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This is the type of horror magazine you would spot at a store, skim the glossy pages, and then walk to the check out line with it in your hand. Chris Retherford does an excellent job on the graphic design creating a mag that appeals to the eyes.
For Horror News, Toy Vault of Horror and Bound & Gagged (The Printed Page Reviewed) come standard. Other horror news such as upcoming movies are sparse.
The Movie Reviews sections are a tad odd. There is “Fresh Meat” (New) Movies section, which only featured Slither. There is “Dead Meat” (Look Back) movies section, which compared George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead to Dario Argento’s recut Zombi. “Rotten Meat” (Goodies Past their Due Date) movies section featured Cannibal Holocaust while “Slipped Discs” (Digital Terror Reviewed) movies section featured Hostel and Sinners and Saints. I think it would flow better if they lumped all the reviews together instead of spreading the reviews through out the magazine.
Also, they need more writers. Only Louis Fowler is reviewing the movies and he made a few comments that are likely to anger horror fans like saying Argento did a better job on a movie made by someone else, or that he prefers women in horror to not be so smart, or that Cannibal Holocaust made him scared of cannibals. (If you watched Holocaust, you will know that the tribes were not cannibals at all. The atrocities committed by the Americans and America’s failure to question the media is what made it so scary). He also bit the hand that fed him by saying that “most horror fans are complete idiots who are not only lying hypocrites, but are also shiftless do-nothings.” Ouch.
There were some good articles though. “Cannibals: Fact or Film?” by Sam Gafford, which covered the usual fare like Ed Gein and The Donner Party with a mixture of films like Silence of the Lambs and Motel Hell. What was missing though was the mention of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” which is one of the first satires ever documented and has him imploring Ireland to feed poor children to the rich in an effort to cut back on poverty and overpopulation.
“BTK: The Great Pretender” by Michelle Wilmot is very well told. It is written like dramatic fiction telling the stories of each of the victims, and then it switches POV to that of the killer. This had me excited, up until the point that it said Story Continued in Issue #2.
The “Dealing with the Devil” interview with Lucifer Valentine, director of Slaughter Vomit Dolls, has to be one of the most interesting I have ever read and I am not even referring to his admitted Emetophiliac disposition (vomit fetish). While he pontificates on the Vomit Gore genre (Yes, the vomit is real), he also references growing up in Africa and other “worlds”, Kurt Cobain’s death in a parallel dimension, and Carl Jung’s Theory of Synchronicity.
What really sets this mag apart from the rest is the living dead girl pictorial, which looks like a horrific centerfold. There are several pictures of this month’s model “frozen” and semi-nude. This also includes a mini bio, list of a few films she has done, and her website.
There are a few minor problems that can easily be fixed. There were grammatical errors and for some reason, every other line in the mag had a dash “-“ separating sentences. The Interviews needed more info such as the Make-Up Artist Dick Smith. They did not list the title of his book or his websites, which makes readers rely on Google.
Cost: A 5 Issue Subscription runs you $24.95, while a single issue is $7.95.
Bottom Line: A good start for a magazine, but has room for improvement. New writers were added to the site recently, so things are looking up.
Rating: 6.5/10
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