Table of contents for Issue 220 Sep/Oct Halloween 2024 in RUE MORGUE

  Rue Morgue · 001 Rue Morgue #220 Intro Some of you might know I studied sociology before I decided to take those diplomas, wipe my ass with them, and pursue a lucrative career in print journalism. I chose sociology for a few reasons – a persistent outsider in every subculture I dabbled in as a teenager, I wondered if studying groupthink would explain my prevailing social malfunction. But I was also interested in the discipline because, well, it lacked discipline; a “soft” social science that allowed for a wide range of fluffy electives that were easily passed due to my writing chops and contrarian nature. Little did I know then, but an education in sociology is not only a semi-useless degree, but a curse on par with ’s blood-and-strawberry…

Rue Morgue · 002 Rue Morgue #220 Willem Dafoe BACK IN THE ERA OF SILENT CINEMA, WHEN FIRST MADE ITS MARK, ACTORS HAD TO PULL A FAIR BIT OF EXTRA WEIGHT, USING DRAMATIC EYE MAKEUP AND EXAGGERATED EXPRESSIONS TO CONNECT A CHARACTER’S dialogue with their emotional state. But in this current age of 4K IMAX, there are few faces that light up the big screen with as much dimension, expression, and versatility as that of Willem Dafoe. In his career spanning four decades, he’s appeared in an astonishing variety of films, from art house to mainstream to Marvel. William Friedkin, Lars von Trier, David Cronenberg, and David Lynch are just a few genre filmmakers to have made use of Dafoe’s singular visage and undeniable talent, and the 68-year-old A-lister is…

ADRIAN GRIFFIN The Invisible Man (2020) Adrian Griffin from Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man is just another massively wealthy dude who torments his wife emotionally and mentally during their marriage, fakes his death after she escapes, uses his super-high-tech invisibility suit to stalk and gaslight her into a full breakdown, smacks a teenage girl, slits his sister-in-law’s throat in a busy restaurant and puts the knife in his ex-wife’s hand, tampers with her birth control to get her pregnant, and frames it all on his own brother. Ex-husbands, am I right? Just kidding, he’s one of the worst monsters to appear in modern horror. CMx ANNIE WILKES Misery (1990) Few moments in horror history make audiences squirm like the hobbling scene in Rob Reiner’s Stephen King adaptation, where obsessive fan…

THE 1980S BROUGHT ABOUT PROFOUND TRANSFORMATIONS IN LONDON, WHERE I WAS BORN. IT FELT LIKE PEOPLE WERE PROTESTING ALL THE TIME: angry orange VOTE LABOUR stickers were displayed on house windows as I walked along the streets around my neighbourhood. It was during this time of social upheaval and rampant consumerism that some of the most iconic horror film franchises began and have since become a compelling mirror to society’s deepest apprehensions: from capitalist greed and corruption to the more recent anxieties related to climate change. Despite its family-friendly rating, Ghostbusters terrified me when it premiered, particularly watching the translucently green Slimer gobble down everything in sight. It captured the essence of an era where change was constant and survival meant seizing every opportunity with voracity. It felt like everything…

SHAKE-UP CALL FRANKIE FREAKO Starring Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks and Kristy Wordsworth Written and directed by Steven Kostanski Raven Banner After satirizing giallo in The Editor and perverting precocious Amblin Entertainment movies with Psycho Goreman, Steven Kostanski triumphantly returns with a creation that’s a phone call away from turning your world upside down. Conor (Conor Sweeney) is a total square – whether it’s intimacy with his wife Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth) or delivering a work presentation to his weirdo boss (Adam Brooks), he just can’t seem to loosen up. Then he sees a late-night television commercial for the hotline 1-900-555-FREAKO that promises the ultimate party experience. (For those who were born after phones had buttons: there was once a time when you could call 1-900 numbers to hear a pre-recorded message…

REMAKES OF POPULAR HORROR MOVIES ARE COMMONPLACE ON THE CINEMA SCENE, BUT RARELY HAS A REDUX ARRIVED WHILE ITS predecessor is still so fresh in viewers’ minds as Speak No Evil. The original, from Danish director Christian Tafdrup, world-premiered at the Sundance Film Festival just two and a half years ago, winning raves there and throughout its subsequent festival and worldwide theatrical release. It also attracted the attention of Blumhouse Productions, which has the new English-language version due to release via Universal Pictures on September 13. Naturally, there’s been a great deal of scrutiny on Speak No Evil ’24 from admirers of Tafdrup’s movie, but filmmaker James Watkins felt like the right choice to take it on: the British writer/director demonstrated a knack for uncompromising human horrors with Eden Lake…

On a bench in my bedroom lives a menagerie of plush monsters – one has a gaping toothy maw, another nine eyes. So yeah, monsters are my jam, especially the weird, misunderstood ones born from spooky people’s imaginations. And few folks do strange, imaginative creatures better than Canadian illustrator Andrew P. Barr. He compiles them in “field guides,” giving them clever and often quirky backstories. His latest, The Unnatural Order of the Three-Eyed Skull’s Field Guide to Cryptids, Creatures, Creeps, Demons, Horrors, Haunts, Haints, Hags, Ghosts, Monsters, Mutants and Madmen, Volume 4, with its collection of Halloween-inspired beasties, is a perfect celebration of the season, so I hit him up for a chat. https://www.amazon.ca/Unnatural-Three-eyed-Cryptids-Creatures-Monsters/dp/B0CY8PGKND HOW WERE THE FIELD GUIDES BORN? Originally it started as just a warm-up exercise.… I decided…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6BZJWT2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3V20JSW4KEO2Z&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4c4dJEIa3df-GZr__EaRhnu2CT5CDzMxkO6OCg3R86o9Tk-uZ6qOGnwdtfwYIO-r5ICEhFaU7dJh36l3_negNhRw-xvN1zyWXTPj7rWBxxvZvN1Bi3up2O_w9Jof17nLtMjXQ3deW7Up5YnSbik1I5z27k6LRE5C7A6Hn9p4wpDeFQjLScbM9TQz9Wt84ltVLMnDxGs-Iyh2Adl-J6pZBCaFgMma3yOxv1DimmqlhRw.xUDPCzaZBNe5kVahOxrhIr6sghisJbWCPfh6O37hfCU&dib_tag=se&keywords=Dead+Whisper+soundtrack&qid=1723486354&sprefix=dead+whisper+soundtrack%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1 DEAD WHISPER SOUNDTRACK Nikhil Koparkar (INDEPENDENT) Conor Soucy’s Cape Cod-based demonic horror film Dead Whisper gets some of its chills from the blustery setting, and several more from an expressive score by Nikhil Koparkar. Employing a large string section along with percussive elements, Koparkar fills your ears with a multitude of musical ideas that don’t rely solely on dissonance and stings for jump scares, although the requisite elements (spooky choral effects, drawn-out tremulous strings) are all there. “Reunion” is based around a trippy synthesized arpeggio, while “Take the Key” skillfully builds yearning chords and ambient sound into a pleasing cacophony. There’s a cavernous amount of space on the recording, and the echoing spaces are usually filled with something different on each track. With Dead Whisper, Koparkar establishes himself as…

THANKS FOR INCLUDING Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo in your latest issue though I would have preferred if you guys put the movie on the cover instead of the overhyped (and boring, IMHO) Longlegs. But I get it; it’s not easy running a magazine in this day and age and you have to bow to industry pressures. I would appreciate if you were more upfront about it though. BRETT H., VIA EMAIL Thanks Brett, but we don’t bow to pressure from anyone, that’s why we remain independent. The only reason Longlegs made it on the cover is that we liked it more than Cuckoo. Personal opinions may vary. -Ed. READING THE INTERVIEW with Mary Lambert, “The First Lady of Horror Cinema,” and her comment that “there were no other female directors then,…

THIS ISSUE: LANCE MAKES A HORROR MOVIE DEEP REDDER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoPviGNzQA8 THAT’S A WRAP Quiver Distribution Many moons ago, some friends and I braved subzero temperatures to shoot a short horror movie I had written (and was starring in) called Frostbite. It was a zombie saga set in the Canadian winter, and we were warmed by copious amounts of Tim Hortons coffee and little else. Alas, Frostbite sucked harder than a toothless vampire and never saw the light of a movie theatre, but it did give me a dim respect for filmmakers – even crappy ones, hence the reason I continue to give them some love (or something like that) in this column. Exhibit A: That’s a Wrap, a groovy, heavy-handed homage to the Italian giallo films of yesteryear. In…

A NEW BEGINNING FOR THE FRIDAY THE 13TH REMAKE When the remake of Friday the 13th opened on its namesake day in February 2009, it arrived at the tail end of a cinematic wave of reimagining classic horror films of the 1970s and early ’80s. Nonetheless, this reunion of director Marcus Nispel and producers including Michael Bay, who had launched the trend with 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, had one of its biggest openings, taking in a huge $40.5 million in its first weekend. But while Chainsaw, along with the new Dawn of the Dead and The Hills Have Eyes, found some favour among fans, Friday was not as well-received, and it plunged 80.4 percent in its second weekend at the box office – still the steepest drop ever for…

Rue Morgue · 004 Rue Morgue #220 The Return of EC Comics It’s been 70 years since the creation of the Comics Code Authority, formed in large part as a response to the graphic, child-warping horror books put out by EC Comics. What better way to celebrate its formation – and give it a giant, middle-finger salute – than with the return of EC and its first new titles in nearly seven decades? A partnership between Oni Press and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., EC is resurrected with the launch of two brand-new titles, and . https://www.amazon.com/EC-Epitaphs-Abyss-Brian-Azzarello-ebook/dp/B0D794RQ2G/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JG92HBBYUPQP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2KLeFksiwKSYpPCq0wYwPMhWXGo3yzN-X6nTWE6ymGsS4-1Xe08w5JVKW06kBGGRWzE5xAwBS6woeRN69ztEvS3yxquZirgaqKYYxl6lDhdzSW38wXQmg9zch-KUVRl7_7us7FqF84e3kNoJZ-Z9E9Z0s1VZYd-dpCAO-L931gfFg2nMOw0204fnJBHwyesVQv80ljiyz05Aq_zCLhmHeJRk8_Vq6v28FUk8FCpJ_R4.0m595sh_bEGyKoKzj-5TOVBNelt70Net6HstNZM6Kwk&dib_tag=se&keywords=Epitaphs+from+the+Abyss&qid=1723473284&sprefix=epitaphs+from+the+abyss%2Caps%2C77&sr=8-1 The seeds for this rebirth were sown a couple of years ago when Hunter Gorinson, then working at production company Hivemind, was collaborating with Corey Mifsud and Cathy Gaines Mifsud, the grandson and…

GOOD NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT Brian Evenson Coffee House Press The high quality of Evenson’s latest collection won’t surprise readers of, say, A Collapse of Horses [RM#166] or Song for the Unraveling of the World [RM#190], but this new one is his best yet. https://www.amazon.com/Night-Sleep-Tight-Brian-Evenson/dp/1566897092/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1N45PII332W52&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zOGi4vG7W6nI1LgnDqytNHw-db_ky6p2HwpmEUT2PjeSsdszxrtqoJhC_2vgl-4dkEr9lkpuaD7Z3hwv_0gVMA.1m8kfCPIv3xECbd6ZAJW4z4hsy0DhxdVTAsScO2wZUg&dib_tag=se&keywords=good+night+sleep+tight+brian+evenson&qid=1723580571&sprefix=good+night+sleep+tight+br%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1 Several stories deal with childhood fears. In “The Sequence,” twin girls on a farm play a game which leads them into a parallel reality. In “The Thickening,” a boy is afraid to sleep alone because a harmful entity would coalesce out of thin air. Fear of losing a parent is dealt with in “Vigil in the Inner Room,” where a father keeps coming back from the dead. A pallid creature wants to lead a boy out of his room and out of this world onto “The…

https://www.youtube.com/@twogirlsoneghost Two Girls One Ghost THEME: Spooky Stuff FORMAT: Discussion FREQUENCY: Twice Weekly Depending on your Google Safe Search settings, you might have missed out on a great spooky podcast that has put out over 275 episodes throughout the last seven years – thank goodness for Rue Morgue, because you mustn’t sleep on Two Girls One Ghost. Ghostesses Sabrina Deana-Roga and Corinne Vien met in college and bonded over their personal experiences with hauntings; now they’re best friends, broadcasting the show from a location suspiciously close to Salem, Massachusetts. But these witchy babes are much more than another pair of besties sharing laughs and scary stories. Unlike most paranormal podcasts, Two Girls One Ghost isn’t afraid to go out into the field and actually investigate the haunted locations they talk…

NOW PLAYING > SLAYAWAY CAMP II, SHIFT 87 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2737140/Slayaway_Camp_2/ SLAYAWAY CAMP II PC/IOS/Android Blue Wizard Digital Look out, gamers – Skullface is back with a whole sequel of new obstacles that stand between him and the camp counsellors he’s compelled to stab, drown, immolate, and lay to waste in dramatic (and cinematic) fashion. Still a strategy puzzler but with new mechanics and minigames, Slayaway Camp II is another playable love letter to the ’80s slasher subgenre that takes the slicing and dicing to more modern (and meta) places. Whereas the original Slayaway Camp saw Skullface and his killer cohort stalking teens in a sliding puzzle format with a blocky, Minecraft-esque aesthetic, its sequel allows more flexible movement for the slasher to manipulate cartoony environments more akin to early 3-D console…

1 CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON MONSTER BAG $128 USD Be the belle of the bayou with the latest in Micheline Pitt’s line of novelty bags and celebrate the 70th anniversary of this icon of timeless vintage horror! Equally needful as a collector’s item or a wearable fashion statement, this 3-D rubber PVC replica of the Creature’s head dangles from an adjustable silver chain and features a zipper to keep your valuables from getting pulled under. Michelinepitt.com 2 BOO-YA OWALA BOTTLE $53 USD A wee bit steep for a water bottle but hear us out – Owala’s patented FreeSip technology is already kitted out with practical features such as triple-layer insulation, a leak-proof lid, built-in straw and carrying loop, but the limited-edition Boo-Ya colour drop with glow-in-the-dark ghosts make this…

Say “Nosferatu” to a horror fan and they’ll recall one of the genre’s earliest classics that became ubiquitous thanks to its public domain status and its famous dispute with the Bram Stoker estate over its similarities to a certain other fanged fiend. But say the same word to a non-horror fan and they’ll conjure an image just as quickly: a ratlike face above a tall silhouette, slouched yet somehow looming eight feet tall; elongated digits culminating in sharp claws, pointed ears, bald head, and bushy eyebrows, with an expression of blank menace normally reserved for the predators of the animal world. One of horror’s most indelible monsters, the history of Count Orlok is as iconic as his form; a tale of artistic dreams and intellectual property, public domain and German…

Rue Morgue · 003 Rue Morgue #220 Dacre Stoker WITHIN THE SCATTERSHOT WORLD OF ADAPTATIONS, IS ITS OWN LITTLE BRAND: AN OFFSHOOT THAT RETAINS EVERYTHING OF THE STORY EXCEPT THE TITLE CHARACTER – WITHOUT DRACULA. Robert Eggers’ upcoming adaptation is the second remake of F.W. Murnau’s Expressionist original, after Werner Herzog produced his own version starring Klaus Kinski in 1979; there’s also , E. Elias Merhige’s fictional account of the making of Murnau’s film, released in 2000 and starring Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck, the actor who portrayed the vamp in 1922. The toothy monster’s legacy is a long one, but if the legal situation around Murnau’s film had played out as reportedly intended by the Bram Stoker estate in the early 20th century, we might never have had any…

WHEN FOOD ACADEMIC DR. ALESSANDRA PINO AND FOOD AND TRAVEL JOURNALIST ELLA BUCHAN PITCHED THE IDEA OF a Gothic cookbook around to various publishing companies, they all replied that there was good reason such a book didn’t already exist; the concept was too niche, and people wouldn’t be interested in Gothic recipes anyway. It’s understandable, given that when the average person thinks of a Gothic cookbook, their imagination might take them to stomach-turning recipes fit for Halloween parties. But A Gothic Cookbook: Hauntingly Delicious Recipes Inspired by 13 Classic Tales – out September 24 from Andrews McMeel Publishing – takes a decidedly uncanny spin on your grandma’s tomato sauce-spattered recipe book while still offering a menu of truly appetizing and appealing fare inspired by thirteen Gothic novels, including The Haunting…

1. (L-R) Marco Pecota, Pablo Guisa Koestinger, RM President Rodrigo Gudiño, and Tim Luna of the Fantastic Pavilion at Cannes. 2. Justin Erickson and Fright Gallery columnist Paige Reynolds with Rue Morgue Horror Trivia hosts Jay Clarke and Pat Lighthelp in Toronto. 3. Dante of the Dead gets some love from Mike D’Apice (Whiskey Morgue). 4. Executive Editor Andrea Subissati with a friend at the Saw X premiere. 5. Cryptic Collectibles columnist James Burrell, Lynne Griffin, Lesleh Donaldson, and Rue Morgue TV’s Yasmina Ketita at Sudbury Indie Creature Kon. 6. Music editor Aaron von Lupton, Andrea, and Jessica Buck at the Twin Temple show in Toronto. 7. Filmmaker Sapna Moti Bhavnani, Andrea, and Carolyn Mauricette get weird at the Witchboard premiere afterparty. 8. (Clockwise from top left) Alison Lang, RMTV…

CLEARWATER 6:01 mins/YouTube via Dust Channel A young woman (Joan Loluo) finds an idyllic spot to sunbathe next to a picturesque waterfall when she’s discovered by a lone mosquito, whose quick snack on her blood causes a malevolent chain reaction. Canadian director Rob Jabbaz’s self-taught prowess in visual effects is on full display with visceral, microscopic CGI, and a stunning location provides great contrast with the horrific implications in the film’s final frame. By then just immigrated to Taiwan, Clearwater was the film Jabbaz made right before jumping into the 2021 shocker The Sadness which, although the delivery method may be different, still shares the same apocalyptic nature in its DNA. LIPLOCK 18:17 mins/Vimeo via Gasfire Films Channel When Rachael (Mandy Magnan) invites her ex-lover Mike (Evert Houston) over while…