Zombos' Closet

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Day of the Woman

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

In this installment, League of Tana Tea Drinkers' member Brittney-Jade Colangelo of Day of the Woman brings a youthful approach to an old genre.

Horror has always been a huge part of my life. Before Kindergarten I was a Craven Crusader, I had conquered Carpenter, and I bellowed with laughter at Barker. My mother introduced me to the films at a young age, but my father brought me into the horror culture. My parents also used to run the haunted hayride for our community.

People from all over would come to our town to experience the terror that my family would provide. While it would drive down creepy trails and scary wooded areas, my parents were lurking. My father may have been the big man in the hockey mask that jumped on top of the ride towards the end, but my mother was Pamela Voorhees. She was a woman dressed in the hockey mask at the beginning of the ride. Sort of a symbol for the terror that was about to come. In my opinion, it was brilliant.

My mother also chose a babysitter for me who shared a love of horror. I had a babysitter named Jillian who LOVED horror films. She would come over to watch me for the evening while my parents went out galavanting and she would come over with bundles of horror films. While most parents would probably freak out, my mom encouraged it! We even had a night where all the neighborhood kids came by and we watched Sleepaway Camp. Knowing it would scare us sheetless, it lead to an up all night party of ghost stories shared by not only the children and the babysitter...but my parents as well.

Lenore A Cute Little Dead Girl

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Work with me here.

Take a deep breadth. Close your eyes. I need you to imagine cracking open a New Yorker magazine from way way back and coming across a Charles Addams cartoon. Feel free to smirk, laugh, chuckle, or whatever the thought forces your lips into doing. Now it gets a bit harder. I need you to mime opening the Witch model kit from Aurora. I suppose one of those reissues will do, but those Aurora cardboard boxes had a unique smell that's hard to recapture. Then again, maybe it's just me and the way I remember it. You will need to uncap a Testor's tube of glue and take a whiff--but just a very very small one. I know it's just in your imagination, but let's not get carried away. Now envision all those creepy, Gahan Wilsonesque, plastic pieces painted in garish, shiny,colors--no matte finishing allowed. We want it bright and surreal and Def Leppard soft in tone. Exhale. Now open your eyes.

Welcome to the weird world of Lenore, the cute little dead girl.

In the Macabre Malevolence of Mortimer Fledge, Lenore's shocking rebirth into dead-dom is illustrated shockingly by Roman Dirge, for her move over to her new publisher, Titan Books. And this time her deathly pallor is given some color to liven things up. Just enough to keep the embalming fluid that sprays out of her autopsied body a nicely pale yellow, the Aliens' cargo loader--controlled by Ragamuffin (immortal vampire turned ragdoll. Really.)--a seedy mustard shade, and Mr. Fledge's Balloon Bug Hat quite festive.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Vault of Horror

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

In this installment, League of Tana Tea Drinkers' member Brian Solomon of The Vault of Horror squarely places the blame for his horror fanaticism.

I've been fascinated with horror ever since my parents let me watch The Exorcist at 8 years old (what were they thinking??), and I ran up to my bed screaming when Linda Blair's eyes rolled into the back of her head.

There were also all those classic Universal and Hammer flicks that syndicated TV piped my way on lazy weekend afternoons. But the one that grabbed my attention and didn't let go, the film that truly sparked my lifelong fascination with the horror genre, was The Return of the Living Dead (or ROTLD, as its fans so succinctly call it.)

Much as with my very life, it all started thanks to my parents. You see, they were horror freaks from back in the days when I had to stay holed up in my room just listening to the screams from downstairs, too young to sit in on the "grown-up" horror movies.

For me, ROTLD was a gateway movie, opening the door to so much more. My next stop was the Evil Dead flicks; then came George Romero, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Vault of Horror

Meet the Horror Bloggers: TheoFantastique

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

In this installment, League of Tana Tea Drinkers' member John W. Morehead of TheoFantastique tells us about his life-long journey with the fantastic on film and television, and how it provides a catalyst for his studies in religion and culture.

I have had an almost lifelong connection to the fantastic, including horror. Some of my memories going back to early grammar school in Stockton, California include my dad's offer to my brother and I to forgo the weekly family viewing of The Wonderful World of Disney for a scary movie. Although we loved Disney, we jumped at the chance to see something we had never seen before. The movie that evening was The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I was younger than eight at the time, probably five or six, and although the creature frightened me, it also opened the door for a love of horror and science fiction even at this young age.

Orphan (2009) Hell On Heels

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Kids may say and do the damndedest things, but little orphan Esther is hell to be around. In Orphan, a movie that will do for adoption services what Jaws did for the summer beach trade, young Isabelle Fuhrman chills the scenery.

Dressed in Old World frilly finery, speaking with a European accent that would make Bela Lugosi blush, and harboring a dark secret that makes her a dicey addition to the Coleman family, Esther's talent with a claw hammer and penchant for surreptitious mayhem is a solid B-movie thrill ride not seen in a while. The twist-ending will also make anyone currently seeking adoption double-check that paperwork again and again.

Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) has a rough time of it after her third child is stillborn. Hitting the bottle she loses her teaching job, and her drinking almost costs the life of her second child, Max (Aryana Engineer), who is deaf but knows what people say with the help of her hearing aid and by reading lips. This puts a strain on Kate's relationship with husband John (Peter Sarsgaard). I should note that many horror movies begin with a severely strained relationship that leads to much more strain (usually from bloodletting and death, of course), which in this case is precipitated by the adoption of sweetly sinister little Esther from St. Mariana Orphanage.

Spook House Dave

There's a new kid in the castle!

There is a far-off land called "Pennsylvania." And somewhere in this utterly dark and terrifying place, it is said there sits a magnificent granite peak. Its name: Mount Savage.

Now, on the very, very tippy top of this Mount Savage, lurching over a small burg of the same name, it is also said there exists a haunted castle that has stood there for as long as anyone can recall. According to the legend, inside of this castle, there lives a brood of monsters who all mix and mingle together under the same roof, sharing rent and the occasional meal.

This hodgepodge of a vampire, a witch, a werewolf, a mummy and a Frankenstein are said to keep to themselves mostly, and seem to enjoy as little contact as possible with regular folk. Except for one particular young boy named Dave.

Dave's first adventure is a funny romp through the castle to find his backpack. As long as he doesn't mention the word "school" to Bobo, the Frankenstein Monster, he should be okay. And hopefully he won't have to spend too much time with Old Pharris the Mummy, who can really bend your ear with his endless reminiscences. He has been around a long time, you know. Oh, and Dave should be careful if Hagatha the Witch offers to help him find his backpack. Her spells tend not to work out very well, though she does try her best.

Meet the entire spook house monster family.

Watch Dave's quest to find his backpack before he's late for school.

Dark Horse's Creepy 1

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Heh-heh, Welcome--Welcome to the comic world's newest, most exciting and most imaginative magazine in 10 years. I'm Creepy, your nauseating host! I've scrounged around the lowest places imaginable to dig up the comic industry's greatest and most fiendish artists! -- Uncle Creepy (Creepy Magazine No. 1, 1964)

Uncle Creepy is back! And this time around he brings his bad-blooded relations, along with Sister Creepy, to punk out the night with four new stories oozing black and white terror, one loathsome lore, and one reprinted story. And let's not forget the Dear Uncle Creepy letters section, too.

The artwork is all very good, with Angelo Torres pencils visualizing Dan Braun's Hell Hound Blues, and Alex Toth's reprinted Daddy and the Pie lending some classy support; but from the lighter lines of Hillary Barta's Loathsome Lore on Faustian Deals and Brian Churilla's All the Help You Need, to Shawn Alexander's The Curse Part One and Saskia Gutekunst's Chemical 13! darker, starker characters, the stories capture the old Creepy mystique fairly well, especially with Uncle Creepy providing the introductions and appropriately quippy last words.

In The Curse Part One, Jude discovers he has a certain knack for making his wishes come true. Unfortunately, his mom has been doing some wishing, too, and Jude is in for a shocking  surprise. Hell Hound Blues plays off the Robert Johnson legend, wherein the Devil provides the soulful chords for a price. Or was it really Tommy Johnson who met up with the Devil at the crossroads one lonely midnight? Who the devil knows? The story could have used a few more pages to flesh it out, but the ending is classic Creepy. In Chemical 13!, the Nazis get exactly what they bargained for, and Delia Gold gets the fat farm treatment--to the max--in All the Help You Need. The only problem is the farm next store prefers to chew the fat more than lose it.

On the Dear Uncle Creepy letters page is a family snapshot promising some interesting happenings with oddball relatives popping up in future issues. For issue one we are introduced to Sister Creepy, a cool, naughty, Goth who dishes up the Loathsome Lore with relish. 

An unexpected oddity for this issue is the reprinted Daddy and the Pie, a story more sci fi than horror. It is a well-executed story but still not horror, so it ends this issue with a whimper instead of a chill. But it is nice to see the classy creepster back in action, and I am sure, based on this first issue, the chill will return soon enough.

Monsters From the Vault's Kharis Unearthed!

Come the casting of Lon Chaney in The Mummy's Tomb, and the Universal legend of Kharis truly came alive--both on the screen and the back lot.

Indeed, once 'The Screen's Master Character Creator' was under that mask and inside that costume, true horror ran amok at Universal City. Forsaking tana leaf tea for vodka (hidden inside the suit and sipped through a straw), the Chaney Mummy drunkenly rampaged through the rest of the series--genuinely terrifying leading ladies, dangerously attacking fellow actors, vociferously claiming the Mummy mask gave him an allergy, and angrily bitching about his costume to anyone who'd listen (Greg Mank, Kharis Unearthed!).

Monsters From the Vault magazine has released Kharis the Mummy from his celluloid tomb in their first Special Edition: Kharis Unearthed! Profusely illustrated with sharp photographs that show every three thousand year old wrinkle and dusty bandage, and effusively written by Gregory Mank, Mummy fans will savor this superlative look into one of Universal's least appreciated--but one of their most recognizable--monsters. Who hasn't dressed up as the mummy for Halloween?

What started as a year-long quest to assemble the best photographs of Kharis turned into a wonderful homage to the four films that launched--more like lurched, really--his terror into movie theaters for audiences who, to this day, either deride or cherish the ambling Mummy as he slurps tana tea under the guidance of the high priests of Karnak, the real villains of this series, and slowly stalks his victims--conveniently always too paralyzed with fear to escape the death grip of his one good arm.

Each film is addressed by Mank, who provides wonderful anecdotes regarding Tom Tyler's The Mummy's Hand, and Lon Chaney's turn at the bandages in The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, and The Mummy's Curse. Mank's enthusiasm and informed observations make me want to rediscover this series, especially director Le Borg's more ambitious handling of The Mummy's Ghost.

John Carradine is the most Grim Reaper-esque of all the series' high priests...Ramsay Ames is the most drop-dead sexy of the Kharis leading ladies...Universal's back lot New England provides a poetic, Halloween night aura for the Mummy's midnight haunts...George Zucco's Andoheb gets a farewell showcase...and the surprise Lost Horizon-style finale is still a gut puncher--probably causing more than one smart-ass 1944 teenager to shut up, sit up, and stop razzing the movie (Greg Mank, Kharis Unearthed!)

Two more sections, devoted to the actors who portrayed the high-priests and the leading-ladies (the real highlights in all the Mummy movies), provide ample insight into, and respect for, the creative people who gave Kharis life.

For Kharis fans, Kharis Unearthed! is a picture and word treasure to savor, to be read late at night under the bedsheets, with a steady flashlight and a cool, dry breeze blowing in from an open window. For future Kharis fans, this special edition provides a wealth of information to prepare them for the fun of experiencing the Mummy for the first time.

Coraline’s Henry Selick Talks Shop

Coraline comes out on DVD Tuesday. Scott Essman talks shop with director Henry Selic about his work on Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Since he burst on the scene with the wildly imaginative 1993 stop-motion animated feature The Nightmare Before Christmas, California Institute of the Arts graduate Henry Selick has been one of Hollywood’s most innovative filmmakers. After his stop-motion followup to Nightmare, the well-received 1996 film James and the Giant Peach, Selick directed the partially live-action film Monkeybone in 2001.

Now, the long-in-the works Coraline, a surreal mixture of animation and fantasy, arrives on DVD on July 21, 2009 after a successful theatrical run that included both traditional and dynamic 3D screenings.

In this exclusive interview from his new Portland, Oregon studio base, Laika, Selick reflects on his lauded career and shares special insights into the creation of Coraline, his most ambitious project to date.

You’ve moved around quite a bit – born in New Jersey, but since the 1970s, you’ve lived up and down the West Coast. How has this journey worked creatively for you, and why so many moves?

I started out at CalArts [north of Los Angeles in Valencia] and worked at Disney Studios for about four years. Then I moved to the Bay Area in the early 80s to work as a sequence director on [the animated feature film] Twice Upon a Time. That was my base up until Coraline. There, I did the features, MTV stuff, commercials and short films. For Nightmare and James we got warehouse space right in San Francisco south of Market. I went up to Portland, Oregon four-and-a-half years ago to get Coraline going. For Coraline, we built out our little in-house team and tried to do a lot of practical effects. Some of the main armature components were made in San Francisco, but 99% of the movie was all done in one big warehouse in the outskirts of Portland.

Post Mortem Studios' Dirt 1, 2

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Good

You don't quite look ready for six feet of cold dirt and hungry worms yet. And I ought to rest a spell, because I got a feeling business is going to be booming directly. So how's about a little story? Just to pass the time (The Digger, Dirt 1)

Scott Nicholson pens the stories for Dirt, the six-issue series from Post Mortem Studios. If you have read Nicholson's short story, The Shaping, in Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, you already know how he can take a familiar scenario and suddenly veer off in an unexpected and unnerving direction that leaves a chill on your neck or a butterfly in your stomach. Will he be able to capture his terse, poetic, sentence rhythm and narrative point of view within the confining panels and commercially dictated page count of the modern comic book format? Certainly, his penchant for second-person narration provides a natural bridge to using the horror host-styled delivery of story-telling.

For horror comic book fans there is nothing as familiar as the mysterious, often imperious, host introducing each illustrated vignette. Either undead, alive, moldy or loathly, the host helps keep things personal through his or her lively quips and sometimes sardonic observations on the bizarre goings-on and strained social entanglements presented in each story. With Nicholson's North Carolina country-twang writing sensibility potentially loading the shovel-fulls of terror, something unique happening between the panels is possible here as his host, The Digger, turns up each story for us and pats it tightly down when done. Unfortunately, The Digger must have hit pay dirt and quit his day job because, after his appearance in all three stories of issue one, he only appears on the cover of issue two and two panels inside.

[REC] (2007) When Home Is No Place To Be

It's nearly 2 A.M. and we're still sealed in this building that we came to with the firemen earlier this evening, to assist an elderly woman who later attacked a policeman and a fireman. They're both in critical condition. The police won't let us leave and are giving us no explanations (Angela Vidal, [REC]).

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

After the goose bumps I received from Quarantine, I expected watching the original Spanish version of this home-is-where-the-zombies-are, shaky-cam, movie would be a perfunctory exercise in comparing the two. I was wrong.

While Quarantine parallels [REC]'s situations and characters almost completely, [REC] still scared me even though I knew what to expect. It is more energetic--even more shaky--as fluffy-television reporter Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) unexpectedly finds the news story of her career in the hallway and rooms of a Barcelona apartment building. The scenes are more brightly lit, the police officers more ineffectual, and the contagion more preternatural in origin, perhaps even supernatural. Even the rapid staccato of Spanish words alternately screamed, cried, or spoken in desperation by Angela, her camera man, and the helpless tenants around them, gives [REC] a personal sheen of terror that comes from having your home, which is normally a place of comfort and security, become the one place you do not want to be.

Your Dying Wish Is?

At around two in the morning I suddenly woke up from an odd dream. I do not recall much of it, but one thing did stick fast between those fleeting moments bridging the unconscious and conscious worlds. Seven words that, when taken together, do not mean much...

A box of Twinkies would do nicely.

...but were so vivid, as if casually spoken as an afterthought, but given in answer to a very seriously important question.

While I cannot be ultimately certain as to what that question was, at least this one popped immediately into my head as I lay there with eyes wide open: "What is your dying wish?"

So there I lay in the dark, pondering the answer to a question few of us spend much time pondering for fairly obvious reasons. Why I would have answered it with a box of Twinkies I am not sure; but then again, given life's enumerable physical and mental strictures, why not? I like Twinkies. They taste devilishly sweet and are not all that good for you, which makes them even more desirable. But that is me. How about you?

What is your dying wish?

Horror Zine Joins the Mash

Always room for one more...

Jeani Rector has started The Horror Zine, for dark writers, poets, and artists of the macabre, and is currently accepting submissions. While you won't get paid, it does provide a place to sharpen those creative fangs and garner attention.

Cringe at post mortem photography in the morbidly fascinating section!

Run, in horror, to see the terror-filled zines and links that will not die!

Escape damnation and bedevilment by reading the submission guidelines page!

23 Hours A Vengeful Vampire In Maximum Security

 

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

Knives. Always with the knives. Half-deads loved knives, hatchets, cleavers, anything sharp. This was a hunting knife, six inches long and painted green--so the white-tailed deer wouldn't see it glint when you pulled it out in the woods--and had a nasty serrated edge and a wicked curved point. The half-dead brandished it with obvious pleasure and stepped inside the cell.

 

Laura Caxton, David Wellington's vampire-hunting Special Subjects Unit agent, is neck-deep in it again in 23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale. Not only is her vengeful nemesis Justinia Malvern, the world's oldest vampire (with decrepitude to match her age), looking to put the bite on her for good, she also has to deal with being locked up in maximum security while dozens of half-deads, those killed by Malvern and revitalized to do her bidding, take over the penitentiary. Complicating things further, Clara Hsu, Caxton's lover, turns up just in time to become a hostage, and persausive bargaining chip, for Malvern. With a jailhouse cliffhanger-styled pace and Caxton backed up against all four walls with only the questionable help from her stimulant-loving celly, Gert, the situation moves from bad to worse and then really bad.

Permuted Press Zombifies Pocket Books

News Flash...The undead will be reaching into everyone's pockets soon...Is there no stopping them!

Anthony Ziccardi, Vice President and Associate Publisher of Pocket Books, has announced a new co-publishing venture with Permuted Press, best known for horror, dark fantasy and science fiction novels . The seven book deal was brokered by Marc Gerald at the Agency Group. The books will be Zombie focused, with the first release, Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne, slated for October 2009.

Titles to be included in the joint venture are:

* Day by Day Armageddon and sequel by J.L. Bourne
* Plague of the Dead by Z.A. Recht
* Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth (member of The League of Tana Tea Drinkers)
* Down the Road by Bowie Ibarra
* Empire by David Dunwoody
* The Zombie Chronicles: Escape by James Melzer

“I am excited to be the pioneer author for the Pocket Books and Permuted Press joint publishing venture. Horror fans are in for an absolute thrill and can expect to enjoy bold, fresh and riveting fiction as a result of this project. The journey with Permuted Press has been a great success and I know that success will be further enhanced as we shift gears into a new and exciting relationship with Pocket Books. Keep your doors locked!”--J.L. Bourne

Jacob Kier, Publisher, Permuted Press, said “I couldn't be more excited about teaming up with Pocket Books to bring some of Permuted's most exciting and thought-provoking tales of the end of the world to a larger audience.”

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Permuted Press and expand their very successful brand.” Said Anthony Ziccardi. “We feel the horror genre and zombies in particular, will be a growing category at retail. Even Hollywood seems to be focused on zombie tales and we feel that we are well positioned to capitalize on this trend.”