Table of contents for Issue 91 July 2009 in RUE MORGUE

youtube.com/watch?v=Tfe2FU3SoTM Everyone’s favourite undead Texan cowboys Ghoultown pay tribute to Elvira: Mistress of the Dark in this cheeky video directed by artist/author/filmmaker Gris Grimly. Once you’ve checked that out, be sure to click on the link on the left side of the screen to watch the making-of doc. jeremycshipp.com/bizarrobytes.htm Author Jeremy C. Shipp (Vacation) recently launched Bizarro Bites, a online fiction subscription service. For just $12 USD a year, subscribers will receive one of his previously unpublished horror stories each month. For slightly more, Shipp will use your own name or title in a tale, or pen a story that includes five items of your choosing. Go get fictionalized today! morbidanatomy.blogspot.com Are you intrigued by antiquated medical practices? Have you ever wanted your own cabinet of curiosities – or perhaps…

1 DOYLE’S MADE IN HELL HOT SAUCE $9.95 Former Misfits guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein has lent his legendary lengthy moniker to this ferocious cayenne condiment, which is allegedly brewed in the raging infernos of hell itself. Yup, that’s some kinda hot. Enjoy the day your mouth caught fire at doylesmadeinhell.com. 2 LAST EXIT TO NOWHERE T-SHIRTS £18 GBP Left Santa Carla because you couldn’t stand the damn vampires? Waited for the zombie apocalypse to blow over in the Winchester? Get the T-shirt to prove it; these brilliant tees from Last Exit to Nowhere feature clever nods to everything from Alien to The Wicker Man, and will satisfy your geekiest impulses. Horror nerd nirvana awaits at lastexittonowhere.com. 3 VOODOO POP $4.99 The old adage “revenge is sweet” has never been…

He’s the last person shown in the Blair Witch Project, and that stark final image of him facing the corner in the basement of an abandoned house is the stuff of nightmares. Michael C.Williams – in addition to Heather Donahue and Joshua Leonard – is one of the three stars of the film who “disappear” in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s groundbreaking approach to making the film meant that the actors spent days out in the cold, rainy woods, with dwindling food supplies and increasing “supernatural” agitation (strange sounds, banging on the tent, creepy symbols left in the woods), courtesy of the filmmakers, who wanted to inject the Blair Witch with as much realism as possible. This, combined with directors’ notes left at checkpoints…

CADAVER-STROPHE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Collective Studios There are few words in the English language that go together better than “zombie” and “apocalypse.” So you can imagine my glee when I slapped this DVD into my player for what I hoped would be 90 minutes of undead mayhem. Luckily, I wasn’t disappointed… well, mostly. As an undead infection spreads, two college roommates, a video store clerk and a mysterious stranger searching for his wife try to escape the city before they become lunchmeat for the zombie hordes that are hot on their heels. An ultra-low-budget affair, Zombie Apocalypse suffers from poor sound, dubbed dialogue and CGI blood-splatter effects that just don’t work. But don’t let that deter you from what is ultimately a pretty cool flick with plenty of gut-munching gore. BODY…

DON'T TREAD ON ME Is it too soon? Doesn’t seem that long ago (RM#78) that I gushed and spurted and oozed about The Car, so does a retrospective on yet another killer vehicle movie constitute some kind of premature car-jackulation on my part? Maybe. But this ain’t Christine, and you’ll undoubtedly be relieved that it ain’t Death Proof. This 1974 howler is, on the other hand, the most sublimely ridiculous, endearingly brain-dead nadir of 1970s made-for-network-TV processed cheese food product. This. Is. Killdozer. “It’s too heavy to hang, too big to put in the gas chamber!” This inspired bit of dialogue is indicative of what you’re in for with Killdozer, in that pretty much everything about it is substandard and yet you can’t help but fall in love with its…

THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES VIDEO GUIDE Gary A. Smith McFarland Nobody would ever accuse American International Pictures movie kingpins Jim Nicholson and Sam Arkoff of being artists, but there was a certain poetry to the way their sensationalistic ad campaigns transformed unpretentious low-budget films into cultural touchstones. Nicholson and Arkoff employed lurid full-colour posters, memorable titles and brain-searing taglines (“What evils lurk in this vile face of lust!”) to build AIP into one of the most important independent production companies of the 1960s and ’70s. But even though Nicholson and Arkoff were focused on the most effective way to sell their pictures, AIP still managed to crank out some incredibly entertaining genre exercises, including Masque of the Red Death, Squirm and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. These…

WALKING THROUGH DIM CORRIDORS FILLED WITH MONSTERS OF EVERY SHAPE AND SHADE OF TERROR MIGHT SOUND LIKE A NIGHTMARE, but when those corridors are in Salem, Massachusetts, and those monsters are recognizable movie fiends, it’s a tourist attraction. The place is called Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, and it bills itself as “Salem’s only monster museum.” Salem is, of course, most known for its witch-related attractions, but Count Orlok’s eschews the typical manner in which the city makes its tourist money and instead showcases a large assortment of life-size reproductions of iconic horror film characters. It’s the creation of Rhode Island native James Lurgio and began as his personal, yet rather unwieldy, private collection. Eventually, he was able to parlay his monstrous mob into a travelling attraction that was featured at…

What is that sound? In the dark, in the woods, in a dark cabin of wood? In a film, it’s the sound of danger, of what we all know happens when you step out onto the porch to call, “Who’s there?” On record, at least on a Timber Timbre record, it’s the sound of blues and folk and experimental effects quietly converging to warn us of the cults, demons and reapers that try to lure us out during those late nights in the woods. Taylor Kirk, the singer/songwriter/guitarist behind Timber Timbre, has been lurking in the shadows around Toronto for a few years, but no longer. Timber Timbre’s latest self-titled record has just been picked up for re-release by indie idol makers Arts & Crafts (Feist, Broken Social Scene, Stars),…

I JUST FINISHED your editorial on Ghostbusters. I’m glad to see you’re a fellow fan. I was twelve when this film came out and I went ga-ga for it – I went to see it six times. This was when a youth movie ticket was $1.50. (Those were the days!) Do you remember Ghostbusters cereal? Anyways, have you considered writing about the film Gremlins? It opened the same day as Ghostbusters and it was also a monster hit that blended comedy and horror. And like Ghostbusters, it spawned all kinds of merchandising (another cereal, and really tasty chocolate fudge treats that I loved). Anyway, back to Ghostbusters; I’m glad to see the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters is hitting video. Remember why it was called The Real Ghostbusters? There was another…

When the Fox Television Network announced in the spring of 1999 that it was going to cancel Millennium after three seasons, it was a blow to genre fans who had grown attached to the X-Files spin-off over its 67-episode run. Ten years later, there’s a push to revive the dark drama, spearheaded by Jim McLean, one of the fans behind the online campaign at backtofrankblack.com. “BackToFrankBlack is not about bringing an old show back,” McLean explains. “Instead, we’re asking the studios to consider making a new show or film that once again looks at just who we are and the struggle we face to find definition in a continually uncertain future. I certainly think that is a viable product for fans to stand proudly behind – and one that has…

NEW YORK. 1986. ON THE WRONG SIDE OF TOWN, FRANKIE, A VIETNAM WAR VET, IS STRUGGLING TO RAISE A FAMILY DEEP BELOW THE POVERTY LINE IN A SKID ROW NEIGHBOURHOOD FULL OF ADDICTS, PROSTITUTES AND KILLERS. His infant is sick and hideously deformed. Probably a result of Frankie’s Agent Orange exposure. Through institutionalized neglect and economic abandonment, Frankie and his family will be destroyed before the credits roll. Their destruction will come in waves of violence so caustic they’ll make even the most jaded of viewers want to throw up and die. That’s the basic premise driving the ultra-violent, audience-punishing Combat Shock – one of the most significant independent American films of the ’80s. Once seen, it’s virtually impossible to forget, its sheer emotional trauma resonating within the viewer long…

HAUNTING BEAUTY EMPIRE OF PASSION (1978) Starring Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Tatsuya Fuji and Takahiro Tamura Written and directed by Nagisa Oshima Criterion Collection In the Realm of the Senses is Nagisa Oshima’s most well-known movie, an art house porno about two lovers whose sexual obsession with each other ends in castration and bloodshed. Empire of Passion is his follow-up, made in 1978 for the same French producer who financed Senses, Anatole Dauman. Oshima was awarded the Best Director prize at Cannes for the film, but Dauman was still disappointed because Passion wasn’t as sexually explicit as Senses. The Frenchman wanted more hardcore, but instead Oshima made his first and only kwaidan – a ghost story. The setting and genre may be different, but Passion is clearly a follow-up to Senses, a…

Zombies. They eat human flesh, their personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired, and they have systematically overrun horror comics. Undoubtedly they are the most popular monster in modern comics, even managing to elbow out the vampire in the battle for undead supremacy. Just check out the horror selection at your local comic shop if you don’t believe me. So what is it about rotting – albeit sentient – corpses that send horror fans into such a rapturous state? “There’s something universal about the concept of seemingly mindless husks appearing from nowhere and stalking about in a threatening and violent way,” opines comic writer Nick Tapalan-sky. “With the advent of the Romero zombie in the ’60s, it just wasn’t a far stretch to liken them to people and events…

It’s difficult to compile a list of the sickest and most disturbing films ever made without the work of Toetag Pictures figuring prominently on it. Poke around the internet and you’ll find much discussion of the company’s faux snuff trilogy, August Underground, August Underground’s Mordum and August Underground’s Penance, on horror-related websites and message boards. Of course, the internet is an integral component of modern horror fandom. It facilitates a community for the worldwide diaspora of horror fans, an amorphous and utopian collective of humanity united by one common thread: everyone else thinks we’re sick fucks! This has served independent studio Toetag well, allowing unprecedented penetration of their work into the general horror consciousness, as well as it being their principle avenue of distribution. Surprisingly, they kept any advance notice…

HIGHEST RATING IS THREE GRAPHICS PLAYABILITY SHIVERS KILLING FLOOR PC Tripwire Interactive If the title alone doesn’t spark your interest, how ’bout throwing in a zombie apocalypse to get the old reagent in your veins pumping a little faster? Right from the start of Killing Floor, players must battle hordes of cloned flesh-eating super-soldiers who have escaped from a failed military experiment and are rampaging through the streets of London and surrounding countryside. These aren’t your standard slow, shuffling skinjobs, either; instead, you’ll be facing a variety of enemies, including pudgy, cleaver-carrying aberrations called Bloats, that turn into piles of toxic goop after they’re killed, multi-eyed abominations bristling with spikes, dubbed Crawlers, and chainsaw-wielding maniacs known as Skrakes. Utilizing an impressive arsenal of weaponry that…

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July means one thing and one thing only for horror fans in Montreal: the much-anticipated return of FanTasia. This year, North America’s largest genre film festival celebrates its 13th anniversary and regardless of any superstitions associated with the infamous number, Mitch Davis, Director of International Programming, isn’t worried. “Apart from an utterly skull-fucked economy, we’ve had only good luck this year,” he says. “But you know, thirteen’s almost always a lucky number for people like us, isn’t it?” Davis is one of a crack team of programmers responsible for mounting the three-week-long frenzy of horror, cult and fantasy that runs from July 9-27 and will unspool roughly 100 features and a barrage of short films. This year’s highlights include a new film from Takashi Miike, an appearance by José Mojica…

CASE NO. 91 • A New Haven, Connecticut resident recently arrived home to find chicken carcasses littered across his bed, as well as dead fish and blood strewn over his floor. He suspects this may be his landlord’s attempt to get him to move out, following a rent dispute. • Before his career as a musician, Alice Cooper worked in a slaughterhouse. • The base of Mount Fuji has been dubbed “suicide forest,” due to the fact that it boasts the second highest incidents of suicide in the world. • Jack Van Evera, who plays the bartender in the original My Bloody Valentine, is the brother of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein’s Billy Van. • While former mason Tom Tobin was in Sing Sing Prison serving out his sentence for…

It doesn’t matter if it’s a trio of film students wandering the woods at night, or a crack military team going in circles under the desert sun, nothing is more frightening than being cut off. The latter happens to the protagonists in Daniel Myrick’s latest feature, The Objective, which sees a group of US soldiers dropped into Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 to investigate a radiation signature suspected of being nuclear weaponry. At least that’s what most of them believe, until they become lost and their equipment stops working. “It’s all about isolation,” explains Myrick. “Whether it be the open water, the woods or the barren desert, isolation is the key element of horror. I just liked the idea of using a different palette, something that wasn’t used too often in…

YOUR OWN PERSONAL DEMON DRAG ME TO HELL Starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long and Lorna Raver Directed by Sam Raimi Written by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi Universal After years of climbing the Hollywood ladder and collecting piles of money printed with Spider-man’s face, Sam Raimi has finally revisited the genre that made his name. The ever-growing cult of Evil Dead fanatics have been waiting for the director to return to horror for years and they won’t be disappointed. Drag Me to Hell, though by no means perfect, is a fast-paced morality-tale that feels ripped from the pages of an EC comic. A PG-13 rating might keep Raimi from using his patented severed-limbs-spouting-geysers-of blood, but he makes up for it with plenty of acrobatic camerawork and enough ironic humour to…

MASTERPIECE OF MADNESS REPULSION (1965) Starring Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux and Ian Hendry Directed by Roman Polanski Written by Roman Polanski, Gérard Brach and David Stone Criterion Collection Unbelievably, until now, Roman Polanski’s masterpiece of psychological horror has only been available on DVD in North America through a bare-bones release of a full-frame transfer from a dodgy, worn-out print. Shameful! But all that’s gonna change on July 28 when The Criterion Collection rolls out a DVD and Blu-ray makeover that pays proper respect to Repulsion, one of the greatest British horror films ever produced. Shot in vibrant 1960s South London with the help of legendary producer Tony Tenser (Witchfinder General), and a script co-written by long-time collaborator Gérard Brach (The Fearless Vampire Killers), Polanski’s second feature stars the beautiful Catherine…

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED IF ZOMBIE/HUMAN COHABITATION IS POSSIBLE? Do you know which parts of the body provide the most sustenance to the undead? Are you familiar with zombie copulation, undead family life and the political leanings of rotters? No? Well, fear not, as Robert Sacchetto has you covered with The Zombie Handbook: How to Identify the Living Dead and Survive the Coming Zombie Apocalypse. Short of a flamethrower, this may just be your best tool for avoiding the undead’s diseased bite. The heavily illustrated, 112-page, full-colour Zombie Handbook (out this month from Ulysses Press) covers all the bases, with sections on the various types of shamblers, their diet, lifestyle, history and more. It’s certainly safe to say that Sacchetto knows his zombies – he’s been making a living mining…

DEADLY DANGEROUS DECENT DULL DRIVEL DOA DEAD ON ARRIVAL SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES SOUNDTRACK James Horner INTRADA SPECIAL COLLECTION It’s extremely hard to create a balanced combination of wonderment, nostalgia and fear of things dark yet arousing (as experienced by a depression-era tween, no less!) without being cloying or clichéd, yet James Horner’s music manages to do precisely that. It captures all those emotions, as well as the flow and elegance of Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel. The score’s allure comes from Horner’s use of contrast between the boys’ theme – a tender piece set to a waltz tempo, with flutes and gushing strings that manage to remain masculine – and a fast-moving, mischievous dance of slick evil for Mr. Dark, the satanic carny king who entices, baits and ensnares…

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