A Nocturnal Nomad: Near Dark With Lance Henriksen

By Less Lee Moore

Every year as part of their Festival of Fear, Rue Morgue screens an iconic horror movie accompanied by a special guest. This year, we were treated to a screening of what may be the perfect vampire film, Near Dark, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, with Lance Henriksen (who plays Jesse Hooker) in attendance.

Near Dark is one of those movies that, forgive the cliché, truly improves with age, much like the vampires it portrays. It is even more relevant now than it was when it was originally released in 1987. Back then it was not exactly box office gold, although it has grown in both critical and cult status since.
(more…)

Nose Putty In My Hair: Time With Tom Savini

By Less Lee Moore

Tom Savini putting finishing touches on
Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th)
Photo from Wikipedia

Horror movie fans know the answer to the question: “Who is Tom Savini?” For the rest of you, here’s a quick summation: he’s one of the most well-known and highly respected special effects make-up artists in the movie industry. His filmography of effects work is impressive, including the original Dawn of the Dead, Maniac, Friday the 13th, Creepshow, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Trauma, and many others.
(more…)

We Were Having A Party And Harry Warden Started Killing Everybody: 30 Years Of My Bloody Valentine

By Less Lee Moore

If you’ve haven’t seen the original version of My Bloody Valentine from 1981, you’re missing out. If you haven’t seen the uncut version, you’re definitely missing out. The 2009 reissue contains almost five minutes of footage that wasn’t in the original, theatrical release. Five minutes doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but after an hour spent with members of the cast and crew of the film, I now understand why they meant so much.
(more…)

Such Dulcet, Horrifying Tones: The Music Of Silent Hill

By Jonathan Barkan

When I was 14 years old, my friend Alex rented Silent Hill, the first of the now infamous Konami series. He invited me over that night, full well knowing that this game would appeal to my horror fanaticism. Little did he know that he was going to ignite a passion for the Silent Hill franchise that has yet to diminish. Also, little did he know that after turning the game off that night, the two of us were so scared that we sat back to back the whole night, steel baseball bats in hand, ready to fend off whatever creatures came our way.
(more…)

Batman: Arkham City—The Album

By Paul Casey

Arkham City is the sequel to 2009′s Arkham Asylum, the very surprising critical and commercial success from Rocksteady Studios. This soundtrack of “interpretations of the stories surrounding Batman” features a set of Indie Rock Heads doing songs that are in no real sense representative of 1) why Arkham City has a shot at game of the year or 2) why Batman is such an enduring character. As a collection of low-grade Indie Rock, it is mostly intolerable.
(more…)

No Gods Or Kings. Only Man: Bioshock

By Paul Casey

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat on his brow? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No, says the man in Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers, instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose Rapture. The city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be restrained by the small. And with the sweat on your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

(more…)

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

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.
(more…)

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

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.

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.
(more…)

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

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.
(more…)

Greetings Traveller: Tales From Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

By Paul Casey

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.
(more…)