While we’re bustin’ rocks on the Halloween issue, The Toronto International Film Festival has started. As per usual, we’re too busy to see much until Tuesday, but we did check out Deadgirl last night, and I managed to take in a screening of Fabrice Du Welz’s new film, Vinyan, which is gorgeous, if slow and only sort-of a horror film.
Lots of fun stuff playing Midnight Madness, as usual, so check out the schedule and the blog (I posted my picks for three most-anticipated films).
Rue Morgue proudly sponsors the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and they’ve got a new trailer of coming attractions. Check it, fools!
Kaufman continues the fight to keep it indie. And in typical Troma style, he does it with hilarious no-budget finesse. Nice work, man.
The Slate has a great piece where writer Paul Collins and his wife try recipes out of Vincent Price and his wife’s ’60s-era cookbook, A Treasury of Great Recipes.
Wow, these suckers go for over $250 online!
(Thanks, Kevin!)
On a related note, this is what hear in my head pretty much 24/7…
Take a break from your hectic day to enjoy this short film, Chainsaw Maid. Stop-motion clay gore = glorious.
(Thanks to James King for sending this my way)
“They weeble and they wobble but they won’t fall down.”
Festival of Fear week always makes me feel like a Weeble – and not just when I’m smashed drunk at one of the parties, swaying back and forth in boozy solidarity with one of the bottom-heavy plastic eggs. Imagine being pushed, pulled and scrambling in every direction between putting together the massive Halloween issue, getting prepared for the Festival itself, fielding emails and phone calls about the FoF, making arrangements for friends coming in for the weekend, on top of the usual life stuff and you’ll get an idea of the general state of affairs at the moment. Right now my desk looks like it ate a dozen other desks, got sick and barfed on itself. My computer monitor is starting to resemble a square peacock it’s got so many sticky notes tacked to it. And I’ve spent enough time in this office chair that I suspect I may have forgotten how to walk, which is good, because if I fall on the ground and knock myself out, I might actually catch some sleep. Mmmm…coma break…
Of course, it’s all worth it. Every year we say that we can’t believe the Festival of Fear is already here again, and every year we bemoan how quickly it passes – a blur of black T-shirts, crimson conversations and dull green hangovers. Ply us with parties, plow us down with fun and we’ll come back for more.
In one of my earliest memories I found a Weeble – a little kid with brown hair, a white shirt and slingshot in his back pocket – on the sidewalk outside my grandma’s house. I was fascinated with it and would roll it around in my hand, watching it bob and rise. It was the perfect size for squeezing in a small fist (and, really, also perfectly suited for plugging a child’s windpipe – gotta love those dangerous 1970s toys). Later, I realized it was also good for throwing at younger brothers – ha!
Somehow, despite a childhood of lost Hot Wheels cars, mutilated G.I. Joe figures and several moves, I hung on to that Weeble, which was the one and only Weeble I ever owned (although I really wish I had the awesome haunted house in the above commercial).
Whoever lost it, I thank you, because I learned that, no matter what, you gotta get back up and keep going – with your head held high. Kick your own ass, really. Gonna do that this weekend, panels, crowds of people and parties be damned.
Some people say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” but if you’re undead, even that doesn’t apply, right?
Fuckin’ Weeblecore, baby.
For those of you who have yet to see this posted elsewhere…
This is a quick video tour of my office, The Rue Morgue House of Horror, where we publish Rue Morgue Magazine. It’s a more than 100-year-old funeral home with a chapel and an embalming room, doors that go nowhere and stairs that lead to nothing in the creepy basement, which was full of giant drums of embalming fluid when Rodrigo first looked at purchasing it. My cousin Danny of all people was the real estate agent so we kind of lucked out. He said it was vacant for a while and no one really wanted to open a restaurant in a former morgue and it can’t be torn down because it’s a historic building. Nor did the owners want to sell it as another funeral home because they own two others in the area and didn’t want competition. Potential buyers were creeped out when they did the math and realized literally thousands of dead people have been in this place over the years. It was perfect for us.
it’s a pretty cool place to work, especially for a horror fan. And for a place that once housed so much grief, it’s remarkably fun. Rue Morgue is a really close family, we fill it with a lot of laughter and good times. Thought some of you might want to check it out:
The Rue Morgue House of Horror
To promote the November 11, 2008 release of Stephen King’s newest collection of short stories, Just After Sunset, his publisher (Scribner) has come together with CBS and Marvel to create this 25-episode animated series based around “N.”, one of the tales included in the new book. The story concerns a psychiatric patient who may have discovered the true purpose of stone formations such as Stonehenge. As of today, 14 of the 25 episodes are available for online viewing, with a new one posted each weekday (the series concludes Aug. 29). Of course, the best news of all is that there are in fact some genuine chills to be found here. Both creepy and oddly compelling, you can watch it at NisHere.com, or on the player below. Enjoy!
