Episode 98 – What Dreams may Kill is Kiss

This week, only a few months late, we explore the works of Stephen McHattie and Bruce McDonald, a dark speaking horror flick, “Pontypool”, and what may or may not be a spiritual sequel, “Dreamland”.

Check out this episode!

Vintage Comics: Beware, Issue #8, Terror in the Streets, The Watery Ghost, Come Die With Me (Pg. 16 – End)

 Wrapping up this shorter comic issue, Beware reminds me just how delightfully dark it was for a classic horror comic. I just love the twisted endings. The last one especially of the corpse having a night on the town with his ‘friends’ is particularly fun. You don’t typically find these sorts of stories in 50s comics, and it’s no wonder a lot of them became banned for a couple of decades until the American public lightened up.

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Drive-in Trailers: Under The Sea

I think we can all agree that the world is a dangerous place, and anyone who steps foot out of their home for anything other than absolute necessities (food, water, bullets, Dolly Parton’s latest album) is a fool. That being said, let us make our way back to the topic at hand: oceanic horror. The spooky, the dark, and the non-shark related horror waiting in your swimming pool, bathtub, and not-so-friendly local beach.

Horror Flick of the Week: The Baby (1973)

I’m not sure exactly how to describe why this is the movie of the week. Sometimes you just have to watch a different category of weird horror altogether, and sometimes – – that comes in the fan of an emotionally and mentally stunted man who was raised for decades as a permanent infant. It’s a bit of a thriller and a melodrama with a bizarre twist. Ruth Roman also does an excellent job playing the overprotective (and somewhat demented) mother, which is equally as entertaining as the rest of the movie, if not more.

Book of the Week: Evil Ernie – Youth Gone Wild, by Brian Pulido

It’s not pretty. It’s not happy. Hell, it’s not even cute, but you can’t deny this one simple fact: Evil Ernie rocks. For those of you familiar with The Mask series of comics, you know, the dark one, I’m sure your appetite for violence and animated gore is fairly intense. So why not give Evil Ernie a shot?

It’s not really about the plot. A young man driven mad by a combination of severe child abuse and a bizarre dream machine that links him to lady death (either death incarnate, or just a really crazy bitch who likes to wake up to a pile of corpses in the morning). One thing leads to another, and he gets killed with yet another experiment, only to come back with mental powers. Every person he kills becomes a bloodthirsty zombie, intent on helping Ernie create an army of ‘friends’.

That’s really all there is to the plot, to be honest, but it’s a fun ride there, and this issue only left me hungry for the rest of them.

Odd Monsters

Bored with the bogeyman? Not finding the clown thing too funny anymore? Are vampires in your nightmares just sucking you dry? Well, not to worry, there’s plenty of ‘wonderful’ creatures out there to ensure that your psyche stays freshly traumatized for years to come. Keeping the Japanese one to just one, because their mythology is so broad with yokai and spirits, that you can’t possibly cover them all in one go.

 

Katawaguruma/Katawa Guruma

Origin: Japanese

The female counterpart to the Wa nyūdō, this creature appears in the shape of a woman (usually naked) burning in eternal torment with the lower portions, or attached to, an ox cart wheel. The causes bad luck, ill fortune, and misery to those who encounter her, what’s more…the bad luck doesn’t just stop at one person, it can spread through the entire community associated with anyone who has met her. She also harvests the souls of the ‘impure’, the cruel, the sinful, etcetera, etcetera.

 

Likhoradka/Tryasavitsa

Origin: Slavic

Embodying a tall woman with black, messy hair, Likhoradka will spread  horrible calamities and plague wherever she goes, and to whomever she encounters. She can also possess anyone she chooses.

 

Black Annis/Agnes

Origin: British

Save your jokes, this lady is not someone you want to mess with. Absolutely hideous creature, a wizened crone with gnarly black claws, sharp teeth, one eye, and mottled blue skin. Some say her claws are made of iron, some say they’re just…particularly strong, I suppose. Residing around Leicestershire, Agnes spends most of her free time tearing travelers to pieces, redecorating her cave with the flayed skin of small children, and generally just being a terrible neighbor. Meg Mucklebones, anyone?

 

Kanontsistonties

Origin: Iriquois

Say what you will about Native American mythology, it seems to me that they really take the cake for the creepiest monsters out there. As much as I adore the Windigo, I felt like maybe delving into something a little less popular. Varying in size from miniscule to massive, the Kanontsistonties are essentially flying skulls with bat wings and a desperate craving for…you guessed it…human flesh. They are the product of two possibilities, victims of murder by beheading, or…they used to be cannibals in life, and decided they just couldn’t kick the habit in death either. They can’t stop, as they have no stomachs, so they’re pretty much doomed to eternal hunger.

 

Cheval Mallet

Origin: French

Horses. You can’t trust them. I had a horse step on my foot once. I didn’t like it. So when I learned of the Cheval Mallet, it came as no surprise that it turned out to be an evil horse. Well, that and the fact that I took French in high school, so the connection wasn’t too hard to make. Essentially, it appears at night as a beautiful horse, tricks you into riding it…and that’s it, for the rest of your life (and onwards), you’re trapped for eternity riding a beautiful horse. A beautiful evil horse. Or it drowns you. They like doing that, too.

Vintage Comics – Skeleton Hand, Issue 1 : Sea of Retribution, Chill Chatter, Death For Hire, Monster of the Deep, The Corpse Under the Carpet (Pg. 12 – end)

This time around, I decided to celebrate the season you guys deserved a larger portion of the comic at once, so here’s the rest of the first issue of Skeleton Hand. There’s nothing better than a story about a man getting his just desserts, which is altogether my favorite sort of horror. Well, that and the kind that has you really cheering for the innocent victims to get out of whatever grisly mess they’ve ended up in. The first story also happens to be educational as well. I had no idea John Paul Jones founded the American navy! Actually, that’s simplifying what he did, but this isn’t a history lesson, it’s a pre-code comic, so give me a break.

Chill Chatter is an editors’ note, but I thought it was charming enough to be included. Honestly though, some of these stories in this issue are actually a little more gruesome than most of the fare I’ve shared with you guys, and despite the condition, this one quickly became one of my favorites, too. Plus, a zombie named ‘Cracker’?! Who can resist a story like that?

The last two one-off stories are…actually a little funnier than you’d expect, and I think only one of them may have been on purpose.

Grim History: Gilles de Rais

“Blood was flowing – in Bluebeard’s house, in the abattoirs, in the circuses where God had set his seal to whiten the windows. Blood and Milk flowed together.” – Arthur Rimbaud

It is said that you can divide fairy tales into two categories, stories based on general fears and thoughts at the time, or apocryphal adaptations of historic fact. What can one say about the story of Bluebeard? A rich man who took many wives, locked them in his house when he left, and left them with a key and an egg just to make sure he could trust them not to discover all of the dead wives he’d slaughtered countless times before. Frankly, I don’t see why people Bluebeard could be associates with Gilles de Rais, but that’s what many people believe. Odd, considering a vast majority of the children he was purported to have slaughtered, if not all, were little boys…

Gilles was born in 1404-05, depending on your sources, precocious, titled, disgustingly rich, and destined to become orphaned at the age of 10. From then on, under the guardianship of his maternal grandfather grandfather, Jean de Craon, who was without a doubt one of the more interesting and dastardly schemers you may read about in history. The man desperately wanted to be the richest in all of France, and as any respectable person of his time would do, endeavored to earn this by wedding Gilles off to a toddler. He tried, anyway. The whole mess got immediately rejected by the Parisian Parliament, so he settled for kidnapping Gilles’ cousin, Catherine de Thouars instead.

But this isn’t Game of Craon, this is the history of Gilles himself. Ultimately, he ended up supporting the Dauphin in the Hundred Years War. He did quite well for himself, reckless, brave, just about everything you could imagine any model aristocratic soldier being. When Joan of Arc came to court, Gilles was to be her military advisor.

Following several successful battles, Gilles became Marshall of France.

Things were looking up for our hero. Then, after a series of unfortunate events, not the least of which being the burning of Joan, and the death of his grandfather (who decided to leave the family title and respect to Gilles’ younger brother),  Gilles decided he’d had enough of being the typical good guy. Some believe the death of Joan may have been the major domino in his gruesome path later on, but really…a lost friend, or perhaps even unrequited love, does not account for psychopathic behavior. Otherwise the world would be far worse than it already is.

Gilles had one daughter with his wife, then it’s purported that he swore off women altogether. The man had spent a good deal of money investing in chapels, the church, and all things holy…suddenly decided to make a complete polar opposite shift in how he lived his life…

In 1432, the year after Joan of Arc’s death, Gilles killed his fist victim. His first documented one, anyway. A boy his cousin had sent to deliver a letter to him. Gilles, essentially went absolutely insane. He started to spend his fortune at an astonishing rate, to the point of having to sell of portions of the family lands and estate to support his activities. What’s more, his parties didn’t stop with boozing and debauchery. There are many claims that insist he raped, tortured, and cremated up to 200 small children by 1440. A majority of the murders took place in 1438-1439. These children were gathered for him by his closest servants, and there are even wild accounts Gilles himself described in his confessions at court of satanic rituals he would perform, very likely involving the remains of these children as well.

His brother finally forbade Gilles from selling off anything else, and the family lands were kept intact by a court order, while the man practically threw money at his favored ‘magician’, an Italian man  who had once been a priest, named Antonio Prelati. Gilles’ ultimate goal was to restore the money he had squandered, and he spent it like water just to find out if he could somehow transform common elements into gold. He actually thought murdering the children would somehow aid in this, and it’s clear by the sheer number that no cost was too high for Gilles to maintain his wealth.

Arguably, what ultimately did him in, was the kidnapping of a cleric. Though many people suspected Gilles of murder, kidnapping, and all sorts of crime, his military history and standing with the king had given him a great deal of protection from any persecution…the church, however, was just a little too powerful for him to get away from (at the time.) He was finally brought to trial, and after several witnesses (his own servants who had actually aided him in many of his crimes) spilled the beans.

Gilles at first insisted he was innocent, but quickly caved, and described in detail many of the horrible rituals he committed with Prelati, to the point of even trying to summon Satan himself. Gilles was put to death, but because of his standing he was allowed to be strangled/hanged (some accounts differ) before his brief burning, and even so, given a Christian burial on church grounds.

It is said that many testimonies given by witnesses and Gilles himself of the crimes he committed against his victims were so terrible, that they were stricken from the record so people could be spared ever learning of the horrid details.

Netflix/Hulu Instant Horror Watch 2016

It’s that time of year again. The Fog rolls in on your dvd shelf, eery Carpenter tunes playing as it awaits Halloween, while the echoes of ‘Trick ‘R Treat‘ can almost be heard outside your front door, and The Thing becomes Ravenous for Popcorn…yet, at the same time you wonder why these film references I just made seem to be disproportionately John Carpenter titles and a few other random titles thrown in. It’s like this game is Child’s Play, a veritable Witches of Eastwick…

Okay, that last one didn’t make sense at all, even as a play on words. Anyway, this October I decided to not only post the instant watch list on time (for once), but mix it with some Hulu for variety. Alas and alack, it’s mainly because Netflix really didn’t roll out with much for horror this October…and the proportion of films I actually wanted to watch that I hadn’t seen…well, this just seemed to be a little bit less painful. So, without further ado, the list begins…

1st. – The Rite

 

2nd. – The Silence of the Lambs

 

3rd. Most Likely toDie

 

4th. Hollows Grove

 

5th. Dead Set (this one is actually a show, but it’s 5 episodes, boiling it down to the length of one film. Plus, it’s awesome.)

 

6th. The Lodge

 

7th. Para Elisa

 

8th. 2001 Maniacs

 

9th. The Babadook

 

10th. Cujo

 

11th. Would You Rather

 

12th. All Hallows Eve: October 30th

 

13th. Stung

 

14th. Offpsring

 

15th. Curve

 

16th. Poor Pretty Eddie

 

17th. The Damned

 

18th. Beneath (2007)

 

19th. The Veil

 

20th. Occupant

 

21st. Final Girl

 

22nd. Stranded

 

23rd. Deformed Monsters

 

24th. Comforting Skin

 

25th. The House at the End of Time

 

26th. Witching & Bitching

 

27th. Out of the Dark

 

28th. Castle Freak

 

29th. The Host

 

30th. The Fury

 

31st. Jaws

Horror Flick of the Week: Nightmare Castle (1965)

It is no secret that a disgustingly high number of classic films, and especially Italian ones, found themselves butchered terribly in their transitions to the American screen. I’ve heard Nightmare Castle is no exception, but if you’re looking for the full version, you can find it under the title of ‘The Faceless Monster’. The discrepancy is 11 minutes. Pacing and I believe a bit of violence being the key missing bits…

 

However, I am not necesarilly a purist about these things. Because I can still enjoy it on its own if I haven’t seen the original first, and that’s why I’d recommend Nightmare Castle to any fan of B movies, Italian Gothic horror, Bava-esque settings, and of course…Barbara Steele. The one and only.

Throughout this film, I found myself mostly appreciating the set…the house…the costumes…and the fact that it really wasn’t as slow as some people would have you believe. Especially if you’re used to the sort of dragging elements Italian cinema is especially known for, the general classic philosophy of their filmmaking being that ‘cinema is about the art and the experience, not the plot or the philosophy of being concise.’ Taking that into consideration, there’s quite a bit of plot in this that you wouldn’t otherwise expect. A mad scientist tortures his adulterous wife to death, uses her blood to youthen their maid (who is obviously his dish on the side), then marries her step (or half) sister to get the family property and fortune…did I mention Barbara Steele is in dual roles? Barbara Steele is in dual roles.

A great film for the approaching holiday season. Check it out as soon as possible, and especially if it’s dark and stormy in your neck of the woods. You won’t regret it.