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JM Cozzoli

A horror genre fan with a blog. Scary.

Snakes On a Plane (2006)

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Zombos Says: Good

“When I say snakes, you say plane,” yelled a giddy fellow in the front of the theater.

“Snakes!”

“Plane!” everybody yelled back.

As we waited for the 11:59am showing of Snakes on a Plane, the audience was euphoric. Again and again, he yelled “Snakes!” and we – I mean they – yelled back “Plane!”

Another roar went up when the lights dimmed and the trailer for Black Snake Moan, which also stars Samuel L. Jackson, brought a rousing cheer. So what is it about Snakes on a Plane and the in-your-face mother-f**ker acting style of Samuel Jackson that has this audience so hyped?

The film opens innocuously enough with an easy-listening pop song playing as a lone biker – Jones is his name – zips through the lush forests of Hawaii, enjoying the scenery. Oh, wait a minute, someone’s dangling from a rope. Bungee-jumping perhaps? No; definitely not. This guy is hurting and bleeding. He tells the biker to get away, just as Eddie Kim, the psycho who’s going to take a bat to this guy’s skull, pulls up. For the biker, it turns out to be the wrong place at the wrong time. Being an average, sporty kind of Joe, his luck isn’t very good either.

Crazy boy Kim and his thugs catch a glimpse of him and the chase is on. He escapes, barely, and we next see him in his apartment, watching a news report about the killing he witnessed. Jones hears a buzz coming from the door, and as he peeks through the peephole, he sees those same nasty looking thugs he ran away from nonchalantly drilling his door lock out. He starts running again, but this time it’s into the arms of FBI agent Nelville Flynn, who  tracked him down by lifting the fingerprints off the can of Red Bull energy drink he left at the scene of the crime. And here I thought that stuff was supposed to give you wings; Jones could have used a pair right about now.

snakes on a planeFBI agent Flynn unloads a can of whoop ass on the thugs, and before you can say snakes on a plane, we’re at the airport. It’s at this point I realize this film is cheesy good. Melt in your mouth damn good. The script is simple, direct, and filled with simple and direct dialog, which is sometimes witty, sometimes trite, but always fun. From the yellowish-brown tinting of the film, to the 1970’s style of direction and characterization, this is a vitamin B-12 kind of B-movie.

And then there are the characters. As the plane is delayed, we meet the passengers waiting to board the ill-fated flight. There’s the over-sexed young couple—you know they’re going to get it but good; Mercedes, a young woman carrying her little dog named Mary Kate; two boys riding alone; a really obnoxious businessman—you just know he’s going to get it especially good; the fat lady boozing it up—ha, ha, let’s watch her get it good, too—and the really nervous guy whose afraid to fly, along with his wife. There’s also a mom and her baby, but no singing nuns, so that was a relief. Mom, baby, snakes? Yup, you know what’s coming.

Agent Flynn and his partner, along with Jones, and a large crate of poisonous snakes in all sizes hopped-up on pheromones to boot, are soon in the air. Seems crazy Kim wants to make sure Jones doesn’t testify, even if it means bringing the entire plane down and killing everyone in it.

It’s when the over-sexed young couple head to the bathroom that the horror movie kicks into high action gear. Lord, tell me they didn’t just light a reefer in the bathroom? That’s the foreshadowing for a really gruesome death in horror movies. And so it begins.

snakes on a planeThe audience counted down the seconds on the explosive timer as the digits dropped to zero. The crate breaks open and soon the little and big nasties are crawling everywhere and wreaking havoc.

Using wicked real and VFX closeups, we see the snakes in all their slithering and fangy glory as they bite passengers left and right, leaving bloody welts, swelling body-parts, and blackened dead bodies in their path.

And there’s also snake-o-vision! You too can see the horrified faces of the scrambling passengers through a snakes’ eyes, just before the fangs sink deep and the venom spits out. Brought to you in fuzzy greenish color.

The snakes knock out the avionics on the plane, and with the plane flying into a storm, things are quickly moving from bad to worse. Thank the lord the writers of this film didn’t watch Airport, otherwise they would have taken out the pilots, too. Damn, I spoke to soon.

Just about every airplane disaster movie cliché comes into play as the passengers fight to survive. And yes, there’s a snake in microwave interlude also. What’s so amazing is that it all works fairly well, and the story keeps moving. You’ll be on the edge of your seat, and waiting breathlessly for Jackson to say those words only he can deliver. When the time came, the audience said it with him.

“Enough is enough. I had it with the mother-f**king snakes on this mother-f**king plane!”

Agent Flynn and the passengers do a rousing version of the A-Team and fight to take back the cockpit from the venomous horde, and its up to the guy who logged 2000 hours of flight time—playing a flight-simulator game—to save the day.

Snakes on a Plane is a terrific popcorn and soda summer movie, and Samuel L. Jackson is the only actor possible to make it work so well. I dare you to tell him otherwise.

The DVD comes with a good assortment of extras. Pure Venom: The Making of Snakes on a Plane gets the cast and crew involved discussing the technical and logistical aspects of filming. CafeFX’s featurette on the visual effects work involved in creating the computer-generated snakes is short and sweet. Snakes on a Blog covers the Internet hype surrounding the movie months before it was released, and Meet the Snakes, with snake handler Jules Sylvester, made me glad I’m not a snake handler. There’s also interactive content available on the DVD if you have InterActual Player 2.0, but don’t rush out and buy the player if you don’t have it.

Murder-Set-Pieces (2004)
Murder to Watch

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Zombos Says: Fair

Around two-thirds into Murder-Set-Pieces I looked at my watch. I don’t do that often when watching a film. In this case, though, I looked at it twice. I really wanted to get it over with, and, unlike some reviewers less meticulous (or masochistic) than me, I always watch the whole movie just to make sure I don’t miss anything that remotely resembles art, or scares, or anything that stands out as a memorable horror-moment. I was disappointed that I didn’t find anything like that here.

At the end of the movie I sighed with relief and wondered what I ever did to the to warrant watching this emotionless and tensionless excursion into the mind and actions of a one-dimensional, neo-Nazi, muscle-bound serial killing photographer prowling Las Vegas for his next torture-gig photo shoot.

America’s Top Model has more tension.

While many of the reviews for Murder-Set-Pieces mercilessly castigate director Nick Palumbo  as a
misogynistic this or racist that, that’s not quite the vibe I picked up. He’s just doing what any director does; telling his unsavory story through the camera lens, take it or leave it. I actually thought Palumbo did a solid job of
direction, but just made some questionable choices with the material; like his confusing use of ill-placed, tinkling-music flashbacks and shock-montages showing the fractured mind of the nutbag photographer, or the spin-art overuse of blood on everything in sight. Then there was the bordering-on-comic way he’d cut to the photographer driving in his Mustang, again and again, prowling night-time Las Vegas for more nudie-cutie opportunities, with the same overused audio of the car’s engine racing and sputtering.

I drive a Mustang. Maybe I’m more sensitive to this because of that.

But the most important directorial misstep here is the lack of building suspense and the pedestrian way in which each murder-set-piece is handled. At no time are any of the tortures or murders the least bit shocking, the least
bit emotionally draining (as in the Hostel franchise, for instance).

We follow the photographer around, as he bounces off the padded walls of his mind, as if we’re carrying his equipment bag and nothing more. And when he whips out that straight razor, there’s no fearful whimper from us, no gasps. Perhaps I’d have been more drawn in with the uncut version of the film, but Anchor Bay’s R-rated DVD only implies defilement and torture, and cuts away from the chainsaw through head type of chunky violence gore-hounds love. So gore-hounds be warned: look for the uncut version if you are so inclined. As for me, I’d rather have more meat and less sauce in the storytelling, not the dismemberments.

Which brings us to the storyline itself, which is less meaty and less filling than a horror movie should be, due mostly to Sven Garrett’s lifeless performance as the photographer with too much killing time on his hands. Even though he suffers from manic bouts of shouting in German and nose-bleeds as he flashbacks in weird vignettes of him as a boy walking train tracks while a flirtatious blonde parades in front of him. While his look is right, that’s where his energy for the role ends. When he pumps iron, all sweaty and gritty, he still doesn’t pump enough energy to light a diode, let alone a performance that cries out for psychotic, balls-to the-wall-abandon.
His torture and killing sprees are monotone, with the only lively color coming from the blood all around him. So what if he likes to eat his meat raw and bloody. Without the gusto, it’s still just undercooked.

Even the cameos with Gunnar Hansen and Tony Todd do nothing to fortify the film. Hansen, playing another neo-Nazi crazy, sells the photographer a gun, and Todd, who manages an Adult Video store, tries to throw
him out after he asks for a snuff film called Nutbag (an in-joke reference to Palumbo’s other film).

The hidden torture-death playroom he uses to humiliate and terrorize his victims is a caricature of a hidden torture-death playroom, and doesn’t generate an atmosphere of dread and fear. Way too much red blood is
spattered over everything, making it more of a demonic Pee Wee Herman’s acid-trip induced idea of what a playroom should be. While it does reflect a bit of the 1970s gleefully repellent grindhouse sensibility, with naked,
hanging upside-down and chair-bound women, it fails to elicit feelings of disgust or shocks of horror. Palumbo and Garrett show no finesse in the fine art of visually or thematically challenging an audience, which is so important if torture horror is to have any impact, even when the chainsaw comes out for some head-scratching the hard way.

The plot motivations also lead to some head-scratching. When the photographer’s girlfriend pines away for him after he breaks off the relationship, he’s such a lifeless kind of guy, you wonder where her tears are coming from. Even her little sister knows the guy’s a creep and good riddance. After the break-up, he still stalks the kid, watching her from his Mustang. When the kid complains, her big sister doesn’t want to hear it; so she steals the creepy freaky guy’s spare house key, begs a total stranger to drive her to his house, and lets herself in—to do what, exactly? Why didn’t she just go to the police? What, the Vegas cops too busy to follow up on one more psycho? especially when they’ve got a trail of dead bimbos across the strip?

That’s when I looked at my watch a second time.

The ensuing encounter between her and him, as he’s all bloodied-up from playing with another hapless victim, is devoid of terror and suspense. There is no build-up leading to this encounter, so when it comes, it plays out
without fanfare or intensity. When she hides under his bed, apparently the kid has never seen a horror film, I rolled my eyes in disbelief, and when she runs back to the playroom to hide—you know, the no-exit, basement torture-chamber soaked in wall to wall blood and nicely decorated with his recent kills–I doubted
Palumbo ran his script through the reality-checker first.

The ending leaves the photographer with a headache and the blood-spattered and hopefully wiser kid walking down the highway in shock.

She wasn’t the only one.

The Wolf Man (1941)
Movie Review

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Wolfman Zombos Says: Classic

Of the three major Universal Studios monster movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man, The Wolf Man did not spring from a notable novel. While many legends of werewolves abound in print, it took the skill of screenwriter Curt Siodmak, the talent of makeup artist Jack Pierce, and the acting of Lon Chaney Jr to tell the story of a man doomed by an eternal curse to kill the ones he loves by the light of the full moon.

The Wolf Man was originally intended as a vehicle for Boris Karloff, but as often happens in Hollywood, intentions change, as well as script ideas. Only the title remained as the movie was eventually assigned to director George Waggner and scriptwriter Curt Siodmak. While Waggner’s uninspired and straightforward direction is adequate, it is Siodmak, first drawing on European Folklore, then creating his own, who weaves a fairytale spun out of Greek tragedy, blooming wolfbane, moonlight, and a sympathetic, doomed hero.

Lon Chaney Jr has the distinction of being the only actor to portray the tragic Larry Talbot, cursed to change into the Wolf Man and kill against his will, in five of Universal’s horror offerings, thus making the role uniquely his own. His sympathetic performance as Lennie in Of Mice and Men typecast him as a hulking, sympathetic type, but that proved a perfect fit for his portrayal of the agonized, guilt-ridden Talbot and his demonic alter-ego.

The-wolfman-pressbook Americanized Larry Talbot returns to his ancestral home in Wales, after eighteen years of estrangement, when his brother dies. His prim and proper father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains), hopes that Larry will take over the duties of his family now, and that the two will reconcile their long-standing differences. In the first version of the script, the Mutt and Jeff look—as Tom Weaver describes it in his amusing commentary for the film—of the tall and thick Chaney next to the whispy, more delicate Rains was better explained; Chaney originally played an American engineer visiting Talbot Castle to work on Sir John’s telescope. However, as the relationship changed story-wise, the physiques and family resemblance didn’t.

That trifling incongruency aside, the red, white, and blue Larry, of course, is more focused on the gorgeous woman (Evelyn Ankers) he spies through the lens of the telescope. Seems like Larry’s a bit of wolf before he’s even bitten.

When he visits Gwen’s (Ankers) antique shop in town, he buys a walking stick decorated with the head of a wolf and the symbol of a pentagram in silver, which prompts a discussion of werewolves and the first recitation of Siodmak’s brilliant folklore-sounding poem;

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

Later that night, as fate would have it, Larry is bitten by a werewolf when he tries to save Gwen’s friend from an attack by what he thinks is a wolf. Maleva, the Gypsy crone (the sublime Maria Ouspenskaya) tells him that her son (Bela Lugosi) was a werewolf, and now he, too, is cursed. Lugosi, in his role as Bela the Gypsy, has only seven lines to say, but makes the most of it. Which is kind of ironic when you think that he finally gets a role after Dracula that makes good use of his singular accent. Lugosi originally wanted to play the lead role, but that would have made an even more incongruent relationship between Sir John and Larry, so he was offered the key role of werewolf catalyst instead.

Sure enough, Larry soon succumbs to his curse of lycanthropy, and starts seeing pentagrams—the mark of death—on the hands of those he loves. His father doesn’t believe any of this superstitious nonsense, but people start dying when Larry changes into the Wolf Man and goes on the prowl.

Universal, wanting another memorable monster to add to their A-list, changed the initial ambiguity of the script, which left the audience wondering whether Larry was a real werewolf or just thought he was one, and had Jack Pierce take his previous, more human-like makeup for Henry Hull in Werewolf of London and go hog-wild with it here.

Pierce’s unique stylization makes the werewolf come alive with a feral humanity sorely missing in today’s CGI-generated lycanthropic concoctions. The painstaking lap dissolve process that appears for seconds on screen actually took hours of laborious filming as layers of Yak hair were applied to Chaney’s face and photographed. During the procedure, Chaney had to lie very still and in the same position, and probably would have loved to take a bite out of Pierce during the process. But the ground-breaking end-result is worth it, and the procedure improved in the course of subsequent films.

The mist-enshrouded forest set, designed by Jack Otterson, with its gnarled tree limbs and unnatural, dark landscape, gives The Wolf Man a claustrophobic and surreal tone of brooding isolation, and provides the perfect stage for Larry Talbot as he struggles against his estrangement from the townspeople, his father, and his crumbling peace of mind and normal way of life.

Heightening this feeling of dread and pacing the tension well, the now familiar music—which was subsequently used in many Universal movies including the Sherlock Holmes series—with its ominous, tri-toned opening beat followed by precipitous drum rolls, alarming horns, and emotive strings, is a classy addition to the modest production and enhances the action scenes as well as the quieter moments of impending doom.

Finally meeting his death at the hands of his shocked father, who beats him with the silver headed cane used to kill Bela the Gypsy, the climax of The Wolf Man stands out in its depiction of a man tragically caught in an evil cosmos with no way out. Lon Chaney Jr. reprised his signature role as the Wolf Man in four more Universal films, but The Wolf Man remains his most poignant performance as Larry Talbot, an ordinary man cursed, through no fault of his own, to walk on padded-feet by night, when the moon beckons, with the unquenchable thirst for blood.

Universal’s Legacy Collection of The Wolf Man contains Tom Weaver’s revelatory commentary, as well as the light, but informative documentary entitled Monster by Moonlight, narrated by John Landis, who directed American Werewolf In London.

Weaver sheds light on the love-not-lost relationship between Ankers and Chaney, though they starred in many films together, as well as the differences between the initial script and the final shooting one. He also points out the bloopers, always an enjoyable, “how’d I miss that moment,” and the little behind the scenes tidbits that make for a more informed viewing of this classic horror film.

One thing I was hoping Weaver would touch on but didn’t is the perplexing way the Wolf Man invariably wound up dressed in a neatly pressed dark shirt and pants after every transformation into the hirsute terror. That one always perplexed me. Stylish, but still perplexing.

The set also includes the sequel and first Universal Studios ensemble film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, as well as Werewolf of London and She-Wolf of London. Makes you kind of wonder what’s going on over at London, doesn’t it. Disappointingly enough, they didn’t include 1948’s Bud Abbot Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein, the enjoyable last hurrah for Universal’s era of classic horror.

George Romero On Long Island

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George Romero had come to Long Island, along with actress, Lynn Lowry, to grace a showing of his 1973 film, The Crazies. What more can any sane horrorhead ask for? To have the chance to meet one of the most influential directors in modern horror cinema is always a gold star in my book. And Lowry, who starred in The Crazies and Shivers, was charming. Oh, and Zombos tagged along, but managed to stay out of trouble. Perfect.

We arrived early. Zombos went for the popcorn and I went for the tickets. Since we had over a half hour to kill before the show, we headed into the café for coffee. The Huntington Cinema Arts Centre offers hot organic popcorn, to boot. It was a pleasant surprise to find Lowry already there, manning an autograph table. Romero had been delayed in traffic.

Zombos immediately darted over to her table and perused her photographs, anxious to get an autograph. The range of photos ran from demure to quite racy, and Zombos’ hand instinctively paused over the raciest one. I whispered one simple word in his ear, and he chose more wisely, settling on a headshot that could be displayed proudly. That word, of course, was ‘Zimba.’ There are many miracles I can perform as valet, but reviving his corpse after Zimba got through with him if she saw the photo he almost picked up is not one of them.

We hurried into the theatre to get good seats for the show—the place was starting to get crowded—and Zombos ran smack into Creighton from Ghoul a Go Go. He was incognito of course, all six feet six inches of him. I picked Zombos up, brushed him off, and we found two excellent seats. Zombos mumbled something about Creighton being Tor Johnson’s illegitimate brother, but I kept him from causing a scene.

The theater quickly filled to capacity, and Lowry introduced the film. The Crazies is a quirky, at times unintentionally funny and rough film done with no-frills camera work and on a shoe-string budget: one shoe’s worth. But standouts include the white hazard-suited and gas-masked military personal popping up in the town, who are just as clueless as the townsfolk, the really bad hair makeup, and an interesting series of fast cuts between scenes and dialog during the conversation between the ineffective military personnel in the town, and the ineffective military brass outside. The acting is adequate, the art direction okay, and the slow spreading of the virus through the characters and the town still effective, especially in today’s political and social climate. It reminded me very much of the classic Star Trek episode, The Naked Time, where people lose their Ego filters and start to act—well—crazy, but in a way that reflects their repressed desires.

After the film, Romero and Lowry held a short QA session, though most of the questions were directed to him. The questions were lively, the answers priceless. Here’s a paraphrased sample of Romero’s answers:

There were a lot of scenes involving food in this film. Was this on purpose?

No. I’m told my stuff makes people un-hungry, actually.

I heard that this film had trouble with distribution. What was the problem?

Lee Hessel; he didn’t have clout. He was not a big enough distributor.

What was your favorite movie to make?

I don’t know. Hard to say. I think it has to be a film I made called Martin.

Your film [The Crazies] is more relevant today, with Katrina, 911…[not sure how the question ended, but Mr. Romero’s response is quite revealing.]

I was a child of the sixties; we thought we had changed the world. Not sure why everyone is still shooting at each other.

What was the movie that inspired you the most?

Tales of Hoffman; it’s a beautiful film. Back then it was harder to see a film when you wanted to. There was a kid in Brooklyn who had a 16mm print I would go and watch. That kid was Martin Scorsese.

What made you come up with the film, the idea?

So hard to answer these questions. I don’t know. You come up with an idea in the shower.

What are you currently working on?

Stephen King’s From a Buick 8.

What would you do with the sequel to Land of the Dead?

Follow the people in the truck as they travel on their way.

Did Richard Matheson’s novel, I am Legend, influence your film Night of the Living Dead?

Yes. I ripped it off. It was made a couple of times…I felt that, basically, it was about revolution. And I wanted to do a film about that.

A very young fan got up and asked this question:

Were your horror movies supposed to be this funny? [a nice chuckle from the audience followed the question].

I grew up reading EC comics. To some extent, I can’t resist trying to be silly with it. Hell…Bride of Frankenstein is f**king hilarious.

And finally:

What things really frighten you?

What scares me is what people do to each other.

After the QA session, we queued up for his signing. Zombos and I waited for close to two hours on a long, spiraling line. (Now there’s a horror film treatment in there somewhere.)

As we inched ever so closer, Creighton joined the line and begged his sister, who was ahead of us, to give Romero a DVD of Ghoul A Go-Go’s episodes.

“My word,” said Zombos, “she’s as big as he is. It’s a family of giants.”

She refused, saying it would be embarrassing. Creighton turned to the Goth couple behind us. They graciously accepted to hand the DVD to Romero. We finally met the man shortly after midnight and got a signed poster of Dawn of the Dead.

It was worth the wait.

Book Review: Ghost Road Blues

/ Books (Fiction) / 2 Comments

Zombos Says: Very Good

“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, you do, but you don’t want to understand.” The man leaned back and laughed. “Hell’s a-coming, little Scarecrow. Hell’s a-coming  and we all gotta learn to play the blues.”

Something wicked refuses to leave Pine Deep, the small town in Jonathan Maberry’s Ghost Road Blues. It took up residence years before and simply refuses to leave, or die. Back then, the townspeople started dying instead, and only one person, the Bone Man, could stop it. But he was stopped, too, before he could complete his mission.  And now it’s waited long enough. People are dying again.

“Iloz Zoc, move your left hand.”

I stopped typing and looked up from my laptop. “What? Who said that?”

“Me, the something wicked you just wrote about.”

I froze for a moment. “I’ve got to stop doing these all-night reviews,” I said to myself. “Damn Dunkin’ Donuts had to stop making Dunkachinos, too. I can’t do this without two or three, at least. What do I know about Blues mythology, anyway? And I’ve got to stop talking to myself.”

“Iloz Zoc, move your left hand. I can’t see what you’re writing.”

I moved my left hand.

“That’s better. Let’s see…something wicked refuses to leave Pine Deep…okay, look, first thing is I’m not really wicked. Maberry only writes me that way. I’m really a pillar of the community.”

“Now hold on there, old boy. It’d be better if you were a pillar of salt, instead,” said another voice.

I looked up. Standing in my attic office was a tall, thin man.  “Wait, I know you. There’s a hint of grave dirt and tombstone dust about you. And that guitar strung across your back is a dead giveaway. You’re the Bone Man, right?”

He bowed slightly and smiled. “In the flesh; well, close enough.”

“That’s it, I’m heading to bed,” I shut my laptop.

“Now hold on, there, little reviewer, it’s somethin’ we got to do. Somethin’ you got to do.” He pulled the guitar over his head and started to play.

“Oh, please, the Blues isn’t going to stop me this time and you know it,” said the voice.

“Guys. Okay, maybe I’m hallucinating, maybe not. But since I’ve got the two of you here, I can use your help in this review. Hey, is Crow available?”

“No, he’s off doing a book signing in Toledo,” the Bone Man said.

“What about Mayor Terry?”

“Ditto in Peoria. Maberry kept the cushy signings for himself. ”

“Alright, then.” I opened my laptop. The Bone Man tuned his guitar. “Let’s do it.”

 

Ghost Road Blues is the first salvo in Maberry’s trilogy for Pine Deep’s predicament with an evil that won’t die. It starts off with a frightening haunted hayride—Pine Deep’s big attraction—and ends with a small battle won, but the war is just starting. In between the beginning and the ending, you will find it hard to put down, even though it’s over four hundred pages, as Maberry ties events seamlessly together by using simple actions to bridge them, keeping the tension moving at a brisk pace while still moving forward and backward in the narrative to build his characters.

The troubles for Pine Deep began thirty years before. Like the foreboding 1692 wheat blight in Salem Massachusetts, Pine Deep’s cornfields are suffering and failing while a serial killer is murdering townspeople left and right; until the Bone Man stops the murderer in a bloody and muddy fight that nearly finishes him, too.

 

“I had nothing to do with that blight,” the voice said.

“Oh, hush it,” the Bone Man said. “Let the man write.”

 

But that serial killer, Griswold, was not wholly human, and that inhuman part of him has festered and seeped into Pine Deep’s cornfields, quietly growing stronger as it lay in Dark Hollow, in the ooze and slime of the marsh under the full moon all those years, patiently waiting to return. There are some in Pine Deep that look forward to that return; his followers, human monsters that go about their daily lives in quiet anticipation, just as the corn blight returns, forboding the hellish nightmare to come.

Tow-Truck Eddie is one of those followers, but he’s nothing compared to Vic Wingate. Vic’s a special kind of monster; a wife-beater and bully who Maberry writes too vividly, too real. Tow-Truck Eddie is just a psychotic killer who thinks he’s the sword of God. He pales in comparison to Vic.

For the survivors of the horror that came and went thirty years ago, that uneasy feeling of dread has returned. Malcolm Crow remembers it all too well. Now forty, he’s still powerful for a small guy, and takes on Karl Ruger, another sociopath soon to be in the service of Griswold, in a bloody and muddy fight that drives Ruger exactly where Griswold wanted him all along: Dark Hollow.

Before that happens, though, Crow is simply the proud owner of the local skulls, comics, and rubber body parts gift shop in town; but when Mayor Terry puts him back on active police duty to help with mad-dog Ruger’s flight into Pine Deep, you know he’s someone special. His main squeeze, Val Guthrie, thinks he’s special, too. Val is also strong, and proves it when Ruger invades her home and starts beating up and terrorizing her family. In a tense series of pages, Maberry shows quite clearly why Ruger is feared and hunted by the police–and the perfect vessel for Griswold’s plan.

As Pine Deep’s normally quiet existence is shaken, Mayor Terry has his own problems to deal with. He’s worried that his local arm of the law can’t handle Ruger; which is why he called in Crow. But that’s not his only worry. His medication doesn’t seem to help anymore, and his dead sister keeps popping up to tell him something he doesn’t want to hear.

Young Iron Mike Sweeney has his own problems to deal with, too. They start with the name of Vic. Iron Mike lives under Vic’s roof, and Vic beats him almost daily—viciously, but deep down, Vic is afraid of him? He’s a threat to Griswold’s plan, but how? Each time Vic lashes out at him, you feel the sting and taste the salty blood. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, conveyed in simple words and straightforward description of action.

The Bone Man knows that Iron Mike is special, just like Crow and Val. The Bone Man died that faithful night thirty years ago, but just like evil that can’t be stopped, good cant’ be stopped, either. Like evil, good waits and waits until it sees an opening, a crevice to breathe. Like evil, good has it’s followers, too. They just need a nudge in the right direction, that’s all, to get them started.

 

“Now you’re playin’ the Blues,” the Bone Man said. He strummed his guitar.

“You still won’t win,” said the voice. A rumble of distant thunder followed his words. “I’ve got two more books to go and Maberry will fall in line, just like Ruger did.”

“Er, right…let’s see, where was I?” I continued my review.

 

Ruger’s swath of destruction begins in the cornfields, continues in Val’s home, and gets fortified in a sickening encounter in Dark Hollow. Ruger is the catalyst that accelerates Griswold’s plan for Pine Deep—and maybe every other town and city.

Maberry builds the foundation for the coming battle with classic horror elements like a bug-filled homunculus messenger, reanimated dead guys, and a fast approaching Halloween season while he positions his combatants in Ghost Road Blues, but leaves much of the why for later.

Of course, comparisons to other noted horror authors is highly likely, but for the present, Maberry’s style focuses on his character’s actions, not their thoughts, and this moves the story fast and furious. Ghost Road Blues is both event and character driven, using a disarmingly simple style that conveys the thoughts and feelings of his characters without endlessly describing their thoughts and feelings. Yet within this simplicity lies a writer who knows the elements of horror inside and out, and can call them up in a whirl of terror-filled images.

Considering that Ghost Road Blues won the Stoker Award for Best First Novel, I eagerly look forward to reading Book Two: Dead Man’s Song.

 

” Wait a moment,” said the voice. “You didn’t mention that your copy of Ghost Road Blues was personally sent to you by Maberry, and he autographed it for you. Personally. Oh, and there’s that little business about you being a contributing editor to his magazine, Cryptopedia.”

“Finish the tune, man. Finish the tune,” said the Bone Man, smiling as he swung his guitar back over his shoulder.

“Yes, he sent me a copy of his book. He also sent me a copy of his other superlative work, Vampire Universe, which he autographed for me, too.  I also reviewed that one favorably. So what’s your point? That I can’t be impartial. That I have a vested interest to play nice? Well, Griswold, or whatever the hell you are. We’re writers. We know all about the Blues. We can take the good with the bad because we write about it everyday. We can poke each other in the gut just as well as we can pat each other on the back. That’s how we get better at what we do. So far, though, Maberry doesn’t need any poking.” I shut my laptop and headed to bed.

“But you have forgotten one thing,” said the voice. “You wrote your notes all over that personally signed first edition of the Bram Stoker winner for Best New Novel.” A peal of thunder shook the room.

“Oh, my lord! You’re right! What did  I do!”  I turned to the Bone Man for help.

“That’s cold, man. You’re on your own with this one. That’s beyond even me,” he said, and vanished with a twang from his guitar.

“Arrghhhh!” I screamed, as Griswold’s triumphant laughter echoed into the distance.

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o’Gold Part 5
One Hell of a Mortgage
House (1986)

/ Movies (Horror) / 6 Comments

House1986
Part 4 

Zombos Says: Very Good

“I tell you I smell popcorn,” said Curly Joe. We had been walking for some time without any luck finding Zombos or Chef Machiavelli.

I sniffed the air again. My stomach grumbled. “I think you’re right, and smothered in butter with lots of salt.” My stomach grumbled louder.

Curly Joe started sniffing the wall. “Over here. It’s comin’ from this crack in tha brick.”

We leaned against the brick wall to get a better whiff. It gave way. We tumbled into a brightly lit room filled with ornate, comfortable furniture and the smell of freshly popped popcorn. Zombos was sitting in the corner with his feet resting in a large basin of water and Chef Machiavelli stood by an antique coal stove applying liberal amounts of salt to a big bowl of steaming popcorn. Puffing away at a church warden, a little, red-bearded, fellow watched us as we pulled ourselves up off the ground. He stood up from his overstuffed armchair.

“You!” said Curly Joe. “That’s tha little creep I was arguin’ with.”

“Oh, Sebastien’s all right,” said Zombos. “He was quite happy to get his tap dancing shoes back. They took me right to him, actually, and not soon enough, I can tell you.”

“My wife, god-bless her, hates my tap-tap-tapping, so she hid my pride and joys. I’ve spent the year searching for them. They missed me, too,” said Sebastien, picking up his shoes by the chair. They clicked together in agreement.

I stared at our diminutive host. “Forgive me for asking, but—”

“I know, I know, Sebastien’s not an Irish name and I don’t have an accent,” he said. “I grew up in France. Long story. You’ve been watching too many Barry Fitzgerald movies, I take it.”

Chef Machiavelli brought the popcorn over.

“This is wonderful. I’ve not had this much company in a long time. My wife hates visitors. I only married her because she looks and talks like Barbara Steele, my favorite horror movie actor,” he sighed.

“So she’s the one I heard callin’ ta me?” said Curly Joe.

“Yes, she’s a bit of a flirt, but I still love her. Sorry I conked you one, but she gets me so jealous and angry when she’s off and dallying around. But she’s away to her mom’s—nasty witch there, too—and I’ve got guests and popcorn and this new LED TV is hot to trot. ”

“Do you get cable or satellite down here,” I asked.

“Cable of course.”

“Hey, you’ve got a lot of DVDs here,” said Curly Joe, looking over the titles. “Haven’t seen this one in ages.” He held up House.

“Ah, you’ve found my real pot of gold you have. Yes, I can’t get enough DVDs. Let’s watch it, then,” said Sebastien.

 

In Steve Miner’s wickedly quirky House, William Katt (Greatest American Hero) plays Roger Cobb, a Valium pill-popping, flashback-plagued, Vietnam veteran and popular author who lost his son and separated from his wife (Kay Lenz). He’s suffering from writer’s block trying to finish his book, One Man’s Story: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War. With his agent on his back, and unresolved conflicts simmering in his subconscious, he’s guilt-ridden and close to a nervous breakdown. So what happened in Vietnam, making it difficult for him to write or get on with his life? The answer lurks in the house he inherits after his eccentric aunt hangs herself. The house is also where his son disappeared from the center of the swimming pool years before.

Unlike the current trendy taste for horror being darker, queasier, and ichor-drenched, Mac Ahlberg, who did the cinematography for Re-animator and From Beyond, uses a lighter hand here and bathes the house’s oddball rooms in cheery colors, giving them an apple pie atmosphere until the clock strikes midnight, when Cobb’s nightmares really do come out of the closet in the form of the War Demon: a fused amalgam of napalmed bodies.

Something not quite right about the house is hinted at early when the grocery delivery kid enters, hears odd noises coming from upstairs, and goes to investigate. We follow him through the house, seeing the quaint furnishings and old-fashioned rooms bathed in sunlight. Wait a minute. Those Night Gallery-esque paintings on the walls, painted by Cobb’s Aunt, don’t quite match the decor. She’s a bit of an oddball, apparently, judging by those paintings. She could also do a mean
Grand Mama from the Addams Family for Halloween by the look of her, too.

With her departure comes Cobb’s arrival to the place he last saw his son. The police never bought Cobb’s bizarre explanation of how his son disappeared. Should we? Is Cobb suffering from delusions, or is there something abnormal about the house? If you’ve read William Hope Hodgson’s House on the Borderland, you already know the answer. The first night his Aunt pays him a visit to warn him about how the house likes to play tricks on people. But is it really her or the house playing tricks? It’s not merely haunted, it’s possessed; and it stands on the crossroads to the mundane and supernatural worlds.

The following morning he meets his pesky neighbor, Harold (George Wendt from TV’s Cheers). Harold recognizes him, chats about his books, and finds it difficult to stay. He brings over the brewskies, begins to worry about Cobb’s mental health, and calls Cobb’s wife out of concern. There’s one especially traumatizing event buried among the others plaguing Cobb, and it’s not his missing son. Working it out involves dressing in army fatigues and readying lights and cameras to confront the War Demon. And more grotesqueries put in appearances to bedevil Cobb, even sharp lawn and garden tools take aim in his
direction, escalating his daymare encounters.

The foam and polyurethane nightmares created by James Cummins are similar to his comically designed monsters in The Boneyard, but here they’re an advantage: they meld an off-beat, playful, gruesomeness to match Cobb’s mood and the electric-koolaid-acid-trip tone of the movie. In one surreal encounter, Cobb tries to bury a headless, but still moving, purple Morlock-looking monster in his backyard, only to be interrupted by yet another neighbor taking an uninvited dip in his swimming pool. She ingratiates herself while he quietly steps on the monster’s dismembered hand before it can grab her bare ankle. He finally gets rid of her and hacks up the monster, burying the pieces to the tune of Linda Ronstadt’s You’re No Good.

She shows up later that night with her son in tow, begging him to babysit. He declines the offer until he discovers the pesky purple monster’s hand is back and holding fast to the boy’s shirt. Is he hallucinating? She hurries to her date and he eventually manages to flush the 5-fingered-terror down the toilet. Damned if I would sit on that bowl again. Ever.

Another misadventure begins when troll-like creatures snatch the boy up the chimney. Trying to get a handle on all these bizarre happenings, Cobb coerces Harold into joining him in a midnight romp with the War Demon. Harold, naturally, isn’t much help, and Cobb gets sucked into the closet and back in time to when he was in Vietnam. It’s there we learn the reason for Cobb’s flashbacks as he confronts Big Ben, played by six foot, nine-inch Richard Moll (TV’s Night Court).

But what does Cobb’s missing son have to do with all this?

It takes a journey through the bathroom medicine cabinet to find out. In a Lovecraftian-esque encounter with a stop-motion winged nightmare and other nasties, Cobb must fight for answers and to save himself from guilt and an EC Comics-looking dead Big Ben who is out for his blood.

Will Cobb find his son and stop the nightmare? Or will Big Ben finally get the payback he’s been looking for all these years? Don’t let the second and third story sequels fool you; they don’t continue the storyline started in House. It begins and ends here, although House II extends the weirdness. House is one of those 1980s B-Movies that still vibrantly remains a quirky excursion into horror-comedy. It has top-notch actors, fast pacing, and classic stop-motion and polyurethane monsters to sell its off-beat, dry humor terrors.

This is one house you should rent.

Interview: CreatureScape
The 21st Century Monster Model Zine

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Are you into making monsters?

Just about every horrorhead has at one time or another assembled his or her own garage-kit Frankenstein, or ghoul, or zombie, or creature from some lost lagoon or godforsaken planet in resin, styrene or vinyl. I can’t say for sure that it started with Aurora’s monster kits, but it’s the ghost of Aurora that remains deeply impaled in many a kit-building horrorhead’s beating heart.

But today’s kits are more sophisticated, and today’s modelers more passionate about their art; both demand more expertise with the tools that will turn those unassembled and unpainted pieces of a dream kit into that bashed diorama of fiendish delight. Lucky for us there’s CreatureScape, the online magazine for monster model lovers everywhere to help.

…

Interview: CreatureScape
The 21st Century Monster Model ZineRead More »

Interview: Dead Sea Author Tim Curran

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Deadsea Horror author and Monster Kid Tim Curran freely, and of his own will, steps into the closet after his long terror-filled voyage in Dead Sea to talk about his latest novel, and the singular craft of writing horror.

When did the horror bug first take a bite out of you?

It took hold of me when I was very young. I remember my mom taking me and my sisters to the movies to see that Vincent Price/Poe adaptation, The Oblong Box. I knew we were going for days and I was terrified about it. There was an ad for it on the back of a magazine my sister had–a coffin, I think, with hands rising from it. That image burned itself into me and wouldn’t let go. The movie scared the hell out of me. I had nightmares for weeks. My older sisters were all Dark Shadows fanatics and they made me watch it with them. By then I loved horror. They were always dragging me to scary movies, a lot of the Poe stuff and Hammer films. We were always watching Night Gallery and re-runs of The Hitchcock Hour and Thriller with Boris Karloff, One Step Beyond and The Outer Limits. Wasn’t long before I traded in my Batman comic books for Monster of Frankenstein, Dead of Night, and The Vault of Evil.

I started buying Famous Monsters and Creepy, catching the old Universal flicks on Eerie Street out of Green Bay. And when we got cable, I became an addict of The Ghoul and all those great ‘50’s B-movies like Fiend without a Face, Not of This Earth, and Frankenstein 1970 that they showed along with the usual Saturday Night madness.

I was like any horror/monster fan of the 1970’s…I built all the Aurora monster models, Monster Scenes, Prehistoric Scenes. Collected the magazines and books and Don Post masks, put posters of Frankenstein and Dracula up on the walls.

When did you realize you wanted to be a horror genre writer?

I knew I wanted to write horror stories when I was like thirteen and I read Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard in the paperback of the same name. The Howard book had a cool Jeff Jones painting of a dinosaur wading into the surf. That’s why I bought it. The first story in there was Pigeons from Hell and it scared me pretty good. I still think it’s one of the greatest horror stories ever written. But that first reading…all that imagery stayed in my mind. After that, I went after horror fiction with a fervor.

Next came Lovecraft and all the rest. I used to order those anthologies out of the back of Creepy, you know the Ballantine Lovecrafts, Pan Books of Horror, Alden H. Norton anthos, all of that. That’s where it all started.

Why write horror? Wouldn't romance be easier?

Romance would not only be easier, but more profitable, I’m sure. But it would never satisfy me. Not like horror does. It’s in my blood. I need to write. I don’t think I really have a choice in the matter. I don’t have the necessary skills or temperament to write anything else. You know, I’m not dark or weird at all, I’m very normal. Pretty optimistic and light-hearted. And I think that’s because I get all my demons down on paper. I guess it’s almost like self-therapy of a sort.

Tell us about your novel, Dead Sea, and how you came to write it.

I wrote Dead Sea because I just love sea lore and history, the weird varieties of ocean life, and probably because there’s something very mysterious and even spooky about the immensity of the seas themselves. That and the fact that I’ve been a big fan of William Hope Hodgson’s weird sea tales ever since reading his story, The Habitants of Middle Islet.

Dead Sea encompasses a lot of Hodgson’s ideas, a lot of the sea-based horror that has come since, and, of course, the reams of folklore that have come from generations of sailors: sea monsters, ghosts ships, disappearances at sea etc. It gave me a chance to incorporate a lot of those things and mix them up with Sargasso Sea legends and Bermuda Triangle myths/mysteries. In most of these types of stories, a ship or a plane will disappear in those areas and then people will try to figure out where they went . In Dead Sea, I dispensed with that angle. Instead, I show you where they went: a fog-bound, primordial dimension where the wrecks of ships and planes from throughout history are rotting in immense banks of seaweed. A place haunted by ghosts and monsters, alien monstrosities and things that were once human.

In the story, this dimension is the real inspiration for the Sargasso Sea tales. Dead Sea, then, becomes essentially a survival tale as a group of the lost try to stay alive so they can figure a way to get back into their own time/space while avoiding and battling the numerous horrors in the mist and weed, and particularly the devil of that dimension itself; something that feeds on human fear and human souls.

Hive In your novel, Hive, you wrote a sequel to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. What is it about Lovecraft's work that led you to do that?

Hive was one of those projects that had a mind of its own. I often felt like it was dictating itself to me. I set out to write a short story. Then it became a novella and then a novel and Elder Signs Press was kind enough to publish it.

I liked Lovecraft’s novella. I read it when I was a teenager for the first time. And through the years, my memory of it got a little convoluted. I remembered it as concerning a race of aliens that are discovered in Antarctica along with the ruins of their primeval cities that predate mankind. I had that much right. But in my memory, the aliens were scary and evil. But when I decided to write a story based on Mountains, I re-read the novella and discovered that my memory of it was partially erroneous: Lovecraft’s aliens, the Old Ones, were only scary for like the first half of his tale, then he approached them sympathetically. Showing us that the real horror was a shape-shifting group of creatures they had created called Shoggoths which had destroyed the Old Ones and their civilization.

Lovecraft went into great detail concerning the Old Ones’ history and culture, their battle with other alien races and their destruction by the Shoggoths etc. He went for the science-fantasy angle. That didn’t work for me at all. My original memory/concept of the Old Ones had them being extremely malignant and awful, not cuddly and misunderstood, victims of elitist class struggle. So when I did Hive, I tossed out most of Lovecraft’s ideas, staying with my own image of them, approaching it as a horror story.

I set Hive in the modern world as opposed to the 1930’s in Lovecraft’s story. The actual discovery of warm-water lakes beneath the Antarctic glaciers and NASA’s plans to drill down to them using cryobot technology as will be used to penetrate the poles of Mars and the ice sheets of Jupiter’s moons, Europe and Callisto, was what got me really going on it. I saw all kinds of possibilities. My novel is set in an Antarctic research station where a group of scientists discover the ruins of the Old Ones’ city in a sprawling subterranean network. They bring back mummies of the Old Ones and it’s discovered that although they’re physically dead, their psychically still active. Our minds coming into contact with them activate them and they begin draining our psychic energies. Then a NASA team drills down to a lake that has been locked beneath the ice sheet for 40 million years. What’s down there coupled with those dead alien minds will harvest the psychic energy of the human race on a global scale. Along the way, we realize that the Old Ones created life on Earth and engineered intelligence into it so that when the human race became populous enough and intelligent enough, they would harvest us like a crop. They seeded us and now they’ll harvest us. Something they have done with hundreds of races on hundreds of worlds. So, realistically, Hive is inspired by At the Mountains of Madness, rather than a direct sequel to it.

What's a 'writing day' in the life of Tim Curran like?

Well, I work a real job like everyone else. I put eight hours in a factory and when I get home, I write. I knock out about two-and-a-half or three hours of writing a day. More on the weekends. It’s like playing guitar or juggling…if you don’t discipline yourself to do it every day, you’ll never develop the necessary skills.

Which authors influence you the most?

I’m influenced by just about everyone. Lovecraft and Bradbury, King and Campbell, old writers and new. I really like the British author, Phil Rickman. Rickman’s just great. He’s like M. R. James, using all that ancient paganism and dark lore, having it rise up from the past to haunt the future. Thomas Ligotti is another of my favorites. Brian McNaughton, too. He’s incredible. I like a lot of non-horror authors like Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, David Morrel. These guys can teach you a lot.

How do you do it? What's your formula for writing?

I don’t know if I have a formula exactly. With me, I get an idea and it’s usually months or years before I actually write it. I just leave it in my head and let it develop itself. Now and again, something will jump into my head fully-fleshed and I’ll knock it out. But usually, ideas seem to brew and come together in their own time.

Where do you go for story ideas?

I get my ideas same place everyone else does: everywhere. There’s no specific place. I see something, I read something, I hear about something…it inspires me. I think it’s really pure imagination. Just looking at something and seeing something in it ordinary people wouldn’t. To them, an empty farmhouse is just an empty farmhouse, to me it’s something else, it’s empty for a diabolic reason. And that can be applied to everything. I see shadows everywhere…and the things that throw them. Ideas just fly at you out of the blue and you just have to be ready to catch them when they do. You have to exercise your imagination machine constantly and daydreaming always works for me. Just opening your mind.

Do you have any favorite horror movies?

I love all the good stuff and the bad stuff. Old ones and new ones. I appreciate the subtle nuances of the Val Lewton films just as I appreciate the more graphic horrors of Halloween, or The Evil Dead. I like silent movies like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the old Universals and Hammer films. In recent years, I really liked The Grudge, Dead Silence, The Boogeyman, because all three of those had incredible atmosphere. And instead of the usual gore stuff, they were actually scary. When I was a kid they always had those spooky TV movies-of-the-week, things like Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Gargoyles, and The Night Stalker. All of those. They scared me pretty bad and probably have a lot more to do with what I write than any of the cinematic stuff.

Can you give some advice to neophyte writers?

Yes: discipline yourself. First and foremost. Write every day. If you have the talent, it will bloom and amaze you. If you don’t, you’ll realize that, too. But the only way to find out is by writing and writing and writing. It’s tough. It’s much more fun to drink beer and watch TV, but that’s the only way to do it. Write every day. Read every day. Unlock what’s inside you. Get used to the fact that you’re going to be lonely because you won’t have time for a social life.

What projects are next on your agenda?

Right now I’m working on Swarm, the sequel to Hive. William Jones at ESP suggested doing Hive as a trilogy and it sounded like a fun idea to me. Swarm will be very large in scale. Though it’s set in the present in Antarctica , there’ll be lots of flashbacks to earlier Antarctic expeditions. The Old Ones will swarm, rise up in numbers to fulfill their prophesy of harvesting the human race. I’ve thrown everything into this one…Old Ones, Shoggoths, alien ghosts, the hive-mind. We’ll actually get down into the alien hive this time, as well as back down to that dawn city beneath the lake and the ruins beneath the mountains. As world civilization collapses and long-buried alien imperatives implanted in the human psyche rise up to overwhelm the human race and turn it into an alien colony that can be harvested en masse, people trapped down in Antarctica will have to accept that they’re at the very epicenter of the trouble and must fight against it.

Other than the Hive trilogy, I’ve just written a huge apocalyptic zombie novel called The Resurrection that combines supernatural horror with science fiction as Army limb regeneration experiments combined with Medieval sorcery bring the dead back to life and open the gates of Hell. Torrential rains flood a city and rain down what the Army was working on and the city becomes a sinking graveyard of floating corpses, the undead, mutants, plagues of rats and flies.

I’m also working on a novel called Hell Mary which puts a new twist on the old Bloody Mary/mirror witch thing. Hell Mary is the demonic spirit of Jack the Ripper’s final victim, Mary Kelly, whose gruesome death and dissection was recorded in a mirror. When the mirror game is played, Hell Mary is summoned as a hacked and stitched together wraith that slaughters without mercy, recreating her own horrible death again and again.

Also, Red Scream Films is planning to do a film version of my zombie story Mortuary. I’ve also written a script for an upcoming movie of theirs called Ice Vampyres. So that’s pretty cool. And I’ve had some film interest in Hive. I’d really like to see that get made because I think my variation of Lovecraft’s themes combined with a contemporary Antarctic setting and cutting-edge scientific technology would make for one hell of a ride.

What question would you love to be asked and what's your answer?

I would love to be asked about that strain of hereditary madness in my family. I would answer it by first vehemently denying any such thing, then drooling and giggling as I led you up the stairs to the locked room where my insane sister is kept.

Monster Modren Art

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There’s nothing like a classic horror done up classy, I always say. Stalwart ZC reader, Chindi, points us to these beautiful wall-hangers for over the fireplace. Go to Worth1000.com and scroll down the page to view the the Monster Modren artwork.

Why don’t I ever see any of these priceless paintings on Antiques Roadshow?

Chucky
Jason
Pinhead

Old Time Radio Horror:
Listen With the Lights Out!

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Before EC Comics, before TV Horror Hosts, and before the mad scientists, psychos, and domestic and foreign ghosties and beasties took over the megagoogaplex screens, there was dramatized horror on radio just a twist of the dial away.

I fondly remember pulling out the old Webcor reel to reel tape player to listen to old time radio shows, and my favorite will always be Three Skeleton Key with Vincent Price, otherwise known as “that one about the rats.”

Imagine being trapped in a lighthouse with a horde of ravenous rats that have eyes and taste buds only for you; inexorably finding their way in until you have no where else to run.

With the advent of MP3 players, it is now easier than ever to rediscover the sinful pleasures of old time horror radio drama. Much of it is in the public domain these days (script writers and budding horror authors take note!), and can be found online or in CD collections for a nominal charge.

Hot on your list should be audio plays from Lights Out, Suspense, Inner Sanctum, The Creaking Door, and The Haunting Hour, though there are many more series extant.

Aside from Three Skeleton Key, other superb radio dramas to listen to are Sub Basement, and Spider, from Lights Out, and The Dunwich Horror and The House in Cypress Canyon from Suspense.

In Sub Basement, a man takes his wife to the sub basement of a big department store with plans of murder on his mind, but something else in the basement has other plans for them. And in Spider, two weary jungle hunters meet their match in another furry, but not so little or cute multi-legged, and very patient hunter. Just what, exactly, is in the closet in The House in Cypress Canyon will make your neck hairs stand on end.

Listening to horror can be quite frightening indeed. As you hear these chilling tales of terror and horror, be careful your imagination does not run too wild.

 

Go to Awake at Midnight to start listening. And remember, listen with the LIGHTS OUT!

Freaks (1932)
Still Freaky After All These Years

/ Movies (Drive-in) / Leave a Comment
Freaks movie scene with Baklova descending wagon steps, fearful of Johnn Eck and Angelo Rossito looking at her.
Courtesy of Dr. Macro High Quality Movie Scans

Zombos Says: Classic

A peal of thunder echoed outside, followed by a flash of lightning. Rivulets of water started sliding down the narrow windowpanes of the library; a perfect setting in which to view one of cinema’s more outré movies, Freaks. Zombos passed the bottle of claret over to Uncle LaVey, the blackest of the black sheep in Zimba’s family tree, and I inserted the DVD into the player. Dressed in his black shirt and pants, and with his black widow’s peaked hairline and black goatee, he presented quite the look of the Satanist about town.

As we watched the movie I could not help but wonder what Tod Browning and MGM were thinking when they made this movie? Browning definitely wanted to shock and unsettle his audience, and MGM wanted a horror movie that would rival his earlier Dracula success; but what both eventually achieved was an exploitation styled B-movie with flashes of brilliance and disgust that has entertained, insulted, and outraged audiences since 1932. The story of little Hans (Harry Earles) and his futile infatuation with the considerably taller Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), set against the backdrop of the sideshow and its singular denizens, still manages to make one ill at ease upon viewing.

No other movie has embraced the participation of real-life freaks like Browning’s film does here: Prince Randian, the Living Torso; Pete Robinson, the Living Skeleton; Olga Roderick, the Bearded Lady; Martha Morris, the Armless Wonder; Joseph/Josephine, the Half-Man, Half-Woman; the Pinheads; the Hilton Sisters; Johnny Eck, The Half-Boy; Angelo Rossitto (Master in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) and the others were well off the bell curve average. While Browning was heading down a less traveled cinematic road with movies like The Unholy Three and The Unknown, his need for showing the unconventional hit its zenith in Freaks.

Taking Tod Robbins’ story Spurs, Browning (who had already used Robbins’ novel The Unholy Three with critical and financial success), weaves a tale of murder and revenge that’s more unsettling and ends more horrifically than its source material. Adding a sexual overtone that undoubtedly offended his ‘normal’ audiences when it first hit theaters, and portraying his actors as regular people with incredible physical characteristics, then unleashing them as demonic angels of vengeance when mistreated, Browning makes you squirm and sweat watching it all unfold.

“Gooble, gobble!” LaVey chanted as the infamous wedding feast scene began. “Zombos, this scene always reminds me of your wedding,” he joked. Zombos was not amused.

Come to think of it, it reminded me of his wedding party, too. How odd.

The wedding scene is the highlight of the movie. It is here Cleopatra humiliates Hans and his friends, thereby sealing her doom. Falling back on his more comfortable silent movie direction skills, Browning even introduces the scene with an intertitle card announcing “The Wedding Feast.” While he may be comfortable, we aren’t as unsettling close-ups of the circus friends enjoying the festivities are juxtaposed with Hans’ growing realization he’s made a mistake. The drunk Cleopatra openly shows her affection for Hercules, the sideshow’s strongman. As Hans sits, humiliated, the oblivious revelers begin chanting “gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble, we accept her, we accept her one of us.” While the chant continues, Angelo Rossitto jumps on the table and passes around a large goblet overflowing with wine so everyone can take a sip from it. Cleopatra looks in horror as the cup comes closer and closer, eventually recoiling in terror as the cup is held up to her. She takes it and yells “No…dirty…slimy freaks!” and tosses the wine into Rossitto’s startled face.

In his book, The Monster Show, David Skal notes the wedding feast was heavily censored, and one particularly interesting element that would have intensified and justified Cleopatra’s horror at drinking from the communal goblet was removed; as the cup is being passed around, some freaks dribble into it. I leave it to you whether this possibly more nauseating visual should have been included.

Foreshadowing the horror to come, Browning uses more close-ups of Rossitto’s scowling face furtively peering into Hans’ wagon, watching Cleopatra slowly poisoning him, and again as he peers into Hercules’ wagon to see her and the muscle man conspiring against Hans. What follows is one of horror cinema’s more memorable series of scenes as Hans’ friends carry out their revenge.

As Tetrollini’s Traveling Circus prepares to get under way during a dark and stormy night (well, it was), we see Johnny Eck scampering beneath the wagons. As lightning and thunder play in the background, the camera follows him making his way to the huddled group of freaks patiently waiting, away from prying eyes, for their moment of reckoning.

With the traveling circus underway in the downpour, we cut to Hans’ wagon, rolling along in the muddy road. His diminutive friends, gathered by his bedside, quietly watch as Cleopatra once again prepares her poisonous medication. Only this time, Hans confronts her, asking for the bottle of poison. She looks down at Hans, then in horror at his friends who quietly pull out their knives to casually clean them. Cleopatra is understandably alarmed and the spoon of poison drops from her numb fingers.

Now cut to mighty Hercules who is also having a bad night. A knife flashes through the dark and slides into his side, bringing him down to the muddy road, down to their level, where he is relentlessly pursued by a swarm of freaks crawling through the mud and rain, brandishing weapons. The scene is nightmarish. I wonder how much audiences in Browning’s day squirmed in their seats watching it. The ending that was intended, but not used, has Hercules survive, but speaking with a much higher voice. You can draw your own conclusions.

Now back to Cleopatra: her wagon overturns and she briefly escapes the little demons by running into the nearby woods. We see her screaming one last time as they close in on her.

The original ending had a tree struck by lightning fall on her, crushing her legs, and the freaks swarming over her prostrate form to exact their hideous revenge. As shown in the final movie, after her scream we immediately move ahead in time to a sideshow where she appears horribly disfigured as one of the freak attractions. Dressed in a humiliating bird costume and unable to speak, she can only utter unintelligible sounds. The once proud and beautifully statuesque Cleopatra is now a hideous mute freak with a shattered mind and body.

As the movie ended, Zimba returned to snatch Uncle LaVey away. Zombos and I breathed a sigh of relief. Returning to our claret, we pondered the vagaries of moviemaking, and how a daring director got a major studio to produce one of the oddest classics of horror cinema. Forgotten for a very long time and almost lost to us, it was given new life and much needed recognition in the 1960s by photographer Diane Arbus’ successful efforts to bring it to the attention of the cinema art-house crowds.

So we can always remember that “But for an accident at birth, you might be as they are.”

Night Watch (2004)

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 Zombos Says: Very Good

I’m happy to say Night Watch is not a clunker. Instead, it is a whirlwind of special effects, odd characters, and a story that definitely puts Russian horror on the genre map.   While the filmed story is different from the book it is based on in some important respectes, the movie is still an entertainingly fast-paced and strong first entry in the Night   Watch trilogy.

The director, Timor Bekmambetov, did the movie for Russian audiences, which explains the more melodramatic and flowery-mouth approach to mis-en-scene and dialog. But it’s these Russian nuances, composed alongside the standard but well-executed horror trappings we all know and love—CGI and gore effects—that give this film’s quirky, good versus evil, story a fun and very watchable spin for any discerning horror fan.

It opens with a battle between the forces of good and evil (like in Lord of the Rings and Thor)—here it’s the light and the dark squaring off—as they each fight for foothold on a narrow bridge. Both soon realize they are equally matched and neither can win. So a truce of sorts has them divvying mankind’s fate into having Light rule by day, and Dark rule by night.

Jump ahead a few millenniums and we’re in Moscow, where Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy), our soon to be strong-willed but hapless hero, pays a visit to a witch, hoping to keep his girlfriend from having someone else’s child. Bad move on his part as it brings him into direct contact with Night Watch, the forces of Light.

In short order the witch is subdued, suddenly and chaotically, for engaging in witchy kinds of things, and Anton, caught in the middle, discovers he’s a seer and a Light Other—which means a good guy, sort of. The Dark Others are vampires and other nasty things that go bump in the night, and the Light Others are shape-shifters and magic wielders, who try to constrain the Dark Others from doing harm. It’s been this way for centuries: both sides fighting each other to maintain balance. For those of you who work in a corporate office, just substitute “managers” for Dark Others, and your workmates for Light Others, and you’ll understand the whole concept perfectly.

From the opening salvo with Anton, the witch, and the Light’s shapeshifters, it’s a wild ride. Anton’s entry into the light and dark world will leave your head swirling, but stay with it and all will be revealed in time. Night Watch is a kinetic movie of visualizations first, done in fast cut actions, speeded-up and slowed-down, and herky-jerky scenes spliced with CGI. Short pauses for explanation flitter by before plunging you into yet another whirlwind of chaotic visualizations, which for a limited budget are skillfully done.

Much of the special effects are devoted to the Gloom: the twilight state where the natural and supernatural worlds converge. Director and co-writer Timur Bekmambetov heralds its onset by swirling mosquitoes, which he says remind him of vampires, but, unlike the novel, he does not focus on the Gloom much.

One fast and furious scene in an old Russian barbershop has Anton fighting a vampire who pops in and out of the Gloom to attack him, otherwise remaining invisible. The bloody and gorific fight is a special effects treat that ends with a snap, crackle, and pop.

Other memorable touches include a yellow maintenance truck (think Ectomobile from Ghostbusters), recognizable to Russian audiences as a very slow moving vehicle, but is made fun of in the movie by adding rocket jets to have it speeding madly through the Moscow streets.

And then there’s the owl, a stuffed bird brought to life to help protect Anton, now that he’s gone and killed a vampire. The Dark Forces will not forgive him for that. No sooner does the owl follow him home then it turns into Olga (Galina Tyunina), a sorceress, in a flurry of feathers and goo (looking like the Chinese fast-food MSG variation of goo). Being forced into owl shape was her punishment, but for what is not explained. Since the owl can stand for either good or evil in Russian folktales, we can’t be sure what type of past Olga had, or which side she’s really on.

Did I forget to mention the Vortex of Damnation Curse? Aside from Anton’s issues with vampires, there’s this cursed woman who’s about to bring down the apocalypse (and she’s not even a zombie!) so the forces of Light and Dark can battle again. Considering they were at a standstill a millennium or two ago, I’m not sure why they want to bother.

Why this woman is cursed can almost be taken as a joke by American audiences. Why she’s cursed, and why Anton is causing bad things to happen, is due to the bad decisions they made when they had more control over their lives. Since their destiny is intertwined with everyone else’s, one bad decision becomes everyone’s problem. The premise of Night Watch is simple: each person chooses to join the light or the darkness by the decisions they make; and those decisions affect everyone else. In American horror films, people are usually put into situations beyond their control, then they make bad decisions making things worse – often terminally. So instead of a taste of Hamlet in our horror, we prefer hamburger with lots of onions and bloody red ketchup. We don’t savor the bun or its relation to the burger; we just want to eat it.

Night Watch savors the bun with its moral story, and adds a dash of Shakespearean ketchup to provide a unique and colorful tale combining fantasy, horror, and the choices made by all of us that will lead to either the Light or Dark path. The Russian sensibility of horror is summed up best by this dialog between two characters:

“Damn!”

“Careful what you say. Damn is more than just a word.”