I’m not the only one around here hoping to kick it into gear for October. Let’s take a look around at a few of the other bloggers getting into the spirit of the season.

Final Girl has been impatiently waiting a whopping 325 days to reprise her SHOCKtober tricks and treats. Make sure you dig around for her hilarious chart of the horror movie fatality odds. Being Canadian, the odds are slightly higher for me to be beaten to death by snowsuit-clad dwarves.

Curt at The Groovy Age of Horror claims that he just doesn’t have time to contribute to the festivities this month. Then he goes on to post twice more within 36 hours. I knew he couldn’t resist. While you’re there, make sure you read his exhaustive argument against the censorship of the Essential Tomb of Dracula.

Not unlike the groundhog, every October you can expect the gang over at Dark, But Shining to pop out and throw one of the most lavish bashes around.

Senses Working Overtime kicks off the month with a grab bag of comics, comedies, songs, radio plays and more. It sure beats getting a rock.

And if I missed anyone, please leave a comment and let us know about it.

Horror Roundtable contributor Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat has the scoop on using YouTube to create a form of serialized entertainment. As interesting as the idea is, it took me almost an hour to pick out the horror element from all the soap opera, and even then it was a little underwhelming. To Lonelygirl 15’s credit, if this actually ends up turning nasty it could be worth the slow build-up. Hopefully someone will try something similiar someday, with more overt horror elements.

My New Plaid Pants, which boasts the perfect mix of horror, beefcake and Winona Ryder, has posted a response to Cinematical’s 7 Best Horror Movies of the Last 7 Years.

Both of these lists have lead me to consider my own choices, posted below. Films were chosen based on overall effectiveness, so some movies were cut which contained scenes that on their own would make the grade if they weren’t saddled with garbage (see the Dawn of the Dead remake). Please keep in mind that these are my choices at the moment, and tomorrow I would no doubt switch things around or remember other more appropriate picks.

1. Hostel - Terrifying as much for why the events unfold as how. The last twenty minutes in particular had me gripping the arms of my seat, and afterwards I felt that elusive high I only get every few years from the movies.

2. Shaun of the Dead - It may be primarily a comedy, but the zombies are played straight and for most of it’s running time Shaun of the Dead manages a level of suspense that eludes straight horror films.

3. The Descent - While the claustrophobic elements didn’t bother me, the full-on creature feature carnage satisfied a craving I wasn’t even sure I had. Review here.

4. See No Evil - An absolutely nasty throwback to the slasher period that makes all the recent crop of survival horror films pale in comparison.

5. The Blair Witch Project - Along with Hostel and Land of the Dead, one of the most divisive horror films of the past 7 years. I have enough experience in the forest to know what it’s like to wander around in the dark, but not enough to stop being afraid of what might be out there.

6. Final Destination & 7. Snakes on a Plane - Two straightforward thrill rides with both craft and balls to spare.

I encourage anyone who feels the same itch make their own list and either post them in the comments, or on their own blog.

Horror Roundtable regular Rod Lott’s Bookgasm turned 1 a couple of days ago. Bookgasm is the place to find all your trash and pulp fiction and non-fiction needs, covering everything from Westerns to Crime to Snakes on a Plane to Russ Meyer and every other genre under the sun. When I was choosing the Hard Case Crime books to take camping with me, Bookgasm was the first place I turned to. Wish them a happy birthday by popping in and taking a browse.

The indispensible DVD Trash is celebrating its first birthday with a contest. While you’re there, make sure to read on about Daria Nicolodi’s involvement in Argento’s third Mother film.

Congratulations, and I wish both sites many more years of magnificent genre blogging to come.

X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut’s CosmoBlog is one of my favourite sharity sites. I was going to post a clip of the day to his extensive Dr. Who selection way back when I first began The Horror Blog, but one thing led to another and it got lost in the shuffle. Recently, after a short hiatus, the X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut has produced a whopping 15 soundtracks from various Toho giant monster movies, including Godzilla Vs. The Thing, Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero, and a symphony presentation of some of Akira Ifukube’s more memorable themes. Sprinkled throughout are a smattering of other Japanese fantasy treats, from children’s Godzilla storybook records to the Mahou Sentai MagiRanger album and much more. In fact, all this kaiju talk has inspired me to crack out a dozen or so Godzilla films for a Tokyo-destroying movie marathon.

The Kaiju madness begins here and moves forward to the present.

Rue Morgue magazine has a regular section devoted to strange sites on the internet called Roadkill on the Info Highway. Kind of like a print blog. This month’s selection includes a site called Max and Courtney Make Monsters, in which the titular duo attempt to replicate every experiment in creature design from Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up book.

It is our plan to go through this book and create every single monster and make-up effect that Smith describes, although perhaps not in the order he indicates. We shall document this, and then we shall make our own little movies.

Each entry contains plenty of pictures and a snappy little film clip. It’s a fun little venture and perfect for the Monster Kid in all of us.

The groovy vinyl sharity site Mondo Daddykin has closed up shop. While there may not have been a whole lot of horror content, there sure was plenty of music from The Archies, which is great since I fucking adore Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie and the rest of the gang (Take that, T. Van!).

In honour of this maestro of the bubblegum arts, I present to you one of the as-yet-unsullied files, otherwise inaccessible as of Mondo Daddykin’s retirement; Rods and Rat Finks!

As a kid in the 60’s, I couldn’t resist Roth’s awesome hot rod designs. They were on everything from gum cards and stickers to model cars of his classic “Outlaw” and “Beatnik Bandit,” just to name a couple. Big Daddy’s character Rat Fink became a cultural icon of the hot rod world.

So sayeth Mondo Daddykin! He will be missed, and I hope to see him return some day.

Master of Horror Cartooning Stephen Bissette has written a response (scroll down to the July 25th post) to the Tim Lucas article I linked to yesterday about the gradual supplantation of print ‘zines by blogs. Stephen offers another alternative. What if the release of the films themselves, if not downplaying the need for ‘zines, can be considered the continuation and maturation of the cult movie ‘zine scene?

In fact, many of these releases sport, as extras, nifty and sometimes expansive booklets that are, in fact, l’il fanzines in and of themselves. Add to those print mini-zines the tsunami of DVD bonuses, extras and ‘easter eggs’ we’ve come to take for granted, and you have digital fanzines en masse that clearly are 21st Century kith and kin to their 20th Century precursors, available from far more distribution venues than the mail-order-only-Monster-Kids of the ’60s would have dared to imagine.

There’s plenty more where that came from, and it’s an exhaustive ride. Bissette marries the old and the new in ways that are unexpected yet glaringly obvious in hindsight.

Oh, and Xerox Ferox has got to be one of the coolest names for anything, anywhere.

Everything’s coming up ‘zines, those old school photocopied and stapled relics of the past that I just can’t get out of my heart. Tim Lucas discusses the shifting of attention from print to the internet with the recent demise of Psychotronic magazine.

Gavin Smith offers his own thoughts on the subject of print vs. the internet in his editorial for the new FILM COMMENT, where he theorizes that “blogs are more important to people who want to write than they are to people who like to read.” Blogging has certainly made me more attentive to what other bloggers are doing and the Blog-A-Thons that sometimes occur are a testimonial to the proposal that, to some extent, bloggers are writing for each other — not unlike the days when people would start a fanzine for the sole purpose of trading with another fanzine publishers.

Now that sounds familiar. It’s a really great read, particularly for what appears to be my core audience. In a related incident, the phenomenon of comics blogging has grown to the point that there was a panel on the subject at the San Diego comic convention. The first blog I ran was comic-related, and it usually pains me a little when I relalize I left the field just before it exploded. The following report from my evil American doppelganger, Mike Sterling of Progressive Ruin, helps put things into perspective.

…when the audience was asked “Hey, who out there is also a blogger?” pretty much everyone raised their hands, to no one’s surprise.

Copyright law has always fascinated me, but I’ve primarily looked into print and film, not the internet. Considering the fact that I’m now contributing content to the internet, and occassionally posting material owned by someone else under the assumption that it falls under fair use, I should really be paying more attention.

The Movie Blog was recently shut down by Paramount studios via the site’s ISP over the posting of a photo from the set of the new Transformers movie. This situation has caused quite the uproar, especially considering The Movie Blog owner John Campea had previously complied with polite requests from the same studio to take down other images.

The animosity was short-lived, and the two sides reached an agreement; but others haven’t been as lucky. I decided to look into the laws pertaining to copyright on the internet and found out that, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Safe Harbor laws if an ISP is given a cease-and-desist order, they must comply immediately by removing the offending item (or, more likely, the entire site) or risk being named an accomplice in the transgression. Only then is the owner of the offending site informed of what is happening and given an opportunity to state his or her case. Shoot first, ask questions later.

According to this law, Paramount was well within their rights to shut down The Movie Blog, even if the offending photo had been used within the limits of the law. The truly interesting thing is that the bad press from the incident proved to be so strong that Paramount relented and apologized for their behaviour, a possible indication that digital media is gaining in respect, which may lead to the Safe Harbor law becoming neglected and eventually forgotten by copyright holders. Unfortunately, the more likely scenerio is that even though Paramount claims to have made a mistake in shutting down The Movie Blog, their actual error was more likely that they fucked with a fairly popular site with some degree of clout. If the offending blog had been, oh, The Horror Blog, you can be sure there would have been no apology.

You may have noticed a new button on the sidebar which links to The Horror Blog’s MySpace account. I will occassionally post blog entries there as well, particularly on those days when I have a considerable overflow or when I want to talk about something that doesn’t quite fit into what I have going here.

If you’ve enjoyed the site so far, and are so inclined, please feel free to add me as a friend via your own account. Thanks.

House of Irony member and fellow tubbing enthusiast Doug Nagy was kind enough to mention this foundling site on one of the recent audio editions of The Movie Blog. In the same podcast linked to above, Nagy takes a stand for all the Mighty Thor fans out there who are sick of the trash talk. Nagy, I’m here to tell you you’re not alone.

Really Scary: We’ re doing this interview at the New York Comicon. Are you a big comic book fan?

Kane: I used to be, back when I was in college. Not so much anymore, but when I was in college, I started collecting The X-Men and Thor. I always liked Thor. By the time I got out of college I had a subscription to almost all of the Marvel Comics.

Next time some punk gets on your ass, Nagy, remember that you have Kane in your corner.

And in one fell swoop I thank a friend, return a favour, mention The Mighty Thor and keep within the parameters of this blog. Now if only I could dig up some Garden of the Dead news so I can thank Kevin for helping me with the design work.

One of the things I miss most about living in the Niagara Region is Off-Beat Cinema, a long-running cult movie program hosted by a bunch of beatniks.  I have a few tapes of the show from back in the day, and sometimes when I’m feeling a little homesick I pop one in and watch The Giant Gila Monster or The Exterminating Angel.  One night, Oscar (one of the hosts on the show) said something that has stuck with me for years.

“Charlton Heston.  With Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and Omega Man, he gave up a respected career as an actor to BECOME MY GOD!”

Embrace the glory that is Heston, with these absolutely incredible homegrown Omega Man bubblegum cards courtesy of the fine craftsmanship of Bubblegumfink.  So good you’ll change faith.

Here it is, the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, and countless conniving hucksters are using this once in a century occurence as a marketing tool. Bastards.

By far the best use of today’s date can be found over at Monsters A Go-Go, where they have reclaimed this date as the National Day of Slayer. Now shall I reign in blood!