Name your favourite guilty pleasure in horror.

Jeff O’Brien

Lesbian scenes. Gratuitous lesbian scenes. There, I said it and I’m not sorry…

T Van - Tolerated Vandalism

I think guilty pleasures are fantastic. I’m not afraid to admit that I like Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. It’s probably one of the most hated sequels in horror history but I love it anyway. I like everything about it, the music, the tone of the movie, the acting. I may be a glutton for punishment. I also have to admit that I love Deep Rising, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, and Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers [even though I don’t consider it to be a guilty pleasure, it seems like everyone hates the Halloween sequels]. I think that horror fans are accustomed to sitting through a hell of a lot of crap. It’s inevitable that some of these crappy movies will hold a special place in our hearts.

Sean - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

I hate to be a predictable douchebag, but when it comes to art, if it gives me pleasure, why feel guilty about it?

Arbogast on Film

I suppose my Guilty Pleasure of Choice is the Lesbian Vampire Seduction. Of course, DTV and DIY filmmakers have ruined this for everybody by going whole hog and having saline-implanted, tattooed skags French kissing through their clip-on fangs… the taboo has been so successfully shattered that we’ll never find all the pieces again. Still, we have the classics… Gloria Holden’s mesmerizing of Nan Grey in DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, freshly undead Andree Melly coming on to bosom buddy Yvonne Monlaur (”Put your arms around me, please, I want to kiss you, Marianne. Please be kind to me.”) in THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, wanton bloodsucker Barbara Shelley putting the Sapphic movies on doe-eyed Suzan Farmer (”We don’t need Charles”) in DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS and that great/horrible top/bottom relationship in THE VAMPIRE LOVERS where steely governess Kate O’Mara is at first suspicious and disapproving of Ingrid Pitt’s Mircalla until the vampire’s kiss makes her a complete and pleading slave; O’Mara comes off initially as such a strong character that her utter surrender is as shocking as it is truly erotic. In LEMORA: A CHILD’S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL, the dynamic gets even weirder with Lesly Gilb and Cheryl Smith having this really tangled mentor/mentee, mother/daughter, top/bottom relationship that culminates in Lila Lee assuming the mantle of vampire queen. THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE, DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS and THE VELVET VAMPIRE go this route as well, making full meals of what was previously a mere narrative appetizer. Later stuff like THE HUNGER just doesn’t carry the same charge even though the nudity is more abundant and considerably more than the gloves are off. It’s the pent up, repressed stuff of more innocent times that really gives me a thrill.

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

Easy… It’s a tie between “Pumpkinhead II: Bloodwings”, and “Saturday the 14th”. *hangs head in shame*

Retropoliltan - Tales To Astonish

While I’m not one for feeling guilty about something I enjoy, there is one movie that I tend to watch in private and avoid bringing up in conversation: “Return of the Living Dead Part II.” I know it’s stupid. I know it’s terrible. I know it pisses on the sacred legacy of the first movie. But I will watch anything with James Karen in it and dammit I will enjoy it. Guilt be damned!

Also, the zombie Michael Jackson gag absolutely KILLED me when I was a kid.

Billy

My guilty pleasure is tiny horror. Anything with a small creature that will mess you up for some reason just amuses me to no end. Critters, Ghoulies and Puppet Master are some examples.

Louis - Damaged 2.0

Sci-Fi Channel Originals. Well, at first it started off as a guilty pleasure–”Haha, boy…MANSQUITO was lame, huh guys? Can I be part of the gang now???”, but the more I have watched these things, the more I have absolutely fallen in love with them. I can’t really say they are a “guilty pleasure” anymore, as I tout them on my blog non-stop, but at first, you bet they were.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

My guilty pleasure is a bit tame, really. It would have to be my fondness for haunted house flicks. The film could be a bucket of slop, but as long as it has a haunted house in it, I’m there.

Nathan - MicroHorror

Some might call it a guilty pleasure, but I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about it, so it is with unreserved enthusiasm that I recommend The Creeps (1997), an unabashedly stupid and fun horror-comedy by Charles Band and Full Moon Pictures.

Here’s the premise: A mad scientist has built a machine that will resurrect the great fictional archetypes of horror, namely Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the wolfman and the mummy, and bring them into the real world to serve his plans for global domination. But when he activates the device, something goes wrong, and although the monsters are summoned as planned, they’re only about three-and-a-half feet tall.

Phil Fondacaro chews up the scenery and steals the whole show as Count Dracula, because he plays the role utterly straight. Operating from the very reasonable assumption that there aren’t many opportunities to play Dracula for a three-foot-six actor, Fondacaro becomes one of my all-time favorite screen Dracs. He’s just downright menacing, and you find yourself almost relieved that he’s not taller.

So, yeah, The Creeps is dumb. It’s got a silly premise, and it’s really nothing more than an excuse to dress up little people in monster suits. But damn it, it’s hilarious, and Fondacaro is great. You even get to watch a hot blonde librarian have sex with a book. Go watch it and enjoy it. I absolve you of all guilt.

Matt - Highway 62

Monster movies. Mindless rampages of giant rubber-suited stunt players or CGI-envisioned levelling of major metropolitan areas, whether they be in the US or abroad. Nobody learns anything, nobody grows, and no Hidden Truths are revealed. Just the splintering of balsa-wood and cheap pyrotechnics. Gimme more.

B-Sol - Vault of Horror

Lately, I’ve had a weakness for watching every single zombie movie that comes out, no matter how awful. I always loved them, and ever since the “zombie renaissance” started, I’ve been overdosing. I can’t help it. Even the latest remake of Day of the Dead, which I had heard was so terrible. I couldn’t resist–I had to watch it anyway. (It was slightly less than awful).

Kimberly - Cinebeats

Gore. Lots and lots of nasty gore. I can be a real gore hound sometimes and I’ll rewatch brutal murder scenes over and over again if I like they way they’re executed. Some of my favorite moments from horror films are often murder scenes such as the first kill in Suspiria.

Uncle Lancifer - Kindertrauma

I have an unkillable passion for the alleged horror movie THE ATTIC starring Carrie Snodgress and Ray Milland. It’s really a depressing melodrama about an alcoholic spinster librarian who is trapped into caring for her abusive invalid father. There are maudlin soft rock songs throughout, including a real non-barnburner entitled “Who cares?” Louise, Snodgress’ character, also happens to have a strange fascination with monkeys. Being that I have a near Jerri Blank fascination with monkeys myself, the film is a constant source of entertainment. One day Louise’s pal spontaneously buys her a monkey at the local pet shop (!) much to her disapproving Pop’s chagrin. Louise then spends her days imagining the monkey is an ape that beats the crap out of her dad (picture Paul from THE ELECTRIC COMPANY in a rage.) It’s all very difficult to classify though it kinda reminds me of HAROLD AND MAUDE meets WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? A high point of my life (sad) was watching a film called THE KILLING KIND where both characters, Louise AND her father made a cameo (played by different actors). It turns out both films have the same writers. Anyhows, it’s all very uncool and it is the exact opposite of the kind of film they make T-shirts and action figures from.

Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir

Ironic viewing pleasures aside, first thing that comes to mind is the first Resident Evil movie. I know it’s pretty crappy but I still like watching it, and I’m not all that sure why. I suspect the combination of decently gross and scary zombies and more than decently hot Milla has something to do with it.

I’ve lost a great deal of respect for some of you, while others are now higher in my estimation. And I’m not saying who is who. Thanks to all this week’s participants for spilling their guts (it’s a figure of speech, Kimberly, please don’t get overexcited), and if you have an unnatural craving you’d like to confess, please do so in the comments below.

This past month saw the publication of the most important book of 2008; Tough To Kill: The Italian Action Explosion. Authors Paul Cooke and David Zuzelo have been teasing international action aficionados with this tome for years, rationing out small tastes such as the formation of their blog of the same name and Zuzelo’s essential essay on the Pastapocalypse. With over 70 reviews and articles on Italian action cinema stalwarts like Bruno Mattei, Mark Gregory, Reb Brown, and Edoardo Margheriti, Cooke and Zuzelo are finally giving these treasures from the dusty shelves of Mom and Pop video stores the attention they deserve.

Give them your money. The future depends on it.

Name your favourite reference to anything horror-related in a non-horror setting.

T Van - Tolerated Vandalism

I always loved the mention of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the 1987 Mark Harmon classic Summer School. How cool would it be to be able to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre during summer school? I have to admit that the character of Chainsaw always made me laugh. Does this make me a dork? Maybe.

Sean - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

Once upon a time, circa 1995 or something, I came across a picture of trip-hop artist Tricky made up as Pinhead. At the time I simply could not imagine anything cooler. Talk about two great tastes that taste great together!

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

Well, recently the DTV Ad with Kathy Bates in “Misery” really cracked me up. She lifts the hammer to swing and then turns her head towards the screen and starts pimping DirecTV. That was pretty sweet. I just love in general when horror films have become so ubiquitous in culture
that they begin to be referenced like this. Another one that comes to mind was a Family Guy non-sequitur that showed what it was like at Pinhead’s dinner table. (needless to say, not very fun). That was pretty priceless, too.

Jeff O’Brien

Damn, that’s tough… after thinking about it… stumped!!!

Red Hawk - Happy Horror

Personally, I always liked the movie within the movie used in Matinee. John Goodman plays a movie director in the vein of William Castle who is bringing his latest movie, MANT, to Key West during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While the movie as a whole isn’t a horror movie, the MANT film clips we see most definitely fit the bill for the classic B-movie style.

Arbogast on Film

There are so many great examples, like that crack in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE about Raymond Massey’s character looking like Boris Karloff (because Karloff had played the part on Broadway), but the first one that comes to my mind is from the old sitcom BARNEY MILLER. They had a recurring character on there, Bruno Binder, who was a local vigilante, a really loathsome type played to perfection by the late character actor Stanley Brock, who was probably born with a wet cigar butt stuck in the corner of his mouth. In one episode, Binder gets into a conversation with Harris, the black cop played by Ron Glass, who was always a natty dresser and who always fancied himself a sophisticate, and Binder name drops THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE… to which Harris says something haughty like “Let me guess… Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers?” Without catching on that he’s being dissed Binder says “No, no big names… just a helluva good picture.”

I wish I could remember the actual dialogue (and it might even have been NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD that was mentioned - hey, it was over 30 years ago) but what I thought then was cool about the reference was that it was made by a prime time sitcom years before popular entertainment got so intertextual and self-referential.

JA - My New Plaid Pants

Easy as pie! It’s the repeated lyric “This is really happening…” in the Radiohead song “Idioteque” which is, of course, a line from Rosemary’s Baby. Chills every damned time.

Curt - Groovy Age of Horror

Far and away, the Monster Cereals, of course!!!

Nathan - MicroHorror

I love a good fake movie, don’t you? We’d all love to watch “The Bloodening,” and we all know there’s no way that “Thanksgiving” and “Don’t” could ever be as good as their trailers make them seem. But there is one fake movie I wish I could see: 1962’s “MANT,” by Lawrence Woolsey.

“MANT” was the centerpiece of “Matinee,” an underrated 1993 period comedy by Joe Dante that desperately deserves a DVD release. Woolsey, played by John Goodman, is a pitch-perfect tribute/caricature of the great showman William Castle, and he’s come to Key West for an exclusive engagement of his latest horror masterpiece, featuring a dreadful human-ant hybrid creature. (Man + ant = MANT! Get it?) Of course, this is October of 1962, and President Kennedy is having some problems with a bunch of missiles that have just been discovered in Cuba. As a whole, “Matinee” is a charming slice-of-life coming-of-age film and a loving tribute to the golden age of atomic horror film, all under the darkest shadows of the Cold War.

The scenes we get to see from “MANT”… well, it’s Joe Dante doing William Castle, isn’t it? It’s a truly beautiful thing, and it hits all the right notes. I was talking about “Matinee” with a friend the other day, and I remarked on how sad it was that (SPOILER ALERT) we never get to actually see the end of “MANT.” But then I stopped, and realized that it doesn’t matter that the ending is never shown in “Matinee,” because I know how “MANT” ends. It ends with stock footage of an enormous explosion, and as the dust settles, the words “THE END” appear, appended a few seconds later with the fade-in of a menacing question mark. How else could it end?

Uncle Lancifer - Kindertrauma

My mind immediately goes to the 1982-1990 NEWHART sitcom on which it was stated several times that Peter Scolari’s character Michael’s favorite movie was THE BOOGENS! It’s particularly funny when you consider that THE BOOGENS was a relatively recent release at that time. Plus let’s face it, “THE BOOGENS” is just one of the best and funniest titles of all time. It’s particularly great it you haven’t seen the movie because what you imagine is far worse than what they actually turn out to be.

Retropoliltan - Tales To Astonish

I think the answer here would be obvious: the trio of Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Booberry. I have long been an opponent of children, so I think that we should inject as much terror as humanly (or inhumanly) possible into their daily balanced breakfasts. Usually that just involves making them eat Special K, but I think it’s even better to include MURDEROUS CREATURES FROM BEYOND THE VEIL OF DEATH. And marshmallows.

Also: The only time I really watch television is during late September/early October, because ad agencies absolutely cannot resist the lure of putting monsters into marketing schemes no matter what the product is. Duracel batteries? Battery-powered Dracula. McDonald’s? Ghost McNuggets. Radio Shack? Teri Hatcher. This is my personal favorite.

B-Sol - Vault of Horror

I guess it’s very fresh in mind because I just saw it last night, but I’d have to say it was the inclusion of a scene from The Wizard of Gore and the ensuing horror movie discussion between Jason Bateman and Ellen Page in Juno. Although I didn’t particularly care for the movie for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into for fear of getting off topic, I was tickled by the inclusion of this scene. It was a genuine moment of coolness in a movie that too often tried too hard to be cool, showing two characters in a serious discussion of a genre which is very rarely taken seriously in the mainstream. When’s the last time you heard a debate over the work of Dario Argento in an Oscar-nominated movie?

Kimberly - Cinebeats

I’m not sure if Takashi Miike’s bloody yakuza crime/horror film Ichi the Killer is considered to be a typical horror movie by a lot of horror fans, but I love the film and I think it has plenty of horrific moments. The star of Ichi the Killer is one of my favorite working actors (Tadanobu Asano) and he’s also appeared in many Asian arthouse dramas. One of his best and more recent films was Last Life in the Universe where he plays a timid librarian. In the library where Asano’s character works he casually walks past a movie poster from Ichi the Killer which sort of foreshadows some events in the film in a subtle but very creative way - Takashi Miike later shows up in Last Life in the Universe as a yakuza thug!

I thought this was going to be a tough one, then immediately after sending out the question I came up with dozens of examples. It’s kind of sad. Thanks to all of this week’s contributors, and if you have any horror references you’d like to share with the class, please do so below.

Twenty-five years after a plague resulted in Scotland being quarantined, a group of scientists and soldiers must fight marauders in the wastelands to find a cure and save the remainder of Great Britain.

I figured I’d hold off on this for a bit, in respect to Hey Internet, Stop Being Such Cynical Effing Douchebags Blog-a-Thon day.

Doomsday was fucking dire. In fact, it was the worst movie I’ve seen since Transformers, with which it shares so much. I never walk out of movies, but if I hadn’t gone with J., I would have left halfway through without looking back.

Considering the critical tongue bath it’s getting from genre fans, I can only imagine that it’s a matter of time before someone accuses me of hating Doomsday because it was derivative of previous post-apocalyptic movies. I hate writing an anticipatory defense, but that wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, I’m an admirer of the post-apocalyptic sub-genre, derivative movies, and especially derivative post-apocalyptic movies. I’d be willing to bet that I own more knock-offs than I do the movies that were copied.

My only hope walking into Doomsday was that Neil Marshall would not only play off the surface elements of these films, but also attempt to match their craftsmanship. Unfortunately, this was one of the most inept, frustrating action movies I have ever seen, with absolutely no sense of pacing, composition or suspense. What makes it especially baffling is that Marshall has shown that he has a good eye for these elements in his previous movies. Maybe Doomsday was so big that it got away from him.

Any movie where I spend most of the running time wishing I was at home watching 1990: The Bronx Warriors or Phoenix The Warrior is a complete waste of time.

Name your favourite supporting character in Horror.

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

Easily, Dr. Loomis. Even though people think of Donald Pleasance as the star of a lot of those films, he’s really more a secondary character to the teen leads. It’s a testament to the power of the character and of Donald Pleasance’s portrayal that he is so often thought of as the star of the Halloween franchise. If you want to talk about pure comic relief, I have to say that the “Party Man” (played by Giuseppe Andrews) in “Cabin Fever” has some of the best lines in horror history. He cracks me up every time.

Jeff O’Brien

Blade from the Tomb of Dracula comic. Loved the yellow seventies shades he wore and the Vietnam vet jacket. Great character.

Sean - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

Wilford Brimley as Blair in The Thing. “I don’t wanna stay out here anymore. I wanna come back inside.”

T Van - Tolerated Vandalism

My favourite supporting character in a horror film would have to be “Evil” Ed Thompson from Fright Night. The character was portrayed by Stephen Geoffreys who gained notoriety for his post-Fright Night career as a porn star. Not only did he look a little weird, he showed a real flare for comedy in the role. Most fans will remember him for his performance of the line, “You’re so cool, Brewster!”

Billy

The innocent little girl that knows what’s going on, but doesn’t understand it. That always creeps the hell out of me. She knows everyone is going to die, and tells you as much, but everyone ignores it and keeps going and everyone dies. ALWAYS listen to the little girls that give you cryptic messages! It’s like the house that tells you “get out!!!!!”

Arbogast on Film

Yeesh, talk about opening a veritable Pandora’s Box of possibilities.

It’s a daunting task to come up with just one supporting character in all the horror annals… but I’m going to throw caution to the wind and say that my favorite is Sandor, the deliciously evil manservant of Gloria Holden’s tragic Marya Zaleska in DRACULA’S DAUGHTER (1936). One of the great things about Sandor, who wears a Russian Tea Room tunic and parts his hair straight down the middle like Alfalfa, is that you never really know what he’s in it for. Although he shuns the cross, he doesn’t appear to be a vampire… and yet the guy is vampiric to a T. Is he a ghoul? A werewolf? A necrophiliac? A serial killer? Nothing in the film bears out any of these ideas… it just appears that Sandor is a deeply weird individual who has attached himself to the immortal Marya and wants to keep her undead… perhaps hoping she will bestow upon him the gift of everlasting life. The scene in which Sandor psychs Marya out of her life affirming piano reverie is the perfect illustration of their deeply codependent relationship, ending with Sandor bringing Marya a girl. I always try to imagine what Sandor is doing when Marya puts the bite on her “model”… is he listening through the wall or just standing at the back of the room, breathing heavily through his black lipsticked mouth? What does he do with the body before he dumps it in the river? Does he undress it, make love to it, press his teeth into the cooling flesh? I love the fact that the movie never tries to explain the character or provide him with the kind of backstory that so many movie monsters have foisted on them these days. He remains a mystery until and beyond the end credits and even when he’s dead he’s way scarier than the undead creature he serves.

Nathan - MicroHorror

If I can stretch the definition of “supporting character” this far, and I think I can, then my answer is a three-way tie. My favorite supporting characters in horror are the Crypt Keeper, the Vault Keeper and the Old Witch, EC’s legendary GhouLunatics. Leering at you from the pages of Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear, their monologues dripped from the poison pen of Al Feldstein, they could always be counted on to bring you a delightfully gruesome horror story and wrap it up with a few equally sickening puns. As I’ve mentioned here before, Feldstein is my idol of horror writing, and the GhouLunatics are my inspirations as host of MicroHorror.

I want to be a GhouLunatic when I grow up.

Louis - Damaged 2.0

Griffin Dunne as Jack in AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. It was genius of John Landis to turn this character we barely knew into a wise-cracking, rotting Greek chorus instead of a shuffling, gasping zombie who offers one-word prophecies while pointing.

There are no small Roundtables. Only small Roundtable participants. Thanks to all the bit players who contributed to this week’s Q+A. Please take a peek behind the curtain and check out their respective blogs as linked above. But before you do, leave us your own response in the comments below.

One of the main reasons I began The Horror Roundtable was to introduce readers to new and undiscovered horror blogs. As The Horror Roundtable hurtles toward its conclusion, I’d like to extend an invitation to anyone not already involved who has a horror site they’d like to promote to join us for these End Days. If you’re interested, please email me at steven@thehorrorblog.com. Thanks!

Name your favourite horror locale.

Sean - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

Give me a deep, dark lake with a creature of some kind in it and I’m sound as a pound. Runner-up: Besieged buildings (malls, supermarkets, farmhouses with gas pumps out front, Bodega Bay lakehouses, Helm’s Deep, etc.).

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

I have lots of favorites (summer camp comes to mind), but the one that I love that is underused would have to be the desert. I just saw “Feast” recently, and I think they used the desolation of that environment really well. It would be great to see more films take advantage of that setting.

Stacie - Final Girl

Specifically speaking, there’s no place more frightening to me than Silent Hill. I (somewhat) ashamedly admit to being so scared that I’ve had to turn the games off on more than one occasion; I’m sure if I ever found myself trapped in that nightmare town, I wouldn’t be able to do much more than close my eyes, pee my pants, and sit down, crying until some weirdo effed up monster put me out of my misery.

In general, I find that any abandoned/decaying building (especially hospitals!) or stereotypical “big spooky house” will give me the willies, even if the movie sucks.

Donald May, Jr. - Synapse

Inside people’s dreams… a la A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET!

Bill - Pulp 2.0

I’ve always liked Frankenstein’s Lab (Lair would probably be a better term) in both the Universal and Hammer incarnations. Imagine the secrets that are found within Frankenstein’s journals - the “failed” experiments, the side experiments he didn’t get a chance to follow up on, the number of people he killed to further science, the secrets he stole from others, etc…an entire library of the fantastic and horrific.

All the equipment is there that he had to develop: the electrical / cosmic radiation device used to activate the chemicals within his creation’s dead flesh, the chemicals themselves, the microscopes with power enough to see the cellular processes at work, the surgical instruments, the failed machines, etc…

Then there’s the secret passages to the lab underneath and within the castle. A twisting, turning maze where the wrong turn could lead you to your doom. This of course would keep Frankenstein’s secrets his and discourage any form of espionage.

There’s the pit where he would throw the failed experiments and chemicals. I imagine that some of those experiments - a dog, a monkey, an amalgam of body parts perhaps - might have survived along with the rats and other vermin that feast on the failures. How might they be changed by the genetic manipulations wrought by the good doctor?

Yes, Frankenstein’s castle is a horrific mystery wrapped in an maze-like enigma. His secrets are safe — for now.

Matt - Highway 62

Haunted Vermont with its gnarls of twisted branches, naked and reaching to a sky that is filled with terrors from beyond the stars themselves, that’s the place that first comes to mind. It is monochrome, dirty and in that horrible transition from winter to spring, where it’s too cold for anything to grow, but too warm for snow to blanket the wagon-tracked dirt that has never heard the rumble of an internal combustion engine. It’s a world where superstition and squalor roost even within the bigger townships, where outsiders are regarded with a fish eye at best. Clapboard shacks squat in quiet hollows, harboring families that don’t look like people anymore, and haven’t in years. The woods are old enough to still contain things that were old when man was young, yet are so small and contained as to make bravado a certainty. Civilization may think that it holds sway in this place, but in reality, it’s a state of fear that rules invisibly, skulking in shabby alleyways and meeting halls and the places where the trains and buses don’t ever stop for long.

Exclamation Mark

I’m a big fan of desert motifs. I’m thinking of old sci-fi movies like It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula, Them!, and The Monolith Monsters.

Arbogast on Film

For me it was an immediate toss-up between Old Dark House and Black-and-White Cemetery. I love me a haunted house movie or a murder mystery set within the revolving walls of somebody’s ancestral mansion, be it THE BAT WHISPERS, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE CAT AND THE CANARY, THE GHOST BREAKERS, THE HAUNTING and THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE… any place where, no matter what horrific thing has happened the night before, everyone comes down for breakfast the next day in jacket and tie. Those old movies are comforting, with their alternating images of chaos and calm. But even more than I love an old dark house I love a badly landscaped Gothic cemetery like those vaguely Middle European graveyards you see in the Universal monster movies that for some reason have so many Celtic crosses in them. Seeing these fog-shrouded settings makes me want to breach the fourth wall of the television set or cinema screen and go there, from the poorly landscaped boneyard seen in the opening frames of James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN to the bland, comfortless and distinctly foreboding memorial park seen in the opening frames of George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. For the record, I think the ultimate Goth cemetery has to be the one in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN… that place rocks! A close second would be THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE. And who among us would pass up a chance to share some crusty bread and a bottle of Tokay with THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN’s Dr. Pretorious down in the belly of the catacombs?

Nathan - MicroHorror

Hooray for the circus! Hooray for the carnival! The sun is shining, happy families are laughing and chatting. The smells of popcorn, hot dogs and cotton candy waft on the breeze. You hear the cheerful music of a hurdy-gurdy as you watch the clowns cavort and tumble.

And then the sun goes down. The families start to leave, and the once-thronged grounds are barren and empty. The air smells sour and pungent, like old garbage or rotting meat. The hurdy-gurdy starts to go out of tune, and you’re no longer quite so certain that the clowns are wearing makeup.

Hooray for the carnival. Hooray for the circus.

B-Sol - Vault of Horror

If you had told me prior to my first viewing of Dawn of the Dead 18 years ago that my favorite horror locale would be a shopping mall, there’s no way I would’ve believed it. After all, what’s so terrifying about a mall? Well, thanks to Mr. George Romero, I understand all too well what’s so terrifying about a shopping mall, and there has not been a single time EVER that I’ve set foot in one since 1990 without thinking of that classic film. What a perfect setting for a modern-day vision of pure horror. That film and its location have long been obsessions of mine, so much so that in 2001 I made a pilgrimage to Monroeville, Pennsylvania to visit the actual mall that was used in the original movie. God bless my newlywed wife for understanding–of course we managed to fit the trip in mere months before our first baby was born, when we knew it would be significantly tougher to do things like jumping in the car and driving for seven hours on a whim to see a shopping mall.

JA - My New Plaid Pants

Why The Bramford of course! Hidden passageways, dead babies in the basement, crackheads throwing themselves (or being thrown?) out of the windows. You can cover the walls with sunny yellow paint all you want to, Rosemary - you’re still gonna have the Devil’s seed inside of you!

Louis - Damaged 2.0

I tend to really enjoy movies set in Mexico or South Texas. I grew up in those rural areas, and while then they never freaked me out, in movies, they always seem to scare me more than any locale. It’s the desolateness, I suppose. Movies like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE work so well because, even if it’s daylight, you can run screaming in the open fields and no one can hear you at all. Or, in the case of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN or FEAST, a bar in the middle of nowhere under attack.

Kimberly - Cinebeats

Venice Italy! Specifically the way Venice is used in horror films and thrillers like Don’t Look Now (1973), Who Saw Her Die? (1972), Nosferatu in Venice (1988) and The Comfort of Strangers (1990). It’s a beautiful city so most of the time directors seem to use it as a romantic backdrop, but I think it’s really effective as a backdrop for horror films due to the cities dark winding streets, unexpected dead ends and bridge covered canals.

Retropoliltan - Tales To Astonish

My favorite horror locale is sort of co-owned by the horror and mystery genres: the secluded island manor (that’s usually cut off from the mainland by a storm). I’m a big mystery fan, and starting with Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” I’ve always loved this kind of story. I’m pretty sure that “April Fool’s Day” was the first time I saw it done as more horror than mystery; either that or the abysmal “House of the Long Shadows.” I’m not sure why I find this particular location so striking, since, oh, NINETY-NINE PERCENT of slashers involve remote locations that are cut off from help during some sort of storm — but I swear, island mansions are different somehow.

Maybe it’s just the thought of Deborah Foreman being there.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

I’ve always been partial to the Lovecraftian locales such as Arkham and Dunwich. Second to that in terms of pop culture would have to be Castle Rock from the Stephen King novels.

Full house this week. Thanks to the architects of terror who made up this week’s Roundtable. Make sure you visit them in their own backyard, via the links above. And if you have someplace you’d like to add to this atlas of fear, please do so in the comments below.

Happy 6th Annual International Read A Comic Book Naked Day!

I’m betting at least a few of you forgot what day it is. You were going to go home tonight and get hassled by your significant other for being a total dirtbag and forgetting to bring some comics home. That’s why we’re here, friend. To help you in your time of need. So stop off at your local comic emporium, snag a few for you and your loved ones, and indulge in the decadent mingling of two of Mankind’s greatest sins. And, as usual, if you’re living in the tundra like me and aren’t able to get outside for your four-colour fix, we’ve got you covered after the jump.

One of the classes I looked forward to the most when I went to college was storyboarding. Unfortunately, they cut the class the year I began. It was a real let-down. Every once in awhile we’d get a storyboarding assignment, but usually it was for a sequence too short to really sink your teeth into. Surprisingly, the only exception was Drama class, which was considered by most to be a low-priority.

The following is for an assignment where we had to storyboard a sequence involving a damsel in distress being held captive by a villain. No, really. Anyway, I whipped this up in the class before I had to hand it in, without reference, which is why Godzilla looks worse than GINO. And I don’t even want to talk about Mothra, though I kind of like Anguirus and a few shots of Megalon. Also, I stripped the Notes, Camera Movements and Dialogue, mostly because they consisted of “Truck-in to Monster Island” and “Curoo Curoo”.

Get naked, enjoy, and make sure you check out concurrent IRACBND celebrations at Flat Earth and I Was Ben!

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Name three-to-five directors you would invite to create the ultimate horror anthology film.

Sean - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

Because I’m an eternal optimist, I’m going to limit myself to living directors so that this dream project could actually happen. Maybe I’m just in an Oscar mood, but as I’ve said before, There Will Be Blood really has me wondering what P.T. Anderson would do with a straight-up horror movie, so he’s contributor number one; and as far as I’m concerned the Coen Brothers have already done horror with Barton Fink, but if you’re unpersuaded that they’d be right for our little anthology, may I submit No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh as Exhibit A? So they’re director #2. Next, since they’ve already got pretty solid track records in the genre and since they’re already collaborating on Tintin, I’d bring in Steve Spielberg and Peter Jackson for our third and fourth slots. My final choice is a bit off the beaten track, but as a big fan of Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point, I’d love to see a full-on horror effort from none other than Woody Allen. And there you have it, the ultimate horror anthology film. Or the ultimate compilation of Bud Light commercials, if that’s what they felt like making.

Curt - Groovy Age of Horror

Movies aren’t really my specialty, but if I may stray into books, which I know a little better, Jeffrey Thomas is a pretty exciting author of cyberpunkish Lovecraftiana, and David Wellington, who has a very solid track record with zombies and vampires in my judgment, has expressed an interest in writing something in a Lovecraftian vein. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing those two authors among others in a Mythos anthology!

Gary Wintle

Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers)
Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Totoro)
Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira)

I couldn’t think of many cool horror directors in particular, but I think an awesome horror animated anthology with these three director/ writers would be amazing. Each I think has proven that they got the chops for straight up horror as well. I really love anthology horror flicks by the way. They were always my tops picks in horror as a kid.

I don’t know if I dreamed this, but I think I remember my brother letting me watch something like… Garfield’s 9 Lives? It was both a comic and cartoon (each slightly different). It was an animated anthology that had some completely terrifying moments. Really, did I dream this Garfield thing up? (Editor’s note: Nope, you weren’t dreaming)

Jeff O’Brien

Fred Olen Ray, Don Farmer, Jim Wynorski, Dave DeCoteau and HG Lewis.

Donald May, Jr. - Synapse

GEORGE A. ROMERO
JOE DANTE
WILLIAM FRIEDKIN
DAVID CRONENBERG
STEVEN SPIELBERG

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

Can I say no one? Ha. For some reason, all of the multiple director anthology films that I can think of have not turned out that well. “Grindhouse” I guess is an exception, but that’s not really a true anthology film in any way (it should have been though). When I ponder this question, I just keep coming back to “Two Evil Eyes” with George Romero and Dario Argento… do we really need another one of those floating around the world?

Stacie - Final Girl

I love anthology films! Some of my knee-jerk answers have already contributed to anthology movies: Carpenter, Romero, etc, so I need to dig a little deeper here…hmm. How about Neil Marshall, Guillermo Del Toro, Mary Lambert, David Cronenberg, and William Friedkin. Now that would be a movie!

Bill - Pulp 2.0

Lucky McKee — for the creep factor
Herschell Gordon Lewis — for the gory humor
Mike Mendez — for the frenetic camerawork and attitude
Geoffrey Wright (whose recent Macbeth adaptation is worth renting) — because he needs to break new ground and I think he would do well with a horror movie

Louis - Damaged 2.0

Limiting this to directors who are alive…

1. ROB ZOMBIE
2. PAUL NASCHY
3. JAMES GUNN
4. LLOYD KAUFMAN
5. ALEXANDRO JODOROWSKY

+ a wraparound by JOE DANTE starring HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS as the storyteller

JA - My New Plaid Pants

If it weren’t for the Rob Zombie factor, I’d say a Grindhouse 2 involving the directors of the trailers sandwiched into the first Grindhouse would be my call here - I’d love to see if Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving and Edgar Wright’s Don’t could be stretched to feature-length, but I have no interest in Zombie’s SS Werewolves movie (even with that terrific Nic Cage gag). There’s always Robert Rodriguez’s Machete to complete a triple-bill!

I’m not sure that would really constitute an “anthology film” though… maybe Roth and Wright and Rodriguez (oh my) could each do a half-an-hour short (thereby side-stepping complaints about the first Grindhouse’s length) on the same topic. I’m thinking they could each remake a third of the It’s Alive epic saga at half an hour apiece.

I don’t know where that random idea just came from. It’s a scary place inside my brain where it hurts to look.

Arbogast on Film

Do these directors have to be living? I ask because, as phrased, the question is like one of those “Five figures from history you’d have over for fondue.” (And if anyone’s wondering: Jesus Christ, Eve Arden Vlad the Impaler, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer and Gertrude Stein.). I’m guessing you mean an anthology film to be made now, so my list would run to Michael Almereyda, whose NADJA I (and I alone, it seems) loved; Neil Marshall, as I’m a fan of THE DESCENT; Jaume Balagueró, director of SIN LOS OJOS/THE NAMELESS, who has an incredible eye (and ear) for horror; and finally Mary Lambert, whose SIESTA I liked better than PET SEMETARY (or the hateful PET SEMATARY II) but we really need some estrogen in the horror mix these days and I know the genre is still a going concern for her.

Now where’s my budget?

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

Joe Dante, Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright would be my top three. Especially the last two directors after considering how their fake trailers in GRINDHOUSE were much more brilliant than the actual two flicks shown.

Retropoliltan - Tales To Astonish

I think three is a sufficient number of directors for a good anthology; five is probably too many. While I really want to run with three of my most cherished genre stalwarts like Carpenter or Romero, I think I’d actually rather see some non-horror guys take a stab at it. (Especially since my favorite horror directors have been off their game for years as it is.) My thinking is something different: Judd Apatow, Wes Anderson, and Michel Gondry. I guess I’m just looking for a good, weird horror-comedy.

B-Sol - Vault of Horror

For the ultimate anthology film, I’d like to mix and much some of the men whose work I think would mesh together to make on hell of a theatrical experience. First, I’d take George Romero, who proved he has the chops with one of the greatest–if not the greatest–horror anthologies ever, Creepshow. Then, I’d take two guys who have proven track records as horror masters, but who’ve strayed from the genre for a while now: Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. I believe both of those guys still have it in them to deliver the goods. And finally, I’d infuse the project with two of today’s most riveting directors: Danny Boyle and Rob Zombie. Of the current crop of genre mavens, I’d predict those two would fit in best with the rest of the bunch.

Kimberly - Cinebeats

My ultimate horror anthology would be an international affair that used the short supernatural stories of M.R. James as the basis of the anthology and I’d ask some of my favorite modern horror directors from around the globe to participate. The five directors would be Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Japan), Robert Morgan (Britain), The Brothers Quay (America), Fabrice Du Welz (Belgium) and Park Ki-hyeong (Korea).

Quite the turnout! Thanks to all of this week’s participating anthologists for their responses. I’m curious; which of the films listed above would you most want to see make it to the screen? Eric excepted. Hater. Please leave your answers in the comments below.