zc

Bloggers

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Reflections on Film and TV

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

john kenneth muir

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet
the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, John Kenneth Muir of Reflections on Film/TV shares his adrenaline rush with horror, writing, and blogging.

It was a Saturday in 1975, and close to Halloween. As dusk approached, my parents
sat me down in front of the TV and, in particular, an episode of a new series called Space: 1999. The episode airing that night was titled “Dragon’s Domain” and it concerned a malevolent, tentacled Cyclops entrapping and devouring hapless astronauts in a Sargasso Sea of derelict spaceships. In an image I’ve never forgotten, this howling, spitting monster regurgitated the astronauts’ steaming, desiccated bones onto the spaceship deck. The episode was one part 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and one part precursor to Alien (1979). But the direction of this five year old boy’s life was set in stone during those 50 minutes.

By the time I was in sixth grade, a viewing of Tobe Hooper’s intense The Funhouse (1981) at a girlfriend’s Friday night movie rental party – a big thing in those days — deepened my obsession with the horror genre. The film terrified me on a level I had never before experienced (or even imagined, frankly…), but I survived it. And afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about the nerve-tingling experience of being really frightened by a film, or about the specific details of Hooper’s grisly narrative. I wanted to know more, to understand more, and most importantly, to talk endlessly about the experience and what it had meant to me. Many of my friends thought I was nuts. It's just a scary movie, right?

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Reflections on Film and TVRead More »

From Zombos’ Closet of Horror

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / 1 Comment

Ilozzoc

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal. In this installment, Iloz Zoc (that’s my alter ego) lazily borrows heavily from previous interviews to conveniently provide excuses for my cheeky horror excesses.

I remember it all quite well.

I was old enough to hate the babysitter and young enough to play the guilt trip on my parents. So I admit I ruined their night out at the movies by sitting between them during Roger Corman’s The Terror. They were married so nothing naughty would have happened anyway; except for the effect on my impressionable young mind. This was my first time at the movies, and my first experience with horror. My most vivid memory, to this day, is watching the girl melt away into bubbling goo as Jack Nicholson looks on in terror and my parents taking it all in stride, like scenes with melting girls happened every time they went to the movies. The horror bug nipped me that night.

And so it began. I loved watching Shock Theater movies on television, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and my mother–a big horror and sci fi fan–took me to the best and worst movies, like Night of the Living Dead, Dr. Phibes, and Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. Speaking of that last movie, we actually went to see James Bond in From Russia With Love , but the theater, I don’t remember why, was showing that hokey movie instead. We stayed anyway.

…

From Zombos’ Closet of HorrorRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: The Moon is a Dead World

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

Ryne Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this
ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Ryne Barber of The Moon is a Dead World talks about his dad’s involvement with his love for horror, and why the shadows on your ceiling are so important to dwell on.

You know when you’re lying in bed, looking at the shadows that a particular object is throwing off on your ceiling, and thinking up different ideas of what the shapes look like? Trying to decide what looks most similar? Attempting to define the experience that really hooked me to the horror genre is kind of like that.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: The Moon is a Dead WorldRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Unspeakable Horror

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

chad helder Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this
ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Chad Helder of Unspeakable Horror tells us how his unintentions paved the royal road to his horror writing career in poetry, fiction, and comic books.

The horror genre gained my fascination in the turbulent years of Junior High School. The first most important thing I remember was reading Poe in Ms. Shoemaker’s English class. I stayed after class one day to ask her if writing horror stories made Poe more mentally unstable, and she told me that writing horror stories probably helped him release his demons and made him more stable. I liked that answer, and I wrote a
couple of horror stories in Junior High, a story about a phantom hockey player and a story about an insane person with fog in his mind.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Unspeakable HorrorRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Temple of the Matmos

/ Bloggers / Leave a Comment

Temple of the Matmos Blog Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Robyn (aka The Great Tyrant and Diabolik72) of the Temple of the Matmos reveals there is no hot babe minding the temple. Damn.

If I had to pinpoint a moment where it ‘all started’ it would have to be Xmas 1984 (I think) when I was given Denis Gifford’s Pictorial History of Horror Movies as a gift from my Uncle Steve. Pouring over it for the next few days, I decided that I absolutely had to see every goddamn movie in there. I saw An American Werewolf in London around the same time and from there got into the Universal and Hammer movies. The next big leap was discovering Fangoria, when my father brought me a copy home from a shop he’d been signing at (he was and still is a comic artist) and through this I discovered Romero, Argento, Fulci and the likes. I’ve been pretty much obsessed ever since.

One of my heroes is the late Forry Ackerman, and like him I’m a firm believer that writing about horror and sci-fi should be fun as well as informative. I’ve also always liked the idea of having a fun ‘host’ for this kind of thing. I think this partly comes from growing up reading the British sci-fi comic 2000ad, which had (and still has, I believe) ‘The Mighty Tharg’, an alien from the planet Betelgeuse, as its ‘editor’. Of course, later I was introduced to the EC stuff with The Crypt Keeper and The Old Witch and the rest.

Much later, as an adult, when I edited and wrote for a short-lived photocopied horror movie fanzine, it was under the nom de plume of ‘Robyn Graves’. The Temple of the Matmos is just a fanzine without the hassle and expenditure of printing and distribution really. It started off as bit of random ‘stuff I like’ blog I was doing to keep me sane when I was working as a high school teacher – as soon as I quit and got a job I was happier with, I started doing it in earnest and it was clear to me that the Euro horror route was the way to go. I’ve no plans to stop anytime soon.

It’s quite liberating to write under the guise of ‘the Tyrant’, because I can be a bit haughty and imperious and nobody takes it too seriously, although I think there’s more than a few out there that don’t know the Barbarella character and click into my profile thinking I’m some hot babe! If it gets ‘em reading, then…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Classic Horror

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

Nate Yapp Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Nate Yapp of Classic Horror hits the wall, and climbs over it in classic style to continue his quest for horror.

Even without horror, I would still be a movie blogger of some kind. When I was seven, I read Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide from cover to cover, imagining each film in my head. Cinema is part of my basic identity. Horror came to give that identity a focus, not once but twice in my life.

While I was still seven (or possibly eight), I wandered into the living room just as the infamous sewer grate scene from Stephen King's It began. I was terrified. I did not like it. My mother, who grew up watching a local late-night horror program, decided that the best way to handle my almost crippling fear was to show me her horror films — Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Pit & the Pendulum and the like. I was hooked. For whatever reason, these resonated with me. I would search bookstores and libraries for tomes on my favorite monsters.

At age eight, I was proud owner of William K. Everson's Classics of the Horror Film and Alan Frank's Horror Movies (although many of the full-color pictures in the latter volume disturbed me). I even bought a copy of Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen, because Count Orlok loomed on the cover. A friend's parents were kind enough to tape AMC's Monsterfest for me and I pored over all of those movies. I could not get enough.

Until I eventually did.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Classic HorrorRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Dinner With Max Jenke

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

dinner with max jenke Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Jeff Allard invites us to Dinner With Max Jenke and reminds us how easy it is to be a horror fan these days.

Writing about horror has been a constant in my life for, well, long enough to scare me. In the early ‘90s, inspired by the Lester Bangs of horror journalism, Chas. Balun (Horror Holocaust, The Gore Score, Deep Red magazine, GoreZone’s “Piece O’ Mind” column), I thought it’d be a great idea to start self-publishing my own fanzine and with some expert help from a friend who did layout and design work at the newspaper I wrote for at the time, the first issue of Gravedigger’s Union made it into the world back in 1993 – a year that now seems ancient to me.

Looking back on that issue, which included a tribute to Night of the Living Dead – then celebrating its mere 25th (!) anniversary – I have to marvel at one thing: how much free time I clearly had on my hands back then! But I’m very glad I had the time and money to devote to publishing Gravedigger’s Union as the four issues that eventually saw print over the next four years (the mag that started as an intended quarterly became an annual event!) before being forced by financial realities to throw in the towel (seeking out advertisers might’ve been a smart move but I opted not to) remain a nice little personal snapshot of a different age of fandom.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Dinner With Max JenkeRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: The Day After

/ Bloggers / Leave a Comment

Zombeartep Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Chris Zenga of The Day After runs with the Undead. And loves it.

I was very lucky as a kid and was introduced to monsters at a very young age. I'm a child of the 80's and had plenty to inspire me. I had a love for all things Scooby-Doo, and My Pet Monster and to this day re-watch my Hilarious House of Frightenstien DVD's as often as I can; only now I include my two children.

I saw The Monster Squad multiple times in the theater and was convinced that the fastest way to take down the wolf man was to tag him in the nards!. My father and I sat down to watch The Exorcist on the Halloween after my 12th birthday and I knew I wanted that adrenaline rush that only comes from pure terror, all the time. Although raised in a catholic household my parents were quite liberal when it came to me being allowed to watch horror films; perhaps they thought God would cleanse my soul next Sunday at mass? Now that they know I'm an atheist they're rethinking how liberal they were all those years ago.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: The Day AfterRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Evil On Two Legs

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / 1 Comment

Corey Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Corey at Evil On Two Legstalks about what makes his blog unique and fun to read as well as write.

 

I’ve always loved horror. My earliest memory is of the first day of pre-school and finding the 2-XL robot hidden behind the nap mats and Legos. One of the multiple choice 8-track quiz tapes dealt with vampires, werewolves and other classic monsters. I don’t believe I ever put in the tapes on sports or history, but I must have played the monster one a 1000 times.

As soon as I could read I was lost in the public library searching out books on UFOs, Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and horror story collections like “The Headless Roommate and Other Tales” and “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” Early exposure to the films Halloween, An American Werewolf in London and The Prowler set me up for what’s become a life-long love of the horror film genre. My happiest memories of childhood involve roaming the endless horror aisles of oversized VHS boxes at Encore Video (a local mom & pop video store), looking for something that sounded scary but whose name and cover would be acceptable to my parents… and dreaming of the day when I could have my own video card and would finally be able to rent some of the titles that featured really graphic cover art and enticing names like Faces of Death, I Spit On Your Grave and Slumber Party Massacre.

masked corey There are thousands of sites and blogs where you can find film reviews, so when I started my own site I decided I wanted it to try to do something a little different. When I was a kid we’d argue for hours about who would win in a fight between Jason and Freddy or we’d try to rationalize exactly how Michael is walking around killing people in part 4 after clearly having his eyes shot out in part 2. Those are the kinds of things I wanted to write about. Our site also features less original things like lists of the week’s horror DVD releases and the occasional, highly biased review of the latest slasher remake; but I’m most proud of our site when it features articles that do things like analyze the fashion sense of the teens in the first Friday the 13th or pit Eli from Let the Right One In against Edward from Twilight to decide who would be crowned vampire of the year.

I created a horror blog because I needed a place to vent my love of the genre, to exercise my creativity, and as a fun project to work on with my best friends turned co-writers (Jon & Cara). My site has grown to mean far more to me than that, though, because of the people I have met thanks to it. Through email, Twitter, comments, and in person at conventions, I’ve come to meet some of the nicest people in the horror community and, through their encouragement and advice, to come to feel a part of it myself. I know that my co-writers feel the same.

I think we’ll be writing about horror for a long time to come.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Slasher Speak

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

Vince liaguno Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, author, and League of Tana Tea Drinker's member, Vince Liaguno of Slasher Speak gives us good reason why the standards of normalcy are overrated.

Let’s get one thing out the way: I love slasher films and am unapologetic about it. There is no hanging my head or lowering my voice when someone asks me what the last film I saw was and the answer includes the words bloody or massacre and is either preceded or followed by the name of a holiday or power tool. Buckets of blood, guts, and gore…mass murder, misogyny, and madness – it’s all good.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Slasher SpeakRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Paradise of Horror

/ Bloggers / Leave a Comment

Paradise of horror Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Richard Peter from Paradise of Horror invites us to become castaways on his ideal isle where horror fans can get their geek on.

 

I have always been a huge fan of horror ever since me and my grandmother would watch Tales from the Crypt back when she got HBO for free. It was always my favorite show, but my parents would make me watch Goosebumps since it was a bit more toned down. Though, Goosebumps wasn’t scaring me the way I wanted it to, so I picked up two movies that would forever haunt me, and provided me a gateway into horror: The Thing and The Blob (1988).

With those movies burned into my skull and frightening me to no end, I had to turn it down and switch from Goosebumps to the sci-fi/horror show The X-Files. After that show I finally started watching good horror movies and it’s been history ever since.

I turned into a regular horror movie guru and now I want to be a filmmaker and movie editor.

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Paradise of HorrorRead More »

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Gospel of the Living Dead

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / Leave a Comment

Kim Paffenroth Zombie Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique
personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, author and horror blogger Kim Paffenroth of Gospel of the Living Dead talks about zombies and religion, and how the two meet to provide enlightening revelation.

I think, like many people, my first interest in horror goes back to adolescence, when I was fascinated with some horror movies (especially Romero's zombies), and with some written expressions of horror (especially
Lovecraft). I thought gross, bleeding, oozing things were cool. I think it's pretty typical at that age. Then my mother died a slow, lingering death from cancer, and that made my interest a little less "cool" and a lot more brooding and sullen. I put some of my feelings into bad fiction writing and bad poetry at that age, I suppose as a kind of catharsis or self-therapy. It worked, for what it was, I guess.

But when I went off to college, that phase just stopped. It didn't trail off, it just stopped the day I got off the bus in front of Campbell Hall. Something about the place (St John's College, Annapolis, MD) just awed me with the ideas of dead guys who knew so much more than I did; I should stop and read every word I could and not interrupt with
my sophomoric attempts to put angst or pain or rebellion into words. (I know, I wouldn't have articulated the feeling that way at the time, but in hindsight, that's what I was feeling at all the ivy-covered walls and dusty books and rather arcane, 19th century-looking lab apparatuses.)

…

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Gospel of the Living DeadRead More »