Why introduce today’s guest when he’s more than willing to do it himself? And with 300% more haiku, to boot. Ladies, gentlemen, and regular readers of The Horror Blog, I present Stu Charno, known in some circles as Ted, the prank playing misfit from Friday the 13th Part 2.

After 40 year playing jazz piano, twenty-five as an working actor, twenty teaching internal martial arts, and fifteen building one-of-a-kind furninture, I’m now mostly writing. My life has led up to this — a just published book of haiku, called “High Koo — Wisdumb from our time…”. It’s available on Amazon. (A Haiku is a Japanese verse form, with 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively)

Such doozies as;

Being can tickle
Certainty gets in the way
Enjoy not knowing…

Anyone asked why
will tell you all kinds of things
Words can’t hold the truth…

It only looks like
other people are thinking
We’re on the same bus….

www.StuCharno.com is where to find further invitations…

Smiles n’ vertical head shakes,

utS

Like a magician’s assistant, who knows the tricks, I’m no longer ordinarily scared or as entertained by films, as others may be. But, before I became an actor, the film, “The Haunting”, scared me senseless.

I think that madness is much scarier than gore, and that movie pointed in that direction beautifully, and scares me to this day. Bellowing walls and doors, squeaking their horror-filled resistance, are the stuff of my nightmares…

For the past few years I’ve left one post at the same time every year at my very first blog in honour of International Read A Comic Book Naked Day. It’s possibly the most consistent, least updated blog on the internet. Runner-up could be Ghost Town, an mp3 blog that reappears every October to provide 31 days of music for ghouls and creeps. It’s only four days in and already The Dude has posted a wide variety of musical selections, including a memorial to “Boris” Pickett, a couple of unlikely hip-hop selections and an appreciation for the Wolfman. Dig it.

One of the most influential names in modern horror fiction, Anne Rice reinvented Gothic fiction for the latter half of the 20th Century and beyond. While she’s best known for her Vampire Chronicles, it’s another horror icon that instilled in her a fascination with the macabre, as you’ll see below.

What first frightened me and frightened me terrible was a cheap B movie about “the Mummy.” It showed the bandaged figure of the mummy staggering relentlessly towards his victims, with one hand out, dragging one foot as he bore down on them; and it terrified me so badly that I never quite recovered; it was an image of death, of mortality — in action. In other words, I saw death coming for us in this moving image. — The last scene in the film, where the mummy staggers into the swamp carrying his beloved, who slowly changes from a vital woman into a twisted dried up corpse herself put me over the edge. I had nightmares and as I said never recovered. This was an iconic lesson in mortality delivered with a power that written words did not have. I have spent my life responding to the images in that film.

I couldn’t let this one go without wishing Ms. Rice a very happy birthday!

Movies
My New Plaid Pants is brooding.
Video Watchblog on the death of screenwriter Charles B. Griffith.
Tomb It May Concerns begins new project: Lamberto Bava. NSFW.

Interviews
Lavie Tidar - Skullring.
Scott Thomas - Final Girl.
Zelda Rubinstein - AICN.
Dark Tower comic team - Publisher’s Weekly. (Via)

Reviews
Magic - Final Girl.
Alone - Cinematical.
Bug - Arbogast on Film.
Mystics In Bali - Reel Distraction.
Chosen Survivors - Video Watchblog.
Children of the Corn 2 - Monsterblog.
Contamination - The Bloody Italiana Blog.
Dead of Night - Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies.
Hands of a Stranger - Horror Movie A Day.
Flight of the Living Dead - Cinema Fromage.
The Flower With Petals of Steel - Giallo Fever.

Television
Two reasons why The Retropolitan loves Elvira.
As promised, Masters of Fear Itself moves to Edmonton.

Literature
Blogslinging.
Hellnotes reviews Ghost Road Blues.
SkullRing tussles with Splatterpunks anthology.

Comics
The Daily Cross Hatch on zombie comic Eating Steve. (Via)

Contests
Cinema Fromage spreads some Plasterhead love.
Final Girl is giving away copies of Flight of the Living Dead.

Events
Fourth Annual Month of Horror, Terror and General Mayhem.

Misc.
Top Halloween sites.
Monsterama on the Kappa.
Charles Dexter Ward slept here.
Meiko Kaji can still rock her Grudge Song.
Lost in Schlock shows you how to walk like a werewolf.
Halloween trends, including a pumpkin carved like a Big Mac!
The Raven’s Barrow investigates Pennsylvania’s Demon House.

EC Comics may be considered the tops for horror comics, and Eerie and Creepy may have their charms, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for DC Comics’ ’70s output, if only because those were the comics my grandparents would stock in the cottage. Nothing beat spending a rainy day with cheap four-colour terror spread out all over the floor. Ghosts, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, Unexpected and more, there wasn’t a DC horror title I didn’t have seared into my brain since I began to read. Or so I thought until Datajunkie posted a couple of issues of Forbidden Tales of the Dark Mansion. Like the man says, it’s chock full of trippy Filipino goodness, so check it out.

James Farr is the evil mastermind behind the incredibly popular cartoon serial Xombie, which is quickly becoming an industry onto itself with spin-offs including an illustrated novel, a comic series currently available from Devil’s Due Publishing and a feature film in the works. What scares you, James Farr?

The Shining. Yes, it’s a ridiculously obvious choice. Although I can’t honestly remember being scared by any other film quite so much. Aside from the seemingly random yet masterfully placed flashes of dead children, angry bathroom ghosts and blood that could ride elevators, the overall atmosphere was consistently chilling. The same feeling you get being alone in a giant, empty house, or traversing the halls of a strange hotel late at night - The Shining was able to maintain that basic, profound sense of unease for the entirety of the film.

Also, I think we all know it’s only a matter of time until Jack Nicholson comes to kill us with an axe.

Has it been a year already? This month marks the first anniversary of Split Lip, the monthly horror webcomic by Sam Costello and a rotating stable of artists. Having dabbled in comics myself from time to time, I know how difficult it is to maintain a schedule, especially when you’re dependent on others. Not only has Sam hit the mark each and every month, but his team has done so with a wonderful variety of work. At this point I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Split Lip is the predominant original horror comic work on the internet.

The latest comic available at Split Lip is Fitcher’s Bird, an eerie adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale. If you haven’t visited yet I recommend browsing through the extensive archives while you’re there. Well over 100 pages of comics for all tastes await.

You may recall that a few weeks back I had been sent a press release for a movie entitled Deadly Suspicion. While that movie didn’t really fall within the parameters of this blog, others from the same film catalogue did. One movie that was recommended to me by the same company was The Hive. As big a fan of nature-runs-amok films as I am, I was hesitiant to pursue it. Then I discovered something.

The Hive features ants that form into giant fists and try to kill humans. Also, from what I’ve gleaned so far, the ants can use computers.

You had me at nerdy ant fists.

Scarred Tuesdays double your pleasure with contributions by two exploitation greats with similar tastes.

Not many people can claim that they changed the face of cinema. Herschell Gordon Lewis, the undisputed Godfather of Gore, is one such person. Director of seminal gore flicks Blood Feast, 2,000 Maniacs, The Gore Gore Girls and countless others, as well as current projects like The Gore Gore Gore-Met, Lewis has spilled more blood in one scene than most modern horror filmmakers will see in a lifetime. All this may make what he finds frightening a bit of a surprise to some.

The nature of my involvement in the entertainment industry makes my attitude so unrelentingly analytical that fright doesn’t enter the mix, although occasional “startlement” might occur. For fright, I recall my initial reaction to the painting “Scream” by Edvard Munch. The primitive nature of this art has to be a major factor in evoking an emotional reaction.

Brandon Maggart pulled at the heartstrings while simoutaneously attempting to sever them as the greatest murderous Santa of all time in Christmas Evil. Maggart’s truly unhinged performance focuses as much on a true love for the holidays as it does taking out those on his naughty list, to great effect. With that in mind, what makes even Old St. Nick tremble in his coal black boots?

I was afraid of… the dark… then, of course, I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula…scared the crap out of me… of paintings:”The Scream” is unsettling…don’t want it around… but the winner is still… as a child, being left alone in the house in THE DARK.. But I found that a baseball bat by my bedside was an amazing comfort.

This is my happening and it freaks me out!

Our first guest is David Wellington, author of the acclaimed zombie trilogy Monster Island, Monster Nation and Monster Planet. David got his start online and continues to move effortlessly between print, such as his latest, the vampire action novel 13 Bullets, and the internet, with the post-apocalyptic zombie saga Plague Zone and the frozen werewolf terror of Frostbite. All of his horror tales are still available for free online at the links above, and if you like what you see please consider purchasing the print editions.

David’s encounter with terror is near and dear to my heart, as I had an almost identical experience. I don’t doubt a few of you will feel the same.

A lot of things scared me when I was a kid. The first I can remember was a special news report in 1981 by Walter Cronkite called “The Defense of the United States”, a documentary about what we could expect following a global thermonuclear war. I was nine years old at the time, and in love with special effects movies and had heard there were going to be some state of the art “recreations” included in the show. I begged and pleaded to be allowed to watch, sitting through endless talking head interviews I couldn’t understand, wondering if this dud was ever going to pay off. Boy, did it. About halfway through the program Cronkite warned that what we were about to see was a simulation based on the best available data, and that sensitive viewers might want to look away. You got to see what would happen to downtown Omaha Nebraska when the bomb hit. Exploding buildings, people with melting faces… for years afterward I ran and hid under my bed every time an airplane passed over the house, convinced it could be a Russian bomber.

Then there was the time my parents stayed out till two in the morning, and at midnight they started playing The Shining on HBO. I don’t think I need to go into details. When the front door opened and my Dad stepped inside, a little drunk and pissed that I was still awake… well. We’ve all been there, I suppose.

Movies
Mick Garris to remake Thirst.
Funny Games poster unveiled.
The return of Frankenweenie?
Cinematical asks why we enjoy horror movies.
The Eye remake gets new director for reshoots.
The 50 greatest horror movies we will never see.
Confessions of a Freaked Out Young Shining Viewer.
The long, dreary history of Stephen King adaptations.
France bestows David Lynch with the Legion d’Honneur.
Goyer to direct Baltimore, the lastest novel by Mignola and Golden.

Interviews
Mizuno Junko - du9. (Via)

Movie Reviews
Stuck - Edmonton Sun.
On Evil Grounds - Filmstalker.
Black Sheep - Horror Yearbook.
From Beyond The Grave - Cinebeats.
Food of the Gods - The Bleeding Tree.
Hallowed Ground - Horror Movie A Day.
My Bloody Valentine - Moon in the Gutter.
The Bell From Hell - Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies.
Dawn of the Dead (2004) - The Projection Booth.

Television
Dexter celebrates second season with fountains of blood.

Comics
Fangoria Comics closing shop?
Chester Brown is doing a zombie comic?!?

Events
Toronto After Dark announces full line-up, schedule.

Podcasts
Destroy The Brain discusses From Beyond.
Night of the Living Podcast tackles Resident Evil: Extinction.

Misc.
The Elcronado Dead.
Bat Wing Soup recipe.
Tales To Astonish Hallowe’en Contest.
The nightmarish frog thing, it gathers bunnies.

Not Horror
Miss Moneypenny was always my favourite Bond girl.

Online video service Guba has nearly four dozen Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons available, from Boo Bop to Spook and Span and all points in-between. I was always more of a fan of the Harvey comics than the cartoons, which makes the fact that I immediately recognized all five random cartoons I checked out just a little disturbing.

Link courtesy of the always entertaining Monsterama.

It’s that time of the year again, when horror blogging gets swept up in the Halloween hullabaloo. To help me get through the month with my sanity intact, I’ve enlisted the help of over two dozen guest writers for a special column entitled ‘Scarred’. Each participant was asked to describe a piece of art or entertainment that frightened them, whether it was a matter of circumstance or if it still haunts them to this day. Posts in the series can be found through the ‘Scarred’ tag, starting later this evening. Please join me in welcoming the Scarred crew to The Horror Blog, and if at all possible show your appreciation by checking out their respective sites or leaving a comment.

In the meantime, The Horror Blog will continue on as always, with weekday news, opinions and reviews, the weekly Horror Roundtable, a bunch of contests and the return of an old favourite, the Clip of the Day.

Trick or treat!