Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), 10/6.

Michael Sims reviews Frankenstein: A Cultural History for the Los Angeles Times: "Susan Tyler Hitchcock shows that the story is longer and stranger than the creature or Victor Frankenstein or even Mary Shelley could ever have imagined. The unloved horror has now been flourishing for almost 200 years.... Her text grows out of such a fertile ground of scholarly research that any chapter might blossom into another volume. Thus it's all the more remarkable that this book is so much fun."

At Movie Morlocks, Richard Harland Smith looks back on his monster toys: "We had mad, mad, mad, mad toys."

"1981 will forever be remembered as the 'Year of the Wolf,'" writes Marco Lanzagorta. "Indeed, within a few months of each other, we saw the release of three outstanding horror flicks featuring the lycanthrope and lupine: Joe Dante's The Howling, John Landis's An American Werewolf in London and Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen. At the time of their original release, The Howling and An American Werewolf in London became instant classics due to their spectacular special effects, while Wolfen was mostly ignored by general audiences and horror fans."

Also at PopMatters: Bill Gibron lists six Stephen King novels that'd make great movies.

At the Shoot the Projectionist, Ed Hardy is not only writing up a "Ghoul, Ghost, Killer of Fiend of the Day," he's also put out to call for lists: 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies. Mike at Esotika Erotica Psychotica and Peter Nellhaus list theirs.

David Carter launches a mini-series within Not Coming to a Theater Near You's 31 Days of Horror: "The sea-faring literary works of the late 19th century had conditioned early 20th century audiences to view all indigenous peoples as potential cannibals, a view only reinforced by [Ruggero] Deodato and his compatriots. These Mondo filmmakers of the sixties further propagated this image of the primitive man as cannibal, and created some of the most singularly terrifying films in history. For the next three Thursdays, we will revisit some of cannibal cinema's more exemplary and notorious entries."

Also:

• Thomas Scalzo's got another mini-series going: Zombies on Fridays, beginning with Jorge Grau's Let Sleeping Corpses Lie: "In and of itself, the idea of zombies engendering zombies is nothing new; as most mythologies of the undead take it as given that anyone eaten by a zombie becomes a zombie. But the act of a zombie deliberately and methodically creating other zombies is a genre rarity, and creates an impressive, and horrific, intimacy with the undead."

• Adam Balz on Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's Who Can Kill a Child?, which "proposes that children are a sort of universal organization detached from adult society - that they exist collectively, fighting alongside their own when necessary. (Think Hitchcock's The Birds, George McCowan's cultish Frogs, or certain films by William Girdler.)"

• "There's no hint of cool elegance or Victorian seduction to the undead in John Carpenter's Vampires; instead the creatures hiss, spit, writhe uncontrollably when struck with sunlight, and don't merely take bites out of their victims, but entire necks by savagely ripping out chunks of flesh." No surprise to Jenny Jediny: "What isn't expected is a hilarious performance by James Woods as an overworked, crossbow bearing vampire slayer with a bad habit of taunting priests, stealing cars and cracking lewd jokes about a chubby."

Phil Morehart carries on having fun at Facets Features. Recent clips come from Mario Bava's Black Sabbath, Bela Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, An American Werewolf in London and Dawn of the Dead.

Rob Humanick's latest zombies may be seen in Undead, two films by Amando de Ossorio, Homecoming and The Return of the Living Dead.

At Cinematical, Matt Bradshaw's got a list of seven "Great Books About Horror Movies" and Eric D Snider offers "An Obsessive-Compulsive's Guide to the Friday the 13th Movies."

Andrew Bemis is already infused with the Halloween spirit.

Posted by dwhudson at October 6, 2007 2:09 PM