From Zombos Closet

DVD Review: Black Butler Anime Seasons 1 and 2

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BlackButler

Zombos Says: Very Good

Tana Yoboso’s dark Victorian fantasy manga, Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji), makes an elegant transition to mature anime directed by Toshiya Shinohara that mixes hand-drawn and computer-animated elements, different scene angles, and manga’s expressive exaggeration to create a strong mood for its colorful–and morose–characters.

Young Ciel Phantomhive seals a Faustian pact with the demon Sebastion, who, in his human form, becomes Ciel’s ever attentive and sartorially splendid butler. Sebastion is bound by the pact to help Ciel find the people responsible for killing the boy’s parents, kidnapping and torturing him, and destroying the Phantomhive manor house, a large estate outside of London. What Sebastion gets in return is the boy’s soul, swallowed whole, when the contract is fulfilled. Their relationship becomes more and more complicated as time goes on, but each remains true to his nature. Or do they?

Seasons 1 and 2 of A-1 Pictures animated series liberally follow the manga stories. In the first episode, His Butler, Able (Sono Shitsuji, Yūnō), Damian, an Italian business man, tries to scam Ciel over Phantomhive’s Funtom Company (toy and confection) business that Ciel now heads, leading to a gruesome comeuppance capped by having Damian cooked in an oven. While not as horrific as it sounds–Damian was bewitched into experiencing his losing moves played on a boardgame–we find out how nasty Ciel and Sebastion can be. We’re also introduced to the other important servants in the Phantomhive manor house who provide the comic relief: Bardroy the cook, Finnian the gardener, and Mey-Rin, the clumsy maid. There’s also Tanaka, former head butler to the Phantomhives, who often appears super deformed (as a really small man holding a green mug of tea).  I don’t know what the significance of him being super deformed is so feel free to enlighten me, but it is funny. In later episodes, Pluto ( a large demon hound) joins the household and Tanaka is seen as a normal adult.

Ciel wears an eye-patch over his right eye to hide the pentagram seal that binds him to Sebastion, and Sebastion must obey every command Ciel gives him. Unless a cat is nearby;  Sebastion is enfatuated with cats . Curiouser characters appear like the Undertaker, a former Grim Reaper (reapers decide if a soul lives on or dies) who craves a good joke, and Angela and Ash, an hermaphrodite angel with two personalities. The Undertaker assists Ciel in his duties as Queen Victoria’s watchdog. The Queen herself is portrayed as alarmingly unhinged: she has a puppet of King Albert to whom she talks to whenever she is troubled. I’m not sure of the cultural nuances of that, either.

As the Queen’s watchdog, Ciel is obligated to protect her’s and the state’s interests and deal with the more shady denizens of London. A drug dealer and his gang fall to flashy silverware slay of hand by Sebastion as he rescues Ciel, and they tear one up with Jack the Ripper, leading to a surprise revelation for Ciel.

Victorian charm is well captured in the animation as well as the darker side of Sebastion. Lots of strong tea brewing and odd closeups of scrumptious deserts provide for lighter moments. You may find yourself snacking heartily during each episode. Bon appetit!

Graphic Book Review: Freaks of the Heartland
Excellent Shadows, Needs More Light

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freaks of the heartland

Zombos Says: Fair

Steve Niles perfunctory story is surpassed by Greg Ruth's beautifully atmospheric panels in Dark Horse'sFreaks of the Heartland, providing the only reason to pick up this 9 x 12 inch formatted hardcover edition.

Without Ruth selling the emotional interplay between characters and setting visually, this story amounts to only an exercise in the writing of a stock situation–they're not like us so we're scared of them–of which we've seen much too much already in movies and fiction to be enamored simply because it's used. Again.

Freakish big brother with nasty eating habits chained in barn? Check. The rest of this rural community beset by freakish siblings also chained in barns or locked in storm cellars? Check. Non-freakish siblings disturbed by all this mistreatment of their brothers and sisters? Check. They ignore adults and go on the lam? Of course. The adults squabble among each other as to how to deal with the situation thereby making it worse? Check and double check.

Adding fire-breathing to the mix doesn't tally to originality either, and ending this weakly plotted story abruptly (a major problem with many comic book driven stories), eclipses the plotline backstory–what caused all these freakish births and why?–that Niles ignores.

Instead, he rests on his laurels by using the villagers-lighting-torches and the children-will-save-them action scenes. Is he good at using them? Yes. But good writers abound in digital and print and many of them actually have new stories with fresh ideas to tell. There's nothing in Freaks of the Heartland, beyond Niles' name attached to it and Ruth's stellar ink and watercolor storyboard, that warrants our admiration, or being optioned off for animation or a live-action movie adaptation. Unless they go with animation;  they could follow Ruth's lead and captivate us with illustration. But whoever adapts the story will have a lot to fill in. Freaks of the Heartland is only a chapter when it should be a novel.

And yes, I find that galling. 

So many talented writers are out there struggling while Niles knocks off safe horror pablum for the fanboys who swoon at his feet. Enough swooning already. Get off your butt Niles and work for that paycheck. 

Manga Review: Octopus Girl

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Octopus_GirlAny Otaku worth his or her geeky cognomen knows about Toru Yamazaki's horror manga, Octopus Girl, the cute little girl who's head is bigger than her eight dainty tentacles. Know a horror fan who's a budding Otaku? Then this manga would make a perfect gift to give for any holiday occasion.

Taunted and abused by her classmates, and after having an octopus stuffed into her mouth–with her being allergic to octopi, and probably shell fish, too–Takako wakes up one morning to find she's turned into a little cephalopod. Of course, at first she's horrified and wreaks bloody vengeance on her tormentors, but after a swim in the ocean, she calms down, just a bit, to pursue her new life in a series of wild vignettes that will make you wonder how much drinking Yamazaki does before noon and after midnight. 

Be that as it may, the explicit artwork (for gory illustration of entrails and dislocated eyeballs mostly) is a delightful journey of crass craziness with copious bodily fluids vomited as Octopus Girl alternates between playful and sadistic and homicidal. Pairing up with another unfortunate girl, Sakai, who had turned into an eel, and who, by the way, wants one or maybe two of Tako's  tentacles to nibble on–hey, they grow back, right?–granny vampires, unrequited love with face-eating now and then, wicked sea witches, and other nasties keep these two bottom feeders quite happy, or insane depending on the time of day.

At one point Yamazaki has to put his big foot down and kick some sense into Tako, which he actually does in the comic. Yamazaki's quirky wit abuses the cultural and personal as Tako takes on contestants in Idol and teenage romance and monsters. What's sublimely offending to any sensitive soul is the lack of remorse, regret, or any moral compass whatsoever within Tako's world. Lovecraftian to the tee? Perhaps; most of horror manga is. It doesn't get any weirder than this (well, maybe it does, but I figured I'd end on a positive note because you can't go wrong with Octopus Girl anyway.

But be warned: Yamazaki embraces the brutal and the heartless in his Grand Guignol artwork. Laughing one day and dying horribly the next sums it up quite tidily I'd say.

Mexican Lobby Card:
Caperucita Y Pulgarcito Contra Los Monstruos

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This Mexican lobby card for Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood creeps me out as much as that movie. I have vague memories of watching it on television when too young to find any fairy tale within all that nightmarish costuming; and, yes, that pinhead guy on the far left really spooked me the most, although the skunk guy in the inset scene comes in a close second.

Caperucita Y Pulgarcito Contra Los Monstruos Mexican Lobby Card

Mexican Lobby Card: El Vampiro (Or Not)

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Here's a thoroughly mesmerizing yet utterly confusing Mexican lobby card for a horror movie; I'm just not sure which one. El Vampiro did not star Melvyn Douglas and Lionel Atwill (I'm assuming the horribly mangled "Leonel Alwel" is actually Lionel Atwill since I can't find any reference to an Alwel.) They did star together in The Vampire Bat, but that doesn't explain their names here, except for the vampire theme in both movies. German Robles and Abel Salazar star in El Vampiro, and, according to Wikipedia, it's the first vampire movie to show some tooth, which corresponds to the sinister illustration. The inset still–and my memory's vague here so don't stake me if I'm wrong–is from El Vampiro. I wonder if patrons expecting to see El Vampiro were actually duped into seeing The Vampire Bat? Then again, if this lobby card is truly for El Vampiro, why sell the movie with two American actors when German Robles and Abel Salazar were top name draws themselves? I love a mystery!

el vampiro mexican lobby card

Mexican Lobby Card: The Ape Woman

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There is a sideshow barker feel to this Mexican lobby card for La Pasion Mas Extrana Del Mundo (The Ape Woman). The evocative ghostly face (beauty), the hairy snarling ape (brutism), the alluringly sensuous–and hairy–female silhouette (taboo sexuality), the whipcracking man (sadism and exploitation), and the pièce de résistance, the movie scene (clean-shaven man opposite bearded woman). Glorious. How can you resist seeing this movie now?

La Pasion Mas Extrana Del Mundo mexican lobby card

 

Sandy and Oz
By Professor Kinema

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8Although nothing of fantasy can be made from images of houses being torn apart from the high winds of Hurricane Sandy, one cannot help but imagine something out of The Wizard of Oz.

Instead of an entire house being picked up into the middle of a twister (and safely landing on top of a bad witch in a fantastic place), images of mass destruction have been filling the airwaves during the past month’s newscasts. One story which struck a chord was of the damage done to Brooklyn’s Green-wood Cemetery.

Interred at historic Green-wood is one of the principle players of the classic 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz: Frank Morgan, the Wizard himself.

Hmm, thought I, the prominent citizen of the Emerald City, originally from New York City, whose final rest is in a place named Greenwood. He shares the gravesite with other members of his family, originally named Wupperman. His brother, and fellow actor, Ralph is there also.

Morgan01Being originally from the New York area, specifically upstate Chittenango, Madison County, author L. Frank Baum wrote several classic tales about the fantastic place called Oz. One story of how he was inspired tells how he noticed a box of files labelled “O to Z.'” Another, that twirls around in a twister of it’s own, is that the two letters that make up the name of his fantasy megalopolis are each just one letter back from the letters N and Y. Hence, Oz is the city of New York.

Whichever the case, it’s interesting to note that many who were involved with the film production have come to their final rest in and around the New York area. However, Baum’s final resting place is in Forest Lawn, Glendale, California.

L Frank Baum graveIn Union Field Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens is The Cowardly Lion, Bert Lahr. Lahr was also originally from New York City. In Upstate New York’s Ferncliff Cemetery rests Dorothy herself, Judy Garland, as well as Harold Arlen, creator of the film’s musical score.

In Amenia, scattered over property she owned, are the ashes of the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton). Glinda, the Good Witch (Billie Burke) lies in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.

The rest of the Wizard of Oz principles, director Victor Fleming, Tin Man–Ray Bolger, Scarecrow– Jack Haley, Auntie Em– Clara Blandick, and Uncle Henry– Charlie Grapewin, all rest in Hollywood cemeteries.
bert lahr grave

There’s even a memorial site in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for Terry, the little dog who portrayed Toto.

toto grave

 

Movie Pressbook: Bela Lugosi in Voodoo Man (1944)

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This 11×17 inches pressbook is four pages and hypes the presence of "the Horror King" Bela Lugosi. Cheap picture, big horror stars: Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and John Carradine. I can watch any movie with Lugosi in it; he never budgeted his acting for any role. 

bela lugosi in voodoo man pressbook
bela lugosi in voodoo man pressbook
bela lugosi in voodoo man pressbook
bela lugosi in voodoo man pressbook

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Mexican Lobby Card: Los Vampiros De Coyoacan

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Bold coloration and an actual photo highlight this Azteca-styled Mexican lobby card for Los Vampiros De Coyoacan  grab attention. The masked luchador here is Superzan. Azteca (or "Spanish") lobby cards differ from the standard Mexican cards in two notable ways: the movie still is an actual photograph pasted onto the card and these lobby cards are printed in the U.S.A for use in Spanish-speaking movie houses. Azteca cards are 11 x 14 inches in size and printed on thicker paper than Mexican cards. 

Crackeds-for-monsters-only-6_0008

los vampiros de coyoacan lobby card

Book Review: Zombie Movies, The Ultimate Guide

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ZombieMoviesGuide Zombos Says: Excellent

I worry about Glenn Kay. Putting together a guide like this can be pretty exhausting, let alone having to watch so many good, bad, and stunningly ugly movies about the walking dead. Unless he's got his own television to hog, you can imagine the frays he gets into with the family. "What, isn't there anything else we can watch?" "Watching all this tripe will rot your brain. Are you listening to me?" "Daddy, I don't want to see more people being eaten. It's too yucky!"

You have to wonder what it's like to meet him at parties, or when he's going out to dinner with friends, and those times he needs to while away the dead hours in-between updates to his Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide.

Most horror fans would understand, though, and there but for the grace of God (or George Romero) goes Kay, summarizing, bashing, or praising the legion of celluloid undead that have eaten up our viewing time since Bela Lugosi's White Zombie. What's truly frightening is that given all the movies he covers within his guide's 400-plus pages, there's hundreds more he doesn't, either because they're too esoteric or out of reach or so godawful to watch even he's not that crazy.

The dead are laid out by decade, giving a bird's eye view of how zombie movies rotted out our sensibilities by taking ever more liberties with their nastiness–the more evocatively eerie voodoo zombies slowly evolving into our generation's screamingly terrifying, but beloved, flesh-eating variety. Not sure why the 1990s zombies took a nose-dive at the box office? This may shed some light on the subject for you. Did the social media boom of the 2000s speed up zombie locomotion? Kay has some thoughts on the subject (although decaying, fast-moving zombies are nonsensical to my mind).

Are you a Naschy or Jess Franco fan? Their zombie movies are here. Kay is not that keen on them (but neither am I). Are you a fan of hopping zombies, like those in Return of the Chinese Boxer (1975), or so bad it's funny zombie fare like Garden of the Dead (1974)? They are in here, too, either alluded to with a nod or a longer musing that takes into account the camera movements, effective effects (or not so much), and the exemplary or shoddy or giddily, stupidly, funny scripts. If you're a zombie fan you will be alternately pleased, annoyed, and maybe not so sure with your prized movies' standing as rated by Kay. He and I seem to jive on most accounts, although he's a bit enthusiastic on titles I'd rate a single thumb's up. This is an informative reference work to dog-ear and crimple often.

What makes this an entertaining and necessary volume for any horror fan's bookshelf is the mix of television and theatrical movies and series episodes that contain outright zombie elements–or close enough–to warrant their inclusion (although you may feel Kay stretching in some instances if you're a diehard zombie purist). And if realizing there are movies you haven't seen yet like Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town (1991) isn't satisfying for you, Kay's interviews with Greg Nicotero, Tom Savini, Stuart Conran (who gives the scoop on the blood mix used for Dead Alive, 1992) and others will seal the deal. Colin Geddes even explains why those Chinese vampires hop!

The only downside is it's only 400 or so pages.