Table of contents for Issue 94 October 2009 in RUE MORGUE

Every horror fan has their story of how they found their way to Edgar Allan Poe. Mine was through Vincent Price. My earliest memories of Price are in the famous Corman-Poe cycle of films – cackling, torturing and brow-beating his way through each picture with a kind of theatrical grandeur and panache only he possessed. As a kid, there was no tease quite like tuning into a television channel late at night and hearing the shrill voice of the Minister of Sinister delivering one of his many famous monologues before the TV set warmed up and the image of the actor, usually doing something terrible to someone, finally appeared. While Price owned the character of Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher), was positively unnerving as the torturous…

In films such as Batman, Edward Scis sorhands, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton has proven himself to be a masterful visual stylist. It’s an opinion shared by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which is preparing a major retrospective of the icon’s career as a director, producer, writer, conceptual artist, fiction writer, photographer and illustrator. Running from November 22, 2009 through April 26, 2010, the “Tim Burton” exhibit will bring together over 700 examples of rare and never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, storyboards, moving-image works, puppets, maquettes, costumes and more. The retrospective will also include an extensive film series that spans Burton’s nearly 30-year career, culminating with his upcoming adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (set for release in 2010).…

● In 17th century Britain, moss was harvested from the skulls of those who died violently. This material, called usnea, was then used to treat nosebleeds and disorders of the nervous system. ● Stuntman Rob Harris died in 1995 while shooting a Mountain Dew commercial when both his parachutes failed to open properly. ● Equatorial Guinea recently issued a postage stamp commemorating the Soyuz 11 mission to the world’s first space station, which ended in tragedy when the crew cabin depressurized before re-entry, killing all three astronauts. The stamp is particularly unusual because it features an artist’s rendition of the men in death (still in their spacesuits). ● The working title for The Blob was The Glob. ● The loss of two litres of blood will cause the average person…

The “concept album” is often derided and dismissed by critics as an overbearing gimmick, but when the Alan Parsons Project’s debut album Tales of Mystery and Imagination – based on the classic horror stories of Edgar Allan Poe – went gold in 1976, even the most ardent detractors took notice. Wanting to embark on a solo career but short on content, The then-recording engineer Parsons turned to songwriter and session player Eric Woolfson, who felt that Poe’s work was ideal for the rock opera treatment. The resulting collaboration is a swelling symphony of synths and strings, with guest vocals by shock rocker Arthur Brown (providing a characteristically frenzied performance in “The Tell-Tale Heart”), John Miles, Terry Sylvester and actor Leonard Whiting (best known in horror circles for Frankenstein: True Story),…

HE WAS MENACED BY A GHOST IN THE RING, TOOK BLOODY RE-VENGE AGAINST THE CITY FOLK WHO KILLED HIS DOG IN THE JACK KETCHUM ADAPTATION RED, AND PLAYED HANNIBAL LECTER IN MANHUNTER (1986), but Brian Cox is hardly a name associated with “horror” films. So it speaks volumes that the actor – best known for roles in Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, The Bourne series, Troy and X2 – would be so enthusiastic about his role as a decrepit, alcoholic misanthrope in Michael Dougherty’s rookie feature Trick ’r Treat. Not only that, Cox even travelled to 2009 San Diego Comic-Con to promote the film, where he conducted round-table interviews. Rue Morgue spoke with him there. “Having worked with Michael on X-Men 2, I realized what a good writer he was…

Tom Atkins became a genre fan favourite through his roles in John Carpenter’s The Fog and Escape From New York, as well as Halloween III and Creepshow. But 23 years later, his performance as the broken and jaded Detective Cameron in Night of the Creeps remains the ultimate Atkins experience in the hearts of horror fans, as well as the man himself. You were quite a horror fan growing up. What kind of stuff did you watch, and are you still a fan? I loved all the old Frankenstein movies with Boris Karloff, especially the Bride of Frankenstein; as well as the Lon Chaney Wolfman movies and the Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, etc. movies. I am not a big fan of today’s horror films, though I…

SIMON SAYS Starring Crispin Glover, Margo Harshman and Greg Cipes Written and directed by William Dear Lionsgate Simon says, “Scream for joy if you’re a fan of the ’80s tongue-in-cheek slasher film.” “Now stomp your feet if you’re a delirious fan of Crispin Glover’s infamous spastic dance in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.” Ah! You’re out of the game. I didn’t say “Simon says.” In a plot you may have seen before, a group of attractive teens (headed here by Sorority Row’s Margo Harshman) on a camping trip encounters a psychopath. But here’s the twist: in this case it’s actually psychopaths – twins Simon and Stanley (Glover in a dual role). You see, Simon, being a little slow, was always his parents’ favourite, which led poor Stanley to act…

FOR SLASHER FANS, 1981 WAS A MILESTONE YEAR with My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, The Burning and highly anticipated sequels to Halloween and Friday the 13th hitting movie screens. One of the more unique entries to emerge from the subgenre was the overshadowed Canadian title Happy Birthday to Me. Glossy and sophisticated, yet deliciously trashy and over-the-top at the same time, the film is an anomaly. With its melodramatic acting and a plot overflowing with twists and turns, it feels like a bloodsoaked throwback to the thrillers of the ’50s and ’60s. Imbuing the movie with a classic, stylish feel was late British filmmaker J. Lee Thompson, the Oscarnominated director behind such highly regarded cinematic gems as 1961’s The Guns of Navarone and 1962’s Cape Fear. “J. Lee was interested…

PINOCCHIO: VAMPIRE SLAYER Dustin Higgins and Van Jensen SLG Publishing SIR EDWARD GREY, WITCHFINDER #2 Mike Mignola and Ben Stenbeck Dark Horse THE HANGMAN #1 J. Michael Straczynski, Tom Derenick and Bill Sienkiewicz DC INCARNATE #1 OF Nick Simmons Radical Comics THE COMPLETE DRACULA #2 Adapted by Leah Moore, John Reppion and Colton Worley Dynamite Entertainment GHOST RIDERS: HEAVEN’S ON FIRE #1 OF 6 Jason Aaron and Roland Boschi Marvel Every once in awhile a great idea comes along that makes you smack your head and say, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Like squeezable ketchup bottles or… Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer, a new graphic novel that pits everybody’s favourite little wooden boy against a vicious horde of bloodsuckers. The thought of taking Pinocchio and plunging him right in the…

TORTURE PORN IS A PHRASE THAT SEEMS TO LEAVE A LOT OF HORROR FANS CONFUSED. Yes, it’s derogatory, but it’s also an apt descriptor for the cinematic trend that will epitomize this decade in the annals of horror history. I’ll leave it to those more scholarly than myself to dissect the socio-political consequences of The War on Terror and its influence on genre cinema of the ’00s, but surely it has figured as prominently this decade as the Vietnam War did in the ’70s. Equating horror films marked by protracted scenes of callous humiliation and physical torment that climax in spurting blood to sex films is a valid exercise. The Miriam-Webster Dictionary defines torture as “anguish of the body or mind,” and pornography as “the depiction of acts in a…

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COMMENTS ● QUESTIONS ● CRITICISM I JUST WANTED to applaud your article on An American Werewolf in London in RM#93. I’ve loved horror all eighteen years of my life and it all started with American Werewolf in London, the first horror movie my mom showed me. Since I’m now suffering the stresses of applying to college, it was great to relive some of my most wonderful childhood memories through your article. My mom and I can’t wait for the revamped DVD to come out! Keep being badass, EMILY KULA – NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD I’M SURE I’M NOT the only peaceful pagan that reads this rag and I would like to think that I’m not the only one outraged at the very negative portrayal of the pentacle on the cover…

There are already a number of horror-related awards out there – the International Horror Guild and Bram Stoker Awards recognize horror fiction, Spike TV’s Scream Awards and the Saturns honour feature films – but only the newly formed Reaper Awards, happening this month, recognize achievement in the world of horror DVDs and Blu-ray. “The time has come to celebrate the important role home video has in the success of the horror genre,” says Reaper executive producer Kyra Kudick, “not only because of the number of films that premiere on DVD and never see a theatrical release, but also because there is an entire generation of horror fans – and filmmakers – who, without home video, would never have been able to see the seminal horror films that continue to influence…

1 POE STATUE $200 Need something to match your raven bookends? Try this beautifully crafted statue of Edgar Allan Poe, fresh from sculptor Bryan Moore at Arkham Studios. Standing at twelve-inches-tall and finished in a faux-bronze rub, it’ll really tie the gloom together. Procure a pint-sized Poe at arkhamstudios.com. 2 POE STAMP $0.42 Make your letters purloinable with this commemorative stamp from the USPS celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. Keep a sheet or two in the writing bureau next to the black-edged notepaper and your quill pen. Go Poe-stal at usps.com. 3 POE MUG $7 Wake up with the Master of the Macabre, with this mug featuring Poe’s signature, direct from the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. All proceeds from the sale of the…

EDGAR ALLAN POE’S ANNOTATED SHORT STORIES Andrew Barger, ed. Bottletree A collection of narratives for poring over on a midnight dreary, Barger’s annotated edition of Poe’s short prose is nothing if not thorough, but his meticulous explanation of seemingly any word longer than three syllables is frustrating, and there are also a couple of instances where he fails to translate some of Poe’s Greek terms, which in an edition that clearly aspires to be definitive is a glaring omission. However, Barger’s introduction to each story provides useful context, especially in the case of Poe’s satires, since a literary catfight is always more fun when you know the major players and their grievances. But the small print and narrow margins also make this one a bit of a slog: it’s best…

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT GHOULS AND MONSTERS ARE BEST VIEWED ON THE LATE-NIGHT FRIGHT SHOW WITH A TUB OF POPCORN. But long before most of us could rent R-rated movies – or even set our own bedtimes – we got our first addictive taste of the macabre watching Saturday morning television, in between mouthfuls of sugary cereal. As the television age ushered cinema’s iconic creature features into the pop culture landscape, what was once fearsome was repackaged as child friendly fun. From the first playfully spooky appearance of Casper the Friendly Ghost to the modern rampaging cryptids of The Secret Saturdays, spooky cartoons have become a mainstay on North American TV, transfixing generations of kids before their sleepy parents noticed they were dodging chores. To pay tribute to this institution, we’ve…

FILM DVD REISSUES UNIDENTIFIED FLYING BODY PARTS DISTRICT 9 Starring Sharlto Copley, Vanessa Haywood and David James Directed by Neill Blomkamp Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell Sony This can’t possibly be the first review you’ve read of District 9, so you’re probably already aware that Neill Blomkamp has created something special here, with a palpable assist from Peter Jackson. But in case other reviewers haven’t yet gotten you to the theatre, let this be another voice urging you to drop what you’re doing and see this while it’s still on the big screen. The story focuses on company man Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a bureaucrat in the employ of Multinational United, who is given the unfortunate task of resettling a massive community of refugee aliens living…

EEL GIRL eelgirl.net 5 mins. Eel Girl has been slithering its way across the short film festival circuit and scooping up a bunch of awards, for a good reason. Writer/director Paul Campion, a visual effects artist who has worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Sin City and 30 Days of Night, had the resources of New Zealand’s Weta Workshop to do his special makeup effects. Set deep inside a secret naval research lab, the film follows a scientist who has fallen in love with a monstrous yet strangely striking female human/eel hybrid who sports sharp, jagged teeth, greenish skin and gills that cut wound-like swaths across her cheeks. Both the makeup effects and the slime-oozing sets are simply stunning, giving the film – which was shot on 35mm…

VINTAGE HORROR REISSUES IN THE NAME OF POE THE BLACK CAT (1941) Starring Basil Rathbone, Hugh Herbert and Bela Lugosi Directed by Albert S. Rogell Written by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Lees, Robert Neville, et al. Universal Stop us if you’ve heard this before: one stormy night an elderly eccentric invites a throng of scheming relatives to her Victorian mansion to discuss their imminent inheritances. After revealing the details of her will, she’s suddenly found murdered – presumably bumped off by one of the greedy attendees who just couldn’t wait for nature to take its course. But as the remaining family members come under suspicion for the vicious act, they also start dying off. This familiar dog-eared plot has been used in everything from Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There…

LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE CORONER’S REPORT COLUMN in this very magazine to see how closely related horror culture and an interest in the morbid are. But from 1997 through to 2006 the morbidly inclined had a publication of their very own: Morbid Curiosity. Under the editorial guidance of founder Loren Rhoads, the magazine featured a variety of strange-but-true tales from around the world. Now Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues (Scribner), a reprinting of selected entries from MC’s decadelong run, welcomes us back to the bizarre once more. “[Morbid Curiosity] is for anyone who is curious about what it feels like to fish corpses from beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, or to hit a bicyclist with your car or to visit Mom in a mental hospital,” explains Rhoads, who also…

DEADLY DANGEROUS DECENT DULL DRIVEL DEAD ON ARRIVAL HOME: THE HORROR STORY SOUNDTRACK Edwin Wendler WESTWOOD MUSIC GROUP The newly released OST for 2000’s mashed-up psychological horror/black comedy, Home: The Horror Story is a wild blend of styles and sound effects. On top of that it contains a very diverse set of character themes, as well as splinter material for the increasingly weird hallucinations experienced by demented patriarch Richard Beymer. Much like with The ’Burbs, the music is very over the top; Edwin Wendler mixes mambo with Bernard Herrmann-esque offerings, and loads up pretty much any comedic style with genre clichés, along with some skittering rhythms, carnival melodies, cheesy organ solos and peripheral cartoon effects. In “Brain Matter,” for instance, one part of the cue is played backwards, with South…

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NEWS HIGHLIGHTS ● HORROR HAPPENINGS Fighting monsters is easy, it’s making a serious horror film that’s daunting – at least for Brookstreet Pictures, the company behind Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and now The Shrine. Jon Knautz, director and co-writer on both pictures, and a co-founder of the Ottawabased film company, says that Brookstreet is taking a chance by following its successful 2007 creature feature with something more serious. “The Shrine was the perfect next project for us because we’re used to horror, especially after Jack Brooks, but we don’t have the comedic safety blanket to kind of hide behind this time around.” While Jack Brooks has a comically hottempered title character, plus plenty of gore gags, The Shrine follows a group of journalists investigating the disappearance of a backpacker in…

youtube.com (Search: “Walken” “Poe” “Dore”) It began as an audio recording of actor Christopher Walken doing a dramatic reading of “The Raven,” but that was before a fan added fittingly macabre visuals (courtesy of artist Gustave Doré) to the proceedings to create this effectively unsettling short. online-literature.com/poe You don’t need a pocket full of dough to indoctrinate yourself to Poe’s work. Since all of his writings are now in the public domain, you can find them hosted on a bevy of web archives, including this one, which features all of his short stories and poems, as well as his novel, essays and stage play. Go Poe-less nevermore. bnbfinder.com/newsletterPreview.php?newslett erId=84#art2 Drop by BnB Finder and scroll down to “Spotlight on Specials – Nevermore, Baltimore” to find a trio of Poe-related bed…

“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief.” When Edgar Allan Poe wrote those opening lines to “The Black Cat,” one of his most terrifying and beloved stories, he might as well have been commenting on his own troubled life. The year was 1843, and though Poe was busy publishing some of his best work and happily married to his young cousin Virginia Clemm, the black dogs of poverty, bad luck, illness, depression and death that had followed him since birth were ready to pounce again. Born on a frigid winter day in Boston in 1809 to Eliza and David Poe, a pair of impoverished actors, Poe was orphaned by the age of two when his doting mother…

Films based on Poe’s tales date back almost to the birth of the medium itself, but it wasn’t until Roger Corman enlisted Vincent Price to tackle the author’s works in the 1960s that moviegoers were treated to the “definitive” adaptations. Shot in colour and CinemaScope, the “Poe cycle”–eight films over four years – were the lowbudget maverick’s most lavish productions to date. Starring Price as the reserved patriarch of a doomed family, screenwriter Richard Matheson’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) laid out the series’ psychedelic gothic tone with a spooky house, a woman buried alive and a fiery climax. The film’s success led to The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), a campier entry with an unhinged performance from Price, who is driven to torture innocents by his…

WHILE COMIC BOOK ADAPTATIONS OF HORROR MOVIES ARE HARDLY NEW, FEW CINE-MATIC WORKS WOULD SEEM AS RIPE FOR TRANSLATION INTO PRINT AS TRICK ’R TREAT. Indeed, creator Michael Dougherty makes no secret of the influence that comics, particularly horror titles, have had on his imagination. With its character designs, episodic narrative, unpretentious mix of humour and shocks, and animated book ends, his film recalls the best of old school anthology comics, highlighting an affinity between the two mediums that stretches back at least as far as the 1972 Amicus Tales from the Crypt movie. “The film’s structure echoes that of an old EC comic, so doing a graphic novel of Trick ’r Treat was a no-brainer,” observes writer Marc Andreyko, who is best known for penning Torso (the comic based…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE OD’S ON EYELINER LIKE A GOTH TO A FLAME GOTHKILL Wild Eye I am officially making a case for “Gothsploitation” as a recognized subgenre. From the fishnet-clad waifs in Razor Blade Smile to the latex-lovin’ hotties in Queen of the Damned, the goth girl is almost always portrayed as a brooding creature of unbridled beauty with an insatiable thirst for kinky sex, underground nightclubs and all things black. Gothkill features a bevy of these beauties as it follows a defrocked Catholic priest who possesses the body of a goth girl as he attempts to send 10,000 souls to Satan in exchange for the right to rule a small part of hell. This is a cool little film loaded with blood and more naked goths than you…

THE PLACE: GREAT BRITAIN, CIRCA THE END OF THE ’80s, this climate of shifting sands emerged Richard Stanley’s Hardware, an extraordinary post-apocalyptic sci-fi/horror adrenaline blast that was a throwback to beloved homicidal robot thrillers while also being an emotionally riveting, politically charged cyberpunk death trip unlike anything seen before. Darkly witty and poetic, the film bursts at the frame lines with explosive ultra-violence and breathtaking visuals, backed by Simon Boswell’s unforgettable electro Old West score. Set in a radiation-rotted future world, Hardware’s plot is, on the surface, relatively straightforward: Mo’ (Dylan McDermott) buys the remains of a freakish-looking robot and gives it to his sculptor girlfriend, Jill (Stacey Travis, pictured above), who immediately begins to incorporate the ’droid into her art. But what first appears to be intriguing scraps of…

HOLLYWOOD MONSTER Robert Engiund with Alan Goldsher Pocket Robert Englund is never going to win an Oscar. You know it, and, more importantly, he knows it. As he acknowledges in his autobiography, Hollywood Monster (co-written with Alan Goldsher), he’s “just a character actor, a working stiff” – albeit one who has had a massive impact upon popular culture. Credit that refreshing sense of candour and self-deprecation for making this book not only bearable but actually enjoyable. Wisely, Englund devotes much of Hollywood Monster to his years playing Freddy Krueger, the razor-fingered villain of the Nightmare on Elm Street films and short-lived TV show. Englund also covers his youth, growing up around show business in California, and his career in theatre and television. But he’s smart enough to know that anyone…

IN THE HOT AND STICKY STREETS OF ORLANDO, FLORIDA, THERE’S A BATTLE RAGING. Not for hearts and minds but for amusement park supremacy. For almost two decades, Disney World reigned supreme, turning Florida’s largest inland city into the theme park capital of the USA. Its flagship Magic Kingdom set the standard for parks everywhere, with theatrical roller coasters and animatronic storybook adventures. But Disney’s rule was challenged in the summer of 1990 when Universal Studios unleashed its Orlando incarnation, an ultramodern, movie-oriented playground with high-tech thrills that made the Magic Kingdom seem quaint in comparison. Disney fought back valiantly in ’98 with the spectacular Animal Kingdom, but Universal responded the following year with its Marvel Comics-flavoured Islands of Adventure, once again raising the bar. For horror fans, there’s only one…

FOR SOME, IT MIGHT START WITH THE CRACKLE AND POP, AND THE WARM SOUND THAT FOLLOWS. For others it’s the novelty of a bygone era: October 31 shrouded in Rockwellian musical nostalgia. Or perhaps it’s a memory – the glowing face of a jack-o’-lantern and the smell of burnt pumpkin at a party decades ago – that comes flooding back as needle meets vinyl and the familiar songs begin. For a few of us, Halloween-themed records have found a permanent place in our hearts, with their varied formats ranging from quirky, cartoonish children’s music to spoken word and bizarre, unsettling ambient noise. Some of these date back more than seven decades and are long out-of-print; but thanks to long-time fans and Halloween vinyl collectors such as Dave Wagner, who runs…

GRAPHICS PLAYABILIT SHIVERS GAMES REVIEWED BY ANDREW LEE HIGHEST RATING IS THREE BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM Xbox 360, PS3, PC Eidos Interactive Since 1986 there have been over twenty different video games based on Gotham City’s legendary Caped Crusader, and now finally there’s one that fully immerses players in genuine horror atmosphere, while pitting Bats against some bona fide monsters. In Batman: Arkham Asylum, players take on the role of the infamous crimefighter after he’s been trapped on an island housing Gotham’s notorious nuthouse. The action takes place in the sharply rendered environments of the dilapidated loony bin, where players must skulk through stinking sewers, swing from massive gargoyles, creep through decrepit laboratories and navigate down dank corridors while battling The Joker and his hordes of…