Table of contents for Issue 221 Nov/Dec Xmas 2024 in RUE MORGUE

Rue Morgue · 001 Rue Morgue #221 - Intro Those among us who can remember seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street in the cinema during its first theatrical run might feel a little pang of something in the old bones to hear that the film turned 40 this year. For me, an elder millennial who rarely sees horror movies in the theatre, much less during their initial run of engagement, I feel like A Nightmare on Elm Street has always existed. I’m older than the film, so it was there when I came of age to peruse the VHS racks at the video store; it was there at the sleepovers I attended (although I was usually the only one paying attention to it), and as I continued with my horror…

If anyone were to ask me for a synopsis of Robert Lieberman’s 1993 sci-fi thriller Fire in the Sky, my description would probably be about the last eleven minutes. When protagonist Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney) recounts being abducted and experimented on by aliens, the film depicts the most harrowing alien abduction ever put to celluloid. Walton wakes up in a tomb-like alien pod, floats helplessly around a room in the ship where he plows headfirst into the half-rotted corpse of another unfortunate abductee, before undergoing a series of experiments by little green men that play out like a torturous medical procedure with just a dash of latex kink. It’s a truly disturbing scene, which is no small feat considering the “true story” it was based upon was likely a scam.…

Is there anything better than curling up on a cold and snowy night with a hot drink, a warm blanket, and a good, scary novel? How about a scary novel adorned with an equally horrific bookmark? Granted, the artisan world is replete with spooky page holders in a variety of formats, often involving a decorative cord or ribbon to mark the pages with charms, beads, and pendants that hold it in place. But Texas-based Candy Mosley has been creating charming bookmarks for twenty years, and stands out from the crowd by using a decidedly unique term. “I began using the term book thong as a silly little name, because they fit in the crack of the book,” she tells Rue Morgue. “I have gotten a few messages from gift recipients…

Rue Morgue · 002 Rue Morgue #221 - Heather Langenkamp In 1984, the roots of the archetypal “final girl” had been laid down by such films as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), and Friday the 13th (1980), but as the figure became more readily understood by its audiences, one final girl stood out among the rest – a teen scream queen who’s tough but vulnerable, good but not inaccessibly “pure,” a loyal friend, a devoted girlfriend, and a true heroine with the courage to face one of horror’s vilest villains three times over. That crown belongs to Nancy Thompson, a role indelibly tied to actress Heather Langenkamp who not only portrayed her twice, but also played herself inhabiting that lifetime role in a groundbreaking meta installment that paved…

Rip open any booster pack from Magic: The Gathering and bear witness to some of the most fantastic artwork ever manifested: from mythical beasts to idyllic landscapes, every card offers a two-inch masterpiece, specifically designed to transport players to another realm of reality where Planeswalkers battle with a curated army of creatures, artifacts, and enchantments. But despite being the first ever collectible card game with the equivalent of a PG-13 rating, MTG’s multiverse is not a bloodless one: black decks, in particular, draw from swamp power and offer players the chance to command an army of the undead. Even beloved genre classics Creepshow and The Evil Dead have had their unique characters and aesthetics ported into the world of Magic, and recent expansions, like Duskmourn: House of Horror, further prove…

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10985648/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2 CONJUGAL CASTRATION LOON LAKE 11/29 Productions I write this from my cottage up in Northeastern Ontario, my sanctuary from the maddening crowd of the city. There’s nothing quite like cracking open an ice-cold beer and firing up my laptop to watch and review a couple of movies in the quiet countryside. But all that aforementioned peace and tranquility was shot to shit mere seconds after starting this sick puppy of a film about a couple who travel to their cottage to celebrate their wedding anniversary until the wife finds out that her husband is a gambler, kidnapper, murderer, and a (gasp!) bigamist who plans to sell her to pay off his gambling debts. Rife with horrendous editing, directing, and acting, this particular DVD now rests at the bottom of…

J-HORROR RISING SHOWCASES JAPAN’S SUPERNATURAL HISTORY Say “J-horror” to many people, and it conjures up the mental image of a spooky young woman with long, dark hair covering her face. While this may be a recurring image among the many supernatural features that hailed from Japan in the wake of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998), the new Arrow Video Blu-ray boxed set J-Horror Rising demonstrates the many themes this trend has explored. The inspirations on the seven films contained within it range from the centuries-old legend of the Kuchisake-onna (2007’s Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman) to the 1995 Kobe earthquake (2000’s Isola: Multiple Personality Girl), and the approaches range from traditional Gothic to the high-school drama of Persona (2000) to the mock-documentary stylings of Noroi: The Curse (2005). The three aforementioned movies,…

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t heard of The Lord of the Rings, but the same can’t be said about one of its main inspirations, the Kalevala. An epic Finnish poem from the 19th century, which itself was based on centuries’ worth of folk tales and mythology, the Kalevala details the creation of Earth and the adventures of the wizard Väinämöinen, the warrior Lemminkäinen, and the blacksmith Ilmarinen (among others), as they traverse the Northern lands battling dark forces and magic on a quest for the Sampo, a legendary device that represents abundance and good fortune. “Kalevala is the national epic of Finland,” says writer Sami Makkonen. “Deep and rich in its mythology; so deep that Tolkien became ‘fascinated by it.’ The Kalevala begins with the traditional Finnish…

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204593711-immortal-dark IMMORTAL DARK Tigest Girma Little, Brown Books for Young Readers If you lived through the young adult vampire boom of the mid-to-late aughts, you might have noticed that most of those books’ main characters tended to be naive, often waifish, white girls. It’s certainly something that irked Little, Brown Books Associate Editor Ruqayyah Daud and it’s what made her so excited about Immortal Dark, a vampire story set at a decidedly unusual African university. Kidan Adane loathes vampires (here known as dranaics), not just because her sister June was abducted by one but because she comes from one of 80 ancient families sworn to feed the creatures. Her single-minded obsession with discovering what happened to June, her last surviving family member, leads her to accept admission to Uxlay University,…

I JUST STARTED digging into my September/October issue beginning with (as I usually do) your letter from the editor. Bit rough on the social sciences, don’t you think? I came across my first issue of Rue Morgue in a now defunct media chain in New Orleans while pursuing a grad degree in psychology, which has served me well for decades, if not opening the doors to untold riches… I’d like to think that studying sociology gave you a unique perspective on the great work that you have done since then. Love Rue Morgue and love what you have done with it over the years. TYLER HUDSON, M.A. – ORANGE PARK, FLORIDA I CAN ALWAYS count on Rue Morgue to shine a light on the dark corners of the genre I…

Rue Morgue · 003 Rue Morgue #221 - Monstrous Desires Do monsters make you horny? If you’re reading this magazine, then it’s more than likely that you made the connection between sex and horror long ago. After all, the kind of fear fomented by horror movies releases adrenaline which, in turn, increases your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood flow… including to your naughty bits. This means that the physiological reaction to being afraid can be easily mistaken for – and rewritten by your brain as – sexual arousal. Think back to your seminal scary moviegoing experiences. Maybe you were a little turned on seeing Lucy ravished by the titular vampire in beast form in Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Did you feel a strange but exciting tingle watching Anna be taken…

As of now, an Alice Maio Mackay movie is practically a subgenre unto itself. Raised in Adelaide, Australia, the transgender filmmaker first made waves on the scene at age sixteen, when her debut feature So Vam (2021) premiered at Salem Horror Fest and instantly caught attention for its confident bending of genre tropes in a queer, stylish, no-budget package. Then followed Bad Girl Boogey (2022), T Blockers (2023), and Satranic Panic (2023) in very short order; three cheeky, lo-fi horror features that metamorphosed tales of haunted masks, ancient parasites, and cult murders into Day-Glo ruminations on bigotry, patriarchy, and self-loathing, all with a bratty, subversive edge. Now aged twenty, with her teenage years officially behind her, Mackay’s Carnage for Christmas is taking on the most bone-chilling reality of queer adulthood:…

ON THE SLAB: FIRST PERSON FRIGHTS 10-79 7:56 mins/YouTube via POP Films’ Channel This one opens with two police officers responding to a call in an innocuous neighbourhood in the dead of night. With no backup available and no signs of life inside, they decide to enter the residence to investigate. They find nothing at first, but then a woman’s piercing scream leads them into a waking nightmare. 10-79 is a recent offering from POP Films, an independent production company from Pennsylvania consisting of trio Christian Fescine, Everett Lauster, and Kayla Orben (the latter two appear in the film as the cops with the former taking director duties). POP’s style is slick and they have produced more than a dozen short films over the last decade, which gives further proof…

THIS MONTH: THE DARK AND DREAMY DRAWINGS OF SARAH KANE A RUEMORGUE COLLECTIBLE Fine artist Sarah Kane creates highly detailed and haunting photo-real paintings and drawings. Her unique compositions – rendered in high-contrast greyscale and vivid colours – bridge the divide between dream and reality, inviting the viewer to escape into a dark and surreal world of horror pop culture. NAME Sarah Kane HOMETOWN HAUNT London, Ontario WEAPON OF CHOICE “I work primarily in acrylics for painting and graphite and conté for drawing. I have been dabbling more with gold leafing and ink.” DEEDS “The art show I was most excited about was my Greek mythos show ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes.’ I rented both main exhibit spaces in London’s The Arts Project, and filled the space with my work.…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnEgXouQc3I THE BREEDLING ELECTRONIC Detritus WRONG SPEED RECORDS When folk horror and music collide, you can generally find folksiness, witchy rock, shaggy stoner riffing, or – perhaps, on a good day – a surprising mix of the three. The second album from The Breedling (a.k.a. visual artist Chris Spalton) neatly upends such tired expectations with strange electronic landscapes striking a resonant vein of bladder-chilling unease. This gift for disquieting conjurations is perhaps unsurprising, given Spalton’s fascination with local folklore – an interest that has extended to his writing and illustrating a book on the subject, 2011’s Apparitions of East Anglia. As it looms, glowers, and groans, Detritus recalls the likes of The Bug, Reigns, and even Deadly Avenger minus the playful kitsch. Things glurp and boom and threaten, with industrialized…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIuHNbncqmk FEAR THE SPOTLIGHT Cozy Game Pals/Blumhouse Games PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, XboxOne/S Steam lists Fear the Spotlight as a “survival game,” but that’s a bit misleading, given that survival horror titles are usually built on high stakes and jump scares that are as likely to provide cardiac arrest as they are amusement. For those who prefer their spookiness high on vibes and low on stress, Blumhouse and Cozy Game Pals invite you to a narrative descent into darkness they aptly describe as “a love letter to classic ’90s horror experiences.” Bookworm Vivian is crushing on her goth BFF Amy, and so she agrees to participate in a seance with her in their school library after hours. Surprising them both, the seance works – Amy disappears and Vivian is plunged…

The twelfth US president, Zachary Taylor, died in 1850 of cholera morbus, caused by consuming tainted cherries and ice milk. For contributing the opening narration for 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, actor John Larroquette was paid in marijuana. In 1818, Abraham Thornton, on trial for murder, requested “trial by combat,” an overlooked practice that had never been abolished by British Parliament. He was acquitted when his accuser declined to fight. TV spots for 2004’s Seed of Chucky included a disclaimer that singer Britney Spears did not appear in the film, because the ads showed the scene where Chucky drives a fairly convincing look-alike off a cliff. US B-17 aerial gunner Maynard “Snuffy” Smith once saved the lives of his crewmen by putting out a fire in the fuselage – in…

1 STIFF’S FUNERAL FLASK $24.99 USD You know what we hate about funerals? The lack of a well-stocked bar. Now you can bring your spirits wherever you go with Uncle Mordecai Stiff’s stainless-steel flask. Measuring 5.5-inches tall and featuring your friendly neighbourhood mortician, it’s equipped to hold 8 oz. of horror hooch, spooky sauce, or your favourite embalming fluid. Shopmortem.com 2 ZOMBIE MANGA COLORING BOOK $14.99 USD Colouring ain’t just for kids! With more than 60 gruesome scenes of brain-munchers splattered across high-quality paper to prevent bleed-through, this book is designed to be torn up and enjoyed like so much rotting flesh. And for those who might be intimidated at the prospect of measuring up to the likes of Tom Savini, practice pages offer tips and tricks to making your…

ON NOVEMBER 9, 1984, THE SUPERNATURAL SLASHER MOVIE A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ARRIVED IN THEATRES, TURNING ITS GRUESOME VILLAIN, FREDDY KRUEGER, INTO A POP CULTURE ICON WITH NINE SEQUELS SINCE. NOW, FOUR DECADES LATER, THE MAN BEHIND THE MANIAC, ROBERT ENGLUND, SHARES THOUGHTS ON THE CHARACTER THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS, THE EVOLUTION OF FREDDY, HIS FAVOURITE UNMADE ELM STREET SEQUEL, AND RETURNING TO THE ROLE ONE FINAL TIME… Forty years ago, in the immortal 1984 classic A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven unleashed child murderer turned terrifying supernatural dream demon Freddy Krueger on an unsuspecting world. Since then, the hat-wearing, razor-gloved, burnt-faced boogeyman in a red-and-green sweater not only became a horror icon, but also a pop culture phenomenon who appeared in a total of nine films (where,…

For what it’s worth, most notorious on-screen monster sexual menace was and remains straight-up rape (we’re looking at you Galaxy of Terror, The Beast Within, and Naked Lunch). But perhaps even more transgressive are those films where both human and beast enjoy bumping uglies, making these scenes more titillating than taboo. Ella Gallego comments on her top five monster fucks! BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992) Mina Murray watches best friend Lucy get ravished by Dracula in wolf-bat mode. “It’s dealing with taboo desires and repression. We’re dealing with a Victorian society that is scandalized by how sexually forward Lucy is, but [Mina’s] still a little bit excited by it. She very clearly has these urges but, as a woman, she’s not supposed to follow through with them. And with that very…

SWISS MISS GET AWAY Starring Nick Frost, Aisling Bea and Sebastian Croft Directed by Steffen Haars Written by Nick Frost Shudder The promise of a collaboration between director Steffen Haars (for those familiar with the berserk Dutch New Kids comedies he co-helmed and co-starred in) and Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz’s Nick Frost only pays off in the last twenty minutes or so of this 86-minute feature. Up to that point, Get Away coasts along on familiar horror/comedy conceits that make it a disappointment, if not the reported disaster of their other new collaboration, Krazy House (which this writer hasn’t seen, but the reviews have been pretty dire). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIh3Z4NOprwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIh3Z4NOprw Get Away was originally titled Svälta, after the Swedish island where its central family heads for vacation, despite its dreadful past…

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/doug-brod/born-with-a-tail/9781668644690/?lens=hachette-books BORN WITH A TAIL: THE DEVILISH LIFE AND WICKED TIMES OF ANTON SZANDOR LAVEY Doug Brod Hachette Books There are countless stories circulating about Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey, exactly how many of them are true, however, remains a bone of contention, even more than a quarter century after his death. Doug Brod’s intriguing new biography seeks to separate fact from fiction. Unlike many who’ve written about LaVey in the past, Brod has never been an acolyte. He approaches his subject as the prolific journalist/editor he is and admirably spends the book’s 368 pages attempting to untangle true stories from tall tales, with occasionally mixed results. As Born With a Tail effectively illustrates, despite anything else he may have been, at his heart LaVey was an unapologetic…

Ever since I learned of the Victorian tradition of sharing ghost stories at Christmas, I’ve been itching to revive it, but why, I wonder, should we limit ourselves to spectres? So, for those who’d like to join me in adding a touch of horror to the holidays with the reading of spooky short fiction – either alone or with family and friends – may I turn your attention to three new themed anthologies for a perfect sinister antidote to all that saccharine seasonal cheer, no matter what your taste. Happy Holidays! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Folk-Horror-Short-Stories/Paul-Kane/Beyond-and-Within/9781804177327 BEYOND & WITHIN: FOLK HORROR Flame Tree Publishing This folk horror anthology would look as fine under the tree as in someone’s hands reading from it. With a shiny green and gold cover featuring an inset illustration of…

NIGHTFALL THEME: Horror/Supernatural FORMAT: Audio Drama FREQUENCY: Mass release The 1980s weren’t just a big decade for horror movies; radio got in on the spooky action too. Before podcasts, radio dramas were the norm, with full theatrical productions brought to the ears of listeners through standard FM and AM channels. From 1980 to 1983, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – typically known for its polite cultural programming – ran a 100-episode horror series called Nightfall. While considered one of the CBC’s highest-rated shows in its long history, the scares were apparently so convincing that it was pulled from several affiliate stations due to listener complaints. https://www.amazon.com/Nightfall/dp/B08K58S59R/ref=sr_1_1?crid=R9D3P5I158RC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qwji1dqmoFiiZZ9tQsnSxVpILIoWCzP6_X6o1fiS-5yd2Hc7dz0qXU6hYZ84at6F6_EO_ey18EM48t7LvDtcTJ6T4roB9MAoXx1Y_shm_ZDJZUspC-1gbXkAggyrcoPwfUK8hLDjmKrEOBDzhyJCvViClo1GtwzUqOt61xRPAh80_l4ULo7hbxUevqhnOpNJB4loYFoEQMXy8eZPqDq1GsFLV2YPd4oebftU3xj0AqQ.L3KEsos0uMm00V8sKoHCptKnoXxm1dxtWqjVEFWZAuY&dib_tag=se&keywords=Nightfall+podcast&qid=1728320532&sprefix=nightfall+podcast%2Caps%2C82&sr=8-1 Created by producer Bill Howell, who helmed the show in Toronto from 1980 to ’82 before Don Kowalchuk took over in Vancouver from 1982 to…