Welcome to OCTOBER
October is the time for Horror Thriller Obscura.

Every weekday in October I'm going to offer you something to watch and something to read.

Something Indie or forgotten. Something you may have seen in a cover or image but never got around to watching. Or maybe something you never knew existed.

Enjoy the month of Horror Thriller Obscura! It's a #HalloweenMiracle!

MOVIE -

THE KINDRED
Writers: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow, John Penney, Earl Ghaffari, Joseph Stefano
Directors: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow
Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
Back in 1986, this movie came out starring two Oscar winning actors whose careers were not on the skids. Why they chose to act in this little movie is any one's guess. On the other hand, screen veteran Rory Calhoun had made quite a new name for himself just a few years earlier with his indie release of MOTEL HELL, which became a surprise hit. Hit status never befell THE KINDRED, despite the star power. That said, THE KINDRED is a low budget flick and the kind of B-Grade movie that just captures my heart.

THE KINDRED is also a lost gem these days. A made for cable movie, it is difficult to find as a rental let alone new. Don't be looking for this one on DVD anytime soon.

THE KINDRED starts out wild enough: a car crash and a fiery explosion at night! The accident victim, barely hanging onto life, is secretly sold right out of the ambulance that was supposed to take him to the hospital. The victim is instead brought to Dr. Phillip Lloyd (Oscar winning actor Rod Steiger).

Continued at Feo Amante/Movies/JKL/The Legend of Hell House.

BOOK -

MIND STORM
by K.M. RUIZ
Review by Mark Worthen
Time was when science fiction and horror had quite a bit of overlap. That's to say that many, many SF tales* fell into the category of cautionary tales. You know what I'm talking about; the kind of story where someone makes a scientific advance and many (or all) people die horribly because of attitudes regarding this particular piece of science or that particular attitude. The (original) movie version of PLANET OF THE APES and its sequel BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES are perfect examples of this.

In it, man uses suspended animation techniques to cross great distances of space, which flings the characters into Einsteinian future because they accelerate to nearly the speed of light. But their trajectory moves back on itself, and they unwittingly come to an Earth where apes have taken their place in the evolutionary food chain, and the "primitive" hatred and fear exhibited by the apes for anyone unlike them gets everyone killed in a planet-killing nuclear blast. Though the show was wildly entertaining, despite its many ragged plot holes, it had several preachy moments that were at times difficult to take.

Time travel is part of science fiction. Nuclear annihilation and radioactive zones and mutants are arguably elements of horror.

Continued at Feo Amante/Stories/MNO/Mind Storm.

Welcome to OCTOBER
October is the time for Horror Thriller Obscura.

Every weekday in October I'm going to offer you something to watch and something to read.

Something Indie or forgotten. Something you may have seen in a cover or image but never got around to watching. Or maybe something you never knew existed.

Enjoy the month of Horror Thriller Obscura! It's a #HalloweenMiracle!

MOVIE -

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE
Writer: Richard Matheson. Director: John Hough
Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
Dr. Barrett waits in a grand foyer or some otherwise ungainly huge room. Called to come forward, he enters the presence of an old wheelchair bound man with a booger in his nose. The old man is Mr. Rudolph Deutsch (Roland Culver) and he has one request for which he is willing to pay £100,000 pounds. Considering that this took place in 1973, that's no small change. Rudolph wants Dr. Barrett (Clive Revill) because he is one of the five top men in his field.

Dr. Barrett is a physicist, but more to the point, he has studied parapsychology for the last twenty years. The subject of Barrett's study will be to ascertain, for certain, survival after death. Barrett scoffs but the old man assures him that he is sending him to the only place where the supernatural has never been refuted: The Belasco House. "Hell House?" Dr. Barrett whispers, and the old man smiles nodding. He then proceeds to tell Barrett who will accompany him into the house: To spend one week there and report back. Barrett finds himself shocked and surprised by all of this but £100,000 is hard to pass up - even in today's pounds.

Continued at Feo Amante/Movies/JKL/The Legend of Hell House.

BOOK -

KNUCKLE SUPPER
by Drew Stepek
Review by Mark Worthen
David J. Schow called it splatterpunk. Skipp and Spector called it overt horror. Some in the media have referred to it as torture porn or even "goreno." Whatever label suits you best, this book is not for the faint of heart. It portrays the violence, the depradation and the uncaring, unfeeling nature of the streets with (I hope) an exaggerated tongue-in-cheek offhandedness and detailed brushstrokes.

Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, the characters in KNUCKLE SUPPER become so real, you will swear you know them. I feel like I've met (or perhaps been) RJ Reynolds, the perennial screwup who leads the Knucklers, a street gang of drug-addicted vampires that rule the heroin trade in Los Angeles.

Yes, the Knucklers are vampires, as are their rival gangs the Battlesnakes, the BBP's and the Batwangers. But these aren't the vamps you and I have already met and become familiar with, though, the ones Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer gave us – although the novel does include a passing indictment of those types. RJ and his cronies need not only blood to live, but also the drugs they run.

Continued at Feo Amante/Stories/JKL/Knuckle Supper.

Welcome to OCTOBER
October is the time for Horror Thriller Obscura.

Every weekday in October I'm going to offer you something to watch and something to read.

Something Indie or forgotten. Something you may have seen in a cover or image but never got around to watching. Or maybe something you never knew existed.

Enjoy the month of Horror Thriller Obscura! It's a #HalloweenMiracle!

MOVIE -

JACOB'S LADDER
Writer: Bruce Joel Rubin. Director: Adrian Lyne
Review by Brian Keene
What is real?

Is your life real? When you hold your loved ones, are they tangible?

Do they drift through your fingers like mist?

What if every experience you've ever known, every thought and laugh, each memory and emotion, all the tears and sunsets and people, what if they were all a dream? A dream that you had while waiting in your mother's womb to be born and as soon as you finish this sentence you'll wake up? How do you know you're alive? I mean really know. Just because you breathe and bleed and can have an orgasm? Is that real? Are you real? Are you sure? Prove it . . .

Sounds like a bad trip on L.S.D, doesn't it?

Welcome to the ultimate mind fuck: 1990's JACOB'S LADDER.

Continued at Feo Amante/Movies/JKL/Jacob's Ladder.

BOOK -

JAKE'S WAKE
by John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow
Review by Diane Matson

Oh John Skipp, I've missed you! John wrote some terrific anthologies (BOOK OF THE DEAD, LIGHT AT THE END, THE CLEANUP, DEADLINES) with Craig Spector. I devoured them all and then, unable to find more, prowled elsewhere.

Time passed, and then Feo plunked JAKE'S WAKE in front of me. It was so refreshing to once again drown myself in John's wonderful wit and intense storytelling.

But who is this Cody Goodfellow he teamed up with? (Prowling the internet...) Ah! He wrote Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk, and I'm sure I've read his story in Cemetery Dance. Turns out he, like John, is a musician. Oh these wacky horror writers and their boredom avoidance issues.

On to the book!

Continued at Feo Amante/Stories/JKL/Jake's Wake.

Welcome to OCTOBER
October is the time for Horror Thriller Obscura.

Every weekday in October I'm going to offer you something to watch and something to read.

Something Indie or forgotten. Something you may have seen in a cover or image but never got around to watching. Or maybe something you never knew existed.

Enjoy the month of Horror Thriller Obscura! It's a #HalloweenMiracle!

MOVIE -

THE HUMAN MONSTER
Writers: Edgar Wallace, Patrick Kirwan, Walter Summers, John Argyle, Jan Van Lusil . Director: Walter Summers
Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
A dead body floats in the Thames river of London, England, the fifth mysterious death in eight months.

Catching heat from the public and the newspapers, the chief of Scotland Yard's CID (Criminal Investigation Department) Police Sgt. Walsh (Bryan Herbert), sternly - but without anger - reprimands the men in his department for not bringing in one single scrap of evidence this whole time. Three of the deaths were in Detective Inspector Larry Holt's (Hugh Williams) area. Walsh wants to know if these deaths are all the mere coincidental murders of different culprits, or committed by a single murderer. All they have to go on, is that all of the men were heavily insured by various companies.

Before Holt begins his case, he is told that the extradition of the criminal, Fred Grogan (Alexander Field), will be coming in two days. What's more, Chicago Lieutenant Patrick O'Reilly (Edmon Ryan) who is bringing Grogan over, will stay to study the Brit's antiquated methods. Walsh is assigning O'Reilly to Holt "That way he won't learn anything."

Continued at Feo Amante/Movies/GHI/Human Monster.

BOOK -

GOTHIQUE
by Kyle Marffin
Review by Paul V. Wargelin
You think you've been here before and I don't blame you. The vampire is the most exploited supernatural evil of the horror genre.

Whether Dracula is rising from the grave yet again, or a hunter finds him or herself falling in love with a nosferatu, or a fledgling bloodsucker is preparing to spread his batwings and fly, the book market is flooded with vampire novels of varying degrees of quality. The true challenge here is to find one worth reading. Kyle Marffin's GOTHIQUE is one such read.

Chicago is a hotbed of Goth activity. When night falls, both kids and adults dress up in their finest darkness - from Victorian capes and lace minidresses to leather jackets and combat boots. Their common desire: for the movies, novels, role-playing games, and music depicting vampire culture to be real. Their dreams (or nightmares) are about to come true with the grand opening of the nightclub Gothique.

Continued at Feo Amante/Stories/GHI/Gothique.

Welcome to OCTOBER
October is the time for Horror Thriller Obscura.

Every weekday in October I'm going to offer you something to watch and something to read.

Something Indie or forgotten. Something you may have seen in a cover or image but never got around to watching. Or maybe something you never knew existed.

Enjoy the month of Horror Thriller Obscura! It's a #HalloweenMiracle!

This weekend, get your marathon on with the full series of

MOVIE -

PHANTASM
Writer and Director: Don Coscarelli
Reviews by E.C. McMullen Jr.
If you've never seen any of the PHANTASM* movies, then shame on you! Go out and see PHANTASM, PHANTASM II, PHANTASM III, and well, okay, go and see PHANTASM IV. PHANTASM was and still is Writer/Director Don Coscarelli's masterpiece. While Coscarelli has never been the best writer, what he lacked in storywriting ability, he more than made up for in vision. I mean PHANTASM! WOW!

The movie starts with a graveyard sex scene (yeah I know, Cool start for any movie!). However, once the sex is over the Lady In Lavender (Kathy Lester) stabs her lover Tommy (Bill Cone) and then turns into an evilly leering weirdo known as The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). This Succubus idea is well thought out, since the succubus of legend is really a male demon that transforms itself into a female before attacking his/her victims.

Now it is up to our three remaining heroes to discover just what the hell is going on at Morningside Cemetery and Mortuary; Especially that ultra clean and sinister mortuary. Our heroes are Jodie (Bill Thornbury), his brother Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), and my favorite character of the series Reggie (Reggie Bannister). These three must uncover the secret of The Tall Man and a pretty cool secret it is.

Continued at Feo Amante/Movies/PHANTASM.

BOOK -

DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP
by Matt Cardin
Review by Durant Haire
Matt Cardin's DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP garnered praise from the likes of Thomas Ligotti and John Pelan. Ash-Tree Press chose it as the premiere edition of their new paperback imprint, New Century Macabre. Knowing these things, I had high expectations for this collection, both in production quality and content.

As far as production goes, my expectations were exceeded. The book is beautiful and built to last. Macabre cover art by Jason Van Hollander perfectly fits the collection's theme. Like the dust jacket on a hardback, the cover has front and back flaps that contain blurbs by Ligotti, Pelan and McNaughton, as well as Matt's picture and bio. They also function well as bookmarks. The interior is as nice and polished as the exterior, with easy to read text and pages that even smell good. Yes, I like to smell book pages. Weird aren't I?

So, did the content meet my expectations? No, it blew them out of the water.

Continued at Feo Amante/Stories/DEF/Divinations of the Deep.

Welcome to OCTOBER
October is the time for Horror Thriller Obscura.

Every weekday in October I'm going to offer you something to watch and something to read.

Something Indie or forgotten. Something you may have seen in a cover or image but never got around to watching. Or maybe something you never knew existed.

Enjoy the month of Horror Thriller Obscura! It's a #HalloweenMiracle!

MOVIE -

THE GRAVEDANCERS
Writers: Brad Keene, Chris Skinner. Director: Mike Mendez
Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
Tragic, brooding, and morbid, THE GRAVE DANCERS starts with a bizarre murder. Then it's a year or so later for no discernable reason and there's a funeral - not for the murdered person. Then there's the reception. A friend died and his remaining three high school friends have come together to mourn him.

Okay, mourning's over, I've got to get up early tomorrow for work. The friend with the hard-nosed attitude and the ill-fitting suit (this guy is a lawyer?) is Harris McKay (Dominic Purcell). His friends, in particular his former friend, Sid Vance (Markus Thomas) rightly calls him to task and walks off in disgust.

Harris and the third pal, Kira Hastings (Josie Maran), know where to find Sid, right where he said he'd be; at the cemetery conducting their dead pal's funeral, the right way! The way friends should: With loads of drunken debauchery. Debauchery being the word since their stupor leads to Kira and Harris rekindling old feelings they once had for each other: made all the more sticky by the fact that Harris' wife, Allison (Clare Kramer), is waiting for him at home, having trusted him with his friends.

Nearly dozing off by his dead bud's tombstone, Sid finds a grievance card among the flowers and reads it. It sounds like a poem celebrating life and encourages everyone to "dance among the tombstones." In their inebriated state, that sounds like a great idea and they spend the rest of the time dancing until Harris passes out.

Continued at Feo Amante/Movies/GHI/GraveDancers.

NOVEL -

A HOUSE DIVIDED
by Deborah LeBlanc
Review by Scott Nicholson
Deborah LeBlanc carved out a place for herself in modern fright fiction with two previous novels steeped in the swampy, mysterious depths of the bayou. In A HOUSE DIVIDED, LeBlanc not only sprinkles Cajun flavor on the dark dishes she serves, but also adds a feast for haunted house fans. The eponymous house literally has been split in two by contractor Keith Lafleur. What Lafleur senses, but doesn't know, is the house harbors a long-slumbering but not-fully-dead secret. When the two halves of the house are set up and separately inhabited by chef Matt and hair stylist Laura in a small Louisiana town, the inevitable bad things ensue.

LeBlanc excels at building tension, not easy to do in a genre where the readers pretty much know what's coming. LeBlanc is also gifted in the arena of characterization and dialogue, allowing each person to maintain a distinct voice and style even in "talking" scenes. Such attention to detail is welcome, especially since so many modern writers fall back on dialogue that sounds like it came from television actors, with no accent or personality. She also understands regional flavor and its value in making a story come alive, rivaling fellow swamp dweller James Lee Burke in that category.

Continued at Feo Amante/Stories/GHI/A House Divided.