Pop Culture Petri Dish

As you read this, I'll be relaxing on the Oregon Coast with wife and dog. But Horrorpalooza must go on; hence, the inclusion of this for your Halloween. Rather than break out another review, I thought I'd actually present a scary story. Five years ago, Rita and I vacationed in Romania, and one of the most eerily-inspiring places we visited was Snagov Monastery, an isolated house of worship reputedly housing the actual remains of Vlad the Impaler--the real Dracula. The entire week we visited, the weather was in the mid-seventies and sunny (at the tail end of October, no less)...Except for the day we visited Snagov. Fog enshrouded everything, and a palpable chill cut through the air as we sat in a rowboat and traversed the lake route to the Monastery's location. It was sublimely, fabulously spooky. I've been keeping the fiction writing muscles limber-ish via writing exercises in a Yahoo chat group. The conceit: A sentence is posted, and you have 15 minutes to writ...

It's fun being a fly on the wall at a freakshow. Last night, I visited the Cafe Racer in Seattle's University District. On display were several great pieces of art--all inspired by old-school freakshow banners and posters--and a tassel of convivial and scary folks. 'Twas one hell of a great way to spend Halloween Eve Eve.

I've always been a night owl. It takes next to nothing for me to stay up longer and later than most normal mortals, and on weekends or days off I'll routinely stay awake until 2 or 3 in the a.m. Writing during that time can be, in a strange way, fun. Sometimes, being up that late just turns you into a tired and punchy oaf the next day. But other times, drifting in that twilit state between consciousness and narcotic slumber stimulates great things. It's as if, when you're on that fine line, it opens up a door to untold wonders, beauties, nightmares, and imaginings. That twilit time means so much to me that when I see a movie that truly, deeply captures it--that drowsily-heady point where dreams and wakefulness dance so closely that you can't tell them apart--I fall for it like a frilly-shirted poet gazing at some alabaster-skinned Edwardian muse. Cemetery Man is one of those movies. Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) works as a caretaker at Buffalora Ce...

British filmmaker Neil Marshall's only directed three movies so far, but on the strength of the two I've seen, I'm willing to go out on a limb and proclaim him one of the most promising guys working in the horror genre today. His inaugural features, 2002's Dog Soldiers and 2005's The Descent , do their jobs so well that they transcend the genre. Marshall's concise, lean style involves setting up a pretty basic fits-in-one-sentence synopsis, then turbo-charging it with clever, compact writing and solid characterizations. Seems simple enough, until you consider how few modern horror filmmakers actually get past the 'fits-in-one-sentence' part. Dog Soldiers' conceit? A squad of British soldiers on a routine training mission in the Scottish wilds are besieged by a pack of lycanthropes, then they barricade themselves in a deserted cottage. So, yeah, it's basically a classic World War II action opus with we...

Everyone associates Peter Gabriel with the jaunty pop of "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time." But right after he left prog-rockers Genesis, he put out three musically-innovative records that incorporated pop melodies with tribal percussion and atmospheric scariness. "Intruder," from Gabriel's self-titled 1980 release, always chilled the living pants offa me. With it's pounding drums, tribal chants, atonal shards of guitar, and spastic xylophone break, the song always sounded like it belonged in a horror movie. This brief entry for today is a cop-out of sorts--sorry, all--but revisiting this horrific piece of music was almost as good as watching a horror movie. Almost. Stay tuned for more scary in the next couple of days...

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed The Exorcism of Emily Rose --a classy, tasteful treatment of possible demonic possession populated with A-list Oscar nominees and shot with polish and care. Respectful and respectable as it was, it kinda left me a little cold. Tonight I viewed Abby , a cheap  Exorcist rip-off from 1974. It's lustily potty-mouthed, silly as hell, moves like a chicken with its ass on fire, and doesn't give a hang as to how respectable it is. Guess which one I liked better. Abby 's backstory reflects almost as much drama and silliness as the movie itself...Almost. When The Exorcist became a massive box office hit back in 1973, it unleashed a slew of filmic imitations both here and abroad. It seemed like damn near everywhere you turned, local theaters and drive-ins were overflowing with heretofore innocent women vomitting pea soup thanks to the influence of some pesky demon-of-the-week. This proliferation of demonic-po...

I've got some real goodies in the offing if I may say so, kids, but none are close enough to completion to finish rapidly. Included are retrospectives on everything from a stately Universal classic to one of the best overlooked zombie flicks of the last twenty years. But they're gonna have to wait. The relentlessness of this weekend (Relaxation...Wuzzat?) prohibits me from being able to pour much time into this here entry, so I will openly cop out and give you a visual tour of some horror highlights, courtesy of YouTube... Not totally sold on the charms of The Incredible Melting Man after the rave in this here corner of the Blogosphere? Mayhaps this trailer will convince you... ...And if you're looking to replicate my Parkland Theater experience in microcosm, you should thrill to this trailer for the very entertaining Without Warning, Melting Man's partner in double-feature crime. Enjoy this trailer for The Pit and the Pendulum , a Roger Corman Poe classic...