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Books (Non-fiction)

Book Review: Sundays With Vlad

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Zombos Says: ExcellentSundays with Vlad Interview

I became the odd little kid who’s in love with monsters. There’s one in every neighborhood. My favorite book was The Three Little Pigs because of that wolf peeking from just outside the window of the brick house. I loaded up on books about vampires and werewolves at the school library. The grisly woodcuts of creatures loping through the medieval fields and lunching on peasants would keep me awake all night. In the morning, I’d take the books back, promise myself I would never read them again, and check them back out the very next week.
(Paul Bibeau, Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man’s Quest to Live in the World of the Undead)

 

“Please take your seats everyone, this meeting of Goths Anonymous is about to start,” said a frail-looking individual in front of the room. He fidgeted with the lace on his shirt cuffs when no one paid attention to him. “We can’t get started until everyone takes a seat,” he implored.

“Will you please sit down,” I told Zombos. He looked at me with a questioning glance as he pulled out an iPod earbud from one ear. “I said you really need to sit down. The meeting is about to start.”

Zombos shut off his iPod. “I really do not know why you dragged me to this so-called meeting. I see nothing wrong with listening to Midnight Syndicate.”

“You’ve been listening to them non-stop.” I said. “And even when you aren’t listening to them, you’re humming Cemetery Gates or Mansion in the Mist ad nauseam. In sum, you’re driving me, Zimba, your son, and Chef Machiavelli bonkers. Oh, lord, is that Paul Bibeau?”

Zombos turned around to look. “Why yes, I think it is. He is wearing that same black ensemble he used to prowl the Renfield Country club circuit for his book. My word, how does he manage to walk in those tight pants. I bet his voice has gone up a pitch or two since he put those things on. Paul! Paul! Over here!,” waved Zombos.

“No! Don’t call him over! I haven’t reviewed his book, Sundays With Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man’s Quest to Live in the World of the Undead yet. He’ll be asking me about it and I won’t know what to say,” I pleaded, but it was too late. Paul saw Zombos and headed over to us.

“You have not reviewed his book yet? What in Hades are you waiting for, man, it has been over a year,” said Zombos, folding his arms. I hate when he folds his arms like that.

…

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Boris Karloff: The Man Remembered

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Zombos Closet: Boris Karloff: The Man Remembered

Horror suggests physical repulsion, disgust, and that seems to me a worthless, pointless reaction for any work of entertainment to aim at; it's so easy it isn't worth doing. An eye, say, plopping all bloody into a glass dish may provoke a gasp of revulsion when it is first seen on the screen, but this is an entirely physical thing, and something one can get used to–no doubt with a certain coarsening of one's responses in the process. The second or third time something like this happens in a film, the surprise and excitement is gone, and then you come back to the old, inevitable question. What is there to support it in the way of plot and characterization, to give it some point other than providing an immediate physical shock? In other words, what is there to appeal to the spectator's imagination? –Boris Karloff interview, The Times.

I met Gordon B. Shriver at the Monster Bash in 2007, and again in 2008. He read from his one-man play on the life of Boris Karloff at Max, the Drunken Severed Head;s annual party for the notables and quotables attending the annual classic horror convention. Max lets me in anyway.

Boris Karloff: The Man Remembered grew out of Shriver's fascination and admiration for the man whom many horror fans hold in high regard. Karloff's tireless and masterful acting brought life not only to the Frankenstein Monster, but to the Mummy and countless other major and minor roles, whether by using his unique mannerisms and posture, or by using his unmistakable voice,  lisping ever so eloquently, immortalized as the narration for 1966's animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Karloff became the personification of embraceable horror for a generation–and beyond, bringing his terror with a twinkling eye into everyone's living room.

While we grew to love him in movies that tickled our fright-bone, much of Karloff's acting also occurred on stage, radio and, in later years, television.Throughout his long career, even when faced with debilitating arthritis and emphysema, he continued to give every assignment his professional all. Shriver's correspondence with many of the people who worked with and knew Karloff provides a view of the man as consummate acting professional, always downplaying his stardom, and tempering his sinister onscreen persona with wit, charm, and an urbane demeanor in real life.

…

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Interview With Leslie S. Klinger

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Zombos Closet: Bram Stoker's Dracula

In regard to the curious incident of  Leslie S. Klinger’s extensive background in annotating fictional works of great significance, which begin with a certain detective–

Mr. Klinger’s work is an update and expansion of William S. Baring-Gould’s Annotated Sherlock Holmes, a monumental feat of scholarship, published in 1967. It was Mr. Baring-Gould’s edition, which Mr. Klinger received as a gift from his first wife in 1968, that initially sent him sliding down the rabbit hole of Sherlockiana. –New York Times, 12-30-04

–And culminate with his elucidation of one singular individual, of dubious notoriety, and ungodly nighttime habits–

In his first work since his best-selling The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger returns with this spectacular, lavishly illustrated homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. With a daring conceit, Klinger accepts Stoker’s contention that the Dracula tale is based on historical fact…employing the superb literary detective skills for which he has become famous, Klinger mines this 1897 classic for nuggets that will surprise even the most die-hard Dracula fans and introduce the vampire-prince to a new generation of readers.

–This much can be said: bring it on. And he did.

…

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Interview: Mark Clark

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It’s not that actors no longer give good performances in horror films (they still do), and it’s not as if direction, editing, and special effects weren’t important in the classic horror film era. But in most modern horrors, concept is more important than cast. Horror has become a director’s genre more than an actor’s genre. During the classic era, the genre’s biggest stars were Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. In the years since, its brightest luminaries have been Mario Bava, George Romero, Wes Craven and M. Night Shyamalan. (Mark Clark in Smirk Sneer and Scream)

Director Justin Channell’s company acronym, IWC Films, seen on his Heretic Film’s distributed Die and Let Live zombies and pizza flick, sum’s up the current state of horror cinema rather well: IWC stands for Idiots With Cameras. While I admire his light touch of humor, I fear the ring of truth in those three letters is precisely why horror cinema is mostly relegated to backhanded reviews or begrudging nods of minor acceptance. Making the situation worse, it’s not just the idiots holding cameras, but also the ones pretending to act in front of them. Then you have the ones writing incomplete scripts without a hint of drama, pathos or depth, and others directing with those scripts, with nil basic training, because the digital age makes it appear so gosh darn easy to do–and Aunt Edna and Uncle Joey are available Tuesday for free.

Before the digital age gave any idiot with a camera the potential to become another Hitchcock or Romero, but not the sense to learn first, shoot later, horror movies more often than not had drama, pathos, and good acting that was sometimes even great. Even though many of these films were made for a quick buck, too, actors still acted, and writers wrote complete–if not always stellar– scripts. Directors learned their technique and approached their films seriously. Even if the script was underwhelming and the direction uninspired, you could still count on yesterday’s classic horror actor to give it his (or her) stylistic all. It may not have been naturalistic acting, but it was acting that convincingly and realistically entertained. Mark Clark, in his Smirk, Sneer and Scream: Great Acting in Horror Cinema, reminds us of this golden age.

If your looking for detailed plot synopses, look elsewhere: Clark focuses only on the memorable performances that show each actor’s ability to bring the house down. And while his predilection for classic horror actors fills part one, the other two parts of his book examine mainstream actors–those thespians briefly caressing the horror genre to leave their permanent scars–and the often neglected leading ladies of fright. From Boris Karloff to Anthony Perkins, and Bette Davis to Jodie Foster, Clark lists the roles that bewitched us into becoming horror fans in the first place.

After reading his fascinating book, I invited Mark Clark to step into the closet and talk about Smirk, Sneer and Scream…

Tell us about your background and how you came to write Smirk, Sneer and Scream?

I loved the classic monster movies as a kid, and even imagined someday writing a book about them after reading (and re-reading) Edward Edelson’s Weekly Reader type book, GREAT MONSTERS OF THE MOVIES. After college, I worked as a newspaper reporter and film critic for about 10 years. I eventually left that line of work because I wanted to write what I wanted to write, instead of having to write about whatever I was assigned to cover. Toward the end of my newspaper career, I discovered Tom Weaver and the Brunas brothers’ UNIVERSAL HORRORS, which brought back for me the idea of writing about horror movies. I also began writing articles and reviews for magazines like MONSTERS FROM THE VAULT, MIDNIGHT MARQUEE, SCARLET STREET and FILMFAX and launched my online DVD review column.

Why write about acting in horror films? I mean, it’s generally assumed that horror actors are not good actors, right?

Well, I wanted to write a book about horror films, but didn’t want to write a simple history. That had been done to death. I wanted an original angle, and it occurred to me that nobody had ever provided a real appreciation for the great acting performances that had been given in horror films over the years. Horror actors are usually treated like second-class citizens by critics and Academy Award voters, but that’s pure snobbery. Many fine actors worked in the horror genre, and did superb work there. I think Boris Karloff’s work in FRANKENSTEIN or THE BODY SNATCHER, for instance, stacks up with the best screen acting by anybody in any picture.

Also, I wanted to turn the spotlight back on the actors a bit. Even those people who write seriously about horror films these days tend toward narratives where the major players are directors. This is, I think, largely due to the influence of the “autuerist” film theory which emerged in the 1950s and quickly became dominant in critical thought. Personally, I believe that auteurism can be limiting, especially when oversimplified. Sure, directors are important, but film remains a collaborative art. And, as I note in my book, back in the 1930s, nobody went to see a movie based on the name James Whale or Tod Browning. They went based on the name Karloff or Lugosi. Actors and their work, as I see it, went a long way toward defining and shaping the genre, especially during its infancy.

Would you say the acting in classic horror films is different from today’s? If so, why?

Wow, these are great, thought-provoking questions!

Thank you. I amaze myself sometimes, too.

Film acting in general is much different than it was in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. And of course it’s completely different from silent film acting. During the classic movie era, actors performed in a manner that was very stylized and distinctive. It wasn’t necessarily naturalistic, but it could be very expressive. Stars tended to develop a recognizable persona they carried from film to film, but the best actors among the big stars (Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, for example) were able to take that persona in a lot of different directions through subtle variations. With the rise of the Stanislavsky “Method” school of acting, all that changed. Naturalism became the new ideal, and anything stylized was dismissed as “phoney” or “camp.” The best screen actors (Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep) seemed to vanish into their characters and became almost unrecognizable from film to film. There are a few performers today who have an approach that’s a sort of a hybrid between the classic era and the modern era – actors (like George Clooney, for instance) who have a true star persona, but are capable of submerging into character when necessary.

Of course, this tectonic shift in styles was felt in the horror genre, too. Plus, other changes also had a major impact. The breakup of the studio system brought the death knell for typecasting in the classical definition of the term. Studios couldn’t force an actor to make a career out of one type of character or film. Or, at least, not as easily. If actors had always been free agents, as they are today, we might never have known such a thing as a “horror star” in the first place. Nobody wants to get pigeon-holed as one type of character or too readily associated with one type of film. It’s seen as a bad career move. Left to their own devices, most if not all of the great horror stars would have abandoned the genre to stretch their muscles in different sorts of roles. In the last 20 or 25 years, the only actor who comes close to being a true horror star is Robert Englund. Now, I’ve interviewed Robert and I like him a lot. He’s very intelligent and very funny. But let’s face it, his body of work isn’t going to make anybody forget about Boris Karloff or Peter Cushing. Anyhow, the lack of horror stars has turned horror into more of a director’s genre. Although there are still good performances given in horror movies, often the acting almost seems beside the point. CLOVERFIELD, for instance, strikes me as pretty well-acted, but the film derives most of its power through technique, rather than performance. That’s common now.

You devote a chapter to the leading ladies of horror, including actors like Bette Davis, Jaime Lee Curtis, and Simone Simon. Why? Isn’t horror a man’s game?

Now you’re baiting me! Actually, I found writing that particular chapter more enjoyable than any other in the book. In retrospect, I think an entire book could be written on the subject of women in horror films – not a compendium of biographies like Gregory Mank’s two-volume WOMEN IN HORROR FILMS, but rather a survey of how women’s roles in horror films have reflected the changing place of women in American society over the past century. It’s a fascinating subject, which I touched on (again somewhat indirectly) in SMIRK, but which deserves further consideration and discussion. In the context of SMIRK, my primary focus was to draw attention to the many great performances by women that have graced the horror film, like those by Mia Farrow in ROSEMARY’S BABY and Sissy Spacek in CARRIE in addition to those you mentioned. There were so many great ones, it was tough to narrow it down. That was the hardest part of the entire project, actually — keeping it from growing as big as the NYC yellow pages. There are so many great performances out there, it was impossible to cover them all. My book was intended to be a starting place for discussion, not the final word.

In our email discussions, you mentioned there were  elements you were trying to weave into Smirk, Sneer and Scream you don’t think fully came off. Can you elaborate on them?

Some of them I’ve already touched on, like the impact the rise of method acting and the breakup of the studio system had on horror film acting, and on the evolution of the genre itself. While writing the book, I tried to deal with these developments in a way that, looking back, was too subtle – you can get the narrative, but it’s broken up in bits and pieces in several different write-ups, rather than being stated in a clear, unified manner. I won’t be making that mistake again. In my current book, all my ideas are up front, offered in a clear, linear way. For better or for worse!

Who’s your favorite actor in classic and contemporary horror, and why?

Among the classic horror performers, it’s almost impossible to go wrong with Peter Cushing or Lon Chaney Sr. I think Lionel Atwill and George Zucco are underrated. I love Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price. But my favorite is definitely Karloff. He was just such a master. At the top of his game, his performances could be tremendously subtle and moving. He could scare the hell out of you, or he could break your heart. I don’t think any other horror star has a filmography as full of varied, three-dimensional characters as Karloff, and I don’t think any other star had as significant an impact on the development of the horror film. For decades, he was the face of the genre, the same way John Wayne personified the Western. In terms of contemporary horror films, I tend to like individual performances more than particular actors.

How did you conduct your research for Smirk, Sneer and Scream?

I watched and rewatched hundreds of movies and took copious notes. Very detailed notes. Lots of rewinding, pausing, jotting things down. I tried to break down the physicality of the actor’s performance – not just the line delivery but posture, gait, gestures. What was he or she doing in the scene that really brought the character to life? How did he or she relate to the other players in the scene? How did the actor’s choices differ from or align with the performer’s work in other films? Or with the way other performers had approached similar roles? The hardest part was not getting distracted by other elements in the film, staying focused on just the acting aspect. It required a great deal of discipline and could be exhausting, frankly. Try it some time and see!

As a writer, what’s your regimen to get words onto the page?

A source of ongoing pain, frankly! I tend to write in fits and starts, working very intensely for a while and then not at all for a while. This is absolutely not the way to approach writing, and I am trying to become more steady and disciplined. It’s also a big reason why I took me so long (over six years) to write SMIRK. I need to improve if I’m ever going to write all the books I want to write.

What other books can we see from your digital pen? More on horror, I hope.

I’m currently co-authoring (with Bryan Senn) a book with the working title SIXTIES SHOCKERS: HORROR FILMS OF THE 1960s. It’s going to cover, comprehensively, one of the richest, most varied and most dynamic periods in the history of the genre, a time when the classic horror era overlapped with the dawn of the modern era. I’m especially interested in writing about the way the social upheavals of the era played out in that decade’s horror films. I’m very excited about it. I hope to finish it this year and have it on the market in 2009. Again, McFarland will publish it.

Shameless plug department: By the way, if anybody else out there liked SMIRK, I urge them to check out a book called SCIENCE FICTION AMERICA. Edited by David Hogan, the book contains essays from several writers (including me) about the way social issues have been portrayed in sci-fi films over the years. All the essays are excellent. My two (about I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE and the first two ALIEN films) are the best work I have published so far. SCIENCE FICTION AMERICA is available from McFarland.

What’s the one question you’ve been dying to be asked, if any, and what’s your answer?

Q: Can I buy the film rights to SMIRK for a million bucks?

A: Yes. Just make the check payable to me.

Interview: Richard Scrivani
A Journey with Zacherley

/ Books (Non-fiction), Horror Hosts / 6 Comments

Good Night Whatever You Are book coverZombos Says: Very Good

But most of all, for kids born under the bomb and black-and-white TV, the revolution that was the 1960s began with Zacherley. (David Colton, Preface to Goodnight, Whatever You Are)

We take a lot of things for granted. I don’t mean all those little inconsequential things that we siphon from our daily wake through the great white waters of life, but the really important things like our relationships with people, the places we go, and the history we take part in. Living our lives takes so much effort, so much involvement, that we scarcely get a chance to look back and reflect before it’s all, suddenly, too late.

Richard Scrivani did look back, and his reflections on those things he didn’t take for granted back in the 1950s and 1960s are the stuff of history, and childhood culture, and all those really important things many of us, who grew up in those churning and yearning years, have tucked deeply, and absent-mindedly, into our back soul-pockets.

Now I know it would be narrow-minded of me to say that the ’50s and ’60s were a wonderful time for everyone who grew up then, but I can say with certainty that there was one wonderful part of it that anyone could share in, whatever you were: Zacherley. In Richard’s book, Goodnight, Whatever You Are!: My Journey with Zacherley, the Cool Ghoul, he reminds us of a time when monsters ruled the nascent airwaves, and Zacherley reigned as the TV horror host with the most, and flaunted it to the horror of many parents and authoritarians.

Zacherley came on the scene when Screen Gems opened the cinematic vaults in 1957 to release the Shock! Theater and Son of Shock! films, unleashing many classic—and many spastic—horror and suspense movies onto the little screen, awakening the monster-lust in many a young fan with their arcane terrors. In the middle ’50s, the first lady of terror, Vampire, helped open the crypt door to future horror hosts who put their bite on the jocular vein, in welcome contrast to their show’s more traditional, or just plain godawful, fright offerings.

As TV stations around the country scrambled to market their Shock! package of films, Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV came up with a creepy character named Roland to play host for their show. John Zacherle, already acting in a western aired by the station, was asked to play the surly, acerbic-witted, but humorous crypt-kicker.

Richard Scrivani documents Roland’s creation, and the ghastly business-side antics that led to Zacherle’s eventual move to ABC-TV in New York to become the nationally known ghoulish gagster, Zacherley. With lots of photos, and a clever interview format that continues throughout the book, this look at Zacherley’s rise to notoriety provides a revealing look at early television, which was a roll-up-your-sleeves time when local stations created much of their own programming and broadcast live entertainment.

Scrivani pays close attention to the progression of Zacherley’s career across TV stations up to and including the move to UHF and WNJU-TV 47, where pop-music and pop-horror meet in a broadcast-live dance show called Disc O-Teen, aired every weekday at 6 P.M. from the Mosque Theater in Newark, New Jersey, starting in 1965. He attributes his first meeting with Zacherley to luck; the cute girl he danced with, Sami, caught the attention of the camera men and Zach. His luck would lead to a return visit for a Halloween show, and many more visits that spanned the three years Disc O-Teen was on the air.

Notable rock bands and their music in this era of social transition, and the dancers that made Disc O-Teen a happening show week after week, along with Zacherley’s uniquely wacky sense of “grumor,” are vividly told. Against this backdrop, Scrivani writes about the  friendship that grew between him, a shy kid from New Jersey, and the palid punster whose iconic persona became the eternal poster child for monsterkids everywhere, whatever they were.

It’s hard to describe a time in American culture when the word “plastic” was confined to model kits, and not used pejoratively, but Scrivani manages to capture the innocence, the angst, and the harsh reality of the black and white TV age. Along the way in this personal journey, his friendship with Zacherley hits its idle periods, but picks up as John Zacherle moves from horror icon to radio announcer and back again.

I was lucky to meet Richard at a little private soiree thrown by the Drunken Severed Head at the 2007 Monster Bash Convention. While I didn’t have a cute girl like Sami to grab his attention, we were wedged in tight enough–small hotel room, many notable guests–that he couldn’t escape my asking a few questions.

How did your friendship with TV horror host Zacherley get started?

It started with a visit to Zach’s dancing show, Disc-O-Teen, in August, 1965. My younger brother’s band, Herald Square, was competing in a contest on the show and the winning group was to be awarded a recording contract with World Artist Records. My dance partner and I were invited back for the upcoming Halloween show. That was the very beginning of what would become a friendship with Zach.

In your book, Good Night, Whatever You Are, you write about an era of television and culture that, sadly, no longer exists. Why is that?

Because there are no longer any local TV personalities like Zach, Chuck McCann and Soupy Sales to host live programming. Everything is tightly scheduled and sent out like mass-produced cookies. Videotape is also becoming a thing of the past because stations are now broadcasting with hard drives.

The days when you could walk into a studio where a show was being taped (like sneaking under the circus tent), sadly, have long disappeared.

What’s your first monsterkid memory?

My very first “monster kid memory” has to have been the first time I saw THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS in the movies with my father and younger brother in 1953. I remember the picture had a slight greenish tint to it!

What other monsterkid memories can you share with us?

I remember my first experience with a vampire film. I was about 10 years old and THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE was being shown on a local TV station long before the “Shock!” package was released. It was the scene where Nina Foch kisses her fiance and the camera swings over to reveal Lugosi as Armand Tesla hiding in the shadows. The female vampire was obviously following his command and it terrified me to think that a vampire could pretend to kiss you and instead drink your blood.

Also (probably on the same station around the same period) Glenn Strange changing into a werewolf and stalking an old man in THE MAD MONSTER scared the life out of me. But the most intense memory was Bramwell Fletcher’s abbreviated scream in THE MUMMY after coming face to face with Karloff’s reanimated Imhotep, followed by that insane laughter. I watched the rest of the film with the sound so low it was barely audible; I wasn’t going to be frightened like THAT again!

Having grown up on the early horror movies, what’s your impression of the current crop of movies?

Every once in a while I see one I really like, such as THE OTHERS or the remake of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. For the most part, though, I’m not a big fan of current horror movies. I did actually like M. Night Shyamalan’s  THE SIXTH SENSE and THE VILLAGE, and I don’t know if this qualifies as horror, more likely fantasy, but I thought PAN’S LABYRINTH was one of the best genre films of all time.

Zach02_2 What’s the one question you’d love to be asked, and what’s your answer?

The question would be: “What makes Zacherley so unique and appealing?”

My answer: To a kid my age (12) in the uptight, conservative, tow-the-line 1950s, there were no TV personalities who broke the rules by poking fun at the stations’ programming and even their bosses. When Zach came on the scene he seemed to be speaking just to us and it felt like he was one of us. He also wasn’t afraid to make himself a filthy, disheveled mess while doing his crazy “experiments” and that was very much like the behavior of another kid!  I think radio personality Pete Fornatale, who calls Zach a “televisionary”, sums it up best –  it was like Zach was telling one big joke and we were all in on it.

Goodnight, Whatever You Are is a terrific trip down memory lane for anyone who grew up as a monsterkid. For everyone else, it will make you envious that you missed out on all the fun. But remember, it’s never too late, whatever you are.

Book Review: The Rough Guide
to Horror Movies

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Rough guide

Zombos Says: Excellent

The Rough Guide to Horror Movies, by Alan Jones, is a richly informative and broad discussion of American and British horror films, including coverage of horror’s important international kith and kin. The format makes it easy to read and refer back to. The book is broken into sections providing a chronological look at the horror genre and a browse-friendly, enjoy it here and there, read.

Beginning with a brief overview of the literary and celluloid origins of horror, Jones introduces his essential 50 seminal horror films that stimulated the genre to new heights. This is a section to be revisited again and again. While some of his inclusions may be open to debate, the entries provide much to think about and discuss. This list provides the budding horrorhead with the movies he or she simply must not miss.

The remaining chapters include the icons of horror, the global picture of horror films around the world, and a section devoted to film festivals, conventions, books, magazines, and websites. The chapter is not exhaustive, but it is a great starting point.

You will also find a who's-who of notable directors, actors and monsters that have shaped the genre in the Icons chapter, along with the quintessential reasons for why they have had such a strong and memorable hold on the medium. This chapter provides an excellent introduction to those “faces of horror” that have provided endless hours of chills and scares  to audiences everywhere.

It is in the concise chapter on global horror cinema that the book becomes an essential guide to the various influences each culture brings to the genre. If a director is a product of his cultural upbringing, then his singular experience within (and perhaps struggling against) his culture must be understood and contrasted against his cinematic creations; add to this each culture's unique superstitions and mythologies, social mores and taboos—and musical and dancing interludes—and you will begin to appreciate how they influence the depiction of horror and terror onscreen.

From Hong Kong’s “flying ghosts, hopping vampires…killer tongues and other possessed body parts” to Mexico’s “macabre folklore,” and Italy’s giallo, horror on film is a rich tapestry where American and British influences interweave with the many globally shared themes of personal, social and religious ideations; pushing many hapless victims out of the commonplace and into the stygian realms of the cinema-horrific, screaming and dying all the way.

Vampire Universe Book Review

/ Books (Non-fiction) / 1 Comment

Zombos Says: Very Good

There are days I wish I could recapture my youth, or maybe trade some of my heavy years now for those light ones happily spent not worrying about anything that wasn’t comic book or monster-movie related. I’d trade a month here or there just to go back and hop on my red and chrome bicycle with the racoon tail, banana seat, and gleaming headlight that easily lit the dark ways of late-night rendezvous, with the neighborhood kids, in low or high beam.

I’d even trade weeks for the chance to visit Phil Seuling’s comic book shop again. Just off of 86th Street in Brooklyn, it was the oasis to my daily desert-trek through Catholic school and the mundane world. You’d never quess that Phil taught English at the local High School, or that he knew so many wonderful people involved with those wonderful, spirit-lifting, awe-inspiring, and conversation-shifting movies in paper form, comic books. I’ll never forget the time I met Roy Thomas either, or the issue of Submariner Number One he autographed for me; oh, and that issue of Conan the Barbarian Number One, too.

Funny enough, when I’d often bike over to Phil’s shop and hang out, I’d leave with much more than just geeky chit-chat and prized copies of the latest FF, Spidey, Captain America, or Doctor Strange. Once I left with a leather-bound and really old set of Charles Dickens’ complete works — needed help to get it home it was so big. Another time I left with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars, Savage Pellucidar, and Carson of Venus paperbacks. They were really cheap; cover price was thirty-five cents. I still have Savage Pellucidar. Now and then I’ll crack open those acid-browning pages and refortify myself by taking a good long breadth of the stuff that dreams are made of.

So you could say that Phil’s comic shop was more than just comics for me. I developed a fondness for learning about new, fantastic things through books. Rummaging overstuffed shelves and boxes filled with books, and skilfully pulling books from teetering piles, all to perhaps discover a page here, a paragraph there, or luckily even a whole chapter, is an exuberance I’ve never tired of. When my luck would be so good as to find an entire book full of the incredible, I would snatch it up and race home in glory.

So the short of it is, that’s why I like — no, love — books like Jonathan Maberry’s Vampire Universe: The Dark World of Supernatural Beings that Haunt Us, Hunt Us, and Hunger for Us. It’s the explorer, the discoverer in me that enjoys reading about creepy bumps-in the-night; and Maberry’s book is filled with lots of these wonderfully creepy bumps and more. Jackpot!

…

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Interview: Kim Paffenroth
Gospel of the Living Dead

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Bgospel2 “Let’s see,” Zombos said, “he likes The Prisoner, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Robot Wars?”

“Check,” I said.

“And his favorite joke is what?”

“Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. Why?

“Because it was dead,” I said.

“How sublimely Zen-like.” Zombos put his hand on his chin. “Definitely, we must interview him.”

“He loves cooking, too.”

“Amazing,” Zombos said. “What doesn’t he do?”

“Not much, apparently,” I said, shaking my head.

“And you say we don’t need to click two pencils together?”

“No pencils needed,” I said.

“Wonderful.”

Kim Paffenroth — author, theology professor, zombie-film maven, and a man who knows a good Zen-like joke when he hears one — graciously consented to chat with us about his fascination with George Romero’s zombie films.

In his thought-provoking book,the Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth, Kim helps us put our scholarly thinking-caps on to discuss the underlying philosophy, sociology, and meaning so skillfully hidden under all that zombie — I-smell-a-buffet — horror, in an entertaining read that will make you a god among the chip-and-dip party circuit.

“Don’t forget to mention the book has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction,” Zombos said.

“I won’t.”

What brought you to theology and the study of religion?

I was raised as an atheist. But even more importantly, my parents always drummed into me to think for myself, not to settle for someone else’s answers. So, when I found that their atheism wasn’t working for me, I investigated Christianity and found it a much better fit for my outlook on life. Of course, I still apply that skepticism and that inquisitive nature to my Christian beliefs, and I know a lot of Christians find that disconcerting. A lot of non-Christians find it unusual, too, as though being a Christian means just not questioning anything and being a passive, blind follower. It’s a very unfortunate stereotype, to say the least.

…

Interview: Kim Paffenroth
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Book Review: The Undead and Philosophy

/ Books (Non-fiction) / 2 Comments

 

Zombos Says: Very Good

“What is it about zombies?” asked Zombos. He put aside his cup.

“I’m not sure I follow you,” I said. Shadows from the long day drifted lazily on the floor of the solarium. I had been trimming the corpse plants and orchids while he sipped his late afternoon coffee.

“That book, the Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless one. I was reading it last night.” Zombos put his hand to his chin.

I gulped. A little philosophy can be a dangerous thing, especially when rattling around in a head like his with nothing to cushion it’s impact against the inside of his thick skull. The vision of a ball-bearing cracking the side of a glass sprang uppermost in my mind. I’d rather be a poor servant to a poor master then have to listen to Zombos’ philosophical ruminations.

“Who would have thought,” he continued, “that zombies, rotting creatures prone to consuming mass quantities of, well, mostly living people, would provide such a large pile of compost to fertilize thought and discussion in of all things, philosophy.”

I accidentally snipped the rare marifasa lumina lupina in half. I wisely put down my shears as Zombos continued. A cold chill ran down my back as clouds blocked the sun, and the complacent shadows on the solarium floor scattered to oblivion.

“Take Murray’s essay, When They Aren’t Eating Us, They Bring Us Together,” Zombos said. My mind frantically put out a call to David Chalmers, but the line was dead, dead, deadski. “In her essay she examines which of the two is better, individualism or communitarianism, by using George Romero’s films.”

“Individualism does lead to higher body counts in horror films,” I said.

“Let me think. That does seem to be her summation of it. Consumerism is also a main point of ridicule and admiration in Romero’s works, too. The zombies consume people, who are themselves consumed by fear, which makes the living scramble for a social contract that, due to their individualism, they ineptly engineer. In the end, unable to become a living community that can defend itself against the more socially-bonded — but dead — community of the zombies, the social contract crumbles, and the living revert back to their individualistic states of actions, which leads them all to being eaten in no time. I say, Zoc, good call on that one. It does appear that communitarianism is the way to go when surrounded by zombie hordes.”

“I see you’ve finally read that book I gave you,” said Fadrus, joining us. He’s an uncle on Zimba’s side. He was staying with us for a spell before he continued his travels across the countryside.

“Very stimulating book it is, too,” Zombos said. “The editors, Greene and Mohammad have brought together some very interesting discussions about vampires and zombies. Of course, I’m prone to zombies these days, but the vampires hold up their philosophical end of it rather well.”

I poured a cup of coffee for Fadrus. I was relieved that he would now take over the philosophical dialog with Zombos. I turned my attention back to trimming the plants.

“Thank you, Zoc. What happened to that beautiful marifasa orchid? You didn’t let Zombos trim it, did you?” He laughed. “Zimba is going to show me your wonderful Long Island shopping malls tonight.”

“Speaking of malls,” Zombos said, “that reminds me of the consumerism innuendo Romero plays with in Dawn of the Dead.”

“Yes, that’s quite an image, isn’t it? The dead dying to get in, though they don’t know why, and the living just dying to shop.” Fadrus was also an ardent horror film fan. “Did you read Walker’s When There’s No More Room in Hell, the Dead Will Shop the Earth?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, I won’t recite the essay for you, but I will mention that he uses Dawn of the Dead as a springboard to discuss hedonism and the acquirement of goods beyond reason. He posits the simple question, ‘Can the ultimate goal of consumerism, to achieve happiness through the acquirement of more and more goods, actually lead to happiness?'”

Zombos thought for a very brief moment. “Why yes, of course.”

Fadrus looked at me. We both laughed. We both knew that the world’s treasures are not hidden in anyone’s closet, no matter how big that closet might be.

“What? What did I say?” Zombos asked.

“Nevermind,” Fadrus said. “Walker goes on to discuss the common elements that tie both dead and living together, aside from wanting to go to the mall and consume as much as possible. He also explores the individualist versus community aspect of it all, a strong theme that runs throughout most horror films, especially zombie ones. And it’s always the living community, built on individualistic behavior and disagreements that falls to the more efficient, single-minded community of the dead.”

“When you’re dead, there’s not much to disagree about,” I added.

“Astute point. Now, moving beyond the undead per se, Noel Carroll’s The Fear of Fear Itself examines the paradox of Halloween, which provides a wonderful dessert to the more involved discourses on vampires and zombies.”

“What is the paradox?”  Zombos asked.

“Death, my friend. The grim blackness of no return. The great question mark of life. The paradox is why we embrace death’s imagery so eagerly every Halloween, seeking it out in the media, playing trick or treat costumed in the grave’s finest, making fear our parodied captive while it holds us eternally captive?”

Zombos rubbed his chin. “Heidegger’s angst, eh?”

“Yes, and more. Carroll looks at the psychoanalytic approach, but then goes on to explore the meta-fear of fear. Our need to control fear by experiencing it — the how-close-to-the-cliff-without-falling-off approach. It can be exhilarating and life-altering in the same breadth. This mastery could be the reason why horror films focus more on realistic horror these days, that of serial-killers and sadists, more than supernatural ones. One strives to master fears based in reality, not fancy, I suppose.”

“Indeed,” Zombos said. “But there are worse things than death.”

“In what way? Fadrus asked.

“Hamish Thompson’s, She’s Not Your Mother Anymore, She’s a Zombie, opens up discussions that go beyond zombies and the undead.”

“I think I understand. You mean the value of personality when it no longer exists, or partially exists in another form that is more alien than familiar. Like a person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or mental disease. What of the soul, then? Is it there, where does it go? How does it survive the physical and mental battering of life? That uncertainty can be overwhelming.”

The long day turned grayer. Zimba’s voice called to her uncle, and soon they were off to the malls.

Zombos sat quietly in his chair, looking into the dusk, hoping to see well beyond it. I poured another cup of coffee for him, and continued to trim the orchids as long as the fading light permitted.

Pretend We’re Dead
Capitalist Monsters In American Pop Culture
Book Review

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PretendZombos Says: Excellent

If you can read only one non-fiction horror genre book this year, first I strongly suggest you reexamine your priorities, then second, I highly recommend you pick up Annalee Newitz’ Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture. Now I warn you, you will need to really think while reading this book, which is one of the necessities for discovering fresh insights into the inner workings of what makes horror go bump in the night.

Now mind you, I didn’t say you will need to agree with everything Annalee Newitz posits in this encompassing examination of sociological and economic forces pushing on our cinematic realizations of the undead (zombies), the indifferent (serial killers), and the insane (mad doctors); but if you disagree, you better be prepared to argue why as well as she does.

 “I’m a zombie, you’re a zombie, we’re all zombies too”. Repeat these words over and over again to the tune of Dr. Pepper playing in your head. Now you’re ready.

If you work in a sterile corporate office you will embrace Newitz’ ideas: if you work in a dull gray cubicle world for a pittance allotted by CEOs who walk away with unjustified millions, you will understand her reasoning; if you’ve gone through the demeaning and demoralizing experience ironically called ‘the performance review,’ given by the-company-is-my-life, alienated and mostly clueless manager who (only funny in The Office) will quickly sell you out to sell themselves up that dubious corporate ladder, you will nod your head in agreement with her arguments.

For that dog biscuit reward most of us roll over and play dead for everyday, we do it in order to survive the dullness, the inanity, and the inherent humiliation of our daily work life. So is it any wonder the monsters we see on the golden screen are the products of our collective economic misery and aspirations? Or why they pursue their psychotic and body count careers with such workmanlike aplomb and enthusiasm?

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Pretend We’re Dead
Capitalist Monsters In American Pop Culture
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