From Zombos' Closet

LOTT-D Joins the Avengers

Move over Thor and Captain America, members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers, those super bloggers of horror (and superhero movies!), want a seat at the table. 

From Midnight With Love takes on the mission..."Now that I have seen it, it is certain in my mind that Joss Whedon is the true hero of The Avengers.  His script, which is filled to the brim with scenes that are honestly hilarious, is also incredibly faithful to the heroes as they've appeared in the comics and films that led to this point."

Gospel of the Living Dead preaches a new gospel..."Really, to call it a great comic book movie is shortchanging it. The Punisher (2004) is a great comic book movie - over the top, two-dimensional, cartoonish violence, with dialogue that consists of grunts and wisecracks. The Avengers is a great action flick, generally. This is much more of a "Team of Bad-Asses Who Don't Get Along with One Another" film and should be compared to those (and compared quite favorably, allowing for tights and people who fly and what-not)."  

TheoFantastique invites Jess Peacock from The Crawlspace to wax on the popularity of The Avengers..."Whedon knows who the Avengers are, what they have been, and where they need to go. As such, he avoids the mistake of reinterpreting the mega-team through a postmodern, nihilistic lens, a trap too often ensnaring other contemporary superhero projects. (I’m looking at you,Man of Steel.) Neither does Whedon devolve into camp (*cough* Green Lantern). Rather, he allows the characters to play in a world and respond to a threat that Marvel has brilliantly pieced together since the release of Iron Man in 2008."

Scared Silly reminds us of the comic book fun... "Last but not least, this weekend sees the release of the live-action Avengers movie, based on the popular Marvel Comics super-team of heroes...Since we’re all about “the classics” here, I’ll leave you with a clever “pre-make” that has been making the rounds – a “trailer” for an “Avengers” film if it had been made in 1952! You’ll spot some footage from vintage serials, sci-fi flicks, TV shows and more in this fun-filled lark."

LOTT-D Visits The Cabin in the Woods Part 2

Forget the box lunch, you may not make it out alive before noon...when the League of Tana Tea Drinkers gets done with Cabin in the Woods...(read Part 1 if you dare).

Day of the Woman warns us to not read the Latin..."The fact that this film has been sitting on a shelf for a few years absolutely blows my mind.  The fact we've cranked out remake after remake and let this collect dust is a downright crime and I pray to the universe that this sort of situation never happens again."

Cinema Suicide tells us everything we know is wrong..."one of the best horror movies released in years from writer, Joss Whedon."

The Moon is a Dead World ponders the metacritical..."At first, the characters and setting in The Cabin in the Woods feel too cliched. But soon, like the moon bursting through a thick fog deep within the night, it becomes clear that these themes are specifically implemented by Goddard and Whedon. The characters are meant to be this way - no, in fact, are manipulated into being this way..." 

From Midnight With Love share the Oompa Loompa love..."To many of us in the horror lovin' community, The Cabin in the Woods has been a real life version of the golden ticket from Willy Wonka for the last several years." 

Slasher Speak begs to differ..."While many reviewers will take the position that much of the “enjoyment” of CABIN is walking in cold and not knowing too much about the plot, my theory is that this approach is merely clever marketing on the part of the film’s distributor because if people actually knew what they were paying for, the opening week box office would be far less."

Kindertrauma is for AND against..."For me, there’s nothing worse than a film stuck in the middle of the road. Those are the kinds of films that leave you feeling like you wasted two hours of your life. Even in a typically bad film, there could be something unintentionally hilarious, whether it be an inept line reading, a campy performance, or a delicious lack of understanding of the cinematic language, that makes the viewing experience a little worthwhile."

LOTT-D Visits The Cabin in the Woods Part 1

Pack a box lunch and join members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers as they visit The Cabin in the Woods...

Theofantastique explores the monstrous and the eldritch..."In this post I will supplement some of the commentary previously offered, and present a few observations that are worth considering in light of Whedon’s latest work, and the current state of American horror films."

Freddy in Space has a wet dream..."I'm just gonna come right out and say it.  This movie is way too smart and way too awesome for American theaters and mainstream American audiences.  That's all I could think the whole time I was watching the movie, a belief that was confirmed for me when upon exiting the theater, I heard several groups of people talking about how stupid the movie was, and how they just didn't 'get it'."

Day of the Woman ponders on horror facelifts and non-horror audiences..."As much as I'd like to believe that the sole purpose of horror films being made is to present something to appeal to the fan, we all know it's a load of poppycock.  Films (regardless of genre) HAVE TO MAKE MONEY."

Scared Silly gets lost and visits the wrong cabin..."A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a special presentation of silent films at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (click here to see my write-up about the event). These weren’t just any silent films – they were silent horror-comedies programmed by Bruce Lawton with wonderful piano accompaniment from Ben Model as part of their "Silent Clowns" film series."

Strange Kids Club reveals who's really pulling the strings..."Released last week to coincide with the film, Titan’s The Cabin in the Woods: Official Movie Novelization and Official Visual Companion both offer hours of extended “bonus features.” As to be expected, the novelization (adapted by Tim Lebbon) follows the film pretty closely and as a result doesn’t offer anything new, but manages to provide some “replay value” for those awaiting the inevitable DVD/Blu-Ray release. On the other hand, the Visual Companion comes loaded with awesome content that ranges from an interview with Whedon and Goddard in which the co-writers reveal some cool nuances of how The Cabin in the Woods became what it did (including hints to Easter Eggs and cameos) to concept art, set builds and fear-filled facts about a majority of the monsters. There are literally enough ideas here for at least 2 or 3 films (hmmm… sequel anyone?)."

Don't touch that dial! There's more to come...read Part 2.

LOTT D Ponders Favorite Villainesses: Maleficent

The League of Tana Tea Drinkers turn their thoughts to spring and their favorite villainesses...here's mine.

An evil fairy, proudly proclaiming she's "The Mistress of All Evil," she relishes her dark charms and heart-curdling magical surprises like fire-breathing dragons and lingering curses.

She may be a cartoon, but she's a sexy, bewitching one at that. Those alluring sinister eyes, that dominatrix outfit, ruby red lips against pale green skin, and an attitude for graceful wickedness make Maleficent a formidable villainess.

Tim Burton thinks so, too, which is why he's been working on a movie to call all her own.

LOTT D Roundtable: Cute Monsters and Identification With the Terror

Groovy Age of Horror recently posed the question what do cute versions of monsters tell us about horror?  While it was directed  primarily toward the LOTT D, the question is an important one for anyone interested in horror and how this genre's commercial, sociological, and philosophical impact on popular culture can be analyzed.

It is not so much a difficult question to answer, rather, it requires more than one simple answer. Given any of the multifaceted influences--with each directing a specific outcome--you care to look at, the possible depth of the answer will vary.

The more obvious influence of marketing adult-themed iconic imagery in such a way as to increase marketability to a broader audience is one possible and fairly easy answer. Examples of this include Frankenberry and Count Chocula cereals. The serious images of the Frankenstein Monster and Count Dracula are rendered harmless and  lovable to sell cereal to children (and adults like me who revel in the colorful pastiche of horror and nostalgia--and the sugar rush). 

But is there a deeper meaning possible here? Why use monsters at all when Rainbow Brite, charming leprechauns, and Trix-loving rabbits will suffice?

Marketing horror to teens and adults is also a rich vein of potential sales to tap into as well. From the more socially conscious vampires and werewolves of Twilight, to Teddy Scares, Living Dead Dolls, Skelanimals, and Voodooz Dolls, these products offer 'safe' horror monsters to identify with, play with, and collect (control).

Perhaps, like how an inoculation works against a virus, if you weaken the monster to the point it becomes empathizable or a safer and more manageable terror surrogate, you create a palliative horror-play used as a defense against real or imagined terrors.

This horror-play can be viewed as a reaction formation that dramatizes and forestalls the terrors by day and the horrors by night every child and every adult faces in ever increasing severity given our more stressful times.

At least this is one possible answer. What do you think?

What the LOTT D'ers think:

Theofantastique
Cinema Suicide
Classic-horror
Dr. Gangrene
Vault of Horror
Groovy Age of Horror
Strange Kids Club
Drunken Severed Head
Monster Magazine World

LOTT D: The Terror That Came From Sci Fi!

There's more than horror lurking through the darkened hallways of The League of Tana Tea Drinkers. Science fiction terror prowls and snarls its way along the floorboards, too. So here's a sampling of those terrors that came from sci fi to give you unpleasant dreams.

 

TheoFantastique warns us to Keep Watching the Skies!: Through its various printings Warren’s book has become something of a classic among science fiction film fans and scholars, and in a big way.

Classic-Horror faces The Incredible Shrinking Man!: The Incredible Shrinking Man is considered one of science fiction's best films. Its strengths, however, lurk more in the horrific implications it presents than its science fiction.

Uranium Cafe treats us to a double feature of Cat Women of the Moon and Missile to the Moon!: The theme is a familiar one for the 50s and 60s. A group of men, with maybe one female in the gang, are stranded somewhere, an island, lost civilization on the far side of a secret mountain or a planet like Venus or even the earth’s moon, and there they encounter an all female race of something similar to Amazons.

Igloo of the Uncanny wonders how I Married a Monster From Outer Space!: One of the many great things about watching American Sci-Fi from the 50s is that it gives you a rare glimpse of a bygone era, where things were very much different. IMAMFOS (short for 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space'. Very handy. Saves me writing out 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space' for no good reason) has a wonderful example of this.

Strange Kids Club runs amok with Xtro, Eat and Run, and My Teacher Is An Alien!: If you've ever wondered what really happened to Al Capone, chances are he was eaten alive by a 400 lb. alien named Murray.

Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies finds a Galaxy of Terror with Inseminoid!: Of course creative people are always drawn toward the medium in which they can express themselves most freely, and thus once the freedom offered by the science fiction of the 70s became clear--from gravity, from Earth, from the need for basic storytelling logic--it might have been predicted that the vacuum of space would suck a few intrepid horror filmmakers through the hull of their genre and out into the horrible, terrifying void.

Kindertrauma admires the voluptuous horror of Alien!: I once facetiously said that horror heroine Ellen Ripley officially belonged to the world of sci-fi because she broke bread with robots and drove a spaceship to work. The truth is, no amount of blinking computer lights or sparkling stars can keep ALIEN from being one of the purest examples of a horror film in existence.

Necrotic Cinema takes a refreshing breadth of space madness in Pandorum!: I certainly felt the look of the film was influenced by Event Horizon, Outland and Alien and that school of thought in regards a space ship. That a rusted and dark and a smoky, ill-lit space ship looks cooler than a brand spanking new craft where everything is spit polished and working.

And here's Dr. Gangrene's recommended movie of the week #25: Tarantula!:

LOTT D: Of Gods and Zombies and Holy Damnation

Godforsaken zombies benefit a lot from religion in horror movies and fiction. Ironic, isn't it? Or is it? Perhaps playing the damnation game makes them more attune to that infinite something that lingers over all of us, commands us, delivers us, curses us, or simply ignores us.

The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers ponder that old time zombie religion. No collection box money necessary and you won't need to light any candles or bend a knee.

Monster Land glorifies the undead: Beyond the rotting veneer of your everyday reanimated corpse, there lies a host of archaic religious meanings stretching from Christianity to mythology of Ancient Sumer.

TheoFantastique explores infection versus resurrection: Where once they shuffled, now they run. Initially born of forbidden voodoo rituals or the sign of a religious apocalypse, for the past decade zombies have slowly metamorphosed into the by-products of something else entirely.

Groovy Age of Horror resurrects the Final Judgment: Zombies, vampires, Frankenstein monsters, beneficiaries of monkey paw wishes, etc. are generally thought to embody our fears of returning to life from the dead in some wrong way. But is there a right way?

Gospel of the Living Dead preaches zombies and religion: Zombies are probably the most human monsters.

Dr. Gangrene looks at all that flesh eating: The eating of flesh and drinking of blood are staples of horror movies, yet when you think about it they’re also both major themes of Christian theology, as ghoulish as that sounds.

Vault of Horror gobbles up transubstantiation: Just as Christians yearn to take in the power of Christ, and eat his flesh to do so, so does the zombie yearn to absorb the living.

Uranium Cafe wisely ignores religion altogether in The Invisible Invaders: The story, like many of the period, centers around the evils of atomic power and research. Almost anything evil found in the films of this period could find their origins in atomic research gone awry. And how much awry can an experiment go than to have a hand held test tube suddenly erupt into an atomic explosion.

Lost Highway makes sure to include one token rotten zombie movie for our pleasure: A local witch doctor’s daughter dies from some unnamed cancer and so he opens the door to hell for vengeance on the scientists. Usually Hell is only open weekends and Fridays.

LOTT D: Remembers Video Store Horror

The members of LOTT D remember when horror came in a VHS box, all lurid and gamy, just waiting to be eagerly plucked from the local video store's shelves like a ravenous zombie ripping out a fresh, red-dripping, still-beating heart from a cracked rib-cage. Often promising more than they would deliver, and sometimes delivering more than they dared promised, their rectangular sleeve covers beguiled us with garish text and images so outrageous and impertinent, we couldn't resist the temptation. We cherish them. And we cherish the stores that gave us this world to explore: all the nightmares, all the terrors, and all the fun that crammed those shelves, waiting to be taken home.

Yes, we remember.

 

Dr. Gangrene remembers the sweet horrors delivered by mom and pop video stores: I tell you what I miss… I miss mom and pop video stores. They are all too quickly becoming a thing of the past...

Lost Highway does a last rewind for Video Vault: Well, yesterday I learned about one business closing, a cult video store named “Video Vault” that really hit close to home for all of us here at Lost Highway...

Dinner With Max Jenke got it all on video: watching these stores and the VHS format vanish from the face of the earth in the wake of DVDs and Netflix makes me feel like my past is in the process of being gobbled up by those hell-spawned Pac-Man things from Stephen King’s The Langoliers...

Cinema Suicide reflects on the boss box art for really bad movies: Video box art became the stuff of legend and lured a lot of people into renting some obnoxious crap based entirely on cool pictures...

Cinema Fromage fondly remembers the Video Place: As we walked into the Video Place, the first thing to hit you was the smell. A peculiar smell indeed, however not necessarily foul. My foggy recollection seems to think it was a mixture of particle board, must, and popcorn...

LOTT D: Picks on Freddy

Talk about nightmares! The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers gang up on good ol' classic Freddy and give him the business. Elm Street will never be the same.

 

Day of the Woman gossips about the Women of Freddy: Whether it's a woman who knows exactly how to stop him, the victim he can't seem to catch hold of, or even his daughter, Freddy Krueger just doesn't have the best luck when it comes to girls.

Freddy In Space remembers the people who made Freddy so memorable (and frightful): Let's take a moment to remember those Elm Street residents who are no longer with us - but who will live on forever through the magic of film.

Vault of Horror joins in to discuss Freddy's unforgettable franchise of fear: Just in time for the much-anticipated Platinum Dunes remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Count Vardulon and The Divemistress, and Vault of Horror take an in-depth look at the NOES franchise. And VOH goes even further by presenting a quarter-century of Freddy goodness, too!

Evil On Two Legs gives us their top 10 pointless and irrelevant observations corey made while rewatching a nightmare on elm street earlier this week: at number 2, throughout the entire movie, heather langenkamp has a distracting pimple on her forehead.

The Lightning Bug's Lair shares the shining moment when Freddy encounters the Dream Warriors: Nightmare III plays out more like a direct sequel to the first. Well, except this time Freddy’s got jokes, and boy, does he ever have jokes.

Moon Is a Dead World speculates on the quality of the Freddy remake: I've come to the conclusion that, if written properly, this speculation may be able to give a complete, factual representation of what we might expect from A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Lost Highway detours around Freddy as the Dream Master: In this made for MTV style movie nothing is going to stop Freddy from taking out the remaining survivors from the previous Nightmare sequels.

Reflections on Film and TV discovers the Tao of Freddy: In William Schoell and James Spencer's superlative companion, The Nightmare Never Ends: The Official History of Freddy Krueger and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films, director and horror icon Wes Craven briefly recounts the youthful experience that led him to create cinematic dream-killer Freddy Krueger.

There, that should help keep you up tonight. If not, sweet dreams! Don't let the Freddy bugs bite.

LOTT D: Nuke's em High

Beware! The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers return to wreak nuclear havoc with their take on atomic age movies that glow in the dark.

 

The Moon is a Dead World takes on the Beast of Yucca Flats: Only hardcore B-movie buffs will even want to attempt to watch this movie, since it's extremely hard to get through and even when you do, you're not left with anything meaningful to contemplate.

Cinema Suicide ponders the bizarre cult-trash of Atlantis Interceptors: There are exploitation movies and there is Atlantis Interceptors. It sets out to be everything to everyone. In 1983 there were several waves of action movies that were popular to ape and this one tried to do them all. 

Uranium Cafe panics along with Ray Milland in Panic In the Year Zero: Certainly there are flaws to the film if you want to sit back and pick it apart but over all the film works well as a cold war period vision of how an everyday suburban family out for a weekend of tranquil fishing and camping has to deal with the sudden reality of a nuclear war in their backyard.

Cinema Fromage rocks with the Six-String Samurai: The year is 1957, and Russia has nuked the US. The survivors have rebuilt in the form of Lost Vegas. Elvis is the king of the last bastion of hope for the US, and sadly he has passed on. In order to find a successor to the throne, the Wolfman hits the airwaves and puts out a call to all the rock & roll cowboys across the land to come and take the throne.

And to round things up, Dr. Gangrene recommends a visit with his eight-legged friend from Tarantula...

LOTT D: Movies Of Apocalyptic Proportions

Beware! The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers open their bomb shelters to reveal a never-ending parade of pre and post apocalyptic movies. You are warned! And pack a light lunch.

 

The Moon Is a Dead World: Doomsday

I wasn't sure what to expect from Doomsday, coming from director Neil Marshall who also worked on the very popular film The Descent from 2005. It looks like a zombie film but it's technically not about zombies; it feels like a comic book but it's not that either. But though Doomsday looks a lot like The Descent's gritty, dirty world, it's lacking in the scares and the intensity that drove it.

TheoFantastique Ponders the Apocalyptic In Three Movies

Legion: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination

In the history of the Western world the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic has been the most influential. In that religio-cultural context one of the key apocalyptic texts has been St. John’s Book of Revelation.

Hitchcock's The Birds as Precursor to Nature Apocalypticism

A couple of weeks ago my wife found a copy of Hitchcock’s The Birds at the library and she checked it out for me. We watched it later that day, and later I then watched the bonus materials that went behind the scenes. I was struck by two things...

2012 and the Mayan Calendar of the End

2012 taps into the long undercurrent of millenarianism and apocalyptic thought in Western culture. This overlaps with environmental concerns, prophets and prophecy, ancient civilizations (with the Mayans being of special interest as 2012 and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull indicate), and especially the Mayan calendar.

LOTT D: Horror Comic Crypt 2

The bells strike the midnight horror. Dare you enter the comic crypt with The League of Tana Tea Drinkers to dig up the dirt on horrifying comics (and those others)? Who knows what you may discover buried deep between the covers. Make sure your flashlight's batteries are strong, pack a good midnight snack, and mind the rats. Now let's go.

Uranium Cafe: The Sleazy World of Eerie Publications

Myron Fass was to magazine publishing what Ron Ormond and Al Adamson were to film making, only consistently lacking their sometimes dubious scruples and ethics. His best remembered for his wild assortment of magazines published from the 60’s to 70’s by the company called Countrywide Publications that he partnered with Stanley R. Harris.

My Monster Memories: Tomb of Dracula Issue 1

This is probably my favorite comic book that I ever bought. I picked it up in late March of 1972, when I was 13 years old, at my regular haunt for comics and books; Chichester's drugstore on Vineville Ave. in Macon GA.

Robot 6: Sinister Six: Alt-Horror Update

Before Halloween I posted a list of "Six Deeply Creepy Alt-Horror Cartoonists" as part of Robot 666's week-long reign of terror. Well, these avatars of alternative comics' dark side have been up to some interesting things lately.

Vault of Horror: House of Mystery Halloween Annual

I recently got my grubby hands on House of Mystery's first-ever Halloween Annual, and can honestly say it made my Halloween just a little more festive. In some ways, the issue does a better job of recapturing the old Creepy Magazine feel than Dark Horse's actual Creepy revival book--albeit in a more mature, Vertigo style.

Moon is a Dead World: Victorian Undead Issue 1

Horror has recently found a fascination in remaking the Victorian age of literature. We've seen novels parodying Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, and now we have a creation from Ian Edginton and Davide Fabbri pitting Sherlock Holmes and Watson against mindless zombies. Do we have a fascination in debauching (in a good way) the classics?

Zombos' Closet: Vincent Price Presents Issues 1, 2, 3

Using the persona of famed horror actor Vincent Price to host a series of illustrated terror tales is a demanding challenge.