by Wallace, Amy
4. Guinea Pig—The Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985 film by Hideshi Hino): Japan’s Guinea Pig series is one of the most notorious works in the underground horror scene, thanks to its realistic and unapologetic presentation of torture, mutilation, and murder. In the early nineties, when horror journalist Chas. Balun presented scenes from The Flower of Flesh and Blood to a friend as part of a gore compilation—and the footage found its way to actor Charlie Sheen—things got serious, as the civic-minded movie star, convinced that he had seen an actual snuff film, called the Motion Picture Association of America, who in turn called the FBI. A thorough investigation found the footage to be top-notch special effects, not ghastly murder.
5. Ghostwatch (1992 television broadcast directed by Lesley Manning and written by Stephen Volk): Broadcast by BBC One on October 31, 1992, this is one of the most notorious television productions in history, even being cited by the British Medical Journal as the first TV program to cause post-traumatic stress disorder in children. An apparent “reality TV” investigation of a London haunted house, its verisimilitude was helped by the participation of several real-life British television personalities playing themselves. A postmodern “sequel” short story titled “31/10” was written by Stephen Volk, published in his collection Dark Corners, and nominated for the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction.
6. The Blair Witch Project (1999 film by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez): Prior to the film’s release, the three lead actors—Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams—were listed on the Internet Movie Database as “missing, presumed dead”; the film itself was initially promoted by its producers via the movie’s Web site as found footage, causing numerous rumors to circulate in cyberspace. It was only after the massive theatrical success of The Blair Witch Project (and lots of talk-show and magazine appearances by its cast) that many viewers finally realized the movie was fiction; a 2000 sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, was a pointed commentary on the entire Blair Witch phenomenon.
—S.B.
ARMAND CONSTANTINE’S FIVE SCARIEST
HORROR VIDEO GAMES
Armand Constantine is a writer of video games, horror, and fantasy fiction. His most recent game writing projects include work on Pandemic Studios’ Saboteur and Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry 2. For details on these and other projects, please visit www.armandconstantine.com.
1. Silent Hill
Konami, PlayStation, 1999
The setup: On the way to resort town Silent Hill, Harry has a car accident and wakes up to find his wife and baby missing. He sets out to find them in a seemingly deserted town enveloped by fog.
Particularly badass: Great use of atmosphere. Fog and snow limit vision while audio effects heighten suspense.
2. Silent Hill 2
Konami, PlayStation 2 and PC, 2001
The setup: James Sutherland has received a letter from his longdead wife claiming she’s waiting for him in Silent Hill. He sets out to find her in a town that’s every bit as terrifying as the one in the last Silent Hill installment.
Particularly badass: More terrifying fog and audio. And I’m serious. It’s terrifying.
3. Fatal Frame
Tecmo, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, 2001
The setup: Supposedly based on a true story, the game-play follows Miku Hinasaki, a college student searching for her missing little brother. He’s gone missing in the Himuro Mansion, a place believed to be steeped in blood, curses, and worse.
Particularly badass: Perhaps one of the coolest (and scariest) game weapons ever used against ghosts: a camera.
4. Clive Barker’s Undying
Electronic Arts/DreamWorks Interactive (Aspyr/Westlake Interactive: Macintosh), PC and Mac, 2001
The setup: World War I veteran and occult investigator Patrick Galloway receives an urgent plea for help from his friend Jeremiah Covenant. Galloway travels to the Covenant estate in Ireland to stop an occult plot that was set in motion long ago.
Particularly badass: Great use of cinematic horror techniques. You’ll love the mirrors. And, of course, you’ll love the signature Barkeresque alternate-world landscapes.
5. Condemned: Criminal Origins
Sega/Monolith Productions, Xbox 360 and PC, 2005
The setup: Ethan Thomas, an FBI forensics investigator falsely accused of murder, hunts a serial killer in the midst of a broken and violent city.
Particularly badass: Dear God, brace yourself when you start seeing the mannequins . . .
MICHAEL A. ARNZEN’S TOP FIVE HORROR COLLEGES
Michael A. Arnzen was born in Amityville, New York. He is the author of the novel Grave Markings and the poetry collection Freakcidents, both of which won a Bram Stoker Award. He earned yet another Stoker for his e-mail newsletter, the Goreletter, which is “rich in strange microfiction, offbeat humor, horror poetry, surprises, and tiny oddities.” Find out more at www.gorelets.com.
1. Brown University (Providence, RI): Welcome to Miskatonic U—for real. Brown holds the collected writings of H. P. Lovecraft—letters, manuscripts, and more than a thousand books and magazines (like a ton of Weird Tales)—in a special collection lurking somewhere deep in its John Hay Library. But Cthulhu isn’t the only version of hell on earth. I hear they’ve got a great Dante collection there, too . . . and even a library of books retrieved from Adolf Hitler’s secret bunker! Web site: http://dl.lib.brown .edu/libweb/index.php.
2. Douglas Education Center (Monesson, PA): Tom Savini—grand master of horror film special effects—runs two programs in horror movie production at this trade school, which can actually get you an associate’s degree in Specialized Business. The new Digital Film Production Program has you assist on the set in the making of independent movies, and you get a laptop and digital camera when you enroll. The Special Make-Up Effects Program will not only have you casting your own molds, but also participating in actual film productions and—my favorite—working in a live haunted attraction in the Pittsburgh area every Halloween. Web site: http://www.douglas-school.com/.
3. University of Maine (Orono, ME): The Stephen King archives are here in the Folgler Library’s Special Collections. I can think of no better library for a horror student to hang out in. Plus, you’re close to Bangor, where you will find all things King. Who knows? While you’re there, you might even bump into other semi-local horror authors—like Joseph Citro, T. M. Gray, Mark Edward Hall—at a bookstore (try Betts Bookstore in Bangor . . . like the archives at UM, it is a Kingdom of King). Web site: http://library .umaine.edu/speccoll/FindingAids/Kingstep1.htm.
4. University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA): Horror fans shouldn’t only gather on the East Coast. Plenty lurks out West. At the University of California, Riverside campus, you’ll find the Eaton Center—a vast collection of books in not only science fiction, but also horror, fantasy, and utopian literature. Its proximity to Hollywood guarantees more horrors to come. While there is a smattering of other great science fiction–oriented library collections like this one out there (like James Gunn’s Center for the Study of Science Fiction at University of Kansas, or the Cushing Library at Texas A&M), a name like “Eaton” sounds scarier to me . . . like something you’d munch on. Web site: http://eatoncollection.ucr.edu/.
5. Seton Hill University (Greensburg, PA): I am a professor with tenure here, so I’m clearly biased . . . but the reason I chose to teach at SHU to begin with was because of their openness toward genre fiction. That might explain, too, why such horror luminaries as David Morrell, Tom Monteleone, Gary A. Braunbeck, Lawrence C. Connolly, Scott Johnson, and Tim Waggonner—among others—have also taught horror writing at SHU. At Seton Hill, you can get a master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction for penning a horror novel, when you’re not otherwise hunting for revenants in the recesses of this Gothic Catholic campus. Not many graduate schools will accept horror writers, let alone help them write a novel-length horror thesis for publication; Seton Hill admits them regularly, producing numerous success stories. The undergraduate
curriculum also features the occasional horror literature course, in addition to other related studies of pop culture, like science fiction and fantasy, the art of film, and more. I usually teach The Exorcist in my Literary Criticism course for English majors. Enough said. Web site: http://fiction .setonhill.edu.
THE TRUE TALES OF FIVE
LEGENDARY TV HORROR HOSTS
The TV horror host first appeared in the fifties, when it became apparent to TV affiliates that their showings of horror and science fiction flicks could get a ratings boost by featuring a local “ghost host” to introduce the films. The idea caught on even more when, in 1957, Universal Studios created the Shock package of classic pre–1948 horror films for sale to TV stations. The ghost host was entirely different from nationally recognized hosts like Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone) or Alfred Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), who not only presented their shows but also produced and oversaw the creation of the content (half-hour or hour-long dramas rather than movies) for the big TV networks. By contrast, the local horror host was a hometown or regional celeb, often topping the films they showed as the primary attraction for viewers. While video and cable largely killed the concept, their legacy is far from forgotten. In that spirit, we offer a look at a few beloved examples of the TV horror host.
1. “Zacherley”: Considered by many to be the quintessential horror host of all time, Zacherley’s real name was John Zacherle. He began in Philadelphia in 1957 at WCAU-TV with a character called Roland, hosting the station’s airings of the Shock films. He proved so popular that he was offered a job by New York’s WABC-TV, because their Shock Theater was experiencing low ratings. He started there in September of 1958, as Zacherley (aka “The Cool Ghoul” or just plain “Zach”). In 1960, he moved to WOR-TV, where he launched a “Zacherley for President” campaign (he lost to John F. Kennedy, although one can’t help but wonder how Zacherley might have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis). Zacherley also recorded a top-ten novelty hit, “Dinner with Drac,” in 1958, and later in his career appeared in director Frank Henenlotter’s cult movies Brain Damage and Frankenhooker. Zacherley continues a busy schedule of convention appearances, and has an official Web site at www.zacherley.com.
2. “Vampira”: Vampira—a slinky, pale-skinned beauty of the Morticia Addams type—was the horror host for KABC-TV in Los Angeles from 1954 to 1955. She was played by Finnish actress and dancer Maila Nurmi, who was discovered for the role at (appropriately enough) a Halloween party. Notable as one of the horror hosts to appear on TV before the release of Universal’s Shock package, Vampira is also famous for her appearance as “the Ghoul Woman” in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. In her personal life, Nurmi was known for her friendships with many Hollywood notables of the day (she even briefly dated Orson Welles), including James Dean, who said, “I have a fairly adequate knowledge of satanic forces, and I was interested to know if this girl was obsessed with such a force.” In the eighties, Nurmi unsuccessfully sued Cassandra Peterson, claiming that Peterson’s Elvira character was a rip-off of Vampira. In 2006, Nurmi/Vampira was the subject of a documentary film called Vampira: The Movie. She died on January 10, 2008, in Los Angeles.
3. “Ghoulardi”: Cleveland, Ohio’s great horror host was Ghoulardi, played by Ernie Anderson as part-ghoul and part-beatnik. A former disc jockey, Anderson started as Ghoulardi in 1962 at WJW-TV. Featuring a stuffed pet raven named Oxnard, and a variety of silly catchphrases (like “stay sick” and “turn blue”), Ghoulardi’s anarchic spirit was a big hit among the kids in Cleveland. He also wasn’t shy about commenting on the films he showed, routinely labeling lesser efforts “dogs” and “bombs.” Anderson-as-Ghoulardi stayed at WJW until 1966. After that, he moved to Los Angeles and became a highly paid voice-over artist (his voice can be heard, among other places, in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Anderson died in early 1997 of cancer. One of his four children is the acclaimed writer/ director Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia and There Will Be Blood), who named his production company “Ghoulardi Film Company” and dedicated his film Boogie Nights to his father’s memory.
4. “Dr. Cadaverino”: If you lived around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, between 1964 and 1977, the place to catch horror movies was Nightmare Theater on WITI-TV, hosted by Dr. Cadaverino. Starting as a disfigured creep and then evolving into a macabre hipster vampire, Dr. Cadaverino was played by local TV personality Jack Du Blon. Endlessly mocking the B movies he showed, and aided by a headless sidekick named (of course) Igor, Dr. Cadaverino made a huge impression on his viewership, including a young man named John Skipp, who grew up to become one of the founders of splatterpunk fiction with novels like The Light at the End and The Bridge. Skipp states: “Dr. Cadaverino introduced me to the horror movie as both art form and object of ridicule. Therefore, he is one of the most important and formative influences in my life.”
5. “The Host”: Known to legions of youngsters in Wichita, Kansas, as Major Astro—the host of an afternoon cartoon show that was “broadcast” from either Cape Kennedy, the cockpit of a rocket, or his moon base—Tom Leahy would don greasepaint on Friday nights and portray the Host, assisted by hunchback Rodney. The Host, with his campy, somewhat befuddled attitude, would deliver the word “horror” as “horror-ror-ror-rorror. . . .” Rodney would be played by Lee Parsons, Jim Herring, or John Salem. The duo appeared on several different area stations from 1958 to the early nineties. In its 1970s incarnation, called Nightmare, the Host’s ghoulish shenanigans were pitted against another station’s horror offering, Friday Night Fright, forcing pre-VCR horror fans to make agonizing choices between dueling terrors. The Host and Rodney’s ghoulish re-working of “The Night Before Christmas” is remembered by many a fan who preferred the Host’s “Ghoul-tide” celebration to competing local Christmas staple “Santa Claus and Kakeman.” Now in his seventies, Leahy made a recent appearance as the Host promoting a Halloween haunted house contest in Wichita.
— S.B. and M.B.
GARY A. BRAUNBECK’S SEVEN
DISPARATELY HORRIFIC TRIPLE FEATURES
Gary A. Braunbeck is the author of ten novels, eleven short-story collections, one non-fiction book, and has served as coeditor on two anthologies. His work has been praised as being among the most emotionally hard-hitting being written today—Publishers Weekly said, “Braunbeck’s fiction stirs the mind as it chills the marrow.” He has received several awards, including the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, in 2003 for “Duty,” and again in 2005 for “We Now Pause for Station Identification”; that same year, his novella Kiss of the Mudman was awarded the International Horror Guild Award for Long Fiction. In 2006, his collection Destinations Unknown was awarded the Stoker for Superior Achievement in Fiction Collection. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife, author Lucy Snyder, and five cats who permit him to take care of them. To learn more visit: www.garybraunbeck.com.
So, you’re in the mood for a little horror one night but don’t quite feel like spending the entire evening watching movies or DVDs of classic television series. What’s a jaded horror fan to do?
Simple: Instead of just floundering about, choose a particular theme for the evening’s fright-fest, and explore that theme through different sources that, combined, will offer a fascinating parallax view on your chosen subject. In this case, I offer you the following triple features: the first being a movie, the second being a short story or novella, and the third being a piece of music.
1. Snipers
Movie: Targets (1968, directed by Peter Bogdanovich) Boris Karloff (in a superb performance) stars as aging horrormovie star Byron Orlock, who agrees to make his last public appearance at a Los Angeles drive-in, where his newest schlockfest is premiering. Tim O’Kelly plays your typical all-American boy, a Vietnam veteran and family man, who snaps and goes on a killing spree. The two storylines converge at the movie premiere in a nerve-wracking final sequence that remains one of Bogdanovich’s finest directorial achievements.
Short
Story: “Cain Rose Up,” by Stephen King
A stunner, this one, its power derived from purposefully not telling you the motivations behind the killer’s actions.
Song: “Sniper,” by Harry Chapin
Yes, I know—Harry Chapin and horror? You’d better believe it. This 10-minute masterpiece from Chapin isn’t so much a song as it is a mini-opera, following the sniper in question from the start of the day until his last moments. The echoing layers of “voices” that run underneath the music throughout are chilling, Chapin’s vocal performance (he plays all of the characters) is both potent and nuanced, and the song builds to a finale that is both horrifying and strangely poignant.
2. War
Movie: Deathwatch (2002, written and directed by Michael J. Bassett)
It’s 1917, World War I, the Western Front. A handful of British soldiers are separated from their company following a hellish battle and stumble upon a seemingly abandoned, labyrinthine German trench. Taking shelter there, they soon discover a lone German soldier, who begs them to leave because something evil dwells in the shadows of the trench. What follows is an eerie, claustrophobic, and genuinely frightening descent into
