Zombos' Closet

Re-Animator (1985)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Re-Animator with Jeffrey Combs--one of my favorite horror and sci-fi actors--is an outrageous onscreen realization of H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West: Reanimator series of short stories.

Stuart Gordon directs this gory-to-absurdity film with one body part humor and multiple body parts 'Theater of the Grotesque.' Comb's exuberance and intensity as Herbert West is a perfect melding of histrionics and gleeful, devil may care, hubris. Add Richard Band's driving, Bernard Herrmanesque score with its incessant and forceful strings and sardonically playful cat and mouse orchestrations, and what you have is a treat that most any horrorhead would die for, along with the organic, freshly-popped popcorn drowning in real butter and salt.

The film wastes no time in establishing its gory, black comedy tone as it opens in Switzerland, with West kneeling over the just revived body of his teacher, Dr. Gruber. Unfortunately, as with all of his reanimations, Dr. Gruber does not take well to the revivification and experiences an eye-popping side effect; literally, that is, as both pop. As the law moves in, West moves out to Miskatonic University Medical School. West, who has an incredible knack for getting out of tight spots he continuously puts himself into, is introduced as a promising medical student. He is intense, arrogant, and just itching to inject his mysteriously glowing solution into anything remotely dead. Rooming with a fellow medical student, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), West quickly takes over the basement for his bizarre experiments.

As I watched the film and munched on my popcorn, one thing that struck me about most horror films from the 70's and 80's is they usually have a well-written script, crisp dialog, and a solid plot logic that seems to elude most horror films done today. While current films may be more sophisticated in artistic and special effects designs, many seem to lack the simple ability to tell a coherent story with memorable dialog. But I digress.

Once in class, West, in a humorous scene, starts loudly breaking pencils during Hill's pompous lecture--one snap for every comment he passionately disagrees with. West accuses Hill of being a hack who's stolen Dr. Gruber's work. Both inevitably lock horns and Hill strongly recommends that West switch to using a pen. Their antagonism and professional rivalry soon leads to a Grand Guignol showdown of oneupmanship that still stands out as one of the most gorily entertaining showdowns in horror cinema.

It all starts getting out of hand with Rufus the cat. In a scene both funny and chilling at the same time, West reanimates Cain's pet after Cain and his girl friend Meg, Dean Halsey's daughter, find Rufus in West's fridge next to the Coke (things do go better with Coke). Faster than you can say weird-product-placement, West revives the dead Rufus in the basement with the usual side-effects.

All hell breaks loose as West and Cain fend off the furry fiend's attack with anything at hand. The lone hanging light that illuminates the room is knocked back and forth, alternately casting the basement and the action in light and darkness. One lucky swing of the bat and the cat is now juicy minced-brain pie sliding down the wall.

Cain, not believing his own eyes, watches as West once again injects the now mashed-up feline. "Don't expect it to tango," West quips as he injects the serum. "It has a broken back." While the cat doesn't tango, it does, once again, come back to screeching life. Now convinced that West's serum can reanimate the dead, Cain joins him in finding fresher subjects to experiment on. They go to the morgue to find a fresh cadaver, and settle on one fellow who died from unknown circumstances. West injects the serum, they wait, and he impatiently injects a greater dose.

--At this point the film suddenly stopped! Our theater screen went black! While theater personnel rushed to fix the problem, someone in the audience came up with an apropos game: who would you reanimate if you could? The audience joined in and one very bright fellow said, "Vincent Price!" That's the kind of answer I like to hear--

In a very short time we were back with Herbert West, Dan Cain, and the cadaver. It comes to life, and once again all hell breaks loose as the newly reanimated body wreaks havoc and mayhem.

Dean Halsey unfortunately manages to walk into the bloody havoc and mayhem and gets some fingers bitten off as he defends himself. In an orgy of gory, West brings down the reanimated cadaver with a whirring skull-saw through the chest move, but not before Dean Halsey is much the worse for wear and quite dead.

Did somebody say dead? Dean Halsey is quickly injected with the serum as West pluckily seizes the opportunity for another test. You really must admire his intrepid spirit. Meg walks into the gruesome scene just as her dad is reanimated with less than stellar results. West reassures her: "He's not insane: he's dead." She, of course, is noticeably upset and confused by the whole mess.

Later, while examining the zombie-like Dean Halsey, Hill realizes he's as dead as a doornail and goes after West for the serum. While Hill gloats over his superiority, West takes the flat end of a shovel to his head, sending it flying through the air. Trying to prop up the not so good doctor's head in a pan, West eventually gives up and grabs a paper spike and impales the head on it. He injects the head with his serum, then decides to inject the headless body too, quipping, "I've never done parts." Sure, why not? He's been so successful already.

Doing parts, however, turns out to be a bad idea. Hill controls his clumsy, headless body to whack West unconscious. Taking his head with him, he heads back to his office, and the now bipartisan doctor uses his head (in a manner of speaking) to command Dean Halsey to do his bidding, like some dead but reanimated Renfield.

Hill's head (stay with me on this) heads to the morgue while Dean Halsey heads to get his daughter, who Hill has a fancy for. The unconscious Meg is brought back to the morgue where Hill has her stripped au naturale, and proceeds to give her head with his head, aided by his headless body. West walks in on them, chides Dr. Hill for not using his head purely for science, and soon discovers that the cadavers in the room are under Hill's control, too. All bloody hell once again breaks loose as cadavers, in various states of leaking morbidity, attack West and Cain.

Dean Halsey, vaguely realizing his daughter is in danger, goes after Hill and grabs his head between his hands (that's Dr. Hill's head between Dean Halsey's hands), and squeezes it like a really big zit.  West, fighting  the cadavers, heads over to Hill's headless body and injects it with two syringes full of reanimation serum.

Faster than you can say hellz-a-poppin, Hill's body explodes in a geyser of entrails and organs. An eerie white light blasts forth from the now exploded chest cavity, and a very large, large intestine snakes out and around West, pinning him to the floor in a Lovecraftianesque tour de force.

Cain and Meg manage to escape the room, leaving West to his fate of Re-Animator sequels, but Meg is soon killed by a relentless cadaver as she runs for the elevator.

Can you guess where this is going? Right! Cain rushes Meg to the emergency room, but when all else fails he injects her with the reanimation serum. Tsk, tsk, they never learn, do they? Lucky for us.

Re-Animator is definitely one of the top fright flicks of all time. It's gory fun, witty, and horrifying with a capital H.

Interviewing Hollywood: Stuart Gordon

Quick Sip From The Cauldron!

Director and writer Peter Hyoguchi interviews Stuart (Re-Animator) Gordon over at Interviewing Hollywood. No self-respecting horrorhead should miss it!

After you watch the interview, check out Peter's 50 short films over at TurnHere, and his video production company, minidocs.

Vacancy 2007

Norman Bates' mom would have approved of the Pinewood Motel. Nestled off the Interstate—way off—it's the ideal place to get away from it all, and have it all put you away: permanently. The noisy late night room service and decrepit amenities are simply to die for, too.

Vacancy is a refreshingly gory-free excursion into terror with classy, mood-setting Bernard Herrmanesque music, a stylish opening credit sequence, and Hitchcockian tension-building suspense with ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances, and incompetent police not prepared for what actually goes on at the quiet motel.

Amy and David are the two ordinary people whose failing relationship is in need of some serious bonding. There's nothing like a bunch of psychos trying to kill you to work out the kinks in a rocky marriage and bring you closer together; at least if you can't live together, you might as well die together.

Alone with Her (2006)

Meet Doug. Full-time profession: stalker.

In Alone with Her, a film by Eric Nicholas, we get to know just about everything there is to know about Doug. It isn't pretty, but we do get to realize that Doug is a loser; a loser in relationships, a loser in his approach to life, a loser that, simply put, has nothing better to do than to keep trying at creating artificial relationships with women to boost his superficial ego.

That's where Amy comes in. She's just coming off a failed relationship so she's vulnerable. Just the kind of woman Doug likes: someone he can fabricate a fantasy world of 'Doug the Magnificent' around. Maybe shes the one who will buy his fantasy world of perfection, maybe not, but in Alone with Her, we get to watch every sordid detail of Doug's relentless infatuation with Amy, and how he manipulates her to believe he's a nice guy; a guy that has lots in common with her. But that's only because he's bugged her home and her life, and he's there every single minute, watching and listening.

We first see Doug as he truly is: a camera stuck surreptitiously in a black bag. He doesn't go anywhere without it. He sees through it, feels through it, even hunts vulnerable and lonely woman through it. In fact, his whole point of view is always through the camera's lens, and Nicholas films most of the story that way. We watch Doug through a camera lens as he watches Amy through his camera lens.

He first glimpses Amy in the park as she's watching lovers get it on. She starts crying. One failed relationship worn on a sleeve to go, please, and that's the hook for Doug. He's a sucker for stuff like that. A brief trip to the electronic surveillance store and Doug's next stop is Amy's apartment. He rigs it with cameras and microphones to pick up every conversation, every bathroom break, and every personal nuance of Amy's lonely life.

Through his camera and intrusion into Amy's life, we're forced to see and hear Amy as he does. But there's no voyeuristic pleasure in this because Nicholas also forces us to see and hear Doug as he contrives 'chance' meetings with her at the local coffee or spends alone time with her in her bedroom—through a small monitor that he watches constantly. In one chilling moment, Doug puts his head down to sleep as Amy, on the monitor, puts her head down on her pillow to sleep; an indication that he has no life without play-acting himself into believing she matters to him. And when she pleasures herself with the handle of a hairbrush, he's there pleasuring himself, too, but through the monitor: the epitome of safe sex.

We begin to see the breakable side of Doug when Amy gets a phone call from Matt. Doug hates competition, and anything or anyone that would get in the way of his twisted, fabricated relationship with Amy. More and more, Doug ingratiates himself into Amy's life. She's an art student, so he plays that up and helps her with her website. She likes this music or that movie, and amazingly, he likes this music or that movie, too. "Funny how much we have in common," they say, but it's not funny at all.

But Doug's emotional instability can't stand Matt's attentions for Amy, so Doug swabs her bed linen with something nasty. One itchy night later, her skin is covered with red blotches, and she tells Matt to cool his heels while she recovers. At this point you also realize that he's an old pro at this sort of thing. The hairs on the back of your neck should be standing up by now.

Then there's Amy's friend Jen, who starts upsetting the delicate balance of Doug's plans when she becomes suspicious of him. Guys too good to be true usually aren't that good. During a get-together with Amy, Jen and Doug, he just can't deal with not having Amy all to himself and begins losing his superficial composure. He breaks down in the bathroom and fakes a phone call to get him out of the apartment.

Doug begins to resort to more interventions to bring him and Amy closer together. He gets her paintings sold, but we aren't quite sure who actually bought them. He rushes to her side when she steps on broken glass in the dark. He neatly takes care of Jen when she begins to confront him about his past.

Doug the social-nebbish, the electronic felon, the camera creep who needs to fabricate his whole life around a fictitious relationship, is really a monster in disguise. This monster-side of him begins to show itself more and more, and roars to life just when he has the chance at a real emotional connection with Amy instead of one of his contrived events.

Nicholas, who directed and wrote the story, moves his camera, and Doug's, in a straightforward manner. Occasionally resorting to monochrome tints as Doug's point of view surveillance shows Amy or Doug himself, Nicholas eschews the sensational and directs the unsettling events in the story with pragmatism. Colin Hanks plays Doug in a low-key, fatalistic way, presenting a depressingly realistic portrayal of this human monster who can't handle uncertainty or spontaneity in his life.

This low-budget thriller is low-key, but that makes it all the more realistic; and truly horrifying because of it.

Thanks to The Haunted Report for the DVD. This review appeared there first.

The Ghosts You Know The Haunting (1963)

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o'Gold

Part 3 (Part 2)

ZC Rating 6 of 7: Classic

"Do you see him?" asked Curly Joe.

"No." I shone my flashlight down the long tunnel. "This is just great."

The tunnel we were standing in was long, narrow, and filled with doors; ominous, gray, metal-clad doors that practically screamed "Stay Out!" They were the types of doors you found in movies like Hostel. I hate doors like that.

"What's this?" he asked.

"’Help Zombos Go Home,’" I read in the dim light of my flashlight. The large letters were written in script across the brick wall, with a kid’s pink chalk stick by the look of it.

"Who the hell’l want ta write in pink chalk down here?”

"No, not chalk," I said, touching it with my fingertip and tasting it. "Like chalk, I'd say."

"I should’a listened ta the other plumbers ‘bout this place. Now I’m playin’ in Zork-land." He sat on his rump and put his head in his hands. "Ya realize yer gonna get one hell of a bill, don't ya?"

Zombos pays the bills so I ignored him. "You know, this writing reminds me of that scary Shirley Jackson ghost story directed by Robert Wise, The Haunting."

Curly Joe perked up. "Say, I remember dat film; pretty scary, even though ya never see any ghosts."

 

Perhaps this is the best way to describe The Haunting: a frightening ghost story because it doesn't show any ghosts. Unlike today’s vivid use of Japanese Onryô apparitions--in need of a shampoo and cut-- vindictively mauling everyone onscreen, Wise only suggests ghosts, creating one of the scariest movies by sound and implication. Taken from Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, Nelson Gidding’s psychological screenplay uses her ambiguous supernatural inferences occurring within the house and leaves out those happening outside (such as the unsettling phantom picnic); keeping the tension-building squarely in the house as Dr. Markway's (Richard Johnson) skittish paranormal investigators experience the teasingly malevolent manifestations of Hill House’s former tenants.

In the suitably Gothically-morbid opening montage, Dr. Markway relates the sordid history of Hill House, from the tragic death of Hugh Crain's first wife before she actually sees the morose mansion, to the mysterious death of his second wife down a long flight of, and finally the suicide of Abigail’s nurse-companion. Abigail was Hugh Crain’s repressed daughter. The companion, who inherited the estate because there was no one else to give it to after Abigail died a lonely death, hung herself from the wrought-iron spiral staircase in the sunless library; perhaps because she was never really left alone in the sprawling, gloomy house.

Clearly, Hill House has issues, and that's what draws the attention of Dr. Markway: he's looking for "the key to another world," and believes Hill House will provide it. And boy does it do so with relish. As he assembles his team from the dwindling group of people that still dare to enter Hill House after they learn about it's unsavory past, he chooses Eleanor (Julie Harris), a fragile woman with no life of her own. She's a walking, living, ghost herself, and after spending the last eleven years taking care of her invalid mother, has nothing to call her own: not a relationship, not a career, not a hobby, not even her own place to live. She sees Dr. Markway's invitation as her great escape, her final chance to spread her wings and breathe freedom. This makes her dangerously vulnerable to the influences of Hill House. And Abigail, whose declining years were spent isolated, with only her companion to provide company.

Another member of Dr. Markway's team is Theo, a psychic sponge who knows everyone intimately on first meeting. She’s hip, she’s smart, and she takes a fancy to Eleanor, but Eleanor's fancy is tickled more by Dr. Markway, which leads to earthly tension in a house where Hugh Crane derided earthly pleasures. Just look at the ugly bible illustrations of damnation for the wicked he foisted on poor little Abigail: it’s the proverbial bible for horror movie victimology 101: enjoy thyself and die, oh wicked one!

Luke (Russ Tamblyn) is the skeptic. Not part of Dr. Markway’s team, he's there because he's inheriting the house and wants to look after his future interests. He doesn't believe in spirits unless they’re bottled. Tamblyn’s Luke is armed with quick-with-a-quip resolve. He jokes to dispel the awkward feeling the unknown gives him when explanations are needy.

Julie Harris, Wise's choice for the role of Eleanor, or Nell as Theo calls her, is the character everyone and everything in the house becomes enamored with. Her clumsy shyness hides her need to desperately belong somewhere, anywhere, even if it is here; and Claire Bloom's alluring but predatory "nature's mistake" Theo resents the house's need for Nell as much as she resents her own need for Nell. Both women alternately bond, break apart, and bond again, trading biting insults as their relationship becomes as difficult to navigate as the house’s hallways.

The outside shots of Hill House, the Ettington Park Hotel in England, are made even more ominously brooding by Wise's shrewd use of infra-red film to sharpen and darken the arched, neo-gothic windows and towering brick facade to the point of austerity. His technique of darkening the mansion under angry clouds, when a supernatural event is about to happen, cues the chills for us even more. Choosing the naturally more gritty and spooky quality of black and white film stock over color also intensifies the brooding interplay of stark shadows and lightness in the interiors of the mansion, emphasizing the not-quite-right nature of the house that Hugh Crain built, where doors shut themselves, walls meet at odd angles, and "nothing seems to move until you look away." Looking for ways to enhance the foreboding atmosphere of his film, Wise jumped at the chance to use a newly available prototype 35mm lens that presented a slight distortion for his Panavision landscape, increasing the unnaturalness of the mansion's rooms and exteriors in a subtle way. He had to sign a waiver releasing the manufacturer from any liability before he could acquire it (Bryan Senn, Cinematic Hauntings).

Wise's unique visual styling of the film aside, it's his minimalist depiction of  terrifying events assailing Nell and Theo that turn The Haunting into a classic, adult tale of suspenseful frights. The violent nighttime encounter with something conspicuously making its way through the halls to find them in their bedroom, the intense pounding on the door, the scuffling, and the heart-stopping turning doorknob as it seeks to get in is a nerve-tingling blend of spiraling camera work, fearful reactions as Nell and Theo look to each other for support, and loud, disorientating banging following by silence. This impression of what may be trying to get in generates genuine scares. I dare you to watch this late at night and alone.

Wise builds friction between the investigators as Nell begins to lose herself to the intoxicating and liberating influence of Hill House, between alternating bouts of willingness and reluctance. As a kindred spirit—albeit a living one--to Abigail's companion, it is never made clear who or what exactly is enamored with Nell aside from Theo. Is it Abigail, seeking a companion again, or is it the companion, trapped alone, seeking release from a vengeful Abigail?

‘Help Eleanor Come Home,’ found written in large letters with "something like chalk," is seen on a hallway wall. Dr. Markway now realizes what we all ready know: how vulnerable Nell really is to this key to another world. One side of him wants Eleanor to leave for her own safety, but the other realizes she is the lightning rod, the attractor for the haunting. Or is he becoming more amenable to Nell’s obvious infatuation with him, or maybe he’s concerned she has no other place to go?

When Dr. Markway's wife (Lois Maxwell), another skeptic, unexpectedly visits, pleading with him to end his ridiculous ghost-hunting nonsense, Nell, in a fit of jealous pique, mentions the nursery when Mrs. Markway asks for the scariest room to sleep in. Although Nell realizes the seriousness of what she said--the nursery is the evil heart of Hill House--Mrs. Markway insists on staying in the room.  Although Mrs. Markway refuses to stay with the others, Dr. Markway insists everyone else spend the night together for safety, while he and Luke take turns watching the nursery for any sign of trouble. When Luke sneaks into the parlor for a quick, fortifying drink, the door slams shut with a loud bang, waking the others. Once again, a door becomes the only separation between the living and the unknown, and Luke comes to an abrupt realization that he'll have a lot of trouble trying to sell Hill House. Wise ups the ante for terror here with a simple, non-CGI, effect that will send chills down your spine.

When whatever is doing the pounding heads upstairs to the nursery, Luke, now a card-carrying believer in the supernatural, fights Dr. Markway to keep the door closed, and Nell, visibly and metaphorically, retreats into the bowels of Hill House. Like Abigail's companion, she heads to the library where, at the top of the rickety spiral staircase, she contemplates a similar fate.

Will Hill House have what it wants? Will Eleanor? What happens to Mrs. Markway? Will she live long enough to become a believer in the supernatural, too?

The Haunting must be watched at night with the lights off, or in a darkened theater. It is a sophisticated, well-crafted foray into the ghostly realm, and one that will leave you exhilarated and scared and happy such horror movies still may be found. Do not confuse this movie with its befuddled remake. This one’s the real deal.

Part 4

Interview with Creature Features' John Stanley!

Yeah, sure, I'll tell you what you want to know. The whole...gasp...ungodly thing: I was a TV horror host. Yeah, me. The ordinary guy without a monster suit. I was one of those who introduced monster flicks on Saturday night. Horror classics and non-classics sixty minutes before the arrival of the Witching Hour. Yeah, let the truth be heard throughout the dungeon, throughout the castle of madmen: I was a "Creature Features" man. John Stanley, I Was a TV Horror Host: Memoirs of a Creature Features Man.

Creature Features was a popular syndicated horror show that began in the 1960's. Each local TV show usually had its own horror host, the person responsible for introducing the classic Universal Studios horror movie, Roger Corman B-movie, Japanese horror and sci-fi movie, British horror movie, and just about any horror movie not nailed down under a coffin-lid.

In New York City, one horror host was The Creep (Lou Steele) on Channel 5. Except for his sunglasses and sinister attitude, Steele  played The Creep without a dungeon backdrop or creepy make-up. I fondly recall spending a lot of time with The Creep and I'm a better person for it.

I probably would be a much better person had I been lucky enough to watch John Stanley's Creature Features on KTVU in Oakland, California. Although he sported the usual horror host trappings of a tomb-like set and outrageous throne chair, Stanley appeared as a normal guy who knew way too much (insert jealousy here) about the movies he presented. He also had the most wonderful and interesting celebrity guests to chat with (insert more jealousy here).

He's written an informative and very enjoyable book about his experiences on Creature Features called I Was a TV Horror Host. After I started reading it, I knew I had to ask him to step into the closet for a little chat; and find out all his secrets, hehe.

Hideshi Hino's Lullabies From Hell

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Hideshi Hino's Lullabies From Hell is an essential tankōbon in any horrorhead's manga library. Hino is a queer duck, to be sure, and often incorporates much of his personal experience into his bizarre, visually disturbing stories.

According to an interview he gave for The Comics Journal, it was after reading Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man that he felt the need to combine horror with a sense of fairy tale. This led him to mix monstrous birth defects, other-worldly transmogrifications, and hideous characters—inside and out—with Japanese folktales, producing uniquely creepy and culture-transcending stories of terror.

There's a whimsical grotesqueness in Hino's artwork: he fills his panels with people endowed with oversized, misshapen heads staring madly at the reader with bulging, blood-shot eyes filled with large, zigzagging veins. All is definitely not right in his world, as body parts, disgusting creatures, blood and corruption—both physical and psychological—splash all over normal scenes of home, work and play.

In the opening story, A Lullaby from Hell, he introduces himself as a mangaka (manga author), who is obsessed with those terrible, unmentioned things peeking from just below the surface of normalcy. He describes his fascination with horror came at an early age, nurtured by a demented mother who tormented him, a father he rarely saw who worked at the factory right behind his house, and his abusive "horrible Yakusa" brother.

Soon, as things both living and dead bleed into one another in his mind, he begins to collect their parts in big glass jars so he can admire them for hours on end. In his admiration, he dreamed dreams of monsters and demons from hell that would, at his bidding, devour and torture people, especially those that abused him.

After being humiliated and abused once too often, he discovers he has a unique power: the ability to kill people with his drawings. And not just kill them, but mangle them, mash them, and do very nasty things to them. All because he could will it to be so. 

In the next story, Unusual Fetus--My Baby, once again he is dreaming up a nightmare. He imagines his soon-to-be-born son as a "grotesque lizard" thing. Since this is a horror story after all, we get what he dreams up. In this nasty tale of phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny gone haywire, his son is born a lizard-like thing with an unusual appetite that is not satisfied with baby formula. For a while, our horror writer uses this unfortunate event to his advantage, and successfully sells his impossible story. But fate always intervenes, and soon what is abnormal for him is normal for all.

In another story, Train of Terror begins with three children happily returning from a day trip to visit relatives. Soon their laughter turns to cries of terror as they meet the boogeyman (in this case, a demonic mountain goblin perhaps?) as their train enters a dark tunnel. Exiting the tunnel on the other side, only they remain unchanged. Their fellow passengers now have dark, mask-like expressions and pupil-less eyes!

In the tradition of Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the hapless children are alienated and hunted, with no one believing their strange accusations. One boy even suspects his parents of being different and wonders what the thing in the large sack they are burying late one night is. He is soon on the run, evading hordes of dark, pupil-less classmates, and adults that want to cause him serious bodily harm. In a unique twist, we are left with a happy ending, but not for long?

Now picture if you will, Morticia Addams sitting by a nice cozy fire, cups of hot and frothy, mashed eye-of-yak spiked cocoa steaming away, and Wednesday and Pugsley curled up around her like some lamenting felines as she reads the fairytale, Zoroku's Strange Disease. Never has a children's story conveyed such purulent corruption in its narrative and textured artwork. How wonderful!

Zoroku, the titular hero of the story, yearns to draw colorful pictures, but the evil villagers make fun of him and his condition. It seems that a little rash has turned to a boil, and a boil to many, and many to something much, much worse.

Poor Zoroku becomes covered with a "colorful purulence," and the villagers and their children drive him away to solitude, deep into the forest by a strange lake. Unfortunately for him, the purulence gives off an odor that would curl paint, and his boils ooze so badly, maggots infest them in the hundreds. My, what a quaint Brothers Grimm fairytale kind of picture, don't you think? But there is a happy ending. Well, happy for a horror story kind of fairytale, that is. 

Hideshi Hino blends his real and imagined selves into his fancifully grotesque stories too easily, revealing his fears and doubts with society and culture, making it a crapshoot as to where the real Hideshi Hino truly lives.

The Rough Guide to Horror Movies

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

The Rough Guide to Horror Movies, by Alan Jones, is a richly informative and broad discussion of American and British horror films, including coverage of horror’s important international kith and kin.

The format makes it easy to read and refer back to. The book is broken into sections providing a chronological look at the horror genre and a browse-friendly, enjoy it here and there, read.

Beginning with a brief overview of the literary and celluloid origins of horror, Jones introduces his essential 50 seminal horror films that stimulated the genre to new heights. This is a section to be revisited again and again. While some of his inclusions may be open to debate, the entries provide much to think about and discuss. This list provides the budding horrorhead with the movies he or she simply must no miss.

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

Dying to Live: Life Among the Undead

"Dr. Paffenroth? Kim Paffenroth?"

"Here."

"Follow me please."

The administrative assistant led Paffenroth into a large office with no walls. A large scaffold stood on one side of the room, stretching up to a breath-taking ceiling high above him. The ceiling was filled with paintings of ecclesiastical wonder illustrated in colors that would shame a rainbow.

Sitting behind the desk was a clean-shaven, white-haired man, flipping through the pages of, Dying to Live: A Novel of Life Among the Undead. He closed the book and put it down on his desk, then folded his hands on top of it. He smiled at Paffenroth. "Hi, Kim. Please have a seat."

Paffenroth sunk into one of the stuffed leather chairs. "My word," he said.

"Yes, I know," said the man behind the desk. "Heavenly, aren't they? I've ordered a set of ottomans to go with them, but I'm afraid I may have guests falling asleep the minute they sit down," he chuckled. "Kim--or would you rather I called you Dr. Paffenroth?"

Jack Pierce: The Man Behind the Monsters

A Quick Sip From The Cauldron!

JACK PIERCE – THE MAN BEHIND THE MONSTERS, by Scott Essman, chronicles the career exploits of Universal’s classic monster creator, Jack Pierce, who was with the studio during their horror heyday of 1928-1947.

After freelancing in Hollywood’s earliest days as an actor, stuntman and assistant director, Pierce flourished in makeup in the 1910s and 1920s, first making himself into any variety of movie extras called for on fledgling studio lots. Then, from 1930-1947, Pierce created some of cinema history's most distinguishable icons of fright.

Including Frankenstein’s Monster, The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, Ygor, The Wolf Man, and The Phantom of the Opera among his many classic creations, Pierce undeniably created the greatest screen characters in the careers of Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Claude Rains, and many others of the period.

Contained in this unique publication are detailed text and photos from every significant film of Pierce’s career, spanning the mid-1910s to the mid-1960s.

This book is available through Lulu.com in printed or digital media.

Go to http://www.lulu.com/content/776079 to order your copy now!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Yo ho yo ho, it's the pirates life for me! Crack open the rum, and butter me bum,this sure is a fine film. Before I drag my dead man's hairy chest to the office after spending the night watching me boy Jack Sparrow shiver his timbers, I want to put a few comments to digital paper for you landlubbers.

This summer movie sizzles! It has everything a good swashbuckling movie should have. It's a treasure chest full of pulse-pounding adventure and more; and more includes beautiful bonnie lasses, handsome men, rigorous swordplay, dastardly scoundrels, flogging, a scintillating score, and thar be monsters aplenty. Aye, mateys, monsters! From the legendary Kraken to old squidhead himself, Davy Jones, and his barnacle and mollusk-encrusted crew of the damned, they will take your breadth away through the clever and seamless use of CGI, makeup, and damn fine acting.

And sloshing his way through it all, from ship to island, is rum-soaked Jack Sparrow—oh, sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow. Just as he escapes from a nasty prison that features eye-plucking crows and very uncomfortable accommodations (wonder if they will add that to the Disney ride?), Bootstrap Bill comes calling with an untimely message from Davy Jones. Seems Jack made a bargain with the sea-devil many years ago, and his time's run through. But always-conniving Jack brokers an interim deal, involving 99 souls, or so it would seem, to take his place aboard the Flying Dutchman, and he soon embroils Will Turner and Elizabeth in his little gambit with his impending eternal date with destiny. But Jack, Will and Elizabeth have their own agendas, and each go their separate ways until their paths cross a wee bit amidships, right about when we find them in Tortuga.

The Gibbering Horror of Steve Daniels

Going out for a brisk bike-ride down a lonely country road? What's that key lying in the road? What does it open? Say, maybe that run-down house in the woods. I bet the key belongs to it's owner. But who is the owner? And what are all those cryptic notes that suddenly appear, slipped through a door that cannot be opened? What does it all mean?

To find out, you will have to watch the short horror film, The Gibbering Horror of Howard Ghormley on Fangoria's Blood Drive II DVD. But be prepared for the unexpected in this creepy journey into the fantastic. To help with your preparation, upcoming horror director, and all-around bon vivant and fellow Stoogologist, Steve Daniels, comes into the closet to chat about Ghormley.

The Garden (2005)

ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair

I adore Lance Henriksen. Like Jeffrey Combs, he approaches every role with aplomb and skill. Ever since his appearance in Pumpkinhead, I find his characters always rich and emotive. That craggy, lined face and those penetrating eyes speak volumes before he even utters a single word of dialog. And in The Garden, he gets to focus all his demeanor, and that lined face, to portray Lucifer, the big bad fallen angel himself.

In Medieval Christian belief, Lucifer's pride led him to rebel against God, and thus be cast out of heaven, never to see the face of God again. Times change, of course, and the name Lucifer has assumed different connotations, including merchandising rights to a few notable brands of hot sauce. But for The Garden, Lucifer remains the fallen angel who wants to desperately bring the apocalypse upon the mundane world just so he can once again look on the face of God.

Unlike the coming apocalypse in Night Watch, this one is more subtle. It is similar in that it requires just one person to make the wrong choice, but there are no CGI bells and whistles, nor chaotic scenes of impending destruction. Instead of the modern apartment building that is the center of annihilation in Night Watch, in The Garden it is a tree nestled on a quiet farm.

Not just any tree, mind you, but the Tree of Knowledge . The Tree of Knowledge which bears fruit that Adam and Eve were never meant to eat. Everything was fine until Eve was tempted by the serpent—Lucifer in disguise—and God quickly sent her and Adam packing with all of mankind's future woes. Many interpretations exist for the tree, and the nature of the fruit it bears, but for The Garden, the interpretation that seems to fit best is the one that sees the tree as a decision tree. And eating any of its fruit means you make a really, really bad decision (as God made man "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall").

See No Evil (2006) The Eyes Have It

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good 

I finally made it to a theater to see See No Evil. Unfortunately, this theater was almost as dirty and decrepit as the old Blackwell Hotel in the film. It smelled, and not with that wonderful smell of buttered popcorn. It was a challenge finding a seat that did not look like it was used in one of Hostel's guest rooms. I hate sitting on stains of unknown origin (hey, what a catchy script title! Stains of Unknown Origin). So much for that special movie-going experience. I was determined to not let my surroundings influence my viewing of the film too much.

It seems 'dirty' and 'decrepit' in horror movies are becoming dirtier and more decrepit. When the police enter Jacob Goodnight's (Glenn Jacobs) home it is the typical horror movie home for psycho, axe-wielder types: smoky, dark, and with bloody streaks across the walls. A girl's screams forces them to move in without backup. They might as well have carried their own body bags to save time. The scene is brutal, gory, and ends badly for them.

A few years later we meet a group of so-old-it's-new-again-styled delinquents from the County Detention Center; Sal Mineo and James Dean would have been proud. Each tough-to-be-cool kid is introduced with a text description pop-up onscreen describing his or her crime against society, like this was a video game and we were going to choose a character to play. I'll take the computer hacker delinquent for 500 life-points. I like computers and computer hacker types usually last the longest in body count films like this.

As each body bag delinquent steps on the bus, along with the police officer who had firsthand experience (really, no pun intended here if you see the film) with Goodnight, I imagined them in order of elimination. I am getting rather good at this sort of thing, but I must admit the director Gregory Dark, and writer Dan Madigan, did manage to add a few twists to fool me. The bus stops at the old Blackwell Hotel, which is appropriately horror-movie-dirty-and-decrepit, so much so, I wondered why a handful of young delinquents are brought in for cleaning up what is obviously a professional hazmat team's cleanup job.

The Descent (2005)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

"Dude," said Mr. Blackbird. His illuminated plumage blinded me. It pulsated in kaleidoscopic colors that shot out rays of reds, greens and blues.

"What," I said. My vision was hazy and my voice sounded dull, like I was talking under water.

"Dude," he repeated, and said something else, but I couldn't make it out.

It sounded like tweeting. What a funny blackbird. With red human lips it kept repeating something, but it sounded like tweet, tweet, tweet. His pinky finger—wow, crazy, the bird's got a little white hand at the tip of his wing—had a little gold ring. What was that he was repeating? Door of indigo and blues across the street, across my way. What was that? You want me to knock a rap in ones, threes and twos, with these knuckles of mine. On that door of indigo and blues?

"DUDE! Wake up!"

I shot awake. "What happened?" I looked up at PegLeg Pete. He was bending down looking at me. The last thing I remember was sitting in the theater watching The Descent.

I asked PegLeg to tag along because I hate cave films. I hate caves. I hate tight places that remotely look like caves, and the whole damn idea about squeezing your ass through narrow cracks in rock walls that I couldn't even fit my wee-willy through is stupid and insane.

"Man, what the hell happened to you?" he said. "You started screaming and jumped out of your seat. You ran to the concession stand screaming "don't eat the Milk Duds, it's people! Milk Duds is people!" You scared the crap out of me. Crazy bastard." PegLeg looked at his watch. "Great, man. Just 'effin great. Just when it was gettin' good, too. Look, the next show is in a half-hour. With you or without you, I'm seeing the 'effin movie."

With PegLeg's help I managed to sit through the entire film. It wasn't easy. I kept closing my eyes, but what I did see was white knuckle-busting horror that took it's time to build, then whumps you over the head until you can't take it anymore. Sam McCurdy's cinematography is spot-on, and walks a fine line between darkness and light, as electric and flare lights feebly illuminate the glistening cave walls. He tosses in reds and greens, too, to create an alien landscape that heightens the terror and claustrophobic atmosphere.