Saturday, October 29, 2011
FASCINATION WITH FEAR lists some favorite horror soudtracks.

Okay, that's over-stating it a bit. But it's no lie that most of the music on my iPod is horror movie scores. You could say I have a serious obsession. I've got waaay too many downloaded scores from off the internet, many are even legal!
Of course I like most of the same scores as the majority of other horror fans, the ever-popularHalloween, Jaws and The Omen...but I also have a lot of more obscure ones. I recall my serious fixation with getting my hands on the score for Psycho II (which most regular readers here will not be surprised to hear). It was listed on eBay, sure...for about $150.00! That was certainly out of the question. Finally found it for around $25.00 - it was on cassette and was in Nebraska. Guess what? I bought it. A few years later I found it online - for free! Of course I won't tell where, but suffice it to say I was elated and probably made about four or five copies. I even have a copy in my fire safe with my marriage certificate and insurance policies. Now that's commitment! It remains one of my favorite scores.
Anyway, I've listed twenty-eight of my favorite scores. I thought about trying to find samples for every one of them, but some of them would be hard to find and I'm not savvy enough to know how to upload them here...
(Recommended Reads) 'Little Demon Girl' by Anthony Venutolo
One night, as a babysitter dry humped her boyfriends downstairs, Sadie crawled out of her crib and suffocated her big sister while she was sleeping...
CULT MOVIE REVIEWS talks about HANNIE CAULDER

(Recommended Reads) 'Orange Dot' by Michael Solender
(Recommended Reads) 'Trick Or Treat' by Icy Sedgwick
Friday, October 28, 2011
THE LIGHTNING BUG'S LAIR and HORROR'S NOT DEAD talk about my favorite Vincent Price movie.
And that movie is MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.
Lets start with what HORROR'S NOT DEAD had to say;
Price was a gift to directors like Roger Corman and William Castle, able to step into low-budget B-pictures and craft characters who carried genuine weight. Put Price in front of a cardboard wall, hand him a fishing pole that can control a skeleton and watch him not bat an eye: he knows exactly what kind of film he’s in and manages to find the perfect pitch, taking everything that happens completely seriously but elevating his performance to a level that can’t help but ooze a little self-awareness. They don’t make actors like this anymore, folks. There will never be another Vincent Price and his Prospero may be one of his greatest roles...
And now THE LIGHTNING BUG'S LAIR;
Much of the credit for the film's success has to be given over to Corman and Price. Roger Corman is thought of as something of a hack, but looking at the lush color palette and the lavish sets (borrowed from the filming of Beckett), it has all the visual brilliance of Blood and Black Lace or Susperia. Corman knew how to get the right people for the job, and the film's look wasn't hindered by cinematographer and future film director Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth). Corman also got some great performances out of his cast. Price is at his menacing best as the lecherous Satanist. He's so delightfully slimy that he practically oozes around the screen. Jane Asher (who was Paul McCartney's gal pal at the time and brought the then unknown (to Roger Corman) Beatle to the set) is the picture of loveliness, and her decent into nihilistic numbness is well played and believable. The lovely Hazel Court appears as a would-be bride of Satan, but her plotline is disposable and the only part of the film that felt like padding. Skip Martin clearly has a good time playing the role of the vengeful dwarf, but it was Clockwork Orange's Patrick Mcgee who shines in their scenes. While Prospero seems the noble, refined devil worshiper, Mcgee's Alfredo seems only a hair away from being a snarling beast...
HALLOWEEN PRAYERS:The Man That Ate Newborns
by
Al Bruno III
Don't squirm so much my wee one. Don’t struggle. Let me hold you close while I work up my nerve. Only a day old and you're fighting to live, well so am I. Isn't that what we all want in the end? Life, a warm place to sleep and a full belly. Well, that's what you've got and what do I have? Nothing I'm just a middle aged man, used up and waiting to die.
Just like you, not that you realize what's coming next of course.
Then again maybe you do understand, you may be blind and confused but maybe you do know somehow. Is that why you keep trying to get free?
This is all because of Eve. We had known each other since college. She was already halfway towards becoming a lawyer and I was a well respected graduate student. You should have seen her. She was so damn beautiful with creamy skin- just like yours. I first saw her in the college library, I was so smitten that I followed her home. Just to see if she was married or living with a boyfriend or something like that. I spent the next few days tracking her, learning whatever I could and once I was sure I knew enough to pass for her soulmate I made my move.
I played my cards just right and won her heart. It was a whirlwind romance, the kind of thing you'll never know my wee one. Maybe that's just as well, maybe if you could you'd thank me for sparing you the heartbreak.
Even now I don't know what went wrong. Was I too agreeable? Too clingy? It doesn't matter. She found someone else. The breakup was an ugly thing, uglier than you my wee one.
She tried to be gentle, she told me we could still be friends. I was so angry, I said terrible things but in the end I took her up on the offer of friendship and hoped she might come to her senses.
I'll never understand women. They're called the fairer sex but everything they do is unfair. How is it time and time again they're drawn to the wrong men? Why couldn't she see that her new boyfriend was all wrong for her? And why for God's sake did she marry him.
Now don't get me wrong, I tried to move on. There were other towns, other girls and no matter how much I learned about them before I made my move I never got as far as I had with Eve.
Was that why I kept coming back to my home town? Was that why I stayed her friend even though the sight of that ring on her finger left my skull pounding with rage?
Calm down now my wee one. I might drop you if you keep struggling so. Is that what you want?
I stayed her friend, I prayed for her to divorce but then it got worse. They were tears of joy in her eyes when she told me she was pregnant. I smiled at the news but in the back of my mind I was calling her a bitch. She never cried for me but she had a fountain of tears for a baby that wasn't even born yet. A baby that at this point was just a lump of cells no better than a tumor.
Some say life begins at conception but I don’t think it begins until you have your first real thought. Until then your just a thing that eats and crawls mindlessly.
It was during her final trimester that I decided something radical needed to be done. I would steal her little baby and I would keep it away until she promised to leave her husband and love me forever.
We would raise the child together. Even though it was another man's I would raise it as my own.
Thanks to things like email and her husband's Facebook page I knew when Eve started to go into labor. I waited about twenty-four hours, and then made my move.
As always I had done my homework, I knew the hospital's routine. I went at night, wearing stolen scrubs and an official-looking ID badge.
I made my way to the nursery convinced that no suspicious eyes would turn my way. I suppose love blinded me in that respect. I barely had the baby in my arms before someone raised an alarm. Escape wasn't easy but I managed to get out of the building. Then I found myself in the middle of a car chase. I knew I could evade the police if I made it to the state park and drove with my headlights off.
The crash was a directionless blur, I thought I was running parallel to the ravine but I ended up careening right into it.
Now here I am, pinned in my car with broken bones poking through the flesh of my legs. I had dared everything and I came away empty handed. Doubtlessly Eve and her husband are cooing over their baby and cursing me for what I had tried to do.
I'm not sure why no one has found me yet, I mean they must be looking but it's been two days and I'm still waiting alone.
Well, I was waiting alone until you came along. The flies must have laid you while I was drifting in and out of consciousness but now my wounded legs are crawling with maggots.
This isn't cruelty, it's just that I'm so hungry and you’re all I have. I'm going to eat you first and then once I’ve gotten the taste for it your brothers and sisters will be joining you by the handful.
I'm going to live through this, and somehow I'm going to get my Eve back.
Somehow. Somehow I'll do it.
Just don't squirm so much my wee one. Don't struggle.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Michael Bukowski continues to be a Mythos-making machine!
He's got a Hell of a lot of talent. Stop by his blog to see more.
Check out his Ithaqua the Wind Walker...
THE DARK TOWER the TV series? Could it work? Could it go the distance?
Good news, fans of epically long Stephen King sagas! The hefty King series The Dark Tower will be getting the HBO treatment. This is a good thing, as HBO is really the only place with the budget and patience to take on such a long, complicated story.
HBO broke the news from producer Brian Grazer, who confirmed there will be yet another fantasy series on the channel that gave us Game of Thrones and True Blood...
I'm 44 years old today! My daughter and her friends are giving me a makeover!
I can't wait to see how it turns out!