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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
When the Monsters Are Us

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Zombos Says: Classic

“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. Philosophical musing can be a dangerous thing, especially when rattling around in a head like his with nothing to cushion its 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, rare though they are.

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

“Take individualism or community in George Romero’s movies, for instance,” said Zombos. 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.

“Individualism does contribute to higher body counts in horror movies,” I said.

“Let me think. The zombies consume people, the people are themselves consumed by fear, which makes them ad hoc 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—growing community of zombies, the hasty and shaky social contract crumbles, leaving the dwindling living community to revert back to their ineffective individualistic states of actions, which backfire and they all end up being eaten in no time. I say, Zoc, good call on that one. It does appear that community is the better way to go when surrounded by zombie hordes.”

“Good evening,” said Uncle Fadrus, joining us. I poured a cup of coffee for him, relieved 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 today.”

“Speaking of malls,” said Zombos, “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 movie fan. “I suppose if I were doomed by a zombie apocalypse I’d want to be holed up in large shopping mall. Go down shopping, that’s for me. Better a mall in Texas, however, as I’d like to have sufficient ammo and guns, too. May as well make a good fight of it. Have you thought about the paradox inherent in all this zombie business?”

“What paradox?” asked Zombos.

“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 avidly where zombies are concerned. Posit this: which is worse, death being the end of all things for you, or death leading to an endless, consumerist, mindless need, never satisfied? Made worse by partial memories of your living life gnawing at you while you rot away forever.”

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

“A little, perhaps.”

“I think I understand,” said Zombos. “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.

 

The year 1968 was filled with tumultuous change. Political and social unrest divided the country, and the violent change brought about by assassinations, riots, and a war that provided no avenue for victory would alter American culture and thinking in ways both better and worse in the years to come. The horror movies at the box office included The Conqueror Worm with Vincent Price, Rosemary’s Baby with Mia Farrow, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave with Christopher Lee, and Night of the Living Dead with zombies.

Lots of them.

In 1968 I was twelve years old. At the time, I didn’t realize how important that movie was and still is, or how it would change forever the pantheon of fictional monsters to create a sub-genre that would provide the fodder for legions of undead, flesh-eating ghouls to roam across the landscape in countless movies. Zombies have been parodied, satirized, gory-ized, psychoanalyzed, sexed up, sexed down, and alternately made mindless and mindful ever since, but it all popped from those rotting heads in 1968.

I wasn’t prepared for the sudden turn in cinematic horror from “rubber monsters, cardboard gravestones or hands groping in the shadows” as Alan Jones describes it in his book, The Rough Guide to Horror Movies. Up until then, I had watched in cozy comfort as man-made monsters, vampires, and various aquatic wild-life tried to wreak havoc in an ordered universe; only to be stopped in the end by the triumph of scientific reason, religious belief, and when all else failed, a pointy piece of wood, or the trusty military might of the army, navy, or air force.

But director George Romero and writer John Russo changed all that. No longer could the monster be contained, controlled, or avoided by day. The ordered universe was no longer neat and tidy, and it refused to be subject to man’s laws or scientific codexes or heroic deeds.

And the monsters were us!

We were mindlessly devouring each other and infecting each other in gruesome ways in a suddenly nihilistic universe governed by godless quantum shifts.

I first watched Night of the Living Dead at an evening showing at the Benson Theater in Brooklyn. Afterward, the long walk home was fraught with shadows of zombies lurching from every doorway and side street. For the next two weeks I took baths at night with the door locked. I became one of those kids Roger Ebert wrote about when he watched the movie for the first time, in a theater packed with kids. I don’t think we really knew what hit us. No ghouls before this had eaten people, leaving a bloody mess behind that could stand up and start walking. This was little girl ghouls killing and eating their parents. Worst of all, even the hero got killed. Real terror was felt in movie theaters across America. We weren’t prepared for this. Frankenstein was undead, but at least he didn’t go around eating people. Dracula was undead, but he just sucked the life blood out of you without chewing a body part or two. These ghouls were next-door-neighbor ghouls, they were unrelenting monsters beyond all hope of redemption. And religious icons, voodoo rituals, wolfbane, military might, and scientific knowledge were powerless against them.

You bet we were terrified.

Much has been written on the racial and cultural overtones—or supposed overtones—in the movie, even though Romero and  Russo may not have been fully cognizant of them at the time. In Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture, Annalee Newitz builds a solid case for drawing parallels between Night of the Living Dead and DW Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation :“Night is in many ways an updated version of Birth, except this time around the upwardly mobile black man is the film’s hero, rather than its locus of evil and terror… Ben is a black man with power in a white-dominated society; he is also, like Silas, ultimately destroyed for it.”

Take away the racial overtones and capitalistic corporate undertones that permeate the film (how many cubical zombies surround you?) and what you’re still left with is palpable horror. The horror of the unknown suddenly reaching out for you, unreasoning horror that knows no surcease for sorrow, no pitying the fool, and no god to succor you. It’s horror twisting your daily routine into a hopeless knot, leaving you with no sun-will-come-out-tomorrow to look forward to because Little Orphan Annie would be a zombie, too.

The movie starts with Johnny and Barbra, brother and sister, driving to a bleak and deserted cemetery to lay a wreath on their father’s grave. The eerie, cobbled together music, bits and pieces of existing music were used, warns you this will not be a familiar horror movie. When Johnny’s “they’re coming to get you Barbra” joke backfires, the action quickly escalates from the cemetery to the bleak, isolated house in the woods. Black and white, grainy texture, and the closeness of the scenes exacerbate the “realness” and seriousness of the walking corpses congregating at the small house.

But it’s not only a practical refuge; it represents the American dream of home and security and the happiness you’re supposed to get from attaining it. Romero films the house in noir style with ominous shadows lurking in every corner and stark contrasts accentuating the dire situation. This house is not a safe haven. It’s a potential death trap, slowly surrounded by lumbering corpses looking for their next meal. At least with vampires you have to invite them in before they can attack.

Barbra meets Ben at the house. Ben is the only African American in the film, and he has to contend with an all-white zombie jamboree outside, and more distraught white people hiding out in the basement of the house. He happens to be the only rational, cool under fire individual in the group, too. He forages around to find whatever he can to board up the place, all the while dealing with an increasingly catatonic Barbra, and a really annoying white guy named Harry, whose wife and daughter are holed up in the basement, along with a young couple. Harry’s daughter was bitten by one of the undead, so you know where that is going to lead; but back in 1968, we didn’t know. It’s when Barbra climbs the stairs and discovers the home-owner, or what’s left of her, that I and every other kid realized this was not going to be a fun ride. There would be no safe thrills and chills here. No Ed Wood undead Tor Johnsons or Vampiras shambling about. The situation grew grimmer by the minute and there was no Van Helsing in site, no Castle gimmick to chuck popcorn at.

Harry’s one great idea is to stay locked in the basement. Ben wants to fortify the house, and have avenues of escape if necessary. Outside, the zombies gather in greater numbers, waiting, while the two men bicker and fight for control of an uncontrollable situation.

Throughout this ordeal, key icons of control and salvation come into play: the radio, the television, and the gun. More than once “we’ll be all right until someone comes to rescue us,” is spoken. In today’s post-Katrina world, we know differently; but back in 1968 we didn’t know.

Romero closes in on the Zenith radio as the news (horror host Bill “Chilly Billy” Cardille plays a field reporter) describes the growing civil disaster as a mass murder spree by persons unknown, and the bodies of victims are found to have been partially eaten.

I really wanted to go for popcorn then, but I was too afraid to leave my theater seat.  I wonder how many kids pissed their pants that day?

A television set is soon discovered, and everyone eagerly gathers round to listen and watch as newscasters discuss what the hell is happening with concerned scientists, the puzzled military, and local good-old boy militias. A humorous, and still timely scene has the news reporter hounding a scientist and military commander leaving a high-level Washington meeting, only to have the scientist warn about the seriousness of the situation, while the military person  downplays it with a “we don’t really know yet” attitude. Boy, how often have we heard that even today?

The television provides an anchor of technology in a world gone mad, and they cling to it for succor; as the mother observes, as long as there’s “some kind of communication, authorities will send help.” Pretty soon the situation escalates to the point where the newscaster reverses his first recommendation to stay put, and tells listeners to head to a safe location near them as soon as possible. The National Guard protected locations are flashed at the bottom of the television screen as Ben devises a plan to take the truck and gas up from a pump just a few feet away. There’s just the problem with those two dozen or so zombies standing in the way to be taken care of. Tom and Judy, the young couple, argue over why Tom has to be the one to help Ben. Tom puts it rather well when he says “it’s not like a wind passing through. We’ve got to do something and fast.” He hops in the truck to drive it to the gas pump, while Ben wards off the undead with a flaming table leg used as a torch. Judy decides at the last minute to join them, but things go from bad to worse when the truck catches fire. Tom and Judy wind up barbecued in the ensuing fireball as Ben hustles back to the house, only to be locked out by Harry. He breaks the door down to get back inside, and shoots Harry for almost getting him killed.

Now comes the Tom and Judy a la carte scene, and it is here that horror films were forever changed. In a graphically gory scene by 1968 standards, the zombies reach into the truck and grab a hand-full of roasted human remains, then chow down in stark, nauseating close-ups. I was glad I didn’t go for that popcorn now. With the taste of human flesh in their mouths, the zombies head for the house and start breaking in. Mom retreats to the cellar, where she is promptly killed by her daughter with a trowel, in a brutal scene that was quite shocking for me and the other kids to witness. The fact that she was snacking on her dead dad before she kills her mom was also another taboo broken. Barbra, in yet another taboo-breaking scene, is pulled through the door to her doom by her now undead brother, the one person she apparently relied on for her protection and security.

And Ben, who did not want to retreat to the basement, now has no other option and locks himself in the basement.

He has to shoot mom and dad as they become hungry undead themselves. Society and its precepts fall apart as the zombies fill the house, looking for their next living victim. When morning comes, Ben is still alive, but in an ironic twist of faith, his rescuers, the all-white militia patrolling the woods to kill zombies, kill him with a bullet to the head in the mistaken belief that he is a zombie. So no one survives; not even the upwardly mobile and educated Ben.

That was a real downer.

I left the theater that evening shaken, and no longer secure in the commonplace. George Romero had brought ghastly horror home, both figuratively and literally, and the course of future horror films would follow the same path, to the dismay of parents and censors in the decades since then, and probably for the decades to come. Night of the Living Dead stands as a classic horror film because it deals with social and cultural themes as they existed in 1968, and more importantly, as they still exist today, but didn’t realize it at the time.

The Call of Cthulhu (2005)

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Rain, rain everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Rain, rain everywhere, and all the roads did shrink. At least that’s the way it felt as Zombos and I hustled along the Cross Bronx Expressway in a mad attempt to reach Chiller Theatre Expo before the dealer’s rooms closed. It was raining heavily, and we were making slow progress over to New Jersey. Even the New Jersey drivers were driving with caution in the deluge. (Note to self: check list of signs of the coming apocalypse. I believe ‘New Jersey drivers driving cautiously’ falls between ‘when hell freezes over’, and ‘belief that global warming is as real as Big Foot’.)

The Elder Gods were with us, however, and we made it with a little over an hour to spare. Going at such a late hour is rather beneficial as the dealer’s rooms are actually strollable. Zombos dashed off to find Zacherley, and I carried along his list of things to pick up, as usual.

One item on the list was the DVD, The Call of Cthulhu. This silent movie is a competent showing of enthusiastic amateur filmmaking that brings H.P. Lovecraft’s classic short story to cinematic life.

It is an intriguing challenge: to create an appealing black and white silent film for today’s iPoded, simstim-headed, hypertechno-affectualized audience drowning in audio and visual overload. Director Andrew Lehman and a cast of dedicated actors and creative production people tackle this challenge head-on.

The start of the movie is a fun homage to Universal Studios’ 1929 globe circled by biplane logo, combined with a retro-look text that evokes the opening credits of their classic horror films. The onscreen intertitles, used to convey dialog and narrate story points, are done well with exacting period detail.

While I can quibble with some things, like merchant marine sailors wearing clean, pressed clothes, and spotlessly white and uncrumpled caps, and everybody — except for the Cthulhu swamp worshippers — looking so darn clean-cut and unrumpled, the film has an art film sensibility. It ably captures the slowly building terror of Lovecraft’s fatalistic theme as no other, more expensive production has.

This is a credit to the actors, whose performances are greatly enhanced by the lack of dialog sound, and superbly aided by the moody score. As I watched this film, I was reminded of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Here, the use of close-ups and tightly framed shots, along with an occasional  dutch shot (horizon not parallel to the frame), make creative use of the low-budgeted sets. The island, where the ill-fated seamen meet the big Squidworth, with it’s expressionistic, starkly angular landscaping like the streets where Dr. Caligari and Cesare prowled, is imaginative and creepy.

The Tale of Inspector Legrasse segment of the film, which corresponds to the same section in the short story, is nicely handled on that one shoestring budget. David Mersault is a great choice to play Legrasse. His look and manner are spot-on, and the mist-shrouded swamp encounter with the “indescribable horde of human abnormality” worshippers of Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones, is an exciting mix of scoring, model and greenscreen work, along with the full-scale set design. The only fault I can find with the scene is that it lacks kinetic energy in the climactic fight scenes, both within the separate scenes themselves, and in how the scenes are intercut. What should be a bloody knock down and drag out affair comes off a little luke-warm. The lack of combatants — there’s that small budget again — also affects the intensity of the confrontation.

The climactic confrontation between Cthulhu and the ill-fated sailors, The Madness from the Sea segment of the film corresponding to the same section in the short story, is another fine example of doing much with little. Again, model and greenscreen work, and imaginative, full-scale sets combine to realize the otherworldliness of the alien god and his “hideous monolith-crowned citadel” jutting up from the sea. However, the use of stop-motion animation to portray Cthulhu does not work well here, and should have been eschewed for a more shadowy, mostly hidden from view perspective of the thing that

…cannot be described — there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order.

The documentary on the DVD portrays the tenacity, angst, and artistic jury-rigging that made this film a reality. It also provides an informative introduction to the Lovecraftianites that would not let a miniscule budget stand in their creative way. The Call of Cthulhu is an entertaining and faithful cinematic version of the classic story, and required viewing by any Lovecraft aficionado.

The Abandoned (2006)
Ghostly Evil In a Haunted Forest

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The Abandoned Zombos Says: Good

Russian horror movies are a lot like those matryoshka wooden nesting dolls: the horror is nested deep within cultural metaphors that quickly open up, again and again, to reveal an allegory at its heart. I’m not very good with allegory. Looking over my notes for the The Abandoned I have ‘Why?’ jotted down a few times. That’s not to say these are bad in this case. It just means I’m not good with allegory—or metaphors for that matter.

Even if you’re not good with metaphor and allegory either, director Nacho Cerda and writer Karim Hussain unfold an intricate and unrelenting story that looks like a ghost story until it opens to reveal something else. Inside this ghost story is another story about a wicked house deep in a dark, evil forest surrounded by water—looks like a metaphor to me. Inside the evil house
are creepy, white-eyed ghosts—heavy on the metaphors, maybe toss in a little allegory here also. There is also a locked door in the flooded basement. Something waits behind it to be freed at the stroke of midnight on her birthday. But what is it and why?

“It is not a Russian horror movie,” said Zombos, derailing the caboose in my train of thought.

“What?”

“Director and co-writer, Nacho Cerda, that’s not a Russian name. Cerda is a Spanish director. Did that controversial movie, Aftermath, back in 94.” Zombos flipped to the next page in his magazine and crossed his legs.

“But it was shown in—”

“In Bulgaria, not Russia.” He turned another page.

“Even so,” I thought out loud, “there are Russian actors, art directors, production and second unit directors involved. And Spanish horror often is filled with metaphors and allegory. Just look at Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, or even Pan’s Labyrinth. I think my use of the matryoska dolls simile is still valid.”

Zombos looked up at me. “And those insufferable Higglytown Heroes are matryoska dolls, too. Why not use them, then?” He crossed his legs in reverse and flipped another page.

I was beginning to hate multi-nationally produced horror movies.

As I pondered where I was going with all this, I watched the rain spatter across the library’s windows. My mind filled with images of Twinkle and Eubie being chased by ghosts in a dark and decrepit Higglytown Town Hall. Perhaps I should tackle this review using a different perspective?

That’s it! Perspective!

From the perspective of Marie (Anastasia Hille), who travels to her family home after forty years of not knowing anything about it or her biological parents, this soon becomes a journey of frightening discoveries. The opening scenes, filled with rolling camera views, close-ups of frightened faces, and beautiful, but ominous storm-filled landscapes, show the bloody tragedy leading to her adoption.

Now she returns to Russia, reluctantly looking for answers about her past, and not fully sure why she’s bothering to find out. She heads to the countryside and hires transportation to take her to her family’s home, deep in the woods. The only way to get to it is over a bridge as it’s completely surrounded by water.

More metaphor, perhaps?

If that weren’t foreboding enough, the superstitious country-folk also think the land is cursed. One blind old woman tries to keep her from going, tugging on her arm and pleading with her in Russian. I thought back to how Renfield ignored the same warning in Dracula and headed to his doom.

Anatoliy (Carlos Reig-Plaza), the truck driver taking her deep into the woods to “the island” where her parent’s home quietly decays, is gruffly laconic and full of foreboding stares and glares. Driving for hours, he stops the truck in the dead of night, in the middle of nowhere, and leaves her alone as he disappears into the forest, mumbling something about going on ahead. Yes. Alone in that forest; the cursed one filled with eerie sounds and odd shadows darting in and out of her sight range. Of course Marie jumps out of the truck to go find the errant truck driver, in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere IN THAT SPOOKY FOREST and right after the truck radio DIES OUT; but not before playing something that sounds awfully like the words ‘Satan will eat you alive’ played backwards in a kind of freaky static choking way, ending in silence.

Using the flashlight she rummaged from the truck, she makes her way to the house. Once inside, the sounds of a child crying and odd rustling, beautifully enhanced by music, lead her upstairs. Someone keeps walking around, just out of her sight. She finds a zombie-like, blanched-eye doppelganger, dripping wet, who attacks her.

But why?

Water and fish metaphors abound as she’s knocked senseless and wakes up to find another person, her brother, in the house.

As siblings are prone to do, she knocks him senseless, but when he comes to, they explore the house together, especially the locked door in the basement from which her brother, Nicolai (Karel Roden), heard moaning. Both realize they’ve been lured back to the family homestead by an evil presence. Why? Who or what is behind all this? And why does the house seem to be alive?

The Abandoned is a perplexing and demanding horror movie. The cinematography, acting, makeup, and special effects combine to create a surprising experience from a modestly budgeted movie. While the story lags a bit in the middle, as brother and sister explore their situation, the denouement is chilling. Like those nested wooden dolls, it looks like a horror movie on the outside, but when you start to open it up you will find a ghost story within a haunted house story within an evil in the forest primeval story. And even then, much remains unanswered, leaving you wondering why and perhaps a little scared, too.

Interview: Vince Liaguno

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Vince A. Liaguno’s The Literary Six is strangers meeting on a (terror) train. Think April Fool’s Day meets The Secret History from fiction. And, like all good strangers, once these two get together, there’s blood. Think Happy Birthday to Me or My Bloody Valentine or Prom Night or any of the other slasher-by-numbers from the Golden Age of Freddy and Jason and Michael, but don’t (though you’ll be tempted) try to shove this book into your VCR. Instead just let it play in your head, and with your head, and if you can keep from grinning, then you’re a better person than me. As Liaguno shows us with this impressive debut, the slasher is far from dead – it isn’t even tired yet. – Stephen Graham Jones, Demon Theory

It was a pleasant surprise for us to find out that Vince Liaguno is a Long Island native. New York State Nursing Home Administrator by day, and devilish writer of horror by night — along with being a contributing editor to Autograph Collector magazine — he joins us to talk about his love for horror and his novel, The Literary Six.

When and how did you get the horror bug?

As a younger child, my access was pretty much limited to TV horror, and some of those creepy 70’s films still stick in my mind — Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Gargoyles, Trilogy of Terror, those cheesy AIP films like Count Yorga.

When I was eight, my dad took me to see Jaws and I joke that it took four successive tries before I made it through the whole movie. Each time we’d go, I’d make it a little farther and then be like “Daddy, can we go?” through chattering teeth. Then, when I was ten, my dad took me to see Halloween. That was the defining moment for me. I was hooked on horror, especially the slashers, and couldn’t get enough after that. Horror became like a drug.

Tell us about your novel, The Literary Six, and how it came about.

Like I said, I really fell hard for the slasher films of the early eighties. I’m not sure if it was the comfort of the formula that I found appealing or what it was, but these films captivated me. There was something primal about the terror, maybe because the onscreen horror could translate so easily into real-life that made these films frightening.

Around the same time, I discovered horror literature — Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, and novelizations of the slasher films. I think I was struck by the differences between the latter and the films they novelized — the books adding nuance and capturing the characterization of the source material better than the films. I knew that someday I wanted to capture a slasher film on the printed page to make the literary equivalent of a slasher film, if you will. Flash forward twenty years or so, and I did.

What’s your “secret” for writing? What challenges did you need to overcome to finish this novel?

The only secret that I discovered while writing Lit6 (as it’s been dubbed on Internet boards) is that novels don’t write themselves. I know…mind-blowing stuff, right? Early on, I spent a great deal of time planning and thinking and plotting, which are all important to the process, but I think I prolonged that step long past the point of being productive. Perhaps it was out of an unconscious fear of doing the actual work…that old devil known as procrastination. But once I started and found my groove, I organized the writing process and drew from my Catholic school upbringing to discipline myself — even rapped my own knuckles a few times with a ruler just to keep it real.

I wrote Lit6 for about two hours, 3-4 evenings a week, and 8-10 hours on both Saturday and Sunday. The first draft process lasted about a year, the rewrites and editing another year. In terms of challenges, I think the major challenge was to bring a literary element into a sub-genre of horror not well known for its substance. Slasher films were all about the inventiveness of the kills, the systematic slaughter of a cast of characters. I wanted to remain true to the formula while updating it for more discriminating readers, for the teenage fans of those 80’s b-flicks who had grown up. Character development was critical, and I wanted an element of mystery. I wanted to logically scatter the players across the proverbial chessboard and then keep the audience in suspense as to where the malevolent force in the novel would strike next.

What is Queer Horror, and why is it important?

Queer horror is a burgeoning movement within the horror genre, with an obvious focus on the inclusion of queer characters, situations, and cultural references. In other words, horror that appeals to a gay audience.

Up until recently, many of the homosexual characters in horror have been peripheral to the action. Unless the character was an exotic lesbian vampire right out of The Hunger, you weren’t seeing many gay characters in horror literature or film. I think gay horror fans hungered to see stories inclusive of a more diverse cross-section of society.

There is definitely a market for horror in which GLBT individuals can see themselves represented, and even some venerable publishing houses like Haworth are developing their own GLBT horror imprints. It’s funny because I never set out to write a “queer” horror novel and was actually surprised when the gay elements received a lot of the focus. I really set out to write an integrated novel that would appeal to a broad range of horror fans — straight and gay alike. The novel is populated by eight or so primary characters, two of which are entangled in a gay/bisexual subplot that figures into the overall action. Most of all, I set out to write a horror novel and hope that it scares people senseless regardless of their sexual orientation.

What horror films are your favorites and why? Which ones turn you off?

Besides slashers, I love ensemble stories. Large casts of well-defined characters that do battle with the evil forces at work. Films like Carpenter’s The Fog and The Thing, Alien, Maximum Overdrive, more recently The Descent. I’m looking forward to the upcoming film adaptation of King’s The Mist, which I think falls firmly into this category.

In terms of turn-offs, I’m not overly fond of the trend toward torture movies. Not opposed to extreme violence onscreen if it’s germane to the story, but when the story exists for the sole purpose of the graphic violence, then I’m turned off. Not a big Hostel aficionado or fan of the Saw sequels.

Also have to admit that I’m a sucker for the occasional remake. I like to see alternate spins on the same source material and then compare and contrast. There does seem to be a preponderance of remakes of late, and while some work brilliantly like The Hills Have Eyes and others fail miserably like The Fog, I find most fall comfortably in between. I’m really looking forward to Rob Zombie’s reimagining of Halloween – more so because I loved his House of 1,000 Corpses and was less enchanted with The Devils Rejects, a film I think falls squarely into the realm of torture films. Say what you will, the guy’s a gutsy filmmaker with an eye for the nasty, so it’s going to be interesting to see what he does with a masterpiece of subtlety and nuance like Carpenter’s classic.

Who are your favorite authors and why?

I think the first author who I ever considered a favorite was Agatha Christie. Like slasher films, her novels followed an established formula that appealed to me. And, face it; the woman was the mistress of well-constructed mysteries! In fact, I’ve always considered her And Then There Were None and its subsequent 1945 film adaptation to be the first true slasher story — ten people brought to an isolated island and killed off systematically in inventive ways at the hands of an unseen killer for the sins of their past…come on!

Jack Ketchum and his legendary Off Season had a profound influence on my writing aspirations. His was the first novel I had ever read that captured the visceral quality of the slasher films I was so enamored with in written form. He taught me that written words had more power than all of the special make-up effects in the world because they had something that could rarely be captured by film — the reader’s own imagination. Peter Straub probably runs a close second in teaching me about nuance and mood — his Shadowland is probably one of the best works of understated horror ever.

Today, I’m loving the stuff by Bentley Little and Scott Nicholson. Both have found comfortable niches and great formulas to craft strong horror fiction that’s the literary equivalent of the most comfy t-shirt in your closet. Christopher Rice is another favorite of mine — great characters in well-plotted, suspenseful mysteries with a decidedly gothic feel. He’s got a great future ahead of him — one would hope with such genes, right?

What are you working on now?

Coming along on my second novel, tentatively titled The Renewed. This will be a departure from Lit6, more in the horror/science fiction vein. While I intend on revisiting the slasher genre somewhere in my career, I didn’t think it a wise move to follow-up with the same type of story. There are worse things than being pigeonholed, I guess, but feel it’s worth trying to avoid this early on. I tend to gauge the mood of my work by genre films, and I’d say that the new novel is a hybrid of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fog, and Village of the Damned…maybe shades of Day of the Triffids thrown in. There will definitely be no butcher knife-wielding maniacs in this one, but the horror will be intense, muses willing.

I’m juggling work on the novel with my gig as a contributing editor at a small national magazine — for which I get to interview and write about some of my favorite celebs — and a weekly e-column called Slasher Speak: The Murderous Articulations of Vince Liagunoat the queer horror site, Unspeakable Horror, where I write book and film reviews, commentaries, nostalgic retrospectives on some of the great slasher films, and the occasional ruminations on Jamie Lee Curtis.

I’ve also been trying my hand at some short stories, not a format with which I’m intimately comfortable so I’m pushing myself. I’ve submitted to one or two anthologies, figuring it’s a good way to hone the craft while remaining visible to readers in between novels.

What’s the one question you would love to be asked and what’s the answer?

Hmm. That would have to be the age-old question that determines the fabric, the very essence of an individual: boxers or briefs?  Boxer briefs, thank you very much.

Zen and the
Art of Ghost Rider (2007)

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Ghost rider
Zombos Says: Good

“Why’s he staring at you like that?” Lea Persig asked. Her raven-black hair moved softly in the light breeze coming off the water. As our perky garage mechanic, she keeps the numerous vehicles Zombos never rides in tip-top shape. She turned again to look at Zombos sitting on the veranda, sipping his coffee while glaring at us.

“Oh, that’s his Penance Stare. He’s just sore I went to see Ghost Rider while he had to take Junior to see Bridge to Tilapia, or whatever it’s called,” I said.

“That’s Bridge to Terabithia, you goof,” she laughed. She has such a wonderful laugh. “Tilapia’s a fish.”

“Whatever.”

“What’s the Penance Stare?”

“That’s the Ghost Rider’s main weapon against evil-doers. He forces you to look deep into his empty eye-sockets and soon you feel all the pain and suffering you inflicted on others.”

I smiled and waved at Zombos. He glared more intensely, took a sip of coffee, and glared some more. I still didn’t feel any pain.

“So what did you think of the movie?” she asked as I handed her another wrench. She was working on the 1960 Harley-Davidson Glide motorcycle to smooth out its ride. “I mean, was it any good?”

” ‘Any good’ is a broad range that can cover a lot,” I said. “I would say there’s some good in it.”

“Like what?” She wiped the grease mark from her pale cheek, with a handkerchief she always carried in her back pocket, and took a breather.

“For one thing, the story’s a nice departure from the usual slasher and cannibalistic-serial-killer or psycho-mutants-among-us storylines coming out of Hollywood these days. It’s always nice to see a return to the more supernatural underpinnings modern horror grew from. A well done good-versus-evil story can be inspiring.”

“Was it inspiring then?” she asked, putting her handkerchief away.

“Well…no. Not very much so. I suppose because the movie lacks sufficient emotional punch.”

“All right, then, what’s it about?”

“Bloody, sell your soul to the devil pacts, an errant son whose evil can plunge the whole world into Hell, and a stunt motorcycle-riding, demon-possessed, flaming-skull, blazing-chain wielding innocent rube named Johnny Blaze, played by Nicolas Cage, who’s tricked into playing bounty-hunter to bring back Hell’s stragglers to ol’ two-horns himself. But he must play truant officer first.”

“And that’s not inspiring to you?” Lea laughed.

“Why are Zombos’ eyes bugging out?” Zimba’s Uncle Fadrus asked as he walked up the path to us. He enjoyed taking early morning walks before breakfast, especially in the desolate woods surrounding the mansion. “Oh, wait. I seem to recall Zimba forcing him to take Junior to the movies last night. Never mind. What’s this about, Ghost Rider?”

“We were discussing how uninspiring it was,” I said.

“Yes, it does lack that essential emotional connection that would have made it a better movie. Certainly no lack of budget for the special effects, though. They were fairly good.”

“So you’re saying a movie is good if it has good special effects?” asked Lea.

Fadrus shook his head. “No, no. I’m just saying part of what makes a movie good is the way in which special effects are handled, if the script calls for them, of course.”

“The opening scenes in the Old West, with Sam Elliott’s narration, are good,” I said. “Computer-enhanced images embellish the action nicely. Then there’s the scene between Johnny Blaze and Peter Fonda’s Faustian Mephistopheles. One bit of visual genius has Meph’s shadow appear as a gnarled, bent-over creature in a flash of lightning—his true self. Another is a drop of blood from Blaze’s finger as he signs the devil’s pact. It falls to the ground and splatters into a crimson glimpse of souls suffering in Hell. Very artistic use of CGI, especially with faces as the hideous demon appears briefly with more comely features, revealing the evil within.”

“The blazing skull and flaming motorcycle are well done, too—uh, no pun intended,” smiled Fadrus. “Changing the colors of his cranial flames to reflect the Ghost Rider’s mood, blue for sadness, for instance, is a thoughtful touch. And that transformation scene as Blaze becomes the Ghost Rider for the first time, it’s painful to watch as red embers sear his flesh from underneath!”

“But in his characterization though, Nicolas Cage’s toning down of the original bad-ass comic book character is probably due more to merchandising needs than any artistic expression,” I added. “Just look at all those Ghost Rider toys in the stores. You wouldn’t be able to sell them with an R-rated Johnny Blaze, would you?”

“So you’re saying the movie isn’t very good because it worried more about merchandising toys than it did about telling the story?” asked Lea.

“Yes and no,” I replied. “Merchandising toys works for movies like the Fantastic Four because the original characterizations are more family-friendly to begin with. But Ghost Rider was not, originally, a family-friendly kind of character.”

Fadrus added, “And Cage’s eccentricities for the character like eating jelly-beans from a martini glass and watching skits with monkeys dressed as humans, are too contrived. I mean, really, he’s signed a pact with the devil for heaven’s sake.”

“Probably the strongest weakness in the movie is how the four elemental demon-boys summoned by Blackheart, Mephisto’s errant son, are so easily brushed-off by Ghost Rider,” I said.

“Yes,” Fadrus agreed. “After Blackheart shows up at that Hell’s Angel’s biker-bar in the middle of nowhere, happily turning everyone to dark muck, and then summoning those nattily-dressed Goth demons to take care of Ghost Rider, not much action happens between him and them. So little screen time is devoted to their battles, and when they do fight it’s a simple, unimaginative, knock-out punch that sends them back to oblivion.”

“The love-interest also wasn’t very strong, either,” I said. “Roxanne, as played by Eva Mendes, just doesn’t smolder.”

Lea laughed. “Any more puns and I’ll take a wrench to the two of you.”

“What pun? Oh, I see what you mean. Anyway, she’s a reporter, but doesn’t do much reporting, and when she confronts Johnny Blaze and he explains his hellish predicament, there are no sparks, there is no intensity in the revelation. You’d think a man living on the edge of damnation, well, you would think there’d be more fear, more emotional trepidation.”

Fadrus said, “And the dialog didn’t help, either. Come to think of it, the dialog was fairly poor throughout the movie. Here you have Lucifer, his crazy son, demons galore, and a quintessential fight between good and evil, and I can’t recall any dialog stood out or was inspiring. Even Peter Fonda here—in the movie Race with the Devil he’s more energetic against evil—does little to hype his Lord of Hell role. He’s too sedate. There’s no seduction to his evil.”

“So…so far, from what the two of you have said, the movie is not that good,” said Lea.

“I wouldn’t say that. There are some good points to it,” I said. “For instance, while it lacks emotional-pull, has no witty dialog, and needs stronger fight scenes, the story is coherent enough, the acting sufficient, and the promise of a sequel provides a second chance for improvement. I think of it more as a work in progress. There’s also something endearing about the Wild West origins to the story, especially in the beginning and at the end. Sam Elliott brings it out and his presence lifts the movie up a notch.

“Don’t forget this movie was done by Mark Steven Johnson, who also did Daredevil and Elektra, which were both disappointments. Even directors deserve second chances.”

I corrected Fadrus. “Third chances, you mean.”

“Quite!” he laughed.

Zombos ran up to us. “I’ve got Fandango tickets for Ghost Rider, matinee show. Who’s with me?” he gasped in between breaths. We all said “I am” at once, and were soon off to see it again.

Even movies—and Zombos—deserve second and third chances.

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
Gospel of the Living DeadRead More »

Carnal (2003)

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Now playing on the Internet near you, Mala carne, or Carnal as it’s now called, is Fabian Forte’s low-budget, edited in-camera film about female vampires looking for a bite, two computer nerds looking for a snack, and some rather nasty business going on just down the street. Filled with close-ups, stark coloring and lighting, and quirky visual tid-bits that give you a warm and creepy feeling, Carnal is a fun romp from the less-is-more school of filmmaking.

That’s the great thing about low-budgets: you either swim with cheap but creative ideas, or sink with an unimaginative and stifling cloche that fits the budget — and looks like it. I was pleasantly surprised to find Argentine director Forte swimming nicely with his low-key mix of off-kilter dialog and bizarre scenes that casually go by, causing you to wonder “did I just see what I thought I saw?”

The tagline for the film had me worried that it was another torture and pain exercise in human agony, but as it turns out the story relies more on implicit story-telling as opposed to ramping up the gore-to-the-walls visualization, and ends with an EC Comics-styled hint at much more hideous goings-on. Sequel anyone?

Patricio and Eduardo don’t know what they’re heading into when they decide to take a break and find an open restaurant. The night is ominously quiet, and there are few people on the street. When one of our intrepid pair notices a “smell like dead cows,” you know trouble is coming with a big capital T.

He also notices two ladies hanging out on the street with that coy and come-hither look. The inevitable co-mingling follows, and soon the boys are mixing it up with the girls. Even the hint of boy-girl interaction in a horror film means excruciating death, so you know that big capital T is moving closer.

But director Forte mixes it up a bit, too. He plays it slow as the mixer winds up at the ladies’ apartment. Chit-chat, a little game-playing, and nonchalant events ante-up the tension a little bit at a time. Our frisky pair of guys don’t quite get it at first, but we do. There’s that scene with them chatting around the table and one of the girls goes to the fridge. As she opens the door, Eduardo, the more level-headed one, notices something odd on one of the shelves; but it doesn’t quite register. Then there’s that bizarre syphilis discussion between Eduardo and one of the girls as she shows him her creepy doll collection with Mrs. Death Is the Prostitute, her favorite. And just what the heck is going on with the lights? They keep flickering on and off; and even when they stay on they make the rooms in the apartment more ominous-looking. All this oddity, mixed with the grainy texture of the film, makes us begin to feel Eduardo’s unease as he tries to persuade his friend to leave; but Patricio is hot-to-trot.

Before you can say “where’s my pants, I want to run like hell,” in Argentinian, the guys are rendered impotent and the girls start getting rough. Eduardo has it a little better. His date just wants to dress him up in — hey, who’s clothes are these? And was that a body or two in her closet? Soon enough, he’s having tea with Mrs. Death is the Prostitute, and being cuddled and coiffed, just like one of her creepy — from the eBay Goth collectibles section — dolls.

Forte lingers on the use of sharp objects in close proximity to vital bodily areas very teasingly, and creates tension through implication. With Eduardo and Patricio unable to move, speak, or beg for mercy, their helplessness becomes an unsettling experience for us as well as them.Then there’s that creepazoid in the basement; you will need to see that for yourself.

While serves-him-right Patricio gets more nasty attention from the vampy ladies, Eduardo’s paralysis  wears off, and he’s soon alternating between playing possum and looking for an escape route. But can he get out? Or will they do a little surgery on him, too, like they did with Patricio? And who’s that strange guy paying them a visit? Just what exactly is going on here?

To find out, you can watch the film online, or buy the DVD from TMG Flicks. The Behind the Scenes featurette contains a detailed account of Forte’s filmmaking, and interviews with the actors. Shot in five working days with a Sony hand-held camera, Carnal is a good example of effective, low-budget filmmaking that just might creep you out. Even if just a little.

Masterpiece Theatre’s Dracula (2006)
A Forgery

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Zombos Says: Poor

From the Journal of Iloz Zoc

Feb 11. Westbury— Oh, the horror!  In this age of reimaginings and adaptations based on mere fancy and egotistical hubris, to be subjected to this singular carriage-wreck of a teleplay is more than I can bear. What mind could conceive such a thing; to put pen to paper with such disregard, such wretched villainy in this version of Dracula, and to put Bram Stoker’s name upon it? I hear the pounding now, like the beating of my racing heart, as he pummels the lid of his coffin, seeking retribution for this vile act. I feel faint. I must lie down.

Excerpt from the front page of Victorian Variety — Who Do This Hoodoo? A Stinkeroo.

Feb 12. London—From the What-Were-They-Thinking social club comes this switch on the Stoker-coker pot-boiler, mangling Count Drac with so-called Brotherhood of Undead and syphilis shenanigans. Poor Van Helsing (David Suchet) is reduced to switcheroo role with Harker (Rafe Spall) and becomes head vamp’s captive, set free in last half-hour to lead lackluster wooden-stake charge against is-that-all-you’ve-got? blood-sucker in a chamomile tea-paced climax.

Ninety minute walk-through-park story has Lord Holmwood (Dan Stevens) contracting syph from over-sexed Dad, forcing him to postpone nuptials with hot-to-trot Lucy (Sophia Myles) as he goes off to find cure from undead count using social ties with Brotherhood of the Undead, headed by a chap named Singleton, who dresses better
than the count, clothed in simply gorgeous Freemason, secret society-style robe and hat.

Using Singleton (Donald Sumpter) as his go-between, Holmwood foots bill to have Dracula take longer than three-hour cruise to England aboard doomed ship Demeter. Due to minuscule budget, not much happens during faithful trip as weather doesn’t get rough and the tiny ship doesn’t get tossed.

Why does every movie miss potential, terror-filled carnage aboard the Demeter? Then again, why bother writing this snooze-fest?

Bat-man (Marc Warren), smitten by Harker’s snippet of Mina’s (Stephanie Leonidas) hair, decides to woo said Mina while chewing on Lucy’s neck as an aperitif. Lucy, who’s not been getting any lately, is only too anxious to oblige, sending would-be paramour Dr. Seward (Tom Burke) into spasms of impotent rage; or something like that, as his acting is a shade past monotone.

Meanwhile, at the Brotherhood of the Undead’s office, Singleton and another member profess their adulation for the undead guy, only to have him wring their necks. Drac keeps pining for Mina, while Holmwood and Seward pine for Lucy, and this reporter pines for the big stake-o’ pine in Drac’s chest to end this unbelievable tedium.

In the basement, Seward finds Van Helsing—cowering un-Van Helsing-like—in a corner. David Suchet plays Helsing like a man running for the bus. Wisely choosing to hide his features in a white wig and beard, he routinely pulls out the crosses and stakes for the big showdown.

Gearing up for the anxiously-awaited—by this reporter—ending, Helsing, Seward, and Holmwood head over to Lucy’s vault in order to test the sharpness of their stakes. Puzzlement here as to why Holmwood doesn’t just let Lucy bite him in the neck to cure his syphilis—the whole reason for this mess—but why bother with good scripting so
late into the story? With amazing ease, Holmwood plunges a large stake into Lucy’s chest and she goes down for the count.

Speaking of the count, next stop is Drac’s place of unrest, and after a little polite mayhem, Drac and Holmwood wind up dead (with Drac presumably deader than he was),
mercifully ending this life-less version of Bram Stoker’s classic. Or does it? In a sequalization-antic, Drac appears to not be really dead after all. Lord help us all if there’s a sequel.

Telegram to David Suchet from his agent, undated.

Hollywood—Look David, if you insist on appearing in these things, you better wear a white wig and beard to hide yourself. As your agent, I only want what’s best for your
career, and believe me, this ain’t it. STOP But go ahead, do whatever you think best; I can only recommend what I believe to be a saner course of action for you. STOP

Journal of Iloz Zoc, cont.

Feb 12. Westbury—I feel much better now. Chef Machiavelli brought me a nice cup of chamomile tea to calm my nerves. The life of a movie reviewer is not an easy one, and there are moments of real terror as well as joy. Why attach Bram Stoker’s name to such a cinematic detour as this version, nay, this base use of his characters in such
a folderol? Dracula himself is nothing more than a mercurial, long-haired rock star impersonator, showing no cunning, no evil wisdom garnered from living for
centuries. And where is his foreign accent? And how can you relegate a novel, full of terror and action, to a mere ninety minutes?

Sadly, commercial interruption here would have been much appreciated. Worst of all, key dynamics of Stoker’s masterpiece were removed entirely, or presented in abridgment. Harker is dead, and does not return to lead the fight against the count, and the sweep of action from Transylvania to England and back to Transylvania is gone. Van Helsing, once the self-assured powerhouse, the catalyst for action, is nothing more than a shell of his former incarnations.

Subtexts of vampiric sensuality and Victorian prudeness are lost against the flagrant syphilitic-focused plotline. Dracula himself is relegated to a supporting role,
and displays no charisma, no depth, no fear-inducing terror. More effort was spent on his hairdo and self-conscious preening than playing an undead creature
that has survived for centuries, knowing only the lust for blood.

Curse the day I started using TiVo, and the ease at which one can watch such an abomination, unsuspecting.

Documentary: Lugosi
Hollywood’s Dracula (1997)

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Lugosi as DraculaZombos Says: Very Good

In spite of a disheartened director, and a greatly reduced budget, the 1931 film, Dracula, remains a classic for various reasons. For one thing, it was the first speaking horror film, although music was not used except for the opening credits. For another, it had indelible performances by skillful actors.

One performance stands out above the rest, and has left its mark on subsequent impersonations of the aristocrat of the undead, and ushered in an era of monsters that continues to this day.

Perhaps it was the oddly-inflected voice, with the thick accent, that hinted of wolves baying in the moonlight and fear-inducing evils-by-night, living in dark forests; or  maybe it was the slow, determined mannerisms of a person, undead for centuries, for whom the urgencies of mortal time held little meaning; or it could have been those eyes that pierced right through you from under that furrowed brow. For whatever reasons, Bela Lugosi’s performance of Dracula is the image of the vampire count that has stood the test of time.

In Lugosi: Hollywood’s Dracula, writer and director Gary Rhodes explores Lugosi’s amazing career using rare film clips and onscreen interviews with Lugosi’s son, and others that knew Lugosi. What makes this documentary stand above the rest is its use of living history — people — to talk about the man and actor, providing us with an insightful glimpse into this iconic actor’s professional and personal life. Combined with previously unseen footage and stills of Lugosi’s early silent work, this two-disc DVD set clearly shows the broad range of talent and indomitableness of Lugosi as Hollywood ignored him, and squandered his acting in films well beneath his abilities.

Clever additions to the set are some of Lugosi’s Old Time Radio ‘appearances,’ including the creepy, The Thirsty Death from Mystery House, 1944, and an Easter Egg! The funny mockumentary of Gary Rhodes’ quest to sit in Bela Lugosi’s chair can be viewed by going to the last page in the DVD Notes section until “Back” is highlighted, then pressing the Up arrow on your remote (or keyboard, if watching on a PC), followed by pressing “Enter.”

In the Deleted Scenes section, you will find more film footage and discussion on White Zombie (one of his creepiest performances) and Lugosi’s Poverty Row films of the 1930s.  From Murder Legendre in White Zombie, to Ygor in Son of Frankenstein, Lugosi’s performances were always masterful and uniquely different, and created memorable characters in horror cinema.

Director Gary Rhodes steps into the closet for an interview.

 

How did the idea for putting together the documentary come about?

I found the previous Lugosi documentaries [of which there were two of note (Lugosi: Forgotten King, and the A&E Bio)] to be very limited. Knowing that there were quite a few important and interesting people that neither of those films interviewed, such as Hope Lugosi, spurred me to plan the documentary. That was in tandem with the fact that I knew the whereabouts of a good deal of previously unseen footage.

What challenges did you face to bring the documentary to life?

There were a few challenges. That so many people we wanted to interview were already deceased. That some clips were so expensive we couldn’t afford them. Those would be the two biggest challenges.

While watching the documentary, I was happy to see many clips and stills from Lugosi’s silents’ performances, something you rarely see. What challenges did you face in finding them, and why can’t we see more of Lugosi’s work in silent films?

The difficulty with Lugosi’s silent work is that very little exists. We incorporated clips from the only surviving fragments of Lugosi’s Hungarian career, which were thus seen publicly for the very first time. We found and used clips from Dance on the Volcano, which was the first time the clips had ever been seen (and we were thus responsible for its subsequent release through Sinister Cinema). And we used clips from Deerslayer, Silent Command, and Midnight Girl.

The reason more of his silent work can’t be seen is that very few beyond those we drew clips from exist. Daughters Who Pay, from 1926, exists at the Eastman House in a version that must be transferred to safety stock and restored (at a cost of many thousands of dollars) before it can be viewed/released. But most of his work of the time simply doesn’t exist, particularly his Hungarian and German period.

That montage of scenes you orchestrated, without narration, especially caught my attention. At first it didn’t quite register, but when I watched the documentary a second time, I realized it captured much of Lugosi’s acting versatility.

I appreciate your comment about the montage of scenes, as that was what I was driving after.  Some way to encapsulate the larger whole of his work, especially given the time constraints of an hour film (which was still in fact longer than previous docs on BL, which were both hovering around 44mins). Plus, it was a way of working with the previously mentioned challenge of not having enough access to the Universal film clips due to cost.

As a writer and director, do you use a different approach when working on a documentary compared to the way you approach a regular movie?

I’ve been making films professionally since 1991, and my first documentary (Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian) is still in print from VIEW Video … it raised enough funds to mark the hitherto unmarked grave of the seminal electric guitar player.

But I think in recent years my approach has changed, and that change has happened since/just after finishing the Lugosi doc. From Solo Flight thru Fiddlin Man and Lugosi: HD, I approached things too much as a historian, possibly. Privileging rare clips/interviews with those who hadn’t been/etc., above the concerns of fictional film, which would be things like narrative form, three-act structures, and so forth.

I think doing the mockumentary film Chair (about Lugosi’s Chair, which is a hidden feature/easter egg on the DVD made me begin thinking more about emphasizing the story being told over the tools used to tell it (like, say, rare clips or the like).

This has impacted more recent work of mine, particularly Banned in Oklahoma , Seawood (a just-finished film about alzheimer’s … a case study), and my movement more and more into fictional film (like Wit’s End, a feature comedy). So it has been a transition.

As for Bela, that was probably simultaneously the best and worst topic for me to do… the best because of my love for his work, my lifelong interest in him, and my knowledge of the subject (I had previously written Lugosi: His Life in Films, on Stage, and in the Hearts of Horror Lovers, a 1997 book for McFarland, recently back in print in paperback). But I say it was also the worst choice because I was/am too caught up in minor details, adoring, say, an extremely rare clip when most viewers wouldn’t necessarily know whether it was rare or not.

At any rate, my love for Lugosi continues. I have a book (that Dick Sheffield helped on) called Bela Lugosi, Dreams and Nightmares that is brand new… it is literally due out in print on Feb 20 of this year, in just a few weeks.

Interview With Jonathan Maberry
On Writing

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Jonathan Maberry Author photo“What’s the matter?” Zimba asked.

“My muse is not amused today,” I said. I sipped my third Dunkaccino in my doldrums, and sharpened a few more pencils. I had been alternately doodling and sipping, trying to get my story down on paper; or, at this stage, anything down on paper.

“There’s more to writing than just waiting for inspiration, you know.”

“I know. But it’s so hard trying to juggle time, things that need to get done, and writing. Like juggling balls, it’s easy to get them into the air and not so easy keeping them there.  To make matters worse, you have writers like Jonathan Maberry blithely juggling literary rings, non-ficion pins, and graphic novel buzz-saws while taking bites out of an apple, all at the same time. It’s demoralizing.” I took a long sip of my Dunkaccino.

“Jonathan Maberry?”

“He wrote Ghost Road Blues, a first novel that’s already received a preliminary Bram Stoker Award nomination. Makes me sick.” I took a hopeful sip from my empty Dunkaccino cup. Damn things are never big enough.

“Well, why don’t you just ask him how he does it,” she said.

“You can’t just go and bother a writer because—”

“Why not? It’s easy. Just click your pencils together three times and say “There’s no writing like my writing, there’s no writing like my writing, there’s no…”

I looked at her. She was serious. I clicked my pencils together and repeated those words. In a poof of light and smoke Jonathan Maberry appeared.

“Damn, not again! You neophyte writers are a pain in my — what? Oh, sorry.” He adjusted the bath towel around his waist.

Zimba exhaled.

“Well, I see you two have lots to talk about.” She left the room with rosy cheeks.

I was speechless.

“Well?” Maberry said, toweling-off his hair. “I’m waiting. Make it snappy.”

 

With the Ghost Road Blues trilogy, the Joe Ledger series, other fiction and non-fiction books written or in the works, comic books, teaching duties, and an 8th degree black belt in jujutsu, how do you do it? Lots of coffee?

I never sleep.  No, actually I multi-task well and I plan things out before I do them.  Unlike a lot of novelists, my background is in journalism rather than creative writing. At Temple U  I learned the reporter’s trade–get your hook, do your research fast, writing quickly, always nail your deadline, and move on.  I don’t believe in writer’s block–I think that’s an excuse for poor planning or a lack of discipline. If it existed, reporters would be telling their editors that “the muse just isn’t with me today”…and the next day they’d be working at McDonalds.

Real pros write, and they write every day. They set goals and meet them. This doesn’t mean, however, that they have less passion or less of an appreciation for the more artistic aspects of writing, it’s just that they can get the job done. I have a lot of friends who are professional writers, and they all pretty much agree.

On the other hand, sometimes time evaporates and I feel like I’m driving three cars at once. Aside from writing a novel a year, I also write one or more nonfiction books a year, I write articles, I’m writing a pilot episode for a TV series; and I own or co-own a few businesses.

I’m a founding partner of the Writers Corner USA (in Doylestown, PA), which is a writers education center, and I teach a bunch of classes there–which I love; I’m co-founder of The Wild River Review, a literary e-zine, and I just wrote a long serial feature on the ‘thriller genre’, which included interviews with Lawrence Blocks, Steve Hamilton, Barry Eisler, and others; I own Career Doctor for Writers, which provides editorial, proofing and career counseling for writers; and I’m president and chief-instructor for COP-Safe, which provides cuff-and-arrest and risk management workshops for law enforcement. I sit on a couple of boards — Philadelphia Writers Conference, etc.; and I’m the president of the New Jersey/Pennsylvania Chapter of the Horror Writers Association.

So…where do I find the time?  The real answer is that I have no freaking idea. Stuff gets done and I stay happy doing it. Coffee and meditation help a lot.  

What’s Ghost Road Blues about, and why is it shaking up the Bram Stoker Awards?

The success of Ghost Road Blues took me a little off guard. After thirty years as a magazine and nonfic book writer I took a shot at a novel–a trilogy of novels, actually–and hoped it would have at least modest success. I’d never written book length fiction before and simply sat down and wrote the kind of book I would read. I love epic stories, I love stories with ensemble casts, I love exploring the psychological cause and effect of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Fiction allows me to explore that.

Ghost Road Blues has racked up something like 107 Amazon reviews, of which nearly 100 are 5-star. Publishers Weekly compared it to Stephen King, and even though I don’t think I write like King, that was a helluva nice thing for them to say.

I think some of its success comes from my public appearances. I have so much fun with the horror genre, and people tell me that they love my enthusiasm and passion. When I do a talk or appear at a signing, I don’t just sit there and blab about my books…I talk about the whole genre, about the marvelous books–both classic and recent–that keep horror vital and alive.

Having the book recommended for two Stokers–Novel and First Novel–floored me. It absolutely floored me. I had no idea that I’d get even a single recommendation, and yet at the end of the initial phase I was in first place for recs for First Novel, and sixth in Novel! If I make it all the way to the official ‘Nomination’ phase, which happens around the middle of February, I think I have my strongest shot in First Novel. But even if I don’t win…just being included in the short list is a real buzz. I’ve read all of the other books, and I don’t see them as ‘competing’ books. These are books by friends and people I really admire. It’s excellent company no matter what happens, and we’ve all been joking that the winner has to buy the others the first round of drinks at the Stoker Banquet.

Why do you use the horror genre as your writing voice?

Horror allows me to take the brakes off. Horror isn’t safe and writing shouldn’t be safe.  In horror you can address the darkest, most dangerous parts of the human heart, and that’s where you learn about the true nature of each character. Some of our most profound pieces of literature have used the supernatural as a vehicle for telling stories of great cultural, literary, or psychological worth. Shakespeare loved the supernatural — The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth; Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a pretty damn scary ghost story; Dracula and Frankenstein are enduring classics. Go back further and look at Dante and Milton, at Homer. Monsters, ghosts, demons. Most people want to believe in a larger world; and even for those who don’t, the horror format allows you a structure for telling a tale that otherwise readers might not try.

You see the same thing in SF and fantasy. The Twilight Zone and Star Trek were really morality tales, social or political commentary, even farces about the human condition–and if they had been done as straight dramas on TV would we even have watched them, let alone remember them all these decades later?

There is such a grand tradition of horror writers speaking in a voice that is unafraid of telling the truth about what goes on in the twisting corridors of the human mind. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend tells you just about anything you’ll ever need to know about how we deceive ourselves by accepting the propaganda that supports our biased vision of the world; The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is a short course on the dynamics of psychological disintegration; Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes speaks eloquently about the devastating effect of the choices we make, and about the ordinary heroism latent in the human soul. The list goes on.

Sadly, in recent years horror’s gotten a bad rap. All of the major publishers, including the one that does my books—Pinnacle–have stopped using ‘horror’ on the spines.  They’ve started calling their books ‘fiction’.  Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub are known as ‘suspense’ writers. Maybe it’s backlash because of torture-based films like Saw and the spate of slasher films we had over the last couple of decades, the whole industry has been labeled as trash. That’s amazingly unfair…especially since most of the slasher flicks were not written by horror writers, or even writers of adequate literary chops. When a real writer takes a shot at writing something like a serial killer story you get a Silence of the Lambs.

I’m going to rant a bit here, so bear with me. When real horror writers–whether they call themselves that or not–take a popular genre and give it their all, you get books that can stand as literature by anyone’s standards. You want a ghost story? Try The Shining, or Matheson’s Stir of Echoes; Wither by John Passarella, or Peter Straub’s Ghost Story.

You want to read about the social and psychological effects of the apocalypse, a genre with a lot of great books, take a look at The Stand, Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

You want a good monster tale that actually has story rather than just shock? Pick up Charles Grant’s The Pet, Phantoms by Dean Koontz, Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker.

There are marvelous cross-genre works, like the Repairman Jack novels by F. Paul Wilson, and the mysteries with a touch of the supernatural that John Connolly and Peter Straub write with such elegance and insight.

Novels about culture clash? Try Dan Simmons’ The Song of Kali or Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory.

Or, how about coming of age? That genre doesn’t begin and end with To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye.  Take another look at The Body by Stephen King, A Boy’s Life by McCammon, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, and Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes and Dandelion Wine.

We even have slasher stories that strike right to the heart–Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris; and Jack Ketchum’s legendary Off Season.

And this is just scratching the surface. For every book and writer I just named there are dozens and dozens of others in the horror genre who have written– and are still writing–books of literary merit that also display deep insight, subtlety, and the power to both encourage and compel deeper thought on the part of the reader. Horror does this because to a large degree that’s what horror literature is all about.

 

“Hey, these Dunkaccinos are good,” Maberry said, sipping his second cup. Glenor was kind enough to make a sustenance-run for us. “You could raise the heat, too, you know. I’m freezing my ass off.” He pulled the towel tight around his waist as I turned up the thermostat. “Now where were we?”

 

…

Interview With Jonathan Maberry
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The Messengers (2007)

/ Movies (Horror) / 1 Comment

the Messengers Zombos Says: Very Good

There is nothing worse than having skeletons in your closet, unless you have vengeance-seeking dead people in your cellar, too. In The Messengers, both skeletons and dead people come together in a fusion of Japanese Horror and American Gothic images for its effective PG-13 scares.

The tragedy–there is always an instigating tragedy in J-Horror– sets the tone for mayhem to come as one family reluctantly moves to the cellar of their old, dark farmhouse, stuck out in the middle of nowhere–with no coffee shop in screaming distance–of a North Dakota sunflower farm.

Reluctantly taking up residence in the gloomy house is the Solomon family. Something happened in the city that has caused a lot of tension between them and they need a place to work things out. There’s something to be said for the peace and quiet of the countryside to work things out, but since this is a horror movie they don’t get it.

The original tenants, now bluish-gray with morbidity set in, play with Ben (Evan Turner) in the dead of night and get on Jess’ (Kristen Stewart) nerves. Their clickety-clack scampering along walls and ceilings, and annoying floating, gallows-style, above the floor ruins the peace and quiet for Jess. A nasty black stain on Ben’s bedroom wall keeps getting bigger no matter what mom does. This J-Horror imagery works well with the fusty Gothic farmhouse and the ever-present black crows hovering around it (like the pigeons in Pigeons From Hell). A nerve-rattling scene has Jess being dragged by an unseen force down the long hallway and through the open cellar door, then grabbed at by cadaverous arms shooting out of the darkness behind her, trying to pull her down. Old, dark farmhouses have scary cellars just perfect for scenes like this.
More subtle American Gothic elements move to the forefront when Burwell (John Corbett) shows up at the farm.

Toting a shotgun to scare away the increasing number of crows, he stays on to help bring in the crop of sunflowers. Those skeletons keep rattling as Jess tries to make her family believe in them. John lends a sympathetic ear, but Jess realizes she must find out what happened to the previous family–the ones doing the rattling–in order to save her own. While she goes off to find help, her Mom gets to intimately know more about the large black stain on the wall, and John confronts his past. Both families eventually meet, though I’d hold off on the dip and chips.

If you’re looking for gore and sprays of arterial blood go elsewhere. The Messengers is better than that. Using shock cuts, good acting, and enough time to unfold the terror along with the tragedy, it delivers less bodies with more suspense.

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.