The article linked below is probably NOT SAFE FOR WORK, as it contains a nude photo. In addition, the short story Adaptation by Tabico as discussed in the article begins with the statement “Author Note: Warning! Extreme squick! Bugs! Blood! Cruelty! Yucky & mean stuff!” and considering that this was written for people actually seeking out erotica, you should probably heed its warning.

Noah Berlatsky has been sending me links to his studies for awhile now, but his most recent project is easily his best yet. Gay Utopia is a finite forum dedicated to examining the notion of a society predicated on fluid sexuality. While not every article was to my liking, Noah’s take on what he calls “Fecund Horror” really struck a chord, and it’s obvious that it is something that he’s had brewing for quite some time. As I’ve mentioned previously, this kind of horror is one of my favourite takes on the genre, and Noah delivers. The essay tackles John Carpenter’s version of The Thing, Cronenberg’s Shivers (a favourite here at The Horror Blog) and a short story of erotic mind control by Tabico, with stops along the way for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alien, Frankenstein and many more. It’s a wild ride, and while I’m not sure I agree with everything Noah presents, it’s certainly a great place to start.

“For Firestone, the end result of this belief is positive — transforming pregnancy and repealing taboo results in a fluid and sunlit Eden. For the horror genre, on the other hand, transforming pregnancy and repealing taboo results in a slimy and tenebrous abyss. But the underlying economy of both is the same. Pregnancy is a central truth of our selves. It is the basis for the regulation of sexuality, of boundaries, of affection, and of love. If it is altered, identity collapses, and with it the world as we know it. The new birth is the apocalypse.”

As I said, it’s obvious Noah has been working this out for a long time now, to the point that he even provides a list of source material if you feel like pursuing this fascinating sub-genre further. I know I will.

And really, how can you resist an essay with the line “The men in the 1982 The Thing aren’t gay enough to live”?

It’s the final Tuesday installment of Scarred, and today we’re bringing you the nightmarish experiences of the duo behind The Blair Witch Project. Considering the tone of that landmark horror film, is it any surprise what scared these two men?

First up is Daniel Myrick, whose latest project was the murderous cultist film Believers.

The moment when the kid runs into Bigfoot in the woods in, “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”

Scared the pee out of me when I was young. Still get goosebumps.

Eduardo Sanchez has also been keeping busy, most recently with Altered, a tale of alien abduction and vengeance.

The PATTERSON-GIMLIN film is probably the scariest single piece of media that I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know if you call it art or entertainment, but it chilled me to the core when I first saw it as a kid and it still creeps me out every time I see it.

Years later, the spirit of that little piece of filmmaking became a major contributing factor to the initial idea that later became THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Actually, our goal at the time was to make a feature-length documentary filled with PATTERSON-GIMLIN style moments. I can only hope that we came close to succeeding.

After directing the cult films Hardware and Dust Devil, Richard Stanley seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth popping up occassionally with a few shorts and documentaries. Now it looks like he’s ready to make the leap back into feature-length horror, with a short called The Sea of Perdition that serves as a calling card for his re-entry into the game. The short concerns a cosmonaut lost on the surface of Mars who stumbles across a horrific discovery. Be warned, it’s NSFW and it’s also a little… odd. In an interview with Suicide Girls, Stanley reveals that Warren comics were an inspiration for the piece. Hopefully that will put you in the right mindset. Link courtesy of Fangoria.

With all the current emphasis on the grindhouse aspects of the 70s, one thing from that era that seems to be shoved aside is the mainstream acceptance of various pseudo-sciences, from UFOs to Cryptozoology. I was too young to catch the full force of that trend, but it still trickled down through the years enough that me and my cousin devoured every book about unexplained phenomenon we could get our hands on. Years later, I can vividly remember many of the stories I learned from my self-education. There’s nothing like the possibility of strange and wondrous things wandering the world to fuel the imagination of a little kid.

One of the first and best shows to deal with the unexplained was In Searh Of… Cool Kooky Hip and Groovy has been kind enough to post an album of eclectic music from the show.

When I first heard that screenwriter and producer Joseph Stefano had passed away, my most vivid thought wasn’t of his script for Psycho or his creation with Leslie Stevens of seminal television creature feature The Outer Limits. No, my attention was riveted by the news that the writer for Snowbeast had died.

Made-for-TV in the 70s, Snowbeast involves a sasquatch which terrorizes a ski resort, not unlike Jaws in the snow. Snowbeast is legendary at the studio where I work, and it comes up in conversation at least once every two or three weeks, so it saddens me that someone who created a work that brought so much joy into the lives of so many has left us.

So here’s to a man who, despite his reservations towards the genre, was remarkably talented nonetheless. Rest in peace, Mr. Stefano.

From yesterday’s clip of the day, The Manchester Morgue, comes a music video for the kult klassic Killer Klowns from Outer Space by SoCal proto-punks The Dickies. Just in case you missed it.

As if the bombing of Lebanon couldn’t get any worse, in a conversation with CTV Ottawa’s Dan Matheson Israel’s opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has compared the situation to the film Alien.

Netanyahu - Have you ever seen the movie Alien. Dan? Did you ever see it?

Matheson - Um…Yes.

Netanyahu - Do you remember this movie? Well, this movie had these alien, ferocious bodies that implant themselves in a host, and then lurch out, burst through the chest and attack the person next to the host. And in fact that’s exactly and in so doing also kill the host. Hezzbolah is the alien body, Lebanon is the host, we’re the person attacked. And the mother alien, if you will, the mother producing all these eggs is Iran, with its way station in Syria. That’s exactly what we have here. So if any of us are going to have a future, a future of peace, a future of good neighbours, a future of tranquility, than this alien host, alien ideology, implanted into Lebanon and supported by alien regimes, that’s got to go. It just has to go.

I’ve got nothin’.

I know I’m stretching here but I’ve got to say, the Transformers teaser is one of the more frightening trailers I’ve seen in a long time. How sad is it that a giant robot toy tie-in can be this effective at building suspense when movies that actually attempt to creep you out aren’t up to the task. Maybe one reason is that this teaser isn’t just comprised of the best parts of the movie, but is a mini-narrative on its own, which allows it to reach a creepy crescendo that more fractured, quick-cutting trailers can’t match.

There are so many pressing horror announcements coming out these days that I can hardly find the time to sort through them.  And when I do, the ones that I should centre on the most tend to be remakes, something which makes my soul grow colder with each passing day.  Fuck ‘em.  Today I’m going to talk about Canadian alien invasion movie Decoys instead.

I became aware of the first Decoys movie because it was filming in the city I currently reside in, Ottawa.  It had all the promise of a tawdry live-action piece of tentacle porn, but proved to be an unfunny, scattershot horror-comedy with a nasty and out-of-place mean streak.  After it died at the box office, the producers’ claims that there was going to be a sequel seemed unlikely.  Guess again, as Decoys 2 is currently in production further to the West in Edmonton.  Hopefully they’ve got all the kinks worked out this time around.

Real world events will rarely intrude on this blog, but occassionally something comes up that demands to be commented upon. Such is the case this week, with a strange spaceship landing just outside Clarke, Texas. According to Deputy Sheriff Lowell Massey, the pilots of the craft were even more peculiar.

I was about to call for back-up when one of the creatures waddled toward me - it looked like a duck with the head of a fly. It had two antennas which began to wiggle and a moment later I heard its voice inside my head.

For the remainder of the shocking tale of these interplanetary rejects, I suggest you pick up the most recent edition of the World Weekly News, North America’s finest newspaper. Other stories include the discovery of Tiger-Men, the return of Hitler’s Ghost, and Sergio Aragones sinister plan for world domination.