Zombos' Closet of Horror

I Know What I Did Last Weekend

Hersheypark was a blast! The Wildcat is the most exhilirating wooden roller coaster ride I've ever experienced. It's bone jarring fun you can really sink your screams into.

Equally exhilirating, but not as gut-wrenching, is the Hersheypark Carrousel. An exquisite parade of fantasticly carved wooden horses, prancing proudly around regal chariots. Quick, can you name movies that had carousels in important scenes? (Hint: one is by Alfred Hitchcock.)

Two superb examples of our fantastic culture: one with a hint of fear, the other a merry nod of the head captured in color and motion.  Both go round and round, and up and down, and carry lots of riders.

But all good things, as the saying goes, so now I'm back to blogging, and catching up on all those reviews and skewy views piling up in the closet.

Blogger Interruptus Today

Your regularly scheduled Zombos' Closet of Horror programing  will continue after a brief and highly personal interlude as I indulge in youthful reinvigoration, otherwise known as midlife-crisis intervention.

I'm driving around in my newly acquired 2008 Mustang Convertible, and will return to blogging when I return. Regularly scheduled  posting will resume on Friday; assuming I get back in time. The day is young, after all.

Veni, Vidi, Mustang Coegi Absentis ( I came. I saw. I drove the Mustang away.)

Meme: Monsters In Sweaters

I really tried hard to come up with an interesting meme. From Beyond Depraved tagged me for this exercise in insomnia, so I had to put my best foot forward. I got nothing.

So...in lieu of that, here's my cop out: monsters in sweaters. Why sweaters? Because there's nothing like a warm, fuzzy sweater worn by a monster to create dissonance: evil being wears disarmingly inviting apparel; how odd.

Now that I've mentioned it, you will probably notice lots more sweaters being worn in lots more horror movies now. Feel free to comment on your discoveries.

As for tagging five other blogs, I'll just toss this out to The League of Tana Tea Drinkers, if any of them so desire a sleepless night or two.

Billy Loves Stu's MeMeMeMe

Naughty blogger Billy Loves Stu "thought it might be a nifty idea, if I created a Meme for horror bloggers to complete so that the next time someone stumbles across the electronic journal of a burgeoning Pauline Kael, or Stephen King-wanna-be, the reader might get a better idea of where this bloody blogger is coming from."

I love Pauline Kael. Ditto for King. So, without further ado, here goes my meme...just in case, because you never know. You know.

In Ten Words or Less, Describe Your Blog:

It's where the cultured horror heads go.

During What Cinematic Era Where you Born?

I was born in B: The Atomic Monster/Nuclear Angst Era (the late 40's through 50's), but grew up watching all those A: The Classic Horror Era (late 30's to 40's) movies, which appeared on the various incarnations of Shock Theatre. While NetFlix is the cat's meow for cinema buffs these days, thanks to Shock Theatre, and its horror hosts presenting movies from the 30s on up, I was nurtured on movies from multiple eras.

The Carrie Compatibility Question: Sue Snell or Chris Hargensen, who would you take to the prom?

I missed my prom. I went to an all boys school and was terrible with girls. I really hate this question. I'd have gone with Sue Snell if I wasn't such a dork and couldn't get up the nerve to ask her. But if she turned me down I'd be crushed. I don't take rejection well. Damn. I still hate this question.

You have been given an ungodly amount of money, and total control of a major motion picture studio - what would your dream Horror project be?

Let's see, I've got this great movie idea: an expedition in the Antarctic, led by BP looking for oil, digs up the Blob (you know, the one from the 1950s). The Blob thaws out and devours all the BP people. BUT! That's not all. The Blob's partially devoured victims turn into zombies and go on the rampage. Much gore and mayhem ensues. Contact me.

What horror film "franchise" that others have embraced, left you cold?

SAW. The death devices have become the stars. There's something seriously wrong with that.

Is Michael Bay the Antichrist?

No; but his pandering to the lowest common commercial denominator for his movies leaves me hoping he'd move on to that job description instead of his director one.

Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Frankenstein Monster - which one of these classic villains scares you, and why?

The Wolf man, because he would want to eat me or tear me to shreds before eating me. If Dracula sucked me dry I'd still have a chance at some night life action. And Frankenstein's Monster is a pussy cat at heart.

Tell me about a scene from a NON HORROR Film that scares the crap out of you.

There's a scene in Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness: he's locked the door of a public restroom, it's late, and he's holding his young son in his hands. Smith is crying as an irate man bangs on the locked door. Smith holds his sleeping son closer. They're on the floor of the restroom. He's been reduced to this: no money, homeless, and his life is in shambles. He can't support himself or his son or his wife. And she's left him. During the last "mini-recession" I was out of work for seven months. The fear, the uncertainty, the demoralization Smith felt hits home. Every time I see this scene it scares me because it reminds me of how close me, you, anyone can come to a life-interruptus, a soul draining isolation, a loss of dreams. It's something to scare the crap out of anyone.

Baby Jane Hudson invites you over to her house for lunch.  What do you bring?

Frankenstein's Monster: he may be a pussycat, but he's still a big pussy cat. She's a nutcase, you know.

So, between you and me, do you have any ulterior motives for blogging?  Come, on you can tell me, it will be our little secret, I won't tell a soul.

I started blogging to improve my writing and my expertise on horror movies. Also on movies in general. I also wanted to meet other like-minded people and talk shop with them. Mission accomplished. I can't imagine life without blogging. Really.

What would you have brought to Rosemary Woodhouse's baby shower?

A Devil D'Little costume: the kid would be a natural.

Godzilla vs The Cloverfield Monster, who wins?

Godzilla. The Cloverfield Monster might have a lot of nasty nits falling off, but Godzilla's got allies: Anguirus II, Jet Jaguar, Rodan, and his sons, to rock CM's world. Probably Mothra, too. Mothra's cool.

If you found out that Rob Zombie was reading your blog, what would you post in hopes that he read it?

Nothing different from what I normally post.

What is your favorite NON HORROR FILM, and why?

Casablanca. Bogey, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, Lauren Bacall, Claude Rains; my God man, this movie has a script vibe, a flow of dialog and action, and a love story schmaltz that's chic-flic and dic-flic all in one. I still cry at the end.

If blogging technology did not exist, what would you be doing?

Sleeping more.

A Versatile Blogger Is I

Jason and Halloween Overkill recently awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award. I'm flabbergasted; I'm mortified; I'm deeply honored. Either they've been sniffing charred pumpkin innards earlier than they should or I'm doing something right.

I like to think I'm doing something right. But slide that pumpkin my way if I'm wrong: I need a cool reminder of soon-to-come October, to fortify me through this here-and-now broiling summer.

Then again, this award just did that. Thank you.

As part of the award ceremony I need to tell you seven things about me and pass the award along to fifteen other blogs. So, first, here are seven things I think you may find interesting to know:

1. Being a nut for H.P. Lovecraft, I once lived on Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, close to where he and Sonia Greene resided at 169 Clinton Street. Deep down I had hopes of running into his ghost on a foggy night in Autumn, but that, sadly, never happened.


2. I "published" my first short story, The Waters of Merom, a Lovecraftianesque tale of dread, in a fanzine way back in the 1970's. I forget the name of the fanzine but I still have the story. One of these days I'll rewrite it.


3. Speaking of writing, I'm terribly insecure. I constantly doubt my ability to put a sentence into a paragraph and a paragraph onto a page. That's why getting an award like this means a lot to me. But I'm still insecure. I've got lots of stories waiting to eventually, someday, maybe, let loose from the file drawer. One of these days. I tend to rewrite a lot.


4. I grew up in Brooklyn, between Bensonhurst and Gravesend. I worked hard to get rid of my accent, but it slips out when I get angry or flustered. There was this wonderful luncheonette on the corner, run by a guy named Joe and his wife Flo. Their magazine rack held the treasures I pirated every month: horror magazines and comics. On the way to the luncheonette was a little hole in the wall store where I bought stick pretzels, Jelley Rings, and Nik-L-Nip Wax Bottles. The liquid candy in the Nik-L-Nips was nasty sweet and had a bitter aftertaste. I hated them. I loved them. I miss Joe and Flo and the smell of that luncheonette.


5. I love Timmy the Tooth.


6. I once contacted Ray Bradbury, through his publisher, to see if he would send me a story for my fledgling fanzine, StraitJacket. I was a kid back then; what did I know? He basically told me to take a hike. I forgive him.


7. As a teenager I spent much of my time in Greenwich Village, prowling the streets and drinking too much coffee, at the Cafe Borgia on Bleecker Street, well into the night. One evening, while walking down a side street, I came across the most hideous looking painting I had ever seen. It was a face, without eyes, done in mournful browns and dreary blacks, all bleeding together on the canvas. It gave me quite a chill just looking at it. I thought about taking it home; I'm into the weird, after all. I thought some more and left it. Something about that face really creeped me out. Even without eyes, it seemed to look right into you. A few weeks later I was walking down another street in the Village and there it was, propped against another streetlamp. I got that chill down my neck again and hastily walked around it. On another excursion a month later, there it was--again--in my path, looking at me from under another streetlamp, another side street. Its eyeless sockets still gave me the willies. I know this sounds like I'm making it all up, but it's true. There's probably a good explanation to, well, explain all this, but as far as I'm concerned, I left the painting where it was and stopped going to Greenwich Village. I haven't gone back to walk those streets for some years now.

As for the bloggers I'd like to recommend for this award, I'll go way better than fifteen. Start with this bunch of tea-totallers, The League of Tana Tea Drinkers, then head on over to the Horror Blogger Alliance for more.

Reviewing Books: Throwing Your Money My Way

Angela Hoy's Writers Weekly ezine has an informative article this month called Throwing Your Money Away on Review Copies. While it's written primarily for budding authors who are self-promoting their work (i.e., paying out of their pockets), I felt it had some important points we, as bloggers, should be aware of because many of us are budding authors, or simply need to handle book review requests with confidence.

This key bit of advice she offers is essential for both of those perspectives:

7. The way to get book reviews is to approach a potential reviewer up front, addressing them by name, via email, and asking them point-blank if you can send them a copy of your book and a media kit to review. You should also ask them if they want to receive the print version (print book and print media kit) or the electronic version (ebook and electronic file of your media kit).

I've received a few blanket emailings requesting reviews, but most have been addressed to me by name and some are even a bit more conversational, indicating the author (or author's agent/press agent) took the time to know my blog's temperament. When a request indicates familiarity, I'm more inclined to review the book and, conversely, less inclined when it's an Hello Anonymous Blogger, I've got this tremendously exciting book..."insert pitch here." 

That pitch is unimportant to me and should not be important to any potential reviewer. I don't give much weight, either, to authors' quotes regarding other authors' books. I'm actually less inclined to review a book bolstered with authors' quotes. There's something unnatural about that. Well, we couldn't find any 'real' readers or critics, so what did your professional friends say? And one thing I'd love to see more is being offered a digital copy to review. I promise not to distribute it, I swear. It just means less piles of clutter for me to step over (I ran out of book shelves a long time ago; I had to put my DVDs somewhere you know).

Anyway, here are a few rules I strive to live by when blogging book reviews. Come to think of it, these rules can apply to any type of review you might do.

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.

Some Rules To Review By

...after seeing it, I realized that I was faced with an interesting dilemma...the movie was not very good.

The acting, for the most part, was uninspired, with the exception of the female lead, who was awful. The editing and camerawork was sub-par, to the point of seriously detracting from the viewing experience. The script was amateur and forced. At just under an hour in length, it was still difficult to get through. Even the opening and closing theme music seemed entirely inappropriate to the material.

However, in researching the film, both before and after viewing, virtually all the reviews and feedback I found regarding it were resoundingly positive. And this has been a situation echoed many times since I began the Vault. This time, I was tired of saying nothing about it. (The Vault of Horror: The Emperor Has No Clothes; or Payola In the Age Of Blogging)

B-Sol at The Vault of Horror, in writing his review for the movie Serial: Amoral Uprising, has touched upon the dirty little black book too many horror movie reviewers carry around with them. Scan the pages of that book and you'll see notes on how to avoid offending would-be directors, actors, scriptwriters, and anyone connected with a bad movie; a movie showing little creative energy or talent in its production--a category in which many independent movies all too often fall into. Now I have not seen Serial: Amoral Uprising. I cannot say if it's good or bad or middling or whether it's worth watching or not. This is not the point, I think, B-Sol is trying to make (although he clearly did not like the movie). What surprised him--maybe not surprise, let's say irked him--is how a movie, which measured badly on many critical points, could receive only glowing reviews; not one, but many. How could that be? The answers are in that dirty little black book.

Were The Three Stooges First In Torture Horror?

Sure, they look dumb and innocent enough. But maybe there was something more sinister lurking being all those yucks and chuckles. Were the Three Stooges the first to use torture horror in movies? Here's the evidence. Judge for yourself.

Looks like an inspiration for a fiendish SAW death contraption to me. Just look at the sheer terror on Curly's face.

I think I saw this fiendish device used in The Collector.

And what about this one. Looks like a storyboard scene straight out of Cube!

Finally, I definitely remember seeing this in Hostel. Just look at the malicious glee on Larry's face. I rest my case.

What I'd Like To See In 2010

I've been thinking about what I'd like to see happen in this brand new year. A few hopes really, not much, but enough to look forward to.

I'd like to see more supernatural horror in the movie theater. Stories like Paranormal Activity and Drag Me to Hell were a welcome sight in 2009; especially after too many Torture Horror entries were given screen time. I want to see more variety in horror for this year. I also want to see movies like Trick 'r Treat on the big screen and not dumped to DVD because wimpy bean counters held back the distribution it deserved.

And speaking of wimpy distribution, I want to see more foreign-made horror on the big screen, subtitles and all. Either do it as a package deal or special event showing; if Fathom Events can bring the Metropolitan Opera live to local theaters, we should be able to get foreign horror movies into the theaters, too. Toss in a few Three Stooges and Our Gang shorts and I'll be in heaven.

I'd like to see horror blogs taken seriously in 2010. Horror bloggers are a diverse group of professionals and amateurs, and their passion, as well as their critically crawling eyes, do more to keep the genre properly in the spotlight then most mainstream commercialized sites. When insipid awards like Total Film's Best Horror Blog come around, with a paltry five nominees comprised of four amalgamated websites and only one blog, it is obvious they do not take horror blogging seriously or even grasp the shallowness of their award. The peer awards awarded by horror bloggers to horror bloggers are more sincere and more important and more personally gratifying than whatever outcome Total Film thinks it will achieve.

In general, I'd like to see less crap foisted onto horror fans this year. I'm speaking mostly in regard to straight-to-DVD, but some theater releases fall into this category. I'm tired of being treated like a movie-viewing dolt by directors, writers, and producers (both professionals and amateurs) who think they can slap the word horror onto anything that screams and call it a movie. I want to see solid production values no matter the budget, sincere acting no matter the part, and superb writing that stretches my senses and my fears, and makes me care about the characters before they're racked, tacked, and sacked.

And last but not least, I'd like to see more 3-D horror like, but better than, My Bloody Valentine, and more sour-sweet animation like Coraline.