Table of contents for Issue 87 March 2009 in RUE MORGUE

Upon hearing that two grown men fainted during the Sundance Film Festival screening of Grace, the horror film he recently produced for director Paul Solet, Adam Green (Hatchet, Spiral) refuses to believe the hype. “I have heard shit like this before,” he tells Rue Morgue, “and it usually just makes me laugh – it seems like such an act of marketing desperation.” Imagine, then, his shock upon learning that this was no publicity stunt. While Green was onstage with Solet during the movie’s Q&A at Sundance, a representative confirmed that two men passed out while trying to leave the theatre. The film, which was also written by Solet and is currently on the festival circuit, features a young mother, Madeline, determined to deliver her baby after an accident during her…

In January, a Papua New Guinea young woman was bound and set aflame on top of a pile of tires because residents of her village believed she was a witch. Ringu’s Sadako was named for Sadako Sasaki, a toddler who lived in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped and died of leukemia twelve years later. A Pennsylvania teenager who was toying around with a powerful firework in his home this past January panicked when he could not extinguish its lit fuse. He then tried to "muffle" the subsequent blast with his body, losing a hand and leg in the process. In 1964, Larry McLean, a Satanist from Oklahoma, was arrested for planning to dig up the corpse of Peter Lorre in an attempt to bring the actor back to life.…

METALOCALYPSE SEASON 2 Starring Brendon Small, Tommy Blacha and Mark Hamill Directed by Jon Schnepp, Chris Prynoski, Mark Brooks, et. al. Written by Tommy Blacha, Brendon Small and Bill Braudis Adult Swim The biggest band in the world is back and more brutal than ever! After thwarting the assassination attempts of Cardinal Ravenwood last season, death metal misfits Dethklok return with another helping of crushing riffage, inventive gore and further procrastination from recording their next monumental album. Season two of the animated series finds Nathan, Murderface, Toki, Skwisgaar and Pickles in the throes of a reclusive slump. Hiding out in Mordhaus, their “multi-compound fortress home,” the band members refuse to go outside after multiple attempts on their lives. Due to the group’s global popularity, their inactivity causes the world economy…

IN THIS ISSUE DEMON SQUAD Neal Marshall Stevens and Rafael Ortiz Studio 407 THE BOMB Steve Mannion Asylum Press NETHERWORLD #1 Chad Jones and R. B. Silva Studio 407 THE LAGOON Lilli Carre Fantagraphics THE FANTASTIC WORLDS OF FRAZETTA Steve Niles, Joshua Ortega, Mark Kidwell, et al. Image HEXED #1 (OF 4) Michael Alan Nelson and Emma Rios Boom! In recent years, the comic book industry has seen the migration of a number of Hollywood screenwriters to the four-colour page, including Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon. One of the latest to make the transition is Neal Marshall Stevens, writer of Thir13en Ghosts, Hellraiser: Deader and the upcoming Hybrid. It was during the production of Hybrid that Stevens was approached by Alex Leung, the managing director of Studio 407, one of…

With a gentle name like Sleepy Hollow, this historic upstate New York village should conjure up pleasant images of idyllic river scenery, lush autumn foliage and all the other trademarks of the Hudson Valley region of the state. And certainly it would, if it were not for the single cloying nightmare of a black-clad decapitated demon rider that overshadows it all… and we can thank author Washington Irving for that. Irving lived and was buried in the area, but what lodges this place so inextricably in the cultural consciousness is that he chose it as the setting of one of his most famous stories. In 1820, Irving published “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” his tale of an itinerant teacher named Ichabod Crane who falls victim to one of the area’s…

AMOK TIME 2949 Hempstead TPK Levittown, NY Phone: 516-520-0975 amoktime.com BURNING MOON VIDEO 1505-11th Ave. SW Calgary, AB Phone: 403-228-2899 burningmoonvideo.com LE CABINET DES CURIOSITIES 97 Enmore Rd. Enmore, Sydney, Australia COLLECTORS CORNER 8108A Harford Rd. Baltimore, MD Phone: 800-979-3553 collectorscornermd.com COMIC EXPLOSION 86 Centre St. Nutley, NJ Phone: 973-235-1336 THE COMIC MONSTORE 813 S Jake Alexander Blvd. Salisbury, NC Phone: 704-636-0049 comicmonstore@bellsouth.net DARK DELICACIES 4213 W. Burbank Blvd. Burbank, CA Phone: 818-556-6660 darkdel.com DARKSIDE 452 Queen St.W Toronto, ON Phone: 416-603-8666 thedarksidestore.com DIMENSION 10 N. Main St. Ambler, PA DREAMHAVEN BOOKS 912 W. Lake St. Minneapolis, MN Phone: 612-823-6161 dreamhavenbooks.com THE DREAMING COMICS & GAMES 5226 University Way NE Seattle, WA Phone: 206-525-9394 thedreamingcomics.com 8TH STREET BOOKS & COMICS 1010 8th St. E Saskatoon, SK Phone: 306-343-6624 8thcomics.com EXCALIBUR…

I CAN UNDERSTAND your enthusiasm for the Canadian film My Bloody Valentine, but for a lot of us the best thing about it is the ’90s shoegazer pioneers who named themselves after the then little-seen movie. I highly recommend the band. Can’t say the same for the film. By the way, what are butter tarts? CHRIS MCKEEVER – ADDRESS WITHHELD Butter tarts are tasty little pastries – kind of like mini pecan pies, without the pecans. – Ed I’M WRITING to let you know how much I loved RM#85. The covers of your magazine keep getting better and better. Great work Ghoulish Gary. Man, it is great to see Coffin Joe on the front along with the awesome coverage of his work inside. Very pleased about that. To all involved…

myspace.com/therealzombiezombie If you have yet to see Zombie Zombie’s music video for “Driving This Road Until Death,” you’re missing out on a six-minute stop-motion “remake” of John Carpenter’s The Thing… with GI Joe figures! This is Parisian undead analogue disco at its most weird and pissed off, people. Watch Clark! Now! horrorreanimated.com Horror Renimated is a genre lit lover’s wet dream. Run by Bill Hussey and Joseph D’Lacey, two UKbased authors, as part of the Bloody Books imprint, there is plenty to devour here, from knowledgeable reviews and original fiction to interviews with novelists and screenwriters. Once you sink your teeth in, you’ll be hooked. mirrormirrormilwaukee.com Is a typical hair salon too mainstream for your dark aesthetic? Well, if you live in Milwaukee, you can get your locks cut and…

1 ANATOMY PRINTS $49.99-$79.99 Having trouble telling your calcaneus from your ulna? These beautiful prints of antique anatomy charts will spiff up any infernal laboratory and may help keep your more unholy monstrosities to a minimum. Bone up on bones at transmissionatelier.com. 2 REMOTE CONTROL ZOMBIE $24.95 Engineer the zombie apocalypse without getting off the couch with this eightinch tall, groaning remote-control zombie. The remote is brain-shaped, so you won’t accidentally sic your shuffler on someone while trying to open the garage door. Your chance of survival is remote at mcphee.com. 3 GARLIC MINTS $2.49 When the vampire revival makes you want to curl up and hide in your coffin, a nice tin of Garlic Mints will have bloodsuckers cringing and hissing with your every exhalation. Should keep away those…

Come now, my child if we were planning to harm you would we be “ lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest?” JOSHUA HOFFINE WANTED TO CREATE IMAGES THAT FELT like the preceding verse by American poet Kenneth Patchen. So he promptly abandoned a career in wedding photography to explore the darker side of the human psyche via deeply unsettling snapshots that illustrate childhood fears. The series, called After Dark, My Sweet, depicts blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girls in fabled, nightmarish settings inhabited by monsters and other predators threatening their very existence. “It was my interest in fairy tales and their archetypal imagery that led to my interest in horror as a subject for my photographs,” explains the 35-year-old father of four. “I used to…

“HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY THAT I LOVE YOU?” It’s the last thing you want to hear if you live in the southern Ontario town of Pontypool. Here, language itself has become infected with a deadly virus in which simply speaking terms of endearment can turn you into a savage killer. That’s the concept driving Pontypool, the latest film from Canadian director Bruce McDonald (Roadkill, Highway 61 and Hardcore Logo). “A word like ‘kiss’ or ‘honey’ becomes infected. If you hear it, and understand that word, you become infected,” explains McDonald. “At first, you begin to repeat the infected word over and over, then you begin to mix up your sentences, your speech becomes scrambled, and the third stage is you become super-violent and attack people’s mouths, trying to chew…

BAD CASE OF REPTOIDS DEMON SEX Video Outlaw Don’t be put off by the incredibly long and boring opening narration of this flick, in which a voice-over recounts how the Earth was once colonized by lizard people called Reptoids, who bred with humans, blah, blah, blah. Thankfully, the narrator is none other than my fave scream queen Brinke Stevens (Cheerleader Massacre, Vampires vs. Zombies), who would sound hot reading the phone book. Stevens stars as the bodacious leader of the Sisterhood of the Demon Skull, a group of strippers intent on discovering a secret alien DNA formula while feeding on hapless, horny men – what else?!? The scares are sparse but there is plenty of bloodsoaked T&A, lesbian lust and boob-groping shower scenes. My only complaint is that there’s no…

Tenant Trouble THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (1927) Starring Ivor Novello, June Tripp and Malcolm Keen Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Marie Belloc Lowndes and Eliot Stannard MGM Released when the flourishing master of suspense was just 28 years old, the serial killer thriller The Lodger was often cited by Hitchcock as his first film, even though he had his name on a few earlier projects. Hailed in reviews at the time as the “finest British production ever made,” this fast-moving, well-shot silent effort introduces several themes and stylistic touches that would fully emerge in the director’s later films, making it a must for fans of both silent chillers and Hitchcock’s influential, fascinating oeuvre. Based on a Marie Belloc Lowndes novel of the same title, The…

Sake Connaway is the world’s unholiest televangelist. As a failed rock star, it didn’t take him long to realize that he could get as much – if not more–money and pussy by preaching God’s word. Jake’s story should have ended when the jealous boyfriend of his latest conquest murdered himmid-copulation, but Jake’s been mysteriously resurrected during his wake.And now, as he stalks those closest to him, it becomes abundantly clear: this was no act of God. “I’m in a weird position in that I love God but I totally hate bullshit,” notes Jake’sWake co-author John Skipp of the book’s theme. “I have great respect for the religious impulse, even when I don’t agree with its cultural conclusions. Which makes me doubly mad when self-serving assholes misrepresent ‘TheWord Of God,’ and…

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) Starring Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham and David Hess Written and directed by Wes Craven MGM The Last House on the Left is the pre-eminent example of the rape/revenge subgenre and arguably the most significant exploitation film of the ’70s. While it is neither the first nor best example of the subgenre, it is certainly the most influential, spawning American imitators such as I Spit on Your Grave (1978) and Ms. 45 (1981), and most notably, a slew of Italian films that include Night Train Murders (1975) and Last House on the Beach (1978). Wes Craven freely admits that Last House is an update of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960). In Craven’s version, two small-town teenagers, pretty and virginal Mari (Sandra Cassel) and…

CANADIAN VAMPIRE COMEDY SCORES A-LIST ROCK STAR CAST If you’re going to make a rock’n’ roll vampire movie, you could do worse than landing Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Moby and Dimitri Coats of Burning Brides for your cast. All of the above and more will appear in Suck, the upcoming horror-comedy by Rob Stefaniuk. The Canadian actor turned writer/director scored laughs and box office success with his low-budget sci-fi flick Phil the Alien in 2004. His follow-up, originally intended as another relatively indie affair, secured a $3-million budget thanks in part to the high-profile musician/actors who signed on. “My producers got them,” says Stefaniuk, on location in Toronto, after shooting a scene where his character gets advice from Ivan, a rock star turned record producer played by Pop.…

HESE DAYS, IT SEEMS NO COUNTRY DOES ULTRA-VIOLENT CINEMA QUITE LIKE FRANCE Much has been made of this French “New Wave” of horror, specifically its graphic manifestation in films such as Inside (2007, RM#78), Frontier(s) (2007, RM#78), High Tension (2003, RM#37) and In My Skin (2002, RM#37). What is interesting about regional horror is how it interprets the trends set by other countries, then infuses them with a distinct ethnicity, creating its own cinema. This new French movement in particular is actually characterized by its obsession with American horror films. Inside and Frontier(s) are, respectively, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre filtered back to us via the French, who’ve placed those storylines in the context of their own cultural turbulence (in this case, the 2005 Paris riots and national civil…

A MINE IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D Starring Jensen Ackles, Kerr Smith and Jaime King Directed by Patrick Lussier Written by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith Maple Riding the crest of the current wave of horror remakes is this latest redux of yet another beloved Canadian horror classic, 1981’s My Bloody Valentine. And while it’s in no way a big, steaming pile of excrement like last year’s Prom Night or, worse yet, 2006’s Black Christmas, that’s not saying that director Patrick Lussier’s take on George Mihalka’s original cult slasher is something to fall in love with. The film is a variation on the original shocker’s premise. In the sleepy town of Harmony, a mishap traps several men in the local mine. One man, Harry Warden,…

FANTASTIC FLESH: THE ART OF MAKE-UP EFX Starring Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, Tom Savini, et al. Directed by Kevin VanHook Starz Makeup in cinema is all about illusions, and in this case, evidently so is documentary filmmaking. Shot by the Starz television network as a Halloween special, Fantastic Flesh: The Art of Make-Up EFX tells a very loose history of the evolution of the craft but, like a bad makeup job, is noticeably poor at disguising what’s underneath. Though it opens with early images of the legendary Lon Chaney Sr. as The Phantom of the Opera, Fantastic Flesh swiftly moves into (and focuses heavily on) interviews with KNB Effects Group toppers Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, who discuss everything from masks to fake animals to animatronics on a variety of…

DRIVE-INS, DELETE BINS AND OTHER SINS Urban legends, old wives’ tales and bogus biological bugaboos have always provided government, law enforcement, the Church and the media with ammunition for fear mongering, but things really peaked in the ’70s and early ’80s. In fact, it was practically an art form back then, as North Americans prayed themselves blue in the face each night that the Good Lord might deliver them from swine flu, poisoned Halloween candy, sewer-dwelling alligators, LSD-crazed babysitters, snuff films, a rapidly approaching ice age, sharks cruising beach resorts, backwards messages on Led Zeppelin albums… and bees. Killer bees. African Killer Bees from Brazil, no less. And when that call went out, Irwin “Master of Disaster” Allen was only too happy to pick up the phone. Director George Seaton…

STOKER’S SCRIBBLINGS FILM ROTTER READER LOTS O’LANDIS BRAM STOKER’S NOTES FOR DRACULA: A FACSIMILE EDITION Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller MacFarland When you think about Bram Stoker’s Dracula, how deep is your love? For instance, do you know that Stoker’s original research notes are housed at the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia? If so, you will no doubt swoon over this extensive – exquisitely hardbound – collection. Two world-renowned Canadian Dracula experts have combed, transcribed and organized the rare Rosenbach files, presenting them here in their entirety, complete with annotations to guide readers through the handwritten scrawls, typewritten lists and scraps of notes that over seven years would become the familiar story of the Count. Why bother? Hasn’t every detail of Dracula already been examined to (un)death? Sure, and yet these…

SOUNDTRACK ROGUE Francois Tetaz ITUNES Australian composer Francois Tetaz (Wolf Creek) hits the bull’s eye again with another innovative score, albeit one that is far more eclectic in the way its moods progress, from happily escapist to unsettling and, ultimately, discordant. Tetaz draws from modern and classical techniques as well as aboriginal vocals, and his narrative collage includes “River Suite,” a lilting theme that perfectly captures the film’s doe-eyed tourists before they’re marked as croc chum. When flesh is finally torn, Tetaz has fun with fiercely bowed strings, low frequencies and a total lack of melody and warm harmonies, which lasts until the score’s closing string elegy. In spite of the sometimes disparate styles, very specific sounds and aural motifs ensure there’s continuity between every cut. This album vividly evokes…