Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster

My DVD review of the 1964 Japanese yakuza film, Pale Flower, is now live on the Images web site. Check it out:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/paleflower/

Zatoichi Lives!

Well, at least on DVD he does. My review of episodes six, seven, and eight from the original Zatoichi saga is also up at Images. Check it out:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/zatoichi2/

UPDATE COMING!

Between working at the bookstore wrangling customers in to shop, shop, shop because it's Christmas, you know, and seeing Kill Bill over and over and over and over again to heal myself, I've been pretty busy. But I should have some new reviews up over the next couple of days, including pieces on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Sergio Corbucci's classic Spaghetti Western The Great Silence, the cult British horror film Raw Meat (aka Death Line), Ruth Rendell's 1977 crime novel A Judgement in Stone, and Michael Crow's scorching debut novel Red Rain, as well as more Top Thirteen Horror lists. I also hope to have some music reviews up soon. So stay safe, stay sane, and stay home! It's murder out there.

Also, I have a new review up over at the Images web site on the new Tinto Brass DVD box set. Check it out at:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/tintobrass/

Frodo Lives!

I’m not ashamed. I'm a total Lord of the Rings geek. Director Peter Jackson has brought to the screen the kind of epic filmmaking I didn't think was still possible in this day and age of horribly lame Star Wars and Matrix epic-simulacra. The most obvious difference, I think, between Jackson and the creators behind the latter films is that Jackson actually still cares about cinema. George Lucas has long ago lost the ability to tell a story with compelling characters, and the Wachowski Brothers are . . . hell, I don’t have a clue as to what happened to them. But Peter Jackson still understands the power of genuine storytelling and the alchemical sorcery of celluloid. Great acting + great imagery + great storytelling = the waking dream.

Anyway, I’m not telling you guys anything new. It’s not like Jackson’s skills at crafting story, visual splendor, and heaps of well-earned emotion is something we’ve just found out about. But man, I’ve got to tell you, Jackson tops even himself with the third and last installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This morning I had the opportunity to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at a special trade screening. Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything concerning the plot or what fates befall our beloved characters. Just trust me on this -- it's a magnificent finale. The film more than lives up to its burden of tying up loose ends, delivering astonishing battle scenes, and ultimately resolving our heroes’ struggle to defeat the evil of Sauron. All of the principal actors have great moments (except for Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif whose scenes were both left on the cutting room floor), and the film’s last half-hour or so will absolutely sap you emotionally. If it doesn’t, well . . . you have no heart. I can’t wait to see it again. Easily the best three and half-hours you’ll spend in the theater this year. And just wait until the extended edition DVD hits the stores next year! Woo Hoo!!!

Okay. I’m in control. But I’m still not ashamed.

Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part V

Scott McMillan is like a rabid dog. That's one reason why he had to flee the East Coast and move out West. He gave the place too much static. There are other reasons, as well, but I'm not inclined to talk about why in polite company. And also, I don't want Mr. McMillan on my ass either. He currently resides somewhere in Washington state, in a cabin, and he's been known to wave his shotgun filled with rock salt at whoever's stupid enough to come his way. In his freetime, Mr. McMillan likes to keep his great web site running, http://lackoftalent.net:8080/satan/, and search for Big Foot. No, I'm not kidding. If you don't believe me, go ahead and drop him a line. Ask him. I dare you.

Top 13 Horror Films

Thirteen horror films to pick out of a cornucopia of fine cinematic fare. Hmmm... how to face the trauma of choosing between Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning? Like science fiction and fantasy, the horror genre seems to be capable of producing mountains of crap. Yet, where there are mountains there are usually gems. All films are available in DVD and VHS format.

1. The Ring (2002) -- I’m going out on a limb and, despite its newness, say this film is destined to be a classic. Beautifully made and at heart a classic ghost story, it also scared the freaking crap out of me. Any movie that has me frantically scrabbling for the light switch when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom makes the list, regardless of vintage. Stand up performances by everyone involved, eerily beautiful cinematography, and solid production.

2. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) -- James Whale’s followup to 1931's Frankenstein is by far the superior beast of the two. The film is superior in all respects, but it is the actors who really breath life into it. Boris Karloff as The Monster shows a humanity that didn’t exist in his original performance, transforming a mute golem into a sympathetic anti-hero – his final line is epically tragic. With no more than expression, gesture, and bird-like screeching, Elsa Lanchester as The Bride, gives a performance that is nothing less than iconic. Ernest Thesiger is perfect as the reptilian Dr. Pretorius, and Una O’Connor provides some Shakespearean comic relief as Minnie, Dr. Frankenstein’s Maid.

3. Alien (1979) -- Hey, you got your science fiction in my gothic horror! Often imitated, but never equaled, Alien broke the mold for the scifi-horror subgenre while at the same time reviving horror films, which were suffering under the ponderous weight of loads of bad slasher flicks riding the coattails of John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween. This film wouldn’t be what it is if not for the script of Dan O’Bannon, and manic vision and attention to detail of Ridley Scott (plus a fortuitous encounter with the work of that creepy Swiss bastard, H.R. Giger), but the ensemble cast of Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Tom Skerrit, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Yaphet Koto, and John Hurt give the film something special that was never recaptured in any of its numerous spawn.

4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) -- This tale of lost young people being stalked and killed off is fairly typical of the slasher movies it is the grandpappy of, but director Tobe Hooper’s use of atmosphere is what makes it different than most. Through his camera eye, the sun-ravaged, dustbowl-like environment of Texas is as terror inducing as any pitch black tomb ever was.

5. Prince of Darkness (1987) – I tried not to duplicate any of the films listed by my fellow reviewers, but couldn’t stay away from this tale of a misfit group trying to decipher clues as to an imminent satanic rebirth from beyond. Even with all the cheesy (but loveable) crap typically found in Carpenter’s films, it manages to be really frightening. And oh yes, the staticky dream image transmission mentioned by Lynda E. Rucker will haunt you for the rest of your life.

6. The Return of the Living Dead (1985) – Mall-punks, zombies, a loveable bumbling duo, and a crypto-Nazi mortician – what’s not to love in this directorial debut of scriptmeister Dan O’Bannon. It’s a roller coaster ride of gore, genuine scares, and cheap one liners.

7. Kwaidan (1964) – Director Masaki Kobayashi’s interpretation of four classic Japanese ghost stories from the book of the same name by the late 19th century author Lafcadio Hearn. All four tales stand well on their own, but the best are Black Hair – the story of a samurai who abandons his wife and is literally haunted by his decision, and Hoichi the Earless – the story of a blind novice monk whose talent at singing the ballad of the Battle of Dan-no-Ura brings the unwelcome attention of the ghosts who died in that conflict. The effects are crude and many of the scenes were obviously shot on a sound stage, but in many ways this ads to the appeal of the film.

8. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – Anti-commie propaganda or not? Who cares, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, while somewhat tame and slow by modern standards is nevertheless an intelligent, paranoid tale of invasion from within. The “escape” scene on the back of the truck is a classic in cinema history.

9. Dead Alive (1992) – This early Peter Jackson zombie flick is considered (and rightly so) more comedy than horror, but horror is more than just scaring the crap out of people. Like Little Shop of Horrors on extremely bad acid. Great characters, a fun story, zombie sex, gushing stumps, and gallon upon gallon of fake blood. Oh yeah, you’ll never eat custard again.

10. Jaws (1975) – Despite living over 70 miles away from the ocean -- the thought of a huge, relentless, man (and child) eating machine scared the hell out of me as a child. Now, as an adult I can appreciate the subtle nuances that make this one of the best films ever made, but it still scares the crap out of me. Even with all the great scary moments, for me the creepiest is when Quint (Robert Shaw) is telling of surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II.

11. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) – This is a beautiful production of one of my favorite Ray Bradbury novels. A traveling carnival with a dark and sinister secret comes to town, and young Jim Nightshade is determined to find out what it is. The central characters of Jim and his best friend, Will are very well played and supported by a cast including Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Dianne Ladd, Pam Grier, and the great character actor, Royal Dano.

12. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) – Many silent films are difficult to watch, given our modern expectations, but this one is a visual feast. The story centers around the character of Cesare, a sleep-walking servant and carnival attraction, kept in a coffin-like box by the diabolical Dr. Caligari. The dreamlike theme is continued in the extremely stylized set design – whose influence you can see in the modern works of Tim Burton.

13. Evil Dead II (1987) – Many will tell you that this rewritten, bigger budget remake/sequel of 1981's splatter-comedy epic, The Evil Dead is not as good as the original. I say watch them back to back and decide for yourself. What do you have to lose, except your lunch?

While I await more Top Thirteen Horror lists to come in, I thought that it would be an opportune time to put up some of my old writing. No, I'm not talking about posting my high school journal entries or any thing like that. Don't worry. I'm talking about some of my earlier reviews and articles that I did for various zines and web sites -- stuff that I still like and think perhaps some of you may enjoy reading as well.

The first piece is an interview (my first) that I conducted via email with science-fiction/horror writer, John Shirley. It was done for the Student Advantage web site (now deceased) in October 2000.

Shaping the Rage with John Shirley
Interview by Derek Hill

John Shirley is rock and roll. His dark chords resonate in the memory like few others. Whether he is writing his particular brand of cyber-punk, horror, or grim urban fiction, it all comes out black. But that’s not to say Shirley’s intentions are merely to thrash about and shock. That would be too simple, too . . . safe. There’s a definite method to his madness, even though it may not initially be clear what it is.

For most of his early career Shirley was burning the candle at both ends. He should be dead. But he isn’t. He’s alive and well and writing some of the best stuff of his wild career, one which includes screenwriting credits for the film The Crow, and the novels City Come A-Walkin’, Wetbones, and his newest, Demons.

His official website is http://www.darkecho.com/johnshirley


You began publishing fiction professionally at a young age. Exactly how old were you?

Professionally, I was about nineteen. Less professionally, I'd already been publishing in underground publications of various kinds for several years. I'd already written a novel and a half—Dracula in Love and Transmaniacon, both of which were eventually sold. Dracula in Love was a rather perverse book but had its own level of intense hormone-fueled creativity; Zebra books brings it back into print now and then. A lot of my earlier writing was colored by the political background of the early seventies; the social upheaval of a kind of orgy of taboo-breaking that was going on.

How long after attending Clarion did you begin to write professionally? How did your experiences there influence your writing?

To tell you the truth, Clarion literally (and literarily) saved me from a life of crime. I was a disaffected, alienated, angry young man and going in all the wrong directions in several respects. Clarion gave me an alternative. I sold a story professionally while at Clarion to the Clarion anthology, published by NAL. One of my Clarion teachers--it's a six week thing, a different pro every week, and I've since been a teacher myself--was Terry Carr, who later went on to publish Bill Gibson’s Neuromancer (I'm the one who got Terry interested in Gibson!), and he subsequently published some of my stories in his anthology Universe. Another Clarion teacher, Robert Silverberg, bought two stories from me for other anthologies. This encouraged me to work harder on publishing my novel. Terry also bought one of my first novels, Changeworld, which I had only one manuscript copy of (It was written on an electric typewriter) and which was lost in the mail when I sent it to him, never to be seen again! It's probably just as well. . . So you see being at Clarion was a boon to me professionally. People liked my writing, there, and encouraged me, and stayed in touch afterwards. Although it's not entirely true to say "it's who you know" that helps you, it's partly true. You have to have some ability too. Of course, you can not know any pro editors and still get published out of left field, happens all the time. But it did help to meet them. Though Ursula LeGuin, who was there, didn’t help me get published directly, she encouraged me a great deal and the psychological help in that was invaluable. What was most helpful at Clarion was the harsh, merciless feedback from the other writers there, and the pro writer (or editor) teachers like Harlan Ellison and Avram Davidson and Silverberg and LeGuin and Frank Herbert. They force you to be somewhat objective. Of course one gets privately angry and sullen when criticized--especially if one is young-. When people say "read this and criticize it honestly! Tell me what you really think!" they are LYING nearly every time. They actually only want to hear good things, whatever they may suppose or claim. But at a setting like Clarion you're stuck there, day after day--and you have to learn to live with criticism. Pretty soon you internalize that editorial voice--and you do need that inner editor.

Most musicians have a "day job". Your day job was writing fiction -- how did you balance your creative energies between the two? Was one of them ever more important to you than the other, and at what point (and why) did you decide to concentrate most of your energy on writing?

I had my shot at signing with a major label and major producer, John Hammond at Columbia. He'd just signed Stevie Ray Vaughn and he said he wanted to work with me--I was a singer--if only I'd get rid of the band I was working with. I didn't want to do that and I was very punk-attitudinized at the time, and I rubbed him wrong and then I blew it off and...by the time I realized he was the guy who discovered Dylan and Springsteen, it was too late, he'd had a stroke. You don't get two shots like that in life. I did go on to make a record with a European label, but it did only marginally. And finally I did have to make a choice. I still write lyrics (for the Blue Oyster Cult--their new album Heaven Forbid, is 80% my lyrics), and do a little recording but it's a hobby. You know, at the time I was able to do both partly because of the very understanding young ladies in my life. You may have heard the joke: What do you call a rock musician without a girlfriend? Homeless. Also I married a couple of those generous ladies (not both at once!), and had some kids, and wanted to be responsible to the kids--so I had to do what generated the most money for me, in my life, and that was writing. Also, many women don't like their boyfriends/husbands to be rock singers unless the guy is making a lot of money from it, because there are too many girls in the audience.

You've done your fair share of hard living. You wrote throughout it and came out on the other side stronger than ever. To what do you attribute your survival -- both creative and personal?

Recovery--spirituality--and, frankly, prayer. Staying clean and sober. I have had a couple of brief relapses--a few hours each--but for the most part I've stayed clean for ten years. And before that I was trying to and sometimes getting long periods of staying clean from drugs. I never wrote on drugs though sometimes I wrote about drug related experiences between times. Some drugs are worse than others are, of course--but I can't touch any of them if I want to stay clean because, for an addict, one intoxicant leads to another. Plus I 'got by with a little help from my friends'--my wife Micky, other people who cared about me helped. Learning to be honest helps--people who have a secret life of any kind, who live compartmentally, hiding things from those close to them, are in danger of fragmenting more than their exterior lives, they also fragment their inner lives. If your inner self--your soul, if you want to call it that, or your mind, if you prefer--is fragmented, you can't make conscious choices and you find yourself falling into traps. A little self knowledge helps too--know yourself, and you will see some of the traps that you are setting for yourself. And you can avoid them and learn to stop setting them.

Your fiction has always been pessimistic, and you have maintained that in recent collections Black Butterflies and Really, Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories. How do you reconcile the present stability of your life with this dark worldview?

I don't know if it's always so pessimistic. If you read my trilogy of novels starting with Eclipse (Babbage Press), and my novel Silicon Embrace, or my recent book Demons, you find that it's horrific, a dark passage, but at the end of the passage something is achieved, someone has grown, someone has survived, usually the dark side has lost, despite a terrible cost. Short stories are often tooled for maximum impact and to make a specific statement--so they tend to be darker, to end darker. Often the stories are a moral allegory, or are trying to throw light on some dark corner of life now; they're trying to describe the dilemmas that the forgotten people fall into. People who've fallen through the chinks--or leapt headfirst through them. I identify with these people even if I'm not one anymore. So the stories--even when dark--are about the human condition, the terrible traps people can be in and they're sympathetic in that sense. Stability in life is always tentative. Life is hard no matter what--I have my share of problems. Stephen King is a wealthy man with a loving family and fame--but he took a walk and some guy ran him down with a van. That's life. It's the artist's job to dramatize that direness, to shine light on it so it can be seen and understood from within the mechanism of the event.

In your fiction and film work, have you ever experienced censorship? As someone who works in Hollywood, what is your take on Democratic VP candidate Joseph Lieberman's call for Hollywood to begin to "self-censor" their films? Do you think this is ever justified?

I haven't had much problem with it. I'm more concerned about the kind of censorship that goes on in the news media (for my article on this see Political and Corporate Censorship in the Land of the Free, by clicking on nonfiction at the authorized John Shirley website). News stories are 'spiked' --that is, stopped--by special interests. An example was dramatized in the recent film The Insider. . . I do think that studios should not market R rated movies to children. This doesn't mean the kids can't see the film if the parents take them or allow it at home--it only means that the advertising is not aimed at them or shoved under their noses. I think that movies like Natural Born Killers are probably irresponsible because the "heroes" are murderers who murder for fun--the film seems to implicitly celebrate murder, rather than exposing it or warning about it or simply using it as a plot point. I think that it would've been more responsible if the studio had said, No, this film is socially irresponsible so we choose not to release it. But I don't think that sort of thing should be imposed by Congress or the laws. We have some limitations now and they are enough. And I think the evidence is that violent films don't imprint people with violent behavior. Violent films may trigger violent behavior on the part of someone who's already deeply pathological--like those kids at Columbine--but something would’ve triggered it anyway. There is a study that suggests that violent videogames and PC games might make aggressive behavior more likely though. But movies are different. I do think that art should usually rule over one's moral concerns--the movie Clockwork Orange is a very meaningful artistic film and it could conceivably be seen as encouraging youth violence (and in fact there was supposedly copycat violence brought on by it) but I think it's such a masterpiece it deserves to be out there. I think Pulp Fiction was real art, a fine film, and yet I suppose it could be considered dangerous to young minds--or some might think so. But I'm glad it was made.

There is a real sense of dissatisfaction with capitalism in the world right now (i.e. the W.T.O. protests around the country and the western world). But prominent bands such as Rage Against the Machine and films such as Fight Club manage to get bankrolled by global corporations (Sony and Fox respectively), while arguably maintaining very anti-capitalist, anti-materialist messages. Do you think that these forms of pop culture are truly subversive, or are they merely just escapist fantasies for the already converted?

It's interesting — Fight Club was a very subversive film. So was the movie They Live, from John Carpenter, a while back. Subversive art is often bankrolled by people who are being ridiculed by those very films. Either they don't get it, they miss the underlying message, as is the case with Fight Club probably, or, in some cases, they think it's healthy to criticize even their own social set, the status quo they belong to. Perhaps some regard it as a sort of social lightning rod. But I think subversive films like Fight Club and American Beauty do affect people. Often not consciously, but on some level they get the message. The movie The Matrix, while not as artistically valid as the Fight Club or American Beauty makes much the same statement--we're caught up in a vast corporate system (seen in purely symbolic form in The Matrix) which has made its consumerist values--its extreme valuation of entertainment for the sake of it, of living in a media dream--the center of our lives. We've moved our center away from our inner lives and our nearby-community and made it something meaningless; we've projected ourselves on a screen. So we feel lost, disoriented, meaningless. People know this, even if they can't articulate it. Movies like Fight Club state it for them. . . I don't know if people are reacting against capitalism per se--but against "captilism uber alles". That is, stupefying, raging unmodified capitalism; capitalism out of control, where everything is done for the sake of business and human concerns are only passingly taken account of. The WTO issue is ultimately about human rights--giving people a real living wage, health care, equal opportunity, a clean environment, does not have to be destructive to capitalism. It only modifies its unhealthiest form and makes it healthy again.

You originally wrote the "Song of Youth" trilogy back in the 80s, before the Soviet Union had collapsed entirely. With the recent re-publication of the series (newly updated and revised), how do you view the lingering shadow of European fascism in Austria, the Baltics, and the former Yugoslavia?

The re-published Eclipse books are revised and updated--the "New Soviets" of the novels are something explained in the book, so it's no longer outdated. As far as I can see all too much of what was predicted in the Eclipse books is coming true. Racism is on the rise, not on the decline. When people fail to adapt to the stress of wave after wave of new immigrants, the clash of cultures, the increased competition, they tend to look for someone to scapegoat and this makes for an opportunity for demagogues, wannabe dictators. Ethnic rivalries in Eastern Europe are worse than ever. Fascism is back in Austria--the Fascist who recently stepped down only stepped behind the throne and still controls things from there. Eclipse describes the 'social recipe' that could lead to organized international racism returning. It also warns about media manipulation and mind control--like the CIA's real life program to control the media, "Project Truth"--and how they could be used to advance a fascist agenda. Some vast social catastrophe--not 'the end of the world' but a big crack in the world--will make desperate people follow political desperados into the abyss. What sort of catastrophe? Currently the most likely, aside from ecologically induced famine, would be a terrorist-induced plague. Smallpox and anthrax, dumped on millions in America by terrorists who've purchased the viruses from the vast stockpile the Russians built up--and which they no longer have any real control over. In the destabilizing wake of such an attack we could be vulnerable to fascist takeover.

Who are some writers you admire, past and present?

Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy, Edgar Allen Poe, JG Ballard, F Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, Tim Powers (check out his new novel Declare), CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Herman Hesse, Jacob Needleman, Dorothy Parker, Patrick O'Brien, Richard Stark, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Bruce Sterling, Dan Simmons, Jack Vance, Raymond Carver, Rudy Rucker, Marc Laidlaw--I guess that's enough.

You began your career as a writer of sf and moved into horror (and horrific mainstream pieces). To what do you attribute the change in focus?

I don't think I fit the science fiction readership very well. Last time I was at a Worldcon I felt very out of place. I'm just not a very good fit in any genre though there's no doubt I've written a lot of genre fiction. Genre but not generic. I tend to break out of categories. Also I wanted to make statements about the 'real' world too-- about the underworld, so called, the underside of society. About the lost people I mentioned before. SF was not the place to do it--most SF editors don't want to hear about it. And Eclipse is a progressive political statement--the people protesting the WTO would be more likely to dig it than the people reading Jerry Pournelle or Heinlein or even Neal Stephenson. To me those books are more about social and moral issues than politics. But some right-wing or Libertarian SF-types may find them too "political"--because it isn't their politics. Not that I’m politically correct, particularly. I like Dirty Harry movies and enjoyed the movie Starship Troopers--and Troma films.

I understand that Troma is planning on adapting some of your work (or will it be original projects?). Could you elaborate on this?

No deal is yet signed. They did approach me about adapting a couple of my more Troma-esque short stories. I do think Troma films are funny, and that they have their own level of artistry and satirical value. So I'll only be a little embarrassed by the movie. I like Lloyd Kaufman from Troma a lot. He's a great guy, perversely talented. One of the stories would be “Just Like Suzie” from my collection Really, Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories. And it is not politically correct either. Fortunately, not all my stories are Troma-adaptable. Some are not so over the top! Anyway, I won't be writing the script. God only knows what the film would be like...

Is the future bright? Or are we going to crawl around in the dark for awhile?

It'll be a patchwork. I do think we have some disasters in our global future. I think there's a good globalism and a bad globalism. The bad globalism means we let the corporations rule the world; the good one will be global enforcement of Human Rights, and worldwide ecological standards. Before we get there we'll have to learn lessons from ecological catastrophe, massive terrorist bio-attack, and war induced by greed...

Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part IV

Joe Pettit, Jr. is an enigma among men. He walks a dark road, and he walks it alone. At various times "Walkout" Joe has been a stevedore, a male escort, a Mexican wrestler, a bug wrangler, a laboratory guinea pig for clandestine hallucinogenic experiments, and most recently, a politician. When not working "undercover" within the bowels of a used bookstore in Eugene, Oregon, Joe eases his troubled conscience performing music and writing.

13 Horror Novels That Should Be on Your Nightstand

By no means is this to be construed as an ultimate best of list. These are 13 great horror novels that I have read or re-read over the past five years, whose images or ideas have stuck in my head. Because of the constraints of the list (13 choices only), I immediately eliminated the unholy triumvirate of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, mainly because I assumed that hardcore fans of the genre would have already encountered their dark pleasures. If you haven’t read them yet, get to work. (Go on, what are you waiting for!) I also cut Stephen King and Peter Straub, again because even casual readers of the genre have encountered these two giants (but if you’re wondering, I would have chosen The Regulators and Desperation as one entry for King, and the underrated Shadowland for Straub). When I finally decided to keep the list focused on lesser-known novels, I had to remove one of my all-time favorite novels from the final pick - Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Now, without further ado, the list.

1. The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis – Over two hundred years ago, a nineteen-year-old youth steamrolled over the boundaries of the genteel gothic tale, represented by novelists such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, with this outrageous tale of a saintly monk seduced into a life of corruption. Even in this jaded age the character of Ambrosia still shocks. You would be hard pressed to find a contemporary villain, outside of Hannibal Lechter, who so gleefully and wholeheartedly embraces the dark path to perdition.

2. Uncle Silas (1864) by J. Sheridan LeFanu – Although remembered mainly for masterly short stories and novellas like Green Tea and Carmilla, LeFanu was quite adept at novel length shockers. Uncle Silas stands as one of his best efforts. Maud Ruthyn suspects that her Uncle, scorned by polite society for some indiscretions in his youth, might be after her father’s estate. Austin Ruthyn believes that Silas isn’t evil, but suffers from the stigma of his past sins. When Austin unexpectedly dies, Maud becomes the ward of Silas and we get to find out what evil truly lurks within his soul. LeFanu’s descriptions of landscapes and storm tossed skies shimmer with an almost hallucinogenic intensity. The dark forces directing the action palpably rise off the page. Laden with an “atmosphere of mystery and the crescendo of impending doom” (as M. R. James, another horror master, noted), Uncle Silas is a perfect novel to read by candlelight on a long winter’s night.

3. Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903) by Bram Stoker – After creating the world’s most famous bloodsucker, Stoker set his sights on mummies, inspired by the Egyptology craze sweeping London. The police investigations into the attack on the scholar Trelawny at the beginning of the book are unintentionally hilarious: the Inspector’s insipid deference to his “social betters” reads like a Monty Python send up on the English class structure. All laughter chokes off when Queen Tera begins to extend her seven fingered reach from beyond the tomb into the drawing room. Stoker’s publishers tinkered with the book’s ending after the initial printing, giving the tale a happy ending that rang false (speculation abounds as to whether Stoker actually wrote the revised ending). Make sure you track down the TOR edition which reproduces the text of the first printing, retaining the book’s original incredibly sad and shocking ending.

4. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927) by H. P. Lovecraft – This short novel, from the man many consider to be the father of the modern Horror story, has all the elements we’ve come to expect from Lovecraft - sensitive and eccentric scholars meddling with forces beyond their comprehension and control; unspeakable horrors from other spheres; strange rituals and incantations; and ancient beings with long, unpronounceable names. The first half of the novel fills in the historical background of Ward’s evil ancestor Joseph Curwen, but reads more like a dusty, historical tome than a dramatic narrative. Lovecraft delivers the goods in the second half though. If the scene where Dr. Willett discovers a room full of yelping, indescribable creatures kept in deep wells doesn’t chill you, check your pulse my friend. You’re already dead.

5. Fear (1940) by L. Ron Hubbard – Rational man of science, Professor James Lowry, an ethnologist, calls down the wrath of demons on his head by publicly professing his lack of belief in their existence. First he loses his hat, along with four hours of time. Then, he loses his grip on reality as sinister voices and menacing figures taunt him, and an ominous stone staircase that leads down into a nether realm mysteriously appears. All the while Lowry tries to unravel the riddle of his missing time despite warnings that when he solves the mystery, he will die. Sure, sixty plus years later after its initial publication, the premise of Hubbard’s early novel has been done to death, and the twist ending isn’t all that surprising. What truly unsettles me as a reader are the surreal episodes where the walls of rationality dissolve and the dark visions claw their way into Lowry’s tenuous hold on reality. Fear demonstrates that even before engaging in the Babylon magickal workings with Jack Parsons or starting his own religion, L. Ron Hubbard was fascinated with the nature of consciousness and the oncoming collision between ancient and modern ways of believing.

6. Witch House (1945) by Evangeline Walton – Although known for fantasy novels, particularly the Mabinogian tetralogy, Walton wrote one horror novel worthy of the masters. Don’t let the two silly covers from the Collier reprints (malignant bunnies with glowing eyes or a ghost escaping from a portrait over the mantelpiece) or the protagonist with the ultra taboo name (Gaylord) scare you off. Walton weaves a tight tale of psychological horror about a family whose ancient ancestors continue their dysfunctional reign from beyond the grave with the help of magic, always with the help of magic.

7. Land of Laughs (1980) by Jonathan Carroll – I realize that the novels of Jonathan Carroll are an acquired taste, but I have yet to meet anyone who didn’t like this first novel. Some might argue that Land of Laughs is not really a horror novel at all. To counter that, I’ll provide a long quote from Arthur Machen’s The White People:

What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

Some of these things happen in Land of Laughs, along with a few other horrific events. Case closed. And hey, even the dead come back to life.

8. The Ceremonies (1984) by T. E. D. Klein – Cosmic horror rears its head on a small farm in New Jersey. Because Arthur Machen was an undeniable influence on this suspenseful book, I was expecting something, well, grimmer. What surprised me most was the sense of humor running deep in the novel’s veins. Klein takes a typically Lovecraftian theme - the rational man or woman (in this case, Jeremy Freirs, literary scholar of the horror tale and his girlfriend, Carol Conklin, an aspiring dancer) who cannot see the obvious occult danger before their eyes because it is so far removed from their daily life – and mines it for all its comedic potential. But make no mistake; The Ceremonies is a horror novel through and through, one you won’t forget long after the sound of the dragon dies down amidst the tumult of city sounds at the novel’s end.

9. Next, After Lucifer (1987) by Daniel Rhodes – When some readers think of books about expatriates relocating to the south of France, A Year in Provence or Toujours Provence invariably comes to mind. Not for this reader. Sure, Next, After Lucifer has an American professor retiring to the south of France to search out magic and adventure, but the resemblance ends there. Instead of finding good food, strong drink, quaint conversation and inexpensive lodgings among the country folk, Professor McTell stumbles upon black magic, an ancient cursed well, the sinister ruins of a citadel rumored to have housed the Knights Templar, and the spirit of a malignant sorcerer plotting to regain corporeal form. Rhodes crafted his first novel as homage to M. R. James. Judging from the results, it’s obvious he absorbed one of the most important qualities from the master scribe of the ghost story - the ability to sustain an atmosphere of dread and unease until the tale hurtles to its inevitable dark ending.

10. Ancient Images (1989) by Ramsey Campbell / Flicker (1991) by Theodore Roszak – I’m a sucker for stories about lost films, especially those purported to exert an evil influence. In Ancient Images, the film in question is Tower of Fear, a lost final collaboration between Boris Karloff and Bela Legosi, which disappeared before it premiered. Clues to the mystery behind why the film went missing film lie in the town where most of its footage was shot, Redfield, known for producing uncannily delicious wheat. Flicker deals with a missing director and his suppressed films. Max Castle, a German who began his career during the Expressionist period, emigrated to Hollywood in the ‘30s where he was confined to making B-movies or to helping more commercially successful directors, such as Orson Welles, craft their opuses. In 1942, he was lost at sea, a passenger on a boat torpedoed by the Nazis. Jonathan Gates becomes obsessed with Castle’s disturbing films, especially when he finds they contain hidden images detailing secret rituals in honor of the Gnostic god Abraxis. Each novel is flawed in it’s own way: Campbell’s ends too abruptly, and Roszak can be overly discursive and pedantic. What lingers in my mind is the characters’ infectious love of film in both novels, and both authors’ descriptions of the sickening thrill and exaltation of uncovering secret and forbidden knowledge housed within a work of art.

11. Bone Music (1995) by Alan Rodgers – On his deathbed, legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, writhing in agony from the poison in his gut, sings Judgment Day in an act of vengeance towards the meanness of this old world. Now Judgment Day isn’t any old song. It’s a song of uncanny beauty. All living bluesmen know it, but only in bits and pieces. Only the Hoodoo Doctors - the great bluesmen who have died in the eyes of the world, but remain alive in another level of reality - know it in its entirety, and they dare not sing it. For Judgment Day, performed in its entirety, will destroy the Eye of the World, a lens that acts as a barrier between hell and earth. Robert Johnson’s foolish and prideful act didn’t destroy the Eye, only damaged it. But fifty years later, a little girl who died of cancer is brought back to life, setting off a chain of events leading to the re-weakening of the Eye and an apocalyptic showdown in New Orleans. Alan Rodgers pulls off the amazing feat of constructing a homegrown Hoodoo Blues mythology which reads like it was birthed whole into the world the first time a black man laid hold of a six string guitar and crooned the blues. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

12. The Between (1995) by Tananarive Due – Hilton James cheated death when he was a boy. Thirty years later, he’s a successful social worker, married to Dade County’s only African American judge and has two beautiful children. Only his world is starting to unravel as a racist man (who his wife prosecuted in an earlier trial) stalks his family, and the boundaries between his dreaming life and his waking life start to dissolve. Suddenly Hilton has to confront the possibility that his borrowed time might be up. This astonishing first novel by African American writer Tananarive Due deftly negotiates the surreal territory that lies between life and death, dreaming and waking, and the spirit and the material. What chills me the most is the sense of demons, spirits and elementals at play in the very air around the James family. Due provides a firm grounding in reality with the detailed scenes involving Hilton’s professional and home life, which only makes the slip into the Between all the more unsettling. This is the kind of book Toni Morrison would write if she were to focus solely on the horror genre.

13. Santa Steps Out (1998) by Robert Devereaux – There’s a million ways this twisted little book could have gone wrong. But after the hilarious opening scene where God returns from vacation to find that the Archangel Michael and a few other trusted members of the angelic choir have not only reverted to their former pagan selves, but have allowed the unthinkable to happen (namely allowed Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to cross paths), you know you’re in the hands of a demented genius. Santa has a reputation for being a generous man. Santa Steps Out demonstrates, very graphically, how generous the jolly old fat man really is. When you finally get past the shock value of seeing beloved childhood icons such as Santa, The Tooth Fairy, Mrs. Claus and the Easter Bunny acting out in shameful ways, you’ll find that Devereaux has crafted a beautiful and, at times horrifying, ode to the life-force that flames within us all. You’ll never look at a Christmas Coca-Cola ad or that mall imposter in the same way again. Not for the easily offended or the faint of heart. Really.

Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part III

Here is Lynda E. Rucker's top thirteen horror film list.

THE FILMS

It’s kind of surprising to me that this was a harder category to narrow down than the books or short stories, as I am a reader before I am a film lover. But there’s an awful lot to choose from. I have an intense and shameless love of horror films. I will watch reams of crap, whereas I am intolerant of crap reading (well, except for my pulp weakness discussed on the novel list). I am forgiving of schlock and cheese and lousy acting. Having said that, most of these films feature superior acting, scripts, and production values, as well as scares all round.

This is the list which am most likely to regret in the morning, the one in which I feel I was forced to make the most arbitrary cuts to get it down to thirteen. I have not limited myself to one film per director, but I have tried to avoid listing any film I’ve only seen in the last couple of years. (Check back with me at some future Halloween and see if, say, The Ring or Donnie Darko survived the test of time.)

Also, in compiling this list I discovered that, apparently, I kind of think the 1970s were a golden age for horror cinema.

All films available on DVD and VHS in the United States unless otherwise noted.

1. The Seventh Victim (1943)—Watch this on a double bill with Rosemary’s Baby for an earlier look at the unlikely urban Satanist. A moody, striking film about a young woman’s (Kim Hunter, in her film debut) search for her beautiful and enigmatic older sister through a shadowy underworld. (Available only on VHS.)

2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)—A paranoid, unsettling film which owes much to the source material—it is very faithful to the Ira Levin novel, down to the dialogue—but the acting and Polanski’s directing are fine as well. Ruth Gordon’s performance is hilariously and memorably crass. I also find this an interesting (and horrifying) film for what it reveals of the gender politics of the time: the men in Rosemary’s world (doctors, husband) treat her with a sickening paternal condescension. The gorgeous Dakota apartment building is a character much like the Overlook Hotel of The Shining. Welcome to the Year One! Hail Satan!

3. The Exorcist (1973)—An automatic choice for this list, an all-around brilliant, frightening, sad film about the problem of evil and the problem of faith, and ironically Friedkin the unbeliever conveyed these themes more effectively in film than the devout William Peter Blatty did in his novel (or his own preferred cut of the movie). Also, the origins of my unseemly priest fetish probably began here. What I love best about it, though, is that for all its flamboyant trappings, it’s a grown-up horror movie at its very best.

4. The Wicker Man (1973)—It’s a musical! No, it’s a horror movie! Another movie about faith, albeit of a very different sort, as straight-laced Christian policeman Sgt. Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) visits a remote Scottish island where paganism continues to flourish under the aegis of the mysterious Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). A weird and haunting film that owes a great deal to Woodward’s convincing and even sympathetic performance. Get the soundtrack as well!

5. The Tenant (Le Locataire) (1976)—Roman Polanski directed several fine horror movies, and this is perhaps the strangest of the lot, a tale about an ill-adjusted Eastern European immigrant in Paris who becomes obsessed with or possessed by a former tenant in his rented apartment. Extremely creepy, with a strong subtext of alienation.

6. Suspiria (1977)—My favorite Dario Argento film keeps changing; for a while it was Tenebre (1982) and then it was Phenomena (1985) but lately it’s been this twisted Gothic fairy tale. If Dario adapted a short story by Angela Carter it might turn out like this film. Gory and stylish like all of Argento, this tale of a young American dance student who discovers her school hides a coven of witches was purportedly much-influenced by Argento’s now ex-wife, Daria Nicolodi.

7. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)—I like all three of the body snatcher movies—yes, that includes the 1993 Abel Ferrara remake Body Snatchers that everyone hated. I am a sucker for body snatchers in the same way I am a sucker for zombies: because body snatchers usually bring on the apocalypse! This version is the best of the bunch, paranoid, and almost unbearably suspenseful.

8. Dawn of the Dead (1978)-The middle film in Romero’s Living Dead trilogy. I suspect that Night of the Living Dead might actually be a better horror film, but again we have a more full-on apocalypse underway here. Also, a satire of consumerist culture in the mix. Why do all the zombies end up at the mall. “It reminds them of something that comforted them when they were living.” Ooooh.

9. The Shining (1980)—Stephen King said Stanley Kubrick didn’t understand the horror genre. I see King’s point in one objection to this film: that Jack Nicholson’s character is supposed to deteriorate over the course of the story as opposed to being over-the-top wacked out from the opening scenes. But, really. That was the book, and this is the movie, and Stephen King should be so lucky as to get so fine an adapatation of one of his books again. Shots of long, empty corridors have never been so foreboding, and Kubrick captures the palpable evil of the Overlook Hotel in every scene.

10. Prince of Darkness (1987)—I championed this movie for years when everybody else, critics and regular viewers alike, said it sucked, and over time it has come to be much more well-regarded than on its initial release. Make no mistake—this is one of the exceptions to the superior qualities I noted above. I know this is a rickety film. I know that a lot of the acting is lousy, and I’ve heard it described as “too talky” although I never noticed. It is not John Carpenter’s best by any objective standard, but it is my favorite, wildly entertaining, and it contains one of my all-time most frightening images: the mysterious staticky transmission, about which I will say no more.

11. Dark Waters (1994)—Chosen because it gave me nightmares, and no supernatural horror film has given me nightmares for longer than I can remember. A young woman travels to a remote and spooky island where her now-deceased father funded a mysterious monastery, only to discover demonic nuns and more! (Released on VHS and DVD in the US as Dead Waters.)

12. The Kingdom I and II-(Riget I and II, 1994 and 1997) My beloved Lars von Trier filmed these tales of a haunted hospital as mini-series for Danish television and they had a limited theatrical release in the United States. Funny and moving, frightening and outlandish, replete with zombies, bizarre births, ghosts, haunted ambulances, murder attempts, soap opera intrigue, and my favorite, the Dane-hating Swedish doctor Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, now sadly deceased). (The first series is available only on VHS in the US; the second is unavailable in the US.)

13. Lost Highway (1997)—Much of Lynch’s work is in the horrific vein and his imagery every bit as nightmarish as anything I’ve seen in a straight horror film. Lost Highway, an intriguing, reality-bending nightmare (or, if you prefer Lynch’s description, “a twenty-first century horror-noir”) was unfairly drubbed by both critics and audiences. Who is Renee/Alice? What does the Mystery Man have to do with it all? And most importantly, what really happened in the front yard of Pete Dayton’s house that fateful night?

Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part II

The second list is by my wife Lynda E. Rucker -- novelist, short story writer, and my greatest co-conspirator. Lynda is likewise a full-on Joss Whedon fan. She's also a closet Steven Seagal fan. Well, to be exact, she's been known to watch Seagal's 1990 opus Hard to Kill with glassy-eyed fascination. Is her appreciation of this murder classic ironic? Who knows any longer . . .

THE SHORT STORIES

These lists. These lists kill me. How can I pick a “best of”? I become panicky, constricted. Surely items will be left off, and the day after this is posted I will be kicking myself for what I forgot to include and what I didn’t say. Every list of this type has a few standard, non-negotiable no-brainer choices, but then the agony kicks in. And then there are the rules: what if it’s a novel I haven’t read in ten years but it was one of my favorites way back when? What if it’s a movie I saw just a few months ago—can I trust my impressions of so recent a viewing to stack up fairly against films that have stayed with me for years and years? Should I limit myself to only once choice per director? What about the fact that my film list is so heavily weighted to movies from the 1960s forward, and my short story list is stacked with old stuff? And yet the allure of the lists is too strong to resist the urge to make them.

In the end I decided to just stop worrying about it. Here they are, my ramshackle lists, reflecting exactly what I was feeling at the moment that I wrote them. Maybe we should call it Lists of Exceptional Books and Movies and Stories You Should Really Check Out If You Have Not Done So Already, rather than “best”, per se.

I’m waffling, aren’t I? Without further ado…

In compiling this list I found I leaned more toward stories I read years ago and consistently go back and re-read, rather than work more recently encountered, if only because those stories for me formed a kind of core for my appreciation of horror fiction. Maybe next Halloween I’ll make two short story lists, one reserved for more contemporary pieces. This list, probably more than any other, clearly reflects my biases and likes (and probably, by omission, my dislikes). I am a big fan of older supernatural fiction, ghost stories, and unease created by suggestion and mood rather than explicit imagery. I limited myself here to one story per writer and am, even as you read these words, agonizing over the absence of such masters as M.R. James, Thomas Ligotti, Terry Lamsley, Ambrose Bierce, Steve Rasnic Tem, Fritz Leiber, Manly Wade Wellman, Russell Kirk, and many more.


1. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
Though widely (and rightfully) hailed as a feminist masterpiece, this story wouldn’t make my list if it didn’t also work on a purely aesthetic level, and it is a chilling and disturbing tale of either a malevolent haunting or a woman’s frightening mental deterioration. You could ignore the subtext completely and still come away having read a prime example of the best the genre has to offer; however, the oppressive, claustrophobic environment in which the narrator struggles to tell her story makes for a particularly harrowing journey.

2. The White People, by Arthur Machen (1906)
Machen’s bizarre and dreamlike tale of a young girl who is consumed by dark mystical visions is written mostly in the form of her journal, and is rightfully described by T.E.D. Klein in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural as seeming to be “an actual product of such an encounter, an authentic pagan artifact.” Possibly my all-time favorite work of weird fiction.

3. The Willows, by Algernon Blackwood (1907)
Many consider this not only Blackwood’s masterpiece, but one of the finest pieces of supernatural fiction ever written, and with good reason. A chilling story inspired in part by a canoeing trip the author took through Eastern Europe in his youth, this is Blackwood the mystic at his very best as campers are menaced by a kind of indifferent, awe-inspiring cosmic force that tugs at the fabric of reality. Like most of my favorite horror stories, this blends a sense of wonder with its terror.

4. The Beckoning Fair One, by Oliver Onions (1911)
A classic tale of a writer’s obsession with a malevolent spirit in the guise of a beautiful woman, and his psychological disintegration under its spell.

5. The Colour Out of Space, by H.P. Lovecraft (1929)
This was a tough one; it might as easily have been, say, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" or "At the Mountains of Madness" or any number of favorite tales. Unlike a lot of readers who discovered Lovecraft in their teens and then outgrew his purple prose and hysterical narrators, I actually found him a bit turgid and dull when I was younger and with each passing year love his bleak, infernal, and awe-inspiring cosmology more and more. "The Colour Out of Space" is the story of an old farm where a meteorite’s landing precipitates the decay of both the land and the people on it, and while it doesn’t deal directly with the “mythos” (not a term Lovecraft himself used), it has the same feel as those stories in its suggestion of cosmic forces that dwarf mankind’s puny existence.

6. The Summer People, by Shirley Jackson (1950)
There are other Shirley Jackson stories that could also go here, but this is a perfect example of her strengths: a spare, brief story, consisting mainly of just a conversation between a husband and wife which ends on a dreadful note of doom.

7. A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery O’Connor (1951)
O’Connor is one of my favorite writers of all time, and The Misfit remains one of the most chilling human monsters in fiction. It’s the mundane details, the finely drawn characters, that make this story so nightmarishly effective.

8. Don’t Look Now, by Daphne Du Maurier (1971)
Daphne Du Maurier’s sad and haunting story of a British couple who have gone to Italy in hopes of healing from the tragic death of their young daughter, only to encounter twin sisters, one a psychic with a enigmatic message, the meaning of which comes clear too late.

9. The Sentinels, by Ramsey Campbell (1973)
I wanted to put a Campbell story in here and I had a terrible time deciding which one; I chose this, about a group of young people who visit some standing stones, because of one very chilling, haunting, and memorable image which has remained with me for years. I am also very fond of Campbell’s erotic horror collection Scared Stiff (which has just been reprinted by TOR) and his early Lovecraft-inspired fiction; his short story collections are numerous and you can’t go far wrong with any of them.

10. Sticks, by Karl Edward Wagner (1974)
I first encountered Wagner’s "Sticks" as a young teenager, before reading any of the older pulp authors this pays homage to. As with so many of the authors on this list, it’s hard to choose a favorite Wagner, but this came first for me and ignited my imagination in untold ways. Some people have speculated that the weird stick bundles in this story were an inspiration for The Blair Witch Project. Karl Edward Wagner’s fiction meant an awful lot to me and his death of the untimeliest sort still breaks my heart.

11. The Mist, by Stephen King (1980)
A siege story (you’ve got me right there) during an apocalypse (if the siege didn’t get me, the apocalypse will) in which Lovecraftian-type monsters rip through a hole in reality and terrorize the world (now I’m in heaven). King is generally at his finest in the short or novella-length form, and this is one of his best works.

12. The Hospice, by Robert Aickman (1981)
One of Robert Aickman’s most enigmatic stories (and that’s saying something), this is hard to describe on the face of it—a man’s car breaks down and he’s forced to take a very strange night’s lodging in a place where things just are not right. Wonderfully, subtly unsettling, like always seeing something horrible just outside your range of vision.

13. The Great God Pan, by M. John Harrison (1988)
One of my favorite horror stories of all time became one of my favorite books ever, the extraordinary (and extraordinarily strange) The Course of the Heart, but first there was this chilling story about the repercussions of youthful “experiments” with the occult and adults trying without success to escape a tainted past.

Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part I

I like lists. So considering that we've entered into the Halloween season, I thought that it would be amusing and interesting to ask some of my comrades if they would like to write a little about their favorite horror films, novels and stories. Luckily they agreed to my nefarious plan, so after this initial trial run, Nightmare Town hopes to see them roaming these lonely streets more often.

The first list is by Lisa Moore – playwright, short story writer, and hardcore Joss Whedon fan. She also exhibits a strange fondness for actor Stephen McHattie. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

FAVORITE HORROR FILMS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:(all available on DVD and VHS unless otherwise noted)

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988): dir. Wes Craven
A beautiful, hallucinatory film about Haitian voodoo in the last days of the Duvaliers. An exceptional cast rises above the considerable cheese factor. Watch it late at night and sleep-deprived for full effect of the zombification scene, which Craven leads you through by the hand as if it were happening to you.

Arnold (1973): dir. George Fenady
Stella Stevens marries a corpse for his money, but something is gleefully murdering people, and it seems to be the dead man himself. Want to see Roddy McDowell get his innards squeezed out by an evil sweater? Stella Stevens squashed in the shower with her illicit lover? You do! Absolutely you do. I haven't seen it since I was nine since it's never been released on VHS or DVD, but I can't believe it doesn't hold up. The incomparable Elsa Lanchester is here as well, and I seem to recall a smashing lose-your-face-to-acid-in-the-cold-cream scene.

Don’t Look Now (1973): dir. Nicholas Roeg
Slow-building creepfest set mostly in Venice. Roeg sets you up slowly with its strange atmosphere and pays off in spades at the end. Scared the piss out of me when I was a kid, and I still get jumpy around bright red raincoats.

Dead Ringers (1988): dir. David Cronenberg
Cronenberg in his best slow and creepy mode. You don't have to be a woman to keep your legs crossed hard during this tale of twin gynecologists sinking into decay and depravity. This is the film Jeremy Irons ought to've won his Oscar for. Somewhere during the first forty minutes I completely forgot he was playing both roles.

Ravenous (1999): dir. Antonia Bird
This is one of the most exhilarating movies you'll ever see, particularly about cannibalism. There's not a weak performance in it, not a weak element: music, script, editing, pacing, story, all right on. Once you've seen it, try and forget Robert Carlyle's manic fit in the snow outside the cave or Jeremy Davies' anguished cry, "He was licking me!" Or the marvelous endgame, in which two men caught in a bear-trap are playing Whoever-Dies-First-Gets-Eaten.

The Company of Wolves (1985): dir. Neil Jordan
If there's a chick-flick among horror films, this is it. A reworking of Angela Carter's werewolf stories, it follows fever-dreams from the troubled sleep of a girl as she enters into puberty. Everything in the film is symbolic, as in a dream. Sound awful? Weirdly, it's not, largely due to the world Jordan creates with meticulous care: a world of nightmarish fecundity in which nature is constantly encroaching and man constantly battling it back. It's filled with strange, good images (Terence Stamp as the Prince of Darkness, brooding on a memento mori) and performances (Angela Lansbury as Red Riding Hood's disturbingly creepy grandmother).

Prophecy (1995): dir. Gregory Widen
Who wouldn't love to live in a Miltonian universe in which angels vie with men for the love of God, in which the heavens are perpetually rent by war between seraphim, where Christopher Walken is the ruthless archangel Gabriel and Viggo Mortensen, best of all, is Lucifer himself? For two hours and two sequels, you can! Revel in the Manichaean angst, and don't be afraid of the sequels: the first one, especially, is well worth the effort (look close for a cameo by Glenn Danzig).

The Dead Zone (1983): dir. David Cronenberg
Gripping and unpretentious rendering of the Stephen King classic. Christopher Walken gives a brilliantly low-key performance as a man who emerges from a coma with unnatural powers, and you'll never watch The West Wing easily again once you've seen Martin Sheen's powermad senator Greg Stillson.

Theater of Blood (1973): dir. Douglas Hickox
Vincent Price, Diana Rigg and a cast of distinguished British theatre actors tear it up in this mad romp through the dark side of bardolatry. A disgruntled actor murders his critics in gloriously gruesome ways inspired by Shakespeare himself. Poorly paced and smirkingly camp, but wait until you see the Titus Andronicus murder.

Pumpkinhead (1989): dir. Stan Winston
It's a Manly Wade Wellmanesque world where monsters erupt from the rich loam of back-hills folklore. Lance Henriksen is extraordinarily moving as a country-store owner who conjures up a demon of vengeance when his boy is killed by careless city-folk. Henriksen explores a depth of emotion that you may never see rivalled in the genre, and the night scenes are lit with eerie effectiveness.

Angel Heart (1987): dir. Alan Parker
Some of us remember a time when Mickey Rourke was heralded as the DeNiro of his generation, and this is his best work. It's after WWII and Rourke's unkempt, charming PI who has "a thing about chickens" follows a missing persons case steeped in voodoo from New York to New Orleans. Under Parker's unfailingly deft hand the sense of dread grows to unbearable levels. Music, flashback and strange images weave a hypnotic spell, and if it weren't for two badly miscalculated elements (the glowing eyes and the obviousness of Louis Cyphre), this would be a perfect movie.

The Legend of Hell House (1973): dir. John Hough
Richard Matheson wrote the script from his own source material; think of it as The Haunting of Hill House on steroids. Three psychic investigators and one spouse spend a week at Hell House to divine the secrets of its evil. The remarkable thing about this one is that through daring use of camera angles and a near-brilliant manipulation of sound effects Hough brings the house to life, makes it a constant, lurking and genuinely frightening character through whose eyes we see much of the action. Some overwrought acting and absurd plot points, but well worth it.

The Fool-Killer (1965): dir. Servando Gonzalez
Beautifully filmed in B&W, this is another good one to watch while feverish or sleep-deprived for the full, dream-like effect. Reminiscent of The Night of the Hunter (1955), it follows a boy (Edward Albert) on his travels though post-Civil War America. He's on the run and he hardly knows from what, but it's embodied in his mind by the mythical demon of the title who may or may not be his mysterious travelling companion. The tent-revival scene is a surreal moment of genius, not to be missed. Available on VHS only.

The Exorcist III (1990): dir. William Peter Blatty
A word of warning: I have never found anyone who agrees with me on this one. I don't get why. Jason Miller and Brad Dourif are outstanding (Dourif later basically reprised the role for an X-Files episode), and Viveca Lindfors will never look the same again after she's crawled across the ceiling. Sure, there's cheese (what's with the hedge-trimmer?) but there's a scene in the middle that's unsurpassed for suspense involving a nurse and security guard on night-shift, a glass of melting ice, a nametag, a coffee vending-machine and long, stationary takes of the lobby. Blatty is a sucker for that extreme Catholic imagery (statues of the BVM weeping blood, lots of roses and crucifixes and saints with their eyes rolled heavenward), but who isn't?

Bring Me the Head of Brian Yuzna: The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

Well, the 10th edition of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival was held here in P-town October 9th through the 12th at the historic Hollywood Theater. Lynda, our good friend “Walkout” Joe Pettit, Jr. and I attended the eldritch festivities. This was our second year going to the festival, and although it started inauspiciously (more about that below), the wealth of interesting things to see Saturday and Sunday more than made up for Friday’s rotten feature-film offering, the Lovecraft-anthology Necronomicon (1993). Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to anything other than Necronomicon on Friday since we spent most of the evening having drinks and food at the great British pub, The Moon & Sixpence, which is located down the street. Joe and Lynda were interested in seeing Brian Yuzna’s recent film, Beyond Re-Animator (2003), but I managed to convince them that it would be a let-down since I had seen a little of it the week before when the film premiered on cable. I got them to see Necronomicon, instead. I’d read some very positive reviews about it and had always heard that it was pretty good. Man, what a fool I was. The film is a trilogy of short films very loosely based on Lovecraft tales -- The Drowned directed by Christophe Gans (who later went on to direct Brotherhood of the Wolf), based on “The Rats in the Walls;” The Cold, directed by Shusuke Kaneko; and Whispers directed by Brian Yuzna. The latter two entries were “inspired” by “Cool Air” and “The Whisperer in Darkness” respectively. Gans’s short film is the best of the three, although it would be difficult to be any worse than Yuzna’s and Kaneko’s horrible contributions. The less said about them the better. But the question must be asked, Have Brian Yuzna or Kaneko actually ever read H.P. Lovecraft? After the screening the three of us returned home pissed off and dejected.

Luckily, Saturday’s offerings were a lot better. We caught the Shorts Block 1, which consisted of some very cool films, most notable of which were The Imperfect Solution (a fantastic adaptation of the fourth Herbert West – Re-Animator serial “The Scream of the Dead”) and Cutethulhu, a 2-minute anime-inspired cartoon with a hilarious punch line. Afterwards we checked out the screening for The Shunned House, an Italian made feature film that, although interesting at times, seriously lacked any sort of narrative drive. Later in the evening we caught what turned out to be the highlight of the festival, Shawn Owens’s documentary about Mr. Lovecraft and his contribution to pop culture entitled The Eldritch Influence. Containing interviews with horror writers Ramsey Campbell (the greatest living practitioner of the genre) and Brian Lumley, fantasist Neil Gaiman, director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon), and Lovecraft biographer S. T. Joshi (who was also an attendee at the festival), the documentary was an excellent primer on the attraction of all things Lovecraftian.

Sunday afternoon we attended the “Secret Screening” of Nigel Kneal’s The Stone Tape. Originally made for British television, the film is a fascinating and occasionally disturbing chronicle of a group of scientists, led by the sociopathic Peter Brock (a completely over-the-top Michael Bryant), who stumble upon the existence of a ghost within their new research lab. Filled with ideas, some genuine unpleasantness, and enough hysterical performances from its large ensemble cast to rival Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce (1985), The Stone Tape should not be missed. Afterwards, we took in the Shorts Block 2. Memorable entries were: Beyond the Wall of Sleep by Bradley A. Palmer and Bryan Moore’s splendid Cool Air, starring Jack Donner. Nice black and white cinematography, a literate script, and excellent performances by Donner and Moore easily made Cool Air the highlight of the shorts. It’ll be interesting to see what Moore and company will come up with next. Moore and Donner were also in attendance and held a nice Q & A session after the screening. What else can I say? We were exhausted after the whole thing. And we didn’t even get a chance to see everything. But there’s always next year. . . .

UPDATE COMING SOON!

Yes, that's right. I'll start updating this blog within the next couple of days. Honest. My apologies for those of you out there in the dark who still give a damn. But you can look forward to more film and book reviews and a few other surprises such as my comments about the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival that just ended this past weekend here in town. So stay tuned!

The Man in Black is Dead! Long Live the Man in Black!

In the early morning hours of Friday September the 12th, Johnny Cash died at the age of 71. We all knew it was coming, especially after the loss of his wife, June Carter Cash, in May. Nevertheless, it's a sad, sad day for music lovers everywhere. The Man in Black was a true American icon and his legacy of song, stories, and soul, will live on. Here's to you, Johnny!

I thought I’d take a moment to spotlight some of my friends’ cool personal web pages.

You can check out my wife Lynda E. Rucker’s page at: http://www.sff.net/people/lyndaerucker.
She is a fellow writer and my dearest partner in crime.

My friend Dave, who is also a fantastic writer, has a great page of reviews and more at: http://snurri.blogspot.com/

Ever wonder where Satan likes to spend his free time on the web? Hang out at our good friend Scott’s page to find out: http://lackoftalent.net:8080/satan/

And last but not least, there’s Greg’s insanely wonderful page: http://www.livejournal.com/users/celibot/
He’s a good guy, regardless of his fondness for There Might Be Giants and his lack of appreciation for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Something to do with Leone

I just got back from watching the third and best of Sergio Leone’s famed “Dollars” trilogy, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which is playing in town at my favorite local theater, Cinema 21. Although it’s always been one of my favorite Leone films, seeing it in the theater made all the difference. I’ll have to watch Once Upon a Time in the West again to properly judge which one is my favorite, but for the moment, this one wins out. Unless you have a nice big television set (which I don’t), it’s imperative to see this film on the big screen to fully appreciate Tonino Delli Colli’s incredible cinematography. The larger-than-life compositions really add to the drama unfolding on screen, as well as bringing out some of the actors’ subtle nuances, e.g. ironic facial expressions. And, of course, when you talk about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, you have to mention the unforgettable music of Ennio Morricone, a man who added so much to Leone’s films, be it irony, slapstick, beauty, or an epic grandeur (sometimes all at once) that is hard to match even to this day. Morricone’s complete score for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is available as an import compact disc from GDM Music. Also, if you’re interested in knowing more about Sergio Leone, I highly recommend Sir Christopher Frayling’s 2000 biography entitled, Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death. A great read. Frayling is also the author of another fantastic book, dealing with the oddball Spaghetti Western genre in general. Definitely worth checking out as well.

Darkness Has No Need: Irreversible (2002)

Writer Stephen King once stated that he believed director Stanley Kubrick wanted to hurt viewers with his film adaptation of The Shining (1980). King was wrong. Kubrick simply wanted to make an effective piece of horror cinema. Director Gaspar Noe, on the other hand, does want to hurt you. Bad. He also wants to incite a riot within your head, and make you think about the representations of violence perpetrated across the screen. In his first feature film, I Stand Alone (1998), Noe examined the life of a jingoistic, racist French butcher (played by Philippe Nahon) who stalked the streets of Paris looking for his soul and that of his country’s. Being that the butcher was a certifiable lunatic, the search didn’t come easy and the fate awaiting him was a dark one indeed. The film’s seemingly nihilistic flourishes and thematic concerns revolted some viewers; others felt that Noe was merely a talented poseur more inclined toward empty shock tactics than real in-depth character analysis. I found the film unforgettable and a bold, ugly character study that examined, perhaps too well, that of the racist paranoid psychopath. For those of you who hated I Stand Alone, I would suggest staying clear of Noe’s next feature, Irreversible.

Ostensibly, the film is a simple (albeit a horrendously savage) revenge tale. But underneath the façade of stylistic shock and awe is a darkly poignant character study of a relationship spiraling off into the black abyss. Told in reverse fashion, the film propels the viewer into a sickly claustrophobic noir universe where two men, Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel), are being led out of a sleazy gay sex club where a horrendous killing has taken place -- the victim, the alleged rapist of Marcus’ girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci). Noe then takes us into the bowels of the club (named the Rectum) where we experience the atrocious killing, and then the events leading up to the death, including the catalyst for the revenge: the rape of Alex by a gay pimp called Le Tenia (Jo Prestia). The first half of the film is honestly some of the most excruciating, uncomfortable cinema I’ve ever witnessed, and this is coming from someone who has sat through Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust numerous times and Jorg Buttgereit’s blackly-comedic transgressive horror films. Like I already said, Gaspar Noe wants to hurt you bad. The pain of the rape is even more powerful when we consider what occurs before it –- the hours of mundane bliss that Marcus and Alex spend with one another. Their conversations, laughter, and intimacies carry an added weight to them that would’ve gone unnoticed or ignored if the film had been presented in a traditional linear manner. As it is, these moments of domestic banality carry with them an emotional context that removes the film from simple exploitation. In fact, although the film’s characters are all arguably doomed to fates of oblivion (hence the title), Noe does not expunge morality from his nihilistic representations. If anything, Irreversible is one of the most savagely moralistic films in recent memory.

Although I highly recommend the film, the recommendation comes with strong reservations. The almost unwatchable power of the film’s two most infamous scenes (the death of the man within the nightclub by having his head and face smashed in with a fire-extinguisher, and the rape of Alex by Le Tenia in a deserted Metro pedestrian tunnel, a scene that lasts an excruciating nine minutes) cannot be overstated enough. But the performances (most of them improvised) by the three leads are exceptional, and Noe’s bravura, disorienting camera movements, which are integral to the first part of the film as the camera tries to replicate the drunken-drug-fueled rage of Marcus and Pierre (undercut with a disturbing electronic throb courtesy of Thomas Bangalter), is nothing short of magnificent. For technique alone, Noe is undoubtedly one of the finest stylists working in film today. But thankfully, the film is not style without substance. You may not like what Noe is trying to say, but there is a method to his madness. It may not be the most original or uplifting outcome, but it is unforgettable. Sadly, some denizens of Nightmare Town are sentenced to wandering its streets forever.

It should also be noted that the film plays like a volume-eleven tribute/rebuttal to Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). But where Kubrick’s film allowed his married couple a chance out of their tribulations with an invitation for redemption through fucking, Noe offers his couple something far more fucked-up and psychologically impenetrable. Also, tying-in with the Kubrick homage, Noe has placed a poster of the “Starchild” from 2001: A Space Odyssey above Marcus and Alex’s bed. The film also ends/begins with a strobe-light effect that subliminally flashes an image of the Milky Way –- a cosmic umbilical cord connecting Noe to his “Starchild” cinematic predecessor. Perhaps an optimistic coda after all.

Irreversible is on DVD from Lion’s Gate Home Video.

THE BURGLAR by David Goodis

At three in the morning it was dead around here and the windows of the mansion were black, the mansion dark purple and solemn against the moonlit velvet green of gently sloping lawn. The dark purple was a target and the missile was Nathaniel Harbin who sat behind the wheel of a car parked on the wide clean street going north from the mansion. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth and in his lap there was a sheet of paper containing a diagram of burglary. The plan gave the route aiming at the mansion, moving inside and across the wide library to the wall sage where there were emeralds.

So begins this twisted tale of obsessive love and crime. David Goodis, along with fellow noir writer Cornell Woolrich, was the leading purveyor of hardboiled angst and paranoia. His novels have an uncanny power to them, as they brutally dissect the malaise festering beneath the surface of our lives. Goodis worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter during the 1940s, but he’s best remembered for his novels, most notably Dark Passage (which was adapted for the screen in 1947 starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall), Nightfall (also adapted to the screen by director Jacques Tourneur), Shoot the Piano Player a.k.a. Down There (which famed French director Francois Truffaut made into a classic film), and Black Friday among many others. In The Burglar, Goodis introduces us to career criminal Nat Harbin. Harbin is a mastermind at putting together big pay-off burglaries. Unfortunately, Harbin is also a major-league softy when it comes to women. And in true noir style, women are the one thing that always get him into deep trouble.

The Burglar is a black cocktail served ice cold. The twisted relationships between Harbin and his gang of thieves (the dumb-witted Dohmer, the weaselly Baylock, and the dumbly innocent yet alluring Gladden) are all expertly sketched out, as is Harbin’s deliriously sex-driven dalliance with the mysterious Della, a woman oozing with toxic love. This poisonous slice of unease is sadly out of print, but it’s well worth tracking down among the used bookstores.

EAGLE IN THE SNOW by Wallace Breem

My summer reading for fiction has been geared toward pure entertainment. Maybe it’s me, but I just don’t feel like reading Dostoyevsky or Gogol when the sun is shining (I save them for the colder, drearier months). Although I did slip some Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor into the mix, my novel intake has been strictly escapist.

One of my favorite novels this summer has been Wallace Breem’s historical epic, Eagle in the Snow. Originally published in 1970, the novel has been republished in hardcover by Rugged Land press, and has been given a short introduction by Steven Pressfield, writer of the equally excellent historical novel, Gates of Fire, which dealt with the famed 300 Spartans and their heroic defeat at Thermopylae against the mighty Persians. Breem’s story is set during the waning years of the Roman Empire, and focuses on the valiant effort of General Paulinus Maximus to keep the barbarian hoards from spreading into the Rhine from the east. The action is swift and violent, the characters finely detailed and believable. And as with Pressfield’s novel, Breem understands that even the most fascinating historical aside will mean absolutely nothing if it isn’t grounded in character and emotional incident. A great page-turning read if there ever was one.

Il Bruto is Dead

The French called Charles Bronson "Le Sacre Monstre" and the Italians knew him as "Il Bruto." He died Saturday at the age of 81 from pneumonia. In honor of one of the greatest of the Old School action stars, put on The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Once Upon a Time in the West, Violent City, The Mechanic, Chato's Land, Breakout, Death Wish, Death Hunt (co-starring my other favorite tough guy, Lee Marvin), or my personal favorite, Mr. Majestyk. Watch one or watch 'em all because Bronson mattered.

A Reminder of Hell: The Omega Man (1971)

Based upon the classic Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend (which was earlier adapted to film in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price), The Omega Man is a ridiculous yet thoroughly entertaining science-fiction action film that bears little resemblance to the book. Regardless, the film makes for great late-night viewing.

A war between China and Russia has erupted and biological weapons have been unleashed upon the world. Madness, plague and ultimately death now hold dominion over us all. Charlton Heston plays Robert Neville, the last man on earth, or so he thinks. By day our intrepid hero stalks the deserted streets of Los Angeles hunting for any members of a ragged-assed band of infected albinos known as The Family. He also likes to catch a matinee of his favorite film, Woodstock (1970). By night, Neville retreats to his high-rise compound (which is fortified with enough guns and ammunition to start a small war) to wait out the end of the world, while Mathias (Anthony Zerbe) and his gang of black-robed albino Luddites try to take him down. To Mathias, Neville represents all that is infernal about Western Culture, and the quicker that he’s destroyed the better for all mankind. The days and night flow into one another with brutal regularity, but it’s a routine that keeps Neville sane. But one day, something changes. He spots a young black woman during one of his daylight patrols and pleads for her to talk to him when she runs off. He loses her, but now he knows that he’s not alone. Eventually, Neville learns that the black woman, named Lisa (Rosalind Cash), lives in the hills high above the city with a group of children and a zonked-out hippie med-student, played by the terrific Paul Koslo. And when Lisa informs Neville that her younger brother Richie (Eric Lanueville) is infected and will soon die if they don’t treat him, Neville reveals that he’s just the man to save the world.

I make no excuses for loving this film, despite some of the more ridiculous elements in it, e.g. like where do all of the zombie albinos get their mirrored-sunglasses and finely tailored shiny black robes? And if Charlton Heston truly is the last man on earth (as I’m sure he felt like circa 1971 when this film was released), why can other automobiles be seen in the distant during some of the daylight scenes? Nevertheless, The Omega Man has some great moments in it, especially during the first 45 minutes or so. Heston, who is thoroughly committed in the role, displays a fine sense of humor and melancholy throughout. Some of the best scenes are when he’s alone his ritzy pad, chock full of gadgets and accoutrements from a world that no longer exists, wandering through the rooms talking to himself or playing chess with himself. Occasionally, the illusion of sanity and normalcy snaps, leaving Neville with the cold stark horror of his isolation. It’s brilliant stuff indeed, especially when you consider how loopy and dated (many of the albinos speak with funky street slang) the rest of the film is. But it’s still great fun and one of my favorite B-movies from the era.

The Omega Man is now available on DVD from Warner Home Video. It contains a short video introduction with stars Eric Laneuville, Paul Koslo and co-screenwriter Joyce H. Corrington. A vintage promo film called, The Last Man Alive –- The Omega Man, is also included and contains some very bizarre footage of Heston speaking with anthropologist Ashley Montagu while on the set.

The Devils of Altamont: Gimme Shelter (1970)

The walls were soft on December 6th, 1969. The Rolling Stones, near the end of a triumphant tour of the States, trundled into California to perform at the Altamont Speedway for a free concert. 300,000 people attended the show and four of them never made it out alive. The most notorious of the deaths was that of Meredith Hunter, a young, gun-brandishing black man who was killed by members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club in “self-defense” while the Stones performed “Under My Thumb” just a few feet away. The Angels stabbed Meredith in the back like a sacrificial lamb, an offering to the gods of chaos and misrule. Rolling Stones biographer Stanley Booth, in his liner notes to the DVD, explains that the mood immediately changed after the killing. All of the madness and violence leading up to the death had finally reared its ugly head as far as it would go. “We didn’t know whether Hunter had been killed, wounded, or what, but the mood seemed to change,” Booth said. “It was as if the atmosphere had been purged.” The walls were indeed soft that cool winter’s day, proving yet again that when the Devil rocks, he rocks hard.

There’s no doubt that Gimme Shelter is one of the greatest concert films ever. From the opening moments wherein we see the band playing brilliantly at Madison Square Garden to the last frozen shot of Mick Jagger’s unreadable face after he’s viewed the footage of Hunter’s death in the editing room, the filmmakers (David & Albert Maysles with their longtime collaborator Charlotte Zwerin) give us telling snapshots of life backstage, in the studio, and out on the stage where it all matters. Good enough, but we’ve seen it a million times before. No, what makes the film truly unforgettable, are the moments when the camera quietly observes Mick and drummer Charlie Watts while they watch the Altamont footage. Watts, who can’t hide his boyish excitement as the Harley riding Angels storm through the crowd of shell-shocked hippies, also looks visibly dismayed as the day gets more and more out of control. Mick, on the other hand, looks vacant and self-conscious, as if he just wants this bummer trip to end so that he can get back to rockin’ his way into oblivion. For a band that always epitomized the grandiose Dionysian aspects of the outlaw rocker lifestyle, and who frequently courted the Devil’s favor in many of their songs, the seeming ignorance of their own diabolic power is unfortunate to say the least.

Gimme Shelter is available on DVD as part of The Criterion Collection. The disc includes audio commentary from Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, and collaborator Stanley Goldstein. There are some great outtakes and never-before-seen performance clips from the Madison Square Garden show, including some great backstage footage of Mick, Tina and Ike Turner, and lots more. So what are you waiting for? Give the Devil his due!