Name a horror film that you would like to see turned into a broadway musical.

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

I would go to see Frankenstein, Dracula or The Mummy done with the same production values and attention to detail that was done with Phantom of the Opera.

For sh*ts and giggles, I think that The Amazing Colossal Man would make a great comedy…or possibly The Brain from Planet Arous.

Don May, Jr. - Synapse Films

The original THE TOOLBOX MURDERS… that would be awesome… nude women in bathtubs singing, synchronized nailing…

Nick - DVD Trash

The Nightmare on Elm Street movies, with Freddy discovering a penchant for tap routines!

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I can’t afford to go to a Broadway show! So, I’d like to see A Virgin Among The Living Dead on ICE! I could probably swing that and the kids would love it. See endless twirling up the staircase of mystery! Watch as the triple axle is spun with scissors across a bared breast! Jess Franco directs and the action ZOOMS all around the rink.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

I would love to see a laserlight show musical on ice with PHANTASM. I dig the idea of dwarves in hooded robes on ice skates and a woman dressed as the silver ball.

Louis Fowler

I’m all for JASON X, SUPERSTAR. Rex Reed says the “X” stand for “excitement”!

Thrill on a journey through the stars as our favorite reanimated killing machine slays and fillets the singingest, dancingest crew of horny teenagers ever. You get such songs as “Don’t Cryo for Me Mr. X”, “This Barren World of Wonder (Overture)”, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Cyber Jason?”, “My Machete Betty”, “Evil Gets a Funk-Grade” and the classic “You and Me and a Killing Spree Makes Three Tonight”:

PROFESSOR: We’ll, I’d have to say…(sings) He’s quite complicated for a corpse who reanimated and I’m sure he’d like know / That he can be a tad cranky, underneath that mask is stanky and I’m afraid that he’s got to go!

JANESSA: Yes, I agree but… (sings) Sure he’s complicated, but his corpse was desecrated and I’m pretty sure that we can all agree/ That to cybernize this yahoo, was not the best thing to do, and I’m afraid that he’s got to go!

JASON X: Ahem….(sings) Yes you made an error, so now you scream in terror, because I don’t belong here in space/ take me back to my home on Crystal Lake or I’ll hafta…

ALL: We don’t wanna…

JASON X: I needta…

ALL: Please don’t-a

JASON X: I’m gonna have to ram this machete in your face!

JA - My New Plaid Pants

I’m torn between a musical version of Tod Browning’s Freaks - featuring the showstopper “One of Us (Gooble Gobble)” - or a musical version of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion - the singing narrator being the slowly decaying skinned rabbit, of course. Freaks is ready-made Broadway material, what with the cast of many stories coming together, sort of like Rent with pinheads; but I think the pathos of Carole Ledoux’s solitary descent into madness could make for something truly operatic.

Joakim - Mexploitation

Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, also known as Braindead, would make an amazing musical. It’s got a very theatrical feeling to it already, and it has a limited number of locations, so it’d work well on stage.

On the other hand, any Dario Argento movie would work well as classical opera. Especially, perhaps, Opera, which would make the whole thing suitably self-referential for the new millennium, etc.

Wow, there were a lot of comic-based posts today. Sorry, T. Van. I promise, no more comics.

Tomb It May Concern has begun posting some stellar Bronze Age horror comics; Demon Kiss and The Vow. I had no idea Bruce Jones could draw so well. I wish he hadn’t quit.

Awhile back I posted on a group in the U.K. who are conducting research into “extreme” films which contain high levels of sexual violence. DVD Trash has a follow-up. I hope he keeps us posted on the experience.

the sticky wetness
found within pumpkins instills
both longing and dread

Join us tomorrow for perhaps the silliest Horror Roundtable yet. Or don’t. Your call.

One thing leads straight into another. A piece of news left unmentioned in the Kirkman interview is that he has finished writing a prequel to this year’s Marvel Zombies comic, in which the super-heroes of the Marvel Universe became flesh-eating ghouls. That series suggested, but didn’t show, various events that occured during the beginning of the plague. The prequel will address those incidents. For example, Marvel Zombies artist Sean Phillips describes one scene he is busy working on.

And yes, I will have to draw the Avengers eating Jarvis.

For more Marvel Zombie goodies like the picture above, make sure you check Sean Phillips’ blog.

Comic Book Resources has a brand-new Robert Kirkman interview up. Kirkman is the writer behind The Walking Dead, one of the few comics I still actively read, along with Conan and Little Lulu. Don’t laugh.

Comic Book Resources - Now, your zombie story has gone on longer than most attempts. What do you feel the trick is to maintaining a story for this long in the zombie genre?

Robert Kirkman - Not stopping after two hours? By design, the zombie story is geared toward longer stories that follow things to its logical conclusion, but it’s just never been done. I mean, think about how different the world would be after ten years. That’s what I’m working toward - reveal how we get there and show all the changes in people and society and civilization.

The Walking Dead is a comic that has actually caught me off guard and made me gasp in surprise with just the turn of a page. The latest trade paperback for The Walking Dead is out, and I plan on picking it up sometime this weekend.

Datajunkie offers up an incredible amount of Ditko delineated giant monster madness discovered within various issues of Charlton horror comics.

Stan “The Man” Lee may have made a number of morally questionable decisions over his career, but deciding to place Steve Ditko on Spider-man wasn’t one of them. Ditko was at least as stylized as Kirby, but when it came to superheroes he was a bit of an odd fit. That’s why he was perfect for certain characters, ones which required a special kind of nervous energy that seemed to work on the inside as opposed to simply bursting out. Ditko’s philosophical beliefs may have been black-and-white, but no one has been able to visually craft characters living in conflict quite as effectively as he did.

Jeff O’Brien, creature feature screenwriter for Insecticidal and the eagerly anticipated Prey For The Beast, sends word on a few of his latest projects.

On the home front, I’ve finished my backwoods Deliverance style epic called SHOTGUN BRIDE and Kevin (Motel Hell) Connor expressed great enthusiasm upon reading it. I came up with a killer pig outline called OINK! that might be the next one… although I’m testing the waters with JESUS FREAK, about a messiah like creature who can walk on water and raise the dead.

Jeff is the other member in the Pigs fanclub, so this is exciting news indeed. I think society has been in a rapid state of decline since we stopped producing films about killer swine. What use is this blog if it can’t help drum up some support for a worthy project such as Oink!? Any producers out there? Let’s get this fucker made.

Have you ever considered a career in horror journalism? If so, please reconsider. Believe me, it’s not worth the misery.

If you choose to ignore my advice, you may want to check out Moore and Reppion’s blog where they have the details on how you can become an intrepid correspondent for Revenant Magazine at Max Brooks’ Film Festival of the Living Dead.

FD and I will pick out the star candidate and he or she will be heading over to the film festival wearing a free Revenant t-shirt and with a free copy of World War Z (courtesy of Duckworth Publishers) under their arm. The tickets will also entitle the winner to attend a question and answer session with WWZ author Max Brooks, so you’d better think of some original questions to ask him too.

All entrants must be over 18 years of age, able to make their own way to and from the events in London, UK and must be prepared and have the necessary equipment to provide a full report on the event (including photographs, if possible).

So if you still insist on travelling down the lonely, drunken road of horror journalism, get cracking.

Apparently you can now view a webisode entitled 2 gangsters + A DIVA for the post-apocalyptic television show Jericho over at CBS. I say apparently because it’s only accessible to Americans, and I’m not eligible. I don’t know whether this nationalistic ban is a blessing or a curse considering the reaction to the webisode, which probably explains why this isn’t getting the kind of exposure these things usually receive. How hard could it be to create a gripping apocalyptic short?

How did this one sneak by? I knew legendary pop culture documentarian Ron Mann was filming a “Big Daddy” Roth film, but I had no idea it was being released so soon. If you don’t dig yet, lay your orbs on this interview with Ron Mann.

There was a shift in culture in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Roth was like Wolfman Jack or Mad magazine; he was someone who put a message out into the culture. That message was that it was okay to be weird. That being weird was cool. I personally liked Roth’s shirts and graphics because my parents hated them—those Basil Wolverton-esque monsters were great. When you were a kid you wanted to wear a T-shirt with Rat Fink on it and build those models.

Tales of a Rat Fink is playing the festival circuit right now, but Varsity Cinema in Toronto has it for a week-long engagement, right now. Lucky bastards.

Rated F for Finks everywhere.

As promised, the footage of the Uwe Boll matches from this past weekend, courtesy of the Garden City hooligans at Film Junk. Unfortunately, rumours have been circulating that Boll promised the participants training and equipment but later reneged on the deal, saying that these weren’t going to be real matches so such things weren’t necessary. I certainly hope it isn’t true.

A small town in Kansas is thrown into turmoil by the appearance of a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

Bill over at DisContent gets it right when he says that Jericho is “a bit soft in the belly”. Jericho is a show that has a number of great moments, many of which tap into those Cold War memories people of a certain age share, that unfortunately lacks the overall level of suspense that this kind of program requires to succeed.

I remember watching a stand-up comedian performing a routine about the original Kansas-based nuclear apocalypse thriller, The Day After. He pointed out a scene in which people are rioting at a grocery store and you can see cashiers working hard keeping everything in order. His question was, what kind of overtime do you get during the apocalypse? A similar sense of ignorant calm pervades Jericho. You actually see waitresses working at the local tavern mere hours after a mushroom cloud appears on the horizon. Only a few townspeople seem to have any idea of the gravity of their situation.

One of the fallacies of the many dark suspense serials that came out on the heels of Lost was in taking things at a snail’s pace and only slowly giving out answers to the questions being posed. The reality is that most successful serials actually answer those questions both early and regularly. What they do is replace said mysteries with new ones. They keep the pump primed. It may be too early to say, but the first episode of Jericho seems more like that of the disasterous Invasion than of the show which it no doubt wants to emulate.

Whatever little sense of panic created in the premiere is quelled quite easily by the good folk of Jericho, meant perhaps to emphasize the level-headed rationality of some fantasy version of small-town America. Practically the only reason to watch a show like this is to place familiar characters into an unfamiliar situation and see how they react under the pressure, something which Jericho so far hasn’t come close to establishing. The only way that I can see Jericho succeeding in the long run is if it became something of an anti-Lost, in which characters familiar to one another slowly become strangers and where old secrets aren’t necessarily revealed but created and acted upon. In short, the decline of civilization. I’m intrigued enough to keep watching, but not for long.

Director Uwe Boll took on four more critics in the boxing ring over the weekend. Until the inevitable YouTube footage appears, you can read a recounting of the event at the International Herald Tribune.

“I like now the critics,” Boll told a news conference after the fights. “Everybody who was in the ring showed balls. Nobody dived.”

The article mentions that there were only 15 critics who took up the challenge. Even though I didn’t qualify to be one of the final 5, I’m proud to have been one of those 15. When’s the sequel, Dr. Boll?

Screengrabs from the bouts are available at the Rue Mortuary.

I spent the weekend at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, an event I attend each year. For the past few years, the festival has programmed a selection of incredibly wretched and deviant cartoons at the bar prior to their big animation dance party/orgy for all the normally reclusive animators to enjoy. This year it was Cultoons as presented by Steve Stanchfield. Mostly little-seen industrial and commercial films, there were a number of shorts that disturbed me more than most horror movies.

Monkey Doodle, a 1931 classic concerning a chimpanzee, a dog with pants that keep falling off for no reason, a ridiculously realistic tiger and bare breasts was the second most bizarre thing I have ever seen.

The first was Experimental Animation, in which a mangy stop-motion monkey sings about selling peanuts. Everytime he left the screen and popped back on, in nightmare inducing close-ups, the entire audience would scream in soul scarring terror. Imagine an amalgamation of every shadowy stuffed animal you have owned coming back from the landfill to haunt you and you still can’t come close to visualizing how horrible this thing was.

The most explicitly horror-centric short of the night was Monster Do Have Their Place, a theatrical public service announcement created by theatre chains to combat the imminent rise of cable television. It put forward the idea that movies, specifically horror movies as represented by drawings of various monsters, including Christopher Lee as Dracula, should be seen in the comfort of the theatres and not on your tiny set at home. How times have changed.

I wasn’t going to post a link to the new M & M movie game because it seemed as if everyone already got there first. However, after taking a closer look and realizing that the style is based on that of Hieronymus Bosch (whose painting The Temptation of St. Anthony I used for the Horror Roundtable image), I couldn’t resist.

The game is a large interactive page full of visual riddles which denote 50 horror and suspense films. Some are ridiculously literal, while others are incredibly complex. It’s a great waste of time and a perfect way to ease into the upcoming season.

Name a horror character mash-up that doesn’t exist but you wish did.

Don May, Jr. - Synapse

Leatherface vs. Dollman…

who wouldn’t pay to see that!?

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

The viral nature of the horror in a particular pair of films, as well as the pre- and post-Nine Inch Nails tone of their respective visuals, suggested a mash-up to me: I’d love to see Naomi Watts’s character from The Ring discover the Box from Hellraiser and make some sort of deal with Pinhead and the Cenobites in order to spare her and her son from Samara. If the film ended with Samara becoming a Cenobite, say with tiny hooks on the end of each strand of long dark hair, so much the better!

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

I want to see Freddie vs. Pinhead.

They both prey on fear and pain and desire that it would be cool to see them turn all that dark erotic evil onto one another.

Pinhead could use Freddie’s deepest pleasures to destroy him, and Freddie could dig deep down and find Pinhead’s deepest darkest fear (and finding out what that would be could be half the fun of the movie).

Nick - DVDTrash

Given my love of trashy 80’s straight to video classics, I’d like to see “Critters vs. Ghoulies: Furballs United”, where loads of scantily clad cheerleaders and dumb jocks are terrorised over 90 pulsating minutes of nasty gore and old fashioned special effects. Should star Terrence Mann, Scott Grimes (despite his ER success) and Don Opper with Mariska Hargitay returning from Ghoulies. Wish they still made good old fashioned B-movies like this!

JA - My New Plaid Pants

I’d like to see the Blair Witch battle the ghosts from Robert Wise’s The Haunting.

Watch with curdled blood as the Blair Witch puts a creepy bundle of sticks outside the door of the mansion!!!

Reel with eyeball-popping terror as the Ghosts of Hill House press back from the other side the doorframe!!!

Call your cardiologist from the payphone in the lobby of the theater as the two opposing evil forces knock back and forth on the walls in arrhythmic patterns!!!

Tear your very own nervous system out of your skin one nerve-ending at a time with your teeth as you stumble upon the horror of what could possibly be a shadowy figure standing across a very dark room facing into what might be the corner!!!

Gary Wintle

The one monster mash that I’ve been craving for longer than time has existed is WOLFMAN VS WEREWOLF. Who would win!? Maybe they could meet up and fight, only to find they have so much in common that they could be friends…maybe more? Everyone loved Superbaby in Superman, so why not Baby Werewolfman?…

Wolfman: Rharooo, Werewolf!!! Pick up Baby Werewolfman, she’s eating the dog’s poo again.

Wereworf: RRRrrrgle nnnnnrrrgle

Wolfman: I am Wolfman!

Louis Fowler

I like the idea of Jason vs. Freddy. But instead of throwing Ash into the mix as is rumored, I have always thought a four man battle royale consisting of two of Hell’s most popular residents, Freddy and Pinhead vs. two mute killers who can’t be stopped, Jason and Michael Myers, would be hugely entertaining. Do away with teenagers–they can battle in the nightmarish dimension of Hell–I bet even a great respresentation of Satan could somehow get involved, maybe even hordes of demons. Freddy and Pinhead could try to take over Hell, so Satan enlists Jason and Michael to lead an army against them. See—how cool would that be? I don’t see why New Line and Dimension couldn’t do a co-production–it’d be the greatest battle since Destroy All Monsters!

T. Van - Tolerated Vandalism

Sammi Curr vs. Captain Howdy

I’d love to see Sammi Curr [the rock star villian from 1986’s Trick or Treat] take on Captain Howdy [from Dee Snider’s Strangeland]. It would be the ultimate rock star match up of death.

Plot outline: Captain Howdy lures Eddie “Ragman” Weinbauer’s kid to his lair - via the Internet. Ragman finds out and summons Sammi Curr’s demon with the help of his old friend Nuke [played by Gene Simmons]. Sammi Curr goes after Captain Howdy while Ragman tries to get his kid back. The ultimate showdown between Curr and Captain Howdy would have Captain Howdy killing Curr and Ragman’s kid [thus setting up a sequel with Ragman and Captain Howdy going tête-à-tête].

Tagline: Rock is deader than dead.

I’ve always held a soft spot for Trick or Treat but thought Sammi Curr was one weak villian. I wasn’t a huge fan of Strangeland but I always liked the Captain Howdy character. I think Captain Howdy would easily do away with Sammi Curr.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

I would love to see a modern day “ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN-esque” or CARRY ON monster rally flick. If it could be done by someone by the likes of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (SHAUN OF THE DEAD). A film with more of a British theme. It would include Dracula, a Gill Man, a Werewolf, and of course, Frankenstein’s Monster.

And if I could, I would like to add another rally of sorts. I always would have liked to see a prequel to the DEVIL’S REJECTS in which the characters from that flick run into the clan from THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Both sides are of course cannibalistic nutzoid killers, but like in the film, HIGHLANDER, there can only be one crazy family.

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I’d love to have seen De Ossorio have his Templars of Terror face… PAUL NASCHY as the beloved Waldemar Daninsky. What a battle of the Spanish icons it could have been. Of course, this is what spawned my plot for a Blind Dead story when I was approached to write a story for Indie Gods last year…hence, The Ascension Of The Blind Dead features my werewolf character (Sylvia Perschy har har…two names of actresses in the Blind Dead series) and the nasty Knights.

Fangs…Fleshripping…Knight Of The Howling BEASTS!!!

Curt - Groovy Age Of Horror

Oh man, did you just tap a vein with me!! I’ve always considered it a shame that Hammer never staged a Universal-style monster rally. I’ve actually roughed out in some detail how I think it should go. This is going to be long, I’m afraid, but worthwhile, I hope:

Leon the werewolf has been revived by the removal of the silver bullet from his heart, and now, desperate to be cured of his lycanthropy, seeks out the notorious Baron Frankenstein as the only one who may be able to help him. Van Helsing, however, has picked up the trail of the werewolf, and now hunts him across Europe. Van Helsing, in turn, is hunted by the Circus of Nights. Enough of them survived their apparent destruction to restore most of the others–except Count Mitterhaus, whose decapitation can’t be undone as easily as, say, removing the stake from Emil’s heart. They believe Dracula can restore Mitterhaus, but they don’t know how to find him, except perhaps through Van Helsing.

Having followed Van Helsing (following the werewolf) into Frankenstein’s town, the Circus mistakenly nabs the Baron. They sit him down in front of the Mirror of Life, expecting it to open a portal to Dracula, since their fates are so entwined. Instead, EVERY Frankenstein Monster from the franchise comes charging out of the mirror. The werewolf shows up, having followed the Baron’s scent from his quarters, which were in disarray from the struggle he briefly put up when the Circus kidnapped him. So now we’ve got all the vampires from the Circus, all the Frankenstein Monsters, and the werewolf, all snarling and facing off in this hall of mirrors, which reflects the whole lot of them many times over. Pandemonium ensues.

Frankenstein takes the opportunity to make a run for it. Just when he thinks he’s found the exit instead of mirrors and more mirrors, he lunges, only to run smack into–HIMSELF!! Only it’s not; it’s Van Helsing. The two gape at each other for a heartbeat, then roughly shoulder past each other, Frankenstein fleeing for his life, and Van Helsing in hot pursuit of the werewolf. Van Helsing can’t believe his eyes when he sees the monster mash in progress. But now the Mirror of Life responds to him, and opens a scene on a graveyard in which Count Dracula bends over a girl in his arms and feeds from her throat. No matter how many monsters are present all around him, Drac is his oldest, bitterest foe. He shouts, “Dracula!” and tries to jump through the Mirror. One of the Frankenstein Monsters grabs him, though, mistaking him for its hated creator.

Anna the Gypsy woman rushes before the mirror and begs Dracula to restore Mitterhaus. Drac points at Van Helsing and says something to the effect of, “I will if you bring me his head!” She asks where he is, and he tells her he’ll be in his castle three nights hence.

Van Helsing has managed to free himself from the Frankenstein Monster, but now has become the focus of all the Monsters’ wrath, and also the focus of the vampires, as well, who now want his head. Only Leon, the werewolf he meant to destroy, battles to defend him, believing him to be the Baron who might be able to cure lycanthropy. Oh, and Karl, from Revenge of Frankenstein, joins their side, having retained his loyalty to Frankenstein and belief in him. Things get extraordinarily savage, to the point that even Van Helsing balks. He realizes he’s in over his head this time, and decides that discretion is the better part of valor. By now the Hall of Mirrors is a shambles, and a hole has been punched through a wall to the outside. Van Helsing jumps through it and flees, with the werewolf and the Monster Karl fighting to cover his escape.

He doesn’t get far, however–Frankenstein has stopped to observe from a distance, and clouts him over the head to knock him out. When he comes to in Frankenstein’s laboratory, they become acquainted in an increasingly tense exchange. Both are aware of each other’s reputations, and each puts a first foot forward that only confirms the other’s prejudice. Van Helsing regards Frankenstein as evil, and Frankenstein regards Van Helsing with ferocious contempt as the embodiment of all those who destroy what they cannot understand, who have plagued his entire life’s work.

Just as they’re about to come to blows, things really come to a head when Leon (now human) and Karl show up, battle-scarred and shell-shocked. Karl especially has been bitten and badly wounded. Van Helsing, of course, wants to destroy both of them at once, and Frankenstein absolutely won’t hear of it. Van Helsing points out that Karl will become a vampire soon if not destroyed. Frankenstein insists they try to save him. Practically begging, he appeals to Van Helsing as a man of medicine. That breaks through and snaps VH out of monster-hunter mode. With grave reservations, he agrees to help.

They set right to work, at first with much wrangling and debate, but with increasing cooperation and understanding of each other. Frank, of course, is the medical expert, far outstripping VH in that regard–as VH comes to realize with increasing awe. VH, though, brings his truly formidable knowledge of battling metaphysical evil to the table, and in the course of the operation Frank must acknowledge that it’s not all just a bunch of superstition. His experience of the vampires has actually shaken him more than he’d admitted to himself at first, and there’s now a crack in his icy amorality–which is why he wants to cure Karl of vampirism, instead of observing the effects of it on him, as he normally might be expected to do. Even he must recognize them as abominations deserving of destruction.

Thanks to their rapid and decisive intervention, Karl is cured, but the night isn’t over, and the last remaining members of the Circus assault the laboratory. Karl almost can’t bear to face them again, but Frankenstein urges courage. VH empathizes with Karl’s fear and is moved to pity, cementing his view of Karl as more human than a creation of evil. The battle is fierce, but the vampires go down one by one, until only Anna remains. She wants Van Helsing’s head, as per Dracula’s command, and in fact she lops it off, just before she’s dispatched with a well-aimed stake by Leon! Frankenstein doesn’t even hesitate. Despite his fatigue, cool as a cucumber, barking clipped orders at Karl and Leon, he sets about reattaching the head, essentially repaying the favor VH did him by helping cure Karl rather than destroying him.

So it’s morning now, and the Circus of Nights has been thoroughly eradicated. Leon and Karl report that the Frankenstein Monsters have all been killed in the previous fight (some were killed by vampires in the chaos before everything came to focus on Van Helsing). That leaves only Leon to be cured, and Dracula to be destroyed. Frank wants to cure Leon (partly, it must be admitted, out of curiosity and vanity), but recognizes that, as with curing Karl, he’ll need VH’s expertise to supplement his own. VH, though, now knows Dracula is returning to his castle, and wants to set right off to surprise him there. Karl, in better spirits after their victory, can’t stand the idea of anyone facing such powerful evil alone, and urges that they all go together to slay the Count.

These converging interests hold the group together, and so they depart together for Transylvania.
On the journey, Frank and VH discuss how to cure Leon, and actually believe they hit on the solution. Leon realizes how impatient he is to be cured, and he also realizes that if any of them die in battle with Dracula, his one chance to be cured will be forever lost. He wants to be cured right away, but they agree that he’ll be more helpful in the coming fight as a werewolf.

That’s as far as I’ve spun it out