Fornax Halloween 2018 Issue: The Unnumbered Horror

Fiction

THE DARKCLOUD by Gerd Maximovic

(Translation: Isabel Cole)

They had crammed 83 men, none of them over the age of 25, into a spaceship which had been christened VIRGIN, no doubt in order to conjure up the image of an innocent humanity free of greed and covetousness, setting out into space to new shores, new treasures, to the gold land Ophir and to the uranium planet, to where the fat planets revolve around the stars like moths which have eaten their way through golden garments, where lands of Cockaigne loll in the sun like weak women, ready to give themselves to the quickest and the strongest, the most brutal moneybags, with their masses of living beings which promised to be easy to exploit, and with their immense natural resources which would be catapulted back to earth over a radio bridge through hyperspace.

It was the first expedition of this kind. The light barrier would be broken, and just as Columbus's SANTA MARIA was no holy virgin, with her crew of criminals and prisoners who would have torn down her halo again, the VIRGIN was far from transporting 83 innocent lambs whom the Lord would pasture. This was not a comfortable party trip on which domestics eagerly hastened up at the wink of an eye. This was a business venture in which everything, from the smallest screw down to the ticking in the captain's brain, had been precisely calculated, and the last little grain of dust on board had been investigated as to its extra profit potential.

The expedition, worked out most finely, was a risk-benefit calculation. They were perfectly aware that the risk in the indispensable, well-filled explosives tanks was dangerously close to its upper limits. That did not keep the press, insofar as it was run by the moneybags, from calling the expedition a departure into the unknown, an advance toward new borders, the eagle flight of the bold human spirit comparable to the American migration to the West, carefully avoiding mention of the sober calculations and the potential blood which dripped from every single number.

First of all they had to be young, the 83 men; at 27, the captain was the oldest on board. The trip to the stars might take thirty or forty years. Of course the barriers which nature imposed, condensed in the light barrier, had been overcome, but the flight through paraspace was not exactly a stroll to the pub to get a beer tapped, either. And the stink of beer breath was nothing in comparison to what escaped the throats of modern conquistadors who have drunk blood.

What kind of men were these who threw away their youths, their good middle years, even their grey temples with an apparently contemptuous gesture, plunging themselves into an adventure which could not be grasped in either its spatial or its temporal dimension, which in fact are one and them same? They all had one thing in common: they wanted to get away. Not merely away from this or that country or from the entire planet. They wanted to shake from their feet all the proton dust which the sun wafts into the earthly planetary system. Each bore his past like a tiny, grim rider, invisible, preserved only on tape and in psychographs and of course in their memory molecules. They set out to master it. But since they were not capable of analyzing the origin of their pain, unable to trace it back to the despicable social circumstances, they anchored their dull thoughts to superficial riffs, upon which, like sirens, thoroughly analyzed by the psychiatrists, the female sex was invariably ensconced.

The captain was a good-looking, handsome boy who couldn't stand it when his wife cheated him in the fashion which he considered his sole, self-evident right. His marriage had been a mistake. He should not have let himself be snared in the net of silver legal threads. But he had had the desire to try out this cage as well. The stewardess on the flight from Saint Tropez to Port Gordon in the orbit around Mercury had looked at him with black, shimmering eyes. Later, when their thoughts and feelings no longer oscillated in the same sinus curve, the silver wedding threads turned into rattling chains. He began to cheat on her. When Jean-Claude, a friend from the old days, returned to Transpluto from a long trip and visited her, she took the opportunity to cheat on her husband. Alarmed by the housekeeper, the police had to drag him out of the bed where he continued to choke the two throats from which no sighs and no groans would ever emerge again. He did not have enough connections to pave the way out of prison with bank notes. He was offered the alternative of taking over the command of the VIRGIN rather than molder away in a comfortable but boring cell.

The first officer, a gaunt, intelligent, often sarcastic man, had taken refuge from half of humanity. According to the statistical average around the globe, every other human being is a woman. Despite these masses of female beings - in our progressive times their number has grown into the billions - he had not managed to get along with a single one of them, and since he did not dare approach decent girls, he was always getting mixed up with screwed-up types who managed to increase his horror. Whether it was because of his father's early death, or an anatomical question, at any rate his failures added up to a complex called impotence. That was why, despite a certain aversion to the military, he had joined his country's army, which consisted only of men, and had immediately seized the chance offered him by the expedition of the VIRGIN.

Neither the captain nor the board psychiatrist, a deadbeat who had once been a knacker - a good doctor would have been no use, for in the end he might even have been able to help - had been informed about the problems of the crew, with a few exceptions. And there was no reason to fear that the men might help one another. That did not fit in with the picture of a real man, and after all there was also the ship hierarchy.

It was said of the second officer, a heavily-built man of unusual physical strength, that in a single night in 1997, when the Green Comet enveloped the earth in its tail, he had killed five or six ladies of the oldest profession in the world in the Western European red light district which reached from Hamburg to Naples, until the pimps were finally able to overpower him. The courts rejected the pseudotheory based on the comet with which his lawyer had attempted to save his skin, but did not seriously investigate the true reasons for his murderous spree.

It quickly became obvious that the flight on board the ship would not free the men of their sexual obsessions nor from their problems in this regard. On the contrary, the sardine-tin effect only aggravated their difficulties, occasionally driving them into spheres where reason grows foggy. A natural evasive reaction was the initiation of homosexual relationships, which were very much handicapped by the close quarters, from which mainly the crew suffered, and the morals brought from Earth which prevailed on board, as well as the steely suppression by the captain and the hierarchy, though the captain knew quite well that he could not suppress all activity, lest the cauldron explode in his face one day. One could observe and register and employ stool-pigeons and occasionally put down a putsch in distant regions.

Thus people retreated to the latrines, and a market for jealousy and vanities developed, with about two dozen men taking part. Although the walls of the latrines were made of the hardest possible material, which could even withstand a meteorite impact and repelled graffiti, the men found ways to scratch messages on the walls. Jokes with almost exclusively sexual content began to circulate, and despite the restricted number of crew members, no one was ever able to find out the originator of any given joke. It was as if they came into being simultaneously in everyone'sheads. And only the leadership clique, which kept its distance, remained uninvolved. One could have the impression that the crew as a whole, smelling of sweat, diesel and other things, was creating a world of humid sexual wishes the further they got from the reality of humanity on the Earth and on the planets, and that as the journey progressed they increasingly succumbed to a collective neurosis.

The men with the fine calculations, so careful in their estimates of blood and feelings, had taken this into consideration as well. They had told themselves that the best performance, coupled with dog-like subservience, could best be obtained from unfree people kept on a short sexual leash. It was an almost brilliant thought to locate the blame for such a state of affairs not in the economic conditions which, ultimately, had led the men to undertake the journey, but in the men themselves, as if the lack of women on board was a sickness which made every one of them waste away.

It would have been simple and humane to allow women on board, but that would have required a larger ship and the diminishment of its amortization. The difficulties which would arise, for they included failures otherwise fit to work, amounted to a jeopardization of the entire expedition. The only alternative, as far as materialistic morals were concerned, was excluded by the morals of those who had equipped the spaceship, which was based on the private ownership of people as well.

The solution was a myriad of porno films which the board computer reshuffled again and again to achieve an ever-fresh effect on the men. And finally they helped themselves by adapting to the conditions to which they were subjected and telling increasingly fantastic stories, like the sailors' yarns of past times. They told of other expeditions before theirs which had taken women on board. Bloody orgies had resulted, excesses so indescribable that they demanded the continuation of the story. They told of a legendary spaceship, the EXCALIBUR, whose crew died of an unknown pestilence caught on a planet inhabited only by women, but they had risen from the dead again because their potency refused to be stilled. Now the EXCALIBUR could no longer return to Earth; it drifted through space, bathed in the sun-wind, and again and again it was washed up onto the shore of lovely planets inhabited by sirens, where the women were as beautiful as the morning sun and were waiting for the EXCALIBUR, whether to bestow endless pleasure upon the crew or whether to use the bodies of the men as a breeding ground for their eggs after mating with them. All the while the porno photos from Earth were traded at increasingly astronomical prices, and the theft of such pictures, easily uncovered with the help of the system of informers, was punished by keelhauling without sufficient radiation protection, that is, by sexlessness, and those were the worst.

In the third year of their journey, according to normal earthly time, which had been maintained in order not to disrupt the natural life rhythm of the crew, which had been prolonged by only one hour per day, on the 912th day after leaving the Transpluto orbit and thus the solar system, Schmulloch, the head astronomer, pressed his eye - as he liked doing, but disliked admitting - to the ocular of his enormous telescope, with which, from hyperspace, he could observe the objects in normal space, which appeared to be moving relatively rapidly, as if gazing at porno photos with bulging eyes. They had long since left behind the two main stars in the constellation Lyra, and this constellation had long since dissolved, since from Earth it only appears as a chance conjunction of stars. On this day Schmulloch discovered an object which would unscientifically, but aptly, be called "the Darkcloud", not to mention certain obscene terms.

As far as his professional sphere was concerned, Schmulloch was a cool, self-controlled man unwilling to be accused of unprofessionalism. Nonetheless, after his first look at the Darkcloud he was overcome by a stage fright which was soon to extend to the entire crew and had nothing to do with the unhoped-for good fortune of a scientific discovery. All the same, he kept his head and turned on all the instruments at his command so that he could measure the cloud and above all analyze whether it might represent a threat to the ship.

As is customary, he registered each piece of information several times to prevent any mistakes, caused by the instruments, for example, from slipping through. His consternation was great when he compared the calculations and realized that the data on the mass, area, direction,

As is customary, he registered each piece of information several times to prevent any mistakes, caused by the instruments, for example, from slipping through. His consternation was great when he compared the calculations and realized that the data on the mass, area, direction, speed and material composition of the cloud deviated significantly from one another; for example, the cloud might have extended several billion parsecs in each direction, or might have merely been the size of the Earth's solar system. In addition, Schmulloch saw with bafflement that, according to several of his measurements, the cloud was located in normal worldspace, while according to others it was drifting in the hyperspace, where Schmulloch also managed to get a very important fix on it, and according to a third reading it even existed simultaneously in both states of the universe. The density measurements also fluctuated, but even the greatest density values posed no threat for the VIRGIN; it should be possible to pass through the cloud without any problems. As can be imagined, this fact was both a reassurance and an invitation.

Schmulloch's assistants, who were nearby, did not fail to notice his excitement. He informed them briefly of his discovery, and even before the captain heard about it the news had swept through the VIRGIN like a wildfire, hardly surprising after the many uneventful weeks in paraspace. The first crew members were already crowding up to the eyepiece, which was against regulations, while the chief astronomer doggedly scribbled calculations.

He worked out the presumable distance to the Darkcloud by hand, for the computer, completely confused by the contradictory data, went on strike, red lights blinking. The answer to the question as to its distance depended on its area, of course. Schmulloch's lowest estimate was eight hours, the most generous five days. It was now 18 o'clock earthly time, measured from the takeoff location; by 23 o'clock everyone who was not on guard duty was in bed; by 2 in the morning, at the earliest, they would enter the cloud, probably much later. Schmulloch reported to the captain.

In the small mess which also served as the control center and the brain of the spaceship, the VIRGIN's supposed experts arrived from all directions. Only the second officer, on guard duty, was missing. The captain immediately let Schmulloch speak. He reported what had so far been observed. Then they projected what the telescope revealed onto the big screen above the console. Four fifths of the screen, like a big, radiant wreath, was filled with sparkling stars. Only at the center of the image were the stars covered by a cancer-like black shadow. The cloud was fairly compact, with only a few relatively short arms, as if one were seeing a bearded face from the side. There was little more to be seen with the naked eye.

The excitement had spread as if a woman had suddenly stepped onto the VIRGIN. The captain used the rustling and scraping as they shuffled their chairs to put a grim, gruff expression on his face, which his youth made fairly unconvincing.

He asked: "Any suggestions, gentlemen?"

The physicist spoke: "I've checked Schmulloch's measurements. They're impeccable. I can't remove the contradictions from the measurements either."

The biochemist stood up. He turned to Schmulloch. "I'm not entirely clear on this," he said, "hasn't any comparable object ever been discovered in space?"

"No," said Schmulloch, "I checked, nothing of the kind has ever been seen before." The biochemist sat down with a morose face.

Forster, the doctor, who had listened to the brief exchange of words with displeasure, took the floor. "Gentlemen, I see that you have been seized by a certain scientific interest, nothing more. My question is for the captain. How much time has been allotted for objects like the cloud?"

"None," replied the captain, "if you mean the investigation of the Darkcloud. Our job is of a different description." While the men nodded approvingly, he went on: "The only question which concerns us in this connection is, how can we reach our goal the quickest in view of the Darkcloud?"

Schmulloch stood up again. "Either," he said, "we flight straight through the cloud and act as if it were not there at all, or we go around it."

"How much time would a detour cost us?" asked the first officer.

"That depends on its area," explained the chief astronomer. "As a median value I would say two to three weeks, and we will also lose some energy on the maneuver due to the anticipated friction."

"Gentlemen," said the captain, "the decision is mine to make, of course. But I'm interested in your opinions anyway. Okay? Let's vote. Who's for the shortcut?" Except for Schmulloch, all of them were for it. They were a young crew, the oldest only 27 years old. "So we'll fly through the cloud," said the captain. "Schmulloch, what are your reservations?" The astronomer hesitated, then said: "It's only a feeling that something could go wrong."

"We'll probably reach the cloud in fifty to sixty hours," said the captain, without responding to Schmulloch's reservations. "The duties will take their normal course. We will see each other here tomorrow at 18 o'clock. Thank you gentlemen, and good night." That night the men lay awake for a long time. Wild speculations were passed around, and as a matter of course their sexual fantasies were aroused. The second officer, whom the captain had given some additional instructions, finally turned out the light and went in the darkness, with luminous eyes, to the mess and the control room. In the low, narrow passages in which one could only walk bent over, from bulkhead to bulkhead, the eternal green nightlight was shining, shedding a dull, uncanny radiance. The first snores drifted into the control room via the eavesdropping system. The second officer flopped into a chair and struggled against sleep. Two officers were halfway awake, one in the machine room and one by the explosives tanks, performing their mindless duties. Toward three o'clock, earthly time, they entered the Darkcloud. The crew was sleeping, and the second officer, going on the false assumption that their contact with the

Darkcloud would not take place until the day after next, was not sure what he was seeing on the screen. The material of which the Darkcloud consisted was quite diffuse at its edges. Like pale traces of black-dyed fog vapor trails wafted about the VIRGIN, as if a one-toothed comb were passing through a woman's long black hair, floating in weightlessness. The blackness thickened, and in a few minutes the VIRGIN had penetrated the cloud completely, losing about ten percent of its speed due to the friction. Although it was a physical impossibility, due to the loose distribution of material in the cloud, a sound penetrated the side of the VIRGIN, reverberating in the mixed oxygen atmosphere of the ship as an endless, drawn-out groaning, as if one were experiencing a terrible orgasm. When one wave of the sound petered out among the pounding motors, it returned in a new wave.

The captain's cabin was now strangely large, reminding increasingly urgent.

The explosions at the bow and stern of the ship were becoming more violent, tossing the ship back and forth at an increasingly fast pace. Sweat appeared on the men's foreheads and ran down their backs. Now flashes of lightning illuminated the darkness of the screen, as the matter which made up the cloud began to vibrate along the channel. The whimpering and groaning rose above a certain level, turned into a bright singing which contained many sounds and shook the eardrums and the glass on the instruments.

Then a movement passed along the cloud channel. As if a thunderstorm were rolling down its slopes, or as if an earthquake were crumbling the ground away in slow motion, the edges of the cloud twitched, discharging their tension with a crackle, and explosions much more violent than the silent antimatter detonations raced down the channel. The men howled triumphantly, but this sound was completely drowned out by the bellowing which almost destroyed the loudspeakers.

After several days, in which the maneuver was repeated more than once, they reached the outer edge of the cloud, well rested and in good spirits, and shook off its moisture. Now the route which leads to the Darkcloud is named after the spaceship which first traveled it, but not without a double entendre: the virginal tangent. It turned into one of the most popular routes which lead through the known part of the universe; the Darkcloud became big business.

A new fashion developed as well. First it was the young people from Saint Tropez, Acapulco and Port Gordon, then, crammed into enormous tourist ships, came another class. Those who grow old in the wealthy countries in which only death is guaranteed, and are no longer of any use, are sent to the famous cloud. Supposedly it's fun, but at any rate death in the Darkcloud is considered chic.

THE END

Book Reviews

Witch Way to Murder

By Shirley Damsgaard ii & 292 pp.

New York: 2005 Avon Books

When one thinks of witchcraft, images of ugly women on broomsticks come to mind. That being the case, it comes as a pleasant surprise that neither of the two witches in Witch Way to Murder fit this stereotype. Actually, it may be an exaggeration to even call them witches since their magic is basically consists of a limited ability to see into the future.

The story is set in a small town in Iowa. A murder of a local citizen has been committed. Into this scene, a handsome young man from out of town named Rick Davis shows up and starts asking people all sorts of questions relating to both the murder and other goings on around town. Who is Rick Davis and why is he interested in these things?

As you can see, this is the usual set up for a traditional mystery with an added supernatural element. There are some drawbacks to this novel such as the rural folks are generally presented as a bunch of dumb, ignorant hicks. There was also a lot of talk and not much action. There was also the matters of the same old plot twists and gimmicks that you get in all too many traditional mysteries. The mystery in this book was too simplistic. This is a shaky beginning to what turned out to be a six-book series. The main character is unlikable and shows no growth throughout the novel.

However, there are some strong aspects to this novel. The characters are generally believable. The magic powers are presented in a non-sensationalistic way. Basically, in the final analysis, this is a novel that is worth taking the time to read in order to familiarize yourself with the setting of a six book series that has a decent following among mystery fans.

The Weird World of Eerie Publications: Comic Gore That Warped Millions of Young Minds!

By Mike Howlett

Introduction by Stephen R. Bissett

Port Townsend, WA: 2010 Feral House

If there is one subject that has thus far escaped the attention of historians of popular culture, it is the fact that starting in the late 1950's and lasting through the mid-1990's, there was a massive boom in the popularity of the horror genre. This boom was especially experienced in such areas as Gothic novels, monster movie magazines and black and white horror comic books.

Eerie Publications was a company that was known for its gory covers and low production values. This helped its black and white horror comic books stand out.

This is a very interesting book for those who are interested in obscure fringes of pop culture or who have nostalgic feelings for periodicals of the kind that are no longer being published.

The really amazing aspect of this book is that it is over 300 pages long, printed on quality paper, published as a large format hardcover book, is filled with all sorts of neat information and artwork and yet is available at such an affordable price. This is a book that is crammed with all sorts of hard to find information, reprinted comic book covers and selected interior artwork.

This book introduces us to publisher Myron Fass, a man who literally put the nut in the phrase "gun nut." Fass would often bring a gun to the office, wave it around and on at least one occasion, actually fire it in the office. Serving as editor under Fass, was Carl Burgos the creator of the Human Torch, among other comic book characters. For some reason, Burgos came to hate the comic book industry to the point of never having anything to do with comic book fans.

The black and white horror comics put out by Eerie Publications helped influence young fans to choose art as their career and on top of that, choose horror art as their specialty. One of these fans turned artists is Stephen R. Bissette who wrote the introduction for this book.

Eerie Publications was known for such comic books as Tales of Voodoo & Witches Tales. According to long-time horror comic book fans, Eerie Publications was the leader of the pack when it came to horror. The main strength of this book is that it gives background information on a great many of the artists and writers who created Eerie Comics. This book also gives numerous cross-references to Charlton and otehr publishers. It also discuses foreign clones of Eerie Comics such as "Jacula." As it turns out many of the leading artists at Eerie Comics such as Bill Alexander, Dick Ayers, Ezra Jackson and Chic Stone also had prolific careers with other comic book publishers.

However, the Warren horror comic books, Creepy and Eerie, have been reprinted in their entirety while hardly any of the Eerie Publications books have been reprinted. The same goes for the venerated Skywald and Atlas/Seaboard books as well. One problem facing would be Eerie comic book collectors is the fact that Eerie used weird numerical sequencing and that makes it difficult for a collector if he really has a complete collection or not.

One problem with this book is that it does not make things as clear as they could be. For example, in Appendix 7 "Taking Up Space," Howlett relates how Myron Fass bought out the Health Knowledge, Inc., line of classic reprint magazines only to shut them down shortly afterward. Howlett failed to make it clear if Fass bought out these magazines with the idea of shutting them down as competitors for his horror comics or if the financial condition of the magazines was such that they had to be shut down shortly after Fass took them over.

Another problem with this book is that it contains no reproductions of of the actual comics. There are some individual panels and even a few pages, but no complete stories. This is strange, since the text is continuously referring to comics stories that we are never shown. The only really satisfying aspect of this book is the fact that carries full-color reproductions of practically every cover of an Eerie Comics book. Surely, the publishers could have included a few of the complete stories that the book's text continually referred to.

The single worst problem is that the only indexes in this book are for the Eerie Horror Comics themselves. There simply is no index for the book itself. What this means is that there just simply is no easy way to access whatever interesting facts that you might be looking for. For instance, author Mike Howlett spends quite a bit of time talking about the horror comics issued by other publishers. However, this material is scattered all over the book and it takes a lot time for the reader to find it all. When you do find them all, you're still not sure that you've actually seen it all or if there's still some let out there for you to re-read. Having an index would have made things so much easier and simpler. Taken as a whole, this is a very good book that is certain to appeal to those why regard the days of black and white horror comics with affection. If you are in the latter category, then this is a must have book. If you are not of the age group who were around when these comics were at their peak, then you should check out this book at the local library and if it is not there, then get it on Inter-Library Loan, as I did.

Magazine Review

Sword & Sorcery Annual

“Fantastic Stories Special—1975”

Edited by Sol Cohen

Ultimate Publishing Company, Inc.

In 1974, the state of the Ultimate Publishing Company was in a bad way. All four of its magazines were bimonthlies with circulations under 30,000 and heading south. Two of these magazines, Amazing Science Fiction and Fantastic Stories were devoted to publishing original works under the editorship of Ted White. The other two magazines, Science Fiction Adventures Classics and Thrilling Science Fiction reprinted stories from the Golden Age of Science Fiction and were under the editorship of Publisher Sol Cohen.

Desperate circumstances call for desperate solutions. That being the case, Sol Cohen came up with the idea of both Amazing and Fantastic being limited to five regular issues each. In the place of the sixth issues of the magazines, would be “Special Issues” consisting of reprint material put together by Cohen. In the case of Amazing, the special issue was called UFO Annual, and consisted of material originally published during the late 1940‟s when Amazing, under the editorship of Raymond A. Palmer, was really pushing the idea that there were “flying saucers” hovering around in American airspace. In the case of Fantastic, the special issue was called Sword and Sorcery Annual and mostly consisted of stories published in Fantastic during the 1960‟s under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith. The lone non-Goldsmith Era story was the Conan the Barbarian tale “Queen of the Black Coast” by Robert E. Howard that was originally published in Weird Tales back in 1934. Despite the fact that SSA only published one Conan story, the magazine was subtitled “Thrilling adventures of CONAN THE CIMMERIAN.” The Conan story in this magazine was a real disappointment. It was poorly written and not very exciting. You could predict what was going to happen well in advance of it happening. What was the biggest fight in the story takes place off stage.

The next piece in SSA was not a story at all, but rather an essay by the legendary historian of science fiction and fantasy, Sam Moskowitz. This essay, entitled “L. Sprague de Camp: Sword and Satire,” originally appeared in the February 1964 issue of Amazing Stories. As the tittle indicated, Moskowitz‟s essay was mostly about de Camp‟s fantasy, particularly his sword and sorcery works.

According to Moskowitz, although de Camp quickly became on the foremost writers of science fiction and fantasy, it was not until after World War II that he got interested in the sword and sorcery sub-genre. What happened was that the agent representing the estate of the late author Robert E. Howard, made arrangements with de Camp to take charge of Howard‟s unfinished manuscripts featuring Conan the Barbarian, finish them and then send them to the agent so they could submitted for publication. De Camp‟s Conan work was so good that by 1964, Conan was what de Camp was mostly known for. Moskowitz‟s essay was solid and as such was one of the high points of this issue.

The next piece was the single best story in the entire issue. This was “The Pillars of Chambalor” by John Jakes that was about his signature sword & sorcery hero Brak the Barbarian. A fair case can be made that Brak was the single greatest literary sword & sorcery character of all time. Brak was certainly much more well-rounded and believable than Conan ever was. However, Brak, unlike Conan, has never received the endorsement of Hollywood and so has remained obscure to all but a small hard core of devoted fans of literary sword & sorcery.

In this story, Brak the wandering barbarian in search of wars to partake in for both the glory and loot, joins an old man and his lovely daughter who are searching for treasure. They are in possession of tablets in an ancient language that only a few people can translate. Fortunately, the old man is one of them.

The evidence of the tablets take them to the mysterious deserted city of Chambalor. At Chambalor, there are all sorts of pillars with what appears to be statues of people right by them. Are they really statues or are they something else? Complicating matters is an evil insectoid monster called T‟muk that does not like people much.

“The Pillars of Chambalor” is an excellent sword and sorcery story. Reading it makes you wonder just why it is that John Jakes is best known as a historical novelist instead of a sword and sorcery writer. You also have to wonder just why Hollywood has not discovered Brak.

The next story in SSA was a real disappointment. This was Michael Moorcock‟s “Master of Chaos,” which is just plain lame. This is a story with no real suspense and the way that it is written shatters the suspension of disbelief that is so crucial to enjoying stories of this sort. The best thing about it was that it was only 14 pages long.

The following story in SSA is a case study in confusion. On both the cover and on the index page, it is entitled “The Mirror of Cagliastro.” However, the reprinted story shows that it was really entitled “The Mirror of Cagliostro.” In any event, it was a dark fantasy novella by Robert Arthur and not a sword and sorcery story by any means. You have to wonder just why Cohen put it in this magazine at all.

The next story in SSA was a classic that many readers of this fanzine are doubtless familiar with: “The Cloud of Hate,” by Fritz Leiber, one of the best tales in the saga of the dimwitted Fafhrd and his smart aleck companion The Gray Mouser. This was a series that was well known for the repartee between the companions as they tackled one dire threat after another.

However, the same cannot be said about the next story in SSA. Like the Robert Arthur story, it is an exercise in dark fantasy. Unlike the Arthur tale, it is not particularly good. It seems pretty clear that “The Masters” by Ursula K. Leguin was included in this magazine only because of the author‟s big name status.

Unfortunately, the same is true of the next and final story, Roger Zelazny‟s “Horseman.” This particular tale is not only not sword and sorcery, but it reads like a plot fragment from a longer story.

What all this goes to show is just how little commitment Sol Cohen had towards creating a genuine sword and sorcery stories magazine. Perhaps it is not all that surprising that in 1975, Fantastic Stories changed its subtitle from “Science Fiction & Fantasy” to “Sword & Sorcery and Fantasy” and yet there was hardly any more sword & sorcery stories in the magazine under the new subtitle that there had been under the old. Publishing a magazine that calls itself Sword & Sorcery Annual but actually had more than 1/3rd of its contents stories that clearly were not sword and sorcery is a pretty cynical move.

Movie Reviews

A Bucket of Blood (1959)

Something has happened to Roger Corman. At one time, during the late 1950‟s & early to mid- 1960's, he made many of the best horror flicks of the time. For instance, he was the director/producer of the classic Edgar Allan Poe movies starring Vincent Price. He also made a number of wonderful horror comedies such as the original Little Shop of Horrors and the film at hand, 1959's A Bucket of Blood. However, during the four decades since his last Poe/Price flick, Corman has made few horror flicks and those were generally pretty bad. One of the very worst of these latter day Corman horror productions was a 1995 made for TV remake of A Bucket of Blood. A Bucket of Blood is a wonderful horror comedy. It stars veteran character actor Dick Miller as Walter Paisley who works as a waiter/busboy at a trendy coffeehouse. He has to put up with the restaurant‟s clientele who are mostly pretentious artsy types who think that they are all better than the rest of us. The leader of these pretentious poets is one Maxwell H. Brock (Julian Burton) whose free verse poetry is a hilarious send up of the drivel that was being widely published in poetry journals at the time.

Walter Paisley is a naive character who desperately wants to be accepted as an artist by the coffeehouse crowd. Adding to his feelings of being excluded from the group is the fact that he is hopelessly attracted to the lovely Carla (Barboura Morris). Another problem facing Walter is that his boss constantly hassles him and his landlady is a control freak who lords over her boarders. Clearly, Walter Paisley‟s life is at a dead end.

Then, all of a sudden, a freak accident combined with artistic inspiration occurs to turn Paisley‟s life around. What happened was that in one of the funniest sequences ever captured in a horror comedy, Walter Paisley accidentally killed his landlady‟s cat. While pondering over just what he should do about this turn in affairs, Paisley gets the inspiration to put clay over both the cat and the protruding knife and by doing so, he turns the dead feline into a statue that he calls, appropriately enough, “ Dead Cat.”

“Dead Cat” turns into a hit amongst the artistically pretentious crowd. All of the coffeehouse regulars including both the stuffy Maxwell and the lovely Carla are turned on by it and they come to really dig Walter. Even Walter‟s boss starts to show respect for him. Clearly, Walter Paisley‟s star is going up. However, to maintain this forward momentum and prevent him from drifting back into the loneliness and obscurity that he had spent his previous existence in, Walter finds that he must create more such masterpieces. To do so, he needs to go from accidentally causing death to doing so on purpose.

A Bucket of Blood is more than just a horror comedy. It is a satire on the whole artistically pretentious crowd that one finds in every college town. This movie also has a nice jazz styling reminiscent of the whole cool jazz scene that one often associates with the late 1950‟s and the early 1960‟s. A Bucket of Blood is a good flick that deserves your attention.

Atom Age Vampire (1960)

Although American movie fans of today may find it hard to believe, up to about 1970, many of the most popular films shown in American movie theaters were actually made in Italy by Italian film makers. These movie included “spaghetti westerns,” gladiator flicks, ancient history flicks, Hercules movies and the like. They also included a fair number of science fiction, fantasy and horror motion pictures.

Just as Italian made Westerns are dubbed “spaghetti westerns” for their oftentimes schlockiness, Italian made horror flicks also inspire widespread derision among movie fans. These horror flicks often take basic horror movie characters such as mad scientists and then take them to absurd extremes while at the same time being played out in a serious manner. As a result, many of these Italian horrors are also unintentional comedies.

One such Italian made horror flick, aka unintentional comedy, is the 1960 cinematic effort Atom Age Vampire or as it is known in the country of its origin, “Seddok, l‟erede di Satana.” This is the story of a stripper named Jeannette Morineau (Suzanne Loret) who becomes horribly disfigured in a car accident. Naturally, instead of seeing a reputable physician to repair her injuries, she opts to see the maddest scientist around, Professor Albert Levin (Albert Lupo).

Of course, it turns out that Prof. Levin operates from a secret laboratory. Of course, Prof. Levin has a highly voluptuous assistant named Monique Riviere (Franca Parisi) who is never his love interest. Of course, Jeannette Morineau falls into Prof. Levin‟s clutches of diabolical plastic surgery at the exact same time that the bad professor and his beautiful assistant have perfected Serum 28 that regenerates skin cells to restore beauty. And yes, of course, Miss Morineau has a handsome boyfriend, Pierre Mornet (Sergio Fantoni), who is desperately seeking to find her despite police indifference.

At first, the treatments with Serum 28 work well. However, the treatments must be made to Miss Morineau on a regular basis and Prof. Levin‟s supply soon runs out. Like all mad scientists in the movies, Prof. Levin does not accept this setback laying down. True to insane doctor form, Levin decides that to restore Morineau‟s beauty, he must murder all sorts of beautiful women and harvest their bodies to gain the ingredients necessary to make more of Serum 28.

As you can tell from the above, Atom Age Vampire is basically just another schlock mad scientist horror flick. This raises the question of just why it is so widely available on public domain DVD releases. The answer is that there are a great many horror flick fans who appreciate its earnest goofiness even if there is not anything original about it. The bottom line is that although there is some real entertainment here with its manifestly incompetent execution, if you want to see a movie with a strong plot, acting and cinematography to it, avoid this movie in favor of something else.

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Alien vs. Predator is a godawful mess with perfunctory battle sequences, cardboard characters, and general lack of creativity. This is not a movie like Plan 9 From Outer Space that's so bad its good, it‟s just plain bad.

This movie was in the works for over a decade yet it has the feel of a quickie project. It is all flash & trash without any substance. The set design is mediocre as is the cinematography. None of this should be a surprise since this movie was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The story, such as it is, goes like this: an ancient pyramid from a previously unknown civilization is found 2,000 feet under the ice in Antarctica. Once archaelologists enter the pyramid, they are trapped inside and are confronted with 2 alien races: the Aliens & the Predators both of whom hate each other.

The basic concept for this movie had its origins i the 1990 flick Predator 2 in which police Lieutenant Michael Harrigan (Danny Glover) got into a Predator spaceship. There, he discovered the distinct skull of an Alien. Thus was born the idea that Aliens and Predators had hated each other for years.

The humans in this movie come off rather poorly. Most of them are basically cheap, worn out cliches. The only human that we have any sympathy for is Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen). Part of the reason for this is that Henriksen is the only actor who shows any real talent. Weyland assembles a team of cliche characters to venture forth to Antarctica to uncover an ancient pyramid that has been buried under the ice for millennia for thousands of years. Weyland knew about this pyramid because his satellites hovering above planet Earth discovered it.

Unsurprisingly enough, both alien races are precisely the way they are in the games. This could have been an interesting situation, but it is poorly handled. . For instance, there are scenes with guys in rubber suits instead of CGI effects. The best part of this movie is its advertising tagline-"No matter who wins . . . we lose."

Interestingly enough, while this flick lost money in the United States, it made a huge amount of money in foreign countries. That being the case, the audience lost since Hollywood took this box office success as a green light to make yet more awful stuff and inflict it upon us poor movie goers.

Blood & Chocolate (2007)

Blood & Chocolate was the single best werewolf movie of 2007. It was also one of the very best horror movies of 2007 thus far. Blood & Chocolate is a beautifully made film that stood out from the rest of the pack when it was released in January of 2007. Blood & Chocolate was clearly the best movie released during the first month of 2007.

Blood & Chocolate is also a lesson in how a great movie can be made from a great novel even if significant liberties are taken with the story by the film makers. The original novel, by Annette Curtis Klause, was a Young Adult novel set in America. The movie adaptation is a PG- 13 film that is both made and set in the capital city of Romania, Bucharest. The legendary vampire realm of Transylvania is a province of Romania, so the change of setting made sense.

The movie version of Blood & Chocolate is about an orphan named Vivian (Agnes Bruckner) who is being raised by her aunt. Vivian was originally from the Rocky Mountains, but after her parents death, her aunt moved her to Bucharest. There, Vivian learns that she is part of a werewolf bloodline and that she has been promised in marriage to werewolf leader Gabriel(Olivier Martinez). Problem is that Vivian's heart has been set on the handsome Aiden (Hugh Dancy).

There are many excellent facets of Blood & Chocolate. It has a tremendously creepy atmosphere of the sort that is so essential to making a horror movie scary. The cinematography is excellent in this regard and there are many chill inducing daylight scenes which is unusual since most horror movies can only scare you in darkness. The "hunt" scenes in which the young werewolves go after their prey are wonderful. They exude a certain kind of eerie energy that only adds to the movie. The fact that the werewolves have wolfish movements and traits while they are in human form is very well expressed in this movie and is done in convincing fashion.

The most important aspect aspect of Blood & Chocolate is the fact that it has so many likable characters that you the viewer care about. In so many other horror movies, the characters are poorly drawn cardboard creations that you don't care much about. When they get killed on screen, it does make much impact on you. However, in Blood & Chocolate, you really do care about the characters, so their fate has an emotional impact upon you.

And in the end, what are we to make of Blood & Chocolate? It is an attempt to make an artistic masterpiece out of a horror film. It does not quite succeed in all aspects of horror film making, but at least it tried, which is much more than what can be said for the great majority of horror flicks nowadays. As such, Blood & Chocolate is very well recommended.

Bloody Pit of Horror (1965)

There are some movies that, when they were made, were considered quite scary by contemporary audiences. However, when audiences in later years see those same movies, the result is howls of laughter at what they see as unintentional humor. Often the same scenes that terrified the audiences of yesteryear are the same ones that bring forth the laughter from today‟s filmgoers. 1965‟s Bloody Pit of Horror is one of these movies.

The movie begins with film of a strangely garbed figure being led by guards to a medieval torture device called an “iron maiden” where he is placed in to die in. During the running of this film sequence, the following narration is heard:

“On this fifth day of December in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and forty-eight, by virtue of the power vested in us by our Noble Sovereign, this Tribunal of Justice hereby sentences you, the Crimson Executioner, to death. You will die by one of the very instruments you devised to torture and kill your innocent victims. You dared to take into your own hands the laws of both God and man. You set yourself up as both Judge and Executioner. You caused inhuman suffering, and took life not from any sense of Justice, but from hatred and self-gratification. You showed no mercy to your victims, and no mercy will be shown to you…”

Wow. How profound.

Following the narrative introduction, over 300 years later after the castle and its dungeons itself has been “cursed” evidently by an authority at least as high as that which have cursed the Chicago Cubs, the castle had lain empty although someone did shell out the dough for a parking lot to the place. Finally, a publisher of tasteless books, some homely females who are supposed to be glamorous models, some photographers, a hanger-on or 2 and a hack horror writer show up at the castle to use it as a backdrop for book jackets. Upon becoming frustrated that nobody answers the doorbell (of a type that did not exist over 300 years ago), they break into the castle.

They are then confronted by the castle owner and his servants and are ordered to leave at once. However, at the last minute, the castle owner spots his ex-fiancee amongst the girls and he relents and says that they can spend the night there and take all the pictures they want. He also tells them to stay away from the dungeons and, sure enough, that prohibition is violated and the tomb of the Crimson Executioner is opened and the bad guy‟s “evil soul” is released. This sends the owner of the castle, the mysteriously vanished Hollywood actor Travis Anderson, who made his name as a “muscleman in costume films” into a psychological spiral at the end of which he proclaims himself to be the Crimson Executioner complete with an outfit similar to that of the original.

At first, his crimes are assumed by the publisher as “accidents.” However, the hack writer, Rick, deduces from the cut rope and a mysterious photographic image that murder is afoot. After both he and the ex-fiancee, Edith, find a model in a goofy spider web torture device, there is no doubt that Anderson is behind the crimes. Edith confronts Anderson with the accusation that he is “the murderer” and nice guy Travis slaps her down and rants about how he had “abandoned the world” because “the love of a woman” would have ruined the “harmony of my perfect body.” To this Edith replies: “You, oh! You‟re an egotist!”

While this is going on, offstage, the servants of Travis Anderson aka The Crimson Executioner act as if nothing unusual is going on as they round up the other visitors and imprison them in the dungeons. All except Rick the hack writer. Inside the dungeons, there is an iron maiden, a human roaster, and other torture devices. These servants are dressed in striped T-Shirts reminiscent of the Penguin‟s minions in the old Batman TV series.

After The Crimson Executioner comes down to the dungeon, he stumbles from victim to victim in silly stylized demented hunchback-style movements. He also barks out such lines as:

“I am The Crimson Executioner!”

and:

“The Crimson Executioner cries out for blood!”

Played by Mickey Hargitay, Travis Anderson aka The Crimson Executioner is quite possibly the single most verbose serial killer/psycho in film history. He says some of the most ridiculously over-blown lines in the history of film and he does it all with a straight face. That alone is most commendable.

Bloody Pit of Horror is a true masterpiece of unintentional comedy. If you have gotten sick and tired of the increasingly unfunny formula-driven things that Hollywood calls “movies,” then this is a movie that‟s right for you.

Bubba Ho-tep (2002) Over the years, both critics and audiences have complained about how the multitudes of formula driven flicks that have come out of Hollywood. It is now commonplace to hear that Hollywood has lost its creativity, that there is a state of brain death in Tinseltown. Critics such as the late Roger Ebert frequently complain that we‟ve seen all this before in reviewing a particular movie.

That being the case, there are some filmmakers who have striven to think outside of the box, to bake outside of the cookie cutter. In other words, to come up with new and original ideas in place of crusty old formulas. When such flicks come out, critics and oftentimes audiences reward the visionary filmmakers with plaudits and profits.

However, just because a motion picture is new and original does not necessarily mean that it is good. You can have bold new ideas that suffer from faulty execution. The result is what is known as a missed opportunity. One such missed opportunity is the 2002 horror parody flick Bubba Ho- tep.

This movie was based on the short story of the same name by horror author J.R. Lansdale. The original story was an excellent work that was both highly original and very well written. However, upon purchasing the movie rights to the story, Director/Producer Don Coscarelli froze Lansdale out of the creative process. Coscarelli, who has never been much of a writer, insisted on writing the screenplay himself and the end result falls well short of Lansdale‟s original story.

The story of Bubba Ho-tep is that Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) is still very much alive. You see, Elvis tired of stardom and so traded places with one of his many imitators by name of Sebastian Haff. That way, Elvis was able to go on and live a relatively normal life as Haff. That is, until he winds up at the nursing home where one of his fellow patients is an insane black man who believes that he is President John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis).

Also present at the nursing home is a 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy who wears a Stetson hat named Bubba Ho-tep (Bob Ivy) who is sucking the souls from the other residents.

Eventually, both Elvis and JFK figure out Bubba Ho-tep‟s dirty little secret and they join forces to fight the ancient evil.

As you can see, this is a wildly inventive premise for a movie. It works in Lansdale‟s original story, but not in Coscarelli‟s lackluster screenplay. The screenplay is written in such a way that the audience is not able to fully believe in the characters and it does not help with the suspension of the disbelief necessary for such a flick. Coscarelli‟s directorial style is lacking as well. There‟s one shot of Bubba Ho-tep coming down the hall with a disco light behind him that looks pretty bad. The acting is lackluster with only Ivy really getting into his role. Campbell, Davis and the rest of the cast seem to be just going through the motions.

Lansdale‟s original story is an excellent piece and is heartily recommended. Too bad the same cannot be said of the movie itself.

The Car (1977)

The 1977 horror flick The Car is one of the more unusual horror movies that are available on DVD. Prior to the advent of DVD, it was also one of the hardest to find movies. It was a dud on its theatrical release in 1977 and it did not fare much better when it was shown on both cable and network television. This lack of success ensured that it was never put out on VHS by Universal Studios. If it were not for the fact that someone at the independent company Anchor Bay felt that The Car had unrealized commercial potential and made a deal with Universal that enabled Anchor Bay to release The Car on DVD in 1999, then this movie may never have been released on DVD.

The Car's DVD release brought it a new lease on life. It soared from obscurity to cult movie prominence in only a few years. As a direct result of the strong sales and rentals, The Car has shown up on cable and local TV repeatedly whereas prior to 1999, it was hardly ever shown. The Car has also become a staple at horror movie festivals and conventions. Reportedly, the studio bosses at Universal are considering the production of a remake of The Car.

The Car is a movie with an attitude that grows on you. It is a thrilling flick that is full of suspense. It is a fun movie to watch even though if the events in it really happened, it would be nothing short of horrifying.

One might wonder if The Car is as good as this review says that is, then why did it do so poorly at the box office and on TV? Well, it was released in the summer of 1977 right in the middle of all the commotion raised by Star Wars. When Star Wars broke all sorts of box office records and theaters held it open for weeks, even months longer than they had originally anticipated, a great many movies that were released during this time period found it difficult to get into the theaters. One of these movies was The Car. Add in the fact that the only box office draw was James Brolin who was mostly regarded as a TV actor, and you have a movie that did not have much appeal for moviegoers. The fact that the movie was about a demon possessed, homicidal car, probably made it sound like a stupid flick.

And yet, it‟s a pretty effective motion picture. This is because the single best actor in the movie is not any of the humans, but instead the Car itself. This is why The Car succeeds as a movie whereas other horror flicks about cars such as Christine are failures.

Basically, The Car is a scary flick that is also a lot of fun. As such, it is well worth your time.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The 1962 horror flick Carnival of Souls is an example of how a movie that is made on only a very small budget can generate more scares than the expensive, CGI-heavy movies of today. This movie makes heavy use of symbolism and of genuinely creepy direction to create an eerie atmosphere. The fact that it was shot in glorious black and white instead of color also added to the atmosphere of this movie.

One reason for the artistic success of Carnival of Souls is the fact that its creator, Herk Harvey, made only one dramatic film his entire life. Harvey was a maker of industrial training films, documentaries and educational films. This background gave him an unique perspective to approach making a horror flick and enabled him to come up with new ideas for creating a scary show. Another reason is that many of its actors never appeared in any other movies. This helps to give it a fresh look and also prevents the audience from looking at the cast through the lens of the prior roles that they played.

Carnival of Souls is at its heart a deeply spiritual movie. The movie begins with a young lady, Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), having a near-death experience as the car that she is in goes off a bridge into a river Chappaquiddick style. It appears that of the trio of females in the car, she is the one and only survivor.

However, things are not what they seem. Mary starts seeing a pale faced man wherever she goes. Mary suddenly loses the ability to hear the people around her. Likewise, the people around Mary get to the point where they cannot see or hear her either. In Mary‟s job as church organist, the music goes from the inspirational to the horrific. It is clear that things are going from bad to worse for young Mary Henry and it all leads up to a classic horror movie finish.

Even today, the quality that was achieved on a miniscule budget is impressive. This is a horror flick with an unique dark waking dream atmosphere. This atmosphere is what gives this motion picture its charm. One of the reasons for this success is the fact that its lead actress, Candace Hilligoss, neither looks nor acts like an average person. This is a film that is not so much scary as it is eerie and the narrative regarding the character of Mary Henry is fascinating. This is a movie that leaves viewers with a lingering feeling of dread and paranoia.

Basically, Carnival of Souls is a movie based on strong imagination, good use of symbolism and the end result is a great surprise. The overall effect of this movie is much like that of one of the best episodes of the original Twilight Zone TV show. This effect is aided by the excellent black and white cinematography. The end result is a classic horror flick that comes highly recommended.

The Collector (2009)

The Collector is the latest horror flick to come along that has scads of deservedly little known actors and actresses who have but little acting talent between them. And it shows. The level of acting in this supposedly scary movie is somewhere between dreadful and horrible. It is a leading indicator that The Collector is just another poorly made so-called horror flick that exists solely to make a fast buck at the box office.

Chief among these would be stars is Josh Stewart who has appeared on numerous TV shows and yet is still unknown as far as movie fans are concerned. Stewart plays the key character who is known only as “Arkin.” Arkin is a loser who, despite being an ex-con and finding an employer who is willing to knowingly hire an ex-con, quickly succumbs to temptation. Specifically, he decides to rob the country home of his new employer. Arkin thinks that the family is gone on vacation and as such, it should be an easy haul.

However, the actual heist is nowhere near as easy to pull off as Arkin imagined that it would be. By sheerest coincidence, also present at the house is a masked “collector” who also has evil designs on the house and its priceless contents. This collector has placed numerous booby traps in the house for strange and mysterious reasons known only to him. This cunningly evil collector has also tied up the inhabitants of the house which makes one wonder just why he booby trapped the house in the first place. This diabolical collector also subjects Arkin to fiendish torment while the plot changes from Arkin attempting to rob jewelry to instead rescue the victims of the collector and in doing so protect the very home that he came to rob. If this sounds like an unlikely sequence of events, then you are not alone.

If the above description of The Collector „s plot sounds like a torture porn flick, there is good reason for that. The filmmakers behind this particular exercise in horrible horror are Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who were responsible for the cinematic travesties known as Saw IV, Saw V and the forthcoming Saw VI. In many ways, The Collector feels like another installment in the Saw series. The Collector suffers from all of the flaws of the Saw movies without adding any virtues of its own. Just why the filmmakers did not tie this flick more directly into the Saw series is unknown. Perhaps they felt that greater profits could be reaped if moviegoers were suckered into thinking that The Collector was straight horror instead of just some more of the same old, same old torture porn.

The Collector is the single most overwrought piece of garbage to come down the pike since last year‟s (2008) Death Race. Like Death Race, The Collector suffers from sloppy storytelling. Why does the collector go to the bother of creating such inhuman torture devices involving bear traps, fish hooks and guillotines when it would have been so much easier once the family has been all tied up to rob them of all their valuables and vanish into the night? There is no reason given for the collector‟s inexplicable behavior. The only plausible reason that you can think of is that the filmmakers were so set on creating an ultra-trashy flick with the maximum amount of sheer sadistic violence that you can get away without getting slapped with a box office killing NC-17 rating, they never thought their story through.

The striking thing about The Collector is that for all of the blood, screaming, torture and the melodramatic music, it really is not all that scary. You do not care about any of the paper thin characters and it‟s hard to get into the movie or get emotionally involved in their plight if you do not get invested in them. In the original Halloween, the female characters are well drawn and more substantial than cardboard, so when bad things happen to them, it really gets you. The 1978 Halloween, which has hardly any blood in it, packs a greater punch than the 2009 The Collector because you care so much more about the characters in the first movie than in the movie of 31 years later.

In the end, The Collector is a play for quick bucks at the theater. It is a poorly made flick and the acting is atrocious. Unless you happen to like torture porn, this is a movie to stay away from.

Dead Men Walk (1943)

Once upon a time, it was common for movie theaters to have Saturday matinees which consisted of 90 minute programs. Each program would include a cartoon or two, one or two short films, a chapter in a serial and the like. The centerpiece of the program would be a “feature” flick that was only about an hour or so long. These shows were always low budget B movies. One such B movie is the horror flick at hand, 1943's Dead Men Walk.

Dead Men Walk, which is set in the days of the Model T, opens with a funeral for the deceased Dr. Elwyn Clayton who as it turns out was killed by his brother Dr. Lloyd Clayton (both played by George Zucco). Turns out that Elwyn was messing around in black magic and had become a servant of Satan and Lloyd had to kill him to protect the town. Only problem is that unbeknownst to Lloyd, Satan has arranged for Elwyn to become a vampire.

However there is a local lady, Kate (Fern Emmett) who is on to the fact that Elwyn is still afflicting mankind. Most of the townsfolk think that Kate is kind of crazy, but Lloyd knows that she is knowledgeable about the dark forces. Lloyd also knows that Kate is the only other person in town who was aware of Elwyn‟s evility and of the fact that Lloyd was responsible for Elwyn‟s death. He respects Kate and for that reason comes on guard for the return of Elwyn now that Elwyn‟s corpse has been formally buried.

Meanwhile, Elwyn is not wasting any time since his burial and his subsequent becoming a vampire. He arranges for his servant in evility, Zolarr (Dwight Frye) to move his remains so that nobody gets any fancy ideas about destroying his corpse and hence end his existence in the world of neither the living or the dead. Additionally, Elwyn hatches a scheme where he will prevent Lloyd‟s daughter Gayle from getting married to her beloved Dr. David Bently (Nedrick Young).

Elwyn begins a series of nightly visits to the sleeping Gayle as if once is not enough and bites her in the neck each time in the same precise spot. He also visits his brother Lloyd who responds by attempting to shoot Elwyn with a gun even though Lloyd surely would have known that vampires cannot be killed by gunfire. For some strange reason, Elwyn does not even so much as attempt to bite Lloyd.

On one day, Kate discovers where Zolarr has hidden Elwyn‟s corpse and opens it so that sunlight strikes it. Now, according to vampire lore, the sunlight is supposed to turn the body to dust thus killing Elwyn, but all the sunlight does is strike Elwyn‟s corpse just as it would any old corpse. Shortly thereafter, Zolarr catches sight of Kate and kills her offstage. When her corpse is discovered, the frightened local folk form a vigilante group and go off on a rampage. All this sets the stage for an interesting ending.

Dead Men Walk is a hard flick to grade. On the one hand, the acting of George Zucco as Lloyd, Fern Emmett and Dwight Frye is well above the call of duty. On the other hand, George Zucco as the evil Elwyn, Mary Carlisle and Nedrick Young is of low grade. Zucco makes for a particularly unfrightening vampire. The scenes of the misty graveyard and shadowy nights are genuinely spooky, but the film‟s ignorance of Vampire lore is inexplicable.

Basically, Dead Men Walk is an average 1940's B horror flick. Whether or not that appeals to you is up to you.

Dead Next Door, The (1988)

All too often when consumers run across an interesting VHS tape or DVD that they have never heard of before, they make the decision to buy or rent it based on the packaging instead of writing down the name of the show and then looking up reviews for it. This approach makes consumers the playthings of unscrupulous marketers. One such company is Anchor Bay Entertainment that this summer released a 1988 flick called The Dead Next Door on DVD. The packaging for this DVD touted this movie as being a lost horror classic that has now resurfaced. In fact, its labelled a “Collector”s Edition” and a “Making Of” documentary is added to the DVD. Such are the lengths that Anchor Bay has gone to in order to deceive uninformed customers.

The marketing claims are only partly right. The Dead Next Door really is a “lost” horror flick that has been out of sight (not even on cable television) since it was originally released in 1988. However, it is not a classic, unless you consider poorly made features to be “classics” in their own right. Think of a latter day Ed Wood type production made with even less talent than found in Ed Wood‟s movies.

The Dead Next Door was the brainchild of an Akron, Ohio teenager named J.R. Bookwalter who somehow persuaded Hollywood movie maker Sam Raimi to put up the financing for a flick to be shot on Super 8. In gratitude, Bookwalter named the lead role “Raimi” and one of the lesser roles “Dr. Savini” after Sam Raimi associate Tom Savini. The name of the evil cult leader is named Rev. Jones in honor of the real life Rev. Jim Jones who was responsible for the Jonestown mass suicide in 1978. How original.

The Dead Next Door is a good example of what happens when a teenager with no real movie making experience is given a miniscule budget to make a feature length flick. Abandoned houses, and a high school serve unconvincingly as high tech labs, government offices and as a headquarters for a zombie cult. The plot is completely unimaginative, the acting is just plain awful, and the original actors voices have been clumsily dubbed back in and sound completely wooden. While watching this, you will find yourself frequently looking at your watch even though the flick is only 84 minutes long.

As with the case of so many of today‟s Shot on Video (SoV) horror flicks, The Dead Next Door comes off looking really cheap and gives the impression of having been just thrown together over the weekend in hopes of cashing in on cool box art, an intriguing title and gullible movie fans. And with good reason since The Dead Next Door was shot in just a few days and comes across as a cheapjack production that was made in haste and with but little talent. The Dead Next Door is a horror flick that is so bad that it is bad. In both this flick and in subsequent productions, J.R. Bookwalter shows the lack of an eye for detail and total unoriginality that has resulted in his name being mud among knowledgeable horror flick fans. That being the case, it is gratifying to note that as of now (October 30, 2005) , Anchor Bay‟s deceptive DVD release of The Dead Next Door has failed to reach a mass audience at least as far as sales are concerned and it is not present in local (McHenry County, IL) stores that carry large numbers of DVD‟s. It would appear that at least in this case that a deceptive marketing campaign of an awful movie has failed to make a payday for the deceitful marketeers in question.

Hopefully, the apparent failure of the The Dead Next Door DVD will result in fewer attempts to deceive the DVD buying public. In any event, The Dead Next Door is a waste of both your time and money no matter how low a price you can eventually get it for.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Roger Corman has had one of the strangest careers in all of Hollywood. Despite having manifest talent for film making, he has chosen out of his own free will to remain in the area of low budget cinema. Given his track record in making money on almost every movie he has made, Corman could easily have gone on to the major studios and their huge budgets. Instead, he has voluntarily remained in the economic sector of the film industry where you have to literally get the most out of your buck.

You might be wondering just who is this Roger Corman person that you have never heard of before. This is because Corman's last period of greatness as a film producer ended in the early 1980's. Since then, most of his productions have had so little exposure to the theatrical market that they are, for all practical purposes, direct to video movies. As they say, the creators of direct to video entertainment are virtually anonymous to the American public.

In any event, one of Corman's last great movies was entitled Galaxy of Terror. This was a strange title given how almost all of the action occurs on a single planet, and not an especially large one at that. This 1981 production was also one of the last Corman productions to feature actors with widespread name recognition.

At the start of the movie, it is revealed that an expedition had been sent to a distant planet called Morganthus that is swept by bad weather. On another planet far away, two figures are playing a game. One is an old woman while another has his head obscured by a glowing ball of fuzzy light. The woman is a prophetess named Mitri while the other is named "The Master" and seems to control everyone else but Mitri. When word comes that the expedition has been lost, The Master decides to send a new one even though Mitri warns him that it too will be lost.

The ship's crew is a pretty varied lot. Its leader is the stalwart Cabren (Edward Albert) while Alluma (Erin Moran)is his chief assistant. Kore (Ray Walston)is the ship's cook while Ranger (Robert Englund) is one of the main crew members. Finally, Quuhod (Sid Haig aka the evil Dragos from the CBS Saturday Morning TV show Jason of Star Command)is another crew member, with martial skills that turn out to be pretty handy.

The ship, entitled Quest, reaches Morganthus only to crash land there. Eventually, the Quest's crew are able to find the previous ship that was lost there and discovers evidence that the crew was massacred. The crew further investigates the situation only to incur the wrath of the native monsters. The crew discover a massive pyramid that seems to be exerting a force upon their ship that was responsible for its crashing in the first place. The crew must confront the pyramid that is exploiting their fears for the good of the monsters that are also controlled by the pyramid if they are to survive and escape the planet.

As you can tell from the above, Galaxy of Terror is not a formula driven work of either science fiction or horror. If anything, the movie is a highly effective hybrid of the two genres. If you are a film fan who has gotten sick and tired of all the movies that seem to be nothing more than the same old stuff, then you should consider giving Galaxy of Terror a spin.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Without a doubt the single greatest American horror movie actor was Vincent Price. Price is justly famous for the movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories that he made with director Roger Corman. Price also made several other quality horror flicks that were in living color. However, Price also starred in some strong black and white horror motion pictures. Of these, perhaps the best is the 1959 production House on Haunted Hill.

The single most unjustly forgotten member of the cast is Carol Ohmart who played the role of Annabelle Loren, the fifth wife of Frederick Loren. Ohmart was the 1946 Miss Utah and had been touted in Hollywood during the mid-1950‟s as being the next Marilyn Monroe. Although her career did not live up to this billing, Ohmart comes off as a very real screen presence in this movie as she did in every other movie that she had a major role in. And yet her career sputtered along until her final film role in the outstanding 1974 horror flick, The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe. It has been rumored that the reason this gifted actress did not make it in Hollywood is that she refused to engage in sexual acts with Hollywood big shots. Whatever the reason, Carol Ohmart certainly deserved better than the roles she got from Hollywood.

In the role of Annabelle Loren, Ohmart is outstanding. She is a strikingly beautiful blonde with fair skin. Her lightness is contrasted against the dark surroundings by the director, William Castle. Frederick Loren is angry with Annabelle and she in turn wants to get rid of him and apparently came close to succeeding in doing so in the past.

Two of the other members of the cast are pretty interesting as well. Elisha Cook, Jr., spent a career playing weasels and his character here, alcoholic Watson Pritchard, is a weasel in his own right. He also has a ghostly look to his face. Richard Long had a solid career as a dependable actor and he does not disappoint in his role as an airplane pilot.

Basically, the plot of House on Haunted Hill is that eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) has invited five people who he does not especially like to spend the night with him and his wife at their house. Those who spend the whole night in the house on Haunted Hill will receive $10,000 for their trouble. What the guests don‟t realize is that Loren has some surprises in store for both them and his disloyal wife.

As you can see, this is a pretty unconventional plot for a horror movie. What‟s more surprising is that it actually works. If you are in the mood for a horror movie that‟s more than a bit unusual and is genuinely surprising, then House on Haunted Hill should be your cup of tea.

Hitcher, The (1986)

All too often, horror flicks rely on what might be called an “idiot plot.” An idiot plot is one that works only if the characters are all idiots. For example, slasher flicks in which the survivors of the grisly attacks split up to search for the killer oblivious to the fact that doing so only plays into the hands of the diabolical fiend. Another example is that of the lone person descending into the cellar of a haunted house.

Thankfully, the 1986 motion picture, The Hitcher, is one of the few horror flicks that does not rely on either an idiot plot or on cliches to work. The end result is a really innovative horror movie.

The movie begins with Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) driving down the highway when he encounters a mysterious hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer). What had been an easy ride for Jim becomes much more than what he had bargained for when he picked up the stranger. Although he survives his first encounter with the hitchhiker, Jim soon realizes that he is trapped in a diabolical cat-and- mouse game with an evil fiend.

Unfortunately, the psychotic hitchhiker is doing more than simply tormenting Halsey. Always just a few steps ahead, the hitchhiker manages to frame Jim Halsey for the killing spree. Halsey sets about attempting to clear his good name.

Visually, The Hitcher is a strong motion picture. The photography is much better than that used in most horror flicks.

Most of the violence and killings in The Hitcher occurs off-stage. By leaving the violence up to the imagination of the audience, the perceived violence is actually far greater than what‟s actually shown on screen. This helps to make The Hitcher a more interesting and moving film than the great majority of horror flicks.

The casting to this flick is what really makes this movie a success. Rutger Hauer is perfect in the title role. C. Thomas Howell does an excellent job of exhibiting horrified disbelief. Many of his scenes are pure fright flick fodder.

One of the key elements to The Hitcher‟s success as a horror movie, is the music. The music is rarely on anything other than low volume. This avoids the horror flick cliche of loud pulsating music. The tunes were well placed in the film for suspense purposes.

The Hitcher is an unusual horror flick. It has little in the line of cheesiness and delivers a shopping bag full of frights in a style all its very own. Pop it in the player, sit back and prepare to be scared by one of the most effectively filmed cases of supernatural road rage ever to hit movie screens.

The Game of Death (2000)

Throughout the past 40 years or so, one thing that movie fans could count on was that if Roger Corman had anything to do with a movie, then that flick was almost certainly a piece of trash. It was not always so. Back during the period, 1960–1965, Corman was responsible for a decent number of good films including several adaptations of stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Despite the fact that these movies were quite profitable, Corman‟s interests turned away from doing the quality act towards the cheap and tawdry. This trend accelerated after he formed his own studio and produced a whole raft of flicks for the drive-in circuit. Things got even worse after he entered the TV production business, mainly catering to the utterly low-brow likes of the Sci-Fi Channel.

To be sure, there were a few shows here and there that were worth watching with a few diamonds in a haystack of drivel. One such diamond is the movie that is under consideration here, The Game of Death. Directed on location in Ireland by Rachel Samuels on a $2 Million budget, this movie is a throwback to Corman‟s days as a quality filmmaker.

The Game of Death is a film version of Robert Louis Stevenson‟s short story “The Suicide Club.” Stevenson‟s short story has an unusual, not to mention, dark premise but is a bit too short for a feature length movie. However, producer Corman & director Samuels expanded Stevenson‟s idea and took it to the limit. Jonathan Pryce is wonderfully cast as Mr. Bourne, the sinister mastermind behind a card game of death. It is not too much of a stretch to say that based on this movie alone, Pryce may very be the latter day version of Vincent Price, the consummate horror actor of his time.

The Game of Death follows a British war hero, Captain Henry Joyce (David Morrissey) in 1899 London whose wife died 6 months earlier, but he cannot face living any longer without her. However, he fears taking his own life since he is a bit of a coward.

One night, at a bar, Capt. Joyce confides his dilemma to an acquaintance who then tells Joyce that he is a “ruined man.” The acquaintance also tells the captain that he too is a ruined man and is a member of the Suicide Club that exists to allow its members to exit this life without the social stigma of suicide. Capt. Joyce accepts the fellow‟s invitation to join the club and so they wind up at Mr. Bourne‟s sumptuous mansion where the club holds its meetings.

Upon joining the club, Capt. Joyce is informed that, “the first rule of suicide club is that you don‟t talk about suicide club.” The members are all members of the aristocracy. Only one of the members is a female. This is Sarah Wolverton (Catherine Siggins), attracts his attention since she strongly resembles Capt. Joyce‟s late wife. Wolverton‟s reason for suicide was that she married a lieutenant in the British Army who was a “commoner” as folks who were not in the nobility were styled in the Victorian Era. Her politically powerful father arranged for her husband to be sent to the Sudan on an expedition and the local commander sent him on what amounted to a suicide mission. Another, related, reason for her suicidal wishes was the fact that her mother died while in childbirth and her father never forgave Sarah for it with the result that he treated her like dirt from that point on.

The Game of Death is a throwback to Corman‟s early1960‟s inexpensive but excellent literary adaptations. This movie‟s chief virtues are in the technical aspects, as was the case with Corman‟s Poe films. This movie is wonderfully lit, the sound is crisp, the costume and production design nothing short of excellent. The acting in this film is superior to that in many big budget Hollywood productions. The script was especially good.

The general excellence of The Game of Death is such that it makes you wonder what if Roger Corman stuck to the quality act throughout his career. It is most highly recommended.

The Hooker Cult Murders (1973)

The Hooker Cult Murders (also known as "The Pyx") is one of those eye popping titles that is put on what is really a dull movie. Montreal Police detective sergeants Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) and Pierre Paquette (Donald Pilon) investigate the strange death of a drug addicted prostitute, Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black) who was pushed off a penthouse balcony. At least the start of the movie was pretty interesting.

The movie makers mess around with the chronology as we periodically see the detectives discover more about Elizabeth Lucy and find out that there were other related murders. Meantime, we see what happened with Elizabeth Lucy during her last day of life and her dealings with a satanic black mass. The end result is that the viewers get lost in all the jumping around. Talk about confusion.

Basically, The Hooker Cult Murders is a attempt at a cross between a horror flick and a mystery movie. The horror elements are lame and increasingly downplayed as the show goes on. There is very little suspense to this movie. The ending of this motion picture was too neat and tidy to be believable. When you really get right down to it, there really is not much of a mystery in this movie.

Another poor aspect of The Hooker Cult Murders is the cinematography. It is basically uninspired. This is especially true of the scenes that do not occur during the daytime It is difficult to see what is going on during these scenes.

Despite its attention getting name, The Hooker Cult Murders is a pretty dull affair. There are long stretches where very little happens. Given its plot, this is a surprisingly boring movie.

As bad as the movie is overall, it must be said that Christopher Plummer is very good in this flick. As Detective Sergeant Jim Henderson, he is not a lame Die Hard type cop, but a believable homicide detective doing his job. Clearly Plummer was not in this movie just for the paycheck. Had the rest of the film been as good, this could have been a great movie.

Another good performance came from Karen Black. She was quite convincing as a prostitute. Her role was that of a messed up woman. When you consider that she was, in real life, a devotee of the evil nut cult known as Scientology, you have to wonder if she was just being herself as opposed to playing a part.

The Hooker Cult Murders is also known by the alternate title of "The Pyx." A pyx is a container used by the Roman Catholic Church to hold communion wafers. This variant title is appropriate since this movie has several Catholic elements to it. Also, a wafer was discovered on the body of the prostitute. With this kind of material, one wonders why the movie could not have been more interesting.

In any event, this is a movie to avoid.

It Follows (2014)

Perhaps the most pretentious area of film making today is that of so-called independent aka "indie" film. All too often these indie film creators strut around about how they are the true "artists" even though everyone else is nothing but a bunch of hacks. This despite the fact that all too often their creations are hardly any better than what the big studios put out. If anything, the creations of the indie creators are often worse than those of Hollywood.

One recent indie film that won critical praise but was a bust at the box office because the audience did not care for it was the 2014 alleged horror film It Follows. As it happens, that was a great name for a horror movie although a more accurate title would have been It Bores You. This is a movie that is loaded with all sorts of horror flick cliches. As such it is not very effective.

The movie begins when Jaime "Jay" Height (Maika Monroe) goes out on a date with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary). They have been out before, but they have things planned to make this a date to remember. Things start getting weird when Hugh wants to leave the theater before the movie starts claiming that he's sick. Problem is that he does not look sick. If anything, both his looks and the way he acts indicate that he's scared of something. The next scene shows Jaime strapped in a wheelchair clad only in her underwear while Hugh is telling her what sounds like a preposterous story. He claims that something evil has been following him with the idea of killing him. Hugh wants his girlfriend to go to the evil creature or whatever it is and entice it into following someone else and leave Hugh alone. However, he also tells Jaime not to let the monster touch her or she will die and the thing will resume its pursuit of him and Jaime's sacrifice will be in vain.

Sometimes when film makers create a boring movie it‟s because they try to make the story too simple. It‟s no different than if the film creators had taken a hand grenade and thrown it to Jaime and waited to see if she threw it to someone else or simply held on to it. It‟s not only dull, but stupid as well. Another problem was that the film showed pictures of people from Jaime's past without any clue as to just why this was so important.

Basically, It Follows is a film that is best left on the video store shelf.

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

I Walked with a Zombie is a brilliant piece of horror film making from the 1940‟s. It is based on both the classic Charlotte Bronte novel “Jane Eyre” and on a series of articles written for the Hearst Newspapers by Inez Wallace in which she claimed to have seen zombies performing slave labor on plantations in the South Seas. Wallace also helped supply the story for this movie, making it an unusually topical horror flick.

I Walked with a Zombie begins with the arrival of Canadian Nurse Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) at a remote South Seas island where the mysterious recluse Paul Holland (Tom Conway) owns a sugar plantation. Nurse Connell was originally hired to care for Holland‟s sickly wife, Jessica (Christine Gordon). Jessica is a beautiful lady who wanders around in her nightgown with a vacant expression on her face. The local yokels gossip in hushed tones about “zombies” and some speculate that Jessica really is a zombie. Nurse Connell hears these stories and becomes determined to get to the bottom of the situation. She is encouraged in her efforts by the family maid Alma (Theresa Harris) who says that the best way to cure Jessica is through the voodoo of the island‟s chief witch doctor Mama Rose. Nurse Connell even accompanies Jessica to a nighttime voodoo ceremony in the sugar cane fields, following an extremely creepy looking native with golf ball sized eyes. Nurse Connell‟s work becomes even more complicated when she falls in love with Holland.

The zombies in this movie are not the recently deceased returned from the grave, half-rotted horrors shambling about looking for human flesh to eat that populate all too many horror flicks these days. These are traditional, mindless zombies who are unfeeling, unthinking and generally unresponsive. The atmosphere in I Walked with a Zombie is as creepy and eerie and fantastic as a movie can get. This flick is filled with great music, strong men and women and natives who look like the real thing.

The best part of I Walked with a Zombie are the dialogue-heavy scenes where the three main characters, Connell, Holland and Holland‟s half-brother Wesley Rand (James Ellison), come to know each other better and where the mystery is gradually uncovered. A scene where a local minstrel sings part of the backstory while Connell and Rand are having a drink is especially memorable.

This is a thought-provoking, literate piece of horror cinema that resulted from the partnership of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur. The horror in this flick is not what happens on screen, but what hovers in the minds of the characters on screen. Lewton and Tourneur recognized that the greatest possible inducer of horror in the audience is the imagination of the moviegoers. The horror is heightened by creative use of light and shadows. This particular movie is still effective even though it was made over six decades ago. I Walked with a Zombie is a flick with great dialogue, interesting characters that you actually care about and well thought out plot twists. Unlike all too many recent fright flicks, it is not layered down with special effects or afflicted with poorly drawn characters or a badly thought out script. I Walked with a Zombie is an excellent horror movie and as such is fully recommended.

Lady Frankenstein (1971)

Throughout history, the film industry has shown a tendency to take a basic idea and literally do it to death. Take the classic novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, for instance. The idea of the baronial Doctor Frankenstein taking dead tissue and turning it into a living, breathing monster has been the stuff of countless movies. The vast majority of these movies have been little more than either straight retellings of the same story or goofy variations on the same theme. All too often, these movies have the same exact cliches such as the hunchbacked assistant.

However, there are some rare exceptions to this trend. One such example is the 1971 movie Lady Frankenstein that comes off as one of the most creative if not the best retellings of the done- to-death Frankenstein theme committed to film thus far. It also stars one of the best actors who ever played the role of Baron Dr. Frankenstein, Joseph Cotten.

The Lady Frankenstein in this movie is the daughter of Baron Dr. Frankeinstein, Tania (Rosalba Neri). She comes home after graduating from medical school with her head filled with all sorts of “radical ideas.” Among other things, she had engaged in unauthorized experiments involving human tissue and transplants. She is determined to assist her father in his experiments.

However, her father rebuffs her and ably assisted by his non-hunchbacked assistant, Dr. Charles Marshall (Paul Muller), he creates his monster. Frankenstein‟s plans go awry as the unexpected side effects of the electric shock aspect of his creative process results in a homicidal monster. The monster turns on its creator and kills him and then escapes the castle and spreads fear, havoc and ultimately, death in the surrounding countryside. Compounding matters, Police Captain Harris (Mickey Hargitay) is energetically pursuing any and all leads into the investigation of Frankenstein‟s death. This includes the possiblity that the monster that has been systematically killing folks off is linked to the late mad scientist Frankenstein in some way.

This situation presents a challenge for Frankenstein‟s young daughter. She proves herself to be worthy of the Frankenstein name by concocting an insane scheme to right the situation. Her idea is to take the brain of the laboratory assistant, who is deeply in love with her, and transplant it into the body of the handsome but mentally retarded servant. This new creation would then go forth into the wild and kill the monster and afterwards provide Tania with a suitable mate. The lab assistant is surprisingly agreeable to the bizarre scheme and after a surprisingly easy laboratory operation, the deed is done. The sharp mind of the lab assistant and the muscular body of the retarded servant are now one and the same. The most striking aspect of this film is the atmosphere which makes you feel as though you were living in that very village and castle, among those people many of whom has something to hide. This movie features very good acting, in particular Paul Muller as the lab assistant, Rosalba Neri in the title role and, of course, Joseph Cotten as the Baron Doctor Frankenstein.

Lady Frankenstein is as much a tale about obsession, the insane things you will do for love, the risks you will take for money, the games people play with authorities and a complex morality play as a traditional Frankenstein picture, this movie deserves to be recognized. As such, Lady Frankenstein is a movie that is very much worth your time.

Monsturd (2003 Direct to Video)

Starting around 1980, it has become apparent that there is a significant number of movie fans who crave watching bad movies. This has led certain directors and producers to deliberately make bad movies to satisfy the cravings of these fans. One such movie that was made poorly on purpose is the 2003 direct to video effort, Monsturd.

As the movie‟s title suggests, Monsturd is about a monster made out of human excrement. The film begins with mad scientist Dr. Stern (Dan Burr) and his assistant pouring an accursed glowing concoction into the sewers. It eventually grows and merges with a rather beefy escaped serial killer Jack Schmidt (Brad Dosland) who had turned the sewer system into his hiding place and turns into a goofy monster that runs about killing the local citizens. It kills people when they are on the toilet by reaching up through the sewer system and getting them when they are at their most vulnerable.

Protecting the town is perhaps the single most ridiculously incompetent police force in movie history. Led by the drunken Sheriff Duncan (Paul Weiner) the police are no match for the titular Monsturd. Or are they? With the help of feisty FBI Agent Hannigan (Beth West) the cops are able to take on the monster at the annual Chili Cook-Off in an amazing way and save humanity.

While the movie had a happy ending with the defeat of the monster, the speed that the police did it in was disappointing. A public event like that had tremendous opportunities for both comedy and suspense but was wasted by having evil so quickly vanquished. In any event, Monsturd was the perfect title for this thoroughly politically incorrect production. It really caught the movie‟s flavor.

Monsturd is the creation of Rick Popko and Dan West who both co-wrote and co-directed this crude, rude horror comedy. You can tell that they went out of their way to make it as crude and rude as they could. Popko & West clearly did not want to be subtle or for their film to be anything but a vulgar low budget flick. They also went out of their way to make sure that this movie would be as bad a flick as they possibly could. If you are in the mood to enjoy a movie that was purposely made to be bad, then you will find it worth your while. If there ever was a horror comedy that was a guilty pleasure, then this is it.

Night of the Demon (1957)

Night of the Demon is one of the absolute best 1950's horror flicks that you have never heard of. It was the brainchild of the outstanding director Jacques Tourneur who was previously responsible for such 1940's horror classics as Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie. The script was written by Charles Bennett who was one of Alfred Hitchcock‟s favorite screenwriters. It was based on the classic horror tale “Casting the Runes” by M. R. James.

Night of the Demon employs a type of character that very few other horror flicks have ever utilized. An expert in the paranormal who is skeptical of such things and who has made a career out of exposing frauds in this field. The fact that this sort of character has appeared in so few movies is most interesting in light of both the existence and prominence of such magazines as The Skeptical Inquirer that specialize in debunking paranormal claims. The writers for these magazines are often prominent scientists and their findings are cited in the news media. However, all too often, Hollywood productions have tended to give credence to even the most overblown paranormal claims such as the idea that the U.S. government has captured alien bodies from crashed UFO‟s and have them in deep freeze even when there is little or no evidence to back up such claims.

Night of the Demon begins with prominent American psychologist Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews) arriving in London to participate in a psychological symposium. The purpose of this gathering of prominent scientists is to expose both witchcraft and satanic worship as frauds. Specifically, the goal of the symposium organizers is to expose prominent devil cult leader Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis) as a fraud. Upon debarking from his plane, Holden learns that the organizer of the symposium, Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) apparently has been killed by electrocution in a bizarre automobile accident.

At least that is what most everyone believes. However, the audience knows that this is false since it saw Harrington getting killed by a demon that was apparently summoned by Karswell. Eventually, Harrington‟s neice, Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins), pieces together the fact that her uncle had come into possession of a medieval parchment that contains writing in a dead language that is of evil portents. She goes through Uncle Henry‟s notes and determines that Karswell had given him the parchment and that the parchment was a demonic curse that lead directly to his death. She invites Holden to stay at her estate and endeavors to warn him. He accepts her invitation but rejects her warning on the grounds that demons and medieval curses simply do not exist.

While Holden remains defiantly skeptical, evidence continues to mount of strange and mysterious goings on that point towards the existence of demons and witchcraft. Karswell manages to slip Holden a parchment similiar to the one that Harrington had. Karswell also attempts to warn Holden to skip the symposium and return to America. Holden stubbornly rebuffs Karswell‟s warnings and veiled threats. Finally, Karswell decides that the only way to stop Holden from making his case in public against Karswell‟s demonic cult is to bring in the heavy artillery. Karswell endeavors to conjure up a demon to finish Holden off for once and for all.

Overall, Night of the Demon is an excellent horror movie. It is both very well written and masterfully photographed. The movie stayed true to the concept of the original short story author, M.R. James. To be sure, it does have a weakness in that once you get past the two principal actors, the acting does get spotty. However, this is more than counterbalanced by the sheer talent of director Jacques Tourneur. Night of the Demon comes fully recommended.

Old Dark House, The (1932)

Over the years, a certain phenomenon has come about. This is when movies that fared poorly in their initial release comes to have a fanatical following on TV as well on DVD/VHS. These movies have become known as “cult movies.” Most of these movies have quite a bit of good stuff and are appreciably different from the usual Hollywood fare, so you can at least understand why they have gained their fanatical fandom. However, there are some cult movies that seem like nothing more than drivel so much so that you cannot help but wonder just what the fuss is all about. One such movie is the 1932 alleged horror flick The Old Dark House.

Back during the 1920‟s & 1930‟s, one popular form of horror was what might be called the Dark House flick. These were movies in which the action was confined to an old dark house. During the Silent Film Era, this subgenre included The Bat, The Cat and the Canary, The Gorilla and The Last Warning. After the advent of the Sound Era, these silent horror films were remade with the 1939 remake of The Gorilla being the last of the run of this subgenre. This was a sad development given the overall quality of the movies in the subgenre.

One of the most overrated entries in this subgenre was the 1932 flick The Old Dark House. It features a standard plot of travelers getting lost in a dark stormy night and stopping in at an old dark house and getting lodging there. Eventually, they discover that their hosts are creepy, weird and eccentric.

Just how creepy, weird and eccentric are these folks? One of them is a guy whose favorite line at dinner time is “have a potato.” Ooh, scary. The Old Dark House has a rudimentary plot at best and suffers from a poorly selected ensemble cast. It lacks the substance to make it a good film.

Despite the existence of a cult surrounding this movie, The The Old Dark House is difficult to find at video stores and is at a price much higher than for other horror flicks from the same era. This is a sign that the typical movie fan is quite a bit smarter than the cultists of The Old Dark House.

There are several good elements in The Old Dark House. These include the dark and creepy atmosphere and the music. The acting and direction are also quite good. However, the story is poorly thought out and lacks any real substance. Not much in this movie makes any sense. This movie shows promise at the outset, but ultimately fails to pay off at the end. As such, The Old Dark House is a flick that you may find satisfactory as a rental to view at midnight, but its doubtful if you will wind up wanting to either buy it or watch it a second time around.

Pact with the Devil (Direct to Video 2001)

Over the years, Oscar Wilde‟s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” has been made into over a dozen Hollywood motion pictures. Naturally, the folks at DEJ Productions figured that they could take a crack at making the classic novel into a movie too. However, the producers took some liberties with Wilde‟s work by substituting photography for paintings as the focal point of the movie. They also made their version under a new name, Pact with the Devil. Unlike most instances of producers monkeying around with the author‟s work, this particular version actually works.

The movie begins with one Louis (Ethan Erickson in his first starring role) working as a go-fer for a blonde fashion photographer (Jennifer Nitsch). One of the other photographers, Henry Wooten (Malcom McDowell) takes an interest in Louis. Henry talks to Louis about his interests and it turns out that Louis is trying to become a professional photographer in his own right, but is going nowhere in his quest. Henry tells Louis that with his good looks, he ought to be “in front of the camera.” In other words, Louis should endeavor to become a male model. Louis agrees to hire Henry as his business manager and as a result, Henry takes some photographs of Louis and shows them around to other photographers. Soon, Louis‟s career as a model is booming.

However, there are problems. Louis‟s girlfriend (Amy Sloan) gets jealous of his accomplishments and accuses him of “selling out.” Also, Louis comes to realize that his new career will last only as long as his good, youthful looks do. Henry, however offers Louis a solution to his problem, which Louis comes to call a pact with the devil. Louis changes his name to Dorian Gray. Henry takes a photograph of “Dorian” that is blown up to large size and framed. As long as this photo exists, Dorian will maintain his youthful good looks and enjoy perfect health while his framed photo ages. In other words, the image of Dorian ages the way that the human being formerly named Louis would have if he did not make his pact with the devil Henry Wooten. If the picture is destroyed, then Louis‟s looks will revert to what they were in the picture at the time of its destruction and Louis‟s health will be similarly impaired. Truly, Louis/Dorian‟s arrangement with his business manager Henry Wooten is a pact with the devil.

So, how does Pact with the Devil compare to previous movie versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray? Its not the best version, but its one of the better productions. While changing its focus to the fashion photography scene, it stays true to the basic plot of Wilde‟s novel. The cinematography is first rate and the acting is pretty strong too.

Ethan Erickson has a rare combination of strong acting talent coupled with tremendous good looks. He should go far in his acting career. Although Jennifer Nitch was great as a fashion photographer, she passed away in a freak accident in 2004. Malcom McDowell turns in a strong performance as the satanic Henry Wooten who literally exudes both suave debonair and malevolent evil.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1989) Some of the most entertaining movies around are also the most ineptly made. One such flick was the 1989 exercise in attempted horror known as Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge. Despite its sheer entertainment value, this was also a box office bomb that ruined what was left of Morgan Fairchild‟s career as a star actress. This really was not a bad outcome since Fairchild was a good looking gal with zero acting talent. People like her have no business in movies.

As the title implies, this movie is a takeoff on the classic 1907 novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux that has been made into numerous different movies. This 1989 movie is a poorly thought out project. A shopping mall simply does not make for a suitable substitute for an opera house.

The plot of Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge involves a decent guy named Eric Matthews (Derek Rydell) who owns a huge, but beautiful, house. There are sinister business types who want to tear down Eric‟s house so they can build a shopping mall in its place. Chief among the plotters is the voluptuous but diabolical Mayor Karen Wilton (Morgan Fairchild). When Eric turns down their offer to buy the house, the real estate culprits decide to burn it down.

Naturally, the bad developers do not care if Eric Matthews were to die in the fire. And just as naturally, Eric survives the sabotage of his beloved home, albeit badly burned. Of course, Eric lusts for revenge against the beautiful but deadly mayor and all the others who are responsible for his predicament. As dreadfully hokey as all this sounds, the way that this is executed on the screen is even worse. This back story is told not by straight narrative, but by flashbacks. These flashbacks are not well done which can lead to some confusion on the part of the audience.

As you can expect, the remainder of the movie concerns the desire of Eric for revenge and the methods that he uses for his cruel exactions. Eric is most resourceful since he has managed to create a secret apartment for himself in the basement complete with electricity that he has managed to keep a secret. He is helped in his endeavors by the fact that this mall evidently has an explosives store where he can get the bomb that he needs for the surprisingly dull finale.

Movies like Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge can be awfully hard to grade. On the one hand, it is a tremendously entertaining movie. On the other hand, that entertainment comes from the fact that it is so poorly made. This is especially true for the woeful special effects. To sum things up, if you want to see a really entertaining flick regardless of its artistic merits, then this is a good movie to check out. However, if you want to see a well-made movie, then this is a flick to avoid.

Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

When folks think of zombies nowadays, images of rampaging hordes of mindless dead people come to mind. Zombies are held to be deadly evil creatures who are hellbent on causing death and destruction. Certainly, this is the way that zombies are portrayed by Hollywood nowadays

However, there was a time when zombies meant folks who were mindlessly under the control of others. Or it meant dead folks who were brought back to life as the slaves of others. Zombies typically did things like slave labor on plantations or engage in destruction of specific targets chosen for them by their masters. This is the type of zombies that are in the 1936 B Movie, Revolt of the Zombies.

Revolt of the Zombies concerns the discovery by the French Army that there exists in French occupied Cambodia a secret formula to transform normal men into zombies. Naturally, the French fear that it could be used against them. They send an expedition to find the secret formula, and destroy it. Only problem is that one of the expedition‟s members wants to have the formula so that he can create a zombie slave army and conquer the world.

The overall state of the acting in Revolt of the Zombies is bad. Lead actress Dorothy Stone is horrible in the role of Claire Duval. Stone is a perfect example of the phrase, “good looks no acting ability.” Roy D‟Arcy is a disappointment in his role as Colonel Masovia. His performance was well below his usual standards.

The poor overall quality of the acting in Revolt of the Zombies comes as a surprise in light of the fact that the lead role is played by Dean Jagger. Jagger‟s movie debut was in 1929 and by 1936, he was already an established actor. In 1949, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. One would think that his presence would have helped lift the efforts of the other actors as well as that of the actresses.

The worst aspects of Revolt of the Zombies are the screenplay and the direction. Both are wooden to the extreme. The pace of this flick is languid and there is very little imagination used in the development of the plot. You would think that for one of the first ever movies to deal with zombies, Revolt of the Zombies would be a pretty imaginative endeavor. However, such is not the case.

There are some positive aspects to Revolt of the Zombies. The cinematography is fair grade and the music score is decent. The quality of such technical aspects as lighting and makeup is better than what is found in most 1930‟s B horror flicks. However, the overall effect of Revolt of the Zombies is boredom. For a movie that has large numbers of soldiers under one man‟s spell and who are perfectly willing to do anything for that one man, even murder, you would think that it would be anything but boring. However, due to the wooden script and the even worse acting, boredom is the end result of Revolt of the Zombies . As such, this is one horror movie that is simply not scary. That being the case, Revolt of the Zombies is definitely not recommended.

Wishcraft (2002)

Every year there are a fair number of quality movies that fail to gain the audience that they deserve. They just simply fall through the cracks. This is in large part due to the sheer number of movies that are released each and every year. An additional factor is that not every movie can boast big name star talent. Movies with lesser known players in the lead roles run a high risk of not making a big box office draw.

One such movie is the 2002 horror flick Wishcraft starring Alexandra Holden & Michael Weston. Wishcraft came and went through its theatrical release so quickly that most folks hardly heard of it.

However, despite its poor box office performance, Wishcraft was still one of the best movies of the year. This is borne out by the fact that this movie has been a marked success in terms of DVD/VHS sales as well as in TV ratings. Up until recently, Wishcraft was a perennial staple on cable television.

Wishcraft is what you could call an intelligent slasher flick. None of the usual slasher show cliches are in this particular flick. The plot of Wishcraft is also more interesting than that of your typical slasher flick. There is a high school with an unusually large campus where there is a shy but outstanding student named Brett Bumpers (Michael Weston) who has a crush on a voluptuous cheerleader named Samantha Warren (Alexandra Holden). Brett wants to take Samantha out on a date, but cannot summon the courage to do so until something arrives in the mail that literally changes his life.

What Brett received is a totem consisting of preserved parts of an ancient bull that has died centuries ago. The accompanying letter says that Brett can make up to three wishes for anything that he wants. This puts Brett in a dilemma since there are so many things that you can wish for, its pretty hard to prioritize the three top things you want, especially if you are wondering if this totem thing is just a prank. What followed this was a great deal of action and suspense similar and yet different than what has transpired in a great many other slasher flicks.

Upon watching Wishcraft and considering that it apparently has never been released on DVD let alone gotten another chance at movie theaters, one wonders if it has been consigned to the dustbin of cinematic history. That may not be the case since we have the example of so-called "film noir" where long forgotten B-Movies have been exhumed from the vaults and given another chance for attention. Could the future hold the same for Wishcraft and other horror flicks of its sort?

Wishcraft is a film that blends classic horror with both humor and suspense. There are also moments of deep tension. It is also a movie that was made with high production values and featured a slasher with a different motive for killing people than other movie slashers. It also uses practical special effects instead of computer stuff.

If you like horror films that are made for the whole family, then you should like Wishcraft.

Movie Review Essay

King Kong and Babylon

By Robin Bright

King Kong loved his woman, but Fay Wray was too small for him to have sex with. In

Hollywood, the movie King Kong (1933) was known as `The Monkey Picture`, which is interesting when we consider that many scientists believe AIDS originated in monkeys.

In the film a giant ape brought from Africa escapes from his circus cage in New York and climbs to the top of the Empire State building.

Hollywood is called the `Babylon of the West` because, in the Hollywood `Dream Factory`, the gay play games, that is, 9/11 is a `monkey picture` about AIDS. The terrorists who eluded protocols by being `civil` functioned as a virus. They were airAIDS representing the gay plague aims.

The `circus` is a euphemism in spy circles for eluding detection, and for detecting those who try to elude it. King Kong breaks free because he`s disturbed by Fay Wray`s having to face the blinding flashbulbs of photographers` cameras. As long as he can see her, he`s happy in captivity but, if she`s blind she won`t be able to see, and so he ascends the world`s tallest building so she can see him, and he`ll see her.

Tourists go to the top of the Empire State building to see New York below. However,

9/11`s terrorists bought tickets unperceived by the spy `circus`, and weren`t seen until their planes demolished the World Trade Centre. Interestingly, `yellow monkeys` is how the Japanese were described who, similarly unperceived, launched a `surprise attack` upon the US fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941, which also featured suicide planes. The solitary King Kong, therefore, denotes the epitome of civilization, that is, Man who wants

Woman to see and see him, and doesn`t want her to be seen by other men (and doesn`t want to see them either), whereas the terrorists represent men who`re monkeys and signify the AIDS virus, which remains unseen and is suicide. Because you can only communicate it if you`re a murderer, and receive it only if you`re suicidal, unless you`re raped. 9/11 was a suicide rape in which the gay plague aim were to spread the virus of terrorism, which is why the attack on the Twin Towers may be understood in Hollywood terms as the gay play games

.

The gay tell the viewer that they`re gay, and the viewers are programmed to understand that they`re watching because they`re also gay, which is where the gay plague aims begins, that is, men don`t show an erect penis in `A` or `B` list feature films because, if they did, women might show theirs. Because women have a penis of their own, and so are a species, men are a parasitical virus enslaving a host womb and, in Revelation, are depicted as incurable:

`Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.` (Rev:16.10)

They`re incurable because they don`t want to be cured, that is, `repent`. The red dragon of Revelation that waits to devour the New Redeemer born to `the woman clothed with the sun and with the moon at her feet` has been associated with `Godless Communism`, which was how the Soviet Union was described before it collapsed economically, because of the USA`s cultural hegemony, that is, Communists preferred MacDonalds and overthrew the governments of Eastern Europe so they could eat faster. The red dragon of

Revelation is the imago of the devourer that, fire breathing, consumes as fast as the

USA`s atomic bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the close of WWII. Consequently,

MacDonalds is analogous to the red dragon of Revelation because it encourages consumption rather than preparation.

A baby takes nine months to emerge from the womb of a woman, whereas fertilization takes a few seconds from a man`s perspective. The woman represents preparation and, as the symbol of the red dragon of Revelation `signposts`, the man represents consumption because he doesn`t value the product or the producer (everything created by man comes from woman`s womb in the final analysis), and so men aren`t preparers, which is what woman is concerned with, nutritionally (breast milk), and developmentally (growth management).

The New Redeemer symbolizes the individual that isn`t preoccupied with consuming but is productive, nurturing and developmental, which is why the future woman of

Revelation is `hidden` with `seed` of her own. She has her own penis, and so is self- contained as a species, rather than a self-perpetuating parasitical virus enslaving and devouring her `host` womb, which is what men are. In Revelation the New Redeemer is depicted as protecting the `hidden` woman until she`s ready to leave Earth for heaven where her `seed` prepares to fight against the evil `serpent`s seed`, that is, men, and have her victory rewarded by God`s creation of a new heaven and Earth for her to dwell in forever.

If the red dragon of Revelation is Communism, then the geopolitical influence of the

Soviet Union was still being felt on 9/11. The Russian Federation would correspond to the `beast` of Revelation who`s head grew back, that is, Afghanistan before the Taliban was under the control of the Russians, and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre may therefore represent the red dragon`s refusal to accept the West`s triumph in the war for consumers. World Trade Centre Tower 1`s `mast` is described:

`The crown of 1 World Trade Center is the 408-foot antenna, which will consist of a mast and a communication platform ring. The mast will be protected by a one-of-a-kind fiberglass panel system that will resist wind loading, and create a protected maintenance area. At the base of the mast, a tetrahedral lattice ring will support media transmission equipment and brace eight radio-frequency transparent Kevlar guy cables that support the mast. When lit at night, a beacon at the top will send out a horizontal light beam that can be seen from miles away.`

World Trade Center 1 is a `com` Tower and, from the perspective of the Russian Cold

War programmers of the red dragon`s `Comrades`, 9/11 is `comma (,) AIDS`, that is, communications between `Comrades`, for the purpose of terrorist airAIDS, is the `virus in the blood` from the devouring imago of the fire breathing red dragon after the `full stop` to the Cold War.

New York`s `Big Apple` suggests an attack on Christianity, that is, upon the wisdom of

Eve distilled from the apple of `the tree of the knowledge of good and evil` since the biblical Paradise, and upon Christ`s teaching `God`s love` in the New Testament 2000 years before. Effectively, Towers I and II represent the voice of the West issuing from

Eve`s and Adam`s `apple`, that is, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre were the

`voice boxes` of the USA, concerned with `speaking` rather than devouring before 9/11.

In Hollywood terms, Osama Ben Laden represents King Kong, that is, `the gay [ape] plague aims`, where `Ben` is the `big monkey picture` in which the terrorists are `AIDS monkeys` infecting the West in true Hollywood James Cagney style from 1949`s

White Heat:

`...cackling, psychotically-mad...[he] staggers around on the top of the platform as more bullets tear into him. Now out of his mind, he deliberately empties his pistol into the giant gas-tanks of the chemical plant to ignite them and immolate himself. The men below run from the flaming area, fearing for their lives. And then...[he] hysterically lifts his face skyward, holds out both arms, and cries out to his dead mother...`1

Britney Spears` Lucky presents her as `Ma`:

`Lost in an image, in a dream.

But there's no one there to wake her up,

And the world is spinning,

And she keeps on winning.

But tell me what happens when it stops?`

The allusion is to the musical Stop The World I Want To Get Off , which is about a man who marries, and has affairs because he wants to see through the eyes of someone other than his wife. As `Ma`, in Lucky, Britney Spears is Top Of The World, and not Cagney, whose death in White Heat is reminiscent of King Kong`s on the Empire State building, who also wanted to be seen, and the deaths of the Twin Towers` terrorists of 9/11, who wanted to be seen on CNN, are also reminiscent of King Kong`s self-immolation atop the world`s tallest building.

Britney wants to be seen, and to see herself through the eyes of others. In Lucky, Britney observes her selves from superior and inferior positions because, in the developmental psychology of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), there are four functions of consciousness;

`Thinking`, `Sensation`, `Feeling`, and `Intuition`. In Lucky, the Hollywood-style `Extra`

Britneys represent the superior, auxiliary, ancillary, and inferior functions, while she`s the ego and `star` that has successfully differentiated, or incorporated, them into her conscious perception, so that they can be seen. In Buddhism, differentiation of eye and ear, which are associated with the `Thinking` and `Sensation` functions, results in the ability to see and hear those who live in the world of the spirit, and so in Lucky Britney Spears represents beauty and music as the constellative factors most attuned to the differentiation of the functions associated with eye and ear.

Because `Thinking` is associated with the `eye`, Britney reflects upon her image in the mirror, and `Sensation`, which is associated with the ear, are the lyrics sung in turn by at least four different selves representing the functions. `Feeling` and `Intuition` are indicated by the flower arrangements, because `Intuition` is associated with `smell`, and

`Feeling` is associated with care for the flowers. Herself in black at the video`s close receiving the Hollywood Oscar for Lucky represents the shadow that, in Jungian psychology, is associated with the inferior function, the differentiation of which is necessary for development and success. The fact that the black clad Britney metamorphs into her `Star` suggests that her Oscar symbolizes the aurum philosophicorum of alchemy, which is the `philosopher`s gold`, and here may be a metaphor for `screen` immortality, whereas the philosopher`s believed it to be the distilled virtue of their work that arose naturally and spontaneously from within from their concentrated study of individuational archetypal symbols that occurred in dreams and imagination. Alchemy`s central maxim is `one becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes one as the fourth`, which is a metaphor for differentiation of the four functions, and self-realization often symbolized by a star. However, there are many such symbols in the world`s religions, and the painting of the elephant in her boudoir in Lucky also represents the beginnings of self-realization within the Buddhist philosophical system at the Muladahra chakra

which is situated at the base of the spine and, symbolized by the elephant, is usually associated with escape from the devouring parental imagos through successful individual development.

Britney`s red vested selves echo her red character from Oops I Did It Again, who fits the description of `Poddy` from the science fiction story Podkayne Of Mars by American

Grand Master Robert A. Heinlein (1907-88), and `Star` is the bride of Oscar Gordon in

Heinlein`s Glory Road, which is the story of the `Egg of the Phoenix` and relates to

Oops I Did It Again where the USA`s first unmanned mission to Mars was by means of the

`Phoenix` or `Mars lander`. The Phoenix is a symbol of resurrection and the `Egg` contains the memories of her predecessors, which she`s to receive cybernetically over a period of decades. Oscar is the hero figure that helps her to find the `Egg`, and so the

Oscar in Lucky signifies her quest to become `the elephant that never forgets`, that is, when the elephant at the base of the chakra ladder awakens in `godhead` at the lotus chakra above her head, she`ll have the racial memories of her ancestry:

`Despite her youthful appearance, she is the mother of dozens of children, and has undergone special medical treatments that extend her life much longer than usual.`2

Britney`s avatars are her daughters in terms of the meaning of Lucky, and so she has the role of educator. The archetypal allusion is to the idea of the `Great Mother` who`s the epitome of wisdom because she`s the Resurrection of her previously incarnated selves. In

Buddhism reincarnation is death and rebirth, and the mistakes or karma of lives lived before are atoned for. Christianity`s Jesus offers Redemption, which is Resurrection through acceptance of the Holy Spirit or Paraclete, that is, the teachings and guidance of

`God`s spirit` over the soul. According to the New Testament of the Bible the Paraclete effectively emerged from the side of Jesus when pierced by the spear of Longinus after his crucifixion and death. In biblical terms the emergence of the Paraclete is prefigured in the emerging of Eve from the side of Adam, and so the Paraclete is often referred to as the `Second Eve`, but older, wiser, and more spiritual: because woman is the `guide, helpmeet, teacher, and comforter` of the soul. Acceptance of the Paraclete, according to

Jesus, results not in reincarnation, but Resurrection, Redemption, and Ascension, which is what the Paraclete prepares the soul for. That`s why Britney Spears has the role of educator in Lucky, and why there are allusions to Star`s previous lives in Glory Road, and the Muladhara chakra of the `elephant that never forgets`, which is primarily associated with family and children, because the Paraclete, as Britney`s Lucky Star, is the archetype of the wise woman who`ll receive the wisdom of her predecessors, because she can accept it, and can transmit to her daughters what she already knows.

Britney`s `Top of the world!` reference to Cagney`s `Ma` in Lucky is probably an allusion to Ma Baker, a pop single by Boney M, which prefigures her own lyrics in

Criminal:

`Ma Ma Ma Ma, Ma Baker, she taught her four sons. Ma Ma Ma Ma, Ma Baker, to handle their guns.`

Britney`s Lucky recognizes Hollywood`s self-destructive `programming` while Britney`s

Criminal lyrics embrace Cagney`s role in White Heat:

`...mama I`m in love with a criminal.

...

He is a villain by the devil's law

He is a killer just for fun, fun, fun, fun.`

Announcing her bisexuality, Britney embraced lesbian affairs, which echoes the aim of the protagonist of Stop The World I Want To Get Off, who wants to see more of the world through `other eyes`. However, bisexuality introduces the element of homosexuality, which is anal sex with men that isn`t designed to be productive of anything other than sterility, and that`s inviting the devouring imago to take hold of your mind. In the developmental school of psychology founded by Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) archetypes are posited that function as developmental ideograms or figures that appear in unconscious dream imagery or conscious imagination. One of the more common ideograms is the `self-devouring, self-begetting ourobouros serpent`, which appeared in the mind of one scientist as a clue to the structure of the benzene molecule, and is symbolic of petrol for a car. Another figure is that of the hero, and so the heroic figure of 20th century consumption is the car-driving devouring imago, which suggests that the hero is not an archetype but that which Revelation describes as the `beast` whose image is worshipped:

`Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up and image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. (Rev: 12.16)

In simple terms, the first `beast` is the devouring imago of the 20th century, which includes the devourers Kaiser Wilhelm I, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein. The 21st century would have begun peacefully but for 9/11, which is the revival of the wounded `beast` of war. In biblical terms, fire comes down onto the `Big Apple` of the Earth to announce the beast`s intention of devouring the USA. The worshipped image of the `beast` is Hollywood`s programme for the devouring imago which, appearing as heroic in White Heat, King Kong, and other Hollywood movies, prepared for its worship in the 21st century with 9/11. Moreover, because the devouring imago is a psychologem which is constellated in dreams and the imagination as if it were an archetypal hero, it `speaks` to the mind:

`... the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.`

Following Cagney`s self-immolation in White Heat, flames are extinguished by giant fire hoses that prefigure the statue of the New York fireman from 9/11. The imagery in

White Heat is symbolic onanism. Onan was the figure from the Bible who was condemned by

God for favouring masturbation rather than the fertilizing of women. He`s described as a despiser of his own `seed`, and so the giant hoses of White Heat are a masturbatory worship of the imago of Cagney the devourer. The `programme` for 9/11, whether devised in Hollywood or the Russian Federation, was the masturbatory worship of the devouring imago of Osama Ben Laden.

Another worshipped devouring imago was deposed Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, whose terrorists claimed responsibility for the exploding airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland.

Although ancient Babylon was to be found in Iraq in 4000 BC, Hollywood is often termed Babylon because it`s a programmer for the devouring imago, which had been defining itself in the Middle East since 1979 when Saddam Hussein became President of

Iraq.

As Cagney dies, THE END zooms out from the center of the screen. It`s Hollywood`s

Revelation `programme` for the `Last days`. In choosing Top Of The World (Ma) as her

`signifier` in Lucky, Britney Spears recognizes White Heat`s appeal to the movie-going consumer`s imago of the devourer, and so Lucky is in danger of becoming a capitalist

Lacky (American pronunciation) if she accepts the devouring imago. The biblical antidote is the woman of Revelation who`s child awaits the devouring red dragon. It cannot be devoured because it`s the New Redeemer that protects her, which means that good works save. If Britney Spears can avoid becoming a self-devourer, in the sense of suicidal, any works that she produces are redemptive.

The epitome of evil works is, of course, the `snuff` movie in which people are filmed being murdered, which is what the terrorists and CNN represented on 9/11. Miley Cyrus`

Can`t Be Tamed looks innocuous enough from the point of view of those who`re concerned with the constellating of the devouring imago within the mind. However, it begins with a stereotypical British Oxbridge Communist traitor from the Soviet era who calmly explains that she`s a captured `museum piece`:

`Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the museum. Tonight we are proud to reveal our greatest exhibit yet. A creature so rare it was believed to be extinct. Well tonight we shall see. In captivity for the first time, the rarest creature on Earth. Ladies and gentlemen!

Avis Cyrus!`

Obviously, it`s the KGB (cage, Great Britain), and they immediately lament their failure to make her extinct in a previous pogrom, which suggests that the worldwide constellating of the devouring imago is an international Communist conspiracy to destroy capitalism from within. In

White Heat Cagney`s gangster epitomizes the 1950s era of `conspicuous consumption`, which was prefigured by the atomic bombs that `consumed` Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1944. By the late 80s the USA had given Saddam Hussein the world`s 3rd largest army, and then used theirs, the 1st largest army in the word, to waste it all in further `binge consumption`.

Britney`s Top Of The World motif in Lucky announces her programmer`s devouring

Imago of self-immolation, and months later she shaved her head, declaring herself the

Antichrist, after leaving the hairdresser`s. Saddam Hussein, `top of the world` in Iraq, announced his own claim to be the `beast` of Revelation when the Taliban attacked the Twin Towers. All he had to do was express sympathy for the American people to `convert` from terrorism, and the USA would have assisted his rehabilitation; even with the Kurds who, according to reports, he`d gassed with poison.

The devouring imago signifies a sterility that doesn`t want life, and so James Cagney in

White Heat is the prototypical homosexual. He loves his mother, but isn`t sexual: `Made it, Ma! Top of the world The history of Hollywood is of heroic imago figures that aren`t sexual, and so devote their time to homosexual devouring imago `action`, which consists of substituting murder and destruction for showing a woman their penis. 21st century

Hollywood is either `spoof snuff` in movies like Scarey Movie, and Scream, or `straight snuff`, like The Ring, or Saw. 9/11 was a typical Hollywood homosexual `blockbuster` in which there definitely wasn`t going to be a visibly erect penis.

The usual claim is that the penis isn`t shown in mainstream movies, television, etc., because it`s immoral. However, if the erect male penis were to be seen, women would be showing theirs, and they have them. Consequently, the reason that erections are taboo in mainstream culture is to prevent a widespread awareness and cultural input from women`s penis. Moreover, because women have their own penis as futanar they constitute a species` alternative to reproduction with men, that is, women don`t need men and can continue as a species without them.

Holywood is `Babylon` because it makes money by focusing on the constellation of a devouring imago that is primarily homosexual in its message, that is, `blockbusters` featuring the heroic imago injected into grandiose scenes of devastation such as Sink The Bismark; a WWII `true story` of sea battles and loss of life on a huge, unprecedented scale; War Of The Worlds; a tale of aliens destroying most of the Earth; Towering Inferno, a 9/11 prefiguration in which the protagonist is a fireman attempting to prevent an immense tower block from burning to the ground; Independence Day, a scifi story of how the Earth gains independence after much of it is destroyed by aliens, Titanic; in which an ocean liner sinks on its maiden voyage - and so on. Similar scenarios of terror inspired by the devouring imago of homosexuality are Silence Of The Lambs; which actually features a cannibal, Payback; in which the hero is tortured, and responds as a successful murderer; Terminator, in which the anti-hero imago is a killer and more attractive than the human woman whose child he`s going to murder; Scream, in which the entertainment consists of watching young women being stalked and murdered; The Ring, in which anyone who watches a particularly strange video is murdered, and so on.

The result of the constellating of the devouring imago of homosexuality in Hollywood`s `Babylon of the West` was the apocalyptic 9/11. The absence of the woman`s penis in Hollywood in favour of movies in which violence is preferable to the male penis` erect visibility would seem to prove that the demolishing of the `Big Apple` skyline`s most prominent erection is a direct concomitant of men`s fear of woman`s penis. One of the main gripes of the Taliban in Afghanistan was that women were receiving an education and there were many reports of students being executed for learning: `Female students, whom the Taliban denounces as un- Islamic, are at greatest risk. Their teachers are kidnapped and killed. Their classrooms are torched. Their parents are threatened.`3

Clearly the main fear was that they might discover that they were a species of their own by gaining access to http://www.futanaria.comor similar websites. 9/11 suggests that It`s either suicide for mankind, or accept woman as a species with her own penis. Men would destroy the Earth rather than allow women to be seen to have an erection, and they`ve been programming us for generations with their devouring imago of destruction with all of the media technology at their disposal.

Assailing the world`s tallest structure, Osama Ben Ladan`s terrorists were `the gay plague` as the constellated virus of the homosexual`s devouring imago, and a Hollywood programmer`s King Kong; `thug ape plague` gaming at the CPUs of the Twin Towers in sterile reinforcement of the `gay plague aim` of devouring God`s producer`s productions, and maintain their enslavement of women as `host` wombs. The imagery is of the Greek horse out of which Greek warriors emerged when the Trojans were `taken in` by the

Greeks and, taking the Greek horse that contained Greek warriors within the walls of

Troy, left themselves open to conquest by the Greeks.

The 9/11 planes that attacked the USA were `civil` before being hijacked and so the

Americans were `taken in` by them. Greek culture at the time of Troy used women secondarily and practiced pederasty and homosexuality as the `norm` while women were for producing them. The Trojan war began because Paris took Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the wife of the brother of the Greek King, Meneleaus, to Troy as his own. Consequently, the `towers of Ilium` fell because Paris loved Helen, which wasn`t `Greek`. Similarly, the Twin Towers of New York may be said to have fallen because homosexuals wanted to `practise their Greek`, rather than allow women to receive an education that might liberate them.

George W. Bush`s subsequent declaration of worldwide war (2003-) meant that the terrorists` `Greek horse` was successful. Whether the terrorist `AIDS monkeys` were unable to distinguish reality from Hollywood, and the World Trade Centre from

Microsoft X-box `game platforms`, or they `intellectually` perceived themselves as

AIDS-style computer viruses crashing the USA`s defence systems by avoiding

`protocols` and, using the simple expedient of buying tickets and posing as tourists, hijacking `civil` aircraft to impolitely kill 4000+ people in simultaneous airAIDS on the

USA`s White House, Pentagon, and World Trade Centre, they had reimposed the ancient

Greeks` principle of enslavement and devourment of women as `host` wombs for their perpetuation as a homosexual virus of destruction.

In Revelation the AIDS virus is God`s euphemism for stupidity, which is the absence of

God`s desire for procreation, and is represented as the wilful worship of the devouring imago of the `false hero` as the `beast` rather than simple acceptance of God`s woman as the image of God`s goodness: `...ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.` (Rev: 16.2) In Edenic terms, worship of the devouring imago has replaced wisdom, which is that the eating of Eve`s `apple` is symbolic, and the consuming of 4000+ lives on 9/11 isn`t. The Nazis similarly consumed

Jews in Belsen and elsewhere in WWII in their infamous ovens, and God promises them unendurable eternal pain for having done so. Effectively, it`s the simple realization that apples are for eating, whereas human lives aren`t for being consumed. That`s why

`hellfire` is described as consuming the evil, because consuming lives is what they do, and it`s the reason why the Bible describes evil men as `faggots`, because they like to consume people in ovens.

The word `faggot` is used of homosexuals, because such sterility is the absence of love for women, which is why witch burning requires many faggots, and women at the stake are often depicted as blatantly sexual, so that the devouring imago constellates in those who`re susceptible to implementing the imagery. Ancient Greek society didn`t use reproduction for anything other than the production of homosexual men, and the perpetuation of war, which results in such sterile scenarios as the defoliation of South

East Asia (1955-75) by means of `Agent Orange` sprayed from USAF planes during the

Vietnam War, and the genocidal pogroms of `Ethnic Cleansing` in the emerging states of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, where it was practised by predominant Muslim or

Christian separatist communities and, in Sudan`s Dharfur (2003-11), black West African

Muslims were the victims of a genocidal pogrom by richer, and more politically dominant, Muslim migrants from Arabia who wanted to keep power for their own ethnic group.

After the Japanese attacked Hawaii`s Pearl Harbor to disable the USA`s fleet in 1941`s

`sneak attack`, featuring `Kamikaze pilots` flying Mitsubishi zero fighters as `suicide bombs`, Americans called the Japanese `yellow monkeys`, which is doubly significant in terms of the concentration camp scenarios where the devouring imago held sway as the 20th century`s consumer of lives. Scientists believe that AIDS derived from monkeys so, because AIDS is a degenerative disease, 9/11`s terrorists were King Kong`s `AIDS monkeys`, programmed by Hollywood`s penchant for disaster `blockbusters` to enter the USA and, eluding air defence system protocols, like a computer virus refusing to wear a `Trojan` condom when invited to the `Big Apple` of Eve`s Western Paradise, began the global spreading of their disease.

In the film King Kong USAF fighter planes attack the giant ape who falls from the summit of the Empire State building to his death, but on 9/11 the `little monkeys` were inside the planes that, effectively feigning to be safe, that is, wearing a condom, politely avoided air traffic control `protocols` by buying tickets to `play games` (plague aims) of hijacking `civil` planes, and penetrating the World Trade Centre. As a computer virus would `hack` CPU towers (gamers unable to perceive the distinction between CPU and

WTC), before delivering airAIDS to ensure the certainty of their global `plague aim`. The implementation of constant surveillance for all peoples everywhere, and universal fear of murder and torture by `security` forces. Critical of how much milk Mary put on her cornflakes that morning, and suspicious of the amount of toothpaste she bought that afternoon, labelling her a suspicious character, so began the process of criminalization that would, ultimately, mean imprisonment for all who had the capacity to develop beyond the role of AIDS monkeys crashing planes into large buildings. Because they thought the USA`s role of `global policeman` meant that the USA was a PC and that, in demolishing the Twin Towers, they were a `machine code` virus to test the `X-box` software programme for Microsoft, perceived internationally by sane people as New

York`s World Trade Centre.

The concept of `global surveillance` by the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc., means a behaviouralist approach in which everyone is watched. Such criminalizing is terrorism, and results in terror and victims, which was the relationship between the 9/11 plane `hijackers` and the

World Trade Centre. The basic perception is that, because women have a penis, as futanar women do, they`re a species, whereas 9/11 suggests that male behaviour is that of the homosexual Greek with a `Trojan horse`. Their interest in Helen of Troy (a district of

New York State) is the camouflage of buying tickets so that they`d be `taken in` by the

Americans before hijacking the planes that appeared `civil`, that is, a `Trojan horse` for spreading their virus of terrorism, which a reading of Greek history, and its successors

(Roman, British, Russian, and the USA`s), reveals is male behavior: they`re a parasitical virus functioning as a devouring Imago, whereas woman is the species on the Earth.

1 http://www.filmsite.org/whit3.html

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Road

3 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9396748

Websites of Interest http://bloody-disgusting.com Bloody Disgusting http://www.buried.com Buried http://www.campblood.net Camp Blood http://cinemorgue.wikia.com/wiki/Cinemorgue_Wiki Cinemorgue Wiki http://www.deadpit.com Deadpit Radio http://www.finalgirl.rocks Final Girl http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com Horror Movie A Day https://horrorpedia.com Horrorpedia http://www.ihatehorror.com The Horror Show https://www.horrorsociety.com Horror Society https://www.horrortalk.com Horror Talk http://www.horror-web.com Horror Web http://www.lairofhorror.com Lair of Horror http://www.rainebrown.com/index.html Raine Brown http://www.terrortrap.com Terror Trap