Archive for the ‘Latest News’ Category
Posted by Jessie in DVD & Blu-Ray, Home Page Top Story, Latest News, Television & Web Series on September 3rd, 2010
They finally did it.
No. They did more than that. They really, really did it.
Thriller is on DVD.
You remember — that show from the 60s that we all watched religiously, every week and it didn’t matter when it went into summer reruns because we couldn’t get enough of it? Summer reruns. Man, there’s a blast from the past. And you younger readers, you keep hearing us older fans gassing about Karloff’s Thriller and how great Pigeons From Hell was (yes Farnham, it’s here in all its winged glory) and how we wish you could watch it someday — well — you can.
The brain trust at Image Entertainment has outdone itself with this boxed set. But before I tell you about how wonderful everything is, I want to note that I was really disappointed with the Arthur Hiller commentary. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not because it wasn’t fascinating, it was wonderful, really. But it ran over the pilot episode. No fear, you can watch the episode without the audio commentary, but it was the most annoying session I’ve ever sat through. And I sat through it all because Hiller was such a wonderful subject! I’d rather have had either a) Hiller discussing the episode as it rolled along or b) a series of stills behind the audio commentary so I wouldn’t have been so distracted. I wanted to watch the show, not listen to these guys gab about Thriller in general. While the episode was touched on now and again, it really was an Arthur Hiller interview that didn’t include specifics about the scenes rolling behind it.
That’s it; my only gripe. This set is killer.
All 67 episodes, remastered (they’re glorious) and presented on 14 DVDs with more than 50 hours of goodies; as I’ve stated, they really, really did it. I may have other gripes regarding the audio commentary, but I haven’t watched all 100+ hours of the thing so I can’t tell you yet. I confess I’m fair drooling to get back to the tube and watch hours and hours over the next several days as well as listen to what Larry Blamire, David Schow and Lucy Chase Williams have to say, not to mention all the others (but those three are my friends, so, ya’ know) including cast members, crew… there are 27 in all. This set is going to keep me busy for months, months I say! And then I can start watching them again over the holidays.
Now to the meat of the matter; bear in mind that I’ve not watched these episodes in 35 years give or take. That’s a rather long time, yes? I don’t even remember the pilot, mayhap I never saw it. The Twisted Image is a Leslie Nielsen vehicle and the story of a stalker interrupted. Nielsen’s character has not one, but two loonies banging around his office and his home. This piece is truly gritty and were it a feature length film it could really get down and dirty with the thrills. They only had an hour and packed an amazing amount of action into those 60 minutes. They really don’t make TV like this anymore. I hear you bellowing, “Oh yeah? What about The Sopranos?”— yeah, yeah, yeah; but they had season after season and buku bucks and didn’t tell the story entire in one measly hour. Not the same thing. The Twisted Image is tense drama laid out with a fine hand, acted beautifully, photographed like a dream and they did it all in 5-6 days. And that’s just the pilot!
The second episode is Child’s Play; a little morality tale about what happens when Dad spends all his time working and not paying attention to the wife and kid. A touch over the top on the result of his workaholism, but the point gets made. In this writer’s opinion, not one of the best but it was early days, after all, and it wasn’t for lack of script. In fact, the scenes between the husband and wife are far more real than I care to remember, having gone through a divorce myself. The script— and the performers — nailed it. Another Hiller directed piece and his visual punctuation of the argument in the cabin is, I admit, compelling. It’s just not quite what I expect from Thriller. Don’t dismiss it on my say so however. Please don’t do that. It’s well worth watching and the tale is one that can always use retelling, especially in this high-speed world.
It’s a gem of a collection, what I’ve seen of it thus far, and based on those two episodes alone I’m going to recommend that all and sundry glom onto one right away. It’s in stores today so drag yourselves out and plonk down the plastic. $150 sounds like a lot, I know, but what you get in this set is worth far more. Bring it home and spend some time this weekend scaring the bejeezus out of yourself. I can’t say it any better than your host for this series, Karloff the Uncanny; “As sure as my name’s Boris Karloff, this is a thriller.”
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Posted by Jess in Books, Latest News, Reviews on September 2nd, 2010
With his latest novel Overwinter, David Wellington has continued to solidify his status as one of the most talented (and underrated) writers working within the horror genre today. With an oeuvre that spans the sodden trail of zombies, vampires, and werewolves, Wellington has consistently put an original spin on these classic monstrous icons, while creating vividly imagined worlds filled with rich characters that consistently live on long after the final page is dispatched.
The sequel to the stellar werewolf tale Frostbite, Overwinter continues the journey of newly turned lycanthrope Chey Clark as she struggles with not only her developing pedigree as a supernatural beast of legend, but also her increasingly complex attraction and dependence on Powell, the werewolf who killed her father and ultimately turned her.
Complicating matters is the appearance of Lucie, the twisted sociopath who sired Powell, as well as the brilliant hunter Varkanin who is seeking revenge against the werewolves. In addition to these substantial new wrinkles, Chey must contend with the horrible realization that with every metamorphosis, she surrenders more and more of her humanity to the beast within threatening to break free of her psyche once and for all.
While performing at less of a breakneck pace than its predecessor, Overwinter expands the origin of the Werewolf mythos, making excellent use of Inuit animism legends originally hinted at with the mysterious Dzo in Frostbite. In doing so, Wellington grounds the story firmly in the midst of the origin of mankind, giving the ensuing events an epic scope and resonance.
Prolific by any standard, Wellington’s novels (Overwinter being no exception) consistently succeed at avoiding the rushed and anemic narratives that many modern horror authors and publishers seem to be falling victim to. These are not stories written simply for leisure, immediately forgotten and discarded into the stacks. This is an author who writes stories of depth, emotion, and passion, ratcheting up the tension and horror by connecting with the reader on a visceral, deeply human level.
Lean, exciting, and filled with enough carnage to satisfy hardcore genre fans, Overwinter continues the author’s creative dominance (whether recognized or not) of the horror lists. If you’re not reading David Wellington, you are simply missing out on a writer at the top of his artistic game.
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Posted by Max in Latest News on September 1st, 2010
In less than a week is Labor Day, traditionally the end of summer for many Americans, though the official end is not until Sept. 22nd, the date of the autumnal equinox. Time for fun in the sun is drawing to a close. I’d like to recommend some horror stories and nightmarish novels to give you some chills for the few hot days left in 2010.
Let’s start with some downloadable stories in audio form, and begin with some of the classics. These are all free (they’re in the public domain), and will remind you of some of the greatest monster movies ever made.
The first is “The Picture in the House”, a story by the influential horror author H. P. Lovecraft. With themes of cannibalism and insanity, it reminds me of Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the Lambs, of the mad clan in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the dementia found in the stories found in the stories of Lovecraft’s predecessor, Edgar Allan Poe. In fact, the ending was likely influenced by Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
Download a reading or save the text by clicking here.
Lovecraft’s stories and novels draw on New England traditions and locales. Similarly, author Manly Wade Wellman drew on Appalachian color and folklore for his horror and fantasy stories. Occasionally Wellman’s work seems touched by Lovecraft, as with Wellman’s “The Golgotha Dancers“, a story that originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine in 1937. As described by Project Gutenberg, it is a “curious and terrifying story about an artist who sold his soul that he might paint a living picture.” It’s number of pink, invertebrate humanoid beings from some unknown and malign plane of existence certainly seems inspired by the man Stephen King called “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”
The Project Gutenberg e-text of The Golgotha Dancers can be read or downloaded here, or listened to as part of the Librivox Audio Short Horror and Ghost Collection #10. This is great collection of classic horror tales online, and is available as a zip file, or RSS feed, or as an iTunes subscription at this page, which also includes links to e-text copies of each individual story. (In case you take your laptop with you to the beach .)
Also found in this audio assortment are a number of superior scary stories: the ever-readable-but-overfamiliar Poe is present (“The Oval Portrait,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Metzengerstein,”), but so are Robert W. Chambers, Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman, and Henry Kuttner, the prolific horror, sci-fi, and fanatasy writer that Ray Bradbury, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Roger Zelazny have all cited as an influence. Kuttner’s story, “The Secret of Kralitz”, is in the grand tradition of other stories first published in Weird Tales magazine, featuring strange locales, mysterious characters, and bizarre, other-worldly monsters.
Contemporary Horror
Noted splatterpunk author David J. Schow was asked for his recommendations, and he wrote to say, “Most overlooked is Gerald Kersh. Many of his best short stories can be found in the still-gettable MEN WITHOUT BONES, ON AN ODD NOTE, or NIGHTMARES & DAMNATIONS.” A number of eBook formats (including mobile) for Men Without Bones can be found at this page. Paperback copies of On an Odd Note can be ordered here.
Schow also suggested for FM readers “a whole book of beachside horror stories called TROPICAL CHILLS, ” an anthology edited by Tim Sullivan. If zombie horrors are more your style, no collection of zombie stories surpasses Schow’s funky, gory and witty Zombie Jam.
My Current Choices
Currently, I’m listening to volumes one and two of the Librivox “oddio” of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by M.R. James. James is thought of as the one of the best authors of ghost stories in English literature, his tales contrasted quiet, rural settings with images of intense violence, and not only featured ghost but demons and other supernatural horrors. One of his most famous stories, Casting the Runes (found in “Ghost Stories of…”) was made into the classic horror film Curse of the Demon.
Life is full of coincidences, as much as in fiction, though usually not as fantastic or unsettling. Recently I was reading evaluations by fans of the 1942 minor classic monster movie, The Ghost of Frankenstein. I’d just mentioned the film’s “Ygorstein” Monster in a previous post here at Famous Monsters, and how Frankenstein’s “giant” (as ol’ Flat-top’s called by the little girl he befriends in the film) goes blind at the end. THEN I listened to The Spectre of Doom, (also in SH & GC #10) a haunting parable by Dracula author Bram Stoker, and it featured a blind giant!
Stoked about Stoker? A Librivox gathering of his short stories, Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Tales, can be found by clicking here. Other Stoker stories and novels can be downloaded for free at Horrormasters.com, which has a vast and varied horror library.
So while you still can in 2010, read some horror fiction outdoors in the bright sun–the best way to chill your blood without shivering!
Discuss this story in the official Famous Monsters of Filmland Forum!
Posted by Movies Unlimited in DVD & Blu-Ray, Featured Columns, Home Page Top Story, Latest News, Movies Unlimited on August 31st, 2010
He’s back! Everyone’s favorite ghoul-about-town is here to share his picks for some of horrordom’s most howlingly attractive leading ladies! Join Ghouly Irv now for a survey of his favorite shapely shock stars!
Let us know which of your favorites the Ghouly One neglected to mention over at the Famous Monsters of Filmland Forum! And while you’re visiting, take some time to catch up on the terror-ific installments you missed the first time around here on FM, like Terror-ific Trivia Worth Repeating, Ghouly Kids, and more…
Posted by Peter Schwotzer in Latest News, Reviews, Terror Tales with Peter D. Schwotzer on August 31st, 2010
MORPHEUS TALES – DARK SORCERY SPECIAL
Dark Sorcery: An Introduction By Tommy B. Smith
Power Drunk By John “JAM” Arthur Miller
The Word By Aaron Gudmunson
Secret Ingredients By Bill Ward
Moon And Shadow By Dennis McDonald
Veil Of The Weary One By Lee Clark Zumpe
Jackie’s Lost Children By Lee Thompson
One Last Trist By Samantha Wood
Magic Coin By Scott M. Sandridge
Black Maggie’s Secret By Robert Walton
My Master’s Work By Justin Simpson
Seeds of Apocalypse By Kesh Butler
Cover By Sergey Urlapov, Back Cover By Lin Bo, Interior Artwork By: Candra Hope (Page 5),Justin Coons (Page 10), Geff Bartrand A.K.A. Dr. Twistid (Page 13), Lisa Anderson (Page 22), Christopher L. Stine (Page 28), Sexforfood (Page 33), Robert Leija (Page 40)
Unfortunately for me I don’t get a chance to read a lot of the great horror fiction magazines that are being published right now. Time and financial constraints make it very difficult to keep up on all that is going on in the short fiction market. I am happy to say that Morpheus Tales sent me a PDF of their Dark Sorcery Special Issue and it is a winner.
I’ve heard of a few of the authors featured in this issue, while most are complete strangers to me. That is not a bad thing, I love discovering new writers of short fiction.
As you can imagine by the title of the magazine the tales within are steeped in the realm of dark sorcery and they deliver in spades. While some were better than others they all strike a good balance of magic, monsters and fantasy. I breezed through the Dark Sorcery Special in one sitting and found myself lost in the wonderful worlds created within. If this is an indication of the quality of fiction being published by Morpheus Tales we are all doing ourselves a disservice if we don’t order a subscription.
Jackie’s Lost Children by Lee Thompson and Seeds of Apocalypse by Kesh Butler were my favorites in this issue and Magic Coin by Scott M. Sandridge was a nasty little tale
The cover art is exceptional as well as the art within the pages. The images add greatly to the atmosphere of the writers words.
If you haven’t had a chance to read Morpheus Tales this is a good place to start. You can order all back and current issues on their website here; www.morpheustales.com
Posted by Max in Books, Latest News, Movies on August 30th, 2010
Robots in our past and present, in film and real life.
What IS a robot? Everything from a real-life car assembly machine to a fictional artificial human being gets called a “robot.”
The Merriam-Webster Online site gives its main definition of the term this way: “A machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being, also: a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized.”
That lack of humanity in a humanoid shell is what makes a great movie robot a great monster.
There were robots in films before the term “robot” was created. In fact, robots have been in films for as long as films have been a widely available entertainment.
Robots in film
Robots in film go back nearly as far as motion pictures themselves. In 1907, Vitagraph released a short film titled The Mechanical Statue and the Ingenious Servant featuring a mechanical man, although this “mechanical statue” is no more than a life-size dancing wind-up toy. The term “robot,” (from the Czech robota, or drudgery) first appears in the 1921 play R.U.R. (for Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech playwright Karel Capek. This play’s “robots” were artificially created slave laborers, although they were biological beings. Initially useful for filling manual labor needs, improvements resulted in “robots” too much like human beings, and they revolted. A film adaptation of R.U.R. is now in development, with a planned release date in 2011.
Early in film history, there were robots who were memorably menacing, like all good monsters. In 1920, superstar magician and escape artist Harry Houdini appeared in The Master Mystery, a film serial featuring The Automaton, a robot made to protect a criminal cartel. The following year, Italian audiences watched The Mechanical Man, which showcased a rampaging robot over nine feet tall that could shoot flames from its arms.
This audience fascination with robots continues to this day and remains strong. Wall-E, and The Terminator and Transformers franchises testify to this.
What drives our fascination and fear? It isn’t just the possibility of things going haywire and robots and androids (robots that appear to be human) posing a violent danger, such as has seen in films like Westworld. The possibility of robots or cyborgs (part human being, but significantly part mechanical or electronic beings) superseding ordinary homo sapiens as the most powerful sentient beings on the planet feeds our darkest suspicion of them.
Nexuses of real and fictional robots
For me, the fear and fascination all started when I was a child at a carnival, and was frightened by a fat lady robot.
Maybe “robot” is too strong a word. When I was four years old, I would sometimes be taken to an amusement park where a spook-house ride beckoned to my imaginative self. But the thought of going in wasn’t something I would even consider, as outside the entrance a shaking and rocking mechanical figure of an obese woman seated in a chair emitted an emotionless and loud recorded laugh, over and over. This was my first exposure to an artificial “person,” and the frightening impression it made on me has stayed with me ever since.
This power to scare I tried to assimilate one early Halloween, going out as a cardboard-box robot, a staple of the set of DYI costumes that most trick-or-treaters or their parents create at one time or another. Roaming the streets, I set aside my humanity and imagined being the master of puny humans, above human ethics, and able to crush at will any I encountered. Of course, I didn’t share this mindset when appearing at a neighbor’s door begging for candy!
I did encounter numerous and impressive ‘bots in childhood. They included the curvy “false Maria” robotrix from the film Metropolis, seen in a photo in the original Famous Monsters magazine, the droll robot of TV’s Lost in Space, the Kong robot from the film King Kong Escapes, the heroic robot of the cartoon Frankenstein Jr., and the similarly heroic gang of androids in the comic book Metal Men. A lot of kids of my generation were similarly big robot fans, and so are many younger people now.
Last year, I spoke with young mechanical design engineer Laura Wong of Pittsburgh, who works in the creation of robotic prototypes, and is a self-described “Star Wars fan.” I asked her how she came to be interested in the field she works in. In part of her response, she told me that in her house when she was a child was small version of a famous movie robot– “a mini R2D2 that you were able to control through the computer manually. I would drive it around to find my family cat and have it stop in front of her and state ‘here kitty kitty kitty’. It amused me to say the least.”
When she was eight, Ms. Wong says her younger sister had a toy robot that she was interested in understanding how it functioned. She related, “I can’t remember what kind it was, but it was a dome-shaped robot with ‘whisker’ touch sensors on it. So I decided to take it apart, but I got caught red-handed by my dad and he said if I did not put it back together in working condition before my sister finds out I would have to pay for a new one with my allowance. So I sat there and figured out how to get all the parts back together and it worked for the most part! So that is how I got into robotics.”
Her sister lucky was fortunate that Ms. Wong wasn’t influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In that film, HAL 9000 (which comes from “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) was the evil computer system for the spaceship Discovery One. Operating all mechanical and electrical functions of the craft, HAL murders several human beings who threaten his control.
In 2003, HAL was one of the first fictional robots inducted into Carnegie Mellon University’s “Robot Hall of Fame” in Pittsburgh, along with George Lucas’ lovable R2-D2.
Five Infamous Robotic Monsters of Filmland
My nominees for five most memorable robots of film are a quirky mix, ranging from the the best bad bots to the crappiest clanking creations. But all are destructive and memorable for a variety of reasons. Here, from worst to best, are my selections:
Ro-Man from 1953’s Robot Monster. His image, a shoddy combination of gorilla suit and diving helmet with a TV antenna added, is still used today in garage kits, and is often featured wherever you find celebrations of schlock cinema. This robotic alien, somehow able in the film to destroy humanity with the use of “Q rays,” has the most unforgettably horrible costume design in film history.
Nameless Scowling Robot from the ‘39 Lugosi serial The Phantom Creeps. Though seen only briefly in the film, this robot’s villainous visage is well-known as the film is in the public domain and many dvd copies are out there– and also because a recreation appeared onstage in a tour by musician Rob Zombie. It has, perhaps, the most Golem-like ‘bot appearance in film, with its immobile human-like face and sculpted scowl.
“Ygorstein” from The Ghost of Frankenstein. This is the 1942 version of the famous film Monster, complete with a new brain transplanted into its head– the brain of the malevolent Ygor, who used the Monster to kill his enemies in the previous sequel, Son of Frankenstein. With his neck electrodes and skull clamps the Monster is an early form of a cyborg rather than a robot, the guileless Frankenstein Monster becomes in this entry of the Universal series a truly evil figure, acquiring a malign intelligence to match his strength. But only briefly– and just at the film’s end! Sadly, all references to the transplant are dropped in subsequent films and the character becomes no more than a mute, hulking plot device.
Maria from the 1927 Metropolis. Even before being given a false skin to make it a doppelganger of the classic film’s heroine, this Art Deco-styled robotrix is sexy, intelligent and evil. Another Robot Hall of Fame inductee at CMU, the influence of her visual design can be seen in the much later masculine but ineffectual character of C3PO in the Star Wars franchise.
HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). If computers ever develop a form of self-awareness and the freedom to program itself, we would do well to remember HAL’s actions in the film. We might face surprising consequences for sharing space with a new sentient being too young to have moral standards derived from experience, and too different from human beings to have an abundance of empathy for them.
But that doesn’t keep us from being fascinated by robots and cyborgs, and even wanting to emulate them. Martin Magnussen of Sweden, who says he wants to “advance the state of artificial intelligence,” has created a wearable computer with net access and features a pair of “Myvu Crystal video glasses hacked into a monocular head-mounted display.” He looks Borg-like with his gear on; take a look for yourself at Magnussen’s blog, Becoming Cyborg.
Currently, film robots that look like robots are deemed quaint, and are depicted in family films like 2005’s Robots and 2008’s Wall-E. Only androids like the Terminator get to be a menace. Here’s to a future where real androids are charming, attractive and benign and (as with the Japanese-made robots seen here and here) and movie robots are bad metallic mofos.
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Posted by Dominic in Comics, Latest News, Reviews on August 25th, 2010
Life is full of ironies. In this particular case I find it ironic that, though I don’t care for Elvis Presley either as a musician and/or actor, I absolutely love the guy as a monster assassin for hire. Yes, I said monster assassin for hire. Okay, I have to be honest; he isn’t necessarily an assassin per se, but rather a middle-age recluse who’s taken to battling all things paranormal for profit-and kicking the un-holy crap out of them in the process.
Black List Studios KING! is the first of a 4 issue series following former Mexican wrestling great Jessie King as a supernatural hitman for hire. Is this the same King that could not be filmed from the waist down in the 1950’s due to the amount of hormones he would unleash upon the then innocent youth of the world? I can’t honestly say. Is he an impersonator turned vigilante mayhem maker? Maybe. Writer Thomas Hall has not revealed this master monster killer’s origins as of issue 1. What he has done is sold me on the idea that Elvis, the King himself, is alive and well and saving the world one bus ride at a time with a pair of six shooters and brass knuckles (the right hand being Rock the left Roll).
Whilst reading I couldn’t help being reminded of two of my favorite Elvis themed masterpieces, 2002’s Bubba Hot-tep starring the great Bruce Campbell and the cartoon Johnny Bravo. Though the slight similarities to Bubba Ho-tep can’t be mistaken, Mr. Hall has taken his version of Elvis as a monster slayer to a whole other level. The humor is there; i.e. the King blasting the delivery man’s moped to rubble in his underwear, only to open a package containing a beating helicopter heart which delivers the message offering the King a zombie/demon killing job. The action is there and blood and mayhem ensue. The King gets down to business doing what he does best, and it ain’t singing I’ll tell you that.
Enter artist Daniel Bradford’s awesome panels. I mentioned Johnny Bravo because I was instantly reminded of that killer cartoon from the moment I first saw the cover to the last panel of the King as a sushi chief standing over a conquered monstrous calamari. That’s not to say Mr. Bradford’s artwork in KING! ripped from Johnny Bravo; Heck I don’t even know if he’s ever seen Johnny Bravo. I was simply reminded of the cartoon while reading. Though cartoonish, KING! is a far grittier and gory story than said cartoon and the artwork enhanced a rather basic, subdued story.
However, the simplicity of KING! is what makes the story work, for the King himself is a simple man. He obviously likes to lounge around in his chonies at his home in the desert, and on occasion kill various types of menacing monsters and demons hell bent on destroying mankind. Though his mode of transportation is the bus, the King gets around and you bet I’m going to follow him on the journey wherever it may lead baby. And you should too.
Posted by Peter Schwotzer in Books, Latest News, Reviews, Terror Tales with Peter D. Schwotzer on August 25th, 2010
Ouroboros by Michael Kelly and Carol Weekes
In a small coastal town, an ancient force stirs, drawn by the cumulative power of life and death, grief and sorrow, and ultimately, endless love.
OUROBOROS – life out of death.
Tom Christiansen’s wife of 35-years, Dolly, is dead. His world suddenly shattered, Tom takes refuge in his house to grieve and reflect. Tom’s thin veil of reality and fantasy begins to crack and slip. He hears things: the rusty creak of the backyard swing; the tap to tiny feet from an upstairs room. And he sees things, as well: a small rubber ball bouncing slowly down the stairs; birds like silent sentinels on electrical wires; a strange little pigtailed girl suddenly appearing in his yard, and what is that mysterious figure lying in the upstairs bed that he used to share with his beloved wife?
OUROBOROS – a new cycle has begun.
Tom’s long-time neighbors, and dearest friends, Mick and Robbi Hamlin begin to notice strange behavior from grief-stricken Tom. The witness dinner place-settings for two. They hear hushed conversations from the old house, as if Tom is speaking to himself, as if he is not alone. There is a pale little girl in the backyard, swinging ceaselessly. And something is rustling in the bushes, peering out from the undergrowth with inquisitive eyes.
OUROBOROS – the end is just the beginning.
I have been reading books for a long time, most of my life actually (but I won’t divulge how long that is). I can count on one hand the books that have scared the daylights out of me. The first being “The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty”, followed by “The Shining by Stephen King”, “Ghost Story by Peter Straub” and “Black Cathedral by Maynard & Sims”. These tales stick with me most because of the unrelenting terror and fear they caused; nightmares, jumping at sounds, sleepless nights, everything a good scary story should do.
Ouroboros by Michael Kelly and Carol Weekes just got added to that list. This is no ordinary book my friends; deep down this is a love story, a character driven tale of a man lost after the death of his soul mate and the crushing loneliness and loss that follows.
The first few chapters are the most heart wrenching I have ever read. If you don’t shed a tear after reading the start of this book, you are quite possible already dead.
From crushing anguish to monstrous fright, Kelly and Weekes weave a tale of madness and reality, friendship and love, and last but not least…terror. The characters that populate Ouroboros are as real as it gets. You will genuinely feel the myriad emotions that they feel…and you will be scared!
Once Ouroboros grabs hold it will not let go. This is the most frightening book I’ve read this year. Long after you finish this book it will stay with you. It will make you to think about your own mortality and those around you, and what exactly happens after we leave this mortal plane.
If you are easily scared and prone to nightmares you might just want to skip this book. But if you revel in being terrified, wondering what that sound is out in your yard at night or that small creaking sound above your head coming from the attic, and enjoy turning the lights out knowing your can’t possibly fall asleep, then this book is for you.
This is an absolute must read period, no matter what genre you favor. A book this real and frightening does not come along very often. Buy it and savor it you will not be disappointed.
I want to thank our friends over at Dark Regions Press for sending over another fantastic read. Pay them a visit and see what they have to offer, one of the best horror publishers around.
Posted by Movies Unlimited in DVD & Blu-Ray, Featured Columns, Home Page Top Story, Latest News, Movies Unlimited on August 23rd, 2010
With vampires all the rage and a cinema smitten with mind-bending narratives built around the generic staple of the “unreliable narrator,” what better time is there to have a look at Czech director Jaromil Jires’ provocative 1970 cult film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders?
First coming to the world’s attention with his 1963 debut feature The Cry (exhibited at Cannes), a film of documentary realism and social criticism that displeased his native government, Jires found his talents put on hold as Czechoslovakia’s state-supported film industry turned down script after script he subsequently submitted for production. It wasn’t until 1968 that Jires reappeared on the scene with The Joke, adapted from the novel by Milan Kundera as an ambitious drama attacking totalitarianism.
I’ve yet to see either of those films, but based on what I discovered with Valerie, I’d be eager to explore more of his works. While Jires is typically noted as one of the earliest directors associated with the movement known as the Czech New Wave, it’s fair to say he should also be more popularly recognized for creating this truly unique film that should be spotlighted in any history of 1970s horror.
Mix themes of emerging female sexuality and Czech folk legends into the dream logic of Dreyer’s 1932 Vampyr; blend in the experimental daring of Bill Gunn’s Ganja and Hess and Jan Svankmajer’s Alice; sprinkle with the sinister humor of Jose Mojica Marins’ Coffin Joe epics, and you get some sense of the weird spell cast by this creepy and poetic account of 13-year-old Valerie’s (Jaroslava Schallerova) twisted odyssey through the early stirrings of adolescence.
The film opens with a classic scene of invasion–a device dating as far back on film as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari—when a strange man invades Valerie’s room and steals a pair of earrings from her as she sleeps. Upon awakening, Valerie discovers she’s entered a new stage of life when she receives her first period, dripping menstrual blood upon a flower. Valerie shares this development with her grandmother (Helena Anyzova, delivering a truly uncanny performance), her deathly pale and aloof guardian, who encourages her to play hostess to visiting missionaries.
Valerie’s attention is quickly drawn to a group of traveling performers passing beneath her window, and sees (for what will be merely the first of many encounters) a chalk-white, bald, grotesquely toothy figure bearing more than a passing resemblance to Max Schreck’s Count Orlok garbed in flowing black robes reminiscent of Bengt Ekerot’s figure of Death in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.
As the story progresses—perhaps it’s better to say floats oddly onward—the young Valerie disturbingly becomes an object of lust for nearly every member of her family. When her aged grandmother makes a pact with the vampiric monster to trade eternal life in exchange for the inheritance of the household, it is suggested that the creature may represent Valerie’s departed father, returning to feast on his own daughter’s blood in hopes of reincarnating himself.
Appearing then on the scene is a man who declares himself to be her brother and protector—but, as the film soon reveals, absolutely no one in Valerie’s life is to be trusted alone with her. While curiously observing men and women of the town openly and heatedly coupling in various sweaty combinations, Valerie is repeatedly assaulted by near-rapes as visions of ghouls and a “plague of chickens” erupt in the town.
In this vampire story, religious figures are to be feared just as much as the undead, when one of the visiting missionaries corners Valerie in her bedroom and rips open his robe to run his fingers across his hairy chest while praising the attractiveness of Valerie’s breasts. Given magic talismans earlier in the film, Valerie manages to escape many perils, repelling the repellent “holy man” and later freeing herself from being burned alive at the stake when she is accused—surprise!—of being a witch after begging off sex with her tormentors.
Eventually, Valerie is brought into an erotic and frightful confrontation with the bloodsucker claiming to be her father, and just when it appears the girl may have emerged intact from the nightmarishly bizarre series of events seemingly unleashed by the onset of her puberty, the film leaves us just as uncertain of the nature of reality as Christopher Nolan’s Inception would four decades later.
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a real find (check around and you’ll discover I’m hardly alone in that opinion), and a neglected work of subversive horror and fantasy filmmaking. The cinematography of Jan Curik, production design by Ester Krumbachova, and costumes by Eva Lackingerova are effectively fused into a potent work of surrealism that calls to mind not only the work of Lewis Carroll, but the cheeky aesthetics of ‘70s softcore erotica and a bewitching approach to nightmare folklore found in little-seen films like Russia’s Viy.
Also due for special recognition is the editing work done by Josef Valusiak, who assists Jires in twisting and turning the feeling of sequences from the oddly beautiful to the amusing to the eerie to the shocking, over and over and over again, constantly toying with your expectations.
The movie is fixed in the logic and style of dreams throughout, making it one in which you will either “go with the flow” early on or, if you demand less enigmatic storytelling, quickly abandon out of frustration. The soundtrack, mostly consisting of post-dubbed dialogue, contains a dynamic and unsettling mix of music and sound effects that adds to the otherworldly nature of the story.
Other reviews for the film have touched on its wealth of historic symbolism. While I don’t doubt the movie is rich with added meanings, I have to confess I haven’t the background in Czech folklore or history to effectively discuss them. No doubt there’s an entirely other level at which others can and will appreciate the film; I can only report that “simply” as a work of surrealism, shock, and inflammatory eroticism, it more than rewards viewers who might similarly lack the chops to engage in roundtable analyses of any buried sociopolitical themes. As for how the film deals with a very young protagonist’s sexual awakening, I will say that the picture is explicit enough to feel incendiary while avoiding true exploitation. The possibility that any viewers might derive the wrong kind of satisfaction from a film this steeped in its artistry would be, I’ll say it plainly, beyond the scope of my commentary.
Put even more directly: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a must-see for fans of the macabre and a genuine cult masterwork. It’s the perfect film for those seeking a bracing antidote to the routine, the predictable, the safe, and the uninspiring. It’s a stunning revelation that, even in the midst of a suffocating deluge of vampire-themed product and stories that trade in teasing and tricking audiences with now-you-believe-it, now-you-don’t meditations on reality, those things can instantly seem fresh and exciting all over again.
George D. Allen produces the MovieFrightFare videos hosted here on FM, and also writes articles for and produces videos for the Movies Unlimited blog MovieFanFare.
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Posted by Michael in Home Page Top Story, Interviews, Latest News, Movies on August 18th, 2010
by Joe Nazzaro
What a difference two years make. When writer/director Guillermo del Toro first announced his plans to co-write and direct Peter Jackson’s long-awaited adaptation of The Hobbit, that news was met with a somewhat mixed response. While del Toro had often been associated with darker genre fare such as Pan’s Labyrinth or The Devil’s Backbone, there was little doubt that the gifted filmmaker would bring a unique sensibility to the project, which would be split into two films.
But earlier this summer, del Toro announced that he was leaving The Hobbit after working on the screenplay for both installments and overseeing most of the design for part one. The reason for his departure was the continuing lack of a start date for production in the wake of rights co-owner MGM’s continuing financial problems. With obvious reluctance, and no shortage of high-profile projects awaiting his attention, del Toro and his family returned to America.
It’s a few weeks later and the visibly weary filmmaker is sitting in a San Diego hotel suite, an untouched lunch in front of him as he finally nears the end of a long day of press interviews. He’s come to Comic Con International to promote the upcoming release of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a remake of the little-known 1973 TV movie about a couple that inherits an old mansion inhabited by tiny demon-like creatures. The new version, which stars Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce, is directed by Troy Nixey and produced by del Toro from a screenplay he co-wrote with Matthew Robbins. While reaction to the film has been hugely positive, its coverage has been somewhat blunted by Disney’s recent announcement that del Toro would be tackling a remake of The Haunted Mansion, which had been previously made as a less-than-successful 2003 comedy starring Eddie Murphy. Not only that, but there is no shortage of questions about other del Toro-related projects, including The Witches, Frankenstein and At the Mountains of Madness to name a few.
For the sake of clarity, let’s get The Haunted Mansion out of the way first. “That’s not the next movie I do,” notes del Toro. “That’s the next movie we announced after The Hobbit. The next movie I’m going to do is actually going to be announced in two weeks and it’s a project that has been with me for 13 years.
“The reality is, The Haunted Mansion came as an opportunity and being a Haunted Mansion nut, I couldn’t pass it up. But it’s not even written; there is no screenplay yet. It’s just the announcement.”
Del Toro is much more interested in discussing Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which will be released by Miramax on January 21, 2011. As far as the reason for remaking a semi-obscure TV horror film from the seventies, “When a movie is ingrained in you, in a way it becomes yours,” is the response. “The other day I finally found a story I read as a kid. For forty years I’ve been looking for it because I’ve never seen it reprinted anywhere else, so every bookstore I went, I looked for it and finally last week I found the damn story. I’ve been Googling it since Google came out and Yahoo before that and I finally found the story, but when I read it, I found that I had made up three-quarters of what it is.
“The same thing happened to me with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. The movie I loved as a kid when I saw it again in the nineties, I said, ‘Jesus, I made up most of the stuff that I liked the most!’ The stuff that was there was great, but I felt I did have a different take on that story and I feel it’s a genuine take. It’s not driven by mercantilism or numbers; no one was clamoring for this remake. If you put all the people who know Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark in one room, it would not be a very large room and yet it was driven by a genuine desire to honor that story.”
For the remake, which del Toro had planned to direct himself at one point, the mythology of the original creatures was changed entirely. “The ambiguity is still there,” he notes, “but it’s an ambiguity that has a different origin.
“In the original story, they were creatures that nobody knew where they came from, nobody knew what they wanted and nobody knew what happened other than they absorbed the people in the house, and I loved that ambiguity, but I wanted to make them have a more Algernon Blackwood/Arthur Machen root, which is they are ancient fairy entities that predate mankind and that love dragging people down like the children in fairy tales. I always found the notion of the tooth fairies very creepy, so I thought it would be really interesting to let you come to the realization that these could be really nasty tooth fairies and that changes a lot of things.
“We took a very calculated approach, because originally I wrote this movie to direct myself, so I was incredibly tactful and careful in writing it; but after Pan’s Labyrinth, I thought it was a repetition to do another tale about a dark fairy universe, with a young girl in the center, so I thought I was going to let somebody else take a whack at it.”
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is the latest project that del Toro has taken on as producer, putting a promising young filmmaker in the director’s seat, in this case Troy Nixey. It’s a role he wants to continue while directing his own projects, assuming one doesn’t preclude the other. “It does if something goes wrong, and I’ve had both experiences. I’ve had the experience where everything goes well and you are essentially a glorified bodyguard and then when it goes wrong, you have as equal a share of weight as the director.
“What I love about doing this is I can take risks that a normal producer doesn’t. I can go and support mainly first-time filmmakers, which gives us stuff like The Orphanage or Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, or I can support a filmmaker’s dream project, like Vincenzo Natali and Splice. He had been trying to make Splice for years and couldn’t get the money, so fortunately I became a vehicle for him to get that money, so it’s a real privilege. From now on, I’m trying to concentrate on first or second-time filmmakers and continuing to do that and trying to concentrate on really beautiful stuff that I want to present.”
Turning the subject to his own next project as director, del Toro shakes his head impatiently as if sensing that A) he’s going to have to go through the usual checklist of long-standing projects and B) there isn’t all that much he could say if one of them was about to happen. But surely these films have become metaphorical millstones around his neck, where he is forced to address them over and over until they’re produced or abandoned? “That’s the way I am,” he insists. “With the exception of The Hobbit, I have never given up on anything in my life. I had to renounce The Hobbit, not give it up, so it was a renunciation out of pure need and my situation being not sustainable anymore.
“Other than that, I stay with the stuff. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark took over 13 years to get made; I wrote it with Matthew Robbins in 1998. The movie I’m going to do next has been with me for the same amount of time. I still carry Monte Cristo with me, The List of Seven, The Wind in the Willows, The Witches; all those things I carry around as long as I can keep them alive. I would love to make them someday but some of them go away.”
Among the projects that del Toro can talk about is the third and final volume in his best-selling vampire trilogy, which was begun in The Strain and continued in The Fall. “I’m having a blast with it,” he declares with genuine enthusiasm. “I really cannot emphasize enough how much fun it is for me to write fiction; I really enjoy it, and how much of a kinder blank page it is for me. With the blank pages of a screenplay, you know you’re going to be in a cage of present; you have to write everything in present and you cannot write anything that you cannot demonstrate with the camera, so you’re very limited and you cannot even put any purple in the prose. So I’m doing that right now.
“There are a couple of left field things that are going to come over in the next couple of months, but I’m going to be starting a movie in May-June so it’s already decided what movie it is. The people that are going to be doing it with me are great but we are not yet at liberty to discuss it.” The director grins mischievously. “You know, I would love to whisper it in your ear. But it’s something, as I said, that has been with me for so long.”
It’s now been a month since that conversation took place. Just after Comic Con, the news was “leaked” that del Toro’s next project was indeed his adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story, At the Mountains of Madness, which would be shot as a 3-D film for Universal with no less than James Cameron acting as producer. It’s a project the director has wanted to do for years, which certainly tallies with the hints in the previous interview. With that in mind, was del Toro ready to confirm that news?
Well, the answer is not just yet. With the deal just about done, he still can’t make a formal announcement, which means the rest of this chat has to fall into the realm of hypothetical for now. “We hope everything goes right, and it would certainly be a dream to find the opportunity to do Mountains the way I have tried for nearly 15 years, but it’s still premature to announce that it’s a fact. We will know soon enough, but it’s still in progress.”
One fact that can be reported is del Toro’s relationship with Cameron, a long-time colleague and confidante. “We’ve been friends for 20 years now, and the one project I’ve wanted to do for those 20 years, before I even got the rights to write the screenplay, has been Mountains of Madness. So we’ve discussed it over the decades plenty of times, but the fact is, I’ve always found a moment to show Jim my movies before I locked the cut and he’s always given me the privilege of seeing his movies in the early stages.
“This interaction has given us both a really good taste of what it like to be working together so I do hope that everything comes to fruition and we do Mountains together, because it’s a great combination of a personal relationship. It’s also an incredible opportunity to get one of the finest minds on the planet going into the biggest adventure of my career.
“I think Jim is an ideal guy to bounce ideas off of; he loves the screenplay that Matthew Robbins and I wrote years ago, but I also have some really audacious ideas about designs and so forth, and you couldn’t ask for a better partner and sounding board than that, and it’s not just about the 3-D. It’s about having a really strong partnership in the moment when I feel I’m finally at a stage in my career and craft to tackle a movie this size.”
And while such discussions remain strictly hypothetical, it’s certainly worth mentioning that the technology finally exists to do justice to a film like At the Mountains of Madness, where they might not have been ready a decade or even five years ago. “I would agree with that,” concedes del Toro, “but it’s not just the technology; it’s also the fact that there are two or three movies in my list that are Holy Grails for me, that are mountaintops that I have to prepare to reach and Mountains is the one because as a director I feel that I finally have the tools to tackle it. It’s a very difficult movie from every perspective.”
While the status of Guillermo del Toro’s next project may still remain the subject of conjecture, there is no doubt whatsoever that the director is itching to get behind the camera again. “The reality is that part of the reason that made urgently needing to come back to Los Angeles was very direct,” he maintains. “I needed to start fulfilling the obligations and projects that were languishing or at risk of disappearing, so when I left New Zealand, I left with a very strong sense of purpose. I think what would be ideal is if my next film is a film I’ve been looking to do for a decade and a half.”
And that just leaves room for one more foray into the -ahem- hypothetical. “Look,” promises del Toro, “when we finally announce my next film, it may not be a surprising announcement. It may be something that people already know about, but it would be a complete and official and well-prepared announcement and hopefully won’t be just a leak or unofficial piece of news. I would love to be able to do a proper announcement on what my next movie is but as always, it’s taking more time than one expects!”
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Comic Con photo credits: Eric Charbonneau
Posted by Jess in Books, Interviews, Latest News, Reviews on August 18th, 2010
by Jess Peacock
As a kid growing up in central Ohio, the weekends were a very distinctive time for me. There was no school obviously, but Fridays and Saturdays throughout my childhood also provided a specifically unique education. With horror host instructors such as Big Chuck and Little John on channel 8, Super Host on channel 43, and the Ghoul on channel 61, I was emotionally raptured into an otherworld filled with monsters from the deepest parts of space and beyond. Others could have their football games and Wide World of Sports; I was more concerned with blithely living in a universe filled with giant lizards, Ro-Men, She-Creatures, and horrors on various party beaches.
Perhaps this nostalgic affinity for classic horror and science fiction fare has unduly influenced my enthusiastic opinion on Larry Doyle’s novel Go, Mutants!, a delightfully brilliant masterpiece that successfully pays homage to classic creature features and space operas, while brutally skewering both high school and national politics (let’s face it, sometimes there’s no difference) with equal wit and genius.
Set in an alternate history where both iconic and obscure 1950’s & 60’s genre aliens and beasties have been integrated into society, Go, Mutants! tells the story of an alien teenage outcast, J!m, looking for his place in life. More akin to Exeter from This Island Earth, J!m hangs out with a green motorcycle riding ape and a love hungry glob of goo named Jelly while pining after Marie, the earth girl of his dreams.
“After the success of the book I Love You, Beth Cooper, the publisher wanted to know what else I had,” author Larry Doyle recalls. “Go, Mutants! was it. It was a notion I had been kicking around for a few years, but hadn’t figured out a thematic underpinning until the events of the past few years, when I realized that politically and socially, we were reliving the fifties. That gave me a reason, and excuse, for using all these cool aliens and mutants in a story.”
“I wanted to show them living on the periphery of society, objects of derision but also fear and desire,” Doyle says. “And I wanted to do it without being as obvious as what I just said.”
Troubled by his bewildering passion for the human Marie (not to mention the merciless bullying he experiences daily at school), J!m must deal with his Rebel Without a Clue-ish high school existential funk while simultaneously coming to terms with an unwanted legacy as the son of Andy, a brilliant, British accented alien allegedly killed during his diabolical pursuit of world domination. “The aliens and mutants represent the Other, in the way that Communists, blacks, Muslims and now illegal aliens do in our society,” explains Doyle. “The events of 9/11 propelled us back into a Cold War mentality, only with radical Islam replacing Communism as a boogieman, with all the attendant hysteria, witch hunts and loyalty tests. As in the fifties, it’s not that no threat exists; it’s that our reaction to the threat probably does more damage to our underlying principles than the threat realistically poses.”
Avoiding the numerous literary pitfalls that such politically metaphoric material can present, Doyle, a former writer for The Simpsons, spins a frenetic sophomore effort that deftly avoids heavy handed proselytizing in exchange for wicked smart dialogue, colorfully rendered characters, and a world that many of us have fantasized about since adolescence.
Still a fan of classic genre fare such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (“Still works”) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (“Holds up pretty good”), Doyle remembers fondly his early years consuming endless hours of the material that would ultimately make up Go, Mutants!, including Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. “Famous Monsters made a perfect accompaniment to Creature Features, the local horror show in Chicago on Friday nights,” Doyle recalls. “Fresh magazines and books were not provided at my house, so wretched was my childhood, that I would cadge them off a friend, or at a garage sale or by shoplifting it.”
Fortunately for those of us who look fondly upon the days of wild eyed mad scientists, stop motion beasts from the deep, and radiation giving life to, well, just about anything, Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment has purchased the rights to Go, Mutants! “I just handed in the second draft of the screenplay,” Doyle reports. “A lot can happen between that and a movie coming out, including a movie never coming out. It will depend, to a certain extent, on how well the book does. So please buy 10,000 copies.”
I bought mine…
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Posted by Peter Schwotzer in Books, Latest News, Reviews, Terror Tales with Peter D. Schwotzer on August 16th, 2010
A Host Of Shadows – Harry Shannon
“Everyone carries a shadow,” wrote analyst Carl Jung, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
Few of us see the shadow with any clarity. Turn around for a peek, it slips away. Our violent, sexually tinged fantasies are indulged regularly in darkened theaters, savored in eerie prose, celebrated in song, sometimes reluctantly encountered within the depths of a reoccurring nightmare. When we do look hard at one, long enough to recognize it as our own, the experience can challenge reality. We can then choose to become wiser as a result–or spin totally out of control…
How many fragments of a shattered mirror could you examine and still survive?
In this collection, his first in nearly ten years, award winning author Harry Shannon gives us twenty three short stories, some published here for the first time.
Dark Regions Press is proud to present “A Host of Shadows.”
Table Of Contents
Introduction by Rick Hautala
Blood and Burning Straw
The Easy Way
A Handful of Dust
Lucky
And the Worm Shall Feed
Jailbreak
All The Dead Lie Down
Thus Was His Death
Violent Delights
Mobius Dick (with M. Stephen Lukac)
The Fever Called Living (with dgk goldberg)
Another Hell
The Name of the Wicked
Night Nurse
Tokens
Darkness Comprehended (with Gord Rollo)
In Darkness, Screaming (with Jack Fisher)
The Need For Illusion
Concrete Gods (with Kealan Patrick Burke)
Blacktop
Some are Born to Endless Night
The Place of Excrement
Araneida
Suffer the Children
A Host of Shadows
A Few Notes
Biography
A Host of Shadows was my first journey into Harry Shannon’s fiction, and what a journey it was. A Host of Shadows is staggering in scope and imagination. This is no simple short story collection; this is a group of macabre tales from somewhere dark…very dark.
Mr. Shannon knows what scares us and brings it to life with vivid detail, impeccable writing and atmosphere that literally drips from the pages. In short, this is a must for anyone who loves short fiction.
His tales are varied, deep and disturbing. The frights range from a terribly lonely woman, to a nurse that will give you second thoughts about checking into a hospital again to the earth itself.
While all the stories were extremely strong a few of my favorites were;
Lucky – Things are not always what they appear to be as an unfortunate soul discovers in this one.
Night Nurse – You will never look at the nursing profession the same way again.
The Fever Called Living (with dgk goldberg) – A gripping desolate tale of loneliness and pain.
Darkness Comprehended (with Gord Rollo) – For you zombie lovers Mr. Shannon and Mr. Rollo deliver a skin crawling tale with an ending that will leave you breathless.
Concrete Gods (with Kealan Patrick Burke) - My favorite of the book and one of the best short stories I’ve read this year.
These are only just a few of the highlights contained in Mr. Shannon’s latest collection. One of my favorite books this year and a must read. I highly recommend it.
