Call of the Dead

Rumbleseat - The Animated Short Film

Rumbleseat - animated ZOMBIES!

Scream 4 Body Count tally

Mr. Morlock isn't particularly well-read. But he is intellectually curious. Occasionally. He wonders how well this algorithm performed: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/04/08/the-rules-of-slasher-movie-body-counts.aspx.



Anyone? Is Neve Campbell finally dead, barring a lame Scream 5 time travel plot device?

Hammer is Back with The Woman in Black starring the Boy Who Lived!

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1661703/daniel-radcliffe-woman-in-black-trailer.jhtmlIt started as a book...then it was a smash hit play...now it is a film.  A Hammer film.  Awesomeness.  Check out some more news and the trailer here...

More The Woman in Black Videos

Drew Barrymore looks back at Scream...and Scream 4 opens.

Say what you will about it, I do enjoy the Scream franchise...in fact the Scream movie was one of the first times that I had an 'horror audience' experience.  Before that film, I had only seen horror films via VHS (save for Bram Stoker's Dracula...which I am not counting).  Seeing a film with a large group of people and experiencing the shrieks, laughs, and reactions is half the fun of horror movie-going.  Check out this new interview with Drew Barrymore about the making of Scream.    Also, the new Scream 4 has now opened.  Check out the trailer and let us know your thoughts on the film.

What is lurking under your house? The Bones of Bedlam....

Look what they found in London...

Cult Fiction

Cult Fiction's Unholy Sacrifices schedule! Happening Friday night, April 22nd at Lucky Number Grill (1931 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago).

New Cthulhu

"New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird" edited by Paula Guran comes out from Prime Books in November, 2011. Hit the link to to SF Signal to check out the amazing set of authors on the book's table of contents page.

H.P. Lovecraft and Alan Moore; two great tastes, one great flavor.

Read this marvelous essay now!

Because everyone should be aware of the blog Dork Forty, written by my best friend back home; the man that taught me everything I know about movies, literature, gaming and nerddom; Mark Brett, the above is a link to his latest entry.

This week he talks about a subject that should be near and dear to all of our hearts, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, specifically as they are dealt with in Alan Moore's final and seminal piece for the comic book industry, Neonomicon.

Neonomicon is a continuation of Moore's previous work, The Courtyard, and is definitely for mature audiences only- and only certain mature audiences, but that's usually implicit in the warning.  (As an aside, I got to talk briefly at this year's C2E2 with Jacen Burrows, the artist for this and other quite graphic and grisly comics like Crossed and Wormwood, and asked him what it was like to be the go-to artists for the worst possible imagery to grace comic book pulp in the last 20 years.  He simply said that he couldn't show all his friends what he did for a living.  Heh.)

Chicago Zombie Prom

Chicago Zombie Prom!

Netflix Roulette: Dead End (2003)

2003's Twilight Zone-y Dead End (directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa) is an unassuming little thriller in the mode of Carnival of Souls. I don't think I'm giving anything away by stating this up front, because it's so damned obvious to the viewer what's going on, even if it's not obvious to the characters in the film. This is the afterlife as an unpleasant car trip with your family. Hell, in other words.

The story here follows The Harringtons, Frank and Laura, and their children, Marion and Richard, on a long drive to Grandma's house for Christmas. Along for the ride is Marion's fiance, Brad. It's late on Christmas Eve, and Frank nods off ever so briefly behind the wheel, narrowly avoiding a collision with an oncoming car. After the near miss, they meet a hitchhiker on the road: a girl in a white dress carrying a baby. They give her a ride. During a pit stop, she lets Brad hold the baby. To his horror and dismay, the baby is dead. And soon, so is Brad, victim of a mysterious hearse that appears every time someone dies. As the trip continues down an endless highway that seems to loop back on itself, the Harringtons succumb to the hearse one by one.

I think you can fill in the rest. It's not terribly original and, like I say, it's not a hard movie to decode. But it's not bad for all of that. In fact, it was agreeably well-made. It makes the most of its limited setting. The car acts as a kind of microcosm where each of the characters is put into the crucible. The intent here is to deconstruct the family we're presented, and the Harringtons are suitably dysfunctional. Watching them tear themselves to pieces is the main pleasure of the movie, though the filmmakers offer a literal version of this, too. It likes its gore. This kind of movie rises and falls on its performances, and here, the filmmakers have wisely spent their money on pretty good actors. Ray Wise is the most recognizable face in the cast as Frank, and his put-upon patriarch reminds me a LOT of Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks. It's a similar performance. He doesn't overreach this--indeed, he's probably cashing a paycheck here--but Leland Palmer was a pretty good character, and so is Frank Harrington. The movie is all but stolen from everyone by Lin Shaye as Laura, though, who the filmmakers have provided with freak-out scenes and a license to chew the scenery. She dutifully obliges them. The other actors are good, too, though only Alexandra Holden is given any meat to chew on.

For the most part, it's fun watching these people come apart at the seams, but the movie would have been a B-movie programmer once upon a time, and it embraces that niche. That it's so derivative is disappointing, because this same selection of talent is clearly capable of better. One wishes that they had just a leetle more ambition. But they don't, and the result is perfectly fine. It's well paced and well-shot, and it does an admirable job with it's few gross-out scenes. Just don't expect it to surprise you.

Amber Benson signing at Challengers Comics

Amber Benson will be reading and signing her new book, Serpent's Storm, on April 9 at Challengers comics (2PM-5PM). Challengers is located at 1845 N. Western Avenue in Chicago.

Abomination! Near Dark vampires with 80% more sparkle!

Ugh.  I came across this while costume shopping yesterday.  Near dark has been released on blu-ray...which is awesome.  But they have 'twilighterized' the cover art.  Notice how sparkly the handsome Adrian Pasdar is now...AND he has the amber eyes.  The whole image is blatantly ripping off the Twilight poster.  Now I am not a twilight hater...in fact I kind of enjoy them.  Call it a guilty pleasure.  But I love Near Dark.  Love it and there is almost nothing sparkley about it.  So why they would trick people into thinking they are going to get a pretty vampire love story when they will actually get a gorey-backwoods-outlaw-vampires-in-recreational-vehicles movie is a bit mystifying.  However I do chuckle when I imagine how a twi-hard teen would react to this...

One Book, One Chicago: Neverwhere goings on this April...

Wildclaw was super-excited to hear about Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere being chosen for the One Book One Chicago program.  There is all this awesome stuff planned...we think you should go to it.  It will be good.  All will be right with the world...both above and below. 

Do it.

Check out the brochure here...