From Zombos' Closet

Movie Review: The Asphyx (1973)

Zombos Says: Good

"What was that all about?" asked Zombos.

Paul Hollstenwall looked perturbed. "What? You didn't like it?"

I looked at my fingers and started counting. Right. That makes eighteen times Zombos has said "What was that all about?" after watching a movie Paul brought over, and twelve times Paul's responded with "you didn't like it?" I'm not sure why I bothered to remember all this, but it did make me warm and cozy inside for some reason. I sipped my Mocha Bon Machiavelli and smiled with self-satisfaction, and waited. Right on cue they both looked at me and waited for some sort of guidance, absolution, support, or what exactly I'm not sure. I never could pin that one down.

Of course they were desperate. Outside the snow was piling up, and every so often I heard Pretorius, our groundskeeper, cursing above the sputtering whirl of his malfunctioning snow blower. I was desperate, too. The three of us were bottled up tight with Paul and his cache of DVD oddities as our only diversion. I will admit his choice of The Asphyx was a better choice than his usual preference for schlocky dollar-bin bargains, but the day was still young.

"It's got me flummoxed," I finally said. "I like it, but I'm not sure why. I'm also not sure why Black & Blue Movies is going to do a remake. You've got a rich amateur dabbling in paranormal science, a screeching hand-puppet creature called the Asphyx, which rushes to a person's soul when said person is expiring—greatly aided by very accommodating people dying in ludicrous ways—and it's all nonsense, really, but still oddly watchable."

 

Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens) dabbles in paranormal research. He's so brilliant he's invented a moving picture camera, and so rich he's not bothered to patent it. His hobby is to photograph the dying, looking for evidence of the soul as it leaves the body. What he finds in his pictures are mysterious smudges appearing next to each of the dying people he's photographed. He explains to his step-son, Giles (Robert Powell), those smudges are evidence of the soul leaving the body at the time of death. He thinks they're appearing in his photographs because of a special developing solution he's concocted. By now, watching this movie, you will have noticed the Hammer Studios-like period hairdos; but while the movie is in color, like that studios' Gothic horror stories, its direction by Peter Newbrook lacks the slick, underlying urgency and tension of a Hammer-directed costume drama.

A boating accident leaves Sir Hugo distraught with grief and determined more than ever to find out what those smudges are. Recording a public hanging with his camera and using another of his inventions, a bright spotlight powered by crystals that give off an intense blue light when water drips on them, he inadvertently discovers those smudges are not made by the soul departing the body, but by a netherworld-postman coming to pick it up. His spotlight traps the ugly, screeching, little monster  in its beams, keeping it from taking the soul and leaving, which for some odd reason keeps the person alive and unable to die, no matter how much dead they may. He dubs the creature an Asphyx, and it looks like a hand-puppet in action.

Lingering periods of discussion about what the creature is waste time, but eventually Sir Hugo reveals the true reason for exploring death: he wants to be immortal. He believes that if he keeps the crystals powering his spotlight wet, the light can trap the Asphyx so he can stay alive indefinitely. I guess he's assuming there's only one little cosmic monster to handle all those soul pickups.

The trick is to coax the Asphyx to come for his soul so he can trap it. He needs to be dying to do that because the creature only comes when someone is, uhmm, dying. How the inexhaustible crystals (Star Trek's dilithium crystals perhaps?) will power the blue light forever is not dwelled on, but he's devised a constant drip drip drip to fall onto them, a box to hold the creature under his spotlight contraption, and a room with a new-fangled combination lock on the door to keep the Asphyx trapped in the box forever.

Illogical? Yes. Remotely plausible? Nope. Entertainingly off the wall? Delightfully so.

Especially when Sir Hugo and Giles devise fiendish Grand Guignol contraptions to bring death so very close, just enough to summon the Asphyx by using electrocution, the guillotine, and asphyxiation by gas. Simply strangling each other appears to never have crossed their minds. Yet through all this seriously and impeccably performed silliness, peppered with outrageously impossible artifice, it’s fun watching the accidental deaths pile up as Sir Hugo tries again and again for immortality and insists his family keep trying, along with him, one by one.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense

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, Emily from the Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense explains how Fangoria and Chucky made her childhood.

Like many a child born in the Reagan era, Fangoria and Chucky were as integral to childhood as Crayola and Grover. My love for horror was a pleasant blend of nature and nurture, birthed in the womb courtesy of a lovely pair of parents who still make me jealous with tales of catching Night of the Living Dead at the back-end of a drive-in double feature. Sure, I have the honor of discovering how to kill an extraterrestrial klown at the age of 6, but even someone with taste as bad as mine knows that when it comes to movies, the late '80s were more fun than revolutionary. Oh. And maybe that applies to other aspects of society, but let's maintain our priorities, eh?

Alas Poor Awards, I Knew Ye Well

I think I came to this decision at 10:15 this morning. I was pondering it much of last night; spinning it around all angles most of yesterday. This morning, after reading over my Google Alerts, I realized it was time to rein in those slings and arrows of misinformation and boldly make my quietus with a bare post (bodkins are too sharp and hurt like hell).

Google Alerts pointed me to a news item mentioning the Bloody Bloggers Awards and how voting would be done by the League of Tana Tea Drinkers only. It was a well-intentioned and gracious bit of news, but not quite correct: it said voting would be done by League members only. Actually, voting for the awards would have been done by email, sent to me (I removed myself from nomination to remain impartial) by anyone who wanted to vote for their favorite nominees. And while the nominees themselves had to come from League members' making the recommendations, really, all a horror blogger needed to do was let us know about you and what category or categories you felt you best fit in--there were 13 of them to choose from. My goal was a simple one: promote horror blogs, especially lesser known ones, through an impartial, unbiased, non-commercial awards contest, and provide a mechanism--and motivation--for exploring lots of other horror blogs. The mechanism was a list of links to all nominee blogs and the motivation would be the awards themselves and the voting process.

At least I thought it was simple. It would have allowed every horror blogger to participate without commercial or biased endorsements skewing the results. It also recognized there were more possible categories for awards than simply the best horror blog, whatever that is. But here's the rub: my perception was not everyone's perception, and that has caused a little tempest in a teapot that makes for very bad tea, especially among members of the League itself.

And it has made members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers appear elitest; cucumber sandwich-eating snobs who think we're hot shit when it comes to knowing horror and blogging about it. Well, I admit I like cucumber sandwiches, but we are certainly not elitest--sure, we like to joke a lot about that, but we're only joking--and while we do know our horror--just like you--we blog for the fun of it. Read our mission statement. No where does it say "we the members of LOTT D are elitest hot shit, so poo poo on you." What it does say is Our mission is to acknowledge, foster, and support thoughtful, articulate, and creative blogs built on an appreciation of the horror and sci-horror genres.

But that good intentions road-paving crew has pulled up outside. I see it's time to apologize for rushing into something I should have thought more about and especially for causing dissension that is hurtful and non-productive, and for forcing an argument where one should never have arisen.

I'm calling the Bloody Blogger Awards on account of foul weather. For all those who did participate, I thank you very much; you've alerted me to many sites I didn't know about. For those who tossed those slings and arrows, I'm sorry. In my rush to foster community spirit, I stirred up some restless ghosts that I should have paid attention to more. Perhaps in time I'll try it again. But it's stopped being fun.

Besides, with the new kid on the block, the Horror Blogger Alliance, I think our community has grown a lot bigger already. I wish them all the luck and support I can muster. Based on my recent experience, I know they'll need it.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Horror Crypt

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, Bloofer Lady* from Horror Crypt explains the dark shadows that led her to horror.

My mom named me after a witch that appeared on the soap opera Dark Shadows, so I was kind of born into loving all things dark and macabre. My father used to take me to cheap double features when I was a kid and that's how I first saw Xtro, Galaxy Of Terror and Dracula AD 1972. I don't remember a time in which I wasn't allowed to watch horror films. I grew up to be relatively sane and well adjusted so they didn't really do me any harm. Or did they?

I started to get heavily into gothic horror-type films when I was in high school, which was also around the time I became a goth/punk weirdo. They kind of went hand in hand for me. It was much more fun to dress like somebody out of a Hammer film than to be 'normal' after all! Soon after that I started to get into Italian horror. The Church was the first Italian horror film I ever saw and I loved the look and feel of it so much that I was instantly hooked. Soon I was watching any Euro-Horror film I could get my hands on, and over the years that particular horror genre has become my favorite.

I started doing horror movie reviews for a couple of different independent sites five or six years ago, but I wasn't completely happy writing for somebody else all of the time. After quite a few years of thinking 'My goodness, wouldn't it be fun to have my own site!' I finally got the nerve to buy my own domain name back in the beginning of last August and created Horror Crypt. I mainly started it as a venue to post my own horror movie reviews, but I have kind of branched out into other things such as recommending really morbid things that I like to others. One day I would like for it to become a full-fledged site because that would be nifty and peachy-keen!

*Zoc Note: "Bloofer Lady" is what the children called Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula. After she turned...

Book Review: Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns

Zombos Says: Very Good

Westerns aren't dead: though pocked with bullet holes, they'll probably live on as long as we can keep them new and interesting with near-infinite variations on their central themes. I think that's better than good. (Mike Hoffman, foreword)

I became hooked on the outre Western tale after watching Gene Autry's The Phantom Empire (1935) serial. To see cowboys, ray weapons of mass destruction, a mysterious subterranean empire's technology being sought after by unscrupulous businessmen, and Gene Autry getting a snappy song or two sung in-between the cliff-hangers--left quite an impression on my young mind back then. I didn't consider myself a greenhorn when it came to the weird western genre until Green's book proved me wrong. There's a lot more in them thar hills then I realized.

Paul Green's Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns: Supernatural and Science Fiction Elements in Novels, Pulps, Comics, Films, Television and Games is a rich vein for prospectors mining those dusty hills of the Wild Weird West. It's the kind of book I like to dog-ear and write in, and carry along with me, in my urban saddle bag, to refer to often.

Arranged in A-Z listing format, Green identifies these sub-genres: Weird Western (horror, supernatural, fantasy); Weird Menace Western (horror and supernatural themes, but concluding with a rational explanation); Science Fiction Western (future technology, aliens, alternate histories); Space Western (space opera with Western elements); Steampunk Western (set in the Old West and incorporating Victorian sci-tech); and Weird Western Romance (traditional romance involving time travel or the supernatural).

The Western genre, whether old-timey or saddle soap new, provides a simple backdrop for quintessential themes of characterization, plotting, and rip-roaring action that is ripe for mixing with the bizarre, the steampunk, the techno-goth, and the traveling horror sideshow's worth of oddities. From aliens to zombies and the robotic to apocalyptic, Green does a good job of rounding up diverse material to explore further, especially in areas you may not have thought much about, like The Prisoner's Living In Harmony episode (p165), or the Beany and Cecil episodes Phantom of the Horse Opera (p30) and Dragon Train (p30). A short synopsis describes each entry. Here's an excerpt from the one for The Phantom Empire:

Twelve-part serial starring Gene Autry in a unique mix of singing-cowboy and science fiction genres. The ancient civilization of Mu, located beneath Autry's Radio Ranch, is threatened by speculators buying the Muranian supply of radium. Autry attempts to save the people of Mu and protect his Radio Ranch.

Hokum? Sure. Fun and imaginative? Yes, without a doubt. And that is what the weird western is all about. From the not so serious to the sublime, the frisky to the outlandish, Green provides a broad range to send your posse after. His bibliography will also point you to additional Internet and print resources. An appendix categorizes entries by genre, which I find the most useful for discovering new comics, movies, and other weird westerns I haven't read or seen yet. Illustrations are sprinkled throughout.

So saddle up pardner and don't hit that winding trail without the Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns as your guide.

Book Review: Peter Straub's A Dark Matter: Mesmerizing To A Fault

A DARK MATTER evolved out of a desire I had to think about the various sages and gurus I had seen pass through Madison, WI, in the mid-sixties. I think there were three altogether; at least, I witnessed the actions and behaviors of three of these gents. They were all articulate, interesting, and predatory. Almost all of what they said was nonsense, but they did get a bunch of kids to look into the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

I started to wonder: what might happen if one of these sleazy wisdom-merchants did actually reveal a portion of the Other World, the World Unseen, in the course of a home-made ritual. (Flames Rising interview with Peter Straub)

Zombos Says: Good (but clever structuring overpowers the simple plot)

Peter Straub opens wide his magic bag of literary tricks in A Dark Matter, weaving a mesmerizing occult tale of mystery, told through colorful characters, each in turn recalling memories of a tragic day in 1966. But this illusory tale, while executed with masterful artifice, is tepid in its effect, and climaxes into a theistic mumbo-jumbo of outrageous imagery and philo-babble wordplay that intrudes, more than it reveals, with its copious stream of self-conscious dime-store novelty diatribe.

Straub wields his sleight of sentence flourishes with ease. Meta-fiction rolls adroitly across his fingers as author Lee Harwell, spurred on by a chance meeting with recollection, and goaded on by Garvin, his agent, to maybe try a non-fiction book to rekindle his writing ardor, begins to ask what really happened to his school chums in the agronomy meadow on that day in 1966; a day that left one torn apart, one missing, one blind, and one, speaking only in quotations from literature, confined to a mental institution

But can we trust Harwell? Is Straub subtly misdirecting us with the role of his questionable narrator, making us doubt how much his fictional author is actually telling us. Harwell is a writer after all and through his distillation of interviews with each survivor of that day, can we really be certain he relates everything exactly as revealed to him by the others? Especially since his wife, Lee Truax, nicknamed the Eel, is the most important person to be affected by what transpired in that meadow so many years before.

Straub's conjuring assistant for this literary illusion is Spenser Mallon, a vulpine-faced guru of the Esoteric who can recite lines from Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy as easily as lallation utters from a baby. Agrippa's major and minor arcana fever dreams provide Straub's flourish of textuality in fleshing out anthropomorphic visions of saviors and destroyers and unholy bystanders prowling the border between reality of the moment and the moment of reality for each of them, which leads to a dark matter within and without and in-between that shadows their lives.

Using dialog and vivid recollections--made by equally vivid characters--divvied into chapter and section beats evoking a 1960's syncopation of artsy and preppy, acid-trip intellectualism and pot-induced, faded blue jean mysticism, Straub unfolds his story revealing a little more each time, until at last the Eel reveals her meeting with those things inhabiting the borderland, unleashed by Mallon's parlour trick sorcery. The meeting is a tale wagging its own, and spins round and round in gorgeously compelling but obfuscating imagery and meaning. (The style and kind of which authors love to read because it inspires them to prove their mettle.)

A Dark Matter is intensely structural-conscious, executed with a skill few authors possess. But its structure delivers style over suspense and terror, and its denouement cops out with a let's-think-about-this-cosmological-horror-significance stream of consciousness wordplay that underwhelms with its lengthy pedagogical digression.

A bound galley from Doubleday was provided for this review.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: KinderScares

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, read all about the horror with Colum and Shelagh of KinderScares.

Horror has been an integral part of our family’s life from the very beginning. Our first date was a horror movie. Our wedding favors were spoofs of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie poster, and we own a film collection that rivals the inventory of most smaller video stores.

Needless to say, our children were born into a world where Frankenstein's Monster makes a great playmate, a foot-tall Leatherface resides atop the bookshelf, monster lore makes its way into everyday conversation, and the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear is an event to look forward to every summer. But it wasn’t until we stumbled upon Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (by Adam Rex) when our oldest was a toddler that we realized there was a whole world out there of horror stuff for kids - you just have to look.

We’ve been looking ever since.

Our daughter had a Hallowe’en themed birthday party this past October, and it seemed only natural to display some of our spooky books with the rest of the decorations - and people loved them! The surprised delight of people flipping through our monstrous volumes made us realize we weren’t the only people who were looking for this sort of thing...and that our years of scouring for the fun and creepy tales that would delight little monster lovers might be of use to someone other than ourselves. By November, KinderScares was born!

Writing about horror-themed children’s literature has been a blast so far. It’s like all of our favorite things rolled into one, and well worth the work it takes to post daily (a lengthy and oft-interrupted affair when you have your own pack of little monsters wanting your undivided attention!).

Whether you’re a horror expert who wants to know every far-flung corner of the genre, a parent looking for something different to read to your kids, or a book enthusiast who gets excited by the strange and unusual, we’re here to help you out. Mini monster-lovers and future horror fiends need great books too!

Movie Review: Frozen (2010) Minimalist Horror Best Served Cold

Zombos Says: Excellent

I noticed I was shivering when well into watching Frozen. Granted it was the first show of the day in a chilly theater (outside it was below freezing), but a few of those shivers came from my fear of heights and a persistent memory of the one time I rode a ski lift. I become uneasy every time I think back to that experience; how I kept wishing the long ride would end faster, how I gulped and closed my eyes each time the ground sloped farther away from me and silently cheered when it came closer, how that small seat and flimsy security bar made me wish, even harder, I'd staid back in the warm lodge nursing a hot chocolate like I'd wanted to.

Director and writer Adam Green fills the first half-hour with youthful banter and playfulness. Parker (Emma Bell), prodded on by Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Joe (Shawn Ashmore), convinces the ski lift operator with cash and a warm smile to let them ride without tickets. People are everywhere, the sun is shining, and Joe meets a girl and scores her phone number after her ex-boyfriend gets jealous and knocks him down.

They should have ended the day eating pizza and drinking hot chocolate in the lodge instead of going for one last run on the slopes, but Joe makes Parker and Dan feel guilty for wasting his time earlier keeping pace with Dan's girlfriend, Parker, who, being a beginner, fell down a lot. They hop onto the ski lift just as everyone else is finishing up or heading home. An all too plausible misjudgment leaves them stranded with a storm approaching. When the ride stops they complain. When the lights shut off, one by one, leaving them swinging in the cold wind, they realize the worst has happened: no one knows they're up their; and the resort will be closed for the week; and it's getting colder.

A closeup of the ski lift switch being pulled to turn off the ride and a long shot of those comfortingly bright lights slowly winking out in back of the three skiers, provide two of the most chilling moments in this minimalist horror. Parker, Joe, and Dan's decisions from this point on provide the rest.

Minimalist horror movies, using their characters' poor judgment to stoke unfortunate situations from inconvenient to life-threatening, rely on events taking place in one location. In Wind Chill, it's the too easily forgotten bag of critical supplies that leaves a couple stranded on a deserted road; in Blair Witch it's the carelessly lost map that leaves people lost in the spooky woods; and in Paranormal Activity it's poor judgment that delays bringing in help before it's too late for a fearful couple dealing with a demonic presence in their home. While all of these movies also rely on an underlying tone of disrespect for one's potentially hostile environment to frame their events around, bad decisions provide the catalysts for heaping on the terror, despair, and desperation.

Parker, Joe, and Dan experience all three. As time passes, they acknowledge they're screwed big time. They can't wait for help; it won't be coming any time soon. They can't jump; they're too high above the ground. They can't climb to the nearest tower; the cable holding their gondala has sharp edges. And though their clothes are stylish, they are not good for keeping them warm in the freezing cold. First shock, then bickering and blame, and then desperation. Dan talks himself into jumping. He convinces himself that even if he gets hurt he can still slide down the slope for help. The other two don't dissuade him as much as they thought they should have afterward. I thought to myself he's not that stupid, he's too high up. He is and he was. Dan jumps. He gets hurt. Badly hurt. Gore-effects-showcase kind of hurt. He also finds out why we were briefly shown a missing skier notice posted in the now deserted lodge.

Their situation goes downhill from here. Dan needs to stop the bleeding. Parker needs to pry her ungloved hand off the steel security bar it freezes to. Joe needs to make a last effort at climbing the steel cable, even though the first time he tried it his gloves and hands were cut up badly. Frostbite is a serious problem and even if they make it to the ground, they still need to survive what waits patiently--and hungrily--for them. I'll leave it at that. I can't tell you much more without ruining the suspense for you (although I'm surprised some professional reviewers have).

This is one time you will not appreciate the pretty snowy scenery in the background.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Gruesome Details

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, NM from Gruesome Details tells us how horror took a little while to embrace her.

Horror has always been a part of my life; however, I never embraced the genre until middle school. My father and my grandmother were the horror fans, enjoying the stories and the gore of the genre without a care in the world. Nothing frightened me more as a child than a scary movie; it was the music that haunted me when I traveled up the stairs to go to bed. My father would watch his weekly episode of Tales from the Crypt or another spine-tingling horror film from the 80s while my mother tucked me in at night. The music was the worst, chilling me to the bone because I knew something terrible was happening or going to happen on the screen in the living room.

After years of anxiety and torment from the horror genre, I made the conscious decision to watch a horror film without my cousins or my father. My cousins had tormented me as a child, tricking me into watching parts of horror films without my knowledge and laughing when I realized what was on the television screen. I embraced the horror genre in that first viewing without regrets or remorse, especially when I realized that I had such a selection of films I had ignored for years. Films have always been prevalent in my life, renting movies with my parents and traveling to the movie theatre sporadically during my childhood. And the horror genre was a new outlet of films I could enjoy.