Released today from Lionsgate is the werewolf film Wolf Moon.

Last Thursday night, at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, Horroryearbook’s Gary G. and Andrew were ON THE SCENE at the film’s premiere. Written and directed by Dana Mennie, Wolf Moon is the tale of a small southwestern town terrorized by a rash of werewolf murders. It stars an impressive cast of genre veteran’s such as Maria Conchita Alonso, Chris Mulkey, Sid Haig, Lin Shaye, and Billy Drago; alongside up and comers Max Ryan, Ginny Weirick and Chris Divecchio. Horroryearbook was excited about possibly meeting some of our genre heroes, like Mulkey, Shaye and Haig in person.

As Andrew and I pulled up to the Raleigh Studio lot, where the Wolf Moon premiere was being held, we were immediately intimidated by seeing people arriving in tuxedos and expensive cocktails dresses since we both looked like we just got off work, which in my case was the truth. But we soon realized that since Horroryearbook has absolutely no reputation, at least not a good one, to live up to that we could relax and enjoy the ride. As the film’s press agent, Michelle, slyly admitted to us upon arriving, “We know who you are.” Upon which we were immediately directed to the open bar. Clearly our fearless leader, Wil’s, reputation for drunken shenanigans at press events had preceded us. No matter, the open bar really allowed us to loosen up from our initial embarrassment at being completely and utterly unprepared for this event. But kudos to press agent Michelle Czernin von Chudenitz for pretending that we actually mattered while the real press people were out on the red carpet interviewing and photographing the stars of the movie and we sat inside the reception tent slugging glass after glass of Cutty Sark Whiskey, red wine and cocktails. If we had seen the sushi earlier we would have partaken but we were trying to get a load on before embarrassing ourselves.

As we hid in a corner of the reception tent we tried to Google the names of the actors in Wolf Moon on my phone as Andrew stared nervously around the room, which was full of the films crew and who were clearly eying us and wondering who the hell we were. There were faces I recognized like Chris Mulkey, from Cloverfield and a million other movies and Lin Shaye, from There’s Something About Mary, 2001 Maniacs, the original NOES. In fact I had to reach around the tiny Ms. Shaye to get a much needed drink. And Mulkey is much taller and much more imposing in person than onscreen. They hugged and chatted with their co-stars and crew as they all kept peeking over at the two of us , vainlly attempting to look as if we weren’t trying to Google their names in the corner. Just as the Wolf Moon IMDB page loaded onto my phone, it went dead.

BREAKING NEWS! Your WEB service sucks ass, METRO PCS.

After the screening we felt a bit more prepared, now being able to connect actor to character and actually having something to discuss with these people. Sadly Sid Haig and Maria Conchita Alonso were no shows but the rest of the cast couldn’t have been more gracious.

In Wolf Moon Lin Shaye steals her few minutes of screen time playing the dredlocked psychic who is the only person who senses the impending horror. Shaye has been a personal favorite of mine since I first learned her name as the sun burned Magda in Something about Mary. Wearing a stylish red jacket, black cocktail dress with cowboy boots, Shaye was a popular lady at the reception. I got a chance to pull her aside and asked if it would be alright if I gushed over her for a moment.

“Not at all. I’d love it” she replied.

I went on to ramble about how she is one of the horror genres reigning stars and how much I loved her amazing performance in the unheralded gem Dead End.

“You know, you’re the third person who has told me that tonight. People really love that movie.”

I continued to ramble and remarked on how I loved her Granny Boone character in 2001 Maniacs upon which she excitedly asked if I had seen the sequel. I hadn’t, so she told me about an upcoming screening at The Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Hope to see you there Lin. I love to find out that actors I admire are actually nice people.

As I fawned over Lin Shaye, Andrew was in the bathroom being accosted by leading man Chris Divecchio and Billy Drago. Just as Andrew got to the urinal in the cramped Mens bathroom Divecchio and Drago pull up and hover behind him, causing Andrew an intense bout of pee shyness. “This seems to be the clog,” Drago snarkily commented. Andrew then proceeds to feign peeing then beat it out of there, totally embarrassed. Andrew will kill me for recounting this story. But lets be honest, if Billy Drago was standing behind you, could you pee freely?

For me that question was answered a few minutes later when I literally ran into Mr. Drago. As a long time genre fan who has an affinity for off kilter charter actors like Billy Drago, for me this was like meeting Tom Cruise if I were a bored, overweight housewife, or Robert Pattinson, if I was a virginal overweight teen girl, or Reggie Bush, if I was a overweight armchair football fan. But I’m an overweight genre movie nerd so meeting Billy Drago is the shit.

In Wolf Moon Drago plays Thibodeaux, the detective who has been tracking the murders committed by the werewolf. He brings his customary intensity to the small but pivotal role..

Let me just say this, for those of you who are familiar with Drago’s work playing every kind of miscreant and creepozid and psychopath. he couldn’t have been nicer. Yes, staring into that unmistakable visage was disconcerting. I told him that as a genre fan I had probably seen most of his work. He replied, “Oh I don’t know about that. I’ve been in over 100 movies. Yet when I admitted that my favorite of his performances was in the forgotten 1988 thriller Freeway, his eyes lit up and Drago shook his head in disbelief.

“Wow. Now there’s a title I haven’t heard in ages”

(Score one for Gary G.)

In Freeway, Drago plays a psycho religious fanatic who is shooting and killing people driving in their cars along LA’s labyrinthine freeway system. I told him about how I agonized over whether I should get rid of my VHS copy of Freeway as I packed to move to Los Angeles. Drago told me that the film was practically a guerrilla film-making exercise since the production had absolutely no permits to film any of the films many daring freeway shoot outs, car crashes and explosions.

“We just went out there late at night and did it,” Drago bragged.

Drago was full of stories about his adventures as a leading genre character actor. A quick look at his IMDB page reveals that Drago has rarely been out of work since the late seventies. He travels around the world, called to deliver his trademark brand of intensity to any number of big and small roles.

“I live in the canyons. I sit at home and wait for a call. They tell me the part and when I fly out and I get on the plane. Go shoot the scenes. Then get back on a plane, go home and wait for the next call.” says Drago.

“You probably have a lot of stories. You could write a book.” I told him.

Drago become very animated and replied, “Oh you don’t even know. I’ve seen people killed.” upon which he entered into a story involving Drago filming a scene in a maze inside of a Russian prison during the Cold War in which……

Well, for the safety of everyone involved I’m not going to rehash the story Drago told me, but it was pretty fucking insane.

Did I also mention that Jeff Speakman sat right behind me during the screening. Apparently he will be starring in the next film directed by Wolf Moon director Dana Mennie.

Billy Drago, Chris Mulkey and Jeff Speakman. If only Micahel Pare or Cynthia Rothrock or Rutger Hauer had walked in, I could be a bit player in an HBO Thursday Night Prime movie. (If you get that reference, congratulations, you’re over thirty).

The party was in full swing. Andrew and I had a wonderful conversation with actor Steven Man, star of director Rolf Kanefsky’s One in the Gun, which got a rave review from Amanda By Night. We had a wide ranging conversation about a really interesting project that he is developing with a director friend and why we thought that Splice had flopped despite rave reviews from a slew of major critics. We came to the conclusion that Splice was simply marketed to the wrong crowd. Had it been rolled out into a few art house theaters first it may have attracted a more sophisticated(older) audience attracted by its stellar reviews. This was the verdict of myself, Andrew and Steven, though no one asked us for one. Steven Man was a cool dude.

All evening I kept starring at actor Max Ryan, who played the vicious werewolf killer Bender. Yes, he is incredibly handsome in person and out of werewolf makeup. But that wasn’t it. I felt like I knew him in some other way. Of course it wasn’t until I got home and returned my rental copy of Death Race to the Red Box in Albertsons did I realize that he played Pachenco, the head of the Nazi prison gang. He also played “Lawrence of My Labia “ in that other werewolf horror film Sex in the City 2.

Another new face that I enjoyed was ingenue Ginny Weirick, who plays star crossed werewolf-lover Amy in Wolf Moon. Because her character was such the plain Jane girl next door type I wasn’t prepared for how gorgeous Weirick in person was. The girl is smashing. Hey! Big Hollywood execs! Stop playing with that dollar store off brand Barbie Meghan Fox and start hiring an actress like Weirick who is pretty AND talented. In our brief chat she revealed that she just finished a film called Hit List with Cuba Gooding Jr. She’s a face to watch.

Hunky Chris Divecchio plays Weirick’s love interest, Dan, a drifter with a secret. I had a difficult time picking Chris out during the evening. Later I realized it was because he was wearing a long sleeved silk shirt that covered up all of the amazing torso he displayed many, many, many times in the movie. If you’re into man flesh DiVecchio serves it up fresh in Wolf Moon.

Well, that’s the way it happened. Andrew and I managed to have a great time despite ourselves.

We will keep you abreast of all of our adventures here in Hollywood and

ON THE SCENE.

THAT MAN IN HIGH-HEELS JUST TRIED TO KILL ME!!!

Horroryearbook’s list of The Top 15 TRANSEXUAL KILLER MOVIES
By GARY G.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho not only jumpstarted the modern horror film, it also introduced a new kind of villain to movie audiences – the transexual killer. The climactic image of a crazed, knife wielding Norman Bates, dressed up like mommy was a perverse shock for the conservative movies audiences of the early sixties. Infused with the kind of psycho-sexual undercurrents that shockmeister filmmakers love to exploit, the Trans-Killer sub-genre grew out of the matchbook psychobabble on serial killers that began to proliferate after Psycho’s success and the sensational true life crimes of crazy fuckers like Ed Gein and the Zodiac Killer. So movie villains of classic bygone horror films, the mischievous dandies, megalomaniacal super villains and supernatural creatures , were no longer effective. The modern day boogeyman was the next door neighbor that volunteered at the church picnic but kept a collection of prostitute torsos in his basement freezer. This idea of the duality of the psycho killer is what Psycho wrought and it is what the Trans-Killer sub-genre is, essentially, powered by. What better way to dramatize the split mind of the psychopath than to have a killer who cant even reconcile their own gender.

PSYCHO opened the door and suddenly villainous trannies became very popular. One of the earliest, and best transsexual villains was in the 1968 Japanese cult film BLACK LIZARD. Drag Artist Akihiro Miwa made a grand super villain, dressed in flowing chiffon and twirling about with every dramatic gesture. The Hammer film DR. JEYKLL AND SISTER HYDE (1971) had Ralph Bates turning into Martine Beswick with the aide of an elixir made from the female hormones of murdered prostitutes. Naturally, Sister Hyde is even more evil and sadistic than her crazed alter ego. Audiences also had to endure the horrifying sight of Rod Steiger dressed in drag in the brilliant black comic thriller, NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY (1968). Steiger’s drag act was just one of his serial killers’ hammy disguises. But the truly brutal psycho tranny started to appear in movies like BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), and FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974). In Dolls, the flamboyant record producer Z-MAN, played with vile glee by John LaZar, goes on a sudden, shockingly violent rampage and murders everyone at a sleazy Hollywood orgy when his “secret” is exposed. And Richard Rush’s Freebie and the Bean has James Caan getting his ass whooped in a ladies restroom by a vicious, cross dressing killer played by Christopher Morley. Most often the transsexual killer is revealed in a cheap twist at a films climax. As in one of my favorite bad slasher movies FATAL GAMES (1984), where a conveniently placed newspaper reveals the killers true identity to his/her final victim. And sometimes the tranny killer twist can be a complete surprise as in one of Roger Corman’s best, cheap, late night cable thrillers STRIPPED TO KILL (1987).

The films in this sub-genre span the varying levels of the cinematic quality. Oscar winning filmmakers, schlock purveyors and many a nobody have all had a go at the tranny killer theme. Admitedly, these films are not politically correct and in some cases they are downright offensive to transgender people. But, political correctness aside, they do, in some cases, successfully exploit the uncomfortable feelings most people still have about gender and sexuality. For the lazy writer the transsexual angle is an easy way to dramatize a killers dual personality and exploit an audiences ingrained prejudices and fears and touch on certain undercurrents of misogyny and homophobia that are uncomfortable but can also make for disturbing and gripping filmmaking.

So, though no one asked or was looking for it, here is Horroryearbook’s list of the TOP 15 TRANSEXUAL KILLER MOVIES as decided by me, Gary G, the worlds foremost transsexual killer movie expert.

SPOLIER ALERT: Be advised that the transsexual angle in some of these films comprises that films twist ending. Most of the listed titles are well known to the casual horror fan but some titles are relatively obscure. I won’t reveal any clues to the identity of the trans-killer in any movie but if you see a title listed here you will know that the film has a transsexual twist to it. Fair-Warning.

15. TERROR FIRMER (1999) Sick. Twisted. Perverted. Disgusting. It’s Troma. The venerable Lloyd Kaufman directs one of Troma’s best latter year films. A psychopathic tranny, played with no shame by Wil Keenan, is slaughtering the crew of some crappy low-budget movie. Dismemberments, castrations, genital mutilations, fetus’ ripped from the womb and every conceivable bodily fluid are just some of the cinematic offenses offered up by Kaufman and team, which includes co-screenwriter Douglas Buck who is known more for his artsy short horror films Home and Cutting Moments.

Terror Firmer is total gross-out splatstick so it’s in no way scary but that’s not the point. The trans-killer here is just part of the perverted wallpaper. But he/she remains one of the most vile villains in recent memory. Not for the squeamish, as if I had to say that.

14. UNHINGED (1982) Three stupid college coeds’ car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and they end up taking shelter in a huge, dark, rambling mansion inhabited by an elderly, aristocratic snob and her tightly wound daughter. Those coeds end up in an unfortunate way. But I saw that coming. It’s an early eighties slasher movie! What I didn’t see coming was the suddenly out of nowhere transsexual twist that ends this crazy fucking movie. Once one of Britain’s Video Nasties, Unhinged had a small rep overseas but sat mostly ignored on video store shelves in the states. So this films transsexual twist was well guarded when I finally found my way to it in the mid nineties. The murders are nasty and bloody and director Don Gronquist gives the film a nice, poverty row, gothic feel but, to be honest, this movie is as slow as a geriatric bowel movement. So the trans twist at the films end is a nice jolt after the nap you will invariably wake up from. The definite whiff of misogyny in the final brutal murder gives the ending a shocking punch. You simply aren’t expecting it from what has been a by the numbers slasher.

13. VULTURES (1983) An utterly forgotten camp fest with sub tv movie production values, unintentional comedy, horribly benumbed acting and starring the trash-horror-movie tri-fecta of Stuart Whitman, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Aldo Ray. Vultures still manages to be one of the most entertaining crappy slasher movies on this list. A wealthy old man dies and the heirs to his fortune start to get butchered one by one. Like Unhinged this movie is filled with very bloody murders, and it’s trans twist is a big surprise but Vultures is fun in a way that Unhinged never is. While it kind of looks like an old episode of Colombo, the mystery of WHO is killing off the heirs to the family fortune is very good, resulting in an ending that is as hilarious as it is surprising. And a very well known entertainer makes a cameo that you won’t forget.

12. William Castle’s HOMICIDAL (1961) was the first post-Psycho rip-off. Castle shamelessly borrows the Hitchcock films prologue of the icy blond temptress on the run from the law. But here it is the blond temptress, played by Jean Arliss, who is the psycho, murdering anyone who comes between her and her horrible secret. Can you figure out that secret? Huh. I’ll give you TWO guesses. While the secret may be utterly obvious to anyone with halfway decent eyesight Castle’s film is totally enjoyable and quite spooky at times. Castle was a huckster but he was good at crafting a successful suspense scene. You should also check out his underrated spook-fest The Night Walker. No trannies in it but its scary as hell anyway.

11. REFLECTION OF FEAR (1973) An atmospheric, sad, disturbing, 70’s psycho-thriller that has been overlooked for decades. There is a trans-twist here that, like many of these films, seems to come out of nowhere. But that does not distract from what is such an unsettling and suspenseful horror-thriller. Robert Shaw returns to his home town with his new wife, played by Sally Kellerman.

His ex-wife and mother in law are raising the daughter he barely knows in relative cloister in a huge, dark, mansion. A series are of shocking murders follows. Filled with shadowy cinematography by the great Lazlo Kovacs, great performances, eerie atmosphere and loaded with all kinds of Freudian psycho-drama, Reflections of Fear is a film that should have a bigger following than it does.

10. Dario Argento’s 4 FLIES ON GREY VELVET (1971) is the typical Psycho-inspired, Italian giallo. It also offers up one of the most stupid motives in a sub-genre brimming with dumb motives. The trans-killer element is actually well hidden so it’s revelation is kind of a surprise but, again, the killers excuse for his rampage is all kinds of WTF. But Argento’s stylistic command and grotesque flourishes make this a very strong giallo. Shamefully 4 Flies remains unseen to many horror fans because it has never had an official video or DVD release in the states. It’s pretty easy to find a bootleg and I’m sure it will find it’s way to DVD eventually.

9. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1990) This now classic, Oscar winning thriller is an arguable choice for this list. The trans twist is a minor point of the story of Buffalo Bill, the hulking, retarded, psycho who is making a lady suit out of real female flesh. We never really see Bill wearing that suit or even really see him kill anyone. But Silence of the Lambs is on this list because of one scene and one scene only. You know which one I’m talking about. It has haunted my own personal nightmares for years and I’m sure I’m not the only one. BUFFALO BILL’S DRESS UP SCENE! As the senator’s daughter tries to lure Precious, the dog, into the pit where she’s imprisoned, Buffalo Bill pretties himself up; fingering his pierced nipples, coloring his chapped lips, whispering “will you FUCK ME”, prancing around with his dick tucked between his legs, while wearing sheer light blue stockings and a giant multicolored cape, dancing to the techno thump of the song “Goodbye Horses” by Q Lazzarus. A sequence of such derange brilliance that it alone justified Jonathan Demme’s Oscar for Best Director. EWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

8. PRIVATE PARTS (1972) Here is some more cinematic EWWWWWWWWWW. Paul Bartel’s creepy, intensely weird, perverted comic-thriller Private Parts. A slutty runaway ends up at her crazy Aunt Martha’s Skid Row flop house. A macabre assortment of oddballs and lowlifes and one vicious slasher killer also reside at the decrepit flea pit. It ends with one of the most depraved sex encounters I’ve ever seen in a non-porno.

Bartel does wonders in creating a kinky, debased world of cretins and the bizarre world they live in. Although black comedy reigns Private Parts nevertheless left me feeling disgusted and horrified. The trans killer twist is one of the odd surprises of this film so I’ll let you figure it out. See it NOW.

7. DEADLY BLESSING (1981) Set among the Hittite clan of the Amish Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing concerns an Incubus, or evil sprit, that seems to be responsible for several grisly murders. Ernest Borgnine, as the patriarch of a Hittite family, believes the Incubus is the widow of his recently deceased son, who left the clan to marry her. The widows girlfriends, one played by a young, pre-insanity Sharon Stone, arrive to offer their support to their bereaved friend. They end up terrorized by The Incubus as well. What, or who, The Incubus, is is a real surprise. Yes there is a trans-killer twist involved here but you just have to experience the shocking revelation for yourself. It’s pretty out there but that shouldn’t detract from what is a very scary, suspenseful early shocker from Craven. He is a master at building terror filled atmosphere and he does that quite admirably in this film. Don’t let the bad reviews deter you.

6. HE LIVES BY NIGHT (1982) This Hong Kong film is an odd duck because not only is it a bloody, slasher film but it’s also a pretty funny slapstick romantic comedy on top of it. It also features one of the most brutal trans killers in any movie. The trans-killer here is slashing any woman he/she sees wearing white stockings for a reason that is as dumb as any in these movies. His/her weapon of choice, a box cutter. And he/she uses it with a sickeningly brutality that may make some uncomfortable. Director Po-Chich Leong has obviously modeled the kill scenes in his film after many Italian giallo. The first murder has the victim walking down a dark alley and getting caught up in silk sheets that are hanging out to dry. Suddenly the trans-killer starts slicing through the sheets with that box cutter until he/she gets to the screaming victim, slices her to shreds then rips her white stockings off and strangles her with them. The best sequence, though, has the killer following two dippy girls home. While one of the girls takes a bath the other finds herself attacked by the killer. While the bathing girl is singing in the tub she fails to hear the screams of her girlfriend who is being sliced by that box cutter. The victim manages to get to the bathroom and collapses inside the doorway. The killer finishes her off as her friend lies cowering behind the shower curtain. The killer then enters the bathroom and the bathing girl slinks under the bath water as the killer then approaches the tub and…..washes his/her hands in the water the girl is hiding under. This sequence alone is worth it but He Lives By Night is one of the few films that actually manages to handle it’s horror elements and the comedic bits evenly. For every horrific, brutal murder there is some slapstick nonsense involving the overweight detective investigating the murders and the radio DJ that he has a crush on who will eventually end up attracting the trans-killer. For an example don’t miss the scene towards the end where the villain tries to kill someone with a 7Up vending machine. Seriously. It may be hard to track down but definitely put this one on your TO FIND list.

5. SEED OF CHUCKY (2004) I am still smarting about the fact that Don Mancini’s brilliantly over the top, perverse, black comic reinvention of his own Chucky franchise was completely misunderstood by it’s critics and passed over by the mass audience who would’ve loved it. Had they seen it. But it’s also completely understandable for a movie starring a psychopathic, split personality, gender confused, murderous doll to get overlooked. For those of us who got Mancini’s acerbic spoof on Hollywood, horror movies, serial killers and family drama, Seed of Chucky was a indelible experience. Full of gross out comedy, gory violence, and the performance of a lifetime by the great Jennifer Tilly, Seed was a complete delight because you never really knew where it was going. So when Chucky’s “seed” Glen suddenly turned into Glenda it was not only a shock but fucking hilarious. Every time Glen’s eye twitched as he slowly went bat-shit crazy I was on the floor in hysterics. But then I love twisted comedy. Seed is such a departure from the original Child’s Play that maybe folks just did not get that Mancini was in no way trying to scare anybody but was just trying to make fun of the genre itself. I and my friends Will, Lance and Andrew got it Mr. Mancini. Good job. The rest of you fuckers need to get with it.

4. TERROR TRAIN (1980) & GIRLS NITE OUT (1984) Two slasher films from the early eighties. One is now considered a classic of the genre. The other is derided by almost everyone. But both contain climactic trans-killer twists that are a total shock. Terror Train’s tranny twist is just that, a twist. The fact the killer’s identity doesn’t exactly match their disguise is simply used to throw the audience off track. There is none of the stunning misogyny of other films on this list- like GIRLS NITE OUT. Wow. Somebody really hates sluts. That’s the uncomfortable feeling you have after a viewing of Girls Nite Out. Set at a small mid-western college during an all night scavenger hunt, Girls Nite Out follows a bunch of sexually voracious cheerleaders who are viciously slaughtered by an intensely bloodthirsty killer, who is disguised as the dancing bear mascot that’s supposed to be cheering the scavengers on. I‘ll repeat just incase the retardedness of it didn’t sink in. The killer is disguised as a giant bear, complete with long, sharp, metal claws. And those claws do some damage. The murders here are incredibly nasty. The bear suited killer, snarling and growling, ripping into his victims while screaming “slut” and “whore” at them, just sick, I tell ya. And that’s what gives this movie it’s power. The misogyny in other Trans-killer movies is either indirect or just under the surface. In Girls Nite Out that misogyny is a focal point of the killers anger and the twist that caps this movie off. I believe that this is what turns many of this movies haters off. The movie is no slower paced or more ridiculous than any other classic slasher but the dancing bear angle doesn’t help. But Girls Nite Out is tense and scary and silly and sick. My Kind of movie. Terror Train, on the other hand, is simply one of the best early eighties slasher movies. We all know the story, some frat jerks pull a stupid prank on some nerd and a year later, on board a New Years Eve Party train the responsible party get picked off. And Jamie Lee Curtis is along for the ride. The trans twist at this films climax remains one of the best surprise killer reveals ever. It may not have any of the icky comparison between trans-sexuality and psychopathy that defines other trans killer movies but Terror Train still delivers all these years later. Its the kind of straight up old school American horror slasher film that NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO MAKE ANYMORE, no matter what they say on the video box, and yes I’m talking about Hatchet.

3. BLADE IN THE DARK (1983) & DELIRIUM (1987) Lamberto Bava’s twin gialli Blade in The Dark and Delirium, one at the start of the eighties and the other towards decades end, were essentially bookends for the giallos last act. Blade in the Dark is, in my opinion, the best giallo from the genres latter years. Set in an isolated cottage where a film composer is writing the score for a horror movie, Blade is filled with the sadistically violent murders of several beautiful young women who come calling on our composers attention. Bava does a great job of creating an atmospherically tense and genuinely scary thriller. The final murderous chase through the isolated villa is one of the most edge of the seat sequences in the genre. But what really comes through in Blade is its dark thread of misogyny. The killers hatred of the female victims is unmistakable and it makes the film that much more disturbing. Blade is a classic. Delirium, on the other hand, is an hilariously entertaining fart of a movie. The star of the show are the giant titties of Italian porno actress Serena Grandi, who “acts” the part of Gloria, the obscenely rich publisher of a glossy porno mag called PUSSYCAT. Her models are being slaughtered by a vengeful psychopath who then mails Gloria a photo of the murdered models posed in the same positions of her old porno pictures. It’s all a pretty sleazy, skuzzy affair. Filled with copious nudity, ridiculous dialogue, crippled perverts making obscene phone calls and more gaudy late eighties fashion than one set of eyeballs should ever have to endure Delirium has always been Lamberto Bava’s most ridiculous excuses for a mortgage payment. Of course, I love it. But unlike Blade, Delirium is never scary or suspenseful although the killers identity and motives are whole bowl full of woman-hate. While Blades misogynistic undertones create a unsettling atmosphere, Deliriums’ misogyny comes off as scummy and exploitative. The finale, which has the killer ripping Gloria clothes off and puking blood up on her couldn’t be more twisted. Mind you, I’m not complaining. It’s just that Blade In The Dark leaves an impression whereas Delirium is an unintentional camp delight.

2. DRESSED TO KILL (1980) Brian DePalma’s sleek, stylish, suspenseful ode to, or rip-off of, Psycho is really the absolute epitome of the trans-killer subgenre. It really should be number one but it’s achievements have been extolled elsewhere ad nauseum. It’s simply one of the best thrillers of the eighties. But what really sets Dressed to Kill apart is that it possess the absolute most, pardon the expression, killer, He-He!, looking trans-killer of the entire genre. Six feet tall, high heeled black leather boots, long blond wig, black leather gloves, dark shades and the slickest, sharpest looking full length, black, natch, leather coat. This tranny is fierce. The image of her hiding just behind poor defenseless Angie Dickinson as the elevator doors shut continue to send chills down my spine. And like that bear in Girls Nite Out, this tranny really hates sluts. As in Psycho, the explanatory denouement fills in the blanks for us. Because Dressed To Kill is so well made it ceases to appear as hateful as movies like Unhinged. But make no mistake, without it’s lush trappings Dressed To Kill is as darkly woman hating as any of these movies.

1. SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983) Sleepaway Camp is not the best film on the list. It’s not even the scariest. It’s certainly not the most accomplished technically. And on list of great slasher films it’s just about a notch above MADMAN and below HELL NIGHT. But no one, and I mean NO ONE, who saw Sleepaway Camp back in the day, before the sequels and the internet ruined the twist ending, no one can say that they did not jump out of their seat, either with shock or laughter at that now infamous final image of Angela, our innocent heroine, brandishing an ax, her cheating boyfriends decapitated had on the ground, growling like a feral animal, with her dick hanging out. It seemed so out of left field. So retarded, in fact. The shot itself lends much to the shock and disorientation of the moment. Felissa Rose’s head digitally added onto the body of some unfortunately underdeveloped young man is really shitty looking. Sleepaway Camp is also the most ridiculous representation of an idea inherent in many of these trans killer films. That is the idea that simply because this “girl” Angela is really a male forced to appear as a girl, that he/she has automatic psycho killer leanings. There is no evidence anywhere in the film, and especially in Felissa Rose’s deer-in-the headlights performance, that Angela would even squash a bee if it landed on her arm let alone slaughter, like, ten people. The curious viewer then has to think back, the gay parents whose death begins the movie, the abundance of naked male flesh and the complete absence of any female nudity, the weird, insane, possibly transsexual herself, aunt who makes that poor little hairless boy into Angela because she “already has a boy“, the weird allusions to sexual molestation. What was writer, director Robert Hiltzik Thinking? Hmmmm? What is the point? Maybe there is no point except as a cheap thrill. But clearly the mind who came up with this had something on their mind. And that my friends is essentially where the trans-killer movie gets it’s uncomfortable power from, the ripples of misogyny and homophobia that keep bubbling up from under the surface. They may be crude, ridiculous and ignorant but the trans-killer and the transsexual killer movie do get under your skin.

Diary of the Dead (2008)
Directed by George Romero
A Second opinion by Gary G.

God, I fucking hated this movie. Okay, so the concept of a zombie outbreak documented through the amateur shot video of a group of survivors has amazing possibilities. But George Romero’s Diary of the Dead fucking sucks. A great concept without a great execution is a great big load of pretentious shit. I don’t fault Romero for trying to do something inventive but this film is just poorly done. First of all the performances from this cast of nobodies are truly atrocious. The star of the film, Michelle Morgan must give amazing head because I can’t understand how such a monotone, un-emotive, Botoxed performance could be allowed to anchor this film. Even in her big, dramatic scenes she looked bored and uninterested. And the rest of this D-level cast are barely worth mentioning. But in all fairness what could any actor do with Romero’s groan inducing, on-the-nose dialogue. When the dialogue isn’t filled with repetitive filler (One guy is attacked by a zombie in the hospital, in front of his friends, and his girlfriend runs over to him and asks “What happened?’ Weren’t you just fucking watching? I was.) the dialogue is too often filled with preachy, ham fisted, oration’s on media manipulation, and annoying tech talk about uploading and shit. For Romero’s concept to work we have to actually believe, in some way, that what we are watching is real. But due to the horrible acting, and Romero’s inability to be subtle anymore, at no point do these people or their situation feel real. As such the entire concept fails. It can be done. Anyone ever see Man Bites Dog, a “documentary” on the exploits of a Russian serial killer? Some people still think that was a real documentary. And as much as I personally hated The Blair Witch Project at least it seemed like actual amateur footage. And Cloverfield is purposefully filled with the type of shallow, annoying people who would actually keep their camera phones running as people die around them. Romero has to have his self important characters constantly justify why they are filming their friends being killed with some of the most eye rolling speechifying this side of Crash.

Diary of the Dead is in my opinion one of the poorest films from a major director I have ever seen. Why are so many fans so easily impressed when a movie has some middling social commentary? Some reviews have the whiff of over excited fan worship. “Romero is Back!” “Romero is the King!”. Also why do things that actually have very little to do with the quality of the movie itself excite so many. This low budget production is supposed to be a return to Romero’s “indie” roots” which impresses people who are impressed by such things. Oh and did you hear that some horror icons have voice over cameos? So fucking what. Were you watching the movie or in a tizzy because you heard Steven Kings voice?

This film comes of so badly even Romero’s trademark black comedy fails to land. A lot of people are peeing themselves over the appearance of the deaf Amish guy and the Zombie clown episode. Both of these scenes are very short and in no way make up for the rest of this mess. It seems as if this films adherents were more interested in the idea that this would be a return to form for Romero and based their reaction on their own wish fulfillment. In fact this movie is an embarrassing degradation of Romero’s trademark style. While the other Dead movies allowed Romero’s social critique to subtly sneak through the story, Diary is as subtle as a frying pan to the face.

This film is all the fault of the EGG HEADED DESTROYERS that I took to task in a previous article. They’ve read too many books and seen too many documentaries exploring the underlying social commentaries in the classic seventies horror films and are now searching desperately for their own film to claim. And Romero, enjoying the smoke blown up his ass for supposedly starting the whole socially aware horror film, seems to be pandering to these egg-heads. But they forget one thing, no one cared or was looking for any such commentary when they first encountered movies like Last House on the Left and Halloween and The Hills Have Eyes and Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead. You really think that the first audiences to be scared shitless by the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre left the drive-in and said, “Wow. I loved how this film commented on the social divide between the crumbling rural backwoods and the invading city dwellers and how the break down of the family structure has forced these backwoods characters to create their own grotesque version of a family. This is fascinating. Lets discuss.” No. No. No. Two decades of post graduate theorizing has effectively crippled many viewers. They can’t help but watch a new horror film without searching for any subtext that they can use as a talking point at their next party, at the coffee shop or in their next thesis paper. If Romero wanted to go the arty and meaningful route he should’ve went all the way and given us something truly groundbreaking and genre defying like the work of filmmakers such as Michael Hanke (Funny Games), Gaspar Noe (Irreversible), Claire Denis (Trouble Every Day), Takashi Miike (Everything he’s ever done), Francois Ozon (See the Sea), and Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire). Giving a movie props because it “comments” on something is bullshit if the film comes out like a badly acted After School Special. The San Francisco Chronicle review called this “a thinking man’s horror movie”. I guess if you don’t think much about anything Diary’s second hand satire may be a revelation. But George Romero should know how to make a sharp entertaining horror film satire that doesn’t scream MESSAGE! every five seconds. Maybe he forgot how to, or maybe he’s let the post graduate praise go to his head or maybe his experience on Land of the Dead left him so bitter he couldn’t contain his haranguing. Either way this movie still sucks

I could understand if you enjoyed the movie for all of the cheeky comedic bits and the gore, the stuff that actually works in the film. But every single positive review I’ve seen goes on and on about the social-fucking-commentary. So fucking what? Take the social commentary out and what do you have? The MAD starring Billy Zane. Did you see that load? Cheap comedy, bad acting, so so gore. It’s the same thing but no ones calling that a masterpiece. But Romero actually intends for his film to be scary and meaningful. It was neither. I’ll keep Land of the Dead, thank you.

NOT HORROR, BUT…

ZODIAC
dir. David Fincher

David Fincher perfectly captures the paranoia, fear and dread caused by the Zodiac murders that terrorized the Bay Area in the seventies. More police procedural than thriller, Zodiac nevertheless is one of the more tension inducing films of the year. Many scenes standout; the attack on the couple by the lake, the murder of the cab driver at the intersection, the basement interrogation of the creepy projectionist who may be the Zodiac killer. Few movies these days leave you with such a lasting sense of unease. – Gary G.

INLAND EMPIRE
dir. David Lynch

Now that the poseur’s have officially jumped off the Lynch bandwagon we can appreciate Lynch on his own terms. This is the film that Lynch has been building towards his whole career. What was subtext is now text. The contents of a diseased mind are now spilled across the screen in a Freudian nightmare. Was it entertaining? No. Did it make sense? Hell if I know.. But the images linger. Laura Dern bleeding to death on a street corner as a trio of oblivious crackheads carry on a conversation. The group of “dead” prostitutes trapped in hell, which looks like a dirty motel room. The bunny rabbits. Grace Zabriske. If your up for it the horror fan is treated to many disturbing visuals. – Gary G.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
dir. The Coen Brothers

The most frightening villain of the year was Javier Bardem’s bowl haircut, compressed air can armed psychopath in the Coen Brothers gritty ode to human avarice and evil. Bardem’s sheer presence was enough to make you piss your pants. This sad, violent film also contained one of the years best hold your breath terror scenes when Bardem stalks his prey, Josh Brolin, through a deserted hotel room. Bravo to the Coen’s for doing what many horror films couldn’t do this year, scare the hell out of me. – Gary G.

MURDER PARTY
dir. Jeremy Saulnier

This film takes the notions of innocent pretending on Halloween and turns them in to a living nightmare. After finding a invitation to a “Murder Party” Chris goes and finds himself the victim of this party that is taking him as a prey. Why would anyone do this in their right mind? Because they are art students of course. Their leader, Alexander, claims that he will give a grant to them if he decides they are the most creatively deserving, which in this case means killing to his liking. These people are so desperate and insecure about themselves that they would become murderers in order to have some shot at getting money for their art. The characters are really what make the film. They are all so unique and quite out there. The main character of Chris is by far the best. He is very much a loner who gets lost in his own world. He is a very imaginative guy who just wants someone to share his world. When hearing of this party he creates his own knight costume made of cardboard. The most unsettling point of Murder Party is that Chris’ childlike spirit makes him seem so innocent. The film was wonderfully shot as an independent horror movie. There is enough gore to scare with still leaving hope since the prime subject is allowed to live for quite some time. The locations of warehouses in Brooklyn made it possible to keep the film at a lower cost. The warehouse also had an abandoned feel to it, which decreased the hope of someone finding out what was going on. The tables do begin to turn though as every one finds themselves in a sticky situation. Trickery seems to be everywhere in Murder Party from the victims to the victimizers. – Kelsey Zukowski

OVERLOOKED

THEM
dir. David Moreau and Xavier Palud

The absolute scariest movie of the year. That nobody saw. Them, a barely released french film about a married couple, alone in a secluded mansion in the woods, who are attacked in the middle of the night by “Them”, a gang of faceless boogeyman in black hoodies and tennis shoes. I am not kidding. The tension is palpable because for most of the running time you have absolutely no idea who or what “Them” are. A gang of thieves? Ghosts? Animated sports wear?

Them also has some of the best sound designed scares Ever. The film is practically silent so all we hear are the creaking of floorboards, the heavy breathing of the terrified couple, heavy footsteps running up and down stairs and the truly skin crawling screeching of the Them’s. The sound of rattles will now forever terrify me. See the preview here.

The real homage to Halloween was not in Rob Zombie’s remake but in this film. This is the most purely suspenseful, jump out of your seat, scare film in years. Catch it on video but first turn out the lights and turn on the surround sound system for the ultimate experience. A must see for all horror fans. – Gary G.

JOSHUA
dir. George Ratliff

This reviewer loves killer kid movies. But Joshua purposely avoids many of the cliches of the killer kid genre. We never really see Joshua do anything, which really annoyed many critics. The first half of the film introduces us to Joshua’s somewhat fractured family; the likable but unconnected dad, the edgy mother suffering from severe post partum depression, fussy, religious grandmother, and sardonic, sophisticated gay uncle. Ratliff does an amazing job delineating these complicated characters and the undercurrent of unhappiness in the family. The performances are uniformly amazing, especially Vera Farmiga as the mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Sam Rockwell as the oblivious father who doesn’t understand why his son would rather play piano concertos than play ball. Jakob Kogan’s “charmless” performance was misunderstood. He is supposed to be that type of quiet, unemotional, kid whose thoughts or feelings one can never truly gauge. Has there ever been a killer kid as creepy as little Joshua? I’ve, literally, seen them all and I say know. But what makes this film a disturbing experience is the coda that forces you to reexamine everything that happened. Is writer/director George Ratliff really suggesting that Joshua destroys his upper middle class family to be with the gay uncle he adores and emulates? Wow. That’s fucked up. And brilliant. – Gary G.

WEREWOLF IN A WOMEN’S PRISON
dir. Jeff Leroy

A while back I decided to revisit the Women in Prison genre and I was a bit disappointed, something that seemed so simple to get right, was so many times done wrong. It is a simple concept; give me caged women, lesbian sex, and gratuitous violence. But believe it or not, the bulk of WIP movies will bore you to tears. I titled this section of our site “Women in Prison: The Lost Art of Filmmaking” because let’s be honest we are probably never going to see one of these films ever be made again. But then Werewolf in a Women’s Prison came along and proved me wrong. Offering the fore mentioned and plenty of it Werewolf took the WIP genre up a notch by adding well… a werewolf, and not just any werewolf I might add, but the best looking werewolf since American Werewolf in London. Looking like one of those cheap Mexican rip-off Mickey Mouse toys with light-up eyes. This werewolf rips, shreds and tears apart the beautiful women who inhabit our prison, but not before they get naked and have lesbian sex. This may seem like a no-brainer if you never really dove into the WIP genre before, but Werewolf may be one of the top ten Women in Prison movies ever made, not to mention one of the top ten werewolf movies ever made. Let me ask when the last time you saw a werewolf with a stripper pole, and then let me show you one of the best merging of two subgenres…Werewolf in a Women’s Prison is where it’s at. – WIL Keiper

UNAPPRECIATED

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION
dir. Russel Mulcahy

There used to be a time when fans could overlook bad acting, plot holes, and thinly devised characters in favor of amazing action set pieces. We do it for Lucio Fulci films. His horror films are frequently badly acted, horribly dubbed and completely ridiculous. But they make up for that with truly bizarre, over the top, gruesome, one of a kind scenes of horror mayhem. The splinter in the eyeball scene, the zombie shark attack, the guts puking, nipple shearing, scissors through the head, duck quaking insanity of it all IS what we appreciate in Fulci. But then Fulci has been pre-approved by The Cult Movie Appreciation Guild so it’s alright to like his films, ridiculous though they may be.

Russell Mulcahy has yet to receive such approval so it’s no wonder that many fans didn’t appreciate the third Resident Evil film for all of the gloriously over the top cinematic chaos on view. The zombie dog fight, the corpse pile of Alice clones, the zombie crow attack, the flame thrower burning the crows from the sky, Alice and her crossbow, the devastated Las Vegas landscape, the climactic showdown between Alice and the zombified Dr. Isaacs are like visual injections of horror heroine. You know it’s bad for you but if feels so good. – Gary G.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES Part Two
dir. Martin Weisz

Where have all the slasher film fans gone? Why are they ignoring perfectly good slasher movies like this? Are we too sophisticated now to enjoy such sleazy entertainment? Well I’m not, damn it. Director Martin Weisz, working with a screenplay by Wes Craven and son Jonathan, creates a lean and mean piece of slasher exploitation. Gruesome, gory, sickening and offensive as it could be, this movie wasn’t made for wimps. The cannibal rape scene alone is too brutal and disgusting for your average movie audience. I loved it. – Gary G.

ON VIDEO

BLOODY REUNION
dir. Dae-wung Lim

My problems with the film as a whole are the same that I have with a lot of the Asian horror films. Layer upon layer of plot and sub-plot, red herrings, and characters that take away from the impact of the story at hand. Bloody Reunion gets way with it because of the amazing brutality of the murders and creepiness of it’s villain, a bunny rabbit masked psycho. A group of students visit the dying, crippled elementary school teacher who abused them at her secluded sea side home. They are then systematically tortured and killed by the bunny-masked killer who may be the teacher’s retarded son who is locked in the basement. To say that this movie has a few twists is an understatement. There is so much shit going on in this movie it’s hard to keep up. But the overwhelming sense of grim brutality and melancholy that pervade the film and it’s character make it one of the more powerful horror movies of the year. The moral of the story, be nice to the kids who pee their pants. – Gary G.

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
dir. Graeme Whiffler

Neighborhood Watch is Sick. Disgusting. Gross, and one of the more disturbing films in years. Writer/Director Graeme Whiffler creates one of the most vile horror villains of all time in Adrian Trumbell, the perverted sleazebag who terrorizes the newlywed couple who move in next door. When he’s not masturbating to torture videos, picking scabs off his body, or finger fucking the puncture wounds in his stomach he is poisoning his neighbors water supply, terrorizing elderly invalids and giving his neighbors chocolates filled with homemade bile. Believe me this is one sick puppy. The ending is truly horrific. This film is not for weak stomachs. After traveling the festival circuit for a few years Neighborhood Watch will finally make it to video early next year with a stupid name change, Deadly End. By the way, the director also co-wrote Dr. Giggles. – Gary G.

BAD REPUTATION
dir. Jim Hemphill

In continuing with the “lost art” concept WIL started with Women in Prison flicks, I present the return of the Rape / Revenge flick. Revenge films have been making a comeback recently with the Kevin Bacon vehicle Death Sentence and the upcoming Already Dead. But no type of revenge is better justified than a woman raped and humiliated. That subgenre was huge in the 70s when after the second-wave feminism hit. So what the hell happened? Post-feminism, third-wave feminism, then silence. But Bad Reputation has proven that Rape / Revenge will be making a comeback. It not only stayed true to its roots (Girl is gang-raped, girl is rehabilitated, girl gets bloody revenge), but it added to the subgenre and modernized an old school of thought. Now, R / R films include high school bullies, tramp stamps, fear of homosexuals, cyber bullying, and more. Not only that, but this film is more sophisticated in that it shows the deterioration of every aspect of the victim’s life from perverts at school, an abusive alcoholic mother, police that offer no help, and a counselor that offers no sympathy. So the crime is not just a personal one, but something that affects society as a whole and the hate trickles down onto everyone else. The victim’s use of her sexuality as a tool can be argued as old school (like in the infamous bathtub knife scene in I Spit on Your Grave), but Bad Reputation shows the victim EMBRACING her sexuality and understanding that it gives her power outside of the bedroom as well. Once again, a new school of thought emerged and I’m sure this will continue in the immediate future and evolve over the years.
– Molly Celaschi

Part 2: Top Ten Horror Movies of 2007
Part 3: 2007’s Best Alternative, Overlooked, Unappreciated, Direct to Video Horror Films

Sydney For the past six years the two most famous and controversial horror filmmakers have undoubtedly been Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. Though filmmakers as diverse as Neil Marshall, Alexandre Aja, Zach Snyder, Guillermo Del Toro, Lucky Mckee, Greg McLean, James Wan and Darren Lynn Bousman may have delivered more popular or critically acclaimed films, Roth and Zombie stand alone atop the pack as the most prolific horror filmmakers of their generation. Even filmgoers who haven’t seen one frame of any movie Roth or Zombie have made know who they are. Their persistent self-promotion and media appearances have made them the go-to-guys when the media wants to put a face to the current horror movie scene. Whether you love em both, hate em both or hate one and love the other you simply cannot dismiss them. This year each delivered a third film and contributed two of the fake trailers in Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse. Horroryearbook will examine the filmmakers, their films and their critics.

It is odd how similar their career trajectories have been. All three of their films have been released within months of each other. While Roth’s debut film, Cabin Fever (2003), was making the festival circuit Zombie’s first film was having distribution troubles. Both films were eagerly awaited by fans and widely covered in the horror film press, with Fangoria and Rue-Morgue giving front page coverage to both. The films were, mostly, savaged by mainstream critics when released and drew widely divergent reactions from horror fans. In my opinion Cabin Fever is clearly the more accomplished picture. While it may not have delivered on the whole “balls to the walls” horror aesthetic that Roth claimed in his media interviews it nevertheless was a well made first feature. It is interesting how from the very beginning a huge segment of the horror film community turned on Roth. Maybe the expectations were too high. High praise from the likes of Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino may have loaded the film with too much critical baggage. The mallrat retards who snuck in to see Cabin Fever in late summer 2002 may have been bewildered by Roth’s blend of lowbrow humor and gross-out violence but many horror fans seemed to have never encountered a comic horror film before. And virulent charges of homophobia, racism and sexism were instantly lobbed at Roth and his film, which goes to show how incredibly stupid some fans can be. As if an artist cannot create characters who use politically incorrect language without being Adolph Hitler. These charges would continue to haunt Roth with his next film Hostel, in which the charges where even more wildly fanned. What was apparent to the viewer who cared to see it was Roth’s assured visual style, black sense of humor, and almost obsessive homage’s to his own favorite films. The observant viewer can easily spot the nods to Night of the Living Dead, Friday the 13th, Creepshow 2, The Thing, The Shining, Pieces, The Evil Dead among others. But most of all, for me at least, I was more impressed with Roth’s way with his characters. YES CHARACTERS.

I know that one of the most specious criticisms of Roth is that he doesn’t know how to write for characters. This is utter bullshit. Amongst the pack he is one of the more distinct character writers. The problem, not for me but for a lot of other people, is that he writes a specific type of character; obnoxious twenty-something’s. Roth’s characters offer the viewer very little, if any, sympathetic connection. If I could break some moviegoers of an bad habit it is to assume that because you don’t like a character that means that the writer is bad at character development. On the contrary if a character gets under your skin that much that the entire movie is ruined for you than I suggest that the writer may be better than you think. Do you really need to “like” a character to engage in a story. It’s not real life it’s a fucking movie. So what if Cabin Fever’s group of self absorbed college kids are unlikable. You’re not moving in with them. Your job as a moviegoer is to gauge who the characters are, likable or not, and their function in the story the writer is telling. Cabin Fever is filled with many telling character moments that reveal exactly how this group will fare in the ordeal to come. The vain law student, Jeff, wears an eye patch to bed which foreshadows what a little bitch he becomes when he ditches his friends and his triumphant cries at the end of “They’re all dead and I survived” as if he’d won a contest or something. The sexually aggressive Marcy flips her boyfriend over to finger his asshole which completely makes sense when in the midst of the horror she decides to just fuck Rider Strong’s brains out. Bert, the loud mouth, childish jerk of the group tries to steal a candy bar from the general store. The gang invites Dr. Mambo to party only after they know he has pot. These small character moments, and more, ably fit into the arc of the story that Roth is telling, which is how this superficial group of friends will eventually turn on each in the midst of the diseases’ outbreak which makes them vulnerable not only to the disease but more importantly to the locals they’ve been pissing off the entire time and who will eventually prevail over them. That is character development. And “Eww, I don’t like that guy cause he said squirrels were gay. He’s homophobic. He’s a meanie, beanie, bo-pheanie,” is not a valid criticism of the characters. Few filmmakers capture exactly how a lot of young people talk like Eli Roth. Sorry if this offends you but it’s true. Grow up people.

Rob Zombie’s film House of 1000 Corpses (2003) was so fucking insane anyone can be forgiven for calling it a bag of shit. In many ways it is. Corpses is all over the place. Part freak show, slasher movie, Psychotronic slide show and carnival geek act, Zombie’s psychedelic hillbilly gothic looked very much like an extended White Zombie video. Zombie sets up a great story then seems to get sidetracked every ten minutes with another insane Firefly family revue spot. The story then sinks into complete nonsense when we meet up with Dr. Satan. But what it lacked in narrative or dramatic thrust it made up in truly grotesque, disturbing imagery; the “Showtime” sequence and Sherri Moon’s ghoulish Betty Boop impression, the Halloween Party with Otis dressed in the skin of one of the victims’ father, Dr. Satan’s minions breaking open the casket with two of the victims inside, the production design of Dr. Satan’s lair. This is some horrifying shit. One of the criticisms aimed at Roth is more evident in Zombie’s film; bad character development. The four road tripping victims couldn’t be more obnoxious. The two female victims not only look exactly alike but are so bitchy and annoying it feels like Zombie didn’t realize that they were two separate characters. Zombie himself has admitted that he didn’t realize in the writing how harsh these two characters came out. Roth’s conception of his “annoying” characters is frequently in tune with the concept of his movie. Zombie’s characters, suffering under the weight of his hyper-active dialogue, are simply grotesque or annoying. When I first saw Copses at a packed Sunday multiplex showing, with some dude next to me eating an entire barbeque ribs platter he’d snuck in, I was as bewildered as the entire audience seemed to be. Repeat viewing’s have allowed me to ignore the sloppiness and enjoy the disturbing visuals, gruesome kill scenes and the bizarre and hilarious performances by vets Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Karen Black. You have to put this movie into it’s proper context to enjoy it. Imagine it is 1972. Your in New York, on 42nd street. You stop into a grungy old movie theater for a horror feature and House of 1000 Corpses starts. You’d love it. That is if you’re into that sort of thing. And thirty years later you’d be telling your kids about how they don’t know what a real grindhouse movie is and tell them about this fucked up mess of a movie you saw. That’s what Zombie was trying to make but jacked up with MTV style edits and camera tricks. Unlike the well shot, well acted, special effects extravaganza that Tarantino and Rodriguez passed off as grindhouse fair, grindhouse films were far closer to the mess that Zombie made four years earlier. Successful in a conventional way? No. Successful in it’s own way? Yes. It was a Rob Zombie film. That pretty much says it all.

The sophomore films from Roth and Zombie were their biggest hits. Hostel and The Devils Rejects were immediately stuck with the moniker “torture porn”. But while Rob Zombie as filmmaker became something of a folk hero, bringing “grindhouse” cinema to the masses who never liked it in the first place, Roth became an odd target for moralistic, misguided critics. Even many horror fans seemed to have missed the point of Hostel.

You would’ve thought that 2006′s Hostel was an unreleased Jess Franco film from the vitriol directed at it. While no cinematic masterpiece it was miles above most of the major studio released horror crap. But something about it really got under peoples skin. Here again is the case of people turning their personal unease with a film into a reason to criticize it. Some people did not like the violence. Fair enough. Some didn’t like the long build up of the first hour. Another fair objection if you’re an impatient fourteen year old doofus. But what most people seemed to have had a problem with were the characters; a group of puerile, obnoxious, college jerks on a tear in Amsterdam for drugs and sex. Some people, smart people, were so annoyed by these characters that they checked out of the film enough to have missed the whole point. For instance, the review in Rue Morgue by publisher and editor-in-chief Rod Gudino, who writes…

What an interesting look into Gudino’s psyche this is. He mentions frat boys or the so-called “frat boy mentality” so many times you feel as if he may be wrestling with some traumatic adolescent experience at the hands of characters like those in the movie. Hostel has a remarkably simple concept -the ugly americans get caught up in the same web of exploitation that they were abusing. The juvenile antics of the lead characters is then completely necessary and warranted. Just because you have a bug up your but about “frat boys” does not allow you to substitute valid critical judgment for your personal vendetta’s.

Take a gander at some of the more misguided fan reviews on imdb for a touch of the really ridiculous. Hostel seems to make a lot of people, not just Rod Gudino, very touchy as well ramp up a curious sort of moral outrage from people who paid money to see a movie like Hostel. Some samples

From a mister nathan-moeller who then goes on to praise Saw 4, Underworld Evolution and the remake of The Hitcher all of which apparently required “use of the mind throughout”.

And from someone called : imajestr

For your information imajestr that was the character development. Sorry but Stephen Hawking was not a character in Hostel, frat boys were. Sorry if you and Rod Gudino missed that point but that’s not Eli Roth’s fault.

A little more from imajestr just cause I think it’s funny.

Maybe if you’d step out of your conventional thinking and stop trying to be deep, imajestr, you’d have realized that the first half of the movie was written like that on purpose, to show you the world in which these characters were reveling in, a world in which any pleasure is available for a price, and which would come back to, literally, bite them in the ass. A more mature, sophisticated traveler would never have fallen for the trap the “hostel” had set. But dumb, horny college kids would have.

And an unnamed reviewer from imdb offers this..

We get it. Okay, we get it. FRAT BOYS ARE EVIL! Maybe Roth’s piggish anti-heroes were a bit too believably wrought. Clearly many viewers simply could not get over spending an hour with such characters enough to actually gauge Roth’s motives. Once again. The whole hour long Porky’s set up is completely in tune with Roth’s concept of the movie. Were these critics too busy hating on “frat boys” to get this? If Roth makes a misstep it’s in making Paxton, the most hateful of the trio, the focus of our sympathies when Josh, the nice guy, is killed off. Josh and his subplot with the creepy German businessman was far more interesting. Roth goes to great length’s to show how reluctant Josh is with a lot of Paxton and Oli’s antics. He was our one sympathetic connection. Then Roth kills him off. Roth, god bless him, was trying to pull a “Psycho” style twist on us. But unfortunately, for the movie, it didn’t work since Josh’s torture was aired heavily in Hostel’s tv ad’s so we already knew he was a dead man. But sensitive viewers were turned off by the slight “gay” angle of this story line and conversely charged Roth with being a homophobe, closet homosexual, dog eater and the one who killed Jon Benet. Hidden in this subplot is a subtext that actually runs through to Hostel Part 2. On the train the creepy German guy says, as he eats a salad with his fingers, “I think people have lost their connection to the food they consume,” then rests his hand on Josh’s knee, which of course freaks Josh out. He then comes back to save Josh from the gang of bubble gum obsessed street kids. The German guy goes through a lot of trouble to connect with the boy he will ultimately consume/kill. The same way that Roger Bart’s character in Part 2 tries to connect with his intended. Consumption/Connection. If you were looking for something deep to chew on there it was, oh that’s right, you hate frat boys, sorry to disturb you, I’ll let you get back to that. With the one sympathetic character dead Roth then tries to imbue Paxton with some shred of compassion with the story of how he’s haunted by a drowning girl he failed to save. This was clearly Roth’s attempt to justify Paxton going back to into the hostel to save Kana, so that Roth can then reference the film Suicide Club when she throws herself in front of a moving train. I have a feeling this was not Roth’s choice. The entire scene where Paxton reveals the drowning story, then he and Josh chase someone they think is Oli into a museum of torture, seems shoved in after the fact. You could almost hear the producer’s script note that went “if Paxton is such a louse why would he go back to save the girl.” It would have been a braver choice had he still been an asshole and still saved the girl. People are like that. Crash won an Oscar for doing a similar thing with the racist cop played by Matt Dillon and the same critic’s were oh so impressed with how complex that was. And that movie was some kind of bullshit. I’m not claiming that Hostel is perfect but lets judge the film fairly and not with confused and misplaced moral indignation. One of the criticisms that I feel is perfectly true is that Roth does seem to have a problem with building suspense. His films are shocking, gruesome and outrageous but rarely suspenseful. Paxton’s discovery of the hostel is particularly uneventful; he’s taken to the hostel, he walks in, he sees some torture (through an open doorway twenty feet from the entrance) and they grab him. Not good, Eli. Since Paxton is the last man standing his discovery should’ve been a lot more exciting. After Paxton’s torture and escape we get a routine race for your life sequence leading to the climactic murder of the creepy German businessman. These are valid criticisms not personal knee-jerk reactions to so-called “frat boy mentality”. And correct me if I’m wrong but at any point do the characters say they are in a frat? Just emotionally sensitive viewers jumping to conclusions, I guess. Roth characters get very close to sounding and acting like a lot of young people today. I’ve met plenty of Bert’s and Jeff’s and Marcy’s and Josh’s and Oli’s and Paxton’s in my life. If you haven’t and insist that these characters are unbelievable you need to get out more.

Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects (2005) was a hit with audiences and, surprisingly, with critics as well. Here Zombie drops all of the flashy music video edits that made Corpses so obnoxious at times and provides a streamlined piece of retro exploitation. No other major filmmaker has come this close to recalling the gritty look and feel of seventies exploitation cinema. One point becomes very clear though; Zombie is in no way interested in his victim characters. He likes his monsters far too much. Roth’s victim characters may be annoying but at least they are distinct. Zombie’s victims are there to be murdered by his menagerie of degenerates, perverts and psychopaths. Which is why The Devil’s Rejects works so well. Every major characters is insane. The face off between the psychopathic Firefly clan and the vengeful Sheriff Wydell pits the audience in the middle of a war of crazy people. Everyone else is road kill. This is why House of 1000 Corpses didn’t play as well because we spend a lot of time with the four victims that not even Zombie cares to distinguish. With The Devil’s Rejects you can clearly see a concentration of Zombie’s particular aesthetic. Rejects is a tidy piece of pulp storytelling not the long music video that Corpses tended to be. Sure, his trademark dialogue can be a bit indulgent but it works with these characters. It wouldn’t for his next feature.

This year Roth and Zombie released their third films and their fortunes split. Zombie had a huge hit with his remake of Halloween. Roth’s Hostel Part 2 was a flop if only by expectation since the first Hostel opened at number one and grossed over eighty million dollars and Part Two only made a little over thirty million. But despite the diffrent financial fortunes both films would prove to be mistakes for both filmmakers. Hostel 2 would only serve to fan the flames of Roth’s critics and Halloween glaringly exposed the deficiencies in Zombie’s dramatic skills.

Hostel Part 2 was the better of the two films. I found it much more disturbing and twisted then it’s predecessor. Hostel 2 maintains the same basic set-up as Part One but with a trio of American female students substituting for the frat boys everyone hated so much. Roth then includes of a pair of American businessmen who become the newest hostel patrons as well as the torturers of two of our female travelers. An intriguing dramatic choice by Roth since the audience is fully aware of what’s going on it gives us another storyline to follow. There were enough surprises and grisly details to make this Hostel a more interesting experience than the first. For one thing the murders are a whole lot more horrific than in the first, mainly because these girls are not so unlikable but also because we get to see these scenes full out. Another problem I had with the first Hostel is that we didn’t see enough of what went on in those rooms. For instance why didn’t we see Oli’s murder and only the beginning of Josh’s. Roth brings the pain fo’ real this time. One of the most terrifying scenes of the year is the murder of Heather Mattarazzo aka Weiner Dog, hanging upside down and naked (See Pictures Here) as some crazy bitch caresses her body with a huge ass scythe and ultimately slits her throat and baths in her blood. The audience I saw this with was audibly unnerved. The demise of Bijou Phillips was suitably nasty and comes with an grisly twist when Richard Burgi’s buzz saw gets caught in Phillips’ hair and he freaks out, along with the audience. What’s more since she’s not dead the hostel “administrators” decide to try and sell her partially mutilated body at a cut rate. This is what was missing from Roth’s earlier film, the machinations of the hostel itself. We watch with increasing tension as the fates of the two businessmen and our heroines collide. Hostel 2‘s disappointing box office was attributed to many factors; fatigue with so called torture porn, a general dislike of the first Hostel, and ,according to Roth, piracy of the movie, especially online. But it flopped for one specific reason. It is the same reason that Grindhouse flopped. It was released on a weekend it had no business being released on. In it’s first weekend Hostel 2 was competing with the star powered Oceans Thirteen, the number one film that week, and Surf’s Up, a big family film as well as the continuing summer blockbuster’s Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Knocked Up and Shrek 3. The Weinstein Brothers made the stupid decision to release Grindhouse on Easter fucking Weekend, as if families just back from celebrating the re-birth of Christ wanted to see Quentin Tarantino’s balls melted off. Listen folks, genre films rely a lot on what I call the Saturday Night Dead to fill out the seats not taken up by the faithful. You know the type, filmgoers who just see whatever’s popular that weekend no matter what it is and seem more interested in their concession stand purchases than the actual movie. When the Saturday Night Dead have something else to do your horror movie is gonna have a tough time making it to number one. That’s why horror films do well in the doldrums of the first few months of the year, when Hollywood shits out it’s b-level products, at the end of summer, when all the blockbusters have come and gone and, of course, the month of October. Releasing a horror movie at any other time of the year is a crap shoot. But since Roth’s critics are ignorant of this widely understood industry fact they used Hostel 2‘s box office failure as a means of confirming their own prejudices against the filmmaker. As good as Hostel 2 was it would serve as a mistake for Roth because it would give those who dislike him more ammunition. They weren’t going to like it no matter how it turned out because they hate him, personally. I’ll expand on this after I get to the remake of Halloween.

The remake of Halloween should not have been made…By anyone. Zombie asserted that if it was going to be ruined by anyone it should at least be someone like him, assuming he means a horror fan and not today’s Hollywood hack of the moment. But after seeing what he came up with I think a lot of us would’ve preferred a hacked version. At least the hacked version wouldn’t have offered so much pretension with so little skill. We would have at least gotten a crappy carbon copy of the first instead of the matchbook serial killer psychobabble offered as insight into the Michael Myers character, bad, bad performances by the Rob Zombie Repertory Players, sloppy, shaky camera direction passing as suspenseful action and a completely lopsided dramatic structure that rushed through the stalking and killing of the babysitters in about twenty minutes in favor of the tired cliches of the first half.

What is painfully obvious is that Zombie seems to be a one note filmmaker. When writing for despicable character’s his rapid fire, profanity laced, show off dialogue works well. When almost every character talks like that, even characters that shouldn’t, it becomes immensely irritating. The Devils Rejects works because all the main characters are scumbags. In Halloween it seems as if Zombie had to turn the Myers family into a bunch of degenerate miscreants simply so he could get away with his brand of exaggerated dialogue. Zombie has said that he wanted the Myers family to be a more believable “lower middle class family” and “more like the life that I remember” So to Zombie a “believable lower middle class family” consists of a leering, perverted stepfather, a whorish teenage daughter and a fucked up, druggie, stripper mom. Where exactly did Zombie grow up, in Hell? Granted there are families like this and I’m sure many of them have produced a serial killer or two. Problem is those families don’t talk like that, no one does, not even Zombie himself, and if they do that accounts for them. Why does practically every character in the film talk like this with the exception of Dr. Loomis and the Strode family? This is pure Zombi-speak clumsily shoved down the throats of his character’s. As my friend of mine said, “Now that I hear that dialogue outside of The Devil’s Rejects, it makes me hate The Devil’s Rejects.” It’s a shame how Zombie felt the need to bend story and characters into a cinematic template he seems incapable of discarding. The problem, for Zombie as director if not even more for filmgoers is that the Zombie style is now so evident that it leaves him open for parody. How about instead of Rob Zombie’s Halloween we get Rob Zombie’s Rosemary’s Baby with Sherri Moon Zombie as a chain smoking slutty stripper Rosemary. Or Rob Zombie’s Poltergeist with a family of trailer park scumbags and their haunted trailer. Actually these sound pretty good, but you get my point. If Zombie insists on writing character’s the exact same way it means were going to get the exact same movie time and time again with the same actors, same dialogue just different character names. I just believe that Zombie can do better. It’s a shame because there is a glimpse of how powerful this version of Halloween could have been in the scene where Michael kills off the Strode’s. The scene preceding their murder is a simple glimpse of a pair of decent, loving, playful parents worrying about their adopted daughter. They are nice people. Their subsequent brutal murder is all the more disturbing. This is what Rob Zombie’s Halloween could have been. What it could’ve done better than the original. Because the one thing that, for all of it’s brilliance, Carpenter’s Halloween is not, is disturbing. Disturbing in the sense that the horrific, senseless brutality of Michael Myers destruction is felt. Scary and suspenseful? Absolutely. But not disturbing. Not in the way that real life murders often are. This one five minute sequence is truly disturbing. For all of it’s gruesomeness the rest of the Zombie’s film is not disturbing because it’s populated by gargoyles. This is clearly not what Zombie intended. Zombie wanted us to care about these people. Were we really supposed to shed a tear with the young-Michael-and-his-baby sister-in-happier-times slide show that plays over the end credits? You see, Eli Roth’s characters are assholes, and he knows it. Rob Zombie’s characters are assholes and he doesn’t know it.

If it seems that I am being tougher on Rob Zombie than Eli Roth there is a reason. It’s my hope that we can level the playing field because it appears that Roth is knocked a lot harder by certain parts of the horror movie press than Zombie is when in all fairness both filmmakers share the same strengths as well as the same weaknesses. Zombie is treated with kid gloves by the likes of Rue-Morgue and many critics while Roth has somehow become a villain for the same offenses as Zombie; shallow characters, shoddy story structure and lack of suspense. Why is this? Well part of it is Roth himself. There is so much obvious player hating here. He’s just too enthusiastic a character for some people. Never has a horror film director been happier being a horror film director. He never met a camera he didn’t like and he is ready to publicly defend himself against the most vicious personal attacks, like him being a misogynist homophobe, among other things. And his need to insert himself into his own and his buddies films, surely pisses people off. With a ton of press practically anointing him the face of modern day horror some can’t help but hate him. But I think it goes deeper. Roth simply doesn’t look the part the way that Zombie does.

Fans, lets be honest about ourselves for once. Most die-hard horror movie fans are socially awkward; the weird, intellectual, quiet types. Outsider’s are frequently attracted to the horror genre for many reasons that I won’t go into. Some of these outsider types then begin to adopt a lifestyle or look to further distance themselves from the larger society and reveal themselves to other fans of the genre by wearing black, garish tattoos, dramatic makeup and t-shirts that say stuff like “Fulci Lives” and such. Just look through any of the staff photograph’s in Rue-Morgue for further evidence. These are the Dark Types. Rob Zombie is one of them. Eli Roth looks and acts like one of the “frat boy” characters in his films. Roth is animated, gregarious, the type of guy who wants to play Beer Pong all night. Zombie is dark and serious, the type of guy who wants to read poetry in a graveyard. The Dark Types hate the Frat Boy Types. So it’s no wonder that Rue-Morgue, the premier horror magazine at the moment, purposely chooses to ignore Roth if they are not slamming him for imagined offenses and slavishly cover Zombie. Even before turning to film direction Zombie’s dark demeanor, music and videos all pointed to someone with a penchant for horror imagery. Roth just seems a little to close to his characters for comfort for the Dark Types.

Let’s not forget the Grindhouse trailers. All of the trailers were fun but for my money Roth’s Thanksgiving was the superior one. Many people simply didn’t get it. These are the types that rarely get anything that isn’t spelled out for them. For those of us who love early eighties slasher movies this was some type of emission from our dreams. The other trailers were clear spoofs of their type of film. Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS, while funny, could have been a Mad TV sketch. You were supposed to laugh at it. You were supposed to laugh at Machete. You were supposed to laugh at Don’t. You were supposed to laugh at Thanksgiving too BUT you could literally stick the Thanksgiving trailer at the end of a Paragon video release right between the trailers for Funeral Home and Mongrel and it wouldn’t look out of place at all. Roth delivers what even the full length films in Grindhouse were not, the genuine article.

Let’s be honest, neither Roth nor Zombie has yet to truly deliver the classic horror film we’ve been waiting for from them. Neil Marshall, Lucky Mckee, and Christopher Smith (of Creep and Severance fame) kick Roth and Zombie’s ass but no one cares about them, though they are, with two great films a piece, the three best horror filmmakers working right now in my opinion. But Roth and Zombie have gotten close. For me, of the six films I’ve reviewed here, The Devil’s Rejects and Hostel 2 (thank you very much) are my favorites. I have immense fondness for both Cabin Fever and Corpses all though they both have problems. Hostel is a good film. Not quite as great as it could have been. And Zombie’s Halloween is an unfortunate misstep. But let me be clear. I Love These Guys!!! I love their enthusiasm for the horror genre and their commitment to breaking modern horror movies out of the PG-13-Michael Bay remake hell we’ve been subjected to recently. I am eager to see what they come up with next. Unlike a lot of current directors they have chosen to make themselves into media fixtures (I mean does anyone even know what Darren Lynn Bousman looks like). And this is probably why they and their work are alternately misjudged and overpraised depending on your view. But they are both relatively early in their filmmaking careers. I, for one, am sure that each filmmaker has at least one sure classic up his sleeves. My finger’s are crossed.

You know the type. You’ve met them at horror film festivals, in line at the movie theater, they may even be a friend of yours. Their the ones who blab on about on about how they prefer “smart” horror films and despise the “slasher film cycle” or “torture porn” or some other bullshit term. They expect every horror film to have some socio/political aspect to discuss. They assume that any sequel to any horror film is inherently worthless. They read books and watch documentaries on horror movies instead of rolling up their sleeves and actually watching some. They go along with whatever the standard opinion is of movies they’ve never seen. They hate the trashy, pulpy type of cinema that has entertained fans for years. And they hate YOU.

These EGG-HEADED DESTROYERS are on a quest to justify their Liberal Arts degrees or something. How did they become this way? So innocently, really. They took a few cinematic studies courses in college, saw a classic movie or two, some foreign films , read a Ray Bradbury book, watched a Takashi Miike film and it made them feel special. Superior, if you will, to the millions who don’t do these things. So now they must prove how much more intelligent they are from you because they understood the twist ending in High Tension. To them a movie can’t simply entertain, it has to be the subject of a thesis paper.

The EGG-HEADED DESTROYERS constantly lecture about how the conventions or cliches of the horror genre are what is killing it. I beg to differ. I believe what’s killing horror movies are the conventions and the cliches of the criticism aimed at horror movies.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to enjoy a good horror movie. It’s genre filmmaking. Genre filmmaking is supposed to cater to a specialized audience, an audience looking for something specific to their own tastes. Action. Romance. Comedy. Sci-Fi. Fantasy. Whatever the genre they all offer something specific to the audience drawn to them. And lets not forget that within each genre there are a jillion sub-genres that cater to even more unique tastes. Romantic Comedy. Romantic Drama. Sci-Fi Comedy, Sci-Fi Action, Action Comedy. Dramedy. Sci-Fi Drama. Horror Comedy. Horror Sci-Fi Comedy. Zombie Comedy. Zombie Rom-Com. Horror Western. Romantic Zombie Western Com…you get the point.

Lets go to our dictionaries egg heads.

Webster’s defines Genre as : a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.

It’s all in the particulars folks.

Genre films are not supposed to play by the rules that govern mainstream movies. Mainstream movies must appeal to the broadest possible audience by offering characters and storylines that are easily relatable to most people. Genre filmmaking can be unique in it’s presentation. Those things that your average movie needs to do so that you, your parents, siblings, grandparents, neighbors, Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth can all share and enjoy it, a genre film doesn’t need to because genre knows who it’s audience is and expects it’s audience to already know where it’s going. You, your parents, siblings, grandparents, neighbors, Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth all liked E.T. right? That’s mainstream. Popular. You expect your parents, siblings, grandparents, neighbors, Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth to all like The Hills Have Eyes Part 2? Really? That movie wasn’t made for them. Unless, of course you have the coolest circle of family and friends on earth.

For example the truly tiresome and ever ready criticism of “there was no character development” or “characters that I could relate to” is gratuitous. Sure it’s a great thing when a genre film can surprise you with an unexpected depth of character. But the point is that it doesn’t need to. Genre films, especially horror films, are allowed to concern themselves with one thing; the effect. Not special effects, mind you. But the effect of trying to frighten you, disturb you, gross you out, horrify you. All a fan of horror needs to know is who the bitchy girl is, who the nerdy best friend is, or the crazed doctor on a vengeful quest, or the long suffering mother hiding a secret, or the worn out old sheriff, etc etc. Usually they just hire some actor who has played that type of character before and let them do all the work. Example, Aldo Ray. How many damn sheriffs did this man play in his long exploitation career? And how many twitchy psychopaths have we seen Jeffrey Combs embody? Same goes for Brad Douriff, the scumballs of David Hess, the evil head nurses of Priscilla Pointer and, yes, the virginal final girls personified by Jaime Lee Curtis. The actor brings all the character development an audience needs with them in a genre film.

And the next time an EGG-HEADED DESTROYER goes on about a story being unbelievable backhand him in the face and tell him Gary G sent it. It’s fantasy, illusion, made up shit. A horror story can be anything it wants. Like all imaginative fiction horror starts from the basic “What if?” What if the dead came back to life? What if a doll could be a serial killer? What if a little girl was possessed by the devil? What if a vacationing family was attacked by a family of cannibals? What if? What if? What if? If you want to see reality watch the Discovery Channel. Movies are fantastic imaginings of the real world. Very few movies, even prestige Oscar winning character films like Crash and can be called realistic, even with all its predictable Syd Field screenplay guidebook approved character development bullshit. Why do these egg head destroyers suppose that movies should always adhere to the strict standards of reality? These types will always take one minor point to tear a movie down with. You know I could believe that Gremlins existed but when they started drinking beer it was totally unbelievable. Poor saps. They just cant enjoy anything unless it posses a mild intellectual challenge.

I know there is some twat reading this who is gonna trot out the well worn platitude “all films are governed by the same principles, story and character” BULLSHIT! Movies are visceral. Back to the dictionary egg heads.

VISCERAL : not intellectual : instinctive, unreasoning (visceral drives) 3 : dealing with crude or elemental emotions : earthy (a visceral novel)

Amen Mr. Webster! If that doesn’t say it all I don’t know what does.

What the EGG-HEADED DESTROYERS don’t get is that a movie is sometimes more than the sum of it’s parts. Even if a movies acting is shit, and the editing is crap, and the dialogue laughable and the storyline ridiculous or just nonexistent it can still provide endless pleasure for the observant viewer; meaning a viewer in tune with his or her own personal tastes. And I mean personal. Not what Richard Roeper thinks is good, not what entertains your mom, not what ends up on the American Film Institutes list of great movies. A film’s power can go deeper than any intellectual classification. Problem is these Egg Heads think that they are mini-eberts and as such need to quantify every single aspect of a movie in order to judge it properly. What they forget, and what most critics today forget is that when you pull something apart to see how it works you lose something of the mystery, the power, the enchantment of the experience. This post-film-school-dropout mentality has completely destroyed many filmgoers ability to enjoy a piece of pop art for what it is.

And what’s more, genre fans are not supposed to give a fuck what the prevailing attitude towards them are. Past generations of young horror fans went right ahead enjoying their “degenerative” “moronic” “immoral” horror products oblivious to any criticism. That is why the slasher films rule in the early eighties irked so many cultural and film critics at the time. These films were successful despite what was said about them. The quickest way to anger an Egg-Head is too ignore what they think, it makes them feel unpopular, which then brings up too many hurtful adolescent memories. So of course the likes of Siskel and Ebert, Joel Siegel, Leonard Maltin, Michael Medved, among others, had to pour on the vitriol. Nobody was listening to them. I see the same shades of this in all the gleeful talk about the demise of so-called “torture porn”. It’s the same old bullshit people just different assholes.

Genre movies are supposed to live outside the boundaries of the conventional critical barbs slung at them. They are not trying to do the same thing that a movie like A Mighty Heart is trying to do, which is the ever popular shine the light on the human condition thing your creative writing teacher told you about. Every professional critic seems to use this as their ruler to measure a movie with. Did it shine a light on the human condition? As if that’s the only reason people go to the movies. The millions of people, worldwide, who keep going to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, despite their increasingly befuddling plots, you really believe that they are looking for a deepening understanding of their world through the exploits of an effeminate pirate? No, they are looking for visceral, that word again, thrills. Whether it’s Commando, Ace Ventura, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Porky’s, Sudden Impact, Deepstar Six, License to Drive, Final Analysis, Soapdish, or whatever the fuck, genre films offer visceral, instinctive, earthy experiences. So they can exist solely by the rules of that particular genre. Whether it does well what other movies like it do should be the only real criticism.

They seem to think there is something to fear when one sub-genre among many becomes so popular. The horror genre has always needed a sub-genre to pull the rest of it along. Most mainstream audiences simply cannot veer from the Saw films to Shaun of the Dead to The Others, to The Hills Have Eyes to the Blade series to Seed of Chucky to The Ring to House of a 1000 Corpses to Eight Legged Freaks to Land of the Dead to Slither to The Descent to Freddy vs. Jason to The Grudge to Hostel without completely misunderstanding one if not most of them. A true fan of the genre can veer between these disparate genre creations and appreciate them all for their particular entertainment value. That’s not to say that you should like them all. You just have to be a bit more understanding than your average Saturday Night Mutiplex Drone who just wants to see whatever is popular that week. Other wise, can you call yourself a real fan of the genre? Things that make you go hmm….

If not for the success of Hostel, Saw, The Devils Rejects and other targets of the EGG-HEAD set would we have gotten the Masters of Horror series or been allowed to see the likes of The Descent, Shaun of the Dead and High Tension on american movie screens or see the publication of so many new magazines devoted to horror or the growing horror comics boom or see the long out of print works of authors like Jack Ketchum and Thomas Tessier make it to the check out isles at Target or the popularity of a website like this. No. No. No. It happens every ten years or so and it’s almost always the movies. If horror is popular on movies screens it’s popular everywhere. and if one sub-genre (slasher, torture porn, zombie comedy, splatstick, possession film, gothic vampire story, ghost story, serial killer thriller, etc) has to do all the heavy lifting I say Thank You. Sure, a lot of rip-offs will get produced but there’s always something different, something unusual, something atypical that will slip under the radar. If there is no radar then nothing gets by, on radar or under it.

Remember the mid-nineties dry up of all things horror? Do we really want a return to that? That’s what happened when the EGG-HEADS were through beating down eighties horror because they didn’t like the “slasher film cycle”. They forgot that’s also when we got Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator, Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series among others. All classics. All helped getting through to audiences because Friday the 13th was banking cash like mad.

The EGG-HEADED DESTROYERS aren’t satisfied with ruining our good time either. It’s funny watching the same type of people wring their hands over the ridiculous success of movies like Wild Hogs or Norbit and other such Hollywood bile. Now honestly I would rather rip my eyeballs from their socket than see either one of those movies. But somebody found them funny. Whoever the millions of poor, sad fuckers who packed the multiplexes to see the horribly racist turd-water that was Norbit, or the obnoxious mugging of John Travolta and Martin Lawrence in Wild Hogs were, they have the right to enjoy their crap without me interjecting. Just like I have the right to enjoy mine.

Now lest you believe that I am simply some idiot who only wants to see dumb horror lets just get this straight; only the most backwards, idiotic type of filmgoer doesn’t appreciate the horror genres unique ability to reach for artistic and dramatic heights that no other type of film can. Because horror explicitly deals with the forbidden, the uncanny, the unbelievable, the deranged, the repulsive and so on it can hit an audience where it really hurts. The point is, it doesn’t always have to do that, it can simply use all of those ingredients to entertain. Do we need to keep trying to prove this to non-fans by tearing down anything with nothing on it’s mind but entertainment? Whether you are entertained by a particular film or not is your own problem, that doesn’t mean that if I liked it I am any less intelligent or that a mindless, fun ride like Wrong Turn, or Bride of Chucky, or Alien vs. Predator doesn’t have a place within the genre. The genre is big enough to hold both Street Trash and May.

We’ve been led to feel ashamed of our own tastes because some need to use pop culture products as a ways of asserting their fragile egos. Because I like this band, or that book, or this television show, or that whatever it may be, I’m better than you! Tell the EGG-HEADED DESTROYERS to go fuck themselves. It’s actually pretty entertaining, because once you rip that cover of self importance off they get all fumbly and nervous and start acting like you’re attacking them and getting teary eyed and shit. By yanking their unearned arrogance away they are left standing their looking like the insecure, needy, geeks they were before they discovered who Akira Kurosawa was. Don’t let another EGG HEAD take your enjoyment away from you. Stop being a pussy when someone attacks you for actually enjoying Halloween Part 3. Attack back! It’s our genre. We can defeat them if we try.

by. Gary G

Discuss BEWARE THE EGG-HEADED DESTROYERS!!! HERE!

“Lets show them what we can do.”

And with these words Prom Night turns from generic slasher film into camp horror brilliance. You know the story by now; a little girl is pushed out of a window by prankstering kids and six years later the offenders are ritually slaughtered at the senior prom. Prom Night is the quintessential slasher with its crime from the past being righted in the present, bitchy girl, horny boys, unifying event and Jamie Lee Curtis. But Prom Night is really something special.

Curtis plays Kim, big sister of the dead girl and their brother Alan who is very protective. She is also the daughter of Leslie Nielsen, who happens to be the school principle. The family has been devastated by the death of little Robin. The murder has also haunted Lt. McBride who believes a recently escaped child killer was the culprit. But we, the audience know better. We saw the four responsible push Robin out the third floor window of an abandoned building: pothead Jude, nervous Kelly, ringleader Wendy and Nick, who is now dating the sister of the girl he killed (he is also the son of Lt. McBride, you know just to make the story more convoluted). Only Nick seems to feel any remorse for what they did.

As a whole the movie is kind of sloppy, there are loads of sub-plots that are either undeveloped or totally ignored; like why is that basically all of Jamie Lee Curtis’s friends were involved in the death (albeit accidental) of her sister yet with the exception of Nick they seem oblivious to it? And why do the writers spend so much time on lining up red herrings and creating whole back-stories for them when it’s obvious from the beginning who the killer is? And where did Leslie Nielson, go?

But the moment Curtis grabs her boyfriend and hits the light-up disco dance floor to show up their rivals we are transported to slasher movie heaven. All of a sudden the gym at Hamilton High turns into Studio 54. Curtis looks pretty good busting-a-move but Nick looks like he’s trying to pull a wild animal off his back. The outrageously prolonged disco routine serves as a wake up pill because it’s at this point that the proper film starts. After the dance routine the killer decides to finally launch into his murder spree; maybe he was waiting to see the big number, in fact that kind of makes sense if you know whom the killer is and what he was supposed to be doing there. But these last-forty-five minutes of the movie are an exercise in perfect slasher film.

A few words on the music. The film score by Carl Zittner is exceptional but it’s the disco tunes by Paul Zaza that really stick with you. The title song “Prom Night,” the ironic ‘Love Me Till I Die” and the cautionary “Fade to Black” are hard to forget.

It’s odd that the writers try so desperately to throw us off the trail of the killer. There are three red herrings. But anyone who remembers the first five minutes knows the deal. We know the killer is mad as hell from the scenes in which he makes harassing phone calls to the guilty parties (Best Crank Voice EVER!) and how he likes to stab their yearbook photos to shreds with a pair of sharp scissors. The killer clearly has a grudge. But we are not ready for the viciousness of his attacks and his relentless pursuit. His breathless “NOW” at the climax of each murder is absolutely chilling. But the highlight of the film, the sequence that alone makes Prom Night a small classic of the (slasher) genre is the grueling, intense chase of the “Supreme Bitch” of the film Wendy played marvelously by Anne Marie-Martin, here billed as Eddie Benton.

A few words on the character of Wendy; she’s in my opinion the great Bitch of the eighties slasher movies. Every good slasher movie needs a Supreme Bitch to contrast with the innocence of the Final Girl and Wendy is just total narcissistic, selfish bitch-a-tude. In one of her first scenes we see that she misses her crank call from our breathy killer (which really pisses him off) because she’s too busy being a bitch to her mom who simply asks “Will you be home for dinner, dear?” and she replies “How the hell should I know?” and walks away all bitch-like. Other bitch moves are her constant brazen attempts to steal Nick from Kim and when she leaves her lunk-head prom date, Lou, on the dance floor like an idiot to go bother Nick. Props go to the costume designer who outfitted her in that sharp metallic red dress. Even Jamie Lee admits she looks good in it. And it’s a perfect choice for the chase through the darkened hallways of the school since that flash of red is sometimes all you can see.

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The killer dispatches of the Jude and Kelly fairly quickly but Wendy, the hard ass, proves a tough job for the ax-wielding maniac. Best is when she ducks just as the ax whips above her head. There is no chase that rivals this one, even in Friday the 13th, which was released the same year. This chase scene is more prolific that it’s given credit for because unlike other great slasher movie chases (Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) this girl isn’t frightened and hysterical but canny and completely under control. Just like the good little narcissist she is, Wendy is all about Wendy. God love her. The actress, Anne Marie-Martin went on to marry and have a kid by best selling author Michael Crichton and when they divorced in 2002 she reportedly got 30 million dollars. That’s my Wendy.

I’ve found that anyone who grew up in the eighties and caught Prom Night on late night TV will always feel sentimental towards it. It was always aired as the late-late movie after the news on Fridays and Saturdays and for those little kids who stayed up to catch it, it remains one of the most dark, haunting and somber slasher movies in the canon. From the unsettling childish chants of “Kill, Kill the killer is coming,” the sometimes overwhelming cinematography and it’s extremes of overexposed white and pitch black, to the sad, weepy finale (Nominee Most Touching Horror Movie Moment) Prom Night is almost oppressively gloomy. And as the final image of that upside down mirror reflection of the abandoned building Robin fell from and the melancholy strains of “Fade to Black” start up you actually feel (and I’m not kidding on this) the weight of the whole sad tragedy you’ve just witnessed. Slasher films are always thought of as cautionary tales of teenage sexual abandon. Prom Night offers thought another cautions. PRANKS CAN KILL…in more ways than one.

Horror Yearbook acknowledges Prom Night for it’s achievements in 1980!

Nominated for:

Best Kill: Wendy chased down hall.

Most Touching Moment: Read Here in our “Top Ten Touching Horror Movie Moments”

Best Song: “Fade to Black”
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Tell Us Your Favorite “Horror Bitch HERE”

Read all of Gary G’s Articles in his archives

And the Yearbook will be just that; a fun, off beat, satirical look at the films, people, villains, heroes, victims, performances, trends, box covers, tag lines, etc that made the year in horror films. And you’ll get Full reviews of every film released in theaters, video, and television that year. No more critical disregard for the lesser titles on your neighborhood video shelf, we wade through the muck so that you can do the same.

This series will serve as a nostalgic retrospective survey of the decade in horror film making frequently misunderstood, vilified and disregarded. Long Live The 80′s.

- by Gary G.

Read Part 1 HERE

Horror Yearbook: First thing I want to get to is a project your directing called Deadly Rites. I saw the storyboard art on your website. It looks cool.

Artwork by R.J. and Julia Sevin

Gregory Lamberson: This is one I developed with a writer friend, Walt Jantzen. We wanted a project that he’d write and I’d direct. He likes action, I like horror, but what we agree on is 70s flicks, like BILLY JACK and DELIVERANCE. So we’re aiming for that sort of realistic, almost naturalistic, gritty cinema verite. It’s basically about two camps, good and evil, but the film will really explore the shades between. The good guys are 2 cops and a priest who take some inner city kids on a weekend camping trip. The bad guys are a Charles Manson-type figure, who escapes from prison, and his followers, reunited years after he was sent to prison. It’s extremely dark and violent, but has very strong themes and subtext. The story and characters are all Walt’s, although I’ve contributed plenty of ideas. The whole idea is for me to direct someone else’s screenplay for a change, so I’m letting him do his thing, just trying to encourage him and offer suggestions. The script has gone through about 4 drafts at this point, and needs just one more polish. Since I didn’t write it, it’s okay for me to say that it’s the best low budget screenplay I’ve ever read. We want to shoot it for more than my other films combined, but considerably less than $500,000, and we want to use some genre vets. The idea of aging members of Manson’s cult opens a lot of room casting-wise. I hope to shoot it in June, but that’s dependent on securing the financing, which is always the case.

Final version of Maggie Mae and victim, by Alex McVey

HYB: Wow, that sounds amazing. You mentioned several seventies flicks that have inspired you. I’ve found horror fans always have some really interesting faves on their list that don’t exactly fall into the horror genre. What are some of yours. What has inspired you?

GL: Well, I love movies, so I can always list some that people probably won’t expect. How about PROMISES IN THE DARK, with Marsha Mason as a doctor who throws her career away to pull the plug on a dying young girl? Or LITTLE MURDERS, with Elliot Gould, which starts out as an offbeat comedy, but by the end, everyone in NYC becomes a sniper? THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR is one of my favorite films–chilling. David Cronenberg’s THE BROOD. SF flicks like WESTWORLD, SILENT RUNNING and CAPRICORN ONE. Bad adaptations of great novels inspire me: THE OMEGA MAN, SALEM’S LOT, and GHOST STORY, because you see where there filmmakers went wrong.

HYB: Promises in the Dark? Wow, never heard of it. But love 70′s era Marsha Mason. She was like the biggest movie star back then?

GL: Not the biggest, but she and Neil Simon used to go on all the talk shows promoting themselves as the one Hollywood couple that hadn’t been divorced. Then they got divorced. PROMISES is a tear jerker, but it was the first to exploit the song “Dust in the Wind,” which you hear on commercials all the time now. It’s basically about one human being keeping her promise to another, regardless of the cost to herself.

HYB: Now I want to talk about writing for actors. You’ve talked about writing roles specifically for both Robert Sabin and Tommy Sweeney. In fact Naked Fear was in part kind of like a Freddy Vs. Jason thing where you pitted the stars of your first two movies against one another. And you do seem to have a company of actors like Mary Huner and Terry Spivey who make appearances in all your movies. As I listened to the directors commentary for both movies on the DVD release of Slime City I was struck by how much you got Robert Sabin’s sense of humor down and Tommy Sweeney’ brooding aura.

GL: In the films, and I suppose in PERSONAL DEMONS and JOHNNY GRUESOME–but not so much a couple of other novels I’m developing–I tend to have one main character. The producer in me is thinking of who I’ll cast in a role as I write a script, if I know it’s a script I plan to shoot myself, on a shoestring budget. It’s true I like to use the same people, when I know I can rely on them, and they’ll be committed to a project, and there will be no nonsensical conflicts, which can really hurt a production. Robert, Mary, and Terry were in all 3 of my films, because we worked well together on the first one. I wrote Alex in SLIME CITY for Robert, but none of the supporting characters were written for specific actors, and I certainly didn’t write 2 roles for Mary. You know the story: I cast her as Lori, the virginal girlfriend, and when I couldn’t find anyone to play the bad girl next door, Nicole, I offered her both parts. Well, on UNDYING LOVE, I cast Julie Lynch as the good girlfriend, and once again I had trouble casting the femme fatale. For a brief instant, I considered pulling the same stunt, using her in both roles, and she really wanted to try that. But I didn’t want to go there again. So I switched her to the darker role, which she enjoyed, and I asked Mary to help me out by playing the girlfriend. As it turns out, I liked Mary in UNDYING LOVE as much as I did on SLIME CITY, and I think I gave her better dialog the second time out. So it wasn’t really planned that the two leads from SLIME CITY would play supporting roles–and get killed–in UNDYING LOVE, it just worked out that way. Now, NAKED FEAR is where I really wrote roles for people. By then, Robert and Tommy had each starred in one of my films, and had acted together briefly in one. I really knew that I could write for each of them, and more important, I knew they would play off each other. And I have to say, it was a lot of fun watching their dynamics on location, because they’re two very different guys, but they got along great. I wrote the female lead for Mary, just to complete the reunion, but she was in SAG then. It would have been fun to see Mary play such a damaged character. But she ended up dubbing the role; there was a problem casting one female role in each film! Terry played the mugger in SLIME, and a buppie in UNDYING LOVE, and I wanted to write a role from him stronger than I had in the other 2 films, and I think he’s a riot in this. But I still killed him! There’s one more player in this company: Nelson Wakefield, a friend of mine from high school: he has a silent cameo as Mary’s heavy metal victim in SLIME CITY. The close up of him in lipstick always gets a laugh. He’s the guy who says “Cheers!” in UNDYING LOVE when he walks in on the Master vampire sucking the blood off that blonde –played by Mary Huner’s sister, Karen. And he plays the burglar in NAKED FEAR. He was also in the band that did the heavy metal songs in UNDYING LOVE, and he co-wrote some of the music in NAKED FEAR. He’s been a corporate slave in real life, and he recently got his SAG card and has been on LAW AND ORDER a few times. There. Whew. Enough about them!

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- Artwork by Zach McCain