Tomb of the Headless Werewolf

Heaping More Love on The Last Werewolf

2011-11-30T07:56:00.000-08:00

Not only does The Last Werewolf look to become a major text in horror literature (and perhaps the "great" novel that has eluded werewolf literature), but it also marks an interesting collaboration between written literature and music. Glen Duncan writes--and reads--with blood-drenched elegance, as the video below demonstrates.

The Last Werewolf Is Our New Favorite Book

2011-11-29T07:49:00.000-08:00

Not a lot of time for updates anymore here in the tomb, but one thing's for sure: we still love our werewolves, even when they come with heads. A recent must-read on the book stands comes in the form of Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf, and by all means, read a copy as soon as possible. In the meantime, The Real Tuesday Weld has put together a marvelous soundtrack for the book, including what you find in the dandy video above.

Happy Birthday, Lon Chaney

2011-04-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

In the midst of all the April 1st tomfoolery, the birthday of Lon Chaney should not go unnoticed. Born on April 1st, 1883, Lon Chaney entered the nascent cinema industry and created horrific make-up designs and monstrous imagery that still resonate today.

Give It Up for the Queen of the Pulps

2010-11-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

Pictured above, Margaret Brundage's first cover for Weird Tales, the original of which sold for over $50,000 at a 2008 auction. The most recent issue of the newest incarnation of Weird Tales ran an overview of her work in its pages by Paula Guran and included some interesting, even sad morsels of information. Despite the fact that an original painting would go for such a high figure in 2008, Brundage spent the the years leading up to her death in 1976 living in near-poverty and even had some of her work stolen at science fiction conventions. Guran cites John Clute and Peter Nicholls as describing Brundage as "the first woman artist to work in the sf/fantasy field, and the first of their sex whose covers featured nudes."

Following "The Alter of Melek Taos," her work became even more . . . well, interesting, as Brundage continued to explore subversive expressions of sexuality, with suggestions of bondage and s & m that apparently divided the magazine's readership. In Guran's article appears a quotation by Robert Weinberg: "When readers complained about nudity on the cover, [editor] Farnsworth Wright had Brundage do cover without nudes. Complaints flowed into the magazine office, and within a month, the nudes were back." We tomb dwellers situate ourselves firmly in the latter camp.

Dracula is bigger than Jesus.

2010-11-08T10:16:00.001-08:00

Hey, It's Bram Stoker's birthday. I implore you to take some time out of your day and reflect on the man who gave us the greatest literary and pop-culture icon of all time.

The Tomb’s Favorites of the Decade: The Forgotten, the Rejected, the Ignored

2010-01-05T08:06:00.000-08:00

I’m a junkie for lists of favorites, but I often find it a hopeless task to compile my own, especially when I have to choose selections from a decade which—despite all our bitchin’ and moanin’ about remakes and sequels—was actually quite a good one in the horror genre. To hopefully avoid duplicating the many fine lists running through the blogosphere (sheesh, who wants consensus?), I plan to focus on a) films that may have run under the radar, b) may have had only a fleeting moment of attention, or c) may be hated and loathed by just about everyone else.

La Fiancée de Dracula (2002): While the French stole the latter part of the decade with excellent films like INSIDE and MARTYRS, my heart goes to Jean Rollin’s return to vampire themes. Less concerned with plot and more concerned with the creation of a pastiche of images, Rollin continues to deconstruct our preconceptions of what constitutes a vampire movie. Here, the images are lush, disturbing, and strangely romantic without a single glittering vampire in sight.

Rojo Sangre (2004): Christian Molina’s film brings us not only Paul Naschy’s finest performance, but it’s a self-reflexive horror film that avoids the problems that often mar other films of its kind, namely a sense of superiority over its material. Naschy’s performance as a washed-up actor is marvelous, and his final descent into madness is appropriately disturbing.

The Host (2006): Korea’s excellent take on kaiju tropes came before CLOVERFIELD and offers more emotional intensity, as well as a more frightening creature. In addition to causing the usual city mayhem, this creature maintains a lair for its human “food” that is the stuff of nightmares.

Teeth (2007): Michael Lichtenstein brings us a sharp satire that does not skimp on the horror, as a promoter of teenage abstinence comes to her own unique sexual awakening when her vagina dentata put the bite on those who test her “purity.”

Land of the Dead (2005): While I enjoyed Zach Snyder’s remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, what I love most about it is that it gave Universal Studios the stones to allow George Romero to make the fourth installment of his “Dead” series. Mainstream critics, and fans seemed to applaud it—at first. Then the naysayers piped in, and now the common wisdom seems to be that it “divides” the fans. Me, I loved it when it came out, and still love it. I hope that time is good to this one the same way that time was good to DAY OF THE DEAD.

I Know Who Killed Me (2007): I’m serious. I know that this may destroy whatever meager credibility that I may have had in the first place, but I did promise to include the “rejected” on this list, no? So, yes, I’m including Chris Sivertson’s derided homage to the Italian giallo, which I find charming for its loony plot twists and gloriously blue gel lighting, despite the baggage it brings with the casting of Lindsay Lohan. I saw this all by myself in a big theater auditiorium, and I’m sure I’m still all alone in my assessment of this one.

Wild Country (2005): I have no trouble admitting that DOG SOLDIERS and GINGER SNAPS are better werewolf films, but hardly anyone is talking about this very modest Scottish production. While its creature effects wind up diminishing the film’s overall effect, director Craig Strachan scores big with atmosphere and setting. Love the moor scene in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON? Then this is one to savor for its moody use of forests and castle ruins.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2008): And I have no problem admitting that I love her as well. This past decade showed us that the cadaverous body of the slasher film will rise, and rise, and continue to rise. Jonathan Levine’s film manages to give us a sliver of freshness, however, especially with an ending that I honestly didn’t see coming.

Roman (2006): In 2003, the wonderful MAY put Lucky McKee on the map, along with his amazing leading lady, Angela Bettis. In this follow-up, the two switch roles, with Bettis directing, and McKee showing that he has excellent acting chops of his own. Once again, we have a horror movie that focuses on the outcast and the lengths that one will go to in order to find acceptance and love. This film makes a wonderful double-bill with MAY.

The Black Cat (2007): Stuart Gordon’s second installment in the “Masters of Horror” series brings us one of the finest adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, cleverly casting Jeffrey Combs as Poe himself. Readers frequently confuse Poe’s mad narrators with Poe the writer, but this film turns confusion into a brilliant conceit, calling upon us to consider madness as an essential component in the process of creating dark art. Strangely, this film provides us with a rarity in the world of Poe: a happy ending. Combs continues to play the part of Poe in the stage production of NEVERMORE, which I, sadly, have not yet seen.

Jacinto Molina, 1934-2009

2009-12-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

Paul Naschy has passed away, having impacted horror cinema in a way that still has not been fully appreciated or fully understood. The accompanying still comes from ROJO SANGRE, a film which features one of Naschy's greatest performances, a capstone to a career marked by notable films such as HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF, and THE BEAST AND THE MAGIC SWORD. Naschy's best films function as sumptuous gothic fairy tales, and his work is truly overdue for serious attention as landmarks in international horror cinema. I never had the opportunity to meet him, but I will still miss him dearly.

"Sticks": An Unsung Influence on THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT?

2009-09-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

Recently, both RUE MORGUE and HORROR HOUND magazines have run retrospectives on THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT to commemorate the film's 10 year anniversary, but surprisingly, neither magazine mentions Karl Edward Wagner's "Sticks," an unsettling short story that uses similar plot contrivances. Whether or not the young upstarts who created the influential film knew of Wagner's story seems uncertain, but the several striking parallels exist between the two narratives.

Wagner's story focuses upon the discovery of a series of crudely made "framework of sticks" found by an artist named Colin Leverett while exploring a remote section of woods. Wagner describes the latticework as "half a dozen odd lengths of branch, wired together at cross angles for no fathomable purpose. It reminded [Leverett] of some bizarre crucifix. . ." Aside from the obvious similarity to the construction of wooden sticks that figure prominently in the film, Wagner's story takes a similar trajectory in that the sticks ultimately lead Leverett to the ruins of a "colonial farmhouse," which consists of a foundation that seems "disproportionately massive." Finding more lattices, Leverett makes his way to the basement, where he makes a striking discovery:

"The cellar was enormous--even more so in the darkness. Leverett reached the foot of the steps and paused for his eyes to adjust to the damp gloom. An earlier impression recurred to him. The cellar was too big for the house. Had another dwelling stood here originally--perhaps destroyed and rebuilt by one of lesser fortune?"

Horror mounts as Leverett proceeds deeper into this cellar, where he has a truly horrific encounter involving a stone sacrificial table, one that easily outstrips what we see/don't see in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT--and all this occurs in just the first section of Wagner's story. As the story continues, the Lovecraftian dimensions of this discovery become increasingly evident, as we see Leverett become embroiled in conspiracy that affects both his life and art.

Just as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT manipulated the fuzzy boundary between art and reality, so too does "Sticks," albeit in a different manner. According to the introduction to the story by David G. Hartwell (found in the anthology DARK DESCENT), Wagner found inspiration in "an anecdote of the great horror artist, Lee Brown Coye, who told of strange, weird artifacts and drawings found in an abandoned farmhouse in upstate New York and around it." Information about the artist, as well as a sample of his work involving the sticks that became a motif in his work, can be found here.

Spooky Fiction by the Son of the Headless Werewolf

2009-08-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

My six year old has decided to take up a career in writing, and after visiting the spooky grounds of Spanish Point in southwest Florida, he found his inspiration. Behold the result (and I hope you understand why I'm a proud daddy to be giving him his first publication).

The Guptill House

It all started at my house. I was about to go to bed. Don’t sneak out this house, mom said. So I went to bed. And the window was open. So I climbed out of the window and went toward an old house called Guptill House. So I went in the house from the side door. As I entered, the door fell off. Inside I saw a black and white picture of a guy. He looked like my uncle. Then I started to hear organ music coming from the foyer. So, I went to the foyer and it was locked. So I walked away. Then the door opened. So I went in the door. Inside, it was so beautiful. I thought I was blind, but when it thundered, it was old as a spider web. Then I heard the organ music again. It was coming from Mary’s chapel. So I went toward the chapel and opened the door and there it was a headless organ player. I was so scared I ran all the way home. The end

Artist Conceptions: The Three "Weird Sisters" of DRACULA

2009-08-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Above, we see Ben Templesmith's interpretation of Dracula's brides, one of the many breath-taking images found in his illustrated edition of DRACULA (published by IDW). When I compiled my list of favorite vampires, how could I forget those three? They appear early in Bram Stoker's DRACULA, putting the bite on the hapless Jonathan Harker, who desperately wants to get away, just as he desperately DOESN'T want to get away. I love the ambiguity of the scene, just as I love the fact that they mirror the three men who pine for Lucy half a globe away. Here's Stoker's original description, and below, you'll more images of varying tone and style: first, from the Fernando Fernandez comic adaptation; next from the recent Dynamite adaptation illustrated by Colton Worely; followed by Joe Ollmann (Graphic Classics) and the amazing Richard Sala (from the tongue-in-cheek LITTLE BOOK OF HORROR: DRACULA).

"They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then shispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon.. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longong and at the same time some deadly fear."

Kinski Goes Vamp Again: NOSFERATU IN VENICE (1988)

2009-08-10T13:26:00.001-07:00

Although well regarded today, Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of NOSFERATU saw its share of critical derision, some viewing it as a production that placed style over substance. For example, the LONDON FINANCIAL TIMES saw it as "a series of swoony dream images that hover perilously on the brink of TV prettiness," while Gene Wright claimed that it was "beautiful to look at, but it barely raises the gooseflesh" (both quoted in Leonard Wolf's HORROR: A CONNOISSEUR'S GUIDE TO LITERATURE AND FILM). What then would they have made of its sequel-in-name-only, the Italian lensed NOSFERATU IN VENICE? A troubled production from its very beginning, its original director, Mario Caiano, left the film after an argument with Klaus Kinski, after which producer Augusto Caminito assigned himself the job of directing the film. Without any actual directing experience, Caminito apparently received help from Argento apprentice Luigi Cozzi, as well as from Kinski himself. While far from any sort of masterpiece, the fact that the film turned out at all watchable seems like a miracle unto itself.

Of course, no one should approach NOSFERATU IN VENICE expecting a coherent narrative. A muddled mess, the story involves a centuries-old vampire--just called "Nosferatu," it seems, though some viewers assume him to be Dracula, if only because Herzog's NOSFERATU gave him that identity. In fact, despite the fact that the film-makers behind NOSFERATU IN VENICE planned on using the same make-up on Kinski, the actor reportedly rejected the idea, insisting upon appearing with a full head of hair. Thus, only the rat-like fangs, seen occasionally in this film, get imported from Herzog's film. Having nothing else in common with that film, the progression of events start with the arrival of Christopher Plummer, here playing a vampire expert with an uncanny physical resemblance to Peter Cushing, to a Venice villa, which was once the site of the vampire's carnage hundreds of years ago. The villa serves as a home to the same family, and it includes a crypt containing a mysterious coffin, which one person in the family suspects belongs to the same undead creature (though the truth turns out to be otherwise). During a seance, the family manages to summon the vampire, who travels to Venice with a death-wish that can only be fulfilled by a woman who gives herself to him willingly.

Again, we have very little to connect to Herzog's remake of NOSFERATU, and ultimately, NOSFERATU IN VENICE actually best resembles an attractively shot remake of DARK SHADOWS, especially with its emphasis on a regal family revisited by an undead menace. Also, perhaps because of Cozzi's influence, this film emphasizes exploitation elements in a much more pronounced way that Herzog's. Blood splatters on occasion, especially with characters having the habit of falling out of windows onto spiked fences, and Kinski plays the character in a much more overtly sexually-ravenous way than he did previously, at times tearing garments off of his female victims. Moreover, the fucking that often only occurs metaphorically in vampire films takes place here in much more literal way. In addition, the film-makers take liberties with vampire lore, including giving Kinski's Nosferatu the ability to manipulate his appearance as well as that of others. This ability proves key during a crucial staking scene.

Despite its short-comings, NOSFERATU IN VENICE does across as a beautifully shot film, most notably in terms of the atmospheric use of Venice locations, and in many ways, it truly out-does Herzog's film in terms of "prettiness." Other arresting visual set-pieces occur later in the film, when the vampire takes his intended victims to an island once occupied by plague victims. Interestingly, while 1979's NOSFERATU received accusations that it amounted to nothing more than a "pretty" film, it has endured as a landmark vampire film. Whether anyone will care about NOSFERATU IN VENICE in later decades, only time will tell.

Naschy Does Japan: THE BEAST AND THE MAGIC SWORD (1983)

2009-08-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

"Unlike the films about Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) which had a certain continuity," points out Paul Naschy in his autobiography, MEMOIRS OF A WOLF MAN, "Waldemar Daninsky can move freely through time and space." While some might view the lack of continuity as evidence of shoddy film-making, this liberation from logic and linearity actually gave Naschy the room to create one of the most dynamic and interesting series of horror films, one originating in the late 1960s with MARK OF THE WOLF MAN and going through the 1990s (or even the new millenium if one chooses to include Fred Olen Ray's TOMB OF THE WEREWOLF, which I don't.) Following the gothic lavishness and visually lush THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF (1980), Naschy created what he views as one of his hallmark achievements in THE BEAST AND THE MAGIC SWORD (1983), a film that removes Daninsky from his usual gothic surroundings and places him in 16th-Century Japan. The resulting film truly deserves present-day re-discovery.

In his memoir, Naschy describes how he found inspiration in a Kyoto legend regarding a bandit known as "The Beast." He writes, "The outlaw had murdered a number of people in the forest--in the 16th century Japan still possessed considerable areas of woodland. . . . The legend tells how The Beast was captured and made to take part in a singular combat against a Bengal tiger. The man from the woods won the fight." Incorporated into the film, this legendary encounter results in an excellent set-piece, as in wolfman form, Daninsky takes on bengal tiger within the ghostly mansion of a Japanese witch. Indeed, the Japanese setting of this film does not change the fact that, like other Daninsky films, the world occupied by the wolfman also includes witches, ghosts, vampires, and other otherworldly creatures. Naschy recycled these tropes throughout the series, in many cases repeating many plot elements, but the new cultural lens gives these repititions a sense of freshness and newness they often lack in previous films.

Arguably, one of the pleasures of Naschy's films comes out of how the actor/screenwriter/director finds different ways of telling the same story. In this case, Daninsky's curse spans generations, beginning in when the Polish hero, Irineus Daninsky, vanquishes a seemingly indestructable "vampire" warrior for a Spanish noble. Driven by revenge, the warrior's witchy wife attacks Irineus' pregnant spouse with the skull of a wolf, resulting in the curse that ultimately leads the 16th-Century Waldemar to Japan. Once there, he seeks the aid of Kian, a Japanese expert in the occult and bad-ass swordsman, who must balance his impulse to cure and aid Daninsky with his duty to protect his community. As these things generally go, nothing turns out ideally, but from the stand-point of horror cinema, some terrific sequences result, including the aforementioned tiger scene and another in which the werewolf chews and drools his way through a Kyoto brothel.

The screen-caps here obviously look less than perfect and bear witness to how this film desperately needs a proper restoration. The recent DVD release of NGHT OF THE WEREWOLF by the now defunct BCI succeeded in turning a few heads and helped others see what the rest of us were raving about. As a grander achievement, THE BEAST AND THE MAGIC SWORD deserves similar treatment. Hopefully we won't have to wait much longer.

Greatest Vampires: The Headless Werewolf Gets Into the Act

2009-08-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

Wounded, limping—and damn, those silver bullets are still in my butt, Pierre!—I rise from surgery (drawn strangely to surgical-themed horrors, but more on that later) to find the horror blogosphere chewing over Entertainment Weekly’s list of the “greatest vampires.” Considering the audience for the magazine, it should come as no surprise that the list caters to the most basic in vampire literacy, taking care not to upset the sensibilities of the TWLIGHT crowd. Some good alternative lists have emerged, and thus, I can’t resist getting into the act, especially when I’m loaded with pain-killers

1. Max Shreck as Graf Orlock in NOSFERATU (1921) emerges as the first choice in many alternative lists, and he will here as well.
2. Christopher Lee as Dracula
3. Eli from LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (novel as well as film)
4. Count Yorga
5. Ingrid Pitt as Carmilla
6. Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
7. Varney the Vampire from Rymer’s penny dreadful
8. Bela Lugosi as Dracula
9. Boris Karloff as Gorca in Mario Bava’s BLACK SABBATH
10. Gloria Holden as Countess Zaleska
11. Soledad Miranda as Countess Nadine Carody
12. Martin from the George Romero film of that title
13. Saint-Germain from Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s novels—a template for the current Edwards, but much more interesting
14. Gary Oldman as Dracula (I know there are haters out there, but I loved what he did with the role, funky hairstyles and all)
15. Fran and Miriam from VAMPYRES
16. Vampirella
17. Claudia from INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE
18. Blacula
19. The girl in the tower in LIPS OF BLOOD
And finally . . .
20. Dracula in the Marvel comics series

Honorable mentions go to the flying head (guts and all) in MYSTICS IN BALI and to Grace Jones, without whom VAMP would be unwatchable.

Something to Tide Us Over Until THE WOLFMAN (2010)

2009-07-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Fangoria and others are now reporting that Joe Johnston's remake of THE WOLFMAN has met with yet another delay and will make its way to theaters in February of 2010. However, an independent film, HOUSE OF THE WOLFMAN, has been piquing interest lately, with some speculating that its 1940s vibe might overshadow Universal's big budget production. Starring Ron Chaney, the film's trailer comes to us via Youtube (among other sources):

On a personal note, I'm set for some minor surgery tomorrow, though my recovery time could take weeks. Maybe . . . just maybe, I'll get a new head!

INCUBUS: Leslie Stevens' Cursed Masterpiece

2009-07-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

An unusual film if only for the decision to have the actors read their lines in Esperanto, Leslie Stevens' INCUBUS (1965) stands as one of the most daring and original American horror films of the 1960s. Featuring an expressionistic landscape of demons and fog, the narrative involves Marc, a young soldier played by William Shatner, who becomes the target of Kia, a tempting force of satanic evil. Having grown tired of corrupt men who fall easily before her, she desires a truly good and courageous soul to deliver to hell. She succeeds in seducing Marc, but in the process, she herself falls prey to the purity of his love and so finds her evil corrupted. To exact her revenge, she summons the incubus, a male demon who rapes Marc's sister during a black mass, consequently drawing out the worst in Marc as he exacts his own bloody revenge.

The main strength of INCUBUS lies in its visual power, suggesting possible influences ranging from HORROR HOTEL to HAXAN and VAMPYR. The latter seems an especially important title to consider in the context of INCUBUS, as it becomes easy to imagine Marc living in the same land of shadows that serves as the setting of Dreyer's masterwork. Indeed, INCUBUS feels very much like a European film, a sensibility that the use of Esperanto reinforces. In terms of a narrative that involves demons trying to tempt mortals, the screenplay seems to come out of a tradition of morality plays that were popular during the medieval era, wherein characters often represented human vices and virtues.

In fact, the film works very much like a tragedy in the classic sense, though it includes set pieces that come across as startling for a film of its time. In particular, the rape of Marc's sister must have disturbed audiences lucky enough to see the film during its original release, as it features some brief if unexpected nudity. Moreover, the film's climactic scene between Kia and a satanic goat threatens to cross the line of good taste in its suggestiveness. Although he has become known for his scenery-chewing, Shatner plays his part remarkably well and, like the rest of the cast, seems to handle the Esperanto almost like a native language.

While POLTERGEIST often comes to mind when people think of cursed horror films, it really has nothing on INCUBUS. The negative and nearly all the prints of the film were lost in a mysterious fire around the time of its 1965 festival run. One of the film's actresses, Ann Atmar, committed suicide, and Milos Milos, who played the incubus, murdered Mickey Rooney's wife. Eloise Hardt, another actress in the film, suffered through the kidnapping and murder of her daughter. Apparently the lucky member of the cast, Shatner would score the part of Captain Kirk one year after the film's production. In addition to chronicling its various tragedies, the DVD from Fox Lorber offers a striking print of the film which we are lucky to enjoy, given the aforementioned fire.

Exhuming Dracula's Daughter

2009-07-14T11:26:00.001-07:00

Pity the female monsters we find in the Universal canon. Their male counterparts seem to possess a limitless immortality, with Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Mummy, and Larry Talbot all returning in a long run of sequels, even if in different incarnations. Not so for the Bride of Frankenstein, the She-Wolf of London, or Dracula's Daughter, each of whom find their cursed conditions (or even existence) ended in their first feature. While the image of Elsa Lanchester as Frankenstein's Bride has proved the most iconic, Gloria Holden's portrayal of Countess Marya Zaleska stands as perhaps the most memorable performance--this despite the fact that the finished film very little resembled screenwriter John Balderston's original idea for the production. According to David Skal, Balderston originally wanted to "play up SEX and CRUELTY legitimately" by focusing more on the brides of Dracula found in the Count's Transylvanian home. In THE MONSTER SHOW, Skal writes, "Cracking a bullwhip against the stone floors, [Dracula's Daughter] subdues her evil stepmothers like an animal trainer, and, in a scene borrowed directly from Stoker's novel, offers them a squalling infant in a sack to feed upon." Apparently, the censorship office rejected the material, robbing us of a film that would have included the return of Dracula in flash-back scenes consisting of even more overtly sexual material.

Even without such scenes, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER contains some striking material. Focusing solely on Countess Zaleska, the film presents us with a character trying to free herself from the unholy urges inherited from her father. In a scene memorable for its play of light and shadow, she burns his body in a funeral pyre, but ultimately cannot separate herself from his legacy, which sometimes manifests itself in weird music and art, at one point involving a fetching prostitute standing in as a model, resulting in a wonderful scene suggestive of lesbian desire. The film's tag-line--"She Gives You That Weird Feeling"--somehow manages to hold true even today.

A recent graphic novel, DAUGHTER OF DRACULA (2007), written by Ron Fortier and illustrated by Rob Davis, takes the character's implied eroticism into literal territory. Maintaining the name "Marya," Fortier sets his story during World War I and focuses upon a love affair between the vampire and the German ace, Baron Von Richthofen, otherwise known as the Red Baron. Fortier builds upon the character's cinematic counterpart's vulnerability and sensitivity, while at the same time giving her a level of assertiveness and aggression that would have been unacceptable to American audiences in the 1930s. Paced very well, the narrative reaches an unusual (if slightly improbable) conclusion as far as vampire lore goes, while at the same time doing a satisfying job of tying in real historical details of Von Richthofen. Artwise, Davis provides some striking frames, capturing erotic moments as well as the more violent scenes. At first, Marya's features struck me as too angular, but gradually, this personal bias gave way to an understanding that such physical features emphasized her sense of presence and strength. Recommended as supplementary reading to the film, the book can be found here.

SHE DEMONS and the Nazis Who Love Them

2009-07-06T10:59:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Mykal of Radiation Cinema who alerted me to this tasty morsel back when I reviewed DEAD SNOW. Richard Cunha's SHE DEMONS (1958) stands as a particularly sleazy example of 50s drive-in horror, a melange of ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU, EYES WITHOUT A FACE, and the real-life Nazi horrors that the world witnessed just over a decade before this film saw release. While not a zombie film in itself, it still anticipates later movies like SHOCK WAVES and Jess Franco's OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES, though it's still more striking to consider how Georges Franju would borrow key plot points from this film to create his 1959 masterpiece, EYES WITHOUT A FACE.

The main plot of the film focuses on a group of boaters (including the delicious Irish McCalla) who become stranded on a remote island during a hurricane. After one of them falls victim to the island's mysterious inhabitants, the trio explore their surroundings, ultimately learning that a group of Nazis, lead by a war criminal known as "The Butcher," now use the island to continue their nefarious experiments. These experiments turn the island's native female population (who look very fetching without, presumably, modern cosmetics) into fanged but otherwise relatively unthreatening "she demons." The real horror comes from the Nazi guards who cage these women and routinely whip them for their perverse pleasure.

The motivation for the experiments stems from the head Nazi's desire to restore his wife's beauty after she became horribly scarred during a lab accident. Her face remains carefully wrapped for much of the movie, until the climax, when she dramatically reveals her disfigurement. Indeed, this popular trope--a scientist who sacrifices other women in the name of restoring his loved one's feminine beauty--which became a major building block in the development of Euro-horror, leading to films like FACELESS and THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF, may have its origins in American drive-in cinema. Who knew?

Happy Independence Day!

2009-07-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

And who needs fireworks when you have a leering image from William Lustig's holiday shocker, UNCLE SAM?

Summer Reading: DUMA KEY by Stephen King

2009-07-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

My impressions of DUMA KEY come tempered by two facts: 1) Despite the fact that PET SEMATARY completely traumatized me as a teenager--in a good way, I should add--and that I, like many others, consider many of King's early novels (SALEM'S LOT, THE DEAD ZONE, et al) land-marks in contemporary horror fiction, I have read very, very little of his recent out-put; and 2) I currently live within the same zip code as King's fictional key, which starts on the south end of Casey Key, where King himself resides during part of the year. True story: a couple of years ago, King walked out of the Shell station where I frequently fill up, and I made an utter dork of myself by waving to him from a distance. He waved back, a twinky in his hand, before getting back in his car and driving back toward the flying bridge that separates Casey Key from the mainland. My brush with greatness.

And DUMA KEY is great. I have not heard positive things about works like THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, but this novel stands as a testament to a formidable imagination. In fact, on some level, DUMA KEY is about the artistic imagination, perhaps a sign that after writing for decades, King has developed complex ideas about the power of the creative process. The main narrative of the novel involves Edgar, the owner of a construction company, who loses an arm and much of his cognitive powers after a bad accident. During the recuperative process, his wife divorces him, and he finds himself looking for new digs to recover himself and find a way to enjoy life again. This search leads him to Duma Key, a sparsely populated island, where he rents an oppulent house overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. There, he begins sketching and painting, something he did during an earlier stage of life, and soon strange images begin manifesting themselves on his canvas, images connected to the haunted past of the key and the old woman still living there. Their lives intersect in a creepy fashion, involving set-pieces that include a ghost ship with tattered sails, ghastly corpses that stagger in from the surf, a dilapidated mansion hidden in the key's shrubbery, and a malevolent entity that, in Lovecraftian fashion, appears connected to a time of "elder gods."

Despite its 700+ pages, the novel's narrative still feels tight and lean, a testament to King's story-telling prowess. Scrupulous readers might feel that some information gets repeated too often--in fact, one might tire of the repetition of certain axioms by Wireman, a character close to Edgar. Nevertheless, King achieves an exciting build-up in action, leading to a breathless climax in the aforementioned mansion.

In closing, I want to add a few words about a very minor character in the novel, a man who walks up and down Casey Key holding a "gnarled briarwood cane, almost as tall as he is, and a big straw hat on his head"--he's an actual person who, up until a year or so ago, I'd pass on the road quite often!

Streeting Today: EDWARD LEE'S HEADER

2009-06-30T08:33:00.001-07:00

Edward Lee's novella, "Header", appeared in a limited publication run from Necro Publications in 1995. While I'm a complete geek for Lee's writing, I haven't had enough luck to come across any affordable copies of this hard-to-find book. In recent years, other examples of Lee's works have appeared in affordable paperback editions, including the excellent FLESH GOTHIC and most recently THE GOLEM, so now stout-hearted readers who don't mind strong doses of sex and violence can easily enjoy Lee's special brand of "splatterspunk." In addition, we can also enjoy Archibald Flancrastin's film adaptation of "Header" (released on DVD courtesy of Synapse) which, contrary to even Lee's expectations, comes close to capturing the author's gritty and gruesome style. It's also nice to see Lee acknowledged in the title (which, judging by the DVD cover, is officially EDWARD LEE'S HEADER.) Lee himself appears in a cameo, along with fellow author and kindred spirit in dark letters, Jack Ketchum.

The plot of the film follows the return of Travis Truckton to his backwoods home after a stint in prison. There, he reunites with his "grandpappy," who enlightens him on the truth behind his parents' death, along with the joys of the "header," which, if you know Lee's work, is as bad as it sounds. Eventually, their path crosses that of Stewart Cummings, an ATF agent who carries out his own rule-breaking to care for his invalid girl-friend. All of this ends badly in ways one might not immediately expect.

After the less than satisfying results of GRUBGIRL, an xxx rated version of Lee's Grub Girl character, EDWARD LEE'S HEADER provides us with a surprisingly satisfying visualization of Lee's warped world. The film moves briskly, and visually, we learn the details of a "header" in alarming detail. Cast members play their parts well, especially Dick Mullaney, whose rendition of "Grandpappy" may be destined for a place of honor in horror film history. In the "extras," we find interviews with cast and crew, including Lee and Ketchum. A stand-out moment occurs when director Flancranstin waxes poetic on how he hopes the film will serve to raise our consciences on the horrific nature of violence, "re-sensitizing" us to its reality rather than functioning as mere entertainment. Needless to say, the resulting film does not support this weighty purpose, but thankfully you can just ignore him and watch the film.

Putting the Bite on Soledad Miranda

2009-06-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

The above image comes from Jess Franco's 1970 production, COUNT DRACULA, a film that marketed itself as a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. While it fell short in that area, Franco still gave Christopher Lee a stage on which he could portray Dracula the way he'd always wanted to. Playing Mina, Soledad Miranda falls prey to the count in the above scene, resulting in a kinetic moment upon which Lee remarked, "I have played this scene many times, but this woman is giving me something no other actress ever has" (quoted from Tim Lucas' liner notes for VAMPYROS LESBOS).

Miranda carried this kind of sensual energy into Franco's later production of VAMPYROS LESBOS, a film that returned to Bram Stoker territory, this time very loosely adapting "Dracula's Guest," a short work that we now know Stoker originally planned as an early chapter in DRACULA. Franco makes no direct connection between these two films. Miranda's character, Countess Carody, alludes to her earlier life as Dracula's lover, though one almost wishes that Franco carried the Mina name into this film, thus implying a loose connection between the productions. The (r)evolution in Franco's aesthetics would find reinforcement in the (r)evolution in a character whose vampirism involves a rejection of masculine/patriarchal authority.

Franco likewise resists formal conventions in the film, and while his critics frequently point out how his non-comformist streak can result in awkward and even sometimes awful film-making, VAMPYROS LESBOS marks one of his grander achievements, an erotic masterpiece of vampire cinema. The film's nightclub scenes--an erotic spectacle within a spectacle--calls attention to a vampiric consumption of energy that takes place through the gaze of the spectator--by extension including the spectator of cinema.

In particular, the scenes of Miranda, donned in her nightclub garb, reaching forth to the film's viewer effectively break the fourth wall, so to speak, making our own spectatorship (and desire) the subject of the film on some level. As the vampire in these scenes, Miranda is simultaneously lethal, sad, and sensual. She gives a quintessential performance in a landmark film of erotic horror.

"Again" Ramsey Campbell: VILE THINGS

2009-06-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

VILE THINGS, a recent anthology from Comet Press, presents a different side to Ramsey Campbell. In "Again," his contribution to a collection that strives for "Extreme Deviations of Horror" (as worded in the book's subtitle), Campbell delves into some perverse territory, while still adhering to his usual elegant prose style. To relate too much of the story would rob it of its shock value, but it begins with a young man making his way down a country path, where he finds an old woman outside a decrepit bungalow in need of help. She has locked herself outside, and the young man dutifully tries to help her inside. And then there are the flies . . .

Other writers represented in VILE THINGS include Graham Masterton and Jeffrey Thomas, along with some less well-known names, like Brian Rosenberg, who serves up an unforgettable story about competing fishermen. Find it here.

Summer Reading: THE DOLL WHO ATE HIS MOTHER (1976) by Ramsey Campbell

2009-06-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Cue up Bill Evans' "Quiet Now" in the mp3 player for this one. In fact, if horror writers like Peter Straub (think "Pork Pie Hat") like to tie their works to jazz, then we must think of Ramsey Campbell as the Bill Evans of horror. Just as Bill Evans marked a softer contrast to the harder-edged bop of his time, Ramsey Campbell takes a different route from that of many of his contemporaries, eschewing overt shocks in favor of creating a building sense of dis-ease in his reader, in this case starting with a traffic accident. Clare, the driver of a car in bad need of repair, learns that not only has the accident killed her brother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, but that at some point during the aftermath, someone stole the arm from his corpse. From there, Campbell introduces Edmund Hall, a crime writer, who calls upon Clare to help him search for the culprit. Operating on hunches and circumstantial evidence, Hall suspects that Kelly, an old school-mate, committed the act, leading to narrative that takes increasing diabolical turns, culminating in the story of a magician in the black arts who manipulated pregnant women with a collection of dolls. From there, we learn how the titular doll "ate" his mother--a truly macabre moment in the novel.

In DANSE MACABRE, Stephen King reserves a few pages for discussion of this novel, and while passing decades have robbed it of some of its freshness (Satanism and black magic seem almost quaint in horror novels now), King aptly likens Campbell's narrative structure to that of Bram Stoker's DRACULA in that Clare and Edmund partner with others, including a cinema owner, to pursue their quarry, much like the "committee" formed by Mina, Seward, et al in Stoker's text. I'd add that both novels share a somewhat anti-climactic ending, where their respective conflicts are resolves in a somewhat abrupt, even convenient manner. Still, in the case of THE DOLL WHO ATE HIS MOTHER, Ramsey Campbell succeeds in capturing a decaying urban landscape, punctuating the haunted mind of his "monster." Campbell provides an awkward (and easily detected) twist about his true identity, but the terror of his circumstances still has the power to affect the reader, as we see a monster perhaps not so much born as created. Now out of print, THE DOLL WHO ATE HIS MOTHER can still be found online in relatively inexpensive used paperback editions.

Summer Reading: TO WAKE THE DEAD by Richard Laymon

2009-06-07T10:52:00.001-07:00

Until the last decade, Richard Laymon's books remained relatively hard to find in the US, and sadly, Laymon died suddenly in 2001, just as Leisure had begun re-issuing several of his titles for readers who once had to seek out relatively expensive British editions. His style makes him ideal for summer horror reading: crisp, intensely visual sentences, with narratives driven by punchy dialogue and marked with generous servings of sex and violence. In recent years, I've enjoyed discovering (or re-discovering) favorites like ISLAND, THE BEAST HOUSE, ONCE UPON A HALLOWEEN, BITE, and the absolutely masterful THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW. To the best of my knowledge, TO WAKE THE DEAD (British title: AMARA) did not see publication in any form until 2002--a shame, since it joins these others as one of his most entertaining efforts.

As usual, Laymon pumps this book full of adrenaline, giving us a blissfully entertaining mummy novel, the kind that Bram Stoker would NEVER have imagined for JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS. Laymon's mummy, Amara, has earned the gift of eternal life after giving the Egyptian god Set a son. Her resurrection takes place in the Charles Ward Museum (wink, wink to Lovecraft readers), ultimately affecting the fates of a large cast of characters. In fact, TO WAKE THE DEAD represents a departure from the usual structure of a Laymon novel, as he weaves together different narrative arcs, many of which do not have an obvious connection to Amara's path of terror until the very end. Discovering Laymon's overall narrative design marks part of the pleasure of reading this novel, but the rest stems from the delirious violence that takes place, as Amara rips, bites, and shreds her way through the cast of characters. Laymon wrote novels that seem designed to entertain himself, and fortunately, we now have the option of sharing in the joy, as TO WAKE THE DEAD so aptly provides.

DEAD SNOW (2009)

2009-05-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

DEAD SNOW comes to us from Norway, and as an example of the ever-endurable Nazi zombie sub-genre, it fits squarely between the best (SHOCK WAVES) and the worst (ZOMBIE LAKE, which still manages to entertain, thanks to an inane script and tasty underwater photography.) Plot-wise, the film contains just enough to arrive at its raison d'etre: Nazi zombies who stalk and ultimately slaughter a group of vacationing medical students, who inadvertently trifle with the treasure once sought by the then-living soldiers.

If I have my cinematic lore down right, Nazi zombies typically dwell underwater, usually off of some Carribean island, where some nefarious war-time plot went awry. (For an excellent literary treatment of this kind of plot, see Robert McCammon's early 80s novel, NIGHT BOAT.) In DEAD SNOW, Stig Frode Henriksen and Tommy Wirkola substitute snow for water, resulting in some striking images, as the effective make-up designs jump out against the white back-ground. Already lethal, the zombies (who, in one hallmark scene, pull a character's head apart, causing his brain to plop on the floor) become all the more ominous thanks to this imagery.

Yet, the film-makers still fall into the tiresome habit that we see in other recent horror movies: that of name-dropping the films and film-makers that inspired them. If we couldn't already see the influence of EVIL DEAD, the characters make damn sure that we understand the importance of that film as they discuss it at the beginning. In fact, one of the last standing characters calls Ash to mind both in his physical characteristics and in his extreme survival techniques. Such self-referencing blunts the impact the film could have had, as does the general lack of character development. DEAD SNOW still stands as one of the better examples of its sub-genre, but SHOCK WAVES it ain't.

Jack Ketchum's OFFSPRING (1989)

2009-05-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling that despite his proclivity for writing some of the most unsettling horror literature of these troubled times, Jack Ketchum is a softy at heart. His characters often appear capable of anything (and in OFFSPRING, that includes eating babies), but his work ultimately suggests a desire to find an underlying sense of compassion in his fellow human beings. Take THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, a novel that has repulsed many readers with its near pornographic chronicle of a teenage girl's slow, torturous death. Complicit for having failed to act in the interest of this girl for much of the narrative, the narrator achieves a degree of retribution at the end when he finally acts out of love and decency. In his work, Ketchum often reminds us that even out of the most insanely violent, inhuman occurrences, we can find moments of transcendence and even beauty.

Perhaps it is this quality that has led contemporary film-makers to turn to Ketchum's novels as sources in their recent attempts to to recapture the elusive style of 1970s horror films, with THE LOST standing out as the most successful result thus far. I've read that a film adaptation of OFFSPRING has gone into limited distribution (go here for the trailer and news), a choice that struck me as odd since that text is the sequel to Ketchum's notorious first novel, OFF SEASON. Some might argue that Ketchum essentially recycled the plot of the first novel for OFFSPRING: a family of barbaric cannibals living on the coast of Maine prey upon unsuspecting victims. In fact, OFFSPRING has received some unduly negative criticism based solely on its repetition of plot structure and events. However, a closer look reveals how Ketchum not only tightened the plot screws of the first novel, but he found different ways of exploring his favorite themes.

The very concept of family stands out as the most crucial of these themes. OFFSPRING offers us a variety of different families, most principally the broken Carey family, the relatively happy Halbard family, and the family of cannibals overseen by the character simply called "the Woman." The sole cannibal survivor of OFF SEASON, the Woman has managed to put together a new family through kidnapping and other nefarious methods, and she has now set her sights on snatching Melissa, the Halbard family baby, for an ill-conceived blood sacrifice of some sort. A subplot involves Steve Carey, a divorced father who has become intent on taking back his former wife, even if it means harming her and his son Luke, who is in her custody. Carey sets out to track down his ex-wife and son after he has savagely murdered his current lover. Said ex-wife and son have gone to visit the Halbard's in their isolated home at the same time the Woman has started her own family on a new cannibalistic spree, and she has her sights set on Melissa, the Halbard's new baby girl.

Of Steve Carey's warped desires, Ketchum writes, "His problem was to keep her somehow. To hold on to her. And by doing so, make them back into a family again." In this way, Ketchum draws uncomfortable associations between the "typical" American nuclear family and the family of cannibals overseen by the woman. Interestingly, Steve represents a patriarchal abuse of power, while the Woman rules the cannibal family as a matriarch. Both have the same goal: to re-structure their families in their own mad ways, no matter how violent the cost. In many ways, however, the Woman emerges as the more sympathetic family leader; her desire to spill Melissa's blood stems from the ghost of another infant she feels haunted by, a restless ghost who appears to need this sacrifice to feel at peace. Obviously, we want her to fail, but Ketchum still allows the parallels between the "civilized" and "uncivilized" to resonate long enough for us to examine the hidden sicknesses of the American nuclear family. Literary critic Linda J. Holland-Toll might label this kind of novel "disaffirmative" horror fiction. As she writes in AS AMERICAN AS MOM, BASEBALL, AND APPLE PIE, "disaffirmative horror is that fiction which does not supply a happy ending, however, qualified, and allow people to retain intact their basic assumptions about such value systems as those embedded in communities." In OFFSPRING, the family envisioned by the Woman is in many ways preferable to that envisioned by Steve Carey.

Whether the film will reinforce these themes remains for us to see; fortunately, Jack Ketchum has written the film's screenplay, which bodes very well. Count me as optimistic. You can check out the film's web page here, but naturally, you should read the novel first, as well as OFF SEASON. Find them here and here.

Zombie Ants

2009-05-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

I always knew that the inevitable zombie plague would start with ants.

Disney's Mad Scientists

2009-05-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

In the early 1930s, when major studios continued to codify many of the conventions of modern horror, Walt Disney made some notable contributions, including "The Mad Doctor," a short subject from 1933. Some truly macabre moments emerge, and the titular mad doctor truly is, well, mad, as evidenced by his escalating levels of sadism. Only the "it was all a bad dream" ending can save Pluto from a nasty, ugly fate. Dig what happens to his shadow!

For comparative purposes, also check out "The Runaway Brain," a 1995 short that revisits the mad scientist theme.

DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN: Why I Love It Even Though You Probably Don't

2009-04-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

First, an admission, not a confession: There are lots of valid reasons to hate Al Adamson's 1971 monster mash and condemn it to b-movie hell. It features appalling make-up, it exploits struggling actors like Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carrol Naish, it consigns once proud Universal monsters to a boardwalk setting, and it just looks plain ugly. So, hate away if you will, but I find it eternally charming. Want to distract me? Start this going on the DVD player, and I get lost in its sleazy, grindhouse world. The horror blogosphere has had its fair share of debate lately regarding critical standards, and I'm afraid I just won't offer anything here to allay the impression that some horror viewers will watch anything. This film is like a sticky, greasy plate of fries: it ain't great cuisine, and nobody needs to go to culinary school to learn how to make them, but I like them anyway.

Nostalgia has a lot to do with it. I first saw this film at a rather young age, already full-on versed in Universal lore, but coming across this film on a Saturday morning both enthralled me and upset my sensibilities. Its use of color looked garish and ill-fitting, much like the characters themselves and their counter-culture clothing and attitudes. Without knowing anything about grindhouse cinema, though, I'm somehow got it and realized that the film HAD to look this way to work.

Now, the film seems almost quaint, and despite his incompetence, Adamson directs with a sense of assurance that all this somehow works. And, in fact, on some inane level it does. Of course, Dracula has big hair and barely functioning make-up. The important thing is that he a ring that can fry anything, even the character who we have accepted as the hero for much of the narrative. Yes, the Frankenstein monster has a rubbery face that barely resembles anything human, but look at how Dracula so easily tears him apart in the film's climactic battle (over a sexy, bosomy blond tart no less!). Yes, Lon Chaney looks like a bloated alcoholic shadow of his former self, but he gets to terrorize people with that ax!

Placed in the context of its grindhouse brethren, DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN comes across as the cleanest sleaze movie of all time, a porn film with no pornography and only the slimmest hint of any nudity. Despite its inadequacies, I'd take it over almost any feature currently making its way through the multiplexes. How's that for standards?

A Lament for Shocklines (and a Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion)

2009-04-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't stopped lamenting the slow demise of Shocklines, which for a few years stood as THE one-stop place to shop for horror literature. Most of all, I spent a small fortune buying a number of chapbooks and smaller 'zines featuring the likes Christine Sng, Michael A. Arnzen, and Bruce Boston. Not only has Shocklines been gradually closing shop, but the kind of publications it offered seem harder to find than ever, a symptom no doubt of a struggling economy and a culture that seems to value less than ever the written word. In particular, I always sprung for POE LITTLE THING, a small press publication that featured some of the best examples of contemporary "horrific" poetry. Recently, POE LITTLE THING made the leap to an electronic format, which means you can access its contents easily, though I miss the experience of being able to hold a copy in my grimy little hands. You can find the Spring 2009 issue here, and be on the look-out for "Better Than a Virgin Birth," one of my recent works of flash fiction.

C. Michael Cook's "Unspeakable" Story

2009-04-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know we're not supposed to evaluate a book based on its cover, but how can anyone resist that above image of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR, an anthology of gay-themed horror edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder? Looking beyond the cover, the book contains excellent stories by well-known names within contemporary horror literature, including Scott Nicholson, Sarah Langan, and Kealan Patrick Burke. The story that stopped me dead in my tracks, however, was "The Boys of Bald Hill" by C. Michael Cook, which alone makes the anthology worth picking up. The story involves a boy who explores his sexual identity with a friend in a fenced-off cave, resulting in some devastatingly gruesome events. I have not renewed my membership in the HWA in a few years, but I sincerely hope that someone gives Cook a Stoker nod.

UPDATE: According to Vince Liaguno's blog, Slasherspeak, the book was in fact nominated for a Stoker in the anthology category. Congratulations Vince!

Chilling Kaiju Image: WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS

2009-04-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

The image above comes from WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS, and after watching Classic Media's recent DVD, I found that this moment still manages to unsettle me. Kaiju films tend to inspire more "wonder" than "horror," but director Ishiro Honda no doubt hoped to rattle our psyches with this film, especially when this creature gazes hungrily up at a fisherman from the depths of the ocean. The still image arguably does not do justice to the way this moment plays on film, as the ripples of the water further distort the monster's grotesque appearance. Having previously only seen the American cut of the film, I found the film even more satisfying as a sequel to FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, as the Japanese cut plainly presents itself. This is a film we can continue to savor, as it adds further layers to Frankenstein lore by imagining creatures spawned from the original's fragmented cells. The passage of time seems to have served this film especially well as we see our current advances in science and medicine reflected back to us in the form of this kaiju nightmare.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN Controversy

2009-03-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

I've kept rather mum about my feelings regarding LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, one of the most celebrated vampire films in recent memory. Although I missed the film's limited US theatrical run, I read the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist and found it be one of the most pleasurable reading experiences in recent memory; simply put, it stands as one of the most richly textured vampire novels I've ever read, joining Le Fanu's CARMILLA, Stoker's DRACULA, Matheson's I AM LEGEND, and King's SALEM'S LOT in the upper echelon of blood-sucking literature.

Hence, I had very high expectations for the film, having read nothing but positive reviews. However, the DVD left me cold; in part because it left out so many crucial narrative arcs that made the novel so deeply felt, the movie felt hollow. In particular, Lindqvist depicts one of the most chilling vampire-human symbiotic relationships since Dracula put the bite on Renfield, and while it should come as no surprise that time limitations forced the film-makers to make some tough decisions, I felt that the movie adaptation really needed this element, if for no other reason than to give the title gravity and weight.

With that said, I learned of some controversy regarding the film's subtitles. Apparently, the DVD manufacturer substituted less nuanced subtitles for ones that graced the theatrical version. According to one reviewer, this substitution made the film virtually unwatchable, causing me to wonder if some of my resistance to the film might be due to this flub. Apparently, a new DVD is in the works, one that restores the original subtitles. When that version becomes available, I'll need to revisit the film. To be clear, the film is still very good; I just advise the curious to seek out the book.

Earning Some Love

2009-03-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Mermaid Heather blew me a kiss recently in the form of the Premio Dardos Award, which "is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web." Needless to say, I'm extremely flattered by the attention, especially since it comes from a much more prolific blogger like Heather. Hopefully, you have had a chance to read her insightful reflections on horror cinema, and if not, you will do so soon. I always enjoy her reviews.

As per tradition, I now pass the award on to at least five other blogs that I have enjoyed and think you should too. Some of these might be repeat winners (but hopefully that's ok):

Sexy Witch
Taliesin Meets the Vampires
Fascination: The Jean Rollin Experience
Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire
Frankensteinia
Groovy Age of Horror

Thanks again, Heather!

TOKOYO GORE POLICE and the End of Nature

2009-03-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

The natural world has come undone in Yoshihiro Nishimura's TOKOYO GORE POLICE, a film that posits a world in which bodily ripping, tearing, and evisceration creates the possibility for perverse, grotesque modification. These modifications blur the organic with the technological to the point where the two seemingly can't exist without one another. The natural world as we are accustomed to knowing it no longer exists, and appropriately, the filmmakers place the action in blighted, industrialized landscapes--dead buildings, dead concrete, dead industries.

These settings seem to suggest that our familiar technologies have played themselves out and that we have nowhere left to go but into the human body itself. Pain no longer truly exists--at least not entirely--as characters can survive terrific wounds, using them as opportunities to modify their bodies, coming back more lethal than ever. Paradoxically, these new bodily technologies make us more primitive, the film seems to tell us. The film's protagonist, Ruka, serves on a privatized police force that battles "Engineers," criminals whose use of these technologies make them all the more psychopathic and enraged.

The sexualized imagery of the film becomes particularly striking because human reproduction, as a part of nature, does not seem to have a place in this world. Rather, Engineers "reproduce" by passing on a small, phallic tumor that opens the organic body like a key. Once implanted, transformation takes place, and people find themselves reborn in grotesque fashion. One minor character exists as nothing more than stretched skin whose sexual organs spray orgiastic party-goers with fluid--presumably urine, though in this film, one can never feel too sure. In fact, TOKOYO GORE POLICE shows us bodies that have shocking capacities for spraying fluids, mostly blood. These absurd scenes (too many to count) appear strangely beautiful, as when Ruka cuts off the hands of a subway pervert and walks away with an umbrella shielding her from the blood that rains down on her.

As a whole, the movie comes across as (most of the time) an inspired nightmare right out of Donna Haraway's now seminal "Cyborg Manifesto." At other times, it seems to fall into goofy, Troma-styled splatstick. Apparently, there is a companion feature, MACHINE GIRL, which I have not seen but seems to promise more of the same.

Waiter, There's a Zombie in My Literature

2009-02-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

Variety is reporting that Will Clark will direct PRIDE AND PREDATOR, a film that will pit Jane Austen's marriage-obsessed characters against a monster-alien of some sort. My favorite line from the piece comes from one of the film's producers, who says, "It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect." Like, the stalk and slash formula isn't "done to death" too? It's unclear to me what sort of relationship this film has to Seth Grahame-Smith's soon-to-be released collaboration with Jane Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES. Is the "predator" in the title of the film an allusion to some kind of zombie, or are these projects unrelated?

Whatever the case, if Grahame-Smith can do it, why can't I? Thus, I now humbly offer my own collaboration with William Carlos Williams, a "zombied" revision of "This Is Just to Say":

This is Just to Say

I have released
the zombies
that were in
the basement

and which
you were probably
saving
for the apocalypse

Forgive me
you were delicious
so tender
and so warm

"Southern Gothic" by Maggie Taylor

2009-02-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

Last year, I had the pleasure of coming across Maggie Taylor's work in a gallery in Ybor City, Florida. While most of my memories of that trip lie under a heavy fog of absinthe, Taylor's images seared themselves into my consciousness. Recently, I have begun re-discovering "southern gothic" literature and film (Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING and SKELETON KEY being among my favorites), and this particular work from Smith came to mind. Visit the artist's web page for more.

Pondering Dario Argento and MOTHER OF TEARS

2009-02-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

In a recent posting on the Horror Hacker blog, Maitland McDonagh, the author of the brilliant BROKEN MIRRORS, BROKEN MINDS: THE DARK DREAMS OF DARIO ARGENTO, turns her attention back to the Argento canon to list her favorite films by the maestro. This posting, combined with Maitland's much-anticipated review of MOTHER OF TEARS in an upcoming issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG, offers compelling reasons why an updated edition of BROKEN MIRRORS, BROKEN MINDS would be most welcome. Published in 1991, my edition covers films up to TWO EVIL EYES, leaving out a sizable body of films that Argento went on to complete, including MOTHER OF TEARS, the controversial completion of the trilogy begun with SUSPIRIA and INFERNO.

I won't hazard a guess as to what McDonagh will say about MOTHER OF TEARS. In her book, she remarks on the "mind-boggling artificiality" of SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, so we can only imagine what she will make of the trilogy's new film, wherein Argento takes that sense of artificiality in an entirely different direction. Part of what makes the first two films notable is how Argento delves into Jungian symbolism in a way that seems bent on shattering the traditional cinematic language of the horror film. MOTHER OF TEARS, on the other hand, feels at times like reversion to traditional storytelling, even incorporating an American aesthetic that we might attribute to a scheme to appeal to one of the largest movie market in the world, or perhaps it comes from the fact that Argento collaborated with Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, two American screenwriters who specialize in horror films. Unlike SUSPIRIA, which leaves the viewer feeling like Suzy Banyan, helplessly trying to decode an array of symbols without a reliable system of reference, MOTHER OF TEARS seems bent on explaining everything, even making direct, reassuring connections to the other films.

Argento has always been a self-referential film-maker, going so far as to famously incorporate family members into his screen world, as he continues to do so here with Asia Argento. However, where Argento once welcomed us into the uneasy terrain of his own psyche, he now seems bent on giving us that psyche in easily marketable terms. Despite all this, I actually liked MOTHER OF TEARS, though I find it difficult to place it in the scheme of INFERNO or SUSPIRIA. The real trilogy on hand here seems to be the one he began with JENIFER, the first of his MASTERS OF HORROR entries, and continued with PELTS. He shot both of those films for American cable, and they both reflect a growing preoccupation with perverse sexuality, something he continues to explore in MOTHER OF TEARS. In short, we should perhaps think of those films as a group rather than try to find unsatisfying ways in which MOTHER OF TEARS continues the aesthetic of SUSPIRIA.

For what it's worth (and I know that ain't much), here is my own top ten Argento films:

10. Jenifer (not a popular choice, I know, but I loved seeing how Argento approached the adaptation of a comic book story)
9. Trauma (another unpopular choice, but I'm a sucker for crazy moms)
8. Phenomena
7. Sleepless
6. Inferno
5. Four Flies on Grey Velvet (and now we have a new dvd to look forward to!)
4. Opera
3. Tenebre
2. Suspiria
1. Deep Red

Feel free to post your own Argento top ten in the comments section.

Poe at 200

2009-01-19T15:37:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday, and if not for more crafty bloggers out there (I’m thinking of Karswell of this essential blog in particular), I would have done the unthinkable and missed it altogether. Harry Clarke helps us commemorate the event with another insanely beautiful (and just plain insane) image from “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Here, he captures Madeline Usher’s vampiric qualities, an aspect of the story that has not gone unnoticed by critics like William J. Heim, who writes: “It may be a quite literal account of a brush with the supernatural, a vampire tale perhaps, for certainly Madeline's escape from the vault described by the narrator could be accomplished by nothing human.”

Speaking of Poe, anyone living in the Sarasota, Florida area should experience “Poe at the Crosley,” a series of performances that will run until the end of the week. During the performance, spectators make their own choices about what Poe tale they’d like to experience, and based on that choice, they move to a different room in the mansion during selected intervals. There, an actor performs the text as a monologue. This past weekend, I enjoyed “The Black Cat,” “How to Write a Blackwood Article/A Predicament,” “The Bells,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and of course, “The Raven.” The only downside is that I had to miss out on one of my favorites, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." To find out more about “Poe at the Crosley, go here.

All Aboard AMOK TRAIN (1989)!

2008-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

Sensible, educated people should not enjoy AMOK TRAIN--or so one would gather from reading random comments on the Internet. To that, I say: Pppppffffftttt! Granted, the plot contains absurd elements, most notably, a train possessed by Satan, and many of the effects and model work come across as unconvincing. However, the film also provides some deliciously atmospheric camera work, with marvelously bleak Eastern European locations, including one of the most eerie forest journeys since CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD. Mario Bava--whose late film SHOCK, bears an odd relationship to AMOK TRAIN in that it, like AMOK TRAIN, was marketed as a sequel to the Italian shocker, BEYOND THE DOOR--would have done wonderful things with this script. In fact, the film's ending seems inspired in part by the final frames of Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL. As it stands, AMOK TRAIN is a pleasing time waster.

The film's protagonist, Beverly, has an all-too-common problem in satanic horror: her ancestors have pre-arranged her to be deflowered by Satan (as evidenced by her odd birthmark). As an ostracized high school student, she joins a school trip to Serbia, her ancestral country, where she and the other young travelers will witness a pre-Christian version of the Passion Play. Bo Svenson plays their local guide with much sinister effect, and upon their arrival, he leads them through an ominous forest, into a primitive village, where the inhabitants board them with the intention to eventually kill them. Most of the students manage to escape on an archaic, coal-driven train, where they eventually meet their doom, as the train serves to bring Beverly to her date with the devil himself.

The film's crew make excellent use of the Soviet-era locale, utilizing a locomotive that in itself looks demonic. Much of the script remains undeveloped; indeed, Svenson's character starts to explain the origins of the pagan Passion Play, but stops short of explaining its significance and how it evolved into a representation of the Biblical story. We're left to assume that it all has something to do with fertility, virgins, and all that other good stuff. The film makes the Serbian rainroad officials seem laughably incompetent; with the possessed train on a collision course with another train and their constant failure to de-rail the demon locomotive, it never occurs to them to stop the unpossessed train until the last moment before its fatal wreck.

Such plot absurdities add more charm to an already daft good time. The film's script takes advantage of the all those churning, metal parts, providing plenty of squishy, entrail dangling deaths. The film ultimately scores on such excesses, as well as its thick atmosphere. Well worth a look, but be sure to turn off your brain!

"Banjo Lessons" from TWISTED TALES #5

2008-12-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

Now, here's something perfectly nasty and unpleasant for the holiday season! In the 1980s, Pacific Comics pushed the horror envelope with TWISTED TALES, an anthology series featuring the work of Bruce Jones, who often featured themes of intolerance and social inequity. These themes reached their apex with "Banjo Lessons," a story that foregrounds racism in some startling and unsettling ways. Pacific Comics obviously realized that Jones' story would provoke controversy; in an editorial, April Campbell tried to preempt negative reader response by arguing that story served a purpose by "portraying bigotry, not for the purpose of promoting it, but to remind our readers that it not only has existed in the past, but it exists in even more insidious forms today." Yet, the sensational aspect of the story calls that purpose into question. The letters column of the next issue featured several responses to the story, most in support. However, one reader argued that the cannibalism in the story "obscured the point" and suggested that "it's stated motives [may be] a bit suspect." This raises the question of horror's ability to illuminate social issues without becoming complicit in the social ills it purports to condemn. Just watch CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and you'll see what I mean. Re-reading "Banjo Lessons" now makes me uneasy because its portrayals might have made more sense had it been written in pre-Civil Rights America. As a document of the 1980s, the servile nature of the title character seems out of place and raises damning questions. Does the animal metaphor raise empathy or merely become degrading? Read on, and judge for yourself.

For a Full Moon

2008-12-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight we'll see the biggest full moon of the year, so here's a little something in honor of that event. Don't walk on the street alone! Aaaaaaahhhhhrrrrrrooooooooo!

Ivan Zuccon's NYMPHA (2007): Contemporary Italian Horror Done Right

2008-12-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Ivan Zuccon's NYMPHA begins in much the same way as Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA: a young American woman makes her way through a violent night rainstorm to take her place in a foreign institution for women--in this case, a convent. The young woman, Sarah (played by the fetching Tiffany Shepis), discovers in the most painful way that this order of nuns observe an unorthodox set of rituals. As the film progresses, she finds herself humiliated and tortured, even as she experiences past visions of an old man living with a daughter who has been impregnated under mysterious circumstances. Thanks to the alcoholic, broken down doctor working for the convent, Sarah gradually loses each of her senses; at the same time, however, new sensory doors open for her, and she begins to "see" the nightmarish truth of Nympha's birth and what her grandfather harbored in his attic.

After cutting his teeth on a series of H. P. Lovecraft-based films, including the commendable THE SHUNNED HOUSE (2003), Zuccon brings us this fresh exploration of tropes and images that had become prevalent in past decades of Italian horror and nunspoitation cinema, calling to mind such films as THE OTHER HELL, THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS, and any number of films directed by Lucio Fulci. Even as Zuccon pays his respect to these previous films (even including some cringe-worthy eye violence that would have made Fulci proud of his fellow Italian), his references suggest something other than slavish fan adoration. Rather, we can see evidence that Zuccon sees himself as part of a tradition that has, unfortunately, fallen on hard times since the early 90s.

Zuccon appears to be on the verge of finding a truly distinct voice, even as he continues to explore the kind of source material that clearly obsesses him. In some ways, NYMPHA calls to mind H. P. Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space," sharing with that story a focus on pregnancy that may have an otherworldly or supernatural origin. However, unlike his previous Lovecraft films, Zuccon does not draw directly from Lovecraft, and the ultimate revelation of his film involves something very different from what Lovecraft would conceive in his own work.

Zuccon also brings us plenty of exploitation goodies, including gore, nudity, and a lesbian encounter that didn't necessary develop the narrative, but still manages to add a surreal quality. Although shot on what appears to be digital video, NYMPHA nevertheless looks elegant, punctuated by Zuccon's flair for chiaroscuro. An uneasy co-existence of exploitation and arthouse sensibility emerges, but that's nothing new to anyone who watches Italian horror. What's refreshing is to see someone doing it now. Bear in mind, I don't mean to say that Zuccon has come forth as some kind of second coming; in fact, he seems to have plenty of detractors out there, as evidenced by the miserable 3.1 rating garnered by NYMPHA on the imdb. However, NYMPHA strikes me as a worthy effort that deserves a spot on your Netflix cue.

A Witchy Kind of Progressive Rock

2008-12-08T19:22:00.001-08:00

How can you not love a band that names itself after a Jordi Grau movie, plays to classic horror images, and features a freakin' flute? The quality of the image is so-so, but you can still get your freak on to Blood Ceremony with the clip below.

A Possible Source for "The Fall of the House of Usher"

2008-12-01T17:09:00.001-08:00

For me, no image better captures the weirdness and perversity of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" than Harry Clarke's interpretation of Madeline Usher's "rending of her coffin." With this story, Poe took the conventions of the gothic narrative in vogue during previous decades and compressed them into this tight story of live burial, doomed twins, and a decaying family mansion. The story opens with one of the most perfectly constructed sentences in dark literature:

"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher."

Recently, I came across what might be a source of inspiration for this line, a 1797 gothic novel by Mrs. Carver, THE HORRORS OF OAKENDALE ABBEY. This novel contains the kind of gothic conventions Poe would perfect, and it also begins with a line that in some ways echoes Poe's own beginning:

"In the gloomy month of November, when the mountains of Cumberland were almost concealed by the heavy black clouds which hung below their tops, and a thick dripping rain scarcely left the few scattered cottages of Oakendale discernable, the peasants were all retired to their habitations; and through this thick atmosphere the stately ruins of the antient (sic) Abbey appeared like a black mass of immense length, and could only be distinguished as a building, by the glimmering twinkling of the small panes of glass from some of the many windows which were dispersed without uniformity, in this gloomy structure."

Carver's opening mirrors Poe's both in structure (clunky as hers may be, she even has a similarly placed semicolon), as well as effect (the pervading sense of gloom.) According to Curt Herr's introduction to the recent Zittaw Press edition, Carver's work was received well on both sides of the Atlantic, so it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that Poe would have come in contact with THE HORRORS OF OAKENDALE ABBEY.

Jean Rollin's Lèvres de sang (1975)

2008-11-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

TWILIGHT made buckets of money this past weekend, and while I don't wish the film any ill will, I do intend to ride out this wave by taking refuge with some more daring, subversive vampire film. Who better to go to than Jean Rollin, the subversive French film-maker who made great contributions to the reinvention of the vampire in the 1970s? In THE VAMPIRE CINEMA, David Pirie suggests that Jean Rollin takes "the vampire out of a narrative context and plac[es] it in an essentially visual frame of reference." Even as he gives Pirie gives Rollin serious critical consideration, Pirie ultimately suggests that the lack of narrative structure marks a certain weakness in his films, making them somewhat inferior to, say, Harry Kumel's DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS. However, I find myself returning much more often to Rollin's films, most recently Lèvres de sang (known as LIPS OF BLOOD to Yanks like me.)

Arguably, Rollin focuses more on narrative here than he does in many of his other films. Rollin foregrounds childhood and innocence with a narrative that begins with a photograph of tower ruins by the seaside. This photograph calls forth memories in the protagonist, leading him to remember a mysterious, waifish woman imprisoned in the tower. He grants her a brief escape before she becomes just a vague, bittersweet memory. The rest of the film documents his quest to find the elusive tower and, effect, his childhood.

The whole film comes across as a unspooled fairy tale, complete with archetypes like a "terrible mother" and "shadow figures" in the form of female vampires awakened by the protagonist's desires. In fact, the vampires appear simultaneously lethal and pitiful in the film, just as the protagonist's quest to recover his childhood appears paradoxically as a dangerous sort of innocence, leading to unpleasant revelations about his own family.

Rollin uses stunning imagery here, including the seaside images he favors in all his films. The Kinoeye web page includes some excellent Jean Rollin resources that come highly recommended.

Gothic Nights (1995)

2008-11-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

Recently, Kitty LeClaw, the dark mistress of the horror blogosphere, gave us an an excellent posting on SPLATTER #1, an anthology comic that featured what appears to be an early installment of Tim Vigil's GOTHIC NIGHTS, here titled "The Countess." The story follows the doomed romance between Tanya, a truly demonic vampire woman, and her werewolf lover, Anton, who falls victim to bloodthirsty mob. Mourning the loss of her lover, Tanya turns to Dr. Frankenstein for help.

The above graphic comes from SPLATTER, but notice how Vigil revised these frames when he later published the story in the two issues of GOTHIC NIGHTS.

These issues are favorites of mine, as they give us what is essentially a Universal/Hammer story hopped up on a cocktail of steroids and Viagra.

At some point, the story was available as a graphic novel, but I've only been able to track down the individual issues of the comic book. Below, I've scanned the striking cover art, and apparently, Broken Halo still sells copies. Trust me, these are well worth seeking out.

BLACK MASS: a 1920s obscurity?

2008-11-23T08:38:00.000-08:00

Someone on the Classic Horror Discussion Board called attention to this strange little kinky film. I'm half inclined to think that it really originates later than the silent era--in fact, with sound and color, it could easily be a 70s production--but perhaps it's a dirty little obscurity from that earlier period. Any theories? WARNING: It's definitely not work safe.

UPDATE: According to Gary L. Prange in a post on the Classic Horror Discussion Board, the clip comes from a 1928 French stag film called MESSE NOIRE.

Monster Art: Punk Rock Style

2008-11-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Take the pioneering 1960s pop art of Basil Gogos and James Bama. Throw in a dose of punk rock. Result: the work of Bryan Baugh and David Hartman, two artists who carry on the tradition of featuring classic and contemporary horror characters.

Both give us representations with a delightfully nasty attitude and high dose of sexuality. Check out Baugh's colorful images of the Creature from the Black Lagoon lusting menacingly for Julie Adams, or Hartman's interpretations of Rob Zombie's Devil's Rejects.

Find Baugh's work at Cryptlogic, and Hartman's at Sideshow Monkey.

Random Stuff: The Sweet, the Bloody, the Sublime

2008-11-11T12:19:00.001-08:00

Dig this iconic image from Lucio Fulci's seminal 1980s film, THE BEYOND. Often celebrated for creating chunkblowing masterpieces, Fulci's best work combined grotesque, over-the-top imagery with sublime images like this one. Romero has given us zombies that function as social metaphors, but Fulci's zombies reflect the nightmare of human existence: that a truly spiritual dimension is nothing more than another waste land (as seen here) that offers no escape from our material existence as meat. And what is a zombie but just meat?

As most readers of this blog will already know, Fulci created much of his best work in the early 1980s, as he followed up ZOMBI 2 with THE GATES OF HELL, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, NEW YORK RIPPER, and THE BEYOND. These films often draw our attention to the eyes as the spiritual center, the focal point of human existence. Yet, the eye also becomes subject to tearing, to destruction, to blindness. I recently revisted THE BEYOND courtesy of the new Grindhouse DVD, and while I still find that the graphic violence has impact, I feel more and more drawn to the film's surrealism and its ability to make me feel like I've visited a truly otherworldly place. Those blasted out and blinded eyes Fulci shows us? He was trying to say something about our place as viewers.

Meanwhile, I also recently revisted Jess Franco's, BLOODY MOON, a 1981 film that borrows heavily from the America-style slasher film in vogue at the time. Nevertheless, this viewing left me with the sense that Franco accomplished something more in line with the Italian giallo, with its red herrings and emphasis on voyeurism. At the risk of making the film something more than it really is--basically something Franco did for a pay-check--it still manages to seem more artful than the American equivalent at the time, with (BEWARE SPOILER) an ending that calls to mind Mario Bava, who also gave us endings that presented more than one perpetrator

For a Franco film, the effects work looks more professional than the painted-on blood often seen in some of his scaled-down, more personal productions, like VAMPYROS LESBOS or VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD. While I generally prefer those more personal films, I still have fun with BLOODY MOON, which stands well above most of the other stalk'n'slash films of the early 1980s. Plus, it features a truly cruel "must-see" moment with a circular saw.

Lastly, a confession: the film adaptation of TWILIGHT opens today, with me about two-thirds of the way through the novel. I told myself I didn't have to read it, that I had other things more worth my time. But when a horror (lite) novel captures that much attention, I feel like I just oughta know what's going on. I have to say that it's not changing my life, and I'm not ready to start decorating my Facebook page with Flair images of Edward. Nor do I think we really need yet another instance of the "romantic" vampire (another confession: I only made it through the first two books of Rice's Vampire Chronicles). Still, I can see why young readers go for this stuff. I even feel strangely connected to my inner teenage girl (though I'm a 39 year old straight guy). And, I have to say, the book's kind of . . . hot, though in a really chaste, Mormon kind of way. As a vampire, Edward's drawn to Bella's bouquet, her scent, and I'm struck by how just about every page of the novel contains something wet and moist--just not what you might expect. Still, after finishing it, I think I'll need a good chaser to wash it down--maybe I'll finally finish VARNEY THE VAMPIRE.

Lovecraft For Your Ears

2008-11-09T06:58:00.000-08:00

Well, the plague came to the Tomb, and at the most unwelcome time possible. I spent the week before and after Halloween utterly sick and haven't been able to bring myself to write much. Hence why you heard little unholy howling this Halloween season. The holiday months ahead will have to make up somehow, and we're going to start with Lovecraft . . .

If you've looked at the links in the sidebar, you may have come across the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, an organization that, among other things, has produced a sterling 1920s style silent film production of THE CALL OF CTHULHU. In addition, they have gone on to produce a handful of adaptations in the style of "old time radio" of Lovecraft's stories, beginning with AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. I spent some of my convalescence time catching up with THE DUNWICH HORROR, another story in Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos." A prior audio adaptation of the play found listeners in 1945 thanks to the radio show SUSPENSE, and thanks to DataJunkie, you can listen to that program by going here.

While I love programs like SUSPENSE (along with THE WITCH'S TALE, WEIRD CIRCLE, and others), it's still a shame that they seldom turned to Lovecraft's work for material. With that in mind, it's refreshing to find the HPLHS bringing us new adaptations of such professional quality. THE DUNWICH HORROR stands as one of Lovecraft's more chilling stories, where libraries and old books become sources of terror and paranoia. We also see the author's signature anxiety over miscegenation, and as outmoded and silly as such fears rightfully appear today, Lovecraft's "Old Ones" still come across as brilliantly conceived.

Definitely check out this production, which the HPLHS store offers both as a CD and as a downloaded MP3. The CD comes packed with pseudo-reproductions of newspaper clippings and pages of archaic tomes. Your hard-earned dollars will be well-spent.

Fuseli Imagery in Frankenstein

2008-10-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, I traveled to Orlando for "Halloween Horror Nights" at Universal Studios, where I also had the good fortune to find James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN playing on the big screen in City Walk. Naturally, I gobbled up the chance to take in the big screen experience, though the afternoon showing I went to only had six people in attendance--and that included me, along with the two people I talked into tagging along. Still, watching Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, and Dwight Frye in larger-than-life form made the early evening drive back home very much worth it.

The big screen also gave me an opportunity to soak in one of the my favorite moments of the film, specifically when the monster intrudes on Elizabeth as she prepares for her wedding. This sequence has never lost its unsettling impact for me, as we see the monster clearly unhinged after accidently drowning a young girl, and it doesn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility that he does something unspeakable with Elizabeth. The implication seems all the more evident when we consider the need he feels for a mate in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

I love how Whale frames the scene to look like Fuseli's 1781 painting, "The Nightmare," which features an incubus crouching atop a sleeping woman. Perhaps Whale structured the scene this way intentionally, calling upon an association with the painting's metaphor for transgressive sex. Or maybe I just want to view the film in a kinky way . . .

Halloween is . . . the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow

2008-10-12T20:41:00.001-07:00

"On mounting a rising ground," writes Washington Irving in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," "which brought the figure of his fellow traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror struck, on perceiving that he was headless!" No story says Halloween better than this one. This year, my local supermarket decorated its foyer with a life-sized paper mache of Irving's famous spectre, and we even find new M & M television advertising featuring a pretty nifty headless Hessian. Modern readers might find Irving's original text a bit wordy, yet it still evokes an eerie magic, with its haunted church-yard and ominous woods. Reading it today still transports us into the hearth, where we live "the "marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him."

Contemporary film-makers still feel drawn to the story, and their attempts to capture Irving's magic have let to varying degrees of success, from contemporary interpretations like THE HOLLOW and HEADLESS HORSEMAN (the latter which gave the story a backwoods horror angle, not unlike THE HILLS HAVE EYES of all things), to Tim Burton's wonderful SLEEPY HOLLOW, which re-imagined Ichabod Crane as a police detective. Still, the most brilliant interpretation comes from the least likely source: Disney's 1949 adaptation.

Watching Disney's version on TV during the 1970s became one of the most formative experiences of my young imagination. Narrated (and sometimes sung) by Bing Crosby, the story stays remarkably faithful to Irving's original story. The animators use deep, rich colors to capture the horrific majesty of the horseman, and even peppered with humor, the terror that Ichabod feels on his fateful ride seems real and genuine. One of the most remarkable moments occurs when Ichabod, forced into an embrace with the spectre, peers down into the open neck hole of the horseman's tunic and sees . . . what? Something that evokes terror, something that undercuts the ambiguous ending that Irving's story leaves with us. It all might have been Brom Bones' practical joke, but Ichabod sees something that terrifies and possibly revolts him. This is a moment of genius on the part of Disney's animators, and (I mean this) one of the greatest moments of horror film history.

Reportedly, Disney's imagineers originally planned to tie its Haunted Mansion attraction in to the Sleepy Hollow legend. According to Jason Surrell's book on the history of the attraction, the original concept involved a climax in the conservatory, where spectators would witness the crossing of the headless horseman past the window overlooking the graveyard. How cool would that have been?

WITCHES' NIGHT (2008)

2008-10-06T15:05:00.001-07:00

Here's a well-made independent film that reminds us that, deep down, beneath tons of psychic scar tissue created when we watched Disney's SNOW WHITE at a young age, many of us still find old, cloaked ladies with crooked noses and hunched backs scary. Not since THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT has a film indulged those old fears, taking us into a frame of mind created when the Christians of Europe sought to suppress pagan religions by portraying its practitioners as diabolical and evil--with ugly faces to prove it. Full discosure: I liked this movie, and the filmmakers did their homework, including references to Samhain, the Witches' Sabbat that falls on November Eve, as well as MALLEUS MALFICARUM, or THE WITCHES' HAMMER, which offered instructions on how to detect and effectively execute a witch. However, unlike THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, WITCHES' NIGHT taps into the fear of female sexuality that the demonization of witches ultimately represents.

With an attractive female cast and eroticized rituals (as well as violence), this is a sexy film, though without the trvialization that we might see in a Misty Mundae production. The very plot begins with male rejection, as the protagonist struggles with the anguish caused by his fiancee leaving him at the altar. To cheer him up, his three friends take him on a camping trip, intending a night of beer drinking, male bonding, and a "women, who needs 'em" mindset to get them through the crisis. Naturally, the four men choose the wrong woods for their camping trip, for a coven of ancient witches has made it the scene of their Halloween Sabbat. Capable of altering their appearance, the witches appear as seductive young women, intended to make the guys forget all about that terrible woman who left their buddy at the altar. Sexual congress with these ladies, however, results in blindness, mutation, and horrible swelling (not the good kind, either).

The film's director, Paul Traynor, effectively combines seductive images with the traditional "hag" archetype associated with witchcraft. At first we get only obscured glimpses of the witches in their true form--scurrying behind trees, glaring at the men from behind branches, adding a degree of unease to the film's overall effect. They come to represent a power beyond the male imagination, attuned to a malevolent form of nature to which the men fall prey. Modern day experts in witchcraft might rightfully remind us that the image of the "hag" represented wisdom in pre-Christian religions, its eventual association with evil a means of a reactionary effort to suppress those religions. While WITCHES' NIGHT does not make an effort to correct this--it wants to scare us after all--it tells its story well, and for an independent film, it comes across as a polished, professional effort. With its Halloween setting and use of classic archetypes, it makes for good holiday viewing.

The film is available for download or on DVD at http://www.witchesnight.com/. Considering the paucity of good horror films at the multiplex, WITCHES' NIGHT is worth the effort to seek it out.

COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (1972)

2008-09-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

Where I live, we don't have proper seasons, so I often have to kick off Autumn through artificial means, like buying tons of Halloween decorations, or watching a movie that lets me imagine an added crispness in the air. BCI's recent release of COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (titled in their double bill with VAMPIRE HOOKERS as CEMETERY GIRLS) gave me the opportunity to do so with one of Paul Naschy's best films, a riff on the Dracula mythology that has very little to do with Bram Stoker, but still has a uniquely Spanish aesthetic that makes it a pleasure to watch. The film starts off with scenes and scenarios that seem lifted straight out of a Hammer production--in fact, DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS comes most immediately to mind, with a plot that starts with a group of stage-coach travelers stranded in the Borgo Pass. Naturally, they wind up in Dracula's abode, which apparently spent time as a mental asylum, and the group gradually falls prey to the vampire (who has disguised himself as Dr. Marlow) in a way that echoes the earlier Fisher movie.

However, the recognizable Hammer tropes give way to something more akin to Jean Rollin by the end, as the film increasingly grows more surreal and less governed by plot and dialogue and more by so by image and monologue. As the lover of one of the women, Victor Alcazar's character appears set up as the film's hero, strong, sexually desirable to women, with instincts to protect. However, he falls victim to vampirism himself fairly early in the film, a departure from what we would expect from a Hammer film, where we generally see women placed in positions of dependency to men. In fact, the general attitude toward evil in COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE appears skewed when compared to traditional Dracula films: Instead of standing as the source of control over a monolithic evil, Naschy's Dracula creates other vampires that he not only can't control, but with whom he seems decidedly at odds.

Of course, the filmmakers may have devised this kind of characterization so that we can see Naschy's Dracula play hero at convenient spots in the film, killing his share of vampires and serving as the male protector in these scenes. However, he still seems the embodiment of evil he cannot control and, at times, genuinely seems to regret. (How often do we get to see such a tender moment involving Dracula as when he frees a trapped rabbit?) With its off-kilter approach, COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE takes its place in a canon of Spanish vampire films that include THE DRACULA SAGA and THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE, films that take risks and subvert the traditional narrative that Universal and Hammer had taught us to expect.

In an earlier post, I linked screenshots that suggested that the BCI disc would offer a substantial improvement over previous releases of the film. I'm happy to report that this is indeed the case; while not in pristine condition, BCI's print still offers the film in what appears to be close to the original aspect ratio. Very highly recommended.

THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964)

2008-09-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Antonio Margheriti directs this inky Italian gothic from a script by the prolific Ernesto Gastaldi, with obvious inspiration from Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY. THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH may pale in comparison, but I still find that it has plenty to offer on its own. The above image beautifully captures the despair of Barbara Steele's character, Helen, as she simultaneously mourns the death of her mother, burned for witchcraft, and seems to use still flaming embers to call upon otherworldly forces, having unsuccessfully sacrificed her virginity to the cruel count in a bid to save her mother. As a whole, Margheriti's film may not be able to match Bava's, but he still manages to give us one of the most memorable scenes in 1960s Italian gothic horror.

The plot develops this way: After Helen is murdered, we watch the accused witch's other daughter, Elizabeth, grow up to eventually marry the count's son, Kurt. Consistent with the theme of doubling that seems to run through Italian gothic horror, the same actress, Halina Zalewska, plays both the executed witch and Elizabeth, but as usual, Barbara Steele, er, steals the show with her portrayal of Helen, who comes back from the dead during a stormy night and imposes herself in the family drama taking place in the castle. Kurt and Elizabeth have a chilly relationship, and it doesn't take long for Kurt to decide that he prefers Helen, and the two plot to murder Elizabeth.

As with any good gothic horror, however, things prove to be different than they seem, and Kurt finds that his plans to live happily ever after with Helen have taken a back-seat to someone else's intentions for revenge. Moreover, as with any good Italian gothic, we see secret passageways, madness, weighty religious iconography, and most importantly, a decent allotment of rotting corpses, including some impressive re-animation scenes. Roger Corman may have gotten to these themes and tropes earlier with his Poe adaptations (including his own Barbara Steele vehicle, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM), but I still find Margheriti's film more satisfying in several ways. Somehow he makes the presence of dark magic seem very real and ominous.

The Nightmarish Landscape of VAMPYR (1932)

2008-09-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

Often derided as "dull," especially by contemporary audiences, Carl Theodor Dreyer's VAMPYR marks a surrealist, European response to the American-style sound horror film kicked off by Universal Studios' DRACULA. In fact, Dreyer reportedly watched Browning's film and conjured up VAMPYR as his own attempt to create something equally marketable. Yet his vision takes us into landscapes beyond the gothic walls of Browning's film, something in which occult influences threaten to break down the very structure of reality itself. Professing to draw from Sheridan Le Fanu's seminal vampire text, CARMILLA, VAMPYR actually bears little resemblance to its source, replacing the youthful, voluptuous vampire with something more akin to the "crone" of witchcraft lore.

Possessing very little in the way of a conventional narrative, the story follows David Gray, a student of the occult, who comes upon a small village plagued by the elderly vampire and her servant, a physician who instead of properly treating his patients, actually helps the vampire feed upon them. Hardly a traditional hero, Gray seems almost helpless as shadows move of their own volition, and in the most visually eerie moment of the film, he falls asleep during a crucial point and as a shadow/ghost, his gazes upon his own corpse as it is prepared for burial.

Dreyer's artistic sensibility brings the film to life, emphasizing image over narrative, and in at least this regard, he lays the groundwork for the European horror film for decades to come, as evident whenever we hear charges that European horror directors emphasize "style over substance." While relatively tame in terms of sexuality, hints of perversion bubble beneath the surface of the film, and we even see one of the vampire's victims bound up in a way that calls to mind some of the later, kinkier images of Jess Franco.

Perhaps VAMPYR does move a bit languidly, but I still find it a fascinating experience, one that culminates in one of the more disturbing moments in 1930s horror, as we see the vampire's servant meet his end in a scene that seems unnaturally drawn out. Definitely worth one's time, though avoid late night viewings when you're prone to falling asleep--you may have disturbing dreams.

Happy Birthday to the Wolf Man

2008-09-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

In his autobiography, MEMOIRS OF A WOLFMAN, Paul Naschy describes how the scene of his birth on Sept 6th, 1934 looked through the eyes of his father. Naschy writes, "My father once told me that he'd looked up at the sky at dusk and it had seemed to be steeped in blood." He goes on to say that it "was September 6 at six in the morning; it only needed one more six to complete the Satanic triad." So begins the life of Paul Naschy, one that impacted Spanish horror cinema with films like VENGEANCE OF THE MUMMY, COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE, HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, the recent ROJO SANGRE, and the stunning series of Waldemar Daninsky werewolf movies beginning with MARK OF THE WOLF MAN. The still above comes from THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF, a film released in 1980 that Naschy directed as well as starred in.

Soon, BCI will release COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE in anamorphic widescreen, and while they did not go back to the original negative, the results are evidently still very much worth seeing. Go over to this thread at the Latarnia forums to see screen-shots. Also, I'm currently reading BRIDES OF THE IMPALER by Edward Lee, one of my favorite "splatterspunk" authors, and while it's relatively toned down compared to his previous work, it functions as a loving homage to Eurohorror films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, including the films of Naschy. Check it out.

THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT (1973): Vampires, Bald and Naked

2008-08-29T11:58:00.001-07:00

While it does not quite reach the same exhilirating level as LADY FRANKENSTEIN, Luigi Batzella's THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT stands as a rousing vehicle for Rosalba Neri. Having previously played the daughter of Frankenstein (who continues her dead father's experiments for revenge and carnal pleasure), Neri takes on the role of a female vampire in the possession of a fabled ring once held by Count Dracula, as well as other nefarious characters. Said to grant its bearer great power, the Countess uses the ring to lure virgins to her castle (a reasonable use for a vampire who likes to indulge in sapphic pleasures). In the meantime, the Countess plays host to Mark Damon, acting in a double role as a pair of twin brothers, one of whom has tracked down the ring to castle. Seducing Damon, the Countess targets him as the new host to the spirit of Dracula himself.

A pastiche of tropes and scenarios from (frankly) better films (BLACK SUNDAY comes to mind), THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT tends to muddle a bit, but Batzella's occasionally arresting imagery, as well as Neri's sexy but commanding premise, make the film worth a look. While he's certainly not cut from the same cloth as Mario Bava, Batzella manages to create an eerily erotic gothic atmosphere, highlighted by a fog-bound scene of undead women gathering for a blood orgy, and--especially--scenes of Rosalba Neri bathed in blood and rising naked from her crypt.

Even with such scenes, the movie sometimes falls flat and slows to a crawl. Playing two parts, Damon does not distinguish himself very well, even during a psychedelic scene in which he leers maniacally upon Neri as she makes love with another female vampire. Neri's bald henchman comes across as unintentionally comic, though the inevitable plot twists involving Damon playing twins turn out to be fun, if predictable.

According to imdb.com, Joe D'Amato worked as cinematographer on this film, and ultimately, we can probably credit him (along with Neri) for most of the film's merits. Despite the scratchy print, I still enjoyed the overall look of the film, which comes across as something of a live-action fumetti.

PARISH DAMNED, by Lee Thomas: Swimming Vampires!

2008-08-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

South Florida generally doesn't come to mind when the subject of gothic horror comes up--never mind the oddly placed castle in which Dracula takes residence in order to re-brain the Frankenstein monster in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, a movie I would take to the proverbial desert island. Maybe it's all that sun that most people associate with that tropical climate. However, residents here recognize a general undercurrent of weirdness to this state, as evident in some of its lore, like the bizarre Count Von Cosel of Key West, who planned on resurrecting his dead love before stealing her body for . . . let's just say nefarious and kinky practices.

The Keys likewise serve as the setting for PARISH DAMNED, a novella that plays like a version of THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, only with vampires. Written in the first person, it concerns a lonely boat captain who lives on Coral Point, a small tourist island plagued by a recurring "sickness" that comes about whenever the mysterious Graham docks his boat. While much of the island lives in denial of the reality behind the sickness, the narrator knows what really plagues them, setting the stage for gory encounters that ultimately culminate in a grisly climax at sea. Only at the end do we learn that the narrator has a personal, er, stake in the vampires that prey upon the inhabitants of the community.

The general wisdom is that vampire stories have been played out long ago, but I find that I still enjoy it when a good writer puts the old gothic tropes into play again. The Keys offer an unusual setting, and while the novella moves a bit too slowly at first, I loved the climax, where we see the "school" of vampires get to work on a boat in the open water. Overall, good bloody fun, and just the thing I needed to ride out Tropical Storm Fay. I'll be dreaming of dripping wet fanged spectres! Visit Lee Thomas' web page here.

Battenin' Down the Hatches

2008-08-18T16:29:00.001-07:00

It may be a few days before I have a chance to post some reports from the tomb. Tropical Storm and possibly nascent Hurricane Fay has its sights set on us. What will become of us? Hopefully nothing like what Joe McKinney describes in DEAD CITY, which features a zombie plague arising after a series of hurricanes strike Texas. Maybe some howling wind outside will set the right mood for some reading. Hopefully, I won't be running for my life . . . from zombies.

THE LOST (2005), and Why Jack Ketchum Scares Me

2008-08-15T14:44:00.001-07:00

Jack Ketchum scares me, and he should scare you. Praised by Stephen King when he accepted his National Book Foundation Award, Ketchum has written some of the most disturbing fiction in recent memory, including OFF SEASON, RIGHT TO LIFE, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, and THE LOST. The latter draws inspiration from the real life serial killer, Charles Schmid, the "Pied Piper of Tucson," who also served as the basis for Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been." In fact, Ketchum shares with Oates a general fascination with "human monsters," as evidenced by his most famous novel, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, a text based upon the heart-breaking Sylvia Marie Likens murder. But that's not what scares me about Jack Ketchum. What scares me about his work is how effectively he calls for us to reflect on our own "gaze," the way he makes us ask ourselves, "Should I really be reading this, much less enjoying it?" Look at the screenshot above, taken from the masterful film version of THE LOST (directed by Chris Siverston.) That scene occurs during a crucial moment of the story, when this bound character cannot scream, cannot cry, but only look upon the grisly work of Ray Pye with horrified fascination. That's a visual story of our relationship to Ketchum's work.

Like the "Pied Piper of Tucson," Ketchum's Ray Pye wears make-up, stuffs his shoes with crushed beer cans so that he can appear taller, and surrounds himself with teenagers who look in awe upon his swagger and bravado. Like the book, the film begins Pye stumbling on two girls (one played by Erin Brown), camping in the woods. Stalking them later that evening, he murders them with his shot-gun, his only motivation stemming from his apparent suspicion that they are lesbians. As Pye, Mark Senter captures the chaos of a mind shifting randomly from childlike insecurity to violent psychosis. In a role that could easily become a cartoon, his performance is nothing short of brilliant, just as Chris Siverston more than ably handles the source material. Siverston, who also directed the underrated American giallo, I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, achieves a gritty 1970s-grindhouse style of horror film-making without resorting to the gimmicks that many of his peers have used unsuccessfully.

Yes, Jack Ketchum scares me, and he reminds me of another reason why in the commentary he recorded for the DVD (along with fellow writer Monica O'Rourke). This narrative, as well as his many others, serve to remind us that we're not safe, that every day we live counts as another miracle. Just try watching the end of this film without gratefully drawing your next breath. As Hollywood continues to cannibalize itself with remakes and more remakes, it's unfortunate that most of us won't have the opportunity to see this on the big screen.

One shouldn't miss the message that the filmmakers included at the end of the credits--to read the book if you liked the movie, and to read the book if you didn't like the movie. Hopefully, Siverston's film helps Ketchum's work find the wider audience that it deserves.

PHENOMENA: Murderin' Monkeys, Argento-style

2008-08-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

As the above image suggests, Dario Argento's 1987 film, PHENOMENA, includes an overt homage to Poe in the form of a razor-wielding ape--never mind that Argento uses a chimpanzee here, while Poe's simian culprit in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is an orangutan. With his stories of madmen and murderers, Poe has a natural place in the genealogy of the Italian giallo, and Dario Argento himself has expressed a particular affinity for his work, ultimately culminating in his collaboration with George Romero, TWO EVIL EYES. What Poe would make of PHENOMENA, however, is anyone's guess. It stands somewhat as a black sheep amongst Argento's other mid-late 1980s film, including OPERA and the masterful TENEBRE, garnering its share of negative reviews, including one from Alan Jones, whose original STARBURST review called it "the worst fantasy slasher Dario Argento has ever been involved in" (my source for this quote is Jones' PROFONDO ARGENTO).

It seems that the passage of time has improved PHENOMENA's reputation somewhat, despite the fact that Argento seems intent on going in several different directions at once. Jennifer Connelly plays Jennifer, the daughter of a media celebrity sent to boarding school in the "Swiss Transylvania," and in a twist taken right out of SUSPIRIA, she discovers that a murderer is on the loose. In the meantime, Donald Pleasance plays John MacGregor, a Scottish entomologist that the police have called upon to help them solve the murders--maggots and larvae can provide clues about the time of death, after all. Jennifer, we learn, has the ability to communicate with insects, and McGregor eventually encourages her to use this ability to find the killer's lair.

As nutty as PHENOMENA sounds, Argento has described this film as one of his most personal, and the plot allows him to play with a number of fruitful themes and ideas, including the archetypal "terrible mother" that has shown up in some of his other films. Burdened by the absence of parents, Jennifer ultimately finds that the truth behind the horrible murders relate to her need for nurturing in some horrible ways. Up to this point, the film portrays characters seeking some kind of surrogate parent: Jennifer's room-mate even gives her baby food when she asks for something to eat, and the opening sequence--one of Argento's best ever--shows a girl calling after the bus that left her behind after a school trip, leading to her eventual murder by decapitation. Significantly, Fiore Argento plays the abandoned school girl. As his later films with his other daughter, Asia, demonstrate, the director tends to play our personal issues on the screen in some disturbing ways.

And in all this we have a monkey! The ape belongs to John MacGregor, who in his own way, acts as its surrogate parent, until the ape gets a chance to repay the favor. If I didn't already love PHENOMENA for the way it fearlessly throws all its bizarre plot elements into one big gumbo, I'd probably love it just for putting a razor in that ape's hand.

The Bride As You Never Thought You'd See Her

2008-08-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

A huzzah! to Frankensteinia for reaching 200 posts and for informing us about this gallery of photographs that will forever change the way we look at the Bride of Frankenstein.

Mr. Poe's Bloody Ape

2008-08-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

My personal odyssey with murdering monkeys continues with a re-reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," a story featuring Pierre Dupin, the template for future literary detectives, most notably Sherlock Holmes. The opening of the story might try your patience, as Poe's narrator expounds endlessly on the nature of "the analytical" and its relationship to the imagination. While Poe ultimately wants the reader to apply his or her own skills of deduction to the events he puts forward (the reader is the true detective, as is the case in any good mystery) the story eventually gets down and dirty with the gruesome murder of a mother and daughter living in Paris. Both corpses bear horrible marks, with the daughter's body stuffed in a chimney, and the mother's body found on the street below, her head decapitated by a razor.

As with many Poe stories, the rational and the irrational exist in a tenuous relationship with each other, and while Poe seems to suggest that the rational wins out--Dupin figures out that (quite obviously) an escaped ape with shaving razor committed the crime--the gratuitous, sensational elements ultimately maintain our interest. Who'd want to read the story if a homicidal ape hadn't decapitated the poor mother?

Like many Poe stories, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" has been adapted into film more than once, but my favorite is one of the earliest: the 1932 Universal film directed by Robert Florey, starring Bela Lugosi, fresh off his portrayal of Dracula. Universal had originally pegged both Florey and Lugosi to work on their follow-up film to DRACULA, an adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN, but those jobs eventually fell to James Whale and Boris Karloff. Instead, Florey and Lugosi found themselves collaborating on MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, which, as Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas, and John Brunas have pointed out in UNIVERSAL HORRORS, has perhaps been unfairly received by horror fans. Taking its share of liberties with the story, the film portrays Dupin as a love-sick medical student who stumbles on the sideshow exhibition of Dr. Mirakle, who plans to cross the blood of an ape with a young human female. Mirakle's ape, Erik, takes a liking to Dupin's girlfriend, and Dr. Mirakle becomes all too willing to find a way for them to mate. It's all as icky as it sounds, in a 1930s pre-code Hollywood way, but I like to think that Poe would have approved of this plot twist, even if they turned Dupin into a bit of a whiner who lacks the near-telepathic skills of Poe's Dupin.

The film opens in a sleazy sideshow (where dancing girls might "bite" for a little extra price) and eventually brings us to Dr. Mirakle's lair, where he ties his victims onto a slanted cross so that he can test their mating potential with Erik. The authors of UNIVERSAL HORRORS note that the film's calls to mind German Expressionism with its visuals and that its "European feel clashes with the English-language dialogue and American accents, only adding to an off-putting sense of strangeness and artificiality." Indeed, Universal's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE feels like it could easily morph into an English language dubbed version of a Jess Franco film, and for that reason, I love it dearly.

Edit: The image at the top of this post comes from the pen of the amazing Berni Wrightson, and it can be found at Michael May's Adventureblog.

NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES

2008-08-04T00:25:00.001-07:00

Let it be known: if you deem yourself a scientist and still insist that your assistants call you "master," then your work might not really serve the best intentions. If nothing else, NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES, directed by Rene Cardona, reminds us to question doctors who perform illicit ape-human heart transplants to save their own children from debilitating diseases, especially when said children transform into blood-thirsty monsters determined to rape, scalp, and decapitate anyone who crosses their paths. Dr. Krallman performs this kind of surgery with these results, and indeed, he insists that his assistant call him "master."

Tenebrous Kate, whose scandalous reflections demand your every day attention, promised us a "rapey half-mans, half-monkeys" a few days back, and for SURE, I thought, she meant that she'd discuss NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES. Thanks to my flimsy background in Naziploitation horror films, I failed to realize she meant to school us on SS HELL CAMP. I could have just cried in my tequila, but I realized that all this just meant that it was up to me to give NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES its due.

In 1969, Cardona not only brought us NIGHT THE BLOODY APES, but also SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA, which does a decent job of adapting parts of Bram Stoker's novel into the framework of the "lucha libra" wrestling film that has proved so popular in Mexico for so long. Likewise, NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES borrows tropes from this genre, incorporating a sub-plot involving a detective and his wrestler girl-friend, who conveniently makes a point of being in the shower every time her boyfriend calls on her. As a whole, NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES contains plenty of sleazy exploitation elements and no doubt kept its targeted drive-in crowd more than happy. While the detective's girl-friend struggles with the fact that her stunning wrestling moves put her opponent in a coma, Dr. Krallman decides to transplant the heart of an ape into his son, hoping to cure his cancer. Instead, the transplant results in his transformation into a horrible ape-human, who subsequently goes on a rampage. Hoping to cure his son, the doctor performs another transplant, using the heart of the coma victim, but of course, this goes south as well, and the monster goes on to scalp, rape, and decapitate anyone who gets in his way, including the poor assistant who calls his boss "master."

I can't in good conscience call this a "good" film, but I always have loads of fun with it. BCI recently released it as part of their SOUTH OF THE BORDER Vol 2 DVD Collection. Get it, and remember to always call me "master."

ALUCARDA (1975)

2008-07-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

To the best of my knowledge, "Alucard"--the backward anagram of "Dracula"--first appears in 1943's SON OF DRACULA, used there as a (frankly poor) disguise for Lon Chaney, Jr.'s portrayal of Dracula. In all honesty, the exact reason behind its use for the title character of Juan Lopez Moctezuma's masterpiece, ALUCARDA escapes me. If nothing else, the name adds to the aura of a character already shrouded in mystery. Born under mysterious circumstances and brought to a convent as an infant, Alucarda grows to a young adult and befriends another young woman, an orphan named Justine. Already full of vibrant madness and free will, Alucarda encourages Justine to reject the teachings of the church, and in the time-honored tradition of nunsploitation, the two of them waste no time in getting all naked and bloody (apparently the best way to sell your soul to the devil in these things).

Moctezuma himself refers to Alucarda as "an apocalyptic creature," a fitting label for a character who eventually brings the film to a (literally) fiery climax. Before this happens, her seduction of Justine leads to the latter's exorcism (a bloody one, through needles), her death, and her eventual "resurrection," memorably emerging from a coffin filled with blood. While Alucarda does not seem to possess explicitly vampiric qualities of her own, it does seem possible that she can call forth vampirism in others, particularly when we get to see Justine take a juicy bite out of one of the film's nuns, right before a dousing of holy water causes her to burn down to a charred skeleton.

Hence, Alucarda's name serves as a hint of the kind of supernatural power she possesses. At the same time, Moctezuma leaves the film ambiguous; to be sure, this is no straight-forward Hammer-style film, where good and evil exist as clear-cut polar opposites of one another. The "evil" of the film--manifested in the bizarre resurrections taking place--could easily come about because of the excesses of the church, as seen through the aforementioned exorcism as well as the prayers and incantations that rise to orgasmic heights. We also see nuns and priests who take to whipping the devil out of themselves, so the film's wildly excessive bloodletting extends to them as well. One of the most memorable set-pieces of the film comes when the charred remains of nun (one of Justine's victims, apparently) comes back to life on an altar, only to have its head violently removed by a priest.

ALUCARDA is a delight. It's a film that resists straight-forward viewing while still exhibiting the kind of exploitation thrills that surely satisfied the drive-in crowd of the 1970s. THE MEXICAN CINEMA OF DARKNESS, by Doyle Greene (published by McFarland) contains an excellent analysis of the film, so anyone interested in exploring this film's many layers would do well to seek out a copy.

THE GATHERING (2002) and What It Could Have Been

2008-07-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

THE GATHERING starts in a very promising way, beginning with a young couple who have the misfortune of literally stumbling upon the remains of an early Christian church, intentionally buried in the English countryside. This accident costs the young couple their lives--just check out the juicy impalement--but more ominously, it reveals the curious cross and odd bas reliefs that adorn the church. As a faithless archaeologist begins studying the findings, a mystery emerges about the church and its possible connection to Joseph of Arimathea, who (the story goes) journeyed to England to bring Christ's gospel after witnessing the Crucifixion. As the historical pieces come together, some startling revelations become clear about the faces represented in the bas reliefs and their resemblance to people seen in the nearby village.

Now, if THE GATHERING just stuck to developing this narrative thread, it could have emerged as the cinematic equivalent to the work of M. R. James, the English master of the horror story. James' work often focused on academics and antiquarians who uncover horrors buried in common historical records, or odd figures in paintings who seem to move ominously. In fact, the exposition behind THE GATHERING would fit comfortably in any one of James' stories, which often begin in a dry fashion, only to come unhinged after some horrible revelation--the murder of children by a ghost, a vampire buried in a church, a tree containing something hungry buried inside. In such stories, the safe, rational history we are taught to believe in collapses in favor of something horrifying and irrational.

Rather than fully developing such plot elements, THE GATHERING involves a woman (Cassie, played by Christina Ricci) whose appearance in the village coincides with the church's discovery. I love Ricci. I really do. She does amazing work in BUFFALO 66, as well as in SLEEPY HOLLOW, a movie dear to my black heart. However, her character's place in the scheme of things becomes all too predictable, as does the implications behind the relationship she forms with the children of the archaeologist. What should have amounted to a seething horror film becomes a series of "race against time" chases once she becomes the central character.

I don't mean to say that the film doesn't deserve attention. It comes across as competently made, and it holds the viewer's interest during its 90 minute running time. However, the film had the potential to rise to something more--much more.

Classic Monsters in Your Comics

2008-07-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

Frankensteinia, an essential blog on all things (duh) Frankenstein, posted this concerning THE DRACULA FRANKENSTEIN WAR, a Topps comic I've never come across but now wish I had. In the meantime, I really will lose my head if I miss THIS upcoming comic:

Click here for an interview in which Steve Niles discusses this story he built around the celebrated Frazetta painting, which is apparently coming your way in August. Save that allowance!

THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG: SAW, Karloff-style

2008-07-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

After helping invent modern horror cinema through his various characterizations at Universal Studios, Boris Karloff went on to appear in a series of well-regarded "mad doctor" films for Columbia, most notably THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (1939). In this film, Karloff plays Dr. Saavard, a scientist who, with good intentions, experiments with technology designed to deprive people of life functions long enough to perform critical, life-saving surgeries. Unfortunately, the police interfere with his experiments when the nervous fiancee of his volunteer test subject spills the beans, resulting in a murder trial. The reactionary jury fails to understand the humanitarian purpose behind Saavard's experiments, and thus, the judge sentences Saavard to death by--you guessed it--hanging. Fortunately, Saavard's assistant acquires Saavard's body after the execution and applies the life after death process to Saavard's corpse--after fixing his broken neck, of course. The final act of this brisk film (just over an hour) involves the revenge of Saavard as he gathers those involved in his sentencing in his old home, telling them the appointed hours of their respective deaths and arranging for them to carry out their own death sentences.

Catching up with this movie on Columbia's "Icons of Horror" Boris Karloff collection, I was struck by the unlikely parallels to the recent and more visceral SAW series. Like the "Jigsaw" character of that film, Saavard de-emphasizes his role in the death of his victims, choosing instead to supply them with the means to bring about their own destruction. He also intends to "better" humanity through his efforts, though Saavard's motivation stems largely from revenge. With Jigsaw and Saavard, we also have two characters who have to contend with their own deaths, Jigsaw being terminally ill, while Saavard has literally been brought back from the dead.

BEWARE: I'M GONNA REVEAL SOME FUN PLOT DETAILS! While Saavard doesn't concoct anything quite as gruesome or elaborate as Jigsaw (no one has to perform surgery on themselves), he does come up with some groovy ways for people to exact their own deaths. The judge electrocutes himself, while my favorite death involves a panicking character who answers a phone call, only to have poisoned needle come through the receiver and pierce his brain.

The final act in Saavard's home makes for entertaining viewing, and it ends all too soon, with Saavard's plan falling apart before he can make a real dent in the number of his intended victims. I'd have liked to see the film-makers make more use of Karloff in his ressurrected, vengeance-starved persona, but in its existing form, THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG still makes for entertaining viewing.

Wanted on DVD: LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE

2008-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

A few posts back I mentioned Elizabeth Bathory and how I preferred DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS to other cinematic interpretations of her story. I'm also fond of Jorge Grau's THE LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE (1973), a Spanish film that--unless I've missed something--has yet to have a decent release on DVD. This film would seem like a natural fit into the catalog of Severin, which has released some excellent Eurocult DVDs recently. THE LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE proves that Grau's THE LIVING DEAD OF MANCHESTER MORGUE--one of the best post-NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD movies--was no fluke.
This is a film that is just aching for re-discovery.

In the meantime, I have high hopes for Julie Delphy's THE COUNTESS, which we should see in the near future. Maybe that film's successful run will revive some interest in Grau's film. I can hope, can't I?

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972)

2008-07-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

While Dario Argento deservedly receives recognition as the maestro of the giallo--the Italian murder mystery heavy on horror elements, prominent during the 1970s--he often overshadows some equally deserving filmmakers in that genre, particularly Sergio Martino. While Martino's TORSO stands out as a deliriously violent and exhilarating precursor to the American "slasher" film, he often imbued his earlier efforts with more rousing, psychedelic images and mind-bending narratives, especially THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH and ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (American title: THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU). Both films share common screenwriters (Ernesto Gastaldi), in addition to featuring a common cast, George Hilton and, most notably, Edwige Fenech.

Compared on more than one occasion to ROSEMARY'S BABY, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK bears some surface-level similarities to Polanski's more celebrated film, most notably a young female protagonist (Jane, played by Fenech) beset by paranoia and the presence of the occult. However, little else ties the films together: the victim of an accident that cost her her pregnancy, Jane struggles to re-connect with her boyfriend sexually and hence turns to psychotherapy. In the meantime, she experiences disquieting visions, including those of a very creepy blue-eyed Ivan Rassimov stalking her. When psychotherapy fails to pay off, Jane takes the advice of a friend and attends a black mass, thinking that perhaps her answer lies in the occult. Already sensing that the boundaries between reality and fantasy have started to slip, Jane's visions take on a violent role in her waking life, as the people around her start to die.

While not as heart-pumping as TORSO, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK brings a great deal to the table, not the least of which is Fenech herself. I'll confess it: next to Fay Wray, Fenech is my favorite scream queen because of the qualities she brings to films like this one. Aside from erotically charging every scene she appears in, Fenech also successfully communicates a sense of helplessness and desperation, especially as the veil between her visions and the "real" world begin to collapse. Thanks to her performance, the scenes of the black mass come across as genuinely disturbing and threatening. Martino also plays with the conventions of the giallo in a satisfying manner, eschewing a straight-forward stalk and slash formula for a reality-defying narrative. And Rassimov . . . man, that guy only needs his eyes to give a sinister performance--or are those contacts?

DREADFUL SKIN: Werewolves and Gun-totin' Nuns

2008-07-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

Nuns--how can you not love 'em? And how about a gun-toting Irish nun who travels to America, hunting Springheel Jack, who just happens to be a werewolf? If that sounds as irresistible to you as it did to me, then you really must read DREADFUL SKIN, by Cherie Priest. Priest has written a series of excellent supernatural novels involving Eden Moore (starting with FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS), but DREADFUL SKIN is a different . . . beast altogether, as well as a refreshingly original werewolf novel. While werewolves seem to be taking over space previously occupied by vampires in the paranormal romance department, Priest gives us truly vicious creatures, as well as a gritty 19th Century setting. Starting aboard a doomed steam boat on the Tennessee River, we follow Eileen (that gun-toting nun I told you about) and her efforts to put an end to Jack's reign of terror. Through her crusade, we meet a number of compelling characters, including former slaves, gamblers, river captains, and revival tent Christians. Things also sticky, as Priest has her werewolves unleash some pretty gruesome violence.

She also carries out some neat literary tricks without making them seem too gimmicky. Werewolves are, of course, essentially hybrid creatures, and Priest mirrors this hybridity by writing a novel that does not stick to conventional rules. Structured by three sections, Priest utilizes a different narrative device for each, ranging from stream of consciousness to an epistolary form that calls Bram Stoker's DRACULA to mind. One character describes her hatred of Jack, the primary lycanthrope as "some bizarre amalgam of creatures never meant to mate or cross." Passages like this suggest that Priest's playful combination of literary devices serve a shrewd purpose.

The book also comes peppered with some alluring illustrations by Mark Geyer. Published by Subterranean Press in 2007, DREADFUL SKIN is worthy of your attention!

Nightmares and Fairy Tales: 1140 Rue Royale

2008-07-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

In some ways, Delphine Lalaurie could stand as 19th-Century America's own Elizabeth Bathory. Like Bathory, Lalaurie carried out immensely cruel and sadistic acts against those forced to play subservient roles--in her case, African American slaves. A socialite in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Lalaurie's cruelty came to light when a fire broke out in her home, leading to the discovery that she and her physician husband had used their slaves in several macabre "experiments," including a primitive sex change operation and the creation of a "human crab." Take any decent ghost tour in New Orleans and you'll find guides who can recount the rumors of her fate--either she escaped to France or she took refuge somewhere outside New Orleans--as well as the discovery of about 75 human remains later found beneath the floor of her home, apparently slaves that she had buried alive. In an odd footnote to her story, actor Nicholas Cage reportedly bought the New Orleans home recently.

While filmmakers and writers have found different ways of exploiting Bathory's story (my favorite being 1971's Daughters of Darkness), very few have put Lalaurie's grisly story through the works. In an installment of NIGHTMARES AND FAIRY TALES, however, Serena Valentino did a masterful job of giving the story artistic expression. 1140 RUE ROYALE, named for the address of Lalaurie's home, recounts the story of the mysterious Victoria, who buys the house to live in with her niece, Rebecca. It does not take long for the spirits of Lalaurie's victims to make themselves felt.

In her foreword to the book, Valentino writes that she wrote the story not "to exploit or trivialize this manner of human suffering and atrocities--rather, I am rewriting history in an attempt at giving the victims a voice, a means for revenge and serenity." Not only is this intent noble, but it's difficult task. After all, the passage of time generally dulls our sense of the real human pain behind the stories that entertain us. Valentino manages to capture this macabre story in a terrifying yet elegant manner. Her writing is crisp, effective, and chilling, while the artwork by Crab Scrambly is simply stunning.

According to Wikipedia, Valentino is working on a play called BRIDE OF THE MUMMY, which will be staged in New Orleans. If anyone has any info about this, I'd love to hear it.

Another great Naschy poster: EMPUSA

2008-07-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

The poster art from COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE posted below led me to reflect on the generally sorry state of movie poster art today. With the development of the Internet, it seems as though a poster does not play the same role in selling a movie that it once did, and hence, artistry in this area has declined overall. I do, however, love the poster art promoting EMPUSA, Paul Naschy's new vampire film, so I'm posting it here and directing people to check out Mirek Lipinski's excellent blog on the film, which you can find here. The film doesn't have a distributer yet, but I'm looking forward to eventually seeing it.

The image of Naschy with the flowing hair and crossbow calls VAN HELSING to mind, but honestly, who would win that fight? Hugh Jackman? Please. Give me Naschy any day.

I'll be cutting out for about a week and a half for a family vacation, but I'll leave everyone with an image that always comes to mind when the subject of horror movie posters comes up. This poster, promoting Lucio Fulci's THE GATES OF HELL, is my all-time favorite, and it haunted me when I first came across it in newspaper advertisements when I was 10. Not old enough to see the movie then, I had to wait several years, and while movies often under-deliver on what the poster promises, I was pleased to find that the movie was everything that my 10-year old imagination envisioned.

Lucy Clifford's "The New Mother"

2008-07-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

I just read an old posting at "Lucy Clifford News" about a stage production of her Victorian horror story, "The New Mother," which first appeared in Montreal and went on to Cleveland. I'd love an opportunity to see this production since the story itself is so odd and chilling. It involves a pair of children, Blue Eyes and Turkey, who live in the woods with their mother and a baby sibling. During a trip into the nearby village, they come upon a "wild-looking girl," who offers them a glimpse of the tiny people living in her peardrum--but only if they promise to misbehave at home. Naturally, the children carry out the promise, but the girl insists on greater and greater misdeeds before she will make good on her promise. In the meantime, the mother tells Blue Eyes and Turkey that their misbehavior will lead to her departure and the arrival of a "new mother." She describes the horrific features of this new mother for the children, but they still misbehave, leading to a creepy climax.

Read the story here and see if you agree that a stage production would be something to see indeed. I've browsed the web to see if I can find stills of the "new mother," but no such luck so far.

Count Dracula's Great Love: the new BCI DVD

2008-07-01T16:15:00.001-07:00

COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE does not stand as my favorite Paul Naschy film--that honor goes to WEREWOLF SHADOW, followed closely by HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB and the recent ROJO SANGRE. However, I still love CDGL's adventurous take on Dracula conventions, and BCI will soon release what appears to be the first authorized DVD of the film, which certainly seems overdue for what is one of Naschy's major works from the 1970s. While BCI has promised an anamorphic transfer (!), they have unfortunately packaged the film with VAMPIRE HOOKERS and will use the title CEMETERY GIRLS. The cover art, which DVD Drive-In recently unveiled along with the highly recommended double bill of THE TERROR and SATAN'S SLAVE, strikes me as underwhelming. Below, I've included scans of cover art I'd rather see. Sorry for the so-so quality, but I could only find black and white reproductions. I digs the vampire babes!

R.I.P. The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter

2008-06-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

As a family that takes WAY too many theme park vacations, we're doing more than our fair share to keep tourism alive during this sluggish economy. This weekend, we returned to Disney World's Magic Kingdom, and naturally, I made a point of riding my long-time favorite, the Haunted Mansion, which stands as the foremost of the park's "dark" rides (including the Tower of Terror and Expedition Everest.) I never get tired of it. However, I have fond memories of a short-lived attraction that traumatized park visitors during the 1990s: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter.

I recall my first experience on this attraction, when my soon-to-be wife and I had no idea what it entailed. It quickly became the only Disney attraction that she refused to visit twice.

The attraction begins with a lengthy explanation of a new form of alien technology, one that, like the transporter on Star Trek, can be used to transport organisms across vast distances of space. The ride included the premise that Disney visitors would have a chance of witnessing this technology first hand--only something goes terribly wrong when the transporter's intended occupant becomes replaced by something with wings and an appetite for . . . people.

Not a ride, this attraction involved people sitting in several circular rows, all facing the platform that would eventually hold one of the most impressive--and frightening--animatronic figures I've ever seen at Disney. The obvious source of inspiration is H. R. Giger's Alien, but Disney enhanced this attraction with a number of clever effects, including the sensation of hot breath on one's neck when the creature escapes, as well as a splash of water that, in the dark, feels like the hot blood of the poor soul in the rafters who encounters the toothy alien.

Just a few years ago, Disney re-vamped the ride into something decidedly less disturbing based upon LILO AND STITCH. Each time I pass it, I regret that I can't experience the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter one more time. Fortunately, some crafty youtuber posted a video of the ride, which you can find by going here.

KING KONG '76

2008-06-27T12:38:00.001-07:00

Maybe it's because of the episode about giant snakes that ran on MONSTERQUEST the other night. Or maybe it's because the family and I visited Universal Studios Hollywood mere DAYS after the fire that destroyed the "Kongfrontation" part of the tour ride, so now the kids won't ever know what's it like to have a life-sized Kong menace them. Whatever the case, I've been thinking about the 1976 version of KING KONG a lot lately, and I'm no longer going to hide in the closet: I love it. I think it's the SECOND best KONG film made, a lesser film to the original, but still lots of fun. When the film saw release in 1976, I was seven years old, and it had not been very long since I'd seen the original KONG on television. I was the right age to experience the media hype, to see the promo poster and wait breathlessly for the film to finally get into theaters. When it did, the disappointment I felt by the absence of dinosaurs was outweighed by the delight I took in the sheer spectacle of the film. Besides, there was that giant snake scene . . .

Watching the film as an adult, I'm still taken by some of the film's compositions, some of which have a certain beauty that the Peter Jackson remake failed to achieve. Granted, Jackson's film has stunning visual moments, but nothing like what we see in the shot of Kong's body framed by an orange sky. It lacks realism in the same gorgeous way that many Toho films do.

Then there's Dwan, a name I still can't used to. Jessica Lange's character bumbles around and lacks the grace of Fay Wray or the air of tragedy surrounding Naomi Watts' character. But the rapport she has with Kong manages to convince despite the often sloppy dialogue in the script. Plus, we have those priceless leering facial expressions of Kong, which, I swear, seem modeled on the expressions made by 70s porn actors.

Today, the climax on top of the Twin Towers has a particular resonance, thanks to 9/11, but even without that national tragedy, I still find Kong's death moving. So there you have it. As for KING KONG LIVES--that's another story.

The Long Night of the Grave, by Charles L. Grant

2008-06-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

I can recall a time when I could browse through a rack of books in a drugstore and find a healthy selection of horror paperbacks. Of course, this was the case during the "horror boom" of the 1980s, and I recall those days very fondly, especially when I could find shiny, uncreased copies of Charles Grant's novels. Grant, of course, passed away recently, and realizing that I hadn't read anything by him in a while, I decided to pick this well-worn, used paperback off the TBR pile. That, plus my son's recent interest in mummies.

The cover image does not lie; the book's narrative revolves around a mummy--the kind I love, wrapped in bandages, awakened by ancient rituals to stalk its victims in the fog. Grant succeeds beautifully in evoking the kind of atmosphere that one finds in the Universal and Hammer films from long ago through highly evocative prose, as well as stepped-up levels of characterization. As he does with several of his novels, Grant sets the story in Oxrun Station, a town that, like Lovecraft's Arkham, has seen more than its share of the weird and supernatural. This time, however, Grant sets the events during the turn of the century, when Oxrun Station is on the cusp of modernization through electricity and automobiles.

This decision allows Grant to play with some decidedly old fashioned horror tropes and pay homage to Universal and Hammer films, as he did with two other novels that share this setting: THE SOFT WHISPER OF THE DEAD (about the town's encounter with a European vampire), and THE DARK CRY OF THE MOON (a werewolf in this case). Significantly, Grant titles the foreword to the paperback edition of SOFT WHISPER "A Foreword for Those Who Remember Ralph Bates," alluding to the star of many later day Hammer movies, and he mourns over the passing of that particular style of horror film. Anyone who shares this sentiment will love these novels, especially those who already know Oxrun Station from other Grant works.

THE LONG NIGHT OF THE GRAVE does not necessarily hold great surprises. The pleasure in reading this novel comes from the re-acquaintance with a bygone era of horror storytelling, when atmosphere and dread created a thrilling experience. The story involves a number of Egyptian artifacts sold to the town's elite class, including the novel's hero, John Vicar. In the meantime, a series of strange and violent murders take place, leaving few clues aside from odd strips of ancient cloth. Grant occupies the novel with characters that will seem familiar to anyone who has seen a Universal Mummy movie, including Khirhal Bey, who gives Vicar a history lesson about Sakhtu, a powerful priest of Ra who held beliefs so scandalous that they resulted in his death. Somehow, the Egyptian artifacts connect to this ancient figure, and they figure into a plot to achieve immortality--if only their buyers will come to their senses and allow them to be re-united.

Once again, the events that transpire will likely not surprise an astute and experienced reader, but that's not the point. The joy of reading this text comes from seeing how a master of his craft can take these traditional tropes and have a bit of fun with them. Very much recommended.

[REC] (2007)

2008-06-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Part of a recent crop of cinéma-vérité style horror films that includes CLOVERFIELD (2008) and George A. Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD (2007), Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC] (2007) arguably tops them all. While Balaguero’s previous films, like LOS SIN NOMBRE (1999) and DARKNESS (2002) offered a more quiet, slow-burning form of horror, [REC} grooves along like a fine-tuned scare machine, never slowing down but, in fact, building up to one of the most chilling climaxes I’ve seen in quite a while.

The host of a late-night television program, Angela, along with her cameraman, follow a fire crew to what should have amounted to a routine stop at an apartment building. Instead, they find that the occupants of the building have fallen victim to a virus of some sort—one that turns them into zombies. Paranoia sets in as the TV crew, the firemen, and apartment dwellers find that the government has sealed off the area, forcing them to deal with the emergency themselves as the infection spreads.

No doubt the plot will sound fairly run-of-the-mill, with surface-level similarities to Romero’s DIARY and the recent MULBERRY STREET (also about a zombie-like infection affecting an apartment building), but [REC]’s narrative takes markedly different course as the reasons for the outbreak become clear. Far from showing all its cards early, the film continues to surprise all the way up until the very end, featuring at least one goose-bump inducing scene that will likely have horror junkies talking for a long time.

(SPOILER AHEAD. SKIP TO LAST PARAGRAPH. To be sure, these are not carbon copies of Romero’s zombies, nor do they simply mirror the victims of the “rage” virus in 28 DAYS LATER. Balaguero and Plaza give us something more akin what Lucio Fulci presented in films like CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, with zombies that have their origins in Catholic anxiety.)

According to imdb.com, the American remake of this film has been titled QUARANTINE and will be released in October of this year. As in many cases of American remakes, I don’t see the point in waiting for it and would encourage interested viewers to seek out the original. For American viewers with region-free DVD players, Xploited Cinema offers an import DVD of the film.

Vote on the Cover Art for the New Sony Hammer Set!

2008-06-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Sony is letting viewers weigh in on the decision of what cover art to use in their upcoming Hammer set (see news item here). Vote here. At this point, I think I favor the first option.

CANNIBALS, Franco Style

2008-06-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

In the documentary, "Franco Holocaust"--found on the Blue Underground DVD release of CANNIBALS--Jess Franco expresses his disdain for the Cannibal film genre that had become prominent during the 1980s, spawning such films as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST CANNIBAL FEROX, and his own 1980 film, CANNIBALS (otherwise known as MONDO CANNIBALE). Among other complaints, Franco argues that the films created by Ruggero Deodato and others had unforgivable pretensions of realism, presenting themselves as documentaries and thereby blurring the distinctions between the real and fabricated. That's a delightful observation since Franco's film aspires to nothing more than pulpy horror adventure, though Franco's direction seems to lack his usual passion. Most notably, he does little to disguise the Caucasian identity of his "natives," some of whom even have well-groomed mustaches with little more than circus paint to identify them as "other."

While some might cite this as evidence of Franco's sometimes lax habits as a film-maker, I prefer to think that Franco is intentionally undermining the conventions of this genre, which often gives lip service to the notion that the "real cannibal" is us (to paraphrase the closing statement of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.) Despite this expressed sentiment, the films by Deodato, Lenzi, and others tend to conflate the racialized "Other" as the savage cannibal, allowing the shifting lines between "us" and "them" to fall into a comfortable place at the end. While avoiding any direct political commentary, Franco's bizarre characterizations manage to make his film seem all the more subversive. While far from "good" or a Franco film I'd really recommend, it still has this going for it.

Oh, and it has Sabrina Siani looking like something that stepped out an old Margaret Brundage Weird Tales cover. That's worth something, no?

In Memory: George Carlin, 1937-2008

2008-06-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Vampirella in my new comics haul

2008-06-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

I took home a very modest comic book haul yesterday, and not only that, but I showed my age by picking up two "re-boot" titles from the 70s--VAMPIRELLA QUARTERLY and DC's HOUSE OF MYSTERY. I have yet to fully digest the latter, but as for VAMPIRELLA . . . I apparently missed a previous entry in the Harris series, so I don't know exactly how Adam Van Helsing became the God of Chaos, but I continue to be struck by how the passage of time has re-shaped the sexual politics of Vampirella. No longer quite her same demure self, Vampirella asserts herself more, and here, she snaps off a pretty good one-liner as a sex-cult member talks about how he'd like to use his "spear" against her. "Well," Vampirella replies, "that's about the grossest thing I've ever heard. And I grew up in Hell." Nice one, Vampi!

Growing up in the 1970s, VAMPIRELLA was one of the great forbidden comic books in my life, so I knew of her and her adventures mostly by hiding in the farthest corner of the newstand and taking as many peeks as I could before getting caught. Over time, I've picked up a few old issues here and there and have followed the Harris re-invention somewhat sporadically. CRIMSON CHRONICLES, the trade paperback reprints of the old Warren magazine, have helped me re-capture some of those lost 70s moments, and the art of Jose Gonzalez never loses its aura and mystery for me.

I've enjoyed some of the more recent renditions of Vampirella--Bruce Timm immediately comes to mind--but inevitably, this new stuff doesn't have what the old stuff brought to the table. VAMPIRELLA QUARTERLY #1 includes a "re-mastered" version of "Shadow of Dracula" and "When Wakes the Dead," which originally appeared in VAMPIRELLA 18 and 19 respectively. (Vols. 2 and 3 of CRIMSON CHRONICLES reprint them, by the way.) These colorized "re-masters" seem almost disorienting, at first, like something's gone askew, along the lines of seeing a favorite black and white movie colorized. After another glance through the pages, the added color seemed to make Gonzalez's art jump off the page more, and I have to admit, I kind of like it. I'm no purist, I guess. In any case, these reprints reminded me of what the new Vampirella is missing--stories that provide a Hammer sensibility, rather than the Buffy-inspired story-telling that seems to inform the newer incarnations.

It's no secret that Hammer intended to make a film version of VAMPIRELLA in the mid-70s featuring Barbara Leigh and Peter Cushing, but I can't help but think that Ingrid Pitt would have made a more fitting actress. In fact, I wonder if her sensual features might have provided some of the inspiration for Gonzalez in his earlier artwork.

Death Ships

2008-06-20T15:45:00.001-07:00

Avast! Get yer tushes over to Final Girl and read Stacie's review of DEATH SHIP, perhaps the pinnacle of killer cruise ship movies with what is undoubtedly the greatest blood shower ever filmed. Her review put me in mind of our recent family trip to Southern California, where we ventured aboard the Queen Mary, one of the most haunted ships in the world. We ended up spending a whole afternoon aboard the ship, taking the ghost tour, as well as indulging in the "enhanced" experience that takes you into the eerie bow of the ship. The setting, combined with sound, light, and fog effects, left us all quivering, especially when the tour culminated in a simulated collision with another boat, causing water to flow through the hull. I have to say that it was one of the most effective "haunted attractions" I've ever experienced.

During our tour of the creepy, rusty boiler room, I took a picture that might be an orb, or it might (he admits sheepishly) be my thumb. I prefer to think it's an orb, but I'll let you be the judge. (You can find it at the top of this post.) Just don't spoil my illusions!

For more on the Queen Mary, go to www.queenmary.com

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb coming to R1 DVD!

2008-06-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

No sooner do I mention it than we get an announcement that it's coming to region 1 DVD! Today, DVD Drive-in has announced that Sony is releasing Curse of the Mummy's Tomb in a set that will include three other Hammer titles: Scream (Taste) of Fear, The Gorgon, and The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (yeah!). Apparently, this will be an "Icons of Horror Collection," presumably along the same lines of their previous Sam Katzman collection, and it will street October 14th with remastered transfers. Count me in!

THE Mummy vs. The Mummy

2008-06-20T00:45:00.000-07:00

I harbor no ill will for Stephen Sommers. Really. Seriously. I know, I know, there’s the atrocity known as Van Helsing, yada yada. But when his 1999 version of THE Mummy presents opportunities for introducing my son, Werewolf Jr., into the delights of classic monsters, who I am to complain. Ok, maybe there’s lots to complain about. In any case, Werewolf Jr. loves THE Mummy (and yes, for him, it’s THE Mummy, largely because of how a 5 year is taught to pronounce that particular article.) He thinks Bendan Frasier’s character, O’Connell, is the bomb. He thinks Imhotep’s the scariest thing on the planet. He buys a Mummy cap on our recent trip to Universal Studios. Not tall enough to ride the (I admit) spankin’ ride, he poses for pictures by the mummy guards. I’m a good monster dad. I indulge.

But what else do I do as a good monster dad?

I introduce him to what I consider one of the greatest mummy movies ever—the 1959 Terence Fisher film starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. I admit, it’s slower. No groovy scarabs that burrow under the skin. No swashbuckling heroes like O’Connell. But, my God, there’s Peter Cushing. There’s the eerie swamp. There’s the glass-breaking scene when Cushing’s character harpoons the rampaging, revenge-seeking mummy.

That’s scary, I said.

Sort of, he said.

He wore his Universal Studios hat while we watched the movie, and before I put him to bed, I pointed out the other Hammer Mummy movies we had waiting on the shelf—Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and The Mummy’s Shroud. He admitted that Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb looked pretty good, but we’ll have to save it for another night. I’ll keep Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. on hold for later.

Damn that Stephen Sommers. But at least he’s got Werewolf Jr. thinking about the beat of those cloth wrapped feet . . .