Halloween

Sep
29

True Blood: Music From The HBO Original Series, Volume 3

Posted in Current Faves, Halloween, Horror, Music, Reviews, Soundtracks and Scores, Television |

By Melissa B.

There are some songs so perfect for TV shows, that when I hear them, I wonder why on earth the producers haven’t picked them to be on the soundtrack. The producers of True Blood have so far not needed my help and have done an amazing job of choosing evocative and intriguing music that enhances the show. The songs on Volume 3, the latest soundtrack release, are in so many cases the perfect True Blood songs.
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Sep
29

He Is the Night, He Is Vengeance, He Is Batman: The Animated Series

Posted in Cartoons, Comics, Films, Gaming, Halloween, Horror, Television |

By Paul Casey

Batman: The Animated Series was the cause of my love of Batman, superheroes, and later, comic books. I had seen Tim Burton’s wonderful 1989 adaptation early on and went to the cinema to see the underrated and childishly maligned (though rather too scary for my youth) sequel, Batman Returns. I was also aware of the 1960s Adam West TV show.

batman1

Even though I enjoyed these, it was the Noir shadows of The Animated Series which got to me. The vision of Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, Alan Burnett, and Paul Dini would stay with me. The opening is perhaps the most evocative and perfect definition of who Batman is as a character. Danny Elfman’s score is Batman.
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Sep
29

Crypts And Blood: A Creepy Crawl Through The History Of Horror Hosts

Posted in Films, Halloween, Horror, Television, The Internets |

By Cait Brennan

“There’s nothing on,” you say. A strangely common complaint in an era with hundreds, if not thousands, of 24-hour-a-day channels. Once upon a time, there was literally nothing on, because the two or three local stations your town was lucky to have would shut their transmitters off at 11 p.m. Stations invented every possible kind of stunt (up to and including running the weatherman’s home movies) to fill airtime, but eventually the exhausted staff would finish the late local news, have a priest give a drunken invocation, run the national anthem, and pull the damn plug.

But as the signals died, there through the flickering static, in the dark dead of night, one station would keep its dim light on, transmitting faded images of 1930s ghouls into your darkened living room. Then, out of the black, when it all started getting just a little too real, some character covered in blood cut their way into the movie and cracked wise. You’ve just met your horror host, and whether your movie was terrifying or just terrifyingly awful, spooky late nights never had a better friend.
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Sep
29

Greetings Traveller: Tales From Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

Posted in Comedy, Halloween, Horror, Science Fiction, Television, Underground/Cult |

By Paul Casey

garth marengi group

Greetings traveller. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace was a Sci Fi/Horror spoof aired on Channel 4 in Britain in 2004. Created by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade—who you may be familiar with as Moss from Graham Linehan’s The IT Crowd—Garth Marenghi did not receive the mainstream love of The Mighty Boosh or Peep Show, and yet of all of the sublime, interconnected comedy to come from Britain in the last decade, it may be the greatest.
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Sep
29

Jesus Take The (Lunar) Wheel: Apollo 18

Posted in Films, Halloween, Horror, Reviews, Science and Technology, Science Fiction |

By Emily Carney

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11′s lunar module Eagle landed on Earth’s Moon, beginning three years of unsurpassed, spectacular lunar voyages.

On December 14, 1972, Apollo 17′s lunar module Challenger departed the Moon’s surface, leaving a massive void in manned lunar exploration which continues to exist until the present time.

In the beginning of the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy sent out a resounding, powerful call to have a man walk on the Moon by the end of that decade, and NASA was wholly successful in their goal to meet such a momentous deadline.

It took Hollywood well over 50 years from that point to make Apollo 18. To paraphrase JFK, at the beginning of this decade, we made the worst space horror film, ever.
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Sep
29

Theatre Of Blood: The Stage Is Set . . . For Murder!

Posted in Comedy, Films, Halloween, Horror, Retrovirus |

By Aila Slisco

theatre of blood1

There is a space between comedy and horror which some people call black humor. If a movie can inhabit that space, it will likely be a favorite of mine. While this has certainly been used in movies up to the present day, the golden age of this kind of horror comedy film arguably happened in the UK several decades ago. Theatre of Blood is not only a great example of the horror comedy, but my favorite film of the subgenre.
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Sep
29

Halloween Nation: Behind The Scenes Of America’s Fright Night, By Lesley Bannatyne

Posted in Books, Current Faves, Halloween, Holidays, Horror, Reviews |

By Danny R. Phillips

Halloween, for as long as I can remember, has been my favorite holiday. Christmas is too shiny, Thanksgiving is too anxiety fueled (I come from a large, loud family), and Valentine’s Day is a joke. But Halloween? That’s one I could get behind.

The darkness, the pranks, the unlimited imagination, the scary movies on TV, the candy . . . the perfect holiday. So, if you have the same feelings about the darkest night of celebration, then Halloween Nation: Behind The Scenes of America’s Fright Night is for you.
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Sep
29

Horror Films Of The 1970s, By John Kenneth Muir

Posted in Books, Films, Halloween, Horror, Reviews |

By Less Lee Moore

horror films 1970s cover

As a film fan, I’m an unabashed lover of the 1970s. In the introduction to Horror Films of the 1970s, film and television critic John Kenneth Muir describes why in two words: “savage cinema.” There truly was something different about films of that decade, and horror films of the ’70s are no exception. In fact, sometimes lines between horror and non-horror were blurred so successfully that it’s difficult to define the exact genres of films like Deliverance or Straw Dogs, both of which are discussed in Muir’s book.

Part of what makes the “savage cinema” so unique and thrilling, claims Muir, is that it presented viewers with a universe in which there were no answers. Yet, he quotes documentary filmmaker Adam Simon, who says that horror can be “open to the traumas of the world” in a way which will “naturally convey truths.” This nexus between no answers and universal truths is precisely why horror films of the 1970s are so unique and so thrilling.
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Sep
29

Fate And Fault In A Ford Pinto: The Everyday Horror Of Cujo

Posted in Books, Halloween, Horror, Retrovirus |

By AJ Wood

cujo

On a recent warm summer night I was re-reading my favorite Stephen King novel, Cujo, by the open window. Just as King was describing how the foamy-mouthed mangy dog was munching into a man’s throat with quite serious OM NOM NOM gusto, my cat decided to come to the window and play a little joke on me.

“Meow?” he said in his meanest, growlingest voice (at least as I heard it).

“AHHHHHHH!” I replied, my body jolting, nearly tossing my e-book across the room.

Two important things I learned that evening: 1) the same stuff I use to clean up the cat’s pee works well at cleaning up my own accidents and 2) exactly what it is about Cujo that really scares the bejeezus out of me.
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Sep
29

The Haunter Of The Dark: Horror In Radio

Posted in Books, Halloween, Horror, Radio, Retrovirus, Science Fiction |

By Paul Casey

“It. Is. Later. Than. You. Think. Lights Out brings you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal, dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown. We tell you this frankly. So if you wish to avoid the excitement and tension of these imaginative plays, we urge you, calmly, but sincerely to turn off your radio, now. And now, Lights Out, everybody.”

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