I had this friend—she was more the friend of my at-the-time girlfriend (now wife)—who was, if I’m being charitable, a wee bit naïve. (Were I being uncharitable, I’d say she was as dumb as a fencepost.) My girlfriend-cum-wifey and I went on a double date with her and this goober we named Gomer, who was…
Month: August 2018
SNARLING Werewolf Versus Zombies
I was a tad disappointed to learn that the zombies featured in the forthcoming Horror-Comedy THE SNARLING are of the Hollywood variety. Don’t misunderstand me; the idea of having a werewolf tear its way through a production of THE WALKING DEAD sounds like fun. It just doesn’t sound like as MUCH fun as dropping a…
A Surge of Serial Killers
The future is looking bloody, according to author Peter Vronsky. Don’t worry, though; even if he’s right, your chances of being killed by a serial killer are paltry at best. Er, worst. But WHY, exactly, does Mr. Vronsky believe we’re in for a population surge in serial killers? By looking back at the “glut” of…
Revisiting the “Classics”: Ed Wood’s THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST
This is an odd little movie—and I’m not sure how much credit we can give to Ed Wood for that. Largely missing from this one is Wood’s unmistakable, idiosyncratic dialogue. (Lest anyone doubt that this is a true Wood film, however, there are the numerous references to Angora in there to serve as proof!) Wood…
THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Part Eight
SIX DAYS AGO: WAXING GIBBOUS MOON The lunch crowd had cleared out of the BLUE PLATE CAFE. Country music emanated from the jukebox, contesting with the hum of the air- conditioner in the window, the racket from the kitchen. A busboy had started to sweep up, and a waitress lowered the blinds over the front…
How To Become A Werewolf. Really.
I gotta give credit to the folks behind this website here. They’re geniuses. They discerned a niche and set about filling it. And they’ve done their homework, too. Most impressive. Okay, so what you really want to know is, can you REALLY be transformed into a werewolf? The answer is complicated. No, there is nothing…
The Politics of Bigfoot, Part One: Porn
I’ve seen the infamous Patterson-Gimlin film, the footage supposedly showing a female Bigfoot filmed in 1967, the footage that couldn’t possibly be real and yet has withstood every attempt to debunk it in the fifty years since it was released. The creature in the film is a female Bigfoot. Or a guy in a gorilla…
Once You’ve Started Wearing Those Shoes…
Ah, all the glorious goodness that came out of the recent San Diego Comic-Con! In addition to the sum totality of all geek culture being present and the unleashing en masse of all news, trailers, announcements, et al relating to everything and anything geek, there was the merchandise. Ah, sweet merchandise—which nobody who wasn’t there…
THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Part Seven
ONE WEEK AGO: HALF MOON, WAXING Hank Frye liked to keep to a routine. He sometimes speculated that he had a touch of the obsessive-compulsive to him, in his desire for neatness and order. Though nowhere near a mania for him, Hank found that his day seemed to go better, and his stress level stayed…
Revisiting the Classics: THE HAUNTED STRANGLER
I’d never gotten around to seeing this one from the grand master Boris Karloff, and it was my loss. Filmed in glorious black-and-white, THE HAUNTED STRANGLER features Karloff as a writer who is convinced that the man hanged a few years earlier for the crimes committed by the “Haymarket Strangler” was in fact innocent, and…