It's Halloween time again, so my blog is featuring all the thrills, chills, and scares of the season. The anthology is a staple of horror, because a short story allows more flexibility for grotesque settings and character deaths. Here are two recent horror comic anthologies worth checking out:
Haunthology, by Jeremy Haun
Freelance comic book author Jeremy Haun channeled his pandemic feelings of isolation and fear into Haunthology, a collection of micro-sized horror stories published by Image Comics. Rendered in stripped down black and white, the book's short stories are really more like scenes, two and three-page vignettes that feel like they've been excerpted from a larger work. The book was written and drawn entirely during COVID, which explains why many of the stories are quietly apocalyptic - normal people confronting unimaginable circumstances as best they can.
Creepshow (2023)
The original Creepshow movie was heavily inspired by the old EC horror comics and was itself adapted into a comic book, so it's only fitting that the Creepshow TV series get the same treatment. I picked up the trade paperback collection of the first five issues, which contains a healthy total of 10 separate stories of mayhem and murder written by folks like Paul Dini and Chris Burnham. Like most of these horror anthologies, the stories are morality plays, albeit with twisted "morals" and over-the-top consequences. It's gory, it's lowbrow, but it's still a lot of fun.
It's Halloween time again, so my blog is featuring all the thrills, chills, and scares of the season. Today, I present to you one of the scariest TV shows of all time - Unsolved Mysteries, hosted by the late great Robert Stack:
If you're a child of the 1990s, then this theme music will probably trigger a visceral, reptilian fight-or-flight response:
Unsolved Mysteries was a prime-time documentary show on NBC. Each hour-long episode featured reenactments and dramatizations of, well, unsolved mysteries: cold case murders, missing persons, and other unexplained occurrences. The series mostly focused on true crime (presaging today's podcasts), but sprinkled in more and more of the paranormal as time went on (UFO abductions, ghosts, and even Bigfoot sightings). The real-life crime segments lent credibility to the supernatural bits, making them even scarier for a young kid.
More than anything, it was the eerie presence of the show's first host, Robert Stack, that really made Unsolved Mysteries special. The veteran actor commanded the screen; you'd see him in a trenchcoat or business suit in interstitial segments, walking in some deserted forest or cemetery, grimly narrating a brutal killing or strange haunting. I always expected something horrible to pop up during those host sequences, and I'm sure that was the intended effect.
The series was revived on Netflix with no host, though for my money, the original Robert Stack run will always be the best. You can still watch those episodes, now nearly 30 years old, on Youtube.
It's Halloween time again, so my blog is featuring all the thrills, chills, and scares of the season. Today, let's take a look back at Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series:
The Evil Dead
This one is the OG, the low-budget classic that created the template for everything that followed. Sam Raimi melded the gore of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the isolation of Night of the Living Dead, and the demonic possession of The Exorcist with a healthy dose of Michigan pluck. Here, Bruce Campbell's Ash is not the wisecracking badass he would become in later movies, but merely one of five college students who have the misfortune of being trapped with the Deadites.
Rating: 8/10
Evil Dead II
Evil Dead II is my personal favorite, a near-perfect blend of horror and comedy that also started the series' penchant for "sequels" that gently retcon prior entries - we again follow five people under siege from the Deadites. To me, this is probably Bruce Campbell's best performance as Ash, who flips the switch from victim to psychotic hero in one iconic scene. The movie underwhelmed at the box office...I think audiences just weren't ready for its surreal mix of gore and humor.
Rating:8/10
Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness asks an interesting question - is it possible for a horror franchise to switch genres? In this one, Ash is transported back to the Middle Ages to fight an army of Deadites, and there's comparatively little gore (Raimi tried to edit Army of Darkness to get a PG-13 rating, something that would have been impossible with the first two movies). To me, it feels like the Back to the Future Part III of the Evil Dead series, which might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are.
Rating: 7/10
Evil Dead (2013)
Twenty years after Army of Darkness, Raimi ceded writer/director duties for the Evil Dead remake to Fede Álvarez, who was an up-and-coming horror director at the time. Álvarez does a great job of capturing the spirit of the very first Evil Dead while adding some modern flourishes, and the box office success of this movie ensured that the franchise would continue (a post-credits sequence reveals that this was not a remake at all, but a sequel).
Rating: 7/10
Ash vs. Evil Dead
The Evil Dead made the leap to the small screen on Starz, running for three seasons before being cancelled in 2018. Somewhat confusingly, this show was a sequel to the original Sam Raimi trilogy rather than a continuation of the remake. Ash vs. Evil Dead followed an older, fatter Ash in his crusade against the Deadites, with new sidekicks and villains aplenty. As one might expect from an episodic TV series, the comedic elements were given center stage and the horror bits were de-emphasized (can't maim and murder a regular cast, after all).
Evil Dead Rise
2023's Evil Dead Rise tried to do some interesting things with the classic formula, including by changing the setting to a condemned L.A. apartment and thrusting the protagonists' children into danger. I thought some parts worked well and some didn't, but you can't accuse them of phoning it in. Happily, the movie made bank at the box office, so we're definitely getting more Evil Dead in the future.
Scary Shangrila 2023 - The Newest in Monstrous Music
It's Halloween time again, so my blog is featuring all the thrills, chills, and scares of the season. Today's post looks at some new tracks to get your Halloween party jumpin'. As always, a full playlist of horror-themed music can be found at Mulliga's Halloween Horrorfest.
"Danse Macabre" by Duran Duran
A Halloween-themed album from Duran Duran is not something I had on my 2023 bingo card, but the upcoming Danse Macabre sounds like it's going to be a banger, at least judging by the single of the same name. It's pretty amazing that the band is still making earworms like this, 40 years on from "Hungry Like the Wolf."
"Dead Again Jayne" by Lordi
There are a surprising number of Scandinavian shock rock bands; apparently, dressing up in weird costumes and strumming anthemic rock chords is par for the course near the Arctic Circle. Take this catchy tune from Lordi, a Finnish heavy metal band - it's from a "cinematic horror movie" album called Screem Writers Guild, and it fits neatly into my Halloween Spotify playlist.
"Monster Mash (Remix)" by DJ Carmella Creeper
Our final featured track is a kitschy Halloween promotion from General Mills - yes, the cereal company. You see, they're revamping their seasonal Monsters breakfast cereal line (Count Chocula, etc.) with a new female monster, Carmella Creeper, who just happens to be a hip DJ. It's not exactly the world's best "Monster Mash" remix, but it might get you to try the cereal, which is described as "caramel apple-flavored corn cereal bits and marshmallows." On second thought, maybe not.
