Black Sheep Bloodthirsty, murderous sheep are on the loose in a small farming village. Keep your fingers crossed, this upcoming horror movie from New Zealand just might be Snakes on a Plane 2!
posted by dhammond
on Jan 11, 2007 -
36 comments
The Harvard University Worklife Wizard , created by an international team of journalists, economists, and statisticians, is Barbara Ehrenreich's wet dream. It's also a fantastic resource that has flown pretty much under everyone's radar.
The Worklife Survey drives the constantly-revised, constantly-refined
Salary Comparison Tool, which is always hungry for more data about employment from around the world. And when they say they want data from everyone, they mean it-- there's even a
VIP Salary Checker that pits the wages of the Yankees against those of the Red Sox. (Plus if you take the survey, you can apparently earn a chance to win a trip to South Africa). Personally, I love the
Workplace Horror Stories (and there's a competition there too). I can't look at a nail clipper the same way now.
posted by yellowcandy
on Nov 20, 2006 -
26 comments
D. F. Lewis: Weirdmonger. "Lewis is either a genius graced with madness, a madman cursed with genius, both, or neither ... But there is more to Lewis than that. Believe you me, my pretties. Oh yes, much more. Because every so often you catch sight of something stirring beneath the frosted surfaces of his dreamy prose, something brilliant yet dark and brooding, something revelatory, something true, something that were you to see it all in a single glance would burn you to a cinder; but you still want to see; it speaks to you. In sibilant whispers. It tells you something you've been waiting to hear."—SAMHAIN review of BEST OF DF LEWIS. "I have a paranoid sensation that I'm always being followed by DF Lewis ... he's always there to torment me ... I can't get away from him even if I switch genres... Is he for real or did somebody invent him purely to annoy me?"—Problem page of OVERSPACE #13. "Then I turned over the page and AAARGH! DF f**king Lewis again!"—from THE SCANNER #11. "DF Lewis? When he's bad, he's awful, but when he's good there's no-one can touch him."—Rhys Hughes.
posted by Sticherbeast
on Sep 20, 2006 -
1 comment
In the 1960s, as a response to the Comics Code Authority's attempt to sanitize comic books, Warren Publishing
^ created a series of Graphic Magazine style horror books (using the "see, they're MAGAZINES, not comics, so that's why it's okay" defense), picking up the gauntlet from EC's Tales of the Crypt & other
50's era horror comics. The magazines, Creepy (and later) Eerie & Vampirella were rife with sex & gore, and featured full color well illustrated front covers by fantasy artists like Frank ("Conan") Frazetta & H.R. ("Alien") Giger. The
Warren Magazine Collection Site (warning: annoying non-skippable flash intro) has put the entire catalog of cover art from the full run of all three magazines online. Skip the flash intro, and go straight to the galleries:
Creepy,
Eerie &
Vampirella.
posted by jonson
on Sep 16, 2006 -
13 comments
If you know monster makeup, you already know the name
Jack Pierce, who created the makeup for
Frankenstein's monster,
The Wolf Man,
The Mummy, and
many others. But Pierce's career with Universal Studios, for whom he created these masterpieces, came to a sudden, and unexpected, end when, in 1945, he and his entire staff were fired.
The trouble? Pierce's methods were time-consuming and painstaking, involving, among other things, building up his creatures features with cotton and
collodion, a process that took many hours. Universal had
fallen on hard times, with mergers, sales of its catalogue, and the loss of its 1,500-screen theater chain bringing the bean counters to the fore. They wanted to cut back on Universal's grand-spending ways, and out with the bathwater went the baby.
The sorts of makeup men the bean-counters like were
George and
Gordon Bau, two brothers from Minnesota who had worked at
Rubbercraft and brought with them a knowledge of how to make reusable appliances from cheap, lightweight
foam latex. Their major accomplishment was
House of Wax (1953) and they revolutionized the industry (Dick Smith's work in
Little Big Man would be unthinkable without it, as would the entire career of
Rick Baker. Best still, it's now possible to buy
monstrous and
gruesome rubber appliances right off the shelf.
posted by Astro Zombie
on Jun 18, 2006 -
27 comments
There was a time when his scowling, oversized visage, his battered black fedora, and his long black coat, were as familiar to horror fans as such characters as Frankenstein and Dracula. This character, who appeared in three films, was called
"The Brute Man" or "The Creeper."
Only that terrifying face wasn't a mask or a creation of makeup. It was an actual face, a product of a condition called
agromegaly. And The Creeper never planned to be an actor at all, he was simply decorated war veteran-turned-
Tampa reporter who had shown up one day to cover a film. The movie's director noticed him and recommended he move to Hollywood and pursue a career as a character actor.
He was
Rondo Hatton.
posted by Astro Zombie
on Mar 5, 2006 -
18 comments
"He was someone who acted out our psyches ... He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen... the history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."
A Valentine for Lon Chaney, the
Man of a
Thousand Faces.
(BugMeNot for the first link; more inside)
posted by matteo
on Feb 18, 2006 -
14 comments
"They killed a man here last night." Stories of rapes, murders, and suicides are emerging from survivors of the "shelter" of the Superdome. From a National Guard soldier: "We found a young girl raped and killed in the bathroom. Then the crowd got the man and they beat him to death."
posted by cerebus19
on Sep 4, 2005 -
112 comments
Fear up, pride and ego down... It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.
posted by Shanachie
on Aug 3, 2005 -
119 comments
Monster Magazine Covers! Quote: "Vintage pulp magazines will be offensive to many people today. They were issued before the current climate of political correctness overtook the country. Themes of many magazines (or at least the covers) are racially insensitive, show violence to women, unsafe and/or promiscuous sex, and negative stereotyping of gays, lesbians, Asians, and almost any group you can imagine."
posted by mischief
on Jun 11, 2005 -
13 comments
Dracula Blogged: Bram Stoker's vampire novel, published by its own calendar. According to the site description:
Individual pieces of the novel will appear on the calendar dates indicated in the text, starting with Jonathan Harker's May 3rd Bistriz journal entry, and finishing up with November 6 and the final Note.
Be sure to check the comments, which are full of interesting tidbits about the novel, Stoker, Transylvania and historical accuracy (or innacuracy, as the case may be).
posted by LeeJay
on May 26, 2005 -
14 comments
The house in Amityville with the fan-shaped windows making an inhuman face is the
Godzilla of haunted house movies. The town and current owner of the house where the DeFeo family was murdered try to
downplay (registration required) its signficance. The trademark windows in the original have been replaced to disguise its identity, and lawsuits force studios to use a house-double. Although latest remake claims the status of "true story," the case has been widely dismissed as a
hoax and the 2005 film has even rased the ire of
George Lutz for how he is portrayed as the haunted father-figure. Other people involved in the case including convicted murder DeFeo are
unhappy with the new attention. Still, the story has its
true believers and
psychics who argue the debunkers have their own agenda. Then again,
Texas Chainsaw Massacre was also claimed by the same production company to be "inspired by a true story."
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Apr 15, 2005 -
12 comments
Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back The tattoo is of a great, blue mushroom cloud, and in the cloud, etched ghost-like, is the face of our daughter, Rae. Her lips are drawn tight, eyes are closed and there are stitches deeply pulled to simulate the lashes. When I move fast and hard they rip slightly and Rae cries bloody tears.
That’s one reason for the martial arts. The hard practice of them helps me to tear the stitches so my daughter can cry. Tears are the only thing I can give her.
East Texas writer
Joe R Lansdale has written
horror, science fiction,
fantasy,
mystery,
suspense, westerns, "
men's adventure," and just about
every other kind of writing you can think of. On his website
(see main link) Lansdale makes a story
available for free every week to his readers.
Lansdale also wrote a novella featuring an aging Elvis Presley who teams up with a delusional, African American John F. Kennedy to battle an ancient Egyptian mummy with a predilection for anal soul-rape. It made it to the big screen, too: Bubba Ho-Tep. With Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Nov 5, 2004 -
9 comments
The Dionaea House. Just in time for Halloween, a pleasingly creepy piece of fiction. (
Or is it??) An epistolary horror story, for the e-mail/phone text messaging/LiveJournal age. (Be sure to check out the Update section; the LJ is linked from there.) And I'm assuming further updates will continue to appear ...
posted by Kat Allison
on Oct 30, 2004 -
7 comments
Garth Marenghi is a sculptor of nightmares, is the only person you'll ever meet who has written more books than he has read. Now you can see the return of his
Cult '80s TV show. If you only get to see one TV series from the UK this year, and if you dare, then vist the Dark Place.
posted by seanyboy
on Jan 30, 2004 -
17 comments
The Horror Channel A 24-hour, all-horror, uncensored, digital cable channel plans to be launched for Halloween 2004, with programming to include classic and contemporary movies, specials, documentaries and original series’ each season. CEO and founder Nicholas A. Psaltos (former Director of Acquisitions and Program Administration at Bravo Television Networks) hopes the new genre network will capitalize on the success of other genre channels like Comedy Central and The Sci-Fi Channel. Psaltos has even put together a creative advisory board of genre legends and newcomers including John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, Guillermo del Toro, Tobe Hooper, Stuart Gordon, Lucky McKee, Eli Roth, George Romero and Rob Zombie. Starting a TV network is risky business and The Horror Channel is petitioning horror fans to help with programming by providing a survey on their consumer website. (Via
Rue Morgue)
posted by Jeffy
on Oct 2, 2003 -
17 comments
Grinding Nemo. The JWC company, maker of sewage equipment, wishes to issue a press release informing small children everywhere that contrary to scenes in the hit Disney movie, flushing fish down a toilet drain will not set them free in the ocean, but rather melt them with chlorine disinfectant before shredding them into particles with processing machinery. Have a great weekend.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Jun 6, 2003 -
22 comments
As the
remake of
Ringu opens in
Japan, a rash of remakes of Asian horror movies seems to be winding its way through Hollywood. Not only has Hideo Nakata's latest movie,
Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water), been optioned, the inevitable remake of
Ringu 2 will occur, and the Hong Kong
The Sixth Sense-esque
The Eye has also been picked up for the Hollywood process.
While it's nothing new to
remake classic
Japanese movies, this latest wave brings a lot of new questions. Is it near-impossible for the US to create horror movies that aren't
increasingly self-
referential? How long is it before we get remakes of
Audition,
Battle Royale, and
Suicide Club? And will we eventually end up with a horror movie in the style of
Fa talai jone, a Thailand Western influenced by
Hollywood Westerns which were influenced by
Japanese Samurai movies?
posted by Katemonkey
on Nov 5, 2002 -
26 comments
Literary Gothic offers up a splendid smorgasboard of literary ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and, of course, gothic. As a Victorianist, I have a particular predilection for their
ghost stories. Many more Victorian tales of the terrifying--and just plain weird--can be found
at this site, which also features an ongoing reading group. [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise
on Oct 31, 2002 -
8 comments
100 scariest movie moments Retrocrush is listing their top 100 scariest movie moments, and so far, the quality is pretty high -- well-chosen scenes, and interesting writeups. And one exploding head. You've been warned. Happy Halloween!
posted by GaelFC
on Oct 31, 2002 -
80 comments
Don't watch this. Dreamworks is starting up the hype machine for their remake of the Japanese horror film
Ringu (aka The Ring), and it looks like they're taking the A.I. route with it. The movie centers on a mysterious videotape that causes those who watch it to die seven days later.
Websites are popping up all over the place that seem to connect to the 'mystery'. The first link up top goes to a flash teaser of the actual video from the film, but if you're brave, you can
watch the whole thing at iFilm. I'm curious if this will indeed turn out to be an online game like
the Evan Chan mystery from A.I., or just some better-than-average Web marketing for what looks to be a damn creepy movie.
posted by toddshot
on Jul 31, 2002 -
29 comments
Attack Of The 50ft. Website! How do you kill a monster that never sleeps?! The monster created by atoms gone wild! All New! Thrills! Shock! Suspense! For your own good, we urge you not to see it alone! See the ghastly ghouls in flaming color! The greatest collection of classic science fiction and horror poster art on the net! Now showing in a browser near you.
This website has not been rated.
posted by riffola
on Apr 9, 2002 -
12 comments
So, has Stephen King lost it? This guy seems to think so. Some would say he never had it. I think that while this guy makes a few valid points, he goes overboard, and brings up many things that just seem petty and silly, like he's trying to over-prove his theory, and increase the word count of the article. What do you think? (Side note: I wouldn't be surprised if "Richard Blow" becomes the name of a victim in a future King novel...).
posted by sassone
on Feb 19, 2002 -
23 comments
"That's it. I'm done. Done writing books." After Stephen King publishes his next five new books, he's ending his career in publishing. Viewing his latest work as mere recycles of older novels that he has written, he's choosing to stop while he's at the top of his game rather than meet a grim end to his career. Are any fans of his work disappointed or do you feel satisfied with the body of work that he has created over his career?
posted by crog
on Jan 30, 2002 -
68 comments
Low or no budget horror films. They're awful, and oh so enticing (prolly 'cause they can be awful, amusing, and sometimes really good).
How do you do
special effects on no budget? Boggles the mind. As Halloween as it gets, the independant film makers and horror officiandos have their own
portal. Crawl down these
haunted corridors at your own risk.
posted by Wulfgar!
on Oct 31, 2001 -
7 comments
