The Horror, the Horror!

Fall is almost here, the nights are getting longer... It must be time to read some horror stories! Of course, you may believe (like me) that there is never a bad time to read a horror story. Only better times, and best times.

So, let me invite you to read The Carpetbaggers, an eight page creep fest written by me, with art by the talented Kyle Latino. It's available from Double Feature Comics as a PDF or as an innovative app for the iPad. Double Feature allows you to see not just the finished product but process art too, as well as commentary, all with the tap of a finger. And in case the name didn't tip you off, you get two stories for just $0.99. The Carpetbaggers was lucky enough to share this issue with Tim Seelley's newest Jack Kraken story. Now that's some bang for less than a buck!

Thanks in advance to anyone who decides to check out The Carpetbaggers. Now, I'm off to feed my black cat and pull down a few cobwebs. Those spiders seem to be getting uppity.

Horror of the Flies!

Since people know I work with animals they sometimes call me to deal with something that isn't, strictly speaking, a member of the zoo. People seem to equate "zoo keeper" with  "person who will touch things that I wouldn't touch with a cattle prod".

This happened yesterday when I got a call to "remove a bug that's bothering a guest". Okay, not really my job, but I was curious to see what kind of silly person couldn't remove a harmless bug themselves. And I was curious to see what the bug was. I grabbed a small jar and a net and headed off.

What I found was completely unexpected. No interesting spider. No giant centipede. No weird beetle. Just 50 MILLION FLIES, all congregated in one corner of the room near the floor. Okay, so maybe there were only hundreds of flies. But it seemed like more.

What were they doing there? The room was spotless. No food anywhere, no spilled drinks. No dead squirrels outside the window. Nothing to draw them in! And oddly, they seemed especially attracted to a coaxial cable plug. Could it be Satan?

Well, no. At least, I think there is a more parsimonious explanation. After I removed the flies I did a little research. I assumed that they were house flies, but I think they may have actually been something called cluster flies. These insects look a lot like house flies (the difference is just a few golden hairs) but their life-cycle is different. They feed on earthworms, staying out of sight in the soil most of the time, and hatch out at the end of summer. As the weather cools they tend to emerge en masse and head into structures where it's warmer, usually congregating on the interior of the sunniest wall while trying to get inside the wall. Yesterday was much, much cooler than the preceding week. It's the end of August. They were on the interior of the warmest, west-facing wall. Check, check, check. The only thing I didn't discover was what their exact range is, but I think the mystery is solved. Unless anyone else has a better explanation for me?

Thanks to google image search for the fly pictures.

The Sounding Sea

Comicon 2010 is done, and unlike most years I didn't come home with a million strange little trinkets, lip balms, and tote bags advertising shows on the USA network that I will, no doubt, never see. This time I just said NO to extraneous plastic.

But that doesn't mean that I came home empty-handed! In fact, Gabriel and I made one of our greatest Comicon finds ever on Saturday: an original poster for the wonderful cult film Night Tide. If you have never heard of this film it is definitely worth finding and watching. Written and directed by Curtis Harrington in 1960, it's an obvious homage to the Val Lewton films of the 40s. It's also Harrington's first full-length feature; up to that point he had been known for his experimental short subjects.

A very young and surprisingly fresh-faced Dennis Hopper stars as Johnny Drake, a young seaman on shore leave. He soon meets Mora (Linda Lawson), a woman who believes herself descended from a race of sirens. They bond in a jazz club that you wish really existed but of course wouldn't be half as cool if you really went there. And that's just the set up, before you learn that Mora lives in an apartment on the Santa Monica pier. Above a carousel. With a semi-tame seagull that comes and goes as he pleases. It's also before you learn that she works in a cheesy sideshow as a "mermaid", floating in a tank of water all day. Felling the psychosexual vibe yet? If not, just stick around for the dream sequence which involves Mora emerging from a bath, dropping her towel for Johnny, turning into an octopus, and trying to kill him.

All of this makes the film sound much cheesier than it really is. Sure, it should come off that way, but somehow it skirts the line and tumbles down into the wilder, more spell-binding territory of dream logic. Some of the imagery is truly stunning, and by the end you really feel for poor Mora, and for Johnny too. And for the moody Santa Monica of old, filled with hot jazz clubs and spooky sideshows which exert their own siren song despite having never really existed either.

Val Lewton: an Appreciation

So, Halloween is just around the corner again! In honor of this most enjoyable of holidays I offer an appreciation of one of my favorite horror film makers, Val Lewton.

Born Vladimir Ivan Leventon in what is now the Ukraine, Lewton emigrated to the U.S. in 1909 at the age of five. He grew up a suburban kid, then went to Columbia University. He worked for a while as a reporter, but was fired when it was discovered that he had invented a story about a bunch of kosher chickens dying in a heat wave. After that, how could he not go to Hollywood?

Val Lewton began his film career in earnest as an assistant and story editor for David O Selznick, the legendary MGM studio head. In that capacity he worked on A Tale of Two Cities and Gone With the Wind, in which he is said to have penned the famous Atlanta Depot scene. His ambition was to create smart, literary films.

In 1942 he was named head of the horror unit for RKO Pictures, for which he was paid the princely sum of $250 a week. It was there that he produced the atmospheric horror films that I love so well, effectively translating his sophisticated aesthetic into the embracing genre of horror.

His first production, called Cat People (in my opinion one of the finest psychological thrillers ever made) was one of the top money makers for RKO that year. This allowed Lewton to operate with only a modicum of studio interference on his next several films. Basically he was allowed to make the movies he wanted as long as he used the sensational titles he was given. Cat People was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who also directed I Walked with a Zombie (a clever and haunting re-telling of Jane Eyre) and The Leopard Man for Lewton.

Lewton worked closely on the screenplays for all nine of his RKO films, but only took writing credit for two: The Body Snatchers and Bedlam. Even so, he didn't use his real name, choosing instead to be credited as "Carlos Kieth", the same pseudonym he had used for his oddly titled novel Where the Cobra Sings.

After Tourneur left RKO Lewton launched the careers of directors Robert Wise and Mark Robson, former editors both. But as the 4o's wound to a close so did the horror unit at RKO. Wise and Robson went on to direct many films, but Lewton found himself unemployed and sickly after a heart attack and problems with his gall bladder. He worked at other studios, but never again produced films of such ominous beauty and existential yearning as those made at RKO. He died in 1951 at the much-to-young age of only 46.

So if you are looking for something a little different this Halloween consider watching one of Val Lewton's masterful horror movies. Filmed in

glorious black and white, I promise they will leave you with more to think about than if you just went to see Saw VI again.