass multiple times a week. I read my Bible every day. I say grace before I eat my meals. I am also a convert to Catholicism. In fact, what led me into my long and protracted faith journey was seeing the original Omen with Gregory Peck, the Halloween after the passing of my great-grandfather (whom I was relatively close with). I don’t have a lot to say other than expressing my own frustration and shame that you lost an intern due to a retrograde view of religious faith. I am presuming the mother is Christian, but I may be wrong and they could be Jewish, Muslim, or from…

In Wes Craven’s 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes, the Carter family falls prey to a cannibalistic, incestuous clan mutated by the nuclear fallout from the testing that took place in the Southwest desert. In exploring the suburban fears of the lower class while pointing out that circumstance has as much to do with our behaviour as genetics, the movie appears to be a very American story, but its origins can be traced back to 16th-century Scotland. The legend of Alexander “Sawney” Bean, whose brood of nearly 50 are said to have killed and eaten as many as 1000 of their fellow Scotsmen, inspired the mutant Jupiter family. According to legend, Bean was born in a small town near Edinburgh but moved to Ayrshire County when he married one Agnes…

WHERE FEARS AND PHOBIAS ORIGINATE REMAINS A SOURCE OF ONGOING DEBATE AMONG SHRINKS AND SCIENTISTS, who usually point to the usual suspects of early experiences, genetic baggage, and dubious parenting. They might now add the new line from genre distributor Severin – Severin Kids – which could certainly be worth some academic study, dealing as it does with the weird, surreal, and subtly off filmmaking that might have turned generations of kids into bona fide horror hounds. Apparently begun as a joke by Severin co-founder David Gregory, Severin Kids quickly coagulated into a more serious endeavour: getting these weirdsville titles back into circulation and, where possible, trying to discover just what the hell the filmmakers and producers were thinking when committing their cracked concepts to celluloid. But first task was…

BEAUTY IS A BEAST RABID Starring Laura Vandervoort, Benjamin Hollingsworth and Ted Atherton Directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska Written by Jen and Sylvia Soska and John Serge Shout! Studios Many consider it heresy for anyone to attempt a reboot of a Cronenberg classic, though lest we forget, Cronenberg’s most celebrated film was also a remake. Jen and Sylvia Soska’s new version of Rabid isn’t as successful a reimagining as The Fly, however, but the twin filmmakers take a few steps in the right direction of setting their version apart before losing their way. Rose Miller (Laura Vandervoort) is a seamstress at the Haüs of Günter fashion firm who’s disparaged by her boss and condescended to by her foster sister, Chelsea (Hanneke Talbot). A failed attempt by Chelsea to draw…

BUG BOX THE FLY COLLECTION (1958-1989) BLU-RAY Starring David Hedison, Jeff Goldblum, Brett Halsey and Eric Stoltz Written and directed by various Shout! Factory A remake of The Fly directed by Robert Bierman (Vampire’s Kiss) and starring John Malkovich? It could have happened – and that’s just one nugget of trivia about the David Cronenberg classic, thoroughly covered by old and new extras in the Scream Factory Blu-ray boxed set of all five Fly features. Bringing them together in one place reinforces the view that both Kurt Neumann’s 1958 original and Cronenberg’s 1986 reimagining are among the top genre films of their respective eras, with the sequels running way back in the pack. Although Cronenberg intensified the dramatic content and upped the tech (and the ick) factor in his version,…

The mountain village of Vals, Switzerland, is home to the only natural thermal springs in the area. Though they've attracted a healthy number of tourists for decades, it wasn’t until the 1990s that a permanent hydrotherapy centre was constructed at the source of the springs, to complement the nearby hotels. Designed by minimalist architect Peter Zumthor, The Therme Vals resembles a giant concrete puzzle box more akin to a stone quarry than a traditional Roman-Greco bath house. Imposing yet welcoming, foreboding yet comforting, it’s a place full of contradictions – and a location ripe for horror. “My parents are architects and when I was a child we used to visit buildings during the holidays,” reveals French writer and artist Lucas Harari. “I discovered the thermal baths of Vals when I…

THE IMMEASURABLE CORPSE OF NATURE Christopher Slatsky Grimscribe Press Christopher Slatsky’s second collection (after his debut with Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales in 2015) dives even deeper into despair and desolation. Its horrors are not alleviated by recognizable myths and motifs: even if a few are employed (like spiritualistic mediums, or mad scientists meddling with the universe in the fine novella “Palladium at Night”), the ultimate effects are unexpected. Most of the tales root their horror in real-life tragedy: a father grapples with the loss of his abducted son while visiting the very Ballardian “Phantom Airfields”; a young woman goes back to her native town, now dead, and her ex-home, strangely undead, in “Engines of the Ocean”; a cancer patient develops a weird affinity with bees in “The Carcass of…

It’s January. The warm glow of the holiday season is long gone and we’re left in a cold, dead wasteland with warmer days far in the distance. To add even further darkness to your cold, miserable winter, Nuclear War Now! Productions has just released Analogue Black Terror, a stunning 260-page artbook featuring black metal demo cassette covers, spanning the 1980s through to the year 2000, covering 300 bands from the darkest music scene the world has ever known. Appropriately enough, the project was born when a friend of author Jean “Valnoir” Simoulin came across some dusty shoeboxes in his basement, full of black metal demos from the ’90s – when the genre gained notoriety due to some high-profile church burnings and murder cases. When that same friend suggested making a…

The only known surviving footage of Maila Nurmi as Vampira is in her role in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). Unfortunately, she has no spoken dialogue in the film. Fear of the number 13 has its origin in Norse mythology but was reinforced in the Christian era by the story of the Last Supper at which Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, was the thirteenth guest at the table. When a person dies, a relative or friend can request that their Facebook page become memorialized, essentially freezing it in time. The request requires proof of death. As part of his creative process, David Lynch dissected a cat during the making of Eraserhead to help inspire him for textures for the film. As a way of protesting selfie…

Conventions January 4-5 WALKER STALKER CON Nashville, Tennessee walkerstalkercon.com January 17-19 HAUNTCON New Orleans, Los Angeles hauntcon.com January 25 VETTE CITY CON Bowling Green, Kentucky vettecitycon.com February 7-9 DAYS OF THE DEAD Atlanta, Georgia daysofthedead.com/atlanta February 14-16 MAD MONSTER PARTY Charlotte, North Carolina madmonster.com February 22-23 WALKER STALKER CON London, England walkerstalkercon.com March 13-15 Monster-Mania Con Cherry Hill, New Jersey monstermania.net March 14-15 EDMONTON DEAD BY CON Edmonton, Alberta deadbycon.ca March 19-22 TRANSWORLD’S HALLOWEEN & ATTRACTIONS SHOW St. Louis, Missouri haashow.com March 20-22 HORRORHOUND WEEKEND Cincinnati, Ohio horrorhoundweekend.com March 27-29 NEW JERSEY HORROR CON AND FILM FESTIVAL Atlantic City, New Jersey newjerseyhorrorcon.com March 28 LEICESTER HORROR CONY Leicester, UK facebook.com/LeicesterHorrorCon April 3-5 CINEMA WASTELAND Strongsville, Ohio cinemawasteland.com April 4 HAUNTICON OMAHA Omaha, Nebraska haunticonomaha.com April 4-5 WEEKEND OF HELL Düsseldorf-Neuss,…

REDNECKS OF THE LOST PARK DEATH VALLEY: THE REVENGE OF BLOODY BILL The Asylum Home Entertainment Confession: I love legends. Legendary killers, legendary monsters – it’s all the same to me. I’m the kind of guy who loves poring over back stories, body counts and bloody deeds. The legend in Death Valley belongs to a Confederate raider from the US Civil War, who curses the town that killed his wife. So, when a carjacked college debate team stumbles upon the dilapidated town, they find themselves stalked by Bloody Bill and his zombie army of flesh-munching red-, er… grey-necks. If you’re looking for adrenaline-packed car chases, tight editing and witty dialogue, you’ve taken a wrong turn. But if you want stereotypical zombie fodder, garbage acting and a braindead storyline, then…

Just… Awful “You might get taken to the jailhouse and find/You’ve been arrested for driving while blind.” - ZZ Top While my band was on a road trip ages ago, the drummer and I invented a new cocktail. It consisted of three (okay, closer to four) ounces of vodka, two ounces of lemon juice, and one crushed Percocet (or maybe two), shaken not stirred, poured over ice, and garnished with whatever luncheon meat was on special at the nearest Mac’s Milk. Bursting with pride (not to mention shit-faced), we dubbed our frighteningly effective new potion Hysterical Blindness; we thought it was awesome, but for reasons I’ve never fathomed, it didn’t catch on with the masses. Several years later, I saw what remains to this day my favourite King of the…

Years ago, Rue Morgue president Rodrigo Gudiño suggested that I spotlight witch house music in this column, but since I generally tend to avoid any kind of music I’d associate with some douchebag night club, I put the suggestion on the backburner… until last fall, when the EP Satanico Supremo landed in my inbox courtesy of Toronto’s Artoffact Records. The new album by satanic Mexican witch house producer Ritualz intrigued me with its album art depicting a raven-haired goth beauty at a stereotypical satanic altar and black metal font. Lo and behold, I actually dug the spooky and ethereal sounds of this otherwise dance-oriented artist. I had to know more, and after a little digging, I can best describe witch house as a form of music that mixes slowed-down hip…

VALFARIS Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC Steel Mantis Imagine a Metroidvania that’s set in space and takes its influence from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine. That’s a great way to summarize Valfaris, the exciting and brutally punishing sophomore effort from the developer of 2016’s Slain: Back From Hell. When the long-vanished and supposedly derelict citadel of Valfaris reappears orbiting a dying sun, players return to the stronghold as Therion, an ex-warrior who’s determined to smite the wickedness that has infested his forsaken home. Aided by an artificial intelligence named Hekate, you’ll hack, slash, and vapourize the army of baddies that stands in your way. Visually, Valfaris is a triumph. With a finely detailed and colourful pixel art style, each area of the fallen fortress is a fresh…