The boys over at Deadpit have been bringing us the best in horror talk radio for over four years now. This week, they are celebrating their 200th show and they need your help. Call in to the Deadpit hotline and share your Deadpit stories. Your story will be included on the upcoming anniversary show so act now! You have until Friday morning to call in with your funniest story, strangest gossip and your best convention stories. The number to call is 1-606-658-0185. Don’t wait! Go. Now!
The guys at Horrorbid.com have commented on the speculated end of Fangoria.com and Fangoria magazine. There are no hard facts out there – only specualtion – but one can hope that the seminal horror magazine has not closed it’s doors forever. Stay tuned to Mutantville.com for another Fangoria Unboxing video to celebrate the horror goodness that Fangoria has brought us over the years.
Click the link below to read the full article at Horrorbid.
Since we’re taking an MVP field trip this weekend to the Carolina Theatre to see The Dark Crystal and Army of Darkness – I thought we should prepare ourselves for some Evil Dead fun! What better way to get ready for the marathon than by revisiting this 90′s classic with your favorite horror hostess and mine – Miko Macabre! So put your primitive screwhead friends back in the closet, polish your chainsaw and hold on to your boomstick, it’s Army of Darkness night on Cryptique!
**Streebo
Check out this great video featuring the amazing, surreal and sadomasochistic visual stylings from Clive Barker’s video game masterpiece - JERICHO. The video is in German – so you’re safe from too many spoilers – unless you speak German that is.
From Wearemoviegeeks.com: This past weekend, Netflix delivered me a documentary that I have been wanting to see ever since I missed it at SLIFF back in 2007. The film was ‘Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story’. For those of you that don’t know who William Castle is, I implore you to check out ‘The William Castle Collection’ that was recently released on DVD (click here to see it at amazon.com) which also includes said documentary. While the meat of the story is how a man who turned some B-Movies into Grade-A events at movie theaters by offering a thousand dollar life insurance policies to attendees of one of his films if they die of fright. While I have always been a fan of Castle and his gimmicks/promotions, this really made me reflect advertising of film past.
homicidalWhen films really started becoming mainstream, the majority of the films were carried by the actors and actresses who headlined or had top-billing for a film. While Castle never had this courtesy, he knew of a way to get people in the seats. He created gimmicks. Believe it or not, PSYCHO by Hitchcock had a gimmick of – which the documentary points out as well – not allowing anyone after the first 15 minutes of the film has been shown. William Castle’s audience participation gimmicks ended in 1965 with ‘I Saw What You Did’ where seat belts were installed in seats to keep you from jumping out of your seats from fright. His ideas made movie watching a bigger thing. He wanted you to experience the film, to make the film fun. He also showed Hollywood and other film makers on how they could promote a film regardless of the content and quality.
From Fangoria.com: After watching hundreds (or thousands?) of horror movies over the course of decades, how many horror fans still get scared after watching a horror movie? I’m not talking about merely feeling tension because a character is in danger, but actually feeling frightened by a film.
All too often, it seems that people complain that a horror film was “bad” because it wasn’t “scary”. Without any context, this is essentially meaningless. For example, when was the last time a movie scared them, and what was it?
I feel that this “problem” has less to do with the quality of a film than it does with someone’s having built up a tolerance. Besides being a horror fan, I’m also a fan of very spicy food, and I have an assortment of hot sauces made from habanero and scotch bonnet peppers in my refrigerator at all times. My tolerance of spicy food is significantly higher than average, but my fiancee would argue that just because I don’t feel a dish is spicy, this doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Curiously, when horror films aren’t being accused of being bad because they’re not scary, it’s because they’re “not fun”. This seems to be a by-product of the ’80s, when so many horror films were glutting the market that the genre largely descended from “fright films” into horror-comedies – intentional or not.
I’m not talking about films that use comic relief to briefly release tension, I’m talking about films where you’re laughing at the film more than you’re laughing with the film – or are scared of the film.
With that, if a horror film isn’t “fun” is it a bad horror film? I don’t remember Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre being a particularly fun film, but does this make it a bad horror film?
I also find it puzzling when people suggest that I’m “immature” when I don’t find a film that emphasizes shadows, noises and even action from off-camera “scary”. It may simply be a by-product of getting older, but I stopped being afraid of the dark – and creaky houses – decades ago, though I hardly feel that this is a sign of my immaturity.
So have at it – are horror films supposed to be scary or fun? Both? Neither?
From AMC Horror Hacker: I’ve decided I can completely ignore everything my parents ever taught me. Why should I bother with their boring advice when Hollywood gives me all I need to know? Stupid horror teens imparted many lessons about life, as did those ever-so-reliable monster hunters with their timeless wisdom. But for the more esoteric subtleties, you really must sample the tidbits of insight offered by the ultimate icon of horror movies — the vampire.
Blood Is Thicker than Water
Every family has an idiot. If you can’t think of anyone in your family who’s an idiot, then guess what? That’s right: It’s you, because every family has an idiot. And yet that idiot is still family, so you have to go to bat for them, even if they get mixed up with the wrong people. And yeah, that includes the wrong undead people — just ask poor Seth Gecko in From Dusk Till Dawn. His brother Richard takes him into the mouth of Hell, and Seth goes to bat for him. You can’t always save your idiot relative, but dammit, you gotta try, because blood is thicker than water (and apparently much tastier).
Always Look Fabulous!
Why are all vamps dressed so dang well? Apparently there’s no excuse for not looking sharp, and that includes being dead. What’s up with that, Interview with a Vampire peeps? And what’s with the leather body suits, Underworlders? And do you even need to look beyond Bela Lugosi in the original Dracula to see the devastating effect of a sharp-dressed man? Sure, vampires may rip the throats out of their victims and bathe in blood, but I think it’s clear they’re always wearing clean underwear. Their vamp moms should be so proud!
