The Black Glove: Horror Culture and Entertainment

Editorial December 2011 e-issue #30

2011-12-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

By Nickolas Cook
Editor-In-Chief
The Black Glove Magazine

Since I know now I'm not going to have this issue posted before the end of 2011, I'm going to say it now: HAPPY NEW YEAR, HORRORHEADS!

Another year has come and gone. The world did not end; the universe kept right on going, even though we all lost people who were important to us. But as we all probably know by now, unless you’re a complete socio-pathic person, that’s the nature of this universe in which we exist. Death and life come and go, they happen all around us, but the lucky among us keep right on truckin’.

I’m pretty familiar with that feeling because of what happened to me between 2009 and 2011, years in which I went through some life altering events. There were moments that I worried about my sanity and if I would see the year 2012.

But you know, let me stop here for a moment.

I should probably warn you right up front, dear reader, that this month’s editorial may become a little personal, and may contain some comments and views which you may not want to bother with. And so I will completely understand if you skip this editorial. It won’t hurt my feelings any. Really.

My ordeal, the one which caused me to question if I’d see 2012, started in 2009. I touched on what happened to me a bit in last month’s editorial, in which I mentioned my health issues—the ruptured Achilles tendon on my right leg, the subsequent operations, the chronic infections, etc., etc. It was a matter of one simple second between having my whole life in order, planned out and going along quite smoothly for myself, and then that sudden white hot pain in the back of my right foot…and then my life going completely topsy turvy. I lost control of everything in my life from that moment on. And, to be honest, after almost three years, I’m only now beginning to feel like I have any control over it again. That may sound completely melodramatic to some people. And you may even be right in that summation. But let me say this: I pray no one I know ever has to go through what I’ve been through these last few years. It’s been a challenge to even want to get out of bed on some days. I went through a couple of years of clinical depression so intense that I didn’t care if I lived or died. And while I won’t sit here and say I wanted to take my life, I sure as hell wouldn’t have done much to stop it from happening. There were even times when I felt like a quick death would have been a hell of a relief.

I know some people aren’t going to understand that at all. There’s no way to fathom the feeling of loss and despair, almost really no way to put it into words to make anyone understand how I felt, unless you’ve been unlucky enough to have been through something so traumatic.

See, part of the problem was that I was a pretty active martial arts and self defense practitioner for a few years leading up to when my injury took all my options and plans away from me in one second of being whole and then not being whole anymore. I was even planning to fight in some amateur MMA events. For months I had been training hard, working in the studio and the weight room four and five days a week, working out on average about four hours a day. I was doing Krav Maga, Brazilian Jui-Jitsu, MMA training, some Combative Tactics training and Crossfit. To meet the energy demands to do those workouts I was eating anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 calories a day—and that was even with Diabetes Type-2 to contend with. But between the incredibly intense workouts, and some basic diabetes medication, with me eating even that amount of food a day, my blood sugar was still not out of whack. My doctors were astounded. I even saw a dietitian specialist to make sure I was on the right track with my diet and exercise routines. Before that fateful day in 2009 I was so healthy I was even advised to actually eat some sugar to keep a proper glucose balance on my workout days.

And then WHAM!, out of nowhere, life happened and all that hard work and planning went to hell.

Next thing I knew I was being fitted for a cast and scheduled for an operation to my right Achilles tendon. The operation went fine, had my leg repaired as best as could be done with what I had to work with, and as far as me and my wife knew, I was on the path to recovery. I was even planning how I was going to continue with my workouts, was doing research to figure out how long I could expect to have to workout at half my normal intensity before going back to my four hour workouts again. Yes, even throughout this entire ordeal of casts and operations and such, I continued to go to the studio and workout in my martial arts to stay in shape and to keep my blood sugar under control. I did however have to cut way back on my daily caloric intake simply because I wasn’t using as much energy as before, since my workouts weren’t as intense or laborious.

Then, a few weeks after my surgery, the repaired area on the back of my foot still wasn’t healing as it was supposed to. That was the first time I began to worry, but I still remained hopeful that things would work out and I would be able to get back to my life again—maybe a little longer recovery time was all. The surgeon advised sometimes these types of repairs on areas where there wasn’t a lot of flesh to work with to close the open wound properly (and the back of the heel is the worst place for this kind of surgery) could become complicated and it might take more time to heal properly. Me and my wife listened and followed his advice, kept hopeful, and I kept working out and dieting, kept testing my blood sugar to maintain it properly.

Then the wound got infected. Despite some basic medications to stop the infection, the damned wound stayed infected. And my being diabetic wasn’t helping.

We consulted the surgeon again and he sent me to see someone else to control the wound’s healing and to help me keep the infection under control. He kept giving me antibiotics and telling me to keep up with my workouts and dieting routines. Keep an eye on that blood sugar.

This went on for eight months. And during that time my hopes for getting back on track went slowly down the drain. By the time I was told the chronic infection was going to be a real issue with how I healed, I knew in my heart my glory days of four hour workouts and dreams of fighting in an amateur MMA bout were done. I started becoming depressed for the first time, then.

Also, by the end of the eight months, before me and my wife decided to seek another surgeon for legal reasons, that chronic infection had eaten away a good portion of my tendon, part of my heel bone and some of my flesh and muscle had gone necrotic as well.

Meanwhile, the two docs involved with my case kept telling me it was my diabetes causing the problem, even though I was still working out, still dieting, and still checking my blood sugar several times a day. It got to where no matter what me or my wife said to contradict their theory that it was all because of my diabetes, neither of these guys wanted to hear it. So, in an effort to prove to my doctors that my diabetes had nothing to do with my chronic infections, I made the life altering decision to undergo a bariatric procedure known as a Gastric Bypass, in which part of my intestine would be tied off, leaving me with a lot less capacity for food intake, which would subsequently cause a drastic loss of weight and would send my diabetes into “terminal remission”, which for all intents and purposes meant it would be cured, and would, therefore, no longer be part of the equation when it came to do with my chronic infections. Before the Gastric Bypass operation I weighed in at about 280 lbs., which up to the time my injury occurred was solid muscle. I wasn’t fast on my feet, but I was like a wall of muscle and bone that steamrolled through pretty much anyone who I sparred with; they could slip in some good hits, but they didn’t slow me down much, and once I wore them down, I had only to get them on the ground and put my weight on them and the fight was generally done at that point.

So two weeks after this new operation I had lost nearly 20 pounds and I was no longer diabetic…but the chronic infections continued, to the point that I even developed abscesses on my wounded foot, one on each side of my ankle area. The specialist was baffled, but kept feeding me antibiotics that were doing less and less good for me, with each new prescription. He lanced these new abscesses and I now had THREE! open wounds on my foot, each of them freely suppurating all day, and each of them had to be dressed with new bandages each day.

At this point, I was beyond concerned. I was downright terrified that I was going to lose my foot entirely, despite all I had done to keep it from happening. The doctors didn’t seem to be able to do much of anything else (at least that’s what they kept telling us, even though we found later there were other things they could have done, had they not misdiagnosed the reason for my chronic infections).

Then a few weeks after the Gastric Bypass operation a blue length of surgical thread came snaking out of one of the open wounds where the “supposed” wound specialist had lanced an abscess. That’s when all the docs decided to admit that my chronic infections weren’t because of my diabetes at all; the entire problem had been the fault of the non-dissolvable sutures used to repair my tendon. They were still inside my leg and had become one giant bacterial breeding ground, hence why the chronic infections would not stop, despite the months of antibiotics and chemical treatments I had undergone.

So, here I was, a somewhat healthy guy at the beginning of 2009, now injured, chronically infected, his intestines now tied off for the rest of his life, and a foot which was slowly being eaten away from the inside. It was around then that my chronic insomnia also started. I still deal with that in cycles, and I've been told I may have to deal with it for the rest of my life.

Yeah, by then, I was pretty low.

But, as I was about to discover, my ordeal was only just beginning.

We dropped both of the doctors who had left me hanging for eight months with an infection that wouldn’t go away, which was probably going to cause me to lose my foot, and we went to one of the most well known orthopedic surgical specialists in all of Arizona, which we were lucky enough to have living in Tucson with us. She took one look at my foot and scheduled immediate surgery.

During the surgery to remove the non-dissolvable sutures, she discovered that after eight months of chronic infections I had lost most of my tendon, part of my heel bone and a good portion of my flesh and muscle had also gone necrotic and had to be removed as well. I came away from that surgery with my foot, but in a drastically limited and painful state. A few weeks later, I had to undergo another operation, this time it was a drastic form of plastic surgery to close the new open wound caused by the second repair operation, which involved removing a portion of my healthy calf flesh and an active nerve, and doing a transfer of them to my 3X3 inch area of lost flesh and muscle.

If you’ve lost count, that’s five surgeries in less than a year and a half for a man who was used to being able to get into the studio and weight room to workout on a steady basis.

I had to learn to walk four times; and now I had to do so with a significant limp and lots of chronic pain because of the nerve damage in my foot. Although the new surgeon did the best she could, I was no longer a whole person. And all I had to do to remember that was to look down at my massively scarred leg and foot, or even simply try to walk too quickly or step off a curb the wrong way, and then the pain would flash through me like white hot lava, leaving me breathless and nearly blinded with pain.

As you can probably guess, throughout this entire ordeal my depression was becoming deeper and more cumbersome, dragging me down to the point that I didn’t write anymore, didn’t read books and I pretty much stopped caring if I lived or died. I was lucky to be able to deal with most of the people with whom I continued to stay in contact with was through the internet; they couldn't 'see' how bad I was, even if my online behavior was sometimes erratic and unprofessional. So I stopped hanging out online as much, to keep from destroying even those few internet friends I still had. I was also lucky to have THE BLACK GLOVE to at least keep part of my mind occupied. Although I'm sure by my sometimes unreliable content in past issues, it's easy enough to know when my bad days were on me.

I wound up seeing two different psychiatric specialists to help me deal with the fact that I was going to be crippled for the rest of my life and the fact that I wasn’t able to work a real 9 to 5 job again, which was causing issues with my family, who were having to carry the financial burden alone, because I had no income. They both diagnosed me as what I already knew I was: clinically depressed. If you’ve ever been around someone who suffers from clinical depression, then you know we aren’t a ball of sunshine to be around. To put it bluntly, we are real fucking downers to be around. We tend to suck the life out of the room with our obvious and uncontrollable despair. Nothing makes us happy; everything sucks to people who suffer from this terrible mental and emotional state.

But I wasn’t just sitting still and letting the depression eat my confidence and self-assurance away. No, throughout all these months, I was seeing one doctor and specialist after another and these folks were prescribing several different kinds of anti-depression medications to help. But because of the Gastric Bypass none of them were working the way they were supposed to: they were being absorbed way too quickly, or improperly, and these sometimes dangerous chemical and mood altering drugs were hitting me with the worst of their many side effects and none of their benefits—so much so, that my passive suicidal tendencies were quickly becoming actively suicidal. At one point, while using a trial dosage of one of those anti-depressants, the ones you see on TV that warn you of all these terrible side effects, I can remember wondering how hard I would have to cut myself to bleed out and let myself die. Needless to say, that scared me fucking silly and I stopped taking that particular anti-depressant immediately, called my doctor right away. Thankfully I was still cognizant enough to realize those sorts of thoughts weren’t safe for someone like myself suffering from clinical depression.

One of the things which contributed to my clinically depressed state was the chronic pain from which I suffered (and still do). To combat this, I was given several types of pain medications, prescribed by different doctors and various pain management specialists, none of which worked for long, and so I wound up taking a dangerous amount of them to get any relief. The same absorption issues which had caused problems with the anti-depressants were now also working against me with the pain medications. I finally had only one option left to help control the pain, Fentanyl transdermal patches. They do work, but not as well as they once did because, after so much time, my body has become acclimated to their effectiveness. So I still have my bad days.

But I hadn’t been relying on medicines all this time, either. I also use my own version of pain control, which is regular workouts and healthy diet, and several meditation techniques which I have learned from my years of martial arts.

The irony was that during this time all those books I’d written before my injury stole my life away from me were getting published. I had finally become a semi-professional author of dark fiction and I didn’t even care. I couldn’t even enjoy the moment I had worked my ass off to get to for most of my adult life, because for most of 2010 and 2011, I just simply didn’t care what happened to me from one day to the next. Meanwhile, life was still happening all around me. Not all of it in a good way. During this time, my wife and I were having issues because of my depression and because of my new habit of self-medication through drinking. She was dealing with all the bills on her own because of my lack of income. I finally put a stop to the drinking on my own, partly because of what it was doing to my marriage, and partly because I just couldn’t allow myself to go down that path; I had seen what drinking had done to too many of my family members when I was growing up, and I knew I was better than that; I couldn’t let myself go that way. It’s been over a year since I drank to that sort of excess, to that state of physical and emotional numbness.

However, the depression continued and deepened, and it has only been in the last couple of months that I’ve been able to move past my rage and pain to find some measure of acceptance of what I have become. And while I’m not going to lie and say I feel great everyday, I have begun to have more good days than bad days again, and I have begun to feel like there’s still a life left for me to live, despite my limited physical state and the mental/emotional issues with which I still contend.

So, for me, 2012 looks a lot better. Almost like a new beginning, really.

In the next few months I have several books to be published; I’ve been promoted to an assistant level 1 instructor in my Krav Maga class at the studio where I do my martial arts here in Tucson, The Ultima; I’ve gotten into a semi-regular workout routine again. But best of all, I believe our marriage is going to be fine. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing my best friend because of my weakness and lack of emotional control. That would be too much.

So after dealing with this for almost three years now (my wife right alongside me, while she was also dealing with her own health issues to do with back surgery and her own pain management), I can only thank whatever gods there are above that I seem to have made it to the other side of my personal Hell.

If nothing else, this ordeal (still ongoing in some ways; which I don’t think will ever be completely over for me) has provided me with some powerful insight into the true nature of pain and the blues. Since the end of 2010, I began to write again on a semi-regular basis, which soon turned into a regular routine once again. I still deal with cycles of depression keeping me down for weeks or months at a time, during which I don’t as much as I once did. But thankfully those episodes are further and further apart now, and seem less aggressive and easier to deal with these days when they do happen. Usually, if I just submerse myself in a workout and/or some writing, I can get above those black days and work my way back to the light after a few days, sometimes, even after a few hours. All in all, even though it could be better, I know now it could be a lot worse. I also know that old adage is true...the one about people who have it a lot worse than myself, who live with their problems with less whimpering than I have. Yeah, it's true. And I appreciate that fact. But I also know we all live with our pains in different ways. I think I've found a way to deal with mine in a healthier manner than before, but that doesn't make it any less relevant or painful for that. I'm sure plenty of people will be disgusted that I let this get to me as it did, but I guess they'll just have to understand what it was like when they have to deal with their own losses like I have since the second that tendon snapped off the bone...

So welcome 2012.

Thank God I was here to see you come round.

--Nickolas Cook
Editor-In-Chief
The Black Glove Magazine

(EDITOR’S NOTE: If you are, or someone you know is, experiencing the symptoms of clinical depression, please seek some professional help. I can tell you from experience that it’s not something you can handle alone, and you don’t have to do so. There are plenty of programs available at little or no cost to you to get some much needed help. Even if it’s just to talk to someone, it can be enough to help you see some light at the end of your own tunnel. And even just a glimmer of hope could be the difference between seeing another year to causing your loved ones some serious emotional pain and guilt.
REMEMBER: Being depressed doesn't make you weak; it makes you human. So allow yourself to be merely human. But, please, be smart enough not to do something stupid that the ones who love you will have to live with for the rest of their lives.)

Staff Profiles

2011-12-04T05:35:00.000-08:00

Nickolas Cook (editor-in-chief)
Publishing Credits: Nickolas has had dozens of short stories and non-fiction reviews and articles published in print and electronic formats. He has been the fiction moderator for Shocklines.com for over four years. To date, his two published novels, THE BLACK BEAST OF ALGERNON WOOD (Dailey Swan Publishing), BALEFUL EYE (currently in pre-production with new publisher) and ALICE IN ZOMBIELAND 2nd Edition with Sourcebooks 2011, all of which have received several positive reviews and he’s been said to display a true craftsmanship missing in much of modern horror. His first short story collection, 'ROUND MIDNIGHT AND OTHER TALES OF LOST SOULS was recently released from Damnation Books.. He also has several new releases forthcoming from various publishers. Stay tuned for more news on his official website and his Facebook Page as listed below

Personal Info: Nickolas lives in the beautiful Southwestern desert with his wife and four wonderful Chinese Pugs, who are worse than little children…the dogs, not the wife.
Visit me at my official website, THE HORROR JAZZ AND BLUES REVUE
He also has a very active Facebook page
Or email him at Nickolasecook@aol.com

Co-Editor: Brian M. Sammons has been writing reviews on all things horror for more years than he'd care to admit. Wanting to give other critics the chance to ravage his work for a change, Brian has also penned a few short stories that have appeared in such anthologies as Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, and Dead but Dreaming 2. Some of the magazines where you can find his twisted tales are Bare Bone, Cthulhu Sex, and Dark Animus. He co-edited the upcoming anthology Cthulhu Unbound 3, has his first novella coming out called The R'lyeh Singularity, co-written with David Conyers, and is currently editing other fright collections, including the soon to be release Undead & Unbound. For more about this guy whose neighbors describe as "such
nice, quiet man" you can check out his very infrequently updated webpage here: http://www.freewebs.com/brian_sammons/

BIll Breedlove is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in publications such as RedEye, Chicago Tribune, Metazen, InSider, The Fortune News, Encyclopedia of Actuarial Science, Bluefood, and Playboy Online. Some of his stories can be found in the books TALES OF FORBIDDEN PASSION, STRANGE CREATURES, TAILS FROM THE PET SHOP, BOOK OF DEAD THINGS, CTHULHU & THE COEDs and BLOOD AND DONUTS. He is also the editor of the anthologies CANDY IN THE DUMPSTER, WAITING FOR OCTOBER, LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO, MIGHTY UNCLEAN, WHEN THE NIGHT COMES DOWN and (with John Everson) SWALLOWED BY THE CRACKS. He lives in Chicago.

MyMiserys (aka Kim Cook)
Personal Info: Kim lives in the Arizona desert with her husband, Nickolas Cook, and a pack of Pugs. She met Nick in 1997 in an old AOL Horror chat room and they married a year later on Halloween 1998. She has had a passion for horror novels since the tender age of 12, when she read The Exorcist (before it was made into a movie). Her favorite author, other than Nick, is Stephen King, and she truly considers herself his “Number One Fan”. She has been reading and collecting King’s books since “Carrie” was first published. When she is not reading, Kim bakes …and bakes and bakes. You can see pictures of her wonderful cakes on her MySpace page and Facebook. Each month Kim asks a featured author “13 Questions” so Black Glove readers can get to know a little about the person behind the books.
Guilty pleasure? MeatLoaf...the man...not the entrée.
Facebook Page

Carey M. Copeland has worked in television, radio and film. He has been a special effects artist on several film and TV productions, through The Joe Blasco Makeup Academy of Orlando Florida. Having worked at Sally Industries (now Sally Corp) , he helped design dark ride exhibits around the world, including the E.T. ride at Universal Studios Florida. Carey has been a lifelong horror fan and knew after seeing a rerun of “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD” that he wanted to make monsters for a living. Carey says, “I love the creativity of the movies from 1930’s to 1990’s. It seems that with the creation of more affordable computers, the solid effects artist has become almost extinct. When you see a movie now, it’s almost all CGI, with practically no hands-on sculpting and molding. ”

Bill Lindblad has been a bookseller specializing in horror and other genre fiction for roughly fifteen years. He is a regular contributor to the writing blog Storytellers Unplugged and has been a staple at conventions for almost a quarter of a century (as an attendee, dealer, panelist, auctioneer and convention staff.) Bill is an unrepentant fan and has taken this out on the pets... as ferrets Mughi (Dirty Pair) and Boingo, cats Gamera and Shane (after Shane MacGowan) and black labrador Grue (Dying Earth and Infocom games) could attest were they able to talk. His wife makes him watch too many strange movies.

Jenny Orosel has been published in fiction and nonfiction for the past nine years. She is also an avid baker and candy-maker (having only set a kitchen on fire once). She has also appeared in numerous game shows, worked on two feature films, and won an award for her first animated short film (also including fire, this time on purpose). When not writing or making sugary treats, she is forcing Bill to sit through some of the strangest movies he’s ever seen.

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter and the author of four non-fiction
books, including THE CINEMA OF TSUI HARK. She is a four-time winner of
the Bram Stoker award, a recipient of the Black Quill Award, and has
published fifty works of short fiction. Her first novel, THE CASTLE OF
LOS ANGELES, was released by Gray Friar Press in 2010 (Gray Friar Press) and her first collection, MONSTERS OF L.A., will be published by Bad Moon Books for
Halloween 2011. She lives online at http://www.lisamorton.com

Karen L. Newman lives in Kentucky where she's a Kentucky Colonel and an active member of Horror Writers Association. She edits the magazines Illumen and Cosmic Crime Stories. She’s also a book editor for Morrigan Books. She’s been named Chair of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award jury for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection and is the 2011-2012 East Regional Director for the Kentucky State Poetry Society. She edited the online magazine, Afterburn SF for over four years before the market closed. Over four hundred of her short stories and poems have been published both online and in print in places such as Dark Tales of Terror, Kentucky Monthly, and The Pedestal Magazine. Her poetry collections include EEKU (Sam’s Dot, 2005), ChemICKals (Naked Snake Press, 2007), Toward Absolute Zero (Sam’s Dot, 2009), and ChemICKal Reactions (Naked Snake Press, 2010). Two of her poems received honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She's been nominated for a Rhysling Award, James B. Baker Award, and twice nominated for a Dwarf Star Award. Please visit her online at http://home.zoomnet.net/~karennew

JW Schnarr is a writer from Claresholm, AB. He works as a reporter/photographer by day and a horror writer/publisher by night. He is the author of "Things Falling Apart" and Alice & Dorothy. JW can be reached at jwschnarr@hotmail.com

Anthony Servante is a retired college professor with post-graduate studies in the field of the Grotesque and Horror in the Romantic Age, where vampires and Frankenstein monsters were born. It was a dream subject in his studies—to follow and write academically about monsters. He exhorts the academics of horror in his column, Servante of Darkness. He has since begun his nonprofit project: “Read THIS! Scaring Up Readers”, a book giveaway Program that donates books in the fields of Horror, Fantasy, Mystery, and Science Fiction to college-bound students to enjoy the genres Anthony has read and enjoyed since he was a kid. He critically respects old school Horror writers and encourages new schoolers in his reviews. In retirement, he hopes to push for publication of his short stories, continue to write on trends in horror, and review books, movies, and music.

Jason Shayer
Recent publishing credits:
Necrotic Tissue #6, the Dead Science and Through the Eyes of the Undead anthologies, and Arcane magazine.
He's also a regular contributor to Back Issue! magazine, a comic book magazine spotlighting the 1970s and 1980s.
Personal Info:
Jason Shayer's 12-year-old mind frame has given more than a few people a reason to raise an eyebrow, most often his wife. When he’s not writing or reading, he’s teaching his kids the finer points of zombie lore.
URL: http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/
Contact info: jshayer@yahoo.com

Do You Wanna Write For The Black Glove?

2011-12-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in writing your very own column, or just want to write reviews for your favorite horror movies and/or books, send me an email at Nickolasecook@aol.com. While we can't pay for the content, I can promise horror fans around the world will read your stuff. Please, let me stress, this is for serious applicants only. You MUST know the genre. While I don't mind a certain amount of personalizing your content (in fact, I encourage it!), I need it to be, at the end of the day, about the genre and not your personal life only.

--Nickolas Cook

TIME CAPSULES classic book reviews by Bill Lindblad

2011-12-04T05:25:00.000-08:00

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson (1962)

It is hard to say who stakes a greater claim to Shirley Jackson: the horror community or the literary community. An argument for the latter can be found in the inclusion of The Lottery in American Literature texts of nearly every high school in the county. An argument for the former can be heard at conventions throughout the world and online discussion forums whenever the subject of female horror writers emerges.

She belongs to both worlds, that is certain. While she produced (and eventually collected) essays about family life, she is known primarily for her moody works of isolation and alienation and not as a progenitor of Erma Bombeck. This, her last novel from 1962, is primarily a character study, and it displays her talents with a dark beauty.

The story centers around the two Blackwood sisters, Constance and Mary Katherine. They have survived a tragedy: the arsenic poisoning of the remainder of the family, all but one of whom died. They live with the other survivor, their impaired uncle. The novel focuses on the efforts of the sisters to live peacefully in a small town where they are ostracized due to the stigma of the deaths, for which Constance has been blamed. The interaction with the townspeople, the uncle, and their estranged cousin Charles comprise the body of the novel.

If you're looking for excessive violence, you'll be disappointed. There is almost no violence in the book and in fact there is little dynamic activity. Instead the reader is treated to subtle studies in agoraphobia and abnormal psychology, all amidst a setting that creates a haunting sensation of foreboding and maintains it throughout the novel. It is a quiet work of brilliance, both as horror and literature.

Five stars out of five.

A BUNDLE OF NERVES by Joan Aiken (1976)

Joan Aiken is best known for her contributions to children's literature, but she enjoyed dwelling in the shadows on occasion. This is a 1978 collection of some of her early horror pieces, and in it she provides a bevy of short works which range from merely odd to strangely humorous to simply unpleasant. They are written in the style of the short mystery story of the 1970s, where a payoff is presented at the end of the tale, but there is also no overt gore or violence. As such, the stories can be read and enjoyed by young adults, by horror fans and by mystery fans alike.
The stories are set in various parts of Britain, and while she rarely uses the location as an additional character for a story the language and reactions of the characters are realistic and as such are evocative of Britain. The result is a collection of works which are accessible and enjoyable for English readers throughout the world, but maintaining a distinctive British feel.

Aiken leaves few stones unturned. In the pages are found cannibals, werewolves, trolls, magicians, aliens, witches and many more classical horror dangers. The stories have a stylistic consistency which borders on the formulaic, making the collection smoothly readable but which results in an unfortunate sense of similarity even among disparate tales. It is a criticism, but it is a minor one.

Four stars out of five.

NEW LIFE FOR THE DEAD by Alan Rodgers (1991)

Originally published twenty years ago in 1991, this short collection contains five stories, each bracketed by poetry. The common theme to the works is the dead; not death, necessarily, but dead bodies. In a manner reminiscent of Nancy Kilpatrick's ever-inventive takes on the vampire, Rodgers spins stories and poems that seem related but never repetitive.
The book's strongest pieces, to me, are the first and third stories: The Boy Who Came Back from the Dead and Emma's Daughter. The first of them is brilliant, blurring the line between fairy tale and modernist short fiction and doing so within the confines of science fantasy. Emma's Daughter features cancer as a character in and of itself in a way I have rarely seen achieved as effectively (the exception that springs to mind is "Big C" by Brian Lumley in the Lovecraft's Legacy anthology.) The other stories and poems are carefully and effectively crafted, however, and I am certain that if polled, other readers would choose other works as the best in the book. It is a remarkably even collection, and a desirable addition to any horror reader's shelves.

That said, it is unpleasantly short. The entire book is under 140 pages, and with the exceptional quality of the stories I was left wanting more. I expect other readers will feel the same.

Four stars out of five.

--William Lindblad

BLOODLINES: Serial Horror in Fiction #6: Oxrun Station by Charles L. Grant

2011-12-04T05:20:00.000-08:00

Charles L. Grant: 1942-2006

by Bill Lindblad

I mentioned Oxrun Station in the last column, so it only seems right to give it some time this month.

This has been described by many as Charlie Grant's horror series. That's incorrect. Grant loved to connect his works, and he had a variety of series. He edited four: the Shadows anthologies of quiet horror; the 1980s paperback original set (Horrors, Terrors, Fears, Nightmares); a pair of Midnight books and the first horror shared-world anthologies of Greystone Bay. He connected some of his horror stories to his post-apocalyptic Parric series of science fiction novels and connected others to his Lionel Fenn humor series of Kent Montana. He set a number of his early horror stories on Hawthorne Street and others in the quiet town of Oxrun Station, to the point that his Arkham House collection had large sections for each setting.
But Oxrun is the one that put him on everyone's radar. He used the setting for eight novels (The Hour of the Oxrun Dead, The Sound of Midnight, The Last Call of Mourning, The Grave, The Bloodwind and the historical novels The Soft Whisper of the Dead, The Dark Cry of the Moon and The Long Night of the Grave). It also served as the locale for four novella collections (Nightmare Seasons, The Orchard, Dialing the Wind and The Black Carousel) and for other short fiction. Many of the works were nominated for World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards, and some won him statuettes for his mantle.

By placing all of these stories within the same small town, he forced himself to use characters repeatedly, often expanding secondary characters in one story to protagonists in another. He added to the sense of continuity by including glimpses into the events before or after other works; a main character from an earlier novel evokes sympathy from another secondary character because of the family member she lost... the family member who was revealed at the end of the book to be a killer. The reader of the earlier book knows that in the end, she managed to drown the murderer and make it look like an accidental death in the tub. The person who did not read the earlier book is merely shown more of a town whose tertiary characters have a depth unusual to contemporary storytelling.

Sympathetic protagonists live and die, succeed and fail in the stories of Oxrun Station. The stories are told with a prose style leaning heavily toward the poetic, and Grant used that style to draw the reader into his stories. But the star of Oxrun was not his distinctive descriptive flair but rather the Station itself.

Other authors recognized this. A collection, Horror at Halloween, featured not only Grant but three other authors creating a mosaic novel for young adults set in Oxrun. Kim Newman gave readers a final and beautiful glimpse of the station in the staggeringly expensive Grant tribute collection, Quietly Now. The Station has been mentioned in tales by contemporaries and juniors to Grant, showing a longevity and appreciation for his creation.
Centipede Press recently reissued the first two novels in the series in beautiful hardcover editions limited to 100 copies each. They deserve to sell through quickly, because these books should be mandatory reading on how to properly construct a literary town. It is the luck of the horror community that genre to construct it.

--Bill Lindblad

(NOTE FROM EDITOR: As a writer of dark fiction, and a longtime fan of Mr. Grant's particular style of "quiet horror", I encourage anyone who wishes to become a better writer, or even someone who wants to read some of the best horror fiction published in the 80s and 90s, to please find Charles L. Grant's books, get them, read them and learn. Modern horror fiction needs to remember this man who helped in so many unapplauded ways to make the horror genre what it is today. It is a shame that he is now nearly forgotten by today's modern horror reader. But as modern horror writers, we cannot allow this man's contributions go unrecognized in the genre we all love so much. It is our duty to continue his work in creating horror that frightens on psychological and emotional levels, and leave one disturbed long after the last page has been turned. To do otherwise is far from fulfilling the first duty of great horror fiction. And to allow this man's works to be lost in such a short time is nothing short of a crime against the entire community of horror writers and fans.

--Nickolas Cook, Editor-In-Chief)

Movie vs. Book: DARKER THAN AMBER

2011-12-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

MOVIE: DARKER THAN AMBER (1970)

It’s strange for me to call a movie “noir” when it’s set in the sunny beaches of Florida, and much of it seems to be set in the warm sunshine of early summer. Yet, for DARKER THAN AMBER (1970), the label works, and they’ve created quite a tense little film noir.

Rod Taylor plays Travis McGee, a man specializing in “finding things” for people. But in DARKER THAN AMBER, he accidentally finds a woman when she falls from the sky into his little fishing boat. She’s pretty, mysterious and alluring. McGee falls for her. But when she’s murdered, he uses his contacts to find something for himself—answers to her murder. Someone will pay, that much we are sure of. The fun comes in finding out how and when.
Taylor deserves a huge amount of credit for the movie’s success. His McGee is a really nice guy, but it doesn’t seem out of place when he starts kicking some ass. Suzy Kendall gives a good performance as the mystery woman, and I have no complaints about it. But this really is Taylor’s movie, and he carries it quite well.

The biggest downfall of DARKER THAN AMBER is the music. Even without seeing the men in micro-shorts, you can tell this flick was made in the 70s by the score. Everything else fits perfectly for that film noir, but then the funk starts up. The score would have been perfect for something a little more pornographic. However, it is hard for me to say too much bad about it because, even though it pulled me out of the movie on occasion, the goofy fun of the music made for a great tension reliever and made me smile.
I have not read the novel, or any of the other Travis McGee mysteries. From what I understand, though, this movie captures the character quite well, and it’s a huge compliment to the movie that now I do want to go read a few of the books. It’s a shame Taylor didn’t do any more McGee films, because I could easily see it becoming a beloved movie series. Instead, we’ll just have to be happy with the one we have.

LEGENDARY FIST FIGHT IN FULL

--Jen

BOOK: DARKER THAN AMBER by John D. MacDonald (1966)

The Travis McGee series is one of the best in detective fiction. It was published as a series of paperback originals at the rate of roughly one per year in the 1960s, 70s and the beginning of the 1980s. The books follow the adventures of a professional "salvage expert" who lives in Florida on a boat won in a poker match.

The odd residence fits McGee perfectly. He lives through risk, surviving and flourishing through his successful efforts. His "salvage" work is not the typical Floridian boat efforts, but rather a word-of-mouth business for which he recovers items - usually cash - for people who have been cheated or robbed. He charges a fifty percent fee.

The high price keeps away those who aren't desperate, and allows Travis to maintain a semi-constant state of "retirement". The episodes in between provide the meat of the novels, and through the series the reader gets to experience the change of Florida's coast from beachland to developed properties.

In Darker than Amber McDonald bypasses McGee's normal method of acquiring a case and instead literally drops a young woman in front of Travis. McGee and his closest friend are fishing under a bridge at night when a woman plummets into the water, getting tangled in McGee's line. He saves the girl's life and in the course of helping her to recover learns of a prostitution and murder ring that he feels obliged to end.
The action is believable and violent, the progression of events natural, and there is a strong sense of dramatic tension built for the various secondary characters.

It's not the best of the series, but this spiritual father of Repairman Jack always provided an interesting read.

Four stars out of five

--Bill

OFF KILTER TV: Where Horror Rears its Ugly Head on Family Television

2011-12-04T05:05:00.000-08:00

The Weird Western* Lassos the Rawhide TV Show
Reviewed by Anthony Servante

When we watch family television, we have certain expectations about the plots and the behavior of the characters. We expect Lucille Ball to get into and out of trouble; we expect Scully and Mulder to encounter supernatural phenomena. What we don’t expect is Lucy taking on monsters or Mulder stealing John Wayne’s cement footprints from the Grauman’s Chinese Theater. When the unexpected happens on our favorite shows, I call them Off Kilter TV.

In today’s column we will take a look at the 60s TV Western, RAWHIDE and an episode called, “Incident of the Four Horsemen”, written by Charles Larson, who wrote for the TV show, One Step Beyond, and directed by Thomas Carr, who directed for Adventures of Superman and Dick Tracy.

What I like about Rawhide is that the stories are always on the verge of the supernatural: a mysterious figure in black follows the drovers, killing them off one by one, the Murder Steer (a bull with the word ‘murder’ branded on its side) appears and whoever sees it soon after dies; there’s the rolling wagon with no driver, a supposedly haunted Indian Burial Ground, and a zombie Indian, but the episodes always end with an explanation: the figure in black is a man who murdered his wife and child and seeks his own death by killing others; the Murder Steer is planted by a corrupt judge who plans a crime; the zombie Indian was just very ill and never really died as his tribe believed. However, in the episode, “Incident of the Four Horsemen”, it turns out to be a true supernatural tale, an Off Kilter TV yarn closer to weird than western.

Let’s first refresh our memories as Rawhide is over 50 years old. The western TV show revolves around a cattle drive of about 3000 head of steer, the trail boss, Gil Favor (Eric Fleming), the second in command, ramrod Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood), Wishbone, the cook (Paul Brinegar), and the 20 or so drovers played by regular and guest actors from week to week.

In the Four Horsemen episode, the drive is stalled between two feuding families, and in Romeo and Juliet-style, a young man from one family, Louden, and a young woman from the other, Galt, marry, triggering a murder and fueling the feud toward a full-scale war. One by one, each of the horsemen arrive as the war nears. Here we need to get a little biblical guidance before we resume the episode analysis. The coming of the horsemen heralds the Apocalypse, that is, the final battle between Christ and the Antichrist for the souls of mankind, and these riders are known traditionally as Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. The head of one family is Galt (God?), and the other is Louden (Lucifer?); it is difficult to say who is the good one and the evil one in that their names are interchangeable with double meaning: for instance, Galt can be gaunt or god, while Louden can be Lucifer or Lord. This ambiguity causes us to focus on the horsemen rather than the families, just as in the biblical Apocalypse there will be false prophets and one will not be able to tell the rise of the antichrist from the second coming of Christ. Many souls will be lost as they choose the wrong side.

So, in the Rawhide episode, the family feud on the brink of battle represents the coming Apocalypse. Thus, the first horseman to appear is War: Initially, we meet Gus Marsden (Claude Atkins); get it, Mars, Roman god of war? The den of war. Nudge, nudge. His first act is to instigate the murder of Carl Galt (Edward Faulkner) right after the marriage between Amy Galt and Frank Louden. Next we meet Ben Kerran (carrion?) (John Dehner) who plays the horseman Death. We can tell he’s Death because Wishbone finds him dead and buries him, and a few seconds later, he rises from the grave. Of course, Favor hires him immediately. When Marsden and Kerran meet, they get on like old acquaintances, for what is war without death?

The horsemen, Famine and Pestilence, are found in a ghost town. They are called Hombre and White. Hombre represents famine as he eerily eats nonstop for the rest of the episode. White is pestilence as he coughs nonstop, a cough deep inside where no medicine can reach, as he points out. Soon, the two horsemen join the others and the four are now together, ready for the families to begin their bloodshed so they can thrive. Only Gil Favor stands between the four men and their goal. Favor must drive the cattle across the river, preventing any of the armies from using the steer to feed their warfare. But the Four Horsemen are not going to make it easy for him.

As Kerran reminds Favor that he’s driving the herd straight into a brewing war, the trail boss points out that he makes his own fate, thus alluding to free will and that the outcome is not predetermined. He tries to convince Louden not to go to war, but Galt and Kerran barge in on them. Kerran (Death) pushes the newlywed groom to make it seem like he’s reaching for a gun and Galt shoots him. The horseman tells Favor that he was trying to push him out of harm’s way, the same lie Marsden used to trigger the first murder, of Carl Galt, that brought them to the brink of battle.

Favor is not deterred and plans to cross the river. Marsden, Kerran, White and Hombre sit atop their horses on the other side of the river and the herd refuses to cross. It is then that someone says that the four men are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and call Kerran by the name Death. Favor insists that the sun is in the cows’ eyes and they just need to wait a few hours for the sun to be overhead. But war threatens. Marsden and Kerran are steely-eyed, White coughs away, and Hombre continues to eat. The trail boss challenges Kerran to a fight, winner takes all; if Kerran wins, he claims the lives of everyone, including the cattle’s, but if Favor wins, war will be averted and the cattle can cross the river.

So, it’s mano a mano with Gil Favor versus Death. Since we can’t have the hero of the show get killed, Favor wins, and Kerran admits that his timing was off, that it was not yet Favor’s time, but that he’ll be back. War is averted, the cattle cross, the family feud is settled, and the Four Horsemen ride off.

You can watch the episode in its entirety on YouTube below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx5gfyQAmKY

Much of the fun of this supernatural episode is the weak attempt to explain away the strange behavior of the drovers (some come down with a bad cough, similar to White’s, others choose sides for or against Galt and Louden, and many are driven to drink to handle the pressure of impending war), but the best they could come up with is the sun got in the cow’s eyes. Throughout the episode there is talk of devils and demons, god and man’s place in a godless land. Through it all, as Favor tries to talk sense to his men, we as viewers cannot ignore all that has transpired, the deviousness of Marsden and Kerran, the insatiable appetite of Hombre, and that wicked cough deep in White. Still, “Incident of the Four Horsemen” can be added to the list of Weird Westerns and to the list of Off Kilter TV shows brought to you by yours truly.

Until next we meet with another Off Kilter TV program, keep the TV on in the darkness.

--Anthony Servante

(**NOTE** See this month’s Servante of Darkness column on the Weird Western for more background. See also the September issue of The Black Glove for an Off Kilter TV look at Bonanza: Twilight Town, another Weird Western episode.)

Foreign Fears: Tropical Malady (2004)--สัตว์ประหลาด or Sud pralad

2011-12-04T04:55:00.000-08:00

Tropical Malady (2004) Thai or Sud pralad

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Cast: Sakda Kaewbuadee, Banlop Lomnoi, Sirivech Jareonchon, Udom Promma and Huai Deesom

reviewed by Nickolas Cook

Watching TROPICAL MALADY is somewhat like drifting into someone else's narrative--a half-dream state, a slight adjustment of reality, a drone at the back of the head. But I don't mean that in a bad way, mind you; but there is a definite sense of dislocation...of disconnection, when you watch this modern classic of 'magical realism'. Its structure feels truly less Asian than Latin American in its depiction and devotion to the preternatural world of forests, and the strange animal spirits which dwell within it.

But TROPICAL MALADY is more than an examination of that weird twilight world that exist beyond the safety of the city lights and the four walls and ceiling within which we find such dubious security. In fact, its first part is devoted to a young soldier who falls in love with a young innocent village boy, and their sweet courtship, as they begin to discover one another's desires and fears. In this first part we are treated to the love story, up until we see the soldier visiting the boy's parents' farm and we hear a radio report of the strange deaths of local cattle, blamed on a wandering predatory jungle cat. The young boy wanders off into the jungle and...

Abruptly, we find ourselves with the soldier who is in the jungle looking for a lost villager. Slowly, deliberately the soldier keeps wandering deeper and deeper into the jungle, hearing the frightening sounds of a big cat and finding evidence of its feeding, until night falls down around him. It's then that he meets up with one of those jungle spirits, the spirit of a tiger shaman, who can turn from human to cat.

And its the jungle scenes in which we see the power of this director's ability to frighten and entrance, as we are treated to visions of terror and beauty. Sound also plays an important role in this film: there are many moments when there are no human voices, only the incessant droning of insect and animal life in the jungle's depths, or even at times the constant background ambience of the city streets, an arcade, or even the distant sounds of music echoing across the nighttime cityscape, the sound of one man's frightened breathing as he stumbles after an unknown entity in the dark, thickness of the jungle's depths. And its through the use of sound and imaginative camera work that we can almost feel that same jungle surrounding us, entrapping us with its ancient secrets of animal and man alike.

I highly recommend it to the viewer who is just beginning to discover what joys and beauties that can be found in Asian cinema, as well to the film buff who feel that they have seen everything the movies have to offer. But be warned this is not a gore-fest unto like Miike, or even a narrative that lays out a simplistic plotline of violence and explosions. No, this is a film for those of us who still appreciate the work of a master who knows how to use the image as a storytelling device, without the hammer over the head approach of modern film's expositions...you know the kind of movie where someone has to pause halfway through the film to explain to one of the characters what has happened and what is going on. If that's what you're looking for, this ain't gonna be the movie for you. In point of fact, as I complain about such imbecilic filmmaking, I think it's safe to say that there are few modern films like TROPICAL MALADY, which is as it should be: I'm not sure if modern cinema could handle such weighty and yet gossamer visions.

--Nickolas Cook

Brian Sammons Hi-Def Horror Hoedown!

2011-12-04T04:50:00.000-08:00

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011)– Blu-ray review

Director: Rupert Wyatt
Cast: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto

Ok so it’s not necessarily a horror movie, but it is a reboot (yes I said reboot and not remake) of a great movie written in part by the guy that gave us all THE TWILIGHT ZONE, so that’s more than enough pedigree for me. So get ready to pick some bugs from your buddy’s hide with you filthy paws, its monkey time.

RISE is set in modern day earth where we humans still call the shots. Thankfully there is no capsule falling from the starts with space chimps in it. Unfortunately it’s the old chestnut of trying to defeat Alzheimer’s disease buy genetically altering animals that gets folks into trouble. Come on people, that’s the exact same setup for DEEP BLUE SEA, and you know how well that went. Anyway this time around the well-meaning scientists are experimenting on apes instead of sharks, so I guess that’s a little better. This testing results in a supper smart mommy monkey who goes berserk one day defending her super smart baby, so she is killed and the project is scrapped by the typical evil rich businessman. But one scientist, played by a rather wooden James Franco, sneaks the genius chimp out of the testing labs to raise as his own. This Mensa monkey is named Caesar and yes, that name should sound familiar to you, for more than just historic and pizza reasons.

Caesar grows up like your typical hyper intelligent primate, looking on the outside world with longing from his attic bedroom. The classic tale of “who am I?” is played out as Caesar is smart enough to know that he’s different from his adoptive father and grandfather (John Lithgow doing a good job as Franco’s Alzheimer’s afflicted father) but he doesn’t know why he’s different. Things then go from sad to bad when the demented granddad goes outside and gets accosted by the world’s biggest jackass neighbor. When Caesar swings in (literally) to save the day and bites the douchebag’s fingers off, he gets sentenced to monkey jail until the courts decides what to do with him. And as you would guess, bad goes to worse as the ape house is run by Brian Cox and has Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter films) as a scumbag assistant. Yeah, I’m sure Caesar will have no problems with either of them.

The movie next becomes a bit of a primate prison film with Caesar having to prove himself to the other apes, including the big bully chimp of the cellblock. Meanwhile the well-meaning scientist tries to get his ape buddy back, but at the same time he continues his work on the wonder drug that made Caesar so smart. But before long Caesar decided he’s had enough of man’s cruelty to his kind, so he steals a bunch of the smart drug, doses all of the apes in the monkey prison, and stages the great ape revolt.

I have to admit that when I started this film I had very low expectations. While I liked the original PLANET OF THE APES movie, I was never a fan of all the various sequels, so I didn’t have any fanboy love for this series. Also the previews I had seen for the flick just looked silly; it looked like a CGI monkey fest where apes could somehow overcome a SWAT team complete with machineguns and helicopters. That said, I was surprisingly won over by this film. Sure there were a lot of silly bits in it, but that’s to be expected in any movie with super smart apes in it. But here the story was surprisingly engaging, all the actors did a very good job, and even James Franco was less wooded than usual. Special kudos must be given to Caesar as both a good looking CGI creation, and a fine performance by the master of mocap (motion capture) acting, Andy Serkis, who mastered his virtual acting skills by playing Gollum in the LORD OF THE RINGS films and Kong in 2005 KING KONG remake. The vast majority of time I can’t stand CGI, but here I not only didn’t mind it, but I sometimes forgot I was looking at a computer created character. Higher praise than that, I cannot think of.

As far as extras goes, this is one of those three-way combo packs that I like so much. That means it has the Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy of the movie to choose from. In addition there are a ton of goodies on the Blu-ray disc including audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and a boatload of featurettes with many of them focusing on the CGI/mocap aspect of the film and on Andy Serkis in particular. A nice collection of trailers, concept art, a look at the previous APES film, and more round out the impressive list of extras to be found on this Blu-ray.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was a fun, popcorn-muncher of a film with a lot more depth in it then I would have thought. I think it will satisfy both fans of the original series and those who have never seen any of the previous APE films. And as someone who was neither, I really liked it too. So consider this bit of monkey business recommended.

FINAL DESTINATION 5 (2011)– Blu-ray review

Director: Steven Quale
Cast: Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta

Yep it’s another FINAL DESTINATION movie and since the plot for them haven’t changed a single, solitary bit since the first movie back in 2000, you know exactly what to expect. Some young and far too pretty people narrowly avoid a massive and over the top death scenario, be it an airplane crash, killer roller-coaster, world’s worst traffic accident or whatever, by someone getting a psychic vision of the impending doom. This cheat really pisses the grim reaper off to no end who then strives to put things right through the use of usually overly complex deaths. Think of the traps from SAW as seen through the eyes of a morbid Rube Goldberg, with a healthy
dose of happenstance and whimsy mixed in for good measure.

The protagonists always try to find a way to escape their fatal fate while all their friends around them die gloriously gory deaths, and by the end of the movie they will think they did cheat death a second time only to get a “surprise” (yep, those are finger quotes) death at the end proving that no one can escape their fate. And seriously, that’s it, that’s the exact same story, over and over again, with only new death scenes cut and pasted into the movie to make one film the least bit different from those that came before it. Hell, even the endless chain of FRIDAY THE 13TH movies had more variety and creativity than that.

But you know what, that’s ok. Because the real star of these movies have never been the mad-libs with gore story, or cute but forgettable twenty-something actors, or the competent at best, but in no way thrilling direction, or even Tony (Candyman) Todd as the voice of death. No, you go to see a FINAL DESTINATION movie for the crazy kills and sensational splatter and these films have always delivered the goods. Thankfully Part 5 is no exception to this and the kills come fast and bloody in this latest installment.

The one, and pretty much only, new wrinkle to this tail is the setup, the aforementioned big catastrophe that the stars of the show narrowly escape. This time it’s a bridge collapse in all its CGI splendor. After that come the usual “who will die now and how” part of the film and this is where these movies shine as death gets medieval on their collective asses for daring to turn him down when he first asked them to dance. However, as rote as this part of the film is, I must say that the ending of FINAL DESTINATION 5 was, in a word, super-freaking-awesome. Seriously, it’s the best ending of any of the movies from the series and if you are a fan of the DESTINATION flicks, it is worth the price of admission alone just to see it. Also as impractical as it first seems, in retrospect the movie plays 100% fair and honest with the big twist. Go ahead, watch it a second time and you’ll notice all the clues you first missed.

As far as extras on the new Blu-ray from Warner Brothers goes, like the movie its self, the majority of them focus on the stars of the show; the death scenes. From alternate versions of the deaths, to behind the scenes bits on the technical aspects on creating those deaths, to split-screen features on two of the big set pieces. Sadly there was no commentary track, but what would such a thing be, anyway? “Ok here we thought it would be cool if someone died during lasik eye surgery. Now here we were thinking about acupuncture needles…”

FINAL DESTINATION 5 does nothing new, but what it does, it does well. If you’re a fan of the FD flicks then you’ll dig this one too. If you’re not, then this movie won’t do a thing to change your mind. If you’ve got a jones to see people get squished, sliced, bashed, stabbed, electrocuted, and all sorts of other icky things happen to them real good, then this movie is the one for you.

CHILLERAMA (2011)– Blu-ray review

Directors: Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan
Cast: Richard Riehle, Adam Rifkin, Ray Wise, Joel David Moore

Hello fans of the wonderfully weird, the gorgeously gross, and the fantastically f***** up, do I have a movie for you. It’s CHILLERAMA, a collection of four short films gathered CREEPSHOW style that bills itself as “the ultimate midnight movie.” Does it live up to that lofty claim, or is it like many of the movies it rips off – er, I mean pay homage to, and its more hyperbole than honestly good? Well jump in the car and let’s head out to the drive-in to find out.

Speaking of drive-ins, they’re not only the perfect place to see this movie, but the setting for the wraparound film that holds the other three together. “Zom-B-Movie” takes place on the last night of a local drive-in that plans to go out in style by having an all-night freaky flick fest. Unfortunately what was not in the plan was for one of the employees to dig up his dead wife for some “dead head” before going to work. And yes, dead head is exactly what you think it is. However little miss cold and rotting doesn’t like the idea of necrophilia, even when she’s the corpse, so she bites one of her hubby’s bean bags off, which surprisingly doesn’t upset him all that much as he still goes to work. So as CHILLERAMA progresses, and the other three short films play out, things start to get weird at the drive-in as a slight case of zombie-itus begins to spread. However these undead don’t want your flesh, well at least not for eating. No, they’re only hungry for you love, whether you want to give it to them or not. Yeah they are sex crazy rape zombies, and if the idea of that puts you off this movie, then you should just stop reading now, as things only get weirder from there.

“Wadzilla” is your typical 1950s sci-fi, giant monster movie, if the giant monster in question was a huge, man-eating sperm. Yep poor old Miles Munson, played very well by this segment’s director; Adam Rifkin, has very slow, weak sperm. Taking a new and untested drug to give him stronger little swimmers, he gets more than he bargained for when, after rubbing one out before a hot date, he pops out a fist sized sperm that just keeps growing and growing and growing. Pretty soon its giant-fire-breathing-lizard size and it’s up to Miles and the good old American army to save the day.

“I was a Teenage Wearbear” is the age old story of boy meets girl, boy would rather meet another boy, boy gets bit on the butt during a wrestling match and starts to transform into a bear when aroused. And if you’re familiar with gay slang then you will know why bear is far more appropriate than wolf here. Oh and all this is set to sunny 50s style music. That’s right this is a high school musical with sexual confused teenage shapeshifters. What’s not to love about that?

Last, but in no way least, is “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” by Adam “HATCHET” Green. In this movie Adolf Hitler gets a hold of Frankenstein’s diary and plans to make a murderous monster to win him the war. Naturally he wants his monster to be as frightening as possible, so he makes him in the image of what terrifies him most, a Jew. Too bad for Hitler (and I never thought I’d type that) he never thought there would be a downside to creating a huge, hulking, indestructible Jew. Then his pet monster, named Meshugannah and played by Kane “the best Jason Voorhees ever” Hodder, realizes that he really shouldn’t be doing the bidding of the chief Nazi and does what everyone on earth, besides other Nazis, would love to do.

And as if all this wasn’t enough, there’s even a mini-movie within one of the short movies called “Deathecation” about…well take a guess. So CHILLERAMA gives you blood, guts, necro-rape, naked boobies, killer sperm, Nazis, impalement on a large werebear penis, show tunes, foul language, and poop jokes. Oh and it is also funny as hell, if you are into over-the-top gross-out humor that doesn’t care about what is nice, acceptable, or family friendly. I, for one, completely loved this movie for that.

To compliment this crazy film are a nice collection of extras on this Blu-ray. First and foremost is a video commentary track with all four directors. And when I say video, I mean just that as the commentators appear in a little window in the upper left of the screen. As you can expect from a meeting of the minds that brought us this frightfully funny flick, there’s a lot of clowning around and I found the commentary a very entertaining addition to this film. Additionally there are a bunch of featurettes of varying lengths, with one of the best being a thirty minute making of for “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein”. Tim Sullivan’s "I was a Teenage Werebear" does double duty, providing a twenty minute behind the scenes feature and a collection of deleted scenes. Sadly the same love is not shown to “Wadzilla” and “Zom-B-Movie” as both of those are just represented by a few deleted scenes. There is a very short (five minutes or so) interview with the quartet of directors from FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine and a just slightly longer interview (seven minutes, give or take) with the freaky four at 2011’s Comic Con. A couple of trailers bring the extras to an end.

CHILLERAMA is a fun and funny flick perfect for those not easily offended. It’s bloody, silly, sexy, and is totally the movie you would never watch with your mother. If that sounds like the flick for you then snap yourself up a copy today. Consider this one very recommended for all out craziness and not taking anything seriously. If only more movies dared to do this, the world would be a better, if weirder, place. Of that I am certain.

--Brian Sammons

THE EAST IS RED #25: KURONEKO (1968)

2011-12-04T04:45:00.000-08:00

by Lisa Morton

Allow me a moment to sing the praises of The Criterion Collection. Their magnificent DVDs have introduced me to a number of films I would have missed otherwise, especially those intriguing gems from other countries that may have been difficult to see in the U.S. Take their Japanese horror releases, for instance - aside from more well-known classics like UGETSU and KWAIDAN, they've also got JIGOKU (already reviewed in this column), the completely lunatic HOUSE (review coming soon), and the subject of of this installment, KURONEKO. I'd never heard of KURONEKO until I found it in the Criterion catalog, and now I'm glad I did.

KURONEKO may not have the artfulness of UGETSU, the frantic pace of HOUSE, or the trapped-in-a-bad-dream feel of JIGOKU, but what it does have is a very solid script, buoyed by fine performances, lovely cinematography, memorable music, and plenty of genuinely creepy moments. It begins in Japan's past, as two women alone in a farmhouse are found by a band of bad-guy samurai soldiers who eat their food, rape the women, and then set fire to the house. As the sated warriors wander off, the dead or dying women are attended by their black cat...

Flash forward to: Several years later, when the women have come back as the vengeful ghosts with more than a hint of feline about them. They have a singular, specific purpose: To wreak revenge on all samurais. They do this by luring lone soldiers to an isolated house, where the older woman (mother) attends them, while the lovely younger one seduces them - before biting their throats out. They tell one of their victims that they are still awaiting the return of GIntoki, son and husband to mother and daughter-in-law.

When enough of his men are discovered dead, the arrogant local lord orders an investigation, and calls for his bravest soldier to investigate. Because, of course, KURONEKO is based on a traditional legend, coincidences and deus ex machina-twists of fate are not just accepted but expected; in this case, the plot hinges on the fact that the cruel lord assigns none other than Gintoki, only recently returned from war and now a hero, to pursue the murderous ghosts.

That's roughly the halfway point of KURONEKO; the rest of the film is occasionally poignant (as Gintoki engages in a ghostly affair), erotic (see above), and fantastic (as the cat spirits within the ghosts emerge).
What's surprising about KURONEKO is that it's more obvious about its genre elements than something like, say, UGETSU. There are glimpses of catwomen, murdered soldiers, and even a severed half-paw/half-hand (although it lacks the obvious gore of the earlier JIGOKU). It's also interesting that director Kaneto Shindo shot his 1968 film in black and white, when most other Japanese films had moved to color. The black and white ends up serving the story very well; Shindo is skilled at creating high-contrast compositions, and some of the most startling moments in the film are when white figures are glimpsed gliding through a black frame behind an unwitting soldier.

Will KURONEKO be frightening to modern audiences? Well, I'm not sure it was frightening to 1968 Japanese audiences, because Shindo is going for a moodier piece, and at that KURONEKO is completely successful. It's got that unsettling feel of an authentic, unprocessed fairy tale, like a Grimm's before Disney gets a hold of it.

The performance of Nobuko Otowa as catwoman mom also lends significantly to the film's aura. She glides along hallways with animal grace, laps at water, and performs kabuki-like movements as her daughter-in-law tempts and destroys each new samurai. She delivers the film's most tragic and strange speeches, and is also fine as the ultimate, fiendish antagonist GIntoki must face.

Of course the Criterion transfer is exquisite, and I highly recommend their disc of KURONEKO to those looking to expand their knowledge of Asian horror cinema. It certainly expanded mine.

--Lisa Morton

Movies Worth Googling: Strange Movie Reviews by Jenny Orosel

2011-12-04T04:40:00.000-08:00

WHAT’S IN A NAME? A look at BUG

Some time ago, a friend and I were talking about a movie we both liked. However, a few minutes into the discussion we realized we were talking about two different movies. The title was the same, but that’s where the similarities ended. Titles can’t be copy written, so you could theoretically have fifty movies in one year, all with the title of HAPPY SCRAPPY HERO PUP. It wouldn’t be wise, as that title invokes a very specific mental image. A more generic title like, say, FOOD or SUNSHINE could work. So could BUG.

The Internet Movie Database lists five movies with the specific, one-word title BUG. That’s not including films like BUG’S LIFE or HERBIE THE LOVE BUG where it’s only a portion of the title. I watched three of the BUG movies, and they couldn’t be more different than each other.

2002’s BUG has very little to do with bugs. It starts with a child squishing a roach, and scattered throughout the film, there are bug references. That’s not what the movie’s about. Ever since Richard Linklater’s SLACKER (1991), there’s been a subgenre in indie flicks where, instead of one large over-arching plot, there are a handful of loosely connected vignettes. We never get to know the characters; in fact we rarely learn their names. It takes a strong script to survive an ensemble story, and BUG had some decent writers behind it. Directed by two screenwriters (Phil Hay and Matt Manifred), they give enough information about the characters, but not so much that it bogs down the story. The forementioned bug squishing inspires a lonely man to put on an insect costume and jump from the roof of a skyscraper, only to be stopped by one good-hearted man who gets a parking ticket every time he stops to do a good deed. What is the first man trying to say with his attempted suicide? What is it that keeps the second man motivated to do kindness, despite the cards that appear stacked against him? We never find out because we never need to. And therein lies the key to BUG—it keeps the focus on needed information and, unlike most flicks by first-time indie filmmakers, avoids self-indulgence.

Bug | Brian Cox | Michael Hitchcock | Phil Hay | Movie Trailer | Review

By contrast, BUG from 1975 is about insects. Specifically, roaches from beneath the Earth’s surface that travel by car exhaust and make things (including people and cats) catch fire. Sounds corny. But this one was co-written by William Castle, the brilliant mind behind gimmick flicks like THE TINGLER and 13 GHOSTS and that man knew how to create a story that was a damn good time to see. It didn’t try and have a deeper meaning, or deliver a Very Important Message. Instead, the director and writers realized they were making a movie about roaches that make things explode and ran with it. The deaths are alternately frightening and hilarious. Like some of the best monster movies throughout history, 1975’s BUG is pure fun.

In 2006, William Friedkin made his own BUG movie, this one based on a stage play. Yes, the story involves bugs, however, it does not involve insects. Peter Evans recently returned from the first gulf war, where he had to undergo unnamed medical treatments, He believes the doctors implanted a “bug” somewhere on his body to spy on him. The story is told through the eyes of his new girlfriend, played by Ashley Judd, as she travels with him deeper and deeper into his world of fear and paranoia. Was he really the subject of unspeakable experiments? It doesn’t matter. What does matter is what they believe. Friedkin is a master filmmaker, and by the end, you can almost feel the world closing in the way the two main characters experience it.

Three completely distinct movies, one title. As a writer I find it fascinating how a single word can be interpreted in such different ways. It would make for a fun exercise to see all the different ways a writer can interpret a single word or concept. But in the meantime I might just go watch the other BUGS….

Where to find the movies:

The 2006 and 1975 versions are still in print. The 2002 BUG is out of print but can be found for less than a dollar on EBay. That is, if you don’t mind combing through the 841 results for movies with “bug” in the title.

--Jenny Orosel

Servante of Darkness #5: The Weird Western Rides Again

2011-12-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

Deadstock by Ian Rogers
Reviewed by Anthony Servante

Welcome, dear readers, to my fifth installment into the workings of Horror in literature today. This month we trod the dusty trails of the Weird Western, from Ghost Rider to Samuel Dryden and his sidekick, Raisy. We’ll take a peek at the genre of Western novels and see how the Weird Western tweaks it. Horror fans need not be Western fans to enjoy the supernatural bent of “Deadstock” (2011).

We connote the literature of the Western with Cowboys and Indians (alright, Native American Tribes People), Trailblazers and Gunfighters, Ranchers and Banditos, Wanted Men and Bounty Hunters, a lawless land prospered by Easterners, Children of the Mayflower seeking to expand their colonial roots by ‘Going West’ into the American Frontier; we think of cattle drives, the burgeoning of new towns, shops and saloons, the new Sheriff, pioneers settling down on “Injun” territory, some surviving, others being massacred for pilfering Indian lands, the railroad looming large across the frontier, reaching from coast to coast. The Age of the West marked its turf between 1849, the Gold Rush, and 1886, the surrender of Geronimo, the final and fatal attempt by an Indian to strike back at the White Man, interlopers and squatters on Native American country. With Geronimo’s failure to reclaim Apache soil, the Wild West ended and the Industrial Age began.

We acknowledge authors such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour with Romanticizing the Old West. They give us heroes and villains, damsels in distress, and the anti-hero, an outlaw admired and feared by the law-abiding citizens of the New West. But the Romantic Age is a two-edged sword: Whereas the Wild West deals with good guys and bad, the Weird West breaks new ground by turning to the Supernatural for its villains. While Western literary heroes such as the Lone Ranger, Shane, and Lash Larue kept readers fascinated with the genre, Lon Williams in 1951 introduced Lee Winters, a Marshal’s Deputy who fought demons, ghosts and terrible Greek gods. A few years earlier, the Ghost Rider, created by writer Ray Krank and artist Dick Ayers, took on vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night. Ayers revived the character in 1967 for Marvel Comics, who later turned the character into the fiery-skulled anti-hero on a flaming motorcycle, while AC Comics purchased the rights to the original western hero garbed in white, renaming him The Haunted Horseman.

Ian Rogers continues the tradition of the Weird Western in his latest work. Rogers writes, “Stonebunny Press recently published my first foray into the Weird West, a novelette called "Deadstock." No one knows who or what is killing the cattle at Groom ranch, but Sam Dryden, with his supernatural greenwood gun, and Raisy, with her ‘deck’ of knives, are determined to find out. What they discover is more horrifying than either of them ever dreamed, and the secret may be one that takes them to the grave.” As the story unfolds, elements that comprise the mystery can be discerned.

The symbolism of the Weird Western jumps out at the reader from the get-go. The Marshal Jacobs rides out to meet our heroic duo dressed in black, a foreboding sign given that he’s beyond 60 years old, an abnormal age for this period when 50 years was the common life expectancy. Statistically, only 2.5 men reached the age of 65 in the late 1800s. That means 97.5 men didn’t live much longer than their forties on average. In contrast, Dryden has “babyface” looks, signifying an uncanny youthful appearance of innocence to an inward grittiness or hardboiled-ness; Raisy has “flaming red hair”, denoting a temper and an infernal nature (she pack knives as weapons—an ancient armory; note also Dryden’s ancient pistol). And the Marshal seems only interested in checking their weapons, as if he were waiting for a pair of riders carrying such ware. Raisy also carries a cat (August Finch—named for a fortune teller), a ‘familiar’ in the days when the colonists feared witches. Add to this contrast in ages that a man and woman travel together out in the Wild West, and we get a glimmer of Adam and Eve tossed out of Paradise into an unknown world of sin and evil. Even as they approach the mysterious ranch, Dryden points out, “He didn’t understand why anyone would want to settle in such a godforsaken place.” These are foreshadows of evils to come.

Against the naturally torrid and hellish heat of the desert, there are the supernatural elements subtly described, an inversion of Nature. At the ranch, a young girl plays with a scorpion, the symbol for death, and even as Dryden warns her of the danger of such play, she snatches up the insect and tosses it into the water to drown. Whatever evil has infested the ranch, it has had its effect on the child as well as the other children. She loves saying ‘devil’ again and again, while her pa, Chester Groom, refers to Dryden as “a gift from God.” The Groom family also seems to be suffering unnatural aches and pains, and abnormal behavior is displayed. Even though the cattle at the ranch are mutilated, the vultures avoid the carcasses. Nature is unbalanced. As Dryden and Raisy burn the carcass of the steer, “They stood in silence as the steer went up in flames. The heat blanketed them, but they still felt a chill, as if there was a part of themselves that could never be warmed.” Even the term ‘deadstock’ is the antonym of ‘livestock’. Something evil has inverted the natural order. Our heroes, too, are warned of the evils upon them: “[The supernatural threats] have been brought back against the natural laws. They will not rest until order has been restored.”

The symbolism and supernatural elements come to a head as the mystery of the deadstock becomes clearer to our heroes and they understand what must be done to put nature back in balance. Horror fans will not be disappointed with the final battle.

The novella captures the West with descriptive details of the desert, the small town, and the Groom ranch. The dialog also echoes what we have come to expect from western-speak without relying on clichés. Because the visage of the old west looms so large and accurate, the sci-fi and horror elements work within the framework to create a good counter-balance between the normal west and the weird west. Deadstock is a welcome addition to the Weird Western tradition. Dryden and Raisy can be placed with confidence alongside Joe R. Lansdale’s Jonah Hex, Ray Krank’s Ghost Rider, and Lon Williams’ Lee Winters. I look forward to further rides into the Weird West with Ian Rogers.

--Anthony Servante

It Came From the Back Issue Bin! #23-- ENTER, NIGHT Reviewed

2011-12-04T04:30:00.000-08:00

Enter, Night
by Michael Rowe

Publisher: ChiZine Publications
Released in September 2011

Review written by Jason Shayer

Welcome to Parr's Landing, Population 1,528 . . . and shrinking.

The year is 1972. Widowed Christina Parr, her daughter Morgan, and her brother-in-law Jeremy have returned to the remote northern Ontario mining town of Parr’s Landing, the place from which Christina fled before Morgan was born, seeking refuge. Dr. Billy Lightning has also returned in search of answers to the mystery of his father’s brutal murder. All will find some part of what they seek—and more.

Built on the site of a decimated 17th-century Jesuit mission to the Ojibwa, Parr’s Landing is a town with secrets of its own buried in the caves around Bradley Lake. A three-hundred-year-old horror slumbers there, calling out to the insane and the murderous for centuries, begging for release—an invitation that has finally been answered.

One man is following that voice, cutting a swath of violence across the country, bent on a terrible resurrection of the ancient evil, plunging the town and all its people into an endless night.

This is a vampire story. Before you sigh and move onto the next article, the reason I wanted to call this out was because it’s really a vampire story. It’s not one of the watered-down, teen-angst ridden, and sparkly vampire stories that seem to be everywhere today. "Enter, Night" is being marketed as “the anti-Twilight” by its publisher, ChiZine Publications.

"Enter, Night" is Michael Rowe’s ode to the classic vampire genre. Not only does it pay the appropriate homage and respect to vampires as monsters, but Rowe succeeds in tapping into Canada's rich native mythology.

In an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press, Rowe stated: “In many ways, although "Enter, Night" is tangentially about vampires, it’s about a lot of the things I usually write about — for instance families, bullying, the corrosive effect of power on vulnerable people, and how human beings treat each other, especially in the face of a crisis.”

You can’t help but think of "Salem’s Lot" when you read this book as it does so many things as well as that classic King novel. Rowe successfully manages a larger cast of characters and really gets them into your head, so much so that your thoughts almost seem to blend with their perspective.
The only complaint I had was how the novel ended. The story was carefully plotted and crafted, with each chapter and scene moving you deeper into the horror, with the darkness closing in all around the characters you’ve come to love. The ending seemed rushed and I felt a bit cheated as the story came to its conclusion, especially with the amount of real estate given to the opening sequence which didn’t really feel like it belonged in the story.

Reading the last 40 pages, I kept flipping back and forth to the end wondering if there was actually going to be enough time to adequately wrap up this story. Here’s hoping for a follow-up novel.

"Enter, Night" is a fine reminder of all the beauty, horror, and storytelling of the classic vampire genre that has almost been washed away by the mass produced and over marketed trend of romantic vampires.

RATING: 4/5 Stars.

(NOTE: By the way, in case you’re wondering why I reviewed this book, one of the main protagonists was an avid fan of "The Tomb of Dracula" comic book, and I believe the author was a fan as well.)

Graphic Horror: Game Reviews

2011-12-04T04:25:00.000-08:00

By Brian M. Sammons

Hey guys, well this will be my shortest GH ever as there are simply no good games worth talking about right now. Yeah, it’s sad but true. All the big titles came out last month so they would have plenty of time to get into the heads of moms and dads looking to buy their kiddies a little something for Christmas. So I’m not going to sweet it and will just have to enjoy the hell out of the holidays, and I hope all of you do to.

That said, I don’t want to leave you in a total lurch, so here’s a little something you might have missed; a sequel of ALAN WAKE called AMERICAN NIGHMARE. Now WAKE was the game I gave horror game of the year (what two years back?) and this looks to be more of the same goodness, now set in different locations all across the good ol’ US of A. Sure, the first game wasn’t perfect, the combat got to be a bit repetitive after a while, but the story and characters were top notch and it had some truly creepy and eerie moments in it. That’s something a lot of so called horror games can’t honestly claim. So I’m looking forward to the next couple of chapters of WAKE’s story.

Oh, did I say “next couple of chapters?” Yes I did, that’s because the game will be released as episodic content, one chapter after another, over Xbox Live. If you played the first ALAN WAKE (and you really should have) then you know that AW is the perfect game for this as the story was always broken up into episodes like the chapters of a novel or a really trippy TV show. So I’m looking forward to seeing how Remedy Games pulls it off as episodic gaming has been a hard puzzle to solve. But hey, as long as they give me more ALAN WAKE, then I think I’ll be a happy boy. Anyway, check out the first official trailer below, I think you’ll dig it. I know I did.

--Brian M. Sammons

Dark Suites Music Reviews: Music of the Macabre from Tom Lehrer

2011-12-04T04:20:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by
Anthony Servante

Before entering the field of music entertainment, Tom Lehrer taught math at the University of California at Santa Cruz. With a few gruesome songs in mind, he wrote and recorded them on vinyl, selling them at the university for a few dollars. Eventually students bought the inexpensive lps and resold them for a profit. Soon Lehrer developed a small following. Initially, his songs dealt with macabre themes but eventually graduated to political satire, always keeping the grotesque side of the music in the lyrics.

It wasn’t until Lehrer’s music gained airplay on England radio stations that the music developed a larger following and Lehrer began to tour. His work was translated to German as well as other languages. His morbid style fit the European sentiment. Still, success eluded him in the US, that is, until his lp “That Was the Year That Was” (1965) was released. His gift for political satire combined with his macabre lyrics was the right combination to win over American audiences.

I have selected songs ranging from his macabre days to his satiric heyday. Here they are:

“When You are Old and Gray” is a song about ‘carpe diem’, that is, seize the day. He describes the curse of getting old and equates it with moral disgust. This attitude pokes fun of the Fifties style of songs where love was forever.

“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” continues Lehrer’s jabs at sentimental love by showing a young couple in love killing the birdies and other animals in the park. The up-tempo happy song replaces the act of lovers feeding the creatures of the park with that of them murdering the unsuspecting fowl with chilling yet cheery results.

“I Hold Your Hand in Mine” extends the lovers’ theme with a slight twist on the old ‘holding hands’ approach to puppy love. His sickest song is also his most popular.

“The Irish Ballad” continues the sick humor approach to popular ‘ballads’. These sing-along style songs are mocked here with some very morbid lyrics. He even mocks the audience in the introduction to the song who may have any designs on singing along.

“My Home Town” eliminates the sentimentality of songs about growing up in a small friendly community. Lehrer’s home town is a grotesque version of “Happyville”, typical of Fifties family TV shows.

“The Old Dope Peddler” extends the satiric approach to singing about small towns in a sentimentally romantic way. Here the night doesn’t bring love. It brings out drug deals.

“I Got it from Agnes” says a lot without actually saying anything, but once you put the appropriate disease to the pronoun “it”, you’ve got a song about unprotected sex, STDs, bestiality, incest, homosexuality (a taboo subject in the Fifties), and fellatio.

“The Masochism Tango” mocks the modern dance movement of the Fifties as an exercise in self-abuse. The song echoes the rhythms of a tango with the appropriately abusive description in the lyrics.

“We Will All Go Together When We Go” turns self-abuse to global-abuse as Lehrer writes a political satire to point out the futility of nuclear weapons, a common concern in the Fifties. The songwriter describes graphically the results of an A-Bomb while annihilating any hopes of surviving the big blast with bomb shelters or by ducking under one’s desk.

“National Brotherhood Week” wraps up the political agenda that Lehrer targets. As NBW is foisted on the public at the time Malcolm X is killed and Martin Luther King is assassinated, Lehrer pounds home the 7-day event as a hypocritical white wash of then current racial tensions.

And there you have it. Tom Lehrer singing about severed hands, cannibalism, nuclear holocaust and racial intolerance with wit, sarcasm, and a touch of the macabre. For more on the grotesque music of Professor Lehrer, visit his site at http://www.tomlehrer.org/ for some great cover versions of his songs in other languages in addition to English or http://www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/jmazner/lehrhtml.html for a thorough back-story on the singer.

--Anthony Servante

The Horror Playlist: Welcome to the Dawning Darkness

2011-12-04T04:15:00.000-08:00

(list compiled by staff writer Anthony Servante)

I write after midnight, dark to dawn. I have three TV screens on at once. On one, I put on repeats of old black and white movies/TV shows; on the other, I play Horror movies via the DVD player; on the third, I let assorted music videos play on random mode. Depending on my mood, I’ll let all three play on medium volume at once, but when I’m really into writing a review or a story, I’ll put the movies on mute and blast the music. To compile this list, I merely copied the last thirteen songs that played while I compiled this list. So, adjust your herb setting, sip that glass of vino, or lap up that latte and relax.

13. Rammstein—Keine Lust
from "Reise Reise" (2004) Republic.

12. Pavlov’s Dog—Of Once and Future Kings
from "Pampered Menial" (1974) Sony.

11. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club—Beat the Devil’s Tattoo
from "Beat the Devil’s Tattoo" (2010) Fragrant Records.

10. Plasmatics—Living Dead
from "Beyond the Valley of 1984" (1981) Plasmatic Label.

9. Kansas—Belexes
from "Kansas(self-titled)" (1974) Sbme Special Markets.

8. Ennio Morricone—Run, Man, Run
from "The Big Gundown Soundtrack" (1966) EMI.

7. Nico Vega—Beast
from "Nico Vega (self-titled)" (2009) Myspace Records.

6. Jem—Come on Closer
from "Finally Woken" (2004) Ato Records.

5. Rhapsody—Emerald Sword
from "Tales from the Emerald Sword Saga" (2004) Limb Music.

4. Fanny—Hey, Bulldog
from "First Time in a Long Time: The Reprise Recordings" (2002) Rhino/Warner Bros; original: (1972).

3. Blodwyn Pig—See My Way
from "Getting to This" (1969) Bgo—Beat Goes On.

2. Be Bop Deluxe—Maid in Heaven
from "Futurama" (1975) EMI.

1. Bryan Ferry—Sympathy for the Devil
from "These Foolish Things" (1973) Virgin Records US.

I hope that settled your nerves. We traveled all the way back to 1966 and managed to get home. Now that you’ve calmed yourself with some "musica diversa", you should explore the Horror articles throughout this issue from some very fine writers. See you soon with a new Horror Playlist from the Servante of Darkness himself.

--Anthony Servante

Top 10 Films Which Have Influenced My Life The Most--The Black Glove Staff Members

2011-12-04T04:10:00.000-08:00

Compiled by The Black Glove Staff

This is without a doubt the largest Top list we’ve ever attempted for THE BLACK GLOVE MAGAZINE. I knew going into this that there would be some challenges inherent in trying to put together such a large number of titles.

I wasn’t disappointed.

When I asked each staff member to give me the top 10 films that influenced or changed their lives, I know enough about human nature that I figured two things would happen.

First, given our similarities in cultures—likes and dislikes—there would be cultural landmark titles which would appear over and over again, like mental and emotional scars that had somehow transcended sex, age, creed, religious beliefs and environmental upbringing. Because, whether we’re aware of it or not, there are certain primal things which we do fear, like darkness, disease, the unknown. So it was no surprise to see titles such as “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “Dawn of the Dead” (1978), “Halloween” (1978), “The Exorcist” (1973), “Hellraiser” (1987) and “Star Wars” (1977) appearing on more than one staffer’s list. It was actually more surprising to see the movies that weren’t picked, or were named by only one person on staff, such as “The Shining” (1981), “The Omen” (1976) and “Phantasm” (1979), which are generally regarded by most horror fans as some of the best of the genre. It almost stunned me to see no one picked any Universal horror films from the Silver Age of Horror (1930s-1940s), although, in all honesty, where would any of us be without those films to have influenced the films which are on the list?

Second, because of the inevitable vast differences in our individual worldviews—how what we see and feel in the world is filtered through our own personal emotional and mental views—that there would be some strange films to pop out of seeming left field to appear on the list. And that happened plenty.

To make sure that would happen, one of the rules which I instituted for the process was that any title could be chosen; the choices weren’t limited to just horror, science fiction or fantasy. If someone felt that a romantic comedy, documentary, drama, etc., etc. deserved to be on their list, then so be it. I sure didn’t want to wind up with nothing but the same ten movies. I wanted diversity. I wanted oddity. But, most importantly, I wanted honesty. And let’s be honest, even for someone steeped deep down in horror 24-hours a day there still has to have some outside contact with non-genre flicks, and there are times when those non-genre films will hit you just as significantly as any of the well known genre films have generations—in fact, at times, even more so. I know that’s been the case with me several times. In fact, you’re sure to be as surprised as me at the movies that appear on this list.

You'll find such a variety on this list that you may question how did these people become such ardent horror fans. There's movies that are so far removed from the genre that you'll be scratching your head in bemusement (I know I did on a few of them). You'll also find obscure films which staffers chose for professional, more so than for personal reasons. And you will find some which have utterly shaped someone's life from the moment the film was viewed. In any case, I'm sure the list will at the very least give you something to think about, and how certain films may have shaped your own life. Because when you really think about it, it's almost impossible in this modern age not to have been greatly influenced by at least one film you've seen in your life.

In an effort to edit this massive list for ease of reading, I alphabetized the titles of the films, followed by the same name order as seen in our monthly Staff Profile page, with their particular essay for that film. I hope it makes it easier to read. If not, then please, blame me. It was a huge undertaking, but I thought there was no way, once this was suggested by staff member Bill Breedlove as a possibility for our magazine, that we could pass up the chance at giving it a shot. So our thanks go to Bill for the suggestion. It was a giant labor of love, but I see lots of merit in having tackled it. In fact, who knows? I may reach out to our readers as well to do something similar to this one day.

Also, besides my thanks to Bill Breedlove, I’d like to offer my gratitude to each one of our staff members who decided to participate in this massive undertaking. Your patience and spirit of fun were very much appreciated, folks.

I encourage readers to leave your own top ten most influential films on your life in the comments section. Personally, I’m always intrigued by the different films which people find have changed or influenced their lives. So list ‘em below, Horrorheads!

Without further ado, our very first ever Top Ten Movies That Influenced My Life from The Black Glove Magazine’s Staff.

A

THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984)
My introduction to fandom. I’d never seen something so absurd, goofy and simply fun in my life. I mailed off and joined the fan club and I was so proud of all the pamphlets, booklets and newsletters I got. I was a part of something dedicated to a movie I adored. It was wonderful.
--Jenny Orosel

ALIEN (1979)
Alien was one of those films that destroyed my pure and clean vision of the future created by Star Trek. At its core, the film is a haunted house in space with a deadly alien as the monster, but it rises above the clichés and delivers a solid knockout punch. Who could forget the chest-burster scene?! And the alien designs and locations by H.R. Giger blew me away! One of the first aliens that genuinely felt alien.
--Jason Shayer

ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)
It was the first “adult” movie I ever saw. Not adult as in porno, but the first one aimed toward grown-up sensibilities. I must have been seven or eight. Saw it with my family on the early days of cable. This was the first time I had to consider things like subtext and symbolism. It set the tone for my movie-watching to come. And no matter how many times I’ve seen it since then, I still tear up at the ending.
--Jenny Orosel

ALMOST FAMOUS (2000)
In high school I was the metal kid who did a lot of drugs and played a lot of guitar. When I got a little older this actually melded with my love of writing and for a time I was thinking a life as a rock journalist wouldn't be such a bad gig, and followed that idea all the way to college, where I promptly filled my weekly newswriting queues with band interviews, CD reviews, and pro wrestling features. I read "Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs" shortly before seeing this film and was floored by everything about it; the characters, the life, even the writing. I'll never be a rock journalist (I've found I love crime reporting even more than I love music) but if there was ever a film that would change my mind again…it's this one.
--JW Schnarr

B

BLACK SABBATH (1963)
Three horror stories directed by Mario Bava and hosted by Boris Karloff, who also stars as the vampire in the final tale. In the first tale, “The Drop of Water”, written by Anton Chekov, follows a female caretaker who watches after a dying woman lying gaunt and skeletal in bed. The nurse steals the ring from the helpless woman and vengeance from the grave ensues. The second tale, “The Telephone”, concerns a ghost making phone calls. The final tale, “The Wurdalak”, based on a story by Aleksey Tolstoy, has a family killed by their patriarch who is turned to a vampire by the vampire he tracks and kills.
The Influence Factor: That dying woman on the bed haunted my dreams for days and has become an icon of Horror to this day. I also learned that movies imported to the US are often edited for American consumption. When I saw the original Italian version, L Tre Volti Della Paura (The Three Faces of Fear), I learned that “The Telephone” was not a ‘ghost’ story and that the line-up had been changed, with “The Drop of Water” more appropriately placed as the final story. Since then I have gone out of my way to see every version I could of foreign horror movies, and even domestic ‘director’s cuts.’ My appreciation of Horror across the globe was expanded.
--Anthony Servante

BLADE RUNNER (1982)
Not only my favorite vision of L.A. ever put on film, but it turned me into a lifelong (Philip K.) Dickhead
--Lisa Morton

Again the cyberpunk mix of sci-fi and horror gets me. I have always loved the atmosphere of this film, and it holds up like few can. The book is brilliant, but I think this is one of the rare exceptions where the film surpasses the novel. It's simply a masterpiece. The director's cut, which moves the story a little closer to the novel, is the one you want to see if you've never seen this movie. And if you haven't, drop me a line, and I will personally come to your house and slap you in the mouth.
--JW Schnarr

THE BLOB (1958)
Viewed on television as a young child, this movie inspired about five years of nightmares. I don't think a week passed without at least one night featuring the formless horror. I was an imaginative kid; it didn't take much for me to extrapolate backward from the creature's growth to hypothesize on a microscopic blob which could be passed along as it consumed in the same way as a virus or bacteria. The difference would be that it would hit a breakover point where it would grow to a distinguishable size... at which point it would be far too late for the victim. Or to realize that if it didn't dissolve in water and didn't need to breathe, it could travel silently through piping. As a five year old, I was terrified of having to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. The adult me has to say: Screw you, Irvine Millgate.
--Bill Lindblad

BLOOD FEAST (1963)
A caterer of Egyptian background seeks out beautiful young women and butchers them for various body parts that he will need to revive a dormant Egyptian Princess or such. Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and starring Playboy Playmate Connie Mason. At the showing I attended at a kid, there was a ‘nurse’ in attendance for those faint of heart in the audience. The first ‘slasher’ movie and my first gorefest.
The Influence Factor: I began my quest to see every ‘slasher’ movie in the hopes of finding something to top that gory extravaganza that I enjoyed as a kid. August Underground?! Ha! Few filmmakers have come close to matching that experience of awe I felt when I saw that girl get her tongue cut out. The wheels of Horror Cinema were set in motion for me thanks to Mr. Herschell Gordon Lewis.
--Anthony Servante

BLUE VELVET (1986)
Taught me how I could plumb the depths of my own subconscious and place the nuggets pulled forth into usable, narrative form
-Lisa Morton

BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960)
As with the previous entries, almost any of the Hammer films from this period—HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957), THE REPTILE (1966), THE GORGON (1964)—could probably fit here, but of them all, I have a tremendous soft spot for BRIDES. For one thing, it’s a very lively film, one of the best of the whole “Dracula” series. Let’s see if we can adequately sum up all the crazy stuff that happens in its breezy 85 minutes: There is a very original plot—our heroine, Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur, who, according to the trailer, is “France’s newest sex kitten!”) is a schoolteacher traveling from Paris to teach some classes in Transylvania (of course), and instead at staying at any of the strange inns, in the quaint creepy village, she instead decides to bunk at the local derelict castle (of course) where the lady of the house—Baroness Meinster (of course) gives her the willies, and then she comes across a fey-looking blonde guy who is chained up and tells the (not-too-bright) heroine that his evil mother the Baroness keeps him locked up because she is a w-a-c-k-o, cleverly omitting the part that he is a ravening vampire. But, he is kinda cute (in fact, much will be made throught the entire film how “devastating handsome” Baron Blondie is), and besides, slight fellows with a side-parted, spit-curl haircut aren’t vampires, right? I mean, there’s not a widow’s peak in sight. So, he gets loose and the fun begins.
Peter Cushing shows up as Van Helsing (of course). One of the interesting things about this film is this vampire—he is technically “Baron Meinster” regardless of the title—is greatly motivated by peevishness and spite. Once freed, the first thing he does is put the bite on his mom as a thanks for chaining him up. Once Van Helsing ruins all the fun in the quaint creepy village, Baron Ricky Schroder turns up at Marianne’s private all-girls’ school and confesses he wants to marry her since she freed him from his captivity. Now, I am no expert on whirlwind courtships back in ye old England Transylvania, but just because you gave a guy whose mom had chained him in the basement of a castle the key to the chain, then been forced to look at a corpse with vampire bite marks in the neck by someone who claimed it was your fault for freeing said vampire, and then suddenly Baron RS shows up at your place of employment and asks you to get hitched, wouldn’t you at least want to take a few days to “think it over?” Nope, as genius Marianne says “absolutely!” to our metrosexual Baron Meister. However, again for no other reason than pure spite and malice—or perhaps prefiguring behavior to become common on American college campuses over the next few hundred years—the exfoliating nosferatu decides, even with all of the teachers and students at the school, he wants to bust a move on his fiancée’s roommate. This ends badly for the roommate, but not before she confesses the Baron’s extracurricular activities (of course) AND also spills the beans that he is holed up at…The Old Mill! (of course)
Van Helsing heads over The Old Mill, and confronts the eponymous Brides, and just when things seem to be well in hand, he drops his cross into a…well. (The expression on Peter Cushing’s face at this is absolutely priceless.) The Baron shows up to his super-secret-hiding-place (where half the village seems to be), and proceeds to lay a beat down on Van Helsing. But, curiously, he refrains from killing the vampire hunter and instead just gives Van Helsing just a “wee nip” and then departs. The audience doesn’t have too much time to consider this baffling development, because as soon as VH wakes up, he realizes he has been tainted by the bite of a dandified blonde Beau Brummel fearsome vampire king. So, he does what any upstanding vamp fighter would do, and heats up a branding iron in a fire until it is red hot, and then cauterizes the bite with it, and then—for good measure—cleans the whole mess with a liberal dosage of his handy vial of holy water. (NOTE: When you are twelve years old, this in the very definition of “badass.”). Right then, the Baron sashays back with Marianne in tow, it turns out that the reason he didn’t kill Van Helsing when he had the chance was he wanted to show off by putting the bite on Marianne in front of Van Helsing, thereby proving who’s the big bad Baron after all. Alas, this is one spite and malice usage too many, since Van Helsing has saved some of his holy water, and flings it right in the kisser of our crowing-a-bit-too-soon vampire. Since holy water reacts to a vampire’s complexion much like acid, the Baron begins screaming like Joan Crawford in a 1940s weepie, but whether from pain or the loss of his “devastatingly handsome” looks is not explained. However, in a fit of pique, he does kick over the glowing hot coals left over from Van Helsing’s impromptu surgery, which instantaneously alights all of the hay in The Old Mill. I guess the Baron’s strategy at this point is to block the doorway of The Old Mill and watch Van Helsing and Marianne burn to death in the conflagration. Van Helsing has other ideas, and he and the Baron’s bride-to-be climb the stairs to the top of the windmill and crawl out where the large X of the arms are. Since a) the Baron did not see this development coming; and b) The Old Mill’s interior is collapsing in flames and in fact kills the remaining “Brides,” the Baron decides to do what any clear-thinking vampire would at this point—run for it. Indeed, he could have turned himself into a bat as he had done earlier, or perhaps a puff of smoke, but instead he opts for a wind sprint across the field in front of The Old Mill.
And, what happens next my friends is why this film will forever earn my admiration and be on any “Top” list I ever make: Van Helsing, sitting on the roof of a burning, collapsing mill (The Old Mill) sees Baron Blondie hoofing it away and, IN ONE INSTANT—turns, looks at the full moon, does some quick mental mathematical calculations in his head, and leaps onto one of the arms of the windmill, causing it to turn under his weight, which in turn causes the shadow of the arms (cast by the light of the full moon, natch) to move from a giant “X” to a giant cross, right on the lawn where Baron Can’t-Believe-My-Bad-Luck runs right into the shadow and gets fried. The end.
I MEAN ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? That is—hands down—the coolest way to kill a vampire…EVER. In fact, I will confidentially predict that will remain the coolest method of disposing of a vampire from now, more than 40 years after the movie was made, until, oh, EVER.
Director: So, how will we kill off the vampires in this film?
Writer: Let’s see…stake to the heart…
Director: Been done a million times.
Writer: Some get killed by burning debris falling on them…
Director: Ho hum.
Writer: Oh, wait…the lead vampire runs in front of a flaming windmill and the hero leaps onto the arms to cause the full moon to cast the shadow of a giant cross on the ground and the vampire runs right into it to his doom.
Director: Now you’re talking!
All this…in only 85 feverish minutes. Wow.
--Bill Breedlove

BUBBLEGUM CRISIS (1987-1991)
There was a time when the only anime commercially available in the US had been edited for young children by Carl Macek, and they were simply called cartoons. The bootleg market at conventions changed that, because it inspired companies like AnimEigo and AD Vision to release official subtitled editions of a handful of popular titles through the only venues that would carry them, comic book stores. I know this because I was there at the beginning, having been introduced to the world of anime by a grainy secondhand tape of female Iron Man types fighting homicidal android servants in a dystopian future. It's become a huge media subgenre, and I've been involved for twenty-five years.
--Bill Lindblad

C

CADDYSHACK (1980)
I think more conversations have been started around this movie in my life, along with my other favorite comedy, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1974), than any others. Both comedies are extremely quotable, and thus began discussions which inevitably moved in other directions. I've used other movies for similar effect: Airplane! (1980), The Princess Bride (1987), Friday (1995), Stripes (1981), Blazing Saddles (1974)... but those two are the best for me.
--Bill Lindblad

CATALINA CAPER [aka NEVER STEAL ANYTHING WET] (1967)
Rifftrax. Cinematic Titanic. It all started with Mystery Science Theater 3000, and this was the first episode I saw. I have spent more time than I care to think about since then either riffing on movies with friends or watching the professionals do it.
--Bill Lindblad

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)
After an accident where some girls drive off a bridge and into the river, one of the girls walks out of the water and goes about her life. But she is trapped between life and death represented by an abandoned carnival and the ghostly apparitions that ‘dance’ there. One ghostly figure in particular follows her throughout the movie and appears in reflections, mirrors, or as a face in the crowd. The surprise ending (SPOILER!!) is that the girl has been dead all along. When the car is dragged from the river, the girl’s dead body is found inside.
The Influence Factor: That trick ending. Wow. Okay, “The Sixth Sense” (1999) runs a close second, but the original surprise ending was back in 1962. M. Night Shamalamadingdong wasn’t even born yet. I always share this movie with friends, students, and family. I picked up the Criterion Edition of the movie for all the extras and interviews. I also must give a nod to “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), the George Romero original for its surprise ending as well. I’ve been on the prowl for twist endings ever since.
--Anthony Servante

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)
When I was a child, I was terrified of horror movies. Sure, I’d watch them now and then but then have horrible nightmares. When I saw this at 12, it was so goofy that it made me realize there was nothing to be afraid of.
--Jenny Orosel

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)
I'm putting this film on the list first and foremost and would argue the merits of this being a fantastic example of horror and fantasy mixing on film. First of all, take away the swords and magic…let's say, give them guns, and you still have a revenge tale seen through the eyes of a boy who watched his parents butchered by cannibalistic doomsday cultists controlled by a snake demon in the guise of James Earl Jones. I know. Fuckin' scary, right?
This is one of the most important movies in my life and a film that ties me closely to my grandfather. I have seen this film hundreds of times without embellishing at all, and have been forbidden from watching it with most friends and family because I have the annoying tendency of reciting dialogue, humming along to the music cues, and even copying the bloody gargles, sword swipes, and grunts as they come up. Yes I know this isn't what Howard intended for Conan, but the stark brutality is pretty damned close to the Conan I've always loved through the art of Frank Frazetta.
--JW Schnarr

D

DAWN OF THE DEAD [aka ZOMBIE] (1978)
I saw this movie when I was nine years old. Me and my little brother watched it from a fenced in field of dead summer grass which ran behind the local drive-in theater, The Reef (where I saw most of the movies on my list of movies, when I was a kid) and it blew me away. I have never felt such disgust and excitement at the same time, up to that point. I came away with the sure knowledge that Romero was God and zombies were the coolest goddamned monsters to hit the screen since I saw “Godzilla” (1954) on a late night horror movie show. Later on, when I was eighteen or so, I sat down and watched it again, not thinking it would have as strong an impact as it had eight years before when I was “just a little kid”, but I was so wrong. I walked away from that VCR feeling the same sense of disgust and excitement and it was then I knew I had to do something in horror—movies, books, comics—I didn’t care, but I had to make other people feel what I felt watching “Dawn of the Dead”. It also reasserted for me that Romero was still God.
--Nickolas Cook

Not only is this a great movie, in my opinion it's George Romero's best, but it is the only that firmly cemented my love of zombies. Yeah that's right, I was a zombie fan before it was cool to be a zombie fan, back in the 80s when everyone else was gaga over vampires and serial killers. And while “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) is a classic, this is always my go-to zombie flick.
--Brian M. Sammons

The only movie that ever really shocked me and disturbed me, deeply, and watching this movie still makes me uncomfortable. So of course I watch it at least once a year. Someday I hope to fully understand why it bothers me.
--Lisa Morton

DELIVERANCE (1972)
PADDLE FASTER!!!! I HEAR BANJOS!!!! Being from the South, I have a great appreciation of this movie. Yes it’s very influential in my life. It represents a true concept of “us” down here yonder in the South. While I’m sure there are inbred families in the North, it seems that most people in the nation think we are all inbred down here. While this may or may not be true, I do know some cousins that have married each other. The joke down here is that we go to family reunions to find dates. With that being said, Burt Reynolds is a bad ass! When he shoots the hillbilly with the arrow, it’s like, “Man! Burt is a bad ass.” I also like the line, “let me hear ya squeal, squeal like a pig...Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!” I love this movie; it is a horror movie in the aspect of being ass raped by hillbillies while canoeing down a river just trying to have fun.
--Carey Copeland

DEMONS (1985)
I remember seeing this and thinking, “What the hell??” When Demons came out, the draw for me was it was about demons. This foreign flick changed my idea about Italian horror movies. Yeah the dubbing was bad but the camera work to me was visceral. When passes are given out to see a movie, it makes you think,” Some heavy shit is about to happen.” When the girl gets the scratch from putting on the mask in the lobby, you know some shit is going to happen. When they start playing Iron Maiden and the girl starts oozing green viscous fluid, you now know that you were right. To me the movie is like a roller coaster ride. It starts out slow and it starts coming up on an incline and then you drop and all hell breaks loose.
--Carey Copeland

DETOUR (1945)
When I first saw this movie, I so thoroughly hated Ann Savage's character that I almost turned it off ten minutes after she came in...and that, of course, is why it's a masterpiece and why I co-wrote a book about the actress.
--Lisa Morton

DIARY OF A MADMAN (1963)
Vincent Price plays Simon Cordier, a judge who visits a prisoner on the day of his execution who pleads his innocence and blames an evil spirit for forcing him to commit the crimes of which he is accused. As he speaks the invisible demon, called a Horla, forces the prisoner to try to kill Cordier, but he fails and ends up dead. Without a host, the Horla possesses the judge, who goes on to commit multiple murders. Cordier figures out the Horla’s weakness and sacrifices himself to kill the demon. This story is based on the short story, “Le Horla” (1887) by Guy de Maupassant.
The Influence Factor: I learned that you didn’t need special effects to create a creature of pure evil, and with Vincent Price’s superb acting, which we would later see again in movies like “The Conqueror Worm” [aka “The Witchfinder General”] (1968), I fell under the spell of the Horla and had the crap scared out of me. I searched out the story that the movie was based on and read it: the world of foreign horror in literature was opened up for me. I would later in life include the de Maupassant tale into my Master’s Thesis on the Grotesque in German, French and English Romantic Literature.
--Anthony Servante

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973)
The undisputed champ—forever—of STBOOMWIWALK. Who was the genius that cooked up this concept and then showed it on network television—where any kid at all could watch it??? Forget that Kim Darby was adult in her role in this film—this is THE CLASSIC kid fear: you KNOW there are effing monsters all around you! In your effing fucking house! And no one will effing listen to you! I mean, come on, how much more of a perfect terrifying premise is there for kids? The monsters want to GRAB you, and TAKE you, and can only do it WHEN IT IS PITCH BLACK. I am willing to bet this film spiked the sale of nightlights by, oh 10,000%. And, if you were a child with any imagination at all, well, you know that you were going to be wrestling with those little evil gnomes every single time the lights were out.
What also was so genius in this movie was the give-and-take between the monsters and poor Kim. Remember the shower scene? Kim is trying to take a shower. She knows the little bastards can’t stand the light, so she has turned on every light. To mess with her, they start turning off the light. She turns it back on. What follows is a horrific version of the children’s game “red light, green light” where each time the lights go out, the monsters creep a little closer, so that each time she gets the lights on again, they have moved just that much closer. And then, they start breaking the light bulbs. This kind of sadistic torment could only have been thought up by the wicked mind who would think OLD YELLER (1957) would be “good, wholesome family entertainment.” WTF.
--Bill Breedlove

E

EASY RIDER (1969)
This happens to have been the latest movie to influence my world view, despite the fact that it’s the oldest title on my list. There’s something that happened to me recently that caused a complete turnover of my life. It led me to reassess my values and what I considered success. Lo and behold, Dennis Hopper’s landmark movie about the lost innocence of the 60s generation hit home in a big way with me during this time. I could empathize completely with Peter Fonda’s character when he and his road companion (also played by the director, Dennis Hopper) are sitting in the middle of the woods after barely escaping death and finding drug addled release in a New Orleans cemetery: “We blew it, man. We really blew it.” That line hit me in a soft spot in my psyche and I could understand it on a spiritual, political and societal level at the same time. It gave me a chance to redefine my own value system for all of those things once more at this late stage in my adult life, and it made me turn back to the old me who would have been more wary of the obvious “success” traps so long ago. And maybe it’s no accident that this was made the year I was born. I truly believe “Easy Rider” should be required viewing in high schools and colleges across the country. Look and listen, what’s that sound…
--Nickolas Cook

EL TOPO (1970)
My introduction to collectable movies and bootlegs. I remember seeing the cover of SANTA SANGRE (1989), where in big letters it said, “From the director of EL TOPO”. I figured if it was a big enough deal to mention on the videotape then that movie must be a big deal. I had to do serious research through the Videohound guides and at the library because it was nowhere to be found. Turns out that it was never released in the US, and I would have to find an alternate way of watching it (because by that point I was so curious I had to see it). The notion of bootlegged videotapes hadn’t occurred to me before then. But from then on…if you really want to see a movie, there are ways.
--Jenny Orosel

ERASERHEAD (1977)
Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) and his girlfriend have a monstrous child that drives a wedge in their relationship. Simple story is told with surreal acting, grotesque imagery, and black and white film. The result is a “dream of dark and troubling things” from David Lynch. I attended the premiere at a Midnight Showing at the Nuart Theater in Westwood, California. I was blown away. My friends wanted to blow me away for taking them to this weird movie.
The Influence Factor: I was weaned on surreal animation: Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Tex Avery. But this level of surreal filmmaking was an event for me and many other fans of the movie. I couldn’t wait to see what Lynch would come up with next and haven’t been disappointed yet. I also found his use of sound and music fascinating and followed the bands that scored his movies, from Julie Cruise to Angelo Badalamenti. In addition, I discovered the world of Midnight Movies and to this day follow the latest late night flicks with gusto.
--Anthony Servante

THE EXORCIST (1973)
The movie that scared me the most, bar none, and the one that still scares me the most today. This is the Mt. Everest of horror movies, there's nothing else quite like it, and I don't think there ever will be. It's as close to a perfect horror movie as I can think of.
--Brian M. Sammons

The Big One for me. I was 15 when I saw it, in a packed theater full of people screaming, fleeing, and fainting. When I went in, I wanted to be an anthropologist; by the time I walked out of the theater, I knew I'd be a writer, because I wanted to affect people
that deeply...or at least try to.
--Lisa Morton

Despite seeing this film in an edited-for-TV version, the idea that an innocent child could be possessed and corrupted by demons disturbed me for weeks. The exorcism scenes were masterfully done and, as this film was really my first exposure to this genre, it set the bar pretty high for all the other horror films I would watch.
--Jason Shayer

THE EVIL DEAD (1981)
What can I say about this movie and its influence on me? It’s got Bruce “The chin” Campbell and demons. The campy low budget feel of the movie is one of its draws. Sam’s own personal car was used because of the budget. The camera work is a character in its self. The dodgy camera angles and the camera’s ability to seem like a first person point of view, is well, AWESOME AS HELL! When I think about a movie with Bruce Campbell, the first one that comes to mind is this one. Yeah he has others but this one sticks in my mind.
--Carey Copeland

F

THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1961)
No, this is not the Gilliam film, but one made in the early '60s by the brilliant Czech animator Karel Zeman (although this is actually a mix of live action and animation). I was obsessed with this movie as a child (when it was aired a lot on television), and it just gets better with age. It's an absolute tragedy that Zeman's not up there with Disney, Miyazaki, and other great fantasy filmmakers, and even more shocking that this film is not available on a Criterion DVD.
--Lisa Morton

FREAKS (1932)
My grandfather showed this one to me, also. It walked the fine line between exploitation and humanity. I learned about respecting all your characters, no matter who they are (as a side note, my grandfather confided to me that he had a crush on the Hilton Sisters, the conjoined twins in the movie. “Which one?” I asked. “Doesn’t matter,” he responded. I’ve been traumatized ever since.)
--Jenny Orosel

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)
Now I won't say this is the best movie on this list, not by a far shot, but it is the one that introduced me to horror films for real, and literally from the night I watched it, I was a changed person. I loved this movie, and still do today; it is easily my favorite slasher of them all. I guess it's true, you never forget your first. This is the flick that handed me my horrorhead for life membership card, and for that reason it will always be number one for me. Yep, my big buddy Jason will always be my homeboy.
--Brian M. Sammons

G

GHOST STORY (1981)
First off, the film is really nothing like the book, but the movie did terrible things to me as a kid as well. First off, I'm not sure, but I think this was my first exposure to female nudity..thanks, Alice Krige. The first time I watched it I was sitting beside my uncle and they were talking about how she was a ghost. Suddenly my uncle shouts, "GHOSTFUCKER!" and they all laughed…I didn't, because I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. It scared the hell out of me though.
As for my first memory of the female form…well, Alice turned into a rotted monster, and I swore if I ever got married I was going to sleep with a nightlight. Just in case.
--JW Schnarr

THE GODFATHER (1972)
I know, one of the best movies ever and it's only #10 on my list? Well that's because I've always been a genre kind of guy. The movies that most trip my trigger have monsters, aliens, boobies and blood in them. Straight-up dramas just didn't do anything for me when I was younger, and then I saw this movie. This was the first film I watched exclusively for the engaging story and compelling characters. I loved it and it convinced me that there just might be good movies out there that didn't feature murderous masked machete-wielding madmen.
--Brian M. Sammons

GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER (1966)
Again, this could really be any “Godzilla” movie from the first one through, say, “GODZILLA VS. MEGALON” (1973), which I saw at a drive-in when I was in 7th grade (and was—inexplicably—sharing a double bill with “MANDINGO” (1975), so once that film got going, my mom hastily fired up the engine to our Dodge Coronet and shot some gravel and I stared goggle-eyed at the giant boobies on the rapidly receding screen). But, from as long as I can remember, I have loved Godzilla. I don’t know how old I was when I saw my first Godzilla movie, but I do recall seeing “DESTROY ALL MONSTERS” (1968) in a movie theater(!) that was full of screaming kids (and, now that I think about it, weary parents—but at least they could smoke back then, I know my mom did). The reason I am picking one of the “lesser” of the Big Guy’s exploits also involves a memory from childhood that is as clear as a bell, even to this day. In Chicago, where we lived, the local affiliate that showed most of the horror movies (although not ALL of the horror movies, as we shall see a bit later), decided for some reason to show GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER, not once, not twice but EVERY SINGLE NIGHT OF THE WEEK at 10pm for an entire week! Only in the fun 70s, I guess. Needless to say, I was beside myself with excitement, and somehow worked out a deal where I got to stay up late each night and watch the movie, which, even after the sixth or seventh viewing, I found endlessly fascinating. But, what I really must acknowledge here is my mom’s yeoman effort. She was, at the time, working a difficult job with long, long hours, and only got home in time to have a late dinner with me, maybe watch a bit of TV and then hit the sack to get up the next morning at 5:30. To her eternal credit, however, she stayed up with me and sat there, dutifully watching Godzilla battle the giant lobster, who many years we would come to find out had a name—Ebirah. (and, by the way, WTF was Mothra doing in the movie—just hanging around with nothing better to do?)I distinctly recall looking away from one of the more boring (for me, at least) scenes of dialogue (badly dubbed dialogue, I might add) to see my mom soundlessly mouthing the lines along with the characters, almost as one would the refrain from a particularly catchy tune that was stuck in one’s head. Yet, never once did she complain or not express anything but pleasant surprise when Godzilla emerged victorious at the conclusion. Another thing I clearly remember about this movie is the scene where the female lead is “captured” by Godzilla and he stashes her on some rocks and while he is otherwise engaged, she attempts to sneak away, only to be caught by the Big Guy, who sternly waves his finger in the familiar “no-no” gesture to her. For some reason, that always cracked my mom up, and her and my grandma would laugh and laugh, and I would laugh, too, although I wasn’t too sure why it was so funny. Seven days straight of that movie. My poor Mom.
--Bill Breedlove

GREEN SNAKE (1993)
I almost can't even describe what this film did to me. Just suffice to say that it made me write a book on the director.
--Lisa Morton

H

HALLOWEEN (1978)
I didn’t see this movie for the first time at a theater or drive-in. I saw it on television in 1979. But I remember being so damned excited to finally get to see it that I recorded most of the movie on a little tape recorder I had gotten the year before for a Xmas gift and I listened to that tape over and over again, until it finally just broke from overplay. I had the movie memorized at the tender age of ten. Because of this movie about a speechless masked killer stalking a bunch of babysitters on Halloween night, Carpenter became a hero to me. I read everything I could find about him and bugged the hell out of my parents to see every movie that came out. It didn’t always work, so I had to wait for video for some of his movies. But they still hit home for me, despite the fact I had to watch them on the small screen at home. Later, as I grew older and was trying to make friends at school, mentioning Carpenter’s “Halloween” in any discussion with new people became a kind of signal for those who were like me. If they loved “Halloween”, then we were fast friends. The pacing and ambience of the film still finds their way into my own fiction. And there are times when I feel down that all I have to do is put on my DVD of “Halloween” (sans the goddamned commentaries, thank you!) and sit back and let the years roll back to that night when I sat glued before the TV, with a tape recorder, and feeling such terror and awe.
--Nickolas Cook

What else can be said about this movie. The original, and still the best. Similar to THEM! (1954), not just a great, well-made horror movie, but a great, well-made movie, period. The wide-angle shots, the suspense, the score, and, perhaps the greatest exchange in horror movie history:
Laurie: It was the bogeyman, wasn’t it?
Dr. Loomis: As a matter of fact, it was.
I saw this the day it came out, the first showing in the afternoon. My grandmother took me (thanks, Gram!). There were not too many people in the theater, since most would be coming in the evening. Remember, back then, no one really knew what, exactly, this movie was about. The poster just showed a pumpkin face with a butcher knife and the tagline line “The night HE came home!” and that was about it. To say I sat nailed in my seat for the next 91 minutes would be an understatement. I was thoroughly and totally mesmerized. I don’t recall if I was truly terrified, but I was certainly entranced. One of the most satisfying cinema experiences of my life. (My grandmother, not so much.)
--Bill Breedlove

HELLRAISER (1987)
I was in my late teens the first time I saw this on video. It had been many years since I had seen any horror film that actually left me disturbed. Clive Barker’s directorial debut left me more than disturbed; I was convinced it could actually happen, given the right circumstances. There was something about the pseudo-sexual overtones to the dire promise/threats laid out by Pinhead that struck a chord with this young man back then. And then to add the splatter-gore on top of all that…well…it left me confused, for sure. I remember after seeing the movie, I went to every bookstore I could find to buy every single thing I could find by Clive Barker. Years later, back in 2008, I got the chance to interview Mr. Barker for a magazine I was helping to edit (Dark Recesses) and I was able to tell him what the movie did for me at that age and how it helped to cement the fact that I wanted to write horror for a living. That was, of course, before the horror fallout of the late 80s and early 90s, as the market became oversaturated with shitty books and movies and people stopped paying attention to things like Friday the 13th XXII or whatever, and before I discovered that writing anything for a living was problematic, at best, and downright impossible at least. “Hellraiser” stayed with me for years and became a sort of template for the type of fiction I would write as a young man, mixed in with liberal sprinklings of H.P. Lovecraft. I still recommend this movie to anyone who is looking to watch the high points of the genre on film because I truly believe it led a new revolution in gore horror, once studios saw you could have intelligence and gore together in a film, that is.
--Nickolas Cook

This was one of our 80’s horror movies. Clive’s vision of Hell and the caretakers of it is absolutely brilliant. Clive has captured a tortured, hopeless but sexual vision of one of the most feared places in religious history. The thought of being pulled to hell by Pinhead or the other Cenobites is terrifying. Side note: Cenobites exist. They were a sect of the Catholic Church back in medieval days, possibly dating back as far as 4BC. When Uncle Frank comes back, that is the thing that I remember. To actually escape from Hell, that is a concept worth thinking about, however, having Pinhead coming after you…makes you wonder if all of those hail Marys and our fathers are worth it. I love the different types of Clive’s Cenobites. They are imaginative in the concept of torture and pain. The sheer terror of the tortured flesh is almost poetic in Hell.
--Carey Copeland

Before I'd ever read anything by Clive Barker and become a fan of his work, I watched a film called Hellraiser and saw, for the first time, an order and beauty to the concept of Hell. The rebirth of Uncle Frank is still a beautiful piece of cinema, and always reminds me of melting candles for some reason. The film also gave me my first real glimpse into SM/bondage, but at the time I didn't realize what I was looking at. The film has the same kind of dark beauty that I later found in Barker's early writings (Especially his “Books of Blood” (1984-1986), which should be required reading for any horror writer).
--JW Schnarr

HORROR HOTEL [aka THE CITY OF THE DEAD] (1960)
In what will become an ongoing refrain for this list, this is one of those films that Scared The Bejesus Out Of Me When I Was A Little Kid (STBOOMWIWALK.) The plot concerns a pretty young coed who is encouraged by her professor to travel to the spooky old village of Whitewood, to further her studies of witchcraft. And, predictably, the shit hits the fan. First of all, as a kid I was very impressed that one could have cool cats like Christopher Lee as a college professor, and secondly, even more impressed that, apparently, in college one not only got to study “witchcraft” as a major, but one also got to take off and go visit spooky old villages—all for credit hours! Of course, that was during the first twenty minutes of this very creepy little film. As a child, I was not used to the types of plot twists which were coming, and as a result, after the big shocker, I was pretty much in a permanent state of unease throughout the rest of the picture, so much so in fact that I completely missed the total obviousness of the other big surprise.
--Bill Breedlove

THE HOWLING (1981)
This movie isn’t your parent’s “Wolfman” movie. This movie is up there with “An American werewolf in London” (1981). The effects were awesome for the day and the storyline was a very good one. When the dude started turning and Dee Wallace threw the acid in his face, which stuck with me. Those damn smiley face stickers stuck with me, even to this day, I think about that movie when I see them. Movies nowadays try to rival the movies of the 80’s but they just don’t have the solid effects that the 80’s movies had. Everything now is CG and the special effects artists are being replaced by kids out of high school. These movies starting back with our Saturday “Creature Feature” are the very essence of what made me want to become a special effects artist, to love monsters, to want to create nightmares.
--Carey Copeland

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J

JAWS (1975)
Yes, this is obvious. Yes, this a cliché. In 1975, I was ten years old. I sat in the front row. That’s all you need to know. Ok, want more? If I had a nickel for every time I considered certain implications of this picture upon entering a body of water—any body of water: ocean, sea, freshwater lake, lap pool, waterslide, hot tub, etc. etc.—I would definitely be on the other side of that whole “I am the 99%” thing.
--Bill Breedlove

This movie scared the shit out of me. I live in Florida. I’m forty-two years old and I hate swimming in the ocean. I’m surrounded by water and it terrifies me. We have shark attacks off and on but the thought of being attacked by a huge white, I would rather walk through Detroit at night. I think it was last year; we had a white sighting off the coast of Miami. WE DON’T HAVE THOSE HERE. When I see the pictures of the massive schools of sharks off our coast, it makes me even more convinced to stay in the shallow end of the pool. Give me Freddy, Jason, hell, even vampires but sharks. A shark is real. A shark can’t be reasoned with. A shark will eat you. Nuff said.
--Carey Copeland

K

THE KARATE KID (1984)
I don't have too much to say on the Karate Kid, other than it is probably the most perfect film ever made. I've seen it dozens of times and it always kicks ass. It's the ultimate underdog story. This is what the 80s should have been like for everyone. Hell, this is what any decade should have been like for everyone.
--JW Schnarr

THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE (1977)
A rare comedy on the list, this was THE funny film for me and my friends in high school. Yeah it hit the theaters a bit before our time, but we discovered it on VHS and man, did we watch the hell out of it. I guess the fact that it had two of the most amazing bare breasts in it that I have ever seen before or since might have helped with that.
Hey, I was about 15, so sue me. Regardless, it's random and off-the-wall brand of humor helped me develop my own weird sense of humor and my school buddies and I still toss mad amounts of quotes from this film at each other twenty or so years later.
--Brian M. Sammons

THE KILLER (1989)
The first Hong Kong movie I saw, passed to me by a friend in a grainy VHS tape, and it still blew me away. What was this style? Who was this insanely charismatic star? This was the start of my Asian movie obsession.
--Lisa Morton

L

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976)
I saw this film as a little kid and had nightmares for years about it. And not because pedophile-Martin Sheen creeps me out, because he does, but do you remember the scene where the wicked landlady goes down into the basement to retrieve her jam jars and Jodi Foster kicks the leg out of the door just as she's coming up the stairs? Well, a little later on the door is opened and there's a brief scene of that bitch lying at the bottom of the stairs, face bloodied, neck broken.
For years that broken women was under my bed, just waiting for me to put a foot out or my hands, so she could grab me and drag me under the bed. I imagined her clacking around under there like a spider, and I'd roll up in a tight ball until I fell asleep. The idea of her still bothers me, even though I’ve seen the film as an adult in an attempt to shake her off. She won't go.
--JW Schnarr

M

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976)
When I was thirteen, PBS made a huge brouhaha and played this one fully uncut. I watched it and was in love. Not just with David Bowie (although he was a pleasant addition to the movie) but with the non-linear format. Time and place were fluid and, although the plot itself wasn’t straightforward, the movie told a complete and satisfying story. I learned that there was more than one way to tell a tale.
--Jenny Orosel

MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS (1989)
A great film? Nope. But personally influential for me? Oh HELL yes. My first professional writing sale, and my screenwriting education.
--Lisa Morton

METROPOLIS (1927)
I watched this one with my Grandpa. It was my first silent film. It hadn’t occurred to me before then that an entire story could be told using almost all visuals, and wow, this one had amazing visuals.
--Jenny Orosel

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1974)
I think more conversations have been started around this movie, like my other favorite comedy pick, CADDYSHACK (1980), in my life than any others. Both comedies are extremely quotable, and thus began discussions which inevitably moved in other directions.
--Bill Lindblad

N

THE NAKED PREY (1966)
A group of men are on safari. One of the party refuses to give a gift to a tribe they encounter. The tribe is offended, seizes the party, and one-by-one, kills all but one of the safari members in various creative and horrifying ways. The last surviving member is given "The Lion's Chance" by the tribal leader to be hunted down by a party of tribal warriors. Naked and weaponless he is set loose, the hunters hot on his heels, beginning a life-or-death hunt through wild Africa.
The movie starred Cornel Wilde as the ‘prey,’ but he also directed and produced the film. Ken Gampu, a former African police officer turned actor, also stars. Later we see Gampu again in Zulu Dawn. Ken Gampu, Senior makes a brief appearance as the chieftain of the insulted tribe.
Influence Factor: This film for me established the creative killing style developed later in the ‘slasher’ films like “Friday the 13th” (1980) and “Halloween” (1978). The safari members die gruesome but intriguing deaths: one is covered with clay then baked alive over a rotisserie; another is tied up, dressed as a chicken and must hop away as fast as he can to escape the women who have been loosed upon him with long sharp sticks, which they use to stab him repeatedly as if it were all fun sport; another is tied to the ground where a large venomous snake is place in a circle of fire, its only escape covered by the face of the leader of the safari party who insulted the tribesmen; the snake of course bites him in the eye. These gruesome deaths lead up to the ‘prey’s’ release into the wild so the hunters can track him down and kill him, thus making the hunt more suspenseful. I’ll always be grateful for “The Naked Prey” starting me off on my Horror movie crusade to find imaginative killings.
--Anthony Servante

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
HOLY SHIT! Monsters get you in your dreams now? Wes’ concept of a burned, dead pedophile coming after the children of the people that killed him is absolutely brilliant. Wes has created an “Alice in Wonderland” that is lethal. Dreams can be an outlet for a lot of people but those that suffer from night terrors and nightmares can find themselves wanting it to end. Freddy has an influence on a lot of people from young to old. He is very identifiable and yet he is almost worshiped. Back in the 80’s he was one of the most recognized people in society. People couldn’t tell you the capital of the US or even who the president was but they knew Freddy.
--Carey Copeland

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
The first time I ever saw this one was late night on a Halloween, when I was thirteen years old. I watched it with my parents and my little brother. Again, this just helped to solidify the fact that Romero was God for me. The political subtext hit me hard, but it was that damnable sense of nihilism again which drew me in. I know, I know: there seems to be a running theme to the movies which have influenced me most, right? It also led me to start writing zombie stories at a young ago, something I still do now and actually make money doing so. Although this movie had hardly any gore and hardly any real violence, when compared to his later sequel, “Dawn of the Dead” (1978), which I’d seen years before at the local drive-in, The Reef, it still left me feeling very disturbed and a little physically ill by the time the final scenes appear as the credits are rolling: Ben’s dead body being hauled to the fire by meat hooks. Having grown up in the Deep South, there was something symbolic to that moment which hit me hard. As the years have gone by, I still watch this movie and still feel that same sense of frisson I felt that Halloween night, sitting with my family as the witching hour came and went.
--Nickolas Cook

True story: When I was a kid, back in the 70s, there was no cable (yet). We have the 3 network stations, plus local stations. In Chicago, there was WGN (which would soon become the first “superstation” to go nationwide, therefore bringing the hideous horror of the Cubs to households all across America, but that’s another story), WFLD (which was like WGN’s little brother, but it did have “Svengoolie” hosting monster movies on Saturday afternoons), the Spanish-language channel, and WSNS. WGN and WFLD got all of the good TV series that were in syndication at the time—The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Bonanza, etc. WSNS got the lower-tier shows—Sgt. Bilko, Rat Patrol, The Rifleman and so forth. One thing that WSNS had, though, was “Shock Theater,” where they would show horror movies far different from the ones on “Svengoolie.” They would not only show some of the real stinkers—“Octaman” (1976)—but they would also occasionally show some of the early grindhouse pictures…uncut. How they got away with that, I have no idea, but trust me, they did. My mom watched some of one forgettable movie with me one night, and the shocking level of violence depicted caused her to get up and turn off the TV (this was pre-remote days, kiddies) and issue an edict banishing “Shock Theater” from our home.
So, one night my mom and grandma were going out somewhere, and it was decided that I was old enough to look after myself. (hey, it was the 70s). I distinctly recall having to promise that I would not—under any circumstances whatsoever—watch “Shock Theater.” Of course, I readily agreed. And, of course, as soon as their car taillights disappeared from view, you can guess what I channel I turned on as fast as I could. The movie that evening was NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Somewhat surprisingly, at this point in my life, I had never even heard of NOTLD. Why that is I don’t know. I think perhaps I was still in my “big-bug-Ray-Harryhausen-Hammer-Films set as far as monster movies went. Whatever. Anyway, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD came on. Uncut.
So, I sat home, alone, watching the movie. I cannot describe the sheer terror I felt watching it. It was almost a physical reaction. Certainly, I had NEVER seen anything like this film. All of the things combined—black and white grainy images, realistic news reports, the zombies effing eating people!, the “hero” getting killed in the end—to overload my internal circuit board. I remember sitting on the couch after the film was over, too…something—scared, frozen, enervated—to get up and change the channel. And then, the lights went out.
No joke. At that point, I was 100% convinced that the movie was coming true and the reason the power went off was that the undead had come back to life and were attacking the living. Our house at the time had an attic door built into the ceiling with a cord you pulled and a drop-down ladder. I grabbed a flashlight and a butcher knife from the kitchen, lamented not being able to thing of a way to get the dog up the ladder (but thinking that the zombies would probably leave him alone anyway), and went up into the attic. Where I remained, as my increasingly worried mom and grandmother tried to talk me out of the attic once they realized where I was. They were unhappy that I had disobeyed their orders, but I was so freaking upset that I skated by on that. Even with my mom’s assurances that “we have much more to fear from the living that the dead” I remained convinced that the dead were going to rise. I don’t remember how long after watching NOTLD that I would get up after bed and creep in my mom’s room and lay on the floor next to her bed (by the dog), because I was too scared to be alone in my room. It did go on long enough for my folks to become concerned enough to wonder if I needed to “see somebody,” but I must’ve calmed down after that, because I never did get any professional help (insert joke here).
When, a few years later, the commercials started airing on TV for DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), I didn’t even bother asking my mom if I could go see it. Actually, I was terribly divided—I really was still traumatized by NOTLD, but I was also insanely curious about the new movie and the awesome trailer. Because, again, this was the 70s, our family saw most of our features at the drive-in, where you could pay one rate, and see two movies. Because times were tight, my grandmother would make popcorn in a big paper shopping bag, and bring some Kool-Aid for me and a thermos of coffee for her and my mom. As happenstance would have it, at the drive-in by our house (which had three screens) was playing DAWN on a different program that the one we were seeing. So, I spent the entire evening either watching the film from the back window of our car, or else standing outside listening to the gunshots and moaning zombies echoing over the numerous tinny drive in speakers in that section where they were showing the movie. It wasn’t until a few years later, when I was in college, and a bunch of guys on my dorm floor chipped in and rented a laser disc player (it was 1983) and a bunch of typical 18 year old guy films—ROAD WARRIOR (1982), EXCALIBUR (1981), A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), THE EXTERMINATOR (1980) and…DAWN OF THE DEAD, that I finally got to actually see the film. Naturally, with that particular audience, I was totally cool, and, in fact, I wasn’t that frightened by the movie. I watched it a couple more times before we returned the equipment, and I (mostly) cured my debilitating conviction that the zombie apocalypse was imminent. Today, DAWN is probably my favorite film, but it is NOTLD that still, after all these years, still manages to give me the willies when I catch it on cable during the Halloween season. That raw, totemic, horrifying power it has still exists somewhat for me, and definitely has influenced me to try and make something that powerful myself someday.
--Bill Breedlove

This movie was scary as hell when I was a kid because of the fact of being eaten by zombies. Up to the point of seeing this movie, I always thought that zombies were made through Voodoo like the Bela Lugosi movie “White Zombie” (1932). Zombies are now a staple in modern society and to think it started with the line, “They’re coming to get you Bar-ba-ra.”
--Carey Copeland

O

THE OMEN (1976)
This movie scared the crap out of me as a child without me ever seeing it. I remember as a small child, lying awake in my bed while my family watched this movie on TV in the living room and just hearing the music, that creepy monk-like Latin chanting freaked me the hell out that I avoided horror movies for many, many years afterward, literally scared to be scared. It wasn't until my early adolescence that a big guy in a hockey mask would change that for me, but more on that later.
--Brian M. Sammons

P

PARADISE LAGOON [aka THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON] (1957)
Based on the J.M. Barrie (‘Peter Pan”) play, “The Admirable Crichton”, the film follows the butler, Crichton, as he serves his masters, the aristocrats of English society on a yacht voyage. But after the yacht is disabled, and the passengers take to an island to await rescue, the rich society folk soon find that the butler is the only one who knows how to survive. Soon, Crichton becomes ‘master’ of the island with the rich folk following his orders; he even takes the daughter of his former master as his ‘queen’ of the island. But come the wedding day, a naval ship is spotted. Everyone decides to ignore the ship and continue their commune life on the island, except for Crichton, who does the right thing and signals the naval vessel. In a second, he becomes the butler again. He does not marry the girl who loves him, and leaves his employment so his masters will not be shamed by the memories of the island. Although this is a comedy of social class, that ending for me was tragic. From butler to king to butler. Shades of “Charly” (1968), based on the novel, “Flowers for Algernon” (by Daniel Keyes, 1966).
The Influence Factor: When I saw the rise of Crichton, from butler to island emperor and back again, it broke my heart. When he dons his butler’s uniform as the shipwrecked castaways are rescued by the naval ship, I understood social class and civilization a bit better. This movie/play is the social equivalent of “Lord of the Flies”. Only the kids were stopped after they had gone feral; Crichton sacrificed his ‘royal’ place to return everyone to their proper social status. And don’t even think “Gilligan’s Island” for a nano-second. “Paradise Lagoon” taught me about the fallacy of social manner and the pretense of social civility. It ruined Disneyland for me: I never could look at the workers there the same. When the Disney fantasy ended, the workers punched the time-clock and went home. So much for magic.
--Anthony Servante

PHANTASM (1979)
Without a doubt, along with “Dawn of the Dead” (1978) and “Zombie” (1979), this movie has to be the third most influential movie on my life. I saw it at the same drive-in mentioned in my other selections on this list, The Reef, with my family on a dark and humid late summer night. I don’t remember the second feature that played because once I saw Don Coscarelli’s nightmarish vision come to life on the big screen, I was ruined for life. As I mentioned, if there were three movies which turned me into a Horrorhead for life, this one, and the other two films mentioned above, did it. I will never forget the sense of doom and excitement I felt as I watched this movie. There was such a weird logic to the narrative that I think every kid who ever suffered through an illogically paced nightmare got why this movie was terrifying on several levels. I still watch this one when I get down and it brings me back to that warm summer night with my family again and I can almost forget all the years between we’ve grown apart.
--Nickolas Cook

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)
Seeing it taught me the delight that could be found in a moody horror movie, and began my lifelong appreciation of Vincent Price.
--Bill Lindblad

THE POWER (1968)
This is a somewhat obscure film from 1968, produced by George Pal. Don’t worry, I did not include it as one of the prerequisite “showoff picks” lists like this typically include. I did it simply for the aforementioned STBOOMWIWALK. factor. Starring everyone’s favorite genre star George Hamilton(!) as that most exciting and overused profession—a biochemist—this movie mainly features a bunch of other scientists walking down long corridors, close-ups of them concentrating REALLY, REALLY HARD and centrifuges murdering people. Other than that, I really can’t say, because I haven’t watched this film since I was about 10 or 12. Frankly, I am surprised it doesn’t come up in conversation more, if not because of being a George Pal production, then for the “all-star” genre cast that will be familiar to all genre lovers: Richard Carlson! Yvonne DeCarlo! Earl Holliman (who, here, bears a marked resemblance to Michael Rooker), and Michael Rennie. Yes, Michael Rennie from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951). (Notice I did not say “the original version of TDTESS,” because we’re just going to pretend that that other hot mess never, ever happened.) I remember being impressed with Micahel Rennie, who is just as cool here as he was as Klaatu, but again, I don’t recall a lot, except for how unpleasant and flat out terrified I was at the end of this movie. I know one guy cracks into a million pieces, which was kinda scary, but I think the main thing was this loudly beating heart on the soundtrack for like the last twenty minutes of the movie. It really got under my skin, and it scared me so much I have wanted no part of THE POWER ever since. Someone watch it and tell me if it is scary (or even good), but I am going to sit this one out.
(Bonus extra story: I grew up in Chicago, home to many world-class museums—The Art Institute, The Shedd Aquarium, The Adler Planetarium, The Field Museum and The Museum of Science and Industry. Usually, we would hit 2 or 3 of those a year as field trips for school. So, not long after seeing THE POWER, we went as a class to the Museum of Science and Industry. One of the exhibits they had (and still have, as far as I know) is a set of jars with embryos and fetuses in them, showing the development of humans from conception to birth chronologically. Good idea—but babies in jars??? Lots of my fellow students were creeped out by this, but not me. However, my laughter came to a screeching halt when we came to the two-story tall human heart that you walked through the ventricles. You could hear it beating from twenty feet away, and when you got inside, it was (as one would except of one was actually inside a giant heart) deafening. Well, since I had seen THE POWER, I had a perfect Pavlovian response, and got all freaked out and wouldn’t go near that giant, beating heart. Needless to say, I took a lot of subsequent teasing for that. So, thanks, POWER, you rotten fucking piece of shit movie.)
--Bill Breedlove

PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987)
Another Carpenter film that changed my perception of the genre. Being 16 or 17 years old when I saw this, it blew the barn doors off my view of the horror films in that they could competently address deep philosophical issues. The thought that Jesus and the Devil could have been space aliens fueled my imagination for years. Although with Jameson Parker acting, I was always expecting his brother from Simon & Simon to rush in and save the day!
--Jason Shayer

PSYCHO (1960)
This was the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw, and the first time I ever really noticed the skill that moviemakers employ in their craft, and how much a difference a talented director can make in creating a film. Further, interest in this movie lead me to the author of the book, Robert Bloch, who has since became one of my all-time favorite authors.
--Brian M. Sammons

PULP FICTION (1994)
This one is the newest movie on the list, but no less impacting on me for its young age. I saw this movie during a very formative year of my young adult life (along with another scripted film by Oliver Stone, NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994), which also helped shape my creative influences at that stage of my early adulthood). In fact, I went back to the theater every day for two weeks to watch this movie over and over again. I listened to the soundtrack over and over again, until even my most “Pulp Fiction” zealous friends were begging me to stop playing the goddamned CD. It influenced how I talked, dressed, but most importantly, it influenced how I began to write dialogue in my fiction. I sometimes feel that Quentin Tarantino is the modern day equivalent to Howard Hawks in the dialogue department, because his characters speak like real people, and he isn’t afraid to give them time on the screen to do so. It helped me realize what I was missing most in my writing: realistic characters, with realistic speech patterns and actions. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve sat down to watch this one again. But that’s okay, because I still have the whole thing memorized, line by line, shot by shot. At one time, this movie made me want to become a filmmaker instead of a writer. In fact, I actually left my hometown of Yulee, Florida to move to Orlando, Florida so that I could attend film school there. That wasn’t what eventually happened, but without this movie’s strong influence on my life back then, I may never have left my hometown and seen what a real city was like, nor lived hundreds of miles away from my family and childhood friends, to see what being an adult was all about.
--Nickolas Cook

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R

RADIOACTIVE DREAMS (1985)
This movie helped demonstrate conclusively to my to-be-wife that I was at least partially familiar with odd cinema. I was able to introduce her to the Disco Mutants, and the rest is history.
--Bill Lindblad

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK [aka INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK] (1981)
Not much to say to justify why this film is on my list. Moving along...
--Jason Shayer

RE-ANIMATOR (1985)
I stumbled upon this movie quite by accident one night while flipping through the cable channels, and its over-the-top antics in both black humor and gore blew me away. It fostered my appreciation for splatter, because even all the slashers I had seen before it, combined, could not equal the gore gags in this flick, and I loved it for that. It was also the first black humor movie I can remember, a subgenre that has become one of my favorites since.
--Brian M. Sammons

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)
I remember having to sneak over to friend’s house to watch this film as my parents wouldn’t let me come close to it. A wonderful B-horror flick, which cleverly scares you and lets you have fun at the same time.
--Jason Shayer

THE ROAD WARRIOR [aka MAD MAX 2] (1981)
Mel Gibson was doing the apocalypse before it was cool, and he was getting it right. Racing across the Australian wastelands hunting for Gasoline and fighting freak-out punk rock marauders, Mad Max is another film that holds up. I'm still pissed off about what those bastards in Gastown did to him at the end of the film. Don't worry Max, I'm sure they got what's coming to them. The movie helped spawn a generation of writers and comic book artists in love with western-themed cinema in apocalyptic settings.
--JW Schnarr

ROGER AND ME (1989)
This film had a twofold influence on me. First, it showed me the power of the documentary. For the first couple of years after I saw it, I would not merely recommend it to people, I would push it on them. I didn't agree with the filmmaker's political views, but I greatly respected his efforts and presentation. Second, it showed me the power of false propaganda. A few years after seeing it, I read an article denouncing it. I had been promoting the movie, so I attempted to refute the arguments in the article. Instead, research showed that most of the movie was false: timelines were skewed, events were shown out of order, false statements were presented as fact, and even the basic premise was a lie, as Moore had been able to get an interview with the titular CEO. I have never blindly trusted a "documentary" since.
--Bill Lindblad

S

THE SERVANT (1963)
Dirk Bogarde and James Fox star in this Henry Pinter film adaptation where Master and Servant perversely reverse roles in a surreal tale of debauchery, incest, and ennui. Bogarde plays the servant who takes over the household, keeping Fox, the master, drunk and incapacitated. He moves in his ‘sister,’ played by Sarah Miles, and forces out Fox’s girlfriend.
This was my first Bogarde film and I was amazed by this actor. I went on to see all his films and loved all of them, especially the Nazi Noir, “The Night Porter.”
The Influence Factor: Besides becoming a Dirk Bogarde fan, I became a fan of Perverse Noir films Bogarde liked to find roles in. I also followed other P Noir in movies like “Who Killed Teddy Bear?” (1965) and “The Children’s Hour” (1961), drama with sexual tension with themes like incest, lesbianism, homosexuality and child abuse—themes tackled only by the brave in the Sixties. These films began to crop up in the US, mostly by way of England, but they went straight to late night television and my brothers and I stayed up late to see the latest sex film that talked sex but never showed any. Nonetheless, I was hooked by the genre. The Indie movie “Terri” (2011) is a perfect example of this genre, where young teens discover sex and booze in this maudlin drama P Noir style. I’m always on the lookout for old and new Perverse Noir movies.
--Anthony Servante

THE SHINING (1980)
This is going to be on everybody's list and with good reason (NOTE FROM EDITOR: Alas, it wasn’t, but I know it was a close one on at least my list, and it probably was on others’ as well). It's the most perfect horror film ever made, written by a master and filmed by another master. Jack Nicholson never got it as right as he did with Jack Torrence, even though he seems campy when you watch it now. He was a brilliant dry drunk, and we all know how he is at playing psychopaths.
--JW Schnarr

I was scared shitless as a 9 year old kid watching this film with my grandfather. I’ve viewed it many times since and still think it’s one of the most creepy and disturbing horror films ever. And don’t forget those lovely twins!
--Jason Shayer

SIBYL (1976)
A movie I never saw, but taught me about advertising, and about the difference between child and adult entertainment. I knew only that I wasn't allowed to watch it. My first grade teacher allowed us to go to the library and check out what we told her our favorite book was, so we might read it in class. I knew it had been a book first, and thought I'd be clever. Thus began the first of many disciplinary problems of my school years.
--Bill Lindblad

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982)
This sequel soared above the franchise’s mediocre first film and put a darker slant on the Star Trek genre. It was a wonderful revenge story that had a dramatic cost for the protagonist, Admiral Kirk.
--Jason Shayer

STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977)
I think this movie has influenced a lot of people. While being a very low budget movie, it shows that imagination outweighs the dollar. I always loved the original Star Wars because of all of the creatures. I wanted to be a Jedi fighting the dark side while being in the middle of all of the creatures that fill this universe. The creativity and overall execution of all of the inhabitants of “The Star Wars” was mind shattering. How could somebody think up all of this? While having a lot of reference to several historical events and religions, George has made it his own. It seems that this movie actually lets you be part of the movie. It has parts and characters that you can truly relate to. I remember hearing the music at the opening epilogue and the almost giddy feeling I got. It was very spiritual. To this day, I still get that feeling when I hear the music.
--Carey Copeland

The first movie I saw that transferred the science fiction I'd been reading onto the screen. I was seven years old. I didn't care that you couldn't hear explosions in space, explosions were COOL.
--Bill Lindblad

First movie I saw in the theatre. I was three. All I remember was being terrified when Princess Leia’s planet blew up. I thought it actually happened. Hey, I was three!
--Jenny Orosel

STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)
I was a bit too young to see the first STAR WARS in the theaters, but when this sequel came out, you can bet your bubby that I bugged my folks until they took me to see it, twice. This was the first movie I ever went gaga for, and like many (most) kids my age, I collected all the toys and had countless backyard space battles. While I don't watch it much anymore, for a while, this movie was my world.
--Brian M. Sammons

My cousin and I were close enough in age that we liked all the same shit as kids. I remember seeing this movie some years after it came out and then marveling as my cousin not only collected all the toys, but orchestrated our park sessions so they closely matched scenes from the film. I never got my parts right so I was often relegated to the weird headed alien bits, and he ALWAYS got to play Han Solo. Now he works in film. I could have seen that coming from a mile off. I don't have to explain why this was the greatest film EVER for a kid growing up in the 80s.
--JW Schnarr

Another sequel that bests its first film. A solid screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan who also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark.
--Jason Shayer

STRANGE CARGO (1940)
Prisoners from Devil’s Island break out of jail, struggle through the jungle and swamps to reach a boat that will take them to freedom. A stranger joins the escapees and as the prisoners die one by one of horrible deaths, the stranger convinces each of them to accept salvation before they die. Naturally, if you pay attention during the movie to the allusions, double-entendres (“You gonna kick me out of your little paradise here?”), and allegorical metaphors, you realize that the stranger is Christ, the evil prisoner is Satan, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford fill in for Adam and Eve, Peter Lorre is Mammon, and the others are various symbols for sins (homosexuality, child abuse, wife killer, etc). This is a movie layered in meaning and the all-star cast makes the religious angle more dramatic than preachy.
The Influence Factor: This fantasy story plays out as a prison escape movie, but it’s about right and wrong, good and evil, and the choices one makes given that he has free will. The first time I saw it, I was awed by the layers to the story. Ian Hunter plays the Christ-like figure who teaches each man to find his good side before facing their death. Only the Satan-like figure refuses his teachings. Without the incredible cast, this would have been just a preachy born-again Christian movie proselytizing to the popcorn crowd, but each man’s death means something; it is touching to see these tough-as-nails convicts find goodness right before they die. And when Gable reaches his epiphany, you’ll be in tears. I love religious movies, stuff like the “Left Behind” series or “The Omen” trilogy, but “Strange Cargo” is sly in its religious message. When the fisherman crosses himself as the Christ-figure disappears into a shadow, it’s easy to believe that we are all capable of good acts, that there is goodness in this world, even if it is there amongst the evils of daily life. And when that tear rolls down my cheek, as it does each time I see this movie, my faith is renewed in that goodness.
--Anthony Servante

SUPERMAN II (1980)
Having spent most of my childhood devouring comic books, seeing Superman come to life on the big screen in 1978 was an amazing experience. One of the great parts of this film was the villains who were delightfully cast, especially Terrence Camp as General Zod. The plot idea of having a father’s actions haunt his son was also well done and forever altered my ideas of storytelling.
--Jason Shayer

SUSPIRIA (1977)
I remember the first time I saw this movie was on an old VHS tape at a friend’s house one late night. I was suffering from a mild fever that turned nasty during the viewing, so all those nightmarish images became engrained in my skull by the end of the film. This movie taught me the value of using color in my writing, and the use of violence as a pressure on the narrative. This was the first Dario Argento film I ever saw, as well, and I’m glad it was the first. I don’t think his other films, no matter how much I love them now, would have made such an impact as “Suspiria” did that first time around, in my feverish condition. I count this as one of the 20 best horror movies ever made and I don’t see how it would ever not be on my top 20 horror films of all time list. It has such a nihilistic, nightmarish sense about it that it can’t help but disturb me even now.
--Nickolas Cook

Until I saw this film, I was a bit nationalistic as a teen when it came to horror movies. If it wasn't made in America, or by extension Canada or England, as the spoke the same language as me, then I just didn't care about it. Oh, I tried, but foreign turds like BURIAL GROUND: NIGHT OF TERROR (1981) turned me off of anything subtitled or dubbed. Sure, later those schlocktastic flicks might fall into the so-bad-they're-good category that today I love so much, but at the time I was such a serious little thing. Anyway, I watched this movie on a lark and was blow away by it. Sure, it didn't make heaps of sense, but its visual style was so striking and memorable that it was one of the first movies I noticed that color and manipulation of images could be used artistically in film, even in a fright flick. It also began my love affair Italian horror and Giallo films, and for that I'm very grateful to it.
--Brian M. Sammons

T

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (2003)
Just when I was thinking that the horror film was dead and there was nothing left to say in the genre...this one proves that there is always room for a new masterpiece, and that gives me great hope.
--Lisa Morton

THEM! (1954)
Similar to the Kaiju or Harryhausen grouping, another sub-set of genre films I loved as a kid were the “big bug” movies. I loved them all. Heck, I even loved BEGINNING OF THE END (1957), and that might have been the worst bug movie ever. I don’t care how many people make fun of the whole “Tonka” incident in the tunnel, I absolutely adore THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957). When, in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961), a guy and a girl are trapped by Volkswagon-sized honeybees and sealed in a honeycomb, that was a dream come true—combining giant bugs AND Ray Harryhausen! And, as a kid at least, I far preferred Bert I. Gordon’s EARTH VS. THE SPIDER [aka THE SPIDER and EARTH VS. THE GIANT SPIDER] (1958) to TARANTULA (1955), mainly because at least THE SPIDER admitted it used a superimposed tarantula, whereas TARANTULA had that prop spider than NEVER appeared in the film. Yes, I was a weird and bitter kid.
But, far and away the best of all was THEM!. A great, spooky start—with the little girl who had lost her family to the giant ants and was in shock and could only say “THEM!” over and over (A great way to get the title, which is much preferable to “ANTS!” [aka IT HAPPENED AT LAKEWOOD MANOR and PANIC AT LAKEWOOD MANOR] (1977)—sorry, Suzanne Sommers—or “BIG GIANT ANTS!” And, the only thing cooler than the furry ants (who were all puppets, no hazy blown-up real ants here) was the weird, unique “chirping” sound they made. Now, while I love big bug movies, I will be the first to admit it is extremely difficult to make a SCARY big bug movie. I can’t offhand think of many truly frightening or suspenseful scenes from big bug movies. But, in the climax of THEM!, the heroic policeman played by James Whitmore has gone into the tunnels beneath Los Angeles to save the little boy and his dad who picked exactly the wrong place to practice flying their air glider. They think they have got some time as the main ant colony is (loudly chirping) somewhere else in the tunnels. So, while Whitmore is boosting everyone else up to safety, they show us a large, ant-shaped shadow stealthily creeping toward the place where our heroes are. They cut back to it several times, and you know it’s not going to be good when that creeping—not chirping—ant shows up. Just plain awesome.
PS. If you get a chance, check out the 3-minute trailer for THEM! on YouTube. It does a masterful job of selling everything good about the movie—but never once using the word “ant.” Even when they are showing the ants running amok on the screen, the breathless narrator only refers to them as “unknown invaders” or “monstrous creatures.” And, at the end, they even give a helpful “Terrifying Horror Excitement Mystery” to even further cement the whole THEM! concept. Which reminds me of another reason why this movie is so special. A lot of time with the big bug movies, everything was sort of second-rate—cast, crew, special effects. But, with THEM!, everything was first-class all the way—sort of like a “real” movie produced by Warner Brothers. And—and this is probably the most important key to success for any big bug movie, perhaps any horror movie at all—as far as the audience could tell, everyone involved in the production took it totally seriously. There are no winking jokes to the audience, no ruinous “comedy relief “When Edmund Gwenn says that these ants may portend the end of mankind as the dominant species—“and the beasts shall reign over the earth” you get the sense he means it.
--Bill Breedlove

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS (1971)
I’ve never been able to get into romance movies. They’re usually too sappy and either have me ready to roll my eyes or vomit. But I watched this with my now husband and, wow, I had such a fun time with this little flick that I didn’t realize it was a romance until it was near the end. If all love stories were like this, I could stomach more “chick flicks”.
--Jenny Orosel

THE THING [aka JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING] (1982)
Another John Carpenter film that hit home with me at a young age. It was, even then, such a tightly made film, filled with such an overwhelming tension and paranoia, that it had me mesmerized for the entire film. But one can’t talk about the impact this movie had without talking about the special effects by Rob Bottin. At that point, the only movies I had seen that could come even close to them are the awesome transformation effects in “The Howling” (1981) and the splatter gore effects by Tom Savini in Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” (1978). The nihilistic feel of the movie, along with Ennio Morricone’s low-key ambient, synth-heavy soundtrack, made me feel small and terrified.
--Nickolas Cook

“The Thing” is a wonderful depiction of humanity when it’s isolated and up against the unknown. Great characters that you fall in love with despite knowing deep down inside that there will be no happy ending. It also featured an amazing soundtrack that haunts you for days afterwards.
--Jason Shayer

20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)
In reality, I suppose this could be any one of the pictures featuring the unbelievable stop motion animation of Mr. Ray Harryhausen. Sure, THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958) had that iconic Cyclops, and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) had the famous skeleton swordfight, and who could forget the five tentacles (because eight was just too costly) of IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955)? But, I have to say that for me, 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH was the best of all. Not necessarily the best made, or with the coolest monster—but the Ymir was very cool. But in 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, I first felt that same emotional tug that other folks had gotten the first time they saw the original KING KONG (1933). The Ymir started out small and scared of where he was, being in a strange place and all (Earth instead of his home planet of Venus)—and what kid couldn’t relate to that? Then, he starts getting picked on by different authority figures—eventually getting locked in a cage. But, at the same time, he is getting bigger and bigger and pretty soon he escapes, and then the just sort of wanders around. He is not mean, he doesn’t want to kill anyone or eat anyone or ever bother anyone, he just wants to go home, or at least make some sense of this strange place where people stick him with pitchforks and shoot him with rifles. So, in the end, as the poor Ymir makes his last stand on the Coliseum, I was bawling my eyes out. I cried when they shot the radioactive isotope into THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953), and I wept when Gwangi got locked in the burning church, too. It remains amazing to me to this day that Harryhausen was able to infuse those little lumps of clay with their articulated skeletons and wide eyes with such personality that I felt for them as I would for any homeless animal—be it a lost bunny or a Ymir.
--Bill Breedlove

U

UN CHIEN ANDALOU [translated from French AN ANDALUSIAN DOG] (1929)
We saw this in a high school art class. Between this one, and ERASERHEAD (1977) which I’d seen around the same time, I learned that movies don’t have to tell a story to be good, but can give you an amazing ride through visuals alone.
--Jenny Orosel

V

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W

WHEN THE SCREAMING STOPS [aka THE LORELEY’S GRASP] (1974)
This movie was another foreign movie, and, yes, the dubbing sucked, but it was a movie that made an impression. The movie’s storyline is weak, but it had some good shock to it. I remember when the woman comes home and her husband is in the kitchen with an electric knife and his arm looks like a holiday ham. Him saying, “I just wanted to know how it felt,” has stuck with me for close to thirty years now. Also, the scene of the woman going down to the river on full moons and lying in this creature's undulating tentacles was very sexual, especially to a thirteen year old boy. Oh, and I got to see nudity! A woman’s breast was ripped off. That is also a point about this film which has stuck with, too, for all these years.
--Carey Copeland

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Y

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Z

ZOMBIE [aka ZOMBIE 2 and ZOMBIE FLESHEATERS] (1979)
I saw this at the same drive-in, The Reef, when I was ten years old. It was the second time I ever felt the same sense of disgust and excitement I felt when I was watched George Romero’s original “Dawn of the Dead” (1978). Lucio Fulci became another horror God for me at that moment when the wood pierces lovely Olga Karlatos’ eyeball. It was the first time I can remember forcing myself to watch something dreadful happen on the silver screen (but it would be far from my last when I later discovered the cannibal films that were popular in the 70s and 80s). Plus, there was the absolute lunacy of the infamous ‘zombie vs. shark’ scene that has yet to be topped in zombie filmdom since. As far as I’m concerned, Fulci’s “Zombie” left such a mental and emotional mark on me that it still holds a dear place in my heart, and if horror fans haven’t seen this, then they can hardly be considered a true Horrorhead in my opinion. I think of it as a sort of horror baptism for that younger version of myself and I can’t fathom what my life would have been without having seen it at exactly that age. It truly, along with “Dawn of the Dead” (1978) and “Phantasm” (1979), made me what I am today, as a writer and a film fan.
--Nickolas Cook

ZOO (2005)
Zoo is comprised of five stories by Japanese author Otsuichi (“Goth”). One involves twins; their mother loves one, hates the other with disastrous results; two tells the tale of captives in seven rooms who are butchered one a day like clockwork; a brother and sister team in one room plan a daring escape but a sacrifice must be made; three is a sad story of a young boy whose parents have a car accident and right after the accident, the boy can see his parents, but the mother cannot see the father, and vice versa; is one of them a ghost? Which one? Four is an anime story of a little girl with a surprise ending; and five follows the story of a man who lives underground after some cataclysmic event and finds a photo a day by his front door of a dead girl who is decomposing; in flashback mode we find out who the girl is as we watch her decompose picture by picture.
The Influence Factor: Besides discovering the talented Japanese Horror writer Otsuichi, whose books I bought and read right after seeing the movie, I was haunted by his story-telling. Although this movie is called a ‘horror’ film, it is not in many ways. The story “Seven Rooms” is a good example. We never see any killings, but we watch the older sister and her little brother piece together the situation they are in and we the viewers come to understand that there is a person in each of the rooms and at 6:00 p.m. each day, someone is killed in numerical order, and the victim’s empty room is replaced by a new victim who is now the seventh victim to be killed. I fell in love with this metonymic story structure, almost a minimalist narrative with an emotionally strong payoff—without a need for gore—the gore is all implied. I show this segment of the movie to my students now and then to teach them metonymy, the structure I learned to apply in essays and reviews.
--Anthony Servante

--List compiled by the staff of The Black Glove Magazine/edited by Nickolas Cook

Sites of Horror

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Welcome to the last Sites of Horror for 2011, and we have some great stuff to see the year off right.

Our first site of interest is WOPSPLOITATION , devoted to some of the greatest in 70s and 80s exploitation cinema. There's tons of great reviews and special pics for the discerning Horrorhead who wants to see what the rest of the world thinks of our historic contribution to the genre. But be warned: This is a site with many items which are considered "NOT SAFE FOR WORK", careful about what you click on, if you get my meaning. Otherwise, have a great time. This Horrorhead believes you'll love the Stephano's very own rating scale using his hilarious Wopsploitation Chips.

Our next site is LOVE HORROR UK and if you ever want to check out any horror movie made since the beginning of cinema, this is the site for you. Chock-ful of more horror reviews and pics than one Horrorhead could ever consume in one day, it will keep you busy perusing their hundreds of titles. Even I was able to find a few films I had never heard of on this site. And that is saying a lot. Also, since I'm a sucker for top ten lists, they gave me plenty to think about with so many lists to look over.

Our last site for the year of 2011 is one that I think any intelligent Horrorhead will find a promising one. Not because of the sheer number of reviews and articles it contains, but for its choice of what's covered. You'll find THE OCTOBER COUNTRY isn't your usual horror website. Not in the least. First off, they have an affinity for horror comics, which most horror sites don't usually make it a habit to cover that far underexposed medium in the genre--not counting us, of course, because we have Jason Shayer and his IT CAME FROM THE BACK ISSUE BIN section he handles every month, here, at THE BLACK GLOVE. Their articles and reviews are some of the most intelligent and literate takes I've ever read on horror film and books. So enjoy and remember to thank them for trying something new and different.

Until next year, Horrorheads, keep on surfing the web and looking for the best in horror the www has to offer. Happy New Year to all...

--Nickolas Cook

(If you have a site you'd like The Black Glove to feature in our Sites of Horror, email Nickolasecook@aol.com with your link and contact info.)

Coming Soon! Trailer e-issue #31 January 2012

2011-12-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's the beginning of a new year, and that means another twelve months of potentially great horror in film, books, music, comics and, hopefully, other media, as well. Check back here at the end of January 2012 for more reviews, articles and reviews from the best staff of online writers to grace the internet. It'll be the beginning of more surprises from us here at THE BLACK GLOVE.
Hurry back, Horrorheads!

--Nickolas Cook

Editorial November 2011 e-issue #29

2011-11-04T04:30:00.000-07:00

By Nickolas Cook
Editor-In-Chief
The Black Glove Magazine

This is going to be a personal sort of editorial this month, a little peek into the world of a struggling horror writer, who also happens to edit an online horror culture and entertainment magazine, and is a martial arts student/instructor, with a fairly severe recent handicap to deal with while trying to keep ahead of contracted deadlines. So I warn you now, if this sort of personal open letter stuff annoys you or bores you, please feel free to look at the pretty pictures, play the videos below and/or skip this section. I felt the need to talk my way past the stress this month. No meltdowns or anything, just some honest talk about where I'm at in my life and my writing.

It’s been a very hectic couple of months for me, writing wise. I have several novels all coming out within weeks of each other, so I’ve been busy doing my edits on the novels before turning them into their respective publishers, so that they may hopefully do their own edits on each work, thereby making me look even better. And some of the books I am still in the process of writing, so I’m very much under the gun these days to get hundreds of thousands of words written in a fairly short amount of time.

See, I sent out all these submissions all at once to different publishers—some for finished materials and others for perspective material which still needed finishing up. Silly me…I should have known what kind of trouble I was asking for by doing so. Ever hear the old adage: Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true?

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling in the last few weeks since I suddenly got a deluge of contracts for not one or two books, but five books…all in a row.

Three of those books make up a zombie apocalypse trilogy called CITIES IN DUST (BOOK ONE: DISINTEGRATION, BOOK TWO: DEAD SOULS and BOOK THREE: DOMINION), so we’re talking about a lot of structuring which needs to take place between each novel, so that the narrative and the character arcs all fall into line and lend themselves to a sense of clean, smooth aesthetic. On top of that, I am approaching this from an angle which has never been used in zombie fiction before, and also using John Bunyon’s “A Pilgrim’s Progress” as a sort of narrative outline for some of the characters in each of the books. It’s something which I’ve been planning for several years, in my head, putting pieces together a bit at a time, until I felt I had the gist of where I wanted this trilogy to start and where I wanted it to end. Now writing all the stuff in the middle is where I get to have fun with it. Let’s just hope I can pull it off.

Another book that will be due very shortly is the all original, novel length sequel to my bestselling book to date, ALICE IN ZOMBIELAND, a mashup of Lewis Carroll’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND and zombies. My new book will be called ALICE AND THE QUEEN OF THE DEAD. I’m hoping it finds as large a readership as the mashup has. If not, then I can at least feel as if I tried to add my own voice to the ongoing legacy of Mr. Carroll’s enduring story.

And the last novel I have due by the end of this week is the first book in a series of non-horror novels called DEAD DOG, which features a couple of reoccurring good old boys called Max and Little Billy. They’re best friends who have both recently returned from their tours of duty in the Vietnam War and now with the war over, they’ve both come back home to settle again. They both grew up living between the legal and illegal, running moonshine and whatever else they needed to do to survive in a depressed circa 1970s Southern economy. DEAD DOG finds them going up against the local redneck drug czar when they do their informal investigation on the torture death of a young boy who is the son of a well known local good for nothing, abusive shitheel with connections to the drug czar.

Although these won’t be horror novels per say, they will each deal with the darker sides of the human animal, much like Joe R, Lansdale’s “Hap Collins and Leonard Pine” series, Robert B. Parker’s “Spenser” series, John D, MacDonald’s “Travis McGee” series, and one of my new favorite authors of the last few years, Dennis Lehane’s “Kenzie-Gennaro” series of outstanding novels. I’m hoping that DEAD DOG will allow me to continue writing more books with these guys, as I’ve come to feel very close to them in the past two years of writing the first two books, DEAD DOG and the 2nd book which I am finishing now, DON’T FEAR THE REAPER, which will pit them against their own personal demons as they track down a roving serial killer who has come to town to kill young women.

These books are probably the best I’ve written to date, and they’re special to me because they’re set in my hometown, Yulee, Florida. It was, and probably still is by most standards, not much more than a little backwards redneck community. Although I understand from people whom I knew growing up who still reside there that it has grown quite a bit since I last saw it in the spring of 1997.

To top all of this off, I turned 42 a couple of weeks ago.

When I was in my early twenties, I was head over heels in love with Clive Barker's writing. I read everything and anything I could find by him or about him. I set myself the goal of being a professional writer by the same age as Mr. Barker, who was one of THE rising horror star towards the late 1980s, at least he was here in America. Most of the horror writers I loved during that period were around that same age range and had "made it". I didn't get my first novel published until I was 38 years old and let's just say it didn't exactly take the genre by storm. In fact, I'm willing to bet BALEFUL EYE (which is currently out of print with the original publisher now, StoneGarden.Net, but is looking good for a reprint with another publisher in 2012) probably didn't sell more than a couple of dozen copies. Not what I'd call an impactful publication, right?

Now, as I make my way towards the half century mark, I find myself examining what that term means , to "make it".

Have I "made it" yet? I've had several books published in the last five years, one of which has sold several thousand copies, which is more than most horror writers in the small press can say, and a short story collection which is selling very, very slowly, but is selling. And I have as many again coming out within the next 12 months.

Does this mean I've "made it"? Hell if I know. I just keeping writing and submitting and signing contracts and hoping that at some point the momentum of so many publications, name recognition and more skillful storytelling will eventually make me feel as if I've "made it". Right now, I just feel like I'm trying to run up an ever-steepening hill, trying to do better with every new story or novel I write.

But what the heck does any of this have to do with this month’s editorial? Not much, other than to explain why there was no editorial last month and why there won’t be much of one this month, maybe for the next couple of months, in fact.

Getting these five books out as per the contracted deadline is super important to me right now. After all, as much as I love writing and editing for this online magazine, and sharing my passion for all things horror related, being a professional writer has been my dream since I was a little kid. I didn’t have much a shot to do so when I was in my twenties and thirties because I had a full time job and other responsibilities to attend, which made it difficult to sit as much as I needed to put the time into honing my craft to a level that is good enough to make people want to buy anything I write.

Hell, I’m not so sure I’ve attained that level even now, but the difference is, now, I don’t have much of choice.

Since my injury in 2009- a complete rupture of my right Achilles tendon- the subsequent multiple operations, and the chronic infections which ate away most of the repaired tendon, part of my heel bone and a good chunk of flesh which became necrotic because of it, I’ve been pretty much unable to do a real 9 to 5 job like I had before. What I have been able to do, once I pulled myself far enough out of the deep depression in which all of this left me, I had the time I needed to write myself well again. That’s how DEAD DOG came about. I wrote about how I felt, and before I knew it, I had a protagonist (Max) and his best friend (Little Billy), who, somewhere by the middle of the novel, an alter ego, a sort Yang to Max’s Ying. I began to speak through these guys, telling my own stories about my growing up in Yulee, and thereby getting rid of a lot of the demons which were riding my ass when I discovered that I was no longer a young man and that I was no longer physically sound…that, indeed, I was handicapped. And let me tell you: You may think to yourself getting a life long limp and the inability to perform ballistic actions with one leg isn’t that big of deal, but when your life sort of revolves around martial arts, the way mine has in the last few years, it is a hell of a blow to your emotions.

I know, I know…I’m lucky this is all I have to deal with. I know there are people who live their entire lives much worse off than me. I know I’m fortunate that the operations save me from dying of toxic poisoning from the infections. I know all of this…but it still sucks not being able to run again, not being able to perform a simple thing like a two legged jumping jack, or to use both legs to push with or to do anything physically ballistic with my right leg. All because of bad luck and a couple of doctors who decided they didn’t have time to properly diagnose my infection.

Some people might think it’s a small price to pay to be able to sit and write all day. I’m here to tell you, it’s not. In context, it’s a rather high price to pay, and one which I will keep on paying for until the day I die, which will, by the way, be the only time I won’t be in pain 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But thank God I had the writing to save me. A lot of people don’t and they keep on the self destructive path which I found myself on within a year of becoming permanently handicapped, and they continue to drink, continue to abuse the pain meds, and they don’t have much in their lives to look forward to, no goals other than the next round of meds, the next drink, anything to help them live with the pain and the thought that they’re now less than they were before.

I was damned lucky in that I had the ability, the tools and the wherewithal to know where my salvation lay: in writing about what was hurting me inside. It was therapeutic, to say the least. When I finished the first book I’d been able to write in over two years, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. And I knew right then that I was going to live through this ordeal; that I was going to be a stronger person for it.

I won’t lie and say it hasn’t left me with some nasty scars, both physically and mentally. Ask my wife: she’ll be the first one to tell you that I’m not the man I was before this happened. But who can go through something like this and not have it change them? I guess I don’t want to meet the person who can do so. To me, it means they aren’t really all that connected with themselves or their world if they could shrug off such a life altering event as what I’ve been through because of a split second of being whole and then not being whole anymore. It changes a person. I’ve tried to not let it drag me down, and when it does, I try not to let it drag me down for too long and too far.

But let’s not dwell on the negative. I’m more than ready to look at the positive aspects of what my life is now. I still have the love of my wife, other than my leg, I’m healthy as a horse, and I’m still able to do my martial arts, even if not at the same intensity as I once enjoyed. And, more importantly, I lived to write another day.

With another Christmas around the corner, I find myself counting the blessings I do have. I think in today’s world, with all the terrible realities we’re forced to cope with on a daily basis, it’s important not to sell short those good things we enjoy. The simple things. The good things. So here’s to hoping the next year proves to be even better than the last one. Here’s to living life and enjoying it without living in the shadows and letting the badness inherent in this world drag you down into a miasma of depression and loathing.

And, finally, here’s to hoping that your holidays will be merry and bright and full of love and good cheer. Be safe. Be kind. And above all, be generous to others during this time of the year. It only takes a moment to hold a door open for someone or to say “thank you” and “please”. It will help smooth the rough waters that a lot of people experience at this time of the year.

Merry Christmas from The Black Glove Magazine staff, folks.

And just to start off the countdown the right way, here's a little Charlie Brown Christmas. I know if was a tradition in our family to watch this every year.

--Nickolas Cook
Editor-In-Chief
The Black Glove Magazine

Staff Profiles

2011-11-04T04:25:00.000-07:00

Anthony Servante is a college professor who teaches languages and literature. He has Masters degrees in English Literature and Political Science. His Master's thesis described the Grotesque in German and English Romantic novels and short stories. He has written music and book reviews for the campus newspapers where he studied and where he has taught. When he is not teaching, he sells horror, sf, fantasy, and mystery books at Science Fiction Conventions across Southern California. He has followed horror in all forms since he was a kid.

Jason Shayer
Recent publishing credits:
Necrotic Tissue #6, the Dead Science and Through the Eyes of the Undead anthologies, and Arcane magazine.
He's also a regular contributor to Back Issue! magazine, a comic book magazine spotlighting the 1970s and 1980s.
Personal Info:
Jason Shayer's 12-year-old mind frame has given more than a few people a reason to raise an eyebrow, most often his wife. When he’s not writing or reading, he’s teaching his kids the finer points of zombie lore.
URL: http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/
Contact info: jshayer@yahoo.com

Wanna Write for The Black Glove?

2011-11-04T04:20:00.000-07:00

TIME CAPSULES classic book reviews by Bill Lindblad

2011-11-04T04:15:00.000-07:00

HORROR: 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman
This book tied for the first Stoker award given for non-fiction work. It shouldn't have. It should have won it outright.

Now, mind, the book which shared the award was Harlan Ellison's Watching, a compilation of his movie reviews (which could be more accurately described as essays on the movie industry.) In my opinion, it's one of the top essay books produced in Speculative Fiction... on a par with Barry Malzberg's Engines of the Night, Thomas F. Monteleone's Mothers And Fathers Italian Association and Algis Budrys's Benchmarks. It is a brilliant book by a brilliant man. It required copious quantities of time, experience and effort to produce that book, whereas Jones and Newman had to do considerable editorial and production work but did not have to write much for their book.

If the award were about personal effort, that would be one thing. But it's about the best book. I've recommended Watching to people over the years and I've reread it twice. On the other side of things I've given copies of Horror : 100 Best Books to people as gifts and I can't guess at the times I've read the essays within, much less used it as a helpful reference.
Jones and Newman contacted dozens of influential horror professionals (writers, editors, publishers) and asked them each to contribute an essay about the horror book they felt was the best. The only rule seems to have been against duplication: if a book had already been selected by someone, another book would have to be chosen by the professional. They also culled some old essays written by authors like H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James regarding books they held in singularly high regard. The end result was a trek through the history of the best horror books ever produced, as judged by people who knew the business but had strikingly different tastes. There are books where the horror is immersed in violence and others where the terrors are merely suggested. Psychological horror. Supernatural effects. Horror of the speculative future and horror of the fantastic. Obvious titles and works of relative obscurity.

All of it is exceptional, and all of the picks are explained in detail by the contributors. The essays trend toward two pages, sometimes more and sometimes less, and they are prefaced by a summary preface to each essay written by the editors which explains salient points of the book judged to be the best by the essayist.

It is, strangely, a recursive sort of book, because it probably deserves to be on its own list of 100 best. It is a necessary read for any horror fan, and a copy should probably be on the shelves of every horror writer.

Five stars out of five.

WIZARDRY AND WILD ROMANCE by Michael Moorcock

This 1987 publication is Moorcock's assessment of fantastic literature. It is authoritative, opinionated, elegant and interesting. I often found I didn't agree with his assessments of things, but he always presented his points in a compelling and understandable fashion. I could also not find fault with the substance of his complaints or praises, only disagreed with his analyses of that substance.

Moorcock is no stranger to speaking his opinion about literature. He spent time as an editor for New Worlds magazine and between his writing and editing was significantly responsible for the literary growth of the fantasy and science fiction genres during the 1960s. His fantasy and science fiction literature has been influential for two subsequent generations of writers and has garnered awards and plaudits from fans and professionals alike.

It was republished by Monkeybrain books in 2004. This was a favor to readers everywhere, because the book has a lot to offer. Moorcock presents his opinions about what is good and bad about fantastic literature and selects examples to bolster those views. He throws a variety of beloved authors under the metaphorical bus during his presentation: Robert E. Howard is affectionately called on what Moorcock sees as failings, for example; Lovecraft is lambasted and Tolkien is eviscerated. Other authors such as Clark Ashton Smith and Mervyn Peake are held up as examples of the success of the field. All of it follows rationally from Moorcock's personal views on what makes literature palatable or compelling, and due to that context any reasonable reader is left with valuable information and an appealing perspective on the field.

I find the book's biggest flaw to be the source of one of its greatest successes: it drips with Moorcock's viewpoint. The book is subtitled "A Study of Epic Fantasy", but it is less a study than a dissemination. There is neither attempt nor pretense toward scholarly reserve but rather a fearless approach to the subject matter and an assumption that the author's views are fundamentally correct. For a lesser author this would seriously injure and possibly destroy the book; for Moorcock it merely prevents it from being a defining work in fantastic analysis.

Four stars out of five.

--Bill

BLOODLINES: Serial Horror in Fiction #5: Horrorscope by Robert Lory

2011-11-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

by Bill Lindblad

I am annoyed by Robert Lory.

The man had a career many authors today would love to boast about: more than twenty books to his name, including multiple series. An author for Ace Doubles, which have a collector and readership love which remains forty years after the series has ended. A handful of titles which have become prized (and fairly expensive) collectors items. Published in If and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

What annoys me about the man is simply this: his work seems to have been forgotten by all but a handful of people. What annoys me more is that, despite some trashy covers and cover copy, the writing is surprisingly good; if it were otherwise I wouldn't be upset by his fade into the shadows. What annoys me most is that he's from Houston, a couple of hours' drive from the most recent World Horror Convention, and he didn't attend.
I know the theme was focused on newer voices in horror, but to be honest there are comparatively few American writers who produced horror in the 1970s and I doubt the organizers would have hesitated to include Lory in programming. I wish I'd realized he was from Houston, I'd have told them about him.

Why am I impressed enough to be irritated about this? In part because of this series.

First, and most importantly, this is not an innovative series. It is Pinnacle being Pinnacle, demanding a word count and focusing on what they "knew" readers wanted. The result is a set of four novels (five if you count the obscure German-edition only Cancer book) that revisit the same ground that Roger Corman and Hammer had mined for a decade before. You're not getting Oxrun Station here, you're not getting Kane, you're not even getting Hot Blood. Instead it's a bunch of self-contained short novels whose only associative themes are a supernatural element and an aspect which can be paired to one of the signs of the Astrological Zodiac.

There's nothing in the Taurus novel that a person wouldn't get from watching one of the Dr. Phibes movies, nothing that would inspire a person to read the Gemini novel instead of watching Matheson's TV movie treatments of the Kolchak stories. But Lory made them enjoyable.

Secondly, despite the formulaic nature of the books the author managed to surprise me on occasion. They reminded me of the original Blade movie with Wesley Snipes or many of the later Bond films: lacking originality, but handling their material well and loading the story with so many predictable elements that it becomes easy to forget one or two and be pleasantly surprised when they are reintroduced during the story. (Ah, so THAT'S why they gave him the explosive pen in the first act!).

These books are a great example of an author doing good things within the limitations of his material, and they are easily among the least of his work. I'm left to wonder what he might have done under a better publisher during the boom time of the 1980s, and left to encourage readers to try this series, so long as they know what they're going to get from it.

--Bill Lindblad

Cybernocturnalism: The New Age of Horror Publishing

2011-11-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

By Anthony Servante

With Lori R. Lopez, Kealan Patrick Burke, and Jimmy Pudge contributing.

“The Tower of Ebabel” refers to the proliferation of electronic formats available to readers to download their ebooks. Publishing has come into the 21st century with a vengeance. Here anyone can be published. No longer does an author need to wait on the acceptance of a paper publisher; he can now simply publish himself on one of the many media: personal or professionally run websites, on Amazon, Smashwords, Nook, Ipad, Kindle, or pdf. On the other side of the coin, there is a deluge of ebooks being published. Authors of paper books are entering the lucrative e-market, while a new crop of e-authors, who publish exclusively on the internet, are flooding the market. These latter authors publish via a convenient format and promote themselves on social networks such as Facebook or MySpace.

In the book Future Shock (1970), author Alvin Toffler warns readers that “too much change in too little time” creates a vacuum between what we as readers can read and the numbers of books being published daily that we want to read. We can never catch up; we cannot read everything as the future closes in on us faster each and every day. The pool becomes diluted, and we must wade through more and more sub par readings just to get to a handful of good books. As a reviewer of books and movies, I find myself skimming through books more and more and fast-forwarding movies more than I’d like because there is so much bad stuff out there that it is a rare pleasure to find a good novel, novella, or short story like finding a nugget of gold while plowing through a pile of rocks.

Thus it is that fans of the Horror genre are faced with “future shock”, the deluge of ebooks hitting the market from professional and amateur authors alike, a vast selection that weighs upon the buyer to be more selective with his purchases. Cyberspace has become crowded with stories from known and not-yet known authors, some bringing premium work to the market, others sharing tales that fall below publishable standards in the paper book business. The massive shadow of ebooks has influenced the literature of Horror in both predictable and unpredictable ways.

I call this shadow, Cybernocturnalism.

I approached three authors to discuss this trend, their role in its growth, its effect on Horror as a genre, and its potential effect on paper publishing. Before we proceed to their opinions on Cybernocturnalism, allow me to introduce our participants:

1. Lori R. Lopez

“Lori R. Lopez writes novels, a number of book series, poetry and columns in a variety of genres including Horror, Fantasy and Humor. Available titles include a collection of strange tales, Out-Of-Mind Experiences, and a Horror-Fantasy novel, Dance Of The Chupacabras (Tome One of The Tome Trilogy Of Trilogies).

Her stories and verse appear in anthologies such as an H.P. Lovecraft tribute (Arcanium Axiom), Deadication (Panic Press), ePocalypse (Pill Hill Press), I Believe In Werewolves (Netbound Publishing), Masters Of Horror: Damned If You Don't (Triskaideka Books), Soup Of Souls (Panic Press), Bleed . . . And They Will Come (Panic Press), and fifteen of Lori's poems were published for an anthology titled In Darkness We Play (Triskaideka Books), as well as magazines: Ghosts And Haunts; Women Empowerment. Lori is a renegade indie author who believes creative writing should not be standardized or conventional. She has two sons and a website: www.trilllogicinnoventions.com.” Lori is about to enter the e-market after years as a paper author.

2. Kealan Patrick Burke

“Born and raised in Dungarvan, Ireland, Kealan Patrick Burke is an award-winning author described as "a newcomer worth watching" (Publishers Weekly) and "one of the most original authors in contemporary horror" (Booklist).

Some of his works include the novels KIN, MASTER OF THE MOORS, CURRENCY OF SOULS, THE HIDES, and THE LIVING, the novellas THE TURTLE BOY (Bram Stoker Award Winner, 2004), VESSELS, JACK & JILL, SELDOM SEEN IN AUGUST, YOU IN?, and MIDLISTERS, and the collections RAVENOUS GHOSTS, THE NUMBER 121 TO PENNSYLVANIA & OTHERS (Bram Stoker Award-Nominee, 2009), and THEATER MACABRE.

Kealan also edited the anthologies: TAVERNS OF THE DEAD (starred review, Publishers Weekly), BRIMSTONE TURNPIKE, QUIETLY NOW (International Horror Guild Award Nominee, 2004), the charity anthology TALES FROM THE GOREZONE and NIGHT VISIONS 12 (starred review, Publishers Weekly, British Fantasy Award & International Horror Guild Award nominee).

A movie based on his short story "Peekers", directed by Mark Steensland (DEAD @ 17), and scripted by veteran novelist Rick Hautala (Bedbugs, The Mountain King), is now available for viewing online, and more stories have recently been optioned.

He recently played the male lead in Greg Lamberson's film SLIME CITY MASSACRE, the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic SLIME CITY, now available on Blu-Ray and DVD, with a limited theatrical release to follow.

Kealan is a member of the International Thriller Writers Organization.” He publishes in both paper and electronic markets.

Visit him on the web at www.kealanpatrickburke.com or visit his blog at http://kealanpatrick.wordpress.com/

3. Jimmy Pudge

Jimmy Pudge has self-published, Yo A$$ is Grass: Tales From a Rednek Gangsta (2010), Bad Billy (2011), and Chasing Vampyres (TBA). Born 06-09-1972. Jimmy has always wanted to be a writer. After years of rejection slips from paper publishers, he ventured into the e-market, creating a persona that is part ‘gangsta’ and part Barnum and Bailey. He, in essence, is a performance artist whose act is publishing books. Visit him at http://www.jpudge.com/

Round One
I. Lori R. Lopez
Hi, Anthony. Thank you for the invitation! Here are my initial replies. I'm putting together my first E-book release this month.

How will the Horror genre change, if at all, with the influx of so many e-authors?

There is in all genres the concern that quality will suffer, and I have seen a shortage of proper editing in some such books. There are bound to be more retreads of the same trite plots, more copycats, but I trust there will also emerge fresh voices and perspectives that might otherwise have gone unheard. This is the best thing about independent authors taking control of the publishing reins. I think it's an exciting age to live in, for both electronic media and print books. Horror, like Science Fiction, can benefit enormously from a broader range of ideas. I just hope the books worth reading will be able to stand out in an overcrowded marketplace.

As print authors seek to e-publish old books, do e-authors look for acceptance in traditional paper print?

My personal preference is still paper, but I will soon release my first E-book as well as convert my print books to digital versions. I think authors should take full advantage of both forms of publishing. There's simply no reason not to with ready access to websites that make publishing attainable. It is no longer the dream and the privilege of the elite few. E-authors who are serious about promotion and sales will want to reach the widest audience possible.

The cream of the crop will rise from this massive e-author influx: will the cream be competitive with the old school authors who see e-publishing as a minor extension of their paper books?

I think there is room for any author who has something legitimate to say. An old-school print author could begin to see the E-book sales as comparable or better than print, while the E-author "cream" could find stiffer competition from established print authors who may have longevity and a larger fanbase on their side. They might also have larger promotions and physical book signings. The E-authors would be wise to learn from seasoned veterans of the trade and vice versa. Like any industry, publishing is evolving and authors need to stay flexible to grow and change with it. I believe the two sides can benefit each other.

II. Kealan Patrick Burke
Hi, Anthony,
I think, of this new wave of horror authors, not all of them want to be published in print unless they can do it themselves, i.e. e-publishing has given writers so much control over all aspects of the process that it's made it harder for them to relinquish any of that control to mainstream print publishers. Add to this the belief that print publishers are evil, an oft-cried motto that I find unappealing and not always true, to be honest, and you're left with writers who came into being and will stay in digital regardless of the pros and cons.

I agree with your assessment that the good will rise to the top, and the rest will fall by the wayside. This is inevitable. However, I don't think it will be categorized by "old" versus "new" schools. I think, rather, that it will come down to quality. And there's a lot of quality out there. A lot of bad stuff too, of course, but over the years, I've come across many phenomenal books by unknown authors who stayed unknown because no one would publish them. This is one of the many reasons I celebrate digital publishing. It finally allows some really good writers to get their work out there to the reader where it belongs, without having to run the gauntlet of some agents and publishers who are only looking for the next big thing, and don't always see it when it's right under their noses. By that same token though, you have a lot of work out there that could have benefited greatly by the gauntlet. Rejections by editors and publishers when I was first starting out, inspired me to do better, to improve my craft, so that when I finally cracked the markets I was targeting, it felt like a major achievement, and one I had worked toward obsessively. In the current climate, writers seem to take rejections personally, and opt for digital publishing to avoid the blow to their ego. Typically though, their books don't sell, or get negative reviews, and then their ego suffers anyway. And this is what worries me. A lot of people out there are using e-publishing as a way to get instant gratification, and money. They want to be the Next Big Thing, the Next Big Success Story, the next Amanda Hocking. And like Hocking said in an interview, she did what she did because she wanted to be famous. John Locke did it to make money. Frustrated writers are being given a carrot to e-publish, and it's sometimes the wrong one. They're obsessed with sales figures and fame and money, not with bettering their craft and not always about telling the best story they can. I have seen this first hand on message boards. In one case, a writer openly asked everybody what they thought he should write so he could sell a ton of e-books. He wanted to know what was hot so he could cash in on it. Which is fine, I guess, if money's the object. But when I saw this, I went to Amazon, downloaded an excerpt of his one and only book, and it looked like he had thrown 40,000 words into a bingo machine and published the results.

The writing is what needs to matter. Yes, we've become publishers and business people, but we're storytellers at heart, or at least, we're supposed to be. I have no delusions of massive success, and that's just fine by me. I've already accomplished my goal, which is to have my books widely available for anyone who wants to read them. And every time I get an email from someone who enjoyed my book, I know I'm doing something right. I tell stories. I do it for a living. And it's the best job in the world.

As far as whether or not horror will change as a result of e-publishing, in terms of content, I don't think so, at least no more than it always does over the years. Horror evolves with time regardless of the format, and writers do too. I do think we'll see shorter stuff making a comeback, though. Short story collections, anthologies, and novellas, ordinarily a hard sell in print, will enjoy a return to the shelf, and I couldn't be happier about that. Some of the most powerful work ever written in horror was novella-length. So, no, I don't think e-publishing will have a drastic effect on the type of work we're producing (unless we take the ill-advised route of trying to copycat the more successful authors), but it will change how we're able to market it.

Back to the old school versus new school - I don't think it comes down to that. It's all about what appeals to readers. I'll use myself as an example. My backlist is now available digitally. Up until this year, the only way you'd be able to get your hands on copies of most of my books, was to either get one at the library, buy it direct from the publisher for around $40 as a signed limited edition, or get it on the secondary market after it sold out (sometimes cheaper, sometimes ridiculously more expensive). My books were tailored to the collectors, with low-print runs. So, despite great reviews, awards, etc., the books never got mass exposure. Now, readers who couldn't afford my books back in the day, can pick them up for a couple of bucks and read them instantly. And readers who'd never heard of me are discovering them too. So I don't really think it matters which school the author comes from. Again it'll come down to what's good and what isn't. I am just as likely to buy a Stephen King e-book as I am to buy one by a new author I've heard raves about.

Bottom line: It's an exciting time to be an author, and an even more exciting time for horror, as long as we don't forget where our hearts are. Parchment, paper, cocktail napkin or electrons, formats don't matter, but quality should.

III. Jimmy Pudge
1. Will horror change with this new wave of e-authors and will they lead the way or will they follow the dominating old-school authors?

Yes, I believe horror will change. I think all genres are constantly evolving. Having platforms like Amazon and Smashwords give writers with very unique perspectives a chance to revolutionize the horror field which they may have normally been excluded from in the past by the “in crowd” of horror. What I mean by in crowd is a group of horror writers, agents and publishers who network, attend conventions, and join horror writing organizations. It’s no coincidence that many of the horror books you picked up five years ago read alike. I look at this new period in horror, fantasy, romance, etc…as a new golden age of pulp fiction. The demand for e-Books are there, it’s a huge market, one that’s got the traditional publishing companies scared, so you’re going to see more unknown writers emerging from obscurity than you’ve seen since the pulp fiction magazines. As a result of this, you’re going to see some new and exciting ideas emerging. As far as e-authors leading the way, I feel in some cases that may be true. The people who will lead the way will be the most talented and creative writers. Sure, you’ll have tons of hacks who are out there writing e-books similar to their icons. There were a lot of hacks in traditional publishing trying to write like their icons. Some of those hacks made it pretty far and are now considered old-school authors. You’ll also get those talented individuals who are full of originality and bring experimental works to the table that shakes everything up. As far as following old-school authors in the e-book field in terms of marketing, no, these new e-writers will not follow that path, unless they’re rich or well-connected. What’s going to happen is you’ll see Amazon and eventually Barnes and Noble offer contracts to the big name authors. They’ll transform themselves into publishing houses and market the hell out of the already famous writers. The new guys are going to have to market themselves aggressively on Facebook and Twitter and do tons of interviews and whatever else they can to get people to notice them online. They’re not going to have a free publicity ride at all.

2. What will it take to survive this deluge of e-authors, to be the cream that rises to the top of this deluge?

You have to be original and write something that people will enjoy. You have to impress people with your grammar and layout skills. You have to constantly promote your work, so people will know that it exists. If you’re a newbie, not someone who has tons of friends in the field, and you have no money for a publicist, then you’ll have to put in tons of hours to get your novel out there. The fact is you may have written the greatest novel in the world, but no one will buy it if they don’t know it exists. You also need to network with other writers. Find out what they’re doing and what is working for them.

3. Can e-authors compete with old-schoolers?

Here’s what’s so wonderful about the e-book explosion. New authors who keep their prices dirt cheap, and I’m talking 99 cents cheap, will get the impulse buy from people. It’s the same principle as I-Tunes. You see a song, listen to the sample, and decide 99 cents is worth the risk. You buy it impulsively. It’s only a click away. The same process exists for e-Books. Now, if your book sucks, then the chances of repeat business is going to be poor. But the fact is, many people are going to be flocking to these cheap e-books, keeping away from the traditional authors because their publishing houses will list those e-Books at $5 or higher. Already, the process is reversed. Already, the old-school authors are looking into self-publishing. Stephen King’s 81 Mile is only $2.99, an incredibly cheap price for a new King product. Other well-known authors are turning to self-publishing, and their books are cheap: Lawrence Block, W.D. Gagliani, Bryan Smith, etc…
Now, here’s the problem for the old-school authors. They must always write okay books in order to compete from this point forward. In the past, if their shit has sucked, they’ve been able to get away with it, but not anymore. Not in an e-Book environment where you have unlimited reading options that are probably cheaper than their products. E-books may wind up a lot of old-school authors’ careers. It really just depends on if they get signed on by Amazon.com. In answer to your question, yes, e-authors can compete. It’s the best time ever to be a new author.

4. Do they or should they have to or is the e-market your domain, not the old-schoolers?

The e-market is everyone’s domain, but the whole game plan is rapidly changing. It’s no longer only about who you know. I mean, sure, talent was an important factor in the past, but it wasn’t the driving force to getting a publishing contract. The truth is that networking has always been the key to becoming a published author. Not anymore. Those days are over. Traditionally published authors with minimal talent are going to see some huge problems in the future. I can name a handful of writers who are considered popular in their genres that I expect to see go belly up with this e-book explosion. But I’m not going to name names. I’m sure some people expect me to go belly up when the e-book “fad” dies down. But the e-book explosion isn’t the pet rock. It isn’t a fad. It’s going to be here for a long time.

5. How do you see yourself? Leader or follower?

I’m a leader. My works are highly risky and very original. I consider myself very original in the horror genre. I don’t go with the flow. Not ever. I think it’s important to stand out, and you’re not going to get anywhere by kissing an old-school author’s ass. Not anymore.

My thoughts on the e-Book explosion are very simple. The new guys are getting a break. The traditional writers, publishers, agents, these are dark times for them.

Round Two
1. Lori R. Lopez

Kealan, I think you dinged the carnival bell with your statement about new-wave horror authors wanting to do it themselves in regards to publishing, whether print or digital. I personally find this to be a tremendous asset available to us as writers in this age, while at the same time it swings the door quite wide in regard to quality and professionalism. In some cases, many it seems, these are painfully lacking.
Likewise, it isn't that publishers are evil, I agree; it's that they are businessmen, and they will cater to that which is most commercial, not necessarily what is most deserving or important. So either way, with or without them in the middle damming the stream, there is a loss of quality. What sells might not be the best, and it usually does not encompass the risk-takers and avant-gardeners who strive for the uncommon and plant the seeds of growth. Nor do the rigid policies and conventions practiced by these publishers, that serve a purpose to demand high standards, allow for much of the flexibility that should go hand in hand with creative writing.
I, too, applaud the digital age of publishing for giving voice to meritorious unknown authors who would otherwise remain anonymous. The written word no longer needs to be dictated by the few. It is now the voice of the masses. But if everyone is speaking at once, who is there to listen? Good writers need good readers. And good writing requires a great deal of time. I hope there will always be enough readers who are not too busy and preoccupied with writing.
It is true as you say that rejection can challenge us. It can also block us unfairly, particularly we writers who do it for love over fame and financial success, because we might not be willing to sacrifice as much time from writing for promotion as the fortune-seekers. We might not be willing to jump through hoops for publishers, or surrender our principles. Yet it is a common goal to survive as writers, to focus our time and energies upon this craft.
I further agree that shorter works are regaining popularity thanks to E-publishing and the Internet, something I am excited about. To that end, I also believe poetry is making a welcome return for the same reasons.
Jimmy, I like what you said about "a new golden age of pulp fiction". Some of the freshest and most exciting writing in the past was exactly that, probably due to such "in-crowds" as you mentioned. What is great today is that we can find seasoned literary veterans now rubbing elbows with writers at all stages and levels, especially online. And there seems to be more of a sense of camaraderie rather than competition amidst the ranks of the struggling unknowns and lesser-knowns.
Your point about new guys having to market themselves aggressively -- I would say exhaustively -- to gain any notice online is already happening. As is what you predicted about Amazon becoming a publisher and offering contracts to authors whose books are selling. This is already a reality as well.
I agree that originality is key. Good writers need to stand out from the horde of hacks and wannabes. As you pointed out, these are nothing new. Dating farther back than most would realize. It is equally vital to stand out from other good ones.
You are right, E-books are no fad. They are here to stay. Personally, I do hope that print books will survive alongside them; Print-On-Demand companies make me think they will. If traditional publishers are smart and learn to be flexible, perhaps they too can endure. We see everything changing nowadays, including television and cinema, due to the digital age. In one form or another, the written word is here to stay. It has seen a lot of changes through the years. In the future, virtual books may float in front of us, a flick of our hand turning pages.
I think we are all in agreement that this is an exciting time to be an author.

2. Kealan Patrick Burke
Interesting, Anthony, but again I think only the medium is changing. Stories are stories. For the industry, on the other hand, yes the change is undeniable. Novellas are popular again, but just because the market is seeing more of them now that digital allows for them, it doesn't mean horror writers ever stopped writing them. So content-wise, I would argue that there is no change to what we writers have been doing all along. Market-wise, the change is huge.

3. Jimmy Pudge
After reading the responses, I feel like I'm in pretty much complete agreement with my peers. The only thing I see differently is Burke's comment about horror not changing. I feel most people currently in horror are hacks, based on what I've read...and I read a lot of current horror fiction. For the most part, the ideas are stale and the plots repetitive. It can be really hard to find something completely unique in this genre. I think in the past this has partially had to do with the fact that popular horror has been determined by horror writer groups. A broad audience is not going to dig around for horror gems but go straight to what people are hailing the great horror writer.

This e-book revolution is going to change this. You're going to get more originality, and more authors are going to start changing their plots and style to match the new success stories. So I feel horror will see some pretty big changes in terms of content. An elite few will not determine what is hot like they have in the past with their top 100 horror picks or whatever.
Anthony Servante: Summing things up.
Cybernocturalism: The Modern Horror Movement is happening in cyber space with an avalanche of horror stories. It is the culture and the field for sowing the next wave of horror writers. For instance, a writer on Facebook has five thousand friends; he sends his story to his friendship circle and has each friend share the story with their friendship circle and that circle with another and so on and so on. The story can circulate amongst thousands in less than an hour. But, as in any pyramid scheme, only the cream of the crop, namely, the top of the chain, succeeds. Which brings us to the paradox of Cybernocturnalism.
The Paradigm Paradox: the Cybernocturnalism paradigm shift itself is subject to extinction and therefore renders the modern definition and application begging the question. It’s like pointing out someone is right when what he said was you were wrong. Quite simply, a paradigm is a belief system one develops in most fields, from science to horror, that is subject to corruption and erosion by a new belief system: we once believed the world was flat and now we believe it is round. And what will we believe next? Each generation’s view of their own belief system, believes theirs correct, thus setting up the corruption that comes from reaching a conclusion based on belief and setting up the erosion of the former belief. Belief is in constant flux, ever-changing and evolving.
Horror, too, is a genre in flux. But old-school dies hard as the new kids on the school ground enact change by revolutions. And therein lays the rub. The new wave is anachronistic by virtue of “future shock.” And the next wave. And the next…. A self-conscious cycle of mirrors facing other mirrors with “Horror” reflected in a perpetual image of past, present and future all at once.
As I am the one to point out this trend on the medium of cyber space and attempt to effect popular doctrine on modern horror, I, too, become an example of my own thesis/exposition. If you were to point out that had it not been for the internet, this article about ebooks and e-authors and their role in Cybernocturnalism would never have seen print, I could only respond: Touché.

Yet, here I am. And here we are.
Thank you, authors, for your participation in this article on Cybernocturnalism: The New Age of Horror Publishing.

--Anthony Servante

Movie vs. Book: The Screaming Mimi

2011-11-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

MOVIE: THE SCREAMING MIMI (1958)

I think I’m going to create a new category for movies: the Don’t Care level. Currently there’s good and bad, with the two occasionally drifting back and forth between the two. But, especially after starting this column, I think the Don’t Care category falls somewhere both between good and bad and far separate from either. If I do create that, SCREAMING MIMI (1958) will fit in there.

We open with Anita Ekberg lying in a bed inside a mental hospital. Her Virginia Wilson is there after witnessing a horrific crime. Within five minutes her psychiatrist has fallen in love and become controlling and obsessive. Yet he gives her permission to a-return to stripping and b-get a dog. While performing her act (as Yolanda Lange. No surprise there, as many strippers change their name for performances) a reporter by the name of Bill Sweeney also falls in love with her. Soon, people connected to Virginia/Yolanda turn up dead, all somehow connected to sculptures of a Screaming Mimi. Is it Yolanda/Virginia, her shrink, or someone else? Honestly, even by the time we get to the big reveal at the end, I didn’t care.

The big fault lies with Ekberg’s performance. She mixed up playing insane with not playing anything period. There really wasn’t a performance to critique—she sleepwalked through the entire movie. Even during her stripping performances, Ekberg looked like she was about to fall asleep. The director didn’t seem to care, as he filled up as much screen time as he could with her, and more often than not, in her underwear. I guess if I was attracted to her that would make things more interesting for me, but as a heterosexual female, watching her lumber around in lingerie just made me want to fall asleep.

There were some fine performances. Philip Carrey as Sweeney appeared genuine in both his curiosity about the mysterious stripper and concern for her safety. Harry Townes was interesting to watch as the psychotic psychiatrist. Gypsy Rose Lee played the owner of the strip club, and she was both witty and fun to watch. However, her role was incidental to the movie and totally unnecessary. Hell, Virginia/Yolanda’s dog was more of a pleasure to view. But because so much of the movie rests on Ekberg’s shoulders, her lackluster performance did nothing to raise the excitement level of the flick.

The end reveal is obvious from the first scene. It was so obvious that I thought it had to be a red herring, and the resolutions my mind came up with were the most entertaining part of the movie. Alas, no, none of them came to fruition. The director, Gerd Oswald, who had previously brought us great noir movies like A KISS BEFORE DYING, seemed more interested in Ekberg and her skivvies than he was in crafting a suspenseful, interesting movie. And that’s a damn shame, because the basic story seemed like it could have made for a fun flick. Instead, all we’re left for is the cinematic equivalent of a wall poster of Anita Ekberg. That’s fine if you want little more than to stare at her for near two hours. For the rest of us, though, we’re better off forgetting the movie was ever made and just reading the damned book.

--Jen

BOOK: THE SCREAMING MIMI by Fredric Brown (1949)

When Fredric Brown was at his best, his writing was musical. He could capture the cadence of a natural storyteller's voice as well as anyone and his word choices would range from poetic to common with an ease that would prevent a reader from being jarred from the story. He could conjure believable characters that generated and maintained interest. He could play in dark territories as believably as anyone in the mystery field, despite earning most of his initial fame as a science fiction and fantasy author who would also write weird... i.e., horror... fiction.
The Screaming Mimi is Brown at his best. It follows the trail of a reporter who, after seeing a beautiful stabbing victim, dedicates the few days of vacation he has left to identify her attacker. Along the way we are treated to glimpses of Chicago's underbelly. The mystery is character driven, and because of this Brown spends time ensuring that all of his characters are believable, their motives reasonable and their actions rational.

The book isn't only interesting, it's also fun. An example can be found on the first page, from the omniscient narrator: "(I)t isn't a nice story. It's got murder in it, and women and liquor and gambling and even prevarication. There's murder before the story proper starts, and murder after it ends; the actual story begins with a naked woman and ends with one, which is a good opening and a good ending, but everything between isn't nice." It sets the tone of the book and the statement is completely accurate, but there's also a playfulness evident which serves to highlight the fundamental decency of the protagonist against the darkness of his situation. Unlike many novelists Brown wasn't content to create a sharply crafted story or an entertaining narrative. He demanded both, and he succeeded here.
I enthusiastically recommend this book.

Five stars out of five.

--Bill

Foreign Fears: Timecrimes (2007) (Spain: Los Cronocrímenes)

2011-11-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

Review by Anthony Servante

Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Timecrimes is a Spanish Science Fiction/Horror movie that deals mainly with time travel and doppelgangers. Karra Elejalde is Hector, who we see early on in his home with his wife, Clara, played by Candela Fernandez. There is a mysterious phone call, a nude woman in the woods, and a strange scientist who insists that Hector hide in this big contraption that turns out to be a time machine. Hector emerges from the machine only to see ‘himself’ in front of his home with his wife just as he was an hour earlier.

Now follow closely, as this can become confusing. Hector, who just emerged from the time machine, refers to himself as Hector One and to the Hector in front of his house as Hector Two. Apparently Hector One was the character we saw earlier in the film spying on a naked girl in the forest. When his wife leaves, Hector One goes to check on the girl, only to be stabbed in the arm by a man whose head is covered in bandages soaked with fresh blood. We learn later that the bandaged man is another Hector.

To tell you anymore would create spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.

The movie is a joy to watch, a time travel Rubik’s Cube, where murdering oneself may or may not be the solution to setting time right.

The scientist Chico is played by director/writer Vigalondo with a teasing simplicity, but nothing about this story is simple. Each time Hector emerges from the time machine, something new happens, but for us the viewer, it is something old, but seen from a different perspective, i.e., a different camera angle, just as Hector One espied Hector Two in the film’s beginning.

Yes, it’s all very confusing, and Timecrimes is designed to be watched more than once. Just as Hector, we see more each time we return to the movie. I’ve seen it three times and still find new stuff going on. Filmed on a low budget, but making up for it with a very intelligent script, this Spanish gem with English subtitles is a rare treat for time travel buffs, and you’re in for some interesting surprises to the very end.

It was rumored that David Cronenberg was remaking an English-language version of the film, but he has since denied any involvement with the remake. With its psychological bent and horrific images, I think Cronenberg would be an excellent choice for a remake. Meanwhile, I think I’ll give it a fourth viewing.

--Anthony Servante

Brian Sammons Hi-Def Horror Hoedown!

2011-11-04T03:50:00.000-07:00

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL (2010) – Blu-ray review

Director: Eli Craig
Cast: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden

Horror comedies are hard to pull off right. For every good one, like STUDENT BODIES and SCARY MOVIE (the first one) there are really bad ones like SCARY MOVIE (any after the first movie), STAN HELSING, VAMPIRES SUCK, TRANSYLMANIA, and SHRIEK IF YOU KNOW WHAT I DID LAST FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH. Yes that last one is a real movie, and if you have never suffered through it, do yourself a favor and just take my word for it that you really don’t want to. So with that undeniable fact firmly in my brain, I approached this new horromedy with a bit of trepidation. Was I all scared over nothing, or was my fears justified? Let’s find out.

T&DvE, as I like to flippantly call this film, takes the familiar premise of the good old backwoods slasher (i.e. JUST BEFORE DAWN, DON’T GO INTO THE WOODS, THEY PREY, etc.) and turns it on its head by making the hillbillies the good guys and the young, pretty, city-folk the ones with the problems. Tucker and Dale are two good natured good old boys who are going up to their new cabin to fix it up for the weekend. Along the way they cross paths with a SUV full of college kids who naturally think the rednecks are right out of DELIVERANCE or perhaps even THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. After a night of drinking and spooky stories about killer hillbillies, the kids go skinny dipping. When one of the cute coeds starts to drown, Tucker and Dale are right there to save her. Unfortunately to the rest of the young people, it looks like the evil hillbillies are abducting her for nefarious reasons.

The college kids rally themselves to save their friend, but though a series of comic misunderstandings and incredibly bad luck, mixed with a healthy heaping of stupidity, the kids keep accidently killing themselves in a variety of gruesome ways. The other campers don’t see the accidents and think the hillbillies are murderous psychos, while clueless Tucker and Dale think the college kids are part of a weird suicide cult. Therefor they must protect the young woman they saved from drowning, who they have become friendly with, from the others kids that they think will kill her too. Yes the majority of this movie is one, long, THREE’S COMPANY classic misunderstanding joke taken to goofy and gory extremes. However, as inane as that sounds on paper, it really works on film. Or at least, it works in this film, and that must be a credit to the writing, direction, and acting that the moviemakers were able to pull it off so well.

There are two things that make this movie both really good and a must see for horror fans looking for some giggles. One is the comically gory death scenes. Highlights include a couple of self impalements, a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face, and the best of the bunch; one idiot accidently jumping into a running wood chipper. If you’re not a fan of splatstick comedy, you’ll probably not going to be a fan of this movie. But even if your tolerance for gore gags is low, you still might want to catch this film for the other reason that it’s so good; the acting chops of the two titular leads. Alan Tudyk as Tucker and Tyler Labine as Dale, both best known for their TV work, really bring their A games to this film. They portray the hillbillies with warmth, humanity, and humor. While most of the college kids were insufferable jackasses that I found annoying to watch, which might have been exactly what writer/director Eli Craig was going for, Tucker and Dale were a joy. I liked them, a lot, and that’s rare for most horror/comedy flicks, where characters are just walking punch lines.

As good as this movie was, the extras on this lil’ Blu-ray from Magnolia are a bit of a mixed bag. There’s a commentary track with the director and misunderstood hillbillies themselves; Tyler and Alan. Some DVD/BD commentaries are informative but dull, others are fun but light on the inside info, the one here is that rare, well-done mix of both and it’s very enjoyable. Unfortunately the rest of the special features aren’t so special. There is a short “making of” featurette that is pretty forgettable and is the usual PR “oh we all had a lot of fun making this movie” kind of thing. There is a shorter “HDNet Look At…” feature that is just more of the same. Perhaps the best extra is a 16 minute reedit of this movie called “Tucker & Dale ARE Evil” that tells the story from the vapid college students’ point of view. I mean, it’s not all that great, and it is just clips of the same film you already watched, but it was kind of fun. Some outtakes, a few storyboards, and a theatrical trailer bring the extras to the close.

TUCKER & DALE is a fun blood soaked comedy. If you’re a fan of the backwoods slasher flicks then you’ll get a lot more out of this film than if you’re not a fan of that subgenre, but even then you’re sure to get some laughs from this. The two leads, Tyler and Alan, are the absolute stars of the show and they both really shine here. The kills are as goofy as they are gory, but I do wish the filmmakers would not have leaned so heavily on CGI effects that often look a bit iffy at best. All in all, T&DvE was a fun flick, so it gets a big, grinning, thumbs up from me and a hearty recommendation to check it out.

EVIL DEAD II: 25th Anniversary Edition (1987) - Blu-ray review

Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks

Ah, the EVIL DEAD movies, was there ever a series of films that had more DVD releases than these? I say no, no there was not. So then what about this, the latest (and not even the first) release of EVIL DEAD 2 to Blu-ray? Is this yet another cynical cash grab by a faceless corporate entity trying to exploit the overzealous fans of one of the greatest cult films ever made?

Surprisingly, no. But before I get into that, here’s some backstory on this truly groovy flick.

Bruce Campbell cemented his small claim to fame playing Ash, the bumbling everyman thrust into a horrific situation where he had to dice up the demon possessed bodies of his friends, family, and lovers to survive in the original, and truly horrific, EVIL DEAD. Six years later and the DEAD crew came back together to make, not so much a sequel, as a remake. However, where the first film was a serious, straight up horror movie, EVIL DEAD 2 would play things for laughs more so than for shocked gasps. A true splatsitck film, with as much Three Stooges in it as blood, gore, and guts, this movie was an immediate fan favorite and for good reason, it was ninety minutes of pure freaky fun from start to finish.

The story here is sort of a retread of the first movie and begins with Ash and his girlfriend going out to a little cabin in the woods for some fun. Before long they find the dreaded book, the Necronomicon, and soon demons are inhabiting all sorts of folks for a variety of mischief, and once again it’s up to Ash to save the day, or at the very least, himself. And basically, that’s it for story, but this movie is so much more than that brief summation. There’s the part where just Ash’s hand gets demon possessed so he has to cut it off with a chainsaw and then it starts running around the cabin on its own. Then there’s the scene of utter insanity where Ash and the entire cabin (and I mean that literally) share a laugh. Oh, and I almost forgot lovely Henrietta from the root cellar. If you’ve seen this movie already, and you really should have by now, then I’m sure to remember all these scenes and more. If you have yet to see EVIL DEAD 2 then it is high time that you do and I don’t want to ruin any of this fiercely entertaining and original movie for you. You’re going to want to do yourself a huge favor and see this movie right away, but is this the edition to get?

Thankfully, the answer to that is yes, and that is largely due to the impressive amount of extras this 25th Anniversary Edition brings to the party.

Unlike many of the previous releases of this movie to disc, be it DVD or BD, this time out there is a gaggle of special features to complement the much improved video quality. Said video has been improved much more than even the last Blu-ray version of this film which looked pretty lousy. This time around this gory, goofy flick has never looked better and it finally got the transfer it deserved. As for those extras I mentioned, there are plenty of them and they’re pretty awesome. Writer/director Sam Raimi teams up with B-movie god, Bruce Campbell, special makeup effects guru Greg Nicotero, and longtime Raimi cohort and co-writer, Scott Spiegel to give us one hell of an entertaining audio commentary. Sadly, this isn’t a new commentary track, as was original promised by Liosngate. It’s the same one from the last time this flick was released on disc, but it’s still a great commentary. Now thankfully there is a lot of new goodies to be found here, like a multipart documentary called “Swallowed Souls” about EVIL DEAD 1 & 2, and even a little bit of ARMY OF DARKNESS, that talks with a ton of people connected to the films, including the sometimes elusive Bruce Campbell, but sadly not the excessively busy Sam Raimi. This doc clocks in at an impressive hour-and-forty-minutes long and was very well done. There are thirty minutes of home movie like footage taken when originally shooting the movie or creating the amazing makeup effects called “Cabin Fever” and supplied by Makeup FX mastermind Greg Nicotero’s private home movies. “Road to Wadesboro” is a short featurette and is a return to where the movie was original shot. Then there are the extras that were on the previous editions of this movie, like “Evil Dead II: Behind-the-Screams” and “The Gore the Merrier”, and their inclusion here made me very happy. Often when a new version of a film gets put out, the extras from what came before are forgotten. Well not here and I’d like to see more Blu-rays/DVDs follow this lead. Trailers and still galleries bring this very impressive list of extras to a close. Seriously, after several sometimes lackluster releases of EVIL DEAD 2, Lionsgates has knocked this one out of the freaking park.

EVIL DEAD 2 is a great film, one of my all-time favorite over-the-top fun fright flicks, and this version is hands down the best one yet and clearly the edition to get for serious fans. Even if you already own this movie on some other disc, and I’d be stunned if you didn’t, this is a worthy upgrade for the great looking picture and the hours of new extras. Consider this anniversary one not to be forgotten.

INTRUDER (1989) – Blu-ray review

Director: Scott Spiegel
Cast: Elizabeth Cox, Renée Estevez, Dan Hicks, Sam Raimi

Back in the late 80s, in this particular case we’re talking about 1989, the slasher phenomena was winding down, but a group of plucky filmmakers thought, “hey, why don’t we give the stalk and slash thing a try?” What set them apart from the thousands of others doing the same thing was the fact that it was the crazy guys that gave the world EVIL DEAD 2. Scott Spiegel, who co-wrote ED2, would write and direct, Sam Raimi would take a turn in front of the camera as an actor and naturally Sam would bring his brother Ted along for the ride. The gore guys that first came together for EVIL DEAD 2 would use this film to from their earth shattering effects company; KNB EFX. Even Bruce Campbell would return, although if you blinked you would miss him. So with all that talent behind it, how could this movie fail?

Ok, right about here is where I would usually make a snarky remark about how this movie sucked. Thankfully this time around, I can’t say that. To be sure this movie isn’t perfect but it does deliver the goods, even if you have to wait a good long while to get them. Yeah, INTRUDER does start off a little slow, with the first kill not happening until after the thirty minute mark, and that one even occurs off camera. But what saves this movie from becoming a bore are the off kilter characters, and the trademarked EVIL DEAD use of cameras. What do I mean by that? Well here you will have camera Point Of View shots from telephones, doorknobs, store shelves, mop buckets, and a roving camera that shoots the characters from front, behind, above, below, and all places in between. I love neat-o camera tricks like that, they’re fun and they liven up things, which as stated, could be a bit boring at the start of this flick. That also begs the question of just how much of these Raimi-esque camera tricks was actually thanks to Mr. Raimi, and how much were just how that particular group of Michigan born madmen did things.

And speaking of Michigan, INTRUDER is the only slasher film that I know of to be set in my home state. So yeah, I may be a bit biased towards it for that, hearing the actors drop the names of streets and locations that I know very well, but the movie is definitely good enough to stand on its own merits, with or without that groovy Michigan flavor.

INTRUDER takes place in a small (read as: not Walmart sized) grocery store where the night crew was just given the bad news that the store has been sold and that they will all be losing their jobs at the end of the week. To make matters worse, someone starts slicing everyone up using many of the sharp and nasty things you can find in your average grocery store. Now this is where older versions of this film sort of sucked, as INTRUDER was itself infamously slashed by the self-appointed guardians of decency at the MPAA. All of the glorious gore gags were excised and the movie had about as much balls as your typical PG kiddie flick. Thankfully this version is the “director’s cut” which restores most of the missing bloody bits to the film, including a head getting smashed in a trash compactor, and in the highlight of the film, another head gets cut in half, right across the upper teeth, by a ban saw. Yep, it’s as good as it sounds.

Now don’t get me wrong, not everything is golden with this movie. The story is about as basic as it gets. People in an isolated location get hack up by a mystery killer that can be anyone except for the obvious red herring the film keeps bludgeoning the audience with. Also the acting is pretty bad, but it’s honestly bad. INTRUDER is pure camp, honest camp, and completely unlike many modern movies that try too damn hard to be campy and just come off as forced, desperate, and far from enjoyable. This film is a slice of 80s slasher goodness, and as such I love it to pieces.

If you’ve ever read any of my reviews of previous releases from the good folks over at Synapse Films, then you know that when it comes to making the picture look great, few companies do it better. And this low budget, often forgotten slasher from the late 1980s is no exception. INTRUDER looks simply amazing on Blu-ray and for that reason alone you need to get this flick. And if f you’re an extras hound, like me, then be prepared to bay with joy over the special features found on this Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. There is a making-of retrospective called “Slashing Prices” that runs about 40 minutes long and has a nice collection of people related to the film giving their two cents on various aspects of it. Of course bug time director Sam Raimi couldn’t be bothered to show up for this (boo, hiss) but his brother Ted is, and surprisingly so is Bruce Campbell, who’s only in the film for about two minutes. And I must say, few behind the scenes pieces have been this entertaining and informative. Top marks must go to Red Shirt Pictures, the go-to production company for your movie’s special features. Further goodies in the usual vein include a really good audio commentary with the director and producer, audition footage, a still gallery, theatrical and trailer. There’s about ten minutes of very raw footage from the original workprint that show off a little more gore, and a bit of love is paid to the short, and now sadly lost, film that was a precursor to INTRUDER called “Night Crew”, such as a collection of outtakes from that short, and a trailer.

INTRUDER is a great fun fright flick that certainly, and sadly, falls under the “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore” category. The story is as basic as it gets, but it’s loaded with style, skill, and undeniable charm. I love this quirky little film, and when showing it to some friends of mine who had never seen it before, and who are not the diehard horror fan that I am,, they loved it too. Higher praise than that, I cannot think of. Consider this one very recommended.

--Brian Sammons

THE EAST IS RED #24 – A CHINESE GHOST STORY Then and Now

2011-11-04T03:45:00.000-07:00

by Lisa Morton

In the history of Hong Kong cinema, 1986 just may go down as the finest year ever, with three landmark films – the triad thriller A Better Tomorrow, the feminist period action extravaganza Peking Opera Blues, and the wildly kinetic A Chinese Ghost Story – released that year. Even more amazing is that all three of those films had the same producer: Tsui Hark. Tsui officially directed only one – Peking Opera Blues – but his imprimatur is certainly all over the other two; even though A Better Tomorrow was director John Woo’s breakout hit, and A Chinese Ghost Story was credited to frequent Tsui collaborator Ching Siu-tung, there’s no question that Tsui was heavily involved with the direction of both, especially Ghost Story, which became a major worldwide hit for Tsui and for Hong Kong cinema. Tsui went on to produce two sequels to A Chinese Ghost Story, and in 1997 he even produced an animated version of the tale.

Like many other Hong Kong fantasy films, A Chinese Ghost Story was taken from a book called Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, a 17th-century collection of fairy tales about haunted inns and animals that become people. Many of the stories center on a young scholar who stumbles on supernatural happenings and becomes embroiled in a forbidden love affair, and Tsui kept these elements for his 1986 adaptation, adding on more horror scenes and a plot involving the young scholar’s attempts to save his ghostly love from marriage to “Lord Black”, the king of Hell. As the young government official and the tragic ghost, Tsui and Ching cast two of the most astonishingly beautiful actors in Asian cinema: The late Leslie Cheung, and Taiwanese actress Joey Wang. A moment when Wang hides Cheung underwater and lavishes a long, slow-motion kiss on him as bubbles and flower petals float past is one of the great romantic moments of all Asian cinema.

Now, in 2011, as Chinese and Hong Kong filmmakers have followed their American counterparts and begun to mine their cinematic past for remake gold, A Chinese Ghost Story has finally been reincarnated¸ although without the involvement of Tsui Hark. This time it’s director Wilson Yip at the helm, fresh off his success with the martial arts dramas Ip-man and Ip-man 2, directing unknowns Yu Shao-qun and Liu Yi-fei in the Leslie Cheung and Joey Wang roles; however, this version also throws in not one but two Taoist demon hunters, including Yan – played by popular Hong Kong leading man Louis Koo – who is also in love with the ghost girl.

This new version – which we’ll hereafter refer to as ACGS2011 – can’t help but pale by comparison to the neo-classic original, but it bears just enough resemblance to the original that fans of ACGS1986 will have a hard time letting it stand or fall on its own. It begins promisingly, with an extended flashback showing how the young Yan fell in love with the supernatural Siu Sin (who is referred to as a demon here); they finally part when he realizes that a demon-hunter and a demon can’t stay together.

Years later, a young government official, Ning, arrives to assist an isolated town suffering from a severe drought. Ning journeys with a gang of convict laborers to a mountainside temple, where he finds a well that could provide the town with water. Unfortunately, he also finds a pack of beautiful and seductive demons who murder the convicts and attack him. He barely escapes, thanks to the assistance of Siu Sin, and soon they begin to fall in love. Siu Sin reveals that she is being held captive by a thousand-year-old tree demon who is forcing lesser demons to kill for her. Things get even more complicated when Yan arrives, intent on finally killing the tree demon once and for all, and soon the other Taoist master also shows up.

If all that sounds confused and overly complicated…well, it is. Plotting is hardly the strength of either version of ACGS, but at least the Tsui/Ching original kept things moving forward quickly with a non-stop barrage of edits and images, not least of which was a night-time pursuit through a forest by a giant tongue. The new ACGS falters badly in the middle, spending far too much time on chatter instead of chills. Where the original had a delightfully spooky interlude involving Leslie narrowly escaping the clutches of stop-motion animated zombies, this one has Siu Sin and Ning hiding out in a deserted building and…well, talking. And talking. Call me shallow, but in a movie like this I’ll take goofy-looking zombies any day over the hero’s melancholic ramblings about his childhood.

There are certainly plenty of lovely images in ACGS2011, though (my favorite is a sequence in which the tree demon traps Koo in a literal sea of leaves, and he finally stops fighting and lets himself float atop the leaf-waves), and lots of nods to both the original film and other Tsui Hark movies as well (a pair of giggling snake demons are obviously an homage to Tsui’s Green Snake). The actors are all capable, if none begin to capture the luminescent star appeal of Cheung and Wang; the dependable Koo comes off best¸ making his gruff Taoist warrior both stalwart and funny (although no one could touch actor Wu Ma’s delirious drunken Taoist from the original ACGS). There are also some decent fight scenes and a few lovely sets; the score is fairly typical for a big modern Chinese historical epic these days, hardly comparable to James Wong and Romeo Diaz’s lovely songs and soundtrack from ACGS1987. Unfortunately, there’s nothing here to top the original’s final battle in Hell, but maybe the producers of ACGS2011 thought it best to simply not even try.

Overall, I’d probably only recommend the new ACGS to fans of the original, who will be entertained by the in-jokes and hat-tips (including the use of the original film’s main song). For newcomers looking to make an entry into the world of Chinese horror/fantasy films, though…trust me and stick to the original. I re-watch it every so often, and thanks in part to Tsui and Ching’s deft blending of horror, humor and romance, and the presence of the two stars, it still holds up splendidly. I wish I could say I’d be re-watching the new ACGS a quarter-of-a-century from now, but somehow it seems doubtful.

--Lisa Morton

Movies Worth Googling: Strange Movie Reviews by Jenny Orosel

2011-11-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

Save Me From Myself: Video Nasties of the UK

I’m a new mom. Like, I could count it in hours new (although it would be a lot of hours). Protecting my kid has been in the back of my mind for a while now. But I’ve also seen people go way overboard. Let’s face it, there’s a point where we go beyond protecting the kids and saving us from ourselves. For that, one needs look no further than the “Video Nasties” phenomenon in the UK of the 80s.

In the late 80s, videotape players were multiplying in homes everywhere. For those hit by the failing economy of Britain, a wise move was to open a video rental store. They were a quick business to set up, and with very little overhead, someone could quickly establish a successful business. At the same time, the major studios were hesitant to embrace this new home viewership technology, fearing piracy would ruin their profit margin. To fill the gaps in the market, independent and micro studios began releasing their grindhouse and direct-to-video fare, usually low-budget horror. To make this complete, let’s add a socially conservative climate to the UK, and a woman named Mary Whitehouse whose personal mission was to clean up the culture and you have a perfect storm for misguided censorship.

Whitehouse, at the time heading the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (after heading a campaign to rid Britain of the evil “Doctor Who” series) was the public mouthpiece of a movement to ban horror and violent movies from video store shelves. Her claim was that, despite being rated from theatrical releases, small children could get their hands on movies like THE EXORCIST or SS EXPERIMENT CAMP. At first, the decisions of what titles to pull and what not to were left to the local police departments. While great in theory, in practice it was a nightmare. One town would be fine with video stores stocking FACES OF DEATH, while even two blocks away, they would be confiscating BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS thinking that, since it sounds like a porno title, it must be. A movie legal on one side of the street would get you arrested on the other. A central list needed to be made. Hence, the Video Recordings Act of 1984 was born.

Any film wanting to get a home video release had to be certified through the British Board of Film Certification, even if the Board had previously approved it for theatrical release. Then, one of three things would happen: it would pass, edits would be requested, or certification would be denied outright. It was illegal to release a video without certification. The studio behind THE EXORCIST didn’t even submit the film, and its viewing in the home was illegal until 1999. When all was said and done, 39 titles appeared on the list of banned “Video Nasties” which all had been successfully prosecuted.

There were some obviously violent movies on the list. FACES OF DEATH is the hardest to defend. For those unfamiliar, it was filmed in a similar vein to MONDO CANE but instead of cultural references, it portrayed scenes of death. It’s estimated that forty percent of it was recreations and “faked”. That means over half of the movie contains real-life death. To be fair, a large chunk of that is the death of animals, but there are still some scenes of human death. People hear of FACES OF DEATH being on the list and the usual reaction is an understanding nod.

The majority of the list was filled with what could be classified as “splatterpunk”, movies with high body counts or countless pints of blood. DRILLER KILLER, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Nobody can deny the intense violence of those movies, and you certainly won’t hear people say that children would be fine watching them. But then there were movies included like EVIL DEAD, Dario Argento’s INFERNO and ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN (aka FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN). Sure, there is more violence in those flicks than, say, WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. But the violence is not the purpose for their existence and their fame. EVIL DEAD was almost as much a comedy as horror, INFERNO was dripping with visual style and FRANKENSTEIN was a bizarre experiment in art-house horror and 3-D craziness (only the R-rated version was released in 3-D. There was a cut released as an X, but director Paul Morrissey decided that full frontal male nudity was too much to see popping off the screen). Yet, because these movies were also not appropriate for children, they were banned out of fear they would end up in kids’ hands. They had already been rated for theatrical release and if the ratings were followed, they would not end up in the hands of children. But a survey was done among grammar school children and they were presented with a list of Video Nasties and more than half the kids stated they had seen them. This was used as proof that the video stores or parents couldn’t be trusted to keep the children away from these tapes. Later on, one of the UK newspapers did a follow-up with the kids and it turns out that almost all of them will say they’d seen a movie more to feel “cool” around their peers and had actually not seen them. Yet it was still a decade and a half before the Video Recordings Act was altered.

The enthusiasm for banning these nasty videos grew and soon it wasn’t just splatterpunk and torture porn being banned. Sam Peckinpah’s STRAW DOGS was pulled from the shelves. This movie has been an influence on directors for years to come. Is there violence? Sure. But the point of the movie is to show how violence can negatively affect even the biggest pacifist. That is hardly exploitive, but the mere existence of the violence was enough for the board to turn up their noses. Similarly, Andrzej Zulawski’s POSESSION was banned as well. This surreal examination of the dissolution of a marriage through the dissolution of the psyche has some violence, but not nearly as much as most Australian Rules Football games. It won awards at Cannes and even scored the Cesar Award (the French equivalent of the Oscar). Yet nobody, not even the most responsible adult, was allowed to view it in the UK.

In 2009, the Video Recordings Act was finally updated. It allowed for an 18 rating and most of the Video Nasties eventually saw release, either in edited versions or fully uncut. However, there is still a law saying a movie must be submitted to the BBFC before the DVD can legally be sold there. Currently there is a campaign for a “Voluntary 18” for small distribution companies who cannot afford to go through the certification process, where they would voluntarily accept the highest rating without having to submit to the bureaucratic process. So far it has not passed.

Should any movies be on a banned list? Personally, I won’t be thrilled if my daughter came home with FACES OF DEATH. But you won’t see me telling another adult not to watch it. And you certainly won’t hear me calling to make it illegal; not because of any great FACES OF DEATH love, but because once we set that precedent you never what great work of art might follow close behind.

WHERE TO FIND THE MOVIES: In the US, none of the Video Nasties were ever banned. In the UK, eleven of the original 39 are still banned:

THE BEAST IN HEAT
BLOOD RITES
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
FOREST OF FEAR
FROZEN SCREAM
GESTAPO’S LAST ORGY
LOVE CAMP 7
MARDI GRAS MASSACRE
NIGHTMARE MAKER
WEREWOLF AND THE YETI
WOMEN BEHIND BARS

However, with the advent of the internet, I dare say that, if you want to see one of the movies, there will be a way one way or another.

--Jen Orosel

The Hand that Reads #3: Turning Nothing into Something

2011-11-04T03:35:00.000-07:00

by JW Schnarr

Recently a discussion on a small press forum got me thinking about some of the dynamics involved in the small presses, and how I've made them work for me over the years. This is something I picked up on some years ago, and it really is a no-brainer. I'm actually amazed more people haven't caught on to it.

In the last ten years or so I've seen magazines replaced by the rise of the small press anthology - books often put together by Indie writers dabbling in the waters of the publishing world (they are vast and deep, believe me, I've done it myself).

These books don't usually pay much, and they don't usually sell much. Nobody makes any money off them. The writer adds a publishing credit to his or her resume, the publisher goes out of business, and the circle of life continues in grand fashion. These books are often looked down on by more established writers, and the professional industry at large almost completely ignores them.

Years ago I gave up on 4TL and token payment markets, insisting on what's generally considered to be "semi-pro" payment for work sold. But even the 1-3 cents a word I usually sell for is really a joke compared to what I make writing professionally. The money is merely to settle my own piece of mind that my work has value and other people believe that as well.

But there's an easy way for a writer to ramp up the value of a story while gaining exposure AND helping out the publishers who are going broke putting these books out. Ready? It's really groundbreaking stuff.
Buy some books yourself, and sell them.

Mind blowing, right?

Now there's a catch: you need to submit to publishers who offer trade discounts to authors (40% or more), and honestly if they're not doing that, they really need to learn something about marketing, don't they? The discount is the same they'd give to a bookstore, and believe me, you, as a contributor, are going to sell more books for them than any single bookstore.

Let's do some easy math. The publisher gives you a book for say, $9 or $10. If you order 10, you might even get a deal on shipping. But if not, let's say your investment bounces up to 11 bucks per book. (S&H gets cheaper per piece the more you order). Now, go sell the book for $15 to $16 (a common Indie book price), and pocket the difference. Do it 10 times and add $40 to $50 to the value of the story you wrote. When you've sold out, put another order in.

The economics of this setup are perfect for everyone. The retail cost for 10 books might be $150. Broken down, that's $50 for the printer, $50 for the publisher, and $50 for a certain enterprising contributor. If it was originally a 4TL market, congratulations, you just graduated to paid status. If you were getting a token or semi-pro payment, well, you might have just added a cent or three to the value of your story. Over the course of several years, that little 4TL contribution could eventually generate hundred of dollars in revenue for you and the publisher. And it will continue to generate revenue as long as you keep pushing it.

Can't afford a table at your local Con? How about a craft fair? How about a flea market? Hell, I've sold books at the pub. I've sold them at weddings and funerals. Believe me, I'm not bragging about funeral sales. But there was drinking involved, and they were insistent. I keep boxes of books in the trunk of my car because you never know when the subject is going to come up. When somebody says, "do you have any copies of your book?" you ALWAYS want to say yes.

As for the tables, get a handful of these anthologies working for you and you're going to look like a REAL WRITER with a table full of books containing your work. Guess what? You ARE a real writer.

Too often Indie writers feel that support for small press means hanging out on forums and networking, or they mistakenly believe cash should only ever flow one direction - from the publisher to the writer (that saying actually means something else entirely). Real support for Indie markets grows out of mutual work on behalf of the publisher and the writer to reach target markets.

Too many Indie writers sell a story and then write off the book it appears in forever, moving on to another story without another thought. This is one way to do it, but in my opinion it's a very narrow-minded view. It's missed opportunity.

So next time you sell a story, bite the bullet and order a handful of copies. It helps you, and it helps the publisher stay in business. A low paying market may not be such a big deal to you or your online writer buddies, but it is a big deal indeed to people who have never written a story, who are impressed that you have been published, and are interested in hearing about your work, buying a signed copy, and reading what you've created. Hell, they may even LIKE it. They might come looking for more next time you have a story to sell. And I guarantee you'll love signing the book and pocketing some cash.

"JW Schnarr is a writer from Claresholm, AB. He works as a reporter/photographer by day and a horror writer/publisher by night. He is the author of "Things Falling Apart" and Alice & Dorothy. JW can be reached at jwschnarr@hotmail.com

Servante of Darkness #4: Grotesques and the Southern Gothic

2011-11-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

Trailer Park Noir (2011) by Ray Garton

Reviewed by Anthony Servante

Welcome to the Darkness, dear readers. This month we take a look at the underside of the American Dream, that vile village known as the trailer park. We shall investigate the people who populate such a place, through the eyes of Ray Garton, grotesque characters like those one would find in the Southern Gothic novel, in works by the likes of Robert E. Howard (Pigeons from Hell), William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O’Connor, and Tennessee Williams.

“Southern Gothic” novels would often have macabre characters in exaggerated locales. According to Philip Thomson in his work, The Grotesque (1972) Methuen & Co. Ltd., the characters are usually considered ‘grotesque’ if they induce both empathy and antipathy. Ray Garton’s Trailer Park Noir (2011) meets this definition with its slew of odd characters and urban blithe setting. But, instead of a post-Civil War South, Garton places his characters in a trailer park, the underbelly of middle-class America. In essence, we could call the noir novel, a Southern California Gothic.

The story takes place in a Riverside, California trailer park where sleazy characters reside and the comings and goings of the police would not be unexpected. The characters are distorted tragic figures, traversing the normal and abnormal qualities of disharmony with “unresolved conflicts of work and response” (Thomson). In other words, we like the characters at the same time that we dislike them. There are no heroes here to cheer. We can only hope for some redemption to overcome the repulsion. We cringe as the trailer park characters go from bad to worse. So, let’s delve into our cast of characters from the Riverside Mobile Home Park and see how they work and respond to their dark situations.

Typical of the “Southern Gothic” is the story’s reliance on a character with a childlike mind but corrupted body or soul. William Faulkner's innocent is the mentally handicapped Benji from The Sound and the Fury; Carson McCullers’ the deaf-mute John Singer in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Ray Garton has Kendra Dunfy, a twelve year old girl stuck in the body of a seductive young woman, sixteen going on twenty-six. Kendra longs to do “naughty” things, as she is only beginning to learn what “naughty” even means. Boys her own age are confused by her but men, both married and single, are drawn to her with lewd temptations, both physical and mental, in fantasy and plan.

Marcus Reznick sees in the beautiful nubile girl the young wife he had his first sexual relations with since high school. Yet he grapples with his desires for this “retarded” teenager with a child’s mind, fighting off his temptations and erections by thinking of returning to his alcoholic ways. The loss of his wife to suicide, graphically described in the book, haunts the Private Investigator Reznick and had driven him to drink. Kendra reawakens the desires in him that he came to the trailer park to escape. Tension of tragic proportions ensues.

Steve Regent sees in Kendra’s photogenic sexuality his ticket to a bonanza on his pornography website, although he does not realize or possibly does not care that Kendra is underage, but he sizes her up as an easy mark because of her handicap. He allows his greed and lust to dictate his actions. He tricks the young girl into disrobing so that he can photograph her and plans to seduce her on video to satisfy his own desires and quench the lusts of his many website clients. Unlike Reznick, Regent does not seek to control or hide his ‘erections’ and a series of bad events is set in motion.

Kendra’s mother, Anna, becomes a stripper by night and a temp by day, opposing figures that create conflict with the raising of a daughter who also embodies conflicting personalities: child versus young woman. Anna vies to allow her daughter some independence accorded a sixteen year old girl, while worrying that the unsupervised girl may be in danger because her attractive features will draw in bad men. She even worries about her neighbor Reznick, whom she likes and trusts, but whom she promises to ‘kill’ should he deflower her daughter. No jury with a mother on it would convict her of murder, she reasons to herself. Her maternal instinct is murder.

Rose, Anna’s sister, often baby-sits Kendra and lectures her sister about her daughter’s sexuality and the risks she is taking by being a stripper. Rose tells Anna that Kendra would make a good stripper, that she has what men want to see. The sisters argue over the needless comparison of Anna’s voluptuous body to that of Kendra’s and Anna recalls how her parents never discussed such vulgar topics in their home. But Rose reminds her that in her own home, Rose speaks freely of sex to her own son and daughter, without realizing that she is merely leaving the impression that she may be a bit too liberal with her talk of sex with her pre-teen kids. Only confusion can ensue with the mixed messages her kids are receiving, much as Kendra’s own confusion drives the plot.

More grotesque characters abound in this noir novel.

Arnold Garvis, the corpse in Sherry and Andy’s trailer, has a “mom [who] is hooked on pills and his dad drinks and sees hookers. But they go to church every Sunday, so I guess it all ... evens out.” Muriel Snodgrass, park manager, “was a fat pasty-white woman with a big belly, but spindly legs that came like sticks out of the baggy blue shorts she wore. Her black-dyed hair – and a bad job, too – was a mess.” Linda Straight, Reznick’s client, learns her husband’s cheating on her with several women—an example of grotesque exaggeration and excess. Also, Reznick’s parents are killed by a robber soon after he loses his wife—more excess. Senator Wilson Garvis is “big on morals and family values and prayer in schools”, while hiring hookers in his spare time. Monica, the Goth girl, and seven year old Valerie—both already wise to the ways of sex—try to initiate Kendra into being naughty. And on and on the list goes. We have drug addicts, wife beaters, perverts, murderers, rapists, abortionists, many of whom are good church-goers or come from good families (perhaps with the exception of Steve Regent, an irredeemable scoundrel similar to the carpetbaggers infesting the fallen South).

Ray Garton has gathered a cast of characters that could easily fit into a Southern Gothic: grotesque figures, inside and out, morally and physically. Trailer Park Noir (I have found myself mistakenly typing Trailer ‘Trash’ Noir a number of times—just to show you how seedy these characters are) echoes the “trashy” characters one would expect to find in gothic novels of the old South, where the Civil War turned the grand society of civility and manners into a wasteland of bitter losers trying in vain to hold onto their former dignity. Where once there was great light, there now fell a vast darkness. Garton tells us, “When I wrote Trailer Park Noir, I wanted to capture the feeling of Shady Hill Trailer Park that I experienced as a little boy and then reveal the dark underside. But somehow, that eluded me. It was overshadowed by what the park had become.” And what it had become was a Southern California Gothic.

(Visit Ray Garton at his official website)

--Anthony Servante

It Came From the Back Issue Bin! #22: Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2011

2011-11-04T03:25:00.000-07:00

by Jason Shayer

I’m taking a well deserved break from comic books this month after review all of DC’s New 52 comics last month. While I didn’t get a press pass this year for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, the organizers were kind enough to comp me a couple of passes to two of their films: Monster Brawl and VS.

Before moving onto my reviews, I wanted to make note of the new venue for the festival, The Toronto Underground Cinema. I was a bit disappointed with the new venue and not really so much for the theatre itself, which is great, but I found the location odd as it was in the basement of a dying condo building along Spadina Avenue. The area wasn’t as vibrant as the trendy student-focused neighbourhood that surrounded the previous venue, The Bloor Cinema, and seriously lacked some good restaurants.

Monster Brawl (2011)
From the film’s Facebook page:

“Set in the tradition of a Pay-Per-View main event, comes a grotesque and hilarious fight to the death featuring a cast of eight classic combatants in all. Along with their colorful managers, these Monsters compete in visceral bloody combat in the ring to determine the most powerful monster of all time. Monster Brawl stars comedian Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall, Bugs Life, Despicable Me), wrestling icons Jimmy Hart - The Mouth of the South, Kevin Nash, revered MMA referee Herb Dean, Robert Maillet (300, Sherlock Holmes, The Immortals), Art Hindle (Porky's, Black Christmas) and the voice of horror legend and Call of Duty narrator Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Terminator). Monster Brawl is sure to be a cult classic in the making!”

Monster Brawl delivered exactly what was advertized, but unfortunately nothing more. The story’s linear progression got a bit tiring and at times painfully predictable. What lies at the center of its weakness was the event-style plot. It really needed its own story-driven plot, even something as simple as having a couple of kids sneak on to the set and have them get into trouble would have giving the audience something to identify with beside the monsters. I also found that it wasn’t feasible to fit in the appropriate amount of screen time for each monster to establish that connection the movie maker was hoping would help create that Pay-Per-View event feel and generate participation for the audience.

VS. (2011)
Four Super Heroes find themselves abducted by their Arch Nemesis and are forced to compete in a series of challenges in order to save an abandoned town full of kidnapped innocent civilians.

Unfortunately, the trailer was exceptionally well done and really didn’t reflect the overall effort behind the movie. While the premise was intriguing, the execution failed on several levels. The movie’s creator wanted to tell a superhero story without their powers. Keeping in mind that this was an Indy comic book movie, having the heroes stripped of their powers seemed to be a bad decision. Perhaps regaining them at some point would have added a bit more intensity and reward and might have helped drive the creator’s point across more effectively.

The dialog was painful, even for a lifelong comic book reader like myself. Apparently this movie was shot over 10 days and written in a week, and it showed. The flashback sequences were well crafted, but came too late as you really didn’t feel for these characters as they faced their deathtraps.

This sampling of films wasn’t enough for me to gage the quality at this year’s Toronto After Dark Film Festival. From other accounts, the overall quality of the Festival was quite good, even better than last year. I’m already looking forward to next year.

--Jason Shayer

Graphic Horrors

2011-11-04T03:20:00.000-07:00

By Brian M. Sammons

Ok, not much in the way of horror games this month, although I have two ginormous titles to discuss. One broke the sales records of…well everything. Books, movies, music, even other video games; they were all blown away by this 800 pound gorilla, but does huge sales automatically translate into a great game?

As for the other game, that one sold like gangbusters too, and it does have ghosts, walking skeletons, demons, and all sorts of monsters in it, so while not horror per say, it does have some of the flavor. Oh and it also happens to be the hands down winner for my Game of the Year and one of the best video games of all time. Yeah, that’s not just hyperbole, it’s a fact. Or at the very least, that’s my highly educated opinion. And since I don’t believe in saving the best for last, I’m going to start with that amazing game now and prove it to you.

THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM, by Bethesda Softworks, Rated M, PC, PS3, Xbox 360

This is not only my Game of the Year for 2011, but it honestly could be the best game of this generation of consoles. Never before has a game world been so fully and completely realized. Never before have you been given so many options on how to play, both in what type of character you want to truck around as, but where you want to go in a huge, sprawling map filled with wonderfully realized and vastly different locations. SKYRIM is easily the greatest sandbox game ever, blowing your mind with an almost limitless amount of choice and game play that seems to go on and on forever, if you want it to, or a main story line that can be rushed through in a couple of sittings if that’s your thing. However, if that is your thing, don’t bother with this game, it’s not for you. SKYRIM is meant to be savored, enjoyed, and experienced for days and days, perhaps months and months. If you are the type of gamer that loves to lose yourself in a RPG, then this game will do that for you like no other has done before.

The actual main story of SKYRIM is pretty straightforward fantasy fare. You play as one of a half dozen or so fantasy races, from cat and lizard people, to three different types of elves, and even a few human types from different parts of the kingdom. Even the ever present orc, usually resigned to just being sword fodder in games like these, is a race you can choose to play. Whomever you play as, you find yourself in the land of Skyrim, think of it as the home of Vikings as it is a very wild and often snowy place, but also a starkly beautiful land.

Your character is a “dragon born” which means that when you slay dragons you can absorb some of their power and then use it against your enemies by shouting at them in the mystical dragon language. The varieties of dragon powers you can learn are impressive, from the typical breathing fire thing to more neat tricks like slowing time or summoning a raging storm to hurl lightning bolts at your foes. And it’s a good thing you just came to Skyrim, as the dragons, long thought to be extinct, are starting to fly again in ever increasing numbers. It soon becomes your duty and destiny to find out what’s bringing the dragons back and to stop them before the whole world is lost to the flames.

And when I said before that this game was big, I meant it was freaking huge! There are so many side quests, miscellaneous adventures, and random bits of fantasy adventure goodness to explore that the creators of this game have said that to complete it all would take over 300 hours. Yes, I said 300 hours! And in these harsh economic times, that’s one hell of a bargain. If the 300 hour estimate is true, and so far I have yet to see anything even hinting that it’s not, and you bought this game at the usual price of $60 US, that translates into just twenty cents per hour of entertainment. No other video game has ever given you so much for so little, and that includes online multiplayer games that routinely soak you for new DLC map packs every three months or so.

But a whole lot of something, if bad, is still not a good thing. Thankfully SKYRIM is very good, damn near perfect, in so many ways.

The way you play this game is wonderfully fresh and liberating as you don’t play a class, like a warrior or a wizard. Instead you get a bunch of skills and the ones you use more are the ones you will excel in. Do you like casting fireballs and bolts of ice at the bad guys? Then do so and soon you will be a better combat wizard than Harry Potter could ever hope to be. Do you like bashing things with big, intimidating weapons? Well just keep doing that and you’ll be a bigger badass than Conan ever was. Or do you prefer to be more subtle and sneaky? Then go ahead and play that way and you’ll be the slyest master thief in no time. This freedom also means there are no ends of the possibilities of what kind of heroic adventurer you want to play. Me, I’m a fireball chucking, great axe wielding, heavy armor wearing, death machine who can pick a mean lock and forge my own high-end weapons and armor and then enchant them to deal even more hurt to my enemies. Yeah, that’s role playing freedom the likes of which has never been realized so completely before. When this game tells you to play it however you want to, it actually means it.

Then there is the world this great game is set it. Yes it is huge, but it is also beautiful and at times literally breathtaking. I cannot count the number of times I stopped doing whatever it was I was doing to look around at the scenery and all that was around me and was just floored by the detail and how amazing it all looked. One of the main reasons people play games like these is to see things they’ve never seen before and to adventure in a world of harsh beauty. It’s one of the things that made the LORD OF THE RINGS movies so memorable and its one of the things this game gets so very right. SKYRIM just looks great.

Now all this praise, while fully warranted, doesn’t mean that SKYRIM doesn’t have its share of foibles, boo-boos, and bugs. Thankfully such things are minor, but they’re still annoying. Currently there are some graphical glitches that keep the game from looking as good as it should. There were also a couple of bugs that all but halted two of the quests I was doing. Luckily they were non-essential side quests, but it was still very annoying. And yes, the game completely locked up on me in that sadly familiar Bethesda way three times. Yeah, that never makes me happy, but that sadly seems par for the course anymore. Then there were the occasional funny bits, like mammoths floating in air and objects, usually the dead bodies of your enemies, clipping into solid objects like walls and tables and becoming stuck that while not game breaking are still a bummer to experience. Perhaps my biggest gripe is not a bug but the many, and usual long, load times you get any time you transition from any outside location to an inside one, no matter how small the new location may be. However, that is a small price to pay for such a giant world to go adventuring it, and just the nature of the beast when it comes to sandbox games, so I try not to let it get to me too much.

In closing, there has never been a game, RPG or otherwise, as big, freeing, or fun as THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM. I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute I’ve spent with it and I fully intend to spend a whole lot more in that wonderfully realized fantasy world, slaying dragons, climbing the highest mountains and delving the darkest dungeons. I just can’t get enough of this game and I can’t think of the last time I felt that way over anything, be it game, movie, book or other.

THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM easily gets 5 dragon shouts that blast baddies to bits out of 5. If you get one video game this year, or even the next, make sure it is this game.

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3, by Infinity Ward and Activision, Rated M, PC, PS3, Xbox 360

What more can be said about the MODERN WARFARE series that hasn’t already been said? If you know about this game at all then you know what it’s all about. Even if you’re not a gamer (then I’ve got to wonder what you’re doing reading this) chances are you still know all about MODERN WARFARE. Not only does the series continue to break sales records with every new installment, but it has had a mega dollar media blitz like nothing else ever. Hell, even my mom knows what this game’s all about and she’s never played a video game, ever. So with all that said the chances are very high that if you want this game, you’ve already got it and if you don’t care about CoD: MW3, there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. But hey, it’s my job to tell you about games, so I had better get to it.

The story of MW3 picks right up where the previous game ended, with the much loved character of “Soap” barely hanging on to life after an epic battle. As for the whole rest of the world, it is smack dab in the middle of World War 3! As with other CoD games, the action will jump around all over the globe and you’ll be playing as any number of solders and special operations bad asses. You’ll start in New York City but then quickly hop over to London, Paris, Germany, Africa, Russia, and on and on before finally wrapping up the trilogy’s storyline if a pretty satisfying way. Seriously, if you can think of a setting, chances are you will do battle there in this game. Not only that, but MW3 is jam packed with explosive action set pieces that would make Michael Bay drool and leave you laughing or with your mouth agape wondering what the hell you just saw.

But the single player story mode isn’t all exploding golden goodness. It has a tendency to put you into far too many on-rails gun sequences. That is, you’ll be in a vehicle of some kind and have no control of the movement. You’ll have to shoot wave after wave of bad guys while your AI controlled buddies do the driving. There are still elements to cool in this, as you get to travel by land, sea, air and even underground in mini-subs, man-sized robo-tanks, full-sized real tanks, choppers, trucks, insanely overly armed flying gunships, and more. But the fact that you do this kind of thing again and again, and then a couple times more just for good measure, does start to get old, no matter how cool the ride.

That said, CoD:MW3 is like the best, over the top action movie you ever watched, but one that just so happens to put you in charge of the action. Well, at least most of the time when you’re not riding around on rails. While it doesn’t do anything really new, it does the ever popular modern military first person shooter thing better than any other game out there.

And then there is the real reason people buy this game; the online multiplayer component. Simply put, if fragging your real life friends (not to mention many foul-mouthed, raciest, homophobic teenagers, yes thank you Xbox Live) is what you live for, then this is the game for you. Period. Sure, the learning curve is brutal and you’ll get wasted over and over again in a blink of an eye until you get your footing, but you’ll have fun doing it. Also, this time around the geniuses at Infinity Ward, or should I say those that remain after the mass, news making exodus, has made things a little easier for those who can’t rack up the kill streaks with a support class. Now even the noobs can contribute something to the war effort. It’s little tweaks and perfections like this that proves once again no one does multiplayer better than CoD. They have really taken the online experience to the apex and it looks like they will remain on top for the far foreseeable future.

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3 gets 4 ac-130 flying gunships blowing the holy hell out of everything out of 5. What it does it does better than anyone else, but it must be said that a new CoD game every single year is getting to be a bit much. Activision, if you’re reading this, please don’t kill off these series like you did with GUITAR HERO.

--Brian Sammons

The Horror Playlist: "Dead Dog" Playlist

2011-11-04T03:15:00.000-07:00

compiled by Nickolas Cook

With one of five new books coming out in the next few months, I've been swamped doing edits and finishing the first drafts on some of them. I spend quite a lot of time writing every day and some days are easier than others. One thing I try to do to make it easier to slip into my writing mode is building soundtracks for each of my books. The book which is looming the soonest for release is DEAD DOG, the first in a series of books about a couple of violent good old boys named Max and Little Billy, who live in a small redneck town in Florida, and find themselves in trouble with the local drug czar during an informal investigation into the torture death of a young boy. While this isn't exactly a horror novel, it does deal with horrific elements and some very nasty people. As you can imagine this isn't something I'd like to live inside for that many hours a day--which all told is probably somewhere around 300 hours or more by now. It takes some revving up on some days to get there so I can write an honest narrative.

For DEAD DOG I had to build a soundtrack that reflected what the two main characters would most likely be listening to in their time and place, which in this case was Deep South Florida, circa mid-1970s. Below I'm including the TOP 13 songs on that particular playlist, but I'm also including the url for the complete playlist which I built on YouTube for my listening pleasure when I was online while writing. So here's to hoping you'll enjoy it as much as I have for the past few months, during the writing and editing process of DEAD DOG.

Url link for the complete up to date playlist soundtrack for DEAD DOG: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC38FE7D0328CE56D&feature=mh_lolz

(P.S.--DEAD DOG will be coming out with Grand Mal Press, so keep an eye out for it, buy it, read it and let me know what you think.)

13. Since I Don't Have You

The Skyliners (1959)
from the "American Graffiti Soundtrack"

12. Southern Man

Neil Young (1970)
from "After the Gold Rush"

11. Run Through the Jungle

CCR (1970)
from "Cosmo's Factory"

10. Requiem Mass in D Minor (K626)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1791)
from "Mozart: Requiem In D Minor"

9. Death Is the Road to Awe

Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet (2006)
from "The Fountain Soundtrack"

8. God's Gonna Cut You Down

Johnny Cash (2006)
from "American V: A Hundred Highways"

7. When the Levee Breaks

Led Zeppelin (1971)
from "IV"

6. Stardust

Louis Armstrong and the Tommy Dorsey Band (1947)
from "Stardust: Classic Satchmo"

5. Blue In Green

Miles Davis (1959)
from "Kind of Blue"

4. Ain't Too Proud To Beg

The Temptations (1966)
from "Motown 50"

3. Moonlight Mile

The Rolling Stones (1971)
from "Sticky Fingers"

2. Are You Sure Hank Did It This Way

Waylon Jennings (1975)
from "Dreaming My Dreams"

1. Trouble Man

Marvin Gaye (1972)
from "Trouble Man Soundtrack"

--Nickolas Cook