Table of contents for Issue 77 April 2008 in RUE MORGUE

+ Poland boasts roughly 70 priests who are trained to perform exorcisms, while Italy has an estimated 300. + Musician/singer Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom) did the voice work for the vampires in I Am Legend. + Stephanie Conover, beauty queen and current Miss Toronto Plus title holder, was recently dismissed as a judge from the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant because she reads tarot cards. In a letter to Conover, pageant officials suggested that she uses the cards to “commune with dark forces.” + Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder was shot in 3-D, but never released in that format. + “Horripilation” is defined as “the bristling of the body hair, as from fear or cold” and is another term for “goose bumps.” + During an…

One of the most influential horror hosts of all time, Maila Nurmi was often just as mysterious in life as she was in death. Vampira: The Movie, a 2007 straight-to-DVD documentary by director Kevin Sean Michaels, features a wealth of captivating interview footage with Nurmi, as she discusses her career, relationships and personal outlook on life as a horror icon. “My goal was to preserve Maila’s essence in some way, so people could see what an afternoon was like with her,” explains Michaels, a former art director for Troma Entertainment. “Maila is the iconic horror host that all others would be judged against, yet very few would ever see. The weird thing is that her show was never seen outside of the Los Angeles area, so many of those who…

Some bands strive to convey an image. Some nurture it inherently. And while many acts embrace the world of horror and haphazardly tie it to their preferred musical genre, there are certain dark souls who define what it is to be a genuinely horrific band. In the case of black metal, Oslo, Norway’s Dimmu Borgir (which includes vocalist Shagrath, guitarists Silenoz and Galder, keyboardist Mustis, bassist ICS Vortex and drummer Tony Laureano) has managed to forge a union between the scene’s stark, morbid atmosphere and an almost spiritual twist to horror. “I need entertainment from the dark side,” Silenoz tells Rue Morgue just prior to their North American tour, kicking off in Toronto this month. “It’s authentic. The dark side is the most positive thing to us because it’s the…

YOU MAY NOW KISS THE CORPSE WEDDING SLASHERS The Institution usually have a box of Kleenex at the ready whenever I watch a movie with a “Jenna” in it, but this time it was in anticipation of crying. This Jenna, played by Jessica Kinney, is cursed: every guy she falls for ends up dying a horrible death at the hands of her twisted, incestuous family members. So, she runs away from home to get married, but her kinfolk find her and decimate the entire wedding party. Wedding Slashers is a solid film with clever, funny dialogue, good gore gags and an ultra-cool cameo by Richard Lynch, who has starred in everything from The Ninth Configuration to Puppetmaster 3. As Jenna’s father, he proves the old adage ’bout the family that…

Blue Underground’s reissue of Anchor Bay’s The Giallo Collection gives us the perfect opportunity to revisit the early days of Italian filmmaker Aldo Lado’s career. Wait – “Who’s Lado?” you ask. Well… Aldo Lado got his start as a director in 1971, in the heyday of Italian genre cinema, and the “decade of the gialli.” That he began his career in the giallo genre is no surprise then, yet his films are not typical of the genre, as they’re often imbued with social and political commentary. His early surroundings were likely a key influence; he was born in Fiume, Italy, a border town under fascist rule, which after WWII was renamed Rijeka and rejoined Croatia. While he spent his adolescence in Venice, stories and memories of the era’s political strife…

I have to confess, Richard Sala’s current miniseries, Delphine, took me by surprise. Very pleasant surprise. I am a great fan of American expressionist cartoonist Sala (the ongoing Evil Eye series, Thirteen O’clock and The Ghastly Ones), whose works blend elements of horror, mystery and dark comedy in a comic book format with the relentless pacing of a Republic serial. But Delphine had somehow slipped under my radar, so when the first three (of four) issues landed on my desk, I wasn’t predisposed to look for a particular storyline, aside from simply expecting a “Richard Sala.” My point being that I wasn’t trying to find avatars for the fairy tale of Snow White, which the series is compared to. This is why, in many respects, my initial encounter with the…

NEKROmantik Various Martin Schmitz Verlag Nekromantik, made in 1987, was one of the last true underground films – a graphic sex ’n’ death, pre-internet flick that made its way around the world via shoddy bootleg videos and folks such as film writer and exhibitionist Jack Stevenson, who toured a print in the 1980s. Watching Nekromantik in a small, smoky screening room was just the way to experience this out-there grainfest because, really, it was something you had to find, had to discover. In Nekromantik, six German film writers reflect on discovering Jörg Buttgereit’s movie as it unspooled before their eyes for the first time. By localizing the contributors, the book embarks on a region-specific view of the film, linking it to Germany’s troubled past and the fact that some of…

Was it only a week ago that I was here at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in the heart of Los Angeles, California, for the funeral of Ms. Maila Nurmi, a.k.a. Vampira? Now I’m back on a sunny Saturday with my girlfriend Lucinda and daughter Marion in tow for a tour of this 60-acre field of dreams – as your intrepid reporter for Rue Morgue! Why bring along a nine-year-old on a two-hour stroll through the dead and buried, you might ask? It’s good exercise, there are trees to climb, plenty of ducks and geese to chase and, for the Moseleys, this definitely qualifies as family time. Our tour, led by a delightful young necrologist named Karie Bible, commences at noon at the gift/flower shop (“Significant Sites” maps, $5; black and…

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JOVANKA, thank you for being one of the good guys. After reading your editorial in RM#76, I had a newfound respect for you (not that it wasn’t already there). Seeing you stand up for the creative rights of writers and remind everyone that stealing from each other, especially in such a small community, is ethically wrong, was a thrill. It takes brass balls (you have them in spirit) to write something like that. Thank you for having the integrity to fight the good fight and support horror writers (I myself am an aspiring screenwriter who is afraid to show my work to others for the reasons you outlined in your piece on theft). I tip my hat to you, warrior woman! Lisa Strange – Pensacola, Florida I BELIEVE there is…

UNCLE CREEPY $150 Uncle Creepy, of the classic Creepy comics, has crawled out of his crypt once more thanks to the evil geniuses at Dark Horse. Standing 14.5” tall, this malicious-looking codger’ll scare those pesky kids away from your ancestral pile. Get him before he gets you at darkhorse.com. JAWS BOXERS $11.99 Give your undie drawer a bit of bite with these ferocious boxers featuring Amity Island’s worst nightmare. Made from 100 percent cotton, they will comfortably cradle your shark bait after a midnight skinny dip. You’re gonna need a bigger butt at webundies.com. MONSTER BUCKLES $15-$100 “Barovestinecropolophobia” – the morbid fear of your pants dropping to your ankles while you’re visiting a graveyard – is a bitch, and don’t we know it. Fortunately, these monstrous belt buckles, including Gris…

Actors who become identified with iconic characters often refer to it as a blessing and a curse. This is especially true of actors in the genre. Bela Lugosi spent his whole life trying in vain to escape Dracula’s typecasting clutches. In the end, he was even buried wearing the Count’s cape. Leonard Nimoy’s love/hate relationship with Mr. Spock has been well documented, often by Nimoy himself, in the books I Am Not Spock and its later refutation I Am Spock. But never have the roles of actor and character been so intricately intertwined as in the strange case of Maila Nurmi and her alter ego, TV’s original “Glamour Ghoul,” Vampira. The story of Vampira’s origins has been told many times. In 1953, young costume ball, dressed as the morose housewife…

DEAD FAMOUS A believer and a doubter investigating the paranormal? That’s the concept behind Living TV’s Dead Famous, in which clairvoyant Chris Fleming and skeptic Gail Porter travel around America investigating places where famous dead people, including Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Jim Morrison and the like are said to still hang out. Episodes feature three locations associated with each particular celebrity, though some of their connections are comically tenuous at best. MYSTERY HUNTERS In many ways a younger version of Ghost Hunters, this Discovery Kids show features two teenagers, Christina Broccolini and Araya Mengesha, who use science to try to rationalize all sorts of weirdness, including vampires, UFOs and a hefty helping of ghosts. SCARIEST PLACES ON EARTH You’d think that it’d be an excellent day for an exorcism when presenter…

INFERNAL DEVICE: MACHINERY OF TORTURE AND EXECUTION Erik C. Rühling The Disinformation Company Head Crusher, Chain Scourge, Iron Maiden, The Pear of Anguish – they might sound like the lineup for a heavy metal festival, but in reality they’re some of the most terrifying examples of humanity’s penchant for cruelty. In his new book, Infernal Device, Eric Rühling has gathered 30 of the most barbarous and terrifying creations that man has ever invented to inflict pain on, or end the life of, his fellow man. Each item is described in all of its gory detail, from the dreaded interrogation chair, which would pierce anyone unlucky enough to be forced to sit upon its 2000 sharpened metal spikes; the knee splitter, which clamped onto a person’s elbows, knees, ankles or wrists…

Who would have thought the inspiration for the Guns N’ Roses’ mega-hit videos “Don’t Cry,” “November Rain” and “Estranged” would be borne of a short story in a collection of downright nasty horror tales? But that’s exactly how it went down… sort of. Back in 1986, writer/former rock journalist/tour manager/video director/horror aficionado Del James wrote a story called “Without You,” about a tragic love and a tormented rock star, for his best friend – a troubled, fledgling musician named Axl Rose – as a peaceable gesture to help him through a difficult relationship. Fast forward a few years and the pair were compiling ideas for a rock ’n’ roll movie starring Guns N’ Roses, based on elements of the same short story. “The music videos ‘Don’t Cry,’ ‘November Rain’ and…

I AM OMEGA Starring Mark Dacascos, Geoff Meed and Jennifer Lee Wiggins Directed by Griff Furst Written by Geoff Meed Okay, we get it – this is obviously a mockbuster based on the 1964 classic The Last Man on Earth, 1971’s The Omega Man and the recent I Am Legend. Problem is, where these films offered solid lead actors (Vincent Price, Charleton Heston and Will Smith, respectively), the best that The Asylum could muster for I Am Omega was the guy who starred in Kickboxer 5 and played Eric Draven in The Crow TV series, Mark Dacascos. Dacascos plays Renchard, who’s supposed to be the last human on Earth after a virus has killed everyone else off or turned them into bloodthirsty zombies (sound familiar?). Though the movie starts out…

THE LOST COUSIN OF CALIGARI THE HANDS OF ORLAC (1924) Starring Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina and Hans Homma Directed by Robert Wiene Written by Louis Nerz and Maurice Renard Kino Four years after directing Conrad Veidt in the German expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene reunited with his creepy, dynamic star for The Hands of Orlac, a dark, Freudian thriller that again sought to externalize the mysterious inner workings of the mind. Based on the novel Les mains d’Orlac by Maurice Renard, the film’s exploration of madness and despair introduced the idea of killer body transplants to the screen, and transformed this fantastic plot into one of horror cinema’s most indelible and prolific mythologies. In the movie Veidt plays Paul Orlac, a celebrated pianist whose hands are…

The government of the People’s Republic of China recently declared a ban on “all video and audio products containing elements of horror or the supernatural,” citing a need to protect the “psychological health” of children. There are sinister implications here – how long will it be before an authoritarian regime with a track record of crushing dissidence beneath tank treads decides to start burning Hong Kong film archives? Colour me alarmist if you will, but I fear the adult Category III titles produced there between 1988 and 1997 are doomed. Cat III is more than a film rating, it’s a genre of lurid exploitation flicks that truly deliver the titties and tastelessness fans revel in. Following are two examples of films I see in imminent peril. Find them! Hide them!…

Devotees of Don Coscarelli’s films are used to lengthy waiting periods between releases, largely since the LA-based filmmaker (best known for his Phantasm series and Bubba Ho-Tep) is a notorious stickler for autonomy. Nonetheless, there’s a veritable flurry of activity in the Coscarelli camp these days: he’s acquired the film rights to David Wong’s cult hit novel John Dies at the End, a prequel to Bubba Ho-Tep is in the works and rumours of the long-awaited fifth Phantasm film continue to hover in the ether, even though details are scarce. While he’s reluctant to predict which of these projects will materialize first, Bubba Nosferatu and the She-Vampires would appear to be farthest along, with budget in place and several actors attached. “Stephen Romano and I wrote a terrific script,” Coscarelli…

Trying to make art by committee is often considered the reason so many movies fail, yet that’s exactly the approach Kenneth Woo and Brett Icahn are taking with Massify.com. The project intends to create the “first film developed entirely over the internet” – a horror title, no less. “The horror community is the type of passionate audience that we felt fit with what we’re trying to do with Massify,” Woo tells Rue Morgue over the phone from New York. Unlike sites such as YouTube and iFilm, which allow burgeoning filmmakers to distribute their already completed movies, Massify attempts to build a mechanism for creating a professional product. The site’s name comes from the broad ideal of opening up the filmmaking process and making the tools available to a massive audience.…

If Hieronymus Bosch had been an architect, his creations would likely resemble the obsessively intricate sculptures of American artist Kris Kuksi. Not only are each of Kuksi’s pieces carefully steeped in macabre imagery and social commentary, but according to his artist’s statement, one of the primary goals of his work is to “expose the fallacies of man.” “Man is a funny creature,” explains Kuksi, who also draws and paints professionally but considers himself a “builder” first and foremost. “He tries so hard to escape his animal impulses by creating religion, government and morals. But mankind continually creates a hellish world filled with racism, war and crime. So, mankind sets itself to fall by its own rules and idealism. If the animal isn’t good enough to be human, maybe humans aren’t…

TSUKAMOTO’S BAD DREAMS NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE Starring Hitomi, Ryuhei Matsuda and Masanobu Ando Written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto Dimension Extreme The opening scene of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Nightmare Detective both signals the director’s continuing drift into the mainstream of Japanese horror while also confirming his status as one of the genre’s true visionaries. As a middle-aged Tokyo businessman sits down to a solitary dinner of noodles and beer, the camera shifts to reveal a strange decoration on the wall behind him: a thick lock of long black hair hanging from a simple hook. Before we can fully process Tsukamoto’s re-imagining of this ubiquitous symbol of J-horror mayhem, a man dressed only in a monkish robe crawls from underneath the floorboards and calmly explains to the businessman that the hair belongs to…

THIS SLEEPING CORPSE WON’T LIE THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974) Starring Ray Lovelock, Christine Galbo and Arthur Kennedy Directed by Jorge Grau Written by Sandro Continenza and Marcello Coscia Blue Underground Horror fans know the double-dip – that oftentimes nefarious practice whereby our favourite flicks are unleashed on DVD in multiple versions. But which do we choose? “This one has been digitally scrubbed.” “This one has multiple making-of featurettes.” “This one comes with an action figure.” You know the drill. So Blue Underground’s “2-Disc Special Edition” of Spanish director Jorge Grau’s The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue must be greeted with trepidation. After all, Anchor Bay released a perfectly serviceable version back in 2000 under one of its other various titles, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. Blue Underground then…

Fog descends on a dank cobblestone lane, a lonely church bell chimes in the night, and from the shadows emerges a towering aristocrat in black cape and top hat, smelling of freshly dug graves. His eyes blaze and his wolflike fangs gleam in the gaslight. Swooping down on his mesmerized victim, the vampire feeds, leaving behind a lifeless body that will reanimate with the next rising of the moon. Conventional wisdom holds that these images were burned onto the popular imagination by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, but if Curt Herr, an editor, author and professor of gothic literature, has his way, vampire aficionados will finally be able to drink deeply from the real literary font of all things vampiric: Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood, by James…

DRIFTWOOD Soundtrack William Ross BSX RECORDS William Ross is mainstream enough to have conducted last year’s Academy Awards (not to mention Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) but his score for Driftwood – director Tim Sullivan’s attempt to break away from goofy horror in favour of disturbing dark drama – is anything but your typically extravagant Hollywood piece. The album is based primarily around a recurring minimalist theme, haunting piano reminiscent of The Fog. From there the music branches out in various directions, but always maintains its tragic and morose sensibility, moving from beautiful orchestral pieces to near-industrial suspense numbers, capturing the essence of the film’s tortured ghost, Jonathan. The only shortcomings on this soundtrack are four irritating alt-rock numbers by no-name artists that disrupt what is otherwise a…

GRAPHICS: PLAYABILITY: SHIVERS: 1/2 THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES DS, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 Sierra Coinciding with the release of the movie based on a series of children’s novels by Holly Black, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fairly good introductory game for younger players who want to play a “scary” game without having to worry about the kind of nightmares that they usually evoke. (I’m looking in your direction, Silent Hill!) As one of the three Grace siblings, each of whom has his/her own unique weapons and abilities, you move through a world of fantastic, often frightening, creatures in the woodlands around their new house. There’s also a fourth character, a brownie, who is fun to play, as his diminutive size allows you to battle cockroaches and sneak…

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