Horror Flick of the Week: Don't Torture a Duckling

If you're unfamiliar with Giallo (regular readers should be, I love them.) This one may be one of the easier films to foray into if you aren't, as the plot is more structured than you'd expect from a Giallo. As usual, it's got some absolutely stunning cinematography. Since this is one of those 'must sees' in the genre, I'd expect nothing less. In fact, if you're interested in Giallo at all...make this one of your top 5 to watch before the end of the year.

Voodoo. Paranoia. Religion. Gratuitous nudity. It's gruesome. Mean-spirited in the style only Fulci seems to nail so well. A mystery about some serial killer offing little boys should be, shouldn't it? Not for the faint of heart, and I'd advise those who are more sensitive in their horror tastes to not even watch the trailer below. For the rest of you, definitely check it out this October. This week. Tonight. As soon as you can.

Drive-in Trailers: Road Tripping

It's been ages since we've had a drive-in trailer entry, so here goes. Next week (Halloween),
I'll be road-tripping with a couple of friends to a convention in Galveston. In honor of said trip,
let's explore the horrific events that might occur, if we take a detour, pick up a hitch-hiker, or decide to make a pit stop...

Note: The Manos one is a fan-made trailer...but it's so perfect...I had to include it.

80s Horror Posters

Today I decided to share some pretty graphics, and what better decade for interesting horror posters and movie covers than the golden age of camp? The 80s!

Horror Flick of the Week: Company of Wolves (1984)

Little Red Riding Hood. A story told in a dozen different ways, exploring everything from the loss of innocence to the dangers of trusting strange man-wolves. 'Company of Wolves' is the single best film adaptation of this story that I have ever seen, and likely will ever see. It can not be remade, because it is one of those few magical reels of celluloid which captures the true darkness of fairy tales in the most incredible way.

Starring Sarah Patterson in one of her few roles, this is a magnificent movie. It's beautiful. Dark. Disturbing. Intriguing. It is an incredible movie, and that is why it is this week's selection.

Censorship and Horror Comics

A lot of people do not like censorship. In fact, I've often heard arguments against even having ratings to designate whether movies are appropriate for children or adults (G, PG, R, etc.) But censorship doesn't just stop with movies.

Back in the mid-50s, horror comics had reached an incredible height of gruesomeness the silver screen had yet to even dream of. There were images in these comic pages of terror and fright that at the time could only be summoned by the pens of the truly depraved (and awesome) artists.

Unfortunately, as is common with all forms of art, there were people who didn't really...appreciate these comics as they deserved. Some people treated inked pages of zombies and screaming blondes as if they were akin to fluoridating our water supply. Which is apparently bad if you're absolutely insane and uninformed about proper dental health.

At the time concern began to arise, there were an awful lot of unregulated comics on the market from both minor and major publishers, and it was a goldmine of the good and the bad. Then 'Seduction of the Innocent' came about, and because people didn't think they had enough to complain about, they decided to read it. This was a book written by Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist too lazy to properly investigate the neuroses of his patients...so he just blamed it all on comics with their dirty words and pictures. One thing led to another as the panic train snowballed, and that's how we got the 'Comics Code Authority', which ultimately decimated the field of horror comics.

But any horror addict knows there's no scratching that itch you get when you really want something to scream at. Artists continued to work, oftentimes even working without putting their names on their comics. Horror comics didn't die completely, they were just giving way to the more family-friendly resurgence of super heroes and fantasy.

Thankfully today nobody really pays attention to the dangers of the written word if there's no political message. They'd rather focus all of that fear on video games and television. The golden age of our beloved horror comics may have passed on into the realms of the beyond, but as I'm sure all of my readers know...you can't keep a good ghoul down. Horror comics have returned, and they're 'worse' than ever.